The Bends

     Gary, the retired police officer from Los Angeles, fit the type-A American hard ass mold to a tee. Pushing 60, the physically fit and strikingly handsome ex-cop looked strong and youthful for his age, bullying his way through his early-retirement years as a rough and tumble Hairy Ape of a man, hard-eyed and calculating. But the gruff gorilla also knew how to turn on the charm, particularly when it came to getting what he wanted. As such, Gary appeared to me like a Bates Motel security guard: friendly on the outside, demented on the inside.

     Gary's stern and intimidating temperament both scared and puzzled me. I didn't understand his bossy and flinty disposition, the harshness in his I-couldn't-give-two-shits-about-you mentality, and it didn't take long before I saw Gary as my Big Island bête noire, a thorn in my side not to be trusted. Yet underneath it all, I also knew the disputatious dickhead was just another macho and adventure-seeking senior citizen trying to press the very best out of life's freshly squeezed citrus fruits.

     While working as a gopher for the dive shop, I rode shotgun in the company truck with Gary a few times to pick up the Hawaiian rolls, cold cuts, and vegetable trays needed for the midmorning snack provided on the boat between dives. On our first food run to the local Safeway store, Gary pulled the truck into the nearly empty parking lot, parked near the entrance, and told me to wait.

     "Stay in the truck, I'll be right back," said Gary, stone-faced as a perfect stranger. He licked his brassy-haired chevron mustache and shut the door behind him. While waiting, a gentle drizzle began tapping the windshield of the old V-8 Chevy, and I noticed the light in the sky growing, unfolding somewhere between predawn and daybreak.

     We'd left the gym at 5:15 A.M., and it was now 5:27 A.M., so we now had 33 minutes to get the food, drive back down to the office/training room and storage facility, help load up the scuba tanks and gear into the rusty bed of the truck, and then get down to the dock by 6 A.M.

     Sunrise came a little past 6 A.M., and by that time all the tanks, gear, food, and water needed to be safely stowed on the double-decker vessel, and we were then free to begin greeting the day's customers.

     I have one or two funny stories about the schmoozing aspect of the job, which was tolerable enough, even fun at times in a meeting-new-people kind of way. It all depended on the sort of customers we got.

     Most of the divers were fun, happy-go-lucky folks hardwired to be social. They arrived at the dock jubilant and coolheaded, untroubled by whatever else was happening in their lives. They came as kindred spirits, gung-ho and ready to share their next scuba gest on the high seas with captain and crew.

     Some people on the dive list were the quieter types, divers who either needed or wanted to spend most of the trip lost in their own thoughts. And what better place to meditate and ponder life then with the warm sun on their shoulders, salty sea spray in their faces, and dolphins chasing the wake on a dive boat chugging along the Gold Coast of Hawaii's Big Island between some of the most spectacular coral reef dive sites on the planet?

     A few of the divers who climbed aboard were on the stodgy side, too smug and aloof for their own good, as though the entire emprise was all about them and their needs. They were rich snobs who saw the crew as worker bees providing a service which they had paid good money for. The two best ways to deal with these unpleasant fat cats were first to grin and bear them and then to kill them with kindness. Nothing too unbearable.

     On the intolerable side, I knew all the chin-wagging chitchat was just a make-believe part of the sale. Like most jobs in the travel and tourism industry, it was a soft-skill gabfest of insincerity, right down to the last you guys were amazing and let's definitely keep in touch.

     Beyond the sham artificiality, the expedition did have a deeper meaning. It was a passageway to the shared human experience of perfect strangers with a common interest spending a few gutsy hours together in the one of the most indelible and awe-inspiring of places under the most exhilarating and extraordinary of circumstances. It was, beyond a doubt, the perfect place for all diving souls on board to bucketize their bucket lists.

     There was a time when I thought being a scuba diving guide in Hawaii might be the right job for me. Gary seemed perfectly content with his position, and even made the job look easy. Wake up at dawn, go to the gym, get the food, load up the gear, head to the dock, go diving, have some snacks, go diving again, rinse off the masks, snorkels, and wetsuits, go back to the dock, return the gear to the storage unit, done by noon. What could be cooler than that?

      However, as I soon found out, Gary was on the inside track. He was Dave's supervisory right-hand man, a savvy diver, attractively machismo, and to the clients at least, charismatically palsy-walsy. This meant macho man Gary did less of the grunt work, had the best schedule, and got to dive more than anyone else. Like Dave, he did morning dives only, Monday to Friday, while the rest of the employees took their schedules and dives in pecking-order fashion.

     During my time with Eco Adventures, I was never employed as a divemaster or dive boat guide. I was a paying customer, going on the dives as part of my training. This included one night dive with the manta rays, one cave dive, and dozens of open water dives.

     While working as gofer at the main office, I once witnessed how brutally competitive the scuba diving job market in Hawaii could be. A young man, in his early twenties, came to the office one morning to talk to Dave about his schedule. I eavesdropped on their conversion from the upstairs storage room just above the roll up doors at the back of the building.

     "Why'd you take me off the schedule?" the young man queried.

     "We just don't have any spots for you right now," Dave, said matter-of-factly.

     "But why?" the young man pleaded. "I thought you were happy with my work."

     "You did okay, but we need people better at socializing with the customers, and we also think you're a little too young and inexperienced to be on the boat right now." Dave explained. "I'm sorry, but we gotta let you go."

     "Without any notice?" asked the young man, his voice strained and choked with frustration.

     Dave folded his beefy arms around his massive chest. He was a large man, at least 6'3" and 240 pounds. The kid didn't stand a chance.

     "This is your notice," said Dave. "I'm sorry, but it's just the way things go sometimes."

     "What about my pay?" the young man asked.

     "You can pick up your paycheck on Friday here at the office." Dave answered. Then, after a few beats he added, "Is there anything else?"

     The young man slowly turned around, head down, and solemnly walked away. He looked as dejected as a high school hoopster right after he finds out he hasn't made the final cut. The kid did look young for his age, but that's not the real reason Dave sacked him.

     Truth be told, two new female divers had rolled into town, friends of friends who were promised jobs before they arrived. They were a few years older than the young man, a bit more experienced, and as I soon found out, extremely cute and bubbly young women. Young and spirited, not to mention attractive, their breeze shooting would come in handy with the male divers.

     That was the Project Runway nature of the scuba diving business: one day you were in and the next day you were out. I would know because it also happened to me, except Dave had a much better reason to send me packing.