A Little Bent...: February 2006

Summer Of '84:
THE RAFT AND THE SHARK

Krista was always looking for ways to gross the rest of us out. One of her favorite ways to do this was to dig for sand crabs, put a helpless one in the palm of her hand, and then squeeze it to death. I can still see the blue, green, and yellow innards of the poor little scavengers splattered all over Krista’s palm. Disgusting.

It seemed that each of us had a memorable ‘shore quality’ about us. Take Cousin Jimmy, for example. Every year, Jimmy would go into the ocean with high hopes of jumping the waves and body surfing only to come charging out of the water with a crab attached to his big toe. There could be 100 people swimming around him, frolicking and splashing in the water with no trouble at all, and Jimmy would be the one the crab chose to claw.

One year, Jimmy found a 12”, dead baby shark floating in the water. At first, we brought it home to show the rest of the gang, and our parents, then threw it away. Later, we fished it out of the garbage pail and thought it would be fun to attach the miniature dead shark to a piece of fishing wire and pull it through the ocean, scaring unsuspecting swimmers. Looking back, I don’t think anyone ever fell for our trick. I think the most we ever got out of anyone was, “Hey, look at those kids pulling the dead baby shark with fishing wire.” Maybe the fact that it was ‘swimming’ on its side tipped them off.

As I mentioned earlier, my brother Jerry’s friend Freddy was not the greatest chick magnet that ever lived. I once caught him and Jerry laughing hysterically when they realized that the condom Freddy was carrying in his wallet had dried out. My mom overheard them and called Freddy, with more than a touch of sarcasm, a ‘real ladies man’. Back then, I didn’t know what a condom was, therefore, the fact that the condom had dried out before Freddy had a chance to use it was lost on me. I just remember that this little fact solidified the notion that Freddy was not lucky with the ladies. It wasn’t for a lack of trying though; I have to give Freddy that much credit.

One day, while on the beach, Krista was staring at Freddy as he slept on his beach towel in the high noon sun. She had this incredible smirk on her face. Freddy was sunbathing in a loosely fitting pair of swimming trunks. The swimming trunks had no lining, and Freddy wasn’t sporting underwear. This was the first time I ever remember seeing someone’s family jewels in the flesh. Of course, since Freddy was sleeping, Krista had to alert all of the females within a 25-foot radius to Freddy’s twins shimmering in the noonday sun.

It was during this particular week down the Jersey Shore that Krista and I decided to take our fateful raft ride beyond the ocean’s surf. It’s difficult to stay afloat on a raft while navigating the pounding waves, so we went out beyond the swelling of the waves. I remember bobbing up and down on the raft and feeling rather uneasy with the prospect of my feet dangling in the water, (I curse Steven Spielberg for the day he had his genius idea to film part of JAWS from the shark’s-eye point of view!). I recall that the water was dark and murky. There was no seeing beyond two inches of the water’s surface. There was no telling what was lurking beneath us!

Krista likes to make things interesting. She decided that it would be fun if we didn’t look back towards the shore. She preferred to stare in the direction of England, rather than keep dibs on where the lifeguard chair was, and didn’t have a care as to whether or not we were swimming between the two red flags, the legal swimming area while lifeguards are on duty.

There was no one else around us. We were just floating on my blue and yellow raft (I never bought the blue and RED one because I knew that the color red attracted sharks, and if you can’t tell by now, I have a terrifying fear of sharks). I was a bit scared, but I tried not to let on, as I knew this would egg Krista on, and perhaps she would do something to exacerbate my fears.

At one point, while staring towards England, we heard the lifeguards blowing their whistles. The whistling became more and more frantic. Krista advised me not to look back. Just keep staring forward. I looked at her and said, “Some jackass probably got sucked out to sea!” I then looked around me, but not back towards the shore. I remember thinking, well, if some idiot was sucked out to sea, then why can’t see them? We’re the farthest one’s out, so…

I turned around. Tons of people were gathered on the beach. All of them were staring in our direction. I hit Krista on the arm—“Hey! It’s us they are whistling at!” Krista laughed. I yelled, “Come on. Let’s turn around! We need to get back in!”

We turned around and began kicking. We couldn’t seem to get the raft to take us back in towards the shore. The harder we kicked, the farther we were being swept to the right. The ocean’s pull was too much for us to handle. The whistling was getting more and more frantic. Krista jumped off the raft. “Let go of the raft! It’s the only way to get in!” she claimed. I knew better.

“I’m not letting go of the raft! You’re supposed to stay on the raft when you get sucked out to sea!” I began to get frantic. I wanted to cry.

Krista and I were drifting apart. I let go of the raft only because I wanted to swim over to her, and I wasn’t getting anywhere on the raft. I reached Krista and began to tread water. I looked over to my right. We were heading right into the far end of the jetty; the jetty made of large, black, moss covered rocks. The image of the woman treading water in JAWS kept flashing in my mind; we were certainly far enough out to be in shark territory. I couldn’t help picking up that Krista thought the whole ordeal was amusing.

Something grabbed at my left foot—“SHARK!” I screamed. “SHARK! SHARK! IT HAS ME! SHARK! SHARK!”

I saw a young man’s head surface before me. “There’s NO SHARK! I’m a lifeguard! Take hold of this life preserver. I’ll take you back in!”

“I'm not going with you! Why did you grab my foot like a shark? Are you trying to scare me?” I inquired, rather anxiously.

“No! I’m trying to save you! Now, grab on to the raft!”

Krista already had hold of another lifeguard’s red life preserver-bullet. I was really close to fainting as the lifeguards pulled us in. By then, practically everyone who had been sunbathing and playing on the beach was cheering in the lifeguards as they rescued us from being pulled out to sea.

My of being eaten by a shark was swiftly replaced by my embarrassment at having to be rescued. I was the jackass. My embarrassment quickly turned into tears. I think I knew, in some way, that my tears would dissuade my mother from being mad at me, and would force her to cradle me in her arms with a warm beach towel. On another level, I knew the tears were genuine and that I was deathly afraid of ever trusting Krista again.

tags: humor, about me, sexuality, A Little Bent

Summer of '84:
SITTING PRETTY ON A BRAND NEW BLUE AND YELLOW RAFT

The summer of ’84 was a great summer for friendship and music. Sylv, Liza, CC and I listened endlessly to Duran Duran, Culture Club, Loverboy, and Split Enz. While driving down the shore with Chico (yes, I got to drive down with him in his rust colored ’72 Camaro!) we listened to Ozzy Ozbourne and ACDC; “Back In Black” was everyone’s favorite album for years throughout our tenure down the Jersey Shore. Even though I loved all things Van Halen, Stray Cat, and Journey, I was also very into Culture Club. I suppose that’s why Chico began to call me ‘Boy Marcy’; a name he still calls me some twenty-odd years later. It didn’t musically make sense that I should like Culture Club; perhaps they sparked my interest because their lead singer was so overtly bent.

During our weeks down the shore, my friends and I found various ways to entertain ourselves. There were the trampoline’s—anyone who ever spent time in Surf City during the seventies and eighties will remember the sound of trampolines being assigned to paying customers: Liza Z take 1; Marcy P take 2; Mike K on 4, your time is up. Right next to the trampolines was the arcade. All year I would save my quarters so I could play Ms. Pacman at least 20 times daily. On average, I spent $50 at the arcade during each trip down the shore.

Further down the island was Bay Village. This was the place to be with lots of arcade games, miniature golf, exciting rides, and our favorite, the water flume! My parents drove us to Bay Village at least once every summer vacation. We never left without getting a pound of vanilla fudge from The Country Kettle.

One of my favorite pastimes at Bay Village was playing the games of chance at the amusement park. I especially liked the booth games where you put a quarter on a number, then the person working behind the counter spins a huge wooden wheel on the wall, and if the clicker on the wheel stopped on your number, you would win something.

One summer, there was a booth where you could win a wall tapestry that had an image of a famous musician silk-screened on it. The Jim Morrison tapestry caught my eye. I pictured what it would look like hanging in my room right above my bed. I spent about $30 in quarters trying to win that thing with no luck whatsoever. I went home empty handed. I begged my mom to drive me back to Bay Village the following day so that I could try my luck again. Luckily, it rained the next day, so it was the perfect excuse for another trip to Bay Village. I shelled out another $10 in quarters and finally won the Morrison tapestry. I was in HEAVEN. I was so proud of my perseverance. My cousin Krista, who had been rooting me on and talking me into laying all of my quarters on the line for the tapestry, broke my bubble when she informed me that the same exact tapestries were on sale in the Pier One Mall (adjacent to Bay Village) for $8 each. She had a knack for breaking bad news like that to me at exactly the wrong time; I think she reveled in it, actually.

Krista was a boy magnet. Something about her attracted the boys. Perhaps it was her clothing, her hair, her makeup. I don’t know. All I know is that whenever Krista was around, the boys were paying attention. This, of course, made me feel rather awkward—the last thing on Earth I wanted was to attract the boys. Their attention made me rather nervous, but not in a good, natural way. All I kept thinking about was how in love I was with Liza. While my friends were trying to figure out how to meet guys our age and make plans to rendezvous on the beach in the evening, I was trying to figure out how to tell Liza that I wanted to sit with her on the dunes and hold hands, staring at the ocean as the moonlight rippled over the waves. Rendezvousing with a young man was the farthest thing from my mind.

Always a strange dichotomy went along with my lack of wanting to attract the boys: I didn’t want their attention, yet when a boy showed interest in me, I did get a little flattered. I suppose it was the 'I don’t want you, but it’s kinda cool that you’re actually interested in me' type of ego thing. Krista always made a point of saying that I looked like a boy (which I didn’t) and didn’t miss a chance to reflect—verbally—on my flat chest. She didn’t think I could get a boy to save my life. My brother Tom, who was in cahoots with her, was famous for telling me to “Get a boyfriend!” Little did they know it was the last thing on my agenda.

Across the street from our shore house were three men in their late teens/early twenties. I imagined every single woman on the beach was swooning over them. The ringleader was extremely handsome, his body perfectly tanned. I believe he told Krista that his name was Mike. He looked like a ‘Mike’—an all American guy who enjoyed body surfing during the day, drinking beers out on their porch in the early evening, and then cruising around in his suped-up mustang ‘til the wee hours of the morning. Krista, Sylv, Liza, and the rest of us enjoyed flirting with them as they sat in their swimming trunks drinking Bud. We used to yell things across the street to get their attention. Sometimes we’d dare each other to go and talk to the guys. Because of the emotional dichotomy I outlined above, I was rather shy. CC was usually the one who was talked into initiating conversation with the guys. Once verbal contact was achieved, Krista would inevitably come on the scene and monopolize the conversation. She was usually hysterically funny in her dialogue: her blunt approach never lost on the young men.

On one particularly sunny afternoon, Krista, CC, and I went to the beach with our colorful beach towels, sun block, and our brand new blue and yellow rafts. The tepid water was minus jellyfish and the surf was relatively calm. We did a bit of tanning, then grabbed our rafts and headed into the ocean. We jumped over the waves in order to make it out far enough into the surf where we could float in the calm waters.

Krista and I shared my raft, while CC navigated hers on her own. I had my upper body draped over the right half of the raft as my legs dangled in water. I couldn’t help but recall the scene in JAWS where the camera angle was the shark’s eye point of view. I wondered what lingered beneath the surface of the ocean.

My nightmarish daydream was cut short when I caught Mike’s eye about two yards to my left. He was resting on his yellow boogie board, bobbing up and down to the rhythm of the waves. He smiled at me. I turned around to see whom he was smiling at; That smile couldn’t have possibly been intended for me! I thought.

There was no one behind me: just Krista on my left and CC on my right. I looked back at Mike. He smiled again, this time showering my attention with a confident wink. I stared at him, and smiled back. Krista had noticed that Mike was taking an interest in me. She began to flirt with him, “Hey, big boy. What brings you out here?” He didn’t answer. He just nodded his head towards me and gave a smile so wide his pearly whites glistened in the sun.

“Oh, you like this little boy?” Krista snickered. I whacked her in the upper arm with my elbow.

CC was on her raft, laughing. I looked at her and said, “What, he can’t be attracted to me? You have a problem with that?”

“Oh yeah, he’s REALLY attracted to you!” and she giggled so much she nearly fell off her raft.

Krista began to laugh, too. Mike’s friends now swam up to see what was going on. Mike nodded over in my direction; his friends looked at me. Then, they looked down at my chest, then back at my face. I was blushing religiously. I could not understand why all of the attention was suddenly on me. Why was everyone looking at my chest? We all knew that Krista had the most voluptuous breasts on the beach. Why in God’s name were the guys swooning over my sunken chest?

Mike swam a little closer to me. “Hi, I’m Mike.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, and then, after a long pause, I declared, “I’m Marcy.”

“You know, Marcy,” Mike said while bobbing up and down on the waves and staring at my chest, “Your boobs are hanging out of your bathing suit.”

I looked down and, sure enough, my girls were hanging out full frontal, just resting on the raft. My bathing suit top must have come untied while I was jumping the waves. My face burned with embarrassment as my cousins, one on either side, laughed their asses off at my expense.

I was right. A guy like Mike wouldn’t throw his affection my way, unless, of course, my breasts were exposed and sitting pretty on a brand new blue and yellow raft somewhere off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.