Souvenir of Cape Cod

In case the urge should ever strike you, please take it from me that spending a week on Cape Cod with an adventurous (you should see the list of adjectives I rejecting before selecting that one) sheep is a bad idea.

I know. You saw it coming, right? You saw it coming a mile away, speeding toward us at 75 miles per hour, blasting a trumpet and waving a large, flashing neon sign that said “DANGER DANGER TURN BACK.” And I’m a fool and deserve what I got, right?

In my defense, I must say that we made all arrangements in light of previous travels with Dolores. We picked an early, less crowded flight. We arrived at the airport hours prior to take-off. And when going through security, we pretended we didn’t know the sheep. We were just two perfectly normal gay guys and a ball of sock yarn.

I was removing my shoes when I heard the tell-tale bellow from two lanes over.

“Lady,” the red-faced security guard was saying, “listen to me. I’m not gonna say this again. You gotta take off the overcoat before you go through. No exceptions.”



“You listen, Barney Fife,” said Dolores, tapping her hoof on the terrazzo. “ I already told you three times. This is not a coat. It’s a fleece. It does not come off. Now be a good little monkey and clear the path between me and the Admiral’s Club because my second mimosa is wearing thin.”

“Should we be concerned?” asked Tom, nervously.

“No,” I said. “But he should. Keep moving.”

We were on the other side, double-checking our carry-ons, when a call came over the loudspeaker for emergency medical assistance at the private screening area.

A second later the medics rushed past, pushing a gurney.

“She bit him where?” shouted one.

“On the ass!” said that other.

“Told you,” I said. “Care to split a Cinnabon?”

“I want two,” said Harry.

* * * *

Honestly, at this point a little thing like Dolores sinking her teeth into an impertinent guard’s gluteus maximus is not enough to derail my holiday. I’d already put her favorite bail bondsman on alert and figured she could clean up her own messes.

Don’t ask me how she did it–would you really want to know?–but she cleared security and stumbled onto the plane with only seconds to spare. Tom, bless his Platinum-for-Life heart, had arranged for us all to sit in First Class; so by the time we touched down in Boston, six complimentary vodka-and-tonics later, Dolores was feeling like a friend (or more) to all mankind. We had a spot of trouble rolling her down the gangplank to the Provincetown ferry, but after she slumped into a chair and fell asleep we were able to pass her off as a whimsical and capacious weekend tote. “Fabulous!” said a fellow passenger from Palm Springs. “Bettina Duncan, no? Do you think I could pick one up at Fred Segal?”

“Oh, you can pick her up lots of places,” said Harry.

After three days of quiet, I dared to hope that we might after all have a tranquil stay in Provincetown. Honestly, strolling down Commercial Street in the evening, surrounded by throng of drag performers, gentlemen with outré taste in resort attire and portly, eccentric ladies of a Certain Age, Dolores almost blends in.

And then we met Rutger.

* * * *

We first saw Rutger during a morning chat at the Boatslip with Chuck and Andrew, friends from San Francisco. He was sitting by himself on a far corner of the deck, peering moodily at the bay over a half-empty Cape Codder. He was easily six-and-half feet tall, with jade green eyes and a shock of blond hair sticking up from a leonine forehead. I reckoned each of his biceps, which oozed from a supertight t-shirt, to be about the size of my head.

“He looks so very lonely,” tutted Dolores.

“Don’t worry,” said Tom. “In this town he won’t be alone for long.”

“He might,” said Chuck. “Don’t you know Rutger? He’s a local. He owns Pilgrim Parasailing. And he’s straight.”

“Oh,” said Dolores, falling off her stool. “Is he now?”

“And single,” said Andrew, before I could kick him under the table.

Fifteen minutes later Dolores was back, gasping for breath.

“Well,” she said, “remember how was saying that no trip to Cape Cod is complete without a parasailing expedition?”

“No,” said Harry.

“Shut up,” said Dolores. “Anyhow, it turns out that Rutger actually owns Pilgrim Parasail!”

“No kidding,” said Tom.

“And guess what I’m doing tomorrow afternoon at one o’clock?”

“Taking a pottery class?” said Andrew.

“Pretty,” she said to him. “You’re so pretty. And it’s a good thing.”

“Dolores,” I said, “If you’re thinking of putting this on my credit card you can forget about it.”

She cackled. “Don’t fret, cupcake. We’ve arranged a little barter. He’s giving me a ride after lunch, and I’m giving him a ride after dinner. A ride for a ride. If you catch my drift. You catch my drift?”

“We just floated all the way to Boston on your drift,” said Chuck.

“I wanna parasail too,” said Harry. “If Dolores gets to go I wanna go!”

“Maybe tomorrow would be a swell day to drive to Wellfleet,” said Tom. “Or New Hampshire.”

“Do whatever the hell you want, pookie,” said Dolores. “I’m outta here. I need a new bathing suit and a pedicure if I’m going up in the air. Harry, come with me. I have an assignment for you.”

“I’m not done with my Shirley Temple,” said Harry.

“I’ll buy you the I GOT SCROD ON CAPE COD t-shirt you wanted from the souvenir store.”

“Bye!” said Harry, jumping off the table.

“So,” Andrew said to me, “what made you decide against just getting a dog, like everybody else?”

* * * *

That night and into the next morning we debated whether we ought, in fact, to leave town for the day; but in the end curiosity got the better of us. Dolores came back to the cottage just before dinner, toting a well-stuffed bag from one of the Cape’s most celebrated purveyors of beachwear. Harry was dropped off shortly thereafter by taxi, along with two cardboard boxes that Dolores snatched away and hid in her room before we could get a look at them.

Harry wouldn’t spill the beans, even when we tried to bribe him. He met the offer of a deluxe dipped double cone of Fudge Ripple and Chocolate Chip with a stiff-lipped, “I can’t tell you. It’s official business.”

We double-checked the ferry departure schedules and moved the suitcases near the door. Just in case.

And there was another surprise. The evening ferry brought us Victorine, Dolores’s French-Canadian cousine. She said nothing to us but “allo” before locking herself in the bedroom with the other two, but at the best of times she’s not exactly chatty.

At ten the next morning, they all left in a pedicab for the pier. Dolores looked like a firework, decked out in a brand-new in a star-spangled bikini with little mirrors that spelled AMERICA across the fanny.

Around noon the gang snapped up a table at the Boatslip with a view of the bay. Andrew and Chuck were quite excited about the whole thing.

“I’ve never watched a sheep go into space,” said Chuck. “Have you?”

“No,” I said. “But over the past few years I’ve often fantasized about it.”

“Will we be able to see her from here?” asked Andrew.

“Fairly well,” said Tom. “Of course, for safety reasons the boat won't come too near the shore."

At about five after one, I spotted her. In the far distance, a blue-and-yellow parachute caught the sun and beneath it swung a white, fluffy speck.

“Ahoy!” said Tom.

“Gentlemen,” said Chuck, “A toast to the maiden flight of the Dolores.”

We clicked our glasses.

The parachute slid gracefully through the air in slow arcs, hither and thither.

“Funny,” said Tom. “It looks like she's coming closer.”

She was. Much closer. All over the Boatslip deck, cell phones began to ring. We heard a siren. I snagged a passing waiter and asked what was going on.

“Sounds like some crazy Canadian separatist hijacked the parasailing boat,” he said. “And she’s heading for the inner harbor. Look, here they come!”

We heard the roar of the motor, and then above us, like a Thanksgiving Day balloon gone terribly wrong, was Dolores dangling from the end of the cable. Victorine was screaming “A nous la victoire!” as she drove the boat nearer and near the beach, and suddenly from up above came a shower of paper.

“What the hell?” said Andrew, snatching one of the pamphlets that were raining down on our heads.

“What’s a Fibertarian?” said Chuck, reading over Andrew’s shoulder.

“Get the suitcases,” I said to Tom.

The harbor police were now in hot pursuit of the parasail boat. Victorine tore mad circles around the other craft while Dolores, having completed her tour as a propaganda bomb, started screaming to come down. And then Victorine made a sudden, sharp starboard turn and with a nerve-shattering SPROING! the cable snapped. Dolores, freed from her tether, took off upwind.

“Holy crap,” gasped Tom. “She’s heading for Truro.”



By now every siren in Provincetown was going off and we could hear people screaming in the streets. The parachute careened from current to current and the breeze brought to us a faint but emphatic stream of obscenities.

“Dolores!” I shouted. “Dolores! Try to make it to Hyannis and land in the Kennedy compound! And for God's sake steer away from Kennebunkport!”

She couldn’t hear me. She was high now, up among the seagulls. A million thoughts raced through my mind. Would Harry be traumatized by all this? What would I say to her fan club? How long should I wait before clearing out her half of the closet?

And then a downdraft grabbed the chute and dragged her down, down, down. I screamed. Tom screamed. The boys screamed. The gulls screamed. And in the nick of time her star-spangled bikini bottom snagged the aerial on the top the Pilgrim Monument. And there she stuck, like the angel on the Christmas tree, except this angel was half naked, and yelling FUCK at the top of her lungs.

“Do you think if I asked nicely they’d just leave her there?” I asked Tom.

Alas, they did not. They got her down, fined her a couple of bucks for disturbing the peace and trespassing, then paid her fifty because the aerial had ripped a hole in her fancy swimsuit. By the next day she had five offers to appear in local cabaret acts.



Victorine, last I heard, was holed up in the Canadian embassy in Boston hoping to evade conviction for tying up a captain and stealing his boat.

And Rutger keeps calling the house.

Oh, yeah. Provincetown was really relaxing. How was your week?