SAND DOLLARS
St. Martin's Press
May 1998
a preview: page 3

Charles Knief: Author Interview

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This was not what I was trained to do. Killing them would have been easy. My problem was keeping them alive in spite of themselves.

As we fought I kept moving forward, following the line. My bulk, increased by my tank and other equipment, prevented the boys from moving me out of the way. There just wasn't enough space. I used my fins to keep them back, roiling water at their faces.

The walls of the shaft opened into a bigger space. One of the youngsters slipped the line and eeled past me, kicking and gouging, an unseen, maniacal force. I got a hand on his gear, but he shook me loose. Then he was gone.

Some people seem determined, aimed at their own destruction like lemmings. There was nothing I could do for that one. I went back for the remaining diver, slowly feeling through the murky water, dependent entirely upon sense of touch, forcing my body to go through the motions and my mind to keep the terror down to manageable levels.

We found each other, outstretched fingers brushing in the dark.

Touch galvanized him. The kid's arms and legs climbed over me, punching me, kicking me, elbowing and kneeing me. It was like dancing with an octopus. I lost my mask. A knee to the jaw knocked my regulator loose. An elbow crashed against my temple. I saw stars.

I went for the pressure point I'd used on his companion but couldn't find it, the kid jumping around like he'd taken a big PCP hit, making it impossible to get my hands on him. I couldn't get him off me and I couldn't reach him. Every time I tried he'd move away, out of reach.

I'd just exhaled when I lost my regulator and needed air. Fast. I couldn't see in the dark and murky water, but black spots began appearing, overlaying the black in front of my eyes, and the roaring of blood in my ears got louder than the bubbles from our regulators.

We kept fighting and moving along the line and suddenly we were back in a tightly enclosed space again. I grabbed the kid around his neck, cutting off blood supply to his brain. He went limp, stopped struggling, and for a moment I wondered if I'd killed him. I let up and he punched me, a weak and ineffective punch, but it made me smile.

Keeping his neck in the vise of my right arm, I reached behind me, feeling for one of the two regulators I use, found it, and shoved it in my mouth before the black spots entirely covered my vision.

Joni Mitchell was right when she wrote about not missing something until it's gone.

I located the line and hauled on it. Still tight, I began dragging the kid along with me. It took longer that way. He'd become passive in my grip, but I didn't trust his judgment enough to let him loose.

We followed two more turns and the computer beeped again. We had one minute to get out of the Mahi and begin our ascent.

I towed the kid along until the black became lighter and suddenly we were out of the blackness and into the blue-gray amphitheater of the Pacific.

George and the other two divemasters hovered above, guardian angels, there to lead us home.

I signaled with two fingers and turned the kid over to one of the other instructors.

George shook his head, holding up one.

Gathering my line, I went back in and they took the kid to the Mako.

He wasn't very far inside. I found him by accident, making the same wrong turn he had, just ten feet inside a dead end in an old service compartment. He'd cut his line to get free of me, but some of it dragged behind him, and I discovered it against the bulkhead and followed.

The young man had given up to his terror. I pulled on the rope and I felt something float toward me, bubbles erupting from a regulator, no fight left. Reaching out, I groped in the darkness until I grasped a hand that closed on mine. I squeezed and got no response other than the gentle pressure already there.

We went up together, rising slower than our bubbles, stopping at the forty-foot marker while I fed more information into the computer. We got lucky, just missing the painful hours in the hyperbaric chamber at the Barber's Point Coast Guard Station.

I checked his air. His was nearly depleted but I judged we'd make it. I don't use much and had a reserve, but in his panic he had consumed more. We moved to the fifteen-foot bar hanging below the dive boat and held onto the white plastic pipe the way kids hold onto the cross bar on a roller coaster. I looked down and almost got vertigo, the water so clear I could pick out details of the Mahi's upper decks seventy feet below. It was like hovering in the air above the ship. We hung under the Mako until my computer told us we'd purged the nitrogen from our systems. I shared my air for the last couple of minutes with the kid, using body language and hand signals to keep him from rising toward the light.

We finally broke the surface, returning to the air and the bright Hawaiian sunshine. The young men, white-faced and sober, kept silent as they boarded. That's what facing your mortality will do for you. I thought about yelling at them, but figured they'd had enough punishment. They were college kids. Maybe they were smart enough to have learned a lesson. If so, this experience would have been worth it.

I had my doubts, but it never hurt to hope.

Everyone else was back aboard the Mako. My group--now George's--watched me bring the boys aboard. They spoke rapid and quiet Japanese to one another all the way back to the harbor.

Dennis called me up to the pilot house.

"Your nose is bleeding."

I wiped my upper lip. My fingers came away with bright blood. Dennis handed me a bandanna.

"Dumb shits," he said, his voice heavy with disgust. "They violate every goddamn rule, run from their divemaster, get themselves killed and we get sued. Thanks, Caine."

"They looked like trouble."

"They look like shit now, but they'll be all right. Give them something to talk about when they get home." Dennis looked at me, squinting against the glare of the hot January sun glinting off the smooth Pacific swells. "You got a call on the ship-to-shore. Fella at the dock needs to speak with you pronto."