Chapter Eleven - Paul #5
We sit there for a minute in a silence that isn’t entirely uncomfortable. I look over at her and she looks over at me. She must see the question I’m afraid to ask.
“There are two things that you can do,” she says.
“You can choose the easiest thing. The thing that everyone expects of you, that everyone does. Or you can choose the hardest thing. The thing that you can live with and feels right to you. But you’re the only one that can make that choice, Paul.
And you’re young enough to have plenty of time to think on it. ”
“You chose the second thing.”
She looks down at her feet.
“But you’re lonely.”
“I’m not lonely. I have you. I have friends.”
“How come I’ve never seen them?”
“I don’t have them over much. Even before you came here. The neighbors sometimes…they notice things…” She waves her hand as if she’s dismissing and then fiddles with the edge of her nightgown. “But if you’d like to meet them, I can introduce you.”
“Lady friends?”
“And some nice fellows.”
I push my glasses up my nose. She takes the album and puts it back in the box, arranging everything the way it was, closing the closet.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.” I look down at my bare feet.
She sits down next to me.
“And part of me is okay with it, if he stays there, if I never see him again.” I pause for a few seconds. “But there’s another part of me…that isn’t okay.”
She lays a hand over mine.
“I just want to be okay.”
“You will be. Give it time.”
“How much time?”
She smiles at me a sad smile. “I don’t know, Paul.”
And I suppose I’ll have to be okay with that. I turn to her and look at her with a new respect. With new eyes. She’s not the same as she was before. More than just my old maid aunt.
I fling an arm around her neck, hugging her. She pats my shoulder, and even that isn’t the same. I don’t think I’ve ever hugged her in my life.
I pull away suddenly and wipe the wetness from my eyes.
She stands up. “You should get some sleep.”
“I will.”
“You’ve got work tomorrow.”
“No. No, I’m off.” I look up at her. “Do you want to do something?”
She beams at me. “I’d like that.”
“Okay. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Paul.”
Then she leaves me alone, with my thoughts, with my unokayness, and tears that pour in a strange relief and happiness I shouldn’t really feel, and I can’t explain, but exists just the same.
It’s probably because I keep looking at his empty balcony.
And dark windows.
And the unfinished letter on the bedside table.
And just when I think I’ve got it all under control, I’ll catch the scent of something with an orangey spice.
Or I’ll see the Lifebuoy soap in the aisles at Eckert’s.
And Aunt Amy drove us by the King Tut Drive-In, and I couldn’t explain to her why I needed to go home and be alone for a little while.
Why I needed to just lock myself up in the guest room and just lie there.
For hours. It’s just little things like that, silly things that wouldn’t have mattered to me at all before, but mean so much now, heavily hanging around my neck like links in a chain.
I don’t want to let him go.
But at some point, I’ll have to, won’t I?
On a Saturday night, the soda fountain has quite a crowd.
School kids blowing off steam, some of them older, wearing sweaters with colors from the university.
The music is loud. There’s a new Bobby Freeman song, and it has several repeats throughout the evening.
But the giggling and gossip and flirtation drowns it out, and I work behind the counter with Billy.
Billy yammers on and on while we mix up milkshakes and make root beer floats.
He’s got a constellation of freckles all over his cheeks, and an aw-shucks-smile to charm the panties right off the girls.
And he doesn’t seem to get the hint when I walk away from him and all his yammering.
He gets on this tangent about a transistor radio he wants his folks to get him for Christmas.
“But not that hunk of junk from the hardware store,” he says. “No sir. It doesn’t have the right antenna. And do my folks know that? Heck no. They’re so square they’re practically cubes.”
I go looking for a spill at the other end of the counter. Billy follows me.
“Cube heads, is what I call them,” he says, distractedly wiping at a glass and not getting any of the water stains off. “That’s what I’m going to say from now on. The Cube Heads. But, gee, wouldn’t it be swell if they got me that Magnavox from the Sears Roebuck?”
I look around at the crowd, almost pleading for anyone to come up and ask me for a cream soda. Or better yet, a hot fudge sundae. Anything that takes a while and gives me something else to do.
“Say, why don’t you come with me to Woolworth’s tomorrow?
” Billy sets the glass upside down with a dirty rag over it.
“There’re some transistor radios in the window, but they’re hunks of junk too.
But they might be all right. Have you seen those radios they’re coming out with now?
They’ve got stereo sound, like in the pictures.
Say, would you like to go see a picture later?
I heard Elizabeth Taylor shows some skin in this one.
Oh, gee, what’s it called? It was just on the tip of my tongue… ”
I can feel my eyes glazing over, resigning myself to this fate, utterly defeated, when a girl with lipstick and fingernails the same shade of red bops up to the counter and shrieks, “Hi, Billy!”
That shuts him up. Suddenly he can’t talk at all. I give her silent thanks and want to hug her, but then it gets busy for me while he’s distracted. At least when I’m doing this, I’m not thinking so much. For that, I’m also grateful.
And then it gets later, the younger crowd trickling out, getting home before it’s too late.
Or getting to the park before it’s too steamy.
Billy starts running his mouth to Mr. Meriwether, and I get a chance to wipe up any spills from the counter while there’s a lull.
I look up and there’s a guy leaning over the counter who looks vaguely familiar.
Buzz cut with angular features. He pushes some change at me and asks for two cream sodas.
I reach for the change and his fingertips brush mine, lingering longer than necessary, but not enough for anyone to notice.
Except for me.
I feel my breath catch in my throat, and I look at him, blinking.
His eyes flick down the front of me and up again so fast, I’m not sure I actually see it.
I get the cream sodas and hand them over.
His fingers brush mine again, and it all happens so fast, so smoothly I can’t be sure it happened at all.
He takes the sodas over to the girl he’s with and they peruse the records in the jukebox.
I stand there for a minute and then continue with my work.
I look up a little later and he’s staring at me. Big, brown eyes, long lashes. Then he says something to the girl he’s with and looks over at me again. He goes into the men’s room.
I wipe up a stubborn glob of hot fudge from the counter.
I hand someone a Coke and make change for a five.
And then I untie my apron, hang it on a hook by the counter.
I make a glance around me and see no one’s paying the least bit of attention.
I put my hands in my pockets and walk past Billy, deep in a detailed description of the transistor radios at Woolworth’s to an indifferent Mr. Meriwether and go into the men’s room.
He’s at the sink. Washing his hands. He sees me, and I stand there for a second and then go over to a sink to wash my hands.
He looks at me in the mirror. Dries off his hands on a towel.
He goes over to a stall and leans against the door, opening it, inviting.
I dry my hands a little longer than needed because I don’t want him to see they’re shaking.
I stick them back into my pockets and slip into the stall and he’s does too.
He shuts the door. He leans against one side and I lean against the other.
I almost say something, like shouldn’t we lock the door, but he’s up against me, and I turn my head away at the last moment, so he ends up kissing my ear.
Then my neck, his mouth warm and close. And I’m trying not to make it obvious that I haven’t done this before, but my shaking breaths betray me.
He rubs his crotch up against mine, a soft grunt in my ear.
I take hold of his shoulder as his fingers find the button on my slacks.
The zipper. I take my other shaking hand out of my pocket and cup his erection, feel him through his pants.
His lips try to touch mine again, but I turn away.
And as skin meets skin, I really think I’ll be able to do it.
If I keep my eyes closed, if just pretend…
because this is all it is. This is all it’s going to be.
I won’t see him again after tonight. I won’t ever know his name.
And he’ll never know mine. Neither of us will even ask.
But then I push him away, not too hard, stuff my dick back in my pants, and tell him I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t. I’m sorry. The last words stuttering out as I’m out the door, running hunched over to grab the apron and put it back over my deflating cock.
Mr. Meriwether is over at the register selling some lady some cold cream. Billy comes over to me. I turn my back to him.
“Gee,” he says. “What’s eating you?”
I grab a rag and pretend to clean something that isn’t dirty. “Nothing.”
“You’re all sweaty.”
“I’m hot.”
“It’s November, pal.”
“Don’t talk to me,” I grumble at him. “Go away.”
“Gee.” He goes over to the register. “You’re a strange one.”
“Yeah,” I say with a sigh of resignation. “Yeah. I am.”
Mr. Meriwether wants to decorate right after Thanksgiving.
He says he wants to get people thinking. He has me and Billy string up some lights around the front windows. He displays some candy canes by the front register. He has us start serving hot chocolate at the soda fountain.
Billy complains. He says, gee, it’s awful early for all that Christmas stuff.
Whoever heard of such, and do I like peppermints?
He thinks they’re okay. Just so-so. Maybe we should put out some peppermints on the counter.
Mr. Meriwether should be okay with that, don’t I think so?
And what if we sprinkled some cinnamon in the hot chocolates.
Cinnamon in hot chocolate tastes really swell.
Have I ever tried it? I should. You only live once.
And then we start closing earlier on the weekdays.
It gets dark so early and there’s hardly anyone out.
We get a small crowd after school, but people are eager to be home in the cold and dark.
Eager to be around dinner tables, passing plates, and saying prayers.
Gathered around televisions, writing essays under desk lamps.
Aunt Amy adjusts our dinnertime so I can join her after the store closes.
She insists on having something ready when I get home, after walking through biting cold and snow flurries, something hot like soup or stew.
But sometimes I bring us dinner. I tell her ahead of time so she doesn’t make a bunch of food for nothing.
It’s Tuesday evening and we’re winding down.
Billy takes off an hour early because he’s got this killer essay to write on the War of 1812.
Gee, it’s really murder. He just doesn’t know how he’s going to fill up an entire blue book with all that jazz.
Mr. Meriwether sticks around for a bit, then hands me his giant key ring, entrusting me to close up so he can get to Woolworth’s before they close.
He wants to mark a few things off his Christmas list.
I take the faith Mr. Meriwether has in me seriously.
He’s let me close up alone before, but I always get nervous.
I check and re-check everything, and he’s got so many damn keys that I’ll need the last ten minutes to find the right ones to lock up.
And tonight I told Aunt Amy I’d get us a pizza.
I’m not up for another spaghetti disaster, although she’d never say it was as terrible as it was.
But I’m looking forward to the pizza, and I’m looking forward to spending time with her.
It’s fifteen minutes before closing when I hear the jingle bells Billy put on the front doors.
There’s a burst of cold up the aisles and I’m over at the soda fountain, refilling a shaker of powdered sugar.
I silently curse whoever thought it was a good idea to come in so close to closing time and hope they don’t take too long.
Right as I’m getting ready to go to the front register to wait on them, I hear someone behind the counter, sitting on a stool.
“We’re not serving anymore tonight,” I call over my shoulder. “But if you need something from the store —” I turn around, holding the powdered sugar shaker.
And then I see the latecomer. I see him, but a full two seconds go by before I really see him. I drop the shaker and it breaks, puffs of sugar go everywhere, all over the tiled floor and my shoes.
He’s got a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. A heavy black coat. And a Caribbean sea in his eyes.
It’s Asher.