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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v110) (the September 2012 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

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A History of Violins

Frank Traverse

    “Pardon me. I just wanted to tell you that you have a beautiful face.”
    She looks up at him. Because she was biting her cheek, he doesn’t know if she is afraid of him or laughing at him.
    “What do you want me to say?” she asks.
    “I’m not sure. I’ve never said that to someone nearly as young as my granddaughter... or to any woman except my wife. Say ’Thank you’ or ’Go away old man.’ Either would be fine... or say nothing.”
    She stands up, gathers her coat and books, and strides out of the college’s cafeteria. He watches her go, shrugs his shoulders, and then picks up the crust of the pizza left on his tray. Did she believe him, this child? That he was not a pervert? That he had not, in fact, ever done this before?
    Out of the story-high cafeteria windows, Gary Rothman observes two young men on the lawn tossing a rubber ball back and forth. He thinks of when he was eleven, playing outfield in the vacant lot on the Concourse (he recalls now it is filled with the Bronx Museum). Something distracted him from his usual concentration on the batter and on his friend Jake pitching the softball. It was a girl making her way north on the sidewalk bordering the lot – what would be the third base line. He saw it was Barbara, his flame, his first love. Twice in the past month, he had followed her home from school, well behind her so that she never sensed it, and listened at her apartment door hoping he’d hear her talking to her mother. Now, yelling out to Jake “Watch this!” he ran full speed up to Barbara, said “Hi,” and planted a big wet kiss on her cheek. She was shocked, didn’t say anything, and merely walked away.
    A few days later his father sat him down to talk.
    “You can’t just run up to girls and kiss them,” he told Gary. “That’s not good behavior. It stops now or you won’t be playing any more baseball.”
    Gary thought “I took this to heart” even though he had followed Barbara home once more – the day she wore that blue-and-red checked blouse he liked so.
    Three years later, on a long ride with his father, he totally understood the “don’t force anything when you’re with a girl” speech – understood not to do it without understanding what the “it” was until years later.

    By the time he had his first girlfriend who might “go all the way,” his father was dead. He was a junior in college and he’d ride the subways from The Bronx to Brooklyn to see her. The fraternity brother who had given him her number said she had spread for the high school basketball team in the catacombs of the lockers, and indeed she would play with him under their blanket in Prospect Park, and he could take off her bra and fondle her, but she stopped at intercourse and he would not force her.
    Did the girl believe him just now? He had never done this. He was not, after all, sad Frank Rourke who had been dumped by his wife of 35 years. Rourke, from the moment Gary saw him at the Milan Airport, would walk up to a young woman and ask: “Would you rather be pretty or smart?” That was an opening line Rourke had undoubtedly read on some pick-up-girls 1-2-3 website, or perhaps his therapist had suggested that tack.
    Gary would admit he was a starer, but not someone who would take action. At 71, he didn’t get turned on when he stared. It was more admiration. He always thought of Norman Mailer’s “Of Women and Their Elegance.” His staring had gotten him into trouble only once, and that was a few years ago.
    It was at a friend’s daughter’s wedding. There was a drunken young woman, maybe in her late ’20s, fast dancing with her husband and making obscene gestures. She was funny. She caught him staring and smiling, came over to him, and insisted he dance with her. He thought the whole thing was a joke, and grinned throughout the nine minutes on the dance floor. She tried to engage him in conversation, and he responded by telling her he wrote poetry and that his favorite poet was Wallace Stevens. She kept at him and, laughing the whole time, Gary finally shooed her away. His wife didn’t think it was funny at all, and there was rancor between them for weeks.
    This student – he probably wouldn’t recognize her if he met her again on campus. Would he look the other way if he did see her? Would she turn away in embarrassment? No, he would not know her, he decided. All the girls on campus looked like Laurie, his crushing love at City College in the early ’60s.
    He had been the short leg of a triangle. They had dated – gone to a Brecht play, with his fraternity to a Dixieland place in the Village, and out to Brighton Beach – but she never allowed more than a quick kiss. He cried about the situation to his sociology professor who simply laughed at him. Her freckled face, green eyes, corduroy skit with black leotards, bitten nails — why was she so fresh in his mind?
    He finishes his soda and brings his tray to the disposal area of the cafeteria, then exits, shifting his book bag from his shoulder to his hand. He walks more slowly across campus than usual because he’s finished reading for his next workshop. How he loves this program – five years into it, he’s like an 18-year old starved for sex, only he’s starved for learning. He waves to half a dozen other seniors he’s met and talked to as he heads for the course tying Joseph Campbell’s mythology to Jung’s work. He climbs the stairs to the fourth floor and enters the classroom. One woman asks whether he’s read the short story the workshop leader assigned for the next day, and he talks for a few minutes about the writer’s technique and the motivation of the main character. He talks to another woman about James Franco’s portrayal of Hart Crane, a film he had seen a few nights before.
    The workshop leader has been discussing the myth of Persephone and now reads long sections from Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It is raw stuff and he watches some of the woman around the classroom squirm. Unlike when he read the Lawrence novel in his uncle’s bookshop when he was sixteen, he is bored, unmoved. He begins tuning out and writing a short story. Finally, the workshop is over and he walks to the parking lot, and drives home in fifteen minutes.
    His wife’s car is in the garage when he gets home, but when he calls out to her there is no answer. He’s forgotten that she’s playing canasta this afternoon. He takes a slug of seltzer from the bottle in the refrigerator, sheds his jacket, and carries his knapsack upstairs to check his email and look at the headlines.
    The phone rings as he’s just becoming immersed in an online crossword puzzle. It’s his daughter and he can tell from her first few syllables that something has happened.
    “Dad, can you pick up Amy right now?”
    “Sure, where is she?”
    “She’s almost home.”
    Gary didn’t understand.
    “What’s going on, Liz?”
    “Oh, Dad, she was walking home from the high school and she had gone just two blocks when this old man starts walking beside her, telling her how pretty she is. She said he was disgusting looking and no matter how fast she walked, he kept up with her.”
    “Okay,” Gary says. “I’m off. I’ll sit with her for a while in your house, then call you when I get home.”
    He catches up with Amy just as she’s turning the corner, two blocks from her house. He toots his horn gently. He’s happy she’ll recognize his car immediately because he’s given her so many lifts from school, to the gym and to her father’s. He rolls down the window and calls out.
    “Hey, Amy, your ride’s here.”
    She looks surprised, but gets in. He does not want to lie to her – because he rarely lies to anyone and because at 17 she’s just too smart.
    “Your Mom called me. She told me what happened and she thought you’d like some company.”
    He looks at her as she’s saying “I’m okay” and knows she is not. They go into the house and sit in the kitchen. He offers Amy water or soda, but she declines.
    “What did he look like, Amy? Height, weight, anything that is different about him? I want to call the police.”
    “No, Grandpa. I just want to forget this if I can.”
    “Did he touch you or try to touch you?”
    “No, Grandpa. That’s why the police won’t do anything.”
    “Well, what did he say to you? Did he say something dirty?”
    Amy looks embarrassed. “No, he didn’t say anything dirty. He asked where I was going and what kind of classes I was taking, then he said ’you know, you have a very pretty face.’ And a minute later he said ’I’ll bet lots of boys tell you that you have a pretty face.’ It wasn’t what he said — it was how he kept staring at me, like he was going to drag me off somewhere. He was all greasy looking and his clothes were so filthy.”
    Gary’s jaw drops. “Maybe he didn’t mean any harm,” he tells her... and with each word there flashes the cafeteria girl’s face in stages of fright, anger, pity. He wants to crawl into a hole, but he must keep Amy talking for awhile. He asks about her classes, her friends, Zumba. Most of her answers are monosyllabic. Then he remembers that last weekend she was at a Foo Fighters concert. He asks her about it, and her face lights up. After fifteen minutes, he looks at his watch.
    “I’m okay, Grandpa. I have to get my homework done. Thanks for coming over.”
    He kisses her on the cheek and tells her to call him if she needs him. It’s only a five minute drive home, but he turns on the radio. The classical station is playing Schoenberg’s String Quartet 2 and he shuts it off. When he gets home, he goes searching for the antacid tablets. He’s sure it was the green peppers in the pizza.
    When his wife Adrienne returns, she asks him how his day was. He tells her what the workshop participants said about the photo he submitted, and complains about the D.H. Lawrence readings during the Jung/Campbell workshop. She talks briefly about her day.
    “Gary, what’s wrong?” she asks.
    He shakes his head.
    “Something happened. Tell me.”
    “Oh, it’s okay,” he says. “Liz called me to pick up Amy. She was being followed home from school by a dirty old man.”
    “Is she okay? I mean he didn’t touch her, did he?”
    “No, no. She said he didn’t really say anything lewd to her. He just told her she was pretty and kept staring at her. I got her two blocks from their house and stayed with her awhile. I suppose she’ll get over it faster than I will.”

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