[Fiction] Shadows on the Shoreline

By Paige Johnson 

People throw dirt on Tampa, Florida, all day long, calling it America’s armpit—or raunchier, ranker body parts—but my slice of sugar sand is pretty sweet. Owning an ice-cream stand overlooking St. Pete beach ain’t too shabby, especially while I’m balling strawberry in a string bikini next to my hot hubby, Johnnie.

It was his idea to revamp the abandoned Twistee Treat two years ago. At the time, I asked, “But if one already failed, what’s stopping us?”

“Later hours, bigger menu. Don’t worry, Coco. I’m always one step ahead.” He winked and I didn’t get it, but now I do, if our soaring two-story house on stilts is proof enough. The walk-in closets alone are worth the risk. All the Dolce beach bags and magazine bikinis, how couldn’t I be enticed?

Right now, I watch a waterspout form over gray waves as I hand a sun-wrinkled Sicilian a Powerpuff Girls popsicle. Bubbles’ gumball pupils side-eye him too. Until he says, “Keep the change” and takes a bite.

When he waddles back to the sandcastle competition, Johnnie says to me, eyes and tone low, “I don’t like the looks of that guy. Got a staring problem.”

“You’re the one who told me this bikini gets more tips,” I laugh, rag-washing schmutz off the cream case.

“Naw, Coco. I mean, he had eyes like a strobe. Down your apron, what’s ’round the register, the floor and fridges. Real creepo.”

“Maybe he was looking for a hiring sign.” I wink, pinching his hip. “Everybody wants to work for Johnnie Two Scoops, that’s what Marco says.”

Johnnie rolls his eyes. “Marco will say anything to make a dime… I’m saying I think that guy was pocket clockin’.”

I shimmy so the quarters in my waist apron clink. “Good thing we got peanuts until noon. A robber would only feel embarrassed for us.”

Johnnie shines up the tip jar. “Assuming he’s not casing the joint for big bucks at low tide.”

I shake my head. “You gotta turn that police radar off once in a while. Radio waves fry your noodle, make ya paranoid.”

“Paranoia is just advanced practicality.”

“Great. Now we’re both quoting Marco.” I roll my eyes. “Maybe he’ll drop some more ‘words of wisdom’ at the bonfire tonight.”

“Better drop 10 large,” Johnnie mutters, chewing his bottom lip.

***

Lunch rush gets us back in the black. The boogie boarders and beet-burnt surfers sell us out of ice pops laced with liquid LSD. Tweakers from the sandcastle comp gobble up our “Superman speedsticks,” so they can finetune their crumbly sculptures with setting spray. Beach bums who want to chill on crab-speckled towels can purchase a minty “ket-sicle” to hold under their tongue for hours of heightened music appreciation.

Course we got the normal frozen fare for whining kids, dead-eyed parents, awkward couples, and persnickety old folk. But what keeps our waffle cone afloat is word-of-mouth f(l)avors sold under the table.

We don’t run into much trouble ’cause most people would write off any weird beach behavior as a simple booze-sloshing, or general Florida weirdness that would’ve started in a condemned art deco dump—not a cute swirl-top treat parlor.  

We keep a pretty close-knit customer base since Johnnie tends to reel them in as friends first: smoke break and fishing buddies, sports course and restaurant-owners at spots we’re regulars, lifeguards and lawyer-types from college, cops he’s offered freebies to while they tape off the shore for endangered sea turtle eggs or wedding ceremonies.

“Rain’s rollin’ in,” I warn Johnnie of the wall of mist starting to blow our customers away.

“I’m more worried about the lantern fest stealing our clientele.”

I shrug, hoisting up a box of ChocoCups. “Can’t beat ’em, let’s crash ’em.”

***

We pull up to Bayshore Park as the sun starts its descent and families ditch their plans for a healthy dinner/dessert. Surrounded by high-price food trucks, they seem to sigh in relief around our icebox of two-dollar pops.

Johnnie totes the chest like a stadium barker, a wholesome throwback in his paper hat and fruity bowtie—until you know a couple coke baggies hide in the back folds.

We empty half our case before we make it to the crunchy grass beside the seawall. Johnnie nods to the behemoth banyan trees further back, where he can sell a few “snowcaps” to frequenters.

As he books it, I mosey along, admiring the scenery. A guy in reflective sunnies sings Lenny Kravitz-style soul from a palm-boxed stage. Kids dart all over a field of tent vendors, showing off dreamcatcher bracelets, bottled sand art, or plastic rainbow rockets. Denim-blue clouds clump over Madeira Beach, making the water look extra ominously beautiful. Hope our cone doesn’t melt into the ocean, I always joke with Johnnie.    

Ever since we got the hook-up with Marco, he assures me it won’t. A steady supply from Marco means we never run out like the bridge hucksters or CVSs or VA hospitals around us.

I wade further into the sage field, disoriented by my mulling and festive dragon dancers snaking around my path. They hold gold poles supporting a jaunty, glittering serpentine body seemingly made of silk hoop skirts. The puppet’s eyes are a hypnotizing spiral, its maw gorgeously psychedelic in twisting reds, greens, and yellows.

A kid goes up to it, shyly trying to offer an ice-cream sandwich.

“It doesn’t want stupid cookies and cream,” her brother sneers. “It wants water. Like rain.”

“Who wants that?” the little girl asks as incredulously as I think. But the dragon flounces by us just the same.

It threads through the food trucks and whirlpools back around, fluid as a coaster train. I smile at the grease-slingers manning the trucks, but they scowl at their line of patrons and me when I catch their gaze. Straightening my mouth, I search for somewhere else to look. When I see a couple cops conversing by the Mr Sno Biz-mobile, I’m in a full-blown frown.

I swing around, looking for Johnnie, wondering if he finished yet, got asked where his food-selling permit is, talked to somebody he shouldn’ta, got too sloppy with the sleight of hand magic mushr—

“Hold up!”

He tries to stop me from running into him, but I take some wood to the ribs.

“Knew you’d be eager, but slow down.” Johnnie smirks, showing me what I’ve nearly crumpled: four wooden sticks, a matching flat, smelly markers, some rice paper, and a tealight candle to float down the bay. “Can’t bring ya to the Water Lantern Festival without getting you one. Here.”

I forget my surface wound and pick up the cute craft. “You sold everything? You didn’t get in no trouble? You have all the money?” I ask too fast.

His smirk doesn’t dissipate as he showily dumps out the last rivulet of water from the chest. “Yes, yes, and yes. Now, let’s make our wish so we have time to celebrate at the bonfire.”

***

My little wishboat is a bit wobbly once I’ve got all the pieces in the slats, but it’ll do. I draw beachballs and snow cones on the waxy paper as Johnnie jangles the shop keys.

“Don’t you want to add something?” I ask.

“I want whatever you want,” he says automatically, throwing the keys up in the air to play catch with himself now.

“Hmm… I guess it is one in the same. Happy wife, happy life, right?”

I cap my marker and silently pray onto my little love boat, hoping Johnnie and I can keep things rolling this well until our next anniversary. Then, we’ll begin a cleaner venture, like a clothing shop on Vine Boulevard. I can see it now, putting my fashion degree Johnnie’s paying off to good use, selling jumbo-size scrunchies, flowy maxi dresses, chic sunhats, and neon lipsticks to all the hottest girlies. It’ll be like now, spreading word-of-mouth to misunderstood subcultures like sugar babies to get their fix, but it’ll be legit, bliss, bliss, bliss. 

Johnnie hands my lantern to a lanyarded volunteer to launch with the other couple hundred. It doesn’t take long for the yellow cubes to peacefully glide downstream.

“They look like radioactive tofu,” Johnnie quips.

“S’mores, more like,” I defend, my smile sobering a second as my lantern plinks against the barrier, unable to surf all that captivating blue.

***

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Johnnie says as we approach our vanilla cone that looks chocolate-dipped in the dark. “We deadbolted this shit and…”

The lock hangs too low to look untampered with.

“Maybe it was the wind?” I try meekly, swiping the whipping hair out of my face. I can still see through my bangs well enough to see his for real? Frown.

We crack the door, flip the switch, and see our cozy cone has been ransacked. Invaded. Johnnie blocks me from stepping in, his other hand reaching for the gun hidden behind his smock and slacks. I grip his bicep barring the threshold, our eyes wide as moon pies.

“I can’t believe…” My voice doesn’t overpower the waves outside, the sky starting to melt.

Gallons of syrup drip face-down on the floor, our shelves knocked free of dairy debris. Boot-crushed nuts and marshmallows dot the mess. Our scoop freezer is open, leaving buckets of Ben & Jerry’s to thaw into soup.

But that’s the least of it. My heart stops when I peek at the tile turned up by the refrigerator. Our hidey hole unearthed, empty.

In disbelief, Johnnie swings open the fridge.

Even the glasses of codeine and chocolate mushrooms—swiped by some summertime Grinch.

“I-Is there anything left in the safe?”

Johnnie’s sigh is tornadic, his trigger finger disciplined but white against the black metal.

“There’s no fucking safe anymore.”

My stomach drops and I plant a hand over my mouth. The reek of dairy doesn’t help the nausea. I can’t accept it. Our entire stash gone. The hi-color acid we would’ve sold as

“sherberts swirls,” the “moose tracks” H, the “banana split” Xanny bars. It all seems like a cosmic joke. Karmic? “W-Well, at least the party will be c-called off by the rai—”

Lightning cracks conversation in half.

The knuckle-knock at our closed counter straight up obliterates it.

“Open up, it’s Marco.”

Johnnie’s jaw tightens. He reluctantly tucks the gun back under his clothes, whispering,

“Fuuuuuck.”

“Party time, kids.” But Marco’s face doesn’t say that once we draw the metal curtains.

“Ohmygod, Marco, look at this place!” I start, shivering from the nerves and mist lapping at my back. “Someone broke in and took all our—”

“Mighty convenient,” Marco grumbles, a brow drawn up in suspicion.

“Huh?”

Johnnie pulls me away from the window.

“We planned a party for tonight and you just so happen—”

“Do you not see this place, man?” Johnnie pipes up, gesturing wildly around sticky rivers of frozen yogurt and pint lids that might as well serve as lily pads.

I twist on more lights for a better view. LED sprinkles spark up on our stall’s exterior, looking too innocent for this evil.

Marco shakes his head, clearly annoyed at being interrupted. “A little birdie told me you two were getting sloppy. Acting sketchy, running this shit shack. Shoulda known better than to trust a couplea—”

“Marco, please, be reasonable. We triple lock everything. Never had an issue the entire year you’ve known us,” I shoot back, thinking on that tan blobster with the Bubbles pop from before. Was he an informant? Or an intruder?

Marco’s bloodshot eyes weigh heavy, surveying us like we’re no less disgusting than our surroundings. “Bottom line: We agreed you’d have inventory on this date. It’s the principle. Where is it? How would anybody know where or what you’re storing?”

Yeah, how would they, I think, mirroring his skeptical expression until his voice rises. How did they know the combo to our first padlock, that they should look for powder baggies even in the lip of our signage?

He raves, “You keep it all in one place? Unchained and unbolted? Amateurs, amateurs!”

“That’s not true, Marco. We have safes and stuff at home, but they’re not here and—”

“Shut the fuck up, John, and open the register. Ya still got that, huh? Miraculously.”

Johnnie and I exchange a gut-wrenching glance.

Fumbling with the key in my apron, I mumble, “Of course there’s not going to be anything in the…”

The drawer pops open, flush with cash. A strangely sickening sight.

I see my reflection blush amid a pukish pale in the register’s blank screen. “But I always put the bills under the tray.” Sweat pools beneath my headband of hibiscus. “I don’t even think this is what we made! We don’t— I always— Someone must’ve set us u—”

 “Gee, will you look at that,” Marco taunts, too cool to appear sincere about even his fake surprise. “A cashless robbery, a rainy-day fund you can pluck from.” He lines his pockets, grimacing. “Consider this a meager downpayment—and not part of the interest you’ll owe. Next time you fail to deliver, I’m taking your heads. Couplea junkie freaks think you can stage a—”

He’s a cherry short of a sundae if he thinks we’ll fall for his takeback scheme. Just as I’m wondering if Johnnie is buying all of the tirade I’m tuning out, he slinks up beside me, hands raised in compliance or conciliation.

He says calmly, “Listen, Marco, we understand, know how it looks. We’ll have everything ready for you in. . .” He makes like he’s counting on his fingers, but his other hand taps my hip, like hey, look, pointing toward the big metal nitrous canister on the counter.

Marco’s distracted, siphoning the cash box, from lower ground.

“Yeah, Marco, we’ll get it sorted out,” I promise, tossing the whip cream canister up to Johnnie. “Might as well take an ice cream on the house, too, before it all goes to waste.”

Before he can look up, I scoop-fling a chunk of freezer burnt pistachio at him. Blam, blinding.

“What the—” Marco staggers back with a grunt, wiping slush and nuts from his eyes.

Johnnie snatches up a pack of dry ice from a Styrofoam cooler. Hurls it like a baseball sent by Sosa.

Ice shards scatter out of the bag like glass. Burns take seconds, announced by Marco’s screams. They steam in the tropical rain. When Marco lunges forward, Johnnie thunks him good in the cheek with the frosty nitro can. At least we had whip-its on the menu, I think as Johnnie grabs my hand.

We burst out the side door, into the jarringly cool night, down the seaweeded trail, shells snapping under our feet. I don’t have to look back to know Marco’s dirty look is what’s digging into our spines—aside from hail..

Lucky or not, stragglers desert the street as the storm intensifies. Cloud-howls and wave-crashes bury Marco’s wailing. Torrents of rain disguise Johnnie’s drawn gun as he pushes me forward, into a smidgen of safety, so he can keep an eye on our 6 o’clock in case Marco’s got the same idea.

Adrenaline echoes in my ears as we sprint through a maze of alleyways, ducking and weaving through shadows and dumpsters and fire escape starts. We run with our fists clenched, bodies small under the heft of whattawedo, whattawedo, whereishe, whereishe?

All I can picture besides our assassination is my lantern boat hitting the pavement. Again and again, on rewind. It breaks my heart but all I can feel with full force is the pounding of my feet through a million blocks.

Under a backdoor awning, we huddle with Johnnie’s direction. “I think we’re good.”

Good? I think. What even is that right now? We look like drenched Hell, our merchandise is caput, our supplier’s gonna turn into a murderer, and I have to piss like a racehorse. 

Johnnie says he hasn’t heard anything in a while, but all I hear is a phantom game of Marco Polo, all Marco’s admonishments that my mind makes out of alley cat clatter and gutter splatter.

Johnnie holsters his piece and slicks back his hair, disgruntling his disintegrating hat. He pulls a baggie from it before slopping it into a trash can. Once he catches his breath a bit, he holds it up to the light, saying, “I think this will fetch us a cab to the airport.”

“Airport?”

He gives me silence to realize home is probably as surveilled or tossed over as our shop—or will be soon.

“Gotta get away at least a few months. We don’t wanna play with this kinda heat.”

Warmth is all we want, I think, watching him ring out pants that must be soaked to the briefs. “But what about…” Mind racing, legs throbbing, I stammer about the house, the mortgage and loans, our car and clothes, if IDs and credit cards are enough.

“C’mon, Coco. Don’t dwell too much. We gotta act. Fast.” He puts his hands on my cold shoulders, pressing reassurance and presence of mind into them. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

I don’t say anything for a while, would be drowned out by the gulf gusts anyway. I contemplate the comfort of a taxi, purchasing clothes out of an airport store, the stare of security—needlessly scary because we’ll be riding clean.

“Always. Always,” Johnnie repeats, just as much for himself.

I imagine the closed sign on our cone. How we’d be stringing it on there even if we stayed. I imagine the seagulls picking at its insides like buzzards licking up entrails. I imagine our business washed into the ocean, bobbing like a buoy, just its SoftServe tip waving goodbye before it sinks to become a sprinkled fossil, a barnacled playground for the fishes—instead of us.

I think of how everything has a shelf life, and that we kept our boat afloat for as long as we could. My boat. My wish for survival, a stabilized marriage and new career…maybe it still chugs along, circumventing the stone wall, after all. There’ll still be palm trees and sweet treats, floral bikinis and shady business ventures.

Onto the next adventure…

I lower my head but brighten my smile, give a small shrug. “Guess we’re moving to Cali sooner than expected.”

Paige Johnson is EIC of Outcast Press and the author of Percocet Summer: Poetry for Distancing Dates and Doses. It is part of an illustrated series called Seasonal Disassociation, including forthcoming titles like Citrus Springs. Johnson's work has appeared in many anthologies like Urban Pigs Press' HUNGER, Mirrors Reflecting Shadows, Elegies in the Dust, Anxious Nothings, and Diner Noir as curated by Craig Clevenger. Often, she writes about Floriday Bonnie and Clyde-type couples. Such is the case with her eventual third novel Cherry, Coke & Cam Shows.