A Perdie Lucky Meeting

I didn’t think I would be buying this guy dinner the day after my boyfriend broke up with me. Usually I ignore other beach-crawlers, but this one was hard to miss. In camouflage pants, with a hiking backpack and waving the American flag, I couldn’t pass by.

He was walking along the shore trying to skirt the green waves when I approached him, “What are you doing?”

I couldn’t tell if he looked at me because of his shades, but I figured it was a safe bet. “I’m walking across America.”

I was hooked, “Any particular reason why?”

Almost rehearsed he replied, “To raise awareness about the dangers of mass government spending.”

I grinned, but this was too rare an opportunity and decided to walk with him a bit. As we trudged along, he told me his name is Matt Perdie. He started in Long Island, NY, which is where he’s from, and is trying to get to Santa Monica.

“What are you going to do when you get there?” He was young, his sandy hair short and in tight curls, his face scruffy, but his manner was welcoming.

“I’m trying not to make plans for that. I just want to get there.”

I continued asking him about his journey. He responded, but paused when we got to a break in the sand where the water rushed by into a miniature creek. We leapt across but the water soaked his shoes. Soon we stopped at The Conch, a restaurant my grandmother took me to a few times.

“Do you mind if we stop here so I can take a break?”

“Not at all,” I replied, but I didn’t want to leave him just yet. I could smell there was something more, but he said it was just his socks. He removed his shades, and we sat down on the bench outside the restaurant. He asked me about what I was doing in Myrtle Beach. I spilled about Coastal Carolina University and what was happening on campus. The dimming light warned me my time with him might end soon.

“Are you hungry? Would you like to eat here?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

He squirmed his way into the door sideways as I approached the host and asked for a table, two, nonsmoking, inside. Around the wall divider, she set our menus on a small table. Matt lugged off his backpack and leaned his flag against the wall.

I insisted on paying for him, and although he argued, he relented after I told the waitress. She came back with his water and my sweet tea. “So you’re a film director with a degree in Digital Video Production. What inspired you to do this?”

“I met a young woman who had biked across the country in 54 days. So I had always thought about walking across the country since then to further deepen my understanding of people for my films. Of course the irrational spending of the government was what pushed me over the edge. Massive government spending leads to excessive government control to such a level where it strongly hurts our economy by compromising the main principles of capitalism, which is what our country was founded on. By compromising capitalism, we are also compromising our freedom to succeed and fail from the government’s interference in the market. When the government pushes a socialist agenda, it makes it much harder for working class people to keep what money they earn.”

I didn’t want him to know that I was completely ignorant to the economy and government, so I changed the subject. “What’s the craziest thing that has happened to you so far in our state?”

He laughed, “Uh, In West Chester, Pennsylvania I was nearly killed, in a car accident, from a car spinning out of control that was heading straight for me. Luckily there was a guard rail next to me, so I jumped onto the other side of the rail right before the car hit the spot I was in.”

We continued talking like old pals catching up after a few years’ absence. He told me more stories about his adventures and his life. I filled him in on my dreams and hopes for my future. We shared video-gaming quests over our burgers and fries, and then he asked me about why I was at the beach.

“Okay, here we go. It’s about my ex.”

His eyes widened and he held up his hand. I watched him turn around and grab his camera bag and pull out his video camcorder. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” I thought. I figured, if this video shows up on his website*, maybe the person I’d talk about will see it and know how I feel. He listened to the story I had to share and when I exhausted the subject, he turned off his camera and, like a big brother should, said, “He sounds like a jerk.” I laughed, and we reverted back to films and movies. There was one other thing bugging me, “What is your message to our generation? You’ve got to have one.”

“I do. Take action upon the things you strongly believe in. Seek the answers to your own problems from yourself, but use the tools of the world around you to make it happen.”

Three drink refills later, I learned he went to Barnes and Noble the same night I had. “Yeah, I was the guy with the red laptop.”

“I remember you! I remember thinking you were cute. I was with another girl. We pushed the tables together to do math. We were right in front of you!”

He looked at me with wide eyes and then said, “I knew you looked familiar! Why were you studying math at Barnes and Noble?”

I laughed, but couldn’t think of a reasonable answer. It was late. My time was up. He shuffled sideways through the doorway like a crab and grabbed his socks lying next to my bike. I unlocked it and walked with him to the sidewalk. The stars were out and it was dark along Ocean Boulevard. I wished him well and told him I’d check out his site. You too, he said, about your editor thing.

I watched him leave, his sign flopping against his overstuffed pack, the Star Spangled Banner waving against the city lit sky.

*Matt Perdie runs a website, www.perdie.com, to document his adventures. His videos are in a miniseries format and are entertaining to watch.