dontravis.com blog post #513
Amazing how lonely one can be in the midst of friends and neighbors. All it takes is the removal of a precious one. Let’s see what happens next. You will recall that Joey has just left for his first nine weeks of army boot camp.
****
THE
OLD MAN ACROSS THE STREET
I tried in vain to tamp down
my rising excitement. Joey was coming home on a week’s leave after finishing
his first nine-week boot camp. Calm down, Warren. He’ll have so many friends to
see, there’ll be no time for the old man across the street. Louise probably
wouldn’t even get enough of his attention. Nonetheless, my heart started pounding
the moment I spotted the taxi pull up in front of the Armitage home. I
literally had to sit down to keep from rushing across the street and intruding
on Joey’s reunion with his mother. I rose from my chair half a dozen times only
to force myself to go get a drink of water or grab a handful of peanuts…
anything to keep from walking out the door and crossing the street. Would he
come see me before he started circulating among his friends? Probably not. The
attraction of youth to youth was stronger than the draw of youth to age. And I
suddenly felt every one of my sixty-three years. From my viewpoint, that wasn’t
old. But to eighteen-year-old eyes, that likely seemed ancient.
I was rereading the two
letters he’d sent me from boot camp when a rap on the door startled me. My heart
raced, my hands lost control of the handwritten pages, dumping them on my desk.
My knees almost refused to hold my weight as I got up.
Joey Armitage stood on my
front doorstep, resplendent in slick sleeve khakis, the crossed rifles of the
infantry glistening on his collar. The boy had become the man.
When I opened the screen, he
brushed aside my handshake and enfolded me in a bear hug. “Mr. O,” he whispered
in my ear. “Damn, it’s good to see you. I’ve missed you.”
“And I, you, my boy,” I
squeezed past my voice box. I held him at arm’s length, noting that he was
taller than I was. When did that happen? “Let me look at you.” I took in his
full, smiling lips, his brilliant green eyes, and close-cropped brown hair and
almost lost my voice again. “Well,” I managed to say, “they haven’t done any
obvious damage to you.”
He laughed aloud. “Naw, it’s
all on the inside. Actually, it wasn’t so bad.”
“Come in,” I said, backing
away.
He headed straight for the den
at the back of the house and declined something to drink as he sank into the
usual chair he claimed when he was here. I immediately peppered him with
questions about his experiences.
Joey lolled back in the chair,
arms relaxed on the padded rests, legs splayed the way he’d sat in that chair a
thousand times. He answered my questions easily, volunteering details and poking
fun at his own reaction to things. It dawned on me that he was comfortable
here. Totally at ease. Pride almost swamped me.
At length, there began to be
lapses in the conversation, and panic almost overwhelmed me. Now he’d say he
needed to go look up this friend or that one, and he’d be gone.
He fixed me with a green-eyed
stare. Here it came.
“Mr. O… Warren.” That was the
first time he’d ever called me by my Christian name. “I… I really meant it when
I said I missed you.”
I started to speak, but kept
my tongue still.
“Lots more than I thought.” He
laughed. “Lot’s more’n a couple of letters worth.”
“I’m surprised you found the
time to write two.”
“In my head, I wrote lots more
than that.” A small silence built; one I was afraid to break. “I didn’t realize
how important you were to me until… well, until you weren’t there. You know
that I understand, don’t you?”
“Understand what?”
He didn’t answer directly. He
studied his shiny, brown army boots. “I saw it on your face sometimes.”
I sat frozen.
He glanced up and met my eyes.
“Sometimes I thought you’d talk about it, but you never did. Your secret, I
mean.”
My stomach fell away. “Secret?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I met a guy before
I graduated. At the park where some buds and I were playing ball. I went to the
head, and he followed me inside. Made it obvious what he wanted. When I started
to leave, he told me he knew who I was. Then he shook my world.”
With rising dread, I asked, “In
what way?”
“He… he said he knew I was
seeing you. Claimed he used to get with you, and that he could do it better for
me that that old man across the street.”
My head went swimmy. I heard
his voice as if from a well, remote, echoing. “J-Joey—”
He reached out and touched my
arm. “I called him a dirty word and stormed out of there. Wasn’t much use on
first base after that, and everybody wondered why.”
“What did you tell them?” My
voice sounded weary to me.
“That some creep had tried to
pick me up in the head. The whole team went looking for the guy then, but he’d
already split.”
“You never saw him again?”
“Once.”
“Did… did—”
“Go ahead, ask me.”
“Did you get with him?”
Joey shook his head. “Nope.
But you know what I told him. I said if I was gonna get with anyone, I’d get
with Mr. O.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“And,” he went on. “That’s
what I want to do now.”
“Wha—”
He stood. Every inch the dominant
male. “Right now.”
“Joey, you don’t have to—”
“Warren, I don’t have to do
anything. But I’m my own man, and I can do what I want. Call it paying my
debts, call it getting my rocks off. Call it anything you want, but it’s what I’m
gonna do right now unless you tell me that disgusts you.”
“Joey, nothing you could ever
do or say will disgust me. You’re too precious to me for that.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
With that, he slid from the
chair and knelt before me. He looked askance before burying his head in my lap.
I gasped at his touch, the enthusiasm of his embrace, the heat of his lips on
my fly.
After a moment, he lifted his
head and smiled. “Can we go to the bedroom?”
Incapable of speech, I nodded.
He rose and pulled me from my chair. I followed him mutely. He hesitated only a
moment before sitting on the side of the bed to unlace his boots, and then he performed
a self-conscious but magic striptease. Each bit of flesh he revealed was
familiar, yet different. The shoulders were broader, the chest deeper, the hips
trimmer. And his manhood, which I’d seen in his younger years when he’d change
to use my backyard pool, was totally different. A surprise. Here too, he
exceeded my expectations. Once he stood naked, he reached for the buttons on my
shirt.
“No, I can’t let you see me.
My body’s… well, old. It’ll disgust you.”
“You’ll never be old to me.
You’ll never disgust me.”
So I permitted him his way,
and soon my sagging body was revealed to his fresh, young eyes. He put me on my
back and hovered over me.
“Warren,” he murmured, “this
is for everything you’ve done for me. For everything you mean to me.” And then
he lowered his head. I gasped aloud at his moist touch. A feeling as I’ve never
experienced swept over me. Unexpected joy. Undeserved delight. Surprise. Shock.
Whatever it was, it brought tears to my eyes as I watched that handsome head
move over me. I didn’t need to ask if he’d done this before. He hadn’t. He was
inexperienced. Nonetheless, he was the best I’d ever had. I put a fist to my
mouth to muffle my sobs as tears flooded my eyes while his act selfless generosity
touched me right down where I lived.
****
Who
would have thought it? Warren Ohlson certainly didn’t, but he’ll be forever grateful
for Joey’s generosity. It’s truly something to carry with him into advancing
old age. Something no one can ever take from him. I don’t know about you, but I’m
proud of Joey for his selfless giving.
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