I harass Geof via e-mail and on television. Most recently, I had an eighteen-foot ficus plant delivered to his office when he was on vacation. I wanted something that was ugly enough to annoy him and large enough for him not to be able to physically remove without assistance. His ceilings are sixteen feet high, so the ficus actually reached the ceiling and then was forced to bend at a ninety-degree angle and creep horizontally for the remaining two feet. I do my research and I do it well. (I actually never do research; I just think things turn out lucky for me.)
Shmirving caught wind of my shenanigans and respected my style. He reached out to me via e-mail, introducing himself and volunteering his midget services if there was ever a time Chuy wasn’t available. I responded by telling him that he absolutely could fill in for Chuy as soon as he told Christina Aguilera to stop wearing adult diapers on The Voice.
He invited me to an outdoor Neil Young concert with his wife, Shmelly. She is also a nugget like her husband, but she has a mouth on her like a rugby player who got hit in the head too many times with a cricket paddle.
Shmelly and me in the Bahamas.
First of all, let me say this: Neil Young was a little before my time, but I grew up with five brothers and sisters who played nothing but Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, the Eagles, and Peter Frampton. I was no idiot when it came to icons, and I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to listen to the very man who elicits almost every good memory I have from my childhood. Hearing any Neil Young song on the radio will always remind of when I was six years old and would watch my brothers playing football on our lawn in Martha’s Vineyard, with the sun glistening off the water in front of them, the smell of my mom’s fresh-baked blueberry pie wafting out of the house, and every once in a while my brothers’ taking turns lobbing the football to me in my bikini bottom.
My dad would be reading the newspaper on the deck facing us, and every so often he would yell inside to my mother to get me a T-shirt. “Goddammit, Rita! How the hell is she ever going to grow any boobs if the boys keep throwing footballs at her without a shirt on? I can already see her nipples starting to slope.”
I’m not a huge fan of concerts, because I’m not a huge fan of parking, but I absolutely love Neil Young and know every word to every song he may have ever sang.
“This is will be the day that I die, this will be the day that I die.” Every time I hear that lyric, I think of the very day, three years after our topless football matches, my mother came to the top of the steps at our house in Martha’s Vineyard and looked at me and my two sisters, who were all holding ice cream cones, and said: “Your brother’s dead.” I wanted to meet the man who engrained that song in my head for the rest of my life. Bye Bye Miss American Pie. That was what my brother called me: Miss American Pie.
I took my boyfriend along to the concert with the Shmazoffs, and the four of us walked backstage. Shmirving likes to strut his swagger, so we were whisked to the green room where the families and entourages were all mingling preshow.
“Thanks for coming,” the last man I met said. I really had no idea how to respond to that, considering I had no idea whom I was talking to or why he was thanking me for coming.
“Well, thanks… for having me,” I said, searching for something natural to say. I looked down at my huge, oversized suede shoulder bag that my boyfriend had just given me on the aforementioned trip to Croatia, and I realized it would be a mistake to take it outside where it would be on the ground and most likely covered in my own alcohol by the end of the show.
“Would you mind watching my bag?” I asked the stranger. “Or just put it back here, and I can come grab it from you after the show?” I leaned in and whispered, “My boyfriend just bought this for me, and I think he would be really insulted it if I ruined it this soon after I got it. I haven’t even had it Scotchgarded.”
Ten minutes later I was sitting in a box in the Greek Theatre sipping on a glass of champagne with a splash of iced tea when that very same man bounded onto the stage after they announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Neil Young.”
I looked at my boyfriend, who was shaking his head in typical disappointment, and at Shmirving and Shmelly, both of whom were laughing like Jews who’ve eaten too much.
“You really are an asshole,” Shmirving leaned over and whispered.
I barely knew any of the songs Neil Young played that night. It turned out that not only could I not pick Neil Young out of a lineup and had him hold my purse at his own concert, but that I was also confusing him with a completely different musician named Don McLean.
After that, the Shmazoffs and I became buddies, and I spent many nights out to dinner or at different events with them and their family. Shmirving sometimes acts as my manager, since I don’t have one, and I often refer to him and his wife as my parents. Shmelly caught wind of this one day and told me she wasn’t old enough to be my fucking mother and to stop referring to her as Mom.
The Shmazoffs invited my lesbian Shelly and me to the Bahamas on our way back from Africa. This seemed like the perfect pit stop to recuperate from our jet lag on the way back to California. Until Shelly and I discovered that our travel agent had booked us on an around-the-world ticket that flew us all the way back to Los Angeles from Africa, and then to the Bahamas.
“Where’s the North Pole?” I asked Lesbian Shelly as I looked at a map of the Galápagos. “And why do we need to fly over it?”
Three days and one travel agent later, we arrived safe and sound in the Bahamas via Atlanta. By this time, Shelly and I had put on an estimated combined weight of seventeen pounds, and I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in eight days. This is not an exaggeration.
Showcasing our bodies in bathing suits wasn’t an option. It was July, and Shelly pointed out it was going to be extremely uncomfortable wearing nothing but our safari gear in the hot sun. I told her that we would simply have to choose off-peak hours to submerge ourselves in the Atlantic; a spray bottle was another option to keep cool during the day. She proposed we wear our khaki shorts over our bikinis. I pointed out that while that was a good plan for her, I was straight.
Shmelly and Shmirving brought their fourteen-year-old son, Shmameron. He’s another asshole, so I immediately took to him. Shmirving tried to convince me all weekend that it would be easier on the whole family if I would just de-virginize Shmameron over the vacation. He thought Shmameron having sex would help calm some of his teenage angst, and this way the deflowerer would be someone they approved of. Plus, it would make for a funny family story.
“First of all, he’s a minor, but that’s not my main issue,” I revealed to Shmirving, after much prodding. “He’s got braces, and the last time I hooked up with someone with braces, my vagina looked like a cleft palate.”
Shmameron hitting on me in the Bahamas.
The best part of this trip was that the resort where we were staying was managed by a forty-year-old, delusional Grateful Dead enthusiast named Sargeant, who presented himself in a pressed, pastel-colored golf shirt and khaki shorts, and drove around the property in a golf cart. When I asked him what his real name was, he told me the story of his family coming from a long line of Sargeants. That was his real name. He was Sargeant John Riley Black the Sixth.
“Speaking of black people,” I asked Sargeant, “where are they?”
“I’ve heard about you, my dear,” he said, with raised eyebrows and waving his index finger in my direction. “You are quite the little devil.”
“First of all, please don’t make faces like that while talking to me—or just skip talking to me altogether—and secondly, I’m serious. We’re in the Bahamas and I haven’t seen one black person. We just came from Africa and I’m not prepared to go cold turkey. What’s the story?”
He ignored my question and for the next fifteen minutes proceeded to tell me and everyone else within earshot that he was a single man looking for love, and he thought from what he had heard about me, I might be the woman for him.
“You’re wrong,” Shelly an
d Shmelly assured him.
“Not at all, but I’ve heard you are PRETT-y outgoing, and I’m PRETT-y outgoing… You’ve got a sense of humor, and I know how to make a woman laugh.”
“I doubt that,” I replied. “Not on purpose, anyway.” I told Sargeant to keep his distance from me, that I wasn’t in the mood, nor would I ever be remotely attracted to him.
Shmirving and Shmelly loved the idea of me being harassed by Sargeant and invited him to dinner that very night along with eighteen of their other closest friends on the island, all of whom arrived in “summer whore,” which is another term I use for “hot pink.”
Sargeant arrived having switched into his dinner wear, which meant changing out of his pastel-blue golf shirt into a pastel-pink golf shirt and keeping on his khaki shorts and leather belt.
He planted himself in the seat next to me. “I have a question for you, Sargeant. Do you golf?”
“I most certainly do, Chelsea. I may even be able to teach you a thing or two on the back nine,” he said and then winked at me.
Lesbian Shelly bore witness to this whole transaction in her never-ending desire to egg things on—I would refer to her as a pusher, or an enabler. She will enable whatever it is you are trying to avoid and wave it around right in front of your face until you take a hit.
“It’s kind of perfect timing if you think about it,” Shelly announced to us both. “Chelsea’s been single for a while, and Sargeant, it seems as if you’ve been single forever.”
Sargeant wasn’t bad-looking, but looks don’t matter when you’re dealing with someone who thinks they’re a mover and a shaker when in fact that person has never moved or shaken.
As I threw back one vodka after another, he regaled me and Lesbian Shelly with tales of his drinking days and claimed that he once knew how to party with the best of them. “I used to pull all-nighters three times a week, minimum. You wouldn’t have even recognized me back then.”
“That’s amazing, Sargeant. You sound so fascinating.”
“But eventually the cat caught up with the canary, and I wanted to live a fuller life.”
“Is that why you’re drinking apple juice?” Lesbian Shelly asked him.
“This is sparkling apple juice, Shelly,” he told her. “I like a little kick.”
“Are you a Republican, Sargeant?” I asked him.
“Well, Chelsea, I wouldn’t use that word, but I am definitely open to tax breaks for the heavily invested.” Then he lowered his head. “Do you mind if I call you Chels?”
“I would mind that very much.”
He threw his head back and chortled. “It’s times like these when I appreciate being sober. I can see the beauty in everything.”
“Well, therein lies your answer,” I declared. “I would never date a sober person. While I have sober friends who are very much fun, I can tell that you are not. You may think you are, but you’re wrong.”
“I love your personality,” he said with a laugh. “You’re a real tough cookie. Everything I heard about you is spot-on.”
“Where did you hear all these things about me?”
“I did my research. You won’t be an easy nut to crack, but every nut is crackable.”
“You sound like you really know your way around the ladies. Do you mind if I call you Sarg?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t mind in the slightest,” he said, holding up his sparkling apple cider to clink glasses with my fourth vodka and Lesbian Shelly’s whiskey.
“You should see her in a bathing suit,” Lesbian Shelly chimed in, raising her glass to meet his and winking at me. “You won’t be able to get enough of her curves. Cheers.”
A bathing suit wasn’t a bad idea to get this character off my tail. In the meantime, I reassured Sargeant that he and I had nothing in common, and even if he fell off the wagon, we never would.
The next morning I found myself wide awake at 6 a.m. I decided to get up and take a good look at my body in the mirror while everyone else in the house was still asleep.
It was a mess. By far the most radical shape I had ever been in. My stomach was in the worst state of its life with no sign of ribs or abs. Pockets of cellulite circled my belly button, looking like a sprinkled doughnut. My injured leg was significantly smaller than my uninjured leg. I liked the size of my smaller leg better, and romanticized about how much smaller I’d be if I had just torn both ACLs at the same time—giving way for my whole body to atrophy.
I needed to get some exercise and get my juices flowing. Early morning was the time of day when a beach is always the most tranquil, and I figured I could have some me time and reflect on what I expected out of life and, more important, what life expected out of me.
I had just read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning in Africa, and I thought if a man could survive the Holocaust just by fantasizing about his wife and children being united, I could survive four days in the Bahamas looking like a potbellied pig.
The ACL injury and surgery had done a real number on my self-confidence, my body image, and my lack of being able to participate in any sport except drinking. I was finally at the one-month mark, which, per my doctor, meant I could start incorporating biking, swimming, and/or rhino poaching into my routine.
I decided to take a walk along the beach. The beaches had about as much personality as Sargeant. They were flat and straight; from what I could tell, there weren’t even waves or a tide. The setting was eerily reminiscent of the movie The Truman Show. A man-made island created for wealthy white people in the Bahamas with not a black person in sight. Due to the lack of terrain, I was able to walk about thirty minutes just past the main beach club before my leg started to hurt.
A man was setting out all the beach equipment for the day, and another man was in the water wearing one of those synthetic water shirts worn by men who are ashamed of their bodies. I exchanged a brief hello with both of them, avoiding eye contact at all costs. I walked a little farther down the beach in order to keep from having any further conversation with the man swimming. I do not and have never liked when grown men wear T-shirts in the sea. A perfect candidate for a pubic transplant, I thought.
I got in the water and began my swim back to the house. My Pilates instructor, Andie, who is certifiably bat-shit crazy, told me if I could tread water for at least thirty minutes, I would burn a significant amount of calories and it would be fine on my knee.
I swam for a total of what I would guess to be three minutes and was just passing the beach club when I felt a sharp thunderbolt in my stomach. I thought maybe it was a swimming cramp, but after another painful jolt, I grasped that it was quite different. I needed to go to the bathroom—number two. It’s funny that adults—like babies—don’t always know that sometimes a stomachache means they have to make a deposit.
Interesting twist, I thought. It had been so long since I had gone to the bathroom that I had begun the process of accepting that I might never move my bowels again.
I picked up the pace a little faster in order to get back to the house in time for my explosion. This was a surprise, after all, and not an unwelcome one. I gracefully transitioned from doggy paddling to the fly to a full-on panicked free-style. When the thunderbolts started to become increasingly unbearable, I realized I didn’t have the ten to fifteen minutes it would take me to swim back to the house. Time was not on my side. I knew I couldn’t shadoobie in the ocean—even I wouldn’t do something like that—so I opted to swim to shore, go back to the beach club, and find the bathroom.
I hauled ass as quickly as one with a bum leg can effectively haul ass, and made it halfway up the beach before it became crystal clear that I had about thirty seconds to find a place to squat. Let me declare something: I am not a quitter. I will turn over every stone or grain of sand before I submit to the callings of Mother Nature.
My brain was weighing all options, but the only option that was not an option was shitting my pants while standing up. I found the nearest dune, hobbled over to it, and pulled down my ba
thing suit bottom just in time for me to detonate.
I could not believe this was happening to me. I felt the blades of grass from the dune gently caressing my backside as I scanned east to west to ensure no one could see what was happening. Meanwhile one fulmination after another ricocheted out of my asshole onto the sand and back onto my calves. “Dear Lord,” I muttered, looking up and trying to find any sign of God.
The man from the water and his onesie had somehow disappeared, either out to sea to continue his life as a male mermaid, or out of the water—but he was gone, and that was the most important thing.
There was a mega yacht parked a few hundred yards out to sea, but I deduced that since I couldn’t see anyone, no one without binoculars could see me. It was too late anyway. What happened had already happened, I had shat myself on a beach—like an animal.
Like any normal lady who hadn’t gone to the bathroom in eight days, I wanted to look at my excrement with pride and assess how much weight I had lost, but I was too appalled by the way the events had transpired. I grabbed a bunch of sand and covered my shame while rivulets of sweat dripped off my forehead. Forgetting that my hands were covered in sand, I swiped the sweat that was dripping down my face, and ended up wiping sand all over my forehead, giving myself an early-morning exfoliation.
I pulled my bikini bottoms up as loosely as possible and awkwardly sauntered back into the water, trying to avoid major contact between my ass and the hammock that was my bathing suit. Once submerged in the sea, I rinsed myself off—first down below, and then my face. Looking back on that moment with more mental acuity now, I realize what I had actually done was dive into my own feces.
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