The Flow

Winter

February loosened its grip on the cove. The ice sheet moaned at night, and by day broke into a bobbing field of treacherous atolls. Placing a foot on the larger ones started it under, and one needed to leap to the next and the next to stay afloat. There was an edge of solid ice a hundred yards from the beach. We called it the deep end of the pool. The shellfish below slept in mucky dungeons as we started for the edge, only to lose our nerve and our footing in waist-deep water. Falling in was a forgone conclusion, and the edge was well over our heads. Our teeth chattered while we plowed for shore, pushing the icebergs aside with hypothermia getting hold of us. Bob Flanagan stood on the beach with a quivering lip. I'd gotten the best of him in a fight a week before. "Let's see what you can do," I said. He called me a b***h and jumped on the float. He got out twice as far as any of us had the guts for. And that's when he went under, and it was deep out there.