Two draft essays

Beach Day

Office of the County Administrator, Conway, S.C.

Approximately 1900 to 1945 hours on 8-17-91, subject (victim) C.H. was in the surf. Mr. H. was in waist deep water when he was experiencing difficulty due to larger than normal breaking waves because of a hurricane in the Atlantic.



It had been a few years since my father had remarried and I was still getting used to have four new brothers. The vacation in Myrtle Beach had been set up to give us ll a little more time to adjust - a therapy session on the sand, in other words. My brother Chris - 14 and skinny with buckteeth and sandy brown hair - set his bag down and grabbed an inflatable WALMART-style raft. He slapped me on the arm as he passed so I nodded to my father, grabbed the other raft and headed to the hotel elevator. 15 floors down and we emerged on the cool parking deck that led to the beach. The sun burned my thin shoulders through my heavy metal T-shirt. It was uncomfortable in the August heat, but succeeded in hiding my thin, narrow chest and arms. It was a worthwhile exchange. Chris was far down the beach already as I gripped the scratchy, blue raft, squeezed it under my arm and followed him.



A rip current had developed because of the larger amount of water being pushed toward shore and retreating in a low area seaward.





The water was rougher than I realized, but Chris and I managed to roll onto the rafts enough to get a few awkward rides into shore. He pushed deeper into the gray-green ocean and I followed, squinting as the saltwater waves slapped me in the face. The shelf fell away under my feet and I pulled the raft across my body with both arms dangling over. The shore was retreating from me. Chris was getting no closer. I could hear him yelling at me and as I paddled closer, I saw two figures beyond him, bobbing between and behind the waves. We swam hard to reach them.



A friend of Mr. H’s attempted to assist him but found he was also having problems. Since lifeguards were off duty, a bystander, David Murphy took a float through heavy surf to Mr. H and his friend. At this point, Mr. H was unconscious. All three were over a hundred yards out.



Two men bobbed in the surf, struggling against the rising waves. I judged both to be 200 to 250 pounds - thick in the arms and chest. They were older than me, but not old. Chris turned to me and told me he was going in to get help. I opened my mouth, swallowed seawater by accident, and before I could choke it out, Chris was swimming towards the shore, angling off to one side, raising his head, correcting his direction and setting off again. I looked at the two men again. One stared at me with wide eyes, his cheeks flush, mouth open and exhausted. He seemed to be holding his friend under the waves. His friend's eyes were closed, his head sagged and rolled on his neck - his cheecks and forehead were gray. I pushed my raft towards the conscious man and yelled:

"We have to swim in! Grab the raft and let's swim him in!"

"I can't," he moaned. "I'm too tired. I can't swim."

I stared at him, shoved the raft under his arms and swam to his friend's opposite side.

"We have to get him in man - I can't do it alone! You have to help me!" I yelled.

He said nothing, closing his eyes and leaning on the canvas raft. Between us, the pale man bobbed and sank, the waves beating against his face. I grabbed the hair low on the back of his head, made a fist and shoved his skull skyward, trying to lift it above the whitecaps. It wasn't enough. Wave after wave pounded us, in and out of his eyes and mouth. Thicker fluid streamed from his nose. My pleas to the living man to help me swim in were met with moans barely lifted above the roar of the sea. His face was turned away from us. I had decided that i could not swim us all in by myself and barely tried. My legs hurt and my right arm ached from holding the man up. The waves continued to rise and the heavy surf dragged us parallel to the shore. It was getting harder to keep my own head above water. I shoved the dying man's head up as best I could, stared at the darkening sky and prayed. I can't remember if I asked the men to join me.



Chris brother of David and their father Dennis Murphy took another float to assist. Upon contact Dennis Murphy attempted to open an airway since Mr. H was not breathing. H and his friend were being brought toward shore by these rescuers. Because of the 3 to 4 foot waves that were closing out, the rescuers had a difficult time moving to shore. A security guard swam out to assist.



I heard my father before I saw him. As dusk settled on the ocean, the beach continued to slip behind the rolling surf. Without my glasses, I could barely make out figures on the shore. They seemed like bits of color turned to face me - motionless and silent. My father called to me from my right. I turned and as another roller pushed past me, the water fell and I spotted him - 50 yards away and swimming hard. He pulled his head up between strokes and saw me. He corrected his direction and plunged back in, swimming furiously towards me. When he had reached us and regained his breath, he ordered me to swim in. I didn't know if I could but I refused anyway. He didn't argue. With his strength, he began to push us towards shore. I joined him and saw that the beach was indeed becoming clearer - the waves breaking against our bodies instead of over them. My brother Chris reached us shortly after and then, as we moved closer, a parking lot attendant, off-duty, from the lot where Chris and I had emerged in the August air an hour and a lifetime ago. The guard looked at the man heaved shoulders first across the raft, his legs trailing in the sea behind us. "That guy's dead."



We struggled together to drag the men onto the beach. When we were about 20 feet out and my feet could finally touch the sand, two more men leapt into the water to help us. They were middle-aged, one was balding - not lifeguards, just men that happened to be on the beach. I thanked them silently as I continued to catch my breath. Stumbling onto the sand, I wiped the hair from my eyes, felt the heavy, hot buzzing in my legs and the hollowness in my chest. I looked up at the circle of people who surrounded us. There they stood, their muscles glistening in the sun - their girlfriends tucked carefully behind them to spare them the horror of the dead man on the beach. Silently they stood: men and women that formed the backdrop to the drama of life and death, playing in real time before them. They did nothing. They said nothing. They backed away from me and I walked slowly through the circle, ridiculously embarrassed for my skinny body and the t-shirt that clung to my skin. At some point, someone had called the paramedics and they worked as I walked away. I hugged my father and my family and sat down on the sand.



I believe these rescuers made the difference. Although Mr. H died, he was given a chance to be brought to shore to be revived. Mr. Hanna’s friend would have drowned if he had not been rescued.

Signed: Duke Brown. .Horry County Waterfront Director.



Riptides slammed the South Carolina shoreline all night. Several people had to be pulled from the water, but only one died - mine. We spent a few hours at the hospital to check for secondary drowning, then were released, only to be visited by the beachmaster at our hotel room later that night. He told us the beach would be shut down the next day - it was just too dangerous. But when I woke up, the beaches were jammed, just like they had been the day before. The beachmaster called. He apologized, but people wanted their beach vacation, riptides or no riptides. He was overruled and the beaches stayed open. We even joined them later in the day but I couldn't go near the water. When my other brothers charged towards the surf, I cringed. It was hard to find a topic of conversation that didn't bring us back to a discussion of death, the senselessness and simplicity of it - the randomness that had but the three of us in the middle of it all. We were thankful for our lives, but couldn't reflect on anything but the man we had failed to save. We decided to cut our vacation short. The last day we were there, I was walking past the hotel pool and my eye was drawn to a man lounging in a pool chair. It was the man who lived. I stared, my heart speeding up even as my mind slowed down. He noticed me and raised his hand. He said nothing.

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Hello Frank (unfinished)

From where i crouched, I could hear, but not see, the creek water dutifully flowing below the ice alongside my house. A scrim of snow covered the ice and I shivered as I lit my cigarette, blocking the flame from the wind. I shut my eyes and prayed to God not to give me a child.

I wasn't ready I argued. I drew on the cigarette - in deeply and out. A cloud of white ascended. See that God! I smoke! That's not the behavior of a mature adult, right? My mind buzzed with excuses and selfish fear. How would I fit in the band? Or my friends? Shit, I'm just 28 years old - images and excuses screamed through my head as a kind of panic tightened the space around my heart. And then, something I'd never experienced. My prayer was answered - directly and immediately. A voice cut cleanly through my mental monologue: "Get ready," the voice said. "This is going to happen."

I opened my eyes. The snow was blinding - a perfect mirror for the afternoon sun. I put out the cigarette and went inside to exchange hugs and goofy smiles with my wife, throwing around ideas about how to tell our family. I wasn't that I didn't want a baby or didn't think one could be coming. But all that seemed like playing house now. I mean you talk about becoming mommy and daddy because that's the next step after getting married and buying the house. But at that moment, the thought that dominated my mind was how happy I was that I still had nine months to get ready.

I think the nine months between conception and birth are as much about preparing the parents as it is preparing the baby. I'd like to say I grew up a lot in that period, but that wouldn't be honest. I spent the intervening months trying to cram in everything I was afraid I would no longer be able to do. I played video games while Kathy rested during the day and went out with friends so she could sleep well at night. I went to lamaze classes and took notes during doctor visits. I went to ten concerts that summer - saw Kiss from the cheap seats and Dylan from more expensive ones. When we went to see the Allman Brothers, it seemed people went out of their way to blow pot smoke at my pregnant wife.

We had sat down to pick names before we knew whether the baby was going to be a boy or a girl. We each listed five names for a boy and five names for a girl. On the list for the boy's names, one name matched. And so from the day the OB-GYN confirmed that it was, in fact, a boy, our baby was no longer a baby - it was Frank.

About six months in, Kathy went into false labor. We rushed in to the hospital where they hooked her up to machines and told her to be very still. Everyone was wearing gloves and masks and looking serious. I sat to the side and tried not to look stricken. I peeked between the blue gown-covered forms, enough to get a look at Kathy's face. Her eyes were closed, seemingly in concentration. I wondered if she was focused on keeping the baby in. At one point, the doctor and nurses left and told me to watch the machines while my wife rested. On the screens were two green lines, jumping in time - my wife's heartbeat on one and my baby's heartbeat on another. I stared at the green lines as the appeared on the left, jumped in the middle, then tracked off to the right, leaving a ghostly trail. Every time the green line jumped, I took a breath.

After that, the realization that baby was coming became much more real. Our family had been spared a near-disaster and I found myself praying nearly every day that it would remain at bay for a little longer. I began reading books that laid out the progress of the baby's development. I smiled as I read that his eyelashes were growing in and took note that his liver and lungs were still developing. I checked the survival rates for babies in the third trimester and felt my heart ease a little as each week passed. Kathy was ready before I was - a by-product no doubt of pain in her legs and the late summer heat that made sleeping that much more difficult. But neither of us were really ready. How could you be?

In late October, we were up late on a Wednesday night, watching a frustrating TV comedy called "Ed" about a man who spent each week failing to get the girl. Kathy turned to me to tell me she was going into labor but even then, I didn't put it together with the arrival of an actual child. It was a natural occurrence - an event in and of itself. My mind didn't let me consider, at least at that time, what it portended. We went through the motions - walking around, bending - anything we thought might speed the labor along, but it subsided nonetheless. I slept then, to prepare for work in case the baby decided, once again, to delay his arrival. That question was answered two hours later when Kathy pulled me out of a dead sleep to ask me (firmly, kindly) to get up and get the car.

Once there, we were put in a kind of pregnancy waiting room, where we stayed for hours. Once the doctors decided we had, in fact, reached the point of no return, we were moved into the delivery room where we waited. For hours. It wasn't that Kathy wasn't trying. She gave all she had - blood, sweat and tears - but once she reached a certain point, everything just stopped. After a while, the doctor left, then the nurse - only checking in every once in a while. It's going to take a while, they told me, but first pregnancies usually do. The halls quieted down, the shadows and sleepiness crept in.

Kathy breathed slowly in an uneasy sleep on the gurney next to me. I worked to arrange the foam-stuffed futon into a comfortable shape on the floor beside her. Tomorrow is the big day, I thought. Tomorrow, I thought again and my breath caught in my throat. I repeated the old argument - hollow and pathetic - that I wasn't ready and mentally, tried to push against the word "tomorrow". it didn't budge. I tried to go around it. I couldn't. It stood before me, towering, crushing any attempt to delay or deny what was now the single unalterable fact: that before the sun set again, I would be a father. Not only that, but I would be a father forever. There would never again be a day when I was just a guy, just a husband. I would be a parent. I just had no idea how the fuck I was going to do it.


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