Sam Griver, the diver. That’s what they called me even before I was diving with my father. We were the “Griver Divers”. My great-grandfather had been a fisherman out here, knew some of the Chinese men who would dive for them. They taught him where to go, how best to pop them off the rocks. They didn’t teach him about the dangerous swells, the allure of a murky cave, or the treachery of tangled kelp forests, beautiful and slight as they seem, waving their froggy palms in the breeze of a cold swell. Or admittedly more exciting though much less likely, the silent cruise of a giant white. Chomped in the pea-green murk, thick ruddy plumes like clouds blooming to the surface; it has happened before and when it does there is horror, but it rarely happens. It’s something more for imagination to fear.
My father (Dale) did it, but he didn’t love it. The water was too cold and unclear to comb ragged seaweed in search of these snaily polyps, whose suction to pull or tug against (or to wait, breathless, for the gastropods to slide onto the bar enough to pull them up), were not worth the trouble. That, and he was incurably afraid of the sharks; he said he had seen Jaws when he was just a few years younger than I am now. But he’d talked about it so often, I’m not sure he was scared anymore. He did it with my uncles as a way to help pay for college. Since it was my turn, this summer’s catch was going toward my junior year. My slightly younger cousins would benefit in a short year or two. Jeremy (the youngest) was just sixteen. He’d dive too, but mostly he’d sit on the boat and watch for the sharks. He shared the paranoia. His dad (Uncle Charlie) bought some shark repellant which he could spray into the water as he saw fit.
The only way to do it was with a small raft of some sort, a blunted bar (with measuring gauge), wet suit, and a mesh bag; although we only needed one larger bag for our combined catch. The cages were for divers in Australia, where an attack from a white was much more common. But here, it was largely unnecessary and even dangerous itself. Getting into the water among the rocky cliffs was the easy part; coming out was life-threatening. And a cage would only increase that risk.
Most of the guys who died were the older ones, often of a heart attack, probably from the exertion or breath suppression or both. The stress, too. It can be very intense, but its challenges are veiled in courage and adrenaline, the stuff of “warrior-hunters.” Uncle Charlie (who loves to hunt abs) once said that in an interview with the local paper. People don’t understand why we do it. It’s not industry, and we don’t participate in the black market. We do it for sport, for joy, for adrenaline, for courage, for brotherhood and manhood (and some spending money for college). “It’s one of the last things men can do for manliness,” Uncle Charlie mused, “that hasn’t been eviscerated by the fairness brigade.” Mostly because it’s not popular (It’s not that women can’t do it, they just don’t.) But if it gets popular, there’ll be some fight to prevent men from feeling manly in this too. But it’s for sure manly. That’s why I do it. Why my cousins do it. We looked up to the older men in our lives, in our families, who did it. We wanted to be like them: adventurous, courageous, heroic even. Since no one outside the small community of divers cared, these attributes were not performative but present.
My mom (Ginger) doesn’t understand it. She sees no point for the danger. She keeps her worry hidden under a cooperative love she shares with “her boys.” It tastes pretty good; we cook it sometimes, but it’s only three a day, eighteen (this year) for the whole season. And they’re beautiful; the shells are a rusted red with various sea-grown hues streaked across and through. My mom has used some of the bigger ones to pot herbs for the kitchen. She would sell the potted shells to a florist if they weren’t so rare. “Why risk your lives for a couple of snails?” she asks. But I think she does understand or at least she knows it’s more of a contest—not amongst the men, but between each one and the conquest itself.
It is the contest of the sport. Man against nature; man against self, however you want to see it. For me, it’s me against the swells. That surge of wave-crested water is the killer. I’ve been sucked into a cave once or twice, much deeper than I’d ever want to be. But the swell splays onto the beach, then retreats, so pushing out with your fins is no struggle. You just can’t panic, whatever happens. Once you panic, you lose your breath; you lose your breath, you die.
There’s not much to it. Get in, swim out, swim down, search and scan, locate, go back up, breathe, go down, relocate, pry off the ab, surface. You repeat this until you’ve got your catch. Unless you’re a profiteer, and then you take more than your share, pack them up in coolers, and sell them in mechanics’ garages on the down low. These things can be over a hundred bucks a pound. It’s no wonder people take more. Jobs out here are scarce. My dad’s been out of work for about a year, so he makes sure all of us boys go with him to get our three and eighteen. That can bring in some money for the summer (there is some left for college, but mostly I have loans), and if they’re ten inchers, a little bit more per pound.
When particularly gloomy (or anxious), my dad remembers the guy down in Mendocino who was killed by a shark, a white. His buddy said it was huge and swam right past him—said he felt the water pressure push against him and saw a massive tail fin sweep past when he ducked his head a foot beneath the surface. Minutes later, there was blood everywhere, so much, he said, he knew his best friend was dead. Chomped the guy’s head right off at the neck then swam away. The body was found later, otherwise intact. That was about ten years ago. I’m not afraid of the sharks. Can’t be, but I do wear a bright-colored wet suit so if there is one around, it doesn’t think I look like a black seal but instead some kind of crazy poisonous creature with hidden stingers. I’m a little scared, yeah, but we all are even though it’s the least likely way to go.
I’d have hated to be the friend, man. Talk about being scarred for the rest of your life. What are the chances of witnessing something like that? It’s nuts.
The most vivid impression of this strange time spent in the deep is the color of the undersea. It’s like bright spring green and pea soup green and emerald green, deep dark green, every tone of green imaginable. It depends on how you look through it, from what angle and where the sun is, but when its beams hit the water just right and you’re at the bottom by the rocks looking up, it’s a terrifyingly beautiful green. Then I’ll see one of the uncles swimming down in his black suit, crowbar pointing the way and at first it’s hard to tell what he is: A shark? A seal? A man? The black outline against that true green, it’s just not something you see all the time. It is unusual, unlike the regular street sights: cars and people walking, buildings, trees, and all the things of the land which, distinct in their ways, are just the same images we see daily. But the sights under the ocean we don’t see on the daily; and the image of a man swimming down, all in black, unrecognizable and alien in a habitat full of danger stays in your mind for some time, even at night. When you’re in bed ready to go to sleep, you can still see it. But over the diving season, you see it so much, the topside seems unusual with its trees and cars and walking people. You start to see those images in your mind when you’re down below.
The sea commands your senses and nullifies thought; reason invades your guts. It is only after resurfacing that thinking regains speech—we need air for that. All who go to the edge of the sea are entranced by it, and its meditative pull is immediate; there is no ignoring its vastness, its shimmering message. It meets and supersedes the rumbling echo of your mind. It suspends decay and preserves a sense that you’ve been there before, pushed around its fluid. The men who die here don’t mind, and the men who watch them die aren’t as horrified by it. The horror doesn’t linger in the same ways as other kinds of death, nor transpose itself as trauma onto the better parts of human relations. It’s not the same as barbaric violence. Nature’s violence is not evil but decisive.
This season was cooler than usual, not cold, still summer, but of the temperatures that life most enjoys, comforting and comfortable. The kind of weather in which people worry less, are kinder, less harried. The ocean is still cold at least ten, fifteen feet down; during summer, the first five feet warm up but down below that depth, it’s cold ocean. And the temperature puts stress on your body, more than it seems, and between that and holding your breath and swimming up and down to pressured depths—there’s a lot of water sitting on top of you even at just ten feet—it can be rough.
There were about eight of us: sons, cousins, uncles, dads throwing our stuff in the back of the two Fords. The older guys would ride in the seats, young ones on the back beds. We packed up to head out for the day.
“Count the snorkels?” yelled Uncle Charlie.
“Got ten!” his son Rory yelled back.
“Fins?”
“Nine pair.”
“K.”
“Where’s Sam?”
“He’s comin’, he’s getting the water and the coolers.”
“Buck!” Uncle Charlie yelled to Dad. “Don’t forget the flashlights!”
“He’s got ‘em!” Mom called back through the screen door.
I’d gotten a case of bottled water and the three coolers we used for the catch. Dad was still making phone calls to the local lifeguards and patrol officers of the area, telling them where we’d be the whole weekend. He’d tell no one else and make the officers and guards swear they wouldn’t tell anyone else either. It was serious, but he said it like a joke. They got it and made the same agreement with all the other divers. The poachers were different; no one respected them, so we’d give up any and all information we had on them, anonymously and discreetly, so not to bring any mangy attention on us. Some of those guys were connected, gang connected, to Mexico (people said) and all that drug funneling garbage. “Men in criminal gangs,” Dad had said, “are just as desperate as the rest of us to make a living. They’ve just no hope.”
We took off just after noon, same time as always, give or take a few minutes waiting for Jeremy to get up his nerve. We had to pretend to take our time loading the trucks so he wouldn’t feel like a little boy psyching himself up to hang with the men. That day it was about half past when we turned onto the highway to get down to the cliffs. Took about forty minutes. We’d bop and jostle in the back of Dad’s pickup in the bright sun. My cousins wore their cool-dude sunglasses, which always made me laugh. They’d sit, arms folded over sun-kissed skin, cool-dude sunglasses on their faces in these badass poses trying their damnedest to look unselfconscious. Jeremy hated it when I laughed. Joey, recently grown out of it, mostly posed to mock Jeremy.
“Sam!”
“Yeah?” I said on the edge of pretending and knowing.
“Stop laughing!”
“Sorry, kid.”
“Sam! I’m not a kid. I’m sixteen, you asshole.” This made me laugh even harder, his brother Joey now laughing with me at him.
“And fuck you, Joe. I know you were just making fun of me. Fuck you both.”
“OK!” said Joey, who then leaped across the flatbed at me to fake making out and humping my leg.
“Real funny, Joe, real funny, you fag.” He ripped off his sunglasses and threw them into a corner of the truck.
“Don’t be a little jerk,” Joey said. He got up and handed Jeremy back his glasses.
By the time we crossed Drifters Reef Road, the ocean had appeared over the slight hill’s horizon of Highway 1 and hushed us all. It always does. Suddenly, every pricking thought is forgotten, and any anger or discontent is denied. Everyone squinted at the sparkling sea, even behind shades, looking toward the view. We were all suddenly a few years older than we were deeper into land.
No one spoke a word as we parked and unloaded the truck. There was a brief trek down to a small plateau of rock; it was the size of a living room and very flat, about five feet above the wave crush. Jeremy got to pumping the inflatable boats with the portable generator in the back, which we’d have to climb over every time we got in or out. It made an annoyingly loud white noise; after a few minutes, you didn’t really notice it but heard nothing else. Once all four were inflated, we moved them down to the cliff’s flatbed.
Arms were raised, legs lifted; floppy wet suits whipped back and forth until sleeved and zipped onto our bodies. Uncle Charlie and Dad went down the cliff to the entry point, dipped their fins into the slush of water, fixed them to their feet. The rest of us followed except for Jeremy, who waited to pass down the boats. I could hear the sloshing squeak of wet rubber being pulled onto feet. Hoods up, snorkels in place, gloves on. The bars, like lethal rulers, were passed down. The boats were lifted up and down onto the relatively even plane of water against rock.
“Remember, boys,” Uncle Dwayne instructed, “seven inches and up only and that’s a safe seven. If you have to guess, do not pop the ab. And try to hold off, guys, on pullin’ the first seven incher you see. There’s bound to be eight and up in this cove. I feel it this mornin’!” He gave a manly roar. “Rrrrrrrahhhhh!”
“Do ya now?” Dad asked.
“I do indeed. So let’s get a dunkin’!” He started in. “Hey, Sam!” he yelled.
“Yeah?” I cried back.
“You gonna get a twelve-incher for my wall of fame?” He had picked one of the biggest abs in the area at eleven-plus inches. He had added it to a wall in his garage upon which hung, like a natural history exhibit, all of the nine-plus ab shells he’d ever caught. A couple of them were mine. The graffiti reds, blues, indigos, and greens of the shells scribbled across the wall.
“Yes, sir!” I yelled back in my best eager tone.
“Attaboy!”
He hopped into the sea, tugging the inflatable boat behind in the jump. It landed flat on the surface, and he came up from the dunk and climbed into it, then paddled out toward the center of the cove. The water was surprisingly placid and clear.
Jeremy hopped into the back of his dad’s raft just before he swam out. Uncle Charlie stepped into the shallower, rocky part, then pushed himself into the deep.
Joey called out to his brother, “Got the shark shakers?” Jeremy held up the canister of shark repellent and smiled big—ear to anxious ear—as if he were the only one taking something very serious, very seriously. And he would be safe because of it.
Uncle Dwayne’s son Dino (who was a little older than me) was next in; he didn’t talk much but was always smiling, laughing at everyone’s jokes, good and bad. Dino was one of those guys who knew a lot and said little, a guy girls ignored as a teenager but now that he was a young man, secreted their crushes on him. He was the handsomest but the humblest, unconcerned with looks or appearances—unlike Jeremy whose cool-dude poses inspired affection in Dino for the kid. He helped when he could, had fun when there was fun, cared when it counted; always a man doing the right thing at the right time as a complement to any group rather than its distracting star. He and Rory, Joey and Jeremy’s oldest brother, were best friends. Rory followed him into the water. Joey and I were last. The uncles were already diving, up and down. They had made about two dunks before we were fully into the center of the cove. Jeremy’s shark repellent swished around the surface water but lost its buzz any deeper you dove.
I bobbed a bit on the top, fixed my snorkel to my face and mouth. The water wasn’t too bad at the surface. Pretty clear and temperate. I snorkeled around; my fins were heavy between kicks, and I scanned the bottom for gnarly rocks, found my first dive, and turned down toward the deep.
There is no sensation, other than perhaps in space, like being many feet under water. There is silence, virtual silence. You hear some swishing at the surface—the surge of the swells seem to have a sound—but it’s muted, mumbling in your ear canals as if you’re almost deaf, turned off from the loud world. It is here, and I imagine in space, where we are totally observant, partly out of defense, partly out of awe. It could be a comfort from the rest of life. The water holds you tightly; the silence calms your nerves. The vegetation sways with the surges of the sea. Fish scatter but hover at slight distances.
I located a nice hill of abs and went up for air.
I stayed up there watching some of the others in various phases of the dive. Uncle Charlie had just breached for a big gulp of air. Jeremy sat patiently in the raft looking at his dad, his face scrunched, twirling the shark whistle over his two fingers back and forth. “Find any?” he said, waiting with the bag for his dad’s catch. Uncle Charlie shook his head, took a huge breath and dove back down. I dove again too.
I had my rock in sight. My first spot for the day was a sure eight, close to nine incher. That would make Dwayne happy. The rest were fives, sixes, just short of seven but even sevens aren’t always worth the pull. At only three per day, you want the biggest and the best. I moved my bar underneath. Rory and Dino swam near me going up and waved, held up their recent pull—they could get six together—and it looked like a healthy one. I gave the best thumbs-up I could. But I spent too long watching them and had to go back up for air. They were already going back down once I broke the water. I looked down after them and watched their legs kick toward the sand. My dad was too far for me to see. I wondered what he had found, what he was seeing. He seemed to be in a deeper and darker corner of the cove, nearer the caves, but I wasn’t sure.
I dove a few feet and stopped, looked around. Everyone was in some state of the dive. Uncle Charlie was way down, toward the sandy bottom, pulling on this one ab. Dad was farther off. Joe was swimming along the edge of some caves following Uncle Dwayne who usually found the best spots. Someone else went shooting up toward the surface. I snorkeled around the top. I didn’t go back for the big one I had spotted. I could hear Jeremy and his dad talking loudly at each other. Usually Jeremy was loud toward his father, not disrespectfully, but intensely. But that was how Jeremy spoke to almost everyone.
All but giving up on the task, I enjoyed floating around, diving, and observing more than the catch. An activity removed from the loudness of land life, it was the silence of the dive that I learned from the most. If nothing else, it taught me how to look and see. I was a voyeur, and this was a special anonymity. No one was watching me. Fish had no opinion. Sea rocks and seaweed just waved. The sea merely held me as its captive. I could see Uncle Charlie’s legs dangling, the fins elongating his length like a frog. I snorkeled back to my spot and dove once more.
The red slash across its shell caught the light well enough for me to spot the eight incher. There was a lot of greenery swaying in front of it, so I lost sight of it a few times. I brushed my hand around the weeds and eventually caught the iron-red gleam, placed my crowbar underneath the top, and pried it very gently. Out of breath, I had to resurface, but I was going to get this one. I had been down there too long, and I gasped for some air when I came up. Distraction is an element of danger in the dive. Beauty can be that seductress, but for most it was the pressure of the hunt, a collector’s addiction to locate and retrieve the biggest within three chances.
I dove back down, realizing the need to use the time I had to retrieve the one ab I decided to pluck for the day. There was a strict desire to pry it off, which mocked the observational cool I had previously felt. A large fish, the name for which I didn’t know, swam by sharply to my right, causing me to look over my shoulder. Its silver-matted flank filled my eye which distracted me from my purpose, losing time for held breath. I managed to pull up the top part of the shell, but the lower region sucked onto the smoother portion of the rock it claimed. I pulled and pulled, but it wouldn’t detach. I feared I was mangling the fleshy underside as I jammed the bar repeatedly under the shell, but I was running out of time. I needed air. My heart pushed through my chest, desperate for the pump of my lungs. I thought I could get it in a few seconds more but had to drop the bar and climb to the surface. I inhaled in the largest pull of mercy I’d ever needed. I stayed treading, catching my breath. Jeremy was close in the boat looking down at me with his usual scowl, partly from sunlight, partly from contempt.
“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded.
“Huh?” Couldn’t he figure this out? I thought. “I stayed down too long.”
“Find a good one?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Get it?”
“No.”
“Go get it, Sam!”
“Calm down, Ahab.”
“What?”
“Just, calm down. I need to catch my breath.”
He brushed me off and paddled back to his floating zone.
I swished my fingers around the plastic of my goggles to clear out the fog, then reattached them to my face. The sun had gone behind a darker cloud. Rory and Dino were already climbing out and onto the rocks. Joey had come up beside me.
“Heading in?”
“Yeah, just going down one more time.”
He nodded his head and swam toward the climb-out point. My father was calling to him about his catch, and I dove back down to find the lost bar. There was less light now, but I spotted the boulder and kicked directly for it. The bar had to be within its margins, though I was afraid the swell had covered it with sand or lodged it in some of the sea brush. I had painted it red thinking it was an easy spot, but the colors of the bottom were such that nature could hide a man’s tool among the trickery of its colors. But I spotted it—a few feet from the rock, partially covered by sand and oceanic debris just before the undulant beast swallowed it for good.
I had to go back up once more. It was a quick resurface. I knew they would be waiting for me. I took a big gulp, heard their loud voices parrying within the cove, likely yelling for me to come in. I dove again, reached toward the rock, and found the ab, its front half bobbing up and down in the swell. I jammed the bar back into the underbelly and pulled up; it barely moved. I threw away the bar, tightened my core, grabbed the ab by its sides, and pulled with the conviction of a fool. It popped off, and I sloshed back into an oncoming swell which pushed me forward and slammed me into the rock, the ab pressed against my chest. With no time to find the bar, I kicked to the surface and took another deep pull of air. I made for the climb-out, hearing their voices much more loudly now, so I stopped and flipped up my head to see what was going on.
“What?” I yelled. But no one answered. Their backs were turned, not facing me, not directed at me. I wasn’t in trouble for staying too long. What then? I swam, head out, as their language became more distinct.
“Charlie! Call…Where’s the…How did he get to the…Where’s…Sam!”
Panic spun my thoughts as I worried about what sounded like trouble above. I stumbled onto the first rocks and climbed up. Joe had his arm around Jeremy, who was sobbing. Rory and Dino were racing back and forth from the truck. Dad was crouched near a big body. It was Uncle Charlie.
Uncle Dwayne stood in the distance on his phone, his face in anguish from relaying bad news. His thumb and forefinger squeezed the sides of his head. Dad pushed tears out of his swollen eyes. I stood by his side watching. He was already gone.
Uncle Charlie had had a massive heart attack. His dive that morning was more strenuous than usual. His breath was harder to get. He couldn’t hold it as long, but he dove as hard and as fast as he usually did, ignoring the signs to slow down. He was the oldest and truest of us divers. He had led the early charge years ago when we boys were all small children. Instantly, the loss was immeasurable.
Dad and Uncle Dwayne had carried Uncle Charlie’s body to the top. Jeremy sat curled into himself, head down, heaving tearful sighs as Dad stood over him with his hand on the boy’s head. Uncle Dwayne sat far away on a rock now, looking out toward the sea. Rory stood a few yards behind him as the ambulance siren called in the distance. Dino hovered near me as Dad walked in the direction of the advancing rescue crew. Joey replaced Dad’s watch over Jeremy.
“This sucks.” Dino had no other words.
“Yeah” was all I could muster.
“Poor Aunt Lisa.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s known him all her life, I think.”
“I think so.”
“He was a good man, a real man. He was someone I always wanted to be like.” Dino got a little choked up.
“I know.”
We looked over at Uncle Charlie’s burly, still body—once an earthwork of comfort and protection, a font of stories and silly jokes—and decided against moving toward it. There was nothing there anymore. I overheard Dad tell Dwayne not to call Lisa but to drive over there as soon as they settled the boys at our house to meet with her in person.
Once the ambulance arrived, Dad ushered Jeremy to the cliffside of the dirt lot. The two stood there and threw rocks into the splashy water. The rest of us pretended to help direct the paramedics to the body. Though it had begun to look like a large, blubbery seal from far away, it was not something easily mistaken. A dead person is oddly but suddenly recognizable, though not recognizably Uncle Charlie. The gesticulate animus of life, once removed, removes all. You cannot love a dead body for very long.
It had been almost two hours since he died, though it quickly passed, and I think each one of us secretly wondered if we’d ever dive again. We hadn’t quite realized, after all these years, just how necessary Uncle Charlie was in these adventures. We had followed his command so effortlessly, so happily, it was as if we commanded ourselves; however, he managed everything. He was the one who shucked the meat; he was the one who whisked the marinade; he was the one who grilled it; he was the one who collected the gut pearls for all the wives and mothers, on top of all the rest of it. All we could do now was stand by him as silent sentinels while his body was removed from the world. To give thanks for his life, we stood in silent observance. We watched as they loaded him into the open back doors of the ambulance. Only Uncle Dwayne went with them to the hospital to carry out whatever administrative things happen when people die.
Those of us left in the diving group quietly gathered our things with a directive word here or there from the remaining older men and repacked the trucks. Joey drove Uncle Charlie’s truck back and the boys climbed into the back of Dad’s. Just before Dad turned the ignition, Jeremy said to me, “I’m gonna miss him. A lot.”
“I know,” I replied. “We all will.” I squeezed his smaller hand. His chin quivered a little, and he bit his lower lip as we drove off through the dust which hung in the air from the big trucks moving on top of the dirt.
Dad picked up speed on the highway, and each of us, heads turned outward, stared and wondered about the day and what had happened. The wind from the drive muted all possibility of talk and we just looked out, appreciating the sea, the muffled peace, reviewing the range of questions and unsatisfactory answers to the confusion of death, the death of someone known and loved, the abject disbelief of their total disappearance. In a short time, I no longer felt the presence of my cousins sitting there in the back of that truck but felt above it, coasting over the road and the cliffs on the wind. I imagined Uncle Charlie’s smiling face, content and quiet, as he watched us head back home. I imagined Mom’s cocked head, sad face, and puffy eyes lovingly watching us through the back door when we pull into the driveway and into the backyard. I imagined poor Aunt Lisa breaking down over a chair or a table when she finally received the news.
All I could do was reflect on what was coming and what was supposed to be. That summer was supposed to be a fun one. We were all home, maybe for the last time as a family, before we headed in life’s various directions. Uncle Charlie, likely aware of this fact more than anyone, especially us younger ones, had made plans to do all kinds of things. He’d been especially excited that morning since it was the first of all the rest to come that final summer. No one took particular notice of his excitement—enthusiasm was married to his character—but once it was gone, it was the one thing you missed most. We decided to gather together each weekend and instead remember Uncle Charlie.
In the back of the truck, I kept staring out toward the godlike, immense ocean, thinking about most of these things, observing the garish difference between our movement and its ubiquity.
The next weekend, we were supposed to wind surf farther down the road where the beach returns and the cliffs move into the earth, becoming seamless beaches. We were supposed to do a lot fun things that summer, but we did not, would not, out of respect for Uncle Charlie and the great deep sea.