day one: whisper to a scream

the first time i went to the beach i screamed, and not in an excited to be home sort of way, but more in the blood-curdling psycho killer has come to take my life sort of way, at least that is how my mother always told it. she said that in the car ride there we made up songs about our destination, rhyming silly things that a four year old tends to cling to, with exaggerated pronunciations and familiar language. we had our coke bottle that we shared between us, a treat that went on for years whenever we took a trip that required more than fifteen minutes on the road. that is the part i play at remembering, that glass bottle with the syrup-sugar liquid, and the way my mother's hand felt when she would pass it back to me; it felt like for once i belonged in her world. but really, it could have been any day and any trip, memory is a trickster that way.

she tells me we turned the corner, veering off the main drag and away from the sign for the ferry. there was the bumps in the road that we had to slow down for, the ticket booth with the boy my mom probably flirted with, and then the search for an open spot. this i remember, too, though probably not from that day; my mother talked to the cars as if they were people, reminding them of things they might want to leave for, coercing them to find their way anywhere but where she was trying to park. my mother had a way of making the inanimate real, and the smallest of objects significant, and the cars like anything else were something else for her to subject her emotions on. a car left to her delight, the credit given to her power of suggestion, and we pulled in. old maggie the light blue oldsmobile rattled a little when you turned her off, my mom running her hand gently across the dash cooing love words to her in hopes that she would keep on keeping on, "take a breather, old girl. enjoy the ocean air".

the door swung open and i jumped out of the car, flip flops half off of each foot, the pale yellow ones with the plastic pink daisies at the toes. she said i ran with arms outstretched, off the pavement and up onto the sidewalk. she had to slam the door haphazardly behind her, and run to catch me. the sand flew up behind me like a windstorm, the shoes flapping and flying off completely, and me not noticing as i raced towards the water's edge. she says that she thought i would dive right in, mistake it for my grandmother's pool, or sprout wings where my feet once were and swim off into the deep; that i would disappear forever.

at the water's edge i stopped dead in my tracks, halted as if someone grabbed a hard hold of me, or as if i smacked against a wall of glass. i stood there and screamed with everything i had in me. my mom said that she had never heard such a thing from me, did not even recognize the sound. people ran down the beach towards me, asking if i was okay, asking what had happened. my mother wrapped her arms around me and held me close to her, so close i probably felt i had disappeared. she probably smelled of cigarettes and anais anais perfume, a mixture of scent that i would later associate with safety. we drove home in silence, my mother's hands shaking at the wheel, no more songs or passed bottles. that is my assumption, mind you, she always wrote herself as the heroine in the story, swooping me up and rushing me home; saving the day. there was silence though, and feelings sent strong through the lack of sound; she always resented having to hold my hand if there was no one of significance to notice.

she taught me how to play to the necessary audience, among other things. when he tells me i don't fake it so well anymore i think to myself no one is watching, and you my fading love, you no longer matter.

this story, though, out of all the others she told me throughout my life has always struck me as odd and inconsistant to my own memories. the ocean has always been home to me, peace and understanding. standing on the shore's edge, my feet wet and cold, i have never found anything that makes me feel that alive. the water is part of the make-up of my soul. i know the pain i have thrown into her waves, and the answers i have gotten by simply listening to the current come and go, there has never been anything quite like it. i still kick off my shoes and run down the sand. i still throw my arms out as if to embrace all of it.

there was that boy, the one who liked to lift my skirt slightly and slip his fingers inside my panties, watch me shudder while he moved inside of me, i told him the story while we sat on the sand. his fingers were in my hair, or grabbing at the cigarette i was sharing with him. his touch was always such a distraction to me. he pulled my hair back roughly, just enough to get my attention and he said with his eyes slightly wet, "maybe you saw the rest of your life that day."

he was dark that way, though, just the way i liked them. boys with cloudy rainy souls and needs too deep to fill; a touch of pain in everything they came near, in everything they touched. i rolled my eyes and pulled just enough away to feel the tug on my hair again, i could feel myself sinking into the sand, and the ocean she just watched it all. later in my car, my body crammed in between that gap between the seats, and my legs spread painfully apart, as he pounded into me. i felt myself disappearing as i tended to do during these encounters, my breath would catch and stick somewhere deep inside me, and i would think to myself "right now i wish i could scream so loud it would break the windows. so loud that i'd finally wake up."

who would hear me, though? only the ocean and some uninterested passerbys. we walk by so much in life and turn our heads, turn up the music, look away. he knows that near the water he can take things farther then i let him in my own bed, or his. we confess things sometimes, after he's come all over the back of my legs and left marks on my hips. seems the flipside of pain is my honesty, blood tasting like some bitter metallic truth. and i know i don't love him, that this is just an act one that will never have a curtain call ending, and that he will just be another mark that i contemplate on the sand. he tells me about this girl who used to babysit him when he was twelve, how she would paint his toenails green, and practice blow jobs she would later gift her boyfriend with. he told me she smelled like obsession and coffee, and that her blonde hair was turning chlorine green. he tells me this and i tell him about screaming. this exchange of stories, with our bodies spent and sore, is the closest we will ever get to being in love.

i think maybe if i can only return to that spot on the sand, if i could recapture the moment, that i could understand that sort of something that seems missing from me. i ask her again through the crackling of a long distance call, and i hold my hand tight to my ear as if i can impart more truth this time if i can only shut the world out. she sighs and asks why it is so important now. why this story, why now. she tells it again, well-rehearsed to the point of disbelief. i remember how she explained away the scar on my forehead, the five stitches story, how i was spinning in circles and lost my balance. how it was a crack on the corner of the coffee table that did it, how she held me in her lap all the way to the emergency room, crying along with me. the truth, or something like it, came out over drinks. one of those few nights where we put aside our roles to each other, and our conflicting perspectives, and tossed a few back.

i was in a car with her best friend, they had been drinking, and these were the years before seat belts or child restraints. the brakes were hit hard, an accident averted, except for me. i had been sleeping in the backseat, footed pajamas and doll baby in my arms. i flew. i did not scream when my head hit the dash, and it was connie who held me in her arms and cried. but me, i was silent, and the story was edited for content and feasable consumption. i asked her then, half cocked and confused, "so my scars are lies?"

maybe the screaming was all made up, too. he smiles and says "one day you'll give up and accept the fact that you like it that way." and i wonder which way he means. the lies, the crumpled up back seat fucks, the way the ocean reminds me that i am simply just a shadow of myself. his fingers slide up my leg again, i think about the girl with the green in her hair wondering what she looked like on her knees, and i wonder if she made him feel things i'll never know.