Out East

by John Glynn

  “Colby, are you okay?” asked Perrie.

  Colby called her a stupid cunt. His anger was so inexplicable, so clearly the product of an inner volatility, that Perrie shrank back. We all did.

  “Something’s wrong with you,” Perrie said. “Something is wrong and you’re not telling anyone. What’s wrong, Colby? What’s wrong?”

  He repeated the vulgar word and wandered into the living room, leaving a trail of Tostitos crumbs across the shag carpet. The approaching end of summer was apparently bringing out the worst in us.

  One by one the others went to bed, but I was still hopped up from my tiff with Shane. I went to the porch with my iPod and the Bose speakers, breaking Mike’s cardinal rule from the email. I put on my Montauk playlist and took in the night. The pool glowed through the trees.

  It was late, probably three a.m., when the door slid open. I turned around, startled. Shane was standing in his lacrosse pinny and board shorts, his hair flattened by a failed attempt at sleep. Stripped of his pastel polos and knitted belts, he appeared more vulnerable. He clutched a lighter, a bowl, and a small bag of weed.

  He sat down next to me and silently packed the bowl. I watched as he took a hit and held it. He tilted his head back, letting the smoke putter out of his lips. A minute or two passed. He handed the bowl to me.

  Shane and I couldn’t have been more different. He was practical, detail-driven, and devoted to structure. I was emotional, creative, and drawn to chaos. He found beauty through the physical arrangement of space. I patrolled it through language. That night, as the bowl passed between us, those differences dissipated. The weed brokered an unspoken reconciliation. Two only children, searching for a way to belong.

  I woke up and scrolled through my phone. An article on CNN.com caught my eye.

  MARGARET PELLEGRINI, FLOWERPOT MUNCHKIN IN “THE WIZARD OF OZ,” DEAD AT 89

  I opened the article. Growing up I’d had a strong affinity with The Wizard of Oz and often performed the songs in our basement. I wasn’t a theatrical kid, but Dorothy’s Technicolor transformation left me moonstruck. The golden lily pads, the purple fountains, the green hills of Munchkinland blooming in colossal frames. I loved the way the Scarecrow flailed around, scattering the Yellow Brick Road with trails of loose hay. Loved the Cowardly Lion’s vibratoed “King of the For-r-r-rest.”

  My mom was a big fan of the movie, too, and we rented it from Blockbuster every week, until one October, for my birthday, I received a VHS copy of my own. My favorite part came at the end, when Dorothy awoke in Kansas, soaked once again in soothing shades of sepia. From her four-poster bed, surrounded by her family, the colors of Oz felt garish.

  As I lay in bed I wondered what my mother had thought. Had she known the stereotypes associated with Judy Garland and the gay world, how Dorothy’s displacement reflected the dislocation of gay men? If she had any inkling, she never insinuated anything. The movie remained our own shared amulet.

  I emailed the story to my mom under the subject line “poor munchkins.”

  Mike and Shane were going to Bake Shoppe to pick up the cake for Perrie’s birthday. It was Funfetti with chocolate frosting. No one, least of all Perrie, would eat it, but Shane cherished the symbolism. Amid our devious swirl of alcohol and drugs, a cake signified stability and tradition. Mike and Shane made Colby join them for the ride.

  Halfway to town, Mike pulled off the road. Colby looked confused. His eyes were dry and bloodshot, hair tamed in a black baseball cap. He was not an early riser; he wasn’t sure what was happening. All he knew was that he needed to start drinking again.

  For the next half hour Mike and Shane berated him. Colby was blacking out every night and alienating housemates. His mood swings were violent and jarring. Multiple people in the house had complained.

  “Who are you to talk, Shane? You black out harder than I do.”

  “Perrie came to us crying this morning,” said Mike. “Do you know what you called her last night?”

  Colby had no idea. Mike told him.

  “You’ve been combative with pretty much everyone.”

  Colby hated the person he had become. Some nights he’d get drunk and start crying for no reason. He’d wake up the next morning and wish he were dead. He had planned to come out to his parents that past Christmas, knowing the news would be an adjustment. Then, on December 13, his mom had been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer.

  He never told anyone she was sick. When he wasn’t helping her with her recovery he buried himself in work and drank to oblivion. He still hadn’t told his parents he was gay. He lived with the constant fear that his mother would die without knowing him.

  In the car that morning he began to sob. He was twenty-five. It was all too much. He needed his mother. He needed her well. His life, he realized, was no longer in his control.

  Mike got out of the car and joined him in the back seat. He held him for a while and let him cry.

  “We’ll help you through this. We all will.”

  For the first time in months, Colby felt something akin to relief. He would talk to Perrie before her party and patch things up. He would begin the slow process of letting people in.

  That day at the beach, playing around on my phone, I came across an old article by my younger cousin Jay. As kids we spent hours playing basketball together, and now Jay worked as a sports journalist and Celtics beat writer for the Springfield Republican. In April he had written a piece on Jason Collins, a former center for the Celtics and the first professional basketball player to come out as gay. I angled my screen and began to read.

  “What do I hope happens to Jason Collins?” Jay wrote. “I want him to land on an NBA roster because he earned it with hard work and professionalism. I want him to find thorough happiness now that he doesn’t have to hide his sexuality. I want others to accept him regardless of who he’s attracted to. I want him to hear the ignorant detractors, let their words brush by him without any impact whatsoever and keep his head held high.”

  In my head I could hear my cousin Jay’s voice. He was speaking these words directly to me. I buried my head in my beach towel so that no one could see me cry.

  Later that afternoon, at the beach, Mike had his own breakdown. He asked me to go for a walk to Ditch Plains. He was seriously considering breaking up with Shane. He wanted to admit his feelings to Parker and see where things might lead. Part of me believed this was a good idea. I’d watched his relationship with Shane grow increasingly toxic, and felt a break might do them both some good.

  “My heart’s just constantly hurting for Parker,” he said. “I’ve never felt this way before. I love him.”

  “You’ve never felt this way for Shane before?”

  “No. Which is why I don’t trust it. What if this is just an infatuation? What if it fades?”

  We stopped at the Ditch Witch cart for ice cream sandwiches, watching the surfers floating in the waves. I understood Mike’s predicament. I’d spent that whole summer constantly questioning my own reality, unable to decipher truth from fantasy. Slowly we began the long walk back.

  Night came, and the entire house congregated in the kitchen for flip cup to celebrate Perrie’s birthday. We filled the Hive cups with thumbfuls of beer, watching them smack the table, the foam pooling between the cans. I played throwbacks on my iPod: Nelly, Backstreet Boys, and TLC. Cup after cup, spinning through the air, landing on the table upside down.

  We were tan and energized and singing along to all the songs on my playlist. We felt young. Perrie was dancing like she did as a kid, arms extended, legs swaying, red hair flowing down her delicate shoulders. The pregame was always better than the party itself.

  Chapter Twenty

  On Thursday, August 29, Kirsten and Ashley went to Bounce, a high-end sports bar in the Flatiron District with TVs in metal cages. The scene was frenetic—an aggressive whirl of frat stars, spendthrifts, sexy service workers, rappers, and fathers from the ’burbs about to miss their train.

  “I got our fir
st round,” Ashley said, starting a tab. Kirsten was low on funds and the security deposit for their new apartment was due. In two weeks they’d be moving from Alphabet City to a smaller apartment in SoHo.

  Kirsten was looking forward to a fresh start. Her life was not where she wanted it to be. She was going out every night, bingeing on McDonald’s, sleeping through her alarm, slinking into work in oversize sunglasses, powering through her copywriting, fighting to maintain a façade of composure. On the nights she stayed in, she suffered insomnia. She didn’t exercise and didn’t care. She’d stopped caring about anything. After work, when they went out together, Ashley’s eye-catching perfection only heightened Kirsten’s insecurity. Ashley’s presence, down to the Jack Rogers flats and strewn bandage dresses that spangled their living room, was inescapable.

  At the bar they bumped into Rivers, a Montauk friend and former Notre Dame cornerback. He was the male equivalent of Ashley, a known and beloved presence within our extended network. His share house often set up camp next to ours on the beach.

  “It’s gonna be packed this weekend,” he said. “I don’t know how our house will fit everyone. Honestly, I can’t wait for the summer to be over.”

  “What?” Ashley blinked. “No!”

  “It’s been a nightmare. We’ve had so much drama. Our house is always a mess. No one’s willing to help out. There’s so much infighting. Is the Hive like that?”

  “Actually, no,” Ashley said. “It’s dramatic for sure, but we keep the house clean. Everyone contributes.”

  “Well, you guys are the exception. I’m only going out there because it’s the last weekend. I’m over it.”

  Kirsten tapped her glass to Rivers’s Bud Light. “You and me both.”

  Kirsten got home that night, drunk, and emailed Stefano a long, heartfelt missive. Their fraught connection carried a dark allure akin to the billowing clouds of a thunderstorm.

  Kirsten was drawn to shadow. She conflated pain with emotional depth and instinctively avoided healthy coping mechanisms. Like many people in the Hive, myself included, she was hardwired for self-destruction—attracted to the unstable, the impermeable, the emotionally unavailable. She had hoped that summer would disrupt the cycle, but it hadn’t. If anything it had accelerated it. She had not found love in Montauk, or even real romance. She had not come any closer to finding herself.

  I packed my bag that night in under ten minutes. Two bone-thin pastel T-shirts, a Saturdays bathing suit, a pair of dark-washed jeans that I chose because Matt had complimented them. A white linen shirt and short-sleeve gingham button-down, one nice pair of high-seamed khaki shorts, Champion workout shorts, Gap boxers, two pairs of Nike running socks, cell phone charger, iPod cord, Dopp kit. Outside, the early tints of fall glimmered through the window. Twilight seemed bluer, more vivid. The old trees in Duane Park were beginning to turn. I could’ve slept without my air conditioner that night, but doing so would have signaled an end. I wasn’t ready for summer to be over.

  My Friday routine was burnished with nostalgia. I left my cubicle at one p.m. sharp, rode the 7 to Hunter’s Point, purchased an iced coffee, and found a window seat in the last train car. Passing through the familiar stops, I turned on my iPod, the songs merging with my conflicted emotions. I took in the blurred landmarks. Geometric neighborhoods, sand-blown parking lots, the water tower at Hampton Bays, signs for East Hampton, a golf course at the stop for Amagansett. As the train passed Cyril’s fish shack, I hovered off my seat. I was crossing into Montauk for the last time.

  Through a stand of trees, the bay swept into view, its docks and boats bathed in cloud-struck light. I thought of all the selves I’d been, all the selves I would become. I would never return to Montauk as this person. As the train slowed into the station, I didn’t look back.

  The Montauket was one of the last holdouts of Old Montauk, a seaside motel crusted with buoys, painted driftwood, and steel-blue clapboards. It hugged a rocky hill on the Sound, impermeable to change, a barnacle. When evening fell, the sun sank into the Sound in wavering layers, painting the sky above the Montauket in luminous, cloud-ripped sediments.

  A live band was performing on the grass-fringed patio. As the sun dipped down everyone trained their eyes to the horizon. People took photos, raised glasses, and cheered. Ashley and I went inside to the bar.

  “What are you drinking?” she asked.

  “Painkiller.”

  She turned to the bartender. “Two more Painkillers.”

  I took out my wallet but she slapped it away.

  “How are you? How’s your heart? Have you been following my instructions?”

  I nodded. To Ashley, love was a sport complete with strategies and playbooks. For the past week she had been coaching me. I was not to text or Gchat Matt unless he messaged first. If he did text, I had to keep my answers friendly but short. In a group setting I needed to be effusively upbeat and engaging to everyone around me but him.

  “When he gets to Montauk tomorrow, you need to be aloof. Act like you’re not excited to see him. If you pull away slightly, he’ll come for you. I guarantee it. It’s the law of attraction.”

  Matt had a wedding in the city that night. He was driving out the next morning with his best friend Kelley, the one he’d told me about on the roof. She was staying in a different house, but Matt had wanted me to meet her.

  Can’t wait to see you tomorrow!!! he texted me.

  Same, was all I texted back.

  The night unfolded as expected. Ruschmeyer’s, Point and Mem, Pizza Village, Hive. When Kirsten woke up the next morning, Ashley had already worked out and showered.

  “Which is best?” Ashley asked, holding up two bikini tops. “The blue or the frill?”

  “Blue.”

  The dread Kirsten felt as she awoke was unlike any she’d ever known. She had slaked herself into a stupor the night before and drunk-texted both Nick Tot and Stefano. She felt pathetic.

  “I was a mess last night.”

  “Oh my God, you were not! I’d tell you.”

  “I was. I scared away Nick Tot and then I drunk-texted him.” She reached for her phone on the bedside table, but Ashley placed it out of reach.

  “Kirsten, forget Nick Tot!” She unhooked her bikini top. “It’s a beautiful day, we’re gonna meet new boys!” A new bikini held aloft. “I’m single this weekend, so are you, and we’re gonna find hot guys, and it’s gonna be amazing. We’ll be outgoing, we’ll look killer. Forget about last night. Who cares if they didn’t text you back? We’re gonna meet. New. Boys.”

  That day, after a lap through the Tuna, we hopped in a cab bound for Cyril’s fish shack. At the outdoor bar two blond bartenders were dropping whole bananas into a row of blenders, mixing in rum, milk, liqueur, and Kahlúa to make batches of BBCs.

  “This. Is. Insane,” said Ashley as we made our way through the dining room. Waitresses in CYRIL’S SAYS RESPECT tees were ferrying lobster rolls and fried clams. A line for the bathroom ran down the hall and out the door. Cyril himself sat at a round table in the corner. He had long white hair, a white beard, red-rimmed glasses, and a straw hat. He tapped his cigarette into a full ashtray next to a stack of paperback thrillers. Amid the bacchanal he was a sphinxlike presence, rarely talking and never moving from his sun-drenched station.

  Ashley went up to him and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s the last weekend. Do you mind if we take a picture with you?” She and Kirsten posed on the arms of his chair.

  We walked to the back parking lot, where the picnic tables had been cleared for dancing. A train whipped by, not thirty yards away. It whistled at the crowd, dispersed a cold rush of air. Everyone cheered.

  “Hey, over here!” Mike called to a waitress with BBCs. “Can we get, like, the whole tray?”

  “Hell yeah.” The waitress nodded. “Twelve each.”

  She rested her tray on a nearby table and we handed her our cash. “BBC-ya later,” Mike said as he picked up a drink with a thick rum floater. I raised my cup and dran
k, the buttery sweet banana liqueur mixing with the sharpness of the rum.

  We joked that we only came to Cyril’s to drink milk in a hot parking lot, but that was pretty much what we were doing, and hundreds of others were doing the same. Around us dance circles were forming, beach scarves stretching into impromptu limbo sticks. Kelsey O’Brian started to twerk against a plastic trash can. Guys bought rosé by the bottle, then raced between cars to piss discreetly.

  Dueling bachelorette parties were vying for Timmy’s attention as DJ Biggie de Black Rhino played a set of remixes beneath his bright blue tent. There were always bachelorette parties at Cyril’s, and Timmy’s favorite activity was to dance-battle with the bride-to-be.

  I finished my BBC and switched to beer. I was spirited but distracted, the end of the summer suffusing the party with a strange, sad urgency, like the last night of college.

  As I made my way through the parking lot, I saw Matt.