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Circuit Stories
By
Ken Cimino
Chapter
Seven: Fire Island Pines
This is the story of The Pines. On July 4, 1976, a drag queen was denied service at one of the hotel bars. Later that afternoon, a water taxi delivered a boatful of rowdy queens who were all demanding service. On that day, the annual Drag Queen Grove Invasion of The Pines was born.
Each year hundreds of drag queens arrived from New York via ferry, pouring from the boat at The Pines dock where they were greeted by several thousand shirtless men and other revelers from every part of the island. Parties have become part of the tradition of the Invasion with men all over the island throwing their own annual bashes, trying desperately to outdo each other and to become part of the folklore that surrounds the invasion. Some of the parties were even held for good causes, and Jack liked to tell himself that this was why he went. The fact that there was also plenty of drugs and sex freely available at these parties was simply an added benefit – although a positive one at that.
It was at one of the Pines parties that Jack first met the infamous DJ Dac. Dac was a dark haired DJ genius, with piercing green eyes. He was skinny from drug use and, at 5'10, a little too tall for Jack… but every time Jack saw the infamous Dac spin, he was mesmerized. Finally, after two years of being mesmerized without actually doing anything about it, he plucked up the courage to ask for his number. Already intoxicated, Dac looked down at Jack and then stuck his tongue firmly in his mouth and pulled hard on his nipples. They kissed for a minute, bodies molded into one, their two tongues wrestling for dominance. Dac then abruptly released Jack and handed him a green flyer with his number scrawled along the top, telling him to call him if he ever wanted to hear when he would be playing next.
Jack hadn't called, or at least not yet. Instead, he returned to his life in San Francisco and held onto the flyer for nine months… he kept it safe in a cigar box that he hid in the back of a drawer, as though it were some treasured secret. Every so often, he'd take the flyer out and look at the number. He didn’t really need to do this; it was already burned in his brain from reading over it so many times.
Every time he felt his hand reach out for the phone, however, he would think of Jerry and not call. Then he'd think of Jerry and Caesar and still not call. Finally, he'd think of Caesar dumping Jerry for some guy on the East Coast… but not even that would make him call.
Then in May, something changed.
Jack’s life had started to change slightly the year before in April, when he had passed out at the White Party. He had just spotted a bald muscle Daddy sitting by the pool when his legs left his body and he was flat out cold on the concrete. Jack had been utterly embarrassed to have passed out in public; his last memory was his dealer Rick's shocked face as he faded away into a cloud of nothing. It was as though someone had pulled him down, straight into the ground. Of course, Jack had passed out before… he was a veteran of the infamous GHB naps. This last time, though, was rather public, and only the month before he had lectured a kid about the ills of G. He left the party the next morning ashamed, and vowed not to hit the circuit for a few months. He would simply lay low until no one could label him a mess any more.
It was during this down time that Jack had left the message on Dac’s answering machine, asking about his upcoming play dates for "the season" on Fire Island. Jack had gone to Fire Island for the last two years, and there was no way that he would miss this party regardless of his condition. He would simply steer clear of the drugs this time… it was as easy - or as difficult – as that.
Of course, Jack had got Dac's standard outgoing message. "This is Dac," the machine told him, with the emphasis on the 'C'. Jack waited all night for a return call, but went to bed disappointed. Dac clearly hadn't exactly jumped at the opportunity to contact him, and the next morning Jack went to work at his San Francisco law firm feeling more than a little depressed.
The depression dissipated as the day progressed and Jack became more and more convinced that he'd return home to a message on his own answering machine. Returning home to no message from Dac, Jack decided working out would help take his mind off things. It wasn't until he returned home from an incredible leg workout at Worlds with trembling calfs that he was finally rewarded with that blinking red light.
“Hey Jack, It’s Dac. I’m not sure who you are, but I like that our names rhyme when you say them. Maybe it’s some karma sign. Anyway, I got a message you called about my play dates.” Dac then rambled on for over ten minutes. His message was so long that it had to be carried over to a second call when Jack’s machine finally cut him off. He explained that he would be playing a tea dance at the Ice Palace in Cherry Grove over one holiday weekend and an afternoon party the day after – "the big beach party" in the Pines. He indicated they would be very different parties, with very different venues and crowds. If Jack wanted to come, he would have to make his choice accordingly.
Over the next month, Jack and Dac communicated by answer phone. The first few times he'd called, Jack had felt intimidated by the sound of Dac's voice on his machine. He’d sounded so tough, even as he apologized for the delays in getting back to him. Once they'd gotten to know each other, though – in so far as it was possible to get to know someone when you communicated with them in recorded messages – he started to look forward to calling, to hearing that reassuringly deep voice.
It was almost June before Jack decided, after weeks of missed messages, that he would return to Fire Island. He booked a flight straight away and then, after reviewing the accommodation listings in the gay travel guides at A Different Light bookstore, he booked a room at the Cherry Grove Beach Hotel. It sounded unpretentious, and Jack had discovered that other than very expensive private house rentals, there were not a lot of commercial lodgings in gay Fire Island.
Another point in the hotel's favor was the fact that it was connected to the Ice Palace, which had not only been a famous disco in the 1970s, but was also the place where Dac had played a very rousing and successful closing party to the previous summer's Fire Island season. It all seemed perfect; as a devoted gay dance partier, he would at last make his pilgrimage to the gay Promised Land. Dac, he hoped, would be his new Messiah… or at least someone to journey to Heaven and Hell with.
Dac had given Jack the phone number of the people to call in order to get tickets to the Pines party. He called, and it turned out to be a non-profit group in the City. The guy who answered the phone was very polite, but explained that the party was a private benefit and only hosts, who were major donors to the charity, could get tickets. Jack hated to name drop, but he before he could stop himself he threw Dac’s name out. He was a friend of Dac's and of course Dac had told him to call. The guy took down Jack’s information and said they would need to check with Dac and get back to him. When he hadn't heard anything for a week, Jack called back and spoke to a different – and friendlier – guy, who suggested that he call the foundation directly and ask to be allowed to buy tickets.
When Jack called Dac's machine the next morning, the message said he was in DC spinning at Cherry, but to leave word and he would get back. "Hey, Dac," he said, "This is kind of embarrassing. Here I am at 34, trying to wrangle tickets to gay dance parties where I suspect I am really not wanted. But hey, why quit now?"
That same day Jack got a voicemail from Dac in DC… it was the first time Dac returned a call to Jack in the same day. Jack was comforted by Dac’s hearty laugh; at least someone was amused by his predicament. "It's no problem," he assured him. "I'm the DJ, and the DJ's friends get to come to the party. If they don't, then guess what? I don't play. Why, you ask? Because I can...."
The next day, Jack got his tickets. At the last moment he decided to fly to see Dac in DC, but the flight was delayed. He tried to wake his friends early in the morning, but they had taken Valium and gone to bed. Not really wanting to pay for a hotel room, he headed over to a sex club where he proceeded to have sex most of the next day and night. He never made it to Dac's gig, and didn't want Dac to see him so strung out anyway.
He was going to get his drug problem under control, he told himself. Just not this weekend. He knew he would see Dac in less than a month; it would give him time to work out and recover from his DC debauchery. He rationalized that every good fag needs a sex club romp every once in a while.
Jack flew in from San Francisco a few days before the main event. He knew he shouldn’t take so much time off from the law firm, but he'd been working 70 hours per week for the past few months and figured that he deserved some extra time running around New York. His early arrival allowed Jack to exalt once again in the wonderful sensations that only New York City can provide, and it gave him time for the only form of shopping he truly adore - hitting the record stores, specifically Heartbeat in Greenwich Village.
On Friday afternoon, Jack and his fraternity brother John joined the other clearly identifiable revelers at a jam-packed Penn Station. New York had just been assaulted an excruciating heat wave, and Jack had never experienced that sensation of the City just completely disgorging its population for a summer weekend. It seemed as if everyone who could get out was doing so, though Jack had heard that a summer storm was headed their way. Sure enough, when they disembarked from the train the wind tried its best to blow them right back in. By the time the ferry started nosing its way out of the bay, it had turned into a full-scale downpour complete with thunder and lightning.
Jack insisted on sitting in the front of the boat facing forward, so that he could turn his back on civilization as he headed out to the Island. Reaching the dock at Cherry Grove, he realized he was going to be more completely cut off than even he had bargained for. The power in the entire town was out, so John and Jack did the only logical thing: they headed straight for the nearest bar, where they drank as fast as they could before the beer got warm.
Cherry Grove was in a state of chaos. Jack and John were cold and wet, nothing was working, and everyone was running around carrying flickering candles. The bar was filled with a motley crew of heavy drinking older gay men and lesbians, all laughing in that way that people do when they’ve had a few too many. The whole Fire Island experience was just not getting off to a good start at all.
They weren't sure what to do, until suddenly Jack heard someone say, "I hear they have power in the Pines." Learning that there might also be a tea dance in the Pines, Jack simply thought, "Bingo!" As an added benefit, his purchase of a host package of tickets to Dac's party entitled them to attend a private welcome party at what sounded like an exclusive Pines residence.
The only problem with the whole plan was John, who needed to stay in the Grove to meet his boyfriend who was coming out on the last ferry. They finally decided that Jack should go ahead and head off to the Pines, and that they would meet up in front of the Pavilion at a designated hour.
Jack enjoyed his water taxi just like a kid on a return voyage to Disneyland. As the boat sped out into the ocean, the trip to Fire Island seemed full of renewed promise. Of course, as they started coming into the Pines Harbor Jack felt his anxiety grow. Ocean front mansions, yachts, a meat rack of wall-to-wall muscle boys... His long-romanticized Mecca suddenly appeared to be nothing more than another gay Babylon devoted to Youth, Money and Sex. Not that Babylon doesn't have its good points, of course… it just wasn’t at all what he had expected, or what he had come for.
What he had come for was Dac.
As it turned out, the tea dance had just ended, and the crowd was moving over en masse to the Pavilion for cocktails. This became Jack’s introductory lesson to the fine distinctions between "high tea" and "low tea", as armies of young men were pushing wagons loaded to capacity with very expensive foods from the gourmet cantina. The whole scene was just too much for Jack… he crossed over to the ocean side, walking along the sand dunes and listened to the sea for well over an hour until it was time to meet up with his friends at the Pavilion.
When he got there, though, John and his boyfriend were right in the middle of a fight which Jack didn't want to interrupt. He was in no mood to brave the exclusive host welcome party alone, either, so he headed back to the Grove where he found that the lights were finally back on.
Despite the setbacks, Jack remained hopeful for the weekend. He had come for the music after all, and at the Pines Harbor he found a flyer announcing that in addition to the parties he already knew about there would be some of his other favorite DJs playing tea dances. Jack was stunned. Here he was, on Fire Island, and he was going to get to hear all of his favorites DJs… the ones that he considered to be the founders of the modern gay dance Circuit.
By Saturday night things started to turn around. David Knapp played one of the most incredible 3-hour sets of tea dance music Jack had ever heard. There was barely a crowd for the first hour, but by the final hour the scene inside the bar was near pandemonium. All hands were waving in the air while people were dancing on top of the chairs and couches. That night, it was more of the same. It was Playful Warren Gluck, as opposed to the Maestro Warren Gluck from the Black Party in March, and playful worked for Jack. He found himself wearing olive army fatigue shorts, and trying to dance while balancing an enormous disco ball on his head. He and a blond guy named Ted were messing around on the dance floor… Ted was on X and kept playing with Jack’s sweaty chest hair. Jack finally left around 3 in the morning, so he could get some sleep and try to be ready for Dac's party the next day.
Dac had told Jack to be sure to come to his party early. He needn't have worried; Jack believed in the rituals of the circuit. His favorite parts of a dance party were the beginning and the end. Unlike other gay men, Jack never felt a need to arrive socially late. If one of his favorite artists was at the turntables, he would always try to be there to hear both the first and the final notes.
In Dac's case, of course, it was much more than that. Dac had become a friend. Rick, who had left him alone at the White Party, wasn't. His ex, Jerry, certainly wasn't. And Jerry's new boyfriend, Caesar, probably never had been.
Jack wasn't sure how they'd ever become friends. He was pretty shy to begin with, and he had a tendency to put the people he admired up on a pedestal. He'd done it so many times to so many of the perfect men he met on the circuit, grabbing them and telling them how he wanted to have lunch with them. They would respond immediately, hugging and touching him, but as things progressed his admiration and shyness would become a barrier to any real kind of intimacy.
Over the last three months of missed phone calls with Dac, though, Jack had developed an intimacy with him. Dac, in fact, had offered him the most wonderful and elusive of gifts – genuine, adult male friendship.
Jack was among the first to arrive at Dac's party, at a huge compound near the Grove. Jack spent the first twenty minutes searching for Dac amongst the perfect bodies which filled the room, and then suddenly there he was standing near the DJ booth. The Piped Piper of the circuit moving to the beats of his own spins. As Jack moved towards him, Dac turned and greeted him with a huge smile.
“Hey, Jackryker!” roared Dac, enveloping him in a bear hug.
"Hey, Dac," replied Jack, hugging him back.
"I can't talk until after the party," Dac smiled, "But come and find me."
Jack nodded as Dac turned to change the record. He danced for a while, trying not to feel disappointed that they hadn't had the chance to have much of a conversation. He felt dismissed – as if the King had waved his arms and told him to go join the other knights.
He searched in his pocket for a hit of ecstasy. It was three months old, but he'd kept him in the freezer just like he'd been told. Within twenty minutes he was flying to Dac's beats. The next three hours blurred into one, and Jack spent most of the night sweating and being almost deafened by the huge speakers. Jack didn't care; he just wanted to dance until the music stopped, and hoped that the music would play forever.
When the party was over and Jack felt solitary once more, he retreated to a bench in the courtyard. From there he watched the various dancers exit, some returning to their rentals while others waited for the next ferry. Most were high, like him, and didn’t really have a destination at all. Jack must have been sitting watching men pass by for nearly an hour when he saw Dac come out, chatting with fans and friends. Seeing Jack sitting alone, he came over and sat down beside him on the bench.
“Hey Jackryker”, he said again, "You look like you're having fun."
“I’m flying on E," Jack admitted.
“I can tell. Listen, a bunch of DJs are getting together at someone’s rental, but I’m going to coffee at a friend from LA’s house. Do you want to go?” asked Dac.
“Can I be your date?” Jack said, feeling suddenly brave.
Dac smiled. "Sure."
They made a long journey from one end of Fire Island Pines to the other end. Dac's friend was in his fifties and said he'd inherited the house from his lover, who died of AIDS in the 80s. By the time they arrived, the sun had come up and was shining brightly into each room and glancing off the bouquets of fresh flowers which stood scattered everywhere Jack looked.
"Great house," Jack told his host as they sat drinking coffee. "It has the most wonderful atmosphere… like a welcoming spirit."
"It's not the house," the older man replied, "It's the spirit of all of the wonderful people who've passed through it, just like you. And that's why you'll always be welcome in my home. Stop by anytime you come to Fire Island."
Soon afterwards, Dac said he had to go… he had to catch a flight back to New York later that morning. Jack felt instantly depressed as he realized that his visit with Dac was almost over. They said goodbye to the their host and ventured back to the other side of the Pines, Dac pointing out places of interest on the way – places Jack had somehow managed to miss when he'd passed them before. He smiled with pleasure as Dac showed him homes with the most beautiful gardens; bright green landscapes draped along the gorun, punctured by pink, yellow and red flowers. Japanese gardens. Ponds with lily pads. Rich flower beds. The masterwork of gay men using their incredible talents to combine Art with Nature.
Dac said that he loved nature, and particularly loved to photograph it. He rarely took pictures of people.
"People will always dissapoint you," he said seriously. "Nature never does."
Dac made Jack see Fire Island in a way that he would otherwise have missed out on altogether. Jack was in awe of his fearlessness. Dac would just open the gate to the most expensive of private estates, and they would walk in as if they owned the place with Dac pointing out this tree and that flower bed. "If we run into anybody we'll just apologize, say we got the wrong house," he said, grinning. Jack had a feeling Dac would get away with it, too.
Towards the end of the Fire Island tour Dac took Jack to a very large modern house on an enormous lot. There was a fountain off to the side and Dac pulled him down to sit at the water's edge. They sat there for twenty minutes, exploring each other with their kisses and touches. Every once in a while Jack would open his eyes to look into Dac's emerald green ones, amazed by them. Both men felt the wind blow against their faces as they kissed. Things began to really heat up when Dac stopped kissing and told Jack he needed to go because he still needed to pack up his equipment. They headed back to Dac’s room and talked about music for the next hour so, occasionally stopping to kiss, feel, and pack shirts.
Jack was obsessed with dance music, but rarely did he have anyone to talk to about it. Dac was his perfect partner. Dac thought most DJs were fools for not realizing that Sylvester's "Don't Stop" and "Can't Stop Dancing" were much better records than "Do You Wanna Funk?", but would go on to sternly advise that "I Who Have Nothing" was nonetheless Sylvester's best. Jack was in heaven. Dac hated to mix records with words but for Jack he played a mix of Madonna’s Don’t Cry for me Argentina.
It won't be easy you'll think it strange
When I try to explain how I feel
That I still need your love
After all that I've done…
"You know, the best DJs are not all gay," he admonished with raised eyebrows.
Jack felt safe with Dac. He was a protected cub in a den in which his magnificent presence and spirit prevailed. "I know all these other DJs are also Leos," he told Jack that morning, "but I am a real Leo; a real Lion." And he was right. If Dac liked you, even his roar made you feel good and safe… all warm and fuzzy with the King of the Forest.
Finally Dac said he really needed to pack, as his ferry was leaving in just a couple of hours. They hugged and said goodbye, and Jack watched as he headed towards the waiting area carrying his bags and records. Jack saw the exited stares as different people recognized him and stopped him just to say hello. He was polite and gracious to all of his fans. Just as he picked up his bags once more to board the boat at last, Jack tapped him on the shoulder and snapped a quick picture as he turned round… managing to capture one of those glorious smiles.
"What a photo opportunity!" he yelled as Dac grinned at him.
"I enjoyed our morning together, Jackryker!" he laughed loudly. And this time they really said goodbye.
Why did he enjoy it so much? Jack wondered. All they'd done was kiss and explore the island… surely it hadn't meant that much to Dac. Not as much as it had meant to him, anyway.
He stared into Dac's green eyes, trying to pluck up the courage to ask him to stay a few more days. As if reading his mind, Dac spoke the words Jack had been expecting since he'd met him.
"Jack, I have a boyfriend in New York," he said.
Jack nodded. "I know," he said.
He left Dac on the ferry and waved goodbye, heading back to his room once the boat was gone. He spent the next two days wallowing in dance and regret. He wanted to go home, but at the same time he wanted to hop a plane to New York and search for Dac. The hour came for him to head home, and this time he picked a seat on the ferry so that he could face backwards. He wanted to savor every last moment as he watched Fire Island fade into the sea, refusing to acknowledge his destination – the mainland and the real world – until the last possible second. As they left the dock, however, Jack realized that he had miscalculated and was facing the wrong way… his back was to the island. He considered switching positions, then decided it was just as well.
It was time to leave it all behind. Jack knew that his Fire Island journey was over.
It was about that time when Jack felt someone touch his shoulder. He turned around to see the Daddy from the White Party standing next to him.
“Do I know you?” asked Will.
Copyright © 2006 Ken Cimino
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