He put on his bathing suit, grabbed a towel, slipped into ragged leather sandals and left, immediately nailed by the rising sun. He almost turned around. He squeezed his eyes to block out the light and headed toward the seawall. He heard nothing but the waves bounce off the rocks, felt the heat on his face and chest. Survival was possible.

He skipped from rock to rock until he found what seemed a suitable point to dive from and slid into the water. It was cold but not unpleasant. His father would’ve called it call it fresh. His arms and legs stopped vibrating and he headed out, breathing slow, an easy crawl, warm up the body and rise and fall with the incoming waves. Not bad at all. He swam out for a few minutes and came up, treading water, looking around.

Nate was 10 feet from him, wearing goggles, also treading water.

“What you doing in my lake, John Prine?” he said. “This is my time, my lake, goddamn it. Race you to the shore.” He slid under the water and with a big kick, pushed off and was away, swimming pretty hard for an old guy with a lousy heart. Only problem was he was heading away from shore, not to it, and doing it at a good clip.

“Nate! Nate!” Adam screamed. Nate didn’t hear him. He was ploughing ahead toward the middle of Lake Ontario, about 85 kms across. Adam chased, swimming as hard as he could. He hadn’t eaten real food in a day, smoking grass hadn’t done much for his lungs. He stopped, took a deep breath and called Nate again. No use. The guy couldn’t hear him. He would either have a heart attack or just run out of steam and drown.

Adam went after him but his stomach rebelled. He began to gag. He started choking and coughing, fighting to keep water out of his lungs and get rid of the bit of lake he had inhaled. He needed to throw up. If he did he would drown, though odds were good he was going to drown anyway. He forgot about Nate and tried to stop retching, moving his legs to stay vertical and keep his head out of the water. A small wave caught him with his mouth open and he swallowed more water. Then he threw up, paddling with his hands, fighting to stay upright, retching and coughing and, no doubt, dying. His eyes teared, he fought for breath between the heaves of his gut and his lungs rebelling against the water they inhaled. He thought his death would be more exotic. A fiery wreck, perhaps him and the truck off a cliff along the Pacific coast. 

This was absurd. He was tired. It would be easy to give up. He turned toward shore. It seemed a year away. He was suddenly cold and couldn’t get his breathing controlled or do anything about the nausea. He thought of his sister. He should’ve called her and then something grabbed him from behind, an arm locked around his neck and pulled him toward shore.

“If you can’t swim, you don’t go swimming, you fucking idiot,” said Nate, paddling them home with one arm, the other firmly around Adam’s chest, keeping his head above water.

“And if you puke on me, I’ll let you drown,” he said.

Adam caught his breath and his guts calmed. He pulled away from Nate and they swam to shore side by side.