A CURRENT TEMPTATION

My dad told me this story when I was ten years old.

In 1973, there was a twelve year old boy in Orange Beach, Alabama. He was stocky. He had blonde hair that turned white in the summer then green from chlorine. He had blue eyes and a few freckles on his shoulders. Running barefoot through woods made his feet indefnitely dirty and his skin abnormally tan. His name was Alan. He played in the sof sand on a beach near Cotton Bayou.

It was around 10 AM, and it was June. June in Alabama means the sun is angry; June in Alabama means miserable, humid heat. It was the kind of hot that makes a person wonder why he’s outside at all, the kind of hot that makes him think free chilled water at a catfsh restaurant is God’s gif to Earth. Tat day, the sun’s heat streaked through the atmosphere and seeped through thin clouds as Little Alan kept playing in the sof sand.

Alan was always been a bit wary of the Gulf because fuid never drained from his ears quickly. But that day, he decided, was hot enough for the risk. He stuck his fngers in his ears and marched toward the waves. His brother, who was four years his senior, yelled, “Don’t get sucked out to sea.” His mother, who made homemade tuna salad sandwiches, told him, “Please be careful.”

What happened next was never in the papers. What happened next was never on the news.

Nineteen seventy-three was the year Te Godfather won best picture, the year of Watergate and Roe v. Wade. Elvis broadcasted a performance from Hawaii. A volcano erupted on an island called Heimaey. Te Sears Tower was the tallest building in the world, and Vietnam released the last American POW. Little Alan with the white hair was just a little part of the world that year.

I’ve been to that same beach; I go there frequently to relax. I don’t bring tuna sandwiches or fruit, but I do bring a friend or two and some cheap beer. I sit on an oversized towel that has bleach stains in one corner. I play Pandora Radio on my phone; station: Fitz and the Tantrums. I think about teaching composition, about writing a thesis, about Moby Dick. I think about weddings and Islamaphobia and an old friend who has cancer. I think about a French profciency test and the lack of academic jobs. I think about too much, take a sip of beer, and decide to get in the water.

As soon as my feet touch the waves, I am calm. Te Gulf rolls into me, fuid curves of saltwater. And I like it. Ten I feel the current. It tugs at me, circles around my ankles and coaxes me to sea. I fght against it instinctually.

My cousin used to tell me, “Undertow will drag you along the sea foor and scratch your legs against crab claws and broken shells.” I believed him. Most people on the Gulf Coast have felt the undertow in one way or another. Everyone knows it’s dangerous.

When Alan plunged into the waves, he was fne at frst. He wondered if the salt in the Gulf was the same salt that was on Fritos. As his skin cooled, he imagined a ssshhhh sound as though a fre was being put out. He waded around the shallows for fve whole minutes before he felt the current. He faced land, his back to the breaking waves, and thought about eating some of the watermelon his mom put in the ice chest along with the tuna sandwiches. He thought about how sweet and moist the ripe fruit would taste. He knew a watermelon wouldn’t grow in his belly if he swallowed a seed. He knew because he swallowed one a month ago, and no fruit had sprouted inside him. He thought about what it would feel like to have a watermelon in his tummy.

And then a wave broke on him; he went under, white hair and all. Te Gulf of Mexico slurped his body right up. And he let it. I bet he scraped against some crab claws and sea shells, too. Tere are plenty of stories about undertow on the internet, just none about Alan. All kinds of people get slurped up. A forty year old woman from Michigan. An elderly man from Colorado. Children of people who aren’t from the area. Lots of buckets and pails get lef on the shore and watch the people get pulled away.

When I stayed in Mississippi, I heard about eddies in the Pascagoula River. Eddies are swirling currents that whip around river bends and twirl across the river’s surface; eddies are nature’s whirlpools. People sometimes foat into them then go spinning down and down until their lungs get too wet. Eventually they stop spinning, but the eddies don’t. Undertow is the same way, except you can’t see it. It’s just there: rushing beneath the surf, ready to get some lungs too wet. People don’t really think about dry lungs.

I’ve never spun down an eddy or been slurped up by the Gulf, but sometimes the undertow is tempting. It’s harder to fght the current than go with it. And miles of water seem better than miles of land sometimes. Miles of water don’t care about a thesis or weddings or jobs. Nobody has to have insurance in miles of water. Nobody answers emails or pays bills or patches a hole in a car tire. Miles of water are just miles of water, and undertow is a fast track to getting there. Some people say that nothing compares to how they feel underwater. Some people say that water is where they are most comfortable. Water can be serene. People need to feel weightless every once in a while. Water can make that happen. And though people can’t breathe water and don’t have gills, there’s something to being surrounded by fuid, like a baby in a womb. I wonder if that is how dolphins feel all the time. Is that what Little Alan felt like?

I was ten when my dad frst told me the story of how he was caught in undertow in 1973. At the time, I didn’t think to ask him if he felt like a dolphin, I just wanted to know how he survived. “You just swim with it,” he said. “Hold your breath and swim with it. Eventually, you’ll pop up.” “Ten what?” I asked. “Ten you have to swim back to shore. But you gotta swim diagonal. You can’t fght the current head on.” “How long does it take to swim back?” I asked. “Depends,” he said, “on how far you got pulled out.” “How long did it take you?” “A long long time. But I made it. And got to have my watermelon.”

Little Alan was Big Alan when I heard his story. I never met the white haired boy, but I know the man he grew up to be. I’m glad he got to have watermelon that day. If he didn’t swim back to shore, I wouldn’t be here to worry about a thesis, babies, or PhD programs.

I know undertow isn’t a good thing. I shouldn’t want to fall victim to it. But I’d be lying if I said that it doesn’t tempt me sometimes. I don’t want to be violently thrashed around beneath the surface of the Gulf. Tat would be a tragedy; that would be newsworthy. But sometimes when I frst touch the waves, when I frst feel the current tugging at my ankles, I want to just let go. I want to release myself into the womb, let the current pull me away. I want to hold my breath and swim with it. And then I’ll pop up somewhere diferent. Cuba. Maybe I’ll end up in Cuba. Or maybe the temptation is enough to soothe me. Maybe I’ll keep wading in the shallows, fghting against the current instinctually.