Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (12 page)

She was attempting to spit out some of the sand when we all played Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board and carried her back into the ocean, where she could properly rinse off. Stephanie, of course, could assist with only one hand.

"Aren't you out of cigarettes yet?" I asked her.

"Stephanie, I didn't know you smoked!"

"Paul, shut up!" everyone yelled at the same time.

As luck would have it, the dip in the ocean was exactly what the doctor ordered for Wendy, because after that she was at least able to manage her footsteps in a more reasonable manner. We all sat in the water, exhausted, for a good hour before it started to get dark out, but Feliqua was not anywhere close to moving. She had stopped throwing up, sort of, but was firm about staying where she was. "Don't fucking touch me!" she yelled. Wendy said she needed help getting Feliqua to her room, and then she would be available to have dinner with us.

Sylvan volunteered to stay with the girls, and Stephanie announced that she had only two cigarettes left.

"It might be time to give it a rest, Steph," Paul told her. "Your breath is like eighty proof."

Stephanie walked off in a huff, and Eva followed her. Ray was floating on the noodles, watching everything from the water. Ted nudged me and said he'd like to talk to me privately. "In the ocean, please."

Once we were back in the water, Ray took two water noodles out from under him and handed them to us. "What an amazing day. I taught a man how to swim, and he took that knowledge and saved another person. I don't think I've ever felt more alive."

"That's fantastic, Ray," Ted told him, and then turned to me. "We need to discuss dinner. Are these women joining us?"

"I don't think Feliqua is having dinner tonight, Ted, but Wendy doesn't look like she misses many meals."

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Steph. "Oh, my God!"

I looked back and saw Delicious, Paul, and Sylvan wheeling Feliqua on a chaise longue away from the beach up to the pool area. "I'll be back for dinner!" Wendy yelled over her shoulder as she mounted the steps to the hotel. The three of us ran out of the water and followed them.

"What are you doing?" Ted yelled. "Are you taking her to her room?"

"We're not fucking staying here. We heard there was a swim-up bar. Our hotel's down the beach!" Wendy told Ted. "You better put on your dancing shoes. I hear you move like Michael Jackson."

Boom
was the sound the lounge chair made every time it hit a step.

Feliqua would groan a little each time. "Ow."

"This is some crazy shit," Wendy announced. "You white people are CUH-razy."

After getting Feliqua up the stairs, we had to pass the pool area, which to our surprise was holding a screening of
Pirates of the Caribbean
. Delicious and Sylvan put on their happy faces as they strolled through various couples watching a movie over a candlelight dinner.

"You guys," I whispered. "We can't wheel a black woman through a movie screening in a chaise longue. There's got to be some sort of law against that."

"We've got to get our girl into a taxi, Tracy. Chunky Chocolate is going to ride back with me to drop off my girl, and then I'll be heading back for that barbecue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A girl's gotta eat. I swam the shit out of that ocean today!"

There was no point in trying to make less of a scene than we were already making, as we were in full view of all the moviegoers. We just kept our heads down while we pushed a person in a chaise longue along the path in our bathing suits. I volunteered for Feliqua to sleep in Sylvan's room until I looked at Sylvan, who wasn't smiling. At least it looked like he wasn't smiling; it might have been too dark to tell.

A security guard came running over to us and handed me a bathrobe. "Mrs. Handler? Can we be of some help?" That's when Ted decided to make a quick left and go up to our room.

"We're good, thanks," I reassured him. "We're playing hide-and-seek. She's just pretending to be asleep." Wendy and I walked on either side of the chaise longue in order to stop Feliqua from falling onto the concrete. Paul was following closely behind, vacillating between picture mode and video mode. There was clearly too much footage to capture for any documentarian. We had to make sudden, corrective moves every time we hit a set of stairs or a proverbial speed bump, which would result in more grunts from Feliqua.

"This is the best fucking night of my life," Wendy shouted. "I think I might pee myself. Sylvan, you're gonna come with us in the taxi, right, motherfucker?"

"Aahhahahahahahhhh!"

"Brian, do you need me to give you the Heimlich?" I asked him.

"It's fucking Delicious, Tracy!" Wendy corrected me.

"Baby, I ain't gonna let nothing happen to you or Feliqua," Sylvan told her. "I'll come back to your hotel and make sure you are safe."

"Damn, you motherfuckers know how to party!" Wendy screamed. "Especially you, white bitch! I'm 'bout ready to piss myself!"

"You think you're going to pee yourself?" I snapped back at her. "Do you have any idea what condition I'm dealing with? I can't take much more of this. We just wheeled a person in a wheelbarrow off a beach, through a movie screening, and on our way to a lobby."

Feliqua grumbled again, and Delicious asked if she was okay. "It's too bumpy," she slurred.

Wendy was Feliqua's closest kin and had made it clear she would be speaking for her until Feliqua came back to life. "She's gonna be fine if this little anorexic bitch would stop her bitchin' and enjoy the beautiful night." I guess Wendy wanted to show me some affection, because her next move was to shoulder-check me into the bushes, which turned out to be a fitting place to relieve myself. When I was done, I rolled over and lay on the sidewalk while Paul took pictures of me in my own puddle.

Once he got the shot he needed, he moved on to the matter at hand or, as he described it, "to see the girls out."

"Bye!" I yelled after them. "Bye, girls!"

"Oh, I'll be back, shitface!" Wendy hollered.

The next day Sylvan had an early flight, so I didn't get to see him before he left, but he sent me a text saying that he wanted me to know he never had sex with Wendy and that he only got dry-humped by her: "please trust that she was the aggressor, chelz. I did get to see her booty which was nice and big, like a full moon."

I showed the text to Ted after I stopped convulsing.

"Oh, my God. He's worried you're upset? Little does he know, this is what you live for. That's the main difference between you and me, Chelsea. I consider last night a mockery. You consider last night one of the best nights of your life and a huge success."

"Maybe I do."

"I've never seen anything like that in all my life."

"Well, you've obviously been running with the wrong crowd. It was like God came down from the sky and handed me an Easter basket. An Easter basket with three chocolate bunnies."

I turned sideways in bed to face Ted. "Did I ever tell you that my favorite holiday used to be Black Friday?" Since I have one African-American friend, when I found out about this holiday, I thought: It's about time. I was psyched that she would have a day just to relax and celebrate herself for being black. I also thought it was really nice that Black Friday took place the day after Thanksgiving; if my friend worked for someone who didn't take advantage and give her a four-day weekend, she could still get off work by telling her boss that she's black and Friday was her day. I had forgotten to get my friend Loni a gift for Black Friday a couple of years ago, so I ran to the mall to get her a new weave. The place was a disaster; all the stores were having sales and there were people everywhere. That's when I found out what Black Friday was. I've since turned my attention to Flag Day, primarily because I'm a fan of June.

"That's a pretty dumb story," Ted declared, when I was done.

"Thank you," I replied. "I appreciate you taking the time to listen."

Chapter Eight

Dear Asshole

A
gainst all good and reasonable judgment, my mentally retarded father insists on renting his Martha's Vineyard summer home at astronomical rates, mostly based on how much income he perceives the family who's renting makes. His assessment depends on three factors: their vocabulary during the initial phone conversation, the region of the country they live in, and how much experience he thinks they have in being taken advantage of.

The following is an e-mail my sister Sloane forwarded me from one of my father's renters after the renter and her family made the mistake of paying to stay at our house.

July 16, 2008

This is a lovely letter from last week's renters. They came after dad stayed for 1 week and chose NOT to have maid service after his stay or attempt to clean up after himself AT ALL before leaving the house. He is cagey about who he brought to the vineyard with him which means it was one of his Jamaican girlfriends... enjoy.

July 14, 2008

Mr. Melvin Handler

35 Morningside Drive

Livingston, NJ 07039

Dear Mr. Handler,

This letter is intended to follow up in writing on the telephone conversation that you had with my husband, on Tuesday morning, July 8, 2008. During that conversation, my husband detailed to you a number of problems and deficiencies that we discovered on July 6th and 7th upon our arrival at your home on Martha's Vineyard, for which we had contracted a week's rental from July 6-13, 2008 for the price of $7,900, including a $150 housekeeping fee, plus a $500 security deposit.

Our initial realization upon our arrival was that the house had not been cleaned. There was food left out on the counter, in the cupboards and in the refrigerator and freezer, most of which was well past usable condition. The counter, stovetop, toaster and table were covered with crumbs and food stains; the oven and refrigerator shelves were very dirty. Someone had left a package of squid (bait?) behind in the freezer, which had melted (due to freezer problems described below) and dripped smelly, fishy puddles onto the bottom of the freezer unit. We all spent the first several hours in our "vacation home" cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms and sweeping floors. As you might imagine, that was hardly the way we had hoped to begin our stay on Martha's Vineyard.

Also, the grill was filthy to the point of being unusable. My husband went out and purchased tools to clean it, and he and a friend (that hasn't spoken to us since) spent several hours scrubbing grilling racks, burners and the inside of the grill to remove grease and food debris, and hosing it down before we could reasonably cook on it. By this time, one of our other friends had already gone to the local hardware store and purchased a new grill for $479.95 which we had shipped back to our house in West Virginia at the end of our week for another $275.00.

Additionally, we found that items that we assumed belonged to your family had not been removed or stored prior to our visit. There were clothes in closets and drawers, along with children's toys and boogie boards and home maintenance items such as paint [and] varnish cans. There was a full laundry basket of unfolded towels and dirty clothes in the laundry room, as well as dozens of household items stored untidily under the kitchen sink and in the laundry room, not to mention an empty container of Tide cleaning detergent.

As our first 24 hours in the house progressed, we realized that there were several essential appliances that simply did not work, including:

* the refrigerator and freezer. While we were able to maintain the refrigerator portion somewhat cool by turning the cooling dial to its maximum level, the freezer did not work at all.

* the dishwasher. We loaded it to capacity Sunday night and Monday morning after our initial meals, added detergent and set it to run when we left for the beach Monday morning. Upon our return seven hours later, the dishwasher was still running. We had to unload the dishwasher and wash all of the dishes, which were caked with dried soap.

* the toaster. The manual "pop-up" latch was broken, which required two of us to jury-rig a method for getting the toast out before it overcooked by turning down the "light/dark" knob and pulling forcefully up on the toasting lever. My husband and I sustained several small burns on our fore and middle fingers, since we were too embarrassed to let anyone else use the toaster.

Additionally, there were several areas of the house in serious need of repair:

* The ceiling in the first floor bathroom had an obvious plaster patch over the toilet. On Monday evening, that patch fell through, scattering plaster dust and ceiling pieces around the toilet and bathroom floor. Throughout the week, small bits of plaster and drops of water fell into the bathroom.

* The bathtub faucet in the first floor bathroom leaked a continuous stream of very hot water into the tub and had corroded right through the faucet itself. Both the tub and faucet were rusted badly. We came to the determination that this constant hot water leak must have been a contributing factor to the complete shortage of hot water for showers; when ten of us returned from the beach and wanted to clean up, only two of us could do so with even reasonably warm water.

* While there were three screen doors out onto the deck and one in each of the first floor bedrooms, one screen door in the living room was completely blocked by the location of the television set, while the other two, as well as the one from the bedroom to the back deck, came off in our hands upon our first exit from the house. We set them back on their tracks, but were forced to "repair" them constantly throughout the week in order to use the deck at all.

* One of the benches to the outdoor picnic table was split through. We did not use it for obvious safety reasons. Having to drag kitchen chairs outside in order to be able to eat as a group outside was a huge inconvenience.

* The "downstairs apartment" was a disaster. Not only did we feel that it was seriously misrepresented (detailed below), it was musty and buggy. The dehumidifier which was running down there was clearly inadequate, and the decision to run the dehumidifier hose into the downstairs shower stall made the shower dirty and unusable.

Finally, we felt that there were some serious misrepresentations in both your online description of the house, and in the conversations that you and I had prior to our decision to rent the house for the week:

* As mentioned, the basement was a disaster. When you and I spoke, I expressed reservations about bedrooms in "a basement." Your response was (which I wrote down at the time to pass on to our friends involved in the rental with us) "It's not so much a basement as a first floor and it also has a separate entrance." Mr. Handler, an underground room with no windows is definitely what I would consider to be a "basement." While furnished comfortably, the downstairs rooms were dark and dank, very musty and extremely buggy. Your response when my husband expressed concerns on the telephone about the mustiness in the basement was to prop open the outside door for a few hours; that resulted in even more bugs, as well as unraked leaves being blown in all over the floor. Having to spray our children with bug spray from head to toe in order for them to go to bed seems more than ridiculous; having to shake all of their clothing, towels and bedding to remove spiders and earwigs before packing to go home is outrageous.

* Also, never did we imagine that the "separate entrance" was the ONLY entrance to that floor. Even an actual basement can usually be accessed from inside the house. That said, if there were only an external entrance, one might expect lights on the path or at the door to facilitate going downstairs in the dark. We necessarily purchased flashlights for the kids just to help them find their way down there to go to bed.

* The upstairs "queen bedroom" (which has a full-size mattress on the bed, by the way) had no fourth wall or door. As my husband described it, "it was like sleeping in the hallway." We had no privacy and were unable to let the teen-agers stay up late upstairs in the living room to watch TV or play video games because of the openness of that bedroom to the downstairs level.

* We were never sure of the appropriate path to "our beach." There were no clarifying directions at the house and your description on the telephone of using the path "on the left" led us either to your neighbor's gate or a different neighbor's lawn. When we followed the path through the open lawn, we found a beach filled with boats--clearly not a private beach that went with the house. There were several docks there as well (which would have been a better alternative for sitting down at the bay than the small beach next to the wetlands, which was extremely buggy), but we determined them all to belong to other houses.

* Our experience has been that a house intended to "sleep 12" would also provide accommodations to "feed 12." Our intention in renting the house together was to enable us to spend time together and socialize. There was no table or space in the house that would allow us to all eat a meal together. We moved furniture, brought chairs up from the basement and, once again, "jury-rigged" a solution, but it was a huge inconvenience and was a factor, along with the lack of refrigeration, that led to us choosing to eat out much more than we normally would have during our vacation week.

As you might imagine, Mr. Handler, after wading through three pages of complaints and concerns, we were extremely disappointed in our experience in renting your house for our week on Martha's Vineyard. The fact that you were aware of the problem with the dishwasher and didn't inform us in any way, and that we made you aware of the refrigeration issue on Monday and you never contacted us with a repair plan, or at the very least an
apology
, is truly unacceptable. I have no idea how much experience you may have in renting out your home, but we have rented homes all over the Cape and Islands, New England, Florida, California and even in Europe over the past 25 years and have never had to deal with anything close to the inadequacies, misrepresentations and lack of information (trash pick-up?) that we endured last week.

Our original agreement stipulated that you would return the $500 security deposit we paid upon completion of the rental. Considering the fact that we left the house in much better condition than we found it, we would certainly anticipate the refund of that full amount. I would also respectfully request the refund of the $150 housekeeping fee, since there was no evidence of any housekeeping activities occurring prior to our arrival.

Finally, we strongly believe that you owe us a partial refund of the rent that we paid for the week, in compensation for the groceries we had brought with us (dairy products, luncheon meat, freezer items, fruit and vegetables, leftovers, etc.) that were lost due to inadequate refrigeration and freezer capabilities, the groceries that we had to purchase to replace these items and the innumerable bags of ice that were required to keep anything really cold at all. We also feel that a refund is due to compensate us for the huge inconveniences we experienced, from at least daily trips to Stop & Shop to replace food that had gone bad or to purchase for daily meals rather than being able to do one "big shopping," to spending so much time cleaning up after your previous guests, to changing our plans to spend a good share of the day Tuesday dealing with the appliance repair shop. Since we paid $7,750 to rent the house for seven days, we feel that a refund of one full day's rental fee ($1,121 in addition to the $150 housekeeping fee and $500 security deposit) would be the
least
we would expect.

On behalf of your future tenants, I would urge you to pay immediate attention to these items that I have outlined--there are no families expecting an idyllic Martha's Vineyard vacation experience that would find the current conditions of your home to be acceptable. I also would hope that you would be more forthcoming on the set-up of the house and perhaps target smaller groups or families--the accommodations may be useable for your own family, but groups paying so dearly for the privilege of staying in an island home would expect, and certainly deserve, much more. We were extremely fortunate with the spectacular weather last week--I cannot imagine a 12-person group's experience at your home during a week of rain.

I look forward to receiving a refund check in the amount of $1,871, as detailed above, from you as soon as possible.

I picked up the phone and called Sloane. "This letter is ridiculous," I told her.

"I know, he's so humiliating."