At the End of the Road

            Ben's car said a lot about him, an off-white, crappy little four-door jeep that had one green door on the right hand side. The jeep though spoke louder than words and it said that Ben was nothing less than reliable.  In late August though Ben was starting to get antsy which was uncharacteristic of a collected person. For those around him we thought that it was a bad bout of low blood sugar. Or perhaps the machine that kept his pancreas running, which was attached to his side via suction cup, was malfunctioning.  Yet as the days passed during my extended stay in Homer, the town literally at the end of the road, I was beginning to feel it too. After a long summer of rain, clouds and well, more rain those first few days of August proved lucrative in sunshine. Ben, being as spontaneous as the rest of us, was ready to go on a mission, which in my friend circle was known as a fun activity that was highly adventurous, slightly dangerous and very productive in wasting time. At this time we all had cabin fever so bad that Ben wasn't the only one ready for anything, it was time that we finally livened up our summer, for a little while at least.

            One partially hot day got all our minds going. Swimming came up a few times between Ben and me that morning as we snickered over Internet videos of Robin Williams' comedy sketches. As was customary one guy 'babysat' me most of the afternoon while my other friends had to work at various jobs. We were on rotation since I couldn't drive yet and Ben's turn proved to be the time when most of the ideas floated to the surface.

            "Swimming?" I questioned as my fingers diligently toggled with the mouse clicker, "Not too cold for that?"

            "Nah," he pressed the issue with a smile that made his cheeks turn into meatballs, "Trust me we get out on a beach and things will heat right up." He said this in his usual sarcastic manner as his elbow prodded me jokingly in the ribs.

            It all sounded good in theory, a plan okay on paper until actually built and put to the test.  Yet what came to my mind first was which beach? Most Homer beaches consisted of driftwood and large stones to moderate sized rocks, nothing too ideal for a swimming excursion.

            "Just trust me Shell," he said with normal Ben swagger, "You know I always think of something."

            So it was settled as we rounded up what was left of our 'gang'. Most had left, back to college, and some had fallen out of our friend circle. By mid afternoon we had kidnapped Dave after his monotonous slime line job at the Fish Factory and on our way to get ice for a cooler of soda we bumped into Zac who was sporting another jeep original.  The icing on the cake was Tia who we were going to meet at our designated point of destination, and for me it felt good to no longer be out chromosomed. After a bit of heated debate between the Italians in our team, that being Ben and me, we settled on the beach that Ben had discovered a few days earlier. It was situated at end of East End Road twenty miles or so from the city of Homer. We would have to drive through the Russian village and as Ben said, down a steep four-wheeler path to what he proclaimed would be the best retreat area.

             The entire drive down Dave had been reading a book and seemed almost reluctant to put up with the rest of our antics. In a morose fashion he had his nose hidden in the pages about Alpha-Company, a platoon of men who all died except one. I wondered if at that moment he felt like that one man, alone and left out perhaps. He stayed lodged in his readings as I chatted with Zac over arbitrary things of his college life. Time passed quickly as I filled the empty space of the four door with chatter and junk food wrappers. 

            After a twisting drive over broken cement that would have made almost anyone car sick we arrived at the dirt portion of our journey. The jeep handled well as most jeeps would as we settled in for a trip through a time capsule. There were women in dresses on tractors, cows, horses and houses that looked like mansions. Zac commented about rallying a brand new dirt bike he saw parked in someone's drive way. He pointed over me; eyes squinted in his usual fashion, his pupils dilated in what we knew as a normal Zac way. I noticed that his skin was red with perpetual sunburn that almost made his fair ginger colored hair look normal. "None of that," I laughed as I pushed him over to his side of the jeep, "We aren't letting you get in any trouble this time." He scooted over and folded his arms over his chest with a mock pout as I gave him another playful shove.

            "I never get into any trouble," he mumbled mockingly. I rolled my eyes as if to remind of him of stories for another time and another place.

            We soon reached what any sane person would speculate was the end of the road, but there we gathered Tia, whose borderline feminine truck was parked on a slant so steep you would think it would start to roll backwards. She climbed in the jeep and soon made a Zac and Tia sandwich filling out of me. Tia soon proved that the audio volume on her voice was turned up on high and the boys were all just trying to find the mute button. Yet I even felt myself shrieking as we descended the four-wheeler path to the beach. The path was almost completely vertical by most standards with just a little less than two feet of room on both sides of the vehicle. On one side was an eroding cliff face and on the other was a steep drop off that certainly spelled doom. The path though did not descend straight down; it twisted and turned snaking the jeep into dangerous corners and around unforgiving bends. All I could do was hold on to the back of Dave's seat and shut my eyes hoping this car would maneuver just as well as Ben could through a conversation. It didn't fail to impress as usual and soon I felt my body's equilibrium balance out as the jeep righted itself and we coasted out onto a sandy strip of beach. It was then that we realized there was not water, just endless fields of mud and sand stretching in a rippling pattern out to a thin strip of milky ocean.

            There we were, five insane teenagers, standing forlorn in bikinis and swim trunks. There was silence for a moment as we all stood outside the jeep looking down the mud flats. "Should have checked a tide book," Ben said in a muffled voice as he rubbed the back of his neck.

            "You think," Dave retaliated in an almost 'I told you so' manner.

            "Well," I said in my most leader approved voice as I tightened the string on my bikini, "Let's make the most of it!" I applied my usual sunscreen, which was the consistency of sour cream, on every bit of exposed skin and with that I started hauling down the beach with Tia on my heals.

            The mud squished up through my toes as soon as I hit the flats. I heard Tia squeal somewhere behind me but I took no notice. The water that collected on the flats was cool and refreshing as mud splatter from my walking began to make abstract art on my legs. Soon everyone caught up, Zac striking out to take the lead. We trudged our legs growing to feel like jelly as we felt like we were showing more skin then was decent in a Russian village. It didn't take too long before we reached the ocean, still pretty cold but warm for Alaska. The water had been sitting at low tide for a while and the sun had heated it just slightly. We laid down in it, rolled around in it and splashed it at each other. Even Dave who had been unwilling at first was smiling as I hurled my cupped hands full of water at his legs.

            I don't know who threw the first handful of mud though. Perhaps it was flirtatious Ben trying his new found 'game' out on Tia. Or it could have been Zac, who liked to be the first one to start trouble. We all excluded Dave, who was looking in the opposite direction, but all I really remember was feeling slimy mud oozing down my cheeks. I looked up at Tia who in the past ten seconds had accumulated a couple pounds of mud. The boys, acting on their own inner immaturity were laughing hysterically as Tia and I wiped some of the mud from our eyes. Us girls locked eyes and the boys soon knew that it was on.

            Mud was flying this way and that. We were covered head to toe sometimes washing it off futilely sometimes reaching down to pick up bigger handfuls. The boys would pick us up and throw us in the water dragging us through the mud. We all laughed and ran up and down the flats like hyperactive puppies until our lungs were stretched to capacity and we had to take a breather. Mud was dripping out of one of my ears as we all sat down huffing and silently laughing as we tried to catch our breath. The sun had dried the mud into flaky gray skin that sloughed off every time we moved. "Mud is really good for your skin you know," Tia wheezed out as she lay back in the mud.

            "Yeah," I whispered barely audible, "Like mud baths at spas and stuff like that. It makes your skin really smooth."

            "Really?" Ben chuckled, "I'm going to have silky smooth skin then...sexy."

            "Shut up Ben," Dave reached over me to try to hit Ben in the shoulder, but he didn't have the strength, his arm just bounced off my exposed stomach.

            "Smooth," Zac interjected as he sat up flashing his tattoo on his back that looked like a twenty-five cent stick on. Dave made a mock grimace as he pushed some of his baby curls out of his big blue eyes. 

            It was sometime before we got moving for real again. The boys wanted to go out and explore a huge barge that was resting high and dry on the flats. While their backs were turned Tia and I made our move running pell-mell back towards the jeep, which seemed to be an ominous distance away. We gained enough of a start to stay ahead, but quickly lost our stamina as just in time we make it to the jeep. We locked the doors in a giggly manner as we coated Ben's clean jeep in grey dust. As we searched for keys the boys situated themselves on top of the vehicle and Tia and I proceeded to drive up and down the beach with a few teenage boys as our hood ornaments. When we tired of this we stopped and let the boys back in for what would be another unnerving drive back up the cliff.

            As we all sat rigid while feeling like the jeep was going to topple backwards we couldn't help but laugh. Perhaps at the fact that Ben got mud in his pancreas machine and would have to deal with the daunting task of cleaning it out. Maybe it was at Zac who had found quiet solace in standing a huge piece of driftwood up straight in the sand like a skyscraper to say that he was there. It could have been at Dave who, despite everything, actually had fun or at Tia who was still babbling like a brook. In the end it could have been at me, who still had mud trickling from my ear.