Bad moments in me -- Fire Island, 1995

A number of earlier posts have focused on events in my life which either aggrandize or dramatize me. As a counterweight, here begins a series of looks back at things I'd love to forget, if only. Perhaps the blog will help me forget.

It was a summer of love. Mary and I got together at the tail end of winter, and quickly it became apparent that what I needed to do was sublet my apartment and stay in her studio in the village so as to generate cash to put towards a house rental share on Fire Island, without working for money (I needed to pass my written exams to progress towards the M.Phil. glimmering on the horizon). It worked just fine. 2 Grand was just what we needed to secure a one of four bedrooms, one week a month, in Fair Harbor.

We took Mary's Collie-Shepherd mix Story with us. Why they let us rent the house with a dog, I don't know. It was prior to the tech stock boom, so rental markets dictated it, I reckon. Why our housemates put up with him, I don't know. In the evenings, story would often slip off the deck and chase deer through the grassy areas between the boardwalks of Fair Harbor. We would throw a tennis ball for him in the water of the sound, and he'd swim out to get it, and pounce on the ball demonstratively at the last minute to let it know who was boss. When other dogs walked by, he barked.

So one day we were out on the beach. We took plastic bags to the beach to pick up Story's poop. He'd get kind of hot and restive on the beach, when we weren't throwing the frisbee for him. One day, he must have gone a couple of times, so I must have been out of plastic bags. Then he must have gotten barky, so I took him for another walk along the shoreline, sans bags. This is a NYC-area beach, probably weekend, July, pretty crowded. Where water meets the shore, right by a woman in a squat chair, Story squats down. As usual, the 3rd dump of the day is not well-formed. A wave was approaching. I couldn't let it float out to sea. I couldn't pick it up. I stomped on it with my bare foot. Into the sand. It was squishy. What else could I do? The squat chair woman said "That's disgusting."

Filled with shame, I jerked Story around and went back to where our towels were. And told everyone. It was disgusting.

Let us never speak of it again.