A Matter of Love in da Bronx (34 page)

Now the viewer sought absolution and forgiveness and an excuse to rid the acrid, copper taste from his throat. The perpetrator was a rotten shit and needed an evening of the score, one to remember. The short, heavy branch flew through the air striking him just above and behind his ear to send him tumbling crashing back down the knoll.

No matter what, citizens had a civic responsibility, a moral obligation to keep the world in order, and a price to pay for their pleasures. Besides, no true boy of the Bronx ever called on a bull in blue to take care of a matter best expedited without red tape.

Sam felt his stomach rumble and heave. The vision transmitted to his eyes was of Luce. He related to what he had just witnessed to the fragility of the aberrant mind. It had to do with the most fragile element of mankind—Man's mind. It rode a gossamer bridge to insanity, to savagery, to raw animalism. Civilization's only promise was Man's eligibility to be a victim, as Luce was, as this boy was, as anyone could be. Even Sam. Even Mary. Never too early to make funeral arrangements.

That was an excellent rationalization, thought Sam, as he headed out of the park toward the shop gripping Mary's letter tight to his chest over his heart as proudly a color guard the legion's banner. Insignificant it was that no one else understood the meaning. Then, just before he was to leave the park, he concentrated on the minute vibrations coming to his fingertips on the envelope. He read the letter two more times. He knew what he had to do. At first, his thoughts had been dominated with the idea of getting to the shop to be by the phone in case she called. Now, he knew she would not. That message was very clear. --I don't know how I know that, but I do! And, I'm not going to analyze how the feeling comes to me, but I will see Mary before the day is over; I just have to be in the right place at the right time. Does she know it? I don't know. I don't think so. It does give me the afternoon, and I'm not going to the shop. Before, there was never a question because I had to immerse myself in staying busy. Now I have a nicer busyness, I want to get something for Mary. I don't know what. Something. Let's go looking. Where? Eden Farms, that's closest.

With eager, purposeful strides, he was there in short order, slowing down, ambling along as he checked out the windows. "What to get? What to get? What to get?" ran and re-ran the rhythmic phrase. On his first trip around, he considered then discarded every thing he saw and thought would be appropriate. He would start around again.

Then! He saw it! In the cheapy discount store! Skewered to the center of dust-laden robin's-egg blue velvet square was a heavy gold heart, the size of a silver dollar. The edge carried a braided design; the chain was long, heavy. --Far this price you want engraving? So! Engraving I'll give you! The owly, bald, bespectacled gnome invoked. Three days absolute! All right! You can't vait so long, far you I have in couple hours! Far two sides you want, too! All right! So look around! Far sure you don't find better! You like? So why don't you take? Pay kesh you don't pay tex. Yah? You good judgment she will appreciate. Do me favor! Don't take now! You come back when you see what is a good price dot. Anyplace else is minimum $25. More, I guarantee. So take it! Take it! ...Fine! Fine! I hold far you far an hour! You be beck!

Walking out of the store, Sam knew he could've taken it right then and there, but, there was that feeling that made him hesitate, and he did promise himself to go around Eden Farms one more time. If he didn't come up with anything more perfect, he'd get it, unlikely it would be sold in the meantime.

Then! There it was!...again! The verysame heart! In the classy jewelry store right next to the photographer! In a square velvet box sparkling from the blazing spotlights right in the middle of the window. It was the same--exactly; the same size and heaviness; the same braided design on the edge; the same heavy chain although he couldn't determine its length. The clerk pulled it from the window. It was their last one. Yes, they could engrave. It would take an hour, at extra cost.

Sam felt the weight of it in his hand. He looked hard at it. Then, up at the clerk; back across the expanse of Eden Farms at the discount store. The price was $25. More than its matching counterpart across the street. So, the old man was right. In Sam's mind there was no question about which of the two hearts he would buy for Mary. He held it up by the chain before him sighting through it to the snobby, thin, balding clerk. A slight smile crossed Sam's face when the clerk put it back in its box, and started to return it to the window.

Next, he had a chore to do just up the street. Carefully, at the florist's, he printed the name and address: Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln Jackson...

Then, at the shop he had enough time to check the mail, collect the notes left by two customers who wanted their chairs, and another who asked that her sofa be picked up. A quick check told Sam he had only enough work for two days, even if he did some of the stuff that had been lying around for months. No matter, he'd get it all done then spend time really cleaning the place out. He was half way through Mary's letter again when the phone rang. He stared at it. He knew it would not be her. --Yes.

--Don't yes me, you son of a bitch, love's grand!

--Hey! Lou, don't break my balls.

--I stopped by earlier. I have to talk to you.

--Come on, Lou, don't jerk me off, you always had the answers. Now you have to talk to me? You can only have one of my balls, you know that, left or right, which?

--Are you going to be there, I'll come down, maybe around eight-thirty?

--Sure, Lou, I'm sorry for your troubles.

--What troubles?

--He who lives by an erection...

--...dies with each orgasm. Ain't it the truth? Later.

--Later.

Later, by forty minutes, Sam stood in the doorway of Santini Moving and Storage, and had just turned away from the activity involving the burning car when he was chondrificated. Mary? In the dusk? Standing on the corner. Alone? Waiting for someone? He forced the doefever to pass. --Mary!

--Sam!

Disbelieving the reality, in the day's near-failed light, as in a dream, she drifted into the doorway with him. Tenuously, they touched hands, unsaid a thousand words, understood a heartful of explanations. With an almost imperceptible movement, she responded moving closer to him.

For Sam, it was the apperception of the omniscient moment in the park while reading her letter that he knew--he
knew--
he would see her there at that very time that caused the moment of shock. Delighted? Absolutely. But how did he know? Did he wish for it so much reality lost its distinguishability? Perhaps. But at that second, he didn't care. Really. He was prepared to raise the art of total presence to a new science, where he combined the mystical erudition of the orient and psychoalterantchemicals to perform in standard time yet record in extreme slow motion. Not one dot of a sensation, not one fraction of a fragmented motion, not one bit of a beat escaped the videotape of his mind. Quite deliberately, their arms went the same about each other, one at the waist, one at the neck, so smoothly, so slowly as if they greeted so all their lives. Gentle it was to draw out of the gesture all of its sensuality. They stood so for long moments as stare descended deeply into stare seeing only the blur of passion's ebullition. Bliss, exquisite piercing bliss, slivered out in a heated hiss for disenunciated appellations of love ending as lips covered lips, the flush of sweetness flooding the senses; racing blood pulsepounding heart, head, vital other places. The wet of her kiss, the put of her hand, the push of her body crashed into his senses which were sending out reserves to meet the heat of his kiss, the command of his hand, the shaded solicitation. Deep they did of each other. Not to stop. Not to stop. Not to stop. She did, not to faint on the spot.

--My dearest, how did you know?

--I knew.

--You knew?

--I was prepared to wait all night. I have so much to tell you. Kiss me again!

--I have so much to tell you... We mustn't... People will see us. I'm sorry. I can't keep my hands off of you.

--Mary, I want to hold you again.

--Stay...there. Please...! God! Oh! God! So this is what it's like? We have a few moments only...my mother...

--There is so much to tell you! Where to start! Let's not do it this way, better, let's run away!

--Yes! Do it! Let's be together always!

--Come! Then!

Mary, I want to kiss you. Kiss me.

Sam, I want to kiss you. Kiss me.

The instant was the same for both as they stepped toward the other. This time his arms captured her waist, hers his neck. The instant, filled with fear they would lose this moment, too, inspired them to clutch hard at each other. The instant was anchored in one swift, conspicuous meeting of their eyes followed by lips searching out lips. Each found the delicious moistness of the other painting their ardor, each pressing the harder into the other, the peripheral consummation dissatisfying, frustrating; the mounting tension demanding complete release.

Bewildered, not understanding how it happened, Sam found his tongue tracing her lips with the confounding sensation that there was a direct connection, as an electrical current, that stimulated the head of his penis. So swift the engorgement of his organ, to near-bursting, it was excitingly painful.

A barrage of thoughts and sensations in each:

Sam:

My God! What's happening? What a thrilling experience! Can this really be true, that I'm holding Mary in my arms, that I'm kissing her, that she's kissing me back? Lord! I have such a hard-on! Embarrassing? No, no need. Not after this afternoon. She knew it was hard then, and seemed to like it, not mind it. Why should we try to conceal it now? Feels like it's going to bust. It's up against her bone down there. She knows it. Pushing back against it. Dry hump. That's what we're doing, dry humping. Good thing it's gotten dark or for sure we'd be spotted in this doorway. What a place to be. We should go someplace. Where? If I had a car we could run off to a motel, up Boston Post Road, or someplace. Feel that! Her hand on your neck, pulling you in tight to her lips. She wants me as bad as I want her. God! What's happening! My tongue! Down! In! Between her teeth, into her mouth, touching hers! Flicking about. Oh! God! Oh! God! Oh! God! She's sucking it! Like she's ready to suck it out by the roots! Holding it in her mouth so tight! My God! I've never known anything like this before! I think I'm going to explode. Is this really me? Am I going to wake up with a wet dream? How alive! How exciting! I would do anything not to ever have this end! Imagine if we were alone, in a room, where we could do this, and do this, and do this as long as we wanted, then when we couldn't stand it any more, we would go all the way and make mad, passionate love again and again. Oh! God! Stop! Stop! You're going to drive yourself crazy! Where are all these feelings coming from? I don't care! Just don't have them stop! Those sensations running up and down my legs, through my penis, filling my chest. I feel so light-headed! Hey! Look! That's me! Here I am standing on the sidewalk looking in this doorway watching me holding and kissing Mary, thrusting and rubbing your swollen cock into her, and she rolling her hips around into you, moving her head back and forth trying to burrow deeper into your mouth. I can see the aura between the both of you of extreme sexual agitation. So much so, I would say, that another five seconds of this activity, and you'll both be tearing the clothes off each other, and fucking there and then. The law? Say what? --Mary, Mary! I love you! Stop, we must stop or I'll die on the spot! Oh! Jesus! I was almost...I was right on the verge...I almost came!

Mary:

This man loves me. I know it! How I adore him! I would do anything for him! How he grasps me so tightly, yet so gently, yet I need to feel him more violently still! Press my lips! Yes! Press them hard! Bruise them to let me remember the reality of this dream. Kiss me harder! Bite me! Anything! Anything but let me feel the more of you! Sweet Jesus! The feel of his tongue. I want it in me. How easy! To suck it in, and hold it tight filling me completely with desire to possess in me him, in him me! And, yes, the hardness again at my bump at my vee. His penis. Erect. Excited. Wanting. Needing. Prodding. Urging. I can't help the grinding, the churning back at him. How I want to feel that hugeness inside me. What must that be like? Oh! I don't care! I don't care for anything except to respond to this summons from my heart and soul. It seems to stem from eons past, beyond my control, my understanding. As if the importance of this act is beyond us as persons, that we are merely designates performing a designated task for which we are rewarded with no small measure of enjoyment. It is what male and female do. Preferably with some attraction. Preferably with feeling. Preferably with love. What a warm and comfortable sensation to be held so physically and emotionally close at the same time. How dare I not seek out the explosion in my brain that will occur in that instant when his love-filled penis enters me fully for the first time? How different will it be when his in and out and in and out heat me to burning hot and ignites my overfilled pit of passion until an exploding orgasm floods through me? No holding back. Total release. Ecstasy. Madness. And how cheap a price to give my soul for more...

--Sam, I love you! Oh! Don't stop! Press close--down there--some more...!

She's talking about my hard-on! She wants me not to stop dry humping her! --No! Stop!

--Are you so bothered? I can feel how hot and straining hard it is.

--I'll bust wide open...

--Sam...darling...give me your hand... please... Sweet Mother Mary my vagina feels so full and heavy. Pulsing. Flooded. My nipples are so hard they hurt! My thing is straining back at his, and rubbing it makes me feel so funny...

What is it? She's taking my hand. God! I feel like I'll split my seams... She's bringing it to her...there! She's pushing my hand, my fingers into her! Rubbing her hard...her hand against mine, mine against her...against her...yes! I feel it...! I feel it!