Skipping Time

SKIPPING TIME Why is it always seemingly brightest right before the very next Full Moon? That’s especially true during December, of any year, any time, any where – the so-called “Moon Before Yule”, a/k/a/ the Long Night Moon, as the winter nights lengthen and the moon spends more time above the horizon opposite a low sun. It was precisely on the weekend cusp of such a Full Moon – 6 December, 1976 – that I found myself in Bridgehampton, New York. Mind you I very consciously declare: found myself, because prior to that moment I didn’t have a bang-in as to what men really wanted from fornication. Zilch. Nada. I was and still am very conversant in the rarefied fields and finery of fore-play. But that exquisite place of consciousness where the rubber hose sprays the fire of desire I dawned into on a cold, very icy night in Bridgehampton. Truth told he was too old to fall in love and I was too too sweet and oh so young to know. But that’s why Bridgehampton’s first moniker – BULLHEAD – is truly more akin with its spiritual raison d’etre: to wit, more infamous now for the likes of 18th century rabid criminal and elusive memoirist, Stephen Burroughs and more recently for horse shows and a road racing course. Bridgehampton is a hamlet for the soul to re-connect with its spare parts, re-tool, re-set and most especially get it on. But in order to whole-heartedly engage that process you must have a Bridgehampton spot to call your own, even temporarily. You simply must go indoors to experience the fullness of being Bridgehampton. Leave the outdoors for the stray cat, pesky critter and/or washed up soap sud. We drove from the West Village east-ward with little to say. What needed to be said would not be spoken and what would be spoken was better left unsaid. So the quietude of the car ride spoke unsaid volumes of what would ultimately neither be wrote, spoken or read. When someone lives in their diary rather than in Life it might be better that they buy a diary pre-fabbed so that no one else need be a collateral fixture sufficiently ‘real’ to be in the diary cast of characters: lovers, villains, children, partners, spouses, short-change fixers, etc. Setting is everything. An emerging Full Moon can lustre just about any hand-me-down but it’s the wee place it hovers over that right fixes its ultimate celestial configuration. So herewith there was a cosmic double-header: a sweet spot if ever there were one: Bridghampton and a delightfully deluxe cummerbund in the sky – ready to ‘tie-one’ on at the drop of a condom, a cupid’s bow and/or a semen sprout. Alas, let me not get ahead of events. We were ostensibly journeying that good night as do-oers-of-good deeds: baby-sitting a house that was not a home to its occupants. Little did I know that the status quo ante would be so forthrightly up-ended. Age gives perspective, experience and the ability to gauge expectations in light of past realities. Hence he was certain to steer the compass of his desireables in exquisite parallel with the arrival time, too late to eat, right on time to drink, snack and then the come-uppance. Or so he conspired in the aegis of his lustful imaginings. No black wedding gowns, no swans in the duck soup, no geese in the chestnuts. This was to be a weekend of veritable sensuality supreme. Hush: It still takes two to tango. Upon arrival and quickly dispatching minimal luggage, we began the process of letting go any ties that inextricably bound us apart and sought a new blazing break through in human engaging inter-change. And that’s when the pen-ultimate Long Island interloper put the fix in big-time: let’s see how many homes we can invade, completely ravage each self to and for the other and not stop ‘til either morning had broken, someone ran out of psychic steam and/or we got caught. The thrill was on: we had it coming and going all along Dune Road and then some: dropping into every mis-begotten shaped living room kidney-sized-shaped pool, re-threading the green fabrication of every pool table and worthy cue stick, sinking into the out-sized den shags until there was not a spare thread any longer unkempt. His solitary expectation: if we could get it on in as many bungalows, bedrests and bullpens that Bridgehampton had for the taking that Friday and Saturday night, we would be well done indeed and truly have achieved our Hosts’ wish: stay warm and enjoy the indoors. Bullhead Bridgehampton! On the ride back westward, the silence did not abate; the air was neither light nor heavy with desire or the absence thereof. Rather my sweet sojurning partner – that Ole’ Devil Moon – kept the light on theretofore darkened pockets of plenty and spoonfuls of sugar and everything was really nice. Yule-tide carols can be sung by a choir but the chorus of moans, and hee-haws, and you’d be so nice to come home to cast their own spell long after the thrill is gone or at least way-laid out of Bridgehampton.