The guy facing me, pissed himself.

He noticed that I noticed.

“What? It makes you warm.”

“You have on a mini suit. It’s running down your legs.”

“Into my booties though. Feet warm.”

It sounded nice. I pissed myself too. The urine pooled in my neoprene booties.

You must find joy in the small things in life. Warm urine squishy between frozen toes. You can quote me.

Others did the same. Piss mixed with adrenaline mixed with saltwater.

Time to think, waiting for the Kings of Dip-shittery (the instructors’ garage band name). Standing in warm booties, piss-odor wafting on the wind, I thought of the obstacle course.

Waiting in line at the course the day before, I had felt something new.

Hopelessness?

Maybe

Dark and slow and heavy – the darkness that walks the ground, as if the moon passes before the sun.

This isn’t for you.

“What?”

Word passed through the piss-soaked air, ‘instructors in route’. Candidate arms rise again, perfectly presented like debutantes to the ball.

Swim fins hanging from wrists, wet suit tops, KA-BARs in hand, CO2 cartridges in the other. Palms upturned.

Lined up beside the enlisted bar on base, called Froggy’s, or some such similar name that makes you want to get drunk and fast.

Froggy’s lawn held BUD/s class 200, standing and waiting for the Princesses of Pain (my term of endearment for the Navy SEALs assigned as BUD/s instructors). When we first lined up, sweat rolled down faces, wetsuits felt like hell-fire prison sentences. Saltwater smell. Seagulls squalled, flittered on the wind. Dark clouds rolled into our morning.

Thoughts of childhood on the beach, playing in the wet sand. Parents filming their only boy.

The Princesses of Pain rolled up on cue: clouds parted, sun beamed through, and angels sang to herald their presence. They walked between the ranks, inspecting gear. Quickly. Behind schedule because they sat drinking coffee and shaking off hangovers until the storm passed.

The order arrived and passed down the line: “get in the bay.”

My swim buddy and I walked down the washed-out bank. A sign stuck in the bay on a high pole. A warning. No swimming. Polluted water.

What the fuck?

I knew terrorist had not infiltrated the other side of San Diego Bay. The risk seemed excessive. We had pools. The Pacific Ocean in our back yard.

But fuck it.

Right?

I bent to pull my fins on, reached to pull the scuba mask over my face, and the glass fell out of the scuba mask.

What the fuck. Again.

I had heard the older candidates talking about the state of the gear just days before. Some candidates, like me, had Vietnam era gear.

And I believe it.

Duct tape held my gear together. Last visit to the stockroom walked my memory --

“This mask ain’t gonna cut it.”

“Yeah? That’s the only one in the bin, though. Come back tomorrow, maybe someone will turn something in.”

“If they turn it in, that means it’s broke, right?”

“Or they graduated.”

I paused.

“Is graduation scheduled?”

“Nah.”

“So, this mask was broken when it was turned in?”

“Yeah, but we fix it before it’s returned to stock.”

“Right.”

I am convinced a sense of humor is encoded within our universe. The cosmic series of events aligned in such a way that my mask broke just as the stock room clerk burned his tongue with his morning coffee. Of this, I am convinced. And it makes me smile.

I stood on Froggy’s lawn, nineteen years old and in the Navy less than a year, thinking about how to swim side stroke with my head out of the water.

My swim partner, never the same person during first phase because things changed daily, noticed me hesitate.

“What’s wrong?”

“Fucking glass just fell outta my mask.”

“Don’t open your eyes. Breathe out when you are under water.”

“Yeah, I get it. I won’t be able to track you though.”

“Right. We have a gear guy. The one with the sea bag. He ought’ta have a replacement.”

I found the guy. Yelled across a couple heads, asking for a mask.

“I gave’em all out already.”

“What?”

“No more,” he says, palms up, shoulders shrugged.

Fuuuuuck.

Darkness by me slithered.

Appalachia sings to me as my fin tips touch the bay: cicadas through the trees, haunts dancing on hurricane wind, a portrait entitled Moments before the Storm. Signed by the artist. I lean in to read.

LIFE, it says.

And now. You swim.

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