Carol Emshwiller - Day at the Beach

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DAY AT THE BEACH

by Carol Emshwiller

from Fantasy and Science Fiction

The first Milford Science Fiction Writers' Conference was

held in 1956. Among those invited were a number of artists,

agents, editors, and publishers in the field. So artist Ed "Emsh"

came up for the week—with his family.

Carol Emshwiller had then published two or three stories;

but she didn't know she was a writer, and the bated-breath

humility with which she asked if she possibly might be allowed

to sit in on workshop meetings has come back to haunt us Older

Hands each summer since. Each summer, I mean, when Carol

pops out of the playpen-and-baby-bottle laden car, an infant (at

least figuratively) under one arm, and her newest manuscript

under the other. (Ed carries two kids and his brushes in his

teeth—nothing to it when you get the knack.)

The first time I read Day at the Beach was in one of these

workshop sessions. After that, I just waited for someone to

print it first, so I could next…

"It's Saturday," the absolutely hairless woman said, and she pulled at

her frayed, green kerchief to make sure it cov-ered her head. "I sometimes

forget to keep track of the days, but I marked three more off on the

calender because I think that's how many I forgot, so this must be

Saturday."

Her name was Myra and she had neither eyebrows nor lashes nor even

a faint, transparent down along her cheeks. Once she had had long, black

hair, but now, looking at her pink, bare face, one would guess she had

been a red-head.

Her equally hairless husband, Ben, sprawled at the kitchen table

waiting for breakfast. He wore red plaid Bermuda shorts, rather faded,

and a tee shirt with a large hole under the arm. His skull curved above his

staring eyes more naked-seeming than hers because he wore no kerchief

or hat.

"We used to always go out on Saturdays," she said, and she put a bowl

of oatmeal at the side of the table in front of a youth chair.

Then she put the biggest bowl between her husband's elbows.

"I have to mow the lawn this morning," he said. "All the more so if it's

Saturday."

She went on as if she hadn't heard. "A day like today we'd go to the

beach. I forget a lot of things, but I remem-ber that."

"If I were you, I just wouldn't think about it." Ben's empty eyes finally

focused on the youth chair and he turned then to the open window behind

him and yelled, "Littleboy, Littleboy," making the sound run together all

L's and Y. "Hey, it's breakfast, Boy," and under his breath he said, "He

won't come."

"But I do think about it. I remember hot dogs and clam chowder and

how cool it was days like this. I don't sup-pose I even have a bathing suit

around any more."

"It wouldn't be like it used to be."

"Oh, the sea's the same. That's one thing sure. I won-der if the

boardwalk's still there."

"Hah," he said. "I don't have to see it to know it's all gone for firewood.

It's been four winters now."

She sat down, put her elbows on the table and stared at her bowl.

"Oatmeal," she said, putting in that one word everything she felt about the

beach and wanting to go there.

"It's not that I don't want to do better for you," Ben said. He touched

her arm with the tips of his fingers for just a moment. "I wish I could. And

I wish I could have hung on to that corned beef hash last time, but it was

heavy and I had to run and there was a fight on the train and I lost the

sugar too. I wonder which bastard has it now."

"I know how hard you try, Ben. I do. It's just sometimes everything

comes on you at once, especially when it's a Saturday like this. Having to

get water way down the block and that only when there's electricity to run

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