A D V E N T U R E S   W I T H J O N A T H A N   A M E S . - - - - CLUB   EXISTENTIAL   DREAD PART   III BY JONATHAN AMES The following is my diary from a week I spent at a Club Med resort located in Turks and Caicos, a small chain of magnificent islands in the British West Indies. I originally wrote this diary for Details magazine, but they chose not to publish it. I'm not sure why they didn't go for it, but I think I didn't file the kind of report they were looking for. Day 3, July 4, Independence Day 10:00 a.m. I went to the nurse and asked her to put sunblock on my back. She's in her fifties, blonde, and covered in cancer-freckles. She applied my sunblock with a rubber glove. My own sense of germ-propriety agreed with her use of the rubber glove. Also, the humiliation of it appealed to me masochistically. Confirmed my utter-loser status here. 1:40 p.m. To celebrate the 4th, they released all these red, white, and blue soy balloons, which are environmentally safe. Vegetarian seagulls can eat them. The balloons looked beautiful in the sky, like a gigantic DNA helix. 7:00 p.m. My body is completely falling apart. I was at the beach and felt this lump on the back of my head. I decided to squeeze it. A clear fluid, like baby oil, came out. The lump was reduced in size by about 60 percent. What the hell was that oil? Was the thing a zit or a cyst? Probably a combination. A zyst. Then my crotch began to hurt. I have massive weltish jock itch from sitting in a wet bathing suit for three days. Luckily, I packed fungus cream for the preexisting jock itch I have in my ass, but I'm almost out of the stuff. Will have to ration it between my ass and my crotch. I don't know how much more pathetic I can become. When I told my girlfriend a few weeks ago that I have athlete's foot in my ass, she said: "Which athlete?" At five-thirty there was a softball game. I watched it briefly. My doppelgänger was playing. He was actually picked last. Then he nearly struck out. With two strikes, he hit a weak grounder to first and ran heroically but didn't make it. At least he hit the ball. If he had struck out, I might have had to kill myself. 12:30 a.m. I've been watching a Twilight Zone marathon. There was an episode where a beautiful woman lived in a world of ugly people and so she was considered hideous. That's kind of like me and the doppelgänger. Except we really are ugly. MORE CLUB MED

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