Night Dive 

By 

George Nevgodovsky 

It was just past one a.m. when a Mercury Tracer with stolen plates came screeching to a halt next to the guard rails on Half-Mile bridge. The streetlights flickered overhead, illuminating the wet asphalt, the shape emerging from the driver’s side door—a bulging duffel bag held close.  

Then: falling. Falling endlessly— shattering the night, the reflection of the moon in the river.  

With empty hands the shape returned to the car and hit the gas, burning rubber to escape the distant drone of police sirens.  

For most of the sleeping city the moon had been undisturbed, the duffel bag non-existent. But Greg had been awake that night, walking near Half-Mile bridge. Coveting the current.  

Two months ago, Greg lost his job at the cannery—the latest industry to turn towards automation. The inevitable flood of progress, and all you could do was try to stay afloat.  

Except it wasn’t just his own weight Greg was holding up. He had Stella and Joey.  

After he lost his job, Greg turned to gambling to make ends meet. Virtual slots, sad internet chatrooms, drunk posting on r/SoccerBetting. It wasn’t the sexy kind—the kind you do in smoky backrooms or glitzy casinos. In fact, Greg won the bulk of his earnings by hanging around the house all day, drinking lukewarm cans of Molson, playing six separate online poker games and pissing into empty Gatorade bottles. Not exactly The Cincinnati Kid. Sometimes he just needed to escape from all those stakes, all that weight. So he walked the riverbank.  

His night walks were the only times when he felt sane. He liked the old cobblestones along the river path—so unlike the cement and concrete in the rest of the city. The song of the current and the tugboats if he walked till dawn. The hypnotic ticking of working-class clockwork. 

Greg had been staring into the water’s black depths when he heard the Mercury burning rubber on Half-Mile Bridge. He saw the splash of the duffel bag, the eventual red and blue blur of police cars, and instantly recognized that moment for what it was. A lucky draw on the river.  

His chance to beat the dealer.  

It was in all the papers the next afternoon: “Midnight Jewel Heist—Thief Makes Out with Six Figures of Loot”. The same loot that was now laying on the riverbed below Half-Mile Bridge. Their lead suspect: Lee Mercer. According to the news he’d been on the run for months, wanted for various robberies around the city. And this one had Lee’s stink all over.  

They included a photograph of his face—scraggly beard, shaved head, and a scorpion tattoo on his temple with the tail wrapping across his cheek. Not someone Greg wanted to cross. He prayed he wouldn’t have to.  

Greg contemplated telling Stella about his plan, but in the end he opted against it. She’d worry, advise him to fold instead of playing the odds. Telling her would only complicate things. 

Instead, he checked this week’s weather forecast, and searched for used diving gear on the internet. 

Two days later, near the edge of the river embankment, Greg squeezed his feet into a pair of rubber flippers as thick threads of fog floated along the water. The fog would obscure him from gawking pedestrians and insomniacs. Or so he’d hoped when he’d chosen this night for his dive.  

It’d been a while since his days diving along the Australian coast, but the movements felt familiar. He strapped on his oxygen tank and attached his breathing tube, checking the weights, the valves, the seals. Ensuring that he’d make it back home after all this.  

A decent haul for a quiet night’s work—provided the night stayed quiet. Provided Lee hadn’t already retrieved his score.  

Greg fitted his goggles and his mouthpiece, inhaling the first lungful of stale, pressurized air. He was all in now. No turning back.  

Time to get wet, he thought, as he jumped into the black pool.  

When he broke the surface he felt the frigid water through his wetsuit, and for a few brief moments Greg floated blindly in a profound darkness before remembering to switch on his headlamp. Instantly, his path towards the depths of the murky, polluted river became illuminated, and he started to let air escape from his buoyancy compensator.  

His body began its descent.  

Beneath the surface there were no sounds except for his breathing, steady and measured. Careful not to inhale any more air than necessary, for he knew you can’t predict what goes down on a dive. Greg breathed cautiously, deliberately, as he continued to sink towards the treasure below.  

But when the first glimpses of the rocky riverbed came into view, all he could see were old tires, algae-covered beer bottles, and corroding car batteries. Rusty fire extinguishers, steel rebar, and smooth, eroded boulders. No sign of the bag.  

As he scoured through the debris, Greg began to worry that the bag had not been heavy enough. That it was swept away by the current. That this had all been for nothing… 

Fuck that. 

No—he knew he couldn’t afford to go back empty handed tonight.  

When he pawned the stolen jewels, it would mean several years of security and stability. It would mean groceries every week, fixing the steering on Stella’s car, new sneakers for Joey. Paying the last three months of rent and crumpling up the eviction notice he’d found tacked to his door. It had been too long since he’d cashed-in, and he needed a payday now more than ever. 

C’mon. Where the hell are you?  

That was when he spotted it: the yellow and red stripes conspicuous in the dark water like some tropical fish.  

Jackpot.  

END OF EXCERPT