liveAudience

LCooper

As a little kid, I remember the Long Island Sound being synonymous with pollution—terrible toxic pollution from gasoline, mercury and hospital waste. The news reports seared gruesome images into my imagination and my mom and dad put the fear of god in me. In July 1989, however, the NY Times printed this headline: “Low risk of Disease seen from Syringes on Beach.” The article goes on to explain that even though AIDS (not yet distinguished from HIV) and Hepatitis can survive in needles several days, it is extremely unlikely that a beachgoer will contract any disease. Anyhow, amidst all of this, my brothers continued to sail in the Sound everyday and though they were both gifted sailors—and still are—they always seemed to play the spectators in capsizing reports.

By the time I reached high school, this kind of news had subsided and although still not completely pollutant free, the water was clean and safe. It was a place of solace when alone and the site of irresponsible, borderline reckless behavior when with EW. We spent many summer nights drinking Tanqueray and making our way down to the beach. From the sidewalk, he and I would race into the water. Stripping mid-stride it felt seamless, like one continuous motion carrying us under. We got used to the cops and their patterned circuits of spotlight checks. Seeing them approach we would hold our breath and float with our bellies as close to the surface as possible—eyes open underwater watching as the lights grazed over our bodies.

Rebecca

She was lying on the beach wrapped from head to toe against the wind
and sunshine when she realized it. There was a dune rising up behind
her, browner into the sky about thirty feet and she wondered for a
while if she’d ever seen a dune. No, she didn’t think so- at least she
couldn’t remember and specific time. She ran through a list of beaches
she had been to, ocean-trips of her childhood and then tried to
recreate them quickly. She could remember the frozen Massachusetts
sand mid-winter. There had been a whale hump hill rising full of tide
pools there. It was a red and blue rocky bluff covered in slippery
green seaweed. At high tide the ocean ran through the tendrils,
blowing them delicately along the edge of the hill. Winter low-tide
had only tangling gusts. The ice had crumbled under her feet—dead see
creatures cracking before they decayed. A spring in Maine at the beach
before it got warm and early tall grasses had plunged up beneath the
sandy paths, wiggling like fingers along her legs. Maybe there had
been small dunes there—four or five foot ones. Really just swells and
rolls in the sand.

Still this dune didn’t seem particularly shocking or unfamiliar.
Perhaps some forgotten photo had inured her to the shape. Or maybe the
landform was familiar in the same way a stranger might be. Perhaps
they were on the same wavelength, speaking the same language.

She had to consider all of this because what did stand apart lay at
the base of that dune. A wave-worn branch several feet long, bleached
by the sun and motionless despite the gust. Why doesn’t it move? She
wondered looking over to the branch again and willing it to blow away
and also to stay put at the same time. It might be stuck inside the
dune, she thought for a moment, shuddering at the thought that the
branch might actually be a root. The longer she looked the more the
branch became a dry bone projecting fleshless from the sandy hill.
Cold, she lay back and slid her hand under the top warm layer of sand,
trying to skirt the clay beneath.

She would have to walk right by it to crest the dune back to the
parking lot but knew that she would not look at it once she got
closer. This was something to be watched only from a distance. Perhaps
it would turn to jelly if she moved closer.

Her friends were getting into the ocean and she wondered if she would
ever jump, like they seemed to love to do, fearfully into the cold
water. They called to her, waving her in and she wondered if she
could ever be the kind of person who thought the beach was fun and
whether this profound failure to enjoy herself was some character
difference or just some sort of repression.

The stick receded and then grew starker, the white pressed against the
black pool beneath it, the hard yellow sand and grass and she
understood that she would never need to jump into that water. Or any
water like it or otherwise. She needn’t be regretful of all the wasted
time and life, of all the divergent paths if she could nurture every
unchosen path into a story. How many people had walked by that branch
and how many would? How many could and how many would not? She rolled
onto her back to dig through her bag for her pen. If she could only
have all of them then she would live on. If not forever then at least
for several directions. Her glasses had gotten tangled up with her
pens and her tablet seemed to be at the very bottom. Grit got under
her fingers as she dug through and something sharp pricked her finger.
Oh nevermind, she thought pulling her hand out of the bag. It was too
bright and too cold to write anyway—she’d have to try again when she
was comfortably inside.