10
SANFORD FRIEDMAN
third place there weren't all these older children-including Roggie
-showing off by plunging into the water an inch away from your
nose, trying so hard to blind and drown you. The ocean didn't need
to be churned up artificially, it had a way of churning itself up-of
making its own stir, its own splash and spray and waves, wilder than
any kicking children.
And yet, for some reason, the ocean's wildness-the feature
that attracted Stephen most-made the grown-ups nervous, and they
forbade him to go into the water alone. That hateful rule created
awful problems for Stephen, not only because no one trusted Bruce,
the lifeguard, to rescue him if he should drown, but also because
Mommy was suffering from something a little bit like chicken pox
called neurasthenia that made her skin break out and itch terribly,
and she wasn't supposed to set foot in salt water. Stephen had a
theory of his own that the .water would wash away the sores and
scabs that covered Mommy's back (and stained her sheets and night–
gowns), but Mommy had explained that brine was an irritant.
Clarry had a problem, too, about going into the ocean: she claimed
she couldn't swim. But Stephen knew
it
wasn't all
that
simple because
once, when he asked her why she stayed in her uniform instead of
putting on a bathing suit when they went down to the beach, Clarry
laughed and said, "cause they don't make 'em big enough for me";
and another time, when Stephen asked her why she refused even to
wade, Clarry said, "What's the matter with you, sugar? These folks
don't want my kind messin' up their water." That left only Daddy, but
Daddy had to work in New York five days a week and could take
Stephen into the ocean only on week-ends and Friday afternoons
when, like today, he came back from the City early, at four-fifteen
. . . Stephen looked up at the big clock on the white wall outside
the members' lounge: 2: 00.... It would be hours and hours and
hours before Daddy's train arrived.
. . . But even so, even though he was not allowed to go into
the ocean except on weekends, Stephen preferred the sea to the
pool, the beach to the casino-at least there was the sand. Not
only could you embrace the sand and eat the sand and drool your
saliva into it, and punch and pat it, and roll and run and turn
somersaults on it, and flop and jump and stand on your head on it,
and let it trickle through your fingers, and dribble it between your
