The Cost of Playing a Joke on My Annie

The Big Red Boat was our first cruise. Ann told me she was going to book it, and when she ordered a rental car, I made her promise that she would get the smallest Japanese compact she could find.

It wasn't because of the cost. At the time, teenage Florida gangsters were shooting German tourists who rented nice cars.

Ann did exactly like I asked.

The car was horrible. It killed every time I tried to start in first gear. On the morning we left for the coast to board the boat, it was hot, and the road was showing hot spots of oil on the asphalt. A long line of Japanese tourists walked outside the hotel, cameras swaying from side to side around their necks.

I was tired of the car stalling, so I popped the clutch. I heard the tires squeal and even saw smoke in the mirrors. The mass of Japanese tourists went crazy. My Annie and I are in at least 10 home movies and 150 photograph albums. They enjoyed it, and we did too. It will always be one of my favorite memories of that trip.

While in the Bahamas, Ann wanted to go snorkeling. When they asked me if I could swim at the front desk, I hesitated. I was nervous about swimming in the ocean. Ann was so disgusted with me about being hesitant like I was.

Once while body surfing on Manhattan Beach in L.A., a large fish brushed my leg. And it was very large, like a log beneath the water. It was only about seven years since Jaws was in theaters, so I always was nervous after that.

They--the ones in charge of doing the snorkeling--made me do a swim test before I could participate, because I was hesitant at the desk.

Ann and I went to the boat's pool at the time they had the test scheduled. The pool was all of 20 feet in length, and I was to join the mob of six-year-old children. All of them were hoping to pass, so they could do the adventure with their parents.

Ann grinned and laughed out loud. I swore and walked away. I was not going to be in the pool with little kids, even though I could swim well.

Ann and the young man who was going to give me the swim test met me at our room door as I was trying to open it with the key. The kid was nice, but he was so patronizing. He set up another appointment that wouldn't embarrass me, but it was too late. I was embarrassed already.

I passed.

My Annie and I bought underwater disposable cameras and boarded the small boat that took us to an incredible coral reef. I made my way to a small diving platform at the rear that looked like what boats at home had for water skiers. They told me to jump into the water.

I was nervous--the Jaws thing again. I slid into the water. It was warm like lukewarm tub water. We all had to wear inflatable life vests like my Annie wore in the picture at the left. I padded around the boat the entire time, never coming in to rest once, unlike almost all of the other swimmers.

During the adventure, Ann would swim beside me and remove my swim goggles. Water would get into them, and I would have to empty the water and put them on again. She did it twice. She would hum the music to Jaws right before she did it each time.

Before going snorkeling, we bought these little containers of fish food. Ann had two or three, and I had that many too. My Annie was coming in for another shot at moving my swim mask, humming the muffled sound of Jaws.

I turned and emptied all my containers of food beneath her. I made sure that I shook them perfectly in this beautiful circular motion. Thousands of Nemo and Dori fish went into a feeding frenzy all around her. Among the tiny masses of blue and yellow, I could see Annie squirming, and I could hear her. "Blub, Blub, Blub!"

We both surfaced and looked at each other. She damned me all to hell, but she smiled when she did it, so I knew I was alright.

At the left and below are photographs of the fish we saw. Parts of the pictures show the reef too. It was beautiful.

When we boarded the boat, I took off the T-shirt I wore like everyone else to prevent sunburn. I walked around the boat, leaning over to look at the water. Everyone acted strangely. And they made these strange sounds, like they were choking on food or something.

They would look at me briefly and then turn their heads quickly to look in the other direction. I even looked to see what they saw, but it was an empty horizon, or at least that is what I thought they saw.

My Annie sat at the back of the boat, smiling from ear to ear and really pleased at something. I walk back to see what is so funny.

She smiled at me like she always does when she teases me. "Feel your suit."

I pat both of my legs. "No, feel your suit." I did it again the same way.

Annie stands up and takes my hand, directing it to the back of my suit. I touched bare skin at the back of my suit the size of a volleyball.

I never had to worry about people recognizing me aboard the boat. They never noticed my face. I still wake up in the night sometimes, hearing the journalist who reported the Hindenburg tragedy, and I hear his voice among the groans of others on that little boat that took us to the reef. "Oh, the humanity," I hear them say in unison, and some mothers cover the eyes of their small children.

The picture at the right shows a beach on the Big Red Boat's private island. It was so beautiful, the colors under the water, the empty beaches, the soothing water. The day was quite warm--hot enough that the sand actually burned our feet. We had to get towels and throw them in front of us to step on as we made our way to the water. That's how we did it. The water close to the beach was shallow, but there were large rocks immediately under the water occasionally, like the ones higher on the shoreline in the picture below.