A WILD CARD THAT WAS TOO WILD
My beloved cousin called me on the phone in the boarding house. He said he would pick me up later in the afternoon. I was happy I would see Lizzie again. As I was waiting for him in the entrance lobby, I heard his bellow loud and clear.
'Hey Mike. C'mon, lover boy.' A few heads turned to get a good look at lover boy. I ran to the door in a hurry blushing furiously. She must have told him we were out together, I thought to myself. Old Teddy gave me a few playful punches.
'How's it going?' he asked.
'Okay, Ted. I missed you these last few days.'
It was dark as we reached the car and I walked round to the passenger's side to say hello to Lizzie. She was sitting motionless as if absorbed in thought. I tapped on the window and she opened it. I nearly said, 'Hello Lizzie.'
'Hello Joanie,' I said instead, 'I'm so glad to see you. Haven't seen you quite a while. I missed you.'
'Hi Michael, I missed you too. Get in and give us a kiss.'
She moved a little to the center of the seat and I got inside and kissed her. God!
Lucky I did not collapse. You son of a bitch, Teddy, why didn't you tell me. He got inside started the engine and we drove off.
'Any suggestions?' he asked.
'Let's show Michael the house we bought, Teddy, and then we can go eat something.'
When we arrived, even though it was dark, we got out of the car and inspected the house both in and outside. It was a typical wooden frame construction of middle class neighborhoods in New England. I congratulated them on the purchase and wished them a good and happy life together in it. Then we went to a drive-in eating-place. As we were eating Teddy asked, 'Did you see your girlfriend yesterday?'
'My what?' I asked, surprised.
'His what?' exclaimed Joan turning to look at me. Teddy! You are playing with fire, I thought to myself.
'I didn't tell you, Joan, Mike has a girl and I suspect he was out with her yesterday when we went to pick him from college. Ain't that so Mike?'
He looked at me, daring me to call his lie. 'Yes.'
'So tell us what you did.'
'I invited her to the movies and then we went for dinner.'
'Oh ho ho, Mike, really giving her the works, eh? Really trying to impress her.' He was teasing me maliciously. I thought I would give him some of the same. 'Well, what else could I do Teddy? I don't have a car. If I had a car, I would have taken her to some deserted spot and tried to kiss her and have a little fun, a little sex.'
'Michael! I'm really surprised at you,' cried Joan.
'What's wrong with that? I'm young and I am neither married nor engaged to be married.'
'You astonish me! Shy little Michael talking like this! I could have sworn you had never kissed a girl. Is she pretty?'
'Yes.'
'Sexy?' She asked with a smile.
'Yes. She also has a reputation of being a pig.'
'Michael! I don't believe it! Where did you meet her?'
I had to be careful on that one. Had I said, at a coffee bar, she might, she just might suspect that she was a hand-me-down from Teddy who had a habit of frequenting coffee bars. Something Joan was not very happy about. Damn it, why was I trying to protect him?
'I met her at my advisor's office. She's his secretary.'
'And how did you get talking? Did someone introduce you?'
'No. A week ago, my advisor called me and gave me a very stern lecture about how I was wasting my time and the college's. It was about the fiftieth time this happened and I was simply fed up. When I left his office the secretary, whose name by the way is Lisa, told me with a smile that the professor was very unhappy with me. I answered quite rudely, 'You don't say! He can go to hell.' This apparently amused her and we struck a conversation. I invited her out but as you see, I have a problem. No privacy. So it's movies and dinner.'
'Well I never!' said Joan and Teddy gave a loud laugh, probably of relief. Joan seemed to have swallowed the tale. After the snack, we just drove around aimlessly in Teddy's usual style of drives, chatting away on various inconsequential topics. Joan kept glancing at me out of the corner of her eye. I was Michael with a new personality. Undoubtedly a more interesting one. After a while, they took me back to college. I rushed to call Lisa but she was not at the coffee bar. She had finished her work and had left.
At school the final examinations for the semester were about to start in a few days. The lights at the dormitories were on at all times, all through the night. The students were giving it all they could. One last effort. I had stopped studying completely and when I was in the dorm, I always felt depressed. I wanted to leave the college. Not necessarily go back to Egypt. I just wanted to get lost, to become anonymous. I did not want the responsibility that came with my name. I wanted to be thrown out of college in peace. I could not face recriminations, shame, questions and explanations. I toyed with the idea of signing up as a sailor on a ship. To see the world for a year or two. To think things out. They say, historians can write objectively about recent events only after at least fifty years have passed. I would not need that many. A couple of years would suffice. There was also that crazy idea Teddy threw at me careless1y. It took root in my brain. No matter how much I ridiculed it in my mind, it would not let me be. I would have to sound out Lizzie about it before deciding my next move. Marriage? Hell, I must be nuts.
I woke up early the next day with all the commotion of the students waking up and getting ready for classes buzzing in my head. I stayed in bed with my eyes closed until the racket subsided. I was trying to think. Problems, problems, problems. One of which was how to spend my day. It was surely freezing outside. It had snowed at night and down below the street was dressed in white. The sun was out giving the day a cheerful aspect. Well that was something, though I did not feel very cheerful. I looked out of the window at the river Charles. The rays of the sun hit the icy surface and the glare dazzled my eyes.
Nine o'clock. I had a leisurely shower and went down at the refectory for breakfast. A few stragglers were there wolfing down their food. They were in a hurry. I walked alongside the bench collecting the food and milk and passed the girl who checked the allotted portions.
'Better hurry up,' she said with a smile.
That put me out a bit. I was in no hurry. I was flunking out. After breakfast, I called Lizzie.
'Hi Lizzie.'
'Hi. Why didn't you call me yesterday?'
That upset me. She was expecting a call. What an ass to assume Teddy would bring her with him. I should have called anyway. Moreover, her question was unanswerable.
'I called but you had left work.'
'That must have been late. What did you do last night?'
'I'll tell you when I see you. Lizzie, I have something to ask you. Can we meet tonight?'
'But we are meeting tonight. Teddy finally called and said he'll pick me up before dinner and then we'll come to get you. Said he's been working very hard.'
'Oh heck. I wanted to see you alone.'
'What's the problem?'
'Oh nothing important. Let's fix a date for tomorrow. You and I, same place, same time. Okay?'
'Okay. Six o'clock. Perhaps, we can also fit in a movie.'
'Sure. See you tonight.'
I was not happy about this evening. My love for Lizzie was ruining what little affection remained for Teddy. It was not jealousy. I just could not bear it when he called her a pig. I could barely keep myself from telling her what he really thought of her and that he was getting married to another girl. But I could not sink that low. It was a dilemma.
I stayed in my room for a while riffling through some old sex magazines that were lying on my roommate's desk. I wondered if Lizzie was in them. No such luck. After a while, I put on my boots and crossed the bridge into Boston. I walked aimlessly here and there and at one point strayed into a poorer section of the town inhabited mostly by Coloreds. A man came up to me and said, 'Was you looking for the girls?' I said 'No' and hurried away. I came across a cinema and entered to see the movie. The film absorbs you for a time and you forget your worries but now and then during the film and especially at the end, the awful realization that you're still in a mess, that nothing has changed hits you and you feel miserable again. I returned to the boarding house and at about eight sat at the lobby to wait for Ted. I sat near the door so he would not have to shout out loudly and embarrass me again. As soon as he entered, I jumped up and we practically bumped into one another. He misunderstood it for eagerness and smiled. 'Don't worry your girlfriend's outside,' he said. 'She won't run away.'
'Oh Teddy, you know she's not my girlfriend. She's yours.'
'You can have her. These broads are a dime a dozen.'
He already started getting on my nerves. I searched my pocket and produced a dime. 'Here, Teddy, here's a dime. I don't want a dozen. I just want one other girl as beautiful as Lisa. And as sweet and as bright and as pleasant.'
'Oh she's good looking all right. But she is no good. I know things about her you wouldn't like to hear.'
'No I wouldn't.'
'See what I mean? That's why I never told you anything. For me she was a good lay. A damn good one, I have to admit. But I can take her or leave her.'
We were walking to the car. Again, it was parked some way off. I could not bear to hear him talking this way. I was starting to hate him.
'And Joanie?'
'Let's leave her out of this. In any case, it's Lisa that picked me up. You wouldn't expect me to refuse, would you?'
'So she's to blame for your two-timing Joanie?'
'You're damn right she is.'
'Oh well, you're absolved.'
We were silent until we reached the car. In the last few steps he said, 'Cheer up Michael, she's not worth it.'
I again moved to the passengers' side of the front seat and tapped at the window.
This time I said, 'Hello Lizzie,' and a lovely smile lit her face and mine.
We took off in a direction that led out of town. Ted said he knew a Greek restaurant where the food was good. It was out in the suburbs. On the way there, he was very cheerful talking to Lisa and making little jokes. You would have thought that little dialogue between us had not taken place. I was silent and resentful. Lisa asked if something was wrong. Ted said I was in a bad mood and that was why he was taking us to a Greek place. Talking a little Greek would do me good. The owner was from the old country and was always happy to converse in his native tongue. Most second generation Greek-Americans spoke very little Greek, if at all.
The restaurant was a very rough and ready affair and Yanni was thrilled to talk to me in Greek. By nine o'clock guests started to trickle in giving a livelier note to the place. Our food was served and soon after a man with a guitar arrived and unannounced sat on a chair and started playing and singing in Greek. The food was very good but the singing was marvelous. Ted and Lisa were in deep animated conversation and I hated the intimacy between them. Bloody, double-faced Theodore.
Eventually we finished our meal, put on our coats and piled in the car. It was already close to eleven. Another day gone. Ted would take me to college and then he had the session with my angel. She would take him by the hand and lead him to paradise. Step by step, kiss by kiss. To the heavenly pastures of sensuality and pleasure. And after an orgasmic explosion of ecstasy, after the release of unbearable tension, the angel would be transformed into a fat, greedy, promiscuous pig. I turned and looked at it. The piggy. I was head over heels in love with it. 'Lizzie, did you like the Greek music?'
'Yes, though I'm sure if I had heard more of it I would have liked it better.'
'I never could stomach that stuff,' said Ted.
I turned to Lisa. 'Did you enjoy the food you little piggy Lizzie? I saw you gobbling it up.'
'It was very good, very Mediterranean. Our cooking at home is something like it. My mother still cooks in the Italian manner. And I have a healthy appetite. I burn up the calories at work.'
'And in some other activities,' said Ted. 'Oh cut it out.'
'Nothing wrong in that,' I defended my Lizzie, 'it's just another healthy appetite.' She turned and looked at me trying to divine whether I was serious or sarcastic. 'I mean it,' I said.
Ted gave a mocking guffaw.
'For a boy your age coming from a conservative society you have very liberal views,' Lisa told me with a smile.
'Well, I read a lot and reading widens one's perspectives. It helps you to think for yourself and to reconsider everything you have been taught. You question the traditional upbringing because morals are dynamic and evolve from one generation to the next.'
She looked at me with wide-open eyes, searching for signs of insincerity. 'You college boys, always complicating things,' said Ted. 'To me a thief is a thief, a murderer is a murderer and a bitch is a bitch.'
'You're lucky to have set values, Teddy.' I was sarcastic but I do not think he noticed.
In the morning, I went to the airline office and set the date of my departure in ten days' time. I could have booked earlier but I thought of Lizzie. What good would an extra few days do? Well, that is another question. I had a late lunch. It was around two. The weather was good. Cold but sunny. The city always looks and feels better in the sun. There was the usual afternoon bustle but the sun made it seem happier, more relaxed. In a gloomy, cloudy atmosphere people seem pressed and oppressed. Boston was festive with posters. A smiling face. Young, clean cut and handsome. Kennedy for President. I walked about town looking at shops, entering huge department stores where one can buy almost anything and also find a bank and a travel agency. The people there were not as interesting as the ones one saw in luxury hotels. They were usually in a hurry to buy whatever they came for and to leave as fast as possible. They were a microcosm of America. Not particularly good looking, reasonably well dressed but always in a hurry. Hurry, hurry, hurry, that is the essence of America. Not enough time to enjoy a meal or a cup of coffee and serenely exchange an opinion on the political situation or the latest book by so and so. But then, powerful America could only have been built by a citizenry of hard working dollar chasers, keepers up with the Joneses and a harsh capitalist system that has no hesitation to give you a kick on the butt if you do not fulfill its needs.