Read Online I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek - Free Book Online Page A

he didn’t seem concerned that it looked weird to see a man washing while he was swimming.
    â€œPerry, you’re not coming in?”
    â€œHow come it’s so wavy?”
    â€œMust be the wake of that big ship passing by.” He laughed and pointed. “Way out there.”
    There was a massive shadowy form against the dusky horizon, vaguely outlined by the light dying around its edges, and I recalled my uncle Lefty telling me about Blue Island, a ghost island Indian burial ground.
    â€œMurciélago! Murciélago!” the Mexican guys started yelling.
    Everyone was diving for the water.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œBat.” The kid next to me grinned, then jumped in.
    It boomeranged out of the bug-clouded floodlights, leathery, soaring at forehead level, and I dove.
    For a moment, the foam of my dive felt like crushed ice. When I shot up, a wave broke over my head and I snorted some water, but I was swimming. Sir’s head splashed up from underwater right beside me.

    â€œWant the soap?”
    I shook my head no. “It’s great! Terrific!”
    â€œSure, just takes making the plunge and a little getting used to.”
    I felt used to it already, clean and hard, letting the cold wash away a week of sweat. The water seemed more and more comfortable so that, when a breeze skimmed over, I sank deeper, breaststroking, riding the waves. Like Sir had told me, it was easier to swim in deep water. I could feel it buoying me and practiced the crawl, lifting my arms high and rolling my face in the water, hoping Mick was watching. Sir streaked under me, the white soles of his feet gleaming like fish scales.
    â€œHow do you swim underwater so long?”
    â€œEasy—the secret in water is to relax, don’t listen to little nervous voices. Never fight it and you’ll be all right. Take three deep breaths.” He demonstrated, huffing in and out slowly three times. “And when you dive if your ears start to hurt, swallow like on an elevator. Keep your eyes open.”
    He flipped and speared down.
    I inhaled three times quick and ducked under, trying to follow him. When I surfaced, he was still under. I knew I’d wimped out, and could have stayed down longer if I hadn’t listened to the frightened voice urging me to come up for air.
    â€œHey, Mick!” I hollered.
    I slowly inhaled six breaths and dove. The water was silvery green, and my hands finned before me like two perch. I was drawing my body through layers, each colder than the last, my eyes blurrily peering through increasing dimness, and my ears starting to ache with pressure. I swallowed, which helped some, kicked deeper, and as I heard the inner voice begin prompting me to shoot back up, I saw bottom, the same bottom Sir had seen when he swam with Johnny Weissmuller. There were no Mastodon tusks. It was gray, littered with mossy rocks, rolling beer cans, swaying silty seaweed.

    I kicked hard and wrenched a slimy rock out of the mud, and the bottom clouded up so that I couldn’t see. My ears were roaring, and instead of ascending, I was being carried along the bottom, my head near to exploding from holding my breath, and even though I couldn’t see I was suddenly sure that the ocean liner on the horizon was passing overhead, its enormous hull turning the water dark, diesel churning the shaft of the great propeller that swept me along the bottom until I dropped the rock. Within the dreamlike moment that breath-holding expands, I could feel the current along the bottom rushing into the cavern under the walkway and realized the undertow didn’t pull you out, it sucked you in, under the city, into the pipes, that was why they couldn’t find the bodies. I knew the boy who’d drowned was curled in a fetal position, ghastly white, hair swaying as he pitched under the Rocks. It was me. I was going to die choosing numbness rather than panic. My Adam’s apple swelled in my throat, forcing my