“You should get your blood pressure checked out.” Steve said.
“Yeah, thanks.”
Steve pushed off from the buoy and told us he was heading in. “I’ll see you guys on the beach. Try not to drown.” He dove under the water and came up far away. I wondered how he held his breath that long.
“He’s on my nerves today.” Colin said.
“Why?”
“He acts like he’s better than us or something.”
“He’s okay. He has to act like that to justify hanging out with us. Look at it from his perspective, he’s like thirty years old and he’s hanging out with us.”
“I’m too fried to care anyway.” Colin said. He looked up at the buoy for a moment. “Hey check it out,” he said, “doesn’t this thing look like a church?”
“What?”
“Not a whole church or anything. Just the tower part. It has a bell and everything. When I was swimming out here I thought it looked like something your grandma would sell in her store.”
“I guess it kind of looks like a steeple.” I said.
“You should tell her.”
“Yeah Colin, I’ll tell her she should start selling buoys. Those should be a hot item.” My grandmother has a shop that sells religious books and gifts. The bell clanged loudly.
“Being out here right now is messing with my head dude, I’m going in.” He said. “Are you coming?”
“No, I’m gonna rest a minute. Go ahead.”
I watched him swim away. I was glad to be alone. I looked at the structure towering over my head. It rocked away and then toward me again and again. The clang of the bell happened directly over my head. My breath felt heavy and damp in my lungs. An airplane was flying by and I wondered how fast it was going. I knew it was traveling fast, but from my point of view it looked slow. I thought it must be because it was far away, but I couldn’t think of why that would make it look slower. When I was little my mom took me on a car trip to the mountains to see snow, and I remember staring out the window at the trees going by and wondering why the ones that were farther away seemed to go by slower than the ones that were close. I knew we were passing all the trees at the same speed. I wanted to ask my mom but I was sure it was a stupid question.
I don’t know how long I floated there alone, but it was long enough to start thinking about the church-buoy connection. I thought maybe it did have some religious purpose -I couldn’t see what other function it had. Maybe it was a church for the spirits of people buried at sea. It was some sort of ghost-magnet, that was certain. I didn’t want to be near it anymore, so I headed in.
When I reached the shore my body felt heavy and cumbersome. The beach was alive with color and movement and sound. I dragged myself out of the waves into a twisted carnival. The seagulls were making metallic squawks in stereophonic sound surround and kids were screaming and splashing each other menacingly. There were two dogs barking and running circles around each other, and someone had a radio on that was playing a gross parody of rock and roll. People strode by me with confident expressions on their faces and a whole family sat under an umbrella ripping birds apart with their teeth. I couldn’t see Colin or Steve anywhere and I was sure they’d left me. I tried not to show the deep fear that was screaming inside me.
I pushed the wet hair out of my face and moved up the beach to dry sand, careful to avoid a couple pretending to play Frisbee. When I thought I wasn’t close enough to anyone to be noticed much, I looked around. The beach was teeming with life, Colin and Steve could’ve been ten feet away and I’m not sure I would’ve seen them. I looked out at the buoy. It was hard to imagine that I’d just been there. I realized I must’ve drifted down the beach when I was swimming in so I started walking in what I hoped was the right direction, careful to avoid eye contact and to give people lots of room. Every now and then I looked around, but there was no sign of them. I noticed a guy in sunglasses who was following me. He had one of those metal detectors that are supposed to find treasure in the sand. It was connected to headphones and he moved it back and forth as he walked. I kept going, trying to act natural, but I was starting to get very nervous about the guy. I was sure he was listening to my footsteps. I heard someone call me and I stopped and looked around. It was Colin. “Yo man, you walked right past me. It’s a good thing I saw you.” He said. He was sitting on his towel with an expression of concern on his face.
“Thanks, I didn’t see you there.” I said, walking over and sitting next to him. The guy with the metal detector looked at us strangely and kept going.
“That fuckin’ guy is spooky.” Colin said.
“I know.” I said. “He was following me. I came out of the water way down there and I didn’t know where you guys were. Where’s Steve?”
“He went to the store to get something to drink.” A soft breeze sent shivers across my body so I put my T-shirt on. I pulled my cigarettes out of my shoe and lit one.
“I can’t believe the beach is so crowded on a Wednesday.” I said.
“I know, and this time of the year too. It’s making me kinda paranoid. You think there’s cops around?”
I laughed. “No man, I think we’re safe.” I watched the smoke from my cigarette curl in silence. Neither of us had anything to say to each other. I finished my cigarette fast and laid back on my towel. I shut my eyes and let the sun warm my body as I listened to the soft beach sounds. After a few minutes my mind started creating images to go along with the sounds. I saw an imaginary beach scene come together bit by bit. First some birds to go along with the seagull’s bickering, then some kids playing underneath them, and finally the beach and the waves. It seemed just as real as the beach I’d seen with my eyes open. I inspected all the details of my imagined scene and found nothing missing. I actually started to wonder if I had my eyes open or closed. I had to concentrate to open them, and when I did, I was staring up at the blue sky. I lifted my head and looked at the real beach and saw that it looked completely different than the one I’d imagined. I shut my eyes again and put my head back down on the towel. I was trying to recreate my beach when Steve walked up. “Hey you freaks, what’re you doing?” He asked, sitting down on his towel next to me. He had a large blue cup.
“Nothing.” Colin said. “Just trippin’ on the waves.”
“You want a sip of Slurpee?” He held the cup out and I took it and sipped.
“Thanks.” I said. “What flavor is that?”
“It’s all of them combined.” He took the cup back. “I think the guy behind the counter at the Seven Eleven was fucking with me. He started asking me all these random questions and we got into a long conversation. He must’ve known I was tripping.”
Colin and I laughed. “What were you guys talking about?” I asked.
“Communists. The guy was ranting man, talking about Vietnam and China and Russia. I swear it’s like they found a homeless guy and stuck him behind the counter… Either I’m really high or that dude had mental problems.”
“Or both.” Colin said.
“Yeah, probably both.” Steve said. He took a sip of his drink.
“We should go talk to this guy.” I said. “Is it far?”
“Nah, it’s right up the street. Let’s go, the guy’s a trip.”
The Seven Eleven looked scary. As we walked across the parking lot I had the distinct feeling we were approaching a fortress. The building was hunkered down on a massive slab of cement, and large metal boxes that could’ve been gun turrets were looking down at us from the roof. The door had an electric sensor that made three loud pings as we entered. There was a man at the checkout counter buying lottery tickets and a heavy woman waiting behind him with chips and a soda. Another man and a little girl were standing in front of the hotdog condiment counter. Everyone in the store looked at us, which sent a wave of fear through me. Colin made a b-line to the video game machine, Steve went to the cooler, and I walked up the candy aisle, pretending I was looking for something. Every movement I m
ade was precisely calculated to appear normal.
It was very bright in that Seven Eleven. I could see all the individual hairs on my arm standing at attention. They were sticking straight up and they began to shake. I ignored it and moved down the aisle as if I couldn’t find the candy I wanted. I glanced down at my arm hair again. Every single hair was swaying like a hula girl. I tried hard not to laugh. Colin’s video game machine blared loud music and sound effects.
I noticed the little girl staring at me from the end of the aisle. I meant to smile at her, but it was more like a grin. She looked alarmed. Her father took her hand and sent a bolt of hatred towards me with his eyes. He pulled her to the counter where he bought two hotdogs with lots of toppings. I heard pings as the other man and woman left the store. I finally got a look at the guy Steve was talking about behind the counter. He was skinny with long black hair and a goatee. He had deep lines in his face and dark circles under his eyes. He handed the man his change with a blank expression. There was a loud explosion from the video game machine. “Shit!” Colin yelled. The guy with the hotdogs took his daughter by the hand and left the store in a hurry.
“So, you’re back huh?” The guy said to Steve who was looking intently at the label of a protein drink.
“Um. Yeah.” He said, putting it back in the cooler. “My friend wanted to hear about…