Dying
with Miss Nude Galaxy
by Doug Crandell
There were six
ampoules in the sun, the liquid inside them shimmering
like it was a golden sex potion. It was, however,
indisputably medicinal.
But with the small bottles lined up
on the rail of the deck like that, and the naked women
with their coifed and configured pubic areas taking
turns striking poses under the glaring sun, I thought
that maybe the bottles had been placed there as a
kind of purfling, like how restaurants will line their
walls with fake containers of oil or sauces. As I
stared at them, I recalled something my college Marketing
professor said four years earlier. In his nasally
voice he testified why the restaurant chain stores
decorate their entries with such items. “They do it
to make you want to eat, and fully enrobe you with
the notion of hunger.”
I tried to apply this same logic to
the nudist colony I now found myself in. Yes, I thought,
those are not real vials of an opioid, each holding
one dose of what was needed to keep my father-in-law’s
pain from shooting up his spine, but rather they had
been added by Ms. Suze for the effect; a way to secretly
entice us into craving what we ordinarily might not.
But it only took the sight of Ms. Suze,
herself completely nude except for the turquoise bracelet
that hung limply around her small ankle, assisting
my father-in-law from the hot tub, and guiding him
to the round picnic table, to make me aware that it
was all happening without any type of deliberate concoction.
She sat him down on one of two long benches and went
to the rail to get a bottle of the pain medicine.
When she sat down herself, she spread her legs and
rested the syringe on the top of her tan and freckled
right thigh. Ms. Suze, I never found out her first
name, was a woman of about forty with brown, curly
hair that turned reddish around her face where small
wisps of it fell down and made her look like she was
always busy. Her body was bronzed from the sun and
she seemed as though to not have any idea she was
naked. She never talked about it, or commented on
those, like myself, who were invited to come to the
The Homesteaders Sun League and were not willing,
initially, to disrobe.
The annual spectacle was something
I attended out of veneration, the kind of feeling
that accompanies a certain sense of phobic thinking;
to say no would have set in motion all the elements
needed to breed a catastrophe. That was the exoneration
I allowed myself to make nearly palpable, as I watched
the contestants parading past each of the colony’s
rentable mobile homes; all of which were equipped
with newly built sun decks for those who were fortunate
enough to book one for the Miss Nude Galaxy Pageant.
Meanwhile, Ms. Suze held one of the opioid ampoules
above her head, and flicked the side of it with a
long painted fingernail that matched perfectly the
blue-green stones attached to her ankle. From where
I was leaning all alone against the cheap fiberglass
siding of the trailer, I could see the gold loop that
pierced Ms. Suze’s clitoris. It glittered in the sun
as she continued to fill the syringe, and I stared
at it in awe. My own attempts to fully fathom that
part of the female anatomy had been moderately successful
at best, and now, watching her perform the task of
shooting up my wife’s father without any outward indication
that she was even aware of the pierced area, made
me feel awkwardly envious.
***********
Henry Butterfield owned the land that
the nudist colony sat upon. He had been a hog farmer
and had also planted and tried to cultivate around
300 acres of corn and soybeans, but in the end, after
he auctioned off all the equipment and livestock to
pay the bank, he was left with only the ground, and
no means of making money. He had become notorious
all over Indiana. His move to get the nudist colony,
which previously had been located on a small plat
of land west of his farm, to re-locate and use his
facilities and grounds for lodging was touted in some
area newspapers as being ingenious and cagey. One
newspaper, The Garvey Time-News, did a story on him;
its headlines read, “Foreclosed Farmer Brings Porno
to Small Town.” The article is laminated and can be
found all over the colony, usually posted outside
the many Porta-Potties that Mr. Butterfield purchased
to accommodate the 200,000 people who flock to the
farm each year. I was a senior in high school when
his antics were covered in all the newspapers from
Gary down to the bottom of the state where the Ohio
River separates Indiana and Kentucky. It was there
on the bridge where he was arrested while returning
home from a vacation in Florida. It marked one of
the thirty or forty arrests that he would be subjected
to before the State gave up trying to charge him with
violating its obscenity laws. Mr. Butterfield was
a small, petite man who had lost one of his arms after
it had been gobbled up by a corn picker that lurched
into gear as he pulled tangles of feral Morning Glory
from its head. His right arm was left with a small
nub that puckered at the end. The skin on the tip
looked like a chicken waddle, and it was precisely
that attribute which got the colony, and its Miss
Nude Galaxy exposition, the most notoriety.
The nudist colony is located near Whimer,
Indiana just on the edge of the Illinois state line.
To get to it, I rode two hours from
Ft. Wayne with my father-in-law in the hearse he had
bought as a joke after finding out he was dying. He
called it his mobile deathbed, and in the back of
it he kept his adjusting table, a valise stuffed fat
with something I assumed could not be clothes, and
the fresh vegetables he used to blend together a rusty-orange
drink he called the post-cancer julep. On this trip
however, my telescope, poetry books and backpack also
sat where a casket normally would.
We drove past fields of blooming soybeans
whose violet blossoms I could only make out as streaks
of purple streaming by the window as we sped down
the old gravel roads and county lanes that Dr. Dan
had come to know by heart after spending nearly twenty
years, as he would say, “in route to ogle the pensive
breasts of nubile girls.” I always felt silly calling
him Dr. Dan, and had once mentioned to my wife, before
he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, that chiropractors
were not really doctors, and that I would prefer to
address him as Mr. Wilkes. She was folding clothes
at the time, something she had very little patience
for, and ceased putting any more of my items under
her chin when I made the comment. She said, “Call
him what you want. He’s been a lotta’ things.”
************
All around me, naked people, mostly
women, scurried across the deck sipping tall glasses
of red drinks chock full of different kinds of fruit
that I overheard a white-haired man with a low slung
scrotum calling Hairy Buffaloes. As they passed in
front of me my view was blocked, each person’s brief
presence before me seeming to artificially advance
the spectacle of Ms. Suze doctoring my father-in-law,
like stick figures on the corners of a tablet that
you flip fast with your thumb in order to make them
come alive. A cattish woman named Clair stopped in
front of me to allow the only other dressed person,
a niece of one of the event’s organizers, to squeeze
by her in the narrow space between the trailer and
the stairs of the deck. Her breasts, bare and reddened
a salmon color, pressed against my chest as she leaned
into me to get herself out of the way. She smiled,
showing a set of broad ultra-white teeth that instantly
made me wonder what parts of her were real.
Now with his veins coursing meekly
with the pain reliever, Mr. Wilkes climbed back into
the hot tub with two contestants who had stopped to
mingle with the crowd on our deck. The group was made
up of some of the veterans of the colony, and I lost
track of how many people lolloping by shouted, “Hey
Dr. Dan” and either saluted him or gave him a thumbs
up. The contestants were rated on personality and
crowd interaction in the overall judging, and there
was a separate award for this part of the contest,
just like in the real beauty pageants. The winner
got to wear a sash that read Ms. Cuntgeniality and
it, along with the other sashes, which spelled out
even more, degrading titles, hung on an old clothes
line with poles that looked like the cross at Calvary.
A sign at the bottom read, “Come on girls! Show us
everything you got and you could be proudly (not)
wearing one of these!”
The event was a weeklong extravaganza
of which we had arrived for the last two days. On
the drive to get to the colony Mr. Wilkes gently tried
to coax out of me what my level of comfort would be
with both being naked and seeing others in the same
condition. “I would think a person with a degree in
Literature might find this sort of thing degrading,
he said. “Would I be right? That you think this is
a demeaning undertaking?”
He was a man who enjoyed listening
to others and he seemed disappointed when I answered
him by merely saying, “I will be fine”. We had only
been alone together during the times when his daughter
would pester me until I went to see him so that he
could adjust my spine in an office he operated out
of an old grain elevator. It always smelled of mouse
turds, and while I was lying on the Naugahyde table
waiting for him to come work on my back, I could hear
the vermin scurrying above me. Their feet would make
tiny clicking noises on the plexi-glass that guarded
the fluorescent lighting, and from underneath you
could see their murky shadows scampering between the
tubes. When he would come into the room and approach
the table rubbing his palms together like he was cold,
he would talk about the mice, “Everyone says that
I should pay a professional exterminator to get rid
of them, but I like the way they sound up there. It’s
like someone is up there typing out a story, recording
what I say and do with each patient.”
His daughter had not said much when
I told her he had invited me to come along with him.
“Go ahead,” she had said, “He’s taken Bob and Ryan
up there. Besides, I have to work that weekend anyway.”
The exchange felt more like we were talking about
a fishing outing or a weekend trip with the guys to
a sporting event than going to watch strippers from
all over the country vie for the titles of Most Fuckable,
and Best Tit-Ass Combo. But in the end, I decided
to go after witnessing him barely able to eat a small
piece of muskmelon on Memorial Day Weekend. He had
come to see us at our house in Indy, and we fixed
him all the things he had prescribed for himself after
a procedure where real doctors took a tumor the size
of a volleyball from his stomach. He picked through
the beets and was only able to weakly lick the prongs
of his fork three or four times before giving up.
The way he looked scraping the food off his plate
and into the sink, like a child whose favorite game
is over, made me ache inside, as if his fork had escaped
him, gotten up in me, and multiplied itself, then
poked at my ribs to get free and back in his hand
again.
*************
I had not moved from where I was standing
for hours, grinning spuriously as each nudist passed
me by, sizing up my clothed body in a surprisingly
flattering manner, as if I were a tease. Mr. Wilkes
was gracious enough to allow me to stand ill at ease
in my jeans and tucked in dress shirt without artificially
trying to alleviate my discomfort by forcing introductions
or attempting to include me in conversations. He only
periodically shot me a reassuring glance from where
he continued to sit in the hot tub’s white rising
haze, his eyes so black and sunken that it was easy
to begin to see what he would look like lying in a
coffin. The cancer had loosened most of his teeth,
and he would pull them out within the confines of
his apartment as they turned to what he called “wiggly
little pillars.” When most of them were gone, he went
to wearing a doctor’s mask over his mouth, which he
would either tie-dye or inscribe with Chinese Proverbs.
He had even written a few lines of my poetry on some
of them, which surprised me. No one else knew the
words were mine, and it left me feeling like we had
a cryptic language that might make him live. The steam
from the water would slacken his mask, and Ms. Suze
would stop rubbing his back at what appeared to be
precise intervals to adjust and re-tie the straps
behind his head, the water in the tub purling low
around its jets, making frothy heads that reminded
me of the tufts of pearl white hair jutting out from
the sides of his frail head.
From behind one of the barns that had
been converted into a barracks, a trumpet sounded
as the crowd exploded into thundering applause and
piercing shrieks. In an instant, Mr. Butterfield strolled
onto the center lawn draped in a king’s purple robe,
his bald head glistening under a crown that sported
plastic jewels. Behind him a line of busty women led
a family of cattalo in glittery halters that had been
designed to closely resemble the material of Mr. Butt’s
crown; a name he puffed up at when chanted by the
crowd, many of which held t-shirts screen printed
with his shiny, round face. One of the naked women
removed his robe and laid it over the back of one
of the cow-bison crossbreeds.
With the robe off, Mr. Butterfield
raised the stump of his arm in the air like a soldier
might a weapon during battle cry, and the crowd roared.
Before long the fifty or so contestants had lined
up before him in an orderly fashion. Each one knelt
down at his feet as the crowd fell silent. Another
of his female aides handed him a fake metal sword,
which he used to dub the bare shoulders of the competitors.
They each took a turn at licking and sucking the nub
of his arm in what was meant to simulate oral sex,
the favored ones using their tongues to flick at the
extra skin dangling from the nub’s tip. The crowd
selected the three runners up and the winner by clapping
for their favorites. A woman in a cowboy hat held
an enormous Mylar dildo, inflated with helium, over
each contestant’s head to gauge the audience’s response.
When it was over, Mr. Wilkes looked at me and shrugged
his shoulders apologetically. I took a long drink
from my cup, and went out across the yard to pet the
wooly heads of the cattalo, standing alone in their
herd, chewing the cud of Styrofoam cups.
The sun had slid down the sky, and
was resting in a clump of scraggly pine trees as the
line of nude contestants sauntering past the crowds
dwindled to a few amateur stragglers whose bodies
were saggy and dimpled with extra weight. All over
the farm, the distant campsites crackled with shooting
pit fires, as the tents began to emerge from the dusk
as dancing, orange enclaves. The flames from the fires
casted elongated figures onto the causeway like scars,
and I found myself trying to determine what protruding
portions of the shadows belonged to which camper’s
breast, penis, or generous mound of pubic hair. Several
of the more visible sites had people groping in herds
while our own deck had started to turn in on itself.
Men and women fondled, kissed and rubbed each other’s
cooling, salty bodies as the remaining natural light
of the day was sucked into the night, and replaced
with the harsh beams of recently installed floodlights.
Music was being piped over several sets of gray speakers,
which were nailed to leaning creosote poles.
A man’s gravely but cheerful voice
interrupted and said, “Let the nurturing begin.” Ms.
Suze and another woman wearing only a pink feathered
boa, who was considerably younger than her, and who
also had pierced nipples and a shaved head and pubic
area, lifted Mr. Wilkes from the hot tub, seating
him on its edge as they lowered themselves before
him, kissing with open mouths on the way down like
dancing cobras. When they were completely on their
knees, Ms. Suze grabbed my father-in-law’s erect penis,
a feat that he had vowed he would continue to muster
up regardless of the all out attack on his cells,
and stroked it a few times before the other woman
used her mouth to envelope him.
The deck area had become brighter from
the artificial lighting, and it was now impossible
to see out into the camping area where the only remnants
of activity left discernable were the popping sounds
of firewood splintering into embers. Under the floodlights
Mr. Wilkes’ skin stood out among the tanned bodies
like a scanty, white birch sapling drooping over among
a mass of sturdy brown walnut trees. Now, with nothing
to manipulate, Ms. Suze stood back up and bent over
in front of him, spreading her legs to allow him access
to stroke her with his long, bone white fingers. She
was looking over her shoulder at him while muttering
something between the clinched teeth of a rapt smile,
which I was pleased I could not hear. I worried about
his body; that he ought not be exerting himself in
such a manner, but the thought slipped away into the
darkness as a tension formed in the crotch of my jeans,
indicating that I should maneuver past all the gyrating
mounds of bodies and make it to the rail, retrieve
the remaining ampoules of medicine and go inside the
trailer for bed, before I found out anything more
about myself that would make it difficult to get to
sleep.
*********
The next morning, as I laid face down
on the waterbed, I could hear voices outside the rear
of the trailer where the bedroom I was utilizing butted
up against Mr. Wilkes’ and formed an L shape. I crawled
to the end of the wavy bed and pulled on my jeans
to go to the bathroom.
In the hall, carpeted with shag and
paneled in dun, I could make out the faint whistling
sound of my father-in-law’s oxygen tank. The door
was ajar about an inch and I went to it, pressing
it open further with the side of my bare foot.
The room smelled like the black licorice
of his favorite gum. Mr. Wilkes was strewn over the
bed; his long legs dangled over the edge as he breathed
in shallow scallops of air. Ms. Suze was sleeping
on the floor next to the footboard, curled up like
a child beside an oscillating fan, which clicked as
it swept air across the dank room. On his chest was
splayed my most recent book of poetry that contained
a dedication to him. Light from the rising sun shone
in between the pleats of a set of peach colored mini-blinds,
shafting weak rays of light onto the veneered chest-of-drawers
that seemed to me to have little use considering its
surroundings. Next to the dresser, Mr. Wilkes’ fat
valise sat like a boulder with a zipper, the top straining
open, erupting with pink taffeta. At once, my father-in-law
lurched awake as a cough rattled his chest. Ms. Suze
sprung up from where she was resting and instantly
was stroking his forehead, breathing out shhhhh, shhhhh,
shhhhh’s in what sounded like too fast a rhythm, like
she was panicky. She was on her hands and knees, and
once again the metal ring she wore stuck out like
a flower’s pistil, almost hypnotizing me. It caught
some of the early morning sunlight and gleamed with
a seizable haze. When he had slipped back into sleep,
she crawled backwards like a cat so that she could
lie down again herself. As I tried to creep away from
the door, my belt buckle scratched against its surface.
The ruckus brought Ms. Suze back onto her knees, and
she waddled to the door, the height of a midget. She
pulled it open further and stuck her head out, smiling
at me like she had stumbled upon some type of timid
animal in a corner that she was trying to coax out
to pet.
“What are you doing up so early?”
I fiddled with a torn belt loop on
my jeans and pretended not to notice her nakedness.
“Nothing. I just thought I could get down to the river
early. Jupiter is suppose to be visible at five, that’s
all. How did he rest last night?”
She brushed the hair from her eyes
and pursed her lips while squinting, like she was
thinking over an answer she might give under oath.
Finally she said, “He had some trouble breathing a
few times but he has always been a light sleeper.
Did he ever tell you about the time we took his kids
on a camping trip to the Smokies and he couldn’t sleep
because of all the crickets?” She paused as if someone
had just shone a flashlight in her eyes and said in
a louder whisper, “Oh, that’s right, your wife was
with us. Just a little girl then of course, but anyway
he...”
I interrupted her, “No.” My voice came
out louder than I wanted it to, causing Mr. Wilkes
to cough once before he rolled on to his side. In
a more hushed voice I continued, “No, he and I, well,
that is, we have, not really. I mean, we have not
really done much together.”
She was still on her knees in the doorway,
her hands flat on the tops of her thighs like a mother
playing catch with a child. She whispered, “You know
he thinks you’re wonderful. The poems and the way
you love looking at the stars and everything. He has
read me every one of your books. He says you’re from
another time, that you may have been born out of turn.”
The fan blew at the back of her head
periodically, causing hair to form an ebbing frame
around her face that made her look as though she was
riding in a car with its top down. Mr. Wilkes moved
some more, and I tried to use his restlessness as
an excuse to get away from Ms. Suze. But before I
could go to the kitchen to get the keys to the hearse
and retrieve my telescope, she grabbed my hand and
held it to her cheek.
“David, don’t think I can’t feel what
you think of me and this whole place. But I do really
love him. He has always been able to soothe me. I
mean, he is more than this, and so am I. Just don’t
let this slip by you here. He has gotten so thin and
he can’t keep much down now. I think that he is getting
closer to...” My finger ended her sentence as I shoved
the middle one into the soft velveteen of her mouth.
She had no look of surprise on her
face and with one tug she had the waist of my jeans
banding the middle of my thighs, the zippered crotch
open in a V under my testicles. As if she was trying
to switch out a defective mic before an audience without
them noticing, she pulled my finger from her mouth
and inserted my penis, replacing my hand to her cheek
as she bobbed up and down.
The sheets on the bed rustled as Mr.
Wilkes twisted on it, while outside a car engine started
and then died without its owner trying the key again.
Startled, I turned away, my modest length flopping
from her mouth like a failing fish. I pulled my hand
from her face, examining it as if I thought she had
secretly written something on the palm or backside.
When I looked over my shoulder at her,
she was already at his side again, her breasts drooping
over his face like uneven pulleys; this time though,
instead of stroking his head, I could see her manipulating
his mid-section. Their breathing picked up and the
raspy sounds filled the stale confines of the trailer
as I staggered out the front door where sparrows weaved
heavily through the early morning pinkness of a hot
sun rising. Out there, at once, nothing was sounding.
Not a thing. And that was where, while looking through
the ground glass of my telescope at flare stars and
discs of dust, I felt the ghost lie down, even before
my ears rang with the sirens, and Ms. Suze rode off
in the ambulance holding my father-in-law’s dead hand.
She was dressed in a pink evening gown from his valise,
and I was sure she looked more ridiculous than me,
when back at home I pulled his hearse into my driveway,
and his daughter saw I was alone.
