SUMMER OF SURF, SEASON OF CHANGES: A Bronx Quiet Dreaming Tale

SUMMER OF SURF, SEASON OF CHANGES

© 2009 by David Wainland

The waters of Reynolds Channel are warm and calm in late July. Far rockaway surf really does not begin until Beach 19^th street and Ostend, our beach club, was down around 9^th. Small party boats anchored off shore and almost within swimming distance of the gritty beach. From our communal blanket we could watch the fisherman on board troll the waters in search of fluke or other bottom fish.

It was a lazy summer and one of my last days at the beach. Mom and dad had rented a second floor walk up in a rickety, wood framed three family house for four weeks and the final days were slipping by. In a few days I would be returning for a week back in the Bronx and then I would be joining my cousin Don and his family at their rental up north in Lake Mohican. I was twelve and life was getting better for our family every day. My parents were even talking about moving to the beach permanently. There was a feeling of change in everything that we did.

Dad’s business was doing great and he and his new partner, my Uncle Jack had found a special niche for their respective talents. From one man on crutches to two shops and seven employees was no mean feat, but after the war opportunity was everywhere.

Mom opened the cooler and laid out my favorite beach meal, cold fried chicken, homemade coleslaw, hard crusted buttered Kaiser rolls and Wise potato chips.

“Do you want to swim first or eat?”

My eight year old brother Jerry and my baby sister Laurie both opted for the water, but I was eyeing the savory bird.

“I’m hungry mom, can I eat now?”

“The kids want to swim and if they eat they can’t go back in the water for at least a half hour. Walk them down to the water and watch them for fifteen minutes. You can take a piece with you to munch on. “

It was a workable compromise so I gave in quickly, wiped the sand from my hands and picked out a juicy drumstick.

“C’mon kids, we ain’t got all day.” I was big brother gruff, but really meant nothing by it.

Jerry went out about fifteen feet and Laurie, in her tube, played in the paltry surf. I sat in the wet sand and watched two older female teens splashing and ducking each other. Watching girls was now my full time hobby. I was trying to work up the courage and approach them when I heard my brother call out. In the middle of a flat ocean with no winds or waves he got caught in a rip current and was panicking.

As the current began to drag him out I raced across the sand and charged through the knee deep shallows. My left foot came down hard and suddenly I was on my back holding toes, screaming and watching red water swirl around me. A life guard roared past and in moments he was returning with my brother.

He was fine. I had stepped on a broken coke bottle and wound up with eight stitches in the arch of my foot. After that I could never again put my foot on the ocean floor.

The next day dad took me into the city to see our own physician, Dr. Cohen. I was prone to infection and he wanted to take all preventive medicine. I would remain in the Bronx with dad for a few days and until it was time to go north and he left for the Rockaways to collect the family. Most of the other guys were away for the summer, but I had one friend, though not really a close one, that was still home, Phil. Phil was really a friend of Michael’s and kind of wild, but he was the only one available so I called him.

Phil was a new generation of teen. His hair was piled high in a pompadour slicked with Vaseline Hair Tonic. He wore his short collar up, sleeves folded over and his cuffed Levis low. Around his waist was a two inch wide black leather belt with a heavy brass buckle and he boasted over the ankle black boots we called Chuckers. He was a James Dean clone and we called that style Rocks. Phil was a Rock, a hoodlum and a gang member.     

“Hey man, how’s your summer going?”

I looked down at my scuffed brown Tom McCann laced shoes and my brushed corduroy pants and wanted to run home. I quickly flipped my collar up and gave my shirt sleeves a half roll. It was the best I could do.

“OK, I’m only home for a few days and then I’m going to the country. What’cha been doin”

“Stuff, ya wanna hang out with me?”

“Doin what?”

“Stuff.”

“OK.”

We took the El to Fordham Rd. and walked over to the Grand Concourse and Alexander’s department store where he taught me how to run into women with my hands held just high enough to fondle their breasts. Of course, it had to look like an accident. Then we went to Krum’s confectionary where we ordered sodas and ducked out without paying. Finally we slipped under the turnstiles and returned to the neighborhood where we promised to meet the following day. That night I spent two hours using my father’s black polish and colored my shoes.

We had no hair tonic so in the morning I used petroleum jelly to push and comb my hair into a curly semblance of a pompadour. That day I learned how to sneak candy out of Eddie’s candy store, inhale a Lucky Strike cigarette, carve my initials into the painted side of a car and I met his gang.

We spent the next couple of days hanging around the 176^th street corner lamppost, flipping smokes, spitting, playing Knuckles, a painful card game and hooting at girls. I even convinced my dad to buy me a pair of black penny loafers, a garrison belt and my first pair of jeans.

On my last night in town Phil clued me into masturbation. After that, I was never again the same kid.