Back on the Beach

Tomorrow marks the last deadline day for the Fire Island News this summer, and I'm honestly feeling a bit bittersweet at the prospect of returning to Bushwick in a little more than a week. The season out here is always far too short, but all good things I suppose must come to an end...

At any rate, I returned to Fire Island around 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. Roughly the same thing greeted me upon my return to Ocean Beach: hordes of sun hungry day trippers flocking to the beach, the neurotic woman who owns the house in which I live and delayed water taxis. Another day in paradise as the Phil Collins song goes! One unwelcome development, however, occurred very early Sunday morning as I walked home from the dock. A group of stoned "youths" noticed a woman running to catch the last ferry. They joked for her to stop and then proceeded to tell me to keep on walking. One added the additional caveat that "I had better keep on walking."

I immediately began to make remarks back at them. I was exhausted after less than three hours sleep the night before and I had less than zero-tolerance for this stupidity. I refuse to tolerate homophobia in my personal life--and Ocean Beach is certainly no exception. I walked up to a Suffolk Police truck and began to point out the group of kids, but the officer quickly responded they had another call with which they had to deal. A busy night in Ocean Beach I suspect, but perhaps homophobic stupidity is not something they find particularly important...