In the Night

The tang of the salt marsh ignited childhood memories as it pushed through the night to settle into my hair, my clothes. The dampness in the air helped it linger there, melting into my being. Distantly, the crash of waves offered an off-kilter timing to the darkness, like a jazz musician, stretching the beat in one measure and rushing it closed in the next.

I stumbled forward in the light of the moon, one foot in front of the other, picking my way through the dune grass. It stabbed my feet through worn and torn shoes, but I persevered. I knew if the beach patrol found me in the dunes there’d be hell to pay, but they had other things on their mind tonight.

So did I.

The rain had finally given up and moved out to see. It had pounded the coast for the past few days, pausing briefly as the eye of the storm fixed us with her Calypso-like stare. The lull and allure seemed real enough and many surrendered to her call. That’s how she gets you. She lures you in with her sweet smile and timid ways. Then BAM!, she is back in full force and the gullible and simple are lost to her.

The hurricane’s assault had been real and the high tide made higher by the full moon. People will swear the storms are worse now than before, but they are the ones who haven’t been in the path of past storms. Brutal storms are just that, brutal. They are good at making messes and the hurling about of things.

The storm’s ferocity anchored the reason I chose this night to meet my guy. The speakeasy had come through unscathed. Minor miracle notwithstanding, our patrons pined for something to take the edge off. Thing is, rumrunners have a tough time running rum from their offshore ships to the coast when the wind and waves are up in arms. And to arms, they had been called.

The smell of the marsh came back to me then, its sweet death-scent part of what makes coastal living unique. Behind me, the wind pushed me as it fled out to sea. It would flatten the waves a bit tonight and make it a good night to row ashore. With the beating the towns and businesses had taken, the patrols would all be inland doing their Christian duty to help those in need of more corporeal assistance. I sought a different spirit’s divinity.

The moon lit up the sky and as I crested the dune, my senses came to life. It was like being in a fog and then suddenly a wind blows the fog aside and you could see and hear everything. From the top of the dune, I could see a long way up and down the storm-shattered beach in the light of the moon. For its part, the moon hung in the sky like a crystal chandelier. The ocean flickered in the light and waved back like a thousand different courtesans, tiny stabbing wavelets briefly alight and then shrouded in dark again. Branches and assorted debris littered the dark sand. Broken boards and furniture ripped from homes, docks, and broken hulls bobbed in the sometimes-lit-waves or stood at odd angles in the sand like drunken sentinels.

The crashing waves reached full crescendo at my ascent. As I scooted down the ocean-facing side of the dune, they got louder still, ricocheting off the dunes and chasing me toward the water. The sand screamed in response as the waves retreated, sending showers of shells tumbling after the retreating foam. The sound swallowed the night. It collapsed the world into a carnal feast of sound and smell living in a world of stark contrast cast in moonlight and moonshadow. I carried a small lantern and angled it to shed light on my path. A broken bottle or bent nail could make a mess of my night.

I took a deep breath, pulling the smell of salt air, of marsh and rain and sand, and all the smells that make the ocean-land boundary a marvel, into my being. It’s primal, this feeling. It’s invigorating and liberating, too.

And then, above the crash of the waves, I hear a separate sound. It’s subtle and mostly overmatched, but I know it like I know the dark beach. I lift my light and flash the shutter toward the sound. A second later, I get a flash in return. We had worked the details out before the storm, so I sent the coded sequence of flashes back and got another flash from the inbound skiff.

And then he was in the waves, surfing them toward the beach. In seconds the skiff ground to a halt and the two men pulling oars bounded out of the boat and dragged her further from the water. Their sweat added a pungent odor to the night and briefly overpowered the smell of salt air but the wind hurried back and cleansed the coast.

We didn’t speak. We grabbed crates one at a time and hustled them above the waterline. From within each crate, the tinkling of glass spoke to the delicate nature of the cargo. Due to the wind, rain, and waves, it was difficult to tell if anything inside had broken because all of it was wet, but there didn’t linger any smell of spilled hooch.

Twelve boxes sat on the sand. Not stacked on top but arranged in a bit of disarray. The kind of disarray that grows from haste and the exercise of activity beyond the confines of polite society. I nodded to my fellows and helped them launch their now-lighter skiff. No words. No human noises. We huddled as close to natural sounds and things heard on a dark and desolate beach as we could.

With the skiff away, slicing through the water with the small sound of oars pushing water slowly disappearing into the crushing sound of waves on sand, I grabbed the first box and moved up the beach and into the dunes. They hid me well, my sinful ways, too.

I stacked the boxes in the back of the Ford, careful to avoid breakage. I ended up with a few on the seats in the back and one on the floor up front with me. I had no passenger but the booze so there was space enough. Well, the booze and one container of fuel. Always good to have a little extra on hand in case a longer route home to avoid prying lawmen becomes necessary.

I uncapped the fuel in the light of the moon and prepped my roadster to receive a little of its own magical elixir of life. The smell of the gasoline cut through the brine and marsh and circumcised my evening. Nature’s involvement came to a close. From here on out, I would be wrestling with man and his law. The punishment for missteps could be just as fatal.