Opia

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• May 10, 2015

Everyone has regrets.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying to you or lying to themselves.  It’s impossible to live a life without regrets.  I declare that if you don’t have any regrets, you’re doing life wrong.

Regrets.  I have a few.  I have some that changed my whole life.  Some I haven’t told any one yet.  Some, I hope to have the courage to put it on paper and tell the whole goddamn world, or anyone who will listen in hopes it will no longer haunt me.

This is one of those stories.

The facts themselves seem trivial.  Insignificant.  Most people wouldn’t give such an occurrence more than a frowning hour.  And yet, if I could change anything, I would go back and do it over right.

Anyone who tells you they’re not afraid of death is either lying to you or to themselves.  Death is terrifying.  Everyday, we’re all a little closer.  If you’re not properly scared witless of your impending demise, you’ve never, perhaps, almost drowned, or bled out after a surgery.  Working four years in a nursing will teach you that there are things worse than death.  Life can, in fact, be far worse than death.  Hopefully, your life will never succumb to such misfortune.

I will state it here, to be published on the internet, long after I’m gone, when social media becomes a graveyard for your long lost friends, that if I’m ever in a vegetative sate, EUTHANIZE ME.  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD (IF YOU’RE INTO SUCH THINGS), KILL ME.  HAVE MERCY.  DON’T LEAVE ME STUCK IN MY MIND.

My brother and I made a pact, years ago, that if we were ever in a horrible accident or something, and couldn’t feed or shit on our own, we will take care of the other one.  When I worked in the nursing home, I fantasized about offing people.  Not in a homicidal murderous way, but rather because I didn’t want to watch them suffer any longer.  It was awful to witness.  Of course, I never followed through with such fantasies, but I did put them into a screenplay.

One summer, I drove to Gilgo beach, by myself.  The waves were good that day.  I walked down to beach to East Gilgo, where the waves broke a little better and a little bigger.  My wetsuit was half on, and I carried my Quiet Flight fish tail board.  I watched the waves, and I imagined myself on them.  Then, I saw something you rarely see on Long Island beaches.  A sea turtle.

A young sea turtle had washed ashore.  It was about eight or nine inches long.  Excited, I ran to it.  Then, my heart broke.  The young turtle’s head was split open.  It had a gnarly gash in it’s skull.  I saw his brain.  I could see the turtles fucking brain.  He was still alive.  He moved his eyes and looked at me.

“I’m really sorry,” I whispered to him, stroking his fin gently, “I’m really sorry this happened to you.”

I couldn’t leave him like this.  The seagulls would get him.  Before he died, the seagulls would get him.  I couldn’t put in back in the ocean.  Turtles breathe air.  He would drown.  And I knew how that felt.  I found a rock.  The biggest one I could find.  It wasn’t very big.  Smaller than a tennis ball. I held it in my hand.  I raised my hand over my head.  I looked at him, and he was looking right back at me.

I couldn’t do it.  My arm fell in defeat.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, “I’m so sorry.  I can’t.  I can’t do it.”

Then, I picked up my board, and I continued on down the beach.  The waves were good, but my mind was elsewhere.  I couldn’t stop thinking about the turtle.  I floated like a buoy in the line up.  Other surfers paddled around me and dropped in on waves.  My brother was out there too, shredding it.  I told him about the turtle.  I told him about his head, and how I studied it’s brain, and how I never really saw a brain like that before.  I dissected a pig fetus in college, but I never saw the brain of something that watched me examine it’s cerebral matter.

Mitch has a way with animals, and a love for all animals, not just sea life, like myself.  On a family trip to San Diego, my brother, father, and I were surfing and there were about a dozen dolphins with us.  It had been my life long dream to swim with dolphins.  Seeing dolphins in the wild versus in some resort is quite different.  In the resorts, they’re pristine.  In the wild, they’re full of scratches and bite marks.  Their fins are ridged from what, I could never know for sure. These dolphins have seen and been through some serious survival of the fittest shit.  While they were still beautiful and friendly, they were also intimidating.  If they wanted to, they could kill you.

The dolphins were fucking.  How do I know this?  Trust me, if you were there, you would know it too.  Surfing became my second priority.  I wasn’t about to touch the wild dolphins, but I wanted to get as close as possible.  But I didn’t have to go anywhere.  A dolphin swam up right next to me.  If I reached my arm out, I could have touched it.  It swam up and just looked me in the eye.  I’m sitting on my board, holding eye contact with this sea mammal that’s much bigger than me.  Dolphins are smart animals.  This, you can clearly see when looking one in the eye.  The gears are turning in there.  It was checking me out.  I think dolphins are so friendly towards humans because they can see the gears turning in our eyes too.  It was as if he stopped by to say, “hey, the other animals down here are really stupid.”  And I was like, “I understand, I feel that way about most humans.”  It was one of those moments I captured in a bottle and keep in a special place my minds library.  It was one of those moments that makes your entire life worth living.

The dolphins continued fucking, and continued swimming down the beach.  Obviously, they swim faster than us, so I watched solemnly as they left us.

“Want them to come back?” My brother teased, “I’ll tell them.”

Then, he did a pretty impressive dolphin impersonation.  He dipped his head in the water, and continued with his dolphin call in the great Pacific.  By some very bizarre coincidence, the dolphins turned around and swam back towards us.  I looked at Mitch, “what did you say?”  His jaw was dropped also.  The dolphins came back.  I went to drop in on a wave and was cut off by a dolphin who decided that was his wave to surf.  I didn’t mind.

Mitch and I finished surfing at Gilgo.  When we got out, naturally, Mitch wanted to see the sea turtle.  I was anxious to show him.  I thought he could have compassion where I could not.  I thought he could show mercy, and be strong enough to give the young turtle a fast death, instead of a drawn out, painful death, which I doomed him for by abandoning him.  We didn’t find the turtle, though.

About a year later, I’m in Maui, Hawaii, visiting my sister.  I’m snorkeling, watching these two sea turtles dance around each other in crystal clear blue water.  I swim around them, coming up for air when I needed to.  I swam under them, watching their silhouettes woo each other.  Another moment I bottled for my collection of majestic memories.  I wanted to apologize.  I wanted to ask for the sea turtle’s forgiveness.  I wanted to beg for it.  But how does one ask a turtle for forgiveness?  How does one forgive themselves for not being the person they thought they were?