A Cairn of Scars

Warning: includes the accidental death of a child.

Razor sharp! Slice me wide open on a different day.

He lifts it with two hands, gingerly, like it has a hidden agenda.

Been on distant shores, buddy? Can’t imagine what you’ve seen out there. He pauses, a wink of some dark expression crosses his face but he tucks it away.

It’s shaped like a boar’s tusk, this splintered shell from a shattered clam. One side is gnarled and gray, encrusted with the organic hieroglyphics of ancient detritus.

You’ve got some stories to tell, he thinks.

The other side is pearlescent and looks dewy but it is dry and smooth as ivory.

In his mind’s eye he sees elephants grazing lazily in the cozy, familial naivete of the uninitiated; then the herd ambles into an ambush and a poacher’s bullet cuts one down for the brutal mundaneness of a trophy and now the herd is minus one and diminished and knows terror and can never unlearn the arbitrary lessons of the college of loss and grief and what if it was one of the herd that inadvertently led them into the trap?

Stop it.

The clam shard is fat at the lip but tapered into a dagger towards the hinge.

Look at this, Angel.

He knows she would have cherished it.

Don’t worry, I’ll put it in here. He tucks it into the side pocket of his cargo shorts. She had bought them as a joke because they were so long and baggy. As he grew smaller and hunched, they eventually covered his knees. He pats the side pocket. Safer in there.

A jet ski scuds across the still waters of the Lake; the sun is still waking into a sky lazy white without the energy to muster any blue. The Chicago skyline to his left is mostly hidden in the haze and to his right a mansion peacocks on the point of a prominent bluff. Gentle folds of green water slide up the shore then slip back beneath the surface in the slow waltz of a dying heart. The beach is empty except for a flock of desultory seagulls long given-up on him sharing more food. He has given them all he has, including what he brought for himself.

Sorry, friends, I’m all out.

He feels sad. He wishes he’d brought more. They were depending on him. She loved feeding the gulls, loved their earnest airborne antics and sometimes she would playfully flee down the beach chased by them and the sound of her own laughter. For eleven years he’s been coming here on this day. Today. To commune. To grieve. To sit with Angel. He’ll absorb the warmth of the sunrise and release his comfort to the chill of the evening until darkness is his only blanket; and in between, he will witness the Lake – its mass, its thisness, its violence and beauty and eternal indifference, metered out in ceaseless tides.

A thought, unbidden: You’re building a cairn of scars on strange shores. She had a way with words.

Strange? This is our place.

I’m not talking about the beach, Love.

I miss you so much. Could you ever forgive me?

Can you forgive yourself?

A cormorant suddenly dives and disappears for so long his pulse quickens. It surfaces with a stickleback and swallows it headfirst in a single gulp.

“You cruel bastard,” he says to the bird.

It spreads its wings and floats on the water, warming in the blade of sunlight that managed to cleave through the morning clouds.

Forgive me! I know you do Angel, but I don’t because I should be on one knee with my head in my hands before you begging forgiveness and I know you would say my name, lift my head with your gentle hands and tell me, “I forgive you.”

That’s what I need.

Yet you know it’s true, Love.

I need to hear it.

And then he hears her! She’s running down the wooden stairs laughing that laugh so husky it almost sounds male and she’s wearing the bright yellow bikini she wore when he first gaped at her over 50 years ago on the public beach down the road, the beach with the frozen treats kiosk; and her barely-there bikini, slivers of pale skin peeking around the edges and before he could even think about it he was up and walking straight to her, chest proud, head held high with no idea what he would say but knowing, just knowing, this was his moment but he tripped --- falls onto a child! -- and the child screamed as he tumbles and he looked up and she was right in front of him and the entire beach was watching as the stupid kid dumped a blue slushie over his head and then she laughed that gorgeous husky laugh and he stood with blue ice streaking down his face, looked into her hazel eyes flecked with bronze and said, “Will you marry me?”

She lifted her chin away from him, her freckled chin with freckles the same color as her hair and she said, “Oh, you’ll have to do much better than that,” then saunters away in her barely-there bikini talking to her friends like the incident never happened, like he never happened.

He summoned all his courage. “What’s your name?” he shouted.

She stopped. Looked over her shoulder. Someone yelled, “Tell him!” and he thought Shut up! She’s the type that won’t do it just because you told her to!

“Angelina,” she said, “but my friends call me Angel.”

“Can I call you Angel?”

“Hell no, you clumsy fuck.”

And that’s how they met.

“Stop it, old man. She’s my girl.”

He shakes his head. His eyes focus. The speaker looks liked he should be carrying an MMA trophy.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. She reminds me of someone.”

“Right.”

“Really. I didn’t mean to offend. I’m sorry.”

He’s quiet. Pulls out a tent stake as tall as he is. “It’s all good man, no worries. Sorry I called you old.”

“I am,” he smiles.

“I’m Tyler.”

Tats of chains and barbed wire serpentine from his wrist to his shoulder; stylized skulls dangle from the chains like beads. His veins are blue and thick as pencils. Tyler extends his hand.

No! This is my beach!

But he shakes Tyler’s hand.

“Garrett.”

“Jazz,” Tyler says, “Garrett here says he’s sorry.”

Her laugh startles them both.

“What? The guy’s sorry.”

“I thought you said he’s ‘horny’” and they’re both laughing. “I was like, really? That would be impressive.”

Garret’s face flushes hot and red.

“It’s ok,” she says, barely turning her head, barely moving her hand. “It’s fine. I’m Jasmine.”

He’s surprised to see she’s not wearing a yellow bikini. It’s black one-piece.

With a massive effort, he waves hello.

“We’ll be partying here, hope that’s not a problem.” He dials a number. “Hey Jolly Rog, it’s the Vine street access. You all can park off the road. There’s overflow parking a block down across the street.”

“I was here first,” Garrett says.

Tyler is quiet. He squats to eye-level with Garret. “I was here first. You’re on my beach. Your rental’s in my family’s unit. Been ours for two generations. So, want to hang with us?”

I want my time with Angel.

“Did you say something?”

“Party elsewhere.”

Tyler stands, points. “Private property.” He points the opposite way. “Private property. We own this sliver right here. I can set-up only here. But they won’t care about you. So just leave. No one cares.”

He knows what Tyler means but he feels like he’s desperate for air.

“I care.”

Tyler rolls his eyes. “You’ve got a mile of empty beach here, man!”

“This is my spot!” He pounds his fist in the sand. His skin is like crêpe paper. He cuts himself on a shell.

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m not moving.”

Tyler shakes his head.

Garrett lays down. His head is next to the tent pole Tyler is screwing into the sand.

The sky’s the same color, Angel, when you called it pewter and I said chrome. You said nature’s rough, it’s never polished like chrome. You were right, of course. I’m staying here, no matter what.

Garrett hears them on the stairs before he can see them. A crowd descends onto the beach, over twenty twentysomethings with coolers and chairs and Good Lord, please no, boom boxes and guitars.

“Go away!” he yells, “get!” He waves his cane at them.

They slow but don’t stop.

“Just ignore him,” Tyler says.

Garrett flings a fistful of sand at him. “You won’t ignore me.”

“Ok,” Tyler says.

One of them offers Garrett a beer.

“Leave me alone.”

“It’s New Union Infused,” he slurs.

“GO AWAY!”

They pretend Garrett isn’t there, pretend there’s not an elderly man alternately standing and sitting and laying and occasionally napping amid their gathering. They place the bonfire as far from him as they can but they’re on a slip of beachfront so narrow the tent runs almost edge-to-edge.

Garrett wakes to see someone step on the corner of his beach blanket. He swipes the young man’s ankle.

“Hey!”

“That’s my towel. My space. Stay off.”

Tyler says, “C’mon, give him space, Shane.”

Garrett mumbles, “’There's no living with a killing. There's no going back from it. Right or wrong, it's a brand, a brand that sticks.’"

“What’d you say?”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

This was her favorite spot, right off the long wooden stairway connecting a quaint rental at the top to the Michigan shore at the bottom. Their days started with her swimming at sunrise while he watched and sipped his coffee and then she would towel off, breathing heavy, sometimes the air so cool he could see her breath. He would rank her swimming 1 – 10 and she would grade his laziness A – F. Then they would read and talk and reminisce and sometimes cry in the reminiscence and then have lunch on the beach or go into town or skip lunch and get ice cream instead and then have a long siesta and maybe cry some more or look at photo albums or avoid photo albums all together because a memory can puncture like a knife or crystallize into something like a pearl, luminescent and hard, hard as absence, forged in the ruminating, muscular folds of grief and recrimination, under the intense pressure between a mother and father glued together by unanswered questions.

His name was Talon. And for a time, they were complete.

He was beautiful, wasn’t he? All your best features, Angel, and none of my worst. And so bright! So bright. So much future ahead of him.

He ripped out all the blinds. After the paramedics extracted the cord and pull-knob, after the coroner’s pronouncement, he ripped the blinds from the window casings with his bare hands, screamed and sobbed and hurled invectives at the universe while Angel climbed into Talon’s crib and lay in a fetal position, weeping without sounds until

I came to you, remember? I lowered the crib gate and picked you up and carried you to bed and I don’t remember anything but us. You never blamed me. I know you remembered. I know you knew I remembered, too, but you never brought it up. You waited until I did. And you forgave me. Because you had said to the builder, “No blinds,” but I in my stupidity said, “We can live with blinds for a time. Gives us time to find the perfect curtains.”

And then we bought a casket the size of a car seat.

Somehow, we survived. “We’re still three,” you would say, “two of us on this side of life and one of us on the other. We’ll always be his parents.”

Now there’s only one of us on this side of life and two of us on the other. Can you forgive me? Are we still three?

He watches Jasmine approach. She has a beer in one hand and a black and yellow can in the other.

“Lemonade?”

He shakes his head.

"It’s Mike’s.”

“Definitely not.”

She sits next to him anyway. “Some fruit?”

“I’m fine. Thank you for offering.”

“I haven’t seen you eat or drink anything all day. You sound parched.”

“This was her favorite time of day.”

Jasmine nods.

“She would say, ‘The sun’s not in bed, but he’s brushing his teeth.’” His voice cracks; he wipes his eyes.

Jasmine lays her hand gently on his shoulder.

“NO!”

She lowers her arm and says, “I’m sorry, Garrett.”

They stare at the Lake, silver and frothy under a porcelain sun and chilled breeze. Jasmine starts to stand but stops when he says, “Your freckles. They’re the same color as hers.”

“Oh,” she says, “that’s so sweet, but these aren’t freckles. I was eating Flamin’-hot Cheetos. I think I got some of the powder on my cheeks.”

She doesn’t know if she should laugh but then he’s laughing so she does, too, and his heart begins to lift.

“Why do you come here?”

He’s staring at the mansion on the bluff. She follows his gaze.

“Was that your home?”

Why didn’t you wait for me, Angel? I always watched you swim. Why were you swimming alone the morning after a storm? Why didn’t you wait? Because we had a late night? Is that why?

He uses both hands on his cane to stand. The wind picks-up. The flapping tent sounds like a car on highway rumble strips.

“The current was so wide,” he says. “Moving like a freight train.”

Jasmine looks confused.

“That wasn’t our home.” His lips tremble. “I was pointing to it. I thought that way was perpendicular to the current. But this beach is at an angle. I was pointing the wrong direction, she was swimming with the – “

He’s sobbing. Deep sobs, gasping for air. Jasmine hugs him.

“She was screaming my name. I heard her screaming my name.”

Tyler’s with them now. Then more. They form a circle with their hands on his back and shoulders and arms and some are praying and he’s sobbing and shaking and –

I swam as fast as I could.

There was no way, Love.

I tried so hard my angel I tried so hard but then you –

I know, Love.

It was too far for him to swim back. He was depleted, drained by exertion and grief, out so far the house-sized swells blocked the rising sun. He thought he would soon be joining her in the cold deep. Part of him wanted to. Part of him was disappointed when the jet skier pulled him aboard.

“It was my fault,” he says.

“No,” Jasmine says, though she has no idea.

“She forgives you,” Tyler says, though he has no idea. “Look at me, in my eyes. She. Forgives. You.”

He takes a deep breath. He stops crying.

“Thank you,” he says.

“You ok?” Jasmine asks.

“I understand now. I’m at peace.”

“Hell yeah!” someone says. “Garr-ett! Garr-ett!” They start chanting his name. They’re clapping him on the back, cheering for him.

“Join us at the bonfire, Garrett!”

“Sure,” he says.

They’re yelling and clapping for him now.

The crowd moves as one towards the bonfire.

Garrett is shin-deep in the surf but he keeps walking. The water is jaw-dropping cold. He moves faster. The water is at his thighs.

“Where’s Garrett?” he hears someone ask.

He faces the beach. Tyler and Jasmine are running to him. He stands straight and falls backward into the cold water like he’s being baptized by invisible hands. Except there’s no one to bring him up. He opens his mouth to inhale –

--but Tyler rips him into the air. He carries him like a child.

“You don’t want to do that, man. She wouldn’t want you to.”

Tyler sets him near the fire.

No one speaks.

Garrett hugs Tyler’s neck.

“Don’t let her get away,” he whispers. “Help me onto that cooler.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Tyler gingerly places him on the cooler, but he stays alert and close.

“Tyler, Jasmine, everyone! I’ve realized something. I have had a glorious life! We had a glorious life. We felt. We suffered. And we lived. We had heartbreak. But we had joy.”

“Preach it, Garrett!” someone yells.

People are applauding.

“Jolly Rog,” Tyler says, “how about some guitar?”

Jasmine can see the faint pulsing of the firetruck and ambulance lights at the top of the hill behind the trees. The paramedics and police arrived simultaneously but they were already too late. A detective is talking to Tyler.

“Did you pose him?” the detective asks.

“Have you lost your mind?”

“I’ve never seen anyone die like that. In that position.”

“Like I said, he wasn’t at first. He just fell off the cooler. Like a tree. Like timber. He’d told everyone he’d had a glorious life. We thought he’d come to his senses. One moment he’s standing there, the next he’s face down in the sand.”

“I rolled him over,” Jasmine says. “And blood is squirting everywhere.”

“He was carrying a broken clamshell. It was sharp. Like a dagger. It was in the front pocket of his cargo shorts. He fell on it. Punctured his femoral. He’s had a rough go. I remember him. Wife got caught in a rip current a decade or so ago. Disappeared. So, he’s facedown. You roll him over. How did he get like that?”

“He turned to his side while he was bleeding out,” Jasmine says, “and gets into that bended knee position, except first his head is in his hands, then it’s tilted up. And that’s it.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Not that I heard,” Tyler says.

The detective snaps her notebook closed. “Thank you. I need to talk to your friends. Please stay here.”

“Officer?” Jasmine says.

“Yes?”

“He did say something. At the end. One word.”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Three.’”

The detective shrugs and walks away.

“Jasmine,” Tyler says, “will you marry me?”