PEDALING HOME, THE biting wind whips through my coat, as if I don’t even have one on. I make a mental note to look into thermal underwear, and some kind of face mask, seeing as how I can’t feel my nose. And maybe a headlight? Do they make those for bikes? At five thirty p.m., it’s still light out now, but I know it’s only a matter of time before that changes. As I approach the Passaic River Bridge, I’m wondering when the first snow will come, and what I’ll do about getting to work then, when I notice a figure standing just underneath the bridge, on one of the support beams. I slow down and squint, while two cars pass in quick succession. It looks like a young boy, but I can’t understand how he got there—or what he’s doing. And suddenly, he’s airborne—body flat out, like a skydiver without the parachute, and then he hits the water with a slap that I know even from my vantage point must have hurt like the dickens. I gasp and look around for other kids. Maybe he’s on a dare? But I don’t see another soul. The cars that drove past me are already on the bridge headed away, and it doesn’t appear that they noticed the boy. I look back in the river, where I see his arms flailing, his eyes wide in panic, and his mouth opening and closing like a fish’s, searching for air as he surfaces. Come on, I silently urge him. Swim to the side. But his little body stays in the middle, the slow-moving current steadily whisking him downstream.
And then he goes under.
I stand there staring at the murky water, too stunned to move. It feels like I’m in a movie or maybe my mind is playing some bizarre trick on me. I look around again for someone—anyone—who can help, but I’m alone. My mouth dry, I look back at the water, in time to see the dome of his black-haired head break the surface, bobbing like a buoy. And I know I have to do something.
I drop my bike on the shoulder and stumble down the grassy embankment, keeping my eyes trained on his floating head, while throwing off my coat. When I reach the river, I run parallel with it until I’m past the boy, then jump in, bravado pumping through my veins like I’m a goddamn superhero—until my body hits the icy water, stealing my breath. I let out an involuntary scream and start flailing my arms, mimicking the boy’s own reaction when he fell in. Then I put my feet down and realize, with some relief—especially since I haven’t been swimming in more than ten years—I’m able to touch bottom. I stand up, the cold water grazing my chest, and, training my eyes on the boy again, start pumping my legs toward the middle of the river. With growing alarm, I watch his body coming faster—the current must have picked up—and I’m not sure that I’ll reach the interception point in time. I pump my legs harder, using my gloved hands to propel my body even faster through the water. Then, at the last possible second, I launch myself forward, stretching out my fingertips as far as they will go and grasping on to the wet material of his sweater. I get a clump of it in my hand and start pulling him toward me—surprised at how light his waterlogged body feels—while searching for purchase with my feet again in the silty earth. His head now out of the water, the boy sputters, expelling a surge of water from his lips, but then his head rolls over to one side, lifeless.
The return to the shore seems illogically faster—perhaps propelled by my eagerness to get out of the cold water, or my panic at his motionless form. Grunting, I push his tiny body onto the muddy bank and pull myself out after him.
Shivering—and my heart galloping at what feels like the same pace as my chattering teeth—I crouch over him. “Hey,” I say, poking him in the arm with a gloved finger. He doesn’t respond. I know the next logical step is CPR. I’ve seen it in a thousand medical dramas, but it always looks so intuitive—like it’s an inherent skill encoded in your DNA. I wait for my body to take over, to do what needs to be done, but the only thing my gut is screaming at me right now is that if I don’t do something immediately, this boy will die. Looking at his blue lips, I wonder for an instant if he already has. I tentatively put my palms on his chest and push, but I have no idea if I’m in the right spot or applying the correct amount of force. After ten or so pumps, I hesitate. I know what I need to do next. I also know that it could kill me.
Shit. Shit. Shit. I tilt his head up with a gloved hand and cover his nose and mouth with mine. I exhale into his lungs. Once. Twice. And then go back to pumping on his chest, while my lips begin that all-too-familiar tingling. I hear a shout and look up. A few cars have pulled to a stop right before the bridge and a man is getting out of one of them, waving his cell phone in the air. Relief floods through my numb body. I open my mouth to yell at the man to call an ambulance, but my throat is suddenly too tight to expel the air. I wheeze, trying to inhale, while still pumping away on the boy. My vision starts to blur, dark spots floating in at the edges, as I look up at the boy’s face to see if my ministrations are making any difference—and that’s when I realize I recognize him. I’ve seen this boy before. The phrase “serial killer,” of all things, floats in my mind, unbidden.
The man from the car is suddenly beside me and I stumble back, watching as he immediately takes over pumping on the boy’s chest. Clutching my own throat, silently begging my airway to open, I fall down on the grass. I hear coughing, but I’m not sure if it’s my own or the boy’s. Somewhere beyond that is the siren of an ambulance in the distance. My whole body feels warm and I let it sink farther into the ground, while the panic over not being able to breathe strangely begins to subside.
And then everything goes black.
eleven
ERIC