It started with the naked-in-the-crowd dreams. I’ve had them much of my life. I assume we all do. Marilyn Monroe was famous for them—that alabaster offering of breasts, buttocks, and thighs, the damp curls of pubic hair—to an anonymous, censuring crowd as if she were frozen before them in time. I was not frozen in my dreams, but I was equally helpless. I wandered aimlessly through a maze of rooms filled with people— all clothed—some of whom I knew and some who seemed eerily familiar. None of them paid me any mind. I was searching, but for what? All I know is that my journeys were lonely and fraught with a rising excitement that further alienated me from the people in the dreams. There was a feeling, upon awakening, of ascent from the muddy bottom of my unconscious where hidden fears and urgent sexuality lay entwined. If memory serves me, Marilyn’s dreams occurred in church, with her standing at the end of the aisle before the merciless congregation—a crucifixion of sorts. I like that—the spice of religious guilt, added to the savory mix of desire and shame.
Somewhere past the age of 65 when my wife, Melissa, died, my naked dreams intensified for a few months and then stopped. The cessation came as a relief— a reprieve from my journeys of yearning and desire, my awakenings in a weightless fog. I attributed it to the aging process—saying “goodbye” to an endless string of things that once formed the high wire between poles of pleasure and pain. You grow to accept those losses over time. And so I began to let it go—the memories, the dreams, their mysteries of terror and joy.
Or so I thought.
It came to a surprising head one morning two days before my 70th birthday as I sat on the screen porch where, in temperate weather, Melissa and I shared our meals. I sipped my morning coffee and stared at the late-September back yard. Above the treetops, against a brightening sky, a young, redtailed hawk was being attacked by a flock of crows. He circled, a fledgling Icarus on his cross of wings, as the crows swirled and dove. I pitied him. But his cries seared open a lid in the soul. Scenes from those old naked-in-the-crowd dreams poured out and with them a command from that lost part of me: I knew how I would celebrate my 70th birthday: I would return to those dreams, not through my now infertile unconscious, but in real life. I would appear nude in public. I admit that at first blush the plan—or, was it a compulsion—appears crazy. But at the time it seemed perfectly natural. Those old dreams were one of the great mysteries of my life. Reach a certain age, and see what it brings: for all the loss and lonely days, the aching bones, the missing car keys, and nights on the toilet, there is liberation as well. You can do what you want, and no one gives a hoot. They write it off as an eccentricity of old age—general looniness or the onset of dementia. I needed to revisit that mystery. And now I had the license to do it.
Other than the selection of location—an easy one for me—it took no planning really. I would go the large shopping mall near my house, park, begin my stroll at Daisy’s, the everyman’s department store at one end, and complete the journey at Harvest Home, the high-end specialty store at the other, passing athletic shoe emporia, lingerie shops, and jewelry stores along the way. I would traverse a microcosm of the community at large, climbing the social ladder, from bargain basement to penthouse, the latter of which is patronized by our community’s most fashionable and well-heeled. And, I should add, the most ready to judge, revealing a secular reach on my part for Marilyn’s delightful ingredient of guilt, which I was beginning to perceive might hold the key to the mystery.
There was also the question of timing. I guessed that early to mid-afternoon was prime for shoppers—especially a brand of shopper that seemed essential to the success of my little escapade. For lack of a better term, I’ll call them the wealthy matron breed—the doyennes of our society and the financial backbone of Harvest Home. They have two ingredients I deemed to be at the heart of my quest: they are female, and they are merciless as hell with the quick and disdainful look. Haughty?—oh, yes! And aloof as three-masted schooners, sailing through life on the incoming tides of unearned wealth, designer jewelry, and silk underwear. They are veritable guilt-dispensing machines. I shuddered at the thought of them.
My 70th day opened bright and sunny with a slight nip in the air that promised to rise into the mid-60s by take-off time. I spent the morning padding about the house doing some cleaning. I paid my daily visit to Melissa’s closet where I have preserved her most personal items—bras, panties, jewelry, stockings, garter-belts (purchased primarily for my benefit), half-emptied bottles of perfume. She was something of a matron herself of a kinder, gentler sort, but still with that aloofness, that attitude of being a step above. In her case, this was premised less on wealth, of which we had little, than assurance of character and her position as Chair of our classics department at the University(where, as a result of a grossly misunderstood interaction with one of my female students, the Dean had reduced me to the rank of mere adjunct). I confess I both admired and was intimidated by Melissa. As a sort of homage, I suppose, I have on occasion donned some of her undergarments and worn them about the house, yearning perhaps for some form of sexual reawakening. It never came. On this morning I resisted that urge and spent the time dusting and realigning her things. It soothes me to keep them in order. At 2:00 p.m. I undressed, stood before the floor length mirror she once used for what seemed like hours on end, and conducted my pre-parade review. Nothing unusual to report. The pale body with its muscles vanishing into flesh. The shrunken genitals. My formerly lush, auburn pubic hair, thinning to white—God knows when; I’d not noticed it before. Beyond that, the same hawkish face, sagged now into something resembling a sea turtle, peeking with ancient eyes from under a frayed shell of gray. Not a revolting sight, but none of the impish glow that used to provoke and delight my colleagues at the University. Even imps must grow old.
My drive to the mall was uneventful. No double takes at stop lights, even from the pick-up truck drivers, whose views extended southward to my flabby crotch a-spread the leather seat of my Mini—my one self-indulgence since Melissa died. Cell phones and car stereos held the drivers’ attention. I was seized by the sudden fear that the entire event would go unnoticed. I was on a fool’s errand back into the loneliness of my old dreams.
It was not until I exited the car at the entrance to the mall near Daisy’s that I understood what being naked in public really meant. The car key weighed heavily in my hand. I glanced down at it—the only “clothing” I had—and pushed the red button. The door lock clicked with the finality of a prison gate. I knelt, placed the key on the pavement inside a rear wheel, and slowly rose to my feet. It was that out-in-the-air feeling: Venus rising from the depths of the sea, completely exposed. I squared my shoulders and started across the gritty pavement. And it was at this point, I believe, that the trance began, as though the step up from asphalt to the sidewalk in front of Daisy’s vaulted me into some realm of the unconscious. Nervousness vanished. Serenity set in. A woman and teenage daughter, laden with shopping bags, exited the swinging glass doors to Daisy’s, arguing over something the daughter wanted and the mother refused to buy. They faced off, hands on hips, in mock imitation of each other. I noticed approvingly the pierced nose and eyebrows on the overfed face of the daughter and thought briefly of pierced nipples as well. The three-inch slice of upper buttocks, visible between tank top and jeans, however, seemed an affront—my ass was no match for hers. The mother’s earrings danced as she stamped her feet. “Good day,” I said, as I pushed through the door. They fell silent as stone. Would they flee, call the cops, or just stare at each other in disbelief? Perhaps a chuckling reconciliation would ensue as they walked toward their car to resume their rancorous spree at another mall. Could this be a healing journey for others as well?
Daisy’s had the usual crowd—mostly short women: Hispanic, native redneck, some African-American, with a couple of mid-Eastern and Asian wom- en thrown in. They bent to their shopping in claustrophobic aisles of clothing and household goods. For the first thirty feet I was simply not seen—a commentary, I suppose, on the frenzied materialism which permeates our society. But salvation lay ahead. Blocking my exit into the mall, like a cruise ship glittering athwart the entrance to a bay, sat a large, circular perfume counter. Within it stood two cheaply but fashionably dressed women in deep conversation. They seemed oblivious to all around them—merchandise, customers, even time of day. Neither chewed gum, but they were the gum-popping kind. I confess a secret love for women like these, and I’ve always wished I could muster the courage to talk to them. Now was my chance. I fancied their perfume wafting my way, though it was probably the effluvious mix from their work station.
I sashayed up to my side of the circle. “Hello, there. Could you direct me to the dead-center of the mall?” Their jabber continued without letup. I “hullo’ed” again. The younger of them—a waif-like brunette wearing cascades of bracelets and a knit dress clinging tightly to hip and bone—finally glanced up. Her gasp awakened her partner, a woman not quite up to the matronly category I so coveted, but one who might have made it with the right marriage and a bit of luck in the tricky turns of life. Now she had a gussied-up, been-around-the-barn look, the old pock-marks shellacked with make-up applied with a heavy brush. In spite of that, she possessed what, during my army days, we would have called a “command presence.”
She crossed immediately to where I stood with my palms resting lightly on the counter and looked me up and down, though my bottom half must have blurred through the glass case with its shelves of diaphanous bottles. She crossed her arms and rocked back on a spiked heel.
“Honey, do you know you’re naked as a pot-roast?”
I glanced down at my torso then back to her with a smile. “Yes, that appears to be true.”
“Well you cain’t walk around like that in here, Darlin’. It’s just not proper.”
“Sorry to disturb,” I said, genuflecting to Her Rubenesqueness. “I’ll be on my way.” I started past her around the perfume counter toward the entrance to the mall.
“Lord God,” she said. She turned toward her partner, into whose open mouth one could have plopped an unpeeled orange. “Linda, call security.” The younger clerk’s fleshless fingers gripped the rim of the counter. She did not move. I gave her a polite nod as well.
I felt less exposed in the mall than I had in the parking lot, the illusion of being “indoors,” I suppose, that mall-designers take such pains to create. But I sank even deeper into my trance, surrounded by the ambient hum of shoppers who wandered about like cult members in a maze of catacombs. I adopted the same manner—a pilgrim, stoned on the mysteries of my quest. The fake quartz was cold to my feet. The reactions of the people were cold as well. Some picked up their pace toward wherever, jerking a kid or two behind them with heads swiveled in my direction; some stared in amazement. My only accolade came from a middle-aged man, badly in need of a haircut, who beamed ear-to-ear and cheered. “Bravo,” he said, raising his hands above his head to clap. He had a lusty Italian look. I almost expected him to break into song. There were teenagers everywhere, slouched about in varying states of undress with their palettes of died hair. A girl, a boy, and a third androgynous creature whom I guessed was male, skulked in a corner as if planning a robbery. The girl’s ring-impaled lips fell open. I braced for more admiration. “Ka-boingo!” said one of the boys. He flared himself into a four point presentation. The spikeheaded androne dropped his arms and wiggled them as if shaking goo from his fingers. “Totally,” he said. “God, is that what happens to your dick?”
I disregarded his reference—no need to check that again. I passed the kiosks selling trinkets and fake art with nary a stare, maintaining my nonchalant pace. Toward the end of my run, a red-faced jewelry store owner, glasses swaying from a lanyard around his neck, lurched for a telephone. Where, in fact, were the security guards? Cruising the parking lot in their blue SUV; taking a surreptitious break somewhere; masturbating behind one of the Dempsey-dumpsters? At any rate I made it to the entrance to Harvest Home without incident. Well, of course the entire performance was an “incident,” but that was my intent from the outset, wasn’t it?
Harvest Home is a different world. The floors are parquet, the light soft and indirect. Counters are strategically spaced to allow for milling about—a necessity for shoppers who need nothing except what their egos fancy at the moment. Banks of pastries and English biscuits rise on all sides. Smells of chocolate and ground coffee fill the air. Around the corner to the right, a brightly lit deli counter stretches the length of the store, filled with lavish displays of take-home options, paté, smoked salmon, and cheese. Eight to ten patrons paused in the entrance way, Harvest Home shopping bags in hand, and watched me pass. One bag thudded heavily to the floor. I had intended to keep straight to the oaken shelves of wine at the back of the store—I have a true interest in the merchandise there—but for some reason (more light? more people?), I turned right and headed toward the deli case.
A pleasant surprise greeted me there. Many of the store clerks are gay, or so I assume, and exceptionally polite. As I started down the aisle in front of the deli case, passing behind the customers reading labels and pondering the delectables on display, at least half a dozen counter-tenders, dressed in starched, white aprons, looked up at me. There were smiles, even hints of delight, a thumbs-up or two, as if Bojangles had suddenly danced into view. Relief from the tedium, I suppose, but I also suspect that in some subtle way, my appearance took the pressure off of being gay in a straight world, further evidence that my journey was producing ripples of cheer.
That could not be said of everyone. A John Kenneth Galbraith look-alike in a dark green sport coat and slacks in the pattern of some tartan clan round- ed the corner of a set of shelves hung with cooking pots of stainless and copper. “Good god,” he said. He halted in military fashion and quickly nudged his wife into the displays of German cutlery and French cookware. Another woman, definitely of the wealthy matronly variety, staggered backward and sucked her breath as if a fissure in the earth had closed. Her proximity to the cutlery display engendered a certain lightness between the legs.
I pivoted from the deli line down a narrow aisle of woodwares—salad bowls from Denmark, cutting boards from Brazil and Manila, rolling pins from any-town, USA. A murmuring din rose behind me. Surely the gendarmes would be arriving soon. I scooted past a fresh-minted couple pushing a stroller, scrupulously avoided rubbing my penis against the rear of the young bride. I found myself at the entrance to a section of the store that had been designed as a virtual separate room with oriental rugs, well-crafted shelves filled with brightly colored plates and platters set on end for display, and a table in one corner. Here sat—you guessed it—a matron of the highest order, deep in conversation with an oval-shaped clerk, whose business suit and tie were wrapped in a deep red smock. A glossy catalog lay on the table between them.
I spied a couch of brown leather in the corner of the “room” and decided this would be a good place to wait it out. It would put me to the rear of the matron and out of her view, allowing me time to savor the moment and anticipate the climax to come.
I ambled in and took my seat. The clerk glanced up and held his beady gaze as I reclined into the womb of the couch. I waited for him to rise and do something, but he never did. The noise I’d fled from subsided a bit, though there were a couple of distinct whoops from the area of the deli counter. Word was getting around. I settled my testicles against the cool leather and allowed my eyes to rove the shelves of plates and dishes. Hand painted? Perhaps. But gaudy is the first description that comes to mind. Gaudy and easy to break. After a couple of minutes the matron and clerk rose, he flaccid and jiggly, she on the stems of a Trojan warrior jammed into open-toed heels. He bowed slightly and thanked her in a high-pitched hum that barely covered the anxiety and over-excitement induced by this Margaret Thatcher look-alike. She allowed him to take her ringed hand (I thought for a moment he might kiss it) as he thrummed away in his fake Charleston accent, assuring her at least twice that her order would arrive in time for some fancy soirée she was hosting. She turned to leave. And that is when she caught sight of me out of the corner of her eye. I believe I had my legs crossed by then, my private parts secure in the catcher’s mitt of the couch. I may have even had my hands behind my head, reclining a bit in the soft, smooth leather.
She was probably fifty—it’s hard to tell these days with all the flesh enhancers available—and not overly large, but she preened like a lioness who’s caught a jackal slinking into her queendom. I was into it by then. I gave her a wink which she either missed or chose to ignore. She glanced back at the clerk, then returned her gaze to me. Gold earrings flashed like battle shields. “What in the world?” she said. “Do you work here?”
I leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Not at the present. I’m hoping for a position soon.”
The clerk dropped a pudgy hand on her arm. “Ah can assure you, Ms. Debardeleben, he does not wurk heah, and Ah’m quite certain he nevah shall.
“Well, I should hope not.” She shook her head as if to untangle a hornet from the labored swirls of hair. “It’s disgraceful. Why don’t they keep these people in institutions anymore?” With that, she debarked from our cozy nook into the traffic of the greater store.
The clerk stepped from behind the table. His fashionably untended mop draped across his skull like caramel hash. His chubby cheeks resembled a rat who’d eaten his way through a hoop of Brie cheese. That slight bow again. “Suh, may I help you?” The nervous hum had vanished.I suspected immediately an ulterior motive, humoring me perhaps until the cops came.
I stood. His eyes remained politely on my face.
“I’m looking for a replacement plate from a set that my wife bought heah,” I said.
He did not blink. “Was it Vietri?” I cocked my head.
“Vietri,” His finger tips met before him as if in prayer. “Was it Vietri?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was just a plate.”
He nodded toward a large, curved sign over the couch where I’d been sitting which spelled out the word in ornate letters. “Ah only sell Vietri, so Ah’m vereh sorry, but Ah can’t help you. Ah suggess you find a cluhk in anuthah section.” He turned back to his desk and began to record something on a thick pad of sales slips.
I waited. He wrote. The noise outside our cubicle was building again, somewhere around the deli counter. The home guard had entered Harvest Home. He straightened and turned again to me, pen in hand. “Suh, I rehlly think it would be best if you leave.” He raised the pen-holding hand toward the exit the matron had taken and gave it a shooing motion.
I had never been shooed before. I’d never even imagined what it would be like. True, I didn’t know what Vietri was or that I’d entered a sacred section of the store. But I’m a polished looking fellow. I have aged gracefully. I have advanced degrees from one of our more elite universities and a distinguished, if slightly stained, career.
But to my amazement, I allowed myself to be shooed. I followed his gesture toward the door. He bent back to his writing and glanced up only when the two security guards burst through from the other side of the Vietri section, grabbed me under both arms, and lifted me off the floor with my feet still moving. One was a tall, athletic-looking black guy with a trim mustache and the grip of a python. The other was a crew-cut white guy, slightly older and much shorter. They were neatly dressed in black trousers and stiff, white, short- sleeve shirts with gold badges on them. I liked them—a couple of ordinary fellows, doing their job—and they had caught me in the act as they were supposed to. I have some sympathy for them because of the quandary I’d put them in. What now? They couldn’t take me outside or back into the mall: it would only make matters worse. We couldn’t stay and pollute the Vietri sacristy until the real police came or the attendants with their straight-jacket or whomever had been summoned from the public sector. The realization began to settle on them after we’d proceeded a few steps down the main aisle of the store. They stopped and looked at each other
“Upstairs,” said a voice from behind. It was the store manager—normally a pleasant fellow, trim and cheery-faced as a cabin-boy. I’d actually met him before at a farewell dinner for one of our faculty members. “Follow me!” My escorts and I did an about-face and headed for the rear office stairs through the gauntlet of customers now lining the main aisle. They seemed no longer abashed, but curious, some even pitying. I glanced at the wine section as we passed. They have a wonderful Lebanese red there. I could have used a glass of it. We ascended the stairs and entered the management suite to await the arrival of the police.
I had not considered the possibility that when the real police arrived, my arresting officer might be female, remnants of a lingering gender-bias, I suppose. What a shame—the opportunity for fantasy would have been unlimited. The reality, however, was what my vocabulary-challenged undergraduates would have called a “downer.” She was not Marilyn or even Judith Dench— more a cross between Bella Abzug and Achilles—sort of a non-matron on steroids. She carried a night stick when she entered as if she’d like nothing better than giving me a whack across the pate with it. Her partner, as raw and cherubic as they come, moved as if his body parts were driven by separate motors, not quite in synch. (I dubbed him Robo-Cherub). By then my hosts had covered me in a fleece throw from the couch in the owner’s office. They secured it with safety pins from the desk of a secretary who had fled before our solemn march.
There was little fanfare—a quick exchange between Bella and the security guards, a click-like nod—she’d seen it all before. I noticed a short, dirtyblond pig-tail woven carefully down the center of the back of her head. Very un-Bella-like. The rookie cuffed me—a bit too tight—and started to loosen them at my request. Bella shook her head.
They led me thus shackled and clad down the stairs, and we began our long walk back down the main aisle toward the front of the store and the inevitable patrol car. The oglers had mostly dispersed by then; the show was over. Perhaps it was the disinterest of the crowd; perhaps it was the bite of the cuffs—but at about that time, I began to emerge from my trance. A post-event sadness set in.
My thoughts drifted back over my journey. It had been very different from the meanderings of my dreams where I seemed to walk through a house of zombies. In the mall, once I had established myself as a genuine, naked man, I had been noticed. The reactions had been as varied as the personalities behind them, and I treasured every one of them. Every one, that is, except the shooing dismissal of our man from Vietri. The pompous little jerk had missed the whole point. He cared not a whit about my nakedness. He cared not a whit about me. For him I was merely a nuisance, desecrating the aura of his faux-Italian sanctuary. I remembered an old joke about the three gay guys confiding to each other their most secret desires. The last one to speak says that he’d like to be playing center field for the Yankees in the last game of a 3-3 World Series where all he has to do to end the game and secure the win is catch the fly ball headed his way. And what does he do? He steps back and lets the ball land between his feet. 80,000 fans leap to their feet and scream in unison: “Cocksucker!”
“Recognition,” he says. “That’s what I want.” I’d found recognition—at least of sorts—but I guess the sadness I was feeling came from the fact that after all was said and done, I was no closer to solving the mystery behind my old dreams than before. Recognition for what? And that yearning for guilt—where did that fit in? I really needed Melissa on this one. She would have seen through it in an instant. But Melissa was no longer around, and I hadn’t told her about the dreams when she was. She hadn’t been in them. We passed from the store proper and into a long anteroom of paneled check-out counters, manned by efficient clerks, swiping cards and bagging goodies as their registers ticked out scrolls of shopping receipts for the chatting customers. At the far end, beyond the glass entrance, lay the sunny sidewalks of the high end of the Mall with the black and blue cop car, red blinkers flashing, parked at the curb. Alas—the end of the line.
And just as the idea of my naked march had hit me when I heard the screams of the poor hawk two days before, there rose in me what I can only describe as a command from the grave. When I got home—made bail, whatever— I would clean out Melissa’s closet. It was no longer hers and hadn’t been for years; it was a treasure-trove for me. And the absurd parading about the house in her undergarments—they were an uncomfortable fit, to say the least—hadn’t taken me where I wanted to go, and never would.
Yet the very thought of them had a certain effect. The fleece my hosts had covered me with began to rub. So did the safety pins. The chock-a-block of hair on the back of Bella’s head, complete with its adamant pigtail, shook before me as she swept past to open the swinging glass door. I raised my manacled hands from their contact with my crotch, but it was too late. The aging flesh had begun to do its work.
By the time we arrived at the patrol car, things were firmly at attention. Bella opened the car door, stepped back with night stick at the ready, and directed Robo Cherub to stuff me into the back seat.
“Come on, old timer,” he said. He tightened his grip on my biceps and urged me along.
And as he did, the fleece—worthless substitute for wool that it is—slid apart. I wobbled before Bella with the biggest erection I’d had since before Melissa died, gleaming in the sun. She glanced down at it. I did, too. “It’s my birthday,” I said.
“Holy shit,” said Robo-Cherub. He guffawed and slumped backward against the car door.
“Don’t gag,” said Bella. “These old perverts are the worst. You’ll get used to ‘em in a couple of years.”