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Cape May DiamondsNov 20 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line A semi-autobiographical exploration of how all that glitters may definitely not be gold.
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The sand between my toes felt good as I stood on the gently roiling shore of Sunset Beach, my bare feet in the wet sand and pebbles, feeling giddy with excitement every time the tide came in and washed over my feet. I stood there staring at the horizon, into the lower edge of the Delaware Bay, looking past the crumbling wreck of the concrete ship Atlantus, which sat in the silt just off the shore, thinking about something that lay just beyond the reach of my consciousness, and I then crouched low to study the gravel beneath me. It took me a minute to let my mind focus on the task at hand. I was looking for small white pieces of glassy quartz that around here are commonly called Cape May diamonds. They are usually found in abundance along the shoreline of Sunset Beach, but the pieces I was more interested in were large, about the size of my thumbnail or bigger. Every summer, when we were on vacation, I would ride my bicycle from my parents' beach house to Sunset and spend part of the day looking for them. I usually found about a dozen per day; the small pieces would go into a clear plastic gallon jug I kept at home. The larger pieces I would take to my uncle's jewelry shop in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, where he would, on my days off from work or school, allow me to go into the back where I would use a rock tumbler to clean them, a gem knife to cut them, and then a rock polisher to smooth them into a diamond-like quality that would fool any layman. My uncle originally taught me how to do it, and I got better with a ton of patience and a smackload of practice. The process for each "diamond" would take me anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on the size of the piece. Then I would take the finished stones and shop them around to local jewelry or novelty stores in my area, and I usually ended up with a decent amount of cash to put in my wallet. They all knew, of course, that they were fake diamonds, but the best-looking ones would be sold as cubic-zirconium stones; believe me, you can't tell the difference between them. I found a few that didn't look too bad--they were lumpy, brownish-white globs of gravel that to the uninformed would appear to be nothing more than detritus from the ocean floor, but they were as big as thimbles and with a little work, they would be crystal-clear and sparkling from a week in the rock tumbler. I sat in the sand, silently gazing at them for a minute and decided at last to keep them when I noticed the pretty blond-haired girl sitting quietly on a red blanket, staring at me from a few yards down the shore. I looked at her. She smiled. I smiled back. She stood up from her blanket and walked over to me, her long blond hair whipping in the sudden breeze. Beautiful tanned legs. "Hi," she said in the universal greeting. I swallowed. "Hi back," I said. "What are those?" she asked, pointing at the stones in my hand. "Cape May diamonds," I said simply. "Those are Cape May diamonds?" she said, not believing me. I smiled and shrugged. "Believe it or not. I know how to pick them apart." She knelt beside me. I could smell the faint odor of some nameless perfume that had the slightest tinge of rosewater. I smiled; roses are my favorite flowers. The girl pointed at one in my hand and said, "That one doesn't look anything like a gemstone." "Not now," I said, smiling. "But once it's tumbled, cut and polished, it'll look exactly like a diamond. I do it myself; I collect these and work on them back at home, turning them into cut gemstones. I'm an amateur jeweler." Her eyes immediately brightened. She had pretty green eyes. Green like mine. "Really? What do you do when you're not doing that?" she asked. I turned away. "I work in a stationary store." "Oh yeah? Staples?" "Office Max in Montgomeryville, Pee-yay. I've been there for two years now. I used to be part time, but now I've been full time this summer since I got done my college semester." "Where do you go to college?" "Villanova." "Really? Do you know Dave Radnor? He's my older brother, a sophomore in engineering." I shook my head; the name didn't sound familiar at all. "Uh-uh. I never really knew anybody there. I didn't hang out." "Oh." She sounded disappointed. "Oh well, my name's Alicia." Ah, the first circuit complete. "I'm Chris," I said, holding out my hand gently for her to shake. I remembered the stones, nearly forgotten, and I wondered if I really wanted to keep them. She saw my face and said, "Are you going to take them?" I grimaced in ambiguous disdain and said, "No," tossing them back to the sea from whence they came. They made a small splashing sound and that was it, besides the sound of the surf and the mindless chatter of visitors spread out on the beach. Sunset Beach used to be quieter, more unknown, but now the fun predators were coming in droves. I stood up and asked, "Are you here with somebody?" Alicia blushed. "Yeah, but I'm...between guys...you know?" "I understand. You wanna walk for a little bit?" "Sure," she said brightly, standing up to join me. "Are you here by yourself?" I nodded, a little nervously. "I came by myself, yeah. My parents have a place on the beach that we rent every summer, but I just drove here today. It's my day off." Alicia smiled at me and picked up her towel, wrapping it around her waist. "Let's go," she said. The sun shone brighter in the sky. We walked south, toward Cape May Point, where the lighthouse was. It was nearing six o'clock, and the shadows shifted reluctantly to the east. We walked slowly, talking evenly and trying to betray as little shyness as possible. Alicia was from Cherry Hill and a big Flyers fan. We talked a little about how lousy their past season had been and how Bobby Clarke had turned into the most treacherous general manager in the history of the NHL. She told me she was starting Rutgers in the fall, and that she wanted to become a teacher. Noble profession. "I came down here with a bunch of high school friends," she said, looking off into the ocean. "I'd never been here before. Usually I go down to Ocean City or Wildwood. I'm more into boardwalk beaches, but this place is beautiful." I pretended to gag. "I hate those two places. I can't stand either beach now. Too many gangs there now; they've become hangout spots." She looked at me in surprise. "They're not that bad," she said. I nodded. "Trust me, they are. It's quieter here. I've been coming here every summer, and Cape May is always the same. Peaceful. Well, until the schools let out, and the kids get here, but they're usually better behaved." I winked at her. "You seem behaved." "Yeah, when I'm not behind the wheel of my car. I get mad too easily on the road." She stepped around the glistening body of a small jellyfish lying in the sand. "Ooohhh, I hate those things." "They're only dangerous in the water, when they have their tentacles spread out. Then they'll sting. It hurts. I got stung once, when I was a little kid." "Oh no! Did it hurt real bad?" "Yeah, it did; put me in a coma, actually. My parents were hysterical. My mother actually called the priest in to give me my last rites." "She didn't." "Yeah, she did, but he calmed her down. Good man, Monsignor McHenry. Anyway, I woke up a couple of hours later. I was in bed for about a week." "Are you Catholic?" Good question. "Not anymore," I said, meaning it. "I grew out of it, a little at a time, starting when I was eighteen, I think. I had a crisis of faith." "Do you still?" Better question. "No. Not anymore. I don't think of myself as religious. I think of myself as a believer in Christ. Just a plain, basic Christian, if you wanna call it that." "Oh," she said, clearly fascinated. We walked a little more without speaking, and the beach ended at a mass of rocks that flanked the seawall just west of the lighthouse. To me, it reminded me of a Thomas Kinkade painting. We watched the waves crash against the base of the rocky ledge for a moment, and then turned back toward Sunset Beach. "So do you come here every summer to collect Cape May diamonds?" she asked me suddenly. "Pretty much," I said. "I have a big gallon jug at home filled with them. I have it about two-thirds of the way full. I've been collecting them for about five or six years now. I take the big ones and cut them and polish them, then I sell them to local shops. I get about three hundred dollars for a dozen of them." "Wow," said Alicia. "Where do they come from, anyway?" "Upper reaches of the Delaware River," I explained, trying hard not to sound like my father. "They're basically pieces of quartz that wash away from the banks of the Delaware and slowly make their way south toward the ocean. It takes thousands of years. Eventually they end up here around Cape May, and a lot of them wash up on Sunset Beach. A few of them actually make it all the way down to the Carolinas. The Kechemeche Indians were the first to discover them when they first settled down here, and they held them in such high regard that they believed they actually healed people. Some people have found Cape May diamonds as big as eggs, but I've never seen one that big." I glanced at her, and found her gazing at me, almost mesmerized. "You're pretty intelligent, you know?" she whispered. I shrugged. "I read too much." "No, I mean it," she said, lightly gripping my arm. "You speak so beautifully about stuff I don't know, you polish jewelry, you go to school, and you don't treat me like I'm stupid. I really like that." We stopped walking within sight of Sunset Beach. The teasing smell of hamburger drifted into my nostrils from the Sunset Grill. I glanced down at my wristwatch. It was five minutes past seven, and the sun began its final descent toward the Delaware Bay. Had we been walking that long? "I'm no longer in school," I said, watching a small crab skitter across the sand and pebbles. Above us, the majestic form of a seagull hovered deliberately, patient. I sat down in the sand, watching the battle between species play out. Alicia sat down beside me, gently touching my arm, mapping my skin. "I decided to drop out after three years," I said, looking into her curious eyes, then back to the crab. The crab hung near the edge of the lapping waves; it knew the seagull was there. "Why?" she asked. I took a long breath and let it out slowly. "I don't know what I want to do." It was partially a lie. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but I didn't know Alicia well enough to tell her the truth. Then again, she was a stranger, and often experience will tell you that the only kindness, the only trust you can ever count on in this world, if you cannot count on anything else, is the kindness of strangers. Why? Most of us are all strangers to each other, with nothing to blackmail or threaten each other with. Simple logic. But the fear is always there, which makes it all illogical. The crab didn't fear, but it knew danger. It paused for a moment, apprehensive. But not afraid. The seagull was no stranger. She shrugged and shook her head. "Do any of us really know what we want to do at first? When I was in high school I had dreams of being a doctor, but then I found out how good I am at mathematics. Algebra, calculus, geometry...they all come pretty easy to me, for some reason. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do now. I want to teach children. But maybe when I start school I'll change my mind and switch majors." I smiled at her. Alicia was smarter than I thought. The truth, then. "I was an English Lit major, with a minor in journalism. I told my professors I wanted to report crime, but what I really wanted to do was write suspense novels for a living and become a bestselling author with a big house on the Outer Banks. I even wrote an imaginary interview with myself in GQ magazine. Just to amuse myself." Alicia laughed. "I'd love to read the real interview with you someday. But what made you leave?" I looked at the seagull hovering in the air. It made one final circle and suddenly dove. The crab tried to make it to the water, almost got there, but then the gull touched down with a shrill "Kai!" and grabbed the thrashing crab. I heard the shell breaking open and the triumphant cry of the gull, then watched as the gull carried the struggling crab to the edge of a nearby dune and began to pick it apart. Soon other gulls came, flocking around the scene of the murder, and the triumphant bird suddenly had to defend its prize. I tore my eyes from the image and said, "It was a girl." Alicia looked at me and said nothing. I swallowed and explained. "April and I met each other in high school, but we didn't start to seriously date until about the time we graduated. It was really awkward at first, because she was Korean and her parents wanted her to date Korean boys, but she stuck by me, and we really fell for each other. "But then came the time for us to start choosing among the different schools we'd been accepted to, and we found that we'd both been accepted to 'Nova. Her parents wanted her to go there because they were strict Catholics and felt she'd get the best education there. I really wanted to go to Temple so I could study film, but my devotion to her won out in the end, and we both ended up going there." Alicia looked at me and said nothing, so I continued. "It was fine at first, because we weren't in any of each other's classes that first semester, but in the second, we had a few. She lived on campus, away from her parents, and I commuted from home. I began spending time with her in her dorm--she roomed alone. We spent a lot of time together." "Did you..." she started to say, and the rest went unspoken. I nodded. "Yeah," I said, "We did. Almost every time we got together. We did it before classes, we did it after classes, and it even got to the point where we did it instead of classes. We...made a lot of mistakes." Alicia gazed at me silently, the only sound being the lapping of the surf and the gleeful shouts of beachgoers enjoying the last rays of the sun. My watch said 8:09, and the sun was about to touch the horizon. I wistfully pondered if it was wise to trust my heart to someone I didn't know. It was too late to look for diamonds on the shore...but then I wondered if I had nevertheless found one I'd been looking for all along. Could she really be... "It went bad, didn't it?" she said, not exactly a question. I nodded. "Yeah, it did. We were even engaged to get married at one point, but it got broken off almost as quickly as it was made." I looked at the sun, studying its perfect sphere, its infinitely-rounded fire. Alicia took my hand in hers and watched it dip toward the horizon with me. Before it disappeared below the water, I looked into her eyes and tried to picture what I looked like to her. I focused on her green mirrors and saw myself dimly, a man of twenty-two, short brown hair, sharp nose, thin line for a mouth, okay physique, nothing too fancy. I was hardly aware that I was leaning closer to her when she pulled forward and kissed me, completing the moment, completing each other. We lay in the sand gazing into each other's eyes for a long time afterward, listening to the sound of the ocean, smiling. Then she said, "Listen, my friends were supposed to get together on the beach up near that big pavilion overlooking the lighthouse. You know, get together, have a good time, have some food and drinks, all that. Are you interested?" "Sure," I said, feeling something small and strong gripping a corner of my stomach. Anxiety, maybe. "I thought you were between guys, though." "It'll be all right," said Alicia, holding my hand tightly. "They'll be well-behaved...and besides, they've probably forgotten about me and gone out with two of my other friends. C'mon, it'll be great! We might even play a couple of games up there too. We brought a volleyball and a net." "Volleyball's my game," I said, standing up to brush sand off my swim shorts. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. After all, I'd have the safety net of seniority among these kids...maybe. It was a first-quarter moon that night. We drove to the point where the pavilion was, and it had already gotten dark. There were people there, but Alicia said, "That isn't them. I thought they were going to be right there." I shrugged. "Maybe they aren't here yet," I said. "Maybe we should wait," she said. I nodded and shut the car off. We sat there for a minute in silence, then I inserted a David Sanborn disc into the CD player. The saxophone fit the mood perfectly, melding with the sound of the ocean and the brilliant display of stars in the night sky. Alicia nestled close to me and rested her head on my shoulder. Dear Lord, I don't know what to do, I pleaded in my mind. I had been through a very bad relationship...I didn't want my heart broken again, but this was so perfect...so right. She abruptly lifted her head from my shoulder and blinked. Somebody was standing on the edge of a dune, a tall figure in a white tee-shirt. He seemed to be looking into the row of parked cars, fixing his gaze on mine. Alicia smiled, waved, and said, "My God, that's Jack. Okay, okay...Jack is all right. You'll get to like him." She opened her door and slid out. I gulped down a lump of apprehension and got out, locking the car. Who was Jack? Brother? Boyfriend? Pimp? I studied him as I approached with Alicia. He was tanned, broad-shouldered, well built. His face was blessed with sharp cheek bones, chiseled jaw, sandy-blond hair, and two of the blackest eyes I'd ever seen. He looked strong and athletic. If the pot started boiling...I forced the thought back into the darkness. He approached me and held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Jack," he said in a deep, mature voice. He gripped my hand, and I felt the bones crunch together. Oh boy. "You and Alicia are...?" He let the rest go unspoken. She looked at me. I said, "Yeah. We met today on Sunset and we started talking." Jack gazed at me emotionlessly and then said, "We're all together down the beach about a quarter mile away. You'd better follow me because it's dark and there's a lot of holes that Doug and Stan are digging around. Just be careful where you step." "Holes?" I asked, smiling awkwardly. "To let us know if the beach patrol or anyone else is coming around," explained Jack with his flat, mature tone. He turned and began to lead us to our destination, turning on a small flashlight and flicking it back and forth in the dark sand. Pit traps. Now this was starting to get interesting. I was a little nervous, but my curiosity was stronger than my fear. Jack led us far up the beach, his flashlight bobbing back and forth, until we heard the idle chatter of people in the distance. Jack whistled to them, and several figures came walking up to meet us. Alicia said "Hey guys," and they came into darkened view. Two girls and two boys, all teens, gathered around us in a semi-circle. "Guys, this is Chris," said Alicia. The boys, one thin and the other stocky, extended their hands and I shook them firmly one at a time. "I'm Doug," said the skinny one. The stocky dude, shorter than me, blinked once and said, "Stan." The girls, one white and the other black (or was she Hispanic?) lightly took my hand and introduced themselves as Marcy and Tina, respectively. "So, what's going on?" I asked innocently, determined to break the ice that I knew was glaciating around me. I was a stranger, and I was outnumbered, which wasn't exactly comforting. And there was something about these kids I simply couldn't put my finger on...something odd. It's the kind of feeling you get when you walk into a room and everyone inside stops whatever they're doing and they all stand there staring at you, as if you'd walked in on something illegal going on and suddenly they all have to figure out what to do with you. It was exactly that kind of anxiety I had, glancing at their dark, blank eyes, seeing the way they held their bodies, as if they were leaning on invisible crutches. There was definitely something going on here, and it wasn't a game of volleyball. Doug looked around and said, "We're all just having a good time, man. Why don't you join us?" The others, including Alicia, smiled and began walking toward what looked like a beach blanket and a pair of coolers a dozen feet away, toward the surf. Marcy and Tina giggled and whispered something to each other as we walked. Alicia hugged Jack and kissed him on the cheek, saying something in his ear that I couldn't hear. Stan, the stocky, laconic kid, drifted near me and said, "So where're you from?" "Abington, right outside Philly," I answered, feeling a little more secure. "How about you?" "Me and Doug are from Cherry Hill. Are you a Flyers fan?" I grinned. "Trying to be. I'm more into football." "Yeah, the Eagles looked good last year, but I'm bettin' on the Giants." "Don't bet too much too soon, dude," I said. "Wait until they reach the playoffs." We reached our destination, and the three girls sat on the blanket, continuing their girl talk, while Jack and Doug opened one of the coolers. I heard the tinkling of ice against glass, and in the half-moon light I saw what looked like beer bottles. Jack lightly tossed one to me, ever the gracious host, and I gazed at the label in the half-light. Corona. Good beer. "Thanks," I said, not knowing if I should have passed it to someone else. I didn't have to worry, as Jack and Doug threw some more out to everyone else. I waited until one of the guys had opened his, and I twisted the cap off mine. Jack, the apparent ringleader, sat on the cooler and raised his bottle. "To this beautiful evening, and to our new guest," he toasted, and we joined him in one long chug. I took the bottle from my lips, swallowing the bittersweet golden liquid, and watched as Jack finished his beer in one swig. He put the bottle on the sand next to him and got up to grab another beer. Tina looked at me and said, "So are you and Alicia...well...kinda...you know...?" I looked at Alicia sitting next to her and nodded. She smiled in agreement. "We met today," I said. Tina looked at Jack and than back to me. Jack said nothing. "Do you live here?" Tina asked. "No," I said, taking another sip of beer. "I'm from around Philly." "I'm from Lower Merion," said Doug, suddenly standing. "My cousin used to shoot hoops with Kobe down on South Street. Used to hang out in Philly all the time before my folks moved to Cherry Hill. How do you think the Eagles will do?" "I see them going all the way to San Diego in January," I said, smiling. Doug nodded. "Me too. They won't win, though." "Why not?" "I have a little theory," said Doug, sitting down on the other cooler. "Everything is relative, and everything happens inside this pattern of time and circumstance that I've noticed. See, there's this ten-year cycle that seems to go on with Philly teams. In 1980, you had the Phillies winning the World Series. In '81, the Eagles went to the Super Bowl and lost. In '83, the Sixers won the Championship. Now, cut to ten years later. In '93 the Phillies went to the Series and lost. The Flyers went to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1997 and got annihilated by Detroit, ten years after losing to the Oilers. Last year, 2001, the Sixers got beaten in the Championship series by L.A. Also, last year, the Eagles went to the second round and lost to New York. This past year, they went to St. Louis and lost the NFC game. This season, in January, I know for absolutely sure that they'll go to the Super Bowl...and they're gonna lose." He beamed at me and took another swig. Jack looked at him with those black eyes and shook his head. "You have to forgive poor Doug here, Chris," he said to me, sipping his Corona. "He's a hopeless fanboy. You shoulda seen him when the Sixers went to the Championships. He tore his bedroom apart and wrecked his car when they lost. He's cute when he gets mad." Doug stuck up his middle finger (which was surprisingly fat, given the rest of him) at Jack and slid off the cooler in genuine humility. We finished our drinks in silence after that, listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the sand, and Alicia sidled up next to me, resting her body against my side. Jack glared at her with those black eyes, sunken pits that seemed to express some innate hostility, and he abruptly rose from the cooler to say, "It's time to really start this beach party. Anybody here agree?" "Yeah," said Tina and Marcy, harmonizing. Doug said, "Bring it on." Stan just nodded and said, "Sure." I looked at Alicia, curious. "Got the party favors, huh?" I said, trying not to sound corny. It didn't work. Alicia smiled. Nervously. Jack opened the second cooler and reached in, digging past ice and more beer bottles, by the sound of it. I watched intently as he brought out a small plastic container, sheathed in plastic. "What's that?" I asked, suddenly feeling a leaden, icy ball forming in the bottom of my gut. "Crowd pleasers," said Jack, not smiling. He took the container out of the plastic and opened it, taking out what looked like a strip of Tylenol caplets, colored blue and white. He pushed a couple of them through the foil backing and offered them to me. I did not extend my hand to take them. "It's okay, dude," said Jack, holding them out for me. "They're safe." "Ecstasy," I said, partly a question. Jack nodded, saying, "Straight from Israel, and even better than before. More potent. Try 'em." His voice took on a commanding tone. Something twisted in my stomach. "No thanks," I said. "I don't do that." Alicia leaned forward and took them from Jack, holding them in front of me. "It's okay, baby. We come down here and do it all the time, and then we go look at the water. They're safer than the ones we used to get before...it won't hurt." I stared at her in total disbelief, seeing the seriousness in her eyes, those perfect green eyes that mirrored mine. Dear God in heaven, I was smack in the middle of a bunch of druggies. Oh great...that was just wonderful. My mind frantically ran through a sudden checklist, outlining my options. Take the stuff and get high, wind up with a toe tag in the morning. Take the stuff, get busted, spend ten years in Graterford. Take the stuff, get hooked, spend the rest of my existence breaking into cars and houses to get money to get high. Refuse, get beaten up. Refuse, get killed. Refuse, lose Alicia... Refuse, take a stand, try to get Alicia out of this. Together. Right now. Jack shrugged and proceeded to hand out caplets to the rest of the group, who eagerly reached out to grab the junk and take them with new bottles of beer Stan was handing out to everyone. My mind was still grinding away, trying to process all the data, but my internal hard drive abruptly crashed when I saw Alicia bringing the pills to her mouth. I reached out and yanked them away from her lips, scattering them. Alicia looked at me with amalgamated looks of surprise and hurt. "Why did you do that?" she cried, getting up to pick up the pills I'd flung from her hand. I grabbed her and forced her around to face me. "Listen!" I yelled in her face. "You don't have to do this. You don't need that garbage. You think this stuff will make you feel like you're flying high on top of the whole world, but it will screw you up for the rest of your life. Seizures, tooth erosion, tremors, and that need to have it...it will rule your whole life, Alicia." I looked into her eyes, pleading with my own. I felt a hand wrench me away from her, and I stood to look into Jack's dark face. Stan, Doug, Tina and Marcy sat on the sand, huddled together, looking at the ocean, at the stars, or at me. They were totally junked out. Ecstasy will do that to you. Eventually it makes you stupid, as it eats away at your brain. It can also make you aggressive, and I saw it happening to ole' Jacky boy here. "Maybe you should be minding your own business and not get involved in the lady's business, my friend," he snarled. I got a real good look at Jack's eyes right then, and what I saw frightened me. His eyes were ancient, even though his face was young. Lines traced their way from the top of his cheeks to his lower eyelids, and the eyes themselves were sunken into their sockets; it was like looking into twin abysses. He had junked himself up so much, and I could see the needle marks on his arms, dotting from his wrists to his elbows. The dude had turned himself into a walking colander, just like Chet Baker did, who turned himself into a wizened old man in the prime of his youth as he sang "My Funny Valentine" in Amsterdam while being stalked by drug dealers. I saw it here; I saw a living vacuum where Jack stood, and I'm absolutely sure he didn't know it. One other thing Jack didn't know was that when I visited an uncle of mine out in Colorado, my uncle taught me a little tae kwan do. He also taught me something else, a martial art I hadn't heard of before: Hapkido. I liked it immediately, when he first began to teach me, and I grasped an acute appreciation for it. The art of hapkido is simple in form, but deadly in practice. It's the technique of close combat, of using the opponent's own force against them, like judo, but with much more devastating effect, if used with conviction. Jack's hand was a twisted claw gripping my shoulder. I grabbed his wrist and elbow, twisting them away from me while spinning my body around. He surprised me with his quickness, reaching around to grab my hair with his other hand. Big mistake. Most people think grabbing a handful of hair and pulling would make anyone surrender, but I remembered my uncle's teaching and gripped the hand pulling my hair, pulling the hand to me and forcing his wrist around, spinning my body to his side, where I shot my foot out, connecting with his right knee. I heard something pop inside his leg, and he cried out, letting go of my hair. He reached down to grab his injured knee, and I swung my foot up, pretending to kick a soccer ball, and my heel hit his jaw. There was the sound of something breaking, and Jack hit the ground. He flopped around a few times, then lay still. For a moment, there was no sound at all except for the crashings of the waves against the beach. I looked over at the others, who were sitting together, eyes glazed, watching me. Stan said, "Cool." I stepped away from Jack's heap and turned my gaze toward Alicia, sprawled on the sand a few feet away from me. I stepped over to her and knelt next to her. "Come on," I said, barely hearing my own voice. She glared at me, her jaw slack. "What?" she whispered, rising to her feet. "After you do that...after doing that to Jack..." She held her face inches from mine, her eyes burning coals. "Let's get out of here," I said, reaching for her. She backed away, swiping at my hand. "No! Who do you think you are, beating up Jack like that? He never hurt anyone in his life, not even me. You don't know how nice and gentle he is, especially to our baby. How could you do that?" The lower part of my body seemed to sink into ice. "You...you have a baby...?" "Yes!" she said, crying now. She choked back tears and said, "We had a baby boy a year ago, but we gave him up for adoption, and his cousin and her husband took him in. We still see him once a month. Jack is so gentle with him, so loving...but I know that he and I could have never been good parents to him...oh...God..." She ran over to Jack's unconscious form and turned him over, cradling his head in her lap, caressing his face. He stirred as she touched his jaw, which sounded broken by the sound of his teeth grinding. I stared at them for the longest time, looking at this junkie image of Pieta, and the anger swelled within me. The others looked like they were in a stupor, gazing into space. I couldn't stop the words that spewed from my mouth. "You pitiful junk monkeys," I hissed. "So this is what you do with your time and your lives, just sitting around junking yourselves up because you're too stupid to figure out what else to do? I don't do that garbage because I know what it does, because I've seen what it did to too many people, including my brother. He's drooling from one corner of his mouth and sitting like a turnip in some godforsaken mental hospital because he did heroin and it blew his brain to pieces inside his skull. He can't even go to the bathroom by himself; he needs someone to handle it for him. "You know, Alicia, I'm glad all this happened. I'm glad you showed me now what kind of person you are instead of me finding out later. You're a junkie mom who gave up her little boy because she was too stupid to see what she was doing to herself. His daddy is a junkie pusher who probably sleeps around and gets the girls he sees into this crap. What's your little boy's name? Jack Jr.?" "You go straight to hell," she snarled at me, baring her teeth. "You first," I said, immediately regretting it. I now felt the tears flowing down my cheeks. I knew what she was going to say before the words came. "You're such a Christian," she said. "At least I try," I returned. "At least I tried to get you away from this. Sit there and live that life." I immediately turned and began walking away, being mindful of the holes the guys had dug in the sand. I got as far as within sight of the pavilion when I heard her screaming, cursing me and begging me to come back. I kept walking. I had no idea what time it was when I got back to my car; I didn't want to look at my watch, nor did I turn the radio on to get the digital display. I backed out of the parking space, turned down Ocean Ave., and drove toward Route 9, toward Pennsylvania, toward home. I did not look back in my rearview mirror. I drove in silence. I drove in despair. I drove past the Ipanema bar and grill, which was still open. I knew that I had enough money to buy a round of tequila shots. I kept driving. I visited Cape May one more time that dying summer, again by myself, just to see if the feeling I'd had before I left was still there. The town looked just as it did, with tourists and natives cheerfully walking the streets and walkways. Bicyclists lazily cruised down the sides of the roads, and deeply-tanned surfers carried their boards around. Everything looked and sounded the same. Nothing felt the same. I drove down to the pavilion where Alicia and I had gone to meet her companions. I got out of my car and considered going to the spot where everything had fallen apart. After a moment, though, I decided not to do that. I didn't want to find anything there that would have reminded me of that night. And I certainly did not go to Sunset Beach, where we'd first met. In fact, I don't even go there anymore. And I no longer search on the shore for Cape May diamonds. There aren't any there.  |
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