THE SEARCH FOR EDDIE LEBEAU

by

G. Alexander Virden

Copyright 1996 all rights reserved

 

Though I'd had a collective count of six hours of sleep, in the last four days, I woke up on the first ring. The phone's shrill electronic attack, made my body crunch, as if the line were hooked into my spinal column. I jerked, the way you do when you've spent ten hours in a car trying to keep from falling asleep, and your brain is still out on the road doing seventy five miles an hour.

Driving back to New Orleans, from Galveston, the night before, had been a level of Dante's Inferno: burning crusty eyes and the kind of headache that comes from an eight-hour crew boat ride with ten foot cross swells. It felt like the rig had been drilling for oil in my skull, instead of on the bottom of the Gulf.

The thunder storm started right after we got off the Galveston ferry heading east and it followed us all the way to the Louisiana state line. The interstate had no lights. Not one peep of luminance from the sky or horizon, not even the dull orange glow of a refinery flare. Except when the tree branch lighting blinded me-breaking on both sides of the road and in front of the car-visibility seemed inches from the headlights. My windshield wipers were like a fly swatter on an elephant’s ass; the water wasn't going anywhere.

My eyes pealed open scratching sand across the balls and I looked at the clock; eight A.M., I'd been asleep for two hours. The third ring gnawed on my last nerve like a beaver and my tree was ready to fall. I looked at the answering machine, no other messages. It would procrastinate at least three more rings. My diver sense was tingling like 7-up. It had to be work. I didn't want to talk to the shop, but if I had to listen to one more ring I was going to rip the phone out of the wall and turn it into a jigsaw puzzle and I couldn't afford another phone.

"Hello." The word clawed its way out of my throat like an angry cat up a tree.

"Phil?" Bill sounded like he was in a desperate hurry. He always sounded like he was in a desperate hurry, especially if you needed something from him.

"Yeah." I covered the phone and coughed a few times trying to get my voice to wake up. Then crumpled up my last pack of Marlboro Lights, tossed it at the porcelain cat, and poked through the ashtray for a long butt. Fat chance. "What's up?"

"Sorry to wake you up, man. How did the inspection go?" He spoke like it killed him to say hello before he got to the point of what he needed. It always seemed as if all those words were locked in his mouth, like thoroughbreds kicking at the stalls, and each second of delay caused him great physical pain. I decided to take the time to crawl up on the cross a bit. There isn't a diver, who's ever been wet, that doesn't have a bit of the martyr in him.

"It was a nightmare: sand blasting, standing by on the radio, sleeping on the dive hoses fifteen minutes at a time. Video cables, Mag Particle cables . . . "

"Well, the reason I'm calling is I got a job you might be interested in."

"What is it?" I examined a butt with almost as much tobacco as filter and lit it, being careful not to burn my hair from the close flame.

"You got your own scuba gear, don't you?"

"Yeah." The Marlboro was only good for three puffs before I started smoking filter and had to put it out. I sat up throwing my legs over the edge of the bed, trying to scrape the taste of the filter, from the roof of my mouth with my tongue.

"I got a job in . . . I got the name written down here somewhere . . . " I could hear him shuffling through papers on his desk. "It's up in northern Louisiana working for the Sheriff's Department, just you and another diver with scuba gear. Shouldn't be no more than a couple a' hours work, but I need you to leave right away."

"Bill, I don't think . . . "

"It pays union and I think they got a hotel room up there for you; so you won't have to drive back tonight. I thought of you, cause I know you're trying to make some extra money for a truck, and I knew you had scuba gear."

What Bill was telling me was: if they could get away with scuba, they could still charge equipment rental and transportation, without the company having to put out for a truck. Not that I would see a dime of that money. It was obvious what was happening, but Louisiana is a right to work state and if you even mention union you'll find a pink slip in your paycheck. Just the idea of getting paid scale appealed to my rebellious nature.

There's a lot of fantasy floating around about how much commercial divers make. Making a lot of money on a dive is possible. It’s also quite possible you'll go a month, or even three months, without a pay check. Most divers drive old four door sedans or new, stripped down, pick up trucks that they buy on long loans and beat to death hauling equipment.

"So what's the job?" I massaged the lump of coal behind my forehead and tried to remember if I'd taken out the trash since the last time I dumped the ashtray.

"Body search. That's why you have to leave right now."

I sat up at that. It was a situation I thought I might face one day, but now that it was on the plate it looked uncooked.

"Do you have any details?"

"No, just that it's a small lake. They had some local people trying, but they don't really know search patterns and they haven't been able to find it." I could sense Bill wanted to get off the phone. If I wasn't going to say yes, he didn't want to waste any time starting up his machine for somebody else.

"Who's the other diver?" I left commitment out of my voice. I was tired and felt like being cruel.

"Kurt."

I had to smile as I paused my answer. I could see Bill sitting in his office. The phone gripped in his hand like a hammer, ready to slam down, his finger poised to punch in a new number. "Can Kurt drive so I can get some sleep on the way up?"

"Yeah he said he would drive."

"Okay, tell him to come by and pick me up, I'll be ready by the time he gets here."

Bill said something and was off the phone before I could say goodbye.

Under normal circumstances, scuba is never used in commercial diving, so all my stuff was in the back of the closet. When Kurt got to my apartment the gear dusted off and sitting by the door. I’d also finished off a pot of coffee, the last three cups with healthy shots of cheep brandy, lots of cream and sugar. I call the drink a Jump Start, because it will get me on the dance floor when I haven't got the energy to watch TV. Kurt and I had a couple of Jump Starts then he helped me taxi the equipment down to his Chevy S-10.

It was one of those especially sunny days that you get after a week of rain. I rolled down the passenger’s window and stuck my face out; the heat and the moist air felt good on my skin. The navy had my father stationed in the Philippines when I was born and I've never lost my taste for tropical weather.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, Kurt stabbed Pearl Jam into the tape deck and cranked the stereo. I tried to focus on, and read, the sadly inadequate map that Bill had drawn for us to follow.

"Go down de Gaulle to the bridge. Take 90 to 10 East. That exit's right by the Super Dome, and it's easy to miss, so watch it." I looked up from the map and grinned. "Hey. We're going through Slidell!"

"Check in Check out, buddy!" Kurt raised his hand and we slapped five high. Po-boys from The Checker were the highlight of any trip heading east. My personal favorite selection: Large catfish Po-boy, dressed, large side of red beans and rice, topped off with a hunk of homemade bread pudding. Mmmm-Mmmm good cracker.

Sleep was no longer an option after my second Jump Start, which was probably in my best interest. If you've ever slept in the passenger seat of a base model, S-10, you know it can take a week of traction to get your neck to move to the left again. My fatigue had reached that level surrealism that basically you either die or think everything is extremely funny. I chose the latter. Having driven back from Mobil Bay, the night before, Kurt was in the same chamber.

Divers are divided into a few basic categories: Those, with fathers, like mine, that caused you to retaliate against all authority and who couldn't face any job that said you had to be there at a certain time every day. Some how the fact we have to be there twenty four hours a day for weeks or months at a time doesn’t seem to matter as much as punching a time clock. Then you got your mamas’ boy's, trying to prove they’re men. Kurt was one of those rare exceptions, who just thought it would be a cool thing to do. It was a relief, because I had enough soul searching about old men who used their kids as punching bags and I wasn't in the mood to hear how wonderful potty training had been with Memaw.

The topic of conversation became, who's the stiff in the Big Gulp. Some New Orleans crime boss who got too greedy? If so we'd have to frisk the body for cash and jewelry before we brought it up. We carried the game through a long list of unlikely options until it was spent of even the sickest humor that sleep depravation can dream up and then started on things like: Would his eyes be open? Was it a suicide? If so would he be wearing his best suit?

It was a little after ten when we got to Slidell. Rationalizing that, since neither of us had more than four hours of sleep in the last twenty-four, it was not morning, but some form of after night, we bought a six pack of Bud Tall Boys. Half a Po-boy and 10 miles farther down the road our exhaustion had turned us giddy. We were hysterical about things that would normally not warrant a smirk.

A few miles before we got to the town I glanced at Kurt and didn't want to see my reflection. The six pack was gone and so were we. This was no way to meet a small town Sheriff for work. I saw a rest stop and pointed.

"Pit stop, Kurt, we need to spit and polish." Kurt looked at himself in the rear view and nodded. He pulled into the rest stop and we took our ditty bags into the bathroom, shaved, brushed our teeth and put on cologne. I brushed my teeth a second time and swallowed the spit, before satisfied my breath was nontoxic. A little Visine, a little jell in the hair, and we were showroom new.

The town looked about like any one of all of the Louisiana towns, I've been through, with size being the only variant. If not for the slightly tropical flora you could be in Nebraska and not know the difference: big brick school, baseball field, and a Frosty Freeze, by some generic name because there wasn’t any competition to warrant a franchise. It sat out by the highway and on Friday and Saturday night it would be surrounded by highly polished, second hand cars. Kids smoking joints and pretending to be tough and cool, wondering if sex felt the same as doing it yourself.

There was a town square with a coffee shop, by the name of Shirley's, and a patrol car parked outside like the map said it would be. Kurt parked next to the patrol car. Suddenly I was nervous as hell. I looked at Kurt and we sucked in a simultaneous sigh. I can only guess he felt the same; we never talked about it afterwards.

The Deputy didn't have any trouble figuring out who we were and he stood up, from the long, white, Formica counter, before we got inside.

"You boys the divers?" His voice had the tinge of awe that you hear from small town men, who are on the shy side of twenty-five, when they meet someone who falls into the exotic outsider category. The advantage let me relax a level and I took off my Lightening Bolt's. Kurt made no move for his Gargoyles.

"Yeah, I'm Phil. This is Kurt."

"I'm Chet." He announced, though I'd already swiped the information of his brass name tag. We all shook hands and stood through a pause.

"The Sheriff's down at the lake. You fellows want something before we go down? Your boss told us you been up all night." He indicated the counter and thick middle aged woman standing behind it.

"We ate on the way here, but I could use some coffee to go."

"Same here." Kurt added.

"Shirley, you want to get these boys some coffee."

You know you're in a small town when they name the coffee shop after the person behind the counter. She got two super size Styrofoam cups and emptied a pot of coffee into them; she, apparently, was also aware we had been up all night.

"Cream and suga’?"

"Sweat and Low." I answered.

She gave me a look as though she wanted to ask me if I were diabetic, then took out a box of sweetener from under the counter. She mixed up our brew and pushed the cups across the counter with lids on them. I reached for my wallet and she waved her hand over the cups as if she were casting a spell.

"No charge."

"You sure?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Thank you." The edge was crawling back on me. My vision seemed to have an exaggerated, hallucinogenic, quality. As though the camera was going to pan left and Rod Sterling, surrounded in a cloud of, blue-grey, smoke, inhaling his breaths through an unfiltered cigarette, would start talking. "Case in point two divers who thought they were just going on another job . . . "

"You boys follow me. I'll lead you down to the lake." I looked at the young Deputy and nodded.

I'd expected a few patrol cars, and a Hearse or ambulance, not what looked like the whole town. The Deputy pulled off the crushed shell parking lot onto the grass. We followed parking next to him and another patrol car. Large groups of people were gathered around the picnic tables by the lake. Some were sitting, but most stood up with our arrival, though made no move to come over to us.

The smell of pine needles reminded me of when my dad was stationed at an isolated base near Williamsburg. There were only a few other families on the base and I spent most of my time out in the woods by myself. For three years, from the time I was nine to twelve, fantasies, and trees, had been my only real companions. I could be blind and know I was standing in a cluster of pine trees, from the smell and the feel of pine needles under my tennis shoes, and some part of my mind returns to those trails and the years I spent exploring them and hiding from my father.

I watched a man, tall, well built, except the slight gut crawling over his belt, who wore a tan uniform and straw cowboy hat, with a badge perched in front of it, turn and look at us. He walked up from the lake, with his head down, watching his feet. A way of moving that looked unnatural for him and caused his body to shift awkwardly, as if he were recovering from a broken hip. His forearms were the size of a strong man's biceps and were tan and covered with thick salt and pepper hair. He stopped in front of us and took off his Ray-Ban Aviators. I reluctantly lowered my own shades. I felt no advantage with this man. Kurt stood half looking at the lake, keeping his eyes covered.

"I'm Sheriff Rebowe." He extended his hand and I shook it, careful not to let him get hold of just my fingers.

"Phil Lawson."

"Kurt." Kurt reached over and shook his hand quickly and went back to looking at the lake.

"I appreciate you boys, getting here so quickly, your boss told me you been traveling all night."

I nodded. Good old Bill, operation managers have a little martyr in them too.

"What happened?" I asked and Kurt turned and gave the Sheriff his attention.

"Russell Bulot swam out to the middle of the lake and panicked on the way back. Eddie Lebeau jumped in and tried to save him." The Sheriff said these names as if we would know who they were and I was sure he'd known them all their lives. "Russell started to struggle and he took Eddie down. Michael Matthews managed to get a hand on Russell, but Eddie . . . Eddie didn't make it."

"When did it happen?" Kurt asked.

"Last evening, at dusk."

"How deep's the water?" I was glad Kurt was asking the questions.

"About twenty feet."

"How old . . . " My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. "How old was he?"

"His birthday is in April." The Sheriff said, thinking aloud. "That would make him, ten."

There it was. We weren't looking for some drunk who drove his car in the lake, or some guy in a suit with cement overshoes. We were looking for a kid, a kid that died trying to be a hero. I felt like King Kong had punched me in the chest.

"If this were anybody else, we would drag for the body, but we're all friends of Betsy's. She lost her husband earlier this year and no one wants to see that boy being pulled up on a fish hook."

"Yeah that's understandable." Kurt answered politely. I kept looking at the crowd, I hadn't expected this, it was too real. "Well, we'll go ahead and get dressed out." Kurt said, looking back at the truck.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" The Sheriff's voice had heartbreaking sincerity and I couldn't look at him. It wasn't like the same offer made on other jobs where they ask you, to be polite, before they sit down, have their coffee, and smoke a cigarette. He felt helpless and wanted to do something; it was a painful thing to realize his stoic figure. I felt Kurt look at me, but I couldn't talk, so I didn't return his glance. I wished I had something for the Sheriff to do.

"No, we can handle it . . . "

"Clump weights." The words came out my mouth the instant they came through my brain. I hadn't turned around yet; I was looking at the aluminum boat the local boys had been using.

"Excuse me?"

When I turned, the Sheriff was looking at me.

"You could set the clump weights while we're changing." Talking was like trying to ride a bike, uphill, with a flat rear tire. I motioned for him to follow and walked to the bed of the pickup.

"To set the search pattern we use clump weights, with down lines tied to a buoy on the surface." I held up the rope looped next to the weight. "We use these fifty foot tag lines to make increasing circles on the bottom. When you reach the end of the tag line, you move the weight, so we don't cover the same area twice."

"Makes sense. That's the problem our boys were having, getting lost down there." His voice had become steady now that we were discussing a plan of action.

"If you could take these to where you think . . . we should start and set them a hundred feet apart, it would be a big help." I glanced at Kurt. He was staring at me. I picked up the first clump weight. They're solid, forty pound, cubes of iron, and awkward to pull out the back of a truck. The effort felt good. The Sheriff snatched up the second weight, before I had the first out of the truck, then reached for the one I was holding. He took both of them and walked down to the boat without saying anything else.

"You all right, Phil?" I jumped when Kurt spoke.

"Yeah, why?"

"You look like you're about to hit someone."

"I'm a little tense. I didn’t expect it to be a kid, and all these people . . .

"Yeah, I wasn't counting on them either."

Wrapping towels around our waists we put our wet suits on surfer style. I took some weight off my belt leaving barely enough to keep me on the bottom. I flipped the tank over my head, fastened my harness, picked up my fins, and walked down to the boat.

It was too quiet. No breeze, or birds, dogs were leashed, and for the number of people watching the crowd was practically silent. Those who did speak did so in whispers and murmurs. I had to remind myself this wasn't the city; these weren't the rubber neckers who liked to watch A Current Affair and Hard Copy, they were friends and family, come out to hold hands and support Betsy, Betsy Lebeau.

I tried not to look, to stay focused on the boat, but the nagging pull in the side of my face got me. The world slowed, someone shut off the sound in my head, as I turned and locked eyes with Betsy. No one had to point her out. Those eyes said everything to me. I coughed and felt my eyes stinging.

'Find my boy.' I heard her flat, controlled, voice in my head. 'I will.' I answered in the same way.

Forcing my eyes back to the boat, as I got to the shore line, speed returned to normal. I climbed in the boat. It had an electric trolling motor and I was grateful for its silence as the Sheriff brought us out to the buoys. I think the crackling roar of an outboard would have shattered my nerves at that point. I turned to the Sheriff.

"When we get through searching an area we'll come over and tug on the down line. When you see the buoy bobbing up and down, pick it up and move it. We'll swim along the bottom. If we tug on the line, after you pick it up, that means we found him." The Sheriff nodded as I spoke and I felt no need of verbal conformation.

Kurt went in on the first buoy. I rolled over the side onto the second one. The water was rusty brown. Within three feet of the surface it completely filtered out the sun. I pulled myself down on the buoy line the first five feet, then as the water pressure compressed the air out of my suit, let myself sink slowly down.

With all the caffeine, I had zooming through me, my sinuses were wide open and I could have gone straight to the bottom. I wasn't having any trouble clearing my ears, but did have to fight the urge to hyperventilate. I used the decent time to slow my breathing by concentrating on the sound of air coming in and bubbling out of my regulator. My heart was beating so fast, it was as if I expected Eddie to be waiting for me, right at the clump weight. Ready to embrace me with his cold dead arms, for coming down to get him, the fallen hero.

I didn't check my depth gauge, but I hit bottom at about seventeen feet. It was black, the kind of black, you'd imagine, if someone cut your eyes out. Not being able to see is the norm and I kept my light switched off. Commercial diving seldom takes you to the type of water you find in Acapulco. Most of the time I keep my eyes closed and build this blue light image, in my mind. I watch myself from a prospective of a little ahead and to the right. This time all I could see was Betsy standing there, surrounded by the town, and all of her I could see was her eyes.

Holding the tag line with my left hand, I began feeling around with my right. I found a stick and stabbed it in the bottom behind me so I would know when I finished my circle. With a deep, reluctant, breath I began my search, expecting to touch him every time I set down my hand. Worried I would put my hand on his face or his crotch, or that I would miss him with my hand and run into him with my face.

Each circle took a little longer as I moved my stick out along the tag line. At one point I put my hand on a branch, thought I had his leg, and nearly rocketed to the surface in panic. Finally reaching the end of the tag line, I laid there concentrating on my breathing. The blue light image was forming and I watched myself for a moment before swimming back to the down line and giving it a tug.

The Sheriff must have been close, because he picked up the line almost immediately. I swam along the bottom as he moved fifty feet. The second circle was a little easier. Listening to myself breathing, without the interference of other noise, sets me into a light trance. I become detached from myself, if not dazed, while still being able to carry out whatever it is I'm working on.

By the third circle I was day dreaming. Then I put my hand right in his. My body stiffened and my head dropped. Our fingers laced together and I closed my hand. I laid there on my stomach, my face in the mud, holding his hand, not breathing. When the air finally exploded from my lungs, I took a few deep breaths and switched on my light. The water was so dense I had to get close enough to blow air in his mouth to see his eyes, her eyes, staring. I reached up with my hand, gently closed them, and switched off my light.

If I'd been using surface supplied air, I would have stayed there, holding his hand, until it got dark. I couldn't face the image of all those people standing up in the sunshine and me down there, with the kid, in my blue light hell. After a while I knew I had to be running out of air. I held the pressure gauge against my mask, opened my eyes, and looked at the luminous dial. I didn't have to read it to know it was less than five hundred pounds.

Guessing the direction of shore I swam pulling Eddie Lebeau behind me, and it wasn't long before I felt the bottom angling up. I kicked off my fins, let them sink, and carried Eddie in my arms.

When light penetrated the water to my depth, it was getting hard to breathe. As I broke the surface, I sucked the tank dry and had to spit the regulator out of my mouth. I pushed the mask off my face with my shoulder, shook it from my head, and got my first clear view of Eddie. He looked like his mother. He was still young enough that masculinity had not taken over his face. I was glad I'd closed his eyes as much for my sake as hers.

No one moved as I walked across the grass. I noticed the Sheriff pull up to the shore with Kurt in the boat. Betsy was frozen, her mouth slightly open, her hand half raised in a gesture of reaching out. I carried the little boy, who had wanted to be a hero, to his mother and laid him on the grass. She looked at me.

'He's gone.’ She said in my mind.

'Yes, he's gone.' I answered, and looked down at her son. Her eyes followed mine to Eddie. I turned and walked toward the truck. After a moment she made this . . . sound. It wasn't a human. It was pain, not as a word, or a concept, but as a sound. The sound impaled me through the spine and shattered every impulse to live. I kept walking, not considering a backward glance; if I had stopped, I would have fallen. If had turned back I would have turn into a pillar of salt.

Making no attempt to cover myself, I stripped off my suit. I had pissed myself when I found Eddie and the suit smelled foul. I tried for a moment to towel the smell off my body, then I put on my shorts and stuck my feet in my sandals. Then threw all my gear in the bed of the truck and got in.

The sheriff came over and talked to me, but I really didn't hear anything he said. Kurt filled out the time ticket and had him sign it. He asked if we wanted to stay at the Motel 6, I shook my head no. He said thanks one more time and I said. "No sweat."

When Kurt stopped at a red light, I looked at him. He felt my eyes on him and turned toward me.

"They were open." Kurt looked at me with a blank stare; then it hit him and he nodded.

Kurt pulled into a Time Saver and got a six-pack. He handed me a beer and halfway through it I had to get him to stop. I vomited until I was crawling along the side of the road gagging on dry heaves, my eyes watering, like I was cutting red onions.

The only thing we had to drink was beer and I was choking. I forced down half a can and blew my stomach dry a second time. It foamed out of my mouth and nose like a hot soda slammed on the deck. Moving slower than a man facing the death penalty, I got back in the truck.

At the rest stop, I drank water until I sloshed when I walked. The stress lobotomized me and I don't remember much of the ride home, though each of us occasionally commented on something.

For three days I sat at home, living off peanut butter toast, or ramen noodles, when I got hungry, which wasn't often. I didn't touch the liquor sitting on top of the refrigerator. On the second day I realized it had been three years since I'd gone a day, when I wasn't offshore, without a drink. I threw my cigarettes in the trash, took them out, smoked one, tore the filters off the rest, and stuffed them in the garbage disposal.

The television was on even when I was asleep and I couldn't tell you one thing I watched. My dreams were distorted blue light hells that I would wake up from, sweating and shaking, not remembering anything, but knowing Eddie had been there.

I spent a lot of time standing in front of the closet mirror pinching the fat that had started covering the shape of my muscles. I hadn't done a damn thing with myself in the three years since I'd broken out as a diver. Now I saw grapes turning to vinegar instead of wine.

On the third day I tried doing a hundred sit-ups and pushups. The sit-ups weren't too bad, it only took three sets to make a hundred, but it took me seven sets to make the same number of face squats. It had taken me years to take off the weight that years of abuse had hung on my body. Now I’d become what I'd promised myself I never would again. Only this time it wasn't my old man wearing me out, it was me.

I tied on my red Converse Chuck's, strapped on my watch, and headed down to the street. Fifteen minutes into the run, I was doubled over, holding my side, and crying. No, my gut didn't hurt that badly. I was crying for Eddie and for me. He'd had his life taken and I was throwing mine away.

When I dropped out of school, after a fight with my dad, I'd sworn I would finish my degree in marine biology, when I was making money as a diver and hadn't taken one credit since. I had once been a serious 10K competitor. Now I couldn't run two miles without falling over and the highlight of my day had become the bottom of my first bottle of beer.

That was two months ago. I've still got ten pounds to get rid of, but I can make two miles without feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack. I've borrowed some of my girlfriend's math and English books, to study and get my brain working again, and I'm looking into U.N.O..

I often think of going to see Eddie's mother, but I don't know what I'd say if I did. Also I wouldn't want to risk bringing up things she might be trying to forget. I would like her to know that in the end Eddie hadn't died for nothing. He had saved me. When I dream about him now, he's no longer trapped in the dark, struggling with me. He's running through a field of high autumn grass, the sun yellow and bright, playing catch with his dad, in that place, reserved forever, for heroes.

THE END