The minute the news of Lolita Lebrón’s death from a lung infection went public, chismosos started a rumor that my ‘baby’ brother Theos was next—he was drowning in his own body fluids. That morning, he pressed a closed fist to his chest, a scuba dive signal for low on air. He couldn’t get his words out. I speed-dialed the on-call hospice nurse, who showed up in minutes. She swapped the clogged tube under his armpit and the bloody fluid in his chest started draining again. I swear when he stopped breathing, I did too. “Caramba Theos, don’t do me like that again” I said. He smiled. Most mornings after that, Theos asked me to call his pastor and every day he made me promise I’d go on the Galápagos scuba dive trip without him. “María, you have to go. It’s a trip of a lifetime.”
I was clean back then.
By the time Theos died three months later, two days after his 43rd birthday, I was using again. I couldn’t hook up a solid coke dealer, so I turned to Mamuti. Mi ex jeva. She was my connection back when we were together. I tracked her to Kooki’s, the mafia operated bar on 14th street, a safe space for women ‘in the life.’ It was where we first met, flirted and slow danced to Olga Tañon and Marvin Gaye till the bar closed at four. It was also where she caught me getting it on with una cualquiera in a nasty toilet stall seven months later. (I never did get that chica’s name.) I argued that loving was cool, but roving was a safe bet because you “don’t give your heart.” Mamuti wasn’t having it. So, I pleaded la loca sorry and for real felt sick to my gut. She left me flat making me ride the F train back to Brooklyn, alone. Mamuti was knocked out on her side of the bed by the time I got home to our apartment in Park Slope.
It was round midnight when I walked into Kooki’s. The telltale cigarette smell and thick haze were gone, otherwise the place seemed the same. Low overhead lights, faux red leather booths, and a worn hardwood bar. Hip-hop, seventies disco, R&B, and Salsa played so loud chicas had to shout in each other’s ears to be heard. Once I got by the bleached blond hostess standing guard at the entry, I pushed past the privacy curtains and found a spot against the DJ’s booth in view of the dance floor.
Mamuti sat alone by a corner table, drinking. I figured her “pharmacy” was open for business, though I couldn’t be sure from where I was standing. Her fading pretty face betrayed coming up on fifty, like me. Her brown eyes proof of a warrior Tejano bloodline. “Tejanos…al ataque!” was her go-to mode. Me and Mamuti were on and off for four years. But she and Theos never met even though they were both kickass divers. I kept my life and family separate on purpose.
Last year I threw Mamuti to the curb when Theos took sick, and he asked me to see him through. Theos kidded about proving his doctors wrong and living to ninety-five like our abuela Yayá, but I wasn’t buying his bantam macho act. Seeing him through was a no brainer for me. Besides, I had plenty of sick and vacation days at my cushy day job as a “Big C.” I snagged the gig as a train conductor back in ’86 when women were finally hired into the better paid union jobs. Before taking on doula duties, I knew I had to quit using. Went cold turkey—three days holding up alone in my bedroom. Sweat, runs, vomit, body aches. Then, I cut myself off good coke by quitting Mamuti. At that moment, I didn’t give ni un chavo for her feelings.
Now, here I was back at Kooki’s looking for her. I eased up to her table. Right away, I noticed the scar I popped above her lip on our last dive together. I waited for her to speak first cuz I got pride. But the craving was ripping my gut big time.
“¡Mande! Long time.” Mamuti’s guarded side-eye warned she wasn’t having me come up on her so easy after a year of ghosting her. “Sorry about your brother.”
My lungs started to burn, like I was seven and drowning again. I wasn’t gonna talk about my brother. Not to her. Not to anyone. I clenched my jaw, fighting the urge to go off on her. I could hear myself on the edge of nasty. “Really?” I said.
Knowing Theos, he would have told me, relax sistasan.
I slid into the seat across from Mamuti, thinking a little flirting would soften her, like when we first met. “Mamita, te vez bien.”
She looked good but nah, not feeling me.
So, I pivoted to an apology for pushing up on her out of nowhere.
“I didn’t mean coming at you hot. I need to score and I don’t know where else to go.”
Mamuti glared at me, taking a split second to collect herself. “I not seen or hear from you for months. I got ok with that. Pero, now that Theos is gone you come back, and for what? To get high? ¡Híjole!”
The DJ spun I Gotta Feeling and chicas flooded the dance floor. Their freeform dancing reminded me of when me and her were good together and fierce in our love. I taught her salsa dance Nuyorican style. We even entered dance contests at Kooki’s and won, once. She turned me on to the world of scuba diving in a way my brother couldn’t.
A curvy femme in a frilly black dress came over and slipped a folded bill across the table to Mamuti. She refused the Benjamin, and backhand motioned the woman away. My bellyache wouldn’t let up and my skin started crawling. Disimulando, I crossed my arms to my chest so she wouldn’t see me scratch.
Didn’t get past her.
“El mono is tight on your back, mana.” She went on. “Oye, piece of advice. You got clean. Stay clean, why don’t you?”
Mamuti scanned the bar for the barhop, raised and waved her arm to catch her attention. A twenty-something with shoulder length dreadlocks scooted over to the table. “What you’ll have?”
Mamuti didn’t hesitate. “Don Julio, neat. Make it a double.” Then she looked at me. “Have a drink. On me. Might calm your gut.”
She let slip a dig. She knew full well I didn’t do alcohol.
“Nah, that’s your vicio, not mine.” I shot back. “You're gonna spot me or what? All I need is un chililin, na’mas”
“No can do.” Mamuti was dead serious. “Go find your titi Felín. She will spot you, set you straight.” With that, in the Puerto Rican style I’d taught her, she pointed puckered lips in the direction of the exit door dismissing me.
I stood up to go. Our song Feel like Makin’ Love filled the bar. I held my hand out to her. “Come, dance with me.” I didn’t think she could resist, but Mamuti’s squint was a clear ‘no.’
“Pues, thanks for nothing, mamita.”
She was right about one thing. Mi titi Felín would have set me straight. An elder in the Lukumí tradition, she had been my safety net since my 21st birthday when she invited me into her devotional space for the first time. “You are grown now, so I can speak to you about these things.” She held my face in her hands. “Tú y yo somos hijas de Yemayá” Blew me away to learn that I’ve been a hija of the divine ocean mother all along. I connected with Yemayá, but I didn’t know why until titi Felín schooled me. A diehard aleluya, mi mamá would have caught a fit if she knew her oldest brother’s wife turned me on to the Orishas. So, me and titi Felín kept our meetups to ourselves. Just another family secret, but at least it wasn’t ugly.
I should have called mi titi Felín after leaving Kooki’s, but I was embarrassed and it felt disrespectful to come up on her in all my messiness. Instead, I copped an eight-ball from a street tecato I had no business dealing with. Man, that shit almost took me out. The triage nurse at the ER knew what was up. Curt and direct, she said, “If you don’t cut it out, you’re gonna die.” That was like a wakeup call straight from Theos’ spirit.
The next morning, I called in sick for the week, hopped a flight to San Juan and took un carro publico to Rio Piedras. By evening, I stood at titi Felín’s blue-and-white doorstep, my head hurting as if El Maestro Tito Puentes pounded timbales in my ears for seven hours straight. She opened the door, stern-faced, but wrapped me in her arms so close I could hear her heartbeat. “Te esperaba, María.” She had been waiting for me. The guest room hadn’t changed. I felt at home. Titi Felín fed me a plate of arroz con gandules y aguacate. And just when I began to feel comfy, curled up on her sofa, she gave me that stern elder look again. “Hablemos.”
Let’s talk was all she had to say. I told her everything…well, almost. Not Kooki’s. Cuz ‘the life’ may be guessed at or assumed, but you don’t speak on it. Not to family. That’s the code to keep esos chismosos off their game. Titi Felín listened, settled in her cane rocker, her copper skin smooth as Bangalore silk, braids coiled like snakes on her head en two perfect moñyitos. At one point, she gestured to an altar behind the front door. “Mi amor, light that blue candle, si me hace el favor.”
I did as I was told, my hands shaking like maracas.
After she heard me out, titi Felín mused on our shared losses and fears. She spoke about the death of Lolita Lebrón, her independentista comadre, and how deeply this loss affected her. Theos’ heartbreaking passing soon after was almost too much for her old heart.
“Eso fue de mas.” We were definitely on the same page - it was all too much, way painful. Titi Felín pause her rocking and turned her attention to me. “You did good taking care of your brother to the end,” she told me gently. “Pero, I worry for you. You seem lost.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Titi, seeing him waste away to skin and bones took me out. Now, it’s like this wave de tristeza is pulling me under.” I felt broken. “What am I gonna to do without my baby brother?”
Titi Felín eased herself from the rocker, pulled me from the sofa and led me toward her devotional space. “Ven, mi amor. I will help you.”
Titi Felín nursed me back to health that week. Detox round two — still brutal, but nothing like the first time I went full on loca sola into the void. When she decided I looked human enough, she drove us to Piñones, a stretch of beachfront kiosks selling real Boricua food, far from the tourist zones. I got my pionono. She got an alcapurria. We didn't talk for a minute. Just ate and watched the water.
I spoke first. “Theos loved Piñones. I feel him here. We’d come here as kids and he always fed the stray dogs that followed him everywhere. ‘Buela Yaya would be yelling at him, niño, no haga eso. He was such a good kid.”
Titi Felín agreed with me. “Eso sí, Theos era muy cariñoso. Always happy and full of bromas, good fun.
“Abuela Yaya had her hands full with us when we stayed with her those two summers. One time Theos went exploring a neighbor’s finca with Franco y Rosa. He was always looking for adventures. We were half-way across when a bull with the biggest horns came out of nowhere. I just about peed my panties. It chased. We ran. The four of us scrambled up a tree. We were laughing and hollering having a blast cuz now we were safe from the bull. Theos started shushing us pointing above us to a giant wasp’s nest.”
“That was him! Tu abuela loved him so much. May she also rest in peace.”
Six months later, I eyeballed Mamuti. She was the last person I wanted to see on this weeklong Galápagos dive trip. Still, I couldn’t help but think ¡Guau! Lookin’ good.
Before rolling into the open ocean waters, during the first morning safety briefing, our Galapagueño Divemaster told us about a pendejo scuba diver swept and swallowed by the shifting currents just the week before. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or playing us. My immediate thought was, Dive accidents happen, but did we have to hear about it minutes before we went in?
Death and me were on iffy terms, even before Theos. When I was seven, me and Theos, a two-year-old at the time, almost drowned. It was my fault. I let go his hand when tio Nelo dragged us both into the Coney Island waves. Ever since, I struggle with a sink-gonna-die gut roil whenever I’m in water. It’s why I finally came to diving - to deal with the trauma. It wasn’t lost on me that both my brother and lover were scuba diving fanatics. And mi titi Felín reminded me: “Yemayá opened a path to scuba diving for a reason. Pay attention.”
Questioning the Divemaster’s off-putting comment, Audre, our group leader spoke up. “Why mention die? No need.”
I was still miffed at Audre for what I felt was a betrayal in holding back info on Mamuti, but relieved when she spoke since I didn’t dare woman up myself. Mamuti, standing on the other side of the chartered yacht’s deck, blew cigarette smoke past the railing as if she couldn’t be bothered.
The Divemaster stood, all five feet five inches of his burly brown body. “¡Señora, por favor! It is whale shark's birthing season. More people come. More people die.”
This Divemaster wasn’t playing.
Anyways, his tale set off my sensitive gut and jacked up my nerves. But with nowhere to go, I sat still, eyes closed, taking deep breaths while he continued the briefing. He spoke of the massive 9.1 Tōhoku earthquakes and Tsunami off Japan’s coast three months before in March, the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded. The aftershocks on the Galápagos were ongoing, he said. His gold front teeth flashed as he spoke, fixing his gaze on Mamuti as if someone had tipped him off about her risky diving habits. “One diver died so far,” he said. “Maybe is you too, if no pay attention.”
Mamuti cut her eyes, then looked away as if to dismiss him in the same way she and I had been ignoring each other since Guayaquil airport. Two days ago Audre met up with the divers arriving from the various parts of the Americas. Me and Mamuti barely greeted each other. At the airport, Audre, always the go-between, pulled me aside to report that Mamuti wanted me to know she had slowed her drinking binges and recently stopped the booze all together after a thirty-day stint in rehab.
“I’ll believe it when I see her sober three days in a row.”
Audre chuckled. “She said the same about you.”
“She doesn’t know I quit?”
“No, not unless you told her. Look, I said the same to her as I said to you, Quit the drinking, quit the drugs or forget diving Galápagos.
“You know I’m clean.”
Then, I lied.
“Haven’t spoken to her since our last fight in Cozumel. You were there, remember?”
Audre’s German brash reared its sharp edge. “You told me, yes but not for me to tell your business, eh?”
“What would have been my business is you giving me head’s up that she was on for this trip.”
“Would you have come?”
I came to the Galápagos for the experience of a lifetime, yes. To dive and sight whale sharks, yes. They are the largest non-mammal fish, an antigua type of shark still living today. My titi Felín said that the timing—whale shark birthing season and my 51st birthday—“no era una coincidencia.” She said, “diving the Galápagos es perfecto and brave. Not many seekers would dare jump in these waters.”
Overnight, the captain piloted the yacht 115 miles north of the equator; nothing in sight except for the ocean and the gliding wingspan of an Albatross overhead. When the holler of the engine died down, the Divemaster called our attention to Darwin’s Ark, an ancient rock formation jutting out of the ocean like a miracle.
Because of the challenging currents, the Divemaster set firm rules, “We dive together. We drop in, we gas off—only three minutes, and we come out of the water together. ¿Entienden?”
Right away, I thought, Mamuti‘s not gonna like that. I reminded myself, Eso no es conmigo. Stay away from her. I worried that even though I been clean since mi titi Felín took me in, el mono was no joke. I couldn’t shake the craving. Un chililin, na’mas ran circles in my head.
On our last dive day, after the usual suiting up and safety check, all ten of us divers and the Galapagueño Divemaster, one by one, sidestepping in our 24-inch fins, slid from the stern of the rented yacht into two rubber dinghies. As with every dive, I cast seven Jasmine petals from fresh flowers I picked up at the Guayaquil hotel days ago. I held Titi Felín’s birthday gift with both hands, pressing the lapis amulet to my forehead, the top of my head, and heart space as she had taught me—offerings seeking protection and permission to enter Yemayá’s home. Together with Theos’ dive mantra I took on as my own—tranquila, breath, con calma —I felt as secure for this last plunge into the deep blue as I would ever be. It helped that the captain, at dinner, reminded me to be sure to stay calm and breath. Made me think of Theos.
In the dinghy, sitting across from Mamuti, my empty stomach gurgled – all good divers know to not eat before a dive, but my belly had its own upsets.
Mamuti snorted. “Ya still with the messy gut, ¿ah?” Then her tone softened. The faint scar above her lip moved as she spoke. “Theos. Man, he should be here.”
I had avoided her all week, and she hadn’t spoken to me until now, and she brings up my dead brother? I wanted to yell at her to shut the fuck up.
I felt her studying my face.
“You ok?”
Her sarcastic attitude I expected. But, that hint of concern didn’t square with the ex I’d quit.
“I’m good,” was all I said. The monkey riding my back woke—tension headache, bellyache, sweats—but I wasn’t gonna admit to nothing, despite her knowing gaze.
Mamuti went on, tell-telling her South Tejas roots. “I’m just saying, mija. I didn’t think you’d want to know from me after what had happen last time we dove together.” She trailed off, “….and Kooki’s. I’m sorry. ”
What had happened was she insisted we buddy up, just her and me. “Come on, don’t be chicken. I got you.” Even though I felt nervous and still scared shitless of the ocean, I went along, thinking it was time to show her up; to prove I was good for the dive. I warned her, “Imma trust you but, I’m telling you, no me dejes sola.” Halfway through the dive she took off leaving me hanging in the deep blue just so she could feed her habit of ‘bouncing’ down and up from deeper waters – what she called her ‘cocktail dunk.’ Luckily for me, Audre spotted my panicked upchuck spurting out of the regulator and helped me return safe to the surface. Audre scolded Mamuti when she bobbed up from her bounce. “That was mean. Why did you do that?” Mamuti sniggered, “What’s the big deal? She didn’t die, did she?” She pushed past me, almost knocking me down. That’s when I slugged her, hard. My pinky diamond ring bloodied her upper lip. There is an old Puerto Rican saying, yo no doy primero pero no me quedo da, meaning, I don’t hit first but I don’t stay hit. That’s me. Remembering made me want to split Mamuti’s lip again.
Together, at the 1,2,3 count, we rolled air tanks first into the murky Pacific Ocean. I couldn’t see much more than the shadowed movements of Audre’s fins two feet in front of me. I thought climate change made the ocean warmer. I was already shivering. I forced myself to get out of my head and focus on the descent, first twenty feet, regroup, then another fifty. We settled between volcanic rock formations to wait on sharks to approach. Repeating Theos’ dive mantra—tranquila, breath, con calma—was all I could do to remain in my skins.
The 40-pound tank on my back, bulky and difficult to carry on land but practically weightless in water, slipped against my left hip from the push and pull of the currents. It hurt. But I followed the Divemaster’s strict instructions to grab onto rock crevices, hold firm yet relaxed enough to allow my body to free float, like jellyfish. My brother’s soothing essence hugged me. The long-time scuba diver that he was would have loved this. But we never did dive together. He tried to get me to dive with him, but by the time I came around it was too late.
Audre hunkered down to my immediate right and flashed the universal divers’ ok signal. Mamuti positioned herself on the other side of her, not nearly as far away as I’d like. Although I was a much better diver now, these waters were unfamiliar, unfriendly, and unnerving. I’d give her no chance to pull another stunt on me.
Titi Felín’ lapis amulet, hooked on my gear, waved with the currents. I was comforted knowing that I was protected in Yemayá’s house. But when a school of pointed snout black tips materialized from the shadows, I won’t lie; I peed my wet suit. Their stealth movement and unblinking stare scared me. The sharks veered off. It turns out, sharks fear air bubbles. Bubbles signal humans. Humans are dangerous.
When Mamuti shot out in front of David, our lead photographer, I thought, there she goes. It’s just like her doing something so dangerous. The beams of the camera’s light swiveled like an underwater light show. David shoved his camera casing in the direction of a bull shark, but it kept coming at him. Mamuti pounded her fist at the shark’s unblinking eye. Everything around me felt weird, surreal like I was floating in outer space. I sucked air way too fast. My arms flailed, like a beginner diver. Flashes of feral images scrambled my focus and good diver senses. And I was seven again.
Two-year-old Theos held my hand as we wad into the beach waters. Mi mamá yells my name. I turn toward her voice. The Coney Island Ferris Wheel bobs in the distance. Tio Nelo yanks me into the soaring surfs; piggy mounts me on his back. I let go of Theos. Theos roll like a beach ball onto the wet sand from the force of a wave. My arms are trapped around tio Nelo’s neck. He pulls loose the elastic of my bathing suit bottom with his fingers and pain shoots up my totita. Tio Nelo pushes me off his back. I sink. The slapping waves force its salty water up my nose and into my mouth. Gagging. I can’t breathe. Next thing I see is a pale face, sunburnt guy with a red small letter T plastered on his white tee shirt. His fish-colored eyes gawking at me, his mouth blowing into mine. Theos is crying. Mi mamá yells over the shoulder of the red-cross lifeguard, necia, cabesidura.
The child me cracked that day.
Audre tapped on my half-empty air tank to get my attention. She signaled lets help Mamuti and David and started toward them. I hand signaled OK even though my breathing hadn’t slowed down the spurting bubbles. If I emptied the air out of my scuba tank before surfacing, it meant girl, bye. My lapis bobbled in the current. I grabbed it. tranquila, breath, con calma. Thankfully, the bull shark swerved away. I kidded later during our last dinner that night that it was the force of all my bubbles that scared it off. David held onto his camera, but the light rods were a mangled mess. For the first time, since knowing her, Mamuti looked nerviosa, but she wasn’t harmed. Even with my best jab, I’d be a goner if I had stepped up first before Mamuti. I would have drowned.
“I feel like I’m drowning,” Theos said shortly before he died. When the oncologist confirmed his stage four lung cancer, he asked me to care for him. He was forty-five but he was still my baby brother. Seeing his ears sticking out from his shrinking head just broke me. The shortness of breath, the gurgling and chest pain did me in.
“I know that fear, bro.” Theos was too young to remember that day I let go of his hand in Coney Island.
“Whaaa? he said. “I see the red eyes, you scratching on yourself like you sleep with bedbugs. That ain’t like drowning. You’re cryin’ and I told you, no cryin’ because of me.”
I wasn’t going to tell him nothing. Not now. Not about tio Nelo. Not about all it took to get clean. Instead, I dredged up good childhood memories like when he was twelve insisting on cooking a Thanksgiving meal all by himself and it was actually tasty. Like when we got bicicletas for Christmas, mine, a boy’s ten speed, his, a mock motorcycle. That was freedom for us, riding all over the neighborhood like warriors. I got him smiling. I snuffed my tears.
Theos had joined a mega aleluya church about the time he was diagnosed. He knew I was about Darwin’s theory of evolution and Orishas ancestor respect. Steeped in his aleluya judgment, he wheezed past the coughing and strained breathing.
“I believe Jesus is God. You don’t.”
I stopped myself from arguing with him. Instead, I went with heart speak.
“Tell me this Theos, speaking your language - god is love?”
“Yeah, sistasan” his love name for me. “God is love. It says so in the bible.” The wasting disease robbed his strength; a skin and bone version of himself, but he stayed alert.
“You say Jesus. I say Yemayá. They are both about love and love is where you and I meet, sister and brother.”
He quieted, nodded, and that was that. With his go-ahead, I took charge of the medical appointments, called for home church services whenever he asked, set up hospice, arranged for his legal documents, and handled all the funeral, burial, and service preparations exactly as he entrusted me to do. I felt then I had it in me to leave behind that messy person I had been.
The dive master’s signaling, both thumbs pointing upward, to ascend to our three-minute safety stop couldn’t have come any sooner. Mamuti did a ‘happy’ dance before starting up behind the dive master. Me, I was done with sharks and diving. I came for healing and instead I got another near-death experience. And, except for shadow movements from a distance, we spotted not one lousy whale sharks.
We hovered twenty feet below the surface, the ocean, cold and murky, pressed on me.
Exhausted, my body ached and my mind wouldn’t stop churning. Then a swarm of minute-sized jellyfish came at us. There was nothing to stop the needling burn to my skin below the rim of my mask. It made me think of my job when sparks fly off the third rail every time the train hits hard on the brakes. One time, a spark burned a hole in my uniform vest costing me fifty buck to buy another. Tranquila, breath, con calma, helped slow down my breathing. I checked my air gage because I knew my tank was more than half empty. Theos’ nuyorican tilts in my head - freeflow like jellyfish – calmed the wobble inside me. I had so little fight left, the pull of the deep blue could have taken me.
Through the haze, I saw her.
The whale shark appeared, massive and graceful, the size of a subway car, gliding through the water in slow motion. For a moment, everything else faded—the burning jellyfish, the bull shark, the cravings, the messy gut, and even Mamuti. I felt a surge of awe, fear, and relief. Spirit found me. I tapped the top of my head, the dive sign for a shark sighting, and jabbed the water pointing looklookLOOK until Audre caught sight and gave the go nod. The Divemaster didn’t try to stop us. Cameras turned back on, and all ten of us dropped fifty plus feet to greet Her. This time, I took the lead. Yemayá had made Her appearance in the guise of a gentle giant, and I was going to meet her no matter what.
As I dove closer, the whale shark and I locked eyes. The cold murky water didn’t matter. I felt seen. We recognized each other. Here She was, just as titi Felín promised so many birthdays ago: “you will know Her when the place and time is right.” My heart burst open. Mi titi Felín had told me to let all my blues go in the ocean. She said, “Yemayá will carry your pain.”
Rolling through me like a wave, in the silence of the deep blue, I heard Her speak to me. “No estás sola.” Tears bunched behind my mask clouding my vision. I felt Theos’ presence beside me. A memory of when mi mamá brought Theos home from the hospital, bundled in a baby blue blanket came through. Mi mamá said to me, ¡siéntate! and helped me onto her prized plastic-protected sofa. She laid my newborn brother on my five-year-old lap. Seeing his peaceful, perfect face, I felt love at first sight.
For the first time in forever, el mono slid off my back. An openness spread throughout my being. The craving, gone. I noticed my crazy ex-lover drop closer to the whale shark’s massive tail, spreading her arms as if to surrender and receive a hug. I realized she wanted soul healing too. Yemayá disappeared unhurried beyond our sight as gentle and majestic as She had appeared. Letting the moment wash over me, I felt alive and ready to come back to myself.
Now, we had to repeat the safety stop. The hordes of jellyfish had moved on but here we were again, near to the surface right where sharks mistake a human for prey. A shark’s sensitive scent can smell a drop of blood, and urine for that matter, from some distance. I no longer bled monthly but what about the younger women? And the face shavers with their nicks and cuts? Sure enough, a wall of mid-size black tips showed up and surrounded our group. Our air bubbles danced through and around them but it was like nothing. They whirled around us so tight; our nearly empty tanks banged against each other. I peed myself, again but stayed calm, ready to shoot to surface with the group. Audre reached for Mamuti and Mamuti pulled me to both of them in a trine of holy hand hugs. Theos’ voice in my head urged, look up, look up. I could see the captain gesturing like a wild man for us to get out of the water.
We broke surface together. There was no time to remove the heavy gear off our backs, or the fins, or our masks - usually taken off before climbing onto a boat, post dive. Instead, we were flung headfirst over the side of the boat onto the dinghy rubber bed like a fishnet full of fresh catch. Bottomline, we all made it safe and alive out of the shark infested water.
On board, the Divemaster chewed us out for causing such a chaotic rescue. Even Audre with her German temperament stayed zipped. His tirade in Spanish and English, - se lo dije, lucky no one died - went on until he quieted for a beat. Audre apologized for the group. “Ve are sorry.” He flashed his gold teeth like he did that first morning in his failed flirting attempt, rubbed his fingers against his thumb, the universal sign for cash money and ended his rant with “You give big tip, ok?”
He wasn’t playing.
I sat by the bow of the yacht, taking in this new sensation of feeling safe in my own body. No cravings. No monkey. No gut roll. The breeze picked up Theos’ Proud of you, sistasan voice as it faded into the ethers. Shoot, I didn’t get to witness a whale shark birth her young, but no one ever has and live to talk about it. I’m alive and got to come back to myself.
Across from me, Mamuti leaned against a blood orange lifebuoy. She rolled and lit another one of her organic cigarettes. I hated the smell, but not her. Not anymore. She looked up. We locked eyes. A faint smile soothed the scar on her lips. She mouthed, feliz cumpleaños, chica. She took a drag and exhaled. Holding onto a rail, I stood to wave off the smoke curling from the cigarette hanging out the side of her mouth. Stepping over to her, I eased it from her lips and threw what was left overboard. “Let the sharks have at it.”
Contributor Notes
NÍVEA CASTRO is a 2022 Kweli Emerging Writer Fellow and a Kweli Art of the Short Story Workshop alum. “Deep Diving the Blues” is her debut short story.
Her poems and writings have been published in numerous journals and anthologies, including Aster(ix) Journal where her Cuba photographs were highlighted, Hispanic Panic, AND THEN, and VOXMOM. She is also the curator and editor of Sinister Wisdom’s #97 edition, Soy Lesbiana y Que! Out Latina Lesbians, a Lambda Literary and Golden Globe Awards Finalist.
She is a VONA and Hedgebrook (Goa, India) alum, Cambridge Writers (Paris, France), and Cave Canem workshop participant.
Nívea has curated and/or been featured in various venues, including Listen to Your Mother, a national series of live readings by local writers, Split This Rock, NYC and Brooklyn Lit Crawl, Crack the Mic, Soul Sister Revue, BAAD!ASS Women Festival, La Pluma y Tinta, New Voices Reading Series, Canvas of Words, QT: Rainbows Across the Diaspora at Dixon Place, and MICHFEST.
Nívea’s photographic focus is on events, travel, and candid portraits. From live concerts, community happenings, social justice events, workshops and panel discussions to the distinguished and celebrity, her photographs capture inner soul expressions and vibrate action shots. Her roster includes Kweli, VONA, Black Women Rise, Latina Feminista Encuentro (Bogotá, Colombia) Michfest, NYCLWG, Cave Canem, Reel Sisters, and The Mary Magdalena Celebration. Celebrities include Angela Davis, Spike Lee, Sonia Sanchez, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Tim Wise, Danny Glover, and Ntozake Shange, plus others.
