The Skindiver and The Lady

It all started when I found the girl's bathing suit on the floor of the ocean, four miles out, with a conch shell on it to keep it from drifting away.

I had gone out to French Reef for a little spear fishing, taking my boat out from Rock Harbor, on the Florida Keys, where I live. When I got to the spot I wanted I put on my gear – tank of air on my back, mask, flippers, spear gun, weight belt, mouthpiece in place – and went over the side. There was a swarm of bait fish there, I knew, and where the little ones are the big ones come for lunch. I'd seen the other skiff about a hundred yards away, empty, and hadn't given it much thought: another bunch of skindivers, tourists who didn't know what to look for.

So I swam down into that fantastic world. I've been doing it for years, but it gets me every time: the way you hang weightless over that dream landscape of coral, with the gaudy little fish scooting among the sea fans and the coral heads looming up from the white sand, with the canyons between. It's like nothing else on this earth, and you know that it promises adventure.

Especially if you find a girl's bathing suit with no girl in it, 30 feet down.

That's what I found on this trip. I was swimming through one of the canyons and there it was on the sand, with the heavy shell on it; and while I was getting over my first amazement the shell sprouted a couple of eyes on stalks and began to move away. Whoever had put it there had picked a live conch for a weight, and not very long ago. The bra drifted off in one direction, the pants in another. I realized that this was a time for gallantry. I recovered the garments and put a rock on them. I also realized that this was a time for sentiment: I drew a heart in the sand around the

little pile to frame the charming picture.

And then, of course, I set off to find the girl.

There was no sign of her. I swam on down the canyon and around the huge coral head at the end of it. There below me, in a pocket of the reef, were the bait fish, tens of thousands of two-inch glass-fish, like a bowl of milk under water. When I swam into them they faded aside in front of me, and closed in behind, until I was totally cut off from the rest of the world. This is all right, I said to myself, but it is no way to find that dish.

But I was wrong. I was still near the top of the bowl of fish, and now I noticed a sort of chimney of clear water through them, with bubbles of air coming up it; and when I put my head over the edge of this chimney and looked down, there was my mermaid.

Now it is perfectly obvious that a guy who finds an empty bathing suit under such circumstances is going to fill it in his imagination with a perfect specimen of the female animal. Of course, there is not a chance in a thousand that the specimen in question is perfect, or anywhere near it; but that's the way the mind works, and what are you going to do? So you can understand my delight on discovering that this girl-well, words fall short; you wouldn't believe me if I spelled it out. She was exactly what fitted into that underwater dream landscape. Lying on the sand, reaching up into the fishes to see them dodge away, she was laughing, despite her mouthpiece; and there just wasn't anything wrong with the shape of her.

I hung there awhile, peeking over the chimney and wondering what to do. I thought of taking off one of my weights and dropping it down the chimney onto her tummy, by way of a calling card, and then swimming down to introduce myself. But there were a number of other choices and some of them seemed wiser. I flatter myself that I chose the wisest: I quietly withdrew. I swam back to my boat and took off. The place to meet this girl, I figured, was ashore, and it shouldn't be too difficult to find out who she was.

It wasn't. There are only a few places in this part of the Keys where you can rent equipment or get air for diving tanks, and I knew she would have to patronize one of them. So the next morning I drove into Charlie's place, on Key Largo, and asked casually whether he was doing much business.

"Hell," he said, "I haven't cranked up the compressor in two weeks. No rentals, either. Those jokers in Miami are siphoning off all the trade."

"No skindivers around?" I asked.

"Believe me, not a one," he said. "Not one. You can take my word for it."

"I believe you, Charlie," I said, and took off down the road to Ralph's place. Now this guy Ralph is a "Conch"-a born-and-bred native of the Keys-which means that he is just naturally an ornery character. In addition, he fancies himself as God's gift to womankind, simply because he happens to have a profile of such classic perfection that he makes John Barrymore look like Jimmy Durante. He is so proud of this profile that if you are to the north of him, he faces east so you'll be sure to see it and admire it. In short, a disgustingly vain individual. Also, he is not exactly addicted to doing favors for people. I knew I'd have to sneak up on him, so to speak, so I was very subtle in my approach.

"Hi, Schnozzola," I said. "Beautiful day, isn't it? Sold any air lately?"

"What do you care?" he asked. (See what I mean?)

"Oh, I'm doing some important research," I said. "For the Chamber of Commerce."

"In other words," he said, "you are trying to track down that gorgeous piece who filled a couple of bottles here yesterday."

"Oh, is there a gorgeous piece around?" I asked. "I didn't know that. Now, the Chamber of Commerce--"

"Can it," Ralph said; and suddenly he got quite pugnacious. "Listen, buster, I don't want you in here raiding my preserve. I have that quail all staked out for myself. In a couple more days I got that dish on my table. So don't go sticking your head in where somebody is likely to take a poke at it."

"You live in a dreamworld, Apollo," I said, getting a bit angry. "You take a poke at me and I'll change that nose of yours from Greek to Roman."

"These juveniles!" Ralph hollered. "No breeding, no good sense! Just stay out of my way, First Little Pig, or I'll blow your house down."

Imagine-that gigolo trying to intimidate me!

I still didn't know where she was staying, but I remembered she had a boat from the Ship-'n'-Shore Motel. If she was holed up there that was a big break for me, because the Ship-'n'-Shore is the only big motel in this area, with a restaurant and bar-in other words, a place where you can informally move in on people. So that evening I dropped in there for a drink, and the very first thing I saw in the cocktail lounge was my mermaid-it was as easy as that; and the next thing I saw was that the guy at the table with her was Ralph. I bought a drink at the bar, and cast a look or two in the girl's direction. Out of the water, with that mane of auburn hair lying on her shoulders and without a mask over her face, she was even more beautiful than before.

"I know what you're thinking," my friend Joe, the bartender, said. "But watch your step, boy. Her name is Flame Dawson, and Ralph is keeping a very sharp eye on her. What a cookie! But watch out for that Conch-they play rough and dirty."

"Well, I guess I can handle old Ralph," I said, and strolled over to their table with my drink. Now, I don't want to boast, but I am a big, husky boy, all covered with rippling muscles, and I radiate lusty animal spirits. I have noticed that girls usually take a long look at me and sort of gulp for air, and then start shivering. Sure enough, that's what happened this time. Needless to say, Ralph saw it, and he jumped up from the table as if someone had put a firecracker under him.

"Excuse me, Miss Dawson," I said-suave, you know-"for breaking in on you this way. My name's Ed. I noticed you were sitting here with my friend Ralph, and I thought maybe you were one of our select fraternity of skin-divers."

"That's right," Ralph said. "She dives. And she is in very good hands. Now move on, creep, before you get to be a nuisance."

"Well, that's very interesting," I said, easing myself into the other chair at the table. Ralph was furious, but all he could do was to sit down too. "Matter of fact, I thought maybe I could give you a few pointers on the reef-likely spots, and so on."

"How awfully kind of you," Flame said, still sort of gasping for breath. "Yes, I do need someone to show me--"

"And she has just the person she needs," Ralph put in. "She has me. She is quite well provided for."

"She sure is!" I exclaimed, forgetting myself. Then, turning to her: "It is fascinating out there, isn't it?"

"Oh, indeed it is!" Flame said. "Why yesterday--"

"I'll bet you found the swarm of little fishies," I suggested.

"Why, yes!" she said. "And the amazing thing is, they let you right in among them."

"Fascinating, isn't it?" I said. "And those big queen conchs out there-one minute they look like a shell, and the next minute they look just like any old piece of coral rock. Isn't that astonishing?"

Flame gave me a big long double-take. "Oh, sweet day a-dawning!" she whispered.

"I guess we'd better be moving along, Flame," Ralph said, and signaled to Joe.

"Yes," she said slowly, fixing those big gray eyes on me. "It's amazing. And they make such curious tracks in the sand, don't they? Oh, mercy me!"

"Yup," I said.

She stood up and held out her hand.

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"I appreciate your interest, Ed," she said. "Somehow I feel that you know me much better than I know you."

"It's just that I know the reef better," I said modestly as I took her hand. Her middle finger was curled under.

"We really do gotta go," Ralph said angrily, and went to the bar to pay up.

"Tomorrow?" she asked in a whisper.

"About two," I whispered back.

Ralph returned and took her possessively by the arm. "Scram, bum," he hissed at me. "Are you looking to get hurt?"

"Well, that's life," Joe said, when I got back to the bar. "Like I told you, he has that girl under lock and key. And listen, Eddie boy, take the word of an old pro and go back to your butterfly collection. You haven't got a chance."

...

I was out on the reef the next day long before two. I couldn't wait until two and I was hoping she couldn't either. But she could. It was a quarter past when her boat passed the light and came within hailing distance. I stood up and waved. Instead of coming on she circled around and then cut the motor, a good 300 yards away. She stood up and made a pointing motion down toward the water. I'm pretty fast on the old I.Q., so I understood right away what she meant. This was going to be a strictly submarine romance. I gave her another wave of the arm and dropped over the side.

My boat was anchored right where the bait fish had been before; but this day they weren't there – they move around from place to place. This part of the reef is like parallel descending streets of sand with high cliffs on either side and with deep pockets penetrating the cliffs at their base. The sand floor was about 40 feet down, and I couldn't see any point to getting into one of those caves: after all, nobody else was around. I went down to the bottom and waited. in that incredible scenery; and while I was waiting, of course, I sort of prepared myself for what was coming. I figured that Flame would see my bubbles coming up, and would find me there in the canyon.

Which is exactly what happened. The little reef fish were swimming back and forth, and once or twice a stupid blue angel, about the size of a serving platter, would nose up to me. Then I heard Flame's motor, and a few minutes later they all scooted off. I looked up. Flame was coming down toward me, beautiful, naked, her hair flowing behind her: a dream coming true. She put her arms around my neck, and I put my arms around her; and there we were, with the rest of mankind as far away as it could be, in and altogether different dimension, in a different world.

The mermaid, as you know, is one of the most ancient fantasies in human lore. Mermaids have sat on rocks, slithered into the water, combed their hair, seduced sailors, sung sweet songs, broken up marriages, and driven men insane since time immemorial. They are elusive, tantalizing, and unutterably desirable creatures. There is only one thing wrong with them, and you know what it is as well as I do. And therefore you also know how gratifying it would be to find yourself on the most congenial terms with a mermaid who did not have this thing wrong with her.

Since I, for the first time in history, have crashed through the mermaid barrier, so to speak, I think the least I can do is to give you who will follow a few pointers on the manipulation of present-day mermaids:

1) To whatever your normal weight belt carries, add about five pounds. Breathing is greatly accelerated and the tendency is to rise, so that you either scrape against the rock above you, if you are in a cave, or, worse, bob to the surface, where random fishermen wonder what the hell is going on.

2) Never seek a mermaid with less than 70 cubic feet of air. With a really spirited mermaid like Flame, even this will prove insufficient.

3) Avoid areas infested with fire coral, sea urchins, and stinging jellyfish. You may not notice the contact at the time, but you will become painfully aware of it later.

4) It's more fun with your flippers on.

But I don't want to sound cold-blooded about this event. It was a tender, beautiful, and even solemn occasion. Each of us knew we were making history. Clinging to each other, thrashing up the sand, bumping into the sharp coral, we were in that wonderful rapport that the "married love" books talk about – so much so, in fact, so perfectly attuned to each other, that we ran out of air together! What a perfect climax!

We hastened to the surface, of course, and dangled from my boat – hers was about 20 feet away.

"Don't talk," Flame whispered. "Don't say a thing. Just let me remember it for a while."

So we hung there for a few moments and remembered. Then she put her hand on my shoulder. "Ed, you may think this is funny, but the only time we're going to see each other is down there in that coral."

"You mean we're not pals except under water?" I asked. "But I want to talk to you."

"Darling," she said, "don't you see how much better it is if you don't have to talk – if you can't talk? Then it's nothing but the real thing. So you be a good boy and don't come messing around, and I'll see you here tomorrow, same time."

I thought about this for a minute. "Mermaid complex," I said finally. "You have a mermaid complex. I suppose if you see me ashore you'll cut me dead?"

"I'm afraid so, darling," she said.

"And Ralph?" I asked. "You'll cut him dead, too?"

"Oh, Ralph," she said, and her tone of voice told me all I wanted to know about how she felt toward him.

"OK," I said at last, seeing no other way out of it, but determined to find one sooner or later. "You win. We'll keep it aquatic. Tomorrow, then." And we kissed on it.

I let her make her getaway, and then I motored back to the dock where I keep my boat. And who was waiting for me but old classic-profile Ralph. He was mad, and he got right to the point. "Listen, junior, I warnt you to stay out of my cabbage patch. What were you doing out there on the reef with that gal?"

"Wasn't that a coincidence?" I said.

"Just happened to run into her."

"Yeah," Ralph said. "Well, I'm warning you for the last time. If I see you out there with her again, you're going to find yourself in a mess of trouble. I'm closing in, and I don't want to be stumbling over no juvenile delinquent." And with this he stomped off.

"Adios, old Idle-Threat," I called after him.

But I have to admit I underestimated Ralph: he showed more initiative than I had given him credit for. I met Flame on the reef the next day, of course, and we renewed our friendship. I believe Ralph must have followed me out and got a peek at the party while my attention was elsewhere. Because the day after that, when I met Flame on the reef – she in her skiff, I in mine – there was Ralph ahead of us, innocently fishing.

"Well, hello!" he called out, when we threw out our anchors close together, about 60 yards from him. "Fancy meeting you way out here!"

Flame gave me a questioning look and I said to her in a low voice, "Get your gear quick and wait at the anchor. I know a place he'll never find us."

Meanwhile, Ralph was pulling up his anchor and preparing to join us. "I was hoping somebody would come along so I could do a little diving," he said, trying to get his motor started. "Buddy system, you know. Never dive without a buddy."

Flame dropped over the side of her skiff and went down the anchor rope. Ralph's motor fired and he raced over to our boats.

"This time you sit it out up here,

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twerp," he said, with an ugly leer. "This time a man is going to show the lady a few tricks."

At first I thought he had gone crazy. But no – this was just Ralph, God's gift to women. He had no doubt at all that he was the one Flame really wanted.

"Ralph," I said, tying on my weight belt, "you just haven't got good sense."

Ralph was frantically putting on his gear too. "You go in that water, boy," he snarled, "and you won't come out of it."

"Oh, drop dead." I said, and went over the side. Ralph's face turned purple. He grabbed up an oar from his boat and took a swing at me. If I'd been a foot closer I'd have been done for. But just at that moment I wasn't interested in getting into a fight. I went down quickly and joined Flame. Through her mask I could see her eyes wide with anxiety. I beckoned her to follow, and we swam down the canyon between the high cliffs, close to the bottom, to a place I knew where we could squeeze through a passage under the cliff to the canyon adjoining. I knew that our bubbles, as they broke the surface, would mark our position; but I also knew that Ralph, when he got into the water, would lose this bearing. And I also knew – or so I thought – a place where no bubbles could possibly betray us.

I took Flame down the second canyon about 20 yards, and again we wiggled our way under the coral rock and into the parallel formation. We were deeper than we'd been before – about 60 feet – but now we were close to the place I had in mind. After a few seconds I could turn to Flame and point it out to her: an opening, larger than the others, in the cliff that towered above us. We swam in. After about 10 feet we had to make a sharp turn to the left, and there we were in my secret grotto – faintly lighted from the passage we had come through and from the passage that led out the other side; high-vaulted, completely private, with its own population of improbable little fish, some of which swam upside down along the top of the cave. I showed Flame how our bubbles rose to the roof, where they formed a silver ceiling, and she got the idea right away: we were absolutely safe from detection.

What I did not know then – but know now – is that the air was not staying in the cave. It was percolating slowly upward through the porous rock and was coming out over a wide area as a fine cloud of little bubbles, advertising our presence to anyone who wanted to find it out. And of course Ralph, full of rage, was doing his best to find it out.

But, as I said, I didn't know this at the time. And the scene and setting were simply too perfect for us even to think about Ralph. What we experienced in that hidden underwater cavern, festooned with coral, decorated with spectacular fish, was the greatest ever. It left us shuddering.

And then I started shuddering for another reason. Flame had her eyes closed and didn't see him, but I did: Ralph, who had discovered our whereabouts. He had his spear gun with him, and at first I had no doubt that he intended to use it on me. Then I saw that he had already shot it, and that he had on the end of his spear the biggest green moray eel I ever hope to get close to.

Now, the moray eel is a peaceable creature until you molest him. If you stick a spear in him he feels that he has been molested, and then he goes crazy. He bites anything and everything: the spear, the empty water, himself; he will make great efforts to writhe up the spear and bite the person on the other end of it. It takes a good deal of nerve to spear a moray, and even more nerve to drag him through the water; and I guess I have to give Ralph credit for the courage it took to try what he intended, namely, to feed me to that eel. When Flame saw him she scooted out the other passage, embarrassed at being caught sodéshabillé, but with the presence of mind to take her suit with her. Ralph came toward me with the eel and I backed away – what else could I do? I got out of the cave and made for the surface. When I got there I saw Flame just climbing into her boat, and a pretty sight it was. I waved to her violently to take off and be gone; this promised to be something that might get into the newspapers and her involvement would only complicate matters. She got the idea: she had the anchor up and was headed for shore in a jiffy.

When I stuck my head under the water again I found Ralph between me and my boat, still brandishing the eel. He was wearing one of those Pinocchio masks, in which the glass covers the eyes only and the nose protrudes in its pliable rubber casing: and it crossed my mind that he had brought his profile fixation right into and under the water with him. However, there wasn't much time for such pleasant conceits. That goon was obviously going to keep me from reaching my boat without getting bitten. I dived down again and tried to get around him. He hung to my anchor rope, a few feet below the surface, waiting for my air to run out, while the moray writhed and gnashed its many teeth at the end of the spear.

The only weapon I could think of was the anchor. I went to the bottom and disengaged it: then, holding it in front of me. I swam back up the rope. In the midst of my realization of how futile a defense it was, my air gave out and I had no choice but to go on up. Ralph was howling with triumph into his mouthpiece as he held the spear down toward me. He had about four feet more reach than I had; he was on top; and I was out of air. It would take a small miracle to get me out of this in one piece.

That this miracle took place I attribute, in all modesty, to my blameless mode of life, my charitable spirit and my avoidance of all impure throughts.

I struck out at the eel with the anchor and it caught him just right. The spearhead slid the rest of the way through him and came out the other side. The enraged creature was pushed up the shank of the spear until it ran into Ralph's hand. Ralph let out a yell and dropped the spear – but not soon enough: the moray lunged around and removed some important meat from him in one magnificent snap. I was out of range by then. While the gun, spear and eel sank slowly to the bottom, Ralph and I reached the surface and grabbed the gunwale of my boat, which had drifted a hundred yards or so from his.

"Your boat's over there, you murderous bastard," I said, with notable selfcontrol. "You're not getting into mine."

Ralph held his hand to his wound, from which blood was pouring forth. The barracudas were already gathering round, clacking their incisors, and Ralph was hysterical.

"My God!" he hollered. "I'm bleeding to death! They'll eat me alive!" He tried to heave himself into the skiff. I punched him in the side of the head.

"Down, lover-boy," I said. "Your boat's over there. You might be able to make it."

That big grown-up man busted right out crying. "Eddie boy," he blubbered, "pal, old buddy, you wouldn't send me out there to get et by them 'cudas. Save me, friend, save me!"

Well, I took pity on the poor bugger and let him get in the boat with me. Then I remembered what he had tried to do to me and got mad all over again.

"Listen, Adonis," I said, "I want the right answers to a couple of questions. First of all, whose girl is Flame?"

"Yours," he mumbled.

"And who is not going to make a nuisance of himself any more?"

"Me," he said.

"And you're sure you don't want to get into your own boat?"

"Yes, yes, for God's sake!" he cried. "That's the leastest thing I want. Eddie, pal, I'm losing blood fast. Let's get back to shore, Ok?"

"Sure," I said. "But, since you don't want your boat, we might as well cut it

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loose, don't you think? Otherwise it's a hazard to navigation. You agree?"

There was an offshore wind, and I could see Ralph visualizing a thousand bucks worth of boat and motor drifting off into the wide Atlantic. There was a long pause, toward the end of which I stood up and made as if to heave him over the side.

"Great idea," he whispered.

"I'm glad you see it my way." I said. I handed him a knife, holding the anchor in my other hand. "You cut it loose."

I taxied up to his skiff and he cut the anchor rope. "Brand new motor, too," I said. "What a pity." We watched it move out toward the Gulf Stream, on its way to England.

"And stop dripping blood into my boat, will you?" I said. "Get yourself overtop of this bucket." Which I kicked over to him.

He hung himself over the bucket, and all the way back to the dock he nursed his wound and moaned. "Might as well be dead," he kept wailing, over and over.

...

The next day we went to see him in the hospital. Flame and I.

(That was the one good thing about the incident: it got Flame and me together on land. There was no longer any of that nonsense about only meeting under water. We're very chummy on land now, and we never run out of air.)

Actually, we didn't see him. We got as far as the door of his room, but the room was full of doctors. We stood outside, peeking in, and listened to what was going on. What was going on was a most abominable conspiracy: the docs were kidding Ralph, making tremendous long faces and shaking their heads sadly, and Ralph was swallowing the bait whole.

"Listen, doc," Ralph was saying, "will you give it to me straight? How bad am I hurt?"

"Oh, not bad, son, not bad," he said. "You'll probably recover."

"Dammit!" Ralph shouted. "I'm not worried about that! The question is, how much will I recover?"

"Well, now, that's hard to say," the doc said, putting on a solemn face. "We'll just have to see how the lesion heals. But I feel pretty certain we won't need surgery."

"Surgery?" Ralph hollered. "You mean maybe you'd have to cut off the rest of it?"

"Oh no, nothing like that," he reassured him. "Maybe a little trimming around the edges, to ward off the posibility of gangrene. You wouldn't want it to be turning green, would you?"

"Doctor!" Ralph pleaded, sitting up in the bed. "Tell me you're just kidding!"

"Ok, I'm just kidding," he said, pushing him back.

"Now you're just kidding," Ralph said, "to quieten me down. My God, isn't there anything we could do? Shouldn't we put it in traction, or something?"

This sent the doctors off into hoots of glee.

"Traction?" the doc said. "No, my boy. No, traction is not called for. Now, gentlemen," he continued, turning to the others. "I want you to see this. A most instructive case."

They all bent over and studied Ralph.

"The wound resulted from the bite of a moray eel. I want you to notice first the superficial striations--"

"What do you mean, 'superficial'?" Ralph hollered. "If this bite was on you, you wouldn't be calling it superficial."

"–" the superficial tooth marks leading up to the actual lesion. As you know, the moray does not secrete any poison. However, sepsis usually results from all the slimy deposit in the eel's mouth."

"Just took, the tip off," one of the doctors murmured. "Of course, we can make you a new one out of gum rubber or something. Always look a bit peculiar, though."

"Won't have much sensation," the man next to him added thoughtfully.

"I wonder whether it will ever resume normal function," another of the visitors said. "So often, you know, the psychic trauma is so great that normal responses are impeded, despite the negligible anatomic tomic damage."

"I'd like to do a paper on it," an elderly doctor said, "for the medical journal. Son, would you mind if I took a few snapshots tomorrow?."

"No pictures!" Ralph shouted, "Listen, why don't you ghouls just go away and leave me alone?"

I looked at Flame, and she looked at me, and we both smiled. By common consent we turned away and tiptoed down the hall.

"I guess he wouldn't want to see us," I said, putting my arm around her.

She turned those shockingly large and searching gray eyes on me. "Ed," she said. "I don't understand. Ralph in there, hooting and hollering that way. Why is he making all that noise? He told me he was the strong, silent type."

I had no answer for that. I opened the door for her and we went out on the street.

"I mean," she went on, "what is he so upset about? After all, the eel only took off the end of his--"

A passing truck backfired at that moment and I couldn't hear how she finished the sentence. "I didn't quite catch." I said.

"I said," she repeated, "only took off the end of his nose. What is he so excited about? With what they can do in plastic surgery nowadays it just isn't that important."

"Oh, it's important to old Adonis." I said. "Why, that classic schnoz is his most cherished possession. When he blows that bugle, the girls come running."

"Not this girl," Flame said.

We were at her car. I kissed her and she got in.

"Tomorrow, darling?" I asked "About two, lover," she said.