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JJ had never attended any form of weekly worship. His father had no God but the bottle and his mother hadn’t been alive long enough after delivering him to impart any sense of faith, and yet he thought that the sunlight fragmenting through the waves above him could have served as the stained glass of a church worth devoting himself to. Lungs burning, he sluggishly watched as air bubbles seeped out of his mouth and lazily floated towards the surface. The saltwater seemed thick as it intertwined through his fingers, tangling him in a fisherman’s net and dragging him down. He had a vague sense that he should have been moving, acting, and yet the pull of the black fuzziness around the edge of his vision was a more effective sirens call.
Shattering the glistening heavens above, a large shape launched itself down through the water towards JJ. Bubbles streamed behind it like a jet planes vaporous tail. The image formed itself into John B’s familiar form, hand stretched out, even as JJ’s sight began to disintegrate into a kaleidoscope of shadows and salt.
John B grabbed JJ by the wrist and started tugging him back up towards the light. His fingers were tightly wrapped around the leather cords JJ wore, making firm indents into his skin, the sharp pinch jerking him back to awareness just enough to stop him from succumbing to the drag of the darkness.
The pair breached the surface, all movement and desperation and the sweet, sweet burn of oxygen after being deprived for two long. John B dragged JJ through the water to the HMS Pogue and hung a trembling arm over the side, needing a moment before he could pull either of them fully onboard. JJ dug his fingers into John B’s shirt and coughed violently. Seawater spluttered out of his mouth, rivulets of ocean and spit running down his chin. JJ had to keep blinking as water streamed down from his hair and into his eyes.
“You hanging in there, bud?” John B grunted as he readjusted his grip on his friend and surveyed the side of the boat, plotting the easiest way of heaving JJ’s dead weight onboard to safety.
JJ tried to respond but his tongue felt swollen and unresponsive. The water getting in his eyes seemed to be getting thicker, more molasses than marsh. It was too warm, too red, to be seawater. His ears rang and nausea clawed inelegantly up his throat. Closing his eyes tightly, JJ swallowed heavily and tried to keep his consciousness from overbalancing as if it was one of the tourist fledglings on their first overpriced surf lesson.
Time surged and swelled in a dark wave as JJ’s vision blacked out again. When he finally resurfaced, he was staring up eye to eye with the august Outer Banks sky, several gulls lazily swooping in his field of vision. John B was also in frame, his brows drawn together in concern as he held a cloth to JJ’s head.
John B noticed JJ’s new awareness and broke out a fragile smile. “You know, next time you get drunk and take up, fucking, Olympic diving or whatever bullshit that was I’m not gonna rescue your dumb ass.”
JJ tried to curl into John B’s hold and winced at the sharp lance of pain. The skin was split at his right eyebrow, a small cut surrounded by what would bloom into an impressive bruise. He coughed once more then forced his mouth into a trembling smirk.
“Next time I’m dragging your dumb ass in with me if you don’t shut up.”
The two spent a moment in warm silence, drinking in the sight of each other back to safety, the panic of yet another of a lifetime’s worth of misadventures already fading into insignificance. Afterwards John B settled into the familiar muscle memory of pulling up anchor and setting course back to shore whilst JJ pulled himself into a sitting position, keeping the pressure on his head wound and sinking into the ache of exertion in his limbs.
The fall had been almost routine. Three too many cans of PBR’s, JJ fooling around at the bow reenacting a scuffle that had happened two days before at school between himself and some loser from two grades above who had been dumb enough to shove Pope’s bag into the boy’s locker room toilets. JJ tripping over his own alcohol numbed feet and tumbling overboard was a scene that had played out over and over on the HMS Pogue ever since the two friends had started stealing their fathers’ cheap beer and skipping school to fool around on the water.
They always tried to convince Pope and Kie to ditch as well, but this afternoon John B had been left as an audience of one bent over laughing at JJ. He was laughing so hard that he didn’t notice JJ clipping his head on the side of the boat as he went down. As John B uncurled and wiped the tears out of his eyes he had scanned the surface for JJ’s sun bleached mop, only for his friend to not reappear.
JJ shook his head to dislodge the memory of saltwater rushing into his nose and looked over to where his best friend was at the helm, navigating through a maze of sand bars. The sinking sun cast him in bronze, immortalizing the boy at the wheel of the ship like John B was born to be there. His hair was curled around his ears from the salt, his attempts to grow it out becoming more evident.
“Hey, John B.”
John B rolled his eyes in well-practiced yet not entirely convincing exasperation. “You’d think being half drowned would be enough to shut you up.”
JJ let out a peal of laughter. “C’mon. John B. Hey. John B.”
“What, JJ.”
The blonde boy hummed and turned his gaze to the sky. The words he wanted to say swam around in his mouth like bait fish. No more than shadows, disappearing if you tried to get close enough to catch them. Instead, he let his mouth run like the steady chug of the HMS Pogue’s motor.
“You ever think what would happen if the Outer Banks weren’t even islands or whatever, and could like float away to the other side of the world? And we’d become Australian citizens or something? Would we get accents? G’day, mate. Hey, what beer do Australians drink anyways?”
John B sighed and let his friends inane rambling settle into background music as he took them both back home.
//
It was only that night, back at what Big John called the ‘Chateau’ but was probably more accurately a shanty, once JJ and John B were arranged top and tail in John B’s childhood bed that JJ realized what he was going to say.
“Hey. Hey, you asleep yet?” JJ pushed his sock clad toes into the side of John B’s neck.
John B grumbled and swatted at JJ’s foot, initiating a brief tussle which he won by securing JJ by the ankle and holding him still.
“Yeah, I’m deep asleep. Don’t even bother trying to wake me up.”
“Whatever, shithead. Anyways, I’d jump in too.”
John B’s tired brain tried to parse what JJ was trying to say but couldn’t connect it to the conversation about crabbing out by the Redfield lighthouse that they were having earlier before calling it a night.
“What are you even on about, asshole.”
“If you fell in. You know I’ll jump in after you as well, right? I always will.” JJ bit at the cords around his wrist. John B was a long line of warmth down the right side of his body. His feelings eddied and whirled in his stomach, too much for his fatigued body to cope with.
JJ felt John B relax more into the mattress. He squeezed JJ’s ankle once then let it go.
John B imitated the harsh static of a radio. “This is the captain of the HMS Pogue, over. Assignment for officer JJ noted and accepted, over and out.”
JJ huffed out a laugh and let himself sink into the borrowed pillow and the embrace of sleep.
//
It was only several years and a police chase later that JJ would realize the mistake in his promise.
Pope’s dad had JJ’s head cradled in between his hands and was trying to talk to him but all JJ could hear was the roar of the ocean in his ears. Salt coated his tongue and burned at the back of his throat. He had started to tremble, the cold of the night and the terror of the last few hours, the last few days, ripping through his damp shirt right down to his bones.
Faintly to his left he could tell Kie had fallen sobbing into Pope’s arms. Conversations between his friends’ parents and the police were lost to the churning waves in his head. Over and over he could see the Phantom, manned by his best friend and zooming away from the dock for the last time. With every replay it looked more and more fragile, a toy boat in a bathtub that stretched out further than the eye could see.
Someone placed a hand on JJ’s lower back and called his name, but it felt muffled as if through several thick layers of bubble wrap. His vision blurred out of focus. Knees shaking, he felt vomit start to rise from his stomach.
You see, it’s all very well and good to make a promise that you will jump in after someone to save them from drowning. This was the foundation that JJ and John B’s relationship was built on. For every dumb thing that JJ did John B would jump in after, and JJ wouldn’t leave John B to sink alone, even through the darkest waters of his Dad disappearing nine months ago.
But you can’t save someone when you’re not with them when they go under.
JJ had left John B alone, navigating a storm in pitch darkness with an unfamiliar boat. And now he was gone.
John B was dead.
JJ puked stomach acid onto his boots, and knew he would never surface from this.