Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     Just the once we slunk off, Jim Phairie and I, away from prying eyes. Too intent to stop for the cookies my mother offered we headed straight for my room. Up the carpeted stairs, past the pedestrian pictures my parents had hung in the hall and referred to as art. Received perhaps in lieu of payment for their service from a client embattled by the law, down on their luck, seeking the type of justice lawyers can provide if amply paid. Paid sometimes in chickens sometimes in pictures. Pictures I never thought much of, never stole a glance at, ignored consistently, would only discover years later their value, possible immense value, though still found their content pedestrian.

     Smiling, giggling, punching each other on the shoulder and slapping each other on the back, catching each other’s twinkling eyes and gasping, giggling again and laughing, I said, ‘Thank you, mom,” Jim said, “Thank you Mrs. Kongress,” taking a cookie in each hand like a greedy, hungry child. Stuffing a cookie in my mouth and grabbing my hand he lead me to my room, a path he could only guess.

     My silence as I chewed my mother’s cookies, store bought, not homemade, she not as much a homemaker as a legal partner in my father’s practice, my hand held, certainly unseen, Jim jabbering away, taking in every sight. Mentioning the pictures hanging in the hail, referring to them by name, “Isn’t that a Calder? A Matisse?” My mother’s ears hearing what she wanted to hear, a cultured boy who knew his pictures.

     Behind the closed door of my room we fell laughing upon my twin bed like puppies at play. The bed, Hot Wheels sheets, Star Wars comforter, was made up military style, as my father had taught me.

     “You can bounce a quarter on these sheets, Kenton,” he’d told me. Bounced a quarter to prove his point. Let me keep the quarter.

     Quarters didn’t bounce upon my military, how prosaic, bed cum trampoline. We did. Jim and I. Bouncing. He nibbling his cookie when he wasn’t nibbling me.

     Me, the dry and pedantic president of the student body. Jim Phairie the student body I most desired.

     Once is not enough. A book my parents had read. Or pretended to read. The hardbound bestseller in its suggestive paper wrapper hanging onto my parents’ coffee table for a season like a trophy was useful as a coaster gathering coffee rings and wine stains rather than having its pristine pages turned. I didn’t understand, the title having nothing whatever to do with my once not being enough.

     I attempt, have attempted to attempt, recreation of the event, the moment in my military styled bed, in his arms, cookie crumbs and all.

     This was he. Was me. Was we, us.

     First times are magical. I assume, presume, because my first time was. What has followed can not compare. Has not compared. Has not held up the promise. The promise of Jim. The promise he made laughing beside me.

     Not once in fifteen years of trying to recreate the magic, the moment, has any encounter with any man been like my first encounter with Jim.

     No one I meet is like him, has been like him, has treated me with the respect, the joy, the love, he placed upon me with his wit, his charm, his lips, his laughter or the pressing of his ready flesh.

     If, I wonder, spend days of months wondering, days of months after each new and disappointing encounter wondering, pondering, dreaming, if I were to meet Jim Phairie again, meet him again on this side of time and invite him to the safety of my room, away from prying eyes, would he be the same, could the moments we create together be moments we’d lived before.

     I can hear my father’s echo. “You’re a dreamer, Kenton. Come out of your dream world and join the living.”

     Join the living. Why would I want to join the living? What my father called the living. Cold inkhorns like himself and my mother. No hint of fun or play or the off chance of the unexpected. Me the off chance. The unexpected.

     Jim and I so unexpected.

     What was that thing? If you ignore history, history will be forced to repeat itself. Can history truly repeat itself? If I ignore history will it repeat? Is my problem applying too much thought on what has been? Am I so old, at such an age to be so old, to be so jaded?

     The act is far from repellent. On the contrary I can’t get enough. Only each encounter is not as I wish, or want, yes filled with lusty flesh pushing and pulling but not, I dare say, innocent. As it was innocent with Jim, my first time, cookie crumbs and all.

     Every sigh of his, of mine, every movement of ours a discovery. Explorers venturing forth upon a great adventure, seeking territory all our own, new territory, unexplored, unencumbered, unspoiled by those inkhorns my father considered the living.

     I’d lived my life within a bubble. A bubble of my parents’ concern. Their world view, so small, narrow, unyielding. Yet here was Jim Phairie, even if we’d never stumbled upon each other, fallen as it were into each other’s arms, fallen into my twin bed with the Hot Wheels sheets and Star Wars comforter, he would have changed me, changed my world view, pricked my stifling bubble to let a cool breeze blow through the hole.

     Fortune had spun her wheel and we had met. I’d set to sea with my three ships the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. I, ostensibly Columbus, bent on discovering a new world. If I could play act so noble a historical figure Jim had no difficulty play acting, was gladly content to become the continent I would discover, invade, claim as my own.

     Where is that joy? That moment? That innocence? What has become of my ships, their hardy crews and my conquered continent?

     Why with the lands who now invade, cross my borders into my now room, not the then room with the quarter bouncing military bed with Hot Wheels sheets and Star Wars comforter, the room above my mother’s den, she offering store bought cookies, happy to see me with a new friend, any friend, as a geek I had so few, actually none, “We’ve always wanted you to have friends,” my parents had on so many occasions said, is it different, the same with all new lands but different from my first adventure with Jim.

     How quickly my parents changed their joyful friendly tune. Not content with my having a friend like Jim Phairie. Having a friend like Jim Phairie would shortly spin our lives, more importantly my life, because they, the living, saw fit to interfere, into turmoil but at that moment that innocent moment as Jim led me up my stairs, stuffing one of my mother’s store bought cookies into my rapidly drying mouth, mom said, “You boys have fun now,” not knowing what fun we boys had in mind. Not in mind, rather, but in body.

     Those who venture to my now room, no little bed made up to bounce quarters, no licensed fifty-fifty poly-cotton sheets and comforter but one hundred percent cotton designer sheets and duvet, are not offered cookies. No mother below in my house. One day I hope to have my parents pictures, not necessarily to hang in my hall as they still hang in my parents’ hall but to sell, their value unassailable. Men join me for what our bodies provide. The physical interaction considered, insisted, obsessively promoted as most profligate and desired human interaction. “The simplest form of human communication,” I heard a radio headshrinker say. “Words need not be spoken. Just the constant thrum of flesh upon flesh, the low guttural moans coming not just from mouths but from the pseudopod-like configurations of our reptilian brains.”

     Who are these creatures? Not like continents waiting to be discovered. Not like Jim who had things to say. Had questions to ask. Asked with words. Asked with lips. Asked with eyes.

     Jim said my name with every kiss. “Kenton,” he said kissing me. “Kenton,” he said with his lips, his eyes, his words. Not since has my name been said with such passion or conviction.

     How often do any know my name, or care to know my name, or care to know me? The simplest form of human communication spoken here. We wouldn’t want to upset the natural order would we dad? Mom?

     How often had they kept me in line by sweetly barking, “We wouldn’t want to upset the natural order, would we Kenton?”

     What natural order? I see no natural order. I see only unnatural disorder. We wouldn’t want to upset the unnatural disorder would we my dearest parents? No. Not us. Not you. And not your child. Not me who went looking for myself and found something of me in Jim Phairie.

     Upsetting to your natural order, or mine? I was following my path, only to be interrupted by yours. You feared for me mother.

     “Your father and I are afraid for you Kenton,” you said mom.

     You worried about me father.

     “Your mother and I are worried about you, Kenton,” you said dad.

     Were you? Are you? Or was it more your fear and worry about upsetting the natural order of your lives? Wouldn’t my being who I was meant to be reflect badly upon the cardboard image you fabricated to face the world?

     Certainly the blame is all mine. I allowed my transportation. I allowed the desecration of my life. What choice did I have? A child. A teenager. I had no rights. I was wrong in your eyes and you saw fit to punish me. To take from me what I had found of myself.

     What I found of myself in Jim Phairie’s eyes. Not since, as hard as I have looked, as hard as I have been looking, have I seen myself reflected in anyone’s eyes as I was reflected in the eyes of Jim Phairie.

     In the glow of the mystery of the green of his eyes I saw myself whole, could see myself laughing, could see myself far from the country of my birth creating something new, bold, alive. Something my own, no one could take from me.

     And yet it was taken.

     Jim would have been content to hold hands and kiss. “I’m content to hold hands and kiss, Kenton,” he said not wanting to push, prod, make me trundle, totter, troop across so many boundaries at once.

     I didn’t need or require pushing, prodding, all boundaries down, no boundaries up, a unified world, I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing, or was expected, supposed to do. Every school child hears about the acts, talks about the acts, reads about the acts scrawled with clumsy misspellings on lavatory walls, thinks, fantasizes about the acts but when it came to putting that round peg into a square hole or a square peg in to a round hole or holes and pegs in general I was as lost as a fish upon land.

     What land! So yielding, covetous and demanding. My gills sucking desperately to garner breath, forgetting totally in the thrall of Jim my very human lungs could, would breathe air.

     “Here,” said Jim.

     “Here?” I asked.

     “There,” said Jim.

     “There?” I asked.

     “Here Kenton. There Kenton. Everywhere Kenton,” said Jim and I was here, there and everywhere.

     The narcoleptic sound of his voice intoning my name intoxicated me. Drunk on the ether of myself Jim Phairie stole me to uncharted islands the school child I was never dreamed, couldn’t fathom, existed. Not with all the hearing, talking, reading of misspelled words, thinking or fantasizing I had done on the subject of carnal acting.

     “All the world’s a stage,” William Shakespeare wrote and as a high school student I read. What exactly did he mean? Would I need great acting skills to deal with the onslaught of men, those after Jim, not in any way like Jim, who rarely speak or know my name. Who push and prod demand this or that or this and that.

     Only too glad am I to comply making demands of my own. This. That. Here. There. Yet not once, with any of the actors upon my stage, have I relived those frantic fumbled moments that one special afternoon in my room with Jim.

     Why not? I can’t help but demand of myself, of the natural order.

     What keeps me from the very threshold of exquisite pleasure?

     Might it have been Jim Phairie saying, “I’d like to see you often, Kenton. We should see each other often.”

     “All the time, Jim,” I’d mumbled foolishly, my cheeks burning bright.

     “All the time, Kenton,” Jim had winked burying his face in mine.

     Jim Phairie had wanted me often, had wanted me all the time. Often, all the time, not just for an afternoon, that afternoon, after school with cookie crumbs on my lips and in my bed, an after school special about differently abled children drowning out our guttural noises. Noises we kept hushing for fear they might creep under my door.

     My mother was a brazen woman. She would have had no compunction to place her ear against a glass against my door or an adjoining wall. Hearing Jim say, “Here, Kenton. There, Kenton. Everywhere, Kenton,” might give her clues to geography but to nothing more. We could have been speaking about distant China, exotic Japan, unimagined Papua New Guinea.

     Confused by the sounds of distant shores my mother would not have been brazen enough to knock. Not like other moms wanting to know what was going on by knocking and Asking, “Would you boys like some iced tea?”

     My mother wouldn’t have done that. Never did that. So pleased was she I’d found an interest, found a friend.

     At times when my father was being brutal, bullying me for information about myself, my mother would step to my defense and say, “Children must be allowed their privacy, Joe.” Dad would nod his head, lay off his inquisition, rebuffed but not rebuked. He’d take me up later out of mother’s reach until he’d satisfied himself his information was complete. He could jot it in the fatherly dossier he kept concerning his one and only son.

     “You’re my one and only son, Kenton,” said dear old dad. “Contrary to what your mother may say, I want to know all about you.

     Only when dad found out all about me, his one and only son, he wasn’t entirely pleased.

     “Horrible,” said dad when he discovered the truth, “upsetting the natural order of things.”

     Before truth, mom and dad were palpably excited by the prospect of my having a friend. Not often did I bring children home to be my playmates. Never actually. Sometimes I’d have studymates in around the dining table and we’d hash through algebra or geography eating store bought cookies from the plate my mother offered but never before had I brought someone home and taken them to my room.

     “What do you mean he took a boy to his room?” asked dad.

     “Shut the door,” said mom. “I couldn’t hear a thing. Not even through the linen cupboard wall.”

     “What do you think they were doing?” asked dad curiously. “Listening to records?”

     “You know Kenton doesn’t listen to records, Joe,” said mom. “He’s a good boy. We brought him up right. He knows popular music is for devil worshippers.”

     “We’ve given him free reign when it comes to faith,” said dad.

     “He doesn’t have it in him to go that far,” said mom. “They watched tv. Sounded like an after school special to me.

     “You don’t think,” asked dad, “they were playing tv to cover their tracks? Like kids who burn incense to cover the smell of cigarettes or reefers?”

     That’s the one dad. We played the tv to cover our tracks. Not burning incense like other kids did, but I’ve never done, would never do until the turmoil, until you and mom ever curious found out the truth about Jim Phairie and me.

     Found out who my new friend was. Found out what he’d done. And what he was doing with your, one and only, son.

     The military school, beds all a bounce with quarters, quarters all a bounce with boys, where you sequestered me for my own protection, “This is for your own protection, said mom, said dad, was a cold prison. I learned more in sequestration than I ever learned on the outside with Jim Phairie, folks.

     I learned to smoke cigarettes and pot, and enjoy those bouncing boys in bouncing quarters in ways Jim and I never got around to.

     To you, and the natural order, this arrangement passed for acceptable. As the arrangement passes for acceptable here, now. To be what you want me to be even outside of who you are. As long as I don’t pretend I am happy, or alive. A natural martyr to my condition. My condition a condition not a fact.

     One afternoon, for a single moment in my far away then room, in the presence of greatness, in Jim Phairie’s arms, I was uniquely proud. Believed myself a rebel. A real wild child.

     Not so proud. Not so rebellious. Neither wild or a child any longer. Fifteen years have fled and nothing has compared, nothing, to my momentous moment with Jim, in my room, Hot Wheels sheets, Star Wars comforter, cookie crumbs and all.

     Nothing like it because nothing has been like it. Nothing even coming close.

     Then, we were us, we, Jim and I and not since have I had the chance to be me with any of those who have been here, with me, now.

     We are not us or we, no barriers or borders down, always separate nations, warring and at peace, never joined, thrumming, throbbing, whiling away an afternoon the tv spilling some tripe about the differently abled, cookie crumbs ground into my bare bottom and Jim nibbling them off, mom wandering around the den a plate of cookies in her hand and a look of curiosity creeping across her face, Jim and I, we, us, contemplating where we’ll go, teaching each other where we’ll go and having the unencumbered sense to take each other with abandon.