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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Love stories / Romance
- Subject: Fantasy / Dreams / Wishes
- Published: 09/20/2022
The Beach was deserted. It always was this late at night (or rather, this early in the morning). Even the die hard partiers had left by three AM. That’s when I liked the beach the best. Once the summer was over, all the Tourists and Summer Workers would leave, and the beach would belong to us Locals again. There weren’t that many of us.
Since Annie and her Husband Ernie shut down their famous Ice Cream Stand (packed up the whole kit and kaboodle, along with their five kids…and left town) the population in the off season has dropped down to just around thirty seven. Unless you count Mrs. Robinson’s cats. Then the population jumps up to around fifty two…or more. After Labor Day, Ellen May’s living room becomes our Post Office. Janice, who runs the Bar/Grocery Store, used to be a Nurse before she moved up her with her Hubby Ben back in ’02.
Janice takes care of the things that happen in a small town. Mrs. Peppers broken finger, Little Mike’s (so what if he stood six foot seven and weighed in close to two hundred ninety pounds…you should see his brother “Tiny.”) burst appendix two years ago. She did the surgery right there on the Meat Cutting table. All of us held up Flashlights that pounded untold thousands of Lumens on his exposed belly as she cut under the direction of a Doctor that Shelly had linked to on her iPad. The first Zoom Operation. It was a success. From then on we nick named Janice: “The Butcher of Cleats Cove.”
It is like that in a small town, where everyone knows everyone…and has for years. Oh sure, every now and again, someone ruffles the imaginary feathers on someone else. Just like when Janice had that spite of jealousy with Betty Hudak for hitting on her Ben after a particularly splendid round of drinking during our: “End of Season” Party. It wasn’t much really, just a quick passionate kiss on the lips…but Janice saw it. Ben, as everyone knows, would never have let it get any farther…but Janice was upset.
For a while there, we all kept an eye on her, hoping she wouldn’t live up to her nickname: “The Butcher of Cleats Cove.” You got to give old Betty her props, when she marched right up to behind the Bar, pulled a surprised Janice around and planted a wet sloppy kiss right on Janice’s lips.
“See Janice, it wasn’t all that great.”
Both women burst out laughing. The whole bar clapped, and more than a few wanted to see a replay. Anyways, that is how Betty got her nickname: “Lips.” When Mrs. Henderson got into it with old Bart Barns over his goats, (those goats kept the town neat and tidy, sadly, they couldn’t tell a garden from a Quadratic Equation…so they ate Mrs. Henderson’s prize Roses). Bart just whipped up some Kurds and Weigh, added about a pound of his famous home made cottage cheese, and made her a goat cheese cake to boot, and that settled it all back down.
That’s life in a small town in the middle of nowhere near an ocean to cold to swim in most of they year. It is where I live. Alone.
Oh, I had a girl when I went to college down in Bangor. That was a nice four year experience for me. Her name was Angie. We met as Freshmen…and by Easter our Sophomore Year, we were engaged. She liked weekends (in the summer) up in Cleats Cove, but never came up in Winter. Not even for Christmas. We were to be married in June just four days after graduation.
We had a “Talk” the night before our wedding. The next morning she left town. I had to tell the entire town that she decided she couldn’t live in a town so small that if you slept with your own wife, you were a swinger. The whole town agreed I was better off. I know she was. The women in the village kept me under their watchful eyes, and I was never without a pie, or cookies for a whole year. The men made sure to give me lots to do cutting firewood, re-roofing the dozens of summer cottages, and all kinds of brute physical work that left me to tired to bother with self pity. It worked.
I haven’t seen or heard from Angie in more than two decades. I stopped getting pangs about her long ago. But …I was lonely. Very lonely. I am a quiet man. Words don’t come easy to me. As Janice jokes to the folks at the Bar:
“I heard a Trappist Monk complain about Kevin’s silence.”
It was an old joke. I do talk. I just don’t voice opinions, nor do I join in gossip. Small talk for me is difficult. And deep thinking conversations lead me to deep thinking…not speaking. So I guess it was only natural for me to do what I did.
I can’t tell you the first time I did it. I know it was sometime in the Fall …the First Fall after Angie left me. I was broken hearted. The village was doing what it could to heal a fractured heart, and broken soul. I knew I was loved, and cared for, but not by any single individual, just a community. I Love all of them too. But I wanted my own true love. Someone I could talk to without worrying about what I said. Someone I could share my fears, my insecurities, my dreams and hopes…without any of them being trampled on by some pointless “rah rah” you can do it platitudes.
Someone who sees my weaknesses as part of who I am. Just as they see the things I do well, or carefully, as part of who I am. I guess I just wanted someone who liked me…just as I am. Except for Summer Flings, there weren’t any options in the town of Cleats Clove. The only girl close to my age, Sheila Cooper, well she got married the year before I was supposed to. She must have liked it, because she married four more men after that. None of them from Cleats Cove.
She still lives here. She spends the summer looking for Number Six. She laughs about it.
“The only man here that’s single is Kevin, and he’s to kind to be married to someone like me. We would end up fighting all the time, and he would end up apologizing all the time.”
Well, I never wanted to marry her anyway. She is a good friend though. I told her once that she was in love with the idea of being married, not the actual work it takes to make one work. She laughed. She had a good laugh. Open and honest. She buckled over and told me (and apparently Ben and Janice too…one time or another):
“Kevin, I know who I am. I don’t like being married. I like getting married! The whole “Princess for a month” thing does wonders for me. Besides, I get a brand new dress about every decade or so. “
Anyways, back to my story.
I don’t know why I did it. I just did. I was an Art Major in College. I wasn’t very good with any of the usual mediums, oil, water colors, pen or pencil. Give me a brush and a palette- and I could make a decent High School Art Student painting. But that was about it. My gift, was in Sculpture. I could mold clay into magnificent forms. I could carve stone into rock Art. I could take marble and make it almost human. I quit doing any of that after Angie left. People kept trying to offer me Commission. Some of them in the six figure range. But I didn’t need money. I live simply.
My Mom gave me our house when she died. Dad was an Accountant, and left me with a Trust Fund that while not spectacular, ensured that I would never go hungry or without a car. So why work for money? You make Art because you have to. And for a while…I didn’t have to. Until…I got so lonely.
It was dark. Just enough moon to light up my favorite rock. I used to sit on that rock with my Mother sometimes. When I was in High School, I took Mary Ellen McKee to sit on it and just talk about our futures. Maybe a few quick amateur kisses and some teenage passion would happen, but Mary Ellen wanted out of Cleats Cove…I did not. Those few summers that Angie came up here …well, she said that this rock was my rock. And the most beautiful spot anywhere in the world. I think if she misses anything about Cleats Cove…it is sitting on that rock watching the moon paint a silver highway out towards the sea.
We didn’t talk. She just burrowed into my side to stay warm under the chill oceanfront nights, especially if the wind was blowing onshore. We would sit for hours and just cuddle and let our thoughts and hearts match the surf. I miss those moments the most.
And then I did it. I made sand sculpture. It took a few hours. But I made a beautiful girl out of sand. I sculpted her right on top of my rock. I gave her seaweed hair, and some well placed starfish for modesty. From the shore side, well, she must have looked like a young woman sitting alone on a rock. From the sea side, she must have looked like some form of Mermaid taking Human form.
She wasn’t alone. I was there. And …I was talking to her.
I didn’t give her very clear features that first night. More of an impressionists school of sculpting. The “aura” of a woman, but not the features. I knew the sand would dry out as soon as the sun came up, and when the tide came in, well, the rock would be washed clean…and she would be gone. No one in town ever came to that rock…but me. My Mom and Angie were the only two people to know about it. Mom was gone, so she wasn’t telling anyone, and Angie wasn’t coming back….so it was just me.
Now it is more than twenty years since I built that first Sand Woman. My skills have improved. I learned a lot more about sand. A lot more. I developed a few techniques that- if known- would garner me either fame, or money. Maybe both. My sand statues stood now…for weeks. Sometimes, months. I was afraid someone would find her one night. So I never made one during Summer Season. That was hard on me. I was lonely for three months out of every years. Then maybe I was crazy for the next nine months.
Why crazy?
Well, first of all, I started talking to her. Then, after a few years… I listened. A few years after that, and I started aging her along with me. I gave her smooth skin at first. Slender but athletic in build. After a decade or so, well, I added just a few pounds while keeping her gentle curves intact. I stopped using seaweed for her hair. I braided sea oats instead. And they aged her hair well.
I gave her some smile lines at the corner of her lips. Later I added some crows feet around her eyes. I added a few furrows in her forehead. After all, some of our conversations were deep, interesting dialogs requiring time to ponder. I learned to carve her eyes to keep the twinkle of glass hidden in all sand. It made her shy sense of humor sparkle.
I learned to add shellac to the sand, to give her “skin” that weatherworn look that all sea side people develop. I got to the point that she lasted the entire year before Summer Season started up again. I got to dreading that night before Memorial Day weekend. For that night I had to lovingly destroy my own creation. Year after year. The sand wet with my tears.
Then I made the decision.
The one that changed my life.
I sculpted her out of stone.
The very rock I had sat with her on for the last twenty odd years…that was the rock I used to make her.
It took me almost four months. Then another six weeks to polish.
The moon rose over the horizon. I could see her shy smile. She looked over at me longingly. She was so real. So warm. So welcome. I put down my tools and cloths and hugged her.
I swear I heard her say: “Thank you for my life.”
I whispered back:
“Thank you for mine.”
It was Janice (The Butcher of Cleats Cove) who found us locked in a permanent embrace near the seashore. I could feel the soft touch of her hand as she caressed both me…and my sculpture. The salt of her tears watered both of us as she leaned in to hug us both. I was surprised when I tried to reach out to pull her into our embrace, that my arms didn’t move. Only my heart and thoughts did.
Janice brought Ben the next night. He didn’t say a word. He just kept walking around me…and my girl, with a look that belonged on someone seeing a miracle…or God. He would shake his head and reach for Janice’s hand.
When he turned to walk away, he spoke for the first time:
“Lucky guy.”
He said it with the warmth and reverence do a man in love.
Janice replied:
“Lucky girl.”
And she said it with the full knowledge that woman have without knowing.
Eventually, the whole town learned to come up and place flowers around us. Sometimes leaving a bottle of gin, or a beer or two. When they came back in a day or two…the bottles would be empty. And they would smile. Or the flowers would be around the female side of the sculptures neck. Nobody knew how they got there. How could you push a flower petal through solid basalt rock?
Sometimes, someone would pat my shoulder, wishing me a long and happy couple hood.
The next day, they would notice my smile was a bit bigger. And her shy smile was matched with a twinkle in her eyes.
No one in Cleats Cove ever told anyone.
Mark Kline, Mrs Robison’s son in law, who married one of Annie and Ernie’s five daughters, fell in love with Cleats Cove. After a few years making money in the Big City, he and Michelle moved back to Cleats Cove. They opened up the old Ice Cream Shop and made a good living all summer. Mark bought my old house from Mrs. Henderson, who acted as my Executor.
Mark and Michelle brought two nice wooden rockers out where my sculpture stood. Often they would make a small fire, toast some marshmallows, or a hot dog (or two) and pop a few beers. They would chat with us for hours, since we were the only other young couple in the village. Some nights, six or seven people would follow along and fill us in on all the coming and goings.
One winter, old bart made two wonderful winter shawls from his goat hair. He placed them around us both (after carefully brushing the snow from our bodies).
“Now don’t you two go catching your death of cold.”
His breath puffed out a small cloud as he chuckled.
If you ever get to Cleats Cove…and the Locals learn to trust you…then maybe, just maybe…you will learn the Legend of Kevin’s Rock.
The secret of Cleats Cove.
Cleats Cove.(Kevin Hughes)
The Beach was deserted. It always was this late at night (or rather, this early in the morning). Even the die hard partiers had left by three AM. That’s when I liked the beach the best. Once the summer was over, all the Tourists and Summer Workers would leave, and the beach would belong to us Locals again. There weren’t that many of us.
Since Annie and her Husband Ernie shut down their famous Ice Cream Stand (packed up the whole kit and kaboodle, along with their five kids…and left town) the population in the off season has dropped down to just around thirty seven. Unless you count Mrs. Robinson’s cats. Then the population jumps up to around fifty two…or more. After Labor Day, Ellen May’s living room becomes our Post Office. Janice, who runs the Bar/Grocery Store, used to be a Nurse before she moved up her with her Hubby Ben back in ’02.
Janice takes care of the things that happen in a small town. Mrs. Peppers broken finger, Little Mike’s (so what if he stood six foot seven and weighed in close to two hundred ninety pounds…you should see his brother “Tiny.”) burst appendix two years ago. She did the surgery right there on the Meat Cutting table. All of us held up Flashlights that pounded untold thousands of Lumens on his exposed belly as she cut under the direction of a Doctor that Shelly had linked to on her iPad. The first Zoom Operation. It was a success. From then on we nick named Janice: “The Butcher of Cleats Cove.”
It is like that in a small town, where everyone knows everyone…and has for years. Oh sure, every now and again, someone ruffles the imaginary feathers on someone else. Just like when Janice had that spite of jealousy with Betty Hudak for hitting on her Ben after a particularly splendid round of drinking during our: “End of Season” Party. It wasn’t much really, just a quick passionate kiss on the lips…but Janice saw it. Ben, as everyone knows, would never have let it get any farther…but Janice was upset.
For a while there, we all kept an eye on her, hoping she wouldn’t live up to her nickname: “The Butcher of Cleats Cove.” You got to give old Betty her props, when she marched right up to behind the Bar, pulled a surprised Janice around and planted a wet sloppy kiss right on Janice’s lips.
“See Janice, it wasn’t all that great.”
Both women burst out laughing. The whole bar clapped, and more than a few wanted to see a replay. Anyways, that is how Betty got her nickname: “Lips.” When Mrs. Henderson got into it with old Bart Barns over his goats, (those goats kept the town neat and tidy, sadly, they couldn’t tell a garden from a Quadratic Equation…so they ate Mrs. Henderson’s prize Roses). Bart just whipped up some Kurds and Weigh, added about a pound of his famous home made cottage cheese, and made her a goat cheese cake to boot, and that settled it all back down.
That’s life in a small town in the middle of nowhere near an ocean to cold to swim in most of they year. It is where I live. Alone.
Oh, I had a girl when I went to college down in Bangor. That was a nice four year experience for me. Her name was Angie. We met as Freshmen…and by Easter our Sophomore Year, we were engaged. She liked weekends (in the summer) up in Cleats Cove, but never came up in Winter. Not even for Christmas. We were to be married in June just four days after graduation.
We had a “Talk” the night before our wedding. The next morning she left town. I had to tell the entire town that she decided she couldn’t live in a town so small that if you slept with your own wife, you were a swinger. The whole town agreed I was better off. I know she was. The women in the village kept me under their watchful eyes, and I was never without a pie, or cookies for a whole year. The men made sure to give me lots to do cutting firewood, re-roofing the dozens of summer cottages, and all kinds of brute physical work that left me to tired to bother with self pity. It worked.
I haven’t seen or heard from Angie in more than two decades. I stopped getting pangs about her long ago. But …I was lonely. Very lonely. I am a quiet man. Words don’t come easy to me. As Janice jokes to the folks at the Bar:
“I heard a Trappist Monk complain about Kevin’s silence.”
It was an old joke. I do talk. I just don’t voice opinions, nor do I join in gossip. Small talk for me is difficult. And deep thinking conversations lead me to deep thinking…not speaking. So I guess it was only natural for me to do what I did.
I can’t tell you the first time I did it. I know it was sometime in the Fall …the First Fall after Angie left me. I was broken hearted. The village was doing what it could to heal a fractured heart, and broken soul. I knew I was loved, and cared for, but not by any single individual, just a community. I Love all of them too. But I wanted my own true love. Someone I could talk to without worrying about what I said. Someone I could share my fears, my insecurities, my dreams and hopes…without any of them being trampled on by some pointless “rah rah” you can do it platitudes.
Someone who sees my weaknesses as part of who I am. Just as they see the things I do well, or carefully, as part of who I am. I guess I just wanted someone who liked me…just as I am. Except for Summer Flings, there weren’t any options in the town of Cleats Clove. The only girl close to my age, Sheila Cooper, well she got married the year before I was supposed to. She must have liked it, because she married four more men after that. None of them from Cleats Cove.
She still lives here. She spends the summer looking for Number Six. She laughs about it.
“The only man here that’s single is Kevin, and he’s to kind to be married to someone like me. We would end up fighting all the time, and he would end up apologizing all the time.”
Well, I never wanted to marry her anyway. She is a good friend though. I told her once that she was in love with the idea of being married, not the actual work it takes to make one work. She laughed. She had a good laugh. Open and honest. She buckled over and told me (and apparently Ben and Janice too…one time or another):
“Kevin, I know who I am. I don’t like being married. I like getting married! The whole “Princess for a month” thing does wonders for me. Besides, I get a brand new dress about every decade or so. “
Anyways, back to my story.
I don’t know why I did it. I just did. I was an Art Major in College. I wasn’t very good with any of the usual mediums, oil, water colors, pen or pencil. Give me a brush and a palette- and I could make a decent High School Art Student painting. But that was about it. My gift, was in Sculpture. I could mold clay into magnificent forms. I could carve stone into rock Art. I could take marble and make it almost human. I quit doing any of that after Angie left. People kept trying to offer me Commission. Some of them in the six figure range. But I didn’t need money. I live simply.
My Mom gave me our house when she died. Dad was an Accountant, and left me with a Trust Fund that while not spectacular, ensured that I would never go hungry or without a car. So why work for money? You make Art because you have to. And for a while…I didn’t have to. Until…I got so lonely.
It was dark. Just enough moon to light up my favorite rock. I used to sit on that rock with my Mother sometimes. When I was in High School, I took Mary Ellen McKee to sit on it and just talk about our futures. Maybe a few quick amateur kisses and some teenage passion would happen, but Mary Ellen wanted out of Cleats Cove…I did not. Those few summers that Angie came up here …well, she said that this rock was my rock. And the most beautiful spot anywhere in the world. I think if she misses anything about Cleats Cove…it is sitting on that rock watching the moon paint a silver highway out towards the sea.
We didn’t talk. She just burrowed into my side to stay warm under the chill oceanfront nights, especially if the wind was blowing onshore. We would sit for hours and just cuddle and let our thoughts and hearts match the surf. I miss those moments the most.
And then I did it. I made sand sculpture. It took a few hours. But I made a beautiful girl out of sand. I sculpted her right on top of my rock. I gave her seaweed hair, and some well placed starfish for modesty. From the shore side, well, she must have looked like a young woman sitting alone on a rock. From the sea side, she must have looked like some form of Mermaid taking Human form.
She wasn’t alone. I was there. And …I was talking to her.
I didn’t give her very clear features that first night. More of an impressionists school of sculpting. The “aura” of a woman, but not the features. I knew the sand would dry out as soon as the sun came up, and when the tide came in, well, the rock would be washed clean…and she would be gone. No one in town ever came to that rock…but me. My Mom and Angie were the only two people to know about it. Mom was gone, so she wasn’t telling anyone, and Angie wasn’t coming back….so it was just me.
Now it is more than twenty years since I built that first Sand Woman. My skills have improved. I learned a lot more about sand. A lot more. I developed a few techniques that- if known- would garner me either fame, or money. Maybe both. My sand statues stood now…for weeks. Sometimes, months. I was afraid someone would find her one night. So I never made one during Summer Season. That was hard on me. I was lonely for three months out of every years. Then maybe I was crazy for the next nine months.
Why crazy?
Well, first of all, I started talking to her. Then, after a few years… I listened. A few years after that, and I started aging her along with me. I gave her smooth skin at first. Slender but athletic in build. After a decade or so, well, I added just a few pounds while keeping her gentle curves intact. I stopped using seaweed for her hair. I braided sea oats instead. And they aged her hair well.
I gave her some smile lines at the corner of her lips. Later I added some crows feet around her eyes. I added a few furrows in her forehead. After all, some of our conversations were deep, interesting dialogs requiring time to ponder. I learned to carve her eyes to keep the twinkle of glass hidden in all sand. It made her shy sense of humor sparkle.
I learned to add shellac to the sand, to give her “skin” that weatherworn look that all sea side people develop. I got to the point that she lasted the entire year before Summer Season started up again. I got to dreading that night before Memorial Day weekend. For that night I had to lovingly destroy my own creation. Year after year. The sand wet with my tears.
Then I made the decision.
The one that changed my life.
I sculpted her out of stone.
The very rock I had sat with her on for the last twenty odd years…that was the rock I used to make her.
It took me almost four months. Then another six weeks to polish.
The moon rose over the horizon. I could see her shy smile. She looked over at me longingly. She was so real. So warm. So welcome. I put down my tools and cloths and hugged her.
I swear I heard her say: “Thank you for my life.”
I whispered back:
“Thank you for mine.”
It was Janice (The Butcher of Cleats Cove) who found us locked in a permanent embrace near the seashore. I could feel the soft touch of her hand as she caressed both me…and my sculpture. The salt of her tears watered both of us as she leaned in to hug us both. I was surprised when I tried to reach out to pull her into our embrace, that my arms didn’t move. Only my heart and thoughts did.
Janice brought Ben the next night. He didn’t say a word. He just kept walking around me…and my girl, with a look that belonged on someone seeing a miracle…or God. He would shake his head and reach for Janice’s hand.
When he turned to walk away, he spoke for the first time:
“Lucky guy.”
He said it with the warmth and reverence do a man in love.
Janice replied:
“Lucky girl.”
And she said it with the full knowledge that woman have without knowing.
Eventually, the whole town learned to come up and place flowers around us. Sometimes leaving a bottle of gin, or a beer or two. When they came back in a day or two…the bottles would be empty. And they would smile. Or the flowers would be around the female side of the sculptures neck. Nobody knew how they got there. How could you push a flower petal through solid basalt rock?
Sometimes, someone would pat my shoulder, wishing me a long and happy couple hood.
The next day, they would notice my smile was a bit bigger. And her shy smile was matched with a twinkle in her eyes.
No one in Cleats Cove ever told anyone.
Mark Kline, Mrs Robison’s son in law, who married one of Annie and Ernie’s five daughters, fell in love with Cleats Cove. After a few years making money in the Big City, he and Michelle moved back to Cleats Cove. They opened up the old Ice Cream Shop and made a good living all summer. Mark bought my old house from Mrs. Henderson, who acted as my Executor.
Mark and Michelle brought two nice wooden rockers out where my sculpture stood. Often they would make a small fire, toast some marshmallows, or a hot dog (or two) and pop a few beers. They would chat with us for hours, since we were the only other young couple in the village. Some nights, six or seven people would follow along and fill us in on all the coming and goings.
One winter, old bart made two wonderful winter shawls from his goat hair. He placed them around us both (after carefully brushing the snow from our bodies).
“Now don’t you two go catching your death of cold.”
His breath puffed out a small cloud as he chuckled.
If you ever get to Cleats Cove…and the Locals learn to trust you…then maybe, just maybe…you will learn the Legend of Kevin’s Rock.
The secret of Cleats Cove.
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