Silk Stockings - 8

Red Blues

Over in Moscow way, and I don’t mean Moscow Maine – though to be truthful I hadn’t been to Maine either - they say that the Ruskies complaint about The Party. Over here we have a different kind of red and that is debt. To be told, we did not learn much in high school even were we to graduate it: the Nazis were bad, the USSR was almost as bad and had the power to blow us all to kingdom come, and Ike was looking out for us. End of story.

 Well, not quite because what they did not teach us was how to have a job and how you could make conversation with the fairer sex. This one had to learn on one out. The only caveat is you must be mad, mad to be and be heard, and never stop going till you get there.

Then he kind of control took them by the hand. And I called her reaching out to Giorgio for her number. Giorgio you everybody’s number and if the number is along to a girl you can bet that he had tried to get her to dance with him. It was kind of a spiritual ritual that all the boys knew about.

Three days have passed since I deliver to her mother the message.  The reply was noncommittal but later on, I was told to meet her on the Back Bay and all that implies.

It was on a hot summer day near Exeter and Commonwealth that I waited. In this section of Boston Commonwealth was an arboretum of green with many different deciduous trees overhanging the long broad walkway between the two boulevards. On either side were the Brahman buildings of the core of the hub of the universe. If you want to bring down the author of a two-volume history of something this is the place to do it. The people were in the same way as the townhouses: the fabric was grey and made of the finest material then available with stockings made of the cocoons of the worm. Exactly why she picked here was obvious: she wanted me to feel out of place in this the dappling of sunlight that streamed to the man-made forest floor. The squeaking of horns and occasional blare of sirens merely added to the ambiance. We have got the red blues. It’s really cool. It is Happy Consciousness writ large.

My eyes were searching down either side of the sidewalks in front of these townhouses for the one face. One face that I needed to concede to. The one face that I needed to turn a frown to another more amenable state. To go back to that place where I first met a girl named Maria, who was my Juliet if I could aspire to the Romeo, that I wished for in my dreams.

Then in the distance, I thought I saw her face. I looked. I looked but though the face was similar it was not hers in that indelible way that her memory burned at my consciousness.

 I put my head down and uttered a deep sigh. Then a hand touched my left shoulder from behind and I turned around and saw that olive willow. But there was a contradiction, while her lips begged a sort of smile her eyes were cold which contrasted with the heated noon.

“I thought you were more talkative.” She began.

I started to open my mouth. Then shut it. Then began: “Why are you hear?”

“I am here because my father told me. He said it would be impolite not to be somewhere.” My heart plunged into the dark.

“And you choose here. So, how long do I have before you go?”

“You have to keep feeding me dimes.”

“Or you will drop one?”

“Depends on if it is juicy.” There was the hint of a smile - but it was combined with a leer.

I know my face was like a Russian flag.

“I think you have been misinformed.”

“About what? So far, your reputation is bigger than your presence.”

“You sound like I am someone out of Revolution and Rousseau.”

“If you can write something as powerful as Discourse on the Origin of Inequality it would be a plus.”

“Non in depravatis, sed in his quæ bene secundum naturam se habent, considerandum est quid sit naturale.” I quoted.

“Aristotle. Politics. Book 1, Chapter 2. But it is better in Greek.” She was determined as if at school.

“You have read it?” With both amazement and scoff in my tone of voice.

“Rousseau quotes it on the first page. Naturally, my father had me read it next. I am going to Vassar next year.”

“What is it in Greek?” Testing her.

Closing her eyes as if she was reading: “Part of it is: deí dé skopeín en toís katá fýsin échousi” rising up on the next syllable as if God demanded it - “mállon tó fýsei, kaí mí en toís dieftharménois. ‘And to discover what is natural we must study it preferably in things that are in a natural state, and not in specimens that are degenerate.’” She opened her eyes and I realized she had taken a step closer. Her eyes were wide. “So, what completes it.”

I needed to reply because it isn’t every day you run across people burbling Rousseau. But the conundrum was there are those with the gift of languages, but I am not one. I sweated to try and recall the words in the text. It is one thing to test it is another thing to be tested.

She remarks: “Cat got your tongue?” I realized that I had better have a dime or one would be dropped.

Finally, the words came out: “It is: ‘dió kaí tón véltista diakeímenon kaí katá sóma kaí katá psychín ánthropon theoritéon.’ Or in English: ‘for even the optimally situated man, both in body and soul’ psyche, the soul, of ánthropon, man.”

“The animating principle of lifeblood or the animating principle in primary substances according to Aristotle.” Her eyes were now warm because I passed the test. “You can see the Latin is far from the original.” I kept my mouth shut. She then piped up: “You had a teacher?”

“My mom wanted me to be a priest.”

We began walking through the trees down towards Mass Ave among the monuments to people we did not know. First, we should of our knowledge, but then there was a turning point.

I turned to here on Hereford. There was no one around. “There are two things that you think you know but are mistaken.”

 She wound her way and her and held mine. “What are those?”

“The first thing is my friend Tony may have indicated a preference, and that indication is wrong.” The words were foreign to me, but I wanted to be extremely formal in my diction.

“I assumed that because Tony wanted you for himself.”

“You knew that?”

“My uncle is the same way that Tony is. I got the same vibe.”

“What do you feel?”

“The adult units all say it is wrong.”

“You do too?”

“I don’t see their point of view.”

She looked up at me quizzically.

“He is my friend.”

“Nothing more?”

“Absolutely nothing more. You won’t tell the boys about this?”

“I won’t tell your friends especially not Giorgio, because he has a hate on gays.” Probably because it’s too close to home.

“How do you know?

“A variety of incidents. Most involve shouting.” Most.

“I see.”

Then she sidled up to me. “What is the other thing you want to tell me?”

“I must take it more slowly and I must be somewhere where we can be alone.”

At first, she was shocked, perhaps because she was worried about what I would tell her. However, it was clear that her reason overcame her emotion and thus she trusted me to tell her a secret. A secret that burned me. A secret that no one else had heard. I could tell that this thought was enticing exciting and exhilarating to her.

Thus, we wandered back towards the Public Garden and the Boston Common, stopping only to relieve ourselves and a church, with the conversation as banal as it could be. It was near sunset when we stopped at the north edge of the city looking across at Charlestown. The sun had already gone down behind the buildings on our left. Across the river in the bay was the USS Constitution run down from age and scarred by wooden hue.

 Then we turned aside to go into North Station, but I had another plan. When inside of the commuter rail of North Station, all brown with long benches and excessive scroll for the back, I lined up to purchase tickets for an excursion north of town. She was puzzled but she did not ask any questions because she knew that I had reached a decision. Just after sunset the train arrived, and we sat down.

Leaning over to her on the puffed-up train seats I told her that we would be getting off at Winchester station. She only nodded but had no sense of what this would mean. When we were there, we departed the train and went down the sloping walkway. Finally, we scurried down Mount Vernon Street, with the town hall and the public library on our right. We stopped at a five-way intersection where she looked at me with a quizzical glance. Then we hurried across to Washington Street and a block later to St. Mary’s Parish. There was no one on the street but she looked all the same.

It was there that I made my confession.

“This is not where it happened, but in a similar parish one of the junior priests did things to the young boys who were there under their protection,” I stated it as if it were the weather.

Her eyes grew wide.

“I heard about this from someone else and for whatever reason, decided to kill the bearer of bad news.”

After a pause, she said: “Why? He was only the bearer.”

“No, he was giving instructions to a priest to disappear the junior to Europe. It meant that they knew, and they knew that it was a problem. I do not know how many other boys were demeaned in such a way.” Despite myself, my face scowled.

“But you killed him.” Her face too was bunched in knots.

“It was more than that and the decision was made to give me the status of a made man. Because he did not want to reveal the secret.”

“That means you were bribed.”

I nodded.

“What does this mean?”

“It seems that I am in their debt. And it means that someday, somehow, somewhere I am going to pay for that debt.”

“You can run.” She was thinking, I could see it in her brown eyes.

“From the church? I don’t think so. And even if I got there, there would still be my conscience, and it would surely make me pay.”

She looked at me with a kind of pity. But then she offered me her hand and it was clear that she wanted me to kiss it. I did so.

 She giggled.

 Quizzically I looked. “What is so funny?”

“You are a much better kisser than Giorgio. A very much better kisser.”

“How so?” I had never before on my skills as an oscillator.

“With him I’m an object, with you I am the subject.”

Then she offered up her lips.

I stopped. I stuttered. And in places that I care not to mention, I shook.

And for only the second time I kissed with lust in my heart.

 But still. I remember in my heart the bleeding silence that came up from the inside:

I should have wished to blame to blame someone else. I should have wished to shirk my responsibility. I should have wished to never have become so enraged. I should have wished to be someone else. But now I must take responsibility for my debt.