#08 – Delaware

Inspired by a news story from Fenwick Island, Delaware.

I know you’re looking for me. I wish you could hear me. Every night, I try to tell you where I am. I try to lead people to the place where my body is anyhow. There isn’t any way to tell you where I am now, the me that isn’t in the body me any more. Mom, you keep saying you want to find me safe and warm and I can’t feel warm or cold now, but I know if they ever find my body, you’ll worry about how cold I was, but I really never felt that cold. That may be what went wrong, that it felt warm. How did this happen?

I didn’t want to die, but I don’t think I was really living any more or a life I would consider…I don’t know, what did I expect? Sometimes I would see a friend from high school with a wife and a kid and wonder if I could ever do that and not screw it all up. Last year, Dylan, one of the kids I coach at soccer asked me how old I was when I had my first drink. I think he could tell I was smashed. Of course, I told him twenty-one, that’s what I was supposed to tell him. But I remember that day when I was twelve. Mark Santos had a bottle of Jack Daniels in his backpack and we went to the beach and drank from it in the dunes. I brought a tube of toothpaste that we each sucked on before heading home. We stood on the shore, scooping up salty ocean water and wincing while we swished it around in our mouths to rinse out the smell of the booze. We spit our blobs of white foam and watched them get folded into the sea. It was lost on me until now how that same water, mixed with being drunk, is why I can’t tell you this in a place we both exist.

What could I say to you if I was alive again? I would want you to know you were a good mother and it wasn’t your fault, but you wouldn’t believe me. You believed in me, even when there was nothing there to hang your confidence on. Something about this makes me think of that little girl JonBenet Ramsey, who was murdered. If she could be alive again, people could find out who killed her. There’d be a sense of justice. If I could be alive again, it would just prove to people they were right. I lived like I was a party kid and I died partying at twenty-nine. Being dead is so different. Now I visit people and can hear them. I was trying to see if this one cop I knew could get my presence and hear me. Then he gave my missing person flier to a clerk to make copies and the clerk said, “Whoa, this kid looks fifty!” The cop looked at my picture, shook his head, saying, “Yeah…didn’t he?”

I thought I still looked good because I moved around like a kid, but they’re right. My face, the wrinkles, even my eyes looked old. I didn’t tell you, but when I graduated last spring, one of my professors took me aside and told me it had made her feel good that there was someone in the classroom her own age. She was at least forty-five, with a grandchild.

You and Karen keep telling people that I was happy and looking forward to starting my new job. Who looks forward to being a substitute teacher? A full-time substitute teacher is the only job I could get. I saw myself becoming Mr. Belanger. Everyone knew he drank vodka from his thermos. His car had dings all over it because he drove around drunk.

But that isn’t why I drowned. I didn’t mean to, I don’t think. It was another party with a bunch of us there at Jeff’s condo. Downing beers and shots, I wanted to get high. I went out to my Jeep to get my weed. It’s not like I planned to do this, but I went to the beach…no shoes on…no coat. My teeth actually chattered. I yelped and laughed to myself how crazy I was being. I smoked for a bit, while my feet became numb under the water. Some thoughts raced through my head. I don’t remember them all. Some of them were you, but they were when I was a kid, young, like when you had those beaded sandals. I saw you with your hair pulled back. I don’t know if I already had dived into the water by then. It felt like when I jump sideways to kick the soccer ball, knowing I’ll fall and it will hurt like hell, but it feels good, so I go for it. The ocean was take-your-breath-away cold. I wish I could have walked back to the condo and told everyone how I dove in. I think I knew it was dangerous and I could…but everything’s so confusing. I just wish you would find my body. Then we’d all know and I could cry with you about the same thing.

________________________________________________________________

REAL NEWS STORIES used as inspiration for the story above

Search continues for missing man
29-year-old Selbyville resident was last seen on Tuesday in Fenwick Island

By Alex Ruoff • Staff Writer • February 12, 2010

FENWICK ISLAND — Emergency responders and close to 100 volunteers spent Thursday combing through heavy snow for Greg Forte, a 29-year-old Selbyville man who went missing Tuesday.

“Greg is always checking on everyone else, so when he didn’t call anyone we knew something was wrong,” said his mother, Linda Forte. “Right now we’re just hoping he’s somewhere warm and safe.”

According to Delaware State Police Sgt. Walter Newton, Forte was last seen leaving a Fenwick Island condominium on South Carolina Avenue at about 11:30 p.m. When he failed to return home, his friends grew concerned.

Forte’s car was found Wednesday morning in front of the condominium where he was last seen. The radio was on and his coat, cell phone, socks and shoes were inside the vehicle. The only trace of him was his hat, which was found on a nearby walkway to the ocean, police said.
Related

* Volunteers search for Forte

“We’re not sure what happened to him,” said Christi Arndt, Forte’s friend since the first grade. “They just saw him leave and no one really knows where he went.”

Newton said a search began immediately after the police report was filed Wednesday, but rescue efforts were hampered by blizzard conditions.

“A lot of our assets are tied up with helping people stranded by the storm,” he said. “We’re doing the best we can with the time we have.”

On Thursday, volunteers spent hours combing the town with rakes, shovels, brooms and other tools that allowed them to poke through the heavy snow.

When Matt Vought heard the news that his neighbor was missing, he immediately joined the search.

“I wasn’t just going to sit inside and do nothing,” he said. “We got some sticks and started checking houses, doing what we could do.”

And as the search continues, Forte’s family is saying their prayers.

“We’re hoping for a miracle,” Linda Forte said.

________________________________________________________________

Click HERE for information about my 2010 Write America Project. Thanks for visiting martycorreia.com.