Edge of Darkness

We walked along the ocean beach at Golden Gardens. The wind blew from the north, cold and constant. We drank Rainer beer from 16oz cans. It was the longest night of the year.

"What are you doing tonight?" I said to my phone, earlier in the night.

"Nothing man," said Steve.

"Do you want to go do something? It's the Solstice."

"Yeah man. I need to go to dinner with my parents."

"OK. I have a car. I'll come around 9."

I took my parent's car and drove to North Seattle. I parked it outside of a gray apartment building built in the 1970s. My friend was not back from dinner yet. I went to hang out with my other friend, Phil who was also Steve's roommate. Phil was playing a vintage RPG on his PC.

"What game are you playing?" I asked

"Knights of the Old Republic."

"Seems like really immersive gameplay."

"Yeah, this version has pretty good light saber battles. I can show you."

I watched Phil for a while, while sitting on his bed. Then Steve got home. He told his parents to watch a movie while we went out. They were staying in the apartment for a few days before they went back home to Vancouver Washington. Phil and Steve and I went outside to the car. The sky was yellow and it was windy.

In the car, we got excited and listed to a Dead Kennedys tape.

"Saturday was fun," said Steve.

"You got wasted," I said.

"Do we know where we are going?" asked Phil.

"Let's just go to the beach. We can have a drink later. It's good to be outside on the longest night of the year," I said.

"OK. It's gonna be fucking cold," said Phil.

"We can go for a little while," said Steve.

We listened to the tape and drove through Ballard. The streets were empty. It was too cold and too dark for anything very interesting to be happening. The bars off market seemed pretty good.

After a while we got to the neighborhood near Golden Gardens. We parked above the park and walked down the hillside. The trail was very dark and unlit. We tripped and stumbled.

"I hope I don't wake up an angry homeless," I said.

"Are there any homeless out here?" said Steve.

"We are talking loud. They will be angry," said Phil.

From the path we could see across the sound. The glow from towns on the other side of the water was very visible, through tall, leafless trees. Below us, a giant parking lot seemed meaningfully empty. It was lit by enormous yellow streetlights.

At the beach the wind was very cold. We opened our beer.

"I'm just going to drink a little and have some Arizona mango tea," I said. "I need to drive."

"Let's walk along the beach," said Phil.

"I wish I had some gloves," I said. I looked at the dark water beyond the beach. There were some hippie parents having a family ritual by a bonfire. I wondered if they gave their kids acid. There was some younger kids making drug noises. We kept walking along the shore, away from the light of downtown. There were many dark places, the ocean, the trees on the hillside, the area farther north along the beach. 'There's nothing out there' I thought.

The train came by heading to Seattle from Vancouver. It was bright and loud. We could see people inside the dinning car, which was the brightest one.

"I bet they can see their food really well," said Steve.

"What?" said Phil.

"Let's go get another drink at a bar," I said. "I'm getting really cold."

We drove through North Ballard, through endless neighborhoods. Many houses had Christmas lights on them.