At the Beach

by Elizabeth Aharonian Moon

The green Jeep jerked along the sand, filling in the holes the kids had dug earlier in the day, flattening footprints, crushing seaweed that had been abandoned high on the beach by the tide. At the shoreline, it stopped.

There on the hard, damp sand, a young man in a red tee shirt—EMT printed in bold white capitals on front and back—gave a high sign to the driver. He had been waiting, leaning against a wheel-chair engineered for irregular surfaces: fat aqua tires resembling a truck's inner tubes, inflated to near bursting; levers and controls of all sorts under the handles at the rear; a blue umbrella, tightly furled fastened to the chair's backrest. After exchanging a few words, the driver stepped down from the Jeep and signaled to his passenger, a lanky man who seemed to unfold and rise up from the back seat, his tee shirt tucked into his shorts, his sneakers tied neatly.

Together they leaned into the front seat to lift out some bundles: first a beach bag, then a small cooler, and then, with the help of the EMT, a woman. They tried to arrange her this way and that, until she was shifted from the Jeep and placed in the wheel-chair. That accomplished, the EMT climbed into the Jeep, sitting down where the bundles had been, and the driver turned into his tracks and together they headed up the beach over the soft sand, leaving the man, and the woman in her chair.

The man in the tee shirt and sneakers took off the woman's beach dress slipping it down her body, then her rubber sandals, her hat. From the beach bag, he took sunblock, rubbing it on her white shoulders, her pale arms, kneeling in front of her to do her legs. With more lotion, he did his own shoulders, his knees, while she, with lotion in her right hand, lathered her face and neck, neck and face, again and again and again.

Returning the sunblock to the beach bag, the man took out their towels, spread out one, folded their clothes, lined up their shoes, marking their place on the sand. And then he released a control and slowly pushed the wheelchair to the water's edge, into the shallow water and then farther and farther into the waves. Her left arm dangled limply over the arm rest, her hand floating in the water, her left leg bobbing about like seaweed.

Little children made way for her and stared. Older folk turned away, missing the smile that illuminated the right side of her face. But they all heard her say--haltingly but proudly—Here I am! Here I am! Look at me!