by John Irving
"Think of all the bears!" my father said, wrinkling his nose.
"William has nothing against bears, Franny," Bovary gently said. I saw that they were holding hands, partners in propriety.
They walked me all the way back to the Santo Mauro, my hotel on the Zurbano.
"I think you should admit to your son, Franny, that you're a little proud of him for beating up that bully," Bovary said to my father in the courtyard of the Santo Mauro.
"It is appealing to know I have a son who can beat the shit out of somebody," my father said.
"I didn't beat the shit out of him. It was one move--he just fell awkwardly, on a hard surface," I tried to explain.
"That's not what the Racquet Man said," my dad told me. "Bob made me believe you wiped the floor with the fucker."
"Good old Bob," I said.
I offered to call them a taxi; I didn't know that they lived in the neighborhood. "We're right around the corner from the Santo Mauro," Senor Bovary explained. This time, when he offered me his hand, palm down, I took his hand and kissed it.
"Thank you for making this happen," I said to Bovary. My father stepped forward and gave me a sudden hug; he also gave me a quick, dry kiss on both my cheeks--he was so very European.
"Maybe, when I come back to Spain--for my next Spanish translation--maybe I can come see you again, or you can come to Barcelona," I said to my father. But, somehow, this seemed to make my dad uncomfortable.
"Maybe," was all my father said.
"Perhaps nearer that time would be a good time to talk about it," Mr. Bovary suggested.
"My manager," my dad said, smiling at me but pointing to Senor Bovary.
"And the love of your life!" Bovary cried happily. "Don't you ever forget it, Franny!"
"How could I?" my father said to us. "I keep telling the story, don't I?"
I sensed that this was good-bye; it seemed unlikely that I would see them again. (As my father had said: "We already are who we are, aren't we?") But the good-bye word felt too final; I couldn't say it.
"Adios, young William," Senor Bovary said.
"Adios," I said to him. They were walking away--holding hands, of course--when I called after my father. "Adios, Dad!"
"Did he call me 'Dad'--is that what he said?" my father asked Mr. Bovary.
"He did--he distinctly did," Bovary told him.
"Adios, my son!" my father said.
"Adios!" I kept calling to my dad and the love of his life, until I could no longer see them.
AT FAVORITE RIVER ACADEMY, the black-box theater in the Webster Center for the Performing Arts was not the main stage in that relatively new but brainless building--well intentioned, to be kind, but stupidly built.
Times have changed: Students today don't study Shakespeare the way I did. Nowadays, I could not fill the seats for a main-stage performance of any Shakespeare play, not even Romeo and Juliet--not even with a former boy playing Juliet! The black box was a better teaching tool for my actors, anyway, and it was great for smaller audiences. The students were much more relaxed in our black-box productions, but we all complained about the mice. It may have been a relatively new building, but--due to either faulty design or misguided contracting--the crawl space under the Webster Center was poorly insulated and had not been mouse-proofed.
When it starts to get cold, any stupidly built building in Vermont will have mice. The kids working with me in our black-box production of Romeo and Juliet called them "stage mice"; I can't tell you why, except that the mice had occasionally been spotted onstage.
It was cold that November. The Thanksgiving break was only a week away, and we already had snow on the ground--it was even cold, for that time of year, for Vermont. (No wonder the mice had moved indoors.) I'd just persuaded Richard Abbott to move into the River Street house with me; at eighty, Richard hardly needed to spend another winter in Vermont in a house by himself--he was on his own now that Martha was in the Facility. I gave Richard what had been my bedroom as a child, and that bathroom I'd once shared with Grandpa Harry.
Richard didn't complain about the ghosts. Maybe he would have, if he'd ever encountered Nana Victoria's ghost, or Aunt Muriel's--or even my mother's--but the only ghost Richard ever saw was Grandpa Harry's. Naturally, Harry's ghost showed up a few times in that bathroom he'd once shared with me--thankfully, not in that bathtub.
"Harry appears to be confused, as if he's lost his toothbrush," was all Richard ever said about Grandpa Harry's ghost.
The bathtub Harry had blown his brains out in was gone. If Grandpa Harry was actually going to repeat blowing his brains out in a bathroom, it would be the master bathroom--the one I now used--and that inviting new bathtub (the way Harry had repeated himself for Amanda).
But, as I've told you, I never saw the ghosts in that River Street house. There was the one morning when I woke up and found my clothes--neatly arranged, in the order I would put them on--at the foot of my bed. These were clean clothes, my jeans on the bottom of the pile; the shirt was perfectly folded, with my socks and underwear on top. It was precisely the way my mother used to prepare my clothes for me when I was a little boy. She must have done this every night, after I'd fallen asleep. (She'd stopped doing this around the time when I became a teenager or shortly before.) I had completely forgotten how she'd once loved me. My guess is that her ghost wanted to remind me.
It happened only that one morning, but it was enough to make me remember when I had loved her--without reservation. Now, after those many years when I had lost her affection and believed I no longer loved her, I was able to mourn her--the way we are supposed to mourn our parents when they're gone.
WHEN I FIRST MOVED into the River Street house, I found Uncle Bob standing beside a box of books in the downstairs hall. Aunt Muriel had wanted me to have these "monuments of world literature," Bob had struggled to explain, but Muriel's ghost hadn't delivered the books--Uncle Bob had brought the box. He'd belatedly discovered that Muriel had intended to give me the books, but that fatal car crash must have interrupted her plans. Uncle Bob hadn't noticed that the books were for me; there was a note inside the box, but some years had passed before Bob read it.
"These books are by your forebears, Billy," Aunt Muriel had written, in her unmistakably assertive longhand. "You're the writer in the family--you should have them."
"I'm afraid I don't know when she was intending to give them to you, Billy," Bob sheepishly said.
The forebears word is worth noting. At first, I was flattered by the company of the esteemed writers Muriel had selected for me; it was a highly literary collection of works. There were two plays by Garcia Lorca--Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba. (I hadn't known that Muriel knew I loved Lorca--his poems, too.) There were three plays by Tennessee Williams; maybe Nils Borkman had given these plays to Muriel, I'd first thought. There was a book of poems by W. H. Auden, and poems by Walt Whitman and Lord Byron. There were those unsurpassed novels by Herman Melville and E. M. Forster--I mean Moby-Dick and Howards End. There was Swann's Way by Marcel Proust. Yet I still didn't understand why my aunt Muriel had gathered these particular writers together and called them my "forebears"--not until I unearthed, from the bottom of the box, two little books that lay touching each other: Arthur Rimbaud's A Season in Hell and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room.
"Oh," I said to Uncle Bob. My gay forebears, Aunt Muriel must have thought--my not-so-straight brethren, I could only guess.
"I think your aunt meant this in a positive way, Billy," Uncle Bob said.
"You think so?" I asked the Racquet Man. We both stood there in the downstairs hall, trying to imagine Muriel putting these books in a box for me in a positive way.
I never told Gerry about her mother's gift to me--fearing that Muriel might have left nothing, or worse, for Gerry. I didn't ask Elaine if she thought Muriel had intended these books for me in a positive way. (Elaine's opinion of Muriel was that my aunt had been born a menacing ghost.) It was the phone call from Elaine--late one nigh
t, in my River Street house--that reminded me of Esmeralda, gone from my life (but not from my mind) these many years. Elaine was crying into the phone; yet another bad boyfriend had dumped her, but this one had made cruel comments about my dear friend's vagina. (I'd never told Elaine my unfortunate, not-a-ballroom appraisal of Esmeralda's vagina--boy, was this ever not the night to tell Elaine that story!) "You're always telling me how you love my little breasts, Billy," Elaine was saying, between sobs, "but you've never said anything about my vagina."
"I love your vagina!" I assured her.
"You're not just saying that, are you, Billy?"
"No! I think your vagina is perfect!" I told her.
"Why?" Elaine asked; she'd stopped crying.
I was determined not to make the Esmeralda mistake with my dearest friend. "Ah, well--" I began, and then paused. "I'll be absolutely honest with you, Elaine. Some vaginas feel as big as ballrooms, whereas your vagina feels just right. It's the perfect size--perfect for me, anyway," I said, as casually as I could.
"Not a ballroom--is that what you're saying, Billy?"
How did I end up here again? I was thinking. "Not a ballroom, in a positive way!" I cried.
Elaine's nearsightedness was a thing of the past; she'd had that Lasik surgery--it was as if she were seeing for the first time. Before the surgery, when she'd had sex, she always took her glasses off--she'd never had a really good look at a penis. Now she could actually see penises; she didn't like the looks of some of them--"of most of them," Elaine had said. She'd told me that, the next time we were together, she wanted to take a good look at my penis. I thought it was a little tragic that Elaine didn't know another guy well enough to feel comfortable about staring at his penis, but what are friends for?
"So my vagina is 'not a ballroom' in a positive way?" Elaine now said on the phone. "Well, that sounds okay. I can't wait to get a good look at your penis, Billy--I know you'll take my staring at your penis in a positive way."
"I can't wait, too," I told her.
"Just remember who's the perfect size for you, Billy," Elaine said.
"I love you, Elaine," I told her.
"I love you, too, Billy," Elaine said.
Thus was my not-a-ballroom faux pas put to rest--thus that ghost departed. Thus did my worst memory of Esmeralda (that terrifying angel) take flight.
IT WAS THE THIRD week of November 2010--for as long as I live, I won't forget this. I had my hands full with Romeo and Juliet; I had a terrific cast of kids, and (as you know) a Juliet with all the balls a director could ever ask for.
The stage mice chiefly bothered the few females in that cast--namely, my Lady Montague and my Lady Capulet, and my Nurse. As for my Juliet, Gee didn't shriek when the stage mice were scurrying around; Gee tried to stomp on the disruptive little rodents. Gee and my bloodthirsty Tybalt had killed some stage mice by stomping on them, but my Mercutio and my Romeo were the experts in my cast at setting the mousetraps. I was constantly reminding them that they had to disarm the mousetraps when our Romeo and Juliet was in performance. I didn't want that grisly snapping sound--or the occasional death squeal of a stage mouse--to interrupt the show.
My Romeo was a cow-eyed boy of strictly conventional handsomeness, but he had exceptionally good diction. He could say that act 1, scene 1 line (of utmost importance) so that the audience could really hear it. "Here's much to do with hate, but more with love"--that one.
It was also important to Gee that--as she told me--my Romeo was not her type. "But I'm okay about kissing him," she'd added.
Fortunately, my Romeo was okay about kissing Gee--despite everyone in our school knowing that Gee had balls (and a penis). It would have taken a brave boy at Favorite River to have ventured to date Gee; it hadn't happened. Gee had always lived in a girls' dorm; even with balls and a penis, Gee would never bother the girls, and the girls knew it. The girls had not once bothered Gee, either.
Putting Gee in a boys' dorm might have been asking for trouble; Gee liked boys, but because Gee was a boy who was trying to become a girl, some of the boys definitely would have bothered her.
No one had imagined--least of all, me--that Gee would turn out to be such a pretty young woman. No doubt, there were boys at Favorite River Academy who had a serious crush on her--straight boys, because Gee was completely passable, and those gay boys who were turned on by Gee because she had balls and a penis.
Richard Abbott and I took turns driving Gee out to see Martha at the Facility. At ninety, Mrs. Hadley was a kind of wise grandmother to Gee; Martha told Gee not to date any boys at Favorite River.
"Save the dating for when you get to college," Mrs. Hadley had advised her.
"That's what I'm doing--I'm waiting on the dating," Gee Montgomery had told me. "All the guys at Favorite River are too immature for me, anyway," she said.
There was one boy who seemed very mature to me--at least physically. He was, like Gee, a senior, but he was also a wrestler, which was why I had cast him as the fiery-tempered Tybalt--a kinsman to the Capulets, and the hothead who is most responsible for what happens in the play. Oh, I know, it is the long-standing discord between the Montagues and the Capulets that brings about the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, but Tybalt is the catalyst. (I hope Herm Hoyt and Miss Frost would have forgiven me for casting a wrestler as my catalyst.) My Tybalt was the most mature-looking boy at Favorite River--a four-year varsity wrestler from Germany. Manfred was a light-heavyweight; his English was correct, and very carefully enunciated, but he'd retained a slight accent. I'd told Manfred to let us hear the accent in Romeo and Juliet. How wicked of me--to have my Tybalt be a wrestler with a German accent. But, to tell you the truth, I was a little worried about how big a crush Manfred might have had on Gee. (And I know Gee liked him.) If there was a boy at Favorite River who was conceivably courageous enough to date Gee Montgomery--that is, even to ask her for a date--that boy, who very much looked like a man, was my hot-blooded Tybalt.
By that Wednesday, we were off-script in Romeo and Juliet--we were in the fine-tuning phase. Our rehearsal was later in the evening than usual; we had an 8 P.M. start--due to Manfred being at a pre-season wrestling match somewhere in Massachusetts.
I'd gone to the theater close to our usual rehearsal time, about 6:45 or 7:00 on that Wednesday, and--as I expected--most of my cast would show up early as well. Come 8:00, we would all be waiting for Manfred--my most combative Tybalt.
I was having a political conversation with my Benvolio, one of my gay boys. He was very active in the campus LGBTQ group, and we were talking about the election of the new governor of Vermont, a Democrat--"our gay-rights governor," my Benvolio was in the midst of saying.
Suddenly, he interrupted himself and said: "I forgot to tell you, Mr. A. There's a guy looking for you. He was in the dining hall, asking about you."
I'd actually been in the dining hall for a quick bite to eat earlier that same evening, and someone else had told me there was a guy asking where he might find me. A young woman in the English Department had told me--a kind of Amanda-type, but not. (Amanda had moved on, to my relief.) "How old a guy?" I'd asked this young faculty person. "What did he look like?"
"My age, or only a little older--good-looking," she'd told me. I was guessing that this young English teacher was in her early thirties--maybe mid-thirties.
"How old a man, would you guess?" I asked my young Benvolio. "What did he look like?"
"Late thirties, maybe," my Benvolio answered. "Very handsome--hot, if you ask me," the gay boy said, smiling. (He was an excellent Benvolio to my cow-eyed Romeo, I was thinking.) My cast was showing up in the black box--some arriving alone, some in twos or threes. If Manfred got back from his wrestling match ahead of schedule, we could start our rehearsal; most of the kids still had homework to do--they would have a late night.
Here came my clergymen, my Friar Lawrence and my Friar John, and my officious-sounding Apothecary. Here came my chatterboxes--two junior girls, my Lady Montague and my Lady Capulet. And there was my
Mercutio--only a sophomore, but a long-legged and talented one. He had the requisite charm and derring-do for the likable but doomed Mercutio.
Straggling into the black box, not quite last, were various Attendants, Maskers, Torchbearers, my Boy with a drum (a tiny freshman, who could have played a dwarf), several Servingmen (including Tybalt's page), sundry Gentlemen and Gentlewomen--and my Paris, my Prince Escalus, and the others. My Nurse came at the end, shoving my Balthasar and my Petruchio ahead of her. Juliet's Nurse was a stalwart girl--a field-hockey player, and one of the most outspoken lesbians in the LGBTQ group. My Nurse did not countenance most male behavior--including gay and bi male behavior. I was very fond of her. If there were ever any trouble--a food fight in the dining hall, or a disaffected student with a weapon--I knew I could count on Juliet's Nurse to watch my back. She had a grudging respect for Gee, but I knew they weren't friends.
And where was Gee? I began to wonder. My Juliet was usually the first to arrive at the theater.
"There's a guy looking for you, Mr. A.--some creep who thinks very highly of himself," Juliet's Nurse told me. "I think he's hitting on Gee, or maybe he's just walking with her and talking to her. They're on their way here, anyway," my Nurse said.
But I did not, at first, see the stranger; when I spotted Gee, she was alone. I'd been discussing Mercutio's death scene with my long-legged Mercutio. I was agreeing with him that there is, as my talented sophomore put it, some black humor involved, when Mercutio first describes the seriousness of his stab wound to Romeo--"'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but 'tis enough. 'Twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man." Yet I cautioned my Mercutio not to make it the least bit funny when he curses the Capulets and the Montagues: "A plague o' both your houses!"
"Sorry I'm a little late, Mr. A.--I got delayed," Gee said; she looked flushed, even red-cheeked, but it was cold outside. There was no one with her.
"I heard some guy was bothering you," I told her.
"He wasn't bothering me--he's got a thing about you," my Juliet told me.