by John Glynn
“Nah,” I said.
“What about that girl Kirsten? She’s super hot,” said Evan.
“Kirsten’s great.”
“You should go for it.”
“Nah. She’s outta my league.”
I grabbed the teal globe, its raised topography like Braille beneath my fingers. Hanging pendant lights reflected off the plastic. I spun the world on its axis until the continents melded into a color-streaked blur. The Fourth of July was a few days away.
Chapter Fourteen
On Wednesday, July 3, I went home to Massachusetts. I had seven days off and planned to borrow my mom’s car. I would spend the weekend in Montauk, then drive to the Connecticut shore to meet my parents. I was cutting into family time to go to the Hive.
My parents were growing concerned about my time in Montauk. To them the Hamptons represented unchecked hedonism, and my text messages and calls, which often came on Sundays when I was at my most vulnerable, didn’t exactly assuage their fears. They chalked up my anxiety to alcohol, and while I attempted to stay their worries, I provided little in the way of a counternarrative. Occasionally, via text, I made oblique references to heartsickness. But both my parents were entirely convinced that I would find the right girl soon enough.
“Listen to me, Johnny,” my mom said as she reheated her Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in the microwave. “I worry about everything. But the one thing I’m not worried about is you finding love. It’ll happen sooner than you think.”
It was easier for me to exist in the vacuum of my emotions than to think about their broader implications. I was less concerned with how my same-sex feelings might impact my family, and more concerned about coping with my crush. For that I needed to rely on Mike’s help.
As terrified as I was to verbalize my attraction, I was confident that Mike was the one friend I could trust. I was determined to talk to him that weekend. The terrible euphoria was growing too strong. I was so stuck in my head, I felt trapped. I needed to sort through my feelings out loud. I wanted to ask Mike a million questions. I wanted to draw a map of my heart and hold it up to him and have him help me figure out where the fuck I was.
I rose with the sun in my childhood bedroom. Amber light washed the empty streets of our neighborhood. I drove an hour and a half to New London and cruised onto the Cross Sound Ferry before nine thirty, finding a sunny spot on the outside deck to read Stephen King’s Joyland. At Orient Point, my chest thrummed with excitement. I reached the drop-off and ferried to Shelter Island, then ferried again to Sag Harbor. By Amagansett the crowds were out. American flags fluttered from the light posts. “The Stars and Stripes Forever” echoed from an antique car.
The Hive was ringing with a sunstruck energy. I hugged Ashley and Colby, kissed Kirsten on the cheek, yelled to the finance bros, who were blasting country music on the deck. Perrie wore American flag sunglasses, her arms belted in glow sticks. I dropped my bag in the basement and changed into my bathing suit.
I found Mike in the kitchen pouring vodka into a plastic jug. He was ecstatic to report that the toilets had been fixed just in time. Kirsten had been walking around the house, yelling, in a nod to Mean Girls, “You can’t shit with us.”
He outlined our plans for the day. Beach, Tuna, Cyril’s, then a VIP room at the Memory Motel.
“Ashley and I talked to the owner,” he explained. “They’re converting two bedrooms into a private space, giving us three bottles, a case of Red Bull, and unlimited beer. Thirty dollars a head. The house will cover the rest. We automatically get to cut the line. They’ve never done anything like this before.”
He glugged Fresca into the vodka jug and poured in a full can of Coors Light. Then he added three fingers of Milagro tequila.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Rocket Fuel. For the beach.”
“Jesus.”
“Just wait. This is the craziest day of the year. Kirsten’s pregaming with Windex.”
We both started laughing. Back in college we used to pose with household cleaners and pretend to drink them. We’d take pictures and send them to our parents. Having a blast in college. Wholesome coed fun!
I sat on the counter as Mike capped the jug. We were the only two in the kitchen.
“Mikey, I’ve got something I need to talk through with you.”
His face narrowed. “Everything okay?”
I clenched my teeth, tried to channel a strength I knew I lacked.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I… I’m just going through something confusing and need your help.”
“Yeah, bud. Of course. What’s going on?”
I felt a sudden force at my back. I flew off the kitchen island, onto the floor. Someone had shoved me.
I turned to see Shane swaying on the laminate. He was dressed in a tank top and a neon bathing suit. His eyes were dull.
“Ya trashy, where’s ya trailer.”
I looked him up and down. In his hands were a glass pipe and a small bag of weed. I could smell liquor coming from his pores.
“He’s in full-on bitch mode,” Mike said.
“I can see that.”
“Oh, you can?” Shane slurred. “You can see that. Good for fucking you.” I couldn’t tell if he was mimicking bro talk or if he was truly being combative. He roved across the counter, snagging a fistful of Doritos. “The toilets are fixed,” he added. “Plumber came. You’re welcome.”
D.Lo came into the kitchen in a pink Triangl bathing suit. She was looking down at her phone.
“Just got a text from Matt,” she announced. “He overslept for his ferry to P-town. Their trip is already a shitshow.”
“I don’t know why he’s going to that dump in the first place,” Shane drolled. “Have fun getting syphilis.”
D.Lo eyed Shane with disapproval.
“Tell him to forget Provincetown and come to the Hive!” Mike said.
“Ha, I know. I’m trying. Has anyone seen my Vera Bradley tote? It’s light green.”
“I think it’s in the Rover,” Mike said.
“You mean the Hamptons Honda,” Shane joked.
I imagined Matt abandoning his plans, arriving at Montauk by nightfall. I knew such a trek was not in the cards, but the mere thought brought me comfort. I was already looking forward to the next time we’d be back at the Hive together.
We reached Sloppy Tuna Beach by twelve thirty. I had never seen Montauk so crowded. Through the open back window of the Rover I watched the stream of surfers, fishermen, and city dwellers. We parked at St. Therese of Lisieux, a Catholic church four blocks from the sea.
The beach had the jostled spirit of a carnival. We arranged our chairs in a horseshoe, but everyone was standing and mingling. Red Solo cups filled with Mike’s Rocket Fuel. The waves were big and we swam out past where they broke so we could wade, float, and chat. Next to our camp a girl in a string bikini was snorting cocaine off a music speaker. Two kids from the Slide House entertained us with acro-yoga, one floating swanlike across the other’s feet. A girl moved up and down the coast while spinning a Hula-Hoop along her waist. In the crush of people, cell phones ceased to work.
Kirsten came up to me. I was holding the bottle of Rocket Fuel, entranced by Ashley, who was playing Kadima with Tyler.
“There are the Tots,” Kristen said, nodding discreetly toward the bro pack setting up camp next to us. “Gimme somma dat Tina Juice.”
Kirsten had been flitting between thirty-eight-year-old Stefano and her twenty-three-year-old infatuation, Nick Tot.
“Amazing what a difference fifteen years can make,” she said.
I drank a cup of Rocket Fuel, then switched to beer, attempting to quell my rising anxiety. My college friends were planning to meet us on the beach, and I continued to worry about how they’d coexist with the Hive. More precisely, I wondered how it would all look to them—me relaxed among fifteen drunk gay guys, seemingly uncompelled by the attractive girls around me. Since the rooftop, I had total clarity about my feelings toward Matt.
But I had no idea where that placed me categorically.
A tremor of fear rippled through me. If my straight friends found out, despite their liberal outlook, it might shift our friendships in subtle but irretrievable ways. I’d never feel at ease with them again, and vice versa.
I finished off my beer and grabbed another. I tried to remind myself that my feelings for Matt were bottled up and safe. They existed in my mind alone. But they weren’t safe; they were tremendously volatile, and I had absolutely no idea how to negotiate them. For the next twenty minutes I lay in the sand, my mind weighted like an unlit bomb.
I sought out Mike down by the water. He was chatting with D.Lo. I was messy and panicked, and he felt like my life raft.
“Did you hear about this new sober dance party thing?” he was saying. “You go on your lunch break, dance for an hour with your coworkers, then go back to work. They’re doing it at Marquee.”
“I’d rather eat a salad at my desk alone,” D.Lo said as she shackled her hair into a ponytail. “I’m going in the water. You boys care to join?”
Mike said no, he refused to go swimming until August. I declined.
We watched D.Lo walk slowly into the waves, clutching her chest and bracing against the surf. Mike turned to me. “How ya doing, Johnny Drama?”
“I’m okay. Have you seen our BC friends? I think they’re on the way.”
“Yeah. So is my friend Parker. I’m getting shitty service, though. I don’t want to miss him.”
“Look, Mikey, I need to talk to you about something.”
“Ugh, I know—I’m sorry. Tyler wasn’t supposed to be in your room. He decided to come out last night and I didn’t know where to sleep him. I’ll tell him he’s on the couch tonight.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Oh. Then what’s up?”
He had no clue. This life pivot. This total shift in my reality. Was it really undetectable to the outside world?
“Oh, look! Here comes Parker! Yo, Parker!”
I spotted a pale kid trudging along the dune line. He was shirtless, his chest concave. He was eyeing the beach the way a child might scrutinize a roller coaster—with fear, excitement, and a willful mustering of courage.
“John, this is my buddy Parker,” Mike introduced. “He’s staying at the Hive this weekend.”
Parker had a youthful face and a receding hairline. The effect was that of a religious painting.
“Hey, man, nice to meet you,” I said. “First time to Montauk?”
“Yeah!” he replied, dropping his backpack. “This is crazy! I just walked by people playing beer pong in a giant sand pit. Is it always like this?”
Mike scanned the beach. “Honestly? I’ve been coming out for years and I’ve never seen it this crowded. Here.” He handed Parker the Coors Light he’d just grabbed for himself. “You need to catch up.”
Parker cracked the stay tab and the beer exploded in his face. He wiped foam from his eyes and cheeks, a streak from his chest. I felt bad. Two minutes in and he was already covered in beer.
Mike tried to apologize, but Parker was smiling. “I can’t think of a more fitting way to kick off the weekend,” he said, his gaze fixed on Mike, his smile cutting through everything.
I listened as Mike brought Parker up to speed. It was a busy day across the Hamptons. There was talk of a house party at an East Hampton estate; guests would be given fine cigars and custom suiting. In Water Mill a nonprofit was throwing a poolside benefit, complete with celebrity guests and Bootlegger vodka. Closer by, the Montauk Yacht Club was hosting Shark Attack, an annual party aglow with neon, inflatables, and designer drugs.
“I got my ticket yesterday,” Parker said. “Are you guys going?” I had been on the Shark Attack emails, but hadn’t purchased a ticket. It didn’t seem like my scene. Mike wasn’t going either.
“It’s nuts,” Mike warned. “Someone died last year. If you go, be careful.”
By the time my BC friends arrived my anxiety had dissipated. I was drunk and happier, flushed from the sun. Alcohol and the profusion of the Hive were their own kind of catharsis. I introduced my BC friends to some of our housemates, but it was Ashley who caught their attention. She had just emerged from the ocean and was manically spraying her hair with detangler.
“Oh my God, you guys. You won’t believe this.” I was standing with my two roommates, their girlfriends, and Mike. Ashley had approached without introduction. “The Sloppy Tuna asked me to be in a bikini contest Saturday. If I do it I get free drinks all weekend. And two free bathing suits.”
“No way!” Mike said. “Are you gonna do it?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I’d be so awkward!” She turned to Evan’s girlfriend, Lizzie, whom she had never met. “What do you think?”
“Hell.” Lizzie looked her up and down. “If I looked like you I’d do it in a second.”
“Oh stop, I’m so fat right now, all I did last week was eat ice cream. I’d only do it for the free drinks. I could hand them off to all of you.”
“I say do it!” chimed in Amelia, Chauvin’s girlfriend. “We’ll cheer you on.”
“You guys are the sweetest. I’m Ashley, by the way. You all went to BC with these two, right?” She grabbed Lizzie’s beach cover-up. “That’s the cutest tunic.”
“Sale at Cynthia Rowley,” Lizzie said.
“Oh my God I love her.” She turned to Amelia. “You both look so beautiful. I wish I had gone to BC. You guys are all such good friends to each other.”
Like that she disappeared into another game of Kadima, another game of football, an endless swirl of sports and activities. Only in motion could Ashley’s mind truly rest.
Thunderous waves smashed the sand, whisking me back to a windy day at Hawk’s Nest Beach. When I was little, my cousin Jay and I received a gift from our aunt Momo, a toy soldier attached to a parachute of cellophane. For a week we brought the soldier to the beach with us every day, tossing him through the sky and watching, in wonder, as his chute popped open.
Momo selected the toy because of what it represented. Our grandfather, Pop-Pop, had served in the air force in World War II. After sixty-five missions his plane was shot down. He survived thanks to a parachute, which Kicki forever preserved in a box in the attic. We knew this story before anything.
One blustery morning, my aunt Ellen followed Jay and me down to the beach. Her arms were nestled into a sweatshirt, which she wore inside out. She said it was more comfortable that way, inside out. I sometimes wore my sweatshirts like that, too.
Jay Bird and I ran along the beach, launching the plastic man into the air and watching as his diaphanous chute popped open. We kept throwing him higher and higher, until a gust of wind came. The parachute swept through the sky, landing him in the sea. We waited for the waves to wash him back, but the surf kept dragging him out. We were losing him. Jay began to cry, which made me start to cry. The tide was strong and the parachute man kept flowing farther out to sea. In our small world it was a devastation. We looked back to Ellen. She understood.
Ellen unbuttoned her jeans and tossed off her inside-out sweatshirt. She dove into the freezing waves. We watched, fearful, as the churning surf swallowed her strokes. It took her a long time, but she reached the soldier, that damned trinket, floating like a loose bag beyond the sand bar. She stumbled ashore, teeth clattering, but she was smiling.
We went to the side gate of the Memory Motel, where the owner gave us neon wristbands. I had sobered up from the beach, and the anxiety was creeping back. I needed to get drunk again.
As many times as we’d gone to the Mem that summer, none of us had been inside the bedrooms except for Mike. They were exactly how we had imagined them: sparsely arranged with utilitarian furniture, everything covered with a layer of dust. A cheap acrylic chandelier dangled from the ceiling, striking the black floor with jagged light. There was a large mirror streaked with dead bugs and a low standing dresser made of unfinished wood. The walls were bare and hospital white. Twin
beds had been removed and were stacked against the wall in the adjoining room. Under other circumstances the conditions would be frightening. We were thrilled to be there.
“This is the room the Clue board forgot,” said Timmy.
I fixed myself a Ketel and Red Bull and helped Mike set up the music.
“Is everything okay, Drama?” he asked me. “You seem out of it.”
I forced out a laugh, dismissed him with a headshake.
“Me? I’m totally fine. Just need this Red Bull to wake up. Cheers.”
We had managed to shanghai an extra fifteen wristbands and kept running in and out to give them to our friends. Soon our party suite was packed. When I went to explore the adjoining room with Timmy and Colby, it seemed to be under renovation. The walls were stripped to wood beams, and the floors had been pulled up and layered with plywood. A toilet in the corner of the room was walled off on only two sides.
“Oh. My God.” Timmy halted. Next to the stacked beds sat a massive Pink Panther head, the plush component of a knockoff costume, the kind people wore around Times Square. With great ceremony, Timmy and I lifted the massive mask onto Colby’s head.
The night dervished into a disordered swirl. I went through the motions. I drank a lot. People peered into our roped-off room, watching us dancing on the tables and dresser. The Pink Panther head moved from person to person, a conch shell of mischief and debauchery. When Kirsten put it on, the weight of it toppled her over. At a certain point I got too drunk to feel anxious. I stopped thinking about Matt altogether.