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    By the Sea, by the Sea...
    By the Sea, by the Sea...
    By the Sea, by the Sea...
    Ebook72 pages1 hour

    By the Sea, by the Sea...

    By Jim Beane

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    About this ebook

    Jim Beane's five riveting tales of the Eastern seashore depict the elemental beauty and terror of of salt air and wild water and its impact on the harsh, often stormy lives of coastal dwellers who fish the sea, service boats, surf breakers and work in the building trades. “Across the Bay” explores class divisions between long-time locals and summer residents, the “richies,” in the wake of a devastating storm. In “Fragile,” a young fisherman befriends a hapless, grieving older man. “Before the Storm” explores the difficult relationship of two brothers, one of whom is seriously ill. “Ocean View” is the sometimes hilarious saga of conflict between local and immigrant workers at a sea-side construction site. In “The Rising Tide,” an older, long-married couple lose their car keys in the sand and rediscover each other.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWordrunner eChapbooks
    Release dateDec 13, 2018
    ISBN9780463284124
    By the Sea, by the Sea...
    Author

    Jim Beane

    Jim Beane lives west of Baltimore, Maryland with his wife Mary Ellen and their dog Lily. He splits time between family, writing and paying back to the writing community. Two daughters, their husbands and two grandsons live close by. Jim is a workshop leader in creative fiction at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland and a mentor for the Veteran’s Writing Project. During Spring, 2019, he will work with the Armed Services Arts Partnership and the Writer’s Center to help reintegrate Veterans into their communities through their participation in the arts. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and featured in the 2017 Tillie Olsen Award-winning anthology, Worker’s Write: Tales from the Construction Site. He is a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellow and still active in a writing critique group formed twenty years ago. He has judged a short fiction contest and been a featured speaker on short fiction at the Second Saturday Lecture Series in Hyattsville, Maryland. His stories have appeared in numerous publications including the Baltimore Review, the Potomac Review, the Long Story, DC Noir, Spank the Carp, Scribble and O-Dark-Thirty. His short story collection, ALMOST MEN: stories, is seeking a home. Currently, he is working on his novel GALILEE, a thriller coming-of-age story set in the mid-Atlantic and several new stories he hopes to add to a second collection.

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      Book preview

      By the Sea, by the Sea... - Jim Beane

      By the sea, by the sea…

      fictions by Jim Beane

      Published by Wordrunner eChapbooks

      (an imprint of Wordrunner Press)

      Smashwords Edition

      ISBN: 978-0463284124

      Copyright 2018 Jim Beane

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Contents

      Across the Bay

      Fragile

      Before the Storm

      Ocean View

      The Rising Tide

      About Jim Beane

      About Wordrunner eChapbooks

      Across the Bay

      A man and a young girl lumber past. She’s eight, maybe nine. His hand holds onto her shoulder. Their mud stained clothes cling, their shoes squish. It’s dark, she holds the man’s hand, her eyes dart up to meet his. The moon creeps from behind the clouds and its light sweeps across his face. He looks lost, confused. Seeing them, like that, knowing they’re local, knowing what they’ve been through, I feel for them.

      The nor’easter hammered the coast from the Atlantic Highlands to Cape May for three solid days, no let up. Wind. Floods. Rain like bullets. All God’s fury. The bay surged twelve feet, and the electricity is still out two days later.

      I am waiting for my friend Roy to swing by and pick me up from the Best Burger parking lot on Route 9, south of Manahawkin. Roy texted me last night to meet him early at the lot, so here I am. He wanted to go to the island and see the damage.

      I don’t have many friends. Truth, I don’t have any friends. I have Roy. My mom told me specifically to stay home and clean up the mess from the surge. We live in a double-wide in Shady Acres Park behind the Best Burger. But once the rain stopped, my mom disappeared. She works for Maids-R-Us, seven days a week, normally. But after a storm like this, I might not see her for a week.

      Roy’s a football stud at school. Girls love him. I’m bony, stick-out skinny, and can’t catch a football if you drop it in my hands.

      Weird how shit works out. Believe me, I was more than a little suspicious when Roy first approached me, but he was quick to fess up, he wanted to learn how to surf. Every kid grows up at the shore learns to surf. I did, and I surf like the best of them now. Not Roy, too busy playing football and helping his dad with his plumbing business. Roy most likely picked me to friend up because all the other surfers turned him down. I still feel lucky he did.

      Roy’s Jeep wheels into view on Route 9. He’s driving fast with the high beams on and towing his dad’s 23 foot Mako on their old rusty trailer, I jog outside and jump in the passenger seat.

      Hey dude, Roy says. Let’s go see how the richies made out.

      _____

      There are two types of people on the Jersey coast, locals and summer people, the richies. It’s no compliment. Locals live on the mainland. Richies live on the island. Locals used to live on the island, but the richies bought up everything and chased the locals off… So, the locals resent the richies. Natural. Just the way it is, and nobody hates richies like Roy, except maybe his dad, a plumbing dynamo who depended on clearing muck from the richies sewer pipes to pay his bills. Roy’s mom wasn’t too crazy about summer people either. She works at Albert’s, a snobby restaurant on the island decorated with pretend fishing nets and buoys. Locals can’t afford appetizers at Albert’s and never eat there. Roy’s mom says richies act like jerks, like they’re better than us. His dad says they got their heads stuck up their ass.

      Roy’s mom and dad grew up on the island. Now, they live in Tuckerton. Locals like them live in trailer parks and crummy houses all up and down Route 9. They do the work the richies from New York and Philadelphia can’t do or won’t do. Richies don’t waste their precious time doing shit they can pay other people to do. Even my mom, who forgives everybody in the name of Christ, thinks richies don’t behave themselves. The locals don’t want to live with them, never have, but financially can’t survive without them. Catch-22. Weird.

      _____

      What about the Cops and the National Guard? I ask. Roy pulls off.

      C’mon dude, you know Ocean County cops. They’re probably in Woodstown eating doughnuts. And no Guard, not yet. Billy’s on the island. He called me on his cell.

      Billy mention the causeway still being closed to cars? That’s what the radio said this morning.

      "Yeah, yeah. Billy texted me all about it. We’ll cruise over in my old man’s Mako. I threw a couple of sticks and two wetsuits in back. Ride some killer surf at North Point. Root around, have some fun, see what loot we can

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