A Drop In The Ocean
Copyright © 2012 by Ward Webb
The young woman stood framed at the end of the pier with her long,
golden hair billowing around her narrow face as she stared down to
the undulating waves exploding against the barnacle-crusted pilings.
Thousands of razor-sharp shells dotted the wood like green crescents
that turned the thick water into foam with a kiss.
A passing shower of mist had sent all the tourists indoors to mill
around the massive souvenir shop for the time being, leaving her
isolated on the wide platform on the far end of Ocean Isle Pier.
Beside her sat a small stroller, covered over with a screen of
plastic to shield the newborn from the sea spray that glistened in
the air around them.
The scaly, wrinkled infant napped peacefully inside its bubble as the
woman stepped away from the thick guardrail and squatted down to the
damp wood beside the locked plastic wheels.
She slid forward and let her bare feet dangle out into space. She
folded her arms over the lower horizontal beam and let her eyes lose
focus as she gazed down at the foamy waters below.
Her voice came out soft and gentle; rolling with the same lilting
rhythm the waves used against the tired, rotting legs of the pier.
She spoke down into the forty feet of space between her and the skin
of the sea, but she spoke to the tiny sleeping child – her only
other companion as the gray storm passed by the western rim of the
island.
The lighthouse blinked and she sighed, cleared her throat and began.
“These things can't be safe. I don't know how they manage to keep
them from collapsing. I've always been scared to death of piers but I
figured today was finally the day to conquer that silly phobia once
and for all and look at us, right out here at the very end! We are
two brave women, aren't we Tonya honey? I can't believe I found these
things so scary for so long. There's nothing scary about it at all!
It's downright peaceful. Praise His name.”
The infant wriggled under the plastic screen but didn't crack its
eyes.
The setting sun turned the storm clouds into vivid streaks of lilac,
scarlet and ocher that burst across the eastern skies. The tips of
the waves turned a pale lavender as the woman smiled and lifted the
plastic screen away from the face of the stroller and allowed the
salty wind to engulf the sleeping child within.
“Come on out of there and get some fresh air. Ain't that better?
It's beautiful out here, right? You can turn and look back at the
beach and feel like you're cut off from everyone. It's just all so
peaceful and perfect. It's almost hard to imagine just a few hundred
yards away the world turns into complete stinkie-doo-doo's. I can't
believe anyone would ever dream of bringing a child into a world like
this. It's almost criminal to think of being so selfish, but here you
are! I guess it isn't your fault, Tonya, sugar. You didn't ask to be
born. None of us did. That's the whole poopy-doodie problem with the
world, right there.”
The damp wood beams drummed gently under her thick waist and the
young woman turned around to stare down the bowed length of the pier.
A man, woman and small girl around the age of six came toddling down
the pier, unaware of their damp companion glaring back at them from
the far end.
The woman whipped herself back around to face the Atlantic and
groaned with impatience.
“Great, just as soon as we started to enjoy ourselves someone has
to come along and mess it all up for us. It's fine though. We still
have a couple minutes before they get down here and I don't even
think they've seen us yet. Thank you Lord. Let's get you out of that
thing so you can enjoy the view a little better, little sleepyhead.
Here you go! See there, Tonya? Don't that fresh air smell so good?”
She unbuckled the infant and lifted it up against her right shoulder.
A thick stream of milky fluid trailed down from the child's bottom
lip and hung against her thin, green sweater like a rope.
She bobbed up and down on her heels as she turned and let the baby
admire the flattened expanse of darkening water below. A family of
fattened pelicans skimmed the surface of the waves as the woman
smiled and tucked her burnished hair behind one ear.
“Isn't it so pretty? You're such a lucky little girl not to have to
experience the pains and agonies that this world has in store for
you. One day people will write about me and I'll be a hero. They'll
understand everything so much better in the future. No one realizes
we're living in hell right now. It won't be until mankind has come
through to the other side that we as a people will turn and look back
on our past and reflect on where we went wrong. Then they'll see.
Then everyone will realize I was just doing a good deed that spared
so many from so much pain. I didn't get that, you see? I had to
suffer and hurt for twenty-six years and where did it all get me?
Where did all the patience and keeping-my-chin-up actually lead me?
Nowhere. It's more bleak now than it was before. There's no hope for
the miserable and anyone who tells you differently is just lying to
you, Tonya. This is the only truth. Praise Him! This one moment that
defines us is all that really matters when it's all said and done.
You're just a baby. You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?”
The infant cracked it's eyes and bubbled foam from its cranky lips as
it glowered at the setting sun and writhed in her arms.
The trio of sightseers continued their march toward the end of the
pier. Their footsteps came firmer through the rails as the young
woman cut her eyes toward their progress and wiped away the spittle
with a loving finger.
Tonya's chubby legs kicked at the open air as the woman pressed her
waist against the guardrail and leaned down over the lapping waves.
“Here you go now, darling. You're free now. Stop wriggling like
that! You're a restless little lamb. Now. There ya go.”
From behind her the husband of the little family shouted out in
alarm, but the woman didn't flinch. She leaned further over the open
waters and let the bundle roll from her embrace.
She opened her arms as if welcoming home a long lost family member
and let the tiny, swaddled bundled topple down into the dark waters
and vanish without making the slightest splash. The pink blanket came
loose and hung on the surface as the waves pushed the violet child
against the wood piling. A faint spray of pink bloomed against the
barnacles as a frantic man came rushing up and threw himself against
her shoulders like a stampeding bull.
“Did you just throw that baby,” he began but with one glimpse
down at the limp blanket drifting on the surface, he cut himself off
and dived over the edge of the pier. As the ocean swallowed him, the
woman called down over the rails.
“Yes sir! I sure did! That baby is free and soaring all because of
me! Praise Jesus!”
Now the wood was really rumbling under her as she pulled herself back
up to her feet and turned to see the approaching hordes.
Dozens of men and women were running at full speed along the length
of the pier.
The wife of the man who had plunged into the water – and their
nervous looking daughter hugged the edge and watched with their
mouths gaped open as the end of the pier pooled full of horrified
locals, all shrieking and asking the woman the same question.
“What did you do to that baby?”
A quartet of uniformed officers came running and the crowd parted.
The woman stood quietly beside the stroller without making a sound.
She nodded and smiled at each of them like a gracious hostess but
never said a word in response to any of their questions.
A faint satisfied smile was etched in her face as a voice from far
below called out – coughing and sputtering with salt water, “I
can't find it! Oh, God! Help! Help! Someone help! We need more people
down here!”
A half dozen answering splashes sounded out from up and down the
length of the rocking pier as people plunged into the water in the
hopes of finding the child.
The police reached the end and enveloped the woman in their sturdy
grip.
Pinning her hands behind her and pinching them tight in a pair of
fetching steel bracelets; the biggest officer – a former high
school football captain - shoved the quiet woman face down to the wet
planks and crammed his knee into the small of her back.
The wind was pushed out of her as she lay patiently with her face
against the wood. She peered through the crevice between two beams
and looked down at the green, supple waves below.
The crowd pushed in a ring and stared down at the unmoving woman in
horror.
The police started mumbling to one another, whispering into the CB
radios on their shoulders, but no one made a move to pull the young
woman onto her feet. The waves kissed the pilings below and people
shouted back and forth from beneath the pier as they searched in vain
for Tonya.
The wind whipped the plastic film across the face of the empty
stroller and tore it loose. It billowed over the railing and
disappeared down into the waves.
From the foot of the pier a heart-wrenching cry pierced the confused
silence and everyone turned to see a frazzled woman in a blue blazer
leap out of her Toyota and come running down the length of the
boards.
The car coasted to a stop and bumped against a handicapped parking
sign as the icy-eyed woman screamed down the length of the wobbling
pier.
Two officers stepped forward and blocked her from springing onto the
handcuffed woman's back and lashing her to pieces with her
fingernails.
The only female officer took charge of the thrashing woman and pulled
her back from the ring of onlookers as the other three helped get the
unphased suspect to her feet.
The brown haired woman in her second-hand blazer continued clawing at
the open air and screaming a high-pitched, primal wail that echoed
across the long row of beach homes dotting the beachfront.
“Ma'am! Calm down,” the officer insisted and held the woman
firmly by her shoulders. “What is your business with this woman
here? Do you know who she is? Stop fighting or I'm going to have to
put you in handcuffs, too! Ma'am!”
The businesswoman spit across the ring of people and hissed.
Her attention was locked on the indifferent smirk on the young
woman's cheeks. The stroller was knocked aside as the trio of men
pulled the grinning woman away to the edge of the wide deck.
Gathering her senses and quickly cutting her eyes to the crowd of
neighbors, the woman sobbed as she tried to push the words out of her
mouth. “She's my babysitter! I hired her to take care of my little
Tonya while I went to a fucking job interview! Let me at her. Just
let me have ten seconds with her face! Oh, God bitch – I'll kill
you! You better hope my baby is okay! Bitch, you hear me?! I'm going
to … Fuck. You. Up!”
The female officer looked across the deck at her colleagues and
turned back to the woman, keeping her iron grip on the frail mother's
trembling torso. “Just remain calm and let us take care of this,
ma'am. We still haven't found your baby so as far as we know this
might all be a big misunderstanding. Just calm down so I don't have
to cuff you. We'll find your baby, don't panic.”
A raspy, heartless cackle filled the air and all eyes turned to the
chuckling, manacled babysitter – shaking her head with amusement.
“Ain't no mistake,” the babysitter grinned from across the barren
ring of slippery wood. “You don't have to worry - I spared your
baby from a life of torment, I did. Tonya is free now – soaring
with the angels, praise Jesus! I don't know why you're all so angry.
I'm a hero. You're just ignorant fools – too blind to see what's
right in front of you!”
The mother lunged and almost made it past the female officer but a
burly fisherman came forward and with one quick motion, engulfed the
grieving woman against his barrel chest and held her tight.
People gasped at the audacity of the babysitter standing within a
protected ring of police as she smiled proudly.
Mumbled whispers ran down the length of historic Ocean Isle Pier.
Words like monster and
psychopath rippled in
the warm evening breeze while the team assembled and prepared to
march the woman back toward the gift shop at the foot of the pier.
The crowd parted and hugged the left and right edges of the wooden
boardwalk as the waves far below disappeared and the sand began,
glimmering pink with the sunset.
The distraught mother had collapsed and was allowing herself to be
towed along inside a protective huddle of beefy men and clucking
women. Each of them purring, cooing and reassuring her that
everything was going to be okay.
The babysitter sat down easily on the wide backseat of the police
cruiser and the door slammed shut with a dull thump that muffled the
voices now raised in anger as the crowd followed behind with the
sobbing mother in the center, the nucleus to their fury. Her pain fed
the horde as they came toward the police sedan and the babysitter's
smiling face shielded behind the glass.
As the officers fell into their sedans and prepared to haul the woman
to the intake center six miles away, the howling mother came forward
from beneath the folds of her skirt of sympathizers and threw her
body against the scalding exterior of the police car.
The babysitter didn't flinch at the sudden blow on the glass mere
inches from the tip of her nose.
She turned her entire body to face the bulging rage of the mother and
beamed with pride. Her teeth sparkled in the rose colored sunlight.
Through the glass, the babysitter lifted her voice and called out
with sincere curiosity, “Does this mean you won't be paying me? You
still owe me for three hours, Ms. McCarthy!”
The agonized mother clawed at the glass and wailed, “Hell no, I'm
not paying you! You better hope they find Tonya. No jail on this
planet will keep me from getting to you if anything happened to my
baby, you crazy bitch!”
The babysitter wilted against the vinyl seat and looked glum for the
first time all afternoon.
“You're greedy, Ms. McCarthy. I don't think I can work for you no
more.”
The mother blinked with shock as the babysitter fell back against the
seat and nodded toward the female officer, “Driver, I've had enough
of these snobby, selfish people. Take me somewhere nice. Somewhere I
can have some peace and quiet and think for a minute. A bar. Take me
to a nice, quiet bar. I would just love a nice, cold drink
right now. Being a hero can make a person awfully thirsty. Praise
God.”
She threw her head back and laughed as the police cruiser pulled off
with a crunch of gravel beneath its bald tires.
The crowd of baffled witnesses watched as the three police cruisers
screamed away along Beach Drive and disappeared behind a wall of wild
sea oats.
The strangers swarmed and surrounded the grieving mother and drowned
away the sound of the sirens growing softer in the distance. The
grieving mother crumpled down to the asphalt of broken shells and
sobbed into her hands, soft and weak.
At the same moment - a limp, fleshy bundle was pulled out the cold
waters of the Atlantic.
With her tiny face torn to ribbons against barnacles as sharp as
broken glass, Tonya seeped warm blood down into a hungry school of
minnows that flickered around the man's thighs.
He waded slowly to shore under a hushed cloud of onlookers staring
down from the pier above.
:-)
