Earlier that night, we’d seen Anthony LaPaglia’s Tony-winning performance in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. Bevin enjoyed it right until the end. “That doesn’t happen” was her response to the climactic knife fight in the street. I tried to temper my exasperation as I suggested there are things that happen even though she’s never seen them. In good times and in bad…
It was pushing two in the morning when we arrived at the house. A chorus of “Jacketts!” arose from our dozen or so college friends hanging out on the deck, some working in Montauk for the summer, others visiting for the weekend like us. We were handed beers and the revels continued.
That was a great night, and a great weekend. Jon was there, and Dave. Steve and Kristen. The other Steve and Amy Jo had fallen out, for reasons no one would discuss in the wee hours. The next day, Steve told me he was “Gay as a church picnic,” hence his break-up with Amy Jo. I hugged him with joy for his finally being able to admit what we’d all suspected for years. I felt bad that Amy Jo found herself in that position. I wouldn’t see her again until Steve’s wedding, to Doug, sixteen years later.
I’m pretty sure we ate lobster that night. I know not everyone slept in an actual bed. We all laughed and enjoyed the absolute freedom of early adulthood, our imaginations hoping it would be like this forever. Party late, sleep until noon, take a dip in the ocean, do it all over again. Sorrows and disappointments still a long way off in the distance.
Bevin fell asleep at some point. I kept going. Eventually, toward sunrise, a few of us wandered down to the beach, last beers in hand.
The waves were coming in strong, the sky that slate gray of daybreak. A few clouds filtered the rising sun’s rays. Hailing from the great white North, I hadn’t been to the ocean in about seventeen years. That morning, coming down off a buzz and wondering what the future held, that vast and powerful ocean told me one thing: God exists. The rest would work itself out.