2. Carl - Beautiful Boy
Chapter two
Carl - Beautiful Boy
E die was about ten years old when we met. I was two years older and when she was twelve, I knew she was changing, and maturing. I could tell she was experiencing sensations that she didn’t understand but it was hard for me to talk to her about such intimate things even though we were such good friends. Talking to her mother, a fanatical religious scholar was impossible. Her dad was a binging alcoholic who regularly disappeared for weeks and Edie and I laughed that he was probably using his “ IT . ” We spent lots of time together and her parents were different than mine. I never saw any affection or loving words between them. Edie’s mom had a hard-knock life born with a shovel and pitchfork in her hand, while her dad was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It seemed they had money and, best of all, created my best friend.
Her parents were older so she was probably more mature than most twelve-year-olds and she had a mind of her own. There was no playing or laughter only talk of politics, the Presidential election, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Khrushchev. Her father was a proponent of education and etiquette. He made sure Edie read at least one book per week and he thoroughly schooled her on proper table manners and if she burped or passed gas she must, in a very lady-like manner, excuse her extremely bad behavior. We used to squeeze out farts just so she didn’t have to say “Excuse me.”
Suddenly, Edie was diagnosed with extreme scoliosis of the spine and she was undergoing physical therapy, being hung by the neck in the hospital to stretch her, and was fitted for a steel and metal brace before she would undergo major surgery to try to correct the effects of polio. We cried together many nights as I stayed at her house. I knew she was afraid but I couldn’t help.
They lived in a three-story apartment building and the new tenants upstairs were young Kentuckians who had come for work to our city. Her dad called them hillbillies; she called them beautiful. There was twenty-year-old Green Berry, (his real name) (last name withheld), his eighteen-year-old wife RuthAnn, Green’s older brother Shirley, (not kidding), and their handsome seventeen-year-old brother, Carl. When Edie met them, she wore that awful steel and leather brace from her neck to her hips and she worried they wouldn’t like her because of her condition.
Her mother was gone most evenings chasing her dreams of becoming an ordained minister, and her father was unaccounted for, but her new friends would invite her upstairs for collard greens and grits and teach her how to play cards. That was a sinful activity but she didn’t care. “Jenny,” Edie told me one day, “my friends care for me and every time I look at handsome Carl, my cheeks turn to fire.” Yep, my little friend Edie was growing up.
The surgery was considered experimental and the surgeon was nearly run out of town for heading up the program of inserting cadaver bones into children. We had a friend Charlotte, a beautiful brown girl who neither laughed at Edie’s awkwardness nor made fun of her like other school kids did. After the surgery of having 52 bone grafts inserted into her spine, she was to be bedridden for a year. She couldn’t walk, wore that awful brace, and could not sit up or use a pillow. For several weeks we didn’t hear from Charlotte; she didn’t come by to visit and she wasn’t in school.
It wasn’t until Edie’s first visit to the doctor for a follow-up that the doctor told her how sorry he was about our friend being hit by a car but her bones would live on in Edie. Edie wouldn’t see me for several days and I was worried that she was sick or something bad had happened. Finally, when I went to her door, her mother let me in and as I walked to Edie’s bedside, she burst into tears soaking her sheets. “What is it, Edie? What’s the matter?”
When she calmed down, she explained the tragedy and then said, “Jenny, Charlotte’s beautiful bones are in my back. How can I live with that?” What a terrible reality and I wondered what it must be like to know your dear friend’s tragic accident would improve your life. Tears flowed like a river from her eyes. We were both devastated about losing her but we loved knowing the color of our bones was the same and, in some small way, she would be a part of us always.
Edie’s parents didn’t change their schedules even though if there had been an emergency, she couldn’t help herself. But Carl was there. He worked every day at 5:00 AM but came to spend each evening with her. He brought his transistor radio, magazines, and books to read to her. I knew she had a crush on him and it was okay. I didn’t want to see her get hurt so I hoped he felt the same about her and wouldn’t take advantage of her. She said, “His hair is freshly shampooed and smells like the outdoors that I love.” One night she asked if she could touch his hair. His mop of brown curls wrapped around her fingers as he peered down at her through his beautiful aqua eyes and long lashes. She slowly caressed his smooth pink face and loved the smile that appeared on his full moist lips.
Though she’d never been kissed, that’s what she wanted. His lips came so close to hers that she could feel his breath in her mouth, but he resisted. After he left that night, she wondered if it was because she was damaged goods or he refused to take advantage of her. He was so gallant and real. I was the closest Edie had to siblings and her father never intended to be a dad, so she was entirely drawn to Carl. He was a man and that’s how her heartfelt love affair with men began.
Each night as he sat at her bedside, he told stories of his hometown and the struggles his family endured. His father died of Black Lung from working in the Kentucky coal mines, and Carl and his brothers were destined to the same fate. It was the only way to make a living. When they packed their car to come north looking for a better life, they found Edie and changed her life. The stories of their hardship life were fascinating but tears often filled her eyes knowing what he had suffered. He dampened washcloths and wiped her tears, gently softening her skin with lotion that smelled like cherries, and kissed her cheeks where the tears had been.
In the spring when the lilacs bloomed, he brought armloads of flowers and filled Edie’s room placing them in empty mayonnaise and pickle jars. She loved the fragrance of lilacs. Such a simple gesture, presented so innocently, I knew she loved him, beautiful Carl, gentle and caring. Eight months of his nightly visits gave her the strength to endure the bedsores, the pain, the humiliation of being a cripple and made her want him even more. She was innocent and na?ve and didn’t know if he was her friend or if he wanted more. One night as the sun set with the overwhelming fragrance of lilacs in her room, she reached for his hair and asked in her girlish way, “Will you kiss my lips?”
Without a word, he put both hands on her face and placed his soft lips on hers. They kissed. They kissed more and more. I was always excited when she told me about those kisses. I knew he cared for her. From that night forward they kissed more than they talked but he never took his desire a step further. A few months later after rehab as Edie was learning to walk again, beautiful Carl and his family moved from the city to another town thirty miles away. “I will always love him, wherever he may be,” Edie told me over and over. It would be five years before she saw him again. And just like that… Carl was gone.