Semper Prixus (pt 5).

Kyle’s father is teaching him to skip rocks underneath the CrissCross Bridge; the iron beams twenty five feet over their heads are dotted with dangling bird nests that they spill out of in waves every few minutes or so, marauding the river shallows and eating up the minnows and leaving behind a film of black and blue feathers carried away by the dark green water. They hadn’t done this since Kyle was very little.

Right about there, his dad says, pointing downstream, where the canyon walls of the dells were speared with evergreens that ate up all the sound. We used to dare each other to jump offa there until the shark showed up.

Dad, Kyle said, but before he could say anything else a fin broke the surface just under the stratified limestone, a dorsal as big as a traffic cone that sliced back beneath just as smooth and clean. Holy shit, Kyle said, slapping his hands on the top of his head. Holy shit, dad.

His dad was clearly enjoying this, grinning and sucking his dentures back into place. They all know about it, he says to his son. All the ones he touched can see it.

Let’s get somebody, Kyle said, unable to take his eyes off the water, wanting to see it again, never wanting to see it again. Let’s take a fucking picture, dad, this is incredible.

They won’t see it, his dad said. He never got me when I was a kid so I didn’t know about it, but I heard about it from the other fellas. The day that it grabbed Tim Shanigan back in ’47, I was there but I just saw him go under, a couple of the guys saw what really happened. And then he was in our unit having his fun, so now I can.

His dad clears his throat, bends down and looks for a rock, but they’ve scoured all of the loose ones clean; he settles for quarters from his pocket, skipping them on the river. So if you see it, then I guess I know what I came here to know.

Kyle’s face flushed; his dad nodded curtly. I’m sorry for that, he says. Real sorry.

You’re acting like he’s magic or the boogeyman, Kyle says. That’s crazy, he’s not.

I don’t know what he is, his dad says, snapping his last coin into the river. I just know what he does, and that’s enough.

Kyle waited but his dad was quiet, head titled so that the sun illuminated half of his face and the gnats and moths spun around him like fairies; he took a seat on a boulder and in no more than two minutes the shark appeared again, slower this time, and Kyle knew it was looking back at them. You mean if I got a cop or a reporter out here they wouldn’t see this? Kyle thought. That’s flying saucer bullshit.

But he believed it, more than he ever had anything. His stitches ached very badly; he scratched at the bandage covering them, and saw his dad watching him, and stopped.