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Long and Hard

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By Raul Roqué

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Raul Roqué
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-9330-3

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Chapter One

"Jimmy, don't be a pussy," Tommy said, his voice echoing against the concrete walls of the storm sewer.

Jimmy Ramirez stood at the entrance to the subterranean world of his nightmares, little eleven-year-old knees knocking together, fingers of cool damp air inching around his frail body. The concrete vault arched overhead, then disappeared to places Jimmy didn't want to think about.

"I see you shaking," Tommy chided. "I bet your heart's pounding in your chest like a boom box."

"It's dark and smelly," Jimmy said to his older friend, Tommy Herrera. His voice sounded even younger as it bounced off the hard bare walls and disappeared into the underground darkness.

"Give it a couple of years," Tommy laughed. "You'll think about dark smelly places all the time." The pubescent humor was lost on Jimmy, who had told Tommy that the idea to explore the sewer was a bad one. A very bad one.

The two boys stood in a culvert nearly twenty feet beneath Riverside Park, under the heart of Miami's Cuban community. Outside, the summer air shimmered hot and sweltering. The scorching July sun had forced the locals inside on that Sunday afternoon while Anglo tourists did the slow bake out on the beaches. In contrast, the culvert maintained a comfortable seventy-six degrees. When Tommy had told Jimmy he knew a place where they could get out of the heat, it had seemed like a good idea.

They'd provisioned like modern day voyageurs. Tommy swiped a can of orange DayGlo paint from the local hardware store and a big flashlight from his uncle's truck. Jimmy had gone home and made two peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches and filled a plastic bag with big handfuls of corn chips.

Armed with these supplies, Tommy had bent back the wire mesh protecting the entrance to the storm sewer and, ignoring the warnings posted in both English and Spanish, led his younger friend into Miami's subterranean bowels with youthful bravado.

Tommy bragged that he'd been in the sewers lots of times, had found plenty of cool stuff. He told Jimmy that he'd mark their way with the paint because this time, he wanted to go deeper into underground Miami, much deeper, than ever before.

"I bet there's rats in here," Jimmy cried as they disappeared into the dark storm drain, "and other bad things."

"Like what?" Tommy said, leading the way.

"Like alligators," Jimmy volunteered, his voice shaking.

"Alligators need water, don't they, and plants and stuff?" Tommy explained. "I saw on the Alligator Hunter that they like to take their meals down to the bottom, drown 'em, leave 'em to get ripe so they can come back later for a snack."

Any attempt to lessen his friend's fears failed. Jimmy knew if they encountered something hungry down there, he and Tommy were the most likely meal.

"You weenie," Tommy scoffed. "There's no place for a 'gator to hide down here. He'd starve to death first. You see any 'gators?"

Jimmy looked around. He only saw the beam of Tommy's flashlight on the curved concrete and the most recent swipe of orange paint on the wall. He didn't see any rats. He didn't see any alligators. In fact, other than the small trickle of water moving sluggishly down the middle of the culvert, and occasional black pipes of some sort leading down from the darkness above, the concrete tube was empty.

"Uh, uh," Jimmy said finally. "No 'gators."

"Then what's the problem? You're not chicken, are you?"

No one wants be called chicken, especially by an older kid. Not by the kid you want to be like when you grow up. "It's just," Jimmy said, "it's just, let's not be gone long."

Jimmy looked down at the watch his father had given him for his birthday and pushed the bar below the dial. An eerie blue glow floated in front of his face.

"It's almost one," Jimmy said. "I gotta be home by four. My aunt Roxy and uncle Rickie are coming over and my mother will be really mad if I'm late. How 'bout we explore until two and then turn around, follow the marks back out. How's that?" he pleaded.

"Okay," Tommy relented. "We'll stop in an hour and eat. I'm hungry already. You bring any sodas?"

"Naw," Jimmy said. "We only had the big bottles in the refrigerator for the dinner tonight and they wouldn't fit in my pockets."

Tommy put his arm around his younger friend and gave him a friendly noogie. "That's okay," he explained. "Real adventurers have to do without, have hardships, right?"

"Yeah, sure," Jimmy said, his voice shaking.

"Let's go then," Tommy said, pulling Jimmy deeper into the tunnel. The beam of the flashlight disappeared into an inky darkness.

Tommy walked in front with the light and sprayed a swipe of paint whenever they made a turn. Jimmy followed behind, walking as close as possible without tripping over his friend's sneakers. The two boys ventured deeper and deeper, southwest, and away from their own neighborhood.

* * *

"Pretty good sandwich," Tommy said, taking a big bite of the brown and white concoction Jimmy had carried under his shirt during the hour they'd trekked deeper and deeper into the storm system. For the first twenty minutes, they'd seen exactly nothing: no animals, no trash, not a shred of evidence that any human had ever ventured this way before. They were like real explorers, charting unknown territory. They masked any fear with youthful bravado and forged ahead, deeper, until the sounds of their sneakers on the concrete were but whispers.

Every so often, they would come to a cavern where several culverts converged and above them would be a grate where they could see blue sky and the shadows of cars and trucks passing over the drain. For a while, they could recognize the streets.

"Wish we had something to drink," Tommy said finally, his sandwich gone along with most of the corn chips. He'd turned off the flashlight to conserve the batteries. The distant manhole above them cast just enough light so they weren't sitting in utter darkness and the rumble of traffic sounded like far away drums. Jimmy told his friend it was plenty scary and wanted to leave.

Tommy dashed all hope, saying, "Let's go on a little more."

"But you said we'd go for an hour, and then get out," Jimmy pleaded.

"It won't take an hour to get out," Tommy argued. We just follow the paint. I bet we can go ten, maybe fifteen more minutes, easy."

"Come on," Jimmy cried, "you promised!"

"I said we'd be back at three," Tommy countered slyly, "and we will. If you want to leave now, go ahead, but I'm going to explore that big tunnel over there."

"You know I can't get out myself," Jimmy pleaded.

"Hey buddy," he said, slipping his arm around Jimmy's shoulders. "Us explorers have to stick together. You're just scared because it's your first time down here. I was scared my first time," he admitted, "and I was all by myself."

Jimmy nodded, holding back a sniffle. If Tommy could do this by himself, then he couldn't be a crybaby. He stood up and collected the lunch bags and stuffed them back inside his shirt.

"You ready?" Tommy asked.

Jimmy's heart told him no, but he managed a nod, and followed his friend deeper into the unknown.

* * *

Tommy chose the biggest culvert they had traversed so far. They walked side by side, one on either side of the trickle of water. They passed several concrete confluences and gazed up through each manhole, guessing how far they'd gone.

"That's 8th Avenue," Tommy had said much earlier, but the twists and turns had confused both of them and they stopped trying to chart their underground route. Eventually, they had no idea what street they were under. Only the glowing stripes of paint Tommy deposited on the concrete walls gave them hope they weren't utterly lost.

"It's getting dark outside," Jimmy said, worried, checking his watch again. They stood under a grate that let only a gray smudge of light enter the cavern below. Sparse traffic on the road above revealed headlights of fast-moving vehicles.

"It's only two-twenty," Tommy said, looking at Jimmy's illuminated watch. "Maybe it's the shadows of buildings."

"I don't think so," Jimmy said. "I think we better get home."

"I'll tell you what," Tommy said. "You stay here and I'll go on a little ways. In five minutes, I'll turn around and come back, and then we'll leave."

"I don't want to stay here by myself in the dark!" Jimmy gasped. He was terrified. Only his friend's constant assurance had kept his fears at bay this long. He couldn't imagine Tommy leaving him alone in the sewer.

"Then come with me," Tommy said, and Jimmy realized he had no option.

* * *

"I smell something," Jimmy said. They had made a right hand turn, about quarter mile from where they'd eaten their lunch.

"Me too," Tommy agreed, sniffing the air and stopping to sweep the flashlight along the walls of the culvert. "What do you think it is?"

"Maybe an alligator drug a dog or something down here," Jimmy said. "You know, to keep it so it can rot."

"Smells like it's already rotten," Tommy said making a face. "Let's find out."

"I don't want to," Jimmy cried. "Let's go. Let's go now!"

"Go now and never know?" Tommy said. "You won't be able to sleep at night, wondering what was down here." He took Jimmy's hand and pulled him around the corner.

"Tommmmmy!" Jimmy yelled as the beam of the flashlight reflected two white, unblinking eyes. The eyes belonged to a body caught in a tangle of black pipes intersecting the concrete culvert. Twisted, contorted, the body took on impossible angles, looking more like a broken rag doll than a human being.

Tommy dropped the flashlight and the beam immediately went out, throwing the boys into complete darkness.

"Oh, Tommy," Jimmy cried. "Where are you?" His heart pounded in his chest and the last syllables of his fear cracked and broke with raw terror.

"I'm here," Tommy croaked, fumbling in the water for the flashlight. After a moment, he found it but his attempts to flick it on proved unsuccessful.

They trembled, alone, with a dead person.

"What's wrong with the flashlight?" Jimmy whimpered. "I can't see anything. We can't find our way out. We're going to die like ... like that guy over there."

"Shut up," Tommy said, opening the flashlight and drying the batteries and contacts on his shirt. Reassembled, the flashlight blinked once, went black, and then relit with a strong, steady beam.

"Is it still there?" Jimmy whispered, unwilling to look around.

Tommy peeked over his shoulder and swept the beam across the far wall. "Yeah," he croaked, "it's still there. We're out of here!"

The boys turned and ran, ran like their young legs had never run before. "I'll lead!" Tommy yelled, dropping the spray can and taking off back down the sewer. He kept the flashlight's beam on the right-hand wall, picking up the slashes of orange paint as they ran.

Sneakers sloshing in the water, Jimmy struggled to keep up with his older, larger friend. Tommy didn't have to slow down to study the glowing slashes, so the two boys raced, barely ahead of their own hearts, eager to get away from the horror.

"What's that?" Jimmy said when they'd slowed to a trot, sufficient distance between them and the body that the hairs on the backs of their necks no longer stood at attention. Tommy turned his ear into the tunnel.

"I don't hear anything," he said.

Still, Jimmy felt something. A breeze coming down the culvert ruffled his buzz cut. A steady and increasing breeze.

Tommy looked down and realized that the trickle of water running down the center of the culvert was now a couple of feet wide, and getting wider.

Jimmy noticed the same thing. "The water's getting deeper," he cried. Just then, the sound hit him, the sound of hundreds of thousands of gallons of storm water racing through the narrow confines of the sewer. His young eyes bugged out and his screams caught in his throat as he realized the foolishness of this youthful adventure.

"Run," Tommy yelled, now aware that the air, pushed ahead of the wall of water, was much more than a breeze. Jimmy took off. Tommy followed, shining the flashlight ahead, calling out, "Right, Jimmy, right!" and, "Straight, keep going straight!"

The two boys raced toward safety, their feet splashing in the rising water, their knees pounding like pistons. Once or twice they missed the markers and had to double back, losing precious seconds. The sound, originally a low rumble, now screamed in their ears like a giant waterfall. Neither boy looked back. They ran for their lives.

"Aaaaargh!" Jimmy screamed, tripping and falling on his hands and knees in the rapidly rising flood. His tortured palms and knees burned as Tommy, unable to stop, somersaulted over him and landed hard on his shoulder with a resounding crunch. The flashlight flew from his hand and extinguished, landing out in the darkness somewhere. The pitch-black tunnel roared with the sound of the water closing in on them.

"Get up," Jimmy yelled, grabbing Tommy under the arms and hoisting him to his feet.

Tommy screamed, his shoulder broken. The pain made him swoon. His legs buckled.

"Where?" Tommy cried.

Jimmy felt the rush of air in his face and turned them both around. "This way," he yelled in the darkness over the sound of the water bearing down on them. "We've got to go this way."

No light. No paint stripes. Totally lost. Jimmy had no idea how close the opening was, couldn't remember how many turns they had made on the way in. Still, he could only run for his life.

He pushed his older friend to the right at the first juncture only to realize the wind to his back had ceased. He pulled the shivering Tommy back out to the tunnel and turned left, the breeze steady at his back once again. Left then right, then straight. Always with the air at his back, seeking its release somewhere ahead.

Tommy could barely breathe and Jimmy's little lungs wheezed with the howl of an animal in pain. Tommy was old enough to say a tortured prayer for the two of them. He said he was sorry, and asked Jesus to make it easy on their moms and dads. Jimmy heard the words and said, "Me, too."

And then, suddenly ... light! The screen that Tommy had pulled aside several hours before loomed in front of them. They wriggled through, and with legs that burned and protested, they scrambled on all fours up the embankment beside the entrance, and collapsed.

Jimmy cried and gasped. Lying on his back, he choked on his own tears. Tommy groaned in pain and rolled to his side, away from Jimmy, to empty his stomach. He hurled the sandwich and chips, sick from the exertion, sick from the horror and pain.

Just then, the sewer opening below them exploded in a solid torrent of water. The force of the flood shot a six-foot diameter stream of dirty rainwater well out into the catch basin of Riverside Park. The roar went on and on; the torrent failed to diminish until the entire grassy depression below them was flooded. And then in an instant it was over.

The blue sky above held but a speckling of fluffy white clouds. The afternoon sun quickly warmed their chilled skin. No hint existed that a record rainfall had occurred only a few miles away. No hint that two young boys, two foolish young boys, had almost become statistics.

"Lucky, huh?" Tommy said finally, wiping his mouth on his throbbing shoulder before turning to his friend.

Jimmy's sobs had subsided. His hands and knees bled freely from where he'd fallen. His shirt hung open and torn; the lunch bags were now somewhere out in the park.

"You okay?" Tommy asked.

"Uh, huh," Jimmy nodded, grimacing as he brushed dirt and grass off his torn knees. "I don't ever ...

"I know," Tommy said.

"What about what we saw?"

"What?"

"What do you mean, what?" Jimmy said. "The body in there!"

Tommy warned him, "If we tell anyone, we'll be sure to get in trouble. You're going to be in plenty of trouble anyway, getting home late. Did we really seen anything? Maybe we were just scared, didn't really see anything at all. That was it, just our imaginations.

"I'll tell you what," Tommy continued, helping Jimmy get up. "Maybe we can ..."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Long and Hard by Raul Roqué Copyright © 2010 by Raul Roqué. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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