Impossible Vacation

by Spalding Gray

  After my scene, which was done in three quick takes, I got to hang out against the wall while they did a setup for the following shot, just long enough to find out a little of the movie plot before Bernie ordered me back into the bedroom.

  One of the grips, who was real nice, told me that the film was about some sort of wrinkle-in-time situation in which a pirate ship comes out of the eighteenth century to land at Fulton Street in downtown Manhattan. These pirates have come to claim one of their crew, who is now a Wall Street stockbroker and has almost forgotten he was ever a pirate in the first place. All he knows is that he has a fascination with pirate ships and he gets an erection every time he sees a picture or a model of a pirate ship. In fact, this grip told me that the star of the film had to get a full engorged erection while the woman playing his secretary carried a clock shaped like a pirate ship through the room. They had just shot that scene, and he was able to get erect just at the sight of that ship-shaped clock. The grip told me that the star was a very good porn actor and much in demand because he never required a fluffer, which was the name for a woman who was paid just to get the men up for their scenes.

  Before I could get any more information, Bernie drove me back into the bedroom, where I fell into talking with Gary again until at last Gary, Janine, and I were called up for a scene together. I was a little surprised that the three of us were called together, but at this point not a whole lot was surprising me. Once we got undressed, we were led into another bedroom, where the camera crew was all set up and waiting.

  Without explaining how the scene fit into the plot of the movie, as if he was shooting this for some other film, Bernie simply described the shot to us. He told us that this was a shot he’d been thinking about for a long time. It was to be of Gary and me, just lying on our backs, all limp and naked and relaxed, and then Janine was to appear in the doorway, where she would slowly slip off her robe as we gradually grew erect. Then there was to be a shot of us, or rather of our cocks becoming erect “like two giant red asparagus growing out of a field of pubic hair.” That’s the way Bernie described it, and his description surprised me because it was so unlike him, so poetic. After they got the shot of the two erections, Janine was to move in and we were to have this glorious ménage à trois, where Gary fucks Janine in the ass while she blows me at the same time. This was definitely not poetic, and I had no idea how we were going to accomplish this rather intimate and complicated act in front of all those sound- and cameramen, not to mention Bernie in his god-awful reflective sunglasses. I think both Gary and I were hoping that some workable fantasy would take over when the time came to get erect. But it didn’t. Nothing happened to either of our cocks when Janine came through the door. They just lay there limp. I felt like I was on an operating table rather than on a bed in what was supposed to be an erotic situation.

  There were no fluffers available, so Janine was asked to please try to fluff us up first, then run to the door and make her grand entrance. So the work, and I mean work, began. Janine came over to the bed dressed only in her robe and, while Bernie paced on the side like a basketball coach and the cameramen adjusted their lenses and the boom men fiddled with their booms, Janine began to fiddle and fluff with Gary and me. She started sucking on Gary’s cock while she stroked mine with her hand. Soon Gary was erect, but nothing was happening for me. I was numb. There was nothing and no one in that room that was turning me on.

  After Janine got Gary hard, she began to suck on me, which seemed to help, but while she was doing that, Gary went soft, so for a while there it was back and forth and up and down, like a sexual seesaw, one cock getting hard while the other went soft. Bernie continued to pace impatiently on the sidelines. I just lay there like a little kid with my mouth tight, trying not to scream. I just lay there getting done and watching this once-important part of me inflate and deflate again and again.

  At last Bernie had the good sense to clear the room so Janine could work on us in private. So, leaving the cameras and booms set up, the whole; crew left. Gary was to call them back when the task of dual erections was accomplished.

  Janine began to work on us again, and somehow she was able to get both cocks up at the same time. By now it all seemed like something going on far away, something I hardly felt a part of. Gary called for Bernie and the crew and they all came running back in. But by the time they got set up again, Gary and I had begun to wither, and all they got were two rather wilted dicks that were mostly held up by our own hands. They looked more like display specimens in some medical journal than like erotic male members.

  The next shot was not an unusual shot. If you’ve seen any porn films or any porn magazines, you’d recognize the shot immediately. It was an old demeaning classic—demeaning, that is, for the woman who was getting used at both ends. Janine was instructed to get on all fours, Gary was instructed to kneel behind her and fuck her in the ass while she sucked my cock. I was glad that I was the passive one in all of this.

  As soon as Janine heard that there was to be anal intercourse in the shot, she called for her contract. Bernie’s assistant came running with it and held it steady on the bed while Janine, naked, on all fours, signed the anal intercourse clause, which provided exactly for a thirty-seven-dollar bonus.

  Once again the room was cleared for us to work in private. Janine, Gary, and I got this whole interconnected machine and all its parts working away, and then Gary yelled “Okay!” and the crew came running. Bernie was running up and down the sidelines like a coach for the winning team, crying out, “Oh, that’s good!” Then to me: “Move around more, North. Make it look like you’re enjoying it. Make some sounds, North—make some sounds, boy!” and I could feel myself going limp as soon as he used that word “boy.” In order to counteract it, I went into my memory bank to try to come up with some useful fantasy. I went somewhere else in my head. I went back to the Dam Square in Amsterdam and found that young Italian girl and brought her back to Hans’s house and at last did it there in the attic room, and that’s where I was when Bernie called for the cum shot. Because there was only one camera, Gary came first, shooting his warm wad onto Janine’s back, rubbing it in with his hand for the close-up, a standard porn film technique he’d learned in the past. Then it was my turn. Bernie yelled “Cum shot!” and Janine pulled her mouth away and I shot into the air. This left me with a very sad, empty feeling. Then it was over. Just like that, it was over. We were done for the day. In fact, we were done with that film altogether. I was handed two crisp fifty-dollar bills in an envelope and sent home.

  That day I was certain of one thing, which was the first sense of certainty I’d had in some time. I was certain my career in porn films was over. I hadn’t earned enough money to take a trip across the country, but I had earned enough to go to Provincetown at last. Maybe that would be enough of a trip to make me feel like I had left Meg, and allow me to return to her, at last a triumphant man. To make that short odyssey might be enough for now. I had to learn how to hang out on my own and spend my money without being self-destructive. I needed a vacation. I needed to relax and learn how to laugh alone. I needed to learn how to enjoy without needing a witness. I had no trouble crying. My tears came out at random like gushing streams in the spring. Had the film been about a man crying at the slightest cue instead of getting erect, I would have become an overnight star.

  I could cry, but I couldn’t laugh. My laughter was always short-circuited by an instant report on the event. It was as though I saw all the things that could make me laugh coming at me in slow motion, so that I had plenty of time to analyze them before they got to me. Then by the time they hit, by the time they got there, it was always, yes, yes, I see, I see, that’s funny, yes, I understand, oh yes, I see why you’re laughing now. Although that old loneliness was still there, I wanted to be laughing at it as well as crying.

  HOW STRANGELY familiar it all was, like an old recurring dream, to be gathering things to take to Provincetown, only this time it was not my father’s meat or Mom’
s Metrecal. It was just a yoga mat for the back of the van and a sleeping bag. I loaded up the next morning and was at last off on my trip to the tip of the mighty Cape.

  As soon as I got on the road I fell into a perpetual-motion trance and was saved from time by motion. I drove as if on automatic through Fall River, past New Bedford to the open Cape highway, until the bright green van was rolling along like some pure and simple storybook creation.

  In no time at all a uniform row of white bungalows flashed along on my left, marking the entrance to the old Provincetown highway. I could see the mighty arm of the Cape curl around into a fist which sheltered the beautiful harbor. And Provincetown was visible, an old fishing town in the distance; but as soon as I got close to the town it got thick and ugly with traffic and people all walking and gawking. There was a great line of Winnebagos, jeeps and overheating station wagons. The whole thing looked like a giant Mad magazine. It was disgusting, and the worst of it was, it was swallowing me up and causing me to feel like one of the horde. Just because I drove a green Dodge van, this did not absolve me from contributing to this piggish confusion. It was a classic lemming situation. The sea had drawn all these people to drive to it, only to be overwhelmed and end up circling in confusion. Around and around the town they drove, holding up traffic while they parked and ejected squads of little monsters to devour hot dogs, clam rolls, and saltwater taffy.

  As soon as I got there I wanted to leave; but I had to see the sea first. It was late afternoon, and after sitting in traffic mumbling to myself a compulsive list of regrets—I could be in Amsterdam, Nepal, Ireland, or India now—I made it to the public beach and found a parking place; but much as I wanted to be in the ocean, I couldn’t seem to leave the van. I was frantic-manic by now and I kept circling it, catching wide-angle views of myself in the hubcaps. Then I would kick the tires and mumble lists of places I’d rather be and then get back in the van and sit, and then get out and walk around it again. This pattern got tighter and faster and more and more like an old-time movie being played over and over. I became more and more like those automatic Amish automatons I had seen in my fevered sleep the day I arrived home from Mexico, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I was a full-blown, out-of-control compulsion on the loose.

  What finally jerked me out of it was the arrival of the local police, who pulled up in a cruiser beside me. Two of them jumped out of their car and got me up against my van and said, “Hold still, boy.” That word “boy” made me hostile. “What’s up?” the big fat one asked. “Can’t make up your mind today or what?”

  They studied the pupils of my eyes and then let me go with a warning. “Don’t let me see you out here looking at your hubcaps like that again. Never again.”

  I drove into town, found a metered parking space on the pier, and headed down that crowded main street. When I got in front of the town hall I decided to beg. Just like that. It came to me like a voice saying, “Why not beg for your money?” so I went back to my van to fetch my Tibetan prayer cymbals. I had been carrying them around with me to act as a calming agent. At night I would strike them and follow the sound into silence, which was the only prayer I could conceive of then.

  Once I got the cymbals, I sat cross-legged on the sidewalk in front of the town hall. I folded one of my pastel-pink Indian T-shirts into a neat square in front of me and I began to ring the cymbals and chant and to my instant amazement people started dropping money onto my T-shirt. I was absolutely amazed how quickly people responded; but what they were responding to I didn’t know. A few people even put down dollar bills. Everything was going fine until those same damned cops came along and busted me. They said one more time and they would lock me up. But I got to keep the money. I headed off to a local bar to celebrate the fact that I was able to pass for a real beggar.

  I went to an old fisherman’s bar for drinks, but there weren’t any fishermen there, only tourists. I drank draft beers and ate peanuts in the shell. Those beers calmed me down. They always did. They were, I thought, still my cozy ally.

  After enough beer to relax me and put me on the edge of drunkenness, I went out in search of food. I went to the foot-long-hot-dog stand on the main pier. I wanted to buy a lobster roll, but they were too expensive, so I went for two foot-longs with everything on them. While I was waiting for the woman to bring them I tucked my shirt in. All I did was unbutton the top of my pants and tuck my shirt in and then I buttoned right up again. But when the woman brought me my two foot-longs she acted real strange and real put-off, like I smelled bad or something.

  Just as I was taking my first bite out of one of the foot-longs that damn police car pulled up again and the big fat one said, “Get in the car.” He was real pissed, and I didn’t know why until they took me to the police station and locked me up for exposing myself to the foot-long lady. That was their charge—exposing myself. I was incredulous, and once I was all booked and behind bars I started yelling, “She’s out of her mind. She’s been handling those foot-longs too long. She needs a rest.” But they were gone.

  In the morning they gave me back my wallet and keys and told me to get out of town forever.

  WHEN I GOT BACK to New York City the other side of my manicness set in. That fearful depressive state I’d been warned about, combined with the August heat, just did me in. I fell into a dreamless, Rip Van Winkle sleep. I can’t say it was a relief, because it was so unconscious. It was just nothing. It was what I suppose death is finally like: a giant absence of me, an end to all memory. It was only a relief in relation to the panic I felt when I woke up and realized I had been asleep for sixteen hours. I couldn’t bear the fact that I’d been unconscious all that time. Meg tried to help me accept it as part of some sort of healing process. Although she didn’t say it, I’m sure it was a great relief to her to have me asleep.

  I slept like Rip Van Winkle through the month of August, only waking up to eat a little something and then pass out again. In no time it was September, which meant that Meg and I could move back into our apartment, provided Barney and Meg could keep me awake long enough to get me over there. Meg was sure that the return to our nest would completely heal me. As for herself, she couldn’t wait to get there. She was a real nester and had been living out of a suitcase way too long.

  Meg was ecstatic to be back in our apartment and busied herself with puttering and cleaning and unpacking and putting everything in order as she sang that Ezio Pinza song “Welcome home said the door” over and over again. She laid down her Kashmir rugs and raved to me about them while I nodded off again like some A-train junkie.

  The world was now a soft blur around me, like it was in my old childhood days when I’d pretend to be sick and stay home, dozing to the radio soap operas “Ma Perkins” and “Stella Dallas,” the distant sounds from my grade school playground seeping into my sleep.

  It would go like this: I would wake up and try to act as though I was a normal sort of guy, facing another normal day, and Meg would fix breakfast and I would eat it, and then after a few cups of coffee I’d say, “Well, I’m just going to lie down for a minute and take a little rest.” Then in no time at all I’d wake up to the evening news, have a bite of dinner, watch as much of “The Honeymooners” reruns as I could stay awake for, then conk out again, not even making it to bed. I’d just fall asleep right on the couch.

  Meg was very patient with all of this and kept encouraging me to sleep as much as I felt I needed, but I was very frightened and tried to combat the sleep by undertaking meaningful activities like going shopping at the Grand Union. I’d end up nodding out while waiting in the checkout line, so I pretty much stayed indoors. Any outside input was too much, too terrifying. It kept reminding me that the world was constantly going on without me, that I could sleep for sixteen hours and not even be missed. It made me feel expendable.

  During my three or four waking hours I was doing a lot of groaning and letting out little shouts and crazy sounds, like I had a giant nervous tic in my diaphragm. Those sounds were distur
bing to some people in the streets, not to mention in the Grand Union, but on the whole I noticed that most of the people ignored me. They just treated me like another crazy New Yorker.

  After a while it began to occur to me that this behavior might be the new condition of my life, a permanent condition, and I began to think about suicide as an alternative. Up until then I had never contemplated suicide, except for that silly time in the summer when I was young and I told Coleman I was going to jump out the window like Milton Berle’s wife. I had always felt that my mom had made a giant mistake by doing herself in, but now I wasn’t so sure. Perhaps it was the only way out of this endless sleep and those waking states that were so painful, except for when I watched “The Honeymooners.” Those nightly reruns on Channel Eleven (which was then nicknamed “Eleven Alive”) were my only thirty minutes of graceful pleasure, and somewhere I knew that if I could still respond to Ralph, Norton, Alice, and Trixie, I would not kill myself. They even made me laugh once or twice. They were all I lived for, and that was also terrifying, because I knew that if I lost interest in “The Honeymooners,” or if they went off the air, I would surely die.