A Bottle By the Sea | Alexander T. Damle

It’s funny how time works. That old line about a river doesn’t even begin to cover it. Time doesn’t flow forever forwards, it twists and turns, looping in on itself, years gone with a turn of the head, a smile or frown, decades built up out of nowhere, a prolonged absence, bad choices late at night in a seedy bar. On a metaphysical level, time doesn’t exist at all, it’s just a concept to explain motion, to justify us chasing our lives in circles, the way we live in the past or for the future, forgetting that the present is really the only thing that matters.

And then there are those things, hourglasses in teen fantasy novels, Deloreans in a few 1980s films, police boxes in a British science fiction television show, hometowns, songs, the voice of an old friend, those things that manage to outright cheat time.

I guess that’s where I ought to start- the voice of an old friend. Sweet and sultry, the accent British International School, with a honeyed hint of South African thrown in to add a bit of spice to the old formula. The face attached to the words is marked by the perfect bone structure of a model, exquisite skin, sculpted nose, soulful, piercing eyes of the face everyone looks to the moment it walks into a room. The body attached to the face is tall and blonde and intimidatingly well dressed, even here.The time attached to it all is nigh on ten years ago now, a different country, a different visa, a different hope and promise for the future. Different bottles of cheap booze.

The words are simple and straightforward- I’ve heard them a few times before.

“Can I get a beer?” The voice sets off an alarm bell in the back of my head. A million repressed memories fighting their way forward. But the words are so pedestrian, the memories don’t have a chance to break the surface. I answer without turning to her.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific, honey.” I continue polishing glasses.

“Well, what’s good?” Just a touch of sass, a bit of sarcasm, and more charm than most of the wastes of life that pop up at this place.

I finally turn to look at her. The wheels turn. A dark medieval city. Coffee on a windy afternoon. A fashion show on a warm night in a Venetian Renaissance amphitheatre. Pains cut deep into my mind, etched down into the spots eternally clouded by booze, loud music, and quiet mornings. I see the look that slowly spreads across my face mirrored on hers. Recognition. Time suddenly gets seven kinds of fucked up.

“Jay?” She asks, hesitantly.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t expect to see you... here.”

“I didn’t either.”

“...What?”

“Uh... I’m sorry, this is just really... uh” On the list of really stupid ways to respond to the situation, this was pretty damn high.

“Okay...” She gives me a slight smile. Its at this point that I start crying. Not loud, shuddering sobs, but quiet, tragic, Fitzgeraldesque tears.

This? Now this is the absolute stupidest way I could’ve responded. Yet she doesn’t walk away. She stands in front of me, looking quite a bit like I feel- like my favorite childhood pet just came back to life as a really pissed off zombie. It’s not a great feeling. Finally, with all the grace and subtle, seductive beauty that made me fall in love with her that strange winter all those years ago, she leans across the counter and embraces me. It’s  not just a friendly, “You’re acting like a bloody idiot but you’re drunk so that’s excusable” hug, no it’s a proper, cheek to cheek, two people who meant something to each other back in the day and wished they still did embrace.

Finally she breaks away, hesitantly, it seems to me, though that may just be the booze. We stare at other for a minute. What, a second ago, seemed profound, just became impossibly awkward.

“Uh...”

I stare at her. Though she’s clearly older, she’s still as gorgeous as she was back in university. Still- some of that strange, ethereal glow that attracted me and everyone else to her seems to have vanished into the night. I really wish I could say that was just the booze, but its not. Some of the magic is gone. Maybe it never existed at all, maybe it was just the city, that time and place. Maybe it was all down to the fact that the man I wanted to be saw her as the woman that he should be with, her international upbringing, her work as a model, her raw, unpretentious intelligence, her openness to everything and everyone, the way she laughed at my grim, black as a Beretta humor, jokes that made most people grimace. The way she laughed. God damn I suddenly just want her to laugh.

“Ten years. You disappear for ten years, and now I find you tending some shitty bar in the middle of the Caribbean... Ten years.” I’m not sure if she is phrasing this as a question.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah? All you can greet me with is a yeah?” Realizing she probably deserves more, I pour us each a shot of whiskey. She looks at the glass for a moment, then reaches for it, downs it. I do the same, then pour another shot, then two more after that.

I look around at the bar. My bar, I guess. I called it Jay’s American Cafe, like Rick’s in Casablanca. I guess that makes me Bogey. Not quite. The bar isn’t Rick’s either. At the back of the space is the bar itself; a shitty, balsa wood construction, scratched and scarred by a million bottles and glasses. A few beers on tap. More in the glass-doored refrigerator behind the counter. A few bottles of half decent whiskey on display shelves. In front of the counter, maybe twenty feet by fifteen. A few plastic chairs and tables. The roof is cliche tropical palm. The floor is sand. The walls in front are built with windows that open onto the sea, which lies forty feet from the door by high tide’s mark. It stares back at me, endless and black. I return to the scene directly in front of me.

I’m already four beers in, but I always could hold my booze better than most. Plus, it always takes me a little time before the drink kicks in. She doesn’t look to have that going for her. I decide we’re both drunk enough. So does she, apparently.

“Now you need to tell me where the fuck you went!” She emphasizes the expletive.

“I left.”
“You left?”

“I left. I decided I was burning away my life like I always said we wouldn’t.” She clears her throat at the sound of this.

“You said we.” This is a statement, an accusation, rather than a question.

“Slip of the tongue.” The words come out choked. “Anyway, I decided it wasn’t worth it, so I left.” The words come out sad.

“And then what, you left and then you just found yourself a barkeeper somewhere in the world's asshole?”

“Pretty much.” She just stares at me. She doesn’t look angry. She just looks sad. Sad she’s found herself in this conversation. I’ve seen this look from her face one other time. Last time she was asking me if I was in love with her. Of course she put it differently, diplomatically, politely, but words and meaning are often a far cry from one another. A boyfriend she said. Back in South Africa, I inferred.

I spent that weekend drinking and not sleeping and trying to tell myself I didn’t care, I’d move on. That was a year before I left.

And I did move on- we became friends, normal friends, and I was happy with that. Happy just to be around her, around that light and energy. In time, she became one of my closest friends in that place.

I never moved on. That rejection hit me so much more than any of the rest. Maybe because I threw so much of myself into making the ultimately failed play. Maybe because I got all the steps right for once. Maybe because I wrote a future I knew I couldn’t ever have into the idea of having her.

And then I left.

I can’t deal with that look again.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...” The look is still there.

“We thought you were dead in a ditch in some forgotten corner of the world.”

“Aren’t I?” I ask myself. Outloud I finally tell the truth.

“I wanted to do something, say something, leave a note, write a letter once I sobered up, hell, some way of letting you know I was fine. But I knew. I absolutely knew. If I ever reminded myself of what I left, it would fucking kill me.” The look. “I deserve for you to walk back to your hotel and never think about me again.”

“You do.” She drops the look. And she smiles.

Then the most extraordinary thing: she laughs. That glow, that glow, I feel that glow. God I’d forgotten how beautiful it is, like ‘Clair de Lune’ on a rainy night, like the scene on the beach in The Shawshank Redemption, like that moment in The Great Gatsby in Nick’s parlour when you let yourself think that this time, even though its your millionth time reading over the words, that this time they’ll end up together. Maybe this time. Please god let it be this time. But it never is.

I ask the question I’ve been dreading.

“So what’ve you been doing over the last few years- I’m sure it’s better than tending a bar in a country where you barely speak the language?” She smiles briefly, and I consider that she might laugh again. But then a ghost passes behind her eyes.

“I’m still in modeling.” The way she says it; the slight tragedy behind her beautiful eyes. It kills me a little bit, a little bit more than the look she gave me when I told her all I’d managed with my life. She always wanted to be more, and god damn she could’ve/should’ve been. And I know that.

“That... I’m not sure... it’s... Audrey...”

“It’s  not much better than being dead in a ditch in some forgotten corner of the world.” We look at each other for a minute. I pour us another whiskey each. We both drink. She sways slightly, and I put a hand out to steady her.

I know how this ends.

It’s  near enough to the usual closing time by now, and official bar policy is that the bar closes when I say it does, and right about now is when I say it does. It’s been near empty all night anyway.

The refuse left in the bar: an extremely drunk Brit, ranting to an extremely drunk American about Parliament, who is ranting back about Congress. An Aussie woman who’d been in every night for the past week, asleep in a corner. That Guy, the one with an impossible to place accent who always sits in the corner with one beer for the entire night reading a book. The Brit and American are easy- a little pushing and they’re out the door; more engaged in their problems back home than in their night of supposed revelry. The Aussie is a little more challenging, but I manage it. I’ve had to do the same thing every night for the past week, just an hour or two later. I go up to her and tap her on the shoulder. I stand for a moment, as she slowly rouses herself. She looks at me.

“Go fuck yourself.” You’d think she’d be more creative. As usual, I follow this by calling her a cab back to her hotel a couple miles and a million worlds from here.

Finally, That Guy. Normally, he just leaves. Not tonight. Of course not tonight. I walk over to his table. I inform him that I’m closing the bar. Before tonight, he hasn’t said more than two words to me, limited to “pint” and “Guinness.”

“She doesn’t love you.” I stare back at him. “But neither do you.” I’m not really sure how to respond. Finally, I say the first thing that comes to me.

“No, but she’s a very old friend. The kind who deserves a proper catching up.”

“The kind who will break your heart.” He just stole my line.

“Get the fuck out of my bar.” He looks at me with a pained expression, as one might look at a child who just said something particularly stupid. And then he leaves quietly.

And we’re alone.

I ask myself if he was right.

“So, Jay... I guess we ought to catch up...” She’s audibly slurring her words now. Somehow it doesn’t match up with the record of her voice that’s played for years through my head. I feel remarkably sober.

We sit down across from one another at one of the cheap plastic tables. I look into her eyes, once a perfect blue, now slightly faded. I try to say something, but the words come out jumbled. Maybe I’m drunker than I thought. Neither of us says anything for a while.

“Was he right?” Her words remind me of that time I sliced my hand open right down to the tendon- I couldn’t really feel anything from the shock, but the very implication makes my skin crawl.

“About which... thing...” I’m stumbling in the dark for words to pull me back from what this could turn into, and the booze is making it damn hard to keep a hand to the wall and just walk a straight line. Then I tell the truth. “Yes.”

“Does it... does it really matter?”

“What do you mean?

“I mean its been a decade. We don’t even know each other any more. All we know is memories of past lives.” She’s right, in the wanna-be profound logic of a drunken fairy story.

“Then tell me what you are now.” The wanna-be profound thing runs both ways. “Married? Kids? Where are you living?”

“Not married, no kids... I’m back in South Africa, in Cape Town.” She pauses. “I guess I don’t really have to ask the same of you.” I shrug. “Although... where do you live?”

“A little shack down the beach- nothing fancy, but it’s all I really need. Or want.” We sit in silence for a few moments more.

Our eyes drift to the bottle in the middle of the table.

We’ve been drinking out of one of those big bottles of JD, the type you buy for one party and expect to have enough leftover for your next. Which really should preclude the next suggestion. I’ve never been one for modulating my alcohol intake anyway.

“Do you want to finish it?”

“Yeah.” The flatness in her response seems more to belong to me than her.

What happens next occurs in my memory in flashes, spots of light in a murky darkness, soundtracked by the dull roar of the waves.

Her lips against mine the moment we down the last few drops.

Her holding on to my arm for balance as I fumble for my key to lock the shutters in front of the bar.

Her sitting down in the surf, refusing to move, saying life isn’t worth it. Not worth moving, not worth leaving this beautiful spot. Her perfect stature illuminated in silhouette against the moonlight, the water pushing her skirt up her legs, licking quietly at the bare flesh. Me setting down next to her, her head on my shoulder. I tell her that it is worth it. I tell her that the world is a good place and worth fighting for. I’ve found over the years that quoting Hemingway is the one guaranteed way to make a woman fall in love with you, if only for the night. She turns her head and kisses me on the cheek. I pull her close and our lips meet, our bodies lit in stark relief against the sand and sea by the neon moonlight.

Us walking through the sand back to my place, our shoes held in our hands, arms around each other, holding each other up.

Falling together into my tiny cot.

We don’t fuck.

We sleep in our clothes.

Her in a gorgeous white summer dress, wet from the sea.

Me in a beat to hell pair of jeans and t-shirt.

We fall asleep holding each other close.

As if

If we let go

One of us will disappear around the earth’s curvature.

Eventually the sunlight stretches out over the sea, a million shades of pink and purple and red and yellow and orange, the palm trees cast in stark, perfect, emerald green and bronze, the sand a perfect shade of white. In the morning’s sobriety, the electric love that came to be in the night fades into a strange sort of smoggy haze.

I wake up and look at her body next to me. All I can do is stare. I lay there for a full hour before she wakes. I quietly ponder all the nights I lay awake considering her, back in that strange time when I thought I was in love. I remember back on last night, what that younger version of me would have had to say about it. Her eyes flutter gently open.

“Hey...” Her voice is sweet and tired, but there is an unhappiness behind it. “Did we...?”

“No.” She looks at me. I give her a slight smile, then sit up on the edge of the bed. She sits up next to me. We don’t look at each other, instead gazing down at our bare feet. I briefly wonder where my shoes went.

After what feels like an eternity, I suggest I make some breakfast. I fry up bacon, eggs, and toast. The calories, carbs, and protein should do a little to mitigate the hangovers. The emotional effects of last night? Not so much. All I have for that is another bottle of booze.

Audrey wordlessly puts on a pot of tea. The soundtrack of the scene is built around the background hiss of the gas stove, the sharp pops and cracks of the cooking bacon, the tea simmering up to a boil. The piece is entirely instrumental. Neither of us really knows what to say.

The bacon, bread, and eggs cook. The water boils. The tone of the room stays the same. We eat wordlessly at my tiny table. To say the tension could be cut with a knife would be to oversell most knives. A chainsaw, maybe.

The food is gone. We continue to sit, saying nothing, doing less. Finally, I decide it’s  time for a scene change.

“We should talk. But not in here. It’s not the place for it.” She nods. I walk to the door, hold it open for her. We walk next to one another down to the water’s edge.

We sit down together again, this time out of the water, and this time with about six inches between us. Silence. The waves punctuate.

“I’m not really sure what I’m doing here.” She looks out at the bright blue waters.

“I was going to ask that. I kind of assumed you were on vacation...”

“I had a fashion shoot down in... oh what’s the name... that city with the port.. the one with all the freighters...”

“Yeah...”

“And, well, I was reading some guidebook that someone had left sitting around. I saw a list of local bars, and I guess I kind of just stumbled on “Jay’s American Cafe.” She turns to look at me. “It’s  not an uncommon name. But when I saw it... I don’t know. I just kind of knew, you know?”

“Yeah...”

“I had to know. I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s  not like I’ve been looking for you or anything, but it’s  always kind of sat in the back of my mind- what the hell happened to you? You just kind of disappeared.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” I know the answer but I’m avoiding the question. I stare down at the sand.

“Why did you leave?”

“I guess that was the end of second year. Life was fine. Grades were fine. I knew some pretty decent people...” I trail off. I’m not really sure how to answer her question.

“Yeah?”

“That was the present. And it was nice enough. But I knew it was the best things would ever get. All I had as far as a future was some shitty office job somewhere not too far from that shithole I spent all my growing up. I really didn’t want to be like my parents, spend my entire adult life in fucking Colorado. And as far as I was concerned, this was my only other option.”

I look at the ground for a while. Run my hand through the sand. The way I grew up, I didn’t see much of the sea. But I always adored what little I saw of it. Endless and beautiful and perfect; destructive power hidden under a blanket of tranquil rhythm. I stand up and walk a few feet out into the water, feel the wet sand beneath my feet. I look out at all the places I’d never be. I feel Aubrey walk up beside me.

“I had this dream that played through my head for years, over and over, like a bad song. In the dream, I’d drop out of school. Leave behind all my friends and family. Find a little bar by the sea down in the Caribbean, or maybe the South Pacific, and just live out the rest of forever in tranquility surrounded by equal parts endless booze and beauty. My nights a series of faces I’d only ever see once and the bottoms of bottles I’d see a few times too many. Then, one day, maybe a month before I left, I asked myself what I really wanted to do in life, allowing for anything, ignoring all aspects of practicality. And the only thing my mind even considered was that dream.”

She’s silent for a long time at this. I feel like an asshole. I am an asshole. But god forbid I admit to myself what a waste of life I am. Finally, she turns to me, and slaps me across the face.

“You deserved that... But you know what? For all the bullshit... at least you made a choice. I mean, that choice may have been to become a lonely, washed up old alcoholic running a shitty bar in the middle of nowhere, but... But me? I’m a 30 year old model with maybe five years of real work left before I realize I haven’t worked a real job in my life. Neither one is too great, but... like I said, you made a choice.”

I feel like my body is being ripped apart by wild horses. My mind travels back to when I was thirteen. All the things I wanted to do and be. An artist, a tycoon, a soldier fit for the legends. I wanted to do something that mattered, above all else. I didn’t want to fade away. I wanted to live life short and brutish and exciting and worth remembering. But now. Now I’ve already faded well away down a bottle by the sea.

I return to the gorgeous gone girl sitting next to me. I have no idea what to say to her. For the last decade, faces of the life I left behind flashed through my mind, and none more than hers. I imagined what she became, a politician, a diplomat, an activist, something... something worth becoming. But not this. A great mind, a great life, wasted in the name of common comfort. That makes two of us.

Finally, I turn to face her.

“So fuck it. I’m sure you have some money saved up. Just say fuck it, stop taking modelling jobs, and do whatever it is that you want to do.”

“But that’s the thing- I don’t really want to do much of anything. Well, I mean...”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve always wanted to actually see the world. For real this time. I mean, I’ve lived on four continents, but my living was always so limited. Neighborhoods built for foreigners, surrounded by people without a country, the ex-pats of the world, all these groups of people drifting across the globe, never settling in anywhere, their home just a half remembered dream. I mean, Jesus, I don’t even sound like I’m from anywhere anymore. So I figure, if I’m going to give up on having a home, why not just go all in? Say fuck the diplomats, the ultra-wealthy, the global power players, the international schools. Travel for real, see how people really live, you know?”

“So why don’t you?”

“Because I’m too god damned scared to even think about it.” She stands, then reaches a hand down to me, helps me up.

I smile at her, not a real smile, but the one I always give when I don’t know what else to do. A smile one step above a scowl. A look of utter loss. Then she hugs me. I pull her close. The warmth of her body against mine is a window into another world, another life. I take comfort in just the fact of being close to her. After a time much shorter than I would’ve liked, we break the hug. She looks at me a minute, then takes my head in her hands, and kisses me on the lips.

“Never change.” And with that, she turns away and starts off down the beach, her shoes still missing. I consider calling out to her, saying something, anything. Begging her to stay.

I look down the beach and I see our future. We settle up our respective bank accounts, what’s left of them. We say goodbye to the few people we’ve met since college. And then we set off. We head to that port city neither of us can remember the name of. We get on the first boat out. We head out across the world, traveling across each of the six inhabited continents in turn. Big bags on our backs, boots on our feet, a long road stretched out in front of us, hot sun reflecting off the two lane blacktop, desert of impossible dimensions stretched out in mirage on all sides. Stopping at every shitty roadside bar and diner all the world over, making friends and leaving them in a few hours a day, always looking for the point, that thing that will make us stop, find real lives, real jobs, always looking but never finding, the only thing driving us forward each other, in love like proper film characters, utterly inseparable, with the perfect love of young kids with no idea of how fucked up love really is.

And I flash back to the moment. And she disappears over the horizon. I look around for my shoes, give up, then walk down to the bar. I open the shutters, take inventory, and open for the day.

Time is back on track.