Then
He hates the ocean. Hates himself for loving it once.
God, he loved the water before that day.
Just couldn’t get enough of it. Fishing, swimming, surfing, diving.
Before school and after, rushing off the bus, throwing his bag on the sand, plunging straight into that blessed water until the sky grew dark.
Sometimes Dad had to drag him out by the ankles, laughing the whole time.
He’s eight years old when it tries to take him. Waist-deep in the ocean, hot sun burning his shoulders.
A wave rose up so high it blocked out the sun. It looked like the entire ocean was folding in half. Panic swelled in his chest. His knees buckled as the wave dragged him toward its mouth. Loud. God, it was loud, that rising roar.
And then crashing down it came like a fist to the head.
The shock, the cold, the breathless panic as he’s slammed under. He kicks his legs, terrified and confused, which way is the surface? Cold, cold, can’t breathe. The wave, its cold angry hand plunges him down. Holds him there. Wants him to drown. Wants him dead.
Can’t breathe. He kicks hard, stops. He doesn’t know which way is up. Lungs ache. Can’t breathe.
Images.
Mum peeling potatoes at the sink.
Dad knee-deep in the water, fishing rod gripped in his right hand.
Jesus, his mind screams out, Jesus. Help me.
He never could explain it. But a moment later, he’s at the surface like someone’s reached down through the water, grabbed his shoulders, and pulled him out. He looks around. But there’s no one there.
On wobbly legs, he half bends over, vomits so hard his vision goes black. The salt water burns as it pours out. Feels like scraping teeth. He empties his stomach, waits for the rest to come out, because he still feels it, coating his stomach, soaking his lungs. The water.
For days after, he avoids the ocean. Tries to forget. Can’t.
He bums a smoke in the school toilets, a morning ritual, but when he brings the cigarette to his lips, he hears himself crying out in the water, Help me, Jesus.
He inhales, feels guilty as hell about it. Wonders if Jesus is watching him, disapproving.
But he can’t avoid the bloody ocean. His dad makes a living from it, and his dad before him. They don’t feel it. They don’t understand the ocean and its legacy of violence. But he does. Now.
Look at the ripples on the surface: There’s a struggle below. Life and death. Mainly death. Look at the southern calamari squid, humble and wary and hiding in the reeds.
But are they hiding from you? Or hiding in ambush? He’s seen them snatch baby herrings into their beaklike mouths, stripping them to the spine. Given the chance, they’ll even eat each other. You’ve got to watch anything that pretends it’s prey.
They’re usually the predator.
—
The next time Dad takes him fishing, he hovers anxiously at the edge of the water, eyes shifting over the flat surface. There’s violence in the calm, he knows that now. What else is in that dark abyss, waiting?
Dad hauls out a sparkling mullet, reaches immediately for the knife, and for the first time in his life, he can’t look.
“Open ya eyes,” Dad commands. “It’s just the way of things, son.”
But it’s not. Not this stretch of beach, not this ocean. This ocean is violent and restless. This ocean is so hungry, it hurts.
For years after, he’s jittery and sick around it. Even at home he bolts awake from nightmares, vomiting in his bedsheets, salt water on his lips.
One night, he’s lying awake on his pillow, and he swears he can hear the ocean rumbling inside.
The water. The violence. It keeps calling him back. The more he ignores it, the louder it calls. The only time he feels still is when he’s sharpening his fishing knife. But inside, his pulse and thoughts are racing. Inside, there’s a hum. A tight coil of anticipation that never unwinds.
And that call, that maddening call, looping through his brain until he can’t hear anything else. Not the cartoons Minnow watches on Saturday mornings or Heath chopping kangaroo meat in the kitchen while their mother weeps in their bedroom.
He can’t hear his own family, but when he does, there’s hell to pay.
When he does, he becomes the ocean. It throbs in his ears, spews out his mouth, raging, violent, endless.
On those days, he can’t tell where he begins and the sea ends.
Doesn’t care, either. In his mind, they’re just one, salt and skin, breath and tide.
On those days, he loves it. But lately, the call is louder, rattling in his teeth. More, it roars. More, more, more!
One day it’ll stop, he tells himself. One day it has to.
But it doesn’t.
All the days of his life, he hears the ocean.
Calling.