Peter Benchley - Jaws

Hooper put the boat in reverse, to back away from the waves. As he looked off the stern, he saw a silver streak moving in the gray-blue water. It seemed part of the wave-motion, but it moved independently. For a second, Hooper did not realize what he was seeing. And even when the realization struck, he did not see the fish clearly. He cried, “Look out!”

“What is it?” yelled Brody.

“The fish! Get the kid out! Quick!”

The boy heard Hooper, and he tried to run. But in the chest-deep water his movements were slow and labored. A swell knocked him sideways. He stumbled, then stood and leaned forward.

Brody ran into the water and reached out. A wave hit him in the knees and pushed him back.

Middleton said into the microphone, “The man on the boat just said something about a fish. I don’t know if he means a shark.”

“Is it the shark?” said the man from Queens, standing next to Middleton. “I don’t see it.”

Middleton said, “Who are you?”

“Name’s Lester Kraslow. You want to interview me?”

“Go away.”

The boy was moving faster now, pushing through the water with his chest and arms. He did not see the fin rise behind him, a sharp blade of brownish gray that hovered in the water.

“There it is!” said Kraslow. “See it, Benny? Davey? It’s right there.”

“I don’t see nothin’,” said one of his sons.

“There it is, Walter!” said Middleton. “See it?”

“I’m zooming,” said the cameraman. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”

“Hurry!” said Brody. He reached for the boy. The boy’s eyes were wide and panicked. His nostrils flared, bubbling mucus and water. Brody’s hand touched the boy’s, and he pulled. He grabbed the boy around the chest, and together they staggered out of the water.

The fin dropped beneath the surface, and following the slope of the ocean floor, the fish moved into the deep.

Brody stood in the sand with his arm around the boy. “Are you okay?” he said.

“I want to go home.” The boy shivered.

“I bet you do.” Brody started to walk the boy to where his friends were standing, but Middleton intercepted them.

“Can you repeat that for me?” said Middleton.

“Repeat what?”

“Whatever you said to the boy. Can we do that again?”

“Get out of my way!” Brody snapped. He took the boy to his friends, and said to the one who had offered the money, “Take him home. And give him his ten dollars.” The boy nodded, pale and scared.

Brody saw his walkie-talkie wallowing in the wave-wash. He retrieved it, wiped it free of water, pushed the “talk” button, and said, “Leonard, can you hear me?”

“I read you, Chief. Over.”

“The fish has been here. If you’ve got anybody in the water down there, get them out. Right away. And stay there till we get relief for you. Nobody goes near the water. The beach is officially closed.”

“Okay, Chief. Was anybody hurt? Over.”

“No, thank God. But almost.”

“Okay, Chief. Over and out.”

As Brody walked back to where he had left his beach bag, Middleton called to him, “Hey, Chief, can we do that interview now?”

Brody stopped, tempted to tell Middleton to go fuck himself. Instead, he said, “What do you want to know? You saw it as well as I did.”

“Just a couple of questions.”

Brody sighed and returned to where Middleton stood with his camera crew. “All right,” he said, “go ahead.”

“How much have you got left on your roll, Walter?” said Middleton.

“About fifty feet. Make it brief.”

“Okay. Give me speed.”

“Speed.”

“Well, Chief Brody,” said Middleton, “that was a lucky break, wouldn’t you say?”

“It was very lucky. The boy might have died.”

“Would you say that’s the same shark that killed the people?”

“I don’t know,” said Brody. “I guess it must be.”

“So where do you go from here?”

“The beaches are closed. For the time being, that’s all I can do.”

“I guess you’d have to say that it isn’t yet safe to swim here in Amity.”

“I’d have to say that, that’s right.”

“What does that mean for Amity?”

“Trouble, Mr. Middleton. We are in big trouble.”

“In retrospect, Chief, how do you feel about having opened the beaches today?”

“How do I feel? What kind of question is that? Angry, annoyed, confused. Thankful that nobody got hurt. Is that enough?”

“That’s just fine, Chief,” Middleton said with a smile. “Thank you, Chief Brody.” He paused, then said, “Okay, Walter, that’ll wrap it. Let’s get home and start editing this mess.”

“What about a close?” said the cameraman. “I’ve got about twenty-five feet left.”

“Okay,” said Middleton. “Wait’ll I think of something profound to say.”

Brody gathered up his towel and his beach bag and walked over the dune toward his car. When he got to Scotch Road, he saw the family from Queens standing beside their camper.

“Was that the shark that killed the people?” asked the father.

“Who knows?” said Brody. “What’s the difference?”

“Didn’t look like much to me, just a fin. The boys was kind of disappointed.”

“Listen you jerk,” Brody said. “A boy almost got killed just now. Are you disappointed that didn’t happen?”

“Don’t give me that,” said the man. “That thing wasn’t even close to him. I bet the whole thing was a put-on for them TV guys.”

“Mister, get out of here. You and your whole goddam brood. Get ’em out of here. Now!”

Brody waited while the man loaded his family and their gear into the camper. As he walked away, he heard the man say to his wife, “I figured all the people would be snot-noses out here. I was right. Even the cops.”

At six o’clock, Brody sat in his office with Hooper and Meadows. He had already talked to Larry Vaughan, who called — drunk and in tears — and muttered wildly about the ruination of his life. The buzzer on Brody’s desk rang, and he picked up the phone.

“Fellow named Bill Whitman to see you, Chief,” said Bixby. “Says he’s from the New York Times .”

“Oh, for… Okay, what the hell. Send him in.”

The door opened, and Whitman stood in the doorway. He said, “Am I interrupting something?”

“Nothing much,” said Brody. “Come on in. You remember Harry Meadows. This is Matt Hooper, from Woods Hole.”

“I remember Harry Meadows, all right,” said Whitman. “It was thanks to him that I got my ass chewed from one end of Forty-third Street to the other by my boss.”

“Why was that?” said Brody.

“Mr. Meadows conveniently forgot to tell me about the attack on Christine Watkins. But he didn’t forget to tell his readers.”

“Must have slipped my mind,” said Meadows.

“What can we do for you?” said Brody.

“I was wondering,” said Whitman, “if you’re sure this is the same fish that killed the others.”

Brody gestured toward Hooper, who said, “I can’t be positive. I never saw the fish that killed the others, and I didn’t really get a look at the one today. All I saw was a flash, sort of silvery gray. I know what it was, but I couldn’t compare it to anything else. All I have to go on is probability, and in all probability it’s the same fish. It’s too far-fetched — for me, anyway — to believe that there are two big man-eating sharks off southern Long Island at the same time.”

Whitman said to Brody, “What are you going to do, Chief’? I mean, beyond closing the beaches, which I gather has already been done.”

“I don’t know. What can we do? Christ, I’d rather have a hurricane. Or even an earthquake. At least after they happen, they’re over and done with. You can look around and see what’s been done and what has to be done. They’re events, something you can handle. They have beginnings and ends. This is crazy. It’s as if there was a maniac running around loose, killing people whenever he felt like it. You know who he is, but you can’t catch him and you can’t stop him. And what makes it worse, you don’t know why he’s doing it.”