"
SANFORD FRIEDMAN
The ambiguity of these last words left Stephen puzzled and
staring after the old man, but his concern was only momentary. A
second later he hopped off the bench, pulled down
his
bathing
suit and ran to the first shower. Standing on tip-toe, stretching
his
left arm until the muscles ached, Stephen was just able to reach
the rusty ring and pull it down. Taking pains to keep the freezing
water from spattering his shoulders, he doused
his
bathing suit, released
the chain and skipped over to the wringer. Carefully, he
inserted
a
comer of his bloated, blue wool bathing suit- black now from the
water-between the ivory-colored rubber rollers and began
to
tum
the crank. Almost as
if
they were synchronized, Stephen's tongue
emerged from his mouth at the same rate of speed as his bathing
suit from between the rollers, so that by the time the garment was
completely wrung-out, flat and dry and blue again--some of the
surface hairs even silver in the sunlight-Stephen was licking
his
nose. Indeed, he loved the clothes wringer so much that when he was
finished with his bathing suit, he repeated the entire process with his
turkish towel from dousing through cranking.
As
a little boy, Stephen
had tried, without success, to run his fingers and even his tongue
between the rollers, and he still looked forward to the day when
he would be tall enough to experiment with his peepee-er.
When he was finished, Stephen wrapped
his
damp towel around
his waist, wandered back to
E
97, changed into his red wool bathing
suit, put on his orange water wings and waited impatiently for
Daddy to come.
By the time Saul arrived, an unpleasant wind was blowing out
of the south-east and the sky was overcast. The ocean didn't look
the least bit tempting- after all, it was September 7th, the summer
was over and this was to be their last week-end before moving
back to New York-but Saul knew how disappointed the
boys
would
be
if
he cancelled their dip, and he got into
his
bathing suit. "Come
on, kids," he said. "We better hurry. There's going to be a storm."
"In that
case,
Dad, let's go down by the wooden steps," Roggie
suggested.
Before Saul could answer, Stephen exclaimed, "No!"
"But Roggie's right,
kleine
dear. Look how much time we could
save."
"No
I"
