Elegies From Another Book

By Bobby Flores Villasis

Three things I shouldn’t have done, if you were to ask the boulevard people: left home, taught in a Protestant school, met Wayne. About the first two I have no regrets.

Home was stately. Chevrons on the gate. Distinctive architectural details to rival the thirteen other mansions on Avenida Santa Catalina. Inside it was Dante’s Inferno. The Colonel saw to that. I have not heard anyone ever having asked me where Papa was. It was always The Colonel. Colonel Rufo Delegado, fearless butcher of the Javanese with the swashbuckling charm of Clark Gable, Tita Ursulina used to remark when she had the chance, implying I should be no less, adding that since there was no war where I could prove my masculinity I could perhaps actively engage in athletics or whatever would wean me away from Mama’s skirts and keep the Colonel’s belt away from my skin.

The boulevard people minded that I associated with foreigners, heretics. They minded that about Lucilla, too. My religion was nominal since Mama, the only person who didn’t need to drag me to the Cathedral, had died. At Carson University President Feldman and the American missionaries didn’t think that was relevant to my job. They gave me higher English and referred to me as Professor Jake. Among the major students are two healthy beatniks I call Kerouac and Ginsberg. They shampoo their Jesus Christ hair regularly. I have no regrets teaching there.

As for Wayne, I’m not yet certain. I can hear him pissing in the little room. Sometimes he pisses through the back window, his streaming penis laid indifferently on the sill as though he had disclaimed responsibility for it. Other times he aims it at my maidenhair ferns while standing on the bottom step and loudly wishing I had neighbors he could scandalize. Many other times he isn’t even here. I hear he’s frequently not in Milagrosa either. He doesn’t tell where he goes. He says I could be a little like Lucilla and be at least curious. I decline. I don’t want to know. I’m satisfied that the only thing I can be certain of is: there are no certainties with Wayne. Only moments. They say regrets come later. I hope it won’t be that much later, when I shall have made an emotional investment as substantial as his torso. By then I may not be able to cope. And yet I also hope it won’t be that soon. Wayne has away of looking at me sometimes as though to tell me this is it but could couldn’t say it out loud. Like this morning. He comes back into the bedroom and confronts me with his nakedness. His cold blue gaze makes me shiver. Then he smiles, asks if I could please make breakfast before I shave, suddenly grabs the blanket from my erection and howls, calling me a horny old witch.

On second thought, if the boulevard people knew about Wayne and me, they’d say I really should have stayed home in the first place. I wouldn’t have needed to work at all. Their proximity would have made this thing with Wayne inconvenient. Then there would be none of these apprehensions. That Lucilla would find out. That the boulevard people would learn about it. That Wayne would have to leave.

I must be getting older than my 30, thinking these grim thoughts so early in the day. I don’t know what has provoked it. Maybe my ponytail is tied back too tight. It can’t be a hangover. Wayne doesn’t like me drinking as much as he does. You want to stay respectable, Professor Jake, he reminds me. It can’t be the weather, because the sun is out and there is a breeze from the boulevard. If we were closer it would be a bit salty, laced with jasmine and breakfasts frying. It can’t be my digestion. Mind what you put in your mouth, Wayne always kids me, not always in reference to food., I do mind what I eat. Mama indulged me. She was boulevard people, after all. I remember many sumptuous dinners she would drag me to. Years ago when she died and moved into this cottage, three blocks off the boulevard and sequestered by trees, I had to unlearn a penchant for rich cuisine, more out of economic necessity than from fear of dying from too much lard and sugar. Wayne has a good appetite and can demolish an entire fried chicken without help. He jogs around his jeep parked under the trees in the backyard while I prepare breakfast. Sausages and eggs for him. Oatmeal for me. I watch him through the kitchen window while the oatmeal simmers on the stove. He is wearing only sneakers without socks. He jogs naked, all pink and blond in the leaf-filtered light. He likes me ogling his robust behind, coveting his bouncing genitals. Sometimes he gets my bicycle into the act, careening through the trees on it pretending he’s about to drive it into a hedge. This morning I don’t rush back into the bedroom for my glasses the better to see him like I used to. For once I will let him wonder why. Not because I want to force him into a commitment. What we have is good enough for me: a meantime. I just want him to worry a bit. I can’t do all the worrying in the world, you know.

Had I not left home I might now be running the farm. Jake the planter. Horrifying thought. It’s a job for savages. Long-lashed cherubs when they’re babies, apes in their middle age without an inkling about what sonnets and arabesques might be. They say Frank Sinatra is culture enough and ballroom dancing in their sharkskins demonstrates their genteel character. They forget that the Colonel has been in a wheelchair for the last ten, eleven years, and he has been known to call Sinatra sissy. Wayne told me the Colonel has called him many names. He said that on their very wedding lay, to which cousin Lucilla didn’t invite me, thank God, the Colonel took every chance he could to raise suspicion about Wayne’s provenance simply because my vague Aunt Lucia had insisted on decorating the cake with old Canadian heraldry. The Colonel said authentic Canadians would know this had already been replaced on their flag by a red maple leaf with eleven points. Ergo, where was he really from?

Had I obeyed Monsignor Pepe and returned to the boulevard when the Colonel had a stroke, I might now be overseeing Hacienda San Joaquin, right beside Hacienda Milagrosa of the Bengoa women, Lucia and Lucilla, both of them widely reputed to have bats in the belfry. Wayne told me how difficult they are to live with. I know that part. The part I’m learning is why anyone would want to make a family with him. He has an independence that is sometimes infuriating. He keeps schedules by his own alien clock. He has manners the boulevard people will never find acceptable. On the other hand, had Lucilla not married him, Wayne might merely have sunk back into the waters off the boulevard where, they say, he had risen from one midmorning, an anonymous Caucasian who had never bothered to explain his presence. The boulevard people say sharks in search of prey never do.

We met during a battle. Shona MacBride, a Scot, had been brought in by the University from New Zealand to teach Modern Dance. On the night of her class recital, as we sat in the gymnasium stunned by her moving interpretations of poverty and injustice the League of Concerned Students, many of them looking very handsome in their red headbands, broke into the hall with banners and bullhorns denouncing the Imperialist Presence. We were still in the grip of a powerful awakening to Filipino anguish under a dictatorship. It was strong propaganda that the activists would have applauded had they given it a chance. Their intrusion was not only ill-timed, it had the wrong premises. For a while there we had been almost ready to join them in the barricades, for heaven’s sake! Now they howled up the aisles with fists in the air like tribes to a battle. This was no way to gain our sympathy! Madame MacBride’s dancers fled screaming in a diaphanous swirl as the League stormed the stage and ripped the sets apart. In a rare burst of outrage that would set the boulevard buzzing for months, the staid Trustees and patrons in the front rows got to their feet and threw their souvenir programs at the belligerents. Running out of programs, they picked up their chairs and hurled them towards the stage. The League tossed back benches and the boles of bamboo on which Shona had crucified her Common Man in a bulging jockstrap so chillingly. I wasn’t much of a warrior. I pushed through the melee towards the nearest exit where I collided with an arrogant-looking Caucasian pushing his way in. He wore a white T-shirt and khaki shorts, classic uniform of the planters and the boulevard rich. His blond hair lit up eyes the blue of glaciers. I knew at once who it was. The Nordic god Lucilla boasted she had fished off the waters of our bay.

If they knew what happened, the boulevard people would point an accusing finger and tell me I should have skedaddled away from there and gone straight home. Instead, I stopped to smell the roses, as the saying goes.

President Feldman had gone onstage. He had confiscated someone’s bullhorn and was ordering the League to go home. He was answered by jeers and catcalls.

Wayne shook his head in amusement. “Vietnam was more orderly,” he shouted above the din. His shoulders were hefty, almost half a foot above mine. I caught a whiff of rhum.

“Vietnam isn’t over yet,” I shouted back.

He looked down at me. “It will soon be,” he said, pointing to a particularly noisy fray where a woman with large breasts had climbed onto someone’s shoulders and was apparently trying to bite his ears off. I recognized Lucilla. “My wife,” he said, “I’m going to ship her off to the Congs — that should end the Vietnam war!” He roared with laughter, grabbed my elbow and dragged me out of the gym as Lucilla’s victim screamed like a stuck pig and, on the stage, another wild-looking female with a red banana brought President Feldman’s bullhorn down on his head.

Wayne loped easily across the wide central lawn of Carson. Several times I wanted to stop for breath but he’d throw back a disparaging glance like a towline that tugged me along. He didn’t pause at the university gate. I could have turned right, walked a short cut to my cottage and bolted my gate against the demons, Instead, I turned left, falling back but not so far back that I couldn’t hear the slap of his sneakers on the asphalt of Real, see the blot of sweat on his back creep outward like a sodden spiderweb. I caught up with him where he sat on the pavement in a corner of Real. He mopped his face, tossed the handkerchief to me and bent over. I lifted his shirt and reached under it with wide swabs. His body was steaming. There was a strong earthy smell about him. The handkerchief caught on sweat. My bare hand slid down his back. Smooth. Hard. Warm. My head swam. I stood up. At once the sight of old lampposts in a long row blazing a soft gold hit me like a sweet but unwanted dream. Only then did I realize I had left my bicycle outside the gym and that I was on Avenida Santa Catalina.

It hadn’t changed much. There was heavier vehicular traffic on the Avenida and more promenaders on its parallel Alfonso XIII boulevard along the seawall. But the sprawling canopies of the old acacias were just as I remember, and the long island of grass on which they stood, and the row of gothic lampposts that stood about a foot off the Avenida as though someone had commanded them to take one step backward, hey, make way for the ladies of the fourteen mansions, their skirts and their parasols and their lives dainty with lace. I didn’t see any of the horse-drawn rigs that used to clip-clop along the Avenida. I remember standing at the Colonel’s open gate with Mama as the other ladies agreed to make representations with the Council about special diapers for the horses. The daily parade of monstrous dark penises was indecent, they gasped. I didn’t think anyone else noticed. If I crossed the Avenida and walked two paces into the island I would be able to see the Colonel’s house. I wondered if it would be brightly lit for guests even at this late hour like it used to be, when I was 11 and the price of sugar in the world market was taller than I. I wondered if I could hear the Perez Prado in the sala and the tinkle of ice in tall glasses and the lilt of laughter behind fans, and feel envious about not being there. I decided I wouldn’t even be. I had chosen not to be, years ago. There had been some struggle then. I was disturbed to discover there still was.

“Nothing like it in the world, “ he said behind me. I nodded and told him I hadn’t seen it in a long time. He wanted to know why. I asked him why he hadn’t bothered to wait for Lucilla, he had gone to fetch her, hadn’t he? He said Lucilla can take care of herself, he simply wanted to see how she was doing it. She was pregnant, you know…

He held out a hand and said, “I’m Wayne and you’re Jake.”

“You Tarzan, “ I jabbed a finger lightly on his chest, “me Jane.”

He grinned. “You’re Lucilla’s cousin, you used to live in the house over there. I know all about you.”

“And I know all about you,” I said, “you married Lucilla for her money.”

He laughed, rocking on his sneakers. “I wouldn’t ask you to buy me a drink if I had her money,” he chuckled. I told him I didn’t hear him asking. He said sometimes I should listen even to what isn’t said. I said okay, but not at Sabina’s Pub. We could see its neon sign just below a balcony of the Pastorfide mansion. It was too close to hell. I said okay, as long as he didn’t molest me when he got drunk. I had heard he was cruel to the Milagrosa farmhands and mauled Sabina’s waitresses after sex. He laughed again, his head thrown back, his throat bared to the night air. His hair caught gold from the lamps. I thought of a stallion with a golden mane, its teeth bared against the wind blowing into the boulevard from the bay, gripping and persistent.

Payday at Carson means you join a queue before the university teller and wait almost half a morning for your turn at the window. Twice a month we do that. I consider it undignified but there is no other way you can claim on time what is due you.

I’ve always hated falling in line, standing in a file. I almost flunked PMT. The Colonel probably invented the squats and the push-ups that we seemed to have more of than actual drills. Fortunately, the Corps Commander was a working student who enjoyed debasing nice-looking cadets, in particular the fair boulevard scions. They had the crispest khakis and the cleanest buckles. Their faces never shone from exertion. They behaved like royalty. They needed to be disciplined. I learned about it from Blas Masangkay whose family was considered boulevard people although their mansion stood away from the boulevard, behind that of the Conroys.

Blas was some sort of distant cousin, Mama had told me once. It seems on the boulevard we all were, except for the Albas in the smaller Alba mansion, and Sabina Bondad the epileptic who opened a pub on the Avenida and altered forever the genteel character of boulevard life. So when cousin Blas told me I should first learn a few things, beginning with taking down my trousers, I felt it was all right, especially when he locked the PMT office door, removed his own trousers and stood before me in his Jockeys. Something inside me churned. We belonged in the same squad. My butterflies-in-the-stomach kind of curiosity had often been frustrated every time the platoon leader called out, at ease, and Blas simply turned his back and pissed into the field. One day he was summoned from the ranks. He had gotten assigned to office work, he grinned. No more sunburn, no more drills, no more tortures. Blas said, this is what you do. He unbuttoned his shirt and hung it on the back of a. chair. I did the same. He laid a hand on my chest, with his other hand cupped his crotch and. fondled it. I cupped mine but didn’t need to fondle it. I had felt myself beginning to swell as soon as he stripped. His Jockeys stretched to bursting. Blas urged it over a raging erection down to his knees and told me to hold it, rearranging my fingers to enclose it more firmly. I pumped it slow. He gripped my shoulders, closed his eyes and thrust against my hand, panting, his body swaying. My knees quaked. He gasped and removed my hand. He said, you first, pulling my Jockeys down as he knelt, held my penis and slid it into his mouth. At once a great shiver shot through me. I pushed him away and staggered back against a tabletop as I spurted so thickly into the air it was almost painful, I had to gather my genitals with both hands to make it stop. Blas waited as I caught my breath. He said, now this is what he will want you to do, as he pushed me to my knees and thrust towards my face the first ripe crimson fruit of my reprehensible youth.

Memories like that aren’t so bad to entertain yourself with to pass the time. No one can guess what’s making you comfortable. Even if you get excited there’s no need to be alarmed, it will go away immediately if you discover you’re in line between an old AgTech professor whose name eludes you and the giddy HE teacher who seems to think you’re eligible simply because you’re not married. I’m considering falling out of the file when I see Wayne sitting on the outcropping root of an old acacia near the gate. He’s wearing white corduroy trousers and a white T-shirt that clings and draws attention to his torso. As the kids would say, he’s groovy. He’s looking at me. I lean out to see how much longer I’d have to wait. Quite a while. My stomach begins to grumble. Serves me right for not falling in line early enough. I step out and head straight for the gate. I pretend not to recognize him. He leaps up and walks alongside me. A group of students turns to stare at him. I don’t look at him when I tell him, “Don’t do this again, people will talk.”

“I don’t care. Why should you? You’re getting to sound like boulevard people,” he says as we hurry through the gate. “I thought you were no longer one of them.”

“I never was.” At least that’s what I thought. “I was never acceptable.” I hurry on.

“You ought to take those glasses off sometimes. So you can see better.”

I stop and stare at him. “I’ve seen it all. How much better can you look?”

“Try using your own eyes.”

“You mean I get to take another look.”

“Well… “ he looks around, “there are all these people, Jake, but if you insist…” He unzips his fly.

“Wayne!”

He zips up and laughs at me. “You’re such a prude! Let’s go to bed.”

“You’re picking me up.”

“You picked me up the other night.”

“I did not.”

“Well, somebody did, and he looked like you.”

“Does this mean I’m not a one-night stand?”

“Hey, watch it, Professor. I’m not asking you to marry me!”

“Oh, come on. You’re making a scene.”

As we turn right towards my block he asks if I regret what happened the other night. I don’t need to think this over. I tell him I’ll only regret it if it doesn’t happen again. He asks if he can have lunch with me. I inform him that I don’t frankly know what’s in my larder, and that I wasn’t able to draw my pay. Fine, he says as we turn into a side street leading to my cottage. He sold some of Lucilla’s jewels, he says. I don’t know whether he’s joking or what. He’ll buy whatever from somewhere and bring it to me, he says. I realize he’s been walking. I ask him where his jeep is. He tells me it’s parked in my backyard. I swing the gate open. He runs on ahead, towards his jeep, and meets me at the top of the stairs. He hands me a book. Our Lady of the Flowers. I thank him and ask if he knows that people have called the book pornographic. He answers, “Yes, but you get what you deserve.”

Blue books intimidate me. They reveal whether you’ve been effective, and so comprehended or, as the beatniks put it, the class just doesn’t dig you. I have piles of blue books before me on the dining table. I’ve been checking since this morning. It’s now late afternoon of a Saturday when I should be doing something more entertaining, and I’m not even halfway through. Our Lady of the Flowers will have to wait another day.

Kerouac and Ginsberg saunter into the porch. They ask if I need help. Anything but the books from their class, although they’re my star students. And the essay parts, of course. Those I shall have to evaluate myself. I tell them, sure, it will be a relief, I’m about to have a migraine although so far a lot of the books haven’t been so bad. They sit beside each other, shoulders touching, so Ginsberg can make the marks while Kerouac reads from my master list of answers. I haven’t seen them this close. Ginsberg has a cleft chin and marry the full lips they call generous. Kerouac has movie-star teeth and hairless forearms. I start to stir down there. I get up and tell them I’ll make us all chocolate.

Wayne surprises me in the kitchen. “I didn’t hear the jeep,” I say.

He looks at the glasses I’m stirring. “Sorry if I’m disturbing your party.”

I’m offended and I hope it shows. “Does it look like one?”

He’s wearing khaki shorts and a sleeveless shirt. I notice his clothes are damp. He smells of the sea. “I’m sorry,” he says. His face is troubled. “There’s been an accident. We were out in the catamaran and Lucille fell overboard. I think we’re going to lose the baby.”

I am at a loss for words. I hand him the glass meant for me. He gulps the chocolate down. “The jeep’s out in the street,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of a hand. “I have to get back to Lucilla in the hospital. The old woman’s there as well, telling everyone I did it on purpose.”

I tell him it’s okay, nobody believes a madwoman. I tell him I’m sorry about the baby. He says he dropped by to tell me he may not be able to come out here for a while, they’ll expect him to be more concerned. I tell him I’ll be here when he can make it. I follow him out to the porch. He gives the beatniks a cold glance as he goes.

“Pot is bad for your health,” Wayne says, refusing to let me have a puff. He takes a deep draw. I jab a finger into his armpit. He chokes and coughs out smoke. He reaches back with his left hand and pinches my chest once, and then again until he locates a nipple. He tweaks it lightly between thumb and forefinger until it hardens. He takes a puff, pulls my head down to his pursed lips. I suck sweetish smoke that mingles with his tartness still in my mouth. His tongue thrusts through my lips. I can taste myself, he grins and reaches for my other nipple.

“Don’t buy me another shirt,” I tell him. “Or anything else.” He asks why not? I tell him it makes me feel like a whore.

He glances up at me in mock surprise. “You mean you’re not?” He pretends to be indignant. “I’ve been deceived!”

We’re on the open porch, an airy crop of latticework, weathered like the rest of the cottage, unpainted so that it lacks the delicate icing charm of the boulevard mansions. We’re on the rattan couch. I’m sitting upright on one end, he is sprawled the length of the lounge, his head on my lap. His long naked body glistens with sweat. He says it’s only in my cottage his skin can breathe. I’m a bit modest. I have hurriedly slipped into silk shorts which Wayne says makes no difference as he can still make out my balls. I tell him to enjoy the view.

“You know, the Colonel spies on us,” he says. “We were screwing on the grass one time, back of the house there by the lake, and we saw him on the other side, under the trees. He was trying to jerk his wheelchair closer to the lakeshore.”

“I don’t know if he can see that far,” I pluck the stub from his fingers and toss it into the yard. “Serves you right for screwing out in the open. I believe you did that on purpose. Show him what he can no longer do.”

“I guess you’re right there. I got a kick out of it. But he really shouldn’t watch, you know.”

I glance at my watch: 12:46. Wayne’s ministrations and the weight of his head on my lap are threatening to give me an erection so soon after a particularly violent ejaculation I’ll need hours to recover from. I gather my hair into a rubber band to make a ponytail and remind him that it’s a Saturday. He may have forgotten he has always devoted weekends to taking the Bengoa women out on jaunts. It’s his first Saturday with me. I don’t intend to ask how come. On a couple of past Saturday afternoons, Kerouac and Ginsberg had dropped in unannounced for consultations. They don’t seem to be the type who gossip. However, a nude man could be something to remark about, especially if he’s a foreigner. Two together would be just too sensational to keep in confidence.

Wayne crosses his hands on his chest. He says, “I sold some more of Lucilla’s stones to buy you that shirt, you know.”

I’m not sure whether to be moved or alarmed or to believe him at all. He says the old woman is making noises about her sapphires, too, and the way she says it leaves no doubt she means Wayne has taken them. I begin to feel shaken.

He expels a breath and mumbles, “One of these days I’m going to put a pillow over her face.” I say nothing. After a while he nods, “Serves them right, nagging me all the time.”

I want to tell him I should nag, too, but that’s what I had to leave behind. I look for something silly to say. I say, “I can nag, too, if you like.”

He shrugs and tells me it’s no good. I don’t have jewels he can snitch to sell. Can’t even buy my own lunch! He takes my hand and lays it on his chest, guides it down over the pink button on his belly and lower, to the golden curls and the pale shaft that thickens and grows as my fist takes possession. He asks if I want him out before anyone came. I want to tell him he can stay forever but decide it’s too high drama for this time of day. I say, “Of course you can stay, just put on some clothes.”

He asks why he needs to, won’t these kids be interested in what he has? I say, maybe just to validate what they’ve heard about the size of Caucasian equipment. Otherwise, I have no suspicions about their gender. He asks what about what I’ve heard. I tell him it appears to be true, judging from what I have on hand, awesome, really. I haven’t had much experience with other nationals, however, except for a Chinese classmate and a Thai student I used to tutor. I really prefer the natives.

“Like those beatniks,” he says.

I nod. “Maybe. They have even white teeth and wide shoulders, too. They keep their hair and their crotches well washed.”

Wayne lunges towards me, thrusts a hand into my shorts and grabs. “You bitch,” he glowers at me, “if you were my wife I’d cut this off at once!” His glacier eyes are ferocious. I stare back at him, quivering, and then the anomaly dawns on us. We laugh and hug each other.

Kerouac drops the cord from an overhanging branch of the jackfruit tree nearest the porch. I step up on the table and screw the bulb into the socket. It’s right above the table we have brought down for dinner. I give him a thumbs up and jump off the table. He rides the branch, secures the cord with a loop of string around a twig, grabs a branch and lowers himself. For a moment he hangs in the air before me looking exhilarated by some new-found strength. I’m startled by the fairness and smoothness of the skin above the white waistband of his underwear, and the amplitude that fills out his groin. With a huff he lets go and lands on the table as Ginsberg appears with an armload of rattan chairs. I tell them, “Brush off the leaves so I can spread the cloth. It’s a special occasion, you know.”

Mama was very meticulous about special occasions. On second thought, perhaps it was because the Colonel disliked being talked about for the wrong things, like smudged crystals and cutlery that didn’t match. On the boulevard it’s not just having sugar money, it’s knowing what to do with it. Even so, that didn’t ensure acceptability, as some other inhabitants of the Avenida will tell you. It’s a constant struggle. I’m always consoled not to be there.

On the stairs Kerouac tells me it’s after five, maybe he should start on the spaghetti. I say okay, but the meat sauce should stay over a low fire until Wayne comes. He likes his spaghetti warm.

Ginsberg is setting the table. His jeans strain at the thighs each time he leans out to put a plate or silver in place. “You boys have been very helpful,” I stroke his forearm. He doesn’t flinch. He smiles without looking at me. When he’s through he turns to me. I nod approval. He takes my shoulders, gives me a quick peck on the cheek and goes up into the cottage, to do the green salad, I presume, as he promised, just so they could stay for the evening. Ginsberg has Wayne’s confident, easy stride. I wonder what might happen if Wayne doesn’t show up. I wonder how the beatniks might react if I made advances. They’re in my class, to begin with. Even if it seems all right to me if may not seem proper to them. I wonder why I think about it at all. This seems to be a constant struggle, too, keeping my hands off what isn’t mine.

I arrange the four chairs around the table and sit on one. Sometimes I sit here like this and think about what I left behind, the frightening surge of sea against the boulevard seawall on certain nights, the salty breeze, sunlight glaring off the concrete benches, moonrise creeping into my room. Bird calls in the morning, the shiver of trees, I have that here. The old lamps, ah, now that I am missing. If the Council succeeds in replacing them with those migrainous modern spheres I must try and get a couple of the old lampposts to plant here.

The smell of garlic frying wafts down. There is laughter in my kitchen. Giggling? I think the beatniks have started on the rhum. Among the trees dusk comes early. I go up to switch on the lights over the table. If it glares I still have time to drape a scarf about it or something. It is giggling I hear in the kitchen. I pause in the doorway as Ginsberg dips a finger in the salad bowl and brings it to Kerouac’s lips. Kerouac takes the finger into his mouth with an unquestioning quickness that jolts me to realize that they are lovers.

It’s all over town. My student Susan, whose father hauls cane for Hacienda Milagrosa, informs me Lucia Bengoa has died in tier sleep. I suppose that’s why Wayne did not show up for my birthday spaghetti. The wake is in Milagrosa. The Colonel will be there, naturally, being right next door. I don’t visit. I have nothing to say to anyone there. I can’t pretend sympathy that I don’t feel. On the afternoon of the funeral the procession passes by the university gate just as I ride towards it. I turn into Missionary Lane and stand behind the hedges, still on my bicycle. The day had started out overcast. Now it is sweltering. I take off my glasses and mop my face with a handkerchief. The procession is slow and long. The women wear black lace veils, shrouds against the sun and public scrutiny. I don’t see Lucilla or Wayne. They’d be up front, or course, right behind the hearse, which is as it should be. The boulevard people are finicky about appearances. The procession is dignified. There is a press of onlookers. They may protest, but in reality I think the boulevard people actually like the public watching.

The table is still under the jackfruit tree. I haven’t thought of returning it upstairs. It’s still covered with cloth. I see tomato stains here and there. I suppose maybe I want Wayne to see it and feel remorseful when he comes back. If he comes back at all. It’s been some time since the funeral was over. I put my books down on the table, my glasses on top of them. I’ll just sit here for a while and see if he comes back.

I wake as his jeep purrs into the orchard. The headlights blind me for a moment. I realize it’s evening. He parks, jumps out and stands before me, arms akimbo.

“Feeding the mosquitoes, Jake?” he mocks. “Funny way to kill yourself.”

“Not because of you,” I retort. His face is haggard, from those vigils, I suppose. “So, how’s the devoted husband?”

He scowls. “You’re not like them.” He clenches a fist against my face. “Don’t ever be unless you want me out of here for good.”

“Nothing I do will make you stay for good. You and I know that. Why are you here?”

“Don’t make me explain. I might discover why I shouldn’t be. Now, c’mon and bring down plates. I got chow in the jeep.”

We have supper under the tree. A whole chicken for him, noodles for me. A six-pack of beer for both of us. The orchard is shrill with cicadas. “Someone’s been slaughtered here,” he says, pointing at the stains on the cloth. “And you have not tidied up. Been missing me, right?”

“You know, Wayne, if you were someone else, I’d say you were conceited.”

“You know, Jake, if you were someone else, I wouldn’t have to try so hard.”

We light cigarettes and drink our beer in his jeep. It’s my only chance to be in it, he says. I tell him his eyelids are dark, as though he hasn’t been sleeping.

“It’s been a noisy week, “ he says. “The Colonel’s been very hard on me. Bitching about a lot of things. Why no doctor was called. Why I chose a coffin like that, not a bit of sculpting on it. And the others went along with him. The whole time.” He turns to me. “I’m not dumb, Jake. I know there’s so little I can give. I’ve wanted to give it all. They won’t have it. There’s just no pleasing them. Nat any of them. Not with that damned Colonel badmouthing me every time.”

“I know. I’ve been there.”

“Someone ought to teach him a lesson.” He gulps down his beer and flings the bottle at the trees. “Damn you!”

His expletive unnerves me. The cicadas are still. I lean away. He notes my unease. “Not you, Jake.” He reaches out, pulls me close. “Not ever you.” He lays a hand on my lap. My response is immediate. “Hmm,” he grins, “you have been missing me.”

I slip my hand under his shirt. I tell him we’d be more comfortable upstairs. We’re like sneaky adolescents here. He kisses my neck as he tugs at my belt, pushes my trousers down to my feet. I slip a hand into his shorts. He is bare under it. His erection is urgent. It sears my palm. He slides a hand under me, squeezes me there. I tell him no, I’ve already said I’m not into that sort of thing. He grinds his mouth into mine. His hands roam freely. They feel larger than I remember. He is mauling me. I push him away. His breath quickens. He becomes more insistent. I fight him off and start to get off the jeep. He grabs my waist and pulls me back. He holds me down with a knee. My face is pressed against the cracked leather seat. I can hardly breathe. I hear his impatience as he struggles to remove his shorts. The stubble of his beard pricks my nape as his weight falls down the length of my back. “Your father screws me!” he grunts. “I want you to know how it feels!” He forces his hugeness into me. Pain engulfs me like an enormous black wave. Tears and saliva flood my face. His thrusting is enraged. Unrelenting. He shudders. He gathers me in a tighter, more excruciating embrace. With a roar like the tides below the boulevard at midnight, he swells and erupts. He lies over me. I can hear his heart throbbing. He strokes my arms, gently, as his breath slows and his erection subsides. He kisses me lightly on the shoulder. He gets off, sits me up. “I’ll get the beer,” he says. He hitches up his shorts. I’m too weak to put on my trousers. He slides off the jeep.

My body is a mass of pain. I feel slimy all over. Wayne returns with the beer and a towel. He cleans me up. He rubs my limp penis. I stop his hand and shake my head. He helps me back into my trousers, gets into the jeep beside me. We drink our beer quietly.

“You know, Jake,” he stirs after a while, “I’ve been going away most of my life. Not running away. Just leaving. I don’t like going away. Like, is there no place for me anywhere? When I got here I thought I wouldn’t have to go away again.”

I gulp my beer and hug the cold, wet bottle to my chest.

“When I do you’ll be the only one who will understand why.” He buries his face in his hands. Soon his shoulders shake. I’m startled to realize he’s sobbing. I press my face against his back so he, too, won’t see my tears.

Almost as soon as the lamps are lit a glow appears on the horizon. The tip of a moonrise appears. Kerouac and Ginsberg want to watch it. We drop our knapsacks. I sit on the seawall between them. The concrete is still warm from the day. The moon pulls itself out of the water. Within minutes it’s sky-borne and the boulevard is washed in silver. There are people on the seawall and the grass, as far as I can see none from the fourteen mansions of Avenida Santa Catalina. I tell my beatniks we must go. We haul our knapsacks onto our shoulders and walk into the island of grass. Kerouac wraps an arm about my waist. The row of mansions are pallid in the moonlight. There are lights in a few windows. Other than it seems as though they’re uninhabited. The Colonel’s mansion is one of the oldest. It has one of the first tile roofs on the Avenida. The corner room on the upper floor has two windows with wrought-iron grills you can sleep on, if you were a child. I remember spending entire days there, airing the welts on my legs from another belting by the Colonel. I don’t recall laughter in the house. It was a grim-faced household. Smiling doesn’t come naturally to me.

The padlock on the gate is rusty. I try four keys before it opens. Kerouac pushes at the gate. It creaks. The garden is unkempt. My steps seem heavy. I haven’t walked up this path in over two decades. Ginsberg takes my elbow. There’s a pounding in my ribcage as we stand on the porch. The boulevard people can’t see us. I wonder what they’d say if they could. The lock resists the entire bunch. I try all over again until it gives. I grip the doorknob, take a deep breath as though I’m about to dive into dark waters, and open the door. There’s a cold gust that whispers past, like ghosts long imprisoned.

Kerouac and Ginsberg grope for switches. The house lights up but remains as cheerless as it always was. I lock the front door and sit on the floor, my back to the wall. Kerouac and Ginsberg open all the windows, climb the stairs to open those on the second floor.

No one had seen Hacienda San Joaquin burning until the fire had gotten out of control. They said it happened after midnight. Everyone was asleep. The Colonel was discovered only in the morning. If the charred remains were not in a wheelchair no one would have recognized him. My student Susan told me as soon as I came into the classroom. I pedalled wildly home and slumped on my bed, breathless. The tears came fiercely. I knew I had finally lost Wayne.

Tita Ursulina came into the orchard with another old woman, probably a servant. She declined my invitation to come up. They stayed by the maidenhair ferns. Tita Ursulina wore black, a stately spectre from the past. I dragged my feet down the stairs and took her hand to my forehead. I hadn’t done that in a long time. It moved us both. I gulped down a tear and Tita Ursulina dabbed at her eyes with an immaculate handkerchief.

“You have to go,” her voice quivered. It had none of the sternness that I remembered. “You have no reason not to.”

I stared at the ground and tried to find one.

“I don’t mean the house. You can think about that later. I mean the funeral. Monsignor Pepe has decided that the Colonel will lie in state in the Cathedral two days until interment. As for the house… “ she handed me a bunch of keys, “… you must decide soon. The Conroys left us a ghost mansion on the Avenida. We don’t want another.” She took the old woman’s hand. They left without a word.

Kerouac and Ginsberg pad softly down to the sala and unload our knapsacks. They had asked to keep me company. I told them I’m not ready to return to my childhood room or sleep on the furniture. We have brought provisions and clothes, blankets to spread on the floor. We plan to make love until the sun streams in through the windows and all the ghosts have gone.