What Lurks Beneath (21 page)

T
he big octopus had stopped eating.

He hadn't fed since he'd left his tank for the bowl of shrimp—when he'd actually made it out of the other tank, across the table, and then returned to the water with a few armloads of the crustaceans. That was more than a week ago.

Now Oscar looked funny—slightly emaciated, and his color had begun to fade. Sturman had first noticed the change in appearance a couple days ago. And he was starting to act strange, even for an octopus. He never hid anymore. He was always right out there, pressed against the glass as he was now, moving around in plain sight, his tentacles groping the corners of the tank. Even in the daytime. Livelier than ever.

Then this morning Sturman had run into Bill, who took care of the aquarium's octopuses, and asked him why. Even though he'd had a bad feeling he already knew the answer.

Senescence
, Bill had said. That's what the scientists called it. It sounded so nice.
Unfortunately,
Bill said,
Oscar is quite old, and he's starting to exhibit signs of octopus senescence.

What he meant was that Oscar was dying. Yes. He, too, would be dead soon.

Oscar was starting to act like an old man in the early stages of dementia. Wandering. Starting to not think straight. In the wild, he would start leaving his den more and more in the coming weeks, in broad daylight, wandering carelessly around the ocean floor. Until some shark or orca came by and snatched him up. But in here, he had a month or more to relish the end, the pleasure of slowly developing skin lesions, losing most of his coordination, and wasting away before he died. While everyone watched it happen.

No way to go, even for a mollusk.

A family walked in front of the tank, blocking Sturman's view, and he took his wool beanie off, rubbed the gray-tinged stubble on his head. The hat had started to stink, like sweat, cigarette smoke, old beer. Like who'd he'd become again. Just a goddam drunken sailor.

And his headache was coming back. Maybe some sort of withdrawal. He hadn't had a drink in three days. He was proud of himself, and thinking more clearly, but he was getting headaches. He thought about his regular bar, the Pelican. It was Tuesday afternoon. Two-dollar happy hour drafts, and everyone at the bar would be in high spirits. Good company. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes. Suppressed the urge. He knew he never went there for the company.

He waited until the family walked off, then went up to the glass. Put his hand against it, where the dying octopus was pressed up against it, right where its tentacles came together in the center. Sturman tapped his gold wedding band against the glass.

“Hey, amigo,” he whispered. “You're not afraid, are ya? And you don't even have a backbone.”

After a moment, Oscar moved away from Sturman, pressing his soft pink body into the upper right corner of the tank. Sturman pulled his hand away, brought it down with his other to hold the beanie. He held the hat in front of him, below the waist, as if paying his respects, and realized it was an absurd notion. The octopus was alive, and wouldn't die for a few more weeks. Still, Sturman knew all too well that simply having a heartbeat wasn't actually living.

Apparently, mating was what triggered senescence in male octopuses in the wild. But Oscar had never even gotten to mate. He'd lived in isolation his whole life, though not of his own accord, except for interaction with the staff. He'd spent his existence confined within a few small aquariums. And now he was going to die. At just four years old.

But that's old for an octopus
, Bill had said.

Sturman was thirty-seven. Not that old, for a person. And he'd mated. Married. Loved. Then, even after meeting another great woman, had gone into his own senescence. Somehow, he'd been able to squeeze himself down into a bottle, just like an octopus. But he wasn't going to die in one.

“I'd break you out if I could, pal. But I reckon you wouldn't enjoy being out in the open ocean now. After you grew up here . . . right?” Sturman rubbed his unshaven jaw.
No, bad idea.
Oscar extended a tentacle toward him, and he grinned.

A couple walked up, holding hands, and marveled at the big octopus for a few minutes. Sturman nodded at them.

“Amazing, isn't he?” the man said.

“Yes. He is that,” Sturman said.

“But he hardly fits in that tank.”

Sturman nodded. The idea that had been forming started to snowball.

He waited for a few minutes, until the couple walked off to the next exhibit. He tapped the tank lightly, watching Oscar search the sides of the enclosure. Like always, he seemed to be looking for a way out.

“I'll be back,” he said, and walked away.

 

 

“I can't believe I'm doing this sober.”

Sturman looked into his rearview mirror, trying to glimpse the ten-gallon water cooler in the bed of his truck. He couldn't see it in the dark.

Before he'd left the aquarium parking lot a few minutes ago, Oscar had still been in the plastic water cooler, the one he'd placed in the octopus's tank, waited for him to enter, and then used to smuggle him out—lid on. It hadn't been all that difficult (other than stuffing all the arms inside to get the lid on in the first place) since nobody was working and Sturman had the alarm code. But he'd have to hurry so Oscar wouldn't suffocate.

Sturman had used a dolly to roll the container out, carefully placed the orange jug into the truck bed, then placed a cinder block on the lid, just in case. He'd seen Oscar do some amazing things in the past year. If he didn't hurry, he'd have a seventy-pound octopus loose in the bed.

He hadn't thought that far ahead. How the hell was he going to get that big bastard down to the water if he got out of the plastic jug? He pressed down on the accelerator.

He arrived at Point Pinos a few minutes later and pulled up to the curb. He killed the engine. He was alone. He'd expected as much, it being midnight. He stepped out of the truck into a fine drizzle. He could hear the waves crashing into the rocks a few hundred feet away.

He walked back to the bed. The lid was still screwed on the cooler, the cinder block resting on top, but seawater had sloshed into the bed. Oscar had been busy. Sturman dropped open the tailgate and jumped in. He removed the cinder block and slid the heavy jug to the edge. The lid spun slightly and rose as Oscar reached the tip of an arm out.

“Sorry to stuff you in there, pal, but this will be the last time either of us will be inside a bottle.”

He didn't bother trying to screw the white plastic lid back on. He jumped down and hefted the jug full of octopus, then hurried toward the water. As he waded into the surf, realizing how crazy this was, he laughed. He saw the headlights of a car approaching on the road, but it didn't matter. He was committed now.

“We're not gonna see each other again,” he said. “You enjoy a little freedom now, you hear?”

After a small wave passed, he stumbled into a calmer tide pool, his arms and back burning from the heavy load. Wet up to his crotch, he leaned down into the water and sunk the jug in a protected spot in the rocks. It began to float, but he held it down. He watched as the dark form of his curious friend slid into the pool, then halted.

Oscar reached an arm back to Sturman and stroked his left hand. Then the octopus settled onto the bottom.

Sturman watched him for a moment, a barely discernible dark blob on lighter-colored sand, and then looked out to sea. He shivered as the white spray of waves crashed into an exposed point of rock some distance away. A cold onshore breeze blew into his face, smelling of salt and kelp. Of life.

He was not a religious man, but he believed in God. He wasn't sure what that meant exactly. But when he was outside, in the elements, he felt closer to Him. Or Her. He smiled. Val would surely say God was a Her. Just like Maria had.

He saw Maria's smiling face in his mind's eye. They'd had a good run. But they'd never gotten to have kids. You didn't get to choose your fate. But you got to pick your path. She'd love what he was doing now, even if she scolded him for it.

She was gone now. Just like so many others. He wasn't, though. And neither was Val.

He'd probably already blown it with her. But there was still a chance. As long as he was alive, there was still a chance. He wasn't quitting on her that easy. On them. He was getting back on his horse.

He glanced down at his ring, the one he'd gotten from Maria. He wasn't able to see it in the weak starlight, so he felt for it with his thumb. It was gone. His gold wedding band was gone. He felt a rush of anxiety. Where had he—

He grinned. “That son of a bitch.”

He looked back down into the tide pool. But Oscar was no longer there.

“You sneaky little bastard.” He exhaled deeply and nodded. “Okay, then. So that's it.” He looked past the dark pool, into the deeper water where the dying octopus was moving to freedom. Where he belonged.

“Thanks, Oscar. When those sharks come, you give 'em a fight.”

 

 

Sturman headed back toward the truck, taking the unwashed beanie off his head and tossing it into a public trash can. If anyone had seen him here, it was now evidence, he knew, but part of him hoped they'd figure out he was responsible. Justice had been served.

Still, it was time to leave town for a few days. Maybe he'd known that all along, and was trying to light a fire under his own ass.

When he reached his truck, he tossed the plastic cooler in the bed and dumped the water out of his boots. He jumped inside the cab, jeans sopping wet, and turned the key still in the ignition. He cranked up the heater and picked up his cell phone, dialing as he pulled away from the curb.

As the line started ringing, he looked over at his old cowboy hat. It sat on the bench seat, where it had been for months. He picked it up and slid it on his head. It still fit.

He'd need a good shade hat where he was going.

“I
s that you, Mack?”

Val's uncle was bent over in the darkness outside the guesthouse, and appeared to be wiping vomit off his lips with the back of his hand. He stood up straight, weaving slightly, and squinted at his niece where she stood below the front porch light. After Eric had confronted him, he'd admitted he'd lied to her, and promised he would explain. But he never had.

She said, “We've been worried about you. It's after two in the morning.”

“I needed to get out.”

All afternoon, Mack had been unable to stop thinking about his friend, and how he'd looked on the monitor, sitting at the end of the dark tunnel. Val too had tried to imagine Breck's last moments. Something had sent him scrambling through the cave system, without even spooling out safety line, to a dead end. And then he had simply turned around and come to rest in a sitting position, looking back. Perhaps waiting for something, or perhaps preparing himself as he watched his air run out. His remains, like those of a perished climber on Everest, would have to be left where they lay. There was simply no safe way to retrieve them.

“I understand. Did you just get sick?” she said.

“A platter of cracked conch tastes a helluva lot better going down than it does coming up.”

“I'm sure it does.” Val stepped off the porch and walked over to him, but he turned away.

“Are you okay?” she said.

“Yeah. I just need some water. Why are you up?”

“I couldn't sleep again.”

They headed inside and Val filled a glass with filtered water from a five-gallon jug in the kitchen. He told her that Mars had brought him home. Apparently, the snaggletoothed cab driver, whom they'd gotten to know fairly well, had pulled his van over and picked up Mack as he stumbled home from some local tavern. Mars hadn't charged him anything.

They walked out back where TIKI torches still burned in the darkness, their flames bent by the breeze coming off the ocean. She and Eric had waited up here for hours, before he had finally gone to bed a half hour ago.

Mack kicked at an unlucky land crab that happened to be on the cobblestone patio. It landed with a crack on the hard ground a few feet away. He fell into a chair and found a toothpick in his pocket, which he put in his mouth and began to grind between his molars. Val sat quietly, watching him. He stared off into the night, over the ocean, listening to the waves hit the shore. Without looking at his niece, he finally spoke.

“After I came home from war, that last time, I looked up one of my buddies from my first tour. Ernie.” He took a gulp of water. “He was a skinny black fella. Looked a little bit like John Breck used to. But prettier.”

Val nodded.

“I guess he'd really struggled to get over the war. We all did, but he did more than the rest of us.”

“How so?”

He shifted in his chair. “You know, I keep thinking not of our good times, but of this one fuckin' hot day. Our troop carrier was rolling over dead bodies in the street as we moved in on a town held by the enemy. The bumps seemed so small, so insignificant.” He paused. “That was the day that haunted Ernie.”

Val said, “How's he doing? Have you talked to him since the war?”

Mack ground down on the toothpick. “His wife answered when I finally called. It was the only time I ever talked to her.” He looked through his niece, and she began fidgeting with her fine gold necklace. “Three months before I got back home, I guess he'd wrote his blood type and the words
donate organs please
on a cardboard sign, using a Magic Marker. Hung it around his neck, and then walked into an ER in South Carolina.” Mack bit his lip, closed his eyes. “Then he shot himself in the head.”

Val shook her head, trying to imagine what her uncle had been through. “I'm so sorry, Mack.”

“I still haven't told you the whole story. About what happened in Iraq.”

“It's okay. Some other time.”

He held up his hand. “No. Let me finish. Watson was right. I was technically AWOL. But I wasn't deserting. I was gonna come back.”

“What were you doing?”

“Going to meet a woman. An aid worker, from Britain.”

“You were married.”

“Yeah. But you know how things were with Clarice. I just felt so alone. All the death over there . . .” He spit out his toothpick. “I was ashamed to tell you. I fuckin' hate myself for what happened. Marines died because of me. . . .” He began to choke up.

Val didn't know what to say.

“I don't know anymore. Maybe I
was
deserting. Because I was so tired of the killing.” He sniffed. “I understand if you don't respect me anymore.”

“Nonsense. You're still a hero to me, Mack.” She wiped her eyes.

They sat quietly in the darkness. Waves lapped against the beach, and a cool breeze rustled the palm leaves.

“Do you want to talk about Breck?” she said.

He stared into space for a moment, and then smiled.

“What? What are you thinking about?”

“One time, I tried to wriggle headfirst into a restriction. When he and I were younger. It was right at the mouth of a little inland hole in the Abacos, buried in some coppice.” He smiled. “Pushed my tank through first, then tried to wriggle in, with one arm in front, one in back.” He pantomimed the action. “Got stuck in there.
Really
stuck. Couldn't even move. I was wondering what the hell I was gonna do.”

“What happened?”

“Well, lucky for me, Breck couldn't fit through his own hole nearby and came to find me. The fucker tickled my feet before he helped me out. Can you believe that?” He laughed. “The bastard actually tickled the feet of a friend who might already be out of air. He was one crazy fucker.” Then the smile vanished. “Why didn't he try to get out? I just don't get it.”

“I don't know.”

“He should've easily found his way out of that passage. But he just sat there, the dumb fuck, as his air ran out.”

“Maybe he was narced,” Val said. Sometimes, at depths beyond one hundred feet or so, divers would start to experience nitrogen narcosis, an anesthetic, drunken effect as too much of the gas built up in their bodies.

“No,” Mack shook his head. “Not Breck. He'd done this too many times. He could keep his head.”

“Maybe some of the toxins in the water of those holes made him unable to think clearly, or maybe—”

“No, Valerie.”

“Well, maybe he just lost his way. I know it's hard to believe, but even an experienced diver like him . . . It's a dangerous profession.”

“If you lost your way diving in a cave, what would be the last thing you'd do? Before your air ran out?”

Val shook her head slowly. “I don't know. I guess I'd keep heading down a main tunnel. Try to find a way out.”

“You wouldn't sit down at a dead end.”

“No. But maybe he was already out of air. Maybe he'd accepted his fate, and decided to reflect in his final moments.”

“Or maybe he was afraid to leave that tunnel. Even if it meant he would die.”