An Infatuation (3 page)

He picked up the football. “Meeting my friends at Cosmo’s for pizza.”

“What about your
other
classes?”

“I learned enough for one night.”

“Mario, we have a literature quiz tomorrow. You should stay and cram with me.”
We can be Anne Frank and Peter Van Daan or Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

He turned around to face me. “It’s just a quiz. No sweat off my ass.”

What a way with words.
“Mario, I can’t believe you don’t like books. I’d read all day if I could.”
Next to you.

Putting his jacket and the football on my desk, he sat on the floor next to my bookcase. “Books don’t make sense to me, Harold.” He pulled out a book. “Like
Romeo and Juliet
. If I ever dated a girl whose old man hated my guts, I’d kick his ass. And another thing I don’t get about that book is if Romeo and Juliet were so head over heels in love, how come they don’t end up happily ever after?”

I rested my elbows on the desk. “I guess because sometimes things don’t work out the way we planned. That’s why if we love someone, we need to stay close to him, and commit ourselves to him, whether our family and friends like him or not. And we should never,
ever
let him go.”

“Will that be on the quiz, Harold?”

Yeah, the test of life.
I nodded and hid my erection behind my desk.
New tactic.
“Mario, did you know that… originally… during Shakespeare’s time, all the roles on stage were played by male actors?”

“So?”

“So a male… a young male… played Juliet… in love with Romeo.”

“So how come Shakespeare didn’t call it,
Romeo and Julio
?”

With a book covering my lap, I sat next to Mario on the floor. “Let’s move on to
Our Town
.”

Mario grimaced like a kid facing a bowl of pea soup. “I hate
Our Town
. Who is that Stage Manager character anyway? If any guy came into my kitchen and started making comments and rearranging things, my mother would cut his balls off with a steak knife.”

I covered my lap with a second book. “It’s an amazing story, Mario. George and Emily were only… our age… but they were totally in
love
.

“I don’t get it.”

“That’s because you won’t give it a chance.” I looked into his dark, questioning eyes.
Please give it a chance, Mario.

“Okay. Read it to me.” He leaned his back against my bed.

“Now?”

“No, when we’re forty years old in an old people’s home.”

I opened the book. Mario closed his eyes and rested his forearm against mine. Despite my cracking voice, I somehow read the section where George asks Emily if she will write to him if George goes away to agriculture college. After I finished, I asked, “Do you understand?”

Mario looked at me like a Rhodes Scholar. “What do you think I am, stupid?”

How did I not notice that cleft in your chin before this?
“What does it mean?”

Mario cleared his throat like an orator. “George wants to keep Emily busy writing letters, so she won’t visit him at college and catch him rolling in the hay with the college babes.”

His mouth was inches from mine. “No, Mario, George is testing Emily to see if she
loves
him.”

“Well, does she?”

“What do you think, Mario?”

“How the hell do I know what’s in some crazy broad’s head in some stupid book?”

I gave him a hint. “Emily
marries
George, doesn’t she?’

“My old lady married my old man, and no way
they’re
in love.”

“Trust me, Mario. George and Emily, like Romeo and Juliet, were star-crossed lovers. You should remember that for tomorrow’s literature quiz.”
And make sure we don’t share their fate.
I reached over Mario’s muscular arms to take another book. “Let’s move on to
A Separate Peace
.”

“Another book I hate. Why do the two guys want to hurt each other?”

Here’s my chance.
“Maybe because they don’t understand their feelings toward one another.” Our lips were so close they were nearly touching. “Maybe because of pressures from society, the two boys can’t express their… mutual admiration and… caring for one another, so their frustration turned into violence and tragedy.”

“What a bunch of bull. I’d never hurt someone I cared about.”

“You wouldn’t
intentionally
.”

He grabbed my arm. “I wouldn’t any way at all.”

Somehow, even at my tender young age, I knew that wasn’t true.

“Speaking of peace.” Mario jumped up and removed papers from his jacket pocket. “To keep peace in the Ginnetti family, can you fill out my football scholarship applications for college? They’re due next week. They want an essay about why I want to go there. Write extra good stuff for the Ivy League schools, okay, Harold?”

Somehow recovering, I said, “Sure, but why do you want to go to an Ivy League school?”

“To shut up my old lady.” He pointed to the bookcase. “Use something from one of your books, but not
Romeo and Julio
.”

“Okay. I have an essay to write too. I’m going to State. My parents don’t want to saddle me with big college loans for an education degree.”
Is it my imagination or does Mario look disappointed?
“As they say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with New Jersey. We have clean water, honest politicians, and it’s safe for children with a Catholic church on every other corner.’”

Mario laughed. “You’re funny, Harold. I like that.”

Just call me Funny Boy.

He handed me the applications. As our hands grazed one another’s, I asked, “Mario, if you go away to school, will you write to me?”

Mario tossed the football in the air. “I don’t write too good…
well
. Nobody knows that better than you, Harold.”

I sat up on my knees. “But who will tutor you in college?”

Again seeming to understand, Mario placed a hand on my head. “Harold, stop worrying, you’ll always be my buddy.”

I suddenly felt sad inside. “But people grow apart, Mario. My parents don’t see any of their friends from high school anymore. My sister’s away at college and she doesn’t either.”

Mario looked down at me and smiled. “Okay, stand up and bend over.”

It’s not what you’re thinking.

“Now I’m teaching
you
how to do something, Harold.”

Mario handed me the football and told me to pass it through my legs to him standing behind me. I awkwardly followed his orders. Next, he brought me to a standing position and put the football in my hand. With his massive chest resting against my mortal back, and his large hand covering my smaller hand, he moved the ball backward. “Now, Harold, wind back, follow through, and let go.”

I’m trying so hard not to let go.
“You’re the football hero, Mario, not me.” Like a model on a game show, I pointed to other books on my bookcase. “Let’s move on to Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Virginia Woolf.”

Holding the football like a boy without a playmate, Mario said, “You should learn how to play football.”

Agenda still firmly intact, I responded, “And you should learn about art and music. Let’s start with Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Beethoven.”

“Them—”

“What?”

“…
those
people don’t matter no… I know…
any
more. You taught me enough to pass the quiz.”

“But we still have to—”

“You’re gonna get hurt.” Mario blocked my way back to my desk.

I stopped like a mime hitting an invisible wall. “What?”

Avoiding my eyes, Mario spoke to the carpet. “I hear what some guys say about you. Maybe if you played a sport—”

“But I’m not good at sports. And they bore me.”

“Then at least quit the band.”

“I can’t.” Our eyes finally met.

“Why?”

“You know why, Mario.”

After a long, awkward pause, Mario recovered his fumble with, “You can’t quit the band, because you have to play tuba with Horrible Hannah.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Hannah’s a nice girl.”

“Who’s hot for you.”

“No, she isn’t, Mario.”

“Yes, she is, Harold. I heard her tell one of the cheerleaders that she’s hot for
your
bod.”

“And
all
the cheerleaders are probably hot for
your
bod.”

“Don’t change the subject, Harold. You like playing the tuba so you can be near Horrible Hannah with the big zits, small boobs, and braces on her buck teeth.” He messed my red frizzy hair.

Without realizing it, I pushed Mario away. “Hannah’s a nice girl.”

“Who is horny for
you
. Horrible Hannah is horny for Harold!”

“She isn’t.” I pushed him again.

“Harold and Horrible Hannah!” Mario pushed me back.

I hope I don’t split my pants.

“Have you done her yet, Harold? Have you done Horrible Hannah?”

“Screw you.”

We laughed our pants off—well, not literally. I pushed Mario again. He pinned my arms and wrestled me to the ground, where our eyes met. Suddenly, Mario leaped off me like I was on fire. “You’re right, Harold. We should study some more for the grammar quiz tomorrow.”

I sat up on one elbow. “It’s a literature quiz.”

“Yeah, right. Come on, tutor, tutor me.”

Still thrown, literally, from Mario’s sudden wrestling move and sudden desire to master American literature, I taught Mario everything I knew, or rather everything that I thought would be on the quiz. As we studied, I wondered about the sudden change in his behavior.

Our tutoring sessions continued each night. Mario didn’t tackle me again, but he did tackle everything from geometry to geography. It was clear that when Mario put his mind to it, he could master most any subject, except poetry.

On one especially excruciating evening two months later, we were lying on our stomachs, shoes off, shoulder to shoulder, with an anthology of poems nestled on the rug between us. It was a safe position for me, for obvious reasons, and a comfortable one for Mario. Certain that Tennyson was turning over in his grave, we left his poems and moved on to interpreting the poems of Robert Burns.

“Do you understand the imagery that Burns is using in this poem?” I asked.

Mario raised his eyes like a valley girl. “First of all, there are lots of words spelled wrong in this poem. I thought poets were supposed to know how to spell.”

“There aren’t any words spelled incorrectly.”

“Oh, yeah? How about
luve’s
?”

“That’s the way they spelled it in Scotland back then.”

“And people think
I’m
stupid.” Mario read on. “And here’s a mistake.”

“There are no mistakes in this
classic
poem.”

“Sure, there are.” Mario pointed like a grade school teacher with a globe. “Look, the word
red
is repeated two times.”

“Mario, this poem is about a seaman….”

“That’s disgusting.”

“…who compares his love to a red, red—meaning very red—rose that is newly sprung in June.”

He rested his head on his palms. “How did you know that? This thing isn’t even in English.”

I recited romantically, “And I will come again my luve, Tho’ it were ten thousand miles.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Why not?”

“If this Scottish guy loves this chick so much, why don’t….”

“Doesn’t.”

“…
doesn’t
he stay home instead of leaving her to go so far away?”

“He’s a seaman.”

“Harold, stop talking dirty. It don’t…
doesn’t
fit you. It freaks me out.”

“Mario, he has to leave the person he loves for his
other
love, the open sea.”

“Why?”

“Maybe he’s a fisherman, or maybe the whole poem is a metaphor for the love of the sea that he returns to every ten years. Perhaps it’s like Shakespeare’s sonnets and the poem is a metaphor for a man he loves… maybe another seaman. Like Shakespeare, Burns was rumored to have had male lovers.”

He groaned. “That’s what I can’t stand about poetry. It’s never about what you think it’s about. If you didn’t tell me these things, I’d be totally in the dark.”

I wish we were in the dark.
I sat up yoga style. “That’s what I love about art, music, novels, theater,
and
poetry. Each viewer takes from a piece of art what he gets from it. Haven’t these poems awakened anything in you, Mario?”

“Yeah, bile.”

Here goes.
“I mean, don’t they make you think about someone you…
love
?”

He thought about it. “If I was in love with someone, I wouldn’t talk about sea and sand.”

“What would you talk about, Mario?”
I may need to lie on my stomach again.

A crease formed between his eyebrows. “I’d talk about how terrific she was, how happy she makes me feel inside, how I want to take care of her for the rest of her life, and how I couldn’t live without her.” Mario shut the book and sat up next to me. “I wouldn’t say any of this shit.”

I opened the book. “Let’s look at Browning again.”

He shut the book. “No more Browning. Neither one of them.”

I opened the book. “Okay, then let’s read Dickinson?”

He closed the book. “No more Dickinson.”

“Then which poet do you want to study next, Mario?” I held the book up to him.

He took it from me. “I’m done reading this crazy shit from crazy dead people.”

“Mario, don’t you want to pass the poetry test tomorrow?”

“I know enough to pass.” He put the book behind his back.

“Mario, give me the book.”

“No.”

“Mario, we haven’t read all of the assigned poems yet. Give me the book.”

He held up the book. “You want it, big guy, take it from me.”

“Mario, be serious.”

“I am serious.” His dark eyes dared me. “You want it, take it.”

I laughed to fake him out, then lunged for it, and fell next to him with the book under my stomach.