http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=565777&navid=mod-rr-headlines&utm_source=bleacherreport.com&utm_medium=referral
you didnt see the play (right at teh beginning of teh game), i knew
instantly he was done for a long time. he was driven into the boards
backwards while leaning forward, i said it was his back, heather said
tailbone. ended up bein the vertebrae. terrible play, announcers
were all over the guy *(think it was bergeron) for "finishing his
check". 5 lightyears afterwards perhaps.
On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 2:49 AM, Madness <nayrrizdaed@gmail.com> wrote:
> interesting story
>
>
> Swept out to sea by a riptide, a father and his 12-year-old son struggle to
> stay alive miles from shore. As night falls, with no rescue imminent, the
> dad comes to a devastating realization: If they remain together, they'll
> drown together.
>
> By Justin Heckert
>
> The ocean at night is a terrible dream. There is nothing beyond the water
> except the profound discouragement of the sky, every black wave another
> singular misfortune. Walt Marino has been floating on his back for hours,
> the ocean on his skin, his mouth, soaking the curls of his graying hair. The
> water has cracked his lips, has formed a slippery glaze on his shoulders and
> arms. The salt has stuck to his contact lenses, burning the edges of his
> eyes. A small silver pendant of the Virgin Mary sticks to his collarbone on
> a link chain. He can no longer see the car key floating below his stomach,
> tied to the string of his floral swim trunks. The water licks against his
> ears. Every familiar sound is gone.
>
> He arches his neck, contemplate again how far of swim it might be to shore.
> He can't know how many miles. He tries to convince himself he might be able
> to make it back to the beach, to the rock jetty from which he was swept out
> to sea. He starts dog-paddling, but after about 30 minutes his arms give
> out, his back tires, and he decides that he'll die if he tries.
>
> In the dark, he can make out only the outline of his hands. He can see a
> faint glow in the distance, orange and premonitory, like a small fire, what
> he guesses to be the hotels and condos of Florida's northern coast. He
> wonders if someone in a living room watching TV could look out far past the
> shore and see him floating here.
>
> No, he decides. That's crazy. Even if they were looking through binoculars,
> they could probably see only the water, and maybe the ripples beneath the
> stars. Even the rescue helicopter hadn't been able to spot his head sticking
> above the surface, as it traced a search grid just beyond where the tide of
> Ponce de Leon Inlet empties into the Atlantic. Below the helicopter, patrol
> boats and Jet Skis had gone back and forth like sharks in the distance. He
> had waved his arms and screamed until his throat cracked, until the blue
> search signal and the light of the beam had thinned and disappeared. He now
> wonders if he'll ever need his voice again.
>
> That was hours ago. When Christopher was floating beside him. Christopher,
> his little boy. When the two of them, father and son, were still together in
> the waves.
>
> —
>
> The ocean was always one of Christopher's favorite places. The shallow water
> near the jetty rocks of Ponce Inlet, pale and green at the curve of the
> beach — Walt took him there as much as he could. Like a lot of autistic
> children, Christopher was drawn to water. By the sensation of it, by its
> sounds, its placidity — Walt could only guess. Christopher could never
> explain the ocean's hold on him, could only put on his swim trunks and stand
> barefoot on the wooden floor of the house, or find the car keys from the
> table and try to place them in Walt's hand, or just wait impatiently at the
> door of his convertible. As his son grew up, his main communication turned
> out to be the sounds of his laughter, his hands slapping at the tide foam,
> his giddy squeal as he climbed onto his father's back, swimming for hours
> until it was time for them to go home.
>
> On September 6, 2008, a Saturday, Walt took him to Ponce Inlet late in the
> afternoon. It was his weekend with the kids. As he did every two weeks, he
> picked up Christopher from the group home where he lived, then picked up
> Angela, his 14-year-old daughter, at her mom's house in Oviedo. Christopher
> sat next to Dad in the front seat of Walt's red Celica, the top folded back,
> wind running through Christopher's short dark-brown hair. Angela sat
> squished along with two of her friends in the back. It was a perfect day to
> go to the beach. They stopped at McDonald's, Christopher's favorite, on the
> way.
>
> Christopher ate his double cheeseburgers slowly, maddeningly, the exact same
> way he did every time. He took off the top bun, held it in his hand, and ate
> the pickles. Then he ate the lettuce. Then the top bun. Then he ate the
> meat. Then the bottom bun, then each french fry, one at a time. He chewed
> vigorously, with his mouth open, loud enough for Walt to ask him to stop.
> Occasionally, when he became anxious or upset, he might stand beneath the
> spout of the soda fountain and press the button, and try to catch the spill
> in his mouth.
>
> As Walt watched Christopher eat, he tried not to think about the meeting
> he'd had earlier in the day with his ex-wife Robyn and her husband Ed. Walt
> had lost his accounting job a few months before and asked if he could cut
> back on child-support payments. He'd split with Robyn eight years earlier,
> and whenever they spoke anymore it was briefly, tensely, and only in regard
> to the kids. During this meeting, in which Robyn and Ed agreed to reduce but
> not eliminate payments, they asked Walt what he planned to do with the kids
> that day. "I don't know," Walt replied, though he did know.
>
> They arrived at New Smyrna Beach around 6:30 pm. The five of them walked the
> long wooden boardwalk, Christopher plodding behind, sometimes staring down.
> Walt followed him. The Ponce Inlet Lighthouse was the one thing, long and
> orange, that rose above the sparse landscape in the distance. The boardwalk
> ended at stairs that went down to the sand; by the time Walt and Christopher
> caught up to them, the girls had ignored the signs posted and were sliding
> down the backs of the white dunes as if on a playground. Walt and
> Christopher watched them for a while, then put their bags and towels down on
> the hard sand close to the water.
>
> Christopher, in floral trunks like his dad, took off ahead of Walt, toward
> the south jetty, and splashed in, wading along the rocks. The tide on the
> protected side of the jetty looked serene. A group of people, their dark
> fishing poles like long weeds sticking up between the jetty rocks, watched
> them. Walt waded in to get Christopher, unaware that the tide had begun to
> go out, or of how strong it was, or that he was actually disobeying a county
> ordinance; no one was supposed to swim within 300 feet of a pier or jetty.
> Robyn and Ed had repeatedly asked Walt not to put Christopher in any
> situation that could be dangerous, and they asked him in particular not to
> take Christopher to the beach. But Walt didn't listen to them. He was
> certain that it made Christopher happy to be here.
>
> The current grabbed father and son almost immediately. They floated past the
> glistening rocks, and then it pulled them faster, the sand disappearing
> beneath their toes. Within a minute, Walt and Christopher were 50 feet out,
> the ocean in their faces and ears.
>
> "Do you need help?" one of the fishermen yelled at Walt as he watched him
> being pulled away.
>
> "We're okay!" Walt shouted back, giving a thumbs-up. He still thought he had
> things under control, that they could make it back. They had waded into this
> water a thousand times, he and Christopher.
>
> But this time the current was much stronger. Another two minutes, 200 yards
> farther out to sea. Walt knew they were in trouble now. His heart thumped in
> his ears. "Don't come in!" he screamed to Angela, who was now staring out at
> them in fright from the jetty. "Call 911! 9-1-1! 9-1-1!" He repeated this
> instruction, hands cupping his mouth, over and over, trying to keep his head
> above water as the waves grew, but Angela was now out of earshot.
>
> One second Walt could see the beach, and the next he was below the horizon.
> He tried to focus on Christopher's head, the dark-brown hair wet and matted,
> the only part of him above water. Christopher was about 20 feet ahead of
> Walt now, bobbing and laughing hysterically. Walt yelled at Christopher to
> swim back to the jetty with him — "Come on, let's go, let's swim!" — but
> they had been raked into the middle of the inlet, where the current's pull
> was even stronger.
>
> After 20 minutes, they were about a mile out, at the mouth of the open sea.
> A green navigational buoy bobbed there, tall and round, with a rusted bell
> clanging back and forth. Walt reached out to try and grab onto the buoy but
> struggled against the current. Christopher just kept laughing, unaware of
> the danger, of the situation, of the fading shore and the strength of the
> current, of the ocean ahead. As they floated past the buoy, there was
> nothing else to stop them from drifting into the sea.
>
> —
>
> Walt studied Christopher as the sun went down. It was a game to his son, he
> decided — floating there without a care in the world. Farther out from
> shore, the light dwindling, the land itself was less visible. The current
> seemed to relax, and it was hard to tell how fast they were moving anymore.
>
> Staying afloat was all there really was to do. Walt told himself to keep his
> eye on Christopher, to make sure his head stayed above the four-foot waves.
> But his mind wandered to his own mom and dad waiting for them back at the
> house, to the girls left on the beach, to nothing at all. He forced himself
> not to consider what could be swimming below them. The only sounds to keep
> them company were the lap of the waves and the slap of the fins of the small
> fish that jumped onto the surface. Walt could see the white point revolving
> at the top of the lighthouse, counted the seconds of its revolution. He
> decided the coast guard would probably be coming for them soon. They had
> been in the water for two hours, he guessed. They were beginning to tire.
>
> Christopher was no longer laughing, so Walt decided it was time to give him
> a break. He dog-paddled to his son, grabbed his arm, and let Christopher
> climb on his back. Walt, who'd become a certified lifeguard because Angela's
> Girl Scout troop needed him to get his license, took a deep breath. Then he
> arched his back and dipped his head forward below the surface, arms slightly
> extended from his sides — the dead man's float.
>
> He lay facedown in 30-second increments, coming back up for air, wiping the
> water from his cheeks, spitting the ocean out of his mouth. Each time he
> would clutch Christopher's hands, then lift him up on his back. Christopher
> would lay his stomach on top of Walt and wrap his arms around his father's
> neck. Each time Walt rose to take a breath he ached more; after only a few
> minutes he came up again and clutched his stomach. Then he vomited. He puked
> everything he had eaten at lunch, big chunks of his cheeseburgers, floating
> in a pool of bile on the surface, barely digested. He dry heaved until his
> throat burned; he was screaming gibberish, nonsense, "Jesus, God, help us.…"
>
> Small fish surfaced in packs to feast on the vomited meal, and Christopher
> reacted with panic. He began to scream. He grabbed at Walt's hair and tried
> to rip it out of his head. He was thrashing on Walt's back, his weight
> pushing Walt beneath the surface. Christopher weighed about 120 pounds, and
> he was tearing at his father, digging his fingernails into him, crying at
> the top of his lungs. Walt pulled him off of his back, wiped his eyes, and
> croaked, "Please, Christopher, calm down. Please be a good boy." Christopher
> looked at Walt, pleading with a pair of helpless eyes, as if to ask: What
> are we going to do, Dad? Walt had no answer. He couldn't breathe.
>
> Christopher grabbed for him again, jumping out of the water to get away from
> the fish, splashing salt water into Walt's eyes. Walt went under, gulping a
> throatful of ocean that made him vomit again. Crying, desperate to breathe,
> he yelled at Christopher, at the situation. Christopher was screaming again,
> too. What could Walt do? There was really only one thing he could do, for
> the both of them. He was forced to make a horrible decision: If they stayed
> together, if Christopher kept clutching his father, they would both drown.
> Their only chance was for Walt to separate himself from Christopher, to hope
> that his son could stay afloat on his own. It was the only choice that made
> any sense. He looked at his son again, then pushed him away into the ocean.
>
> —
>
> When he was 15 months old, they knew something was wrong. He didn't pay
> attention, didn't make eye contact, didn't cry. He would just scream and
> grunt. He didn't say a real word until he was four. After Christopher was
> diagnosed with autism as a toddler, Walt spent 20 grand on a couple of
> miracle cures, including an injection of pig hormones into Christopher's
> leg. He also looked into another form of treatment called "patterning," an
> exercise designed to improve neurologic organization that required several
> people to help lift and move the patient's legs and arms and head for
> several hours a day. But it cost $10,000, and Walt thought it looked like
> torture.
>
> He knew where the bathroom was because Walt and Robyn showed him, but he
> didn't know how to ask for it when he needed it. Sometimes he would pee or
> shit in his pants and laugh, or smear his feces on the walls. He would make
> high-pitched noises when Robyn handed him the telephone and told him his dad
> was on the other end. He could say "goodbye," "hello," "thanks," "water,"
> "hungry," "candy." He could repeat the phrases "I love you" and "Hi, Dad"
> and "Wow." A cadre of therapists had worked with him over the years, tried
> to teach him skills like brushing his teeth and buttoning a shirt, how to
> chew quietly. Some of them had quit because he bit them.
>
> He ignored other children, mostly. He'd pick up an object — say, a string of
> thread — and let it drop, over and over, to see how it behaved on its way to
> the floor. Sometimes he would spin madly in a circle.
>
> He had so much energy it was exhausting, and he required constant
> supervision. As he got older, he would sit in the backseat on his way to
> school with Angela and would bite her on the arm or pull her hair as she
> screamed. He was fearless and reckless because he didn't have a concept of
> danger. There was just a connection missing somewhere. That was the easiest
> way to describe it.
>
> He couldn't carry on a conversation, but he could listen and understand. He
> could follow directions: Pick this up, please, Christopher. Take it over
> there and come back. He responded to sign language, because it was visual.
> He could point to a flash card to indicate what he wanted to eat. He was in
> an eighth-grade class with 10 other autistic kids, some who didn't speak or
> even act like they knew the teacher was there. The teacher once had a
> student who spoke only by reciting an infomercial: "If you didn't buy it
> here, you paid too much!"
>
> In the callous terms of the DSM-IV — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
> of Mental Disorders — Christopher displayed "markedly abnormal nonverbal
> communication." To his father he was shy and curious, and sometimes so quiet
> and so temperate that Walt could imagine his son was perfectly normal.
>
> —
>
> The first rescue helicopter appeared just before nightfall, then the boats
> in the distance, engines breathing on the water. Walt called over to
> Christopher, who had drifted maybe 10 feet away. He told him that he was a
> good boy and a great swimmer. He pointed his finger to the blinking
> helicopter high in the sky near shore, and said, "Blue lights. Blue lights.
> Blue lights coming to get us." Walt felt like he understood.
>
> Christopher certainly understood what it meant to be in the water. Walt
> pictured him floating on his back at the YMCA in Oviedo, where he'd learned
> to swim. Walt had spent hours there teaching him to float, Christopher with
> his green goggles strapped across his face, laughing, looking up at the
> ceiling painted to look like a sky.
>
> At the Y, Christopher was a regular boy. The lifeguards knew him by name,
> let him go into the utility closet and pick out a foam ring to play with in
> the water, the same green one every time. He always walked the tiled stoop
> around the pool, feeling the water on the tops of his feet. Then he'd jump
> in. Walt would show him how to fill his stomach with air so he could float,
> then pull him along by his shoulders, walking him around the left lane of
> the pool.
>
> Out at sea, in the fading light, Christopher rose and dipped from Walt's
> line of sight. Walt tried to talk to his son to keep him calm, reciting his
> favorite lines from his favorite movies. Christopher loved to sit right in
> front of the small television in his room and watch Disney videos all day.
> Sometimes he would put his eyeball as close to the screen as he could get it
> without touching. His all-time favorite scene was Buzz Lightyear in Toy
> Story, flying into space, saying his trademark phrase: "To infinity…and
> beyond!"
>
> "To infinity!" Walt yelled to Christopher over the waves. He waited for
> Christopher to respond.
>
> "To infinity, Christopher!"
>
> "…and beyond!" lightly from atop the wave, as Christopher was lifted back
> into view. It didn't sound like that when Christopher said it, though. It
> always sounded like "infin' a beyon'.…" And he'd always send his fist into
> the air. That little fist pump — Walt did it in the water then, too, even
> though he was trying to conserve energy.
>
> After a while the first helicopter left and another took its place, its blue
> light flickering over the open water. Looking out toward the black sky, Walt
> began to wave his arms, certain now that no one could hear him. Christopher
> pounded his fist against the waves. A group of jellyfish interrupted them,
> swimming into Walt's and Christopher's legs, clutching onto them and burning
> like strands of electric hair. Christopher shrieked. Then Walt was lifted up
> at the same time Christopher was lowered. When the tide evened, Christopher
> was even farther away, 30 or 40 feet. Walt tried to swim toward him,
> flapping his arms as hard as he could. Then a wave lifted Christopher, and
> Walt was caught on the other side. When the wave broke, Christopher was no
> longer there.
>
> —
>
> Only his breath in the darkness, a silence as everything settled in. For
> half an hour, Walt had yelled, begging for Christopher to answer. He had
> given up conserving energy, had been swimming as hard as he could to try and
> find his son. "Who's my best boy?" Nothing. "Christopher, who's my buddy?"
> Only the fish beneath him, brushing against his back and legs.
>
> "Christopher?!"
>
> Walt spun in every direction, trying to spot the small white face and the
> dark-brown hair.
>
> But he was gone.
>
> Walt wiped his eyes, took a breath. He's gone. It was a thought as dark and
> fathomless as the ocean itself. At that moment, he couldn't see it any other
> way — Christopher was dead. So Walt stopped yelling and shivered as a trail
> of bright green phosphorescence floated past him. He stared at it, amazed by
> its arrival, the only color on the sea, passing behind him like lights
> beneath the water. He told himself it was probably peaceful, told himself
> that Christopher just got tired and finally let go. Just slipped away under
> the sea.
>
> But Walt's mind wouldn't fully accept that. Christopher was a terrific
> swimmer. He had nine lives, Walt liked to say. Maybe he was merely playing a
> game. Maybe he was floating, just beyond where Walt could see. Maybe he just
> wanted to be alone for a while, like he sometimes did.
>
> Christopher had wandered off so many times, Walt learned to expect he would
> always be okay. "Eloped" is the word used to describe the way an autistic
> person sometimes wanders off — is there one second, then vanishes.
>
> Christopher had eloped at the mall, at the hardware store, from Walt's
> parents' house, and after a search they would often find him playing in
> water. At first it was the lake in their old neighborhood, then the
> retention pond at the bottom of the street — the police had sent a
> helicopter to search for him. Then it was the neighbors' pool: floating on
> his back, naked. The neighbors called the cops, who came and pulled
> Christopher out and saw the silver chain bracelet on his left wrist with his
> identification and phone number.
>
> Once when Christopher wandered off, the police searched for him again, and
> half an hour later, he turned up in the fountain at the Oviedo mall.
> Christopher had walked across a busy intersection, crossed through six lanes
> of traffic, had navigated the winding road back to the parking lot at night.
> He had taken his clothes off and was splashing beneath the falling water in
> his underwear, his feet brushing the pennies people had tossed in to make a
> wish.
>
> After each of these episodes, Robyn would fume at Walt. She no longer
> trusted him. She and Ed held their breath whenever Christopher was with
> Walt. When Christopher was with Robyn and Ed, they never let him outside
> without maintaining physical contact. But Walt wanted Christopher to
> experience the world like a regular boy, wanted him to walk the stadium
> stands without holding his hand and feel the beach sand and breathe the air,
> wanted him to make choices.
>
> Walt couldn't even bear to call him autistic, to label him that way, and his
> voice always cracked when he talked about his "little buddy." He took the
> good days, swimming together at the Y, sitting together in the front pew of
> church, eating at McDonald's without incident, and weighed all of that
> against the tantrums, the outbursts, the moments in which his son would
> lunge at him, out of the blue, and sink his teeth into his arm. That's when
> Walt would sob. He'd lament having to shout at Christopher, asking him why
> he'd attack his own father. For every good day there was always some kind of
> reminder of the bad.
>
> But now he was gone. They shouldn't have come out to the beach, he told
> himself. He should've rented a movie and spent the day at home. He could
> never face his own family. He wouldn't know what to say to his mother and
> father, to his daughter, to the coast guard, to Robyn and Ed. The guilt,
> too, the realization that he had been responsible for his son's death.
>
> He decided that he should take his own life. It would be easier. Bawling,
> his tears mixing with the salt water on his face, he took a deep breath,
> exhaled, and slipped like he imagined Christopher did beneath the surface.
>
> But there was Angela. He had almost forgotten about her. He kicked his legs
> and came up for air, expelling a mouthful of water. She needed a father too.
>
> —
>
> The ocean at dawn is a wonderful dream. He thought the night might last
> forever and now considers the morning itself a sign, too. The birds dive to
> the surface, stretching out their patternless wings as if to yawn. A
> seagull, white and with crystal eyes, lands right next to Walt. It looks
> directly at him, opens its orange beak like it's trying to get him to talk.
> Walt can suddenly see the life of everything, the fish swimming on the
> surface, the actual blue of the water. His neck aches like hell. His hands
> and wrists are swollen stiff. His lips are chapped and bleeding. He's numb
> and warm. His tongue is swollen, his eyes dry.
>
> He thinks he's floated much farther out, but he really has no point of
> reference. No one even knows the exact direction in which he and Christopher
> floated. He has survived the night, he realizes, for nothing. He stares
> forward, shielding his face from the sun with his arm, and then looks back
> down to the water, thinking of Christopher.
>
> —
>
> At 7:15 am, on the deck of a recreational fishing boat called the Open
> Range, Shawn McMichael looks out and sees a reflection in the water. Just
> turns his head, while the five other men on the deck are staring forward
> toward the horizon. A glitter, something sparkling, something that maybe on
> a thousand other days would never catch his eye. It could be anything, maybe
> one of the cruise-ship balloons that frequently float off the deck and then
> settle and shimmer on the surface. Shawn looks again and sees movement.
> Stanley Scott, the boat's owner, realizes it's a man. Floating. By himself,
> waving his arms. The boat slows, turns hard, comes within 50 feet of him.
>
> "How did you get here?" Stanley shouts. "Where's your boat?"
>
> The man is delirious, won't stop yelling — they can't get a word in. He asks
> about someone named Christopher. The men ease up to him, extend a boat pole
> out on the left side so he can grab onto it, and walk him around to the
> platform on the back end, by the engines. It takes two guys to haul him in.
> Dripping water, swollen, pale, shivering, jellyfish stings like long red
> scars on his legs. The silver pendant dangling below his chin — that's what
> Shawn had seen reflecting.
>
> "I lost him!" They sit him on a beanbag in the back of the boat. "I lost
> him!" He repeats that phrase until they can get him to stop shouting and ask
> what he's talking about. "Christopher, Christopher…have you seen him? Oh, my
> God, have you seen him?" The men drape a windbreaker over his shoulders,
> hand him a bottle of water. He drinks six, one after the other. "He's a
> great swimmer. He's a great swimmer.… Oh, God, he's gone."
>
> He has an amazing, preposterous story, all right. He's floated nine miles
> northeast into the ocean from Ponce Inlet. The men don't say a word. They're
> in awe. They get the coast guard on the radio and tell them they've found a
> man named Walter Marino, and his autistic son is still missing.
>
> Walt shivers and sniffles in the boat. He calls his younger sister, Linda,
> and tells her that he's alive. The night before, Linda had not been able to
> sleep, knowing her brother and nephew were missing. She stayed up with her
> elderly mother and father, calling the pastor at the church and asking him
> what to do. "We're going to pray for a miracle," he had told her. Robyn and
> Ed stayed up too, in fear for Christopher's life, Robyn convulsing, so sick
> that Ed almost called 911. Angela had gone to sleep thinking about how her
> dad had once told her he wanted his ashes scattered, and that she couldn't
> remember where.
>
> Walt tells Linda now that Christopher is still missing, that he's been in
> the water 13 hours.
>
> "My God, that's a long time," she says.
>
> He calls Robyn, too, gritting his teeth. "Tell Angela I'm alive," he says.
>
> His voice is weak, raspy. She can barely tell it's him. "Walt?" she shouts.
>
> "We've lost Christopher," he says.
>
> "What? What? How? Where is he?" She's hysterical, asking about her son.
> She's talking so fast, asking so many questions that he doesn't want to
> answer, so he hangs up.
>
> An orange-and-white coast guard boat pulls up next to the Open Range at 9
> am. For an hour and a half, Walt has been sitting on the beanbag, moaning. A
> door opens on the side of the boat, and two men pull Walt inside. He waves
> goodbye to the guys on the Open Range, who stand in stupefaction.
>
> The ship's captain asks Walt if he wants to be taken to the hospital or stay
> on the boat as they go search for Christopher. "Let's go," Walt says. But he
> chooses to sit below in the cabin, because he doesn't want to be there when
> someone spots Christopher floating on his stomach, bloated, dead — he
> doesn't want to be the one.
>
> So he's escorted down a flight of stairs to a room filled with life jackets
> and flare guns. An officer in charge of keeping an eye on Walt sits opposite
> on a bench and says only, "You look like you regret something. Do you regret
> something?" Walt just shakes his head in his hands — he doesn't want to
> talk.
>
> —
>
> All the way from Clearwater, out of the skies above northeastern Florida,
> the Jayhawk helicopter rides 100 feet above the water. It's got a bright
> orange tail and white-striped body, like the fish from Finding Nemo. At 300
> feet the trained men aboard can see gulls hitting the surface, but they're
> flying even lower this morning, as low as they can go, because they're
> looking for a 12-year-old boy.
>
> The helicopter goes into a right-hand orbit, circling once, then again,
> initially lowering to 50 feet. The flight mechanic had seen the dark-brown
> hair and white face in the tide line, had seen a body floating there,
> bobbing. Tom Emerick, a rescue swimmer, is already wearing a shorty wetsuit
> and puts on a black mask with a snorkel.
>
> Lowered 20 feet down by a thick hoist cable, Emerick hits the water
> feetfirst. He swims toward Christopher, the boy's small pale eyes staring at
> him, unblinking. Emerick signals for the helicopter to send the basket down.
> It's 9:15 am, three miles from where his father had been discovered two
> hours earlier.
>
> "Hi, how you doing, my name is Tom," Emerick says.
>
> Christopher says nothing, barely makes a move — just watches as Emerick
> pulls him into the stainless-steel basket. "Don't climb out of it, okay,
> buddy?" he shouts. It's deafening beneath the whir. The rotor wash is coming
> down so hard that it stings them, nearly suffocates them.
>
> Christopher rides up in the basket silently, looking down at Emerick still
> in the water, studying him like a piece of string.
>
> In the stomach of the helicopter, Emerick wraps a wool blanket over
> Christopher's shoulders, checks his breathing, his pulse, has him track his
> index finger with his eyes. He asks him if he wants something to drink, and
> when Christopher doesn't answer, he makes a motion with his hands to emulate
> taking a sip from a cup, and Christopher nods. Sitting on a bench in the
> helicopter, he shivers, freckles beneath the dark hair. His skin is warm;
> he's slightly hypothermic. But other than the jellyfish stings, there
> doesn't appear to be anything the matter with him.
>
> —
>
> Robyn and Ed take Christopher home on September 8, after he stays one night
> at Halifax hospital in Daytona. He can barely walk, so they carry him back
> and forth from his bed to the bathroom. He can't put any weight on his legs
> because of the jellyfish stings. He's dehydrated. He eats carrot sticks,
> bananas, pieces of chicken. They let him watch Disney movies, tuck him under
> his Tigger and Pooh bedsheets. Robyn goes in and sits beside him, asks him
> softly what he saw out there in the ocean, what it was like. Two days, and
> she asks him this several times, and finally he tells her: "It was dark." A
> whole sentence.
>
> Robyn and Ed have a beautiful home on a quiet street with a pool out back
> that Christopher can play in. The property is bolted down so tight,
> Christopher can never elope. The front and back doors have key locks on the
> inside as well as the outside. The garage is locked. There are locks on all
> the sliding doors. The house has an alarm system, with a chime function.
>
> When Robyn was living alone with Angela and Christopher, he was nearly
> impossible to care for, and as a single mother she felt she had no other
> choice but to put him in a place where other people could take care of him
> 24 hours a day. He got kicked out of day care because he bit other children.
> They had to put a harness on the bus for him, a five-point seat belt,
> because without it he'd run up and down the aisles, hitting students and
> even the driver. Christopher split his weekends between Robyn and Walt and
> stayed at the group home on weekdays.
>
> When Robyn and Ed first saw Walt after the incident, it was on the dock, as
> he stepped off the coast guard boat; he was sunburned and babbling like a
> child. They didn't have the energy to confront him, to yell at him, to tell
> him they had been right. They were just happy that Christopher was alive.
>
> Three weeks after he comes home from the hospital, Christopher is named
> grand marshal of the parade at Disney World. Robyn and Ed make sure to keep
> a sharp eye on him the whole time and to hold his hand. He gets a Florida
> Safety Hero award. He gets to stand on the bridge of a coast guard cutter
> and pretend to drive.
>
> —
>
> In January, Walt moves to Vancouver, Washington, just across the bridge from
> Portland. He takes a job contracting with the FDIC, closing a bank, for good
> money, and thus has to live so far away. He flies back to Florida on Friday
> evenings every two weeks just so he can spend a day and a half with
> Christopher and Angela before getting up at 4 am on Mondays and flying back.
> When he drops Angela off at Robyn and Ed's house, they do not wave at him as
> he leaves.
>
> He lives in a hotel room, a suite with comfortable furniture and a nice bed,
> big wooden cabinets where he can store his things. He goes to the bank in
> the morning, watches cable in the hotel after work, and lounges around in
> his sweatpants and gray Columbia fleece pullover. He shares a white Pontiac
> Vibe hatchback with one of his co-workers. He's a tall guy, 46 years old, a
> little pudgy, with high blood pressure.
>
> In March, Walt goes to Florida and takes Christopher back out to the beach
> at Ponce Inlet. They sit up in the front seat of the Celica listening to an
> audiotape of The Aristocats. Christopher eats a bag of Doritos Cool Ranch
> chips and, later, two McDonald's double cheeseburgers, layer by layer.
> "Aaah, eeehh, uhhhhh!" he shouts, off and on. They drive by the mall where
> he was found in the fountain with the pennies. "Wow, dude!" Walt says,
> looking into the empty bag. He leans in and puts his face right up to
> Christopher's, almost touching his nose, and says, "You're my best buddy."
> Christopher giggles and then stares at the passing cars.
>
> Christopher walks on the beach and looks around, then goes into a bathroom
> to put on his swim trunks. He dips his feet into the water, recoils upon
> discovering how cold it is. The waves press into the rocks, the jetty long
> and uneven out to the ocean. Christopher lies on his stomach in the sand,
> laughing.
>
> But when Walt takes him back to the group home at around 9:30 that night,
> Christopher, who had been silent and mostly calm the entire day, looks at
> his father, then throws his cup of McDonald's water at the car window. When
> Walt gets out of the car in front of the group home, Christopher runs into
> the empty street and sits on the concrete of the cul-de-sac, beneath the
> streetlight. He looks lost and frightened in the glow. He starts hitting his
> head with his fists and shouting at the top of his lungs.
>
> "Please, buddy, please," Walt begs.
>
> Walt puts his hands under Christopher's arms and tries to stand him up.
> Christopher won't budge. Walt's voice quivers, "I know you don't want me to
> leave, man, but I have to."
>
> He manages to stand Christopher upright and drag him about 20 feet toward
> the door of the home, and then Christopher jumps at him, sinks his teeth
> into Walt's arm, so Walt lets go and falls halfway to the ground. It had
> been so easy to forget all day.
>
> Walt cries out in pain.
>
> "Why, Christopher, why?"
>
> Tears are running down his face, with nothing but the back of his bitten arm
> to wipe them away.
>
> Christopher just stands there.
>
> —
>
> Walt has tried to imagine what that night was like for Christopher. He has
> imagined it repeatedly, in his sleep, at his work, in his rented hotel suite
> with the curtains drawn, the empty plastic soup containers on the counter.
> He has imagined Christopher giggling and splashing, the fish touching his
> back and arms; Christopher staring in awe at the dolphin snouts and falling
> stars, soothed by the foam tops of the waves; has imagined the whole night
> was like this one big adventure, the biggest adventure Christopher will ever
> have in his life, floating on his back as the water warmed his ears, in
> wonder as the sounds changed beneath the surface; has imagined that those
> sounds captivated his son's imagination, and that since Christopher loves to
> float and swim more than anything, perhaps he even had fun. And the
> phosphorescence, the most colorful thing, he hopes it passed his son in a
> trail on the top of the water, long and thin, sparkling there like something
> hopeful; prays that Christopher got to see it. He has to believe he did. He
> can just picture Christopher sticking his hand in the filmy substance,
> holding it up to the moonlight, slick and shiny and Disney green. In fact,
> he cannot bring himself to imagine anything else. Walt aches for the day, a
> day that will probably never come, when he'll be able to actually talk to
> Christopher, and ask him about what he saw and what he felt and what he was
> thinking, how he survived.
>
> But really, all he can do is wonder.
>
> --
> Posted By Madness to Madness Writers at 6/13/2011 11:49:00 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment