Innocene - Raccoon

Innocence (Raccoon)


As he reached down to pick up the jeweled scallop shell, flawless, almost as if from a mold, the symmetry breathtaking in its perfection, I watched his hand, his beautiful hand and wished he was holding mine. His hair, flaxen, bangs almost obscuring one eye: his eyes, like rare jade, piercing. I felt my heart flutter knowing that his man, handsome, unaware that my eyes coveted him, had little idea that I wanted him to hole me close.


I did not know him, but as he stood back up, he saw me out of the corner of his eye, and grinned self consciously, yet slightly flirtatiously, and said “Hey.” Just hey. No introduction, nothing complicated, just hey. And all that was required of me was to say hay back.


“Hey,” I said, as I blinked, then looked down for just a half second before I looked at him again, studying him, his muscular calves, evenly tanned skin, his tight abs, and developed chest, square jaw, that smile, bedeviling, disarming, and his dancing eyes. All of this was captured in a snapshot, so quickly that perhaps he hadn’t noticed my awe. His eyes still held mine as I returned to his face, his face that had gained some intensity, or was it tension. No, it was intensity for he did not look away to even flinch, relaxed.


I felt confused, like my knees were about to cave, buckle, leaving me in a pile of bones, but I tried not to show just how nervous I was, my smile just a little too tight.


“I’m Robert,” he said.


“Wayne,” I uttered in response.


“Where are you visiting from?”


It was summer break and out-of-towners and tourists were en masse.


“Asheville.” And then “North Carolina I mean,” I mustered, as if this was not obvious.


“I know where that is. I go to college at Wake.”


“What are you majoring in?” I inquired clumsily, trying to sound natural, get my bearings, understanding that without the eye liner I felt naked, embarrassed.


“Pharmacology,” he replied, without a hint if feeling flustered.


“Cool,” I summoned. “I might apply to Wake next year. I don’t know. Unless I move to California that is…” trying to show just how brave a move like that could be. Bravado.


He nodded. Something still, yet understood, passed between us, an apparition or a shadow, something unseen, unheard, yet you knew it was present.


“Cool,” he stated matter-of-factly. Just cool. No elaboration. I felt trapped for words in that moment, trying to find anything to say.


“That’s a beautiful shell, “I stammered. I almost picked it up first.”


“Yeah. Take a look.” And as he held it out to me and I reached to grab it, careful not to actually touch him, his fingers lingered just a slight second. I flushed, thankful I had been out in the heat for a few hours.


“Well,” he said, “I am staying at the cottage just up the beach, the blue one on stilts.

“Really?” I replied a beat too soon, my heart pounding like a bass drum, feeling as if I had fallen down a well, or as if the undertow might smother me. “I’m staying just a few houses down – the yellow one.”


He smiled. “Cool.” Yeah, cool I thought. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”


And with that, he turned and walked up the beach, leaving me with that beautiful scallop, a remembrance, and possibly a hint at what a future might be like with someone you adored, who equally adored you. It was the first time I had felt a certain amount of awareness, a certain amount what it might be to be an adult, not quite comprehending that my idealization was still very childlike in general. And it was the first time I felt I knew who I was for just a few moments, moments that would eventually flood me like ocean waves or pockets of rain.