!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
Mike came to Cambridge during reading period, spending the first three weekends in January with me. Mornings, after I had sneaked breakfast up to him, we went over to Widener Library for three hours of study and review, seated facing each other at a little table in the stacks. Afternoons we spent writing papers and walking along the snow-encrusted pathways criss-crossing the Yard. Evenings, he could safely join me in the Cabot dining hall, then up to my room for more study and writing. Each night, we explored ourselves, seeking awe and joy in the new toy we had found erupting from our time in bed.
I discovered his secret for falling asleep in the strange environs of a woman’s college dorm. His mother had worked during World War II at the Harvard acoustic lab, where they developed an ear plug effective enough to protect the hearing of artillery gunners. She had bequeathed what appeared to be a lifetime supply of the pale red stoppers to him. Each night, he would open the clear plastic case protecting them, roll his tongue around one to moisten it, pull up on his ear – “to straighten out the canal” – and pop it firmly in. He looked so intent, yet silly, I couldn’t help but needle him every time I saw that. My first try fell flat. Using an insult common at the time, I said, “Oh, just stick it in your ear!” He wrinkled his nose, shaking his head, but didn’t see the need for a comeback.
Next weekend, I tried imitating him. Every move he made, I mimed. “Some of us don’t need no steenking ear plugs!” I smiled at him. This irritated him enough, he pulled the plug out, pressed me down, and faked plunging it into my ear. That of course led to a complete breakdown in our night time protocol, leaving us exhausted on our backs after several minutes of fiery pleasure/fun.
He leaned over, nuzzling my neck. Looking up, he asked with surprise, “Why do you have holes in your ears?”
“Holes?”
“Yeah, right here,” he said, rubbing my lobe between thumb and forefinger. As usual, I’d taken my dangly earrings out before bed. “Won’t they grow over?”
“Are you serious?” Someday, I thought, I might figure out when he’s kidding and not.
On our last night together, we must have been fully satiated from, as we simply sat cross-legged on that narrow bed, just talking.
I wanted to know what happened in Idaho, if he had indeed resisted trying to ski. “You haven’t talked about Sun Valley. How’d it go?”
His face came alive, fully smiling, even a small chuckle as he started, “I love it there. It’s like a little gingerbread town. Nothing is real, it’s all fake chalets trying to look like a Swiss village. We stayed in the room right by the Opera House. That’s a cool place where they show movies, have concerts, meetings. Kind of like a fantasy community center.”
“That sounds like the theatre on the Vineyard.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, a place where everybody goes, sees plays or shows, listens to music.”
“Right.”
“I remember, a couple of summers ago, this guy Jaimie Taylor – his father’s the dean at North Carolina medical school or something – started coming every week, to play his guitar and do his songs. He was so good, everybody loved him. Very shy though.”
“Did I tell you about my father, when he went skiing?”
“Not yet.”
“You know, he’s an engineer, always plans everything out methodically. I’ve never seen him get emotional or charged up about anything, always seems controlled. Well, he was determined to try skiing, even though he’s what, 53? He thinks he can do anything if he just reads about it and then tries it out. But he signed up for a lesson, rented skis, went out to this little hill where they teach, Dollar Mountain. He comes back that afternoon just bubbling. I’ve never seen him so excited. He was going on about what you’re supposed to do when you ski, talking very fast, ‘See, if you want to turn to the left, you make a “V” with you skis, then step, put your weight on your right ski, lean a little, and around you go. Same thing turning right, step on the left ski. It’s different than ice skating, so much more stable, no thin little blade to trip you up. You don’t have to push off like in ice skating, going downhill, gravity does all that work for you. It’s all about controlling hour speed, so you don’t go too fast! That’s what’s fun about it.’ He never talks like that, about having fun.”
“What did you do?”
“He kept going on, ‘Come on, Mike, you’ve got to do this, just give it a try for half a day, see what you think.’ He was so enthusiastic, simply persuasive, I went ahead and signed up for lessons the next day. Learning how to ride the lift was … interesting, but I didn’t fall off, so I guess they thought I was coordinated enough to try going down the hill. I did just what my father said, made a ‘V’, put my weight on the outside ski, and turned across the hill before I got going too fast. He was right, it’s the most exhilarating feeling, speed like you’re almost out of control, but still in control.”
I hadn’t seen him this animated since I spied on him at the swim meet. I must have appeared confused, as he went on, “It’s hard to describe, sitting here thinking about it.”
I tried, “What if you were writing about it, what would you say.”
He calmed down a bit, took a deep breath, looked down at my lap, then out the window. Returning his gaze to me, he explained, “Remember, last year, when we were at the Vineyard, and were riding bikes around? That day we came back from Chilmark along the beach road?”
I nodded, “Um hum.”
“I felt so…free on the bike that day, and then we saw those kids, two girls and a boy, on their own bikes, going over the bumps by the dunes. They had those streamers coming out of their handlebars, and they were hollering, screeching really, not saying anything, just letting out what they felt inside. I didn’t tell you then, but riding a bike, I get a flash back to when I was 10 or so riding around the neighborhood, not caring about anything except moving fast. Not thinking about how to ride, just doing it. That’s what skiing feels like.”
After he was gone, that Sunday, I found a poem chicken scratched in black ink tucked amongst the pages of my final draft for the English 101 term paper.
SERANADE
These are what sang me to sleep last night:
Ephemeral imagery wafting soundlessly
across
My sight,
leaves no tracks
Bears no weight and knows no
boundary,
Bother or burden.
Buffeted, soft and restful as a
Feather
Easing itself upon a crackling bed of leaves,
Herald of some now flown drifter,
Seeking warmer shelter.
Or else some cloistered curls, no unfurled,
Drifting, wafting, fading
across
The undraped softness of two still young shoulders,
Now draped in raiment
More fine than purest silk or gentlest
Tears,
warm and liquid,
Cried for love.
The shoulders
soft and young
and warm and
Slightly freckled
Transform into a [leaping?] vastness
Softness
Vastness,
And out pours
Yellow
Mounds and mounds of
yellow
Daffodils and raisins, kissed by the
yellow
Sun and
yellow brighter
still
Than daffodils – –
and raisins
Are the clouds ands grains of dune-
Grass,
growing from the sand
On which a drifter bird
Has landed,
near two
Bronzed shoulders,
hid by
Voluptuous hair, revealing a misty,
shrouded
Silk-shrouded form
Of tears of love
Weightless
boundless
Endless
1-20-68