Uncertain Gladiators

Father tosses son into oncoming surf and in that fraction of a moment the tenor of the beach day, an occasion as sanctimonious as any of those hallowed stretches which perch precipitously in the paragon of holiday, hangs in the balance. For, if the water’s icy grip shocks young brain with memories of wrestling headliners, piledrivers, and fan flocked rings, and if he rises with wry smile amidst a bout of babbling laughter, arm arched in an anticipatory splash of revenge, then the day’s festive fervor may still hold hope. But if that head dunking, shorts filled with sand, nostril-enema of a take-down proves too much for tired mind to rationalize, and a tail turned sprint to towel is the only recourse, then I fear the day may be through.

 

While there are many things to be said about the beach, perhaps none are truer than the fact that it is an unholy place to inhabit while plagued in the heavy clouds of a foul mood. Those once jolly characteristics, be it the marigold yellow sun, the cool reprieve of a forlorn breeze, the exotic dance of the dart like gulls, now all adopt a macabre tint.

 

The sun becomes entirely too spirited. Show me a creature which enjoys that hot sensation of roasting flesh and I will show you a madman disguised in trunk and straw hat. Christmas geese are treated with more respect than are the necks of foul tempered beach going youths. That wind which once carried tantalizing reminders of far away islands, the call of tropical whimsy, coconut drinks, grass skirts, and buried treasure, now owns little more than the grains of sand upon which sulking guest is asked to sit. And it must be noted how these grains of sand, these frustrations of time, remainders of mineral grandeur, have themselves procured some amount of sentience and accepted an evil bounty to permeate the crook of eye and ear alike. Too there are the terrors of the sky, those flitting specks which troll the world’s coastlines, with battering wings, hay hook beaks, and an innate ability to sense anguish. Like Grimm villains they descend to snuff out the final bastions of beach day joy. Oh, how foolish a thought it is that an ice cream sandwich might salvage the destruction wrought from unrequited dunking. For if blistering sun does not first have its way with frostbitten treat, then it will be a kamikaze from the 95th division of the white-tipped jerks, that will pry sopping sugar from clumsy fingers.

 

Why then, with so much in the balance, do fathers continue to take such risk? Certainly, there is reward. If the initial shock is tempered quickly, and the only water which streams from eyes those stray drops from cresting wave, then the stage has been set, nay the battlefield prepared, for a gladiatorial contest the likes the world has never seen. Achilles and Lesner alike would cower at the ferocity in which bodies are tossed toward white cap, a near perfect, though wholly un-choreographed ensemble of father and son. Laughter rings louder than even the coarsest gull, and the sun shines not in rage, but spotlight. The wave encourages a certain leveling of competition, for while son no doubt owns stark disadvantages, be it size, weight, or experience in such war, those percussive swells care little for David or Goliath.

 

Perhaps though, it is all a great deal simpler than that, and the beach dunk springs forth from nothing more than the need to release that tension pent up throughout the many years of child rearing. Every strung together “Why?”, every “Are we there yet?”, each refusal of green at the dinner table, exorcised in a single swift toss of small head toward pillowy wave. Maybe still it is a test. “What kind of boy have I raised?” “What sort of man might he become?” Such a test I must admit I failed on more than one occasion, for my pre-programmed response to watery violence more often resulted in a search for mother’s skirts than in prime time match-up.

 

Today on the beach there was one such inflection. Stoic father, still clad in flowy shirt and cheap plastic sunglasses, tossed young and unsuspecting son beneath oncoming wave. Like a runaway bus it plowed up and over. There was a silence while head was underwater. So pervasive in its completeness it threatened the likes of morning churchyard, empty wood, abandoned castle atop overgrown hill. The entire beach, even those with eyes closed or back turned took in a collective breath, joining the sun, the wind, and the gulls in that heavy moment of uncertainty. Legs surfaced first, blue trunks that matched the horizon so perfectly I was sure that sea and sky had switched. Ears leaned forward in anticipation of that eerie scream of sundered pride and sand scrapped knees, but when head broke surface it came with smile as wide as shoreline. A giggle broke from that shallow battlefield, a joyous laughter that swept across the dunes as swiftly as a summer monsoon. Both arms swung forward and father’s shirt was soaked in glistening spray. The sun relaxed, the wind petered out, the gulls kept distance. The day’s marquee match-up had begun.