PLACES; Eight Place Stories

by Ralph Bowden

  *****

  The onshore wind that had picked up in the afternoon strengthened and roared all evening, shaking the van, even in the pine woods. It was still bitterly cold, as it had been all day, and the heater worked hard to keep the van comfortable. When it occasionally cycled off, I could hear the surf roaring. The lamp flickered as I sat and tried to read. All I could think of was what the beach must be like. Finally, about 9, I decided to look. If it was beach power I needed to revitalize myself, there should be plenty out there now.

  This time, I slipped into my union suit before dressing in my pants, boots, flannel shirt, and heavy jacket. Before wrapping up in my scarf, I warmed it and the gloves and toboggan in front of the heater. I left the lamp and heater on, slid the door open a crack, and squeezed quickly out.

  I trotted out past the portapotty and found the path to the beach boardwalk. My flashlight seemed an offense to the environment, the way it cut through the natural darkness. It also kept my eyes from adjusting to the dark. So once out of the pines, I turned it off. Surely I should be able to see all right in the ambient light. I had to stop, though. It took a few minutes before the dim dune shapes emerged out of the virtual black ahead of me.

  The surf roar here was steady. Individual crashes were so many and frequent that they blended into something like the sound of a jet engine at two feet. There should be enough power on this beach to charge me for the rest of my days in a few minutes.

  I made my way out the boardwalk to the dune top and sat on the rail as I had the first night. Peace was the motif then, and I had appreciated it. This was a far different scene. I had to hold onto the rail to keep my position against the wind. The beach was blasting spray and sand at me, as if to drive me back. I could hear and feel the mixture impinge on my jacket. I pulled my scarf closed to a slit and even then only dared open my eyes briefly. The sky was absolutely black, and so was the sea which joined it seamlessly. Neither emitted any light. The only faint glow came from the land side clouds behind me, reflecting distant town and highway lights. I could make out great billows of foam lifting off. The beach was taking a terrible beating. No wonder it moved around, and the dunes drifted from season to season.

  After five or ten minutes trying to feel as rugged and strong as the environment, I turned to look back to see tall pines whipping around and streams of sand blowing landward off the dunes. I also saw a pinpoint of light on the trail coming out to the boardwalk.

  It took me a minute to recognize it as my beach sharer’s feeble flashlight, not nearly a darkness scalpel like mine. She was coming out as I had, drawn by the same power, probably. Going on and leaving, out of respect for her solitude and mine, was out of the question. I could not venture any closer to this roiling and violent surf. I was not ready to go back yet, either, so we would just have to put up with each other’s presence.

  She, too, shut her flashlight off after reaching the boardwalk and made her way slowly toward me. I had a hard time seeing her dark shape even though I knew where she probably was. She wouldn’t be able to see me before practically stepping on my boots, so when she was still ten feet away, I whistled, thinking it might carry better than any shout would in all the noise.

  It must have, for she stopped and turned her flashlight on me. I stood, as if to relinquish my spot. After a few seconds, she came on, probably thinking to go past me and out onto the beach. A few feet beyond me, though, the wind blasted so hard she had to grab onto the other side rail for support. She turned back to sit on it, across, and just a little ahead of me. Adjusting her scarf to a slit, the way I had, she sat there and took in the scene, ignoring my presence, as I tried to ignore hers. But just knowing someone else is in your space, no matter how isolated they are by conditions, destroys one’s sense of solitude.

  Conditions for being in this place – broken solitude aside – soon became intolerable. The sand and spray intensified. When hard little pellets, buckshot-like, of sleet joined it, the environment just became too hostile. I didn’t need that kind of power. Surf was one thing. It was unique to a specific place, the beach, my beach. There was nothing unique about common sleet, and I wasn’t adequately prepared. My clothes quickly began to crust up. I stood and headed back down the boardwalk. Once in the pines, I looked back. Dark as it was, I could barely make out the dunes, much less whether anybody was perched on top. Not my concern in any case, so I headed back toward the campground. I had to turn on my painfully bright flashlight to make my way quickly along the trail, looking forward to de-icing myself in my warm van.

  As I came around the bath houses, my flashlight swept briefly across the yellow tent ahead. Something was wrong. I stopped and brought the light back to look again. A large pine branch had crashed down on it, broken end first, skewering the tent in the middle and crushing it. Had this just happened? At least I knew she wasn’t in it when it did, a lucky thing.

  I was torn. In one sense, it was none of my business. She was out here on her own, after all, with the risks inherent in that. But it was likely to become my business. When she came back and found her tent in such a state, she would need help. Would she ask for it? If she was like me, she’d be very reluctant and would explore all other options first. There weren’t many. She might be able to salvage some stuff from her tent, but shelter was the real issue. The bath houses were well secured for the season, and the portapotty was a joke, well ventilated as it was.

  Should I be a good Samaritan and go back out to offer help, or wait until she asked for it? She might try to tough out conditions on the dunes for a while yet, to prove herself. But the weather was quickly getting worse. Even in the campground under the pines, a mixture of sleet and snow was coming down fast, blown by a fierce wind. It was only a fraction of that coming off the ocean, but it was bad enough.

  I turned and headed back on the beach trail, but had only gone a hundred feet or so before my light swamped the weak little flashlight coming at me.

  “Hey,” I shouted, over the wind. “Your tent’s a mess. Branch came down on it.”

  She stopped for a minute before hurrying on past me without saying anything. I trotted along behind. When she saw her tent, she ran to it and first tried to pull out the branch, but it was firmly buried in the soil under her tent and didn’t budge. She knelt down and unzipped the crumpled end to look inside. I also tried pulling the branch out, with no better luck. Then I pointed my flashlight in the tent while she fumbled around, pulling out a kind of duffle bag and a small cooler. I could see the sleeping bag was skewered to the ground and ruined.

  She stood up and looked around, as if expecting to find someplace to regroup.

  “There’s nothing but my van,” I said. “I’ve got room and spare blankets.”

  I could feel the reluctance, as she stood there holding her duffle bag and cooler for a moment.

  “Come on out of the weather,” I said, heading toward my van, fully prepared to have her not follow. But she did, and jumped in close behind me. I had left the lamp and heater on. Inside, out of the wind, felt warm, though it was probably only 55 or 60 degrees. I turned the heater up, stripped off my jacket, hat, scarf, and boots, cracked the door and shook the ice off them outside. She did the same. There wasn’t much to say, and neither of us said it. The first words from either of us was her comment, “The beach was incredible.”

  “Yes it was,” I agreed. “Amazing power.”

  She squatted there by the sliding door for a few minutes before digging in her cooler for an apple.

  “I’ve got stuff we could heat up,” I remarked. “Hot soup?”

  “Sure. In this?” She reached around onto the front seat and handed my food box back.

  The rest of the evening followed this pattern: absolutely minimal words concerning the immediate situation only. No more observations regarding the beach and nothing concerning her tent, Kayak, plans, herself, or what she was doing here. I’d certainly never run across somebody like that. All I could guess was that she was here for the same reason I w
as. But the range of conversation was so limited, I didn’t feel like asking and told myself I really didn’t care. To be honest, though, that wasn’t quite right. Sure, I wished she wasn’t here in my space. But I knew that was selfish. The guilt that always tags along with self-indulgence dug at me.

  As for who she was, I learned nothing. No name, no origin. Nothing. I’d guess she was early to mid-thirties. Small, lightly built. Short, dark hair. Olive complexion. Perhaps Latina? No great beauty, but not ugly. I wanted not to notice these things, but overcoming the standard male conditioning is almost impossible.

  Of course she learned nothing of me either. Again, not even a name. She showed no sign of being afraid of me or uncomfortable in sharing a van with me, but it certainly wasn’t her choice any more than it was mine. We shared a can of soup, some green tea, an avocado and a couple of energy bars she had. Then it was time to turn in. The van clock said 10:20. Outside, the wind had dropped dramatically, but I could see snow coming down hard on the windshield, sliding to the bottom and piling up. I pulled out two extra blankets I had and handed them to her. The heater was keeping the van pretty comfortable now, so the blankets should be enough. She wrapped up in them crosswise between the two sliding doors. I cut the light, slipped out of my outer pants and flannel shirt, and crawled into my sleeping bag in my union suit.