Deep Sea Diver

Intro


I've never been any good at telling stories like these. Most little boys managed to get their butts whacked or maybe their mouths washed out with soap, for telling tall tales they just made up on the spot for the sake of telling a tall tale. As for me, I never got into that sort of trouble, and I think that leaves me at a disadvantage for the moment. Now that I have a real, true, actual tall tale the word needs to hear about I just don't have any practice telling it. I guess I better just stick to the facts, and maybe even write a song.

At any rate, here's what happened.


"Cruising Down the Highway..."


It starts out like a real dull story. Like, you wouldn't believe how dull. Duller than watching paint dry, or watching grass grow. Except while you're watching the grass grow there are usually bugs or ants or something to watch. That's not so dull. But the start of the story is much worse.

We were watching golf on TV.

We hadn't been watching it long, and truth be told we probably would have changed the channel before too much longer. But Ribeye and me never got the chance, seeing as how that was when the stranger crashed into the front porch.

My friend Ribeye is a big, quiet guy. Maybe six feet tall, keeps his blond hair shaved close, like a Marines. Spends a lot of his time moving rocks back and forth, trying to make messages to the stars with them. That's not very important to this story except it tells you he's got some big, beefy arms and the rest of him isn't exactly little either. Not fat, mind you, just...not little. He doesn't get excited very often, so I wasn't really appalled when he didn't so much as jump when a Toyota came off the road, across his yard, and knocked over the BBQ set on his front porch.

"I think we better go outside and see what's going in." Ribeye said it as calmly as if he hadn't so much as heard a car pull into the drive way. He stood up, taking another sip of cream soda before heading off to the door.

I waited until Ribeye got the door open before getting up, just in case it was some escaped asylum man or something. No sense in both of us getting killed, right? But when nothing happened, I went up behind Ribeye--I was maybe a head short than him, and the only thing I moved all day was a telephone--and peeked out the door. I saw the strangest looking man I've ever seen climbing out of a car.

He was tall, taller than Ribeye by far. He was white all over, and not like you see some of those kids now a days, the ones who sit in their basements and never go outside. This guy wasn't just pale, he had no color at all. Almost see through even. The only thing like it was a rate I saw once at the zoo, a rat that spend it's whole life digging around and eating dirt under the earth. Except that rate had little pink spots, and this man didn't even have those. Just...white.

He seemed to be thin, too, but it was hard to tell since he was so clear. I just kept thinking he was like some birch branch. Really easy to snap. Willowy, like he'd float away or catch on fire nice and easy. Just not much to him. But like a birch branch, he seemed to have a bite to him too. But that's for Ribeye to discover.

"Sir, why are you going about the country side, putting vehicles onto porches? I'm sure there's a law, or a code, or several against it." Ribeye liked to play at being a high flown intellectual, that's for sure.

The strange man turned around and tilted his head just like a confused puppy might when you scold it. Then he tapped Ribeye on the head.

"Tap," I said. The man didn't hit him. Didn't slap him. Just a nice, gentle tap that wouldn't have broken a Hershey bar. But as gentle as that tap was, you could see Ribeye crumple onto the ground just as quick as if he'd been hit with a sledge hammer.

Shaking his a head a bit, as if Ribeye had been some annoying kid or something, the stranger turned back to his wrecked car. He laid his hands on it, leaning up against the hood of that Toyota as if he needed to rest a bit. Then the stranger just made the car float right up in the air. Once it was in the air, the car sort of straightened itself out. By the time the stranger put it back down on the road, it looked like no one had ever driven that car off the lot, never mind crashed it into Ribeye's house.

The stranger started to walk back toward his car, and that's when I got it into my head that something weird was going to happen, and I might as well find out what it was. "Hey, buddy, where you going? Can I come too?"

I don't know what possed me to say that, since I'm not usually the adventurous sort. The stranger stopped and gave me the same sort of look he gave Ribeye right before Ribeye went down like a sack of potatoes.

I got nervous. I'll admit it.

"In answer to your very second question, yes. Navigators sometimes are useful. Or maybe driver? Whatever in the world this is as you call it." He shook his head, just like a boy trying to figure out long division homework. "In answer to that first of all questions, I am seeking...a pearl."


"Looking for an Oyster..."


That's how I wound up in a Toyota, driving down the interstate towards the Gulf of Mexico. The stranger didn't say much, didn't move much, didn't eat much, didn't even pee much. I wasn't even sure he was alive. I knew he wasn't really human. But I was pretty sure he was real. I know the crazy ones always deny being crazy, but I feel pretty safe in saying this guy was a real non-human creature. I mean, he was real alright, but what human do you know can spend nineteen hours in a car without stopping to pee or buy a Dr. Pepper?

Let me back track a spell. It was just a hunch, but I figured he didn't have any money, or else I would've just had him buy a string from a jeweler and take the end pearl or something. I mentioned all this to him, casually, as we drove away from Ribeye's house.

"So. You need a pearl? Just the one?"

"I need a pearl, yes. More than one pearl? Why? Folly beyond measure is more than one pearl." The stranger looked a little offended (I think), like I'd just suggested he tongue-kiss his Aunt Freida.

I nodded to myself, trying to appear reasonable. Or at least, not like a sack of potatoes that needed to be dropped. "You got any cash? Credit cards? A check book?"

The look he gave me was enough to turn my hair white. If I'd had any left. But that's a different story about another car's gas tank. "Right no money. We'd best head for the coast then, find an oyster."

"Yes! As it has been decreed!"

Yes, whatever. I managed to keep the stranger calm, which was sort of key to not getting the police involved. You see, when he was all excitable, the car itself seemed to move a little faster, regardless of what I was doing with the gas pedal. I didn't ask about it, I just tried to keep him from being excited.

Even without the stranger's help, we got to the shore before too terribly long. I couldn't help but push the envelope a little bit...I was in a frenzy to relieve my bladder, and the stranger didn't really approve of pulling into rest stops. So while I ran into the nearest board walk port-a-pottie, the stranger wandered into the surf.


"Gonna Find a Pearl..."


It took the stranger only a couple moments to find an oyster, pop him open with the power of him mind (or whatever he was doing...all I know is it was a little creepy), and then find another. And then another. And another. We'd conveniently hit the shore right by an oyster farm, but the owners of that fine establishment were understandably a little irritated.

"Look, jerk, you gotta open older oysters if you want a pearl! Those are babies for eating! Get outta here and take it down the beach! Deeper water!" The rough fisherman was waving his net at us, and I almost laughed at the image, I swear.

Again, the stranger tilted his head at the oyster farmer. He must have sensed truth in their advice, though, since he left their plot of shallows alone. He moved on down the beach and deeper into the water without so much as doing the potato sack routine on them.

I just watched, amazed. I had no idea what the crap this guy was up to. He just seemed...so intent, on finding a pearl. Maybe it was something a dilithium crystal? He needed it to go home? Who knows. All I know was this was better than TV golf any day of the week, needing to pee for eight hours and all.

At last, the stranger lifted his head out of the water, raised his hand to the sky, and let off an odd, triumphant sort of wailing sob. Then he did the strangest thing I never saw coming.


"And Stick it up my Nose!"


That's right. He stuck the darn thing right up his left nostril. I guess it was sort of a small one, but...but anyhow. He stuck it right up his nose, and came back to shore, more or less making his way to me.

By now I was feeling that I'd sort of tricked myself into some weird goose chase, that there was nothing special here after all. That was disturbing to say the least since I was hours from home in the company of a probable psycho. I hadn't even been able to grab a crabcake or fried clams yet, and that was possibly the biggest tragedy since Ribeye got knocked out.

I braced myself to look at the stranger when he got close, expecting the pearl to make his nose, and thus is whole face, totally weird and gross. I was surprised, and maybe a little disappointed, to see that the pearl seemed to fit naturally in the scheme of his features. I didn't write this stuff, folks, I'm just telling you like it seemed. The pearl seemed to be as natural in his nose as hair would have been.

The stranger looked a little less creepy as he stood before me, tiling his head again like a darn naughty puppy about to piddle. Then his eyes came into focus on me, for the first time since I'd met the creature. "I suppose you would like an explanation."

I shrugged, trying to act all cool and distant like they say women like their guys to be. He was about as easy to understand as a woman, so I guessed it was the safest course to treat him like one. Up to a point, anyway. "If you want to hand out an explanation, I guess I'll listen."

"Very well then."


"I'm a Different Kind of Deep Sea Diver..."


"You see, I'm not exactly what you'd call a human. And you world, isn't exactly what you'd call a world. It's more like an ocean."

"Oh really now?" Dammit, I HAD spent my Saturday with a psycho.

"Oh yes. To me and other like me. We like to dip into your world now and again, much your own scuba divers will explore the coral reefs and examine fish." The stranger was getting a dreamy look on his face, a lot like some Evangelical who was babbling about the Good News.

I nodded. "Let me guess, you look like a mole rat ‘cause you're wearing some sort of diving suit?" Man this guy was full of it!

"Precisely! You have the gist of it now, for sure."

So...what exactly was this strange creature deep sea diving for? Oh my. I wasn't sure I even wanted to know anymore. Golf was starting to look very good right now.


"Breaking all Sorts of Weird Boundaries..."


"When life in out existence becomes too dull, or boring, we like to dip into the various oceans of experience, and break the boundaries of those that live in them. Just as you might dive to the ocean floor and poke a manta ray, or peel a sponge off its ground-like home. I have managed to break a totally new experience, or two rather."

I sighed, looking around a bit for a police man or maybe a big guy pumping iron. "Really now? What are those?"

"This first was this pearl. I have never, ever, ever been able to get a pearl this far up my nose. I've determined...it's not very pleasant."

You guessed it. This is when he pulled his right nostril with a finger and then blew his nose as hard as he could. The pearl came flying out with dangerous force, and looked a little icky.

"The second, my odd friend, is you. I have never been accompanied on a boundary break expedition so willingly before. I thank you for this gift, and as a favor to you..."

"I'm a Different Kind of Deep Sea Diver...I'm on LSD!"


Acutally, no I'm not. I know that for a fact, since I was landed right back in my living room, on the couch where I must have dozed off. I didn't see Ribeye around anywhere, but he could have just been getting a cream soda or maybe been chatting with some "internet girls." The big sign I hadn't actually dozed off was the fact that it wasn't golf on the TV, it was tennis.

That Swiss guy, Federer. Undefeated, almost boring to watch ‘cause you know how that quiet little dude will win in the end somehow. He was playing some no name upstart from Spain now. Wait, the game was over...and the Spanish guy had won. He'd really won!

Maybe I was being rewarded by the stranger after all. I was feeling what it was like when a weird boundary was broken...

"Crusing down the highway
Looking for adventure!
Gonna find a pearl--
And stick it up my nose!
I'm a different kinda deep sea diver
Breaking all sorts of weird boundaries!
I'm a different kinda deep sea diver--
I'm on LSD!"
---Sung to the tune of "Born to Be Wild," by Steppenwolf