JEWISH HOLIDAY

The reviews are in and they ain’t good . . . vicious (Testa Grande); u have alienated everyone in the house who has read it (the Curmudgeon); shouldn’t u be looking for a subject more worthy of your ability? (the Expatriate); u don’t have to worry about remembering what u did in this house because u always can read about it later (the Sun Queen); it’s kind of like picking at your toenails (Soccer Mom); and of course the changes demanded by Der Fuhrer, who would rather censor my depiction of his behavior than tone it down.

Like they say, those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat its mistakes . . . i should have learned my lesson way back in high school during junior year when my enriched English teacher required us to keep a PRIVATE journal (how quaint!) . . . my best girlfriend had asked me to take her to a dance only after the guy she really wanted to go with rented a tuxedo and bought a corsage for somebody else . . . as a sensitive young homosexual in touch with his feelings i dutifully recorded my pain (i mean, i wish he’d asked me, too!) . . . but when Fraulein Pattycake stole my journal after the fact and read what i had written, she stopped speaking to me for a month . . . so i say to my critics what i said to her: hey, honey, i took u to the prom didn’t i? judge me by deeds, not by my thoughts.

Friday

Fewer ferries signal the arrival of fall just like the quality of the light which, as Andrew Holleran has written, changes in September . . . the abbreviated schedule meant catching an earlier train which made sense as the shortening days infuse everything with a sense of wistfulness, compounded this year by the first anniversary of September 11 . . . another telltale sign that the peak season had passed: simple black and white fliers announcing Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur services at the Community Center were thumbtacked to the telephone poles instead of colorful benefit posters trying to seduce u into emptying your wallet . . . for me, these unchanging fliers are as evocative of the Pines as the mangy deer and little red wagons.

Speaking of mangy deer, they must have had a large dinner party at our house because both gates to our deck were swinging open when i arrived and the plants had been decimated . . . they chowed down on the geraniums and impatiens but left the fresh spices intact . . . but we were not to remain flowerless for long: the Sun Queen snuck a huge bouquet of lilies and roses into my bedroom even before i reminded him that my birthday had passed since we saw each other last.

En route to the Pantry, we ran into the World’s Nicest Boyfriend, who was three sheets to the wind . . . what are u doing here? he asked the Sun Queen, his ex . . . i replaced somebody who got kicked out he said . . . the World’s Nicest Boyfriend looked at me and smiled knowingly . . . i’m on my way to meet my boyfriend. we just moved in together . . . i guess that explains why u saw him chasing that bodybuilder in Wanker’s Way earlier this afternoon said the Sun Queen once we got to the Pantry . . . we finished shopping just as the 6:30 boat arrived, giving the Sun Queen the chance to make his replacement, who had vetoed his participation in the World’s Nicest Boyfriend’s house, feel awkward . . . how would u like to step off a boat not knowing u were going to meet your new boyfriend’s ex for the first time? i asked the Sun Queen, the Curmudgeon and Testa Grande, who helped us carry the groceries back . . . they pooh-poohed my empathy but i felt sorry for the guy.

Even with good weather predicted for Saturday and Yom Kippur on Monday, we had two empty beds . . . the Repeater wouldn’t be making his first appearance since July until Saturday, and with the banishment of the Master Spinner, the Expatriate had lost the opportunity to sell his space to Baby Huey . . . so the Sun Queen prepared pasta tossed with tomato sauce, peas and sausage and we had a nice cozy dinner itemizing the improvements we expected Testa Grande and the Ditz to negotiate for next season . . . don’t forget to have the ceiling fan up here fixed . . . lease holding, like house mothering, are thankless tasks.

Saturday

Autumn days pass quietly in our house . . . the Repeater joined the Curmudgeon and me on the beach and immediately launched into an account of his sexcapades in Berlin . . . i saw two of the kinkiest things i have ever witnessed he began . . . we were all ears, given our fondness for the city and familiarity with its darker side . . . i went to this club in some huge industrial space. u know how garages have spaces cut out of the floors so mechanics can get underneath your car to work on it? well, this place had those where dozens of guys were gathered to get pissed on by men standing above them. then i walk passed this pool table where some beautiful guy lay naked with votive candles burning all over his body. he asked anyone who passed by to drip the hot wax on him . . . the Repeater also brought home a souvenir for Stuy Guy: an inflatable dildo . . . we already . . . it was time for a dip in the ocean.

Later, as we poured our first appletinis, Testa Grande returned from Wanker’s Way with White Teeth, Black Breath, a humpy French man . . . were u part of the invitational orgy? i asked . . . an hour earlier i had taken a walk on the beach and noticed that some very cute young guy was deliberately approaching all the nude sunbathers and engaging them in conversation while he boldly checked out their equipment . . . some burly guy with a friendly dog passed muster and the two of them got up and joined another group some distance away where the flesh inspector already had spent quite a lot of time . . . sex ensued, occasionally interrupted by the dog demanding that all the guys pay some attention to his stick, too . . . we WERE the invitational orgy! laughed Testa Grande . . . White Teeth, Black Breath took this exposure in stride.

The Curmudgeon, who was preparing his famous roast lamb meal which required $10 worth of rosemary even tho it hadn’t been on the deer’s menu . . . he didn’t waste any time establishing his French connection with White Teeth, Black Breath while the Sun Queen and i peppered him with questions . . . a banker, he had lived all over the United States and once sat next to Sharon Stone in West Hollywood . . . she’s not as glamourous as u would think he insisted . . . White Teeth, Black Breath held court for more than hour, unabashed to be day tripping in the Pines while his boyfriend, with whom he had a share in the Grove, was in Hong Kong . . . so unabashed that he missed the last ferry and ended up spending the night after dancing with us at low tea and discussing world politics over a dinner so rich that i couldn’t make it out of bed at 2 a.m. to go dancing with the Curmudgeon.

Sunday

White Teeth, Black Breath nearly missed the 10 a.m. boat, too tho he didn’t have time to enjoy my coconut bread and fruit salad . . . he did, however, demonstrate his good breeding by thanking me for giving up my bed and moving into the Sun Queen’s room . . . i wouldn’t do it for just anybody, u know . . . no, he wouldn’t agreed Testa Grande . . . i guess i felt bad for bringing up Vichy France when he started making some typically Gallic claims about American cultural imperialism during our wine-soaked meal . . . this from a guy whose favorite television show is Married With Children, by the way, because it’s so true to life in this country . . . not that the two are related, but it pains me when a European, particularly one enjoying American hospitality, gets on his high horse about the responsibility the U.S. must bear for incurring the wrath of Al Queda . . . hey, if the French were the most powerful country in the world, they probably would have flown those planes right into the Eiffel Tower, mon ami.

Still, to have a dinner conversation about something important, instead of what would surely have been another recitation of the Repeater’s kinky sex tales, was deeply satisfying . . . White Teeth, Black Breath had sung for his supper, so to speak . . . i guess i shouldn’t have been surprised when the Curmudgeon and Testa Grande speculated that he probably was Jewish, because we really hadn’t had such a stimulating discussion since Master Spinner left the house.

The Repeater caught the noon boat leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves in the on-again, off-again rain . . . Testa Grande searched for some more home entertainment; the Curmudgeon went shopping and bought a Maine needlepoint pillow at Overtures; the Sun Queen painstakingly fried three eggplants for parmigiana; and i catnapped while reading about Paul Cadmus in Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century American Art until it was time to get looped on appletinis again and make our way to low tea for the last time . . . we shouldn’t have bothered: a diehard evening, both crowd- and music-wise . . . plus, the Sun Queen, who normally works with tulle and sequins, was forced to fashion raincoats for him and the Curmudgeon using smelly plastic bags that he scavenged from garbage cans . . . u wouldn’t catch me dead in one of those i said removing my shirt and letting the drizzle cool my still sweaty chest . . . too bad Testa Grande had departed: he could have picked up all twelve people at the Pavilion, where we took temporary refuge when the skies reopened, and brought them home for eggplant parmigiania.

The Week

A rainy departure day produces laundry room gridlock in the morning but both the Sun Queen and the Curmudgeon were gone by 2 p.m. leaving me alone for the longest stretch this summer with so many leftovers that i never even had to go to the Pantry . . . cleaning the house occupied me until the skies cleared . . . the weather improved each day and by the time i left Thursday to join the Curmudgeon for a Marianne Faithfull concert in the city, i couldn’t understand why more people don’t vacation in September . . . warm and sunny days, cool and starry nights, and an ocean temperature as comforting as amniotic fluid.

But even tho i love the solitude, it’s also nice to see people on the beach and the boardwalks . . . so few houses at the east end were inhabited that i actually got a little lonely, especially at night, in front of a blazing fire, with only Linda Ronstadt singing standards arranged by Nelson Riddle to keep me company . . . of course, this also meant less competition (if fewer choices) on Wanker’s Way and in the Meatrack, but i managed to leave my mark in both places . . . cruising, writing, reading, swimming, kayaking, eating, sleeping: could the passage of time be any sweeter for a gay old maid about to re-enter the work force?