Lost in the River of Grass (18 page)

“How easy was it for you to get a scholarship?”

“Not very.”

“Besides, I'm not all that great at sports, and until I'm old enough to drive there's no way to get to practice or the games.”

“Well, you shouldn't just give up on the idea of . . . Andy, it moved.”

“I know. I felt it.”

“Looks like it just got more comfortable.”

“I'm hoping it will loosen enough for me to kick it off.”

The boulder I'm sitting on is cutting into the backs of my legs—like another part of my body hurting matters. I want to shift but am afraid to.

“My parents didn't get to go to college and don't want me or my brother to end up having to work as hard as they do—a notch up from slavery, my dad says. If you don't go to college, what are you going to do?”

“I'll work for my uncle—fishing—until I can save enough to buy my own boat.”

Teapot's trying to climb out of the pack. I move my hand so she can stick her head out.

“Have you ever smoked weed?” I ask.

“I've tried it a couple times.” Andy says. “Have you?”

“I thought about it once, but I didn't do it.”

“Bet those rich kids at your school can buy all the dope they want.”

I try to figure out what his tone means. It's not jealousy. Anger, maybe. “Do you blame the people who buy drugs for your dad getting arrested?”

“I don't know. Wouldn't you?”

“Maybe, but didn't he make it easier for them to get it. Besides we're all responsible for the choices we make, aren't we? I'd like to think it's not my fault I'm here. If the other girls had been nice to me, or you hadn't been so charming . . .” I smile, even though his back is to me. “But really, it is my own fault. There's no one else to blame.”

The snake hasn't moved a muscle. I can see its sides rising and sinking with each breath.

“What made you decide not to smoke it when you had the chance?” Andy asks.

“I don't have any friends at school.”

“I don't believe that.”

“It's true though. They look down their noses at me 'cause Mom works in the cafeteria.”

“What does any of that have to do with smoking pot?”

“At school, I like to walk down to the bay to study. My favorite spot to sit is in among the giant roots of a banyan tree. I was there one day when a couple of girls from my class walked by. They were headed for the end of the boat dock and didn't see me. They had a joint lit before one of them turned to glance back at the school and saw me.

“You cool?” I imitate her fashionista-girl voice for Andy.

“I'm cool,” I'd said, but really I was blown away they'd risk being expelled like that.

“One of them asked me if I wanted a hit. I told her no, thanks, but I actually thought about it for a minute. I want to make friends, but I decided I didn't need one badly enough to risk getting thrown out of the school my parents are so proud I got into.”

Thunder rumbles again. I turn to see how close the storm is. Earlier in the day one had rained itself out before reaching us. But now an isolated curtain of rain, with blue sky on either side, is moving toward us. I can smell it coming.

I turn back and glance at Andy's ankle. The snake's head is up, and its ebony tongue is sliding in and out. I touch my cheek where the corn snake's red tongue had brushed my face.

The muscles in Andy's jaw work. His left calf muscle quivers. “I think it smells Teapot,” he whispers.

I look down. Teapot is working the zipper-pull back and forth through her bill. I start to push her back into the pack. Why hadn't I thought to use Teapot to lure the snake away before now? “How fast can that snake move?”

“Very fast, but it will move slowly on the hunt. It's the strike that's like lightning, but it can only strike its body length . . . I think.”

“How long is that?” Seemed a logical question.

“Not very. Two feet, maybe.”

I'm about six feet from Andy. “If I put the pack a little closer, do you think it will let go of you and come after Teapot?”

“It's worth a try.”

“I guess we'll find out.” I push Teapot's head back inside the pack and close the zipper, then lean over as far as I can and put the pack an arm's length closer to Andy— three feet from the snake.

“When it loosens enough,” he says, “I'll kick it off. If it lets go before I can do that, grab the pack and get away.”

The moccasin is so obviously toxic that I can't imagine not recognizing the difference between it and the benign brown water snake before now. Its pupils are thin slits like a cat's eye in sunlight. It doesn't have the corn snake's small delicate head. This snake's head is shaped like an arrowhead, with a scaly plate like a hood over the eyes. There are large swellings where I guess the poison is stored, and pits behind its nostrils.

The snake's coils have loosened, and its head is up, tongue sliding in and out.

“Can you see it?”

“Not too good,” he says.

“Don't move. It has the tip of its tail coiled around your shoelace.”

“Tell me when.”

I hold my breath.

Andy tightens his right calf muscle in preparation.

I blink and take a deep breath.

Teapot scratches to get out, peeping.

The snake—for a split second—undoes its tail and lies still across the toe of Andy's tennis shoe.

“Now!”

Andy kicks so hard that the snake sails out over the canal, twisting in midair, trying to strike, its white mouth open, fangs extended. It splashes into the water nearly to the far bank of the canal.

Andy just stands there, looking at where the snake hit the water.

I leap up, fists punching the air. “You rock.” I grab and hug him, but when I start to let go, he clings to me; his head is bowed and pressing hard against mine—so hard it hurts. It isn't a hug of joy, quick and full of relief. It's clingy, holding on out of some other emotion. “We shouldn't cross right here, should we?” I say softly. “There's one mad moccasin over there somewhere.” I pat his back. Still he holds on. “Andy, are you okay?”

He nods against my shoulder, then lets me go, but doesn't move.

“You owe Teapot an apology for all the bad things you said about her, you know?”

He doesn't smile.

“It's okay to have been scared. I would have been too terrified to hold still.”

“I thought the levee was on this side of the canal,” he says.

“Oh,” I'm confused. “Does it make a difference?”

He shrugs but continues to look at the other side with an odd expression on his face.

18

I watch the water for a minute. When Andy squares his shoulders and starts for the edge, I say, “The current's running north to south.”

“So?”

“Why don't we walk north a little ways so that snake is headed one direction and we're headed in the other?”

Andy turns and marches off. I follow, baffled by the way he's acting.

We've gone maybe fifty feet when we come to a nice wide break in the cattails. Andy trudges right past it.

“What's wrong with right here?”

He turns and comes back. “Yeah. This is as good as any.”

“What
is
the matter with you? You act like you are disappointed that we've finally made it.”

“Nothing.” He stands looking at the other side as if it were miles away.

There's a berm on our side of the canal, a ledge no higher than the edge of a swimming pool. I let Teapot out, then sit at the water's edge and take my boots off. I leave Andy's socks on. I don't want to look at the condition my feet are in.

“I'll swim across with Teapot, then you throw our shoes over, okay?”

He doesn't answer.

“Andy?” I touch his arm.

“Yeah.” His skin twitches under my touch.

I drop my hand. “That way if you miss, I can swim out and get them.”

No answer.

There's a pile of limestone boulders that disappear like a staircase into the dark canal waters. When I step off the berm onto the top of the closest one, even through Andy's socks, it feels like I'm standing in broken glass. I dive into the canal and swim slowly, using the breaststroke so that Teapot can keep up.

The canal is about the same width as the University of Miami's Aquatic Center pool. I learned to swim there and am not even winded when I reach the other side. I heave myself out onto the embankment, then turn and grin at Andy. “Piece of cake. Now let's see that pitching arm.”

Without smiling, he throws the first boot across. It lands in the water at my feet. I only have to lean forward. “Wow. What a shot,” I say as the next one comes sailing across and passes so close to my head that I have to duck. It lands against the steep side of the levee and slides down to stop beside my right hip. “When we get out of here, I'm taking you to a carnival so you can win me a teddy bear.”

No reaction.

I can't figure out what's bugging him, but it's beginning to piss me off. He stands staring at the water, maybe to make sure the snake hasn't decided to swim upstream, too. Teapot is safely nestled beside my right ankle, so I flop back against the smashed seashell slope and close my eyes.

A minute or two passes before I hear Andy enter the water. There's splashing, then silence. I roll my head to one side and open my eyes. Only his right hand, holding the pack, sticks out of the water. I sit up. “Andy!”

He's going down. I dive in, swim out to him, and grab the backpack, thinking—stupidly, since there's only the camera, the knife and an empty Gatorade bottle in it—that the weight has pulled him under. I start for the levee with it, but glance back in time to see his hand, in a cascade of air bubbles, slide beneath the surface.

In the water safety course I took years ago, I learned that when someone is drowning, you have to be careful that they don't latch on and drag you down, too. I dive after him. The water is clear, but dark brown. I can only see the white skin of his outstretched palms as he slips toward the bottom. I push the backpack into them. His right hand clamps closed on a strap. Holding the other strap, I kick with all my might against the drag of his weight and pull for the surface with my other arm. It already feels as if my chest will explode, but if I let go, I'll never find him again. There is sunlight above, total darkness below.

The stale air in my lungs puffs out my cheeks and tries to seep through my lips. I swallow it back into my lungs. If I let the air out, I'll have no choice—either drown with Andy or release him. Bright circles of light explode behind my eyes.
I can't make it
, my mind screams as the last of my air ruptures from my nose in a silver bubble. A moment later, my foot strikes one of the limestone boulders piled against the berm side of the canal. I take a step up, grab the backpack strap with both hands and pull as hard as I can, then tip my head back. My face breaks the surface and I gulp air, a great huge lungful.

The backpack goes slack in my hands. He's slipped off.

I leave the pack on the berm, suck in as much air as I can hold, and dive after him. I can see him sliding down like a shadow against the yellowy limestone. My hand and arm look like rust in the tannin-stained water as I reach for him and miss. The pressure makes it feel like my eardrums will burst. I ignore the pain and kick harder. This time I make a grab for his hair, catch a fistful, turn, and drag him toward the surface. With my hands in his armpits, I back up the side of the boulder, tugging and pulling until his head is out of the water.

I hold him there for a second, gasping for air myself.

The sky opens up and it begins to pour.

“Andy?” His head lolls to the side.

Panic rises like bile. He isn't breathing. “Andy!” I shriek.

I grab his collar, lift, and pull him higher onto the boulder. I feel his shirt tearing as I drag him— like cheese across a grater—up the rock. With an adrenaline-charged burst of strength, I jerk him out of the canal and onto the berm. Grabbing what's left of his belt, I pull him around so that his feet are higher than his head, then roll him over on his stomach, straddle his waist and start pushing on his scraped and bleeding back. Water gushes from his mouth. I push again and again until no more water comes out, then I roll him over, tilt his head back, pinch his nose closed, and put my mouth over his. I blow and see his chest rise. I place two fingers against his throat to feel for the pulse in his neck. To my relief, I find one. I blow more air into his lungs, feel it exit smelling like canal water, then breathe for him again. He suddenly begins to cough and gulp air.

I sit back on my haunches and cover my face with my hands.

He struggles to sit up, choking, his face scarlet. I pound his back, fury rising in me until I'm hitting him as hard as I can. “Why didn't you tell me you couldn't swim?”

He tries to say something, but his voice is raspy and raw. He begins to cough again, so he grabs my wrists and holds them pinched together in his fist. I pull free and throw my arms around him. Teapot waddles up and nestles in beside us.

We sit for a while in the pouring rain with our arms around each other until our breathing is normal again.

“I think you should walk out and bring help back for me,” Andy says.

“Andy, I can tow you across the canal. I could have the first time if you'd just told me. What's so frigging macho about drowning?”

“I watched how you did it. It looked easy enough.”

“How can you live surrounded by all this water and never learn to swim?”

“It's shallow. Besides, there was never anybody to teach me.”

We sit a little longer.

“We need to go, Andy.” The rain has stopped.

“I can't, Sarah.”

“I'll tow you. It's easy. I learned it in a water safety class. I'll just hook you under the chin and swim us across.”