The Outside of August

by Joanna Hershon

  Alice walked and walked. The beach was good for walking, and before she knew it she was closer to the rock face that had previously seemed far away. The sand appeared endless, and the shock of such emptiness began to settle in. Anyone could come down off the dune. Who knew what kinds of smart Mexican deviants or perverted gringos would be lurking behind the next rise, waiting for a certain type of American female, schooled on Joni Mitchell and Joan Didion and most of all Charlotte Green; a female who was taught that—forget about the right to choose and glass ceilings and the ERA— poetic landscapes demanded exploration. Choosing not to wander, in no matter how little clothing, or no matter how alone, would be to forsake one’s God-given gift of freedom and wonder. Every piece of driftwood, every pile of rocks—it was all her mother, appearing solid against the sky, apparently fresh from a swim in the dangerous sea. Now we ‘re talking, was what her eyes were saying. Don’t you even think of turning back.

  It happens whenever she tells herself she’s arrived, that she’s come out on some other side. It can be at a party on a crowded street, in a store making a decision; it can be, apparently, on a deserted beach. Alice is alone and then she is not, as Charlotte walks out from behind a partially closed door, out from a dressing room, or out from the sea. She comes like a swarm of bees and everything disappears into the drone.

  Alice shuddered as she nearly stepped on a dead fish the size of a dinner plate. She continued on to see more fish lying in various states of decay. Some were fresh from the sea, still glistening gray and green with fins poked out like little arms, as if they’d died from shock. There were those that had begun to harden and acquire a prefossil look, and others still that were merely masks, their skins hard and leathery as deflated basketballs. Pelican skeletons glowed in the sunlight, their bones picked utterly clean. Curvatures of beaks were hooked like scythes; stark white ribs were patterned with blue stripes of the sky.

  There were many times when she nearly turned around but could not help moving forward; her mother’s swollen fingertips pushed between her shoulder blades as Alice looked on, staring at the lifeless creatures while fearing the vultures swooping overhead—black, red, and looming. She feared the vultures not only because she couldn’t believe they wouldn’t take a nip of her, but also because she feared that she was in fact one of them, walking not only to see the beach and the massive shore break and the dried-up riverbed behind the dunes—but also, after all, to see the dead. She watched how many stages these beings endured, and how they didn’t simply disappear. And the white dolphin washed up and dried out, with big black holes for eyes? Alice made herself look, forced her breath as her heart sped. Her feet were planted in the sand but her mind was racing in radiant circles to the night before and beyond—to the cow and the speed and the sight of so much blood—her own blood that had stopped just as abruptly as it had begun. She’d only had to wipe it all away. Her mind raced on to her parents underground, as that was, after all, where they were. No matter how many details she retained or voices she heard, she had no doubts as to where their bodies resided.

  Alice listened. All around the bloated dolphin, the bugs were having a field day; the tide was pulling back and the waves were crashing—back and forth, back and forth, with light reflecting a kaleidoscopic dance like blown Venetian glass. She could hear the very air crackling around all of its elements, including Alice in this patch of life and its leering opposite.

  She’d come to learn that this was called Fire Beach, so called because of the mist from the massive waves, which rose up from a distance like smoke, like a funeral pyre daring any life to come and meet its challenge, as they crashed down right on the shore.

  However, five, ten minutes had passed, and no other huge waves took shape. Though she knew better with such an unknown shallow break, she wanted to feel the ocean. Just one little dip, she told herself, just one with her pallid big toe—a splash of briny cold and then of course she’d flee. As she dipped her toe in the bracing water (diamond-pale up close) she expected a force—a warning current—but nothing happened. Only coolness engulfed her, and a mild tug that defined, if anything, how grounded in the earth she actually was. As Alice stood in the wake she glanced around at the beach, and one dead fish just a few feet away looked particularly disturbing. Moving back from the ocean’s edge, she stared at the corpse of a creature and then knelt down beside it. The fish was puffed-up—somewhere close to a hollow shell but not quite there yet, as a few vestiges of its slick gray skin were somehow still intact. As she reached out two fingers, Alice realized how its fins were not as paper-thin as she’d somehow expected, and, as if dared by the water, by its previous theatrical display, she picked up the fish and placed it just outside the ocean’s reach, laying it out to be claimed again, just to see what would happen.

  Alice stepped back. The ocean was still far from rowdy. She closed her eyes and pictured similar offerings on her home’s ragged shore. She had stood for hours like this all her life, watching the debris, sifting through her thoughts, grateful to be doing so. There was something oddly consoling about how when the tide was out and the beach was scattered with the ocean’s remains, the land—as the host of these often-foul remnants—seemed to expose a component, if only a minuscule one, of the ocean’s mystery.

  In an instant she was covered with sea spray, eyes wide open. A wave was building, accumulating height, and Alice was running. The fish was long gone.

  The sun was now underwater, the moon was being rigged up in the sky, and she could finally see the building from Cady’s map while standing at the top of a dune. She would find Gus and they would all sit together at what felt like the end of the Earth—or at least the very last stop past California. Alice headed toward a building that, as she grew closer, was less far along in terms of construction than Alice had originally assumed. In fact, it was a construction site in the initial stages of development. There were domes plastered and painted the color of rust, and the supporting structure was half in brick and half unpainted cement, which looked as smooth as soap-stone. It was an enormous building—ugly with an undercurrent of magnificence—with the ambitious sprawl of a hotel, and it was where (although he’d never say so) Gus would dream of creating a surfing retreat, an architect’s palace for Cady Alice leaned, for a moment, against the surrounding tall cement wall. She let herself in and there was nothing but wind. She wouldn’t have been surprised if some of the cement was not quite dry. Night had fallen for real now; the sky had gone from purple to black glass cut sharp with stars.

  “August,” she called, but there was nothing but echoes. It was a shell of a building and, though holy with potential, it was anyone’s guess as to whether it was even structurally sound. “Cady?” she yelled. She could make out only shapes and shadows and a staircase without a railing. As she ascended she called out again and again and noticed the air, which was laced with smoke. At the top of the stairs were littered bottles and one wet sandy blanket and what looked like a wet suit, which were no doubt sources of the prevailing dankness. She stopped calling out and stood still. The ocean sounded like a spell of rain with each wave that crashed. The hairs on her arms stood up; a car sped by on the nearest road, popping rocks under tires.

  “Shame on you,” came out of the darkness. “You really should have called.”

  11

  AI small flame was cupped in a pair of hands. Alice saw August light a candle. The room was much bigger than Alice had initially understood; they were only in one corner of it. Her brother had always been thin, but he was now approaching gaunt. His high cheekbones stuck out in ridges, which were clear even beneath an unflattering and scraggly beard. Though his arm muscles were clearly defined, the skin looked shrunken around each tendon; veins were thick as cords. “Alice,” he said, “what are you doing here?” His hands were dark against the white of his T-shirt with which he relentlessly fiddled before encircling his sister’s shoulders in a quick and pungent hug. Then he backed up, saying nothing as he sat leaning up against one w
all, one leg bent and the other flung out in front of him. She could no longer make out his face. “Lookup,” he finally said.

  Alice looked and saw that the dome overhead had an open circle in the middle, as if the builders hadn’t gotten around to attaching the center of the roof. It was a peephole to the universe, the size of a small umbrella. “Great,” she said, not bothering to sound convincing. “Where’s Cady?”

  “Cady’s gone,” he said.

  “What do you mean, ‘Cady’s gone’?”

  He shrugged. “She left. I don’t know.”

  “What happened?”

  “She went back to work.”

  “But what about—”

  “Believe me, Alice, I don’t need your insight on this. Nothing— I mean nothing—is as clear as how it lives in your mind.”

  “You have …” Alice said, swallowing hard. “You have no idea what lives in my mind.” She sat down on the cement floor, which was cold and covered with fine wet sand; her legs were worn out. “Gus, what are you doing here?” Alice asked gently, gesturing around the massive hollow space. “What is this place?” she said, not entirely without humor, but the very kind of comment that pushed his buttons. The moment Alice mentioned living conditions or money or working some kind of job, he was raw and complicated and she was polished and simple. At that kind of moment, which sooner or later inevitably arose when she was around her brother for any length of time, Charlotte was silently invoked. Her mother—whether or not in reality Charlotte might have ultimately agreed with her daughter—was judging not Gus but Alice. As soon as Alice voiced a negative opinion about Gus, she could feel her mother, languor included, judging the hell out of her. Alice was small-minded and Alice was sanitized, without imagination.

  He responded evenly: “I slept outside for a while but it got cold and the ocean kept me up. This I like. And here,” he said, as his face was lit briefly and hard by a new match’s flame, “here are some more candles,” he muttered, lighting a slew of votives. “Let there be light,” he said, revealing bloodshot eyes, blackened fingernails, a killer tan.

  “Why did you come here?”

  He laughed. “You want to know why I’m here? The surf is outrageous, the weather is perfect every day, and there’s spectacular fresh food to be had for nothing. It seems pretty simple to me.”

  “And your recent marriage?”

  He looked at her blankly and she mirrored him until he finally proceeded. “We pushed it. Maybe I pushed it and she accepted. What’s the difference, really? It didn’t work.”

  “The difference is that I don’t believe you. I mean, I don’t believe you’re that blase about her leaving and I don’t believe you about coming here solely for the awesome waves. Come on,” Alice said, her voice softening, “you must know that I spoke with her.”

  Gus got up from his seat on the floor, where he’d hardly even shifted around. He stood up straight and looked at the sky before looking down at Alice. With his baggy pants and small undershirt and wild hair he looked, for the first time, dangerous. Her brother was not a big man—he could appear at times almost elfin—but he was dark and lean, and he’d acquired a recent steeliness that she presumed had come from a dose of hard living and what she could best—though vaguely—identify as inner resolve. “She’s never trusted me.”

  “Have you given her reason to?”

  “We all know she’s too good for me.” His eyes flashed in a way that made Alice uneasy. For the next few days she knew she’d think of his eyes in that very moment and not be able to rid herself of what exactly disturbed her so.

  “Gus, why are you here?”

  “You tell me,” he said, sitting down once again. “You’ve always been good at that—telling me what I’m actually doing. When I didn’t go to college you told me that I didn’t go because I felt superior. When I went to Java and didn’t call for a while, you told me I was desperate. So I wish you could tell me what I’m doing now. I do. I’m curious what you come up with.”

  “Are you that angry I’m here?”

  “Yes. But I’m more angry at Cady for asking you to come.”

  “She didn’t ask me to come. She just called to let me know where you were. She knew I’d begin to worry, and she wanted to let me know.”

  “Liar.”

  “What makes you think I’m lying?”

  They were looking at each other from a few feet away, each of them seated in a similarly defeated fashion. The dark was muddy with candlelight. “She’s not that considerate,” he finally said. “Why did you come?”

  “I think you’ve been keeping something from me.” When he didn’t answer, she wasn’t surprised. “Okay, let’s start with something easier,” she said. “ ‘How’s the house, Alice?’ ”

  “That’s fine, just give me the script. It really is better that way. ‘How’s the house, Alice?’ ”

  “She’s a mess, actually—sagging and bulging in all the wrong places, but you know what? She’ll survive. Everything’s sorted, in boxes. Everything’s ready to go.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  Alice didn’t laugh. “I can’t believe you just left like that.” She waited, but he didn’t seem entirely anxious to explain. “And what was that note} If it were all up to you, you’d have sold the house, because we all know you need money, or you’d have asked some buddy of yours to go ransack it and collect on the insurance. All of our photographs and Dad’s prizes and collection of articles and Mom’s beautiful things, you’d have just as well seen them stolen or destroyed.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while. “You’re probably right. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but I just can’t imagine wanting or needing anything from the house. I remember what I remember.”

  “And what do you remember … ?”

  Gus smiled as if he were caught in an unnecessary lie. They both knew that she wasn’t really asking that question—at least not in the conventional sense—with any expectation of having it answered.

  Looking up through the hole in the ceiling to the increasingly starry sky, she surprised herself by saying, “Do you know any of the constellations?” She didn’t recognize her own voice. It was the voice of a smart woman stuck with a potentially menacing stranger—that, or a hopeless first date. It was draining—all this talk, the soggy room.

  Gus, however, seemed relieved at this banal turn in conversation. He cracked his wrists with a vengeance, as if he wanted to shake his hands right off. “I can still find Cassiopeia, the Dipper, the North Star. I used to know so much more, remember?”

  She nodded. “You haven’t asked about my trip.”

  “How was your trip?” He smiled.

  “I hit a herd of cows with my rental car and was bleeding from the head. I ended up collapsing on a beach.”

  He moved forward to examine her more closely and squinted up his face in a way that Alice recognized as something he’d done when they were children—he sometimes seemed as if he’d learned certain facial expressions by imitation and hadn’t moved past the exaggeration stage. She could not help but crack a smile. “You look fine,” he said. “You’re fine.” Then he came over and sat beside her. He took her hand. They sat like that for a long while. It was as if they both knew the quarreling was long from over, and they wanted to mutually prepare; they wanted to tap into their reserves of shared material.

  “Since he died,” Gus said, “since I went back, I need to be alone more, but I get so sick of myself, you know?” he said, giving a short exhalation that was supposed to pass for a laugh. “The only way I can get out of my head is to talk to total strangers. Do you ever feel that way?”

  She nodded. “But I get too involved,” she said.

  “You’ve always been too empathic.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  “I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Look, I wish Cady had stayed longer, and I do feel badly that I drove her to leave, but in a way I know she c
ouldn’t have stayed, no matter how well behaved I was. I know how it feels when someone’s only half there.”

  “Are you talking about Mom?”

  He shrugged. “Mom, me, everyone but you,” he said sarcastically but Alice could tell, for whatever it was worth, that he meant it. “God knows you’re always there. You’re right there, all right.”

  “Cady said you met someone who knew Mom,” she finally said. And having said it at last, having come to her point, she wanted only to say it again. “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Just—no?”

  “No, Alice.”

  “Why would she say such a thing?” Alice shifted her weight on the floor and waited. “Well?”

  “That’s totally ridiculous.” He sniffed. “She must have said that to get you to come down here and take care of me.”

  “So you didn’t see anyone in Oaxaca who knew her.”

  He laughed without showing his teeth. “Of course not. She told you that? She’s amazing. No, Cady got you on board so she could leave me and still feel like a responsible person. If you haven’t noticed, she’s big on responsibility.”

  “Right,” said Alice, watching him closely, waiting yet again. Alice thought of Cady, back in her apartment or house—she didn’t even know where Cady called home or whom she would call in a crisis. “I don’t believe anyone.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said. “But I suppose it gives me less reason to worry over you.”

  “You worry about me?”

  “Not really, but you know, I might start. Look at you,” he said, “you’re a delicate flower.” He reached out and gently tugged at a strand of her hair. A moment passed, then: “It’s good to see you.”

  She hated that lift in the back of her throat, the watering of her eyes—the heavy, disproportionate, and welcome relief that inevitably occurred at the softening of his voice.

  “Stay here with me tonight,” he said.