Catalyst

The truck jolted over another crater-like pothole as the pungent odor of rotting fish filtered into the cab, mingling with the salty air scratching at the back of my throat. I grabbed my grimy steel travel mug from the busted cup holder and took a swig, gripping it tightly to protect the precious brew that had been cold for hours. As much trouble as the old diesel gave me, she could navigate anything but a sinkhole. Over the years she evolved into a fortress of jagged rusty metal, deterring thieves and most everyone else, too. I named her Matilda, after my great aunt who carved her birthday and initials in inconspicuous places damn near everywhere she went - restaurants, public bathrooms, doctors' office waiting rooms, church pews. She said she wanted to leave proof she existed, that she was here, but “without drawing too much attention”. One night after Christmas dinner and too much port wine, she giggled conspiratorially between sips and hiccups as she relayed the stories of her quest to be remembered by strangers among the general populace in the most obscure manner possible. I was eight, and I found it to be a simple but heroic act of rebellion; a bit of salve applied to the burning need to be seen in a world designed to overlook, devalue, and underestimate her. The next week, I carved my multiplication facts into the little table in my bedroom where I did my homework. My father dragged me out of bed that night when he got home and gave me a bare-assed beating for “ruining” the table. 

The chunks of asphalt gave way to a mostly dirt road where crews had not yet gotten around to repaving. Matilda groaned as I shifted into third gear and picked up speed. The ocean appeared over the horizon, a brilliant blue-green I once spent hours trying to replicate with acrylic paints. My version never seemed right - too green, too blue, too light, too flat, too something. I liked to think the real ocean was undergoing its metamorphosis and healing, and maybe that made it difficult to recreate, especially from memory. Perhaps the ephemeral essence of such an expansive body becoming whole again belies witness or recording. Or… I just suck at color theory. I needed to walk into it, to put my face in it and feel it envelop my body, like in those classic cruise commercials that showed smiling tourists swimming in clear bright water, intermixing with all that life. Maybe by immersing myself in its vastness, I could capture its shades and hues. The Landback Agency put out a green notice six months ago, saying the water was once again safe for people, but I had not dipped a toe in since our last family beach trip when I was nine years old. We always stayed at Matilda’s beach house, which used to be in the fifth row, but as the Atlantic rose, it graduated to the second row. It was the same trip in which my father pulled me out into the water on a blow-up raft until I was too short to reach the bottom. When a wave flipped the boat, I remember spinning and panicking, certain I was drowning, until I felt him grab my arm and pull me out. I coughed and gasped for air while he laughed and dragged me toward the shore. The agency introduced the red/yellow/green protocol by the next summer, and the whole southern coastline was in red for over two decades. I remember the weight that settled over every aspect of our existence when the oceans became hazardous. The effects spread far beyond the predicted industries and communities; even the deniers came around when they could no longer talk past the growing mountains of evidence marking them as the fools they had always been. They still fought against the landback stewardship decision, but in the end, they had no solutions, only arguments and egos. 

I glanced over to the passenger seat at the green mask and snorkel I picked up two years ago at a yard sale for six dollars. It was all over the news that oceans were moving to yellow protocol; Aunt Matilda died a week before the first pronouncement, and shocked everyone by leaving the now second-row beach house to me. When I saw the snorkel peeking out from underneath a pair of Birkenstocks on a table piled high with unwanted possessions, it was as if she was prodding me from her perch in the afterlife. 

As I rounded the sharp bend, the wooden “Welcome to Palm Breeze Bay” sign greeted me, freshly painted pink and standing upright for once. I saw testimony everywhere of a hibernating town waking from a too-long slumber. A man emerged from a room at the Sea Horse Motel, pulling a boxy gray wagon that carried two giggling toddlers wearing matching hats, and he began to maneuver the patchy chunks of sidewalk toward the public access point. Across the street, a pop-up flea market had taken over the Wings store parking lot. The sounds of construction rang out from every direction. Hope planted itself in my chest and thrummed. 

The old gas station on the corner that still had a full-service option was packed with construction vehicles and two food trucks. My stomach growled despite the rank odor hanging in the air, so I turned in and found a spot to park on the side of the store. As I climbed down from the truck, I heard a woman’s voice with a more southern drawl than mine call out. 

“Hawttttttt dawgssssss! Fresh dawgs here!”

The smell of oil and salty cured meat emanated from the window she poked her head through. She smiled as she caught my eye and winked. I swallowed. Her brown hair was streaked with silver that sparkled when angled just so in the sun, and her smile beamed in my direction, creeping over me like a warm hug I didn’t know I needed. Struck by an intense craving for a hot dog, I made my way to the truck that flanked the parking lot.

“Hey there love, you hungry?” She addressed me with a sense of familiarity, almost intimacy, as if we were best friends and I had stopped by her house to visit. I noticed as I moved closer she had freckles across her nose and cheeks, and a small paw print tattoo behind her left ear. 

“Uh, yes, I am, those hot dogs smell amazing. Could I get two, all the way… and… some fries?” I had to yell a little to be heard over the clamor behind me. 

“Sure, love,” she said, turning to someone I couldn’t see. “FRY!” She faced me again.

“What brings you to PB?” She waited for an answer I wasn’t prepared to give. 

“I, um, I’m going to check on a house, see what kind of work it needs.” This was the part I could say out loud. The rest wouldn’t hold up without the weight of my entire life story.

“Interesting…” She peered at me, considering my answer. “Whereabouts is your place? I live over off 32nd Street, near the sandwich shop.” 

“Oh. That’s close to me, I’m off 34th, down the road from there, in the house that used to belong to my aunt Matilda, but I guess… now it belongs to me.” I was adjusting to the idea of owning a home, let alone something as extravagant as a beach house, while I knew so many were struggling. 

“Well how ‘bout that? Welcome home then… I’m Evie.” That damn smile. I was having a hard time focusing. She grabbed the tongs and assembled my hot dogs.

“Hi, Evie, nice to meet you. I’m Asha.” 

“Asha! A pretty name for a pretty lady.” She glanced sideways at me as she piled on toppings. “You plannin’ on having any fun while you’re here?”

“Umm, I’m not sure really, I hadn’t thought about it. I want to check out the ocean, it’s… been a while.” She nodded knowingly and reached into the space behind her, returning with a red and white paper boat overflowing with fries. 

“It can be intimidatin’ the first time back in. I’ll give you my number in case you want some company, I’m a strong swimmer, and maybe even above average company.” She winked at me again. Evie was full of herself but it was oddly comforting, like her confidence could be depended upon when not much else was certain.

“Sure, that sounds… nice,” I said, and I meant it. She scribbled numbers on a white paper bag and placed the assembled hot dogs and my fries inside, folding the top over twice. When she handed me the bag, I carefully placed my hand where it would not touch hers to retrieve it. “I’ll call you. No… probably text, who am I kidding?” Evie let out a light, musical sort of laugh.

“Either way, lookin’ forward to it.” There it was again, that easy sense of acquaintance. I waved awkwardly and walked back to the truck. As I drove away, Evie stood in the window, watching and smiling. 

Eight blocks from the house, the road became more overgrown and treacherous, bouncing me haphazardly behind the wheel. As a kid, I always knew we were almost there when the gray house on stilts came into view, where my beach friend Beth used to live. Condemned now and barely standing, it refused to be taken into the sea that lapped at its foundation daily. I rounded the final bend, and Matilda’s parting gift appeared before me. What remained of the once hideous bright purple exterior had faded to a dirty pastel hue that reminded me of an Easter egg left behind after the hunt. Two palm trees sat on either side of the gravel drive, both taller now than the one-story house; they fluttered in the wind, greeting me as I approached. The roof beams sagged ever so slightly, making the entire building look tired and overwhelmed. Shutters were missing from one of the front windows and hanging off the second window like my sister’s false eyelashes at the end of a long night of bartending. I parked, stopping short of the single washed-out flamingo standing watch by the front steps. 25 years ago I watched as Matilda cackled to herself while sticking four of them in the ground. She named them Fred, Fanny, Frank, and Buddy. This must be Buddy. 

I grabbed my lunch and snorkel set and hopped down from the driver’s seat, landing on the soft sandy dirt. As I slammed the truck door, a black and white cat shot out from under the steps, disappearing into the Mexican feather grass at the corner of the house. I walked around to the backyard, and there stood the remains of the gazebo where we had dinners in the summer. The roof was entirely gone, but a bench remained, so I sat down to eat, taking care to fold up the paper bag with Evie’s number and put it in my pocket after removing the contents. I devoured the hot dogs, then scooped up my French fry boat and walked towards the beach. 

The day was overcast but comfortably warm, and there was no one around that I could see, just the seagulls and me. I fed them Cheez-Its as a kid, and my mother got angry because they refused to leave us alone. One of them took a shit on my father’s head, which was the funniest thing I had ever seen, but I had to hide my giggles behind the sandcastle I built. From then on, I regarded seagull poo as the great equalizer, and Cheez-its as my favorite snack. 

I stripped off the clothes I wore over my bathing suit and sat in the sand to soak up my surroundings, licking salt from my fingers between fries. As a child, I spent countless nights lying awake in bed and trying to remember all the beings, places, and things that made up my disappearing world. I kept a scrapbook of each species as I learned of its extinction, pasting images from old encyclopedias and nature magazines. Even if the world forgot, I would remember, and if I ever had children, they would know from my records the full breadth of life that once inhabited our home. With every volume I assembled, my despair mounted. I became afraid of hope, of the lies it might tell, and how it would inevitably disappoint me. I worried it would make me delusional, that I would lose touch with my devastating reality, as inviting as that seemed in moments. Humanity was too stubborn, too attached to made-up rules and the illusion of control. I came out of the womb with one eyebrow raised, according to my mother—a born cynic. When the various climate agencies were established, and for years after, my discouragement only grew. We waited too long. No… They waited too long. The yellow protocol notice was the first time that hope found its way to me. I wondered now if Matilda was the opposite—born with a sense of possibility that the world slowly excised from her spirit.

I put on my mask and adjusted the straps, watching as a seagull waddled in my direction, curiously cocking its head. I tossed her a fry and stood, leaving the remaining morsels for her approaching friends. The waves rushed to greet me as I walked, the bubbly water tickling my feet and ankles, the coldness anchoring me to the moment. The water reached the middle of my thighs and suddenly, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. Almost as quickly, it retreated. The squawking of the seagulls dimmed as the sounds of the ocean filled my ears. I took a deep breath and dove underneath the water.