BajaNomad

Dead Pelican Beach

Osprey - 8-5-2015 at 07:15 AM

This is a revision of a short piece I posted here 4 years ago that got favorable comments. The players have changed -- some stalwarts remain but many Nomads have since faded into the mist. Many new to the board seem to like short fiction. Enjoy and thanks.

Mendigo

Mendigo, Digo for short, was never Maria's dog. He was mine from the very moment I walked through the wire gate, introduced myself and asked her about her brother's boat. The puppy's tail wagged and wiggled him up to me as I knelt to receive all the warm and furious licking, whining kisses. Maria said he got the name Beggar begging for kitchen scraps and at the table. He was short, maybe part Border Collie and had a wonderful disposition.

Because Maria and I spent so much time at the beach, Digo became a beach dog. A great swimmer, he would fight the small waves to reach us, to be held, held above the waves to see the pelicans. At times he would swim dangerously far from shore after the great birds. They would move off, fly a short distance as though luring the intense little eyes and black nose, the only parts of the dog above the water, far from the safety of the shore. Maria and I must have been a sight, waving and screaming "Digo, ven, ven aqui. Come, come here.”

That was almost five months ago.

Today I went back to the beach. I think I should spend time away from the house, the house and the memories. Digo knows the routine; when he sees the fishing rod, the bucket, he runs for the jeep. When I reached the shore I turned south. No reason. Digo jumped out when I stopped to put the jeep in four wheel drive. There were two pelicans standing on the wet sand, facing the sea. The dog chased the first into flight with his charge and his barks. The second did not move. It was stock-still, its back to me, Digo began to charge from the front. I turned off the jeep and gathered myself, ready to leap out, to keep the dog away from what might be a sick bird. All I could see of the big bird was his straight back and legs, the back of his head. As the dog charged, he got the front view of the bird, his long bill and sad eyes. I could see the bird would not or could not fly so I yelled, just in time, "Digo".

Much to my surprise, the puppy stopped, swerved around the bird, jumped back in the jeep. I started the jeep, kept one eye on the bird in the side mirror and drove on down the beach.
Maria and I had fished this stretch of beach many times -- I was not thinking of her now. The bird, I was thinking about the bird. I fished. Fished and thought about the pelican.

Wondered what could be wrong with the bird? The fish were not biting. Digo and I got back in the jeep and I followed my jeep’s tracks back up the beach toward home. Where was the bird? There. He lay dead, crumpled on the sand exactly where we last saw him. I could see scratches in the sand, soft tracks of his big webbed feet around where he now lay. No other tracks of people, other birds or animals.

For the next hour or so, while I cleaned up and ate, I couldn't help but feel guilty, insensitive. Maybe just standing there, the pelican was waiting for death to come. How caring was I if I couldn't even bear to walk over, look the bird in eye, check to see if I could help it? Then on the way back why didn't I go look at the bird, see if it was really dead, find out, perhaps, what killed it, what it died from.

Now, here on my patio, in the twilight, my guess is, today might have been the longest I have gone without thinking about Maria since the accident. The longest time, more than three hours, without feeling empty and sick and ashamed since the rollover.

I remember it all. Her laugh, the small birthmark just above her left nipple, the smell of her hair in our after-swim showers. All the good, sweet, natural things. Then, all of it lost, lost in the madness of the crushed and mangled truck, wheels in the air, one still spinning, incredible pain in my legs, my mouth full of copper blood, her small brown body, misshapen, bloody, just beyond my reach. I wish I had never seen her eyes, full of pain and wonder. Full of questions; questions I couldn't answer then, still can't. While Maria bled out I was paralyzed, couldn’t get to her.

I have a huge warehouse of excuses for all my reckless acts and omissions so why worry about a pelican?

I remember the church, the mass for Maria’s big Mexican family, the mourners, their jaws set like vengeful jurors; the cemetery, then the months of awful silence. Her brother, Ramon, was not at home when I dropped off the boxes of her shoes and clothes. I left them on the porch and snuck off like a thief. I remember finally burning all the goofy-sad photos.

It's full dark now. I can't see the beach -- the beach I will now probably start to think of as Dead Pelican Beach. Drinking too much brandy again, trying not to play our old sad songs – trying to shave and brush my teeth without looking in the mirror.

I hope the dog stays. I think of him as a very unique breed – not just man’s best friend but a rare Forgiver-Forgetter. If he leaves I’ll have nothing here to keep me. The lonelyaches will send me to a place I don’t want to be. It’s a place beyond lost, a place where there are no excuses, no expiations and no redemption.

It’ll be a short, one way trip.





[Edited on 8-5-2015 by Osprey]

MMc - 8-5-2015 at 07:54 AM

Wow, always good to read your work, it moves me. Thank you!

Udo - 8-5-2015 at 08:25 AM

Very moving story, Jorge.

First the pelican, whom I really felt sorry. As much as I would have wanted to touch it, the better idea was not to, because who knows what he was sick from. Animals who are extremely sick have a way of showing a stoic side of themselves, until death arises.

Then, Maria. great parody. I feel bad for her family.

4Cata - 8-5-2015 at 10:30 PM

I always enjoy your writings, like a woman enjoys finding a pearl in the occasional oyster, a jewel to be carefully stored away, to be enjoyed again and again.

durrelllrobert - 8-6-2015 at 03:55 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Udo  
Very moving story, Jorge.

First the pelican, whom I really felt sorry. As much as I would have wanted to touch it, the better idea was not to, because who knows what he was sick from. Animals who are extremely sick have a way of showing a stoic side of themselves, until death arises.

Then, Maria. great parody. I feel bad for her family.


Maybe number two wasn't sick and just exhausted :biggrin:

woody with a view - 8-7-2015 at 08:18 AM

Only thing missing from my life is a good dog! Well, that and a fat ass-ed bank account....

[Edited on 8-7-2015 by woody with a view]

durrelllrobert - 8-7-2015 at 09:09 AM

Quote: Originally posted by woody with a view  
Only thing missing from my life is a good dog! Well, that and a fat ass-ed bank account....

[Edited on 8-7-2015 by woody with a view]


[url=][/url]

pauldavidmena - 8-7-2015 at 10:18 AM

Neither my wife nor I grew up with dogs, adopting our first only a little more than a decade ago. Now I can't imagine life without one.

But I digress: your ability to capture regret and remorse so succinctly is enviable. I can feel the writer's anguish.