Autobiographical again: Once more with feeling, for Brigits Flame
My sister has white blonde hair, the burnished moonlight shade that starts from silvery roots. That hair almost cost her her life. The rest of it was my fault. Or so I thought at the time.
We grew up in Hawaii, and in 1973 I was eight. We were at a party at a beach house with a long sloping lawn. The adults milled around the deck of the house, drinking and getting stoned. I went down to the beach with the rabble of other kids and we waded out through a sandy channel to the barrier reef.
We had a game going, poking sticks into sandy crevices where various bivalves were hiding. I was in my usual outfit, a homemade bikini bottom, my skin freckled and golden. My long hair hung down and floated on the water, red seaweed. I picked up a sea cucumber and squeezed it at the other kids, everyone squealing at the stream of water that shot out with pistol force.
I saw my four year old sister coming, teetering on her tiptoes across the deep sandy channel. She was supposed to stay on the beach with the other little kids and their pails and shovels. She was barely able to stand up, paddling with her hands, the water slapping her chin.
I usually liked playing with her, coming up with new things for us to do in which I was always the boss. But this time I felt a ripple of irritation that crosses the years and reminds me of the older sister meanness I immediately expressed. “You aren’t supposed to be out here. Go back to the beach. Big kids only out here.”
“I want to be with you,” she whined.
“No! Go back, right now, or I’m telling!”
So she turned around, lip quivering, and headed back.
My new game with the sea cucumbers was a hit, and we combed the reef for the hapless creatures. At some point, I remembered to look up to see if she was playing with the other (unsupervised) little kids on the beach.
She wasn’t.
I still remember the jolt of terror, like the shot to the heart in that movie Pulp Fiction. I reared back with the force of it. I spun around and spotted her- way out in the bay, her white blonde head getting further and further away.
“BONNY!” I screamed, and started in my clumsy splashing crawl in her direction. In only a few yards I realized she was too far away, and my only hope was to get adult help, so I switched directions and headed for the beach.
To this day my heart races with the remembered panic and hysteria that powered me across the channel, up the beach, and across the lawn, screaming: “My sister's drowning!” I attracted the attention of one of the dads, a little less inebriated than the others. He grabbed me by the shoulders, making eye contact, trying to calm me down. “Where is she?” he asked.
“She was supposed to go in but she got swept out! She’s in the bay!” I babbled.
He was a tall brown surfer, a friend of my dad’s named Vinnie. Deliberately he shielded his eyes and looked out to sea. “I just see a couple crab floats,” he said. People used bleach bottles back then to mark their traps, and there were several bobbing in the bay.
“No! She has blonde hair, her head looks like a bleach bottle!” I began hitting him, scratching at him, pulling on his hands. “Save her! Please save her!”
I saw a great heavy longboard lying on the lawn. I grabbed it by the nose and began dragging it toward the beach. He followed me, frowning. “She’s probably in the house with your mom,” he said. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
I continued hauling the heavy board toward the ocean, sobbing, “Please save her please save her please...”
He took the board from me. “Okay, I’ll go check. I’m pretty sure it’s just crab traps out there, but you seem sure, so I’ll go look, okay?”
He sprang into action, heaving the board up onto his head. He ran down the grass, launching it at a run and paddling like a demon out into the bay. I stood and watched him reach that furthest bobbing “crab trap”, and haul her up onto the board.
The commotion had attracted some of the adults who congregated around me as he returned with Bonny draped limply across his back. As soon as he reached the beach he held her upside down, whacking her back as she coughed and retched.
“Go get your mom,” Vinnie said. My legs were rubbery by then; I wobbled back up to the house and found my mom. Marijuana was a heavy sweet note in the air. I stood there panting. “Bonny drowned,” I said baldly.
“What?” my mom said. Her face drained of color and she sprang to her feet. Belatedly I remembered it wasn’t really drowning if the person lived, and I said, “She almost drowned. Vinnie rescued her,” but Mom was already running down the lawn, a streak of flowered shift and bare feet. I tottered back down to the beach and sat in the sand. I watched as Mom embraced Bonny, kissing her all over. I waited miserably, sick with guilt and adrenaline overload.
Her brown eyes turned to me, flaring with rage. “You were supposed to watch your sister! And how could you tell me she drowned! You scared the hell out of me!”
I had no words. Bonny had almost died because I wasn’t looking out for her like I was supposed to. I hung my head as she advanced, fire in her eyes.
Vinnie caught her arm, turning her to face him. “No, Toby saved her life! I never would have gone out if she hadn’t convinced me it was Bonny out there. She looked just like one of the floats, but I could tell Toby wasn’t going to let anything stop her from trying to save her sister. Look…” he showed her the vivid red scratches on his chest. “I wasn’t listening so she attacked me. Then she tried to take the board out herself.”
It didn’t matter what he said, I would have welcomed a beating. Eventually I got to hold Bonny, her wet head under my chin, sucking her forefinger. Mom wrapped a big towel around both of us. I got to hold her, once more with feeling.