A salty observation

Before they come and after they leave

Sand, sea, cool breeze, waves lapping at the edge of Long Island Sound. It’s a small beach, manageable for someone with half-clothed body issues; I’m worse than many and better than a few.

Giggles rise above the constant hum of the day. Standing on the high water line a mother yells for her kids to get out of the water it’s time to leave and don’t make me come out there and get you. A kid, alone, shouts for mom to look, mom look, mom, mom. Rising above the wash of her book she zeros in on the water-logged voice, the kid does a handstand and is knocked over by a tiny wave. Waves are small at our beach but the little guy comes upright hopping and sputtering did ya see, did ya see? She waves and nods. He dives again for another attempt, goes vertical and holds it until I think his lungs will burst. When his head emerges she waves again and claps; I hear a few more claps on the beach from strangers who have been watching as I have. I do not clap; I focus on a leather skinned fat man. His belly stretched so tight, if I pricked him with pin, like a big brown kid’s balloon he’d rocket above our heads in blubbering s-curves until he landed in a little wrinkled pile of plastic next to a sand castle.

On backs and stomachs bodies prone are soaking up killer rays. Women on blankets sit straight, tug at straps to keep boobs from going south. Upright men on blankets lean forward as a community of round backed males, do they know how disturbing the look of so many naked spines curved in a C.

Though my suit is dry, I lick my lips and taste salt. Coppertone, the smell of summer, drifts among the crowd. The hum continues, the bake increases, laughter, a distant radio, I sit and observe. When I begin to invent stories to fit the characters on the beach, it is time to leave. Enough; I cannot fill my head with a storm surge of more than I have seen.

I ask myself, does observing supersede enjoyment or is it the pleasure?