OCEAN
"
"All right. We'll go the way we always do."
"No fair!" Roggie objected. "Why do we always have to
go
his
way?"
"I'll tell you what, sweetheart, why don't
you
go down the
wooden steps, and Stevie and I'll go down the main one, and then
we'll
all
meet on the beach."
"Why can't you come with me and let him go by himself,
if
he's so stubborn?"
"Because he's too little. You know he can't go by himself."
"Why can't Mommy take him?"
"Because Mommy'S playing Mah Jong."
The question settled, Stephen turned to his brother and made
a nefarious face like Dr. Fu Manchu about to pull the switch that
would annihilate the whole white race.
"Look at him! Look at him!" Roggie shouted. "Stinker!"
"I'm
not
a stinker!"
"Listen, kids," Daddy intervened, "either we go this minute
or we don't go at all. Come on now, Roggie. Let's see who'll get
there first."
"Are you kidding, Dad?" Roggie scoffed.
"All right. On your mark, get set-" Even before Daddy had
a chance to say go, Roggie tore away across the dance floor, around
the bandstand, toward the narrow wooden stairs that scaled the
cliffs from the beach to the Casino. At the same moment Stephen
took hold of Daddy's hand and tugged him in the opposite direction:
out of the Casino, down the gravel driveway, onto Ocean Avenue,
toward Seaside's stellar attraction: the promenade and Grand Stair–
way, two blocks south.
Construction of the Grand Stairway was begun in 1888 and
completed in 1891, at a time when Seaside had hopes of contending
with Newport and Southampton for favor as the foremost resort on
the Eastern Seaboard. Built of red sandstone in the shape of an "X,"
the stainvay could be approached from either the north or south–
it made no difference which, since its two broad descending flight!
were symmetrical and converged onto a central landing halfway
down the side of the cliff before they branched off toward the beach
in opposite directions. But in the forty-six summers that had passed
since the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the elements--the merciless wind
