Read October Light for Free Online Page B

if he emerged. But he could see the thing floating, sweeping out to sea, and, in his confusion, he threw a line to it. The Coast Guard cutter was turning, coming back. “Jesus,” he said again. The Indomitable was loaded to the gunnels with marijuana.
    â€œSwitch off the lights,” Mr. Goodman said.
    â€œSwitch off the lights,” Mr. Nit called. The lights went off. The cutter crossed to starboard, the wrong side. Mr. Goodman had his shoes off now. He snapped back the rope and dived. He thrashed in the water, blind as one of Mr. Nit’s eels, and in three, four minutes, absurdly, he found the body. It was certainly dead, but he clutched it by the hair and yelled, “Pull the rope!”
    Mr. Nit was already pulling, though in the cacophony of foghorns and shouts from the bridge he heard nothing. Mr. Goodman, with the corpse, came up to the hull and understood that Mr. Nit could not pull them both up—could hardly have pulled up one of them alone, since Mr. Nit was a tiny man, fragile and quick as a monkey but no more substantial. Mr. Goodman looped the rope around the drowned man’s waist, then shinnied. When he reached the rail he dug in and hauled. The drowned man came over the side; still no sign of the Captain.
    â€œJesus,” Mr. Nit said.
    Mr. Goodman lay down on the deck, panting like a whale.
    â€œJesus,” Mr. Nit said, “what do we do with him now?”
    â€œHe’s a human being,” Mr. Goodman gasped. “We couldn’t just let him die.”
    The Coast Guard cutter had passed and was circling back.
    â€œTerrific,” said Mr. Nit. “Human being. Terrific.”
    He did not look like one, it was true. His suit, striped shirt and tie were unsightly, and his shoes had come off. His hair hung over his face like seaweed, and whenever you moved him or pushed down on his stomach—neither Mr. Goodman nor Mr. Nit had had lessons in artificial respiration, though they were doing their best—water came out of him like juice from an overripe pumpkin. He looked like one of those pictures called Descent from the Cross (Mr. Goodman had once been a museum guard).
    â€œIs he breathing yet?” Mr. Nit asked anxiously of Mr. Goodman’s ear.
    Mr. Goodman pushed hard on the stomach again. “Not that I can see.”
    Mr. Nit leaned still closer. “That cutter’s coming right up our asshole, Jack.”
    Mr. Goodman sighed, pushed up from the body, hunching his shoulders in the cold wet salt-smelly shirt, and seized the drowned man’s feet. “We better get him out of sight,” he said. “Grab hold.”
    Mr. Nit grabbed hold and they rolled him into the fish hatch with the pot. “Now let’s get out of here,” said Mr. Goodman.
    The cutter horn boomed and Mr. Nit jumped like a rabbit. “Yes sir,” he said, as if the horn had spoken English, and he yelled, “Full speed frontwards!”
    The Indomitable churned up white water a moment, then moved. The cutter’s searchlight came over them like the eye of God—the cutter looked a mile long—and a man on the cutter yelled down at them through a bullhorn. Rowrrrowrrow!
    â€œYes sir!” Mr. Nit yelled, cupping his hands. “Yes sir! Sorry sir!”
    â€œGet the lights back on,” said Mr. Goodman.
    â€œLights!” yelled Mr. Nit.
    They came on.
    The bullhorn growled again, something about a drowning man. Mr. Nit and Mr. Goodman cupped their hands and yelled: “No sign of him. We been looking.” The Indomitable was now running full speed ahead, bobbing up and down in the sea’s heavy waves like a fisherman’s cork; the cutter was standing still, the white eye of God staring after them as if baffled and slightly hurt. Mr. Nit and Mr. Goodman continued yelling until fog blanked out even the searchlight.
    And now, riding easy in the quiet of the bay, bobbing more gently, the engine no longer groaning in spasms as it