Timmy walked along the beach, along the shoreline where the wet and dry sand met. He kept his eyes on his feet and put one foot slowly before the other, as if he were walking a tightrope. He struggled to place each step exactly where the two sands came together. Occasionally, the foam crept up the sand toward his feet, but it never quite reached them. The tide was moving toward the sea now, and it would be almost twelve hours before the tide would climb up the beach and wash away the remnants of his footsteps.
Timmy stopped as a hermit crab scuttled across the sand in front of him. He looked to his right, toward the water, and saw the screw-like paths of dozens of sand fleas disappearing beneath the retreating waves. He wondered what else lurked beneath the sand, what worlds lived beneath the surface on which he stepped. He knelt and scooped his fingers through the ground-up rocks and shells. The sand sifted through his fingers, and he felt a sand flea squirm upon his palm, its tiny legs kicking in his hand. He held the crab by its shell and smiled before he placed it in the water with the next incoming wave. The balmy July breeze drifted over the sea and dried some of the sweat from his skin.
“John,” Timmy heard a man shout behind him. The voice mixed with the seagulls’ cries above. He turned around and spotted a man looking at him. The man had his hand raised over his eyes to block the morning sunlight. The man lowered his hand and walked toward Timmy.
Timmy looked side to side. “I’m not John,” he said.
The man continued walking toward him. At first, Timmy avoided his eyes. As the man got within a few steps of him, he stopped. The man smiled and his teeth shone white in the sun. Lines creased his sunburned cheeks, and crows’ feet made tiny arrows toward his eyes. His eyes searched Timmy’s features from behind a pair of glasses. At last, Timmy looked into the man’s eyes. They were deep blue. They looked like the dead eyes of a shark. As the man’s face quivered, he stared without blinking.
“I thought you were my son,” the man said. “You look just like him.”
Timmy said nothing.
“Maybe you’ve seen him before,” the man said. “He’s out here a lot.” He crouched to bring his face in line with Timmy’s. “It’s amazing how much you two look alike.”
Still, Timmy said nothing. All the while, the man smiled his bright smile.
Timmy did not smile back.
The man held out his hand. “My name’s Ed, but people call me Eddie,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Timmy did not hold out his hand. He looked over the man’s shoulder, back toward the Driftwood Motel where he and his parents were staying. Timmy’s family was on vacation in Florida, and Timmy had snuck out that morning while his parents were still sleeping. He wondered if his parents had woken yet. He looked back at the man and remained silent.
“What’s your name?” the man said without breaking his smile.
Timmy stepped back. He kept his hands tight by his sides.
The man extended his arm even farther. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t bite.”
* * *
The man’s eyes carried Timmy back to a July day from the previous summer. That summer, Timmy had turned seven. A few days after his birthday, his parents had let him spend the night at his friend Mike’s house. He had visited Mike’s house often but had never stayed the night before then.
Mike’s and Timmy’s parents were friends. They often barbecued in one another’s backyards as Mike and Timmy played in plastic pools or threw footballs to each other. The families lived in similar single-story houses, a few blocks apart, on the outskirts of Houston. Their backyards—suburban islands surrounded by pinewood fencing—grew lush grass in the humid summers.
That morning a year ago Mike’s mother had gone to church and left Mike’s father in charge of the two boys. Timmy had thought the day would be like any other summer Sunday—muggy beneath a bright sun, with Mike and him spending hours catching the football before eating lunch at a picnic table on the patio. Timmy remembered being filled with anticipation—the anticipation a child feels when a simple thing like routine play reveals all the wonders the world can offer.
Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary that morning. Mike’s father, whom Timmy knew as Mr. Goodman, had grabbed a football and come up behind the two boys as they were eating breakfast. He slapped them both on their backs, causing cereal and milk to splatter from their mouths onto the table. “Who wants to play some football?” Mr. Goodman said.
Timmy laughed. He liked Mr. Goodman. Mr. Goodman would always ask him how he was doing in school and would spend hours playing games with Mike and him in the family’s backyard. Often, Timmy had wished his own father could be so much fun.
The two boys left their breakfasts on the table, flung open the screen door, and raced into the backyard. Mr. Goodman followed slowly, whistling and tossing the football to himself as he walked across the brick patio onto the grass.
When Mr. Goodman got to the grass, he dropped his shoulders suddenly, snapped the ball to himself, and told Mike to go deep. He lofted the ball high. Timmy raced after Mike, leapt, and swatted the ball away. After that, he and Mike took turns running routes. Mr. Goodman usually threw the ball with a soft touch, and Timmy found it easy to catch his passes. Timmy caught ball after ball that morning and seemed to have Mike’s number.
“Good catch there,” Mr. Goodman said, winking at Timmy as Timmy ran back toward him. “Mike, watch how Timmy pulls the ball in with his hands. That’s how you catch a football.”
Then, after intercepting a pass intended for Mike, Timmy lined up on Mr. Goodman’s right. Mr. Goodman shouted one-two-three hut, and Timmy ran a post. Timmy faked to his right and darted past Mike toward the center of the yard. Mr. Goodman rifled the ball low and Timmy dove to catch it. Timmy floated through the air, his body parallel to the ground, before he caught the ball in his outstretched arms.
“I got it,” Timmy shouted after skidding across the grass. While he held the ball up for Mr. Goodman and Mike to see, he felt a burning sensation on his lower stomach and crotch. He dropped the football and rolled over. The front of his shorts had been pulled down when he had skidded along the ground. He screamed. He had slid over a fire-ant mound, and he saw a small sea of red racing across his stomach and into his shorts.
Timmy jumped up and pulled his pants down. He tried to brush the ants off his stomach, penis, and scrotum. He was crying from the stinging between his legs.
Mr. Goodman and Mike rushed toward him. Mr. Goodman told Mike he would take Timmy inside. He scooped Timmy up, cradling Timmy’s legs in the crook of his right arm and holding Timmy’s back with his left arm. He carried Timmy through the screen door and bolted to the bathroom. He set Timmy down in the bathtub and started running the water.
Timmy took his shorts off. As Timmy pushed his groin under the running water and washed the remaining ants down the drain, Mr. Goodman went to the open door, closed it, and turned the lock.
Timmy looked at Mr. Goodman.
Mr. Goodman smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll be all right.” Still smiling, he rubbed his hands and walked toward Timmy.
As Mr. Goodman approached, Timmy kneeled, letting the water flow against his belly button.
Mr. Goodman stopped at the sink, wet his hands, and slicked them with soap. He turned his head toward Timmy. Mr. Goodman’s eyes were cold, expressionless—like a shark’s. He looked Timmy up and down. “Don’t worry,” he said again. “It’ll be all right.”
* * *
Timmy shook off that year-old summer day and found himself once again on the beach staring at the outstretched arm of the stranger before him. He looked briefly into the dead eyes of the man who called himself Eddie. Fearful, Timmy averted his eyes and stared at his own feet. The white, golden, and pink shell-chips between his toes glimmered in the sun. The waves ebbed and flowed behind him. The terns and seagulls left their tiny footprints in the wet sand as they searched for their morning meals. Soon enough, Timmy thought, the waves would creep up the shoreline and wash away the traces of what was now and what was yet to come.
Timmy looked back toward the hotel where his parents were. They couldn’t help him, he thought, not from the comfort of their bed. He saw the scattered strangers walking the beach with blankets and umbrellas in their hands. They would be of no help either, not with children of their own in tow. Even the lifeguard, who sat high on his perch, would linger unaware and stare upon the sea while this was happening. Timmy knew all this to be true.
Still, as if to erase the moment, Timmy turned his back on Eddie. Timmy kneeled down, scooped up a handful of sand, and let the sand trickle through his fingers. The grains fell on the beach slowly, like grains of sand falling in an hourglass. Timmy again felt a tickling in the palm of his hand.
“A sand flea,” Eddie said, bending over Timmy’s back. “You never know what you’ll find when you dig deep enough.”
Timmy felt Eddie’s breath on his right ear.
Eddie stood straight. “Why don’t you come back with me? I really think you and my son would get along.”
Timmy closed his eyes and placed his hand palm-up on the sand. The foam of the next wave washed over it and carried the sand flea into the water. Timmy opened his eyes and held his breath. He knew he must go. He stood and turned to face Eddie.
Eddie held out his hand again.
Timmy placed his hand in Eddie’s. “My name’s Timmy,” he said.
“See, Timmy,” Eddie said. “That wasn’t too bad. I said I didn’t bite.”
Eddie guided Timmy away from a small group of sunbathers through a short path flanked by tufts of sea grass. They then crossed the hot open sand that led to Eddie’s motel. The breeze carried the scent of salt and suntan oil with Timmy as he placed one foot before the other.
Later that night Timmy would return to the beach, to the same spot he had walked that morning, and he would watch the waves lay waste to the footsteps he had made. It would be all right then, he thought. Beneath the shelter of a starry night, everything would be all right.
Lewis J. Beilman III lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with his family and two cats. His stories have appeared in ArLiJo, Reed Magazine, Blood Lotus, and other literary publications. In 2009, he won first prize in the Fred R. Shaw Poetry Contest.
