 
AMATEUR AT HEART

A Novel of Amorous Youth

by

Jack Forge

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 John Stephen Rohde

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. It may not be re-sold or given to others. If you want to share this book, please buy a copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book but did not buy it, please go to Smashwords.com and buy a copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Chapters

Dreams and Idols

Autumn Idyll

Family, Feast, and Fantasy

Time of the Flower

Consummation and Confession

***

Dreams and Idols

1

Flying! Barely above the walnutreetops, he was soaring. After the flapping, groaning, straining to gain the high-blown air, now, windswept, his arms outstretched--he was gliding easily. Panting from the takeoff and struggling for altitude, but flying! His heart was beating like a dynamo; everything else silent--

below: shingled-roof, trees, driveway, lawn, bushes, patio, flowers--lay like a giant jigsaw puzzle upon a gently curving table. Gazing down upon the pieces of the pattern, he was gliding, flying--riding a breeze high over the crest of the roof. A long way down! He kept flapping to stay aloft. Airborne! Soaring. He looked down for his shadow. None? Whoa! Head up. Yeah! Gliding. The lawn grass was cool and green below--bright green to yellow brightening. The lawn melded into a patchwork of yards and pools and trees. The valley stretched in all directions from mountains to hillocks. The great blue sea spread beyond....

Click. A young female voice broke into the morning with song. A vision of luminous yellow flashing to white illumined the window glass, the light blurry but almost blinding. Lengthening rays of sunlight like centrifugal pulses from a great generator. The vision fluttered under his blinking eyes, vacillated between high and low key. Then the pulses slowed to match the rhythm of the song. And the window came into focus.

Shelves around the window framed books, plastic models, compact disks, bongo drums, tambourine, harmonica, and a pair of ceramic jungle dancers. A poster on the wall showed the U. S. presidents' faces and captioned summaries of their lives. Plastic airplane models hung as if firing down from the ceiling. On the wallpaper cowboys on horses galloped through bands of morning light. Drawings of fantastic faces and landscapes adorned the walls. On the floor lay an old rug woven with filigrees of grapevines. Desk and shelves beneath the luminescent window ever brighter: TV, stereo, computer, lamp, clock radio--7:00 AM.

Still in bed, Sonny Dennison lay cool and languid under a sheet that peaked like a pyramid in soft folds over his loins. His seagreen eyes reflected the window light. He lay inert until the song finished.

"Popcycle, boys 'n' girls--" a male radiovoice broke into the melody and pattered rapidly at a high pitch to the last note of the song. "A platinum Southland wake-up for all you babesindreamland--September leaves you hangin' twixt the books of science class and study hall. Yesoyowza! Time again to rack those sunburnt brains--and to help you on your way, here's--"

After another musical introduction, a voice began singing like a strong man flexing his muscles. Sonny whipped the sheet off and jumped out of bed. His undershorts still stretching in front of his boy-man body, lean and tan, he yawned and stumbled into a bathroom across a small hallway.

He turned on the shower and stood still in the steaming stream like a penitent at prayer. The running water drowned out the music. He looked at his slackening penis and watched the water trickle off the end, fall to the tiled floor, and spiral down the drain. Clockwise. Why? Earthwise? True time passing? He hurried through the rest of his libations and stepped out of the shower. He stared at his pubescent face in the mirror. On the wall beside the mirror hung a picture of a young male movie star. While combing his hair, the boy glanced at the picture, their faces simultaneously reflected in the glass.

He heard water start running into the kitchen sink. And from there a canary began singing in a long warbling, lilting trill. Unable to get his hair right, the boy looked at the actor's picture and frowned. He combed harder and faster, whipping the strands until wisps of hair hung suspended in space, electrified.

"Son-ny!" a woman's sweet voice called from the kitchen.

He quickly whipped his unruly hair two or three more times and said, "Coming, grana."

In turning, he glanced out the window and spied a boy and girl strolling along the street in front of his house. They were holding hands. Her auburn hair hung long down her back. The boy looked coarse and dirty. But she was radiant and....

"Now, hurry up, Sonny. Come and eat your breakfast," the voice called again from the kitchen, "before it gets cold. Hurry. You don't want to be late to school on your first day back."

An old man's deep voice chimed in: "And turn off that damned radio!" He added with quiet force. "'Nough to wake the god damned dead."

Sonny pulled away from the window with a last, lingering look at the sexy girl and her boyfriend, as they disappeared beyond an ivy-covered fence between the street and his yard. He ran into his room and grabbed some clothes. After slipping into tan cotton slacks and white short-sleeved shirt, he cinched his pants with a brown belt and stepped into chocolate suede shoes. After punching off the radio, he scooted into the kitchen.

At a plastic table with chrome legs, sat Grandfather Rinehart, an elderly man with a thick tuft of silvery hair and eyes like frozen water. His tanned muscular arms protruding from a white cotton shirt were working at his breakfast. He was absorbed in smearing sour cream onto a thin, crisp pancake. Sonny watched the knife in the old man's hand as it lightly scraped the toasty, webbed surface. His hair gleamed in sunlight shining through windows on adjacent sides of the table. Grandmother Rinehart, a cherubic little woman with dark wispy hair was standing at the stove in a flowered housedress protected by an apron. She turned another sizzling pancake onto a warm plate and handed it to Sonny.

Bopster, a golden canary in a cage suspended on a stand near the table, was singing like a suitor serenading his lover. Outside the kitchen, a mockingbird in a walnutree joined the song with a similar version combined with sparrow chirps and crow calls. Dimples forming beneath his red cheekbones, Grandfather looked up through his gold-rim glasses and beamed at the yellow bird in the cage. Grandmother cackled gleefully, her ample bosom and belly bouncing. Sonny secreted his amusement into spreading butter and strawberry jam onto his pancake.

"That ol' mocker knows a good tune when he hears one," grandfather said as he sprinkled sugar onto his pancake. Then smiling from one cheek to the other, he glanced impishly over his spectacles at the boy.

Sonny looked at him and tried to contain himself, but an errant smile broke through his guard. The old man victoriously cut a long wedge of pancake, rolled it over once, twice, and shoved it into his mouth.

"Candy!" he said through a great grin.

Grandmother, still enjoying the bird duet, looked at her husband a moment with the hint of a smile, and then poured coffee into his cup. A little steam rose from the brew and disappeared into the sunlight above the table. The boy squinted at the sun and gobbled slice after slice of pancake. She laid another one in front of him and poured his milk. He buried his lips in white bubbles and slugged the cold liquid. After draining the glass, he sighed with pleasure and gobbled another wedge of pancake.

When grandfather finished eating he stirred sugar into his coffee in smooth circles, the spoon making light bell sounds against the sides of the cup. At the same time, he lifted his chin and eyed Sonny through the magnifiers in his glasses, looking closely around the boy's ears. He clucked like an old rooster and shook his head, "You could've gotten the barber to trim it a little closer on the sides. Still looks ragged."

Sonny shot a look at him but said nothing while shoving food into his mouth.

"Don't want you lookin' like a bum."

The boy wolfed his meal.

Grandmother sat down and started eating at the boy's ferocious pace. Then she stopped to catch her breath. "Oh, fer heav'nsake don't eat so fast, Sonny. You'll make us both sick."

He paid no attention to her. But the old man shook his head and clucked again as he sipped his coffee. To avoid him the boy once more looked up at the glaring sunlight illumining the curtains and he squinted. He felt the heat on his face.

"Gonna be hot today," he said. Then under his breath he added, "Wish I's at the beach."

Grandfather continued to scrutinize him. After gorging another glass of milk, Sonny jumped from the table. His knee knocked the top and bumped the dishes up and down, rattling and clattering. Grandmother held the table steady and clucked like an old hen.

Grandfather raised his hands as if in a blessing and cried, "God Almighty!"

"Sorry," the boy said as he hurried out of the kitchen.

"Like a young bull in a china closet," grandmother muttered. And she shared with her husband a critical look that said, "What an impossible child!" Continuing her own breakfast, she covered another pancake with copious butter and syrup and dropped artificial sweetener into her coffee.

Grandfather glowered at her, but she mocked his look. Then, tisking and shaking his head as usual, he picked up a newspaper. Following one more patronizing look, he snapped it open and dived into it.

In his bathroom, Sonny checked and rechecked his hair. Then a horn sounded from the street. "Here's my ride!" he shouted as he glanced out the window.

"Got yer lunch?" grandmother hollered.

"Yeah--bye." He dashed into the short hallway to a door that led into the garage. Jerking it open and bounding through, he slammed it on his grandparent's farewell.

The old man winced and started to shout at the boy, but his wife stopped him with a look, and he returned to his paper. A moment later, his cold blue eyes glanced over his glasses at her, and he asked, "His mother call?"

"Not yet." She pitched into the remains of her breakfast.

He shook his head with more sadness than disdain and dropped his face once more into his reading. "I don't know what in hell is the matter with that woman."

She shook her head too but continued drinking her coffee.

"Now she's got another man," he said, "I hope she ain't thinking she's gonna all of a sudden make a family for the boy."

"She is his mother after all, father," the old woman said through a last large mouthful. "And she's your daughter."

"Well, I wish she'd act like a mother for a change." He shook the paper, and it crackled like a small brush fire. "Damned shame," he grumbled behind the pages. "God-damned shame."

Grandmother nodded sadly and chewed.

He went on. "She insisted on marrying Nick when she was barely out of high school, gets herself pregnant with the boy--then they break up and Sonny is cast off like old clothes. God damned shame--that's what it is. No way to make a family. Well, she better not get any ideas about takin' him back just 'cause she's gettin' herself another husband. I'll be god damned if I let that happen to the boy. Gone through enough misery in his life. Only fifteen. Damned, damned shame!"

Grandmother Rinehart nodded, licked her fork, and sipped her coffee with slow slurps. Grandfather looked at her, shook his head, and returned to his morning reading. Oblivious to the drama at the table, Bopster kept on singing a duet with the mockingbird.

2

The San Fernando Valley lies like a frying pan between the low, scrubby San Monica Mountains to the south and the high stony San Gabriel Mountains to the north. Seasonal rivers bisect the arid basin with water that surges during winter rains but merely trickles the rest of the year. Once free-flowing arroyos that absorbed countless flashfloods from rainstorms between the hills and mountains that frame the valley, they are now encased in concrete trimmed with barbed wire running along a freeway through interminable suburbs. Where avocado, olive, and citrus groves once decked the valley with a sea of green trees, fragrant blossoms, and fruit, now countless lawn-bordered houses fill the grid of streets that crisscross the vast basin.

The valley is a bastion of the United States of America bourgeoisie. Here the modern middle class lives in over-priced houses, drives over-sized vehicles, and wastes water stolen from lands hundreds of miles north and northeast of the county line. In this culture of backyard pools and polluted beaches, these people absorb more ultra-violet rays in a year than most people in other regions of the temperate zones get in a lifetime. They revel in two seasons: big summer and little summer. They get depressed when the sky clouds and they become suicidal when ten inches of rain per year fall on their heads. These paltry showers barely moisten the soil but flood the streets with dirty water. They who dwell in this semi-paradisal coastal vale exist to enjoy themselves despite the demands of job and living. For the denizens of this profane Eden, pleasure is a preoccupation among the demands of work and school.

Occupying one full block in the middle of this valley, stands Holy Virgin High School, a parochial institution of learning where courses in the time of our story were taught by Catholic brothers to classes of boys. The buildings made in the Spanish colonial style, the place looked like an old mission. At the front of the school on one busy corner, a lawn-trimmed brick path invited entrance to the campus. In the middle of the path stood a life-sized statue of Mary, the mythical mother of Jesus. Draped in matronly cloth, with her slender arms extended and her smile a tender greeting, she welcomed everyone who passed. Nearly all year blue and yellow flowers bloomed around her feet, and birds alighted on her shoulders. With her hands open, palms upward, she looked down compassionately at every sinner, her face always blissful like that of a Da Vinci Madonna. Intense sunlight dematerialized the smooth stone of her feminine form, so she often appeared transfigured by the dazzling light.

On this hot day in a September of the ever-cycling academic year, scores of adolescent boys were strolling up the brick path. They immediately joined others on the walkway, passed the statue, and headed towards a double flight of steps to the school buildings. Most of the boys were chatting and laughing exuberantly as boys do in their teen years. And some were waving and calling to others on the campus. However, many younger boys, child-like freshmen new to the school, remained quiet, scattered, and self-conscious amid the commotion. Cars pulled up to the corner, and more boys emerged. One of them was Sonny.

He sauntered up the walk, for now in his second year he was no longer afflicted by the curse of being new and unknown. His slacks and shirt making him appear more dapper than the crowd, he walked with his more casually dressed classmates, chatting happily. As he walked, he kept looking toward a main courtyard several steps above the entranceway that approached the gymnasium and the big classroom halls.

Among the thronging boys passing back and forth across the yard, strode a few adult men in long black cassocks that skirted the scuffed toes of their black shoes. Little squares of white starched collars that gleamed at their throats identified them as the religious brothers. They moved quickly through the students or stood as dark sentinels near the building entrances.

Sonny glanced at the face on the statue of Mary as he passed. She appeared to look him right in the eyes. He looked at her countenance, young and pretty with a loving smile. She seemed alive. He smiled slightly then finding himself looking at her too long, peeked around to see if anyone had caught his distraction. A sudden knot of apprehension twisted his stomach, but no one seemed to have noticed, so he hurried to the courtyard. Spotting a familiar figure at the top of the steps, he threw his hand into the air and shouted: "Alfie!"

A tall, thin boy atop the steps turned around, recognized Sonny, and smartly lifted his head in recognition. He was dressed similar to Sonny. But with his close-cropped hair and piercing eyes, he looked like an athlete on an academic scholarship. Grinning broadly, Sonny hurried to meet him. Alfred smiled, nodded, and said in his way, "Sonnius! How're they hanging, man?"

"Big as ever, man. How in hell are yours?"

"Cool, man, cool."

"Been gettin' any?"

"Always," Alfred said with a flourish to cover the truth, "always."

As though synchronized they turned and walked across the yard to one of the halls. Sonny kept staring at his Alfred's butched head, and he responded to the attention by caressing his bristles and said. "Just thought I'd try something new."

Sonny continued to stare in mock disdain. "For a second I thought you had a disease."

Alfred punched him on the arm, and Sonny pretended to cry out in pain then laughed. They laughed together and walked in silence a few steps.

"Didn't see you at mass yesterday," Sonny said.

"Yeah, I went early because of a game in the park."

Sonny looked slighted.

"I didn't know you were back from the Sierras," Alfred added hastily.

Sonny nodded and thought a moment. "Dion there?"

"Yeah. And you know what? He was telling us about this passing contest they had at the coliseum. Said he threw the ol' 'lipsoid sixty yards! Can you believe that, man? Sixty god-damned yards!"

"I don't believe it."

"Won a god-damned prize, he did!"

"A prize? No shit?"

Alfred glanced around to locate any men in black who might not have appreciated the color of their language, then echoed him emphatically: "I wouldn't shit you, man!"

Sonny shook his head in admiration.

"That guy's some kind of amazing jock, huh?" Alfred said.

Sonny nodded solemnly. They were sharing silent adulation of their hero, when the bell rang. The clanging clatter at first mingled with the chatter of all the boys in the courtyard, and then seemed to silence them as it rang, its shrill noise reverberating among the buildings until dying away as melting in the heat of the day.

Sonny and Alfred entered one of the buildings among a sluggish crowd of noisy boys. Just inside a double doorway, one half of the crowd separated onto the ground floor, and the other half climbed the stairs, all of them continuing their chatter.

"Silence!" a bass voice boomed out from the top of the stairs. The voice paused effectively then added, "All right, girls--quiet! This isn't Disneyland."

From the upward moving body of boys, an anonymous voice sounding like Alfred's whispered, "No shit."

Above the boys, the source of the voice was hanging over a banister like a flesh and blood gargoyle in mourning. His black-marble eyes glowered at the boys, and his acne-scarred cheeks inflated as he bellowed: "Come on, ladies, come on, come on--move it along!"

Seeing him, Sonny caught his own response in his teeth and wisely swallowed it. Alfred never looked up from his shoes, finding them suddenly fascinating, as they stepped one after the other up the stairs. The boys kept their heads down as they ascended, but their shoulders were bouncing with suppressed laughter. As the students flowed over the top step, the two friends scurried past the frightening face.

"Good morning, Brother Martin," Solo, a pale, thin boy said, smiling at the gargoyle.

"So-lo," Brother Martin answered musically, accenting the last syllable with a lilt as he was eying Sonny and Alfred.

Shuffling shoes and rustling pants sounded like a landslide, as the wave of boys crested the staircase. Their faces still ruddy from summersun, and, yet unadapted to the regimen, they looked self-consciously poised between grimaces and grins. When Sonny and Alfred had passed the cleric, they stepped as quietly but as quickly as possible down the hallway to their lockers.

"Looks like we got the Martian for religion again this year," Alfred said, glancing behind him at the black sentinel.

"Oh, God, no--you're kiddin' me!" Sonny nearly shouted.

Alfred nodded sharply to clinch the fact.

In dismay Sonny slapped his forehead and groaned, "Ghaaa!"

"I know how you feel, man--" Alfred said. "But I think I'm gonna have a serious crisis of faith."

Sonny laughed as they separated to their lockers. For several moments, the students opened and closed scores of steel doors with lots of loud rattle-banging. But as Brother Martin passed down the hallway, his presence quieted them like a miracle, and all the boys hurried to disappear through classroom doorways. Brother Martin waited until the hallway was empty except for himself and two other sentinels at other doors. Then, as if on signal, the brothers glanced at each other and stepped into their noisy domains.

As soon as the teachers entered their classrooms, the noise stopped. And as the brothers closed the doors behind them, almost in unison the echoes caromed down the vacant corridor of shiny lockers. Silence lay in the long hall for a few moments. The long linoleum tile floor reflected in striped patterns the beams of morning light that streamed through small windows high beneath a vaulted ceiling. Then the brothers sounded as distant orators addressing multitudes: one shrill, another breathless, and another booming with pedagogical power.

In religion class, Brother Martin commanded the front-center of the room like a drill sergeant. Opening his lesson, he spoke as if continuing from where he had left off in June. "...so the word sophomore is composed of a prefix and a stem--sopho and moros--meaning respectively wise and foolish." He instantly had the class in his grip. "Now, I want to congratulate you boys on having endured life as freshmen--" He strutted back and forth across the front of the room like a commander, his pace setting the tempos of his speech to an iambic cadence. Then he paused and waited. At the right beat he said, "But don't get too high and mighty, my wise young fools--for there is nothing in this world worse than a stupid smart ass--"

The class wanted to break out laughing but ventured only a collective titter.

"In other words, a sophomore." The teacher stood exultant.

A deep sigh passed among the boys like the wind out of summer sails. Appearing to be already taking notes, Sonny was furtively writing at his desk behind the back of a big burly boy with a baldhead.

"Now, a moment of silent prayer," Brother Martin announced, "before we begin our lesson for the day." He turned to face a small crucifix on the wall above the chalkboard. Bowing his head, he rapidly mumbled a few words then turned to face the class.

On one side of the room, the mid-morning sun shone through window blinds, casting bright ribbons across the desks. One of them spotlighted Sonny. Alfred looked to see what he was writing. A few words in the order of a poem appeared beneath Sonny's hand: "...born...mountains...love...." And at the top of the paper, he had written "To Virginia".

Brother Martin noticed Alfred's distracted attention. Without missing a beat in speaking, he walked slowly between the windows and the desks. "But the topic today is not sophomores--thank God--" He gazed out the windows while he moved to the rear of the room. "But that giant of the church--Saint Augustine." The bars of light bent and swept across the black chest of his cassock, across a little crucifix swinging on a long chain around his neck, and defined the pits in one side of his face.

When he saw him coming, Alfred cleared his throat in signal to his preoccupied friend. Sonny caught the signal and, getting a furtive glimpse of the ominous black figure, he snapped his folder shut on the poem and looked fully attentive to the teacher.

Brother Martin stepped to the rear of the room, pivoted, and paced back to the front--all the while sharply eying Sonny and Alfred. Then his bass voice struck a full-blown oratorical tone that overwhelmed the classroom. "Saint Augustine, in fact, during his lustful youth was a wastrel with wine and a libertine with the ladies. In addition to that, he was guilty of intellectual pride...."

Sonny brightened. The words "lustful youth" charged into his mind and drove the teacher's subsequent words out of it. The boy stared at the dark chalkboard as if a movie screen, the black slate dissolving into an infinite space.

He envisioned a young, handsome darkly bearded man, dressed in a red silk robe brocaded in gold, who lay among a bevy of exotic, nubile, and naked women. The young North African lounged upon piles of satin pillows, while the women plied him with wine, fruit, and seductive favors. And the entire party swayed gently to the sweet music of a lyre played by an Ethiopian eunuch....

Sonny's eyes looked dazed as he grinned like a spectator at a burlesque. He imagined his own face in place of Augustine's, but the image kept vacillating in the vision, as if a power failure were about to interrupt transmission from his fantasy. Then a deep voice from the immediate past returned him to the present, and the saint's face gradually came to resemble Brother Martin's. The Martian blocked Sonny's view and bellowed his pre-ordained message of the folly of human pride fully into the boy's daydreaming face. The vision, of course, vanished in front of reality, and the dry, droning words of the lecture invaded his mind like a sirocco.

The cleric cleared his throat and said, "As I was saying, Dennison--intellectual pride."

The other boys, delighted the teacher had spared them his barbs, chuckled at Sonny's folly, but the dictator quickly shut them down and resumed his lesson for the day.

3

Huge sycamore trees with their broad, gnarled, star-shaped leaves shaded the schoolyard at noon from the September sun that relentlessly heated the campus. Boys crowded onto benches, the pale green, furry leaves hanging motionless above their heads. Their hands burrowed into their lunch bags, and they gnawed into their sandwiches. Soon the chatter and laughter of boys was cheering the scorched air.

"All right--" Alfred said as he plowed into his lunch bag without looking at Sonny, "who's this Virginia chick?"

"Girl I met in the Sierras," Sonny said with his mouth full.

Alfred nodded obligingly. "Another one, huh? You've got them in the desert, at the beach, and now in the mountains."

Sonny shook his head but grinned in gratitude at the unintended compliment. "I wish. No. I never met one like her before, Alfer."

Alfred automatically nodded and muttered, "Uh-huh." He knew what was coming. He had heard love stories from his friend for years.

"One day I was loose and free, having a good time with the guys up at the lake, ya know?" Sonny liked to be melodramatic. "The next thing I knew, I was in love for the first time in my life."

Alfred scoffed at the sentimentality. "You mean in lust--as usual."

"No, man--this was different."

"I've heard that before."

"Yeah? Well, how many times you been in love, Alf?"

"I'm just waiting for the right one to come along. A guy shouldn't be in too much of a hurry with such important affairs of the heart. And you'd better study less about Augustine's early life and more about his later life, as the Martian was telling us."

"Come on, man--this is love. I know it is!"

"Oh, yeah--how would you know anything about love? You're only a kid."

"I'm not a kid! And I know true love when I see it."

"So what does it look like? It wouldn't be naked, would it?"

Sonny laughed but tried to remain serious. "I'm not talking about sex, man. I'm talkin' about real love."

"Sure--real easy come, real easy go--"

"Easy for you to say, man. How many chicks you had so far?"

Alfred, trying to conceal embarrassment at the poignant question, only shrugged. But his lack of success in that subject showed in his eyes. Sonny was trying to stare him into such a confession, but he put up a good front by humoring himself out of the situation.

"Man," Alfred said scornfully, "you fall in and out of love more times than a movie star."

Sonny first looked offended, then anger started to set into his jaw like concrete, but a sudden burst of good humor overwhelmed him and he let himself laugh. His best friend could always do that for him. "Yeah, well, at least I fall in love--unlike you."

"Moi," Alfred went on as he glanced around at the other guys, "I told you--I'm only waiting for Miss Right to come along--if you'll pardon the expression."

Sonny laughed again.

"One shouldn't be in a hurry with affairs of the heart, you know--" Alfred pontificated, "even the corny ones."

Sonny was mildly annoyed. "Corny, huh?"

Alfred munched his sandwich as though nibbling a corncob. "Face it man--you're still an amateur at heart."

Sonny was about to tie into him again, when another boy walked over to them. The visitor was slight of build and dressed slovenly but looked rather slick with his shiny black hair swept off his face.

"Hey, guys!" he said.

"Hey, Jimmer--" Alfred said. "Que pasa, man?"

"The usual," Jimmer said. "How 'bout you guys--ya gettin' any?" He zeroed on Sonny and snickered at him.

Sonny, however, said nothing but chomped into his second sandwich, as if the first he had ever eaten.

Jimmer would not let him off the hook. "Hey, Sonny--you finally get laid this summer?" He forced a laugh. "Or 'd'ya take that vow of celibacy to heart during the last retreat?"

"Naw--" Alfred said, "he only fell in love again."

Sonny blushed and chewed furiously. Alfred looked at him and laughed with Jimmer. Sonny shot a sharp look at his buddy, but it did not squelch him.

"Course." Jimmer guffawed and waved himself away. "Later, guys," he said over his shoulder with a trailing snicker.

Sonny glowered after the boy strutting away as if he had recently won the lottery. Then he snapped another look at Alfred. "Thanks a helluvalot, man!"

Alfred shrugged and mugged a silly expression, hoping to slip out of trouble in his usual way.

"I thought you were my friend."

"That's me--Alfred the Great, Friend to Man--past, present, and future."

Sonny had to struggle to contain his own infected humor before he could say, "That guy's always jerkin' me around. Just because he's laid a couple of cheap chicks doesn't make him Casanova." He shoved the last of the sandwich into his mouth.

"Couple of chicks nothin', man. Jimmer has really surprised me for gettin' pussy...."

"Oh, yeah? Good as Dion?" Sonny snapped off a big piece of chocolate chip cookie. "Wish I had some milk with this," he muttered with his mouth full.

Alfred threw his bristly head back, rolled his light brown eyes at the sky, and howled: "Fucking-A, man! Are you kidding?" Suddenly serious, he stared at Sonny, took a big bite out of his sandwich, and grunted.

Sonny stopped chewing and waded into Alfred's dramatic pause. "I never kid about milk and cookies."

Alfred ignored the attempt at humor. "Nobody, Son, nobody makes the chicks like Dion." He affected solemnity. "The guy is King Stud." He pushed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and shook his head as if he were at a supper honoring a great hero. He chewed a few times, and then swallowed the mouthful to get it out of the way of his thoughts. "I didn't tell you what else he told us at the park the other day, did I?"

Sonny shook his head and started nibbling at his cookie like a billy goat.

Alfred cleared his throat and ran his tongue around his teeth and lips. "Well, you know that new trailer sales lot on the boulevard?"

"Yeah."

"The one with all those big demos?"

Sonny nodded.

"The ones with all the kitchens and beds and shit in them?"

Sonny nodded rapidly and muttered, "Yeah, yeah!"

"Yeah, well, old Dion--you know Dion, don't you?"

"Come on, man--tell me the friggin' story!"

Alfred held up his middle finger then added two others. Sonny regarded them curiously. "That's three, man," Alfred said.

"Three what?"

"Three chicks of course!"

Sonny nearly shouted. "Three!"

"In one of those damned demo trailers, man--"

"God!"

Alfred waited, his timing like clockwork, until his audience of one was on the edge of a precipice. Then with a whisper, he said, "In one fucking night!"

Sonny's jaw dropped. "Fuckin'--AAAA--" his words like exhaust escaping an engine.

"You got it, man. Master Fuck."

"I can't believe it."

"Either would I, man--if the dude weren't Dion."

"All in the same night!" Sonny was stunned.

Alfred finally released his contained exhilaration in a long burst of laughter. "Isn't that guy the coolest--ever? He squealed with delight.

Sonny's laughter turned to awe in his mouth and stuck it open, as he nodded like a simpleton.

"Unbelievable." Alfred quietly uttered. "Simply unbelievable."

Sonny's awe turned into reverence. And they both fell silent and still as if meditating on a great universal truth.

The bell rang with another shrill clattering jangle across the schoolyard. For a moment, the two boys appeared not to have heard it. But others started to leave, dragging themselves through the radiant heat towards the tunneled entrances to the halls. When the bell stopped ringing, Sonny and Alfred automatically stood up and silently walked off together like a pair of intoxicated wanderers in a strange land. The sky stretched over them its cobalt blue that glowed electrically behind the red tiles on the rooftops of the high school. Not a breath of air stirred in the sycamore trees, as all the boys left the yard and poured into the buildings for the last classes of the day. On cue, swarms of seagulls swooped down into the vacant yard to clean the grounds of anything edible the boys had left in their wake.

4

After school Sonny and Alfred walked home together. As they were leaving the adobe-walled structures that glowed brightly behind them in the slanted sunlight, they leaned into a light seabreeze. They pulled their shirts out of their pants and unbuttoned them, for it was still hot, hotter even than midday. Their faces, necks, and throats gleamed with sweat. Locusts were buzzing constantly in the trees, but no birds were singing; they had wisely found shade to conserve energy. Passing cars growled like beasts migrating across some strange savanna. Sonny glanced at the sky, his eyes reflecting the light like pools of water.

"I tell ya, Alf--she's the love of my life."

"Who?"

"Ginny--the girl I told you about."

Alfred feigned ignorance.

"You know--Virginia."

"Oh, yeah--the mountain maiden."

Sonny became animated with the advent of his favorite new love story. Alfred waited for the inevitable and listened dispassionately, as his friend droned into the tale. Alfred had heard these stories from Sonny for years but he was always ready to hear the latest one. The breeze riffled through Sonny's hair; he pushed it into place. They stepped into the shade of a black walnut tree and stopped to enjoy the slight coolness, their eyes dilated in the violet shadows.

"I had barely known her, but things didn't really start to happen between us till we went to this party in the hills just outside of town. Before that night I really didn't even like her, ya know?"

Alfred nodded obligingly, his pale eyes luminous in the shade as if transparent. "Yeah, you liked her."

"Anyway, there was this party--" Sonny peered through the treeleafed pattern against the sky. He blinked and while speaking fell into a reverie as if seeing his words before his eyes:

A mosaic of memories dissolved into a starry night sky where paper lanterns hung in the air like huge glowing chrysalises. A garden patio was filled with party-dressed youths roseate and sparkling in the warm ambience. Listening to popular music the young people looked like children trying to be adults. The boys in groups posed as masculine as possible for boys their age, and the girls tried to look alluring without being obvious. They huddled in separate groups until one or two of them broke the spell and started dancing. Then the party began, and Sonny was dancing among the crowd of whirling color.

"I'd been waiting," Sonny said, "for this other girl--this girl Tina--to get there. I'd had the hots for her, but she was playin' hard to get or somethin'. I dono maybe she just didn't like me. Anyway, I was dancing with all the chicks, ya know. And one of them kept staring at me."

Alfred's cocky voice interrupted, "Let me guess--Tina."

"No, stupid--that was Ginny. She was an ex-girlfriend of one of my friends."

Sonny glided through the young people with aplomb, stepping among them to the relentlessly repetitive beat. Then he spun out of the crowd and leaped onto a picnic table. Pretty blonde Ginny was watching his every move. The corners of her mouth turning up gently, she stood there and stared at him. Then she cocked her head as if to say, "Well, come dance with me if you're so good." Sonny leaped off the table and landed right in front of her. Their eyes flashed at each other.

"Hi!" he said.

She echoed him in a sweetly higher key. A slow song started. When she extended her hands, he took them, and they danced into the crowd.

"Tina never did show up," Sonny went on, "so I danced the rest of the party with Ginny--the dance of my life."

A full moon illumined the high peaks of the mountains. Stars nearly saturated the sky: the Milky Way spread like a great bejeweled ribbon round the Earth. Light, cool breezes rustled the treeleaves, the girls' dresses, and their hair. The amber lantern-light cast a glow over all their flushed faces, making them cherubic. Romance was fluttering like moths around the lanterns. As the moon drifted to the west, the party quieted and the music slowed. The guests moved into a darkened room and continued dancing on the tiled floor.

Sonny and Ginny held each other close, their hands clasped between their breasts, as they rotated slowly to the music. Like a turn around the Earth, Sonny slid his mouth across her cheek to her lips. They met and held the kiss, gently caressing each other until after the song had ended. When light suddenly flooded the room, they looked at each other shyly. "Sorry, kids--" a woman's voice announced from a doorway. "I'm afraid the party's over--it's late--time to go home, kids."

Quiet groans rose from the group. Sonny and Ginny still embracing held their gaze at each other. Their cheeks burned, their eyes dark but shining.

In the hot afternoon sun, Sonny's eyes brightened as he stepped out of the treeshade and continued walking down the street. Alfred said something inaudible, hesitated a moment, then joined him. He had been touched by the story but decided not to comment, preferring to maintain the cool demeanor he cultivated so carefully.

The boys walked to Van Nuys Boulevard and approached a corner where a newly framed building stood. Apparently knowing where he was going, Alfred led them into the skeleton structure. Sonny followed, ready for an adventure.

"Nobody here," Sonny said.

"Probably took off early because of the heat. Hey, maybe your grandfather is building this thing." Alfred said.

"Naw," Sonny said, "he builds houses, only houses. I ought to know. He keeps makin' me help him clean up scrap wood and shit."

Alfred grunted an acknowledgement and led them up wood-frame stairs, three floors to the roof. "So--what happened to Tina?"

"Tina? I dono. Never showed up."

"Stood you up, eh?"

"Best thing could've happened to me. I tell ya, man--before Ginny I was just a kid: ridin' horses, swimmin' in the creeks, drivin' jeeps around the hills, climbin' mountains, huntin', fishin', and things. But after that party. I became a man."

Alfred pretended to gag.

Unaffected, Sonny continued: "I couldn't've stayed away from her if I'd tried. I wanted to be with her all day, every day. If she went swimming, I went swimming. If she went to the movies, I went to the movies. If she...."

"Took a leak, you took a leak."

Sonny punched him, as they stepped onto the roof and looked over the valley. Alfred feigned injury. They punched each other a lot as a way of being affectionate without compromising their carefully protected sexuality.

Sonny went on: "My grandparents and her parents didn't know each other and they tried to keep us apart--at least mine did. Hers wouldn't let her swim in the public plunge, so she had to swim in the private pool of a club to which their family belonged. And my grandmother kept on sayin'--" He started mocking her matronly manner. "Yer not old enough, ya young whipper-snapper, to be spendin' so much time with silly young girls. Yer still a child."

Alfred laughed.

But Sonny sighed a little forlornly and looked up at the blue sky. "She went back to school, so I didn't see her much anymore. Soon we left and came home." He waxed sentimental. "God, she was pretty. Bluest eyes I've ever seen.

"You going up there again next summer?"

"Dono--maybe."

"Think you'll ever see her again?"

Sonny pondered this one. "Maybe. I Doubt it." He knew it was finished.

The two boys sat on the edge of the roof and let their legs dangle off the side as they gazed over the neighborhood rooftops to the coastal hills. Sonny quickly recovered from his melancholy. "So--what's this place gonna be?" he said.

"New medical building I think. And I'm going to work here someday, man--have myself a cool suite of offices."

"Yeah, with a gorgeous receptionist to decorate the front desk."

"Definitely," Alfred said. "A permanent fixture."

"Yeah, screw her on the desk, man."

They rocked and cackled like puppets on the edge of massive stage.

"I want a big house with a pool--"Alfred said. "And lots of time off to enjoy it," He looked at Sonny for agreement.

Sonny only shrugged and turned to look at the mountains to the north. They were shrouded in yellow haze, and the high peaks looked like mountaintops on an uninhabitable planet. He returned his gaze to the southern hills, where expensive houses lay partially hidden among clusters of shrubs and trees.

"What do you want to do, Sonnius?" Alfred said.

"Whaddya mean?"

"With your life, man."

"I dono. I kinda like art."

"Art! Are you crazy? You can't make a living in art--not a good one anyway."

Sonny shrugged.

"Not unless you paint dirty pictures; people love dirty pictures."

"Maybe I'll write."

"Write! What? Poetry? Poets don't make any money either. Hey, maybe you can write dirty love stories. They always sell."

Sonny contemplated his friend's words for a moment, but his mind kept drifting back to the party in the mountains. He tried to visualize Ginny's face but could not make it appear. "That's a contradiction."

"What's a contradiction?"

"Dirty love stories--they're either one or the other. Not both. Not real love anyway."

Alfred snickered. "Oh, come on--don't be so damned idealistic."

Sonny sighed deeply and continued to look into the sky as if in desperate prayer. The canopy was pure blue, cloudless and brightening to white gold around the sun. He strained to see Ginny's face in the sky, her eyes the same blue. But her image simply would not appear; it glimmered a little but failed to become defined. "I dono, man. I haven't got it all figured out yet."

"What?"

"Life."

"Yeah? Well, when you do, be sure to let me know how you did it." Alfred was respectfully silent for a moment then said, "Think you'll ever see her again?"

"You already asked me that."

Alfred only shrugged as if to say, "Well--?"

Sonny shook his head slowly and kept staring into the sky. "Naw. I told ya my family's against it. Hers too, I guess. Sometimes I wonder if it's all worth it."

"What do you mean?"

"I dono. Girls and all. It's so damn complicated."

"Yeah, sometimes it really is," Alfred said.

They drifted into reverie. The afternoon breeze was blowing steadily now with a faint marine scent to the air. The boys sat silent for some time, until words from below startled them out of their mutual daydream.

"Ho, young lovelies of the sunshine!" A stentorian voice resounded between the buildings.

Before looking to find the source of the voice, Alfred and Sonny looked at each other and grinned. "Dion!" they whispered in unison. And down they peered as if looking into a deep, mysterious chasm.

Across the boulevard, two pretty teenage girls were strolling in tight pants. About a half a block behind them and closing fast came Dion Jennings, strutting like a pop star about to enter the stage. His body moved catlike in T-shirt and shorts, the sleeves tight on his muscled arms. His butched hair was dark and thick. His eyes smoldered darkly in deep sets above his bold nose and high cheekbones. His gleaming teeth broadcast a big, amiable smile. He looked as godlike as any young male could look. Sonny stared at him and imagined him as young Augustine. As Dion spoke, his voice boomed like that of a pagan priest in a mythical courtyard, yet his constant banter to the girls was also like the streaming patter of a pop DJ. Stepping off the curb gracefully, he cut diagonally across the street to intercept his prey.

"Ho, ladies--wait up! I've got good news."

The girls kept walking away but were well aware of him, as their secretly shared smiles revealed. They murmured to each other and giggled between themselves and, as Dion gained on them, they made no effort to escape.

"Right on, girls! Those are the friendly looks I want. Now, where you goin' in such a hurry this fine day?"

One of the girls tossed a giggled reply over her shoulder: "Don's Drive-in."

"You know--I'm goin' there too. But I'm drivin' my chariot. Wanna ride on the wind?"

On the roof, Sonny and Alfred leaned over the edge to follow the action. Sonny started to slip off, but his buddy grabbed him. They laughed at the danger, for the sexual showman of the valley was performing his notorious act, and nothing could distract them.

On the street, the girls glanced back at Dion, at his tall, strong physique, at his heroic head, at his seductive smile, and they quavered and giggled with anxious excitement at the paralyzing look from his burning eyes. They walked under the skeletal building with Dion right on their tails. He advanced rapidly and laughed with a soft rolling growl, his head high and predatory.

"Now don't be in such a pretty hurry on such a fine afternoon, my lovelies--" he said.

The girls twittered like creatures in the wild. Sonny and Alfred scurried to the corner of the roof and looked down to follow the continuing show.

Dion slipped between the girls. "I'll be goin' where you're goin'--high or low. So come along now--come along with me, you sweet ladies of the day."

The girls laughed, their mirth rising into the air like bubbles. Looking shy, acting coy, but unabashed they were obviously flattered and pleased by this rococo repartee. They kept walking but more slowly than before, inclining to bask in Dion's radiant attention shining right behind them as bright and as warming as the sun. On the edge of the roof, Sonny and Alfred lay and stretched their heads to follow the action. As the girls turned the corner, fluttering like a pair of butterflies, Dion turned with them, an eager collector. On the roof the boy's heads pulled back out of sight as they jumped to their feet and scrambled to the adjacent side where they again lay down to watch. They strained to hear Dion's patter but could not discern a word: the trio on the street had stopped walking and was talking together quietly.

The maidens now attended to the young satyr's words like nymphs to the love song of a gifted god. And their laughter sweetened the air like sprays of water burbling out of a fabulous wooded pond. Soon Dion had captivated them, and they all started walking back the way they had come, the way he wanted them to go. Sonny and Alfred watched the threesome turn the corner. The boys agog, they scurried back near to their prior spot to keep track of Dion and his catch. They watched him lead them to his shiny red car. With convincing courtesy, he opened the door and ushered them into the front seat. Sliding behind the wheel, he fired the engine and roared away. The boys ran back to the corner to watch the noble car roar up the boulevard. As it disappeared, they were transfixed. After a few seconds of respectful silence, Alfred spoke as if in church. "That guy is too much for this world. Can you actually believe his absolute coolness with the babes?"

Sonny grunted a response as he stared into the vacant wake of Dion's departure. "Yeah, he's cool. But he seems a little phony to me." He spoke weakly, with little conviction. "Like he's tryin' to be a movie star or somethin'." A look of confused longing filled his eyes.

"Hah!" Alfred shouted. "You only wish you were so cool, Sonnius, my man! You only wish."

"Humph!" was all Sonny could utter in defense for he knew his friend was right and he hated the fact.

Despite their high positions, the two boys felt rather impotent as they stood together in silence on the top of the building and gazed into the empty space where Dion had performed his magic. The sun slanting behind them in the late afternoon silhouetted their young bodies. It glinted through openings between the studs and rafters of the new building, and between their arms and legs. In the cooling breeze, Sonny's shirt waved like a flag of surrender in the sunlight. Yes, he knew Alfred was right. He wished with all his heart he could be like Dion and he struggled in his mind to conjure the words and moves that would make him too a legend among girls. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not seem to find the way. He sighed and headed for the stairway. Alfred, empathizing with his friend, remained respectfully silent as he followed him down to the street.

Autumn Idyll

5

Wearing only faded jean shorts Sonny was raking yellow and brown leaves through the bluegreen shade of the walnutrees that spread over the front yard of his house. He stopped to look up at the sunlight filtered through the clinging leaves of summer past. Wet ringlets of hair stuck to his forehead; he wiped the sweat and glanced to the street. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted two figures.

The same boy and girl he had previously seen in front of his house were again ambling by, whispering and laughing. She was tall and slender with her long auburn hair pouring down her back. Her long legs stretched tight her black pants, and her breasts strained against a bright red blouse tied above her navel. She and the boy were kissing at every other step. Sonny watched avidly. Once she faced in Sonny's direction but showed no sign of seeing him. He slipped deeper into the shade, leaned on the rake, and spied on them.

Stepping as if to a dance, the young couple stopped and fell gently against a fence across the street. The girl sat on the fence and smiled seductively at the boy. She pushed here breasts up to his chest and wrapped her arms and legs around him. Glancing over the boy's shoulder, she looked right at Sonny but again made no sign of seeing him. Nevertheless, Sonny shrank even deeper into the shadows as held onto the rake straight in front of him like a pillar by which to keep his balance.

When the girl seemed about to spot Sonny in the shadows, the boy deftly with his fingertips stroked the junction of her thighs. Sonny's eyes seemed to burst in an effort to zero in on the boy's target. The girl yelped gleefully. "Stop that, nasty! Not in public!" Yet she closed her thighs on the boy's hand. She pushed him away then embraced him and kissed him deeply.

Sonny swallowed laboriously, his cheeks burning, his eyes wider than ever, as he watched them devour each other. They slowly disengaged and walked down the street. Babbling nonsense, they stuck their hands into each other's back pockets and passed out of sight. Sonny had turned to stone with his mouth open. The rake in his grip stood among the leaves like a struck flagpole. Slowly, aimlessly he started raking leaves that did not exist.

"Sonny." A familiar voice behind him called.

He did not respond.

"Son-ny!" The voice was annoying.

He jerked around to see his grandmother's small, round shape standing in the doorway to the house. Startled, he studied her face for any indication of what she might have seen, what she knew. His cheeks paled whiter than the heat in his loins, and the sweat on his brow fell into his eyes. He wiped his forehead with a quivering finger. The rake fell into the grass, the tines twanging like an out-of-tune harp.

"Your mother's on the phone. She wants to talk to you about going over there this weekend."

Sonny's eyes fluttered from the sting of the sweat. His cheeks flushed red again, as he started for the door but held back as if pulled in opposite directions by invisible ties.

"Come on, Sonny! Don't keep her waiting."

"Coming, grana." He crouched and ran to the house. At the front door, his grandmother hurried out of the way and eyed him.

"What's the matter--you sick?"

"Unh-unh," he muttered as he slipped past her into the house.

"Straighten up then and don't be actin' so silly."

Instinctively his hand touched his belly. He remembered the pain there that sometimes doubled him over and as if by suggestion, he felt nausea sear his throat. He panted quickly to catch his breath and to calm his nerves.

Inside the house was cool and dark. A sudden chill crossed his forehead as he picked up the telephone. He noticed a jigsaw puzzle lying partly assembled on the dining room table. His grandmother sat her rotund bulk in front of the puzzle.

Sonny watched her contemplate the partially completed image. "Hi, mom," he muttered as he stared at the connected pieces. In a pastoral scene, a shepherdess was attending her flock. He stared at the girl in the puzzle.

He watched his grandmother's fat arthritic fingers pass hither and thither over the pieces: picking up one, holding it momentarily, putting it down, picking up another, fitting it into place.

Feeling caught among his grandmother's presence, his mother's voice, and the memory of the girl on the street, Sonny became confused on top of his residual excitement. The strange girl on the street preoccupied him, her actions rerunning through his mind like a favorite movie. He glanced down at the puzzle picture and saw her shape assembled and animated in it like a mosaic in motion.

"Me too," he said into the telephone.

The shepherdess's thighs clamped on her staff, and Sonny's hand clenched the phone. "Yeah," he sighed. "Yes." At first thinking the shepherdess resembled Ginny, he stared at the image and blinked. The image changed to the girl on the street. He blinked again. When the face fluctuated to resemble that of his mother, he shuddered. "No--I'm listening."

His grandmother glanced over her gold-rimmed glasses at him and turned a puzzle piece over and over in her chubby hand. Sonny would not meet her eyes and for a moment, he avoided the face of the shepherdess. Periodically he had to acknowledge his mother on the phone and he continued to stare at the puzzle picture.

The lavender cloth that the pastoral girl in the puzzle wore hung from her shoulders like drapery, was clasped at her waist, and lay swirled in fragments around a fragmented boulder upon which she was supposed to be perching. From her feet a gentle slope swooped into an indistinct vale where sheep safely grazed along a disconnected stream flowing from a broken chain of mauve mountains beneath a cracked morning sky.

Sonny nodded in response to his mother's voice, but his eyes took his mind to a large hole in the puzzle, where he himself could complete the picture. He envisioned the stray pieces animated into an image of the shepherdess turning to receive her beloved shepherd who resembled himself.

Suddenly his grandmother smacked the table. The puzzle pieces bounced into confusion. She glared at Sonny, pointed a thick finger at the ceiling as if indicating an imminent order, and opened her mouth to suck in air. But she spoke not a word. She did not have to speak. He knew she was exasperated more by his awkward behavior than by the frustrations of the puzzle.

"Yes, mom." Sonny pretended to be oblivious of his grandmother's gesticulations and obediently became more involved in the telephone conversation.

"This weekend? Okay, but I wanted to play football with--" He looked at his grandmother's stern face and slowly shaking head. "Okay," he said with forced enthusiasm. Yes. Yes, I will. No, I won't forget."

When he hung up the phone, his grandmother looked at him inquisitively and started to speak. Avoiding her eyes, he stepped behind her chair to escape the room. But she caught him with an inevitable question.

"Well, Sonny--what she say? She gonna come get you this weekend?"

Sonny nodded. "Wants to take me out to dinner--meet somebody-- and talk about something special."

Her eyes dropped to the puzzle, her lips tightening into a thin straight line. She fingered the pieces without placing them. "Somethin' 'bout Wendell and her, I s'pose. And you too." She sighed and shook her head sadly.

"Wendell? Yeah--probably." Sonny shrugged and edged away from the table. "Guess I'll finish raking the leaves."

As he left the house, he could hear his grandmother mumbling something. But he could not and did not want to understand the words. He closed the door loud enough to punctuate his purpose.

Outside he scanned the street for the young couple, but they were long gone. Sullenly, he picked up the rake and dragged it through the crackling leaves. Fortunately an autumn breeze was blowing away the heat of the day. He resumed his work but he was preoccupied with wonder.

***

That evening Grandfather and Grandmother Rinehart were quietly eating dinner, but Sonny was dawdling. He was pushing ground meat, mashed potatoes, and soft, gray peas around his plate and forming them into neat little piles. The sounds of silverware set a timbre of cheerful contrast to the actual mood. Grandfather peered over his wire-rimmed glasses at the idle boy and snapped, "Will you stop playing with your food and eat."

Sonny mixed his peas into his mashed potatoes as if he were about to eat them, stalling to do nothing in particular.

"Your grandmother didn't make this dinner for you to waste. So clean your plate," grandfather said. "Clean plate today, clear sky tomorrow."

The boy rolled his eyes at the maxim often heard at Henry Rinehart's table.

"People are starving in the world, Sonny," grandmother added. "Eat up."

Sonny grinned at the second predictable homily and stared at his mounded plate to keep from laughing aloud. He started to arrange the piles of food into the shape of a nude woman's body but when he looked up and saw his grandfather's cold eyes burning into him, he fell back to dawdling in the abstract.

His grandmother looked concerned. "Are you getting sick, Sonny?" she said with her mouth full.

The boy shook his head and said, "I'm okay, grana."

She looked at her husband. "His mother called today."

The old man looked at her intensely then continued eating. Sonny shoved a forkful of peas and potatoes into his mouth and chewed like a young bull gnawing on his cud.

"Late this afternoon," she said. "She and Wendell want to pick him up for the weekend."

Grandfather nodded into his own forkful of potatoes, shoved it into his mouth, and chewed hard and fast, his jaw muscles rippling angrily. Sonny glanced from him to her.

"She, er, they want him to go over to his place for the weekend," she said.

Grandfather snapped another look at her.

"Something about meeting her new--" she went on, "that dentist she met years ago--when they worked for Lockler Aircraft."

Sonny watched his grandfather's mouth tighten, as the old man dropped his fork clattering onto his plate. Grandmother jumped and touched her heart.

"Why in God's name does she do these things, Tilly?" grandfather bellowed at his wife. "Can't she see what it does to the boy?"

Grandmother signaled him to restrain himself. "I dono, Henry. I jus' don't know." She shrugged and stuffed her mouth.

Sonny struggled to eat, mauling his meal through a long silence. He watched his grandfather shake his head slowly into another forkful of mashed potatoes.

When grandmother had scraped every remaining bit of food off her plate, she spoke to the boy without looking at him. "I see you got another letter from that little girl you met in the mountains."

Sonny blushed, looked down, and nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Stop grunting at your grandmother," his grandfather said, "and speak up like a man."

"Yessir."

"You know," she continued, "if you're gonna be writin' letters, you should be writing more often to your father instead of wasting time with that silly girl."

Sonny winced.

"Some father," his grandfather snapped.

Sonny winced again.

Grandmother cast a complaining look at her husband and continued to speak to the boy. "Jus' ferget 'bout the girls fer now, Sonny, and...."

"You can ferget about everything right now but cleaning your plate, young man," grandfather said.

Sonny flushed, sighed, and gulped his meal, almost gagging on the canned peas.

"That's better. Your grandmother didn't go to all the trouble to cook--for you to throw it in the garbage."

Grandmother Rinehart fell silent as she dropped artificial sweetener into her coffee. Grandfather too scraped every speck from his plate but he kept looking at the boy with angry eyes. Sonny felt anger and apprehension welling into his throat but tried to swallow it with the last bits of food. He paused a moment when finished, pushed away from the table slowly, and then stepped quickly to put his dishes on the kitchen counter. Then came the voice of judgment.

"And I want to know what are you doing with those drawings of naked women in your room?" his grandfather asked

Sonny froze. "I--I don't-- What...?"

"Your grandmother better not find anymore disgusting things like that, young man. The idea of wasting yer time with such filth. I guess I ain't keeping you busy enough."

Sonny gritted his teeth and flushed like a ripe peach. At a pause in his grandfather's tirade, he made a rush for the sanctuary of his room.

"Damn kid's more trouble every day," he said to his wife as he shook his head in disparagement.

She tried to quiet him, but he persisted.

"Helluvalotta good his mother and father doin'," he said. "Him drawin' a bunch of naked women." He clucked and shook his head. "Wouldn't be like this if they would've...."

"More coffee, father?" She rose and turned to the stove with surprising quickness.

Grandfather Rinehart nodded, his blueyes flickering electrically. He looked as if he were going to jerk to his feet and turn over the table, dishes, and everything. But he merely fumed silently in place.

At his desk, Sonny could still hear their muffled voices strained through clenched teeth over tinkling coffee cups. He put his hands over his ears to block out their words. When they had left the kitchen, he turned on the lamp. He picked up the envelope from Ginny and read his name on the front. At the corner, he read and reread the name Virginia Temple. Nice handwriting. Turning over the envelope, he smiled when he saw O's and X's scrawled across the bottom. Tearing it open, he sniffed the contents and smiled more broadly. Always makes 'em smell good. After skimming the pages of the letter, he read and heard Ginny's voice soft and sweet in his mind like a breeze on a bright mountain meadow.

Dear Sonny,

How have you been? I got your sweet letter today. I really miss you too. I've been so bored being back at school after last summer. But I do like my English class. Do you like any of your classes? All the girls keep asking me about you. They tell me I'm so lucky. I know I am.

I sure wish we could've gone to the movie that night before you left, Sonny--but my father just wouldn't let me. Please don't be sad about it. I begged and pleaded, but he just wouldn't. He's so mean. No, I don't mean that. I love him, but he can make my life so difficult sometimes.

I sure do hope you write to me again soon. I can hardly wait to read that poem you promised to send me. I know you must have some beautiful things to say. I'll try to write one back to you if you like. I love poetry.

Oh, and yeah--I'll send you my school picture next time I write. I think it'll be funny looking but I'll send it anyway. Promise not to laugh? And will you send me one of you too? I don't want to forget what you look like. Hah! Hah! I'll never forget you. You're so cute. Now, don't go getting conceited.

Well, I guess I better go now, Sonny dear--homework, you know. Be good and write to me every day.

Love,

Ginny.

He sniffed the letter again and smiled. He opened his notebook, took out the poem he had been writing in school, and read the penciled lines.

As I am now, I have been since the day I saw her

At our passive meeting in the town, in a place

Where any love could be born to last forever.

When first I looked into her sparkling eyes,

My heart remained restrained, but within, it flamed.

I professed my indifference towards her affect

On me and my thoughts, though I really knew that I

Had been unknowingly attracted by her charms.

In the early days of our common acquaintance,

She favored another--a friend I had in those days,

But I put to work my best ideas of diplomacy,

For a cousin of mine desired her presence

With him alone, as they had been in the past.

Things stayed the same until a time came

When a party was given, and a love was born.

The infant love grew slowly but steadily,

Until in the hours before my fateful departure,

The love stood high and strong--always to be.

Shortly our time became the past,

And I was taken away with a tear in my eye.

Truly those relentless clock hands never cease,

Especially when two seek happiness together.

Now, I'm wondering how much time will pass--

The time that has been so long since I saw her,

To the time that always lies so far beyond.

The years are few, the yearnings thousands.

And since my care for her remains until now,

I cannot actually doubt that the path I tread

My beloved made through velvet meadows--

Fields fragrant with the sweetness of spring love.

O God! Why must I trudge so long up this hill,

This apparently endless road to an unknown place?

Whereto I know not how far I must pace,

When I know not I'll reach my love--my bliss.

Glancing at his reflection in the window against the darkening day, he took out a pen and a blank sheet of paper and began to transcribe the poem in ink. When he had finished and was inserting it into an envelope, he glanced again at his reflection in the window. He imagined Ginny's sweet smiling face superimposed over his own. He strained to see her cheery blueyes in the glass, but a fathomless pool of blackness lay behind the transparent apparition. Her eyes remained dark. He blinked to preserve it but the face inexorably changed into that of the girl he had seen in front of his house. And her eyes looked nearly black in the window image.

He sealed the envelope absently while he continued to peer into the enchanted glass at the dark but seductive face. When he blinked again, she too dissolved, and the darker image of Dion stared back at him from the windowpane. Sonny blinked quickly to recapture his own image, feeling a quivering discomfort at this vision.

When his own face came clear, again he checked his hair. His own visage remained dark and it looked older than his years. He smiled at himself, looking so strange in the glass. Rather than the usual hairdo, his locks appeared to curl up at the temples. He thought he could see two small curved horns newly sprouted from his forehead. His eyebrows looked arched and his eyes seemed to smolder in the reflected glare of the lamp light. Stone still a moment he stared blankly at the phantasm. Then closing his eyes, he forced a laugh as he switched off the lamp. He sat quiet and still in the quelling darkness, but he could still perceive a tiny light like a distant flame in the blank places where his eyes had been reflected in the glass. He gasped and strained to look through the glass at the large limb of a walnutree barely illumined by moonlight. The lunarlight glowed along the limb, on the large leaves, and all over the trees in the neighboring yards. In the steel-black sky, the full moon hung low in the night sky. His dilated pupils reflected the soft orb, its pale golden face filling his view. The smooth limb of the tree seemed almost alive like the body of a huge snake poised among the silvery leaves. It appeared to uncoil, to show its massive head, and look at him through the window. Snake in the garden. Wants to speak to me. To tempt me with forbidden fruit. He chuckled to reassure himself that he was simply imagining things in the night and he laughed aloud at having been startled by the mere magic of moonlight.

Beyond the tree, beyond the yard, a lone dog bark shattered the silence and the spell of the night. Sonny stripped off his clothes, pulled back the covers on his bed, and lay down. Everything in the moonstruck evening began dissolving into a sweet warm numbness. He stretched between the sheets and drifted beyond the room, beyond the trees, beyond the mountains, beyond the moon. A dog howled again in the far distance, barely audible. Then silence--sweet, soothing silence unto oblivion.

***

The next day a football sailed across a blurred background of yellowing leaves against a clear blue sky. Sunlight was slanting into an autumn afternoon. A cool breeze blew across the front yard of Sonny's house and ruffled his hair as he caught the ball over his shoulder. Spinning around a little awkwardly he flung it in a wobbly spiral back to Alfred. Both boys as if in uniform were wearing jean shorts and white T-shirts. Alfred stopped the ball with his outstretched hands but bobbled it before gathering it into his arms just before it hit the ground.

"Coming to the park this Sunday?" he said as he passed it back to Sonny.

Sonny did not answer but kept glancing toward the street.

"Well, are you?" Alfred insisted.

Distracted, Sonny still did not answer as he reached for the spiraling ball. But it spun through his hands and nosed into ivy along a fence behind him.

Alfred followed Sonny's line of sight. "What are you looking for, man? We're playing ball here."

Sonny plowed into the ivy for the ball. Then he glimpsed what he had been hoping to see. She was walking along the street right in front of his house: the same auburn-haired girl walking with a boy, a different guy this time, but the same sexy girl. Sonny looked both surprised and satisfied. The sight of her quickened his body, and he deftly snatched the football out of the dark shiny leaves. Shifting into high gear, he hurled a bullet at Alfred. The missile bounced off his chest and fell to the grass.

"Unnnnh," Alfred grunted, rubbing his chest as he bent over to pick up the ball. He fired it back at Sonny.

Sonny dived for the ball even though it was coming right at him, snagged it with one hand, hit the ground, and rolled over and over in the grass.

The young couple on the street were giggling and chattering as they strolled in front of the house. She looked into the yard but was apparently oblivious of Sonny's histrionics. He lay still a moment, his face down in the cool green blades. Then he raised his eyes and glanced to the street to see if she had noticed him, but they had passed out of sight.

Alfred slapped his hands to get the play going again. "Come on, Sonny! Pass the damned ball, will you?"

Sonny jumped to his feet and scurried to the fence. "Did you see that chick, Alfred?"

"What chick?"

"That gorgeous chick that just passed through our lives!" He ran up to Alfred and pushed the ball into his belly. "Who else?"

Still rubbing his chest after the bullet pass, Alfred nearly fumbled the surprise handoff. He shrugged and nodded halfheartedly.

Sonny jumped into the crotch of a tree and peered over the neighboring shrubs to see if he could spot the girl, but he could hear only their lustful laughter fading away. Alfred started to speak, but Sonny quieted him with a gesture. Listening, Sonny craned his neck to see, to hear the girl, and her distant laughter rippled back to him like water in a brook. He turned to Alfred. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"What do you think of her?"

"What do I think of whom? Lela? Don't you know her, man? Everyone knows Lela. Goes to Valley High." He paused for the right effect, his timing perfect as usual. "They say she does it with any guy who points his dick at her." He pumped the ball over his shoulder a couple of times and said, "Come on, man--get back in the game."

But Sonny could only stare at him in amazement, his mouth slack. "How in hell do you know--?" He sputtered as he flopped against a limb, embracing it like a cat in heat. His friend's vast knowledge of human affairs always surprised him. After a moment he said, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised." He looked a little disappointed that he was on the short end of this information, but his lust quickly overwhelmed any frustration. "Well, that's about the sexiest chick I've ever seen."

Dismissing him with a grunt, Alfred rolled back to pass. "Sexy--I guess so--and from what I hear--a hell of a lot of guys in the valley have gotten into her pants."

"Yeah? That so?" Sonny snapped. "Well, here's another guy who's gonna get into them. Damned if I don't!" He clapped his hands for the ball. "Toss it."

"You horny bastard!" Alfred said as he hurled the football at Sonny in the tree.

"Definitely the one," Sonny said. "Possibly the other."

The ball flew wide, but Sonny, leaping like an ape, caught it in midair with his fingertips, spunaround, and hit the turf with a thud. Tumbling and rolling, he lay flat on his back, arms outstretched, the ball cradled in his hand to block the sunlight from his eyes.

Alfred looked stunned. "What a catch?"

"What a snatch?" Sonny rolled his eyes at his friend.

Sonny squinted at Alfred's head silhouetted against the sun. "What a letch," the silhouette said.

Sonny cackled and hurled the ball straight into the air. He watched it spiral into the bluesky among the last of the yellow leaves. Then it suddenly disappeared.

Alfred held it above Sonny's body. "I should have let it bounce off your balls. That would keep the starch out of your sheets."

Cackling like the devil, Sonny leaped to his feet and ran up the yard.

"So how about Sunday, man?" Alfred again asked as he threw a long bomb. "You want to--play in the game with Dion and the guys, don't you?"

"Yeah--course I do." Sonny sprinted to snag the ball on its way toward a window in the garage. He caught it just in time and shouted, "I'm hot!"

Alfred said, "As always."

Sonny threw the ball onto the ground, thrust both arms into a V above his head, and leaped into the air. "Score six points for the hot dude!"

Alfred grinned like a forbearing elder brother and nodded toward the way Lela had gone. "Now, let's see if you can score six inches."

They roared.

6

Young, handsome Father Clark stepped into the pulpit and smiled over everyone in the church. The people of the congregation sat back in their pews, sounding like a distant roll of thunder across the valley. The priest opened a big book and waited for quiet.

High in the choir loft Sonny was sitting with his back to a great rose window of stained glass. Red, blue, and yellow light colored his hair. His green eyes surveyed the throng of people sitting below him. Finding a few girls among them he focused momentarily on each, hoping one of them would turn her head enough, so he could discover a pretty profile. In this way, he continually scanned the people's heads to pass as pleasurably as possible the hour of stultifying solemnity. In his way, he was devotional.

A few murmurings arose from the people, a few rustlings of Sunday clothes, and then all was quiet. Only the rays of primary-colored light, which slanted across the congregation from the stained glass windows high in the flanking walls, permeated the reverential hush. Sonny slouched in his pew as the priest began to speak.

Next to the priest stood a statue of Mary. As usual her gown was painted blue and white and trimmed in gold. Her skin was soft white, her rosepetalips smiled sweetly, and through her eyes, she expressed pure and complete compassion. She looked loving, but sad, poignantly, ineffably sad. Her hands supplicating, her head bowed, her face smiling on the congregation, she radiated perfect peace and spiritual beauty. Sonny tried to focus on the Madonna's eyes, but could not see them clearly--she was too far at the other end of the nave. He could only imagine the profound and expansive kindness in her gaze, as he had known on the statue in front of his school. He knew her face to be utterly tender and lovely and he had always longed to push gently back the hood around her head to see her long dark hair fall fully over her delicate shoulders. Toward her he felt none of the physical longing that was plaguing him night and day in response to adolescent girls. The Madonna radiated a beauty that evoked in him a different kind of feeling, devoid of pleasure and pain but profoundly joyous. Like a Raphael Madonna.

The young priest commenced to preach oratorically: "In the gospel according to Saint Luke the apostle tells us that Mary Magdalene had been a sinner." The priest then paused to let that most powerful word to religious people sink into their receptive minds.

Sonny listened.

"She had been a whore--yes, a whore--a woman of physical beauty who had completely debased herself in the eyes of humanity--and who had been mortally threatened with the eternal destruction of her immortal soul." The priest paused for breath and swallowed slowly.

Sonny swallowed too and sat up in his pew to attend as closely as possible to this particular sermon.

"When a Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him, Magdalene uninvited entered the house, while they were at table, and fell weeping before Jesus. She bathed his feet, according to the custom of the day, as if she were a servant girl, and she wiped them dry with her long sable hair. Then she anointed his feet with perfumed oil she carried for her body. The Pharisee murmured to those around the dinner table that such acquiescence to a great sinner was unbecoming of a prophet.

"But Jesus, knowing his thoughts, rebuked the Pharisee in his inimitable way. First, he asked him which of two released debtors--a great and a small--had the more cause to be grateful to the creditor. Of course the Pharisee knew the answer. Then Jesus asked the Pharisee another question and proceeded to make a point as only Jesus could make: 'Dost thou see this woman? I entered into thy house--thou gavest me no water for my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint--but she with ointment hath anointed my feet. Wherefore I say to thee: Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less.' And to the penitent woman, Mary Magdalene, he said, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee. They faith hath made thee safe. Go in peace.'" The priest paused again for a long time, scanning the people to see their reactions. Finding the congregation obligingly moved, he continued: "And when Magdalene finished caressing his feet, he touched her face, gently stroking it with his long slender fingers like hands on a fine musical instrument. He smiled, and his magnanimity cleansed her!"

The story excited Sonny's imagination and he drifted into a reverie that silenced the priest's voice in his mind. Like a young monk he seemed about to fall into an ecstatic state of graceful prayer. Love! Sonny smiled at his thoughts and felt an infusion of warmth into his belly. He was breathing so shallowly he felt lightheaded as though about to ascend and float effortlessly like a cloud painted on a cathedral ceiling high above the congregation. His heart was thumping, beating with the rapture of his daydream. Bathed him with her tears. Dried them with her hair--her wondrous hair, warm as sunshine, long as a silkscarf. She looked up at him, tears in her doesoft eyes. Wanting him, wanting him to save her--to love her. Thinking him the son of God? God himself? Or just the most wonderful man she had ever known? He smiled at her, and his love cleansed her. Reborn! Magdalene became Mary--the one true and pure lover of the son of God! And so she followed him from then on, knowing his beauty--his suffering--his pain--his death--and his rise.

Sonny imagined the statue of Mary turning to look at the statue of Jesus. Lean and tortured of body, his strained muscles long and thin, he too gazed down upon the altarail. His dark eyes were achingly sorrowful from his ordeal of ridicule and pain, yet they gleamed with love despite the blood streaming off his brow, down his face and chest from thorns embedded into his scalp, flowing down his arms, his chest, his hollow belly, and even to his tortured feet. Sonny could see the three women of Christ--Mary, his mother, her sister, and Mary Magdalene--standing under him, staring up at him hanging motionless on the cross. Sonny drifted away with his daydream: What love for the man! Devoted mother. Faithful aunt. And Magdalene--young whore she had been--but changed--completely changed--transfigured for love. And she so beautiful! What did he think...?

The priest continued: "...and she discovered the boulder rolled back."

Sonny continued with his reverie. In her generous caring for his body--unable to see him ugly in death--but saw him escaped from death. The first to see him in glory arisen from the tomb! Sonny shuddered. His eyes were filling with tears, his lips quivering. Her God lived! And so she lived! Her life changed--reborn by his transcending love--by his love for her--by her love for him....

A ringing of bells from the altar broke his vision; he inhaled deeply and sighed long and quietly. He heard the priest speaking from the top of the altar steps.

"Lord I am not worthy," the priest intoned.

Sonny looked to see, his eyes blurred and slowly focusing on the priest in prayer. He was standing in front of the altar, facing the people now but staring at a small, round, white wafer held over a golden bejeweled chalice. Sonny lingered on the chalice until the rustle and clatter of children, women, and old men stepping out of the pews and heading up the aisles to the altarail distracted him. He studied them from his lofty place in the back of the church. Communicants. They want his body too--and his blood. But what do they give in return? He watched pretty girls going toward the altar. Would they have washed his feet? Would they have dried them with their hair? He chuckled aloud. Some people nearby looked at him, their faces blankly disapproving. An old woman seated nearby glared at him. He glanced at her through the corners of his eyes. She rose and joined the communicants. He silenced himself, but his eyes twinkled. Others around him filed past and descended the stairs. The young and the old. But he remained in his pew and continued to scan the congregation, the girls, especially the ones remaining in the pews. He wondered about their souls. Then he saw her. Long auburn hair! His eyes lighted. Lela? No. Could she be here?

When the girl glanced to one side, Sonny saw that she was Lela, sitting alone in the rear of the church. When she turned her head in his direction, Sonny glimpsed her pretty profile. Like Magdalene! He nearly shouted with profane joy.

The old woman who had passed was still at the head of the stairs and watching his behavior closely; beneath a furrowed brow she scrutinized and tacitly condemned his irreverence. He feared to look at her lest she speak to him, remonstrating him for his disrespect. Sacrilegious! She'd say aloud so everyone in the loft could hear, everyone in the church, even Lela.

Without moving a muscle, he prayed the old woman would disappear as he stared at Lela. Wow! She had come to church! Changing like Magdalene? God--not yet! He could see only her fiery head of hair draping her hot pink sweater above the back of the pew. He kept staring at her. His mouth watered. He wanted his stare to master her will in a way he thought that only movie stars and Dion could do. He lowered his head, knit his forehead to a crucial peak above his eyes, and peered beneath his quivering brow. He became so engrossed in his attempt to dominate her that he failed to notice her head turning in his direction.

As though feeling the presence of somebody behind her, Lela turned slowly half around and glanced first behind her then to the loft. Her eyes caught Sonny's eyes. She neither smiled nor frowned but only stared back at him before he realized that she, her darkeyes wide and wondering, was looking at him.

He blushed hotly and averted his eyes to look aimlessly over the row of communicants coming and going along the altarail. As they were kneeling on the red velvet cushion at the base of the railing, the priest and altar boy in unison were passing from one to another. Sonny found this activity, so well known to him, suddenly riveting.

"The body of Christ," Father Clark mumbled repeatedly as he made quick little signs of the cross over the ciborium and handed a wafer to each of the faithful. Then, as the altar boy followed him with a small gold saucer held under each chin, the celebrants put the wafers into their mouths, arose, and peeled away from the rail like cattle leaving a trough, as others immediately took their places.

Sonny followed the proceedings, but his flaming cheeks signaled another bulging interest. He wanted to look at Lela again but could not seem to make his head or his eyes move. So he simply watched the communicants coming and going, but his face flush and his body tense and restless. With the power of his mind, he tried to move things along more quickly so he could catch Lela before she left the church, but the conclusion to the mass dragged despite his telepathic endeavors. By now the old woman had returned to her seat next to him and was smiling at his show of piety.

When the ceremony ended, Father Clark genuflected with the altar boys, and they left the sanctuary. The congregation simultaneously rose and began filing out of the pews. As they were heading toward the exits, Sonny thought to look at Lela again. Craning his neck, he looked down to find her. But her place was vacant, her pew empty. Gone!

He jerked to his feet. Just then the old woman got up to leave, and his abrupt move so startled her that she nearly lost her balance. She again changed her attitude toward the boy. Noticing neither his effect on her nor her renewed glower at him, he strained with fading hope to see Lela in the exiting crowd. He hung over the rail like a monkey and scanned the people to find her hair as a flaming flag to follow. His face was blanching now from hot to cold, as he bent farther over the rail to spot her. The old lady waited impatiently for him to move out of her way, but his eyes, not seeing the object of his desire, ignored the woman, and darkened.

"Damn!" he muttered.

"Young man--!" she crackled.

He looked at her and blushed all over again. He was about to apologize for his language, when she aborted his words. "Would you mind--" she implored, glaring at him like a fervent little mother superior, "letting me through?"

He, nodded, bowed his head, fingered his brow nervously, and scooted out of her path. "Oh--yes, ma'm, yes--I'm sorry." Once out of her way he faced the old lady, as she passed, and backed up smartly against the rail. But before he could feel it behind him, he almost fell over it. Luckily he caught himself and, glancing around, tried to appear as though he knew exactly what he was doing and that his unbalance was simply his way to look over the crowd leaving the church. While in that position, he again took the opportunity to reconnoiter for Lela.

Gone! He dashed to the head of the stairs and stumbled down them, jostling people on both sides. He pushed past the old lady and nearly tripped her this time. She shot a sharp look at him to reprimand him as the devil's own child and she even made a gesture to grab his ear and give it a good twist but she settled for shaking her wizened fist at him like a cursing witch. Curtly he left some half-uttered apology trailing as he leaped down the stairway to the ground floor.

Jumping into the vestibule, he darted a look around the space. Gone! Through the double doors of the church, he pressed and bounded into the glaring sunlight. As he squinted to find her, his eyes popped open.

There she was--standing with Dion on the front steps. Fewer than five feet away from him, the two persons he most admired in the world were chatting amiably together. Of course Dion was flirting with his faunlike flare. She flirting too? Smiling she is--alluring--right there in front of the church, God, and everyone.

Feeling exposed, Sonny spun around and slipped back into the vestibule as if he had forgotten something. As he scurried back into the church, people were flowing past him. Like a lost usher, he glanced around as if to look for someone in particular. A few people smiled at him as they passed, but he was too distracted to acknowledge them. He peered outside. The two of them were still there, and Lela did not appear to have seen him. Heading into the exiting stream of people like a salmon negotiating a waterfall, he nearly bumped into the old lady again, but with an awkward lunge, he dodged her and stepped behind a doorpost. Nonetheless she glowered at him once more and shook her head as she tottered away, nearly losing her balance again on the steps. He bowed his head to avoid the eyes of the faithful and pretended to have found something fascinating about his fingernails. Dion? At church? Probably to snag some chicks on their way out. And Lela?

Sonny's eyes flicked around the foyer like those of an animal on the hunt. He scarcely noticed people wondering about him. He was even rude, so absorbed was he in his mission to find Lela. He peeked around the post and saw people looking askance at him but he looked past them to find her.

Gone!

He spotted Dion leaning, legs apart, against his red car. He was talking in his roguish way to a girl, but she was not Lela. And when two other girls walked past him, they squealed his name like a pagan incantation. "Di-on! Hi, Dion! Hi!" they chorused and fluttered their hands like bird wings to catch his roving eye. Dion grinned, his generous teeth bright in his swarthy face. He held his head hawk-like and glanced around with eyes like burning anthracite, scanning all the passing girls.

Sonny stepped out of the doorway and looked around for Lela. Glancing up and down the boulevard, he spotted her about thirty paces away and moving down the sidewalk. Her long, lean body undulated in a tight black skirt. She was drifting steadily away and she was alone. Leaping down the steps two by two, Sonny faltered and nearly tripped over his own feet when he passed Dion.

Their eyes met. Tall and regal, Dion looked omniscient like a young wizard. He smiled at Sonny. Sonny smiled boyishly at the master and felt paralyzed. Unable to hold Dion's gaze, Sonny turned away. The spell broken, he hurried down the sidewalk after Lela. Yet he could feel Dion's dark delicious power pounding through his body like an electric charge. He picked up his feet and raced to reach Lela before she disappeared.

She was striding away nearly a block ahead of him, her long legs dancing; she looked like a gazelle. Her hair shone in the sunlight like royal silk. He wanted to dash to her, catch her arm, and stun her with a clever remark through a paralyzing smile. He heated in the chase. His face gleamed. The sun, approaching its zenith, burned into him. His greeneyes glowed like jewels in the shadow of his brow. His white shirt pulled out of his pants, as he ran after the girl, his shirttail waving behind him like a warrior's flag.

Lela crossed Ventura Boulevard at a signalight, and her buttocks quivered as she bounded onto the far curb. She laid her head back, tossed her flaming mane, and continued down the other side of the boulevard. Sonny hung back to avoid being seen but got caught at the signal. Seeing her turn down his street, he dashed across the boulevard, ignoring the signal still red, and his eyes following Lela. Cars honked around him, blowing into his mind; tires squealed at his feet, jangling him. One car would have hit him, had he not dodged it like a clumsy matador and leaped to the far curb.

"Wake up, kid, and watch where in hell you're goin'!" A fat man with a cell phone stuck in his ear hollered furiously, his head jutting like a mad gargoyle out of the window. Shaking his head scornfully, he accelerated down the boulevard.

Sonny acted as if nothing notable had happened, nothing had threatened his life, and he ran to the corner where his home street turned off the boulevard. Stopping to spot Lela, he saw her about halfway down the street. Her legs were stretching into a graceful gait, her hair flashing around her shoulders. He kept his eyes on her; could not have taken them off her. Panting like a young stallion, he speeded up then slowed down then speeded up again. He wanted to catch her but was afraid to catch up to her.

She sauntered down the street past his house. Then without warning, she spun around like a dancer and looked right at him. She flashed a seductive smile as though she had been aware of his presence behind her all along, then she pirouetted again and ran down the street.

Sonny faltered. Then he hopped, skipped, and leaped into a trot. But when he reached the front of his house, he stopped and watched her until she turned a corner and stepped out of sight without another glance in his direction. He clapped his hands spontaneously and grinned through mild frustration. With a yelp, he bounded up the driveway like a goat, kicking walnuts in the dappled sunshine. He paused a moment to consider going after her, but thought otherwise and stepped into his house.

Entering his bedroom, he was joyous. She noticed me. She smiled at me. She likes me. He belly-flopped onto his bed, rolled over, crossed his hands under his head, gazed out his window, and dreamed of Lela loving him.

He would pick her up in his car. She would bear a faint scent of soap and shampoo. He would drive her to a cliff-sheltered beach, where they would swim naked. Then washed ashore they would frolic in the surf like lovers out of an ancient myth. When the sun was last visible above the scalloped water, they would make love. At night he would spontaneously compose poetry for her. He would fascinate her. They would make love again and fall asleep on the beach to the lulling music of the waves kissing the shore. At dawn they would find a boat and sail away to an unknown island full of fruit, flowers, and butterflies. There they would live as lovers forever in paradise.

7

Like many sprawling suburbs, the valley is replete with parks. There are small garden parks for elderly people to exercise and to walk their dogs. There are parks with manmade lakes for boating and fishing. And there are parks for sports, such as baseball, soccer, tennis, and football. McLaren Park is one of the latter.

A huge space occupying eight square blocks it lay bright green under a cumulus cloudy sky. The early autumn day was warm in the afternoon, but a cool breeze was blowing from the northwest. Just the kind of day for a good game of football. Among the many others walking and gamboling about the park, twelve boys were scrimmaging on the grass. A play was about to unfold.

"Hut--two--eight--ten--" Dion called.

The ball spun into his hands. He ran back a few yards and looked downfield for a receiver. One lanky boy ran long, Sonny one step behind him. Alfred rushed Dion, as he rolled out behind Jimmer's blocking. Alfred dived headlong into Dion, but Jimmer stopped him cold. Alfred hit the turf. Dion launched a long bomb. The ball rocketed high over the players and spiraled more than thirty-five yards downfield. As the long receiver looked over his shoulder and reached both hands into the air, Sonny too reached for the ball, but it sailed right over his head and landed in the boy's outstretched fingers like an egg in a basket. He tucked it safely into his belly and tumbled into the end zone, Sonny on top of him. Dion threw his arms straight up and bellowed, "TD!"

Sonny scrambled off the boy, said, "Lucky catch," and ran back to his teammates.

At the scrimmage line, Alfred rubbed his arm gingerly. "Damn Jimmer," he muttered. "Blocks like a tank!"

The teams lined up for the kickoff. Sonny glanced at Dion, who was grinning like a mandrill as he stood behind the ball mounted in the grass. Alfred and his team set to block. Sonny hung back in the end zone to receive the ball. Dion signaled, sprinted to the ball, and booted it high and long. Sonny watched it spiral up to a tiny speck in the sky then fall rapidly towards him like a rock out of space.

"I got it!" he yelled, as the ball thudded against his chest and bounced onto the ground.

From behind the goaline, he snatched it up and dashed behind Alfred and his cohorts, as they hurled themselves into Dion's phalanx. In an instant a dozen hands were clawing at Sonny's shirt and grappling for his arms and legs, but pumping his thighs like pistons Sonny broke free of one tackler after another and gained yardage.

"Go, Sonny!" Alfred shrieked. "Go!"

Sonny gained about thirty yards, but then bodies swarmed him and dragged him to the turf. When he had shaken them off and pulled himself to his feet, he found himself near midfield.

"Way to go, man!" Alfred howled as he grabbed him.

A couple of his teammates slapped him on the back and buttocks.

Even Dion chucked him and said, "Nice run, Dennison--damn nice!" He showed his Olympian smile.

Sonny brushed away the cheers, the compliment, and the pain of a new scratch on his cheek with an offhanded wave and hustled into a huddle. He started strutting like a young buck now and carrying his head high as though sniffing for fresh grass. He paid no heed to the fresh wound, probably even proud of it as a badge of courage and a mark of manhood.

His team broke the huddle with clapping hands and yelled "Hey!" like a war cry. When they took their places on the line, Sonny dropped behind the quarterback and leveled his brow to show his new sense of power in the backfield.

Dion pointed at him and shouted, "Watch Dennison!"

Sonny felt a rush of blood in his face and grinned rakishly. He imagined himself playing the game of his life against Sacred Heart High School. The score was 18 to 13, his team down at the end of the fourth quarter. The division championship was on the scrimmage line that day, and quarterback Sonny Dennison was about to take the football fate of the school into his hands. When the ball was snapped, he faked a handoff and cut into the line. Exhilarated war cries tore into the autumn air, when the young bodies collided with glee as the boys struggled to show themselves as men on a battlefield of play.

Sonny miraculously broke through a small hole his linemen had opened. Darting into the Sacred Heart defensive backfield, he zigzagged past a linebacker and two halfbacks. Once past the secondary he had only to escape the safety and he would make the winning touchdown. Pounding his legs like an engine, he cut diagonally for the end zone, trying to outrun his pursuers. The safety dashed toward him at an angle, gaining on him. Sonny did not look back. The safety hurled himself into Sonny's legs; a human missile he caught Sonny from behind and dropped him forward right at the goaline. Sonny, falling forward, extended his body and arms with the ball in his hands for the white line in the grass. When he hit the turf, his body slammed full length onto the field, the tip of the ball just over the line.

The crowd held its collective breath. A judge ran to the spot where Sonny lay in the arms of the tackler and examined the position of the ball. Putting the whistle in his mouth, the judge blew a shrill trill into the hushed air, and threw his arms straight over his head. Touchdown!

The Holy Virgin fans became ecstatic. They cheered and chanted "Son-ny, Son-ny, Son-ny!"

He stood up, raised the ball high, and made a V with his arms. Then they went crazy. His teammates swarmed onto the field toward him. They lifted him onto their shoulders and carried him on a human tide of adoration. Sonny was the hero of the day. He had won the state championship for Holy Virgin High School.

Dion Jennings, the quarterback for Sacred Heart, ran to him and extended his hand. "Good game, Dennison. You're the man." Sonny took his hand and simply nodded. That was all he needed to do and would do to show sportsmanship to the vanquished. Dion turned and disappeared with his mates into ignoble defeat, while Sonny rode the accolades of the adoring crowd like a young god in the clouds. In the warfare of games, he had proven himself triumphant. And he would be forever remembered for his astounding athletic achievement on this most glorious day of his young life.

The autumn night was chilly on Sonny's bruised, naked body. He pulled the bed sheet up to his chest and blinked at the stars glittering through the leafless branches. After a few moments of recollecting the highlights of his heroism on field and fantasy, he rolled over on his daydream and fell into the world of his night dreams. In a moment, he was asleep on the threshold of a variant vision, one of desire and the flesh, one that he savored with every falling night.

A lone cheerleader was prancing before him in his honor. Her hair was the color of a fall sunset, her eyes as blue as the sky. Then she became a graceful woman in a sheer yellow gown that flowed around her in a breeze. She opened her arms to embrace him. Her hair gleamed. Her eyes shone as two oval windows to an azure sky. She lifted her translucent gown like a curtain billowing around her naked body, and her chamoisoft skin gulled in the warm light. Her nipples budded like little roses. She spread her lavish legs wide from the golden V of fur pointing between her thighs. Her warm flesh radiated an aroma of gardenia. As her legs enveloped him, her arms enfolded him, and her long hair fell over her breasts like a silken veil. She bowed her head. Her eyelashes took wing into the skies of her eyes. Her tumescent lips parted, and....

Click. Pop music crashed the dream. The beautiful apparition pursed her tumid lips and frowned. Her bright image quickly faded. Morning.

Family, Feast, and Fantasy

8

Sonny lay still under his tent sheet. He blinked at the morning light streaming through his window. He blinked but did not keep his eyes open. Smiling like a drunken libertine, he seemed to be trying to prolong the vision. And on the wallpaper, the cowboys in banded rays of sunshine seemed to be laughing at his failure to recapture the dream.

As soon as the song ended, the DJ started his irritating patter: "Yes, yes, boys 'n' berry-girls--that be today's good mornin' song--and we're one day closer--a searchin' for that fat bird to get ready for the long Thanksgiving weekend!"

Sonny dragged himself out of bed and stumbled into the shower. Afterward he stood in front of the mirror and stroked his hair with the finesse of a cat, repeatedly checking it from side to side in the mirror. He wanted it to look like Dion's hair, even though his was neither short nor shiny black. While grooming himself repeatedly to find perfection, he heard alternately with the song on the radio Bopster in the kitchen trilling cheerfully. He also heard the barely audible voices of his grandparents.

They sounded angry. He froze and listened like a wild thing, staring at himself in the mirror as though wondering if he had done anything to arouse their wrath. He strained to hear:

"...mother...custody...support...parents...shame...father...responsibility...."

He frowned into the mirror. Same old argument. He jerked himself around and stomped out of the bathroom. In the bedroom, he turned down the radio and listened again. Too late. The old folks' voices had fallen silent. Only Bopster was still warbling like a water whistle. Sonny turned off the radio and strolled into the kitchen as if nothing were out of order.

His grandparents looked somber and distracted as they greeted him. "Sonny--" his grandfather said, "did your mother say anything about you going back to live with her and her new--well, with her?"

The boy shrugged and sat down to breakfast. "I guess so, granpa."

"What did you say?"

"Nothin' really."

His grandfather looked at him with tenderness uncommon for the old man. You know your grandmother and I think of you as our boy. We have thought of you that way since the last time your mother asked us to take care of you. Now we'd like you to stay here--here with us."

"I know, grandpa," Sonny said.

"We'd like you to stay in our home, Sonny, dear," his grandmother said. "It's your home now."

"I know, grana."

Silence deadened the air. Sonny glanced at each of them and nodded to reinforce his words. They did not smile but looked only concerned. His grandmother piled steaming scrambled eggs onto plates and set them in front of her husband and Sonny. "Better hurry 'n' eat," she said softly, "before yer ride comes." She returned to the stove to get her own food, her eyes averted. "Coffee now, father?" she said with a quavering voice.

Sonny grabbed a piece of toast and some bacon from plates on the table. With the buttered piece of crisp bread, he scooped some of the creamy golden pile into his mouth and followed it with a crunch of the meat. He savored the combination of tastes in his mouth.

His grandmother wiped her eyes with her apron and set her plate on the table. "Yer gonna make the honor roll again this year, ain't ya, Sonny?"

"Yes, grana."

"I want to be proud of you, ya know," she added.

Sonny nodded and gulped down his food.

Grandfather gesticulated for her to be quiet and stirred sugar into his black coffee with tinkling sounds of his spoon against the sides of the delicate pottery. It was like the signal for a significant announcement he was about to make.

"It's important, ya know, Sonny," his grandmother went on as she sat down to her own pile of eggs, "if yer gonna be a doctor."

Sonny nodded obligingly. At the edge of his vision, however, he noticed his grandfather flipping his spoon at his wife.

"That's not so important, mother." grandfather said. "What's important is for the boy to grow up and make a living. That's all. Support a family--the way I have done--the way a man should do." He slurped his coffee. "It doesn't matter if he becomes a doctor or a carpenter or a ditch digger." He leveled a stern look at the boy. "You just remember, son--you be the best person you can be, whatever you do--that's all. Garbage collector? Fine. Be a garbageman. Just be the best god damned garbageman in town." He clinched his words with click of his tongue and a sharp nod of his head.

Sonny gulped his food and washed it down with milk to keep from smiling at the notion. "Yes, granpa."

"You do still wanna be a doctor, don't you, Sonny?" grandmother asked, ignoring her husband's interruption.

"Sonny nodded emphatically. "Uh, yeah--yes, grana--I guess so." He felt the food stick in his throat with the words.

Grandmother Rinehart dropped into her chair and applied her pudgy hands to her meal. "I just want to be proud of you, Sonny--you know that." She studied him for confirmation of her desire. "You won't let me down, will you?" She stuffed some eggs into her mouth, chewed, and stared at him.

Sonny glanced at both of them obligingly. He started to nod again but hastily corrected it with an overly emphatic shake of his head and continual eating to cover it all. He had no desire to practice medicine but he had once made the mistake of mentioning his interest in the subject, and since then neither his mother nor his grandmother would not let him forget it. It had become their mission in life to see him as a doctor. He had not the heart to tell them the truth. Another silence stretched among them like an invisible elastic rope around their necks. The boy wolfed the rest of his food and, glancing at the clock, rose abruptly from the table, jostling it as usual. "Well--gotta go."

"Yes, run along now," his grandmother said, as he headed into his bedroom.

He grabbed his books and headed for a door to the garage. "Bye!"

"Don't forget to bring up some firewood when you get home from school," his grandfather yelled through the kitchen.

"I won't." Sonny was halfway out the door. "Bye."

"I'll be bringing home a bunch of lumber that I want stacked in the backyard," his grandfather shouted.

Without answering, the boy slammed the door and ran down the driveway.

"Bye!" his grandmother called vainly.

Her husband stretched his neck to shout a reprimand but realized it to be futile and merely looked at his wife. She dropped another sweetener into her coffee and slowly stirred the dark brown brew. She waited a moment then muttered into her cup. "You gonna tell him about his grandfather? Or should I?"

He looked like a magistrate with bitter responsibilities. "S'pose I have to do it," he said nearly spitting. "The boy oughta know what his father's family is like--even if he hardly knows his own father."

She shook her head. "I don't know, Henry--I don't really know what we should do about this. He's so young to find out about such things."

"Simple--" he said, "we just show him the picture in the paper and--well--never mind, mother. I'll take care of it."

She shook her head again. "I worry so much about him. I just couldn't bear to see him...."

"Now, now--don't you bother yourself about it." He patted her arm. "I'll do it. It's gotta be done. The boy's gotta know. I'll handle it."

As she sipped her coffee, her glasses became misty. She wiped her eyes with her apron then removed her glasses and wiped them too. Without her glasses, she looked old and weary. He picked up the newspaper and looked at a picture of a white-haired man. He shook his head then turned the page to find something else to read, a clear signal they would discuss the subject no further that morning.

9

Sitting behind the burly boy in religion class, Sonny had his notebook opened to a magazine picture of a sexy movie starlet showing off her body. He snapped a look at the teacher and coughed in Alfred's direction. Alfred looked at him, at the picture, and arched his brow. Another boy next to Alfred leaned over for a look. Sonny noticed the mounting attention to the picture and closed his notebook. The other boys quietly groaned. Alfred scribbled a note and passed it under the desks to Sonny.

"Saint Augustine can be an example to all of us in many ways," Brother Martin was saying to the class, "including the ways of the flesh--" he glared at Sonny as he continued. "For he too once wallowed in the salacious temptations of Satan before becoming a priest. So, although he was thirty-two years of age before ceasing his libertine ways, Augustine forsook a death in flesh for a life of celibate devotion to God. And in so doing he realized the true purpose of love between man and woman."

With one eye on Brother Martin expounding upon Augustine's rise from the depths of iniquity to the rarefied heights of sainthood, Sonny opened Alfred's note and read his hasty scrawl: Wonder if old Auggie would've converted to celibacy if he'd ever gotten into those panties! Sonny struggled to contain his laughter as he ogled the picture.

"Now students--" Brother Martin boomed.

Sonny suddenly sobered as he heard those words--the signal every student dreads--words that preceded the dreaded questioning of selected individuals in the class.

"Who can tell me the one and only purpose of sex?" the cleric continued as he scanned the room with his sharp eyes.

Sonny looked at his desk as if the answer would magically appear on its scratched surface, or better yet, that he could somehow render himself invisible by staring at it. He cast a furtive eye at Alfred. His buddy was stony in mock attention to conceal his merriment, and that only made the strain to keep from laughing aloud more difficult. Fortunately in the front row a few studious boys raised their hands. Solo waved his long, bony fingers in front of the teacher's face.

The brother nodded to him with an approving smile. "All right, Mister So-lo," he said with the emphatic lilt on the end of the boy's name. "What is it?"

"Procreation, Brother Martin," Solo shouted with a pubescent crackle in his voice. Then he glanced at his classmates with a lofty air.

All the other boys whinnied like a bunch of nervous animals in a corral. Alfred cocked his head forward, dropped his jaw, and covered his mouth with his hand in mock shock. Sonny was about to lose control.

"Exactly, So-lo!" Brother Martin snapped as he slapped his hand on the desk.

The room instantly fell silent as a church. Brother Martin spread his legs like a commanding general and leaned back onto the front of his desk, his cassock blending into the chalkboard. He dominated all he surveyed.

The boys stared at him expectantly. Not even their quickened breathing could be heard.

The teacher waited in the expectant hush a few seconds before going into his explanation of righteous sexual behavior. "For that reason sex before marriage--or out of wedlock for that matter--is strictly forbidden by God's law. Such illicit activity before holy matrimony is a mortal sin--deadly to the human soul." He shuddered with delight in his power.

The boys looked at each other as if to say they had heard it all before; nevertheless, a murmur passed among them like the rumor of a bawdy tale spreading over the telephone.

Then Brother Martin punched the big line: "A mortal sin--punishable by damnation--in neverending hell!"

Alfred grinned sardonically at Sonny, who was staring straight through Brother Martin into the blackboard behind him. He envisioned Lela walking down the street in front of his house.

She was naked. With a flash of lightning Saint Augustine appeared in the clear blue sky and descended to the street in front of her. She cowered, but he bade her rise and look at him. Avoiding her essentials, he looked into her eyes, smiled, and said in the voice of Brother Martin:

"God put mankind on this earth to be fruitful and to multiply--but only for His greater glory." The cleric paused with a flair for dramatic timing. "Sex--sex for any other purpose--is sinful--abominably sinful." He tacked on the rest of his words as an afterthought. "So, obviously, the Church bans sodomy, bestiality, and of course fornication. All of them are sin, Sin, SIN!" He luxuriated in the three-letter word with all the gusto of a famished man at a feast.

Sonny saw himself running out to the street with a silk veil and throwing it around Lela's body. Augustine nodded at the boy's attempt at modesty for the girl but immediately frowned. Lela's luscious body showed through the veil with more sexual allure than when unclothed.

The boys in class spluttered with titillated glee. One grinner in the back row threw his hand into the air. He was aching to ask a question his peers much favored and often asked. This time he would be the first. Knowing what was coming, the teacher reluctantly acknowledged him.

"Does that mean that all sex in marriage is okay, Brother Martin?" The student said as he looked around the room for approval.

His classmates showed embarrassment in varying degrees, but their rabid curiosity easily overcame it.

"I mean...." the boy attempted to explain.

"I know what you mean, Mister Miller," Brother Martin amplified.

Sonny put his arm around Lela and pulled her away. He ran with her up the driveway to his house. Behind the fleeing pair, Augustine was addressing them at the top of Brother Martin's voice.

"Sex in marriage is of course acceptable--if, I say, if enacted for the express purpose of producing children." Brother Martin bore down on them with his black eyes. "Any other way of sexual activity--simply for pleasure--is forbidden." This last word he spat between his clenched teeth like a curse. "Thus, Holy Mother Church, in her divine wisdom, advocates only the rhythm method as birth control--" He raised himself onto his tiptoes to heighten his point. "A method by which no artificial means may be used, and by which abstinence must be the rule."

Most of the class slightly fluttered and moaned in unison. But Solo and the others in the front row nodded their heads in necessary agreement with the giver of the grades.

"It's simple," the cleric continued. "You're married. You want a bundle of joy. You do it. You're not married. You definitely do not do it. Or if you are married but you don't want such a bundle. Then you shouldn't have gotten married. And--" He scoured the students with his gaze. "In either case, you definitely do not do it."

Sonny slammed the garage door on the holy man's words and entered his house with Lela.

Some of the boys in class moaned. Many stirred in their seats. A long, low sound flowed among them like a slight warning of revolt. Brother Martin allowed them their moment of emotional response then closed the lid on the class.

"Silence!" he bellowed.

Sonny's vision disappeared into the blackboard. Not a sound in the room after the teacher's voice boomed like that of an ancient Biblical prophet reverberating off the walls of ancient academe. The boys stared straight ahead, their eyes wide with the impact of the master's dark spell. And Sonny and Alfred conformed like all the others without any hint of hesitation or dissent.

***

Over the courtyard, the atmosphere hung flat and gray. Wind was blowing trash around the grounds. The scent in the air promised rain. A few seagulls were flying overhead and one screeched a plaintive cry. The two friends were walking between classes. Sonny glanced up at the pure white underbellies of the birds against the slate-gray sky. The gulls soared low over the yard in a last reconnaissance for food before swooping onto the football field where they often gathered when storms swept in from the sea. Sonny vainly tried to keep his hair in place against the wind. Alfred zipped up his jacket and contemplated the subject on his mind before speaking.

"As the Martian says, man--you better keep your pecker in your pants till you get married--if you don't want to cook on Beelzebub's barbecue."

Sonny snickered. "Naw--it ain't gonna happen, man! Nothing to worry about. Remember, a good confession always waits just around the corner at the nearest church. Besides, I don't wanna let them down. Priests must get damned bored sitting in those stuffy little cubicles all afternoon, Alf--listening to nothin' but a lot of disrespect to parents and lies to teachers. So a guy's gotta give 'em some action, somethin' to chew on--just to make 'em feel important. You know, it's part of the whole blessed religion business, ain't it?"

Alfred chuckled in spite of himself. "Maybe."

"Mess up, fess up, and dress up."

Alfred laughed. "Maybe so, man, maybe so. But you're going to do a lot of time in purgatory if you're not careful."

"Aw, who cares? It'll be worth it. Ask Don Juan."

"So now you're Don Juan, eh?"

Sonny laughed in his face. "Come on, Alfie! You really buy all that bull shit they dump on us every day?"

Alfred shrugged, as they entered a building. "Look, man--" he said. "I'll take geometry for now. It's a lot for me to handle as it is. And the angles are a lot easier to calculate than the figure of some sexy chick. Math numbers are either right or wrong, you know. Easy. Then all I have to worry about is my grade point average--and getting past Br'er Bear--instead of fretting about my score in heaven."

Sonny scoffed with a forced laugh, as they turned into a classroom. Mathematical symbols and signs decorated the walls above the chalkboard. A big bear of a man in a black cassock roared at them as they entered.

"Well, come on, come on, youngsters--" he roared, his huge hands fluttering around his massive head, "Time's a-wastin'! We've got numbers to crunch!"

When the bell rang, the big man closed the door with a thunderclap to punctuate the signal. The boys took their seats, while the other doors down the corridor thundered one after the other in a glorious echoslamming, and as students, they waited to be mathematically informed.

10

Outside of Sonny's bedroom, rain was streaming down the windowpane in broad sheets. Tiny streamlets curled, fused, and flowed down the glass in little waves. Music was beating faintly from the stereo, and a ceiling light cast a warm glow over the room. Sonny was looking over his math problems in his binder.

"Sonny!" His grandfather's voice from another room sounded unusually gentle.

The boy sat motionless without responding, and stared at the problems while waiting for confirmation of the call.

"Sonny--Sonny, would you come in here, please?"

The words "would you please" were always a rare attachment to any of his grandfather's demands and requests. Something was strange. He reviewed his past behavior in his mind and, satisfied that he had nothing to fear he closed his binder, he shouted, "Coming," as he twisted out of his chair.

The short passage from his bedroom through the kitchen to the dining room was dark as a tomb. Sonny saw in the living room the elders seated in the light of a single table lamp. His grandmother was in her favorite high-backed chair; his grandfather at the corner of the couch. The TV was off--notable in itself. The old folks were contemplative, even somber. Grandmother's head was bowed. Grandfather Rinehart looked up and stared at the boy as he entered. The old man's face was careworn, his blueyes so bleak as to appear gray behind the crystalenses.

"Come here, son--" he said, patting the sofa next to him. "I have to show you something."

Sonny glanced at his grandmother as he stepped past her to the sofa. She was wiping her eyes beneath her glasses with an arthritic finger. Then without acknowledging the boy, she looked at her husband as if expecting him to begin some solemn ceremony. The old man looked at Sonny with a grim but firm expression.

"Sit here, son," he said, trying for soothing tones as he again patted the sofa. "Sit beside me."

Sonny dropped awkwardly onto the couch. Expecting to be reprimanded for some bad behavior or at least for his usual clumsiness, he prepared himself for an apology. However, his grandfather did not complain but silently opened the newspaper between them. At first the boy did not know what he was doing. He wondered why he had called him into the room if he was only going to read the paper. He did not at first notice the image of the white-haired old man on one of the pages to which his grandfather had turned.

"I think you'd better read this," his grandfather said, his brow furrowed, his tan muscular fingers tapping the paper just under the picture.

Sonny looked at the paper then at his grandfather then again at the picture.

"See who that is?" his grandfather said.

"Huh?" Sonny peered closely at the picture and nodded in surprised recognition. "It's Granpa Dennison."

"Yes." The old man spoke with controlled anguish. "Read what it says about him, son."

Sonny scanned the caption. At first the words made no sense to him. He read them again. Donald R. Dennison, Sr., found dead Thursday evening after apparently shooting his brother, Philip, and himself in their Hollywood home. He knew the meaning of the passage but could not clarify it in his mind. Again he read the caption. Then he looked at Grandfather Rinehart.

The old man was shaking his head, his eyes strangely dark behind the glasses. "Read what it says here," he said in a hush while nodding at the short columns beneath the picture in the paper. "Read what happened."

Sonny wanted to keep his eyes on the face of his living grandfather, to hold the present certainty against the sudden threat of this chaos from the past. But his grandfather kept nodding at the paper. So the boy bowed his head and read two columns under the picture, but only some of the words registered in his mind: "...Hollywood...widower Dennison, 67, shot... killed...brother...his own life...brother repeatedly arrested...living alone...." Several of the words kept pulsing in his vision like neon lights: "...shot...killed...ill...life...death...life...shot...insane...life...killed...shot...shot... shot...." Sonny looked bewildered at his grandparents, his eyes full of questions he did not know how to ask.

"Terrible!" his grandmother said. "Just awful!"

Her husband nodded a look at her and laid his bronze hand behind his grandson's arm. "You understand what happened, Sonny?"

The boy felt his face flush hot. He looked down at his own hands in his lap and tried to swallow his shock. The sinews in his wrist tightened. He had not known his father's father well and seldom saw his grandfather's lunatic brother who lived in a room built onto the rear of the garage like a woodshed. But they were his grandfather and his granduncle. They were family. And he was flesh of their flesh, blood of their blood. With the fundamental question clear in his eyes before he uttered the words, the boy studied his living grandfather. "Why'd he--?" He choked on his words.

His grandfather shook his head again and said, "I don't know, son--but I s'pose a man'd hafta be mighty miserable to do such a thing."

"They were always unhappy, you know, Sonny," his grandmother added. "Always, even your father had trouble with his uncle. Well, I'm just so happy you're living here with us now--away from all that horrible goings on." She tried to smile.

A long, dark silence closed around them. The mood seemed to threaten even the lamplight. Sonny stared at nothing and at everything in the room. The house was heavy with morbidity.

Suddenly, lights from a car turning into their driveway pierced the front window and passed across the wall in stretching bands. The three of them looked at the moving beams, wondering who could be coming to their house that night. Sonny watched the light flash around the room like a planetarium show, until the bands held motionless for a moment then quickly drew back out of the window and disappeared. They heard the car pulling out of the driveway and heading back up the street. When the whine of the engine had dissipated, silence and darkness again filled the vacuum of sadness.

"Better get my homework done."

His grandmother nodded, glad to hear him say that. But his grandfather said nothing, when Sonny left the room. As the boy walked away, he could hear the newspaper rustling like a crackling fire in the living room behind him. He could also hear his grandparents speaking to each other, but their words were indiscernible. Just as well. He did not want to know any more.

In his bedroom, Sonny sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the darkened TV. The screen reflected his face. He wondered if his father knew of his own father's death yet. Would he cry? In the screen, Sonny imagined a psychiatrist's office and himself as the doctor.

He was comfortable in his dark but dignified professional suite. Behind him on wood-paneled walls his degrees, certificates, and commendations hung as if at a gallery display. Before him sat his father, his grandfather, and his granduncle. Sonny stared at them. Even though he felt compassion for his own family, he could not let it interfere with his professional care.

"So tell me, Mister Dennison--" Doctor Sonny Dennison said, "how long have you been caring for your brother?"

His paternal grandfather squirmed in his chair. "Too long."

The young doctor looked at his own father for support, but none came forth, so he made psychiatric notes. "Have you looked after him for much of your life?"

"For most of our lives." The white-haired old man said as he sagged in his chair. He was a small man, smaller than his son, who was smaller than his son. The old man's brother was even smaller, or so he seemed as he slumped into his chair as though wanting to become part of it. Indeed, he seemed capable of disappearing into the background.

"From the time you were children." The doctor made notes.

The old man and his brother nodded. "Since--since we were kids," his brother said with startling enthusiasm. And he smiled at his older brother.

The doctor noted all of this.

"I don't see how this can do any good, son, er, Doctor," Sonny's father said. "My father and his brother have an arrangement."

"What kind of arrangement?" the doctor asked.

Sonny's uncle sat forward in his chair and shouted: "Hell, I take things and Donald takes 'em back!" And he giggled like a child.

The old man patted his brother's shoulder to quell his antics, and then he folded his hands into a double fist on his lap and frowned at it. Nick eyed the doctor as if to say, "See, see how he behaves son. Nothing can be done. So leave it alone."

Doctor Dennison, however, had taken an oath to care for the sick and the infirm. He saw these people in need of his professional help. If he could lighten their load of misery, he would do so, especially because they were part of his own family. He knew about the admonitions against such personally involving therapy, but he felt obligated to help them, hopefully to save them from harm.

"And why do you take things from stores, Mister Dennison?"

"I got to, Sonny. Hell, I got to get things--or I'll, I'll disappear."

"Doctor--" his brother corrected. His brother gaped at him. "That's Doctor Dennison, Philip."

Philip nodded like a compliant child.

The doctor raised his hand, palm outward to dispel any notion that he was offended. "Disappear! Why would you disappear, Unc--Mister Dennison?" he inquired.

"Hell, I just feel I got to. When I go into a store, I see all these pretty things and I feel like I got to have them--else I won't be worth nothin'."

"Worth nothing?"

"Hell, I see all these people, people like you, Son--Doctor Dennison," he surveyed the elegant office. "People who got so many pretty things. They look so beautiful and so important with all those things, but I feel so damned plain and simple--I got nothing pretty in my life. I only sit in that shack behind Donald's garage every day and watch TV. And on TV, everybody looks so beautiful and important. I wish I could be like them. I know I can't but I try--" he giggled, "in my own crazy way."

Doctor Dennison started to smile at his uncle's innocence, but when he saw his father giving him a sharp look, he cleared his throat and continued with his questioning. "Now then, Mister Dennison...."

"You can call me Philip, Son--Doctor Dennison. After all, we're family, ain't we?"

"Sure thing--" Sonny said, squirming in his high back chair. "Now, tell me, Philip--you must know that when you steal things you cause trouble for your brother."

Philip dropped his head and nodded. "Yes, I know, but...."

"And you love your brother, don't you?"

"Yes, sir, doctor--I do, but...."

"And you don't really want to cause him any trouble, do you?"

Philip started to weep.

Doctor Dennison got a box of tissues from his desk and handed it to his patient. Philip removed one tissue and blew his nose.

"Here, you can keep them all," the doctor said and pushed the box into his hands.

Philip looked at it, looked at his brother who nodded approval, then took the box as a great gift. "Oh, thank you, Doctor Sonny!" he said with a broad grin. "I always like to get boxes of tissue--and other things."

Doctor Dennison, his father, and his grandfather all looked at each other and smiled. "I can see how you feel about your brother, Philip."

The patient, still grinning, looked at his brother. His countenance changed from joy to sadness to despair. "I'm so sorry, Donald--I don't mean to hurt you--especially since you lost Margaret--" And he started bawling like a baby.

"Oh, don't upset yerself, Phil," his brother said. "I know how you feel, and you don't have to worry about it anymore. I'm going to take care of everything for the both of us--once and for all."

Nick regarded him with surprised concern. "How, father? How are you going to take care of it? You haven't been able to take care of it for sixty years."

Doctor Dennison again showed the quelling palm of his professional hand to his father and smiled. "Please, Mister Dennison, I appreciate that you have brought your father and uncle to see me. And I know you too have suffered with this difficulty throughout your life. I understand. But your father has suffered even more. And now that you are in my office, you should have confidence in me to help him. As a highly educated professional, I know what I'm doing. Allow me to continue--please."

His father sat back in his chair with a sigh, folded his arms, and watched the proceedings with disapproval.

The doctor returned his attention to his patients. "Your son's question is valid, grandp--Mister Dennison. How will you resolve the problem with your brother?"

"With God's help--by heaven."

"Of course," the doctor said, "I'm sure God in heaven is doing all He can for you. But you know, as the Bible says: "The Lord helps those that help themsel...."

"And that's exactly what I will do--help myself--and my brother in the doing of it."

The doctor wrote in his notebook. "Would you like to have your brother cared for then--institutionally?"

"Institutionally?"

"Hell, no!" Philip shouted. "I ain't goin' to no prison. I been in jail many times before and I hated it--thought I would die--I'd sooner kill myself than be incinerated!"

"Incarcerated," Sonny's father said.

His uncle looked a question mark at him.

"You mean incarcerated, uncle--not incinerated," Nick said.

Philip thought about the correction, smiled, and nodded to his nephew in gratitude. "That neither," he said. "Incinerated, incarcerated--all the same to me in prison."

"It's not prison, Unc--Mister Dennison" the doctor tried to explain, "it's...."

Old man Dennison laid a tender look on his brother. "Oh, no, Philip--you won't have to go to prison. Don't worry. I won't let you go to jail ever again." Philip looked to him like a dog to his master.

Doctor Dennison regarded them both with the most thoughtful expression he could muster from his psychiatric storehouse of knowledge and experience. "And how will you do that, Mister Dennison?"

The old man shook his head and said, "I--I'm not really sure--not yet. All's I know is I'm gonna find a way to take care of this problem once and for all." He slapped his hands on the arms of the chair and stood up to leave. "Come on, Phil--time to go." Philip stood to obey without question and with his box of tissue held close to his chest. "Now give that box back to the doctor, Philip." Philip concealed the box behind his back.

"That's all right, let him keep it," the doctor said.

Philip displayed the box with proud satisfaction as if it were a trophy.

We have more time left in the session, Mister Dennison," the doctor said. "And we haven't really accomplished much."

"Oh, but you have, doctor," the old man said. "We feel much better now."

Since his father, his grandfather, and his uncle were determined to leave, the Doctor Sonny Dennison rose to walk them to the door. "Then can I expect you to return next week at this time, so we can continue our conversation. I know I can save--help you--"

"I'm sure you can, young man."

"Sure you can, Sonny," Philip said.

"Then you'll let my father bring you back...."

"Sure thing," the old man said.

"Hell, yes!" Philip shouted.

His elder brother cast an expression that calmed him like a warm bath; then he led him through the darkwood doorway. Nick turned to look at his son behind his desk, nodded, and followed his father and uncle out of the office. Doctor Dennison watched them go, made a note in his book, and shook his head, as they closed the door.

In his bedroom, Sonny contemplated his reverie for a few moments, and then he grabbed a pad and pencil and began sketching his face as reflected in the TV screen. The ceiling light outlined his hair but shadowed his eyes. He glanced back and forth between the screen and the pad, drawing carefully, erasing rapidly, and redrawing. In one sketch, he looked like an older man. He tore that one out of the pad and began a new drawing. In that one, his natural appearance changed. His likeness lay in the image, but the lines depicted a visage distorted from the reflection in the screen. The drawing seemed imprinted on the paper like that of a tarnished Veronica.

He stopped and stared long at the portrait. The artist saw himself as a strange man neither young nor old--a fantastic figure of his own mythology. The hair curled around two nubs, incipient horns. The ears were demonically pointed, the mouth open as if to speak, the eyes slanted and fierce with only pinpoints of light in them. He stared at the picture for a long time before tearing it out of the pad and laying it beside the first one. He listened to the rain on the roof like millions of tiny fingers tapping a random rhythm.

Going to his desk, he folded the second drawing to fit an envelope addressed to Ginny. He licked the envelope and laid it down. Then he looked at his face in the window glass. His reflection appeared to be melting before his eyes, dissolving into the saturated darkness, dissipating. He switched the light off, and his reflection disappeared; even the rain nearly vanished from the glass. All went black, but in the last moment of light, he imagined Ginny's face in the window. He glimpsed her smiling through the rain, her yellow hair streaked on her freckled forehead, here eyes sparkling like sunlight on a meadow stream.

Lightning flashed through the windowpane, and her image disappeared. The room exploded with blinding light, Sonny's face luminescing beyond the flesh. The airplane models hanging from the ceiling flashed and appeared to be flying. Then the room suddenly darkened. Sonny tumbled onto his bed and looked at the planes. He imagined himself in the cockpit of a Falcon.

Climbing into the sky, he took the jet through the roof of the house, through storm clouds into clear sky. Finding the moon replicated in myriad raindrops on his windshield he sought the stratosphere. Then deciding against the heavens he relaxed the stick and let the plane slowly arch into a dive. Dropping at a forty-five degree angle his plane rocketed toward Earth.

A sonic boom rolled in a few quick waves and detonated across the house. The walls rumbled; the window glass rattled like a snaredrum. One or two more lightning strikes farther away, and the thunder rolled away into the night. Then only the rain on the roof and a drainpipe tinkling like a distant cowbell. The last he recalled was raindrops on the window. Then all went black, and one more long distant thunderoll lulled him into that delicious temporary oblivion, that nocturnal death without commitment.

11

Through the bathroom window, Sonny saw a fancy car pull into the driveway, a late model automobile more expensive than the one his grandfather drove. He saw his mother, Maddy, in the front seat waving at anyone who might have seen her from the house. She had made herself look as beautiful as possible, not gorgeous but apparently attractive enough for her to have found more than one man to marry. Next to her was an ordinary, rather chubby man with a round close-cropped head. Wendell. Sonny wanted to cut out the back door and hop the back fence to get away from all this, to find some grassy hillside where he could lie under an oak tree to gaze at the sky, the mountains, and the valley without anyone seeing or knowing him but he knew he was trapped. He watched the big car stop in front of the house. He watched his mother and the man get out of the car and walk to the front door. She walked in a sensual way that was wholly incongruous beside the dumpy man who ambled along in a pitching gait. Sonny observed the man carefully, when he put his arm around his mother, and he blinked when he heard the knock on the door.

"Sonny--" his grandmother called from the front room, "Sonny, they're--your mother's here. Come on now. Don't make her wait for you."

Sonny checked himself in the mirror. He did not see much of his mother in his face, more of his father, and that was more than he usually saw of him. Flesh and blood they were indeed but he had never felt close to either of them. His father had left his mother when he was only a baby, and his mother had left him for her parents to raise when he was only a child, so naturally he had never felt either of them truly wanted him. He had always wondered if his conception had been a mistake or if his parents had adopted him and then decided he was not what they ordered so they sold him to someone else. He felt no affection for either of them, even his mother. Ginny meant more to him than she did and he wondered if Lela would become the only true love of his life. He wanted to see her again.

"Sonny!" his grandmother shouting from the front room interrupted his daydream.

He spun out of his thoughts, bumped into the door, and left the bathroom. When he stepped into the living room, he saw that his mother was eagerly awaiting him. Beside her the strange man, her new fiancé, was grinning like a fool. Behind them grandmother was fidgeting with her apron. Behind her, grandfather, having been introduced to his new future son-in-law, had sat on the couch and was reading his newspaper. His daughter ignored his rudeness but Sonny could tell by the set of her jaw that her father's behavior annoyed her.

"Oh, Sonny, Sonny, come here!" she squealed. "Give your mom a big hug and a kiss!" She enveloped him in her fragrant arms and kissed him on the mouth.

Sonny tensed but was captivated in her enthusiastic embrace. He was uncomfortably aware of her gross sensuality, maybe more aware of it than most boys would be of their mothers. He had the edge with a more distant perspective.

Maddy looked her son over to appraise the adequacy of his attire, then apparently satisfied said, "I want you to meet Doctor Wendell Stone, Sonny. He's a dentist." Then to the dentist she said, "Sonny's going to be a dentist too."

"A doctor," grandmother said.

Maddy and her new man looked at the old lady.

"Sonny's going to be a doctor, Maddy," the old woman said. "Aren't you, Sonny?"

Maddy and Wendell looked at Sonny and waited for his answer.

The boy was on the spot. He did not know whether to nod or shake his head. He held his breath and sought for the right thing to say. "Uh--uh--dentists are doctors too, grana," he said exhaling.

His mother only stared at him, but Doctor Stone chuckled. "That's right, Sonny. We dentists are doctors too." He chuckled again.

Maddy looked at him, then at her son and smiled. She was at least temporarily satisfied with his response. Grandmother Rinehart did not feel the same but kept her mouth shut.

The old man looked up from his newspaper, grunted, and barely shook his head. Although no one looked at him, they all noticed his vague disapproval of just about everything that transpired between his daughter and his grandson.

Maddy started to speak to him but held her breath. Then she fairly erupted to everyone in general: "Okay--well, doctors--we'd better get moving if we're going to be at the Plaid Shanty in time for our dinner reservation." She ushered her men to the door. "Bye, mother--daddy. We'll bring him back Sunday evening."

"Did you finish your homework, Sonny?" his grandmother asked. "Or do you want to take it with you?"

Sonny nodded. They all looked at him and awaited clarification.

"You've done it already, haven't you, Sonny?" his mother said.

Sonny nodded. Hating for duties and chores to hang over his head, he always did his homework as soon as he got home from school.

"That's fine," his grandmother said. Well, then--bye, dear--bye all." And she tried her best to present a cheerful demeanor, as they stepped to the front door.

Grandfather joined them at the doorway beside his wife but said nothing. He merely peered over his glasses at them as they departed.

Sonny turned and said, "Bye--grana, granpa." And he made a lame attempt at waving.

His grandparents waved back with obvious concern on their faces. The old man put his arm around his wife; she did likewise, and they stood on the front porch half embracing as if to bolster each other.

When Sonny got into the plush backseat of the car, he was, despite himself, impressed with the car. He felt important, even though he was only in the backseat. This was a car like the moviestars drove. He had seen more than one of them cruising along the boulevard in such a vehicle. So he found at least one quality in his mother's new manfriend to make him somewhat acceptable thus far.

The car roared up the street to the boulevard. Sonny looked around to see if Lela or anyone else he knew was noticing him. Unfortunately no one he desired to impress was visible, so he sat back and enjoyed the ride through the valley. For once he could look at strangers in passing cars with an air of pride bordering on arrogance, an affectation he had rarely been able to exhibit during his young life. But his high mood did not last.

"Sonny," his mother said without looking at him. "We want to talk to you about something your grandmother found in your room."

Sonny blanched and looked at the rearview mirror. We! What's this we crap? Wendell's eyes glanced at him and then back to the road.

"She showed me something you drew."

Sonny perked up, expecting a rare compliment.

And I'm very upset about it," she continued.

"Do you know what pornography is, Sonny?" Wendell asked.

Maddy motioned for him to let her handle the situation then turned her head in her son's direction. "It's not proper for someone, especially someone your age, to be drawing such things, Sonny. You should be concentrating on your school work."

"I do," the boy whispered.

"What's that?" his mother said turning sharply to look at him.

"I do concentrate on school."

She faced forward. "I know such notions can distract boys your age. But it's not right for you to let them preoccupy you. You can get into serious trouble."

Sonny thought he noticed a grin in Wendell's eyes and said, "Trouble?"

"Trouble. Now, I don't want to hear about or see anymore of that filth from you." She glanced at Wendell for support. But he had decided to keep his attention to driving. "You've always been a good boy," she said as she turned again to look at him. "I've always been proud of you. Don't make me ashamed."

Sonny bowed his head hot with embarrassment under her gaze until he felt the storm had passed then stared out the window for the rest of the ride. After an interminable trip the car bounced into the lot of the Plaid Shanty restaurant, a building incongruously designed to resemble an old tavern in Scotland. As they entered through thick oak doors, Sonny's mother put her arms around both of her men and drew them close and then smiled to show everyone in the place that there was the joy in her heart.

The restaurant was one of those dimly lit establishments paneled with dark wood and appointed with dark red leather booths. The guests exuded affluence. The employees looked like hopefuls for movie parts or at least roles in television soap operas: all the waiters were handsome men, and the hostess was beautiful. With a patented smile, she greeted them and led them across a dark brown carpet to a booth that curved around a candle-lighted table.

When they reached their seat, Wendell urged Maddy to sit first. She slid around the smooth leather and stopped in the middle. Wendell and Sonny took charge of the ends. When the hostess handed them menus, Maddy smiled broadly at her son. "So what do you feel like tonight, darling? Order something special. We're celebrating." She squinted an affectionate look at Wendell. He put his hand on her thigh under the table; she chirped and slapped his shoulder. "Behave yourself, doctor. We have a minor in our midst."

Sonny looked across the restaurant to find something to distract him from his mother's antics with this man who to him was a total stranger. He saw a pretty girl in a booth across the aisle. The girl noticed him at the same time and smiled. Sonny blushed for both his mother's behavior and for his own self-consciousness. This widened the girl's smile. Sonny wanted to continue gazing at her considerable graces, but the waiter arriving to take their orders blocked his view.

When the waiter had left the table, Wendell said, "Your mother tells me you like cars."

Sonny looked curiously at his mother.

"Well, you do, don't you?" his mother said.

Sonny shrugged.

"You told me you wanted to build a gold car or something," she said.

"A go-cart, mom, not a gold car." He laughed.

She laughed merrily.

"A go-cart is a little car," Wendell explained, "that kids make to run around racetracks and up and down driveways. It is made of scooter wheels, a lawn mower engine, and...."

"You don't have to tell me how to make it, dear. Tell Sonny."

"I know how to make one," Sonny said.

Wendell looked at Sonny as if at a big fish he had caught and was going to stuff and put on the wall above his fireplace.

"Oh, have you ever made one, Sonny?" he asked.

"Well, no--but I'm not really...."

"Wendell will help you, dear," his mother said. "He knows a lot about cars." She regarded him with a proud smile. "Don't you, dear?"

"Among many other things, yes," Wendell said. "In fact I used to race cars when I was young."

"You did!" Maddy said, glancing at Sonny. "I didn't know that. How exciting!"

"I won a race at Sears Point," Wendell said.

"Wow! At Sears Point!" Maddy said and looked at her son to share her approval.

Sonny looked at Wendell suspiciously. The scent of a phony assailed his senses, and he looked down at his lap as if something important were happening there. Then he noticed the pretty young girl still watching him. He imagined that he excused himself from the table and stepped over to her.

"Hello," he said smoothly. "I couldn't help noticing you and wondering if you are a movie star."

The girl blushed but smiled and invited him to sit down. She turned to her parents with a toss of her chestnut hair and said, "Mother--father--would you mind leaving us alone for the rest of the evening?"

"Why of course dear," they promptly assented. "You two have a good time." And they left the table.

Taking Sonny's hand the girl pulled him into the booth beside her and cuddled against him. "My name's Kristy. What's yours?"

Sonny glanced at his mother and her pretentious paramour. They had not noticed his absence, so absorbed were they in each other's attention. He turned back to Kristy and said, "Sonnius."

"Sonnius?"

"That's Latin."

"Are you Latin?"

"Yes, I'm a Latin lover. My full name is Sonnius Ovidius Priapus."

"A Latin lover. Wow! I've always wanted to meet one of those. And what a name! You must be really good at love."

"I wrote the book on it."

"The book on love. Have I read it?"

"Perhaps. I entitled it THE ART OF LOVE."

"THE ART OF LOVE. I don't think I have read it, but the title sounds like I should--especially since I'm the Mistress of Love."

Sonny gulped despite his impressive persona. What a break to find such a babe! The Mistress of Love. Wow!

"We should get together romantically," she cooed.

He looked at her the way a romantic lead in the movies looks at his counterpart when he is going to kiss her. She returned the look. Right before their lips met, he said, "You're going to be the love of my life."

"And you're going to be the life of my love," she rejoined.

He hesitated a moment to think about the meaning of her line. The life of my love--huh. Before kissing her, he glanced at his mother's table and saw himself sitting there. Returning to the Mistress of Love he found her vanished. The booth empty.

When he blinked his eyes, he was again looking at her across the aisle. She at him. His mother and Wendell, oblivious of his reverie, started rubbing noses, so pleased were they with each other. Without looking away from Maddy, Wendell addressed Sonny. "I want you to meet my daughter, Sally, Sonny. She's about your age and...."

"Oh, she is not, Wendell--she's only twelve," Maddy said.

"Well, she's a few years younger than you," he said, "but I know you two will get along well."

"I hope not too well," Maddy said to him with a suggestive look.

Wendell grinned then became serious. "Of course she's going to be your sister soon, so--"

Maddy snuggled against him.

Sonny paled and sought to escape again to the pretty girl. But when he looked to her, he found she had actually gone. He was alone with these two simpering adolescent adults.

"Wendell and I are going to be married, Sonny." She looked to him for approval but she was looking in the wrong place.

Sonny was speechless but no longer pale. Anger now flushed his face.

Maddy scrutinized him. "Well, aren't you going to say something, dear? Something like 'Good for you, mom!' or 'Hey, that's great! When's the wedding?'"

But Sonny said nothing.

"Give him a chance to get used to it, Maddy. I know Sonny is happy for us."

Sonny felt like a boiler ready to explode.

"You seem displeased, dear," his mother said.

Sonny forced himself to shake his head as if jostle something loose from his hair.

"Well, you should be happy about this, Sonny." His mother looked maudlin. "When we're married and living in a nice home, we want you to come stay with us for a while--" She added the punch line as if an afterthought. "Maybe live with us."

To Sonny it was a punch in the gut. He wanted to leap into the air and run screaming from the restaurant. "Can--may I go to the restroom?" he muttered.

Maddy and Wendell stared at him. "Sure, oh sure, honey--" his mother said as she pointed to a hallway behind her. Sonny scrambled out of the booth and hurried away from the table. Maddy carefully watched him leave. "Oh, Wendell--I'm worried--"

He hugged her. "Now, don't worry about anything, Maddy. It'll be just fine. It's just a little bit too much for him to absorb right now. He'll get used to it and grow to like the idea."

"Like the idea! I want him to love the idea of us getting married. I want him to come live with us the way it--the way it should be. I want him to take your name, as I will when we're wed." She started to snivel. He kissed her gently on the eyes. She smiled.

When Sonny returned to the table, his mother took his hand and said, "Sonny, dear--when Wendell and I are married, we want to give you his, our name." She smiled expectantly at him. "We want you to be part of our family."

"I am," Sonny said.

"You are what?" she said.

"I'm already part of your family. I'm your son."

She nodded and tried to cover her irritation with a smile. "Yes, of course you are, dear--but you haven't been living with me since--well, for a long time. And I would like you to come back to me--to come home."

"I have a home," the boy said.

"Your grandparents are taking good care of you, Sonny, but I'm your mother. Your place is with me--" She looked at Wendell. "With us."

Wendell nodded and smiled too broadly for Sonny's comfort. The boy could not look at either of them. He wanted to rage at them but settled for bowing his head. He knew not what to say and was too furious to think.

"Sonny?" his mother sought his approval with noticeable desperation on her face.

The waiter brought the dinners and broke up the conversation. Sonny dived into his meal and did not come up for air until they left the restaurant.

A freezing atmosphere enveloped them on their drive to Wendell's apartment. Sonny's tantrum, his mother's anxiety, and Wendell's determination to drive as fast as possible did not abate with time. Sonny sat in the backseat now less thrilled with the car and more chilled by the advent of a long, tedious evening ahead of him.

When they got to the apartment, Sonny followed his mother and Wendell inside his unit, an expensive collection of rooms expected for a successful dentist. His mother in her hot and cold way spoke not a word and avoided her son's eyes. The set of her mouth said all she felt. Wendell, trying to save the day with counterfeit cheery charm, left his fiancée to fend for herself in another part of the apartment, and showed Sonny to his room.

"Sonny, my boy--" he said, "you can sleep in here. I've set it up especially for you. Hope you like it."

Sonny looked around a small but tidy guest room decorated in brown, obviously designed for a boy. He sat on a sofabed and tried to look as unperturbed as possible.

"Think you'll be comfortable here?" Wendell asked.

Sonny wanted to say "Hell, no! I'd rather be in prison." But he actually said, "Sure," as he eyed a portable stereo and a small TV complete with VCR.

Wendell noticed his attention to the TV and turned it on. "I bought it for you. I've got some tapes in the den."

Sonny smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

They stared around the room for a few awkward moments until Wendell sensed he was not particularly welcome. "Well, I'll leave you alone to relax," he said. "If you want to join us in the den to watch television together, come on; don't wait for an inscribed invitation."

"Okay, sure--I will," Sonny said through his increasing impatience for the man to leave the room.

"Fine. I'll just let you be."

"Fine," Sonny echoed.

"Sonny?"

"Yeah," he said without looking away from the tube.

"I hope you come to the wedding."

Sonny's jaw muscles rippled.

"I would sure like you to be there and I know your mother would be hurt if you weren't."

"I'll be there," Sonny said without looking at him.

"Good, good--" Wendell stood in the doorway for a moment as if he wanted to make one last attempt at bonding with his future stepson. Sonny, however, was not about to make it easy for him. Ignoring his stranded host, he started fiddling with the TV remote control and changing channels. Wendell got the message and closed the door on the room, on Sonny, and on any future heart-to-heart talks with the boy for the rest of the evening.

12

The wedding happened on a cloudy day. High cumulus clusters were stacked into the bluesky, and a bright breeze was freshening the air. The grass, trees, and flowers around the church were fairly fluttering with joy. However, inauspicious weather saddened Maddy. Having her heart set on entirely clear skies for her wedding day, she was worried about rain, even a few clouds. Nevertheless, in her manic way she put up a good front of happy enthusiasm.

The church, named appropriately The Chapel in the Wood, to which none of the participants attended as regular parishioners, was a stone cottage manufactured especially for weddings. It stood shaded among a carefully planted grove of sycamore trees. The grounds were carefully gardened with outlining rows of perennial flowers and the ever-present patch of lawn. Maybe no other ceremony except baptisms were held within the walls of this kirk, but it was picturesque in a simulated old-world style popular in American architecture, so picturesque that people passing on the street would often stop to photograph the little chapel in its romantic setting.

The wedding guests, chatting up the mood of the day, were entering the mock church and finding advantageous seats. Maddy's blood family, having witnessed one two many of her nuptials, was noticeably absent but for Sonny. Wendell's family, however, was out in force. His aged parents, sister, brother-in-law, brother, and many friends made the chapel look popular that day. Some of those who entered the church were strangers, there either to pray or to witness the ceremony, but Wendell admitted them cheerfully with that Open Sesame line to party crashers: "The more the merrier." Maddy did not appear to be so agreeable, but the event demanded carefreedom, and she was not about to disenchant this particular social gathering. Nonetheless she kept a wary eye on the strangers. She knew few people in the world could be trusted these days, even in a religious sanctuary. Without showing a trace of disdain in her demeanor, though, she straightened her gown and proceeded down the aisle to renew her matrimonial vows with the latest love of her life.

The bride wore a dress of pastel pink in keeping with her attitude and experience. The groom was nondescript in his dark blue suit with a red tie that looked vaguely like a tongue hanging out of his throat. Well beyond the pristine newlywed stage of life, they alone walked together down the aisle to the altar. Maddy smiled enough for both of them and glanced at her guests graciously as she led her third husband into that rite ironically called wedlock. Their respective son and daughter stood beside them as trained witnesses to their parents' previous marriages.

Wendell's daughter, Sally, had taken care to look her mature best with a white formal dress in keeping with her innocence. Sonny, uncomfortable in a cheap suit his mother had bought especially for the occasion, was wringing his hands as if they were trapped reptiles and he was fidgeting with his feet as if about to dance out of the church.

His mother, continually distracted by his squirming, shot remonstrative glances at him. Regardless of her pressure, he seemed unable to strike and hold the proper pose. He would rather have been at the park chasing a football--or Lela. When he heard the minister speak the conjugal words, his disapproval erupted so forcefully in his mind that he feared he might have uttered his thoughts audibly. Holding his breath he looked as far as into the periphery of his vision as possible to see if anyone were about to reprimand him. Hearing the master of matrimonies continue to the conclusion and his mother smack the lips of her personal dentist, he relaxed for the first time in the ceremony. Despite his inner repudiation of the marriage, he was glad to have the wedding in the past.

The bride and groom hurried out of the church and down the steps amid a shower of rice and flower buds and proceeded to a white limousine that gleamed in the sunlight like a mythical horse. Among flourishes of farewell all around, the not-so-young couple climbed into the luxurious car and closed the door on the people.

Sonny and Sally stood dumbfounded on the sidewalk for a moment wondering where they themselves were going and how they would get there, when the car door reopened, and Maddy, leaning across her new spouse's lap, waved them into the vehicle. "Come on, children--you're coming with us. There's enough room in this buggy for the whole congregation."

Some of the wedding guests looked at each other as if to see how many of them could actually fit into the limousine, but quickly realized they none of them were going to be admitted. Sonny and Sally, however, stepped at the same time into the car, each vying to get inside first, and sat across from their new parent combination.

Maddy smiled at them and cried to the crowd, "We'll see all of you at our new house. Follow us home for the goodies!" She swung the door shut as a solitary applause. And as the limousine moved down the street, the guests headed for their own vehicles.

Cars jammed the tree-lined suburban street where the Wendell Stones' ranch-style house was crammed into a small lot. Carrying gifts in festive wrappings the wedding guests filed past newly landscaped piles of dirt that lay in the yard like remnants of ancient tombs. Stopping in the house to deposit their presentations to the bride and groom, they continued through the living room. "Oh, what a lovely house! Oh, what nice furniture! Oh, what a pretty picture!" they uttered as in procession they passed through to the backyard.

In the yard, a swimming pool of turquoise water that looked like a mineral spring occupied most of a small yard. At one end of the pool, a white linen-covered table bore a castle of a cake; at the other end of the pool another table held a fountain of sparkling wine, where the guests quickly and repeatedly filled their glasses. The afternoon sun flooded the party with sparkling light, so faces fairly glowed with warm atmosphere, spirited celebration, and good cheer.

Emboldened by the event and the wine, Wendell held forth about his fictitious exploits with whomever he could corner. "...so I invented the little ball that flutters inside of it to make the trilling noise in the device we now know so well as the whistle." His captives looked skeptical but nodded and smiled obligingly.

Meanwhile Maddy, although not in the pool, was swimming among her guests like an aging fairy at a festival of delights. She maintained the gaiety that was her talent. "More champagne anyone?" she burbled. "Such a lovely day! I'm so happy to be with our friends!"

At that moment, Sally ran from the house and jumped into the pool to punctuate further her new stepmother's exclamatory gush. In so doing the exuberant girl splashed water on several of the guests who cried with concern for their expensive clothes but covered their annoyance with fake smiles. Maddy fired a sharp non-verbal reprimand with her eyes to Sally but maintained her beaming face. Sally, oblivious of the effect of her boisterous action, simply beckoned Sonny to join her in the pool. "Come in, Sonny--it's warm!"

"I don't like to swim in pi--in warm water," he said as he scrutinized the newlyweds and their guests. Bunch of phonies all together in one bourgeois backyard. Wish I had my camera.

""Party pooper!" Sally complained.

But Sonny ignored her.

"Go on, Sonny," his mother cried, "get your suit on and jump in--I'm sure the water's fine."

Nearly everybody followed the direction of her cliché and stared at the boy. The force of their unwanted attention made him flush even redder in the hot sun. Escaping the complicated heat, he beat a path to the house.

Flashbulbs to heighten the already blinding sun were popping all a-round the pool, depicting the happy couple in every pose they could strike without falling into the water. The din of chatter without substance filled the yard like cotton candy. Neighbors peered out of windows and over fences to grin at their revelers in the universally understood gaiety of fresh wedlock.

Inside the house, Sonny found a treasury of unfinished champagne glasses sitting on tables in the living room, on cabinets in the dining room, and on counters in the kitchen. Like a wine taster on a binge, he guzzled the flat, tepid, but faintly sweet contents of every glass he could find. Most were nearly empty, but by determined search-and-find he swilled about the equivalent of a glassful. Feeling merrier, he sat in an over-stuffed chair and through doors watched the people at the wedding party.

In the bright sunshine, the women glowed like a flowergarden in their pastel attire. Every face smiled with happiness, real or pretended. Unknown men stood close to unknown women and talked amiably, their noses seeming nearly to touch. Sally splashed in the pool, making a geyser of gnarled water flash in the light, as if musical accompaniment to the polyphonic voices. All this being inaudible to Sonny, he grinned as he imagined the topics of their conversations. He focused on one couple.

"You look wonderful today, just like a fairy princess," one dapper man said to an alluring young woman in a golden sheath. "I could lick you all over!"

She backed away with feigned timidity and nearly fell into the pool. He, the heroic one, slipped one arm around her waist and drew her close to him, so close their lips were touching.

"You saved my life," she exhaled like a movie goddess.

"I saved my own--for without you I would die."

They embraced and together jumped into the pool.

Sonny laughed.

The walloping splash in the pool shot back into the air, and the fantastic couple was ejected from the water like deranged waterfowl and was planted back on their feet by the pool where they had been the whole time. Without knowing what they had just experienced in the bizarre mind of Sonny Dennison, the couple continued an inaudible but obviously flirtatious dialogue.

Sonny laughed goofily and scanned the crowd to find his mother. As expected men surrounded Maddy. He searched for her groom. Across the pool, the dentist was tying up a bevy of women with his determined will to impress every person at the party. But he was losing his audience, as the multiple masculine attentions to his bride so distracted him. He projected gunshot looks over the head of his daughter, who was completely preoccupied with her pool play, and pierced Maddy's consciousness. She noticed his imperfectly concealed distress and excused her way out of the lusty circle to cut the wedding cake.

After swiping the frosting with a tapered finger, she stuck the digit into her mouth and pulled it out slowly until it popped from her lips. "Oh, wonderful! Come on, everybody--" she shouted, "time for cake!" And she proceeded to cut down through the layers of white creamy confection, a matrimonial communion treat for which all the guests were sufficiently cleansed, at least in body.

Desiring to partake of some sweet, Sonny slid open the glass door and headed for the table of treats. Sally, spotting him on his way, leaped from the pool, and angled on his direction to beat him to the cake. In her wake, ribbons of liquid silver fell from her young body as she raced him, her feet slapping and spraying on the flagstone deck. But her stepbrother reached the table before her and dived into the cake.

"Hey, hold on there, Sonny! Wendell shouted cheerily from across the pool. "Leave some for the rest of us."

Maddy turned to see her son fighting Sally for the bulk of the white cake mountain. "Here, here, children! Wait your turn! There's plenty for all. You'll get your share in good time. Just step back and let me cut the slices. Like an experienced pastry chef, she cut wedges out of the soft sweet mound and lay generous pieces onto fine porcelain plates trimmed in silver.

When other guests noticed the bounty being prepared for them, they swarmed the table. Sonny and Sally had to hold on tightly to the edge of the board crowned by the object of their gusto. In spite of their most heroic efforts they were gently but firmly nudged away from the fluffy triangles of pastry. Only by a determined effort with his football skills was Sonny able to dart into the hungry throng and grab two plates--one for himself and one for his lawful sister.

When he handed a share of the prize to Sally, she looked at him with a new demeanor in her repertory. No longer was she only the coquettish and cocky little girl; now she was the grateful maiden. And her appreciation of his chivalry appeared to be something like affection. Sonny, unready for any such emotion from this particular stranger in his life, backed away and took his cake into the house. Watching him go away, she started to follow him but thought otherwise. Standing rather forlornly between the mob at the wedding reception fare and the placid pool, she picked up the cake with three fingers, one pointing to the sky, and began as daintily as was possible for a child to devour the dessert.

Back inside the house, Sonny again sat down in the living room and enjoyed his portion of the delicacy. And as he sucked in the gooey stuff, he watched Sally eating hers. In a moment, they were munching in unison, and when they noticed the coincidence, they started giggling. Both having filled their mouths to their capacities, they became caught in that limbo between swallowing an overlarge mouthful and spraying out cake slop. Fortunately they were able to contain and swallow their food before sharing it with anyone else at the wedding reception.

The sun was lowering in the afternoon sky. With ceremony, champagne, and cake under their belts, the guests began quitting their conversations and milling around as if waiting for the next event.

But the occasion was winding down, and Maddy started clearing the table. She looked to Wendell for some help but seeing him still occupying guests with words and ways of himself, she sighed quietly and continued her work. "Sally, dear, would you help me take these things into the kitchen?"

"Isn't Sonny going to help too? Sally protested.

"Of course he is, dear." Maddy scanned the yard. "Now, where is that boy?

Sally extended her slender arm and pointed into the house as if identifying a criminal. When Maddy saw her son lounging behind the glass doors, she beckoned him forcefully. And when he shook his head, she stuck her arms onto her ample hips and cocked her head. The boy, knowing his limits, dragged himself out of his comfortable chair and slid open the door.

"Yeah?" he hollered.

"Come and help Sally clear the table." She added under her breath a common criticism: "More like his father every day." And she shook her head as if finding herself at a funeral instead of a wedding.

Disgruntled Sonny ambled down to the pool while casting a threatening look at his stepsister as she passed with one small dish in her hand. She only dropped her head, giggled, and hurried to the house.

"Don't strain yourself," he said.

"Don't worry, I won't. I do this all the time for my father."

Maddy loaded her son's arms with dishes and pushed him toward the house. "Take them to the kitchen," she said.

"I know, I know. I wouldn't take them to the bathroom."

"Now don't get smart, Sonny--not today--please."

He sighed and carried away his burden.

Maddy returned to her guests who were getting into departure mode. "Oh, you aren't leaving already, are you?" she said putting up her most hospitable front. "We have more champagne and...."

"Oh, no," one plump old lady in pale purple cried, "If I drink another drop I'll have to find a designated driver. And I won't let anybody drive my new car." She forced a matronly titter through her painted face.

Maddy smiled politely and let her go along with all the others. But stepping lively to catch up to them, she slipped her arms under the arms of two male guests and walked them into the house. Wendell did not see this particular action, so engrossed was he in an ongoing explanation of the reasons for water on Mars as he escorted guests through the house and to their cars.

After appropriate hugs, kisses, handshakes, and waves all the visitors were in their vehicles and roaring down the street. Wendell and Maddy stood smiling and waving on the unfinished front yard of their new house until the last one turned the corner and disappeared.

"Well, that was nice, wasn't it? she said with a proper smile.

"Yes, yes, it went very well, I think. They all seemed to enjoy themselves.

She grinned impishly and started into the house. "I think we got a lot of loot."

He laughed, squeezed her buttocks, and accompanied her into the house.

"Don't do that here, Wendell--someone could see you--and what would he think of his new neighbors?"

"He? He would probably be envious as hell of at least one of his new neighbors."

"And if she?"

"The same."

She slapped his arm with protest softened by affection. "Well, let's try to keep it behind closed doors so we don't get a reputation for being the neighborhood burlesque."

"A stripper dentist--that would raise some brows," he said.

"Hey! Who's the stripper in this marriage anyway?" She laughed, as they closed the front door behind them. In the living room, she grabbed a big package in silver paper and unwrapped it. "Children!" she shouted. "Come here and see what your father and I got from all those nice people."

Sonny and Sally appeared from the kitchen, he looking less than pleased by the title given to Wendell.

"Did you get all those dishes cleared and rinsed?" Maddy asked.

"Yes," Sally said, "and we put a bunch of them into the dishwasher."

"Good girl," Wendell said. "You'll make a fine wife for some young man one day."

Maddy gave him a look that showed no sympathy for his male sentiments but she said nothing and continued plundering the packages. "Oh, look, dear--a food processor!"

"Any toasters," he said, and they laughed obligingly.

The boy and girl did not get the joke; Sonny did not care. "What else did you get, mom?" Sally said. Sonny mocked her under his breath. He was not at all sure he was going to be able to tolerate hearing her refer to his mother as her mom.

But his mother smiled at her and said, "Well, sweetie--why don't you come here and help me open the presents?"

"Oh, goody!" she shouted.

"Oh, goody!" Sonny mocked.

Maddy looked a dart at her son. Wendell too was about to remonstrate him for the indignity, but Maddy intercepted his attack with a squeal. "Look at this, darling--a nightie."

Her husband grinned like a naughty child. "Try it on."

"Not here, nasty--not in front of the children."

He laughed with great pleasure at himself. But the children only blushed and returned to the kitchen. "Come on, brother--we'd better finish the dishes and leave these two to begin their honeymoon." Sonny was not about to leave, but Sally dragged him by the arm, and he submitted to it as the better move to make for the moment.

In the kitchen they listened awhile to their parents' giggling then looked at each other and nearly burst out laughing.

"They're worse than the kids at school!" she said.

"Much."

"I would never behave that way in front of my children," she said.

"Neither would I."

"Oh, I bet you'd be all over your wife."

"What makes you say that?"

"I can tell about boys. I have a sixth sense."

"You have a dirty mind," he said.

"Not as dirty as yours."

"Uh-huh!"

"Unh-unh!"

"Uh-huh!

She started to retort but caught herself and laughed. "We sound just like them!"

Reluctant at first to do show more than a cynical grin, he caught the infection from her and laughed too. When their mirth diminished they continued working amiably, sharing stories of their young lives. Their respective parents continued their wedding frolic in the living room. And the house swelled with cheer despite the stresses of a newly forming stepfamily. And the sun set on their attempt at happiness as if at the end of a fairy tale.

13

To young students, the days of school before winter break seem long and boring when the young are full of anticipation. Weeks of free time lay ahead of them like an oasis of pleasure on the vast arduous plain of academia. Understandably they at this time of all times find focusing on their studies more difficult than usual. Seasonal decorations of the marketplace have adorned the streets since before Thanksgiving. Christmas carols more and more often on radio stations. The characteristic alacrity of people for this mother of all consumer fest forces them into the stores to take advantage of the reduced over-pricing and limited stock available. It is a time of indulgence in a season of hope at the start of winter, a time not lost on youth.

What little autumnal weather occurs in the coastal southwest part of the North American continent happens mostly between Thanksgiving and the Winter Solstice. So between occasional sprinkles of rare rain in the region, cumulus clouds often bedecked the sky and breezes blew the air fresh for days at a time despite the tens of millions of cars roaring hither and thither throughout the suburban area like monsters in a maze.

On leaving the high school, Sonny and Alfred were walking sprightly in their mutual enjoyment of the Fallspell. The wind puffed out their spirits like their lightweight jackets as they passed the statue of the Virgin on their way off the campus.

"So you've got a new father, eh?" Alfred said.

Sonny looked at him to see if any irony showed in his face. "Yep--another one. At least this one's not a complete loser."

"What's he do?"

"Oh, you'll like this. He's a dentist."

"A dentist! All right! Introduce me."

"You wouldn't like him."

"I don't have to like him, Sonnius. I need the connection."

"Connection! Who do you think you are, Alf--a tycoon?"

"One can't start too soon making the right contacts for one's future."

"One's future," Sonny mocked. "You're only a sophomore in high school."

"Maybe so, but at least I have a future."

"Hey! How do you know I don't?"

"I don't know for sure--unless you're serious about trying to be an artiste."

"Some artists have great lives. Look at Picasso."

Picasso! Hah! Now, who do you think you are?"

Sonny leaped to the curb, as they crossed an intersection. "I'm no Picasso but I am Dennison."

"Sonny Dennison--great artist and lover living in a villa on the Mediterranean coast."

"Why not?"

"Why not indeed." Alfred kicked a stone down the sidewalk. "So how was the wedding?"

"Okay--for a bunch of old phonies."

"How's your new sister?"

"She's not my sister." He thought a moment. "But she's okay. Not as bad as I thought she was going to be."

"She cute?"

"Cute! That's sick, man! She's my sister!"

"I thought you said she's not your sister."

"As for what you're thinking, she's my sister."

Alfred snickered. "Just kidding you, man." He waited just long enough and said, "But is she cute or not?"

"Why, Alfie? You want to ask her out? She's only thirteen. Hey, now that I think about it, she may be just right for you--naive and simple."

"Naive and simple are good. Make a good wife."

"That's what her father says."

"The dentist."

"Yeah."

"Old fashioned, isn't he?"

"Aren't they all?"

"Who?"

"Dentists."

"No," Alfred objected. "Our family dentist wears cool clothes and drives a Ferrari. Bachelor too--probably has lots of beauties coming to his office."

They said at the same time, "To get drilled." And they roared with delight in themselves as they sauntered down the street.

After a few blocks, they talked about that most important subject of school time--vacation. "So what you gonna do for Christmas, Alf?"

"Hang around. Play some ball. You know--take it easy. How about you? Going skiing?"

"Yeah--but only in the local places. Me and Jerry Shanks are going up to the local mountains. He's got his license now. It'll be cool going in his car."

Alfred fell silent on hearing about his friend's plans with someone else. Then he felt forced to comment: "Yeah, he spends a lot of time on that car, doesn't he?"

Sonny nodded.

"Why? Is he planning to race in the Indy 500?"

"I dono, Alf. Mebbe. Why doncha ask him?"

"I never talk to Shanks and his crowd."

"Too cool for ya, huh?"

"Not cool enough."

"Yeah, you're sure Mister Cool."

"I'm getting there, Sonnius. All I need is my Ferrari."

"So what race are you planning to run?

Caught but not captured Alfred said, "Le Mans, man--Le Mans."

Again they both laughed, as a gust of autumnal wind blew into their faces. They ran across a street and turned down another along the Los Angeles River. Water the hue of cream-colored coffee was storming down the wash, rapid and deep. Rain in the mountains had run-off into the canyons, picked up loads of topsoil, and was rushing through the city on its way to the sea. The boys stopped along a barbed-wire fence to watch the flow. They stared at the torrent rushing down the concrete encasement.

Bottles, branches, old tires and numerous indescribable objects sailed along in the brown surge. The ever-changing waves of water were mesmerizing. The rolling rhythm and speed of the flood to the accompaniment of an incongruous liquid murmur excited the mind.

"I always thought it would be cool to take a raft down this thing," Sonny said.

"A raft! You crazy?"

"Nah. It'd be wild."

"It sure would--and deadly."

"Imagine--you could sail through the entire city to the sea like an ancient explorer."

"You sail. I'm too young to die," Alfred said.

"Who's gonna die, man? I'm talkin' about livin' to the fullest."

"I'll stick to the streets--they're safer."

"Yeah, sure--you the guy who wants to race cars. How's that safer?"

"Man and machine. That combo is a hell of lot safer than man against nature."

"Not against, Alfie--in the midst of nature. Man on the river. That's a basic relationship going back thousands of years."

"An archetype."

"Yeah," Sonny responded with as much self-assurance of the word's meaning as he could possibly show. He walked down the riverbank.

Following as he continued to watch the water, Alfred said, "Sure wish this river flowed all year long."

"It does."

"Yeah, as a trickle," Alfred said. "I can piss more water than runs down this concrete canyon during most of the year. That's probably all it is anyway--a whole lot of piss water."

"Disgusting."

"Change your mind about the raft?"

Sonny grinned but did not answer.

"Sonny Dennison--the artist adrift on the Yellow River. Now, that would be a picture."

"Picture this--me beatin' your ass to your place." Sonny said as he started sprinting down the riverbank.

Alfred kicked himself into gear and dashed after him. "Not a chance!" he shouted, even though Sonny was already ten yards ahead of him.

The boys raced upstream along the winding river fence and disappeared beyond some pepper trees. Their challenging taunts rang in the crisp clean air.

14

Christmas came with a heat wave. Although the trees were bare, their gray, sinewy branches broke the sky into a pattern of hot blue. As usual, less rain than normal had fallen during autumn, so the streets were filthy. And smog often enshrouded the valley, even at that time of year. Nevertheless, it was Christmas. People were visiting friends and gathering in families for the day of giving to receive. Despite weather unbefitting a holiday always depicted as a tradition of snow, sleigh bells, and hot beverages, the celebration had captivated the entire temperate urban and suburban area.

In front of the Rinehart house the combined families, dressed in clothes suitable for a vacation in the tropics, stood together like a cluster of manikins in a storefront lawn party: Grandfather and Grandmother Rinehart, Maddy, her younger sister Louise, Sonny, and his new stepsister, Sally.

Wendell was busy setting a camera on a tripod to snap automatically their squinting faces. He motioned for them to move closer together as he focused. The shade of the bare walnutree limbs could have provided some indirect lighting for a portrait, but like most amateur photographers, he had placed them in full sunlight. Consequently they all appeared to be in pain. They were trying to smile, cocking their heads oddly to avoid the glare, but their faces looked grotesquely humorous that they somewhat resembled a troupe of carnival performers in bourgeois clothes.

Maddy stood in the middle of the bunch, her arms reaching out for everybody. Her body bulging voluptuously in a mint green sheath, she was leaning on one leg, so her hips skewed slightly and seductively. Despite the glare of sunlight, she tossed her red-dyed hair back, then side to side as she regaled the others with coaxing words and giddy laughter. Grandfather Rinehart stood at one end of the group, and Sonny at the other. Maddy kept reaching to grab him, to pull him closer, to caress him, but he was reluctant to stand too close to his stepsister.

"Come one, everybody," she said, "let's get together. I want the whole family in this picture. She pulled Sonny closer to Sally. "Come on, Sonny--next to your sister. Get closer to her."

Sonny finally let himself be tugged toward Sally and stiffened as his shoulder bumped hers. She giggled. He blushed. Maddy tousled his hair, and he blushed even more, his jaw muscles twitching. He glanced at Sally and smiled obligingly then stared straight ahead.

His grandfather, tallest among the clan, put one arm around plump little grandmother and the other around Louise. Although looking critical of the activities, he enjoyed having his family together.

Notably different from the others, Louise was aloof. And her collared shirt, slacks, loafers, and close-cut hair heightened her remoteness. Despite her apparent variation from the traditional theme, she was smiling valiantly. Like everyone else she was determined to participate in the joyful Family-at-Christmas game nearly everyone obligatorily played throughout the country.

"Ready, dear?" Maddy said to the man with the camera.

Wendell nodded his shiny head as he adjusted the autoshutter. "Ready, dear." All right now, everyone--hold it--hold it--" Wendell commanded as he switched the autolever on the camera. Then he scurried over the grass and wedged his abundant body next to his bride.

Everyone except Maddy stood as lawn statues, their faces blank but straining to smile in the blinding light. While the camera buzzed like an insect, she flourished a showgirl pose with her arm curved over her head and her chin lifted high off her bumptious breasts. The others looking uncomfortable simply waited for the buzzing to stop. Wendell's round, red face grinned as he held his breath. The buzzing continued interminably, and everyone started to quiver. Finally the buzzing stopped with a little click, and then they all relaxed with a collective sigh and fell into meaningless muttering.

"There, we have it," Wendell said. "I got us all in one shot! Just like a professional."

And the group instantly broke apart as if a sudden unpleasant odor--actually the repugnant sensation of family members feeling too close for comfort-- repelled them.

"Oh, God!" Sally said. "I always look horrible in pictures, daddy. Please don't show them to me when you get them developed. Don't show them to anyone."

Wendell laughed as he picked up his camera and tripod. "I'm going to show them to the world!"

"Daddy!" Sally squealed.

Grandfather Rinehart led everyone back into the house. Maddy pranced behind him. Sonny watched with scorn his mother bouncing to the house and gurgling with her new husband. Sally hung back to wait for Sonny, drawing up the rear of the tribe. "I'm starting high school next year, Sonny."

He looked at her blankly, as if she had just told him that the sun rises in the morning. "So?" he said.

"Daddy said I could go to public school with my friends and study whatever I want."

"Really," he said. His lips tightened as he stepped ahead of her and squeezed into the house behind the newlyweds.

Waves of roasting turkey aroma met them as they entered the living room, and they all sensed the aromatic air like wild animals on the scent of prey. Against a bay window in the big room, the Christmas tree stood fully festooned with shiny colored spheres, strings of colored lights, and streaming tinsel. In a corner of the room, a miniature nativity scene lay atop a small table. Sally ran into the room, flopped into a chair beside the tree, and began surveying the presents. After milling around the room for a few moments, the other family members took seats on couch and chairs arranged in a semi-circle around the festive fir. Grandfather Rinehart sat in a throne-like chair and surveyed his domain. Not particularly interested in what he saw he presently found a trustworthy newspaper and started reading. Grandmother, Maddy, and Louise headed straight for the kitchen.

"Turkey smells wonderful, mother," Maddy said.

In the kitchen, her mother mumbled something that resembled gratitude.

Then Louise hollered, "Sonny--set the table please."

"I'll help you dear," his mother said. She went to an antique credenza in the adjacent dining room and pulled out fine porcelain pottery and Sterling silverware. "Sonny, darling--get the pads and the table cloth." She pointed to a lower cabinet.

Sonny pulled out some green felt pads and a thick white satin cloth and laid them on the table of polished fruitwood. Sally was watching him closely across the room. He eyed her warily, self-conscious about performing such a task rather than she. When he laid the pads green felt side up onto the table, his mother motioned to him with her tapered forefinger. "Green side down, Sonny--green side down. White side up for dinner," she said.

He tisked as he turned over the pads with a flip-flop and stared intensely into his chore, as if it suddenly demanded his full attention.

Sally laughed. "Would you rather play cards than eat, Sonny? Daddy, Sonny wants to play cards. Sonny, we're going to have Christmas dinner. We're not going to gamble." She cackled.

Sonny blushed and jerked the pads into their proper position. Sally's father glanced at her, winked, and smiled. He started walking around the tree and looking over the ornaments and packages as he spoke to his new father-in-law. "Lovely tree, dad."

Grandfather Rinehart did not look up from his newspaper but uttered an acknowledging grunt.

"Sonny tell you we're going to build a little car?"

The old man nodded and curved up the corners of his mouth to appear interested in what Wendell was saying, yet his cold eyes only stared into the tree. A large red ball hanging low on a lower bough reflected in squat, rotund images the figures of the two men as miniatures in its scarlet sphere.

"Yes, we're going to make a dandy," Wendell said. "Ball-bearing wheels and a chain drive. I even plan to install rack and pinion steering." He grinned widely and waited for some sign of approval.

However, none was forthcoming. Grandfather was not seem particularly interested in Wendell Stone as the new husband of his eldest daughter; especially now since this interloper was spending time with his grandson.

"Sonny loves the idea, don't you, boy," Wendell said as he turned to find the young man in the dining room.

The old man burned his eyes into the shiny red ball.

"Huh?" Sonny said.

"You want to build the car together, don't you, son?"

"Oh, yeah--yeah, sure," the boy said.

The old man glared at them both. Silence blew through the room like an icy wind.

But Maddy warmed up the frostiness: "Howsabouta Christmas drink, daddy? Toddies too hot on a day like this, but something cheery would be nice. Okay?"

Her father nodded and jumped out of his seat to escape into the kitchen. "Comin' right up!" he said. When passing Wendell he gazed out the picture window at the backyard. As the day waned, the gaily-ornamented tree was becoming more sharply duplicated in the glass of the big window.

Outside a breeze was stirring a few flowers blooming in the garden, despite the season, and swaying the leafless branches on the trees. The light of day was softening into dusk. Birds were alighting in the branches to rest for the night.

Grandfather entered the kitchen, a repeat request greeting him.

"Father, will you fix the drinks?" Grandmother Rinehart.

"Yes, yes--I've got it," he said to her then hollered, "Highballs all round?"

"Sure," Sonny said.

Sally giggled.

Sonny 'n' Sis will have ginger ale, daddy," Maddy announced from the dining room.

Sonny shared grins with his stepsister.

"But I will have wine with dinner," Sally said.

"Oh, no, you won't, young lady, not..."

"But daddy said I could, didn't you, daddy? Didn't you?"

Wendell nodded sheepishly.

"Besides--I'm used to it. Daddy lets me have wine on Thanksgiving and Christmas every year--and Champagne on New Year's too, huh? Don't you, daddy?"

Again, Wendell nodded but looked as though he suddenly wanted to take a long tour of the yard around the house until dinner. Maddy cast a solicitous look at him. But he only walked over to his daughter and put his arm around her. "My little girl's growing up, isn't she?"

Sally beamed and gave Sonny a haughty look.

Maddy scowled and continued to set the table. "Well, absolutely no alcohol for Sonny."

The boy frowned. Sally stuck him with a supercilious look. Wendell sat down on the side of the tree away from the dining room and gazed with exaggerated interest at the decorous evergreen. Maddy put the silverware on the table with more than expected clatter. The newlyweds were having one of their first tiffs, albeit so restrained to be nearly unnoticeable.

Grandfather Rinehart carried a couple of drinks into the living room. "You kids can get yours from the kitchen counter," he said as he handed one amber-colored cocktail to Maddy and the other to Wendell.

While Sonny and Sally scurried into the kitchen, vying for passage through the doorway, Maddy sipped her drink and smacked her lips. "Daddy makes a scrumptious highball," she burbled.

Wendell nodded into the glass as he brought it to his lips. He gulped loudly and drank thirstily, trying to reinforce his resolve to deal with his new spouse's strong will. He allowed himself to be distracted by Louise carrying into the dining room silver trays of roasted almonds. Sonny reached for a handful of the salty hors d'oeuvres, blocking his stepsister's attempts to gain them.

"Now, now, kids--" Louise said on her way back into the kitchen, "leave some for the rest of us."

"Dinner in fifteen minutes!" grandmother announced from the kitchen doorway.

Dodging the two young people dashing into the kitchen for their drinks, Louise next came out carrying a silver tray full of green and black olives that she placed carefully on the table in the dining room. Drinks in hand, Sonny and Sally rushed back to the table, snatched handfuls of the olives before Louise's hands left the tray, and popped the delicacies into their mouths.

"Now, hold on, you rascals," she chirruped. "I told you to save some for the rest of us." Then she smartly snagged a few olives herself and popped them into her cheeks with a gustatory grunt. After looking over the table while chewing vigorously, she went back into the kitchen. Sonny put an olive on each fingertip, waved them at Sally, and gobbled them. Sally laughed and did the same.

"Let me help you, Lou," Maddy said as she joined her sister and their mother in the kitchen.

Grandfather returned to the tree to enjoy his drink but spoke not a word to Wendell. His new son-in-law sensing the chill, guzzled his cocktail and hid his eyes behind the highball glass as long as possible. The treelights glittered in the cut crystalline surface of the glass, fracturing his visage.

In a procession of relays, the women carried into the dining room silver and ceramic bowls heaped with victuals of the season: savory stuffing and creamed onions and spiced peas and carrots and buttery broccoli spears and marshmallowed sweet potatoes and a mountain of whipped white potatoes. They carried on small silver trays cranberries like big, soft rubies and quivering salad in aspic and in silver boats shimmering golden gravy.

Then Grandmother Rinehart waddled back into the kitchen like a high priestess and returned carrying the turkey on a silver platter. Ceremoniously to the vocal adulation of the family, she laid it in the middle of the table. "Let's eat," she pronounced. And everyone gathered around the table, murmuring gleefully. Maddy directed them to their seats, while Grandfather Rinehart uncorked a bottle of wine, started it around, and stood at the head of the table. Sally sat next to Sonny. Maddy next to Wendell. Louise next to her mother at the other end of the big oval plank.

"Fill your glasses," he said.

When Wendell received the bottle, he poured a little into his daughter's ginger ale glass. Maddy frowned at him, but he pretended not to notice her. Sonny picked up his glass and thrust it toward Wendell but thought again and, looking around to make sure he was not going to be reprimanded, he set it down sadly to receive more ginger ale.

"A toast, father," grandmother said.

They all raised their glasses.

Grandfather Rinehart held his goblet aloft and thought a moment. Speaking like a church elder, he said, "God has graciously given us another Christmas together--let us be grateful and ask Him to bless our family on this joyful day." Grandmother was mouthed the words with him as if she had written his short speech. Grandfather raised his glass and drank with gusto. "Merry Christmas!" he declared.

"Merry Christmas!" everyone chorused. They saluted each other, their glasses clinking like bells around the festive board. And they all drank together.

Sally looked at Sonny after sipping her wine, giggled, and hitched her shoulders slightly. "Wine always warms my tummy," she whispered to him.

He pretended not to hear her, but his mother did and snapped a dirty look at Wendell. He, however, was far too busy pouring wine into his mouth to notice or to care.

"Dig in!" grandmother declared as she commenced to pass the food.

As the sumptuous dishes were floating on eager hands around the table, Grandfather Rinehart cut into the turkey. After cleaving a thick wing, he sliced into the succulent breast and laid slice after slice of bright meat from the great bird onto the shining platter. Sonny, as if in worship, watched each white slab fall onto another in a neatly layered pile. His eyes flickered at the gleaming blade of the big carving knife, as it slid through the crisp skin and rended the steaming flesh. He watched the golden juices flow in rivulets down the side of the carcass and pool on the platter like liquid amber on a frozen pond. The old man worked fervently. Under his crown of thick white hair, he resembled an ancient patriarch presiding over a pagan feast, a role he clearly enjoyed. "Now--who wants white meat and who wants dark?" he said. "Pass your plates and spread the word!"

Plates already heaping with food fairly flew from the table toward the man serving the main fare. In steady rotation, each with a generous portion of turkey sailed back to its owner. All heads bowed into their bounty and ventured to devour the meal. Sonny, his own plate piled like a small hillock, ladled gravy over his potatoes, stuffing, and meat. In a flash, he followed his fork into the feast, joining the others of his family as ecstatic communicants at the grand table of the season. Only grunts, murmurs, and sighs escaped their mouths, while they gorged themselves on the abundant repast.

When the meal was ravaged, the stuffed participants slumped in their chairs with faces of utter satisfaction. Quiet at first to quell the belching that rumbled around the table, they gradually eased into conversation. Louise continued to drink the rest of the wine.

"Mother," Maddy said, "you out did yourself. That was wonderful."

The others chimed in choral agreement.

"Mother, you must give me the recipe for that stuffing," Louise said. "I've enjoyed it for years and would love to share it with my friends."

The old woman merely laughed and said, "Ah, that recipe goes with me to my grave."

"Oh, mother," Louise said. "Don't be silly."

"I'm only foolin' with ya, Lou--I'll be happy to give it to you--in my will."

They all tittered. "Mo-ther!" Louise chided.

Finding no satisfaction in that direction, Louise turned her attention elsewhere. "Sonny--" she said.

He sat up in his chair as an automatic response.

"Tell me--who's your latest flame?"

Sonny blushed and glanced around nervously at the others. "Nobody special," he said.

"Sonny's too busy with his school work to waste his time with girls," grandmother snapped.

Everyone grinned knowingly and looked in different directions.

"Nonsense," Louise continued. "At his age girls are probably his main course of study."

"Louise," Maddy said, "you may be a psychologist but you don't know my son. He's too serious for such frivolities to distract him. Aren't you, Sonny?"

Sonny nodded. Sally giggled. He fired a dirty look at her, but that only made her giggle more.

"Hah!" Louise retorted. "That's what he'd like you to think." She scrutinized her nephew. "I bet he's out chasing girls every chance he gets. Isn't that right, Sonny?"

He blushed even redder.

"Don't worry, Sonny," she said by way of reassurance. "I won't tell." She sipped her wine, reflected a moment, and then leaned into a story. "I had a strange case come into my office last week.

The others shifted in their chairs, indicating they had heard other of Louise's stories and were not looking forward to another.

Nevertheless, she continued: "This boy--much younger than Sonny-- had been arrested and charged with molestation."

Now they really became unsettled.

But she persisted: "He had been charged with fondling a girl, a neighbor girl--even younger than he."

"Fondling!" Maddy said.

"Yes, apparently they had been playmates, innocent kids running around between each other's houses for a year or so, swimming, playing with toys. Then one day with no warning he supposedly touched her--well, you know."

Grandmother Rinehart glanced at Sonny and gasped, and grandfather shook his head.

"Touched her!" Maddy said. "Where?"

"In the boy's backyard," Louise said.

"No, I mean where on her body did he touch her?" Maddy asked.

"On her--you know--" And she indicated her crotch with a demure gesture.

Grandmother put her hand over her mouth to stifle a shriek. Sally fiddled with her napkin in her lap. But Wendell and Sonny attended closely to the story.

"There? My god!" Maddy exclaimed. "How old is this boy?"

"Ten," said Louise.

"Ten!" they all chorused.

"Ten," Louise repeated with an emphatic single nod. "Ten years old--and already a child molester."

"But he's only a child himself," Maddy said.

"Sad isn't it?" Louise said.

Everyone nodded accordingly.

"That's a perfect example," grandmother expounded, "of why boys and girls should not be allowed to play together till they are old enough to understand the proper relationships between men and women."

"And how old would that be, mother?" Louise asked.

"Old enough," was all the old woman could say. Then she added, "That's why we sent Sonny to Holy Virgin High School. Girls aren't going to distract him there--that's fer sure."

Sonny frowned inwardly and looked at Sally. She wanted no part of this conversation and kept folding and refolding her napkin.

"So what will happen to the boy?" Wendell asked.

"The boy!" Maddy interjected. "What will happen to the girl? She's ruined for life."

Louise chuckled and said, "Well, not necessarily. I've talked with her too. The incident doesn't seem to have seriously affected her--at least not according to her behavior."

"Incident!" Maddy nearly shouted.

"She's taking it rather lightly," Louise said. "In fact she laughs about it."

"Laughs!" the other adults chorused.

"Well, she doesn't exactly laugh," Louise said. "She just doesn't seem to be taking it too seriously--that's all."

Grandfather speechless again shook his head.

But grandmother had more to say, "Kids these days--" she clucked twice. "I just don't know--"

"To answer your question, Wendell," Louise said. "I'm not sure what will happen to him. It all depends on the girl's parents--whether or not they press charges."

"Press charges!" grandfather found his voice. "I'd show them how to press charges. I'd take that kid out to the woodshed and--well, I'd teach him a lesson he'd never forget."

"The idea," grandmother said, "the idea of some people--letting their child run amok with a little neighbor girl. The idea!"

"I don't think they had any idea," Louise said. "The boy seems to have come up with it all on his own. They do that, you know."

"Too much crap on television--that's what I say," the old lady said. "That's where he came up with it. Television. It's full of sex and violence and, and--who knows what all?"

Excepting Louise, the other adults nodded automatically in agreement as if programmed to think such a way. Louise grinned professionally and went on without a defensive thought in her head. "The boy didn't get the idea to fondle the girl from television, mother. He got it because he's a male child. And male children will do those things if they get the chance. They don't comprehend the seriousness of their acts. They simply behave according to their nature."

"Nature!" Maddy and her mother said in unison.

"Well, I call it perversion," Maddy said. "And I'm just glad that Sonny has never--when he was that age--never thought of doing such perverted things."

"And I'm just glad I have a different perspective," Louise said surreptitiously. Then she looked at Sonny and winked.

The others, awkwardly wondering at the comment, looked at her. Sonny could not find a safe place to look himself so he just grinned stupidly.

"Well," Louise said to the youngsters, "why don't we help mother with these dishes, so we can get to those presents?"

The magic word arousing them, Sonny and Sally at once jumped from their seats, picked up their plates, and carried them into the kitchen.

***

The Christmas cone of colored lights was fully reflected in the big window. Outside, the backyard was dark, cold, and mysterious, but the living room was astir with acquisitive excitement. While Sonny and Sally were tearing open their gifts and tossing paper and ribbon in all directions, the others were less enthusiastically but no less happily discovering the contents of their presents.

Grandfather and Grandmother Rinehart quietly unwrapped their boxes and laid them on the floor next to them. Not a day for the elderly, they were content to watch their offspring open their presents and to hope for pleased reactions all around to their largess. Louise, in finding a bulky sweater knitted into a pattern of snowflakes falling on a purple field, made a valiant effort to show gratitude to her mother for a gift she would probably never want to wear. Wendell found shirts and socks that would seldom inspire little response, so he simply grinned, nodded, and then uttered the amenities of gratitude to the givers of the gifts. Maddy, however, opening a box with a scarlet negligee, leaped into the air like a teenage girl, hung the skimpy item in front of her, and danced around the room like a stripper.

"Oh, Wendell--you naughty boy!" she squealed.

Her husband beamed with joy at his choice and her reaction. Everyone else in the room, though, preferred to search without words for other boxes to open.

"Look, Sonny!" Sally said, "I got a CD by the Gutterats. Have you heard them? They're soooo cute!"

Sonny nodded disinterestedly and uncovered a book entitled THE MAGIC GOLF CART.

"I hope you like that, Sonny," Louise said. All the kids are reading it these days."

Sonny grunted, "Thanks." Opening the book obligingly, he flipped through the pages of words without pictures and pretended to read a section. Smiling hopefully, Louise watched him. Whenever he looked up, she was watching. Only when he found one last unopened gift in his pile was he able to escape her dedicated scrutiny.

The bounteous evening continued until all had unfolded their plunder. Beside the tree, grandmother neatly piled all the ribbons and wrapping paper and retired to her realm--the kitchen. A chorus of carols quietly flowed from the radio. The family lounged lazily around the living room. With their new treasures of various values stacked at their feet, they sat speechless with the drop in mood that always occurs at the end of such a frenzy of personal gain. Maddy lay on the sofa, her earthen eyes almost closed as she peered at the low flames in the fireplace. Wendell, sitting in a stupor by the tree, stared glassy-eyed at the little pear-shaped bulbs of red, green, blue, purple, and yellow light. Louise joined grandmother puttering in the kitchen, their voices barely heard in conversation. Grandfather sat stately in his chair by the tree. He watched Sonny and Sally but was not interested in what they were doing, his mind like those of the others drifting towards oblivion.

Leaning on the table that held the nativity scene, Sonny and Sally were scanning the miniature setting. A glittering field of snow covered the tabletop, a white picket fence surrounding it. Two frozen mirror ponds lay in the snow. Reindeer had gathered around the edge and were gazing toward the manger. The Magi stood stone still in the broad, cold moonlight. A lone warm light radiated from the manger and illumined the family and a couple of sheep reclining inside the shelter, and an angel at the edge of the snow-laden roof hovered above all the characters in the scene.

Sonny stared at the face of Mary, her skin ivory white, her lips a tiny heart in a delicate smile. She was kneeling in a patch of straw and gazing down at her new baby. What a mother she must have been! Raised such a holy man, such a great man. Looks a little like my mother, but--like everyone's mother. I wish. Joseph older--but not a phony. Carpenter like granpa--good and simple.
Sonny climbed the little fence, walked toward the manger, and knelt down among the shepherds. They glanced at him and smiled. Everyone was smiling, and he found smiling irresistible. He peeked at the luminous baby in the straw. The child was so bright Sonny could barely look at him. Must be holy! He wanted a closer look but dared not impose on the lovely scene. How fortunate he was to be present at one of the most glorious events in history. He looked up and saw the angel smiling down upon him and he gazed beyond the spirit into the night sky. The magnificent star of Bethlehem lighted up the blackness like a distant god. He returned his gaze to the holy family. They looked so utterly good and beautiful he felt as if he would cry for joy. What a fabulous picture this would make! And I a witness!

Sally, who had been looking at the infant's face, lifted her eyes languidly to Sonny's face. She watched his lashes flutter over his eyes gray in the subdued light. She grinned coyly and asked softly. "Got a girlfriend, Sonny?"

His eyes flickered. He glanced at her for an instant unsure of his surroundings then returned to watch the motionless scene, to the reindeer standing around the fence. His cheeks darkened. He was annoyed at being no longer part of the celebrated scene. "Maybe," he whispered without looking at her.

"Daddy says I'm too young to have a boyfriend yet, but I don't think I'm too young--do you?"

He looked at the ponds and could see Sally's face in them. She looked sweetly pretty, almost like an angel herself. "Yes. No. I dono," he stammered.

She looked annoyed. "Humph! Boys never know anything." She looked again at the baby swaddled in the tiny pile of straw. "Someday I'm going to meet a wonderful boy and we'll fall in love and we'll have a wonderful wedding and we'll have pretty babies and we'll..."

"Live happily ever after," he inserted sharply.

"Well, smarty--what do you think? Of course we'll be happy."

He reflected a moment then turned to walk away, but his belt buckle caught the cotton snow. The sparkling fluff started to slide off the table, but Sally caught it in time to keep it from falling to the floor. Together they pushed it back into place.

"Thanks," he said avoiding her eyes.

She smiled. Slouching away, he skulked across the fireflickering room, and slipped into the darkness that led to his bedroom. Sally watched him leave and chuckled gently. She looked around at her family practically asleep. After muttering a mild complaint, she turned her face back to the nativity scene, her eyes glowing in the light of Christmas. As the music of the season lilted into the night, she whispered, "I will be happy."

15

Valentine's Day is one of those semi-holidays only the young celebrate. No one escapes from school or job. Few if any people throw parties. Besides young lovers, mostly merchants make out well. Candy, card, and flower sales blossom as fully as on birthdays and weddings and a few other false holidays, such as Mothers' Day. Otherwise, the day would usually pass barely noticed if not for TV commercials. Sonny, however, was fully aware of February 14; it was a bittersweet day for him, like a bar of dark chocolate.

In his youth as for many generations school children had celebrated the day of love at school with exchanges of little mints on which were stamped with simple, silly, abbreviated words of affection, such as "Luv U". He and his classmates counted their peer popularity in these pastel candies. While Sonny had never found the tiny sweets good enough to carry them home in a gunnysack, they satisfied his sweet tooth for weeks after that day. He kept the steadily decreasing little candies in a box in a dresser draw in his room until they became stale, when he finally threw them into the garbage. Other than Halloween, that queen of candy collecting holidays, Saint Valentine's Day provided more sugared hearts than any other special day, even Easter. Ah, but those are bats and bunnies of other colors.

Heart day this year had found Sonny Dennison with two girls in his life, more than he had ever enjoyed in any February of his fifteen years. However, one of the girls was gradually becoming more distant than the Sierra Nevada Mountains where she lived. And the other, while physically closer, seemed like a mirage.

He had thought of sending another poem to Ginny but had taken no action. Her absence was not making his heart grow fonder; on the contrary, it was allowing her to recede into the back of his memory. She spontaneously came to consciousness from time to time, but she dallied there less and less often. Just as the taste of candy slowly dissolves in the mouth, her value for him was vanishing from his mind. Lela, however, was a new and special case. Only bittersweetness came to his mind when he thought of her, saw her, but he was becoming fonder and fonder of dark chocolate as he was growing older, so a little bitterness with his love, though unrequited, made the sensation even more enticing. Unfortunately it was still far too rare to satisfy him.

When Sonny left his sexually segregated high school on Valentine's Day with only Alfred to keep him company, they stopped in a store to buy a couple of candy bars to celebrate the day and part of its purpose. But they were inappropriately solemn as they munched the nutty caramel and sucked the chocolate off their fingers. "So, you got a date for the dance, man?" Alfred slurped.

"Date! You know I ain't got a date. Where' m I gonna get a date?"

"Plenty of girls at Chastity High."

"Chastity High!" Sonny laughed through his gloom. "That's a good one, Alfie. Chastity High. Hah!" He nonetheless considered the suggestion. "Those chicks at Annunciation High think I'm a letch, man."

Alfred looked at him as if to say "Well?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know--I guess I act kinda horny."

"Kinda! After Dion and maybe Jimmer you're the only guy I know with a perpetual case of satyriasis."

Sonny roared at the image. "Always ready to launch--" he said. Laughter was destroying his determined pathos.

"But the target keeps eluding you. So maybe you ought to try a less aggressive tactic. Maybe a simple date with a friendly girl--without all the genitalia."

Sonny could not speak through the hilarity.

"You know--get to know each other, meet her folks, go to a movie,--become friends, and then...."

"Dive into her pants," Sonny said.

"Exactly!"

Out of their minds with glee, they licked traces of melted chocolate off their fingers and wobbled down the street like clowns in a circus. Gray clouds hung low over the valley, and wind was blowing through the mountain canyons to the north. Rain would be falling by dark. But the chill of mid-winter could not dampen their adolescent gaiety. On them and their puerile fantasies, the sun was shining like a spotlight: they the actors and the audience of their own droll routine.

When Sonny got home, though, he was in a different mood. His melancholy had given way to mirth when he was with his court jester, but now that he was alone his mirth was succumbing to sentiment. On this day of love, as was his way, he felt an urge to write a poem to Lela. Of course he would not be brave enough to give it to her, at least not while they were still strangers, but he hoped a time would come, a time right for such a gesture. His words on paper had positively affected Ginny; surely Lela would be equally pleased. Maybe she would fall in love with him while she read the words.

Going straight to his desk he took out a pen, opened his binder, and wrote spontaneously.

MY VALENTINE

Although I seek you for my love

I doubt I shall dwell in your heart,

For my merits are not enough

To capture your highest favor.

I'm only a simple grain of sand

Among many millions gathered

With little chance of success

In the soft palm of your hand.

He read the poem aloud several times and stared at his reflection in the window. Grinning at his gall, he turned the page. Maybe he would get an opportunity to give it to her, maybe not. For now the safest action was to study. He took out his Latin book, turned to a clean sheet of paper, and began translating Julius Caesar.

***

A jet airliner, trailing a thin silver line high in the cobalt sky, resembled a tiny silver bird above the sprouting leaves and the budding tassels of the walnutrees. A lone crow called and flapped its blueblack wings over the upper branches and cut across Sonny's view of the plane. The crow called and called as if guffawing at the earthbound boy. Then the bird's raucous voice faded away, and a jaunty mockingbird high atop a nearby tree echoed it musically. The songbird's sleek throat pulsed to the warbling rhythm of his melodiousong, and a few birds around the yard joined in chorus to the great avian vocalist. Bopster started trilling his own contrapuntal line from the kitchen and held his own. None of them, however, could upstage the plain but splendidly gifted king of songbirds--the unassuming mockingbird.

Sonny lay outstretched on the shingled roof. Feathery shadows from the tree wove across his body, blissful in a gentle breeze. His eyes sparkled with a green nearly matching the new emerald leaves, as he aimlessly scanned the vast clear blue aura that dominated the world. The warm sun shone like a cosmic flower near three o'clock of the bright vernal day. Far away, too far to be immediately heard, gaily feminine young voices joined the birdsong. Yet oblivious of the voices, Sonny vaguely pictured Ginny's face in the sky, her eyes the same blue. Try as he would, though, he could not conjure her features, for they had disintegrated in the distance of his memory. The girlish voices, however, invaded the present as they rose above the birdsong with merry laughter in an unconscious duet of their own. When Sonny barely heard them, he perked up like a wild thing in waiting; like a predatory animal, he listened, cocking his head and searching for the direction of the sweet sounds. Seeing nobody along the street, he looked at the sky again. His heart was thumping in his breast. He felt the blood surge into his neck and flood his brain. Again, he heard the sweet laughter mixing with the joyous melodies of the birds. Lifting his head, he looked beyond the neighboring yard. He saw two girls walking down the street toward his house. One of them was Lela!

She was walking, talking, and laughing with another girl. Not a boy. No boys in sight this time. Only a pair of nymphets in pink pants so tight they might as well have been flesh. They were wending their way down the lane as if to some enchanted cottage after an afternoon of bathing in a hidden glenwood spring.

Sonny's eyes rounded as he lowered himself flat onto his chest against the sharpangled shingles to watch the girls pass. He lay low without moving, not even blinking his eyes, barely breathing. Oblivious to the shingles pressing into his flesh, he watched them pass along the front fence of his yard where a cluster of poppies was bobbing in the sunlit breeze. The girl's merry voices effervesced and drifted like bubbles to his ears. Siren songs. He was entranced. An impulse to leap from the roof and fly to them brought him onto his hands. But he lay close to the shingles that stung his hips and knees. Panting now he watched every move of Lela's body--her long legs, a spot of flesh showing around her waist, her russet hair waving in the sunlight. He listened to her chatter and watched her throw her head back to laugh as punctuation to her joy.

Lela seemed to exaggerate her movements as if to attract attention from the entire neighborhood. An artful starlet strutting on high heels down an asphalt proscenium. And when she crossed in front of his house, she appeared almost maniacally antic. At this point, the girls slowed, almost dawdling. Pretending to look at the poppies, Lela glanced up at Sonny's house and she seemed to look at him, right into his bulging eyes.

Sonny lay flat like a squirrel to avoid being seen. He scraped his shin on a shingle, winced, and barely stifled a yelp of pain. Did she? His eyes blurring, he watched them pass nearly out of sight beyond the yard and he listened for the last of their voices fade with their images in his mind. As he lay there contemplating the moment, he thought of Dion and what he would have done in the situation. He could hear the great dark faun's voice calling out to the wayward nymphets:

"Hail to thee, thou maidens of tender heart!" Dion's voice trumpeted through a sylvan mist.

The two nymphs were now passing in front of a fantastic castle. They were naked, tripping buoyantly down a path through a wide field of poppies. Their flesh glowed pink like the bodies of young naiads heated from play. They chattered and laughed as if gaily oblivious of everything around them, until the young satyr's voice penetrated their gaiety.

Dion was naked too. His beard was pointed, and goat-like horns bulged through his curly black locks. He pursued them on brawny hirsute legs. He smiled with teeth of flashing alabaster and he watched them with eyes of burning coal. His salutatory patter washed over them as a mellow sound of wind through the forest. And the birds in the trees sang in accord. "Stay thy padding feet, sweet nymphs," he said. "I bring a sacred song to sing to you from the hallowed halls of Arcady. Stay they beauteous bodies and share with me the magic of this spring day in the light of our mutual gaze."

The nymphs turned, surprised and frightened at first, but quickly responding with smiles to his winsome grin. They giggled and bowed their heads shyly--virgin damsels in a flowered field. Dion spread his brazen arms and reached for the curves of their sun kissed shoulders. Talking to them quietly now, his great dark head between theirs, he walked them down the path to the castle--a shepherd leading his flock. And as he marched along, his hands slowly slid down their smooth backs to the dimples above their quivering buttocks, his fingers dabbling in the hollows. The nymphs burbled with tickledelight, as they all passed on down the path to the fairy tale castle and disappeared with Sonny's illusion.

"God!" the boy sighed into his fingertips and closed his eyes. After a moment of reverential quiet, he listened to remember again the merry voices of the nymphs. He heard what he wanted to hear and saw what he wanted to see.

Behind his eyelids, they again came strolling down the street toward his house. Through the poppies, he glimpsed them naked as he had hoped. This time he saw himself as the seducing faun following them. He grinned and swaggered in imitation of Dion, but his pointed beard looked stubbly and his horns barely budded through his wispy hair. He felt ashamed of his own startling nakedness and walked bent over as if a bellyache were dragging him down. When he tried to holler in greeting, his voice crackled, and the birds stopped singing in the trees. No matter how forcefully he shouted he could not make a significant sound. The nymphs walked without turning around, apparently hearing nothing.

Yet he hollered, "Hail, thou sexy nymphs--" And he ran to reach them, outstretching his pale, thin arms and touching them both on the shoulders.

They spun around in surprise that quickly turned to terror in seeing his grotesque face yawning inaudible words as if he were about to bite them. Fearing he would attack them, in a wild flutter they leaped into the air and bolted away, trampling poppies in their path. They disappeared. Then silence. The nymphs' chatter and laughter had become only birdsong. The crow mocked his escapade, and the other birds began again to chirp as if in ridicule of the pathetic young satyr's profound failure.

Sonny frowned and barely opened one eye. He breathed with relief when he saw the street empty of nymphs. He was relieved but sad. He held himself motionless, breathless for a few moments to recall the banal but real world. Then he rolled onto his back and again stared up into the sky, now foreshadowing night with pale violet. An errant breeze tousled his hair to which his hand automatically tended. Long leaf shadows lay across his face. He glanced at the reddening sun slanting toward dusk and now appearing to emerge out of the sky dome like an astronomical serpent. Through his half-closed eyes, he could glimpse long rays of amber light shooting from the golden orb.

Long slim shadows from the trees were stretching across the yard to the house. Sonny continued to watch the setting sun. Low over the line where the sky meets hills that separate the valley from the sea that great sphere of fire appeared to be snaking slowly out of space, uncoiling its hot flat face through a reddening haze. Sonny could see himself taking wing from the roof and flying over the land.

He looked down to see the greening hills around the valley warm in the light of the lowering daystar. He saw the wash water flowing from the highlands and the stony mountains to the north. Traces of snow still streaked the high peaks. On the valley floor uncountable houses jutted through countless budding and leafing trees. And a broken pattern of lawns and pools lay embedded in the broad basin like a grand inlay of emerald and turquoise in the vernalight. The air of the land smelled fresh from recent showers and new flowers exploding everywhere with perfume. The sky gradually colored from rose to azure to pearl gray in a limitless panoply from west to east. The whole vast valley looked lightly gilded, idyllic in the crystalline curtain between daylight and darkness. He spread his wings and flew into the setting sun.

16

Sonny seemed nowadays bound to be staring out the classroom window whenever he was at school. He had become more than ever preoccupied with his personal life instead of his education. Another poem to Ginny lay barely begun beside a Latin book on his desk. In the front of the room, Solo was droning on as he fluently read aloud the ancient language:

"...Furiano suo. Rogavisiti, 'Quid agit res publica?' Consules proximi anni creati sunt--Lepidus et Taurus. Ille Augusto carus est. Maiores eius erant Sullan et Pompeius, Caesaris inimicus, sed Agustus tam...."

Sonny looked at the tips of the trees stretching their new green into a painfully blue sky. The topmost leaves glittered and showed their silver undersides in a light breeze. The sun itself seemed about to bloom into a radiant flower like a magnificent giant poppy. Nimbus clouds scudding across the sky suggested forms humanlike, male and female, coupling and uncoupling in the air. A flock of birds soaring on a draft became mercurial fish sailing downstream, and then turning to fly upstream. In their wake, myriad tiny dots of pink and orange sparkled in the sky like floral starworks. And the clouds embraced everything in their massive voyage across the earth.

"Sonny!" Alfred's voice whispered sharply.

Brother Leroy, a small urbane-looking man despite his black cassock, had been following in his own text but periodically found time to glance around the room. Eventually of course, he caught sight of Sonny daydreaming out the window. Sonny looked around and noticed everyone in class staring at him, some of them stifling apprehensive laughter. Brother Leroy, however, was not laughing. After an icy silence that could have fast-frozen the entire school, he intoned in a rolling baritone with mannered but clear enunciation. "If you can somehow guide your errant mind back down to earth, Mister Dennison, from the Godforsaken planet around which it is hovering,--please read on."

Sonny covered the poem with his Latin book and began leafing hurriedly through the pages of the text.

"Thirty-two," Alfred whispered.

Tittering erupted from the students, as if they were pullets in a chicken coup. Sonny's face overheated as he searched desperately for the right page.

"Those of us attending Latin class this morning, Dennison, are reading on page thirty-two." Brother Leroy paused for an appreciative laugh from the class members. "We are reading about the banishment of the poet Ovid for the writing of ribald verse--an event not inappropriate, I find, in looking at your off-color face before me."

The class exploded with laughter.

"Would you care to join us?"

Sonny flipped the pages even more frantically to find the place in the book. Locating it, he inhaled deeply to gain some composure, and then proceeded to read haltingly the classical tongue. "Ovidius poeta--ex urbe ad opi--dum barbarum expulsus--iam pa--ene duos annos litterae sup--plices ad Augustum scribit, sed hic...."

***

After class Sonny stopped by the cleric's desk. "Brother Leroy," he stammered, "I--I'd like to do my--my next report on--on Ovid."

The teacher looked up at him and grinned. "Oh, would you now?"

"Yes," Sonny said naively, "I'd like to report on the ART OF LOVE.

"Oh, you'd like to report on the ART OF LOVE". Brother Leroy would have laughed in the boy's face had his religious teacher training not overwhelmed his normal human behavior. "Well, Dennison--we, er, the Church does not really approve of the work of Ovid, especially as reading matter for students at Holy Virgin High School. Perhaps you could find an author with Catholic imprimaturs affixed to his book, instead of an improper sexual stigma, on which to base your magnum opus."

"Yes, sir," Sonny was disappointed but struggled desperately to keep Brother Leroy from knowing it. "Yes, Brother Leroy--of course--I'll find another book--in the library."

"Good boy--maybe something about a saint. John the Baptist perhaps. Yes, that would be a good, austere subject for you, Dennison. Report on the Baptist."

On his way home that day Sonny stopped at the public library. At the reference desk, he asked for and received a book on John the Baptist. Then he went to a computer and located a copy of Ovid's THE ART OF LOVE. Finding the book in the stacks, he leafed slowly through the pages and sniffed the scent of old literature that mingled with his anticipation of sensuality. After looking around to see if anyone was watching, he read some of the poetry. And for a moment, he got lost in the words:

"You who are green recruits at making love,

First find the girl...."

Realizing that he could not finish the book in the library and wanting to savor every word, he took his selections to the circulation desk. He placed the Ovid book beneath the Baptist at the desk and looked around the library. The clerk stamped both books without apparently noticing their subject matter. However, when pushing the books back to the young patron, she tossed a look at him. Sonny managed to avoid her eyes, but when he grabbed the books, THE ART OF LOVE fell to the floor. A pretty young page dutifully picked it up and handed it to him.

"Thanks," he said, his eyes on the floor.

She smiled and walked to the shelves. Sonny smiled as she walked away and so interested was he in the motion of her body he bumped into an old man entering the library. "Oh, sorry--" he said.

The old man reeled and shot him a grimace. Sonny reached out to steady him, but the old fellow waved him off, grumbled, and tottered on his way. Sonny glanced around the room to see if anyone had noticed his clumsiness and saw the pretty page peering at him through the bookshelves. He tried to smile away his discomfort, but the whole experience so flustered him that in his haste he nearly collided again, this time with the doorpost before finally escaping with his assignment and his treasure.

In his room, he lay on his bed, dropped the book about John the Baptist onto the floor, and continued reading THE ART OF LOVE. The words of the Latin lover spoke to him through nearly two thousand years as though the poet were sitting in a chair next to his bed.

"You who are green recruits at making love

First find the girl; the next step is to take her--

And third--to make your love a strong embrace.

These are my teachings and the ground I cover...."

He skipped down a few lines.

"The perfect girl--a sight for weary eyes--

Won't drop from heaven, gliding at your side.

You shall have to seek her out...."

And down more lines.

"And when you meet her naked in your bed

Where everything is joy, her arms around you--

Then let her know the glories of the night...."

"...seek her out...." Sonny shuddered, smiled, and nestled into his bed to immerse himself in the ancient lessons of Publius Ovidius Naso. Three times he read the poem before the end of that day. Of course he was banished. Great men are always too much for the people around them.

Before dark he knew he was ready for love. And the moon that evening was his guiding light.

Time of the Flower

17

Wild California poppies are amazing little flowers. They grow and bloom profusely on nearly any untrammeled southwestern soil throughout the spring and summer months despite their apparent frailty. Soon after the Vernal Equinox, depending on the rain, they often blanket rare undeveloped hillsides all over the golden state. Before the onslaught of civilization with its bulldozers and concrete mixers, uncountable millions of adoring yellow faces as far as one could see on the rolling hills reflected their god in the sky, but now they grow only in the few places where we leave their habitat untouched. They open their delicate though brilliant cups of gold during clear daylight hours, but upon sensing darkness, they close their petals into tight coils like little yellow flags furled for the night. And if some inconsiderate hand picks them, they soon wilt and let fall their four precious petals, leaving only a tiny stem that can never seed. They are too beautiful for human hands.

These poppies had become resplendent in front of Sonny's house that year as they had for many years. His grandparents had carefully cultivated them. In white T-shirt and jeans, the boy was weeding the wildflowers with a hoe and humming a popular tune. Sweat glistened on his brow, sticking hair to his temples like sharp, little horns; his face glowed from the heat. Stopping to rest a moment, he bent down to look closely at one large flower: a priceless cup of gold with feathery yellow pistil and stamen in the butter-soft middle. He was reaching down to touch the soft velvety petals, his finger just tipping the edge of gold, when a small white butterfly flew across his vision, and at the same time a feminine voice issued like music from thin air.

"For me?

Turning quickly first to the butterfly then to the voice, he nearly fell into the flowerbed. Trying ungainly to keep from crushing the blossoms, he caught his balance on the hoe handle and looked back over his shoulder at the head of a young woman. Lela! When he realized who she was, he lost his grip on the hoe and slid down a little way on its handle. Here was the girl-goddess of all his daydreams standing right in front of him, looking at him, speaking to him, and he had to act like an idiot.

"Nice move," she said, her radiant head silhouetted against the sun, her face invisible.

Jerking upward, he stood face to face with her. Lela! He nearly blurted out the name. She giggled and crackled her chewingum. He blushed even redder than the flush already burning his face. The girl of his lascivious dreams stood before him in tight shorts and a skimpy little flowered top unbuttoned halfway down her chest. She certainly looked older than a teenager did. Large gold hoop rings dangled gracefully from her ears, and a delicate gold chain looped below her pale throat. Her darkly burning hair lay loose, even messy upon her shoulders. Her mouth was painted bright red. And dark makeup that lightly encircled her eyes made them look wild, nearly frightening. She resembled a gypsy, at least as he imagined gypsies. Grinning at him while smacking her gum despite the gleaming braces on her teeth, she cocked her head from side to side and spoke coyly. "Well?"

Sonny stammered and sought something clever to say but settled simply on "What?" He stared at her orthodontures, as though this imperfection in the future love of his life surprised him.

"Well, are they?" she said.

"Are they what?" He was still staring at her teeth. "Oh, yes, er, no, yes--I mean--" He became dumb with befuddlement.

She laughed gently, smacked her gum, and said, "Just kidding. Well,--bye." And she sauntered down the street.

"Seek her out!" Ovid's counsel rang in Sonny's ears. His eyes quickened with anxiety and his face suddenly paled as out of his mind he exploded with a quavering question: "Leaving?"

She smiled and continued on her way. She stopped, turned with one of her dance moves, and smiled seductively. "Nowhere special." She paused and stared at him beneath a tantalizing smile. "Wanna come?"

Gulping thickly, he looked as if he had been offered a bite of the most delicious apple in the world. He glanced at his house and at the neighborhood houses up and down the street as if to seek permission or to escape any hidden condemnation.

"Well?" She said stamping her little foot like a doe.

He dropped the garden tool into the flowers, nearly tripped on it, and stumbled toward her.

She laughed exotically and bubbled: "Oh, goody!"

Once he was actually walking beside her down the street, he felt the need to force out something to say, anything, no matter how stupid. So he said, "I-I've seen your--"

"My what?"

"You're p-p-passing--"

She laughed like a wild bird. "My passing!" she said. "I'm not dead yet."

"I mean I've seen you pass by here before--" Then he added with immediate regret, "with one of your boyfriends."

She glanced curiously at him then looked straight into his eyes and grinned. "I know. You've been spying on me, haven't you?" She paused but spoke again before he could answer her accusation. "And they're not my boyfriends. Just friends who happen to be boys." She pranced on down the street. "I like boys."

As he followed the girl of his dreams, he struggled desperately for something else to say, something with a smattering of intelligence. Then he held his head with all the maturity he could muster and asked, "You live here?"

"No, I don't live on the street--not yet anyway." She was enjoying herself immensely.

"I mean you live around here--in the neighborhood." He pointed like an idiot into the vague distance.

Continuing to walk and to grin as she talked, she said, "You know I do."

Any pause then seemed to terrify him, so he quickly added, "Where?"

"Why? Haven't you been there yet in your espionage?" She lifted her slender arm and pointed as if an angel in a renaissance painting. "It's down there--round the corner--a little pink house."

A pink house. What else but a house of hot pink for such a rose? He watched her arm graceful as a song, as it rose and fell languidly before his eyes, her hand a bird wing tipped with bright shiny red feathers.

"You go to Valley?" he asked.

"Uh-huh."

He stole a look at her breasts. She noticed his glance. His eyes flickered to her eyes, to her lips, her ears, her neck, her eyes, her hair, her eyes, and, when she looked away--her breasts again.

"Where do you go?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Where do you go to school?"

He did not respond.

She stopped and regarded him seriously. "You are in high school, aren't you?"

He blushed at the thought of being too young for her. "Oh, yeah--I go to Holy Virgin."

She laughed. "Holy Virgin. I should have guessed."

The way she said the name of the high school titillated him; everything she said titillated him. He fell dumb for a few steps, unsure whether or not to be ashamed. Then she suddenly looked right through his eyes and smiled into the back of his mind. There he felt her image would remain for the rest of his life.

"What's your name?"

Feeling the pressure too great on his brain, he could not speak until he had looked away from her incendiary gaze. "Son-ny," he said.

"Son Nee? That's a strange name. Are you Indian?"

"No. It's Sonny. My name's just Sonny. Sonny Dennison."

"Sonny." She uttered the name as if tasting it. "That's a nice name--bright and cheery like a summer day. I like that name. Mine's Lela." She popped her gum.

"I know."

"Oh, you know my name, do you? Well, how do you know my name, Sonny Dennison?"

"A friend told me," he said with increasing discomfort.

"A friend, eh. What friend of yours knows me?"

"A guy named--oh, you dono 'im."

"Oyudonoum. Is he Indian too?" She laughed and walked a few paces with him in silence. He could feel the downy hair on her arm barely brushing his; it electrified him. He inhaled deeply. She was fragrant with the scent of something warm, mysterious, and delicious from the earth.

"Do you know Dion?" he asked, wondering why that question had popped into his mouth.

"Oh, sure--everyone knows Dion." She stopped short and pierced him with a look. "Is he the one who you my name?"

"Oh, no--I just...."

"You know him though."

"Yeah. Well, sort of--we've played football together--all the time." He could have kicked himself for bringing up Dion.

She gazed into the sky. "He's such a doll."

"I know--I mean he's real cool."

"He's about the sexiest guy in the whole valley! Dangerous though."

"Dangerous? Why?"

Sonny nodded with a look of both worship and envy.

"He scares me. I mean he's a born heartbreaker--and God knows I've known enough of them already."

"You?"

"Yes, me. Why? You think I haven't had my heart broken?"

"No, I mean, yes--I guess so."

"Happens to all of us, Sonny boy. Happens to us all."

He acknowledged with a little laugh that turned into a whinny that he immediately tried to muffle.

"How 'bout you? Some cute little girl broken your heart yet?"

He shook his head awkwardly. "No, I don't think so."

She laughed her uncivilized laugh. "You don't think so, eh?" Well then, no one has broken your heart, 'cause if she had, you'd never forget it. Believe me."

He nodded to look knowing but he actually had little idea of what she meant, except what he had seen in movies. They walked to the end of the street where a pedestrian tunnel passed beneath a freeway.

"Come on," she said excitedly, "it's cool in here--like a cavern."

They stepped into the close darkness, their shoes ringing on the concrete path and echoing through the hollow like dancing taps. Lela walked past a section of the curved wall over which were scribbled large scrawls of graffiti. Names, signs, and symbols of erotica, violence, and youth decorated the wall. They both focused on a few of the drawings.

"How sweet!" she said, pointing to a heart shape drawn around the names "Tom + Kristy". But she tisked as she passed one that read: "Roy shitted here." with a crooked arrow pointing to a dark stain on the pavement. They followed the arrow down, looked at each other, and looked away.

Sonny looked blankly at one that read: "Call 555-1138 for a good piece of ass." Then he quickly averted his eyes. Despite his uneasiness, he was glad to be with Lela, while they silently scanned other marks of youthful foolishness, as if the two were touring an underground art gallery.

Lela smacked her gum and stepped farther into the passageway. "They call this place the Tunnel of Love," she said, her voice echoing brightly off the walls, but she tittered at her own sentimentality.

Sonny kept looking over the graffiti, acting so to hide his blushing, even though the light was dim enough to hide such an expression. And they walked in silence until about halfway through the tunnel. Then she stopped and looked at him.

"Let's sit here for awhile, Sonny. It's so nice and cool."

He shot looks at both exits. Nearly blinding sunlight glared from each end of the tunnel. Traffic was continually zooming overhead with a muffled and redundant roar. He squinted at her and shrugged. "Guess so-- yeah."

She dropped down against a wall, and he slid down about three feet away from her. She giggled and tugged on his shirt to pull him closer. He obligingly sidled over to her on his rump but stiffened when he bumped against her hip. He grew excited when he felt the soft warm flesh of her arm against his own. She wrapped hers around his neck and cooed.

"Relax," she said soothingly.

He nodded rapidly, and she laughed like a tropical bird, her music echoing through the tunnel.

"You're cute," she said and laid her chin on his shoulder. "You're not like the other boys I know." Her eyes big and brown, she gazed tenderly into his as if she were his loving big sister, but he saw something else in her look, something that made his breath begin to ebb away. "Would you like to kiss me, Sonny?" He swallowed, shrugged, and nodded--all at the same time. She touched his fuzzy chin with her fingertips and turned his mouth to meet hers. When their lips joined, all the activity of the world around him stopped, but it kept spinning just the same. She passed her gum into his mouth. He spit it out. She laughed in her wild way and resumed the kiss.

Instantly he thought of Ginny's kiss: how differently it had felt than Lela's luscious mouth. He was surprised that he did not feel her braces as he had expected. He became stiff in an awkwardly twisted position while he tried to hold the kiss as if depending on Lela for air. Then all thoughts of things past, present, and future left him, and he clutched the moment with all the lust his body had been storing up for months. Lela put her arms around him, and they held the kiss for several heartbeats. Her lips and teeth parted, and he felt something delicious pass between them--something dark as sin and sweet as the petal of a rose. The sensation overwhelmed his mind so that he nearly forgot who he was. His own heart beating blocked his hearing. Heart beating stopped his thinking. He did not know if the thumping was his, hers, or theirs in unison. Blood surged throughout his body and swelled his purpose. Automatically his hand slid slowly across her bosom until the tip of his middle finger touched her brassiere. He found the cloth scant like gauze. He opened one eye to see her reaction. Her eyes were still closed upon the kiss, so one by one he let his fingers creep around her plump warm breast.

Like a bird of paradise calling out from the heart of a jungle she laughed into his mouth and pulled her head back to look at him with those penetrating eyes that drove straight into his mind. A hint of sadness darkened her earthen eyes, but she laughed anyway. "So you want some of that, do you?" And she affected modesty.

Sonny grinned sheepishly, removed his hand from her breast, and dropped his head as if penitent.

She lifted his chin again with her petaled fingertips and said, "Well, silly boy--we can't do anything like that--" He looked disappointed. "Not here anyway, now can we?"

He shook his head like a little boy denied candy.

She reflected sadly again for a moment but soon smiled herself out of it. "Maybe some other place, some other time." Then she jumped to her feet and straightened her clothes. "Come on, Sonny-boy--walk me home."

He sat there looking like a beggar for a moment then slowly got to his feet but kept his body bent over as though studying something extremely interesting on the cement floor. For a second she looked concerned but soon grinned. She stifled giggles. "You okay?"

"Sure," he grunted, "just a little cramp."

"Not too little, I hope." She tittered and stepped ahead of him to the exit.

"It'll go away in a minute." He dawdled and re-examined the graffiti with more than usual interest.

"In a minute?" she echoed over her shoulder then added with a barely audible inflection, "Not if I can help it. Come here." She laughed and grabbed his arm.

He was speechless. Even though he scarcely felt more comfortable, he rejoined her. They stepped out of the tunnel into the bright sunlight. She was radiant. He was blinded. She drew him close to her.

"Holy Virgin High School, eh?" She laughed again like a jungle bird, while they strolled down the street as if already lovers.

18

Ventura Boulevard was lined with storefronts displaying jewelry, furniture, clothes, candy, flowers, clothes, music, books, clothes, and more clothes. Sonny and Alfred were chattering as they threaded their way through people walking in and out of the stores. Their young bodies appeared slightly warped in the large shop windows as if they were walking through a fun house. Sonny kept glancing at himself in the rippling glass, repeatedly checking his hair, while Alfred made faces in the windows. The afternoon sunlight slanted on them in intermittent flashes between the buildings.

"So you felt her up right there in the goddamned tunnel?" Alfred guffawed.

Passers-by glanced at him then away.

Venal pride animated Sonny. "Yeah, man, right there in the Tunnel of Love."

"The Tunnel of Love, eh? Man, I can't belieeeve you! What if someone had come through there when you were right in the middle of it?"

Sonny chuckled vainly, ignoring the question. "Believe this: Next time I'm gonna get into her pants."

Alfred smacked his forehead and howled like a young coyote.

"But listen, Alfie--" Sonny said hurriedly, "I can't figure out where to do it."

"Where to do it?" Alfred chuckled. "Well--why don't you just try her zipper--and wing it from there?"

They laughed wantonly. A jet airliner flying low overwhelmed their voices with a long, deafening roar. Sonny waited impatiently, his face complaining to the soaring thing in the sky, its white ribbons of vapor trailing.

"I'm serious, Alfie," he shouted. "Where am I going to lay this chick?"

Alfred motioned to quiet him and looked around to see if anyone had overheard. Then he mocked him with a baleful look. "Where? Gee, well, you could use Dion's trailer. That is, of course, unless he's using it."

Sonny tisked to stop the smile invading his face.

"Or, what the hell, man--" Alfred continued flippantly, "he probably wouldn't mind a ménage a twat."

They shared another lecherous laugh, but Alfred appeared to enjoy the joke more than his buddy did. Sonny was clearly becoming irritated, and Alfred could see that, so he modulated his attitude.

"Hell, I don't know, Sonnius. Why don't you just go to her place?"

"Her place!" Christ, Alfie! You crazy? I ain't even been there be-fore--inside, that is--and I ain't met her parents yet."

"Why do you want to meet them? To get their permission to fornicate with their daughter? Don't bother--I doubt they'd give it to you."

Before Sonny could reply, Alfred enacted such a meeting. "Oh, hello, Lela's father. So good to meet you. I've heard a lot about you, sir. Say, would you mind if I took out your daughter and fucked the shit out of her? You wouldn't mind? Gee, thank you, sir. I'll have her home by ten. Bye."

Sonny tried to spit disapproval at Alfred's performance but his tongue stuck in hilarity and he hissed like a leaky balloon.

"No, of course you don't want to meet them, man--not if you don't have to." Alfred pondered the situation seriously for once. "So then--how about your place?"

Sonny looked at him as if to say, What a stupid idea! , and shouted, "My place!"

But Alfred continued enthusiastically. "Sure, Son--you could get her in and out of your bedroom--through that door in the garage--without anyone the wiser."

Sonny shook his head.

"After all, your grandparents sleep on the other side of the house, don't they?"

"Yeah, but...."

"Yeah, so they wouldn't hear a squeak, would they?"

"No, I dono--I guess not, but...."

"Especially if you stuffed her panties into her mouth at the big moment."

Sonny tried to be indignant but again had to laugh, and the look in his eyes showed the notion beginning to grow on him. Imperceptibly, his head turned from shaking to nodding, and his eyes widened with acceptance of the bright idea. "Ya know--?"

"Yeah, I know. You can put it to her right there on your own bed, man. And you'd have it made--for the first time in your sex-crazed life!"

The boys stared at each other, as the whole scenario flashed between their minds.

In the soothing ambience of summer moonlight through a crystalline window, Sonny the Satyr suavely undraped Lela, Queen of the Nymphs, and laid her gently on his clover-covered bed as if she were a bounteous bouquet of flowers. Her doelikeyes looked up at him, they limpid in her total submission to his irresistible virility. He embraced her with his muscular arms and kissed her deeply. Breathless she bloomed before his undeniable power.

Simultaneously they burst out with raucous, wicked, cacklescreaming glee like a pair of fauns about to capture a pair of nubile naiads in the mythical environs of an Olympian valley. Just then a heraldic horn trumpeted behind them, and they turned to see Dion in his cherry-red car rumbling by, its tailpipes blasting like a profane organ. Alfred waved to him, as Sonny watched the magnificent warrior in his chariot rumble past. Alfred made a sweeping gesture, as Dion roared down the road.

"There you go, man?" Alfred said to Sonny. "You're going to be as cool as the king--a giant in jeans."

Sonny beamed. His head was riding a little higher now, as they continued down the sidewalk. And his chest swelled a little bigger in keeping with his overall conceit. As they strode through the shade of a movie marquee, the notion of imminent conquest was intoxicating them. When a poster showing the moviestars on the front of the theater caught Sonny's eye, he felt like a star himself, as he gazed at the picture of attractive people in dramatic poses before a vast landscape of some exotic land. And when he noticed the title of the movie, THE TITAN, it reinforced his notion of the magnitude of the deed he was going to consummate.

Alfred stopped and short-circuited Sonny's reverie: "Hey, man!"

Sonny kept ogling the larger-than-life poster.

"Hey--" Alfred said, grabbing his arm, "you got any protection?"

"Huh?"

"You don't want to knock her up, do you?"

Sonny shook his head as if it were on a ball and socket joint.

"That can happen, you know. Even if it's your first time. I heard Dion got some chick pregnant once."

"Dion?!"

"Yeah, even the king screws up sometimes."

"Did she have the kid?"

"Hell, no! Dion is way too cool to let that happen.

"She have an abortion?"

"Unh-unh. She's too seriously Catholic."

Sonny looked perplexed. "What'd they do then?"

"Dion kept punching her in the stomach whenever he saw her."

"Punching her! In the stomach? Really?"

"Yeah, but you know--he was gentle and all--careful not to hurt her."

"What happened?"

"One day she dropped it."

"Dropped what?"

"The kid, man. She had a miscarriage."

"God!" Sonny evaluated the story. "Aw, that's bull shit!"

"Swear to God, man! Dion told me himself."

Sonny stood in shock. "Jeezuz!"

"Yeah. Dion definitely did not want to be a father." Alfred waited until Sonny had completely absorbed the significance of the deed.

"He killed his own kid?!"

Alfred considered the question as if for the first time. "Yeah, I guess he did, didn't he. At least that's what the church tells us, doesn't it?"

"Isn't Dion Catholic?"

"I think so. He goes to church sometimes, but maybe only for the chicks."

Sonny walked in contemplative silence for nearly a block. "Do you think Dion will wind up going to hell?"

"Probably. The guy lives in mortal sin." Alfred grinned at Sonny. "You and he can play some hot football there together."

Sonny tried to laugh but could not because of the story, his plans, and the many years of religious schooling that had conditioned his mind.

"So anyway, Sonnius, you see what I mean?"

"What?"

"You've got to get yourself some protection from the stork, man." Alfred was dropping his words like little bombs. "You've got to get some rubbers, man--if you're going to be a fuckster--and not a father."

Sonny was jolted. Alfred merely nodded, waiting for the fullest implosion possible in Sonny's mind. "You have a responsibility now to prevent a twenty-year long responsibility later."

"Wow!" Sonny whispered. "I never thought of it like that." His mind raced to figure some way to avoid the impending dilemma. He looked imploringly at his friend. "You got any, Alfie?"

"Any what?"

"Any condoms, man! What in hell we talkin' about here?"

Alfred stared at him, even revealing rare embarrassment at such a question having pinned him. He quickly snapped an answer to prevent any further enquiries into his secret life, a life he had carefully guarded for all of his sixteen years. "Sure. Sure, I do, man--but I'm not going to give you any of my stash." He was nearly shouting. "You're going to have to buy one for yourself."

The last few words took Sonny's breath away. His tongue waggled dumbly, and his eyes looked trapped like those of a cornered animal. He could only whine. Alfred laid his arm over his shoulder. Walking him down the sidewalk, he counseled his pal with silkysoft words about the ease of the procedure that lay ahead of them. "Now, look, Sonner--you're much too young to be a father. You know that, right?"

"Right!" Sonny nodded and shuddered.

"So compare the long misery of teenage fatherhood with the short terror of buying a rubber."

Sonny considered the comparison.

"No comparison, right?"

Sonny nodded absently. "What? No. Yeah, I guess I have to buy one."

"Come on with me, my man." Alfred led his friend to a drugstore. When they stepped to the door, Sonny faltered. "Come on, man. You'll find them near the cash register." Alfred pulled the novice through the door.

Sonny stopped and shot a curious look at him. "How do you know?" he said.

"I've seen them there many times."

Sonny eyed Alfred suspiciously. He knew his friend very well but had never known him to reveal the slightest knowledge of contraceptives.

Alfred yanked Sonny through the entrance and nudged him forward. "Go ahead," Alfred said, lagging behind. "Go on and get them."

The boys looked as if they were about to steal something as they ambled on an apparently aimless trip through the store. Like guardogs the storeclerks immediately started watching them. Noticing the unwanted attention, Sonny faltered, and then wandered over to a checkout stand. He was about to speak to a cashier, when Alfred saw his impending error and shouted to him in a hush. "Sonny! No!"

Sonny looked at him in confusion.

Alfred snapped his fingers in the direction of the pharmacy. "Over there--"

When Sonny acknowledged and veered in that direction, Alfred secured a position behind a toy rack and watched his friend walk across the store. Sonny shot another imploring look at him, but another snap of his pal's fingers moved him forward in his adventure. Plodding toward the target counter like a man walking his last mile, he stopped at nearly every rack and shelf to look over some meaningless item of merchandise that offered at least a pretense of serious attention: stuffed animals, stationery, shampoo, vitamins. But eventually he found himself near enough to the counter for the pharmacist to glance at him over his thick frame glasses as he was filling little bottles with pills.

"Can I help you, son?"

Sonny stopped stone still and dead silent, terrified because the pharmacist seemed to know his name.

The pharmacist looked at him. "Son?"

"Huh?" Sonny suddenly realized the nature of the ordinary appellation. "Oh, yessir. Can--could I...? The rest of the words, especially the crucial one would not leave his mouth. And to complicate the difficult situation further, an attractive young woman stepped to the counter next to him and smiled.

Sonny hesitated, stammered, and only squeaked out one word already offered: "Could--?" He was struggling to avoid total embarrassment but failing.

"Yes, yes?" the druggist asked shortly.

The woman stared at the boy.

"Could I have a pack of--of gum, please?" he stammered.

The pharmacist looked at him as if he were the stupidest person in the world. The woman looked at him with a similar attitude. The boy swallowed and stared at his shuffling feet.

"You'll find gum and candy and other kid stuff next to the checkout stands, young fella," the pharmacist said then turned his attention to the young woman with such puffed up cordiality that his cheeks shone. "And how may I help you, miss?"

"Th-thanks," Sonny said, wishing for sudden, spontaneous invisibility. He back-pedaled a few steps, bumping into a stand of vitamins that nearly crashed to the floor, and hurried in the direction opposite the pharmacy.

The druggist shook his head, and the woman smiled into her request, as Sonny darted to the candy rack, grabbed a pack of gum, paid for it, and rejoined Alfred, who had been observing his friend's fruitless antics.

"Well, did you get one? Let me see it?"

Sonny shook his head sheepishly.

"What happened, man?" Alfred was growing impatient with his friend's lack of bravado.

"Hell, I couldn't ask for them right there in front of that lady and all, Alf!"

"So--" Alfred glanced at the gum in Sonny's hand and asked, "what are you going to do with that--plug her up?"

Sonny frowned through an irrepressible snicker.

"Well, it won't work, man. You've got to use a rubber."

"Shhhh!" Sonny hissed. "I know, I know--" He strained with all his might to suppress a rush of giggles.

"Hell, you know nothing!" Alfred said. "Here--give me your money," he said while grabbing his arm with mock valor. "I guess I'll have to buy them myself for the little baby." Alfred delayed his action long enough for Sonny to take the bait.

He jerked his arm out of Alfred's grip. "No way, Alf! I can do it. Just let me go."

Other people in the store as well as the clerks had been noticing the boys' behavior with increasing annoyance. One clerk, who had the officious look of a store manager, started giving them the evileye. Spotting him and his threatening attitude, the boys straightened up and acted as if they were looking at kitchen utensils. When the attention subsided, Alfred continued his relentless pressure on his buddy to buy the condoms.

"Now, go back there and get them, Sonny. The lady is gone." Alfred nudged him. Complete your mission."

"Easy for you to say, Alfie. And what are you pushing me for? This was your idea, not mine."

"Yes, and lucky for you I thought of it or you'd be buying baby clothes in this store nine months from now. Anyway, you're the one in heat--not me. Now, go on and get it over with."

Sonny looked helpless in the face of Alfred's undeniably reasonable rhetoric. He had no recourse but to amble back to the drug counter and accomplish his task.

The pharmacist saw him coming back, folded his arms like a football tackle, looked over his glasses, and said, "What is it this time, young man? Gum drops?"

Sonny slipped down an aisle and surreptitiously surveyed various brands of condoms displayed on a rack. Then he mumbled some entirely inaudible words.

"What's that?" the druggist said.

Sonny cleared his throat and mumbled again only a little more loudly: "Excuse me, sir, but...."

A gleam shone in the druggist's eye as he realized the reason for the boy's strange conduct. "Yes, yes--" he said as he approached the boy and ostentatiously turned his head to him as if hard of hearing. "Speak up. I don't have all day--"

"Pro--" Sonny whispered loudly.

"Yes?"

"Pro-pha-lac-tics," Sonny breathed the syllables of the monster word as loudly as he dared into the man's ear.

"Oh, condoms!" the pharmacist returned in a full baritone which echoed off the clay pots and patio chairs that lined the store walls.

Nearly every person in the store turned to look at the pharmacist and the boy. But Alfred crouched behind a shelf of beach balls and examined them to keep from laughing out loud. Sonny looked around abashed then nodded to the druggist.

Staring at the humiliated boy with a jaded air the pharmacist prolonged the lad's agony. "Well, why didn't you say condoms in the first place, young man? Now, we have many different kinds of condoms to choose from. What size condom would you like--?"

Sonny looked like a thermometer about to explode. "Huh? Oh--I...."

"Just kidding," the druggist said with an impish grin.

Sonny tittered obligingly.

"What brand of condom do you prefer?"

"Uh--oh--" Sonny shook his head awkwardly. "I don't really care. Whatever--"

The druggist fondled a couple of packages on display. "Lubricated or non-lubricated condoms?"

Sonny began to tremble. He had not thought about lubrication. "Lub--" he coughed dryly, "lubricated--I guess."

"Reservoir tipped or non-reservoir tipped condoms?"

"What?" Sonny looked positively febrile.

The pharmacist scrutinized him up and down and said, "Hmmm--yes, I would say--reservoir tipped. Yes, that's definitely what you would need. Reservoir tipped condoms."

Sonny simply nodded as well as could for a boy about to disintegrate into a steaming mass on the floor.

"Fine." The pharmacist snatched a pack of condoms and said, "Now, how many condoms would you like today, sir?"

Sonny quickly surveyed the store to see if anyone was watching. Noticing that nearly everyone was watching with expectations of great entertainment to continue, he nodded hurriedly and spat out the words: "Just one, thanks."

Subdued but unmistakable snickering arose from the nearby aisles.

"One condom." The pharmacist simply stared at him again for some time. "Well, son, there are three condoms to a pack--of course."

"Of course." Sonny nodded like a marionette. Three are enough. One pack. Thanks."

"Then you want that pack right there--" The druggist pointed.

Sonny picked one.

"No. The other one. The red pack. Yes, that's the one.

Sonny carried the item at his side and covered it with as much of his hand as he could get around it. When he got to the counter, the pharmacist reached for it, but the boy would not give it up. "I have to scan it, young man--so you can pay for it and go on about your, uh, business. Give it here." Sonny slid the blood red pack of condoms across the counter and kept his head down.

The pharmacist put the item into a small white bag and handed it to Sonny, as he was fishing in his pockets for money. The pharmacist eyed him over his glasses with mock suspicion. After finally hooking onto a few dollars and coins, Sonny dropped them with a clatter onto the counter. When one coin started rolling to the edge, the druggist quickly stopped it with a slam of his hand. In a flash Sonny simultaneously grabbed the bag and hurried away from the counter.

"Wait a minute, young man!" the pharmacist nearly shouted.

Sonny froze. Had he failed to look old enough? Was he going to have to show his ID? Did the pharmacist know his mother? Damn! He returned to the counter and started to search for some kind of identification.

The medicine man merely smiled and whispered for dramatic effect. "You have change coming."

The boy palmed the money and uttered a meek "Thanks." Then he walked as casually as he could for one who wanted to fly out of the store. The pharmacist grinned broadly as he returned to work on his abundant bottles of pills. Obviously such incidents made light his often-dreary day.

Sonny scurried out the door and howled, "Wow!"

Alfred right behind him shrieked with harmonious delight. They sounded like a couple of tomcats heating up a backyard fence in early spring.

"I do not believe what a hard time that guy gave me, man!" Sonny said.

"All part of the price you pay for a good piece of ass," Alfred said. "All part of the cost, man."

As they continued down the boulevard, they were shaking with excitement.

"Like he was giving me his own private test or something," Sonny said. "God...!"

"God had nothing to do with it, Sonnius. You handled it like the mighty stud you are about to become. I'm proud of you!"

As good fortune breeds upon itself, a pair of girls came strolling down the sidewalk toward the boys. Although they spotted them simultaneously, Sonny sounded his mating-call voice: "Hail to thee, thou damsels of desire!" he said with a flourish. Where would you be goin' this fine day?"

Alfred laughed raucously, and the girls echoed him as they walked past. Sonny, as full of success in this preliminary to a virginity-busting event as he was full of himself, marched down the sidewalk, looking for damsels to win and giants to battle. Windmills alone would not do for this hymeneal warrior with his faithful sidekick who was squiring him to sexual satiety. They had to be giants. "Victory in your first mission, my man," Alfred said. "But you know the campaign has only begun. You've got the major emission coming up fast in the near future."

Sonny nodded with further self-approval and continued to exude bravado.

"You realize your manhood is at stake in this frolic you have initiated," Alfred said. "You have to handle it right."

Sonny nodded again but was too pumped up for any anxiety such a comment would normally provoke to deflate him.

"And if you do, then one spring night--soon, Sonnius--you will taste the sweet sin that young Augustine knew so well."

Sonny laughed heartily at his pal's wit. "You know, man--you'd make a great pimp."

"I've got too much respect for women."

"Yeah sure," Sonny said. Then, as if a seasoned swordsman, he became condescending. "So how 'bout it, Alfie?"

"How about what?"

"When you gonna get yours?"

Alfred sobered and said, "Hell, I don't need to get any tail, Son. I'm getting a good kick out of watching you go through the mating motions."

"Well, just don't get any ideas about watchin' them through my bedroom window." Sonny gave him his best glowering stare.

Alfred started to shake his head automatically in denial of such an activity then stopped and thought about it. "Hey! That's not a bad idea. I could sneak...."

Sonny slugged his arm, and Alfred feigned serious injury. Sonny threatened to batter him again, when his buddy zipped ahead, spun around, and taunted him. "Come on, man! Let me see what you've got!"

Sonny darted after him, but Alfred danced out of reach. "Help, police!" he cried. "A maniacal fiend is attacking my person."

Sonny tried to grab him but missed. They laughed loudly and stumbled down the sidewalk along the boulevard to their irresistible future. The noise of traffic flowing in both directions like a surreal river of gigantic beetles rendered their whooping and hollering inaudible, yet their laughing faces revealed all they had on their minds.

19

On the weekend, Sonny was temporarily distracted from his planned escapade with Lela. He was expecting the other missing part of his parents, the rarer part, to visit him for the day and stay for dinner. In the living room, he was watching through a front window for a long time. He got excited when he saw a red sports car swing into the driveway. The top was down; a man was driving. Sonny ran to the front door.

"Sonny, your father's here!" his grandmother called from another room.

"I know, grana," he said as he flung open the door and leaped outside, and jumped into wave. "Hi, dad!"

A lean, handsome man with dark hair stepped out of the car. He looked like a movie star. Wearing gray gabardine slacks and a flowered shirt, he smiled suavely and waved back at the boy. "How ya doin', son? You look great!"

Sonny shrugged and grinned awkwardly at the man he resembled. His father walked over and stood in front of him. He too looked awkward but was more accomplished at hiding it. He extended his hand. Sonny looked at it and extended his own, and they shook hands as if meeting for the first time. The boy tittered and dropped his hand like a lead weight, and they stood looking at each other in silence.

"Oh," his father sputtered, "I nearly forgot--I brought you something, Sonny." He went back to the car and lifted a box out of the back seat. "Something I think you'll really enjoy." He handed the box to Sonny.

The boy stared at it as if expecting a clown to jump out of it. "Here," his father took back the box. "You can open it in your room."

"Oh, yeah," Sonny said. Pivoting, he ran to the door.

His father followed jauntily.

In his bedroom, Sonny tore open the box and found a dartboard: a two-inch thick black circle of compressed paper with wires framing colored rays spreading from the center. He had only seen such a thing in sporting goods stores. "Cool!" he burbled.

"I got it overseas," his father said, his brown eyes sparkling. "It's a very popular game in England. Here, let me show you how to play." He hung the board onto a hook on the closet door, removed darts from a box, stepped back, and pumped his arm with a dart. "You see--to start the game you've got to get your first dart in that outside ring." He flicked the dart at the board. It stuck in the outer ring. "Hey, there, you see--I haven't lost my touch. Now, we mark a paper with two columns: one for you, one for me. We start with five hundred points each and work our way down with points on the board. The first one to reach an even zero wins."

"Even?" Sonny asked.

"When you get close to zero you have to hit the right numbers to subtract the right amount. Here, let's play." His father handed a dart to him. "See if you can get one into that outer ring, Sonny."

Sonny threw a dart at the board as if trying to drive it through the wall. The dart sank up to its nub into the board far from the outside ring. "Hey!" his father laughed. "Take it easy, son. Just a little wrist. Like this." Again, he flicked a dart and this time hit the center. "See? I get fifty points off my five hundred for that. Here, try again."

Sonny took another dart and tossed it at the board. It bounced off impotently and stuck in the floor. He fell onto the bed in helpless laughter. "How do you keep from hitting all those wires on the board, dad? There are more wires than board."

His father laughed too and said, "Expert placement, but sometimes it can't be avoided. Don't worry--you'll get the hang of it with a little practice." He flung another dart for another high subtraction. "Then you'll be as good as your old man."

They played together late into the afternoon, laughing like a couple of old pals. His father stomped him ten times straight before Sonny nearly beat him.

"Well, time to go," his father said, "before my own son beats me."

"Are you going now, dad. Grana is going to fix dinner for you, for us--remember."

"I know, son," his father said uneasily, "but something's come up. I have to be somewhere this evening--an old friend I haven't seen in years wants to--needs to see me. You don't mind do you?"

"Oh, no--course not." Sonny struggled to keep poised. "Will you be back tomorrow?"

His father shook his head sadly. "No, I'm sorry, Sonny--I have to get back to work. Not much time in my life these days. But I'll write and let you know where I am."

Sonny could not conceal his disappointment as he studied the familiar pattern on the rug.

His father started to touch his shoulder but thought again and dropped his hand. "I'll see you again...."

"When?"

"Oh, I'll be back someday soon--as soon as I can. You know that. And we'll go to one of those amusement parks you like--down by the beach. How'd that be?"

"Great." Sonny had long been uninterested in amusement parks.

A silence froze the air between them. His father showed a big smile to break the ice but found it too solid and stepped for the door. "Walk me out?"

"Sure." Sonny followed him through the house.

Grandmother Rinehart saw them from the kitchen. "Aren't you gonna stay for dinner, Nick?" She had expected this.

Sonny's father whirled and waved to her. "No, Mother Rinehart--I'm sorry, but I can't." He was hurrying to leave. "I--I have to...."

"He has to go see a friend, grana," Sonny said.

Grandmother stood arms akimbo and shaking her head as she watched the two leave the house, the son trailing the father like a devoted dog.

In front of the house, Sonny waved his father down the driveway and watched the little red car roar up the street, his father waving back. "See you soon!" he shouted. The boy started to shout into his father's disappearance but gave it up as futile. Sure, dad. He felt a warm hand on his neck. He looked around and saw his grandmother's face looking at him and smiling. "He'll be back to see you again soon, Sonny."

"I guess so, grana. I guess he always does--once in a while."

"Sure he does." She put her arm around him and led him back into the house.

Grandfather was just then driving into the driveway. He parked in the garage and hurried into the house. Finding his wife he asked, "That Nick I saw passing me on the street?"

Grandmother nodded and looked as though she did not want to talk about it.

"I thought he was staying for dinner."

Sonny came out of his room. "He couldn't."

Grandfather looked at him sympathetically and put his arm around him. "Too busy, eh?"

Grandmother clucked at him. "Now, let's not get into it, daddy. Wash up for dinner."

Grandfather patted the boy on the back with his rough, dirty hand and obliged his wife.

After the meal, Grandfather Rinehart looked at Sonny as if sizing him up for a dangerous expedition to Borneo. "We're going away next weekend, Sonny." He slugged his coffee. "We're driving down to Riverton to see Aunt Alice next Saturday--"

Sonny cringed at the thought of such an excursion. Old Aunt Alice presided with her ancient husband in a musty old house that reeked of medication and cleaning fluids. One of the boy's most dreaded moments in life was when he heard the mention of that elder aunt's name in connection with a long car trip. He hated the journey to Riverton: the growling tide of traffic, the endless dreary highway, mile after mile of ugly industrial buildings, the smog hanging in the air like poison gas, the hot car. He thought frantically for some excuse to escape the hellish journey, but as usual he could think of nothing. Then with his head bowed in abject dismay at the inevitable prospect of death by boredom in a house of old relatives, he heard words of salvation, words hitherto undelivered to him from his grandfather's mouth.

"Can I trust you to hold the fort till we get back?"

Hold the fort--! Sonny could not believe his ears. He dared not look into their faces. Could he have heard what he thought he had heard? Till we get back. For the first time in the boy's short life, the plural pronoun his family used did not seem to include him. A smile began to force its way into his face. He resisted its widening with every muscle in his being. To reveal any delight at being left to fend for himself in an atmosphere of intoxicating freedom, to show his elation at such an opportunity would threaten to destroy the chance for an event considered an adolescent paradise--home alone. He had to feign some kind of convincing regret; he had to utter just the right words that would seal this wonderful chance for liberty. Looking at them--one to the other--with as much sincerity as he could enact he said, "Oh, oh, that's too bad." He had overdone it.

His grandmother leaped on his words. "You can come with us if you want."

Oh, no! Had he with one short, stupid sentence blown his first golden opportunity to be master of his domain?

"We won't be home till late," his grandfather said.

Late? How late? Sonny was about to blurt out the question that could reveal the plans forming in the back of his mind. He could not help it. He was too excited. "How late?"

"Late that night," his grandmother said as if reading his mental processes.

"Late," Sonny echoed, unable to contain himself.

His grandmother dropped synthetic sweetener her coffee, eyed him, and then turned to her husband. "Oh, Henry, I'm not sure we should leave him here--all by himself."

Sonny stiffened and held his breath.

"Shouldn't we take him with us?" she asked.

Sonny blanched and knotted his fingers under the table. He felt like putting them together and praying to heaven.

"Phooey!" his grandfather exclaimed. "The boy needs to learn to be responsible."

Sonny nodded emphatically and said, "That's right." Again, he had pushed his luck. His heart stopped.

His grandfather eyed him suspiciously but made nothing of it except to say: "After eleven, Sonny. Maybe midnight."

Midnight! The word echoed magically in his mind. He was nearly out of control. "That's great!" he said too loudly.

His grandparents both looked as if about to put him under a bright light and interrogate him.

"I mean that's great that you feel you can trust me," he said.

Their suspicion continued.

"I know you can," he said with as mature a look on his face as he could manage.

Silence froze the air. The momentum could have turned against the boy at any second.

"You can, you really can" he tried to clinch his opportunity. "You can trust me." But he knew he was only wasting words.

They both stared at him for interminable moments.

"Now you stay home," his grandmother said over her waving finger. "Don't invite any of your friends into the house while we're gone. Understand?"

He nodded, breathless.

She was unsatisfied.

"Sure. No. Of course I won't." He shook his head emphatically.

She was still not satisfied and was becoming increasingly worried.

"Oh, Tilly, shush!" her husband said as he remembered his coffee. "The boy's nearly a man. He's...."

"He's only fifteen, father!"

"I'm nearly sixteen," Sonny added.

"Yes, and it's time he put away the things of a child and took up the ways of a man." Grandfather set the cup down loudly on its plate to emphasize his message. The dish rattled on the saucer.

Sonny started and thought that his best strategy now would be to escape the table. Without another word, he dutifully took dishes to the sink and put them into the dishwasher. Then he discretely slipped away to his bedroom. There he strained to hear the last of their words that would grant his passionate wish to be left to his own desires.

"Oh, you and your sayings." grandmother muttered.

"Yes, my sayings. They're good enough for the Bible, so they're good enough for me," grandfather retorted.

In their duet of words they carried on like two cackling crows in the walnut trees, till Sonny tuned them out and sat at his desk; he was confident that unless he heard otherwise, he would actually be left alone for the first time in his life. About time! His own face in the lamplighted window seduced him. He looked at his phantasmal image darkly encircled in the glass and grinned impishly at his racing thoughts. Lela, you're mine! He stood up like a young god and fell upon his bed in surrender to pure joy.

He watched the evening darken his room; then he crept through the house to snatch the telephone. His grandparents had retired to the living room to watch television. The boy disconnected the phone as quietly as a thief and started to take it to his room.

"Now, don't be on that phone all night, Sonny," his grandfather said. He seemed to have a sixth sense for knowing when Sonny was absconding with the telephone.

"I won't," granpa.

"Have you done your homework?" his grandmother added.

"Yes, grana--all done." He slipped into his room, plugged in the phone, and quickly punched the buttons. While shutting the door, he listened. "Lela?" He smiled in anticipation of hearing her delicious voice.

Lela picked up the phone in her room and lay on her canopy bed. "Hi, Sonny!" she said with genuine enthusiasm. "I was wondering if you were going to call me tonight."

"Oh, yeah, well--I have great news!

"News?"

"Well, actually, I have a proposal to make."

She laughed and rolled over to look at the pink fringes along the canopy. "Thanks anyway, Sonny, but you're too young to get married."

"Oh, I don't want to marry you."

"Thanks a lot!"

"I mean I would like to marry you but...."

"But your mommy won't let you."

"No, well, yeah, she probably wouldn't like it much, but that isn't what I wanted to say."

Silence hung between them like a bad connection.

"Well, what did you want to say?"

"Yeah, well, my grand--my parents are leaving for the weekend and I thought you or we could--"

"Could what, Sonny? See them off at the airport?"

"No, they're not flying. They're driving."

"So what do you want us to do---wave good-bye to them from your driveway?"

"No, you--we don't have to see them at all."

"Don't you want to introduce me to them?"

"No."

"So you're ashamed of me." She enjoyed teasing him; he was so easy to tease.

"No, not at all, but...."

She laughed her junglebird laugh and said, "I'm only kidding. So tell me--what's up?"

"They're going away this weekend and won't be back till late, so we--"

"We what?" She was ruthless.

"We, well, I dono--maybe we could...."

"Make love?"

He gulped and nearly dropped the phone. "Uh, yeah--sure--I mean, if you want to."

"Where--in your house?"

"Yeah."

"Right there in your own house?"

"Well, yeah--you wanna doncha? You said...."

"I know what I said but I don't know about your house. Where? In your bedroom?"

"Yeah!" He was getting excited. Thoughts of sexual depravity were swirling through his mind like rabbits on a spring meadow. "Yeah, in my bedroom--if that's okay."

Another long silence stretched between them till it nearly snapped.

"Sure--" There was a hint of disappointment in her voice that Sonny in his delirium did not catch. "But what if your parents come home right in the middle of it?"

"They won't. I told ya--they'll be gone till late."

"Late? How late?"

"All weekend." He felt only a lie would convince her.

"Okay."

"Okay?" He could not believe it.

"Yeah, okay--I'll come over.

"Great!"

"When?"

"This weekend--Saturday night--"

"I--

He stopped breathing and his heart fibrillated with fear that she had something else to do, another date. And that could be the only chance he would have for months, maybe years.

"I guess I can come over Saturday. What time?"

"After dark?"

"What time is that?"

"I dono--eight maybe. Nine."

Another silence strained the moment.

"Okay!" she said suddenly perky. "I'll be there about eight thirty."

"Great! I'll be there too."

She cackled. "Well, I hope so. I don't have a key to your house. And I don't like making love alone."

He tittered and fell speechless.

"So--see you then, huh?"

"Yeah, see you then, Lela. Bye." He threw the telephone into the air and caught it before she could return the farewell. "Lela? Oh, I'm sorry--I dropped the phone." He listened and smiled. "Till then." He carefully hung up then threw his head back onto his pillow and howled.

She stared into the canopy as if it were the sky. The last remains of a smile disappeared from her pretty face. She only stared and studied the pink fringes of the canopy for a long time as if counting them to make sure they were all there.

20

A warm moon illumined with silverlight the spring night. The gray limbs and the new leaves on the walnutrees cast mercurial shadows onto the front yard. A metallic monochrome imbued the entire garden beneath a soft, glowing sky. Sonny was walking down the driveway through the silvery shadows that flickered across him like phantoms. He stepped to the front gate, where the chainlink fence appeared luminous, as if charged by moon magic. After passing through the open gate, he looked up and down the street. Seeing no one, he lowered his eyes apprehensively and stepped beneath a tree. He stood there waiting restlessly.

Near the fence, orange blossoms mimicked the moon like white moths among the dark shiny leaves. Their sweet scent tingled his sense. He moved close to the orange trees and waited among them. Behind him the sprawling house lay dark, but the silverlight so limned the edges of the roof that it appeared to be set in a fairy tale. He glanced across the street at the lighted windows of neighboring houses. He fidgeted. His white T-shirt seemed to phosphoresce, and his eyes looked like polished pewter. Again he stepped out on the driveway to look up and down the street but saw nobody. He stepped back among the trees and waited. He looked at the moon now farther westward by its position among the leaves. He looked at its face as he liked to look at the setting sun. The pearlescent satellite appeared illusory in the night sky like a mere projection into space to fool the eye yet signify the night.

He looked again at the street. In his fertile mind, it had become a stream of sparkling water flowing through a quiet meadow. Even in the darkness, he could see flowers in the meadow grass. Beyond the field, he could see no houses, only dark dense forest. Peering into the wood, he glimpsed the faint figure of a naked nymph. Stepping cautiously out of the grove she meandered through the grass to the stream. Bending down she drank of the clear water like a doe. Sonny unconsciously moved toward her and scraped a rock beneath his foot. She looked up, stared right into his eyes, and smiled. He was about to go to her, his arms outstretched, when a sudden breeze swept mist along the stream and filled the lea. Both the trees and the nymph disappeared. And when the mist cleared, she was gone.

He was downcast. Glancing over his shoulder he again scanned the street. Nobody in the moonlit distance. She won't come. Who'm I kidding? He turned away slowly and started to trudge back to the house. Then he heard footsteps on the pavement: a sound of shoes softly padding behind him. He stopped and listened, his blood surging. Peering around the gate, he saw a dark female figure alone in the moonlight.

She stopped in front of the driveway, looked into the silvery darkness, and called out in a hushed but melodious voice: "Son-ny? Sonny--are you there?"

He nearly jumped out of the shadows. "Lela!"

She gasped, jumped back, and laid both hands across her breast like a frightened maiden. "Oh!" Sonny--you just about scared me to death."

Standing before her he said, "God--I'm sorry." Then he raised his hand foolishly and said, "Hi." as if he were a crossing guard.

She giggled, jumped against his chest, and kissed him. "Hi, yourself--silly boy." Hanging both arms around his neck, she gazed into his surprised face.

He could see the moon in her eyes. They stood there looking at each other in a sensual aura and felt their bodies become tumid.

"Are you getting one of those cramps of yours?" she asked playfully.

"No." His teeth flashed in a grin. "Well, yeah, actually, I am. How 'bout you?"

She ignored the question. "Well, holy virgin school boy--what now?" Her coy grin was barely discernible but radiated allure.

He sputtered, "We--well, I, er, you--you wanna go inside?"

"Sure." She laid her hand on his buttocks and followed him to the house. "You going to carry me across the threshold?"

He chuckled unsure of her seriousness. He tried to take charge of the situation, but his awkward gait and his quivering shoulders betrayed his insecurity. He started to pick her up.

She laughed exotically and said, "I'm just kidding! Well, maybe some day, huh?

Certain that she thought him but a child, he yanked open the garage door. It flew out of his grip, nearly clipped his chin, and slammed against the frame with a clattering, rattle-bang. Lena jumped back and peered into the garage.

Seeing an old car parked inside, she asked, "Who's car?"

"Mine--well, actually it's my grand--my folks'. But I can drive it."

"You drive? But I thought you were only...."

"Yeah, I drive it. Well, only up and down the driveway for now--but I'm getting my license--in a few weeks."

"Then we can go on a real date, huh?"

He could not see if she was grinning warmly or wryly but he said "Yeah." anyway.

The garage was dark as a cave, so he led her to the door to the house.

Stumbling when she reached the steps, she cried, "I can't see!"

He took her hands to help her but stumbled himself. And when they entered the small hallway to his bedroom, she bumped against him at the door. "Sorry," he said.

Moonlight shone slightly in his room, but it was too dark to see clearly.

She stumbled over a chair. "You better turn on a light, Sonny," she said, peering around the room. "I can't see a damn thing."

"No!"

"No?"

"I mean I can't. The neighbors could see--"

She smiled and looked at him. "Are you ashamed of me?"

"No!"

The metal on her teeth glinted in moonlight streaming through the window above the drawn curtains, and her eyes were radiant.

"Besides," he said, "it's more romantic this way, isn't it?" He embraced her the way he had seen movie stars do love scenes.

They stood still together and simply looked at each other for a long time. He looked boyishly dumb, but his eyes were glittering like Pan's. She giggled warmly, threw her arms around his neck, and peppered him with kisses.

"You're so cute," she cooed.

He chuckled.

"Got anything to drink?" she asked.

"Sure. Whaddya want--coke?"

She giggled. "Got anything stronger than coke?"

He stared at her shadowed face with a question in his eyes.

"You know," she said, "booze--hooch!"

He tittered. Then realizing she was not joking, he pretended to have been joking himself. "I meant coke and, and--vodka."

"Coke and vodka!"

"Yeah."

She chuckled. "Wine will be fine."

"Wine? I, I don't think we have any wine, but...."

"Beer?"

"No. I mean we have some, but my grand--my parents might miss it if I opened a bottle."

"Well, what have you got, Sonny boy, besides coke and vodka?"

"Uh--whiskey, vodka, gin--stuff like that."

"Okay, okay--vodka. I'll take vodka--I guess."

He stared at her till she tilted her head in a questioning manner. Then he spun away from her arms and said, "Back in a flash." And he darted into the hallway.

"Don't be long," she warbled as she peered around the room. She stared curiously at the vague figures of cowboys on the wallpaper. She gazed up at the shadowed aircraft hanging from the ceiling. She looked down at the floral pattern in the rug, smiled, and waited in the moonlit darkness.

Running into the kitchen Sonny slipped and nearly fell on the linoleum floor. "Damn!" he said. Bopster chirped sharply. But the boy managed to stay on his feet till he reached the cupboards. He searched in the dark among several bottles, making them clink and clank against each other like bells. Placing his nose nearly on them, he found one, scrutinized it closely in the dim light, and discovered it full of a clear liquid. Vodka. He grabbed at a glass from an upper cupboard. The glass fell from his grip, but he juggled it and brought it under control right before it hit the floor. He placed his finger for memory on the level of the liquor in the bottle and filled the glass to the brim. Then he ran some tap water into the bottle and returned it to its home.

Trying to keep the liquor from sloshing out of the glass, he rushed back to his bedroom. There he handed it to Lela, nearly spilling it on her. "So much!" she said as she sniffed the contents and squealed: "Gin! Ugh! I hate gin!"

He shrank and blushed, glad for the darkness.

"Oh, all right," she moaned. Shrugging her shoulders, she took a sip. Her face screwed up as if she had tasted poison, but she forced a swallow down her gullet and gasped.

"Are you okay?" Sonny asked anxiously.

She bent forward and did not answer.

He started to panic. "Lela--are you...?"

"I'll let you know--" she whispered hoarsely, "as soon as--as I catch my breath." She handed him the glass. "You--better help me--with this. I can't drink--a gallon of hard stuff straight--all by myself."

"Okay," he said with as much bravado as he could fake. Through a protracted smile, he swallowed some of the acerbic liquid with pretended ease. But he could not help shivering and gagging with disgust. She giggled. He echoed her. They said nothing for a few moments but simply grinned at each other in the half-light like a couple of mischievous children tasting forbidden fruit and breathless from the adventure.

"May I sit down?" she asked in the way of a courtesan.

"Oh, yeah, sure--sit," he said and pulled out his desk chair.

But she dropped onto his bed and peered around the dark room. She gazed up again at the model airplanes outlined in moonlight. She smiled and asked, "You wanna be a pilot?"

"Well, I...."

She rubbed her belly and said, "Mmmm--my tummy feels warm. Here," she said, taking his hand, "feel."

He let her place his hand beneath her breasts and tittered.

She patted the bed and said, "Here--sit beside me. I won't bite--well, maybe a little." And she laughed her wild laugh.

He giggled again and bounced his butt on the bed next to her, nearly spilling her drink. They traded more sips and gasps and gradually moved closer to each other.

"Your parents aren't home," she whispered.

He nearly choked. "No. No, they won't be back till late tonight."

"Tonight! I thought you said they'd be gone for the weekend."

"Well, they'll be back so late, it'll be tomorrow morning--practically."

She seemed to accept this explanation. "Well, good--then we're alone. She snuggled up to him. "So they leave you by yourself, eh? God, I wish my parents had left me alone when I was your age. On the other hand maybe that wouldn't have been a good idea." She laughed.

He nodded and grinned self-consciously. He felt bad about deceiving her about his grandparents, but he also felt that this prime opportunity to relinquish his virginity was too priceless to lose on a technicality. He knew she would have to think no adults would be in the house for the significant future, especially since only that would make her feel secure enough to doff her clothes.

He was right. Smiling in her inimitably seductive way, she embraced him. They locked into a long kiss that ignited their flesh. She started to pull him down onto the bed with her, and started to melt with her but remembered the glass resisted. "Wait!" he said.

"What?"

He got up, put the glass on the desk, and, hunched over, he returned to the bed.

She received him with open arms and cooed: "Here, I'll make it all better." She pulled him down on top of her. As slowly as the passing moon, they lay upon the bed, resumed the embrace, and enveloped each other in carnal commitment. He closed his eyes and fed upon her mouth. He tried to devour her in one gaping kiss, but she kept looking at him amusedly.

But when he touched her breast, she immediately unbuttoned her blouse and put his hand on her bosom. Her bra blocking him, he struggled to release her two peaches from their cottony baskets but he was too inexperienced to make the disconnection. So she unfastened it with flicks of her fingers. Meanwhile, they held their carnivorous kiss. And when her breasts were freed and fell softly into his trembling hands, he held them and gazed at them as if precious prizes for his ardor. Then he dropped his face to her chest and moaned like a little boy seeking his mother's comfort. His heart was thumping into his throat. She took his head tenderly in both her hands and held his face close to hers, so close the downy hair on their cheeks touched. Her eyes filled with affection. Now she looked like a Madonna, however profane, in the classic glow of spring moonlight. Da Vinci would have been breathless at the sight of her. When Sonny slid his hand over her satiny belly, she drew in her breath like a quiet breeze in his ear.

In trying to unfasten, unzip, and remove her tight pants, he again defaulted to his naiveté. And again she deftly helped him. And into their continual kiss, she laughed sweetly as if at a puppy. Indeed, he was beginning to pant like a dog. He renewed his attachment to her mouth and pulled at her clothes. She pulled at his. His shoes thudded onto the floor. Immediately they were flinging their clothes around the room till they lay naked together, except for his white socks. Miraculously their lips never parted throughout the entanglement, even when she pulled him onto her lithe and luxurious body.

"Wait!" she cried into his mouth.

"What?"

"Do you have anything?"

"Any what?" he mumbled into hers.

She pulled her face from his with a sucking sound. "You know--condoms."

He froze a moment, his lips still puckered. Then, eyes popping, he said, "Oh--oh, yeah! I've got them." He jumped up and spun around to his desk to keep hidden the hard evidence of his masculinity, even though it was too dark in the room to see anything but shadows. Stumbling over his chair, he yanked out the desk drawer and frantically fingered through its contents from the front to the rear of the drawer.

In the dim background on the bed, Lela's bare body lay waiting like that of an odalisque. The smile on her face was obscured, but her body fairly glowed and the narrow triangle of fur at the union of her thighs seemed like a night-blooming flower.

When Sonny's fingers finally found their object, he held the small square package to the moonlight.

"You found it?" she said with tickled voice.

"Uh-huh."

"Well, hurry up, silly--"

He tore open one packet. A drop of liquid dripped from it, glistening in the light. He looked closely at the circular elastic thing.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Oh--nothing," he said as he tried to apply it to his still fervent extension and simultaneously hurry back to her. He tugged and stretched it.

A snap stunned the air.

"Ah, shit!" he exclaimed.

She raised her head off the bed. "What happened?"

"It broke!"

"What broke?"

"The damn thing broke on my--"

She tried vainly not to giggle through her words. "Well, you have another one, don't you?"

"Yes, yes--I have more."

"Well, put one on and hurry. I'm hungry for you."

More excited than ever, Sonny tore open the second packet. Putting it on gingerly, he succeeded with it intact and crawled back onto her. She drew him to her. He again locked his mouth onto hers like a suckerfish. Then moving to find the right position, his hips swayed and his buttocks bobbed above her belly. Reaching between his legs, she guided his jaunty rod to her rosy inlet.

"Therrre," she cooed.

He bore down on her as if drilling for oil.

Another snap cracked the ambience. She yelped.

"Aaaaw shit!" he shouted. Then he looked at her in alarm and cried, "God, I'm sorry, Lela. I think it broke too. You okay?"

She nodded abruptly to squelch her laughter and covered her mouth with both hands. "It's all right."

Jumping off her quaking body, he scrambled back to his desk for the third and last packet, tore it open with his teeth, slipped it on like a gigolo, and flew to her body. Again he sought the entrance into her holy of holies. Again she guided him. Again he bored into her. But she froze to contain her mirth. Then he froze. And that most dreaded occurrence for lovers had struck.

She looked at him blankly, as he gaped at her in rising terror at the thought of the worst possible outcome. But, yes, it was too late--too late for her anyway. Her body had lost its fluency. Nothing she could do about it. Nothing he could do. Her once warm, wet sexuality had degenerated into a clenched, chilling spell of irrepressible giggling. Sitting on his haunches between her legs, he simply stared pathetically at her quivering navel, her beautiful body jiggling like jelly. He sighed quietly and uttered forlornly the most ironic word possible at the moment--"Fuck."

"I doubt it," she said through her bursting laughter. Then, curbing her levity, she reached for him with a coincidental but impotent gesture of seduction. "Not now, I'm afraid. But it's okay, Sonny--I just lost the mood. I guess it wasn't meant to happen for us tonight. It's not your fault." She caressed his face.

He moved to bear down on her again.

"We can do it some other time," she said. "Okay?"

"Can't we try again--right now?" he asked woefully.

"No, Sonny--" she said while gently pushing him off her legs.

He folded at her feet.

She got up and gathered her clothes. "It doesn't feel right anymore. I'd rather wait till we feel excited about it again. You understand, don't you?" She looked at him with her big, soft doeyes.

He nodded with a sigh and watched her buttocks as she put on her pants, her breasts as she put on her bra. His eyes lingered longingly on her disappearing nakedness. She smiled at his sad look and pecked him lightly on the cheek. Fully dressed she stood in front of him, but he stayed seated crosslegged on the bed, still naked.

"Well--guess I'll go--" She waited for him to respond, but he only nodded. She too looked disappointed when she could not find his eyes. And when she stepped through the doorway to the garage, he was still sitting in the same place.

"Thanks for the drink," she said weakly.

He said nothing.

"See you--" She gave him one last imploring look then disappeared behind the door.

"See ya," he murmured.

"Night." Her last word faded with her footsteps falling more and more faintly down the driveway.

He only stared at the moonlight fading from the rug on the floor of his room and whispered, "Night." as if uttering a dirge. Then for several throbbing heartbeats, the world hung around him silent as death. He held his breath for a long time and entertained the thought of never breathing again. But a power beyond his self-absorbed despair forced him to gasp for air. He listened to his heartbeat louder than all the sounds of life around him, till it finally slowed to normal pace, and his mind grew as dim as the darkness in the setting moon. Then he tumbled into a restless sleep.

That night, if the Mother of God had shone on him from her throne in heaven, Sonny would have been dreaming. If Magdalene had smiled at him from the foot of his bed, he would have been dreaming. And if Lela had come back into his room, removed her clothes, and crawled into bed next to him, he would have been dreaming. He could have dreamed that night about all of those marvelous events, but when he awoke, for the life of him, he could not remember one of them.

Consummation and Confession

21

Morning sunlight was streaming through Sonny's bedroom window. He was lying on his bed with the telephone in one hand and a banana in the other. On his belly lay a small dish of chocolate sauce. On the radio, a voice was belting out a song. Sonny joined the voice in a raucous contrapuntal harmony: "Don't dance with him now, baby--oh, no--baby! I got blood on my mind...."

Laughter erupted through the phone receiver like the tinny crackling of a toy.

"Yeah, man--" Sonny said, "the second one broke, and then she didn't wanna do it anymore. She snapped out of it, but I didn't." Right when he dipped the banana into the sauce and took a big bite, he too started to laugh. For several seconds he struggled to keep from spitting chocolate banana soup all over his bedroom.

Alfred was watching a ball game on TV in his living room. "Come on man--tell me more," he said.

"Can't," Sonny spluttered, "I ga' a b'nana in my mouf." And he felt the soupy laughter about to burst through his nose. Finally, after much chomping, choking, and gulping he managed to swallow the sweet stew and recover his power of speech. "Nothin' more to tell, Alf--I just made a fuckin' mess of the whole damned affair."

"An affair to remember," Alfred said.

Sonny cleared his mouth with a three hundred and sixty degree sweep of his tongue, set the remains of the banana and the dish on the floor, and said, "Yeah, some rendezvous." He cleared his throat. "So listen, man--we gonna play football today or not? I feel like tearin' somebody apart."

"I thought you would be to worn out to...?" Alfred asked with a snicker.

"What would I be worn out from?"

"Oh, I don't know--maybe from all that snapping and popping." Alfred laughed.

"Snapping and popping. Sounds like I had a birthday party for her kid brother. Snapping and popping. I'd like to snap some necks and pop some heads."

"Sounds to me like maybe you ought to go to confession before you do anything violent--like playing football," Alfred said grinning.

"Confession! You kiddin? Dammit! I haven't done anything yet to confess. Sonny became lugubrious. "I'm too weak to be a saint and too weak to be a sinner. I'm good for nothin'. May as well head out to sea."

"Out to sea!"

"Yeah, find the Island of Forgetfulness."

Alfred muted the volume on the TV and contemplated his friend's words. "Naw, man--we got too much life ahead of us."

"Yeah, well, you just may see me passin' you on your way to shore someday soon, Alfie."

"Yeah, you had your chance to turn salmon. Now, it's my turn." Sonny laughed. His friend's humor usually lifted his mood, but Alfred wanted to make sure. "Hey," he said as casually as he could affect, "you're not going to do anything I wouldn't do, are you?"

"No, don't get a bug in your bean, Alf. I'm only pissed at myself. But I ain't gonna let some priest make me feel like a sinner when I haven't even sinned yet. I'll 'fess up when I have a nice big juicy one to take into the penitential closet with me for a change. Yeah. So--anyway--we gonna meet at the park or not?"

"Sounds good to me."

"When?"

"About two."

"Good." Sonny nodded with one or two grunted affirmations then, as he hung up the phone, he swirled the last of the banana into the shiny brown, viscous fluid and shoved the final huge piece dripping with sauce into his mouth. As he chewed slowly with deliberate savor, he stared out the window. His green eyes glittered in reflection of the full-blown walnut leaves hanging like harbingers of summer in the sunlight. It was another day.

***

One may think that Lela would lose interest in the callow Sonny, for as a ripened young woman she would more likely prefer the attention of sophisticated young men to adolescent boys. And one may think that Sonny, his failure at first fornication having humiliated him, would shy away from the very hint of Lela's perfume and instead seek seductive young women unknown and unknowing of his bumbling history in the bedroom. But one would be wrong on both counts. Despite their sensual preoccupation, they became even more involved and determined to see their relationship through to sexual satisfaction or fail for reasons beyond their control. Lela was the personification of lust to Sonny, and she valued him for thinking of her that way.

So when the couple met again for an erotic tryst, Lela took charge of the situation and made it happen for them. In fact, she made it happen several times in two different places: once in a display trailer on that famous lot on the boulevard and again in her own bedroom.

Her own bedroom! Sonny realized Alfred was right. Her parents hardly ever home, she felt completely comfortable lying with Sonny right there on the pink satin comforter of her canopy bed with the pink frills shivering around the top. Quickly getting used to prophylactic protection Sonny filled several reservoir tips with his silver bullets. Nonetheless, she enjoyed it as she would a thoroughly satisfying meal. Obviously she had done this before with countless other guys. Guys like Dion? Sonny wondered how she knew to use one of those display trailers. He thought to question her on the subject but thought better of it. She had told him that she knew Dion, that he was sexy and a heartbreaker--"a born heartbreaker". That the phrase she had used to describe him. Had she with him? Had they done it together? Had she been one of his conquests? Sonny would never know the answers to his questions; he did not want to know. Some things are best left unknown. People say that what one does not know cannot hurt one. In this case, Sonny found it so. In any case, he was no longer a virgin boy. His cherry had exploded. He was a sinner. And he was proud of his numerous bawdy deeds happily done. He would rerun them in mind like X-rated movies, and only thinking of them would bring his favorite body part to attention.

There was even more. Sonny and Lela were actually becoming friends--of a sort. Despite their vain carnal appetites, they got to know each other as persons. Even though he at first could not even take them out of the neighborhood, and she didn't have a car, that did not stop them; they often walked together on the street between their houses. They haunted the Tunnel of Love where they laughed licentiously and made nasty pictures out of hearts on the wall. One time Sonny even drew her portrait there in charcoal.

"You're not going to do me nude, are you?" she asked half-afraid others would see her depicted unclothed and half-excited about the idea.

"Sure, if you want me to. Strip."

She laughed her jungle cackle and watched him put her face on the wall as if she were a Madonna in a fresco. At first she thought he was kidding; then she thought he would not do her justice. Finally, while she observed him working, she realized he was actually making a work of art. When he finished the picture, she looked at it for a long time without saying a word. Sonny looked at her for a response, wondering if the portrait insulted her, but when he looked into her eyes, he saw the fluid sign of his success.

"Oh, Sonny--" she said with a quavering voice. "It's beautiful! I didn't know you are so talented."

He smiled and threw the charcoal down the tunnel. It shattered and slid along the concrete walkway. "I fool around."

"Fool around! No, you are really good. I'm surprised."

"You didn't think I could be good at something like this?" he asked in pursuit of more compliments.

"I had no clue--" she tittered and looked again into the back of his mind as if she had missed something in him. "Where did you learn to do this?"

"I like to look at paintings--stuff by people like Botticelli and Raphael and Da Vinci. And I draw a lot. It's fun."

"You are a surprise," she said with genuine admiration.

They stood quietly looking at the picture for several moments. She laid her head on his shoulder. He started to put his arm around her but only put his hand on her shoulder. They sat that way for a long time without uttering a word.

Unable to endure the continued silence Sonny felt compelled to change the mood. "Come on," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. "Let's get out of here."

She let him take charge for once, and they sauntered out of the tunnel into afternoon light. She kept staring at him as if at a stranger. Linking both arms around his drawing arm, she held him close and smiled. He looked at her and a warm surge of strength made him feel like a man walking with his beloved beside him. Anyone seeing them strolling confidently down the street that day would have thought they were a contented couple.

22

Behind thick crimson velvet curtains that enclosed the confessional, Sonny spoke in hushed and breathless tones through a barely transparent window. He hoped the confessor would not be Father Clark. He wanted to tell this delicious sin to a priest too old to be titillated, to someone like Father Daniel O'Donnell. Drawing himself up to his fullest bravery, he spoke: "Bless me, father, for I have sinned--"

"Tell me yer sins, me buy," an old musical voice answered from the adjacent cubicle. It was that of the snow-thatched Father O'Donnell, one of the kindly old breed that rarely existed among Catholic clergy. Sonny was a little relieved.

"Well, I, I--"

"Now, do not be afrraid, lad. Owerr heavenly fatherr is meerciful. So what be the nature of yer confession today?"

"I, I have lied, father."

"Yes, and how many times?"

"About, uh, six or seven." He lied.

"Yes?"

"And I have taken the Lord's name in vain--"

"Yes?"

"About twelve times."

"Yes?"

"Or more."

"Yes, yes, go on, me son."

"I...."

"Anything else?"

"Y-yes, father--" Sonny's heart thudded through a long pause. "I have--"

"Yes? You have done what?"

"Oh, yes--I have--"

"Yes?"

"I have been disrespectful to my gr--to my parents."

"Um. And what else?"

Sonny's heart was beating louder than a church bell. "And I have sinned--" He took a deep breath.

"Yes, yes--?"

"In, in the, er, the fl--the flesh, father," Sonny's voice hissed like a serpent's. Sweat began to bead at his temples. While the priest paused, the young confessor held his breath till he felt he would faint.

"How many times, lad?" the priest demanded.

"Only a few times, father."

"With yerself er with enotherr?"

"Oh, another," Sonny quickly rejoined.

"Buy er gerl?"

"Girl," the boy shot back hastily and loudly. He gulped and blushed, writhing with intense discomfort. God, why'd I let Alfie talk me into...?

"An' were yerr sins those of a speakin' kind er of--of the techin' kind?"

"Techin', touching."

"Kissin'?"

"Yes."

"An' pettin'?"

"Y--yes."

"An' did ye pit yer body against the body of this gerl, me son?"

Sonny's breathing seemed to him to have stopped completely, but his heart was pounding in his chest like a hammer on a gong to remind him he was still alive. "Uh, oh--y-yes, father."

Father O'Donnell waited as if to gather his own breath for the next weighted question. "And were ye unclothed, lad?"

"Y-y-yes."

Still no breathing between them, but a lot of pounding in Sonny's breast. Nonetheless, the silence of the church was unbearable, and the walls of the confessional seemed about to collapse around him.

People in the pews turned their heads and glanced toward the confessional. The faithful probably never overheard these unloading sessions, but any slight noise from one of the private little cubicles always aroused someone's profane desire to eavesdrop on the dirt. Then the old pastor dropped the bomb.

"An' did ye commit the sin of fernication with this gerl, me son?"

Sonny forced a swallow past his pounding heart but could not force an answer.

"Yes?" the old priest coaxed.

The boy waited till the last second before exploding then blurted out, "Yes!" as if coming up for air after being underwater too long. "Yes! I did!"

A long sigh issued from the priest. He paused interminably. When he did speak, he spoke solemnly but grandpaternally. "By that act, me buy, ye have placed yer immorrtal soul in grave dangerr of eterrnal damnation--ye realize that, now don't ye?"

"Yes, father."

"And ye also know that such--behaviorr must be strictly reserved fer the marital bed and the prrocrreation of childrren--don't ye?"

"Yes, father."

The old cleric seemed to be savoring his words, as his voice rose steadily in both volume and pitch. "Sexual relations between man and woman are to be enjoyed only fer the greaaterr glorrry of God."

"Yes, father," Sonny said meekly.

"The temptations of the flesh fall most fiverishly upon lads yer age, me buy--"

"Yes, father."

"Bit ye must resist 'em. And to resist them takes what may appearr to be will powerr of superrhuman proporrtions--Lord knows. But Jaysus knows well yer temptations, me buy. He too endured Satan's seductive allurre during His farty days and farty nights in the deserrt. Do ye rememberr yer catechism, me son?"

"Yes, father." Sonny strained to suppress an irreverent titter.

"And His chaste love for Meerry Magdalene can be an example fer ye."

"Yes, father." How did he...?

"Now--" The old priest coughed explosively and struggled to clear his throat. "Are ye sorrry fer yer sins, me buy?"

"Uh-huh."

Father O'Donnell fell silent.

Afraid the prodigious evil of his confession had fatally stricken the old priest, Sonny snapped a worried query into his answer: "Yes, father?!"

"And will ye strive to remain purre and chaste in boedy, mind, and sool as did the Lorrd ourr Saviorrr--Jaysus Christus?"

"Yes, father."

Father O'Donnell paused another moment and then spoke in a more formal tone. "Very well, then, me son--fer yer penance I want ye to say twenty-fer "Ourr Fatherrs" and twenty-ferr "Heil Meerrys". And ask Saint Ogostin to guide ye out of iniquity."

"Yes, father."

"Now then--say a verry good Act of Contrition, as I absolve ye of yer sins."

"Oh, my God," Sonny intoned solemnly in accord with his years of training in the Catholic religion, "I am heartily sorry for having offended thee...."

Simultaneously the old priest began mumbling: ""I absolve thee...."

They mumbled together to the end of their prayers and finished about the same time. Then kindly old Father O'Donnell imparted in a voice befitting a servant of God: "Go in peace, me son."

On the other side of the confessional window, an opaque wooden panel slid across and slammed to a stop with an immoderate smack. Sonny kneeled in darkness for a moment then hurried out of the cubicle. With head down, he slid into the nearest pew. People praying nearby glanced his way, but enveloped in his renewed sanctity he ignored them.

Bowing his head to his fingertips he persevered into his penance, whispering: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...." But by the time, he had gotten halfway through, he became eager to escape the church and so he speeded to the end. "...blessed be the fruit of thy womb--Jesus." Sliding out of his pew and genuflecting in front of the tabernacle, he left the church as quickly as he could while maintaining a respectful appearance.

When Sonny descended the church steps into bright afternoon sunshine, he was squinting the smile of the morally cleansed. His face appeared to beam back at the deific orb in the sky as if he had been beatified, so full of holy self-satisfaction was he. As nearly light of foot as airy of soul, he practically danced off the steps and sauntered down the sidewalk along the boulevard. He felt transfigured in the crystalline light that reflected off passing cars.

Trees along the way were swelling their bounteous foliage like viridian pompons cheering him beneath a cloudlessky. The hills around the valley had already gone to seed in their annual golden homage to the sun. The heat of the summer solstice lay heavily over the land like an Olympian spell, inspiring to the locust but sapping human energy. However, Sonny looked cool in spite of the season, as he swaggered down the sidewalk that rimmed his magnificent hilltop Kingdom of Euphoria. He had changed in church. He had definitely changed. His eyes, having lost their boyish look, now gazed confidently through the bright light surrounding him. Despite the heat, he was profoundly cool. A grin flickered across his mouth as if he were recalling an amusing story that elevated his mood. A preternatural high appeared to becalm him: the good feeling that comes from a good confession after a serious sin. Snapping his fingers once, he strutted down the street and headed home.

In front of his house he yanked open the mailbox and searched among the postal pile. Finding a letter from Ginny, his eyes flickered with uncertainty. Nonetheless he smiled, sniffed the letter, and looked over the envelope as he strode up the driveway. Above him the walnutrees were casting emerald shadows in dappled patterns over the yard, over the house, and over him. As he ran through the mottled shade, the filtered light strobed his body and made his motion erratic like a clown's in an old movie. Yet at that moment, despite his moves, he could easily believe himself about to become a superstar.

In his bedroom, he turned on the TV, spun around, and fell onto his bunk. Letting his head hang over the foot of the bed he started to read the letter. The silverlight of the television screen lightly irradiated the paper in his hand.

On the screen, in a drama a pretty brunette in close-up was talking about the way her parents had doted on her when she had been a little girl. She was speaking tearfully in a childlike but sensual way. "Once," she said, "when I was sitting in the driver seat of a big red fire engine, people all around were making such a fuss over my beauty. 'What a gorgeous little girl,' they would say, while I was sitting there, smiling, having my picture taken, and looking pretty the way my parents always taught me to look. I did not know what else to do, not then, not now. I never knew what else to do--but sit there and look pretty." Crying slowly overtook her smile.

Sonny upside-down looked at the screen, at the woman's pretty face, a face almost like Lela's--or Magdalene's, or even his mother's at a younger age. The pages of the letter bent over his hands on his belly. When the scene of the show changed, he brought the letter again to his eyes, and Ginny's light young voice formed the words in his mind, obliterating the spoken words coming from those on the show. The electrified light from the videotube flickered across the waving strands of his hair, as he read the letter.

June 15

Dear Sonny,

Sorry again for taking so long to write to you. I have just been so busy with school and all.

But it's over now, thank God! I don't know what I would do without summer vacation. Are you coming up to the mountains this summer? Let me know if you are coming because if you're not, I may be able to go down there to see my aunt--and you of course. She lives around a place called the Palisades. Do you know where that is? I hear it's beautiful--by the sea and all.

I sure do miss hearing from you, Sonny, darling. It's been an eternity, you know. Do you feel the same? The last letter I got I think was the one with that weird drawing you did. Was that you? God! That face was so scary--so it couldn't have been you. I remember you being so sweet and cute last summer. I'll never forget our dance.

I loved the poem. My brother says that you have a lot of talent in writing. Are you going to be a famous writer someday? I bet you will. I'll be so proud of you.

Oh, Sonny--I do so much want to see you again. I miss you big. Do you still think about me lots? I hope so. Please write to me again soon. I'm dying to see the ocean--and you. It'll be my first time there. Do you want to go to Disneyland with me?

Well, I gotta go do the darn dishes now. I hate them. And I hate missing you, darlin'. As always--

Love,

Ginny

Sonny was smiling when he finished the letter. After a pensive moment, he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out his wallet. Flipping it open, he stared at a photo of Ginny: a pretty girl with tawny hair, blueyes, and sweet lips that bowed in a smile like a ribbon. She looked like a bouquet of wildflowers. Ginny. He nearly said her name aloud. Then he closed his wallet and let the letter fall from his hand. He laid his head back again to watch the end of the television show. Yes, the pretty girl on the fire engine looked a lot more like Lela than Ginny.

23

Despite their differences of age and sophistication, Sonny and Lela lasted as a couple, even if a clandestine duo, for a few more weeks. Their hold on each other would have been shorter had he not gotten his driver license. That he could drive to Lela's house at night, pick her up, and take her to a secluded place to park in the hills overlooking the valley undoubtedly extended their relationship. Their affair nearly ended sooner than later, though, when he had to face her gargantuan father for the first time.

It was a hot summer evening like most summer, spring, fall, and some winter evenings in the valley. Only rare fog and millions of lawn sprinklers relieved the interminable sweltering. Sonny for the first time in his young life was sitting behind the wheel of his grandfather's old car driving on public streets. Having proven his virility on the body of a young woman, he would now, that he could legally operate a motor vehicle on the streets of Los Angeles, be initiated into manhood. He had passed out of childhood and, when he sat behind the wheel of a car, he was showing the world that he was ready for life. He pulled up in front of Lela's pink house, gunned the engine, and looked at the place. Not having braved the domain of the progenitors of the precious object of his lust before now, he stepped out of the car rather timidly and ambled up the walkway through lawn sprinklers that sprayed a fine cool mist all the way to her abode. Knocking as if afraid someone would actually answer the door, he stood back ready but rather hoping he had knocked at the wrong house. Something unmistakably ominous seemed to lie behind that massive oaken portal. He could sense it through the battered and smoke-stained screen. And it was not merely the silly TV gameshow jingle sounding from the building like a cheap music box. He feared that someone or something terrible lay inside that house.

The oak door creaked as it opened like a trap. Sonny tipped backward and nearly fell into a rosebush. Shadowed behind the screen stood a giant. Dressed curiously like a cartoon character he wore a freshly killed animal skin that covered part of his massive chest and dripped blood around his bulbous knees. In his hand, he held a club big enough to drop an elephant. He stared down at the boy with one big bloodshot eye, the other patched with scrap cloth sewn right into his face. He roared so much when he spoke, his words were barely discernible. "Yeh--whadyawann, kiddo?"

Sonny felt that hiding in the rosebush might have been safer than going into the house. "L-L-L-Le-Le--ah--" was all he could utter.

"Speegup, boy! Aingodalldamday!"

Sonny cocked his head like a dog and stared at the colossus guarding the doorway to his lair. "Is-is--Leeee-la...?

"Leeela?" the giant roared. "Ainoleeela here." He smacked the club on his huge fist.

Sonny shuddered.

"Hey, Gerty--younoanyleeela?" the giant grunted to another creature in the house.

Behind his stupendous frame appeared a little old bald woman with a few gray sprigs of hair hanging out of her ears and her nose and dangling from her chin. Her eyes were nearly white with cataracts and her face covered with oozing ulcerations. She rubbed her bony hands together and whinnied like an ass. "Comp'ny to have fer dinner, Tomb?" She croaked and shrieked with laughter.

Big Tomb joined in with a gleeful roar that rattled the windows and quaked the chimney. "Looxaliddlescrawny, donee?" He roared again with his wife in a duet out of a Brothers Grimm story.

Sonny looked around for a rock to use against this goliath if the need arose, and he was all set to make a break for the car when he heard the screen door open. He looked to see in the doorway not a giant but a fat man, a huge man dressed only in a stained and torn undershirt with boxer shorts to match. Sporting a two-day beard and lots of wiry body hair, he simply stood there staring at the boy-suitor and scratching his armpit. He stank of body odor and grease.

"Yeah," he grunted.

Sonny was entirely unable to do more than squeak like a mouse. "Le-Le-la," he stammered again.

"Lela," the old man bellowed. "You want Lela?"

Sonny nodded enthusiastically as if the man had asked and answered the million-dollar question.

The screen door swung into the boy and bounced off his chest, as the old man raised an arm the size of tree limb and pointed toward the interior.

"Well, come on in, son," he bellowed. "She ain't ready yet, I guess. You know women." And roared with barbarian laughter that nearly shook the walls of the house.

Sonny nodded with a try at congenial camaraderie, even though he really knew nearly nothing of women, and stepped into the big man's domain. When he spotted not a gnarly old witch but a fat woman sitting in an over-stuffed chair that appeared to be an extension of her body, he smiled and nodded. He had suddenly become very adept at nodding.

She nodded back but did not take her eyes off an enormous TV screen that sprayed a sickening glow all around the room.

"Lela's mother," the giant shouted as he pointed to his counterpart. Then he punched his arm in the direction of a filthy piece of furniture and said, "Sit."

Sonny stood there and stared at the brute without knowing for sure what he was expected to do, until the big man repeated his booming command.

"Sit! Sit!"

The boy fell onto the object--a soiled and frayed ottoman. He felt like a dwarf sitting on a jumbo toadstool in a castle of evil. But, when he saw the old man join his wife watching the jabbering images on the tube and laughing like a couple of children, he knew he was going to get through this parental meeting unharmed. What they saw too entranced them to pay any serious attention to Sonny. So much was the tube locking them onto it that Sonny was tempted to have a look for himself but he dared not hedge his position of relative safety. He could only listen while waiting for his lover to free him from captivity.

"...and so, Miss Deborah Cravingsley," the host of the television show announced, "you have qualified for the sixty million dollar question!" People in the audience shrieked with ecstasy then fell silent except for a faint ticking, as the host continued. "The longest lasting daytime drama ran for fifty years. For sixty million dollars what was the name of the show. Was it RUMOR OF SCANDAL, LIBERTINE LAWYERS, GOMORRAH HOSPITAL, or FORBIDDEN FAMILY AFFAIRS? The cycling jingle played over and over and over and over, while the contestant pondered the possible answers. Lela's parents and Sonny leaned forward in their seats.

"Which one is it, Trudy?" her big mate said.

"I think it's RUMOR OF SCANDAL. You know that's my favorite, Tom. I think that's the one."

The jingle mercifully ended, and the host said in an oily voice, "Now, Miss Cravingsley--what is your answer?"

All was silent till the contestant said, "I love all those shows, Bill--" The audience applauded with Trudy. "But I believe the one that has been on television the longest is--RUMOR OF SCANDAL." Another silence. Trudy and Bob sat there with their tongues on the floor. Sonny's eyes locked onto them.

"RUMOR OF SCANDAL--" the host delayed histrionically, "is--correct!"

The audience, Trudy, and Bob became bedlam.

"For sixty million dollars, you answer is right!" the host tried to shout above the deranged din.

Bob grinned like an intoxicated fool at Sonny, licked his lips, and said, "Winning money makes me hungry! When's supper, Trudy?" Luckily before the monster and his mistress could grab and chop the boy up for supper, Lela came into the room. She looked like a nymph crowned as a sex queen.

She was wearing shorts so brief they formed a sharp V at her wonderfully round pelvis and a shirt so skimpy and sheer that she might as well have left it in her dresser drawer. Her gigantic father glanced at her, grunted, and returned his attention to the celebratory end of the game show. Her mother never looked at her. Lela ignored them both, other than muttering a glacial farewell. She tripped lightly to Sonny and stood before him like a chippy on display.

He knew what to do at this point. Standing to face her full body, he glanced at her parents, noticed their preoccupation, smiled at his girl, and quickly followed her out of the abode like a puppy eager to frolic in the grass.

"Twelve o'clock," the leviathan shouted from the house.

As the words of curfew blew out of the house, the young couple let the screen slam on them, locked hands, and headed for the car. Lela did not answer her father but attended to Sonny. "Where to tonight, love?" she asked, looking at him wideyed.

"Well, where do you...?"

"Let me guess: Mulholland," she said with a twist of lime in her words.

He grinned at her and bounded around the front of the car to the driver seat, letting her enter the vehicle for herself. She slid across the front seat and snuggled close to him, as he fired up the engine and threw the car into gear. While she swabbed his ear with her tongue, he accelerated the old car down her treelined street. His jeans bulging, he headed for the hills.

"How 'bout a movie tonight, Sonny. I feel like a little culture for a change. We make love all the time and...."

"Why don't we see a movie next time? I got a powerful longing in my loins."

She rubbed his genitals. "You always have a hard on for me, don't you, Sonny boy?"

He grinned at her again as if he were master of the affair and speeded into the high ground over-looking the valley. He was so absorbed in his undying licentious desire that he failed to notice the light dimming in her eyes, or her frequent glances out the far window, or her shallow sighs. He wanted only one thing in life that evening as he had for many previous evenings: complete and total immersion in spectacular sex. That was not of course what Lela wanted, but that mattered little to Sonny compared to his whopping lust.

24

On the movie marquee, the title of the motion picture glowed in big red plastic letters in the bright afternoon sun. Below the announcement, a host of clamoring young voices erupted from the theater like cattle. They paused a moment under the marquee as if momentarily disoriented, squinting in the flood of blinding light, then walked away in different directions.

Among the crowd Sonny and Lela appeared, pushing through the big glass doorway. He showed his usual adolescent air, but she looked aloof as she glanced at others in the exiting crowd. She seemed oblivious of him walking beside her, as if wishing she were somewhere else or with someone else. He noticed her distraction and started to ask her if anything was wrong but he realized that if so he would rather not know.

She was fingering a pendant on a thin gold chain around her neck, a tiny cross that glinted in the sunlight as she stepped out from the shadow of the marquee. He eyed her with his lascivious look but he was so absorbed in her flesh that he failed to notice the gold object that sparkled in the pulsing hollow of her throat. He always enjoyed looking at her, but this time as he was ogling her on their way down the street he for once stepped outside of himself and became aware of her mood.

"Now you can't say I never took you to a movie." Unable to attract her eye, he began to wonder with a dose of worry. "I'll come over to your place tonight, okay? he asked.

She bowed a little and started to shake her head but halted. He looked surprised and even more worried.

"Will your parents be home?" he asked.

"No--"

"Then--" Impatience seized him. "Well, do you want to...?"

She interrupted him by merely taking his arm gently and leading him down the sidewalk. Other people walking around them were chatting about the movie.

"Listen--" he said, "How 'bout we do something different next time we go out--maybe have lunch together. Then we can...."

"Look," she said, holding the cross off her throat.

He looked at it curiously, uncomfortably, as if the sight of the sacred thing were supposed to frighten him away like some godforsaken monster. Nevertheless he managed to say, "It--it's nice. Where'd you...?"

"My new boyfriend gave it to me," she blurted out and stared at him.

Boyfriend! But I'm your boy.... Reality struck him like a rock in the head. The summer air suddenly suppressed him. He wanted to gasp for life. His legs wobbled and felt as though they would collapse as if made of straw like those of the scarecrow in THE WIZARD OF OZ, but he forced himself to keep walking as nonchalantly as he could even though he knew he was not headed down the Yellowbrick Road. He knew where he was going with Lela, and it was not to the Emerald City but to an unpopular place for rejected lovers called Oblivion. He struggled for poise. "When--when did you meet him?" he barely asked.

"At school. Actually I've know him for years--as an old friend." She looked straight into his mind and said, "Did you notice how that guy in the movie was so loving to his girlfriend? How he would have died for her? Well, that's how my boyfriend says he feels about me."

Sonny jerked his head in semblance of a nod but his terrible pain was showing all over his face.

"Well, my new boyfriend--he loves me, Sonny--and I've grown to love him."

"Who is he?"

"You don't know him."

"He's Dion, isn't he?"

"No, of course not. I've finally gotten to know someone who really cares about me."

"I care about you, Lela."

"I know you do, but you care about only one part of me, Sonny. He cares about me in all the other ways too."

"What other ways?"

"About how I feel and how I think and--he's the first boy I've ever met who actually thinks I'm smart."

"I think you're smart."

She touched his arm and said, "You're sweet, Sonny, but you're, well, you're a boy. I want a man."

"I can be a man."

She laughed. He looked desperate.

"I know I'm only sixteen, Lela, but...."

"Sonny--please--don't make this so difficult." She touched her cheek to his shoulder. "Do you love me, Sonny?"

"S--sure I do." He tried to kiss her, but she removed her cheek and turned away from him.

"Well, he loves me, Sonny--even though I've been with so many others--well, he really cares about me." Her eyes watered.

"I...." He was afraid she would make him cry.

"And I love him because he's good and because he thinks I'm good."

"But I...."

The electric bluesky flashed in his blurry eyes. He thought he was going to be paralyzed. A crow squawked high in a eucalyptus tree. Sonny wanted to laugh with the bird, to show some cockiness himself but he could only stutter in a quaking voice. "But, but we--I thought we...."

"So--I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to see you anymore, Sonny-- I mean--do it with you anymore--or with anyone else for that matter," she said with her head aloft.

"Just with him, huh?" He was afraid she could hear his heart shattering his ribs.

"No, not at all. He doesn't want to yet. He says it's too special. We should wait. He wants to marry me."

"Marry!" he nearly shouted.

"Uh-huh." She nodded sharply. "We're in love, Sonny, and some day we're gonna get married. I just know it."

A breeze meant only for her caught her hair and tossed it along her face at just the right moment to make her look like an angel in a Renaissance painting. She regarded him with a bit of pity in her dark eyes, followed by a fleeting look of longing. Then she stared into his eyes with so much intensity that he had to look away.

He could barely swallow. He flushed then paled then flushed again and forced a quick awkward smile across his face. But she did not notice. Although he knew of nothing more to say, he decided to speak. "Okay--good--good for you, Lela." He affected as much gallantry as he could gather from what he had seen on the silverscreen. "I'm really happy for you, Lela. Really! I am!" He heard his words drifting like ash into the scorching air and felt them blown back into his face, stinging his eyes. He finally fell quiet, looking crestfallen to the point of total collapse in spite of his brave words.

She looked at him with momentary longing. "I hope so. And I want you to know, Sonny--"

He knew what was coming. He had heard it before. And he dreaded it more than death.

"We'll still be friends."

His chest caved. He had heard the one line fatal to every love affair known to humanity, as anyone knew from the movies and from life. So he knew then that it was really over between them--forever. The bloodless amenity of any budding friendship between them notwithstanding, they were finished as lovers.

A car horn screamed from the boulevard in several long, piercing, and dour tones. Sonny turned to see Dion driving his shiny beast down the boulevard. It rumbled along like a chariot bringing a messenger with news of love won and lost on Mount Olympus. For another moment, the thought stuck in Sonny's mind that Dion had to be Lela's true love. But one look at the elevated attitude of her head, as she sauntered down the sidewalk without turning to look at the master, allayed this notion. Sonny waved weakly at Dion and watched the car cruise down the boulevard, becoming less significant with every passing moment. While he was watching the fading apparition of the car in its passage, Lela was continuing on her flight from him, leaving both the famous satyr and his devoted follower floating like jetsam in the wake of her departure.

When he saw her walking away, he nearly shouted at her: "Fine. I'll get another girlfriend."

"I know you will, Sonny," she tossed over her shoulder.

"I know lots of girls."

"I know you do."

Realizing she was escaping him, Sonny ran to catch her, his eyes glistening with liquefying sorrow. But no matter how fast he walked, he never really reached her. She had gone beyond him, ascended to a level of which he had yet no concept. Although walking right in front of him along the boulevard, although silently riding home in his car, although walking with him to her front door, she was gone from his life forever. And her tender but brief kiss on his cheek sealed his fate.

25

The next Friday afternoon, instead of anticipating another leggy liaison with Lela, Sonny was in his room dreading another visit with his mother and Wendell. A weekend with her new legal family was not the way he wanted to mourn the loss of his one and only randy affair. He had intended on lying abed and keeping his woe alive by listening to every sentimental love song that emanated from the radio, but when his mother called she practically demanded that he join them. Sonny could never deny her with impunity. To do so would mean an icy disconnection for several months. His mother would not tolerate any rejection from him. Whenever she perceived his too strong reluctance to participate in any of her "letsgetogetherasafamily" routines, she always did her best to make him feel as if she were unloved. He could not endure that; he did not want the guilt.

So Sonny would dress to please his mother and wait sullenly for them to take him away from his delicious self-pity. He was to spend Saturday, that sacrosanct time for self-indulgence, and all day Sunday with his manic mother, his wannabe father Wendell, and his childish stepsister Sally. He was feeling sad and more alone than ever in his young life and he was restless. He had to do something with himself while he could the day before they came to get him. A little drive around the valley sounded good for filling in the dead time between the loss of Lela and the visit of his mother. Mindless travel on the road with maudlin melodies blasting from the radio could be just the therapy he needed.

Stepping into the garage, he slid behind the wheel of the old car and fired the engine. He turned on the radio to his favorite station. When he slammed the car into reverse and started to back up, he noticed just in time the garage door closed behind him. He jammed on the brakes to keep from crashing into it. In his absent-minded self-pity, he had not been thinking clearly. "Shit!" he shouted and beat the steering wheel with his hands till they hurt. Any frustration now seemed insurmountable. Whimpering from the pain, he dropped his head into his palms and wept. Lela! He would never have guessed that she meant so much to him. Was he only sorry for the loss of the sex? The vanished intimacy? Or was he actually bemoaning his loss of innocence?

Alone in the car in the garage, he let the pent up angst of his six and ten years explode into screaming. Grief and rage filled him. He hated his life. He hated his absent father. He hated his frivolous mother. He hated living with his grandparents. He hated his separation from Ginny. He hated his failure with Lela. He felt as if no one loved him, never had, and never would. What good was living without love, especially if it was only going to get worse? And from what he had seen of the adults in his life, he had no reason to believe that more years were going to make any positive difference in his love life or his existence. Why born? To suffer? That's all? God--what a waste! He felt lethargic. He laid his head back onto the seat and closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep. That sweet temporary oblivion seemed irresistible like paradise. Heaven. Where Grandfather and Uncle Dennison-- He let himself fall into the moment. The world disappeared, and the bliss of a warm dark void enveloped him.

Arising! His body lifted off the seat. He passed clear through the top of the car then through the roof of the garage without so much as a scratch or a scrape. The sky arched over him like the inside of an eggshell. He spread his arms and took wing into the sweet fresh air. Looking down he saw the house, the yard, the neighborhood, and the valley diminishing beneath him. Looking up he saw the blue shell of the sky crack and open for him like a gateway. Beyond the breach before him, lay outerspace adorned with glimmering spherical bodies suspended in complete blackness. He flew through the stratosphere and rocketed into the deep, dark, limitless region of eternal mystery.

Flying was effortless. He practically coasted through the airless expanse. He flew past the moon, past Mars, Jupiter, toward Pluto. The nethermost regions of the cosmos beckoned him. He was a voyager in the universe, on his way to discover unknown worlds. He had passed the speed of sound and was approaching the speed of light. He was exhilarated. He thought he would burst into flame and disintegrate but he remained intact. He should have been cold, frozen yet he was warm. But he was laboring to breath.

Of course no oxygen in space. He was soaring through the realm of the gods. Immortal beings and lifeless entities like stars did not need air. But he was neither god nor star--not yet--and he was feeling more and more deprived. He gasped for air but was unable to fill his lungs. He opened his mouth as wide as possible and pulled in his stomach to allow his lungs to fill, but they would not inhale. He lost sight of the distant universe and focused on himself, on his desperate need to breathe. He panicked. Curling into a ball, he grasped his throat and tried to scream for air. But no sound. He was no longer flying but tumbling aimlessly in space like an astronaut cut from his lifeline. He felt an absolute void enclose him, not the spectacular ambience of deep space but totally annihilating oblivion.

Then he felt himself enfolded as if in a great hand, the hand of God. The hand was strong and heartening but firmly insistent. It lifted his body and carried him through space toward a bright star. The light of the star mixed with a breeze foreign to space, a draft that filled his lungs with the breath of life. The hand of God carried him out of deep space, swept him back to Earth, and laid him on a green meadow.

There God spoke to him with quiet but urgent words. "Wake up, Sonny! Wake up!"

The boy recognized the voice of God and was encouraged that he sounded familiar. He opened his eyes, and the sun blinded him. The silhouetted head of God was gazing down at him and smiling.

"Thank God!" God exclaimed.

But why would God thank himself for saving a life? Was he not omnipotent? The boy focused his eyes on the face of God, at the blue eyes, at the shock of white hair, at the round cheeks at the spreading smile. This was God? He looked just like his grandfather! But how--?

"God?" the boy cried, his face flushed.

Grandfather laughed and cried, "No, Sonny--not yet--just your old granpa." He bundled the boy into his arms and held him close to his heart. "I thought we'd lost you, son! I was afraid you were gone." Unable to hold back his feelings he laid his head on his grandson's chest and wept. Together on the lawn in front of the house with Grandfather Rinehart holding Sonny, as Mary held the body of Christ, together the old man and the boy wept.

"Oh, Blessed Jesus!" Grandmother Rinehart screamed as she burst out of the house and ran to the lawn. "Henry--!?"

"He's all right, Tilly. Close though. Another minute, and he would've--well, he's gonna be just fine. Here, let's get him into his room."

She wiped the tears from her eyes with her apron and helped her husband carry the boy into the house. "Thank God!"

The old man shaking, he smiled at her through the remnants of his tears, "Yes--He was looking down upon us today, mother--we have been blessed." Together they laid the boy on his bed and sat beside him.

Grandmother took his hands and rubbed them. "Oh, father--he's so cold, but he looks so pink."

"Yes, it was close," he said shuddering. If I hadn't heard the engine running in the garage, I wouldn't have known--and we could've lost--" Emotion throttled his words.

His wife stroked his shoulder and sighed, "You saved him, Henry, you saved our boy's life." And she sobbed. "But what was he do...?"

Her husband darted a look at her as if to say, "Leave it, mother--leave it for another time."

The terrifying thought of suicide crisscrossed both of their minds like spider webbing but neither of them dared to ask the question or to utter the word that had become too involved their lives. They had found their boy alive; that was enough for now. Any concern about the reason for the near disaster had to be deferred. For the time being, they had to comfort their grandson and be grateful for his salvation.

"Would you like some lemonade, Sonny? I have some fresh lemons off the tree," his grandmother said.

The boy nodded and smiled.

She left the room to make the refreshment. Grandfather remained. "Would you--do you want to, to talk to me, son?"

The boy stared at him.

"Something's been troubling you boy--I wish I'd been aware of it sooner. You know I wouldn't let anything happen to you for the world."

Sonny nodded but he was perplexed. His grandfather had never spoken to him so intimately before now.

The old man studied his grandson. "Were you--did your grandfather's death--" he struggled to find the words. "Do you think his--it had anything to do with you feeling...?"

Sonny shook his head more in confusion than in denial.

"He barely knew you, Sonny--hardly ever saw you. What he did--well, he was an unhappy man with the terrible burden of his brother's mental illness. You understand, don't you?"

Sonny nodded. He was beginning to comprehend what his grandfather was thinking.

"I know you miss your father. And your mother, well--I want you to know how much your grandmother and I care about you, Sonny. You're our boy. I--you know I--we never had a son. We, your grandmother thinks of you as our son, and so do I." The old man's eyes watered. "You know that, don't you?"

Sonny nodded.

"Please don't ever think you have to--well, don't feel you can't--that we won't be here for you. So doing something like that--well, it's not...."

"Like what?" Sonny asked.

"Like harming yourself."

"Harming myself! I didn't, I wouldn't...."

"I know you wouldn't, son--I know you wouldn't do such a thing. But when I heard the car and saw you and carried you out of it I--" He choked on his anguish.

Sonny reddened even more. "But I--I wasn't trying to--to harm myself, granpa. I was only...."

"I know, son. It was an accident. But you must remember how dangerous car exhaust can be, especially in a closed area like a garage. Many people have died that way."

"I know." He felt ashamed and frustrated that his grandfather had to worry about him taking such an action. "I'm sorry, granpa, I didn't mean to...."

His grandfather smiled and stroked his grandson's arm. "Yes, yes--I know, Sonny." He looked up at his wife standing in the doorway.

She was trembling as she held a glass of lemonade. "Is he all...?"

"He's fine. Aren't you, Sonny?"

Sonny smiled and nodded. He squirmed with unease under the intensely tender and anxious eyes of his grandparents. Although they did not understand what had happened, and they feared something about him that was not true, he was enjoying their attention. He regarded them in a different way from that day forward. He realized how much they cared about him. Despite their rules and reprimands, despite their arguments about his mother and father, despite their apparent indifference to his life, they did not want to lose him. They loved him as much as any parent loves his or her child. Their age and generation meant nothing after all. They were his mother and father for now. They had been for years. He would never again consider them otherwise, never forget them for their devotion to him. He smiled again and wanted to hug them, but physical affection not being common with the Rineharts, they seemed satisfied to sit by his bed, touch him gently, and look at him as if he were the most important person in their lives. He gulped the lemonade and handed the empty glass to his grandmother with gratitude.

"Want some more?"

"No--thanks, grana. It was good."

She smiled the smile of an utterly gratified matron and left the room to return the glass to the kitchen and to weep quietly alone. She raised her glasses and wiped the tears from her eyes. Then she proceeded to make dinner.

Grandfather clapped the boy on the leg and said, "You rest now, Sonny. We'll talk more later." The old man looked like he wanted to kiss the boy. He bent over him but simply touched his shoulder and shook it reassuringly. "We'll talk a lot from now on." He smiled and left the room.

Sonny smiled and watched him go. For several moments, he stared out the window at the slow, sweet fall of evening as he played the episode back in his mind. He heard his grandmother preparing dinner, the reassuring sounds of pans on the stove, water running in the sink, and Bopster singing for joy. He heard his grandparents mumbling together, and even though he could not hear the words he knew what they were saying, and it made him smile. Feeling more serene than he could remember, he got up and turned on the TV to reward himself with some entertainment.

Lying back on his bed, he watched whatever was on the channel. The show happened to be a documentary showing the paintings of Botticelli, especially the BIRTH OF VENUS. Sonny's expression changed from peaceful to fascinated. He watched the face of Venus vary in rapid succession from the goddess to Ginny to Magdalene to Lela to his mother to Venus. That is beauty! Not the romance, not the sex, but only the beauty matters. And love...? He grabbed his pad and pencil and quickly sketched what he saw of the painting on the screen. In fluid lines, he captured the essence of the image: the graceful layering S curves of the clothing and the shell, the coiling hair and the sea waves, the tender look on the face of the voluptuous ideal of femininity. As his eye and hand found the image on paper, he felt energy he had never known, as if some power was infusing his veins and drenching his brain with ideas. He felt a new and different attitude toward women imbuing his mind, an attitude hitherto foreign to his being. He thought of them no longer as girls or objects of desire or even as goddesses. In that one chance moment of seeing an image on the mass medium of television he was beginning to see them as beauty--no more, no less than any other beauty of the world: nimbuscloud, mountain, wildflower, walnutree, songbird, or any other creation of God. He swallowed back strong feelings rising in his throat and blinked away wetness in his eyes. He gazed out his window through the treeleaves and smiled at infinite possibilities in the sky.

***

An accident. That is how they referred to Sonny's near death by carbon monoxide poisoning. An accident from which he was fortunate enough to recover. He had been unaware of the danger of car exhaust in closed space. Any young person could be ignorant of such danger. He certainly did not intend to harm himself. He made that perfectly clear. And his grandparents chose to believe him. The alternative was too much for them to comprehend. And he quickly and fully recovered, so they did not take him to a hospital or a doctor. But they did pay more attention to him. Too much attention at first, as far as Sonny felt. They kept coming to his room under the pretense of checking the heater or asking him what he wanted for dinner or checking to see if he had done his chores. He had always done his chores without hesitation, with some grumbling, but no hesitation. He was a dutiful boy.

They also showed anxiety whenever Sonny took the car. Especially grandfather Rinehart would come out of the house at any time of the day or evening to open the garage door for his grandson to back out the old car. Sonny told him repeatedly that he did not have to bother himself; that he would remember the danger of the car exhaust. Of course he would never forget it. But quite a while passed before his grandfather felt confident enough to let the boy leave the garage by himself. And even then, for some time the old man would watch through the window to see the boy out of the garage and down the driveway. Gradually, as the near tragic event faded with time, they worried about him less.

As sometimes happens in life, much good resulted from the accident. His grandparents were newly appreciative of the boy as an individual. Previously the old man had not shown any interest in his grandson's artwork--his drawings--other than to castigate him for producing the pictures of naked women. Prior to the incident in the garage Grandfather Rinehart had expected the boy to follow him in his footsteps as a builder of houses, something practical that had provided subsistence for his own family. So he had always expected the boy to help him on his jobs: stacking lumber, cleaning up scrap wood, nailing sub-flooring. Now, though, the old tradesman was paying attention to the boy's artistry.

One day he brought home rolled up scraps of wallpaper and took them to Sonny's room. "Here, son--you may be able to use these for making your pictures." He unrolled one and laid it reversed on the desk. "This paper's thick and could be good for painting."

Sonny looked at him and smiled. "Thanks, granpa." He wasn't sure how well the paper would work but he was grateful his grandfather had thought of it. "I'll try it."

The boy's reserved response did not thrill old Rinehart, but he smiled, put his hand on his shoulder, and left.

Almost immediately Sonny did try the paper for he had an idea to make a picture of the image he had envisioned in church of the women at the feet of Christ on the cross. Cutting off a piece about two feet wide, he taped it to his desk and proceeded to sketch in pencil from memory the vision. Thinking of drawings and paintings similar to such a scene by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rubens, he depicted the three women receiving Christ's body from the cross. When he had the sketch the way he wanted it, he brushed brown watercolor onto the paper to form the figure's dimensions and to suggest flesh colors. He worked for hours on the piece till he was beginning to over-work it. Then, aware of the diminishing returns he was getting from continued efforts, he removed the paper from his desk and tacked it on the wall. The face of Magdalene looked like Lela.

He drew and painted several more pictures of women that day, none of them nude, all of them looking very much like Lela. He represented her not only as Magdalene but also as Christ's patient and loving mother, as a Madonna with child, as a pieta with the dead Christ in her arms, and as a spirit rising to heaven.

When he finished each one, he put it on the wall till several of them decorated his room like a gallery. Then he called his grandparents to view his work. "What do you think?" he said apprehensively.

They looked over the pictures carefully while saying nothing. But grandmother's eyes moistened. And grandfather kept nodding his head.

"Why they're beautiful, Sonny," she said.

"Now, if you're gonna make pictures," the old man said, "those are the kinds of pictures we want to see you do--not those other...."

His wife gently stopped his comment with touch of her plump little hand on his suntanned arm. He looked at her and smiled to show he knew further words on that subject were not necessary.

"Yes, Sonny", she said, "beautiful--simply beautiful."

Her husband put his arm around her shoulder and smiled in agreement. Sonny had never seen them embrace. He was surprised and somewhat embarrassed. He grinned and fidgeted. His grandfather sensed his feelings.

"Your grandmother and I are very proud of you, Sonny," he said. And he reached his other arm for the boy.

Sonny drew close and put his arms around them. Together they stood in Sonny's room: grandfather, grandmother, and grandson close and comfortable without feeling the need for another word. After a few silent moments these unfamiliar but warm feelings became too intense for the three of them to continue for long, much like a lovely melody that brings too much emotion for on to remain calm till the song ends. When they did part and go their separate ways, they had found a bond between them that neither time nor space could break.

26

When Maddy and Wendell picked up Sonny in the dentist's stylish automobile to carry him to a weekend of boredom, Sally was eagerly waiting in the backseat. She smiled broadly when he tumbled in and plopped himself down on the opposite side of the car. He smiled politely in return but said nothing to her. She glanced coyly at his reflection in the window from time to time, but he only stared at the backs of the heads of his mother and her husband in the front seat. The siblings-in-law spoke not a word all the way to the house, but Maddy carried the conversation for everybody.

She chattered on and on about any subject she thought families should enjoy. "Wendell has tickets for the baseball game tomorrow--" she said, "if you kids would like to go."

The kids did not answer.

"We're going to have a wonderful weekend together, aren't we, Wendell?" she asked while looking at the youngsters.

Wendell said, "Yes, we are," as enthusiastically as he felt necessary to please his wife.

The youngsters said nothing, but Sally smiled graciously.

"I want you to know you're home with us," she said to them.

They said nothing, but both smiled for they knew what was wanted of them.

The veteran newlyweds' house was not far from the Rinehart place. Maddy had always hoped to get reconnected to the family. This was her awkward way of becoming closer--suburban neighbors. Beside the swimming pool, the house had a meticulously manicured yard, and enough bedrooms to keep the young people from getting too close. Sally's bedroom lay within hearing of her father and across the house from Sonny's little guest room just off the garage.

When they arrived, Sonny hurried to his room and snapped on the TV set. Then he picked up pencil and paper, tuned in whatever was playing, tuned out his fresh family, and sketched the images, the women, as they flickered across the screen. The drawings looked little like Lela.

In the kitchen while Maddy was preparing dinner, Wendell was fondling her. Her giggling worked its way into Sonny's ears such that he turned up the volume on the set. Then he became so absorbed in his drawing that neither the noise from the kitchen nor the sound from the TV reached his brain. He was out of body and mind. And he did not even notice when somebody knocked on his door.

"Sonny," Sally called.

He did not answer but kept drawing. He was hoping she and most everyone else in the world would disappear.

Being a persistent child, though, she knocked till he could no longer deny her.

"Yeah? Whaddya want?" he shouted.

"May I come in?"

"I'm busy."

"I won't bother you."

"Oh, yeah--" he said as he opened the door and flopped back onto his bed, "And how do you think you won't bother me by coming into my room?"

She stepped in looking wounded. "Sor-ry." She started to back out of the room.

"Oh, stay if you want. You've already interrupted me anyway. Whaddya want, Silly?"

"My name is Sally."

"Whatever."

"I just wanted to talk. After all, you are my brother."

"Your brother! Hah! Only by law."

"I know we're not really brother and sister. But I never had a brother. And I...."

"You want me to play the role."

"No, you don't have to pretend. I just thought we could be, well, you know--sort of--like a family."

"A family, eh?"

"Yes."

He forced an acrid chuckle.

"Why are you so mean?" She turned her back on him and again started to leave.

He stopped her again and this time took her slender hand. She looked at his hand on hers. He pulled it away as though touching her had been an accident. But she smiled tenderly. "It's okay," she said. "I won't slap you." He chuckled with good humor. She grinned with relief. He resumed his drawing, and she sat down to watch him. He felt self-conscious.

"I wasn't expecting any spectators," he said.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothin'."

"Yes, you are."

"What does it look like?"

She looked over his shoulder at the images on the paper. They were composed of fluid, sensitive lines. He felt her nearly touching his arm, as she leaned to look more closely, but he did not move nor look at her. He kept drawing with quick, confident strokes. She continued to watch him with interest as he worked. He gradually became less self-conscious and felt more like showing off.

"That's really good, Sonny," she finally said.

"Thanks."

"I mean it. You're really talented."

"Naw."

"No, I do mean it. There's this boy in my art class who is the best artist in the school. Everyone says so. And you're just as good as he is, better even. I've never seen anyone like you draw so well."

He looked at her. "Whaddya mean--like me?"

"I mean so young. Usually artists are older."

"I'm no artist."

"Sure you are."

"I only fool around."

"Well, you could be an artist if you wanted to--maybe a great one."

Sonny held the pencil still. "A great one," he echoed. The idea obviously appealed to him, but he felt compelled to brush it off. "Oh, sure."

"Sure," she said.

"Naw. I'm not good enough."

"Yes, you are. All you need is to do it. Make some beautiful pictures and show them to the world and you'll be rich and famous."

He forced a self-mocking laugh to cover his discomfort at considering the possibility. But she saw through it. "You shouldn't laugh at yourself, Sonny. You should believe in yourself."

He looked at her for the first time. Questions about her formed in his eyes. "How come you talk so grown up all of a sudden?"

"Not all of a sudden. I've got a lot of ideas."

"Yeah, from where?"

"I get them from books I read," she said.

"You read?"

"Yes, silly--"

"Sonny," he said with a gently gibing but sincere smile.

She laughed, tapped his arm in return, and echoed, "Sonny."

The accelerating current of their budding relationship momentarily froze them. Silence filled the room like a sudden pause in time. He continued drawing aimlessly. She looked over his shoulder and sighed.

"Don't you?" she finally asked.

"Don't I what?"

"Read."

"Naw, well, sometimes for school and other times."

"What do you read at other times?"

He blushed at the next word he was about to say. "Poetry--mostly."

"Oh, I love poetry. I write lots of it but I'm not very good. I just like to write it because it makes me feel better."

"Better?"

"When I'm sad or lonely or--you know."

He knew. He nodded and looked out the window. The light of day was waning into evening. "Be dinner time soon," he said quietly.

"Yes, if my father ever leaves your mother alone long enough to fix it." They laughed together like old friends. Then again the tension loomed between them, not of uneasiness but of eagerness.

"Dinner, kids--" Maddy hollered from the kitchen. "Come on."

"Well--I guess I'll go wash up," she said.

"Yeah--me too."

She stood beside him a moment as if to somehow seal their newly formed bond, then she turned and walked slowly to the door.

"I'll see you--at dinner, sis."

She turned and smiled.

"I'd like to read some of it," he said.

"Some of what?"

"Some of your poetry."

She blushed and smiled and nodded then left like a bird sweeping past a window.

He sat on the bed and stared at the drawings in front of him. He stared at them for a long time before he carefully put them aside, stood up, and left the room. He was suddenly very hungry.

27

On a simmering cloudless summer day, like so many days in the arid southwest, Sonny was driving the old car over the winding pass that connected the valley to the coast. Music was blaring from the car. He and Alfred were wearing only swim shorts, their young bodies lean and bronzed from countless hours roasting in the sun. Alfred was continually changing the radio station, so that fragments of songs were mingling with the traffic noise rushing past them like a flash flood. Sonny was slapping the steering wheel in rhythm to any tune that appeared in the disconnected medley.

"So--she doesn't want to do the nasty with you anymore, eh?" Alfred said.

"Not with anybody for now, she says--not even her new boyfriend," Sonny said trying to be aloof, but sarcasm crept into his mouth. "Can you believe that chick? It's like she's gonna become a nun or somethin'."

"Maybe you turned her off to sex."

Sonny tried to punch his buddy's arm, but Alfred swung out of reach. "Damn." Sonny stared down the road. "She was so cool."

"What in hell do you suppose got into her--religion?"

"I don't know, but not me anymore--that's for sure."

Alfred chuckled.

"Not even the guy she says she's in love with," Sonny added.

"Who is this guy anyway? Dion?"

"No, it's not Dion."

"How do you know?"

"Not all the chicks go for Dion, you know."

"All I've ever seen."

"And how many is that--two? God, Alfred--I dono who in hell the guy is. And frankly I don't give a damn."

"You do a lousy Gable."

"I'm not tryin' to do Gable."

"Then who are you trying to do."

"I'm not doin' anybody. I'm just tryin' to get you off my back." Sonny stared at the road as though he were in a race. "They can both burn in hell for all I care."

"Do you mean that?"

"Naw, not really, but--"

Alfred waited for his friend to continue but heard nothing further. They rode in silence for several moments, Alfred scanning the mansions of the rich as they passed. Then Sonny broke in with a strikingly different attitude.

"It's cool. She's cool," he said and tossed his head like a young billy goat. "Can't complain. Best piece of ass I ever had."

"The only piece of ass you ever had."

Sonny shot him with a look. "Yeah," he snapped, "mebbe so, but not my last--that's for damn sure. Man, I've tasted that sweet fruit and I want more--lots more." He was unconvincing.

Alfred looked him over curiously, apparently unable to make up his mind whether to admire him or be amused by him. As usual, he chose the latter.

Sonny glanced into the back seat. "Hey, open those chips, will ya? I'm starvin'."

Alfred grabbed a bag of corn chips, bit a piece off the seal, and tore open the bag. As soon as he had popped it open, Sonny stuffed his hand into the bag and grabbed a handful of the crisp, golden curls.

"Yeah," Sonny mused while nibbling the chips, "she was good, damned good," Then he started chewing rapidly, crunching the chips like a voracious beast.

"While it lasted, huh?" Alfred reached into the bag.

Sonny glowered at him and chewed ever more violently till he bit his cheek. "Damn!" His eyes narrowed with simultaneous pain and anger but quickly softened into a shade of sadness. "Yeah--" he said, swallowing hard, "just like everything else in life."

Silence spread between them like a disease. Alfred did not like the negativity coming from his friend so he would not respond.

"Wish I had a beer with this," Sonny said.

Alfred nodded and crunched the chips merrily, glad to have a change of subject. Sonny stared straight ahead again and accelerated the car. The old buggy wound westward onto San Vicente Boulevard. Dark green shrubs, magnolias, and flowering myrtle trees luxuriated around the massive houses mostly hidden behind huge hedges and long towering walls.

"We can get drinks at the beach," Alfred said.

"Beer?"

"No beer," Alfred pontificated.

Sonny feigned an objection.

Right before the boulevard made a sharp turn, Sonny cut down a sidestreet that curved and descended into a canyon forested with eucalyptus and sycamore. The spicy scent of the gum trees filled the air. Both boys stared straight ahead and chewed on the chips without speaking. A sentimental song played on the radio. They listened wistfully but hid their feelings, the only sign of their emotional response being the slowed pace of their chewing. As the car wound down the lane to sea level, they looked at one another and each seemed to be reading the other's mind. Then they again stared straight ahead. They were looking for the sea.

Sighting the ocean first has always been an important game for coastal people, especially for young people going to the beach. When the boys were younger, their parents like most parents had made it a contest to see who first could spot the vast expanse of water, that endless cobalt plain lying beyond the scrubby coastal mountains. The grand Pacific Ocean stretched limitlessly beneath an equally endless cerulean sky into an invisible horizon--a vision of infinity on Earth. So it was always exciting to be the first one to see it. The ocean is mother, the origin of it all. And catching sight of her mystical magnitude is always thrilling. No matter how long people lives along the coast, no matter how many times they view the sea, they find her forever new, fresh, and vibrant.

Alfred saw the ocean first but was slow to respond, so when Sonny shouted recognition, they argued gamely about who was first till the contest ran out of steam. Then they were silent again.

"Hear from Ginny anymore?"

Sonny's eyes flickered. He swallowed a mash of chips and inhaled deeply. "Naw--" He started to shake his head in emphasis but stopped to think first. "Oh, she called the other day...."

"She called? She is here?"

"She was. Wanted to see me."

"So what happened?" Alfred's curiosity made a counterpoint to Sonny's reticence.

"She was in town for a few days and...."

"You saw her."

Sonny shook his head self-consciously.

"What! You didn't see her! Why not, man? And why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Well, I didn't think you gave a shit. Besides, I'm tellin' you now, eh?"

Alfred finally swallowed his last mouthful. "I thought she was the love of your life, man."

"Not really."

"That's not the tune you were singing last fall."

"It just doesn't seem the same anymore with her." Sonny's throat was tightening.

"Of course not--not after Lela."

"I mean I don't feel the same about things anymore."

"What things?"

"I dono--girls and all that. I guess I don't really know what it's all about after all."

Alfred looked at him and nodded. They again said nothing for a while, as the car reached the bottom of the hill and turned onto the Pacific Coast Highway. The boys gazed at the cramped buildings along the beachfront and watched people in bathing suits strolling along the sand-covered sidewalk, gathering around a cafe, and walking to and fro along the strand.

"Tell me, man--" Alfred said.

"Yeah?"

"If you had a choice between those two chicks, right now, this minute--in this car--which would you take--Ginny or Lela?"

"Fuckin' A, man--that's easy. He tried to clinch his conviction with a toss of his head but simply looked confused. "God, you know what? I dono, man--prob'ly neither."

"Looking for the perfect woman, eh?"

Sonny chuckled and thought about the notion. "Yeah, la puera perfecta."

"What in hell is that--Spatin? It's puellam perfectam, man--unless you're looking for a perfect boy--with confused ethnicity. You'd better bone up if you're going to be a Latin lover?"

Sonny smirked to hide his chagrin.

Alfred let it cool as he stared down the highway in silence for a moment then said, "You never got into her pants, did you?"

"Whose?"

"Whose?! Who else's? How many girls have you made it with in your sixteen shining years? Ginny's of course!"

"'Course not, Alfie. Ginny was too--so damned innocent." A perplexed look glazed his eyes as he contemplated the idea. "Guess I never thought of it then. Or, I dono--she was too special, or--hell, I really don't have a clue. What's it to you, anyway?" He looked embarrassed: his heart pumping blood into his face.

"Well, you had a chance--"

"Naw, man--not with Ginny. I never wanted to do it with Ginny--not when I knew her anyway. Besides, it's too late now. If I ever had a chance I lost it." Sonny shrugged and looked over the sea. "Hell, it's all ancient history to me."

"In the past."

"Experience."

Alfred nodded and looked over the sea. A light wind was scalloping the great body of water and advancing comers were convulsing it at broad intervals. The two boys presently needed nothing more between them in words. Besides, it was time for that constant struggle for drivers in the city: finding a parking space, a spot close enough to permit access to a destination without hiking a mile.

As usual, cars clogged the lots by the beach, but Sonny got lucky and spied a place on the highway right across from it. Swinging the old car around he zipped into the spot. Looking forward to a frolic in the surf, they grabbed their towels and leaped out of the car.

"Let's hit it!" Sonny shouted.

They darted across the busy highway. A speeding motorcycle barely missed them. In retaliation Sonny shot his middle finger into the air.

"Are you crazy, man? Alfred snapped at him while watching to make the sure the motorcyclist was actually roaring away and not turning around to beat them to bloody piles of pulp. "You want to get our asses kicked from here to the moon? Just cool it, man!"

"Shhhhit!" Sonny hissed as he bounded to the far curb and strutted for the cafe. "Let's get some drinks." He was, however, not confident enough to deny a glance down the highway just to make sure the biker was gone.

The cafe was amassed with chattering brownskin youth. The girls around them so distracted the two boys that they failed at first to hear the inquiry from the counter girl. "Can I help you?" she said again.

Alfred said, "Two cokes, please--" He sought approval from his friend. Sonny nodded. "Yeah, two cokes--large," Alfred confirmed.

Slugging the sodapop from big cups jiggling with ice, the boys walked onto the sand and looked around the beach.

"You know," Alfred said with his face in the cup, "every time I come here I think of Saint Augustine."

"Saint Augustine!"

"Yeah, weird, huh?"

"Weird for most people--but not for you, Alf" Sonny said with a chuckle, good humor finally invading his mood. Yet his thoughts were still much distracting him.

The boys gulped their drinks and looked around for a spot on the crowded beach. The sun was shining from its perpendicular prime, and the pale sand was burning hot.

"Ow!" Alfred yelped and jumped onto his towel. "Hotter than hell! I've always wondered why soft light brown sand could be so damned hot."

Sonny walked gingerly on the sides of his feet but kept looking a-round for an open spot on the beach.

Young people--alone, in pairs, and in groups--covered the broad strand. While the two boys wandered among them, those pre-established on their towel-covered claims watched the newcomers and scrutinized them before unofficially admitting them to this sacred playground for the children of the sun. The sandy expanse was swarming with suntanned youth basking in a ritualistic blend of ultraviolet rays, chatter, and music. Sexy girls in bright colored strings barely covering their private outer organs ranged as far up and down the beach as the boys could see. Girls chattered in little clutches, their lithe bodies lying in the heat or laughing like nymphs, their slender arms waving in the sunlight; they gamboled across the choppy sand, strolled along the wet strand, and splashed in the frothing surf. Their musical voices filled the burning blue sky like birdsong, and their faces adored the sun like sunflowers.

Sonny and Alfred feasted their eyes. Alfred spread his arms, looked up at the sky, and cried out with joy. "May heaven be full of angels like these when I get me to paradise!"

Sonny was finally beginning to look cheerful as he gazed over the splendid marine plain. Bluegreen swells were breaking into great white crests on shore all along the Santa Monica bay. Finding a clearing near the water, the boys guzzled their drinks, crushed the cups, and shot them into a nearby barrel. Then Sonny jubilantly found an open spot near the water.

"Here!" he said and threw down his towel to stake the place.

Alfred added his towel to their small square of temporary property and looked over the sea. "Look at those waves, man! They must be four feet high!"

A small boy playing near the two companions was running back and forth between surf and sand. He was filling a little pail with water then pouring it into a hole. Alfred looked at the child, laughed, and motioned to Sonny.

"See what I mean, Sonnius?"

"About what?"

"About Saint Augustine."

Sonny studied the child and acknowledged the allusion with a smile.

Alfred nudged his friend. "Hey, kid," he said to the child.

The little boy stopped his work and stared at them without a blink.

"Is it full yet?" Alfred asked and laughed.

The little boy looked at the hole in the sand then at his pail and shook his head. Then he toddled back to the water for another pail full of seawater. The two friends laughed, and their mirth mingled with the clamor on the beach and became lost in the crashing waves. The pummeling, splashing surf was hailing them. So they raced to the water.

Leaping like fauns as far out as they could bound into the shallow swirling surf, they dived in unison headlong into the mouth of a huge wave. Emerging through the smooth, swollen mound of dark water behind the crashing breaker, they joined a host of gleaming heads bobbing among the swells continually rolling into shore. Like hundreds of small buoys beyond the breakers, their myriad heads were rising and falling as they peered out to sea and waited for the next big one to arrive.

Spying a huge roller approaching, Sonny cried, "There it is, Alfred!" All the swimmers shouted with portentous joy and swam to the meet the great, long surge of water just before it crested. Once in the right position they together turned and swam like seals madly trying to stay with the curl before it slid out from under them. When the wave started breaking, and those adroit enough could hang in the hollow below the pluming whitecap, they glided down its yawning liquid cavern. Then driven across the shallow surf drawn smooth before them like a grand carpet of ever-weaving lace, they looked to the beach, only their dark wet heads visible in the roiling water, like sealions sweeping to the rookery.

When the breaker finally collapsed into a crashing roll of whitewater, it carried their sleek, gleaming bodies, some as pale as pinewood, some dark as ebony, through the bubbling foam all the way to the glistening sand. And there they lay in exhausted exaltation before quickly catching their breath and returning to the surf and sea.

***

As the sun spun slowly out of the sky in the course of the afternoon, thousands of young, amphibious creatures along the wavelaced coast rode the breaking tide of comers that crested nearly high as a man. Farther and farther out, all day long, the rollers were surging into shore. The surf between sand and swell billowed with frothy foam thirty yards wide up and down the coast. And when each breaker crashed upon the surf drawn under its turquoise cave translucent against the slanting sun, puffs of foam floated into the air like shredded clouds.

About sixty yards out Sonny caught a big wave that carried his body into the sky and shot him airborne above the towing surf. In the foaming head of the exploded comer he skimmed the water for fifty yards, till his chest skidded into the sand and his legs lifted in the wash behind him. Rolling over onto his back in the froth, he spread his arms and howled into the incredible blue. He lay there a few moments like a lost voyager beached on a desert island. Dragging himself festooned with foam he trudged to his towel lying on the warm, dry sand and collapsed with exquisite exhaustion.

Beads of glistening saltwater adorned his golden brown body from head toe; he looked like the offspring of a sea god. Breathing heavily, he snuggled into his towel on the malleable sand and sighed from the warmth along his body. Through his soaked lashes he stared into the wonderful sky: the infinity of absolute blue uncluttered by plane, undecorated even by bird or cloud. When he had rested he propped himself onto an elbow and wiped the tiny droplets of saltwater from his eyes.

Surveying the continuously rolling swells and crashing waves gilded with light from the descending sun, he saw fewer people in the water. Glancing around the beach, he noticed the sun-worshipping crowd had dissipated, nearly disappeared. He scanned the water for Alfred. He was nowhere to be seen. And Sonny felt suddenly alone.

Then a single figure caught his eye. A woman. Strolling through the tapestry of surf along the strand, she slowly crossed his view. His eyes flashed. Magdalene. A long robe of sheerest white flowed from her shoulders like a veil borne out of the surf. Her loose, golden hair flashed in the sunlight and spread on a breeze like silky seagrass in a tidepool. Her body naked beneath the lumescent robe, her lithe limbs were transfigured. She glided along the strand as if a magical bird of paradise conceived in a giant shell and brought forth in a beneficent tropical storm. She glanced at him, met his gaze, and smiled.

Staring at her, he found her surreal beauty enrapturing, a beauty beyond flesh, spiritual, a beauty he had discovered in the paintings of Botticelli and Da Vinci and Raphael. She glanced at him and smiled as if recognizing him. He trembled. Then she slowly turned away and drifted out to sea toward the sun like a bird on the wing or a goddess in a dream. "Pure beauty!" he whispered.

His heart and his mind in harmony, he followed her with his eyes, not to see her body, but to discover the bright spirit connecting to his forlorn young soul. But her image gradually diminished and disappeared as a point of light into the infinite space between the afternoon sky and the white-capping waves of aquamarine. He uttered a long, soft exclamatory sigh, took wing, and followed her luminous wake out to sea. When he gained her side, she glanced at him and smiled. Together they sailed over the scalloped surface like spirits on their way to paradise.

They skimmed the waves till lost. They soared into the evening sky to find their way. They overshadowed continents. They explored distant oceans. Around the Earth, they spoke not a word but knew each other's minds. Lifting their heads in unison, they streaked through the atmosphere and climbed miles above the swirling blue orb. Fusing as one, they caught fire and joined the unexplained energy of the universe. Starbirth.

Alfred rode a rapid breaker more than thirty yards to the beach just below Sonny's position. Not noticing his friend, Sonny was lying back and staring at the sky. As he let his fingers dangle onto his chest, a solitary seabird glided in from the open ocean, from the point to which the magnificent apparition had flown and he had followed. He glimpsed the pure white underbelly of the bird and tracked its circling flight over his head. The bird glanced down at him and cried, its plaintive voice echoing along the beach. Then it wheeled away and disappeared into the setting sun whence it came. Thoughts rushed into Sonny's mind like water streaming onto the land with the rising tide. They refreshed his body and revitalized him. His spirit was on the wing with the bird, as the waves smashed timpanic upon the spreading surf.

While Alfred was riding the wave to the beach, Sonny was still squinting at the sun to keep the bird in sight. Solarays shot out of the great orb and fluttered around the magnificent star like a cosmic butterfly opening unto him. He blinked at the saltwater still in his eyes. The petaled light rays flickered, whirled, whipped, and flittered like huge yellow wings blinding him with their brilliance against the incandescent sky.

He closed his eyes. His lids fell like translucent red curtains across the fantastic face of the sun. Yet he could still sense the latent image persisting in his mind like God's eye watching over his soul.

Alfred leaped from the surf, stood jubilantly, and ran up to his towel. He fell next to Sonny. Gasping for air, he looked at his buddy and spluttered: "Did--did you see that chick?"

Sonny smiled but said nothing. He had seen.

"Bet you'd like to get between her and the sky."

"Actually I'd only like to make a picture of her."

"A picture!"

"Yeah. A drawing--or maybe a photograph."

Alfred stared at him. "Come on, Sonnius--let's go back in--the waves are great! And you need a splash of cold water in the face." He flicked his wet fingers at him.

Sonny flinched from the chilly spray and snarled, "You'll pay dearly for that misdemeanor, my friend." He leaped to his feet and lunged at Alfred, who dodged and dashed for the water. Sonny chased him. One after the other they stomped through the shallow foam-bedecked surf, dived into the mouth of a big wave, and disappeared.

###

Surviving early life in Los Angeles, Jack Forge has been creating art since childhood. After college, he taught English for many years. His poems, stories, graphic art, and novels have been published on the internet; one novel as a paperback. Despite the storm and stress of the world, Jack lives for art, nature, and love.

Cover by Jack Forge.

Sample Jack's other writing and connect with him at  Smashwords.

