Linda, lindas Spanish is the loving tongue and has been for a while now against the harsh light of English faux forked loving tongues but that is not what I mean, me a man now well-versed in pocas palabras, okay. And English forked tongues too. But then, the time I am talking about then, 1960 then, holy hell’s fool, muttering a mile a minute as if to stop would break the spell, and break any chance for, well, happiness, kiddish happiness. Muttering that mile a minute for Irish girls don’t go nears (same parish even, Sacred Heart, Christ, no double christ), don’t even think about nears (same parish or not), or half-irish nears either (heathens like me, as my very, very Irish grandfather would say, giving his sonny boy, me, a dispensation for some mother‘s fault, but of that later).
What I mean is this girl sitting next to me, this 1960 eighth- grade girl, Irish or half-Irish (Irish by surname but mix is the name of the game in golden age America, in Jacks’ America being born and to call Irish is the beginning of wisdom and eight hundred year tyrannies by bloody English forebears don’t hurt either the big question though, the dispensating grandfather high on high mass incense question is she “one of us”), sitting next to me in art class. She has to be Irish or half Irish, no question, because in the Little Dublin section of old North Adamsville everybody is one or the other, or else. But that question out of the way (and I thought of several scenarios, several genealogical scenarios to entice her to talk) she disturbs my sleep although to her I do not exist, have not existed, will not exist, ever.
And whatever glory she would go on to, or I, that would always be the case because I came last year, 1959 last year in case you forgot, from over in the Adamsville projects. Or I had not lived in North Adamsville all that long and had not started out with her at North Adamsville Junior High School (like that was a reason, but it was, such are the ways of junior high social pecking disorder learned if at no other place then at the weekly “no dance” school dance, and it smarts). Or guys who were smugly smart-assed (learned from Frankie Larkin, Peter’s brother, who, as it turned out later I found out she loathed because he would not give her a “tumble.” Or I was too catholic church damn blasphemous laughing at splashed holy water, high on high mass incense, and muttered, exhaustively muttered stations of the cross.
Or, refreshed continuing or, she preferred (as it turned out later) football guys and not half-artists, half -bookish nerds, half- mad poets, although I didn’t know it, the half-mad poet blood curse part, and definitely not some bay rum- trumped cowlick- haired be-bop stumble bum flannel-shirted (even in summer), wearing black chinos (handed down from ancient brotherhood brothers in hard family progressions because , because my friends, they were still wearable even in 1950s change your style with your mood America, daily if possible, good aged America touted golden age, America wanted to beat beatnik, faux beatnik, if the real story be told.
Beautiful, beautifuls, beatitude, beat, beat up, beat around (around the bush I guess) beautiful streets walked eternally walked searching beauty, she was not beautiful, not spanish exotic beautiful or at least not later class picture for remembrance looked beautiful but she was, she was, well, siting right there next to me, and she was, well, spunky, and alive and distantly noblesse if anyone, male or female, in our crowded little one-size-fits-all two by four town, Adamsville to name signify it, later working class to social signify it, would name the damn thing but then just project boys and proper across the tracks (right side tracks) girls fond of football players, class leader-ness, and cheerleader jumps would not do.
Disturbed sleep, yes, walked streets, yes, worn-out sneakers (or shoes, forgotten buster brown Thom McAn shoes), yes, fussed dreams yes, endlessly walked streets with head prepared notes just in case the winds passed by and we were caught on the same sidewalk. Things like that happen you know, and did happen, but I averted my eyes, crossed the street, and revised my prepared notes, just in future case. And she passed, passed like the wind, and sweet schoolgirl fragrance, or some scented soap, and no sorrow and no remembrance, and no talk at school about how we just kind of missed each other and what were you doing just then, and such of revised notes.
And without a murmur, without as much as a by your leave (quaint expression), she graduated from eighth grade (see our system was different then and eight led to ninth grade high school crushed invisibleness and misspoken dreams). And I with her. And she to football player reflected glory and me to nerdish road running, mad poet existence, stealing out in the North Adamsville night to hide, hide my flannel face, my black chinos, my eternal be-bop midnight sunglasses in early morning subway trains headed toward Harvard Square and a new day borning, and me, crazy to be there but still longing, although no longer lonely streets wandering (or revising notes either) to see if she was made of anything more than stuffed straw, and spunk.
So I, too slip-shot, too, well, just too lonely, too lonesome, too long-toothed before my time to do more than endless walks along endless atlantic streets to summon up the courage to glance, glance right at windows, non-exotic atlantic cheerleader windows. Those lonely glance streets beckoned, I swear they beckoned, even in passé corridors anonymously passed even though in a right world any god child should have been able to call on ancient school memories to nod that simple nod that men nod to each other without qualm or qualification, even in lonely Harvard Square Hayes-Bickford four in the morning beyond desire, or distracted dream night.
Later Spanish-style exotics would line up, line up if you can believe that, with no averted eyes and maybe, hopefully maybe, some exotic-tinged dreams in need of sharing but that is later and so some fluff Irish no nonsense closed streets femme, hankering for her gridiron goliath (nice, right) filled my anguished night. And I too silly to tumble, to tumble to dancing Spanish-eyed senoritas with lust in their hearts and a couple of James Joyce something books on their laps. Jesus, are you crazy.
Such is the new decade a-borning, a-borning but not for me, no jack swagger or reflected glory of jack swagger kick ass cuba , or trying to, kick ass vietnam, kick ass boom-boom soviet union, or bobby goof, sending missiles or dreams to jim crow Mississippi, as they run the table on old tricky dick or some tired imitation of him. Me, I’ll take exotics, or lindos, and grab each and every one as if my life depended on it, and it did, if they every cross my path, my lonely only path. I will sort out the other stuff the remembrance stuff, the right and wrong way stuff, and that faint, ever faint fragrance every woman, including halfback-addled irish (all irish I checked, grandpa proud checked) demons girls sitting next to me in eighth grade art class emits on passing means streets. That last one passed just now on sun-filled forsaken early morning streets will disturb my sleep this night.
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