Coney Island Baby

July 16, 2006

Yesterday, while Deborah was lazing on the beach at overcrowded Coney Island, I was at work. Which means I missed the elderly couple sitting on the sand next to her. I didn't get to see the old woman walk into the water wearing an old-fashioned bathing cap to protect her beauty-parlor permanent, a Pucci-print kaftan, and black lace leggings.

"She finally took off her leggings," Deborah told me. "The old lady had amazing legs."

Apparently, she keeps her body toned through disciplined use of a hula hoop. There was one lying in the sand next to their encampment, and after she returned from the water, she picked it up and began to hula. Her movements were subtle and Deborah marveled at how long she was able to keep the hoop spinning. "She must've done it non-stop for a half hour," she said. "How do people do that? I could never figure out how to hula hoop ."

"Did she start twirling it around her neck, and then add a few on her arms and ankles?"

"No," said Deborah, laughing. "It was a weird hula hoop, though. It had these extra balls attached to it -- three or four rubber balls -- so that as it turned, I guess it massaged her belly or something. Like something you'd see on an infomercial."

"Thirty minutes to tighter abs."

"Right."

On her way from the subway to the beach, Deborah passed Nathan's, home of Nathan's famous original hot dog. There wasn't a line, but rather a swarm of humans in a feeding frenzy surrounding the entire hot dog stand. Like a rotting carcass covered in maggots, the whole building seethed. If it weren't for all the billboard signs stretching skyward for air, she wouldn't have been able to tell what the place even was.

The Siren Music Festival was happening. "There's so much unused space in Coney Island," said Deborah. "All these huge vacant lots and stuff. But the festival was crammed into this one little area."

"The Siren Music Festival. Oh yeah. They had some pretty good bands, didn't they? Some pretty big-name acts."

"Yeah, you know, a bunch of B-list bands on the verge of making it big."

"Unless you're really hip. Then it was just a bunch of has-been sellouts."

"Exactly."

Deborah did her best to avoid all that. She walked along the boardwalk for a while, then onto the sand and further up the beach to the relative quiet of the hula hoop crowd. Until she had to use the bathroom, that is. Then it was back to the center of the flesh puddle.

"There were so many perverts out," she said. "Semi-retarded guys with cameras—"

"Like me!'" I said. "Was anyone trying to talk to you?"

"No. Just on the subway. Some Dominican guy was following me around, strutting and swaggering. He kept trying to talk to me. I couldn't understand a word he was saying, which was just as well. Anyway, I finally made it to the bathroom, and it was jam-packed full of moms and screaming little kids. The smell was unbearable. It smelled like—"

"Shit?"

"I couldn't take it. It's the last time I'll ever go to Coney Island on a weekend. Next time I suggest it, remind me."

"There's a bunch of pro surfer footage for this job I'm working on," I said -- -- videos of pro surfers getting wet in the waves of Hawaii, which I realize is much different than being a sweat drop in the middle of a beach polluted with chicken bones and baby diapers, but still -- "As I was watching it, I was wishing I was at the beach with you."

"Trust me," said Deborah. "You had more fun looking at movies of the beach than I had at the beach."