We go walking at night to get out of the house. There are stars sprayed over the Huntington Pier, and as we walk further away from the beachfront bars, I can hear the water sploshing lightly against the wooden posts holding us up. A family man in front of us, leaning against the railing: his paunch hanging over his shorts, two blond children circling a Styrofoam container at his feet. Yellowy light from a lantern perched above illuminates their faces. In his hands he is holding a wrench, no, pliers, no, as we get closer I can see that they are wire cutters, and I feel you see it too. On the boards at his feet—toes topped with curly hair—a ray is waving slightly at the edges, a hook clean through the wet, rubbery head. Once, twice, the soft arrow of its tail beats plaintively on the wood. We slow as we go by, and I can feel your eyes doing it too, sliding from the flattened moon face, the funny smile horizontal to the splintery pier, to the cooler where there are more of them, the rises of their backs—do they have spines?—drying above the shallow water. In his big paw the father is taking the cutters and leaning down. His children watch from both sides of the cooler, where inside, the rays are not moving. He reaches in with the blades open as we pass. In my peripheral vision, I see the fishing line cutting down to the black water like a single strand of shimmery web vibrating lightly against the sky. Tomorrow, there is the funeral. We will go together, and walk silently, like this.
The slapping of the children’s feet against the wet boards follows us as we walk toward the water. We are both staring at the same point now, a ship or a star or maybe a planet, way out on the water’s horizon, where it’s both sky and sea at once. I think that we have known each other since before we were these children’s ages, except I can’t remember your face, I can’t remember you young at all. We stop at the end and both lean over the dark edge. Below, I picture them swimming, all the rays that are left, touching bellies to backs, touching just to touch.
© 2008 Sarah Leavitt
