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The Red Trunks(continued) With a lazy yawn, I wake up in Aruba at the Holiday Inn Beach Resort.
A less than exotic name, I always thought, but when you're on a beach
in Aruba, you don't give a damn about names. I rise from bed and stretch.
My body feels good. I slept well, as I did every night here, with the
steady trade winds cooling me off and humming me to sleep. In the washroom, hanging from the shower rod, I see my familiar blue
and yellow trunks with the diamond pattern, now a year older and faded
since Cancún, and relief washes over me. This time I will be
the one wearing them, not some freaky little mystery kid. Breakfast tastes like the food of the gods, and in the warm morning
breeze, everything is right. I don't want to believe this day can deviate
from the same day I lived three years ago. So when it does, it hits
me like a brick to the head. The brick is actually a beach ball, which rebounds off my ear and drops
to the sand. The little boy who follows it is wearing red trunks. He
is alone. He picks up the ball, points a little finger straight at me
and says in a squeaky voice, "Your head was in the right place
at the right time," and I can understand what he says, though I
am sure he is speaking Spanish. He is facing me, but somehow I can't see his face clearly. It is shadowed, dark. I say, "You mean 'wrong place at the wrong time,'" but the boy runs off, and I can't find him.
My eyes flew open back in Fairbairn Inn, and I shivered in a cold sweat.
The red numbers of the clock glowed 5 a.m. I didn't go back to sleep.
We caught the early morning ferry for the six-hour ride to Port aux
Basques, Newfoundland. While Laura watched for whales, I spent the time
wandering the ship alone, relieved to not be driving for half the day,
but still tense about last night's dream. When we hit the road again,
we still had a long way to St. John's, but I was determined to make
it the last stretch, to end this journey. Laura wanted to stop and spend
the night in Corner Brook, but I refused. In the end, she decided to
ignore my somber mood for the rest of the day, the way a horse ignores
the carriage it's tethered to and has no choice but to drag behind it.
I allowed her a few short superfluous stops, but kept us rolling into
the night. By the time we arrived in St. John's, Laura had already fallen
asleep in the car. I booked us into East Point Inn, and my wife padded from the car seat
to between the sheets without bothering to wake up. I envied her, because
tonight I did not plan to go to bed, though I was exhausted. Having
reached our final destination, I held hope that my dreams would end,
but I still felt such dread at facing the kid in red trunks I just couldn't
bring myself to go to sleep. Who was he? I didn't recognize him, and
I had no rational reason to be afraid. All I knew was when I thought
about him, my chest tightened, my throat constricted, and I couldn't
breathe, like a panic attack coming on. I sat up at the small breakfast table, trying to watch TV, but four hours and two coffees later, my forehead sank to the polished wood and, despite my best efforts, I dozed off.
I'm in Acapulco. I recognize the Mexican city when I rise from bed
and look out It all feels real — the curtain in my hand, tile beneath my feet,
the sun on my face. There's only one catch: I have never been here before.
I would never choose Acapulco as a destination. It's a city for partiers,
not for me. I don't even know what hotel I am in. I begin to feel trapped,
frightened. This place isn't mine. Laura wakes and shows no sign of anything amiss as we began our day.
She is in this with me, but she doesn't see it, doesn't understand.
After breakfast we return to the room to prepare for the beach, and
in this alien place I fully expect to see the red trunks again. Instead
I see myself pull on my familiar blue and yellow ones, but feel little
comfort from this small familiarity. The sand on the beach is rough. I don't like it. A hard wind sends
waves crashing into the shore, and red flags line the beach, warning
swimmers of the deadly undertow. Laura reads her magazine while I sit
with an open book in my lap. My eyes scan the beach, left to right and
back again, expecting the boy to show up. Waiting. Knowing he will.
When he does, cold spiders crawl under my skin. The crowd at the shoreline grows like a spreading stain. Laura asks
what's going on over there. My book falls to the sand and my legs pull
me towards the scene. The crowd has encircled a small black-haired boy
lying in the sand. His red trunks are wet, and he isn't breathing. A
lifeguard struggles to resuscitate him. The people watch, gasp, whisper.
No one in the crowd cries out his name, no one pleads to God for their
baby's life. The boy in the red trunks is alone. "Respire!" the lifeguard begs.
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