Lethe, California

The Pacific. Rob and I have driven all the way from Oklahoma pretty much nonstop to reach this place, driven almost on a dare. And now, without even changing out of our tee shirts and jeans, we’re sprinting past the dry edge of the continent into the Pacific’s embrace. Rob is beaming. He puts a wrestling hold on me, and we grapple in the waves until a wave hits us, then we lose our both our footing and our grip on each other.

When we get back to our feet, we’re both looking back at California, the long strand of sand, the rows of palms, the traffic, the houses behind, the mountains two-dimensional in the haze, like they’re cut out of paper. We high-five as we both start walking toward it, toward where we left our shirts and shoes in a pile on the beach. People are looking at us, a couple of shirtless Okies in wet jeans and white as ghosts, like we’re wrecking their view, but they can go to hell. We lie in the sand, close our eyes against the sun, let the sand cling to our arms and clothing. The salt pinches my skin as it dries, a feeling I remember somehow.

I am waking up to sand falling on my face. A guy is standing over me, shirtless, brushing the sand off his pants. Hey, I say, rising, shaking the grains out of my hair. Sorry, dude, he says. He points out that the sun is low now, almost touching the water. What’s going on? I ask him.

Got me, he sighs. He squats down and squints into the setting sun. He says that he didn’t sleep. That he tried to piece it together, but he didn’t have a wallet or ID or even shoes. I patted my pants and said I didn’t either. He said he had thought searching the lot for a car to match the keys in his pocket but feared he couldn’t find his way back. And back to what? Remind me of who you are again, he says. I can’t quite….

And neither can I.

He shows me the two silver keys in his hand, one square-topped, one rounded, both on a split ring, both of them stamped “GM” and “Mark of Excellence.” So are you Mark, I kind of joke, and he laughs nervously and says dude, I don’t even know. He can tell they are car keys, but does he have a car? Do I?

The beach is emptier as is the lot behind us. The mountains blushing red. The unceasing traffic. Is this California, he wants to know, and I tell him that where the sun is setting and something else, something deep in my memory tells me that it is. We stare at each other in alarm, then his face gets this confused look on it. He seems different, like someone I only recognize.

I tell him I’m feeling turned around.

The guy and I walk up and down the beach. We are by now standing in a lot full of cars. He tries to put the key into the door of the nearest one, but it gets kind of stuck, and as he jiggles it out, a cop car pulls up at the end of the lane and stops. The cop is staring at us.

He follows us as we walk through the lot, and we get the hint and head back to the beach. The guy asks me if I remember one pier or another as we walk up, then back along the water. All of it looks the same, and none of it is familiar. He shows me the keys in his hand, and we head back to the lot, weave our way through cars that are equally unfamiliar.

How long this goes on I have no idea, but when it gets dark, a cop car stops beside us. The cop asks if we need help, as we have walked by three times already. We don’t know what to say, and he asks if we are lost. Worse, I say. He suggests homeless. The guy with me tells the cop that the thing is we don’t even know. We don’t know anything. The cop jokes that this wouldn’t differentiate us much from a lot of people around here. That maybe we should drive around with him to jog our memories. It’s not really a suggestion, so we get in.

If anything looks familiar, we should tell him, the cop says. But nothing does. Not in the lots, on the streets, back and forth, back and forth. The cop says that he has heard of other people forgetting everything and asks if we took or drank anything. We tell him no. It’s quiet, except for the occasional radio dispatch. The cop tells us to stay alert, to keep looking.

After a while, the light silhouettes the mountains. The cop looks back at us as if surprised at our presence. He stops the car, gets out, peers at us through the window. He walks around the car, studies it and his uniform, starts to wander toward the beach, where he sits down in the sand. He puts his head in his hands.

The guy with me is asleep again. I get out and start walking.

MARK GALLINI’S stories have been published in the US and Australia; his journalism and humor to various print and online publications. He has written/produced for public radio and syndication. He co-wrote a feature film, based on his unpublished story, which made the Euro/US festival rounds. He lives in Philadelphia, PA, and is currently shopping a novel.

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