Beach Stones
A Weather Report
story
by Lutra Cana
(07/12/2000)
You stand on the shore with the early morning sunlight
dancing on your dark curls. Dressed in
a white t-shirt and shorts, you look like something from a myth. I wonder what you're thinking about staring
off towards where the ocean and the sky mesh.
Maybe the same things I do. Life...love...loss...redemption.
I remember the times from before when we would come down to
this beach and I'd be hard pressed to keep you from stripping buck naked and
running into the surf. We always came
here really early, before the tourists were out, and we'd have this place to
ourselves. Just you and me and the
seagulls. You'd laugh at me and say, "Going to arrest me, Mr.
Policeman?" Then you'd charge off,
flinging your shirt over your shoulder, scaring the seagulls as you made for
the water. But you always stopped just
short of leaving your trunks on the sand.
Sometimes you'd scare me, thinking that you'd really go through with it
and we'd both be arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior.
God, I wish you felt that free again.
I know that the scars don't embarrass you. You just don't like people staring at
you. If you're around people that know
you, know how you got those scars, you're totally unselfconscious about
them. Showing off your body just like
you did before. In the locker room at
work, you'll strip down and joke around with the other guys. All of them know that you got those scars
honorably. In the line of duty. Our friends view those scars as simply part
of you now. As much a part as your
laughing blue eyes and unruly hair.
Grateful that you're here with us.
And me? In an odd
way, I love them. Not because they mar
your beauty. They don't, not really. I
love them because without those scars you'd be dead. Dead men don't scar.
Watching you watching the ships out there on the horizon, I
can't help but think back to that morning.
A morning somewhat like this, except not as warm. The sun was shining and it looked like it
was going to be a beautiful spring day.
How could anything as awful as what went down happen on such a fine
morning? It should have been foggy or
real hot, not warm with the faint smell of fresh cut grass on the breeze. I can still feel the rising panic at the
silence that followed.
It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Rounding the front of your car, dreading
what I'd find on the other side. Seeing
you lying there - blood, glass, and God knows what spread around you. The longest moment in my life was the one
between seeing you down and seeing you struggle to breathe. For that moment I was sure you were already
dead. All I could
see was that exit wound in your chest, just south of your
heart. The blood on the front of your
shirt, staining red the clean white.
I felt as if my life was over. That I was lying dead on the ground beside you. Then I saw that wounded chest rise in
shuddering breath and I felt my heart beat again. You don't remember opening your eyes and looking at me, do
you? That look is seared into my
soul. Bewilderment...pain.... And something beyond fear, beyond
terror. And loneliness. That's the one that I see when I close my
eyes at night. That look of needing me
and not being able to find me, even though I was standing right in front of
you.
Then your eyes seemed to glaze over and you drifted
off. By that time, others were there
and they wouldn't let me near you. I
needed to touch you so badly. Needed to
know that you still lived, still breathed.
Needed to give you my strength, my will for you to live. But they wouldn't let me. I watched in
stunned disbelieve as they worked on you, cutting away that shirt, destroying
that jacket you loved. Watched as they
struggled to keep you alive long enough to get you into the waiting ambulance
and take you away from me.
I don't remember how I got to the hospital. Don't remember the hours of sitting in the
OR waiting room. All I remember are the
words of the surgeon when he came out to talk to me. To tell me to not hope.
That you should already be dead.
That it was only a matter of time before your mind realized it. All I remember is sitting there, staring
through the glass at you stretched out on the ICU bed, more wires and tubes
than I ever saw in my life attached to you.
When they finally let me in your room, I wanted to touch you, hold
you. But I couldn't. I was afraid that if I touched you, I'd feel
that your soul, your spirit, whatever it is that makes you you, would be
gone. And I'd know that I was forever
alone.
But that's all in the past now, isn't it? You're here with me, truly with me. Alive...healthy...happy. A little older, a little wiser. Both of us a little wiser. Both of us knowing that we've finally found
what we never knew we had misplaced.
Never lost - just overlooked all those years.
You're looking up into the sky now. Watching something that I can't see. What is
it that you are looking at up there?
What do you see when you do that?
Since that morning, I've seen you do that quite often. As if you're looking for something that you
can't find down here. What is it? God...angels...or
the glimpse of heaven that you saw when you died for those long minutes? Do you miss it? Are you sorry that you turned your back, metaphorically speaking,
on all that and returned to me?
I've tried to never make you regret living. Even before we discovered the fire between
us, I did my best to love you enough to make you stay. For far too long after the shooting, you
were so fragile. At times, you reminded me of the frost I used to find on
the windows in the morning when I was a kid.
That thin gloss that shimmered and shined in the pale winter sunlight,
then would suddenly melt away as I watched.
I was so afraid that you'd still decide to leave me.
But slowly, steadily, you grew stronger. Warmer, brighter. Like sunlight pushing its way through a fog bank, you came back
to me. And now, there you stand. Shimmering in the sunlight, all white and
dark. I could watch you forever.
You lean down and pick up a stone. Heft it in your hand a couple of times, then throw it. It skips across the waves before falling
with a soft "plunk" into the ocean.
You turn and grin at me. A grin
that warms all the cold places in my soul.
You turn away and scuff the sand with your toe, looking for another
perfect stone to pitch.
It amazes me how much I love you. No - how much you love me.
You are so easy to love, what with your bright smiles and knowing
hands. The way sunlight seems to follow
you around like a puppy. Even on the
coldest, darkest days, you bring summer into my life. You always have; it just seems as if the sunlight is a bit
brighter, a bit warmer since you almost
left me. Did you
manage to bring a little of heaven back with you?
Last night, lying in bed with you holding me, I felt the
warmth of you all the way to the marrow of my bones. How is it that the two of us never figured this out before? How dumb can two people be anyway? I belong in your arms, and you belong in
mine. I think we knew that from the beginning,
just didn't know exactly what to do about it.
I'm never happier than when we are alone, together, and it's always been
that way. We don't have to be doing
anything; just being in the same room with you is enough.
Watching you move away from me in your quest for beach
stones, I think back to last night and all the nights since that rainy one when
you came to me. How our lives have changed since that first night of
discovery. I still haven't figured out
how you knew that I needed you, and how I needed you. We've never discussed
it. Never seemed to need to. Was it that inevitable? That preordained that when it happened it
seemed as natural as breathing?
I guess I shouldn't worry about such things, just be happy that
they are. But you know me, always thinking things to death. You've teased me often enough about that
over the years. Telling me to go with
my gut instead of my head. I guess I
finally listened to you in the one area that it really mattered.
Your warmth feeds me in all those dark recesses that I've
hidden away inside of me. You seem to
be able to search out every one of those dark places and, with gentle love,
turn them into light. Even before you
knew how to do that. Until I became
afraid of the light and hid from you like a vampire from the sun. God, I was stupid. And it almost cost me everything.
But you wouldn't allow me the pleasure of wallowing in my
stupidity, would you? You came after me
and dragged me out of the dark and burned away all of that ugliness. Washed my heart clean with the strength of
your love. Just in time as it turned out.
There are times when you're inside of me and the heat of
that love almost burns me. When I feel
as if it was only one degree hotter, I'd burst into flames. And I desire it as I've never desired
anything in my life.
Have I ever told you how much I crave you? Crave your light inside of me? Even now,
standing on a public beach surrounded by squawking tourists and flapping gulls,
I think about how you feel and want you.
Want to run after you down that shoreline, pull you onto the sun-warmed
sand, and take you into me. And I know
you'd let me. That's what's so
frightening. That you'd let me simply
because I need it. You wouldn't care
who saw, who looked. You'd flow into me
and I'd burn up right there with the seawater lapping at us and the gulls
flying overhead.
I have to turn my back on you. Not watch you slowly working your way down the beach, still
looking for stones. Have to look away
or I'd be after you like a shot. Maybe
I should go jump in that ocean and cool off.
Maybe I have sunstroke. Maybe I
have beach stones rattling around in my skull.
Maybe I'm in love with the sun and don't give a damn if I
burn up.
I turn back, not being able to bear you out of my sight for
a minute. Here you come, walking back
towards me with that little swagger you have when you're undeniably happy. Pleased with yourself and the whole damn
world. How I love seeing that swagger.
And the look of utter contentment on your face. Contentment with your life, with
yourself. With us.
You stop before me, knees covered in sand, sweat dampening
the white t-shirt where it covers your chest.
Grinning at me. For just a
moment I close my eyes, not able to bear the brightness that flows around
you. But I'd rather be sun-dazzled than
not look at you, so I open my eyes again. You look at me with those ocean-blue
eyes that see into my soul, and your grin softens into a loving smile. You hold out your hand and open your clenched
fist.
And offer me one perfect beach stone.