The Panic Zone

28

Near Bimini

The Spanish luxury liner, Salida del Sol, steamed toward the Florida coast and the end of a seven-day cruise of the eastern Caribbean islands.

Before leaving his cabin, Roger Tippert, the school-teacher from Indianapolis, took one final look in the mirror, approving the shorts and flowered shirt he’d bought in Nassau.

He was headed to Twisters Cocktail Lounge high up on deck 14. Cathy, his wife of ten years, was somewhere on deck 11 with her new friends, enjoying the ship’s power-walking club.

He whistled softly as he strolled to the elevator and waited a moment. It chimed and the doors opened to that young couple in the cabin across the hall, the family with the cute baby. They’d come aboard in Nassau. Roger had greeted them a few times and by their accents guessed they were Russian or something.

The little boy had one arm extended over his head, holding his mother’s hand. She smiled. “Alek, say hello to the nice man.”

The toddler broke from her grip-or did she nudge him?-and made a teetering beeline for Roger, stumbling into him.

“Hey there, cowboy.” Roger felt the boy’s little hands slapping at his legs as he squatted down and helped him back to his mother.

“Thank you.”

Roger caught something under the woman’s smile. Was it the hint of a come-on? Whatever, Roger dismissed it.

“No problem.”

He stepped by her husband, who had the warmth of a zombie. The man eyed him while the doors closed. Alone in the elevator, he shook his head. Man, it was yesterday when his kids were that size. As he strolled into Twisters, he thought happily of his wife. Waiting for her in the lounge had become their predinner ritual during the trip.

He took in the ocean view, knowing he was one lucky son-of-a-gun.

Cathy, a dental hygienist, had survived a recent battle with breast cancer. Their two beautiful children, Simon, who was nine, and Melissa, who was seven, were treasures.

At times he thought that he didn’t deserve this family.

About three years back, Rosita, a thirty-year-old, divorced ex-beauty queen and substitute teacher had run her hand inside his thigh under the table at a school district lunch and offered to “rock his world.”

Roger was going to accept Rosita’s offer but on his way to meet her at a motel, he turned around. He knew it was wrong. He was happily married.

He never told Cathy about it.

Seven months later, she found a malignant lump.

But she beat it and in the process became his hero as her strength made him realize that she was too good for him. So it was while they were in the grip of an unrelenting winter that he surprised her with this tropical cruise for an anniversary present.

She cried.

It was something she had always dreamed of doing.

Now, as he sipped a Dutch beer alone at the bar, he reflected on all the places they’d seen-St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Nassau-and how much Cathy had loved every minute of the cruise so far.

This had been one of the best times of their lives.

“So we meet again, Tippert.”

A rugged-faced man in his mid-sixties took the stool next to him.

“Hey there, captain.”

Jimmy Stokes, a retired car dealer from Fort Worth, Texas, had been joining him at the bar around the same time every day. Roger liked their conversations on sports, politics, history and life in general. Jimmy was vacationing alone. His wife had died of a stroke five years back. They never had any children and Jimmy was genuinely happy for Roger’s situation.

“Sounds like you got things set just right on the home front, son.”

Stokes was also a Vietnam vet, who did two tours over forty years ago. After he started into a beer, he opened up to Roger about his time there. “Funny,” Stokes said. “For years I couldn’t tell anybody about the god-awful things I’d seen when I was in the shit.”

Stokes would gaze out at the sea as if something evil waited at the far side of the ocean. Today, Jimmy wanted to talk about 1968. Roger hadn’t even been born then.

“Do you know about the battle of Khe Sanh, son?”

Tippert only knew what he’d seen on the History Channel.

“Well I was there.” Stokes pulled on his beer then started his story. “We was in Quang Tri Province…”

Roger spasmed.

He dropped his beer and the glass shattered on the floor.

His fingertips tingled. Gooseflesh rose on his skin.

“What’s the matter, son?”

It felt like a switch had been thrown, his brain pulsated and his tongue started to swell. It wouldn’t stop swelling.

Oh, God-can’t breathe!

“Is everything all right?” a bartender asked.

“Call the ship’s doctor!” Stokes said. “My friend’s going into some kind of shock or seizure!”

Clawing at his throat, Roger fell to the floor.

“Son, take it easy!”

Roger didn’t notice the alarmed people who’d gathered around him. His insides were on fire. He was burning up. His breathing was tortured. His vision blurred. His hearing felt like he was underwater. His panicked heartbeat was deafening.

Oh, Christ! Somebody help me!

The pressure was increasing as if something was trying to explode from him.

He convulsed.

Something hot oozed from his mouth, his nose, his ears.

He touched it.

Blood.

Jesus!

The pressure. No, please-stop the pressure! His brain was expanding. His head was swelling.

“Dammit! Is anybody here a doctor?” Stokes shouted.

Stokes was holding Roger just as he’d held his Marine friends in the mud at Khe Sanh, and he watched in disbelief as Roger Tippert’s blood-laced face contorted.

“What the good goddamn?”

In all his time in Vietnam, Stokes had never witnessed anything like this. Tippert screamed as his eyes melted into bloody pools that overflowed down the sides of his face. His abdomen gurgled as if his organs were boiling in his stomach.

Then his heart stopped.

Two decks below the spot where he died, Roger Tippert’s wife, Cathy, was exchanging e-mail addresses with a friendly woman she’d met from Indianapolis, whose husband worked for the Colts’ administration.

“I can get you a deal on tickets for your husband,” the woman said.

“His birthday’s coming up,” Cathy said. “Roger’s going to love this.”