Chapter 15
15.
Sunrise Surprise
“The Great Balance is our eternal aim, but we can never stop dancing—even if the Great Darkness is spinning in the DJ booth.”
—Disco Witch Manifesto #13
At 5:03 AM Joe had finished mopping the floor and hosing down the sludge mat. All in all, his end-of-the-night bar-cleaning duties took one entire side of Elliot’s Love Songs 1 . His pulse wouldn’t stop buzzing from the first night’s excitement, not to mention the Devil Dog–sized roll of bills in his pocket. In order to blow off steam before bed, he decided to watch the sunrise on the beach while finishing the leftovers in his Charlie’s Angels lunchbox.
Barely a seventy-foot walk from the bar door, stepping onto the beach at dawn was like arriving in a temporary paradise, with its miles of empty sand, raging ocean, cawing gulls, and spectacular awakening sky.
“ ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors heed warning,’ ” he whispered out loud. How to identify a coming storm was one of the few things his late father, a former navy man, had taught him. Although, beyond a few wisps of red, that morning’s sky was mostly orange, yellow, and a little purple. What did that foretell?
Elliot had been obsessed with sunrises. Once, they’d spent a week together in Ocean City, New Jersey, and he’d insisted they depart Philly at three in the morning so they could catch the sunrise over the ocean together. When they reached the Great Egg Harbor Bridge, Elliot had shouted, “I spy the bay!” with glee. It had been his family’s tradition that whoever was first to see their watery destination shouted it out as if they had won something. Joe loved how Elliot was able to mix his powerful, grown-man self with a child’s sense of wonder.
As the sun’s blazing head tipped over the horizon, a strong breeze blew salty-sweet air up Joe’s nose. He opened the Charlie’s Angels lunchbox and pulled out Lenny’s homemade chocolate chip cookie. Just then, from the corner of his eye, Joe noticed a tall, brawny man in a gray sweatshirt and jeans, walking along the edge of the water a hundred yards down the beach. He squinted and stopped chewing. It was him , the Gladiator Man! Remembering Ronnie’s advice to never miss opportunities, Joe dropped his lunchbox and darted onto the sand, waving his arms wildly. “Hey you! Can you talk for a minute?” he screamed. “Stay right there for a second!”
The Gladiator Man stopped walking, adjusted his stance so the rising sun illuminated his perfection, and then waved back. Joe’s heart kicked like a rabbit. It was going to happen—he was finally going to meet the Gladiator Man. Joe planned to ask where he lived, talk about how he was new to Fire Island, let him know he was single. He would not talk about Elliot.
He hoped he wasn’t appearing too enthusiastic. Ronnie had once told him that after you know a guy likes you, it was necessary to play it cool for a while. “Guys without barriers look broken,” he had warned. “Like a cracked ashtray you find in a bargain basement.” When Ronnie hit on a guy in a bar, he’d keep looking at his watch and checking the door like he was expecting someone else. “Eighty percent indifference, twenty percent flirting and he’s all yours.” Joe had tried it himself once, but the guy had looked creeped out and bolted. Ronnie said it was because Joe’s abrupt switch between flirting and indifference looked more like he had a deranged twitch.
But that morning on the beach, there wasn’t an indifferent cell in Joe’s body as he charged across the beach like a desperate soldier at Iwo Jima. The closer he got, the more handsome Gladiator Man appeared. His heavy eyebrows hung low over dark brown eyes that, even at fifty feet, sliced into Joe’s soul. His salt-and-pepper beard was darker around the mouth and had a dollop of gray in the middle of the chin. His massive pectorals and shoulders pushed against the fabric of the gray sweatshirt. His two hairy forearms, muscular and foreboding, hung by his sides, with hands thick and powerful, like two leashed pit bulls ready to either embrace or kill. He was all that Joe had ever desired—sexually speaking. Of course, Joe would have to be careful. Being older, the man was more likely to have the virus. Joe couldn’t bear losing someone else. But it wasn’t the time to worry about that. He hadn’t even met the man yet.
“Hey! I saw you the other day!” Joe huffed and puffed, a cramp in his side, the soft sand shackling his legs. “I wanted to say hi, but you left before I could.”
Closer, closer. He was just fifteen yards from Gladiator Man when another voice called out from behind him. “Hey, buddy! Yo, buddy! Where you running? You forgot something!”
Joe turned. There, shouting from the top of the steps, was that blue-eyed deckhand again—the one with the girlfriend in the harbor. He started down the steps and across the sand toward Joe. He appeared to be soaking wet under his Pines Ferry sweatshirt.
“What do you want?” Joe asked quietly, annoyed, hoping the Gladiator Man wouldn’t hear.
“I was just letting you know you forgot your Charlie’s Angels lunchbox on the steps,” the deckhand teased with a friendlier than expected smile as he dangled the campy lunchbox. His low voice bore the scars of too much drinking and yelling at televised sporting events. “You wouldn’t want to lose something as nice as this.”
What? Joe wondered. He interrupted me to laugh at me again? Couldn’t this straight idiot see Joe was in the middle of something important? And who went swimming in the ocean alone at five in the morning?
“I left it there on purpose,” Joe said, not adding that he hadn’t wanted the Gladiator Man to see him with the kitschy lunchbox. “So, if you wouldn’t mind putting it back on your way home, okay? Thanks!” He turned back toward the Gladiator Man, who had begun walking away. Did he think Joe and the deckhand were together? “Hey!” Joe shouted. “Wait a minute!”
“Which is it?” the deckhand said from behind him, sounding irritated now. “You want me to stay or go?”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Joe snapped.
“Right,” the deckhand said, sounding a little confused. “So what are you doing on the beach this time of the morning anyway? Taking a run?”
“Look,” Joe said sharply, “I can’t talk right now.” He then readied himself again for the chase. But when he looked for the Gladiator Man, he was gone. Joe fell to his knees and punched the sand. “Fuck!”
The deckhand stepped back. “Jesus. What’s wrong? Did something bad happen?”
“Yes … no. It’s just …” Joe groaned in frustration and brushed himself off. “I was trying to catch up to someone. Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you before.”
“Ah, no worries.” The deckhand pulled a mini-bottle of Johnny Walker from his board shorts, took a swig, and then offered it to Joe.
“No thanks.” Looking closely, Joe noticed the deckhand’s eyes again. Even while bloodshot and glassy, they were an even more stunning blue than before. For some reason, near the ocean and in the morning light, his eyes appeared almost cobalt blue—or was that ultramarine?—and framed by long black eyelashes flecked with wet salt and sand— much like the rest of him. “You know it’s not safe to go swimming drunk,” Joe said. “Especially when no one’s around to save you if something happens.”
“I didn’t swim drunk,” the deckhand said, taking another sip. “I swam hungover .”
“You woke up hungover and decided it was a good time to swim?”
“Never went to bed. I took a swim to wake up. I live over in Sayville. A passenger gave the crew a couple of bottles of Jose Cuervo yesterday, so we had a little party after work on the beach. I guess my boys ditched me when I fell asleep. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“They sound like real class acts,” Joe muttered.
“Don’t be so judgy.” The deckhand yawned. “I have to work the first boat out, which means I’ll need to hitch a water taxi back to Sayville. Might need another dip first. By the way, you said you were trying to catch up to someone? Who?”
“Who do you think?” Joe said, annoyed. “That big muscular dude? The one you scared away?”
“Muscular dude?” The deckhand smiled and gestured to the completely empty beach. “Nobody on this beach but us and the gulls. You sure I’m the only one who’s been drinking?”
“For Chrissake,” Joe said. “How hungover are you? You didn’t see that huge guy with a beard literally standing just over there?” He pointed to the spot where he’d last seen the Gladiator Man.
“Chill out, shortstop. Don’t get your skirts all bunched up.”
The deckhand’s smirk and gay-baiting comment were the last straw. Joe mustered his most threatening glare (which wasn’t very threatening) and wondered if he’d remember any of his wrestling moves from middle school. “You always act like such an ass?”
“Just joking with ya.” The deckhand made the peace sign. “It’s weird that I’d miss seeing another human being that close by, but then again I wasn’t really focused over there.” His eyes momentarily latched onto Joe, but then he quickly looked away like he was embarrassed. “Or maybe I am still a little drunk. I better get back in the ocean and make myself right!” He yanked off his sweatshirt. His lean torso was more muscular than Joe had imagined, with a perfect little patch of hair at the top, and a small treasure trail between his belly button and board shorts. When he turned and jogged toward the water, Joe noticed he had an almost comical gait. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his legs, though—still long and hairy, and too sexy for a straight guy. Then Joe noticed something odd. The deckhand had huge, paddle-like feet—with toes ever so slightly webbed. Thus, the reason for the funny jog. Any awkwardness disappeared, though, as soon as he dove into the waves. His arms, like twin porpoises, sliced through the water while his legs kicked fountains. When he was twenty-five feet from the shore, he dove under and disappeared. Ten seconds passed, twenty, thirty, sixty. At ninety seconds, Joe walked to the water’s edge, and recounted the CPR class he had been forced to take at his old job. Tilt the head, make sure nothing is in the passageway, then press your lips …
At that very moment, the deckhand, like a deranged seal, exploded from the water, enrobed in a spray of iridescent water droplets. He was gasping and laughing.
That guy’s nuts, Joe thought, before looking back at the stretch of beach where he had last seen the Gladiator Man. Sand, bushes, trees, and nothing else.