GUESTS GALORE

FRIDAY

Our weekend promised to be as sunny as the last had been dreary so i caught a train that would give me enough time to walk to the boat and pick up some fruit and diet Coke at the Stop ‘n Shop . . . a goodlooking guy smiled and made room for me on the crowded upper deck so naturally i spent the entire crossing fantasizing . . . as we passed Land's End, the lovely catering establishment that looks out on the Great South Bay, i recalled seeing a wedding in progress and marvelling at my fellow passengers who, despite the failure of state law to recognize our romantic yearnings, reacted with loud cheers at the sight of an anonymous bride and groom exchanging vows . . . by the time we docked at the harbor, i was walking down the aisle with the guy next to me even tho i had done nothing more than give him a sidelong glance or two.

As soon as i unlocked the gate i decide that Der Fuhrer needs to find a twelve-step program . . . . to stop collecting shells . . . dozens of sea snail shells now occupy at least ten feet of the available fencetop where we used to be able to hang our towels . . . whenever i’m the first to arrive at the house i check the ferry schedule to calculate exactly how much privacy i will have and budget my time accordingly . . . let’s see i can sunbathe in the nude until 1:30 and then go to the beach to lengthen the time before i have to start thinking about dinner . . . sure enough, by the time i returned, the Repeater had arrived and showed me the spot on his back where a cancerous lesion had been removed . . . the new Aladdin Sane tattoo on my left hip didn’t get nearly as much visibility over the weekend . . . he offerred to help me shop after a nap . . . would u prefer chili or pasta? i asked him . . . i have pasta all the time he said . . . i guess he must not vary his menu any more than his conversation.

Master Spinner called to say that he and Baby Huey, who would again occupy the Expatriate's space would be on the 10:30 boat . . . don’t hold dinner . . . as if there were any thought that we would . . . Testa Grande and the Repeater ate their chili, corn bread, salad and went to bed tho not before i had shamed Testa Grande into making a commitment to cook the next night . . . i stayed up craving some food for thought and was rewarded with the news that Baby Huey had been fired from his furntiture sales job because he didn’t “fit in” with the culture . . . having been canned for the same reason from my last non-profit job, i had more sympathy than i thought i could for muster for someone who can be so irritatingly arrogant . . . they didn’t like the fact that i used technology for everything from scheduling appointments to developing a client database even though all the clients liked me . . . his employer’s fears may have been well-founded: Baby Huey has threatened to take the client database he has stored on his Palm Pilot to a competitor, reconfirming my longstanding impression of his untrustworthiness . . . we talked until nearly 1 a.m. about the interpersonal difficulties each of has faced in the workplace while Baby Huey, also known as the French locust, consumed most of a bag of Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies . . . Master Spinner gently suggested Baby Huey would learn something from the incident because he really had liked the job and he never saw it coming . . . but by the next night the unemployed man with whom he’s about to share a one-bedroom apartment had relapsed into his old destructive patterns of behavior.

SATURDAY

The Curmudgeon walked in the door just as Testa Grande and i were finishing our coffee and immediately began looking for a place on the ocean deck to hang his blue and white flag of Quebec . . . it’s so everyone will know when i’m in residence . . . there’s a surefire way to increase the foot traffic to the house . . . i consulted the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook for a strawberry glace pie recipe, easily the prettiest dessert i ever have made and my last contribution to the weekend menu . . . u really have lost weight, observed Testa Grande when the Master Spinner entered wearing his bathing suit, ready to do laps in our small pool . . . i’ll be doing the butterfly rack of lamb u like so much . . . with the herb salad? teased the Master Spinner, keeping up his annual tradition of cataloging the bad dishes each of us have served . . . we managed to keep a very good vibe going even when Baby Huey shared his bad news . . . but the weekend was young.

When the Master Spinner and i joined the Curmudgeon on the beach for Scrabble, i discovered a new distraction, or at least a rationalization for losing, Season Hunk #2, who lay nearby with several of his housemates . . . did u plop down next to them? i inquired, noting that fewer than 15 feet of sand separated our blankets on an uncrowded stretch of beach . . . i got here first . . . his answer gave me staring rights as far as i was concerned and in between turns, i watched him smoking and playing paddle ball . . . because we were in such close proximity and we both were wearing sunglasses i couldn’t decide if he was looking back or not but i spent nearly as much time studying the bulge in his laced-up basket as i did the seven vowels that never seemed to leave my rack.

Season Hunk #2 got me so horny that when everyone left for tea i took a walk to the Meatrack even tho i knew not much would be happening there . . . like every other activity in the Pines, cruising is on a strict schedule and at 7 p.m. on a Saturday, pickings are slim . . . the few people whom i did encounter paid absolutely no attention to me . . . was it because i was carrying a tortoise shell that i had lifted from a decaying turtle? . . . i planned to add it to what i call our credenza beach collection, which already includes a bird’s nest, a child’s pail, driftwood, a horseshoe crab and more shells . . . despite my failure to find some sexual gratification, i didn’t mind the long walk back to the house because a nearly full moon was rising over the ocean . . . few scenes are more tranquil.

Testa Grande hadn’t even returned from tea to light the fire by 9 p.m. so i suggested another game of Scrabble to the Curmudgeon and the Master Spinner to kill the time before dinner . . . when i put on some music Baby Huey went downstairs to get the Master Spinner’s I-Pod . . . so much for his learning experience . . . he never makes any attempt to integrate himself into the activities of the house, preferring to remain in his own moody world . . . the Repeater showed up three sheets to the wind . . . u know that nobody in this house trusts u, he said when Master Spinner reached for the dictionary to challenge a word laid down by the Curmudgeon . . . what do u mean? asked the Master Spinner . . . u probably just want to use the opportunity to look up a word u can play . . . the Master Spinner shook off the remark in the context of a Scrabble game but after the Repeater said it a couple more times during dinner, he and Baby Huey suddenly left the table without explanation . . . not long after, i began to clear the dishes with the Curmudgeon . . . look at u, u are so tan said the Repeater again and again, the perfect hazel. . . u mean the color or the maid, i snarled, thoroughly disgusted by his laziness--as if sycophancy was any substitute for elbow grease!--and what i assumed had been a clean-up avoidance strategy adopted by the Master Spinner and Baby Huey . . . fortunately, the Repeater excused himself before dessert to go to a birthday party . . . as soon as he was gone, the Curmudgeon suggested that the Repeater had offended the Master Spinner . . . he needs to apologize i insisted, even tho i hadn’t been paying any attention to his drunken chatter at the opposite end of the table during dinner.

SUNDAY

I never expected the Curmudgeon to wake me up as planned at 4 a.m. to go dancing so i had no trouble falling asleep . . . we each swallowed a hit of E from his bad, overpriced batch and marched to the Pavilion where a $15 tab indicated that the DJ would be way past prime, as if the name Warren Gluck on the chalkboard by itself did not scream tired . . . u would think after long careers in the Pines, the Curmudgeon and i would at least be able to get the timing right, but no . . . tho a blast of intense body generated heat greeted us, room enough to move on the dance floor indicated the downswing already had begun . . . one stunning guy with long dark hair, exquisite skin and a blinding smile--a younger, male Isabella Rossellini--must have been a professional . . . and by professional, i don’t mean the uptight doctors, lawyers or accountants u usually find who dance as stiffly as a cock on a teenager . . . by 6 a.m. there were more empties on the dance floor than people, most of whom could easily have been cast as extras in Nosferatu . . . the energy in the fetid room turned darkly sexual . . . one guy seemed to be organizing an orgy, tapping anybody remotely attractive on the shoulder and whispering an invitation in their ear . . . let’s get out of here, i feel like we’re a couple of spinsters in a whorehouse.

I tried to nap in the nude on Wanker’s Way where i thought i might be ravished or at least avoid the sounds of my housemates rising . . . instead i got burned and an incomplete hand job . . . when i returned to the house around 10:30, neither Master Spinner nor Baby Huey had emerged from their room . . . something is going on, said the Curmudgeon sleepily from the couch . . . they must have come back upstairs at some point during the night because a piece of the strawberry glace pie was missing when i checked the refrigerator . . . just call me Sherlock . . . the Curmudgeon wasted no time in giving the Repeater a heads-up about his appalling behavior.

The Repeater made a quick getaway to the harbor to pick up the first of his two guests who were due to arrive . . . both the Curmdugeon and Testa Grande left for the beach but i hung around, determined to find out what was going on . . . Master Spinner and Baby Huey finally emerged around noon, acting as if they had not left the dinner table abruptly and spent the last twelve hours incommunicado in their room . . . is something wrong? i asked . . . what do u mean? asked the Master Spinner . . . i want u to know that the Repeater was only speaking for himself last night . . . when he said what? asked the Master Spinner, playing dumb . . . after five minutes of fruitless interrogation about their odd behavior, the Master Spinner finally ended the discussion by saying it’s personal between mouthfuls of his second piece of strawberry glace pie . . . u didn’t think i wouldn’t come back upstairs for dessert last night did u, or know that u would know that i had? he added with a giggle . . . and if he had been offended by the allegations of his untrustworthiness, he certainly didn’t show it when the Repeater returned with somebody he’s “been seeing” for several months.

Don't u love guests in the Pines? . . . u come into contact with people u normally wouldn’t meet under other circumstances, particularly when u are as antisocial as i am . . . like Stuy Guy , a tall, thirtysomething computer techie with vacant eyes who checked the stock page of the Times as soon as he arrived and who carried a bag of over-the-counter medications that included something for Baby Huey’s bad case of acid reflux . . . or the Preppy Tulip, a Dutch museum director who looked as if he he might be mistaken for a Keebler cookie elf, not exactly the hot look this season at low tea. . . the Repeater hadn’t told either about the other . . . fortunately they arrived on different ferries from different worlds and apparently couldn’t have cared less . . . people are generally willing to put up with a lot of shit for an invitation to a place where knowing someone usually makes the difference between having a good time or a bad time.

I like guests even better when they are somebody else’s responsibility . . . the Repeater came down to the beach to inform me and the Curmudgeon that the house was emptying and that he would be taking Sty Guy and the Preppy Tulip to the Grove via the Meatrack and then to Marco’s for dinner after low tea . . . that takes care of dinner, i exulted to the Curmudgeon as soon as he left . . . the two of us can eat leftovers and go to bed early . . . suit yourself said the Curmudgeon . . . i’m going out . . . it always amazes me when any of my housemates make more than a single trip a day to the harbor in pursuit of anything but food given their dismal record in meeting people at the incomparable social venues there . . . but after returning from low tea he finished the lamb, At Swim, Two Boys and went back to the Sip ‘n Twirl just in case the man of his dreams finally had shown up . . . mine was in bed, just where u would expect to find him.

MONDAY

Although i had had absolutely nothing to say to the Preppy Tulip when i found myself stranded next to him at low tea the night before, i had no trouble making small talk after a cup of El Pico . . . one of our housemates, the Expatriate , insisted on a trip to Amsterdam that we had made with the Curmudgeon, that the Dutch had to speak English because they were a tiny country dependent on tourism . . . his assumption that they would understand us embarrassed me because i thought it made us look like ugly Americans, so i went straight to the horse’s mouth . . . nonsense, replied the Preppy Tulip . . . the Dutch love speaking English . . . historically, we are a mercantile country so to trade with other nations we had to learn to speak many different languages . . . besides we hate it when other people try to speak Dutch and it allows us to make fun of almost everybody in the world.

The Sun Queen waltzed in at 9:30 a.m. from Jackson Heights bearing his usual load of muffins . . . i see your routine hasn’t changed i said . . . nor yours, he retorted, looking around at the coffee klatch in progress . . . we were highly sympatico housemates for 13 years . . . i ran into Ray Hernandez in the harbor he said . . . he said so u decided to come back after all . . . i told him yes i had but i was doing it the right way this time: as a guest . . . the Preppy Tulip said u speak with an accent . . . u can take the boy out of queens but u can’t take queens out of the boy . . . so now the guests outnumbered the hosts which always makes for the most amusing conversation . . . the Dutch Tulip told us about the success of his first major exhibit at the museum of religious iconography he directs in Utrecht . . . i knew that Queen Beatrix was really enjoying it when she asked for a second glass of wine, he declared proudly . . . a 10th glass of wine before dinner might qualify as extraordinary in our house . . . naturally the Sun Queen, who designs cocktail dresses for middle America, wanted to know what she was wearing . . . a lavender suit with a hat, of course.

The Sun Queen made polite conversation for a half hour or so before starting his rotisserie turn on the chaise lounge by the pool . . . Sty Guy returned from the beach where the Curmudgeon was stubbornly fighting off flies because he had taken off the day from work . . . while i was clipping my nails Sty Guy dropped his bathing suit on the deck before easing his tall, skinny body into the pool . . . u are the first guest to ever have done that i said wickedly . . . what do u mean? we’re all guys he said . . . the Repeater emerged from his bedroom and for a moment i thought they might have been planning something given the Repeater’s annoying touchy feeliness . . . we’re not that kind of house murmured the Sun Queen, reminding me of his response at the Share-A-Thon several years ago when someone had asked us if our house had a drug policy . . . yeah: lotsa aspirin, he said without a second’s hesitation.

I took advantage of Sty Guy’s vulnerability to mine some of his biographical details . . . i always find that people are more forthcoming when they are naked . . . we learned that he grew up in Stuyvesant Town where he still lived, albeit in a different apartment . . . he’s the head of a tenant effort to keep it from going co-op, said the Repeater proudly, who owns one of his own on lower Fifth Avenue . . . Sty Guy also told us he had made his first trip to the Pines when he was 15 . . . there were two kinds of guys in the Meatrack then, he said . . . the kind that started drooling when they saw me and the kind that ran the other way . . . i always wanted the guys who ran away . . . funny how he ended up in our house with the first kind.

Sty Guy caught the 2 p.m. boat so he could get back to the city for an appointment with his nutritionist, not long before before the Curmudgeon beat me at Scrabble on the beach for the third or fourth time since Saturday . . . during the game we were approached by an older, attractive guy with lots of dental work and an astrological tattoo who obviously had spent a lot more time on RSVP cruises (11) than playing word games . . . you had to give Leo the Lion credit, however: how many guys walk up to your blanket on the beach and start a conversation? . . . his career in yellow page advertising sales must have inured him to rejection . . . he quickly figured out the relationships among the four us who were gathered and seemed intent on arranging a threeway with me and the Curmudgeon, whose nipple he twisted quite boldly . . . boy was he barking up the wrong tree . . . but when a discussion of all the sex he had been having since he arrived in the Pines elicited the information that we weren’t enthusiastic about barebacking he quickly lost interest . . . before taking his leave, however, he dropped an odd bombshell . . . when i return to San Francisco after Pride weekend, i’ll be starting a year of chemotherapy to treat my liver cancer . . . i have hepatitis C . . . what would compel a stranger on the beach to share his medical history with us?

Much to my relief, the Repeater said he and the Preppy Tulip would be going to the Grove for dinner when i asked him if the Sun Queen and i should shop for them after the Curmudgeon left . . . here’s the deal i told the Sun Queen . . . u feed me for as long as u stay . . . little did i know that we would be eating the chicken breast, pasta and salad fixings he bought at the Pantry all week . . . i guess i should have told u i was on a diet, confessed someone who had exchanged his godlike body for two years of antidepressants . . give me muscles or give me mental health . . . the Sun Queen definitely made the wrong choice.

Even before we toasted his arrival with a margarida, reviving a longstanding tradition from the Muller Cottage but one that has lapsed in the End House where no rituals are needed to begin the cocktail hour, I knew his relationship with Chocolate Lover, who hates the Pines so much that he refused to join the Sun Queen for his last three seasons despite an all-expenses paid offer, must have evolved to the “no sex please, we’re lovers” stage . . . as soon as he got off the boat the Sun Queen had started seeing penises where there weren’t any . . . like on the postcard for hot nude yoga that was hanging on our refrigerator . . . or on the boardwalk when we were walking behind some guy swaying back and forth whose hands were in front of him instead of at his sides . . . is he jerking off? whispered the Sun Queen . . . it turned out he was carrying a baby, definitely THE accessory of the 2002 season.

Actually, it’s hard not to see penises when u are visiting the Pines . . . several years ago, a sixtyish couple sailed a colleague of mine over from Sayville on their boat . . . to show our appreciation we took them to lunch at the Cultured Elephant (ok our limited appreciation) and sat at a table facing the harbor . . . she was physician and crossword puzzle fanatic who sat on the board of directors of the organization where i worked; he was a nuclear scientist at Stony Brook . . . during a conversation about the most interesting places they ever had dined, she commented this reminds me a little of that penile colony in Brazil while staring at the parade of near naked men who were passing by . . . i think u mean penal colony, deardeadpanned her husband.

THE WEEK

I awoke early on Tuesday to take a long walk . . . bad knees prevent me from running on the beach which used to get me as high as any drug and allowed me to eat as much as i wanted . . . i stuck a 90 minute cassette in my Walkperson (“Another UK Invasion” mixing the Cure, the Cranberries, Oasis and Morrissey) and walked west as quickly as i could until the first side ended . . . i got almost as far as Ocean Beach . . . by the time i returned to the house, the Encyclopedia of Camp, the Sun Queen’s best friend from high school, had arrived . . . the Repeater and the Preppy Tulip were telling them about their night which included running into Leo the Lion at Top of the Bay and not one, but two trips to the Meatrack for the Preppy Tulip . . . did u spill your seed? i demanded, just to see if i could shock him . . . nonplussed, he replied not exactly . . . anything is possible in the dark, i guess . . . switching gears, i remembered to thank him for the one million daffodil bulbs a Rotterdam businessman had given to the city of New York after 9/11 . . . it’s so easy to be nice to people when u know they are leaving, and sure enough he and the Repeater caught the noon boat as promised.

The Encyclopedia of Camp and i caught up while the Sun Queen does what he does best . . . just to annoy him, we decided to listen to Heathen, the new David Bowie album down by the pool and made plans to catch his Sound and Vision retrospective at the Museum of Television and Radio . . . he also showed me his back, which he recently had waxed for the first time by a Russian woman . . . she sneered u big baby! whenever he screamed as she ripped another adhesive strip away . . . the $20, 20-minute exercise in masochism left behind an expanse of skin that looked as if suffered from both chicken pox and a bad case of acne . . . pretty, to quote the Sun Queen's favorite expression . . . i left them on their own for a quick, unsatisfying visit to Wanker’s Way, populated only with two elderly regulars, the tannest blond in the world and the potbellied pirate who carries his umbrella like a spear all the way from Davis Park.

We reconvened for margaridas and a quick overview of the world of In Style, the Encyclopedia of Camp’s new bible if u don’t count the Star, which he also reads religiously . . . i mentioned the shock of seeing a Ron Galella photo of Doris Day bathing with her dog . . . her profile and mine are identical . . . then we headed to high tea which, as everyone in the house had reported, wasn’t lit much better than a back room . . . the Sun Queen suggested we share a Planter’s Punch when neither the Encyclopedia of Camp nor i responded after he asked us what we were having . . . splitting it three ways still got us tipsy! . . . have we found a cheap-drunk way to fight John White's highway robbery?

The plan had been to walk to the Grove and eat at Top of the Bay on the Sun Queen’s expense account but the restaurant was closed, preventing us from resuming another Muller Cottage tradition during the Sun Queen’s vacation week . . . back to the Pines in a water taxi . . . didn’t this used to be $3? i asked when he charged us $7 each . . . u haven’t taken one of these in a long time have u? . . . no matter, the Sun Queen picked up the tab . . . we passed the Muller Cottage, where we all met, eerily lit by an orange moon, and just made it to Marco’s before they closed the doors . . . our bad luck . . . i can’t believe restaurants in the Pines . . . surly service--the waiter slammed down our water glasses as if we were preventing him from leaving early, which no doubt we were given that within 15 minutes of our arrival we were the only patrons--and an over-priced, pretentious menu . . . the Sun Queen made the right choice and ordered only a heavily dressed Caesar salad . . . the Encyclopedia of Camp and i both had appetizers and Mako shark which, along with a lemon, was drenched in an oily pesto sauce and accompanied by mealy potatoes . . . give me home cooking any day . . . even Chef Boyardee.

While thumbing through the house copy of At Swim, Two Boys during his morning coffee on Wednesday, the Encyclopedia of Camp, held up two receipts totalling $120 that had been stuck between the pages as bookmarks and observed the Curmudgeon has been very busy at the liquor store . . . and not only at the liquor store as i learned when i opened my e-mail on Thursday and the Curmudgeon had forwarded me a copy of the mash note he had sent to the author.

Dear Mr. O'Neill:

I have to say that more than once at the beginning of the book I was somewhat frustrated by the style and vocabulary, but this past weekend at my beach house in Fire Island Pines, as I was nearing the conclusion of your beautiful book, the community reverberated with my laughs and sobs. Although I was beat to the conclusion by one of my housemates, he seconded my recommendation to everyone we saw this past weekend. Needless to say, I have since recommended your book to all of my email correspondents. We have been casting the movie in our minds' eye since. He likes Colin Farrell (?). I like Jude Law for either Brother Polycarp or MacMurrough. The boys are going to be a tough call. I do pray you have some say in the decision for I suspect you have a very clear idea in your mind's eye who the proper actors should be. Kudos.

The Curmudgeon got this response within hours:

It's funny, someone else emailed me that he was reading my book at Fire Island. I never knew, but it must be a wonderfully peaceful retreat. Here in the wilds of Ireland's west, we've had four weeks of indominatble rain, and I find it impossible to conceive of a beach house. What can I say about the opening chapters? Except there's a character who's omnipresent in the book now who was entirely absent when I was writing it. And that character is the reader. I had no hopes of the book's being published, let alone read, and I possibly let myself go -- or rather rip.

There is an artistic purpose to the book's opening the way it does. But I'm no longer sure if this purpose is a reason or an excuse. I'll just say thanks for your kind words and for your recommending At Swim to your friends. In the trade they say word-of-mouth is the best, and rarest, publicity. But I rather regret that I should know these things, so I shan't labour away.

I have heard of Jude Law, but wouldn't recognize him. The other gent is unknown to me even by name. But here's a thought. Colm Meany (the Irish engineer out of Star Trek) for Mr Mack. And Daniel Day Lewis for MacMurrough. Apparently they have their own ideas about the boy, Jim. Jamie Bell who played Billy Elliot, the British film about a boy wanting to be a ballet dancer. He's turning sixteen, and as I was told over lunch, "he's ripe". God help the poor kiddo -- the sixteenth take in the freezing swell of the Forty Foot. And then the film stolen by whoever plays Doyler ...

My regards to you, and thanks,

Jamie O'Neill

In addition to bringing along a bottle of limoncello as a house gift, Encyclopedia of Camp offerred to make lunch (fresh shrimp in a light tomato and basil sauce over linguini and an arugula salad) which meant he basically sacrificed his last day shopping and cooking before catching the last boat . . . aren’t guests grand?

I took the opportunity to begin Atonement by Ian McEwan on the beach but fled almost as soon as i planted the umbrella in the sand because of gathering thunderheads . . . the downpour didn’t arrive until much later in the evening shortly after the Sun Queen finally returned from taking the Encyclopedia of Camp to the ferry . . . come to think of it, we didn’t see much of each other during the rest of his stay . . . i spent most of Thursday morning cleaning the house and rearranging the furniture while he harangued people at his office and arranged to have his imported Parisian dining room set delivered from New Jersey . . . u shouldn’t have to pay for your share he said, knowing exactly the right button to push when i told him to get off the phone . . . we did enjoy a farewell round of margaridas during which he asked what’s palimony? . . . men discussing their relationships over cocktails in the Pines is as constant as the tides, and with just as many highs and lows.