We Run the Tides

by Vendela Vida

  “You can probably skip over that part,” I say.

  “Right,” he says. “Anyway, I was going to the grocery store and I saw a Chevrolet parked on the street. There was a woman with glasses in the driver’s seat, staring straight ahead. And then, in the back seat, behind what looked like dog-cage wire, there was a woman lying down across the seats. I thought, That’s Patty Hearst.

  “I continued walking to the store, got what I was buying, and then turned back home. By then the car was gone. I thought about it for a few hours and went over what I’d seen. The news said that she was in Pennsylvania at the time—that’s what everyone thought—but I was convinced I’d seen her. The FBI was offering a $50,000 reward for any information about Patty Hearst, so that was tempting. But on the other hand, I was worried that the Symbionese Liberation Army would come after me, and I had a baby.”

  I point to myself. Me?

  “Right. So, I thought about it for a few hours and then I called the hotline. The man I talked to didn’t seem too interested in my story. Like I said, no one thought she was in San Francisco. But then, later, they found out she’d been in San Francisco all along. And when I saw the photos of the woman who was with her—the one with the glasses—I knew it was her. I knew I’d seen Patty Hearst.”

  “Wow,” I say, genuinely impressed. “Where was it again?”

  “30th and California.”

  “Right near Julia’s house,” I say. “I walk there every morning.”

  “Yeah, so if they had found her based on my call, I would be $50,000 richer, but on the other hand, I might be dead. And this house would be a tourist attraction. All the tour buses would go by and say, ‘That’s where they killed the man who revealed Patty Hearst’s location.’ So there you have it,” he says.

  I don’t know what to say. “Thanks,” I say.

  “You’re welcome,” he says and stands. At the doorway to the study he pauses and turns back. “Oh, and Eulabee,” he says, pretending he’s had an afterthought. “I locked the liquor cabinet.”

  25

  As I’m leaving school Tuesday afternoon I see a sign on the door to the front office. “Office closed this afternoon for emergency faculty meeting.” I stand outside for a minute, contemplating the sign. Ms. Mc. and Ms. Catanese walk toward the front office with red envelopes in hand. I bend over and pretend to retie my shoelace, before moving on at a pace that is quick-while-trying-to-appear-slow.

  I walk in the direction of my home. I see Keith on Lake Street with two friends I don’t recognize. The three of them are on their skateboards. The two friends are wearing Thrasher sweatshirts. Keith’s wearing one that says “Powell Peralta.” As I approach, the friends stare at me. Keith looks away.

  Shit, I think. They’ve heard about the blood.

  “Hey Keith,” I say. “How was Yosemite?”

  His friends laugh. Keith doesn’t answer.

  I look down at the sidewalk, as though I can pretend it wasn’t me who just spoke. I walk past them, with purpose and without looking back. When I’m out of their line of sight, I walk faster, though I’m unsure of my destination. The wind is strong today—all the better to dry the small pin-drops of water I feel collecting in the corners of my eyes.

  I turn left on 25th Avenue, and now I know I’m headed to Baker Beach. I walk past a house where I used to babysit. One night the parents didn’t come home when they said they would. The clock turned to ten, then slowly ticked its way to eleven. I called my parents. They asked if I knew where the couple had gone. I did not. I imagined car crashes. I imagined them dying and me having to break the news to the kids, whose lips were like rose petals and whose hair smelled of ketchup. Finally, at 12:37 a.m., the front door opened, and the parents spilled inside: scarves on the floor, their shoes thumping free, a hissed Fuck! directed at the corner of a rug that caused the mom to trip.

  When I get down to the beach the sand whips in my face. The waves crash. High above me, on the cliffs, the homes aren’t the sherbet-hued houses you find by other beaches in other towns. No, these houses are faded rusts and off-whites and mustard yellows, the colors of stains that don’t come out in the wash.

  I have an entire section of the beach to myself. The closest person to me is a man wrestling in the wind with his large fish-shaped kite. I walk toward the water. I decide I’ll wait for the tide to greet me, the way an animal approaches its owner. When it recedes, I’ll turn back toward home. I don’t have far to walk—today the ocean extends higher up on the beach than usual. When I reach the wet sand, I hear a voice behind me.

  “Bee!” it shouts.

  I turn and see Keith, carrying his skateboard. I’m touched he’s followed me, and I smile. But as he approaches me I see the furious expression on his face.

  “So, is it true?” he says.

  “Is what true?”

  “You know,” he says. He’s out of breath from his strut across the sand.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe you can be more specific.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Did you, specifically, let Axel, specifically, fuck you at the party last weekend?”

  “That’s not what happened,” I say. “We didn’t . . . we didn’t do it.”

  “Really?” he says. “That’s not what I heard. I heard it was messy and there’s proof.”

  “Keith,” I say. The wind hits my face, and I feel myself get smaller. I feel like I’m one of those Russian stacking dolls that Madame Sonya has in the ballet studio—“Matryoshka,” she calls them. All my outdoor layers are being taken away, revealing who I really am at my core is the smallest doll, the one with blurry features that can’t stand on its own.

  “We didn’t have sex. It was a mistake. There was this bottle with alcohol. I thought it was a silver flask, but it was a shampoo bottle and . . .” Even describing the bottle makes my stomach tense and my throat gag. I lean forward, as though I’m about to vomit on the sand.

  “Why would you do that?” Keith says. “Why would you even let him give you alcohol? That guy’s a dick. You should hear the things he said about you.”

  We’re near the sewer, and the wind lifts the stench to my nose and sand to my throat. Now I really do think I might vomit.

  “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself? Anything to say to me?”

  I’m still curled over. I’m still the littlest Russian doll, on the verge of toppling. When I open my eyes and look up, Keith’s gone. I turn and see him walking west, toward the bluff.

  “Keith,” I call out. “I’m sorry,” I scream. But he doesn’t turn around. I start to run toward him, while calling out his name. As I get closer, he sees me, and begins to run away from me. Now he’s holding his skateboard like it’s a baby he’s protecting. He runs toward the promontory that separates Baker and China beaches. He’ll have to stop when he gets to it. The tide is high, and there’s no way to safely run around the bend. I slow down my pace, knowing this. He will stop and turn to me.

  But I am mistaken. When he gets to the rocks, he doesn’t stop. Instead, he starts to run around the bluff. I’ve done this dash a dozen times with Maria Fabiola, but only when the tide is low.

  “Keith!” I call. “Stop!” I run to the water as an enormous wave whips against the rocks. “Keith!” I wait for a response. I stare at the ocean as though it will speak and that’s when I see a shape in the water. It’s a dark oblong object being tossed about as though on a trampoline. Keith’s skateboard.

  I watch the skateboard repeatedly crash against the rocks, swoop out to sea as the waves retract, and then smash against the rocks again. It’s as though I’m watching a video installation on a continuous loop. For a moment time doesn’t seem linear, but vertical.

  I turn to look who’s on the beach, who I can appeal to for help. But I am alone. The wind has driven everyone away. Even the kite flyer has left. This is a Northern California beach, so there are no lifeguards, no lifeguard towers. Where is Keith?

  I know better than to run around the promonto
ry—the tide is too high and I might suffer the same fate as . . . the same fate as the skateboard, I tell myself, finishing my thought differently than it began. I have no choice but to scale the rocks and see what I can from above. My hope is that Keith’s safe on the other side of the bluff, that he’s on China Beach. China Beach where I licked his webbed feet.

  The rocks are slippery today. The waves have leapt unusually high, soaking every surface. I dig the pads of my fingers into any crevice I can find. It’s more difficult for my sneakers to gain purchase. I slip down the cliff, my chin scraping against rock until I turn and offer the side of my head. I land hard on the sand. Pain reverberates in my skull. I wipe my chin, and my fingers bring blood to my lips. I spit. My lips are salty. Tears spring from my eyes, salting the cut.

  I move inland and try the climb from a different approach. The bluff is higher from this starting point, but its face is jagged here, giving me more possibilities for traction. I start the ascent and soon am moving fast—hand, foot, hand, foot until I am at the top. I scurry to the edge. “Keith,” I scream. I can barely hear myself against the roar of the waves. I try to peek down without falling. The skateboard is no longer visible.

  I scramble down the other side of the cliff, to China Beach. First I slide, and then I turn so I’m facing the rocks. Foot, hand, foot, hand, until I push off and land on the sand. I turn and see a group of people maybe two hundred feet away.

  The group is gathered around a bonfire. I run toward it, my eyes searching for Keith’s tall frame. The smoke smudges my vision. The fire’s smell is fierce. I cough, stop to catch my breath, and then resume my sprint.

  As I approach the fire, I count nine people. None of them are Keith. It’s a group of hippies and what look like homeless people, gathered around the flames, drinking. I stop running and walk toward them cautiously.

  “Have you seen a boy?” I ask.

  The face of a toothless man turns toward me. And then another face, this one of a woman with impossibly long hair, tilts in my direction. I address her. “Have you seen a boy?”

  She is slow to speak, stoned out of her mind. “A boy?” she says. She turns to the others, their eyes all too wide or too small.

  “A boy,” they repeat to each other.

  “I saw a boy this morning,” a man in a beanie says, staring into the flames.

  “He’s tall. He would have been running by here,” I say. “On the beach. Maybe ten minutes ago? Maybe five? Or twenty?” I have no idea how much time has passed.

  “Have you seen a boy running by?” the long-haired woman asks the group. No one answers. Another woman starts singing a song that sounds Hawaiian.

  “Offer our guest a drink,” says the toothless man. He’s addressing a young couple wearing wool ponchos. Between them they gingerly pass a bottle of booze.

  “I don’t want a drink,” I say. “I’m trying to find a friend.”

  “I’ll be your friend,” says a voice by the fire. It’s the voice of an old woman with hair short and straight, like a monk’s. She turns her head toward me. Her eyes are so blank that at first I mistake them for blind.

  “I was asking if anyone saw my friend,” I say.

  “I saw a boy,” she says. “He was running.”

  “Where?” I say.

  She points to the ocean.

  “There,” she says. “He was running into the ocean.”

  “Into the ocean?” I say. Fucking hippies! She’s now been passed a large bong and she places it on the sand in front of her and hunches over it as though it’s a microscope. She’s forgotten my existence.

  The toothless man moves toward me, his unshowered stench so pungent the smoke isn’t strong enough to disguise it. I step away and to the side, avoiding him. In the distance, descending the steps to the sand, I see two policemen. I gather my strength and run toward them.

  “Hey, where are you going?” I hear a voice call out from behind me. “Why leave the party?”

  The cops see me running toward them, and in response, they run to meet me. Their gait is slow—they’re weighed down by their belts and batons, and now that they’re on the beach, they struggle with the sand.

  “Are you here because of Keith?” I say. “Did you find him?”

  “Who?” one asks.

  “There’s a boy,” I explain.

  “Is he with the bonfire?” the other cop asks. “We’re here to put out the bonfire.”

  “No,” I say. And I tell them about Keith, about how he tried to run around the cliff. I tell them everything I know. One of the officers uses his CB radio, as the other sprints toward the cliff. Then the cop with the radio turns to me. “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say. I realize he’s looking at the side of my head. “I’m just worried about my friend.”

  “Okay, we’ll find him,” he says. “Backup and an ambulance are on their way. I think I have all the information I need from you, but we need to make sure you get warm.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say.

  “I’ll be back,” the cop says. Then he runs past the bonfire.

  I turn and start walking toward the steps. I have to leave. They’ll find him. They’ll find his body? They’ll find his body in the angry ocean.

  26

  At the top of the ninety-three steps I sit against the sign that cautions, in multiple languages, that people have been swept from the beach to their deaths. My body feels robbed of muscle and bone. I run my fingers through my hair and find it’s wet. I stare at my hand: blood. I push my hair back and pull up the hood of my sweatshirt. I stare at my legs and my arms, which are badly, wildly scraped. The crosshatching red lines are intriguing—they go in all directions, like the markings left by a glacier.

  I remember I have sweatpants in my backpack. I pull them up over my legs. I remove my blue uniform skirt and stuff it deep into my backpack. Then I stand to walk. But where?

  I don’t want to go home. I can’t go home. I have led a boy to his death. Could that phrase be applied here? I did lead him to the beach, but then he ran from me to his death. The accurate charge is that I led a boy to run to his death. I can’t tell my parents. I can’t tell anyone.

  My head feels better when cradled inside the sweatshirt hood, so I walk with one hand holding the hood in place. I walk and walk until I find myself on Clement Street. The curtains of the ballet school are closed. The upstairs window is shut. I don’t know where Madame Sonya is but I’m relieved she’s not home. I turn into the passageway on the right of the building, step over the hose that’s lying on the ground like a noose, and I line up the stubborn numbers on the padlock to 1938. The sound of the lock opening is the sound of freedom.

  I enter the shed, close the door behind me, and lie down on the pink divan. Where is the furry white blanket, I wonder? And then I recall the news reports. Maria Fabiola was found on Christmas Day on her parents’ doorstep, wrapped in a blanket like a newborn.

  Yellow light drapes over me like mosquito netting. I dream that the long-haired woman from the beach hands me what I think is a flower, but when she opens her palm it grows into a bowler hat. She places it on my head and it’s too tight.

  * * *

  I WAKE WITH MY HANDS over my ears. My head feels like a Cubist painting. The hair on one side of my head—the side I offered to the rocks to save my face—is sticky with a viscous substance.

  I search for a mirror in the shed. But there’s no mirror, no reflective surface, not even in the small bathroom. This is a space built to resist, and even repel, the passing of time. On the walls hang dried bouquets, retired pointe shoes, and The Raft of the Medusa. I crack open the door and see that it’s grown lighter outside. How is that possible? And then I check my watch. It’s seven. In the morning. I have slept through the night. Or two nights. What day is it?

  And then I remember Keith. I wonder if the cops found his body, if the ambulance took him to the hospital. I wonder if, when hearing the ambulances’ sirens, cars pulled to the right of the str
eets or if they ignored the wails.

  If I go home, I will be in trouble for staying out for the night, or two nights. And in more serious, life-haunting trouble because of Keith. There will be many, many questions. I will be hated, more hated than I already am.

  If I stay away for a little longer, I can recover. I can nurse myself back to health and make a plan. I can figure out what to say about Keith, how to explain what happened.

  I step outside the shed and tiptoe down the passageway and out onto Clement Street. The street is unpopulated except for a Chinese grocer opening his corner shop and two elderly women speaking Russian while they wait for their tiny dogs to finish sniffing each other.

  I enter the small corner store. I need aspirin. And breakfast food. In a shopping basket I collect a bottle of orange juice, a box of Cheerios, and aspirin and approach the cash register.

  “Is your head okay?” the grocer asks.

  The hood of my sweatshirt has slid off. I hastily pull it back on.

  The plastic bag crinkles loudly as I scamper back to the shed. Once inside, I secure the door behind me and sit down on the rug. I tear open the Cheerios so hastily I don’t realize the box is upside down. I scoop out handfuls of cereal and eat. The chewing sounds too loud. The chewing hurts my head. I open the bottle of orange juice and drink a quarter of it in one long gulp. I remember the aspirin. It’s difficult for me to twist off the kid-proof top. I take three pills and wash them down with more juice.

  I force myself to scoot back onto the divan where surely it will be more comfortable. This act of moving requires ridiculous effort. I sit cross-legged and give myself instructions. “Think!” I say aloud. My voice sounds gravelly, surprising. I place my hands on either side of my face, as though I can force my head to look in the direction of the future.

  I force myself to think but no thoughts appear. I picture thought bubbles in cartoons. The ones above my head are empty. I wake from a nap on the divan and spot an autumnally red leaf, the size of a quarter, where my head was resting. I try to pick it up and realize it’s dried blood.