Stephen Dixon - What Is All This? - Uncollected Stories

But which way is shore? It’s either east or west, if I’m still in the river, or north if the current’s carried me to the ocean If I’m in the ocean and swim to shore as if I’m in the river, I’ll be on my back all night without reaching land, always parallel to shore though perhaps progressively further away from it if the tide pulls me that way, and so tired by daybreak that I won’t have the strength to backstroke to shore once I sight it or out of range of a would-be rescue boat. And if I’m still in the river and backstroke to shore as if I’m in the ocean, I’ll be swimming all night up the river, also too tired to backstroke to shore once I see it or away from a passing boat. The best thing is just to float till daybreak comes, conserving my energy for when I’m able to see where I am in the water.

I close my eyes. Sleep would strengthen me further and even seems possible. But if I’m now in the ocean I might float too far out to swim back to land. I’ll wind up floating along till a boat discovers me or I starve to death. Starving to death seems the better of those two, but how can I be sure I won’t be rescued hours before I’m about to die? Then I’ll be rushed to shore and hospitalized till I recover and hounded by reporters and the police who’ll want to know what I was doing in the ocean and how come my car was left on the bridge and several types of scientists who’ll want to know all the scientific reasons why I was able to survive my jump and stay so long afloat, making it even less likely I’ll find, for the time being, the necessary privacy to end my life.

I decide to backstroke to shore as if I’m now in the ocean. That way, if I’m actually in the river and found there before I reach shore, I’ll probably be looked at as just a routine near-drowning rather than the person of note I could easily be turned into if I were found floating and dying way out in the ocean. And if I’m in the ocean, then by back-stroking to shore I’ll either reach shore or by daybreak be closer to shore than if I didn’t swim to it, or be somewhere in the river between its two shores if I now, by some luck, happen to be in the ocean at the river’s mouth.

To find land, which is north of the ocean, I have to find the North Star. And to find that star I’ll have to first find the Big Dipper, as one of the few things I know about astronomy is that the top star of the ladle of the Big Dipper points to the bright North Star. But to find the Big Dipper I’ll have to find both Dippers to see which is the larger of the two, because for all I know the Little Dipper might also have a bright star off the top of its ladle.

I float several complete circles, but all I can come up with is one Dipper. It isn’t a very large Dipper either, as I remember the Big Dipper getting in the summer or winter. If it’s in the summer that the Big Dipper gets much larger, then the Dipper I’m looking at, and which does have a fairly bright star off its top ladle star, would be the Little Dipper, which I remember gets proportionately larger the same season the Big Dipper does. So if that medium-sized Dipper up there is the Little Dipper in its larger summer size, then the fairly bright star off its top ladle star isn’t the North Star.

Instead of swimming on my back to this bright star, and I figure it’s a fifty-fifty chance it’s the North Star, I take what I consider a sixty-forty chance to reach land and that’s to conserve my energy till morning by floating to wherever the currents take me. By not swimming I realize I might be reducing my chances of drowning, since if I backstroke all night I might get so tired that the automatic reflex or survival instinct or whatever it is physiological that’s probably responsible for my flipping over and also preventing me from swallowing any sea water, might stop functioning. But I float, all the time trying to compensate for the decrease in my drowning chances by keeping a sharp eye on the sky for that second Dipper. If I find it I’ll be able to positively identify the North Star, follow it to land, if I’m in the ocean, or up the river and then to land, if I’m now in the river or that part of the ocean the river flows into, and get to my car, if it hasn’t been towed because of my illegal parking by the bridge, and drive it off a cliff somewhere or, better yet, into my air-tight garage where I’d keep the motor running and asphyxiate myself, something I would have done instead of jumping if I hadn’t concluded beforehand that the surest way of successfully killing myself was to jump from the middle of the south side of that particular bridge.

I float all night without locating the second Dipper. The sun rises and I don’t see land. But now knowing where west is, I backstroke till I’m exhausted in the direction of what, because of the moving sun, is growing to be less of a chance of being north or south.

I see a boat and swim toward it, thinking if I get on it I’ll pretend to my rescuers that I fell off my own small boat, ask them to let me rest in a private room, as I’m feeling ill and very tired, and in that room find a means to kill myself — a knife, scissors, piece of glass which, if it isn’t broken I’ll break soundlessly, a sheet to hang myself from a pipe or a sturdy hook overhead if there’s one.

I get within a few yards of the boat and yell for help. A man sees me and runs to the front of the boat. The boat slows down, turns around, a rope is thrown to me and I climb onto the deck. They men who help me up speak a language I’ve never heard. They crowd around me and. pat my back, rub my hair and kiss my cheeks. A man who wears what looks like a captain’s hat runs to me from the front of the boat and throws his arms around me, lifts me up and grunts and grins at having rescued me. I thank them in English, but nobody seems to understand me. I shake the captain’s hand and place my hands under my chin in a way which in my country means I’m sleepy. He nods and speaks to one of the crew. The young man goes below deck and returns with a tray full of food. “No, no,” I say. I yawn and close my eyes dreamily and pretend to snore, which have to be sounds and signs understood in every country. The captain says “Ah-oh,” and sends the young man below deck again. The man returns with bottles of whiskey and glasses for us all. The captain raises his glass to me and says something and they all slug down their drinks. He puts his hand over my lips to stop me from drinking to the first toast, but the second, fourth and sixth toasts I’m allowed to drink to. Then he escorts me to the pilothouse, points to his wallet and gestures he’d like to see mine. He takes out my driver’s license and speaks into a radio set, the only words I understand being my three names roundly mispronounced.

I yawn and stretch my arms and mime a man lying down and plumping a pillow and sticking it under his head and pulling a blanket up to his shoulder and falling asleep, and after I’m finished the captain says “Ah-oh,” and sends the young man out of the room. The man returns with dry clothes and sandals. I put them on and sit in a chair and feign dozing off, hoping they’ll be as nice as they’ve been and carry me to an empty room so I can continue my sleep in quiet. I hear shushing sounds from the men. A blanket is tucked around me. After about a half hour I stand and beat my chest to show I’m fully awake and inhale deeply as if I’d like some fresh air and open the door so I can perhaps find a way to kill myself outside the pilothouse. The captain shakes his head and finger as if he understands what I want and I’m going about getting it the wrong way. He opens the door of a water closet, waits outside it till I’m done there, walks me to a sink and makes motions of a man washing his face and hands, and after I’ve done that, he leads me to the eating area next to the galley and sits me down at a table and orders a man to bring me breakfast.