Back in the 90s my cousin Sharon Mitchell came to perform at the ShowWorld in New York. She and I were invited to the Fire Island cottage of Robin Byrd, famed XXX cable TV spokesperson. The short ferry ride brought vacationers to the sandy coastal island. There are no cars. No 7/11s. Only the occasional float plane. Robin's cottage was on the beach. Our flabby hostess greeted us in the nude.
"I don't wear clothes here." The squat 40 year-old hugged Sharon, who had several ads running on the cable channel. She hadn't been paid for any. Robin eyed me suspiciously. "So this is your cousin?"
"Yeah, on her father's side." Sharon and I have called ourselves family for years into order to save time about how we met playing pinball in Times Square. Even we get bored of our old stories, mostly since we were trying to outrun our pasts.
"I can see family resemblance." Robin squinted indicating her eyesight was worse than ours.
"Almost twins." Sharon laughed. She was straight out of Napoli and my face resembled either an Irish cop or Yankee sailor depending on the light.
Robin motioned for us to enter the house, a beach bungalow designed in the 70s for the now-extinct gay party-goers of Cherry Grove. Weathered wood and gleaming mirrors were a memorial to that Era of Errors. She showed us our rooms and said, "Make ourselves a home."
"She seems nice," I whispered to Sharon. Walls in beach bungalows are no conducive to privacy.
"Like a sleeping rattler. She doesn't like men."
"I got that from the little inquisition. I'll tread lightly."
My lightly was too heavy for Robin, who should have said, "Make yourself home at Auntie Cruella's."
I could do no right. Sand on the floor had to come from me. Not her dogs. When I nearly shattered my kneecap on a glass table, she screamed that I was clumsy. Anytime I spoke with Sharon, she sat down with her arms folded across her flapjack breasts with her bulbous belly gracelessly shielding my eyes from seeing her loose-lipped virtues.
I hid from her on the beach and went for an all-over sunburn, thinking maybe Robin hated people with tanlines.
Sharon came looking for me. She danced along the sea without a stitch of clothing. Her body glowed LA golden.
"So I think she really likes me."
'More love than like." We had a good laugh, especially after a naked man sauntered down the beach with a driftwood staff. He was tall and his back was blanketed by a self-grown alpaca sweater in remarkable contrast to his gleaming skull. His penis was enormous.
"It's Schmoses." Sharon snickered pointing indiscreetly at the pseudo-beach hermit's enormous penis. "And that's the staff of Schmoses."
"And his butt are the Ten Commandments."
This joke became funnier later that afternoon. Robin had befriended Schmoses and we discovered the two of them in coitus by the pool. It was like watching a Neanderthal have sex with a walrus, but at least I knew my pubic hairs weren't the ones on the couch. I didn't sit on it again, as Schmoses ranted on about God and the end of the world.
He was Robin's messiah for the weekend and I forgot about him until reading a BBC article how the Biblical Moses had received the 10 Commandments from Yahweh while high on psychedelic drugs, since the concoctions from bark of the acacia tree were an essential ingredient for religious rites in biblical times. Now I understand everything about the burning bush.
I took LSD maybe 20-50 times. I never saw God, but did meet Jesus one time.
1973.
My friends and I had dropped LSD in the White Mountains. We sat in a frigid river stream, listening to its lyrical babble. A young boy stumbled out of the pine forest and asked, "Where are we?"
Gobstruck by the question my friends and I simultaneously realized we were in the presence of Jesus. His Second Coming lasted less than a minute. His sister emerged from the woods and slapped him in the head.
"Don't talk to strangers."
He cried without a wise statement and we went back to listening to the river and waiting for the coming of Schmoses.
"I don't wear clothes here." The squat 40 year-old hugged Sharon, who had several ads running on the cable channel. She hadn't been paid for any. Robin eyed me suspiciously. "So this is your cousin?"
"Yeah, on her father's side." Sharon and I have called ourselves family for years into order to save time about how we met playing pinball in Times Square. Even we get bored of our old stories, mostly since we were trying to outrun our pasts.
"I can see family resemblance." Robin squinted indicating her eyesight was worse than ours.
"Almost twins." Sharon laughed. She was straight out of Napoli and my face resembled either an Irish cop or Yankee sailor depending on the light.
Robin motioned for us to enter the house, a beach bungalow designed in the 70s for the now-extinct gay party-goers of Cherry Grove. Weathered wood and gleaming mirrors were a memorial to that Era of Errors. She showed us our rooms and said, "Make ourselves a home."
"She seems nice," I whispered to Sharon. Walls in beach bungalows are no conducive to privacy.
"Like a sleeping rattler. She doesn't like men."
"I got that from the little inquisition. I'll tread lightly."
My lightly was too heavy for Robin, who should have said, "Make yourself home at Auntie Cruella's."
I could do no right. Sand on the floor had to come from me. Not her dogs. When I nearly shattered my kneecap on a glass table, she screamed that I was clumsy. Anytime I spoke with Sharon, she sat down with her arms folded across her flapjack breasts with her bulbous belly gracelessly shielding my eyes from seeing her loose-lipped virtues.
I hid from her on the beach and went for an all-over sunburn, thinking maybe Robin hated people with tanlines.
Sharon came looking for me. She danced along the sea without a stitch of clothing. Her body glowed LA golden.
"So I think she really likes me."
'More love than like." We had a good laugh, especially after a naked man sauntered down the beach with a driftwood staff. He was tall and his back was blanketed by a self-grown alpaca sweater in remarkable contrast to his gleaming skull. His penis was enormous.
"It's Schmoses." Sharon snickered pointing indiscreetly at the pseudo-beach hermit's enormous penis. "And that's the staff of Schmoses."
"And his butt are the Ten Commandments."
This joke became funnier later that afternoon. Robin had befriended Schmoses and we discovered the two of them in coitus by the pool. It was like watching a Neanderthal have sex with a walrus, but at least I knew my pubic hairs weren't the ones on the couch. I didn't sit on it again, as Schmoses ranted on about God and the end of the world.
He was Robin's messiah for the weekend and I forgot about him until reading a BBC article how the Biblical Moses had received the 10 Commandments from Yahweh while high on psychedelic drugs, since the concoctions from bark of the acacia tree were an essential ingredient for religious rites in biblical times. Now I understand everything about the burning bush.
I took LSD maybe 20-50 times. I never saw God, but did meet Jesus one time.
1973.
My friends and I had dropped LSD in the White Mountains. We sat in a frigid river stream, listening to its lyrical babble. A young boy stumbled out of the pine forest and asked, "Where are we?"
Gobstruck by the question my friends and I simultaneously realized we were in the presence of Jesus. His Second Coming lasted less than a minute. His sister emerged from the woods and slapped him in the head.
"Don't talk to strangers."
He cried without a wise statement and we went back to listening to the river and waiting for the coming of Schmoses.
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