Rehearsals for a Departure

©Fred Croton 2023 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 979-8-35093-776-3 eBook: 979-8-35093-777-0

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About The Author

Man is himself a city.

William Carlos Williams

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO SELMA HOLO, DEAR WIFE, DEAREST FRIEND, AND CLOSEST COMPANION.

Words cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.

*******

He was neither tall nor handsome, yet women loved him. Not rich, not famous, they loved him. Lest, dear reader, you think this to be a cautionary tale, be warned. No Don Juan in Hell or opera stage, no not at all. I am Tony Andrews, a simple man with a simple tale to tell. Of love won, love lost. At least that’s what I wish it to be. Can I say where it will take me? Save for that it ended badly? No surprise there, all things must.

It made no sense, no sense at all to be nineteen, live alone in a cheap Greenwich Village apartment, a luminous, evanescent painting by a hardly known artist filling a wall. Feathered brush strokes lingering at the edges of two large patches of blue and green, traces of other colors below its surface, with me for as long as forever is, and some day worth millions.

So to begin, yah?

Forever an outsider, a boy who learned to live with it, waiting and waiting for reasons why. How different? Indefinable. Poverty? Many in the neighborhood shared the same bad luck. But luck can turn, on a penny, or a dime.

How, once upon a time, no plan but to skip school, slipped under a turnstile onto my Marvelous Flying Machine, my Magic Carpet: The Third Avenue El. Rumbling by nearby buildings, so close I could reach out and touch their walls, watched fellow tenement dwellers at breakfast ignoring its thunder. Chance took me off at the 53rd Street Station down a stairway to the street.

Crossing Fifth Avenue, and an odd looking building called MOMA, a museum. Cool and quiet after the noise of the city, strange territory for a boy of fifteen more used to drifting along in Bronx parks and neighborhoods. Entrance a modest amount I could not afford, another reminder of not belonging, another shunning of sorts. Rescue from judgmental eyes; a pleasant and indulgent woman, gentle Mrs. Keyes, generously issuing me, and others like me free passes as escape from choking thoughts.

No tremor of premonition or warning, no suggestion a deliverance roaring toward me, making my way up a stairway, on the first landing a weird painting. Nothing more than a horse’s long leg, attached to it a carefully tailored lapel of a man’s suit, I mumbled to no one in sight, That’s a man on horseback, and sure enough, fixed to the wall a label, Man On Horseback and a name, PABLO PICASSO.

I’d guessed right. With undimmed clarity never felt before had seen the joke, a lucky guess? Within that mystery of recognition, leapt up those stairs to rooms filled with more wonders, fire-breathing chimeras. An outsider had found me a home.

Thanks to that kind soul at the ticket desk returned to MOMA over and over, paying tribute to my first discovery. Learned names of artists from labels: Picasso, Matisse, Leger, Brancusi, a dozen others. Glanced through catalogs, enchanted by brushstrokes took to standing up close to pictures. Odd paintings and sculpture became familiar, a dynamic venture attached to that unaccountable, not forgotten first visit, first vision.

What seen and felt at that first glimpse remains a jumble. But walking out onto 53rd Street that first day, brushing fingers felt the soft texture of stone on brown walls of a church on Fifth, watched a woman’s face profiled within a passing bus, ascended stairs to the grillwork and stained glass of the El Station. Felt the sway of the platform as a train approached on shining steel tracks to lead me back to The Bronx and to the stars.

*******

Another kind of rescue, decidedly different from the first, or maybe not, came my way. Turned sixteen, hired as a Junior Counselor at a day camp after the school year passed, eager to please, leading a dozen or so eight-year-old boys in games, songs, the like.

My boss was Senior Counselor Diana Epstein, twenty-two and on her way to a graduate degree in social work. Not beautiful in any conventional way, reddish hair, purposeful way of striding forth, sunglasses perched atop forehead, a kind of costume, or maybe custom she practiced.

It was only after noticed her slim figure, and a discovery of what and who I might become.

That only after only came after an overnight in a dark wood. Off we went sleeping bags in hand, for entry into Nature and what Nature’s God could offer. It was the second week of summer; Diana had complimented me on my way with the boys, A masculine presence, she described the boy I was at 16

Adirondack State Park, a short bus ride outside New York City held out a summer bounty of great tall trees, wild flowers, fresh air different from the dank, humid city. That night a bonfire was set, the boys after the long day slipped into sleeping bags. Noticing that Diane’s was a double, set myself down on the rim around the sleeping boys, she went into the lean-to, made a small gesture indicating I was to follow. Assuming nothing more than that watched her, fully clothed, slip into her bag, did the same, we said our good nights, and so to bed.

Not long after, and half asleep, felt and heard the sound of the zipper to my sleeping bag. Followed by a second zipper, that of my pants opened and a hand, not my own, gently placed upon that oh, so private of parts. My eyes open, Diane was hovering, with what must be a lover’s benevolent sweet smile, as her hand worked me. In my short happy life pressed adolescent flesh to other flesh available, but this, no doubt was something different, she watched my face, came into her hand. Good Tony? she asked, needing no reply. Then pulled me into her double, My turn soon. Could not have understood, nor noticed, she was in a short nightgown, not yet knew the revival powers a boy possesses. But a second lesson: Ere long, her hand working away, she pulled me atop her, accepting my excitement, the prematurity of it all.

The morning after, another first for me, we went about our business, her manner professional, friendly, no sign anything unusual had occurred, Watched her from afar with sidelong glances, no sign, none, of what had recently been ours. And that would seem to be that. I’d read of certain kinds of women-when the frenzy on them; anything goes, until the need for propriety sets in. Except that afternoon, our charges packed in the bus taking us home she sat alongside me, touching, brushing the inside of my thigh, a promise between us.

And oh my oh my, followed by a bonus extra, the promise kept when each and every afternoon after the boys went scampering home she pulled the shade on the window, locked the door, and we took to the mats so recently used for child’s play. Coming late to news of The Birds and the Bees, took to its lessons, wasting no time. Under Age no importance to Diana, certainly not to lucky me.

Gods of Art and Gods of Sex had blessed a boy of sixteen with an encouraging hand. All that summer long, amused by my puppy enthusiasm, instructing me in slowing it down, too much the child to consider her reasons, content to have her hands and mouth on me and learn to do the same. Learned of lust, no point thinking about it, pleasure piled on pleasure, all on earth there is to know. Told no one, least of all my brother Ray, to not make him envious of my strange good luck with Diana. He seemed to spend every night at home, no signs ever of a woman, once in a while coming back tipsy to plain drunk, dropping off to sleep with clothes on.

One late afternoon after a bout of avaricious sex, she rose up prepared to gather up clothes and leave. Instead, she put a hand to my arm, You are a natural, Tony, in so many ways. Hoping for an explanation, in wonderment at the idea a natural at anything.

You learned to make love to me with such ease, and bring the same confidence working with the boys. Confident, heard myself called, against a lifetime of doubt.

When you go to college you should consider a career in Social Work.

Falling silent, she continued in praise, laying out a future unimaginable under present circumstances. Hugged me close with affection beyond the sex, pushed me to dress and end the day, great good luck within a luckless life. The foreseen comes easily, the unforeseen harder.

End of summer and the end of it all loomed. Diana had gleaned I’d been having a terrible time in high school and didn’t imagine going to college, smart as I was, low grades, no money or understanding of the system. You haven’t applied to any college?

It’s too late

She picked up a phone to make a call, asked for a man’s name, spoke to him with a sexy voice and laugh. What was going on here? She described my situation and handed over the phone. A friendly voice took my name, invited to his office the next day, Perhaps we can arrange something.

Too early in life to be shutting down possibilities, her farewell gift a counselor friend at City College served me very well indeed, a wise advisor laying out how to proceed toward college entrance. Too curious about my connection with Diana, might have been an old lover, gave up no secrets, feeling the power silence could provide.

Another deliverance by a woman, nevermore heard from Diana again. But that’s part of the story, is it not? Oh, yes, another thing. After Diana my expectations were at their height, a sexual awakening too much, too soon? Girls my age could not understand my demands, and so it was leaned toward older woman in this, the first phase.

********

And so it was a year later entered The City College of New York, last bastion of Higher Education for those Italians, Irish lads, Jews, whose brilliance was no advantage to gain them entrance to Harvard, where, if the world was fair, they belonged. The dress code a mix of preppy wanna be, or honoring of working class origins, or bohemian regalia, the boys, that is. The girls, and girls they were, while suggesting high seriousness of purpose, showed off pretty-as-can-be.

My father, knowing a trade not in the cards for me, dug deep in some hidden hole for fifty dollars. You’ll be needing books for your courses. Pushing the money on me, a man who bent the knee to no faith at all, I’ve got faith in you,

Wondering, after my awful high school days, how it would go, my first class was Music 101. A young instructor entered, announced his name and the name of the class, put a record on a turntable and stepped away, quietly saying, Johann Sebastian Bach, Air on a G String.

Listening along with the rest, traveled a million miles from home, lifted from the miseries of high school to enter a world unknown.

The large cafeteria, densely populated, divided itself by common interests. ROTC here, Engineers there, Pre-Med and other assorted types finding their natural habitats. A corner table wreathed in cigarette smoke housed political radicals of Left persuasion: Stalinists, Trotskyists and Socialists of every stripe, I took a seat. The combatants, two-thirds male to female fought it out with glee, the history, the arguments and points of dispute all new to me. A Stalinist wore a curved, carpet cutter knife in a leather holster at his belt. Worked at a family business six days a week, his parents, he proudly announced, refusing to hire and exploit any workers of the world. Equally interesting, a mating dance of sorts taking place around those Leftish tables. A female of the species in Existentialist black turtleneck, skirt and ballet tights would glance in the direction of what must have been a chosen one. And off they would go, few words between them. Joined in this Natural Selection by her sisters, watching the minuet take place, wondering, is Das Kapital a must read?

The 1950’s a deplorable decade, the Cold War all in bloom, Republican in The White House for the first time in my life, Witch Hunts for Commies at every turn, teachers fired right out of class rooms, execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. The Korean War ended without result, Vietnam raised to the awareness of some after Dien Bien Phu. Bomb shelters and air raid drills ignored, not an optimist, nor fatalist. Simply finding such an end unimaginable. And proven right.

When Egypt took control of The Suez Canal, causing consternation in England and France, Israel called upon to do the dirty work ran through Egypt’s army, near to reaching Cairo, brought to a halt by the good old USA. And in the same year, the Hungarian revolt against Soviet oppression savagely put down with thousands killed and imprisoned.

Around the table the Suez matter was agreed to be a fine example of capitalist imperialism, but Hungary brought a roaring brawl. Old reliable David denouncing it as a Counter Revolution led by Enemies of the Working Class, others hooting at his commitment to the party line. David, you were born a Stalinist and will die a Stalinist.

And you? A neo-fascist Wall Street lackey, and you, sitting there, a willing tool of The Ruling Class.

On and on these romantic proclamations were hurled. Fed up with this posturing, slipped away from The Table of Lefties engaged in fierce battle and empty polemic, tables pounded, voices raised to a shout. Hard-to-define differences between Socialist Worker Party, Socialist Labor Party, Bolshevik deviants from the True Cross, Trotskyites, Socialist but not a Marxist, so many angels on so many pins.

David Rosalsky, he of the family business selling and laying carpet, approved of my Working Class background and adopted me, so to speak. Perhaps he saw me as a convert to the cause. But was wrong on that one, too, not sufficiently informed or polarized to take sides in arguments vaguely understood about Surplus Value. Distracted watching that Dance of Desire seen in my first days around the table, divined something of interest. These highly selective ladies drifted toward Leftists-In-Arms who were pre-law. Cynical to think that women, committed to The Struggle, thought a lawyer a good catch?

One morning Rosalsky came to the table less aggressive than usual, the face of benevolent good news: Paul Robeson would be coming to the college for a free concert the following week, arranged by way of The Party, and he would be Official Greeter.

Isn’t he getting kind of old?

A question dismissed by our host, A guy who starred in college football, starred on Broadway and played Othello in New York and London has nothing to apologize for.

Some sort of budding theatre historian at the table said, He liked playing Othello so he could shtup his Desdemona’s. After choking her on stage, he was screwing her back stage.

David in high dudgeon or on high horse, An anti-Negro remark if ever I heard one. Knowledge of classical actors in America on full display, Shame on you. If John Wayne had been playing Othello and in love with his Desdemona would you say the same thing?

The day of the concert a worried David announced, A bunch of ROTC thugs intend to break up the concert. Assorted representatives of The Left saw David fingering the handle of his always-present carpet cutter tucked in its leather pouch. We can’t let them. An unspoken question around the table for those with no interest in supporting their Stalinist schoolmate, We?

David knowing the eternal hostility he faced from this crowd, a scoundrel in search of a last refuge, wisely turned for argument to our nation’s sacred Bill of Rights. It’s a free speech issue, The First Amendment.

It carried the day, but not before the quietest of us in the crowd rose up to Davd, Listen, my fellow Jewboy, Paul Robeson doesn’t only belong to your kind, he belongs to all of us

Before David could growl a response, A few years ago he gave a concert in Moscow, sang a song about the Jewish Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto dedicated to a Russian Jewish actor friend who everyone in the audience knew been murdered by Stalin. And because Robeson sang that song, in Yiddish by the way, that Jew hating Stalin of yours kept a recording of the concert from ever being heard again. So sure, let’s defend his right to sing. But for our reasons, not yours.

David, without shame placed us across double doors as the small hall was filling fast, a few true believers in the crowd, others hoping to hear Ol’ Man River, maybe an opera aria or two.

A troop of fellow students in military uniform marched toward we, the rabble ready to confront them. David brought them to a halt declaring, You’re not coming in.

Their leader stepped forward nose to nose with David, Who says so?

I do.

Found myself shouting with the others, We do.

David took the tool hanging at his side to show a menacing curved blade glinting in the light. Putting it to the face of the Goliath before him, I’ll cut the first one who tries. Brave soldier knew he was in the trenches with a mad man, stepped back in the face of this assault, turned away, not fleeing but without doubt departing, his cohort trailing after. David turned weapon back to tool, quaver to his hand.

On the stage of a filled hall he proudly introduced Paul Robeson with remarks prepared by others: His visits to the front during The Spanish Civil War against the Fascists, trips to Russia, praise of Stalin, blacklisting by McCarthy a badge of honor. Robeson, tall, traces remaining of a handsome smiling man who had known concert halls, Broadway houses, roar in stadiums at this All-American scoring touchdown after touchdown, even playing in The National Football League. If ever a man was truly for all seasons it was he. Not looking well, seeming content with the small venue, he spoke of racial oppression in America, extolled the virtues of the Soviet Union and Stalin and finally sang. Spanish Civil War Songs, a spiritual, and to satisfy hoi polloi "Ol’ Man River.

During it all David had slipped outside the hall to stand before closed doors, lonesome sentinel against enemy incursion. I asked, Could you hear him?

Yes, through the door, wasn’t he terrific?

To give David his due I agreed. How much did Robeson get paid?

Not sure, maybe fifty bucks. Concert done, he dashed to the stage to join Robeson and his handlers and his comrades..

Solidarity was his, but not forever when one cold Friday morning Stalin’s death had been announced. The monster, responsible for the deaths of millions, let alone Old Bolsheviks who’d made the revolution, Jewish doctors in a wave of paranoia, countless other foul deeds known to all around The Table, awaited David’s arrival. .

He walked toward us, this second generation True Believer, eyes red, silently begging for consideration. That kindness allotted, permitting David to describe Stalin as winner of WW II, saving us all from Fascism, creator of a glorious society, and on, and on. David in mourning had long determined that deaths of those millions were in name of The Great Struggle Forward. Those normally ready to demur, leap to attack, were silent.

Revenge came later when Stalin’s successor denounced him, accusing him of a multitude of crimes. The morning after The Revelations, vindicated Holy Inquisitors awaited their victim. David appeared, calm and relaxed, after all he’d been given The Party Line, and good C.P. member that he was would be pleased to deliver: That Stalin might have been guilty of Certain Excesses bad behaviors, even the murder of those doctors was ill advised. The Table could listen no more and pounced, naming one excess after another, with the final torment, David, you a Jew, how can you accept the horrors of Stalin’s Anti-Semitism? He leapt across the table at his accuser, grabbing him by the throat, crying out, You’re baiting me, baiting me.

Turning away from these rigid quarrels, these certainties based on received opinion, done with all of them, one last thing: David a good guy, and liking him, his study of Marxist-Leninism made taking classes in Western Economic Theory difficult. Worried that he’d fail a final in the subject, asked me to take the exam for him: About a B, no more. A dangerous thing to do, but did it for him, and he got his B. And no more was said. Hope he remained a True Blue Red, not turned to The Right as have so many of his Comrades.

********

A biology class had an evening lab. Students my age along with older men and woman, night school attendees, were in place. By those accidents of fate known only to the Gods found myself alongside a tall woman with a great head of black hair, red polish decorating long finger nails, olive complexion hinting at The Middle East, thirty five, I surmised. We exchanged a modest smile awaiting dead frogs to be dissected. The instructor, a woman with a tone suggesting discipline pointed out the scalpel, scissors, tweezers, pins and gloves for our use. We donned the gloves, told to flip the frog on its back, its long legs extending out and away from us, a snort of recognition that I’d seen legs splayed outward and upward in such style before. Biology, wasn’t it?

Pinning the extended legs of the frog to the table, we were told to slit the soft underbelly vertically down the middle then horizontally, to form a square flap of skin that was to be removed. Saw my companion hesitate, hands atremble, the instructor pacing the room, watching, grading results with her eyes. With so gentle a movement it could have been perceived the spreading of a bird’s wing brushed aside my lab friend and swiftly, deftly performed the task for her. A smile bestowed I took as an investment, hoping for future returns. The instructor passed by with approval. Was ever woman in such humor wooed? That future, to my continuing surprise in these matters, occupied the very present, the very evening of our meeting via that dissected frog.

Afifah her name, It means modesty, had a car, drove us to upper Manhattan and an apartment with a large dangerous dog dragged away to a back room. The living room had wall hangings that looked like rugs, round red leather things to sit on, and there we sat down. She’d already thanked me for my help with the frog surprised to learn it was a first time for me as well. Such quick hands.

And then we were in her bedroom, Crucifix and Bleeding Jesus hanging on the wall, went at it, every orifice, and some special to the occasion investigated, dwelt upon not with hammer and tongs, but fingers and tongues, past summer lessons put to good use.

Until could take no more, adjusted her in that self same froggie position seen hours before, ready to take the plunge, end repeated refrains, and thrust home. Felt strong arms of resistance as she uttered what would seem hypocritical to some but for her An Article of Faith.

And this is what she said, You wouldn’t want me do anything against my religion, would you?

What was a boy to do? Why, learn to be a gentleman, that’s what, and look up at the aforementioned on the wall and agree.

Being a lady, she did finish me off. Another lesson learned that would be of great use in later years: A woman could be pleasured, satisfied, without benefit of clergy or penetration, and so could he.

It was sorting out emotions, damn it. Feelings, this thing called love. And Afifah had no questions on the subject. Love would come, along with marriage and family, and she would have her honor intact on her wedding night. Noticed for the first time a string of Rosary beads hanging on a bedpost and bade my Lebanese lab mate goodnight and goodbye.

******

A college boy with no luck with college girls, unable to match the gravity of intention they bring in search of themselves, The Museum of Modern Art discovered on those days skipping high school long ago, had become my playground. I’d begun to notice some with more than Fine Art on their minds, quiet remarks about a picture leading to conversation, and an invitation to a drink upstairs on the penthouse floor.

Nose to canvas examining Monet’s Water Lilies, heard a soft voice behind me Are you an artist?

Turning, met the face of an Indian woman in a costume. No, I’m not, I like looking at brushstrokes.

And why is that?

Took the moment before replying to be startled by light blue eyes set off by that dark face, red lips, a slight crook to her nose that did not mar perfection but appeared right.

And why is that’ she repeated with a small smile.

A brushstroke is an artist’s fingerprint. It allows me to recognize his work.

This notion of mine sufficiently interesting to allow a walk around the galleries, no Boy Scout, but Be Prepared, identifying work by title and artist at first glance. She took this scholarly endeavor as natural, what I was, someone who knows things. It hadn’t occurred to me that bits and pieces of information could accumulate, be thought about, be the possibility of a future of sorts.

Concentrating on the moment, silently counting the few dollars in my wallet, pressed hard on my luck invited my new friend for a cup of tea in the penthouse café. Accepted, we headed to the elevator operated by a Negro man I’d gotten to know. The penthouse was not open to all, but eyeing my companion, glancing my way for a moment, lifted both my spirits and our bodies heavenward.

The Modern was a tranquil place those days, not yet filled with a polyglot of foreign visitors, the glottal stop of Long Island sounds. Those in attendance dressed well, spoke softly, carrying themselves as the privileged can. Knew the niceties of dress, not what this boy could afford. Ordinary shirt, ordinary sweater, smile and a shoeshine, a bit of a salesman I guess, my merchandise immortal youth, no more, no less.

My name is Sharvari.

I told her mine, repeating her name, as if an inquiry.

Twilight, she explained, as the late afternoon sky began to darken.

Following my thoughts, It is the lovely time of day wherever I go.

Her dark skin in contrast to my pale white arms right for the time of day, looked up into her face. More question than observation, You have blue eyes.

Yes, I do. Many thanks to Alexander the Great and his army that came to India as conquerors. They and those that followed left as a legacy, eyes of blue.

We cradled the cups, the warmth of the tea reaching into our hands.

How old are you?

Eighteen.

You know a great deal about art.

Only the titles and names of the artists, not much more.

The modesty of my reply pleasing to her, looked at me, trying to decide something. Whatever that decision would involve took us down to the street where a large black car awaited, driver leaping from his seat to open doors left and right. The license plate bore the letters DPL I knew meant Diplomat.

My father is at the UN, she said as the chariot drove west on 53rd Street, made a left turn and headed downtown.

Sitting back, deep in the cushions of a limousine for the first time, pleasures of leather, gleaming interior, watched out the window at familiar places, Times Square, Grand Central, passing by. Not solitary, not alone, a singular, minimal experience. Is this as it should be, is intended? With no ready answer, a soft hand touching mine, the car had stopped, as should my reverie, joined her past on-his-guard doorman looking me up and down, to a very high floor in a high rise facing the UN.

A bronze statue of a nude woman very sexy, gave welcome, Sharvari went into the kitchen. The apartment filled with art, I prowled about admiring the brilliant colors of hangings, paintings of court scenes, felt soft rugs under unshod feet. She entered with a tray, motioned me to a low table in the living room. More tea with soft, sweet cakes, Delicious.

She smiled watching my eyes flit about the room take in its sumptuousness, spectacular things in every corner. Sitting across from each other in the pleasure of the moment, fetched a small sculpture she placed before me. A female figure in bronze on a low circular platform, hands extended, a third and fourth pair of arms, two pillars supported a decorated arc. Shakti, she said. Felt the smoothness of the metal, looked into the face of this thing called Shakti. The Divine Mother, source of all creativity.

A Goddess?

Much more, so many other things. Defender against The Demons.

Demons? Sounds like superstition, thought I. And conjectured, what my pals, steeped in Socialist Realism would think of all this? Keep quiet boy, things to learn here.

She set the sculpture down, lifted a large book and placed it before me, The Kama Sutra of Vatsayana.

Listened as those elongated vowels made music of the words.

"Do you know it?’

No I didn’t.

Two thousand years old, a sacred text of my Hindu faith.

Opening the book to its first page, before me a splendid scene, couple in serious copulation. This, I could understand. Shavira turned the pages watching my eyes. A joyful pair, she astride this time, welcomed my close attention. Pages rolled on in happy combination of positions, no two the same.

Slowly rummaging through the book realized with a start that Shavira’s foot was pressing on mine. Not the foot but her toes, searching, moving across my toes, exquisite the pressure, soft, then hard, unrelenting, a flowing of pleasing persistence. Spoke not a word, did not look up from the concupiscence of pictures rolling past. Played footsie before, but this? Turning the last page finally looked her way.

Which are your favorites? she boldly inquired. A question not about art, didn’t think, something better.

Turned the pages and found the man on his back, the woman astride him.

Oh, that’s one of my favorites. And what else?

Found a picture of the more common placement, lady on her back, man atop.

And that’s all?

Shavira looked at me as one about to deliver a special benevolence, These sixty four pictures are not only about sex.

She smiled, but was preacher serious. It tells us of all life has to give. Pleasure can be achieved in many ways.

Ever hopeful these homilies would develop into something more, summoned up what sagacity can be achieved by an eighteen year old, I think I understand.

Coming very close, I want you to say a word, a Hindi word.

I nodded.

Alingana.

Alingina, repeated.

Say it again, Alingana.

Alingana, what does it mean?

Embrace, she said, and folded me into her arms, held so close I could not move, but who would want to? Chest to chest, face to face, bodies quiet against each other ‘til release. Alingana, she said. Say it again, and do what it asks.

Did so, but rather than hold so tight, embraced her and with a rocking motion, swayed with her as though in a slow, slow dance. This pleased her mightily, and after a while she stopped me with another word.

Cumbana.

Cumbana, Dutifully echoed, waited for translation.

Instead she reached for my mouth with her own, kissed me so gently and said, Cumbana, can you tell what it means?

A language lesson, Kiss, so clever a boy was I.

And received my prize for cleverness, her generous mouth all over eyes, ears, throat. Propped up on the low tabletop, legs dangling, zipper down, then pants, she pushed her sari to her waist, raising a leg beside me on the table. Brought me into her, she did, and very nice should mention. Then, an acrobatic move, raising her other leg to the table, wrapped both around my waist locking me inside with no possibility or wish to escape. Self-control a bit of a problem for the young bucko, with Shavira astride me no tension or need to perform. She got me on my back letting me know wordlessly needed to do no more than accept imperceptible movements she made rising, dropping down on the soul of me, ‘til she was done.

And we went on, deep into the night. Straddling me, paddling me, asking me to do the same. Can’t be sure she ran through all sixty-four from that card file of tricks she carried in her head. With more words for me to learn: Yoni and lingam, those parts that brought us to our difference. Then prahanana, slapping, dantacchedy, biting. Last for best, cusana, oh glorious definition, suck.

Shavira practiced what she preached all right. From the rear, from the front, upside down, down side up, from any and every angle, acute or obtuse with special attention paid to how legs and arms and lips flowed together.

She had removed her sari, got me down to the buff to compare and contrast dark skin and white amid the shadows within our commingling. Moving between dominance to submission, she taught me to do the same. We remained in the living room, thick pile of rug sufficient for her needs. An acolyte, what I remember is the tenderness she brought to the night. Hers, and she, mine.

There’s more to tell, there frequently is. About the sex, that is. And a lesson Shavira extended that would stand me well down the years. During a respite from our labors, thought I brought too much tension to our lovemaking. Excellent as it is, quick to reassure. And wanted me to try something on our next go-round.

Heard a clock chime midnight; the sensual strut begun, atop me moving as though she was a warm liquid, balm for what ailed me. At a point of no return, she deftly pulled away and sat me up. Drop your chin to your chest.

Did as asked, Breathe deeply, she urged. Hold it for at least 5 seconds. I exhaled.

Again. Keep your chin down.

After many repetitions she had me raise my head. What do you feel when you take a deep breath?

Nothing at first, then warmth, a calm she sensed, rolled on her back and drew me to her. And joined me in parry and thrust that could carry on forever. But forever is a long, long time, and, with a remarkable twist of hips, pelvis and dear yoni she brought me to a finish.

What was that? I plaintively begged.

A Tantric exercise. And you did very well. You’d make a fine husband for a Hindu wife. There was light in the sky. Dawn breaking over the East River. We’d been at it the whole night through. And wanted more, so much more.

Shavira straightening her sari went to the phone. She was ordering up a car to return me back to my life.

Can I see you again? A tentative questioning, hoping against hope.

Oh my dear boy, I can’t. I’ll be going back to India.

And then the killer: To be introduced to my fiancé and his family.

Introduced?

Yes, it’s the way it’s done. Saves all sorts of silly business with dating and the like.

But, I insisted.

No buts about it. We’ve talked on the phone, exchanged photographs. He seems a decent chap. A doctor. That pleases my parents. A bit too taken with cricket perhaps, but a good match.

She walked me to the door, a long cumbana. You remember what that is, don’t you? Make me immortal with a kiss.

The car will take you home, my lovely boy.

And that was that. Down to earth the elevator rode, a car waiting. A driver opened a rear door, climbed in, gave him my Bronx tenement address and we were on our way.

Halfway home realized, four midterms that morning and afternoon, this all-nighter a different kind of preparation, indeed. Bound to do poorly, and that’s how it turned out. An early lesson took hold of me. That encounters with women could slow progress, as we know progress, and lived to repeat it, continuously.

The exams as predicted were a flop. Barely scratching out Cs, fair trade in exchange for Lady Fair. I’d make it up during finals if I could avoid temptation, interruption, and bank Shavira on the short list of happy recollection. No last name, no phone number, no more to her than what it had been. Not quick, but slow, down, and dirty. It would not harden my heart but instead softened, prepared me for what might come along, no way to know, no talent for prediction.

It was back to school days, Dear Old Golden Rule Days. But, how you gonna keep him down on the farm, now that he’s seen Delhi?

Beyond the sex, had no curiosity about The Karma Sutra, or anything Hindu or Indian. Apathy struggled against inquisitiveness, no interest in absorbing more. An early failing, hard to unlearn.

******

There was another awakening, not a sexual dawning this time, a class in Modern British and American poetry. Listen, as the great names roll past: Pound, Eliot, Whitman, and unforgettable Emily Dickinson. And then, Yeats: To A Poet Whose Work Has Come To Nothing. Think that a meaningful choice? I can recite or write it down from memory. Read it and be overwhelmed as I was, by it’s honesty, compassion.

Poetry swirled, whipsawing, stunning. I was a spinning shaman, divining not runes, but poems and words. A boy’s first foray into phrases and rhythms with lucidity so fine, though beware, assonances and dissonances a prognostication of difficulties to come. A close reader, appreciator, interpreter, drawing the attention of teacher and fellow students. Never ending the anger toward schools of interpretation lingering forever and a day.

What part would poetry play in my life? Never a poet, making the mandatory efforts, down all the years poetry looms large in my life.

Wallace Stevens looks at a blackbird thirteen different ways, I do not know which to prefer, the beauty of inflections or the beauty of innuendoes, the blackbird whistling or just after.

******

Poetry aside, we are all eighteen once, young men finding themselves in combustible combination with young women. I speak in longwinded way of self-selecting young things choosing me, among equals, to be their first.

A Church Father, Aquinas, called virginity a state of mind…spiritual purity. Oh, splendid rationalization no doubt intended for The Brothers not The Sisters. The Blessed Virgin? Blasphemers suggest a Roman soldier lurking about one fine morning in May. Been to the Parthenon? I haven’t, but know The Maiden Goddess Athena presides; evidence from ancient of days reveals neither chastity nor abstinence defined her or her sisters.

It was early spring, and as any imagine, all in bloom, daffodils for sale on 57th Street. Bought a bunch or two handing them out without regard to age or looks to women passing by, an Apollo bringing sunshine and smiles by way of largess. Saving a few for Bernadette, I’d met casually in Central Park the day before. Come for a visit, I live nearby the park, telling her address, sure I’d remember.

Buzzed in, reaching the floor of her apartment, an open door and Bernadette awaited. Blond, deep-set hazel eyes, refined facial structure guaranteeing marriage to a law partner or major banker. An athlete’s confidant stride, tennis no doubt, the requisite Central Park Riding Academy in the mix, accepted at Radcliffe and elated with anticipation

Flowers an offering; hardly had a chance to see Carnegie Hall out the window when she engulfed me in a kiss, shocking in its ardor. Good God, all we’d done the day before was walk, talk and here we were in a tangle of falling pants and shorts, a flinging away of shirt and blouse, heading toward her room that had one of those Modigliani prints seen everywhere. And a collection of dolls that led me to realize she was more child than woman as we slipped into her well-made narrow bed. Once out of her clothes, less bold, less sure of herself, held close and tight with intensity that belied our new friendship. Barely able to breathe, her body the presence of enchantment struggled to exchange.

Releasing me a bit, she reached between my legs and fondled me; my graduating senior using skills perfected in back seats of cars, darkened rooms at parties.

A hand job, but don’t presume, sir. Don’t think yourself master of fate. Bernadette rolled me round and round with one hand, touched my cheek with the other, and as though a self- benediction whispered, You’ll be my first time.

My first time, Bernadette had whispered. Letting a small gap form between us, why me, wanted to ask. Instead, But we’ve just met.

Indifferent to the obvious, I like you. We had a terrific day in the park.

But you must have boyfriends… Trailed off when she put fingers to my lips, gave the benefit of her thinking. Purposely slipping away from good grammar and into vulgarism, I don’t want no high school boyfriend claiming he popped my cherry, and I sure don’t want no jerk-off Yalie telling his frat boys either. That was that, so far as she wished to discuss it. And drew me to her, certain in her intention not be a virgin on entering higher education, right that I would be a fine first-timer for her.

That it was my first time to be a first-timer had its own variations. Though Bernadette was convinced otherwise, it was I the sacrificial lamb. That notion left behind, closed on her whispering, This might hurt a little. She paid no attention, awaiting me, hearing her breath go short as I entered her, body tense, then release as I moved, oh, so gently past a small obstruction, causing her to gasp for a moment. Held me, held on forever, ‘til we felt the trickle of blood between her thighs, laughing long and loud, kissed me.

Blood had drenched sheets and mattress pad. She ripped them from the bed, worried for a moment that the mattress was blood spattered as well. And, naked, ran them to the laundry, dashing back, a Diana on the hunt, into my arms. We were in love.

Soberly cautioning about pregnancy, indifferent to my Margaret Sanger imitation, I’m starving. Let’s go out, I know a place nearby.

Hesitated, cost a concern, We’ll use my father’s account, Le Pavillion, OK?

No idea what that might mean, off we went onto 57th Street ignoring Schraffts, my kind of joint, toward 5th Avenue. Two more blocks to 55th and their stood Le Pavillion, a place so elegant it made socks fall to ankles. Bernadette waltzed in, greeted by a bald, fat man. Bon soir, Mademoiselle Bernadette.

Bon soir, Monsieur Soule.

The owner on first name basis with ladylove glanced my way, a jacket appearing to avoid embarrassment. Well-dressed diners looked our way at two kids clearly not appropriate to the place. If only they knew.

Seated, the feel of soft cushioning, menus the size of a ship’s sails before us, a book entitled Wine List so enormous it might have been a Gutenberg Bible, handed off to little me. A distinct kind of first time from the most recent last. On her turf, and in exchange had things she could teach me with a comforting smile.

A man, some sort of wine related thing hanging round his neck came over exchanging familiar greetings, Champagne, Jacques. Two glasses.

Very good, Mademoiselle, something to celebrate?

She looked at me across the table with a little girl’s giggle. It was enough for Jacques, and two glasses of Champagne set before us, she raised her glass to me in a solemn, silent toast and sipped. Did the same, and for the first time felt bubbles in my throat, a rich sensation, the alcohol reaching my brain so quickly I put the glass down in fear of a spill.

A waiter hovering, Bernadette studied the menu. The sole. And escargot for the two of us.

Staring, puzzling out the meaning of Filet of Sole Bonne Femme, And Monsieur?

Taken aback, turned to the menu, noticing prices worthy of a good used car. Try the Beef Bourguignon, it’s a specialty here.

Grateful for the advice, tried to get the feel of the place, not able to get comfortable, struggling with an odd looking instrument used to extract snail from shell. Did Bernadette purposely pick a restaurant so out of my league?

Tossing that aside, gave in to her happy chatter, out on a date, ordering glasses of white and red wine with unpronounceable names, forever to be part of her.

Dug into my beef, the Champagne doing its work, the meal delicious, the wine warming. An evening of firsts to last her forever, and then dismissed, duty done. Parents would be in Europe for a few more weeks, the help was away. Still in high school, not yet eighteen, she wanted more of me; I could continue to be God’s instrument.

College classes needed attention, afternoons and late into the night we had our time together. Bringing her along in the manly arts of love, not too much of it, figuring there were things she’d want to learn on her own. Knowing as well that if she showed too much, too soon, she’d frighten off those Yalie’s considered a good match.

Selected to be the chosen one could think myself a conqueror, triumphant. Unfair to eager Bernadette, a willing participant, would be her first and only, the former forever the latter for now. An indecent road to nowhere, what would she remember of me when her parents got back, and off on a trip of her own? What stories tell after a few drinks with women friends? Passing us around as kids do with baseball cards from childhood, or inquiring husband or two?

*******

There were three or four more in that special category. Asked to carefully consider the important decision they’d made, began to sound like Havelock Ellis. They’d all read Love Without Fear, allotted me a week or two, preparing to go forth and sin once more. Each had her story, with one singular tale worth the retelling, of incestuous pillage.

I’d become a senior counselor at the day camp. No possible involvement with junior counselors. Moral standards? Not sure. On a beach day the end of June, New York summer heat and humidity brutal, breezes off the water little dent to discomfort, boys frolicking in the water, I saw Nancy, a rather thin young woman seated close by reading Norman Mailer’s Barbary Shore. Hadn’t read it, but nothing deterred, asked about it. Her reply came with a soft smoky Southern accent. From small town South Carolina come to New York recently to seek what good fortune might turn her way. A three-day weekend upon us, gallantly proposed to show her around the city.

We met the next day on the front steps of the Met, her choice, marbled walls a welcome from the heat of the morning. Mounting the grand staircase into a room of Old Masters, knew nothing of these pictures so unlike those at MOMA, nor did Nancy. We wandered about saying little, taken by Rembrandt, into the French Galleries where we stood before a very big painting of a man attacking a woman with a knife. Reading the label, Could we go back to my apartment in Brooklyn? Her request so sudden and quick to agree, made no connection with the painting.

We walked out into the impossible heat to the subway on 86th Street, the depths of the underground even worse for sweating passengers traveling from one circle of hell to the next. Off at the Brooklyn Bridge stop, the East River adding humidity to the day, to a tiny apartment, her brother’s, who’d left for the July 4th weekend.

She dashed into the bathroom, heard the shower, returning fully clothed. Doing the same emerged no cooler, to find Nancy on the love seat. The apartment had a small bedroom with a double bed. A kitchen table with two chairs shared the living room, a place for a single person, not much more. Trying to talk about the brief museum visit, she changed the subject. Something was wrong. Something was up. Not for me to know, not yet.

She took my hand, the first time we’d touched; tentative, so hesitant thought it a mistake. And then kissed me. A hard, rough, angry kiss, I pulled back, to look at her.

I want to be made love to, she said, so quietly.

Sure, OK.

No you don’t understand. It was plaintive, a lament.

Waited, wondering if she would explain what I didn’t understand. "I want to be made love to by a