"It's cold." I sat on a corner of the blanket, still shivering. "The water's dirty, too."
"It's clean enough for you. . . . Where is he?"
"Swimming."
"Johnny Weismuller." Connie seemed to be on the verge of asking for something, but she hesitated and closed her mouth. "Rub sand on my feet," she blurted.
"What?"
"It's good for my calluses."
Before I could agree to do it Connie swung her feet past the edge of the blanket. I took handfuls of sand and picked them clean of cigarette butts and beer can tabs, then rubbed them against her soles until it sifted away. Her feet didn't feel like feet at all, coated in so much callus. They were more like cinder blocks with toes. Only her moans of contentment reminded me th'at I was working on living tissue.
I kept it up for about fifteen minutes. The way she moaned was making me feel strange.
"Hey, Connie, I don't wanna keep doing this."
"What's the matter?"
"It feels weird."
She cocked her head. "Weird?"
"Yeah. The way you moan."
"So stop already," she said, yanking her feet away. "Your father, he used to rub my feet for hours."
"I don't care. I'm not my father. My father's weird, too."
"What's that, your new word?" She shaded her eyes with her hand for a better look at me. "You miss him, don't you?"
I pushed sand into hills. "I don't know. A little. Those stupid postcards he sends . . . he doesn't miss me, why should I miss him?"
She took her hand away from her eyes. "You're a lot like him," she said, as if the thought had just occurred to her after all our time together.
"I am not," I shot back.
Connie laughed, a laugh pregnant with wisdom. "Wait, wait," she warned. "Someday you'll see. You're his thumbprint." She pressed her thumb against my stomach. "Nobody could ever tell him nothin', either." She laughed again, oddly - something about the beach had made her philosophical, a mood I knew would fade when she was back in her basement.
"Oh, God," she said wearily.
"I'm bored," I announced.
"Look for money."
"Where?"
"In the sand. I brought the red sieve, it used to be Vic's."
"Aw, Connie, there's no money around here."
"Eh," she grunted, "watch me." She scooped sand into the sieve and shook it. Sand fell through the holes, leaving behind more junk, less sand, more junk, less sand. She passed me the sieve as if it were the collection plate at church.
"Look."
One by one I picked the items out of it: a piece of dull green glass, a bit of dried seaweed, a fragment of crab claw bleached rosy by the sun, a bottle cap, a bunch of cigarette butts, and, finally, a dusty penny.
I held the penny and rubbed it clean with my fingers. "You put it there," I accused.
"Do I throw money around? Shake your own, you'll see."
I hopped a few feet away, scooped twice as much sand as she had into the sieve and shook it. This time there was a nickel under the junk.
"See? I couldn't have reached over there. You could get rich at the beach."
But I didn't need Connie's prompting. Rockaway Beach had suddenly become a prospector's paradise.
She warned, "You ain't gonna find in every load."
I found that out soon enough. I must have sifted a hundred loads of sand in that thing, shaking, pawing, throwing aside the waste, angered at the moneyless loads. I started saving beer can tabs, too, folding them into a two-foot chain.
My hands stunk from the sour tobacco of a million cigarette butts. I had a small fortune, though - half a dollar. It was mostly pennies and nickels but in part a dime, the equivalent of a twenty-five bottle haul to Nat's.
I let out a whoop when I found the dime and accidentally kicked sand on a lady buttered with suntan oil. It clung to her ribs the way bread crumbs stuck to Connie's veal cutlets.
Angie came back, breathing hard. "Swam all the way to the buoy," he announced, squatting and pointing. "Look, Con, how far I went."
"You're gettin' me wet."
"See that thing out there with the pole on it, and the red ball on top?"
Connie stretched her neck but didn't rise. "Too many umbrellas in the way."
"I'll show you when you stand up later," he panted, collapsing on the blanket. "Remind me. All the way and back!" He waved a clenched fist. "I could never do it before. Freddie could do it but not me. I didn't even hang on for a rest. The lifeguard was blowin' his whistle but I pretended I didn't hear him."
Connie said, "Remember Freddie - you'll get a heart attack just like he did."
"Not me," Angie boomed, rising and pounding his fists on his chest. "Tarzan! Come to me, woman."
"You wish." She opened her basket. "You want to eat now or later?"
"Now. I never felt better. Like I kicked off twenty years and left 'em in the surf. What's all this junk?" he asked, pointing at the stuff I'd sifted.
"I did it," I said. "Angie, look what I found." Half a buck in change made my hand bulge impressively when I was ten years old.
"Where'd you find it all, Joey?"
"Right here. Connie showed me how to shake the sand. I found these beer can things, too."
I showed him the chain. He draped it over his neck.
"You'll need a tetanus shot if it cuts you," Connie cautioned.
Water dripped from his nose. "How about that, a fortune right in the sand. And me workin' all these years, like a jerk. I coulda been comin' to the beach every day." He smacked himself on the forehead. "Dope that I am!" He took the chain off his neck and flopped back onto the blanket, his rib cage heaving.
"Eggplant or veal," Connie said. "You can have either or both. Two sandwiches apiece."
Nobody wrapped food like Connie Ambrosio. The sandwiches were sealed in waxed paper and tinfoil. Then they were placed in plastic bags and bound in rubber bands. Angie fumbled at his sandwich with pruny hands.
"We could put these sandwiches in one of those things they make so people in the future can find them," he said. "I forget what you call them."
"Time capsules," I said, pulling the foil off an eggplant sandwich.
"That's it! Time capsules. That way people a hundred years from now can know what we ate."
"Why should they wanna know what we ate?" Connie asked.
"History."
"So who cares?" Connie was annoyed.
"Somebody cares," Angie mused. "Madonna, by the time I get this thing open I'll starve to death."
Connie snorted. "If you don't do this, sand gets in and you throw it all away."
The food was delicious, the bread soaked deeply with rich oils. We washed it all down with lemonade and stretched out, stuffed.
Then I had an idea. Connie was asleep on her back, and Angie dozed on his stomach. Without waking them I headed for the concession stand. The change I'd found grew warm in my hand.
"Yessir," the counterman said. My nose barely reached the counter.
"How much is a lemon ice?"
"Fifteen. Lemon, watermelon, and cherry."
"It costs less home."
"Kid, this ain't home."
"Lemon ice comes in other flavors?"
He sighed. "Lemon ice is lemon. I got watermelon and cherry, too, like I said."
"Give me three lemon ices."
He opened a lid behind the counter. A "phht" of cold air escaped. Three green waxed containers were plunked in front of me, and three wrapped wooden spoons.
I pointed. "That's not lemon ice."
"Sure it is. Forty-five cents."
I felt one of the rock-hard containers. "It's supposed to be soft. You're supposed to scoop it."
"Kid, I awreddy told you, this ain't home. Forty-five."
Coin by coin I dropped the money on the counter. "Jesus, another Rockaway treasure hunter," he muttered. I didn't mind spending that money. It was magical money that had appeared from out of thin air, unlike the deposit b
ottle money.
I stacked the cups and searched for the red and white umbrella as I walked. Connie was awake when I got back, sliding her feet back and forth in the sand, eroding calluses without my help.
"Where'd you go?"
I hefted the ices, my hands numb from the dry-ice cold. "Dessert," I announced, my voice triumphant.
Angie awoke, rolled over, and shielded his eyes. "Never thought I'd see the day when you'd spend money at the beach."
"Not me," she said.
Angie sat up. "The money he found? You let him spend his money?"
"It was his idea! I was asleep, I thought he was lost. Who told you to go?"
I didn't answer. I sat between them and passed out cups and spoons. Angie pinched the skinny cord at the back of my neck. I picked the lid off my ice. A young black couple walked past us, a small child on the man's shoulders.
"I wonder if the colored get sunburn," Connie mused. If not for the wind off the water they'd have heard her.
I said, "They have to pack lemon ice like this here, otherwise it gets all sandy."
Connie set her cup down. "Gonna let mine sit a minute, it's too hard." Angie and I dug into ours.
"How'd you know this was just what we needed?" he asked. The fuss embarrassed me. "They had other flavors, too. Watermelon and cherry."
"Flavors for colored people," Connie noted.
I'd never felt prouder of myself. I was a provider for the very first time. Angie and I pointed at sailboats as we ate, and talked about where they might be going.
A huge one went by. "Maybe my father's on that one," I said.
"Naah," Angie said, "He's in Seattle, or some damn place." "That was last week. He could be anywhere now."
Angie nodded. "Who knows?" he conceded.
I pointed at the same boat. "I'm gonna have a boat when I'm big. No house, just a boat. Bigger than that one, because I'm gonna live on it."
"Takes money," Connie said. "Lots of it,"
I ignored her. "I'll be by myself. I won't have to worry about anybody. I can visit people when I want to, then just sail away by myself."
"Like your father," Angie said, completing my thought.
"That's right."
Connie said, "I thought you were gonna be a ballplayer."
"I am."
"They don't play no baseball on boats."
"I'll sail to the ballpark for games and then after I'll get back on the boat."
"Sure you will." She squeezed her ice container, testing it for softness. She began eating.
"And what about your kids?" Angie said. "They gotta go to school, it's the law."
"No kids," I said. "I already told you - nobody on board, except me." I reached the bottom of my lemon ice, where the sweetest, gooiest part was. I took a mouthful and jabbed my wooden spoon at my own narrow chest. Angie and Connie grinned at each other.
"Where you gonna get the money?" Connie said.
I thought about it "I'll sell my pictures. I'll paint on my boat."
Connie cackled. "If the boat rocks on the waves, how you gonna paint?"
I crumpled my empty cup and pitched it away. "I'll think of something."
"Pick that up and put it in the garbage basket," Angie said. I obeyed.
"Eh, we'll see," Connie said. "By the time you get that boat we'll be in Saint John's anyway."
"What's Saint John's?" I asked Angie.
"The cemetery," he said softly.
My stomach dropped. "No," I declared, expanding my bony chest, but it was as if I'd just ordered the waves to stop rolling in. They both laughed.
Angie said, "Relax, Joey, that's not gonna be for a long time."
"How do you know?" Connie said. "Look at Freddie."
"Shut up," he told her.
I felt drowsy and lay face down on the blanket. While I was still barely awake I heard Angie say, "The kid's okay, no matter what that deacon thinks." I drifted off to the sound of Connie's spoon scraping ice.
I must have slept for at least an hour. I felt my foot being squeezed; Angie. The afternoon sun made an orange halo shine all around his tight body. He looked like a saint, as if a baby lamb belonged around his shoulders.
"We're going home now."
We got up and shook the blanket before folding it. I picked up my beer-tab chain but Connie made me put it in her bag. There were fewer people around, and when we were ready to leave Angie pointed at the ocean.
"See that thing? The pole with the red ball on top? That's where I swam to, Con."
He looked at us like a kid trying to convince his parents he's seen a flying saucer. Salt had crusted his hair. "I did, I swear."
"Good," Connie said. "Fold the chair, we can carry it easier."
We began walking to the car. Connie fell a few steps behind. When I turned to take a final look at the ocean she beckoned to me, waiting for Angie to walk out of earshot.
"The current helped him," she said. "Don't say nothin', but the current helped him get out there." Angie's shoulders looked narrow and bony ahead of us.
We were quiet on the way back to Shepherd Avenue, the three of us so sunburned that it hurt to lean against the car's hot upholstery. My back clung to the vinyl, peeling free like Scotch tape.
"In a few days it'll turn into a tan," Angie said when I complained.
I ran to the chickens when we got home.
"Of course they're all right," Connie said. "All they need us for is food."
"Hey," Angie said, "screen door's unlocked." He pushed open the wooden door, also unlocked.
"Burglars?" Connie said.
"I'll check. Wait here."
"What if they have guns?"
"I already told you, I ain't ready for Saint John's yet."
"I'm comin' with you," Connie insisted. "Let's go."
The three of us crept inside, past my art desk, past the hanging peppers. It was dark down there, and it seemed even darker because our eyes hadn't adjusted from the sunshine.
It took a while for my eyes to recognize the sleeping form of Vic on the battered couch.
Connie's voice awakened him. "My God, how thin you got."
It was true. Vic had been sprawled on the couch with one arm dangling over the side, his face to the ceiling. His cheeks were hollow, his elbows knobby. When he heard Connie's voice he opened his eyes and sat up.
"How's it going?" His voice was slow, sleep-hoarse. His face was heavily tanned and his jeans, once snug, fit like clown's pants. I figured at first they were a pair he'd bought in West Virginia but then saw the unmistakable stitching of Connie's patchwork on the knee.
"How thin," she wailed again, her voice breaking.
Vic cleared his throat. "I lost a few pounds."
Nobody went near him. We stood in a line, elbow to elbow, as if a glass quarantine wall were bumping our noses. Sand itched inside my bathing suit.
"You lost at least thirty pounds," Connie insisted. When was someone going to hug him? We stood like hypnotized chickens.
"Twenty-four," Vic corrected. "I'm a hundred and sixty-six. Just weighed myself in a drugstore."
"You'll put it back real soon," Angie said.
"No," Vic said. "I'm just right now. I was fat before." Finally I broke the invisible barrier and went to him. He hugged me briefly against his hard belly.
"Hey, slugger, how you hittin"em?"
"Good," I said, even though I hadn't played stickball since Mel had been taken away. "You guys got a game in Brooklyn?"
"No. I'm just home, that's all." He looked at his parents. "I saw Johnny Gallo outside. How come nobody told me about Freddie dying?"
Angie opened his mouth, let it close. "Your father didn't want you to worry," Connie said.
"You didn't want me to worry?" Vic's voice was incredulous. He shook his head. Angie looked at the floor. "So when'd we become chicken farmers?"
"Few weeks ago," Angie murmured. "Your mother wrote you about them, I thought."
"Never got it. Guess they'll forward it here."
Angie's eyebrows jumped. "Forward?"
Vic nodded. "My stuff's upstairs."
"All of it?"
"Everything."
Nobody said anything. I was wearing the Pittsburgh Pirates hat and suddenly felt ridiculous under it.
Vic walked to the stove, looking even thinner in motion. "Is that minestrone, Ma?"
"Yeah, but it's cold, we were out all day."
"Could you heat it up? Goddamn it, I'm hungry for some good food for a change."
It was unheard of for Vic to curse, but he did it so casually that it was clearly now a part of his vocabulary. He sat alone at the table and minutes later he was eating a bowl of hot soup, slowly. In the old days he'd have scarfed down three bowls and five rolls in ten minutes.
He ate as if the rest of us didn't exist, the way the chickens did, oblivious to the fence that trapped them and the captors that stared down at them.
Vic pushed the empty bowl away and stifled a belch. "Damn, that's good."
"What's with this new language?" Angie's voice was sharp. Vic didn't answer. He was running his finger around the rim of his glass, having first dipped it in cream soda. He frowned like a child.
"I was doing lousy down there."
"Well no wonder!" Angie boomed. "Vic, you're sick, look at you! A skeleton!"
Vic's eyes seemed unfocused as he watched his finger encircle the glass rim. "I'm not sick. In fact I feel better than I've ever felt in my life."
Angie wasn't believing it. "Ah, lots of guys have trouble getting started with a new team. Willie Mays couldn't hit the side of a barn his first few weeks with the Giants. . . . Nothing to worry about. Next season you give it another shot and they won't cut you."
He licked his lips, hoping Vic would say something. "It's that choking up stuff that screwed you up, Vic. I said it from the start, ask the kid."
A twinge of jealousy shot through me. Now I was back to being the kid again, with Vic around.
"No," Vic said, his voice barely audible.
"What's that?"
"No," Vic repeated. "No more shots, no next season."
I'd never heard Angie take a flat denial from anyone before. Vic pressed his finger harder and harder on the glass rim, until it started to sing. The noise made me grit my teeth. Connie reached across the table and caught his wrist.
"Enough, Victor." Her voice was gentle but when she touched his arm he flinched, as if he'd gotten a carpet shock.
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