Mark Falkin - The Late Bloomer

I’m just steering. This river swells and swells as it nears the bay. When Maggie first smelled the scent of the sea, she’d whined a little, looked back at me a lot. I think she smells the sea’s vastness, the stink of what rots at the beach, and most of all—she smells them.

The smell was tamped by more light rain from the Gulf as I’d pulled off to camp for the night. I had to be pretty close to the Intracoastal Waterway which flowed laterally along the coast, located just south of the town of Matagorda.

Evening and now I’m hearing it. The thud and roar of the breakers. I needed sleep. Once I rounded the town of Matagorda, I’d have to paddle my way down through the brackish alluvium of the huge bay. This freaks me out because though I’ve always enjoyed kayaking, I’ve only paddled rivers and lakes. I don’t care to be paddling out at sea.

I can fight my way up the Intercoastal Waterway a bit after the town of Matagorda, I can cruise down its southern leg to the peninsula without having to cross that bay where the Colorado dumps into the west bay. But with the river so high, I’ll be paddling like a madman upstream for a mile, maybe more. If I can do it, it’ll be a nice float down there, just a few miles. The Lower Colorado River Authority ran a nature park down at the beach. That’s where I want to head.

After all, kids like parks.

Dawn. I dreamt the dream of sleep. Maggie stands on the riverbank facing the sea.

As we approach the new western edge of the town of Matagorda, I tell her, “We’re going to have to hump it northeast. Ready for that?” I slalom between the roofs and telephone poles of Matagorda. I now paddle past the top of a sign with a pirate parrot with an eye patch and a mug of beer curled in its wing— Matagordaville .

From here, dear reader, I’m documenting as I go. This story writes itself now. It’s crossed over into immediate reportage. No longer a memoir. Nope. Your intrepid reporter is finally at the place and time where the past and the future meet. Where the old world meets new world. Where the land meets sea. Still got this microphone clipped to my collar. Sorry if my speech is harder to hear and all that because I’ll be moving and talking. Choppier, less prosaic. All happening in real time. I’ll keep talking as things develop.

This is Kevin March, reporting. Back to you, Bob.

Okay, now I’m at that spot where if I go left, and it’s wanting to pull me that way… hold on. Okay, I see the other route. Gotta paddle hard for a while. Please hold. [20] The sounds of heavy breathing and water splashing, presumably from paddling.

Okay— whew! —the waterways meet in some places here where I know they’re supposed to be separate. Looks like five hundred feet or so and I’ll be out of the either/or zone.

Straightforward float now. On my left to the east are the tops of palm trees and among them rooftops of what must have been river-to-the-sea homes. More telephone poles lining the flooded road.

All abruptly ends and now I cruise this channel. The sun rises ochre brass and carnation pink into a sky brushed with cloud wisps. I can’t see it yet, but the sea is there ahead of me. I’m here.

Looking for a place to pull off and walk to the Matagorda peninsula’s beach. It’s part of the long barrier island stretching for miles on the Texas coast. Hopefully, that nature park is still there. I think most of the Colorado’s floodwater veered off to the west. We’ll see.

Man, it’s beautiful out here, isn’t it Mags? The only thing is the smell. Can’t see them yet, all those whales that beached themselves the morning of.

There it is. Look at that, Maggie! Gulf of Mexico.

Looks like a dredger there in the mouth got turned over. The beach here—on the east side of the river to my left, right before the long seawall creating the channel out to the mouth—the sand is white. Lumpy sand dunes with tufts of grasses. I can see some buildings to my left. Must be the nature park. All these beautiful white sandhill cranes standing around. Hundreds. Their heads moving down to the sand, back up to look at me.

Running this kayak onto this beach before the seawall and I really do wonder if this has been a dream. It doesn’t seem real. None of it has. Not since the moment I heard those sounds. Part of why I had to record this story. Just to try to make it real for myself. It’s been like recording a dream I just had. Sometimes that was literally true, huh?

I wouldn’t do it to you. Don’t you hate that? When you’ve invested your finite life’s time in a long book; or you’ve watched some movie and at the end it was all just a dream . The Wizard of Oz pulled it off, but other than that, it’s like, what the hell, are you kidding me?

Not a dream. This happened.

So, what is this? What’s happened to me, the human race? Dr. Jespers was on to something, and that something required the action of an intelligence we don’t understand. Mr. Fleming took a stab. I lean their way. I haven’t asked this so directly yet, and neither did my friends who were with me. We danced around it. Too big a question. You’re not going to get any facile exposition here, dear reader, no end-of-tale Scooby-Doo explanatory rehash. Sorry. I just don’t know what happened. Yet .

What will you make of it, I wonder? Will you liken it to Old Testament wrath, like Noah with his flood and couplings of kinds? A Rapture in which all adults are taken?

On the SAT it’d say or D, None of the above . Maybe that’s what I choose as I find myself walking this half mile across white sand to the seawall, weaving between dunes with my dog, these grasses grazing my legs, carrying my trombone case, my $1,000 binoculars, and my boat bag with the dregs of jerky and sunflower seeds, Professor Fleming’s letter, Dr. Jespers’s paper, and Kodie’s note.

If I’m wrong about everything, if you’ve all survived this, and you’ve listened up to now—because I don’t know what comes next—Mom, Dad, Martin, Mr. English… just know… I’m really glad I did this. It has kept me company, kept me whistling on this swollen river past all those graveyards.

I wish I could click my red sequined heels together three times, say there’s no place like home, and wake up and it’s game day and I’ve got some explaining to do but it’ll all work out.

Once you dream the dream of sleep, you don’t ever dream again, the dividing line between dream and reality erased. The line between the old world and new one gone.

My answer? Yep, it’s D, None of the above.

So, there you have it. My first book. First draft. Finito .

As they say in ham radio-speak: Over and out.

I’m pinning [21] Close scratching and thumping noises. the microphone to the inside of my shirt now, running the wire down under my clothes to the device in my back pocket. I want to keep telling you what’s happening, but for obvious reasons I can’t keep a running commentary of everything , nor can I reflect on it or fill out the full picture in the way, hopefully, I did earlier. I want you to hear it all. Listen to the constant ambient sounds of sea and gulls crying. [22] There is a pause here. KGM wants us to listen. I’ll be describing visuals to you mostly. And some of what I’m feeling. Deal? It’s this or nothing, and, well, we’ve come this far. It’d feel wrong just cutting it off behind the seawall. After all, this is what we came for.

Waking life abuts dreaming life.

Okay. [sigh] Moving forward.

Whaddya say, Miss Maggie, shall we climb to the top of this wall to see what all the fuss is about?

Stepping nearer to the wall. Way beyond it I hear a thudding, the squeak and scream of stressed wet wood.