Beach Break (1/3)
Edited: 3/19/12 for awkward phrasing and to remove any accidental comedic effect caused by the BeeGees.
Someone always came at night. During the summer, the seasonal tourists swarmed the coastal areas in RVs and SUVs filled with bored and rebellious teenagers high on stupidity. It was like a beacon; as soon as the signs went up, NO SWIMMING LIFEGUARD OFF DUTY, DANGER-STRONG CURRENT, they came sneaking over the sand dunes, pilfered beers in hand, giggling and with their minds turned firmly south as they splashed out into the choppy waves. And because they weren't locals, they didn't hear the news, didn't bother to read the bright yellow signs dimmed by dusk that people had died out here before.
It was a full moon tonight. Bodie sucked down the last of his soda under the flickering fluorescent lights in front of the public rest room. He turned and tossed it, basketball-style, into the nearest waste basket. It bounced off the teetering stack of paper bags and discarded Slurpees, skittered off the edge of the concrete slab floor and disappeared into the sandy darkness. Ah well. Bodie stepped off into the sand as well, hands on hips, and watched the glittering starlight effect the moonlight created against the rippling ocean waves. A cool breeze swept by, ruffling his brown hair and cutting through his red lifeguard t-shirt. He checked his watch. 11 p.m. His shift was done hours ago, but he wanted to swing by the beach just one more time before turning in.
He set out at a slow jog, kicking up sand and tufts of dried grass as he passed. The activity helped keep out the night time chill, and gradually he upped his pace as he reached the flatter sand kept moist and compact by the crashing water. Sea foam swirled and splashed into his sneakers; he didn't mind. Most of his life was spent on or around beaches. In nine hours he'd be back on his high chair, sun burning down overhead and sand in his swimming trunks. Wet feet weren't even an inconvenience.
His breath whooshed in and out of his lungs with the steadiness of a metronome. Out of habit, he matched it to the steady rise and fall of his feet. In turn, it seemed his steps matched the rushing ebb and push of the ocean. Bodie ran past the towering silhouette of a 13-floor hotel building, past a grove of palm trees planted by local landscapers, past the boardwalk and onwards into the night, until the only thing he could see and hear was moonlight on water. He jogged until he reached the stretch of beach where the small, somewhat worn-down local summer homes were located. Many of these homes were vacant during the off-season, and prone to neglect as a result. Since they were also some distance from the boardwalk, it kept this part of the beach more private, quiet. The municipality didn't post lifeguards here.
Bodie slowed down, then stopped, huffing and finally starting to feel winded. That's when he heard it—the sounds of frantic splashing and the screams of scared children. He whirled, peering back the way he came, then forward, trying to locate where the sounds were coming from. He didn't see anything. Did he imagine it? He tried to calm down, but his heartbeat, already beating hard, revved with a spike of adrenaline.
"Tee!"
He started, strained his eyes against the gloom, and caught the flash of something sparkly and fluorescent. A little girl with light-up sneakers. Bodie took off, racing towards that flickering beacon. He could hear and see clearer as he drew closer. There was more than one child; at least two small, dark figures peeled away, but the one girl in sneakers remained on the beach, running almost into the waves.
"Tee! Tee! Come back, Tee!" screamed the little girl. She jumped up and down, then whirled to face him as he skidded to a halt beside her.
"Tee's in there!" she gasped and pointed straight out into the water. A harsh crash erupted as a stiff wave smashed against a jutting pile of jagged rocks that extended far into the ocean. Bodie scanned the choppy waves as he kicked his sneakers aside and yanked his shirt off. His eyes swept back and forth. Where was he or she?
There! The shape of a hand waving in the air. He charged, leapt, plunged. The water retreated, dragged him with it. He let it, helping his forward motion along with a dolphin kick until he felt the buoyancy of deeper water. Then he lifted his head above the water and free-styled forward towards the small figure in the water.
"Help!" gasped the child. A girl, he realized. She sounded exhausted. She was also moving swiftly away from him, faster than normal considering she should be trying to swim TO shore, not away. He fought through the waves, cursing himself for being slow, for being tired, when he felt it, felt the water current catch a hold of him. It swirled around his chest and back, seized him and flung him further into open water. He sped towards the foundering girl faster than he ever would have under his own power.
Rip tide.
The girl went under the water. Bodie kicked and stroked his arms harder, willing mother nature to carry him as far out as it wanted to, so long as he reached her in time. He reached her last position, but she was nowhere in sight. Deep breath, then he plunged under the water. It was impossible to see; blindly he groped. His lungs strained with the effort of holding his breath until the pressure was almost too much to bear. That was when his fingers brushed against something. He seized it, and burst back up to the surface. He clutched with both hands now, hauling and turning until the girl's head broke past the water as well. Not good. He couldn't tell if she was awake or not. The current was still carrying them away. The sand line had become a blur in the distance.
Bodie wasn't a lifeguard for nothing though. He wrapped his right arm securely around the child's chest under the arms, and with his left hand, began swimming parallel to the shore.
"Come on, stay with me," he called to the limp body in his grasp. "I'm gonna get you home, so stay with me!" He kicked and paddled with a vengeance, until the muscles all up and down his left side ached. He was still stuck in the current. He pushed on, trying to keep parallel. Then as the drag grew less, he began to swim diagonal towards land. Waves surged and crashed around him, filling his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth with salt water. A wad of seaweed whipped across his face, blinding him. Another wave swept into him, and the next thing he knew, he was crashing into the unyielding rock face of the sea breaker.
The impact shuddered through his shoulder into his body and almost dislodged the girl from his grip. Maybe he hit his head too; with the waves and the cold and an unconscious girl slipping from his hands, he could barely think much less keep track of what was happening to himself. Desperately, he grabbed for some kind of handhold. His fingers scraped and slipped off slick stone. He thrashed, grabbed, slipped again, and felt his foot wedge into a rocky crevice. Something raked against his knee, tore it, a sharp slicing sensation. But Bodie ignored it. He used his trapped leg as leverage, and hauled the half-drowned girl in his arms out of the water and up over the top one of the flatter blocks of stone. Then he pulled himself out. He strained and twisted precariously against the barnacle-covered surface until his leg pulled free.
The girl hadn't moved from where he had thrown her. He dragged himself over, rolled her until she faced up. She was completely limp; her head lolled to one side.
"No no no," he muttered. He pulled his legs up under himself- never mind the pain that was starting to burn through his right knee- pressed his hands over the girl's diaphragm and began to push.
It felt different doing compressions on a real body versus the dummies during first aid training. He could feel the hard yet pliable structure of her ribcage, and the girl was so small. He was suddenly terrified of his own body weight, afraid that the power he was channeling into his hands would break her instead of help her.
But he kept pushing. One, two, three, four…. He pushed down until water spurted from the girl's mouth and she gasped and spit and thrashed with newfound vitality.
"Good girl," he mumbled as he rubbed small circles into her back. She kept coughing, until her body shook with the force of it. In the distance, the sounds of sirens pierced the night, steadily growing louder. He imagined he could almost see the swirling red lights of an ambulance over the tops of the sand dunes.
"You're doing all right," he said. He said it as much for himself as for the girl. He was only eighteen years old, but tonight and perhaps for the rest of his life, he could honestly say he was doing all right. Never forget this, he told himself. This is what it feels like to save a life.
Cold, wet, painful. And wonderful.