Whether headed for the Grove or Ocean Beach, Saltair or Davis Park, you either drove your car or booked a space on a shuttle van to Bayshore or some other ferry location, piled your bikes, bags, bagels, books, beach chairs, salamis, wine, kids and small appliances onto the boat, made sure you didn’t leave one of your children or a friend on shore and headed across the bay to your destination. On a good day you sat on the top deck to enjoy the sun and the sea in your face with hair blowing in the wind. There was much chatter and catching up with friends and neighbors on the half hour ride, usually spotting someone whose work you knew even if you didn’t know them … at least not yet. And then the ferry would slow down and maneuver itself into the dock that is filled with wives, husbands, boy and girlfriends, children and assorted other categories of people eager to receive their loved ones and guests, some carrying martinis in a thermos with appropriate glasses, others just there with large red wagons to offer a ride for belongings at a price. Behind the bevy of folks waiting for the ferry would be the usual lineup of red wagons belonging to residents and chained to the railings at the ferry landing, the place for the frequent happy and excited exchange of people and things.
Most of us would have removed our shoes by then so that the full impact of landing in a place completely separated from convention might be felt when taking the first step ashore. I was one who kicked them off while on the ferry and didn’t put them on again until taking the boat back to the city. Weddings are held with bride and groom in kaki shorts and bare feet. Marilyn Munro is seen by me in the fish store on a rainy day and not recognized through her yellow slicker and kerchief wearing dark glasses in the rain. Joe Heller lends me CATCH 22 and takes it back before I finish it. Charlie Strauss tells me about writing the music for BONNIE AND CLYDE and David Barrett, a top notch and revered interior decorator talks me out of baker stands and tassels. And then there is the seemingly endless supply of sensational women whose lives are filled with independent and family pursuits that inspire my ambitions.
As you know by now, Fire Island is an exceptional place that means many things to many people and a whole lot to me. The very first summer revealed all kinds of new approaches to living and interesting and sometimes famous people to be inspired by. One in particular is worth noting as I had been harboring a mad imaginary love affair with him from the age of about 15. This began immediately upon seeing him on THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW in his caramel colored skin with a shirt opened to his waist singing “Dayo, Dayo” in a sexy, raspy voice. That was it! I was in love with Harry Belafonte. Each appearance on television or in the magazines after that just fed my waking and dreaming fantasy.
Then one day my new acquaintance Dolores Autori who had recently become the first African American homeowner in Seaview, informed me that her friends the Belafontes had rented a house on the bay for the summer and soon after introduced me to his wife, Julie. They were both dancers together under the aegis of the great Katherine Dunham, whom I had met in Haiti a few years earlier, Julie was very tan, like me. She wore a long braid down her back and I had a frizzy Afro. It turned out that a common occurrence for us was to confuse folks enough to have them ask someone, “What is she? Mulatto? Moroccan?” We were both nice Jewish girls from Brooklyn and I really liked her. We made plans at one point to go into the city together for separate errands and some joint shopping. While sitting on the bench waiting for the ferry, we talked about Miss Dunham and I told her about having met her a few years earlier in Haiti and how much I loved Le Pension de le Clarke which housed her company and where they gave riveting nightly performances. Julie revealed that she and Dolores had done that tour with her and were enamored of the woman’s artistry and were not immune to her Mother Earthly command over their lives with a magical voodoo obsession by which she lived and ran the company. She was amazed when I told her that one of the male dancers I befriended had sneaked me into a hiding place behind a large rock in the hills from which to observe an authentic voudun ceremony … a scary and positively thrilling ritual that brought women dressed in long, flowing white robes with red scarves wrapped around their heads, to hurling their possessed bodies onto the rocks, one by one. Just telling her the story brought back the pounding of the drums --- louder and louder, faster and faster --- reached utterly orgasmic heights and intensity, coming very close to possessing me, too. Van sensed it and held me down.
We talked about the west side neighborhood we both enjoyed, just a few blocks apart, and then I saw an image approaching from a distance that I thought must be a mirage … an utterly magnificent male body in a caramel color even more spectacular than the poor television screen could produce, striding toward us in kaki shorts and a kaki shirt with, of course, the shirt unbuttoned to the waist. As he came closer, my right leg began to shake so violently that when Julie introduced us and he presented his outstretched hand, I reached up with my right one to clasp his and brought my left arm over my body to press that hand hard on my knee to stop the vibrations that would have to be visible to anyone with his eyes open. Suddenly I was 15 again. The man of my dreams was shaking my hand. Somehow I managed to contain my teenage hysteria … at least I think I did … and passed a few superficial niceties when mercifully the ferry arrived.
With all the real and imagined sensuality of this new friendship, some group and private conversations with him always contained provocative references to the real struggle. Talking about his role in it disclosed a deep reverence and commitment to Dr. King. One day on a walk to the beach from the bay … all of three blocks … I made a well intentioned but clumsy remark, “You must be so proud and happy about the magnitude of the love felt for you by so many people.” He said quite angrily, “Love? You call that love? Where the hell was that love when I needed it? Why did all those people slam the door in my face and now hold it open for me? It makes me sick.” This hostile exclamation was a moment of truth for me. It really hit home. Was I just another Jewish middle class New York liberal with “best intentions” in spite of what was a life long attraction to and interest in the black experience, its music, culture and even struggle? I thought I knew more than most white people, but somehow it came to seem like not all that much. At least I could see his outburst of deferred humiliation and pain. This glorious god-like man and artist always to be to so many just another nigger. My adolescent fantasy gave way to the truth. But it was the tip of the iceberg of what I needed to know and understand. The signposts had been there all along, in my night and day dreams, now it was time to get closer to the people with greater and more direct experience in the movement in person and in print.