Look What The Tide Brought In

photo by Gayle_T.

The bum washed up on shore on a beautiful May morning, seaweed chained to his legs, a bottle of bourbon half drunk in his pocket, no message inside. Was his death a message to the town? The bay was a killer, and she was just getting warmed up for summer, waiting to claim unwary swimmers, fisherman that stayed out in the storms, the occasional suicide from a Bay Bridge leap. The bum was her calling card that the drowning season was just getting in gear.

The bum smelled badly. The woman who had discovered the body, taking her dog for an early morning jog, held her shirt-sleeve up to her nose and mouth when she brought over the police for introductions. Unwashed, sweaty, oily, and that was back when he was alive. The police recognized him, remembered his slight lisp, bags under his eyes, the way he wiped his nose nervously on a sleeve when children would point him out to their mothers. The bay had bathed him, but that didn’t help the smell. Instead of the stink of life it was the stink of death, the simple fact of how quickly we become so much meat the moment the spirit leaves the body.

They photographed, bagged and tagged him while the sun glinted off the water, and a cool breeze blew leeward. Seagulls dipped and weaved over the waves. Teenagers clambered into sailboats for a morning lesson, ropes clanging against the rigging like bells.