Finding Life on a Deserted Beach

Joe watched as the summer sun reached the world's edge and slowly began to disappear. That orange glow across the sand narrowed and shifted into the ocean while the terns dashed along with it. He had just completed another day working at his tiki bar on the beach and was beginning to cool off with the breeze finally coming off the ocean. He enjoyed this time of day most, sitting on his porch and finding peace. He found this old home for sale. It sat on a road that ran along the beach, with no garage and no upstairs, just a two-bedroom, one-bath house that needed some work. It was everything he was looking for, not much more than a roof over his head.

When a person hears about his primary source of income, owning an old hotel and bar. There is sometimes a show of enthusiasm, envy, and delight that a fifty-year-old man could be living his final chapter, watching beautiful women, and relishing in warm breezes. These people wait anxiously for the stories that should inevitably follow a man who deals with sometimes desperate, but mostly just, families looking for a cheap place to sleep. Sometimes Joe will reveal the absolute truth behind what he does: working at a bar and running the hotel that barely covers its cost. A hotel that accommodates families without much money, looking for a cheap escape. They know where they are, at an inexpensive, rundown hotel with beach access and a bar that sells watered-down drinks and beer. Joe was not an educated businessman. However, he never intended to make a great deal of money running this hotel. He knew how to mix drinks and keep the rooms clean. He knew how to run this part of the tourist experience.

When Joe moved to the seaside town of Mertle Beach, he was leaving a life that ended with a broken marriage. He was the cheater, and he was the one who lost everything. It was something he deserved; luckily, there were no children. He worked as a financial advisor, but he needed something more. After his wife left, his dad soon passed away. The only good thing about this was the money his dad left Joe. He was quickly driving to the coast, looking for a place like this hotel to spend the rest of his life.

While sitting out on this porch, his mind drifted as it often does, to a day he stayed open a little later and spent some time sipping his tequila sunrise and watching the NBA finals. He has someone sitting in the office, watching the phone, checking in the tourists, and getting the families or couples to their rooms. But out here is where Joe wants to be and where he makes the most money. He makes a few trips to the lobby to ensure everything is well, and then returns to mixing drinks. The sand felt good, and Joe relished this time before he made it home. Sometimes, he had company on his way back home. Last week, he engaged in small talk with a divorcée seeking company. Like Joe, she was in her mid-fifties, had a lovely figure, and was lonely. Joe, who had thinning hair and a little pot belly, was tan and somewhat handsome for his age, so he might not be a bad pick. But that night, unlike most, he found someone who was also lonely and searching for something, not a companion, which he soon discovered by the space she left in the bed in the morning before he woke.

The next morning, he woke up contemplating how he would spend the day. There was no work; it was Sunday, his free day. However, he usually has to go in and help out when things get busy, and a drunk refuses to leave. He left the operation to someone he trusted and depended on. He pays him well, and he knows it. Hopefully, he can run some errands and complete a few personal tasks.

After helping a neighbor get her car started and playing a little basketball with the kids a couple of houses down, who always left him battered and bruised, he took his car and drove down Ocean Blvd to a fishing pier, a wooden structure he visits often. It had survived getting pummelled numerous times by ten-foot waves and high winds. Homes and businesses weren't so lucky. Joe admired this wood structure because he felt the strength of its desire to persist. He seemed to feel this kept him going, and the resilience of what was laid below his feet became a part of him. He soaks it up.

Joe's wife left him twenty years ago. He once lived in a city, wore a suit, and became part of the working society, living in the never-ending cycle of competing with others to obtain more and bigger things. He quit his job to escape to this, a life that at times was unbearably lonely, but still sustained him in ways not evident to many. His walk down the pier was a means of connecting with some locals who now recognized him. They show off the fish they snagged, and Tony, who sits with a string of fish in a bucket, overalls, long grey beard, and a Marlin baseball cap he never removes, yells over at him, "When are you ever going to bring a pole?" Joe thinks about the day when he finally comes clean and lets others know that he does not like the taste of fish, and that's why he won't hook them for sport. But he always gives the standard reply of, "Maybe next time."

At the end of the pier, he looked out over the ocean and wondered how it would be if he were out there in the distance, a dot to someone looking from the beach, and losing the strength and will to continue. How would it feel knowing the last thing you observe is the sun above you? He sits in the shade and eats the sandwich he had brought. It was now high tide, and the waves were slowly lapping up to his feet. Timid and non-threatening, unlike last month when this seashore was treated to the brute force of nature. The hurricane made it clear that humans are merely spectators when the results of our negligence, the overheating of the ocean, are unleashed against us. He looked out over the beach, blocking the harsh sunlight dipping in from the west with his hand. He often comes to this small, insignificant spot. It was where his life changed, making it a place that Joe could never forget. It was much more than just a spot on a beach.

Joe once again started to drift off. It was five years ago, and he was called up to a room by one of the cleaners who found an unconscious girl in the room. She was close to death, another overdose, another statistic to add to this city's declining reputation as a beach and sun destination. This was his initial thought. The hotels and motels were getting older. The shops along the boardwalk were offering only t-shirts and CBD. The bars were blasting country music that nobody was listening to. Trash was not picked up for days, and when large groups of kids gathered for longer than several hours, a fight or gunshots usually broke it up. A cheap room was a dark den of unencumbered solitude for many, like this girl who was now off to one of our hospitals, only to be soon kicked out and back on the street.

When Joe began cleaning up the room, picking up her meager and old possessions, he found she was using a large shopping bag as her suitcase. She also left a note. It was her farewell to anyone who cared about her. It was a long, carefully written letter because she didn't think anyone would care, but she needed to tell the complete story. She left her family, not as a drug addict or someone who lived a life of crime. She left her home because her mother told her she didn't love her anymore and wanted her to leave. She felt she had no purpose in continuing. Joe read this note with the understanding that he was her last unintentional beneficiary of her troubled life. He had also become her unintended redeemer. He realized that even though she was nearly dead, he also found something in her story that needed to be reread, which he did, over and over again, until the real message from this note hit him like a rock.

The note was an exposé on a life searching for a purpose, but it knew it wouldn't be found in the end. Her higher plane of thought was, "Who and where is my father?' She had the name from her mother, and she had the city. She had her final resting place. Her search ended here, a month-long journey that began with strangers, buses, and Uber. She was looking for me, found me, and found this way to express her feelings about my absence.

While sitting on this old bench near the pier, Joe thought about all the trouble he had trying to find her. The ambulance had already left. He remembers hearing the drivers needing to quickly get this OD off their hands to catch an essential game. He would see the search process as very difficult, as little information is given to people who are not next of kin. He ended up finding her by waiting at the one hospital where overdoses are sent. He sat and watched for several days until she walked out, his daughter, homeless and a drug addict, and it made him want to cry, even though she had never once in the past made contact.

He thought about this first encounter. he exited the car, stood over the vehicles in the parking lot, and waved to her. At first, she didn't know who was doing this, yelling something and flailing her arms in several directions. She was doing her best to ignore. However, she cautiously approached him in the parking lot, her face hopeful that maybe he was there to take her to a shelter, like in her previous cases. But the closer she got, she saw a spark of recognition from somewhere. It had to be the picture her mother had given her. He was twenty years younger then.

Joe remembered the look she gave him, a sense of relief that he had somehow grasped the message and understood how she had ended up there. She wanted him to know that he didn't owe her anything, but there was nowhere else to turn. She was another desperate and lonely customer who had found the right hotel. There were many hotels named The Sands, but only the one she collapsed in was in Mertle Beach. She hoped to make it to the hotel her father owned. When she arrived, he wasn't there. When she discovered he wasn't there, Joe remembered her telling him, "I failed for the last time."

He remembers their first conversation, which took place while she stood beside him in the parking lot.

"Are you my father?" she asked, expecting a disappointing response.

"Yes, and I'm here to take you home. We will get you something to eat first and a place to shower and sleep. Then we will sit down and have a long talk. I want to know all about you."

It wasn't long before Joe learned all about his new daughter. While they talked, he looked at a face that seemed to have gone through a lot. Her mother told Joe early that she never wanted a child. She left me because I was insisting on it. Soon after she was gone, she found out she was pregnant. She named her Jamie and was never going to let me know about her. Her revenge.

Joe continued to reminisce about that time while sitting under the pier, recalling how they would sit out on the porch, listening to the waves, with a full moon providing a silhouette, a palm tree in the distance standing alone, much like Joe and Jamie in their new life together. Joe kept her busy working in the hotel. She was brilliant, and Joe knew this would not be enough for her in the long run. She worked in the bar for a while, and the customers loved her. Charming and interesting, she found other people's stories fascinating.

Joe soon wanted her to find another job because the clientele were people Joe didn't want to get too friendly with. She was vulnerable and easily went back to using drugs. Joe was a day late in getting her away. She found a man whom Joe knew had a reputation in Mertle Beach. Soon, she began to drift away from his life.

Joe soon found the end of the story, which he often thought about while sitting on this old bench under the pier. He dreamt of his renewed life. But then it ended, and his thoughts again brought tears and thoughts of "what could have been." On this bench, she left her belongings and most of her clothes. A note was attached for him, and all that was left was the man above, who saw that dot out in the ocean, and as he told him later, it waved at him, but soon it was gone forever.

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