Burden of Proof

by Davis Bunn

  He was heading down the hotel’s front steps when the idea took hold.

  From his position on the steps, he looked out over an utterly pristine sea. Days and sometimes weeks leading up to a big blow, all the bad weather was sucked up, like nature’s massive vacuum cleaner went hoovering along the coast. There was not a breath of wind. Out to sea, the first of the storm’s waves were marching in. Not huge surf, not yet. Chest to head high, perfectly formed. What was more, because the waves were breaking everywhere, no spot along the beach was crowded. Ethan watched a pair of ratty surf mobiles with South Carolina plates pull into spots just down from the hotel. It was like watching a circus clown act, all these young kids scrambling out, more and more of them gathering on the boardwalk and screaming at the sight on display.

  Ethan had to smile at how he considered them kids. They were all his age, at least physically. So many days he’d done the same thing, poring over charts and marine forecasts, arguing with fierce abandon about where the waves might break best. Especially if the surf arrived on a weekend, like now. Back in the day before the internet made such decisions a cakewalk, these conversations could last all week. Just so he and his buddies could arrive here, at this very spot, and scream with joy over having gotten it right.

  Ethan watched them unlatch their boards and go flying down the beach and thought, Why not?

  The surf shop two blocks north of the hotel was doing a booming trade. Ethan purchased a new tri-fin, wax, leash, board shorts, and a Lycra T-shirt for protection against UV. He was checked out by a smiling young woman clearly operating on a commission. She treated Ethan as just another rich young tourist. She didn’t say anything, but the knowing smirk said everything. Days like this, the waves were known as a ground swell, meaning they were generated far out to sea. This also meant there were long pauses between sets, making the paddle-out easy enough for beginners. These same beginners would make it outside, only to be greeted by waves they couldn’t handle. If they were smart, they’d turn tail and take the first smallish wave back to shore. Most were not that smart.

  He chose a spot where there were no other surfers. He took his time, pausing every couple dozen strokes, using the paddle-out as a slow warm-up, being very sensitive to how his shoulder felt. Ethan had never been shot before, but he had recovered from his share of injuries—landing wrong on a rocky shorebreak, being hammered by waves heavy enough to break his board, twice being hauled across coral atolls by sets that just would not stop pounding. He knew the routine.

  There was a singular joy to arriving outside. He sat by himself and let the first set roll under him, utterly captivated by how good it felt. Ethan had the sense of a brand-new experience. Not so much that he had never done this before. Rather, that all of the previous sessions paled in significance. He knew it was probably due to how this could well be his last surf session. If not today, then tomorrow, or next weekend . . . He knew the finale was within reach. Even so, this awareness could not dim the wonder of being here.

  The sun baked his neck and shoulders, and the ocean was an almost perfect temperature. Gulls sang, and distant surfers finished their rides by singing back. He wished there was time for everything.

  Adrian had never much cared for surfing. He had done it as a young kid basically because everyone they knew surfed. But fishing was always his thing. Gina had gone out occasionally, but the big-wave locations always terrified her. It required a madcap passion to paddle into waves large enough to kill. Whenever she had flown to meet him, she always refused to even approach the beach on such days. Because she loved him.

  Sitting there straddling the board, Ethan cupped his hands, filled them with water, and lifted the shimmering gift up to the sky. Wishing only joy to this woman who had cared for him so deeply. Wishing her a full life. Wishing her all the wonder of such days. For her and her alone.

  Saturday afternoon Ethan lolled on the beach like a tourist, staying mostly under a rented umbrella. He watched the scene a little. Occasionally he followed a surfer carving a nice line. Now and then he missed Gina. He came up with a few more ideas about the coming week’s legal events. But mostly he just drifted. It was only now, in the first free hours he had known since his transition, that he really had time to reflect on what he had left behind.

  Death was no further away now than then, if Sonya’s and Delia’s calculations were correct. He had no reason to suspect otherwise. Even so, this day, this hour, was a gift beyond measure.

  The next morning he woke up with a bit more discomfort in his shoulder. But his body’s ability to heal itself with youth’s swiftness continued to amaze him. He stretched and went downstairs for breakfast and was back in his room at ten minutes to nine.

  Sitting there by the open balcony doors, waiting for Hennie’s call, Ethan watched a trio of pelicans sweep past his window and found it strange that he had never felt an urge to follow Hennie’s example. He had admired Hennie as a man and a surfer, how he had risen from awful beginnings to become one of the greats of a free South Africa. And yet . . .

  He recalled walking the rutted streets of Hennie’s township and marveling that such a leader in the surfing world could have come from such a place. He loved Hennie’s style in the water, admired how no measure of fame had impacted the gentle and caring manner with which he met the world. And yet . . .

  As he sat there, the terms Ethan had used to define his former existence echoed through his mind. Being his own man. Going his own way. Surfing the world and living on his terms. Just like Hennie, he had thought at the time.

  How blind he had been.

  When the phone rang, Ethan answered with, “Good morning, Hennie.”

  “How’s your weekend been, mate?”

  “Good. No, better than that. Mind if we jump straight in?”

  “Fire away.”

  “I want to talk with you about things. But for you to understand, first I need to tell you what’s happened to me.”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “It’s going to sound crazy.”

  “Mate, you don’t know crazy like I know crazy.”

  “Prepare to be amazed.”

  The surfer huffed a laugh. “No offense, mate, but you’d have to know my homeland to understand just how crazy life can get. America’s got some weirdness all her own, I’ll give you that. But nothing like what I grew up with.”

  “I’ve visited your township,” Ethan replied. “I understand what you’re saying. And I’m telling you the absolute truth, you better be sitting down.”

  Hennie’s voice grew skeptical. “You’ve been to Port Elizabeth?”

  “I’ve been to Kwazakele,” he replied, naming the highly dangerous Port Elizabeth township of Hennie’s birth. “Twice.”

  “When was that?”

  “The first time was . . . let’s see. Twenty-five years ago. Sort of.”

  Hennie went silent. “How old did you say you were?”

  “Twenty. Sort of.”

  Another long pause, then, “Okay. I’m sitting down. Let’s hear it.”

  The telling became far more than simply recounting the events around the transition. Ethan continued straight into the contest, and from there to the courthouse shooting and then to the conversation with Gina, the MRI scan, the seizure, dreaming that he was out there in the lineup again, helping his brother, and realizing he had to make this call.

  He finished with, “I’m doing my best not to count down the days I have left. I suppose what I’m feeling is just a holdover from before, back when the docs gave me a few bad weeks before checking out. But I think it’s more than that. I feel the end out there, just beyond reach. You know how you can sense a storm before it shows up?”

  Hennie spoke for the first time since Ethan began his telling. “I know.”

  “It’s like that. I can tell you without the slightest shred of doubt, the end is not far off.”

  The silence lasted quite a while after Ethan finished. He did not mind in the least. He sat by the bal
cony doors, feeling the rush of salt-laden air. The warm breeze anchored him to the here and now, however impossible that was. He sat and watched the gulls and the shimmering blue sea, and waited.

  Finally Hennie said, “Okay, so here’s what I want to tell you. I’m hearing a number of questions in what you’ve said. And I have just one answer to all of them.”

  Ethan nodded to the morning beyond his window. He liked how Hennie felt no need to doubt or act amazed. He felt as linked to the South African as he had that incredible day, standing on the beach with their arms around each other, reveling in the joy of having shared those waves. “I’m listening.”

  “First, nothing has changed.” Hennie spoke now in a measured cadence. His tone had become more musical, as if speaking with Ethan about the transition had taken him more deeply into his African roots. “You are facing the same challenge you were before. The same challenge we all face. You know what that challenge is?”

  “Not that I can put in words.”

  “The challenge is this, my brother. You must decide how you are going to face the day. Before the . . . what did you call it?”

  “Transition.”

  “Before that happened, you lived only for yourself. You used those exact words, and it’s beyond good that you have recognized this. A thin life, my people would call it. Now, since your transition, what are you doing?”

  “Trying,” Ethan said. “As hard as I know how.”

  “And that’s the key here. Not that you do but that you try, and you give this everything you have. Which you are.”

  There was no reason why Hennie’s words should make his eyes burn like they did, or blur his vision to where all Ethan saw was a sparkling pastel blue.

  “The question I’m hearing you not say is, how do you keep trying? How do you know you’re taking the right aim, following the right course?”

  Ethan managed one word. “Yes.”

  “Straight up, mate, there’s only one way I know how to do that. Because it’s hard. So incredibly difficult. Life throws so much at us, all these reasons to change course. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  “The answer, brother, is to aim for the eternal. Long as you do that, you’re good to go. Even if you miss your target, even if you fall flat on your face, you know you’ve given it your best. You know. Because it’s not for you. It’s . . .”

  Ethan breathed in and out, feeling a link to the man and the power of that lone word. “Eternal.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Later that morning Ethan returned to the water, surfing closer to his limits, pushing himself harder, testing his shoulder between each set. The waves were bigger now. They carried a muscled punch that was rare for Florida surf. There were far fewer surfers in the lineup. Getting out was tricky. The currents were rough. The wind was stronger as well, blowing from land out to sea. This offshore flow caused the waves to jack up tighter and fall faster, creating deep tubes, another rarity for Florida. The hurricane was on its way, the surf seemed to say. This was merely a foretaste of things to come.

  When his shoulder began throbbing, Ethan rode the next wave to shore and returned to the hotel. He entered carrying his board and exchanged hellos with a number of the staff. One of the receptionists walked over, handed him a message, and asked about the waves. Ethan was becoming a sort of local now. The oddball kid who lived in a corner suite, who put up his girlfriend in the hotel’s opposite corner, at least until she dumped him and checked out. Which was after her mother showed up and woke the hotel with their quarrel before joining the rich kid for breakfast. Oh, and all this was after the guy saved his brother from getting shot on the courthouse stairs. Sure, it had been in all the news . . .

  Ethan climbed the central staircase, thinking they had every reason to give him the eye.

  The message was from Adrian, confirming they were on their way home and telling him to come over for an early dinner. Ethan showered and stretched and ate a room-service sandwich. Then he lay down with the balcony doors open. He bunched up pillows so he had a prone view of the beach and the surfers and the sunlit sea. He found himself thinking about Hennie’s words and how they fit around everything that had happened since his transition. As he dozed off, he imagined touching Gina’s cheek, framing her love-filled gaze with his hand, speaking to her that one potent word. Eternal.

  Ethan pulled into his brother’s drive an hour or so before sunset. The front door was partly open to the heat. As he rose from the car, Ethan heard a deep bass rumble of thunder. The sky overhead was a porcelain blue, just slightly veiled with very high clouds. The offshore wind had continued all day, sucking up all the humidity, turning the afternoon bone dry. The thunder growled a second time as Ethan climbed the front steps, as if nature mocked the day’s pleasant tone.

  As he started to knock, Adrian pulled the door farther open, drew his brother inside, and put a finger to his lips. A briefcase rested on the side table. Adrian wore an ironed Izod shirt and pleated cotton dress trousers and tasseled loafers. Ethan stepped in beside his brother and heard the two women talking just out of sight.

  Gina said, “How am I supposed to accept what he’s told me?”

  Sonya replied, “It’s very difficult, I agree.”

  “It’s impossible!”

  Adrian smiled at his brother as Sonya asked, “Are you saying you don’t believe him?”

  “I don’t know what to believe!”

  “Hard as it is for me to take this step, I for one have found every conceivable reason to accept Ethan is telling some version of the truth.”

  “What do you mean, ‘version’?”

  Ethan heard a soft hammering and assumed one of the women was using a knife and a chopping block. Sonya said, “It’s a term from my research. When we work with human subjects, we must accept that their responses are not always in line with their experiences.”

  Gina remained on the verge of anger. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “We can control a subject’s experience. That is what establishing protocols are all about. What we can’t control is how the subject views the experience or what their reaction might be. Sometimes the way they emotionally respond to our experiment completely skews what they perceive. So right now, all we can say for certain is, Ethan has experienced something remarkable.”

  “That’s not good enough!”

  “No. If I were in your position, I would probably feel exactly the same way.” Sonya continued speaking in a calm, almost detached manner. The scientist doing her best to hold to the facts. “Which is a case in point. What you perceive about Ethan’s sharing his experience is colored by how it impacts you. How it makes you feel.”

  Gina remained silent.

  “Ethan has told us his version of the truth. And our natural reaction is to reject what he is telling us as impossible.”

  “Exactly!”

  A pot rattled. The water turned on. “I started studying the human brain as an undergraduate. That was seventeen years ago. And all I can say for certain is, I know so very little about what makes us who we are. We use terms like consciousness with such ease. But what is it really? Do you know that for over a thousand years, the most learned authorities insisted that human consciousness was housed in the stomach? Another thousand, the heart! Thanks to all the new technologies that I and other researchers can call on, we can now actually watch thoughts take form in the brain. We have finally begun to map the physical process of a mental response taking form. But what does it mean? Is that all there is to the concept of an individual human being and their individual reality?”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “That I’m right to leave.”

  The water turned off. A pot was set down on a metallic surface. Sonya took her time responding, and when she did, her voice had gone flat. Toneless. “Of course you must do as you see fit.”

  “My mother would s
ay it’s time to go. Past time!”

  “Your mother is not here. Nor is she in love with Ethan.”

  “A man who is dying.”

  “And now we come to the true crux of the matter. Remember what I said before. You perceive what Ethan told you through the sorrow you were already feeling. Very recently his heart went into atrial fibrillation, and it frightened you terribly. We were all terrified that we might have lost him. And when he returned, when you could be there with him again, you were faced with the fact that sooner rather than later, we are going to lose him for good.” Sonya’s voice cracked slightly. She paused, then went on in a calmer voice, “And it’s at that point, your weakest and most vulnerable moment, that he tells you of this impossible journey his consciousness has taken.”

  “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “All of this is so very hard. Do you know I detested Ethan? Before, I mean. I hated being around him. And now it breaks my heart as well to think that someday very soon . . .”

  Adrian’s calm demeanor melted. He gripped Ethan’s arm and silently drew him back out on the front step.

  Ethan was left both uncomfortable and helpless by the emotions he saw playing over his brother’s face. Adrian eventually cleared his eyes and said, “You hear the latest report?”

  “About what?”

  “I take that as a no.” He wiped his face a second time. “The storm has changed course. It’s headed straight this way.” When Ethan did not respond, Adrian pushed open the front door and called with false cheeriness, “Look who I found lurking outside!”

  As Ethan entered the kitchen, Gina slipped out the rear doors and stood by the pool, staring at the night, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle.

  “Give her time,” Sonya said.

  Ethan said, “I should go.”

  Adrian glanced out the rear doors and nodded once. “Might be wise.”