Naked (33 page)

It’s begun to thunder and rain is beating down upon the metal roof of my trailer. Ten o’clock and, from what I can see, everyone’s
lights are out for the evening. I’ve been reading over the list of rules handed me this afternoon by the matron behind the
front desk.

Conduct
— We are a family park and expect your conduct to reflect the moral standards of a family campground.

Towels
— Carry a towel with you at all times and please SIT ON YOUR TOWEL FOR SANITARY REASONS.”

Towels. It suddenly made sense. Noticing the wide range of short curly hairs beside me on the sofa, I leaped up and fetched
a towel that, from this moment on, would never leave my underside.

Photography
— Cameras and camcorders are permitted only by special permission of the management. ANY PHOTOGRAPHY EQUIPMENT NOT APPROVED
BY THE MANAGEMENT WILL BE TAKEN FROM YOU. Prior written permission MUST BE OBTAINED from any person being photographed.

Pets
— No pets are allowed in common sunning areas. They should be under your control at all times. You must clean up after your
pet and dispose of all feces.

Alcohol
— Alcoholic beverages may be consumed only in moderation. Intoxication will not be permitted on the grounds.

Pool Etiquette
— Take a SOAP SHOWER before entering the pool or hot tub. NON-POTTY-TRAINED CHILDREN ARE NOT ALLOWED INTO EITHER THE POOL
OR THE HOT TUB.

Dress
— We dress or undress for comfort. When using our recreational facilities, YOU MUST BE NUDE. INTIMATE APPAREL, BATHING SUITS,
AND INTIMATE BODY JEWELRY ARE INAPPROPRIATE ON OUR GROUNDS. YOU MUST BE NUDE IN THE POOL, HOT TUB, AND SHOWER.”

What, I wonder, is intimate apparel and body jewelry? Doesn’t the word lose meaning when everyone is nude?

I know it’s probably against the rules, but I can’t shake the hint of sexual excitement I’m feeling. It’s not an erection,
just a tingling sensation in the tip of my penis. Outside of the bathtub or an occasional doctor’s visit, the only time I’m
naked is when I’ve talked someone into having sex with me. Sitting here with nothing on, I keep expecting some guy to walk
out of the bathroom saying, “So what are you planning to do with the prize money?” It feels silly to wander about my trailer
this way, and I realize that it has long been my habit to stretch my T-shirt over my knees while sitting alone at a table.
I’m also used to pulling my pants above my navel and tightening my belt to diminish my gut. Jangling the keys in my pocket,
thoughtlessly gnawing at the collars of my shirts: these things are lost to me now. It feels dangerous to drink a cup of hot
coffee, and twice in the last hour I’ve hopped up to brush glowing cigarette ash off what I once considered to be my private
parts.

I awoke this morning to a fog so thick, I couldn’t see the picnic table in my front yard. From the sky to the ground, everything
was the exact same shade of gray. It wasn’t until early evening that the weather finally cleared. At six o’clock I looked
out my window to see a naked couple strutting across the grounds with a pair of tennis rackets in their hands. The man wore
his hair long in the back and carried himself as though he were dressed in a fine suit, his stride confident and purposeful,
while the woman trotted along behind him wearing a sun visor, kneesocks, and sneakers. These were the first active, out-of-door
nudists I had seen, and I threw on my clothes and followed them to the pavilion, where I pulled a book from my pocket and
pretended to read. The man had an ample stomach and a broad, dimpled ass that jiggled and swayed as he leaped about the court,
attempting to return his partner’s serves. They played for no more than five minutes before he placed his hands on his knees,
released a mouthful of bile onto the grass, and called it quits. They left the court and I followed them into the clubhouse,
where the man stepped into the bathroom, returning ten minutes later with a bright red ring around his ass. Here, I thought,
was a real nudist. There was a tuft of toilet paper, just slight, clinging to his bottom, and when the woman pointed it out
to him, he ran his hand along his crack and casually shrugged, as though it were no more significant than a dab of mayonnaise
on his lip.

I tried to start my day naked but made it no farther than my picnic table before returning to my trailer and throwing on a
T-shirt that covered me to midthigh. Walking out past the pavilion, I came upon a group of elderly men and women gathered
around a gravel court. It was midmorning, and I got the idea that something important was about to begin. A woman stooped
to rake the stones. She wore a short-sleeved shirt but no skirt or pants, and her ass was a landscape of pocks and wrinkles,
the blue veins crossing her thighs like a topographical map of creeks and rivers. Seated on a nearby bench were two other
women, each dressed in T-shirts. One wore a visor, while the other favored the type of bonnet I associate with the milkmaids
of old. This was a broad-brimmed, ruffled contraption tied in a bow beneath the lowest of her several chins. “Howdy,” she
said. “Hey, look, everybody, we’ve got ourselves some new blood!”

“Aah, a fresh face, that’s just what we need to keep the game interesting.” The speaker was a deeply tanned gentleman, naked
except for a golf hat upon which he’d pinned the key to the equipment locker. “Have you ever played
pétanque
before?” He placed his hand on my shoulder and led me to the court. “It’s the French cousin to the Italian game of bocci.
Stan Friendly and his wife used to play it down in Florida, and when they brought it up north, we all said, ‘What the heck
kind of game is that?’ We were all playing volleyball and thought these
pétanque
players were a pair of cuckoo birds, didn’t we, Frank?”

“We thought they were a couple of loons,” Frank said. Scratching his mosquito-bitten buttocks, he joined us on the court.
“Now we say, ‘To hell with volleyball,’ and we’re playing
pétanque
three times a day. It’s a great game, you’ll see. Hey!” he shouted. “Somebody give our friend here a pair of balls. We’ve
got ourselves a new player.”

It was curious to see the various states of undress and the way clothing was shed over the course of the game. Like me, Jacki
and Carol had arrived wearing T-shirts, while Bill, Frank, and Celeste wore nothing but hats. Phil and Millie drove up in
sweatsuits, which they immediately discarded and placed in a heap on the picnic table. A man named Carl wore a shirt and vest,
which, coupled with his black socks and sensible street shoes, suggested he was just passing time while his pants and underwear
tumbled in the dryer.

Bill, the man with the golf hat, had a long scar running from the center of his back to his right underarm. The wound was
once level with his skin, but now the tight, slick scar tissue resembled a narrow road surrounded on either side by barren,
amber hills. Frank’s body, on the other hand, was a regular ATM machine, with surgeons making routine withdrawals from his
back, chest, and stomach. He tossed a small wooden ball onto the court, explaining that this was to be our target, and then
handed me what appeared to be a croquet ball made out of metal that looked like something a person might fire from a cannon.
Taking another for himself, he mounted a flat concrete slab at the edge of the court, closing one eye and holding the thing
much like Hamlet reflecting on the skull of his deceased jester. Because he was naked, his stance seemed strangely heroic,
as if he were posing for a statue used to commemorate the geriatric wing of a hospital devoted to sports medicine. Then, without
warning, he reared back, swung his arms a few times for practice, and released the ball, which sailed through the air, landing
with a thud two inches from the target.

“Now you give it a try, Dave.” My ball missed the mark by a good six feet.

“Good throw!” Frank said. “Say, Bill, did you see that? Looks like we’ve got a natural on our hands. Try it again, young fella.”

My second ball missed the court entirely and landed in the damp grass. It was clearly bad, as was my next shot, and the one
after that. Yet, each attempt garnered the same response: “Good throw!” Either their eyes were clouded with cataracts or these
were indeed the best sports I had ever met.

The game went on forever, its details discussed with passion. Often there was a debate over which ball was closest to the
target. “I think it’s Carl’s, but why don’t we check. Phil’s ball looks neck and neck.” A tape measure was brought forth,
handled gently and with great reverence, as if it might once and for all prove the existence of God. The team captains would
squat down on their heels, their testicles bobbing against the gravel court. “Carl’s is eight and three-quarters and Phil’s
is… what do you know, eight and nine-sixteenths! Looks like Phil’s team gets the point!”

The tedium of the game allowed me to forget the fact that I was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and sneakers. At first, I’d
hung around the outer edges of the court and retrieved my balls like a white-wigged countess, twisting my way toward the ground
as if the queen were passing through the gardens. Now I hardly gave it a second thought. No one cared what my ass looked like.
They were thinking of the game and nothing else until I lit a cigarette and my teammates asked me to put it out. You could
be naked outdoors but apparently you couldn’t smoke outdoors. What sense does that make?

Looking out my bedroom window, I can see the clubhouse and its parking area. This afternoon I watched as a large trailer pulled
up, led by a four-door, late-model car bearing out-of-state license plates. This was someone arriving to park themselves and
stay awhile. The car door opened and a man stepped out, completely naked. He’d been driving that way on the highway. I guess
he just couldn’t wait.

I went tonight to the clubhouse to watch TV and sat there alone for twenty minutes or so when Jacki, the bonneted woman from
the
pétanque
court, traipsed naked from the bathroom, asking if I’d care to join her in the sauna. I had never before visited a sauna and
wasn’t quite sure what it involved. Did I need a bar of soap?

“Atowel, silly. All you need is a towel. Now get those clothes off and get out there. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Because it was delivered as an order, it seemed useless to argue. Sooner or later I would have to appear naked, and this seemed
as good a time as any. I ran back to my trailer, grabbed a towel, and lowered my pants, thinking I might inspect my ass in
the mirror but knowing that if I did, I’d never leave the house again.
Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it.
I swabbed myself with a washcloth just for good measure and returned to the clubhouse, where I undressed in the bathroom,
folding my clothes and piling them neatly on the countertop.
It’s all right,
I thought,
this is a bathroom.
It’s natural to be naked in a bathroom. It was not, however, quite so natural to
leave
the bathroom and walk past the tables and chairs of a clubhouse. Other people did it with no problem whatsoever, and look
at them! Jacki had breezed through the room, and I’d looked at her as though she were a goat that had wandered into a hotel
lobby. The tennis players had done it this afternoon. Thousands of people had walked naked through this room, eating lunch
and playing cards. Now it was my turn! I tried looking at it as a privilege, and when that didn’t work, I threw the towel
over my shoulder, closed my eyes, and ran straight into the bookcase.

The sauna, a squat wooden hut, was located beside the pool. A stifling antechamber led to a sweltering hellhole heated by
a smokeless cauldron filled with white-hot rocks. Jacki sat upon a wooden shelf, mopping at the sweat that ran down her breasts,
over her considerable stomach, and collected in a puddle beneath her childlike, shaved vagina. She was a plump woman, tight
as a tick, her head balanced on her shoulders with no discernible neck.

“Nasty bump you’ve got there on your forehead, Dave. You should put some ice on that before you go to bed tonight.” She aimed
a squeeze bottle toward the cauldron and released a stream of fragrant water upon the rocks, causing the chamber to grow even
hotter. “You like that?” she asked. “It’s eucalyptus. I can’t use it when Barb is here, because she’s allergic, makes her
facial cheeks swell up like they were stuffed with cotton. You’re not allergic, are you? If so, you’d better run while you
still have a chance. I threw my back out a few years ago and can’t drag a cat, much less a full-grown man. The most I can
do is run to the clubhouse and call out for help but even that will take me a while. You could be dead by the time I get back
— so make up your mind, are you allergic or not?”

I was not.

“Good.” Once again she aimed her bottle toward the furnace. “Can you feel that? Eucalyptus is a healing ointment, very big
back in ancient Greece and Egypt. It opened the sinuses of Socrates and King Ramses the Second, allowing them to concentrate
on more important things like… democracy and snakes. It frees the mind, eucalyptus. I get some wild thoughts here in the sauna,
I don’t mind telling you! Thoughts like, well, what if everybody in the world were allowed one wish, but in order to get it,
it meant they’d have to crawl around on their hands and knees for the rest of their life? That’s a real puzzler, isn’t it!
If you wanted to be rich, you’d have to crawl around your palace, just like a baby with your mink coat dragging the floor.
World peace, a cure for cancer, an end to hunger and suffering, what’ll it be? What’s your wish?”

The eucalyptus had obviously not cleared my mind the way it had hers. Still, though, once the question had been introduced,
I found it impossible not to think about it. If I could have the face and body of my dreams, what good would it do me if I
had to walk around like an animal? Maybe if I were to wish for happiness, I wouldn’t mind crawling — but what kind of a person
would I be if I were naturally happy?