I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore by Ethan Mordden

crying.”
    “Oh dear,” said our host, “you don’t think it was the quiche, do you?”
    “And this,” Dennis Savage went on, eyeing us two like Monstro the Whale, “is not the time to discuss the magic of the Island. Do you mind? ”
    Clearly it was time to leave them alone, though I must say our host handled it more suavely than I. “I love to go walking on the beach at night,” he began; I just grabbed a pear from the fruit selection and shouted “Amscray time!”
    We took Bauhaus with us, and traipsed along the water’s edge dishing the day’s events. I told him about the two men we had seen making magic in the water and he laughed sadly. “Love in the fast lane, isn’t it?” he said. “You know, when the three of you arrived, I thought that little boy was a hustler.”
    “Little Kiwi? Good grief, he’s from Cleveland or something.”
    “Hustlers come from Cleveland.”
    “Hustlers come from Queens.”
    “Hustlers come in queens.”
    Another of those elegant nights in the Pines.
    Dennis Savage caught up with us after a bit, his cool recovered. As to what had troubled Little Kiwi, he would say nothing other than that the storm was over and the boy had gone to bed. Now it was time for the Lord Mayor of the Circuit to touch base with his cohorts. Our host begged to go along and I proposed to take Bauhaus home and make my fortieth attempt at Middlemarch.
    “Aye, ever improving himself,” said Dennis Savage as we started back. “How inspiring the variety of life in the Pines. Some to their books … others to hold court.”
    “And still others to make a pilgrimage,” I added, “slinking through the trees toward love.”
    “That,” replied Dennis Savage, “is your gay materialism speaking. It will be the ruin of you yet.”
    *   *   *
    If there’s a lightbulb in all of the Pines bigger than ten watts I’ve yet to see it. One comes here to be in stories, not read them. Holding Middlemarch about three inches from my nose, I had the sensation I was back in the days of the Inquisition, reading forbidden text by secret light. I gave it up, fixed myself a triple Scotch, and went out on the deck to listen to the ocean. There Little Kiwi joined me in running shorts and Dennis Savage’s old Hamilton College sweatshirt.
    “I’m still embarrassed,” he said after quite some wait.
    “Dennis Savage went visiting with our host.”
    He sighed. “I guess I’ll have to try to be older, won’t I?”
    “Now, that’s a Fire Island first. Everyone else here is trying to renovate.”
    “I could have a secret dream and become. Like those party guests on the ferry that sank.”
    “What would you become, do you think?”
    “Virgil Brown.”
    “Say what?”
    He sat on the bench along the deck railing, facing the ocean. “Could I have a sip of your drink?” He tried it and shuddered. “I don’t like liquor. I like the sound of the ocean, though.”
    “It’s restful, isn’t it?”
    “That’s my name: Virgil Brown. You can call me that, if you like. Virgil Brown. Mister Brown. That Brown man. You know.”
    “Okay.”
    “Do you think Dennis Savage will call me that?”
    “He will if you ask him to.”
    We watched Bauhaus ooch along the deck planks on his stomach, growling.
    “I like to listen to the waves,” he went on. “I’ve been to beaches before but I’ve never heard them sound like this.” Bauhaus whimpered and drooled. “Is our host sore at me?”
    “On the contrary, I imagine he found it all very stimulating.”
    “He thought it was the quiche.” Little Kiwi laughed very gently. “That was so … nice … of him. Wasn’t it?” Bauhaus rolled over on his back and posed with his legs in the air, a big dead roach.
    “Are you cold?” I asked him. “I brought an extra sweater. It’s in my satchel.”
    “Could I sit on your lap and put my arms around you?”
    “Of course.”
    “Grownups do this sometimes,” he said, settling in. “It isn’t only for kids.”
    We