A Winter's Tale Part II

***

That was then, and now is now.
And now I am walking under torrid mid-afternoon sun on a black street, barefoot, rushing to get onto the beach. Onto wet, dark sand. The air is salt-drenched, digging into my lungs and clearing out the leftover nicotine. The run-down motels spread across the ironically named Canada street, like a decaying, coffee stained-carpet. Most hotels proudly boast the Quebec and American flags, and sometimes a Canadian flag. Why even bother with sovereignty when you can drive six hours south of the border to the Quebec-invaded colony of Old Orchard Beach, Maine? The colonists mostly being above the age of 65, of course.
Perfume lingers in the salty beach air, churning my stomach.

I walk past the bakery smelling the fried dough among the mortally obese, feet still simmering, like walking on burning coals. It’s a sad thing to think about. That every lived experience before this moment is now dead, only to be remembered temporarily, until forgotten, and then death. These thoughts, as I glance at a senile couple gobble down on some fried dough with nutella spread.
“bein tabarnak c’est bon!”

It’s a beautiful day for a parade on an intersecting diner road in a desert. Too bad I am stuck among bulbous males fishing on the beach next to young children. Safety precautions are merely suggestions, after all.
Once I get on the beach, I look through my sand speckled duffel bag and pull out my cracked-leather jacket, a hand-me-down from my cousin, stitches sewn up by my nonna. It reminds me of my youth. It gets me thinking.
Now is now and I am on the beach and I am alone and I am lost within my mind while the sun sets, dies, which emphatically symbolizes the death of something or other in most classical literature. I have been reading too much Camus and everything seems meaningless as I walk back to the stuffy motel room I share with my mother who coerced me here for a family trip over the summer. One more year until I am eighteen and until I can do anything, or so I am told.

With the sun down, the “nightlife” truly begins. Rusted old ferris wheels twirl at the pathetic excuse for a fair in the heart of downtown, which consists of a single street. An old club called The Caribbean Paradise blasts out wedding music like The Macarenna and YMCA, and my drunken mother, aunts and uncles spend their nights there chugging margarita. I have come to accept the fact that Old Orchard Beach is the poor man’s Cuba.

Tall street lamps attract a myriad of shad-flies, whom I envy due to their life-span of a single day. I see them attracted to the brightness of light and I can’t help but think of Plato’s cave allegory. In fact, all this thinking in theories has gotten to me. At the end of the day, I still am alone for another three weeks, slowly dragging myself towards monotony. One word, monotony, not Mono Tony, the kid we used to make fun of in high school for contracting mono after making out with some French girl nobody knew.

I spend quarters at the grabbing machines and have managed to collect over twenty-six stuffed animals, the entire South Park cast in doll form and even a gameboy. I play the third one to the left side of the arcade, a big mother fucker called Grab-O-Mania and in my mind, I constantly refer to it as Grab-Cock-O-Mania. I play and drain the machine, collecting doll after doll, piling them on the floor next to me. People undermine the extreme skill and precision it takes in mastering the art of hand-eye coordination for a grabbing machine. Add in all the bells and whistles -- the 30 second timer, the mirror reflecting you in back of the machine, the constantly repeating jingle, the fact that the “claw” rarely closes more than a couple of centimetres (2.5 is my guess) -- and grab machining becomes quite serious.

Tonight, people seem to have noticed my meandering “clawing” skills. It makes me feel both pathetic and accomplished, probably like someone who mastered Dance Dance Revolution. I see in the reflection of the back mirror, while dropping my 89th quarter into the slot, a group of young people behind me -- people my age. And I notice enticing dark girl eyes staring into my own... well, the reflection of my own. The lightbulbs flashing red, white and blue, changing her skin tone. Considering my 90th quarter, I tell myself, if I fail this round, I will turn around and introduce myself to her. I will buck up.
Her name is Angela. And her real-life face is even prettier than her reflection. Her dark eyes, her long brown hair. She dresses like all the other kids who tried not to dress like everybody else: a plaid shirt, low top single colored shoes, ray bans and a tweed hat.
“where you from, Adam?”
“Montreal.”
“should I even be surprised? wait, isn’t the legal drinking age there, like, nineteen?”
“eighteen, actually.”
“then what the fuck are you doing over here?!”
“I manage to ask myself that exact same question every day. Where you from?”
“that’s for you to find out. Hey is that Camus in your jacket pocket? The Outsider?”
She took me by surprise. I forgot the book had been there all along.
“yeah...”
“he’s alright, I guess. I’m not really a big fan of the existentialists. Too morbid for my liking. Too masturbatory, too, you know? In-itself, of-itself, for-itself, it can go fuck itself.”
For the first time in about two weeks, I legitimately laughed, not because it was funny, but just because it was.

Under the pier, with a few more of her friends, I roll a joint on The Outsider (a flat surface is essential, after all). Angela and her friends stare, impressed with my rolling skills and with the calibre of the pot. I’m just happy that I don’t smoke alone tonight.
“you Americans gotta’ step up your game. Getting out-smoked by a Canadian fucker!”
“hey, shut your trap, you... you existentialist! HA!”
Angela snorts mid-laugh and covers her mouth and then laughs some more. Everybody is laughing and dazed. Her pothead mannerisms are authentic, they are innocent. We plan on meeting up on the beach tomorrow, and I walk home with a jump in my step.

The next day, she wears a yellow polka-dot bikini, her breasts squeezed in.
“you have to be kidding me. You are such a tool. She wore an intsy bintsy teeny weeny...”
“shut up! I find it cute. And I’m sure you don’t mind that it’s intsy bitsy...”
I chase her into the ocean. It is all so cinematic -- it runs through my mind. Every little thing I say is perfect, she reacts to it intently. She is into me. She wants me. Angela wants me.

Getting out of the ocean, I follow behind her as she leads the way, sand sticking to our feet. Rivulets of salt water dripped from the lower half of her bikini, tight against the crevice of her ass. The lower side of her buttocks bouncing with each step, sneaking out of the lower corners of the bathing suit.
She then lifts her arms, a purple elastic around her wrist. She holds back all of her wet, brown hair tightly into the palm of her closed-fist and gently slides the elastic down to tie her hair into a ponytail. Slowly. Drops of water leaking with the squeezing of her wad of hair.

Until I remember.
Until my chest suddenly feels hollow. Until the feeling that everything is dead hits me.
She flips up her hair and turns back to look at me, a smile below the crusty, dried-up salt water and snot under her nose. I turn back, without even looking at her in the eyes, and I walk away. And I continue to walk, without a goodbye, without an explanation. My heart thumps as if hidden under a floorboard. I wonder if she follows me. I walk and walk, and I remember. I remember. I remember I am alone, and why I’m alone.

I continue walking down the beach until the winds begin to pick up and black clouds cover the sun and I am the only left, waves crashing harder and harder. Gusts of wind start to throw sand up in the air, creating a dust storm with specks of salt flying and whipping hard against my legs. Wind hits my face and I am blinded as it scalds my eyeball. I can’t see a thing, I rub hard until I manage, through the tears in my eyes, to see a blur of sand whipping in front of me, everywhere, like a snowstorm.