Arthur had no shadow as he stood at the end of the boardwalk. The sun was directly above his head, beating down mercilessly. He looked out at all the people baking on the sand, blistering and risking heatstroke. And they called him crazy.
He jumped down onto the sand and trudged toward the water, fully aware of the stares. People were always looking at him, thinking him odd, grateful they weren’t him. Arthur had gotten used to it.
Turning north, he left the more crowded beach of Ocean Grove behind in favor of the neglected sands of Asbury Park. No barrier separated one beach from the other, but the empty beer bottles, soda cans, and paper debris littering the Asbury Park beach distinguished it from the well-tended Ocean Grove sand just yards away.
The screeches and laughter of the children playing in the rolling surf grew fainter as Arthur distanced himself from the sun worshipers. He turned around to look back at them. They weren’t paying attention to him anymore.
He tried to appear aimless as he plodded across the sand toward the old Casino, knowing that when he did it, he had to do it like lightning, in a flash. Just where the Casino jutted out farthest toward the ocean, there was about two feet of space between the sand and the giant concrete slab upon which the building stood. He cut gradually across the scorching sand, and then he dropped down on all fours and slithered forward on his belly into the darkness beneath the giant concrete slab.
It took all of three seconds. Arthur was confident that no one had seen him. No one ever did. It was dim and cool inside, a relief from the blinding brightness and heat of the beach. As he’d been taught for combat in Desert Storm, Arthur scurried, like a sand crab, deeper into the darkness.