When I left, I wasn’t dreaming of summer skies
and warmer weather. Not about mountains, or long wide boulevards
from fountain-washed plazas to glistening colonnades and arches
inside circles of torches and horns. I didn’t envision ancient
temples thrust into the light of day after thousands, millions, of
nights under volcanic earth. I’d had some idea I might follow a
river, but I really didn’t know how or where I’d do that because
the only river I’d seen bubbled suds beyond fences and highway
overpasses at the far end of the city in which this block is located.
That didn’t count. Nor did the creek that belched oily fumes
between the state in which this block is located and the next one.
I’d
follow some stream, perhaps—past what? I woudn’t’ve known a
forest, a desert or anybody’s countryside if I’d been dropped
into it. I couldn’t’ve even imagined such things; I guess I
wasn’t paying attention during the little time I spent in geography
lessons. Couldn’t see much reason to—after all, how did anybody
expect me to learn about things I hadn’t seen from other people who
hadn’t seen them? Plus, I always figured, even after I knew I was
leaving, that no place could be that
much more interesting than this block. And certainly not any better.
So
I never dreamed about the sights—and certainly not the smells—of
any place else. I didn’t dream about anything in California,
partly because I had practically no idea—apart from a bridge I’d
probably never cross just like the one at the far end of this city,
except the one in California was painted orange. And why would I
want to go to a place with an orange bridge, anyway?
It
wasn’t just my ignorance about anything away from this block. I
couldn’t, I still can’t imagine any of it. I’ve seen some
things and I remember a few places and even fewer people. But I
still don’t try to extrapolate from what I’ve seen to what I
haven’t. In fact, I’m still not curious about those other parts
of the world that have passed before my eyes since I left this block.
Getting to the places I’ve gone was simply a result, a
consequence, of having left this block. All that I think
about—Mother, you taught me well!—is a place to stay and
something to eat. Relationships, whether physical or emotional, have
usually been things I’d stumbled over and occasionally did for a
bed and a meal, and sometimes even money.
The
first time I turned a trick, I can’t remember whether I’d done it
to eat or sleep, or whether I was hungry or tired enough to want
either one. Somehow I knew I’d do it, sometime, somewhere. Wanted
to make a promise not to, but couldn’t. Who would I’ve made such
a promise to, anyway? Mothers? The nuns? The teachers? No, I
couldn’t let any of them know I’d been thinking such a thing.
The only others remaining were the other boys in the school, all of
whom seemed younger, bigger and tougher than me.
Now,
it seems silly to make such promises, or almost any other kind, for
that matter. I realize now that I wasn’t repulsed by the idea of
giving my only possession—my body—to anyone else for a period of
time for cash or any other currency that would’ve been useful to
me. No, that’s not all of it, either. It wasn’t even that I
found the idea of sucking a guy’s cock, or letting him stick it up
my ass, any more awful than any other carnal act—mainly because I
didn’t know any others at the time.
It
was the body—their bodies, the thought of them—that filled me
with nausea. Their skin, their hair—even his, showered and
lotioned—rasped against the inside of my mouth like cinders and
dust. Like the ones I knew on this block, the ones who pretended not
to know about the things they’d done to me. And who swore death
unto anyone who’d do it to them.
Their
bodies, his body, made me sick at first. Then angry—as if I were
just barely suppressing my wish that my teeth could be a guillotine
when his cock was between them. One night—I don’t remember
when—I got past, if not over, that impulse. Then I believe the act
became what I did, done for the same reason most people do what they
do for a living: because it was what I knew how to do, however well
or poorly. It’s true: I didn’t know how to do much else, not
with my education or lack of it, or more precisely, lack of
credentials. Mother’d taught me how to cook a few dishes, but
somehow it never occurred to me to make them for anyone else.
Actually, you can’t cook when you’re trying to forget the place
you came from or to make it forget you. You can prepare foods; you
can put them in front of somebody. But you can’t really feed
people, much less satisfy them.
When
you offer—when you can offer—no more than your body, or parts of
it, and someone’s willing to pay, there’s really nothing else
they can take from you. Offer it—offer the bodies you’ve known,
as you’ve known them, and all anybody can do is take them and pay.
Having lived, and nearly died, on this block, I could never relate to
men in any other way.
Even
Adam. He never touched me, much less fondled me. But , other than
the presence of my body, what else could I, who hadn’t yet
developed acne, offer a man who could no more remove the number
tatooed on his forearm than he could erase his name from his birth
certificate, if it still existed. After him, I never wanted to ask
any man—anybody, really—his story. He once said, “They ask
what you do. You tell; maybe they shoot, maybe keep you.”
Sometimes, he said, they even feed you.
And
what had he done. He said something about being a “doctor for the
eyes.” Or maybe he’d been studying that—after all, he was old,
not much older than I was when I left this block—when he was
grabbed on a street in Cracow.
He’d
never tried to describe that city—“It’s gone now, finished”—or
the place where the soldiers brought him. He only said, “They made
me doctor eyes.” Doctor eyes—I never asked what he meant, or
even tried to imagine. I knew only, “Some braahn, some blue.”
Whichever, he said, “I doctor.”
I
never did find out which camp, or other place of internment, he’d
seen. Or where he passed through, camped out or simply ran. He’d
talk only about the wind through the trees—you couldn’t escape
it, he said—and a river that smelled of sulfur, “like a match
burnt,” even though it’d frozen enough for him to run across.
The hollow and hidden places he found, each of them good for a night,
sometimes two. Abandoned, like everything else, at the first echo,
the first scent of another person. “The city, the country, no
matter,” he told me. “All dangerous.”
Once
I asked about whether he’d thought about going back to Poland or
any of those other places. He shook his hand in front of my face as
if he’d been diabetic and I’d offered him fudge. “All done.
No more.”
He
never talked about marriage—having been, having not been, or even
whether he’d considered it. As far as I know, he didn’t have any
children. At least, I can no more imagine his having had them than I
could see myself becoming a boy again. It wouldn’t be possible now
even if God wants it—supposing, of course, that God exists,
notwithstanding the human race’s attempts to create –and some
people’s wishes to get rid of—him.
I
never imagined that God, much less all those things I hadn’t yet
experienced and would never imagine, would’ve changed me, changed
the directions—whatever they’ve been—of my life. All I know,
all I’ve ever known, was that if I’d stayed I’d’ve died a
boy, of whatever age, just like the others on this block. The only
way, as best as I could tell, to forestall my own death in boyhood—I
wasn’t even thinking of what I’d survive into—was to kill.
Yes, kill: before I’d have possession of my body—my life—taken
from me.
I
suppose that if I’d escaped and remained the boy I’d been—of
course, it wouldn’t’ve been possible, but let’s say “if “
anyway—I’d’ve said I’d done “what I had to do.” They say
that all the time. But the truth is that I was no more obligated to
anybody to survive, whether I remained on this block or somewhere
else, than I was to die here. Adam was gone. Even if he weren’t,
nothing I could’ve done would’ve helped him. Mother’d done
everything she could without selling her body—at least, as far as I
know, she never did.
And,
once I left, she never asked me to call, and I never promised I
would: I think she knew I would. Partly out of respect, but also
because I could and would do so. She’d never want to know the name
of the city or country I was calling from, or whether the weather and
scenery were pleasing. Only that I’d had a place to sleep and
enough to eat.
