Who am I? Have I been affected only by the positive aspects of life? Did the birthday parties of my youth, the delicious aroma of a lilac bush at bloom in a garden, the laughter of my friends on a summer's evening or my first stolen kiss solely complete my maturation process? No; I don't think so. Rather, the full spectrum of incidents life has thrown at me, the pain, the heart-wrenching episodes, the tragedies I witnessed all helped form my character. One such incident, the one I'll relate here, occurred when I was in my early twenties.
It's cold outside. Not cold as in chilly, but cold as in the teeth-chattering variety that makes you wonder if you'll ever feel any circulation in your finger tips and toes again. An ominous, leaden sky is overhead, confirming weather reports that even more snow is on its way; that an encore to Mother Nature's wintry entertainment is imminent. The residents of our beach community on an inlet of Long Island Sound dutifully prepared for her next act. As has been the case since time immemorial, she threatened and we reacted. The problem was on this particular day, in one tragic instance, she forgot to live up to her end of the bargain.
After three consecutive days of sub-zero temperatures, my personal rule as an occasional hockey player on the ponds of Long Island was that any enclosed body of water would be frozen enough to allow a quick pick up game. In all my years skating up and down, ice shavings flying, stick handling back and forth across ice towards a make shift goal, only once did I have a slight mishap. Chasing an errant puck, I broke through the thin ice because I ignored the warnings of my more cautious friends. I escaped with only two very cold feet but was otherwise unharmed, a bit wiser for this youthful indiscretion.
Perhaps a certain eight-year old boy even saw us bigger kids cavorting on a frozen pond and enjoying ourselves as only boys could. So when he zipped up his red parka, put on his gloves and hat and went for a walk with his dog on the inlet ice, he thought it would support him. But Mother Nature freezes fresh water at 32 degrees Fahrenheit and seawater at about 28.4 degrees; thus her tragic oversight. When the ice broke and he fell through, the frantic barking of his dog was attributed to just another house pet that had cornered a cat and attracted no immediate attention.
I'm not sure how the little boy's plight was discovered. Maybe it was like a TV commercial that repeats over & over until it eventually seeps into a person's conscious level. Or it was some amateur scavenger slowly walking along the seashore searching for a bit of treasure washed up by the waves who realized the child was in trouble. But either the boy's desperate cries for help or the incessant barking of his faithful dog finally aroused someone who contacted the local rescue squad. They soon arrived, and a crowd of on-lookers began to grow along the shoreline.
Since our house stood on a hill overlooking the inlet, the flurry of activity taking place on the beach below caught the attention of my Mom. So when I returned home from some research project for school the first thing she said after greeting me with a kiss me was, "Something's happened down at the beach. People are standing around, pointing out at the water but I can't make out through the trees what's going on."
Walking over to the windows, I peeked out at the scene and asked, "How long has this been going on?"
"Not sure; I only noticed it about ten minutes ago," she replied.
"Well, I'm going down to see what's up," I said. "Want to come along with me?"
In no time, Mom & I bundled up, went out to my car & drove down to the beach.
For an area that saw its sun bathers depart, seasonal concession stand close and boaters secure their launches for the winter, I immediately saw that considerable activity was now being carried out. In the parking lot, numerous cars were parked haphazardly, some with their doors still ajar. The fire truck from the local station was idling, its massive diesel engine sounding like marbles in a dryer. Twenty yards or so away, on the sand of the beach itself, were emergency personnel. Some stood with coils of heavy yellow rope around one shoulder, others with long poles used in fire rescues at their sides but all were talking in hushed voices. One of them was a guy I'd seen at some of the places I hung out with my friends.
Known as Fist, I never knew his real first name, but a wrong look, a snicker behind his back or a rude brush up against him in a bar could earn the offender a quick lesson as to why this particular nickname was bestowed on him. Over his left eye, a scar causing the lid to be permanently half closed also announced his disposition as surely as a buoy alerts ships to danger approaching. If the character Leroy Brown from the Jim Croce song of the same name comes to mind, then you have a picture of Fist.
My attention was quickly drawn to the agitated barking of a dog out on the ice about 50 yards away, where a small, partially submerged red splotch stood out on the otherwise drab, gray ice. I then heard a faint cry of "Mommy, please help me!" and realized the object of everyone's attention was a little boy in a red coat. More sounds; off to the side. Stamping my feet to ward off the cold, I turned and saw a group of young Mothers, sobbing, each wondering whose child was fighting for its life out on the ice. They stood shivering, arms around each other for support, secretly praying it would be the person next to them and not themselves who might need a strong sedative later that day. My own Mom was clutching my left arm very tightly, softly weeping. My Mom, who taught me all I knew about compassion, who a couple of years later would lose a daughter to disease, who several years after that would lose a son to a heart ailment.
Then, another cry of "Help me...please!" was heard. Was it my imagination or was this one slightly weaker than the last one? As if an electric shock ran through him, Fist jumped into action. Tying one end of a coil of rope around his waist, he told the first responders to feed its remaining length out as he began walking out on the ice, placing one foot slowly in front of the other. Everyone watched breathlessly as he advanced five, ten, fifteen yards. "I'm coming, son, hold on!" he yelled to the boy. There was no response as the freezing boy held on to the edge of the ice, apparently exhausted from his efforts to remain above water. If possible, his dog's barking took a more urgent tone, urging Fist to hurry. He was now twenty yards out, then twenty five; he had made it half way to the boy! But with one more step he was suddenly gone, having fallen through the ice himself. He surfaced immediately, tried to advance a couple of times but the ice repeatedly broke around him. Frustrated and freezing, he pulled himself up on the ice behind himself and was guided back to shore with his tether rope.
When I thought about Fist's failed rescue attempt weeks later, I realized his efforts were not carried out properly. His weight was concentrated directly over his feet; why hadn't he gotten a running start, thrown himself on his chest and slid out to where the boy was waiting? This would have displaced his body's weight over a broader area, less likely to break through. Even if he had gone through the ice, it would have been significantly closer than where the ice broke underneath him.
Immediately after Fist's failed attempt, I saw the rest of the emergency personnel galvanized into action with a contingency plan. Several of them ran to the locked life guard shack where one kicked in the door and the others rushed inside, dragging out the row boat and oars that had been stored there. Others helped by pulling the boat to the water's edge, then Fist & three of them jumped in with a couple of ropes and poles & another three pushed the boat onto the ice where it glided for a few yards but then sunk into the ice & stopped dead. Two men scrambled to the bow and with the oars proceeded to break up the ice ahead of the boat. Progress was agonizingly slow but eventually the men made their way to where the child had been. But he was now nowhere in sight.
Where was the boy? Men on the boat were now shouting, the Mothers were screaming, on-lookers were yelling; it seemed no one knew what to do. That is, no one but Fist. He quickly stood up in the boat, stripped off his coat & dove head-first into the freezing water where the boy had last been seen. This action silenced everyone and time seemed to slow to a crawl. Five agonizing seconds, seven seconds, ten seconds passed but no Fist. Could he possibly find the...YES! Rising up to the surface and sputtering for air was Fist, holding something red in his arms. Hands reached over the side of the boat & hoisted the two soaking people into the boat. With the precious cargo in hand, the boat was ready to return to shore.
But another problem immediately faced the men. With the boat facing towards the center of the inlet & no way to turn around in the ice, its flat bow as pointed back towards the shore where we all stood. Two men were trying to row the boat back to shore but their progress was exceedingly slow. That was when I ran out into the path the boat had made in the ice. The frigid water practically immobilized me and Mom was screaming "Jackie...NO!" but I knew what I was doing. I yelled to the men in the boat, "Throw me the rope; THROW ME THE ROPE!" Immediately they understood. Holding one end in their hands, they threw the other to me. I grabbed the rope, put it over my shoulder, turned back to shore, put my head down and began pulling the boat with everything I had. I was about fifteen yards from shore, the water a little bit below my rib cage so I didn't move too fast. But then I heard splashing coming at me; the paralysis of some of the people on the shore had broken & they joined me in my effort.
In a few seconds our combined efforts beached the boat. Fist jumped out of the boat, the boy still in his arms and ran towards the waiting emergency truck. On the way, I saw the boy's limp arms and legs swaying along with Fist's movements as if in time to some macabre music that only he could hear. His lips were still red, his face still pink, not the translucent gray of a dead person. I didn't know it at the time but my friends and I would meet Fist a couple of years later when he reverted to his more pugilistic tendencies. But on that cold day at the beach, he showed the heart and soul of what humanity really is, risking his own life to save an innocent child. In my book, the man earned his stripes for all eternity.
In the context employed here, the word "if" performs as a function word to introduce an exclamation expressing a wish. So, IF the ice was thicker, the boy spit up water, was revived and went home after a brief hospital stay. He suffered no ill effects of his ordeal, was perfectly healthy. Strong, good looking and personable, he became a star track athlete in school, graduated from college cum laude and became a successful dentist with an office in Huntington, Long Island. With a beautiful wife, a dog and three children of his own, he is a devoted husband and father, watching over his family very carefully. But in reality, when Fist ran past the expectant Mothers, a wail from one of them confirmed her worst nightmare, the one no parent on God's good Earth ever wanted to realize, had occurred. She knew before any of us did that her son was dead.
Breathing heavily from the exertion of pulling the boat, I stood bent over with my hands on my knees, dripping water. Up until now, I maintained the stoic face of impartiality, the stiff upper lip demanded of a male in our society. The dictate is that a man can show no feelings in emotionally charged situations. So, maybe it was it was the wet clothes I was wearing, or the freezing temperature, or perhaps a combination of the two that elicited a change in me. Like a light turned on that pierces the darkness, a surge of emotion swelled up inside me that I had never felt before. It was as if my very soul had been wrenched out of me, leaving in its place a mere shell, a broken plaster mold of what I had once been. And I started sobbing. I think I would have been able to quietly cry in a controlled fashion until my Mom, my rock, the woman who patched my scrapes as a boy, who had walked me to school, who took me to Church, who later would offer me one of her own kidneys when one of mine was thought to be deteriorating came up and put both her arms around me. It was then that I lost it, that the veneer of tempering my feelings was crushed to oblivion. I heaved full, uncontrollable cries of anguish, an emotional outburst I would call upon when my sister and brother would depart all too suddenly from this life. The last sight I remember from that day was a dog, its tail between its legs, making its way away from the fateful hole in the ice cautiously back to the shore.
Years later, on a warm summer's evening, I'm sitting on the porch at my parent's house in Vermont while my own little children are sleeping peacefully inside. The sweet smell of newly cut grass announces the abundant, lush vitality of the area. A gentle rain starts to fall but doesn't deter the bugs that still creak, hum and call to each other. Far away, an occasional bolt of lightning illuminates the sky, and its accompanying thunder reverberates from hill to hill, eventually fading away in the distance. This sound is so relaxing, so tranquil it can lull one to sleep. Perhaps this is Mother Nature's was of apologizing for her tragic mistake so many years ago; perhaps it's merely my interpretation of life from my personal rose colored glasses, from the perspective that is uniquely me.
I stand up, take a step but knock over the cane my Mom now uses to help her walk. "Where are you going, Jackie?" she asks. "Just to check on the boys, Mom." She smiles at me, a knowing one that seems to radiate her face in the dim light. I lean over and kiss her on the forehead, below the gray hair that has rewarded her years like medals for valor on a soldier's breast. Inside, I carefully pick my way through a flotilla of plastic cars and trucks, a scattering of Lego pieces and assorted other toys. My three boys are asleep, safe and protected. After rearranging blankets I look down at them. Reminded of the thin thread that holds a happy, contented life from plunging into the abyss of tragedy, I recall the words of Camus: In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
