A few years ago, we were inseparable but as the '90s progressed on, our friendship didn't. In my eyes Linda had aged dramatically in the few years since the start of the decade. Oh not so much in actual biological age (though she was over 40 now) but more in the way she conducted her life.
Gone was the carefree newly-divorced fun-loving young-spirited fag hag paling around with her artistic and flamboyant good-looking 20-something gay guy (me). Now she was the somewhat dowdy corporate executive single mother homebody, dwelling on job responsibilities, family life and household cleaning. I guess having to support and raise two teenagers alone can suck the joie de vivre from you...it sure did for Linda.
Though the '80s were a time of sexual liberation and boyfriend hopping for her, she had now settled for a rather boring guy who apparently had something against gay guys. It was never stated but it seemed obvious.
So it was somewhat of a surprise that Linda called me out of the blue one weekday afternoon and asked me what my plans were for the upcoming weekend. I worked on weekends but I was due vacation time so when she suggested we go on an excursion to her Cape Cod beach house for the weekend (ala "Beaches" but without the terminal illness) I hastily made arrangements to take the time off.
Linda explained that her Mercury Sable was in the shop so suggested we drive up in my car. She knew I'd just bought a brand new car in February. She offered to help with the gas. Though I thought it'd be more appropriate for her to pay for all the gas, I guess I should be happy she offered anything at all.
When I arrived to pick her up that Friday afternoon, she had me load up the car with about 8 suitcases. That's typical Linda. You'd think she was moving there for the whole summer, not just one weekend. She explained she really hadn't spent much time there yet this summer and she needed to take up some supplies.
Once we were situated in the car she started to complain about my driving, the small size of the car, the rough ride and especially, though I had warned her, the fact the car had no air conditioning. It was a really barebones 1993 Geo Metro. At one point while driving, I needed to shift and her leg was blocking access to the stick shift. I asked her if she could move her leg and she flipped out and yelled at me that there was nowhere else she could put it. And I do mean flipped out.
She calmed down after a short while and ignored the incident like nothing had happened. This too was typical Linda.
As we talked about the weekend and the plans she had made for the both of us (on her own of course) I asked about the house. She admitted that though she called it her "summer house" it was really an RV. You gotta be kidding, I thought to myself. Linda was always a "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" girl in the '80s. One could expect the finer things when out on the town with her. But the divorce from her millionaire husband was not as lucrative for her as she would have liked. Her champagne and caviar lifestyle had diminished over the years to Kool-Aid and SPAM sandwiches. How sad.
Sure enough, her "beach house" was not only an older single-wide camper but it wasn't even right on the beach. It was in a dusty, rundown RV park across the street from the public boat ramp. No beach, just a rocky shore and a dock. And she lied about the Cape too. This was Hull, Massachusetts, essentially a blue-collar south shore suburb of Boston. Like many former seaside amusement park towns, once the amusement park went belly up, so did the town. Hull was now a gritty, graffiti-tagged proving ground for destitute drunks, fixed-income elderly and teen-aged skateboarding losers.
So sunbathing was basically restricted to her lawn chairs amidst the dry grass of her lot, swatting away mosquitoes and flies and praying for the rare sea breeze that would find it's way from across the dusty road.
That evening we went out on the town so to speak and participated in her newest thrill: Karaoke. Oh God, could this trip get any worse I thought silently. I humored her and we met up with some of her friends she had gotten to know over the weekends that she spent up here. I'm sure when she was here with her kids they loved it. But they were away on some church trip or something this weekend so I was the lucky one.
After returning to our camper, I watched as Linda made ready for bed, but before so, did her electro-stimulus treatments for her face. What thrills! And so it was lights out by 11:00 with me on what essentially was the couch. Linda had given me two sheets and cautioned me to keep one over the upholstery so I wouldn't get it dirty. During the night, the temperature dropped and I had unconsciously pulled up the bottom sheet to use as another cover to keep me warm. Well when Linda woke up at the crack of dawn, she saw I was lying directly on the upholstery and screamed at me. Oh yeah, she had gone to Psycho City and was running for Mayor.
That afternoon she sensed I was upset since I hardly spoke to her all morning. She suggested we meet up with another friend of hers staying in the RV park and go for a boat ride. Finally, I thought, a good idea. Well, not so fast. The boat was a little rickety wooden 20 footer, used for fishing. And it had dried fish guts and stains all over. The day was hot and humid and though I'm used to sailing, the guy couldn't provide a smooth ride. He was always in the wake of some other speedier boat and the 2-stroke engine fumes were blowing right at me. It wasn't long before I was leaning overboard puking my lungs out, seasick.
That night we went out to her freakin' Karaoke bar again. Though I was over the seasickness by now, I wanted to barf again just from boredom. Once we were back in the camper, I made sure as I readied for bed that my sheet was properly tucked.
Finally it came to the last day of our weekend retreat. But we had work to do before we left. Linda made me clean the inside of the RV, haul the human waste tank to the park's septic tank dump drain, and wash down the exterior of the camper with soapsuds/bleach mixture and a long handled brush. Then rinse with a hose.
As we drove back to Rhode Island, we were silent. We both blamed it on fatigue from a busy "fun-filled" weekend, but I think both of us realized we just weren't fun for each other anymore. Neither one of us ever bothered to get in touch with the other after this weekend.
I guess it was more like "Beaches" than we thought. It was our friendship that had gasped it's last breath and died.
Gone was the carefree newly-divorced fun-loving young-spirited fag hag paling around with her artistic and flamboyant good-looking 20-something gay guy (me). Now she was the somewhat dowdy corporate executive single mother homebody, dwelling on job responsibilities, family life and household cleaning. I guess having to support and raise two teenagers alone can suck the joie de vivre from you...it sure did for Linda.
Though the '80s were a time of sexual liberation and boyfriend hopping for her, she had now settled for a rather boring guy who apparently had something against gay guys. It was never stated but it seemed obvious.
So it was somewhat of a surprise that Linda called me out of the blue one weekday afternoon and asked me what my plans were for the upcoming weekend. I worked on weekends but I was due vacation time so when she suggested we go on an excursion to her Cape Cod beach house for the weekend (ala "Beaches" but without the terminal illness) I hastily made arrangements to take the time off.
Linda explained that her Mercury Sable was in the shop so suggested we drive up in my car. She knew I'd just bought a brand new car in February. She offered to help with the gas. Though I thought it'd be more appropriate for her to pay for all the gas, I guess I should be happy she offered anything at all.
When I arrived to pick her up that Friday afternoon, she had me load up the car with about 8 suitcases. That's typical Linda. You'd think she was moving there for the whole summer, not just one weekend. She explained she really hadn't spent much time there yet this summer and she needed to take up some supplies.
Once we were situated in the car she started to complain about my driving, the small size of the car, the rough ride and especially, though I had warned her, the fact the car had no air conditioning. It was a really barebones 1993 Geo Metro. At one point while driving, I needed to shift and her leg was blocking access to the stick shift. I asked her if she could move her leg and she flipped out and yelled at me that there was nowhere else she could put it. And I do mean flipped out.
She calmed down after a short while and ignored the incident like nothing had happened. This too was typical Linda.
As we talked about the weekend and the plans she had made for the both of us (on her own of course) I asked about the house. She admitted that though she called it her "summer house" it was really an RV. You gotta be kidding, I thought to myself. Linda was always a "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" girl in the '80s. One could expect the finer things when out on the town with her. But the divorce from her millionaire husband was not as lucrative for her as she would have liked. Her champagne and caviar lifestyle had diminished over the years to Kool-Aid and SPAM sandwiches. How sad.
Sure enough, her "beach house" was not only an older single-wide camper but it wasn't even right on the beach. It was in a dusty, rundown RV park across the street from the public boat ramp. No beach, just a rocky shore and a dock. And she lied about the Cape too. This was Hull, Massachusetts, essentially a blue-collar south shore suburb of Boston. Like many former seaside amusement park towns, once the amusement park went belly up, so did the town. Hull was now a gritty, graffiti-tagged proving ground for destitute drunks, fixed-income elderly and teen-aged skateboarding losers.
So sunbathing was basically restricted to her lawn chairs amidst the dry grass of her lot, swatting away mosquitoes and flies and praying for the rare sea breeze that would find it's way from across the dusty road.
That evening we went out on the town so to speak and participated in her newest thrill: Karaoke. Oh God, could this trip get any worse I thought silently. I humored her and we met up with some of her friends she had gotten to know over the weekends that she spent up here. I'm sure when she was here with her kids they loved it. But they were away on some church trip or something this weekend so I was the lucky one.
After returning to our camper, I watched as Linda made ready for bed, but before so, did her electro-stimulus treatments for her face. What thrills! And so it was lights out by 11:00 with me on what essentially was the couch. Linda had given me two sheets and cautioned me to keep one over the upholstery so I wouldn't get it dirty. During the night, the temperature dropped and I had unconsciously pulled up the bottom sheet to use as another cover to keep me warm. Well when Linda woke up at the crack of dawn, she saw I was lying directly on the upholstery and screamed at me. Oh yeah, she had gone to Psycho City and was running for Mayor.
That afternoon she sensed I was upset since I hardly spoke to her all morning. She suggested we meet up with another friend of hers staying in the RV park and go for a boat ride. Finally, I thought, a good idea. Well, not so fast. The boat was a little rickety wooden 20 footer, used for fishing. And it had dried fish guts and stains all over. The day was hot and humid and though I'm used to sailing, the guy couldn't provide a smooth ride. He was always in the wake of some other speedier boat and the 2-stroke engine fumes were blowing right at me. It wasn't long before I was leaning overboard puking my lungs out, seasick.
That night we went out to her freakin' Karaoke bar again. Though I was over the seasickness by now, I wanted to barf again just from boredom. Once we were back in the camper, I made sure as I readied for bed that my sheet was properly tucked.
Finally it came to the last day of our weekend retreat. But we had work to do before we left. Linda made me clean the inside of the RV, haul the human waste tank to the park's septic tank dump drain, and wash down the exterior of the camper with soapsuds/bleach mixture and a long handled brush. Then rinse with a hose.
As we drove back to Rhode Island, we were silent. We both blamed it on fatigue from a busy "fun-filled" weekend, but I think both of us realized we just weren't fun for each other anymore. Neither one of us ever bothered to get in touch with the other after this weekend.
I guess it was more like "Beaches" than we thought. It was our friendship that had gasped it's last breath and died.