#amphibiansonly

[slackalaureate]

With Lucy Jordan

(If anyone sees this, I have more on deck if y’all want it as well.)

Part 1: Foreword

Danny put a cassette in the tape deck and I pressed down on the white arrow. My eyes flicked backwards as the old house drew further away in the rear-view and a bittersweet feeling tinged in my throat, making it hard to swallow. Claire had her Handycam pointed in my face, eye stuck to the viewfinder.

 “Don’t make faces, this is s’posed to be candid!”

I threw my hand up over the lens, so she aimed it towards Danny instead. Twisting around, he gave her a wide smile, exposing his missing top-front tooth.

“Wanna see a magic trick?” A hand reached into the change holder on the console, pulling out a stained nickel. Mitts together, he showed each open palm to the camera, then closed them as he turned his wrists. “I’m gonna make it disappear, watch,” As the sides of his palms slapped together, the small coin fell to the floorboard-

“I saw that, Copperfield!” She pointed toward the nickel with one hand, scratched camera in the other.

We snickered for a while, then fell into a quiet spell. Claire slid the rear window open, then laid down in the back seat, camcorder resting on her bandaged knees. Picking up the fallen coin, she idly turned it through her fingers.

Danny was first to break the silence, “This is the hardest thing I‘ve ever done you know…and Thomas- ” 

The nickel once again fell to the floorboards. We must have all been mulling the same thoughts in our mind; Notions of staying a while longer, or else making a reason to find our way back later on. The small possibility that what we’d seen wasn’t reality- that Thomas might show up knocking on the back room window as if he was never gone. But the way Danny’s hand shook said something that his mouth wouldn’t- or couldn't. He knew best of all of us why.

Coming to the same conclusion, I spoke up, “There's nothin’ left for us here…I wish- I really wish, but-.”

The rest of the sentence came out hoarse. Danny nodded. Rolling over in the soft fabric seat, he closed his eyes. He laid there in the passenger seat, balled hands resting against his stomach, for as long as I looked next to me. There was no way to tell if he was sleeping, but his body turned away from us. It didn’t invite much conversation. Rummaging in her front pocket, Claire took out a loose Lucky Strike.

“Mind if I smoke, Luce?”

“Just blow it out the back window.”

We kept driving along the highway until dark, watching the waves crash along each new cliff as they passed from window to window. When I got tired of driving, we pulled into the parking lot of a state beach. I’d not been that close to the water since what happened. It all seemed so long ago now, and so empty. The other two launched into a race to the shoreline, finally collapsing just outside the current’s edge. I crawled through the rear window, finding my way on top of the long trunk. Once through, I scrunched curled knees into my stained white tee shirt and grabbed my dad’s blue Walkman from my backpack. Thumbing the crimson-stained sticker on the face, I set in a cassette with the title “Surfer Rosa” scrawled on the label. I’d let them forget about it for a while. It was all I could do to not remind them. If it could take the pain of remembering from them, at least until the time we’d finally need to put to words- I’d do just about anything.

There I sat for what seemed like forever, watching them play along the waves, teetering between warmth and cold. I knew my jacket was inside, laid down on the passenger seat, but I didn’t much care. We were finally free of it, yet the cold touch still lingered on my palms. The world drew itself in monochrome; a muddy, steely blue.