Nineteen-year-old Scott Blake, blond, achingly handsome, with a well-muscled, trim dancer's body sat in a half doze during his afternoon stint as a life guard on Miami Beach. The haze on the water was mesmerizing him. There wasn't too much activity on the beach this early in the season--a few couples and a family or two down near the water, but few going in beyond ankle-deep water because there had already been some shark-sighting scares in that summer of 1963. Scott was contemplating his future beyond the end of the summer. That's how long this beach gig would last. More important, that's when he'd top out in the men's ballet classes at the Miami City Ballet. That his passion was ballet was something he didn't share with the other beach lifeguards. It definitely was no a macho interest in the sixties.
Would he go home to Minnesota State University and take up agricultural studies as his parents wished to take over the family farm or go for a principal position in the city ballet and stay here?
He had come to Florida for something exotic--to pursue interests and develop preferences out of his parents' sight and that of everyone else in Minnesota looking down their noses even at his interest in music and dance. They all probably already assumed he was pursuing a lifestyle he was only dreaming about at this point--and condemned him for it. It certainly wasn't the Minnesota way.
Scott became aware that the volleyball game some young men--regular bodybuilders Scott was seeing on the beach every day and suspected were gay guys looking for hookups--was breaking up and one really built and good-looking Hispanic guy he'd exchanged looks with over the past couple of days was headed his way with an oversized beach towel and a guitar case. Scott hadn't honed in on him just because he was divinely built and a great looker--a good match with Scott himself; a dark, sultry Hispanic and Scott's blond Minnesota wholesome farm boy looks. Scott had his guitar here in a case too. He'd had a guitar lesson between his dance classes at MCB that morning and his stint on the lifeguard stand and hadn't had an opportunity to stash the guitar case away before being due for lifeguard duty on the beach.
He had been keeping a watch on the beach bums since he'd started this job, dreaming about their lifestyle and what they did with each other. It was part of what had lured him to Florida--that and the scholarship to the ballet troupe school--but thus far it was only dreaming and looking. But this one Hispanic hunk had been looking back.
The hunk spread his towel near the stand, ran into the water to wash off the sweat from the volleyball game; strutted back to his towel, smiling at Scott on the lifeguard stand as he moved, with Scott smiling back; settled down on his towel; took his guitar out; and began strumming out a Latin beat. After a while, he looked up at the stand and said, "I hope my playing isn't irritating you."
"Certainly not," Scott said. "I like it. It's different--the beat to it."
"It's the Bossa Nova. All the crave now. A popular Cuban guitarist here just brought it back from a trip to Brazil and it's all the rage in Little Havana. You have a guitar there, I see. Do you play too?"
"Not as well as you do," Scott answered.
"Gracias. I am Carlos. Carlos Perez, not long from Cuba. You don't look like you are from Cuba."
"Sorry," Scott laughed and answered. "I'm not. I'm from Minnesota, far away from here in so many ways. My name is Scott Blake."
"No need to be sorry, Scott Blake. You are a beautiful man. Not beefed up like so many of the beach bums around here, but with a beautiful, sleek body. Are you a serious swimmer? Is that why you lifeguard?"
Scott laughed again. "I'm not that interested in swimming, no. I've come to Florida to go to dance school. The lifeguard job is just a parttime job that fits my schedule. It's what I did all through high school up in Minnesota."
This would be when the Hispanic hunk cut off the conversation, Scott thought--Scott noting he was interested in being a ballet dancer. But it didn't do that.
"It's good to have something that suits your schedule," Perez said. "Plus, it lets you show off that nice body of yours on the beach. The other guys here on the beach--the volleyball players--all talk about you. Such a sleek body, and the blond hair. Yes, I can see that you are a dancer. I'm sure I've seen you in the Miami ballet."
Scott was both surprised and pleased that the guy had seen him on stage and recognized him. "The guys out there talk about me?"
"Yes. They were very interested when I told them I'd seen you dancing on stage. We talked about how flexible that means you are. Does that bother you? Do you not know what those guys are interested in? Can you not imagine how interested they would be in a good-looking honey who was very flexible? Unless, of course, you aren't actively gay. Maybe I was taking too much for granted."
Scott laughed, but a bit nervously so. He was both pleased and embarrassed that the men on the beach would be thinking and talking about him in this vein. He didn't know what to say, so he looked out onto the water, doing his job of watching for trouble. That he didn't deny he was gay gave Perez reason to think he was.
The young Hispanic persisted. "You look at them too. I see you do that. You look at me. You think of them--and of me--I think. In fact, I am sure that you do."
"I don't know," Scott said. "I'm afraid I don't know much of anything about those things. Florida is not a bit like Minnesota. I just don't know."