Saturday December 31, 2005
	New Year's Eve At The Beach.
	"All I want for Christmas sure sounded better before Christmas," I say then unscrewing the cap off the Budweiser bottle. "I love that song," she says.  "Mariah Carey is awesome." My date just turned 21.  She uses words like awesome a lot. "It's a little chilly," she says then turning over and onto her stomach.  "Cover my feet, Norm." We're sharing a beach towel and I figure we're maybe 100 feet from the famed Pier 60. "Cover your feet?" "When your feet are cold your whole body is cold," she says. While I'm covering her feet I'm thinking of my stepfather.  On a couple of occasions he said the same thing to me: When your feet are cold Norman, your whole body is cold. Of course he's dead now so I guess he's cold all over. "Warm now?" I say. "Nice," she says.  "The Gulf sure is beautiful," I say. Seagulls are on the beach and they're moving about and when they find something they fly away and the others fly after them and it's reminds me of the time I put the mousetrap under the birdseed in Detroit and how a bird stepped onto it (the set mousetrap) and how the trap (when sprung) hung from his bird foot as he flew away. "I wonder if the mousetrap hung from his foot for years and years?" I say. "What are we talking about, Norman?" "Poor thing," I say. "Who?" she says. "Maybe he was celebrated in bird land for all of his uniqueness," I say.  "The only bird in the world living day in and day out lugging around a Victor brand mousetrap," I say. "Norm?" she says. I say: "Perhaps the muscles in his wings got too big (from lugging around the mousetrap) and the weight of his growing muscles made it difficult for him to fly so he lived inside a tree like a squirrel with his family and muscular wings." "Norman," says my date. I say: "Maybe it was an unseasonably cold spring and the bird was sitting on a nest somewhere and the eggs were freezing so my bird set fire to the Victor mousetrap and the eggs were liking all the warmth but then the bird caught fire and then the nest and then the tree and then the forest, too." "Please stop," she says. "More than likely the mousetrap fell off or he just quit flapping.  Somewhere there's a bird skeleton with an old rusted mousetrap clamped to its leg bone." She says: "Are you having a mini fit, Norm?" "Just talking aloud," I say.  She says: "This is a helluva beach."   They don't allow beer on Clearwater beach but everyone has it anyway and when I put the bottle to my lips she says: "How's my tan?"  "Really somethin'," I say.  "Everyone is looking at you."    "Probably looking at my ass," she says. I figure she's waiting for me to say something like, Of course they are or I love your ass but I don't and instead I say something safe:  "It's good being here with you." I never say things like that.  She's wanting to darken her tan and she's lying on her stomach with her face turned away from me and when I say It's good being here with you she sits upright on our shared beach towel (facing me) and after a pause says: "Wow Norm." "Stop," I say. She says: "That was nice." She has stretched her lips into a big, closed mouth smile.   I say: "You hungry?" "It's good being here with you, too," she says then kissing my cheek. "I appreciate that," I say.  I am turning off the portable FM radio then plugging the earbuds into my iPod when she says: "The Jewish Lesbian show?" "Uh huh," I say then reaching for another bottle of Budweiser. PREVIOUS   HOME   NEXT