Josh Roseman - The Clockwork Russian and Other Stories

Mom and Dad got home around midnight, and when Mom came to check on me, her touch on my shoulder was so reassuring that I “woke up” so I could get a hug.

Whatever it was Dad thought was at 113 feet, it gave me the creeps.

Barry leads the way, one hand around the line, a spiral of blue and white stripes. I follow his bubbles. The water grows cool at 30 feet, then colder at 60 and 90. I wish I’d gone with the dry suit, but they always make me feel clumsy. The wetsuit is thin and black and easy to move in, and I can handle the chill.

It’s dimmer when we get to the bottom, the line attached to the wreck by a heavy metal ring. The tips of my fins touch the boat and I float there, taking a moment to turn on my mask-mounted light and another, brighter one in my vest pocket. Barry fiddles with his own light, looking at me.

I check my computer, then hold it up. We’re only at 93 feet, and I’ve got plenty of air. Mark always said I seem to come up with more air than I bring down with me, and if I’m going to do this right, I’m going to need to regulate my breathing more strictly than ever.

Barry, on the other hand, has used a surprising amount of his supply. I want to pull out my slate and berate him, but that’ll just waste time. Besides, he’s already looking around, getting his bearings. He turns back to me and motions that I should follow. He’s been down here before; he’s the expert.

I was twelve when I got my dive license. Dad had been away more and more through third and fourth grade, long weekends and unexplained trips, and I guess when he saw how much I liked snorkeling during a family trip to the Keys, he tried to buy my forgiveness.

It worked, too. When I opened the long white envelope, I nearly hugged him to death.

The classes were held at a dive shop half an hour from home. After dinner, Mom drove me and I did boring school homework in the backseat. Naturally, I already would’ve finished my dive class homework the day it was assigned. I spent a month learning the rules, the equipment, how to clear my mask, how to put together and break down and clean a dive kit, buddy breathing, sign language, and moving while carrying a third of my weight in equipment.

My first dive wasn’t much; we went down about 30 feet, knelt in a circle on the sand, and covered the basics. But it got better, and soon I had my PADI Open Water certification. The real problem was finding someone who would dive with me; I wanted to go every weekend, but Mom worked Saturdays and Dad wasn’t home half the time. After months of just showing up and hoping there would be someone who needed a buddy, jumping into the water while Dad sat on the boat, reading or doing research or whatever, I finally found a good partner. Mark was a year older than me, but shy as a first-grader. Most divers weren’t as young as us, and that didn’t help him either.

Still, even though we didn’t talk much about anything except diving, it was nice to have a friend my age on the boat. We dove together dozens of times, and though we didn’t go to the same school, in ninth grade I asked him to Homecoming. He blushed and stammered and accepted. Of course, we spent most of the night just sitting at a table and talking about getting my advanced certification so I could join him on deeper dives. It beat the heck out of pretending I could dance.

The wreck is nothing like I’ve ever been in before. The boat looks like it was 300 feet long before it sank. Most of it is down another 60 feet or so, on its side, but there’s a good 50 feet standing vertically, the bow just below a sandy shelf.

Barry has his slate out. He’s written something. 10 mins left. Hurry up. I nod; he jams the slate back into his pocket and steps over the edge. I follow him down.

There’s a hole at 125 feet; Barry catches the edge of it and shines his light in, then swims through. I’m close behind.

I’ve never been inside a wreck like this. It’s a constant effort to stay vertical without getting confused. Barry’s looking back at me, waiting to catch my eye; when he does, he waves his light upward at a doorway. I have to turn my body sideways and roll up through it, but Barry stays outside, shaking his head and pointing to his stomach.

I probably don’t have much more time than he does, not at this depth, but I spend a few precious seconds writing him a message. Which way?

He points his light toward an even-narrower opening at the far end of the compartment. I clip my big light to my wrist; I’ll need both hands to navigate. I take a deep breath, blow it out, and, regulator clenched tight in my teeth, I make for the doorway.

I was a week away from my fifteenth birthday when I ran into Dad on a dive boat. Mark had driven me to the dock — he was going to do a wreck dive, then I would do a deep reef, then we’d all do a shallow reef. When we left my house, I’d noticed Dad’s car already gone, but that was nothing new, and anyway, I didn’t care. One more week and I could dive wrecks with Mark — who I’d come to realize was actually pretty attractive. Those two things crowded Dad out of my mind.

Three years of lugging a dive kit had made me stronger than most girls my age; I rarely had to put my stuff down between the car and the boat. But everyone within fifty feet heard my scuffed red tanks clang on the pavement.

“Dad?”

My father was on the boat, talking animatedly to a short, fat man about his own age. But when he looked my way, he merely gave me a half-wave, suddenly all serious, before going back to his conversation.

He was wearing a wetsuit.

“Your dad dives?”

I dropped my bag and went after my tanks. “He never told me.”

Mark shrugged and followed me onto the dock; we handed our equipment over the side and, as another diver stowed it, we crossed the threshold. I dropped one of my tanks into the storage area in the middle of the deck, then bungeed the other along the side. My bag went under the bench for now; I’d put my equipment together once we were out on the water.

Mark had gone up to the dive shop, probably to go to the bathroom — he had a thing about going in the ocean — and I went up to the bow.

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“Diving,” he said, his voice flat. “This is Barry Katz,” he added. “Barry and I have been working together since… well, for a long time.”

I remembered Barry’s name from Dad’s ever-more-detailed notes — Mom had a spare key to his office, and it’d been easy to borrow it and make a copy. I held out my hand and he shook it. “Hello, Barry.”

“Hello.” His voice was mild, not as deep as Dad’s.

There was a heavy silence. Dad turned to me. “We have some things to discuss.”

“You bet we do,” I said. “When did you—”

He cut me off. “I meant with Barry. I’ll talk to you later, if you want.”

I didn’t stomp off in a huff. I definitely wanted to, but stomping was immature, and Mark would be on his way back to the boat soon. I didn’t want him to see that.

Twenty minutes later, we left the dock. Mark and I stood on the port side, watching the other boats as we passed them. Eventually we made it out to the open water; the boat sped up, bouncing only slightly on the clear, smooth ocean. I separated from Mark and tried to eavesdrop on Dad, but every time I got close, he frowned at me and moved away. I could tell he was trying to hide his excitement, but he only let his guard down with Barry, and that more than anything else pissed me off.

I did manage to grab his arm just before he began his dive. “Later, Eleanora,” he said, smiling, and then was in and under and gone.