John McManus - Born on a Train - 13 Stories

I’m gonna twist your neck, he told the bird. Just you wait.

Beyond the condos the beach was undeveloped; few houses stood, then none, and he entered the state park. His feet were being sculpted by the sand. Here birdie, he whispered thirstily and chased it onto a spit of sand and made it wade through minnowy water to rejoin land.

He cupped his hands and wet his hair with the frothy surf and washed his sweat away. He couldn’t see the sun for all the clouds. He didn’t know the timing of the tides. He couldn’t tell how far he’d walked when the bird collapsed on the sand ahead of him. Suddenly he was on top of its wounded breaths and its one upturned eye that shone like a melted bullet. He caught his breath, but the bird didn’t. He couldn’t see anything on its body he hadn’t seen already from a distance. It twitched its left leg and tried to flap a wing.

He counted to five hundred. As far as he could remember, it was the highest number he’d ever counted to, incrementally, adding just a unit at a time, but the bird still didn’t move. He didn’t even stop at five hundred, but kept going, all the way to five fifty-six.

The island stretched on ahead of him for miles. He didn’t see a human body anywhere as he continued walking east. Mosquitoes would bite him while he slept on the beach but the Indians had withstood the pain of insect bites, had focused on greater things. He tried to walk so lightly as to leave no footprints, and then he saw another set. His feet fit easily inside them. His legs ached a while, but then they stopped.

The tracks led into a tide pool and then emerged from its shallow water toward the dunes. Ben climbed the beach’s slope and followed them. His stomach growled. The footprints led into the dunes but not back out. He approached a crop of sea oats, avoiding sandspurs. He saw an orange flower. He saw a mass of tanned skin lying facedown in the sand with one hand on the ground and one beneath its crotch, shorts around its ankles. Ben’s heart jumped so hard it hurt. He coughed. Suddenly the naked body was on its feet and was his brother struggling to pull his shorts up, sand across his naked front, his eyes full of fear.

You don’t know me, Froggy said.

What—

Go away, he yelled. Get the hell out of here.

Ben just stared at him.

Get the hell away. You didn’t see me. You saw someone else.

Ben turned and fled down the beach as fast as he could go. His heels hammered sand into itself like sawdust into wood. He ran past the dying bird that still breathed fast and ruffled its feathers as Ben leapt over it and thought of how his newborn muscles might throb tomorrow if today he ran forever, blinded by sweat in his eyes.

He ran until he reached the crowded stretch of beach in front of the condos, where he slowed to a brisk walk. He didn’t look at faces anymore. He blinked his burning eyes. He wanted to blink all the bodies into hell. He came closer and closer to a tall wooden chair. The lifeguard was around eighteen with navy trunks and pointed his finger at Ben and spoke from deep within his sun-browned chest. Hey, you, he said, and Ben kept walking, and the lifeguard jumped down from his chair, bending his knees for impact with the sand. Hey. You. Ben turned to see the lifeguard staring at him, and he walked faster. You’d better stop right there, the lifeguard said. Two women turned to watch. Ben’s cheeks burned as he slowed his walk, stood still and turned around. The waves crept back into the sea so steadily his ears no longer knew it was even happening.

Why did you chase that bird down the beach? the lifeguard demanded with curt, soft-spoken anger. He had short blond hair and his skin was deeply bronzed; he had a full, handsome face, a silver necklace, a navy blue tattoo on his upper arm, and stood a full head taller than Ben, towering over him like a cross-armed golden giant.

Ben shrank into himself. I don’t know, he said.

It’s from the Caribbean. It stopped here so its broken wing could heal.

Ben shut his eyes. He turned his head down to the sand and hoped he’d sink through. The women sunbathing beside them turned their heads to listen.

They let it out of the veterinary hospital yesterday, because it was almost better.

I’m sorry, Ben said.

They thought it might be happier on the beach. They hoped out here it wouldn’t be as scared.

I didn’t know.

What the hell did you think? the lifeguard said. That it just didn’t want to fly? That it enjoyed running away from you?

Ben shook his head. Tears welled in his eyes as he remembered the bird’s unmoving body when it had finally stopped. I just wasn’t thinking, he said as his voice cracked. I’m really sorry.

Don’t apologize to me, said the lifeguard.

I just wanted to know what kind of bird it was, Ben said.

The lifeguard narrowed his eyes at Ben. You probably kept it from healing in time to fly south again for winter. Maybe it’ll freeze to death, because you wanted to know what kind of bird it was.

Ben couldn’t hold back his tears anymore, and the lifeguard stood in front of him and watched him cry, listened to him breathe and choke back mucus, rub his eyes, stare at the sand.

It was a cormorant, the lifeguard said. It was from Trinidad.

He turned away to climb back into his chair.

* * *

Ben cried as he walked down the beach. He made his way among the crowd and stopped at the edge of it and sat and dug his feet into the sand. He covered his legs. His skin began to burn from bugs inside the sand. He felt like they were covering his body. He ran into the sea and shuddered as the water rose up his legs and soaked his crotch, his stomach. He dove into a wave headlong and tumbled over and lost his sense of gravity. The ocean burned inside his nostrils as he held himself beneath the water, counting all the breaths he couldn’t breathe, and when the waves flipped him over on his back he pressed his head beneath the surface again and opened his eyes to be stung by the brine. He tried to force his entire body under, struggling, sending spouts of water skyward. He waited to be rescued, but the lifeguard never came.

He forced his way ashore through the weight of the ocean. When he got out of the water four boys his age were tossing a yellow Frisbee by the shore. He knew they’d watched him flailing, but they threw their Frisbee and never said a word, and he walked straight through their playing field silently, his shoulders shivering, his arms crossed so they couldn’t see his nipples.

He walked until he couldn’t remember if he was walking the right way at all, or if he’d ever seen this stretch of beach before, or if his brain was waterlogged, damaged, so that everything he remembered now was wrong.

Pelicans surged toward the water, three twisted razors, ridiculous and sharp; Ben laughed at them. He found a skinny driftwood quill and scribbled on the sand beneath him. When he sat down to rest, his legs collapsed beneath him. The tide was coming in. Its raspy waves assaulted him and stole his etchings piece by piece, smoothed them, and the words were borne up by the sea where seagulls perched on the gawking beaks of the three poor, hungry pelicans, waiting to steal fish from the caverns of their mouths.

* * *

The house smelled like hamburgers when he walked up the boardwalk at the start of sunset and crept inside. It’s just that I’m not in situations where I meet people, Mama was saying when Ben walked into the house. I always stay at home. She was sitting with Celeste in the overstuffed chairs by the window looking out at the water. Ben hadn’t noticed until he got inside that the girls next door were still in their inner tubes.

You like to stay at home, said Celeste. You told me so.

Mama nodded. Ben got an Orange Crush from the refrigerator and popped it open and sat at the kitchen counter on a barstool. He wondered if his eyes were still red from crying. You hated your job, Celeste said to Mama. I know you did.