I was walking in the wash up to my knees the afternoon I spotted lifeguard Bobby Jenkins on his day off. The wash is as far out as I go. I lost my larynx to cancer, and if I ever went swimming, the ocean would rush down the hole in my throat—it’s called a stoma—and sink me like a stone.

Bobby gave my ass a smack and said something. I couldn’t hear him. That’s the thing about beach voices. The wind and ocean steal them. I speak with an EL, an electrolarynx. It’s like a TV remote I carry all over and never lose. I should invest in a tracheoesophageal prosthesis, but I get too much mucus down there. Besides, I took lessons with the EL.

I held up my hands to my ears and mouthed, “What?”

“I said, come on. Let’s get out of here and have a cocktail. At your place.”

He smiled. A crooked one that assured everyone if he’d just gotten caught doing wrong, it was all a mistake. I’ve known him since he was a kid. I took my EL out of my jogging suit’s pocket. Bobby was down breeze from me.

“Look at this,” I held out my hand to the ocean. “You’re here all the time. I’m staying put.” I walked up the tide rise and had a seat.

“That’s it, plop down. You look like a white beach ball, man. That suit makes your arms look so small compared to your belly.” He pulled up a towel, sat alongside, and lit a cigarette.

There was a perfect break going. It started a good thirty yards offshore, rolled in parallel and white—steady enough so if you caught the crest early, you could ride the break all the way home. Mercer Avenue is like that. Bobby started guarding at twenty-one. He’s been on Mercer for years.

“I remember everything about this beach. The bottom’s shape. How it molds the break and roll of the water.”

“I’m just looking for something you can give me once we get to your place.” He noticed this girl bodysurfing. She was maybe sixteen, although these days it’s hard to tell. He waved to her a few times. “Let’s at least head up to the boards. We can chat with Molly.”

Chat is one of my favorite words, but I still wanted to stay put. I stared at Bobby; I always do. As if he’s going to change his ways right before my eyes. He shrugged his shoulders, turned his mouth up at a corner, and looked away before hitting me with that smile, all flowers and fertilizer.

“C’mon, you know you want to ask Molly about her day so far.”

I cupped my hand over my eyes and gazed out at the water. “It’s not the same up there. Car sounds instead of waves.”

“It’s almost five and clouding up.”

He wasn’t wrong. To tell the truth, I looked forward to his company in my home. I don’t get visitors.

We went up the tide rise where the dry sand felt as soft as a snowdrift. Naturally, I had to talk to every person I knew. I was a pinball bouncing from one umbrella bumper to the next. Then I started coughing. I had to take the filter out of the stoma so that I could clear the mucus with a tissue.

“And the idiot still smokes,” Bobby said to nobody.

We made it up to the boardwalk and Molly, the gate lady, started talking to me. She’s been seventy for twenty years and is something of an institution. Today she had on her Coco Chanel sunglasses and a big, floppy, yellow hat. A line of lipstick headed south past one corner of her mouth. We shot the breeze before I waved goodbye.

“You look like you’re shaving with a fancy electric razor when you talk with that thing,” Bobby said. “Can I play around with your CB radio?”

For months I’ve talked to everybody who listens to me on my radio. I wanted to practice using my new voice, my EL. A lot of people know my handle, and when they fire up their set, they get in touch. Nobody busts my chops about how I sound either.

I have a great view from my porch. My place is on A Street, one block down from the beach, between Pine and Surf Avenues. It’s my parents’ old place. They’ve been gone for a long time. One of my favorite things to do is sit out there and watch people go by. I can just see a few feet of beach and boardwalk along with a view of the dance bar’s parking lot on Ocean Avenue. I waved to some kids heading for the beach. They saw me and waved back. Bobby waved and gave them a thumbs up. We were happy and, I thought, content. We had plenty of booze. Sipping my drink, I took notice of the sky over the houses across the street. The clouds were rushing together, getting dark. The wind picked up and carried mist inland. Pretty soon the rain arrived—big drops, as if coming from a sprinkler. They made hollow bonks against my porch roof. Steam rose from the wet street. People with towels over their heads hurried west on Pine and Surf as if Godzilla had just risen from the sea.

Bobby pointed at a woman cutting across A Street. “More company for you, Jimmy.” She took a second to straighten her hair before she started up my walk, stopped, spread both arms, and hollered through the rain.

“Here I am, Bobby.”

“Who do we have here?” I asked.

Bobby waved. “Carla Blood. I saw her a couple times last month. She’s divorced with a daughter.”

“Well, invite her up.” I leaned over my porch railing and smiled. She came up the four steps to the porch trying not to stare at me.

“Carla, this is Jimmy.”

“Jimmy Hanlon. Nice to meet you. Carla, Bobby’s no gentleman.” I gestured for her to sit next to him. My porch is as wide as my house but isn’t very deep. We brushed past each other trading places.

Thick, wet hair framed her face. Mid-thirties, Bobby’s age, she wore a yellow top tied in a front knot and tight white shorts that pinched an inch above each butt cheek.

Bobby stood up. He gave her a hug, and she leaned into him. The top of her head didn’t quite reach his chin.

“Like a drink?”

“Where do you keep yourself? You haven’t called.”

He shrugged. “I called you an hour ago.”

Probably when he spotted me on the beach.

He started spinning the Holiday Inn ashtray on my tray table. He picked it up and whirled it on one finger. “I’m an ashtray Harlem Globetrotter,” he said.

“Okay. But before today, you didn’t call for two weeks.” Carla turned to me. “Him and truth are the wrong ends of magnets.”

“Show Carla your photo album, Jimmy.” Bobby leaned back against the porch railing.

I went in, brought out my picture album, and slid my chair closer to Carla’s so half lay on her lap, and away I went. The album’s full of family photos. My father started it and kept adding to it.

“Tell Carla about your daughter.”

I said, “My daughter, Alice, is an interpreter for the deaf. She’s fluent in sign language. ASL, it’s called.”

Carla said, “Susie, my daughter, is interested in speech therapy. She wants to learn about things like that.”

“Oh, Jeez!” Bobby stood up straight. I thought a wasp stung his ass. “Susie should see all of Jimmy’s books about sign language. He has shelves full of stuff.”

Carla handed Bobby her phone. “You call her. Where’s your bathroom, Jimmy?”

I walked her in and showed her and then went back to Bobby. “Okay, Svengali. How old is Susie?”

“Who?”

I twisted my mouth and nodded. “I said, how old is Susie?”

“Carla had her at seventeen.”

I gave up.

To get ready for Susie, I got my books together. I’m up on matters of communications, electronics, and ASL—American Sign Language. When they taught me about my EL, I was already familiar with vibration tech and whatnot from my radio hobby.

Carla and Bobby were inside sitting close to each other on the sofa. I didn’t want any part of that, so I waited on the porch for Susie. The rain had quit and shadows of houses stretched across the street when I spotted a girl riding a bike. She coasted around the corner and then peddled down A Street. Her bike was a kid’s bike—sky blue with white streamers on the handlebars. She wore a tan sundress with spaghetti straps and looked about ten years too old for that bike. I went to the top step and waved my arms over my head for the kid. She jumped the curb, let her bike drop onto my grass, and lit a cigarette.

“Where’s Bobby? Are you Jimmy? I can finger spell a little.”

“Yes. I’m Jimmy.”

Bobby came out.

“Bobby.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “How’s it going?”

“Great.” He took her hand and pulled her inside. “How about this stuff?” He picked up one of my books and opened it. “Your mom says you’re really interested in this type of thing. I know some signs. Jimmy taught me.” He put the book on his lap and signed beer, bullshit, and two peace signs turned opposite, thumping together. “You can guess what this is.”

“Yeah. Everybody knows that.” Susie snatched the book from Bobby’s lap.

“How about a screwdriver before we head out?” Bobby said to Carla. He walked to the kitchen, opened the freezer, and took out ice trays. He announced, “Three screwdrivers and a Mountain Dew coming up.”

I held the door open for Carla to go outside on the porch. Susie waited for Bobby. Before he carried a tray with the drinks out from the kitchen, I watched him lean down to Susie’s ear, whisper something, and point his chin to his Marlboro box in his shirt pocket. Susie’s eyebrows went up before she grabbed a couple of my books. On the porch, she wanted to check out my EL.

“Bobby says you call the electrolarynx your voice.”

“Voice is good. Voice or EL. Electrolarynx is hard to say, and people forget.” I handed it to her.

Susie gave my EL the once-over. I finger spelled to her, “take your time.” Carla lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke in a huff. She fixed her hair, fussed with her outfit. “Okay, Susie’s here. Where are we going, Bobby?”

When Susie gave me back my voice, she turned to Bobby and put her thumb and forefinger together next to her lips. She winked, and Bobby took out a joint from his Marlboros.

He asked, “Anybody mind?” and fired it right up.

“Hell yes, I mind. No way,” Carla said.

“Use your head,” I said.

Bobby took one toke and knocked off the ash against the porch railing. He dipped a finger into his screwdriver, dabbed the joint, and then tucked it back with his Marlboros. “Two against one.”

“Don’t I count?” Susie said.

“No,” Carla said. “Are we or are we not going out, mister?”

Bobby didn’t get a chance to answer. Inside, some song I didn’t know came on the radio and Susie acted like the girls on Ed Sullivan when the Beatles came on stage.

“Turn that up,” she squealed. “Oh, god, I love this song. Turn it up.” She danced inside. “Where’s the volume?”

Bobby followed her in. He blasted the volume. Susie grabbed his hand, and they started dancing. Carla watched them, shaking her head. She lit a cigarette from the old one and flipped the butt into one of my hydrangeas, then said something about kids these days. I smiled, shrugged, and shook my head. I don’t bother trying to converse over loud music.

Carla kept right on talking. “Her father took off when she was six. The usual story.” It wasn’t usual enough to keep her from telling it. She had this sad little smile that always seemed to come back after each puff she took on her cigarette. After she finished talking, she started to flip through a book Susie had brought out. Now, at my house, you can see from the porch into the kitchen with the refrigerator door closed. But because the fridge is right inside the kitchen doorway, when its door is open, you can’t. I saw that fridge door stay open with two pairs of feet underneath for way too long.

I sat Susie down with my album when she came back out. “I’ll go fix us some cheese and crackers,” I told the girls. Inside, Bobby was in the bathroom. Judging from the aroma, he’d started up that bone again. Hoping Carla hadn’t noticed, I started to cut some slices of Vermont cheddar when out on the porch Susie and Carla started yelling at each other as if they were archenemies.

“Prove it!” Susie kept yelling.

“I don’t have to prove you’re smoking weed! I’m your mother!” Carla came inside. “Jenkins!”

Bobby came out of the bathroom packing his best innocent smile. “Next.” He swept his hand toward the bathroom door and bowed.

“Next, my ass! I am out of here!”

Carla blew out the front door and grabbed Susie by the hand. Down the porch steps they went. Susie yelled something about going to see somebody named Tony before taking off on her bike. She had to hike up that sundress to pedal. Carla headed down the street and flipped the finger over her head to anybody watching.

I thought the evening was over. I didn’t bother to ball out Bobby for getting Susie high. I emptied the ashtrays, turned off the radio, and straightened up the kitchen—the cheese and crackers could wait. I sat on the porch and Bobby stretched out on the couch to watch baseball on TV. I figured I’d finish my cigar and then kick his sorry ass out.

I was just starting to nod off when Susie came riding back from wherever she’d been. She smiled at me and dropped the bike in about the same spot. Out came her phone, and guess who picked up the call from inside on my couch. Half a second later he came outside.

“Look who’s back,” he smiled.

I considered what to do. I could lock my door and go to bed. That would require me to kick Bobby out, and with Susie right there, I didn’t like that idea. Instead, I figured I could babysit the two of them until he got bored and left to go to the dance bar for his usual nighttime amusement. I invited Susie up and got out my album.

“Mom left mad.” Susie plunked down next to me. “Mad at Bobby for not paying attention. Mad at me for partying, but I don’t think so. That wasn’t it. She’s pissed I’m on birth control pills. Jimmy, who is this?” She tapped a finger on a picture of me from thirty years ago.

Bobby came out. “Drinks? Who needs a drink?”

“I’m good,” I said. “You drink two.” I’m sure if I still had my real voice, I couldn’t have hidden the anger in it.

Bobby held a highball in each hand.

“What’s in the drinks?” Susie asked.

He offered Susie a taste.

“Wrong,” I said, reaching. Too late. When you need a hand to speak, sometimes you’re late.

She scrunched her face and held it away from me. “It burns though. I like screwdrivers. Beer, too. Bud’s my beer. Tony and me drank beers tonight. I told Mom it sucks that you lost your voice, Jimmy. Your real voice. Your stoma’s kind of radical.” She took a few gulps and smiled at me. “Oops.”

I got the glass from Susie, stood up, and poured what was left over the railing. “Why don’t you get the hell out of here?” I said to Bobby.

He didn’t budge. I went back to my album. Susie wanted to know everything about every picture. It wasn’t long though before she excused herself and stood up. Once more she excused herself, standing still all the time. Then she bolted inside.

“You asshole,” I said to both myself and Bobby.

I followed Susie into the bathroom, stood behind her, and held her forehead while she heaved. I patted her shoulder, got a washcloth with cool water, and used it to brush hair from her face. When she finished, she sat on the bathtub and waved a hand to say, “I’m okay.” Just as I was leaving her alone so she could get herself together in private, I heard a bang out on the porch.

I went out. Bobby had kicked my tray table. Came up underneath and lifted the son of a bitch off my porch. My album, my voice—they both went over the railing, almost down to the sidewalk. I could see them in the grass even though it needed cutting.

I put both hands on the railing and squeezed as hard as I could. I would have given anything to be able to scream. Instead, I watched Bobby walk to the dance bar parking lot. A few minutes later, Susie came out on the porch. She stood next to me. She had a trail of wet down the front of her sundress that she was wiping with a damp washcloth from the bathroom.

“It’s where I got puke. Sorry I messed up your john.”

I held up a finger. I needed my voice. What a fucking mess down on the grass. At least my voice still worked. I left the glasses and tabletop down there—it was all bent to hell. The cleanup drained all the anger out of me, and my thoughts turned to Susie.

“Now,” I started, “Johns come clean, so don’t worry about it. Can you call your mother?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“For one, I doubt she’s home. Two, she’s in one of her b-i-t-c-h moods. And three, look at me.”

“How about some ginger ale? Maybe with the cheese and crackers I fixed.”

She collapsed onto a chair and leaned her head onto a hand. A dress strap drooped onto her arm. The dress had to go. I imagined it smelled, but I couldn’t be sure. I can’t smell worth shit since my surgery. I held up a finger. “Be right back.”

I dug in some drawers and found a sweatshirt and an old pair of gym shorts from about thirty pounds ago. I took them out to Susie, held them up, and smiled.

She snatched the shorts from my hand, spread the waistband, and looked up at me. “You expect me to wear these?”

I dropped the sweatshirt in her lap. “Best I can do.”

She started laughing, songbird chirps jumping off the porch and rolling across the street in sweet waves. “Dude!” she managed to gasp. She shook the shorts like a matador’s cape before dropping them and holding up the sweatshirt. “Got any big socks? 70s socks, ones that go up to the knees.”

I had support hose. The kid’s legs were probably as long as mine. I brought out a pair, and for the hell of it, found my paddy cap and plunked it on her head when I dropped the socks. I spread my hands to say you’re all set. She took everything into the bathroom and came out a minute later looking like an Irish tough.

“You look as if you’re ready to settle a score at the pub.”

“To what?”

“That’s a fine tweed paddy cap you’re wearing.”

She adjusted it. Along with the sweatshirt and shorts, it was fifty sizes too big. She pulled the cap down over her eyes and dropped onto the sofa. “Where’d Bobby go?”

“Where you can’t.”

“I can’t walk anywhere in these shorts. They’ll droop to my ankles.”

“Is your dress in the bathroom?”

“I draped it over the bathtub.”

I fetched the dress and brought over some sign language books and the TV remote. “Here. Amuse yourself while I do some laundry.”

I tossed her dress, a couple of towels, and some fabric softener in the washer. It’s tucked next to the dryer in a closet off the kitchen. I came back with the cheese and crackers and a ginger ale and found Susie holding a photo of Alice. Her photos sit all over my place. Her mother and I parted ways long ago. I tried to be there for Alice. The ponies and bars seemed to get in the way. I knew shortcuts to Monmouth Park from any direction at all times of the day. Same for Freehold Raceway, although the trotters didn’t appeal like the ponies.

“I put your dress on the gentle cycle with a couple of towels. It should come out fine.”

“Is this cute little twerp your daughter?”

“Yes. Alice.”

“I looked around. All your pictures are of Alice.”

“She held still for me.” I waited for the obvious. All the pictures of Alice are of her as a child. Bobby asked me once why I didn’t have any photos of her as an adult. Take a guess, I told him. Susie didn’t ask.

She had on my support hose, the ones featuring pictures of giraffes. They stretched above her knees and hung loose around her ankles. I had to smile. It takes me too many tugs to pull them onto my tree stumps. “You like my socks?”

“They’re wild. I love giraffes. I saw online where some woman shot one and then posed with the dead body.”

“A suggestion from my oncologist. The socks, not shooting giraffes.”

“Your what?”

“Oncologist.” I pointed my voice at my stoma. “A cancer doctor. Speaking of doctors, how do you feel?”

“Fine.” She spun around the place picking up and looking at pictures and anything else not nailed down. Her ginger ale had about two sips gone, and she hadn’t touched the cheese and crackers. I thought she was going to ask how much I wanted for the place before she finally sat on the couch, fell back against an arm, pulled her feet up, and covered her eyes with the paddy’s brim.

“You dizzy?”

“Depends who you ask.” She sat up and pulled a throw pillow from under her head. “This pillow smells like cigars. So why’d your cancer doctor tell you to wear these socks?”

I sat in my La-Z-Boy. “Well, with cancer, sometimes you need chemotherapy. It can hurt other parts of you. The socks help to prevent blood clots forming in your legs.”

One at a time, she stretched out a leg and tugged up a sock before leaning back. The paddy’s brim covered her eyes. “I’ve heard of chemo. Is my dress done?” she mumbled.

“Still in the wash. Then the dryer.”

The paddy cap and my sweatshirt swallowed her. Just above her knee tops those stupid giraffes stared at me. The afternoon and evening punched my eyes closed. Listening over and over to the washing machine’s swishy chug-a-chug put me to sleep.

I wasn’t the only one.

I woke myself up snoring. The house was so dark I had to blink a few times to see Susie. She lay on the couch. I had no idea what time it was, so I went in the kitchen to check and to move her dress over to the dryer. It was past fucking midnight. I sat down to think.

My first thought was to say the hell with all these people—Bobby and the company he’d brought—a screwy mother and her wild child who now slept on my couch wearing my sweatshirt, gym shorts, and giraffe compression hose. But I had to get Susie awake and back into her dress. Then on her bike and home. Or I could call a cab for her. Her bike could fit in the trunk.

Then I remembered Susie’s phone. She must have her home number programmed on it. She’d left it on the porch. I tiptoed past her, flicked on the porch light, and saw her phone on a chair just as a car pulled up. It screeched to a stop at a forty-five-degree angle with the headlights trying to point at my porch.

Carla climbed out, hung on to the open car door, and bellowed, “Is that my daughter’s bike?”

I held up my hands. My voice was inside. “She’s fine,” I tried to mouth.

Carla had the car radio blasting. It sounded punk, like the Ramones. She came around into the headlights, bent over the bike, and wiggled one of the streamers. “It’s hers! Where the fuck is she?”

I motioned for her to follow me inside. I was barely awake. My mouth and tongue caked dry from sleeping, I couldn’t gather any spit. I tried saying something, but instead I started coughing. Phlegm came up and stuck in my stoma. I was hacking, bent over, with a madwoman coming up my front steps.

She brushed past me and went into the house. I got a handkerchief out and cleared my stoma. It sounded like World War III in my living room.

Susie yelling, “You don’t trust me!”

Carla yelling, “You have a phone!”

With all the ruckus inside and the racket from Carla’s car radio, it wasn’t a surprise when the cops showed up. I retreated to the kitchen as an officer came onto the porch. I’d put Susie’s dress in the dryer without the towels to speed things up. Good enough. I took the dress out and brought it with me. The cop was knocking on my door and at the same time trying to quiet down Carla and Susie.

I pointed to myself, mouthed, “Owner,” and opened the door.

The excitement died down in minutes. Carla had sufficient police experience to know when to shut up, nod, and correct the source of trouble—in this case, her illegally parked car, its blaring radio, and her own mouth. I handed Susie her dress. Carla never said a word about her daughter wearing my clothes. She was probably more worried about getting a DUI. She loaded Susie’s bike in her trunk and took off at 5 MPH. The cops never spoke to me. It wasn’t me doing the yelling, and it wasn’t my car parked at a forty-five-degree angle.

I should have been relieved watching everyone leave. Then I noticed all the books I’d set out for Susie to take home were still on a chair on my porch. There they sat, a small tower sinking the chair’s fabric strips.

Maybe she’ll come back for them.

I tried remembering the order of events, how the day deteriorated. I opened a cold beer and lit a cigar. Usually, I limit myself to one a day. If I’d had any sense, I’d have kicked Bobby out after the girls left, barricaded the house, and gone to bed. My long nap had me wide awake, and after I finished the beer, I headed out for my nightly summer ritual. On the way I walked past the dance bar and had an inkling about going in. I hadn’t been to a bar since my surgery, and the thought of giving Bobby hell for all his antics appealed to me. He probably hadn’t left unless he got lucky. Summer bars at the shore are special. The celebratory atmosphere, the anything-can-happen anticipation.

Then I had to smile. Who was I kidding?

The rain had left puddles along Ocean Avenue. Cars splashed past me. The night air blew cooler. The streetlights up and down the boards glowed in the mist like a row of full moons, and as far down as I could see, north and south, the benches were empty. If you sit on a boardwalk bench at night, you’re between two worlds. The benches face alternate directions, so you can watch humanity’s noise or an empty beach and the party boat dots of light on the ocean.

You aren’t permitted on the beach after dark. I suppose the town doesn’t want kids camping on blankets, drinking beer, and doing what kids do, or people full of romance spilling onto the sand from the bars. One guy alone doesn’t attract any attention. I walked all the way to the shoreline’s edge where the beach dips and hides human silhouettes from cops patrolling the boards on bikes. The breakers swooshed up and rolled back smooth in their quiet concert.

I sat my ass down. The water felt a little cold, but I’m good at getting used to things. Pushed me pulled me, over and over.

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Mick Bennett lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with his wife and golden retriever. He is the author of five novels. His short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Flash Frog, Porcupine Literary, Beloit Fiction Journal, Confrontation, and others. A collection, Messes We Made, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in 2026. Find Mick at  X:@michaelbennet29, @mickbennett7.bsky.social‬, IG mickbennettauthor, and mickbennettnj.com.

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