After The Tourists Leave- Short Story

Mikey and Tom played their normal games on the beach as the tide slowly went out at the same time as the sun began to set into the western horizon.



They dug up sandcrabs, sometimes killing them, other times using them like action figures and having pretend wars on the remnants of the sand castles they had purposely smashed hours ago. They ran out as close to the water as possible as the tide sucked back into the current. Then, they would run back up onto the beach away from the incoming swell; in the end, only running out into the water to bodysurf, and wrestle in the waves.



Their mothers sat in lawn chairs well up the sand from the water. Another of Mikey and Tom's games was to slowly work their way either north or south down the beach out of their parent's eyesight; experimenting in a reckless way with their mother's patience and temper. Normally, the women did not bother to chase them down and come back to where they could watch the boys from their lawnchairs but, occasionally, one of them, usually Tom's mother, would stroll up and down the beach until she found them. The two mothers trusted the boys on the beach, in and out of the water. They both could swim excellently, and already knew almost every other local that sat on the sand, or swam or surfed in the ocean.



"Should we pack up and get these kids cleaned up for dinner?"



Mikey's mother asked Tom's. Tom's mother replied-



"Yep. I think it's that time."



They debated for a few moments where to eat, and who's house it would be more convenient to wash them off at. The women only lived two or three miles from each other. They decided to drive to Mikey's mother's house for the cleanup session so as to be able to walk afterward to the restaurant they had chosen to dine at.



After they had bundled up their lawnchairs, blankets, and towels, Tom's mother declared-



"Before we leave, I'm going to pick up some of this trash the tourists left behind."



She called Mikey and Tom over from where they were playing on the sand. The boys were hungry, and a little tired; but like most pre-teen children had an endless abundance of energy that both impressed and wore out their parents. The beach was the perfect place to set them loose for hours at a time because the women could relax, swim, converse, or read while the boys exhausted each other in the sand and water.



Tom's mother directed them southward down the beach that during the day had been overpopulated with tourists and locals alike. There was quite a bit of litter. Mostly, fast-food wrappers and random scraps of paper. People who did not live in the area would often times treat the beach, or surrounding park areas like a movie theatre; as if, it had been put there for their specific amusement and imagined that the incoming tide wiping away their mess into the ocean was natural and acceptable.



"How much longer do we have to do this?"



Tom complained, after half an hour of picking up litter and disposing it into the city trash cans that lined the boardwalk.



"We're going to keep picking up trash until the entire beach is clean," Tom's mother answered.



Mikey and Tom looked at each other, and then looked up and down the beach at the miles of trash-laden shoreline, and then looked at each other again; each with a defeated, hang-dog weariness. They were tired from playing in the sand all day, and both of them were very, very hungry.



Mikey's mother laughed, and carried her things over to the concrete seawall, set them in the sand, and lit a cigarette. It seemed as good a day as any to teach the boys a morale lesson. Also, she knew Tom's mother was almost as hungry and tired as the boys were. She was curious to find out how much stamina Tom's mother had in keeping the two energetic boys moving up and down the beach disposing of litter.



The sun was down now and the last warm rays of light were gone. The cool air from the ocean, that seemed refreshing during daytime hours, was now a painful, chilly ache on the boys wet and sandy skin.



They picked up trash as fast as they could, with Tom's mother behind them, scooping up little bits of paper that they missed. Mikey's mother remained on the seawall, chain-smoking, and also getting cold, still hungry, and beginning to lose her patience.



"Come on, Mom," Tom complained. "We just cleaned like half-a-mile all by ourselves. We're fucking freezing out here!"



"You don't know what freezing is," Tom's mother replied. She was about to reprimand him for cursing, also, but then she began to laugh herself at how ridiculous it was to expect these two children to clean the entire beach. Her back was sore from bending over to pick up the scraps of litter, and she was beginning to get cold in the night air, as well.



Mikey's mother was not being a good example, either. She continued to sit up on the seawall, smoking cigarettes, and guarding the lawnchairs and other items she and Tom's mother had brought with them to the beach. She had the sleeves of the sweatshirt she was wearing pulled down over her hands to keep them warm, except for two fingers that held the butt of her lit cigarette dangling out far enough that she could take drags off of it.



"That's enough," Tom's mother finally announced.



The three of them had been cleaning for almost two hours. Tom's mother led the two boys to the seawall where Mikey's mother was waiting for them.



Before they left, Mikey and Tom both turned to look at the clean stretch of beach they had created. Tom's assertion of a "half-mile" was a gross exaggeration, but there was certainly over one-hundred yards of clean sand; littered only by the rotting seaweed that always decorated the beach.



They could clearly see the division of where they had begun and ended cleaning, and the still-littered areas of sand on either side of that stretch.



"It looks good, huh?" Mikey said to Tom. "The part we cleaned."



"I guess so," Tom answered.



Tom was still embarrassed that his mother had made both of them do what they had just done. But what Mikey didn't tell Tom was that he was equally embarrassed about his mother going up to the seawall lazily, and watching the three of them clean without helping at all.



The entire ride to Mikey's house in the car, and the entire time they cleaned up to go out to dinner, the two boys were silent, listening to their mothers happily chat about anything that was on either of the ladies minds; both women seeming to forget about the lesson Tom's mother had tried to teach them at the beach, and both boys still silent about the pros and cons of beach cleanup after the tourists had left.