the cut

 

The barber has finished with his last client, a ruddy Harvard lad. 

 

“Who’s next, please?” 

 

It’s my turn. I drop the magazine I’m not reading, a six month old Sports Illustrated, onto the table. 

 

When he sees it’s me, the barber smiles. “Good afternoon, Sir,” he says, his hand beckons me to sit. His eyes are kind.

 

Over the years of our acquaintance, we’ve developed a comfortable repertoire, a familiar dance. For the next fifteen minutes or so, I am safe.

 

“How are you today, my friend? Long time, yes?”

 

“I’m ok,” I say, my voice too loud in the brightly lit space. “I’m ok.” If I keep saying it, maybe I’ll come to believe it. I settle into the chair, my hands grasp the armrests, my toe taps the metal of the footrest to test the realness of it, the hardness of it. He cheerfully lays the drape over me, snaps the collar snug around my neck. Around us, the hum of everyday life of NPR droning about the death toll in Sumatra, an earthquake in Chile. No one listens as the men sit, waiting, they riff through newpaspers, read the latest scores, while underneath the ordinary, something pulses, something that waits for me. Again my toe finds the hard metal edge. I look down at my battle scarred boots, the old black Doc Martens, my warrior gear from the ACTUP days when every day was a march or another protest. When I was young. Invincible. When I had the fight in me. A single red sumac leaf still sticks to the cracked leather from my walk over, my heavy feet feel the cold dampness of the long, wet day. 

 

“The usual, today?” he asks. 

 

“Cut it all off.”

 

He looks at me, “Yes?”

 

“Yes. Cut it.”

 

Without much ado, the clippers buzz over my scalp, the vibration gets into my skull. I watch my hair accumulate on the floor, a snowfall of hair. Rain pelts the plate glass window. Outside, people rush by under umbrellas, buses and cars rush along in endless traffic.  A chill settles into my deep gut, nettling anxiety, a shapeless fear that begins to take shape, threatens to show itself with the creeping in of night. If I close my eyes, I might be lost in it, sucked into the yawning darkness. 

 

The barber works quickly, efficiently. He does not notice my discomfort.  All I need to do is sit here, still, let him do his work. All I need to do is breathe. The nearness of him. The physicality of his body.  The smell of a man. My hands again grasp, hold on tightly, as if I don’t trust gravity to hold me in place, as if whatever tethering cord that has kept me bound has gently slipped its knot, at any moment to cast me adrift.  I breathe in the scent of him. I breathe in hair oil and talc, Wrigley’s gum, winter green.  Soon, the scissors snip. His gentle hands move briskly around my head. 

 

In the next chair, another Harvard kid get his hair cut. He isn’t wearing socks, his naked ankles insolent against the cold. The hubris of youth, and vigorous health. He looks straight ahead, past his own handsome reflection, straight out to an untroubled future that he will greet with confident assurance. 

 

            “Evening comes so early these days,” I say, too loud. “I hate this time of year.”

“Yes,” the barber says. 

“It’s hard to believe the new year will be here. Just a few weeks.”

“A whole new time,” he nods. “The Year 2000,” he says, drawing out the words in a comical baritone, “Y-2-K.” 

             His thumb lingers on my cervical vertebra as he deftly, gently strokes a quick razor over my nape. Skin tingles. The air unexpectedly chill. His touch enters me, my bereft flesh responds, craves. Cowers. The moment passes. Again, briefly, his eye in the mirror is kind. I look away. It has been so long since I have been touched. 

            

But that’s not true. 

Not even an hour ago, the nurse practitioner at the clinic tenderly palpated my lymph nodes, tapped on my chest and abdomen. She talked in a smooth voice about downward drifting T cells. She said that I was lucky to be diagnosed now, that new med cocktails show terrific promise. Though her eyes sought mine I would not look at her, or the little red ribbon pinned to her trim white jacket, so I lay on the hard flat table, not looking at anything. She talked hopefully, but I didn’t hear her. I know how this goes. I’ve seen it enough times. What waits for me I have already lived through so many times it’s like reading the rosary by rote, a litany of prayers that go unheard. She can’t understand what numbness comes over you, something infinitely worse than sadness, worse than simple grief, when you just shut down to get through. I know how it goes. It ends with a handful of ashes tossed to the wind. No heaven. Just nothing.  She says I am lucky. Too late. Too late for the one person who mattered, who might have helped me through this. What does it get me, all this luck? What do I have without him? I’m the widower, the survivor left to navigate the night sky alone without my guiding star. It’s too late for too many not as fortune favored. Now it’s my turn. But she says I am lucky. She doesn’t know.  

The darkness opens up. I careen too close to the edge, feel myself falling. 

That drifting sensation jolts me in the chair, I pull back with a jump, just as he lifts my skin taut across my cheek, the straight steel blade cold against my skin, nicks my flesh, cuts into me, I disintegrate with a silver shattering sensation, not pain, but shock and deep, quick fear. 

A drop of blood, my blood, glittering ruby red in the too dazzling whiteness of the light. 

I’m not OK. I want to yell out. 

I want to scream.

I want to warn him, but I am at the bottom of the depth. 

He does not see my shame. He is patient, kind, unworried, wipes away my sin with a simple cotton ball, a swipe of softness. And it’s over. His tenderness more than I can bear. 

. “OK?” says my barber.

I look at myself. Buzzed cut clean. I run my hand over my scalp. It feels soft. Velvety smooth.

“Good?” he smiles.

 

“Good.” I nod, smile back, a tiny twitch of my upper lip. For a moment our eyes meet.

He brushes me down with soft bristles, shoos away pesky hairs off my sweater. He sweeps up the pile of dead hair to make ready for the next customer. At the register I pay and hand him his tip, he thanks me and holds something out to me, a lollipop, red cherry, the kind they give to little boys after their first haircut.

 

“See you next time?” he says.

“Yes,” I say. “Next time.”

 

Outside I bundle up, zip up.  Mass Ave is loud with traffic. Buses rush by, cabs and cars and bikes all jam the street. The rain has stopped, the clearing sky purple smudged. I trudge through wet leaves cluttering the sidewalk. Through my banged up boots the cold seeps in. A corner coffee shop thrums alive with people inside warming up over steaming mugs of tea. There are scones and cakes on delicate blue plates, crumbs on checkered tablecloths. Laughter and holiday music escapes out whenever the door is opened.  In the window, my reflection catches me: the lollipop in my mouth, my silvery cropped cut, the haunted face that looks back at me. The fear of the coming darkness remains. What would happen if I just let go?  What if I slipped into the depths of the lone and starless sky? Who would scatter what’s left of me to the wind? The thought taunts, especially when the pale day fades so early, when I remember him, and in remembering, trace only the outline, mapping the territory of what is lost.

 

But tomorrow will come, same as always. 

Maybe then I’ll think that I’m the lucky one. 

 

 

 

 A Tall Ship is a shit hole. A lopsided Victorian with peeling paint, an old lady well past her prime. She’s perfect. Besides, along the top floor porch, though it sags, you look out to the bay, the beach, and if you squint you can see the lighthouse, white and squat, out there on Land’s End.  Rooms are anywhere between 25-40 a night, depending on the season and the mercurial fortunes of the landlord, Glenn (weathered face and sun bleached Jesus hair, the beat up voice of a heavy smoker, red rimmed eyes, permanently stoned, ice blue, and he looks at you for maybe a beat longer than is comfortable but hey the rooms are cheap and sometimes he’ll sell you a decent nickel bag of home grown). 

 

It’s 1991. August. The end of summer, after the craziness of July, the wild Carnival, the dog-eared last days. Rates at A Tall Ship have ebbed. 

 

My favorite room is a tiny back corner, room enough for a scarred little bureau whose drawers complain like a bitch, a single mattress on a box spring, an old trunk as bedside table, a milk glass lamp with a chintz shade. White washed walls, the ghost of floral wallpaper bleeding through, bare bones, but home. I unpack quickly. I don’t have much for the four-day weekend: my duffle stuffed with a few t shirts, books, back then I was into Austen, and Virginia Woolf, and something called The Way of the Warrior, a zen kind of meditation guide. My journal, my favorite pen (and backup pen). Saline for my contacts. Glasses. The bag of weed I’d bought from Glenn I tuck away in a drawer, next to a couple other necessary things. Pretty much all. I make a mental note to buy a new bowl and screen at the head shop in town. 

 

When you’re 27 years old, what do you need to do to get ready to hit the long lazy cruisy street? Maybe I brushed my teeth, ran some gel through my hair, in the little shared bathroom down the hall. You couldn’t take showers at A Tall Ship. At the end of a long day at the beach, or a long night catting, you had to soak in tepid off-color sulfur smelling water in a tub on claw feet, and we called it luxury. At 27, you’re as beautiful as you will ever be. More or less. That’s the peak. I will always think I’m fat, and my skin is greasy, my hands too hairy around the knuckles, but at this moment in the mirror, this one week of high tide, I am Eros, and for one fleeting instant, I know it. A head of dark hair. Yoga lean. A body that could move pain free easily glidingly along and I never appreciated it. Just took it for granted. All of it. That I would be 27, handsome, optimistic, forever. 

 

Later that day

After I am sufficiently stoned, a few hits off the new pipe, the new screen, the metallic taste that’s supposed to burn off but lingers too long, I hang in the hammock downstairs, the hammock sighing, rope against metal,  side to side,  I watch the sun play in the gingerbread curlicue fretwork of the porch, and think of what to write in my journal. 

 

Maybe I write about: the 3 hour ferry ride from Boston, lying on our backs on the top deck where we all flocked, feeling red sunlight on eyelids, sun on sunburnt skin slick with baby oil, the thumping bass of constant disco, the feeling of expectation. The ferry is a slow moving tug. It chugs along, doggedly, leisurely, but then you see the first brown blur of land that means you’re approaching the beach, and the crooked arm of the cape that curls in on itself, which always pulses with the feeling of adventure. Call it romance. Then there is the chaos when we get to the pier, people everywhere, noise. You make your way through, floating, out into the changing tide of humanity, couples in leather and drag queens too drunk for day time, ice cream eaters and T shirt shoppers,  the old folks sitting in benches at Town Hall, waiters hawking seafood dinners with water view, the whiff of sea salt and fried food, suntan oil, incense, the breeze riffing flags and banners, the vibe of taking it all in, being for one perfect moment a part of the scene. 

 

It’s not hard to define why Provincetown meant so much to us. It was the land of misfits. Runaways. Artists. Shaggy queers and audacious dykes. You could be whatever. You belonged. There was a 72 year old ex-Marine, who’d stroll the street with a red wagon and a boom box, who wore a skin tight red minidress and Tina Turner wig, who’d sing songs like “Strangers in the Night” (many years later when Miss Ellie died, she had become such a part of the place that there are still flowers left for her at the spot where she sang). There was a real bearded lady, who rode a pink bicycle through town. There was endless music, free love, the last gasp of the flower children. And. A generation of our elders, the men who’d been us, twenty years before, came here to spend their last days, who were dying. All the time. Throwing ashes at Race Point became a cliché. This is the conversation we had with our friends: if I die, toss me out on the moors where I will haunt the dunes forever. 

 

My favorite bars in Provincetown:

 

The Atlantic House, Front Bar.  A low-raftered,  perpetually dark little room. A little heavy on the nautical theme, with a mermaid masthead and a ship’s bell that is rung whenever a hot guy walks in the place. Ding ding ding. There are wobbly stools and a sticky bar. If you order top shelf booze, the bartender asks: are you sure? Perfect for a late afternoon shot after beach and before nap time, in that hazy hour or two when whatever happens happens. A juke box is always going. Connie Francis. The Shirelles. The Shangrilas. Everyone knows every word. On the walls are photos of the past. Tennessee Williams once stayed here, when he was young, when it was his moment, and he is just as young, and just as handsome as we are now. Drink up. (The Atlantic House, as a building, has historical significance in being one of the oldest, once a stage coach destination, later a post office, an inn, but in our days it housed three bars. The Front Bar, just described. At night, they opened a dank upstairs space called Macho Bar, for leather guys and denim guys.  But the A-house is best known by most for its main stage dancefloor next door, the Dance Bar, complete with a DJ from the Village, cruisy bathrooms, and outdoor patio with fake palm trees where Madonna supposedly got drunk with some guy who has never stopped talking about it.)

 

Another favorite is the old Gifford House. Porch bar. Up a steep hill. The Gifford Hotel is one of the oldest hotels in Provincetown. Town Secret: There is a small over decorated parlor, where a terrible pianist kills Cole Porter, at the back a tiny bar where drinks are half the price they are at the main bar. The bartender a little testy bulldog gal but if you’re a good tipper, you’ll be set for life. Good drinks, strong pour. While the tourists swill Manhattans, the locals quietly booze up. Out on the porch you can smoke, take in the cool evening.  Another juke box. Old guys sing along to Petula Clark and Patsy Cline. 

 

The Vault. Housed in the Crown & Anchor building (in a few years, the entire complex would burn to the ground, but at this time it was in full bloom). The bar was down a few crooked steps. It was always pitch dark, damp, and smelled of something unwholesome. The Vault was a last call kind of a place. 

 

The big spot back then was the Boatslip. Still is.  A tacky hotel that boasts a beautiful deck, and a pool. You can pay for a lounge chair for like 10 bucks and sit drinking cocktails until 4 o’clock when they start tea dance (a tradition that started supposedly during Prohibition when they served “tea” and you had to know the password to get in. Tea Dance, unlike most other events, is very mixed, meaning men and women, because if the cops raided you could pretend you were dancing with a girl since dancing with men was illegal, a law still on the books in 1991, but hardly enforced. Still, the Tea Dance is a thing and still very popular, especially Solid Gold Disco Sundays when the dancefloor jams with screaming people, sweat pouring off them, hands waving, disco ball spinning. It’s very easy to meet someone there. It’s ideal for an afternoon, or if you get really lucky, a mini romance that lasts well into the evening.  Everyone is frisky. Everyone is from New York. They all know each other, they all screw each other, they are all clean shaven, neatly combed, colorful polo shirts, madras shorts). I don’t go to Tea Dance too often, usually if friends want to go. I like the scruffier guys, and I don’t like New Yorkers. Don’t own madras shorts. But sometimes, you got to go with the flow. 

 

At night, there are a few dance bars, but they charge a 5 dollar cover, so you only go there when you’re with a pack of friends you can dance with, not on a solo night. Again, not something I generally do, but fun with the right people. I like the quieter places, where you can talk, if you want to. That pounding techno music the DJs play is monotonous, thumping, overwhelming. 

 

In 1991, a Rolling Rock beer cost $2.25. I don’t drink beer much, but if you’re a little broke it does the job. If a guy offered to buy you a drink you would ask for Absolut Vodka and soda, low cal and top shelf. But. If you had just ten bucks in your pocket, you could have a couple Rolling Rocks, tip a few dollars, and still have enough for a slice of pizza at Spiritus where the whole world gathered after the bars closed at 1 am and we’d spend hours lingering along the sidewalk. Because it’s Massachusetts, hometown of the Puritans (the Pilgrims themselves first landed just a few feet away, got a good look at the place and decided to head to Plymouth) the bars close at 1, just as things are beginning to heat up, so all that energy has to go somewhere, and it spills out onto the street, drunken sweaty people, many shirtless, some pantsless, some in leather, muscle men, disco boys and girls, club kids, a big melting pot of intoxicated folks congregating in front of one miniscule pizza shop. Spiritus is an institution, serving the hungry and the high since 1972.  For two bucks a slice of paper thin regular cheese pizza, just greasy enough, is the thing to soak up the excesses of alcohol. They have a Greek slice too, with feta and black olives. In the line to get into Spiritus, you might run into an old friend from high school, or the red headed guy you met last night, or start up a conversation with a six foot Marilyn Monroe, or hear about where there’d be an after party at somebody’s place. Even if you didn’t go for the pizza, you’d still go to that part of the street to watch the crowd and be part of the action. Some nights, we’d skip the bars altogether and just head straight for Spiritus just to be in the mix. 

 

You didn’t need a lot of money. Good thing. None of us had any. 

 

After the crowd started to thin out, around 2, the night was nowhere near over. In fact, this is my favorite part of the night, in my favorite place. (“Walking After Midnight” is the song we’d sing, Patsy was huge with the gays in the 90’s, we just loved her. There was a group of men known as “Gays for Patsy,” who did two stepping and line dances to her music in every gay pride parade, they wore cowboy boots and fringe and folks loved them. Who knows why we were crazy for Patsy, maybe because she died young.) Anyway we’d go out walking under the moonlight, under the star light. Some nights, my favorite nights, the moon and the stars would peek through rolling clouds, a fog would creep in, the breeze stirring through the town. The lighthouse out on Long Point flashes green, a fog horn blasting low and mournful every so often. I loved that sound. The point of the night was to just be out.  If I met someone, great. If not, keep walking, until the street is quiet, empty, and everyone has long gone to sleep, when cats roam the night and there is silver on the water meaning tomorrow is on its way soon, and its time to crawl up into bed in the little room at A Tall Ship. I’d tumble onto the mattress on the box spring just as gray dawn came in through gauzy curtains. 

 

If the morning was fine, the day hot, I would make my way to the beach. A gym bag with essentials: a packed bowl, a lighter, cigarettes, a book, my journal, the pen, and backup pen, a ratty towel I borrowed from the linen closet, a bottle of water. 

 

Depending on the mood, there are two basic options: 

 

Walk to the jetty, scramble over the rocks (the jetty is a kind of bridge, about a mile of rubble composed in the mid 30’s as a WPA project which connects the far west end to the beach at Long Point, the very tip of the cape. It is a popular place to walk along, and challenging, as the rocks are haphazard, sometimes slippery, not the place for flip flops. People come from all over the world to stand there, take pictures of the lighthouse and the moors. Some days I’d just camp out there, find a warm flat rock to lay on,  doodle in my journal, close my eyes to feel the sun on my face, listen to the gulls and the tide coming in or going out, the chit chat of people making their way).  If I am feeling up to it, I’ll walk the entire length to end up at Herring Cove, a rocky stretch of beach that is usually quieter, my spot a little divot in the sand along the grassy dunes where I can look at the water. The only caveat is that you have to be mindful of high tide, if you time it wrong, you may get stuck out there as the jetty will be completely submerged at some points, making crossing treacherous. It’s a good idea to get yourself the weekly Provincetown Guide, free at any store, which has the tide charts so you can plan ahead. 

The other option, if you’re really feeling randy, is to bike, or trek further up to Race Point, considered to be the “real beach” with smooth sand and real waves because it faces the open sea. Ditch your bike at the entrance, put your sneakers in your gym bag and get ready to hike. You’ll slog in the hot sand for about 40 minutes, like walking on the surface of the moon, white sand, hills made of sand, craters in the sand. Tiny twittering birds flutter around like butterflies, they are called starlings, and there are sections of the dunes you cannot enter because they are protected areas for the plovers, little peeping birds with needle beaks, you may spot a heron moving in the brown tipped grass, and of course there are gulls everywhere. Naked men loll in shallow tidal pools, they stroll, bronzed, beautiful, and it’s a bit like discovering a secret species. Eventually, you top the highest dune, a massive expanse of sand and tall grass, poison ivy (Be Careful!), scrubby beach roses, and there is the shore, the breeze off the water nearly knocks you out, and there is my tribe spread out in colorful array, under rainbow striped umbrellas, on blankets, lounging in beach chairs, there is music from a hundred little radios all blasting, and you make your way to a spot close enough to the water that you can dip in whenever you want. The water is always cold. On a hot day, it is amazing. On some days the water is flat and pewter gray. Some days it is green and smooth. Some days the waves roll in, or crash into you as you ease into the water inch by inch. This part of the beach is men only, it is the furthest away from civilization, our space. The ladies prefer the area closer to the parking lot, because they bring everything in huge coolers that they lug to their spot, women are nesters, they come to stay, and if you need a bandaid or a peanut butter sandwich or a piece of melon or sunblock or a wrench, the lesbians will have you covered. Men travel lighter. Never know when we want to take off. Further still, miles away from us, is the beach for the straight people, the kids, and the rest of it. Everyone on their own little strip of shore line. Self-segregated, but that’s how it worked. 

 Trying to light a bowl on the beach is not easy, but I figure it out with my head under the towel to keep away the pesky wind, just a couple hits and I’m good. Maybe i read a few pages. Maybe scrawl a line in my journal. Maybe I just lay there, getting the sun, looking around at the sights. I never stay very long. An hour, maybe two. Then I make the trek again back through the sand hills and back into town. 

 

In the afternoons, we’d congregate on the stairs of the post office right in the middle of Commercial Street. It’s the place where you were sure to run into your friends, or catch them as they were walking by, and in the pre-cell phone days, this was how you got the news and made plans for later. Who hooked up. Who broke up. Who’s going to the house party on Miller Hill Road. Who got so drunk he fell off the sidewalk and passed out, and no one bothered to pick him up because he’s a mean drunk and no one likes him much anyway. We’d sit for a while and gossip, comment on the people parading by, the endless sea of people, we’d smoke and laugh, making noise like the gulls squawking along the bay. I’m looking for the Scottish guy, but he’s not around.

 

Ready for a drink. I head to the Front Bar at the A-House. After the dazzling day, the beach, the sun, the darkness takes a while to get used to, but soon enough I make out the regulars draped along the bar, the bartender, the ship’s bell clang clang clangs as I find a stool and put my gym bag down. There’s still sand in my damp hair. I order a shot of Johnny Walker Black, an indulgence. I sip it a while, smoke a couple cigarettes, chat with the bartender Jimmy, chat with a guy or two, low key, drowsy. A gaunt fella throws a quarter in the juke box and sings along with Patti Page. Is That All There Is?  When my shot is downed, I head back out into the blazing afternoon, head back to A Tall Ship for a quick bath and a nap in the hammock. 

 

One afternoon I am swinging lazily in the hammock, my journal open but nothing on the page. Glenn’s station wagon rushes into the gravel driveway. He’s in a lather. His Jesus hair is wild.  What’s up? Big storm coming. He had to go to the A&P for supplies, suggests I do the same. I laugh. The sky is clear. The water is flat, and still. Not even a whisper of wind. It’s a hurricane, Glenn insists. They’ve named it Bob. Well now, come on. How am I supposed to get all worked up over a storm named Bob? But he’s nagging at me, so I get out of the hammock and go to find my flip flops so I can “get supplies.” Not even sure what. I stroll into town, and there is a stirring in the air. Stores are closing up early. There is the sound of buzz saws and hammering, windows being boarded up. Kind of exciting actually. I’ve never been in a hurricane. A few near misses. I start to get into the spirit of it. Supplies. I get a six pack of Rolling Rock, two packs of cigarettes, a couple bags of chips, and a random loaf of bread I already know I’ll never eat, but seems to fall under the heading of needed supplies, daily bread, bread of life, etcetera.  This should get me through. As the day progresses, there is more anxious activity. People bringing in the outdoor furniture. Tying down things with bungee cords. Most of the little boats on the bay clear out for safer harbor down the coast. The ferry not running. Whale watches cancelled. Suddenly, a lot less tourists crowding the street, like everyone took off. But nothing happens. The evening is spectacular, sunset orange and purple, the sky pink. I go out, make the usual rounds. At the Gifford, I smoke and chat with the red headed guy, he talks about the storm. It seems to be on course to brush us, sometime tomorrow. They’re making cutesie drinks at the bar: Dark and Stormy, Hurricanes. We laugh. He’s off with a bunch of friends to dance at the Crown, maybe see you later, he says. 

 

The Vault is pretty dead. I don’t stay long. The dance bars are thumping away. Miss Ellie is singing Stormy Weather out in front of Town Hall. A guy dressed up like Dorothy runs up and down the street, yelling that a twister is coming. The crowd out at Spiritus is the usual bunch, not as many, but just as noisy. I walk my usual walk. The stars that night blazed in a clear sky, but the street was quiet. 

 

Next morning. Something in the air has shifted, almost imperceptibly, like the wind is coming from a different direction, the air feels somehow heavier, and smells of the sea. The bay turns restless, swells up, turned on by some current, turns a weird green color boding ill. Something goes cold in my deep gut. Glenn is of course buzzing around, taping windows, moving furniture. He arranges camping lanterns, puts out matches and candles. The wind picks up, ever so slightly. Energy ratchets up a degree. I decide I need to get out of the house, to see what’s going on. The pier is empty, except for a few fishing crews out doing last minute work securing things down, the harbor master barking at them to get moving. A few other curious folk gaze out at the churning water, the sky the same strange green color. Some baby dykes sit on the bayside beach drinking from a brown bagged bottle and screaming into the wind. On the street, Miss Ellie is in a yellow slicker, her red wagon packed up and she’s heading home. Everything is closed. Except the A House Front Bar. There’s a fire going in the fireplace, it got chilly all of a sudden, the juke box cranks out Whitney Houston, ding ding ding goes the bell. Jimmy says they’re probably closing in an hour or so, he just opened for the regulars. No Macho Bar tonight. No dancing next door. No Tea Dance at the Boatslip. It starts to rain. A few heavy drops fall down the chimney, making the fire hiss. I finish up my shot, get going. 

 

The rain comes down in a slant. The wind drives it sideways, the wind picks up fine bits of sand from the beach, pebbles that make a pinging sound when they hit, like sleet. Sand gets in your eyes, gets in your mouth. And something else, the wind moans. It whistles. It hums. The humming wind gets in your ears, drums into your head, goes right through you. I get back to A Tall Ship, soaking wet, Glenn fusses and bolts the door behind me. The house breathes in the wind, eddies of wind blow dust in the corners, ghosts sigh in the walls and the windows swell. I dry off with one of the ratty towels. Glenn has filled the tub with water. We may need it, he says. From my window I watch the bay water rise up, whipped by the singing wind. That coldness in my gut nudges me. A steady pelt of flying sand pings the glass panes. The wind. It roars through the house, the whole place shudders with it. And then it goes dark, a hand passes over the sun, an eclipse, and the sky blackens. I’m cold, shivering, wet still. I change into dry clothes, get under the blankets, try to warm up. Maybe I’ll read. I flick the switch in the lamp. Nothing. Power out. I lay there in the dark room, listening to tree branches coming down, the crashing rain. Humming in my ears. 

 

When I wake up, I have no idea what time it is. It feels late, I’m hungry. There’s someone knocking on my door, that’s what woke me up from a very deep dreamless sleep. Must be Glenn. 

But it isn’t.

 

Scottie in a green slicker and rubber boots. He looks every bit the boy from Glasgow with ginger scruff on his face and a spray of freckles. 

 

You Okay? He asks.

 

I passed out. 

 

Me too. Everybody did, something about the barometric pressure.

 

Is it over?

 

Pretty much. You have to come see. 

 

I put on my sneakers and grab a jacket. 

 

Everything is coated in sand and salt spray, whitened, everything is bone white. Trees are down. Big old ones. One went through the house on the corner of Cook street, took the porch clean off. The Lucy Croft house lost its roof, the entire thing landed right on top of the little café next door, flattened it completely, like the witch in Oz. Already the whine of buzz saws cutting through downed limbs. Generators rumble to life. Power will be out for days, people guess. Maybe the whole week. Nobody hurt, so far as anyone knows, but a couple houses on the water look like goners. 

 

The only place open is Spiritus, because they have a gas range and gas fired pizza ovens. Scottie and I grab a Greek pie to bring back to A Tall Ship. The place got through pretty much unscathed, a stalwart old Yankee dame, not pretty but built to last. Survival is a random event. Glenn is busy cleaning up stray fallen branches and raking up leaves, but otherwise not a scratch on her.

 

We drag a couple rattan chairs back onto the old porch and settle in. Scottie and I eat, drink a few warm Rolling Rocks. We smoke cigarettes and a bowl. The water slate blue. 

 

Evening comes, houses are lit up with flickering candlelight. So quiet now. We have lit a dozen tea lights that glow all around us. 

 

I say: It feels like it must have felt, a hundred years ago. 

 

Do you ever wonder what it was like, back then? He asks me. 

‘

I guess I always think of it as nostalgia, probably more romantic in my mind than it was in real life. 

 

What will they be like, a hundred years from now? He wonders, blowing smoke into the sky.

 

That’s a line from a song? Maxine Sullivan? 

 

He sings: (he has a beautiful voice, and that accent)

 

The moon is shining, that's a good sign
Cling to him closer and say please be mine
But just remember you won't see it shine
A hundred years from today

 

They won’t give a fuck about us. I laugh. I take the cigarette from him, take a long drag. 

 

Fuck them. He says, and we both laugh. 

 

We just sit a while, looking up at the night sky and he says:

 

No way I’m able to get back home for a while. A couple days anyway. 

  

No ferries. No bus. Roads are closed. Airport shut down. Home for him is 3,000 miles away across the entire Atlantic Ocean. We’re castaways, stranded at the end of the world.

 

What are you going to do?

 

Well, it depends on whether or not you want a little company, he says, smiling. 

 

You going to have that last slice, or shall I? 

 

Let’s split it, he suggests. 

 

 

So we do.