PM 1301206
The drive to New River Beach
took about half as long as it was
supposed to, Datsun 280 SX, no
cops around on a beautiful summer
day. We were three and I felt like
a fifth wheel but George insisted that
I come.
We had a bottle of Midori,
melon liqueur for some reason and we
polished it off quite quickly on
the drive there. The beach was
spectacular that day, we had a
cooler full of beer, bread, ham
chips and mustard, a couple packs of cigarettes
in a bag and I was in
heaven. Paul Theroux was there
to keep me company as the lovers
stared into each others eyes, frolicked
along the sand and occasionally took
a dip in the cold, jelly-fish infested
water.
Hours later as my skin had been
burned to a crisp, empty beer bottles
lay strewn around my towel and
The Old Patagonian Express had become
too difficult to read in the hot
sunshine we all came to the conclusion
we were hungry.
We dug out the bread, ham
and mustard from the very
light cooler and realized we
had no knife to spread the
mustard with. As I couldn't fathom
eating a ham sandwich without
my Dijon, I did the next best
thing and just used my fingers,
just as effective as a knife,
as far as spreading goes, it did
the trick and we all enjoyed a crude
but delicious lunch, washed down with
whatever was left of the beer.
Hours later, after waking up with an
even worse burn we hastened back to
the car for the short trip to
St Andrews by the Sea.
Years later I met up with Cindy in
a coffee shop and even though I
had long since forgotten, she remembered
vividly the picture of me sitting on a
towel on the sand, making sandwiches
by spreading mustard on bread using
my fingers. I asked her if she had
enjoyed her trip to New Brunswick
and she had nodded quickly and
then asked me why I had never tried to
pick her up, either there or back in
Ontario, I replied that I had always
thought she was way out of my league.
MCC
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