Message in a Bottle

Chapter 1

POV JUSTIN

At first I thought this science assignment was stupid - but the more and more I think of it, it could be interesting. If nothing else, it will be nice to have a three-day field trip to Point Pleasant Beach in New Jersey. I haven't seen the ocean for years. But I don't think it will be an 'if nothing else' situation. I'm thinking of all sorts of things I can express for this assignment that barely anyone else knows - and still, no one will be the wiser after I'm done, not even the teacher.

We were told to be ready to start from St. James this morning at 6AM, which meant I had to be on the road by 5:15AM- ugh. Yawn. We're taking the school vans which, granted are more comfortable than the school buses, are still fucking uncomfortable. My ass is already as sore as fuck and we're only half way there…

No one sat next to me this morning. Of course. It's a constant: it's either I get harassed by the jocks; laughed at by the cliques; and/or ignored and avoided by all. I prefer the last of the three. I've been a punching bag and a loner since I started at school. I just don't fit in with a lot of people and given the babbling idiots around me, I don't think I want to, no matter what the consequences of being an outcast are. Thankfully, I have Daphne who is my best friend. She and I tell each other everything; she's actually somewhat popular at school but she could care less about my loner/loser reputation and hangs with me all the time. I respect that about her- most people our age are spineless conformists and would gladly sacrifice a best friend in order to salvage their reputation.

But she's not in this class and therefore not on this trip. So I guess sitting alone on the van means more room for me to spread out and doze, right?

Anyway, I *must* have dozed because the next thing I know, we're finally here and they hand us each a bottle as we file off the van. Immediately, I go find a private spot on the beach as far away from the others as possible and sit my tender ass down on the soft sand, moaning gratefully. I take in the sights and sounds and smells of the beautiful ocean and fully relax. The beach is thankfully nearly deserted given how late in the day it is- and how late in the season it is.

I turn my attention to the assignment. It's for my Sea Studies class; the teacher has this somewhat weird thing she does with every one of her Sea Studies classes at the beginning of the semester: each of her students sends out a message in a bottle at Point Pleasant.

Yes, a message in a bottle in the ocean. Tacky, no?

The thing is, she has admitted that many of us will never hear a response to our message- some bottles get pushed way out into the deep ocean and take forever to reach their destination, wherever that may be; many will leak and sink; many may get shattered in a storm or on a rocky coastline; many recipients may simply ignore the message and not respond; and many bottles may wash up somewhere and never be found.

Promising, eh?

But, she says, eventually at least some bottles will reach a mark, and every year she tracks how the currents flowed by how many bottles are found where, and she tracks how populations on shorelines fluctuate and grow- the more people populating a particular shore area, the more people there are likely to find a bottle. She measures the findings she gets against population data or something. I don't really know or care much. This is really more of an ongoing study for Ms. Caitlin than it is a lesson to teach us anything. For most of us, it's just a cool 3 day trip away from the Pitts and to the beach.

She's quick to tell us that even those of us with a message that is actually found with a recipient who actually responds- we will never find out about it anyway; most bottles take longer than the semester to wash ashore somewhere and be found. Plus, those who do respond to the messages are directed to contact her, not the student- it's her study, after all.

Sounds like a stupid assignment to give your class, doesn't it? But I guess Ms. Caitlin doesn't feel like filling 35 bottles with messages by herself, so she has her class do it every year instead.

Ms. Caitlin had given us the 'rules' before we even got on the vans in the Pitts. The only 'must' we have to include in our message is her first name (Gail), 1-800 number, a page of international area codes that she's copied and given to us, a special PO Box address for just this project of hers, a special email address that she gets at home where she does most of her work, and basic instructions on how to let her know the location the message was found. (Duh.) Very basic and anonymous.

In the back of my mind, I'm wondering whether she's considered how many recipients to her annual experiment might simply not fucking know English… but I guess more people in other countries know English than Americans know other languages.

And then, Ms. Caitlin says, we can write whatever else we want to in the message. That's what I've been focusing on.

I can hear the jocks all laughing their asses off in the distance and I can only imagine why. I smirk- they're probably writing, 'Fuck You!' as their message, and thinking of themselves as very clever.

I ignore their cackling and sit here alone with my bare feet buried in the sand, watching the sun sink lower and lower towards the horizon. It casts a beautiful path of light on the rippling waves and suddenly, I'd much rather have an easel and paints in front of me than a clip board of writing paper. Still, I've been thinking hard about what I want to say ever since the teacher told us about the assignment last week. Idly, at the top of the page I decide to make a small sketch of my portrait- to give the recipient, should there be one, a face to a name.

Then I think how to put what I want to say, chewing the end of my pencil.

"September 14

"Dear finder of this message:

"My name is Justin and I'm a 16-year-old gay male. I attend a Catholic school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a school that is filled with homophobes- both students and faculty. So, me telling you I'm gay means I'm basically outing myself to a stranger via a message in a bottle. Odd.

"My parents don't know I'm gay- my father in particular has very strong negative feelings about homosexuals and thinks they're all perverted child molesters with no morals who should burn in hell. It's alienating to know that if your own father found out you were gay, not only would he think those things of you, but he'd disown you after probably beating the crap out of you. That's what my dad would do; I know because there was a story in the paper about a father who killed his son after the boy came out-- and after reading the story aloud at the breakfast table, my dad got this creepy grin on his face and said, 'Good riddance.' It gave me chills.

"Fuck. I can't wait to get out of this school, and my house.

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this, stranger. Maybe I'm kind of purging my fears and feelings that have been lodged in my soul since I was a kid when I first knew I was gay. Basically, I have no one else to talk to about it. I have a friend, Daphne, but she's straight, and while she knows I'm gay and is very supportive, she doesn't know what it's like to live in fear of someone somehow finding out who she is and beating her up or worse.

"Needless to say, I'm a virgin (a frustrated one!). I try to act straight around people. It hurts inside to have to deny to the outside world who I am.

"I want to become an artist (the portrait at the top of this message is of me- it's not terribly good, but so it goes); but my father thinks that's for 'pansies and fairies' and I should be playing sports and aiming for colleges that have strong business programs, not fine arts. His alma mater is Dartmouth, so that's where he's pressuring me to go. I want to go to the Pittsburgh Academy of Fine Arts. He and I haven't had that argument yet, as I haven't told him about it. It's yet again another way in which I'm denying who I am.

"Wow, writing a message in a bottle that may be read by a total stranger (or that will more likely be swallowed by the sea) is like writing in a diary!

"I don't dare keep a real diary and voice these things- my parents snoop and would find and read it. And that would be it for me.

"I do sketch, but I keep my sketch books locked in my school locker, although that's risky too: several jocks at my school like to hassle me at my locker. A favorite game they like is to snatch whatever they can from my locker as I get my bag and play 'keep-away'. Thinking about it, I guess I really should destroy the drawings, as many are of naked men and boys my age. If the jocks saw those images, it'd be even more a living hell for me at school than it already is.

"One male image I keep drawing and re-drawing is of a beautiful, tall, sad young man. He has these haunting, deep eyes and a beautiful physique. And I don't know why, the image just keeps unfolding on the pages- it's mysterious, really. And a little creepy because I've never seen anyone like him- it's not a real person. Just some figment of my imagination. Maybe I'll destroy my other drawings but fold one or two of these sketches up and keep them in my shoe or something so they don't get found. This is the guy- in case I can't keep *any* of my sketches, by putting the image in this letter, I'll at least know it exists on paper somewhere."

I sketch the image that for some reason has been etched in my brain for so long.

"Why am I blithering on like this? You don't even know why I'm writing this as a message in a bottle in the first place! It's an assignment for school, believe it or not. My crazy but nicer-than-most science teacher has the entire class doing it for a study she's conducting. So the whole assignment's not even for our benefit. Besides, most of the messages will never reach someone, she says. I won't bother going into her study or how she's using the data she collects- it's a long, somewhat boring story. I suppose if you're interested, you could answer this message and ask her.

"But anyway, the only required information she wants us to be sure to include in this message is…"

I pause in my writing to pull out all the contact information she wants us to list and I write it down.

Then I think a moment, and continue:

"I'm sorry if this seems like a pathetic letter- but I just wanted to get some of this shit out and since as I said, there's no one else to talk to and realistically, since no one's likely going to get this, this is a way I can unload my feelings and fears and secrets to the sea. It's big enough to take it, and it won't come after me and kill me like that poor kid's father did."

I think a few more moments and make a decision.

"If someone actually *does* find this and reads this message, I'd be interested to hear from you, if you are so inclined. If you have email, you can reach me at jtartist@pitts.com. I don't have a toll free number, but my cell is: 412-590-1615.

"Um. Thanks for listening. Hope to hear from you, whoever you are.

-Justin"

I figure with just an email address and phone number, if the recipient is a homophobe and wants to come kill me, they'd have to work damned hard if that's all they had to go by. Especially without a last name or school name. Besides, this won't be found; it will likely get dashed against a rock somewhere, or sink- or regarded as mere litter on a beach. I'm surprised the school (and authorities) allow this assignment- we're essentially polluting. But they *are* reinforced glass bottles with special corks, so at least eventually they'll become sand again and not show up as ugly washed up plastic soda bottles on a beach like you always see. I hate that.

I stuff my message carefully into the bottle, take the special cork and jam it in the opening as hard as I can. I get up with a grunt (my poor sore ass! Stupid hard van seats!) and wander down to the water's edge. For some reason, as silly as it may be, I want someone to find it and contact me. It's the mystery of it all, I guess. I pull my arm back and throw it out as far as I can, trying to get it out beyond where the waves will simply wash it back to me.

No luck. I watch as it slowly bobs in the water right back, washing up about 10 feet away.

Suddenly I feel a hand on my shoulder and I just about jump out of my skin. "FUCK! You scared the SHIT out of me!" I whirl around- Uh oh. It's Ms. Caitlin. And that is *not* the kind of language the school tolerates! Fuck. Still, she should not creep up on people like that! "I'm sorry, Ma'am- you surprised me." I say sheepishly; although she seems more easygoing and kinder than most of St. James' teachers, my outburst was pretty loud- I await whatever punishment she decides on.

Luckily she just chuckles and apologizes herself. "I'm sorry to startle you. Mr. Taylor. I think you may have been sleeping on the van when I announced that tonight we will be taking 3 yachts out each with 3 groups of students, to different locations out in the deeper waters so the bottles don't all just wash up right back here on this beach. So hang onto your bottle till then."

"Oh. 3 boats, Ma'am?"

She smiles. "We want to be sure the bottles are dispersed and are not all grouped together having been tossed from just one boat. So, again, hold onto your message bottle and once all the students have finished their messages, we will go to the marina and head out to sea."

"Yes, Ma'am." I answer quietly.

"Now, be sure to wear a very warm coat or sweater. It can be bitter cold and windy out there. You did pack something warm, yes?"

I decide that I genuinely like her- she's easygoing and down to earth, unlike the other fucking snooty teachers at St. James. She's just a little eccentric, I think to myself. "Yes, Ma'am. I packed everything that was on the handout of 'essentials to bring' that we got in class."

"Good! Why don't you go get your pack and pull out your coat- it looks like everyone is starting to get up having finished their messages. Leave the pack in the van- it will be safe and when we get back, we'll head to the motel."

"Okay, thank you, Ma'am." I'm suddenly struck with the desire to paint her - the sun is going down and the light plays interestingly on the small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. "Ma'am? May I bring my sketch pad on the boat?"

She thinks about it. "Sure- just remember it gets windy, so keep a firm hold on it so it doesn't get blown out to sea." She winks at me and heads over to help other students.

I walk up to where the vans are parked, glad I'll be able to sketch the scenery. I don't know anyone here, and it's awkward when everyone else is chatting away and you're odd man out. I've *always* been the outcast at this dumb school, except for with Daphne. I wish she had this class with me. I sigh, reaching the van; the driver's still there waiting patiently for us, and he opens the door so I can climb in.

I get my wool coat, my sketch pad and an art pencil and exit, finding that most everyone is milling around the vans now.

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