OPENING WEEKEND

Friday

If i can't be in the HBO documentary about sharing a house in Fire Island Pines, the gayest resort area in the world, i can at least write about my final summer with the advantage of a 15 year perspective (yes, i fear that i have stayed too long at the fair) . . . time was when i'd start counting the days to the opening weekend as soon as the house closed in the fall . . . this year, i couldn't believe how routine it all has become . . . Der Fuhrer and I left the Upper West Side in his Jeep a little after 9 on a glorious Friday morning . . . after making a brief pit stop at IKEA, we barely connected with 1:30 p.m. ferry and were so far back in line for the big boat that we had to sit downstairs with all the cat people . . . is the whole world unemployed along with us? . . . unlike most of the passengers, we were petless, though we were laden with housewares, clothes and a pair of 10 pound dumbbells.

Luckily, Carol, our real estate agent at Island Properties, agreed to give us a ride on her motorized cart because she couldn't find our key . . . we live in a fairly new house which sits high on a dune with limited views of both the Great South Bay and the Atlantic Ocean . . . i call it the End House because of its location at the eastern end of the Pines and because it's probably the last one i'll share in the Pines . . . Der Fuhrer, a stockbroker and the new leaseholder, had much higher expectations for the condition of the house which remained exactly as the Master Spinner, last season's leaseholder, had left it: not one but two dishwashers full of crusted plates, bowls and silverware . . . plus, bird shit on the deck chairs outside and also, inexplicably, on the round glass coffee table inside . . . our landlord explained to Carol that lack of electricity, which hadn't been turned on until that afternoon, prevented him from having the place cleaned but i knew from previous experience that we were lucky he had turned on the pilot lights for the two hot water heaters.

Der Fuhrer laid claim to the master bedroom . . . we have three, all with baths, of dissimilar size and varying degrees of comfort . . . since we divide the share costs equally for the $40,000 rental, the bedrooms are assigned on the basis of share time (a full share means u have a bed for the entire season; a half means a bed every other week; and a quarter means a bed one week a month from June through September) and seniority, with special dispensation given to the leaseholder . . . new 1/4 shares suffer the most from this arrangement, but as a 1/2 share who helped find the house five years ago, i rightfully share a pleasant room with Testa Grande, whose thorough understanding of the Pines compensates for his chronic messiness . . . we both imagine ourselves serving as judges on Cher Court, the powerless governing body that arbitrates disputes among housemembers with Solomonic wisdom . . . appeals can be filed only with the Ann Margret court, which is rarely in session.

Nonetheless, possession is nine tenths of the law and i didn't mind helping Der Fuhrer open the house just so that i could lay claim to the middle room in the back before our two new housemates arrived . . . in fact, opening up is such a pain in the ass that we treat it as a "bonus" weekend in our house . . . bonus weekends are apportioned equally among the housemates at either the beginning or the end of the season because the total number of weekends in our lease is not divisible by four (nobody quite gets this, thus the aforementioned Cher Court, which helps take some of the heat off the leaseholder if he chooses to use it) . . . Der Fuhrer got high to eliminate any traces of Master Spinner from his room, including a thorough cleansing of the venetian blinds . . . he would have preferred the Pines version of the Final Solution, eliminating the Master Spinner from the house altogether, but settled for reducing his participation to a 1/4 share and banishing him to a non-overlapping schedule . . . this left me somewhat caught in the middle . . . my policy as leaseholder was always to fill the house with people who brought something to the table (alas, not everyone cleans or cooks) and i was willing to overlook Master Spinner's considerable shortcomings for his intellect, sense of humor and generosity, a minority opinion to be sure . . . besides, as they say, the devil u know is better than the devil u don't . . . Der Fuhrer hangs with a recession-proof crowd that spends money like water which threatens to wreck the limited buget philosophy i have established over the years at a time when i can least afford it.

U can expect the Prince and the Ingenue to arrive with their Prada luggage, said Der Fuhrer on our way to shop for dinner, a prediction that made me shudder.

Saturday

In fact, when they finally did arrive on the 11:30 boat they carried black garbage bags filled with their linens . . . Der Fuhrer served them a sit-down lunch with cloth napkins and two bottles of white wine on the ocean deck to make sure their first impression was a favorable one . . . he insisted that i join them even tho i refused to budge from the house schedule and eat lunch before 4 p.m. . . . we chatted easily and politely, with me taking their measure and them taking mine, in the cautious way gay men size each other up outside our bedrooms . . . meanwhile the Prince picked at his pasta salad . . . please remember that i don't eat raw onions . . . i'll be sure to make a mental note of that, i thought, and his breakfast cereal preference and . . . on the plus side, neither the Prince nor the Ingenue wasted any time in cleaning their room from top the top of the ceiling fan to the bottom of the mattresses . . . within an hour, the Prince, who decorates homes for rich suburban housewives, had transformed the least desirable room--among other things, the bathroom door doesn't close properly which means that the 1/2 bath upstairs gets a lot of use in the mornings--into a cozy lovenest by taking some furniture from the common area and removing a chest of drawers . . . when Der Fuhrer reminded him that six other people would be using the room, too, the Prince replied but there are only two of us here now . . . i held my tongue until i overheard his complaint about the size of their quarters . . . look, i know u have the worst bedroom, but that's the way it has to be because several of us have been sharing this house for years . . . i hoped that my better-to-confront-problems-head-on strategy would pay off because there's nothing worse than spending even five weekends of your summer with a pair of seething queens.

The conversation did seem to help but we hit another speed bump a little later while i was gathering wood . . . upon their return from a walk to "town," the Ingenue breathlessly announced that several people were stopping by for cocktails . . . one of them's really cute! and single he added . . . no he's not snapped the Prince . . . they must have noticed the shock on my face given that our house traditionally has been about as social as a hermitage, but hey, i thought, maybe this is just the shake-up we need . . . of course if i had been hosting a cocktail party, no matter how impromptu, i would have spent the next two hours fixing hors d'ouevres and straightening up but the Prince read New York Magazine while the Ingenue, a quick-witted real estate attorney who recently lost a lot of weight, highlighted passages in The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand . . . why don't u read us what u r underlining? asked the Prince . . . u wouldn't understand it out of context, replied the Ingenue who changed seats as often as he turned the pages and flipped his long dark hair.

Predictably, only 3/5 of the party guests showed, but two of them had attended a meeting of the Fire Island Pines Property Owners' Association where Robin Byrd had demanded to know what the producers of the HBO documentary about the Pines were going to do for the community . . . if i had been there if would told Robin that SHE could do a lot for the community by keeping her clothes on when she parades up and down the beach . . . the conversation flowed as freely as the vodka and i learned, much to my delight, from a cute fashionista who was trying to revive the Van Heusen brand that paisley is back . . . nobody minded the absence of food or ice in the second round tho Der Fuhrer and the Ingenue did express embarrassment about the cloudy and mismatched glasses . . . it's the beach, boys . . . i breathed a big sigh of relief when they all bundled up and trundled off to tea, knowing that the walk to and from the harbor alone would allow me 40 minutes of glorious solitude at sunset . . . it also gave me the opportunity to candlelight the place and start a roaring fire . . . like Der Fuhrer, i also value first impressions and our upstairs can look almost as good at night as it does during the day . . . besides, somebody has to stay sober enough to set the table properly.

When my happy housemates returned from tea we dished the cocktail guests, gently . . . u mean the HIV positive guy? i asked when i wasn't sure which of two lovers the Ingenue was referring to while making the point that their relationship wasn't going to last much longer given how one of them had been flirting with him . . . how do u know he's HIV positive? he demanded, indignantly . . . Der Fuhrer and I tried to explain "the look" . . . i hope u don't think that i'm passing judgment on the guy, either i said . . . i've been around HIV long enough to know that it becomes as much a part of your identity as your skin color or your profession . . . everyone was so well oiled that nobody noticed when i began grilling the Prince and the Ingenue as well as the pork tenderloin . . . each told me the story of how they met . . . what better way to gauge the dynamic of a five-year old May-December romance that had passed into the bickering phase!

The Prince excused himself before dessert--and clean-up . . . i would have preferred winding down to some mellow tunes (Ella, anyone?) but the Ingenue and Der Fuhrer were eager to tackle a discussion of the "common good" once they lit up cigarettes and some pot on the ocean deck . . . here, let me read u a relevant passage said the Ingenue, grabbing The Metaphysical Club with nary a word about context . . . for a weary moment i felt like i was in a dorm room at Fordham, their alma mater, not a house in the Pines . . . still, i suppose that's an improvement over how i usually feel, like i'm back in high school with money.

Sunday

Nobody felt like sticking around on Sunday because of the unseasonably cool weather but during breakfast, the Prince offered to send his mother to Costco to pick up as many staples as could fit into the trunk of his BMW . . . how odd to have housemates who actually show initiative, even if it is intergenerational!