A stay at the Point

I had to finish this book. She was gone, three years in the making, she was gone, enough, I had to finish this book!

Five, seven days at the most? I do most of my writing at the beach. I often revise at home. I had to escape. I was losing my grip. Too many memories.

I’d get a bargain. It was the end of the season and the rates were cut. I could afford a week; hell, I deserved it!

I packed my books. I wanted to make sure that I had my original references with me. There is nothing more mind-bending then the need to look up that one little fact in that one single book that you neglected to bring. Writers are like that you know, it goes beyond having a magical number of sharpened pencils: we’ve got all sorts of hang-ups. I am unusual in that I can write just about anywhere. However, my books are my security blanket.

It was Sunday, with the weekend over; I knew by the time I arrived I’d have my pick of the myriad motels that sprawled throughout the famous hamlet, which is the main tourist attraction of Long Island. The Montauk Lighthouse was the first to be built in New York. It started lighting the way in 1797. Its name is derived from an Algonquin speaking Native American tribe, the Montaukett.

There was actually a small bit about Montauk Point in the book that I was trying to finish. I hadn't been to Montauk since Joya and I had stayed there several years earlier. We were the main characters of the book. Should I let them die in peace or let them live to destroy each other yet, again?

Big decision!

I drove close to the tip of the Point and stopped at the motel where we had stayed. It was fresher looking: obviously some improvements. And busy! Folks leaving, heading for the city: The workweek started the next day.

"Take your pick,” he said. “Just give us a few minutes. Got to dust and stuff and all,” he turned around and opened the small fridge behind him. “A drink?” he asked then stepped aside so I could see its contents.

“Sure, a diet coke please.”

"I guess you have rooms in the main house?" I thought if I stayed in the room Joya and I had shared, it would help me resolve some creative issues.

"No, closed, closed."

I gave him a questioning look.

“Yea, today, today. Hey I'm only lettin you in cause you're cute!”

I laughed and gave him a wrinkled nose and a smile. But in truth, I wanted to slug him.

He handed me the coke as he handed a sheet to a young man. “Lady says she got a bag with books in it, a big bag, mind taking it up?”

“Sure,” said the thin, prematurely bald young man.

“Thanks JJ.”

“Where to?” asked JJ.

“Gee, I don’t know but my lucky number is three. May I have three?” I asked the manager. “Sure.” he said. “The place is yours.”

“Lucky for me,” said JJ. Three is right at the top of the stairs. I mean since your bag is so heavy, show me." He stretched his head over the throng of cars. "Suite #1 is on the corner you see,” he said as he extended his arm. “They have the end suite, the wrap-around balcony, and 2 is right next to you. And number 4 on the other side.”

He grabbed the bag containing the books out of the trunk. “Not so heavy,” he said with false bravado.

There were at least forty books in that thing along with eight revisions. I wasn't taking any chances. I had everything that had anything to do with that book in my possession: I was going to finish the damn thing if it killed me.

“Do you mind, I mean, you can sit out on the balcony while the sheets are changed and the suite is vacuumed? The lounge in the big house is closed. Is that OK?”

“Oh, sure JJ."

I poked my head in the bathroom and found a young woman sealing the toilet with a fresh ‘welcome’ tape, proof that it had been disinfected. We smiled at each other. “There are your towels,” she said as she nodded toward the built-in shelf.

“I’ll bring up the other bag," said JJ.

“OK thanks.”

I sat on the balcony with the Atlantic Ocean only a hundred feet away. I drank my coke while I was plotting the end of the book and observed the semi-circle of balconies to my left being searched for lost toys and misplaced sunglasses. I could not see the first half dozen as there was a privacy wall up at the end of each balcony but as the semi-circle widened I could see the last few suites maybe 20 balconies away.

The place was noisy but everyone was packing up and I figured that it would calm down soon enough because if anyone left later than this it would be bumper-to-bumper going back to New York. These people knew the ropes. They had their trip timed.

“OK-your other bag is next to the bed,” said JJ as he poked his head out the balcony door.

“Thanks. Any chance of not having someone next to me?”

“Need quiet?”

“Yes. Is it too late to change?”

“No, I promise," he said with a big smile, "no one will be on either side of you for sure. Lots a rooms –the season and all. You won’t be disturbed, no noise, no nothing, no people at all!"

Quite reassuring! When I say I don't want noise, I don't want noise. I was going to pretend that this was my private ocean villa. Just pretend that no one else existed.

I closed the sliding door as she vacuumed and I peeked through the glass as she fixed the bed-she was quite meticulous-had real pride in her work. When she was finished, she knocked on the glass door of the balcony and motioned for me to come in and observe her work.

“This looks lovely, thanks, what’s your name?”

“Jean and I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Jean, please don’t bother. I will have the ‘do not disturb’ sign out the whole week. I have very strange sleeping habits.”

“But the bed and fresh towels,” she protested.

“I don’t need the bed fixed thanks. I am in and out of bed all day, just to change position/location. I move the computer around like it’s a part of my body. It’s really an umbilical cord.” I chuckled.

A wary look came my way. “However,” I continued, attempting to regain my dignity, “if you’d bring me a week’s supply of towels I would be most grateful and then you can basically forget about me. I’ll be okay. There’s no rush, anytime today is fine. I am going out to buy food to stock the fridge so I don’t have to leave the room for the week.”

"You are staying the week?" Her eyebrows crunched.

"Yes," I answered wondering why she was surprised.

"The boss, he knows?" Another crunch.

I smiled and nodded yes.

When she left I got a smile with an, ‘I wonder what you are up to’ look.

Upon returning, I was pleased to find a mound of beach, bath, hand and face towels on my bed. She forgot the soap, but that was OK because I always traveled with my own.

I moved the desk from the corner so it would face the ocean through the glass doors. The sunscreen automatically went outside on the balcony table. It would stay there until I headed back west. The bag with all the books lay open on the floor next to the desk. I had an idea, something was stirring in my head, and I had to write it down.

I unpacked my computer and got connected and worked for five straight hours except for using the bathroom, snacking on pretzels and drinking coke. When I finally looked up, the room was bathed in a dusky glow and the ocean was a white rush coming towards me.

Something was off, there was a shaft of light. I got up and turned to face the entrance. I hadn't noticed it before. The outside door to my suite was glass, a thick frosted glass. I had never seen that before in any motel. Frosted: you coundn't see in. However, I didn't like the fact that the bright light at the top of the stairs shone directly into my room. I could clearly see the shadow of the large fire extinguisher that hung on the left side of the wall outside my room.

When I want light-I want light. When I want dark-when I turn the light off-I want dark!

I liked the room. I felt like I could write there. However, I didn't want the light behind me radiating onto the chrome of the balcony glass door in front of me. Confession: writers are crazy people.

It wasn't a great night‘s sleep because I woke up at least three times with a couple of ideas and revisions. Once when I went to the bathroom I was scared silly as there was the shadow of a tall kid with a ball at my door. I figured they had arrived late and hoped that they wouldn't end up next to me. He was still there when I came out of the bathroom, kind of still, waiting for his family I guessed. He had momentarily turned and was facing my door. Kids can be so weird and unmannerly sometimes.

I wanted to shout, "get lost," but I didn't want to scare him.

I went back to bed. After ten minutes I got up to see if my visitor was gone. Good! My bed was against the wall with the door out of sight. However, as I lay down I could see the light, a laser crossing the room pointing to the ocean. I would know if I were in trouble because the light would flicker.

Room change! Next day! No more top of the stairs stuff!

Just as I had made the decision, I got spooked because I heard some music. I recognized it. It wasn't loud but it was creepy because it sounded like it was coming from the four walls of the room. Too many candy bars, overwork, sushi? Time for a ‘sleeping remedy’!

I finally rolled out of bed at around noon, showered and headed down to the office. As I descended the stairs, I looked around, sure enough, all of the rooms had thick frosted doors. Should I bother?

A subdued hoot came out of my mouth when I saw the empty parking lot. It would be quiet. Families were already out for the day. Only a few people would come during the week: retired persons, maybe a young mom with her kids. The season was over.

The office was closed but it was lunchtime and I figured people had a right to eat. Besides, I had the whole day.

I took a walk along the shore before shutting myself in for the day. Nothing like having the ocean to yourself! As I walked up the path a car pulled away from the office leaving my old wreck basking in the sun. In any case, I was I no mood to pack up and move. Ideas were popping out of my fingertips.

I worked for hours. A real high. Ate my way through chips and dip, cookies and a Three Musketeers bar. I had even found a deli with fresh sushi. You can find just about anything in Montauk, it can be high end.

The night had gone from cool to cold. This was a perfect time to come to the Point: warm sunny afternoons and cool nights with stars scattered about in brilliant clarity. I sat on the edge of the bed with the balcony door wide open and the heat as high as the dial would go. The beach shore was black and desolate. I undressed, stood naked at the balcony entrance feeling the cold on my nipples, but incredibly my body felt warm as the heater blanketed my back like a fine layer of fur. It’s hum and the Gregorian chant emanating from my laptop mesmerized me.

Only blackness, surf, chants, and stars prevailed.

However, the sleep ahead would again prove restless. Dreams of fierce lightning, enormous waves, grave thunderstorms that would be responsible for shipwrecks and for death, caused me to wake in sweat and anxiety.

I awoke to the music again, it was hardly discernible but I could hear a voice this time, a male voice. Concentrating on the sound I thought I saw the light stream flutter, I jumped out of bed. But there was no figure outside the door. Writer’s imagination! Nevertheless, just in case, I coughed aloud, banged the bathroom door, and then freely acknowledged my lunacy.

The next day I drove to the famous lighthouse at the farthest end of Long Island. There were still some tourists at the beach side and restaurant. Few people spoke without foreign accents. I stood at the ocean’s shore; its calmness was deceiving. When I looked to the right, I saw the waves hit heavily up the rock formations at the base of the lighthouse, leaving white foam, which rapidly disappeared as the bubbles burst in sightless succession. I headed to the lighthouse, walked through the museum and took in some history.

Suddenly, the wind sped up and it began to rain furiously. This was wonderfully fortuitous. The motel was a eight-minute drive away; getting soaked would not be a problem when the warmth of my room was an immediate surety. What could surpass being on the top of a cliff at the ocean’s edge in a furious storm? I fought the wind and rain to the back edge of the point and was barely able to maintain my balance along with several other sightseers. We all stood in front of a statue of a fisherman commemorating the men who had died in the waters below. The last to die here was as recent as 1978. How surprising-modern times! No wonder I had dreamt of shipwrecks the night before.

However, no one would invade my privacy tonight. The night began to pass differently from the prior evening. A sense of peace permeated the air. The slumber was all encompassing. Though I was dreaming, I had an awareness of breathing with contentment under the ocean’s surface as the water entered my lungs and escaped with ease.

Such wonder! Each breath took me deeper and deeper. A blanket of the ocean’s volume weighed heavily down upon my body. What an incomparable comfort, being cradled in its warmth, in a tailspin, happily plunging into the depths of the origin of creation. Colors swirled in front of me causing my eyes to widen in appreciation of the unknown species. Taking in the beautiful nectar, hearing the mellifluous fins against the froth, I became one of the new species. My body was now a jagged coral, receptive to the flow between her portals.

Suddenly I began to suffocate, consuming arms, legs, fingers, hair, and teeth. Death was imminent; I fought desperately then bolted up in bed. As I longed for air, tossing my limp, soaking hair from side to side while clutching the bed covers and slowly recovering, I raised my head with my chin jutting into space grasping the air like a hungry viper. My eyes broadened with my mouth in a soundless gasp and my heart stopped.

The light was moving rapidly as though a hundred people were passing in front of my door and suddenly I could heard the words to the song, it was a favorite of Joya’s, an ancient song. I leaped out of the bed to the door and found the light undisturbed, yet in my abject fear I yelled at the door “Go away, go away. I have a gun and I am calling the manager.”

Surely, I was losing my mind!

I sat on the edge of the bed with my face in my hands. I could not get the song out of my head, it was!‘You, you’re driving me crazy’. They played it over and over. Crazy people!

There were no lights at the end of the balconies to the right or left. It was midnight. Everyone was in bed behind closed doors. There was overcast. I could hear the ocean and its rhythmic swish but I could not see anything but a black haze over the sand. What a shame. I wanted to see it once more, but, there was no way I was staying here another night. I started packing before I went to bed.

"Lucky you caught me," said JJ, wiping up some hot coffee he had just spilt on the counter.

“What are you hours JJ?" “Oh, no hours, not now. Jeanie was glad that you didn't need nothin. Sorry to see you go so early."

I gave him my card. "Yea, she sure was glad she didn't have to come the whole time."

"How about the other guests?"

He stood there looking perplexed. "No, no other guests. That’s what I meant when I said no one would bother you. You thought I was kidding you? We closed for the season when you came. Boss figured-why not? You looked like a nice lady. But, we’re just down the block there," he said pointing east.

"I–ah-do you mean I've been here alone?"

He burned his lips on his coffee and pulled away from the counter. "Yup-you’re lucky you caught me today seeing as how you said you were staying the week. I had stopped by, now when was that, lookin for my wallet.”

He was wiping the counter again. “It was behind the desk on the floor, don’t really use it a lot here in town."

“No one was here?" All I could think of was the music. "I have been in this place entirely alone?" JJ was pleased, smiled and said, “Yeah!"

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