Charleston, Ho!

Meet me at my apartment on Central Avenue at lunchtime in the summer of 1997 to begin this trip properly. We’re taking my blue Maxima, and fuck I-20 and I-26. We’re taking the backroads through Williston and Blackville, Denmark and Bamberg. We’re going to slip down the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain on a two-lane blacktop. You’ll know when it happens, the land leveling out from those long, steep hills on 28, the ones that crest so high you can see into the next county.

We’re going to listen to Widespread Panic, The Allman Brothers, and The Grateful Dead, and you’re probably going to fuss about the interstate being faster (it’s not, and it adds miles. I prefer the hypotenuse to the angles), and you might bitch a little about slowing down to go through the sleepy southern towns. Their cops aren’t sleepy, and they don’t want a bunch of assholes on their way to the beach tearing through town like they’re competing in the Cannonball Run. Speed limits of 45 and below should be respected and obeyed, especially in South Carolina with out of state tags.

After we smoke the joint you rolled a few miles back, we eat peaches from a roadside stand in Edgefield that I picked up a few days ago.

Edgefield is its own experience: best peaches in the world and one of the largest Irish Traveller settlements in the US, just across the river from Augusta, north of Beech Island).

SC 61 will seduce you as we approach the plantations, hitting that magical stretch of road with low bridges kissing rivers and creeks and drive into the live-oak arbor, trees limbs holding hands and dripping Spanish moss overhead. The light takes on that dappled, green quality that only comes from sunlight through leaves. It’s so serenely beautiful that you’ll think we’re passing through a portal into a magical world. We are: the South Carolina Low Country and the Holy City. The magical drive through those ancient oaks is part of the experience. It settles the soul into a place where it’s ready to receive instead of give.

On our way down 61, we’ll pull into the driveway of Magnolia Plantation and Audubon Swamp Garden, ask how much admission is, then turn around and leave. The driveway itself is spectacular with views of the swamp garden.

Many years ago, a wealthy Charleston woman (perhaps even a lady) was asked why she didn’t travel. Her response, in that delicious low country drawl, was, “Why would I? I’m already here.” Once you’ve spent a day on the beaches and a night strolling through oleander and crape myrtles with their flowers splayed open for your enjoyment in view of the harbor, below the steeples, you’ll do a quick check on real estate and wonder if becoming a Charlestonian is in reach for you. You’re already lusting after her, and you’re not even there yet.

Our first destination is Folly Beach, but we’re stopping at Gilligan’s on Johns Island for a snack on our way out. We’ll also hit a produce stand for the best tomatoes in the world. The bacon and lettuce are already on the sandwiches in the cooler. We’ll add the tomatoes and have the best fucking BLT of your life when we get hungry from body surfing and maybe building a castle. But right now, we’re going to completely dismantle your ideas concerning hush puppies.

This is a quick stop. We’re having the hush puppies, fried grouper fingers, and Bloody Marys. No, you can’t have oysters here—we’ll hit Bowen’s Island on our way into Charleston proper when we’re beached out or sunburned, whichever comes first. Yes, I know you’re wearing SPF 50, but you’re about to get a master class on the southern sun, and your Coppertone can’t win this battle. You’ll stop arguing about this when you’re begging for aloe on your back. And don’t worry, I’ll take you out to Angel Oak on our way home tomorrow, if there’s time. We’re crashing at Randy’s apartment on East Bay tonight. You’ll love it. We’ll drink martinis, smoke some kind bud, and cook a meal that can’t be beat.

If you were a child, I’d take you to the James Island county park and let you play on water slides and drift in the lazy river to your heart’s content, grazing on Dippin’ Dots from the concession stand. But we’re not kids, so we’ll skip that this time and drive out that long stretch of Folly Road, past the American Legion where you have to ring the bell if you don’t have a key. Maybe we’ll stop in for a cheap beer. I used to tend there, so someone will sign us in when we ring the bell. No? You’re ready for sun, sea, and sand? East beach, here we come. Let’s check the surf report and see if it’s coming in or going out.

We could go west to the Hideaway but don’t.

We’re more concerned with Washout, even though that’s not where we’re going. We’re going to East 10th, where I used to live in the little cottage on the marsh feeding into the intracoastal Folly River. It’s since been razed. This is the new construction:

We’ll drive past Bert’s Market (open 24/7/365, “we may doze, but we never close”), where the surfers are getting dollar self-serve chili dogs (used to be fifty cents) on E Ashley at E Second and hang a right on E Tenth and park in the oyster-shell lot by the public access boardwalk out to the beach. Ignore the no alcohol signs: we’re pouring our canned beers in cups, although a coozie used to be sufficient, before the drowning tragedies. The ocean giveth and the ocean taketh away. Don’t be careless: the Atlantic is not Jesus, and forgiveness is not guaranteed.

Since the surf report said it’s coming in but still low, we want to put our chairs and blanket right at the line below where the soft, loose sand gives way to the wet, packed sand the tide will cover before it turns to go back out. The dry sand is slow going, a scorching, shifting sea so hard to walk through that the cooler drags instead of rolls through it.

We walk down the packed sand and set up our umbrella, chairs, and blanket, putting the cooler between the chairs, almost touching the umbrella pole we drove into the sand, beach bags and towels draped over our chairs. Sure, you can take your chair down to the water, but the blanket and cooler stay up here, where they’re safe from getting soaked or stolen by the ocean. Our belongings are not sacrificial offerings to Poseidon, but he may not know that.

First, I’ll sit in my chair watching the waves break, see which part of the beach will yield the best bodysurfing, gauge whether it’s going to wash us up the beach or down it. You should note the houses behind the dunes, know which ones mark our spot. There’s no telling where we’ll be when we get out.

Since the waves are breaking down beach , we’ll walk up, stroll through the lacy edge of the water, me in a little to keep my feet and ankles in the swim while we head up to that yellow house I love so much, climbing over rock jetties, scanning the wet sand for shells worth picking up. When you finish your beer, you can carry them in your cup. No, you can’t have that starfish—it’s alive, so just look at it for a minute with the water covering it then drawing back to expose it with each ebb, camouflaging it with more sand at every turn.

We’ll leave the water’s edge to explore a few blood-warm tide pools, light refracting patterns onto the sand, highlighting the ridges shaped by the motion of the water, light and water dancing over the sand in the sun, maybe dig after a fiddler crab or two that we’ll never catch.

Pay attention to the architecture of the sandcastles; they’re as different as the children who built them before running into the surf to fill their buckets and bring water to the moat to make decorative wet-sand dribbles on the spires and turrets. They’ll come back from the water with their boogie boards to watch the tide fill the moat and take the fortress wall before the castle crumbles into the water.

Let’s cool off in the water. Fill your cup with sand so it doesn’t blow away, and put it in a castle moat. We’ll see what the current feels like here. Swim under the breakers; they’ll knock you down if you don’t. It’s a senseless fight against an undefeated opponent. If you see a surfer heading your way, swim under and away. You have more control of where you’re going than the surfers, so be respectful.

I love how the water deepens to blue beyond the breakers, the gentle bob and sway of my body as the water lifts me when it swells. I relax into it, sun on my face, song of the water in my ear. Nothing but blue in my eyes.

After feeling a moment of water and sky, the crash of the waves distant and hushed into nothing, the commotion of the beach silenced, just the lap of water, I turn for shore, swimming with the current to the breakers to catch a ride in.

It’s different swimming in than swimming out. You’re behind it, so you have to swim into it instead of catch it, which is much easier. It’s the same feeling once you’re on top of the wave while it tumbles into itself, propelling you in the sky. The exhilaration of the acceleration toward the sand is what we came here for. I stop myself with my hands in time to prevent running aground, giving me some assistance from the next wave to stand up easily and walk through the foaming remnants of the breakers onto the sand.

How far up beach are the cups? Count the houses. Ten houses per block. We should take the cups back to our spot in the sand and check on everything, sit and drink a beer, watch the people and the water.

I slice the tomatoes we picked up on Johns Island with my pocket knife and assemble the BLTs on toasted white bread, like God intended with lots of extra crispy (not burnt) bacon and iceberg lettuce, also in accordance with the almighty’s preferences. Duke’s mayonnaise, all others are sins against sandwiches.

They’re so good you eat two before you finish your beer. I tell you how many houses away our cups were, the house:block ratio, and ask you how far you want to walk up when we get back in to ride some serious waves, which we need to do before the tide pools disappear. High tide without a board is a bad idea, and never trust a sandbar to be where it was last time you were on it.

There’s plenty of beach left when we return to enjoy the third beers of our sixer, and a vollleyball game has broken out a little way down the beach. We put our bags and towels in the cooler and drag it up to the boardwalk steps before taking our chairs closer to the water to let the tide come in on us until our chairs sink into the silt, water washing over our legs, pulling the aluminum frame out of the quicksand and receding water resisting us. We move to drier ground and repeat until it turns into a race. And we have a date with a sunset, so we pack it in, hungry again.

After we cross back over the Folly River, passing Anchor Line, now Lolo’s, we take the left out to Bowen’s, down the oyster-shell road for the best, freshest, saltiest oysters you’ve ever tasted: Folly River Oysters. You’re shocked by the mounds of oyster shells between the parking lot and the docks.

We eat in the open air on the water, oysters on the half shell and ice-cold beer while the sky puts on a show for us and anyone else who’s looking.

We get back on Folly Road toward the connector to downtown, passing the round Holiday Inn before curving to the right, bringing us over the marshes before the water expands in the distance, and we’re creatures of air, sky, and water, not touching earth until we come down onto Calhoun Street instead of Rutledge, which runs by the Harbor, where the tide washes over the streets twice a day, the grandeur of the yachts to our right seeming both closer and more distant than possible.

At Randy’s, we shower and put on after-sun lotion, shorts, and t-shirts, then hang out on the couch among healthy plants, including a ficus tree, some ferns, and a spider plant (or airplane plant, whichever you prefer). Surfboards lean against the wall behind the chair, and original art hangs on the walls. The air feels clean and the vibe is good, Santana playing on the stereo while dinner possibilities are discussed and martinis are shook in a pewter cocktail shaker and poured into glasses from the freezer, icy crystals floating on the surface of the cold cloud drifting down your throat, the brine of the olive perfectly finishing the experience, relaxing on a comfy, cotton-upholstered couch, clean and tan with some developing redness, especially on your nose and the tops of your shoulders, body and mind content with the world, the echo of the waves still in your ears.

Fresh vegetables and herbs go into a pasta with olive oil and Parmesan and chicken grilled out beside the stoop. After dinner, it’s time to get dressed and go out.

If you've never spent a summer night walking from one bar to another in downtown Charleston, you're seriously missing out. Watch your step if you're near a live oak--their roots kick up the pavement from the sidewalks and streets, trying to breathe. While you're marvelling at the majesty of the Spanish moss-drenched branches of leafy green suspended overhead, watch out for palmetto bugs (you probably call them roaches, which they aren't). If we're out back at The Blind Tiger or The Brick, maybe don't sit under the trees, unless you want one to fall out of a branch on you or in your drink.

And we’re definitely going out back at The Blind Tiger. There’s something about the balmy outdoor air, balmy sea breeze blowing in from the Battery through oleander, crape myrtle, magnolia and gardenia, and, of course, palmettos and Spanish Moss-tinseled live oaks. You can pick a flower on the street and tuck it behind your ear or mine as we walk down to the Battery to watch the stars reflect off the water in the harbor. On our way back to the car, we’ll stop in the first place we come to with good live music, get another beer, and dance until last call.

We’ll sleep well, have fruit, probably honeydew and juicy Edgefield peaches with cereal and coffee for breakfast, then pack in some more Chucktown.

If you want to do the ghost tour go ahead, but I’ll take you to the Unitarian Church Cemetery to see Annabel Lee’s grave for free, and if there’s enough time before we put highway 61 under our tires again, I’ll take you out to Sullivan’s the site of “The Gold-Bug.”

We’ll head back downtown in the morning.

First, we’ll drive to the other side of the peninsula to The Citadel. I’m taking you to Daniel Library, my favorite spot on campus. The sweeping spiral staircase up to the stacks makes my heart sing, and the leather couches and chairs downstairs are butter-soft. I’m an alumnus, so we’ll sink into the supple leather with some light reading for a little while.

Before we leave campus, I want to show you Summerall Chapel, with this message in big black letters for the cadets to see every time they walk or march past: “REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH.” Summerall Chapel is adjacent to the library, facing the parade ground and the barracks with their chessboard marble courtyards visible from the street.

I imagine you want to hit the market on Market Street to survey the local artisans’ offerings.

We’ll also walk down King Street for some window shopping in the moderate sidewalk traffic.

Next, we’ll walk two blocks to The Cistern at CofC, in front of Randolph Hall.

It’s time for Vickery’s, where we had Bloody Marys after comps, adjacent to the CofC campus, right at the end of George Street. We’ll walk past the English department and faculty offices, all in Victorian mansions.

Jason (in red) will take good care of us at Vickery’s and tell fantastic stories. His parents own it, and our daughters used to play together. After that, if you’re feeling carnivorous, we’ll hit Rue de Jean for house-ground burgers cooked any temperature you want. I’ll have mine rare with gruyere or maybe black and bleu.

If you want something lighter, we’ll go to Gaulart & Maliclet (pronounced Gallart & Malaclay). I’m having the cold cucumber soup and the bourbon pecan poundcake. Chilled white with the soup, French-press coffee, brought to the table, with dessert.

Both restaurants’ atmospheres speak of who they are. Rue de Jean has dark wood and leather booths with dim lighting, and Gaulart & Maliclet is a bright and airy colorful cafe. They’re both divine in different ways.

After lunch, we’ll hit the road, passing back through the magical tree tunnel and up into the Piedmont, reaching Augusta in time for me to get to work at The Word of Mouth Cafe.