By Joshua Ryan
Chapter 4: What I Saw from the Coffee Deck
The Coffee Deck was a place where you could sit in a chair and look out to sea. Coffee was served from a cart at the entrance. At the other end of the resort, the beach came right up to the “facilities,” but this end was on a hill, and the hill was all rustic with brush and shit. If there was a trail down to the beach, nobody’d put up a sign for it. But anyway, Patrick said to get there early, so I did.
When I arrived—at 7 a.m.!—there was nobody around except me and an old waiter manning the cart. When he brought me my coffee he said, “It is unfortunate, sir. They are working down there—underneath us. Making the trail. They do it every day. Often there is noise. If so, you may wish to return in the afternoon.” Then I heard it—the noise of men cutting and whacking and shoveling and hauling, somewhere beyond the polished rail that ran around the Coffee Deck.
I leaned over the rail, and I saw them—slappies, a whole crew of them. They were dressed like Dobie and Patrick, but they were working at stuff that had nothing to do with queer boys from North America who did housework in the morning and sex in the afternoon.
