We Run the Tides(46)

I move inland and try the climb from a different approach. The bluff is higher from this starting point, but its face is jagged here, giving me more possibilities for traction. I start the ascent and soon am moving fast—hand, foot, hand, foot until I am at the top. I scurry to the edge. “Keith,” I scream. I can barely hear myself against the roar of the waves. I try to peek down without falling. The skateboard is no longer visible.

I scramble down the other side of the cliff, to China Beach. First I slide, and then I turn so I’m facing the rocks. Foot, hand, foot, hand, until I push off and land on the sand. I turn and see a group of people maybe two hundred feet away.

The group is gathered around a bonfire. I run toward it, my eyes searching for Keith’s tall frame. The smoke smudges my vision. The fire’s smell is fierce. I cough, stop to catch my breath, and then resume my sprint.

As I approach the fire, I count nine people. None of them are Keith. It’s a group of hippies and what look like homeless people, gathered around the flames, drinking. I stop running and walk toward them cautiously.

“Have you seen a boy?” I ask.

The face of a toothless man turns toward me. And then another face, this one of a woman with impossibly long hair, tilts in my direction. I address her. “Have you seen a boy?”

She is slow to speak, stoned out of her mind. “A boy?” she says. She turns to the others, their eyes all too wide or too small.

“A boy,” they repeat to each other.

“I saw a boy this morning,” a man in a beanie says, staring into the flames.

“He’s tall. He would have been running by here,” I say. “On the beach. Maybe ten minutes ago? Maybe five? Or twenty?” I have no idea how much time has passed.

“Have you seen a boy running by?” the long-haired woman asks the group. No one answers. Another woman starts singing a song that sounds Hawaiian.

“Offer our guest a drink,” says the toothless man. He’s addressing a young couple wearing wool ponchos. Between them they gingerly pass a bottle of booze.

“I don’t want a drink,” I say. “I’m trying to find a friend.”

“I’ll be your friend,” says a voice by the fire. It’s the voice of an old woman with hair short and straight, like a monk’s. She turns her head toward me. Her eyes are so blank that at first I mistake them for blind.

“I was asking if anyone saw my friend,” I say.

“I saw a boy,” she says. “He was running.”

“Where?” I say.

She points to the ocean.

“There,” she says. “He was running into the ocean.”

“Into the ocean?” I say. Fucking hippies! She’s now been passed a large bong and she places it on the sand in front of her and hunches over it as though it’s a microscope. She’s forgotten my existence.

The toothless man moves toward me, his unshowered stench so pungent the smoke isn’t strong enough to disguise it. I step away and to the side, avoiding him. In the distance, descending the steps to the sand, I see two policemen. I gather my strength and run toward them.

“Hey, where are you going?” I hear a voice call out from behind me. “Why leave the party?”

The cops see me running toward them, and in response, they run to meet me. Their gait is slow—they’re weighed down by their belts and batons, and now that they’re on the beach, they struggle with the sand.

“Are you here because of Keith?” I say. “Did you find him?”

“Who?” one asks.

“There’s a boy,” I explain.

“Is he with the bonfire?” the other cop asks. “We’re here to put out the bonfire.”

“No,” I say. And I tell them about Keith, about how he tried to run around the cliff. I tell them everything I know. One of the officers uses his CB radio, as the other sprints toward the cliff. Then the cop with the radio turns to me. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. I realize he’s looking at the side of my head. “I’m just worried about my friend.”

“Okay, we’ll find him,” he says. “Backup and an ambulance are on their way. I think I have all the information I need from you, but we need to make sure you get warm.”

“I’ll be fine,” I say.

“I’ll be back,” the cop says. Then he runs past the bonfire.

I turn and start walking toward the steps. I have to leave. They’ll find him. They’ll find his body? They’ll find his body in the angry ocean.





26


At the top of the ninety-three steps I sit against the sign that cautions, in multiple languages, that people have been swept from the beach to their deaths. My body feels robbed of muscle and bone. I run my fingers through my hair and find it’s wet. I stare at my hand: blood. I push my hair back and pull up the hood of my sweatshirt. I stare at my legs and my arms, which are badly, wildly scraped. The crosshatching red lines are intriguing—they go in all directions, like the markings left by a glacier.

I remember I have sweatpants in my backpack. I pull them up over my legs. I remove my blue uniform skirt and stuff it deep into my backpack. Then I stand to walk. But where?

I don’t want to go home. I can’t go home. I have led a boy to his death. Could that phrase be applied here? I did lead him to the beach, but then he ran from me to his death. The accurate charge is that I led a boy to run to his death. I can’t tell my parents. I can’t tell anyone.