Mama's
Boy
When
all else fails, as it often does,
there is the beach.
By Jules
Siegel
I didn't return to
the United States for my mother's funeral and I
didn't shed a single tear either. The news came
too late for me even to refuse to go. That,
actually, was the most depressing part. As you
might have guessed by now, I didn't like her very
much.
Suffice
it to say that I had good reason. My beloved
wife, beautiful Anita Brown, knows the whole
story. When she's stuck for a good answer during
a fight she can always fall back on, "You
are treating me this way because your mother was
so horrible that you can't have a normal
relationship with a woman."
She
could be right about that. Often we have these
arguments when we come back from the beach. We
have lived in Cancun since 1983. Cancun has its
good points and its bad points. When all else
fails, as it often does, there is the beach. On
the beach there are many women of all different
ages, some of whom are in various stages of
undress, ranging from skimpy bikinis to the
occasional topless tanga.
I'm
just your average drooling Jewish guy from the
Bronx when it comes to these sights. You young
people may take this all in stride, but I can
still remember when women wore black dresses into
the water.
Frolicking
topless in the surf
Well,
no, I can't, really, but I do recall pictures of
relatives in these outfits in the family album.
Now here I am at the age of 58, still trying to
learn to say "young women" instead of
"girls," and there are blonde German
girls (oops!—young women) frolicking topless
in the surf while I do my best to pretend to be
concentrating on Byte magazine.
The
worst is when Anita and I are chatting and a
Fraülein Schmidt arrives behind her and begins
taking it all off except for her tanga
bottom. Fraülein Schmidt must now bend over to
arrange her beach towel carefully, showing cheeks
that would have gotten Hugh Hefner arrested had
he published them in 1954.
No,
there's nothing wrong, darling.
Anyway,
I was just about recovering from my despair at
not getting to refuse to go to my mother's
funeral when, as fate would have it, we went to
the beach and Anita went into the water, while I
stayed behind to read the Proceedings of the
Modern Language Association.
A
dark-haired young woman came back from the sea to
an adjoining beach blanket wearing naught but a
tiny purple bottom. She was wet from the sea,with
a figure like a Greek statue, deeply tanned tawny
skin and the kind of breasts I used to study in The
New York Times Sunday Magazine brassiere ads
before there was Playboy. She had
several different kinds of sun lotions, each of
which had to be applied several different times.
Watching
this should have been a pleasant experience, but
I felt furtive and anxious, on the verge of a
panic attack. Nonetheless, I became one with
those lotions.
When
I returned to a normal state of consciousness,
Anita was standing over me frowning. "I came
up from the water smiling at you and I thought
you were watching me," she said.
Later,
as we passed the beachside restaurant on our way
out to the road, the young woman was at a table
with a pony-tailed gentleman, eating something
wet and slithery with her hands, dropping it into
her mouth. She looked over at me and did not
exactly wink, but might as well have.
Well!
It does get frosty out there on the beach
sometimes, doesn't it? Believe me, you could have
used my beloved wife's expression to cool hotels
better than airconditioning for the rest of the
afternoon.
At
home, I watched her undress as avidly as I stare
at the girls. Anita is 39 — blonde, blonde,
blonde — and looks about fourteen. I met her
when she was modeling for Ron Thal, a Playboy
photographer friend who sent me her picture. Two
children have not damaged her figure in any way.
"Why
are you staring at me?"
"Because
you are so awesomely beautiful, my love."
If
she's annoyed at my staring at her, you can
imagine how she feels about them.
A
socially redeeming dream
That
night, I woke up and realized that the
dark-haired sea nymph looked exactly like the
pictures of my mother at age 24, when I was born.
Here she was again, unreachable, yet casting her
darkness between me and my light. I have known
for a long time why I prefer blonde shicksas,
but never in quite the same way that I know now.
I
turned to my sleeping wife and buried my face in
her hair and fell asleep again. My mother came to
me in a dream and begged me to forgive her so
that she could rest in peace. I'll think about
it.
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