my name. This could not be happening. She called my name again. From years of experience I know that there is no stopping her from getting what she wants. She will get it, and non-compliance only adds ire to the unpleasantness. I climbed carefully off the chair and walked outside silently, stiffly.
She was sitting on a new-looking beach cruiser ladies’ bicycle with feet firmly on the ground. She wore a white low cut top and cream or gray cotton pants and a white cap.
My mind was shattered and the pieces of what my senses reported to my brain made no sense. The visual details have been pieced together after the fact. My mind was completely fogged, seeing only gross shapes and colors, hearing nothing, but able to respond to sound.
She gave me the finger. I turned and numbly walked back inside.
She must have called my name again, for after a few moments I was numbly drawn outside again, this time walking the other direction to the back of the tower in case she had pedaled a bit. She hadn’t budged.
There was a pause, either before I walked out, as I was walking, or just after becoming visible to her. I don’t know exactly what was happening, but I know her. She said querulously, “Aren’t you even going to say ‘Hi?’”
Halfway through that question, I said, “Hi.” Just in case she couldn’t hear me over the sound of her complaining, I repeated myself.
There was another probably tiny, but intolerably long pause, and I felt the fog start to clear, replaced by anger and the red flag of fear.
A trickle of unidentifiable feelings (or were they thoughts?) welled up from somewhere near my ankle bones.
Bbrrring! The lifeguard landline rang loudly. I automatically turned and went back inside to answer, duty calling. Even Foffie would understand and approve of my need to turn away from her. It was dispatch with my end of shift time.
The call took less than 10 seconds. I headed outside again, a little more lucid this time, and ready to try to give her a piece of my mind. How dare she give me the finger. She probably expected me to apologize too, and after all her lies and manipulation, financial trickery, and all she put ME through?
But she was pedaling away. She had taken and kept the power once again. She couldn’t waste time waiting for me to get off the phone? I looked again or maybe just had the idea to look again. And then I forgot to look longingly as (presumably) she smugly pedaled into the distance. Bye.
Then the shock of what had happened kicked in. Rapid breathing, heart racing, narrowed vision, sick stomach. Emergency. I reached for my phone to call my sponsor.
It rang for 2 years and she didn’t pick up. The outgoing message took another decade and by then my supervisor was driving toward the tower and would soon catch me using my cell while on duty, a big no-no, unless I was very quick.
I had 10 seconds, 9, 8... the message finally beeped and my mouth was cardboard. I inhaled and forced cold air out of my lungs, moved my paper lips and fat tongue making the shapes that paired with the sounds trying to come into focus.
A circus of fear and crisis in my head. How? Why? What just happened? I couldn’t see straight. Just communicate the basics. What were the basics?
Oh, God, what if there are kids in the water? Perhaps the resulting message I left resembled the sound of venting. Later, my sponsor told me she had deleted the message believing it to be an accidental pocket-dial.
The lifeguard truck pulled up. I tried to look unperturbed. Imitating myself, I reached for the rescue can deliberately, hoping the slow motion would come off as confidence rather than shell-shock, and prayed that my face wasn’t noticeably pallid.
I hopped down off the tower to greet him at the truck window. It was a careful re-enactment of a movement I’ve done a thousand times.
No breeze. I was silent and cold in the afternoon sun. Mercifully, the supervisor just confirmed the end of shift and didn’t ask anything requiring brain cells.
I carried my body like a marionette back into the tower. I was still mostly numb and starting to slump. Somehow I was still functional despite having no functional mind.
But the sprinkle of consciousness starting to creep up from that place in my ankles was toxic, and in high enough doses, would be deadly. I pulled out my phone once again and made my fingers push the names on the recent call list.
My fingers were wooden blocks, no dexterity, and it was worthless to even try to scroll for the persons who could relate to this best. With God’s grace, my finger-blocks managed to text enough of a synopsis to get a response and sent it to the last 5 S.L.A.A. members I had spoken with.
I was not safe in my head and needed help. Whomever was around to read it would help me through this, I figured, even a sponsee. No need to do this alone, and too risky to try. Then, from nowhere, a loud and enthusiastic “Hi, Dear!”
If my body were awake, I would have jumped in fright and crumpled in relief. OMG! My mom came to the beach to surprise me. She had been so happy for me that I was working again and back into the swing of things.
“Hi, Mom!” I came to life and jumped to the sand and gave her a hug. I felt my God was working in my life one more time.
Only 75 minutes until the end of my shift. My mom was appalled about Foffie and was angry and upset.
She called Foffie a nasty liar (she claimed to have broken her leg, so how was she riding a bike?). The relief started in my forehead and loosened the skin on my face, moisture returned to my mouth and eyes, and shimmied all the way down.
Ten minutes later, my girlfriend appeared. She wore a super cute tank top. She had gone for a run and met me for a hug and to hang out for the end of the shift. I was safe.
My protectors were with me like knights in armor. I knew I wouldn’t have to do any part of the grieving, the worrying, the internal fighting, or anything, alone.
About an hour later, Foffie’s bike riding doppelgänger pedaled up. My girlfriend and I saw her at the same time and both of us froze. A moment later, she was close enough to see that her face was different, and my girlfriend and I laughed, our first chance.
Soon, it was 6 o’clock and time to drive home. The car tires were not slashed. A bomb did not explode upon starting the car, and my girlfriend and I talked openly.
She hugged me tight while I sobbed. It was a happy cry at first and then I remembered how Foffie used to hold me like that, but her hefty (ahem, fat) frame was more cushy and comforting. Despite the resentment, fear, and tangled mess of every other emotion, I missed Foffie.
So tight and safe in her huge arms. My happy tears turned sad. My girlfriend could detect the switch. I couldn’t tell her why and gave a half-truth that was more of a half-lie. Maybe she knew anyway because she said, “What you miss is a memory, there is no human like that today.”
She is right. I miss a memory. I wish today I could splice together the precious few tender times with Foffie and the kind beautiful nature of my current girlfriend. Maybe I’m greedy.
Looking back on that chance encounter, now 2 months and another withdrawal later, I know that the person that I grieved during the first withdrawal was not the Foffie of today.
I grieved a string of isolated experiences that occurred over a span of 10 years and were spliced together in a way that made them flow through my recollection as if the heart-warming closeness and giggle attacks happened just yesterday.
These good memories are now filed in chronological order alongside the mundane, the bad and the ugly. Foffie is safely stowed in the past, just for today.
—ANONYMOUS
the Journal, Issue #146
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