Summer Rain

Turner Cline

In the summer of 2018, my Swofford cousins, whose wealth and hospitality come in equal measure, made what would eventually become a permanent move to the quiet barrier reef of Topsail Island. When one decides to live on the coast of the Carolinas they are typically presented with three paths to choose from. One could take the city life in Charleston or Wilmington, trading the full beachy feel with urban convenience. Hilton Head provides another option. Though originally a lonely eye-sore of an island, whose original inhabitants consisted of feral goats and scurvy-riddled moonshiners, it has quickly developed into a yuppy stronghold. Since the late 90’s it has become a bastion of golf courses, resorts, and yacht enthusiasts. Then there is Myrtle Beach, a place that needs no introduction for those who are east of the Mississippi and south of good taste. Affectionately referred to as “Dirty Myrtle” by its fans, the island is a hotspot for bikers, pimps, and spring breakers who are worried about the strict military rule at Fort Lauderdale. 

For the Swofford clan, these paths would not do. They were fleeing the bustle of Philadelphia so Wilmington and Charleston were nixed off the board. Myrtle was a clear no for reasons previously highlighted, and the family patriarch, Greg, hates golf. They had to find their own way and landed in the tucked-away town of Topsail Island. Located 45 minutes north of Wilmington, Topsail is a nearly 30-mile-long strip of sand dunes and beach grass dotted with pastel bungalows and lowly boardwalks. It is remarkably thin, so much so that one has the pleasure of seeing both the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean through their peripheral vision. When walking across the isle you get the impression that you are crossing an endless shoal, a neverending landbridge cutting clear across the murky depths of the ocean. A landmass constantly being destroyed and rebuilt by the endless crashing of sand-laden waves. The town was populated and developed during the Second World War. Its isolation made it a perfect testing site for experimental aircraft and missiles, all under the purview of Operation Bumblebee. To this day, strange and bulbous helicopters dart around the Topsail sky, and the concrete skeletons of long forlorn observation towers stand as graying sentinels over the thin sands and brackish waves of the Atlantic. 

My family and I were invited to spend a week out there in early August to see the new house. Greg was in between business trips and their kids were still home, awaiting the start of school. It was the perfect time for a long visit. Though in theory beach vacations are supposed to be relaxing, in practice, they are far from it. Soft sands turn to fiery hot dunes and cutting shells. Fresh seafood translates to high grocery costs and even more expensive restaurants. Even the ocean itself, whose cool waves we crave to embrace scorn our affection by pelting us with the salty smacks of cold brine. This has been the repeating pattern of beach trips since time immemorial and earns Rome's mad emperor Caligula a modicum of understanding.

For six days this was not the case. It was the end of the vacation season and we were the only tourists on the island. The few dozen permanent residents paid us no mind. We laughed and ate freely, celebrating the richness of family, community, and nature. For those six days, it was by far the most relaxing vacation I had ever had, but fate deals out her blows with compound interest. On Sunday morning the rain came, and lots of it. 30, 45, and 50 mph winds flew across the palm-dusted plain. We woke quickly in the gray morn to the crackle of thunder and wild air, taking comfort in the fact that if a storm was bound to hit us on our trip it was a blessing for it to fall on the last day. With dull-minded grins, we packed our bags in our respective rooms. My brother and I joked with our cousin Garrett and talked about our college prospects and tours. My mother and her boyfriend, Kevin, were upstairs, laughing and chatting with Greg and his wife Niki. We met with our luggage on the ground floor and sprinted to the car at full speed to bypass the rain. We stayed in the driveway for a few minutes to dry off our dripping heads and wait for a break in the storm. But the longer we sat, the more we thought, and the more we remembered. Our collective smiles dropped with a thud when we finally realized it. We hadn’t put up the kayaks.

Before we left for the beach we knew that our cousin's house was on the Intracoastal Waterway, and thought that it would be a fun idea to bring along our kayaks. My brother and I each had inherited one from our father, a red one and a green one. The red kayak was closed in, confining the legs of the rafter to the hull. It was designed to be light so as to allow the user to flip themselves back to the surface of the kayak turned over in the rapids. The other had an open top and was much heavier. Its design was favorable to ricocheting off of large boulders. These were just two of the many outdoor accessories possessed by my late father, which included an additional canoe, three tents, two backpacks, six wrap-around Oakley sunglasses, a modified mountain bike, and a hiking stick with enough trail medallions that you would think he even won the purple heart in walking. Midlife crisis hit Cline men hard, and he was no exception.

To him, the kayaks were an extension of his very being. From the first bud of the pear tree till the fall of its last leaf he would be on the river, and on winter nights he would take his kayaks with him to the community center pool and take courses to hone his rowing and rolling skills. He even created his own mini-marathon. After work on Fridays, he would lock up his bike at the end of the greenway and drive up to the head of the river to put it in. When he paddled back down to the bike, he switched it with the kayak and rode the four miles back to his car. He did this for years, barely stopping (and definitely not slowing down) after his heart attack. Even after a backpack full of batteries and a millimeter thick cord was all that gave his dying heart rhythm, he never stayed more than an arm's reach from the river, much to the chagrin of his doctors.

On Monday morning we hauled them, poorly loading the heavy fiberglass carapaces of the two kayaks to the roof of my mom's Volvo, a goliath of an SUV. For 319 minutes we rode from one edge of North Carolina to the other, all while the wind whizzed out a high-pitched whistle through the ill-fitting ports of the roof hatch. After we finally made it to the island (and after a night to gather the strength), we went to set up the boats. Our cousin's beach house was the keystone of an arch development of nearly identical three-story houses. A common dock extended from the side of the road to behind the houses, descended to cross a bog, and extended out into a calm inlet. From the window of their house the dock was but a short stump in the water, but crossing it proved more than a challenge. In two trips, my brother and I trudged our kayaks across the 250 ft long dock that fell below a 25ft staircase. The camel-colored oak boards warmed our sandals.

On Sunday morning this memory of the painful labor returned. We realized we had to not just haul them back up, but haul them upstairs in the thunder and rain as well. We all hopped out of the car and were soaked instantaneously. We speed walked down the slick stairs and dock, running as fast as our sandal grips and flip-flops would allow. When we finally reached the end of the dock we were hit with a horrific shock. My brother and I had made the mistake of leaving the kayaks untied on top of the pier. We had thought it was a waste of time and money to go out and get any rope, for the kayaks were so heavy and the wind had been so calm. We were wrong. 

One of the kayaks was bobbing up and down beside the trunks of the dock piling. It was red, closed in, and light. We stared at it in the bubbling water like bears catching their first glimpse of salmon after a cold winter. With a great deal of contortion and stretching, we were able to grasp the black paracord lacing that ran along the top of the boat. With all our strength we pulled the cords taut and fished the cursed craft up to the dock. My mom and her boyfriend stood out of breath, their hands on their knees. My brother Dixon and I sat on the dock, our knees bent into our lungs. We breathed deeply while sheets of rain washed across our faces and dark hair. A defeated “fuck” slid out Kevin’s sagging lips. I fell to my back and looked behind. My heart and stomach raced each other to the bottom of my pelvis when I saw the other kayak, flipped over, and ran aground, ten yards away in a thicket of reeds.

Kevin raced up the dock to find a net or pole long enough to fish it out but there was no time. For every minute that passed, fifteen waves crashed against the hull of the kayak. Fifteen opportunities for it to be lodged out of the net of reeds and sail upstream. In our eyes, it would be the loss of $400 and a host of childhood memories on the river to the indifferent ravages of the sea storm. For my father's side of the family, Dixon and I would be letting the love and respect for our father’s memory be discarded down the stream like littered bottles and dead fish. We would have shown that we were unworthy of such an inheritance; ill-suited stewards who wasted treasures that could have been better appreciated and better taken care of by other “worthy” inheritors. Leaving it was not an option, and neither was waiting for help. With electrocution or getting hassled at Thanksgiving as my only prospects, the choice was clear. I jumped in.

Attempt one of completing Operation Kayak Kamikaze was met with mixed results. Wading by the dock, I placed one hand along the metal supports of the timber to guide me. My D- in high school physics taught me that this was the best strategy for safety. If I was struck by lightning then at least it would have somewhere to go besides my heart and brain. Rounding the front of the dock, the solid base of sand gave way to a thick membrane of mud. The first step trapped my ankle. The next step sucked in my shin. My shoes filled with heavy deposits of loam, pulling me deeper and deeper into the soggy earth. I broke free and retreated to the dock to deposit my sandals before beginning again.

When I landed my bare feet on the soft soil my brain became aware of the scores of dangers around me. During our excursions on the kayaks earlier in the week, we crossed paths with the striped form of a water serpent. The wire creature, adorned in green and black belts, slithered up to my helm with a curious swim. It stared at me with its dull eyes for a moment while it rode the wave, before diving below the vessel to continue its journey. A whole nest of them, slithering in terrible knots of cold flesh, could be waiting for me in the down-turned seat of the vessel. Alligators presented a true risk as well. Locals, neighbors, and Greg himself testified to the presence of alligators in the coastal marsh. They were elusive predators, blending in with the dark green water at high tide and disappearing into the mud at low. On rare occasions, the small exsanguinated heads of sharks and the birdless beak of a heron would turn up when the tide rolled out. Abandoned trophies of a successful hunt. 

My fears migrated from the surface of the water to the soil below. Though I did not feel them, and certainly could not see them, I knew that I was surrounded by an invisible army of crabs, a million crustaceans strong. We would see them at low tide, sidestepping out of their burrows to feed on the bounty gifted by the naked ocean. Minnows caught in the reeds, chum slurry from the sea, and the remains of the recently dead were the gastronomical pleasures of the scavengers.

In many ways, crabs are the pigs of the ocean. They are just as indiscriminate in their appetites and equally zealous eaters. On one of our walks down the dock, we saw a dead fish caught in the mud be beseeched by a squad of crabs. Within a few seconds, the corpse was buried beneath a writhing mound of speckle white. A few minutes later, when we walked back past it, the stripped-down spine was all that remained, gleaming in the sun like a thread of silver. It was devoured to a polish. 

A common anecdote from my childhood, one of warning, came from one of my social aunts (a friend of my mother's). When she was a young woman, one of her cousins disappeared in New Orleans. Investigators believed that he had been murdered after a bad hand at the card table and that his body was dumped in the swamps. It only took them six hours after the report was filed to find him, but the crabs had gotten to him first. In the muck, they found a pair of legs, a set of arms, and the shoulders. The head barely had a neck left to join it with the body. When the detectives lifted up his face to identify the victim they were met with a biting flood of pincers and legs, pouring out freely from his empty sockets and tongueless maw.

I caged my tongue tightly, grinding my teeth with each step I waded. The smell was atrocious. For days we were assured by our host that the sulfur smell was just the natural fragrance of the coastal swamp. They were wrong. The muddy reef we thought was there to insulate the island from erosion turned out to be a septic bog for the neighborhood, and a poor one at that. The sudden downpour of rain was too much for the retaining mud to bear. The sun-baked bile and refuse leached into the stormwater. Hot shit was cut by cold rain, and I was caught in the middle.

I felt foolish. I was a boy scout, yet I allowed myself to make such a simple mistake. Worst still, I allowed my fear of the wild marsh to latch onto me like a parasite, feeding off my caution and weighing me down with its swelling girth. This fear further fuelled my foolishness. My father took masterful care of those kayaks and rode them just as well, yet our first venture with them saw them get marooned. I could feel the heat of his eyes peering out at me from the horizon, his tan and wild weathered face letting out an aggressive yet jaunty bark. “Why didn’t you tie it up?” He would have yelled, not expecting an answer, before throwing one down to me. Or worse, jumping in himself and teasing me and the soiled earth with his gripes. But he wasn’t there, not in any tangible way, and I would have to wait a long time before I could hear those side remarks. I hope by then, it will be a mutually humorous anecdote; but at the moment I was terribly alone, marching with the indifferent current of the cold sea.

I pressed on, the rain washing the nauseated tears from my eyes. Tears and sweat became like everything else, just more water. I eventually made it back to my original position. Clouds of fine sediment billowed up my calves at the first step, The loam caved in below my sudden weight. But by then I knew better. Before sinking in too much I cut deep into the earth with my right heel. It cut like a hot knife through butter, landing with a hard, mute thud against the stony subsoil. The momentum raced up my foot to my ankle, to the shin, to the knee. I bent my left leg high into my chest as I kicked upwards with all my might. I bobbed up half an inch from the water's surface, but my feet were free and that was enough. Stretching out my arms I slowly glided down, dancing through the muck with a light hop. 

Right hop one raised up some sediment but did nothing more; a certified success. Left hop one followed suit. Right hop two, left hop two, each successes. On right hop three, the heel of my foot fell faster than the ball and landed nicely at the bottom of a beer bottle. The current had worn the shattered body of the bottle down to a fine, curved edge. It was driven like a wedge through layers of skin and fat till it struck red. 

But I couldn’t stop. Not for the pain. Not to think. Nor for anything. The oppression of gray clouds was constantly interrupted by the violent strike of lighting. From my peripheral vision, I could see with utmost clarity the brilliant white light as it landed on neighboring shores. 

The longer I dwelled in those waters, the closer the lightning struck. After a few more well-placed hops I got within arm’s reach of the kayak. My stomach sank with dread as I flipped the vessel. Was I met with the long hungry mouth of an alligator? No, I was not. Nor did I find an angry orgy of venomous water snakes. All that was there below the hollow ship was a handful of peacefully floating leaves that calmly dispersed after their long-anticipated reveal. A breath of relief passed my lips as I hopped into the liberated raft. Submitting to my fatigue I fell stomach-first into the grooves of the seat. A single lethargic paddle of my hands carried me back to the dock. I let the water sift through my fingers and breathed in deeply. The rain which had once pelted my face like hateful spit was to me now the most gentle drops of cold champagne. With my eyes closed, I let the rain stream feely across my face and pool out like water from my tightly held smile, showering in glorious victory.

Back at the dock I once again got in the water. I ran the tail cord of the kayak through my armpits and across my back, becoming a living pulley. My mother got a hold of the knot at the end of the line, pulling it with my brother as I glided it up over me and onto safety. After it was secured it was my time to climb up. There was, by definition, a ladder leading up to the dock. Yet its design made it anything but. Thick, unsanded boards descended down from the dock's surface to roughly three feet above the seafloor. The rungs were ten inches long with a breast-high gap between each step, making it too long for any anatomically sound human to use. Instead, I grabbed onto the nubby steel bolts of the dock post and pulled myself up.

My mother and Dixon clapped my back in celebration. Kevin, with a net pole in hand, had finally finished bouncing down the boardwalk. I put back on my white t-shirt, drenched clear, and sandals. Joining my brother, we lifted up the open kayak and began the long walk home, entertaining ourselves with breathless chatter. Greg met us at the top of the stairs. He too was completely soaked, having stood in the rain to show his support. He helped us load the boats onto the roof of the car and sent us off with a wet handshake. In the car, I kicked off my shoes. The skin around my cut foot had turned pink and puffy. A small crescent moon was carved into the swelling flesh, bright red and raw. I grabbed a handful of germ-x and pressed it tightly against the wound. I planned to bathe my feet in a bowl of rubbing alcohol when we returned home that night. A better first-aid treatment for sure. But I was without alcohol and a bowl to hold it in, and just had to make do with the tools at hand. I held tight to the burning wound and prayed. Maybe, I hoped, that bacteria and viruses were off on vacation as well, too busy living large to worry about gangrene and infection. Those were Monday morning duties and we were still in the downslope of Sunday afternoon. After 45 minutes the rain stopped.