Jack walked out of the sea.
They had told him to take it slow, to
appear to float in after a long swim. “Just sort of drift in to
shore on your back,” they had said, right before the Big Kiss
that oxygenated his blood and the slap on the tush that sent
him on his way. Jack tried. He tried to be patient and let the
choppy waves push him all the way in, but as soon he sensed
that he could stand with his head above water, he charged
through the slosh under the pier and didn’t stop until he was
in the air from his ankles to his hair. That was as far as Jack
got before he had to put a hand out to hold on to one of the
pilings for balance. He was brought up short by the force of
the currents that were pouring down the beach and into the
ocean-the overwhelming wash that tried to push him back
out to the dark rhythm and brine.
He was first assaulted by the lights. Hundreds of them.
Thousands. Flashing ones. Moving ones. Neon, incandescent,
fluorescent, dim, bright, on, off. Lights that spelled words,
lights that pointed to things and places, lights that illuminated
the immediate for only an instant and thereafter sent their
energy to the far corners of the universe at the Speed of Light.
They had warned him not to stare at them, but he was fascinated
by the way they looked-bright, unfiltered, honest.
They burned with dazzling zigzags that hung like jellyfish.
He closed his eyes, and he concentrated on the dry wood
of the piling-its crisp feel, its sharp outline and solid form.
He took the first breath of air through his nose.
He choked.
Jack fell to the sand, clutching his face and throat, coughing,
gagging on the air. It burned. His tongue felt like a stone
pulled from a fire, his lungs rebelled in sharp, tight contractions.
Jack’s diaphragm began to seize, and as he hacked, he
brought up a sour mouthful of his celebration dinner from
the night before. He allowed his legs to give way, and he fell
back into the ocean, plunging his face into the water. Jack
lay there with his feet splayed out in the line of high-tide seaweed
and Styrofoam, the wavelets lapping at his back. He
breathed deeply, and slowly stopped sputtering.
A while later he tried another breath, mixing it with water
to get it down. He did this a few times, and then flipped over
on his back, drawing air in through clenched teeth and exhaling
it through pursed lips. It hurt, but he could do it. Jack
smiled. After all the training and the chanting, the lectures and
the films, he was finally up there-up here. The classroom
simulations were touching the elephant seal blind, getting a
sense of the nose or the tail or the odor in little compartmentalized
experiences. Now he was riding the damn thing.
He had to stop metaphoring. It distracted him from his
priorities:
1. Learn to breathe.
2. Find Victor Sargasso.
3. Kill him.
Better take them one at a time, he thought, timing his
inhalations and exhalations to the rhythm of the waves. It
went OK, got better, even.
“Hey dude! Dude! Are you all right?” A teenaged couple
walked hand-in-hand along the beach, looking for a place to
get cozy in the sand. What they found instead was Jack, shivering
in his regulation deep-blue mankini, sucking air like a
Lamaze Yogi.
“Hey! Yo, floating guy!” The boy tried to get Jack’s attention.
The girl wasn’t sure they should mess with a wheezing
man bobbing in a tangle of garbage and seaweed.
“He looks like Jesus,” she whispered. “Let’s just leave him
alone.”
Jack sensed her discomfort and tried to dispel it. “It’s
cool! Don’t worry about-hack-me! I’m just learning to
breathe!” He began to choke on the dry, dry air all over
again. “I’m-akk-OK! Really! I’m cool!-retch-Lemme
just-” and he plunged his head under the water for relief.
When he resurfaced, the young couple was gone.
Jack kept his eyes closed and faced the beach, letting the
sounds and smells buffet his face in a sensory storm-he
heard the white noise of the waves hitting the sand and
voices warning about the undertow and screams set to the
arythmic clatter of the old wooden roller coaster and
squeaking brakes and honking horns and tinny scraps of carnival
music and the cartoon impacts of bumper cars and a
Babel of voices casting fishy lies into the water on kite string
and twine from the pier above; and he smelled sausages and
pink-spun sugar and urine and sunscreen and beer and the
acrid sweat of captive Belugas in the aquarium and the
smoky boredom from the freakshow and fried clams and
popcorn and car exhaust and fear and joy and anger and
love-and Jack’s knees gave way as the pressure of it all
pushed him over and down under the water, again where he
could watch the sand move back and forth, and everything
was green and blue and gray and brown.
Jack bobbed to the surface. He lay in the water, just
breathing. Jack found that he was able to control the ragged
flow of air as long as that was the only thing he did with his
mind. Speculating on what he would do for the next days
or weeks made him go twitchy and his breathing short and
shallow, which led right back to the hacking. He reminded
himself that he was on track. He was following the standard
procedures for an Agent-the Left Prong of the
Trident of Atlantis-on his First Ascent:
Make landfall.
He’d done that.
Find the Mermaid Diner.
That was all he had, so that was all he had to worry
about. If he stayed with the breathing, the smells and the
lights would work themselves out.
There was an empty seat at the end of the counter, and Jack
took it, sitting down with a slurpy gasp. His hair and skin were
still wet; he was breathing like an asthmatic with a bong stuck
in his trachea. He had a plastic coffee-lid stuck to his back, and
the only thing he was wearing was his tiny blue mankini. Doris
rolled her eyes, sighed, and walked down to Jack’s end of the
counter. She handed him a menu, and with deft sleight of hand,
replaced his list of specials with a handwritten card.
“Welcome to the Mermaid,” Doris said significantly.
“Good. I’m in the right place,” Jack rasped. Then he fell forward,
unable even to choke. His throat had shut completely.
“Quick,” Doris hissed. She was prepared. She handed
him a glass of oxygenated water and a bowl. “Go to the
men’s room!” Jack hesitated. “Now!” She spun Jack on
his stool and pushed him toward the bathroom. He staggered
across the floor leaving soggy footprints, which, if
looked at carefully, revealed the slight webbing between
his toes.
Jack banged through the men’s room door and felt like
he’d suddenly descended twelve feet into a tropical sea. The
sounds from the diner were muffled, as if heard through a
couple of fathoms of seawater. The color of the tile perfectly
matched Jack’s bathing suit. The only source of illumination
was the muted light from the street outside, which swept in
through the frosted glass at irregular intervals as cars went
by. Jack careened off the sink. The glass and bowl flew from
his hands and smashed in a puddle of shards. Jack fell to his
knees, sucking in through crisp lips.
“Fucking air! Aah!”
He remembered his training:
“OK. Concentrate … Focus … Control … In … Out …
In …” He choked, gasped, and then held his breath.
He crouched in the wet pieces of broken dishes. Jack’s
chest, diaphragm, and buttocks clenched as he tried to hold
back the spasms, but he knew as soon as he took another
breath, he would begin hacking again, probably even more
violently than before. Jack let a little air slip in through his
parched mouth, and the pain of it hitting his throat pitched
him forward. His guttural cry and retch echoed in the bowl;
and his nose dipped into the cool water below. Jack plunged
his entire face into the toilet, dragging in relief and exhaling
great bubbly wafts. Finally, he pulled himself upright, and sat
back on his heels, dripping and sniffing and blinking his eyes.
The climate in the room was moist and cool, and the sounds
of the cars on the road reverberated soothingly against the
tiled walls. Jack became lulled by the humid vibe and his head
sank sleepily. No! I am on a mission! he reminded himself.
He shook off his reverie, stood up, and faced the mirror
over the sink.
Jack looked into his wide-set and bloodshot green eyes,
winked, and smiled. His brown hair was matted, his lips were
cracked, his skin had a greenish tinge, but for the first time
since he had surfaced, Jack felt like he could make it. He turned
to the paper towel dispenser. It bore a rusted scar in the shape
of a trident, just like the blue tattoo on his shoulder blade. It
pointed to a neatly-folded T-shirt and a pair of jeans that someone
had left for him on top of the dispenser. He took down the
clothes, put on the pants and the I LOVE NY shirt, and he wiped his
face with a stiff, brown paper towel that absorbed almost
nothing. Then he took another paper towel from the dispenser
and soaked it under the faucet. Respirator in hand, Jack left the
submarine isolation of the men’s room and shambled back to
his stool. As he sat down, his feet found their way into a pair
of thoughtfully-placed orange flip-flops. He squeezed the nubbins
between his toes. They made his webs itch.
“No shirt, no shoes, no service …” quipped Doris, with
a meaningful elevation of her left eyebrow. Her words had
an immediate effect on Jack, as if his dial had been left
between stations, and Doris had just this moment tuned one
in, loud and clear.
“Right, uh …” Jack fumbled for the proper response.
Ah! “What’s good tonight? Is the fresh fish fresh?” He had
to emphasize the proper words in the proper way.
“Sure the fresh fish is fresh. It’s fresh fish, ain’t it?”
“Hmm. OK. Maybe I’ll have a burger. And a cup o’ chowder.”
Doris had her thumb on the button that would shoot a
poisoned dart from under the counter directly into Jack’s
abdomen. He had to answer the next question correctly. If
he said the wrong thing, she would kill him, that’s just how
it was. Too bad if I hafta, she thought. He’s kinda cute.
Doris asked, “Manhattan or New England?”
This was it. Jack knew that he might not walk out of the
diner if he picked the wrong soup. They had told him which
one, but they’d also said that they changed it frequently, to stay
one step ahead of the Maltese. Jack knew he had to go with his
instinct. And his instinct told him that despite the unconvincing
combination of clams and dairy products, New England
Clam Chowder was still better than the Manhattan variety.
“New England …” He closed his eyes and bit down
hard. Cutting through the general murmur of the restaurant-voices
complaining about schools and taxes, the mayor, and
those pants the kids were wearing these days-he heard a
clink, and cautiously opened one eye. There was a steaming
cup of creamy soup in front of him. Doris smiled.
“Have a look at our specials, before you go with the
burger,” she suggested firmly and then walked away to refill
coffees down the line. The guy at the end with the notebook
was shifty and had to be watched.
Jack opened the menu and a note fell into his lap. It was
a third- or fourth-generation photocopy, the original version
of which had been typed on letterhead bearing a trident-in-a-circle
logo. His name had been written in blue ink over
Wite-Out, by the same hand that had penned “salisberry
steak” and “oriental stur fry” on the actual specials cards
clipped to the menu. With great anticipation he read:
A.T. Landis
Swimming Pool Supplies and Filtration Systems
Welcome to the Top Jack Fish and congratulations
on completing your ascent. You will be contacted
with further information as necessary.
Enjoy your meal! Poseidon’s blessings,
-mgmt
New York San Diego Honolulu Auckland Venice Bombay
Singapore Marseilles Grand Junction Manila Vancouver
Istanbul Panama City Halifax Naples Miami Port Au Prince
Oslo Hong Kong Rio de Janeiro
Jack smiled weakly as he balled the paper in his hand and
shoved it in his pocket. Of course Sargasso wouldn’t be sitting
at the counter next to him, sipping tea, waiting to be
killed. No, Jack would have to be patient; he had to find his
balance before he could strike. There were things for him to
do, preparations to prepare, contacts to make, information
to gather. But soup? His first act as an Atlantean spy active
in the Topworld theater was to eat a bowl of soup?
Yes, he reminded himself, this is the job. Right now, eating
this bowl of soup is the job.
Jack was suddenly very hungry, and he made quick work
of the New England clam chowder. He ordered the fresh fish
after all, which turned out to be halibut, and while he waited
for the food to arrive, he took surreptitious breaths through
his damp paper towel every few minutes to prevent another
hacking episode. Doris served him his fish, and said, “Meet
me by the Dumpster out back in twenty minutes.”
When Jack had eaten his halibut, he got off his stool,
inhaled through his moist paper towel, and flip-flopped out
the door.
Doris came out the back just as Jack rounded the side of
the chrome-paneled diner. She was holding a six-gallon
pickle pail brimming over with potato peels, half-eaten egg
sandwiches, coffee grounds, and coleslaw. These she
scooped off with her left hand and pushed into the
Dumpster. She placed the pail on the ground between them
and motioned for Jack to hunker down with her.
“OK. Here’s the stuff I’m s’posed to give ya,” she said as
she started pulling things out of the pail and itemizing them
for Jack in a bored, singsong voice, placing each thing onto
the ground in front of him: “You got your keys to the safehouse,
a roll of a thousand US dollars in fives-take it easy
when you pull that out-tokens for the subway-a carton of
Seaweeds, though I don’t know why anyone needs a waterproof
cigarette-a Swiss Army knife, the good one with the
mini-gaff and the nail file-and here …” She extracted a
light blue Mets backpack from the pail, brushed off a
cucumber peel and a teabag. “Put it all in this.” She handed
the bag over. “When we’re finished, turn right, go up two
blocks, turn left, and head straight for another two blocks.
On your left you’ll see Da Wash.”
Jack stared at her blankly.
“It’s a car wash, OK? Walk around to the side where the
cars come out clean, and get in the gray van being dried by
the Mexican kids with the towels. That’s Dick Global. He’ll
take you over by where you’ll be stayin’. Here’s the
address.” She flashed a number and a word on a card, then
made it disappear into her apron. “Dick will get you close.
You walk from there.”
Continues…
Excerpted from JACK FISH
by J MILLIGAN
Copyright © 2004 by J Milligan.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
SOHO
Copyright © 2004
J Milligan
All right reserved.
ISBN: 1-56947-382-X
