across the shell-strewn strand to our side-by-side blankets, hurry our still-wet forms back into swimsuits (Does giggling Ginny really have a tampon-string dangling
down there? Fumbling dizzily with his mist-sprayed specs, Narrator can’t quite see), gather up our stuff, and hurry as best we can through rising wind up the now all but deserted beach to take shelter under the pier until the brief but violent thunder-squall passes, the raucous four of us huddled on one blanket and wrapped together in the other while lightning-bolts explode all around.
FLASHBANG!
The storm moved quickly up-shore and dissipated; the sun re-emerged in time to sink into the Gulf even more spectacularly than it had into the Chesapeake back in that Solstitial Illumination of George Irving Newett’s Post-Equinoctial Vision #1—but this slow-motion “Flashbang” account of his Dream/ Vision/Transport/Whatever #2 is not yet done.
“Maybe spare us the specifics?” Amanda Todd will suggest in the twenty-first century. “‘The Devil’s in the details,’ as the saying goes.”
Agreed, love—but the devilish details don’t go without saying. Granted, any B-plus sophomore Creative Rotter could predict what’s about to happen, more or less....
“I.e., that these early-twentyish WASP-American college seniors experimenting with dope and Sexual Liberation back in mid-century are about to cross some line that will provoke a consequential Flashbang blow-up in their interpersonal relations, yes?”
Yes and no, in fact: Yes to the first part of that prediction; No to the second, where our Flashbang will presently peter out with a whimper.
“Oyoyoy, on with it, then: Peter in, peter out, and Devil take the hindmost.”
That just about sums it up, actually:
To set up camp for the night, we first go back to the station wagon (but by no means go “on the wagon”; in fact, along with the pup-tents we retrieve from the back of the Oldsmobile a bottle of Gilbey’s gin and another of tonic-water to supplement our all-but-done-with rum and Coke) and then trudge down to a still-undeveloped stretch of the twilit beach. Ned and Narrator pitch the tents on the storm-wet sand; the girls, still murmuring among themselves in what sounds sometimes like teasing, sometimes like arguing, cobble up from our sorely depleted larder some sort of rudimentary sandwich supper, which we wash down by Coleman lantern-light with world-temperature gin-and-tonics. Then, in lieu of dessert, we smoke the last of the marijuana, which was meant to be saved for Key West, but what the hell.
“What the hell indeed?” wonders Marsha Green, aloud. “Just what the hell do we-all think we’re up to, anyhow?”
“Up to our necks in eating, drinking, and being merry?” is Narrator’s guess. “For tomorrow we become Responsible Adults, or next week latest?”
“And then poof! We’re dead,” says Ned, “having hardly had a taste of Capital-L Life. Never mind Naples Flori-duh: Gotta see the real Napoli, Venezia, Pa-ree! Gotta see Tahiti, the Pyramids, the Great fucking Wall of China!”
“Me,” says Marsha, “I’m so effing stoned I can hardly see my effing hand in front of my face. Are we crazy, or what?”
“Crazy ’bout you, babe,” sings Ned, and makes bold to shift herward from beside Ginny, kiss her tousled hair, embrace and collapse with her onto the blanket, laughing and spilling their drinks.
“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” then declares Ginny, “and vice versa, right?” Rising to stand unsteadily before Narrator, she touches the bottle of Gilbey’s first to his cheek, then in turn to her cleavage and her crotch, chanting “G.I.N.-gin-Ginny, Ginny-gin-Gin! Let’s put some hair on your chinny-chin chin!” —a tease, Narrator will learn later, concocted for her somewhile earlier by Ned, along with, “Speaking of ganders, Georgie-Porgie, why not take a real gander at what you’ve been sneaking peeks at all
down there? Fumbling dizzily with his mist-sprayed specs, Narrator can’t quite see), gather up our stuff, and hurry as best we can through rising wind up the now all but deserted beach to take shelter under the pier until the brief but violent thunder-squall passes, the raucous four of us huddled on one blanket and wrapped together in the other while lightning-bolts explode all around.
FLASHBANG!
The storm moved quickly up-shore and dissipated; the sun re-emerged in time to sink into the Gulf even more spectacularly than it had into the Chesapeake back in that Solstitial Illumination of George Irving Newett’s Post-Equinoctial Vision #1—but this slow-motion “Flashbang” account of his Dream/ Vision/Transport/Whatever #2 is not yet done.
“Maybe spare us the specifics?” Amanda Todd will suggest in the twenty-first century. “‘The Devil’s in the details,’ as the saying goes.”
Agreed, love—but the devilish details don’t go without saying. Granted, any B-plus sophomore Creative Rotter could predict what’s about to happen, more or less....
“I.e., that these early-twentyish WASP-American college seniors experimenting with dope and Sexual Liberation back in mid-century are about to cross some line that will provoke a consequential Flashbang blow-up in their interpersonal relations, yes?”
Yes and no, in fact: Yes to the first part of that prediction; No to the second, where our Flashbang will presently peter out with a whimper.
“Oyoyoy, on with it, then: Peter in, peter out, and Devil take the hindmost.”
That just about sums it up, actually:
To set up camp for the night, we first go back to the station wagon (but by no means go “on the wagon”; in fact, along with the pup-tents we retrieve from the back of the Oldsmobile a bottle of Gilbey’s gin and another of tonic-water to supplement our all-but-done-with rum and Coke) and then trudge down to a still-undeveloped stretch of the twilit beach. Ned and Narrator pitch the tents on the storm-wet sand; the girls, still murmuring among themselves in what sounds sometimes like teasing, sometimes like arguing, cobble up from our sorely depleted larder some sort of rudimentary sandwich supper, which we wash down by Coleman lantern-light with world-temperature gin-and-tonics. Then, in lieu of dessert, we smoke the last of the marijuana, which was meant to be saved for Key West, but what the hell.
“What the hell indeed?” wonders Marsha Green, aloud. “Just what the hell do we-all think we’re up to, anyhow?”
“Up to our necks in eating, drinking, and being merry?” is Narrator’s guess. “For tomorrow we become Responsible Adults, or next week latest?”
“And then poof! We’re dead,” says Ned, “having hardly had a taste of Capital-L Life. Never mind Naples Flori-duh: Gotta see the real Napoli, Venezia, Pa-ree! Gotta see Tahiti, the Pyramids, the Great fucking Wall of China!”
“Me,” says Marsha, “I’m so effing stoned I can hardly see my effing hand in front of my face. Are we crazy, or what?”
“Crazy ’bout you, babe,” sings Ned, and makes bold to shift herward from beside Ginny, kiss her tousled hair, embrace and collapse with her onto the blanket, laughing and spilling their drinks.
“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” then declares Ginny, “and vice versa, right?” Rising to stand unsteadily before Narrator, she touches the bottle of Gilbey’s first to his cheek, then in turn to her cleavage and her crotch, chanting “G.I.N.-gin-Ginny, Ginny-gin-Gin! Let’s put some hair on your chinny-chin chin!” —a tease, Narrator will learn later, concocted for her somewhile earlier by Ned, along with, “Speaking of ganders, Georgie-Porgie, why not take a real gander at what you’ve been sneaking peeks at all
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