Key West - Part Three (of Eight)
Jody could be melodramatic, and his friends loved him for it.
Previously: They stopped in South Carolina, in the middle of the night. As they set up their tent, as they unrolled their sleeping bags, they could hear the ocean.
The Second Trip
Six months later, Jody drowned, alone, in that same ocean. He was camping, again, for a week by himself, before he went to New York to meet with the producers of a new travel show for men. Jody was going to be the host, but one night he went swimming and must have found a bad current. His body washed up the next morning, naked and somewhat eaten.
According to Jody’s oft-stated wishes, his ashes were divvied up among four friends who were to scatter them in the four directions. Jody could be melodramatic, and his friends loved him for it. Matt took his portion and headed south.
He was going to send Jody back to the ocean, but when he stood again at the top of the dunes of Huntington Beach, he thought the ocean and all its waves looked stupid, like a windup toy continuously walking into a wall. He understood the desire of the ancients to crucify the God that failed them. There was no running this time, only sliding down the dune and walking to the ocean, which was nothing more than a bunch of water and salt that splashed when Matt Lang kicked and punched it.
Exhausted and wet, sitting in the sand, Matt felt ashamed that he’d ever loved the ocean. He’d spent so many years wanting to see it and now he just wanted it to go away, he wanted the tide to roll back over the horizon and show the world everything it had taken. He sat and watched a family play in the waves and he wanted to tell them the truth, that they loved the ocean but the ocean didn’t love them. The ocean would just as soon swallow them whole. The ocean didn’t deserve Jody. Matt made another plan.
Thank you for reading. Up next:
Key West. All the way south. Keep going. Don’t stop till we hit the end of the road.