On Archimedes Street (21 page)

“T’anks, Armida. After dey braise in the tomatisauce, let dem come to room temp’ature. I fridge dem when I come back. Tomorrow we can slice dem and vacuum-seal dem.” Lotte knew for a certainty that they would sell out within a few days, at fifteen dollars a pop. Lotte had won the Greater Gretna Cook-off now for nine years in a row, and “Italian Beef,” or tongue, had carried off the prize two years ago. A crowd favorite. No need to let people know it was tongue.

But right now she had other fish to fry.

S
PECIAL
E
D
,
bone-tired, stepped into the shotgun single. He had not bargained for this. Wailin’ Elwood had handed over the whole tree business to him. Elwood could no longer be bothered with trees. He was deep into the curriculum. It fell to Ed, and only to Ed, to keep the business going.

“The yew hedge was a bitch,” grumbled Special Ed.

“Hedges always a bitch.” Wailin’ Elwood grinned at Ed, waiting for him to notice.

And Ed did notice. Old-fashioned, glass milk bottles littered the kitchen table. They held a residue of—what was it—ashes?

“Where did you get those old-timey milk bottles?”

“It dat fancy-ass milk what LaNasa sell, from the orrr-gaaanic,” Elwood drew out the word snootily, “place dat bathe the cows in rosewater an’ den take dem to the op’ra house an’ ballet befo’ dey milk’.”

“What did you do with the milk?”

“It in the icebox. In bowls. We can make rice puddin’ wit’ it.”

Ed pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table wearily. He massaged his legs. One shoulder was bothering him, and his neck complained when he turned his head to the left. “So,” he said, “tell me.”

“What I holdin’?” Wailin’ Elwood cupped his empty hands before him.

“You’re not holding anything.”

“Aha! Dat where you wrong! I holdin’ a han’fulla air!”

“Okay….”

“An’ what it weigh?”

Special Ed caught the drift. Ed, a lover of fiction, had included young adult novels in his curriculum for Elwood. Elwood had been hard put to contain his impatience. “Dey jes’ stories!” he’d complained with disgust.

“Like the story of the thirsty man and the well?”

“Dat different! Dat story had a poipose! Which was for me to get my dick suck’ and for you to eat dat cock yo’ mouf bin waterin’ for.”

Special Ed let it go at that.

It was, perhaps not unexpectedly, science that had captivated Elwood. Special Ed now saw Elwood had been following the experiments in “Weather,” a self-covered special ed booklet.

“Well, what it weigh? I waitin’.”

“What does what weigh?”

“What I holdin’ in my han’!”

“Well, since you’re not holding anything in your hand, it doesn’t weigh anything.”

“Ag’in dat’s where you wrong! Look at dis!”

Wailin’ Elwood rose and tore off a strip of paper towel from the dispenser next to the sink and rushed back to the table. He lit a long kitchen match and set the strip alight, then gingerly dropped it into the milk bottle. After that, he placed a shelled, sooty hard-boiled egg, clearly the veteran of previous experiments, on the neck of the bottle. The flaming strip began to die out as it consumed the air, and the egg started to wobble on the rim of the bottle. Elwood looked at the wobbling egg with shining expectation in his eye. Then—plop!—the egg was sucked into the bottle.

“What jes’ happen?” Elwood demanded.

“The egg was sucked into the bottle.”

“Aha! Dat’s where you wrong! Ag’in! The egg was
push’
inta the bottle by the weight of the air! You see—the air—it like the water dat fish swim t’rough. We swimmin’ t’rough the air, jes’ like the fish swimmin’ t’rough the water. Now you carry a empty bucket an’ a bucket fulla water—which weigh more?”

“The bucket full of water.”

“Yes! An’ jes’ like the fish swimmin’ in water, thinkin’ it weigh nothin’, we swimmin’ t’rough air, thinkin’ it weigh nothin’! The pressha of the air push the egg down!” Elwood continued, excited.

“Now look at dis!” Elwood blew into the neck of the bottle with the trapped egg. As the air pressure in the bottle increased, he knew the egg would pop back out again. He had a marksman’s sure aim, and he directed the egg directly at Ed’s head as he blew into the bottle. Ed ducked, but the egg caught him on the temple anyway.

“Ha!” Elwood laughed. Then, in a mutter: “Course, don’t woik wit’ every egg. Egg gotta be the right-size egg to slip t’rough the neck of the bottle. Big eggs don’t woik. Also, I put a little olive erl on the egg to make it slide in nice.”

“And,” Ed asked, “that’s why, when you climb a high mountain, where the air pressure is lower, you have trouble breathing until your body adjusts to the new, lower pressure?”

Wailin’ Elwood, suspicious, looked at Ed. “You alrelly knew dis stuff? About air weighin’ somethin’?” Elwood felt a fool, deprived of his victory.

“Yes.”

“Den why you let me show you dis, makin’ a fool of myself? Dat showin’ off. Dat cruel.”

“Because,” said Ed, “the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. I never meant to show off. I wanted you to teach me, so that you’d consolidate your knowledge.”

Wailin’ Elwood considered a long time. Finally, he grudgingly admitted, “Okay. Dat make sense.”

Special Ed took a chance. “Okay. Now I have a question for
you
.”

“What dat?”

“Ever think of putting olive oil on something besides an egg so that it will slide in nice?”

Chapter 30

H
E
HAD
created a monster, and he didn’t know how to feel about that. Every night when they went to bed, every morning when they woke up, Dutch was on him. Dutch couldn’t get enough. And the trash he talked! Well, Flip could put it this way: “Suck that dick! Take it! You love that big cock, don’t you?” was about the least X-rated thing Dutch said. “You like that, don’t you?” Dutch whispered as he took Flip from behind and shoved his underwear under Flip’s nose. “You like to smell my crotch smell while I put it up there, don’t you?”

And, the truth was, Flip
loved
it, when it was happening. Overpowered by Dutch, engulfed by his scent, the feel of his skin, Flip knew in his bones that nothing had ever felt so good or excited him more.

But afterward—well, that was another story. Remembering the foul things that came out of Dutch’s mouth, the way he took over, used him for his pleasure, Flip felt humiliated and abased. Dutch had never kissed him, never showed any affection, really. Flip always came when they fooled around, sometimes not even touching himself, because the pleasure was so intense. But for sure Dutch had never stroked him as they fucked, hardly even touched his dick, except to get it out of the way. His ass—well, that he touched. A lot.

“Dutch is using me as his bitch,” he said to himself. Annoyingly, his dick began to stir at the thought. It wilted immediately at his next thought. Dutch was meeting regularly with Googs Pizzalotta, every Thursday night. And Mondays and Saturdays, Dutch left the Gretna shotgun early and tooled over the bridge in his sports car. On Sunday night, he lay in bed, trying to bring his breath back to normal as Dutch’s spunk seeped out of his bottom onto his thigh. He used a discarded sock to wipe off his own spunk from his stomach as he listened to Dutch washing up in the bathroom. Then he felt the bed shift as Dutch got into it and reached for his smartphone.

“Setting your alarm? Why do you need to get up so early?”

“Yeah, meeting Googs early.”

So—not only Thursday nights, but by Dutch’s own admission, Monday and Saturday mornings as well. Dutch cheating on him with Googs? Flip dismissed this possibility as ridiculous. Googs and Mimi were no longer food for gossip but old news by now. Also, even if Googs swung both ways, then why wouldn’t Dutch and Googs have gotten it on before? They’d entered together as freshmen, Flip reasoned, and it would have happened long ago. Flip believed Dutch when he said Flip was his first—man or woman. Their early sex, hot as it was? Inexperienced fumbling. He and Dutch had figured it out as they went along. Last, Dutch insisted on exclusivity. He remembered the aftermath of that first blowjob.

“I shot in your eye. You know you can transmit HIV that way, don’t you, Flabbott?”

“Should I be worried?”

“No. You were my first.”

“Well, you were my first too.”

“So you say. But you sure took to that dick like a pro.”

“You bastard.”

“Yeah, well. We’re going to be tested for STDs anyway.”

The night of the day the results came in, Dutch took him with only spit. He was in to the hilt, and Flip couldn’t help bringing his knees up a little and moving back into Dutch’s thrusts. “Yeah, give it to me. Fuck me,” Flip whispered into the pillow. It felt so fine.

At that, Dutch grabbed the proffered ass to hold it still and pulled all the way out, then pushed in again in one powerful thrust. Over Flip’s groan, Dutch said, “No one gets this but me, you hear me? It’s mine.”

Afterward, Flip asked, “So, my ass is only yours. Is your dick only mine?”

“Jeez, what a moron. We keep this clean and STD free, right?”

Flip smiled inwardly, ridiculously pleased. “Oh,” he said softly.

“At least until one or the other wants out,” added Dutch.

“Oh.” The second “oh” was terser somehow, clipped.

Remembering that, Flip resolved to tail Dutch on his early morning excursion to meet Googs. Something about Googs had never sat well with Flip. Maybe it was the football scholarship thing. Anyway, it was the day of Immaculata’s exam, and he didn’t want to be late.

S
ISTER
M
ARY
Agatha was worried. Sister Immaculata really did look very sick indeed, and she was getting up in years.

“Is there anything else I can get you, Sister?” she asked. The older nun handed back the water glass.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine, Sister Mary Agatha. You have the handouts for the exam?”

“Yes, Sister.”

And it was then that something in Sister Immaculata relented. Her own travails with this lingering illness had softened her heart. She now considered the difficulty of her final exam question. Students in the past had done well with it, somehow, but perhaps it was asking too much to ask her students to compare the literary style of the
Song of Solomon
to that of Jesus’s parables, much less the harder part of the question—elaborating on how the style suited the message and audience. She felt pity; she felt empathy. They were so freshly minted, so young and innocent! And although Sister Immaculata was not one to bargain with God, she knew in her heart that it was right to lighten her students’ burden. Perhaps this act of loving-kindness would lighten her own burdens or help her bear them with greater grace.

“Wait, Sister. I’ve changed my mind. Don’t take the handouts.” And then she told Sister Mary Agatha what to write on the chalkboard instead. The easiest exam question she could think of. Then she sank her head into the pillow, feeling lighter of heart already.

F
LIP
TOOK
his bike on the ferry, and he pedaled silently into the Redemptorist Quad. He’d seen Dutch’s vintage Triumph parked on St. Charles Avenue, and he’d laid his palm on the hood, which was still warm. He’d made good time. Now he worked on remaining unseen as he sought out Dutch.

Flip kept an eye peeled on the entrance to Googs’s dorm, and he would have missed Dutch and Googs slipping into the co-op had it not been for a brayed “Haw! Haw! Haw!” He swiveled his head, and it was then that he saw Dutch. He couldn’t hear what he was telling Googs, but he could not mistake the meaning of the hand gestures Dutch was making. Index finger of the right hand slipping in and out of the O made by the joined thumb and index finger of the left. Then a loosely joined fist brought to the mouth in an in-and-out motion, miming fellatio. Googs clearly thought it was hilarious; he was nearly bent over double, braying along with Dutch. Flip froze. Perhaps it was his very stillness that caused Dutch to turn and catch his eye. Then Dutch thumped Googs, and they both looked over at him, laughing even harder.

Flip mounted his bike slowly, deliberately. His mind was ice. His resolve was steel. In this frosty, introspective mental space, he made his plans during the forty minutes before Sister Immaculata’s final.

S
ISTER
M
ARY
Agatha was a rarity on the Redemptorist campus—a very young nun, just a year out of her novitiate, among a superannuated sisterhood. She was timid and unsure before the bored, worldly eyes of students hungry for a deeper understanding of the Bible as literature. But she hit upon something she was sure was the right thing to say.

“Sister Immaculata has been unwell lately, but we’re hoping she will make a speedy recovery. Please keep her in your prayers, and may she be back among us soon.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” said Googs, who perhaps was gaining in cunning from his association with Mimi.

Sister Mary Agatha reddened slightly and smiled gratefully at Googs. “I’ll be sure to tell Sister Immaculata.” Googs gave the slightest hint of a smirk. “In the meantime,” Sister Mary Agatha continued, “she’s asked me to stand in for her in delivering the exam question.” The proctors started moving silently up and down the rows of students, depositing the light-blue numbered booklets on each desk, and recording which numbered booklets were distributed to which students.

Sister Mary Agatha approached the board and picked up a piece of chalk. Now that her back was to the class, she felt more confident. She wrote two words of calligraphic splendor. Then she paused. Her grade-school grammar classes had been well absorbed. Although they were only two words, they constituted a full sentence. With a small flourish, she chalked a period after the second word. Then she ducked her head and whisked herself out of the examination room, face aflame.