twenty-foot-tall monster grinning at the onlookers and the walls polkadotted with signs: See Dracula's screaming head chopped off! See Frankenstein speaking from the grave! special today: see the invisible Man. She smiled and was going to bring the last to Rosie's attention when the car gave another lurch and once more began to rise. Signs advertising Bat Woman, Cat Woman, Screechy Nell, and Coffin Nanny flashed past, come-ons for Meatless Bony Sam and Skully the Ghost Head dropped away beneath them, and, with a chorus of oohs and ahs from the other seats, they found themselves in the air, nearing the top of the wheel, the car rocking gently with the motion.
Once again it slowed to a halt as more people climbed on, but now the whole amusement park was laid out at their feet, a wilderness of lights, the rides below them twisting along their miniature tracks like children's toys beneath a Christmas tree, others spinning like beach umbrellas. Behind them came terrified, delighted screams from the roller coaster. Across Surf Avenue, before a wall of housing projects, a BMT subway train rumbling along its elevated track looked like just another ride, as if the entire city out there to the west were merely one vast amusement park.
'It's beautiful!' said Carol.
Rosie looked up and blinked distractedly at the scene; he had been peering at his watch. 'Yes,' he said, 'I knew you'd like it.' He hummed a little song to himself and sat back in the seat, staring not at the world below but at the sky.
On the right, in the distance, she could see the outline of the Verrazano Bridge. Nearer, to the left, stretched the expanse of boardwalk and dark sand and, beyond it, the darker ocean, with rows of lights reflected in the water, miles off, where freighters lay mysteriously at anchor. A combination of sounds drifted up to her, music and voices, machines and distant waves, like a flood of all the memories in the world.
Another lurch; the car began its descent, the great wheel fell away, and they seemed to be settling downward without apparent support, slipping toward the sound and lights and the dark walls rising up to block the view.
They went around a second time. Once more the boardwalk, beach, and ocean dropped into view, Carol wondering what lands lay beyond the dark horizon. She felt a sudden tickle on her hand and looked down to see a tiny six-spotted ladybug crawling dili-gently over her thumb, like a shiny little red plastic toy from the amusement park below. 'HeUo, bug,' she said, 'are you coming for a ride with us?' She held her hand out to Rosie, who smiled wanly.
'When this is over,' he said, 'we'U take a walk along the sand, how'U that be?'
'That will be fine,' she said, looking back toward the beach.
As the wheel turned, the car on the inner track ahead of them rolled clatteringly toward their own. Carol gave a little gasp of alarm but felt foolish when, to a chorus of screams within it, the other car swung away just before it hit them. Rosie smiled, and Carol looked down to find the bug was gone. Scared off, she supposed.
On the next ascent, Carol felt the same excitement as the car rose to the top of the wheel and the scenery lay spread out below, and the same inevitable disappointment as the car moved onward, back toward the ground. The view had become precious to her because of its very transience, a glimpse from a moving platform. Sometimes her own life, too, seemed as fleeting.
'I wonder if we'll get another time around,' she said.
'Hmm? Oh, no, I imagine this will be the last,' said Rosie. He seemed preoccupied; he'd been staring with rigid fascination at the light bulb that glowed just beyond the window of the car. She peered at it just in time to see a small red dot with black legs mashed burning against the heated glass of the bulb, but then the car scraped noisily along the exit track and an attendant was hauling open the metal doors and urging people out. She followed Rosie toward the passageway, feeling disturbed but unable to express it. Her head had begun to ache again.
'Come,' he was saying. 'Let's see what it's like down by the water.'
They walked up a nearby ramp to the boardwalk, continuing on it past a line of food stands, tattoo parlors, and fortune-telling booths. From the space below their feet came the sound of soul music and salsa; dimly she heard voices. Ahead of them another ramp led out onto the sand, which stretched away toward the shifting black line of surf.
The beach looked mysterious in the moonlight, dotted here and there with shapes that could have been dreamers or driftwood or corpses. She followed Rosie out onto the sand, feeling it give beneath her shoes, making walking difficult. She took the shoes off and held them in her hand, walking barefoot, the sand deliriously cold between her toes.
Rosie turned and watched what she was doing. 'Be careful,' he said, with a hint of disapproval, 'there's a lot of broken glass around here.'
Behind them, in the darkness beneath the boardwalk, she could make out the shapes of teenagers smoking, listening to radios, or embracing in the sand. She turned away, the sound of the music receding as she moved slowly toward the water. To her right a black couple stood and kissed in the middle of an empty stretch of beach, like a tree standing alone on an arid plain. Beyond them she saw the lights of a steel pier extending into the water; past that, much farther past, she could see the lights of ships. On either side of her, jetties of huge boulders thrust deep into the surf.
As she and Rosie drew closer to the water's edge, the sound of radios, the music of the carousels and games, was lost behind the steady roar of waves.
'Follow me,' said Rosie, a touch of urgency in his voice. 'Let's get far away from everybody else.' He began walking along the edge of the water, away from the lights. Beside them the waves seemed to make an angrier noise, though in the darkness their height was difficult to judge. Once again Carol heard the distant roll of thunder and wondered how long it would be before the rain came.
They walked along the water, saying nothing. Gradually they came to a stretch of beach where the garbage seemed less plentiful and where Carol could find no other people, unless there were couples crouched unseen in the sand making love. The only shapes on that stretch of beach were the seagulls, scattered over the sand like ghostly white statues. The birds made no sound at all, nor did they take to the air when the two of them walked past; they simply turned and watched the pair, as if waiting.
Abruptly Rosie stopped and looked down at the water. 'I think we've gone far enough,' he said. 'Let's go back now.' He walked a little way, then stopped. 'Funny,' he said suddenly. 'Come over here right now and I'll show you a trick.'
He was pointing to a certain spot at his feet where the ocean had just gone out. Nearby, up from the water's edge, lay a curving line of clam shells, like ashtrays half filled with sand; they reminded her somehow of the dead animal they'd passed on the highway. 'If you stand right here with me,' he said, 'and hold my hand real tight, I guarantee you won't get wet.'
Carol moved next to him. 'You'd better take your shoes off like I did,' she said. 'The next wave's going to soak your feet up to the ankles.'
But he was putting his finger to his lips. 'Sssshhh,' he whispered, 'you have to know the trick. Just close your eyes and try not to move.'
She did as she was told, and heard the hiss of the oncoming wave. She shut her eyes tightly, expecting to feel the chill of water sweeping by, but felt instead old Rosie throw his arms around her, and heard the sudden raucous cries of seagulls screaming up and down the beach. She was so surprised that she opened her eyes; Rosie was gazing fiercely up at the moon, and just in front of them the wave was parting, sweeping past them without so much as touching…
She shut her eyes again and felt the old man relax his hold. 'Sorry if I scared you,' he was saying gently, his voice soft, almost intimate.
'You can open your eyes now.*
She looked down. 'Rosie, that was wonderful!' she said. 'How did you do it?'
He was already ambling away. 'Just a question of finding the right spot,' he said over his shoulder. 'It's a game we old-timers know. Nothing to it, really.'
He began to whistle. Above him in the blackness the half-moon floated over the beach like an alien presence, holding something unnatural in its geometries. She trudged after him through the sand, her feet as dry as if she'd stayed indoors.
The music and the screams were louder now. They were passing through a line of arcades below the boardwalk, ignoring the enticements of the vendors. Shoot the Rapids! Shoot the Hoops! proclaimed the billboards. They passed the peeling facade of the World in Wax Musee but didn't stop to go inside.
