Both fuss with their exact positions in relation to the late-morning sun and the ocean view they want. Janice seems to focus on the seaweed clumps and strewn pieces of junk around. “Do you smell anything bad?”

“What, like fishy bad?”

“Umm...yeah, fishy...maybe. Or, like foul garbage stink?”

“Oh. You think? No, nothing too bad. Or they wouldn’t let us in the water.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She suddenly changes her focus and leans back in the chair with her eyes closed, like everyone else assuming that things are within healthy levels or they would be told.

He searches the dull sky for the sun, which is vague but visible in the upper left side of the sky as a white disk showing through the shifting overcast. This is the same beach he came to with his first true love, Sarah. He hasn’t been back to any beach since that breakup ten years ago, and this just reminds him of the ache but he won’t tell Janice about that. No wonder he doesn’t like the beach. Or today, either. He’s only doing this to make her happy. A day at the beach, he thinks, a day like any other with Janice, going through the various motions of trying to make her happy, and usually failing.

Brenda and Tim Young along with their four children spot the empty cabana shelter and rally their four children in that direction.

A huge graceful bird swoops directly over Jack’s head and glides right into the water, startling them. “That ain’t no duck or seagull!” he exclaims. It is a beautiful white swan landing about 100 feet out on the edge of the fog, its three foot-long neck regally surveys the sea. Must be from an inland lake.

Enthusiastic noises follow. Like the huge swan moments before, the whole Young family swoops down on the empty cabana, and the immediate area around Jack and Janice is taken over. Almost immediately Jack regrets sitting there when he hears the continuous pop-popping of two hairy-backed guys playing paddle ball in the shallows. Then, the Young family comes along and pours into the empty shelter, bubbling over about their good fortune. Both parents light cigarettes, and leisurely lie back to enjoy the sights and take their time setting up chairs and folding tables. These people are among those regulars who have everything organized beforehand. They spend the day in relative comfort on the bright hot beach and have a ball with the kids, well-prepared in all ways. That’s the way to “do beach.”

The lanky dread-locked beachcomber named Blade dumps his beat-up bike next to the lifeguard tower. He stabs his surfboard point down in the sand amidst children playing and people munching snacks in front of the female lifeguard. Around the boys and girls and men and women, all wearing suits, the beachcomber looks “Pervy” to Jack in his leather jacket and army boots, but he is completely surprised when the hot woman lifeguard calls out, “Hey, Blade! Blade Kottel, you’ve been avoiding me!” She jumps off the tower and struts up to him like they know each other well, and they peck on the cheek. “Missed you yesterday!” she continues. They hug and have enthusiastic conversation. The guard opens her hands to Blade like he can do whatever he wants on that beach when she is there. He sheds the boots, the worn leather jacket, then readies his board and paddles out to surf.

The day, which started out with fog and haze offshore is slowly clearing. Almost 11, it’s about time. Jack watches as little waves lap the shoreline in a slow easy tempo. Then, gas fumes from a small boat drift over the beach and there is an instant offensive reaction among the crowds as all the relaxing people cover their faces or turn away. The Amazon lifeguard takes to her tower, waves a red flag at the smelly boat and blows her whistle, warning them of their proximity to the shore.

Beachgoers clap approval at her, and the boaters get the message loud and clear when she holds up a yellow bullhorn. “300 feet from shore!” she informs the boaters via the horn. They comply immediately and crank up the engine with another gust of dark smoke expelled behind. The choking exhaust drifts across the shoreline and forms a toxic trail for five more uncomfortable minutes.

            Omar is taking a short break, sitting on the sea wall observing events, then he steals off to the parking lot. He climbs into the back of his old windowless van, which smells of five or ten bad things inside and is full of junk like old coats, paint cans and drop cloths, an empty pet carrier, broken chairs and an old love seat. In the belly of the love seat, under the cushions is a stack of black machine gun pistols, assault rifles, and grenades.

            Then someone knocks on the van’s door and Omar jerks the cushions back over the guns. “Omar?” It is a girl’s voice. “Are you in there? You know who this is?”

ENJOY THE REST OF NUDE BEACH IN THE  SOON TO BE RELEASED BOOK OF THE SAME NAME!