Seal Cove Love

“Where’s F.Red?” wondered Michelle.

“Down at the cove giving the Dr. Bronner Sermon on the Boulder to the birds.” Replied Donny looking up from reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

“Again?” replied Michelle.

“It’s a long label. Did you ever read it?” He asked.

“No, I was too busy washing with it.” She replied kissing him on the cheek before heading to the cove.

The boulder was one of those large New England smooth round rocks that had been glaciated and tumbled from somewhere further north during the last ice age. It came to rest about fifty feet from what had become the pebbly shoreline. At high tide, the rock was barely visible. At low tide, the smooth top stood about ten feet from the bottom. After several attempts, F.Red had discovered an easy way to the top.

This time he took what he called the southern route up his Everest that was free of the sharp white barnacles that covering the other side. It provided enough chinks and handholds to easily climb. And ascend he did with his liquid Bronner's Lavender soap held securely around his waist by a piece of rope borrowed from the Caroline, the 40-foot wooden sailboat taken out of dry dock that week.

Except for the rope belt, he stood naked and held the bottle of soap in front of him and began to read the label aloud. He was still slightly stoned, and the words took on an importance that most people would never have guessed.

“Who else but God gave man his sensuous passion,” he continued from where he had last read. “love that can spark mere dust to life?! Revealing beauty in our Eternal Father’s fashion. Ecstasy-far above earthly greediness and strife! Poetry, uniting All-One, all brave, all-life! Who else but God? Who else but God? Love is like a willful bird!”

He paused to look around. He was alone. Everyone else has heard most of the sermon. The boys bathed in one group to give Michelle and any other women who came to the Comfort Thomas commune their privacy. F.Red stood upon that boulder and read the bible according to Dr. Bronner’s Lavender Soap to anyone who dared swim or bathe in the icy cold waters.

He looked for the seagulls that flew the few miles inland from the Atlantic to circle the cove at the foot of the hill leading up to the main house. They were hunting and there were always clams too slow to burrow to safety as the tide receded, and crabs too disoriented or young to quickly crabwise back to their watery homes.

“ Love is like a willful bird!” he read again more loudly with a deep frown on his face trying to make sense of the meaning of the words. “Do you want it,” he continued “It flies away. Yet, when you least expect its bliss, it turns around and it’s here to stay! Poetry-Unity-Ecstasy-Love, evolving man above, above, above the ape! Only man, absolute clean, reciting poetry, enjoys hours of loving self-discipline!” he raised his voice,” DILUTE! DILUTE! OK!” he stopped.

The tide was quickly returning, and it was time to bathe. He secured the purple label soap in his rope belt and climbed down, stepping quickly into the water until it covered his waist. He had learned that a quick immersion was the least pain inducing. He popped open the cap and poured some brownish soap into his palm.

“Dilute, dilute, dilute,” he whispered to himself and began to rub the soap on his upper body, carefully covering both arms, armpits, shoulders, and then his face. When the slick lavender-smelling soap was on him, he climbed down into the cold water and began to lather and splash away the suds.

“Hello F,” Michelle called gently from the nearby shore, “are you finished with your sermon?” Before he could gather his thoughts to answer, she was slipping off her Grateful Dead T-shirt, bra, faded jeans, leaving only her pale blue panties. She grabbed her bar of Salt Sea Sailor’s Soap and stepped into the water.

F. Red looked at her and thought about the words he had just spoken to the seagulls. Love is like a bird when you least expect it, it turns around and it’s here. There was a special loving bond between them that began the first night he was at the farm.

That first night all of them had snuggled close to the roaring fire Jacques-O and Donny had built in the large fireplace, with their warmest clothes on under all the wool Hudson and Navajo blankets they found in the house. Michelle had been trying to sleep between her husband Donny and F.Red.

He had not spoken a word since he arrived at the farm. Not so much as a syllable. Not a peep. Nada. Just a few nods for either yes or no. That and a very pained smile.

Earlier that nite Donny and Jacques-O had a whispered conversation.

“Is he okay” Donny had whispered to Jacques-O as he watched the wraith-like F.Red.

“I dunno,” Jacques-O quietly answered, “I might have to drive him back to Cambridge tomorrow.”

Michelle smiled in the dimming firelight, reached over, lightly touched him on the shoulder, and asked how he was doing. He looked at her and managed to breathe deeply for the first time that day. His left hand was in his pocket tightly grasping what was feeling like the last four yellow Valium on Earth. Just enough to get him through this weekend so he could hitch a ride back to Cambridge, and the warmth of civilization and all it’s electric lights.

“Yes,” he finally whispered hoping the others would not hear “It’s just really dark!”. Outside of the reach of the light of the fire it was dark, darker than he had ever experienced. No moon just stars. Only a hint of your fingers waggling in front of your face. And six bodies snuggled together under woolen blankets, dimly lit by the flickering of the banked fire, and elsewhere nothing but darkness.

"It's really incredibly dark!” F. whispered to Michelle

Michelle had smiled at his answer. Her touch seemed to calm him enough to help him relax. He closed his eyes, and slowly drifted off to some forgotten dream.

She finally made her way to the water's edge at the cove and waded over to where he was rinsing off the lathered soap. The water was cold, the nipples of her small breasts were hard little red dots.

“Turn around.” She said.

“Why” he nervously answered even as he obeyed.

He handed her the soap and smiled. As she gently massaged the soap onto his back. he thought love really is like a willful bird.