Behind us stretched dry catamarans and Sunfish hulls on racks, before us the flat expanse of Long Island Sound. That summer I seven. Our dinner eaten, brother Rob rolled brownies into balls, targeting us, saying they were dog shit. That moved me to the jetty. I thrilled running the rocks. I could get hurt, but hadn’t.
A fisherman cast his line at jetty’s end where the rocks, slippery green, trail under. I approached, not close. He cast again and reeled in, water sucking and bubbling at his boots. Brother Sean told me rats lived in the rocks, that I’d be bitten. Fisherman acknowledged me, saying “watch out” without looking back as he arced out a line. I wished he’d leave, to make the jetty mine. He didn’t. I walked back, slowly, rock rock rock.
The red VW van we travelled in, seven of us, was nowhere I could see in the strip of rocky sand next to the picnic sites. I sat down where I thought we’d been. As the sun slipped away waited. Then I chose to go, too.
The ball fields and courts I crossed were lit for night games as I walked to the big road. No one played that night. I turned left at the MinuteMan statue. It was easy. Then golf course, houses, houses, train trestle, left again, past boarded-up school, to the bridge that sometimes swung away for passing boats. Its metal deck hummed under traffic. In the van we’d chant “boats, boats, boats!” to the monotonous tune of tires on metal grate.
At Riverside Avenue, I turned right. Sometimes there was sidewalk. My sneakers pushed leaves and roadside trash. Bottles, cans, muddytangles that were once clothing. Cigarettes, wrappers, used up and useless bits. I cried passing Assumption church and school. I sang “Waltzing Matilda”, and, “the clarinet, the clarinet, goes doodledooodledoodledoodle det”. Nuns taught me those. All the windows were dark, even at the rectory. Someone yelled at me from a car window at the corner of Post Road.
The moon followed me. I didn’t understand how. The road name changed somewhere near my doctor’s office, though the river still nearly parallels the road until almost home. I made it to where you could cut through the woods but didn’t. The moon vanished in the leaves. No lights, no sidewalks.
They found me there on Route 7, lights flashing, no siren. The cruiser pulled into a driveway where twin stone lions stood sentry. Our neighbor, Mrs. McMahon, cried in the front seat. There was only about a quarter mile left to walk. I expected to stand on the back porch at the sliding glass doors of the TV room. I’d see them on the brown checkered couch, aglow in the light of the Carol Burnett show. After the whirling lights, I remember perfectly nothing. I’m alive.
My family, other families at nearby tables, stayed. Mom or dad took the van back to the concession stand. I made a woefully bad assumption. This all happened two years before a family museum visit. With cousins, siblings, mom and my aunt in the car, they realized that I wasn’t. My cousin yanked my arm and hustled me out to the car. Then I was ten. Didn’t know I was lost until they found me. It was an armory, full of swords, suits of armor, lances and heraldry. I lost myself, too.
Only I left the beach early that night of my eighth summer. Because the van was gone. People waded the weak tide, hand in hand, seeking my bloating body. I was found, not floating, just drifting. They prayed. I sang, and cried and walked toward an idea of home. I almost made it. I made a monstrous stir. When I saw the Sunday New York Times the next morning, I asked my mother if I’d be in it. I was reminded of that as an adult. One of the worst days of her life, mom said. I don’t remember apologies.
Hopeville Community Center 