Saturday Morning, After Cartoons
Kristina and I entered the man’s house,
invited in for having been seen
petting with uxorious glee
a beagle of unimpeachable
manners. The man was a stranger to us, and he wore
no clothes as if that were the thing to do.
His house was a second floor apartment
on Aquidneck Street, a three-decker. Naked, fat and smooth,
that was who he was and I couldn’t figure out
if that was questionable, wrong or quite sensible,
when my mother arrived and started chatting
vigorously with let's call him “Frank”,
for whom she did the introductions.
They removed themselves to the back porch,
my mother’s trim legs in clam-diggers, the bowling pin
calves of our host, a study in contrasts, body parts
seen through the screen door. For some reason
I was terrified to glance at Frank’s
penis, despite the unspoken insistence
that it was his right to be naked, at least here, at home,
and perhaps elsewhere. Why did I want to stare at it?
Did I mention he was fat? When I finally did watch
his cock, as it rested calmly near the piped
edge of the porch recliner, the pink reminded me
of the sliced salmon Josh’s mother served with Sunday
breakfast. And this hooded thing, it was rather small
and shriveled, nearly overcome by the spittoon
which was his stomach, though it must be said
something of a hard-won solidity
characterized all that excess flesh.
My mother hadn’t seen Frank, a customer
from her former card shop, in ages. She
asked him a series of semi-sincere questions
(How was his colon? Did he still attend jai-alai?)
to which he responded with semi-detached
enthusiasm (Erratic, but manageable. Oh yes,
every Friday, Newport.) During this tepid conversation,
I was certain he kept one gray eye fixed on us
even though we were well out of view. It was
just a feeling I had.
Kristina and I made our way around the apartment, commenced
a careful inspection of Frank’s lean furnishings. We took
off our shoes, slid in sock-feet across the rugless,
highly polished hardwood, debated
whether it would be fun to live
among so few possessions; we were accustomed
to houses full of stuff, objects, knick-knacks, not much
room to move around in. My young grandparents--
beaming in their twenties, photogenic, newly married--
had accumulated many things in the optimistic flush
of post WWII prosperity. Frank’s taste coincided
in content if not excess. The fat green vase we liked
best of all, with its skinny neck of pale blue like an April
sky. It stood alone on a narrow corner table, the plaster’s
crease setting off its curves. I also remember a walnut
rack, home to a klatsch of unopened umbrellas, many
different colors dangling from the pegs. Did naked
men venture regularly into the rain? In the bedroom
we found an old TV: the oval picture tube,
slender legs of aluminium. Together we twiddled
the kitschy plastic knobs, rearranged the rabbit ear
antennae--it looked like an interplanetary relic, some
outlandish gizmo from Lost in Space. We thought
we might catch the start of Creature Double Feature
on Channel 56, but could only locate seven varieties
of snow instead. Despite its commodious size,
the high-ceilinged room held no chairs. Just a long chest
of drawers, an armoire, a queen-sized bed. No nightstand.
I asked Kristina where she thought he put his alarm
clock, his glass of apple juice when thirsty
in the middle of the night. It was a mystery to
remain unsolved: we looked beneath the bed: nothing,
not a pair of slippers, dustball, comic book, nor a single
dirty magazine like my father hid in great piles, neat
stacks. I could hear Ma and Frank reliving the fortuitous
sale of some brass andirons, though this apartment
had no fireplace, only a big gas stove; perhaps
they were a gift, a surprise for some friend, some
loved one, a relative. And with the empty space
under the bed fully charted, our curiosity shifted
to the careful stitches in the dainty primer, yellow
with age, simply framed, hung over the headboard.
The work of a long dead schoolgirl named Amaryllis
Ellen Essex (we couldn’t figure out
what that first word meant), it impressed us
with its tiny loops of red thread, the nifty differences
between upper and lower cases. We loved the dragonflies,
long-legged, delicate, darting along borders, sampling
the flowers--some of which we recognized from old
Miss Morton’s garden on Lucy Street. The girl
had also sewn a string of numbers, complex
fretworks in the corners, and a brief homily
of Protestant persuasion. But it was
the alphabet I admired most, a thing so
fundamental, long-held, from earliest
memory a child’s companion, one belief
you never forget. To look closer we had climbed
aboard the tidy bed, sprawled on the sea of white
spread, loonwork in a nubby Americana pattern.
I could have studied those letters forever, the in-
and-out of the stitches, language enthreaded,
but Kristina soon tired of the Aa, Bb, Cc;
said it reminded her of school, this was Saturday,
Christopher, and so we turned our backs
to stare up at the ceiling, to pick out images
revealed in the watermarked plaster: a duck with a briefcase,
a rolling pin, the exploding head
of a dandelion sending fuzz every which way,
and then came the holler, the augur,
the nasal pinch of Frank’s voice, arrowing in
from the back porch, perturbed,
a piping: Hey there,
no games on that there bed. Save the footsy
shenanigans for Hazelwood Park. And I realized
my socks had come off.
You should also know that Frank was bald
and what scared me most
was not the reprimand, nor the unorthodox nudity--no;
it was his puggish nose, a turbulent storm of gin
blossoms, flat and blunt, even pinker than
the dick and worse yet, to be kissed by such a face,
the thought of the embrace, the brush of that
hideous snout with its run of dark stubble
from mid-bridge to tip: the one region
on Frank’s body which seemed hospitable
to hair. Clearly he had shaved it, and I thought Ow,
that must hurt, even though I myself had years to go
before the plucking of strays, the management
of razors. After twenty minutes,
my mother ran out
of things to say, banal incidents over which
to reminisce, and Frank suddenly in a hurry
made it clear he had at least one important errand
to execute before Mass, he was a man with things to do.
He disappeared into the bathroom. My mother waltzed
in, located us, told us to straighten up: while she rummaged
through her purse, refreshed her frosted lipstick,
Kristina and I smoothed out the bed
as best we could, then organized the miniature
green luggage we toted most everywhere.
When Frank finished, I asked to go to the bathroom
myself. Small and all odd angles: a strange
arrangement: five walls, normal
toilet, wee sink. No tub. I peed
fast, went to wash my hands, didn’t expect such
strong pressure from so small a faucet. Water splashed, spattered
my overalls, it looked like I hadn’t made it
in time. How to explain the dark
stains near my crotch? I got nervous, imagined
something comparable happening to Frank, Frank’s
lavish smear of a body receiving beads of liquid: water,
oil, others, sunk into his pores, butterflies racing
through his corridors of blood. That dreadful spray
put me in sudden contact with the man’s veiny
skin: cool, beckoning: an affair I did not want
to comprehend, so I began washing the thoughts,
the images, from my arms, my face, my neck,
sink-side, further, faster, rougher,
but with scant success. And there was no tub!
What I needed most for my emergency,
I was not to have. I looked around the minuscule room,
frantic as a roach, and believed in God
when I discovered the copper shower head
blooming downwards from the ceiling, noticed
the drain in the floor, tile over every surface: a-ha!
the room itself served as Frank’s shower stall, yes,
I remembered something similar in a foreign movie
my parents had watched on the VCR.
I could save myself. Like a bullet
I shed my clothes, scaled the toilet, tucked my bundle
on top of the medicine cabinet, turned on
the hot water, took the gritty yellow
sliver of soap from the taunting
dish and began to wash as quickly
as my tiny hands would permit.
To the left of the mirror, near eye-view,
a small square pass-through ventilated
the windowless space, served as a perch
for purple flowers and filtered sounds
from the rest of the house. In those horrific
minutes I scrubbed and sloughed, I strained
to hear above the sound of water, to detect
what final pleasantries Mother and Frank
were busy depleting, and then I yipped
as that innocent vase broke,
crashed into a multitude of sharp bits, fragments--
not my fault--it was the thrust of the yammy
hand which did it--through the opening, five fat manicured
fingers groping the wet air, a rabid fist
within inches of my face: This kid is masturbating
under cover of shower water, wet-noise, a filthy
steam, I could hear Frank squeal
to my mother waiting in the front parlor,
as his pale pink arm, its fleshy underside,
filled that square like sausage to a casing.
In my head an echo: This kid is...this kid is...
Lies! Lies! LIES! That word over and over
in my head. Terrible, indecent. The shame
of lies before loving mothers. His words: brutal
untruths, inflictions I would turn on him
if given half the chance. And the flint, the knowing,
of what it is like, for the first time, to want
to kill, to erase another. I wanted to
disappear faster than the violet dye
streaming like confessions from the irises
of cheap silk fallen to my feet. “NO I’M NOT!”
I hollered, hoping my mother would hear
as I turned off the water and scrambled
into my clothes--I locked the door, thank God--
not even knowing what masturbation was.
…Hidden behind my mother, shoelaces untied,
I said ten, a dozen, twenty, fifty
times, “Tell him, Ma. Tell him I take
several showers a day. That I do, that I
have to.” This honest plea, it’s all I remember
except two things:
how Kristina tore her
favorite pinafore later that same day,
and Frank’s vehement insistence we redo the bed
because it wasn’t in the “spic 'n span” condition
in which we’d found it. My mother cared not
to make an even larger scene, so she volunteered
all three of us to the task: woman, son, playmate--
an expedient gesture, yes--but it meant a terrible
fate: I would have to touch the inside sheets
in order to escape.
And Frank watched like a warden as we stripped
the bed down to its mattress, reassembled each layer,
from boxspring to pillow sham. A whiff of bleach
can take me back to oblivious Kristina, her efforts
earnest yet wholly imprecise, mother remarkably
nonplussed as she guided us, demonstrating the art
of hospital corners. With all my might I focussed
on tuck and fold, symmetry, unearthly
precision, what I needed to do in order
to get out of there and never go back, amazing
beagle or not. How hard I tried not to consider
how this harmless bedmaking fed me to the interior
of fear, the smothery underneath
of sheets in which he’d slept, communion with his shed
dermis, tossings and turnings, the privacy
of an unclothed midnight, how it must be different:
the sleep, the cock, the skin...
Kristina and I, we don’t talk much
about him, that day, or those that would follow--the silence
is understood (but is it good?)--and whenever we stay out too
late
and have the bad luck to wake up to Mrs. Nardone
simmering meats next door--she uses far too much
oregano, heaps of it--I cannot help but think
of the sour-sweet
sachet we found under Frank’s middle
pillow, trimmed in worn velvet, shaped
like an ark and redolent beyond belief,
a keepsake embroidered with initials
not his, not Amaryllis’s, not mine, a someone
else’s I was never to know. Those are the mornings
the limbs kick themselves
out of sleep as if I am fly-paper
stupid, mad with exhaustion, newly drowned
in the contours of Frank, his spanking
clean bald skin, the hairless alcoves, repugnant
folds that wink at me as if to say:
Hell, my boy, is little,
little more than men.
Page(s) 55-60
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