Jerry and Marky

Jerry looks out peacefully at his friend Marky drowning again. He’s in the water. The first time he was out there, it was when his mom got sick for good, and he stopped seeing his shrink. He said he needed a walk on the beach, and Jerry thought that’d be good for him. Jerry watched him from the porch as Marky let the waves wash over his toes, then his ankles, then his knees, and before Jerry knew it, he’d waded in up to his chest and just kept wading and wading and wading, forever toward the current.

He didn’t actually want to drown himself. He told that to both Jerry and the shrink afterward. He also said he knew exactly why he did it, but he could never put that part into words. Jerry’d been upset. That current will drown you, no two ways about it. Jerry yelled at Marky, What the hell were you thinkin’? You gonna kill yourself on me? You know how much you oughta be grateful for? That kind of thing. It didn’t help very much at all. The shrink said that physical comfort might be helpful, but Jerry and Marky just couldn’t do that kind of thing. They were men.

The second time it happened, Jerry had panicked and called nine-one-one. Marky hadn’t liked that at all, and had made Jerry promise never to call the police again. After that, it stopped for a while, but today, Jerry sees Marky’s head again, bobbing in the cold, rough waves, and he needs Jerry’s help.

Jerry wants to try something new this time. He makes his way down the steps, out of their front door, and around the side of the house towards the beach. Dusk tucks itself away neatly behind the horizon. The moon rises, blue and black and calm. Jerry lets the water soak fully into the soles of his shoes before he wades in all the way. A bigish wave almost knocks him over before the water is halfway up his thighs, but he keeps moving toward Marky. It’s cold. It’s pretty damn cold. But Jerry figures Marky must be colder.

Jerry lets the water bleed into his jacket, bleed through his T-shirt, bleed into his skin until he is a patch of ocean water moving toward his friend. When he reaches him, he remembers that Marky’s a lot taller than him, so he clambers onto a rock just beneath the water. This gets his chest out of the water, and he breathes hard.

Jerry and Marky breathe together. Jerry notices the direction Marky’s looking in, and he looks out in the same direction. Everything’s the same out there. Everything’s blank and dead. That must be why Marky likes it so much, Jerry realizes. Nothing to get attached to. Nothing to stay attached to. Nothing to look at.

“It’s purty, Mark.” Says Jerry, slowly. “It’s purty, but it’s damn cold.” Jerry stays looking outward, but he can swear he feels Marky swaying in the water.

“Yeah.” Says Marky, “It’s purty, but it’s damn cold.” He feels like Jerry wants him to say something else, so he says, “I had a dream about her when I fell asleep just now.”

Jerry waits for a second, then he spits salt water and says, “It don’t go away. I still dream about mine. It don’t ever go away.” He hears something that is either Marky sighing or waves on the sand sighing.

“You gonna call them cops like last time?” Asks Marky.

Jerry fishes his now waterlogged phone out of his pocket and shows it to Jerry.

“Gonna try and make me get out then?”

Jerry shakes his head.

“Whatcha gonna do then?”

Jerry slips off the rock. He lets the waves push him into Marky’s chest, and the gentle force of it carries Marky off his feet. Jerry’s arms wrap around him in the blue, black, calm moonlight, and the two are an embracing patch of ocean water, heading nowhere together.

If anyone has any feedback regarding how I can make this better, I would greatfully appreciate it.