To anybody else, I suppose, that might not seem like a big deal. But I never had a look at the sea in my 84 years, and I guessed it was about time I did.

Truth be told, I wasn’t as keen on taking a trip as I was on making a plan. I needed something to look ahead to, something to keep my mind from wandering into the long ago. Old age wears down your body, sure. But somewhere in your mind the line that separates the yesterdays from today weakens too, shifting around like it never did before. Start wondering about which bowl to put your breakfast cereal in, the next thing you know you’re standing there for five full minutes recalling the fight you had in high school with Gary Pendelton, who you punched in the nose then afterward offered him your handkerchief to stop the bleeding.

It never used to be like this, my mind drifting into the past. Laugh all you want, I’ll still tell you it’s true – I’ve spent whole years without remembering. Oh, I don’t mean remembering remembering, like where you put your car keys or how much bacon cost when you last bought it. I mean thinking back to the times you tried to bury for good. I mean recalling the points of your life that you wished you’d never lived, dangerous parts that still have the power to hurt.

I found ways to avoid the past. I’d take on more jobs than I could handle, then tell myself I’d never broken my word about an engine I’d fix or a flat tire I’d repair, and that if I didn’t finish someone would be disappointed. Every time I’d catch myself following a memory down a winding road I’d just set off on another order, or start talking to someone even if I had nothing to say. If I was alone I’d turn on the television or find some corner of the house that needed cleaning. I’d work into the night, taking my time, then collapse into bed, hoping I wouldn’t dream.

But in these last couple of years my memories have been coming around too often, and sometimes it takes more effort than I can muster to keep them at bay. Some things you can’t push away. You can only push them around for a while. Last week I found myself saying a string of harsh words out loud for no reason other than to stop my mind from digging any further into unbearable places. After that happened, I made the plan to go to the ocean, hoping such a crazy idea would occupy me, would give me a bit of peace.

Still, just because you want the past to leave you alone doesn’t mean it will. Sometimes it gets set on being remembered, and all your plans to stop it are as foolish as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

But I had to try.

When I told the guys at the garage I was taking a trip outside of Whitney, Kansas, you could have heard a mouse fart. Half a minute later Bert, who I hired 14 years ago and has laughed as many times as a bald man gets his hair cut, let out a haw-snort so loud that Louis, who was replacing an oil pan gasket on a panel van, bumped his head on the frame, surprised. Louis came over a minute later and set to laughing too, then patted me on the shoulder and looked into my eyes, worried when he saw I wasn’t kidding. Then he asked if I’d been to a doctor of late.

You see, I’d only been out of town three times in my life.

The farthest was Chambers Army Base, not 35 miles away, when I was drafted. They were going to ship me off until the X-rays said my bum knee wasn’t gonna let me march more than a mile, so the Army sent me home, where four days and four hours later I asked Carrie Ann Douglas to marry me. Two months after that she was my wife.

We spent our honeymoon at the Pearl Lake Inn, ten miles outside of town – there was none of this overseas traveling when I was a pup – and five days later we were in our house on Gideon Lane. I remember Carrie Ann said…

See, there I go. Memories again. Can’t keep ‘em away no more.

Anyway, last week I decided to see the ocean and told the guys to take care of the shop, then like a damn fool put some clothes in a canvas laundry bag and walked the half mile into town.

I asked the girl behind the bus counter what’s the best route to the ocean. She tap-tapped her computer then said Gulf of Mexico? I said no, I want one of the big ones and she said West Coast is Los Angeles and that’s 1,602 miles, and Cape Quell, Virginia, on the east, is 1,254. I said sell me a round trip going east and she acted like it was no big deal. Next thing I know I’m holding the ticket, waiting for the bus to come. How fast it all happened. How easy.

Bus was nice. Lots of room, only 21 of us on there at first, not including the driver, though there was space enough for 56. Little lights above the seats that you could turn off and on. Blue color fabric with squiggly designs on everything. I noticed all this because once the bus started to move I got nervous and started counting stuff, then looking around, then paging through the magazines I brought. Anything to keep from staring out the window. But soon I got to doing it, looking out the window that is, and when that sign said Leaving Whitney City Limits I got to adding up the years since I’d been out this far. I had been 58 or so, went to Charlesbrook where Eddie Palcon, guy who used to work for me, was getting married. I came back after the reception. Ain’t left since.

People around town probably think I never traveled because my Carrie Ann and baby Lucy were killed in a car crash. That’s not it. I didn’t travel because without them I didn’t feel the need to go nowhere. I could work hard and keep my mind off things, or I could sit around and dwell on it all, and that didn’t seem like a tough choice to make. So I put my effort into the repair shop and laugh all you want, I’ll still tell you it’s true – time moved so fast that it felt like maybe two years ago I was 58. Getting old is the same as watching a magic trick. You stand there, looking dumb, and wonder what the hell happened.

I had ideas of leaving Whitney when I was younger. Carrie Ann and I talked serious about moving to Wichita, maybe over the Missouri line to Jefferson City, especially when I knew of a guy who wanted to buy my shop. Those ideas ended when Carrie Ann and Lucy died. I’d grown up nice in Whitney, and after the wreck I just stayed put. Plenty of work around to keep my hands busy and my mind occupied.

After another half hour on the bus we passed the army base and heck if I didn’t grin a little. Eighty gosh darn four and there’s something new for ya – I was farther from home then I’d ever been in all my life. Soon I’d settled into the seat and even started to like watching out the window, seeing different things for a blink before we passed them by.

I started the trip to keep my mind from the past, but soon that ride was doing the opposite. Sure, I was worried about traveling, about where I’d sleep in Cape Quell and how long to stay, all that. But those frets left after a couple hours. Then came my memories. The further out of town I went, the more I lost the muscle to stop my thoughts. There was a part of my mind that sassed me, said that’s what you get for trying to run from the past. I answered by saying I wasn’t trying to run, exactly, so much as hoping I could step aside and let it walk me by.

But those memories kept closing in just the same, and I said to myself if you can’t stop ‘em at least try to manage ‘em, keep the vicious ones away. So I set to recalling the good times, when once or twice a week Carrie Ann would drop by the shop instead of calling, surprise me.

There I’d be, head in the job and I’d turn and see her standing all clean and beautiful in the middle of that greasy garage and my breath would leave me. I’d say Hey! too loud, too happy, then try to tone it down cause I knew the other guys would make kissy noises or say Awww and tease me some, good-natured but still, a man can get embarrassed. Carrie Ann would ask what I wanted for dinner, then she’d drive over to the market to get it fresh. I’d hurry home to eat and just talk her ear off when she wasn’t doing the same to me. You’re so henpecked you’re happy, my father used to say and laugh. He loved Carrie Ann too, everyone did, and I didn’t care all that much how sappy I looked when I saw her.

The bus stopped for its evening break at 8. I’d gotten to know the first driver, black fella by the name of Clayton. He asked me how I liked the trip so far I said fine Clayton just fine, but don’t you go hurrying on my account. He laughed and asked was I traveling alone and I said yes and he said going to visit grandkids I bet. I didn’t know what to say, either no and make him feel bad or just smile, but by the time I was to answer he was helping someone off so I went in the diner for a cup of tea and a donut before getting back on the bus.

I was out of Kansas and into Missouri for the first time in my life, the longest I’d ever been on a trip. It felt worse than I’d imagined, all that sitting. Twenty-eight hours didn’t sound like much when that girl at the bus station said so. It’s just one day, I told myself. But soon I got the ants in the pants, feeling a little stir crazy, watching the places zip by as the night seeped in. Felt like we were rushing, and that made me even more nervous. I don’t like to hurry.

Later, when I peeked at my watch and saw it was past one I wondered if I might be up for most of the night like I sometimes was at home, humming nameless little tunes and staring at nothing while my head thought its thoughts. The bus had taken more people, about three-quarters filled, and when I looked around I saw them all asleep, faces lighting up as headlights streamed past, then going dark again. We rode on.

Sometime after two I felt my head fall down a couple times, and when I leaned back to get more comfortable I said to no one in particular, not even to myself, no dreams please. I’m happy to sleep but I just don’t want to dream.

The bus stopped at seven a.m. in Kentucky and I woke with a full bladder and a dry mouth. I used the bathroom and had another cup of tea, then fell to dozing not five minutes after I sat back down. Faded in and out for an hour until I felt someone next to me moving around.

She said sorry if I woke you and I said it’s no problem I was just resting my eyes. We got to talkin and she went on about a sister lived in Dixon, next to last stop, 50 miles outside of Cape Quell. Dixon is a wonderful place, she said, and started to tell me about it. A half hour later she stopped, dead away, and looked at me and apologized, said there she was flappin her gums and would I forgive her. I said I didn’t mind and it was true, I didn’t. Every so often I’d see the signs: Cape Quell 274 miles. Then 239 miles and so forth and I got that rushing feeling again, making me more antsy by the mile. I didn’t mind listening to her at all. It kept my eyes off the road.

Finally she said, where are you going? I told her. Got family there? she asks, and I said Nope. Friends? I told her nope again. Then I said I want to see the ocean cause I ain’t never and she hooted out loud, said oh you’re gonna love it! You could see how happy she was for me. She started going on about her times at beaches and soon she catches herself again then says only way for her to stop gabbing is to get me talking. So she asks was I married. I told her I had been and she said didn’t your wife ever get you to the seashore and I said we were only married a year and a half before she died.

One thing about that woman, Helen was her name. Helen held her emotions in her eyes and when she said she was sorry I tell you she really was, not like when people say something just to say it. And that touched me deeply. She asked had Carrie Ann been sick and I said no. I ain’t talked about it in decades. Everyone in Whitney knew so I didn’t ever need to say anything, but Helen didn’t so I explained quiet that Carrie Ann died when Teddy Thomson’s Dodge slammed into her car just 10 minutes after she’d stopped by to see me, and that Teddy was pulled out with two busted legs but that wreck took away Carrie Ann and our 8-month-old daughter Lucy.

When I looked up from my lap I saw tears rolling down Helen’s cheeks and before I could take out my handkerchief she already had a clump of tissues from her pocket and was dabbing her eyes. I apologized and said I didn’t mean to be telling her sad stories but she patted my hand and said again she was so sorry for my loss, like it happened last week instead of 60 years ago.

Soon we fell to talking about little things and before I knew it her stop arrived and we said goodbye. She was a nice woman. She told me I would love the ocean.

We had talked for near three hours, just shy of 200 miles, and when the bus started moving again I saw the sign that said Cape Quell 41 miles. Not long after that the signs started to say Beach Areas Ahead so I stopped looking out the window for good. If I was gonna see the ocean I was gonna see it once and for all up close, not a little piece here and there or through the windshield of a bus. I moved over to the seat where Helen had been and closed my eyes and waited, and after a minute I couldn’t help it, I started thinking of Carrie Ann and Lucy.

I imagined the three of us going to the beach together, how it could have been. I don’t like any thought that starts how it could have been, because just by saying it could have been means it ain’t never been and won’t never be neither. But I pictured it in my mind’s eye just the same, the way I usually remember her, on that day. She in that yellow flower dress and me watching her walk into the shop, couldn’t touch her because my hands were black with grease from the truck I was working on. I whispered to her with a little smile that when I got my hands clean I was gonna put them all over her and she smiled and said your mind will still be dirty and we both laughed embarrassed some but still young and dumb and I said I’d get back to my job right quick and she left.

As those thoughts were going through my head the people around me were getting up. I didn’t know the bus had stopped for good and I musta looked like a horse’s ass but I said to the man across the aisle are we here? He said yessir we are at the end of the line.

I still didn’t want to look out the window. I didn’t know if maybe we were across the street from the sea so when I got to the driver I said how far’s the ocean? He said two or three miles and I said should I walk? He said you can but it’s getting late. I said is there another way? He said there’s a cab right there if you want to take it.

I stepped off the bus and stopped so fast that the guy behind me bumped into my back and almost knocked me over. I moved aside and stood in that parking lot wondering why everyone else wasn’t saying nothing about it. But they were going on their way while I didn’t move. I just breathed in the air. The smell, the breeze, it was like I was walking in on another world. I never did breathe nothing but Kansas air for 84 years and I felt like I was drinking that air more than inhaling it. Reminded me of peat and shale mixed with rainwater, but it was more the sense of it than the smell. Laugh all you want, I’ll still tell you it’s true – I could feel that air go down my throat like it was something you could hold in your hands and taste with your tongue.

After a minute of standing there smelling the air like a damn fool, I walked over to this fella, musta been Indian, the kind from India. He opened the car door for me, an old station wagon painted red with white letters on the side, and I got in. He said where to? I said how much to take me to the beach? He said which beach? I said nearest one. He said, just to any beach? I said yes sir, where I can see the ocean.

He put the car in reverse and I asked him to stop and said are we gonna see the ocean on the way? He said what? I repeated that. He said sir, this whole town is a beach and that’s when he started sounding huffy so I said shut off the engine please and he did and I guess he expected me to get out but I didn’t. A good lesson I learned a long time ago is that when things start getting prickly and a man’s temper’s about to rise you just stop cold and explain it all from the beginning. So I said to that Indian man, mister, I ain’t never seen the ocean in my whole life. Never once. And I don’t want to just come upon it. I want to stand there in front of it, real close, then open my eyes and see the ocean all for the first time. I need to be ready.

I went quiet and that Indian man’s voice got so surprised he nearly yelled out in that funny voice of his you have never seen the ocean in your life sir? And I said no, I’m from Whitney, Kansas, we don’t have the ocean out there. He said you just got off the bus from Kansas? I said this time yesterday we passed the Missouri state line, first time in my life, and he said my god man that is amazing and I said yes I guess it is. He said I’ll take you to Corson’s beach and I said how much will that cost and he said sir, if this is your first time you do not worry about the cost. I will take you there. And I said I can pay but he was starting the engine and didn’t hear.

He turned his head back when he was reversing and there was a big smile on his face that made me smile a little too. He said we’ll take Mitchell Road and then he started to explain the route and said by going that way you won’t see the ocean until we’re right there and I said that’d be fine.

That Indian guy was full of talk, said he never met anyone who’d hadn’t seen the ocean. I wanted to be nice and chew the fat with him but I was getting too edgy. That wet air was all around me, making me feel sort of like I do after I take a second glass of Wild Turkey. And even though he said he’d take a route where I wouldn’t see the water I kept my head down just the same, staring at my shoes.

I answered all his yay and nay questions until he said you have no family who has ever traveled to the ocean from Kansas? And I said that my wife Carrie Ann and my only daughter Lucy would have liked to see it but they were both killed years back. Died in a car wreck when Teddy Thomson lost his brakes and crashed into their car. Then I stopped because my thoughts were getting away from me and I knew I’d made that Indian guy uncomfortable with my mind drifting from his question to my Carrie Ann and little Lucy and Teddy Thomson so I quit rambling and said no, my family never came to the ocean and left it at that.

Wasn’t more than five minutes later when he said close your eyes, which he didn’t need to say because I was looking at the floor anyway and then the car came to a stop and he cut the engine. He used the automatic to pull down all the windows and we just sat there hearing that slap-rumble of the waves and he said we are here sir and I was still looking down, feeling that breeze coming through the windows. I said how far away is the ocean? He said we were at the end of an off-road and in front of us was a path through the dunes and 50 yards ahead of that was the sea.

I said how much I owe you? He said, as they say, this one is on me and he laughed and said he’d never said that to anyone before. And I chuckled to be nice but my head was filled with things that just kept pouring and pouring out. He was asking me where I was staying that night and I didn’t even know what I was doing but it felt like that ocean was pulling me so I opened the door and got out, looking down, first time I’d seen the ground made of sand. He called out go straight ahead on the path between the dunes you will go right to the water and I didn’t say nothing, I just started to move.

I walked with my head down. That loose sand got tougher to step through the further I went. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a little hill, a dune I guess you call it, then it flattened and I kept walking, watching just a few feet ahead of me. There were one or two times I got dizzy so I stopped for a bit then started. The sound of those waves was getting louder.

I must have been 30 yards away when I felt a spray on my face. Ocean water. The first that’s ever touched my skin. Touched my skin gentle like a child would.

When I thought that, everything inside me just broke. Every step, I started to cry some more. Soon I was sobbing like a little baby. I even said that to myself, like a little baby, like my little Lucy and even like your mother oh god you were both mine and I let you go, yes I did.

The more I remembered, the more I broke, the more I cried. I saw you Lucy and your mother in the shop that day and I thought my heart would burst wide open, I loved you so much. I was young and dumb, damn boy of 24, but I was happy then so happy and I wanted to get home to you both, and Carrie Ann was leaving and I said see you real soon and I hurried back to the pickup truck I was working on. Teddy Thomson was waiting there and I rushed through his brake job and when I put the tires back on he said done already? And I said yeah I fixed it right quick for you Teddy. But I did it right quick for me, so I could get home to hold you Carrie Ann and see you Lucy I swear I loved you that’s why I rushed because of my love.

All of that was coming out of me and I was sobbing so hard as I staggered down that beach looking only at my feet and my throat hurt me so bad with all the crying. I was just repeating your name Lucy and your name Carrie Ann and telling you I’m so sorry I am so sorry when the water came up over my shoes in a big rush and I stopped because I knew I couldn’t go no further.

I breathed deep and stood there as the water came and went up over my shoes. I closed my eyes as hard as I’ve ever done and felt those thick wet tears squeeze out of my eyes and run down my face.

I was looking down then. I blinked until my eyes were as clear as they would get. Pressed all the tears out until they fell into the water. Then I closed my eyes and raised my head so I was facing the ocean.

Then I opened my eyes.

And all at once I saw it.

Oh God, I saw it.