the floodmakers, chapter 14

8/9/2019 The Floodmakers, Chapter 14

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From Chapter Fourteen, The Floodmakers

They had started out early, because they wanted things still to look cool andfresh in the morning light, and to get their drive in before any other wanderers

showed up on the beach. The only plan was to take the golf cart out farther thanthey had in a long, long time. That way, Mama explained it, they would know theyhadn’t missed any interesting things the last storm had washed in. While they wereout they decided—why not?—they would drive a few miles farther, and see the oldship’s boiler that had been blown in by Hurricane Allison—or was it Alicia?—and see if it was still standing, half buried, like a rusted snout pushing up through the sand.After that, they’d gone out all the way to Leak Lake, which was high after the rains,and drove in between the dunes and watched the trapped water ripple and turn pinkwhile the sun rose higher and the insects swarmed in clouds. Mama then backed thecart out and they wound their way past a necklace of jellyfish that must have beentraveling together and ridden too high during the storm. They’d lost their tickets,

poor dears, and were done for. After a quick stop at the café for coffee, they headedback, and just past the corroded hood of the old defunct Ford pick-up, right wherethe grazing land started on the other side of the dunes, they saw what looked like afigure, all by itself, dancing near the waves, making slow arm movements, the waythe Chinese do tai chi, elegantly, elbows stretching.

Then suddenly something had roared by their ears like an airplane.“He was flying one of those stunt kites!” Mama exclaimed to us.“With two strings. You know, with a little ingenuity, people can do just about

anything that want to, these days,” Daddy said.“In any case, we got closer with the cart,” Mama went on, leaning across the

sofa to tell us her story. “And that was when we saw he was really a surfer. At least,

there was a board up by the dunes when we drove by, and a wetsuit beside it. Right,dear?”

“He had to be more optimistic than most. Those waves were no higher thansheep’s backs, at that point. You did mention that he was stark naked?”

“Yes, dear, I was just getting to that.”“And something to look at, too. Moving back and forth. Like a little, brown

Nijinsky.”“Let me finish now, dear.”In any case, she said, this boy, this young man, he was all smiles when they

pulled the golf cart up beside him and stopped and watched him from their lazy anglewhile he wove and darted the bright wing of the kite, making it swoop and dive and

spiral and curl and do things it didn’t seem mere sticks and cloth should do.“And then too,” Daddy said excitedly, “there was a sound. Like skin flapping.”“Yes, yes, exactly!”After a few minutes the young man shifted his position, and moved back

against the wind, toward them, backing up all the way until he was close enough tothe golf cart that they could really see his face. A young boy, he was, after all!Couldn’t have been much more than twenty. And then they understood why he wassmiling at them, and nodding and jerking the wild kite toward them.

“I told your father he shouldn’t, because of his bad heart.”“I told her she shouldn’t, because of her bad joints.”

the floodmakers, chapter 14

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