[I posted this story in 2005, then a Lit computer glitch eliminated it and some other stories this summer, so I'm resubmitting it. Maybe there are some folks who missed it the first time.
A lot of this happened, but not the way it's told here. I'm dedicating it to M.D. and R.S., the real-life models for Carmen. I don't think they'd mind.]
***
August, 2005
I was reminded of the Cape again today . . .
It happens every so often. Something I see or hear sets me off, and all of a sudden, it's July of '69 again. Music can do it--an oldies station playing one of the tracks we couldn't get enough of that summer, like "Down So Low", or "Cyprus Avenue", or "Ball and Chain". An evening walk on a beach always works. Even seeing an old VW microbus can take me back, if it's red and white like Rick's was.
This afternoon, though, I was driving by the lake on my way to the hardware store, when I spotted some young people unloading their car at one of the cottages. Two guys and a woman in their early 20's, all of them tanned and attractive, were laughing together as they juggled grocery bags and backpacks. Instantly, time came unstuck, 36 years fell away, and it was 1969 again: NASA was about to try to land some guys on the moon, a big rock festival was supposed to be happening someplace in the Catskills next month, and these kids were Rick and Allie and me unpacking our stuff at my uncle's summer place on the beach in Chatham . . .
July, 1969
It was still in the 90's that Friday afternoon, as the three of us joined the end-of-week bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling out of Boston toward Cape Cod. Did we care? Hell, no. We were 22, and had the loan of a beach house for the weekend! 'BCN was blasting on the radio and the first joint was disappearing. We had provisions that included a ton of munchies, the makings for a dynamite spaghetti sauce, and a jumbo bottle of tequila. We didn't have to be at work again until Monday. How could life be any sweeter?
Of course in those days, we never knew how it was going to go with Rick. Viet Nam had changed my happy-go-lucky childhood pal into a quiet, often moody guy who had trouble sleeping at night, and who was on his third job since leaving the Army the previous fall. Judging from his medals, he'd been some kind of hero, but he never talked about it.
He'd gotten out just in time to be my best man at our wedding--we'd found out how shaky he was when he came apart at the reception, during the toast. He'd started telling about a buddy of his who had been engaged and then had gotten blown away, and he'd broken down crying. Allie and I and his girlfriend Carmen helped him outside and eventually got him cheered up, but in the following months he would often be inconsolably sad, or, more likely, in a rage for no reason that he could explain afterward.
Rick and Carmen were our closest friends, and we saw a lot of them. That winter was rough for them, as they tried to adjust to living together again. Rick had obviously gone through all sorts of changes while he was away, but so had Carmen: they had plenty to figure out. The fact that Allie and I were, by contrast, obnoxiously happy newlyweds couldn't have made the struggle any easier for them, but they didn't seem to hold it against us.
I was sorry Carmen wouldn't be joining us until the next day--she was a nurse and was working the 3:30-to-midnight shift that week. I really liked her. She was a smart, petite, passionate woman whose parents were first-generation Italian, and she'd grown up in a four-room flat over their corner store in Boston's North End. It didn't hurt that she was sexy as hell, with huge brown eyes, a cute ass, and saucy little breasts which surely did more to help the guys on her ward feel better than any medication ever could.
And as we drove along, I was especially sorry that Carmen couldn't see the metamorphosis that was occurring in that funky old bus: Rick, miraculously, was becoming his ebullient pre-Nam self as we talked and sang and munched our way down Rte. 3 and over the bridge. He tapped out a salute on the horn as we rolled onto the Cape, and when we eventually pulled into my uncle's driveway, he announced our arrival to the neighbors by bellowing out the window, "Watch out, you bloody Puritans--the hippies have landed!"
"The hippies landed in Plymouth, not Chatham, fool," I told him. "Didn't you read the sign?"
"What's Chatham?" said Rick.
"God, I'm hot and sticky," Allie said. "Let's go for a swim."
"Let's get the stuff in first," I said. "We have to find our suits anyway." We grabbed bags and headed into the house and up the stairs, Allie and I to the master bedroom, and Rick to the guest room down the hall.
As soon as I closed the door, we began peeling off our clothes. Watching Allie, I marveled, as always, at her dancer's grace and centerfold's body. She was slender and leggy, and at 5'8", was only a few inches shorter than I was. She had soft, hazel eyes, and now that it was summer, her hair and skin and pubic bush were three slightly different shades of pale caramel. Her breasts were high and lush, with prominent nipples that stiffened at the slightest provocation, and she had an ass like a figure skater's. Both out of bed and in it, she was warm, generous, and imaginative.
As she leaned over the suitcase, rummaging around for her bathing suit, I tiptoed up behind her. Cupping her heavy breasts in my hands, I pressed my growing erection against her bare bottom. She wiggled her ass playfully, then straightened up and removed my hands. "Not now, my love," she said firmly. "The ocean is calling. Later, though . . ."
"You promise?"
She gave me that lazy smile of hers, then dropped to her knees and swirled her tongue around the tip of my cock for just an instant. The next instant, she was up again and stepping into her bikini bottom. "You'd better believe it, sailor," she said. "Sea air makes this girl hungry
and
horny. Now tuck that thing into a bathing suit, and let's go swimming!"
We barely touched the sand as we raced across the beach and plunged into the water. The three of us were like kids, splashing and fooling around in the waves, but I guess it wasn't really as innocent as it seemed, considering what was about to happen. Allie--gorgeously wet and hard-nippled in her tiny bikini--was a magnet for our horseplay, and as we cavorted, Rick's hands were on her almost as much as mine were, albeit somewhat less lasciviously. With Rick's demons at least temporarily in remission, and being such old friends, we all were feeling so goddamned happy and close.
During a wild round of Killer Shark Attack, Rick suddenly turned traitor and scooped Allie out of the water, thwarting my fiendish plans to swim up under her and be Groping Squid instead.
"My hero!" said Allie, perched comfortably in his arms--Rick was a big guy. She stuck her tongue out at me.
"Whose side are you on, anyway?" I whined at Rick. "We're supposed to be Killer Sharks."
"
Please
, Tony," said Rick. "We aren't playing childish shark games anymore. We're playing Fishing For Mermaids, and check out this fine, big one I've caught. I think she likes me."
"Oh, I
do
," Allie said. "And if you kiss me, I turn into Faye Dunaway." Her brow wrinkled. "Or Michael J. Pollard, I forget which."
