Backstory Excerpts for Hardcore Fans, Part 8b
Happy New Year!
What books have you read this year? Writer friends, have you met your own goals, or do you have any for the coming year? I plan to compile a list of books I read this year in an upcoming post, but until then, here’s the next part of the beach memory from my Firetender characters.
Backstory ExcerptsThe following excerpt is for those who have read Firetender and want more background details. I don’t recommend reading these Backstory Excerpt posts unless you’ve read the book, but I also can’t stop you if this is the way you’d rather meet Channing and Dallas. None of these backstory scenes further the plot, but they give insight into who the characters are and what shaped them into who they became. All this unpublished writing served me well: I got to know my characters better through this exploration of their backstory. So these are unpolished excerpts, not final published quality. While most written over twenty years ago, this one was written in 2020 as I started working on the old story again.
Ocean was one of the last scenes cut from Firetender. It was just too long (and is why it will appear here over 3-4 posts—this is the second part; go here to read the first part of Ocean), and because it was a flashback, it would have dragged down the pace of the actual plot. But I really loved this chapter of the two of them at the beach for deepening the understanding of their friendship. If you’ve read Firetender, you might notice the few snippets I gleaned from here that made it into the final version of the novel.
From Firetender:
“Dallas remembered their argument at the beach, how he’d nearly traded in an agreement to read Dante’s Inferno with Channing for frivolous banter with three girls they’d just met.”
If you want to start at the very beginning of these memories and missed the first installation, find it here.
OCEAN, continuedThe first thing Dallas did when he got back to Channing on the beach was to hand him his t-shirt.
“My Radiohead shirt, perfect!” Channing pulled it over his head. “I was just thinking we should bring the stereo down here this evening and listen to music. I’m gonna start on the castle late afternoon, probably, and the music would be nice while I work.”
Channing never even gives a second thought as to where a meal’s going to come from, Dallas thought moodily as he crossed his arms. He’ll be sculpting for hours, and we wouldn’t eat at all if I didn’t take charge on the food. Sometimes Dallas begrudged Channing’s flighty, artsy tendencies when he had to do everything else. It would pass, though; he knew he’d look at what Channing had made later and be blown away by it, or that Channing would read some deep passage aloud from a book and make Dallas think on it for weeks, slowly ruminating the meaning. Channing did his share, albeit in a very different way.
Channing stood, then brushed the sand from his hands on his shorts. The two of them sat down to eat, piling scrambled eggs and bacon in between slices of bread and eating it sandwich-style.
“How long can we stay here?” Channing asked between bites. “I hope forever.”
Dallas rolled his eyes slightly at Channing’s exaggeration and answered, “I think two more nights. I don’t want to, but I have to be back for the first day of school.”
“Yeah,” sighed Channing, “I know. And you only have this one last year!”
“Too bad I’m not much good at it,” Dallas replied a bit glumly. He wasn’t looking forward to the workload, but at least it was finally his last year.
“After dinner, I’ll read while we sit by the fire,” Channing offered. “Maybe that will get you back in the mindset for schoolwork.”
Dallas laughed right out. “Channing, everything you’ve ever read to me has far surpassed the drivel they make us read in school. So what’re you reading right now?”
“Dante,” replied Channing. “The Divine Comedy.”
This is the translation Channing hadIt sounded vaguely familiar to Dallas as something he’d heard mentioned before.
“Sure, that sounds great.” Dallas wouldn’t have admitted it to just anyone, but he’d always liked to listen to Channing reading things out loud to him.
“This is really good,” Channing said gratefully, taking big bites of his sandwich. “It would be amazing with a big glass of orange juice.”
“Well, we’re in Florida,” Dallas commented, “so I guess we could go find an orange orchard and squeeze some juice real quick.”
Channing replied, “Isn’t it so cool that they give out free orange juice samples at the Florida Welcome Center? Can we stop there again on the way back home?”
“Maybe,” Dallas answered noncommittally. Channing’s thrilled with the little things in life.
What Channing and Dallas both miss here is that it’s impossible to stop at the Florida Welcome Center on the way out of Florida… they would have to turn around at the first exit in Georgia and go back south, and then down to the next exit after that and turn around to go back north again. Dallas would never agree to that, ha.Channing smiled, took another bite, and almost choked on it, widened eyes locked on something beyond his friend. Dallas glanced over his shoulder quickly. It was the three girls, approaching them at a distance, but clearly heading intentionally in their direction. As they came nearer, the two boys stood up, brushing sand off their pants self-consciously.
“Hi, remember us?” asked the girl who’d spoken to Dallas earlier that morning.
“Uh, sure,” Dallas answered, suddenly setting aside the bowl he’d been holding.
“I’m Heather, and this is my younger sister,” the girl said. “We’re from Brentwood, Tennessee—it’s a suburb of Nashville.” Dallas guessed Heather was about his age.
“I’m Ashley,” the younger sister introduced herself. “I’m 15.”
“And I’m their cousin, Alexis,” said the third girl. “I’m 17. How old are you guys?”
“I’m 18,” Dallas began slowly, when Heather broke in.
“I’ll turn 18 in October,” she said. “So what’s your name?”
Dallas was losing a race of verbosity before he’d even begun. “I’m Dallas, and this is Channing—he’s 16,” he threw in quickly before they could ask.
“We’re here on vacation with our parents,” Alexis explained. “We met up here to camp… our parents think an RV vacation on a state park beach is just as good as getting a condo on an exciting beach in an actual town. Kinda lame, I know. So are you guys on vacation here too? We noticed you were camping. Are you brothers?”
“We’re friends. Just wanted to take a road trip before school starts back up,” Dallas said, trying to make himself conversational and friendly. “We’re from Nevada. Neither of us had ever been to the ocean before this.”
The girls looked flabbergasted. “Really? No way! You mean you’d never been to the beach before now? Not the Pacific, either?”
“Nope,” Dallas answered. “It’s pretty amazing though…”
“Yeah, even though camping at the beach wouldn’t be my first choice, if I was the one planning the vacation, that is,” Heather said, “at least it’s still the beach, and this one’s a real pretty one, too, especially for people who’ve never even seen one before. So, wow! Your very first time to be at the ocean! We’ve been to this beach a few times over the years. There’s usually only old people though, not many people our age. You guys drove here yourselves, all the way across the country?”
This is where I imagine this scene taking place, at Gamble Rogers State Recreation Area, just south of Flagler Beach on the AtlanticDallas nodded, straightening up. “Yeah, I have a car.” Duh, they probably saw it. I wish Channing would say something so I don’t have to be the only one giving awkward answers. Channing wouldn’t talk unless somebody spoke directly to him, and even then it wasn’t a guarantee. These are the kind of girls who probably wouldn’t be speaking to us if we were in school together, Dallas realized. He and Channing had never attracted the popular girls, and he was now wondering if somehow they couldn’t recognize them as being somewhat outcasts. I can tell they’re probably the popular type somehow, so surely they can tell that we aren’t? Maybe they’re just bored, Dallas decided, and we’re the only guys around here who are their age, after all...
“So you’re starting college?” asked Alexis to Dallas. “You said you’re on vacation before school starts.”
Dallas was strongly tempted to lie but as the words were about to come out of his mouth, he couldn’t do it. “No, I’m about to start my senior year of high school. I just turned 18 a couple weeks ago,” he added, in case it could make it sound more understandable. He hated letting on that he’d been held back a year in school.
“How about you, what grade are you going to be in?” Heather asked Channing. “You’re shy, aren’t you?” She gave him a winning smile as if she could coax conversation from him.
“Yes,” was all Channing managed, looking away and fiddling with the sand piled next to him. He has zero interest in these girls, Dallas knew. He’s itching to get back to his sculpture.
“He’s a junior,” Dallas answered for Channing, then averted his eyes quickly to avoid Channing’s glare of disbelief that Dallas had lied about him. It’s true in a way, Dallas reassured himself. He would be a junior if he hadn’t quit school, and he’s definitely more advanced than one from what he’s learned on his own. I’ll have to explain to him later... Dallas hadn’t even meant to say it; the words had just slipped out when Channing hadn’t provided an answer himself.
“Well, Channing, I like shy guys, so you’re good.” Heather smiled and took a step closer to him.
Channing swallowed quickly. “Um, okay.” He turned away and began working on his shark again.
Heather wouldn’t relent. “Hey, this sculpture is amazing! I’ve never seen one so big! And this is your first time ever at a beach? I can’t believe it!”
Channing, slightly encouraged by somebody taking an interest in his work, managed to say, “Thanks.”
Channing’s shark sand sculpture would have looked something like this“We saw you guys had a fire on the beach last night,” Alexis said. “Looks like fun; that’s the kind of thing we like to do when we’re here. And listen to music around the fire, just hang out, away from our parents… Hey, do you guys want to join us tonight? We can have a bonfire! It’s always more fun with more people!”
Dallas had started to think that perhaps these girls couldn’t tell that they weren’t the popular type after all. Maybe the schools are different in the East than they are back home. Maybe the teenagers here aren’t so exclusive and are nicer…
“Yeah, that’d be fun!” put in Ashley. “A beach party!”
“Can you tear yourself away from your sand sculpture, Channing?” asked Alexis.
“I’ll be done before dark,” Channing answered, intently patting down the damp sand around a fin of the shark, “but we have other plans.”
Dallas nudged him slightly with his elbow. “Well, those plans are flexible.”
Channing shot icy daggers at him and turned his back completely, focusing all his energies on his sand sculpture.
“I mean,” Dallas went on, “we don’t have something specific that has to be done tonight. So sure, if you want to…”
“Beach party!” exclaimed Alexis. “It’ll be much better than sitting around the campsite with our parents making us play boring board games with them.” She rolled her eyes and the others giggled.
Dallas felt a twinge of something inside him. His mother had never once in his life expressed interest in playing a board game with him… He wasn’t sure they even had a deck of cards in the house. He brushed the thoughts aside. These girls didn’t know anything about Channing and him and their less-than-stellar home lives. If they actually want to hang out with us, then why not try to have some fun?
“Okay, we’ll see you at sunset then!” called out Heather as they turned to go. “We’ll bring music. Do you guys like Red Hot Chili Peppers? Or Smashing Pumpkins?”
Haha!“Uh… sure,” Dallas stammered after them.
“Great, see you later!” they called with a wave.
Dallas raised a hand in farewell back and then turned to Channing. He had stopped sculpting and was giving Dallas a cold, hard stare.
“What?” Dallas asked, turning his palms upward slightly. “They seem nice. We should be friendly.”
“You lied to them.” Channing’s grey eyes were steely and serious.
“I didn’t mean to,” Dallas explained. “I mean, you would be a junior this year, and you know you’ve already learned more than they’ll teach the other kids who were in your grade this year, or next year. What, would you rather I’d told them you were a dropout? I didn’t want them to think badly of you, you know.”
Channing’s expression didn’t change. “I don’t need them to think anything of me, good or bad. You could’ve told them the truth. And,” he added, turning back to the shark sculpture, “we HATE the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Smashing Pumpkins!” Channing sent a fist into the fin of his sculpture with the word “hate.”
Dallas raised both eyebrows, taken aback at the uncharacteristic violence. “Look, I’m sorry, Channing… I just thought maybe it’d be fun to hang out with them for tonight.”
Channing sat back on his heels, staring at the smashed fin. “We were going to read Dante,” he said in a small voice.
Dallas felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Channing was a helpless, lonely child all of a sudden, one who wants to show you some trivial little thing that means the world to him… only Channing wanted to show you Dante. Channing wanted to share spiritual thoughts and classic literature and deep conversations. And Dallas had traded that in, after already making an agreement with Channing earlier, for frivolous banter with some girls he’d just met and would likely never see again.
“I’m sorry, Chan,” he began again, softly. “I shouldn’t have told them we had no real plans. I really do like listening to you read that kind of stuff, you know that... It’s just that, well… those girls, you know they’re the kind who would never give either of us the time of day back home. Sometimes I just want to fit in with people. The oldest one, Heather—she thinks you’re cute, even!”
Channing refused to look at Dallas. “I don’t even care,” he said in a cold voice. “If they’re the type who would ignore us back home, then why are you interested in them at all? That’s pretty shallow of you.”
It was Dallas’s turn to get angry now. “Shallow? I just thought we should be friendly back to them, and yeah, if it makes me feel good to have pretty girls notice me once in a while, then fine, I’m shallow!” He kicked the plastic pail that sat alongside the sculpture, sending sea water splashing out.
Just pretend this is on a sandy beach“Fine, then you go to their stupid bonfire with terrible music tonight by yourself!” Channing shouted. “Enjoy feeling uncomfortable and awkward with some silly girls you don’t even know! They won’t even like you once they get to know you!” He bounded up, grabbed the shovel, and stomped away down the beach.
Dallas let him go. He stood there fuming, Channing’s figure growing smaller in the distance. He attacked the bucket again with his foot, then turned and walked briskly down the shore, right at the water’s edge, going in the opposite direction. Dallas smoldered, unable to think clearly. He strode along the wet sand, hearing the roaring waves in his ears, which gradually calmed him down. Dallas stopped, at least a half mile down the shore, and stared into the ocean, hands deep in his pockets. He turned and walked back, more slowly now. Finally, he saw Channing’s completed shark taking shape far ahead of him. It really looks incredible, Dallas realized. Like it’s just coming right out of the shore. Channing was so talented. Then heat rose in Dallas’s throat again, and he lowered his eyebrows. I tried to apologize, and Channing wasn’t having any of it. He insulted me instead, implying that I’m an idiot to think popular girls could have any real interest in me! Dallas made out his silhouette, about a hundred yards further beyond the shark, digging in the sand again. He turned on his heel with a huff and stalked back to the campsite.
In the bathhouse with some clean clothes, Dallas turned on the hot water. Channing can just do his own thing, he decided, but I’m at least going to clean myself up a bit. Maybe Channing would come around and accept his apology, but if not, he would just try to have fun without him. As he shampooed his hair, a secret wish grew in Dallas. If Channing was just more understanding of Dallas’s weak will and how he’d been drawn in by the prospect of these type of girls paying him attention… then I would cancel on them in an instant. But Channing’s mad at me just because I want to feel normal for an evening! Girls who didn’t know him couldn’t judge him based on his academic performance, his home life, even his tastes in music. Although deep down he knew Channing was probably right—that he wouldn’t feel comfortable and click with them—Dallas didn’t want to acknowledge that just yet. You have to try to fit in, do things outside your comfort zone sometimes, he told himself.
Finished with his shower, Dallas put on clean clothes and shaved in the tiny, filmy mirror over the one sink. He combed through his short hair with his fingers and packed up his toiletries.
Channing wasn’t back at the tent. Dallas hadn’t really expected him to be, his slight hope now dashed. Maybe he’d walk back down to the beach and see if Channing had forgiven him yet. and he should probably start thinking about dinner now that it was after 6. Dallas opened the cooler and hesitated, looking at a package of hot dogs. If I start the fire on the beach soon and take the hot dogs down there, maybe Channing’ll come over and get one…
Dallas loaded up the pockets of his cargo shorts with hot dogs, mustard, a lighter, his knife, and the rest of the bag of marshmallows. He grabbed their bundle of firewood and tucked it under one arm, pausing along the way to gather some smaller sticks for kindling as he made his way toward the boardwalk.
Channing was still in the same place, digging, dwarfed by a huge heap of sand. He was carving out a kind of hollow at the bottom of the pile. Dallas shaded his eyes to look out toward his friend, then went to a spot further inland from the shark sculpture to begin the fire. He hadn’t seen the three girls on the way down here and guessed they had been inside one of their RVs. Maybe they won’t even show, he told himself. Why should they, just for me? He recalled Heather’s comments about Channing and wondered if she just meant he was cute like a little kid, the way Dallas thought of him sometimes, or even if she was poking fun at him. Or did she mean something more? Channing did have amazing hair, much in the style of a lot of the current alternative musicians… not because he was trendy, but because he’d just sort of developed that hairstyle on his own and kept it for several years now. If anything, Channing had grown his hair like that before it had been a thing in popular culture. But he was baby-faced, had straight white teeth naturally, and Dallas knew that girls sometimes thought Channing was good-looking in a sort of unkempt, boyish way… however, that never lasted long because of the reputation Channing had gained as being odd, not to mention the fact that he was freaked out by girls in general.
Dallas sighed. He squatted down in the sand and piled up the firewood and kindling the way he wanted it. He needed a fire to cook the hot dogs regardless of who was going to come. In ten minutes, he had a roaring blaze and had built up the sand on one side to shield it from the wind. Dallas stretched out on the sand for a few minutes, enjoying the sensation of the cool wind across his body, the way it was hot here and yet comfortable from the air movement. It rippled his shirt and made his skin tingle comfortably. The warmth of the fire contrasted with the breeze, and the waves crashed rhythmically against the shore. Dallas nodded off, lulled by the atmosphere.
Suddenly, nearby voices jolted him back to attention. He glanced over in the direction of the boardwalk to see Heather, Ashley, and Alexis stepping onto the sand. Looking back over at Channing, Dallas mentally willed him to come, to get there first. But Channing wasn’t visible, deep inside his sandcastle now. It was a couple feet higher than his head and Dallas could clearly make out two tunnels that Channing had dug in the sides. For a second, Dallas held his breath. What if the whole thing collapses in on him? Maybe I should go check on him…
“Hi, Dallas!” called out Alexis. “The fire’s awesome!” The three girls stood alongside the pile of extra wood.
“I was just about to cook some hot dogs,” Dallas began. “I’m, uh… I’m gonna go see if Channing wants one. Be right back.” He turned to go, then paused and passed the hot dogs to Heather. “If any of you want some, help yourself,” he added, then turned and jogged over towards Channing’s sandcastle fort.
“Hey Chan?” he called into one of the tunnels. It was amazing—so deep that he couldn’t see where Channing was in there. This thing would kill him if it fell in on him, Dallas thought suddenly. No way could I dig him out before he suffocated under all this sand. “Hey, you in here?”
Channing replied in an echoing voice, “Yeah, don’t touch the walls. They’re strong but could crumble easily if they’re disturbed.”
Channing would’ve had to dig up a lot of sand in order to mound it up to build a cave-like entrance to a sandcastle on the beach’s surface. The sand structure described in this story is probably a physical impossibility unless Channing found some boards to use inside to reenforce the structure, so you’ll have to suspend your disbelief. Dallas’s concerns about collapse are accurate even though this was years before all the warning articles about not digging too deep on the beach. However, the castle’s interior wasn’t beneath the beach’s surface in this description.“I just came to tell you I have a fire going and brought the hot dogs down,” Dallas went on. “You want one?”
“Are those girls coming?” Channing’s tone was sullen.
“Uh, they just came over to the fire, so I guess so,” Dallas responded offhandedly.
“Then no thanks,” Channing replied from inside the tunnel. “If there’s any hot dogs left, you can just save me one. I’ll come get it and leave again.”
“I brought the marshmallows down too,” Dallas added hopefully.
No response from Channing.
“I wish you’d come and stay,” Dallas added with a sigh in a last effort at getting his friend to join him.
“Not with them there.” Channing’s reply was curt. “Have fun impressing them with your fire-building skills.”
Dallas’s face flushed, and he was seized with an irrational impulse to kick the side of the sand fort but restrained himself. He racked his brain for some response, but the words hung in his throat. He felt suddenly alone. Hurt. It isn’t fair. Channing’s being impossible! Dallas was left with no choice. Silently, he turned with sagging shoulders and left Channing behind in the depths of his introverted little world.
Dallas was an introvert too, which was part of why the two of them had become such good friends and generally got along so well. Every now and then, they had these difficulties. Was Channing jealous that somebody else could take Dallas’s attention? Something similar had happened his freshman year, when Dallas had played on the JV football team. He’d been invited to go hang out with some of the other guys on the team occasionally, and Channing had behaved in much the same way. Dallas’s mind traveled back to that time… He hadn’t enjoyed the company of those guys much. They were into drinking and thinking they were cool because of it, and they told too many crude jokes, especially about females. Dallas had always stood on the edge in these social groups… welcome, but not a part. He didn’t belong with them, and he knew it because in his mind, he was always still alone. He’d quit the team after that one year, not because he didn’t enjoy the sport—he loved playing football and was good at it—but because he didn’t gel with his teammates. They were part of the popular crowd, and Dallas had found through experience that even if you joined into the same activities with the popular crowd, it didn’t automatically make you popular. It’s not that they’d treated him as an outcast outright. He’d just always known that somehow he wasn’t truly a part of the group. The connection fell heavily on Dallas’s shoulders suddenly, that this current situation with these girls was exactly the same, and that his inner isolation was mostly of his own doing, yet he had no idea how to change that.
Dallas sighed and shuffled through the sand, kicking up a spray of it as he admitted to himself that he didn’t even really want to hang out with these girls anyway. Channing, who somehow had this innate ability to remain unaffected by what other people thought, was probably right. This is stupid of me to try to hang out with them, Dallas thought. That self-assured inner peace hung out of his reach. But he’d committed to giving them a chance, so Dallas took a deep breath and rejoined the girls around the fire. They had started a CD on the boom box they’d brought with them and were attempting to open the package of hot dogs.
“Dallas, you’re back!” called Alexis.
He tried a small grin in response, hands in his pockets. “Want some help with that?” Dallas pulled out his pocketknife.
“Thanks! Hey, I love this song.” Ashley handed over the package of hot dogs. “Come on, let’s dance!”
Dallas occupied himself with the package of hot dogs, grateful for an excuse to avoid dancing. He had no clue how to dance to fast songs like this anyway, especially alongside girls in swimsuits. Sitting back on his heels, he sharpened a couple of sticks he’d brought down and stuck two hot dogs on each. Then he held both sticks over the fire, falling into his place in the periphery, mentally immersed in the fire.
“No luck getting your friend to join us?” asked Alexis. “Maybe later tonight, when the fun really gets started, he’ll want to come… I know Heather hopes so, anyway!” She nudged her cousin, who responded with an eyeroll.
“I only said he was cute,” she said exasperatedly, “but I really don’t think he’s my type. He probably won’t want to come later, either.”
Dallas tried to be conversational. “What’s happening later?”
Alexis stopped dancing and came close to him, a mischievous look on her face. “Okay, our parents told us we need to be back at the campsites by 11. But we’re planning to come back down here once they’re asleep. My parents have a bunch of bottles of wine in our RV, so we’ll grab a few and bring them down here.” She leaned closer to Dallas, and her arm brushed against his.
Dallas was positive at this point that Channing wasn’t their ‘type’ and neither was he. Glad to change the subject, he announced that the hot dogs were finished and put them into buns. Each took one, and Dallas speared the remaining hot dogs to prepare for the fire. The girls continued to dance around and make conversation. The second batch of hot dogs was nearly finished when Channing appeared, slowly walking towards the fire.
To be concluded next time!
Thanks for reading!
Erin
