Like A Wave Of The Sea

Crime Fiction by Brian Hawkins

For going on thirty years, he’s stretched his hand out to me, eyes wide, the air bubbling from his open mouth as I reach toward him, kicking against my body’s buoyancy, unable to connect, skin-to-skin, before his panicked form expels its tension. Against the backdrop of my memories, he hovers, still as the settled water enveloping him, forever on the cusp of a manhood equally close and unreachable to him as my hand was to his..

In that moment, when he kicked against the last molecules of available oxygen available, I could see almost nothing in the murky water. An outline of his fingers stretching upward. A starfield of debris cycloning around his thrashing form. His last breaths breaking from his mouth. Even that may not be true, considering how much the water already foamed around him. My dreams, however, paint with a finer brush.

These images do not always come to me when I sleep, nor when I drive by one of the many quarry holes dotting the landscape near my home. Sometimes days and weeks pass between visits from these ghosts. But they are always there, just beneath the thin membrane of consciousness which, permeable though it may be, so often guards me from those horrors. Sometimes, though, and I can never quite know what will serve as the trigger, the shadows of the past rise up, just as I did on that afternoon so long ago, empty-handed and broken-hearted.

***

Tammy was making the chicken salad; Alice planned to steal some beer from her dad’s garage refrigerator, and Berea would bring the blankets on which we could lay when not jumping the thirty or so feet into the dark quarry water.

T.D. and I agreed to buy plates, cups, bread, and a few bags of candy since his parents always gave him whatever money he needed for whatever he wanted. Not a four-course meal at the Ritz, but a culinary delight to five recently-graduated high school seniors looking to have some fun on the first afternoon of the rest of their lives.

We decided to hit the little country store a few miles past the quarry first because we liked to listen to the old men who sat around on overturned five-gallon buckets and told lies all day. Hoping a few of them would be holding court, we left town early to give us time to eavesdrop. Disappointed none of the ancient farmers who frequented the place were around when we got there, we instead spent a few minutes swapping stories with Red, the owner, who seemed to spend his every waking moment behind that counter.

“You boys goin’ swimmin’?” he asked as we brought our haul to the register.

“Swim trunks give us away?” T.D. replied with a grin.

“I figured you’uns wasn’t goin’ huntin’,” Red deadpanned. “For pussy.”

T.D. managed a short laugh, more like a hiccup. I looked down to check the condition of my sneakers.’

“You meetin’ some pretty girls out there or just havin’ you a little sausage party?” Red asked.

“As much as I like ol’ Diggory here, he can keep that thing in his pants. I can’t speak for him though.”

Comments like this, from boys like us, required an appropriate response. I looked up from the floor and punched T.D. in the arm, telling him what he could do with that thing in his pants. This, of course, made us all laugh, as men will do when engaged in manly conversation. Back in those days, at least.

I most likely added something about his mother in my retort, which mandated he punch me back squarely in my own bicep.

After I had rubbed the mostly pretend soreness out of my arm, Red volunteered what he saw as guidance. “My old man only gave me the sex talk one time. He said, ‘Son, don’t ever go down on your girl after you fuck her. It’s like suckin’ your own dick.’ Only advice of his I ever followed.”

Hearing an adult speak so openly about sex always startled us, though we might have expected it from Red. Some thinly veiled sex talk was one thing. Joking about being gay, mostly fine. An old man giving oral sex advice, to our minds, was three or four bridges too far. Neither of us could manage a respectable, or unrespectable, retort.

After some feet shuffling and a stifled cough on my part, T.D. managed to reply, “Yeah, uh, we’ll keep that in mind.”

In the car, before we had cleared the lot, we both let out the uncomfortable laughter welling inside us.

“Can you believe that guy?” I asked. “Wow. Just wow.”

T.D. laughed so hard I could feel the car shake around me. As he wiped the pooling tears from his eyes, he said, “You know, buddy, he may be right. Remember that if you ever manage to get a roadmap to some chick’s clit.”

As he turned right onto the two-lane, I snapped my seatbelt into place, shot him my best glare, and called him a dick.

To that, T.D. responded as only T.D. could, howling out the open window and depressing the accelerator as deeply as the winding country roads would allow.

***

One thing I had never told my best friend, the prick, had to do with Berea, the girl bringing the blankets. Never shy with his conquests, I knew T.D. had been with quite a few of the girls in our class. Hell, in our school. This included both Tammy and Alice. But not Berea.

My attraction to her had nothing to do with some antiquated, misogynistic purity fantasy I held about her. She had, for some time, been dating a guy from one of the other county high schools. I knew him a little, and he seemed alright. I hated him, of course, but only because he stood in my way. Dating for that long, I assumed they were screwing. While this was something I didn’t want to think about, I found it difficult to get out of my mind, especially when I saw them together. But it wasn’t T.D., and I had to give her points for having at least a minimally elevated taste in men.

At the quarry, I seriously hoped anyway, T.D. would gravitate towards one of the girls with whom he already had some history. Or, if I were lucky, and he luckier, maybe both. Then all three of them would be out of the way, and I could spend some time with Berea. Maybe even get the chance to ask her out. She’d split with the boy from Mitchell about a month before. More than enough time to get back into the game.

***

The girls had already arrived when we pulled into the little gravel lot, more than half hidden by trees from the road. Tammy had driven. Alice sat up front, clearly, to my eyes at least, hiding the booze in the floorboard, and Berea had the backseat to herself. I had seen her red hair blazing through the rear window before we ever put one tire onto gravel, trees be damned.

As T.D. rolled up the windows, and before he shut off the car, he nudged me and said, “Watch and learn, Diggs. At least one of these girls is going to make sure I have a very nice afternoon.”

That’s why you’re T.D., I thought. Touchdown every time you get the ball.

One more slug on the arm, and we hopped out of the car to help the girls carry the day’s supplies through the woods to the quarry’s edge.

***

We let the girls lead for a couple of reasons. Even though we knew the area pretty well, the forest can change in a season. New growth comes in; old growth returns from whence it came. Leaves cover the path that lay bare last year. Any number of things can alter the landscape. This might not matter for folks out mushroom hunting in the spring before the foliage returns, but when you’re loaded down with picknick supplies, as T.D. and I were, and marching toward a forty-foot cliff, on purpose, a few sets of eyes up front can only help. Plus, our sightline was more than adequate to see their asses, barely covered by those bikinis we had hoped for. And were they fine.

Tammy wore a yellow number – the parts I could see anyway. the bottoms disappearing between two perfectly ripened peach halves. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the front before we moved to the trail, though I had no complaints. Alice had paired a red top with blue bottoms. Not quite as revealing as Tammy’s, but the colors flattered her. Though it was just the beginning of June, she already had a deep tan, and the red/blue combo made me feel pretty patriotic, even with Independence Day over a month away.

Berea’s top was green, setting off her deep red hair and fair skin, long the focal points of my daydreams. She wore athletic shorts – the fair, smooth skin of her back climbing beyond the elastic waistband into what felt like eternity. To my eyes, perfect in every way. Better yet, she could not have been sweeter. We’d had any number of classes together, and since she was friends with Tammy and Alice, who clearly had been friendly with T.D., we’d hung out on and off all through high school.

Today had to be the day.

When we got to the clearing, T.D. and I dropped the blankets and sat the food nearby. The girls began to sort out the assorted delicacies we had all pitched-in. Since we got our jobs done more quickly than they, we headed down the path leading to the quarry’s surface to check the water levels. The best part about swimming in these old open-pit mines was jumping into the water from the rim, so long as you avoided landing on a pile of stone hidden beneath the surface. If the level was low, we’d have to treat it like a beach. If not, we could daredevil all day long.

“So, which one you thinking about today?” I asked as we descended on the path.

“Eh, I don’t know. Everybody’s looking fine. May take a beer or two to make up my mind.”

“What makes you think either one will even want you? Maybe they’re bored with you.”

T.D. actually laughed out loud at my suggestion any girls, especially these girls, wouldn’t want to screw him – in the woods, or elsewhere for that matter. “Oh, buddy. So much to learn. I may just try all three of them, show you how it’s done.”

Reflexively, I sucked air through my teeth and balled my hand into a fist. I had not even considered Berea as a possible conquest. The other two were, as T.D. suggested, virtually sure things for him. Why would he waste time and energy on Berea when the other two were right there?

Exhaling slowly, unclenching my fingers from my palm, I said, “Naw, man. Not Berea. She’s not that kind of girl. Besides why would you want to work so hard for it?”

“Sometimes, the hunt is where the fun is, Diggs. But you’re probably right. She’s a little uptight for me. Why don’t you give it a go?”

“Well, maybe. I mean, she’s nice and all.”

“There you go! If you work really hard, she might even hold your hand today! I’ll be your wingman, when I’m not otherwise occupied.” I smiled, relieved, as he laughed at his own joke.

After checking out the water levels (high – very high – and safe for jumping), we returned to the girls and the food. The chicken salad tasted fine, as did the mostly-cold beer. We all ate enough candy to down a healthy giraffe and decided to do our best to wait a little while before hitting the water. The old admonition our parents had drilled into us, “Wait thirty minutes after eating before you swim or you’ll get a cramp and drown,” seemed to have worked.

The girls rubbed each other down with sunscreen as T.D. and I watched. I thought it best to apply some of my own as they finished, but T.D. suggested Tammy might want to help him. This show did not hold as much interest for me, but it was instructive. I made a note that I, too, should have asked for a little help. Too late.

I still had not managed to talk to Berea more than casually. I had complimented the food, which she had not made, and told her I appreciated the beer, which she had not brought. Not the best start to a seduction. Of course, this was not my goal. Eventually, to be sure. For now, I wanted to talk with her. Get to know her better. Ask her out for the coming weekend. As Tammy worked on finishing slathering coconut-scented cream all over T.D. – I did glance over a couple of times, and I’m pretty sure she wasted a fair amount of the stuff on places he was not likely to get burned – I excused myself to take a pee in the woods. When I returned, I plopped down between Alice and Berea, hoping she would be willing both to converse and tan.

“Do you lay out a lot?” I asked her.

To my surprise, she laughed. “Seriously? Look at me, Diggory Rainey. I’m the color of a window. I can sit out here about five minutes, then I’m going to have to go hide under those trees or throw a blanket over me. I burn if I sit too close to the TV.”

I blushed, but she kicked at me with her right foot to show that she was just busting my balls. Probably a good sign.

I let that one sit for a minute, still feeling the tingle on my leg where she had made contact.

True to her word, after about five minutes, she sat up and began to gather a few of her things in preparation for a move into the shade. As I moved to help, Alice tugged at my trunks and asked if I could put more lotion on her back. I made eye contact with Berea; she shrugged, grabbed a blanket, and receded to the edge of the woods.

Slathering a pretty girl with sunscreen on any other day would have seemed like the lifelong fulfillment of a wet dream. Not with Berea sitting only feet away. I tried to hurry the procedure along a best I could, but by the time I had prepared her for the turn onto her stomach, Alice was asking me about college and what I wanted to study. I figured I had told her this before, but out of politeness I answered.

After I had filled her in on my plans, she told me she would have her cosmetology license by the fall and then join her mother at the beauty shop she owned. An honorable goal, I agreed, and promised to let her get some practice on me later in the summer. I had never seen Alice as a promising student, though she did seem creative and doing hair fit her personality. Between her questions for me and the details of what a cosmetology license entailed in our state, that half hour we were trying to kill died a quick death.

I only realized this when T.D. stood up and yelled, “C’mon ladies! Time to get wet!”

I almost had to offer a few sarcastic, but silent, accolades to the budding wordsmith before he ran to the lip of the quarry and jumped in, cannonball style. Tammy and Berea wasted little time in joining him. I started to push myself up in order to make my own plunge, but Alice grabbed my wrist and asked me to stay a few more minutes. She was having a nice time talking, she said, and didn’t want it to end just yet.

A few more minutes turned into something closer to an hour, the others having climbed back to the top and jumped several more times. At some point, I felt resigned to it. Berea smiled at me each time she climbed back up to jump, and T.D. just winked. No one suggested we join them.

When we did finally get enough talking done, Alice jumped first. She had suggested we go over together, hand-in-hand. I demurred. She relented and dropped into the water below. When she had swum out of the landing area, I took a solo flight from what felt like the roof of the world.

After I surfaced from my plunge, Alice swam to me almost immediately and wrapped her legs around my waist. I convinced her we would soon be standing on the bottom of the pit if she didn’t untangled herself from me, and she begrudgingly followed me closer to the edge where we could pull ourselves out of the water and sit on the blocks of forgotten limestone. Finding some solid ground, and before Alice caught up to me, I looked around and saw Tammy lying on the unbroken ledge that ran the width of the quarry, though not as much sun penetrated to this depth. I did not see T.D. nor Berea. I assumed we had lapped them on our way down, the two of them heading back to the top for another plunge. After a few minutes, neither had jumped and I began to worry.

“Where’re T.D. and Berea? They alright?” I asked Alice, whom I was managing to keep at an arm’s length because of the slope of the rock of I had chosen, which required us both to hold onto something besides one another to avoid slipping back into the depths.

“Just taking a break, I’d guess,” she replied, something suggestive in her voice, an implication I did not care for at all.

“Hey, Tammy!” I yelled. “Where’d T.D. go?”

She raised her head in such a way that her shoulders did not move, wrinkled her nose, then resumed her prone position.

After a few more minutes of precarious balancing, both on the slope and in keeping Alice at bay, I told her I was ready to jump again, my real reasons for wanting to climb back up the hill unspoken. Alice told me she would watch and joined Tammy on her blanket. I swam to the edge, fairly sprinted up the path, and found myself alone with the remains of our lunch. I walked to the quarry’s edge and looked down. Nothing but a pre-cancerous Tammy lying on her back, eyes closed against the UV rays saturating her body, and Alice next to her waving at me as if we had not seen one another for six months.

I stepped back from the precipice and plopped down on the blanket I had recently shared with Alice. Off to my left, opposite from where the path down to the water’s edge meets the picknick area, I heard quiet giggling. Breaking through the undergrowth, T.D. dropped Berea’s hand as they stepped back into the light. She strode past him; he caught my eye, winked, then shrugged as if to say, “What’s a fella to do?”

Berea never looked up as she crossed the distance to the quarry, then, almost without pausing to look at the water below, jumped. T.D. emptied an already-empty beer can, crushed it against his thigh, and followed her.

I steamed and stewed for a while in the afternoon sun. As angry as I was, as broken as I felt, I also knew I had no right to her, that she could make those decisions herself – as could T.D. He certainly made them often enough.

Tired of my self-imposed immobility, I decided to take one last plunge, then tell T.D. I needed to get home. I followed Berea’s lead and did not look over the edge before I dove. Let them get out of my way for once.

As I fell, I could see my path, and landing zone, were clear. Alice and Berea were hanging out about halfway down the width of the pit while T.D. had Tammy pinned – not against her will, I was sure –against the stone wall underneath the diving area.

As I hit the surface, the force of my impact pushed me deep, the thickness of the water creating a nearly perfect sensory deprivation chamber. Though I could not see, I knew an almost uncountable number of limestone blocks surrounded me. The immense cubes rose from the depths of the pit, pushed from the ground above into the once-empty hole decades ago when the company had stopped working this vein, though most of the rubble sat considerably below the surface, especially in the spring. The disregarded stone often formed tunnels as the cubes rested together without pattern or planning. Below the surface, they could split an inexperienced diver’s head open if he misjudged the depth. On occasion, they acted as a bear trap would, snagging an unsuspecting ankle and trapping a swimmer below the surface. Near the walls of the quarry, they combined to provide the ledges upon which we sat and tanned and drank as well as a few tunnels a guy could swim through and, if the levels were a bit lower, surface beneath into tight little man-made caves.

In fact, T.D. and Tammy were standing in the water on a couple of still-submerged blocks as he felt her up right there in front of God and everybody. Right there in front of Berea. Right there in front of me.

***

My mouth filled with the acrid taste of jealousy, like a tooth infection leaking bacteria down my throat. Having seen more than enough of the T.D. porn show for one day, I took off for the opposite end of the quarry. I had always been a strong swimmer, so neither the distance nor the depth intimidated me. The hole was a big one, easily over one hundred yards in length. On these outings, we generally stayed to the end nearest the diving well and path. Deep even at that end, the underwater blocks there provided easy footing if need be. As T.D. was at that moment demonstrating.

Out in the middle, no such security existed. Swimming and floating were the only options, and I chose to do both. Once I touch the far wall, I pushed back towards the others, but rolled over on my back to float, only occasionally flapping or kicking to make progress in that direction.

I closed my eyes against the sun’s unceasing stare and concentrated on nothing but the dichotomy in which I found myself immersed – the coolness of the water beneath me and the heat of the day bearing down on my chest and legs, the opposing sensations guillotining me into halves. For a few moments at least, my mind blanked. The tension I’d built up from the moment T.D. and Berea walked into the clearing, exacerbated by my intense swim across the quarry, drained through my pores into the dark water beneath me.

In that moment, I had found some small level of contentment in being away from the others. But contentment was a poor description for how I otherwise felt. I had started the day fully intending to hang out with my best friend, and, if luck would have it, find some time to get to know Berea better. What I got instead was a come-on from the Blowjob Queen of the Midwest and the betrayal of the one guy in the world I thought would have my back.

I couldn’t hold any of this against Berea. She owed me nothing. But it still hurt. And disgusted me a little. I had been crushing on her for, literally, years, and that was not going to disappear in the wake of one transgression. Still, I wanted to throw up just thinking about her being with T.D. The guy was a walking Petrie dish, and I didn’t want to be with a girl who would want to be with him, even if she would have me. Clearly, that option had taken a header straight into the rocks sometime around o’fuck-thirty.

Content to float more than flutter, alone with my thoughts and insecurities, I took my time on the return trip. When I did arrive, the sun had passed behind the trees and cast the whole area into, if not darkness, something that would do until night settled in completely. The June foliage having completed the forest canopy, the shadowy, late-afternoon light took on a greenish hue similar to that which precedes midwestern tornados. The heat of the day would remain for a while, but the dark had come, as it always does.

“Hey, Diggory! You have a good swim?” Alice yelled from the bank. She stood next to Tammy and Berea as they folded up blankets they had carted down from the clearing.

“Sure,” I replied. “It was alright. You guys going back?”

“Yeah,” Tammy said. “We’ll pack up and wait on you two.”

“You missed out on a really good time, Diggory,” Alice told me as she and Tammy giggled their way onto the path with Berea in tow.

As they walked away, I noticed T.D. splashing around off to my left. He seemed to be walking along the limestone blocks rising from the deep, stepping and poking as if he were looking for something.

“Yo, Diggs! C’mere!” he yelled at me after I had spun in his direction. “Let’s take a pass through the tunnels real quick before we head out. I think I found the entrance.”

“I don’t think so, man,” I said. “I’m just ready to go. Plus, I don’t think that’s the right spot. It’s further down. Plus, the water’s too high.”

“Don’t be such a pussy dude. You need to get some pussy.” Once again, he laughed at his own joke, one I did not find funny.

“No. I’m out,” I mumbled in return.

“Suit yourself,” T.D. said as he slid beneath the surface.

I could see the top of his head for a few moments, even in the dimming afternoon light, as he pulled himself downward toward the opening that would take him into the man-made passage. As if on cue, he disappeared, either too deep to see or having pushed himself behind the stone scraps.

I swam toward the “steps” we used to exit the quarry and climbed out. The girls had been thoughtful enough to leave a couple of towels, so I dried off while I contemplated whether to wait for T.D. or head up without him. I dreaded the ride back to town, but getting in Tammy’s car with Berea was no option.

As I wiped the water from my skin and tousled my hair, I realized T.D. had not yet surfaced. I knew he could hold his breath for a long time by any standard – we had done this before. But as I neared dry, he had not yet emerged.

I got as close as I could, on land, to where he dropped below the surface but saw nothing. The murky water combined with the deep shadows made visibility no more than an inch or two. At most.

“T.D.!” I screamed. “Dan! Daniel! Daniel! Quit fucking around!”

I had hoped using his real name, something no one but his parents ever called him, would somehow penetrate the water in a way his nickname had not. I succeeded only in gaining the attention of the three girls who peered over the quarry ledge to see about the commotion.

I looked up at them, pointed to the water, and shrugged.

Concerned, I jumped in, clearing the nearest blocks. I was not going into that crevice T.D. had found, but I pulled myself along the edge hoping I could see or feel something. My lungs not as hardy as T.D.’s, I had to surface twice as I made my way down the line.

After the second breath, I noticed some turbulence and drew myself deeper. While I could see very little, the outline of a person was just visible in front of me, or at least the disturbance in the water gave that illusion. T.D. had not found a suitable exit. Instead, he was trying tried to push his way through an opening in the middle of the passage. One far too narrow for a grown man. From what I could tell, he had gotten stuck, caught at the hips. As I moved closer, I could see he was still conscious.

His hand shot towards me, though I have never been sure if he actually knew I was there. If only I could grab him and pull, I might be able to free him, even if it mean losing his trunks, and maybe scraping his dick on the rocks – something he more than deserved.

I pushed as hard as I could and reached for his open hand. As I neared it, maybe six inches between us, I hesitated.

The harder he thrashed, the greater the distance between us grew. Like a wave of the sea, the turbulence pushed me up into the darkening night. I want to say my mind had fogged from a lack of oxygen. Maybe I believed I was again running out of air, that if I grabbed his hand he would pull me to my death alongside him. Retreat or die with him.

Sometimes I still tell myself this.

I knew then as I have known all my life, I simply did not want to close that distance and pull my best friend, who had probably gotten a blowjob from the girl I thought I loved, to the surface.

And that is all.

***

Tragedy can push people together or pull them apart.

Tammy and Alice caromed through the next decade or so, leaving a string of broken relationships and wounded men behind them before finally rediscovering one another. They married on the first day the Supreme Court allowed in our deeply red state.

Berea and I still have them over at least twice a year.

I waited a long time to gather enough courage to ask her exactly what happened when she wandered off into the woods with T.D. Sitting at our dining room table, the kids engrossed in Saturday morning cartoons, she told me between sips of her Bloody Mary about how she could not hold it anymore. Swimming has always done that to her. Beer as well. Too afraid to pee alone in the thickening spring forest, she asked T.D. to stand watch. He was, she said, a perfect gentleman who kept his back to her the entire time.

His wink when he crossed back into the clearing?

Stupid high school jock machismo.

And the biggest mistake of his life.

---

Bio: Brian Hawkins lives and works in southern Indiana with his wife Lacy, two dogs, and three cats. They own a bookstore in their hometown where they also teach high school. Brian’s work has recently appeared in The Barcelona Review, Spank the Carp, Strangest Fiction Anthology – Vol. 2, Jelly Bucket, and Dark Horses. He can be found on Instagram @hawk.it.is and Bluesky @hawk_it_is.

Cover Photo by:

Read more Noir Fiction on The Yard: Crime Blog

Follow us on:

Looking for a book to read? Try our Bookstore, or True Crime Library

Support The Yard through Patreon

Buy a Sabre door stop alarm. These things are LOUD. They will wake you up if someone tries to enter a home. Get for travel. Place in front of a hotel door or a door at an Airbnb. get pricing and details through the affiliate button below. Read a Review

Secure your home with a Blink Camera System. They are easy to install and operate. Here’s a review on the cameras and a review on the nightvision capabilities. Click the affiliate button below for pricing, details and to shop around.