Beaches

It all started out innocently enough…
But I digress…PTSD and all that.
I don’t know why I buried my leg.
I had parked my truck at a stop, called a taxi, and grabbed a towel…shorts and tee shirt.
A tee shirt?
For the beach?
No one is seeing my man boobs….
Anyways…

…..Pretty much by myself this time of morning.
And for some reason…I decided to bury my leg.
I started scooping the cool, WET sand over my leg.
Starting at my cankle and working my way up. You know how we roll…..
I looked at my toes and wiggled the little piggy’s….Just back from the market
I love my piggies.

That’s when Poo and Loo appeared.

I give them these names because I never learned their actual names.
Their shadows blocked the sun…falling across my leg.
They were standing shoulder to shoulder….Staring at my buried leg.
“Do you want us to help with the other leg?” Loo asked. She was holding a pink pail and green shovel.
The pail had SpongeBob on it, grinning.
SpongeBob knew something.

Loo was about 4 yrs old I guessed. She had light hair. She had on a pink pair of little girl bikini bottoms that had a little green frill around the waist, and the Little Mermaid swimming on a hip.
She was topless.
Sand on her belly and legs.
Pink polish on toes of right foot.
Topless Barbie doll…in the SpongeBob bucket.

Poo…evidently the muscle of the pair, was also probably 4 yrs old.
He had dark hair. He was as tall as Loo, but thinner, like boys tend to be at that age, all arms and legs.
He had on flowery shorts. He had sand on his belly and legs. I checked the toes…no polish.
He also had a pail…generic blue…and a like colored shovel.
He had a Ken doll in his bucket.
Ken was naked…and a eunuch.
Poor Ken. Poor poor Ken.

Why the hell not!?
I don’t remember exactly how it happened.
Trauma’s like that.
I remember Loo putting her hands on my shoulders and laying me back on the sand while Poo continued to dump his pail full of sand onto both my legs and stomach. Loo was sweet enough to have even folded up my towel and using it as a pillow. To keep the sand out of my hair she said…
Sweet Loo…
So kind and thoughtful.

I heard grown-up laughter and turning my head slowly to the right I saw 2 women sitting in beach chairs with big sun hats. They were looking in our direction and laughing. The one closest to my pile of sand (about 50’ away) was holding a toddler about 18-24 months old.
He had sunscreen on his little button nose. He was sucking on a bottle and staring at me. Staring at me like Loo had.
One of the sun hat ladies was trying to get him to eat what looked like fruit or potato salad. He’d turn his head on an angle resisting her attempts, but still working his bottle.

I was wrenched from this observation when sand splattered onto my face and lips.
Shaking my head, sputtering…I croaked, “Y’all are getting it in my face” Loo came to my aid looking worried. She brushed the sand from my face and lips. “That’s better” she cooed.

I smiled. She smiled. We were friends.
Very soon though, I realized…they had buried me.
Up to my neck! An Iron lung of sand.
I had noticed that with each layer of sand, had come…in this order: Dump sand; wet the sand, pat the sand with shovels, stomp sand with feet…repeat.
I found, in a fast growing panic, that I could hardly take a deep breath. The motion of my head was restricted. “You guys did a good job”…I laughed nervously.

Loo didn’t look at me. Poo didn’t look at me
.
They went to the sun hat ladies and came back carrying a bag. They dug around in the bag. Things tinkled inside the bag.
Loo came over and started decorating my tomb with sea shells of all sorts.
Some Starfish. Some Sand dollars and other beach coveted accoutrements.
They added a little bit of kelp for greenage.
Looked rather homey…

Loo then added topless Barbi to the top of my sand pile (I’ve always loved Barbi).
Poo sat Ken next to Barbi.
Poor eunuch Ken.
Here is poor Ken…on a lovely beach with a beautiful, topless, speechless woman…and he’s a freaking eunuch.
Doll life sucks.

As I was contemplating the life and plight of poor eunuch Ken, I noticed a presence close to my left ear.
I slowly turned my head in that general direction.
It was Alfred.
The 18-24 month old. He was still working his bottle, and squatting baby/Indian style next to my face…staring at me.
I called him Alfred because he resembled Hitchcock.
He was naked now.
The soggy diaper was in the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle.
It smelled funny.
Albert had seen Loo wipe the sand off my face apparently.
Sweet Albert was gonna wipe my face too.

I anticipated his intent because I am a grown up and think much faster than an 18-24 month old in most cases. I turned my head away from the diaper wielding mad baby and breathlessly honked, “Hey little girl, he’s trying to wipe my face with his diaper!”
Loo and Poo were nowhere to be seen or heard.

As Mr. Albert wiped my face off with his diaper, still working his bottle mind you, I caught a glance of Loo and Poo coming back toward my pile with a big plastic bowl.
Loo saw what Alfred was doing and dropped her side of the bowl, hurrying over to stop the little bastard from his facial duties. She ran up and snatched the diaper out of his hand.
The diaper exploded.
It was in my hair, my lips, my eyes…everywhere.
I would’ve started crying then, but I wasn’t going to show Alfred any fear.
He was still staring at me, watching me for weakness.
He was still working the bottle, and his nose was running.
I bit my lip and glared at him.

However, I was acutely aware of the fact of Mr. Willies being so close to my ear.
You see…I’m a dude.
I have been around babies of my own that I have prepped…and cleaned. Boy babies, of a naked persuasion, tend to fire off Mr. Willy with any type of temperature or pressure change.
Even a gust of air could trigger it.
Here am I, on a beach…with waves crashing….and a nice gentle breeze…….Great.
I waited….helpless before Mr. Willy and Alfred.

Loo shoved Alfred aside, and continued to clean my face.
Potato Salad.
AHA! That’s what they were eating.
My stomach growled. I tried to lick her fingers. (Not really, I was only thirsty)
Burial does that to a guy…
“We’re gonna look for his belly-button!” Poo shouted to the sun-hat women.
“Good luck” they yelled back, laughing.
Don’t tell them that.
Please don’t tell them that.

If they would ask me I would tell them where my belly-button is.
It’s in MY BELLY! I don’t even explore it.
Guys don’t mess with their belly buttons! We don’t clean out our belly-buttons!
That’s why nobody has found Hoffa, Bigfoot DNA, or the cure for cancer. They are all in some dudes belly-button.
National Geographic doesn’t even go there!
So, I avoid touching it. That’s why I store lint there. You know…for camp fires.
I knew where my belly-button is dammit.
I’d just seen it that morning.

“Go for it”
What was I saying?
Why did I say that?
Loos smile vanished slowly, her eyes narrowing at the same rate. She turned and glanced at Poo. I glanced at Poo. He was giving her a wooden spoon that had remnants of potato salad on it.
He grinned.
Loo turned back to me and whispered…
”We’ll find it”

I blinked….

Loo hit the spoon, driving it into my sand tomb.
I felt where the spoon had made its first impact, I quickly calculated the seismological data in my head and came to the conclusion that she was not above my belly-button.
She was much…much too low for that.
“Uh” I said “That’s not even close” I giggled. She never took her eyes off the job of whacking the spoon, nor acknowledging I had even said anything. Once again I repeated my statement. Whack-pause-Whack!
The drill was getting closer.
Too close to my NOT belly-button area.
I knew that 2 more whacks would neuter me.
She stopped. I exhaled.

I quit wagging my head from side to side in pre-deflowered anguish.
Relief flooded me. I think I cried.
Poo stepped up with the bowl. Lifting the bowl to his waist and bending slightly over my sand prison, he began to slowly pour the water down the hole Loo had just drilled.
I watched as the sea water and potato salad medium poured down.
I could feel it break thru the remaining half inch of sand, trickling across my belly, my waist, my happy place.

It felt like warm little spiders crawling all between the sand and my body, pooling under my back.
All of a sudden…I had to pee. No…I won’t give them the satisfaction.

Then….my imagination reared its ugly head….

I could picture my body being discovered on the beach….

[SCENE 1]
The coroner is standing over my dead body that has been dug out of 2 tons of sand. The sand tomb had been compacted to the density of lead. It took a back-hoe to get my body out, one of the firemen had said. (I’m floating above the scene, over-hearing this because I have evidently died and stuck around to haunt the 3 little bastards that killed me)
The coroner is puzzled. One arm wrapped around his waist, the other hand rubbing the stubble on his face.
“I’ll be damned” he says quietly.
“What’s up?” asks the Fire Chief
“Nothing…I’m just trying to figure out why he’s got potato salad in his ass”
“Potato salad?” “What…do you mean?” asked the Fire Chief nervously
“Potatoes, onions, pickles, eggs, mustard…that’s potato salad right?”…the coroner’s voice trailed off.
“My mom doesn’t use pickles and mustard” said a Cop.
“I like pickles” said the Fire Chief

[SCENE 2]
My body is turned over onto my stomach before being zipped up into a bag.
The young coroner puts the back of his hand to his lips…”My God” he croaks.
The fire chief whispers “God didn’t have anything to do with this”
“Animals” the coroner agrees…”Pure evil”
They all make the sign of the cross.
[CLOSE SCENE]

I have given up. There is no escape. I am covered in sand. I have to pee, and I have potato salad in my butt.
Even if I survived this, how would I explain it?
I looked at the sky, waiting for the stairway to heaven.
But the devil was still here. He still had business with me.
I felt the devil next to me. I turned my head toward his presence.

It was Alfred.

He was still naked and still working on his bottle, staring at me.
The wind picked up, and he shivered a little, frowning baby style.
I waited for it to happen.
I turned my face away from Mr. Willy and waited.
Alfred grunted.
I blacked out.
I don’t remember how I got out of the sand or off the beach.
The kids were gone. The sun-hat ladies were gone.
I was by myself on the beach.
A shadow fell across the sand and I looked up.

It was a UFO…..
Of course it was.
An amplified voice came from the UFO….
“Have you seen three kids….a girl and a boy and a baby?”
Figures…..