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DOWN BY THE SEA NEAR THE GREAT BIG ROCK For
John Maclay Down by the sea
near the great big rock, they made their camp and toasted marshmallows over a
small, fine fire. The night was pleasantly chill and the sea spray cold.
Laughing, talking, eating the gooey marshmallows, they had one swell time; just
them, the sand, the sea and the sky, and the great big rock. The night before
they had driven down to the beach, to the camping area; and on their way,
perhaps a mile from their destination, they had seen a meteor shower, or something
of that nature. Bright lights in the heavens, glowing momentarily, seeming to
burn red blisters across the ebony sky. Then it was dark
again, no meteoric light, just the natural glow of the heavens—the stars, the
dime-size moon. They drove on and
found an area of beach on which to camp, a stretch dominated by pale sands and
big waves, and the great big rock. Toni and Murray
watched the children eat their marshmallows and play their games, jumping and
falling over the great big rock, rolling in the cool sand. About midnight,
when the kids were crashed out, they walked along the beach like fresh-found
lovers, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, listening to the sea, watching the
sky, speaking words of tenderness. "I love you so
much," Murray told Toni, and she repeated the words and added, "and
our family too." They walked in
silence now, the feelings between them words enough. Sometimes Murray worried
that they did not talk as all the marriage manuals suggested, that so much of what
he had to say on the world and his work fell on the ears of others, and that
she had so little to truly say to him. Then he would think: What the hell? I
know how I feel. Different messages, unseen, unheard, pass between us all the
time, and they communicate in a fashion words cannot. He said some catch
phrase, some pet thing between them, and Toni laughed and pulled him down on
the sand. Out there beneath that shiny-dime moon, they stripped and loved on
the beach like young sweethearts, experiencing their first night together after
long expectation. It was nearly two
a.m. when they returned to the camper, checked the children and found them
sleeping comfortably as kittens full of milk. They went back
outside for a while, sat on the rock and smoked and said hardly a word. Perhaps
a coo or a purr passed between them, but little more. Finally they climbed inside the camper, zipped themselves into
their sleeping bags and nuzzled together on the camper floor. Outside the wind
picked up, the sea waved in and out, and a slight rain began to fall. Not along after,
Murray awoke and looked at his wife in the crook of his arm. She lay there with
her face a grimace, her mouth opening and closing like a guppie,
making an "uhhh, uhh"
sound. A nightmare
perhaps. He stroked the hair from her face, ran his fingers lightly down her
cheek and touched the hollow of her throat and thought: What a nice place to carve out some fine, white meat. What in the hell is wrong with me? Murray thought, and he rolled away from her, out of the bag.
He dressed, went outside and sat on the rock. With shaking hands on his knees,
buttocks resting on the warmth of the stone, he brooded. Finally
he dismissed the possibility that such a thought had actually crossed his mind,
smoked a cigarette and went back to bed. He did not know
that an hour later Toni awoke and bent over him and looked at his face as if it
were something to squash. But finally she shook it off
and slept. The children tossed
and turned. Little Roy squeezed his hands open, closed, open, closed. His
eyelids fluttered rapidly. Robyn dreamed of
striking matches. Morning came and
Murray found that all he could say was, "I had the oddest dream." Toni looked at him,
said, "Me, too," and that was all. Placing lawn chairs on the beach,
they put their feet on the rock and watched the kids splash and play in the
waves; watched as Roy mocked the sound of the Jaws music and made fins with his hands and chased Robyn through
the water as she scuttled backwards and screamed with false fear. Finally they called the children from the water, ate a light lunch,
and, leaving the kids to their own devices, went in for a swim. The ocean stroked
them like a mink-gloved hand, tossed them, caught them, massaged them gently.
They washed together, laughing, kissing—then tore their lips from one another
as up on the beach they heard a scream. Roy had his fingers
gripped about Robyn's throat, held her bent back over the rock and was putting
a knee in her chest. There seemed no play about it. Robyn was turning blue. Toni and Murray
waded for shore, and the ocean no longer felt kind. It grappled with them, held
them, tripped them with wet, foamy fingers. It seemed an eternity before they
reached the shore, yelling at Roy. Roy didn't stop.
Robyn flopped like a dying fish. Murray grabbed the boy by the hair and pulled
him back, and for a moment, as the child turned, he looked at his father with
odd eyes that did not seem his, but looked instead as
cold and firm as the great big rock. Murray slapped him,
slapped him so hard Roy spun and went down, stayed there on hands and knees,
panting. Murray went to
Robyn, who was already in Toni's arms, and on the child's
throat were blue-black bands like thin, ugly snakes. "Baby, baby,
are you okay?" Toni asked over and over. Murray wheeled, strode back to
the boy, and Toni was now yelling at him, crying, "Murray, Murray, easy
now. They were just playing and it got out of
hand." Roy was on his
feet, and Murray, gritting his teeth, so angry he could not believe it, slapped
the child down. "MURRAY,"
Toni yelled, and she let go of the sobbing Robyn and went to stay his arm, for
he was already raising it for another strike. "That's no way to teach him
not to hit, not to fight." Murray turned to
her, almost snarling, but then his face relaxed and he lowered his hand.
Turning to the boy, feeling very criminal, Murray reached down to lift Roy by
the shoulder. But Roy pulled away, darted for the camper. "Roy," he
yelled, and started after him. Toni grabbed his arm. "Let him
be," she said. "He got carried away and he knows it. Let him mope it
over. He'll be all right." Then softly: "I've never known you to get
that mad." "I've never
been so mad before," he said honestly. They walked back to
Robyn, who was smiling now. They all sat on the rock, and about fifteen minutes
later Robyn got up to see about Roy. "I'm going to tell him it's
okay," she said. "He didn't mean it." She went inside the
camper. "She's
sweet," Toni said. "Yeah,"
Murray said, looking at the back of Toni's neck as she watched Robyn move away.
He was thinking that he was supposed to cook lunch today, make hamburgers,
slice onions; big onions cut thin with a freshly sharpened knife. He decided to
go get it. "I'll start
lunch," he said flatly, and stalked away. As he went, Toni
noticed how soft the back of his skull looked, so much like an over-ripe melon. She followed him
inside the camper. Next morning, after
the authorities had carried off the bodies, taken the four of them out of the
blood-stained, fire-gutted camper, one detective said to another: "Why does it
happen? Why would someone kill a nice family like this? And in such horrible
ways. . . set fire to it afterwards?" The other detective
sat on the huge rock and looked at his partner, said tonelessly, "Kicks
maybe." That night, when
the moon was high and bright, gleaming down like a big spotlight, the big
rock, satiated, slowly spread its flippers out, scuttled across the sand, into
the waves, and began to swim toward the open sea. The fish that swam near it
began to fight. Get another batch
of popcorn ready for Thursday, April 9, when we'll present another bit of Mojo
magic by Champion Joe R. Lansdale! "Down
by the Sea Near the Great Big Rock" was originally published in Masks. It later appeared in By Bizarre Hands (Avon Books) and Bumper Crop (Golden Gryphon Press). "Down by the Sea Near
the Great Big Rock" © 1984 Joe R. Lansdale. All rights reserved. |
