Positano, on the Amalfi Coast in Italy is almost impossibly beautiful. Cut into the mountain, the village looks out over a coast line that seems that it should be populated exclusively by movie stars, supermodels and Russian oligarchs.
While Rachelle took a break from the beach one afternoon and did some shopping, I stayed put. Nearby, two beautiful men lay on towels perfecting their suntans. Immaculate in their speedos, I watched, trying to figure out if they were gay or simply “European,” but then a bee landed on one of them and all was revealed.
A Russian bear of man, his powerful belly hanging over his speedo, strutted about assuming various postures of intimidation. My favourite was one that he did repeatedly, a move that required him to scuffle and dig his feet into the sand as if a Sumo preparing for battle and then staring out at whatever was in front of him.
Ten year-old boys stripped to their jeans played soccer, their long, curly hair practically a shampoo commercial. Skills that to me, seemed virtually preternatural. Nearby, a line of nearly teenaged girls, boisterously Italian, romped in the surf making one another laugh, the heavy one—the cut-up—making them absolutely howl.
As I lay there taking it all in, some sort of Russian sex bomb set-up camp beside me. She had a screaming toddler in tow, who obviously hated her, and who was quickly dismissed to the care of an obedient man in a mullet and track suit. In a tiny bikini that barely contained her curves and suggestions, this woman was a trophy. Behind huge and expensive sunglasses, she sipped Champagne from a flute.
She glance over at me as I was looking at her.
“Do not look at me, ” she hissed, “ I am star in Moscow.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to, and don’t worry about me, I am nobody in Toronto. I will look not at you.”
“Yes, I can see you are very much a nobody. ”
At this point I decided to go into the ocean.
I have a few prominent scars on my torso, and because of this I rarely take my shirt off in public, choosing instead to go swimming in a sleeveless undershirt covering me, as if wearing a bathing suit from the 19th century. Clad in this manner, I awkwardly navigated the rocks into the water where I was almost immediately knocked over by the surf. Feeling protected by the water, I took off my undershirt which I lost when another wave washed over me. And so, scarred and as pale as the moon, I struggled out of the water and back across the rocks ( twisting my ankle but not falling) to my lounge chair.
After I had a potato chip induced coughing fit, the Russian sex lady looked over at me.
“You are on dream trip, are you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I can see so,” she continued, “these are, how do you say, end times for you?”
“Sorry?” I said,.
“I can see you are very sick, very weak. When little wave come and make you fall down, I think tooth fall from your mouth. Is alright for you to look at my body if it give your last days some pleasure, but no boner. If I see boner, you become dead man now,” and then she took another sip of Champagne.