Jon Hamel grabbed the steering wheel tight with both hands.  He closed his eyes, and not-so-softly banged his forehead several times on the wheel. The two red lights burst into alternate flashes as the black and white crossing gate reached horizontal. “C’mon, I don’t need this right now,” he said through gritted teeth.
        “Settle down,” said his wife, Kim. “You’ll wake the baby. Besides, there’s nothing you can do.”
        She’s right, Jon thought, she’s always right, and he blew a soft snort as he considered his silly impatience. He turned his rear view mirror slightly to see his sixteen-month old strapped in the car seat, his head tilted awkwardly. Jon smiled. With bold disregard to the minimal comfort required by adults, the child was in a contented open mouth sleep, his nook stuck to his lower lip.
        Jon turned to Kim.  “Sorry,” he said. “The championship’s tonight and I don’t wanna be late. Every time I’m in a hurry, I end up having to wait for a ferry to cross this Godforsaken piece-of-crap Lift Bridge. I don’t know why they can’t build a new four-lane bridge that ferries can cross under, and demolish this useless two-laner.”
        His wife looked up from her magazine.  “I know honey.”  Smiling, she reached over and massaged his neck with one hand.  “You’ll make it in time for the game, and I’m sure you’ll hit a home run. Look at the bright side—you are first in line when the gate goes up.”
        Jon watched as the dozens of cornstalk-thick steel cables, woven through an elaborate pulley system, raised a section of the bridge skyward as if it were an elevator platform. The pace was so slow that movement could only be confirmed by watching a stationary reference point for several seconds. He knew, at best, it would be fifteen minutes before he could step on the gas again. He inhaled a deep breath through his nose, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and shut off the engine. Oh well, he reminded himself, Kim’s right.  No sense getting all worked up.  I can’t do anything about it anyway.
    
He took another look at his baby and smiled. Winning the local softball league championship didn’t have as much importance as it once did. Actually, it was no longer important at all.  He was at a new stage of his life, with more responsibilities and people dependent on him. Now there were others to consider.
        He put his hand on his wife’s thigh and gave her a pat. She winked at him and resumed reading her magazine. He leaned back against the headrest. He’d never been first in line at the lift bridge, and the view of the lifting process would be excellent from this vantage point. As the rising expanse of bridge neared its apex, he noticed that the long steel girders, which ran along the length of the bridge and supported the road, were badly corroded, far worse than the framework of trusses that canopied the top, and he had always thought the trusses shaky at best. All those rusty rivets looked like rotting mushrooms, and the labyrinth of cracks in the reinforced concrete caused him to wonder if it was even safe to walk across it, much less drive. Heck, this thing might go down if a blood-filled mosquito lands in the wrong spot.
    
Jon looked at the other side of the bridge. Heat waves rising from the blacktop distorted the waiting cars, a kaleidoscope of colors that blended and separated in terse rhythm as if aerated by the breath of life. He jumped, banging his knee on the steering wheel, as a nearby Mississippi-River-sized ferry boomed its giant foghorn. The Captain was preparing to cross, his horn a signal to the bridge lift operator that he was advancing. The ferry had been waiting a few hundred yards out; its giant paddlewheel accelerated, and the boat pushed forward at an increasing speed.
        “Jesus, what the hell is that car doing?” Kim said in an excited tone. She leaned forward to look out the front window, and the magazine fell from her lap.
        “What is it, honey?” Jon said, following her gaze. On the opposite shore he saw an oncoming car speeding down the steep slope of the approaching hill.  It was in the wrong lane, passing cars like an out-of-control skier on an icy black diamond run.
        He opened his door and stepped out. “Oh my God, it’s moving so fast.”
        Kim screamed as the car cascaded off the hill and bounced hard onto the bridge. The impact shattered both headlights.  The hood crunched and remained partially open.
        The car sped forward.
        “Jon…Oh my God…Jon. She’ll go off the bridge!”
    
The brakes must have failed.  “Throw the shifter in Park,” Jon screamed. “Use the parking brake, c’mon, use the parking brake!”  He wasn’t sure why he was yelling instructions, since the driver couldn’t hear him.  Maybe because doing something was better than doing nothing.
        The car flew forward at full speed, the driver blaring the horn.
        “Jon, it’s not gonna stop. Jon!”
        Looks like an early nineties’ Pontiac Grand Am, Jon thought. The car was red, except for the passenger door, which was blue—obviously a junkyard replacement. Rusty fenders shuddered, and the passenger side window was a spider-web of cracks. A lost hub cab rolled behind the car and into the river.
    
Jon could see the woman driver, both hands gripping the steering wheel.  Her face was etched in wide open scream, the whites of her eyes shining with the force of a lighthouse. 
        “Throw it in neutral and pull the parking brake!” His hands formed fists. “C’mon lady, throw it in Park, or something…turn into the bridge, Jesus, do something.” 
        “Jon!” Kim’s next scream bore the tone of inevitability.
        Jon ran instinctively forward, dangerously close to the edge. “Throw it to the rail lady! Turn into the rail!” She had to be going more than sixty miles per hour.
      
The Ferry Captain reversed the paddle-wheel and bellowed his horn. People got out of their cars and ran after her. Jon could make out her ghost knuckles as she neared the edge of the bridge. Her elbows were locked, her body pushing back as if she thought that would help stop the car. People from both sides of the bridge were yelling.
    
The car left the bridge and plunged nose first into the water.  The colossal splash sprayed him with a cool mist. Like an osprey after a sardine, the car went under momentarily and re-surfaced about three-quarters of the way toward Jon’s side. For an instant, the car floated as if it were amphibious.  Jon could see the woman moving her arms, slowly at first—then a fierce jerk. She fumbled a few times before she got her seatbelt unlocked, but didn’t open her door or crawl out the window.  Instead, she lunged into the back seat. 
        The river slowly devoured the car, until only the roof was above water, the woman still inside.
        Kim stumbled to the edge and looked over. “Is she still in the car?”
        “Yes.” Jon held out his arms, palms toward the sky. He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. She unbuckled her seat belt, but instead of getting out she climbed in the back seat.”
    
Jon assessed the scene. People on the other side of the bridge were too far away to reach her in time. Behind him, a gray-haired man and his wife were hobbling toward them. Five or six small pleasure boats nearby, none over twenty feet long, had fired up their motors and were cruising toward the scene, but the car would be sunk by the time any of them arrived.
        It’s up to me then, he suddenly realized.  I’m the only one who can help.  He shook violently, a conscious attempt to transport his mindset back ten years. Silently, he recited the motto of the Navy Seals: The only easy day was yesterday. He kicked off his sandals and stripped down to his shorts. The blacktop was frying pan hot and he jumped from one foot to the other.
        He took a few intense breaths and readied his dive.
    
Kim grabbed him by the arm.  “No,” she said.  Her eyebrows furrowed in turmoil.  Slow tears of fear dripped down her face.  His eyes met hers: they were steely, nonnegotiable. He looked back to the river: the car was fully submerged but visible.  “I’m sorry honey,” he said, offering a reassuring smile. “I have the training. I have to try. If I don’t, she’ll drown.”
        She grabbed him around the waist with both hands. “No, please don’t, Jon.”
        He gently pushed her back, “Kim, I love you, but–”
       
The screams from the surfacing woman echoed through the valley, wails gushing with terror and loss.  Kim released her grip on Jon’s waist and yelled to the woman, “Swim over here.” She pointed to a nearby concrete pier. The woman didn’t swim, but remained in the same spot, treading water.
        “Help! Help! My baby!  My baby!”  Her shouts were choppy, amid halted breaths and bobs under the water. “My baby’s still in there.  Somebody help! Help!”
        Jon took a few steps back from the edge. That’s why she tried to get into the back seat.  A baby.  He closed his eyes and asked God to be with him.
    
Kim focused on the woman in the water. The outline of the car, now barely perceptible, was moving downstream.
        He tried to initiate his dive, but he couldn’t get his feet to move. It’s now or never.  He inhaled four deep breaths.  Sucking in until he thought his lungs would burst with the last, he sprinted into a fervent dive. As he glided downward, he could feel the coolness of the water, and smell the odor of fish and two-cycle oil.
        The last sound he heard was Kim’s horrified shriek.
    
He tried to retain streamline form when he entered the water, but the impact of the twenty-five foot dive was akin to being kicked by a Clydesdale; it contorted his body and briefly stunned him. He wasn’t deep enough. He opened his eyes and could see no more than an arm’s length in the muddy river. He saw nothing red, only the brownish-green water. He pushed downward, praying his direction was right.
    
Kim stood with her toes over the edge and both hands on her face. Her body shook and mascara streamed down her cheeks. The old man stopped at Kim’s side and pulled her back. “We don’t want to have to save you, too,” he said tenderly. The old woman put her arm around Kim, rubbing her hand up and down Kim’s arm in a soothing motion. The old man looked over the edge. “Can’t see the car or the man,” he said.  “Just the woman, dogpaddling.”
       The first boat arrived on the scene; the two men aboard grabbed the flailing woman by the arms and pulled her into the boat. Breathing like someone who had just finished a marathon run, she collapsed on all fours.
    
Jon pushed downward into the lightless depth. The water pressure popped his ears. Sight was useless and he closed his eyes. Although it was late spring in Wisconsin, the deep water was

cold, with a strong current.  He feared it was throwing him off course.
     His hip banged hard against something solid, and he opened his mouth as if to scream. His first thought was that he’d hit a rock.  The current held him tight to the object. As he turned upright, his feet touched the silty river bottom. The object was smooth and contoured—definitely not a rock. He touched a thin, metal like thing, with a rectangular shape—a license plate.
        He was at the rear of the car.
     
“How long’s he been down there?” the old man wondered aloud. By now dozens of onlookers were at the water’s edge.
        “Better than a minute, I’d say,” replied a bearded man.
        Five boats idled in random loops where the car had plunged in; the opposite side of the bridge was also lined with people, and both levels of the ferry railing were packed with gawkers. A middle-aged woman now helped the old lady comfort Kim. She was wobbly and the two women held her upright. Onlookers were using their cell phones to talk or take pictures; a few called 911. As the wail of sirens rose in the distance, others took photos or shot video; no one else entered the water.
    
“What’s your name?” the fishermen with glasses and a baseball cap asked the woman he had just hauled out of the water.
        “Heather,” she said. She had regained her breath and was ready to jump back in. She sprang to her feet, but another fisherman with tattooed arms grabbed her from behind and pulled her back into the boat.
        “You can’t do no good, Heather,” he said calmly.  “You’ll only drown yourself.”
        She turned and slapped him. He did nothing, but the wounded look on his face gave evidence that maybe he should have let her go after her child.
        “My baby’s down there! Ricky needs me! Dammit, let me go!” Her voice was stricken with a terror that only a mother with a child in mortal danger could understand. She squirmed to get away. The man said nothing and held her tight. He was too strong for her, even with her heightened senses.
        “No,” he said again.  His grip remained firm.
        Her screams turned to shouts, then to sobs as she succumbed to him. “My baby, my baby,” she moaned, her head now buried in the tattooed man’s chest.
    
Jon worked his way to the driver’s side. He let the current guide him along the car and grabbed the pillar between the front and back side windows to hold steady. Both windows were down, the front all the way, the rear half way. His lungs burned and he exhaled his last bubbles of air. He knew he could stay down only a few more seconds if he wanted to again break the surface. He suppressed a sudden urge to push upward and entered the car through the driver’s window.  The child had to be somewhere inside.
        In the passenger side’s back seat, he felt a child’s car seat, then his hand covered a small head. He felt an ear, a nose, and some hair. Two straps held the child snuggly. Forgetting his need for air, he desperately searched for the release button.  It wasn’t in the same place as theirs.
        His hand ran up the strap by the toddler’s chest.  A small hand grabbed his index finger and squeezed lightly.
        The child was alive!
    
His fingers continued to grope, until he felt the need for an immediate breath. Not in ten seconds, not in five, but now.  Panic seized him: he’d been under too long and was about to die.
        But within moments, he felt another sensation, a strange, almost euphoric calm. He stopped moving and opened his eyes. Before him was a vision—of himself as a rock star giving his final performance, on stage, with thousands of cameras flashing in his face.
        The child squeezed his finger again.
    
“Been over two minutes now, for sure,” said the bearded man at the edge of the bridge. “Don’t know anyone who can hold their breath that long.”  Several people nodded.  Others prayed aloud. Kim collapsed to her knees, burrowed her face in the shoulder of the older woman, and heaved heavy sobs.
        The old man sneered at the bearded man. “Why don’t you just shut up.”
        The emergency crews were near.  The fishermen circling the area hung over the sides of their boats and scanned the water.  Under the assumption that the undertow was pushing the car, others worked their way downstream.
        Word of the situation had spread like a tsunami through town, and people were running from bars, shops, and restaurants to the shore line. The ferry captain held his vessel steady while glum faces looked on. 
    
Jon was more relaxed than he’d ever been as he floated toward the ceiling of the car. He knew the rock star vision was a delusion.  So this is death.  And he asked God to care for his family. As he bumped against the headliner, he felt warmth, unusual warmth in the cold depths.  He perked up. He rolled over and placed his lips to the ceiling as if giving it a kiss. A small pocket of air was trapped in the corner above the child. The fresh air filled his lungs and his body surged once more with adrenaline. 
        He placed both feet on the armrests of the child seat and pulled on the straps. The veins in his neck bulged, and the straps cut into his fingers. He pulled harder and thought his eyes would pop out of their sockets. When the lock snapped and the straps came free, he banged his head on the ceiling and bit his tongue.
        He grabbed the child’s hand.  Limp. He pushed the youngster upside down above him and held his face in the air pocket for a few seconds. He couldn’t’ determine if the child had taken a breath.
    
The car shifted sideways a few inches then a few inches more.  Before Jon could react, it broke loose into a series of rolls, bouncing along the bottom of the river. Jon slammed into the rear window, the boy knocked from his arms. He thrashed wildly.  Using the front seat headrest as an anchor, he held out his arms. A foot!  He grabbed a shin and pulled the child tight to his chest.
        The car came to rest upside down. Jon held the boy with one arm and pulled himself out of the window with the other. He placed both feet on the underside of the car and pushed off with all his might. He kicked and paddled with his free arm. He kicked again and again and again. How much farther? How much…?  His strength was waning. He could hear boats buzzing far above, and there was the slightest hint of light. He kicked again and his hamstring cramped.
    
“C’mon, boy, c’mon, surface.” The old man’s words sounded feeble, hollow. Everyone stood in dispirited silence, a silence broken only by the screams and sobs of two young women.
        “Hey! Over there, over there!” The elated yell came from a man on the ferry.  He indicated a spot in the water.  Soon there were other shouts and much pointing in the same direction. Kim broke away from the old woman and sprinted toward the bridge.  “Jon!” she cried out as he popped into view.
        “Oh my God, he’s got the baby too,” said a bystander, her voice cracking with emotion.
    
When Jon broke the surface, he sucked in breath after breath, the oxygen tasting as honey to a starving man.  His hearing returned first—garbled commotion clarified to ecstatic shouts and screams. The sound of a motor boat drew near.  He waved his arm from side to side. His blurred vision cleared.
        The boy in his arms was lifeless, his face and lips as dark as blueberries.
        He wasn’t breathing. 
    
Treading water, Jon cradled the boy in his arm. He was no bigger than an oversized doll, his sandal barely large enough for Jon’s big toe. He looked like a drenched duckling with his curly blond hair plastered to his face. His shirt was printed with Mommy’s Little Angel.
        Through clenched teeth, he said, “I dove to the bottom of this river to save you.  You’re not gonna die now. You’re not gonna die.”
        He tilted the boy’s head back and began CPR.  He was careful to stop before he overfilled the boy’s lungs. He pulled back and observed.  The boy was still unresponsive. Jon repeated the procedure.  No sign of life.
        One more try.  When five compressions were over he paused.  No response. 
        The boy’s head tipped to the side, just like his napping son’s. He felt the boy’s neck for a pulse.  Nothing.
    
“Here, give him to me!” a woman yelled from the boat that had caught up to them.  She hung over the side with both arms extended. “I’m a nurse.  I can help him.” Jon raised the limp little body and the woman pulled him onboard. Jon worked his way toward the back of the boat to a ladder by the motor. He tried to climb into the boat, but slipped back into the water. His hand held tight to a rung and he rested, overcome with exhaustion.  He could hear the woman’s feverish efforts to revive the boy.
        “Please, God,” he said, “don’t let him die.  He’s just a boy.”
    
Time stopped.  An eerie silence spread across the valley, like a moment of reflection at a funeral. Jon held the ladder and floated, listening hard, praying for good noise: the boy talking, the boy crying, happy sounds from the woman, cheers from the onlookers, anything.  He closed his eyes.
        A loud cry startled him—the sound of a newborn taking his first breath.  Jon raised his head to see Kim waving wildly.  He smiled weakly as she jumped up and down while hugging the two women at her side.  Cheers rose from the crowd. The boy’s mother embraced the tattooed man.  A giant smile on his face, he hugged her back. 
        The owner of the boat fired up the engine and began the short journey to shore, to reunite mother and child.
        The bearded man on the bridge shook his head. “I can’t believe any son of a bitch could stay under that long and live to tell about it.” He gave a belly laugh and started walking back to his car. “I can’t believe it.”  
    
    
   
                         About The Author
  
        Ken Hollern lives in New Richmond, Wisconsin with his wife and three children. He works as an Industrial Sales Representative and holds a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Business Management. The Rescue is his first published short story, and his writing credentials include several sports columns on packerchatters.com. A passionate writer and aspiring novelist, Ken is working toward a full-time writing career. He recently completed his first novel, a suspense/ thriller, and is actively pursuing publishing opportunities. He can be reached by e-mail at: khollern1@yahoo.com
    
    
    
                               Copyright © Kenneth Hollern