Brighton Beach

By Karen Rosenberg

PROMPT—Never will I forget ...

Maureen and I practiced our disco moves, spinning until we fell over into the hot sand. We were on a field trip with our second-grade class to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. It smelled like hot dogs, seaweed, and cocoa butter.

At the lip of the sea, we felt the sand pull back on our feet. We were allowed to go in up to our knees, but Maureen and I didn’t go past our ankles. Just to be safe. Then I saw Josh R., with only his head bobbing over the water.

“What are you doing?” I yelled.

I wasn’t sure he heard me, but then his head started getting bigger as he splashed toward shore. When the sea was down to his knees, he pulled down his bathing suit and yelled, “look!”

He hopped from side to side, making his penis dance.

Waves crashed behind him, gulls wheeled overhead, but Maureen and I only saw one thing.

I have no idea how long we stood there.

“Get the hell out of the water!” Our teacher screamed.

Then, our teacher turned to us. “What do you think you’re looking at?”

Tears stung my eyes. Maureen and I ran back to the group. It was lunchtime. We pulled the tabs on our Red Cheek apple juice cans and sipped the warm juice without looking at each other. My sandwich crunched with sand. I didn’t like the gritty taste of my peanut butter and jelly. But I didn’t hate it either.

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Karen Rosenberg is a writer and writing coach based in Ontario, Canada. She is an Amherst Writers and Artists trained workshop facilitator and leads generative writing workshops. Her essays have appeared in Litro and HerStry, and in the anthologies Sex and Single Girls and Expat: Women’s True Tales of Life Abroad. She holds a PhD in Women’s Studies from the University of Washington.