Bomb Cyclone and its Effects on Harvard - 19

A Novella

7

On the verge of the Boston skyline, a crane became visible at night, by the fluorescent cremes that it displayed - hiding beneath the Pru. But then on the turn and down the street – a notice was up on Trident – the gist of it was it was closed due to fire. Other alternatives raced through my head – with Cafeteria hitting the sweet spot of price, convenience, and reasonable quality of food - and it was just down the street. I smiled at the thought of enjoying a new – for me – establishment of gnashing. Ambling along, to the white restaurant in a residential-esque townhouse - unusually set back from the street with a downward scoop into the entrance – while taking in the vibrant breezy glamour of the street, which spanned the spectrum of pervasive elegance - if it could be called that - of the live end of Newbury Street. That was a sartorial remark if you had not gotten it.

So down the widestairs – and into the turbulence of couples staring at menus at looking up for confirmation that they had picked the right venue for their intimate elision into worlds-far-too-well-known. I doffed my cloche and dull crimson cloak at hung it on a peg in the wall – and then faced the hostess. She was young, blond, thin, with an average height. She was in preoccupation as if she was the star of a movie or the character of a book. Of course, everyone was, but the question is is the author, and does she have the intelligence and wit to carry the main character with zest.

“I will just take a seat at the bar.” - and moseyed to an empty seat.

Within a few minutes, there was a dinner menu, and I ravenously engorged my eyes on the selection - reading price 1^st and then what it was - this was the way of reading a menu when you were trying to decide if it is worth the extra $2 for the reverence of ecstasy which the price entailed. Largely you find that just above the cheapest price is a sweet spot, and then merely the largest is what makes your mouth water.

From behind the counter table, a man asked me: “Do you know what you want?”

“Margarita pizza and a glass of water.” Salads were my usual fair, so a treat was in order. Since I was not going to be ordering a great deal, etiquette required that I stay only so long as to finish. And etiquette and I were very good friends.

Trying to make contact with any young men who were around my age or slightly older, was a failure. So I pulled out my book - La porte étroite by André Gide – and settled down to a few minutes of reading until my dish arrived – and famishment held my stomach in its grasp. Soon the etiquette clock said “Ready to leave,” and back on the street with three Ave Maria's.

Once on the outside, the wind chilled to the bone, but that was only a few minutes. Tuning left my destination was the narrow but vastly long park which was the Commonwealth Mall. Pacing deliberately, it was only a couple of minutes until the street market image of Newbury Street was placed by a double widen grasp of brown-green somewhat winter, somewhat spring.

Drawing past the stoplight, my footsteps fell on asphalt, not the concrete of the sidewalk, and it felt as if it had a springiness, though that was an illusion. Going halfway until I was on the giant walkway, and saw nothing but trees - and maples and oaks primarily, that seemed to proceed towards the dénouement of the city center. Boston was a small town in a certain way - all of the business of it could be contained in a strip of land from North Station down to the Prudential agglomeration. There were other things for the city, especially the area reserved for people who needed to be there but were not paid much for the privilege - Mattapan and the like. This strip of salient land only occupied barely 1 mile - which was not even one 10^th of New York.

Sliding one foot after the other, the trees closed in on me, though there were few withered leaves to hold back the heavens. The low clouds pressed down upon me and I stopped and looked almost directly upwards, to the place where essentially my life my life had been lived. The thought held in my mind. This is Boston, served up by yelp.

Torrent rushes over my mouth – a deconstruction of recursion by way of James Joycean polytropic Derrida – hone to perfection in hexatropeter in reverse. My mind was shocked, my body stiffened, and I was waiting for the pressure that it had once known – and the impetus that it implied. Suddenly, in the dim shining which had been enough for the “I” alone, a face, a peculiar, familiar, face grew into shape. Grunion was its name, and it had a leer that suggested it was for me. He was waiting – for me.

Whirled around frontward – with a glimmering of his bloated tummy on the way – and standing just shy of eye to eye.

“He did not expect, heh.” This was true, I have not - it came to me that the universe of an automobile was different from the universe of public transportation.

“What do you want?”

“I think it is time for the conversation which we have been putting off.”

“Why should I want to converse with you?”

“That I do not know, but I want to have a conversation with you, why do not we go to my automobile?” the gooey sticky sweet concoction made me feel like he was the villain of a serial killer drama, nothing about him said words, only pictures and a brand name actor. And if I did not do Anything in a reasonable hurry - lickety-split, with bells on top - my role would be as an extra. In flash on the screen and then portraying “dead”. It is amazing how many people do not portray dead very well, and I am not in a hurry to find out if that role would suit me well at all. It was the ogling of his countenance that set my teeth on edge.

So, quickly I spat out: “Your car is not where we are going to have this. Why do you want to annoy me in such a fashion anyway? Cannot get enough 3-year-olds to play in your sandbox?” of course, if it had been a normal person the tone would tell him to buzz off, but he is not a normal person.

“I knew what your father does in his spare time, and I think you would be a good participant in his unnatural leanings. Or at least the leanings that he sets up for his benefactors.”

This had been hinted at by the man whom I had been taught to call my father, and I had deliberately ignored knowing what it was - which seemed at this moment to be a terrible mistake. Simply dreadful in fact.

“Your business is with my father - not me.”

“Your father does not interest me in a physical way I feel for you.”

Colossal wretch.

“I am not an employee of my father.”

“Why do not you strike out on your own?” The voice had grown to a whisper.

“Not in that direction.”

“How do you know? It could be quite remunerative.”

“That depends on how much I place a value on my soul.”

“Dollars and cents, that is the currency of the time.”

“And the shredding away of flesh - that has a value too.”

“But you have experienced that already.”

“ how do you know?” there was an uncomfortable sentiment that climbed its way from her toes and moved beyond.

“Who do you think suggested to Lily? She did not know why I had your name easily to hand.”

“Surely you could know what she was planning.”

“Oh, but I did. Secrets are stored on silicone in various forms, and with the right price, 1 can find anything out. Especially if you have a cadre of people with numerous specialties at their disposal.”

“So how did this work?”

“Because I longed, desired your flesh from a very young age. It only took some time to figure out all of the details. You had not very many friends - so I supplied you with one. And she had secrets, and her friends had secrets. It just took some time to find the right secret that would bring you to me.”

“And not secret was?”

“It is the lack of compassion.”

“ I have compassion.”

“Now you have a venomous rage, which culminated with the election of a man who is not fit to be president.”

“Sue you agree with that?”

“It does not matter what I believe, it matters what you believe. You are tormented and confused. And I can work with that.”

“How?”

“You hate the man placed over you as president, but you do not love people who are with you. You hate a large number of them for various forms of what you define as disfigurement.”

“And that helps you how?”

“I just have to find one whose secret is so large, that it will consume all in front of it. And I did so, though for my purposes.”

“You cannot have known that he would drive me away from my parents.”

“Of course I did, it was obvious to anyone who looked. You hated your parents – desperately. As they hated you. This much was extremely obvious. Tiredly so, if you have a knack for summarizing the weight and tilt.”

“You planned all of this?”

“You know the genius recipe?”

“I may have heard it before, tell me the one you are thinking of.”

“A great plan and not quite enough time. The original quote was from Leonard Bernstein.”

“And what put a crimp in your schedule?”

“You found your real father. Since I did not know who he was, therefore did not have a slot in my machinations.”

“How did this help me?”

“He was like you, only a generation before. His obsessions were different from yours.”

“So?”

“He too was trying to drag a conservative out into the light. And he failed.”

“Where did you learn this?”

“This is not a mystery novel, there was no sneaking around and killing various people who happened to get in my way. Once I knew who your father was, it was trivial to find out about him.”

“And that help you how?”

“If neither helped me nor heard me - but it did give me away to find out what you are doing. Your mother has her quirks. Though my plans were somewhat disabled by the Trident, it was no more than a minor slip.”

“So you waited for me?”

“Obsessions cause that in people.”

“So what keeps you, not quite enough time?”

“Originally, my time limit was when you went off to college. That you would be craving for Harvard, though it was obvious you were not quite going to get in, making it easy to plot out the variables.”

“So what changes?”

“No one suspected suicide.”

“How does that affect anything?”

“Do not you see? With the person alive, you would be cramped, and worried about his existence. It would have been a blockage in your way of thinking. And with that blockage removed, all sorts of changes took place - both in you and in others around you. You became more aware that it was not just to ire what was bad, but to change those who were like you.”

“You are saying not just to hate but to love.”

“If you want to put it in such banal terms.”

“In which way do you want to put it?”

“Like a case before trial, only the judge is - the judge is the world. It was clear that I had to capture you, and post haste.”

I only partially understood what he was getting into - but I understood his obsession, even if it was the wickedest conundrum that I had faced.

We walked up the Alphabetical letters - the streets were designed a way: Gloucester, Fairfield, Exeter, Dartmouth, Clarendon - now there were only 2 streets left before the mall merged in 2 the public garden, circa 1837: Berkeley and Arlington, which was also a stop along the 'T'. The sniping at each other died, and we were locked arm in arm— - though not at all pleasantly. It occurred to me that we were going to his car, and I could do nothing about getting in it when the time arrived. Therefore time was of the essence. Finally, we were on Arlington Street, across from the public garden - he motioned for me to go forward - but I simply pointed at the light, and waited for it to turn green. The public garden was of course closed, after sundown, so I knew that would be going left towards the river or write towards the hotel district and the decidedly chic-chic shops that lined the expensive and of Newbury and Arlington Street. He pointed left. When we got to the other side I turned left and arrayed were the fountains of bitter branches that were denuded of their springtime essence. Of course, being a Public Garden there were myriads of fine examples of numerous trees, some were from far away. In the middle, there were redwood, as well as Japanese lilacs and tulips. Around the large pond, which was currently drained, there were weeping Willows. there were elm trees in profusion, as well as silk trees and flowering cherries that alighted their space. There were also horse chestnuts glowering such there bows seemed to be coming down from the sky. I would just barely make out my favorite example of the pagoda tree. All hang over the savory lawnscapes and old gas-style lamps along sweep walkways.

As was said, it was winter, and everything except the conifers were held tight. On one side the townhouses of residential perfusion filled with a centerfold of the most divine walkway that can be imagined and on the other side a refined Park, filled with Canadian geese, mallard ducks - and two swans, both of which were female. Even the swans were homosexual here in Boston.

Reaching the lower corner, which had its dimension: just across Beacon Street was a footbridge to the Esplanade, with its towering trees and spreading lawns which included an outdoor auditorium. This was the Esplanade itself, and in the summer bands of every description played there. Somehow, racing across the street and along the footbridge became a plan for me. In the corner of the Public Garden, a bronze guardian angel spread her wings and welcomed all who would honor this small piece of heaven. I could see it from the backside, where every step I took led me to a single conclusion: to race off and that I could pace myself better than he could. The realization that my fate was in my feet girded me for the mission, and a checkered flag would be my reward - ersatz though it was.

Across the brick-lined sidewalk, my paces were calling me – and it soon became clear that a moment of decision was upon me. I needed to make sure the light was green when I reached the corner, then I could instantaneously trundle across the open street. I had to then close my steps, to accomplish this.

Each step became languorous as a dream – flitting Akimbo backward through people hurrying onwards, even though they would stop if going forward. And then in the dent of the angle, with my foot ensconced within, I ran, I ran so far away. Out into the broad division of Beacon Street, where one part curved into Arlington, while the rest went forward and the other side curved towards Storrow Drive as an exit. There was concrete for 20 yards, and then the footbridge. I was almost home.

Feeling a tug on my shoulder, and loosening the grip until it fell away. Making steps across Beacon St., feeling rather than hearing the crash of a moving truck, and the thud of human flesh with steel bumper. Slashing unto simpering crunch, beneath the land so far and close as a synonym. Sinew and crackle, even in the Sopwith camel, to fly alone to the Harwich trees, then to fall synecdoche affectations pensiveness mere melancholy synesthesia - supine towards and from the dream syndicate.