Dolphins on the Moon
I hadn’t been to the Danny Bar in a long time, but it bothered me that I didn’t find the entrance right away. Danny Bar was a hidden gem among serious blues enthusiasts and had once been an essential part of my life. Located in one of the more disreputable parts of the East Village, it was an external manifestation of the animal I became on full moons and other non-lunar occasions when being civilized seemed especially unappealing. Day-glo yupsters avoided the neighborhood, unless they had secret, nasty habits that forced them to risk getting mugged or raped. The hookers and drug dealers were service-oriented and didn’t discriminate against any social class. They were happy to socialize, engaging in any relationship that resulted in maximum mutual gratification, provided it was carried out on a strictly cash-and-carry basis.
The Danny Bar attracted a particular type of clientele who were motivated enough to brave the East Village. Young executives avoided the place because they didn’t like elbowing their way to the bar with people who had questionable personal hygiene and the credit rating of a crypt dweller. Danny Bar was not a pick-up spot for fashionable singles. You couldn’t socialize because the music was loud; loud enough to make a point, but not so loud that your eardrums would bleed. And everyone knew that the music was the real draw; pentatonic jamming built on the freedom to fail was the rule, no exceptions allowed. Jamming created an open space for awesome, unexpected musical epiphanies that sometimes ended in off-notes and jangled chords, but more often than not crystallized into moments so pure that they made you feel alive. These musical epiphanies let you know that you were born just to be there at that moment when everything came together. And that one moment was enough, at least until the set was over.
It had been so many years since I had last stumbled through Danny’s grimy doorway that I could justify getting slightly lost and being late, but feeling the familiar cold metal of the door handle made something click in the back of my head, waking up a part of me that I could never forget. Even though I had trouble finding the place when I was stone-cold sober, my feet could find this hole staggering drunk, dragging along a useless brain soaked with the cheapest booze money could buy, choosing quantity over quality every time. And that part of my brain suddenly had a lot to say. The Danny Bar had been an ugly setting for many of my more desperate episodes, conveniently located on the outskirts of the city’s conscience; an urban mirage that drifted in and out of existence. But it had dragged me to a new reality that was home to a hidden part of my soul that had lain dormant until my hand touched the handle of the front door.
But I hesitated. I had forgotten how easy it was to slide down those slippery concrete steps into the smoky room where the sun never rose. I loved the Danny Bar on the way in, but I always cursed those steps on my stumbling, drunk climb out of the dark depths. So I hesitated, standing at the top of the stairs, realizing with a middle-aged grimness that forgetting was an inevitable aspect of aging. The dirt and degradation had faded, seeming less desperate in the light of day, but I knew that some precious memories had gotten lost along the way. Forgetting can be a blessing that allows you to move on after the suffering. But when you forget, the precious gems of holiness hidden in the darkness get left behind and lost as well. There were some sweet moments back then, free-form life poetry jammed between ragged pages of other stuff that I’d rather never read again. In the end, I guess, they were all the same, pain as precious as happiness. I had learned to accept them both as part of the journey, the price to pay for the ride, and the payoff all mixed into one. But memories are like sand, slipping through my fingers. As I get older, I am losing memories, parts of my life, just because I am moving forward and adding to them. I can’t blame the forgetting on the drinking. Any brain damage I suffered had been self-induced during a reckless stage of life that I yearned to revisit. I had done what I did, and was done with it. I had moved on to other things, even though I was doing a lot of reminiscing these days and getting mixed results.
I pushed open the door and heard the band winding down from the set, which meant that I wasn’t exactly keeping my promise. Andy had emailed me the time and date every day for two weeks, so missing his first set was pretty lame. This was the first of his shows I had actually made it to, despite similar warnings every other month when his band got it together enough to do an open mic performance. I always promised, but never came through. I had missed the set but figured being late gave me a little slack in terms of friendly expectations. Stepping into the dingy bar, I was hit by a wave of Andy’s pumped-up finale, drawn out too long and overdone. It was a hard rock melodrama that stopped just short of guitar smashing, proving that sometimes too much is just enough. But for a regular Sunday in the Danny Bar, Andy’s band was rocking it just fine.
Andy had given up guitar for bass. After finally acknowledging that he would never be a guitar hero, Andy figured that four strings required less expertise than six, and though his presence was always felt, it was rarely heard on anything more than a gut level. Any lingering rock star yearnings were worked out in his therapy sessions. After a wild, too-late-and too-little post-adolescent fling with young adult delinquency, he had rediscovered his childhood sweetheart and became a sought-after therapist with a manic desire to breed. He spent his off-hours creating little clones of himself that were disturbingly well-adjusted, filling up a lovely home funded by his clients’ psychoses. When I visited, I was surrounded by happy children too much alike and too active to count. He had a smooth way of dealing with life’s harder lessons, like starting a hat collection when his hairline started moving north. Today’s selection was probably from a thrift store catering to cheap old men, but, through the wonders of self-confidence, it looked remarkably funky while covering up Andy’s bald spot.
I surprised myself by not being jealous of him for recreating the suburban dream with what I hoped others saw as a liberal twist on cool. Yeah, I had a steady job, but I could still come to the East Village when I wanted. But I didn’t come because I wanted to. I had come to do Andy a favor and cheer on his middle-aged garage band. Maybe it was the memory of how he had stood by my side while I stared over the cliff into the depths of my own personal hell, calling me back gently, a moment before it was too late. In any case, I figured it wouldn’t hurt too much to take a break from my wife and kid and listen to half a set of mediocre rock and roll. For old times’ sake, for a buddy. I grabbed two beers and waited by the bar. Andy put his bass in a hard-shell case before leaving the stage and joining me at the bar.
He waved to some friends before taking the beer and settling in next to me. “What did you think? My new ax is so slick and Big Bob is so fast.”
I knew Big Bob from rehab and AA meetings. He was a wannabe rock star. Actually, he was a should-a-been rock star, but his tendency to overindulge in anything that felt good meant that bars were a danger zone for him. I also knew him as an enthusiastic patron at my restaurant, since obesity is still slightly more socially acceptable than being a junkie. He had gotten control of his addiction and was a clean-cut, productive member of society with a car loan and a small business photographing weddings and bar mitzvahs. He played lightning-fast lead, saying more in one lick than most guitarists could say in a week. “Yeah, very slick, and Bob is very on tonight.”
Andy smiled, taking a long sip of beer. “I’m counseling him for weight loss. He’s down thirty pounds. We worked out a barter: weight loss counseling for bass lessons.”
I nodded. Good for Bob. He had about as much chance of losing weight and keeping it off as Andy did of getting good at bass. Andy was a dear friend and a good therapist, but his musical ability was limited to little more than tuning up. I sipped my beer, wondering if I could risk a couple of shots. Hard liquor hurt my stomach, and getting drunk was like a trip to the city dump, but there had been a time in my life when it was better than staying sober. I thought about my little girl and held off. An acid bubble rose from my gut, and a blip of nastiness tumbled out. “Nice hat.” Despite his golden boy attributes, Andy was going bald a bit faster than the rest of us. He could still fit into his high school jeans, and if he had any gray hair, it lay hidden behind all the blond hair. But there was no hiding the fact that the top of his skull had let him down. He tried anyway, letting his remaining locks grow long and growing a cute little ponytail gathered from around his ears. He also had an awesome collection of hats.
Andy laughed. “A client gave it to me. How’s cooking?”
I shrugged. “Every time I start to hate it too much, it suddenly picks up and pays the bills. It pays for Laurel’s special needs, so I guess I should feel grateful.”
“I’ve heard rave reviews. People love your cooking.”
Cooking, a one-time passion, had become a career pit. I grunted. “People are pigs. Feed them any slop and they squeal with joy.”
Andy held his beer mug up to watch the bubbles rise. “You know, you’ve got self-image issues.”
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“No. My professional opinion is that you’re an asshole,” Andy said, grinning in a way that made me want to punch out his teeth. “My personal opinion is that you’re only acting like an asshole, making it a challenge for people to like you, but since you are an amazingly sweet man, it doesn’t usually work. You want it to be difficult. You want people to earn the right to love you. So you make it a challenge, hiding behind piles of nastiness. Maybe you figure that if they stick it out long enough to like you, then you must really be worth it, or, “he hesitated, “Or maybe you are just an asshole.”
“Is that the kind of inane rant you charge angst-driven yuppies top dollar for?” I asked.
“Yes, but with you, I actually mean it. But you are definitely not an asshole. You’re a good guy,” Andy said. “And we’re mostly friends, so I’ll only charge you half price.”
“It sounds convincing, but you got it wrong.”
“Yeah, Mr. Tough Guy,” Andy said. “You’re too real to hide or put on an act.”
I was shocked. “Was that sarcasm?”
He smirked. “Either that or irony. I always get those two confused.” I stared at him, but couldn’t help myself and started laughing. He joined in and called the bartender over, ordering two shots of JD for each of us. “Thanks for coming to hear me play.”
“I missed your set,” I admitted.
“The next set starts in two minutes.” Andy’s impenetrable optimism could sometimes be a royal pain, but it made it impossible to pick a fight with him, which I appreciated since, against my will, I liked him a lot.
“Great. I’m a little short on self-induced pain and suffering this week, so listening to you play will make up for that,” I joked, toning down my nastiness to make it clear that I really was joking. I downed the first shot. “Just do me one favor. Tune your ax. Everyone else may be too inebriated to tell the difference, but I’m still sober, and it hurts my ears. Keep it u,p and I won’t be here when you finish.”
“Yes, you will,” Andy said. “You didn’t come here for the music or even to be nice to me. You came to unload what’s bothering you, and I’m the appropriate container to unload into.” A squeal of feedback made us both cringe. “That would be Big Bob doing a sound check. Gotta go.”
The deal with Big Bob seemed to be paying off for both of them. The music didn’t entirely suck, and the crowd seemed to be enjoying the show. Without paying too much attention, I slipped into old habits and slammed down several beers before I noticed that the shots were kicking in. Andy came down off the second set, spreading around high-fives and soul handshakes on the way to the bar.
“That was pretty good,” I said, noticing that I was slurring my words. “But you know what really pisses me off about you?”
Andy smiled. “I think I got that one.” He pretended to ponder the question for a moment. “It really pisses you off that you like me so much, even though you should hate me because I’ve had it so easy and that would make me one of them.” I sputtered for a few moments, trying to come up with a response, while Andy laughed. “You tell me that every time you start to get drunk. What did you really want to talk about?”
I squeezed my beer, praying that the bottle would shatter and turn my hand into a bloody mess so that I could avoid this conversation. My attraction to self-inflicted pain, like a moth to flame or a lemming to a cliff, was biologically hardwired and entirely unavoidable. I could see this coming, but I knew I couldn’t stop it. Saying his name hurt more than I thought it would. “Toby.”
Andy nodded. “That’s what I figured.”
“Nobody wants to talk about it,” I growled. “I feel like every time I raise the subject, I’m guilty of some faux pas. I’m not totally stupid, but I can’t figure this one out. He was a brother, one of us. How can he die and then we just don’t talk about it?”
Andy shrugged. “If you mean all the old crowd, maybe they can’t talk about it. Dealing with everyday life takes a lot of energy. Trying to cope with a loved one who takes his own life is a tall order when the kids are screaming for dinner. Not too many people are willing to look at reality, especially when it’s dished out in supersized, extra-spicy portions like you hand out. Toby was lots of fun, but not too many people could walk with him all the way to the edge.”
“I’m not that bad,” I growled. It took both of us ten full seconds for that phrase to be mulled over before breaking out laughing. “Okay. I am that bad. Maybe even worse,” I admitted. “But it doesn’t make me wrong. I can’t just let Toby fade away. He was my friend for ten years, and she was only married to him for five.”
Andy put on his all-knowing counselor face that I hate. “Aaaaah! Now I understand what brought this on. Are you going to the wedding?”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t invited. I belong to an unsightly past that Bella would rather sweep under the rug. She is moving forward, getting on with the business of her life, with no regrets or rearview mirrors that might show Toby waving goodbye.”
“I guess her mourning period is over,” Andy said. “She waited a year.”
I knew Andy was right, but I wasn’t ready to let go of my anger. “No, she didn’t. Today is the first anniversary of Toby’s death, and she moved in with Dr. Dan six months ago.”
Andy sipped his beer. “He’s a nice guy. He’s a chiropractor and works in the health center with me. We go skiing together. By a strange coincidence, he is a good friend of mine, so I’ll be going to the wedding.” I started to say something, but Andy cut me off. “I introduced them. I’m not being disloyal to Toby, and neither is she. She’s still young, and she has a daughter to think about. Dr. Dan is a good guy who will take care of his new family.”
“Are you implying that Toby didn’t take care of his wife and kid?”
Andy put down his empty beer mug. “Toby was an amazing man, but no one can judge what goes on inside a marriage.”
“Except for marriage counselors,” I snarled.
Andy shook his head. “Not even marriage counselors. I loved Toby. He was one of the most intensely alive people I have ever known. I feel privileged to have been his friend. But I can easily imagine how being married to him would be a nightmare. Do you know how often he went off for a week-long sweat lodge while Bella was home alone with the baby? A large part of being married is being a partner. Being a transcendent soul warrior can get in the way of changing diapers.”
I gritted my teeth. “We were friends. Toby was special. I can’t just forget him and move on.”
Andy put his hands on both of my shoulders and turned me around to face him. “Stop that. None of us will ever forget. Toby changed me, made me into who I am today, just like he changed you. But he chose to end it, to leave this world. When he did that, he cut Bella off and left her and his daughter behind. No one is forgetting him, but people have the right…no, they have the responsibility to move on.”
My dazed drunkenness dipped, transforming into something a little bit deeper, making my anger disappear. In its place was a big black pit, a life question I knew I shouldn’t be asking. I struggled to return, anger being a familiar landscape, easier to navigate than this trackless search for wisdom. I had a sudden glimmer, a twisted epiphany, a pathway to understanding that almost seemed to justify Toby’s decision to take a final flying leap off a cliff into the South Pacific.
Andy put his hand on my shoulder. “Go home. I’ll call you before the wedding, and we can talk about it. The next set is kind of weak anyway. Bob’s trying to impress a woman, so he’s playing a bunch of wimpy love songs. It confuses the hell out of me that a musician like Bob can fall for a girl with such AM taste in music. Are you okay to drive?”
I nodded, and we initiated male hugging, a practice I pretended to hate but had been engaging in most of my adult life. Somewhere along the way, I had changed from a suburban drone, soulless and happy, believing any existential crisis could be solved by a trip to the mall, into a man who needed emotional and physical contact. I had been raised for a lifestyle and a credit rating, but something had gone wrong along the way, turning me into a social sea turtle; ugly and awkward, out of my element but strangely graceful in an alien sort of way. I only needed to return home to the beach to breed. My childhood had not prepared me to be a spiritual seeker, so I felt uncomfortable with my soul’s neediness. Marriage and credit card debt were pushing me back into being socially conformative, but I was fighting it.
Fortunately, I had been blessed with friends like Andy and a wife who understood and accepted the entire prickly package. My daughter demanded enough hugs to reinforce the lesson, and she had become my guru. There were moments that I yelled at God, railing against Heaven for changing me, for challenging me. But those moments were fading and becoming less intense. Marriage and fatherhood had built a narrow but sturdy bridge across the fiery chasm in my soul.
By the time I found my car and verified that it hadn’t been hacked for parts, my blood had processed enough of the alcohol to make driving a viable option. I opened my window to let the wind keep me awake with the added benefit of making it too noisy to think. I wasn’t ready to reflect on the muck that Andy had stirred up. As much as it bugged me, he knew me well, and I had to admit that he was a sincerely good guy. But he seemed to be on the other side of the fence from me when it came to Toby. While Andy seemed to be under the notion that life required us to move on, I refused to let go of the pain.
I parked the car in my driveway and sat for ten minutes, wallowing in the magical in-between time when I wasn’t required to be anything but a living and breathing creature. Half an hour later, Susan knocked on the car roof, waking me from my head bobbing slumber.
“Are you coming in or should I call you a cab to bring you the rest of the way?”
I yawned, stretching my sore limbs as I got out of the car. “I don’t know. Am I still persona non grata?”
She punched me on the shoulder, hard enough to hurt but not nearly as hard as she could have hit. It meant she was sincerely annoyed, but not entirely angry. “Believe me, five minutes after I don’t want you around, you will know it. Ten minutes after I don’t want you around, you won’t be. For the time being, you are persona mucha grata and my second favorite hobby.”
I smiled; my usual response to my wife’s special handling of my eternal moodiness. “Second? Is there another guy?”
She kissed my cheek while gently guiding me to the house. “You were number one until our very wonderful daughter came along. She is half yours, so you do the math. You are doing better than you think, but don’t get lazy or stop trying.”
She opened the front door, and I froze, staring at the dark foyer. I hesitated, trying to understand my own reluctance. Susan looked at me, her patience battling her annoyance. “There’s something I need to do,” I said, louder than I had intended. “I need to go…somewhere and…do …something.”
Susan almost laughed, but the expression on my face stopped her. She searched my face for an explanation my mouth could not provide. “Okay. You go do that, Champ.”
She hesitated, trying to figure out what I was thinking, but then disappeared into the house, leaving me to try to figure out what I had meant, where I had to go, and how long it would take. As my plan took shape, I opened the garage. I started tossing items into my car, hoping my choice of equipment would be sufficient: two old blankets, a thermos jug of water, some leftover winter firewood, an open bag of charcoal, and a cooler with several six-packs. I slammed the trunk shut and sat in the driver’s seat. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but no idea where it would take me.
Susan came out with an oversized thermos and handed it to me. “You make me feel like a witch when you do this. You don’t need to fight for some time alone. You don’t even need to ask. You’re a great dad, and you’re even a pretty decent husband. But you were never simple. A man like you needs to take time off to figure things out. You have a lot to figure out, so I wish you would do this more. Do what you have to. Just promise me that after you figure it out, you’ll sit down with me and tell me about it. Drink the coffee so you don’t fall asleep on the highway. And if you drink all that beer, don’t drive until you sober up.” She reached into her pocket. “I’ll be here, rooting for you.” She held up a small box of matches, putting them in my shirt pocket before buttoning it shut. “Your campfire would be pretty boring without these.”
I closed the car door and fumbled for my keys. But before I started the engine, she knocked on my window. I rolled it down, and she stuffed some money in my shirt pocket. “If you can still remember anything after you kill the Buddha and come down from the mountain, your precious daughter needs some more diapers.”
It was after midnight, so the road to the beach was dark and empty, and since it was off-season, parking wasn’t a problem. The ocean was invisible as a heavy fog rolled in. In five minutes, the fire was up and roaring, hot and wild, driving me back into the darkness, forcing me to huddle under the blanket and shiver. I popped open a beer, not really wanting it, but my hands needed something to hold. I took a sip but put the beer aside. This night was all about remembering Toby. I preferred to be clear, to keep the memories straight in my head.
He had been the one who organized the sweat lodges and the weekend marathon meditation retreats. He arranged weekend adventures, tubing down rivers, the drum circles, and the communal cob house hideaway for spiritual rejuvenation. I had tagged along, providing food, water, and all the other human essentials Toby was too busy to deal with. I felt jaded, feeling like my efforts went unacknowledged. But I was afraid to speak up, worried that I might be discovered as the spiritual hitchhiker that I really was. In truth, that’s all I thought I was suitable for since I certainly wasn’t on the lofty level of these amazing young men I called my companions. I was older, but that made them all the more amazing to me. I stood in awe of them. They had seen through the lies so much earlier in life than I had. I was painfully jealous of them. They treated life like an adventure, a spiritual journey that was their birthright. I felt like a mother duck, quacking in frustration as I watched them soar away. They were young and unencumbered, but I was burdened with a pack of middle-class expectations that kept me penned in a world called Responsibility.
What I didn’t realize until it was too late was that they were being as practical as they needed to be and that I wasn’t being as safe and responsible as I pretended to be. I had long ago left the safe path my upbringing had prepared me for. I was the cartoon coyote running in mid-air, realizing too late that I wasn’t on solid ground and the old tactics wouldn’t work in my new reality. My impractical friends were growing and moving forward while I was struggling with the growing problem of not being able to go back to the burbs.
Way back, before car payments and diapers, there was Toby, howling on a mountaintop, reminding us not to confuse reality and illusion. It was a message that had burned its mark on my soul, and my trip to the beach tonight was the result. Toby had never given up or sold out. Compromise was unacceptable when soulful enlightenment was still a possibility.
I struggled to remember. The fire had burned down to dull, red coals, and a light breeze had blown the fog away. I shivered under the blanket, feeling tired, wanting to go home to bed so I could spend the next day being a father and husband. But I had come here to do something and wasn’t going to leave until it was done. A rainbow warrior and soul brother had left the world. I threw a log on the fire and opened the thermos of coffee.
Toby and I had been opposites, never really arguing, but never really agreeing. We orbited each other, occasionally slamming into each other, creating sparks. One Friday, he announced a hiking trip to the Dead Sea. With a winter storm hanging overhead, I argued for canceling the desert trek. Under Toby’s smiling insistence, we went anyway. I trudged along, telling myself that these youthful idiots needed me to get them out of the trouble they were bound to encounter. Toby found a secluded hot spring, and we spent the weekend submerged up to our noses in a natural jacuzzi, watching the storm rage around us. We came up for beer and not much else.
I treated our hippie drum circles like a battlefield, pounding out a one-handed rhythm, steady as bedrock, while Toby’s light-handed drumbeat danced around me, wild and free, with no pretense of tempo. Toby laughed at his own mistakes, while I silently fumed. One day, I realized that music was just an excuse for being together, a momentary proof that we were alive. After years of frustration, I became an overnight virtuoso drummer.
My contact with Toby created an inner conflict that changed me. I treated him like a rival until I realized I was the only one fighting. He wasn’t fighting me, and he wasn’t the enemy. I finally allowed myself to admit that I loved him like a brother.
I jumped up, desperate to shake off the sleep that threatened to destroy what I was trying to do. I hadn’t come all this way to get weepy drunk and sleep on the beach. Toby had been a man of constant and intentional action, and his memory needed to be honored in kind. The fire had died down, but a solid bed of coals pulsed under a thin blanket of ash. I stood swaying, drunk with fatigue and numb with cold, when I suddenly realized what I needed to do. Toby had already shown me at our last campfire in the forest.
With a lung-busting whoop, I jumped onto the coals and began to dance. Sparks flew all around me as I tilted back my head, watching them swirl up to the heavens. I was creating new galaxies, universes, as I threw fistfuls of hot ashes into the sky. Dancing faster, I laughed as I felt the heat through the soles of my boots. Finally, the remains of the fire were scattered, and no more sparks were rising to become stars. I stood, breathing hard, blinking as ashes stung my eyes.
The moon cast a silver path across the water, creating a roadway of light leading to the beach. I was coughing from the smoke, and although I could barely see, I thought I saw motion along the path of the moon, a shape coming closer. I tried to rub the ashes out of my eyes, but only ground them in further, blurring my vision even more. A fuzzy image of the moon drifted wildly in front of my eyes, and the swimming form turned fluid, tumbling across the light like a fish flying through space. ‘There are dolphins on the moon,’ I thought, “Dolphins swimming free in zero-g.”
I stumbled blindly to the water’s edge and fell to my knees, washing my ashy hands and face with ice-cold salt water that stung while it drove the ash and sand deeper into my eyes. I kept splashing water on my face until my vision finally cleared. When I looked up, the figure was closer and I shivered. There was Toby, waist-deep in the ocean as he struggled against the receding tide. His teeth glowed in the moonlight, his crooked smile mocking me. I waded out to meet him, soaking my jeans up to mid-thigh, but he walked right past me, throwing the last two logs onto the fire and huddling under the blanket.
“Hey, dummy,” I said. “You should have worn a wetsuit.”
Toby shivered. “The water was warm in Australia. It only got cold after I rounded Africa.”
I grabbed the spare blanket from the car and poured him a cup of coffee that he held tight in his hands, soaking up the heat from the mug. He was shivering hard, and I could hear his teeth chattering when he spoke. “Swimming all the way here was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but I knew I could do it.”
I stared into my mug, blowing on my coffee, not wanting to look into his eyes for too long. “You didn’t. I was at your funeral.” I turned to face him, but he was staring at the fire. “No one can swim from Australia to New Jersey. Not even you, Toby.”
He continued staring at the fire, but his face turned grim. “What are you saying? That I offed myself? I didn’t come all this way to hear the same old, small-minded blah-di-blah.” He turned to face me and our eyes met for the first time. They were still the same shade of gray, but I could sense in them everything they had seen since we last met. Going over to the other side changes everyone, even Toby. “You were a brother. I expect more from you. A lot more. Tell me what you really think.”
I shrugged. “You swam out into the ocean and didn’t come back. Things were falling apart at home. What should I think?” I wanted to look away, but I held his gaze. I proved my point, showing him I was strong enough not to look away, but it also made me change my mind. I remembered the crazy thought from the bar, the thought that had made me come to the beach, thinking that I actually would meet Toby here. It was too crazy to be acceptable, but it was the only explanation that would fit the Toby that I had known.
I tried again, telling a deeper truth that no one but me and Toby believed.
“You were stuck. Your marriage wasn’t working, and your special way of being a father didn’t make sense to anyone like it did to you. So you wanted to fix yourself, to connect with the ocean and everything it contains. You even wanted to connect with the moon. You probably would say that the moon shining on the ocean is a kind of marriage; fire and water, heaven and earth, light and dark. Going for a swim didn’t take you deep enough, so you took it to the extreme. You got a good running start and jumped.”
Toby’s smile glowed. “Wow! Of all the people who could have done it, I never would have thought that you would succeed. Everyone else has written me off. My place in their hearts is a locked room, but you stayed a brother. You can be so heavy sometimes, but you really have the soul of an eagle.” His smile softened, and against all logic, I thought that my words had crossed an impossible gulf and touched him. But then that moment was lost. Toby’s smile turned sad, and he looked away, staring into the fire. “I have one last thing to teach you.” He paused, and his voice took on a strange tone, making the words sound as if they were coming from far away. “Life is so beautiful. It is such an amazing gift. And what I had was so wrong. It didn’t deserve to be called life. I had to fix it or give it back. I had to fix it or die trying.”
I nodded. “I knew that about you.”
His head turned, and his eyes were searching mine again. “And what about you? You understand because you are the same way. You never gave up. You kept searching, even when it meant making a mess of your life. Other people went out and got careers, a mortgage, and big fat sofas. You kept throwing it away when it got comfortable because you knew that comfort wasn’t what it was about.”
I shrugged. “Not me, Bro. You got me confused with someone else. I am no rainbow warrior. I don’t float or fly; I’m too heavy. I just keep trudging along until things get better. Or until they don’t.”
I felt his hand on my arm, and I was suddenly scared, wondering how far I would allow this vision to take me. “You are a soul brother. You are the same as me, but you have a different way of expressing it.” He stood, holding out his hand to help me up. I hesitated but finally stood, feeling his hand pull me forward. When I got to my feet, he wouldn’t let go and we walked to the water’s edge, arms locked at the elbow.. Side by side, we waded through the cold water until it reached our chests, the small waves threatening to push us over. As a slight breeze picked up, the waves were pushing against me, splashing in my face, making me more unsteady. My boots, heavy with water, fumbled in slow motion as I struggled to stay upright. A wave pushed me back, and I stopped, digging my feet fiercely into the sandy bottom.
“No.”
Toby tugged at my arm. “You know I am right. You need to live life like the eagle spirit you truly are. Either soar into the clouds and live free, or die trying.”
I pulled my arm out of his grasp, but his grip was firm. Death had revitalized him, making him young and strong, while I was weak, a half-drunk old man in wet clothes. “Maybe you are right, but I can’t do that; I can’t live all or nothing. I live a halfway life and work hard at making that enough.” I took a step back, my wet arm slipping out of his grasp as my heavy feet stumbled in the shifting sand. “Maybe that’s even better than soaring above the real world. It’s a compromise between what I want and what life is willing to give me. And it’s enough, or at least enough to get me through today so that I can make it until tomorrow.”
Toby’s smile flickered with doubt. “But you’ve seen how high you can go. You are a higher spirit.” He reached for me, but I stepped back into shallower water.
“Toby, I know you’re right. But I made promises to my wife, and I need to come down from the mountain of my dreams to keep those promises, to be a husband and a father. Maybe that means I sold my dreams to pay the rent. Maybe it makes me just another capitalist gerbil on the wheel of life, running after a lousy paycheck and changing diapers.” He reached again, but I started walking backwards, the water descending to my knees. “But somehow I don’t think I’ve sold out. I feel like I’ve gone even higher by making my dreams real, even if it makes them smaller. Being a husband and a father is so hard and so humbling. But in reality, I am the only one who can do this for my wife and daughter, and they are the only ones who matter. Because of them, even my stupid job makes me holy.”
Toby took a step towards me, and his fingers touched mine. There was a hard edge to his voice when he spoke, making me wonder if he was real enough to hurt me. “Is that what they taught you in school so that you would play by the rules and be a good little consumer?”
I stepped back. “You know, Toby, you might be right, but sometimes, I get a glimpse that the greatest light is hidden in the simplest things. Holding my baby while she’s asleep does more for me than a thousand sweat lodges. I have to be here, on this side, to do that. And if trudging through all the crap is a part of that, well, so be it.”
Toby stared at me across the water, and for the first time, his smile wilted. “You know you are wrong.”
I shrugged. “Probably, but that’s okay. I’ve got to get home. I need to go to the store to get diapers before my wife wakes up. Goodbye, Toby.”
Toby nodded grimly but didn’t say another word. He just turned and swam out to sea with strong strokes, beating a syncopated rhythm in a weird off-beat style that no Olympic event would ever see. I blinked a few times to clear my vision, but Toby had disappeared, perhaps swimming underwater until he was past the surf. Or maybe he had never really been there, and I had spent a few minutes on the opposite shore of reality.
The moon disappeared, and the edges of the night sky began to hint that the sun was about to appear. I stood watching until the tip of the sun broke over the horizon, magnified a thousand times by dazzling sparks on the wave tops.
I walked to the car and stripped off my jeans. They were wet and stiff with sand, but my wife had packed several large plastic bags. She had also packed a sweatshirt and sweatpants, so I wouldn’t have to make up crazy explanations if a cop pulled me over and wanted to know why I was driving around naked, and slippers so my toes wouldn’t freeze. The 24-hour convenience store near my house had diapers in the right size, and since the coffee in the thermos was cold, I bought a big paper cup of milky hot coffee for the five-minute drive home. When I left the store, I took a sip and started the car, thinking how good the coffee tasted. I put the car in gear but hesitated. I turned off the engine and went back for a second cup for my wife. I wanted her to drink it while I told her about my visit with Toby, and how I know there really are dolphins on the moon.
This is one of the offerings in my collection of short stories, which bears the same name as the story. And since you asked, it is a true story. The characters are real, and the events actually happened. But since I was the only witness, you will have to take my word for it. Unless you bump into Toby.
If you like this story and would like to order the book, it is available on Amazon.
If you want more stories like this, subscribe and share with a friend.
If you want to help support my writing, subscribe with a donation, or support me through PayPal: adamberkowitz@yahoo.com
