by Jess Gregg
Or maybe I meant to do that, but never got around to it, because his next remark took my breath away. “So how much’ll you pay me?” he asked.
When I could speak, I said, “Money?”
“Sure, money,” he said. “Nobody gets nothin’ for nothin’.”
Even if I had been willing to pay, all I had on me was the kind of small change that seemed to infuriate people in the sex business. “I don’t have any money,” I said.
“But you can get some,” he said. “Da old lady gives you money, I seen her.”
“Just bus fare.
“So tell her you’re takin’ a taxi.”
I was already backing away, but he moved right along with me. “Okay?” he demanded.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
“Well, you better want to,” he warned. “I wouldn’t like to tell your gramma you was tryin’ to get in my pants.”
The menace in his voice was a revelation. I suddenly recognized that I had blundered into reality, a tough, unforgiving arena which my highly-colored daydreams had not prepared me for. Now there was not even time to picture my grandmother’s horror; it was a moment for action, and I took it.
I ran so blindly, I have no memory of clattering down the stairs, or leaving the hotel; not even of crossing the Boulevard. I was only aware, at last, of squeezing into a crowded bus with an ache in my stomach and my ears hot with humiliation. This gradually changed to indignation, and then, bit by bit, I began to rescue my self-respect. In my mind, I saw myself again facing Raymond in the hotel attic; once more, heard the menace in his voice as he threatened to tell my grandmother. But this time, if only in my “piction”, my eyes remained cool, and my voice level.
“She wouldn’t believe you,” I imagined myself saying. “But she’d believe me! And I’d tell her you lured me up here, and tried to molest me.”
It was like waving a red rag at him. “Bullshit,” he said hotly. “Bullshit!”
“The cops’ll believe me too,” I continued, my fantasy providing me with logic which had never been manifest before. “They’d know it wasn’t my fault. Whoever heard of a kid molesting a grown man? I’d tell ’em you tried to force me to do it, and I’m underage. They’ll throw you in jail forever, you’ll be an old man when you get out!”
That stopped him in his tracks. Stopped him brusquely. He stood there confused and uncertain, blinking at me, and breathing with his mouth open, looking just like the bull at the moment of truth. Shifting uneasily from foot to foot, he wiped his palms down the sides of his trousers. Abruptly, he jerked his thumb toward the stairs. “Get out,” he said huskily. “Get your ass outa here!”
But I was not ready to leave yet. Wanting him to appreciate that I could fight even closer to the horn—could dare any insolence now without fear of reprisal—I casually reached down and made a pass at him that was no veronica. “Ole!” I cried, and without looking back, jauntily sauntered downstairs.
By the time the bus reached my stop, my stomachache had miraculously vanished.
5
LITTLE BOY BLEW
Our eyes only met for an instant, but the voltage went right through me. Quickly, he glanced away. I held my breath, waiting for him to look around again, but he went on shoving books back onto the shelves. As he moved noiselessly about the library, I realized he wasn’t actually blond. His hair was a kind of toast color, but the overhead lights transformed it into a blaze. I gave him green eyes in my imagination, but as he passed, he raised them to me again, and they were gray. His voice was so quiet, I could scarcely hear it: “Are you finding what you want?”
Actually, I had only come to the library to return some overdue books, but now, with a rush of blood to my ears, I claimed to be searching for some novel I’d heard my English teacher rave about—Now in November, it was called. He nodded with approval, and told me it had won the Pulitzer Prize. Hushed voices were regulation in public libraries, but somehow his whisper made everything seem so romantically clandestine that the blood left my ears and conspicuously concentrated elsewhere.
I pretended to peer at the books on the shelf behind his head, as an excuse to keep looking at him. He was handsome, perhaps even beautiful, his features sensitive, his gray eyes lustrous, large. He was shorter than I, but older by several years. There was a razor nick on his chin, the sort of detail I probably noticed because I myself didn’t have to shave every day yet.
If he knew what I was up to, he gave no sign. “Over here,” he directed, and led me to another aisle. Tracing his finger along the line of books, he peered at the white numbers inked on their spines. “Now in November must be out,” he whispered. “Try again next week.”
I thanked him, but added that by next week I would be gone. He looked at me in surprise. “Gone?”
I explained about my parents letting me stay in Los Angeles while they were away, so I could finish the winter term at high school. “But now that I have, I’ve got to go join them.”
“Very far away?”
“Florida.” I made a face, not at my destination, but at having to give up my independence after two sublime months on my own.
He wished me a good trip, and went back to his work. Disappointed that our conversation had led to so little, I moved along. Yet when I glanced back, he was still watching. I paused to tie my shoe. I tied it four times before he came over. “It occurs to me,” he whispered, “I have a copy of Now in November at home. I could lend it to you, if you should happen to be around here tomorrow.”
I was not only at the library the following day, but an hour earlier, and with my hair cut. I scarcely got to talk to him, however. Too many people were around. He acted as if he didn’t know me, and just pointed to the front desk. “I left the book for you there.”
I tried to read it on the bus, going back to the house where I was rooming, but neither then nor after dinner could I seem to concentrate. Seeing him even briefly had set off that agitation that had been plaguing me lately. My heart would start pounding in the tips of my fingers, there was a constant strain on my fly, and the languor in me had nothing to do with drowsiness. All the contraries in the world seemed to be dividing me up, so that half of me would be in a tantrum, while the other half was already saying I’m sorry. My father called these tempests of mine by the newspaper nickname for the turbulent Santa Anna wind that periodically swept over the city: Little Boy Blew. It made a childish spectacle of itself, whipping trees, stirring up dust devils, sending dogs scurrying under beds. “Hey, there,” Dad would cry, turning up his collar when I’d start rampaging, “the Little Boy is back!”
For all my turmoil, I managed to get through the book by two in the morning. The part I liked best was the fly leaf, where I discovered he had written Property of Robert Standish. It was the perfect name for him, I thought—calm, strong, aristocratic. I liked it better than the two staccato sounds of my own name which had the same beat as fuck you.
To put myself in Robert’s class, I shaved before I went to the library that afternoon. He was at the front desk this time. When I handed his book back to him, he whispered, “When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow at noon.”
He turned this over in his mind. “I wish there were time for us to have dinner together, but—” He sighed.
I let my disappointment show. “It’s all right,” I said pathetically.
Suddenly he came to a decision. “How do you feel about Chinese food?”
I had no fixed response to it, but had he asked my opinion of mud pies, my burst of enthusiasm would have been the same.
He drove by for me at six-thirty that night. I had unpacked my suitcases to get at my best clothes, but next to Robert, trim in his tan corduroy suit, I felt tacky, all elbows and Adam’s apple. He wasn’t a lot more talkative behind the wheel of his car than he had been in the stacks, but when we got to the chop suey place, far downtown, he began to open up—did all the ordering, showed me how to use chopsticks, filled me in on the graduate work he was
doing at USC. He did not laugh a lot, or joke at all, but when the fortune in his rice cookie promised him good news, he smiled at me as if I were its harbinger.
It was late by the time he got me back to my door that night. The house where I was rooming was comfortable, but rigidly genteel, and the students who lived there were not allowed visitors after nine. However, our landlady had gone to bed by now, and I did not argue with myself about asking Robert to come upstairs. He smiled when he saw my suitcases lying open on the floor, the clothes still scatt ered about. “You’ll have to work fast to get them re-packed by train time,” he said.
“Oh, I’m not going by train” I said, not thinking.
“How then? Bus?”
I fumbled for an answer. Times were still hard for so many people, and it was embarrassing to admit to the silver spoon. Still, I hated to lie to anyone as fine as he. “My dad thought it’d be educational,” I confessed. “I’m going through the Panama Canal.”
Once more I was aware of how sympathetic his eyes were. He was very understanding. Everything about him was understanding. Yet nothing was happening. Our facing each other on the faded plush sofa, with the door locked and the bed so close by, should have suggested something to him, yet he just sat there being tactful and understanding. I traced an intricate little pattern on the plush upholstery with my forefinger, and gradually transferred this to his corduroy knee. I was only inches away from target, when he seized my hand, restraining it, and blurted out what had apparently been inhibiting him. “How old are you?”
I lied to him after all, and said eighteen.
Not persuaded, he searched my face; but it was too late now. I thrust nearer, and suddenly his arms were around me, his open mouth upon mine.
This had never happened before. I had enjoyed a certain amount of carnal adventure since my coming-out at prep school, but no one, as yet, had kissed me. Perhaps there hadn’t been time during those quick and furtive encounters. In the rush for crescendo, the grace notes had been lost, and until this minute, not even missed. Now, the surprise of Robert’s tongue in my mouth set off a tempest in me—not a little-boy tempest, this time, but hot, wet, and driving. I wanted this astonishing innovation to go on for at least forever, but things went too fast, and next I knew, we were on the bed, as ravening as starved animals, as intricately locked together as a Jack of Hearts.
It was only after Robert had left that I began to get some perspective. I was still clothed, but my disarray was more specific than nakedness. My face, reflected in the mirror, was flushed, my eyes luminous, and an unfamiliar bliss told me I was hopelessly, helplessly in love. In love, and with only those worn-out old words to express it! Yet I could not wait to share them with Robert. My impulse was to run downstairs and phone him at once. And I would have, but it was late, and he lived with his parents. Nothing, however, nothing would keep me from being at the library when he got to work the next day at noon.
Noon? High as I was flying, this word suddenly reached me and brought me back to earth. Noon was when I was due to catch the boat-train to San Pedro harbor. I thought it over for about three seconds, and then returned to mid-air. The trip through the Panama Canal was an obvious impossibility now. My shirts and socks, still strewn over the floor, became a symbol of my decision to stay here with Robert. I grabbed up everything that could be folded and stuffed it back into my bureau, shoving the rest under the bed.
Of course my parents would have to be told I would not be coming to Florida. That was almost my first thought when I woke up the next morning. Naturally, I could not tell them what had changed my mind, but I would think up some good reason, and they would probably give their blessings—they were always telling me I must learn to make my own decisions.
Telephoning long-distance was still an ordeal, especially if you were calling collect. It meant having to discuss everything with the operators, and getting transferred around with lots of clicks before connection was possible. My mother answered at last, and when she had accepted the charges, I told her I wanted to stay on in Los Angeles and take some courses at USC. She was a remarkable woman, imaginative and enthusiastic, usually sympathetic to my projects. But not this time. From the dry tone of her voice, it was almost as if she had expected this call. It was the same with my father when he got on the phone. His insistence that I sail today as planned was quiet, specific, and almost eerily in advance of my arguments. “I want you to be on the boat when it docks in Miami next week,” he concluded. “All right?”
I could not fight him, but I would not reassure him. “Maybe,” I said, and hung up.
The consequence of this call was that, within the half-hour, my stately Grandmother Gregg drove up in a taxi. As we had already said goodbye the day before, it was clear that my parents had telephoned her right after talking to me, and urged her to make sure I took the boat-train. “I came to help you pack,” she said, with suspect gaiety. There was nothing I could do to stop her. The suitcases were dragged out from under the bed, the shirts and shorts taken from the bureau.
She packed carefully, almost warily, as if looking for proof that something illicit had been going on here. I knew she couldn’t have heard about Robert’s visit this quickly, but I suddenly thought of Rosalie, the girl from my drama class whom I had brought over to Grandma’s hotel several times as a blind. Chances were, this red herring had worked all too well, and Grandma had written my father and mother that I was in the clutches of a man-hungry older blonde. This would account for their sudden offer of the cruise through the Canal—anything to lure me back to parental supervision. It would also explain why they were so adamant when I tried to back out of the trip at the last minute.
There was no way to avoid being shipped out now, and not even time to telephone Robert and pledge unchanging love. Grandma’s taxi driver helped carry out my luggage, and once we were in the cab, Grandma settled back and patted my hand. “You’re going to have a wonderful voyage,” she said, affably now. “I wish I were going with you.”
I was almost afraid she was, and the taxi driver too. They stayed with me right up to the moment I climbed aboard the boat-train. As it finally pulled out, I saw her waving at me, her white-gloved hand isolated in the sunlight—the same sunlight that, at that very minute, was probably making golden dazzle of Robert’s hair. He would be climbing the library steps now, and as he pulled open the door, I could feel him missing me already.
My fancies about him were fancy, all right, displacing the most impressive reality. I scarcely noticed the shuddering blast that announced the ship was weighing anchor; barely saw the crowded dock recede, or heard the band on board briskly playing Siboney. Once at sea, I ignored the shuffleboard and movies to take solitary walks along the deck, or gaze deeply into the churning wake, wondering if, at that exact moment, he was thinking about me. Moonlight provided a further dimension for reverie. Eating an orange at midnight, I arranged the pieces of peel into the shape of his initials, R. S. This may have fallen short of a sonnet, but at least was total commitment.
Although I did not seem to notice Acapulco, Panama City, or the famous locks, it was only by will power that I avoided having a good time on board the ship. A good-looking girl from Beverly Hills taught me to French inhale, and a young man from First Class often sneaked down to Cabin Class to sit in the sun with us. At night, there was dancing, and the band was great, except for that little tendency to strike up Siboney every time a flaming dessert was carried to a table.
I left the ship at Havana, where a smaller boat was to connect me with Miami. As there was a twenty-hour stopover, I had been booked into a little hotel. With all of Cuba’s old-regime luxury and decadence waiting to be discovered, I chose to stay in my room and continue a letter to Robert, which was now a document of some twelve pages. Only hunger interrupted me. The desk clerk gave me directions to a famous restaurant, but by the time I had gone five blocks, I was lost. Fortunately, I ran into the young man from First Class, who was lost too. We strolled along, both of us talking
at once, grinning when women in dark doorways surreptitiously called to us.
“Where are you staying?” I asked.
“Well, actually, nowhere,” he said. “Fact is, I got put off the boat.”
“But why?”
He laughed sheepishly. “I didn’t have a ticket.”
I wasn’t sure I believed his story. Still, in case he really was marooned here, I took him to dinner, and later let him bunk in my hotel room. It was tropically hot, and we slept under a single sheet. At some undetermined hour, he put his hand lightly on my arm. I blinked open my eyes in the darkness, but did not move. He blew faintly on the back of my neck, and edging closer, asked if I felt like a little fun. Still I didn’t react—just lay there, thinking fixedly of Robert, and trying to breathe regularly. Apparently it convinced him I was fast asleep, because pretty soon he yawned and gave up.
This was my first experience with being faithful, and I was so pleased with myself, I nearly turned around and hugged him.
I was afraid the Little Boy tempests would sweep back when I reached Florida, but the small college town, asleep in the middle of the state, seemed to nourish reverie. Or anyway, it did at first. I was content to lie out in the sun every day, reliving my one night with Robert, digging into every instant of it, triumphantly extracting and savoring each detail. Only when repetition had worn these images down to words did I write them in my journal. At night, I worked on my letters to him. Since I didn’t know his home address, I mailed them to the library. With the same devotion, I waited by the front gate each morning to save the mailman a few final steps, in case he had a letter for me.
Sometimes he did have, but not from Robert. Gradually, I came to understand the reason why. The head librarian had probably put his mail aside for him, and then forgot to tell him. And if he wasn’t getting my letters, how could he know where to send his replies? He could even be thinking I had found someone new.
To assure him I hadn’t, I called him long distance. His mother kept answering the phone, however, and I kept hanging up in panic. Bit by bit, my emotions resumed such turbulence, they were nearly leveling my parents’ house. “Come take a walk, Bud,” my father urged, one night. We strolled down the dark road, him swinging his walking stick in great arcs. “Rosalie’s not the only girl in the world, y’know,” he said. “There are lots of others just as nice. Matter of fact, the college here is full of real charmers, so if you’d like to take a few courses when the spring term begins—”