SURF’S UP

     Saturday.
     Downtown Argus under a warm orange sun.
     Midwest farmers’ daughters in twos and threes crowd Walgreen’s perfume counter.
     Mr. Teters sweeps the sidewalk in front of his barber shop wearing a white apron.
     Mayor Sullivan picks his teeth after a steak sandwich at Bunny’s Tavern.
     Moss Newbury is stingy with pepperoni slices as he makes a Monical’s pizza.
     Mrs. Carruthers hoes her garden and smiles as she shoos away her rascal cat.
     Frank Palmer thinks of ways to cheat on his taxes.
     Eddie Venturi installs a muffler at Pete’s Automotive.
     Billy Franklin unloads produce from a truck behind the IGA Foodstore.
     Gladys Cushing of Irondequoit, New York, stops for directions at Lon’s Food & Fuel.
     Housewares clerk Tim Rieger quietly beats off in the Kmart men’s room during break.
     Nancy Hardaway frosts a cake at Delbert’s Bakery.
     Billy Ray’s mother folds towels in the basement laundry room.
     Billy Ray’s father finds a crescent wrench for Mrs. Dobbs at Fleener’s Hardware.
     Billy Ray sits on a street bench in front of Grant Park, tapping one foot to the Beach Boys blaring from his transistor radio, the other foot rolling back and forth a skateboard with a burgundy stripe down the center he painted himself. He gazes sleepily across the street in the direction of Roger Gilstrap’s Texaco station, but sees only sandy, warm beaches and blue waves dotted with grinning surfers.
     A red El Dorado convertible enters his line of vision and stops smack in front of him at a red light. Behind the wheel is Margie Heinrich, blonde and tanned the color of honey, her breasts straining against a yellow tank top. Billy Ray turns up “California Girls.”

                    “And the Northern girls with the way they kiss
                    They keep their boyfriends warm at night”

     Margie winks and throws her head back. Her golden ponytail dances on bare freckled shoulders. She locates the same station on her radio and Main Street is alive with Beach Boys. The light turns green, but Margie lingers. She looks Billy Ray over, ever so slowly allowing a smile to form, then another wink, and then she guns the El Dorado down the street. Billy Ray watches it for blocks before it turns off onto Lake Argus Road. He settles back into his bench, the sun warming his face. Billy Ray can smell salty breezes and feel the cold spray from the Santa Monica surf. He can smell coconut-scented suntan lotion oiling bronze bodies in bikinis.
     Surf’s Up.