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Girl Fears Ghost Girl

about 1700 words

Girl Fears Ghost Girl

by James Foley

Night on the beach. Awakening suddenly, David felt Jamie’s dark hair tickling his cheek.

He stirred on the towel. “How long was I asleep?”

“Only for a few minutes,” Jamie said. “You must be beat.”

Easy night: peace—the sky clear above a sea dark as itself.

And the eastern stars were ushering up the aging half-moon, still clinging to the ocean’s edge: this old ocean that could take one across the world, maybe with this girl Jamie, as once he’d wanted to go with another sweetheart:

Dazzling Cynthia, once his living wife—Jamie’s wild friend.

“Jerry’s up at La Cantina,” Jamie said now. “I think he’s giving us some privacy. David, I want to go up to the beach house and bury something there where you and Cynthia lived. It’s a present she gave me. I can never wear them again.”

“You’re going to come back, Jamie?”

“Yes, for a little while.”

“Swear you’ll come back.”

“I’ll be back. Go back to sleep, David.”

Right. But as soon as he did, she came back—the ghost girl, maintaining the old obsession in the void of its fulfillment: his olden-days golden-haired wife, wriggling her toes in the sand, just as she used to.

“Right in front of the beach house,” she said. “That’s sweet, David. I love it when you come here—even if it’s without me. What about the farm, baby? Will you ever go back there—now that I never will?”

“We’ll talk about it—at dinner.”

“David, you know I’m dead.”

“No, I don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I’m dead all right. And you’re with Jamie now. I saw you together. I waited till she left.”

“How can you see, if you’re dead?”

“The dead see better, David. They see it all. And they weep—because they didn’t see it before.”

The moon seemed brighter now, but still low above the breakers that crashed and frothed, moon-brightened beneath it. But was this only a moon of dreams—mimicking the moon above his closed eyes?

“Sweetheart,” he said, “this can’t be dreaming. Dreamers don’t know they’re dreaming.”

“I think sometimes they do,” Cynthia said: “In between dreaming and day-dreaming. You’re dreaming in the moonlight now, David.”

But somehow—in this dream or out of it—she was embracing him tightly, hard.

“No. No, Cynthia. This is no dream.”

“It’s our last dream, David: to hold each other one last time—to kiss once more.”

“If you’re dead, how can you kiss so hard?”

“You’re imagining me, David. Your lips that are pressing so hard against mine: you, my earth lover. And me, your old wild girl: it’s all just imagination. It’s not me you’re feeling. It’s your old love for me. But give that love to Jamie now. She’s nobler than I was . I was too crazy. I wasn’t meant to grow old.”

And now what he felt—or what he dreamed he felt—was this girl crying in the darkness: crying in his arms, in his dream.

“Just remember what we had, David. Nothing can erase that. No time to come will ever keep that from having existed once—in those days when we were younger. The universe may end, but the emptiness which follows won’t wipe those days away.

“How many people in this world will ever have what we had, David? Doesn’t that make you happy, to remember what we once had?”

“Yes, it does.”

“The only thing, David, is this. When you’ll be sleeping with Jamie, will those tropical currents that we sailed—those waters off Culebra or the Grenadines. Will they still be beating against your memories? Those Caribbean waters that we once shared.

“And will I still be there, drowned in your arms?”

“Did you drown, Cynthia? And when? And why?”

“What does it matter, David? But the point is this—all those days we had. All those days will be drowned too: drowned into your soul, into your memory. Those days that were once so crazy and beautiful. They were ours once, David. Goodbye.”

Now, as he was waking up, he could hear Jamie saying, “I heard you call her name, David. I heard you say it: ‘Cynthia’.”

“Yeah, I was having a nightmare.”

“You were having a dream. And she was in your dream. Go on—deny it.”

Overhead, the moon was higher and really bright now, shining down on the crashing waves. And something in David’s bruised and confused mind cried out silently for some resolution to all this madness and passion. And he said impulsively but sincerely:

“Jamie, marry me—as soon as we can find some way to do it. You don’t know what you mean to me?”

She shut her eyes. “David, don’t make me cry. I want you, David, I want you more than anything, but I can’t fight what she was to you. I’d be in washing dishes, and scrubbing the floor. And you’d be waiting and getting bored with me. And all these angel Cynthias would be flying around your head. Angel ghosts of my best friend once, David. And how could I, David—?

“David, if I could have you, all of you—”

They were both standing now. “You’ve got it. All of me. It’s you now, Jamie. It’s over with Cynthia. It’s just been fading out slow.

“Jamie, can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel it? Sweetheart, you will have absolutely all of me—for all time to come.”

She was still shaking her head—and then suddenly she was shouting semi-hysterically in the dark night:

“This is crazy! How can I love my dead friend’s husband?

“David,” she screamed, “while she was alive, I wanted to take you away from her. Now I can’t take you from her memory. I wanted you so much. And now that it seems almost possible, I can’t do it.”

She hesitated for a moment, then turned abruptly and ran away—straight into the water: hurrying out quickly to where it was deep enough to duck under a breaking wave.

And as he followed, running and diving with her. They came up together, grabbing each other; but he lost her as she shouted: “When Cynthia died—”

Then a bigger than usual wave crashed over. And Jamie, drawing air into her lungs, let out one last cry: “—then we died, David.”

And they both went under.

And the next confused moment, when he rose to the surface, she was nowhere. He couldn’t see her. Everything was black, and she was lost—her head, her shoulders. Nothing was visible.

“Jamie, Jamie,” he was calling as another wave smashed over him: engulfing him, choking him. And he struggled to the top, surfacing again, swimming crazily now—slashing into the crashing waves as he zigzagged back and forth.

He had no idea where she was, or where he himself was, or how far from where he’d plunged in—or how long he’d been in this frothing ocean.

Then he heard it—a scream like the cry of a lost soul in despair in some vampire hell.

Yes, God, yes! But when he reached her, she seemed already gone—dead weight on his arm as he flailed and fought through the surf and swirling sand.

Until finally he could feel solid sand under him.

And he was clawing his way up the shore with Jamie against him, still in his arms.

But she was breathing. So for a long while he lay beside her. And time passed—like forever, a really long time—until she was able to stand up again: getting to her feet shakily and moving away. But then turning to say nothing but “Goodbye.”

He picked himself up. “I’ll find you, Jamie.”

She turned again, saying, “It was you—always you. You were it. You’ll have that. I’ll still have that.”

“Just marry me: the minute we can,” he said.

Her smile: so close. But a broken smile, almost sardonic. “What? And live happily ever after? It’s too late for that now, baby. Sorry. I can’t do the happy-ever-after thing.”

He felt helpless—exhausted. He couldn’t hold her by force. He was following her hopelessly.

In the village mall, he waited in La Cantina while she went into a bathroom to dress.

Now Jerry joined him, coming over from a pool table.

“What’s happening? You’re beat up.”

“Just some scratches—from the surf: nothing.”

Jamie now—coming from the bathroom in street clothes: the image of gloom and dejection.

And, of course, she was walking right past both of them without saying a word—just raising her hand and waving her fingers as she went away.

“What the devil!” Jerry said. He was agitated. “What’s happening? Why’re you letting her go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Grab her, man. We need her.”

“I know. I know. But we can’t stop her now. She’s in some deep mood right now—maybe in shock.”

“Because of Cynthia? Because she thinks you can’t shake off Cynthia?”

“Maybe. Maybe that’s it. I don’t know, Jerry. I don’t know anymore.”

“Damn! I wish I could help you, man.”

“You can. You’re helping. You’re my best friend.”

Now both of them were turning, looking out at the water—their gaze straying down the beach: towards some faraway lights at the limits of vision. Lights of some place where, someday, it might be nice to hang out—

—just to be there someday: with some girl on that day, and on all the days to come:

Days that may never come.

“So where do we go?” Jerry asked.

“Let’s go to the beach.”

Jerry laughed. “We’re at the beach now, man.”

“Let’s go to some other beach.”

James Foley [email protected] www.beyondthewind.com www.mywarlove.com

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jfoleydreams-blog · 7 years ago

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Roman Wars Warn White House Dictators

about 2700 words

James Foley 587 Young Street Melbourne, Florida 32935 321-368-5726 [email protected] www.beyondthewind.com www.mywarlove.com

Roman Wars Warn White House Dictators by James Foley

Alcestis Beresford was Redmond Beresford’s sister. But who was Redmond Beresford?

Picture a lanky intellectual with rusty hair and advanced degrees from Yale and Georgetown. And from a family reputedly so distinguished that, when they lost everything, their crash made the earth shake. But that seems grossly exaggerated.

One March evening we two drove through D.C. to a meeting of a political discussion group which I’ll call The Tacitus Society. Steering through the capital in twilight seemed mystical—24th Street south to Massachusetts; then rounding Sheridan Circle, Dupont Circle and Thomas Circle: like bracelets of a splendid jeweled queen. This was my country. This was the District, where patriotism seeps in with the night air.

Redmond had been drinking, and his passionate voice almost sobbed as he said, “Jeremy, our two main parties are becoming so fiercely partisan, their Presidents bypass Congress and the courts, like semi-dictators.”

Redmond’s obsessive fear: our great American republic might become a dictatorship—like the Roman Republic about 27 B.C.

What I mainly remember from that night was not politics but a girl. As Redmond and I arrived for the meeting, a vintage Mercedes pulled into the parking lot—the front passenger door flying open. And a young woman slipped out—eyes green as Ireland. And her hair was midnight.

She wasn’t anyone I’d seen before—like that girl whose eyes crossed mine that night in that restaurant in Ville Franche. That French girl I might have sailed with to Barbados and Aruba. That never happened.

No, this girl here in D.C. wasn’t anyone I’d known—just someone I was meant to know, someone I was born to know.

She smiled. But her voice? Would I ever hear it?

Well, yes. Redmond had already introduced her as his sister Alcestis. And as we shook hands, I said, “I’ve known Redmond for years but not that he has a sister.”

Alcestis smiled. “He hides me. I don’t believe his doom and gloom.”

“You believe—anything?”

“Moonlight—the beach—Chambertin wine.”

The Tacitus meets on the second Monday of every month, except December—in an old banqueting hall from the 1812 era. This was the week after Super Tuesday, the biggest day of the 2016 primary season. Hilary Clinton had won the Democratic primaries and caucuses in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Bernie Sanders had won in Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Vermont.

In the Republican primaries and caucuses, Donald Trump took Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.

Ted Cruz captured Alaska, Oklahoma and Texas. Marco Rubio took Minnesota.

It was, of course, this political circumstance that had inspired the club to choose this night’s discussion question: Are Primaries Extremist?

We were dining at a square of tables, the moderators seated in the center of one line of tables. And the guest speaker was C. E. Yeager, who responded to the question with a firm affirmative—insisting that in our primaries the extremists of both parties are extremely active: demonstrating, fund-raising and promoting. Moderates underrate primary campaigns. So, in the general elections the voters have only two final Presidential choices, both chosen by the extremists of both parties.

“Inevitably,” Dr. Yeager said, reading from his notes “we have to vote for either a radical leftist or a radical on the right. Result: our politics has become like a pendulum—swinging from an extreme Democratic President one year to an extreme Republican President eight or four years later. We don’t elect Washingtons or Eisenhowers anymore. Centrists can’t survive the primaries.”

When the floor was open for comments, Redmond began by saying that he agreed with Dr. Yeager.

“Sir, you have brilliantly diagnosed the sickness that now infects our primaries.”

Redmond laughed and added, “Those seasons of weird and wonderful political promises. And, I believe that the point you just made is fundamental to the survival of our democracy.”

Now a lady with a pale green scarf suggested that our present administration was well to the left of the mainstream.

“So how will that affect American conservatives?” she asked.

Redmond smiled and said, “A very good question, ma’am. The fact is, extremes generate opposing extremes. There is a principle of physics, first enunciated by Isaac Newton, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Redmond smiled and said, “And there is a principle of politics, first enunciated by myself, Redmond Beresford, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If the Democrats back a left-wing autocrat now, come November the Republicans may elect a right-wing potentate. That’s the Pendulum Principle Dr. Yeager was mentioning. And as the opposing parties grow more fiercely partisan, the pendulum swings become bigger.”

A gentleman at a table near ours said, “‘Democratic Party’ and ‘Republican Party’ mean much the same—favoring a democratic republic. Neither of our parties will rename itself ‘the Dictatorial Party’. But that’s what both are in danger of becoming.”

As the meeting broke up, we went out onto Wisconsin Avenue, where spring twilight had slid off into rainbow-spangled city night. The air was clear but the sky hung low and shut down like the end of another lost day—political passion like a losing game.

Redmond and Alcestis had other plans for the rest of that evening. I wanted to talk to her, stay with her. But in a moment, they were gone in the Benz with another couple. I was a coward. I hadn’t acted in time. But at least I had one thing to hold on to—one thing she’d given me: herself.

Your verse, Kit Marlowe, still shines bright—and right:

Who ever loved and loved not at first sight?

My friendship with Redmond had been unpredictable. Occasionally, he’d call me, but I couldn’t contact him. He moved from place to place—probably one boarding house to another—no one knew where. But in June I drove once more with him and Alcestis to the Tacitus.

By then the national political situation was firming up, the two presidential candidates now being known. That day Hillary Clinton’s pledged delegates exceeded 2,383, the minimum for the Democratic presidential nomination. About ten days before, Donald Trump’s pledged delegates had gone beyond 1,237, the minimum for the Republican presidential nomination.

At the meeting, one speaker was saying that the greatest challenge facing America today is globalization. And Redmond, who was already high on wine, pointed out that the boiling political issue now is immigration. “But immigration is just an aspect of globalization.”

Random voices were now joining the discussion:

“I think that assumption makes sense.”

"No, it doesn't."

“Rarely do most people analyze the immigration problem.”

“Yes, and rarely do most people solve it.”

“Of course, reasonable people may differ on these issues.”

And I think someone called out that unreasonable people may differ too. But I felt relaxed in this lively group: men in rather plain clothing and women in bright blouses and other attire: pro-Obama vs anti-Obama, pro-Trump vs anti-Trump—the politics of America, the arguments of 2016.

When the meeting took a temporary recess, I approached Redmond and issued a standing offer to join him and Alcestis for anything. He declined, saying with intoxicated intensity that they were both predestined to disaster.

“Tell me about her,” I said.

“She’s an angel, but she smashed up when my family did. Jeremy, our grandfather was an old-fashioned bankrupt who solved his problems in the old-fashioned way—with an old-fashioned nine-millimeter. And our father trashed his promising political career by refusing to promise the voters what he couldn’t deliver.

“We’d all been living off our shrinking capital investments, but when the 2008 crash came, everything started to go.”

“And Alcestis?”

“She fought back against fate. She threatened to sell herself on the street rather than watch us starve. She’s one of those rebel angels flung from heaven.”

Redmond was as well-educated as anyone I’d ever met, and I wasn’t surprised when he intoned with inebriated eloquence:

“Jeremy, she was hurled down and plummeted:

From dawn to noon, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer’s day; and with the setting sun

Dropped from the zenith like a falling star.”

The meeting was about to resume, but first I was able to draw Alcestis aside.

“He loves our country so terribly,” she said. “And he’s so afraid of what might happen.”

Handing her a card with my email and telephone info, I said, “Just your phone number, Alcestis. Any way at all I can reach you.”

When she smiled, her jade eyes flashed bright highlights, like hieroglyphs with no Rosetta Stone. Those eyes gave me one long look.

And she knew. She knew it all—everything I felt.

But she shook her head. “It’s impossible, Jeremy. It can’t happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can never leave Redmond. He’s my brother, my blood. And he’s going to need me forever—however brief that forever may be. All he has is a rich kid’s classical education. No money and no hope of making any.”

“I can help with that.”

She turned away and said finally, “Thank you, but no. Our family never took help from anyone. We weren’t made for a commercial civilization. Redmond wrote a poem, calling us ‘drifters on a tropical ocean in dreamland’. I guess we’ll drown.”

When we returned to the meeting, Redmond seemed the center of a stir. As he spoke now, he sat erect with his eyes mostly closed. His words tumbled out intensely without syntax or sequence—like fragments of some ancient sacred text engraved on now shattered stone tablets:.

“We are Rome’s avatar,” he said. “Rome, the ancient America, inherited Greek culture as we’ve inherited Europe’s. Romans, a practical people—like us. Our constitution—deliberately modeled on the ancient Roman Republic’s. By Madison and the other framers? Yes! Separate powers—legislative, executive and judicial. We were then an insignificant, undeveloped rural nation. We expanded into the world’s superpower.

“The Roman Republic had begun as an insignificant, undeveloped rural nation—expanded into the world’s superpower. Then it faced the same huge challenge that now faces us: globalization. That vast population Rome ruled was divided horizontally and vertically.”

Redmond coughed, then pointed out that vertically Rome was divided between the upper classes and the masses, including slaves. So when the Roman crash came, it began with three immense slave revolts called the Servile Wars.

“Check out Kubrick’s film Spartacus,” he said—then continued with a hypnotic speech, like words now locked in memory:

“Meanwhile, Rome had cheated its Italian allies out of the spoils of victories. Those allies now fought Rome in the horizontal war called the Social War—from 91 to 88 BC. Then, following the Social War, Rome was convulsed by almost never-ending civil warfare—with a series of military dictatorships, oscillating between left and right. The two parties in Rome began to value their party above their country. The goal was to prevail at all costs. Let’s win—even if by illegal and unconstitutional means.”

As Alcestis listened to her brother, her eyes seemed to moisten with love and sorrow.

Now Redmond was standing, saying, “It started out personal. Marius and one of his officers Sulla were outstanding commanders during the Social War. Six times Marius had been consul, the highest executive power. And he was nearing seventy. Then leftist Marius and right-wing Sulla clashed. Sulla drove Marius from Rome and became dictator.

“But in 87 BC, while Sulla was away from Rome, Marius returned and started a reign of terror. Then, Marius, in his seventies, died on the seventeenth day of his seventh consulate.”

As Redmond rambled on now, it almost seemed as if one could hear the clash of ancient gladiatorial swords and armor on the Capitoline: patricians against plebeians, citizens against slaves. And far from Rome: Italian legions against the Gauls, Africans and Anatolians—against Syrians and Persians.

Now Redmond went on:

“Sulla fights a second civil war in 82–81 BC, and again becomes ruler. Then a series of conflicts, revolts and rebellions—until the critical civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey in 49–45 BC. Caesar’s victorious. He and Cleopatra become lovers. But Brutus and Cassius and other conservatives plot secretly.”

Now Redmond quoted: “The fault dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.

“They assassinate the dictator Caesar in 44 BC. Now they fight a civil war against Caesar’s party led by Mark Anthony and Octavian. The conservatives lose. Brutus commits suicide:

Caesar, now lie still.

I killed not you with half so good a will.

“Then three more civil conflicts. And Anthony and Cleopatra become lovers.”

###

But as Redmond recalled those ancient passions, those long-ago wars and revolutions, our own scene seemed less real than what once had been. Who in time to come will ever hear of Alcestis or Redmond Beresford or myself? Yet the names of Brutus, Caesar, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony may live forever.

I saw Alcestis smile for me sadly. And I wondered how I’d become so obsessed about this girl—as if she were already the heroine of my life story: her passion, her sorrows, her secret desires more precious than my own.

Now Redmond resumed: “Finally, the last civil war of the Roman Republic: Octavian against Anthony and Cleopatra. Octavian wins. And Anthony, dying on his sword, bids Cleopatra farewell:

“Oh, I am dying, Egypt, dying, only . . .

Of many thousand kisses, the poor last

I lay upon your lips.

“Then, as Cleopatra feels her cobra’s venom burning through her cardiovascular system, doesn’t she cry out:

“I am fire and air?”

###

When Redmond paused, a lady’s voice asked, “And you think something like all that could happen in our country?”

Redmond smiled. “I’m not sure about the cobra, ma’am. But we may be sleepwalking into a tragedy. And what can I do?”

I thought I saw him raise his fork and poise it as if to slam it down into his left arm. But that was probably an illusion. Alcestis was tugging on his shirt, but he ignored her, his voice breaking into one long sob:

“I know absolutely that It’s hopeless, No one will believe me. If I try to assess both parties fairly, both parties will hate me. What am I doing on this earth?”

His state of depression seemed unbearable. I’d never seen anyone before in such despair, as he said “I want to study the danger honestly. But I doubt if I’ll ever know if I’m right or wrong. I don’t think I’ll be here long enough to find out.”

Then he just ran from the room, with Alcestis following. I should have moved faster. But I didn’t want to flat-out race through that crowded banquet hall.

Then outside, nothing. The few pedestrians there on Wisconsin Avenue shook their heads at my agitated questions and hurried away. No Alcestis. No Redmond.

Vainly I waited for them in my car in the parking lot till the wee hours, listening to the radio, which predicted a high near 84, west wind 6 to 9 mph, with a thirty percent chance of rain. Let it rain. My sunny summer was over.

It was Tuesday morning now—June 7th. Later that day Hilary Clinton would win the Democratic primaries in California, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. Bernie Sanders would win the Montana Democratic primary and the North Dakota caucus. And Donald Trump would take all five Republican primaries that day.

For months after that, I inquired at the Tacitus and other venues about Redmond and Alcestis. But I learned nothing and I never saw them again.

But maybe someday, on some street or in some public building or restaurant—maybe in a café somewhere in some other summertime, some breezy summer by the sea. And it will be her all right—just the same: our two heads suddenly turning, green eyes reaching mine.

And then what? An old smile shared? Half-sad, half-remembering what once had been for a few hours? And might have been forever?

Couldn’t that still happen? Do you think it could?

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jfoleydreams-blog · 7 years ago

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jfoleydreams-blog · 7 years ago

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Night Wind

about 1600 words

James Foley [email protected] www.beyondthewind.com www.mywarlove.com

Night Wind by James Foley

Parking, I saw that the beach house was without lights. But from its steps I could see a fire near the water: probably Mark there and Elaine. Maybe Lindsey too.

Actually, there had been storm warnings out all day—for offshore and the Bay both. But the winds seemed delayed. As yet the night was almost motionless—easy and still. And as I walked down the beach, I could hear Lindsey’s voice—the first to notice me.

“Hi, Dan!”

Dropping down next to her—between her and Elaine—I watched as Mark seared tuna over a cast-iron grate: déjà vu of my own lunch earlier. There were big bowls of salad and chips; wine bottle in a bucket. More wine and refreshments: in two wicker hampers.

“We were talking about you,” Lindsey said.

“Oh, thanks.”

“No, it was nice. Tell me, Dan. When was the last time you had a steady girl?”

“Probably Clinton-Gore Administration.”

“No!”

Obviously, Elaine, there beside me now, wasn’t considered, since she no longer enlivened my biography. Elaine, my wife once, and still legally—but not my steady girl. Yes, strange arrangement.

Nothing new, but obviously also, Mark’d been drinking pretty well: maybe all day. Well, the day was ending.

“That blonde lobbyist: what happened?” he asked.

“She dropped me.”

“I heard you dropped her,” Elaine said.

“It was mutual.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Lindsey said. “You must had felt just so . . . just so terrible!”

“Yeah. I grew despondent—and a beard. The beard only lasted three weeks. While the despondency: the jury’s still out on that.”

They were laughing. The night was still still: calm, quiet and serene. But it felt ominous—as if I could already sense the approaching tumult. The air seemed breathless, waiting for the front. It was quiet like a vacuum holding its breath, luring the very tempest it cringed from. No fog; few lights on this beach. And the powder-puff stars barely illuminated the ocean.

Now I was joining in the eating, drinking the tart, seemingly almost salty wine.

“Remember that morning off Vieques?” Elaine suddenly asked. And it was mystic. I was thinking about her and Vieques earlier, at lunch—eating tuna just as now.

I looked at her—at her figure, transformed in the flickering glow of the dancing firelight: this girl who was still my theoretical consort. And what will happen now to this girl, who seemed my destiny? And how will I handle this?

“Oh God!” she said. “Those days sailing off the islands. I wish it was then.”

Yeah. Wish it was then.

Wish it was then:

Sea near Vieques Island that summer:

Tangled arms, tangled hearts on the rocking foredeck. Tangled destinies. Tanned complexion: her Caribbean skin. Caribbean being.

Mark, sleeping it off down below.

You knew she adored you. You adored her.

Slow life: cloud shadows drifting slowly, veering sea-breezes pulsing.

And sunblock tastes sweet through salty sweat. Once. Once upon a time.

Then.

She was the best thing I never really had.

Only in a way.

And for a while.

Not forever.

“This ocean,” Lindsey was saying now. “I love it. I crave it. I can never get enough of it. I could live forever right here on this beach.”

“That water leads to every place in the world,” Elaine said, “except maybe Tibet.”

Mark was nodding solemnly. “Dan already has the boat. We’ve got the time, or we can take it. Elaine can maybe scare up the financing. Why’re we sitting here, anyway? Why aren’t we going, going—gone?”

“Where would you like to go, Mark?” Lindsey asked.

“I always wanted to go to Mount Kilimanjaro.”

“Did you ever get there?”

“I got as far as Baltimore.”

“Oh. So you never climbed the mountain?”

“I climbed the stairs above the Chinese takeout. How could I know they were all working girls there? One thing I believe: they understood it all. That it was better to burn the steak than to be burnt at it.”

He was drifting off again. Then all of a sudden, he let out a hideous scream: just a maximum-volume ear-piercing simian-like howl or shriek.

Lindsey looked frightened. I was standing, but so was Elaine, and she already had Mark up on his feet. “I’ve got him, Dan,” she said. “I’ll see him to bed. He can still walk. You stay here. Really. By the way, you’re in the blue room, if that’s okay.”

“Of course, it’s okay. But how about you?”

“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Good night.”

“You’re still crazy about her, aren’t you?” Lindsey said. The others were gone, and she was standing beside me.

“Yeah . . . yeah . . .” I said.

“But she’s all messed up with Mark?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. It’s just normal. Life’s hell.”

“It’s just itself. Hell or heaven’s oneself, Dan.”

“Wow, that’s heavy, Lindsey!”

She smiled. “But you don’t think so.”

Suddenly we were both stretching—yawning together, as if acknowledging the late hour: bedtime. And as I held her now lightly, respectfully, she shook free. “No, Dan. How can I be her, in your arms? Good night, Dan.”

Then I watched as she gathered the remnants of supper into the two large hampers. Now I was taking them from her, as she turned and went up to the house. Kicking enough sand over the fire to smother it, I followed, walking up the dark beach.

You wake in the night. Past midnight. And this wind: howling as the front came through—driving the sea into a frenzy. I stood for a moment at a window, watching the black riotous ocean.

This beach house seemed entirely dark. Mark was in another room, dead to the world—though hardly dead sober. His car was parked in the driveway, not in the garage.

Lindsey was asleep in another room. And Elaine was asleep in still another room.

Back to bed: crashing again—right away again.

Then later I stirred: Elaine, her fingers on my lips. And as the wind beat against this old elegant house, her kisses battered me: sweetness of a girl out of control. The house was full of the windstorm now. It eddied around us—it was even too chilly. My body wasn’t mine anymore. It was part of her existence.

“You’ve got to leave him,” I said. “Find another lover.”

“You know he’s not my lover. He’s never been,” Elaine said. “Have you ever seen him sober enough to stand? He’s my brother, Dan.”

“He’s no blood kin.”

“Not my blood brother—my doomed, damned soul brother. He knows everything. And he came before you. He’s relaxed. He’s sloppy. He’s laid back. Living with you was hard. You’re like sprung steel. You’re great as a date, but to live with . . . he’s just more fun.”

She was whispering playfully: “Looser. Easier.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh? What does that mean?”

“It means I didn’t hear what you said.”

“But you’re the best lover, Dan. And you’re all the things on this earth he can never be.”

“Gracias.”

“Gracias? Is that all I get for making you all the things on this earth?”

“Muchas gracias.”

“Let’s go swimming.”

“Okay. Get some big towels.”

Black night: ocean frantic and empty. Whirling sand ghosts skimmed the beach like pirouetting Caspars. High waves, rushing at the dunes, smashed the retaining fences—the slats flattened and wriggling.

Out at sea, hazy lightning glowed silently, pulsing in epileptic sheets over chasms of clouds.

We were running hand in hand down the steps into the blowing sand: dropping the towels—Elaine kicking off her sandals to keep the towels in place, as both of us hurried across the beach into the crashing water: to escape the sand-swirl.

Soaked instantly, I was churned to my waist in the surf: holding her to keep both of us standing.

“You like this,” she shouted. “You’re happy. And it-takes my fear away.”

And the water was chest-deep now. And a huger than usual booming sea came curling over us, bowling us over, spinning us. I lost her, grabbed her—lost her again—seized her again. And she was in my arms as I tried to wade back to the beach—falling into the churning swirl. Up again, I was running—till I reached solid ground, my legs wobbly under me. Her weight seems multiplied tenfold as I slogged up through the sand.

The towels, when I found them, were twisted ropes, covered with sand—weighted by her sandals that they were wrapped around. Spreading one towel out, I laid her down on it, just to keep it halfway flat. Then I lay face down beside her, holding the other towel over both of us against the blowing sand. What was keeping us out here anyway? Was I crazy? I just didn’t want to go back into the sanity of a house?

But she was okay. She was breathing: conscious. I could even feel her eyelashes. Now she was the one holding the towel over me as I eased gently against her. I couldn’t seem to stop—I couldn’t stop wanting her. I must have known it wasn’t right. Not right to love this girl and the wildness. It wasn’t right to crave this stormy woman: this woman’s sweetness—this nighttime.

This nighttime seemed perfect.

Before dawn, it might get wilder.

Who won the war?

Then, as the raging concupiscence finally ended, something different started. She was trembling—no longer with passion, but in agony—crying: “Oh, Mark! Mark!” Shivering and repeating his name, over and over: “Mark! Mark! He’s dead. He doesn’t exist now.”

As if Mark were her brother, as she’d said.

And she was in love with him.

And later, when we got back, the house was empty. Mark’s car was gone—he and Lindsey: gone.

http://www.mywarlove.com

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