by Barry Wolfe
“Yeah, this weather eats it,” grouses Bobby. “ All I’ve been thinking about for weeks is the beach stuffed with all those gorgeous half-naked babes.” James, who as usual is the designated driver, just tunes out the bellyachers. He looks straight ahead and he seems to be singing to himself in a barely audible voice. He is mumbling “Maybelline”.
Although I share their disappointment with the weather report, I’m still high from the news I received from Dr. Meenes. I attempt, as best I can, to cheer up my horny friends. “Come on, guys. We’re gonna have a great time come rain or shine. We have one whole week doing whatever we want, whenever we want.”
But Peter is inconsolable. “Yeah, we won’t be able to do shit if it rains the whole week.” By the time we reach the Pennsylvania line, the weather turns even darker and so did our mood. Rain begins to pour down and all of the car’s occupants except James let out with a collective groan. James is still singing under his breath.
“For Christ’s sake, James, shut up! I can’t take the muttering.” Peter sounds like he is at a breaking point with James’ mumbled melodies. “What are you saying anyway?” said Peter with undisguised hostility in his voice. “All I hear is mutter, mutter, mutter.” “He’s singing,” I answer for him. “You know, Chuck Berry. James has gone through all 20 hits that Chuck Berry has made since 1955.”
“Man, can’t you give it a rest,” Peter complains more quietly. Without looking back at Peter, James gives him the finger and continues with his singing while bopping up and down in his seat. Then James suddenly bellows the title of latest musical muttering, “ALMOST GROWN”. Bobby cracks up at this. “If you’re gonna sing, James, sing so we can hear you,” Bobby says playfully. “Oh no, you don’t want that,” James replies with a laugh. “Look the reason I’m singing is that my damn radio is on the fritz, and I sure as hell don’t want to spend the entire drive listening to your whining. So I’m singing in self defense.”
On the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the rain is so heavy that looking out over the water is like trying to peer through a translucent glass window. “Great vacation,” Peter gripes. “I can’t even see the water.” As usual, when I get so sick of Peter’s complaining, I begin to make stuff up to placate him. “Come on, Peter, the sun will be out tomorrow. I promise.” “Oh listen to Mr. Sweetness and Light over there.” I can hear the gears of his mind grinding out a play on words. “Hey Sweetness and Light, if you’re so light, how come you’re going to Howard?” This cracks him up. When he sees that I all I can give him is a nervous laugh, Peter suddenly turns serious. “OK, Izzy, you’ve been there a year now; what’s it like?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yeah, I do,” Peter replies, “I can’t imagine being a minority in a school filled with jigaboos.” Peter catches my look of disgust. “I’m sorry, Izzy, “ Peter insincerely apologizes, “I mean a minority in a primarily Black school.”
Bobby joins in, “Yeah Izzy, do tell. What are the black babes like?” I can always count on Bobby and Peter to be predictable. Peter is obsessed with color, Bobby with women. I never could understand Peter’s hostility toward black people. Negroes hadn’t done him any harm as far as I knew. If Bobby has any reservations about Negroes, it has to do with an inchoate belief that the mixing of the races is somehow inappropriate. But this vague sense of the appropriate is obliterated whenever he thinks about women (which is every seven seconds). Then color seems to have no bearing. If a girl is fine, he wants her. Before I can answer Bobby’s question, Peter intervenes. “But aren’t you afraid that you might become like them?”
“Maybe I already have,” I tease. Peter gives me a look of shocked disgust. “You know, Peter, none of us have any idea what life’s been like for Negroes, particularly in DC.” Before I can go into my history lesson, however, Peter interrupts me. “But wait, you haven’t answered Bobby’s question. What are the black babes like?” As I think about their question, I warm to the task. “Guys, you best believe there are some fine-looking girls on campus, and man they come in all shades from ebony to cream. Several girls I’ve seen look so white I don’t understand why they even think of themselves as Negro. In fact, I don’t understand why people make such a fuss about skin color. One thing I’m learning is that beauty comes in all colors.” Peter is unrelenting. “Yeah, but have you been to bed with any of them or made out with them? I mean is it any different?” I’m getting annoyed with my friends’ questions. “Why would it be any different? You act as if black girls come from a different planet. It’s absurd to think that it would be any different. We’re all human aren’t we?” But I realized I have the same questions. Would it be any different if I touch and kiss a Negro girl the way I touched and kissed Shannon? I don’t know. I have no basis for comparison. Inevitably, my contemplations make me think of Desirie and unfortunately reawaken my dormant feelings for her. What would it be like to make love to Desirie? I want to find out.
The rain has stopped by the time we turn onto Atlantic Avenue. All four of us simultaneously cheer as the sun peeps through the scattering gray clouds over the ocean. Oh, but we can see the ocean and it’s such a cleansing sight. All of the irritations of the rain-spotted drive, the catastrophic predictions about how our vacation is going to turn out, and our fears of wasting precious dollars that we had wallowed in for most of the trip evaporate with the sight of the ocean’s great expanse, the smells of the sea, the sound of the waves breaking toward the shore, and the coital cries of the seagulls.
It’s four in the afternoon when we arrive at our motel. It is located—as advertised --about two blocks off Atlantic Avenue, but it’s much shabbier than we had expected. The watery blue stucco sides of the motel look as if it has been punished for years by recurrent hurricanes and thus are peeling badly. We have reserved two adjoining rooms and draw straws to see who will be rooming together. Then we draw again for the pick of the room, not that there is much difference between them. Both rooms have a heavy, stale smell of cigarette smoke and a hint of urine. They’re otherwise identical except for the arrangement of the furniture. As luck would have it, I draw Peter, but we do get the room closest to the ice machine. A fair trade-off, I think to myself. Before we even unpack, the four of us get into our bathing suits and make a mad rush to the beach. We’re surprised to find how sparsely populated the beach is. Many people are beginning to leave, frustrated by the relative lack of sun. Despite the gray clouds and the peek-a-boo sunlight, the heat is oppressive. We jump into the water, kicking our legs up high and flailing our arms. We are ten years old again and play all the silly water games of an earlier age. We splash water on one another and jump on one another’s head trying to force it under the water. Then we challenge each other to walk straight into the now powerful waves to see who can remain standing. None of us can. The waves smash into us sending us tumbling backwards towards the shore. After about a half-hour of such play, we conclude that we have had enough of an initiation, pronounce our vacation begun, and pledge to spend most of the next day on the beach.
I have to rouse everyone up from his nap at 7:30 because I’m starving. By 8 pm, we’re on the Boardwalk hungry for food and female companionship. Food comes first. The oppressive heat from before has dissipated, replaced by a gentle, cooling breeze. The Boardwalk is already crowded with people of all ages. One can hear the sounds of the carousel no matter where you are on the 6-mile long Boardwalk. People are frequently dodging the numerous Rolling Chairs, the wicker, canopied chair-on-wheels that serves as a relaxing means of transport pushed by wisecracking attendants along the entire length of the Boardwalk. We pass by the Steel Pier, which is the central locus of entertainment on the Boardwalk. One ticket allows you entrance to every concert, film and attraction on the Pier, including the impressive Ferris wheel. All the major entertainers played the Steel Pier during its heyday from the 1920s to the 1950s. All along the Boardwalk, there are an uncountable number of food stands, souvenir shops, ice cream parlors, and penny arcades. The smell of Fren
ch fries, hamburgers and tantalizing egg rolls is unrelenting and is with us no matter where we walk. The dizzying combination of enticing smells, compelling sights, and joyful sounds leave me disoriented. I am pulled in so many directions at once that I don’t know what to do first. “Let’s eat,” I hear one of us say, and my attention finally focuses on my most pressing need.
When it comes to food, this night the four of us are on the same page. At one stand, we purchase a hamburger and the best French fries any of us has ever tasted. Next door, we buy a foot-long egg roll that puts to shame any that we have had in a Chinese restaurant. The feast is completed with the cold sweet slide of frozen custard down our grease-heated gullets. We are so full we have to sit. We locate one of the numerous benches on the Boardwalk where people can sit and stare at the ocean. “Now this is the life,” Peter contends with a belch. James sings us another song title, Don’t You Just Know It. Bobby is holding his stomach and groans, “I’m so happy I could hurl.” I feel so relaxed and free of worry that I have the rare experience of being speechless. We move on after awhile when we can finally focus attention on our next hunger. We ogle every girl we see. James and I are mostly silent while Peter and Bobby make rude comments to all the girls we see in short shorts. “Hey shake it, but don’t break it,” Peter cries out to a group of three wiggle-walking women not far ahead us. Bobby asks a cute girl pulling up along side of us, “Would you like to see the submarine races with me?” “No thanks,” she says sweetly. “I already get enough sleep.” “Oooooh,” we all croon in unison.
We haven’t moseyed very far down the Boardwalk before we see three fine-looking young ladies. All three are curvy, dark-haired sirens in white short shorts and halter-tops. We stop them and engage them in conversation. As soon as they open their mouths, we know they’re all from “New Jurzee”. “Where ya boys from?” asked the prettiest of the three. Peter and Bobby respond together with dopey grins on their faces, “Washington, DC.” “Oh, the Southland,” a second girl says. “I hear it’s very dark in DC these days,” she continues. The three girls start snickering and giving each other looks. I blush but Bobby doesn’t catch their drift. “No, DC has about the same amount of sunshine as New Jersey,” he rebuts. This drives the girls mad with laughter. As the conversation continues in this vein, a guy walks by, obviously from New Jersey and ogles the girl Bobby is interested in. The stranger says to the girl, “Gee, I’d like to get in your pants.” The girl responds, “What’s the matter, d’chu shit ‘n yours?” Her friends laugh heartily. We, however, laugh nervously because we are shocked. I lean over and whisper in Bobby’s ear. “A woman of unusual refinement.” Bobby chortles and whispers back, “Yeah, but what a rack.” The stranger gives her the finger and swaggers off down the Boardwalk.
The three girls have wordlessly made their selections. The prettiest girl is clearly interested in Peter. The second girl is smiling large at Bobby. Despite his cluelessness, she thinks he’s cute. James has been “conversing” with the third girl by giving her his sexy stare. She keeps blushing and smiling at him. I feel like I have just lost a game of musical chairs and decide to return to our motel room. The Three Miscreants make a pretense of feeling bad about my leaving and insincerely “beg” me to stay. But I almost can hear the sighs of relief as I turn and walk away. An old tape begins to play in my head. Why can’t I attract girls the way they can? Am I that ugly? I stop for a moment and look out at the ocean. The moon has laid a shiny carpet of light on the ocean. The gentle breeze on my face feels like a caress. It’s difficult to whip up a good pity party on such a night in such a place.
It’s a few minutes shy of noon before the four of us get ourselves together and go to the beach. Unlike the day before, the bright blazing sun is almost blinding, and the beach is packed with people. My three friends have made a date to meet the three nubile girls from New Jersey with whom they presumably have spent an undisclosed night of romance. The plan is to meet them near the Lifeguard stand. Despite the specificity of the location, it takes us twenty minutes to find them. We all smile. Mine is a sheepish odd-man out smile. My friends give their newfound loves a leering look, which the girls happily and seductively return. Out of fear that they will abandon all social restraint and begin to copulate before this huge crowd, I wander away in search of a seductress of my own. This seems like a hopeless cause in this anonymous multitude of bikini-clad females. A feeling of loneliness suddenly overtakes me. I think of Desirie and how she would stand out on this white beach with all of its white occupants. I imagine the two of us flying a few dozen feet above the beach, holding hands and laughing together over the effort of so many white people trying to darken their color, yet the same people would be appalled if they had to share the beach with Negroes. I feel myself drifting away from this world. I have completed one year at Howard, and it is changing me.
The intermittent breeze fans the beach with the unmistakable smell of suntan lotion. As I continue my sandy sojourn, I think I hear a familiar voice calling my name. I give it little credence at first and wonder whether I’m hallucinating from inhaling the fumes of all that suntan lotion. The voice becomes clearer as I unwittingly approach its source. “Izzy! Over here.” It’s Shannon Creamer sitting up on her beach towel with her hands behind her re-hooking the clasp to the top of her hot pink and black polka dot bikini. I have actually felt more of her naked skin than I have ever seen and I’m dazzled by the degree of her feminine pulchritude. She’s one choice-looking girl and I feel hornier than all get-out. “Shannon?” I exclaim with a huge grin on my face and a false note of question in my voice. I know damn well it’s her, but I want to appear “cool”. I never do cool well and Shannon laughs at my pitiable attempt. “Izzy, this is Meghan my roommate from the University of Maryland.” I have been so enraptured at seeing Shannon that I see for the first time that she’s sharing the blanket with another human being. I see an attractive sultry-looking brunette, a well-tanned body in a sky blue bikini. “Hi Meghan,” I say with a smile frozen on my face. “Izzy goes to Howard, Meghan. Can you believe that he goes to school with all those colored people?” Meghan just smiles and shakes her head. Ironically, the loudspeakers on the beach blare out the new hit comedy song,
“Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”.
“Who’d you come with?” Shannon asks.
“You know, the usual suspects, Peter, Bobby, and James,” I answer.
“Izzy, you sure hang out with a strange bunch.” Shannon never cared for any of the Three Miscreants. “Where are they now?”
“I suspect that they are making out on various nearby beach blankets with some local yokels they picked up last night.” Shannon tilts her head and looks at me with an expression of make believe commiseration. “So they left you all by your lonesome?”
“No, I chose to remove myself from a very uncomfortable scene,” I answer in a voice that suggests this is the best decision that I’ve made in years.
“Well then, Izzy, you can take me to dinner and a movie tonight. Meghan here went and got herself a date and is leaving me all by my lonesome.”
“Sure,” I say as nonchalantly as I can, when in fact I am having trouble keeping my feet rooted in the sand. With a stunning smile that disorients me, Shannon exclaims,
“Great! There’s a new Hitchcock flick at the Atlantic Theatre. It’s called Psycho.” As
she sounds out the name of the movie, she manipulates her voice into a fearful warbling sound. With a smile still frozen on my face and in an emotionless tone, I manage, “It sounds scary.”
At 6:30, I meet Shannon at the entrance to the Million Dollar Pier. After she calls my name, I turn around to see a paragon of loveliness, garbed in a sundress of blue and yellow pastel stripes and sandals topped with a floppy flower. We both are in a cheerful mood probably for the same reason—that neither one of us has to be alone tonight. I had promised to take her to the place I had found whose egg rolls were the “most”. As we walk up the boardwalk toward the stand, S
hannon talks the whole time about everything that she and Meghan have done so far on their vacation. I’m not too interested in her conversation but am happy to be in the company of such an attractive girl who wants to be with me. I reach for her hand. Shannon is momentarily taken aback by this gesture. She brightens at this unexpected invitation and seizes my hand with surprising vigor. She holds my hand tightly as she continues on with her monologue. At the food stands, we order and eventually scarf down two egg rolls apiece, two large cones of French fries, and almost as an after thought, a hamburger. We discover that we not only had overeaten but we are running late to make the 7:45 show. I think the two of us are going to barf as we walk/run to the movie theater. We make it in time for the endless previews and give each other a barfy look that acknowledges that after all, there was no need to run. When the credits for the movie begin to roll and the scary music blares, Shannon grabs my hand and fearfully squeezes it. She has caught two of my knuckles in just the right juxtaposition so that they seem to be begging my mouth to scream at the top of my lungs. With great effort, I’m able to manfully suppress my scream and inadvertently turn it into a wimper. “What’s the matter?” Shannon asks with concern in her voice. “Nothing,” I reply. “Nothing at all.” The knuckle mash was nothing compared to what comes afterward. During the shower scene, I receive even greater punishment. As Janet Leigh steps into the shower and minutes later when Tony Perkins, as Norman Bates dressed up like his mother, starts to slash and stab his beautiful victim to death, Shannon starts screaming while simultaneously digging her long painted fingernails into my left forearm and releasing a significant amount of my blood. I see my blood running down my arm and spilling off my fingertips and I let out with a scream. This scream I cannot suppress. The audience, however, hears me loud and clear and starts laughing because my baritone scream has mingled harmonically with the soprano screams of just about every female in the theater. I count myself fortunate that I emerge from the movie theater alive—bloodied but unbowed.