Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 01:42:12 -0400
From: C. E. Jordan <c.e._Jordan@MailAndNews.com>
Subject: DENNIS 1

				MY DENNIS I

The bell rang. Insistently. I opened the door and standing there was this
strange kid, tall and slender as a reed. He pushed forward looking past my
shoulder. "Where's Edith?"

Not even a "Hi", or "Hello." The boy was so persistent, that right away he
annoyed the hell out of me. I automatically stuck my arm across the entrance
blocking his way as he tried to barge in.

"Uh, wait a minute, who are you again?" He finally looked directly at me, a
grudging acknowledgement of my existence.

"Dennis" he said. Below a riot of untamed curls his large eyes were a couple
shades lighter than his brown skin. Edith was my mother and a formidable
person. I had never heard a kid call her by her first name. She just wasn't
that kind of adult.

"Who is it Charles?" My mom called out.

"A kid, mom, ...says his name is Dennis, asking for Edith." I grinned at the
boy, fully expecting him to get his come-uppance from my strict, no-nonsense
mother. But, all she said was, "Oh, Dennis, good, send him back here."

The kid tilted his chin up in the air, shot me a disdainful little glance and
pushed past my arm. He headed for my mom's room as if he knew the apartment
better than I did. I closed the door and stared at his narrow back receding
down the corridor. What an impudent little son of a bitch, I thought. Who is
he? I'd certainly never seen him before.

Then my mother called me into her study. "Charles, Dennis is Rosa's son, here
for the summer from California." Rosa was a good friend and our neighbor on
the third floor of the co-op. I didn't even know she had a son.

"Do you think he could hang out with you while he's here? Rosa doesn't want
him running around by himself in the neighborhood." Oh god, I'm stuck, I
thought as I glanced at the boy. He was staring at me, waiting to hear what
I'd say. "Well, um, I'm gonna be pretty busy...," Dennis looked down at the
floor dejectedly, and I thought of a flower wilting, "...but it will be fine."

His eyes snapped back up to meet mine, bright and full of little lights. I
would eventually learn how to read those eyes, to find the truth there, rather
than in his sarcastic words or diffident manner. All through the visit Dennis
kept staring at me. I definitely felt at a disadvantage, as if I were being
evaluated in some way and avoided looking him in the eyes. It was embarrassing
that a kid could unnerve me so.

Later, we walked together rather uneasily down the long bright corridor to the
front door. As Dennis turned to leave he said in his soft husky voice, "So,
I'll come over to play after I bathe... at about eight tonight, o.k? It was
less of a question than a statement.

*Play?*

"Uh, I guess so." I said. And he walked off.

I tried to figure out how old he was. He could have been anywhere between
eleven and thirteen.

"Wait", I yelled, "How old are you anyway?"

"Twelve," he said grinning.

I was ten years older.

It bugged me that near eight o' clock, I kept looking at my watch wondering if
he would actually show up. What did I care if he came or not, he was just a
stupid boy, and not even a nice one at that. But I still checked my watch
every two minutes. Right on the dot of eight, the front doorbell rang. Mom was
away at a School Board meeting which also started at eight that night. Aware
of how contentious those meetings usually were, I didn't expect her to be back
home `till sometime after eleven.

I opened the door. And as before, Dennis just pushed into the apartment
without even so much as a hello. His arms were full of stuff.

"Hi, Dennis, how ya doin' Dennis," I said trying for sarcasm. But he ignored
me.

"You wanna help me with some of this stuff or not?" The boy's tone was
demanding.

I sighed, "Oh alright, what's all this anyway?"

"Let's go to your room first."

"Anything you say Dennis, come on."

Damn kid, always got to be in control. Frowning, I took some of the things out
of his arms. Toys, video games, movies. Jeeze, I wondered, how long does he
intend to stay here tonight? His mother, a nurse, lived alone and worked the
late shift at a hospital. She normally slept during the day. Suddenly, it
occurred to me that Dennis could actually stay at my house all night and all
day if he wanted to, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to anybody. Poor
kid.

He passed close by me. His curls, plastered in dark, shiny ringlets at his
temples and around his face, were still damp from his bath. Dennis resembled a
skinny dark angel and smelled like a freshly washed baby. His thin arms stuck
out of the white armless T-shirt. Walking just ahead of me, his angular body
seemed somehow delicate and oddly proportioned: a short torso, and long, long,
legs encased in loose, cut off Levis ending just
past his knees. A strip of his blue or gray underpants showed above the loose
waist of the shorts. Both t-shirt and shorts had a variety of holes, rips and
tears.

In my room he just dropped his stuff onto the floor and started looking
around, inspecting everything.

"Who is this?" He picked up a tiny picture of Maria, my 'sort-of' girlfriend,
from off the desk.

"Boy, you sure are nosey," I said.

"She's really dumb looking." He tossed the picture back onto the desk and
continued his explorations; he checked out the television set and VCR, a stack
of Spider Man and X-Men comics, and the books lining one wall.

"You read a lot, huh."

I didn't say anything. He continued poking around my room. His long fingers
touched and stroked everything as if he were memorizing or talking possession
of each item. My pile of cameras got particular consideration, but he didn't
ask about them. Then he crawled onto my bed, sneakers and all, to inspect the
photographs and little paintings of Brooklyn that hung above it. The picture
of a nude woman I did in art class, held his attention. He turned his head to
me, curls bobbing. "You did this one too?"

"Yep." I said.

He started giggling and fell back onto the bed extravagantly imitating the
pose of the lady in the painting: one arm folded under the head, the other
resting across his stomach with fingers on crotch; the right leg hung off the
bed, and the other one was kinda pulled up at the knees.

"Awright," he laughed while trying to make himself look seductive like the
lady, "...go ahead, draw me."

I smiled, the kid was funny, "Yeah, but it won't be the same. If you notice,
she doesn't have any clothes on." He thought about that for a second, sat up
and started taking his T-shirt off.

I was alarmed, "What are you doing Dennis?"

"Getting naked."

The t-shirt was off in a flash.

"No, no, Dennis, I didn't mean it." I rushed over to stop him from going any
further, but Dennis was rolling around on my bed, laughing his head off, "Oh,
you big dummy, you thought I was really gonna take off alla my clothes? Oh,
you should see your face..."

My ears burned with embarrassment. This kid had absolutely no respect for me
it seemed. And he didn't even know me yet..big dummy...jeeeez. Nobody in my
whole life had ever talked to me that way. Grownups--even kids who didn't like
me were, at least, always respectful. And why the hell wasn't I saying or
doing anything about it? I looked at the boy as he sat cross-legged and
sneakered on my bed. In the warm light of my room he was a golden,
wild-haired, laughing, half-naked godlet. He never did bother to put back on
the t-shirt until he was leaving that night. But right then, I resented Dennis
and I tried to think of something nasty or insulting to say to him.

"Didn't your mamma ever tell you not to wear those dirty shoes in bed?" It was
a weak response, but at least it was something. Dennis looked down in vague
surprise as if he didn't know he had shoes on. "Oh, shit!" The expletive was
delivered quietly.

As he pulled the sneakers off, he glanced at me, a smug look on his face, "My
mom never tells me not to do anything." It seemed he was in charge again, but
when he continued speaking, his voice was plaintive, "I wanna stay here in
Brooklyn with her, it's fucking awful in LA."

I winced at the word 'fucking', falling so easily from those innocent-looking
lips. But I didn't say anything because he appeared suddenly vulnerable and
hurt. He slid off the edge of the bed to sit on the floor close to me. His
bare shoulder was touching mine. Again, I inhaled his clean scent and my dumb
heart beat just a little faster.

"What's it like in LA?"

"Well, where I live they have a lot of gangs, y'know, Crips, Bloods, guys
shooting at each other all the time for no reason. My friend Thomas--he was
fifteen, got shot in a `drive by'
... he wasn't even fuckin' doin' nothin' to anybody. He died. An' my
grandmother keeps me locked in the house all the time when I'm not at school,
it's really fucking boring."

These harsh things were spoken of in a soft voice that seemed infused with
smoke, something like sandpaper and velvet. Every now and then it slipped out
of control and cracked a little.

"But one time we went to Disneyland, an' that was great. Oh, look what my
Grandmother got for me." Dennis' eyes were on fire again, he got to his knees
and pulled his shorts down over his slim hips proudly revealing that his blue
underpants had scattered on it, little pictures of Dumbo the elephant flying
about with ears like big pink wings. I had to smile. One minute Dennis was so
sharp and cool, and the next second he was just a kid. It was disconcerting.

"That's very nice Dennis."

Forcing myself not to laugh as he pulled back up his shorts, I asked, "So,
what do you do to keep busy when you're at home?"

"Watch TV, talk on the phone with my best friend, play video games, do
homework... I hate it most of all in the summer-time and when it gets hotter
than a motherfuc..."

"Dennis," I interrupted. "Do you really have to use that kinda language all
the time?"

"Huh?" He looked at me, confused and totally innocent. "Language? Whaddya mean
language?"

Watching his puzzled face I realized he hadn't the foggiest idea what I meant.
"I'm talking about all those `shits' and f's..."

"Oooh, you don't curse? Everybody uses cuss words...you really don't curse?"
Dennis was incredulous, regarding me like I was some sort of exotic bug. Once
again he had me at a disadvantage.

"Well," he decided, "I'm gonna teach you how to curse."

"Say `shit'."

Unaccountably anxious for some kind of approval from this weird self-assured
boy I figured I'd play along with his little game.

"Shit." I said.

"That one was too easy, how `bout... `fuck'?"

I took a deep breath and said "fuck," sheepishly, and without conviction.

"Oh, that was really weak Charles," moaned Dennis. And of course, he was
right. This was totally outside my very limited experience.

"Look," said Dennis reasonably, "if some tough dude gets in your face, you
have to say, `get outta my face you ugly dick-head mothafucka', and you gotta
make your face mean, like this..."

Then Dennis tried valiantly to screw his angel's face into a vicious mask, but
only succeeded in making me laugh. Which made him laugh. It was infectious and
we tumbled onto the carpet and rolled around on the floor. Giggling, Dennis
threw himself on top of me. "Stop it! Stop laughin' at me, you
motherfucker..." He yelled.

Finally, panting like a puppy, he grasped my head between both hands and
leaned his face right in over mine. "Now... say it--say it motherfucker, m, o,
t, h, e, r, f, u..."

"O.k., o.k. I know how to spell it..." I could feel his weight shift on my
body and I looked up into his face, so, so close to mine that I lost my breath
and all my defenses. I closed my eyes and whispered, "Motherfucker."

I felt the long slender fingers withdraw from my face, slowly, trailing their
tips along my cheeks and across my lips. The weight moved off of me. And the
now familiar dusky voice crooned, "Theeere, that's much better."

I opened my eyes and Dennis was kneeling by my side. He was looking down at
me, his eyes shining and triumphant.

****

He left just before my mom returned at around eleven. Fifteen minutes later my
phone rang and I was surprised to hear Dennis's voice on the other end.

"Hi, what's up, ya miss me already?" I joked. There was a brief silence, then
Dennis asked, "Can you come over?"

"Huh?"

"I said could you come over and stay with me for a while."

Then I remembered that he was over there all by himself. He must feel pretty
lonely in that apartment, even a little bit afraid. Of course, he'd never
admit that.

"O.k., I'll be over in a couple of minutes." I hung up and told my mom that
Dennis probably needed someone to be with him. She suggested I stay until the
boy fell asleep.

Dennis had changed into pyjamas by the time he let me into his apartment.
"What's the matter kiddo, can't sleep?"

"I'm not sleepy," he said, trying to stifle a small yawn that contradicted his
words.

We played with model trains that raced around the perimeter of his room, and
we made-up our own card games. Dennis offered me milk and chocolate-chip
cookies. The milk sloshed over the top of long stemmed crystal glasses and
onto the cookies piled in heaps on the heavy silver-plated tray Dennis brought
from the kitchen. The cookies were served on what was probably his mother's
best china. I felt pleased that Dennis thought I was important enough to
deserve this extra-special attention. But he was so serious and self-conscious
with me as his guest that I decided I'd do my best to make him relax. So I
started mimicking the way he'd behaved in my room. I walked around his neat
bedroom touching everything, picking up and dropping his stuff and asking over
and over in an annoyingly querilous tone, "What is this?, What is this?"

He laughed. "I don't act like that." But I kept on. Finally, picking up a
small snapshot of a pale, smiling boy from his desk, I asked "Who is this?"

"That's my best-friend Jos in California... give it to me," and he attemped
to grab it out of my hand.

"Well, he sure is goofy looking..." I laughed holding the picture high in the
air as he pulled and tugged at me trying to get at it.

"Don't make me have to beat you up Charles..."

"Oh, yeah? You and what army?" I teased. Dennis moved swiftly, surprising me.
With one slender arm wrapped around my neck he pulled me backwards, tripping
me across his leg. I suddenly found myself flat on my back with the boy
straddling me. His forearms trapped my hands against the carpet. He was
fragile-looking, but I had to admit the kid was pretty tough.

"You give up?" asked Dennis. For a minute I didn't answer. In our brief
struggle his pyjama top had pulled open. I lay pinned beneath him watching his
stomach muscles tighten and relax under soft brown skin. I was mesmerized by
the rise and fall of his smooth chest. And eventually, when I did look up at
his face, it was to find a pair of amused brown eyes staring down at me.

"What?" I asked stupidly, embarrased that he had caught me looking; embarrased
that my body was beginning to betray me. Afraid of what he might think, I was
in a quiet panic to break our intimate contact, to just get him off of me. I
pushed up hard and rolled over, quickly reversing our positions. Dennis's dark
curls bounced against the gold-colored carpet and his eyes flew wide, stunned
to find himself suddenly lying beneath me. I rested in that position for a
moment to catch my breath and then began to rise up off the boy, but Dennis'
arms tightened around my neck as he whispered, "Don't go.....please..."

I froze in place. And across the room Jos smiled out at us from the little
photograph which lay forgotten on the floor.

Light headed and swoony, I forgot to breathe. The rushing sound in my head was
like a wave crashing against some far shore, and it washed away any rational
thought; my heart hammered out an erratic rhythm in counterpoint to Dennis's
which beat just as hard against mine. I fought conflicting, confusing
impulses: get up, run, get the hell out of there.

But I gave in to the sweetness of the moment and relinquished my body to the
gently caressing hands that drew my head down closer and closer to the full,
trembling lips, lips that mumbled soft things I couldn't understand, that
promised to reveal answers to questions I dared not even ask.

At last our lips touched. It wasn't much of a kiss, but it was incredibly
tender; delicate as the touch of a feather or butterfly wings--just a little
electricity, and a brief flutter. It was enough for a warm breath to pass from
his mouth to mine...

Then the phone rang.

We both froze at the sudden noise.

"You'd better answer that," I said slightly relieved by the break in tension.
Dennis picked up the phone.

"Hello?...Oh, hi Ma....no I wasn't sleeping yet...naw...uh, Charles is still
here...ok, I'll put him on..."

Turning to me he said simply, "It's mom calling from work...checking up on
me."

I took the phone from his hand.

"Hi Rosa," I said, "I'm just keeping him company for a while."

"I'm so glad somebody's there," she said, "I was worried about Dennis being
there all alone."

"It's ok, we were having fun."

Dennis and I grinned at each other aware of the hidden meaning in my words and
I passed the phone back to him.

"Yo Mummy...ok...love you too." And he hung the receiver up. We looked at each
other silently for a moment.

"I guess I oughta be goin' now and you should get some sleep."

"But I'm not sleepy," D protested.

"Yes you are...and if you wanna go with me to Cony Island tomorrow you'll get
in that bed right now and close your eyes."

Dennis looked totally surprised, then he grinned widely and started jumping up
and down suddenly excited as a little kid.

"Yes sir, anything you say sir! So get out my house so I can go to sleep."
Then he practically pushed me out of the front door.

(.......To Be Continued.)

Copyright C. E. Jordan <c.e._Jordan@MailAndNews.com>