The Story Is Not About A Gay Aerobics Instructor

‘I watched the jar hovering slightly below her hand, which was facing downward’, he excitedly described the event like it was yesterday. As he continued ‘It was as if the jar was following her hand but she was not touching it. It was levitating’, I was waiting for the punch line.
‘So you’re telling me that it simply looked as if the jar was levitating while the three of you were tripping. But now you know that it was just perception, right?’ I asked.
‘No. She made the jar levitate. It was amazing. And I could read her thoughts. As she was levitating the jar I heard her think that she was going to drop it. And then I yelled “NO!!”. But the jar dropped. It was too late’.
So I asked again, if now he thought that maybe, just maybe, the acid caused the hallucination of the floating jar. He vehemently denied this hypothesis as absurd.

So it seems that my uncle had witnessed the destruction of classical physics. It also seems that he was tripping like Keith Moon at the Sunshine Motel in 1968 at the time of this historic event. But please do not ever suggest that the two are not mutually exclusive.

It was a Friday evening when I had no plans, nothing interesting was on the horizon so I walked down to Unk’s condo that he shares with his 95 year-old roomate, my grandfather, who was thankfully asleep. I expected the mundane but in my heart I longed for adventure. And I learned a lesson: Ask and the Pelican delivers. I wandered down to unit 26 of Pelican Phase Two to Unk’s condo. Unk was pouring martinis and his friend Jackie was on his way over for drinks and dinner. My uncle, aka Unk, had invited me to join in the festivities via phone earlier that day. As I mulled over the invite I thought, ‘How interesting could an evening of drinks with a flaming-gay, aerobics instructor and the original, earth-man, hippy be? And could this produce any fun stories?’ Like a tale written by Homer, the window of adventure had opened and I chose to jump through.

And so it was that the gay aerobics instructor would be the least interesting story in the room. Beside a couple of references to evenings where they snorted some cocaine together, Jackie was largely baffled by the illicit, libertine adventures of Unk. Unk took to the podium like a 4-star general of the free-love army, espousing story after story, making my sin-strewn life seem Christian by comparison. Jackie and I bonded through a mutually shared disgust, fear, shame and embarrassment, although I can’t be sure for whom I was embarrassed. Every story felt like a punch to the ribs, gut and groin and I was sure it would never end until the finale. Imagine a July 4th celebration that ended with the detonation of a nuclear warhead just one-mile overhead. The Le Tigre symbol is now melted onto my left nipple.

So it began… Naked. Quailudes. In the doorway of a party. Naked. Quailudes. In the doorway of a party. Naked. Quailudes. In the doorway of a party.

‘So we went to these parties,’. It should be noted by his choice of the plural that there were at least 2 of these parties. ‘where you would walk into the house and into the atrium. As you stood in the atrium a person would order you to get undressed.’, Unk recollected.

‘Dude, you’re telling me you got naked right there? Before you went into the party?’ I was dumbfounded.

‘Yeah! It was great. You just get rid of all that bullshit and everyone is naked.’, and as he made that statement I thought of what the ‘bullshit’ might have consisted. I’m fairly sure he was implying the social interaction that takes place before having consensual ‘sweet lovin’.

‘So you take your close off and the person at the door tells you to open your mouth and they throw in some qualudes’ he continues.

‘What’s a quailude do to you?’, I ask.

‘It makes you really relaxed and horny’, says Unk. So now it’s all but signed, sealed and delivered that I’m hearing a story about an orgy-type party that my uncle had attended more than once. Immediately I thought of the strategic problems that this opportunity poses. You have a roomful of naked women, but you have a roomful of naked men. If you were to meet a nice, family-oriented girl and things progressed quickly, your rear flank would become exposed. If one of the naked dudes chose to attack your weak side, you would be defenseless. It’s like a mouse-trap where the penalty is catching gay instead of dying.

“Ahhh’, I vented, exhausted.

‘And if you don’t take the quailudes you can’t get into the party. They leave your clothes at the door so when you leave you can put them back on.’

I’m usually entertained by his antics but this time I was wounded. No more questions were asked and I quickly found my way out of the house. Jackie and Unk proceeded to have dinner and what-not. I asked for adventure and I got a naked uncle, two qualudes and a pile of soiled clothes. Having made my farewells, I walked back to Phase One, took a shower and cried myself to sleep.

Sometimes you get the bear. Sometimes the bear gets you. Bear 1. Jamie 0.