It was a warm weekend. In late October we have a warm spell called Indian Summer. It is the last chance to enjoy the warmth of the sun before the chill of winter sets in for good. I decided to take advantage of the nice weather to spend a few days at the beach.
It takes about two and a half hours to drive to the shore from Foggy Bottom. Once you are out of the city, the majority of the trip is open rural highways running through farms, cornfields and an occasional small town. There are three or four roadside vegetable stands along the way and a couple of outlet shopping centers. The VFW in one town sells barbecued chicken at the main intersection on weekends during the summer. I knew the route so well that I could almost go into a trance as I left the beltway and come out again at the beach. It is a great time for thinking things through.
I was thinking a lot about Frank Haggerty and why I had become so obsessed. Frank really hadn't done anything wrong to me other than mislead me about who he was. I suppose I was extra sensitive to this because my parents had done the same thing. Even the hacking attempts hadn't done any real damage. But something was eating at me and I couldn't put my finger on it.
I kept turning over the same rocks in my mind, finding nothing underneath them, until I gave it up and turned on the radio. Sometimes it is better to not think about things. I had slowed down to twenty-five mph to go through a deserted looking old town. The houses that lined the main street were all in bad need of a paint job. I wonder what people in the town do, I thought to myself. As I left the town and speeded up to fifty-five, I turned up the radio and spent the rest of the trip singing along to oldies.
I arrived at the beach and checked into my hotel. It was just after noon so I decided to take a walk down the boardwalk and try to find an open place to eat. This late in the year most of the restaurants had closed for the winter. Only a few were open to service the people who lived there year around. The boardwalk was nearly deserted. It was wonderful walking in solitude of the salt air amid the sounds of wave and seagulls. Whatever was bothering me had gone away. At least for now.
I found a restaurant where main street ends at the boardwalk. I ordered a roast beef sandwich with a special horseradish dressing. It was ecstasy for my taste buds, but I knew I would pay for it later. I asked if they had any special beers. They didn't so I ordered an iced tea.
The only other people in the restaurant were two salty looking characters who were reinforcing each other's views that the new mayor was trying to put everybody out of business. Apparently, there was a new tax that was intended to fund beach reclamation. Large bulldozers would go up to the waterline at low tide and shove sand back up on the beach. This had to be done every ten or fifteen years, otherwise the beach would wash completely into the sea. The tax was only a five-percent surtax, which meant that it would cost them an additional fourth of a cent on each dollar of sales. To hear these guys talk, it was a blatant attempt on the part of the mayor to drive them out of business. I wish my troubles could be reduced to a fourth of a cent on each dollar, I thought to myself. And as I did that gnawing restlessness started coming back. I finished my tea, left a more than generous tip, and headed back down the boardwalk.
My car was in the hotel parking lot, so I went there first to get a folding aluminum beach that I always brought with me to the beach. It sat about a foot up off the sand so you could stretch out you legs and almost recline. I tucked the chair up under my arm and headed for the end of the boardwalk.
Once you are at the end of the boardwalk you are at the end of civilization. You can continue to walk down the beach for miles but there are no stores, no lifeguard stands and very few houses. If you are looking for isolation it is the place to go.
As I walked down the desolate beach, I went over my debate with Margaret Xhtsosee. I felt a little guilty about how I had bested her in The Brewer's Pub. Margaret was a sincere and judicious person. She would have never defeated me for show the way I had done her. It bothered me that I had taken the low road. But as I thought about it, I began to wonder if I really had bested her. I had won the argument. But in hindsight it was won a little too easy. Margaret had finessed me into taking the lead by offering highly predictable sophomoric arguments. If I hadn't had so many things on my mind I would have seen it. I thought I was leading her into a trap, but Margaret must have seen it coming. I wasn't that clever and my argument wasn't that shrewd. The more I thought about it the more I realized that Margaret had me right where she wanted me - not the other way around. Margaret was an extraordinary person and it would take me a long time to understand her. I didn't understand why she had done that, but at least I knew that wasn't what was bothering me.
There was one place left to look. I had this gnawing emptiness from long ago that I filled with anger at the world and covered with a tough guy persona. It was a corner of my being that I refused to visit. If that was the source of my restlessness, then I was just going to have to live with it. It was a part of my life that I could do nothing about.