Radical Ron mini -horror story : " The Korean War Veteran at Jerusalem Beach "

The Korean War Veteran at Jerusalem Beach I can remember very little in my life sharply before age of five. But on my sixth birthday I vividly remember my family's trip to Jerusalem beach on a sizzling hot day in late July. I remember the old Hudson Hornet caught on fire just before we got there. We abandoned the car in Galilee fishing village and transferred to my Uncle Tommy's car. All a little shaken by the experience. Under a beach umbrella when the others were riding the waves, my aunt Beth told me to take off my bright red bathing suit. She wanted to protect my young skin with suntan lotion . I felt her cool hands rubbing my little behind. She rubbed me All over. There is a picture of me at age six naked in front of the Hudson Hornet with an erection! In an old family photo album. Nobody ever considered it obscene . And Auntie Beth was never accused of anything " devious ". Walking along the shore- in no hurry to go into the cold water - I spotted a strange looking man with a missing leg -a mere stump that was disturbingly visible - hopping on his good leg out of the water. A teenage boy - who himself looked like a young Troy Donahue - began to make fun of him . " I am a Korean War veteran ! " the man yelled. " I lost my leg for the likes of you ! ". The punk teenager was almost crying. But he went back into the water, submerging himself under a 6 foot wave. I observed the strange angry Korean war veteran " point " his unsightly stub in the direction of " Troy ". He was aiming it as if it were a machine gun. Soon " Troy " was out of sight. I did not see him again that sultry July afternoon. The next morning my mother was reading from the front page of the newspaper to my father. Someone had drowned the day before at Jerusalem Beach. The victim was a blond, blue eyed youth age 16! I went outside the apartment at the Valley View Housing Project -for veterans - and waited for the Johnny and the ice cream truck to come by. I made the rounds of the neighborhood with him . Then we stopped for a while at Geneva Pond . While I was eating my half-chocolate, half vanilla cup of ice cream, Johnny told me all about the deadly leeches in the water. Last September a boy who was bunking school fell in and all his blood was sucked out by the leeches. I always loved Johnny's stories even when I did not believe them . a