Richard had been murdered. Why wouldn’t anyone say the word? Murder. Esther remembered the primal, impassioned chantings of animal rights activists. “Meat is murder!” They had shouted, as they squatted comfortably on the lawn of the meat processing factory. That was college in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Always bone chilling cold. Always activists. Young, passionate people with dreams of becoming one of the “angel headed hipsters” in the Ginsberg poem. Always someone that would defend the animals. The poor, helpless animals. Who would defend Richard, now that he was gone? He had been murdered. And despite the fact that his killer lacked morals of any kind, there would be no one to avenge his death. Unless she did. Fuck the animals.
Esther had early onset osteoporosis, and early onset osteoarthritis. Her bones ached to their marrow. Her joints, dry creaking hinges, swelled and throbbed. She was only 27 years old, but it was a condition that had manifested in almost every woman in her family. And she’d been a vegetarian for four years in college, which had done irreparable damage to her tender skeleton . Her roommate had been one of the meat is murder types. The confident, beautiful, nouveau hippie kind. Esther, who had been desperate to make friends, had taken her words as holy sacrament. She had always felt so old. Her condition was one that only elderly people had. Her name was the same as her great grandmother’s, and her peers had always made fun of it. So she had latched onto any idea that seemed young or inspired. But years later, she’d ended up in the hospital with anemia and a disintegrating skeleton. She hadn’t realized how careless her diet had been until she’d gone to see the doctor, who had come from a different generation. There was bewilderment in his eyes when she had told him that she was a vegetarian. It was a look that said, why would you do that to yourself, you poor, misled child? His prescription had been simple: Eat animals, lots of them. Protein, protein, protein. And move to warmer climates. So she had decided to move, to the chagrin of her parents, who were tied to Michigan by mortgage payments. But she’d moved anyway, despite her mother’s desperate pleas. She’d moved to Los Angeles, where she’d met Richard.
She had fallen in love with Los Angeles first. She loved the tepid summer waves of Juno Beach, and the heat waves that passed through the city like tourists. Everything was tender compared to the biting, bitter cold and bitter attitudes of Michigan. The summer breeze was like a caress. Everyone else always complained about the heat, but she didn’t. The heat eased the constant ache. It placated her bones. She was finally able to focus on her thoughts, herself, without the constant dull throb that had always distracted her. Most of the time she felt as if she were almost floating. And just when she thought that her life couldn’t possibly get any better, she’d met Richard. His smile had been so open and naïve. But there was depth in his eyes. Esther remembered thinking that they looked like the deep sea green of the Pacific coast ocean at dusk. She had wanted to know him. She remembered the moment that she’d fallen in love with him. It had been on their first date, which was at a steak house. She had ordered Surf n’ Turf.
Esther had never learned to swim, although she loved sitting on the soft sand of the beach and watching the foaming waves approach the shore, then retreat. So when Richard told her that he wanted to learn how to surf, she had balked at the idea. The idea of skimming the dark expanse of mysterious waters made her choke with anxiety. She’d swam in the occasional lake before, but even that had made her uncomfortable and anxious. Her swimming was awkward. She looked like a puppy that slapped at the surface of the water with its paws. Dog paddling. She fought against the water, as if it was consciously trying to drown her. Anyone that had ever seen her swim had laughed at her. She hated the idea of Richard swimming in the water, at the mercy of the crashing waves. She hadn’t even thought of the sharks.
Esther begged Richard not to go surfing. “But I’m gonna go with Charlie! You know Charlie, right? He’s a good guy. He’s gonna show me the ropes. Don’t worry, Es. You worry too much!” He’d said. So naïve.
Just the thought of his smile made her ache inside, now that he was dead. Her bones didn’t hurt anymore, but there was something deep inside of her that caused her even more pain than her physical ailments ever could. He was so sweet, so trusting of everything and everyone. She needed that warmth in her life. She needed him.
Fuck sharks. One of them had murdered her boyfriend. Meat is murder, indeed. The worst of it was that it had only been his second attempt at surfing. Charlie had been excited when he heard that a tsunami hit the Mentawai islands. Good waves. They’d gone surfing early in the morning, at the first light of dawn, so that they could beat all of the other locals and claim a spot. Why couldn’t the shark have taken Charlie, instead of Richard? What did Charlie know about the maliciousness of the inhabitants of the ocean? Sharks don’t use alarm clocks, asshole, she thought. But a shark had taken her Richard instead, shortly after dawn. No lifeguards on duty. Miles from help or rescue. The shark had taken his arm, clean off. Then it had bitten his torso, but had decided against devouring him completely. Charlie had dragged Richard’s bleeding, lacerated body to shore. Richard had bled out on the wet sand of Zuma beach.
At first she didn’t feel anything. She couldn’t accept the image of Richard’s mutilated body in her mind. It didn’t feel like a disaster to her. More like…a distance. He wasn’t dead he was just…gone. Sort of like looking at photos from her family in Michigan. They were simply far away. And to Esther, so was Richard. Like an old photograph. The image of him in her mind. Two arms, childlike smile.
She didn’t feel anything except her bones. She could feel them flaring inside her, as she lay next to the empty spot where Richard used to sleep. The grief, which she wouldn’t allow to come to the surface, had settled into the deepest part of her anatomy. She didn’t sleep or eat. All that she could feel was the pain in her bones. She was nothing but a flaming pillar of physical pain.
But as time went on, she began to accept his death, and the pain slowly dissipated. The moment that she let the floodgates open, she felt as if she were drowning in sorrow. Richard, who had been an artist, a pothead, a poet, a saint. Richard, who had told her not to be ashamed of her elderly sounding name because it made her seem like an “old soul”. Richard, who had been a fan of conspiracy theories, Rick Moody novels, and Coen brother films…had been eaten. Surf and turf. She felt as if she could chew her own arm off, from the grief.
Then came the anger. The righteous, all consuming anger. At first, it was aimed at his “good buddy” Charlie. She hated Charlie. But that changed when she saw Charlie at Richard’s wake. He could barely stand up. He had been incapacitated by grief. She forgave him. He was just a man who had lost his friend. Naïve, just like Richard had been, to the fierce will and mysterious malice of the ocean. Then it came to her, a hatred so pure and volatile that it burned through her like napalm. She hated the shark. She hated the ocean itself. She became consumed with her hatred. Obsessed. And with this obsession came hatred and grief’s shadowy friend: the wish to die.
Waves of grief and hatred crashed over her relentlessly. She felt as if she couldn’t leave her bed. Vases of flowers lined her room. She watched them die as she weapt, wondering what the givers of this morbid gift were thinking. Cutting living flowers away from their roots, then giving them to the grieving girlfriend to watch them stink and wilt. A reminder of the brevity of life. Her family wouldn’t come to be with her, to take care of her. She could imagine them saying, “Well, he was just a boyfriend. She’ll move on.” They resented her for moving away, she thought. But Richard was so much more than that, to her. She had imagined their children in her dreams, with his unbridled smile and her dark hair. It could have been more. That’s what they didn’t understand. It was the could have that pained her the most.
Soon, she did carry on. But not in the way that her relatives supposed that she would. She eventually started paying the bills. Her grandmother sent her a check every month. But still, she carried the fierce anger of Richard’s death with her, holding it, like a torch. Her hatred evolved inside her. It grew stronger, invincible. It sprouted gleaming sharp teeth.
Four months after Richard’s death, Esther was surprised that these feelings didn’t drift away. She found herself sitting on the shore of Zuma beach, where he had died. She imagined wading into the water, walking along the ocean floor, her lungs filling with icy Pacific Ocean. But the thought didn’t bring her peace. She knew that if she died in this way, her spirit would haunt the ocean. It wasn’t good enough. She would leave the world feeling unfinished. Her outrage would remain unsatisfied. The memory of Richard, with his thrift store t-shirts, large yet tender hands, and heart-shaped birthmark on his shoulder, would die with her.
Then came the idea. It sprung into her mind one night as she lay sleepless in her half cold bed. She could still smell Richard’s scent on her pillow. She could still feel him lying next to her. She wanted to join him, wherever he was. She wanted to feel the shark’s teeth sink into her flesh, and to go wherever the victims of attacks like this went after their death. She wanted to know what the final moments of her love’s life were like. She thought that it would be the most intimate kind of moment, to share the same demise. Like the tender kiss of death. But she wouldn’t die alone. She would drive a blade between the monster’s marble black eyes before she met the same end that Richard did. The idea made her swell with elation. The image of a final scene like this inspired a sort of maniacal giddiness that she’d never felt. Justice. An end to a life that was riddled with pain. Murder suicide.
But first, she would need to learn how to swim.
She became a member at the Hollywood Wilshire YMCA. It had a pool. The man at the desk had been mildly taken aback when he asked her if she wanted a year membership, and she had replied with a deadpan “No”. She took group swim classes. The sight of her, almost thirty, eyes burning with intense focus and determination was amusing to other members. Especially since she was surrounded by fledgling, giggling children. But she learned quickly. She graduated from Beginner level, then to Advanced Beginner, then to intermediate within a month. She began to swim laps up and down the length of the pool every day. Her body found a harmony with the water. It was something that, a mere year ago, she never would have imagined that she could do.
In a few months she had become a skilled swimmer. Esther’s body and arms cut through the water smoothly and lithely, barely making a splash. She was more graceful than a fish. She flowed through the water with more agility than a shark. The dull ache in her bones and joints all but vanished. The ache in her chest, the crushing feeling of loss, was lifted. She’d never felt so weightless. But she only felt like this when she was in the water. The moment that her wet, wrinkled foot touched the dry tile, it all came rushing back to her body – the ache of pain and loss, the searing anger, and the powerful desire for death and retribution. After she dried off and dressed, she sat in the back seat of the city bus sullenly. With her calm and pensive demeanor, none of the other passengers ever would have imagined that she was thinking of a shark’s powerful jaw clamping into her flesh and gnawing on her jagged, broken bones. Her traitor bones that had led to her leaving her frigid midwest home. The bones that had led her to her love.
Nothing was holding her back now. She was ready. She packed her few belongings into boxes and labeled them with her family’s address in Michigan. She tried not to think of her mother when she heard the news. She knew that her parents loved her, but she had always felt like a burden. She was broken. Years of expensive osteoarthritis medications and antidepressants for her and her mother had left her two younger brothers with endless meals of macaroni and cheese and pancakes for dinner. But she hadn’t asked to be brought into the world. She hadn’t had any control over that. But she did have control over how she would leave it. Her father had turned into a wasted man over the years, morose and silent. Her mother was always on edge. She was always brimming with anxiety. Her pain was much worse. This is how I’ll be when I get older, Esther had often thought. Stitched brow, rubber band tight smile, always fighting the excruciating invisible demon inside. She knew how her mother would feel when she heard the news. She would feel guilty. She would think that the only thing that she had given her daughter was her aching frame, her soft bones.
But her mother couldn’t have known that she would inherit the condition. It was extremely rare. She was just lucky, like Richard had been lucky. One in a billion people died from a shark attack every year. She remembered telling him that he was “one in a million” when they’d first met. She’d been wrong. He was even more rare. She thought that luck was funny that way, sometimes. They were lucky to find each other, to fall in love. Luck seemed almost like it was a conscious entity. It sought out certain people. Once it found the object of its attention it doled out rare rewards, then turned sour and rotten in an instant.
She wrote a loving note to her family. “This isn’t your fault,” she wrote. “It’s just time for me to join Richard. He was the love of my life.” In truth, her reasons were much more complex. Her sorrow and anger had evolved into something indescribable. The pain had turned her spirit into a kind of unyielding monster. Anger and regret coiled around her heart. She would never be able to explain this to them in a note. And she didn’t need to.
The sun was setting when she got off the bus and walked towards Zuma beach. The lifeguard would be off duty in twenty minutes. She sat on the shore, watching the tangerine light fade into the horizon. The ocean breeze carried the chill of April. No one was swimming. Who would dare? She considered waiting a few months for the waters to become warmer. The idea of agonizing through the days was daunting. And what would she be waiting for? For her last moments before she lost her limbs to be comfortable? Why would she give a shit?
An elderly couple trudged through the sand in front of her, holding hands. Tender smiles decorated their faces. Still in love. It made Esther want to cry. The lifeguard left. She waited until the beach was completely clear, then shed her clothing. Underneath, she wore a black wetsuit with red shoulders and legs. Bait. She dug the bright orange life vest out of the bag that she’d brought with her and strapped it around her. Surely at least one shark wouldn’t miss the sight of her, bobbing on the surface like a bright orange bouy. Then she pulled out the sharp hunting knife. It had belonged to Richard. He used to take it with him when they went camping. “Gonna skin me a bear!” He’d said jokingly one time, his innocent smile reaching ear to ear. She tucked the knife into the side strap of her life vest. She waded into the foaming, sharp cold water, cursing under her breath as she slowly submerged her body.
She turned onto her back and kicked evenly, propelling her body towards the open ocean. Small waves crashed over her body as she swam. With each wave she propelled her arms behind her in a strong, smooth backstroke. The waves weren’t large enough to really impede her progress. “Not good waves,” a surfer would have said. But this part of the ocean was hers because of it. She knew that only surfers would be crazy enough to brave the cold water in their wetsuits, but they wouldn’t bother to now.
Then she felt the mild rip current underneath her, carrying her away from the shore. She let it carry her, resting her arms and legs, conserving her energy. There was still a long way to go. Somehow, she could feel the ocean getting deeper underneath her, as if her body possessed sonar capabilities. She’d never been on the surface of water this deep. She imagined all of the mysterious animals that drifted, darted, clung, and cruised languidly beneath her. She was overcome with the realization that she didn’t belong there. Her spongy, absorbent flesh and dense bones (though not as dense as most of her species). She was a helpless, exposed foreigner. She couldn’t help the sense of panic that overcame her suddenly. The feeling reminded her of the time that she and Richard had driven to Mexico, and had somehow ended up, drunk, in a bad neighborhood. The wave of anxiety passed when she thought of Richard. She remembered why she was there.
She could still see the thin line of the shore in the distance. She wouldn’t stop until she could see nothing but ocean, until she was wholly in their territory. She turned onto her stomach and did the breast stroke, giving her shoulders and deltoids a rest. Her fingers and feet were numb. The nails where pale purple. Her teeth chattered softly. The sky was the dark sapphire shade of dusk. It would soon be nighttime. Their time.
She slowly felt her body go numb. Her mind was becoming clouded, and her thoughts confused. She struggled to move her senseless arms and legs. Suddenly she realized that if she didn’t keep moving this was how she would die. She hadn’t thought it through. She’d been so desperate for an end to her pain that she would die like this, her body floating listlessly in the endless expanse of the lonely ocean. No dramatic or exciting end. No kiss of death, or closeness to Richard. “Shit!” she muttered through chattering teeth. She struggled to remember the passion that had brought her there. She tried to warm herself with the fire of her hatred.
She stoked the flame of her feelings of vengeance with memories of Richard’s arms, wrapping around her on Saturday mornings as they shared a joint and watched cartoons. The biological killing machine had stolen one of his precious arms. Even if he had lived, he never would have been able to hold her like that again. What would a beast like that know about love? It was an animal that was practically born ready to kill. Even its skin was covered in tiny barbs. The males sank their teeth into the females as they procreated. She’d seen their black, unfeeling eyes stuck into their streamlined heads on the nature channel. The bastards ate their young. Her only regret was that she’d never tasted shark meat. Esther could imagine one of her nouveau hippie friends in college lamenting over the decreasing population of sharks. The rage coursed through her like blood. It warmed her. It gave her enough energy to grasp the handle of the knife and point it at her hand. She could barely feel the blade sink into the soft skin of her palm. The blood coursed down her arm in bright rivers, drifting into the water around her elbow in sinking patterns. When she lowered her hand back into the salt water, the pain pulsed through her arm. It awoke her senses. She tucked the knife back into the strap of her life vest. That would get their attention.
The sky turned black, dotted with more stars than she’d ever seen. The ocean, black and gleaming like oil, surrounded her. The quarter moon smiled at her sideways mischievously. Goodbye, been nice knowin’ ya, it seemed to say. She was now too numb to move. She felt like a tiny fading star, floating in a black sky. A tiny, dying star. A faint, choked titter escaped her throat. It didn’t sound like the laugh was coming from her. She felt as if she were hovering nearby, close to her body. She bobbed in the water, feeling nothing but her head and the tops of her shoulders.
A thin, wet dagger fin emerged onto the surface of the water. At first, she thought that it was a hallucination. It sliced through the water in a broad zigzag pattern, gleaming, creating black moonlit ripples. It was real. Suddenly she didn’t feel like laughing. Panic squeezed her throat and her eyes became wide. Terror consumed her. But why? This is what she had wanted, right? She had seen her last moments in her mind as she fought the great beast, and they hadn’t been like this. She was immobile, paralyzed from the cold. As useless as a guppy. She lifted her hand and searched for the handle of the knife. She couldn’t feel anything. She wrapped her clouded mind around the new course of her death. Suddenly she didn’t care anymore. She waited for the beast to rip off her lifeless limbs.
The creature swam around her in a large circle, silently and gracefully. Its fin emerged, then submerged again. As it dipped down, she caught a glimpse of its sharp angled tail. Even in her delirium, she knew that it was at least 8 feet long. It was no pup. This particular shark was old enough to kill. It swam around her languidly for minutes on end. Endless minutes. She fought the sense that she was drifting away. If it didn’t kill her soon, she would die on her own. After all of her effort, she wouldn’t get to feel what her Richard had felt in his last moments. She wanted, especially now that she was so near the animal that had killed him, to feel close to him. She imagined its black, shiny stone eyes peering at her from under the dark blanket of the ocean. What was it doing? Was it sizing her up? Maybe it was sleeping, and had been attracted to the scent of her blood subconsciously. She knew that sharks moved in their sleep, and they rarely slept. She hadn’t slept much either, since Richard’s death. She remembered the moment that she’d heard of his death from the police, and the months afterward. The thought riled her. Her anger rose.
“What’s wrong with you?” She screamed shrilly. Her mouth was numb from cold, so it came out sounding more like, Uts ong eh eww? She slapped her hands onto the water like an indignant kid. This seemed to wake it up. Its movements became quick, more purposeful. Sharks sensed fear, could they also sense anger? “You probably don’t know the difference, do you? You stupid fish!” She kicked her feet, or at least she thought she did. She couldn’t feel them.
The fin cut towards her and sank into the water. A medley of intense fear, relief, and fascination swam through her groggy head. It latched onto her leg. She could feel the power of its jaws, but could barely feel its barblike teeth in her flesh. Sharp pain bloomed in her ankle and coursed through her bone like electricity. It felt familiar, like the condition that she’d lived with for so long. She had been pulled under water. The moon cast faint, murky rays in the blackish green water. Her head hurt almost as much as her leg did. Icy salt water filled her nostrils as she was dragged by her leg through the depths. She could faintly see its tail whipping back and forth furiously. Suddenly she was released. Her terrified screams became clear in the silent night as her head broke the surface of the water. She screamed and screamed. She screamed at the ocean for taking Richard. She screamed at the throbbing bones of her leg. She screamed at the moon for smiling at her pain. She screamed at the cowardly shark, that had refused to take her life. She would have shouted at every star in the sky, if she’d been able to. She hollered until her voice froze from the frigid sea air.
Then there was nothing left to be angry about. Her fury had been purged into the ocean. The bastard shark had cleansed her of it. She’d been baptized. The faint yellow light of dawn cast an ombre stripe across the horizon. It was the most beautiful thing that she’d ever seen. She didn’t want to die, not like this. Not surrounded by the unfeeling expanse of cold ocean. Richard had bled to death in his friend’s arms. He’d died near the homes, restaurants, and shops of Malibu. Suddenly, that was where she wanted to be. She floated to her side, stretched her arm overhead, and kicked with her good leg. She could feel her limbs again. The frenzy of the attack had brought the feeling back to them. She sidestroked, then back stroked, forcing herself to move. She fought the desperate urge to sleep. Sleep was death, and she was determined to die where Richard had, on the shore of Zuma beach. “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream…” she sang with a voice, worn thin by the cold and her screaming, stroking her arms through the water. As the blood coursed through her body, the pain in her leg bloomed. It wasn’t just the bone that hurt now, she could feel the lacerations of the shark’s teeth. She saw the faint strip of the beige and green shore, and the tiny gleaming windows of beachfront houses. “So beautiful,” she muttered before she drifted into an ocean deep sleep.
——–
Her eyes were still closed, but she knew where she was. The distinct combination of alcohol and disinfectant lingered in her nostrils. She still felt as if she was floating, but she felt warm now. Her leg felt heavy. There was some pain, but for some reason she didn’t care. She opened her eyes slowly. She squinted as bright white light burned her corneas. She tried to sit up, but her head felt heavy. Every part of her felt heavy.
“Oh, you’re up,” the nurse said dismissively. She barely looked at Esther. She was holding something that looked like a remote control. Esther could see a tiny green light blink from the corner of her eye.
“Morphine?” She asked groggily.
“That’s right. Shark attacks get you the good stuff around here,” She said flatly. She was a thick, middle aged Filipino woman. Her eyes looked tired. “You barely made it, girl. You won the lottery.”
“I’m lucky,” Esther drawled.
“Well, don’t know about that. But you had severe hypothermia. Ironically, it saved your life. It reduced your loss of blood. We’ve given you a transfusion. Your leg was broken. It was set and stitched this morning. About 300 stitches. The most I’ve ever seen…and I’ve seen a lot. I think that you’re gonna be able to keep it, though. It could’ve been a lot worse. A couple kids found you on the beach this morning.
“It didn’t want me…” Esther mumbled.
“Hmmm…?” The nurse replied absently as she adjusted the knob on the drip.
“The shark. Didn’t want me.”
The nurse chuckled. “Hon, that just made my day.”
She wasn’t disappointed or angry. She felt warm, from the inside out. It felt like love. It felt like Richard on a Saturday morning, his arms wrapped around her. The good stuff. The shark hadn’t wanted her. She was like a bad hors d’oeuvres at a party. Something you would bite into, then spit discreetly into your napkin. But it had wanted Richard. It had been drawn to him, and chosen him selectively, just as she had. She had chosen him for his softness, and his trusting nature. The same qualities that had led him to his death on the shore. She thought that she understood, now. Her thoughts drifted and merged under the effects of the drug, like seaweed. She could feel the pulsing pain in her leg. Neat little rows of incisions. All stitched up like a rag doll. Soon to be a curving line of pink, dimpled scars. The encounter was over. It had been a kiss of death after all, instead of the unfathomable void of the long embrace of death. Her scars would be a reminder of him, at least. A mark of love. Proof.
The nurse turned to leave, but paused and looked back quizzically before she went through the door. “What were you doing out there at that hour?” She asked with honest bewilderment.
“Shark hunting,” Esther slurred happily, with a wide grin.