Away To Rockaway

This last winter had overrun the Spring into late-April.

I wore my cold weather gear well into the month.

The snow lingered in the shadows.

Finally the season gave up the ghost.

And then the snow was gone.

Flowers bloomed in Brooklyn.

Ice cream trucks came out of hiding.

Trees bore the pink shade of May.

It was Spring at last and I called my young friend, Geoffery, about taking a trip to Rockaway Beach. he was recently unemployed and it was a sunny day, although not warm.

"`I don't have anything better to do."

"Me neither."

My job with Handsome Dave was over for the time being.

We had shipped his sculptures to Germany and organized his studio.

After two weeks of awful work condition, I could use a little sea, sun, and sand.

Geoffery took the ferry.

I rode the A train.

We met at Roger's Bar for a beer.

The darkness was comforting, but we had come for the beach.

Exiting from the bar onto 116th Street I smelled the ocean on the afternoon air.

The Sand Bar had been devastated by Hurricane Sandy.

There were no plans to re-open the venerable dive bar.

It was a sad thought.

The beach entrance was wide.

Geoffery posed in the sun.

I told him he looked like Peter O'Toole in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.

"That's a little bit of a push, but thank you."

The broad strand was peopled by a small Mexican family; a mother, father, and daughter in a bathing suit.

The temperature was about 65.

Waves rushed the shore with clear eddies.

The skyline of Rockaway appeared deserted by everyone living.

I couldn't resist the call of the Atlantic.

I waded into the ocean.

Up to my knees.

"How was it," asked an older black man in shorts.

"Not too bad."

The water never warmed up through the summer.

Dennis had been burned out of his apartment in October.

"I escaped with nothing. The Red Cross put me into a shelter out here. I didn't leave the room all winter.

"It was a cold winter," said Geoffery and the three of us nodded in assent.

"But today is nice."

Dennis joined me in the shallows.

He spoke of a wife in Staten Island.

"She has a Mercedes. I have nothing, but I do like a taste of Hennessey."

I offered him a Corona beer. It wasn't cold.

Dennis waved off the bottle.

"I like my beer cold."

The light was fading from the day.

We bid Dennis farewell.

"You have a good Spring."

"You too, Dennis."

Geoffery headed to the ferry landing.

I rode the bus to Broad Channel.

Flowers shivered in the night breeze.

The train tracks stretched south to Rockaway.

I would be there again.

But not this month.