Bobby forwarded the request. Lenny and Roger exchanged a glance that conveyed something only they could understand. Roger cleared his throat for the big reveal. “Gandalf, the first one, not the new guy. No hat, no staff, neater beard, definitely neater eyebrows, and he wears regular clothes. Maybe a Hawaiian shirt and some comfortable shorts. Sandals, like Tevas or Birkenstocks, just because he’s old doesn’t mean he has to dress like it, ya’know.”
“What is he talking about?” Jackie asked, confused whether to be insulted or amused.
Bobby did his best to describe her reaction to the living. Laughter filled the Jeep, the pressure of their shared tension vented bu not forgotten. Jackie didn’t know who Gandalf was but loved hearing her baby boy laugh and couldn’t help joining in, even if it was at God’s expense. God would understand, hers would anyway.
*
The LIE ends in Riverhead but it takes a few more miles for the landscape to shake off the desperation of urban sprawl. Gas stations, convenience stores and fast-food franchises give way to farm stands, sod fields and vineyards as the narrow motorway winds its way through the old towns that live among them. The quaint scenery had nothing to do with the silence. Fear reasserted itself, wrapping the living and the dead in its merciless hold. All except Jordan of course, giving credence to the bliss of ignorance shared by those his age.
“What’s a Cutchogue?” he asked, mutilating the name on the sign that announced their arrival in the hamlet.
“An old Indian tribe name,” Bobby replied, he’d learned all about the native tribes during his misspent high school days.
“Cool! Real Indians live here, like with spears and arrows and feathers and stuff?” Jordan sat up eagerly searching for what now lived only in imagination and history.
This kids needs to get out more.
“Not really, they’re not here anymore,” Bobby broke the bad news.
“Where’d they go?” the boy’s face drooped with disappointment.
We slaughtered them and stole their land, well…our honored forefathers did.
“They moved away,” Bobby lied, he saw no need to expose life’s harsh reality to a kid who wasn’t even alive anymore.
Jackie smile at him gratefully. “Bummer,” Jordan grumbled.
“Make a left up ahead, we’ll take that to 48,” Roger navigated with the help of his smartphone. “That’ll take us all the way out.”
“Copy that,” Lenny replied and made the turn.
Long Island Sound was wide and wild where it buffered the east end’s north shore. The relentless Atlantic surged between the island and the mainland as the tide and its currents churned the water in a constant frenzy. Connecticut’s opposing coast was barely visible on the northern horizon. A gray shadow above the whitecaps, it gave no hint at the three million square miles of land or the three hundred plus million souls that lived beyond it.
“It’s beautiful,” Jackie whispered as the narrow road skirted the rocky shore gifting them with an unobstructed view.
“Wow,” Lenny agreed without knowing it. “Listen is it okay if we stop, we could use a break.”
“Yeah, I gotta pee like a racehorse and I could definitely use some chow,” Roger added a touch of color to the request.
“Man, if I could eat I would have stopped at least six times already at all those cute little seafood places we passed,” Jackie said.
“Jackie says that’s a good idea.” Bobby saw no harm in it, they had a lot of time to kill. “The Halyard is like a mile or two up ahead on the left. It’s a great spot if you like fresh seafood.”
“We do,” Roger said, his stomach had been complaining since Nassau County.
A few minutes later they pulled into the narrow parking lot abutting the beach. The old restaurant spewed the tantalizing scent of fried yumminess into the cold sea air. Lenny swung into a spot at the far end of the sparsely populated lot and killed the motor. “Will you guys be joining us?”
“Oh yeah,” Jordan cried.
“No,” Jackie corrected him. “Tell them to enjoy themselves, it’d just be a tease. Me and Jordan are going for a walk.”
“Mom,” the kid moaned. “This sucks.”
“What did you say?” Jackie growled, glaring, the look could melt an iceberg, a big one. “Out.”
Oh shit, you pushed her too far kid. You’re in some deep doodie!
“Relax Mom,” Jordan played it tough.
Bad choice Jordan.
“Out,” Jackie growled.
“I can’t.” Jordan rolled his eyes.
“Out! Now!” Jackie barked. “That mouth of yours…that attitude, me and you, we need to talk. Now get your butt out of this car before you piss me off for real.”
Jordan went, pushing through the Jeep wall with a grimace. Jackie followed. Bobby watched as they marched toward the sea, Jackie ranting and Jordan wisely taking it.
“Hey Bobby?” Roger sounded a million miles away. “Earth to the back seat, anyone there?”
“Yeah.”
“You guys coming or what?”
“Nobody here but me,” Bobby informed the living. “They went for a walk.”
“Really? When?” Lenny chirped.
“Just now, they needed to stretch their legs,” Bobby lied, it was becoming a habit.
“Oh, okay.” Roger looked at Lenny and shrugged. “You coming?”
“No, you two enjoy, I’m going to chill on the beach,” Bobby replied, needing some alone time, it was a precious commodity. “If you get a table by the windows, we should be close enough and by the look of the lot you should have no problem there.”
“Cool,” Lenny opened the door, climbed out and pulled the seat up for the Reaper. “Like 45 minutes?”
“Yeah. Take your time,” Bobby pulled his hood up and pried himself from the Jeep.
“It’s freezing out here,” Roger complained as he hobbled double time toward the restaurant.
“Wait up!” Lenny cried and scurried after him.
Bobby smiled, he couldn’t help it. They were so good, and so happy. He wished he could leave them there, to their love and their life, and face whatever waited for him alone. He strolled onto the beach and down to the water’s frothy edge. A stone the size of a fat man’s coffin, conveniently placed by a receding glacier thousands of years earlier, offered a great place to sit and to think.
Painted in layers of purple, pink, orange and gold by the setting sun, and with the help of the dangerously high levels of air pollution over NYC, the western sky was as breathtaking a sight as he’d ever seen. The giant sizzling orb sank slowly behind the shimmering horizon as his part of the world turned away from its light and into darkness. Bobby looked east to where it would rise again. That was all he had left, the darkness of one more night. When it was over, when the sun returned for another day of service, God, Maria and change would come with it.
I’m not ready for this.
He closed his eyes. “You got this Bobby. You got this,” he spoke to the sea but she ignored him. “You got this. Truth, all truth and nothing but truth.”
The wind howled across the dancing waves, whisking sand into the air as it took to shore. Bobby couldn’t feel it’s cold but he felt cold, nonetheless. Fear’s cold had longer claws and a bigger appetite than the northern wind. Fear had him doubting every decision he’d ever made that led him to where he sat, to where he’d be when morning came. If it was just for him, if it was only to save his own ass, he’d run as fast and as far as he could and never look back. It wasn’t, not anymore. Good people, people who needed him, his friends, his family in some strange way, were depending on him. The weight of it made the fear dig deeper but he would not let it sway him. Selfishness had always been his greatest motivation, his greatest fault. If he needed to use it to find his courage he would. He had one very selfish reason to finish what he started. Maria Sinclair.
The last time he saw her he cut her head off. Seeing her again was all he could think about although he wouldn’t adm
it it to anyone but himself. He’d do anything to hear her soft voice wrap itself around him. Her brilliant emerald eyes were like a brand new 60-watt bulb and he was the moth. In them he’d discovered a beauty he never thought possible. No sunset, natural or bathed in the smog of man’s egotistical exploitation of the Earth, came close to the wonders they held.
“Maria,” he whispered longingly, the word ripped from his mouth by the invisible force of the wind and carried unheard on its endless quest to nowhere.
I can’t fuck this up. Please don’t let me fuck this up.
*
“Are we just going to sit here all night?” Jordan moaned.
“You ask one more time and you can sit outside by yourself,” Jackie snapped.
Jordan shut up, thankfully. Nobody wanted to listen to a kid whining at 2 AM, crammed in a car on a dark beach at the end of nowhere, or anywhere else.
“So this is it?” Lenny asked, he liked to talk when he was scared.
“Yep, look, we’re all the way at the end,” Roger replied and held up his phone, their position marked by a floating triangle above a meager finger of land surrounded by water on three sides.
“Bobby, are you going out there alone?” Lenny asked, nervous he’d get the answer he expected.
“Can’t, I gotta take Roger,” Bobby replied. “Sorry.”
“Yeah,” he croaked, it was what he had expected and feared. “Okay.”
“Us too?” Jackie wanted so badly to meet her God.
“I guess so, right?” Bobby figured he could use all the help he could get.
“I bet he’s like Shaq, big and cool and funny and stuff but you know a little scary too,” Jordan proclaimed. “That’d be some crazy…”
Jackie cut him off with a razor sharp glare before he added the word that would have led to another long walk and talk.
“Jordan thinks he’ll look like Shaq,” Bobby informed the living hoping to ease the tension.
“Why not right? Who knows? Maybe a black transgender Jew with long blue hair, red eyes and a Scottish accent?” Lenny ceased the opportunity to start a conversation.
“Oh shit!” Jordan shrieked.
“Jordan Tito Simmons!” Jackie couldn’t hide her smile but did her parental duty anyway. “You better watch that mouth or Jesus won’t take you nowhere.”
“But mom, its…it’s just a joke,” Jordan moaned.
“We don’t joke about Jesus,” Jackie wasn’t a big fan of blasphemy. “You tell those two Bobby, you tell them this is not the time to be testing His mercy or my patience.”
Bobby translated liberally, “Jackie wants you two to stop shit talking God. She’s pissed.”
Jackie nudged Bobby in the ribs in disapproval.
“Sorry,” Lenny said, having forgotten they were rolling with a holy roller.
“Me too,” Roger agreed and wisely changed the subject. “Sunrise is in three hours according to the weather app.”
“Come on Roger.” Bobby needed out. “Let’s take a walk.”
“Now? Where?” Roger didn’t like the idea.
“Just to do a little recon?” Bobby replied.
“Lenny could just turn on the lights,” Roger scrambled.
“I can drive along the beach. Pop this girl in four wheel drive and she’ll eat up the beach,” Lenny, sensing his husband’s fear, did his best to save him.
“I just need to take a look around,” Bobby insisted. “Come on big guy.”
Roger and Lenny exchange an uneasy look. Lenny nodded. Roger smiled, pulled on his jacket and climbed out into the night without another word.
“Won’t be long,” Bobby said and climbed out after him.
“Take care of him,” Lenny warned.
Bobby nodded but made no promises.
*
The north side of the barren peninsula was under a constant barrage of crashing waves. A manmade barrier of massive boulders did its best to defend the land from the ocean’s hunger while the rhythm of the surf tried foolishly to dictate its cadence upon the winds chaotic howling. Trudging east along the stony beach, Roger and Bobby were each lost in their own thoughts. On any other day the power of the place, the beauty of it, would demand their attention but on the night of their scheduled summit with God, His awe inspiring craftsmanship at creation went almost unnoticed. Across a short expanse of curling waves from where the island slipped below the sea, a lighthouse rose out of its depths. Its powerful light sliced the night with the precision of s surgeon to warn any wayward mariners of the dangers that lurked beneath it.
“That has to be the star ya’know,” Bobby said and pointed to the biggest and brightest star in the jewel littered sky.
Roger didn’t answer.
“Roger!” Bobby roared, his temper flared before he realized he had his own hood up.
Losing it bro! You’re losing it! Get a grip!
Pushing aside his anger and his hood back he tried again, “Hey Rog, you think that’s it?”
Roger followed the path of the Reaper’s long, black fingernail, “Looks like it to me.”
“Check your phone, see if it’s north of us.”
Roger obeyed and after a few long minutes of tapping and swiping he pointed down the beach. “North is right there.”
“So we gotta go that way? Back?”
“It doesn’t sound right.”
“Jordan said we had to line up with the true north,” Bobby recalled the fragmented instructions.
“He also said it was Oriental Fork and that your girl didn’t have red hair,” Roger cracked.
“Good point.”
“I think we’re in the right place give or take a few hundred yards, ya’know. If they show up, we’ll see them. Nowhere to hide, ya’know.”
Bobby smiled as the memory of Maria mimicking Roger’s flashed in his mind.
“You okay?” Roger asked.
“I guess, you?”
“Don’t think I know what okay is anymore,” Roger looked out across the deadly darkness. “Don’t think okay works for us anymore.”
Bobby nodded without answering, there was no answer. Roger stared into nothingness for a long time before curiosity got the better of the Reaper. “What’s on your mind buddy?”
“I’m thinking I’m crazy, that this is crazy. I’m thinking I’m going to wake up at any minute, that none of this is really happening. That we’re in way over our heads. That this might be a trap. That Satan or some of your scythe carrying buddies might show up instead of Maria. That you might be here to draw God out and we’re all just pawns in some fucked up game. That no good is going to come out of this. That we are all going to die on this cold fucking beach. Most of all Bobby, I’m thinking I’m terrified bro, really fucking scared.”
“Deep thoughts,” Bobby replied because he had nothing to prove any of what his friend said, one way or the other.
“Very,” Roger nodded and turned to face the Reaper. “Just promise me you’ll take care of Lenny.”
More promises! Shit! Oh Roger.
“I can’t lie to you Roger. I don’t want to, it wouldn’t be right. I can’t promise to do that but I do promise to do all I can to make sure all of you come out on the right side of…of whatever happens.”
“I guess that’ll have to do then,” Roger tried to smile but couldn’t. “Can we go back to the Jeep now, I’m freezing my fucking balls off out here.”
Bobby nodded and the two tethered souls headed west to where the warmth of the Jeep and of those inside were waiting.
*
The first headlights appeared well before dawn. A jacked-up Ford Explorer crept onto the beach with the four long surf-casting rods that sprouted from its custom front bumper leading the driver toward battle. The shadowed figure waved as the beach buggy eased past the Jeep toward the surf, no doubt thinking the two men inside were fellow hunters of the massive Striped Bass that thrived in the turmoil of eastern Long Island Sound. Another followed soon after it, a similarly outfitted Toyota pickup coast
ed past them and toward the point. Jordan watched them pass with the amazement reserved for the eyes of the young. “What are they?” he whispered as if stalking unicorns.
“Surfcasters,” Bobby named them.
“What?” Jordan asked stretching his neck to follow the path of the taillights.
“Guys who fish from the beach Bobby explained. “That’s what the long poles are for, they can cast a country mile with those. Gotta be pretty hardcore to be out here this time of year.”
“White people are crazy,” Jordan offered.
“Jordan!” Jackie shrieked.
Wow kid! You just totally screwed the pooch this time.
“There’s no way a black dude is out here doing that! Jordan cried, determined to dig his own grave. “Come on, you know it Mom.”
“Don’t be so ignorant! That’s ignorant! Worse than ignorant, it’s racist! Jordan, I swear, so help me Jesus, if you come out with any more of that crap I’ll redden that little ass of yours. Don’t think that little brown heiney won’t turn red, it can and I’ll do it!” Jackie yelled so loud that Bobby thought even the living might hear her roar.
I believe her kid. I’d shut the fuck up if I were you.
Jordan sulked and slumped back in the seat without another word.
Good choice. Way to set him straight Jackie and remind me not to fuck with you…ever!
*
The desolate beach was surprisingly populated by the time the strange quintet of adventurers climbed out into the bone chilling cold. “Holy shit,” Lenny whined, pulling on a ridiculously bobbled and bubble-bee striped wool hat before burying his hands in the fleece lined pockets of his oversized, overstuffed, neon green ski jacket.
“Nothing with lights on it?” Bobby cracked, eyeballing the misplaced ski bunny.
“He looks like a…” Jordan began but was quickly silenced by a look from his mother.
“It’s all I had,” Lenny defended his choice of outerwear.
“Don’t worry babe, you make it look good,” Roger said with a genuine smile.
“Thanks,” Lenny lifted his chin, defying the Reaper’s criticism.
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