Heather Hartley

“Joey’s gonna burn,” the woman was saying to the man, then yelled, “Joey! Get out

of the water, now. March mister.” It was end of September and summer was drag-

ging her party dress behind her and under the beach umbrella next to me

were a man and a woman, the woman skittish in her skin,

the man squeezing the impossible out of what

I assumed was a tube of suntan lotion, but then I could be

wrong, for me it’s nothing to slip-up, make a gaffe or pratfall in the sand,

flappable and daffy to the very end—does persistence even in error count for something?

Once my friend and I went to a tanning salon. It was back in the day when no

one gave a damn. It was a very small big deal for us to go to this place.

We’d dressed up for the waiting room. (Even hair mousse.) It was no

lie that the tanning salon had a good reputation:

we’d both heard about their booths. The place was legendary

as far as the end of the street because

there are some things you can trust in this world and no-

thing says truth like a slip of paper jammed under the wind-

shield wiper of your car, wait a sec—you haven’t left your car—

it’s been idling all this time and you in it idling right along.

In the tanning salon, hold on—what happened to the lights? Can you

see me? You can see me? But can you see? You can? Can you? You?

It’s dark in this box and I’d like to think that I’m thinking,

Hey Helios! “Could you get down from your tanning bed and help us?

Something’s burning,” when all I’m really thinking is there’s fire,

fire here.

“Joey!” the woman yelled still under the beach umbrella back

on the beach, “I’ll count to ten,” then, “Only once buster.”

This would be her second time counting to ten. That would make twenty, numbers-wise,

but it appeared that the woman wasn’t much interested in whole numbers in that sense,

this woman had a way with the future, with Joey’s at least,

this self-same Joey who, horsing around in the surf with a boogie board, neither seemed to give a wit about the woman who took her soothsaying to a screech with Joey’s gonna burn and I’ll count to ten, nor a thought for these premonitions—and why, in late-night thriller films shown in late summer, are premonitions inherently menacing harbingers of evil?

Because Joey’s gonna burn definitely seemed to fit in that category of dangerousness

and then the threatening I’ll count to ten, this latter intimidation by whole numbers,

and the premonitions on said-late night summer thrillers might have me think this, something menacing that it’s so menacing that you can say it more than once,

but what about a premonition of cuddling a puppy? cradling a baby?

Thumbing through a book? Is it always, always dark out there?

I don’t have

kids, barely have a house-

plant, so what can I really say except

that the man under the beach umbrella kept squeezing the tube, but what

happens when SPF doesn’t factor in, no matter how organic, ecological,

clean is the cream because—

there’s no going back from a burn.

“You hear me? Now Joey,” the woman said, “I’m not joking mister.” Mister,

she whispered, and there was a change in register in her voice, like when

you find the radio station you want but can’t get the frequency just right, or

you get the channel right but something’s a little bit out of range,

something’s not adjusting, not adjusting so much that you’ll never have it back,

and no dial can help you, no dial at all,

there are times when you can say never or always and mean it  

even it if it’s not yet tattooed on your arm or thigh or even if it is and especially so,

this woman had that in her voice, only instead of static or noise or whatever, it was fear unadulterated and breathless and bright with dread. “Honey,”

the man said to the woman, tube

in hand, shaking it to the sun, to

the sky, his arms open wide, “Honey,

there’s nothing left.”