A couple of friends took me out to lunch. They were both planning trips to the beach in the following week, and I found myself growing more and more jealous. I usually do an overnight trip to Seaside every winter, though this year I hadn’t due to all my foot issues. When I got home, I put my leftovers in the fridge and sat at my desk stewing. Out of curiosity I looked up rooms for my favorite beachside motel. They were as cheap as they were going to be all year, and another friend had given me a gift certificate, so I could stay there overnight for basically nothing. I looked up the bus line to make sure they had seats available and that the schedule hadn’t changed. The whole thing was doable. The only issue was my feet. But they were screwed up already; how much worse would they get during two measly days at the coast? True, I would be walking around a lot. And the weather was bound to be cold and wet. But if my treatments started as planned, I would soon be unable to get away for the next couple of months. If I was going to go, it had to be now.
I booked a room and reserved a seat for the middle of the week and couldn’t sleep that night from giddiness.
I’ve written about Seaside before. It’s basically the Jersey Shore of the West Coast. I’m not talking Spring Lake or Cape May; I’m talking Wildwood without the roller coasters. Instead of a boardwalk, there’s the Promenade, a paved path stretching the entire length of the beach. There’s salt water taffy and crappy pizza and t-shirt shops. It’s where teenagers go after the prom to lose their virginity and get hooked on meth. It’s a strange, depressing little town and I love spending exactly two days there every winter. Every since Jasmine died, it’s become a place of healing and contemplation for me; god knows there’s not much else to do there.
I dozed most of the way down, and when we got there, the driver let us off downtown instead of up the road where he usually does. I saw this as a good sign; I was not sure how my feet were going to hold up. I had both my walking casts on, which made me self-conscious, but when you’re a fifty year old man no one pays any attention to you anyways, especially in a tourist town.
I hobbled up to the bagel place. I was extremely hungry, and looking forward to starting my visit with my usual bagel and lox, which is surprisingly good there. A fluorescent green sheet of posterboard on the door said to go around to the drive through, that their dining room was closed. “Walk ups welcome!” the sign promised. I was annoyed but it wasn’t too cold out, and there were picnic benches, so I walked around to the side of the building and stood in line with the cars. I approached the speaker where you place your order and waited for somebody to say something; this is what the cars had done. There was a camera mounted to the wall so I knew they could see me, provided it was working and they were watching. As I waited a car pulled up behind me and the driver pointed to my casts and said, “I had one of those on for a while.” I get a lot of comments like that, and it’s fine, people just want to connect and show their sympathy. I waited another five minutes before a guy poked his head out the service window and yelled for me to come up and order there. I asked for a pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese and lox and he said he was sorry but they were all out of lox. “We have salmon spread,” he said. I said no thanks and stormed off, feeling my mood start to sour. I don’t ask for much, all I want is a fucking bagel. Salmon spread my ass.
There weren’t many breakfast places in town, but I was so hungry I couldn’t make a decision so I just went to the easiest choice, which was the Pig’N Pancake. I’d only been to one of these joints once, so I knew my chances of having an enjoyable meal were iffy. Sure enough, it was not only bland and unhealthy but expensive. I sat there listening to my waiter babble on about his 8 month old son and the upcoming Superbowl until I couldn’t take any more. I walked up the street to where the street ended in a turnaround facing the ocean.
I sat on a bench and stared out at the waves rushing forward to curl in on themselves. The sun shone on my face, the wind that usually scours the shore was oddly absent. A seagull with a chipped beak strutted along the concrete wall screeching at me. “You’re alive, asshole!” it screamed. “What more do you want, you fucking ingrate? You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive!”
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