Full Frontal: To Make a Long Story Short (3 page)

“Hey, no,” Tim responded, irritated. “We’re in school together; we just wanted to have some fun on the Cape.”

“Coulda fooled me,” she said, swaying back to the pickup stand. She was obviously pissed off.

“Hell.” Bobby laughed. “She’s just looking for some fun. Want to ask her back?”

“I’m ready to leave,” Tim said taking off his bib and pushing the lobster shells into the middle of the picnic table and onto the newspapers that had been laid out as a tablecloth. “I’ve had enough of the Clam Shack.”

“Me too,” Bobby agreed as he pulled out money to pay the bill.

“You keeping tabs on what we’re spending?” Tim asked.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

The boys walked back to the Surfcomber without speaking. Penny’s comment had struck a nerve. Tim didn’t think they were
queer for each other
. What was wrong with two friends having feelings? Back at the motel room Bobby suggested a swim. “It’s our last night here,” he said.

“Why not?” Tim was happy to be back in the privacy of their room. They changed into swimsuits, shy as always, and took the wooden steps to the beach. It was getting cloudy, so there was no moonlight, making the water dark, but still warm. The boys waded out until the water reached their waists. Bobby was first to pull Tim’s swim trunks off. They knew the ritual. Then Tim stripped Bobby’s trunks off, hurling them to shore. The two boys, naked, wrapped around each other. This time it was different. Bobby locked his legs around Tim.

“Let’s go in,” Bobby suggested as he kissed Tim. The boys waded through the shallow salt water to shore and walked naked to the small motel room.

The shower water was warm and refreshing as it washed off the salt and sand. Bobby turned around and pulled Tim against him. The two were lathered in soap, which made the embrace a little slippery. This was different from the night before, their roles and positions reversed. Bobby shut off the water and the two moved to the bed.

“I want to know how it feels,” Bobby said with an odd new voice, looking at Tim directly.

The next morning the sky was gray and the wind was picking up. Someone had removed all the umbrellas and lounge chairs away from the pool area. It was going to be a nasty day.

The boys dressed quickly and packed their bags.

“We better get going,” Bobby said. “Look’s like a storm is coming in.”

“I’m ready,” Tim said, although he was disappointed to be leaving so soon.

“You boys checking out early?” the woman at the front desk asked, still smoking her eternal cigarette. “We’re getting the tail end of the hurricane that hit the Carolina Outer Banks last night. Her name is Bea. Isn’t that a bitch, and so early in the season. We’ll get heavy rain and wind. Screw up my weekend. The cancellations are pouring in. And I was sold out. You guys want to stay over? I’ll give you a good rate.”

“Thanks very much,” Bobby said politely. “But we have to get back. We better get going before it gets really bad.”

“Okay, boys. You drive safe, and come back sometime. It’s really nice here in September. I’ll give you a good rate.”

“Thanks,” Bobby said, knowing they would never come back to the Surfcomber.

The drive was boring, and there were no bologna sandwiches this time. The rain started, and the convertible wasn’t fun with rain pounding upon the canvas roof. The Cape trip was over, and with it, everything that had happened. Tim looked out the window and wondered if anything had really happened.

Bobby pulled up to Tim’s house in Westport and left him on the cement steps leading up to the kitchen door. Tim’s mom would be waiting inside, as always.

Bobby drove off, the rain still beating on the convertible top. Tim stood there, getting soaked in the pouring rain, his duffel bag in hand.

The rest of the summer dragged on. Tim went back to his caddying job at the Long Shore Country Club, and Bobby reported to Prep for summer football training. They saw each other only a few times the rest of the summer, and then only when the two of them took off for a night of drinking in Port Chester. Neither one talked about their trip to the Cape.

The summer had been unusually rainy, with the tail ends of three more hurricanes finding their way to New England, causing Tim to lose a lot of days work caddying at the country club. Labor Day was that coming weekend, the last big holiday before Prep started, but the weather forecasters were predicting that Hurricane Fay was veering in from the Atlantic right for the Northeast. The eye of the storm skirted Long Island, with Fire Island and the Hamptons sustaining major beach and dune erosion. Westport got only heavy rain and winds up to sixty miles per hour, causing widespread power outages from downed trees.
Fay
picked up unexpected strength after passing Montauck and bore down full force on the Cape, with South Yarmouth taking a direct hit.

The next day’s headline in the
Norwalk Hour
reported
“Cape Flattened by Fay.” The caption under the black-and-white photo of piles of twisted lumber and pieces of shingled roofs read “South Yarmouth Motel Row Destroyed.” There was a piece of a sign jutting out from the rubble, right in front, with the letters spelling
comber
. Tim froze as he stared at the picture.

Baby

August 1960

I
t was the Winter Garden Theatre, and an open audition for dancers in
West Side Story
and also for a replacement for the role of Baby John was being held. David Winters, who had originated the role, was leaving the cast after a very successful run. Tim Halladay had nothing to lose by going and trying out, but naturally he was nervous.

He was let in to the theatre from the backstage door on Seventh Avenue, given an information form to fill out, and then asked to wait with all the other dancers hoping for a chance to get the part. Tim was insecure, but he filled out the form and passed it in, along with a head shot, and then waited with everyone else in the front rows of the orchestra seats—the only time he would ever have this prime a location at the Winter Garden.

The boys were called up in groups of twelve, asked to read a few lines of dialogue, and then put through a dance routine led by Mickey, the dance captain. The whole process was tightly programmed. Everyone seemed to know what was going on except Tim. He stumbled through the dance routine and was called out by Mickey, who took him aside to stage right as the other dancers stood waiting for the next formation. Mickey told Tim that the director, Jerome Robbins, wanted to speak to him. He led Tim down off the stage to the center orchestra seats where Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim sat. An assistant in the row behind was busily taking notes on a yellow pad. And now Tim was terrified.

“Hello, kid,” Robbins said to Tim, extending his hand. “Sit down.” He gestured toward a seat in the front row.

“Mr. Robbins … it’s an honor to meet you,” Tim said shyly, somewhat overcome. Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim watched this encounter with amused expressions and raised eyebrows.

“Tim,” Robbins said, putting his hand on Tim’s shoulder, “you are perfect for Baby John. You have the cherubic face and the exact voice.” He paused, looking at Tim, making direct eye contact: He was being sincere. “The only problem is you cannot dance.”

Tim was stunned to hear this.

After an awkward pause, Tim asked, “Is there any way you could rewrite the part so Baby John doesn’t have to dance?”

Robbins looked at Laurents and Sondheim, smiled, and then came back to Tim and, with wide eyes and an astonished grin, said, “No, Tim. I don’t think we can do that.”

“Just thought I’d ask,” Tim said sheepishly.

“Tim, let me get Mickey to talk to you. He might be able to give you some advice. I feel you have talent, but you need some professional training. Good luck, kid,” Robbins said giving Tim a gentle tap on the back.

Mickey returned, seemingly astounded by his new chore. “Come on, Tim. Let’s get a cup of coffee. I have a couple of hours before the warm-ups for tonight’s performance.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tim said following him. They left by the stage door exit and started down Seventh Avenue. Mickey put an arm around Tim. “Don’t worry, kid. You’re going to be fine.”

Tim was instantly excited by the physical contact with the handsome, muscled dancer. As they walked away from the theatre, Mickey’s arm still rested on Tim’s shoulder.

“Let’s say we just go to my place and have something cold to drink. I live a few blocks away.”

“Okay, sure.” Tim was nervous, but the attraction he was feeling for Mickey overcame any hesitation.

Mickey lived in a loft on West Forty-Sixth Street, a few blocks from the Winter Garden. They trudged up to the third floor, and by the time they got there, both were sweating. It was a steamy August afternoon.

“Lemonade okay?” Mickey offered with a smile, tapping Tim on the cheek.

“Anything cold. It sure is hot!”

“I know, and I don’t have air-conditioning,” Mickey apologized. “So you want to be a dancer?” Mickey asked, as they gulped down the cold drinks.

“I don’t know if I can compete with all those guys. They’re so much better.”

“You may be right. You don’t seem to have the natural rhythm. Also, those guys have been training since they were five years old.” Mickey gave Tim a wink. “How old are you, kid?”

“Eighteen.” Tim lied, suspecting that was the minimum age to audition.

“Oh, God! Save me!”

“What’s the problem?” Tim asked.

“You’re a baby!”

“I’ve been around,” Tim said a bit defensively.

Mickey told Tim to take off his shirt. His own clothes suddenly fell off in a heap. By the time Tim got up off the sofa and pulled on his jeans, the ice cubes in the lemonade had all melted.

“I have to go,” he said, embarrassed. “I need to be on the 5:07 to Westport. My mom’s picking me up at the station.”

“I have to get back to the theatre for warm-ups,” Mickey said, as he gave Tim a long full kiss on the mouth.

Tim
said, “Thanks for the lemonade.”

He slipped out of Mickey’s apartment and down the three flights of stairs. It was a long, hot walk back to Grand Central Station, but he couldn’t forget Mickey’s final words.

“You are the real Baby John! Even if you can’t dance.”

Eddie

August 1967

T
im had made it through basic training, and he was shipped off to Fort Eustis, Virginia, affectionately labeled “Fort Useless”
by the guys stationed there. This was a break for Tim, as Fort Eustis was only ten miles from Williamsburg, where he’d graduated from the College of William and Mary a year before. He was back in familiar territory, a great relief after two months of basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Tim still had a few friends in the area, but he wouldn’t go near the college campus until he’d grown his hair longer again. Even so, he looked forward to walking the campus, going across the sunken garden and through the Wren Building, where he’d attended English classes. Tim thought he might run into a former professor or even hang out at the student union over a cup of coffee. The prospect of being around people who actually read books and whose aspirations extended beyond
Playboy
magazine was suddenly quite appealing.

Tim’s first few weeks at Fort Eustis had been mainly spent in classrooms, a piece of cake for “College Boy”—the nickname he’d been given in basic training by the drill sergeant, who had singled Tim out as the only college grad in the unit, the guy who didn’t opt to go to Officer Candidate School. Maybe Tim couldn’t throw a grenade right, but he could sit through lectures and slide presentations; he could take notes and easily pass a simple test.

Fort Eustis was a transportation center, and Tim was placed in something called T-School. His aptitude tests indicated that his MOS (Mode of Specialization) qualified him for “troop movement.” Actually, he was just a travel agent in uniform. The only difference was that instead of sending honeymoon couples to Bermuda, Tim was shipping guys off to Vietnam.

Classroom work was kind of fun, because Tim got to learn about moving large numbers of men, supplies, and equipment by air, sea, and rail. Most of the test questions involved poring through volumes of airline guides and filling out forms. It was a bit less complicated than eighth grade algebra.

Tim’s proficiency for neatly and correctly filling out forms probably saved him from getting his ass shot off in Vietnam. One day he was pulled out of class and promoted to company clerk. All that knowledge he’d acquired in T-School about moving container loads of grain all over the world would now go to waste. Tim’s duties as company clerk were limited to typing every imaginable form the US government could conceive, which was a great deal, and then processing orders for young guys to go off to Vietnam, supposedly to “repair helicopters.”

Tim had been selected for this desk job because the company captain liked him. Tim was a model soldier—never missing reveille, his bunk and footlocker always immaculate during inspection. Tim got perfect scores on classroom quizzes, and his boots shone to a high varnish. While “College Boy” had been the butt of the drill sergeant’s jokes in basic training, he was now accepted.

Tim settled into his new career as company clerk and typist. His duties were limited to being at his desk at CQ (Charge of Quarters), Monday to Friday. It was like having a job at an insurance office. He was excused from regular formation, and from demeaning details like KP, policing areas around barracks, which usually meant picking up cigarette butts and cleaning out the grease trap—which was all he had done on weekends during basic training at Fort Jackson. Tim’s new role allowed him time to do what he liked most: read books, usually those he’d only read in outlines and condensations of during college to get him through exams, leaving him with little understanding of the text.

It was still summer, and the days were hot and long when Tim first arrived at Fort Eustis. When his clerk typist duties were done for the day at around five in the afternoon, Tim would take whatever book he was reading and walk to the field behind the rifle range. He’d sit propped up against an old elm tree and read until the light faded. It was a tranquil spot overlooking the James River. The only reminder that he was in the army were rows of abandoned World War II ships—the Mothball Fleet—anchored in the James River, left like lonely ghosts to rust, yet grim reminders of what could happen again. Those summer evenings Tim spent by the river with his books were the best times he’d remember in the army. It was hard to make friends, because Tim was processing guys out every week. None stuck around.