Silk Stockings - 6

Revere Beach in Fall

The sand in fall – the way that memory etched my memory of Revere Beach, whose books are now published in Heaven. Opening on to the northern end of Boston Harbor and bedecked with wooden coasters and elegant - at least in the mind of the holy unwashed - dance pavilions. Decked with enormous Victorian-esque style kiosks with which to part a rube from his money, with only the fleeting chance of resting a girl from her kisses. There was action going on, in the bathrooms and far away from the hullabaloo of rides and dances. But I was the sort of person who did not know where these places were. But my face lied and spoke to others of the kind of knowing-know which intimated a deep understanding of the way things were – men in dance, of women or hounds.

 In the whirring distance – the sound of the dogs and all of the birds bayed down the bottom of the night in style. Yet, we walked into the noise of light. Along with the next stop, Wonderland was the Greyhound track with its feeding frenzy of betting and yowling of pain, with the occasional swelling of delight. You would get there soon enough, but 1st we had to scope out the delicious pleasures of prostitutes giving their johns a taste of what was to come. Oh, amusement park con dance hall madness, how you work your wares. You work your wares primarily in the half steps and flurry of the dress, that is the divine forgiveness for sins yet to be had. Great loyalty oath crusade versions Najdorf Creole waltz.

  What we needed now was information, where are the best places to want the exquisite, rather than the tawdry, kind of pleasure. I am the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's terrible. But Giorgio was better still, and he walked up and down, knowing which feminine light would know about this. The scratching, the pleading, with its ecstasy for both partners. Screaming down on incandescent lights from above, but pleading in darkness because of the shame and forbidden hedonism. (If you do not know, I will tell you, that 'the' is an adjective.)

  I watched as a journeyman would watch a master - every move every word was calculated to achieve the signal effect. And when he came over to me, with a sense of Nirvana, and directed me towards a set of stairs, which did not cause any commotion. It was the way to the land of the dead - and the rapture to be had. It was then below the dance floor, with egregious beer everywhere that you could smell, and the glorified wisps of cheap eau de toilette from a drugstore. Bodies present and accounted for, and long since left, were hidden in the niches - the living clasped their breath in because whether police or mobster, his intent was to grab something somewhere someone and inflict pain. They liked pain – the long, exquisite kind best of all. All of the beauty is designed for ashes, moment by moment.

 He turns to me: “Put your hand in your coat.” I recognize this as pretending you are holding a gun – but I do better than this and hold a real one. This was in the days when. And when and when.

 Then several flashlights came from above, held by determined men looking for people whose time expired, but were still on the dance floor. Creaking through the slats, forcing globe and penumbra down into eschewing face-like structures– the resident grew even quieter. Splayed into recognizable forms. Normally, I would not recognize anyone here - but a long, hanging glance - made a countenance recognizable in the gloom. Streaks of luminosity became real and vivid but then strained off into eerie silence of glare. But gradually my sight grew keener on the stubble of details, and in the darkness, I heard the deep face and tawny eyes: that was Maria. Anno Miriam Dominium - In Codice Ratio.

 You have to understand what a shock the was – this was not our territory, it belonged to the mick haberdashery. Only people like myself who were doing a job would be here - except the few from the northern suburbs. But Maria was neither of those things, her red stockings and blue rose in her hair.

 The man, whose back was towards me and who had other things on his spine, was grunting and snorting in the tone of ecstasy – as if he were from Pleasantville or Mayfield - but Maria gazed straight into my face, holding her 2 hands at the base of her partners next, and swelling a pretense. It was clear that she was only performing a job, though whether her partner you that or not I did not know.

  Confusion reigned in my skull, there was something larger that was happening.

 The sea was choppy, and the moon distorted in its wake white – unlike the smooth serene of the Charles River, in grey (gossamer) - the turning tops, as naked as a storm, shot forth their omnipotent omnipresent omnaloke omnichannel omnipotential stop. (Read the itinerant short con and carny hype men – but not if they sold it - that would be evanescent fraud.)

 All around, the breaker of greyhounds. I would see Maria again.