Sometimes Not.

It's sometime after midnight, that's all you know. Maybe half past. It's dark and foggy and you're in your dinghy rowing like hell toward the little bar on shore. Your butt's wet. Your stomach is warm with dark Jamaican rum.

Your wife's asleep on the boat your rowing away from.

You hope.

And row faster.

Five letters from a lover you barely know are in your breast pocket. Each letter is sealed with a violent;y red lipstick-kiss! Each letter is written on yellow-lined drugstore paper that smells like jasmine.

It's been a long time since you got a letter like that from anyone.

How about five in five days!

And how about all five letters written by someone young enough to be your daughter! It's too strange to believe, but you believe it anyway.

It's really just a short jaunt across the water. That's what you say to yourself. Short little jaunt, ten minutes max in the dinghy if you could only start the engine, but of course Helen would hear the engine. She would wake up in seconds and be out on deck.

What would you say to her then? What could you say?

So you row hard against the water's chop and you're watching your red anchor-light fading to fuzzy yellow-orange in the fog.

Pea soup fog.

You're rowing hard but It feels like you're not moving. Like in one of those dreams when you're running but you can't get any place.

Pea soup straight out of the can. You can smell it. You can taste it. And not just one can. This is more like three cans of soup; concentrated.

And your boat light is suddenly gone inside it all, poof, like that!

You know you're an idiot. You know all too well! You row harder. Your hands begin to hurt.

She'll be waiting. Oh boy, will she!

The five letters in the breast pocket of your yellow rain-slicker seem to have a pulse of their own. The letters promise things both forbidden and wonderful.

Things that just don't happen to people like you.

Ever.

You can still see the signature at the end of each letter. Li- Lonni with little hearts for dots over the two i's.!

You picture the tall young girl waiting for you at the Hungry Hippo Bar. You picture her flowered dress, her long brown legs swaying to the reggae music, her thin arms waving high over her head slowly...

Dreamlike.

You focus on the goal. In your mind you re-read the letters, seeing the girlish handwriting, the ex-rated words, many smiley-faces always with one of the eyes winking.

Exclamation marks everywhere!

Well, who would pass this up? Who could?

Not you.

Obviously.

You row and row and row even though you can't see your hand in front of your face. No lights at all-- not from the shore you're heading to, nor from the other boats in the anchorage you just left.

After what seems a very long time of getting nowhere, you know you're lost.
Lost in so many different ways!

The current! You forgot about the current, didn't you?

You lose all notion of where land is. Where your sailboat was. Where your wife is. Where your life was...

In what direction do you row? Forward? Backward? Sideways?

Where?

You hold your breath and listen and suddenly hear all too clearly the sound of waves crashing on rocks.

How is it possible?

You try desperately to row away from the sound. Of course you try. You row as fast and as hard as you can as the sound of waves crashing against rock grows louder and you realize...

Everything.

You are right smack dab on Two Dragonflies Reef!

It's just like that dream you used to have as a kid when you suddenly realize you're sitting at your desk in school and your naked with four unsharpened pencils held tightly in both your fists. There you sit, useless and naked, waiting to be found out for the fool you are.

When you wake up you are so glad.

The sound of crashing waves grows louder. Your little boat is bucking violently now. Then you're falling, falling, falling--

Weightless.

Like in a dream.

Ocean water, choppy, cold, pitch-black, burns your throat like vomit. It comes out your nose as you listen to the sickening sound of your dingy being torn apart by the waves on the reef.

You try to keep your head above the ocean's surface as the sound of a monster wave approaches you from the wrong direction.

You take a quick breath of air and dive down as deep as you can.

When you come back up your arms are lunging, flailing, grappling with the water and you start to go back under. You kick your legs in slow-motion and prey to God for a second chance as you sink further with your wife's face imprinted on your brain.

Sometimes a thing like this wakes you up.

Sometimes not.


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