Chapter 4: Decision Time

Predictably, when word got out the public debate was energetic, to put it mildly. On Thursday of that week, one day after the news broke in the Manatee Bay Monitor, I sat in the audience of a special Town Council meeting. This special meeting was to vote on whether or not to support the School Board should it decide to accept my offer. The Mayor had asked me to make an appearance there. The audience seating was packed, and it was only with the assistance of Sheriff Fernandez that I managed to get a seat.

Before the Council itself began to speechify, any citizen of our fair town who had submitted an application by noon that day was permitted two minutes with which to address the leaders of our fair metropolis. From speaker after speaker, I heard myself vilified by as an extortionist, a pervert, and worse. To be honest, it got more than a little repetitive, especially as almost all of them I recognized from previous protests as being members of the Reverend Samuel B. Harrison's church. Finally, the Mayor himself stood up, moustache quivering, looking for all the world like an aggrieved walrus.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I've heard quite a bit of unmitigated crap about Mr. and Mrs. Jackman. Their lifestyle, which is perfectly legal mind you, is considered by sociologists across this fair nation of ours to be perfectly acceptable to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted children in. Their business is the single biggest source of tax revenue to our little town, and many of the visitors who stay there keep our shopkeepers in business by obtaining their supplies here. Without that resort, we'd be financially completely sunk." He scowled over his reading glasses, glowering at the mob and looking quite Churchillian. He was a tower of rage, his voice rapidly escalating in volume as he continued. "They do not use drugs. They do not engage in orgies. Their children are both honour students, and remarkably well behaved. The residents of their resort give the sheriff's office the least issues of any area in the county. They just run around in the nude." He was panting now. "They have offered us the use of their facilities to avoid the crushing fines we'd face for not following an unfunded mandate. The price is exceedingly generous. And, if you don't mind, this is NOT this Council's decision to make. Let's leave it up to the School Board whether to accept their generous offer, or face the wrath of the State Educational Oversight Committee."

With that, he recognized a final couple of speakers.

Whereas the first group of speakers were fishy, the next merely smelled quite strongly of fish. Paco had cleaned up as well as he could, having showered at least a couple of times and dressed in his go-to-Mass-and please-the-missus suit. His hair was slicked back, and his shoes had been shined sometime in the last couple of years.

"Ladies and gentlemen, honourable councillors, Mr. Mayor. I've dealt with Mr. Jackman every morning since he took over the Barracuda Bay Resort. He's always been polite with me, and honourable and honest in his dealings. During good times and bad, he's stuck by me. There have been times when I've needed help, and he's offered it. Sometimes one of his daughters comes with him, and both girls have always been well-behaved and happy. I wouldn't object to my grandkids learning to swim at Mr. Jackman's pool." He grinned sheepishly. "I remember as a young kid, going skinny-dipping in Bethany Creek with my friends on a hot summer's day. It wasn't any big deal then, and it shouldn't be a big deal now."

A few of the older folks in town, mostly from the poorer quarters near the wetlands, grinned as they remembered similar times. When your folks were not only too poor for air conditioning but also too poor to buy a lot of swimsuits, and the weather was hot and humid, you took both your cooling and your entertainment where and when you could.

The next person up was one of the gym teachers at the high school, Coach Wendy Lefebvre.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am one of those who will be most intimately affected by the School Board's decision. If they decide to pay the fine, I'll likely be out the door – they won't be able to afford to pay both me and the fine. If they decide to send the students to Barracuda Beach, I'll be with them, with all the sartorial impact that implies. With that kind of gun to my head, suddenly the option of wearing my birthday suit doesn't seem so objectionable. We do not have the option of building a pool complex – we have no space upon which to build it, we have not money with which to build it, and we have no time with which to build it. Therefore, our options are limited." She shrugged. "I actually find the thought of standing up before the town here tonight more nerve-wracking than I do standing naked in front of a class of equally naked teens."

As Wendy sat down, the Mayor ceded the floor to me.

"Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Neighbours, I'd like to thank Ms. Lefebvre and my good friend Paco over there for their kind words. I'd like to make one small correction to Wendy's wonderful speech. It's not 'naked', it's 'nude'. Naked means 'defenceless'. 'Nude' merely means 'not wearing clothing'. The distinction is important.

"We do not refer to paintings and sculptures of 'nakeds', we call them, 'nudes'. We send students as young as eight by the bus load to museums and public art galleries where they encounter such artwork, and call it 'learning about civilization'. We place such artwork in our living rooms and in public squares, and see nothing wrong with it. We decorate our churches with frescoes featuring nude cherubs, and with representations of Adam and Eve cheerfully, innocently nude in the Garden of Eden. But in today's society, if I were to paint a modern version of Paul Peel's After the Bath, or worse yet take a photograph of the same subjects posed the exact same way, I'd be standing accused in some quarters of child pornography. And why? What are the children doing in that famous picture? Warming themselves before the fireplace. Nothing more. They are nude, and doing nothing erotic, but in today's society certain Textiles have fetishized being nude.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you were to go to a family naturist resort right now, you'd find it remarkably free of sexual tension. Of course, being adults we do engage in adult relationships, but that's kept where it belongs, in bedrooms and trailers and tents away from prying eyes. We are not exhibitionists. In fact, exhibitionists find us a boring lot. They depend on us being shocked by their nakedness, and we are instead merely unimpressed by their antics. They either get with the program or more likely move along to find a group of fellow Textiles to terrify."

The resulting Council vote was unanimous: "The Council of the Town of Manatee Bay supports the School Board, should it decide to accept the offer from the Barracuda Beach Naturist Resort for lease of their swimming facilities at cost and with the standard dress regulation, to wit nude."