BODY PARTS
It is the 4th of July, the quintessential American day for going to the beach. The weather forecast is “superlative…highs in the upper 80’s with low humidity and very little rip current…pack up your picnics and head for the beach!”
And that’s what they did and I did too. A city beach packed with umbrellas and coolers, blankets and chairs, boom boxes throbbing so loudly that the music is barely discernible. Salsa and rap, classic rock, and alternative sounds of uncertain genre. The sun is hot even early in the morning but the breeze cool as the sun climbs in the sky and the beach becomes crowded with bodies. The ocean ripples with small white caps, while sailboats dot the horizon. Occasional jet skis skim the surface, their noise blending with the cacophony of radios tuned to different stations.
The smell of the sea is faint and almost overpowered by the scent of sweet suntan oil, cigarette smoke, beer, and mustard. I imagine I can smell the white bread and bologna sandwiches. I jump in the water early, swimming out beyond the few bathers, past where the diminutive waves are breaking. I float on the surface, bobbing gently, feeling the salt water carry me along as I move slowly back and forth before heading back to shore. I collapse on my beach chair, face to the sun, letting its warmth dry my body before I drift off to sleep
When I awake the crowds are closing in around me. My legs splotched from children running to the sea, kicking up the grainy sand in their wake. They are excited and quick to dart away from pursuing parents. I watch where they enter the water certain that they’re peeing in the ocean. One little boy wears a huge diaper and a large gold chain around his neck. He is husky and filled with joy. You can see the man he will become although I’m guessing his smile will become less intense.
The bodies are startling in their variety. Pale and hairy, tan and leathery. Occasional smooth flat bellies on teenage girls with pierced belly buttons. Women with bathing suit bottoms riding up their buttocks and sticking in the crack. Fat cheeks and sagging bellies. One woman with breasts so large they sit on top of the cups of her bathing suit, exposed except for the nipple. Children stare but she seems not to notice.
Men with modest suits and men with skimpy trunks showing off their bulges. Pimples, splotches, rolls of flab and taunt muscles, bodies that would look better covered. Too much humanity in such close proximity. Lifeguards blowing whistles and mothers’ shouts. One can only watch, waiting, for something to happen.
By mid-day the beach seems a solid mass. Some of the early birds are packing up, closing umbrellas and shaking sand from their beach towels. New people quickly grab their place in the sand. Men dart in and around the haphazard array of towels and chairs, hawking beer and water, ice cream and ices. “One dollar, one dollar!” “Cold beer, ice cold water!!”
“Ices for sale, get your Italian ices!” Money changes hands quickly and the men move on but circle back later with the same refrains.
The couple sits down much too close to me. Even on a crowded beach there seems to be an unspoken rule that there must be at least a foot and a half between blankets. Yet they place their large sheet within a few inches of my chair and proceed to set up a beach kingdom. Their world consists of an overlarge cooler, blankets on top of the sheets and a beach chair for the father, a compact, dark and hairy man with a baseball cap shading his eyes. His wife is round and pale with a black, modest one piece bathing suit and long hair pulled back from her face. She is setting up food for the two plump children who look to me like twins—a boy and a girl about 7 years old with matching blue swim suits and their mother’s body shape. The father sits staring out at the ocean as mother smears lotion on the children’s bodies and arranges them on the blanket preparing to feed them what seems to be a carefully prepared lunch of sandwiches, chips, cookies, and fruit. She lays out pails and shovels, beach balls, and a blow up raft. She talks to them gently, smiling and touching them. The father appears to be absorbed in his interior world, never glancing at them. He places a large book beside his chair but does not reach for it.
I try not to stare and consider moving as I feel my space invaded, but there is no place to move that I can see. So I watch as mother organizes the food, offering father a sandwich which he dismisses with a wave of his hand. After lunch, mother proceeds to lead the children to the water’s edge where they happily prance in the rushing tide before sitting down to fill their pails with wet sand. Mother lets her hair loose and it blows in the breeze. She has a pretty face despite her doughy body. She seems at peace with her toes in the water while her children play at her feet.
I swim again, kicking swiftly past children in the shallow water, trying to get beyond the film of suntan oil to where the ocean seems clean once again and few people venture. I float for a while but as the current picks up, I decide to head back. The beach from this distance looks like a solid sea of bodies pulsating with a discordant din – screams, yelps, conversations of all sorts – which disrupts the peace of bobbing waves. I swim slowly, weaving around other swimmers, floaters, and children playing ball until back on the sand, breathing hard, I wind my way through sand castles, chairs and blankets to my coveted piece of space.
The family is sprawled on their sheets and blankets now covered with sand. Something has evidently happened to upset the sunny day. The children are crying and father is glaring at mother who has her head down. He is chastising her, his words not discernible to me as they are softly spoken, but he hisses with anger. She doesn’t speak or even look at him. His rage seems to mount. I can see his lips tighten and his eyes narrow. Some spittle shoots from his mouth as he continues to spew forth whatever anger has been stored up inside of him. It seems relentless. Mother remains motionless. I guess this happens often and she’s learned not to respond. He looks ready to strike her but he keeps his hands clenched at his side.
Clouds are forming in the distance. Big fluffy white clouds with dark centers drifting towards this beach from some far off place where they had been waiting all along. The wind picks up causing some of the brightly colored beach umbrellas to fly away from their precarious perch in the sand. They tumble with people in futile pursuit until hands or bodies, amid gasps and curses, stop them.
There is still time left to feel the soothing sunlight, but the mood is spoiled. The light now seems glaring, painful, spotted with claustrophobic hoards of people.
There is no escape even to the ocean, which appears to be an undulating mass of moving insects in human form, floating on the surface or diving quickly, up and down, spraying and splashing. Loud laughter, a crowd forms by the incoming tide. Rumor of a brawl, people running so as not to miss out, but it must have been false, or else quick, for the crowd quickly disperses, disappointed. I sense a mood of tension, that ominous feeling that something, anything is possible.
Back at the blanket, the wife hasn’t moved in a long time and her husband sits ramrod straight in his chair, staring out towards the now churning sea. The wife remains on her stomach with her head drooping, almost resting on the sandy blanket, but she doesn’t allow herself this luxury of release. She could be made of stone. If there were tears, they long ago dried on her face. Their kingdom is littered with the remains of lunch and half eaten cookies abandoned in mid taste.
The twins run towards their parents splattering sand and stepping on towels as they make their way up from the water’s edge where they were apparently filling their plastic pails. The girl is crying, big tears mixing with the grit on her face, her mouth frozen in a grimace of distress, her wails barely audible above the general clamor until she reaches her parents. The boy follows close behind and when they reach the blanket they both stop abruptly before their feet can touch the edge. He yells at his sister who is standing silent now like a living statue with flowing tears, “You’re stupid. You never do anything right! Next time you mess up, I’m going to smack you in the face.”
The father doesn’t move. The mother’s head drops to the blanket at last, resting there, her face hidden.
