EDIT: I think what I'm looking for here in terms of feedback is direction, clarity, relevance of details, and overall impression. I'm trying to be fairly detailed, more than I usually would be, but I don't know how much of my detail is contributing to the flow and meaning of the story, and how much it is distracting from it. Also I wonder if there are any elements that just feel confusing or conflicting for anyone. Finally I want to know what readers are coming away with, if they come away with anything. I think that will help me hone and focus this piece into something that says one thing clearly, instead of suggesting a handful of things vaguely.
It was that time of day when you knew the sun was going down, but looking at it you knew you couldn't actually say that it was "going down," because there was easily more than an hour, maybe two of daylight left. So say then, it was around 6 o'clock. The sun had drifted west, and was hanging at an angle that still made the beach warm, but not the aggressive kind of hot it had been earlier in the day. That kind of hot that it was amazing the beach could sustain in September, when the throngs of tourists and day-trippers had been driven back to their workaday lives, and there was a little space for people to live, for those of us free to travel down here and spend days or weekends. So there we were sitting, my brother and I, patiently drying and dropped down in the sand, elbows on our knees, watching the peaks and valleys of the water trade places with each other.
The Atlantic ocean during this Golden Hour- and it was only for maybe an hour or two a day and only this time of year- the way the sun slanted away from it and the breeze relaxed, it took on this opal-y kind of teal color, this deeply soothing, very much alive color that turned to silver when it rolled the right way to catch the light. It was always very relaxing, and I could stare at it for a long time without noticing anything, but today it was a little choppier than usual, a little windier. There had probably been a storm the night before, because the sky was too clear for there to be one on the way.
Either way, my brother and I sat, and instead of absorbing ourselves in the mirror of tranquility, we were staring at the restless ocean and caught a glimpse, when we could see it between swells, of a jaunty yellow triangle jumping and prodding its way amongst the breakers, maybe 100 yards from shore. The triangle was of vague interest to us, and in reality it was really more of a pointed oval than a triangle but you couldn't see more than a bit of it from shore, because in the triangle, which was in fact an ocean kayak, was our father. He had arrived at the beach as we were preparing to leave it, with a mind to take the kayak for a spin. And since we didn't want to leave him to cruise the deserted surf on his own because of his advancing age and chronic injuries, we contented ourselves to sit on the beach a bit longer and do what we would do for the rest of the evening anyway, which wasn't much of anything. So we sat and talked and threw things to each other and at each other, and took long looks into the distance as afternoon passed into evening.
And then for no particular reason, I started to pay attention to the triangle. Or really, what was not the triangle, because when it occurred to me that I maybe hadn't seen it in a bit, I started to really look for it, and then I still didn't see it. This is a thing that happens sometimes with the ocean, that because of the tide and things like that, (probably, I'm not a scientist) something you had a really good view of just a minute ago might be completely obscured from view for a while. The thing is, after a minute you can usually find it again, especially if it is moving. And really especially if it is made of a buoyant, durable, bright-yellow plastic. So after a minute of nothing, I started to crane my neck to see over this wave, and rock to one side of my butt or the other to look around to the right or left, and then I stood up and, and then I stood on my toes and looked as far and wide as a could, and only once seeing just for a second something I thought was a kayak, I didn't see anything but water.
My brother was really offended that I wasn't paying attention to him, and still didn't understand what my problem was when I asked him if he could see dad. When he stood up and couldn't see anything either, there really wasn't anything left to do. The choice was as follows: run off the beach and try and call the cops or somebody, who would respond quickly but not immediately to a situation that may or may not even be an emergency, or jump in the water myself to see just what the hell was going on, and potentially swim into something that was over my head. In the name of expediency after a brief period of waffling, I decided I was going in. I turned to Brendan.
"You still don't see him right?"
"No."
Sigh. "Alright, I'm gonna go out there and see what's going on. Stay here."
Scoff. Prolonged scoff. "Fuck that, I'm coming too."
"No, you're not. Who knows what's wrong out there? It could be nothing, or it could be something I can't handle. And if I can't handle it then you can't either, and if we both get stuck out there then we're all fucked. Just stay here, and if you don't see me in like five minutes, run back to the house and get help. Call the police, or whoever, and then tell mom. And like, actually run."
"No, I'm-"
"Just, no, listen I don't have time. Just do it, ok? And DO NOT come in after me!"
And with that I was jogging the short distance to the water's edge, thinking how absurd I felt I looked, and what an awful, low-budget foreign version of Baywatch this would have appeared to be if there had been another soul in sight, and then mercifully I found that I was chest-deep in the water and swimming. I was thinking what I think my little brother and I were both thinking: What if its a shark? I knew it was unlikely, better than he did. But I also knew it was approaching sundown, and that larger predatory fish tended to make their way into shallow waters to hunt in the twilight hours, when the shadows and dappled light disorient their prey and hide their approach. Still, with the rare, and terrifyingly deadly exception, most sharks around the New Jersey coast were on the smaller side, which is at least as big as me for sure, but hopefully not much bigger. So if its a shark, what do you do? Well, you're out here already, or you will be, and the reason you're out here is because your dad just needed to take himself out on the water for an early evening's kayaking, despite his ailing legs and a long day of work, and you're pretty sure he's in some kind of trouble now, and you're going to help him. So, if that is what it is, then you're just going to find a way to help him. Punch it in the nose, right? Or try. Do your best and you will probably scare it off. But its probably not that. There's no thrashing water, no frenzy of activity, no blood, not that I can see, and no screaming. The fact that there's no screaming, no yelling or anything, is probably scarier than anything. What could have rendered him silent so quickly? If he really is drowning, I don't know if I can save him. Getting him in to shore, and then doing the chest compressions and things? I'll have to send Brendan to get help right away, which won't happen because he won't listen to me until I yell it at him three times. But hopefully whatever I can do will be enough until like a real person who can do something arrives. That lifeguard class was like nine years ago, and I didn't even get the CPR cert. Karen did. I never knew how she was so comfortable with this sort of stuff. Like they had the training, but what would she do in this situation? Would she even remember what she was supposed to do, or just freak out and wing it? Man I wish there were somebody who knew how to do that around. Goddamnit though, dad. Like he had to just go for a ride. He like refuses to adapt to his age. I feel bad for him because I know it hurts him to no be able to do the things he used to but its like, get a grip man. This is not safe behavior.
I saw the kayak. It was fine. There was no Hollywood-sized chunk bitten out of it, and I didn't see any blood. But I also didn't see my dad.
"Dad!"
"Ehhp-" That's the best approximation of the sound, which was kind of an inarticulate shout while also spitting out water. He was to my right, maybe 20 feet away from the kayak, which was on my left, and swimming in this sideways way like he was reaching for something, and just at his fingertips was the oar- a long black PVC pipe with a yellow paddle curving out of either side, like the wings of some kind of garish ray. He had it, and he didn't, and he almost had it, and the kayak kept drifting away.
"What the hell are you doing?" I knew as I yelled it what he was doing.
"The oar!" He got the words out this time.
"What?"
I was only really shouting sounds. 'What' came out of my mouth, but it could have been anything. Incredulous is the word for how I was feeling. I knew exactly what, but I couldn't deal at the moment with the fact that my dad was prepared to drift out to sea in pursuit of this shitty piece of plastic, rather than try to regain his vessel and return safely to land. I made for the kayak and got there fairly easily. The water wasn't even all that rough, and out here where it was deep, the current was a much more serious concern than breaking waves, but while it was strong, it wasn't overwhelming. I gripped a handle on the nose of the little boat and swam hard at my dad. He wasn't far, and I reached him quickly.
"Are you ok?
"Yeahhh." He dragged it out in the way he did when he was a little mad but not furious, usually at himself. "I was trying to get the oar"
"Yeah I know. Gimme it. Here, get in." I pulled the kayak up alongside him. "Why didn't you just get back in the damn kayak?"
"Well I tried, and I couldn't, and I didn't want to lose the oar." I bit back my response, which would have been, 'You'd rather drown?' and looked around while my dad struggled to hoist himself out of the water and onto this pitching plastic banana that would be taking him home. We were far out, but not too far. I could see the tops of houses when the waves cleared, although I could see a lot more houses than I was accustomed too and they were much further away. True to his word, my dad slid out of the increasingly tilted kayak and splashed back into the water, in what would have been an absolutely hilarious scene had I not been such an exhausting mix of angry and relieved and starting to worry about sharks again.
"Here." I wrapped my forearms around the nose of the thing and leaned back against it, using my weight to steady it as much as possible. With nothing to stand on or push against, leverage was out of the question, but surely some other force of physics would help me out. Two or three more tries and he was in. He tried to get me to climb in with him, and while I thought about it for a second, the benefit of an easy ride home far outweighed the risk of pitching my hapless, exhausted father back into the ocean and having to flop him back onto his kayak. I elected to swim alongside instead.
We got underway. We would be back on the sand in a second, and there were no further dangers that we could conceivably anticipate. Then I realized then what a pleasant evening it was for a swim. The water was so cool it felt smooth like a river stone, but it wasn't cold. It felt comfortable, homey. The tide was gently encouraging us back to shore, but the waves coming in were just strong enough to boost me up in the water a little bit; they didn't break over my head. My dad seemed a little more shaken by the whole thing than I think he was prepared to admit, but he was ok at least. I would try to not give him too hard a time over it.
"What's Brendan doing there?"
"Hopefully just sitting there. Can he see you?" Now that my father was safely on his way to shore, the last thing I wanted was for my brother to call in the cavalry. It was then that he coasted into my view. My dad, being several feet higher than me, saw him before I did. He had paddled out on a surf board.
"Hey guys."
"You absolute dumb ass. What if we were drowning?"
"You're not drowning" I was furious with him. Angry at his foolishness, his failure to assess the situation in a way that I thought was appropriate, and to take instruction. I was disappointed that my older brother leadership in the situation was such that he did not feel inclined to do exactly what I said, even though it was the best and only plan. I was intangibly frustrated. And then though I struggled against it, going so far as to stick the lower half of my face in the ocean to prevent it, I was laughing. And my dad was too. He was right, the little bastard. We weren't drowning.
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