Boy Crazy

It was the usual Friday night crowd, sipping beer and complaining about the heat. The Americans had taken over Bar Magenta, a watering hole for expat models and anyone who wanted to sleep with models. Tired of all the metrosexuals, Warden finished his beer and left. Outside, the sidewalk was mired in a squabble of tables and chairs and parked motorbikes. The scent of cologne and cigarettes lingered in the air like seductive moonbeams.

Across the street, a figure stood framed in a pool of light. Dark curls blew across an oval face. He had a leather jacket slung over one shoulder. A white T-shirt and blue jeans with rolled up cuffs completed the uniform. He seemed to have stepped onto the corner from some far-off world, waiting as though anchored at the foot of the stars.

A group staggered out of the bar, and Warden felt someone brush against him. He turned to see a boy he’d worked a show with earlier that week, now off in search of unknown pleasure.

“Sincerely sorry,” the boy said. Then he recognized Warden. “Hey, Warden! How’s it goin’, dude?”

“Gotta make the most of the weekend, man! Hafta face that old sidewalk come Monday morning.” He gestured vaguely toward his companions who had stopped drunkenly to watch the exchange like prisoners on a weekend pass, uncertain how far to take their newfound liberty.

The group staggered into the street, oblivious to passing cars and other mortal dangers. When Warden looked over again, the boy with the leather jacket stood next to him. His lips were wrapped around a cigarette, which he took from his mouth and let fall to the ground.

“Piacere. Pleased to meet you.” Valentino pointed across the street. “And that is Paolo.”

“There,” he said. “My motorcycle is called Paolo.” He looked slyly at Warden. “If you are free, Paolo and I will take you for a ride.”

Warden liked his humor and his presumptuousness. He felt drawn to the boy’s dusky presence. “All right,” he said. The soft night air and the beer had dulled his thinking, and he agreed without considering where this might be heading.

Valentino slipped on his jacket as they crossed the darkened street. They passed a fence topped by dangerous-looking spikes constraining a garden. Valentino took a penknife from his pocket, reached through, and freed a blossom.

Valentino looked at the blood-red flower as though he’d just discovered it in his hands. “I think it is for you,” he said, handing it to Warden.

“No,” Warden said, inserting it through a buttonhole in his vest, over his heart. “It’s just that in my country boys don’t give other boys flowers,” he said.

“This is not your country. It is mine.” Valentino stood over the motorbike and gunned the starter with his foot. It roared and shook with life. “Climb on!” he yelled.

Warden slid a leg over the seat and sat unsteadily behind. Valentino turned to give him a sarcastic stare.

“If you sit this way you will fall off. You must put your arms around me. Are you afraid?”

He gripped Valentino’s torso, feeling the boy’s flanged ribs beneath his jacket. The bike rolled onto the pavement, picking up speed. Warm wind lifted his hair as they sped through the city, passing under stone archways and along winding streets. The façades of ancient granite buildings flew by until they seemed to have left the twenty-first century behind, vanishing into the cool face of antiquity.

Warden held on tightly, leaning in with the curves. Smooth leather grazed his cheek as they wove in and out of traffic. The bike veered onto a narrow roadway following a shadowy canal.

“I will take you to my favorite bar,” Valentino said, leading them along a dark cobbled street pursued by the echo of their footsteps.

The water rippled to the right, reflecting the pale streetlamps that lined its edges. They came to a building with a flashing sign—SCIMMIA JAZZ—that lit up the block.

“Shee-me-yah,” Valentino pronounced. “It means the animal that lives in the trees and likes bananas. How do you call it?”

The bar bristled with music as they entered. A saxophone made clipped squawking sounds like coins tossed across a tabletop. A singer poised in a pin-spot of light broke into melody as though she’d been waiting for them.

“I will buy the beer,” Valentino said, taking out his wallet as a waitress came up balancing a tray.

Valentino held up his fingers in a V-formation and she pushed two glasses across the water-beaded surface of the table. He fanned a collection of bills at her, allowing her to pull several from between his fingers. She said something in rapid Italian. Valentino turned to Warden.

Valentino relaxed beside Warden, their bodies gently nudging one another. Whatever was happening between them felt slow and easy.

“I did not think you would come with me,” Valentino said. “Most American boys do not talk to the Italians.”

Warden laughed, thinking of his well-mannered and order-loving compatriots back home. How happily they queued up for anything, how politely they behaved even when they went on strike or protested the government.

“But you have the same country,” Valentino persisted. “The American president is your president, no?”

Warden shook his head and laughed again. “We share the same continent, but we’re a separate nation with our own government. We definitely don’t want theirs!”

Warden had to think about it. “It’s very clean back home,” he said. “Canadians believe in fairness and respect for the individual, and protecting the environment, and we’re…” But he couldn’t think what they were exactly, unable to define his fellow citizens or the place he came from. “It’s a big country, so it’s a lot of things,” he said with a shrug. “What’s it like to be Italian?”

“The best—of course!” Valentino said, laughing. “Italians have passion and we love beauty and our country. But you are a lucky country, I think. It was never a big war in Canada.”

Warden recalled the train station he’d emerged from on his first afternoon in the city, a long cryptlike monument fronted by prancing stone horses, erected to the glory of Mussolini and his Fascisti.

The music flowed, shifting moods with the crowd. Each time the singer appeared her costume changed, becoming more and more extravagant. It was well past the oasis of midnight when the band stopped playing, disregarding the stamping and cheering of the patrons hoping to extend the night for just one more number that might possibly stretch on to eternity.

Outside, it had cooled slightly from the day’s oppressive heat. The evening was deflating like a balloon, in small degrees. They mounted a footbridge over the naviglio and stopped midway. The moon, exactly half light and half shade, reflected soggily on the water, rippling with the slight breeze that had arisen.

They leaned on the railing, staring out over the water. The silence was comfortable. Occasionally their eyes met.

“It’s nice here,” Warden said, his gaze following the river winding through the city.

Streetlamps traced an ephemeral path along the canal. Warden pondered Valentino’s face framed by its dark ringlets. They watched one another in silence. Valentino reached out and touched Warden’s cheek. A smile flickered, faded. His face moved closer. Breath held, lips open slightly. Warden shivered as their lips touched—moist, warm—then parted.

He stood there, unmoving, as though becoming aware of certain things—a taste of salt in his mouth, the smell of flowers in the air, the infinitesimal distance between stars. Things that had been there all along and which he’d never noticed before. It was like looking over the wall into an unknown country.

He’d never been kissed by another man. In the world he’d inhabited until that moment it would have been impassable, like Gulliver’s distance. Taboo. But now there was a boy in a black leather jacket wearing a white T-shirt with curls fawning around his neck…

Valentino’s lips pressed forward again, retracing their eager route. Warden felt a sense of trepidation, as though he’d broken some inviolable rule. He pulled back.

Valentino’s face wore a look of bemused intoxication. “I think this is another thing the boys in your country do not do with each other,” he said.

All at once, the feeling of trepidation vanished. “No—none that I know,” Warden said.

“I had to kiss you—you were so beautiful.” Then, almost apologetically, “I do not kiss other boys very often.”

They laughed at the same time. Warden felt Valentino’s hand steal into his own, their fingers intertwining.