and all the sun lotion, slippers, cigarettes, keys, glasses and stuff he carried along, and headed for the jammed area that was one of the world's major gay beaches.

Marty, who idealized homosexuals en masse much as intellectuals used to get dewey-eyed about the toiling masses, was awestruck at the sight, though it was familiar to him. "Look at that!" he said with a sweep of his bronzed arm. "Doesn't the sight of that crowd thrill you? Right out in the open, hundreds of our people, peacefully enjoying themselves in public. No closed doors, no dim lights, no pretense.

"I often lie awake nights wondering how long it'll take our group to become aware of itself-its strength and its rights. But I hardly ever appreciate just how many of us there

really are except when I come here. Except for a few minutes on the Boulevard after the bars close, this is the only place where we ever form 'a crowd,' and there's something exciting about seeing homosexuals as a crowd. I can't explain how it stirs me, but I think beaches like this are a part of our liberation."

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Without quite sharing Marty's rapture-I used to be fairly cynical about gay life when it got too open-I had to admit it was an impressive sight. even though I didn't realize immediately that the whole crowd was gay. It was the largest crowd of homosexuals I'd ever seen. But like an untrained passer-by. I'd never really seen this beach before. When I passed. I had merely noticed a few clusters of "obvious" gay kids. Even among ourselves, we keep expecting most homosexuals to look swish.

We mingled. Or rather I let myself be led around meeting Marty's friends (I did run into one guy I used to work with in a railroad office I'd never suspected him but out at the beach he was camping wildly). An air of familiarity, which I felt without sharing, ran through the whole sector of the beach. I stood around. looking at the remarkably handsome bodies, the colorful beach togs, the posturings, the camping, the occasional flirtations and frolics, listening to conversational inflections, straining to see the title of a book-odd how many were reading on the beach here. For a moment I felt embarrassed at the very things that thrilled Marty. All this display of gaiety, I thought, would be better hidden away in some smokey bar.

Marty was still bubbling and in spite of my inhibitions. I became infected with his enthusiasm, though my behavior remained stuffy. Yes, this was something. This was gay life, honest, open, positive and self-accepting. I tried to analyze my own reasons for not liking it at first. Was I still so bound by fear and shame that I preferred to have homosexuals slinking around in dark places?

Bang! My reverie was kayoed as an attractively wiry life guard and an Italian husky who were wrestling and chasing one another bumped into me and knocked me flat. After profuse

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