Mr. Allen goes to the beach

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It could have been a beach anywhere. Palm trees and thatched gazebos line a white sand beach beyond which stretches the ocean. A deep green-blue like a clouded emerald. Motorboats line the brow of the beach, propped up on tree trunks, their bows pointed proudly up. Names like 007, The Baron, and Asi es la vida (That´s life) tacked onto the side in that black and gold lettering you sometimes see on houses displaying their address.

Mr. Allen rose early, around six and took a piss. He remembered to toggle the toliet lever like Pablo the hostel dueño had showed him. When the toliet bowl continued filling he remembered to take the lid off the top and push the stopper down, like Pablo had shown him.

Mr. Allen met Pablo at dusk on the sandy road that runs parallel to the beach. Mr. Allen carried with him all he had, and supposed he needed for a seven month stint travelling. He wore khaki colored synthetic long pants and a blue t-shirt. His hair, matted and sweaty poked out from all sides of his dirty baseball cap. He had just arrived to the small surf town via motorcycle rickshaw. Although Mr. Allen payed $4 for the ride (a somewhat steep price considering buses cost about $1 an hour...), he had no other choice. The buses from the bay town he landed at had stopped going to the small beach town just north. He took the rickshaw and looked out at the ocean through the rectangular slot window cut from the canvas siding. This was Mr. Allen´s second sighting of the body of water this trip. The first was in a town farther north, an afro town known for it´s great music, food (almost always cooked in coco), and juices (Mr. Allen thought they should be known for that anyway...). The beach he saw there was covered in construction equipment.

Mr. Allen rode into town switching off from watching the sun splash orange red and yellow across the water and watching his rickshaw driver swerve side to side trying to avoid the pot holes, and oncoming traffic.

Pablo (the dueño) is a tall man with a complexion that speaks of his african heritage and living in a beach town all his life. His face is almost pear like. A look that perhaps can be attributed to his wide jaw and haircut--short greying hair on the sides with a wavy tuft on top. Pablo usually stands with his feet slightly splayed out away from each other, his hands in his grey khaki shorts, a small belly protruding from his weathered blue polo shirt.

When Mr. Allen saw Pablo on the dirt path at dusk he was at best unsure of Pablo´s intentions. Mr. Allen finds himself overly paranoid of many of the people he meets. This paranoia tends to exaggerate itself in the evening.

Pablo asked Mr. Allen what he was looking for.

A cheap place to stay replied Mr. Allen (this conversation was in spanish).

When Pablo showed Mr. Allen the double bed in the cozy bamboo room on the second floor looking out towards the ocean he asked Mr. Allen how much he would like to pay.

"Four dollars?" Mr. Allen replied, as if pleading. "Five?"

"For you five." Pablo replied. "We usually ask our guests for at least six, but for you five."

Mr. Allen didn´t even have enough money on him to pay Mr. Pablo, and there are no banks or atms in this small surf town. He told Pablo he would have to go into town the next day to get him his money but he would be staying for at least three days.

"Todo tranquilo." Pablo replied. A refrain Mr. Allen would hear Pablo utter many more times. They ended their conversation with a handshake and kindly pat on the shoulder from Pablo to Mr. Allen. "Todo tranquilo."

Mr. Allen went and ate raw fish marinated in lime. He added the required profuse amounts of picante sauce and washed it down with a cold beer. He went back to his room, read and went to bed.

The waves crashed loudly and the palms swayed under the howling wind. Mr. Allen returned from the bathroom and sat on the side of his bed and looked out at the ocean. The clouds and overcast weather he had grown so familiar with travelling in the sierras seemed to have followed him to the coast. He brushed the sand off the bottom of his feet and swung his legs into bed and went back to sleep.

Mr. Allen awoke an hour later and looked out the window. He could still hear the waves crash relentlessly on the shore but he couldn´t hear the wind. The palms that line the dirt path that run parallel to the beach were calm. Mr. Allen moved the transparent pink curtains aside and unlatched the small medal rod that holding the windows closed. The windows gently came apart revealing a warm salt tainted breeze. When Mr. Allen had unlatched the windo the night before the powerful gusts had thrown the tattered wood windows back, banging softly against the pink curtains.

Mr. Allen closed the window and latched it and put on his red athletic shorts--the ones with the two racing stripes running down the side, and the inconspicous W above the left knee. Mr. Allen found these shorts quite comfortable, great to play tennis in, although at times found the bright red (it never seems to fade) a bit too flashy. It struck him as ironic that when he did find himself yearning for the spotlight he usually shriveled under it. In barefeet marked by a strapped sandal tan he walked down the narrow wood steps that led down to Pablo´s restaraunt "Estrella del Mar" and his house where he lived with his wife Carmen. The steps down were challenging for Mr. Allen. He wobbled trying to keep his balance on the first narrow step while trying to close the waist high bamboo gate that guarded the hostelers up stairs. He figured it out. The steps reminded him of the narrow wooden steps that ran up to what was once his fathers office. A place Mr. Allen rarely went, and still rarely goes, but can remember the sound of his father descending--the teal and green steps groaning under his weight.

Mr. Allen descended these steps sideways facing and holding onto the railing. When he reached the bottom he got another handshake and friendly pat from Pablo who was busying himself sweeping up his restaraunt.

It was early and the beach was empty except for the occasional jogger (the first jogger Mr. Allen had seen this trip) and the fishermen. The white and teal motorboats that lay dormant on the were getting reading to depart, idyling various distances from the shore. At low tide (like this morning) the water lay maybe 30 meters from the upper lip of the beach (where the boats stayed the night). Mr. Allen ambled down the hard packed beach watching the fishermen labor to push their boats from the extended lip of the beach to the surf. The two logs that before porpped the boats up for rest were used as "wheels" to push the boats out. Mr. Allen watched as the fishermen rolled their boats over the two logs, going a couple meters, then when the log reached the back of the boat, replacing it under the front. And so they went, rolling their boats until the water lapped at it´s sides. Sometimes it was two fishermen to take on the task, sometimes a family. Mr. Allen watched a family of six, three men, a women, and two children (looked like a family to him...) heave and roll their boat into the water--he saw the same family helping to pull it out later that day. Once the boats were far enough into the water and the logs removed two men carried out the fishing equipment in striped semi-transparent plastic sacks strung onto a bamboo shaft that they carried between them. Another man followed carrying the motor on his shoulder. Then the boats charge into the oncoming surf, the bows shooting up as the boats hit the wave.

The waves at this particular beach weren´t like any Mr. Allen had ever seen. They were not the biggest. But they were relentless. Waves broke on the shore at the same time multiple waves were braking 20, 30, 40 m out (notice how I´ve changed to the metric system...already)

Mr. Allen walked north towards the gold sandstone bluffs that divided the shoreline and jungle. The sand was soggy underfoot. He walked past turkey vultures, trash, a pile of shrimp carcasses, and a cool slow moving stream that leaked out into the ocean. Just past the river he watched a marine bird with pencil legs and a long neck with a long curved beack flutter and peck at the ground. The bird was hunting for snails. Mr. Allen knew because he noticed the snails as he walked, how they opened their feelers to catch their microscopic food as the undertow pulled back sand and debris. As he walked over the snails, he watched them dart back into their shells and sink back into the sand. The marine bird stopped pecking, turned, and looked at Mr. Allen. When it pointed it´s head directly at Mr. Allen it looked like a leaf of paper connected to a body, the head totally indescernable from the neck. Another wave rolled to shore and the bird again fluttered and pecked wildly at the ground, stopping only to swallow.

Mr. Allen continued walking, looking mostly at his feel, watching the snails dive into the sand as he passed. When he looked up he saw a group of vultures perched on the ledge above him. Four or five of them took turns pecking and tearing at a carcus. The carcus resembled a turtle or a crab. The shell looked like it had been bashed in with some sort of blunt object. Mr. Allen hesitated, curious to the species of animal being devoured but thought better of it. The vultures swirling overhead and standing around the carcus made him uneasy. He likened them to warlocks or wring wraiths. Beasts with hideous faces that usually wore their hoods on their black cloaks UP, relying on the shadows to hide their beastly appearance, only unveiling themselves when around their brethren or performing some ritual--pagan no doubt. These vultures, he thought, had their hoods down, he would let them perform their ritual.

He walked farther down the beach to the rock that jutted out into the ocean below the big sandstone (some yellow stone) bluff. He thought about the rock looking so strong, so unbreakable, unmovable. Compared to the water it looked immaculate. The water crashing again and again spilling into all the rocks cracks, climbing over it, covering it. The rock looked amused. But Mr. Allen knew that in geological time this rock didn´t have long. The water dealt the rock body blows, never tiring of hitting it, no matter how small the damage seemed to be. Mr. Allen wondered how the rock looked 10,000 years ago, 1000 years ago, 100, 10? How would it look in 5 years, 100 years? The water will be there, but will the rock? Mr. Allen turned around, tired of thinking about a time scale he couldn´t really fathom. He walked past the vultures and the carcass, past the bird and the snails, past the river and garbage, and past the fishermen and their boats. He walked up the narrow stairs in Pablo´s hostel, put on his swim trunks, and went out for a swim.

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