In the summers at Provincetown, everyone has multiple jobs, because there is a massive jump in the population, and there is suddenly so much to do, and never enough people to get it done. Tourists come streaming into town, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Restaurants now need lots of waiters, shops need to stay open, shows must be put on. We all slather on a good deal of mosquito repellent and get to work.
I am lucky enough to get away with just having one job, because when I am there, I am also just another tourist, but I have a little bit of status since I have spent so many summers on the Cape. Still, my days are busy, as there are Uno tournaments to be played, true crime novels to be read, summery camisoles to be bought, tried on and discarded. Has anyone ever really worn a camisole? I think there must be an excess of $50 in women’s budgets, that simply get earmarked for unworn purchases, and mine always happen to be camisoles. “I can wear it with jeans!” is another woman’s “I can wear it with boots!” and there we are, $50 less and yet unsatisfied.
My favorite part of the Provincetown experience comes at the very end of the day, after the shows are over, and all the shops have closed, and all the last meals and drinks have been served. The lights fade and the karaoke music coming from inside the taverns abruptly ends, and then it is just us, Ryan and I, and the night is for riding.
I love riding my bike, which I can only say when I visit P-town because I don’t have one here. I did once, when I lived in the absurdly hilly Beachwood Canyon. I bought it because I thought I might do the AIDS Ride, a charity event that takes an incredible amount of stamina, to ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles on your bike, or in my case, the courtesy van. It was a passing thought, as it was a passing purchase, one made with the presumably excess cash that I think that I have sometimes. I rode that bike once and the back wheel came off right at the most staggering point of an immense incline. I kept pedaling, mid air, for a millisecond or two, my ever-ready optimism still in place, even in violation of the law of gravity. Of course, I fell badly, ruining the bike for me. I spent so much on it that it pained me to see it sitting there, punished and collecting dust, next to my front door for the next three years. When I moved, I gave it to an old friend of mine, who I hoped would love it better than I could or would.
The only time I really ever ride my bike anymore is in the summer, and then it is not my bike but one rented from P-town Bikes, or someplace. I get a girl’s bike, and they put the seat at just the right height and a great metal basket right in the front, and I am off. Ryan and I meet in front of the Pilgrim House, and we ride through the town, which feels like it is all downhill, because it goes by so fast. All the fancy restaurants, serving bright orange red lobsters to honeymooning lesbians and gays, the bars still thumping like a giant heart with house music and weekday bearded drag queens, all the galleries, now open for summer and filled up with all the art made during the long, cold winter, looking like trees heavy with fruit, some fallen on the ground and rotting, all whiz by, with no effort on my part, and then the town ends, at the poetic junction of Land’s End and the Breakwater. Land’s End is an ornate and mysterious guest house Ryan and I have never been in. It is too expensive and much too far down Commercial St. for us to consider. So we ride on.
There is a beach forest just past the Breakwater, and there are never any cars at this time of night, and this is my favorite part of the ride, and my favorite part of Provincetown. There are no lights anymore, and even the white sand reflecting the moon and the stars becomes invisible. You see it looming before you like a giant black pool, and I am always inclined to hold my breath as I plunge into the darkness. Then you don’t see anything. All you can do is trust that the road is there, that the ground will not fall away beneath you, that you will keep going, that the bike will carry you, that the dark is nothing to fear but something to accept, because you can’t go home without going through this forest, because there is no light without darkness. We usually sing our songs at this point, almost always song parodies of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. “It’s Barry Dill—er!! Dill-er Night!!” Then all of a sudden there is light. There is an end to the tunnel, there are lights and maybe one car, and then the town again. And we are back. And our ride is over. And all night I will dream of the darkness of the beach forest, how it seems like an enormous shadow, haunting the edge of my peripheral vision until the light chases it away.