The Summer Pier

By Michael Naugle

If your life feels more fascinating, mysterious, paradoxical, and full of delightful possibilities than other people have given you room to explore, then I wrote The Summer Pier for your benefit. A pier is, in itself, a world where landlocked realities and ghostly possibilities tremble through one another. Inside of this atmosphere, the characters of seven short stories do not hammer home predefined sermons or lectures. In all of these stories, I have deliberately set aside my own beliefs so that the stories’ protagonists are set free to probe out what the late author John Updike refers to as the ”infinitely fine” delicacy and complexity of all that exists in our cosmos.

In “The Shell,” a romantic attraction between two cousins develops unexpectedly after both young people have been separated for most of their lives. This love is real. Should it be acted upon? In spite of the fact that our society stigmatizes and condemns such love relationships? In a longer story, entitled “Manhood,” the slow, persistent, and at-times bewildering stages that a teen-aged boy must go through in order to make a proper transition into his own adulthood are presented as they might occur in your own life. Whenever I complete a book and write to you about it, my heart keeps bringing me back to the same understanding. If a single story in this book assists you to better understand your life and to live that life more richly, I will feel completely satisfied and happy.

My best wishes to you,
Michael Naugle

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Naugle
• Release date: Jan 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311334596

Michael Naugle

Michael Naugle is a Professor of English Literature at Glendale Community College in Southern California. His particular areas of interest are poetry and Twentieth Century American, British, and Australian fiction. He has published a number of poems in literary magazines and has written a screenplay. Through A Fortress In Darkness was his first novel. His other works include Dinner with the Dark Heart Stranger, a short story collection, and The Summer Pier, to be released in December 2013. Find out more about Michael Naugle on his website, www.mojavewinds.blogspot.com.

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The Summer Pier

Michael Naugle

Copyright © 2013 Michael Naugle.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Produced in the United States of America.

Smashwords edition.

"Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,

The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,

Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred, and of ourselves and of our origins,

In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds."

The Idea of Order at Key West

Wallace Stevens

THE SHELL

A fish struck and the tip of a spinning rod gleamed and flashed as it jerked, and a boy seated on a bench looked up from a textbook. The foghorn on the tip of the jetty sounded mournfully. Due to the thickness of the fog no white gulls could be seen. The boy stood and he swung the rod back as he cranked at his reel, and the rod quivered and pulsed as the boy leaned against the green railing; he could not see the ocean below him because of the white fog, even though the sky was luminous to the east of him. He brought in a one-pound perch and he swung it over the railing. Then he knelt, worked out a hook, and put the fish into a bucket. The perch splashed and thrashed about next to a perch of the same size, though of the two it was the stronger, the more robust and more violent; the boy spread a white towel over the bucket and he re-baited the hook, while the fog horn kept on sounding and an old fisherman walked past. As the boy worked his thick black curls rose on a light breeze. The breeze smelled of mussels, salt, and of kelp from the beach. He took a piece of shrimp from a sack and he took up a fillet knife, and he discarded the pink husk of the shrimp as he turned the shrimp atop the railing; three bronze hooks were tied to his line and he checked the other two hooks, and he found that their baits were still solid and that they were still fresh. He hooked on the new piece of shrimp and he cast out underhand. The line from the spinning reel rustled out lightly from its spool. The sinker splashed beyond his vision and he remained bent forward, waiting for the slight but definite bump of the sinker on the ocean floor; when it came he set the bail and he reeled in two turns, and he set the rod against the railing and he wiped his hands clean. The fog was a little less dense and he glanced toward the street. Then he used his knife to scrape the railing free from shrimp scraps. After that he wiped the blade clean and he put the knife into his tackle box, and he sat and took up the textbook and a yellow felt marker; the light breeze kept on lifting his black curls and he frowned at a page, and he uncapped the marker, turned it, and blotted a paragraph yellow. Another old man passed behind him and two faint gulls cried." Condensation from two lantern shades drizzled like a gray rain around him.

Tom?

The yellow marker jerked up. It did so so rapidly that it dropped from his hand.

I’ll get it, a girl told him as she knelt beside the bench. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to startle you."

That’s okay. He sat there. A blush had crawled from his throat to his cheeks and across his forehead. The girl who stood to the right of him was short and compact, dressed in a pair of long tope shorts, a white blouse, and white running shoes; her long golden hair was tied back with a sprig of yellow yarn, so that her mild and oval face looked broader and more prominent. Her eyes were a combination of light green and light hazel. They were almond-shaped and barely blinking as they watched the boy. I just thought, she went on quietly, that I should check in on you. To make sure that you’re doing okay.

I’m fine.

What’s your schedule? Do you have any finals today?

No, not until Thursday. I already told you that.

Yeah, but I wasn’t sure. I thought that I should check again.

You have two today, right? Don’t you have one at ten this morning?

Yes, but I wanted to see you. To make sure that you’re okay. A dozen white gulls cried. The flush refused to leave his face and it crawled into his hair. As he sat and stared out rigidly her eyes seemed to deepen, so that the compassion in them took on a weight and a color; he and she said nothing for a while and the swells lapped mildly, and the gulls to the south and the east of them echoed back and forth. What about tomorrow? she asked him as she looked toward the galvanized bucket. Could we get together then?

Sure.

Could I tell you one thing? Just one thing between now and then?

What?

Everything is all right. No matter what you’re thinking now, everything is all right. It makes sense. And we’ll talk it all over.

Okay.

They talked a moment more. When she left he stared after her as she vanished into the fog.

#

Sparrow sang upon the wooden feeder that he had attached to his balcony, and as they pecked at grains and corn kernels Tom worked at his desk. He frowned between his calculator and the yellow pencil in his right hand. His studio was small and warm even though all of its windows were open. The desk was set in front of the balcony at a right angle, and a kitchenette was behind him and a bed was north of the desk; to the right of the bed was a nightstand and a mahogany dresser, and a curved mirror shone densely atop the back of the dresser. Between his desk and the bed stood a table that was constructed out of pine. A portable easel that held a rectangular white canvas board stood atop this table. White tubes of oil paint that had blue dents in them were arrayed beside the easel, and there were vials of sun thicken oil, turpentine, and damar varnish; there were more than d a dozen brushes of different lengths and colors, as well as some palette knives and a white palette board. Tom was intent upon an equation that would not work out for him. Irritably he erased two integers and he scratched in two new ones. The green digits of his calculator burned in a row to the left of him, and before him was a computer and a stack of textbooks; there were also some spiral notebooks and some three-ringed binders, all of them precisely arranged and with labels on them. As he worked the sparrows chattered, flocking and feeding. He was oblivious to their presence.

An engine sounded.

He stopped. His pencil stopped in the act of scratching and he looked toward his bed. After a moment a car door slammed and he heard footsteps, and after that he heard Karen as she slowly mounted the concrete stairs to his level; Tom looked hastily away from his bed and he stared toward his calculator and his pencil, as if the answer to his dilemma might lie between these two objects. Tom, Karen called in through his screen door as he sat, paralyzed. I’m early. Is that all right?

Yes.

She opened the screen door. A flush crept back across his face and he blinked toward her. Karen wore a shorter pair of shorts than she had worn yesterday, and she wore a blue short-sleeved shirt and the same white running shoes; her golden hair was tied back again with a sprig of yellow yarn, and her eyes were considerably more tired than they had been yesterday. Thank God, she said as she entered the apartment, that it’s almost over. This has been a brutal semester.

How did your tests go?

All right. Romantics was the easy one; Milton was a lot harder. Mostly because I don’t like him. Tom nodded and looked outside. The sparrows kept on singing and eating as if they recognized Karen. I was thinking, she went on, that we might talk on the beach. I thought that it might be easier out there.

Sure.

I’ll change to my suit. Do you need to study some more first?

No, I need to stop. I was getting frustrated.

Okay. She turned away from him. She took a green swimsuit from the top drawer of his dresser and she went into the bathroom. After she had closed its door he sat and stared down, as if the digits on his calculator held some special significance; then he switched off the calculator and he went to his dresser, where he took out a pair of denim shorts, changed, and combed his black hair. In the bathroom the toilet flushed and in a minute she came out. The green swimsuit fitted her smoothly and her skin was a light bronze. We should take two towels, she told him, and your sun block tube. I forgot to bring my sun block."

Okay. He bent down. He took two towels from the bottom drawer and a sun block tube from the top drawer. They went outside and he locked the door with a key from his key chain, and he clipped the chain to his shorts and they walked down to the sidewalk; it was a mild and warm day and the fog had burned off, leaving a gold sun in a sky that was pale blue. As they walked west on the sidewalk she reached and took his hand. It was a deft and a gentle gesture, and he did not resist it. They passed underneath a few small trees that contained blue blossoms. These trees cast blue webs of shadow and fallen blossoms littered the sidewalk. To the right of the entrance to the pier there was a flight of green steps, and this flight angled steeply down to a large parking lot; Karen pressed her weight close to Tom as they went down the stairs, and she kept her hand clasped over his as they walked along a white sea wall. The sand that was closest to the sea wall was white and uneven. Further down the sand was grayer, smoother, and hard-packed. Rather than proceeding immediately to a place to spread their towels, Tom and Karen walked toward the surf that roared and flashed close to the pier; they stopped a yard away from the surf and Karen leaned against him, and she tilted her head against his and they did not move. It’s so lovely, she told Tom after a long time. I’m going to miss this for three months.

I know you will.

They stayed there. Then they turned and walked slowly north and she stayed close to him. The jetty was fully visible as a black length before them, half a mile to the north of the pier and composed of huge boulders; few people were out on the beach because most schools were still in session, and Tom selected a spot at random and he spread the white towels. He and Karen sat on the towels and he lifted the sun block tube. He untied his tennis shoes and she removed her white running shoes. When she untied the sprig of yellow yarn her hair flowed out and backwards in a band, as lustrous as a band of golden metal that was silken and soft; he applied large amounts of sun block and he gave her the tube, and while she applied the lotion he looked away from her. Four sailboats were out to the west of them and these boats were white slits. The pier was distinctly visible in its entirety. Tom could see each concrete piling and the green of the railings, and he could see the shapes of the fishermen and the faint lines of their rods; while Karen rubbed lotion into her arms and her legs Tom kept his eyes upon the pier, and then he looked at the sailboats as two of them passed across each other. Well, she said as she set down the sun block tube, I don’t know where to start. All I know is that we need to start somewhere.

I agree.

Look at me. You missed a spot there on your nose. He turned his face toward her. She rubbed a daub of sun block into his nose and she leaned back from him. I didn’t sleep, she went on presently, even after the tests. That’s how much it’s been on my mind.

Me, too.

You haven’t slept? Your eyes have those rings around them.

No, I haven’t slept. I can’t get much studying done, either.

I was lucky, you know? Most of my studying was already finished.

Good.

So, how shall we start? I have some things that I’ve been thinking about.

Why don’t you start, then. He told her. You’re a lot better with words than I am.

I don’t know about that. But I know what I’ve been thinking. Karen looked out toward the water. Tom picked up a piece of driftwood and he began to dig into the sand. First of all, she went on quietly, I don’t think that it was wrong. Nothing about it was wrong at all. Tom did not answer her. He frowned down toward the piece of driftwood as she looked toward him. You don’t agree with that, she told him after a long pause. Can you tell me the main reason?

Of course.

What?

Because it’s obvious. Cousins don’t do that kind of thing.

I’ve thought all of that through. And I don’t feel the slightest guilt. He glanced left as she said this. She had crossed her light bronze legs and she gazed out toward the ocean. I don’t care what people say, she told him at last. They don’t know about our circumstances. He frowned down again. She looked toward him for a moment as he kept on digging. Shall I go on? She asked him after another pause. Some of it might be hard for you to listen to.

Why?

Because it’s honest. And because we haven’t talked about it.

Well, I’d rather that you talked. I draw a blank with words lately.

All right. She looked down. She was seated near the sand and she brushed at it. This is the difficult part, she told him, not what happened, okay? Me being honest about my thinking.

Can’t you just go on? It makes it worse if you keep on apologizing."

I’m not apologizing, Tom. I’m afraid is what I am. He looked down, ashamed. He frowned again as he used the piece of driftwood to deepen a narrow trench in the sand. I’m afraid, she went on quietly, about hurting you. I think that you’re very fragile now. She brushed at the sand. She