Halien, Part 8

On my tombstone I want only one word: blogger.


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bother me, so under the enchantment was I. All that registered was the triumph: the monster is out of the way, and now what with Haley?
"I'm so sorry for your loss. Maybe he'll get better."
"Not a chance, Chuck," she said shaking her head, sadly but with acceptance. "Too far gone beneath the waves. His brain drowned, but at least they say he's not suffering any more. He wasn't made to be in this world, Chuck, and beings like you and I understand that." Her cheeks pinkened. At that moment she seemed to have let go of her little brother, and I was grateful.
I lit a smoke and thought carefully about my next words. "Where do we go from here, Haley?"
"How 'bout the coast? It's a gorgeous August evening." She looked up at the wall clock. "And it's only 5:30. We could be at Canon Beach by seven. Six-thirty if we hurry. Oh, please, Chuck--please?" Her soft eyes implored me from a place of deepest need. I'm always a sucker for that look. I never learn.
"What the hell do we have to lose, Haley, but uh--do you have a--"
"Yes, Chuck! My car's parked outside. Didn't take long for me to remember how to drive." And off we went. It wasn't the normal thing for me to do. I had my comforting rituals. The spontaneous had always made me nervous, and I built my life around avoiding it. But I reasoned with myself: c'mon, Chuck! Tomorrow's the start of your weekend, and when was the last time you said yes to adventure? Uh, three months ago. Yes, Chuck, but the monster is out of the way. Seize the fuckin' day, motherfucker, and live for once, be a man with a pulse, breathe the fuckin' ocean into your lungs, feel the fuckin' actual sand give way beneath your bare feet--when was the last time those stinky ghosts felt the sunlight? and besides, the woman of your dreams will be right there beside you, and maybe
you'll get lucky and feel like a man again. How long's it been since you've been laid, Chuck? Huh? Yeah, yeah, Lorena was eighteen months ago--that's not important to me. Ah, yes, Chuck, but soul-connection is and always has been, and now finally, you're taking a chance on something real. So be at peace with that, and be excited. Congratulations! Carpe Diem, motherfucker!
I spent most of the drive bantering back and forth with myself in that manner, and when I finally looked out the window I realized, with some alarm, that Haley was goin' at least eighty, and the steep downgrades and hairpin turns of the coastal mountains were fast coming. "Uh, Haley, the Oregon State cops are crawlin' all over this stretch."
"Ah, don't ya worry, Chuck. I got it under control." Was she being ironic? But for some reason I accepted her reassurance. I didn't whiteknuckle the armrest or dashboard. Instead, I cracked the window and lit a smoke as did she. We passed seven pig cars on the way through the mountains, blew right the fuck past them as a matter of fact, and we laughed carefree as we zoomed onward. I recall Haley waving at one cop, and he actually waved back. Maybe her license plate was known. Maybe her family had pull. It was the joyride of my life. I had no fear of death, I reasoned, because dying with her didn't seem scary. It seemed perfect, or didn't matter, same thing to me. We found a place to park on the main tourist strip right in front of the famous saltwater taffy shop with the clown outside waving folks in and passin' out goodies. It was 6:20. We made record time, and the sun wasn't gonna leave us for another three hours. The air was misty-fresh and sinus-clearing. Perfect! I had no desire to smoke. When I breathed in I smelled salt and the freedom of an endless childhood. She took my hand, saying, "Here we are, Chuck. Together and free from anything that would distract us from enjoying each other." There was no thought of perusing the shops' trinkets. We had left our shoes in the car and headed down the beach barefoot amid the persistent roar of the tide-driven waves and the
strange combining of haunting and happy that makes up the cries of gulls, and children running up the surf-foam and shrieking gleefully as the cold hits their toes, or tossing Frisbees to leaping tongue-flapping dogs. Their were lovers walking along. Many lovers hand in hand heading toward the descending sun and their own tomorrows, now and then embracing and dropping to the sand for a little spontaneous passion. Haley and I just kept walking, drinking down all the glory around us. Now and then a particularly inspiring sight would cause her to squeeze my arm, and we'd stop to silently appreciate the epiphany of scenery, whether it be the golden slant of sun through clouds illuminating the water, or a thousand and one beak-bobbing gulls on enormous Haystack Rock a hundred feet out to sea, America's largest coastal monolith, or the dance of blue-shelled crabs in the tidepools, or an archetypal golden Labrador shaking itself after a cool dip in the diamond-glittering Pacific. The sun went from yellow to orange to red, and we found a rock to sit on, lingering over the sun's descent as if it would be the last, and judging from Haley's "ooh"s and "ah"s that interpretation seems right. We kissed. A lot. But the osculation was strangely non-sexual, it was more like kissing for unspeakable joy, or like being suddenly dropped from a shithole into a luscious Eden and kissing as maybe Eve
and Adam did for the first time, innocent and happy for the gift of being without any sense of the erotic or taint of separateness and shame. Withdrawing her lips and her heat, she