True-Life Adventure

and now he was running toward the stern. It turned out I was chasing him. I’m not sure how it happened, really, but I was, without any message getting from brain to legs, much the same way I’d jumped through the window and, come to think of it, probably the way Sardis had chased him earlier. My feet were pounding after his. That was all I knew about it.
    I was gaining on him, nearly had him, I’m pretty sure, when all of a sudden he went over the rail. All of a sudden I did too. Monkey see, monkey do.
    If you’ve never jumped into 45-degree water from the second-story deck of a large ferry boat in the middle of the night, you’ve got no right to use the word shock ever again. I mean, even if your great-aunt Louise makes out with a Brahma bull or you accidentally stick your tongue in an electric socket. Because that word is mine now.
    Pain? All up and down the spine and in the brain and capillaries and hair and fingernails.
    Cold? Don’t ask.
    And fear? As many gallons of it as gallons of water in the Pacific, and each of the latter out to get me.
    I registered those things on the downward plunge. When I surfaced, all three of them were centered in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t even know where my nose was. Just knew there was nothing in my lungs like there ought to be. I tried to say Sardis’s name, but that was no good because I didn’t know where my mouth was. I tried to tread water, but it was the same old story. My arms and legs may have been there, but you couldn’t prove it by me.
    It must have been another case of body operating without brain, because somehow I stayed afloat and got some air in the old thorax. You’ll forgive me if I’m hazy on the details. I was a little on the numb side.
    Hearing returned first. I heard sirens and crackling and a lot of yelling and screaming. After a while I got so I could separate the voices doing the screaming. Some were men’s voices, hollering things like “ladder” and “hose.” One was Freddie’s, yelling something about a net. One was a woman’s voice— Susanna’s, I guess— shouting at Freddie to forget the film and get the fuck down the ladder. One was Sardis’s, wailing my name. And one was quite near me in the water. It was Koehler’s, yelling for help.
    “I’m coming,” I yelled back. “I’m here.”
    “He’s there,” shouted Sardis. “He’s there.”
    “Where?” yelled a male voice.
    “I’m here,” I yelled, swimming now. Some of the numbness went. Stabbing chest pains took its place.
    “Help!” yelled Koehler.
    And then he was quiet.
    I saw him go down. He was only about ten feet away.
    I swam to where I thought he was, but I miscalculated— he wasn’t there. I kept swimming around in circles, right around there. Then one of my legs kicked something, just glanced off. My chest hurt like a son of a bitch.
    But there was nothing to do but dive, so I did, and came up with Koehler. I got him in some sort of amateur carry and found I could hardly swim with a hundred-eighty pound weight.
    “Now what?” I said.
    Apparently, I yelled that, too, because someone shined a light on me, a fireman. “Hold tight,” he said. “We’ll throw you a line.”
    I faced facts. It wasn’t a matter of “hardly”— I couldn’t swim at all. I treaded water.
    That didn’t work out too well, either.
    The pain in my chest was killing me, and I was starting to feel faint. I wondered if I should let go of Koehler. My grip started to relax.
    But then the fireman did throw me a line, and I grabbed it. I tightened my grip on Koehler.
    If I could just get the bastard back on dry land, he was going to fry for three murders. It might be my last revenge, but by God, I was going to have it. That son of a bitch was going to fry. Like bacon. Like burgers. Like liver and onions. He was going to curl up at the corners and sizzle in the pan. I was going to serve him rare, with mustard maybe. Or beamaise sauce.
    I held onto him like death to a dead man, thinking how delicious he was going to be. But I was confused and I knew it. He wasn’t going to be delicious. It was. Revenge. My last revenge.
    It ought to be sweet, though. Maybe I’d bake him in a pie.
    That wasn’t right, either. In California, you didn’t fry, you didn’t even bake… what was it you did? I blacked out.
    “Paul, what is it?” Sardis was frantic. “Say it again, Paul. What is it?”
    “The green room,” I said.
    That was it. The gas chamber. I opened my eyes