darlene's monument

I do not know who Darlene was. I do know i was told she is now a was and the pay tribute to her, dispite her disloyal wonderings, this red headed hippy man constructed a small monument in her memory.
the monument sat by the pier, a mixture of odds and ends, the hippy man had gathered along the dirty shore line. there was various shells, small toys, a bleached out crab, that stretched from tip to tip of his extended pinchers about a foot long. the Simple Cross was 2 pieces of bamboo, entwined securely togather with some odd rope also found abandoned on the beach.
The hippy man first approached us when we were surveying the site with a story of how darlene had died a week ago at the very site of the cross. my young friend and i looked at each other curious, how someone had died on the beach and neither had heard of it Living on the gulf coast, there are many weekends of stories of people that end up missing and later found drowned. It is one of the sad things of living on the coast line. the lives that it reaches out and takes unexpectedly.
we walked on our journey though. I felt that it may have been intrusive to invade on the hippy mans story, my young friend was mostly likely surprised by the hippys casual banter. It was decided after we looked over the gulf, watching the fishermen bring in small crabs, to go back and listne to the hippys story about his darlene.
i have to admit, i listened at first with suspicion. I thought at first the hippy told us that it was his daughter that died. However two things i am not is confrontational and polite. I let him go on over 20 minutes as we lost the day light telling us her story
he told us of how a few weeks ago he had just gotten his weekly check of 220 dollars and had a choice of paying for another week at the hotel where he and darlene stayed or eating. he said that darlene decided they should go to the wallmart and buy a couple of tents and pitch them on the beach. she loved the beach and felt its summerly atmosphere was more desirable than letting go of the scanty money he possessed. there were other things that could be bought with that money.
They pitched thier tent by the steps to the pier partially protected by the overhand of the pier and most definitely allowing not only a seafront view to the ocean, but to the people traversering the stairs, in thier quest of either fishing or to gaze ont he waves as they rolled into the shoreline. he wasi that darlene did leave them for a few days, going off with some men that she knew that had been on the pier. but he quickly pointed out that when these men were thru with her they just left her in freeport.
he told us that darlene was very ill. she was an alcoholic and it was killing her. he said with tears welling up in his eyes that he tried to place her in rehab, but rehab would not take peole unless they had been sober for at least 3 days. she was unable to manage this. he siad that he went to her family and begged them to help. he said that they refused. he said he could not blame them though cuz she had let them down so many times before. he told us he could not blame them. she let him down many times. she had run around on him when he was at work more times than he could count. he would say no more was he going to allow her to use him, but he still would help her each time she was in need
the week before she died, he knew she was in trouble. he begged her to let him take her to the hospital but she continued to refuse. she laid on on a lawn chair soaking up the beach ambience and when the wetather turned to the torrential rains that plagued our area most of this July, she refused to move into the protection of the tent. she was too weak to get up and he begged as he drug her by himself into her tent to let him go down the road to the cafe and call for 911 to come get her, she continued to refuse. He noticed she had large sores on her legs when he drug her in the tent and they alarmed him, but he reasoned they were not sunburn and examined thier causative factors no more. He said he knew things were bad and in his need to make darlene less miserable he went to the store and bought her a 12 pack. she had been a couple of days of no beer, she celebrated this with him by drinking a 6 pack between the two of them
the morning that she died, he crawled out of his old black ford pick up and checked on her to see if she had mysteriously left him in the night, like she had done so many times before. he again asked her to let him call 911 and take her to get help and once again, she argued with him, to leave her on the beach she was better off there, than the hospital. to end the arguement at some point one of them realized they were hungry. she told him she would like some fried shrimp and he went down the dirt road, to get thier food. While he was at the cafe, he ask them to call 911 that darlene was really sick and needed to go to the hospital. they gave him the food, but it seems that they did not call anyone. when he got back the found her dead in the tent. after realizing that he could not revive her, he raced back down to the cafe and had 911 called. It was an eternity to him. he said they took over 30 minutes, this must have been a life time to him, waiting for someone to come rescue darlene once more
since her death he had started gathering items he found on the beach and constructed the little monument.
he told both of us that he hoped that no one would vandalize the site when he wsa gone during the day at his job. His goal was when people saw the monument they would add something to it. with this my friend pulled a large orange floater he had found on the beach and added it to the collection.
I do not know who darlene was or when she acutally died. I was very touched by the hippy man that dispite his protest she was not his love, that he was her friend. he constructed the site in her memory, since life had given her so little at least in spirit she would enjoy the tribute and small treasures around them.
I hope that an kind does not decide to descrate the site in thier blind stupidity to make themsleves look important I wil certainly add something to the monument next time i go I do not know what it willbe at this time, but it will come to me when i go back