Paradise Garage.  Where did you go dancing?

Our circle may have dwindled, our ranks may have thinned, but when members of my generation gather and meet and get acquainted, the same questions end up being asked:

When and where did you live in Manhattan (Paris, London, San Francisco, LIttle Rock)?
When and where did you spend your summers (Fire Island, Provincetown, Russian River, Saugatuck, Lake Como, the south of France)?
With whom did you work, play, live, sleep?
Where did you dance?
Who was your dealer?

And if to this last question you say "The Cowboy, and he delivered." we have clearly known each other in a previous life.

At dinner the other night, in this game of less than twenty questions and far less than six degrees, a name came up, as names inevitably do.  Let's say it was "John."

"'John' was one of the other house guests that summer on Fire Island," announced the gentleman on my right.  "The Pines," he added, to clarify.

"Oh my dear."

"Exactly.  Our host warned us, of course.  'No matter how charming and distinguished you may find John,' he said, 'under no circumstances should you allow yourself to go off alone with him.'"

Another guest leaned in.  "What John likes to do," he explained to the uninitiated, "requires a room with a drain in the floor."

"But he'll improvise," continued our other dining companion, "and in this case one of the house guests -- a very attractive but hopelessly naive young fellow -- let curiosity get the better of him.  So off he went one night for a stroll on the beach with John."

"Oh dear god.  What happened?"

"Well, it certainly wasn't like that scene in A Single Man.  Hardly a frolic in the waves, although the pounding surf must have muffled the screams.  I don't want to be too graphic, but let's just say that once we got the poor thing to the mainland, an ambulance was waiting."

A pause.

"Where did you go dancing?" someone else asked, to change the subject.