Waves

I was glad there was only one of me now. I had struggled being me for a long time, I certainly didn’t need more of me. One was plenty, thanks. Now to find this cove thing, or as one person called it, La Jolla Cove. It must be south, in addition to the fact that it seemed like people were pointing south, Finnegan told me to go south and I’m not at my destination yet, so I figured, off to the south for me. I walked deeper on the beach toward the ocean then turned left to walk south along the coast.

I passed a kayaking school. There were around ten kayaks on the beach, eager students listening intently and an instructor, explaining a few things. I didn’t pay attention to what he was saying. I just walked past them but there were a few cute girls that caught my eye. They looked at me too which was energizing for a moment until I remembered that many people were looking at me and giving me odd looks. I just didn’t look beachy, from my clothes, to the red billiard ball to my lost expression. So people looked, but not for long, just a quick glance then back to their lives.

As I walked, I was still reliving that giant spider attack. I guess me being brought here from Kansas made my teleportation into an otherworldly tunnel par for the course. And I was proud of myself for standing firm against that attack. I never had courage before, it was fun. I suppose you could say I acted courageously with the green hat man but that was different, that was just survival. I don’t know, this self analyzation was growing weary.

I came to a fence on the beach, separating the public beach, the side I was on, from a private beach, seemingly connected to a restaurant or hotel. There was an opening in the fence and no ticket takers or guards so walked through the opening and kept walking. I didn’t see the harm in it. The only differences on this private beach side were dozens of matching lounge chairs and umbrellas. Oh, one more thing, waiters and waitresses were bringing drinks to the patrons. Other than that, there were kids playing in the sand, people swimming and tossing stuff around, you know, typical beachy stuff. Listen to me, I think I’m so Californian now.

“Hey,” I heard a voice say. It was a boy, maybe eleven or twelve. He had a wealthy look about him, from his designer swim trunks and shirt to his expensive flip flops. He was looking right at me so I guess he was addressing me.

“Hi,” I said back as I stopped walking.

“You wanna play some pool?” he asked.

“Pool?” asking a question right back at him, “oh this,” as I lifted up the red ball. “No, I’m just… I’m just carrying this around.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain. I’m taking this to someone.”

“Did they lose it?” he asked.

“Something like that.”

“What’s your name?” asked the friendly kid.

“Paxton. How about you?”

“Derek. So where are you taking that pool ball?”

“Uh, the La Jolla Cove.”

“Do you mind if I come with you?” he asked.

“Come with me? Why would you want to do that?”

“Something to do.”

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“Working, like always.”

“And why aren’t you in school?”

“I’m on year-round track, we’re off right now.”

I didn’t know if Derek was lying to me or not but I went along with it. Just then I heard a faint sound of a dog growling. I turned to find it but I didn’t see any dog.

“What are you looking for?” Derek asked.

“The dog,” I responded.

“You have a dog, cool. My parents won’t let me have a dog.”

“No, uh, actually I do have a dog but he’s back in Kansas. No I was talking about that growling sound. Did you hear it?”

“No, I didn’t hear anything.”

“It stopped.”

“So why are you taking that ball to the Cove anyway?”

“I just am. So do you know where the Cove is?” I asked.

“Of course, everyone does. It’s right there.” Derek pointed south. Off in a distance, up on the cliff there sat an establishment, or maybe a village. It was a little far to make out the details.

“Perfect,” I responded, “I’m just going to walk along the beach till I get there.”

“You can’t do that. There’s a bunch of caves and no beach. We’ll have to walk through the streets to get there. I’ll show you.”

“Should you be walking that far?”

Derek started laughing.

“I live here. I walk and ride my bike all over. My parents work till seven o’clock every night, and weekends too. Believe me, I won’t be missed. Come on, I’ll show you.”

So Derek and I started walking, still on the luxury private beach.

“We need to cut up to the street but not too soon or else we will be stuck walking around the tennis club.”

I was glad to have a local showing me where to go but I had mixed feelings about Derek hanging out with me. Part of me could use the company and a dose of reality. But part of me worried about the risk. The thing is, I didn’t know what the risk was. The green hat man wanted to harm me, that was for sure, but he seemed long gone now. I also felt more empowered than when I started, which gave me some much needed confidence. And poor Derek, he was a lonely kid, starving for companionship. He probably just walked down to the beach from his house, hoping to find something to do, and he found me. So off we went, me and my twelve year old guide. We hadn’t gone too far on the beach when Derek changed direction.

“Let’s go up this way,” Derek said.

We turned left and walked through a narrow corridor, between two buildings, up a hill. At the top was something that looked a lot like a city, instead of a beach. Off to the left was a parking lot for something called The Marine Room. It was either a seafood restaurant or a military post, probably the former. We turned right on the first street that we came to at the top of the little hill. As we walked, our surroundings bled into a beautiful upscale neighborhood. I wanted to stop and look at every house because I had never seen anything like them, but Derek was oblivious. This was his ‘hood’ I guess, weird.

Derek talked and talked and talked. A lot of it was about himself and his school and friends, although it didn’t seem like he had many. He talked about his parents too and the awesome car that his dad drove. He was proud of them, that was sure, but reading between the lines a bit, it seemed that he wished to see them more, to have more family time. It wasn’t all about him though, he asked me questions about Kansas and the red three ball and how long I’ve been here and where I was going. I gave him vague answers, which if you think about, was all I had to give.

After walking down the street of what seemed like a couple of blocks, although nothing like the blocks back home, I heard the growling sound again. This time it was louder, no one could possibly miss it, but Derek just kept right on talking. If Derek didn’t hear it, then my thoughts about this noise were confirmed. It must be something otherworldly that I could hear but Derek couldn’t. If it wasn’t for the day that I have had already, I never would have come to that conclusion, but after the stuff I had been through, it seemed right in line.

Then a Porsche pulled up beside us, across the narrow street, and idled. This car was my dream car, that I had only ogled at in magazines. It looked brand new, probably the nicest car I had ever seen. The window went down revealing what looked like two sixteen year olds. The driver spoke to Derek.

“Look what just crawled out of the sewer,” not a sarcastic friendly jab but a cruel demeaning poke.

Derek seemed reluctant to respond. He half heartedly looked sideways at them and mumbled a few strained syllables.

“Hey Ryan.”

Now the growl was louder than ever, and I could see what was causing it. It wasn’t a dog at all, it was a wolf, a big, angry, rabid wolf, growling, twitching and foaming at the mouth. It stood in the street, within a few feet of all four of us. No one else could see it or hear it, I was sure of that. They would be running for their lives if they could. Then Ryan, the driver, spoke again.

“So Derek, don’t forget what we talked about.”

“I know,” Derek mumbled, half staring at his feet.

Through this brief exchange, the wolf moved closer to Derek. I could tell that he was closing in on devouring my new friend. I don’t know anything about rabid animals and whether or not they even eat, but this one sure did.

“What is he talking about?” I whispered to Derek.

“Hey idiot,” Ryan addressed me, “stay out of this. This is between little Derek and me. Just a little job for him, he knows what he needs to do.”

Suddenly the energy that was lurking inside me started to swell. I was jumping all over the place in my mind, something to do with the future, or maybe the past, or perhaps both. I wasn’t seeing it, but rather feeling it, and what I felt was not good. I saw harsh colors swirling and popping. There were some images that I couldn’t quite discern, people, mixed in with the abstract, that I didn’t recognize, yet I think I was supposed to. Staccato strikes of noise filled my head. The sensation seemed like it was building to a crescendo but then I became aware of my surroundings again. The wolf was now just inches from Derek. So close was it that Derek should have felt the wolf’s breath on his neck and watched the beast’s diseased foam drip on his shoes. Derek saw none of this, but I saw it. I knew what I had to do. I started walking across the street toward the Porsche.

“You want trouble?” Ryan yelled at me, “Hey freak, I’m talking to you!”

I walked up to his car, behind his window.

“You touch my car I’ll sue your ass!” he yelled at me.

I gently touched the three ball to the side of his car. I felt a pouring discharge of energy and a muffled rumble. Ryan and his sidekick jerked and contorted, almost like a seizure. I pulled the ball back, whatever just happened to them was finished. The two boys in the car were pale, staring and shaking. They both had expressions of immeasurable fright as if they had just experienced unspeakable horror. I know when I was in the spider tunnel, it felt like some time had passed but for those outside, it was probably timeless. It could have been the same with these guys. Maybe these boys just spent time with their own filth. I didn’t know what they saw or felt but Ryan was so scared that he leaned forward and vomited on his own lap. I turned and walked back across the street to Derek. The wolf was gone, for good I was quite certain.

“What happened?” Derek asked me, with puzzled wonder.

“You’re okay.” I answered.

Derek was speechless, a first for him. Eventually Ryan, still shaking, slowly drove off. We walked through this neighborhood without talking, past a few houses. Derek was deep in thought, and I was too. Finally Derek spoke.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Then we walked some more. Our road turned and eventually butted up, like a tee, to a very busy street. Cars were flying by in both directions.

“The Cove is this way,” Derek said while walking right. I followed of course. A few more steps of quiet then Derek stopped.

“So is there some kind of magic in it?” he said as he looked at the red ball.

“I don’t know what’s in it Derek,” was my honest reply.

Derek seemed unsatisfied with my response and also looked a little hurt, as if there was a lack of trust. I had learned a lot since Chrysta and Hannah tricked me. Derek was no fake, I could tell, so I decided to tell him the whole tale while we walked. I just had to tell somebody. I started with how I slowly became aware of myself at the gliderport and Finnegan and my mystery task. I told him all about the girls and the spaceship house. He was enthralled by this story as I continued with the crabs, the multiplying me and of course the spider tunnel. That particularly piqued his interest. I even told him about the wolf. I was reluctant to because it was about him, but I thought he could take it, and he could.

He soaked in every word I was saying. One thing about kids, they are so trusting. I am certain that most, if not all adults would have doubted my story yet Derek believed every word of it. He was so involved in the tale of this day of mine that if I hadn’t reminded him what we were doing, I think we would have walked all the way to Mexico. So I stopped and spoke.

“Are we almost there?”

“Oh…” Derek spoke, snapping back into reality, “yea pretty close. We need to go down that…”

Just then Derek stopped short.

“Paxton. Two men in a car just drove by and pointed at you. I think they saw the red ball.”

“Do you think it was, look at that weirdo or…”

“No,” Derek interrupted, “I think it’s bad. They’re going to turn around up ahead.”

“Where can we hide? Is there…”

“Yea, this way. I know what to do.”

We turned around and starting running, back in the direction that we came from. We came to a tiny street that we must have passed while engrossed in my story. We turned down this narrow curvy downhill street toward the ocean. I wasn’t sure if this was a private driveway or just a seldom used road. When we got to the bottom, we found ourselves in a cul de sac. There were two parking spaces and neither was taken. I got the feeling that this street was sort of a local secret. We were on a cliff, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful spot. Derek and I stopped running. We were panting and leaning over, trying to catch our breath. We looked at each other and started laughing. It was a great moment.

“So how long do you think we should stay down here before we go back up?” I asked through my windedness.

“Oh we’re not going back up to the street, there’s a back way. I’ll show you.” he said while smiling.

It was fun hanging with Derek. He was like me in many ways, but more courageous. I was also worried, though, about the danger that I might be introducing him to. He was a terrific guide and friend but I wondered if we should separate, if I should send him home. I knew he wouldn’t want to go but how much wisdom could a twelve year old have? But at least our smiles were justified, that was a very satisfying escape. Unfortunately, we were probably in line for more.