A Matter of Love in da Bronx

by Paul Argentini

  --Sam! Do you feel the exhilarating excitement!

  --You mean I don't always shake like this? Oh! Lover! How stupid! How could you say such a thing after thinking, and dreaming, and rehearsing, and repeating, and revising this moment all night and all day! That's really an impressive repartee, Jerk. Can you believe what came out of your mouth? Like your brain was in disengage! When she left you last night, you thought you'd be a human fly, climb up the side of her home, and slip into the window of her bedroom to be with her again. It took ten hours to write, “I love you!” There is no potion that will bring you sleep for when you close your eyes there is only the reverie that plays and replays her as a revenant. And when I keep my eyes open I find only the blankness of a world without her. Then, in the morning, there is only the exhaustion that comes from a caesarian of the brain with approximately the same mental capacity with which to face the day. Can you believe, putting underwear on backwards? But leaving it that way? Half-shaving? No breakfast? Losing my way to work? Dissolving hours and hours into a single cup of coffee? Until the telephone rang your ring. Instant relabotomization. The true wonder, how I remembered what you said! Only that your words came back to me in a haunted kaleidoscope:--Upholsteryshop!

  --Sam? ...Sam?

  --It's you. Now, that is brilliant. Really laidback, easygoing, cool, Mr. Popularity, Huh? As if you were expecting a hundred other calls from the heavens. Smart; let her think you've misplaced the sound of her voice. That you have to be reminded of whom she is. Why didn't you just say you grew deaf the day just waiting to hear your name spoken in a way earthlings never could. Like that: Sam! ...Sam? Sorry, dear, I attribute it to a swollen heart that has engorged all avenues of common thought and deed.

  --It is I. Sweetheart... God! Oh! God! Oh! Good god! She feels it, too.

  --..I'm working with my mother. I wasn't alone to call all morning long. But, we're ready to leave now. I'm in the bathroom. I want to see you but I can't...

  --What are you saying? I don't understand. We must see each other, and we can...

  --No! You don't understand! Oh! My mother wants to leave. She's calling! I must go!

  --Not until you tell me where and when! Now where did this aggression come from? Me? Push against someone else's wishes! What happened to the easygoing, accommodating fellow I knew you to be? I'll die if I have to wait for another call!

  --Yes! Yes! On Morris Park, just up my block, the candy store...

  --Yes! Yes!

  --I'll dash out...two minutes! That's all there will be! Two minutes! ...

  --Wait! Wait!

  --No, I must go... Banging on the door...

  --I'll wait all day and night if need be...

  --I won't disappoint you! I won't, my dearest! Wait for me! I'll be there...four o'clock... Then, mouthing a whisper, undirected by anything more than a single vibration of her heartbeat, thundering only in the halls of the heavens, soundless to everything except his soul it moved him beyond all things earthly and ethereal.

  --I love you, too.

  Loathe he was to hang up the phone, and would not have done so if the weakness he felt in his knees did not increase. Giddyness ran rapid in transit of his veins, the flow of his blood on roller bearings heated steaming hot by the surge of emotional fusion. What desert thy is not altered by a thundershower? What cavern sunlight? What blacknight the moon? If not the dullbarren soul by love? Swollen I find this emotional stream beyond all expectations. There! I find myself in an ocean of love. How its tide washes over me to slip me so sense truth...but that because of its heat it burns the more rapidly with none of it left the moment after but breezecaught ashes, and castoff memory? What craziness. Crazy insanity. How could that be? That she would leave me? Doomed are you for saying she'd do so. Oh! You fool! Why do you pursue such nonsense when you know the wonders of this angelic woman: that she has kissed you, that she will meet you, that you will see her, that she loves you! I mean, has this sunk in yet? Do you know what it means? Just to give you an idea, think of what it is you know now and in what a palace this love has you now reside, and what your abode would be like if for the rest of your life this moment had never come. You need only the funeral dirge to complete the answer. And, tell me? Will you give her the letter you wrote in this morning's early hours? I know why you ask, too: You wonder if she'll laugh at your love's cupellation. Sam! No one does that anymore. No one writes their feelings with such ingenuousness. No one. Don't be stupid! Oh! I must allow myself the error; there is no one else the whole world over who says the words.

  --I love you, Sam. I love to feel you so close! I missed you so badly since last night. We have only moments, I must get back before I'm missed.

  --Darling how the nearness of you makes me feel like I've been dropped from a jet...

  --I'll miss your words, but more than that I'll die should I miss the feel of your lips on mine. Kiss me! Kiss me, dear love. He found her essence come to him like the smell of a sunwarmed bouquet of brightpetaled blooms, enveloping his senses with the statics of exploding delights continuously increasing until he gasped for relief bringing her hard into him with gentle lips on gentle lips gently urging licks of fire, soon discovering a parting in hers that incited activity of his neurosensational reactor. He found his lips part, too, with her sweetness calling for the total immersion of their coupled feelings and the crashing away of all restraints. Hardness to hardness, he became aware. To move away? She urged him the harder to hardness.

  --Darling! Darling, mine! Tell me something of this moment that will give it to me forever!

  --Ah! My sweet! Take it in! Take in this moment with every sensation it offers. Be here! Be present! Ignore not a moment. No conjurer can substitute a dream for this reality if you recognize it for what it is!

  --I will! I will! Let me savor more the treasurous gift you bring...give...give... Metallic glassrap, Dak!dak!dak!

  --You in there I gotta make a phone call go rent a motel room for the love of god...

  --Your eye! My god! What happened to your eye? Like an eggplant plastered paper who tried to kill you, my good god!

  --It's nothing...really. I must go.

  --Mary! Tell me!

  --Here, I wrote for you... Silver on glass Dak,dak!DAK! Curmudgeony, grossnosed, evillooker.

  --And I to you! Letters were exchanged, her sunglasses repositioned, a shuffling to extricate themselves, then a long glance incorporating long telegrams of messages with the lingering touch. He mouthed the words: I must see you again soon. She nodded, moving away, answering in kind: Maybe tonight. Then, together, words to words: I love you.

  Somehow she would get word to him. Somehow if it was at all possible, they would meet again before the day was over. There was so much more reason now than ever before.

  How could he know what he was asking? And if he did, how could he understand? His mind was not his own.

  CHAPTER 21

  VIOLETS FRESHPICKED in a field under a warm friendly sun that did bring tiny beads of wet between her breasts while the heady exaggeration of their captivating powers unleashed a giddy swelling in her heart is what she came to feel instead of the panic and fear that held her fast until she made the rooftop of her home where the laundry had flapped itself dry. Safe. She had raced away to keep her rendezvous with him when the last clothespin was pushed in place in its proper moment. She had drudged the seconds to set aside five minutes--ninety seconds to get to him, ninety seconds to return, and two minutes to spread over forever with him. If her father beat her out in this hairsplitting race, sobeit. She might as well wear sunglasses for two eyes as for one. Back against the heavy metal door, hand over her heart, she shoved her face to the falling sun, urging the breeze's coolness to contrast the heat she felt. The violets segued to their meeting. What was it that came full and strong? The kiss! Yes, the kiss. How absolutely breathtaking in its simplicity, in its innate fervor, in its majesty. Yes, how exciting; how delicious; how pleasing! But there was something more, wasn't there! Ah! Yes! Am
I to be embarrassed to admit it? It was real, my god, so why be anything but real? The full and fall and feel of him! How quick it came. By what magic does it arrive? How fast the blood drained downward surging, gurgling, gushing to my most sensitive of regions! How beyond command it seemed to demand a satisfaction, a faraway calling clamoring to an unreasonable reason. Then and there. No waiting. Nothing to consider. Simply an act, acceptable by acclamation: The party of the first part, and the party of the second part to ratify the first and second parts to be known as Part One. A reorganization it was. A joining. To form a more perfect union. Her softness, his hardness. How long before she would know of it. Really. Ah! If luck had worked to have them in the room last night where she wanted so much to leave her innocence. What other sign did they need, but that each to the other words needed to be flown? Dearest! How demanding is my curiosity to read your letter! What is it you will say that I have not already said to you? Still, I want to know. I want to devour it syllable by syllable, undisturbed to relish each phrase, each nuance, each delight. Shall I lock myself in the bathroom? Wait for the quiet of my bedroom, though that may be late at night, and my thought is to see you again before then. Perhaps now, here in the day's last blaze of sunlight? Ah! Yes! That I will have longer to carry your words in my heart! That I may excavate amongst my emotions for the proper sentience with which to respond. Yes, I will! Can I guess at your first words? Yes, I must have you with me at this moment if only in the cruel embodiment of lines and paper. Here, you say--Friday evening my dearest heart, Mary: --Oh! Universe! What is it we have come upon to find? My dearest heart, Mary, he says, and I feel he bestows no greater love to anyone, anywhere, in this world, or--Lord! Save Us! In Heaven Above! I'm terrified by what that thought can bring to us, but how my heart fills with joy! ... Your name alone conjures a distillation of such purity its exquisite essence blossoms to envelop my mind, my heart, my soul, and fills my very being with suchpassions of the earth, the sky, the winds, and universe that I actually envision you before me so consuming is my desire to be with you. I liken it to seeing a freshcut morning-dewed rose, which, long before its quintessence...

  --Mary!

  Oh! God! For sure we'll be sent to Hell! These feelings are much too great for such simple souls as we... Ah! Perhaps that's the wisdom that strives to keep us apart...

  --Mary! I need you!

  Papa needs to check up on me. How do I leave these words now that they have started their searing passage through my soul? --I hear you!

  --Where have you been! How easy he is to read. So blatant are his wiles. He sets too bulky a snare.

  --I went upstreet.

  --I knew that! I saw you! I knew you sneaked out! Where did you go? What did you do? Who did you see?

  The usual paranoia. Who is he afraid of? In his state, a clean slate would become a target. Better I give him something to rail about. --I wanted to get cigarettes. I did. I really did. And, though half a truth is a lie, discretion is the better part of taking another beating, so he won't hear of the other half which was that I went to meet Sam at the telephone booth. And I didn't sneak out, not if you saw me go.

  --Keep it closed, Tramp! And give me the cigarettes; they'll put you on the path of Hell.

  --I didn't get any. I didn't have any money with me.

  --Liar! Redswelling face. You...

  Halfway out the front door: --I'm going back up to the roof for the laundry, and I'll be back down when I'm through. ...when I'm through reading his precious words blank off the page...

  Within moments, Mary was back to a corner of the roof, seated comfortably, taking the breeze easy-to in all pores as every sphere inside her filled with his expressions of love with the same sun's rays bouncing off the pages in her hand also touching those in his some straightmile distant where he sat on a Bronx Park bench reading: -- Friday evening Sam, my dearest: You are lost to me forever. Our precious few moments together this night will have to take me through my lifetime. When I've completed this to you I will relive each of our moments moment by moment to be sure I have missed none. To lose a look, a glance, a touch, a word, a gesture...

  She read his letter five times aware that each time she went back over it she held her breath for as long as she could. She started again: My dearest heart, Mary...when she stopped. Her halfblank gaze went over the top of the paper, past the chimneypots, to the tip of a bit of green far to the distance as the realization splattered in her mind that at that exactsame moment Sam was reading her letter.

  ...Mary this trice is reading my letter.

  Significant. The instant was so significant, so blatant, so illuminatingly simple they both missed it. Caught by the wonder of it, caught by the concern of losing what they had, caught by a path well-salted with doubt, neither one could believe the revelation itself, no less that it was a foretokening. They had inspiritualized each other. They could feel it. They could sense it. They could acknowledge it. But, they couldn't believe it. They had never known of it, nor heard of it--except in vague references such as a mother screaming herself awake to know her soldier son had been killed--so they really never quite knew how to react. He attributed the sexual flooding in his body to a healthy libido. She to a forewarning of menses. Each thought of the other; each felt pelvic sphincters contract involuntarily hard enough to bring an earbuzz and make them shiver; each acknowledged an overwhelming urge to find relief in an orgasm. They skipped right over it, too, because one thought flooded both minds: When would they see each other again.

  I read his letter and think how do we meet. I read his letter, and pull in some wash. I read his letter, and stare down the distance. I recite his letter by heart, pull in the wash; say more of the lines, do more of my chores; savor a phrase, and revel in my exultation! But when do I see you again?

  My mother returns from her mysterious Saturday afternoon excursion, one she's been making for years. I note it more this day than any other because disappointment is full on her face, rather than with the perky redness to her cheeks. Although I'm busy preparing stuffed peppers for dinner, I can hear the conspiratorial tones coming from the television room.

  --What do you mean, there's nothing! A short, mumbled response from mother. How can this be? ...the sons of bitches trying to pull! ...don't they realize...?

  Mother crying...no! sniffling. Like snuffling some great sadness.

  I can't sustain the concentration for their affairs because I inhale thoughts of you with every breath. How will I get in touch with you? Even if I could get out tonight, which I doubt, how do I get word to you? And where? And for how long? It was "you," rarely his name afraid she would say it out loud where they might hear, and start an inquisition.

  --Mary! For goodness sakes! That’s the third time I've spoken to you. Have you gone deaf?

  --Sorry, Ma...

  --You must be getting the curse. Yes?

  --No, Ma. I'm not due, just yet, but I'll be damned if I'll tell her that.

  --Are you worried?

  --No, Ma.

  --You can talk to me...about anything.

  --About my period?

  --Yes. Did you and Vito...

  --No, Ma. I'll talk to you about my period because you're worried about it. Not I.

  --Oh! I was just trying to be a friend.

  --You're not supposed to be a friend, you're my mother.

  --Thanks. I didn't know that made me dead to having feelings of my own. You act like you're in love...

  God! If Pa hears that he'll chain me to the radiator unless I prove it's Vito I'm after! Why does my mother remind me of a sail on a boat that's tattered to pieces? She can't do for herself, how can she do for anyone else? About as useful as an unfulfilled promise. What can she know about love except mechanical humping? I'd better get her off the love track. --Ma? How long have you known that Pa could stand?

  And would you interpret the look on her face? Sure, that's easy. The indictment is clear. She was always part of the conspiracy. She must've always known.

&nbs
p; --I think I always knew. I never knew for sure.

  --Can he walk?

  --I've never seen him walk.

  --Then, how did you know...?

  --If you're paralyzed, you're paralyzed. If you can use your legs for one thing, you can use them for another.

  --And he did something he could only do if his legs were okay.

  --Not did. Does.

  Why do I suddenly feel embarrassed? Because that may have something to do with...making love? Then why? --Oh! Why would he incapacitate his whole world and everything and everyone in it? All the years! The ages I, you, everyone has had to put up with an incapacity that was put on! I could...I could...