Rainy Day Monday: A Short Short

A short-short of around 600 words. The prompt? The word water. Based on a horrendous family vacation when I was 8 years old.

The neighbor woman wears a pair of jean shorts every day. So does the neighbor man. They wear matching jean shorts, otherwise known as jorts. They share an assortment of t-shirts, each bought from local tourist trap restaurants. Barnacle Bob’s �" the Best Clam Cakes in Town! Or, The Lighthouse Diner �" Guiding You to Maine’s Best Seafood!

Oh, girllie, beckons the man from the porch.

I don’t look at him. Instead, I twist my brand new bracelet round and round to break it in.  I trade a year’s worth of nickels for a new one each summer. A tangle of blanched white sailor’s rope for just a dollar. My goal is to make an unbroken circle, to try again to keep it on my wrist until the next summer. By October each year it’s grey with grime and my mother always lops it off with her sewing scissors. There, she says. That’s dirty looking.  You’ll get a new one in July.

The man drags two lawn chairs to the front porch to get the best view.  The woman goes inside the house to get popcorn and cola. The man arches the picnic table umbrella over his chair to protect his freckled head from a wayward zap of sun. He plops into the chair and lights a cigar. “I’ve got to see this,” he says, shaking his head. The woman sits next, a napkin in her lap.

Swing camera to my father, 45, unshaven, wearing khaki trousers hacked off at the knees, Spotbilt sneakers and yet another new pair of shades.  A popped open can of Bud Light. An executive on vacation with his family.  Gooserocks Beach, Maine. 1980. In his right palm he holds a green garden hose, a hissing serpent. In front of him sits the family Cadillac. The sky bursts like a dam. The spray from the hose meets the heavy rainfall and light refracts for miles. Rainbows everywhere. Bam! Seagulls scream across the sky and land on the roof. 

A two-story, barn-red cottage right on the beach, more upscale than our usual. No more crouching down in an outside shower for an embarrassing post-beach rinse off. The executive fared well that year.  It was going to be better.  The décor features bottles stuffed plump with ships, framed seascapes, a lobster trap coffee table.  A TV that runs three channels. Plastic seagull pins stick into the kitchen countertop.

 

There were six of us that particular summer.  I was 8.  I slept with our 1 year old orange cat, Timmy, with tiger stripes and whiskers that spread like a Japanese fan. We snuck him behind the landlord for good reason. It was the summer of his leukemia. He lay on the windowsill in my room facing the beach. His gums grew bone white and his fur flew off his body, leaping for the sun.

My father washed the car each day, sometimes three times or four.  We’d all hear the crank of the spigot, the fast angry turn, the choke. Neighbors gathered. His sanity was questioned. I watched them watching him.

Inside, my mother, sister and their friends played cards, laughed, tipped over plastic tumblers, cut lime slices, felt the sting of vodka on sunburned lips. All he wanted was to swim in the ocean. Just a few walks on the beach under a lazy sun. Swimming trunks, zinc nose block, another pair of new shades.

But the rain came. And came. Everyone watched. The cat got it.  He understood. He wanted the sun, too. His last summer alive.

 All of us, so raw.