The North Jetty

Fore Word

Recently, the Cannon Beach Library put out the word that they wanted to have a contest at the 600-word fiction level. They said the theme was to be “Beach Noir.” At first, I was befuddled, then I descended to the occasion:

I’m not telling my mom. She got so mad, when she shook me, the rings flew out of my hand and I saw the diamonded one land in the big rose bush, and she yelled, “Just wait ‘til your father gets home!”

All my dad said was, “Ne-ever tell a woman the truth.”

My mom gets mad alla the time. She oughtn’t love me. I’m disobedient. I vagabond alone far places in the sunshine – like the North Jetty. It’s a long walk, but I know fish down there don’t get bothered like they do across the channel on the South Jetty where people set out their poles and then just sit in their cars and swig.

My mom yelled where did I find what she called, “wedding rings worth a fortune!”  

But now, mom can find ‘em. I don’t care that much. The Lady sure didn’t either.

If I told the truth, mom’d know where I went. My dad says men drowned building the jettys more than a hundred years ago – outta boulders prackley big as houses with little dumpster-sized rocks plugging in between – the men’s drowned, forlorn bodies never ever found.

 Lotta space down in there amongst the giant boulders – where I dropped my tackle box - into a black hole. Took a long time for it to hit bottom. I heard it slide, then tumble and swallow down into what-do-you-call Pellucidar.

My new tackle box gone was worse than awful. But I reasoned the North Jetty is just heaped rocks, so I found a long piece of washed-ashore crab line and I tied hand-hold knots in it with a foot-loop at the bottom and I dangled it.

After my tackle box, I dropped right down there bold.

Poison-thick death-stink hit me right in the face – shoved up my nose. I’m telling you, stuck with one foot in my loop was just black. From way down in the jetty’s stomach, echoing water ba-looped. Cold crawled up my pant legs. I shivered. I couldn’t see the bottom. I couldn’t even see my hands.

And below me in the dark, I heard their legs scuttle - lot of them. I knew what they were. Crabs. I knew they were hungry. They always are. They eat what’s dead. My dad says nobody in the Coast Guard eats crab. He says the Coast Guard looks for people’s dead bodies when they drown – and finds them, too – but usually after the crabs do.   

My tackle box landed right in the Lady’s lap. That’s how I first spotted her in the dim when my eyes got used – her long white dress splayed out soggy on the black, slimy rocks. Her eye brows and lips gone, her blade nose was like the bendy, white part of chicken bones. Her smile was what scared me - to shaking.

But I wanted my tackle box!

So I did. I snatched it right off her lap. I clutched it tight to my chest. I felt whizz drain hot down my leg.

But she just smiled her bare, bride smile and reached out her left hand to me like she wanted me to kiss it.

I still see her alla the time nights, her smile shining me awake by the bright of the moon. I see her skinless left hand, the way I first spotted it. I still feel it – her thumb with one long red nail left, that flopped and clung cold to the back of my hand when she gave me her rings.

I want to tell my mom about her, but that’d be the truth.