Submerging Inferno

by Brandon Witt

  She ignored the comment. “Well, if you change your mind, just text me. I’ll be happy to come home.”

  After watching her zip her tiny sports car out of the driveway, I returned to inspecting my car. I couldn’t find any hint that something had gone wrong on my drive home, other than not finding my clothes. I guess that was enough proof. If something had happened, I would have woken up in jail for reckless driving and indecent exposure.

  With a sigh of relief, I checked the drop-drawer and found my wallet resting safely inside as always. Nothing to link me to whatever happened on the beach, as long as I hadn’t told the boy my name either, that is. If I’d left my clothes there, surely that wouldn’t cause me any problems. I hadn’t killed him. What were they going to do? DNA tests on my T-shirt?

  The thought made me run back into the house, throw on a tank top and tennis shoes, and hop into the car.

  THE traffic-infested drive to the beach felt like it took hours instead of the actual forty minutes. I replayed every scene of the night before over and over in my head, trying to examine each detail, searching for a clue that would shed light on what had transpired. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t find an angle that would let me place some of the blame on the boy, whatever his name was. None of it seemed to be a setup. He didn’t steal anything, except maybe my clothes. He didn’t try to hurt me. It didn’t seem like he had been faking the choking, not that a person could fake gallons of water erupting from their body, and there was no way he could have made his skin blister.

  Still, there had to be an explanation. He could have swallowed all the water while we were kissing—the waves came up, and I didn’t notice. Maybe he’d swallowed the water when he tripped entering the ocean. Perhaps he’d had food poisoning, and his vomit had only looked like water in the moonlight.

  Try as I might to hold on to some scrap of hope, each explanation sounded more ludicrous than the one before. Even if I could somehow explain away the water, I couldn’t come up with even a remotely plausible scenario that would allow for his skin to cook and blister. None except that I had somehow caused him to simultaneously drown and boil at the same time. I wished that sounded as crazy as the other possibilities, but when I combined it with what had happened during my swim earlier in the day, I could feel how right the thought seemed.

  It was me. I had done it. Somehow I’d filled the boy with water and heated up his skin. As much as it seemed insane to even consider such thoughts, I couldn’t find any other equation that made sense. And if it was me, how did I do it? I had somehow managed to have sex with other men before and not mutilate the guys. What was different? Maybe it was him, or at least the combination of him and me. Some chemical reaction between the two of us. I tried to make myself believe it, that I wasn’t doomed to potentially murder the next guy I thought was hot. But if a specific reaction between the two of us were somehow possible, then why didn’t I experience a similar outcome? Surely both of us would have been affected.

  Squinting through the glare as I turned the car to face the sun, I pulled down the visor. The beach was relatively deserted, which was surprising at the height of the day. There was a woman jogging, her black lab prancing joyously through the surf, an old man and what appeared to be his granddaughter picking up seashells, and a couple of others lying on beach towels.

  I parked the car in the same spot as the night before and wandered down onto the beach. I wasn’t exactly sure where we had been, but I figured it had to be in a fairly straight line with the car. My heart sank as my gaze swept out toward the water. Nothing. There wasn’t anything more than a few limp strands of seaweed littering the beach. I couldn’t even see any footprints that didn’t belong to the girl who had just jogged past. That thought gave me a tiny surge of hope. Maybe the tide had come in and washed away not only our footprints but my clothes as well—pulled them out to sea, far enough to not be incriminating.

  I decided to walk along the beach, in case the clothes had washed back to shore farther down. I went over a mile in each direction. Nothing. I even checked several yards of sand where I thought we had been, thinking there might be scorch marks or some sign of what had caused the boy’s injuries. After I paced the same patch of beach several times, I began to notice a few people watching me warily. I probably looked more than a little crazy, wandering back and forth over the same bit of sand, continuously muttering to myself and raking my hands through my hair.

  Sheepishly, I returned to my car and leaned against the hood, staring out at the calm greenish-gray water. So what if I couldn’t find my clothes. So what if the boy had taken them. What could he prove? Who would possibly believe his story? At best, they’d think he was just some little twink who had gotten drunk, managed to scald himself, and stolen his trick’s clothes.

  It was too much. All too much. I should leave and go hang out with Sonia at Rascals. Maybe find another cute boy and let him occupy my mind the rest of the afternoon.

  I shuddered at the thought. What if I hurt him too? What if it were worse the next time?

  Without realizing what I was doing, I ripped off my shirt, threw it through the driver’s side window, and ran full speed back down the beach, oblivious of the stares of the people watching as the crazy man returned.

  As always, as soon as my bare feet touched the water, the rest of the world disappeared. The water rose past my calves, then up to my thighs as I ran through the waves, each step taking me closer and closer to tranquility. Within seconds I was up to my waist. I paused, letting the warmth of the water envelop me, the ebb and flow of the tide coursing like a pulse through my veins. With a groan, I pushed off the sand with my toes and dove under the surface.

  The instant my head was submerged, the peace of the moment was shattered. I could feel eyes on me. I knew I wasn’t alone. I knew whatever was there was watching me, and I knew it was close.

  This time, I didn’t see flames or light, but I felt the water bubble and boil around me. I heard myself bellow an angry scream before I realized that my head had broken above the water. I surged back toward the beach, making the water spray in all directions. My knees were just above water level when I felt something snag my left foot. I nearly fell.

  I shoved my hand below the water and felt it close around something at my feet. With another yell, I yanked it up, expecting to see my attacker. It was several seconds before my brain could register what I was holding. I kept trying to make it into some type of fish or tentacle, some ripped-off appendage of a sea monster. I blinked at it and bugged my eyes before the item took shape.

  It was a flip-flop. My flip-flop. One of my neon-green flip-flops that I’d had on the night before. I heard myself suck in a breath. With a mix of panic and relief, I shoved the shoe in my mouth and plunged my hands back in the water, feeling across the sand, desperately trying to find the mate. Back and forth, moving closer to the beach and then a little farther out toward the deep. I found nothing besides clump after clump of seaweed.

  “Dude! You okay?”

  Startled, I turned back toward the beach.

  “Are you okay?”

  It was a man on the shore, maybe one of the people who’d been lying on the towels. At first, I looked around me, trying to see who he was talking to, feeling even more stupid when I realized he was obviously addressing me. Who else would he be talking to? There wasn’t anyone else yelling and splashing around in the water.

  “You need me to call somebody?”

  I waved him off, feeling my face redden. I straightened my back and took the flip-flop out of my mouth. Feebly, I glanced around one last time and then walked out of the water and marched straight up to my car, refusing to tear my gaze from directly in front of me. I got to my car, tossed in the shoe, and left the beach, cursing myself for coming back in the first place.

  I PARKED several blocks away, on the other side of the golf course, and slowly walked around Torrey Pines. I knew I wasn’t actually going to talk to her, but I thought maybe I would be able to view her from
a distance. There wasn’t really a specific reason I wanted to see her, but for some reason, the thought of being close to Grandma was comforting.

  While not as big or modern as the other houses in the area, the brick home Grandpa had built remained stately and a little imposing—bland yet immovable, just like he had been. It didn’t have a specific California feel to it, but it was generic enough to blend in without offense. The pine trees that grew en masse around their home and the rest of the neighborhood were ancient and had grown massive and gnarled.

  It had to be past three in the afternoon. Typically, Grandma would be at the church helping the pastor’s wife get the lesson ready for the next adult Sunday school class. Maybe with the death of her husband she would be off her typical routine. On the other hand, there was a distinct possibility that she had stayed at the church all week, throwing herself into her God and her religion.

  I approached the house from the north, the side with the attached garage and no windows for her to see me from. I noticed an unfamiliar car in the driveway. A baby-blue Ford Contour. It was possible that she’d purchased a new car since I’d seen her, but I doubted it. Grandpa ran their cars into the ground before he would consider trading them in, plus this car’s color was in stark contrast to Grandma’s love of browns and oranges. She must have company.

  To my surprise, disappointment shot through me. I definitely wasn’t going to be able to talk to her if she had someone else there. Had part of me intended approaching her? Did I really think she would want to see me now that Grandpa was dead? True, it hadn’t been her who had cut me off from the family, but neither had she ever convinced Grandpa to change his mind about me.

  While Grandpa had never been affectionate or overly kind to me, I had expected Grandma, with her devotion to the scriptures, to be the one to overreact when I announced I was gay. And she had reacted, with much tears and weeping. Pleading with me to fight against it so I could save my soul—as if I hadn’t been trying for years. However, not once did she act angry or disgusted, only heartbroken. It was Grandpa, who adamantly refused to even darken the door of a church his entire life, who had declared me vile and less than a man, barely human, who told me never to speak to them again as long as they lived. No qualifying, no exceptions in case I changed my mind, nothing. Just never again.

  At the thought of him, I felt a pang of guilt that I didn’t feel any sorrow for his death. I hated that Grandma was alone now, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel a minuscule regret. I wasn’t glad he was gone. I simply couldn’t seem to make myself care either way.

  As I traced one of the few blond bricks that broke up the otherwise dirt-red-toned wall, I realized that if one of the neighbors saw me, they probably wouldn’t stop to ask questions. They would pick up the phone and call the police or, worse yet, my grandma, and let her know there was a giant prowler scoping out her house. The thought made me step closer to the front of the garage, where the largest clump of pine trees offered more shelter.

  Now that I was here, I had even less of a clue about what my intentions had been in the first place. Even if she let me in the house and told me she wanted to join the gay pride parade, that still wouldn’t help me come any closer to figuring out what was happening to me. If the thought of me being gay had left her heartbroken and convinced of my damnation, a confession of nearly drowning and cooking another man during foreplay would hardly have a positive effect on how she saw me. It would definitely negate any hope of a future reconciliation. Besides, even if she miraculously managed to evade a heart attack, there was no chance she would be able to offer any insight into my situation.

  “Thanks again for coming to me, Judith. I couldn’t find the energy to fix myself up today.” I stiffened and stupidly flattened my back against the garage at the sudden sound of my grandmother’s voice, as if there were any chance all six foot three inches of me could melt into the wall.

  “Oh, Beverly dear, no need to thank me. It was my pleasure to get to see you.” I heard the screen door click shut. How had I managed to miss hearing it open? “However, I really wish you would reconsider about coming to church with me next Sunday. You should stay home and relax, give yourself some time to heal.”

  “Nonsense. I promised Pastor Johns that I would help you lead this series on holiness, and I am not going to break my vow.”

  “Beverly, my husband would understand. He tried to come here with me today, but I told him it would be better for us to just have women time.”

  As I calmed my breathing, I worked up the nerve to tentatively peek around the corner. Luckily, the large bush planted beside the garage door provided protection while still letting me get some glimpses through the leaves.

  Grandma and a barely recognizable Judith Johns walked slowly down the porch and toward the Contour. I hadn’t seen the pastor’s wife since before Grandfather had kicked me out of the house. The years had not been kind. She used to be a rather large woman—the kind for whom her size actually made her seem sweeter and more approachable. She must have lost over a hundred pounds. She was rail thin and appeared to be on the verge of breaking with every step. Her gaunt, gray skin gave away the sickness that seemed to flow off her.

  Grandma, nearly a foot shorter at a few inches less than five feet, seemed to tower over her friend. Although I could see the exhaustion in her eyes and the sag of her face, she looked as healthy as she ever had. If it weren’t for all her wrinkles and age spots that splattered abundantly over her face and arms, she would have appeared well under her nearly seventy years of age.

  Once Judith had unlocked her car door, she turned to Grandma and took her hand. “I can’t tell you how crushed I am that Marvin never came to believe in Christ. After all the prayers over the years.”

  Grandma patted her hand comfortingly. “Well, we’ll never know what happened the last few days when Marvin was unconscious. Possibly he was able to pray and make things right before he died. I have to believe it. I don’t think I could stand it any other way.”

  Judith simply nodded. She opened her car door and started to get in, but paused and turned once more to face her friend. “I must say, I was surprised not to see Brett at the funeral yesterday. I know things never really got repaired between you three, but I thought he would have the decency to show his respect.”

  I felt my hands clench at the judgment in her voice. I seriously doubted she had any true respect for my grandfather. More than once, he had told her exactly what he thought of her God and suggested that her husband should get a real job and stop conning people out of their money with the promise of salvation.

  “Now, Judith, don’t put the blame on Brett. He doesn’t even know his grandfather was sick.” Her voice broke, and she let out a long breath. “Much less that he died.”

  Judith gaped at her. “You didn’t tell him?”

  Grandma raised her chin in a small show of defiance. “Marvin made me promise not to contact Brett about how sick he was. Not that I know how he expected me to get a hold of him. He thought he got rid of Brett’s phone number.”

  Judith cocked her head. “He didn’t?”

  “Brett sent me a birthday card shortly after Marvin asked him to leave. Marvin threw it away. If he knew that I got in the trash and tore out the phone number and address Brett sent, he never let on.” She looked off into the distance, as if attempting to search me out. “His place is over in Hillcrest.”

  I thought I saw Judith shake her head in judgment upon learning I lived in the “gay neighborhood.”

  “I drove by there a couple of times, hoping to see him. I never have. It looks like a nice little house, though.”

  “But surely he didn’t mean it. You should have called Brett. No matter what choices the boy has made about his life, Marvin was still his grandfather.”

  Grandma stiffened and peered up, straight into her friend’s face. “I will not go against my husband’s dying wishes. Besides, it seems Brett has moved on with his life. I haven’t heard anything else from him since th
at card. For all I know, he may have moved to another house or have a different phone number.” She wiped at her eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was crying or simply removing a hair from her vision. “I don’t want to disturb him, anyway.”

  The roughness of the bricks pressed through my shirt as my back leaned into them. The thought that my grandmother had gone against my grandfather enough that she had actually driven into Hillcrest to see where I lived was nearly beyond comprehension. I had never heard her utter one word of disagreement against him my entire life. It didn’t matter that he didn’t believe in God. She still followed the letter of the Bible, that the man is the head of the household. Even when he kicked me out of the house, she hadn’t said anything against him, only stood in the kitchen sobbing.

  Judith reached out and embraced Grandma before finally stepping into her car. “I love you, dear, and really, if you don’t feel up to it, just call me. I can handle Sunday school on my own.”

  Chapter 4

  OLD TOWN San Diego is my favorite place—aside from the beach, of course. It should be called Old Mexican Town. Actually, Old Tourist-Trap Americanized Mexican Town. As cheesy as it is, I love it there. There are tons of touristy shops, an open-air market “town square,” and several Mexican restaurants featuring homemade tortillas and tamales. Everything is bright, loud, and cheerful. Even in the off-season, Old Town is always filled with people—the perfect place to go when you want to be alone and unrecognized without actually being by yourself.

  I was finishing up a plate of beef and chicken fajitas at my favorite restaurant, Taberna de las Brujas, when I felt my cell phone vibrate. I fished it out of my pocket, having to rise up uncomfortably in the booth. It was Sonia. A couple of hours ago, after I had gone back home and cleaned up, I had texted her, with no response.

  She said she was on her date with Derek and was in the bathroom of the restaurant, and that she would most definitely not be home, unless I needed her. I wrote her back, telling her to have a good time and that I would be okay. I nearly added try and not set Derek on fire after you get him naked but decided that would freak her out and ensure she would come home to be with me. Part of me wanted that. The thought of going home to an empty house filled with nothing but my worries about what was happening and my new guilt over my grandmother seemed like too much to bear. Having Sonia home wouldn’t help, anyway. She wouldn’t stop pestering me until she got me to tell her everything that was going on, and she would know if I was lying. For some reason, I still couldn’t bring myself to tell Sonia about what had happened at the beach.