WHERE THE TIDE GOES
Howie slowly shuffled towards the pretty young woman holding a leash with a grumpy-looking bulldog at the end. He skittered his eyes up at her but kept his head averted, as to seem less threatening. The bulldog snuffled as his feet, which were mummy-wrapped with the corpseskin of long-expired shoes.
“Dollar for a hungry man?” he asked the woman. As he mumbled through his rotten teeth it came out as dollafoahunraman? The woman glanced at her dog, evidently assessing the bulldog’s examination of Howie’s feet. Howie surmised that she was waiting to see how the bulldog found Howie, before she made up her mind about the panhandler’s character. Howie didn’t blame her at all. Dogs generally did far better than people at figuring out which people were good folk. Howie had an edge over most people though, so he often came away with a little money from the select people he approached whenever he became desperate enough to risk contact with the populace that trickled through the boardwalk this time of year, before the dams broke at summer’s start.
But she surprised him when she smiled and reached into her purse to bring out her pocketbook. It was not her generosity that surprised Howie, as she pulled out a five-dollar bill. Rather, it was when she reached out to take his hand into hers to place the money directly into his palm.
Howie stumbled backwards shaking his head, trying to avoid her touch, but she proved too quick for him, and her fingers enclosed his sun-baked skin.
Immediately, the woman’s long blonde hair floated upwards into a nimbus around her head, flickering underneath the sunlight undulating in glowing golden ribbons across her sightless eyes. Several fish swam between her and Howie. One began to nibble at her slack lips. The woman’s shoulder began to move slightly as if in as a shrug, but it was not her muscles or joints causing the movement. The rippling appendage of an octopus emerged from behind her shoulder, and as the octopus pulled itself up further onto her neck and forearm, her body swayed, but did not fall.
Howie pulled his hand away, closing his eyes. The worst part was that her face had been unchanged. Her end would be quite soon. He turned his back upon the puzzled woman. She called after him, but Howie knew he would far prefer to starve another night than make any contact with her again.
Death by drowning. Before the tourist season, as well. Perhaps a victim to temptation more than any kind of undertow. The waters were just too cold once one ventured more than a few feet out beyond the beach, and one could easily lose enough sensation in the limbs to find return to safety impossible.
Howie continued to shuffle down the length of the boardwalk towards the old abandoned casino, where he often found solace in solitude. Few ventured into the darkened enclosures of the former Asbury Park Casino arcade. Even the police officers that sauntered up and down the boardwalk tended to let him be until the crowds began to thicken with the advent of the summer nights. He began to gather papers off the ground and crumpled them into the semblance of a pillow. Grunting with the effort, Howie lowered himself to the ground. It wasn’t his joints that ached, but the various lesions and flayed skin areas on Howie’s body- the homeless equivalent of bedsores resulting from wearing dirty layers day in and out.
Howie drifted into a hazy blur. He remained slightly aware of his environs, never truly disconnecting from reality but still able to dream. His dreams took Howie into the past, when he was still a child. A memory more than a dream-construct.
Howie was playing in the wet sand, the stealthy, reaching fingers of the incoming tide still far off enough for him to be indifferent about any potential danger to the buildings and creatures formed by his hands.
He was in the process of finishing off the tentacles of an octopus about to attack one of his crude edifices when a shadow fell upon his construction. Howie twisted about to gaze up at his mother, standing there with one hand on her hip, holding an unopened beach umbrella in the other. Her face was nearly indistinguishable, covered in darkness due to the sun directly behind her head.
“Time to go,” his mother said in a deep, burbly man’s voice, as she poked him with the umbrella. She reached down to shake his shoulder and Howie shrank away from her hands, not wanting to see her death all over again; her bloated, veiny corpse on the hospice bed, long abandoned by family. “Come on, pal,” his mother said, her face bloating and becoming jowly.
Howie woke up all the way, blinking away the bleariness to bring the police officer’s face into focus. He backed away from the cop’s hand. The cop grunted, glancing at his baton in the other hand. He straightened slightly to allow room for the baton as he secured it back onto his belt. Then quicker than his bulky frame suggested he was capable of, the cop bent over again and tried to grasp Howie’s arm. Howie’s warding gestures brought his own hands into contact with the cop’s outstretched hand.
Howie let out a small yelp of horror as the top of the cop’s head exploded into pulpy red matter. Then the cop’s eyes opening wide in perplexed pain as several holes blossomed into dripping fatal flowers across his chest, and the cop dropped away, fading into-
-A puzzled but alive man staring intently at Howie. “You on something?” the policeman inquired, staring at the heavily breathing Howie. Howie shook his head wearily, wincing at the sudden throbbing in his temples. He staggered to his feet shedding paper like water off a sheet of plastic, and began walking away. He heard the cop call after him, but he also heard the bored resignation in the voice. As long as he kept moving and drew no attention, the cops would leave Howie alone.
He closed his eyes, but then opened them again immediately to erase the lingering visual of the cop’s untimely death in a future gunfight. Although it was still quite warm out despite the setting sun, Howie’s skin rippled with goose bumps. His shivering caused him to cough, his lungs long raw from unfiltered cigarettes and despair.
God, but he was hungry. He turned his gaze upon the length of the boardwalk, scrutinizing the emerging night crowd. These were the worst- the young, energetic and brash people that dared the chilly air and dark beaches for a little fun. They were the worst because whenever Howie touched one, he’d see the light and laughter in their eyes go out, whether it was soon or in fifty years. Howie raised a trembling hand to his forehand. He really didn’t want any more contact with people tonight. He’d search the trash barrels after it got a little darker. He shuffled down the boardwalk until he came to a set or steps leading down to the beach. He descended the steps slowly, his grip weak upon the slick railings.
Lifting his feet higher to prevent excess sand from entering the frayed remnants of his shoes, Howie approached the incoming evening tide sliding over the wet sand. Where did the tide go, he wondered, when it went out? How could the water go somewhere else like that? He knew enough science to know that the ocean floor didn’t suddenly open up further, causing the water level to drop. But he didn’t know enough science to figure out how the difference in low and high tide occurred. Neither did too many other people, Howie guessed. How many deaths had he foreseen over the years that involved a watery grave? Beyond accounting. And he’d even witnessed two drownings.
Not the actual drowning, but the aftermath. The blue flesh, the unblinking eyes, the constant dripping, rivulets of salt water than seemed to trickle endlessly from various parts of the bodies.
Howie stopped at the every edge of where the water no longer moved forward, receding from the beach. He stared at the changing colors of the sand, which appeared to be breathing, rising and falling with each new infusion of seawater. Eventually, he realized he was breathing in tandem with the surf. He raised his eyes to the darkening sky above. There was still just a little bit of sun left, and soon the neon signs and light bulbs of the boardwalk would illuminate the immediate night sky. But now in this twilight hour the first few stars were visible, stark against the maroon backdrop.
Howie sighed loudly, clutching his growling, aching belly. He’d need to start foraging for food very soon or he’d spend the entire night suffering debilitating headaches. Then something bit his toe.
Howie yelped and stumbled backwards, shaking his foot wildly. He bent over to examine his wound and realized he’d mistaken the sensation. It had merely been the water seeping into the semblance of a shoe he wore. The cold had almost stung, leading Howie to believe some creature had bitten him. The cold water continued to soak his foot, and Howie grunted in annoyance. A wet shoe meant a cold foot and possible illness. He’d either need to take the shoe off and dry it somehow, not easily done, or leave it on and risk catching cold. Or worse. In all of his twenty three years, Howie had suffered pneumonia twice already.
Then he paused, intrigued. The chill was already gone. Instead, warmth had replaced the coldness. This warmth slowly spread all over his foot. Howie took a step back towards the water. Then another, putting his dry foot forward. Again, the initial sting of the cold water, but then soon both feet were as warm as if he’d put them up near a fire. Howie began walking forward, smiling for the first time in much longer than he could even remember, luxuriating in the comfortable warmth as it continued to envelop his body further and further.
When the water reached his shoulders. Howie opened his eyes again, but continued to walk further into the ocean. He wanted to see with his own eyes where the tide went.
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