Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 15:41:50 -0700 (PDT) From: Wishus Teglin Subject: "Stupid Johnny" Prologue and chapter one (m/b) Stupid Johnny A Boylove Romance by Teglin Prologue and Chapter One Dedication: Once upon a time, a friend of mine named Michael was driving along a country road in his native Poland, and came upon a ragamuffin of a little boy, dressed in tatters, struggling all alone to push a cart much too big for him. Looking miserable, hungry, cold. It was one of those moments - we all have them - moments we look back on with such great regret. Because Michael wanted to stop. He wanted to talk with the boy, see if he was ok, if he could use some food, or perhaps a helping hand, or just a kind word. But he didn't stop. Why didn't he stop? Why don't we all stop, in moments like that? Why do we let convention, or fear, or doubt, or hurry, or sometimes just plain selfishness keep us from meeting the moment? Well, Michael helped me write this story. It's all about what might have been. It's dedicated to that little boy on the roadside. And every other boy anywhere in the world who might someday need one of us to stop ... just for him. Copyright 2001 by Teglin. You may freely copy this boylove romance and distribute it. Please have the courtesy not to alter it in any way. WARNING: This boylove romance contains descriptions of sexual acts between a man and a minor boy. Their sexual relationship is very important to the story, as part of their love-making, but it is their spiritual relationship that I wanted to explore even more, as the very essence of boylove. If this story is illegal where you are, or for your age, or the concept of a man/boy romantic relationship offends you, don't read further. Glossary: For those of you who lack polish in Polish, here are a few of the names and their phonetic spelling: Jasio = Yasho Piotr Ostoja = Pyoter Ostoya Leon Koczurba = Le-own Kotschurba Beskidy = Beskeedy Jodlowka = Yodlovka Sosnowka = Sosnovka Rzeszow = Dgeshow Polska = Powlska Misiu = Meeshoo Stupid Johnny Prologue Jodlowka State Farm Collective Rzeszow Administrative District, Polska September 14, 1959 4:52 PM The gloom descended upon Jasio, becoming a part of him - like the wet and cold of the day-long drizzle. The light he had struggled to keep forever burning within his soul, through every moment of his eleven years on Earth, sputtered and dimmed. His narrow shoulders slumped, his bruised chest dropping away from the push bar of the cart, even as he quit pedaling. For the first time all day, he felt the rough edges of the torn cardboard soles of his shoes, and the bite of the cold against the raw bottoms of his feet. The cart rolled slowly to a stop on the side of the road, in the graveled turnout. What was the point of going on? He heard the splat of water droplets on the forest floor nearby. Drip, drip ... drip. Random markers, in the near perfect silence. The wind had died down now. Not even the tree limbs rustled - no sign of life remained in his world, as the gloom lowered upon him. The smoke trails, rising from the line of farm houses on the Collective, were lost in the gray of the clouds. They had beckoned. For a while. Until the minutes and hours of his long day ticked by, and finally he had totaled up his harvest. He had a cart half loaded with ... junk ... that's what everyone else would call it. But when he had found each piece, he had seen such potential! Look at the curve of that bar of iron! Two like that, and he could build that stroller to walk the watering bucket along the rows of .... He closed his eyes. He hadn't found two like that. And that bar of iron was so much useless scrap, in the eyes of everyone in the Collective. `Glupi Jasio!' they'd say, if he knocked on their doors. `Stupid, stupid Jasio. Get out of here! It's not our turn. You were here just last month.' Another stab of pain in his empty stomach, and he sagged even more. He just wanted to double up on himself, and fall to the ground and be done with it all! "Ouuhhhhnnnnnnnhhhh," he groaned miserably, against the twisting pain. Two days since his last meal. Two days since he was kicked out of the Podlowski family's hut. Two days of searching, and a cart half full to show for it. Half full of ... junk. So they were right, weren't they? It was junk, wasn't it ... no good to anybody, much less him. No matter what he saw in his head. Dreams, plans, designs ... none of that would put even a bite of food in his stomach! And this coat he was wearing, dragging him down, soaked, heavy with the rain water ... heavier still with more ... junk! He knew he should just take the coat off. Maybe then he'd have the strength to pedal some more. Just a little farther to the intersection, and he could ride downhill just a bit to the collective. Wearily he lifted his head, straightening his backbone. Not even looking down at it he reached with his right hand to start pulling off the sleeve of the coat from his left arm ... then he sighed, and closed his eyes. He just couldn't do it. The very idea was like ... giving in. In that coat was everything he owned! Everything that marked who he was. The winter was a blessing in one way - it allowed him to wear that coat, blanketing himself with his very possessions. To lose that, to lose even one of them, was unthinkable! But ... ... but ... giving in ... hadn't he reached that point now? His shoulders slumped again, but he stayed upright. His head lolled back, and his right hand slid off his leg, and dropped to the steering lever for the rudder wheel. He held his arm stiffly there, propping his small frame up, teetering, wobbling, just wishing that he could make his mind totally blank. If only ... if only he could just ... die. Right here. Now. Jasio just sat there, unmoving, minute by minute, feeling the wet cold penetrating into his body - creeping up his arms and legs - almost wishing it in, deeper and deeper, wanting to feel the same numbness within his very soul that he felt all day in his hands and feet. `... rrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnn ...,' he heard a sound breaking into the deathly pall of the settling gloom. He did not want to register it. He steeled himself, refusing to even turn his head towards it - a car coming, gears shifting higher. Must have just turned the last corner, he knew, without even considering it. Instantly - against his will - his mind shifted into high gear too, and he marveled at the concept - if only he could make a motor like that! This one was one of those big government cars too, one of those powerful Russian ... imagine if he had a motor, even a small one, on his cart! `Stop it!' he screamed to himself inwardly. `I'll never be able to build a motor! I'm Glupi Jasio, remember?! Better I end it all right now, right here, than to ever build anything again! Suddenly the driver switched on his headlights, and Jasio almost felt the glare from them hit him broadside. He welcomed the bright, glaring beam. `Take a good look, whoever you are. No one else ever did! Look at me, before you kill me. Then drive on, and forget all about it!' Slowly he turned his head towards the car, almost defying the seconds to tick by, letting it get closer and closer. He stared at the big black vehicle, it's broad, silver- chromed grill looking like the teeth of some huge monster. When the gaping maw of the beast was almost upon him, he pushed the steering bar hard to the outside, then leaned all his weight into the downstroke on the left pedal. The car was almost on him now. All he had to do was get back on the road, and .... Chapter One Droga Starego Krola (Old King's Road) Rzeszow Administrative District, Poland September 14, 1959 4:53 PM Tomek always said I cried too much. He also said I'd get into trouble someday for caring too much. Now suddenly, years after I thought every emotion had been drained from me, I was crying again. And I was in very deep trouble. Don't get me wrong. Tomek said all that back when I was just a kid, at the beginning of the War. Almost twenty years ago. He found me, a few days after the German tanks had made mince of my family's farm. I was crying the first time he ever saw me, standing over the graves I had just dug with my 12 year old hands. Dirty, exhausted, hungry ... and now homeless. One of the first war orphans. Tomek had lost his family too. He didn't cry about it, though. He decided to fight back. Took me in, along with a lot of other strays, and before you knew it, he had put together what was no doubt the strangest resistance cell during the entire war. Tomek's Boys. Just him, one big bear of a man, and his boys. With something to prove. Mighty Tomek ... how he sheltered me, and cared for me, taught me how to take revenge, and when revenge was to be taken. He took me into his bed eventually. I had told him all about me and Stefan. I was a boy. He gave himself to me. When I became a man all too soon, he showed me how I could give ... to the little ones who in turn needed me. I'd cry, softly, quietly, every time we made love. Feeling his strong arms about me ... remembering other arms that had often held me just so ... then feeling his hard manhood deep within me ... I'd cry. Tomek would laugh at me, just as softly, and say in his gruff, bearlike voice, "It's only a fuck, Piotr, my God! It's only a fuck." But then he'd hold me even tighter, his embrace telling me even more clearly than words could ever do, that he really did understand. He'd stay inside me long after filling me with his seed - just holding me. Caressing me. Gently fondling my penis, to bring me down slowly from our coupling. Then he'd kiss me on the top of my head and say, "This war should have taught you one thing, my little Piotrek. Never care too much." One time, after saying that, I craned my head back, to see why he'd grown so silent - and I saw that the mighty Tomek could cry too. Well, it's been many long years since then. I'm a big boy now. Taller than the average man - at 1.9 meters. I've lived through 6 years of war, and now 14 years in this worker's paradise called post-war Poland. Suffice it to say that I've seen enough killing and hurt and just plain downright injustice and misery, that I haven't cried much of late. Until today. It wasn't so much the shock. It's not even my very healthy fear of what the Russians will do to me if I get sent back for `reindoctrination.' Dammit, it's the ... finality of it all. The end. Of everything ... everything I've ever known! I hadn't even had time to pack, it all happened so fast. Noontime yesterday, I get back to the office, from my latest inspection - a tour of airfields - south, in the Beskidy Mountains. I file my report, then head home for the rest of the day. Home - my one room flat in a concrete high-rise. You'd think 14 years, and the rank of Chief Inspector of the Rzeszow Committee would rate me a dacha. I did have my own car. Still dead to the world, at 6:00 AM this morning Pawel calls me. I've known him for - how long? He came late, in '45, to Tomek. But then we were both plucked from the resistance, after the War, and sent to the Central Committee School in Warsaw. That's how long. Well, it's 15 years later, 1959, in Poland - you get a call like this and you get scared - even when the call comes from your long-time jackoff-buddy (hey, neither of us were into men, but when you know you'll never, ever have a boy in your life again - well, Pawel knew how to smuggle in German porn ....). "Don't say anything," he starts off. Of course I recognized his voice, immediately. "Pawe ...," I started to answer, I guess too mind-numbed from sleep to think clearly. I should have recognized the edge to his voice. "Don't say anything, I said! Just listen." Pawel happens to work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. So the adrenaline starts to pump, right then. "You have about 12 hours, maybe 24 at the most. I don't know how you're going to do it, or where you're going to go. I don't want to know. You will not contact me again," he said very mechanically, then there was a pause. I heard him breathe heavily into the phone, then suddenly a sigh, and finally he resumed - that knife edge to his voice now gone. "I don't know what you did, Piotr. It's the KGB. As of 4:43 AM this morning, you're on their list." Another pause. I wanted to answer, and tell him that I had no idea what he was talking about! I knew he was serious, though. If I said anything, I'd probably put him in danger. Then the words that very clearly told me I would never see or hear from Pawel again: "Remember ... Tomek!" Now 8 long hours later, most of that on this god-forsaken winding country road, and I had had lots of time to remember Tomek, and everything else about this just as god-forsaken country. Wiping the slow-falling tears away, to clear my vision, I kept my big Russian GAZ-13 sedan going on up the narrow, wet road, climbing imperceptibly into the foothills of the Carpathians. This was still farming country - each Collective centered upon one of the old peasant villages - the road followed centuries-old field perimeters, turning and twisting seemingly without pattern. The meanders of the road were like the wandering thoughts in my mind, one reminiscence leading to another, and all day I had been wavering - I knew I had to leave all this behind, yet ... how could I? Those furrowed rows, on each side of this road, were the very soil I was born to! Polska. Poland. Doormat to East and West. How could anyone love such a land? Trouble was, my tears weren't for the land. Memories aren't made up of mere dirt. If they were, then I could gladly fly out to Sweden ... France ... America. There would be new memories to make there. But dammit, I was leaving something behind here that was so much more important than the land. I was leaving behind ... something uniquely Polish ... and every hope ... every dream I had ever had ... I just might be leaving behind my very capacity to ... to have any kind of meaning in my life at all. What the hell are any of us on Earth for? Just to survive? Just to reproduce? Ha! Little enough possibility of that in my case, as it was. Plain fact is, men have to be more than just rutting animals. There has to be some meaning to our lives. Was it something uniquely Polish, that robbed me of all that meaning? Or was it just ... reality? The very drizzle that turned the fields beside this road to mud, every droplet swept off the windshield - those were like my own tears - the essence of Poland ... they had poured from me before. Many times. ... September, 1939 ... when I lost my entire family. I don't think about any of my family much anymore. Too painful, even after all the years. There is one hurt that I do go back to though, from those days. A hurt that always brings with it the kind of memories that you just don't run away from - even with the Russians on your tail. Before Tomek, I had Stefan. Stefan was the reason I so needed for Tomek to love me. My boyhood friend. How we played and played together, inseparable, through fields, streams, snow or ice ... year after year, growing up together. Then that last summer, we discovered our bodies. I guess that came first. Then, somehow, we discovered ... the feelings. The feelings when you have another boy's arms around you, and realizing that you are different. That this is not some passing moment. That being with a boy, that being with THIS boy, is inherently a part of your core. The exhilaration - not just the pleasure - when you feel another boy grinding his hard dick against your own, realizing that it's right for him too, and that this is something only another boy could give you. That he's giving you his consent, that he's asking you to be a part of him, that you were born with this need that only he can fulfil. The feeling of another boy's soft lips against your own .... Can 12 year old boys be lovers? I still grow faint, remembering the almost over-powering perfume of Stefan's warm breath ... we used to lay entangled in embrace, touching each other, holding each other, from head to toes ... this kid that I had played with practically every day of my childhood - he had suddenly become ... precious to me. I don't know how else to describe it - he had suddenly become a ... a boy! And for some magical reason, oh my god, we suddenly knew what it meant to be boys! We'd go up in his family's old hay loft. His father found us there one afternoon. Found us kissing so deeply that we didn't even hear him climbing the ladder to the loft. When we did see him, we both thought it would be the end, but ... Stefan's old man just gave us both a long look, staring us right in our eyes, then he kind of nodded his head once, and silently backed down the ladder. So we had that one summer. 1939. Two boys alone in our perfect world. We proved everyone wrong, that summer. It didn't matter that Stefan was a Jew, and I was not. It didn't matter that we were still just boys, in every sense of the word. It didn't matter that boys ... males ... weren't supposed to love each other, or even know what true love could mean. Or that we were supposed to be too young to know what commitment meant. Twenty years. My heart still sings for thee, Stefan. A mourning song. I lost Stefan. His farm was in the path of the German tanks too ... and then Tomek found me. Tomek and his little band of boys ... oh! How we did show those Germans that the Polish people would not forever and always bend down, to be booted and spurred! I remember the heady days after the War ... Liberte, Egalite - Russian style. Indoctrination in the party school. Years serving in the Division of Inspections - trouble was, if one inspects too closely, one discovers the truth of liberty and equality, Russian style. I balled my fist and chopped it down onto the dashboard viciously, wanting to strike out at something. Anything! Now, fourteen years after the War, I was a shell of a man. Soul- less. Hardly the same person that Tomek once loved. Six years of fighting. Fifteen years serving a corrupt regime and a tarnished ideal. Add those up, and you have a man who ... well, he might still care, but he's lost something. Some capacity to believe in the efficacy of caring. I brushed the sleeve of my overcoat across my eyes again. And shook my head ... trying to forget. "Think about something else, dammit," I cursed outloud. There was a steely edge to my voice, kind of like the reverberation whining up from the car's engine. I pushed the heater control lever hard to the right. It was getting cold. The trees lining the road in places - tunneling it - cast a dark pall upon the evening, chilling me as much in spirit as in body. They masked the fields that more often pushed right up against the berm. It was slow going in places, on the too-narrow road. Just staying out of the mud on either side was a chore, but better this than being spotted on the highway. I really needed to be more attentive, to try to get everything I could out of the car's big 8 cylinder engine, because I had to climb deep into the Beskidy Range before moonrise tonight. I'd need that full moon to navigate when I finally took to the air, but I wanted it pitch black when I reached the small airstrip just outside of Sosnowka. They were after me, because of what I had seen at that airstrip. I was sure of it now, after all day thinking about it. And I was sure that it was my only way out of this. Dammit, why did I have to file that report! I should have just shoved the facts under the table. I should have recognized the signs, and left this one alone. But when did I ever just leave things alone? Yeah. Because I cared too much? Even after 14 years working in this corrupt system, I still cared enough to want to correct the problems. As if they could be corrected! Tomek told me that himself, right before I boarded the train for Warsaw, back in '45. "Piotr, promise me something." He said, sounding very solemn all of a sudden. I was having none of that. This was all so exciting for me. "What's that, Papa?" I answered off-handedly, not even bothering to stop twisting my head about, taking in all the bustle of the station. "Promise me, that ... when the night is darkest, when all is lost, promise me that you will fight through to the sunrise." "What ... whatEVER are you talking about, old man," I answered, fixing him with my gaze, my brow raised in consternation and disbelief. He had never spoken to me like that. I doubt if he had ever strung together so many words before. "Ahhh!" he grunted, looking disgusted. He narrowed his eyes, giving me one of those fierce stares that would have withered me, shivered me to my boots, in the old days. "Promise me you'll ... never give up." he almost yelled it at me, forcing it out. He sounded like his throat had suddenly choked up on him. "I promise!" I answered immediately, feeling the old respect and awe returning. How could I ever have let myself forget! "But ... but why on Earth would you say this to me now, Tomek?" He reached out then, his huge bear-paw hands lifting up so lightening fast, enveloping my shoulders in his grasp. He shook me, once, powerfully. Then pulled me to him, hugging me, crushing me. I was 18 now, already my full height, yet I felt like I was 12 again. I felt his lips crushing into my hair, above my forehead - I couldn't even move in his grasp. He towered over me. "Ahhh," he muttered, softer now, so only I could hear. "Because you care too much, my little Piotrek. Don't let them hurt you, little one. Don't ever give up." I wiped my sleeve across my nose, and eyes again, and realized suddenly that ... I simply had no more tears. I felt so very, very weary. Perhaps this time I'd have to give up. Perhaps after 14 years, it was time to give up. There was very little in my life to hold onto anymore, anyway. Most apparatchiks cave in, eventually, losing all sense of honor and mission. They just draw into themselves, focus on their families, on simple survival. But I had no family. No one. Nothing. The road, the trees, the stubble in the fields - all became a blur - eight hours on the road, with not a moment free of the of thinking about all those memories and regrets and threats, and I guess I simply no longer wanted any part of my reality. I didn't want any more thought of promises, either. I just wanted to rest. There was a gray ... something ... up ahead. A boulder beside the road, just where it curved again, up ahead. A ... shack ... something looming up out of the universal grayness of everything else. How convenient. That was one way to rest. To end all this. All I had to do was ... just relax ... free the steering wheel ... let my foot give into the heaviness that I felt drawing me down into the seat, and ... it would all end there, in that gray something up ahead. All this would be over, just that easily. With a kind of detached wonder in my mind, I contemplated the shortening distance between my car and the object up ahead. This thought of suicide - such a foreign concept to me, and it had really just popped into my head. Never before had such a thing even crossed my mind. Not after losing Stefan. Nor my own family. Not even in those darkest days, before Tomek found me. Yet here I was on a road I had never traveled before, nearing a destiny that I had never before even considered as possible. This was insanity! This wasn't me! I had to bear down now! Get on up the road! Why of all things, barreling up that road, practically aiming now for that gray barrier, did I bother to switch the headlights on? Force of habit? It was growing darker and darker by the minute, as the uniform dull grayness of the clouds gave way to the darker gloom of dusk. Whatever the reason, as soon as my fingers closed around the light knob, and twisted it full to the right, the non-descript boulder up ahead transformed into a phantasmagoric structure, in the spreading beam of light. Two large wheels, and a wagon-like flat-bed structure situated between them! A mutated wagon, with half a bicycle sticking out in front of it - or ... behind it?! I couldn't tell which, because upon that ...bicycle contraption, facing ... the wrong way, it seemed ... was a bulky, but small figure - a child ... long dark hair reaching below ... his ears, almost completely masking the ghostly pale flesh of his ... her ... face. Instantly, the despair that had clutched so tightly around my soul, and the rather cold, antiseptic detached contemplation of my own death, was replaced by a very real horror - I was hurtling down the road, my foot heavy on the gas pedal, aimed right at a ... boy! It was certain that he was not going to move out of the way. Even as I recognized him for what he was, I saw him, as if in slow motion, turn to look at me. At my car. I swear he seemed to stare at me - not with the same kind of horror that I felt, but with almost an ... acceptance. ------------------------------------- September 14, 1959 4:55 PM Jamming on the brakes was probably the worst thing I could do, since the road was so slick, but that's exactly what I did. The tires screeched and the rear-end of the sedan started to swerve to the right, in the very direction of the boy and his ... wagon. At the last moment, I had the sense to release the brakes, and press down on the gas pedal. I didn't gun it all the way to the floor, but I did overreact a bit, pressing too hard too quickly, and the tire's wailed out once more, slipping before biting into the macadam and gravel of the road. I heard a high-pitched scream from the boy, and at the same time a disconsonate clash of the heavy metal of my car against the wire-framed and lighter metal of his wagon. That scream knifed into me. I felt my heart pounding - literally pounding - in my chest, as I practically wrenched the steering wheel out, I gripped it so hard. In my head, I heard that scream again and again, replaying - I couldn't believe that I had actually hit, perhaps killed, a little boy!! Man, woman, or child - it would be horrible enough - but a boy! By Stalin's Evil, Demonic Ghost, me above all people - to hurt a boy! I had ... desperately longed ... for just one boy ... in my life ... for years! Images of the boy's fragile little body, mangled or crushed, flashed red through my mind. I saw his big eyes staring up at me, questioning, begging for an answer - why had I done this! I don't know how long I sat there behind the wheel. All I know is that when I finally had a clear thought, and knew what I had to do, I felt a streak of throbbing pain across my forehead. At some point during all that, I had slammed my head against the steering wheel. Slowly at first, I lifted my head from the backrest, and started to shake it. Big mistake! The pain shot down, like a sword stabbing down from my forehead all the way through to my neck. I reached up tentatively, and felt my forehead, then turned my hand palm up before my eyes, and examined it. No blood. I was alright, then. Moving as quickly as I could, I opened the door, and swung out. I had to steady myself momentarily against the door frame, but then quickly I plodded heavily, down the length of the car, straining to search for the boy, all the while dreading that I would find him sprawled lifeless in a pool of blood. The wagon-like contraption was there, just at the right rear of the car, standing on all three of it's wheels, looking little the worse for the crash. Was it possible I had only hit it a glancing blow? But no boy! Gathering my wits about me finally, and the use of my feet, I quickly swept the entire area around the car and the cart, even looking under the chassis of the car. He wasn't there. There was no sign of blood. Nothing. "Where the ...," I started to exclaim, as I started scanning farther out, and into the trees lining the road, and this little graveled turnout where the boy had been sitting with his cart. I saw him immediately. Crouched behind a large bush, it's leaves not yet completely turned the fiery red and gold before falling, stripping the shrub down to it's bare branches. Even shrouded in the gloom of late evening I saw his pale white visage peeking through the foliage at me, as he held his body all scrunched up in hiding. For some reason, I turned away, as casually and naturally as I could, acting like I hadn't seen him. The bush was little enough to hide behind, but the boy obviously felt the need of it's flimsy protection. Something told me that I needed to honor that. I had come crashing into his world, threatening to end his very existence, and there was certainly no reason for him to trust me. I just thanked the god of boys, that he apparently wasn't seriously hurt. I let myself begin to breathe much more easily then, feeling my heart start to calm down too. "I ... wonder where he ... is," I said out loud, trying to project my words out, to make sure that he would hear me. "I hope I didn't hurt him. Oh please, don't let him be hurt." For a moment I continued my mock scan of the trees. My gaze trailed idly over the cart, and stopped, instantly. It was ... it was ... an amazing contrivance! Certainly not the ordinary peasant's pushcart - I had seen hundreds of them through the years, on my inspection tours through the countryside. Now I inspected the boy's contraption, steadying myself as I knelt down on one knee to see under it. It was a rubber band and baling wire rigging. Something put together by unskilled hands, but ... somehow ... showing great ingenuity. Beyond that! True inventiveness. A true understanding of ... first principles of .... The power axle and gear of the bicycle, on the rear of the wagon, had an extension wheel attached to it - on the hub - a grooved wheel, kind of like you'd find on an old pull-start single-piston gas motor. The boy ... or whoever had rigged it ... had fixed this wheel on the gear axle. A long, flexible, canvas-like ... looped cord ... flat-edged, fitting right into the wide groove of that wheel, extended up under the wagon to another, larger wheel - this one of hard rubber, on an independent axle, up under the wagonbed. You could see that it had been grooved too - a channel dug into it, all the way around, to take the cord. Odd enough, to that point, but ... the inventor of this man-powered ... or boy-powered ... conveyance contrived to make it two-wheel drive! With gear wheels on both ends of that independent axle, attached with two more bicycle chains to gears on the oversized cart wheels. Now I was no physicist. I had no clue about gears and power ratios. It just looked like whoever put this rigging together did, though. It looked like ... just the thing to allow a little boy to power the huge cart, and it's heavy load, far beyond his normal capacity. I stood behind the frame of the cart bed, and pushed. It was indeed heavy. I doubted I'd be able to push it, by hand, for long. "Who did this," I started to mumble to myself, wondering at the ingenuity ... the mechanical ... genius that was hidden away here on this collective farm. What if the boy had done it!? For some reason I wanted him to know - I wanted him to hear, in my voice, that I admired his creation! For some reason it was suddenly important that I make him know! My god, I had almost killed him! Perhaps I had indeed injured him. And he had perhaps ... created this?! I felt my heart literally flutter, an unease, a weakness taking hold over me - the realization hit me again - I had almost killed a boy! More than a boy - I had almost killed this spirit - the spirit that had produced this ... from mere scrap! "Oh my God!" I called out loudly, looking straight at the cart, but hoping against hope that the boy would hear me, and come out from his hiding place, and let me see him. Let me be assured that he was ok. Let me be assured that I had not robbed the world of his wonderful mind. "It's a ... masterwork. This cart. This took real engineering skill, to even conceive of this gear reduction. I wish I could ... meet ... the man who designed this." Behind me I heard a sharp, high ... yelp ... from the boy's direction. It made me almost jump out of my shoes, but I didn't turn. He had started to yell out something, but squelched it. Let him bide his time. Not to even glance his way was harder than I thought, but I forced myself to concentrate on the cart, walking around it, touching it, testing the rigging. I put my foot on the pedal, to feel what kind of power it would take to force this wagon along. It lurched forward fairly easily, with just a tiny little screech of an axle needing some lubrication. Even as the cart protested my move, with it's almost human squeal, from behind me I heard another protesting ... shout. More a long drawn out scream, and then the rasping of what had to be the boy's shoes on the loose gravel of the turnout. ---------------------- September 14, 1959 5:01 PM Jasio sometimes watched the yard dogs chasing field mice and rabbits. The mice would head straight for the burrows, and the boy could tell in an instant if the dog had an angle on its quarry. With the rabbits though, it was harder - they would dart about, change directions - their angles were never flat - and it was harder to guess - he had to see the curve, predict the rabbit's tangent, before he could tell if the rabbit was doomed or not. He always got it right, if he could sense where the rabbit was going to pull out, into another straight run. When he saw the terror in the driver's eyes, and heard the big car's brakes squealing, he knew it was going to be a rabbit and dog chase this time. He knew instantly that his fate hinged on how hard the man had slammed on his brakes, how fast the car had been going, how heavily loaded the rear-end of the car was, how ... oh! Sometimes he wanted to scream, because he could see all these things, sense all these mysterious forces. Most times it thrilled him. This time he simply didn't care. The rear of the car was swinging around, it's back tires locked rigid and burning against the rough surface of the road. Their screech seemed to knife into him physically, making his very skin seem like it was crawling up his back! It was all over, and he knew it instantly, when the driver suddenly changed his whole approach, and stepped on the gas. He saw that the car would only graze by the front edge of his cart, missing him entirely. He screamed out in anger and disgust, furious at himself that he hadn't judged it right this time. He hardly felt it, when the sloping trunk of the car slipped right under the front overhang of the wagonbed, lifting it up. The cart's big wheels spun in midair, but the whole front end of his cart just swiveled over on the back steering wheel, and then bounced back onto the ground as the car sped on forward. `Glupi Jasio, can't even kill himself properly, the farmers would say,' Jasio thought disgustedly, as he stopped pedaling. Mud and gravel splattered up on him from the retreating wheels of the car, then even that stopped, as the driver screeched to a stop. Jasio could see it now. This was just going to make everything worse for him - as if it could get any worse! Whoever was driving this car was trouble. That much was for sure. Only Party officials drove the big Russian cars. Everyone in the collective dreaded the visits, except maybe Leon. But he was the only man here who was a member of the Party. The Party. The Party. Jasio could usually figure out what people were talking about, but this thing called the Party was still a mystery. Whatever that was, everyone seemed to slink around, when the Party men visited. The men would always curse, `bloody commie, up to no good.' The women were more practical - they would hide the food stores. The boy quickly slid off the bike seat, and stooped behind the wagon, stepping forward along it trying to peer into the car. Through the rear window he saw the crown of the man's head, just ... sitting there, leaning back in the seat. Then it moved ... slowly ... the man's hand came up ... and now he seemed to be leaning into the door .... Like a little field mouse, himself, Jasio darted back along the wagon and headed straight for the thicket of trees and brush. No sooner had he slipped behind the first large bush that he could reach, then he heard the car door slam shut. He grasped a couple of branches to steady himself, squatting on the balls of his feet, and peered out into the dusk. The man was tall! Very tall. Taller than anyone Jasio had ever seen. Like a giant from the stories that he used to hear the farmer's wives telling the other kids. He seemed to stagger once, and to brace himself against the car. In the gloom of the evening, the man was just a dark blotch, melding with the black mass of the car, but this blotch moved more steadily, purposefully now, down along the car. He looked to be searching ... `probably checking to see if I damaged his car,' the boy thought. The Party man's deep voice barked out, "Where the ...!" and Jasio grasped the branches all the more tightly, wishing suddenly that he had run farther into the trees, and kept on running. "I wonder where he is," his giant's voice was louder now. Deep, penetrating. Jasio had often wondered how some voices carried through the air and others seemed to always get smothered and ignored. His own small voice was so soft that everyone seemed to ignore him. But this Party man! His voice was ... somehow like ... like you had to listen to him, like ... like Leon's ... like without effort he could make anyone hear him, and they would want to hear him. When Leon spoke, it was more often than not an angry curse, a command that had to be obeyed ... or else ... or else he'd whip you ... or else if you were one of the Collective members, you might just lose your next allotment of seed, or ... the Party man would be like that. Jasio unconsciously leaned back on his feet, preparing to leap back into the trees, if this big man started looking for him. He felt the fear forcing bile up into his throat. "I hope I didn't hurt him. Oh please, don't let him be hurt," the man's mellifluous voice called out, louder than it needed to be, if he were just talking to himself. Jasio didn't know what to think now ... the man's voice sounded ... gentle somehow, soothing ... yet that ... that had to be a trick! `Fuckin Party, always up to no good,' he could hear the men saying. So ... this was just the Party man's trick, to get him to come out. Yet ... he really sounded like ... he cared .... The thought was like a hammer blow to his belly. It hurt so bad, suddenly, deep inside. How many times in his life had he seen a mother's soft caress, or a father's strong arm reaching out to embrace ... or listened from his pallet in the corner, as grandmama told all the other kids - the ones who belonged in that house - a bedside story. Tears suddenly exploded from Jasio's tightly closed eyes. `I hope I didn't hurt him. Oh please, don't let him be hurt.' The man's words echoed in his mind, over and over. Why did this Party man have to say that!? Why so ... cruel?! To be so false! Was he ... was this Party ... the very source of all the cruelty? All the pain, and hatred, and ... every scuff, every kick ... every bruise ... every moment of his hunger .... Fighting the tears, fighting to hold back through clenched teeth the moans of desperation and anger that threatened to reveal his hiding place, Jasio could only watch, as the tall man started to look over his cart. "Oh my God! It's a ... masterwork. This cart." The man said, as he stooped then knelt down to examine Jasio's most prized possession. "This took real engineering skill, to even conceive of this gear reduction. I wish I could meet the man who designed this." "I ...," Jasio started to yell out, catching himself and ending in a whisper, "made it ....' The man's words struck like thunder and lightening into his consciousness, and spread their electrifying charge deep into his body. Flash! and he felt spilling out of that most secret place of longing and hurt, from that fenced-in, carefully guarded, tiny little spot with his heart - the one thing that this boy had always wanted more than anything else - he had imagined such wonderful and practical and fantastical things, all his life, yet ... never, not once, had anyone in his life ever told him that his creations or ideas were interesting, or good, or even a possibility - much less ever said anything he ever thought or did was good. He had long ago quit sharing his imaginings with anyone. Jasio wanted so desperately to feel the pride that had just welled up within him, hearing the man's words - seeing him walking around the cart, touching it, examining it. More than that, he felt that all too familiar fascination that so often took hold of him - making him question everything, making him want to know about everything! What kind of man was this, who threw about words of praise? Was there the feeblest, even the remotest chance, that another being in this world shared his own wonderment?! Of course there had to be! Someone had to have designed and built this car! Someone had to have figured out how to bring water to the crops! Someone had to have made the first bread, or built the first fire, or .... But not ever Stupid Jasio! This man would be just like all the others. He looked at Jasio's cart, so that he could scoff! He examined it, analyzed it, acted like he admired it - so that the final, cruel kick would hurt all the worse! He touched it ... so that he could ... steal it! All of Jasio's years of hurt and denial, all of his fear, all his hunger and disappointed hope, mixed with years of scoffing and ridicule and just plain neglect, suddenly boiled together into a potion so powerful that he sprang up from behind his hiding place and stood rigid for an instant, staring at this intruder, not really knowing what he wanted to do. He wanted to scream! He wanted to ... to kill that man! He wanted to ... beg that man, to listen, to hear, about all his ideas! He wanted just one person in all his world to be there, for him! Then the man put his foot on the pedal of the cart, and tested the action, forcing it forward. Jasio stood aghast, then slowly, unconsciously, he sidestepped around the bush, balling his fists, gathering his strength, feeling the rage rising within him, scrunching his eyes, knowing he could never stop the tears now. Almost blindly now, lowering his head like a charging bull, he did scream - releasing all the anguish and indignation that had built up within himself for years - and started running across the dirt and gravel straight at the big Party man. ------------------------------- September 14, 1959 5:05 PM I swiveled on my heels, hearing the boy's banshee wail as he darted across the gravel on the hard-packed earth. The little guy was slight, notwithstanding that big water-laden overcoat of his, but he ran with such a berserker intent, that I had to brace myself. He came up on me with his little fists swinging and his head hunched down, staring determinedly at me from under his lowered brow. He rammed his head into me, right above my waistline and started pummeling me, still screaming at the top of his lungs. "I made it!" "It's mine!" "Leave it alone!" I made out the pattern of his words, as he screamed them at me over and over. It's not every day that a boy attacks me with such ferocity! I was taken aback, to say the least, and for the first moments I really just let him have his way with me. Only when his little overburdened arms started to weaken, and his blows became mere slaps against my midriff, did I finally close my hands on his forearms as gently as I could, to really stop him. His violent harangue against me melted instantly, and he burst into helpless sobs, still trying to talk haltingly, but incoherently, his eyes almost closed now, staring blindly straight ahead at my stomach. For a moment there, I don't even think he knew I was there - he seemed lost in such a depth of anguish and helplessness as I had never seen before. He was a mere waif. Thin and weakened by his spent emotions, and no doubt by hunger - perhaps even malnutrition, by the look of him. My eyes told me many things about this boy, instantly. The first, the most obvious - whatever injury this boy had received in his short life, it had not been from me. He stood against me bedraggled and filthy, his clothes, from what I could see as his coat parted, mere unwashed rags. He stank - of a garbage heap, or compost heap, or ... from days and weeks ... months ... of abject poverty and apparent neglect. His hair hung in ragged, caked strands about his face, sticking there from the wet and his own filth. No obvious wounds anywhere, no blood, no evidence that he had limped or held back his blows. I stood looking down at him and ... my own worries, my own tears, my very reason for being on this road - all vanished from my mind. All I could see - all there was in my world, for that moment, was a little circle of existence, where stood this boy ... and myself .... I had thought myself spent, after this long day standing against wave after wave of reminiscence and emotion, but now I plumbed my own true depths of anguish and despair ... and something more ... something I had thought dead within me ... something I had truly given up on long ago, years ago ... thoughts, hopes, that had lain dormant ... and ... a desperate desire .... ... for I was holding before me, in this small circle of our existence, a BOY ... why did we meet now!? I am a boylover, by the gods! By Marx and Engels! Or whatever other powers there be! Why has this boy suffered so, when I am here, in his very same world!? He should have been mine! I would have fed him! I would have clothed him! Dammit, I would have cared for him, loved him! And every second of his life, through every trial he has survived, just so, have I suffered through every second of loneliness and longing and .... I stood looking down on him as he raised his countenance to mine, and I felt my lips starting to quiver, my jaw tightening, my eyes closing JUST AS HIS! The tears starting to trickle down my cheeks, even as his flowed! I could only stare, speechless, as he looked up into my eyes. I wondered what they were saying to me! They seemed to belie his words. "Leave it alone!" he said. But I heard, `why weren't you here before?!' "Don't' touch it!" he said. But I heard, "You should have held me tight through all my cold nights." "It's mine - you can't take it!" he said, but I heard, "why didn't you show me how to build it better!" I saw myself, back during the war days, building things from scrap. Rummaging through the battlefields ... or the bodies ... for food ... anything that would sustain me and my friends for another day in hiding. Finally, pushing my past out of this little circle of our existence, I finally gained enough of my wits about me to try to answer the boy, to calm him, to assure him. "S ... son ... I'm not going to take your cart." I tried to say it soothingly, certain that he saw the sincerity in my eyes. He stopped his litany for a moment, and looked up with his mouth open. "I would never take it from you! I ... think it's a magnificent ... cart ... I'm amazed at how cleverly you built it ... I ... I would never dream of taking it from you ...." His eyes grew wider, focussing up at me. Looking momentarily astonished, in wonderment. As if he heard words that didn't quite register. If he answered, at that moment, I didn't hear him. I couldn't possibly have heard him. I was lost in wonderment myself, stunned by the visage before me. His eyes ... huge dark, dark brown eyes, and dark brown, almost black eye lashes, so long that they curled up at the ends. Eyebrows so incredibly delicate, of the most silken, almost transparent filaments - yet so dark and black that they looked painted against his pale white flesh. The skin shown through those brows, snow-white, like the purest setting for the ebony brush-strokes that swept up and out, over his eyes, then down, just at the wispy end - making the boy look as if he were questioning, examining, astonished, awed ... as if there were nothing in this world that he did not wonder about. Including me. Yet in those eyes was a well of hurt ... and sorrow. Perhaps something more than sorrow. Mourning? These were eyes that saw into everything about them, eyes that searched and reached out, but that had been forced to close too often, in tears. I couldn't have heard him, if he spoke, but I do know that I gulped, staring down at him, and that I started to raise my right hand. How I dared do it, I do not know. Perhaps it was no conscious thought that made me do it, rather a need within me ... and a need I saw in his eyes. Whatever made me do it, I brought the pads of my fingers just up to his cheek, and touched him there so very gently. He stood still now, letting me touch him. It was no doubt my imagination, but I thought ... I dreamed ... that I felt him lean into my touch. His cheek was cold, below those enchanting eyes, and swept down narrowly - there seemed a natural blush there - perhaps the cold, perhaps burned by the unceasing drizzle ... or by his tears. The redness seared the too delicate whiteness of his cheeks - he was certainly undernourished, not just pale, but weak. But his lips! Red and full! He held them firmly together, as he strained his head back to look up at me. By the gods, in my very dreams I had never conjured up such sweet lips. They bowed in the middle, pushed out just slightly by his teeth, giving him an expression - much like his eyes - of awareness, even of knowing! Of a smile that was born not from glee, certainly not from any kind of happiness - just from being somehow ... prescient! His features were narrow, soft and delicately formed, so finely proportioned - his nose, his cheeks, chin - and such a smooth, high forehead. His hair hung down over it - laid down over it was a more apt description - laid down wet and in clumps, uncombed and unkempt from hours and hours outdoors in the rain and drizzle. It hung just as wet, in plastered strands, all the way down both sides of his head, far below his ears, to his neck - seemingly molded or glued to his scalp and flesh in thick, dirty clumps. I wasn't even sure that it was just the rain that had sculpted this dark frame around his face - his hair certainly had not felt the loving touch of a mother's brush, for a long, long time. I moved my hand so slightly from his cheek, to gently draw one wet clump of his hair between the pads of my thumb and forefinger. The silken strands slid smoothly over each other, but I felt the grit there too. What did this boy's gaze say to me? What was this moment saying to me? Was there sorrow in his eyes? Or defiance? Or even hope? Did he see through me, in this instant of our meeting? Thirty-four year old man, disillusioned, ready to give up - and suddenly wanting him so desperately that I had to steel every muscle in my body to keep from crushing his frail body to mine! Did whatever he had been through in his short life allow him to understand me, with his all-seeing gaze? Would he hate me? Did he know me so well that I was abhorrent to him? "Are you ... are you a Party man?" he suddenly said to me, in almost a whisper? Even then, there was a bell-like clarity to his voice - high-pitched and sweet, holding the same questioning, wondering insistence as his gaze. "Well ... yes, I am," I admitted, not knowing whether that was something he would hear with approval or disdain. Government officials were more often than not unwelcome out here in the countryside. "You can take my cart, but ... I'll ... I'll just build another one," he said so matter-of-factly, as if there were no doubt in his mind that I was here to confiscate his belongings. "I won't take your cart ... little boy," I repeated to him. This conversation was surreal to me. My mind reeled with the impact of seeing him, seeing such beauty that years of suppressed desire burst forth within me, seeing such need that I wanted to grasp him to me and hold him tight, yet ... here he was, certain that I had entered his world to steal his possessions. "Then why are you here?" he said, looking up at me in puzzlement, lowering his brow in suspicion. I still held his arm with my left hand. I still held the soft strands of his hair between my fingers. He shrugged me off, twisting his arm from my grasp, and stepped back. I let go of his hair almost reluctantly, blushing, feeling like the criminal that he thought I was. Indicted by him. Knowing in my heart that I was a good man, wasn't enough all of a sudden. He did not know that. First I had come crashing in with my car, then I had looked over his cart so inquisitively, now I dared to touch him, thinking that one fraction of an instant of my care would make some difference to him! I staggered back, swiveling on my feet, off balance, against the side of his cart. I struggled to take a deep breath, then started to turn back to him, but I couldn't! I couldn't bear to look into those eyes again, not knowing how to read them! "I think you're ... ok ... son," I mumbled out, swiping my forearm up across my face. What to do next? He ... didn't want the likes of me ... here. "Are you ... alright? Did I hurt you?" "Your car didn't hit me, if that's all you mean," he answered, sounding somehow bitter and reproachful. Or was that just my imagination? I still couldn't turn back his way, to meet his questioning gaze again. I felt so tired and weak again, and wasn't even sure of why I should feel so guilty. It certainly was not because I desired this boy, not because I saw his beauty, not because I wanted to hold him and cherish him - not in all my years had I ever regretted being what I am. I knew the goodness of it, when I lay in Stefan's arms, so many years ago. Tomek cemented that certainty, with every loving and kind act during the war. Loving a boy, giving of yourself to him, is an act of the purist, most beneficent good. Admiring his beauty is an acknowledgment of your dedication to that good. I felt guilty because ... what could I do? What would I do?! He wasn't my boy. He didn't want my touch. He didn't even want me here. I was ... the enemy ... the Party man ... a threat .... Maybe it wasn't guilt I felt. More like an utter and complete hopelessness. My life was littered with such encounters. Couldn't every boylover say the same? Only the War had made it possible for Tomek and his boys to shirk society's bounds. This boy, however abject his need, was but another brief encounter. I pushed myself upright, and turned to walk back to my car, my head down. Digging into my kit, in the back seat, I pulled out a packed of sandwiches, then walked back to the boy. "Here ... uh ... son ... there's something to eat, in here. You get ... home ... you'll be ok ... I never intended to take your cart ... I never ... did. I gotta ... go ... I'll be late ..." I said, still awkwardly avoiding his eyes. I paused for a moment just standing there, glancing first at the cart, then the ground, then allowing my eyes to graze his face once again, almost afraid of any response. He took the packet from me. I watched his little hands, miniature versions of my own, as he placed them on either side of the package. Our finger tips touched! On both sides, he seemed to intentionally let just the tips of his long middle fingers graze mine. Now HE had touched ME! I dared to look up then, directly into his eyes. He was scanning my face - that same querulous expression there, but somehow ... not so ... harsh. Not so much of that suspicion in them, as before, but more of a ... probe ... like I was a strange object that he had to examine and analyze. I ... couldn't stand it. Not now. Not after my day-long search for any kind of answers myself. I was going to have to leave this boy here, and I'd never see him again, and whatever questions he had I would never be able to answer anyway ... Dropping my eyes, and without another word, I turned and strode back to the car, stumbling over my own feet, knowing that he was watching me. With more force than necessary, I lunged into it, through the gaping door, and pulled it shut with a bang. I had the presence of mind to ease the clutch in, at least, and move off slowly. I peered into the rear-view mirror, and saw the boy just standing there watching me, holding the package of sandwiches in both hands before him. I pulled farther and farther away, and his form started to melt into the growing darkness of the trees surrounding the turnout. I realized that I wasn't breathing, that while I had watched the little boy's form recede into the distance, it was like my own life was suspended. I allowed myself a halting breath, and then in a futile acknowledgment of my fate, I lifted my hand and gave a weak wave. "Good-bye, little one. Take care of ... yourself ...." ------------------------------- September 14, 1959 5:09 PM Jasio stood transfixed as the tall man and his car slowly gathered speed, and drew farther and farther away. First the sound of gravel scrunching under the tires, then the engine taking over as the wheels reached the quiet surface of the black-topped road, then ... little more than two little red lights growing closer and closer together with each passing moment. That, and the wonder. He could still see the man's face. Clean. Strong. Chiseled! That was it. A face chiseled like that old statue, hidden out in the ruins. The man's face, looking down at him, with those eyes of his searching, like they would drill holes in Jasio's own eyes, looking deep into him. People just didn't act like that! At least the people around here. And when the man felt his cheek, and ... tested his hair, rubbing it ... people didn't do those things either. Not to Jasio. Maybe to some other child, but never, ever to Jasio. Then ... the things he said ... `your cart' ... `it's magnificent' ... `Go home' ... `something for you to eat' .... Jasio gripped the package of sandwiches tight, feeling their substance - they were real. This had really happened. The car was gone now. The silence of the cold, wet night had descended completely, and the boy was alone again. `Go home.' He heard the words again. He looked about him, slowly, then off towards the direction of the collective compound. `Go home.' Jasio closed his eyes for a moment, and saw the man's face looking down at him. So tall. His hair dark, and hanging down over his forehead loosely. Broad shoulders, making his long gray overcoat hang loose all the way to the ground ... yes ... just like the statue in the ruins ... and now ... gone ... no more real than the man who once looked down upon his sculptor. `Go home.' Jasio looked down at the package, wondering. He had touched the man's hands, just to make sure, but ... even though he was real ... the moment was fleeting ... and now gone. `Come back.' He closed his eyes, wanting to recapture that moment. His narrow chest lifted underneath his coat, and he sighed deeply. How many times had he imagined a line, and himself standing on it. Always moving forward, always looking towards the end of the line. Now suddenly, he wanted to turn, and step back. `Come back.' `Go home .' `We never go back, do we,' he mused sadly, letting the words fall flat into the damp air. Slowly he crawled under his cart, and sat cross-legged on the bare ground. Home. The cold and the dark were now a part of him. He felt the clinging wetness of his rags against his skin. `We can't look back,' he muttered, then centered the package of food in his lap, and so very carefully unwrapped it. New soles for his shoes, this wrapper. One night without the awful grip of pain in his stomach, this food. One moment, already gone forever, that man.