A Matter of Love in da Bronx by Paul Argentini Page A

that, does it mean she'll trust to luck? Take her chances? Who cares? No, she won't walk to school tonight. Sick of the place after all these years. Teacher's pet. Help with the new students, with the same new problems, teaching the same old stuff on the same old merry-go-around and around. Sought as a relief for life's tedium all too soon it, too, melded into life's tedium. Like the cup's dregs of coffee. Outside, in an open doorway, a fine mist sheeting phantasmagorian smorgasbord of people, afoot, acar, abus, ataxi, atruck, abike, amuck. One of Weezy's cigarettes. When there are no others, this is the passion of life. Portfolios on the tile, leaning against the clammy wall, a match brings life to the subalternate phallicism. Tick insuck. To prime for the allimportant big firstdrag. Then, go. Incoming. Deep. Full glow to the tip. Rasping scratch down the throat. Satisfying, tasteful lungfill. Outgo. Thick, foggy exudation factitiously effecting a bombburst. Incognito? No. Better. Unseen. Mary denied herself the extravagance of consuming the whole and entire cigarette in one drag. She would love to live as she smoked. Some slight twirling of the senses that became rescued by her safeplace, the shore. This was where her soul was born, in a softshell clam a rod's length from high tide where life's improbabilities crashed and thundered harmlessly about. Where, she knew, her spirit would forever sail on rising currents as timeless as shrieks of soaring, skyfilled seagulls in harmony with the waving saw-grass on the evermoving sandunes in springtime. Which, indubitably meant that between that and her present postulation something had gone awry. Maybe. Maybe that is as was to be! Moot point. Who wants to be right from the grave? Per dictum she should be moving down toward Seventh and Twenty-seventh. But, per Mary , that would be diametric. Uptown. Near home. Eden Farms. Skip classes. Again. Meet her Friend-who-loves-fucking Louisa. But! Be ready for Lily Dolorosso's ponderous inquisition: --So what did you learn new tonight? Forget the grammatical reduplication, if you know what I mean. Sure, Ma. I learned tonight you don't try to take a big-broad's ass without an extra-long dick. Oh! Yes! The teacher was quite pleased with my answer, better still with the demonstration that followed and we put it all down in charcoal and pastels on newsprint in less than twenty-seconds per. Didn't I go well, Ma? Now you want to brush my hair and tell me all about woman's burden riding the cotton burro to be careful yet of sitting on a boy's lap without putting at least a NYTimes in between us so his rising phenomenon won't injab the babymakingstickystuff up my cunt. Good! Mamma! You did well! Now, forget all that and tell me where I can get laid? You see, Mamma, it's one thing to be lustful, another to be listlessly lustful. Not going after the satisfaction of the desire for one reason or another. The validity immaterial. When did I see my first wondrous penis? What grade was it? No matter, naughty little boy beside me pulling his teenie pecker out to show it to me and raising his eyebrows applauding himself. Little runt. My brother, Joe, doesn't count; he was moved out of my bedroom into the living room pretty quick. What became traumatic were the years in between the time I found out what was involved in the sex act. When girltalk came to sex, I heard hard-on, erection, boner, and such; but it was a long time before I understood really the mechanics involving the transformation of a limp penis into a penetrating tool. In fact, I was dying to see one do its thing. I wanted to feel one, I still do. Torn between excessive curiosity, and abnormal shyness, my self-education took strange turns. First, the fig-leaf on all those gorgeous statues of fantastic men-bodies told me the mystery was worth uncovering. Where museums and art books failed, so did marriage and medical books. The few flashers I saw gave down-grading performances. I knew I was on the