Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang Read online

  "Holy shit," Ray said, backing into the ocean. "Are they coming for us?"

  After I watched Wendy and Feliqua barrel into the surf like two bulldozers, it became apparent that Sylvan wasn't the only black person who couldn't swim.

  "Oh, my God!" Paul screamed, running in after them with two water noodles in his hand. "Why can't anyone swim?"

  The women were screaming and laughing and swallowing water. They kept trying to regain their footing but continually fell down until Delicious and Sylvan were able to balance each one. Sylvan made it over to Wendy to lend her a hand, but when she felt a touch, she turned around and spit in his face.

  "Aaaaaahhhahahahahahhahahh!!!" was the only sound anyone heard from Delicious.

  "I'm sorry," she slurred, wiping the spit off Sylvan's face. "I thought you were the beach." Then she turned in the other direction and hawked another loogie, which the wind blew right back into her face. She quickly fell in the water, but Sylvan grabbed her.

  "My weave! My weave!" Wendy yelled when she was done spitting.

  "I got you, girl," Sylvan told her.

  "I lost two tracks yesterday when we went swimming. Everyone at church told me not to go in the ocean. You'll lose your weave in a hot second!" Then she smacked Sylvan on the ass and went flying into one of Stephanie's lit cigarettes.

  "Do you really need to smoke in the ocean?" I asked her for the third time that week.

  "Stephanie, I didn't know you smoked," Paul said, then started howling along with Delicious, who was still moaning with laughter while holding Feliqua like a baby in the water.

  "Aaaahhahahhahahahahahahahh!"

  My brother had commandeered one of the water noodles and was using it to defend himself from all the splashing. "Chelsea, can you believe Sylvan went from not knowing how to swim to rescuing people in one week? I should probably look into coaching some sort of black swim team."

  "They're standing in two feet of water, Ray. Even though a black swim team does seem like an oxymoron at this point, it is definitely something to think about. In the winter you could teach interracial skiing."

  Feliqua, who was definitely more drunk than Wendy, tried to sit in the shallow water, but small waves kept pushing her back on the beach. She had no upper-body control, so Paul helped her to the edge of the beach, where she retrieved her drink and lay down on Paul's lap.

  "We got a Cocoa Sister down. One Cocoa Sister down!" Paul yelled to us as he took a picture of himself smiling with her.

  "I didn't know there were gay traffic controllers that also lifeguarded," Ray said to Paul after he walked up to have a sip of Feliqua's cocktail. "It's okay, Feliqua. We'll take care of you."

  She announced she needed a nap and fell asleep on Paul's lap. Two minutes later she was awake again and calling for Wendy.

  Wendy stormed over to me and asked me where Sylvan was. "Right behind you," I told her.

  "You shut up, you white skinny TV bitch. You know you need a bodyguard for that non-french-fry-eating ass." She followed this up with a smack to my ass and asked me to check her weave, which I straightened. Then I took one side of the back of her bathing suit and pulled it into the crack of her ass, where she left it.

  "Black don't crack, you silly bitch!" Then she fell into the water and came back up for another round of apple bobbing.

  "Get together for a picture!" Paul screamed to me and Wendy, who had already somehow made her way back to Sylvan and was mounting him.

  "Honey, I need you to take care of me. They said you're a good man and a single father. I can't really swim. Hold me, Sylvan."

  "Happy birthday, Feliqua!" Paul screamed into Feliqua's face, and then adjusted her weave. "Is this thing reversible?"

  Delicious was now howling so hard he was literally choking on the ocean, but no one seemed to care.

  Sylvan and Wendy were drifting farther away from us but managing to keep in water shallow enough to stay afloat. And then I heard him say, "Are you sure we're not being obvious?"

  When I looked over, Sylvan was behind Wendy and moving like a jackrabbit while her head was bobbing back and forth and her weave was whipping him in the face. "Shhhh!" she told him. "For all those white folks know, we snorkeling. Give it to me!"

  "I think Daddy's coming home," Ray announced as he got back out of the water. "I'm getting my camera."

  "Oh, my God, you should see all the fish out there," I heard behind me, and turned around to see Ted standing there with his snorkel mask and goggles still on.

  "I don't think so, buddy," I told him. "I got a couple of bigger fish, and a lot of things have happened while you were discovering marine life."

  Once he surveyed the scene and was able to compute what was taking place, he put his snorkel and mask on again, turned around, and headed back out to sea.

  Feliqua got up from her seat in the sand next to Paul and said she needed to go lie down. Delicious and I got out of the ocean and guided her to one of the chaise longues closest to the beach. "Delicious," she moaned. "Can you get me a ginger ale?"

  Brian went to get the ginger ale while I sat down and coached her on how to projectile-vomit into the sand.

  "Get it out, Fataqua," my brother said as he neared us. He had a towel in his hand and leaned over to wipe her mouth and then looked at me. "Who the fuck is Delicious?"

  "Brian," I told him.

  "I need ginger ale!"

  "It's coming, Feliqua," I told her.

  "So am I!" she moaned, and threw up again.

  When I turned to go back into the water, Sylvan and Wendy were heading toward us, with Wendy very unstable on her feet. The sand was not her friend, and Sylvan was having trouble keeping them both upright at the same time. She stopped halfway to the lounge chairs and turned around to face the ocean. She pulled the back of her bathing suit in between her ass cheeks and started shaking her ass.

  "Aaaahhahahahahahahhh," shrieked Delicious again.

  "Oh, my Lord," Sylvan said, taking a step back and looking at me. "People wonder how the Caribbean was formed, Chels, and now I know. A black woman shook her ass, and a bunch of islands were created as aftershocks."

  Paul instructed them to both bend over for a snapshot.

  Wendy lost her footing. She didn't fall on her ass, which would be the obvious gravitational pull--probably for the entire island--but face-first, a header straight into the sand. Sylvan went down after her but managed to land on his side. Paul was the first on the scene with his camera in tow, and what he captured has been seen only in National Geographic. Two chocolate sand dabs, washed ashore.

  There was sand in every crevice of Wendy's face. Her eyes, her ears, her nose. Brian grabbed one of the ginger ales that he'd brought for Feliqua and poured it over Wendy's head. "We're going to need a two-liter, Brian," Ray told him. "Sorry, I mean Delicious."

  Ted had reappeared from the ocean and was running toward us yelling, "Oh, my God! Is she dead? Wait, keep her alive. I know CPR."

  That was all Wendy needed to get her groove back. She was howling harder than any of us, but the sand was still pissed.

  She was attempting to spit out some of the sand when we all played Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board and carried her back into the ocean, where she could properly rinse off. Stephanie, of course, could assist with only one hand.

  "Aren't you out of cigarettes yet?" I asked her.

  "Stephanie, I didn't know you smoked!"

  "Paul, shut up!" everyone yelled at the same time.

  As luck would have it, the dip in the ocean was exactly what the doctor ordered for Wendy, because after that she was at least able to manage her footsteps in a more reasonable manner. We all sat in the water, exhausted, for a good hour before it started to get dark out, but Feliqua was not anywhere close to moving. She had stopped throwing up, sort of, but was firm about staying where she was. "Don't fucking touch me!" she yelled. Wendy said she needed help getting Feliqua to her room, and then she would be available to have dinner with us.

  Sylvan volun