An Infatuation (2 page)

He changed to one-handed push-ups. I dribbled on my grammar book.

“That one’s easy. It’s wrong,” he declared like an expert grammarian.

He knows more than I thought about grammar.

Mario continued. “I’d never stop going to football practice. And I call the other guys on the team my
teammates
.”

Guess again.

“Mario, the sentence that I read to you is grammatically incorrect because the word
don’t
should be the word
doesn’t
, the word
no
should be the word
any
, and the word
them
should be
those
.”

He stopped exercising and sat on the rug with his muscular forearm resting on his massive knee. “Why?”

I explained patiently. “Because when using
he
,
she
, or
it
as the subject in a sentence, you use the word
doesn’t
before the verb to make a negative statement.”

Mario wasn’t so patient. “Hey, I ain’t no
it
.”

“And you know that ‘ain’t’ is slang, don’t you?”

“Are you making fun of the way I talk? Kiss my ass.”

Don’t tempt me.
I stood next to him, thinking that if I got closer he might understand the grammar lesson better.
Sure, that’s why I moved closer.
“Mario, in the sentence I gave you, the subject or the noun,
Mario
, is in the third person, so it matches with the word
doesn’t
rather than with the word
don’t
.”

He laughed. “I got you there, Harold. There’s only
one
of me. I am one of a kind.”

No argument there.
I cleared my throat. “If the subject was
I
,
you
,
we
, or
they
, you would use the word
don’t
before the verb to make the negative statement.”

“Harold, I’m worried about you.
I
am Mario. That’s who
I
am.”

It’s times like this I wish I were a teenage alcoholic.
“Let’s move on to the rest of the sentence.
Any
is correct instead of the word
no
because
no
answers a yes or no question, precedes a noun that has no article, or can be used before a noun that is preceded by an adjective, but not before
any
,
much
,
many
, or
enough
. In all other instances, you use the word
any
.”

“That don’t make no sense.” Mario stretched out on his back and did sit-ups.

I watched Mario’s eight-pack contracting in and out like a stunning white cloud formation dancing in a clear blue sky.
What were we studying again?

“Shit. My knees keep popping up. Harold, hold them down for me, will you?”

I happily obliged and rested my sweating palms on his perfectly shaped knees. From my vantage point in front of him, I could see the jet black, shiny, perfectly stationed hair on his ankles peeking out from the hem of his lucky jeans. As I lifted my head, I came nose to bulge with his massive crotch, which inspired me with a new teaching tactic. “Mario, let’s try something else.”

“You’re the teacher.”

“Every time you sit up, say the words,
I don’t
. And every time you lie back down, say the words,
He doesn’t
. Can you do that, Mario?”

“Sure.” Mario did sit-ups in the manner I prescribed.

I continued on to our next lesson. “Good. Now let’s change the words for the sit-up to
They don’t
, and the lie back down words to
Mario doesn’t
.”

Again Mario did as I asked. We went on that way for a while. Eventually I changed the mantra to
no
versus
any
. Mario followed my orders to the letter, or rather to the word.

We moved on to squats with
done
versus
did
, leg lifts with
which
versus
that
, chin-ups with
see
versus
seen
, push-ups with
those
versus
them
, push-offs with
got
and
have
, hamstring stretches for
good
versus
well
, and my favorite, taking a rest with
lay
versus
lie
.

As we lay, backs flat on the rug, mentally and physically exhausted, I felt like Annie Sullivan at the water well. To my surprise, Helen Keller—rather, Mario—rested his arm on my chest.

He touched me.
My heart stopped beating.

“I’m bushed, Harold. You’re more of a slave driver than the coach, and he don’t…
doesn’t
give us no…
any
breaks.”

His flawless strong arm, pumping with his perfect blood, is resting on my chest.
I couldn’t speak.

He breathed in and out deeply. “I should get going, but I can’t move from
lying
here.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“You did good…
well
, Harold. You’re a well teacher.” Mario squeezed my chest with his hand, then stood over me. “Same time and place tomorrow?”

I somehow managed to sit up and focus on my amore. Not able to give in to my carnal desires, I suddenly sounded like Miss Gulch. “Yes, we will move on to learning about singular versus possessive nouns, subordinate conjunctions, and prepositional phrases.”

“Whatever you say… or just said.” Mario threw his leather jacket over his shoulder. “Later.”

Mario was gone, and my bedroom transformed from heaven to a mere room with a bed, a dresser, and a desk.

Mario turned out to be a dedicated student, and I was his devoted teacher. Day by day we covered subjects ranging from chemistry to advanced algebra to government to world history.

One session, in my bedroom of course, we were discussing World War II. Well, I was discussing it. Mario, dressed in his usual attire with a canary T-shirt that day, had brought over hand weights and was deeply engaged in his reverse curls, as was I. It was hard to concentrate on the war to end all wars with Mario’s triceps being waved in front of my nose like a steak dinner. Mario kneeled on my bed, and I sat on the rug beside our history textbook, wishing it was bedtime. I had gone over the frivolous facts about the war, like the beginning and end dates (1939-1945) and the number of fatalities (85 million), so I moved on to cover the more pertinent information.

“Mario, who was the president during World War II?”

“Hitler?”

“Hitler was the president of Germany during the war.”

“So I got it right. You just said president. You didn’t say of which country.” Mario stood to do flies. His shoulders looked like the Italian Alps.

I’m ready to go mountain climbing.
“Okay, who was the president
of the United States
during World War II?”

“Lincoln?”

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the great Democrat with polio from Hyde Park, New York.”

“What’s polio?” Mario asked between reps.

“A virus that causes paralysis.”

“How could he be president if he had polio?”

“He sat down a lot.”

“Then you could be president.” Mario continued exercising.

Standing up, and moving to my real agenda, I said, “Franklin supposedly had a girlfriend, and his wife, Eleanor, was supposed to have had a girlfriend too.”

Mario didn’t respond.

“What do you think of that?”

“I think it sounds like everybody was happy.” Mario grew lines on his forehead. “Is that in our history book?”

“No, they leave things like that out.”

“Too bad. It would make learning this shit more interesting.”

“I agree.”
On to Plan B.
“Mario, who was the Prime Minister of England during the war?”

“How the hell do I know? I never went to England.”

I sat at the edge of the bed. “It was Winston Churchill, who was rumored to be lovers with Ivor Novello, the famous actor.”

“Will that be on the test?”

“I doubt it. They left that out of our textbook too.”

He put down the weights and sat next to me on the bed. “Harold, let’s stick to what will be on the test, okay?”

“Okay, but what do you think about that, Mario?

“I think it sucks.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I don’t like taking tests.”

“No, I mean about Winston Churchill and Ivor Novello?

He thought a moment. “I think history is full of lots of fruits. I mean, I knew that J. Edgar Hoover dressed like his mother, like the guy in that movie,
Psycho
—”

“Anthony Perkins. He was also gay.”

“Was he in World War II?”

“No, he played Norman Bates in the movie
Psycho
.”

“I thought we were talking about World War II.”

“We are.” I pretended not to notice that Mario’s massive shoulder was pressing against my not massive shoulder. “Okay, Mario, during World War II, who was the top military commander…
for the US
?”

“Alexander the Great. And I know, he was gay too, and it won’t be on the test.”

“Actually he
was
.”

“Harold, if the test was about who people in history slept with, I’d get a hundred.”

I smiled. “It was Eisenhower.”

Mario looked confused. “Was he gay?”

“I seriously doubt it.”

“Good, because I have a few questions about that.”

Finally, questions about man-to-man love.
“Okay, Mario, let them roll.”
Be still my erratically beating heart.

Mario sat hunched over his knees. “The US fought
against
England for our independence. Then we fought
with
them against the Germans in World War II.”

Oh bother, questions about World War II.
“Right.”

“How come?”

“How come what?”

“How come we changed sides?”

I thought about that one. “I guess because times changed. Our two countries had so many cultural similarities that the US and England formed an alliance.”

Mario threw back his head and laughed. “Similarities? I don’t think so. You ever see rock stars from England?” He stood up and spread his arms to do flies. I wanted to sing
The hills are alive…
.

“Mario, the US formed many alliances during World War II. For example, we formed an alliance with France too.”

“Good thing. I like their fries.”

“No, Mario, french fries don’t come from France.”

He stopped exercising. “Then where do they come from?”

“Right here in the good old US of A.”

“Then how come they don’t call them US fries?”

My head… and libido are spinning.
“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

He put down the weights and ran a strong hand through his thick, black hair. “And another thing. In World War II we were fighting the Chinese—”

“You mean the Japanese.”

“Same thing. We were fighting the Japanese, but now they own half of our country. How’d that happen?”

“The Japanese designed and manufactured technology that we bought. Eventually they became wealthy enough to buy US businesses.”

He sat down next to me on the bed again. This time his shapely thigh pressed against my grateful, unshapely thigh. “That don’t—”

“Doesn’t.”

“…
doesn’t
make no—”

“Any.”

“…
any
sense, Harold. That would be like if you and I had a fight, and I kicked your ass then you bought my house and evicted me.”

“It could happen, Mario.”
Did I just make a joke… with Mario?

Mario grinned like a bad baseball player with a blind umpire. “Oh yeah, tough guy? You think you can take me?” He reached for my neck.

I jumped up and ran… as cliché as it sounds… into my closet. I did this partially for cover, but mainly to shield the raging erection growing in my pants.

“Ah, hiding from me, huh? You can run, tutor. But you can’t hide.”

Mario followed me into the closet. He placed his arm around my neck and pulled me back into the room. As I pretended to resist, my back enjoyed the warmth of his firm pectoral muscles pressing against it. Next, as he placed my arm behind my back, my hand rubbed against his abdominal muscles like laundry on a washboard. Mario forced me down to my knees next to the history textbook on the rug, and said, “Back to work, tutor. I have to ace the next test.”

As he stood over me, I looked up at his crotch.
It’s doubled in size.
I gasped.

Mario fell to his knees next to me. “Did I hurt you?” He put his powerful hand on my unworthy shoulder.

“No, I just lost my breath for a minute.”

He seemed to understand. “Good. I don’t want to lose my teacher.” He smiled and revealed his pearly white, perfectly straight teeth.

I smiled back and unleashed my school-bus yellow, crooked teeth. “Don’t worry, Mario. You won’t.”

As the weeks went by, Mario became Eliza Doolittle to my Professor Higgins. One night we were studying in my bedroom as usual. I was strategically lying on my bed. Mario, wearing a tight emerald T-shirt, sat on the windowsill, throwing a football at the overhead light.

For the third time that night I asked, “The log (base 10) of 10,000 equals?”

Mario thought long and hard and finally said, “4?”

I think he’s got it.
“Yes, Mario, yes!

“That’s it? 4?”

“Yes, Mario!”

“Holy shit!” Mario stood, threw the football down onto the rug, and spread out his massive arms. As I joyously ran toward him, anticipating a congratulatory embrace, Mario clasped his hands onto the window molding and did chin-ups. “I did it! I can’t believe I finally got it right!” Mario jumped down and grabbed his leather jacket from behind my desk chair. “See you tomorrow, Harold.”

Sitting at my desk, I asked, “Where are you going?”