Rapture of the Deep, Chapter 2

Charlie Breslin woke up late with the relentlessly drilling reminder of the previous nights drinks. His swim trunks were still gritty from the dried saltwater courtesy of a midnight solo dip in the warm, massaging waters of a June Gulf of Mexico. He remembered diving in for a swim before going to bed, but currently felt more like he had taken a dive into a vat of vodka.

Charlie crawled out of the forward V bunk and slugged his way through the cabin, quickly walking up the three pygmy steps and through the smallish door onto the deck of his cruiser class vessel, The Deep Thought. He had dropped anchor just outside of Black Bay, south of Padre Island, and spent the night alone. Well, not completely alone. Charlie had a jumbled mind to keep him company. And his usual cure for that jumbled mind was a night alone, anchored at sea, with a full bottle and some ice. The evidence of such companionship was still on the table out here. A small chair pulled up to it, almost aiming at the empty bottle of top shelf vodka and empty rocks glass next to an ice bucket.

It was just past ten and the sun was already blazing. Charlie felt the misty heat of the Gulf wrap itself around him, caressing him and already easing the alcohol-induced discomfort. The piercing sunlight first made his head scream with pain before subsiding almost at once. In his thirty-six years of practically living on the water, Charlie had come to understand that there was no better cure for a blistering hangover than the soft, moist breaths of ocean air and the velvety warmth of the sea itself. Hell, there was really no better cure for anything than being out in the humid yet relaxing outdoor sauna of the summer sea. He glanced up and around at the twin meeting blues of cloudless sky and shimmering sea, separated by the razor thin horizon line before hopping up onto the starboard edge of the deck. He rolled his neck, took in a lazy breath and dove with subconscious grace into the salty nectar of the tropics.

It was the cure. It was detox. It was free. Charlie let his body plunge and fan to a stop before allowing himself to float in suspension. The slip currents that glided just under the surface gently pulled and tugged, and Charlie could feel all his aches and woozies diffuse through his skin and out into the endless liquid. His lungs kept him buoyant though, and Charlie could quickly feel himself rising as the water…

The Truth. Charlie thought. It’s always been the Truth.

…allowed him to surface.

He broke, gracefully treading, and took in a mammoth breath, before exhaling forcefully and opening his stinging eyes. Charlie felt the oppressively humid air fight the forces of his breathing as he kept afloat. Wet hair, due for a cut, clung in thick and half curled ropes over his shoulders before dipping into the ocean. He let the water be his therapy, same as he had done countless times. As a child. As a SEAL. As a diver. Charlie had always lived in harmony with nature’s greatest force. It had given him a career on more than one occasion. Had kept the money relatively stable and always gave him something to do.

Now though, Charlie again found himself among the ranks of the unemployed. It wasn’t like he had wanted his life to bounce in and out of stable work, but it had just the same. Charlie had problems with expectation and stability when it came to making a living. He would love the ideas and day to day of any new gig. He looked forward to jumping in wholeheartedly, and got himself up for new challenges and experience. Good old Charlie always embraced the new aspects of his life when they came along.

Then, things would grow stale. He would get bored. He would feel inadequate. Everything always sounded great going in, but it was only a matter of time before he would feel…stuck. Inevitably, that would be when things would unravel. Charlie was completely aware that it was he who was guilty of pulling the first thread to unwind his life. That awareness though, had no way of stopping him. Work. Relationships. Family. All of them pulled apart by his own boredom and feelings of always wanting to do more with his life, without the discipline or drive to put any grander plans into motion.

The one constant, the only absolute in a life that some would call self-destructive, Charlie had always wanted nothing more than to be involved with the water. Swam in school his entire life before going into the Navy. After his service time, he had been a professional dive instructor, off and on through the most recent chapters of his life. He’d move into a new position or start a new business with the family trust, (the only thing worth a shit that his father had ever given him) only to burn it down and start all over.

The water though, was love. It was life.

You’re part fish. His sister would always say. You have to be, to want to be in the water that much.

It was always where he found himself, good or bad. Right up until this very moment, where he treaded in the gulf, awaiting the next opportunity, eyes looking at the theater of memories under their lids.