by Herocious
head. The chlorinated water is making a puddle between my feet. Abe lights a cancer stick and walks over to the swimming pool’s ledge. Gravel runs the periphery. He picks up a smooth stone and starts spinning it with his fingers. I think he has something on his mind and doesn’t know how to begin.
“What’re you reading?” I ask.
Abe laughs at my monologue prompt. I hear phlegm jiggle in his throat:
“A book about the 60s. You know, I was living in California when they shot JFK. I was in school when the principal got on the PA system and said, ‘The President of the United States has been shot.’” Abe drags on some cancer before continuing, “Then, a little later, the same principal came on and told everyone, ‘The President of the United States is dead.’ And I remember thinking, ‘What the fuck?’ But things got crazier. Next they said Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, which still doesn’t make much sense to me.” Abe stutters. “Then Ruby comes out on national TV and murders Oswald pointblank. I watched it all. Once again, ‘What the fuck?’ But things didn’t stop there. The 60s, man, what a wild decade. Next came MLK, and after that, Robert. They killed Robert! It was incredible. JFK, MLK, and then Robert Kennedy. Something serious was happening in the 60s. It was a decade that retaliated against a long-standing conservative culture. The people were fed up, and they wanted to make things right. But all the great motivators of this counterculture were snuffed. Next came Malcolm X! I couldn’t take it as a kid. Even today, whenever I visit the LBJ Memorial Library and watch footage from the 60s, I have to step outside and cry.”
Abe puts down the smooth stone and lights another cancer stick. I realize for the first time that the rims of his blue eyes are irritated, as if he sobbed it out alone in his bedroom, sobbed for the Decade Of Assassinations.
“Some of my friends think I’m socialist,” says Abe. “I’m not socialist. I’m a radical liberal... ”
I listen to Abe. I study his eyes and I see someone who’s disappointed with the state of the union. I want to pat him on the back, hug him. I want to promise everything will right itself somehow.
Somehow.
In the meantime, go listen to the music that moves you, Abe. Go pick your guitar and blow your sax. Go paint the critter burrowed in your heart. Go roll a nice fat joint and smoke it on a rock in the Greenbelt and breathe, Abe, and remember it’s hard saying goodbye. It’s hard saying goodbye.
2
I close the door behind me without locking it. I’m not carrying house keys because I don’t need to take the precaution. Bridget is home. She’ll open when I return from my run to Government Cut.
I walk to the beach. It isn’t quite twilight, but I know it’ll grow dark on my return flight 3.5 miles back north to 41st St.
I stretch my wiry body on the sand. I bend down to touch my toes. I twirl my ankles, clockwise then counterclockwise. I lean against the wooden railing and lengthen my fibrous calves, methodical, a musical instrument being tuned before the concert.
I breathe in deeply, falling in love with the ocean as the waves kiss these shores. I want to become these shores. That’s why I take out my rusty clippers and trim my nails, scatter them on the wet sand where the irregular waves swoosh and gargle. It makes me happy to know my cells are mingling with these shores. One day, I will be these shores.
Dear Lord, what are we if not seekers of infinity?
I start my stopwatch. It’ll take ~25 minutes to reach Government Cut. There’s a red, black, and white lighthouse there with JETTY stenciled in black paint. I long to touch this lighthouse, that sign.
Miami Beach is an active place. Even when people are horizontal on beach towels they’re actively horizontal. The beach keeps people alive. It is, by nature, a restless place. In other words, it can’t help but be a restless place. There’s no surcease at the beach, no stop. Everything is in perpetual motion. Nonstop. The beach is where we come from. One glorious day an amphibious creature graces these shores, and from there the rest is our history.
But I’m not thinking about this. I’m only a tuned musical instrument running a long long way, unaware of the role of the ocean, the meaning of this sea. I intuitively understand everything around me, though.
The children shouting joyously, I understand.
And the man flying the kite, I understand.
And the woman standing on the bluff in her dress, I understand.
And the seagulls walking all funny, I understand.
And the pigskin spiraling through the air, I understand.
And the sand that sneaks into my shoes, I understand.
And the soccer players, I understand.
And the girls in bikinis, I understand.
And the condominium under construction, I understand.
And the music-thumping-South-Beach bass, I understand.
And the trash cans, I understand.
And the footfalls in the sand, I understand.
And the lovers in sunglasses, I understand.
And the sound of feet carrying me forward, I understand.
And the beating of my heart, heart, I understand.
But I’m not thinking about any of this. I’m only running, aware of my own running, of my wiry body, my organs, my enzymes, my music. I’m a little man on the beach, a dot on the beach, nothing at all, and everything around me is an impression.
8
If I were asked to represent this memory numerically, here’s what I’d write:
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647
Or, more neatly:
π
This memory is an irrational number. I made it that way because irrational numbers like π will always remain free despite an unrelenting human ambition for order and control and predictability.
We can attempt to find every digit in π using the fastest processors in the world, but its non-repeating and infinite expansion will, I believe, keep its freedom safe.
Like the ocean, π won’t be tamed.
I cannot say for sure what will happen in the really long run, though. I guess the only thing I can say is that our Conscious Mind will keep on scratching π until It either [a] discerns a pattern, [b] hits the last digit, or else [c] the Clock stops ticking.
Until then, we have a chance.
2
When I try calling Michael to let him know I’m on my way home, there’s no answer. I always wonder what he’s doing when he doesn’t answer his phone. It really can’t be much. All he does is sit in the dark by himself all day. Whenever I ask him what he’s doing, he either says, “I just finished writing,” or he says, “Getting some reading done.” The rest of the call I tell him about my hectic day at work. Then, even though he already knows the answer, right in the middle of our conversation he asks, “Hey, are you driving?” I tell him yes. He tells me I should be focused on driving instead of talking:
“It isn’t safe for you to be talking and driving. What is it going to take for you to learn, Bridget?”
Michael isn’t able to multi-task like I am. Even when music is on, he can’t read. If the music has words, even less, and reading by the pool when other people are there is really impossible. He’s so easily distracted. He can’t block things out like I can. I can do a lot of things at the same time. I can read with the radio on and people shouting. I can direct my concentration.
He does all his writing in the mornings, right after I leave for Round Rock, and then I think he spends the rest of the day reading in the silence of our apartment. But what do I know? Sometimes he’s warming up his pinto beans, yellow tortillas, and Colby cheese when I call – his usual lunch. I’ve been with him long enough for his monotonous diet not to appall me. But there’s something disturbing knowing if it weren’t for me, he’d eat pinto-bean tortillas for dinner and breakfast, too.
When I finally get home, Michael isn’t there. I look around to guess where he went. His shorts and shirt are on the bathroom counter. His bike is on the balcony.
I look at his stash of shoes. They’re all there except for his New Balance. He’ll probably be back within the hour. But running now, in this Austin heat? Is Michael crazy? Even the weather guy on the radio said that with the heat index it’s going to feel like a convection oven tonight. I hope he doesn’t push himself too hard.
And he probably doesn’t have his EpiPen. In fact, I know he doesn’t because it’s in the glove compartment. Oh, Michael.
I decide to make the house smell good by the time he gets back, all sweaty and tired. He loves cornbread, and it’s easy to make. I stir up a batch and stick it in the oven. Finally, at almost six in the evening, I get to take a break. I give a sigh of relief and sit on the couch. Rarely am I in our apartment alone. We’re so cramped in here. It’s like a cave in our living room because there’s no natural light. I can’t believe everything we own fits in this tiny space. Of course, our books are still in boxes. I miss our books. I’m going to make sure we upgrade to a two-bedroom right when Holly’s lease expires. I don’t want Michael getting too comfortable in here. I know he won’t want to spend the extra money to live in a bigger place, but it’ll be make us happier. And it will be so easy to move since there are affordable two-bedrooms right here in The Oaks. We won’t have to bother with a moving truck or getting quotes. We’ll move our furniture by foot into Building Six. How easy is that?
Where’s that scratching coming from? Wait a second, where’s Honeyed Cat? I use my
