Free Bait: A Novel by J. Kent Messum

could make it,” Tal suddenly blurted out. “I could . . . yeah . . . fuck, I could make that. S’not that far. Not that far at all.”
    Nash looked out to where Tal was staring. The next island seemed closer from this vantage point, but he knew it was an illusion. Tal snapped his face toward Nash, eyes wild and popping.
    “Not far, not far, not far. Just a little swim, Nash. . . .”
    “What?”
    “Just a little swim, that’s all. Kick, kick, stroke, stroke, and we’d be over there before you know it!”
    Tal was serious, his intention backed by a cocksure crazed look, a daredevil with no safety net, oblivious to the dangers. Spittle formed in the corners of his mouth as he leaned forward on his stone throne. A foul fecal smell pricked Nash’s nostrils. He suspected the man may have shit his pants and took a step back.
    “You could definitely use a dunk in that water, buddy,” Nash said. “Smell like you’ve just rolled out of some homeless guy’s asshole.”
    Tal didn’t hear. He glanced back at the channel, grinning like a clown on cocaine, nodding excitedly.
    “You and me, N-N-Nash,” he gibbered. “Both of us, man. W-we could do it. Swim that shit easy. Just the two of us. More junk if it’s just the
two
of us, eh? We get more if it’s only me and you, right?”
    Nash felt the overwhelming urge to smack the piss out of the stinking, driveling addict. Somehow he thought a beating would make them both feel better. He fought the urge. Nash was well versed with the addicted brain. You couldn’t beat sense into, or stupidity out of, a junkie. It would be a waste of time and knuckle skin.
    “You’re losing it, man,” Nash said. “If you think we’re swimming to that island you’re completely fucked.”
    Tal shot him a wavering look, his mouth curling into an expectant smile, then dropping into a hopeless gape. His dancing pupils were pinpoints as he mumbled a string of static, unintelligible words.
    “Right,” Nash said, rolling his eyes. “Point taken.”
    He turned away, tuning out the maniac’s murmurings, bereft of any desire to try to communicate with the increasing half-wit. Tal focused on the water again, hand swaying in front of his face in sync with the movement of the waves. Nash walked only a few paces before swiveling back. All too soon it could easily be him perched on that rock, slowly losing his marbles. He had to at least try. Nash cleared his throat, trying to make his voice as authoritative as possible.
    “Come on, Tal. Get down from there and pull your shit together. It’s high time we got back to the others.”
    He may as well have been speaking into a gale-force wind. His words reached no one. Tal was as good as gone, drifting away on his rock, everything meaningless except the next island and the junk on its shore. Nash hitched in breath to repeat, but expelled the air without a word. There was nothing he could do. He flipped Tal the bird instead and turned his back.
    “Fine, stay here and rot on your rock.”
    Walking up the beach, Nash cast another glance toward the water. Among the rolling blue waves and white crests, he caught a flash of gray, gone as quickly as it appeared. Nash waited to see if it would resurface. When it didn’t he looked to Tal, wondering if the man had seen it too, but Tal’s head was tilted toward the sky, mouth opening and closing like a guppy. Nash trudged back up the beach with a new weight in the pit of his stomach. That which had surfaced in the water preyed on his mind. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought he’d seen a fin.
    When he passed Maria sitting under her tree, his perturbed expression did not go unnoticed. She reached out a stopping hand.
    “Hey, what made your face like that?”

Twelve
    YESTERDAY.
    “W hat happened to your face?” Maria asked, pointing.
    Pablo gave her a slightly annoyed look. Maria had wanted to ask Pablo that question since the first day they’d met. She was finally drunk enough to do it.