The Grumpy Academic

Here’s what I saw on my last evening on the beach, as I was enjoying a gin and tonic and trying to concentrate on the sunset:

A woman in her mid-50s–body sculpted by modern medicine and a legion of personal trainers–had donned what would have been a very fetching bikini had she been 20 years old. She may have, at some earlier time, been a white person, yet her skin was now the color of gnawed shoe leather, and I suspect it felt about the same: a sinewy monstrosity, the product of too much good living in the sun. I was both fascinated and repulsed, strangely drawn to her presence, so symbolic she was of our collective fear of death.

But she wasn’t alone. Hard by I spotted her beau of the week. The poor fellow could barely keep up with her mockery of the passage of time. He wore a knee brace, which instead of preventing a rather marked limp only served to highlight it. He was slightly overweight, though given his age and size I wouldn’t call his overall look that unusual. He, in other words, was on his way to the grave and he didn’t seem to mind too much.

Now here’s the fun part. He saddled up behind her and began a very slight–but noticeable–grinding into her bottom, rejoicing, I guess, that he was able to land such a creature as this and therefore all the more ready to proclaim it to the world–or to her. Even though he was probably in his cups, as well as in his near dotage, I imagined that he was sporting a bit of a woody. Wouldn’t be so absurd in this, the age of Viagra.

And yet, I wasn’t scandalized: not by this woman-as-preservative, not by the soft-porn show they were putting on in front of the kids. But alas! She had to give him the reverse reach around, right there in public. She thought she was being sly, but I am, if nothing else, an observer: I observe. And thus I observed her grabbing his manhood in the midst of dozens of unsuspecting sunset worshippers. You sly leathery fox, I’m watching you!

This is what I saw at the beach at 8:27 p.m. last night.