Dune Grasses

I stood away from the clot of people by Alden’s casket, far enough that I could hear the pastor’s voice, but not make out the words. The headstones absorbed the sound—indeed, any trace of life that lingered. It was the fall of ‘79, and the breeze from the ocean was already chilled but still carried the scent of brine inland to the cemetery. I was in the middle of my first semester at college when I had to come home for his funeral.

Then he was next to me. Dag.

I wasn’t sure he’d show. In fact, I’d hoped he wouldn’t.

“Hey, Ryan,” he said.

I didn’t look at him, but I shifted, the weight of the moment pressing on me.

“Sad,” he whispered.

“Not now,” I said.

“How long you in for?”

“I go back tomorrow.”

“Pick you up tonight at ten?”

I shook my head and kept my gaze on the casket.

This was my first time home since August, and I felt disoriented, like I didn’t belong. When I left for college, I was ready to be past my parents, my high school, our town, all of it—and I wasn’t ready to be back so soon. If I’d stayed, I’d be working at one of the tourist restaurants like Dag and Alden, and I’d rather die than cut vegetables and filter fry oil the rest of my life.

The pastor had stopped, and people were placing flowers on the casket. Alden’s parents walked over and stopped in front of Dag and me. His mom was shuddering but not crying.

“So sorry,” Dag said.

Alden’s mom slapped him. She stood for another moment, staring at him, then turned and walked away, her head down. Alden’s dad remained in front of us.

“This was Alden’s. Take it.” He handed me a gold coin about the size of a poker chip.

“What is it?” I asked.

“His sobriety coin—sixty days.”

He’d call me most weekends at my dorm. The pay phone in the hall would ring late, and I knew it was him, so I’d sit on the floor by the phone and talk him down from going out to find some dope. My strategy was to distract him by talking about nothing, but it seemed enough.

“Thanks.” I thrust the coin into my pocket as Alden’s dad turned and walked after his wife. The weight of the coin brought self-recrimination—had I abandoned Alden?

“Nice play,” Dag said. “I didn’t even know he was using.”

I turned to him, suppressing the urge to shove him to the ground. “Stop with the lies. Did you give him the stuff?”

Dag’s face was gray and drawn, the welt from the slap blazing on his cheek. He wasn’t wearing a coat, only a long-sleeved tee and some wrinkled khakis. “I did not get him any pills.”

I shook my head and turned to walk to my dad’s pickup.

Dag grabbed my shoulder. He was crying. “I didn’t know he was clean.”

“Really? Everybody knew he was trying.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t.”

But he did. I saw it in his face.

“Ten o’clock,” he said.

Before I could reply, he rushed to his car. The tires tossed gravel up into the grass as he took a hard left and disappeared.

✧ ✧ ✧

Despite the chill of the day, the night was warm, one of those nights that broke the steady progress of fall and pulled people outside to enjoy the dissolution of summer. I felt the sea air as soon as I stepped out of the house.

Dag was driving his dad’s old Buick, like when the three of us—me, Dag, and Alden—would cruise around, Alden in the back seat, howling like a wolf. And more often than not, we’d end up drunk out on the barrier island. But things started to escalate. First pot, then pills. I saw things going bad and used my college applications as an excuse to opt out, but Dag and Alden kept on.

Dag shoved open the passenger door and asked, “Want a brew?” He held out a tallboy with a shaky hand.

I got in and pushed the beer away. Illuminated by the dome light, his pupils looked like black disks.

“You high?” I asked.

I pushed the door open to leave, but Dag grabbed my arm. “Hey, hey. We’re good. You drive.”

We both got out and switched places. The inside of his car smelled sour, like he’d been living in it. Some combination of sweat, spilled beer, and the skunky odor of weed smoke had seeped into the cushions.

“One last cruise—for Alden,” he said.

I should have ditched him then, but I needed to know the truth about what happened, and Dag was the only one who could tell me. When I looked over at him and saw something small and childlike in his vulnerability, I shifted the car into drive and hit the gas.

✧ ✧ ✧

The coastal highway was deserted, but still, I drove just above the speed limit, afraid some bored cop might be looking to make a couple hundred for the county. And I was in no mood to get pulled over with Dag the way he was.

“Alden and I always said you’d do good, that you had brains,” Dag said. All I remembered was being teased.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The beach!”

“Kind of cold for the beach.”

Dag drained his can and tossed it out the window. “Reach behind and hand me another.”

I stopped on the side of the road and reached behind his seat. The loose cans were rolling around on the floor. When I tried to grab one, my hand landed on something else, something angular—hard, cold.

I pulled it out and held it to my face. The black metal transfixed me.

Dag laughed. “You look like you’ve never seen a piece before, dude.”

“What are you doing with this?”

“For protection, man. Give it here.” He extended his hand.

But I didn’t. I just held it, unsure what to do.

“Okay. Keep it,” he said.

The pistol was sleek, even stylish, and it disturbed me to touch it. My finger slid into the trigger guard. But fear surged through me, and I dropped the gun in my lap.

“Easy there, tiger. Don’t wet yourself.” Dag took the gun. “Put it in your pants.”

The thought of the gun in his hand terrified me, so I took it from him and thrust it into the waist of my jeans.

He laughed again. “Not in the front, dude. In the back.” He reached behind me and slid his hand in my waist.

I pulled the gun out and slid it behind me into my pants. The hardness against my back made me regret ever getting into the car.

“Now, get me a brew. And let’s get rolling.”

✧ ✧ ✧

It was almost midnight when we pulled into the small lot next to the beach access. The lot was empty, and when I cut the engine, I heard the tumbling surf over the dunes, eternal in its crashing. The sky had cleared, and the moon and stars were set in stark relief.

We left the lot and climbed the steps to the wooden walkway that spanned the dune, over the grass and scrub. Across the walk and down a few steps, the beach opened before us. It was low tide, and the ocean was almost fifty yards from the dunes. The dark water rushed in and then slid back out, leaving the sand to glow iridescent in the moonlight.

“This way.” Dag turned left up the beach. He waited a moment for me to catch up, then put his arm around my shoulder in a gesture that surprised me with its intimacy. But he began to stumble in the sand, so I put an arm around his waist to steady him.

We walked like this for a short way, neither of us speaking. I slid my hand into my pocket—the coin.

I stopped.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Dag chuckled. “What?”

“Remember in school we’d make fun of the dopers—how they walked, how they talked, the look in their eyes?”

His smile dissolved. “I’m good.”

“You’re not.”

“What’s not good about this?” Dag opened his arms wide and spun in place, laughing. And he dropped to the sand and rolled onto his back.

“Here.” I reached out to help him up, but he grabbed my hand and pulled me down next to him, and we lay there a few yards from the sand fence, staring at the stars flickering in the sky. The pistol pressed into the small of my back, and I shifted a bit.

“I don’t want you to die like Alden.”

Dag shook his head. “Nope, nope. I got this.”

“You don’t …”

“Ah, ah!” He put his finger to his lips, and he took a deep breath, and released it in a long, soft shh. He was so close, only a few inches from me, but so distant—hiding behind his charm, as he always did.

So, we lay on the beach gazing at the sky for what seemed an hour, the decay of low tide creeping into my nostrils.

But then his voice came through the surf, weak but present. “I told him be careful …”

“But you gave him the drugs.”

“… that I had a new dealer, and I never tried the stuff.”

I screamed and pounded my fist into the sand—hating him, hating myself.

Dag reached over and put his hand on my forearm, but I pulled away.

“You still got the piece?” he asked.

I tried to lie motionless, not breathing, every muscle tense.

“Let me have it.” Dag held out his hand.

“Left it in the car.”

“Dude.” He sighed and tried to reach under me for the gun.

But I pulled it from behind me and held it in the opposite hand away from him.

“Give it,” he cried, and reached across me to grab the pistol, but I threw it up behind me, into the grass.

“What are you doing?” he yelled.

Dag lay across me still reaching for the hand that threw the gun, and I pushed him away, and he fell on his back in the sand, breathing hard.

“It’s mine,” he said, defeated.

“You don’t need a gun.”

His breathing slowed, and I saw the tension in his body relax.

“You did right, man,” he said.

“We’ll find it in the morning.”

“Not the gun,” he said.

“What?”

“Getting out of here.”

“You can get out, too. Put your stuff in your car and just drive.”

“Nah, not old Dag. This is me.”

“Don’t do this.”

I felt emotion tightening my throat, but then he was fumbling and pulling something out of his pocket.

“Here. One for me. One for you.” He held a plastic baggie toward me.

I pushed it away.

“Ah, college boy. Too good for one last night with old Dag.” His voice was thin, and he dumped the contents of the bag into his mouth and tossed it away in the breeze.

I jumped on top of him, straddling his chest and thrust my fingers in his mouth, searching for the pills, but he hit my hand away and gagged and coughed.

“Spit them out!” I yelled, but he was choking, so I rolled him to his side.

“Are they out?”

He was still gagging, but less, and his breath was raspy with phlegm but settling. I lay down next to him, face to face on the loose sand above the tide. His eyes were open, and I saw his soul for the first time—heavy, unbearable. And I knew he knew—that I’d seen him, because it was enough for him.

He stood and removed his tee shirt and shook off his flip-flops. His thin torso was pale, almost translucent.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I stood up, my heart racing.

But Dag gave a spry laugh and slid his jeans and underwear to the sand.

“We’re going back to the car.” I grabbed his arm and started to drag him along the beach, but he pulled free and ran to the edge of the water.

He stood staring at the surf, his face serene.

“Dag!”

Then, without warning, he ran into the water and dove into the waves. A few seconds later, he surfaced ten yards out and turned to the shore.

He yelled something, but I couldn’t make out the words.

“Come back. It’s dangerous!” I shouted, frantic now.

But he turned away from the beach and began swimming toward the open water.

I stood looking at the horizon until I couldn’t see him any longer.

“Dag!”

I ran to the edge of the water, the icy waves stinging my feet.

“Dag!” I waited, listening.

But there was no sound except for the crashing of the surf and my heart pounding in my ears.

✧ ✧ ✧

I remembered less from that evening with the passing days. The events became more of a dream than something I’d lived. After he had disappeared, I raced to the car to find a phone. By dawn, the police had found his body washed up half a mile down the island. He had drowned—the alcohol and the pills contributed.

I tortured myself for weeks. I should have run in after him, I told myself, then I told others, my mom, his parents. There was more I should have said, more I could have done—something.

Finally, it was my mom who told me something that first sounded like a platitude but kept resurfacing in my thoughts. People have their own minds. I dismissed her words because they weren’t what I wanted to hear. They sounded like such a casual absolution for a life. If I couldn’t save the people I loved, what was the use of anything?

It was December now, and the beach was lit by a bright sun in a cloudless sky, the scent of brine as strong as ever. The surf rolled across the sand, the incoming tide reaching closer to the dunes with each wave. I swore I’d never come back here, but then I had to. Maybe I’d see something, or feel something that would help me understand.

Everything looked different. Was it there we lay and talked—to the right, or over there closer to the sand fence, or maybe closer to the wooden stairs? Perhaps the dune grasses had covered the place the way they shift and grow from season to season, breaking our connection with the past. I wanted to remember where I first saw Dag’s soul.

Where we didn’t say goodbye.

Squinting against the sun, I turned away from the dunes toward the sea, and I kneeled next to the hole I’d dug in the frigid, wet sand, just big enough to hold the envelope. I lit it with a match, and the wind pulled the thin smoke down the beach.

A few minutes later, the surf reached the smoldering remains and began dragging the ashes out in the tide, revealing the coin at the bottom of the hole. I picked it up and held it in my palm, still warm.

I drew my hand back to throw it into the waves, but hesitated. His spry laugh still echoed in my brain. I missed them both. It hurt in my bones. Is this what grief felt like—like I wanted time back, like I had to fix something, wishing things were different?

The fire had turned it black, but the engraving was still legible. I ran my fingers over the words: Glad I’m not dead.

I pocketed the coin and walked back to the lot.

✧ ✧ ✧

This story is a work of fiction. Except where explicitly identified in the afterword, the names, characters, and incidents herein are a product of the author’s creation and any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental.

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