The Sand Castle

by Rita Mae Brown

  Building things also ran in the family. Both sisters loved designing garden sheds, little forcing sheds, a new garage with living quarters over top. They threw themselves into the actual work. Mother had a miter box, a good saw, and an array of tools neatly hung up on her workroom wall, itself another one of her practical designs.

  Soon the two sisters labored over the elaborate sand castle while Leroy and I filled two small buckets with sand and water. We wore a path down to the Bay and back. After a while the buckets grew heavy.

  We began to carry one bucket together, slowing the builders down.

  “How many more of these do they need?” Leroy’s green swimming trunks flapped in the breeze.

  “A million.”

  “You lie.”

  “I don’t know.” I answered. “Twenty?”

  “Aunt Wheezie said we’d build a sand castle but all I’m doing is hauling this bucket.”

  “Ah, Leroy, you know how she gets.”

  “Yeah.”

  We delivered the bucket to them, setting it down in unison.

  “Mother, we’re going to take a walk.” That seemed the wiser course than saying we were tired and bored with carrying sand and water.

  “Okay.” She cheerfully agreed while Louise created turrets at the top of the castle walls.

  “Don’t be too long. I’ll need more buckets,” Louise finally spoke, eyes still on her turrets.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  As we started off I heard Mother say, “I’ll get the sand. Those kids have hauled plenty.”

  “Good for ’em.” Louise meticulously cut into the sand wall to make the turret square.

  “Let them be kids.”

  “We worked.”

  “Not hauling sand for sand castles. They do their part.” Mother noticed I was looking back and she winked.

  I reached for Leroy’s hand but he pulled it away. “I’m no baby.”

  “You’re a cootie.”

  PopPop, who fought in World War I, told us about cooties. We also had a game called cootie, where’d you’d roll dice and, according to the number, get a plastic piece of a bug. The winner was the one who put together the cootie first. It always provoked a fight.

  “Then you’re a nit. That’s ten times worse than a cootie.”

  “Dung dot.”

  “Cow pie.”

  “Steaming dog turd.” My imagination was waking up.

  His blue eyes widened and he slugged my shoulder. “Asshole.”

  “Hey.” I slugged him back.

  Being even we continued our walk, oblivious to the people who were equally oblivious to us.

  “When I’m grown up you won’t dare hit me.”

  “You say.”

  “I’ll be bigger and stronger.”

  “Could be, but I’ll always be faster and smarter.”

  He echoed my words, “You say.”

  “I do say.”

  “You broke your Lent, how smart is that?”

  Lent seemed light years back and I did break it. “So?”

  “You’ll go to hell.”

  “Because I ate chocolate?”

  “You broke your Lent.” He stubbornly clung to reciting my downfall.

  “What does Jesus need with my chocolate?”

  “Doesn’t matter. A promise is a promise.”

  “You made me do it.” I flared up for a second.

  “I did not.”

  “Did, too. You ate a Snickers right in front of me.”

  “You’re supposed to be strong.”

  “You know, Leroy, you’re turning into a religious nut just like Aunt Wheezie.”

  Since his mother died, Leroy was living with Louise. When Ken got off work they’d all eat together and then Ken would go to bed. He was worn out.

  “You don’t believe anything,” he responded. His blond hair, crew cut, seemed almost white in the sunshine.

  “I go to church,” I said, but he was hitting the nail on the head because even at seven I evidenced little passion for organized religion.

  “Not the one true church.”

  “You gonna be a priest or something?”

  “I dunno.” The sass leached out of him. “Aunt Louise would like that. I’d like to be a marine like Dad. Dad says they give you a place to live, you get clothes and food. I’d like that. I like to march.”

  “You have to do what other people tell you to do.”

  “Do that now.” A note of resignation filled his little voice.

  “Me, too, but it won’t always be like this. We can do what we want once we’re grown up.”

  “I like to fish. It’s quiet.” We walked along and then he asked, “What do you want to do?”

  “Ride horses. Play with PopPop’s hounds.”

  “You have to make money when you’re big.”

  It surprised me that Leroy was thinking about that.

  “I can make money riding horses and I can clean kennels. I like to muck out things. They look so pretty when I’m done.”

  “Not me.” He wrinkled his nose. “That’s why I want to be a marine. I get all that stuff like I said but they pay you, too. Dad said he saved a lot of money when he was in the service.”

  “Yeah, but you have to go to war.”

  “Only if there’s a war.” He thought about this. “Dad says it’s bad. I shouldn’t do it. War. But it can’t be so bad because he’s real proud to be a marine.” He stopped. “You could be a marine.”

  “No horses.” I couldn’t live without horses.

  “Oh.”

  I opened my hand, a quarter rested in my palm. “See. This is why I was going to hold your hand. I was going to give you the quarter and we could buy ice cream.”

  Dismay crossed his regular features, he paused, then scooped the quarter out of my hand and ran like a scalded dog for the ice cream stand.

  I ran after him, almost overtaking him a few strides before we ducked under the wide red-and-white striped awning.

  He giggled. “Couldn’t catch me.”

  “Let you win. I want a rocky road.”

  He ordered two scoops of chocolate and my rocky road. We sat on a bench and happily ate our ice cream cones. Then we washed up at the pump, probably the same pump where Aunt Doney exposed all.

  “We’d better go back.” I pumped more water for him to wash his face.

  “I don’t want to carry more buckets.”

  “I’ll carry the buckets. It’s easier if you carry one in each hand, anyway. I don’t care.”

  He sighed. “Okay.”

  The water tickled our toes as we walked slowly back toward Mother and Aunt Louise. Hermit crabs scuttled about and a bald eagle flew overhead, so big it made me blink. Little birds ran on the sand, their legs a blur of motion.

  I stopped to pluck up a hermit crab. It sucked back into its small shell with a faint clatter.

  “I don’t like crabs.”

  “Me neither but I like hermits. Must be hard work carrying your house on your back.”

  “How can you tell a girl crab from a boy crab?”

  “Girl crabs have prettier shells.”

  “Not true.” He poked me.

  I put the crab down where it prudently remained in its shell. “Big crabs? Not hermits?”

  “Yeah, how do you tell?”

  “She-crabs have round bellies. Male crabs, jimmies, have triangular bellies.”

  He wiggled his toes each time the water ran up over his feet. “Means you have to get close and tip them over to look.”

  “Not if you have good eyes.”

  “I have good eyes but I’m not gonna get close enough to a crab to look.”

  “Then why’d you ask?”

  He shrugged with no reply so I said, “It’s better than other animals maybe.”

  “What?”

  “Their parts.”

  “Why is it better if you have to get close to see?”

  “Better because stuff doesn’t hang out. If you didn’t have your bath
ing trunks on you’d be, uh . . .” I thought hard for the word, “dangling. I mean a birdie could swoop right out of the sky and bite you. Think you’re a big worm.”

  His face flushed. “Would not.”

  “I can see it now.” I waved to the birds overhead. “Worm! Worm!”

  He hunched his shoulders, “Better not.” His hand covered his crotch.

  “See. It would be awful.” I laughed.

  “Better than sitting down to pee.” He brightened at his superiority in this department.

  “Yeah.”

  “Better than having a baby and looking like a cow.”

  “Maybe.” The appeal of becoming a mother eluded me at seven although some of my girlfriends played with dolls endlessly, in dress rehearsal.

  “So. I’m not a worm.”

  “I didn’t say you were a worm. I said your part looks like a worm to a bird. A great big fat night crawler.” How I enjoyed tormenting him.

  “Take your nose first.”

  I felt my nose. “Still there. Doesn’t wiggle when I walk. See, that’s why the bird will grab you.”

  “Got my trunks on. Can’t see.”

  “If I pulled your trunks down, it’d be gone. Pfft. God, Leroy, then you’d have to sit down to pee.”

  He considered this, being a serious sort, then it dawned on him that I didn’t mean it. “I’d pee on you.”

  “Cootie.”

  “Pissant.”

  “You’re the pissant. You just said you’d pee on me.” I kicked up water from the edge. “I’d knock you sideways.”

  “You and what army?” He boasted idly, knowing full well I could whoop him good.

  I stooped, jaw slightly ajar. “Look.”

  His eyes traveled in the direction of my own. “Golly Ned.”

  Mother and Aunt Louise had used colored paper cut in small triangles and toothpicks. The bits of paper, shaped like pennants, were taped to the ends of the toothpicks and stuck into the corner towers. Materials for the drawbridge rested next to the empty bucket.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  He nodded. “We don’t have to carry any more buckets.”

  Louise, on hands and knees, big hat tipped down, lifted her head as we approached. “Need another bucket of sand and water.”

  Leroy picked up the bucket and handed it to me.

  “Cootie,” I said under my breath.

  “Fly poop,” he said under his.

  I took my time filling the bucket, achieving the correct texture of sand and water. Fortified by my rocky road ice cream it didn’t seem as heavy.

  “Put it there.” Louise pointed to the front of the castle where she’d drawn two lines in the sand with her T-square.

  “Aunt Wheezie, this castle is your best one yet.” I meant that.

  “Hey, what about me?” Mother put her thumb on the bottom of a popsicle stick, her forefinger on the top, and flicked it at me.

  “You, too, Mother.”

  Leroy reposed on the blanket.

  “Why don’t you go for a swim, honey? Cool off?” Mother encouraged him.

  “No.”

  “Fraidy cat,” I taunted him.

  “I’d rather be a fraidy cat than have fishies eat me.”

  “Balls.”

  “Nickel, where’d you hear such a word?” said Mother, who used it not infrequently at home.

  I opened, then closed, my mouth.

  “That’s enough talk like that, young lady.” Louise frowned.

  “Yes, Ma’am. I’m sorry.” Young though I was I had already developed a keen sense of the battles I might lose as well as the ones I might win.

  “Leroy,” Louise pointed her trowel at him. “The fish aren’t going to eat you. Don’t go out too far.”

  “No.” He glowered.

  “Just go in up to your waist.” She kept at him.

  “What waist?” I countered.

  “Will you stay out of this?” Louise shot me a hot look.

  “Nickel, you dig the moat and I’ll put together the drawbridge.” Mother reached for more popsicle sticks.

  “Do I have to dig it all the way around?”

  “Lazy,” came the terse reply, which meant I’d have to do it or suffer endless descriptions to all and sundry about how slothful I was.

  Down on my knees digging I called to Leroy. “Come on.”

  “She didn’t ask me.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “No.”

  “Who’s lazy?” I pleaded to Mother.

  “Root hog or die.” She used the expression again.

  “That means Leroy should work.”

  Neither Mother nor Louise, heads bent over their tasks, replied.

  “I picked potato bugs.” Leroy, feeling his popularity dipping with everyone, defended himself.

  “You did a good job.” Louise kept a large garden at her large house.

  “I picked more than Nickel.”

  “You did not, you liar.”

  “That’s enough.” Mother, voice low, warned.

  Frustrated I dug faster.

  “Careful where you throw that sand. Pile it up so I can use it,” Louise ordered.

  “Leroy, you can at least haul this sand down to the water and mix it up.” I loathed him at this point.

  “No.”

  I stood, picked up the bucket, walked to the blanket and threw the sand at him. “Move your lazy ass!”

  He jumped up and socked me. I pasted him right back.

  Louise grabbed Leroy while Mother pulled me off him. Although a few months younger I was quicker and stronger than my cousin.

  “Girls shouldn’t fight.” He spit at me, face red.

  “That’s right, Leroy. Just sit on the blanket.”

  This enraged him further. He lunged for me, throwing Louise off balance. She almost fell into her creation.

  “Wheezie, take him for a swim. Nick and I will keep working on this.”

  Usually not one to take counsel from her kid sister, Louise surprised all of us by doing just that.

  “Leroy, come with me.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You’re going with me or you’re going to sit in that car and fry. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Reluctantly he followed her into the water.

  “Why is he such a pill? He didn’t used to be like that. I hate him. I really do.” I returned to my chore making fast work of it.

  Mother lashed the popsicle stick together with twine to make a drawbridge, her fingers nimble and working in a rhythm. “I don’t know, kid. When you’re little—seven or eight is still little compared to Wheezie and I,” she said, remembering how we hated to be thought little, “you’ve got lots of time to figure things out. You might hurt now but it will ease up in time. You and Leroy don’t know that yet. When you hurt it fills you up. Might take him years to come back to his old jolly self.”

  “He wasn’t jolly.”

  “All right then, fun.”

  I kept digging and thinking. “Why does he take it out on me?”

  She blew air out of her nostrils, “Because he loves you.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” My ruthless logic did not always serve me well, then or now.

  “Honey,” she put down her mostly finished drawbridge, “he knows you’ll bear it. He’s mad at the world and you’re the only one he can beat on. He can’t beat on his daddy. God knows, Ken is worse off than Leroy. Right now there’s a big black hole in both their hearts and it’s just full of pain. I know it upsets you and I know you have that hot temper. Count to ten, then count to ten again.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I know you will. For a brat, you’re a good kid,” she smiled mischievously.

  “Were you a brat?”

  “Still am according to Her Holiness.” Mother nodded toward Louise, who looked fetching in her baby blue bathing suit.

  “You ever hit her?”

  “Well, sure. Used to drive Ma
ma crazy.” She picked up the drawbridge, knotting the ends of the twine then to hang it from the castle’s front door. “Mama died in 1947. You remember her a little bit, don’t you?”

  “I remember Big Wheezie,” I said, and I did. “I don’t remember her dying.”

  “You weren’t there when she passed. None of us were. She was shelling peas on the front porch and she had a heart attack.” She put down the drawbridge and snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Tell you what, that’s the way to go. Fast.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “I don’t expect anyone does unless the pain gets so bad you don’t want to live, either. There comes a time for some people when there’s not a scrap of joy left in life and they’re ready to go. But what I’m getting at is that that was five years ago and I think of my mother every day, and more than once. If I live to one hundred, I’ll think of my mother. You do roll on over the hurt, finally, but you never forget, and you know, you never stop loving that person.”

  “Mom,” I rarely called her that, “you aren’t fixing to die, are you?”

  She smiled, her even teeth white despite the endless succession of Chesterfields, proof of the benefits of brushing your teeth hard with baking soda. “Not any time soon. I think I’ll make Death chase me down.”

  “Like the old man with the scythe?”

  “Right. He’s going to have to swing and run at the same time.” With her fingers she put a screw on one side of the top of the opening where the drawbridge would go. “Wish I had a winch.”

  “Ma’am?” I’d been strictly raised so “Huh?” wouldn’t cut it.

  “A winch, you know, a round small drum with teeth. The size depends on what you have to haul. Drawbridges were raised and lowered from inside with a huge winch that one man, or sometimes two, turned. I could have made one from an empty spool of thread. Mmm, maybe something bigger.”

  “I don’t think anyone will notice. They’ll just see this big castle.”

  “I’ll notice.” She hung the drawbridge, closing the opening, then she carefully dropped it down, palm under the popsicle sticks, until it rested on the sand over my moat. “There.”

  “You can build anything.”

  “I can. If I had money to burn I’d always have something in the works. I’d love to build a stone addition to our house. That will be a cold day in hell.” She sighed, then smiled. “Sometimes I think it’s our wants that keep us alive.”