Robert

We were out on the beach playing with paddles, a game with a name I could never remember. Our young lives shone bright in that November sun. Adrian and I weren’t really that young, but I felt like I could live forever.

A potbellied, life-weathered man yelled things we couldn’t understand from his seat on the sand a short distance away. His beat-up leather skin had been worn by the beach like driftwood in the sun. He was crazy, drunk, or high—maybe all three. His shouts were garbled by the waves and the wind. Our game was like the tide, pushing us in his direction. As his words became audible, we realized he’d been keeping score, the referee of a game that he hadn’t been invited to between two people he didn’t know. According to him, I was winning. He wanted to play. I felt vulnerable in my beachy near-nudity and Adrian was put off, so we moved in the other direction.

The man got up and walked toward us. We looked at each other incredulously as he approached. Adrian instinctively took a defensive stance in front of me and attempted to tell this bum to piss off in the nicest way possible. He kept talking at us, though, adjusting his filthy cap and slipping shorts, asking to play the game with us. Adrian decided to entertain him.

“Where you from, man?”

“Chicago,” the stranger replied.

“That’s a beautiful city.”

“How bout you guys?”

“I’m from here. She’s from L.A,” Adrian replied. “What brought you to Miami?”

“Work.”

“What do you do?”

“Electrician. Miami was good to me—then I lost my job.”

“Sucks,” Adrian said sympathetically. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Maybe those girls will play with you.” The man turned around, seeing the topless girls behind him that he hadn’t noticed. He turned back to us, wide-eyed and flustered, and yelled a startled “Hey!”, the remark he used to mean just about anything—punctuation, stalling, surprise. He had trouble focusing on us. He looked back at the breasts on display and to us again. And suddenly, he asked if we were married.

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Two years—and we still like each other.”

That was not true, like most of the things Adrian told our new friend.

“Are you married?” “I was,” he said. “Not any more, though.” “What happened?” “She hates me!” “Well, that’s a problem,” I said, and we laughed lightly. “She cheated on me. It wasn’t really that—I had my fun. I got home to her and a guy at our house, though. I at least kept all my stuff outside, not in our house.” We let him talk, agreeing about keeping “our house” sacred. At first he said he’d handled it well, given that he’d been unfaithful, too. But his story changed.

“I threw her stuff out the window.” “First story or second?” “Second. All of it. That was our house, you know?” “You got any kids?” Adrian asked. “Yeah, a daughter.” “What’s her name?” He pointed to the second of his three tattoos, which read “R.D.,” placed just under “Out of Control” and above an image of barbed wire, all stacked on his sorry left bicep. “Rachel.” “Is she ‘out of control’?” “Hey! No, she’s a nice young lady.” “She back in Chicago?” “Yeah, with her mom.” He said he saw his daughter sometimes and talked to her often, but his shifting gaze told me he hadn’t for a long time.

The two men continued talking as my heart sank in silence. I pitched in a few words intermittently. He said to Adrian, “Hey! I like her.” He paused bashfully, trying not to be forward. “She’s cute.” “Thanks,” I said quietly. “Yeah, she is,” Adrian said, wrapping his arm around my waist. “What’s your name, man?” “Robert.” Adrian extended his hand to Robert and they shook. “Wanna play a game?” “Yeah!” Robert replied so happily it made me sadder. “Not with her though, she’s too good.” We laughed. “Yeah, she kicked my ass. Let’s play.”

They went down to the water. I sat on the sand, watching the man I loved give joy and validation to a man who’d likely felt neither for a long, long time. I watched this sad stranger smile like a boy at play as Adrian let him win by a point. “It was a good game,” they agreed. I don’t know if I’d ever loved anyone so much. “Well, we gotta go, man. It was nice to meet you, Robert.” We all shook hands, but I wanted to hug them. Adrian and I took off, leaving Robert on the beach.

As we walked into the setting sun, Adrian said, “I like doing that, entertaining crazy people,” making our chat seem lighter than it was. I said, “He just needed somebody to talk to.” “I wonder how he got to be so miserable,” he said, and I understood why he lied to Robert. “He was messed up on all kinds of stuff, but mostly loneliness, I think. I’m glad we talked to him.” “Me too.” One day, I’ll teach my children about life at the beach. I’ll point to the waves and tell them about flux and flow, beauty and danger, time and temporality, and about how no matter how many castles you build or how many times you write your name in the sand, the waves always crash. And sometimes they drag you under or take you out to sea, but somehow they always manage to bring you back to shore.

—Columnist Megan E. McKenzie can be reached at mckenzie@fas.harvard.edu.