“Sweetheart,” Granmum welcomed me home with a hug. “Did you know that Johnny ran away the other night and was arrested? That he’s grounded?”
“Gary told us he was grounded but. Arrested? No! How can that be?”
“Yes. Well. Apparently, he got tangled up with some of those juvenile delinquents that you read about. Hooligans. They were all arrested.”
“I’ll go talk to him.”
“That’ll be nice, but don’t expect to see him for a day or two. His Mom is just furious. And rightly so.”
“‘Course you’re right Granmum.” Somehow, it seemed to me that some good Christian work might be just the thing at the moment. “Can I go pick some avocados? I’ll get some for Johnny’s Mom and everybody.”
“Make sure you only pick ripe ones. Not so many that they spoil.”
Pobbin was concerned, too. “Don’t get carried away.” He warned. He loved avocados and his charity could be constrained where avocados were concerned.
I went to the garage and dragged the picker out and assembled it. It’s a neat tool. There were several long wooden poles with aluminum attachments that let you screw the poles together and thus gain the necessary height. At the business end, there were these shears that were activated by a long rope that ran the length of the assembled poles. There was a small canvas net just under the shears, so that when you cut the fruit, it fell neatly into the bag and not clear to the ground which would bruise it. You have to use this tool because avocados drop from the tree when they feel like it, and not when they're best to eat. As I was finishing the assembly, Pobbin emerged, immaculate as always; he paused on his way to the Packard to inspect the picker and asked if I would also put some soap spray on the roses. I agreed. He smiled. We passed inspection.
I picked a lot of avocados. I filled a bowl for our kitchen and arranged them artfully. Then they went on the kitchen table: attractive and tangible evidence of my good work. I prepared two bags of avocados for delivery, sprayed the roses, and was off.
Miss Jean was delighted with my delivery and told me to be sure to come see Gary on Thursday as he might have some important news. I tried to pry the news out of her; but I knew that she enjoyed keeping secrets, just as others enjoy telling them. I pried just hard enough to give her pleasure and then I was on the way to Berto’s.
Only Mama was at home and she, too, was enthusiastic about the avocados. I asked her if she would like some grapes too and she thought that would be very nice indeed. I said I’d bring some by tomorrow and she said to come by around two as Roberto would be home then.
The day was a bust. I’d got a lot of good Christian work in; brownie points in heaven I smirked to myself. But I’d not seen my Cid, or Johnny and I had no interesting gossip for Granmum.
Next morning, Gary was still not at home and Miss Jean said they’d not be home now until Saturday. She was richly enjoying this mystery.
That afternoon, Granmum dragged me off to buy clothes. September was looming and she felt it necessary to replace the things that I’d outgrown. She made me try on half the store so that she could buy things just a trifle large. I used to hate shopping, but I was coming to enjoy it. After all, if you have to wear clothes, you may as well look good.
Finally it was Friday. After breakfast I asked permission to pick some grapes for Mama. This was happily given as we had more grapes than we could possibly use. I was really the only one who ate a lot of fresh grapes. Mostly, my Granmum put them up as jelly for use with toast at breakfast or at teatime. I picked grapes for a large family and was off like a shot. At Berto’s, Mama was very pleased to receive them and I apologized for being late with them. I assured her that my grandfather did not use DDT on anything, but that he did spray with soap and water.
“Mi Berto is talking on the phone. Go and see how nice he looks.” Enchanted, I went into the living room where Berto was on the phone agreeing to something. He was wearing sharply creased shorts and a blue t-shirt; he smiled a broad hello and continued to talk. When he hung up, he told me, “that was Miss Covington, she wants us to go look at the painting and then come over to see her. I told her we would if I could find you. Then you walked in, so I told her we’d be there in a little while.”
“Great, but we’ll have to go to my house first so I can change.” I was wearing cut offs. Granmum had relaxed her proscription of them for daily wear because she knew that Roberto didn’t have any nice shorts. This was a great chance to make the first move. The proscription would be back in place as soon as Granmum saw Berto, so I wasn’t going to give her a chance to pronounce it. Cut offs were specialty wear again. We each got a hug and a kiss from Mama and off we went.
“Hi Granmum,” I announced as we clattered into the kitchen. “Look how nice Berto looks. I gotta change.” I left them to exchange pleasantries as I dashed straight to my room and came up with a t-shirt that was close to the blue of Berto’s, and changed into a pair of starched shorts that were also of a similar color. I considered socks, but abandoned that notion. No point getting carried away. Back in the kitchen, Granmum beamed approval on my voluntary return to propriety and readily gave us permission to go downtown to the Dairy Queen for ice cream. I offered that we might have lunch there if that was okay with her. It was. We charged off.
As we pedaled down the street, it struck me that I was following Berto without any questions. That wasn’t me. I’d never have followed Gary or Johnny without knowing where we were going and why we were going wherever it was. Odd, that.
I continued to follow Berto’s lead and we came to a side street business whose glass windows contained paintings on easels against fabric backdrops. The sign announced “The Artist’s Co-Operative.”
“Our painting is here,” Berto explained. We stacked our bicycles against a tree in a sidewalk planter, said “good morning" to the lady sitting at a small table by the door and fanned out in the gallery to find our painting. There were some really interesting paintings in there. Some landscapes of the desert with Joshua trees, some forests and mountains, the ocean, and lots of that kind of stuff; and there were also some canvases that were merely riots of color that depicted nothing at all but somehow seemed strangely moving and even emotional.
Berto appeared, “I found it.” I followed him to the rear and there, in a small cubicle, was our painting. It hung on the rear wall and there were some baskets and pottery on shelves along the two other walls. An Indian theme. It was quite large and it was the only painting in the cubicle. We stepped up and admired it. Miss Covington had been as good as her word. There were Berto and I. I was pointing out to sea as he was coming up the knoll to see what I had seen. We were lean and leggy. Long black hair streamed around our head, tossed by the breeze. We were both looking away so you couldn’t see our faces. We were wearing loincloths. You could see that the breeze was lifting the front of mine; if you’d been standing in front of me, you’d have been able to see me. But here, my modesty was preserved by my bare leg. Berto was similarly dressed and the breeze was teasing with his loincloth too. The rear one was slightly lifted and tucked so you could see the cheek of his butt down to where that sweet little crease folds into the leg.
Berto was wearing a vest and leggings with beadwork; he had what hinted at a necklace; he wore a sheathed knife on his belt and carried a spear. I had a quiver of arrows on my back and an unstrung bow in my hand. It was clear that Berto was my Cid and I thought the effect was great.
I knew that sometimes Indians wear their hair in long braids. But we did not. Our hair was loose and flowing in the breeze. We both wore colorful headbands to help control it. The effect in the painting was way more beautiful than braids could possibly be. There was a very real suggestion of freedom. We wore moccasins. It was a striking scene.
“Can I help you,” inquired a voice from behind. We turned to see a younger man in a shirt and tie. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with his tie. A look that my world did not approve of. I didn’t look all that closely but I don’t think his tie was silk, either. When I had changed my shorts, in addition to money, knife, and Pocket Ben, I’d had the foresight to pocket Miss Covington’s card.
“We know Miss Covington and she asked us to come see the painting,” I told him with more than a hint of frost.
“So how do you know about the painting? She told you, you say?” He was rude and pushy and clearly unaware of our role.
“Yes,” glacial. I showed him her card, “thank you.”
“It’s already sold, you know,” he continued blithely. “And it will only be here for a short time before we ship it off to New York.”
“Thank you.” Then to Berto, “Let’s go see Miss Covington now.” We passed either side of him in a controlled rush and exited promptly. As we were preparing to mount up, I was struck by a thought and commented to Berto. “You know, that painting really is sexy. You were really hot.”
“Yeah. So were you. But I think you’re always hot. But I don’t really think it always matters in art, you know. Mi Papa would like that painting too, and it wouldn’t seem sexy to him.”
The door came open in a rush and there he was again, as if something really important had just occurred to him. “But wait a minute, you guys.” I kinda wondered who the hell this guy thought he was, I gave him a glare and nodded to Berto who was poised, and we were off.
Once again I followed Berto without knowing where we were going. He clearly knew and we were steadily moving into the nicer part of town. We turned onto a street with many palm trees. Berto slowed down to get the numbering sequence I think, because we were quickly back up to speed. We were there in moments. It was a nice Spanish style home, beige stucco with a red tile roof, and lots of shrubs and flower beds. We parked our bikes by letting them fall to the grass, went to the front door and rang the bell.
The front door was mostly glass, a large oval window that had a thin white curtain on the inside. We waited and then there was movement behind the curtain. The door swung open and a handsome lady stood there beaming at us. “You’re Roberto and Domingo. Please come in.” She swung wide the door and we entered and stood in a marble tiled entry. I could see into the living room where there was plush carpeting and elegant furnishings.
“Emily! We’ve company!” She led us through the house to the patio, asked us to sit at a white wrought iron table and said, “Emily will be right here. You’ll need some lemonade in this heat.” Off she went.
I thought the backyard was striking. There was a pool, but it somehow seemed far more formal than Gary’s backyard. There was no diving board; but there was a large statue of a naked lady standing at the far end of the pool looking all regal. Then there were ornate planters with shrubs and flowers all around. It looked like a movie set. You kinda expected Helen of Troy, or Cleopatra, someone like that, to come gliding around the corner looking all royal and stuff.
“Good morning,” Miss Covington appeared and we both stood up and chorused “good morning” in response. She gave us a stunning smile and asked us to sit and she joined us as the other lady came in with four tall glasses of lemonade on a silver tray and joined us at the table. “Roberto, Domingo, may I present Victoria Willoughby, she lives here too and is my partner.” I wondered what kind of partner, but didn’t ask.
“Are you an artist, too?” Roberto inquired.
“Goodness no. I don’t really do anything.” She smiled.
“Well, that’s not strictly true,” interjected Miss Covington. “Victoria is a writer and has had several of her books published.”
“Speaking of which,” Miss Willoughby said, “I’m right in the middle of finishing this one part that’s been troubling me. So now I've got all the solutions in my head. I must go and put them down before they can escape.” She smiled, took her lemonade, and left. Miss Covington smiled after her and then to us.
“Now there are some things that I want you boys to know.” She seemed to focus on me. “Domingo, just as Roberto is your Cid, so is Victoria mine, you should feel perfectly free around her. I hope that you will come to call me— Emily, and her—Victoria; but I know that will take some work for you as the two of you are real gentlemen.
“Now I must make two long distance phone calls. Please excuse me for a moment, then I want to show you something in my studio.”
We sipped our lemonade and admired the yard. “It would be fun to swim here, I think.” Roberto commented.
“Well, I like a diving board, you know.” I sipped my lemonade. It was quite good. Just a bit tart.
“But we could pose on that statue,” Berto grinned. “Maybe with boners.”
“Maybe doing something with those boners.” I smiled, too.
Moments later I saw Miss Covington coming through the doorway. I steeled myself to try and break an ingrained habit. Then compromised, “Senorita Emily, you have a lovely yard and the lemonade is great.”
She smiled, “Well I got one call made. We had to reschedule the other. Lawyers are always busy. Such a pain.
“Anyway, please join me in my studio. I want to show you some things.”
We followed her into the house and down a long hall to a large and wonderful room that was filled with sunlight from a bunch of skylights. There were easels and canvases all around, some of them blank, and some in various stages of completion. One of them, conspicuously located in the center of the room, was covered by a white cloth.
“First, I should tell you that I’ve already sold the painting you helped me finish. It fetched a very pretty price. And second, I've been absolutely driven to finish this,” she stepped to the covered easel and lifted the cover up and off.
There we were. It was the last sketch she had done of us, only now it was in oil, and we stood in each other’s arms, looking out at the world, glowing with life and youth and sex. She had done away with my flattop and I had a full head of hair longer than I’ve ever worn it, all tousled and covering the top of my ears. Likewise, Berto’s hair was longer than usual, but she had precisely captured the way his hair curled loosely in all directions at once. True to the sketch, the bottom came to just above our sex. You could see the beginning of our pubic hair, so you knew we were naked together. I was pleased to note that Emily had thoughtfully given me more pubic hair than I, in fact, possessed—I matched Berto. We were clearly recognizable in this painting; it was so singular and stunning, however, that I knew it would never hang in a place where any of our family were ever apt to be.
“I intend to keep this for myself,” Emily confirmed. “And someday, in the hopefully far distant future, it will be yours.”
We were pretty much speechless. You know, you don’t often get to see yourself in your lover's arms, staring into the future. Locked within oil. Locked into time.
Berto brought me out of it. Brought my flat top back. He unlocked time.
“This is really great, Senorita Emily. But we got chores we gotta do.”
“Of course, you do. I’m glad you could come by. Will you call me when you have more time. I’ve some ideas to discuss. We’ll have lunch here.”
“Sure, that’ll be great,” Berto grabbed my arm and urged me along.
“Vaya con Dios Señorita,” I managed as I was virtually hauled along.
“Jesus, Berto! What’s the rush?” I demanded as we picked up our bikes.
“I gotta work in the Astimendi’s yard. I promised my Sis.”
“Oh. Well. Okay. I’ll help.”
The Astimendi’s still had a certain look of dilapidation to it, but the yard was no longer unkempt. Berto had a certain gift for growing things: the grass was trimmed, green and vibrant; weeds were banished or in retreat; the roses thrived; the bougainvillea, which had been barely hanging on, was storming back to life and bloom on its trellis.
Mainly, I just did what Berto told me to do as he knew where he was with this project. Frequently, I was just handing him tools; or I went to get something from the garage. I maintained a running commentary on the injustice being done to Johnny; how I missed Gary but thought he might be home today so we should swing by his house when we were done here; and other important stuff.
With excellent timing, Gary came thundering up on his bike bursting with vital information. “I’m going to Japan next week! To be with my Dad! We’re gonna tour! Whadda you guys been doin?” He was breathless with joy.
“Well,” I gathered myself to begin. “Johnny’s grounded and day after tomorrow we’re gonna see him off. His Dad’s takin’ him back East with him. So there’s that.”
“But you can help us paint this house,” Berto seconded. “They’re gonna pay us and everything.”
“So Berto can come up to Nevada for a visit this winter. Mebbe you can come too.”
“So how come Johnny’s grounded? Naw. Tell me later. Look, I gotta get home for lunch cuz Miss Jean’s gotta do the shopping this afternoon. You can come over and we can talk about everything then.”
“Kay,” I said as Gary wheeled off. I mean he really wheeled. “That was something.” I commented to Berto as we watched Gary disappearing. “It could only ever be done better with a horse,” I said into his dust.
As we were putting everything away, Mercedes appeared on the front porch and asked us to lunch. But Berto told her that we’d promised to have lunch today with Granmum and that if we missed that we’d “be dead”. She laughed and we were away.
Granmum had made extra pork chops last night, so we sat down to a serious lunch of pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy with a nice salad. We told her that Gary was back from Long Beach and would soon be going to Japan to visit his Father. Granmum sniffed with disapproval at the notion of visiting Japan. Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War was an all too recent memory. Anyway, we offered her reassurance and told her we’d have more information later as we were going to visit Gary after lunch. We had vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup for dessert and then we were off.
When we got to Gary’s, he was lying naked on a recliner by the pool. Berto and I stripped and got under the shower to wash off the sweat and grime of our yard work. Gary, of course, joined us and we had a lovely time washing each other, and kissing, and ensuring that we each came thoroughly.
There for a moment, I was struck by the wonders of life. Fork tender pork chops one moment and a blow job the next.
“So tell us all about Japan,” I commented. We were sated but curious. Well, it seemed that Gary’s Dad’s ship was going to be in dry dock for “regular maintenance” and Gary was going to visit during this “yard time”. His Dad had arranged for him to fly on military transport to Japan via Hawaii, Midway, and the Philippines. Then he’d spend the best part of a month in Japan and he’d get to see the whole country. He was ecstatic.
He became increasingly somber as he heard what had happened to Johnny. “But that’s not fair! Don’t they care about him?”
There was no answer to that, but I did contribute that I was going down to his house after dinner tonight to see him so I’d have more to say tomorrow.
But that was not to be. When I got home, Granmum told me that Mrs MacCrimmon had called. No visitors. We could say goodbye to Johnny tomorrow at the railroad station, like she said earlier. Granmum was miffed and thought Johnny’s Mom had been rude and inconsiderate.
So there we were. All dressed up at the train station. Berto and I were wearing slacks and a dress shirt and tie. I’d lent the shirt and tie to Berto as he didn’t have a suit except for the black one he wore to church. We didn’t like the idea of ‘black’ all that much. Johnny was wearing a nice blue suit that I’d never seen before. His Dad was formidable in pinstripes. Very un-Anaheim. Johnny’s Mom looked sad. So did Johnny.
We got to shake hands. All formal and stilted. Then the conductor was calling musically: they boarded. The locomotive chuffed, and they moved slowly out of the station and Johnny was gone. He hadn’t even been able to wave. We hadn’t been able to kiss. We hadn’t been able to make any expression of love. You’d have thought we were distant acquaintances or something. I cried quietly. Used my hankie discreetly.
Then it was time to take Gary to the airplane. We spent the night sleeping in Berto’s backyard. We let Gary know he was treasured; we made love several times. We pledged eternal love and brotherhood. We knew that, at the airplane, as at the train, only handshakes would be possible. I felt the loss of Johnny again.
The Commander was in a very impressive white uniform with epaulettes and braid and her medal ribbons. Miss Jean was in a conservative dress, a string of pearls, and a formidable hat. Gary was trim and elegant in a tan suit with a navy blue tie beautifully knotted. Berto and I were again in slacks, shirts and ties. There wasn’t a lot of room in their Chevrolet, so as the slightest, I had to sit in the middle. My least favorite place, but at least I was between two boys I loved.
When we got to the base, we were admitted with much saluting and precision. There was a man waiting for us as we parked and he saluted the Commander crisply. He was every bit as old as she and was wearing a uniform similar in color to Gary’s suit. He had a swarm of medal ribbons on his chest and his left sleeve was all covered with blue stripes and insignia. He was a handsome man with a square jaw and twinkling brown eyes. The Commander returned his salute with a smile. With considerable respect, she introduced all of us to Chief Gunners Mate Bowman who had served with Gary’s Father on two previous ships and was held in high regard by the Van der Leydens’. He was currently something called the “Master at Arms” at the base and had evidently been of great assistance in arranging Gary’s flight.
“Look it,” Gary elbowed me. “An R5D” and he pointed to a gleaming four engine plane that might almost have been an airliner were it painted differently.
We shook hands with Gary. “Come on lads,” Chief Bowman interjected, “good friends can do better than that. Shake with both hands. A little hug is okay, too.” We hugged.
Gary boarded the plane. He stopped at the door and waved to all of us; then he disappeared into the plane. One by one the four engines came complaining to life. Roaring in clouds of exhaust smoke. The engines settled into a smooth roar. The great plane taxied away only to come sweeping back down the runway, lifting for Hawaii just in front of us. I watched it diminish. Silver. Smaller into the vastness of the blue. He was gone.