Remember: The ferry only has so many indoor aisle seats. Get there thirty minutes early and you should have your pick, though.
Ronan isn’t here to remind me, so I have to ask this young straight couple, “Is that seat taken?” They don’t answer but pull their feet up half-assedly to let me climb over to the middle of the row. I try to stifle a cough. They’re wearing N95s, and I don’t want to scare them.
The boat sets out soon after I sit. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s about ninety-five minutes to Provincetown. Bathrooms are located behind the galley, which is now open.” Get me a vodka soda. Actually, might as well make it two. I don’t think I’ll drink on this trip. It’s raining, and they’re cranking the A/C. Some passengers are shivering. Hardly festive. Plus, I think the N95 couple would be annoyed if I crawled over them again. The party really starts on the ferry, doesn’t it?
The weather’s cleared by our arrival, and Miguel’s at the pier to meet me. It’s only been three years since I’ve seen him, and maybe it’s the “Papi” t-shirt he’s wearing, but he looks older than I remember. “Hola, Papi,” I say, forcing a smile.
He grips some imaginary suspenders and affects a Hugh Beaumont accent. “Hiya, sonny-boy. Need help with your bag?” I decline. “Got a pedicab for us. The Bulgarians are hot this summer.”
“I was expecting to walk and enjoy the street.”
“Oh. We can walk if you want.”
Fuck, that came off rude. “Oh no, I mean I was dreading lugging this thing all the way there. Thank you.”
The town is as quaint as I remember. White-painted wooden storefronts line Commercial Street, while shingled cottages peek around corners to observe the village bustle from the quiet comfort of the residential cross streets. Our driver weaves around the throngs ambling in the thoroughfare, never annoyed since all know the sidewalks are merely a suggestion here. He waves to a friend, shirtless and sinewy like him. The Bulgarian cab peddlers are hot this season, as with every season. Were some of the seasonal workers Ukrainian before the war? I can’t remember. This question distracts me the entire ride, so by the time we arrive at the hotel, I’ve been silent for three minutes. I look over at Miguel who flashes a polite smile. He must think I’m depressed. I try to pay, but he’s already done so in advance.
It’s the first time I’ve been in one of the Boatslip’s rooms sober. “It’s not quite my old cottage, but we’ll at least get into the pool and tea dance for free.”
“Who did you sell it to?”
“Some pharma gay. I think he mostly rents it out. Kind of a shame he doesn’t love it like we did.”
How we loved it. The smell of Coppertone in the sunroom. Twenty-somethings tanning on the deck. Elder forty-somethings reminiscing by the fire pit. Guys stacked high in each room after the bars closed. Five beds can sleep fifteen boys — ten if you’re picky. Why couldn’t he keep it? We party at the Boatslip; we don’t sleep there. If the buyer is renting it out, why didn’t Miguel get a group together to book it? This trip is all wrong. This isn’t how P-Town’s supposed to be.
“Tea dance ended just before you arrived,” says Miguel. “Want to go to dinner?”
The dock below our balcony is desolate with even the party refuse already cleared. Despite our avowed love for the ritual, we gays are slow to arrive at the tea dance each evening and swift to abandon it. I’ve never seen the dock so bare before dark — like a Christmas tree stripped of lights and ornaments the morning of the twenty-sixth, haunted by young ghosts of recent mirth. I can’t look at it. “Sure.”
A “quick” stop for a drink at the hotel bar brings us to the unfortunate realization that most kitchens close at 9:00. We eventually find an open place, and, despite plastic lawn seating and a general Jersey Shore-like atmosphere, the food is almost as good as I remember of other restaurants in town. Miguel reaches for the check as soon as it arrives. “I got this.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Please let me pay for something. You’ve gotten the room. You paid for a cab. I know you’re trying to be nice, but the nicest thing you can do for me now is try to make this a normal trip. Please. I’m begging. Let this be a normal trip.” He nods, and the waiter departs with both our cards. We sip our drinks in silence for a minute. “I’m sorry for snapping,” I eventually say. “I do appreciate you making me come. I’ve missed this place. I’m happy to be back.”
“Are you?”
“I think I am. I just need a day to fully settle into it. It’s just…different than what I remembered.”
“It’s its old self again. Everything back open. Everything available. Everyone here.” He trips over this last remark and clears his throat. “What I mean is—”
“I know what you mean. The place is full. No one who didn’t know him would notice a difference.”
He nods, not breaking his stare as he scrutinizes my demeanor. “Are you gonna be ok on this trip?”
I nod. “I just need it to be normal. If we go about our days normally, I’ll be good.”
A smile forms, and he appears to relax some. “Let’s make that happen then. What do you wanna do tomorrow? Pool?”
He doesn’t want me to go back to that place. “No. Boy Beach.”
Has anyone seen Ronan?
***
I don’t remember after dinner. Miguel says we went to A-House. “Was I high? Was I messy?”
“I think you took something,” he says, “but you were fine. You broke a lot of hearts going home alone.”
On our way to the beach, Miguel spies some New York friends of his in front of a B&B. They’re all mid-forties, like him. “Hi, honey,” says Loud One, kissing Miguel. “We’re sorry you’re not staying with us,” says Tall One. “Who’s this young cutie?” asks Ginger Bear, pointing to me.
Miguel introduces us. I try to shake everyone’s hand, but Loud One laughs and says, “So butch,” before kissing me on the cheek.
“Have we met?” I ask.
Loud One stops laughing. “I don’t think so.” He turns to the other guys. “Butch and serious.”
“This one’s not the most affectionate,” says Miguel. He’s trying to be jocular, but it comes off a sincere warning.
“My apologies,” says Loud One. “Didn’t realize.”
Fuck. I seem rude. “No, please. It’s fine. I mean…I don’t mind. Nice to meet you.”
Miguel must see I’m about to turn red because he abruptly asks the three of them about something or someone I know nothing about. This is meant to relieve me from the conversation, but it goes too far. I’m now isolated, out-of-place, a hanger-on. I’m replaying the introductions, thinking of how I could have done better. They hate me, don’t they?
“And you?” asks Ginger Bear, looking at me.
I don’t know what he’s asking about. “Hm?”
“You’re going to Boy Beach today?”
“Yes, definitely. Can’t wait.” I make sure to speak up and smile. “You all too?”
“Yes. Still,” says Loud One.
They just said that, didn’t they? Christ, they must think I’m a nut. Mercifully, a drag queen interrupts us. She’s dressed in gold-trimmed white vestments and a phallus-bejeweled miter. “Listen,” she shouts, tossing up her handbills. PROPHETESS AND HER ALTAR BOYS: JOIN THE REVIVAL AT 7PM. “The voice, the cry of the sons of my people: ‘Is not the Lord in Provincetown? Is not her King in her?’”
The other guys laugh at this innuendo. I join to fit in. I think I’m repairing the damage.
She feels up Miguel. “Oh, why oh why have they provoked me to anger with their lurid images? With — how I hate to say it — fornication of all things?!”
More sincere laughter from them. Polite mirroring from me. It’s going well.
“Carnival is soon past. The summer will be ended. Are you not saved?”
Everyone else answers “not one bit” in unison. How do they know the responses?
Prophetess sees I stayed silent, purses her lips, and pulls out a fan. “Well, for the hurt of the sodomite, I am hurt. I am positively mourning. What has taken hold of thee?” She puts the back of her hand on my forehead. “I do declare…it’s…it’s… monkeypox!”
They all point and laugh. At her? At me? I’m turning red now, aren’t I? I can feel it. It must look like I actually have monkeypox. They laugh louder. The redder I get, the more I become the joke. Prophetess is laughing. Behind her eyes, she’s working up a new way to roast me. I can’t take it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “My friend and I have to get to Boy Beach.”
Miguel tries to come up with a more polite goodbye, but I pull him away before he can say much. As I flee, Prophetess makes one final jab. “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no recovery for the health of the homosexual?”
Way better than Fire Island. Here, you always feel welcome.
***
It’s noon, and Boy Beach is not as crowded as I remember it. Hope it’s just an off day. Behind our canopy, this cute couple has been hovering around and checking us out. I’m thinking of inviting them over but am going to wait a bit. Down in the water, Miguel’s swimming with Loud One. I approach them but only go up to my knees.
I wave, but I don’t think they see me. They’re out of earshot, and Loud One isn’t as smiley as he was this morning. Miguel is nodding, only saying one-syllable words like “yeah,” “right,” and something else I can’t lipread.
Eventually, they notice me and swim ashore. “So yeah, I’ll talk to you later,” says Loud One. “Hey again,” he says to me before heading back to his own group a little up the beach.
“Hi, bye,” I say before turning to Miguel.
“Didn’t wanna join us?” he asks.
“Afraid of sharks.”
As we return to our canopy, the cute couple rises from their towels to hover again. They’re a type that suits both of us — late thirties, toned, one tanned and shaven, the other pale and patched with kempt black body hair that’s starting to gray. “Should we invite them over?” asks Miguel.
“After a nap. I don’t really feel like meeting anyone right now.”
When the urge to piss wakes me, it feels like only fifteen minutes have passed, but my phone says an hour. Miguel is gone. Walking to the dunes to relieve myself, I return a wink from Pale Salt-N-Pepper of the hot couple. I’ll chat with them after I finish.
As I evacuate, I can see the tide has come into the marsh behind the beach, and some gays are already having sex in ankle-deep water. By the marsh’s edge, three more guys are offering head to a total of seven takers. A few onlookers touch themselves, but unexposed voyeurs easily outnumber the rest. Miguel is probably among them. He likes to watch.
Damn, the water came in fast. The trek to Boy Beach is a mile-long elephant walk mostly over merciless dry sand. You ever seen Morocco with Marlene Dietrich? When the moon is favorable and the tide is low, you merely get your toes wet in the saturated stretches. Oh my God, yes. That end scene with her hauling that goat up the dune. Miguel needs to get a boat. Or someone should start a water taxi service. But during a spring high tide, you can expect the water to climb to your thighs or higher at points. Hell no to the taxi. That’d make it easier for the straights to come. I’ve forgotten just how quickly the tide can catch you off guard.
Ronan has gone missing.
After shaking it dry and tucking it back in, I descend toward the marsh. As soon as I’m ankle deep, a guy fluffing a semi under his speedo approaches me. “Not now,” I say. “I’m on business, not pleasure.” As I march, the marsh bottom is softening such that it feels like walking on marshmallow fluff. At the edge of the watergrass, I look back and see the figures on dry land have shrunk so that I can no longer distinguish who is naked and who is wearing a nude-colored suit.
In the rivulets among the grass, mollusk shells slice at my feet. The water’s up to my calves now, not because it’s much deeper here but because the muck so easily swallows my legs. Each step is becoming a more demanding test of my strength against the suction. Marlene didn’t have it as bad as that kid in The NeverEnding Story. It has to have happened at least once — someone sinking into this mud. To say nothing of the horse.
I don’t know what I’m doing here. What am I looking for? I don’t want to disappear into the mire.
As I trudge back to shore, I worry the onlookers will judge me, but once I arrive, I can see they’ve been too fascinated by prurient happenings to notice anything else. I wash the sulfuric slush off my legs and head back over the dunes.
When I return to our canopy, Miguel, Loud One, Tall One, and Ginger Bear are talking to the previously hovering couple a few feet away. I guess they have the same taste as me. Three years ago, I would’ve joined them — try to claim the couple as mine or at least share a bite of the peach. Today, I don’t think I will. I pull a novel from my bag.
Eventually, the couple leads Loud One, Tall One, and Ginger Bear into the dunes, and Miguel returns. “You seemed pretty into those guys earlier,” he says.
I shrug.
“You should join them.”
I shrug again. I keep trying to read, but my mind can’t digest the words. I think about giving up and closing the book, but I don’t want to make eye contact with Miguel right now. He hasn’t taken his eyes off me, and I can tell he’s waiting for me to meet his stare. If he wants to say something, he should say it.
“Can I say something?”
I put down the book and look at him.
“Last night you told me you wanted this to be a normal weekend. I was happy to hear it. I want that for you. But ever since you arrived, you’ve oozed nothing but misery. You’ve sulked. You’ve closed up. Is there something bothering you that I can help with?”
My friend is missing.
“Is there anything bothering me? My friend is missing. My friend has been missing for three years. Three years ago, he disappeared from this very beach, and for a time, others who called him ‘friend’ shared my distress until — poof! — suddenly it became better to forget him. Why the poof? Why the amnesia? He’s still missing, and I’m the only one who seems to care. I’m sorry I’m not handling it the way you want me to.”
“No one wants you to handle it in any one way. I just want you to try to be happy — to make an effort. Take this morning: I introduced you to three really fun guys, and you couldn’t have appeared less interested. They think you hate them.”
“So you’ve been talking about me?”
“Don’t overthink it. It was just something one guy said in passing. They’re not angry, just confused. They think you’re cute. I told them how much of a scream you usually are. They’re waiting for you to turn that charm on and show them a good time. Can you promise me you’ll at least try? That you’re not gonna sulk anymore?”
I’ve already lost. There’s nothing I can say to make Miguel see this place the way I see it — an accident site, a crime scene maybe. I can’t convince him and the three names I don’t remember that there’s nothing wrong with my behavior. The impression is set. The narrative is written. This is a happy place. Always has been. No tragedy I recall can blot its perfection. “I promise.”
Miguel looks relieved. He has more faith in my promise than I do. “Thank you,” he says and turns on his stomach.
I stop kidding myself. I know why I wandered into the marsh. Because I still don’t know what to think of this place. It may be an accident site or crime scene, but it may be a graveyard too. We’ve looked everywhere. We’re closing the search. We abandoned it — not just Ronan but the beach. My memories of this place were a photo album filled with images gay in both senses of the word. To come to Boy Beach each summer was to add more photos and review the old ones. Toward the end of my twenties, the line between memories and the present blurred so completely that to experience this place was to remember it, to remember it was to experience it. But when the Then and the Now merge, what happens to memory after calamity befalls the present? And what do you make of today when yesterday has been ravaged asunder? Ronan’s disappearance tore photos clear out of my mind’s album, and everyone gave up looking before I knew what to replace them with. The album is blank now. What joy am I supposed to draw from staring at an empty page? What new pictures can complement a void? Who were we? What are we? Where am I?
To the left, four men are playing keep-it-up with a volleyball. Offshore, a boat daddy drops anchor as a dozen twinks he probably picked up last night dance to Gaga. It’s almost like it used to be. Miguel must have filled his album with images like these over the past three years. By now, his book, aside from the conspicuous absence of one figure, must appear indistinguishable from how it looked then.
I can’t do that. I need to make sense of that day before I start my memories anew.
I’m going for a walk down the beach.
Want company?
You can keep napping if you want. I’ll report back the inventory of boys.
My standing accidentally kicks some sand onto Miguel. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“For a walk.”
“Want company?”
“I’m good. I’ll report back the inventory of boys.”
Boy Beach proper — if it can be called that; the National Seashore doesn’t officially designate the place — is never as big as I remember. Less than a hundred yards from our canopy, I’m already past all the chickens, hunks, and other classes of “inventory” and entering the stretch of beach largely quartered off for piping plover nests. Here settle those who walk by Boy Beach twice a day and observe its rowdiness from afar — ten to twenty introverts politely keeping to themselves. I’ve ventured to this part of the shore once before out of curiosity but then, finding it dull, turned around to rejoin the party.
I’m not turning around this time. Beyond the last introvert, two daddies holding hands walk toward Wood End Lighthouse. The lighthouse doesn’t seem that far. I can see the cupola. I think I’ll follow them.
The lighthouse is far. I never knew how far it was. We walk what feels like a hundred yards, and only then does the main white tower join the black-framed lantern room and lookout rail above the duned horizon. It takes at least five hundred more yards for us to finally come parallel to it, and the daddies turn to check it out.
I think I’ll explore it on my way back. I want to keep walking.
The lighthouse disappears behind the dunes far faster than it appeared. It must stand at a stark curve in the shore. I’m alone on the beach now, more protected bird area to my left and crashing waves to my right. How they crash! No taller or more powerful than at Boy Beach but unaccompanied by all the noise the beach’s namesakes make. With each break, millions of saltwater droplets escape the ocean and sprinkle against my almost-naked body. So easily could the swells sweep someone away.
A few hundred more yards and it’s getting rockier. A pebble breaks one of the new scabs over my mollusk shell cuts. It’s just one cut. I can take it. A few hundred yards more, and I realize I haven’t seen anyone since the lighthouse. Another few hundred, and still no one.
Then they appear. The only mammals around are a pod of thirty or so gray seals — not the smaller, nimbler harbor seals found nearer up Cape but the hulking, corpulent masses of blubber that drag themselves around. As soon as I can discern their puppy-like faces, the ones closest to me begin to shift nervously. I try to keep a wide distance as I pass, but it doesn’t quell the more jittery among them. A bumbling attempt at a seaward stampede breaks out. The giants throw themselves toward the water, each pathetic lunge advancing them maybe a quarter-body-length. A few haven’t seen me yet. They look around confused until they spot the biped and join in the rush. If I wanted to hurt them — as they seem to fear — I could have easily caught one by now. The largest of the group looks like he has scarred bite marks on his tail. (I’m right to fear sharks.) He’s struggling more than the others, only advancing a foot or two with each thrust. He locks eyes with me, and his urgency increases. “Don’t worry, buddy. I don’t want to hurt you.” He doesn’t hear me. His lunges grow more forced to the point where he is practically undulating over the rocks, gaining more air with each throw until—
Thrpp.
The giant makes it to the ocean, leaving in his track a dead seal pup. Red stains shiny gray granite and wispy white fur. The pup’s skull is flattened. He’s the only one left on the beach, where the waves lick his lifeless tail.
I can’t watch. I walk onward and see Long Point Light ahead — the tip of the Cape. This lighthouse emerges over the grassy dunes far faster than Wood End did. As it does, some of the seals follow me in the water, their heads popping up to glare at me. They don’t look curious but accusatory. “You did this,” they might think. “You’re the reason our baby’s dead.”
“No, I’m not,” I say aloud. “That’s all on you.”
“You did this.”
I shake my head. “Unnatural anyway. Unnatural to have a pup this late in summer.”
Land’s end comes into sight, devoid of people like the two miles before it. Did Ronan make it this far on his walk that day? It must have taken me an hour to get here. Maybe he’d walk that. With no one here, it could’ve been so easy for something to happen.
I don’t have my phone with me. It must be getting late. I consider walking the final hundred yards to the tip but know Miguel must be worried about me. If I delay further, he’ll hold it against me — another instance of me “sulking” instead of having fun. I need to head back.
Most of the seals have come back to shore but are keeping their distance from the dead pup. Twenty feet in front of the pod, the waves have picked up his corpse and repeatedly throw it against the rocks. Clonk. Clonk.
It’s so loud here. Not percussive but roaring. Howling. How is it so much louder than Boy Beach with all its music, laughter, moaning, and squeals? Is it the waves? The wind? Those should have the same force here as they do up beach. The seals? No. Despite their immense mass and fear, they’re almost silent. No arf, arf, arf. Just blubber against blubber, blubber against water, pup skull against rock. Clonk. Clonk. What is making this roar?
Then it comes to me. This must be where it happened. I can feel it. This is where the world lost Ronan. The revelation is screaming at me like the wail of a ghost, though I don’t believe in ghosts. I’m reminded of what Prophetess said this morning. “The voice, the cry of the sons of my people: ‘Is not the Lord in Provincetown?’” I can feel God in this place. In this cacophony, I can hear all his wrath, love, awesomeness, and ecstasy. Is he mimicking the cry of the sons of Provincetown? Do the elated sounds of Boy Beach ricochet off the great beyond and arrive at this place a hideous perversion of their source? Or do the sobs of those few who drift from the hedonism and long to return forever reverberate here? Is this Ronan I hear? Is it me? Or is it the echo of a happy song we once sang?
Clonk. Clonk.
For all the ambient din filling this place, it’s the thumping of skull against stone that distresses me most. Clonk. Clonk. This is where he disappeared. Have I found what I’ve looked for? I think so. Clonk. Clonk. So why does truth offer no salve? Clonk.
Nasty noise that seal makes. Let me get away from here. Let me return to Boy Beach, to the laughter and the squeals.
I try to run back, but miles of sand now separate me from where I started. With each step, some millions of grains cave under my weight. As I strain for surer footing, I pray for the thumping to subside. Clonk. Clonk. Please quiet down. Clonk. Clonk. Please.
There is no balm in Gilead. Not a physician to be found.
Zachary Ambrose Woodward is a writer, attorney, and former political staffer based in Washington, D.C. His fiction has previously been published by Infection House. Originally from Massachusetts, he is a graduate of the College of William & Mary and Harvard Law School.
ELEVENTH HOUR LITERARY 