"The Ghosts of Magic Beach" Excerpt

The sun begins her lazy, colorful late afternoon descent over Keyport’s deep blue skies. Afternoon boat traffic and small planes advertising dinner specials on the Jersey shore add a comforting drone to the atmosphere.

A man scans the wide bay with a small pair of binoculars.  Under the vast umbrella of stunning summer glory he stretches to the sky and exhales his stress with closed eyes.

Some believe in a God of vengeance. They fear his wrath and try to live lives that will keep them clear of his punishment. Their version God keeps score, rewarding those who follow the words of his earthly advocates and punishing those who reject them. 

They believe in the horrific hell he created to deliver eternal pain and suffering to transgressors.  They hope for reward of his heaven.

Some believe God is a man-made invention to enforce a code of morality to keep society orderly and sane.  They believe that without a promise of a better life in eternity, people would buck the status quo and demand a better life on this earth, here and now.

Tom Stone believed neither.  He believed God to be real and tangible. He’d show you him if you asked him to.

He saw his God each and every day in the rising sun over the bay.  He needed cleric, nor congregation to reaffirm his belief. He could see it with his own eyes, feel it with his body and his heart. His God was benevolent, if sometimes mysterious and playful.

Tom’s daily observations, on strolls during writing breaks along the small beach behind his house, made it plain to him that it was abundantly clear that the sun was God’s best work. On days when the sun did not break through, he ached for it like any great love. 

Tom observes the sun bringing life to the bay, nourishing all parts of the food chain.  It feeds the food eaten by the tiny shrimp that spawn on the muddy flats that fed the thousands of small blue crabs.  It feeds the baitfish that the voracious, toothy bluefish chase, churning the surface for acres of water in the late spring. It provides life to the wise hawks from the nearby pine barrens who patrol overhead for careless prey. 

It also seems to feed men who go down to the water in search of a connection. Tom was a city boy and this assignment was a reawakening of his creative soul.

Tom inhaled deeply and drank in the beauty of the bay.  From the proud stone spire of Mount Loretto on Staten Island’s south shore to the Verrazano Bridge spanning across the New York Harbor entrance and over to Brooklyn’s rough Coney Island beachscape over to the Rockaways, the flat bay sparkled in the August sun.

Tom was up to his knees in water stalking blue claw crabs along an arching ridge of eel grass that extended out into the shallows.  A small, thick reporter’s notebook inside a Ziploc bag stuck from the back pocket of his cargo shorts.

His right hand held a wooden handled scoop net. In his left hand he carried a white plastic bucket with six large blue claw crabs snapping and snarling in the bottom.

Tom stops and takes some notes on his pad before replacing in the Ziplock and focusing on a slight movement in the water.

Tom freezes still. 

He spots a big blue Jimmie crab trying to hide behind an inadequately small clump of seaweed.  Tom slowly moves his net into position; the crab makes a small shift. Tom strikes, the crab darts left.  Tom’s precise last minute adjustment wins the battle. 

The thick crab’s royal blue claws tear at the green nylon of the net and hangs on as Tom tries to flip him into the bucket. As he tries to loosen the crab’s grip on the metal loop of the net, he catches a quick and bloody nip on the index finger from the fierce crab.

“Oooouch.  Damn.”

A dime sized drop of blood drops into the water.

The crab releases and plunges into the bucket, setting off a new battle of supremacy among the other captured giants.  Tom gives a satisfied look to his catch.

Tom rinses his superficial wound in the sea and wraps the fingertip with a clean Dunkin Donut napkin from a Ziploc in his pocket.

Tom mumbles a brief prayer of thanks and kisses the sky with gusto and he begins trudging across the flats parallel to the beach only emerging from the sea at the last possible point as to extend and savor his communion with the wild sea.

The early stages of the incoming tide pushed ever-increasing waves toward the beach. Soon there would be deepening pinks and blood oranges hues across the Jersey sky.

Blood for blood.