Getting Away

Okay. I understand that I have been hanging around these forums for only a few days, and none of you know me, but my curiosity compells me to post something. I have here a short story, on which I would like some honest critique. I fear that it may be boring, so I would ask any of you to read as far as you can, if nothing else, and then tell me where you left off for boredom. Other than that, any comments. Do you think my writing style is engaging enough to write a longer piece? or not?

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The scent of sunscreen mingles with warm air. The whole town seems to suffer as vacationers pass above the cracked pavement, their sweaty hands holding crumpled dollars, borne upon sunburnt legs and foam sandals. The tourist shops recieve their people, they line the bright streets of the small beach town. Their doors openly wait, strung with polished shells and the clamour of numerous chimes. The strains of a tropical tape are repeated, and played again.

There are bits of sand in the sidewalk, the same walk on which a small boy travels. The waves that crash on the shore of a neighboring beach contrast oddly with the ones in his hair. Those tiny waves collect into burnt red peaks, foam into frizzed caps, and recommence in others exactly like their predecessors.

What an open face, and he has a chronic smile, the kind that lingers on the lips, letting joy's light take permanent abode. Such a face belongs to this boy, who has sharp blue eyes with raised blonde brows, and faint redness on his cheeks, cheeks touched by sun, not a natural blush. He walks casually, pausing between each step, as though there is more than one direction, a choice other than forward. Down the sidewalk with shells baked in the cement, past shops containing the same merchandise all in a row, he walks. A happy child, in truth, surely not more than four. He stops, and stands, situated in the shadow of another.

"Who are you?" he abruptly asks of said shadow, his head tilted upwards- gazing, a freckled hand shading politely inquisitive eyes.

"Eh, what is it, a little boy? What do you want, uh, boy?

The two figures stand, one next to the other. The shorter is still peering with neck stretched high as can reach, while the taller shifts and tugs at the drawstrings of his sweater, a baggy, dark thing. White cotton shorts reveal crooked white legs, pale limbs coated in sparse black hairs. His stature is reminiscent of barnyard fowl. He leans forward a little, but tilts his head back, his bared chin is shadowed with honey hued down, that adorns his long, sallow visage with a kind of adolescant middle-age. He repeats his question,

"What is it?"

"Who are you?" calls the boy emphatically, his hands changing from visor to a voice projector curled about his lips.

"Why you curious?" shoots back the tourist, drawling. " You alone, too? why?"

"I'm Eddy, I live here all year. Who are you?"

"It is my name you want? Dennis, I guess."

The drawstrings are clawed at frantically, and they swish violently in the silence. Eddy opens his mouth,

"Da Knee?"

" It's Dennis, in a french accent. Yes, what?"

"Dennis, hey! Watch this!"

Dennis squints his muddy eyes, and waits expectantly, for some display or an item of interest to appear. Eddy seems also to be waiting. He takes a few steps forward, he halts, and commences an erratic series of movements: quickly jerks his head from side to side- looks in one direction, and dartingly glances in the other, beginning again. Cars buzz past from either side. Dennis, meanwhile, shoots his eyes about desperately; without success endevouring to discover "what it is?", seeking, but not finding the object of Eddy's frenzied looks.

All in a moment, Eddy is charging across the street, in a fury of childish laughter.

"Hey boy! Hey Edd- uh, be watching! There! Les enfants stupides! Where are you going to?"

Eddy stumbles slightly on reaching the sidewalk, Dennis sees him tug pieces of air to and fro in an effort to maintain his balance. The alarmed man yells, "Uh! Don't be doing...that"

"Hey, Dennis!" cries the child, at once when his feet are firmly planted. "See? I wasn't aloud to do that last spring, but now I am, and I'm good at it! Can you do it, Dennis? Do you want me to teach you how?"

"No! I know how, I have wanted to cross the street, but see how you keep me from it. Here, I will cross now."

Dennis does not hesitate, but journeys over the road in the haste of irritation, his pride plucked at the notion, the very idea, that he should have instruction from a four year old. "Eh! Stupid boy!", nonsense. He proceeds over the faded grey and cracking road. His knobby legs canter presently in front of a motorized scooter, vehicle and visitor meet, collide five feet from little Eddy the local. The sounds of impact can be heard, a strangled exclamation, a puttering motor rumbling into silence as it is cut.

The accident is not as grievous as it would seem. Dennis, soon to reach the sidewalk, did in his negligence stalk immediately into the purposed parking place of the mentioned moped. Fortunately, it was already breaking when its front tire struck the milky shin of the perturbed pedestrian. Now he yells, as he falls backwards in glorified agony,

"Awh! Awh! The leg! My leg is injured!"

Eddy steps forward puzzledly, stares dumbly at the distraught Dennis. He tilts his body forward somewhat, and his shadow shades the grimacing victim's face. At the same time two motorists dismount their sputtering steed. They possition themselves at the ailing man's feet, pulling off helmets in synchrony, at once revealing two equally shaggy heads.

"Oh Jude, look! we hit a guy! Oh, and he looks hurt!"

"I noticed that already, idiot! It was me who was driving, and now it might be me who will pay for it- literally! Hey buddy, hey you, are you hurt?"

"Eh..." begins Dennis, who is interupted by his young aquaintance, who brightens up, saying, "What's your guys' names? Where're you from? Why did you rent a scooter, and not a car?"

"Because," answers Jude, "we're dirt cheap."

His companion adds, "I'm Chuck, he's Jude (in a very rude kind of mood, hey Jude? Ha ha!) and we come from Baltimore. Who might you be, little guy?"

"Eddy! That's my name, and I'm polite. Here, look, this is Dennis! I think he's tripped, which is why he sounds that way!"

"Awh!" agrees Dennis.

"Poor fellow!" says Chuck.

"Poor us, if this guy has a lawyer, and the required sense remaining to operate a telephone" complains Jude, fretfully.

"What? What are they all saying? Awh! I hurt, my leg is hurt, I can't stand, what is happened? Two youths in front of me...who are these? Tell, please, what is happened? Somebody?"

"We're real sorry, we were going to park our scooter here, and..."

"We stopped!" (so Jude stops the truth from Chuck's mouth.) "We stopped because we saw you trip and fall right here, right next to the sidewalk, see?"

Impatient, Dennis struggles and does not listen. He clutches feebly, at nothing, at air, lifts his head, rests it again with a sigh.

"Here, need some help, pal?" chirps Chuck, diving toward Dennis, and pulling him up by his wrists.

"Eh! What is he doing? What is it now, why the pulling? M'aidez! Awh! Awh! My leg!"

Dennis finds himself upright and unsupported, Chuck has unhanded him, left him standing straightly, a barely visible bruise on stricken leg..

"Look!" spouts Jude, with a nervous giggle, "See, there you go, you're quite alright, just a scratch, see, (what is it?)

Danny! Or is that Dennis? Well, there is no cause for worry, Dennis, you're quite alright, quite alright!"

"Quite alright..." is the murmured reply, amidst many an "Ooo..." as the traumatized tourist tests his handicap. He walks with uncertainty in small circulations, pausing frequently, readjusting his gait, modifying his limp for best effect. Once satisfied, Dennis settles on a rubbery amble, bending and stalling; stumbling over unseen obstacles, stooping under invisible weights.

His onlookers muse in silence, but soon Eddy glows with the onset of a marvellous idea, genious and timely like nothing else. He shouts,

"Hey you guys! Follow me, now that we all can walk again. Come on, I'll show you my favorite thing, the best thing of all! Over here, hurry, its on the beach!"

"What?" says Dennis, who's posture is all of a sudden straightened, "You know where the beach is? Around here? I have been looking, I have looked for it, the beach, and not finding it. You know? Tell me! Where is the water, the beach, I mean?"

"How long have you been here, then?", inquires Jude with a belittling smile, "If you dont mind my asking."

"Three days I've been, and still not able to find the beach, but always looking! Here, Eddy, boy! Show me it!"

Chuck does not endeavour to hide the humour of the situation. Smiling, he says, "Oh, you are being honest? What a pity then, that you've missed the beach, friend, though I can't see how you managed it. I'm surprized you can't hear the waves, just standing as close to them as we are!"

"That noise is the ocean?" Dennis inquires, intensely, with an unbroken stare. The drawstrings on his sweater recommence their compulsive rhythm.

"Yes! Yes!" sings Eddy while he dances with impatience, "Come on, follow me, and I'll show you something...something wonderful, and unexplainable, full of goodness...low in carbs!" he spouts, imagination extending to past perusals of cereal boxes for present descriptive passion.

"Sounds tasty," mutters Jude, bearing less than jovial involvement.

With that, the party proceeds. The foursome walk in the order of some sarcastic destiny's whim: smallest form the foremost, trotting in the half circles of juvenile trance, followed by two almost identical profiles, tall and athletic, generic, and sunburnt. The last figure trips and traipses with focused fumbling, only on occasion confusing injured legs, imperceptibly trading limps from left to right, emitting foreign ejaculations all the while.

So they travel. Over parking lot, through the midst of two closely possitioned cars, (Eddy runs his fingers over the windows as he walks past,) and they reach the tall white-washed fence, a fence stretching the length of this portion of beach, clothed in the many colours of paint from aerosol cans. Eddy leads his train, (all are in varying stages of confusion,) through the nearest opening, landing them all on the pale sands of the shore, pausing, thinking. Dennis takes a few unadultered strides ahead- too distracted to act. "Yes," he murmers, "Finallement".

He gazes onwards, at the scene so dearly sought, opening his eyes, and closing them, the drawstrings on his sweater eerily still, as at last he sees, beholds the scene, the famous, absolute, perfect scene! It is such a lovely image. The sun is falling, will meet the water ere long, and liquid itself is a surreal shade of blue, glowing at the edges, moving towards the tourists and Eddy, wave by wave. Because the hour is late and the air is cool, the people are in the restaurants- they are sipping drinks and twirling miniature umbrellas between forefinger and thumb. So the sands are unpeopled, populated only by Eddy, Chuck, Jude, and Dennis.

"Nice, eh, Dennis?" says Chuck, "Glad you finally found it, aren't you, pal?"

"Eh..." breathes the man with a broken sound.

"Hey kid, didn't you want to show us something?" reminds Jude, turning from evening splendour to the little Floridian, eager from boredom, seeking some object of ridicule to ease his impatience.

"Yah! Yah!" cries Eddy, on remembering his purpose and regaining his enthusiasm, "come, come! It's this way..."

"But where are the fish?" says Dennis suddently, cutting his young friend short.

"What was that, buddy?" Chuck speaks softly, soothing an apparent eccentricity, a new one, soon to spring up.

Dennis' words increase in energy, and as he gropes for the means to express himself, his frustration still grows:

"Fish! Where are they, the fish, the dolphins? Yes, where, tell me, are they also behind some..some wall? They tell me on télé, in the magazines, saying Come! Come to Floride! There will be many beaches with fish that jump, and there will be quiet and le rélaxion! Eh! But where is all of that? No, it is not for you, they say. I get here, only no, not for him. There is only the liquors and the sun burning me, and the music, le musique accursé! It doesn't stop playing! No, now I haven't money, I haven't time, and here is the beach, but the fish! Where are the dolphins? Someone can explain?"

There is a brief uncertainty, still and empty, as the audience of Dennis digest his bitter rant. Only Eddy can speak, and he simply says, "No, Dennis, there aren't any dolphins this close, you'd have to go out farther for that."

"Anyway, nothing should be strictly about fish," rejoins Jude, "the best part of being down here is the no work factor, and that noone knows who you are, nor do they really care. Chuck and I, we've been doing nothing, or actually a little less than that. Just eating by day and drinking by night, and we get a full vacation of it, I'll have you know."

"Come, everyone, let's just see what the kids wants to show us, " recommends Chuck, with the best immitation of casual yet witnessed.

"Yes," Dennis says, draining the last of his voice for now, "show us, and make this plane tickets worthy for something. Do it, and show us this thing that is so interesting."

"Okay! I'll show you guys the best part of living here! They don't put this in the brochures, but it is the very best part, you can be sure!"

Little Eddy trips down the darkening beach, the others following. He is not at all disheartened, but a little worried, perhaps- being out after dark is on his part a punishable rebellion. But such exciting strangers! Jude can hears the musical beats emitted by a the nearest liquor serving restaurant, envious he is, of those customers on the back veranda, there under the lighted torches, laughing. "This is not the ideal vacation, if I have to stay out here all night, on this useless beach!" he thinks, looking from Eddy to Dennis, who as by this time been miraculously healed of all bodily affliction They plod through the cooling sand. The last piece of sun slips from the sky, twilight comes, the world turns blue.

Eddy has reached his destination in but a small bit of time. He and the company of travellers are half concealed by shadow, in the cold presence of two dark palms, under their ragged leaves that hang low, a kind of blackened grove. Dennis stoops forward, wearied by now, with sunken brow and hanging lip. He watches with the others while Eddy crawls to the base of one shaggy trunk, cautiously scratching at the dirt, brushing away scattered sands, and lifting the dead branches. Under one fallen limb- a yellowed and scraggly stalk, he lights upon the rock, a large stone which lies carefully covered. Small fingers remove this flat, grey marker, and from a hole beneath Eddy smilingly retrieves his treasure.

"You guys! Look!", he calls, hopping towards the others with glee, and holding his prize up for his companions to see.

"Are those business cards? What are you doing with all those, Eddy?" is the general question which is posed by Chuck; for the child is displaying a piece of plastic tupperware, a pile of little paper cards within, cards varying in colour and size.

"Its my collection! See, they're all different. Look at them!" and he promptly pushes the stack of collectables into Jude's reluctant palm.

"Uhh..."relates the recipient.

"Let me look at these," instructs Dennis, reaching his uneven neck over Jude's tall shoulder- which immediately edges away. Jude politely donates the bounty to curious Dennis, the man who is desperate for something new, some peculiarity.

He flips the pieces about before his eye, grunting with dissatisfaction,

"It is dark, and I cannot see what is the writing."

"Why is this necessary?" moans Jude, exhibiting a sort impatience, "Its a bunch of business cards we're talking about! Tell me something, Chuck, why are we still here?"

"Settle down, jeeze! be kind for once. Maybe there's a reason these are so...well, important. Hey Eddy, hey there, so is there anywhere with more light, where we can ah, get a better look at your cards?"

Eddy points his finger towards the top of the fence, and he waves it about erratically, as he smiles knowingly, saying, "Ah yes, I have just the place! The perfect place, a secret place...follow me!"

Jude sighs as the complacent crew are pacing once more behind the energetic four year-old. "He knows how to handle drama," he whispers heavily. They return from the dark beach, stepping into the parking lot through which they'd earlier entered. Eddy bursts forth from out the fence, running with purpose, landing under the nearest light- the streetlight on the sidewalk, which illuminates the notorious moped underneath.

Eddy stands, satisfied.

"See it?" he calls, "See? I know all the best places!"

"Indeed you do!" confirms Chuck, as the tourists step into the artificial gleam. "Boy, now aren't we all so lucky to have Eddy here for our guide!"

Jude frowns at his friend, as Dennis silently scrutanizes the cards. For a moment, he only blinks several times, but soon he begins: "Frank...Weez-ach, a coon's aunt. Eleven...eh, chose, lane..."

"Is that what it says?" asks Eddy in wonder.

"No, that isn't. Will you give me those, hey?" and Jude accordingly accosts Dennis, robbing him of his references, and proudly pronouncing, "Frank Wyzek, accountant, eleven Chatham lane! There, and that's how it is done. Now, and its due time for you to explain to all of us, you little charmer, why you consider these rectangular mediums as intriguing as you claim."

Eddy gapes a while in puzzled reverie, still grasping in his hands the empty tupperware dish.

"What?" he enquires with simplicity.

"What's so special about the cards, kid?"

"Oh, its great! People who come to the beach give them to me, if I ask them. They're all from different places, see, and I even have one from a country with a really wierd name, tah check! Tah check!"

"Eh, what is he doing?"

"I think he means the Tchek Republic, " is Chuck's theory.

"Yes, that's what I meant! Anyway, that is the best thing to do on the beach, and know that you know my game is better than dolphins, Dennis, you wont have to be angry anymore. It is better, because you get to hear the names of all the different places, and sometimes the strange voices of those places, too! That's what you should do , instead of looking for fish! Oh yeah, I forgot 'till now, but do you guys have business cards? Can I take them, if you do? I don't own any from wherever you said you come from."

"Baltimore," replies Jude, "Baltimore, Maryland- but we're nothing more than irresponsible students who've used their tuition money to rent a motorized scooter. Can you honestly expect us to have business cards? What would they say, professional slackers?"

"Are you?" is the unabashed reaction.

Jude stares at his comrade exhasperatedly, and Chuck examines his wallet, searching for a substitute, something less valuable than his driver's license, for example.

"Ah yes!" he smiles, holding up a card, "this will do! This is even better than what you have there, Eddy!" and he passes his gift contentedly to the young collector. Eddy examines it closely, as one deciphering a complex code. Soon he gives up the pursuit, perplexed. He hands the card to Jude.

"Can you read this, please?"

"Sure can! Let's see, Danny's pizzeria: buy one, get another fresh from the oven! Expires April 2nd."

"Wow, I thought you were from Baltimore!"

" I am, Eddy, ah- I just need to update...some of the information."

"I should think," recommends Jude, "It says here you expired two weeks ago! Talk about fresh from the oven!"

"Well why don't you just give him yours?", Chuck puts in, resentfully, as Eddy reaches and reposesses his new belonging.

"I will then!" and Jude fishes from out his pocket a certain piece of paper, passing it to the boy. Chuck percieves its identity as it travels beneath the streetlight.

"Jude! You didn't pay your parking ticket, yet?"

"Of course not!" he chides, while Eddy places the documented fine into his bountiful container.

"What about you, Dennis? Can I have yours, too?"

Dennis ruminates a moment, perhaps pondering over the meaning or the propriety of such a request. The brown orbs in his eyes travel towards each other, slowly, but sure. He regains his animation, produces a card, while saying,

"There! It is old, but it is not needing changes!"

"Hey now, he has a business card! What can that possibly contain?" and Jude swipes it from Dennis' hand, reading aloud, " Prof. Dennis Godin: University of Cambridge..." the speaker pauses, and regards the man with incredulous awe.

"Holey moley!", cries Chuck, "Now I've seen everything!"

The four of them think it over, in slow consideration, while Dennis pulls at the drawstrings of his sweater. They make an irksome swishing noise, while foreign birds harangue in the trees overhead.