Page 19 of Exquisite Things
“With nine lives.” He finally turns back to me. Opens his eyes and looks at me with heartbreaking tenderness.
“I’d like to have infinite lives,” I say. “I’d like to live everywhere, see the world.”
“Traveling the world alone can be very lonely,” he says. “You should start your adventures once you’ve found your other half.”
From the main room comes the sound of Edna’s voice. The music has stopped and she’s giving a speech to some groans and some cheers. “Now, now, boys, I know you want to get back to getting sozzled and fondled, but this is important,” she bellows authoritatively. “This country asked its ladies to step up when the boys went to war. There’s no going back now that the boys are home.” A few loud groans can be heard. “Apologies for bringing down the mood, but guess what? One copper walks in here and you could all be in jail. They’re burning Negro churches in the South. Lynching human beings. Your rights are our rights are their rights. It’s time to stand together as one human race.” When she’s done, “Tiger Rag” begins to play.
The speech changes the mood in the back room. What felt private suddenly feels public, like we’re not alone anymore. “Shall we go back out there?” I ask. “My cousin is probably wondering where I am.”
“Do we have to?” he asks. “I like it much better back here. With you.”
I blush. “You’re very forward.”
“I just know what I want. More of your company.” His eyes are locked on mine. “You’re magic.”
I bask in the glow of the compliment, which felt sincere, with none of the laced irony that is a trademark of boys like us. I enjoy the playful sarcasm and wit, but I think I like earnestness even more. It’s important to be earnest sometimes.
I see him shift his hand a little closer to the spine of the book. I move mine toward his. Our fingers find each other at the centerof the book, like we’re uniting its two sides. He lifts my hand up to his face and rubs the back of my hand to his cheek as he reads from the book. “And when one of us meets our other half, we are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other’s sight even for a moment.Your turn.”
“Oh, you want me to read?” I ask. He just nods, and I oblige. “We pass our whole lives together, desiring that we should be melted into one.”
He skips ahead a beat. “And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called Love.”
We gaze into each other’s eyes for so long that his become a swirl of brown and orange and rust. They seem to have their own light inside them, an electrical charge that moves through him and into me, emblazoning me from within. I’ve never been kissed but I’ve seen the way it happens in pictures. Slowly. Passionately. With closed eyes. And yet, we don’t close our eyes. We keep them open just like our mouths. I want to see him, and he seems to want to see me.
“I’m sure he’s in there reading,” Brendan yells as footsteps approach. I quickly pull away before the boys find us. They’re each holding two cups of soda. They place the cups down and Jack fills them to the top with liquor. “And like I said, there he is. I take you to an establishment of questionable moral value, little cousin, and you treat it like a library.”
“Perhaps he wasn’t just reading,” Jack says. “Our hopeless young romantic seems to have found a delicious new friend.”
“Please, not now, Jack,” I beg. I want to introduce my new friend, but then I realize I don’t even know his name, and I feel so foolish. Just moments ago, we were ready to kiss each other. We werereading words of love like we were the characters in some romantic play. Now I’m reminded he’s nothing but a stranger.
Sensing my sudden nervousness, he stands up and holds out his hand. “I’m Shams.”
“Shams?” Jack asks. “What kind of name is that?”
“It’s Persian,” he explains. “It was the name of the poet Rumi’s spiritual instructor, who some believe was also his lover.”
“Rumi? Never heard of the guy,” Jack cracks.
“Most ordinary chaps haven’t,” Shams coolly responds. He, unlike the rest of the world, seems unflustered by Jack.
“I’m far from ordinary,chap,” Jack huffs haughtily. “But I’ll forgive you because I love a full-lipped man, and yours look positively bee-stung. There really is an epidemic of thin lips going around Boston. People with thin lips and flat backsides should be barred from procreating, I say.”
A few boys laugh. Shams and I don’t. “You’re not at Harvard, are you?” Cyril asks Shams. “I’ve never seen you before.”
“Are you visiting Boston?” Brendan asks.
“Your accent is hard to place,” Jack says. “Have you come from the United Kingdom? Are you attending university here?”
“He’s just seventeen.” I stand up. “And you can stop questioning him now. How would you like it if you were battered with questions like you were being interviewed for some newspaper?”
“Curiosity is a necessary quality in life,” Jack counters. “Especially when you’re faced with somebody named Shams. A sham is a lie. A thing that is not what it purports to be.”
“The name is Shams, not Sham,” Shams responds icily. “Theais flat, like your unfortunate behind.” Jack claps, impressed. “And it’s plural, because if I am a sham, then I’m more than one sham. I contain multitudes.”
“Uncle Walt!” Jack exclaims proudly. He always calls him Uncle Walt because they share a last name, though he bears no relation to the great poet. “Now there’s a poet Ihaveheard of.”
“And your name... Jack,” Shams quietly whispers. “Perhaps it is a clue to your fate. You’ll be cursed to a life of loneliness. Jacking off for eternity.”
