Money of the Sea

Me, Kevin, and Donna walked away from the small caravan of campers toward the long shoreline with its blinding hot white sand. The tide had gone way out, about half a mile or more and we wanted to get some shells for our collection at home

The beach was deserted, and we felt like we were on an alien planet as we walked further out the beach toward where the water had receded. Finally, we saw some promising shapes in the sand and took the little plastic shovels out of our little plastic buckets and started digging up shells.

“Hey! Look at this one!”, Kevin shouted and held up a weird looking thing. It looked like a cross between a shell and a rock. It was white and almost round. Its top had several small loop shaped holes, a little flower design in the middle, but the bottom was smooth.

Just as we were admiring this sweet, new treasure, a man called out to us as he came up from the south of the long shoreline, seemingly from nowhere.

“Hey you kids!” his accent was very thick, but we knew he was calling to us. He was clad in what we believed was the clothes a Mexican man would wear, straw hat, leather sandals, a serape poncho, and short cotton cuffed pants. “Hey! Wait!” He called out convincingly and we waited while he slowed to a walk and took what seemed forever to reach us.

“How old are you?” He said as he pointed at Kevin.

“I’m nine”, Kevin said and smiled.

As Kevin smiled, the man pulled back his poncho to reveal his arm full of glittering watches. Then he pulled back the other part of the poncho to show his other arm was covered in all kinds of necklaces and bracelets.

“Tu quiero? You likes?”, he said to all three of us. “Just two dollars for any.” He smiled and his already wrinkly, sun browned face looked even wiser and magical.

“We don’t got even a whole dollar though, mister.” Donna chimed in, looking sad as she’d seen a necklace she really liked.

“Okay. You go ask your mama and tell her, best deal”, he smiled, then looked out to the sea.

We all ran back to the campers. Our camper had an awning and Mama and Rod had set up a net crib for our little sister, Michelle, a picnic table with two folding chairs and a little picnic bench. Some of their friends in the caravan had come over with more folding chairs and were drinking beers and playing cards with Mama and Rod.

“Mama! Mama! We need six dollars! I can get a watch and Michelle and Donna can get a real Mexican necklace too!”, Kevin said breathless and excitedly while pointing down the beach at the man with the goods.

Rod laughed and looked toward the man down the beach. “They just sell crap.”

“Now Rod, maybe they should get a little souvenir.”, Mama said and started to get her purse out.

Their friends just laughed, and one opened another beer. Michelle dropped her bottle and stood up against the padded rail of her net crib looking intently at Kevin to see if he was going to get what he wanted.

“No, Mary, don’t give them six dollars, that’s like a hundred dollars down here—“, Rod took a gulp of beer while me, Kevin and Donna looked incredulously at one another thinking of the possibility of being super rich with just six dollars. “—just give ‘em one dollar each. Kids, you tell that guy fifty cents and he’ll say a dollar and you say okay.” He smiled inwardly at his common sense.

Mama smirked a little at being berated in public, we were, after all her children. Only Michelle was theirs, hers and Rod’s and he never let anyone forget that. But she handed each one of us only a dollar and because we thought that meant in Mexico we were rich, we were super happy.

Me and Donna grabbed our pails and shovels and ran to catch up with Kevin who was already halfway back to the man.

We all said the same thing to the man that Rod, our stepdad, told us to do and the man was nice and said, “Okay. I’ll take one American dollar and two Mexican dollars.” With this he pulled a sand dollar out of his pocket and said, “See? This is Mexican dollars. This is sand dollars and they are good money. Go get me those and I will give you the watch and necklaces.”

Kevin was mad because we didn’t bring his bucket and he had to run back to the camper to get it, but he did and in about 10 minutes time we’d each found more sand dollars, enough to get our souvenirs and probably more, since they were money?!

We handed the man one dollar and two sand dollars from each of us. He handed a shiny watch to Kevin and me and Donna, a necklace each. He pulled out a pouch from one side of his belt under the poncho and put his payments in it, then pulled out three little toys from another pouch and said it was our change.

All three of us said, “Thank you.” All at the same time. He smiled and shook his head.

“Here we say Gracias,” His accent made it seem more real to us. “You try it niños.”

We did, he smiled and started walking back the way he came.

Me and Donna looked at each other. We remembered The Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland and the cave of treasure, we smiled and ran toward the lumps in the wet part of the sand, digging for our own pirate treasure, Mexican money! Mexican dollars!

Kevin didn’t want to dig just then, he wanted to go show Mama his shiny new watch, play with Michelle and get a soda from the cooler.

We stayed on the sand and dug for more Mexican money. We found probably 30 sand dollars while walking up and down the shoreline from mid-morning until lunch time. Both of us felt our little tummies rumbling, so we went back to the caravan of campers and asked Mama for a sandwich, which we called ‘sammiches’. She gave us a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some potato chips and said we could get a soda out of the cooler.

I picked Tiki Punch. I always picked Tiki Punch. To me it was the greatest flavor on earth. Donna got grape.

We sat down next to Kevin on the blanket near Michelle’s net crib.

“Hey!” Kevin squealed, “You got sand on the blanket! Mama! They got sand on the blanket!”

Donna whispered, “Tattletale.” And Kevin shut up, but looked sullen.

However, his whining had gotten Mama’s attention, which is when she really took a good look at her fair skinned daughters. Donna seemed okay, but I guess I was a lobster child due to complete sunburn.

“Michelle, you have to stay in the shade and can’t play by the water anymore.” Mama said and it was her I mean business voice, so I had to listen and since Rod had heard that meant if I didn’t listen he could beat me with his belt.

I started to cry because I wanted to get more Mexican money and be a rich pirate and now Donna was going to get it all.

“There will be NO crying”, thundered Rod, “if you want to cry I will give you something to cry about.”

I’ve never understood that statement. Obviously I already HAD something to cry about which is why I was crying and didn’t WANT to cry, the order to not have fun created that situation.

I stopped crying for the most part, but when I looked up, I saw Kevin laughing and telling Donna to “c’mon, leave the babies here. Let’s go get more pirate Mexican money!”

“Get me some, Donna”, I cried plaintively after them, but the wind in their hair as they ran probably ensured they didn’t hear it.

Now everyone was cooing over Michelle and how cute she was and everyone was yelling at me to go take a nap. I said, “But I’m eight years old, not five! I don’t want a nap, can I count my shells?”

Rod looked at me menacingly, “Stop whining and go lay down or you’ll get the belt. Why can’t you be cute like Michelle? Or at least fun like Kevin and Donna? Get out of my sight.”

Mama pretended she didn’t hear it. She was good at that.

I went into the camper, but I took my sandy bucket with me. I was going to count my shells all by myself. At least I could have some fun. And I didn’t go to sleep, at first, I was counting my shells and sand dollars and dreaming I was rich and could buy a Mexican house and stay at this awesome beach called San Felipe.

At some point I set my sandy treasure pail under the little camper table and laid down on the little bench, it was covered in pleather and padded, so it was comfortable for an eight-year-old to lie on for a nap.

SNAP! I woke up and someone was hitting me. With a belt. SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!! Owie!! Why?!

“I—” SNAP “—said—” SNAP “—you couldn’t count anything—” SNAP “—now you have something to cry about—” SNAP. Rod was practically screaming and I could smell the beer on his breath. He loved to hit me, not anyone else, just me, when he was drunk.

I was crying hard and said, “I w-will take it outside.” And trying to grab my bucket, but he grabbed it first and said he was going to throw it away. I just cried harder. He left with it and told me to come outside.

He yelled for Donna and Kevin to come back from the beach. When they got there he said, “Michelle’s a bad girl, she brought her sandy bucket into the camper, she didn’t go to sleep when I told her. This is what happens to bad kids.” He grabbed me by the arm and lifted me up so I was dangling in fRodt of everyone there, Mama, Donna and Kevin, Michelle and Mama and Rod’s friends. He was hitting me and hitting me and no one helped or cared. Then it happened. I was only a little kid and it just happened, he hit me too hard and I peed. Then he hit me harder and harder and said, “PEE ON ME?! Well then you won’t sit down for a godd*mn week!”

After he beat me some more he must’ve got tired and dropped me to the sand by Mama’s chair. She said, in a monotone voice, “Michelle stop crying and wash your face.”

She didn’t even care that he did that and he wasn’t my Daddy.

Kevin and Donna edged closer and closer to the soda cooler, grabbed one and Kevin said, “Mama, can we go back out? We been good.”

Mama just nodded and said calmly, “But give Michelle a new bottle and her cereal bag before you go.”

He did, then him and Donna left back to the beach. They didn’t care either. They couldn’t because they didn’t want to get into trouble.

I didn’t even know how I could get in trouble when I was asleep, but I guess I was, but I looked over, carefully, and noticed Rod had forgotten to throw away my sea treasures. I could see the welts rising on my legs and arms, but if I got to keep my treasures, it would be worth it.

I went to sit on the blanket by Michelle. She took the bottle out of her mouth and said, “You bad.” And threw one of her toys at me.

Smiling at her, I just said, “So”, and started playing with my necklace. At least I got to keep that. For now.