Taking the Q35 Bus to Queer Belonging
By: Till Kaeslin
Tags: Self, Creative Non Fiction, LGBTQ, Gay, Society

Taking the Q35 Bus to Queer Belonging

Going to a queer beach, witnessing a possible ‘sign from above’, and feeling as though I belong.

Photo by Manny Moreno on Unsplash

“I’m going to Riis tomorrow and you should come!”

I glanced over my friend’s texts, confused. What’s Riss?

“Riis is a queer beach in the Rockaways,” she answered. “I’m going with a bunch of queer gals. It’s gonna be a fun day.”

I said I’d think about it, mostly because my indecisive mind has trouble with the concept of outright commitment. But I knew I wanted to go instantly.

A queer beach? What does that even mean? How does one declare an entire beach “queer”? My interest was piqued. I wanted answers.

The next day, I grabbed a friend from Manhattan and we hopped on the subway … and so began the hour-and-a-half subway, bus, and on-foot trek to our sandy escape. Looking back, it’s ironic that we complained about how long the commute was, because it was a pretty short trip considering I ended up in another world.

Just an hour-and-a-half out from my busy city neighborhood, I wiggled my toes in the sand. I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with the salty-sweet smell of the ocean for the first time this summer.

Trekking on into the jungle of brightly-colored beach umbrellas and teeny-tiny speedos, our pavement-adjusted feet sinking into the sand as if it were molasses, my fellow Manhattanite and I went off in search of our friend.

I spotted her first, although I had to do a double-take. She was sitting crisscrossed on her beach towel, topless with a can of beer in hand, her turquoise sunglasses cooly concealing her expression.

If I’d ever imagined seeing my friend topless in public, I would’ve thought I’d be shocked. But I wasn’t, because the Q35 bus had dropped us off in a new world; a world where women went topless, men wore thongs, and everyone in-between could do and express themselves as they pleased.

Without skipping a beat, I yelled out and gave my friend a big hug.

I spent the day lying around on sandy beach towels, cracking open hard seltzers, and feeling the sun on my back. I dove head-first into the waves and laughed until my stomach hurt and my throat burned from the seawater — man, I didn’t realize it, but I’d missed laughing like that.

The sun had been shining when we ran out into the water, but dark, heavy clouds blanketed the sky as we waded back out onto the beach. When the clouds finally broke, our little blue beach umbrella became our safety from the downpour. There must have been about ten of us crowded under that umbrella, our bare bodies coated with layers of gritty sand, our hair tangled up in knots from the seawater.

We did a little anti-rain dance — what that’s supposed to look like I’m not sure. Mother Nature must’ve found whatever it was endearing though, because the rain let up shortly after.

In its place, a bright rainbow drew itself across the sky. Its reach seemed infinite, like a great, big, wide smile, anchoring itself on the beachfront and leaping way, way out to some undiscovered spot in the Atlantic.

If you’re a believer, you might say it was a sign — the LGBTQ+ flag written out in the sky over a beach filled with queer people. To me, the rainbow was just a happy accident. Either way, it sure was beautiful.