Memorizing You (3 page)

Slowly beneath my excitement, my consciousness of the significance of this moment made me aware that I was beyond happy. I was joyous. I was riding inside one of my dreams. I can still feel that smile on my young face. It was a moment like this that made being alive so important. We rode for hours and hours, through our neighborhood and beyond into other neighborhoods and other school districts. We rode side by side. He talked incessantly about sports and teachers and how, when he grew up, he’d like to have a ranch and raise horses. I’d listen and pretend to know what he was talking about, and occasionally he’d ask me something and I’d answer. When I heard my own answer I wondered if he thought I was as dull as I sounded? But if I was, he didn’t show it. We just kept riding and I kept absorbing every moment.

We stopped in Marquette Park to get a sip from the fountain at the corner of the tennis courts. When I came up from the fountain he had pulled his shirt off and tucked it through a belt loop of his shorts. It was as if someone had slammed their fist into my chest. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid my eyes on. I felt elated and hurt and frightened all at once, looking at him.

“Must be a hundred today,” he said, wiping his face with his shirt.

“You should get rid of that shirt.”

I couldn’t have felt more inferior than at that moment. “Naw, I’m good.”

He laughed. “Okay. If you wanna farmer’s tan. Your nose is already sunburned.”

I don’t think I’ve been more uncomfortable in my life as I was at the moment I pulled that shirt up and off and exposed my inferiority in the presence of perfection. He stood staring at me. I bunched the shirt up and held it in front of me as if it could block his appraisal. Time Warner Entertainment, L.P.I my

“You’re built like a swimmer,” he said, finally. “Do you swim?”

I shook my head. “Don’t even know how.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No.”

“Wow.” He rubbed his chin with that flawless hand. “Do you know how to ride a bike without using handlebars?”

I told him I didn’t know how to do that either.

He put his arm around my shoulder and guided me back to the bikes. “Now, that I can teach you how to do.”

We spent the latter half of that hot summer day in the church parking lot behind his house with Greg teaching me how to ride a bike without holding on. Three or four dozen spills, a scraped knee and scuffed palms, I could do it. I learned how to turn it shifting my balance with my knees to left and right. Soon I was riding in circles in the lot with my arms folded in front of me. I could feel the sun on my neck and shoulders and back. I always burned so easily. But it was worth it to learn how to do something I didn’t believe I could do. And to learn it with someone I never thought would even give me the time of day.

When I made my third successful loop without a fall, I saw Greg on the sidelines in the shade of a tree, clapping. Hearing the sound of someone applauding me for something I’d done was amazing.

I rode over to him with a sense of pride and accomplishment I’d not experienced before.

“Let’s get some water. I’m wiped out,” he nodded back toward his house. His family’s home was small but neat. Nice up-to-date furniture; clean floors. Everything in its place. It smelled like lemon cleanser when we first walked in. I was taking it all in like I was being giving the tour didn’t appeal to me.itps of the royal palace. I was being honored to see the world that he lived in.

Each moment of that day has been painted and framed in my mind. I’ve walked the gallery a thousand times throughout my life. The scene where he handed me the glass of water. Its first incarnation had been a Welch’s grape jelly jar covered with Flintstone characters. I had Fred and Wilma; he had Pebbles and Bam-Bam. We sat on the sofa in his living room across from a large box television and a wall mirror. I stared, transfixed at our reflection in the mirror, sitting there together.

“You don’t tan easily, do you?” he asked.

I finally noticed why he was smiling. In the reflection was one tan boy and one very, very vibrant red boy. I had been so consumed by the wonder of my situation I’d barely felt the sunburn.

“You’re gonna need to put some Noxema on that, or you’ll be hurtin’ for sure tomorrow.”

“What’s Noxema?” I asked. I had never heard the word before.

Their bathroom was small, tiled in blue. Blue terry cloth towels and washrags hung neatly on the racks. A yellow bar of Dial soap was in a tray, untouched. Another was in a small tray on the sink. Used. One for company apparently. He opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a deep blue jar. Noxema was written on its label.

“Here we go.” He unscrewed the lid. The scent of menthol filled the small tiny room. “Put a tiny bit on your finger and rub it into your face until it disappears.”

It was cold and stung for a moment. But I could feel the temperature in my face go down a little.

“Feels pretty good?”

I told him it did. My voice sounded shaky. I felt his breath on me and it made my knees weak. He didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ll get your back for you. Take some and start rubbing it on your chest and arms.” in agreement. He moved behind me but I could see him in the mirror. His eyes looking at my shoulders. He looked up and caught my eyes and smiled. “This will keep you from hurting too much tomorrow.”

I jumped at the sensation of the cold cream on my shoulders; the touch of his hand. That hand on my flesh. He was gentle.

My heart lurched and I felt light-headed. I was certain he could feel it as he rubbed the white cream on my back. I was delirious. I wanted to cry and laugh at once.

His touch trailed from my shoulders to my back. It moved in circles. I was immobile beneath the sensation. And I was growing more aware of a compulsion inside me. I wanted to kiss him. Badly. And that terrified me.

“How’s that feel?”

I took a deep breath so as not to stutter. “Great. It feels great.”

Glancing down, I saw the rise in my shorts. The shock of it alarmed me. I couldn’t stop it. I was getting harder by the second. There was no way to miss seeing it. It sent my heart beating harder. If he saw it, he would know.

“Undo your pants. I can’t get to the edge,” he said. His voice was so matter-of-fact. As if it meant nothing to him.

It, however, struck me with pure panic. I stammered a non-answer.

He laughed. “Go on,” he insisted.

My fingers fumbled for the button. They could feel I was now standing at full attention. I couldn’t do this.

Both of his hands had moved to the small of my back. They moved in circles, pushing me slightly forward and into the sink.

I didn’t appeal to me.itpst was at that moment the phone in the kitchen rang. Greg jumped at the noise, grabbing a towel and wiping his hands on it.

“I gotta get that,” he said.” Be right back.” He dashed from the bathroom and I was saved from my humiliation.

I left there exalted. I sat in the narrow walkway of shade between my apartment and the neighbors. I giggled. My soul soared. I was dreaming dreams. I couldn’t cram any more feelings into the small space that was me. It was all too large for me. I knew fate had looked down on me and granted me a favor. But as it turned out, fate gave me that one solitary day.

I rode past his house every day of that summer, hoping to run into him again; catch a glimpse of him. It wouldn’t happen. My elation turned inside out. I grew despondent. As it turned out, it wouldn’t matter if I had established that friendship, that closeness I wanted with Greg. By the end of August my father who was an automotive mechanic for a small dealership got a new job at a larger company in the county. We moved twenty miles away to a middle-class community of houses named Greenwood.

It was a new chapter.

CHAPTER TWO

For the next couple of years, there wasn’t a night I didn’t conjure some fantasy for a masturbatory need before bed. There was one where we went camping, and in the solitude and darkness of a small tent in the woods, we shared a sleeping bag. And as crickets chirped and soft winds blew, he would bless my face with light kisses. Then there was the one where he was at my house for a sleepover, and in the shelter of my room he held me in his arms in complete silence so my parents were not aware of our actions. I could feel his breath against my neck, the delicate press of his lips there.

I had an endless supply of these fantasies. I know they helped me confirm who I was and what I desired.

The high school years became the time that I tried to manufacture my own identity. It was the end of the sixties and in the year since graduating grade school I’d reached my full height of five feet and ten inches. Still on the skinny side but working against it with weights now. My hair was long then. John Lennon style, parted down the middle and just below my ears. I had my requisite Nehru’s, bellbottom jeans, and Beatle boots. I was determined to fit in, even if I wasn’t certain where. Time Warner Entertainment, L.P.reGm

I’d started to shave; at least twice a week. Faking like I needed the second shave. The whiskers were blond. No one could actually tell I had any. I had no chest hair. My father explained it was because of my German and Swedish heritage. His family had been German; my mother’s Swedish. The hair everywhere else on me was blond as well. The one good thing I’d lost with my encroaching maturity was the freckles I’d had on my nose and cheeks.

I’d found I was good at one sport because of my height and weight. Track. I loved to run. It was exhilarating. I could run for miles, sweat and think. It became a daily routine for me and was paying off for me in PE. So I wasn’t a complete non-jock. That helped psychologically as well. What didn’t help psychologically was that over the last two years I became aware of the terminology of queer and faggot. I heard guys use the derogatory term to refer to guys suspected of liking other guys. I became aware that what I was could not be shared with anyone for fear of being an outcast, or even hurt. The stress I felt about protecting my “little secret” was the fire in my belly when I ran. I didn’t understand their attitudes. And I didn’t understand how I could be one of those guys. I did the whole “Why me?” but there wasn’t an answer because it just was.

Plain. Simple.

There was no lying to myself. I wasn’t attracted to girls. I barely noticed them. If they didn’t speak to me, I rarely made the effort. I didn’t dislike them, disrespect them, or look down on them. They just simply didn’t appeal to me.

Oh, but I did notice the guys. My hormones were in full tilt then. Like most teenagers, I could whack off four times a day and still get an erection if the wind hit my zipper. My showers after PE had to be short, quick and cold. No eye contact, no looking up at others. But oh, the smell of men in a locker room. That was intoxicating. And that was the shame of that time in my life. To be intoxicated by something I could never taste. At least not to the knowledge of others. Nothing like being flush with desire and no outlet.

I rode the bus to and from school every day. And the first guy I noticed that year was a boy on my bus named Bob. It was written on his book bag. I was reading
A Separate Peace
for my second period English class when I glanced up and saw him three rows ahead. He was tall and dark-haired. He was as freckled as a red-head; his face and arms laced with the brown specks, but not in an unattractive manner. He had an upturned nose, which I could see in profile from his seat. It looked like he wore hand-me-downs or his parent’s shopped at Goodwill. His clothing seemed a size too small for him; shirt yanking at the buttons: hems of his pants showing half an inch of skin at the top of his black socks when he sat on the sidelines aup. He was just your average teenager. But that small span of flesh of his leg caught my attention the first time I saw him. When he stepped off of the bus I saw that he had the most incredible ass. Plump. Ample. It was Bob’s best feature. I rode the rest of the way home with my book in my lap. Once home, I couldn’t get to my bedroom fast enough to relieve myself in a wild fantasy of him. I had graduated from simple, chaste daydreams of kissing Greg to more liberated indulgences about strangers I would never know. Greg would never be tainted by these more fanciful concoctions of my imagination.

My lawn care business picked up with the new neighborhoods of houses with bigger front and backyards. I could charge more, and the word of mouth was working for me. I bought a better mower, better tools, and could fit in a couple of houses every day after school. I had a nice savings account that was growing, and I was saving for my first car when I turned seventeen.

Living in the suburbs was so different from the city. Even though we were still very middle class, we had a nice two story home that actually had a dining room, two bathrooms, and a back porch you could sit on. I had a huge room to myself that was twice the size of the one I’d had when we lived in the flat. I’d bought my own hi-fi stereo phonograph so I could play my favorite Donovan and Lemon Piper albums. I was more partial to bubble gum music than hard rock. Loved the psychedelic stuff even though I wasn’t into weed or drugs. Wore out three 45s of The Monkees’
Tapioca Tundra
.

I knew how different I was. I was made aware of it every day that my dad asked me if I had a girlfriend yet. I’d made up a million responses to that question, but I was getting tired of it. More than that, I was getting tired of knowing that I would never have a response to it. To avoid the question I took to running during dinnertime, or booking a lawn job just so I didn’t have to sit at the table and be faced with devising another answer to the unanswerable query. The world just was not constructed for a person like me to fit in. I wasn’t bad-looking. I had a nice face. Pleasant features. No acne. Blue eyes. Decent body. Surely someone out there had to be looking at me the way I looked at others. Somebody out there had to want me the way I desired others. Were they out there looking at me but going through what I was? Not being able to do anything about it? It was frustrating.

I heard my classmates talking about sex all the time and I felt left out. The only guy untouched by human hands. I sat on the sidelines as the football team practiced. Their field was in the middle of the track I ran. From the bleachers I’d watch this parade of masculinity, half in shirts, half skins as they ran and grappled each other to the ground in what looked like a sex dance to me. They’d get up, pat each other’s ass, and go back at it once again. All of it so seemingly normal to them. But to me, it was a personification of sexuality. My eyes viewed the world with a different perspective.@Imy