It’s 200 pm on a sunny day with a sky piled high with white cumulus clouds. I should just sunbathe on the beach and zone out.
I mean, hell, I’m on vacation—no grad students or papers to mark or lectures to give—just me and the wind and the waves.
I deserve a break, time to kick back, cool my jets and catch some rays. You don’t have to work at being a beach bum.
But by four o’clock, I’m bored.
I pack everything up and decide to go into town. I’ll have an early supper, come back and shower and then carry a glass of wine down to the beach and watch the sunset.
I spot Harry, my neighbour from the cottage behind. I shout to him, “Hey, where’s a good place to eat?”
He shouts back. “If you like ribs try Mr. Bones on Gulf Drive.”
Name sounds creepy, but you always ask a local where to eat. I wave back in acknowledgment. Mr. Bones it is.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing outside the eatery, looking up at a dancing skeleton on a slate grey sign. It even looks creepy, but I go in.
The décor is more reminiscent of Haiti with its Voodoo atmosphere. A life-sized clothed skeleton effigy guards the door—even the beer is stored in ice in a coffin.
Like I said, creepy, but the sign above the door says New Orleans Trained Chefs—so, what’s not to like about that?
I pick a window table where I can stare out at the road and wayside parking lot. Sure enough, a biker gang shows up.
My heart sinks, but I already placed my order. I make up my mind to eat my meal and quietly leave.
I’m watching them horsing around in the parking lot and my gaze is drawn to one biker chick. She’s wearing road-tarnished leathers—both jacket and stovepipe chaps.
She’s heart-stoppingly beautiful. She draws my soul right out of my body.
“Can I put this down, hon?”
I look up to see the waitress. I colour and make room, pushing my beer aside.
Soon, the party spills into the restaurant, and I relax somewhat. The waitress knows the gang members and jokes good-naturedly with them.
Every table quickly fills. I’m staring outside wondering where my girl has gone, when I hear a soft voice.
“Do you mind if I sit here?”
It’s the biker chick in all her tooled leather glory. “Sure—please have a seat.”
She sits down and her dark hair spills across her shoulders. She smiles at the antics of the pack leader—an older grizzled guy named Hoss.
I try to go through the motions of eating. Suddenly, she swivels around and smiles at me, “I’m Hettie.”
“Paul Rutledge,” I mumble through a mouthful of ribs.
“That looks good,” she laughs.
I’m feeling self-conscious and lift the napkin to wipe sauce from the corners of my mouth.
“Here,” she says, taking the cloth, and brushing it lightly across my cheek. “That’s got it.”
I’ve never been this close to a mermaid. My head feels like a bathysphere and my ears are singing like the sea.
“You’re not scared are you?” she asks.
I’m not sure if she means scared of her or rat pack friends.
“No,” I lie.
“Some people don’t understand motorcycle culture.”
I nod. I’m one of them.
“Are you visiting?”
I nod again.
“I figured. You don’t look like a local. Where are you from?”
“Toronto. I teach university there.”
Her eyes dance. “Really? What do you teach, Professor?”
My ears are roaring now and my pulse is racing.
“I teach courses on love and romance.”
“Well then, you must be an expert.”
I colour up to the roots of my hair.
“I’d hardly say that.”
“Do you believe in soul mates?”
“We get into that with Bronte’s Wuthering heights,” I hedge, “but I suppose I do—I’m idealistic enough.”
“I thought you were,” she smiles. “I saw you through the window and thought you looked interesting.”
I look around and see there are other seats available. I begin to tremble inside and can hardly breathe.
“It’s really noisy and crowded in here—do you want to go to the beach?”
“Sure,” I reply.
I ask for the bill and pay at the cash register. She’s waiting outside, leaning on her Harley, her long legs accentuated by the tight leather chaps.
“Here, put this on,” she says, handing me a helmet.
I’ve never been on a motorcycle, but I’ve also never been with a beautiful girl.
Who am I to deny the universe?
Once I’m securely seated behind her, she roars off down the narrow road and heads for the beach.
Soon, we’re lying side by side on the white sand in the shade of a tree. I watch the long white waves come rolling in.
The wind gently teases her hair.
“It’s kind of lonely,” she sighs, “ don’t you agree?”
“It is.”
“The sound of the sea,” she whispers.
She leans over and kisses me, softly at first, and then, deeper and longer. I close my eyes and drink her in—satiate myself with her essence.
We lie there in each other’s arms until the sun sets and the pale moon rises.
The ocean becomes a black wall of undulating water—just looking at it, gives me vertigo.
I inhale the jasmine scent of her hair.
I like Jasmine—it releases its fragrance while the world sleeps unaware of its beauty and truths.
And I like her.
Just being with her makes me dizzy and giddy.
“You are so beautiful, as lovely as the night.”
“Could you write a poem about me?”
“Yes.”
“What would you say?”
“I’d say your hair is like dark trees of night that move upon the sky.”
“That’s beautiful, Paul.”
I stare at her lovely face barely visible now in the gloom.
“Why did you stop writing?”
I’m confused. Did I tell her that?
“I think I stopped writing when I stopped believing.”
She props herself up, leaning on one elbow, and looks sadly at me.
“Stopped believing in what?”
I’m swept into a vortex of rustling leaves and leathers.
“Stopped believing in mermaids, I guess.”
“You know, women will find you attractive, Paul—you draw out the soul through your words.”
I couldn’t see her distinctly in the darkness. Her words were some dark alphabet of letters obscuring her face—hiding her beauty.
If I saw her at all, it was through a trellis—a latticework of lines.
“The dreams you stir in women may be the only reality they’ll ever have.”
Did she say that, or did I think it?
Her dark mouth was on mine again and we lay back to the sound of the pounding surf and the cool night breeze soughing through the trees.
When I awake in the gray dawn, she’s gone.
I walk for half an hour back to my car and drive home.
I’ve been back to the restaurant. They don’t know her.
The waitress knows the motorcycle gang, but they never heard of Hettie or anyone matching her description.
“I wish a cool Mama like that would ride with us,” says Hoss, with a rueful smile.
I’m perplexed. I have no explanation.
Back in Toronto, I spend some nights writing poems and others on dates with beautiful women who say they like my tales.
They say I bewitch with words—I wish it were true, though they insist it’s so.
Sometimes, late at night, I drive to the lake and watch the long white waves rolling in.
I think of white sand, sea oats and chaps.
I think of the mermaid who gave me my beginning in this enchanted world.
