Peeking into the rock

part one
part two

The wind blew harder and harder: the rain fell harder and harder: till it was slicing horizontally through the premature twilight. Ben, soaked past the skin to his bones, wearing only a shirt because his sodden jacket was protecting the bones of dead creatures, made his way as best as he could along the footpath. Usually crowded with walkers, skaters, cyclists, stroller joggers, dogwalkers, jugglers, and surfer voyeurs, the footpath was empty. The waves rattled at the barrier. The ground beneath his feet trembled with the force. This cliff had lost twenty feet in one storm, not so long ago: Ben thought it quite possible that it would do so again today, despite the piles of riprap piled along the coves.

Where was he going? He really didn't know. Not home. Not for this . . . art project. He just kept walking. The storm seemed to be driving the bad mood out of him. What was left was strangely exhilirating. Like the rush from surfing, but he was barely moving against the wild water up here and he'd never try to catch one of those waves down there.

Somehow he had gotten far: past the Lighthouse, past Its Beach, past Mitchell's Cove, past the shuddering blowhole and right up to the end of the footpath looking over Natural Bridges Beach. He wasn't going there. He turned inland here, and with the wind at his back and the wall of water pushing him, he knew where he was going. Antonelli's Pond. It would be deserted and nobody would be there. Maybe a biologist. He could hide from a biologist.

He had nothing to hide. Had he?

Even with the cleansing rain the pond had its requisite rotting willow smell. Good, Ben thought: the earth here would be very potent.

Where were these ideas coming from?

Another good thing about the willows is that they gave him a little protection from the rain. But he was so wet and cold now that it made little difference. Shivering, he examined his pile of bones. Did it matter if they were put together correctly? He thought not: the pictures he had seen the night before seemed to have the bones connected any old way. Of course the pictures he had seen the night before had been carvings, not amalgamations. ANyway, he knew what to do.

He was shaking so hard he could barely get his thumb and little finger together as he was supposed to. He picked up a long pointy bone and worked it into a hole in a pelvis (a rodent? a bird?) It stayed much better than he expected.

It was getting dark. Ben had a bright little flashlight in his pocket. He didn't stop.

first, a quote: The aim of the Eskimo storyteller is to pass the time during the long hours of darkness; if he can send his hearers to sleep, he achieves a triumph. Not infrequently a story-teller will introduce his chef-d'œuvre with the proud declaration that "no one has ever heard this story to the end." The telling of the story thus becomes a kind of contest between his power of sustained invention and detailed embroidery on the one hand and his hearers' power of endurance on the other.


It was the fault of the storm. Really. He'd never have thought of the thing otherwise.

After just too many unsurfable days in a row, and small craft advisories still racing in urgent little letters across every local TV channel, Ben went sulking over to Cowell's -- the only halfway safe beach to walk on right now this side of town -- just to glare at the choppy grey water and brood. The weather was appropriate to his mood: dark, cold, dangerous, and blinding. The air was full of caustic water. The beach was scoured away, bringing to the surface half-rotted things buried in the cold currents of summer. Mingling with wrack and jetsam, menacing piles of trash scoured from the mountain streams and the coastal terraces and flung onto the beach by the jeering surf.

It wasn't the foul weather and the inability to surf that pissed Ben off. That just gave flavor to his sullen mood. The real source of his anger was his supposed partner Fred. For years they'd roomed together, copped their waves together, studied together. Trolled for work and girls together. Just here lately Fred just had to be a little bit better. All the time. Ben got a job: Fred got the same job, only better, with a better company, better hours, better pay. That was okay. Ben got an apartment. Fred got the next apartment available in the same building: of course, a better one, at a lower rent. Okay, it happens. Ben got a car. Fred got the same car, only better. And he talked the dealer into adding on a bunch of stuff for free. And he got better terms from the lender. Okay, Ben was still not jealous. Even though Fred gloated like a self-satisfied seagull all the time.

On the water it was getting painful. Ben's wetsuit wore out. He'd had it since tenth grade. So he got a new one. Not the fanciest available, but sufficient. Fred showed up next weekend in a better one. Even though Fred's old suit was perfectly fine, and only a year or two old.
When Ben's favorite board showed a hairline on it, he didn't want to bother with getting a new one -- because he really didn't want to start hating Fred. But the third time Fred came out of nowhere --flaunting all sensible safety practices -- and stole Ben's wave from him, despite having plenty of opportunities without endangering them both, Ben had to admit he was furious with the thieving gull-head.

All that was bad enough. But it got worse. Ben had been seeing a girl -- a lovely young woman who worked at a bookstore and made great coffee and rode centuries on her mountain bike -- and out of prudent instinct had kept that fact on the down-low. Not that Fred had ever quite acknowledged that he was deliberately planning all these one-ups and petty thefts. But the pattern was emerging. Anyway, it was a secret that didn't stay kept. The girl herself, initially turning down a date with Fred, mentioned Ben. What Ben didn't know, couldn't, was that she'd as good as come out and said she was in love with him. It didn't do either one of them any good.

The day before this lull on the storm Ben went to get Malena for a movie and pizza date. What he discovered when he got to her house was Fred's slightly better car parked in the driveway: Fred's slightly better jacket slung over the armchair in the livingroom: and Fred's slightly better patter nattering through the slightly more sophisticated music Fred had brought for Malena to listen to.

Malena was telling Fred off, but that only halfway cheered Ben. When she turned to him, Ben realized the damage was done anyway. Whatever had gone on before he got there may not have endeared Fred to Malena, but it had turned her off to Ben. "I'm sorry, I just can't do this," was all that she would say.

Ben was up all night, past the bad movies on the television and into the infomercials. He surfed the net till long past dawn. It wasn't like him to read sites unconnected with his sport of choice, but searching for other water sports took him from canoes and kayaks to reading about Inuits of Greenland, and now he was stomping on the sand at Cowell's, thinking murderous thoughts about Fred and blinking his eyes against the spray -- just the spray and the wind -- and the visions of violent Arctic spirits.

But if it wasn't for the storm, he would never have seen the bones. And without seeing the bones, no part of his foul humor or his newly-acquired obscure knowledge would have meant a thing. (Part Two)