Miles. Part 2

"Please don't bother, sir."

Waving him off, Dad bounced up the stairs and down the long hallway to his bedroom, away from us. Nicolasha turned and winked at me, touching my cheek and smiling lips with a mock fist. I took the opera out from behind me and handed it to him. Surprise, little father. His mouth and eyes opened a bit as he stared at the flamboyant, over-decorated belly dancer on the box cover, swallowing audibly in his astonishment.

"What's the matter, Nicolasha? Doesn't anybody ever buy you a gift?" He looked like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out. "That's for being a great teacher, and a friend, too." I giggled quietly as I held my arms open. Nicolasha practically jumped into them. I rested my face sideways across his chest, while his cheek touched my hair, his arms and the opera pressing against my back. He kissed the top of my head and gave me a last squeeze.

"Here it is," Dad called out from his room. We took an immediately step back from each other. Nicolasha glanced nervously between me and the staircase, shifting on his feet. He looked so afraid and so alone, all of a sudden, like he was about to be locked outside in the cold for a year.

I wanted to leave with him. I wanted to go back and see the Hammer film again. I wanted to sit next to Nicolasha. I wanted to listen to all of his records, and sit in his lap.

h.e.l.l, I wanted to take a Comrade Bubblevitch bubble bath with him.

I reached forward and took my teacher's arms in my hands, holding him still as I leaned forward and put my lips on his for a soundless, full clock second, followed by a silence so deadening it would make the falling snow sound like a Shostakovitch symphony.

"My kind of woman." Dad smiled at the belly dancer, nudging the wide-eyed Nicolasha in the side as he handed him a twenty-dollar bill. "I don't think I've ever heard that one before. Have you, son?"

"Nope. Mister Rozhdestvensky will have to lend it to me after he's had a listen." I smiled at him, my voice and gaze strangely confident in Dad's presence, as if I had just proved something to somebody.

Nicolasha stumbled through his good-byes and thank-yous and see-you-on-Mondays and careened out of our little big home into the safety of his Volvo. He sped away from us like we were a pair of devil worshipers.

The front door closed. The house was left as quiet as a crypt. Dad's hand touched my shoulder. I turned around and stared at him impa.s.sively, the only real defense I had left.

"I'm sorry about last night." He didn't look me in the eyes, the coward.

"So am I."

"Your mother and I...we've run out of answers. It's all gone wrong, son."

"No, it hasn't. You both have." My voice was soft and level, quite an achievement, I thought, considering how I felt at that particular moment.

He finally looked back at me, his eyes bloodshot and wet. "I've decided to take a job with some outfit in New York. I'll be moving there just after Christmas. Your mother wants to stay here, in the house. It's up to you where you'd like to go."

I knew where I wanted to go. I wanted to go out, far out.

There were no lights on in the room except for the fireplace, which blazed away. I huddled myself into the corner of our over-stuffed couch with my arms around my knees, staring out at the cold, blue picture of our moonlit yard. I hadn't heard my drunken father stumble about upstairs for a while.

I kept picking up the phone to call Nicolasha, but kept hanging up halfway through his number. I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. It felt like he was my only friend in the world. Anyhow, I didn't know if that was what I really wanted to say. I wasn't sure how that felt, either.

My mind began to blur, flashing back throughout my life, remembering all of the things me, Dad, and Mom used to do together, when we were still a sort of family, careful to omit about two years worth of meals at home.

Like my first helicopter ride over Cape Hatteras. It was a flimsy Bell 25; Plexiglas bubble, bench seat, and engine. This was the way to see the spectacular Outer Banks scenery. Mom was petrified, but I loved it, especially when the ex-Marine pilot veered the bird to the right, leaning me over the rough sea below.

Or being "absent" from school whenever the new James Bond film opened at the Woods Theater downtown. 1971 came to mind. We loved "Diamonds Are Forever" so much, Mom took me with to buy her first brand new car, a fire-engine red Mustang Mach 1, just like the one in the movie. It was the coolest car anyone's mom drove. But 007 only came every other year, while my beloved White Sox were an annual "he has a slight fever" event.

My favorite "fever" was 1973. We were getting killed by the Oakland A's (again), but we all were having a good time, because our entire row was taken by the old Congressman's friends and cronies. Mom set fire to a senile Cub fan's pennant (which hopefully taught him to stay on the North Side where he belonged), and Dad got thrown out of the park after tossing his beer at some guy's head when the silly a.s.s stood up for the Oakland seventh.

And then there was our Road Trip from h.e.l.l (no family should be without one) to Rock City and Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Despite rainstorms, Ford Motor Company water pump engineering, and cartographic illiteracy by Daddy dearest, I enjoyed all the Civil War stuff, but not as much as charging across a steel suspension bridge to shake up my terrified Mom and Dad.

Of course, there were all the times the young couple from next door to our Roseland bungalow, Scott and Roberta, would take me off of Mom's hands to go to the drive-in to watch cla.s.sic Hammer, Amicus, and AIP horror movie double features from the roof of their old Impala two-door. Scott lived off of the sort of food they served at the concession stand, and would overstock the car with dry hot dogs, soft Raisinettes, tasteless popcorn, rock-hard frozen Heath bars, badly carbonated cola, and out-of-date Dolly Madison fruit pies throughout the movies, which weren't nearly as chilling as the Halsted Drive-In's bathrooms, next to the projection booth.

There was going tubing down Wisconsin's Apple River with a bunch of Dad's weekend-warrior buddies from law school. We had separate tubes for the sandwich basket, and for the Point beer and Tahitian Treat coolers, the gooey Canada Dry fruit punch I was addicted to for a few years. Most everyone got sunburned to death, but me and this young stoner (that Dad hated) who took up law to figure out how to break it (Dad's description) were the only ones with enough b.a.l.l.s, or stupidity, to sail through the rapids at the end. I was actually pretty scared, but I was determined to show up all the future shysters, even if I did almost drown myself in the process.

Of course, I'll always remember my collection phase, when it seemed like I collected collections. We went hunting for sea sh.e.l.ls in Miami, man-o-wars be d.a.m.ned, and took pictures next to every s.p.a.cecraft at Cape Kennedy. We scoured the undusted corners of the country in search of small breweries and beer cans. I had to have every Hot Wheels, Johnny Lightning, Matchbox, d.i.n.ky, Corgi, and Solido car ever produced. Then I moved on to matchbooks, just so Dad had to spring for dinner at every high-cla.s.s restaurant downtown.

I drove Mom and Dad nuts one summer, demanding to see the White Sox play at every American League team's home park. They saw me so little, they agreed to split the difference and take me to see the whole American League visit the Sox at home. Most of the games were at night, all the better to see our scoreboard explode when the White Sox rustled up a home run. We sat at third base side upper deck railing seats provided to us by old Congressman Kasza, who became the grandfather I never had in those days, lavish and affectionate, sizing up every player and every pitch and every swing as we sat next to each other with our eyes locked toward home and our arms crossed over the railing.

Papu would let me run from aisle to aisle at Bargain Town on my birthday, picking out whatever I wanted, until the cart was full. He got off easy the year I went for Tonka trucks. He got hit pretty hard the year I discovered board games.

He would take me and Mom and Dad for weekend trips up to the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva. Mom liked to go horseback riding, while Dad studied in the lounge. I still wonder if it had anything to do with all the illuminated pictures of Playmates behind the bar. Papu always went fishing, winter or summer, rain or shine, while I hung out in the indoor pool. One time, Dad and Papu bought me a leopard-print silk bathing suit and had two young bunnies cuddle up to me on top of the game room's pool table for a picture that never fails to gall my buddies or Uncle Alex.

I know I cried more than anyone else at the funeral home when Papu died a few years back. I was too distraught to go to the funeral. I wish he was still here.

A couple of winters ago, when the sniping started, I got shipped off to Uncle Alex's Minnesota farm for Christmas. I hated it at first, because Uncle Alex had moved from gin to LSD by then. One morning, two older teenagers saw me ice fishing from across the lake. They rode over on their snowmobiles, introduced themselves, and invited me to go sledding with them. We went out every day for a month after that, tearing the lake and the nearby golf course to shreds, before coming back to spend the evening playing with Unc's pinball machine while he tripped out in the privacy of his bedroom.

I was sent back the following summer, as things continued to get worse with the parental units. This time, I didn't mind. Unc was dried out, had sold a painting, and decided to spend a lot of his money on me, that is, whenever I wasn't playing baseball with Kevin, Joel, and the rest of their friends, all of whom were pretty nice to me, considering I was barely fourteen and they were all pushing eighteen. You know how the age caste thing works with kids.

It was even fun running away from Dad and getting lost on Danger Island on my first trip to Disneyland. I cried a little bit when I misplaced my stuffed Shere Khan Bengal tiger. For us six-year-old tykes, "The Jungle Book" was the big movie that year.

Our yearly pilgrimages to the Adler Planetarium (to make sure Jupiter was still there) and Marshall Field's (to see their ma.s.sive Christmas tree, pick out beautiful new tree ornaments, and to have lunch at the Walnut Room) were staples to me.

I broke down. I began to cry for my lost family, hard and loud, and cried myself to sleep on the couch, still in my clothes, weakened with shame for having cried in the first place.

I woke up later that morning, feeling like I hadn't slept at all. A few embers remained in the fireplace. The harsh, pale sunlight I a.s.sociated with winter poured into the living room. It looked like another cloudless, and, no doubt, bitterly cold day.

I peeked into the garage. Mom's station wagon was there. I checked the driveway, confirming Dad's Stingray was not. Perhaps sacrificing your family on Sat.u.r.days was the price you had to pay for a six-figure income.

It was every bit as cold as I figured it would be.

Soundlessly, I climbed upstairs, made sure Mom's bedroom door was closed, and headed to my own room, locking the door behind me. Kneeling down at my bed, I pulled out my school bag and opened the leather alb.u.m to the first photograph of my teacher and stared at it for many minutes, with my hand pulling at my jeans to give my erection some room. I stripped to my t-shirt and socks, and turned to look at myself in the dresser mirror. I wrapped my arm around my lower abdomen and perched my left foot on my desk chair, mimicking Nicolasha's pose. My upper thighs were more muscular than his.

I sat down on the floor with my back against the side of my bed, took off my t-shirt and socks, and leafed through the rest of the alb.u.m, the immediate chill over my body roundly ignored. If I was groggy before, I was wide awake by then. There were five more black and white photos of Nicolasha. Clearly, the pictures were the work of a professional: both the lighting and focus were soft, and the composition chillingly distant. I began rubbing one hand over myself while turning the pages of the alb.u.m with the other. My feelings flailed from stimulation and desire to sadness and confusion. This was my teacher, for G.o.d's sake, facing the camera with a bizarre smile, wrapping the front of his dago-t over his fingers to show the camera his crotch; naked and standing straight, a hand on a hip, looking at the cameraman with a hint of impatience; laying on a blanket and the edge of a bean-bag, partially erect with his legs spread out and arms folded over his head, staring off into the distance; sitting on a bar stool with his hands on the inside of his thighs, his face covered with the utter boredom of a commuter; and the fifth, another detached, absent glare, his arms crossed behind his neck, his knees raised toward his face, exposing the bottom of his rear end and b.a.l.l.s.

Who the h.e.l.l took these, anyway?

My breaths became shorter. I began to tense up. I flipped to the next page and stared down at two color pictures of my teacher. The first was taken from behind him. He was wearing a dark blue denim jacket with a tall collar, with his thick hair wet and ragged, like he had just gotten out of the shower. Again, he was staring into the distance, this time, affording "the audience" an incredible profile shot, his unlined, pale orange face set against the dominant shadows in back of him, his sky-blue eyes and full lips plain and uninterested. His perfectly shaped, bulbous rear was accented by the position of his legs, which were spread outward, braced like he was about to lunge forward with a sword. The lighting revealed a hint of a soft tan on his bare legs and face, which told me these hadn't been taken before school began, since Nicolasha sported no trace of sun when we first walked into his cla.s.sroom.

But it was the last photograph made me take pause. I picked up the alb.u.m in both my hands, staring closely at Nicolasha's peasant features, one side of his face obscured by a shadow, his thin, bare chest exposed from breast to breast inside the denim jacket, his fingers resting on the edge of the jacket and his hips, and his thick p.e.n.i.s pointing downward between his legs. But I was drawn into Nicolasha's heartsick expression, and away from my own stimulation. What was he thinking as the camera went off? What was he feeling, deep inside of his heart, where he told us all true music flowed in and out of?

Anyone would find this body in this pose an object of desire and beauty. What I couldn't imagine was that this was Nicolasha, my beloved little father, the young, caring teacher from Russia who brought so much warmth and so many feelings to all of us at school. I just couldn't accept what I was looking at. I had burned every inch of his face and body into my mind, flown reconnaissance over him every day in cla.s.s, pictured us holding hands and hugging while I took my morning shower, dreamed about seeing him perform with the Chicago Symphony, but...this?

In all of these pictures, he was standing there almost naked, staring at something n.o.body else could see, ready to have s.e.x with whomever, smiling at a joke n.o.body else could hear, but he wasn't really there. Nicolas Mikhailovitch Rozhdestvensky was off someplace else, perhaps back at home in Gor'kiy, or being held in someone's loving arms, or wandering between the chords and stanzas in some overture, maybe.

Look at that last picture - he was challenging the rest of the world to look and stare at his bare, young body, to try and touch him, to reach through his eyes and into his soul. And he was sad, either because he knew no one could, or was afraid no one would.

I was suddenly cold. I returned the alb.u.m to my school bag and buried it beneath my other books and papers. I slipped back into my t-shirt and socks, found some long johns, my maroon University of Chicago sweat pants and hooded sweatshirt, and a down ski vest so I could go jogging for the next couple of years.

V I.

His heart and hand both open and both free

For what he has he gives, what he thinks he shows Troilus and Cressida You know you've had an awful weekend when you're happy to get back to school.

My family spent the rest of the holiday weekend staying in our rooms and alternating our visits to the kitchen so we wouldn't run into each other. I almost sat down at the dinner table with my grand dinner of peanut b.u.t.ter, bacon, and jelly sandwiches before Mom came downstairs to start a pot of strong black coffee. I left when she began slamming the cabinets, noticing we were out of sugar.

I didn't listen to any of my new records.

I got an A- on my Italian exam, and 96% on the Asian History test, so I was confident I did just as well with my music essay, even though I had b.u.t.terflies about seeing Nicolasha again, with or without his clothes on. I tried staying focused on what was being said in my cla.s.ses, but I couldn't keep from daydreaming about the alb.u.m of photographs I was carrying around with me, or agonizing about how I was going to return them.

Was there such a thing as a wet daydream, I wondered?

I stalled at a water fountain, watching Nicolasha confer with Princ.i.p.al Connelly while my cla.s.smates walked past them into the music room. The old boy had an over-dressed (and rather short) new student with him, ridiculous in a double-breasted blue jacket, yellow tie, starchy white dress shirt, grey slacks, blue argyle socks, and tan suede saddle shoes. He even had a traditional raincoat draped over his arm, which looked like my Dad's Burberry. What, no morning coat?

The shoes were cool, anyway.

He was perfectly groomed, his parted black hair swept off to one side of his bright, anxious baby face, complete with thick eyebrows, somewhat feminine dark eyes, and tiny pink lips, which were sculpted like a child's. I self-consciously glanced down at my dull ski sweater, turtleneck, jeans, and hiking shoes. The Princ.i.p.al saw me and held his hand out, indicating the cla.s.sroom door to me like it was a five-star grand hotel. I was the only student left in the hall.

The new arrival looked sheepishly at me as I walked toward him, sizing up his flawless, 'Young Republican from h.e.l.l' Halloween costume. We glanced at each other with mock disregard. Nicolasha patted me on the back as we went in. I took my front corner seat. The little senator sat in the empty desk to my left, folding his raincoat into a neat pile and putting it on his lap. He sensed half of the room was staring at him, and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Good afternoon, friends. As you all have noticed, we have a new student who has just transferred in. Princ.i.p.al Connelly has asked me to introduce you to Felix Cromwell, and for you to welcome him to our family." Nicolasha smiled warmly at Felix, who gave a friendly little wave to each side of the room. I was not the only one whose eyes widened at this Felix character's silly gesture. Maybe I should have reached over and messed up his tidily groomed hair, but I was afraid he might stand up and punch me in the knee.

"As for your essays, they were quite creative and very well written. I would like to read a few of them, if you do not mind." Nicolasha sat down on his desk, next to the school phonograph. Our eyes met for a moment.

I pictured him crossing his arms over his head and pulling his jeans down as he began to read this rather odd, stream-of-consciousness poem about Soviet leprechauns dancing in a corn field made out of rifles, and then played the introductory Allegro from the Age of Gold which Farrah based it on. She was always out in the bleachers.

(I liked the recording Nicolasha gave me better than this one.) He skipped to this riotous song, a collection of rapid-fire words and phrases that our teacher struggled to enunciate in coordinated time with the Suite's Polka that Zane conjured it up to. Of course, that's pretty much how Zane talked when he cornered some poor idiot into a conversation with him.

Nicolasha then spent almost ten minutes reading an incredibly rich and detailed portrait of a chaotic night at the circus. Kim had composed a nearly perfect accompaniment to the Suite's Dance. She looked around her desk casually, but I could see that gleam of triumph in her pale green eyes. The whole time, Felix sat there smiling, openly impressed by what he was hearing.

Nicolasha reached for another essay. His eyes linked up with mine, and I began to wish I had missed my train that morning.

"Picture a very large and empty courtyard, a field of cobblestones. Far in the distance, the field is lined by dark, unoccupied, but fabulous old palaces. The firmament above is a sunset mixture of orange clouds and blotches of deep blue sky peeking out from the thick c.u.mulus veil. The courtyard is littered with music stands that face in every direction and surround a tall monument topped by an archangel reaching up to the spectacular heavens. A cold wind flips the blood red pages on the stands. Suddenly, a ragged young boy, dressed in beggar's clothes, dances onto the courtyard, holding a wood-carved toy violin to his coal-smudged cheek, playing the instrument from the crimson sheets of music. The archangel's arms move gently in rhythm to the unseen orchestra that wells up from the unlit palaces, accompanying the boy until he cannot keep up and drops exhausted to the damp, hard cobblestones. The red pages are swept off of the music stands in a savage blast of wind, a scarlet tornado that pulls the toy violin out of the boy's dirty hand and across the courtyard. The archangel sees this and floats down from the monument, hovering over the sobbing child and taking him in its stone arms back to the top of the monument, where another violin appears, and the boy begins to play, even while his body and his clothes turn grey and then to stone."

I was so embarra.s.sed, I could have died, right there in my desk.

I could feel Kim's glare burning itself through my back. Nicolasha played the recording of the suite's Adagio, sweeping his arms back and forth, conducting the piece with erotic precision. Felix now looked at me with wide eyes.

"That was really beautiful," he whispered. "It's even better than the music." He reached out to shake my hand. His grip was warm and firm, even if his hands were a little on the small side.

"You should hear Nicolasha play it live."

"Whos that?"

I pointed my thumb toward our teacher as he brought the selection to a close. From the look on Felix's face, he had never referred to a teacher by their first name in his life. Until Nicolasha came into our lives, the rest of us hadn't, either.

Our music teacher handed back the essays and a.s.signed a chapter on Prokofiev in our text for homework. He waved us out of the room, even though it was almost ten minutes before the final bell was due to ring. For his consideration, Nicolasha was nearly run over by escaping students. I used the ensuing chaos to slip out of the room before he could call out after me.

I bolted down the stairs and collided into the locked half of the Pilot Inst.i.tute's north door, which led into the labyrinth of brooding, gothic buildings found at that end of the University, a fine place to lose anyone tailing me. I was interrupted by Felix, who slid down the wooden banister and landed beside me with a happy grin.

"You sure know how to beat feet at the end of a school day."

"I have to go, Felix."

"Let me come with." He took hold of one of my arms, but let go when I glared at him with wide eyes. "I'm sorry. I just want to talk to you for a couple of minutes. Please?"

He had a pretty cute smile, I'll say that. I was torn between blowing him off him and messing up that perfectly parted hair. I heard people entering the staircase from the floor above. He yielded to me as I exited out of the door's open half, and did so with hurt in his eyes. I sighed and waved for him to join me. "Are you ready to go?"

Pulling a plaid scarf tightly around his neck, he smiled again. "Where to, buddy?"

Buddy, huh? I looked at the cla.s.sical spires around us and suddenly felt adventurous. "Were going to Checkpoint Charlie. That would be the 55th Street IC train station." I pointed northwest, eleven o'clock. "We're in East Berlin now, and have to get these plans away from a dangerous Soviet agent." I held up my leather book bag. "The last one there buys dinner!" We began walking quickly into the nucleus of the acclaimed campus.

Felix was excited, and smiled again. He smiled a lot. "How about the loser has to have the winner over to their house for dinner?" My face fell as I stopped in my tracks, giving Felix a cold look. His hand touched my arm again in apology. "I only have enough change to get home."

I wrapped my arm around Felix, pulling his trench coated shoulders close to me as we continued on. He smiled again. "We're buddies, right?" He nodded quickly. "Good. Then I can trust you." His arm reached around my back. This was pretty cool. "I'm going to get to Checkpoint Charlie first, because I know Berlin better." Don't bet on it, his shaking head said. "But if the Russians get me and you escape, than its dinner on me, OK?" He nodded with another d.a.m.n smile. Stop it! "Well, Felix, let me tell you, 'home' really blows for me, nowadays. I mean, it really sucks whenever I'm there, so, if I don't want to be there, it wouldn't be fair to subject you or anyone else to a visit, now, would it?"

"Then you better cross the border before I do, pal!" With a friendly slap on the back, Felix pulled away from me and charged up a short, gra.s.sy incline between two maroon brick buildings, heading through the common and the nearby dormitories toward the train line.

Wait until he sees the size of the fence which separated that end of campus from the tracks, I thought to myself with a grin. I shot due north, keeping to the hard, discolored gra.s.s of the block's front yards for better traction, up to the bustling 55th Street, where I spun around a bus stop and stayed close to the curb as I maneuvered away from a few shoppers before reaching the underpa.s.s station. I fumbled for my ticket pa.s.s, slapped it into the turnstile, bound up the short wooden steps three at a time, and crashed through the flimsy spring doors that opened up to the long, empty Hyde Park station platform. I trotted further down, hoping to catch a glimpse of Felix struggling around the fence.

"Drop the bag, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

Felix rolled out from under the edge of platform to the gravel carpet beside the inside rail, his hands cupped, holding an imaginary pistol at me. I dropped my bag and dove down, stomach first, to the opposite side of the deck, taking cover behind a large, two-sided metal bench. I held my own illusory handgun, a simple Colt .45 automatic, it had to be, and peered around the base of the seating area, ready to unload the gun into the little creep.

Felix fired three times from behind my back. s.h.i.t! I jerked my back and cried out, before slumping to my death against the bench. I lay completely still, waiting until I heard my short buddy climb up from the tracks. How the h.e.l.l did he get under the platform? I looked up at Felix's grinning little face, and then at his blood-stained leg. The right knee of his dress slacks had been torn open, and, apparently, so had his knee.

He helped me to my feet and patted me on the arm. "You should see what it looks like under there." We sat close together on the bench.

"No thanks. Are you OK?" I brushed his hands off of his lap and looked at the b.l.o.o.d.y horizontal gash running across the top of his kneecap. "What was it? Nothing rusty, I hope!"

Felix's smile was forced, this time. "I think it was a bottle. d.a.m.n."