To Sea

  Elea exited the bathroom yawning. Jon was still fast asleep. The sun’s rays glared through the sill, blanketing the bed. She walked to him, slipping into the sunlight, eclipsing his head. Her eyes widened. The muscles in her neck tightened as she swallowed.

  “Get up and get a job,” she shouted at him. “You don’t deserve to sleep in. The sun is rising and the air is warming.” She reached over, throwing the blankets off of the bed, allowing the sun to float across his flesh. He felt a cold rush though his body, but his flesh was warmed by the sun. “Now get up and get ready. You lazy piece of…” She paused. Her face loosened and she smiled briefly on a thought. “You are going to head west. To the city. Go to that job fair that is going on all week. Todd mentioned it two weeks ago at dinner.” Her smile widened as her hands dashed across her cellular phone. “I’ll text up Margie and ask her to ask her Todd about it. I’m sure he could find you an in somewhere. Margie owes me for putting up with all her troubles, anyhow.” She relaxed, sitting sidesaddle on the foot of the bed.

  Jon yawned. He rubbed his eyes. Then he rolled over, away from Elea. He looked out the window—out at the waves glistening in the sunlight.

  “Stop flopping around, mister,” Elea said, flipping her phone closed. “You have a date with destiny today.”

  “Destiny,” he mumbled, continuing to stare out at the pressing waves. “I know my destiny. It lies in the sea. Deep within me.” He took a long breath and then he slowly released the stale air out of his nose.

  “Stop your mumbling about the sea. It’s time to move on, Jon. Give it up. Now, where is your suit?”

  “My destiny lies on the seafloor. Not on an island of iron and steel and glass all trying to reach the high heavens.”

  Elea walked to the closet. “You need to look your best. Where is it, Jon?”

  “The suit I wore to your brother’s wedding? The gray pinstriped one?”

  “Yea, or the blue one. Whichever you want. Just make sure you tie the tie correctly. And no mention of the sea. You don’t want to come off anymore incompetent than you already are.”

  “I haven’t worn the gray one since your brother’s wedding. And that had to be almost ten years ago,” he said. “And the blue one was my father’s old suit.” Jon sat up on the front of the bed. He watched Elea comb through the closet. Then he turned his head and he looked back out the window behind him. The tide was in, now, and the waves were low. The sun reflected a shimmer across the sound beyond the pane of glass mirroring the raging arms of Elea digging through the closet. And it all brought a light smile across his face. “The sea, Elea, it is where I belong. It is all I know. I will make things right, soon. I will save us, surely. It just needs to be the perfect time. And then you will see. You and Barry will see. He will see.”

  “I don’t have any more time to wait and see. You tell us this always. Just wait and I’ll save us. You haven’t saved us in two years.” She paused. “Fuck. Jon. Two years. You need to man up, already. Barry needs tuition money for college. We are coming up on the end of our savings. We can no longer just wait. Barry and I can no longer just wait. You need to take responsibility as the man of this house and get a job. Whether it is up to your standards or not. As long as it brings an income into this house, it should be good enough for you.”

  Jon pinched his beard to a single point. Then he turned to Elea who stood with the blue suit in her arms.

  “What is James doing now?”

  “James is…”

  “…Is in the city. Working for his brother.” She threw the suit on Jon, standing over him with her finger in his face.

  “And what is Robert doing for work?”

  “Robert is…”

  “Robert is in the city. Working for his father.” Her voice was climbing in volume.

  “Quiet. Barry.”

  “Listen,” she spoke more softly now. “Go to that job fair, Jon, and earn a real days work. A real honest days work.” Elea huffed at Jon who had been stuck in a dazed out stare to sea. His eyes strained from the gentle breeze filtering through the screened window. He blinked out two tears that rolled into his beard on either side of his face. The stressed blink cut off his wondering mind and he shifted his head back towards Elea. “I will go,” he said, and he walked passed her into the bathroom.

  “Okay. See? That was easy enough. Just go and get a job, please. Your family will thank you.” Elea paused and she pressed her head against the closed bathroom door. She sighed and then she headed to the kitchen. “I’ll get breakfast on. You’ll need the energy for your big day.” Elea smiled. She emptied three eggs into the frying pan and she laid out six slices of bread atop the grates in the toaster oven.

  Breakfast came and then went. Barry shoved the food down his throat. Then he walked out the door with his last slice of toast still in hand. Elea stuck to the cleaning of the dishes as she watched her TV. And Jon headed out to the car, dressed in the blue suit that nipped at his armpits. He hung the jacket up onto a hanger in the backseat before sitting himself in the car. He tugged at the white sleeves hugging his wrists closely. Then he twisted the black onyx cufflinks in circles as he thought nervously about the job fair. He had not been in the city in some years. Just the thought of the metropolis frightened him. “The big buildings,” he mumbled. “And all those people in all those streets. All inside all those big, tall buildings. It’s unnatural. No one is supposed to live in a city. No one should live in what the hands of man and machine have created. No one should enter such a demonic place.” He shivered. Then he pulled the car into reverse—out of the driveway. “The sea is all I need. The true and honest and holy sea.” Jon shifted into first gear, heading west.

  Once on the road, the car seemed to drive itself as Jon’s thoughts meandered about, propelling the car to the places in which he daydreamed. “Lauren,” he thought. “I must see her one last time. I’ll drive along the coast and make my way to her house. I’ll surprise her.” He thought of her smile—her dark green eyes. “She’ll be surprised. And thrilled, no doubt,” he added. A smile creased the center of his face. The images of the sea washed across his glossy gray eyes. Shadows of Lauren’s smile lay like translucent film over the sea in his mind—over the gray roads and blue sky.

  It was noon by the time Jon rode through the foothills of Lambertville. A mountainous terrain blocked the horizon in the shallow distance. The sun’s backlight blackened a sea of green pine needles on the backside of the great hill. The winter had begun to wind down and the warmth and comfort of spring started to blanket over the earth. Jon’s head full of waves cleared. The picturesque mirages of Lauren faded into the jagged mountaintops. He shivered and his head fell into his shoulders. “This tie,” he moaned. “It’s killing me.” He loosened the knot, slipping the tie out of his collar, throwing it to the backseat. The mountains made him sweat. He missed the sea. He missed the sound of the waves pushing in against the smooth sand. He missed the gulls cry—the sandpipers tweet.

  He passed the pub where the two had met last. Then he drove just around the bend to Lauren’s house. He looked at the time flash across the dash. “One-thirty,” he mumbled. “Three and a half hours ‘til she’ll be home.” He pulled the sedan into the white pebbled driveway in front of her white vinyl house. “I’ll just wait here ‘til she comes home. She’ll be happy. I just know it.” He unbuttoned his dress shirt and he slipped into a tee-shirt that had been sitting on the backseat of the car.

  Jon pulled his seat back, tilting the chair so his eyes were level with the sky. He watched the stray white clouds tumble about in the light blue. He rolled the window down a crack, sniffing in the warm air ‘til his eyes shuttered closed, and he drifted into a gentle slumber.

 

  CHAPTER 14