beach entries (entrails)

earnest, enter at your own risk

7/7

It was perfect. We swam and sipped drinks and saw the sun set from the park. The air was warm and so was the water. Salt clung to our shoulders, little white flecks. Our drinking was jolly and slow. We ate dinner late. We shoveled vegetables and mustard onto keizer buns and ground beef patties and then the whole things into our mouths. I bummed a cigarette off of c and put it out before j came around. I smoked it fast as he puttered around the house, fluffing pillows and turning lights off. c admired my haste. she talked about all of her dear friends, so many of whom have died by drugs or cancer or are in abusive relationships. We sat with each other and loved each other until the shit storm blew through, at which point our drinking turned desperate. Desperate to tune out, escape, inspire the bells in our head to ring the world out. I went to my room and called someone and we talked until 5am. I had a question that I couldn’t ask but he knew what it was, and answered. 

This morning we went out to breakfast at a diner that’s been on the island for years. j explained how the owner used to be the dishwasher and now he’s retiring, so the place is going to close because no one wants to buy a diner for three mill. We sat in a warm booth that the sun beat on, drank cups and cups of coffee and ice cold water, and littered the table with plastic single-serving cups of cream. We waited hours for food, or what felt like hours. I drank four cups of hot coffee. Beads of sweat poured down our faces. I pressed the side of my water glass to my cheek. We were starving by the time our food got there. 

I ordered blueberry french toast and it came with three mounds of salted butter atop it. I dribbled maple syrup and spread the mounds around with a dull butter knife. The bread soaked up the syrup and butter and tasted eggy, the way I like it.

We hunched over our plates and ate fast and quiet, only taking breaks to sip our coffee and motion to our waiter for refills.

i and I went to the beach. We now remember why we always had the impulse to leave the house as girls: to escape the shitstorm’s debris. Now all of our earthly concerns have returned: how we are going to pay rent, work, live, and exactly where. 

7/8

I started to cry for the first time in a real way in a long time watching j sort shells. He had been out all night. From 6pm to midnight. We had no idea where he was. We were scared because [tmi] and it’s been bad lately and we love him. He’s steely and prickly and cares. Throughout this trip he’s been uncharacteristically sweet. He’s talked to me in a way he hasn’t during the twenty years I’ve known him. He’s been all over his girlfriend, who hates to see him in pain; affectionate toward his daughter, pushing the swing she plopped herself on as a twenty-two year old woman. I cried maybe because it feels like he’s about to die, my dad is about to die, we’re about to die. Because we are in mourning. I looked over his shoulder as he hunched over his shells that he came back with after being out all night. I felt like I should have been shorter, my voice higher, my age lower. I sat quietly next to him. His hands shook as he lifted them out of a colander, freshly rinsed, and placed them on the newspaper he reads every day. He answered every one of my questions. What’s this one made of. Who used this for what ritual. I cried because I wished things were different. Because my silly soft spot is silly sad men passionate over silly somethings. Because this man, whom I’ve known my whole life, is finally opening up to me. Because this day was hard. Because I love this ravaged family I have so much. Because I’m so lucky and so cursed. Because I wish I could share it, maybe for selfish reasons. Because I wish people could know our love and our pain. Because we are so beautiful beautiful beautiful. Because we hold the ocean so dear and care so much. I felt silly with my eyes wet the way they were. I said goodnight and went upstairs and started writing. I gave my bed to someone else because I didn’t want to sleep alone. I’ll sleep with i and d and most certainly not be alone.

7/10

I don’t remember falling asleep last night. I awoke at 4am with the light on and the door open. I walked around the empty house. The radio blared. The lights were on. I turned them off. I packed up my things. We leave at 8. I remember eating a small plate of food for dinner but I don’t remember what was on it. A turkey burger with cheese, no bun? With a roasted red pepper that I speared with a fork and yanked from a jar. I want to knock on i’s door and crawl into her bed and sleep together the way we used to. (She’s always been mom.) I would were it not for her boyfriend. Someone turned the lights back on downstairs—silly me. The shitstorm’s gone. I asked him for money. He said he didn’t have any and laughed: Happy birthday. 

I’m worried about finding a place to live, but everyone says it’ll work out. We stayed an extra day because we didn’t have anything to go back to and we weren't ready to leave maybe for good and this big house needs bodies in it.

I fell off my bike and scraped my leg. This made me feel even more like a kid, uncoordinated and too long for my own good. Except this time vodka had something to do with it. It was after happy hour. I was wearing only a long dress. I may have flashed everyone. We soaked in the bay afterward. I swam to the other side and back. Then it poured and we watched the rain soak the dock, the stones. It battered the bay. Thankfully no laundry hung on the line. It’s 5am, I texted i that I am up and nervous without a memory. This big house, with all its bodies in bed, doesn’t help my nerves. I feel little, and sort of wish I was. Then my tears would warrant someone waking up and taking me in their arms. Please please deliver me a pair of arms and a sweet song.

i came into my room at 5:30 and laid in bed with me and calmed my nerves. She filled in the blanks of my memory and talked about her mother. I listened.

7/11

When we left the island i hit the vape and started balling. I wrapped my arms around her through the seat that separated us. She wiped her tears and rested her head against the crook of my arm. I just don’t want this to be the last time. We’ve been coming here since we were six. We would come for memorial day, the fourth, and then labor day. Then just the fourth and labor day. Then just the fourth and sometimes, in the event of a pandemic, not at all. Life got in the way. But it’s still what we do and where we go. Things have transpired so her family might lose the house. It would be a death greater than any death I’ve ever experienced up to now.