(Spencer, Iowa, 7-3-05)

Martin and Joe didn’t live together, and I never asked if this was because of their straight-laced Spencer environment, or if it was simply their arrangement.  Martin had interns living with him periodically, anyway.  They were young, male, and typically from out of state; I didn’t know what other specialty was required.  One such intern, Tony, was staying with him now through the end of the summer, and Martin confessed they’d recently had a dispute over Martin’s “withholding internet privileges” from the young man, about my age.  I squirmed slightly and changed the subject.

“Where can I find a beach?”

“Oh, there’s one right down here,” Joe said.  He pointed beyond the strip of traffic. 

“Isn’t that where the corpse just washed up?” Martin added nonchalantly.

I recoiled.  “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” they both answered in unison.  Martin continued, “Two boys drowned last year.  A pontoon boat flipped over and they found one person, but never the other.  And then he just surfaced the other day!”  

“Right next to where he disappeared!” Joe added, nearly slapping his knee.

“Two girls found him while jet-skiing! Or, well, they found his skeleton!  Traumatized for life, I’m sure!”  Martin roared, and then whispered, “Well, just the other day another boat flipped and another boy died.  Nineteen years old.”  He shook his head.  

I decided to change the subject once more.  “It’s very crowded up here now!”

“Yep,” Martin answered.  ”In the summer all the tourists drive up with their Mercedes and BMWs, and spend all their money.”

“I imagine that’s good, though.”

“Sure, but they look down on us.  We locals very low on the totem pole to them.  But then again, these tourists are visiting from, like, Nebraska and South Dakota!”  He became jolly again.  “They’re the elite…of Omaha!”

——-

7-4-05

It was the Fourth of July when the campground manager, Ted, called to me from his office.  “You going out tonight?”  I couldn’t understand Ted’s interest in me.  Earlier that day, when he saw me practicing on my silent keyboard on the ground, he’d pleaded for me to use his own plastic table and chairs.  “Sittin’ on the ground’ll make an old man out of you in no time!”

I told Ted I didn’t plan on going out.

He nodded and paused a moment.  “Well, there’s a bar down the road a lotta people your age go to called Zipper’s.  And there’s also another strip club down near Arnolds Park, but I forgot the name.  Lotta guys going there, too.”

Instead of the rush of jubilation I might have felt at the mere suggestion that I was an average guy interested in strip clubs, the sensation was quite the opposite.  My body experienced the same flush of panic, the same momentary paralysis, as when someone accused me of being the opposite.  In both cases I was always faced with a decision, and in both cases I always lied.  

“No, I’d have to shave,” I blubbered.  “I’m all scruffy.”

“No you don’t.  And you don’t have to behave, either.  Just go out and have a good night, son.”

He walked away and I decided at least to clean up.  Amidst the empty, open stalls with their peeling brown paint and the steamy air that smelled of shit, piss, smoke, and hand soap, I began to floss.  A guy entered.  He was tan with a thick build, and had a piercing in each eyebrow.  Standing at the urinal, he placed a foam koozie carrying a Budweiser on the porcelain, unzipped his shorts and held himself with one hand while manipulating a cigarette that hung in his mouth with the other.  “You the one from Vermont?”

“What?” I stopped flossing.

He zipped and faced me.  ”We watched you rasslin’ with that tent for ‘bout an hour yesterday when you got here.  You’re the one sittin’ there on the ground with a big box in front of you, like a piano.  What the hell brings you up to Iowa?”

I explained America 88x50, and as I spoke he tilted his head up and called to his wife through the screen that outlined the ceiling perimeter. 

“She’s waiting outside?” I asked. 

“Yeah.  C’mon and meet her.”

I followed him out and as we all talked he would look at her, then at me, always smiling, as if I was his proud restroom discovery.  I learned he made furniture for a living.  “There’s nothing like building something you know people are gonna use,” he stated, arms crossed.

His wife added, “‘Cause you know, people’ll always need somewheres to sit.”

——-

7-5-05

As I practiced on the electric piano in the foyer, I could hear Martin upstairs making dozens of phone calls from his office, inviting people to come to my recital.  More than once, it sounded like he was forced to defend me.  “It’s not that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s just…”

Tony floated in and out of the house.  His face was chiseled and defined, his affect feline and effete, even though he made a point of affirming his heterosexuality to me at any opportunity, an act I knew well, an act that looked sad when I watched someone else doing it.  The night before, he and I had gone to see a movie at a dilapidated Spencer shopping mall, and afterward, in the mall, he’d flirted with a girl behind the counter of a cheap jewelry store.  I heard him ask something about whether she liked motorcycles, and I guess she said yes because they laughed and numbers were exchanged.  As we walked out of the store, Tony proudly flashed me his worthless acquisition.  Later, he actually sat me before his computer and presented me with two hours of motorcycle pictures, with most of the neon colored bikes draped with girls in bikinis.  All I could do was wonder when he’d received his internet privileges back.  And how.