Do not neglect to add the
fact that they are... Do not neglect to add the
fact that they are standing thigh-deep in water
that should be over their headsA witness - Emery
Paulson, for instance - could see this if he
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looked, but so many people aren't prepared to see
what is right in front of their eyes
Until, of course, it's too late
He's come down to the beach to smoke a cigarHe
can do this on the back porch or on the veranda,
but some strong compulsion has urged him down the
rutted road Adie calls Drunkard's Boulevard and
then down the steeper, sandy path to the beach
This voice has suggested his cigar will taste
better hereHe can sit on a fallen log the waves
have cast up and watch the after-ashes of the
sunset, as orange fades to tangerine and the stars
go blueThe Gulf will look pleasant in such light,
the voice suggests, even if the Gulf has had the
bad taste to mark the beginning of his marriage by
swallowing two of his beloved's little sisters
But there's more to watch than just a sunset, it
seemsThere's a ship out thereIt's an
chanel jewelry oldfashioned
one, a pretty, slim-hulled thing with
three masts and furled sailsInstead of sitting
on the log, he walks down the beach to where the
dry sand becomes wet and firm and packed,
marveling at that swallow-shape against the fading
sunsetSome trick of the air makes it seem as if
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the day's last red is shining right through the
hull
He is thinking this when the first cry comes,
chiming in his head like a silver bell: Emery!
And then comes another: Emery, help! The undertow!
The rip!
That is when he sees the girls, and his heart
gives a springing leapIt seems to rise all the
way to his throat before falling back into place,
where it dashes double-timeThe unlit cigar
tumbles from his fingers
Two little girls, and they look just the same
They appear to be wearing identical jumpers, and
although Emery should not be able to distinguish
colors in this dying light, he can: one jumper is
red, with an L on the front; the other is blue,
with a T
The rip! the girl with the T on her jumper calls,
holding out her arms in
cartier watches supplication
The undertow! calls the girl with the L
And although neither girl appears to be in the
slightest danger of drowning, Emery doesn't
hesitateHis joy won't let him hesitate, nor his
bright certainty that this is a miracle
1008
opportunity: when he turns up with the twins, his
previously distant father-in-law will change his
tune in a hurryAnd the silver chimes those
voices ring in his head, they urge him forward,
tooHe rushes to rescue Adie's sisters, to gather
the lost girls in and splash with them to shore
Emery! That's Tessie, her eyes dark in her chinapale
face
Emery, hurry! That's Laura, with her dripping
white hands held out to him and her lank curls
pasted against her white cheeks
He cries I'm coming, girls! Hold on!
Splashing toward them, now up to his shins, now
his knees
He cries Fight it! as though they are doing
anything but standing there in water that is only
thigh-deep on them, although he's now up to his
own thighs and he's six feet and two inches tall
The water of the Gulf - still
j12 chanel diamond watch chilly in mid-April
- is up to his chest when he reaches them, when he
reaches out to them, and when they seize him with
hands that are stronger than any little girls'
hands should be; by the time he's close enough to
see the silvery gleam in their glazed eyes and
1009
smell the salty, dead-fish aroma coming from their
rotting hair, it's too lateHe struggles, his
cries of joy and his entreaties to fight the
undertow turning first to yells of protest and
then to screams of horror, but by then it is far
too lateThe screams do not last long, in any
caseTheir small hands have become cold claws
digging deep into his flesh as they pull him
deeper, and the water fills his mouth, drowning
his screamsHe sees the ship against the last
cold ashes of the sunset, and - how did he not see
it before? how did he not know? - realizes it is a
hulk, a plague ship, a deathshipSomething is
waiting for him there, something in a shroud, and
he would scream if he could, but now the water
fills his eyes and there are other hands,
balenciaga first ones
that feel like nothing but stripped radiations of
bone, closing around his anklesA talon pulls off
a shoe, then tweaks a toeas if it means to
play "This little piggy went to market" with him
as he drowns
As Emery Paulson drowns
19 - April of '27
1010
i
Someone was yelling in the darkIt sounded like
Make him stop screamingThen there was a flat
hard whacking sound and the dark lit up deep red,
first on one side, then in the backThe red
rolled toward the front of the darkness like a
cloud of blood in water
"You hit him too hard," someone saidWas that
Jack?
"Boss? Hey, boss!" Somebody was shaking me, so I
still had a bodyProbably that was goodJack who? I could get it, but I had to
think sidewaysHis name was like someone on The
Weather Channel -
More shaking"Muchacho! You there?"
My head bonked something, and I opened my eyes
Jack Cantori was kneeling to my left, his face
tight and scaredIt was Wireman in front of me,
on his feet but bending over, shaking me like a
daiquiriThe doll was lying face-down on my
chloe dior lap