This is a few years old and pretty naive but I am posting without edits.
One summer, 21 years old, I decided to spend summer by the sea: The cool misty Oregon coast, the town of Newport.
Our house was situated only blocks from the beach, painted bright blue and white. Across the street was an ex-hostel cum rooming house where there lived old people and less old people, made old by smoking on the porch for hours, hours, stolidly peering through the smoke cross the street into my wild yard. George the fire-swallower lived there, and a woman who was rumored to love scrabble. Cranky, manky sea dogs, snaggle toothed and weathered as the creaky wooden houses lining the beachfront. An ocean mural was painted on the side of the building. The real ocean just three minutes' walk, the waves sending up spray over by Jump Off Joe, sculpting the sand into tiny perfect crests.
Nights I worked at a small outdoor café replete with tiny lights and small children - mischievous, big-eyed kids playing the harmonica and drawing on the sidewalk with colored chalk. Tables nestled under trees and around firepits, and a torch overhead illuminated us below. The café was filled with weird, beautiful people with open, generous hearts. Laurie, the owner and mother of four of the children, steered the place with nervous energy bordering on terrific hysteria. Her vulnerable blue eyes laughed as easily as cried, her love was freely given. Night after night we drank organic Guatemalan coffee and ate chocolate things and danced to the strummings and singings of Rick and Joe and Jimmy and June.
All summer strange and wonderful travellers from near and far stepped into and out of our lives. Bringing dreams carried across miles and water, they slept on our floor and in the yard, telling stories and drawing pictures, casting their eyes all around. Chocolate eyes drinking you up; Mikael took photographs and dug his bare toes in the sand, doing cartwheels with me by the ocean. Flashing devilish blue eyes, winking and wicked; Jason from England cycled down the West coast, pausing for two days looking to chat someone up with his charm on full. Hazel eyes darting round and his mouth moving like windup chattering teeth; Hans told elaborate lies, decorating every word. Lustful eyes, glancing and leering; Geert painted beautiful naked ladies and tried to get me to sleep with him. Friendly eyes peered over sunglasses; Liz’s lush mouth broke into a gorgeous grin as she unloaded her panniers. Coaldark eyes, alert and noticing; Naif kissed me on the cheek as they drove away and left a wish in my heart.
Night walks along the shore, day trips with friends and Spanish classes and bingo at the VOA across the way. Wednesday night bingo: filled with area senior citizens, cheap pineapple upside-down cake, and smoke. Experience told me that respect in the bingo parlor is earned, not given, so I toughed it out, bringing my mandatory collection of daubers and good luck charms, coming every week. At first it's vicious, with Ethel and Gordon across the aisle muttering epithets when you get lucky. But gradually, though the dagger glares don’t stop altogether, they being to call you honey. They begin to know your name.
Joe was my benevolent bingo angel. He played Saturday nights at my magic café, and Wednesday and Sundays he filled in as the caller, announcing the numbers with style and grace. I think Joe was in his fifties or so; glasses, grey hair thinning, crooked teeth, a grotty beard and mustache, a plug of a nose, a blues man’s soul. Crinkled peering eyes, a fresh plaid shirt; he called my numbers, he rocked and rolled. He had a friendly way, and a gentle nature. I thought nothing more until one night, dancing at Laurie’s dad’s wake, Joe caught me up. Hesitantly, he asked me if he had a
chance with me. He looked at his shoes. “I know I’m old, older than you,” he said. “But I’m not in my mind.” And there by the punch bowl, with the night air coming in and the music going out, I got a little sad and a little scared and my heart broke a little bit. Because my small faith in Joe had been pierced and there was an ache in my chest for him. I couldn’t conceive of how to fix this so it was better, how to give a magic gift of youth or a narrowing of a generation gap or of my own prejudices. I am no Harold. I could not perpetuate this hope. How could my benevolent bingo angel do this thing? Mummified, I stepped into the night. The trees choked the roads and the dark pounded down. I headed for home, my little blue and white house by the sea. Passing the VOA, the library, the rooming house. I packed up my daubers and my little cot, my postcards and scotch tape and airline blankets and water glasses. Soon my car was full and my house was not. I drove around the block. I walked down to the waterside. The buoys and boats blinked in the distance. The lighthouse watched. Joe, I am not good enough for you. My young and foolish heart is not match for your tough and tender one. I drove into the dark and the town was swallowed up behind me.
