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(TFT) I saw mermaid
I saw a mermaid.
While young I send off for a correspondence course on magic. I hate
it. It's all tricks and deception. It gives me the bad feeling I get when
grown ups tell lies. On top of that I have to pay for a minimum four more
courses before I can discontinue it. My mother made me do it. I signed for
it she said. I would have to pay.
Fast forward ten years. It's 1984 and I'm graduating from high school.
Before I move to Hawaii a bunch of us go to Florida for a week on the
beach. The bed of one truck is filled with cases of beer, four cases of
champaign, and breakfast cereal. Of course I don't drink.
So I come in from the sun one day and my buddy Joel Miksa is waiting in
the kitchen. He says "Look Mike, before you say anything, I know you don't
drink but its your freakin senior year on your freakin senior trip and you
can have just one drink once in your life." He is holding an open bottle of
champaign. He holds it out to me. I take it in hand.
Before I can raise the bottle he says "And I don't want to see no wussy
sip. I want you to take a big swallow of the stuff." He seemed angry.
Almost dangerous. So I take a deep breath and turn the bottle up.
Suddenly people were coming out of closets, from behind couches, out of
rooms, all of them chanting "DRINK, DRINK!" As I'm guzzling champaign I
find my self surrounded by fists going up and down in time with the chant.
"DRINK, DRINK!" The next thing I know the bottle is empty.
The next two days are a blur of concecutive parties. I can't tell
where one starts and the other one stops. There are people passed out in
the living room I don't know. Girls I have never met are dancing in the car
port. My buddy Joel and I decide to take a break from the party and go walk
it off on the beach.
Its a full moon. We stagger along the water line. Turning around to
see the serpentine path of our foot steps brings the laugh of the drunk. A
few steps further and we both stop cold. We are both suddenly sober. It's
like a cold wind that blows through my veins. There on the beach, as though
it had just washed up, is a mermaid. She's laying on her side proped up on
one elbow. long flowing hair. Her tail pointing to the Gulf of Mexico.
I grab Joels' arm. He grabs mine. We look at each other, then back at
the mermaid. Now sure that I'm not having this hallucination alone we both
rush forward. We both want to get there fast. I'm not sure why. Maybe to
touch it before is slips back into the water. Then reality comes back.
It's made of sand. Over to the left is a sand volkswagon. Over there
a huge sand castle. Other monuments litter the beach. Apparently there had
been a sand castle competition during the day and we didn't know. But one
thing I will never forget. For a breif moment mermaids were real. For a
fleeting moment I felt I knew for certain something others had only guessed
at. And I had the satisfaction of knowing that everything I had ever been
told was wrong.
In conclusion I would like to say three things. I have never forgotten
what it felt like when magic was real. I am still a non drinker. And I
always pay for anything I sign for, or promise.
David Michael Grouchy II
May 8th, 2002
P.S. That summer working in Hawaii, I designed a campaign that started in
1985 and has run for seventeen years consecutive.
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