That's Mark Wahlberg over there in his tighty-whities. At a Celtics basketball game. Let's face it, the man likes to be near nude.
Now, where was I? Oh, right, Fire Island, Friday night, sometime in the past.
If it's the 70's, you're going to be hearing a lot of disco divas belting out from stereos all up and down the boardwalks. If it's the 80's, it's going to be the Pet Shop Boys or Erasure ("Chains of Love") or some Hi-NRG stuff from the UK.
You won't miss the tea dance. The dock will be jammed. After dinner, and several hours spent primping in the mirror, you'll head off to the Monster for an evening of dancing and cruising.
Much later, much much later, if you still haven't hooked up, you'll wander into the "no-man's land" between the Pines and the Grove, to a secluded spot, just off the boardwalk, called the "Meat Rack", where the orgy runs until dawn.
In the morning, but not too early, you'll drag yourself down to the beach to bag some beams (and cruise, for that is the true purpose of Fire Island... to see and to be seen). Lather, rinse, repeat.
Come Sunday afternoon (or, if you're really rich or own your own antique shop, sometime on Monday) you'll head back to the dock, board the ferry and reverse the trip you made on Friday.
Like most, you'll be back in two weeks (if you have a half share), or if you're upscale, next week (a full share) and if you're really loaded, you'll just drop by the office/shop and come back to your private summer home tomorrow.
There's a certain "Ground Hog Day" obsessive/compulsiveness to the whole thing. The "next guy" will be "THE guy." The next drink, the next drug (luudes, Special K, X), the next disco hit, the next... something.
It has a way of becoming an entire lifetime spent in pursuit of something, anything, to fill up a void that can never seem to get filled. There's an element of self-destruction combined with a lack of self-esteem to the whole thing. Why else would we spend so much time and money to make ourselves look fabulous with gyms, diets, clothing, skin products, hairstyling, dentistry and cosmetic surgery and then do everything we can, in as short a span of time as possible, to totally destroy ourselves with too much booze, too many drugs and too much sex?
Some people poured so much poison into themselves that they eventually died from it. Booze, drugs and infected semen.
I lost a lot of friends that way. Too many goddamned friends. And then I drank more to forget how they killed themselves with booze.
Somewhere along the way the party ended. But an awful lot of people either forgot to come home or else just died in wilderness.
I could've been one of those. I should be dead now. If life were fair, I would be. And sometimes, when I let myself, I start playing God and wondering why my friends died, and not me.
So whenever I see somebody in a muscle tee and a pair of nuthuggers these days, I no longer get consumed with lust.
I get consumed by survivor's guilt, instead.
