While climbing along on some wind-swept refuse on my lunch break, I had an odd encounter that might be worth sharing. I make it a habit to walk the ten minutes down to a small beach front on days when the sun is out. Strong winds from the night before lined the shoreline in smooth timber and junk. A rough looking man was digging about, separating and unwinding the sun-baked and awful smelling clumps of sea grass.
Distance has always been difficult for me to judge and this vantage point, nestled comfortably underneath the tendrils of a tree hardened by the salinity of the salt, I sit and look out on the islands. Western Washington University's campus slumbers peacefully to the east like a Goliath tucked and comfortable on the hill with its brick toes jutting out from low-hanging fog. To the west I often lose myself in the scale of color gradient that is Lummi Island, but now we are getting off topic.
So this man, he comes to me. His beard is a mixture of white and gray hair that is maintained at a short length. A center ring of of dark coffee-colored whiskers perfectly matching the outline of his lips provides juxtaposition. He is kempt but also holding a majority of his life in a trash bag.
Anyways, he is excited at his find of a Jesus figure in the mess. Look look what I found man! Looks like someone carved this from a solid piece of wood. I say to him that I find it odd that the arms are missing. He laughs and asks if the owner would mind if he kept it. I tell him probably not. This man, being the talkative type, begins to tell me about the bowling ball he once found on this very same stretch of beach. A bowling ball I asking him incredulously. He says yeah man. People on the islands are known for shooting bowling balls from cannons out into the bay. I am laughing now but not at him. I like what he has to say and how excited he is about it. He quickly ends his sentence about the islanders blasting these balls and hurries in the next sentence about how this bowling ball was probably from some rich fucker who missed a strike on his yacht out in the bay and threw the ball overboard in rage. He tells me this like he had been waiting to share this story with someone for years. It flows off his tongue like he had been rehearsing it. He hit me with the setup and then spiked the ball over the net all without me knowing what happened. Thinking back on it, no wonder he was so excited—he finally got to tell someone that little thing that made him laugh when he first thought of it.
