BLACK’S BEACH BLUFF by Peter Nolan Smith

The next morning I was awoken by noise from the kitchen. My nose caught a whiff of brewing coffee drifting out of the bungalow onto the porch and I wiggled out of my sleeping bag to pull the bath robe tight around my body. The day was starting out cold for summer in Southern California.

I rubbed the sleeping dust from my eyes and studied my surroundings. The flower fields around the bungalow were obscured by the morning mist and an owl hooted in the nearby eucalyptus trees. When I entered the low-ceilinged house, Helen turned her head from buttering a piece of bread.

“Morning.” The slender brunette in paint-splattered overalls over a long-sleeved shirt greeted me with a genuine smile. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a king of the road.” Roger Miller had scored a # 1 hit in 1964 about a richness of a hobo’s life, but my version of his song had turned out more X-rated than PG in the past week.”

“After hearing your adventures in Big Sur, you must have needed the sleep.” Her comment was steeped with accusation.

“Hope I didn’t offend you.” A second bottle of wine had loosened my tongue and I had regaled my hostess and her two guests with my tale of wickedness amongst the redwoods. Helen had gone to college with AK, who was asleep in the spare bedroom with Pam. He and I were friends from Boston, making me a second-hand guest.

“No, it was pretty funny.” She spread the butter thick on the brown bread. “You running from two insatiable lesbians thinking they were ax murderers. Was it really true?”

“Yes.” I hadn’t left out anything about Jill and Joey; not the sex, not the hatred of men, not the fleeing the redwoods in fear of my life.

“Don’t be embarrassed. It was a good laugh, but it wasn’t really funny when it was happening, was it?” Her other guest was my ex-girlfriend’s roommate. Whatever I had said last night would reach Jackie with the ease of a phone call.

“No, exciting in the beginning being with two women and then it became exhausting keeping up with them and finally scary with the constant demand for sex.”

“So your fantasy became a nightmare.” Helen read my mind like it was a comic book.

“Close to it.” I had read porno books about menage a trois. None of them ended with the man getting killed, although there was a movie THE FOX in which the male character met a bad end.

“Maybe you were scared, because you had lost control.”

“Lost control?” I usually let things happen in my life without a fight, unless it was a fight.

“Yes, you were no longer the dominant half of the species, because men want sex and women want love. They are not one in the same.” Helen had a story that she didn’t want to tell this morning.

“No, I guess I wasn’t, but I was the faster runner.”

“A return to dominance.”

“More survival instinct than a desire for superiority.” It was time to change the subject and I blew on my fingertips to battle the damp chill and change the

“Funny how mornings here are so foggy.”

“The locals call it the June Gloom. Usually effects the coast and about a mile or two inland. The Indians used to call LA the Valley of Smoke, because of the fog. It drives the people down here a little nuts. They aren’t used to any weather other than sunny.”

“It never rains in California,” I quoted from the 1972 song by Albert Hammond.

“But when It pours, man it pours.” Helen was familiar with the hit. “The rains come in the winter and this fog will be gone by mid-morning.”

“Same as Big Sur.” My right hand gripped the front of the robe. I wasn’t wearing any underwear.

“You want some toast and coffee?” Helen was a gracious hostess. She had fueled my stories with her laughter last evening.

“Yes, please. One sugar with milk.” I had reciprocated by telling most everything about my trip down the PCH. Some secrets were held back for another day.

“Your clothes are clean.” The young artist pointed to a pile of folded jeans and shirts on a chair. “Why don’t you change into something a little less comfortable.”

“Thanks.” I picked out blue jeans and a white shirt and went out on the porch to dress. Both smelled clean after a good wash and I returned barefooted to the kitchen. I had had enough of my boots for this summer.

Cat Steven’s OH VERY YOUNG was on KPRI at a very low volume. A plate with two slices on buttered toast lay on the table. A coffee cup was next to it. I sat down in the wooden table and Helen joined me with a coffee in her hand.

“The lovers are sleeping late.” Helen blew on her cup.

“He didn’t say that they were lovers.” I wanted to protect AK. He would do the same for me. He had a girlfriend back in Boston, which complicated things.

“Just because a man and woman don’t have sex doesn’t mean that they aren’t lovers,” the brunette spoke softer than the music.

“Neither of them are Shakers.” That religious cult’s ban on intercourse had shrunk its membership to a few women adherents in Sabbathday Lake, Maine.

“I’m not condemning their mutual attraction, but our friend has a girlfriend back east, who was my roommate in college. If those two were having sex, it would be bad for my karma, if I was part of that.”

“I understand that, so why let Pam stay here?” Temptation was 9/10th of a sin.

“I was told that her boyfriend had asked her to leave Mendocino. She was getting stopped all the time by the police.”

“For looking like Patti Hearst.” Her boyfriend was a hospital intern. Her resemblance to the renegade heiress had been a threat to his career.

“Yes, and I felt sorry for her and once I met Pam I liked her.” Helen shrugged after this admission. “She’s a good person and wants to do good. I like her being here. It’s not easy living alone as a woman.”

“And what do you want me to do?” I rubbed my face.

“Make sure that our friend doesn’t do anything stupid.” Helen didn’t have to spell out her idea of stupid.

“I’ll try.” Saltpeter in AK’s food was an option. School authorities had supposedly been lacing our lunch with an anaphrodisiac to suppress the natural sex drives of teenagers since the 50s.

“Thanks.” Pam went to the sink and turned off the radio. “I’m going to practice yoga. By the time those two wake up, it’ll be time for me to go to my class. Pam goes with me. She works as a model.”

“Nude?”

“Sometimes. She gets paid good money for that.”

“I bet she does.” I had never seen Pam naked, but my imagination filled in the blanks.

Helen exited from the house to practice her movement on the lawn. Her languid gestures exhibited a studied oriental grace. She was no novice. I ate my breakfast and returned to the porch to read more of ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE. Within minutes I was lost in the search for Maconda, the city of mirrors reflect the world within and without.

Thirty minutes Pam and AK emerged from the guest room. I remained on the porch. We had been a team driving across America. Now he was the third wheel eavesdropping on their conversation to gleam out what had gone on behind closed doors. Nothing they said at the kitchen table hinted at intimacy. After few minutes of speaking about the fog Pam went into the bathroom by herself and I joined AK in the kitchen, first putting on my leather jacket. It wasn’t getting warm fast.

“Dawn welcomes the escaped victim of the Redwood killers.” AK was sipping at his coffee. He was already dressed in jeans and tee-shirt. The cool morning air didn’t seem to bother him.

“Very funny.” I sat down on the wooden chair. Down the corridor the shower was running and out the window Helen was standing on one foot with her left arm stretched out before her and her right hand clasping the instep of her right foot. “I probably said more than I should.”

“Are you worried that Pam will squeal on you to Jackie?” AK put down the coffee cup.

“Sort of?” There was very little chance of my resuming a relationship with the co-ed from Buffalo. She was in love with her old boyfriend, but I did miss her and any recounting of my exploit in the Redwoods would dead-end my chances.

“Your secret is safe with her. She told me that.”

“And mine is with you.”

“What secret?” AK acted like he was a saint and I had to admit that he neither smelled nor looked like he had had sex last night or this morning.

“You and Pam?” It came out sounding more like an accusation than a question.

“I told you yesterday. There’s nothing happening between us. She sleeps on her side of the bed and I sleep on mine.” His disappointment was hard to hide behind his anger. “You have to remember that Helen is my girlfriend’s old roommate. If I do anything, Helen wouldn’t like it.”

‘I don’t think that she would say anything.” Helen was walking toward the house. “And neither would I.”

“Everyone’s lips are sealed.” AK heard the turning of the doorknob. “For the moment.”

“Morning.” Helen was all smiles. Her face was glowing from her yoga session. “I’ll be ready to leave as soon as Pam’s ready.”

“She’s having a shower.” AK’s matter-of-fact reply cleared him of any suspicion. “I’ll take mine when we get back from driving you to your art lessons.”

“Goodliness is next to cleanliness.” Helen wiped the sweat from her face and sipped from her coffee cup. It had to be cold.

“I’ll get ready too.” I went to the porch for my journal and jean jacket. Plastic flip-flops replaced my boots. I like the freedom of my toes. I took $20 from my wallet and swiftly counted the rest. $600 was enough to last into August, if I was careful and a wastrel birthday gambling in Reno had taught me a lesson that I didn’t need to learn twice.

Returning to the kitchen I found the other three ready to go. Pam was wearing a bandana over her head and a cotton shift with a sweater. She found the temperature cold too. AK jingled the car keys in his hands and we left the bungalow to pile into Helen’s Volvo. I sat in the back with Pam and rolled down the window. The sun was trying to burn through the morning mist and patches of blue showed through the shredded overcast.

“Looks like another day in paradise is on the cards.” AK started the car and drove down the dirt trail to the main road. SUNSHINE by Jonathan Edwards was on the radio.

“That’s why I live here. Sun, sea, and flowers.” Helen admired the flower farms surrounding her house. Every color of the rainbow was represented by the petals and competing fragrances were rising from the dew.

“Wait till you see the beach.” AK veered right onto Encinitas Boulevard. Helen’s art class was on the PCH.

“I can’t wait.” I had loved swimming in the sea as a child in Maine. That water was cold. I was sure that the beach beneath the bluffs was just as cold.

We passed under the San Diego Freeway and AK turned left at the stop lights on the PCH. A San Diego County police car pulled up aside us. The driver stared at Pam. The cruiser fell behind us and switched on its siren. One whoop and AK pulled over to the curb.

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” He turned of the radio.

“Hippies don’t have to do anything wrong to be wrong for the cops.” Helen was reaching into the glove compartment for the Volvo’s registration.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me. The officer thinks that I’m Patty Hearst.” Pam lowered her head with resignation.

“Even here.” I had seen people think the same thing on our drive across America, but Pam was more beautiful than the kidnapped heiress.

“If was worse in Mendocino.” She was almost in tears.

“Here he comes.” AK looked in the rearview mirror and then rolled down his window. Good manners were a necessity for any encounter with the police and he said, “Yes, officer, what can we do for you?”

“I’d like to see IDs.” The officer was in his twenties. His hand was on his gun, The holster was unsnapped for a quick draw.

“Yes, officer.” We all knew how to play nice and handed the IDs to AK, who gave them to the officer.

He matched the names to the faces on the driver’s licenses and gave back Helen’s, AK’s, and mine.

“Don’t move and keep your hands in sight.” He walked back to his black-and-white cruiser with Pam’s ID.

“This will take a few minutes.” Pam had been through this routine. “He’ll call his headquarters and ask about my ID. If we’re lucky, his superior will clear my identification, if not the officer will call for back-up, thinking you are armed and dangerous friends of Tania.”

“Armed and dangerous we’re not.” I had a towel in my hand and nothing else. Helen was carrying his paintbox, but I wondered if AK was holding a joint. He lived for his weed.

“Here he comes.” AK announced with both hands on the steering wheel. Helen had hers on the dashboard. Pam and I placed ours on the front seats. None of us wanted to get shot, because of a misunderstanding.

“Sorry for that, miss, but you look like a fugitive.” The officer handed Pam her license.

“Patty Hearst, right?” She took it with her left hand. “It’s not the first time it has happened. I’ll be staying here for a week or two, is there any way to tell the other police that I’m not her.”

“I told my sergeant. He’ll tell the rest of the officers later. You have a good day.” The officer returned to his car and we continued down the road.

“I hate the SLA,” Pam said with a determined grimness and glared my way. She knew my politics. “I hate Patty Hearst too.”

“And I understand why.” No one had ever accused me of looking like anyone other than my older brother and that was because my mother dressed in the same outfits, so people thought that we were Irish Twins. Pam’s problem was real as were the SLA. The revolutionaries had been Public Enemy # 1 until the LAPD had killed everyone at the house on East 54th Street. Patty Hearst was still at large.

AK turned back on the radio. Joni Mitchell’s IN CASE was halfway through the record and Pam sang along with the chorus. The DJ followed it with Cat Stevens’ PEACE TRAIN. He was in a folky groove.

Pam kept quiet on the short ride to a ramshackle house next to the Beachgrass Cafe. A bearded older man in paint-splattered jeans stood at the door. We got out of the car and Helen introduced me to her teacher. His handshake was an invitation for men only.

“You know we need male models too.” Eddie looked at me like I was a pin-up from a beefcake magazine. There was no mistaking his sexuality.

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Be careful with the sun. Too much is not good for you.” A long-sleeved shirt covered Helen’s arms and a scarf was wrapped around her head.

“Thanks for the warning.” AK’s Jewish blood gave him a head start in any tanning contest. I stood little chance of getting that bronze, even though Southern California was a hard place to avoid the sun.

“If you’re heading to the beach, you should go to the nude beach down the PCH.” Eddie dropped his eyes to my crotch. “Black’s Beach. Park in the lot and walk about a hundred feet to the naked section. It’s cool.”

“Thanks.” I let go of his hand.

“We’ll be back by lunch.” AK sat in the car, happy to keep his distance from the bearded artist, but asked driving south away from the house, “You want to try that beach?”

“Black’s Beach?” I had swam naked on Cape Cod. I liked the feel of the sun on my whole body. The sun had shredded the fog to patches and the ocean sparkled with the morning brightness. “Why not?”

“Then let’s have a smoke.” AK lit up the joint. He changed the channel and caught War’s ALL DAY MUSIC. “For a second I thought that cop was going to bust me.”

“Me too.” I was glad that he hadn’t shot us in a case of mistaken identity. “Pam looks nothing like Patty Hearst.”

“That $50,000 reward can make people see things that aren’t there. Too bad she wasn’t Patty. That money could help us start a new life.”

“You’d turn in Pam?” The weed was strong Acapulco gold.

“No, but if she was Tania, I’d think about it and so would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“If the cops were beating you, you’d tell them quick where Tania was. Better to take the $50 thou and enjoy the good life.”

“Never.” Boston boys weren’t brought up to snitch.

We drove by a tidal lagoon green with marsh grass and AK parked the Volvo in the parking lot before the PCH climbed the bluff.

“I guess this is it.” No one was on the beach and about forty cars crowded the spaces nearest to the south end of the parking lot.

“It is.” I kicked off my flip-flops and threw my shirt in the back seat. I could see nude sunbathers scattered on the sand. There were hundreds, both male and female. Most must have climbed own the treacherous path snaking down the bluffs. AK and I walked to the first group and dropped our towels. Three women were oiling their bodies with sun lotion. I pulled off my jeans. The air was warm, although the ocean was emanating an elemental chill.

"This is great." Boston had no nude beaches.

"Yeah."

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” AK was shy. The men nearest us were eying his body. They were into men.

“Pretend you’re with me.” I examined my scraps from yesterday morning’s dash through the woods. None of them were permanent.

“I am with you.” He held the towel over his privates.

“No, act like I’m your boyfriend.” Waves were curling up along the sand bars.

“You want me to act gay?” AK was 100% straight. “I don’t know how.”

“Me neither.” I laughed and pointed to the sea. Both of us loved the surf. I raced him to the water. He was faster than me, but I was a stronger swimmer. We stayed in the ocean for over an hour.

“Let’s take a walk.” AK surveyed the beach.

“You want to stare at the naked girls?”

“It’s not a crime.” There were more men than women and most of them were gay. AK spotted two women sitting under the cliff.

“Let’s go talk to them.” AK hadn’t had sex since leaving Boston. He was better-looking than any of the men in the huddle. His penis was longer and thicker than mine too.

“Them?” I squinted in the bright sunlight and caught my breath. I dropped my head and jumped into the ocean. The current dragged me down the beach some two hundred feet down the shore.

“What’s wrong?” AK caught up with me, as I pulled myself from the suck of the ocean

“It was them. The two women from Big Sur.” I was horrified that they were this close. “They came looking for me. Same as the police are trying to find Tania.”

“Are you sure it’s them?” AK had better eyes than me.

“Fat big one and a cute skinny one.”

“That could fit the description of most any two women.”

“But it fits them.” The men around Joey and Jill were their potential slaves. They would do anything for sex. The cliffs were sheer. I was naked. There was no running from them.

“I don’t know why you ran away.” He looked over his shoulder. “They look harmless.”

“That’s because you didn’t spend three days with them sucking the life out of me.” There was such a thing as too much sex.

“How bad could it be?”

“Bad.” The girls were making their choice. The men were unaware of the danger and I wasn’t risking my life to warn them either. “If I had stayed another day, they’d be nothing left of me.”

“That’s crazy talk.”

“Maybe it is.” AK hadn’t seen Joey holding the ax in the firelight. Murder was in her eyes. “I got to get out of here.”

“We’ll have to walk right past them.”

“I know.” The ocean current was running strong to the south. “Stay to the right of me and follow my lead.”

AK shielded me with his body, as we approached the two women. They were less than twenty feet away. Both of them were checking me out like I was a piece of meat. They probably didn’t remember my face, so I cupped my hands over my privates and waddled away to where we left our things. Our flight must have looked strange to the women and their admirers. I pulled on my jeans and ran to the car, where AK laughed, “That was a good disguise.”

“It was the only one I could come up with.” I opened the door and said, “Let’s go.”

“The girls are going to think it’s funny too.”

“Say nothing.” Women were scared of men every day of their lives and now I knew that fear.

“Why not?” AK started the Volvo.

“Because it sounds weird. My running from them a second time. I’d feel better, if this stays between you and me.”

“Up to you, but me I think it’s funny.” AK shrugged and backed out of the parking space.

“Maybe it is, but not today.” I could count on him to keep a secret. He didn’t have to hear that it was a two-way street. We were good friends.

We drove up the coast to Encinitas. The police didn’t stop us on the way and we picked up Pam and Helen on time. Eddie asked me to stop by some time. The four of us had lunch at the Encinitas Dinner. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. They even had a beans sprout and avocado salad for Helen.

“How was the beach?” Pam asked me.

“Naked, but we didn’t stay there long enough to get sun burned.” No one was paying any attention to the blonde. She had come here enough for people to know that she wasn’t Patty Hearst.

We were safe and safe felt almost as good as being in California, even if 1974 was seven years after the Summer of Love and I had no future plans other than to go to the beach this afternoon.

Any beach other than Black’s Beach would do, since I had had my fill of naked for now. Later was another story.