Page 5 of Exquisite Things
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“But this is why I’m sharing the wisdom of my two decades with you,” he continues. “Because I know now that we can’t just worry about the future. If I can’t live forthis moment, then all I’ll do is worry and fret until I die.”
“That’s morbid,” I say. “You’re not close to death.”
“Aren’t we all?” Cyril asks sadly. “After the Great War and the pandemic, it’s hard not to think we must live every moment like it could be our last.”
The words chill me. It wasn’t just men like my father we lost these past few years. There have been boys too, taken by war, by the virus. The wails of grieving mothers who know all too well what a firm knock on their door means. Dreams and potential and lives, vanished. We tell ourselves, and each other, that it’s all over now. But that’s foolish, isn’t it? Nothing is ever over. Everything continues. I saw Father’s body buried and still I fear his wrath sometimes, don’t I? He’s not dead as long as the fear of him lives inside me.
“You’re right,” I whisper. “And very wise for a ripe twenty.”
“Not you too,” Cyril says with a shake of his head. “Jack loves calling me ripe fruit and chicken and brownie. Anything to get my goat.”
I feel my face get hot. “I didn’t mean it that way,” I insist. “I just meant you’re still very young. But not like a chicken. More like a wise old owl in a chicken’s body.”
We both laugh now. It feels nice. This is why I come here. For small moments of camaraderie. For brotherhood, which I never felt with my own brother, who takes after Father the way I takeafter Mother. Sometimes it feels like we were never a united family. There was the two of them, and the two of us.
“If I’m a wise old owl,” Cyril says, “then listen to me and waste no more time. We’re always being told that our happiness is in some distant future. What I’m saying is, be happy now.”
Brendan approaches and pulls us both close. It really does feel like we’re brothers here, or like what brothers should be. “I love this kid,” Brendan slurs as he tousles my hair. He’s a little drunker now. Spending too much time with Jack will have that effect. Jack loves to pour and pressure. “And I love this kid, too.” Brendan firmly squeezes Cyril’s cheeks.
“That sort of hurts,” Cyril says.
“I’m sorry. I forget my own strength sometimes.” Brendan laughs.
Jack stops the record mid-song. “Let’s get to the Golden Rooster before you pansies start passing out,” he yells. As soon as the decision is made, Jack pulls the green carnations out of the vase, and pins one to each boy’s lapel.
I eye Brendan nervously. “I should go home. Mother will worry if I’m out too late.”
“Stop living for her,” he says. “Live for you.”
“They won’t let me into the Golden Rooster anyway. I look younger than the rest of you.”
Brendan laughs off my trepidation. “You’ll be with Jack. Nobody says no to Jack Whitman.”
I feel my heart flutter in my chest. I’ve been to the dorm room. I’ve joined them for nighttime walks around campus. But I’ve never gone out into the city with them. Never to one of those establishments they’ve told me about where men from all over the city and beyond congregate. “I don’t know...” I feel the eyes of the roomon me. The record is off. There’s no music. No conversation or laughter.
“Your mother thinks you’re here at Harvard with me.” Brendan puts a hand on each of my cheeks. “You worry too much.”
“I just don’t know if I’ll— Well, will I—fit into that place?” I stammer out.
Jack taps an impatient heel on the wood floors. “Perhaps baby boy is right,” he purrs condescendingly. “The Golden Rooster is positively rancid. It’s no place for a clean-cut baby boy like him.”
I throw an angry gaze at Jack. I don’t like him baiting me like this, calling me baby boy twice in a row. But I don’t change my mind because of Jack. I do it because Cyril’s eyes catch mine, and his words of wisdom hit me anew.Be happy now.And so I reluctantly announce I’ll be joining.
Brendan squeezes my shoulder, pleased with me. “If you want to use a bathroom, I’d do it here. You’ll understand why when we get there.”
“As for The Jackal...” Jack waves an arm in the air dramatically. “He loves to park himself in the bathroom of the Golden Rooster and wait for his next conquest.”
“And that,” Brendan says, “is why you should avoid it.” I let Brendan pin a green carnation on me before we go. I’m officially one of them now. I hope I’m doing this for me, and not simply to please Brendan. I wish there were a way to tell why I do the things I do. A way to be certain of my own heart.
When we enter the Golden Rooster, it’s the sounds that hit me first. Music. Laughter. The mashing of two young men’s lips against each other. The pounding as they push each other against a wall passionately. The swish of men’s eyes as they assess each other.
And then the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen catches my eye. My age, I would guess. When I look at him, all the sounds seem to dissipate. The world goes quiet.
I don’t know who he is, or where he comes from, but something tells me he doesn’t belong here. Not the way the rest of us do, we children of Boston, we boys of Irish Catholic stock with our rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and doting mothers. Perhaps he’s Italian. He has dark hair, slicked back with pomade, and a lithe body that wouldn’t stand a chance on the wrestling mat. He has none of the nervous energy of these other boys, all drunkenness and performance. There’s a stillness to him that mesmerizes me.
He raises a hand up. I’m curious who he’s waving to. Perhaps he’s meeting an equally mysterious friend. But when I look behind me, there’s nobody there waving back. I turn to him. He points at me, then waves again.
