Chapter
AT WOODBINE BEACH, David counts out blue five-dollar bills and hands them to the cab driver. “Keep the change.” Archie and David climb out of the cab, boots landing in the parking lot’s water-filled sunken concrete. The two walk the short distance side by side to the gap in the metal guardrail that separates the parking lot from the grass and sweeping beach beyond. David leads Archie through the gap. They stroll off the worn muddy path on to the dying grass. Together, they cross the paved bike trail and the boardwalk, their boots thundering across the bleached oak boards, notifying the flying gulls that men are here. Archie follows David towards the red snow fences, their vertical wooden slats tied together with metal wire. They lean drunkenly along the northern edge of the beach east to west. One after the other, the two veterans sidle through the space between the first snow fence and the second one. Their boots sink in the soggy sand as they aim for the space between the second and last snow fences and onto the immense sweep of beach beyond. David trudges on, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed to watch his footing. As they draw closer to the water’s edge, the sand becomes packed down from the rain and easier to walk on. He raises his head to look at the moonlit surf. Archie follows, sending his eyes along the path of David’s trajectory, and spots a small group at the water’s edge. The moon shines a long line of light across the pounding waves of Lake Ontario with its unending horizon. Depths underneath the rolling waves hide water’s secrets. Like the desert, vast, hidden, open yet vulnerable to wind’s will. Archie shivers. I’m more like the lake than the desert. The surf’s din grows as they reach the group.
David melds into the group.
Archie stands apart.
Two of the group lean their heads close to David’s mouth as he gestures towards Archie; they look over at him and walk with David to where Archie stands. The man, tall and hefty, reaches out a large hand. Archie automatically lifts his right hand to it; the big man’s hand engulfs his. The man bellows over the waves cresting high behind him before crashing into the shallow water near them in a billow of white foam. “Welcome to our group. We usually meet at nine, but we’re ending the day at 2300 hours as we began it at 1100 hours to remember the dead. And the living,” he says meaningfully, his intense gaze holding Archie’s eyes. He lets go of Archie’s hand, and the woman, short and muscular, reaches out her hand. She smiles widely at him, her cornflower blue eyes shining in the night darkness, as she shakes Archie’s chilled hand. “Welcome to our group. Matt and I co-lead this non-denominational service.” She leans in and whispers loudly to be heard over the rhythmic din of the wind-driven waves, “Although we use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The language is so beautiful, and we are all beautiful in God’s eyes. Like this lake whose shores we stand on together. I sometimes wonder what it’d be like to bob on those waves, what lies beneath them, and I’m glad I’m not alone. Who wants to explore them unaided, eh?” she chortles. “I have a couple of diving buddies. They’ve said oftentimes, ‘Let’s go out, Cyndy! We’ll dive to find what treasures the lake hides, and you can paw through them in the boat where the sunlight is.’ They know I’m not fond of the dark.” She nudges Archie, squeezing his hand, as she laughs freely. “We could spend a lifetime exploring this mighty lake, eh? It’s endless.” Her laughter settles into a rueful smile. “I haven’t had the courage to say yes to them yet. Unknown treasures and unknown depths scare me. Oh, by the way, I’m Cyndy.”
Archie crooks up one corner of his lips in response to her radiant energy, unsure what to say, what to feel. She lets go of his hand, and Archie raises his eyebrows at David as if to ask, “What do I make of this? Should I remain?” A service in church to start the day is one thing. It’s ritual; it’s familiar. But a service on the beach, its sandy expanse a greyish water-logged reflection of Afghanistan and New Mexico that both holds them up and threatens to pull them into the storm-roughened lake?
A muscular body slams into the back of his calves. “Oomph!” Archie expels air as his arms flail to keep him upright. Steadied, his eyes search for what had assaulted him. An amber-coloured body on four legs, wiggling under the power of its wagging tail, springs after a small white fluffy thing that shoots out from the group to chase a receding wave, its high-pitched barks disappearing under Nature’s constant din.
“Hahahaha!”
Archie jumps. He’s not used to hearing David laugh loudly. The second time tonight.
David puts his right arm around Archie and his lips near Archie’s left ear: “It’s okay, man. It’s only a dog. Several of the vets have them for emotional support. The service won’t bite, either.” David grins into Archie’s startled eyes. “After this, I’ll walk you home. I didn’t want to miss this. It’s what me and Andrew have always done. Nadine didn’t like it, and we weren’t sure you’d be into it. But we didn’t want to leave you alone. You can watch the surf. It must be alien from where you come from, eh?” David lets go of him as Archie snorts. Yes, he thinks, so much water, enough to drown in after only a few steps into it, is alien to him.
Cold, wet, refreshing.
Archie longs to feel it rise up his boots to his legs until its coldness ices all emotion. Instead, Archie steps over to the front of the group, near David. The co-leaders begin the service. Archie is surprised to hear them speak from memory, but then, he thinks wryly, they wouldn’t be able to see in the dark, and artificial light here would disturb the lake’s wild beauty. He surveys the beach of rust-coloured sand and the endless waves that stretch to the horizon.
“Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.” Archie’s ears listen as he watches the water, blue-black under the clearing sky and the shining moon, lifting into long waves that race towards him, rising higher and higher until a small line of surf foams at their tops and pulls their crests down to pound into the flattened water below it, throwing whitish bubbly water forwards onto smooth pebbles and sand. The white foam hypnotizes Archie as it ripples towards him: a long line of white spiders, their piston-like legs pulling the flattening wave towards him until the foam vanishes into the sand before the listless dying wave streams back towards the lake, revealing stones glistening red and grey half sunk into the sand, its end consumed by the next crashing wave. Archie feels small against the roaring of this ocean-like lake; he feels insignificant standing underneath the brilliance of the moon, on the beach of sand and stones. Goosebumps erect hair all over his arms in their sleeves. Chills race up and down his back. His leg hairs stand up against his confining army pants.
A Rhodesian Ridgeback suddenly dashes out of the group of men and women facing the two leaders and the lake. He grazes Cyndy’s legs, who lets her knees bend, but she doesn’t falter in her recitation. A black-and-white mutt with fluffy fur, a short snout, and rapidly blurring paws, runs past Archie’s right side, making him jump to the left. The mutt barrels into the Ridgeback and bites at him. The Ridgeback bounds into the waves, leaving the black-and-white mutt barking her disapproval, all four paws firmly planted on the wet sand, her wide chest thrust forward. Water doesn’t stick to the Ridgeback’s red wheaten fur as he unfurls his long tongue into the waves appearing and receding over his small paws with their hard claws sinking into the stony sand. Lap, lap, lap. Archie cannot hear the dog slurp with his ears, but his memory plays the sound in his head. The Ridgeback lifts his head, lifts his front paws into the air, rotates on his back ones, and bounces over to the black-and-white dog, who jumps up to nip at his left ear. He shakes her off, his jaw dropping into a wide grin, then trots off down the beach with her in barking pursuit, her fur fluffing in the wind off the lake. A Golden Labrador, a small black and brown dachshund almost invisible in the night, and a white standard poodle glowing in the light reflecting off the waves, leap out of the human group and take chase, their joyous barks disappearing into the wind. The dogs gallop east along the beach. The men and women facing the co-leaders ignore the dogs’ happy cacophony. But Archie can’t tear his eyes off of the dogs. Only Pawpaw had owned a dog, a collie, for a little while, yet he had no desire to have a dog. Watching the dogs now, their antics fascinating him, Archie’s lips part and stretch wide. A desire births deep in his heart to feel that happiness and love for himself. Suddenly, the Ridgeback skids, all four of his paws shoving the sand into a berm; the bigger dogs bowl into him as he digs his front paws into the beach to launch himself towards Lake Ontario. The slender, muscled dog barely touches an encroaching wave before leaping back onto the beach. The dachshund tumbles into the frothy waves. He scampers out and shakes violently, showering drops over the sand. The Ridgeback, Labrador, Poodle, and mutt scram. Feeling better, the dachshund sprints to catch up to the bigger dogs racing each other back to the human group, leaping in and out of the water, snapping their teeth at each other, wagging their tails, stopping and circling each other for a brief wrestling match before resuming their race to the human group, powering past the co-leaders, each dog banging into the humans’ longer legs first one way, then the other, before they disappear soundlessly, ears flapping, tongues hanging out, in the opposite direction towards the trees and boulders of Ashbridges Bay Park, leaving behind scents of wet dog. Archie laughs involuntarily, unguardedly.
The co-leaders shout out their words as the dogs play. Over the crashing and pounding, over the white noise of vast Lake Ontario and its windy energy that blows away words yet cannot drown out their intent, they fill their lungs and bellow responsively with each other for the others to hear:
“Let not your heart be troubled…I go to prepare a place for you…I will come again…receive you…that where I am, there ye may be also. John 14…”
Archie shifts his position to see the faces of the small group lit up by the moon above them. Tears spill down some cheeks; others look determined; some look solemn; David looks…
Archie searches for the word for what he sees there. It pops into him as a wave streams up to his boots and splashes over his right foot. “Comforted.” That’s the word, Archie crows to himself in triumph of memory. He sobers, as a wish forms. I wish I could feel comforted. I wish I could feel happy again.
David looks over at him and nods with a reassuring smile before restoring his gaze to the co-leaders who are speaking to them all, one with the group, and the group in responsive one with them. Archie doesn’t know the words from memory, but that one nod tells him he belongs here. David had meant his words back there on University Avenue.
Archie hangs on to that feeling as he shifts his feet out from the grasping wet hands of Lake Ontario. He steps backwards and huddles closer to the group until he’s no longer on the periphery. He may not know these words, but here on this rain-smoothed sand, he stands with David, protected, and knows where he belongs and how he’s safe.