I went down to Berto’s house the next morning to help him with some chores that his Mom had lined up for him. These were mostly of the light yard work variety, but we also had to get some boxes down from the garage and move some furniture around in the living room while heavy cleaning was going on around us. Berto’s Mom was a warm and cheerful woman whom I treated with great courtesy because I loved both her and her son. Berto was the third of four children; there was an older brother and sister and the fourth was a younger sister. His Father and his older brother and sister were all at work. His younger sister was quiet, shy, very pleasant and anxious to be helpful.
While we were in the garage, Berto told me that he had been busy planning. He had arranged that his brother would take us to the beach next Tuesday. I would have dinner with his family on Monday night and then we would sleep outside in the backyard. Alejandro would then drive us to the beach while he was on his way to work in Huntington Beach. Then he’d pick us up around five on his way home. If Johnny and Gary could come that would be great. Otherwise it would just be us two. I cautioned that I’d need to get permission, but I wasn’t too worried about this. Granmum approved of Berto and that was ninety-five percent of permission all by itself.
When we were done with the chores, we had a delightful lunch of chorizo tacos and rice. We put shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, green onions, and cheese on the tacos. The rice was not what you usually think of as ‘Mexican’; it was not at all tomatoey, but was browned with celery, black olives, bell peppers, and sweet chilies—really great. We had Cokes to drink. When we were finished with lunch, having each had several tacos and seconds of rice, we received hugs and swim warnings from Mama and were off to Gary's.
“Miss Jean! Miss Jean! Is Gary here?” I announced our arrival to the house through the screen doors to the den. She rolled into view from the kitchen.
“Nope. Gone over to Johnny’s. Should be back in a sec.
“Ya’ll had lunch?”
“Yes’um. Mama made us tacos and rice,” I soothed her perpetual concern for our stomachs. I knew that it was best to include details of the menu to lend credibility to the report.
“Ya’ll wait by the pool. Won’t be long now. Jest a minute.” She went back into the kitchen and returned with two 7-Ups for us. Handing us the sodas, she told us that if we needed to come into the house, we should call her first as she was working and didn’t want us to be the “ruination” of her work. We thanked her and agreed.
We tossed our shorts in the dressing room and relaxed on adjacent lounge chairs. We basked in the sun and being naked together.
“Have ya thought about us? What’re we gonna do?” Berto wondered.
“Every day. Every day. I always want to be with you.”
“Yeah. But how in the hell‘re we gonna do that?”
I had no ready answer to that so I just started talking. “Look. There’s so much that we don’t know, we just gotta keep thinking about it and roll with the punches. Like I gotta go home to Reno next month. D’ya think there’s any chance you could come up there sometime during the year? Ya know, like a Christmas visit, or Easter mebbe? I can’t come down here cuz Pobbin and Granmum will be visitin’ too.”
Berto stared off into space. “What could I do up there?”
“Dunno.” I replied with the prompt precision of the clueless. “Well, we could just mess around on the ranch. Mebbe we could go up to one of the line cabins and spend a couple days, just the two of us. That’d be fun.”
Berto continued to ponder. “What’s a line cabin?”
That set me off and I launched into a discussion of ranching: deeded acres and BLM grazing rights, water rights, the inherent inferiority of sheep and everything to do with them, the seasons, my pickup truck. Most importantly, of course, was my horse. I had Berto’s complete attention, his beautiful brown eyes were rapt.
“Okay. I’ll try. But what’s the BLM?”
“That’s the Bureau of Land Management. No biggie.”
Having disposed of the immediate future, we went swimming.
Of a sudden, there was Gary, waving at us from the other side of the pool. He was still dressed which was odd.
We swam to his side of the pool. “Johnny’s gone! He ran away last night!”
Berto and I chorused a barrage of “what’s, why’s,” and “the fuck’s!”
Gary waved his hands. “Come on! Gimme a break, you guys!
“When I got there, I just walked in like, you know, we do. His Mom and Dad. I guess it was his Dad. Were havin’ a hell of a fight about Johnny and school and stuff.
“When his Mom saw me she just said ‘Johnny’s not here right now, I’ll have him call you when he gets home.’
“She all but threw me out the door.”
“So how do you know he ran away?”
“Oh. I heard them yelling that. And other shit. At each other, you know. I kinda listened.”
We sat there and talked about it, on the edge of the pool. Me and Berto naked and Gary dressed. Finally, Gary shucked out of his shorts and into the pool and then we all sat in the shallow end and wondered. And there was nothing we could do. Plus, my weekend was already planned for me and I’d had no say in it.
Saturday, about mid-morning, Grandma’s younger sister, Arvilla, and her husband Paul, descended upon us. They arrived in their sedate Buick sedan; it was equipped with a straight eight, too; but I much preferred Pobbin’s Packard. I addressed them as ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ though, if you want to get technical, they too, were ‘grands’. We had ‘luncheon’ downtown with white napkins and the whole nine yards.
That night, we dined lavishly at home. The sisters spent the afternoon happily creating in the kitchen while the rest of us sat around and wondered what to say. Dinner was wonderful, served on the best china and all the silver service. None of the men were permitted to help with clean up. Musn’t risk the best china to men’s clumsiness. Plus, the teaspoons were easily bent.
They were members of our church, so we did the whole routine; church never seemed to come to an end. Neither did tea. But they finally departed Sunday afternoon. I spent the entire weekend worried about Johnny while wearing some combination of trousers and dress shirt, coat and tie. Also, my clothes no longer fit well, so I spent the entire weekend with trousers that were too short: annoyance and worry.
There was a bright side, however, and I was on my best behavior because my adventure with Berto had been approved. Fair’s fair.
Monday finally arrived. I had been helping Granmum around the house; she had dusted and polished while I followed her with the vacuum. While this was going on the washing machine on the back porch had been busy clanking and complaining; I was still not permitted to operate the mangle. But ever the philosopher, I was all okay with that. In any event, I was busy hanging laundry on the line when Gary arrived breathless with outrage and information.
“Johnny’s like completely grounded. She takes him to her cousin while she’s at work. She locks him in the cellar at night.” Gary was furious. “And then as soon as his Dad gets things set up, he has to move in with his Dad back East. We may never even see him again. She’s really pissed.”
I didn’t even try to tell Gary that they didn’t even have a cellar to lock him up in. But he wasn’t listening, you know.
“What happened?” Was the best I could do.
“Well I only got bits and pieces, and I heard his old man shouting several times. His Mom was trying to be nice to me, when I tried to see him; but she was all worked-up, and like I said, I could hear his old man yelling every once in a while. Johnny was doing some yelling too.
“I guess they decided he needed to go live with his Dad and he’s gonna go to a private school. He wants to stay here.
“So I guess they sprang this on him when he got home from the beach. Big argument. Soon’s he got to his bedroom, he went right out the window and ran away.”
“Shit.” I contributed.
“Didn’t get far. He got tangled up with some kids in the park that were partyin’. Drinkin’ an smokin’. So he got into the drinkin’ an shit. Then I guess they got loud, or somethin’ cuz the cops showed up and arrested everyone they could catch.
“No problem catchin’ Johnny cuz he was shit faced. So he got taken to juvie and his Mom and Dad had to go down and get him. I guess they let him off cuz he’s moving back East with his Dad. Fuck!
“Well, I gotta go. Can you tell Roberto?”
“Sure. Where ya goin’?”
“We gotta go down to Long Beach for a few days. My uncle’s gonna be there and Mom has some Navy stuff to do.”
“I’ll go see him in a day or two. His Mom cools off slow. So that’ll be best, I think.”
Gary was all shaken up. So I took him back into the jungle where we had some great hugs and kisses. He wished he could go to the beach with us. Then he was off.
I finished the clothes. There was no point in talking to Mrs MacCrimmon while she was all worked up. Plus, I didn’t know if his Dad would be there or not. He would be an unknown quantity. We’d been introduced once, but other than that, I’d only seen him in passing a couple of times.
I also decided that I wasn’t going to tell my Grandparents anything just now. They had no real need to know, and they would find out anyway as they had an excellent network all of their own. They’d ask me later, and I’d tell them what I knew which was, after all, not much. Soon it was time and I was off to Berto’s.
After saying ‘hello to everyone at home, Berto took me out to a far corner of the backyard and showed me our bed. I’d been expecting two sleeping bags; but Berto had put down a tarp. Over that there were several old quilts, then sheets, then two blankets. There were four pillows all in clean, crisp, cases. Berto was clearly one of those roughing-it-in-comfort types. Mind, I thoroughly approve of comfort. He looked around, all secret like, then bent down and lifted a pillow showing me a jar of cold cream. He smiled shyly and replaced the pillow. I sat down beside him and began to relate all of Johnny’s troubles. Berto listened attentively, but of course, he had a lot of questions, the most of which I didn’t have an answer for. So there was mostly just worry. While we were so occupied, Alejandro came home from work and parked his pickup next to the garage. He gave us a wave and a smile as he went into the house.
Moments later, Berto’s Father arrived in his pickup and parked in front of the garage. He came right back to our campsite to welcome me and exchange pleasantries. He was a striking man: warm brown eyes that twinkled humorously, a sweeping mustache that glittered with silver, as did his sideburns and temples; he was powerful through the shoulders and arms, with a stomach that seemed somehow formidable rather than just large; he was neatly dressed in 501 Levis, brown Wellington style boots, a tooled western belt and a short sleeved western shirt. Consulting his watch, he advised us that we should come in and wash-up for supper. As he walked away, I wondered. “Why does he wear those Wellington’s? Wouldn’t proper cowboy boots be better?”
“He has fallen arches,” Berto explained. “He can’t wear them anymore.” I wasn’t sure precisely what a fallen arch was, but clearly it wasn’t his fault. We went in to dinner.
Dinner was just the greatest. There were homemade tortillas, carne asada, a salad that had very little lettuce and a lot of just about every other vegetable around; there was that marvelous rice that I love and fresh corn. Alejandro and his Father drank beer, Mama and Berto’s elder sister Mercedes drank coffee, and the rest of us drank milk. During the course of the meal, I’m sure as a courtesy to me, only a few Spanish words popped up from time to time, all of the real conversation was in English.
I decided that I was going to have Berto teach me Spanish.
For dessert, there was this wonderful custard called “flan.” I took a small bite from my ample portion and loved it; I demolished the rest in what must have been close to record time. I was replete with good food and great company.
“So, young Domingo,” Berto’s Father addressed me across the table. “You will have heard, perhaps, of a knight called Lancelot?” There were many questions I might reasonably have expected to hear across the wreckage of dessert, but this one, frankly, I’d never even considered.
“Uh. Er. Si. Sir, Yes.” He threw back his head laughing richly. Mama, too, was chuckling. In fact, there were smiles all round the table.
“You, young Domingo, shall call me Papa also.” He told me emphatically when he was done laughing. “And now I shall tell you of a Real Knight. His name was Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar. We call him ‘El Cid’. He was the greatest knight who ever swore an oath; he always carried his sword for the ‘right’.” These syllables rolled majestically from his tongue and captured you just as you can be caught by the rumble of distant thunder.
And so I learned that there are people who just tell stories, and then there are storytellers who live the tale and bring it to life. For the next few minutes, Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, the greatest knight who ever lived, was very present in that Anaheim kitchen. You could hear the horses neigh and whuffle, smell them, feel them dancing beneath you as they prepared to charge. You charge! First at the walk, then the trot, and then into the canter as the Saracens grow near. Leather creaked and rustled, armor clinked and rang. Lance tips dip and sparkle in the sunshine while pennons and banners drooped or snapped. Swords sang as the Saracens fall away before your flashing blades: their blood scarlet vivid in the dust, the swords whisper in satisfaction for their day's work was done.
But this was just one of the many times El Cid returned victorious to his King only to be betrayed by that King. But El Cid remained true to his oath and to his King. And the King’s toadies came rustling around with evil schemes and foul plans. But they were never his match; they never measured up to him and his sworn men. El Cid remains true to his oath and true to his worthless little King. He answers the call.
Once more El Cid rides out for a grateful people and a useless King. Once more his enemies flee or fall before the charge of his unquenchable spirit as he rides, nobly borne by Babieca who will be with him always, into the fathomless future.
In the silence of the final charge I am breathless. “But why,” I wonder. “Did the King do him that way?”
“Bah,” came the twinkling reply. “That is Spain where they must have a king to blame for all things. But this is California! Here, no king has trod.”
We adjourned to the living room. Cribbage was just the thing: Alejandro versus Mama, and Papa versus Mercedes; they were quickly locked in combat with snapping cards and triumphant “fifteen’s”. I didn’t know the game. We played checkers until I asked Berto to teach me cribbage.
“Time!” Announced Papa, “mi Domingo y mi Roberto. Away with you. Brush your teeth and go sleep beneath the stars. Perhaps El Cid will visit you and bless you.”
When we got to our bed, I was still entranced. Entranced by the love I had just been a part of; entranced by the sweep of the heavens above our heads; entranced by the visions of El Cid that had been conjured like magic at the kitchen table. Berto was naked and was undressing me. I helped him a little, but let him do most of the work. I enjoyed his touch. He tucked our clothes down under the covers so they would not grow damp with the morning dew.
“Your Father is wonderful,” I said.
“Si. But you must now call him ‘Papa’ or he will be disappointed.”
“Si,” I agreed. We snuggled under the covers and into each other; we were passionate in that intense and caring way that is the trumpet call of true love. We shared the passion and the pleasure; we shared the pleasure and the emotion. The cold cream jar was empty.
“Domingo de mi corazon,” Berto murmured as I traced his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose with a fingertip. (I must learn all of the Spanish love words I noted to myself.)
Slowly we untangled and dressed beneath the blankets to a sparkling morning.
We trooped into the kitchen. Mama was up and cooking but no one else seemed to be up yet. I commented on all of the wonderful smells. I thought that I should like a cup of coffee, Mama smiled hugely and announced. “Then you shall have one.” Two serious porcelain mugs appeared. Quickly they were filled halfway with coffee, two spoons of sugar, and the rest milk. We sat to table and sipped. I felt hugely important.
Platters of huevos rancheros appeared. So did Alejandro and Papa. It was wonderful.
“Is there more to the story of El Cid, Papa?” I wondered.
“Oh there is indeed, but no time for it this morning, I think.”
“Vamanos,” Alejandro encouraged. We hurried out to the backyard to pick up our bed. Everything neatly folded and put away, we grabbed our towels and the lunch Mama had made for us, jumped into Alejandro’s truck and were away.
On the way, Alegandro complained, good naturedly, but at great length and in loving detail, about lazy kids dragging a hard working man, far out of this way, so that they might laze away the day on the beach. But he followed our directions cheerfully and deposited us in the same lot. It was again deserted except for the same Buick parked in the same spot.
“I’ll be here at five or so. Don’t make me wait.” Alejandro threatened amiably. Then he was gone.
“Alejandro’s pretty neat, too.” I remarked to Berto and the disappearing pickup. Neither heard me, Berto was already at the top of the path starting down.
I sprinted to catch up and followed him down. The lady with the easel was in pretty much the same place and set up in pretty much the same way. We chorused “good morning” but were halted by her unexpected response.
“A moment, please. Please come over here.” We stopped and went back to her, expecting to be asked to perform some small favor. My initial suspicion that she could not be termed ‘riff raff’ was confirmed. She was wearing fawn colored pants that came down to just above her ankles, a cream colored blouse, a scarf that was predominantly burgundy, through which touches of blue, gold, and green leapt and sang. She was wearing a wide brimmed straw hat that did not hide her sandy blond hair that had a few streaks of silver playing here and there. She wore it in a ponytail. Her make up was understated. There was a large, forest green, leather handbag beside her paint box. She wore a thin gold chain and a handsome watch on her left wrist. On her right hand she wore a large gold ring with a green stone. She regarded us with cool green eyes.
“You boys were here with your friends the other day, were you not?”
“Yes ma’am,” Roberto replied with a smile.
“Are your friends not here today?”
“No ma’am,” Roberto carried on.
“That’s too bad as I was hoping to hire the four of you.” I had no interest in doing her yard work; but then I considered I’d help Roberto if he wanted to. We needed train fare for this winter. The silence lengthened.
“I am Emily Covington,” she announced, reaching into her handbag. She withdrew a small case that gleamed gold. “I am an artist.” She opened the case and handed each of us a card. Mine read:
Emily Covington
Landscape & Portraiture
VN 7-3612
This is interesting I thought. And so much for all that stuff in school about starving artists: she drives a Buick, she’s impeccably dressed, and her accessories are gold. (It should be remembered that, much to Pobbin’s annoyance, I’m only Dutch Reformed three months of the year; the rest of the year I’m Episcopalian. We do know which fork to use and can instantly discern the gleam of gold from the glitter of brass.) But she had introduced herself.
“Domingo Frazier,” I announced with Gary’s little bow.
“Roberto Celayo de Galves,” with identical bow.
“Goodness.” She commented with a raised eyebrow. “Gentlemen.”
‘Good,’ I thought. ‘Now that she knows we’re gentlemen, not handymen, we can go swimming.’ I was beginning to organize appropriate comments for taking leave of a lady of first acquaintance.
“Are you not interested in what I wanted to hire you for?”
‘Thanks, no,’ was on the tip of my tongue but I looked at Berto for agreement and it was clear that while he’d not said anything, he was interested.
“I want you to pose for me. And I will pay you each twenty dollars. It will take about an hour for me to do the sketches. Let me tell you about my painting. Come up here,” and she strode to the top of the knoll. Her painting would represent the first arrival, off this coast, of the Spanish. They would be represented by the white sails of a single ship comfortably out to sea. In the foreground, grouped on the knoll, would be a group of young Indian braves who would be pointing at the sails and wondering what this might be.
Berto looked at me. Twenty dollars was a lot of money for standing around for an hour. When you bought a pair of 501’s you gave them a five dollar bill and got some change. I shrugged assent. Roberto looked at her and smiled an okay.
“Wonderful,” she beamed. “When I saw the four of you the other day, I said to myself, ‘there are my perfect braves.’ But I had to leave at noon. I’d been hoping one of you might come by so that I could introduce myself, however, you all stayed down on the beach. Anyway! Excellent! Please take off your clothes.”
“We can’t do that!” I was outraged. What kind of dingbat thought we were going to be painted naked for all the world to see? Who knew where this picture might end up? What if my grandfather, or far, far worse, my Grandmother, ever saw it? For that matter, once I thought about it, I couldn’t see my Mother or Father beaming approval on a naked picture of me either. And of course, there was the final and most telling point of all.
“You’re a GIRL!” Modesty preserved, I glared at her. For a person who had just been so accurately and ferociously condemned, her reaction was unusual. She threw back her head laughing richly.
“Bless you, Domingo. Bless you.” She regained her composure. “I only wish I were still a girl.” She chuckled and daubed her eyes carefully with what I would bet was a silk hankie. “But alas, I am a woman, and I’ve had many men and women pose nude for me over the years. Nothing you have would be a surprise to me.”
‘So what,’ I thought, still indignant. I turned to Berto, “What if Mama or Granmum saw us naked in this thing? Whadda ya think they’d say? They’d kill us that’s what!” Berto was alarmed; I think he’d been thinking in terms only of money until now.
“But boys, you won’t be nude in the painting. You’ll be dressed as Indians. Additionally, You’ll be looking out to sea, so no one will see your faces. You’ll both have long black hair that will be tossed by the wind. Do you think, Domingo, that any Indians back then had nice flat tops like you?”
“So why do we hafta be naked?” I pounced.
“Dear Domingo,” with pleasant patience. “I know that you don’t mind being naked outside. Look down there.” She pointed down from the knoll and I went over to her and looked down upon the beach across which we had all cavorted naked just the other day. Berto stood next to me but said nothing.
She then gave us a short lecture about why artists need to use nudes in their work. She went clear back to ancient times and mentioned some people that we’d never heard of, though I did recognize Michelangelo’s name; he did a statue of a Jewish king who was naked. I had seen a picture of the statue and thought it was really hot. (Pobbin, to the surprise of no one, thought it was an “affront to decency” that bordered on “blasphemy,” but “what could you expect from the Jews anyway?”) The gist of it was: if her art was to portray life, it must come from life; that even if the subject was fully clothed, for the clothes to fit properly the artist must know what was underneath.
“Domingo, it is difficult for a girl to ask a young man to pose for her. You didn’t come from an agency. I was inspired by seeing you all free and alive out here in the wild. We were strangers until now. I ask you to trust me. Since I had planned on hiring four of you, I will give you and Roberto forty dollars each to pose.”
“No ma’am. We already said twenty and a deal’s a deal if we agree.” I don’t know why I said this. We hadn’t really agreed to anything. But it seemed right and proper. Berto came up and put his hand on my shoulder as he whispered, “‘Mingo mi amo, do this with me.” I stood looking around for a few seconds. Then, so there could be no confusion, I gave Berto a quick kiss on the lips, kicked off my sneakers, dropped my cut offs, and shed my t-shirt.
“Excellent,” she said as she pulled a large sketch pad out and began to sketch. She sketched us from all angles and in a variety of poses. In one pose, she had us on top of the knoll pointing out to sea with Berto coming along behind.
“This isn’t right! Berto is my Cid and I should be following him.”
“No,” she assured me. “Because he is your Cid, you would be going first to protect him. To warn him of danger.” Mollified, I had no more objections. For her last sketch, and the one that took the longest, she had Berto and me stand together with his arm over my shoulder and my arm around his waist. She fussed about our expression: she wanted us to look fearless and determined, but not threatening or angry. An odd mixture of moods I thought.
She showed us the sketches. Most of them were incomplete and just showed us in different positions with the emphasis on the flow of muscle. There was nothing sexy about them. Except for the one with me and Berto standing together. You could just see a hint of Berto’s hair, so you knew we were naked; but she provided us with long hair that was blowing in the wind. It was very detailed. She was really good.
She went on to say that the painting was about ninety percent finished, needing only the braves to complete it, then she was going to hang it in a gallery downton. She wanted us to see it and asked for our phone numbers. I could just imagine the reaction in my house if someone had called the house and told one of my Grandparents that an ‘artist’ wanted to talk to me; Berto fully understood this and volunteered his number as the one to call.
“Wonderful,” she reached into her handbag and produced her wallet. She gave us each a twenty dollar bill. “This is for posing as agreed. And because you were just perfect for the job, here’s a tip.” She gave us each ten dollars more. “I hope you’ll pose for me again. But here’s another tip. You are beautiful young men and others might want you to pose for them. Value yourselves. Never pose for free. And never! Ever! Pose for a photographer.”
Still naked, we thanked her. Said we’d see her later, gathered up our stuff and went down to the beach.
The afternoon was glorious. We splashed and swam in the surf; we wrestled a little, rolling in the sand, so of course we had to swim some more to wash off the sand. We basked in the sun. Enjoyed our lunch. Dozed in the shade, naked and together, and… well… we made love a lot.