The Diving Mask

Just a story about kids.

The Diving Mask

Timmy was six and Roger was five. They lived in a small town in central Kansas far from any ocean, and far from any major lakes for that matter. The area was just flat, dusty country with a vile smell of cows. There was a stockyard in town. Their favorite TV show was “Sea Hunt”, early morning re-runs of a 1950's black and white series about Mike Nelson, a professional diver.

“I get to wear the mask first”, said Timmy. “Until the first commercial. You were first yesterday.”

“OK”, said Roger, as the handed the mask to Timmy and as the Sea Hunt theme song came on.

They both sat down immediately in front of the television, Timmy wearing the professional quality diving mask that their mother had found for them somewhere. The mask was heavy and big and made of thick black rubber with safety glass instead of clear plastic on the front. It was the boys prize possession, something they loved above all else, and something that had made many trips to show and tell at school.

Sea Hunt episodes were always in two halves. In the fist half, Mike Nelson set out his objective, fixing an underwater phone line or something, and then added some interesting points about the work and of the sea in general. In the second half, he would be attacked by one or more bad guys who would cut his air hose with a knife, forcing him to fight them off underwater without air.

The half time commercials came on and Roger extended his hand, “Gimmie!”, he shouted.

“OK”, said Timmy, dutifully handing over the mask. “But can I have it back when the air hose gets cut?”

“NO!”, shouted Roger. “I get it for the whole second half.”

“It helps me hold my breath”, wheedled Timmy.

“Me too !!”, Roger shouted back..

They were almost coming to blows when the show came back on, distracting them. Mike Nelson was underwater, working around a large pipe that sucked in water for some reason, when the two bad guys attacked. They immediately cut Mike's air hose and Timmy and Roger took a deep breath and held it.

The two boys were turning blue when the first bad guy got sucked into the big pipe. Both then gave up and began taking large wheezing breaths while Mike fought on with the second bad guy.”

“I can't do it”, said Roger.

“But Mike Nelson can 'cause he's trained.”

“Yeah, I guess so”, Roger replied. His voice muffled by the diving mask he wore.

Mike managed to hit the second bad guy with an air tank and, now unconscious, he too was sucked into the pipe.

It was Saturday and the two began making noise so that their mother would wake up to take them to the pool when it opened at 10:00 AM.

“I saw flippers down at the hardware store”, said Roger.

“You did?”

“Yeah, black ones. Just like Mike Nelson's”, Roger elaborated.

“They would match the diving mask”, Timmy observed.

“Yeah, let's ask mom to get them on the way to the pool.”

“Think she will?”

“Dunno.”

They both got into their swim suits and flip flops while their mother had her coffee.

“Mom, there are flippers down at the hardware store and we need them”, was Rogers opening gambit.

“Yeah”, Timmy said in support.

“You two have spent enough money this month”, she countered.

“MOM!!”, Roger replied.

“They're cheap”, Timmy said.

“How do you know”, his mother replied.

“They just are”, Timmy replied, frustrated that his mother could not follow the logic.

“Can we just look at them?” Roger wheedled. “On the way to the pool? We go right by it.”

“OK, let's go see what they cost”, their mother replied and the boys cheered.

The flippers were pool toys and not professional diving equipment, and hence, were not that expensive.

“They're too big for you guys”, their mother observed. “They'll fall off your feet.”

“They will not”, Roger countered.

“And we'll grow into them”, Timmy continued.

“And we can wear them watching Sea Hunt”, Roger noted.

This struck a chord with their mother who realized that even if the flippers fell off their feet in the pool, the boys would get a lot of good out of them watching Sea Hunt. And the flippers were purchased.

“Now you two are going to have to share. One gets gets the flippers and one gets the diving mask, then you trade off after a while.”

As they entered the pool, each boy showed a small, rectangular tag sewed to the bottom left leg of their suits to the attendant, the sign of a purchased season pass to the municipal pool. In the dressing room, while taking the mandatory shower, one of the older guys pointed up to a square hole in the roof of the men's dressing room covered with wire fencing.

“Me and my friends are going to climb up on the roof and look into the hole on the girls side”, he explained.

“Wow!”, said Timmy. “Can we come?”

“Hell no”, said the older guy, perhaps twelve years old. “You're just kids. Too young for that stuff.”

Both Timmy and Roger would have been crushed had they not been so excited about the flippers. At the pool side they came to blows about who got to wear the flippers first and were broken up by a lifeguard, who decided Roger should go first.

Roger sat off across the pool with the flippers while Timmy trailed underwater watching through the diving mask. The flippers really were too big and Timmy observed that they really did keep falling off of Rogers feet. But Roger didn't seem to mind, he would simply dive down in the four foot deep water and put the fallen flipper back on before returning to the surface. At the far end of the pool they traded diving mask and flippers and returned to their starting point. The flippers also fell off of Timmy's feet, but again, this was no big deal.

A day at the pool exhausted the boys and they gratefully climbed into bed that night. The flippers had been placed on the desk where they could be observed through the night. Right in front of a poster of a Sabre Jet with a streak of parakeet s**t running down the center, which the boys told the other children was an attacking rocket.

The flippers would again go to the pool on Sunday and then be used to watch Sea Hunt on Monday before school. The diving mask was placed where it always was, under the foot of Timmy's lower bunk.

The diving mask was placed there because both Timmy and Roger would piss in it during the night, instead of clumping down the cold hallway to the bathroom. When their mother called them to wake up, they would carry the mask down the hallway and dump it in the toilet before rinsing it out and wearing it in the shower.

For a long time this routine went on without a hitch, until the day their mother overslept.

“You guys, get up now! We're late! Go! Go! Go!”

Their mother appeared in the bedroom door clapping her hands and yelling, “Go!”.

“No time for showers or breakfast. Just get dressed now!”

In response, but Timmy and Roger got dressed and were hustled off to class. The diving mask, still full of piss, lay forgotten under the foot of Timmy's lower bunk.

But all might have gone well had their mother not seen a dust bunny blow out from under Timmy's lower bunk. She got her broom, began reaching under the bunk and tipped over the diving mask. A puddle of urine began to expand.

“Oh my God”, their mother shouted.

She then sniffed the diving mask and repeated, “Oh … my … God!”.

When the two returned from school, they were confronted by an angry mother.

“Who peed in the diving mask”, she demanded.

“Uh, we do it so we don't have to walk to the bathroom in the night”, Timmy volunteered.

“How long have you been doing that?”, their mother demanded.

“Long time”, Roger replied.

“AAAACK!”, their mother screeched. “And you put that thing on your faces?”

“We rinse it out first”, Timmy clarified.

“Well, it's not going on your face anymore”, their mother announced, and she marched out the back door and across the back yard to the incinerator by the back alley. The trash had not been burned in a while and newspapers and cardboard poked out of the top of the incinerator. She threw the mask on top and opened the front door to light the trash.

Timmy and Roger watched from the kitchen window and began to cry as the flames came through the top of the incinerator and the diving mask began to melt. Monday morning they each wore one flipper while watching Sea Hunt. But it wasn't the same.