Naked (34 page)

I’ve seen people like that on inspirational television shows, and they scare me. Why did I have to think about this in the
first place? I looked over at Jacki’s round, glistening face, her hands folded over her belly like a wizened, patient genie.
“If I had one wish, I’d wish for an unlimited amount of wishes,” I said.

She shook her head in a way that suggested she had heard this answer countless times before. “Don’t get greedy on me, Dave,
you only get one wish.”

The room filled with steam, and in my woozy state, it occurred to me that this woman might actually possess some musty, supernatural
power. The circumstances were so bizarre that maybe she
had
been sent to grant me my one, true desire. I thought of having my mother back, but often these are trick wishes. I might ask
for my mother and receive an urnload of talking ashes that would complain bitterly at the sight of her son racing back and
forth across the room like a bloodhound. Curing disease is a nice idea, but if we all got one wish, surely some enthusiastic
fourteen-year-old would take care of that. “I’d wish,” I said, “I’d wish I could fly.”

“Fair enough.” Jacki scratched a mosquito bite on her upper arm and sighed, “I have to go away this weekend and am definitely
not looking forward to it at all. I’d live here year-round if I could, but my trailer’s not winterized, and with this bad
back, I wouldn’t be able to shovel my driveway. It’s gotten to the point where I hate to leave for any length of time. This
coming weekend I have to go home for a church fund-raiser and then next Tuesday I leave for my granddaughter’s birthday. I
can tell by the look on your face that you’re surprised by that one! Most everyone tells me I look too young to be a grandmother,
but be that as it may, I’ve got three beautiful grandchildren and, oh, they used to love it out here.”

Yes, but what about my wish? Had this been a trick question designed to test my character? What was she talking about her
grandchildren for, and where were my clothes?

“The first time I brought them out here they saw Cliff Shirley standing over by the pool and said, ‘Grandma,’ they said, ‘how
come that man doesn’t have any clothes on?’ And I told them, ‘That man is Grandma’s special, special friend and he’s naked
because that’s the way God brought him into this world. It’s all right to be naked here, just don’t mention it to your friends
at school and, whatever you do, don’t say anything about this to your mother and father.’” She frowned down at her breasts.
“I should have known they couldn’t keep a secret. My daughter’s just like the rest of them, thinks we’re some kind of sex
fiends having orgies in the parking lot. And my son, forget it. I just tell him I’m going camping for the summer.”

I felt I should offer her some kind of sympathy but wasn’t sure where to start. Instead, I wound up asking her to explain
the rule concerning body jewelry and intimate attire.

“Clothingwise, they’re talking about thongs and negligees, anything that might be showy or suggestive. And the jewelry, it’s
all right to wear rings and necklaces and so forth, they just don’t want any… Oh, Lord, how can I put this… If you have earrings,
they should be in your ears — get it? It’s against the rules to have any pierced… thingies, you know, either up top or down…
there.”

It struck me as odd that the subject had made her so uncomfortable. With sweat pooling just south of her shaved vagina, this
grandmother could sit naked with a strange man but not for the life of her use the words
breast
or
penis
. We all just had “thingies,” mine simmering in my lap like a boiled shrimp. It was acceptable to be naked but improper to
acknowledge the details. This drastically reduced the number of conversational topics. The absence of clothing made it very
hard to describe people. You couldn’t say, “Who’s the uncircumcised gentleman with all the hair on his ass?” What made it
even harder was that most of the men were bald, which meant you couldn’t even describe them by their hair-style. I asked Jacki
about a man I’d seen down by the fully stocked pond. “He was a tallish man with a… friendly face and a blue towel.”

“Work with me,” she said. “A lot of men have blue towels.”

“He didn’t have a mustache or a hat, or any hair. He was maybe in his seventies.”

“Big scar across his stomach and another one running down his leg? Oh, that’s Dan Champion from Lot Sixteen. Nice man, used
to be quite a dancer.”

I was relieved to know that it was socially acceptable to describe people by their scars. It was much easier than trying to
identify them by their sandals.

Every few minutes Jacki would lean forward to shoot another stream of eucalyptus-laced water into the cauldron, and I found
myself too weak to stop her. Sweat had blurred my vision, and the room had grown so unbearably hot that I could practically
hear the blood bubbling in my veins. It occurred to me that I was going to die — not at some advanced, hypothetical stage
in my life, but right now. My heart had been steamed, and I’d released so many gallons of sweat that my towel now weighed
more than I did.

“Out with you,” Jacki said. “Go on now, quick. Scoot.”

I left the sauna, spread out my towel, and lay on the concrete patio beside the pool. It was a clear evening, chilly, but
the air felt good. I heard a door slam and watched as Jacki waddled back to the clubhouse. She didn’t see me lying there,
and I saw no point in calling out to her. I’d be fine on my own, lying naked on the ground and thinking things over. From
off in the distance came a mournful, lowing sound I couldn’t quite identify. Neither quite natural nor manmade, it sounded
like a combination of a sick cow and a foghorn. I’d heard it last night at around the same time and now came to think of it
as the trailer park’s version of “Taps.”

Because of the pleasant weather, the tarp has been taken from the swimming pool, which is surrounded by comfortable reclining
chairs, several of them positioned beneath a sign reading HANDICAPPED PARKING. It is a posted rule that you must be naked
not only in the pool but also in the area surrounding it. This struck me as harsh. All I had on were sneakers and a T-shirt,
but these things meant the world to me since, without them, I would be a freak. “The doctor will be right with you,” I told
myself. “Just lay your towel here on the recliner, remove your shoes and shirt, and he’ll be here with the sedative as soon
as he’s finished with the other patients.”

I stripped off my T-shirt and there I was, naked, easy prey for low-flying surveillance planes. Naked in broad daylight, surrounded
by strangers who rolled from their backs to their stomachs, leafing through the pages of their books and magazines. The upswing
was that I didn’t have to look at myself. There were no mirrors or plate-glass windows, and as long as I looked straight ahead,
I thought I’d be able to slowly ease into my public nudity. I had just gotten used to this idea when I was approached by a
man named Dusty who had clothespinned a sheet of shirt cardboard to the brim of his sun visor in order to extend its shading
capacities. The man was doubled over, stooped with osteoporosis, his back and shoulders burnished like fine Italian leather
and his belly white from lack of sun. He wore his thick gray hair shaved close to his scalp and, to my horror, a pair of mirrored
sunglasses that reflected with great clarity the sight of my pale, fidgety nakedness. I asked him a question about the hot
tub, and twenty minutes later he was reflecting on the zoning ordinances of his hometown. “I don’t think that legally they’re
allowed to build a grocery store in the neighborhood because it’s not zoned for that. Oh, there used to be a little mom-and-pop
operation where you could buy bread and soda and so forth, but that’s been closed and turned into a little church for the
snake handlers. You might could put up an apartment building, but first you’d have to check with the city council and see
if they have some kind of restriction on occupancy. I suppose if it was a big enough complex, they might let you build some
kind of grocery but not a big one because the neighborhood’s not zoned for that.”

Had I mistakenly introduced myself as a real estate speculator? Why couldn’t he look away when he talked to me?

“Course, down in the city I guess you can build yourself an eight-story concrete beehive just so long as you have the money
to pay everyone off. That’s the way it goes where you come from, anything for a dollar. Then you come up here thinking we’re
all just a bunch of stupid hicks!” He mugged, widening his face into a spooky, exaggerated grin and running the tip of his
tongue around the track of his lips. “We just a group of bumpkins, are we?”

Well, Dusty, now that you mention it…

He waved his hands as if he were casting a spell. “Oh, you’re all just so sophisticated sitting in your little cafes and looking
up at the Empire State Building while the rest of us lie around in haystacks smoking our corncob pipes. Is that it?”

His attitude was both hostile and playful and was shared by many of the people I had met so far. I might have arrived from
a militant Muslim nation with no problem, but something about New York seemed to rub people the wrong way. This was a family
campground and New York was, to many of them, the place where wholesome families were regularly shot for sport. I’d go out
of my way to admire someone’s trailer or praise the local countryside, but it was never enough. Dusty’s mobile home was parked
nearby, and I complimented him on keeping such a nice yard. “Pretty nice, isn’t it?” he said.

“Very nice.”

“What do you think of that toilet I use as a planter?”

“It’s a cute idea, Dusty, and the flowers are beautiful.”

“You’re darn right they’re beautiful. You know, back where you come from a person probably couldn’t put a toilet in his front
yard.”

“No, Dusty, that probably wouldn’t be a very good idea.”

“It’d be filled with crap, that’s what would happen! You’d have those New Yorkers lined up around the block waiting to shit
in your front yard, but not here.”

“No, not here.”

“It’s nice and quiet out here, isn’t it? A person can hear himself think!”

I agreed with him, saying, “Yes, it’s wonderful. No car alarms or sirens. The only thing that gets to me is that loud farty
sound I hear every night at sunset.”

“You like that?” he said. “That’s me! I’ve got a tube yea long and usually try to practice every night. Oh, it’s not a trumpet,
nothing fancy like that, just a length of plastic. Old Pete Manchester up to Lot Thirty-Seven, he’s got what you call a conch
shell that he holds up to his mouth and we kind of call back and forth to each other to pass the time. Most people, come nightfall,
are inside their houses washing dishes, but not me. I have no dishes to wash because all I eat are raw vegetables. Yes, sir,
I try to eat right and swim half a mile a day. If it’s cloudy and the pool is covered, I just slip under the tarp when no
one’s looking! Of course, that won’t be a problem today, will it?”

Dusty raised his leg, planting his foot on the edge of my lounge chair. “Yes, indeed, we’ve got ourselves some beautiful weather
this afternoon. You’re not likely to find a day like this where you come from.”

I agreed with him.

“Sunshine, blue skies, and just a touch of breeze — it doesn’t get any better than this.” He adjusted his sunglasses and worried
a bunion on his toe. There were maybe a dozen nudists taking in the sun. People came and went, walking clear around the pool
in order to avoid Dusty, who would turn at the sound of the gate. “Phyllis!” he’d call. “When are you going to come by and
see my turtles?”

“Cody and I have been meaning to do that, Dusty, it’s just that we’ve been so busy building our new deck.”

“Oh, I get it. What with your brand-new sundeck you’re too high and mighty to be seen with me, is that it?”

On the other side of the pool, a stocky, handsome young man moved from his lounge chair to the sauna, to the hot tub, into
the pool, and back to his chair. He was someone who had come in just for the day and seemed determined to get his twenty dollars’
worth. Beside him sat the couple I’d seen on the tennis court, and next to them a wiry gray-haired woman leafed through a
copy of
Sports Illustrated.
The two o’clock
pétanque
game had started, and I could hear the faint click of metal balls along with the familiar cry, “Great shot. High five, high
five.” The young man was on his fifth rotation, and I admired his ass, which was plump and unblemished, high and firm enough
to support the first-prize trophy I’d mentally awarded him for Outstanding Physical Achievement.

“Have you ever seen a compost heap?” Dusty asked. “I’ve got one going in my backyard, and you’d be amazed at all the activity.
All kinds of creatures show up to take a nibble or two: skunks, birds, itty-bitty chipmunks. Then, of course, you’ve got your
flies and maggots, who like to burrow in once things gets nice and mushy.”

I could feel myself burning, the flesh growing tight and dry. Reflected in Dusty’s glasses I saw that my face had moved past
its pink period and settled into a deep, fiery red.

“I’m sorry, Dusty, but I think I need to go back to my trailer and put on some lotion.”

“Oh,” he said, “is that your way of telling me I’m boring? What, I’m not exciting enough compared to all your friends back
in the city?”

He continued to harass me as I put on my T-shirt and folded my towel. “Is that what they do back where you come from, walk
away from people while they’re talking to you?”

“Yes, Dusty, it is.”

The initial excitement I’d felt had worn off, and it no longer seemed novel to walk around my trailer naked. My house-hold
nudity was becoming routine, and this for some reason frightened me. After barricading the door, I lay on my bed and tried
to masturbate, just to remind my penis that it wasn’t as free as it thought it was. Usually I have no problem completing this
exercise, but suddenly I was having a hard time concentrating. I tried thinking of the young man beside the pool, but his
body was repeatedly pushed off the stage, replaced by vivid images of Dusty, whose enormous testicles hung like a wasp’s nest
between his shriveled legs. I had never before experienced a sunburned penis and worried that my incessant tugging might have
the same effect as rubbing together two dry sticks, the wisp of smoke leading to a sudden, violent flame. It became obvious
that penis had no intention of cooperating. I thought of forcing it but worried that the struggle might result in a blister
that would drive me into hiding for the remainder of my stay. For the time being, my penis had the upper hand and lay upon
its nest, gloating. “All right,” I whispered. “You won this round. Enjoy it while you can because once we get back home I’m
going to beat the living daylights out of you.”