“What about that place?” my brother said. “I’ve never tasted squirrel before. Hey, that sounds nice.”
“Ha!” my father said. “You won’t think it’s so nice at three
A.M. when you’re hunched over the john, crapping out the lining of your stomach.”
We couldn’t go to any of the curious places, because they might not have a sneeze guard over the salad bar. They might not have clean restrooms or a properly anesthetized staff. A person couldn’t take chances with a thing like that. My mother had always been willing to try anything. Had there been an Eskimo restaurant, she would have been happy to crawl into the igloo and eat raw seal with her bare hands, but my father was driving, which meant it was his decision. Having arrived at the restaurant of his choice, he lowered his glasses to examine the menu board. “What can you tell me about your boneless Pick O’ the Chix combination platter?” he asked the counter girl, a Cherokee teenager wearing a burnt orange synthetic jumper.
“Well, sir, there isn’t much to say except that it doesn’t got any bones and comes with fries and a half-gallon ‘Thirsty Man’ soda.”
My father shouted as if her dusky complexion had somehow affected her hearing. “But the chicken itself, how is it prepared?”
“I put it on a tray,” the girl said.
“Oh, I see,” my father said. “That explains it all. Golly, you’re a bright one, aren’t you? IQ just zooming right off the charts. You put it on a tray, do you? I guess that means the chicken is in no position to put itself on the tray, which tells me that it’s probably been killed in some fashion. Am I correct? All right, now we’re getting somewhere.” This continued until the girl was in tears and we returned empty-handed to the car, my father muttering, “Jesus, did you hear that? She could probably tell you everything you needed to know about trapping a possum, but when it comes to chicken, she ‘puts it on a tray.’”
Under normal circumstances my mother would have worked overtime to protect the waitress or counter help, but tonight she was simply too tired. She wanted to go somewhere that served drinks. “The Italian place, let’s go there.”
My brother and I backed her up, and a short time later we found ourselves seated in a dimly lit restaurant, my father looking up at the waitress to shout, “Rare, do you know what that means? It means I want my steak the color of your gums.”
“Oh, Lou, give it a rest.” My mother filled her wine glass and lit a cigarette.
“What are you doing?” He followed his question with an answer. “You’re killing yourself is what you’re doing.”
My mother lifted her glass in salute. “You got that right, baby.”
“I don’t believe this. You might as well just put a gun to your head. No, I take that back, you can’t blow your brains out because you haven’t got any.”
“You should have known that when I agreed to marry you,” she said.
“Sharon, you haven’t got a clue.” He shook his head in disgust. “You open your mouth and the crap just flies.”
My mother had stopped listening years ago, but it was almost a comfort that my father insisted on business as usual, despite the circumstances. In him, she had found someone whose behavior would never vary. He had made a commitment to make her life miserable, and no amount of sickness or bad fortune would sway him from that task. My last meal with my parents would be no different than the first. Had we been at home, my mother would have fed him at seven and then waited until ten or eleven, at which time she and I would broil steaks. We would have put away several drinks by then, and if by chance the steaks were overcooked, she would throw them to the dog and start all over again. Before moving to New York, I had spent two months in Raleigh, painting one of my father’s rental units near the university, and during that time our schedule never varied. Sometimes we’d eat in front of the television, and other nights we would set a place for ourselves at the table. I try recalling a single one of those evenings, wanting to take comfort in the details, but they are lost to me. Even my diary tells me nothing: “Ate steaks with Mom.” But which steaks, porterhouse or New York strip? What had we talked about and why hadn’t I paid attention?
We returned to the motor lodge, where my parents retired to their room and the rest of us hiked to a nearby cemetery, a once ideal spot that now afforded an excellent view of the newly built Pizza Hut. Over the years our mother had repeatedly voiced her desire to be cremated. We would drive past a small forest fire or observe the pillars of smoke rising from a neighbor’s chimney, and she would crush her cigarette, saying, “That’s what I want, right there. Do whatever you like with the remains; sprinkle them into the ashtrays of a fine hotel, give them to smart-assed children for Christmas, hand them over to the Catholics to rub into their foreheads, just make sure I’m cremated.”
“Oh, Sharon,” my father would groan. “You don’t know what you want.” He’d say it as though he himself had been cremated several times in the past but had finally wised up and accepted burial as the only sensible option.
We laid our Econolodge bedspreads over the dewy grass of the cemetery, smoking joints and trying to imagine a life without our mother. If there was a heaven, we probably shouldn’t expect to find her there. Neither did she deserve to roam the fiery tar pits of hell, surrounded for all eternity by the same shitheads who brought us strip malls and theme restaurants. There must exist some middle ground, a place where one was tortured on a daily basis but still allowed a few moments of pleasure, taken wherever one could find it. That place seemed to be Raleigh, North Carolina, so why the big fuss? Why couldn’t she just stay where she was and not have cancer? That was always our solution, to go back in time. We discussed it the way others spoke of bone marrow transplants and radiation. We discussed it as though it were a viable option. A time machine, that would solve everything. I could almost see its panel of blinking lights, the control board marked with etched renderings of lumbering dinosaurs and ending with Lisa’s wedding. We could turn it back and view our mother as a young girl, befriend her then, before her father’s drinking turned her wary and suspicious. See her working in the greeting-card section of the drugstore and warn her not to drop out of school. Her lack of education would make her vulnerable, causing her to overuse the phrase “Well, what do I know” or “I’m just an idiot, but…” We could turn it back and see ourselves as babies, our mother stuck out in the country with no driver’s license, wondering whom to call should someone swallow another quarter or safety pin. The dial was ours, and she would be at our mercy, just as she had always been, only this time we would pay attention and keep her safe. Ever since arriving at the motor lodge, we’d gone back and forth from one room to another, holding secret meetings and exchanging private bits of information. We hoped that by preparing ourselves for the worst, we might be able to endure the inevitable with some degree of courage or grace.
Anything we forecasted was puny compared to the future that awaited us. You can’t brace yourself for famine if you’ve never known hunger; it is foolish even to try. The most you can do is eat up while you still can, stuffing yourself, shoveling it in with both hands and licking clean the plates, recalling every course in vivid detail. Our mother was back in her room and very much alive, probably watching a detective program on television. Maybe that was her light in the window, her figure stepping out onto the patio to light a cigarette. We told ourselves she probably wanted to be left alone, that’s how stoned we were. We’d think of this later, each in our own separate way. I myself tend to dwell on the stupidity of pacing a cemetery while she sat, frightened and alone, staring at the tip of her cigarette and envisioning her self, clearly now, in ashes.
naked
It is disconcerting to talk to someone on the phone and know that he is naked. Every now and then I might call a friend who says, “You caught me on my way to the shower,” but that’s different. The man at the nudist colony sounded as though he had been naked for years. Even his voice was tanned.
“All right, then, have yo
u ever visited us before? No? Well, you’re in for a real treat. We’ve got a heated pool, a sauna, Jacuzzi, and a fully stocked pond for fishing.”
I tried to imagine what one’s ass might look like having spent several hours pressed against an overturned log, but the mental picture was too brutal and I forced it out of my mind.
“We can give you a tour, show you around the place once you arrive, and in the meantime, I’d be happy to send you a brochure. Let me just… get your… information here…”
Where, I wondered, did he keep his pen? Unlike me, he would never instinctively reach for his breast pocket. Keys, lighters, cigarettes, change — all the things a reasonable person might carry were jumbled together somewhere else, and it took him a while to find something to write with. He took my name and address saying, “All right then, we look forward to seeing you.”
“Yeah, right. You bet.” Freak. I’d just called for the brochure, wanting to give it as a joke to my brother, Paul, a floor sander who, due to a recent polyurethane spill, had been discovered naked by the startled owners of the condominium in which he’d been working. Ever since he’d told me about it, I’ve been calling him to suggest other nude activities he might enjoy.
“I keep telling you it was a goddamned accident.” He yells so loud, I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “I had clean clothes down in the kitchen, motherfucker, I was just trying to get to them when…”
Ignoring him, I plow ahead. “Or boating, you might like doing that naked. There are plenty of things a person like you can do without having to wear clothes. There’s no need to feel ashamed of your desires. ‘If it feels good, do it!’ Isn’t that what you young people like to say?”
I keep at it until he slams down the phone, threatening to cross state lines and kick my ass. This brochure will be just the thing to send him over the edge. It occurred to me later that I should have had it mailed directly to his house in North Carolina. It would have been much more effective that way, but I don’t want to call the colony again. They might think I’m a nut.
In this afternoon’s mail I received my brochure which reads, “Body acceptance is the idea. Nude recreation is the way. Bring your towels and suntan lotion and relax with us. You will experience a freedom of movement that cannot be felt with clothes: the freedom to be yourself ”
The brochure pictures a swimming pool, the fully stocked pond, a sundeck, and the inevitable volleyball court, which leaves me to wonder: What is it with these people and volleyball? The two go hand in hand. When I think nudist, I don’t think penis — I think net.
Included in the envelope is a calendar of events. Late April marked the reopening of the snack bar, which goes by the name Bare Necessities. In May they held a golf-cart rally, several theme campfires, a chili cook-off, and something called “Wild West horseback riding.”
Test eye shadow on all the rabbits you want. Strap electrodes to the skulls of rhesus monkeys and shock them into a stupor, but it is inhumane to place a nudist on horseback the day after a chili cook-off. (“Was he always an Appaloosa?”) The calendar is filled with mystifying events such as nude bowling night, the Hobo Slumgullion, and Nudeoween. The restaurant opened the first week of June. A nude restaurant. They seem to have taken care of just about everything. Under the heading of “What to Bring,” they list only towels, suntan lotion, and a smile.
Last night I was in a foul mood and provoked Hugh into a fight, goading him until he left the bedroom, shouting, “You’re a big, fat, hairy pig!”
Big is something I can live with. Fat is open to interpretation, but when coupled with the word hairy, it begins to form a mental picture that is brought into sharp focus when united with the word pig. A big, fat, hairy pig. Well, I thought, pigs provide us with bacon and watchbands, and that’s saying something. Were they able to press buttons and operate levers with their sharp hooves, they would have been sent into space long before monkeys. Being a pig isn’t so bad. I wiped a driblet of snot from the tip of my snout and lay there feeling sorry for myself. If I were a nudist, Hugh’s words wouldn’t have hurt me, as I would have accepted myself for who I am. There were, of course, other options. I could trot down to the local gymnasium and tone myself up. It’s a nice word, gymnasium, unfortunately it’s also archaic. Gone are the jump ropes and medicine balls of my youth. Now there are only health clubs and one-syllable gyms where sweat-drenched he-men bulk up through the use of weight machines and StairMasters. I’ve seen them through the front windows of the city’s many fitness centers. Dressed in costumes as tight as sausage casings, these men and women intimidate me with their youth and discipline. It’s them who have removed both the g and the h from the word light, reducing it to its current, slender version. Everything is “lite” now, from mayonnaise to potato chips, and the word itself is always printed in bright colors so your eyes won’t get fat while reading the label. Diet and exercise are out of the question as far as I’m concerned. My only problem with nudism is that I don’t even walk around my house barefoot, let alone naked. It’s been years since I’ve taken off my shirt at the beach or removed so much as my belt in the presence of strangers. While I long to see naked people, I’m not so sure I’m ready to be naked myself. Perhaps the anxiety will cause me to drop a few pounds and I’ll come out a double winner. The less I have to accept of myself, the easier it will be. Already I can feel my appetite waning.
This afternoon, after a half dozen false starts, I phoned the nudist colony to make a reservation, speaking to the same fellow who’d mailed me the brochure. This time I could hear people in the background, splashing and yelling with glee. The sound of them made me giddy, and I unbuttoned my slacks. The brochure had mentioned rental cabins, and I was wondering what it might cost to stay for a week.
“You want a trailer for how long?” he asked.
I refastened my pants. I had imagined tree-shaded bungalows paneled in knotty pine. That, to me, is the essence of the word colony.
This place was, instead, a nudist trailer park.
“We don’t use the word colony anymore because it’s too spooky. No, what we have are trailers. The smaller units run thirty dollars a night, but if you want your own kitchen and bathroom, your only option is the double-wide, which will run you an extra seventy dollars a week.”
He’d lost me way back. How was the word colony spooky, but not trailer or even nudist for that matter?
“I can let you have the front bedroom of the double-wide; that’s not booked yet.”
Front bedroom suggested the evidence of a back bedroom, which, I was told, would be rented out separately. “You could have one roommate or maybe it’ll be a couple. They might stay for a night or two or maybe they’ll spend the whole week. Don’t worry, though, you won’t get lonely.”
I was still wrestling with the idea of a trailer, and when he introduced the possibility of a roommate, my vision blurred. A roommate at a nudist trailer park. The combination of those elements presented a staggering tableau, made all the more incomprehensible when I heard the man shoulder the phone and raise his voice to shout, “Mom! Hey, Mom, where’s the weekly price list for the two-bedroom rental trailer?”
This person was not only standing around naked in broad daylight, he was doing it with his mother. I heard a screen door slam, followed by the wary voice of a woman shouting, “Hold your hollering, loudmouth. Looking for the weekly price sheet? You’re probably sitting on it, just like the last time. See, I told you so! Phew, somebody needs a shower.”
I made my reservation and planned to arrive in one week.
***
I called the nudist park again today and a woman answered. When asked if they provide sheets and pillows, she said, “Yes, but no towels. You’ll have to bring your own towels because we can’t be doing that. Bedding yes, towels no.”
I asked if the trailer’s kitchen was equipped, and she replied, “Kind of.”
Seeing as I would be there for a week, I was hoping she might elaborate.
“Well,
it kind of has some things but not some others.”
“Does it kind of have a stove and refrigerator?”
“Oh, sure,” the woman said. She seemed busy with something else and spoke lazily, not wanting to talk but not wanting to get off the phone either. “There’s a sink up there and probably some pans and so forth, but definitely no towels, you’ll have to pack your own because we can’t be running back and forth like that. We haven’t got the time for that kind of thing.”
I told her I understood perfectly.
“A lot of folks think we keep a nice fluffy stack of towels out by the pool for their own private use, but we don’t do that. Not here we don’t. Not anymore. Towels are personal things, and you’ll have to bring your own.”
I truly had gotten the message.
“Course sometimes a person might come in for the day and leave their towel behind by accident, but we put that into the lost-and-found box in case they come back looking for it. You can’t use those towels because they’re not clean and they don’t belong to you. That somebody might come back one day to claim their towel, and it wouldn’t do for them to walk in here and find you using it without their permission. It wouldn’t be right. If it was lotion, I might say, ‘Go ahead and use it; I’ll do your back,’ but not towels, no way. You’ll have to bring your own.”
I underlined the world towels on my list of things to pack and placed question marks beside everything else.
I arrived at the nudist park early this afternoon, the cabdriver pulling up to the clubhouse in a light rain. He’d been very nervous on the ride over. “I’m not here to judge,” he’d said. “Hell, I give rides to all kinds of people, even drunks. Whatever floats your boat, partner.” Something about me seemed to make him uncomfortable, and I frequently caught him studying me in the rearview mirror with a look that said, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”