Short Stories

I lie in bed every night trying to figure out what has been said to me during the day, every night since I started my second attempt at college.  The past year, my lost year, at the Bracebridge “insane asylum” I ran on the edge of life’s razor, trying not to cut myself, only now do I realize that I don’t think I succeeded.  The girl sleeping next to me, my accidental girlfriend Angela, is slowly beginning to question my motive for dating her.  When she finds out it was an accident, she will know that she is just there to help make me look more normal.  Every conversation with her, and with everyone else, I wonder if I understand what is being said or if I am missing a hidden meaning or agenda.  Yet I still go through the motions of real life like parties, dinner with my parents, the county’s work release program, and school.  But not school, because I dropped all my classes as soon as I could, so now I am confused about what I am actually doing here.  I question why at every juncture and then wait patiently for an answer, but that answer never comes.  Incredible pressure from all points of view choke me and my questions, and I wonder if I ever get an answer, will I accept it.  Why isn’t my situation good enough, why doesn’t it work like it does for so many others, why can’t Angela clearly see I can’t care about her, why can’t the police officers completely see that I’m high when I show up to clean their bathroom stalls, why am I allowed to continue to live in a college apartment, when I am not enrolled in that college…Jesus, what am I doing here.  It is too much tonight and sleep escapes me, the shadows of my room will me up and dressed.  I leave without kissing Angela goodbye, but I don’t remember until I am in my car and driving.  It’s early in the morning, so I stay off the main streets, knowing that the night watch is watching.  I pass the little, quaint homes of the surrounding neighborhood and wonder out loud, “What do they know that I don’t, why do they live here, it’s a college town, there’s no room for them, and what are they hoping to claim?”  Hearing my voice bothers me into silence, which erases that line of questioning.   The freeway onramp in front of me reminds me that I have no destination in mind, and it continues to be so long after I’ve entered the freeway.  A sliver of a thought mimic’s something that might be dangerous if I continue, but like all things now, it just doesn’t make sense…I keep going.

Through the confusion I can see that tonight is a beautiful night, a perfect night, a storm had just passed and the remaining clouds in the sky look like silver-lined demons waiting for me to misstep, but the joke is on them because I already have.  The moon is my only savior, it shines an iridescent crystal blue light, helping to guide me to my non-destination, catching itself in the mist that hangs low in the passing valley.  For every uncommon reason, I am feeling frustration at its peak, which reminds me of why I am out here, but even if this trip does what it’s supposed to, do I really want a clear mind?  Ten minutes pass like ten seconds, and the vibration of the road underneath sooths this beast of a feeling that I don’t know what to call, sending me into my usual trance, and like usual with every passing mile my trance deepens.  This expedition I have done before, not driving but traveling, becoming the mode not the control.  I turn down a small highway, not remembering how to turn, just doing it.  I know I’m on a small rural road somewhere in San Luis Obispo County, but I think it’s not where I’m going…I keep going.

I drive for a long time, longer than usual, it seems endless or would seem endless if I knew what I was doing.  The moon is as blue as the twilight sky that ended so long ago and while it’s incandescent shower of light over the deserted countryside lights my way, it also seems to move out of my way as I’m about to touch it.  I drive faster to see if I can.  Still confused by a great many things, the night included, the confusion now shows signs of entrancement.  I randomly pick a cassette tape from my middle console and mindlessly slip it into the front of the deck.  It’s a tape I haven’t played for a while and I immediately know why I haven’t played it for the time I hadn’t.  The music solidifies my mental trance and helps push me further into a psychological haze that is borderline dangerous, and I know somewhere in my head it is dangerous…I kept going.

Perfectly hypnotized by the environment I’ve accidentally created, my car rushes through the hills and valleys of this seemingly never-ending landscape.  It reminds me of a place I have been before, a place or a feeling?  I let the thought float, knowing it won’t come to me now, but perhaps later.  A slight pain in my head begins to throb and I wonder why it was hurting.  The pain brings me back enough to realize that my window is down, and the pain is from the winter wind which has been brushing against the left side of the car, numbing my ear and left arm which I unwittingly left dangling outside the window.  I correct this intrusion by rolling up my window, slipping me back into the entrancement I was in before.  More time passes and I reflect on how I met the girl in my bed.

The party at “Blinky’s” was nearing a close on its second day, but the coke was so much more pure than it had been in the past months that people just didn’t want to leave.  I was in one of his upstairs rooms, giving myself a break from all the problem solving, watching the shadows of the room begin their dance.  The shadows are scattered by a girl, who I know is beautiful even though I can only see her silhouette.  She calls me Dave, and begins to disrobe.  I think, ‘I look like a Dave’, so I don’t stop her.  We spend the next day in the room and although I know I am wasting my eight-ball on an obvious hooker it begins to fill in an empty spot I have had since I came down here.  People roll into the room now and again, complementing or weirdly congratulating us on our hook up.  I let everything slide because as it turns out, when I turn on the lights, she is beautiful.   The coke finally runs out, but with perfect timing, “Blinky” knocks on the door, and comes in.  Immediately he sees that I am not Dave, but if it is a secret, he plays me the part.  We buy some more and leave to go to my place, she hasn’t left since, bringing home a small amount of stuff at the end of every work day.  She still calls me Dave, but surely by now she knows my name, and doesn’t want any part in the story of how we met.  A moment of clarity hits me in the chest, letting me remember that I had used the name Dave as a fake name once.  Was it down here, did I misread “Blinky’s” response to seeing Angela in my room, I want to pull out my wallet and look at what name is on the license, but that thought scares me.  I am separating, something from something, but I can’t tell what is coming free from what.  I wonder what holds dominion over me, what is in control now, it frightens me…I keep going.

The sharp light from the moon follows me, it cuts and moves on everything it touches, except me, and I feel trap being set by something in the night, something the moon didn’t like.  Further and further, I roam, physically and mentally deeper, so that when something comes around a corner, it shocks me the way water shocks a house cat, and I have to fight the urge to slam on the brakes.  Then around the next corner, a small shape just off of the road moves on its own, and I slam on the brakes, sliding onto the side of the road.  It confuses the dream I was having, pouring a bit of reality back into my veins, I quickly look to see if the shape is safe, but too many things could be it now.  It reminds me of another time, and another lost shape…I hope this isn’t going to be another transcendental replay of that horror story.  I sigh, relieved that the moment is over, when a car cuts across my field of vision.  “Shit!” I scream, not even seeing the cars approach.  In two beats the other car is out of sight and out of mind and I take off, continuing my journey, slipping slowly back into my coma.  I wonder how much of me is riding shotgun and how much of me is controlling this, clearing.  The coma tells me not to worry…I keep going.

The road changes while the trees watch, and as I sail through their land, the slow confusion still masking my understanding of all of my whys doesn’t give way and will not be fanned away by my driving.  I still question every… (CLICK!)  “Jesus!”  I scream again, being abruptly awakened by the tape changing sides, something I don’t figure out until the music starts playing again.  Instead of fogging over, the music catches me and makes me remember why I haven’t listened to it in a while.  I give it its due and listen to it again, listen to the words, and I feel a different kind of trance envelop me.  I begin to turn the tones and lyrics into visions, but when the next song starts, I remember why I have chosen to leave my bed, and try to fix an obviously broken psyche.

Is there a flame in the dark/Is there a bright heart star/These creatures look the same now/We freeze wherever we are/We wake alone in the blackness/We sleep wherever we fall/One dream all around/As this big hush affects us all

I can see the break, I can see the why, and I can see that all of my previously important questions will fall terribly short of any answer I think I want.  I am scared, this isn’t fun anymore…I begin to turn around, and stop.

The dirt road that serves as my midway point disappears into such complete darkness that it makes me wonder who would use such a road.  So far away from everything, so dark, so alone, under a dead moon, it begins to feel weird as I sit there, halfway through my three-point turn.  I ponder this and the fact that I have no idea what time it is, but it doesn’t matter because the night, the trance, the music, they have all stopped for me and are now waiting patiently for me to leave.  A rabbit quickly darts out in front of me like a small ghost, but it is gone in the same second it arrived.  Suddenly an eerie feeling begins to fill in the dark spots of the little road. ‘Something is coming’, my brain says, I am stunned and cannot move…I want to see it. I wait trying to make out shapes in the shadows when another part of me tells me I don’t want to see it…I take off.

My hands tighten and my arms jerk the wheel to the left, gravel from the side of the road rattles against my wheel wells.  Two minutes into a panic, I find my speedometer, it says I’m going too fast and as I slide around a tight corner of the road, I feel it gaining on me…I am terrified.

No more trance, no more coma, no more feeling numb, all of that is replaced with irrational fear.  Did I ask too much, did I question what was asked too much, did I clear my mind and find which part of me is broken, did it matter how fast I drove, or was the break inevitably going to catch me?  It feels like I am leaving the scene of a crime with the police in hot pursuit, it feels like I am breaking the surface after being under water too long, it feels like it is right behind me…I go faster.  The path is harrowing and half seen, I look for houses that should be here like they were before, but I see nothing.  The demon clouds, and the colorless moon are no longer taking bets on whether I survive, they have gone someplace safe so as to not have to be witness to what might happen to me.  At last I drive too close to something, popping me up on two wheels for a split second, jarring the part of my neck and head that are prone to actuating the things I think about into real live adversaries.  The break is gone before my wheels hit the pavement.  Shaking my head, begins to clear the broken reality I have been living for the past six hours.

Lights, wonderful lights, and soft white lights of the freeway glowing in the mist of what I can only call late-early morning.  The entrance happens upon me so fast that I almost miss it, having to skid a little before the turn.  I enter the freeway to see a couple cars behind me and in front of me.  My fear of driving slowly dissipates to a slow hum inside my left ear and it feels like it is the first time I am driving on a freeway, it feels great.  I switch to a local radio station and listen to regular music, forgetting about my failed quest somewhere between here and nowhere.  I arrive home and park in the parking lot of the apartments, I try to get out of the car but the seatbelt that I had fastened underneath my jacket stops me, I don’t remember doing that.  The drugs I took are finally beginning to wear off, and I can see that my escape I mask as trying college again, isn’t an escape at all, it is an unfamiliar prison.  What am I doing here?  I’m not escaping my addictions, I am continuing them, all of them.

Walking back to my place my girlfriend Angela startles me.  “Hey, what’s up?” she asks me with a mysterious nonchalance.  “What time is it?”  I ask, still processing my hidden epiphany.  “A little after four in the morning.  Did you get more shit?” She asks.  “Because, I was just going to do that.” She says, not letting me answer.  “No.”  I say, looking like I was going to continue.  “Where’d you go?  What’s up?”  She says.  I can see a twinkle of worry begin to sparkle in her eyes.  “Nah, I just had to clear my head, I’ve just been…thinking.” I say, it feels like a lie on my lips, so I lick them.  “Ok…I’ll be back in fifteen.  You going to be here, or do you have to think some more?” She says.  I wait a beat then say, “I’ll be here.” She nods her head, gets into her car, and drives away, probably to “Blinky’s”.   I watch her do this and give her one more day before I go back home, opting to wait until she is high, and doesn’t give a fuck, to say my goodbye.

We wave goodbye to “Tonka” and “Smiley” promising to get together with them for dinner during the week.  Another breeze blows in the coolness of the island night, working like a period at the end of the day’s sentence.  It’s unfailingly Hawaiian scent swirls around us, being moved by a new party that is hastily running out towards the shore, changing the end of the day’s period to a comma.  Dan and I turn to the Twin Paddle Club, which has been our residence today, and wave at the second shift bartender, “See you tomorrow!”  Dan yells, and I look at him wondering what would be the reason to do tomorrow what we did today.  “Wasn’t that enough for you?”  I say, looking back at our table where he, I, Smiley and Tonka bonded as drinkers while telling and comparing outrageous stories of our unbreakable youth.  The slightly east-of-Midwestern brother and sister team had gone toe to toe, drink for drink, and story for story with us, and like us, were amazed that each was still continuing to drink at the end of the day.  I am glad, or maybe relieved, that these two were making some of the same mistakes I had made, and was making, rationalizing it by Tonka’s credo, “We’re young, we make mistakes”, “…and the one’s we learn from, are the ones worth making again.”  Smiley says, adding the cherry on top.  I smile, remembering Smiley’s playful attitude, regardless of her brother’s large presents.  But the day’s sentence was read, so we begin our chase of the new, younger group with an awkward stumble down the stairs that lead to the beach.  There is something cool they wanted to show us.

What seemed like a mad dash out and away from the beach bar is a trick the booze played on my brain, so when we make the first blind corner on the stairs, we almost trample some of the groups females who had waited for Dan and I.  This bunch of teenage explorers, our brethren who were a couple years younger than us, had caught the last couple of hours of drink and story, and had been trying to steal us away from Tonka and Smiley because for some reason they thought they were better, or cooler, or something I did not get.  They jumped at the chance, when Tonka and Smiley left, to spring the trap.  “Do you want to see something cool?”  Tracy, the one I had been flirting with, says to Dan and me.  “Sure, let’s go.”  I say, hoping it’s a mistake that I have learned from already.  The girls take off and begin to run out towards the ocean, and down the beach, Dan sprints after them, all the while carrying our yellow boom box on his shoulder.  I am in no mood to run towards the ocean, nor will I ever be again I fear, so I slowly begin my trek, now hoping that they realize I’m not there when they get to something cool.  I listen to the familiar slow and mundane crash of the nights surf, hearing Dan terrorizing some giggling gaggle of girls.  I try to see them, but the hotel I am in front of now has turned off its beach access lights.   I slow down and try to enjoy this moment, letting the sins of my short past leave my memory with the ebbs of the tiny night waves, when a figure starts to form in front of me.  It is Tracy, and she noticed that I wasn’t there.  Her hand grabs mine, but she doesn’t begin to pull me, like most girls do, but turns and includes herself in my walk.  I switch finger positions like all teenagers do and feel the sand that is stuck in her suntan lotion rub against my skin.  Another breeze blows lifting her hair slightly, enchanting me with a natural euphoric smell of hibiscus, coming from the flower she wore in it.  A wave quietly crashes against the shore again while the brightness of the moon hides the stars from us.  I am young, so I stop and turn us out towards the ocean, thinking that this is one of those times when you are supposed to, but I don’t.  Instead, we continue our walk, talking about Hawaii and its beauty, this is her fist time and she is in awe of everything.  I try to add to that awe telling her about the other islands, having vacationed here more than once.  A yell from down the beach breaks us from our fantastically teenage moment, yells and then splashes, my heart drops.  Tracy strips off her shirt and shorts revealing a simple white bikini and leaps into the water seemingly swimming off towards the Philippines.  My eyes close in on the secret they wanted to show us, which is a dock about fifty yards out from the shore.  I can see our radio still on Danny’s shoulder, bobbing with his every stroke. I sit down on the beach and remember what recently happened to me and why I hesitated now.  Tracy sees me and turns around. “What’s wrong?”  She says with concern. “Nothing, nothing, just wanted to take my sandals off.”  I say, trying to hide my abject fear of sharks, hoping she didn’t notice that I wasn’t wearing any sandals.  The music starts out in the darkness and I slowly stand up and walk into the water.  I stay close to her, holding my breath as long as I can. Blind and numb with my new fear, I paddle through the black water seeing in my mind’s eye what is underneath me.  I want to turn around before the attack happens, but just as is she hears me, she turns around and smiles, dulling my fear, keeping me from swimming back to shore.  A minute, two minutes might as well have been a lifetime, but the soft, rounded feeling of panic, that has been with me since the first sound of water splashing, evolves into something more terrible, something smarter.  Its new jagged points prick me for the first time when I arrive at this dock and try to get out of the water. I can picture the fish quickly coming up from directly beneath me, pushing the water away with its black hole of a mouth.  I am pulled out by two of the guy’s that are on the dock, trying not to feel the prick, I am sure that I am bleeding from something when they finally fish me out.  I look for Tracy, she is there and squeezes through the dancing brood to get to me.  I don’t know why but she hugs me, melting the ugly feelings of panic and fear away.

We sit while others dance, knees to our chest, looking out over the ocean, while little moonlets play amongst the waves.  She goes to school in San Diego, this is her senior trip, but this group was late getting their payments in, so they are separate from the rest of their class, who had left already.  I tell her about Dan and I’s travels over the last three years somehow always, and luckily, making it back here.  “I think my friend, Debbie, likes him.”  She says.  “I think everyone likes him.”  I say turning, pointing at him while Danny dances in the Hawaiian moonlight.  Our conversations about music and college become easier to hear and I realize that everyone is leaving this death dock.  “Come on, let’s head back to shore.”  Tracy says, then stands, runs, and dives into the tragic blackness of the night sea.  It takes a beat for me to do the same, living a lifetime in that beat, not wanting to be left alone, having to be saved in the morning, so with pure testosterone pumping through my veins, I run and dive in.  I jumped to high and dove too deep taking me panicked seconds to surface.  My eyes on the shore and nothing else I see Dan in front of me struggling to keep the radio on his shoulder above water.  I can feel the water behind my feet move with my muscles, but I can’t feel the temperature.  The water isn’t helping me, it’s just there, getting caught in between my legs and arms, slowing me down.  Another lifetime goes by as I see Dan fail at keeping the radio above water, but there is something behind me, stalking me, hunting me off to the left side…now the right.  Tracy is either a great swimmer or I am simply a flailing, human tasting buoy moving nowhere, because she is already at the shore.  I guess the time at thirty seconds before I am safe, catching a glimpse of what could be the bottom, and then I see a shadow…white-hot panic fills my eyes, and I jump out of the water and run across it like a cartoon character would, or at least that what it feels like.  A couple moments pass, lost in my head, not thinking anything, in shock, then ground underneath my feet and my young heart slows.  Climbing onto the still warm sand, I turn again trying to hide my panic to see Danny throw the now dead boom box to its sandy grave.  Better it than me, I think.

The others take off towards their hotel room, inviting Dan and I to continue the party there.  I have no idea what time it is, or how long we were out there, or if I will ever beat this fear, all the time seeing that huge fish swim underneath me while surfing, or trying to surf, in Santa Cruz.   Tracy now sees the panic in my eyes as I lost in memory.  We sit there for a while and I tell her my story about the close encounter with a shark.  “That’s why, you looked all weird.”  She says.  “I thought it was because you couldn’t swim.”  She laughs, I smile and continue to talk about it while the others head off towards another party.  “Here, come here…let’s try this.”  She says and grabs my hand, leading me back into the water.  I follow, trusting her not to lead me any deeper that I wanted to.  “Hold me.”  She says, so I do.  “Look at me.”  She says and slowly pushes me out a little farther.  “What do you see?”  She asks.  “Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Schieder on a small boat.”  I say and smile a worried smile.  But what I saw was the moonlight on her face, the beaded water across her forehead, and the curves of her neck as she re-wet her hair again. “What do you see?”  She says again.  “I see a beautiful girl.”  I say this time, trying to sound like they do in the movies.  Her smile invited me in for our first kiss and by the time I realized it, I was almost up to my chest.  We stayed in the water, necked, smiled, laughed while I sang to her from my collection of Motown songs I knew, subconsciously moving closer to the shore.  Marvin Gay, Drifters, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, I sang every song I knew to her, and she rewarded each one with a breathtaking kiss and once again time disappears, but for a different reason. “You guys still here…we thought you snuck off to some other place.  Tracy, they are worried about you.”  Dan says, being the bearer of bad news.  “I’ll walk you back.”  I say dejected. 

We gather our things and head home.  “I’ll see you back at the room.”  I say to Dan who gives me the OK sign and heads off into the night.  We turn each corner with hesitation, not wanting the night to end, but it has to.  “If you’d like to do anything tomorrow or anytime, before Saturday, we leave on Saturday.” I say, pompously knowing that our connection this night will eventually lead to something else.  “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.” She says, teaching me a lesson in humility.  “Oh…shoot…well in that case…thank you for the perfect evening.” I say, trying to hide the tidal wave of feelings behind my face.  I tell her where we are staying and room number anyway, and give her the last kiss I’d ever give her.  She doesn’t let go for the longest time, and I don’t want her to.  The snickers from behind her door acts as a chaperone, prying her lips from mine. 

I begin to walk the five or so blocks back to the hotel, turning to see if she is watching me leave, she is.  I wave before I turn the corner, she waves back and mouths something I will never get to hear.  I look at her one last time, trying to memorize the angles of her body, the smile on her face, and the empathy in her eyes, then turn the corner.  Immediately, I begin to relive the night and try to figure out why I didn’t push, why I didn’t invite her to my room, why I didn’t do any of the bullshit things I usually do when sex is a possibility. Something is different this time, this is a primer situation that somehow means to be a measuring stick of things to come.  There is a purity to this night that feels like she could be the one that can fix my broken parts.  The walk home is unusually long tonight. 

I get back to my room, in his bed, Dan snores.  I lay awake for a long time, unsure of how he will react to the storyline of the evening.  I sit up in bed and continue to relive the night, not wanting it to go away. She will always be the fuel behind the night that I compare all future romantic nights to, becoming that part of my psyche that tells me to pull back the reigns because there may be something special to experience here.  I fall asleep confused, not understanding the underlying feelings of maturity, yet content that the beach, the moon, the terrifying black water, and this stranger of a girl will always be a part of me, hoping that when she thinks about her senior trip to Hawaii, she remembers her last night there, remembering me just as fondly.

New Year’s Eve 1996 is over and I am happy because I was able to sneak away for the final stroke and spend it listening to the rest of my bungled and botched brethren’s hope for a better tomorrow slowly seep into the midnight sky.  Each time I steal myself away for this occasion, regardless of the group I am with, and regardless of how clever my hiding place is, I am found.  I have accepted this as fact, so I begin to prepare my usual, yet varied, answer.  “Nothing…I’m fine…Oh shoot, you mean I missed it?”  I wait a beat, and then try another.  “What’s up…I’m good…Ok, be up in a sec.”  I wait another beat and begin my third rendition of answer, stopping before I spoke.  “It’s never taken this long before.”  I say, wondering either my friends have given up hope in my salvation, or if this particular hiding place is cleverer than I had first thought.  I stay a couple more minutes worrying more about my friends’ mental health than their dissipating resolutions.  I linger in the now quieter mid-winter new year and am thankful for all of my friends ‘interruptions’, never knowing what that little bit of free thinking would lead me to. 

Guilt swells around my hiding place about all of the things I do that I should not.  My recent DUI lead a host of immature actions that conglomerate in the shadows and become a very scary anti-Chris golem.  I watch it take shape, move to the opposite corner, then slowly reach out towards me.  With every inch, I can see the path this thing wants to lead me down a little more clearly, accenting the horror of consequences earned from my immature actions.  It is too real to deal with so I make my escape with eyes wide open and breath held.  By the time I reach the after party upstairs, it has changed to after the after party.  I let the passage of time anomaly go unnoticed in fear of bringing the golem back to life and join the party.  “Hey, there’s Chris!”  Both Scott’s say at the same time.  “Yea, here I am, what happened to everyone else?”  I say.  “They went home hours ago, where’ve you been?”  Dan says.  “Fighting demons and the lot.”  I say, which garners no response from the three-remaining boss-partiers, but that is understandable because I am sure that they can see the same things I do.  “Hey, we’ve been trying to figure out what to do with today.”  Dan says.  “Any bars open at 6am around here?”  I say, not realizing that his question was rhetorical.  “No, but the roads are open.”  Blonde Scott says, giving away part of the secret plan.  “That’s a pretty nice car you got there, Chris.”  Nice Scott says, giving me the rest of the equation.  “Ok, where do you guys want to go?”  I say.  “Well, it’s not really a where, the car is the where, or really here is the were.”  Dan says with one eye flickering, trying to sound like me.  “Translation?”  I say towards the Scotts.  “We just want to take the car for test drive, you know brand new car an all.”  Nice Scott says nicely.  I step towards the window, looking down on a 1997 Lincoln Mark 7 with around 400 miles on it.  “Do you have insurance on it.?”  Dan asks.  “Well, there is insurance on the car, but it belongs to Kathy, my girlfriend.”  I say, but I thought everyone knew that because I did not hide that fact last night.

The summer still hung onto California, even though it was mid-September, and Dan and I were, once again, headed for Bonny Doon to clear our young heads of all the midlife crisis like problems we were having brought on by the beginning of the school year.  Bonny Doon Beach had become our favorite place that summer as we slowly strayed away from the 41st street, and twin lakes crowd, showing only a few of our friends our new hang out, trying to learn from an earlier mistake.  At the beginning of the summer, we had found Sunny Cove, a small private beach that sat in between a break in the elevated rocky coast of Santa Cruz.  The twenty-five-foot walls on either side of this small gem kept us from worry of bothered neighbors, concerned citizens, and the Santa Cruz Police Department while the worry of trespassing became a hypothetical discussion based on hearsay and conjecture.  In truth, the answer was that this beach either had no owner, or the owner was never there, or he was there and watched us through his curtains, or possibly the beach wasn’t a private beach at all.  So, with no one to tell us to get off of their “lawn”, we showed everyone this secret spot…and everyone, when speaking of teenagers during summer vacation, invaded like a loud virus, bringing their own set of rules and behaviors.  Before long, our secret beach, even with its secluded location and its rocky wall “moat”, was found by neighbors, concerned citizens…and the Santa Cruz Police Department.  We both look down the street we used to turn down to get to Sunny Cove and shake our heads.  “God, what a great place.” I say.  “Eyes without a Face” by Billy Idol played through Danny’s silent agreement because he was still pissed about losing it.  But with every street we passed, the memory of Sunny Cove was replaced with visions of Bonny Doon and the few perfect “end of the summer” parties that had happened there. 

Today’s trip was to salve the wounds attained by Dan getting cut from the Soccer Team, and the added luxury of driving my mom’s 1980 Mercedes 450SL with the top down, was brought on by my guilt of knowing beforehand his fate before the last practice, and not telling him.  It was far too much fun watching him slice through my teammates the way a slab of concrete would slice through an above ground pool if dropped from an appropriate height.  He was stronger, faster, and smarter than the others trying out for the team, but everyone knows that you can be a soccer player and make the football team (as a kicker), but nobody ever crosses the other way.  Yet he failed to listen to what high school society had to say, and tried out for our team anyway.  Coach Musonic let him have that last practice because he thought Dan was having fun, and it was the least he could do for him in that respect.  But his being cut from the team hit him harder than anyone thought, and it was my job to pull him up. 

The world was moving on, slowly evolving into something that made my young life want for the sweet milk-chocolate taste of childhood again.  People like Billy Joel and Meatloaf, who played a major part in my growing up, now seemed irrelevant and old, while Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown who catered perfectly to those who gladly enabled their milquetoast existence.  I wish I knew then what I know now.   It was only 1993, still on the safe side of the last decade of the 20th century, but the hoodoo was thick and it hung in the air like my favorite songs used to do.  As a Nation we were slowly becoming a part of the Bosnian war, the year-old Rodney King fiasco was brought back to life as two of the officers were found guilty, sending Los Angeles into another frenzy, and David Koresh had completed his task at becoming another reason why I, intellectually, cannot have faith.  All of this plus my 26th birthday, which marked my first decade of work, and I was feeling the bite of lost youth more than I ever had.  Even my three best friends had moved away to start their lives as adults, the tether of maturity was tight around my neck and if wasn’t for Steve inviting me to join him and his pre-dentist friends in St. Louis, I believe I would have given up my private fight against life and the mediocrity it bathes you in.  But invite he did, sending me a life raft of sorts that filled me with a new young feeling that helped me break the news to my Dad, who frowned upon things like “Sick Day’s”, and “Vacation.”  I finished work that day, drove home, and packed my bags, which sat for a week in my foyer, working as a reminder that I am an adult, and I can take vacations to anywhere I want…I woke up from that dream somewhere over the Rockies.

The long white hallway, slightly uphill, is the final leg of my old life, the incline is of no concern and as I pop out into the modern St. Louis Airport, the first thing I hear is Steve yelling “Mr. Aparicio! Mr. Aparicio!” Like I was some sort of celebrity.  People around him begin to look at him and try to follow his line of sight, not recognizing the name, but maybe if they caught a good enough glance of “Mr. Aparicio”, they would remember his face.  A sparkle in the eyes of some of the old timers remembering the glory days of baseball looked a little bit harder, and as their brains try to remember the last time they heard or saw the name, I reach Steve and quickly usher him, his “I Love Aparicio” sign, and his fake autograph book away, leaving a wake of slightly confused people, vying for a last special glance at someone possibly famous.  “Dude!  What the Fu…”, looking at him now I can see in his eyes the strong presents of mayhem, the look he perfected when we were in high school, the look that brought with it all sorts of memories that I had let slip away.  “Dude, you’re here!  Welcome to St. Louis…here we have rental car agencies, people, all sorts of luggage, and you can smoke too.” His tone had changed to that of a professional tour guide as he showed me the niceties of the forty yards between my luggage's pick-up area and the door to the outside.  

We crash through the door and he nimbly tosses his welcoming accoutrements in the trash just outside the door.  Immediately I see a small, dark skinned, well-dressed man talking to a police officer at the hood of a two door Toyota Corolla that looks as if it was left there on purpose.  Both the police officer, which is twice the size of the other man, and the man himself see us and motion to each other and then towards us.  “You need to let your friend know the rules of an airport, because I don’t think he understands.” The police officer says to Steve.  “I told him he couldn’t wait…Manny, you…can’t…wait…here.” Steve says slowly, making had gestures that don’t match what he’s saying.  “Well, make sure he knows next time.”  The officer says, forcing a smile so he wouldn’t seem racist, and quickly walks away heading toward another infraction.  Making sure the cop is not in earshot, Manny introduces himself.  “Hello, I am Maharmanni, you must be Chris, from California.” His thick Indian accent is perfectly understandable.  “Did you speak English this time?” Steve asks, before I can say hello myself.  “Yes, but I switched the words around—what do you do, my house is nearby?”  Manny’s accent suddenly gets thicker, as he gives us a little example of what the cop heard, then he smiles.  “I think he was about to arrest me.” He says.  “Do you use him a lot, Steve?” I ask, knowing Steve’s penchant for practical jokes.  “Go by the Park, Manny…I want to show him the soccer field.” He says, ignoring my question.  “Now, but nobody…” Steve quickly shushes Manny as my mind races, trying to figure out what Steve has concocted for me.