Russell Raised His Glass And Put Me Back On Deck

Russell Keene tapped his spoon against a water glass and pointed at my shoes.

“Look at Chang. Still dressed to stay dry.”

Twenty people laughed around the reunion tables. Through the windows, Mobile Bay looked flat and brown. A shrimp boat moved past the pilings with birds hanging behind it.

I was a short Hmong American man with straight black hair, a broad nose, and a pale scar across my left thumb. At twenty-nine, I made adaptive swim fins in a rented shop north of downtown Mobile.

My shoes had rubber dust in their seams.

“These pay the rent,” I said.

“That's good,” Russell said. “Somebody had to make a living after never going below the surface.”

He paused for the second laugh.

“Especially during our famous launch recovery.”

I laid my fork down.

Russell was a tall white man with silver hair at his temples and a square jaw that turned red when he was crossed. At forty-eight, he still wore his uniform like the room belonged to it.

He had been our salvage officer six years earlier. Now he led a small shore command, spoke at dinners, and sat on a local swimming foundation's grant panel.

I had applied to that foundation for $12,000 to build adjustable fin molds.

He knew that.

Beside the ice bucket, Noura Haddad held her cup in both hands.

She was thirty-one now, an Arab American woman with dark curls cut above her collar. Underwater, I had trusted her to find a buckle by touch in complete blackness. On land, near rank, she could spend ten minutes choosing one safe sentence.

“Kou helped with the recovery,” she said.

“On deck,” Russell said. “Absolutely. Every hand matters.”

His smile stayed wide. Her mouth closed.

I reached into my pocket and felt my orange cord. It had once measured harness straps. Now I used it to check heel cups and ankle loops for swimmers whose legs did not move alike.

The cord was frayed at both ends. I measured everything twice with it.

“You remember which harness I wore?” I asked.

Russell set down his glass.

“We have a report for memories like that.”

“I asked about a harness.”

“And I answered you.”

His voice had gone quiet. That was the voice I remembered from the barge.

Somebody asked about dessert.

I left $38 under my plate for dinner and walked outside.

Noura followed me into the damp heat. Across the parking lot, the lights of the causeway shook in standing water.

“You can't start with him in a room full of people,” she said.

“He started.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

She looked back at the door.

That morning in the bay, a storm-sunk service launch had rested eighty-four feet down beside an old federal pier. Russell had ordered us through its side hatch before the loose hatch plate had been lifted clear.

Noura's webbing had caught. Her line had pulled tight against steel.

I had gone back for her.

The final report had put me on deck for the entire recovery. It credited the rescue to Ben Vale, who entered the water after Noura and I had already reached the ascent line.

My name appeared under support personnel.

“Do you still have my recorder?” Noura asked.

“Yes.”

“The gray one?”

“You only gave me one.”

It was an old dive computer she had bought herself. With written approval, she had kept it clipped to her issued harness as a backup depth recorder. That day, I had worn her harness because mine had a broken waist buckle.

Later, she had given me the computer. She said she couldn't stand looking at it.

I had kept the signed gear sheet, too.

Russell had seen the initials scratched into the case and decided its history belonged to her. He had never asked for the first gear assignment.

“Don't take it to him,” she said.

“I wasn't going to.”

“And don't let someone clear the memory.”

I looked at her.

She rubbed a wet ring off her cup.

“I'm trying to tell you something useful.”

At home, above my shop, I opened the biscuit tin where I kept my discharge papers and my mother's letters.

The computer lay inside a wool sock. Beneath it was a folded carbon copy with a blue signature pressed hard enough to dent the paper.

HARNESS 6B. RECORDER NH04. DIVER: K. CHANG.

I laid my orange cord beside it and flattened the fold with my palm.

My phone rang.

Noura spoke before I could say hello.

“He asked me where you keep it.”