Ocean City, Maryland

Originally published in the anthology Never Easy (2012).

The first thing Ray noticed when he walked in to the Harbor Watch restaurant was the guy sitting at the bar a few yards away, writing intently. 

Ray stood before the host podium. The dining room beyond the bar had ceiling-high windows that framed the distant line where the ocean met the sky. It was mid-afternoon and the guy was the only person visible. 

A woman came out and made eye contact with Ray. “Hello,” she said in a cigarette-roughened voice as she walked toward him, dodging bar stools and tables in a practiced waltz. 

“Hi. I wanted to fill out a job application?” Ray said.

“O-kay,” she said. She was honey blond and middle aged, wearing a short skirt and low-cut top. She peered into the backside of the podium, brought out an application, and walked Ray to the bar.

“He’s already fillin one out,” she said, motioning to the guy. For one moment the guy looked up at Ray. He had blue eyes and messy, curly brown hair. He went back to work on his application as Ray picked a seat five stools away and began recanting the bare bones of his life history to the page. It was easy; he’d done it four times that day. 

The woman was plopping rolled-up cloth napkins on the tables as she went around the vast, empty dining room. When the guy next to Ray was done he brought the woman his application, and they sat across from one another at a table. After a few minutes Ray saw them stand. The woman shook his hand and he left. 

Ray brought her his application. Her name was Dee and it was a short interview. He told her he was from Pennsylvania, went to Penn State, was planning to stay in Ocean City until the end of August, didn’t have any other jobs, and could work whatever hours she gave him. 

“You start Friday,” she said. “You guys got in right at the cut,” she said, shaking his hand. “You and Jake, the guy right before you. We’re all staffed now.”

***

Ray took the boardwalk home, the tires of his red beach cruiser thumping across the gaps in the wooden planks as he rode past bars and restaurants and skate shops and places to get pierced and henna tattooed. And everywhere there were t-shirts: message shirts with exhortations to drink and fuck, ones that commemorated “SENIOR WEEK 2002” in obnoxious fluorescent letters, and ones depicting flags both American and Confederate – the former flowing behind the late Twin Towers, the latter waving proudly over crossed rifles. On the beach, golden-hued youths played volleyball, groups of girls posed with plastic smiles for roving telescope-photograph salesmen, and children charged at the waves and let themselves get knocked over.

Ray turned on 19th street and coasted in to the grass lot behind his apartment. His roommates – the Irish guys – were all home, doing beer bongs in the kitchen. Ray walked past them, saw their heads turn as he passed the entrance on the way to his bedroom. “Who’s that?” he heard one of them say, and somebody mumbled a response but Ray didn’t catch it. He closed his door and lay on his bed in the dark, listening to Interpol on his headphones. 

When he woke up seven hours later the apartment was quiet. He ventured outside his room. Two guys, both light haired and open mouthed, were passed out on the living-room couches. The beer bong lay on the kitchen floor in a puddle next to a dented plastic party ball. He walked across the sticky floor to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but somebody had eaten his peanut butter, so he made toast and took it to the beach where he ate and watched the sun come up.

***

The Mexican girls worked with him his first two shifts. They were short and giggly and two of the three of them didn’t speak English. Lisa, the one who did, showed him how to clear tables by piling the dirty dishes on to trays the size of garbage-can lids, then balance them on your hand to take to the kitchen. 

A half-hour into his first shift he met Susan, a waitress in her late twenties. 

“Hey, what’s your name?” she said as soon as she spotted him. She was a big girl with a blond wedge haircut. Ray told her and they shook hands. 

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“This place on 19th street I found in the paper. I moved in with these five Irish guys I don’t even know.”

“So you just came down by yourself?”

“My friend was supposed to come but she backed out at the last minute so my mom drove me.”

“Well that’s the fun of it, right? Meeting new people.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Later that night he passed her when she was standing with a group of waiters.

“Ray, come here,” she said, and he walked back to them. She ran her hand across the top of his head. “Look at your thick-ass hair,” she said. 

“It is thick,” said Erin, a waitress whose pitch-black hair contrasted with her orange skin and slate-blue contact lenses. Ray stood there, relaxed, letting Susan touch him. 

***

On his third shift he worked with Jake. 

“Oh yeah, you’re the guy who applied same time I did,” he said, shaking Ray’s hand. Jake had a soft, defined body under his requisite black polo shirt and tan cargo shorts. Working that night were two other bussers named Brandon and Donnie. They seemed to be good friends with Jake. In fact the whole staff seemed to know the three bussers, and they joked and bantered with them while Ray quietly worked. They’d even acquired nicknames: lanky Donnie was “Sticks,” brash, pug-nosed Brandon was “Mouth,” and Jake was “Cuddles.”

Ray watched Jake from across the room, the way he approached a table to take away dirty dishes. One of the diners, an older man, said something to him. Jake said something back and everyone at the table laughed, even the kids. 

It was a slow Tuesday night. Jake and his friends were off. The Mexican girls were clustered in the dining room, tittering to one another in Spanish. Ray and Susan, the big blond waitress, were standing in the bussing station eating a customer’s leftover king crab legs. They cracked open the mostly cold legs and dipped them in a ramekin of drawn butter that Susan had requested from the kitchen.

“What are you doing tonight?” Susan asked. 

"Nothing," Ray said, and shrugged. 

“How old are you?” Susan said.

“Twenty-one,” Ray said, chewing.

“We go to M.R. Ducks pretty much every Tuesday for the two dollar chug-a-duck. You should come with us.” Ray nodded. He grabbed another leg and broke it like a stick. 

“Do you guys ever drive out to Rehobeth?” he asked. Rehobeth Beach was thirty miles north of Ocean City. 

“Sometimes. Why?” 

“To go to the gay clubs,” he said, dipping crab flesh in butter, his heart beating wildly. Susan was looking at him with wide eyes.

“Oh my God – are you gay?” she said, her voice lowering on the last word.

“Yeah,” Ray said, blushing.

“Oh my God I had no idea,” she said, grasping his shoulder, clutching it hard. 

***

Ray was off the next day, but on his next shift he noticed the careful way the cooks nodded to him when he entered the kitchen. Susan gave him a high five, and Erin asked when they were going to Rehobeth to party. 

In the upstairs dining room Mouth and Sticks were rolling silverware. They nodded at Ray, Mouth looking at him in a knowing, amused way. Jake showed up a few minutes later.

Before every shift Dee, the blond manager who’d hired them, held a staff meeting. The entire kitchen and floor crew congregated in the upstairs booths, most eating their free meal of soup or salad. Jake, Mouth and Sticks sat together at a booth with an older waiter. Ray was alone at a table next to Susan and Erin. He caught Mouth’s eye, and Mouth fake-coughed “faggot” into his hand. Sticks had been taking a drink of Sierra Mist which he nearly blew across the table in trying to suppress his laughter. The older waiter smirked and Jake half-smiled, shaking his head at Mouth. 

Dee took the floor and everyone got quiet. “I know you’ve been hearing this for weeks but Fourth of July is our biggest weekend,” Dee said. “Don’t screw it up.”

***

“This is creepy up here,” Jake said, looking across the restaurant’s dim third floor. Sunday had been a mad rush but the Fourth of July weekend was over, and Dee had assigned Jake and Ray the task of returning the surplus tables and chairs upstairs. Mouth and Sticks were downstairs, sweeping the carpets. 

“I think it used to be a dining room, now they just use it for storage,” Ray said. He set a stack of chairs next to an empty fish tank. 

“Is that the last of them?” Jake asked.

“Yeah I think so,” Ray said.

“What is all this stuff?” Jake said. He ventured into the darkness and Ray followed. There were unused signs, boxes of old glasses and plates. Jake bent down and rifled through a pile of framed photographs that were stacked against a jukebox. “Look,” he said, and Ray knelt next to him. He could smell Jake’s sweet sweat as he flipped through the pictures. They were group portraits all taken from the same spot on the boardwalk in front of the restaurant. 

“Staff photos,” Ray said. Each had a date on the bottom: Summer 1999, 1994, 1985. 

“Wow, look, 1979,” Jake said, holding it up for both to see. Like the other photos it depicted forty or so young, tan, smiling friends. Signs of camaraderie were everywhere – in this one four laughing, muscular young men held a fifth in their arms, the man lying sidewise like a freshly-caught mermaid. Groups of waitresses huddled together, faces pressed close. 

“There’s Dee,” Ray said, pointing her out. She had her arm around her friend. She looked fresher but had the same knowing, responsible look in her eyes. Her t-shirt hung low, exposing the tops of her breasts.

“She was sexy,” Jake said. 

“Yeah,” Ray said. There was a weird pause, then Jake set the photo back and stood up.

“That’s it I guess,” Jake said, walking toward the stairs. 

“Yeah,” Ray said. 

“Where do you live?” Jake asked. Ray told him. “I live over on 3rd with Brandon and Donnie,” Jake said.

“Who?”

“Mouth,” Jake said. “Mouth and Sticks.”

“Oh, okay. Did you come down to the beach with them?”
 

“No, they’re from West Virginia. I came by myself. I just met them here. My last place sucked so I moved in with them.” Ray went to his bike and took it by the handlebars. “I didn’t realize you kept that up here,” Jake said. “Dude I love your bike,” Jake said, grasping the seat of the old red beach cruiser.

“Thanks. I found it in my place. I just put a new tire on it.”

“You gotta let me ride it sometime.”

“Absolutely,” Ray said, and they headed downstairs where Mouth was waiting. He glanced at Ray. 

“Let’s go,” Mouth said to Jake.

***

Jason, a waiter in his thirties, had his annual, somewhat-legendary party at his house in upper Ocean City, and everybody from the restaurant went. Even the Mexican girls were there, sipping mixed drinks and talking amongst themselves. Ray came with Susan, Erin and another waitress named Pam. The house was big and impressive, there was a bonfire on the beach and four kegs and a full bar. 

Jake was wearing shorts shorter than what he normally wore and he was all golden skin, the hair on his thighs and arms bleached blond. He nodded at Ray from across the room where Ray stood with the waitresses.

Susan had them all doing shots. The waitresses cooed over him: “You look so cute tonight, Ray.” “Why are you always so quiet?” “I love your hair!”

Later Ray and Erin were on the deck alone next to the four kicked kegs. Somebody was supposed to be out getting more beer.

“How long have you known you were gay?” Erin asked.

“Pretty much since I was, like, twelve,” Ray said. 

“It’s so crazy – I mean, not crazy, but it’s just like…I’ve never known any gay people before, but you seem really cool…” She continued on this way and Ray nodded, saying nothing. Finally she stopped and took a drink of her rum and coke.

“So who do you think is cute?” she asked. Susan came out just then.

“I think Jake is pretty cute,” Ray said.

“No way,” Erin said, grabbing his arm. Her weight shifted toward him and Ray had to grab the porch rail so she didn’t topple them both.

“Huge surprise,” Susan said. “I see the way you look at him.”

“He is cute,” Erin said. “Do you think he’s gay?” Pam came out.

“Who’s gay?” Pam said.

“Jake,” Erin said.

“He could be,” Susan said, raising her eyebrows. “You know why they call him Cuddles, don’t you?”
 

“No,” Ray said, smiling.

“Cause he hooked up with Julie but she said he didn’t want to have sex, he just wanted to cuddle all night.” 

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Erin said.

“I mean…” Susan said, shrugging and looking at Ray.

“That doesn’t make him gay, though,” Pam said, flicking her cigarette. “I think he’s just shy, like Ray’s shy.”

“You think he’s shy?” Ray said.

“I can see that,” Susan said. “But you never know.” She punched Ray’s shoulder. “You liiike him.”

***

Ray kept doing shots, even after the waitresses stopped and people started to leave. Ray spotted Jake, talking to a hostess named Kathleen, and went up to him.

“Hey man, you working tomorrow?” Ray said, the words coming out slurred. 

“Nah, bro,” Jake said. Ray was having trouble standing still, and his eyes were bleary. Jake smirked at him.

“He is toasted,” Kathleen said, smiling.

“I’m not,” Ray said, holding his head up with mock dignity.

Somehow Ray ended up on the beach, drunk in the sand. Jake and Kathleen were there, removing their clothes to go swimming. 

“Are we going skinny dipping?” Ray said.

“Just swimming,” Jake said, taking off his shirt. His nipples were soft and pink. 

“I’m going skinny dipping,” Ray said, stumbling as he stood. He regained his stance and started taking off his pants.

“He’s nuts,” Kathleen said. She was wearing a bikini under her clothes. Jake stopped at his burgundy boxer briefs. They walked toward the water, looking back to catch Ray stripping off his boxers. “Oh my god he’s really doing it,” Kathleen said.

“You’re insane, dude,” Jake said, giving Ray a once over. They dove into the dark waves and Ray followed.

“You guys need to get naked,” Ray said, his head bobbing on the surface. They shook their heads at him. Ray swam around them, dodging waves and making attempts at body surfing. The couple got closer and closer until they were in each other’s arms and making out, whereupon Ray got out and managed to pull on his clothes. 

“Later bro,” Jake called from the water but Ray didn’t hear him as he stumbled back to the house. 

Susan had already left. “She was looking for you,” Julie, a waitress, said. “I’m giving a bunch of people a ride back into town if you want to come.” 

Five drunken people stumbled down the driveway toward Julie’s car. 

“I can’t do it anymore,” Linda, another waitress, said. “Somebody give me a piggyback ride.” 

“I will,” Ray said. He crouched down and Linda got on his back.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” somebody said. Everyone was laughing as Ray stood up, managing a few lurching steps forward before full-on staggering. Linda screamed in his ear as she went flying. She landed on her back as Ray toppled face-first on to the paved driveway. His chin slammed against the hot pavement then his front teeth whacked hard and crunched. He chipped a pie-slice-shaped chunk out of one incisor and gave the other a ragged edge. He stood. Linda was fine. Everyone was concerned about him and his teeth but he waved them off. He closed his eyes on the drive home, pretended he’d passed out. Then he did pass out, and when he woke up he was puking.

“Oh my God,” Linda said, shifting away from him. “He’s puking! He’s puking!”

“Roll down the fucking window!” Julie said but it was too late.

***

Ray dragged himself into work the next day. He apologized to Julie first thing. 

“It’s okay,” she said, wiping off a table. “Really, just forget about it.” At the end of the shift Ray offered her the fifty dollars he’d made that night, to compensate for messing up her car. She took it.

Ray’s mom sent him money for the dentist, who put a temporary crown over the chipped tooth. It was large and ungainly but it, and his antics the night of the party, garnered him a nickname: “Chiclet.” Susan started it but it caught on with everybody, even some of the kitchen staff.

Jake and Kathleen, the hostess, were “together” now and canoodling at every opportunity. Ray watched them from across the dining room, Jake whispering into her ear, Kathleen playfully pushing him away. 

“She’s not even that cute,” Erin said.

“She’s got a horse face,” Susan said.

“Thanks,” Ray said.

“You poor thing,” Susan said, and she hugged one of his arms. Erin hugged the other and they put their heads on his shoulders. 

“Boys suck,” Erin said.

***

It was mid-August and Ray was at the bottom of the restaurant’s back stairs, preparing to ride home on his bike, when Jake came down.

“Hey, give me a ride home,” Jake said.

“I guess I could.”
 “Dude you only live like two blocks from me. You know how to ride two on there?”

“I’ve done it before,” Ray said. Ray straddled the frame and Jake got on behind him, holding on to Ray’s shoulders as he swung one leg over the seat. Ray took off, wobbly at first, then they cruised along the dark alleys that ran parallel to the boardwalk. “Don’t fall off and break another tooth, Chiclet,” Jake said. He clutched the edge of the seat behind his butt for balance, his feet propped on the wheel hubs.

“Hold on,” Ray said as he approached a curb. Jake grabbed hold of Ray’s waist with both of his hands and Ray jumped the curb. Jake held him tight and they cleared it easily, but then he didn’t take them away. They rode along like that for another minute, then Jake wrapped his arms fully around Ray, snuggling against his back.

“What would people think if they saw us like this, huh?” Jake said into Ray’s ear. It took Ray a minute to respond.

“Probably they’d just think you wanted to cuddle with me,” he said, and Jake laughed and took his arms away.

***

And then just like that everything was ending. The late-afternoon sunlight was taking on a harsher glare. Business slowed. Some waiters went back to college. 

On his last night at the restaurant Ray went up to Dee to say goodbye. She was sitting at the bar with her legs crossed, a quarter-full gin and tonic in her hand. “You’re a good worker. Come back next summer and you’ll have a job. Come early and we’ll get you waiting tables. That’s where the good money is,” she said.

“I appreciate it,” Ray said. 

“Just let me know,” she said. The bartender set another gin and tonic in front of her. “I’ll be here.”

The day before Ray’s mom came to pick him up and take him back to State College he went to the beach with Susan and Erin. Jake and Kathleen were there, laying back and taking in the sun. 

“Hey guys. Hey Ray,” Jake said, rising up on his elbows. They set their towels down next to them. Jake’s chest was muscled but baby soft, with the slightest dusting of dark hair across his pecs and a dark tan. He had sunglasses on and Ray hadn’t recognized him at first. 

The girls went to the water together leaving Ray and Jake by themselves. 

“So you’re leaving tomorrow?” Jake said.

“Yeah, Monday was my last shift.”

“Shit, I didn’t even realize,” Jake said.

“When are you leaving?”

“I’m not,” Jake said. “Brandon and Donnie left three days ago cause our lease was up, but Kathleen got a place for the rest of the year so I moved in with her.”

“Aren’t you in school?”
 

“Yeah. I’m just going to take a year off or something. The money’s too good here and it’s supposed to last at least until October. Then Dee said I could probably start waiting tables.” 

“You’ll be a townie,” Ray said.

“Yep,” Jake said, nodding. “Oh hey – what are you going to do with your bike?”

“Just leave it, I guess,” Ray said. “It came with the place and I can’t take it back with me anyway.” 

“Dude, you care if I take it?”
 

“No, not at all.”

“Awesome. You care if we go get it right now?”

They told the women they were going and walked the four blocks to Ray’s house. The closer they got, the more conversation faltered. Ray’s heart throbbed. Jake followed him, walking a step behind.

Ray unlocked the back door and they stepped inside the dark foyer, just inside which was the staircase that led up to Ray’s apartment. The door swung almost shut after they entered, leaving a horizontal sliver of bright light along one edge. Their bare sandy feet brushed against the linoleum floor as they approached the bike. Jake grasped the handlebars and picked it up from where it was leaning against the wall. “Awesome,” he said. Ray stood next to him and for close to a minute they did nothing but look at the bike and breathe. Then Jake shifted his weight and Ray’s hand brushed against his thigh. Ray kept it there. He moved his fingers against Jake’s bare thigh and Jake turned toward him. Ray moved his hand to Jake’s crotch. Jake’s cock was half-hard beneath his thin board shorts.

Ray could hear Jake’s breathing as Jake’s cock hardened in his hand. He ran his hand up Jake’s smooth side. Jake had his eyes closed, his face lifted toward the ceiling. 

Ray got on his knees on the sandy floor. He untied the string of Jake’s board shorts and pulled them open, the Velcro fly ripping in the otherwise silent foyer. There was no lining to Jake’s shorts. With a rustling they fell to the floor and his circumcised cock bounced out. It was smooth, fat; it rose outward from a patch of dewy brown pubic hair.

Ray cupped Jake’s hairless balls. He opened his mouth and took in the head of Jake’s cock, suckling it. Jake sighed. His cock pulsed in Ray’s mouth, some slick precum oozed out of the tip and Ray lapped it up. He pressed his tongue against the salty clean underside of the cock, holding tight to Jake’s nuts as he sucked up and down, slow and tight. He looked up at Jake. Jake was looking down at him, frightened lust in his eyes. Ray bobbed his head, keeping his eyes on Jake’s until Jake closed them again. He grabbed the firm mounds of Jake’s fuzzy butt. Jake moaned and spread his legs a little.

Ray sucked. Jake’s breathing got shallower and he began thrusting his hips in time with the bobs of Ray’s head.

“Gonna cum,” Jake whispered. “Unh, uhn, uhn…”

Salty sperm blew into Ray’s mouth. He swallowed and he kept sucking, one gulp after another, Jake’s cock pulsing with each shot. Jake’s hand went to Ray’s shoulder as his knees buckled. He held himself up as he blew his load, making tortured groans that accompanied Jake’s swallowing. Jake’s cum was bitter hot. When Ray had eaten it all he let Jake’s cock pop out. It balanced there, satisfied, lowering.

Jake pulled up his trunks. Ray stood up, wiping his mouth and catching his breath. His cock was half-hard and there was a wet spot on his trunks.

Ray went out the door and Jake followed, turning the bike around in the room before wheeling it into the bright daylight. He glanced at Ray for a second but didn’t say anything. Then he just rode off. 

Ray paused, then started the walk back to the beach. Susan and Erin were still there, but Jake had already gathered up Kathleen and left.

Ray exchanged phone numbers with Susan and Erin but nobody ever called. The Harbor Watch didn’t take a photo of its summer staff that year, or if they did Ray hadn’t been a part of it. You could look at the whole summer in a certain way and think it was like he’d never been there at all.