“I’m going to join the navy, ‘Gene,” said Max Isaacs.
“Come on and go with me.”
“I’m not old enough,” said Eugene.
“You’re not, either.”
“I’ll be sixteen in November,” said Max Isaacs defensively.
‘That’s not old enough.”
“I’m going to lie to get in,” said Max Isaacs.
“They won’t bother you.
You can get in.
Come on.”
“No,” said Eugene. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” said Max Isaacs.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to college,” said Eugene.
“I’m going to get an education and study law.”
“You’ll have lots of time,” said Max Isaacs.
“You can go to college when you come out.
They teach you a lot in the navy.
They give you a good training.
You go everywhere.”
“No,” said Eugene. “I can’t.”
But his pulse throbbed as he listened to the lonely thunder of the sea.
He saw strange dusky faces, palm frondage, and heard the little tinkling sounds of Asia.
He believed in harbors at the end.
Mrs. Bowden’s niece and the waitress came out on the next car.
After his immersion he lay, trembling slightly under the gusty wind, upon the beach.
A fine tang of salt was on his lips.
He licked his clean young flesh.
Louise came from the bathhouse and walked slowly toward him.
She came proudly, her warm curves moulded into her bathing-suit: her legs were covered with stockings of green silk.
Far out, beyond the ropes, Max Isaacs lifted his white heavy arms, and slid swiftly through a surging wall of green water.
His body glimmered greenly for a moment; he stood erect wiping his eyes and shaking water from his ears.
Eugene took the waitress by the hand and led her into the water.
She advanced slowly, with little twittering cries.
An undulant surge rolled in deceptively, and rose suddenly to her chin, drinking her breath.
She gasped and clung to him.
Initiated, they bucked deliciously through a roaring wall of water, and, while her eyes were still closed, he caught her to him with young salty kisses.
Presently they came out, and walked over the wet strip of beach into the warm loose sand, bedding their dripping bodies gratefully in its warmth.
The waitress shivered: he moulded sand over her legs and hips, until she was half buried.
He kissed her, stilling his trembling lips upon her mouth.
“I like you!
I like you a lot!” he said.
“What did they tell you about me?” she said.
“Did they talk about me?”
“I don’t care,” he said.
“I don’t care about that. I like you.”
“You won’t remember me, honey, when you start going with the girls.
You’ll forget about me.
Some day you’ll see me, and you won’t even know me.
You won’t recognize me.