Miles (11 page)

Nicolasha
returned, with a wet rag, towel, iodine, and rubbing alcohol in hand to clean
and treat my face.  He handed me an ice pack, which I bounced in my hand
while he tut-tutted over me.  "You should be fine."  I
grunted.  He lowered his hand over mine and held the ice pack to the
bottom of my jaw, watching my reaction closely.  I didn't show any, even
though I felt a flash inside of me upon meeting the warmth of his palm. 

His
fingers slid inside of mine.  "We have two, how do you say, sure fire
cures for such wounds in
Russia
."

Nicolasha's
eyes drew me into his.  I felt the flash again, and felt a little fear,
too.  I gently pulled my hand away from his and dropped the ice pack on
the floor noisily.  "I think they're only bruises, little
father."

Nicolasha
shook his head mournfully.  With great tenderness, he began running his
hand through my hair.  "No, my friend, they are wounds, as grievous
as a bullet or a blade.  I think I know who gave these to you," he
whispered as I closed my eyes, blotting my Christmas Eve festivities out with
the picture of Nicolasha's unlined, unshaven face staring with morbid oblivion
at an invisible camera, "and that is why they cannot be mere bruises that
will go away in a few hours."

I
tried to put the photo album out of my mind.  His fingers playfully
circumnavigated my scalp.  "So tell me about these two famous cures
from
Russia
."  I couldn't.  I felt myself get
hard with another flash. 

"One
is to get blind drunk on vodka."  I laughed as he wagged a finger at
me.  "But you are too young for that."  Right, tell that to
some of my baseball buddies when they go and pilfer their parents' wet bar
supplies.  "The other is...a different sort of medicine." 
Nicolasha's free hand timorously brushed across my crotch.

Flash.

I
didn't react.  I didn't know how to.  But I didn't back away, either,
or make a sound.  I was scared, that's for sure, but there was a thrill in
that fear that almost made me shake in my seat.

"The
other is a tender kiss from a loved one."

*

I
looked closely at Nicolasha's soft, white body, afraid to touch him anywhere
else except his face.  I could hear the wind blowing outside of his small
bedroom window.  It was the first time since Nicolasha ran his hand
through my hair that I was aware some other world existed outside of the room.

My
eyes stayed closed.  My stomach was full to bursting, yet I felt hungrier
than I’d ever been.  I cried out continuously, almost happily, as it hurt. 
I could barely breathe, panting and moaning myself silly, when the throbbing
turned into a warm ocean.  The music I felt, the vibrations across my
body, they all seeped into the dark and bounced into a swirling delirium that
swallowed me whole.

*

Nicolasha
returned from the bathroom and switched off his reading lamp, curling me into
his arms and legs beneath the chaos of the bed's multiple blankets.  He
carefully kissed every corner of my bruised face while his hands massaged my
spent and naked body.  I bungled along, trying to follow his lead,
stopping only when my teacher lay down beside me and tucked me into the
thickest of the quilts, content to run his fingers through my hair again.

"I
love you, little friend."

My
breath choked in my throat.  "I love you, too, Nicolasha." 
My chest heaved once.  I spit out a tired, hurt, disoriented sob, but did
not cry.  My fucking God, I was so sick of crying.
 

Nicolasha
rubbed his lips over my hair and hugged me underneath the covers.  We lay
in the dark of our thoughts for many minutes.  "When you are ready to
tell me what happened this evening, tovarisch, don't be afraid."  His
warm feet slid under mine.

"Tomorrow?"
I asked, hanging on to him until he pulled away.

"It
is already tomorrow," he reminded me with a chuckle.  I squinted at
my Omega before Nicolasha took my hand in his, playing with my fingers. 
It was almost dawn.

"What
does 'tovarisch' mean?"

Nicolasha
made me squirm as he ran his wet tongue along the contours of my ear. 
"Comrade," he whispered, before kissing the side of my neck and
falling back onto his limp feather pillows.

I
moved into the only available arms that would have me and fell asleep while the
snow continued to fall on the cold and nearly motionless city I called home.

* * *

Makes the night morning and the noontide night.

Richard III

I
slept forever. 

The
soft warmth between our tangled bodies was something I had thought about and
something I had dreamt about for a long time.  When it came to me like a
gift on that blinding, sun-drenched Christmas morning, I let it sweep over me
like the crashing, childhood waves off of Nags Head, North Carolina, the ones
that would pick me up and hurl me onto the beach like I was a rag doll, the ones
I used to visit with my mother and father, when they still loved each other.

I
felt Nicolasha's breath near my face before he kissed me once on the
chin.  I woke up and smiled up at him.  "Merry Christmas, little
friend!"  He was kneeling beside me on the floor, wearing a
ridiculously old-fashioned thermal underwear jump suit that drooped from his
shoulders, goofy long-johns right out of a B-western. He took one of my hands
and kissed it, before I glanced down at my lap, where a tray of hot food had been
placed.

There
were four slices of that salty black rye bread, a block of soft white cheese
that was as big as a pack of cigarettes, a small carafe of steaming tea, two of
Nicolasha's demitasse teacups, and a plate covered with a mound of scrambled
eggs, filled with slices of onions, peppers, potatoes, and a sweet pork
sausage, not to mention about a pound of garlic.

No
sign of any vodka, however.

He
peeled off his faded red underwear and crawled into the covers next to
me.  We ate in silence while Handel's
Messiah
played quietly in the
background.  The little speaker of the clock radio didn't do much justice
to the oratorio's joyous expanse, but complemented the warm sunlight pouring
into the bedroom over us.

And
I felt another wave crash over me, a wave of contentment and reflection that
aroused and odd, fast-motion meditation of my life as a confidential agent
those last few weeks that lead up to my fateful Christmas holiday, making
secretive visits, clandestine phone calls, stealth research, and a few private
conversations in search of a father-type I could talk to without being slapped
or getting mortified into further, acrid silence.

A
few days after I met Felix, I made my first, tentative inquiry at the Pilot
Institute's normally well-stocked library, but found nothing, except dry and
discouraging medical definitions that told me nothing.

Later
that week, I moved on to our school nurse, a shy, frail Mexican-American who
had served as an Army medic in
Vietnam
.  He listened to my questions and tactfully
ignored the anxieties that had to have dripped like rainwater from my timid
overuse of genderless pronouns, doing his best not to be judgmental or give me
any advice that would indicate his own attitudes on the subject, except that I
should continue my inquiries "until I was satisfied with whatever answers
materialized".

The
following week, I found texts at the University bookstore that were more
forthright and spoke to many of the questions I had been troubled with for what
seemed like a long time.  A few nights later, I got up the nerve to phone
the professor who had assigned those books at his office.  We talked for
hours, and he even invited me to visit one of his classes, but I couldn't think
of an easy way to ask Felix to come with me, and was too intimidated to go
alone. 

With
only a week to go before the Pilot Institute let out for the holidays, I showed
up to take confession at our local church, a typically suburban,
under-architected spiritual banality that wouldn't pass muster as a city church
cry-room.  Quite unexpectedly, I ran into Brennan, one of the guys I used
to play baseball with.  I didn't expect him to be waiting for me after I
stormed out of the box, angry and humiliated after a thoroughly negative
exchange with the priest about guilt and fidelity and sin and some more guilt
thrown in, just in case.

Brennan
and I walked through our old playing field, a large, grassy corner of one of
our local parks.  We were chilled to the bone, but kept each other company
until the sun went down.  I surprised myself by actually talking to
someone my own age, live and in person, face to face, about...well,
everything.  And Brennan listened, and didn't laugh, or hit me, or make me
feel bad, or run off.  He told me to find some other priest to talk to,
and made me promise to call him over the Christmas break.

With
a smile, I remembered holding out my frozen hand, and Brennan pushing it away
to give me a tongue-tied hug that helped me muddle through the rest of that
night.

I
went back to Holy Rosary the next day.  A little old lady in the office
sent me to see a visiting priest from
Poland
, of all places.  He was a young guy with
wavy blond hair and a wiry build who had just finished giving morning Mass when
I arrived.  He sat us down on the marble steps leading down to the front
door of the church, and, in surprisingly good English, urged me to speak freely
to him.  So I did.  He was either the best actor in the Warsaw Pact
or genuinely cared about me and my stupid little problem, because we talked for
an hour, stopping only because he had to perform another Mass for the other ten
Poles still living in Roseland.  He invited me to attend, but I chickened
out.

Instead,
I insisted he give me absolution.  Just in case.  The young priest
was convinced I had nothing to be forgiven for, but grudgingly obliged.

He
sent me off to school with parting words, rich, sublime words that kept ringing
in my ears: "You are God's child.  He made you what you are.  He
loves you as you are, no matter what people may say.  Be what you are, or
you will indeed be a sinner against Him."

So
this was it, I mused.  Being what I am.

What
is it about superb food or being naked with someone that makes it so easy to
ruminate over the vital emotions and key moments in your life, like you were watching
them over and over again, ala instant replay on television?

I
cut a slice of the cheese and swallowed it with a mouthful of eggs, and let
another wave of tranquility flow over me as the meal and the morning and our
time together continued.

I
decided to call the professor, the priest, and Brennan to wish them a Happy
Christmas before my flight to sunny
Florida
departed, to thank them all.

Maybe
Uncle Alex would come down to
Florida
with me, I speculated.  God knows what sort
of tangled plots and conspiracies would emerge from Jason and my uncle getting
together.

Nicolasha
lifted the tray from my legs and leaned across me to set it down on the floor
beside the bed.  "What would you like to do now, little friend?"

I
considered the question with mock gravity.  "Do you have any more Mr.
Bubble?"

I
sunk back into the covers and let my teacher take me in his arms, content to
stay there with Handel's chorus in the background, singing to me and my
tovarisch:

Let
us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yokes from us.

*

The
air was clear and wonderfully fresh.  There was no wind coming off of
Lake Michigan
, only a few blocks away.  It was still below freezing, but not
by much, a veritable heat wave compared to the Ice Station Zero temperatures
and wind chill that had besieged Chicago much of that December.  Nicolasha
lived on a quiet street by
Hyde Park
standards, but the neighborhood itself was a busy
and vibrant one.  You could always hear traffic going past on South Shore
Drive, buses coming to a halt or crawling away from a stop, commuter trains
clattering along the overpass tracks that bisected the neighborhood, the
occasional police siren, or some combination thereof.  But the street was
unusually soundless.  You could almost hear the drops falling from the
cluster of icicles that had formed on the corners of the porch roof.  The
sunlight bounced off of the fresh, fallen snow, making both of us squint as we
stood next to each other outside the building's glass front door.

I
didn't immediately notice the colorless sedan parked behind Nicolasha's Volvo,
even though it was the only car on the block that had no snow over it.

"Thank
you, little father."  It had been some time since I had taken a bath,
rather than a shower.  I had certainly never taken a bath like that
one.  I felt like I was still sopping wet under all my clothes.

Nicolasha
shifted uneasily on his feet, his eyes fixed on the deep, cloudless blue sky
flying above us.  I touched his arm, and he smiled, but not at me. 
"No, little friend, thank
you
.  Thank you for coming...for
being here."

I
laughed quietly and reached up to pull an icicle off of the gutter. 
"I didn't have any other place to go!"  I examined the icicle
closely before tasting the tip of it with my lips, making sure there wasn't too
much air pollution frozen into the thing.

"You
could have gone home."

I
snapped the icicle in half with two fingers and glared at my teacher, who
seemed small and timid, all of a sudden.  "But I didn't.  I came
here because I wanted to."  Or needed to, I wasn't sure.

Nicolasha
put a hand on my arm and smiled.  It was a careful smile, perhaps a tired
one, but definitely sad.  "And I am glad you did." 

But...?

My
music teacher took a deep breath and crossed his arms over his chest with his head
down.  Slowly, he began to pace over the chipped paint of the wooden
porch.  "There is so much in my mind and in my heart, little friend,
so much I would like to say."

I
shrugged my shoulders and leaned against the railing.  "I'm not going
anywhere," I said in a matter-of-fact way, the same emotionless voice I'd
used so much with Mom and Dad of late.

"I
don't want to hurt you, or...confuse you."

Nicolasha
still wouldn't look me in the eye.  I hated that.  It made me feel
colder inside, a little blue flame of anger deep in my heart that came out
through the computerized tone in my voice.  "I'm not a little
kid."

"No. 
I know that."  Nicolasha's arms dropped to his side as he glared at
some invisible dot floating around in back of my left shoulder. 
"There is very little of any 'kid' left in you."

"I'm
going to be seventeen in August."

"And
I'm going to be twenty five next week."  Next week?  An edge had
crept into his soft voice.  Our eyes finally met and stayed locked
together, while our bodies didn't move an inch.  "I do not know if
that should matter.  Or what does, anymore." 
         Well, nothing, if you want to
be existentialist about it, I responded to myself, thinking about Camus'
The
Stranger
, which we were reading in Mister Granger's ball-busting Literature
class.  "All I can be sure about is what I am feeling." Which
is...?  "I believe I love you."  Flash.  "I do
not know how, or why.  But it is what I feel, and I am afraid of
that."

My
voice sunk to a murmur.  "How come?"

"You
are so young.  You are my student, as well."  His eyes begged
for me to look away, or make a joke, or push him aside and walk off, but I
didn't.  I stood my ground and stared back at him, making him say what I
couldn't even bring myself to think.  "Because I feel so alone so
often, and it is less so when you are with me."  I could see his eyes
begin to fill.  "I would like us to be together, even though I know
we cannot, or should not.  Or..."  His eyes closed
tightly.  "But I love you, and do not know how to stop from feeling
that in my heart."

And
the last warm wave I would feel inside of me for many, many days came teeming
down like a burst dam onto my soul, the defenseless little
Mitteleuropan
village below.   

I
heard a car door close behind me, but didn't turn around to look.  I took
a step closer to Nicolasha, and touched his breast under his leather jacket
with the tips of my gloves.  My voice was still a whisper, but was no
longer unvarnished with emotion.  "I love you, too."  I
couldn't help but smile.  Perhaps it was my groping use of one of the
great romantic cliches of all time.  More likely, it was the sense of
power I felt, watching Nicolasha's trembling, bare hand reach up and wait for
my gloved fingers.  "Nicolas Mikhailovitch Rozhdestvensky."

"So
that's your real name."

We
spun around to see the old police Captain from much earlier that Christmas
morning.  He wore a plain white t-shirt under a loose, overstuffed yellow
parka, fading blue jeans, a yellow stocking cap, and a battered pair of work
boots, whose laces hung loose.  His face had a strange mixture of relief
and seriousness about it.  Nicolasha visibly recoiled upon recognizing
him.  I stood my ground, again.

"I
was pretty sure this was the house we dropped you off at, son."  He
winked at me like a proud father might.  I was confused.  "Merry
Christmas." 

"Yeah. 
You, too, Captain."