Not Quite Full

James walked the shoreline slowly. To his left was a hotel, dark and silent, and on his right was Frenchman Bay, broken up by the porcupine islands. Looking up, the moon was large, but not quite full. A small sliver was missing just at the left edge. A waxing gibbous, maybe a day or two from being a true full moon. Looking at it irked James a bit, but the light it cast on to the ocean took away the potency of his anger. There were no waves, but the sway of the sea created a spectacle of flashing lights. It was like a million small jewels shimmering in that calm water.

The gravel crunched under his boots softly. James was very, very tired. He rubbed his fingers together, tracing circles around each knuckle slowly with the fingertips of his other hand. His favorite part of this walk was that there were no lamps around and nothing between him and the open ocean. It was a good place to be alone at this time of night usually, but not this time. Down the path James saw someone else walking towards him. A figure of a man.

“Hello.”

*

James woke up in a sweat some time after 2am. He groped across his bed until he realized he was alone. He sat up on his mattress and propped himself up on both arms as he looked out the window. The moon was high in the sky and cast small pools of light onto the rough wooden floors of his apartment. He was not capable of falling back asleep now, nor did he want to. He was in a special kind of mood. Serene. Quiet. It was the kind of mood to take a walk in.

James rolled off his mattress and got up from the floor. He had planned on buying a bed frame the week after he arrived, but when he saw the state the apartment was in he lost motivation. It had only taken a few weeks to grow accustomed to sleeping on the floor.

James walked towards the front door and slipped on his shoes quietly. He felt around in the dark for the coat rack. When he found his bomber jacket he put it on and carefully opened the door to the hallway. The lights in the hall were off as well. Perfect. He tiptoed down the stairs and slowly opened the door to the building. The creaking of the hinges made James sweat, but he knew it was impossible for the other tenants to hear.

When James had closed the door behind him he encountered his first real decision. Which direction to go? He knew which path was familiar. If he headed downtown, he would reach the water in five minutes. He might also come across some drunk tourists still wandering the streets. The idea of encountering other people was not ideal, but that path was… special. He stood in the shadow of the porch for a few minutes before stepping off, headed uptown.

James walked past rows of t-shirt stores, ice cream parlors, gift shops and a few bars. Nothing was open at this hour. The only light was soft, and came from street lamps that were spaced out every twenty feet.

James was pleased to see that he had made the right decision; there was no one else on the streets as he headed out of town. James was not a Mainer, he was not even a local to the town yet. He was not any different than most of the tourists who came and vacationed in this gaudy little village, but he felt the same resentment that most locals had for them anyways. They could never be like James; the tourists came and went, drinking and laughing for a bit before heading back to their well paying jobs down in Boston. It was impossible for them to get hurt up here. It simply was not part of the itinerary.

As James passed one restaurant he scoffed; he should quit, the tips would never be worth it. The T-shirt shops no longer registered as places at all. They were like lobster pots. He had similar internal comments for all the stores he passed, except for one restaurant that he passed without a glance. He was aware of its presence, but he willed it out of existence for the few moments that he walked in front of it.

On the very last block before James officially stepped out of town he made a left hand turn down a residential street. Past the houses, at the very end of the block was a wooded path that led down to the water. The chance was slim that anyone would be walking this path besides him.

The path was truly dark, so much so that James was worried a rut or hole in the road might send him falling face first into dirt. He took each step slowly and carefully, listening to the breeze bend the trees around him. Eventually he saw moonlight filtering in through an opening in the trees. He picked up the pace and felt his breathing grow quick as the light got closer. The details became clearer and he saw the concrete sea wall.

He rushed out into the light all at once and saw the ocean, and the moon, and the dark figures of each island silhouetted against the night sky. James could not help but feel like he was in a special moment. This feeling made the creeping thought within him that much more ugly. Somewhere between when he had stepped out of the apartment building and when he had stepped into the light, he had lost the serene feeling. Now a thought rose within him that he could not ignore. Shae would have loved this.

*

“Good night for a walk, isn’t it,” the man said to James from a good distance away. It was meant to be disarming, but James could feel his hackles rise. He began to walk briskly towards the man without saying a word. The man did have some sense, he took a few steps back and off the path. It looked like he might haveconsidered shoving James, but James walked past quicker than the man could come to a decision. James smirked a bit, feeling evil and pleased about scaring the stranger. He might not have come to some kind of revelation tonight, but at least he got some amusement out of it.

“You had me worried there for a second there, buddy,” James heard the man say not too far behind him.

James’ smirk dropped from his face and the small sense of satisfaction he had flickered out like a candle. The stranger did not slur his words, but only a drunk would miss the social cue James had sent. James picked up his pace, but as the man talked he never seemed too far behind. This was turning into harassment. As much as James loathed the idea of talking to the man, he would have to tell him in plain english to fuck off.

James turned and bared his teeth, but the stranger was even quicker with words.

“Oh hell, I’m acting like a fool. I could tell right away you weren’t in the mood for small talk, but here I am bothering you anyway.”

James held his breath for a moment.

“I'm just having a rough night. I’m all sorts of messed up and I guess… I guess something about the way the moon looked tonight made me think it was a good time for a walk. I saw you walking down this same path. You look about as bad as I do.”

The stranger paused, perhaps a little embarrassed at having said the last part to James’ face. James could not speak, his mouth remained open but he was caught out. He exhaled loudly and groaned.

“I think you and I are having very similar nights,” James said. “Do you want to take a walk with me?”

“Sure,” the man said.

James and the man walked along the path, headed towards the downtown waterfront. When they were on the last bend of the path, James pointed towards a stone bench that was hidden under the shadow of an old tree. He had planned on walking all the way to water front and maybe stewing on the edge of the water for a bit, but now he was in a different mood. He sat down on the far side of the bench and patted the empty space next to him. The man sat down next to James, and for the first time James got a good look at his face in the moonlight. He was young, much younger than James had expected. He talked like an old man, friendly and tottering, but his face was sharp with youth. He looked a lot like James.

James thought about his own age, and wondered just how similar this stranger and him were, whether or not they could find any common ground to stand on. The thought of this stressed him out and he began to rub his fingers again, tracing each knuckle with the tips of his finger slowly, like caressing a tender bruise. James figured he should break the silence. He turned towards the man and saw that the man was looking at him too. His eyes looked watery. His eyes looked like they felt the soft touch of James’ fingertips on painful fingers.

“So what’s your damage,” James asked abruptly, trying to squash the tenderness of the moment.

“Oh, just my wife,” the stranger said without missing a beat. He chuckled a little.

“You seem a little young to have a wife, especially in this day and age.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“So, some kind of spat,” James asked.

“Maybe a little more than that,” the stranger said, laughing again, “I think we are realizing why people don’t get married at our age.”

“Sounds like a real rough one,” James said.

The stranger nodded and sighed. He looked back up at the moon again and squinted. He must have noticed that it was not full either.

“Your wife giving you grief too,” the stranger asked.

“What makes you ask that?”

“The way you rub your fingers. You trace each finger, but you spend a lot of time on your ring finger, right about where a wedding band would be.”

James eyes widened and then he laughed. Either this kid was sharper than James had thought, or James was so miserable that he could not help but show it to the world.

“Very perceptive of you. I don’t have a wife anymore. Haven’t had one in about a year now.” James thought to turn the question back towards the stranger.

“You laugh a lot for a man who is reconsidering his entire marriage,” James pointed out.

“How else should I cope?”

They fell silent. To push the conversation further was to begin an ugly path of commiseration that both men were too prideful to entertain. They understood each other to a certain degree. That was all that was needed.

They sat together for a half hour, staring at the moon and occasionally making small talk about the water, or the light, or the town. James mentioned some of the better restaurants in town, and told the stranger which of the hiking trails were tourist traps. Avoid the Beehive Trail, visit Huguenot Head. Hike up Cadillac if you did not feel like making a reservation. Some of the guidance was still useful, and some of it had been outdated for ten years. The stranger talked about Boston, New York, Istanbul and Taipei. James felt as if he had learned more than he could offer back. The stranger had more surprises than poker game.

Some time later the time had come for them to head back to where they needed to be for the night. There was a handshake, and a nod that assured that things would figure themselves out.

“Shame about the moon. I feel like it should be full for a night like this one.”

“Yeah, you look at it and think to yourself, ‘why can’t it be full now? Why can’t it be perfect?’”

“Well, there’s always tomorrow.”

“There’s always tomorrow.”