Fishing

“Mind if I walk with you?”
“No.”
“You mind or you don’t mind?”
“No, I don’t mind, yes.”
“I’ve seen you walking before. I thought there goes a woman in great shape. You walk fast.”
“Thank you.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you from?”
“Toronto.”
“You’re a long way from home.”
“Baby.”
“What?”
“Nothing. It just sounded good.”
“What?”
“You’re a long way from home, baby. A song from the fifties.”
“How do you remember the fifties? You look twenty-five, twenty-seven tops.”
“Thirty-seven.”
“Really? That’s amazing. Could have fooled me.”
“I work out.”
“So I noticed. All the way from Toronto, huh?”
“Yep. All the way.”

He stops and looks at me through his red sunglasses. The man has a flat mind. Good muscles. Handsome. This is one fucking big ocean, I’m thinking. Dumb schmuck and this turquoise-green ocean. Lots of sand. Some dog shit. Mountains. Volcanoes. A De Niro type walks by. Hair slicked back. If I look close I might see eyes radiating passion, intelligence, that sweet je ne sais quoi.

“So you’re a writer?” the man says and flexes his pecs.
“How do you know?” I say, holding back a smile.
“I see you writing on the beach. Anything published? Can I say I met a real writer?”
Shit.
“Oh, I’ve got stuff in the works.”
“Really! Maybe I read something of yours, saw a book somewhere?”
“I use a pseudonym.”
“What?”
“A fake name.”
“Dirty stuff, huh?”
“Yeah sure, real dirty. Smut. But smart you know. I write smart smut.”
“You’re something else you know that? But then I guess being a writer and all. Listen I’m going to ask you something. I mean I could be real phony and go through all the preliminaries, but I said to myself she looks like a down-to-earth type you could be real honest with, like speak your mind, you know what I mean.”
“People tell me I’m easy to talk to. They tell me things.”

I start walking faster, heading back to the rented Oahu beach house. It sure as fuck isn’t working out, but then what did I expect of a man with shaved pecs? Everything is beautiful. Paradise has received many accolades─more descriptive, definitely more poetic. I can’t write these days. We came here by plane. Fourteen hours in two planes, fourteen years of marriage, and a husband who calls me a cunt. “Cunt,” he said, slamming his hands on the wheel, “Goddamn cunt.” We were on the way to the airport to catch the plane to Kauai. We left too late. He was lost. I can’t read maps in a car. I get nauseous. During car trips on the old highway to Lake Alverna, my mother used to warm me of the looming threat to the digestive system of reading-while-driving.

I wake up at six in the morning. I’m enamoured with the shore and six o’clock is a time we can almost be alone. I want a life together─me and the shore, the shore and I. I worry about grammar. But then I worry about everything. Whether or not my stomach is flat veering on concave, whether my complexion is clear, my nose too outspoken, does my ass show signs of age even though I’m a baby on the inside? Should I say hello to the old couple who still hold hands in their vigorous morning walks or the fisherman who greets me every morning? I worry about life. Except when I’m stoned at which time I dream about and glory in it like sitting in the sun after a long winter. This morning I set aside my sky blue contact lenses and decided to face life head on with my two-hundred-and-sixteen dollar prescription sun glasses purchased from Braddock Optical in Bayview Village Mall. A real clip joint. I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s important to know these things.

Six o’clock is a nice time. The sun is just waking up and there’s a slight wayward breeze. I’m a more seasoned walker than I was nine day ago. I hum Beverly Hills Cop and I speed up the tune to keep my walking brisk when it’s in danger of lagging. Of course I sing silently. It’s all in my head. As for moving, I’m more confident lately. One leg steps forward and the other naturally follows. The beach is long. Three miles in one direction. Two in the other. The ocean is forever. I love constancy although I haven’t always been constant. I like waves muscling in. Yesterday I ventured out among them. I felt brave and simultaneously compliant. Pono, our Hawaiian guide, relishes the word “awesome.” The mountains. Lichee nuts. Taro chips. Glen Fry’s estate. All awesome. Usually he’s right.

On this beach, I wish to be awesome. I rein in my stomach and after a while my right side cramps up, but I’m a bronco champion; I keep my stomach on a short rope and I won’t let go. When I planted my feet on this fine Hawaiian sand, my stomach went wild inside, felt its right to freedom, unshackled its urban restraints. My legs pulled out individually as if each was in therapy for different neuroses. Even my ass cheeks worked separately, each pulling to its singular rhythm and desire. Next time I’ll be leaner and tougher. I want to scale one of the mountains in the distance and remain forever on top or let this transparent turquoise water wash over me. I don’t want to be rescued and I’m tired of being grounded.

At seven the sand is already blemished with footprints. The woman with waist-length blond hair has already jogged both ways and is on her third jaunt. The old couple in their matching skimpy bathing suits and their greying dog have been out for half an hour, I guess. No one except my husband wears a watch on the beach. People go by their natural rhythms. There are many Californians here. Pono married a blond Californian teacher. Six years older than he, plump, slightly weathered from the sun, but still blond. “She moved to California, but she found paradise in Hawaii,” he said. I stand with the waves lapping around my ankles as I peer out to the edges of the ocean. Is paradise out there? On a grassy sand dune, a skinny man holds a silver tub of fish. I watch him walk ashore from his dinghy. “Good morning,” he says as I stride by gallantly holding in my stomach. “Good morning,” he says again. If I answer he might think I want him. Maybe he’ll throw me into the bushes or onto his boat and keep me here on this or another island. He will keep saying good morning until I look at him and then I realize all he knows is how to say good morning and maybe he’s just selling fish. “Good morning good morning good morning,” he chants. My bathing suit has slipped up too high. I consider swinging around and running to the fisherman: no more worries about my book being discovered, its cover spread open like a hooker on the prowl, no more trying to keep up with Abie’s panting when all I want to do is drop out of the race, no more preset smiles as I watch Caroline running like a newly born colt, her eyes clear blue as she jolts toward me. I turn around and face the fisherman. “Good morning,” I say and then I quickly walk away.

Copyright Janice Colman 2009