The Sand Castle Read online

  “I just can,” came the not very specific reply.

  “I want a hotdog with mustard and a Co-cola.”

  “Leroy, the Chesapeake Bay is famous for soft-shell crabs. Won’t get another chance to eat them until next summer. The season starts the first full moon in May and ends in September. It’s almost September.”

  “Aunt Wheezie, I want a hotdog. Really.” He closed his mouth, which became a straight line.

  “Chicken,” I whispered, to further torment him.

  He turned to me but stopped as Louise said, “Chicken? Don’t tell me you don’t want to eat softshell crabs either? What about oysters? Last year two and a half million oysters were hauled up out of the Bay. But this is another good year. Come on. Oysters? Softshell crabs?”

  “Well. . . .”

  “Chicken. Nickel just loves chicken.” Leroy smiled.

  “All right.” She resigned herself to our perversity.

  The waitress came and Louise ordered, adding cole slaw, fries, and some rolls.

  Mother returned. “All right, kid, your turn. Go back to the car and get your clothes out of the trunk.”

  How glad I was to peel off my bathing suit, which I hated, dry off, and pull a clean T-shirt over my head, put on shorts, wipe my feet, and slip my feet into cotton socks and my PF Flyers, which weren’t as bright as Leroy’s.

  The food, spilling over paper plates, covered the trestle table when I returned. Crabhouses—outdoor beach shacks—usually used paper plates and disposable utensils to save time for the help. Saved money, too. The only thing they had to wash were pots and pans, and they would scrub down on the wooden tables with a heavy scrapper and boiling water.

  Mother and Louise were pulling apart their softshell crabs: all those legs, somehow it seemed obscene. Those dead little eyes on their stalks gave me the creeps but I wasn’t about to let Leroy know.

  When we were finished, the owner, a young handsome man, came by, “How was it, folks?”

  “Delicious.” Louise smiled up.

  His hair was wavy, bleached in the sun, and his tanned face contrasted with his white teeth.

  Mother opined, “Those were the best soft-shell crabs I ever ate.”

  He lingered, flirting with Mother—men always did that. Then he left.

  “How come men always talk to you?” Leroy carefully folded his napkin, unaware that such a question might hurt Louise’s feelings.

  “Oh, I pretend I’m interested in everything they say. That’s the secret to men.” She took Leroy’s plate and napkin. “Actually, that’s the secret to people. Listen.”

  “I’m not listening to Nickel. She gets me in trouble.” He looked earnestly from Mother to Louise. “She told me if I took my pants off a big bird would swoop down and grab my pecker.”

  “Nickel?” Mother reached for my plate, too.

  “It would.”

  “Why?” Louise also tidied up.

  “Because the bird would think Leroy’s part was a juicy worm.”

  Louise frowned, “I don’t know what gets into your head but you shouldn’t talk like that. It’s not proper.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Leroy gloated.

  Mother stood up but she hadn’t yet folded up our plates, and I snatched one of the big claws off the softshell crab carcass. With stealth I moved it up to Leroy’s eye.

  “Plucked a dead man’s eye right out of his head.”

  Leroy screamed, knocked my hand up so the claw sailed upward then landed in the crushed shells of the parking lot. “Did not.”

  “Mmm, yummy.”

  “You leave me alone.”

  The two sisters, accustomed to children bouncing from tears to laughter to rage, were unfazed, and the exchange instantly died down when they stared at us.

  Since neither Mother nor Louise had seen the claw fall I picked it up when Leroy headed back to the car. I wiped it off, wrapped it in a napkin that had been sitting on another table, and secreted it in my shorts pocket.

  Back in the car, Louise slid onto the folded towel and turned on the car. “Juts, let’s go back just for a minute and see if our castle is still standing.”

  “Sure. As long as we’re home by seven.”

  “Unless there’s an accident, we should be.” Louise backed out.

  Small clapboard houses, most of them set back off the road, decreased in number as we headed back to the Point. Painted shutters adorned each building, testimony to the storms that would roar off the Bay.

  People had begun to leave the beach as the afternoon light lengthened.

  “Leroy, before we drive home I want you to change out of those trunks, wash off, and put your shorts on. All right?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. After we come back from the sand castle.”

  The castle stood, not even a pennant removed.

  “How about that?” Mother touched Leroy’s hand.

  “This is our best one.”

  “You say that every year.” Mother slipped her arm through Louise’s.

  “Funny. I wonder how many sand castles we’ve built since we were kids? It goes so fast, Juts, so fast.”

  “I know.”

  “Scares me.”

  “Me, too.”

  They stood there as Leroy knelt down to study the drawbridge.

  “You can raise and lower it but you have to be careful. Have to use your hand because I didn’t build a winch,” Mother told him.

  I knelt down beside him as he slid his fingernails under the top of the drawbridge, which he then lowered.

  Inside the castle, a small crab had dug in the sand. We hadn’t noticed but then she wasn’t advertising her presence. The lowered drawbridge roused her and she dashed sideways across it and right over Leroy’s hand. He screamed and fell back and the small crab fell back with him darting into the wide leg of his bathing trunks.

  “Oww,” Leroy hollered, tears in his eyes.

  I paid him no mind figuring he was being a big baby because he had fallen. How can he hurt himself in the sand?

  Then he really started to scream.

  Mother and Louise came over to lift him up but he grabbed his trunks.

  Mother knelt down, Leroy, what’s wrong?”

  “Oww.”

  Louise, kneeling down now, too, pulled out his waistband. “Julia, the crab’s latched onto him.”

  The two quickly pulled off his trunks. Sure enough, the crab held his part in her claw, probably as upset as Leroy but not about to release her grip.

  Mother grabbed the crab from behind, thumb on belly, forefinger on top of her yellowish shell with its blue edges. “Sis, see if you can pry open the claw.”

  Louise reached for the claw but the crab waved its other one menacingly. “Nickel, grab a pennant off the sandcastle. Now!”

  I did, handing her the popsicle stick with the colored paper on the end. She put it in front of the crab, who grabbed it.

  “You want me to do it and you hold the crab?” Mother asked Louise.

  “No, I think I can do it.”

  Leroy cried and sobbed so hard he couldn’t even scream anymore.

  Louise put her fingers on both sides of the claw. “Damn. Nickel get another pennant.”

  I did.

  Perspiration gleamed on her forehead.

  “Honey, be ready to put the popsicle stick into the claw the minute she gets it off,” Mother commanded.

  Finally, Louise pried open the claw and before the crab could pinch her I stuck the popsicle stick into the claw. The little crustacean snapped at the stick just as Mother threw her on the sand, where she ran sideways with two popsicle sticks. It would have been funny if Leroy hadn’t been in so much pain.

  “Honey, honey, move your hands.” Louise had gently tried to move his hand away from his penis the second the crab had been pulled off.

  “No.”

  “Leroy, do as you’re told.” Louise’s voice sharpened. “This isn’t something to fool around with.”

  He removed his hand
s, doubled up now.

  Mother said, “Thank God she didn’t cut through him, but she took a slice.”

  “He’ll swell up and that’s going to hurt, too. Juts, let’s carry him back to the car and we’ll find some ice.”

  “I can walk,” he cried, but he could hardly stand when they got him up. “Give me my trunks.”

  “All right. All right.” Louise handed him his trunks and he fell over putting one leg in.

  “I’ll run to the shower and wet a towel. We can wipe him off,” I volunteered.

  “Hurry.” Mother leaned down to lift Leroy up.

  “I’ll walk.”

  He did, painfully, as Louise held his hand.

  I was already at the pump when they drove up. Leroy was helped out of the car by Mother. She wiped off his part, then rewet the towel, wiping the sand off him very quickly.

  Back in the car in no time, Louise found a filling station with an ice machine sitting outside. She bought a bag of ice, put it in her bucket, and raced back to the car.

  “Nickel, get a small towel out of the trunk.”

  I did, and the sisters put the towel under him, then wrapped ice cubes in another towel I handed them.

  “You have to hold this on you even if the cold sort of makes you throb after a while,” Louise ordered him. “When the ice melts have Nickel put more in the towel. Do like I tell you and you’ll be all right.”

  He nodded as Mother handed him the towel. “Hold it right over where the crab grabbed you.”

  Mother checked her watch as they drove away. “We won’t get back in time to take him to the doctor.”

  “I hope he doesn’t need one but if it doesn’t look good I’ll ask Doc Ferguson to come over. You don’t want to take chances with something like that.”

  “Those claws are sharp. That damned little crab could have nipped a ball right off if she’d hit him right,” Mother stated offhandedly.

  “Really?” The lurid image compelled me.

  “Are you all right, Leroy?” Mother ignored me.

  “It hurts.”

  “It’s going to hurt for a while.” Mother turned to Louise. “We could give him half an aspirin.”

  “Mmm, not yet. I don’t like giving stuff like that to kids.”

  “We could give him children’s aspirin.”

  “I’d have to go all the way into Leonardtown and that would cost us an hour.” Louise’s hands gripped the steering wheel at ten o’clock and four o’clock. “It’s more important to get home.”

  “You’re right.” Mother uttered the magic words. A bit later she said—voice low but I was straining to listen—“I don’t think any veins are cut. There’s some blood but I don’t think a vein was hit. There’d be more blood.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “They get crooked after an injury.”

  “I know. Marie said after Bill broke his pelvis, his part never straightened out. Now why is that? Why would breaking his pelvis affect his part?” Louise was recalling a conversation with one of her pals.

  Mother stared out the window; there was a beautiful small white church in the distance. “I don’t know. We think men are uncomplicated, that part of them, but I’m not so sure. Seems to be a lot of problems in that area. Bill’s not the only one. Remember when Tommy Lavery passed out then came to and threw up? We thought he had an appendicitis attack but it was one of those tubes from his testicle that got twisted although the pain was in his guts.” Mother shook her head. “Must have been just awful.”

  I pretended not to listen. The ice was melting so I wrung the towel out into the ice bucket, plucked out more cubes, wrapped them up, and handed it to Leroy.

  “Usually you can see if something’s wrong down there,” Louise replied. “But sometimes you can’t. Course, when we have female troubles you can’t see a thing.”

  “You and I have been very lucky on that front,” Mother changed the subject. “Remember when we were teenagers and everything was happening? I mean, you’d wake up to a different body? All of a sudden breasts appeared.”

  Louise smiled. “God, I wouldn’t go back and do that over for all the tea in China.”

  “But did you ever think what it’s like for boys? No control. Their part stands up at the darnedest times. How embarrassing.”

  “Sure made us all laugh, though, didn’t it?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure they ever really get it under control. Reach a certain age and it doesn’t work right or it stands up but then dies on you.”

  Louise raised an eyebrow. “Chessy,” she used Dad’s name, “having problems?”

  “No. But you hear about it, you know?”

  “Oh.”

  They launched into a discussion of their girlfriends and their husbands. I tuned out. Leroy fell asleep.

  Silence in the back alerted Mother. She turned around.

  “He’s asleep.”

  “I can see that.” She half rose, got on her knees, and leaned over the front seat. “Hold the ice on him for awhile. When it’s all melted you can stop. That ought to help.”

  “I’m not touching him.”

  “Nickel.”

  Just the way she said my name made me grimace. I reached over because his hand had slipped, repositioned the small towel, and held it while I plotted some future, great revenge.

  The ice seemed to melt at a glacial rate. My left arm was tired from holding the towel straight and I hated the procedure. Every now and then Mother would turn around.

  “It’s almost melted,” I lied.

  “Wait until it’s all gone.”

  I must have pushed down a little harder than necessary because he woke with a whimper. I pulled my hand away as though it was on fire.

  “Hey!” He was as horrified as I was.

  “Mother made me do it,” I quickly proclaimed.

  Mother whirled around, “Yes, I did. Leroy,” a long pause followed, “we want to make sure you’re all right. That everything works. You’ll thank us when you’re married.”

  “I’m never getting married.” He put his hand over the towel.

  “Me neither.” I folded my arms over my chest.

  “Does it still hurt?” Louise asked, never taking her eyes off the road.

  “It’s cold.”

  “Does it throb?” Louise prodded.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?” I giggled.

  “Cause I can’t feel anything. It’s too cold. The cold hurts.”

  “Well, take the towel off for a while and if it swells up or starts to really throb then put ice back on.” Mother then addressed me. “See that he does, Nick.”

  “Mom, I don’t want to. . . .” I didn’t finish.

  “I can do it. I’m not going to fall asleep.” He leaned toward me and whispered. “You touch my pecker and you die.”

  “I’ll kill you first. I don’t want to touch that silly worm and besides, there was a towel on it. I never really touched you, Leroy.”

  “You say.”

  I readied to hit him, then remembered he was incapacitated, sort of, so I folded my arms back over my chest and stared out the window.

  “Look, you two, this is going to be a long ride. I don’t want to hear a peep.” Louise shook her head as she did when we irritated her.

  The ice finally did melt and Leroy removed his towel, looked down. He put the towel in the bucket while covering himself.

  Mother noticed the movement, “Well?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Is it swollen?” She continued her line of questioning.

  “No.”

  “Leroy, how does it look?” Louise had had enough.

  “It’s cut a little but it’s not swollen.”

  “Is it discolored?” Louise wanted to know.

  “Uh,” he was at a loss.

  “Wheezie, he had the ice on it so it’s probably a little blue.

  Mother’s reply to her sister made Leroy look at his part. “Color’s coming b
ack.”

  “Some pain might come back with it,” Mother said, then joked, “Honey, we want that part to work. My sister can’t wait to be a great-grandmother.”

  Because Louise married at sixteen, Ginny born a year after, and Ginny married at sixteen, chances were strong that Louise might live long enough to see great-great grandchildren if they kept marrying so young.

  Mother, on the other hand, waited until her midtwenties to marry, being in no hurry to be tied down. Her endless sociability gave Louise the vapors and the platinum wedding ring on her finger never produced the staidness that Louise thought would follow. If anything, Mother threw herself into even more activities and when I appeared she threw me into them, too. I was probably the only child in the state of Maryland happy to go to bed at night. I needed the rest.

  “I’m not getting married.” Leroy repeated, with more vehemence.

  “We’ll see.” Louise used her singsong voice, which we both hated.

  “I’m not! I don’t want children. I want my mother!” His face shone crimson.

  Mother told him soothingly, “We all do, honey, we all do.”

  “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” Louise said.

  “Why? Why, Wheezie?” He shouted. “Why did He take Mama when there are old people to take? Everything God makes dies.”

  Frightened from his outburst and his sorrow, I wedged myself up against the door.

  “Wheeze, pull over,” Mother ordered.

  A stunned expression crossed Louise’s pretty features. She pulled over. Mother got out and opened the door. Had I not been hanging onto the door handle I would have plopped onto the side of the road.

  “Nickel, come up with me,” Louise ordered softly.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Mother patted my shoulder as I lurched out then slid onto the front seat and closed the door. She closed the back door, moving next to Leroy, and put her arms around him. He buried his face in her soft bosom and sobbed his heart out.

  Louise pulled back onto the road. When I looked around Mother was crying, too, and that made me cry—that and everything.

  Louise, tears in her eyes, gently said, “Nickel, sometimes God seems cruel. We can’t understand it. You have to believe and you have to be strong. Only the strong survive.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Louise swallowed hard and reached for my left hand with her right. She gave it a hard squeeze, regaining her composure.