Surf Signals
by Benjamin L. Owen
I sit with Gabriella. We sit together on a driftwood log, looking at the harbor, the ocean sunset beyond. I study the waves on the water. I study the waves within her brown hair. I’m a student with so much yet to learn.
Gabriella says, “Every person’s mind is a harbor. Each boat is a collection of memories and futures: some boats are pristine and seaworthy, others rotting and sinking, some dangerous but exhilarating to sail. Some are old, from childhood. Some are new and never been boarded. Yachts, rafts, powerboats, sailboats, rowboats. Leaking, repaired, new, antique. Sorting through each craft takes time.”
I say, “The breakwater at the edge of the harbor is a barrier, trying to keep outside waves from reaching the mind.”
She says, “As the years pass, boats of all kinds accumulate. Some are for lazy days, staying moored while thinking and dozing; others are for racing on the edge and conquering the waves; some for exploring; some for making a living; others are for making love; one is for leaving everything behind, living free and honest at sea, and never, ever, coming back.”
She truly smiles at me. I look into her eyes. Then I leave and find somewhere to sleep.
I wake up on the beach. A red dawn is nudging the night. I brush sand off my face and beard. I wipe it out of my eyes. I swirl my tongue — spit, swirl, spit — until the grit’s out of my mouth. I think about the harbor. I try to remember the different boats. One was for never coming back.
The seagulls eye me, hopping around, evaluating if I’m friend, foe, or food. I hear the same old skeptical questions in their chirps.
I send mental signals to them. “Feathered friends,” I transmit my thoughts to the birds, “there’s nothing to fear. We’re in this together.”
The seagulls never trust me. I can’t get the signals right. Or maybe they know something I don’t.
I lie there amidst the hopping gulls. As the sand begins to glow in the new morning’s light, the shadows of people appear: today’s shift of tourists are clocking in. The tourists are aliens to me: they speak different, hear different and think different. We have the same data, but their equations are different than mine.
The children gawk at me. The adults look away or sneak wary glances, worried I’m deranged. Yet, I know that they are deranged, and I’m bewildered by their collective insanity. How did craziness begin? My heart breaks watching their children transform: day by day, year by year, word by word, example by example. Over time, the children learn the deranged equations, becoming as alien as their parents.
I used to be one of them. I voraciously earned and consumed. I moved billions of dollars across screens to buy estates, planes, yachts, and cars. I traded my living soul for dead stuff. I watched the stuff decay, rot, rust, fall apart: blippity blips amidst eternity. None of it lasted.
Then I found the sea.
Her equations resolve. She never lies. She never pretends to be something she isn’t. She never breaks a promise. She is always here. She is always true.
Before the ocean, my wife slept beside me. In the dark, my mind would come alive with memories, and I saw that every memory was a movie: I watched myself act on changing sets, speaking lines from a script, performing for applause.
One day, I walked offstage.
I stand up, shirtless, barefoot in the sand, and the waves roll in towards me. The ocean wind rushes across my chest, through my face and hair, baptizing me again.
“Hey, Captain Henley!”
I turn and it’s Jody, a valet from the oceanfront hotel. I smile and wave to him. I want to go sit alone with the ocean, but I like Jody. He’s more than shadow, so I answer him. “Hi, Jody. How are you?”
“Okay. Busy weekend. Lots of tourists at the hotel. How are you?”
“Better than I’ve ever been.”
I see a wisp of something, a piece of fluff, blow past the corner of my eye. The fluff might be saying something, but I ignore it, to be polite to Jody.
“There’s a guest at the hotel asking about William Ernest, so I mentioned you. He really wants to meet you. He’s on the verandah having breakfast. He asked me to invite you to join him.”
“I’m not dressed for the hotel.”
“I’ll help you. Come on.” He hands me a ten-dollar bill. I realize there’s something in it for Jody, and he often helps me out, so I agree.
And I’m curious to meet anyone who is asking about William Ernest.
* * *
Jody leads me in through the hotel’s staff entrance and shows me the employee bathroom. While I shower, he brings clean towels, a comb, and a toothbrush kit. He lays out khaki pants, a white linen button-down dress shirt, some boxer briefs, and some sandals.
“Lost and found stuff. This all looks about your size.”
I study myself in the mirror after I clean up. With my sun-bleached beard, long hair, and deep brown skin, I barely resemble the deranged alien billionaire that I used to be.
The verandah is screened, looking out over the ocean. My host, Doctor Vollard, sits with a cup of coffee and a plate of sliced fruit. He introduces himself to me and hands green bills to Jody, who says thanks and leaves.
The doctor asks, “Would you like some breakfast?”
“I’m not hungry.” I reply and sit down. “I’d like some rum to settle my stomach.”
He tells the waiter who returns with a cut crystal rocks glass of ice and a bottle.
I filled up the glass and catch his gaze. “Do you think it’s too early to drink?”
“That’s for you to decide.”
“I only drink in the morning, else it ruins my dreams.”
“The valet said you know William Ernest. I’d like to hear everything you can tell me about him. I knew him in Dallas, then New York. After he left New York, I completely lost track of him. But then I heard that he came here to write.”
“Yes, I knew him.”
“Cigarette?” He holds out a pack. I take three: putting two in my shirt pocket, then one in my lips, and light it with matches on the table. I inhale and feel the webbing in my mind shift. Rum and tobacco are essential for some meetings.
“They call you Captain Henley. Are you a sailor?”
“Yes. I’m the captain of my soul. What do you know about William Ernest?”
“He was married and lived in Dallas before he completely abandoned his wife and four children. He was a very successful businessman and one day he just disappeared! No warning or notice. He just left it all behind at age forty to go to New York and write. At his age! His wife was astonished. At first we all assumed he’d left her for another woman and would return when the fling was over.”
“He cared nothing for women when I knew him,” I say. “All he wanted to do was write. Was he a good father and husband? Before he left?”
“Yes. Every man is horrible at both, but he was one of the least horrible. He was faithful and hardworking. He provided well. That’s why it was such a surprise when he up and left. Everyone assumed he’d gone temporarily mad and that eventually he’d come to his senses and return. Like a dog escaping the yard, roaming until he’s hungry and cold before he returns home, sorry, scorned, and forgiven.”
“Does anyone truly miss him?”
“They seem to.”
“He had demons.”
“Every man does. Every real man is a vagabond rogue, and he must learn to act civilized in exchange for a home and family. Before he left Dallas, William Ernest followed the script better than anyone.”
“Are we born with demons? Or are we born pure and the demons sneak in?”
Doctor Vollard ignores my question. “Do you think William went mad? One theory is that he’s gone completely insane.”
“He told me he went mad, then recovered, but was different after. He said he saw things on the other side of sanity that he could never unsee, and it changed him.”
“I’ve treated the insane. There’s never a full recovery. Insane people are naively brave; they venture down the craggy slope and explore the crevasses of madness that are riddled throughout every intelligent mind. The unknown depths are mysterious and tempting but, once you explore, you realize that the luckiest men are the sensible cowards who stay on the surface and never examine the depths. I agree with him. Once you’ve gone completely mad, you can never fully recover.”
“He arrived here broke and he left broke. In between, he scrounged up money where he could for writing supplies, food, and sometimes beer. He disliked everyone. His only passion was for the ocean and for poetry. He had no desire for companionship. He thought of people as distractions. He cared for no one.”
“Did he like you?”
“We followed each other around. He respected me, because I care even less about the world than he did. I used to write also, but now my life is art. Every moment I’m adding brushstrokes to my canvas. We talked a lot about art, the ocean, and the meaning of life. We bonded.”
“Where would you see him?”
“We’d wait in line together at the Salvation Army for bread, coffee, and bowls of salty soup. He wrote a poem about the sea and gave it to me. I didn’t understand it until I read it over and over. It was perfection once I knew what I was looking for.”
“Where is that poem? Do you still have it?”
“I gave it to a woman. I know where to find her. We can visit her if you want.”
“I do.”
I watch the ice cubes melt in my glass and I listen to the surf beat upon the sand. I sense a storm far away and wonder when it will come.
* * *
That evening, I see Gabriella on the beach.
“You look handsome.”
I smile. “Thank you.” I’m unsure of her intent but, from the look in her eyes, I see her compliment is genuine. She’s honest.
Looking at the sunset, I see dark purples and know that everything is okay in this moment. There couldn’t be all this if things weren’t okay.
“I love you,” I confide.
“It might rain tonight,” she says.
“It always might rain tonight.”
“I saw you on the hotel verandah. At first, I thought you were someone else. Who were you talking to?”
“A man named Doctor Vollard. He’s come from New York City looking for William Ernest. It felt good to sit there with him. To drink from a glass. To sit at a table. To see fruit cut neatly on a plate. It was a nice morning.”
“Did he find him?”
“No. I told him some of what I know. Tomorrow I’m going to bring him to see one of Ernest’s poems.”
“Oh?” She sounds surprised. “William Ernest is never coming back, is he?”
“No. He’s gone.”
Then she is silent. After a bit, I turn and roam away from her, going further down the beach. I fall asleep on the grass near the white sand, looking at stars beyond the clouds.
* * *
I wake up a soggy mess. It rained overnight, and I slept through it dreamlessly. My new clothes are soaked, wrinkled and soiled. I remember the sunset. The sunset told me it would rain, but I didn’t pay attention. I get up to air-dry on a bench and think about things. I think about how I still have things to learn.
I think about Gabriella. She’s different from the women I was with before.
I watch two little girls run across the sand, chasing the tide, and my heart aches for what they will become. In an instant they will be anxious women fighting traffic, bills, and lovers. Their world of joy will become schools and rules and making a living. The pain forces me to close my eyes and stop watching them. I soak in the pain, enduring it patiently, like the ocean does.
Shadows on the beach chatter around me, and yet all I hear is the ocean. It speaks to me, through and within everything it is speaking to me and teaching me to remain at sea, beyond the breakwater. The surf tells me that it has seen all this before, and not to be afraid, because all of it, all the pain and anxious moments will disappear. The ocean tells me not to worry or love or meddle or want or need, because none of that is real. Only the ocean is real, forever and ever and ever, and I can become a part of it if I tune everything else out and just stay there and listen.
Copyright © 2019 by Benjamin L. Owen
