Nad propastyu vo rzhi

I was involved in a deck collapse at Wrightsville Beach, NC some years ago. Clustered cups, herded tightly on the deck by some barrier force. I pushed my way almost to the living beachside room, almost crossed the threshold, when a sudden crack–a sound more blinding than overhead lightning–cast arms, legs, and cups down to the parking garage. I somehow righted myself out of the blight with only small, distrusting welts, to later cross an alley across the road and to face a gun pointed at me by a propertied man on his own intact deck, who had had enough. I heard later that limbs were broken in this incident, even a complication resulting in a fatality. One thing that’s always troubled me about my memory is that I reported to friends very soon after that the citizen and taxpayer did so brandish, but that even then I didn’t know if he did or if I had only seen, momentarily, into the heart of things. You don’t have to recall Double Indemnity or Memento to imagine the fact-finding missions that might have extended even to that observer, or even to imagine that a smooth fulgurite leaned in a corner of his own beachside room, supporting many structures.