Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos

without a breeze. Nothing to do. I tried to read, but instead of focusing my attention I became restless. I’m tired of just sitting. I smoked some hash and then dove overboard. I swam around the boat and on my second lap I noticed Hamilton’s porthole was open. We usually keep them closed, but with the sea so flat we aren’t worried about waves splashing through. I stopped beneath the porthole and listened for a minute. I could hear him breathing, heavily. I held on to the bottom rim of the hole and pulled myself up with one hand. With the other I reached in and grabbed his leg. He hollered, and kicked out.
    I dropped under the water, but even from there I could hear the gunshot.
    Oh no, I thought. I flipped him out. I swam around to the stern and pulled myself up. As soon as I got my head above the deck I saw him step up out of the main hatch and point the pistol at me. It went off. I buckled and dropped back into the water. I was so scared I didn’t know if he had shot me or not. I swam around to the port side and quietly broke the surface. I
reached up and held on to the bottom of a stanchion. I could hear Hamilton back at the stern.
    â€œYou think you’re so funny? I’ll show you what scared is!” He fired into the water. And again. “You laughing yet? You failed to consider that in the British navy an officer has the right to execute a sailor who is a danger to an operation.”
    I didn’t know how to calm him down so I kept quiet. I peeked up over the deck and watched him. After a few minutes he dropped the gun and began to adjust the sails.
    â€œHere we are,” he shouted to himself, “bobbing out here like a bloody cork. It’s enough to make a man go mad and I’m stuck here with a nitwit.”
    I dropped back into the water and swam around to the stern, where it was easier to pull myself up. “Can I come aboard, captain?” I asked.
    â€œYes,” he said. “I’m tired of wanting to shoot you. I’d just like to flog you instead.” Then he turned and went back to his cabin. I retook the wheel and when my shift was up I didn’t dare go wake him. And when he finally came to relieve me, he didn’t say a word. He certainly scared me. And I think he scared himself firing blindly into the water. I didn’t like that he called me a nitwit, but I haven’t brought it up for discussion.
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    July 30 : Of all the sea books I’ve been reading, the book that has taken me over is Jack London’s Martin Eden. Just as Holden
Caulfield sees phonies everywhere, those same phonies can’t recognize Eden’s talent and they run him down. He was a man trying to create greatness, and the phonies were too ignorant to recognize anything beyond their own limitations.
    On my night shift I’ve begun to act out the final scene, where Martin Eden pushes himself through a porthole and dives into the dark water and intentionally drowns himself. I don’t have a porthole to dive through, but I do have a ship to dive from. I don’t really want to kill myself so I tie the end of our yellow towline in a tight knot around my ankle before diving in. There in the darkness with the sky full of stars I lie on my back and glide through the water with the boat pulling me along. It is beautiful to look at the boat, lit only by the compass light and the moon off the sails as she glides up and over the slow swells. It is so peaceful. Martin had once seen the moon as hopeful, too, but after he was beaten down by cynics the moon was dark for him. I wondered if I could ever kill myself as he had. If that yellow towline slipped off my foot, would I sink into the sea as he had or would I swim for all my life to catch up to it? I won’t know until it happens. I do know that there is no reason for me to drown myself from sorrow since I haven’t yet tried to achieve anything great.
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    July 31 : For the last week the wind has been