writing from
Scars Publications

Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the
May 1996 issue, v79 of cc&d, and was re-releases in 2019
as a 100 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book

Poetry and Prose
cc&d (v79, 2019 re-release)




You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:
order ISBN# book

Poetry and Prose

Order this writing
in the issue book
Among the Debris
the cc&d July-Dec. 2019
issues & chapbooks
collection book
Among the Debris cc&d collectoin book get the 494 page
July-Dec. 2019
cc&d magazine
issue collection
6" x 9" ISBN#
paperback book:

order ISBN# book

FROM A DISTANCE, SO MANLY

David McKenna


��It doesn’t take me long to acquire a habit. Just ask my drug-dealing friends, or either of my ex-wives. Don’t ask Gianna, the Italian girl in the rowhouse across from the track where I run. She might not know who you’re talking about, even if you tell her Bertram says hi.
��For two weeks I flirted with her through the chain-link fence that separates the football field, and the six-lane track that surrounds it, from the driveway behind her parents’ home. On Friday I coaxed her down from her second-floor deck after my five-mile run. We walked the gravel ellipse together, moving counterclockwise like the Gang of Four and the other regulars, until Gianna tired of the monotony and took her leave.
��“My friends like this track, but I skeeve,” she said, using a South Philadelphia term that indicates revulsion. Three years here after banishment from an elite college in Vermont, and I’m still learning how the locals tawk.
��“It makes my shoes dirty,” she explained.
��For the next two days, her deck was empty and my mood foul. I was sorry I’d seen her, and sorrier we’d spoken. I’d started using the track only a month ago, after realizing my 40-year-old legs could no longer endure the stress of running the streets. Now Gianna had spoiled my routine. It wasn’t complete without her.
��Bear with me. This isn’t one of those agonizing unrequited lust stories. I like women, or girls — whatever they choose to call themselves — so long as they’re young or pretty, and sometimes when they’re neither. But I don’t stalk or even linger where I’m not wanted, except to make absolutely sure I can’t be of service.
��Three weeks of 90-degree heat had stretched well into September, but today the seasons were slugging it out. The new weather suited my mood. A chill wind pushed dark clouds around and kicked up trash under the bleachers. A strong sun peeked through as I sped down the straightaway between the seats and the sidelines.
��The great daily trek was in full swing. Joggers and walkers of all ages and sizes — alone, in pairs, in groups — entered through the gate behind the bleachers, circled the quarter-mile track to their hearts’ content, and left the herd when the mood seized them. I looked up and breathed deep as I ran, trying to burn off the feeling of thwarted expectation that always gets me into trouble. The sky was a river running between the clouds. When I lowered my head, the complexion of the day changed.
��There was Gianna on her back in a white G-string bikini, with everything she has smiling up at the sun. I reached the point closest to her deck, where the track loops behind the visiting high school team’s goal post, and shouted what had become my standard greeting.
��“Gianna, how ‘bout a gelato?”
��A coffee house three blocks from the field sells several flavors of Italian ice cream, though they don’t stock chocolate, Gianna’s favorite when she vacations in Calabria.
��“Don’t tempt me with that shit, Bernie,” she said, shifting in her padded beach chair long enough to acknowledge me in her usual inaccurate fashion. “I’m trying to lose weight.”
��Like many South Philly girls of a certain type, Gianna seems sexier when seen and not heard. To overly refined outsiders, she might not seem sexy at all. To one such as I, exiled from an enclave of pastoral privilege, she is wildness personified.
��“Run with me,” I said, cantering sideways to address her directly.
��South Philly makes me feel like Fletcher Christian on Tahiti, or Lord Byron in Italy, after his wife divorced him and English society pooh-poohed him for romancing his half-sister.
��I thought of Teresa, teenaged wife of the 60-year-old count of Ravenna. Byron’s liaison with her pissed off the Pope. A hot number, lost in history. The roving poet must have caught a glimmer of himself in her. Was her profile Byronic, or merely her soul?
��“Come on, run,” I persisted, passing the apex of the loop. “Then you can reward yourself for burning off all those calories.”
��“Ha,” Gianna scoffed. “Then I put the calories back on, and I look like a blob. Didja think of that, Bernie?”
��“It’s Bertram. Bert will do.”
��OK, the Teresa comparison is a stretch, but I’ve come to appreciate Gianna’s contrasts. A sweet bird of youth flapping against the weight of toxic paints and powders, her verbal coarseness a jarring counterpoint to radiantly dark skin, brilliant teeth, and a crown of curls so black it shines purple in the sun.
��“You look like that babe in Wayne’s World,” I suggested, running backwards now as I moved away from her. “You could star in an exercise video.”
��“If I took 10 pounds off my ass,” Gianna shouted before turning her face toward the peek-a-boo sun. It’s a wonder she tans through the foundation, eye makeup and other junk that, despite her best efforts, fails to spoil her looks.
��I turned to resume my forward stride and almost ran into the Gang of Four, immersed in their five-mile fast walk. They didn’t seem to notice my nimble last-minute side-step.
��“The guy’s no Santa Claus,” said Armond, the loudest, a bow-legged fellow who wears black elastic knee braces. “You can bet he’s gonna make a ton of money.”
��All four retirees are about 5-foot-6 and overweight. Their routine involves a current events recap that focuses on disease and/or sports. Mine involves guessing which news item they’re discussing as I overhear a snippet of conversation while running past them.
��“The other guy’s no slouch either,” another of the gang chimed in. “He knows Dee-ahn is the missing link.”
��Their voices faded, but I’d heard enough. The lubricious owner of a professional football team has pooled resources with the crafty king of a sneaker company to buy the services of a famously flamboyant defensive back. Now the other NFL teams don’t have a prayer.
��The loop at the home team’s end of the field swung me back toward Gianna. I passed Rocco, the depressed school bus driver, holding a leash attached to a black Rottweiler. Rocco is built like an upright version of his dog. Stocky, but much shorter than I.
��From a distance I look like a white Ken Norton, thanks to the weight-lifting. Norton was a bad dude in his prime. Up close I’m even more impressive. A sensitively brutish aspect that’s never out of style. Sulky mouth, strong nose and sky-blue eyes that can burn a hole in the hardest of hearts. Byron with both feet intact. I look a decade younger than I am.
��“Yo Rocco,” I said. “How are those kids treating you?”
��Some months ago Rocco found God and jogging, in that order, and banished the invisible demon who’d been urging him to drive his crowded bus through the front door of a fast-food franchise on Broad Street. Or so he told me last week.
��“Same as usual, Bert,” he said. “It’s in the Lord’s hands now.”
��As were my chances of breaking Gianna’s spell. This time around she was on her belly with her halter strap unhooked. The strip of newly exposed flesh suggested hazelnut on almond. A scoop of hazelnut gelato is especially sweet, like something that dropped off an ice cream tree in heaven.
��“What do you do when the sun goes down, Gianna?” I shouted, feeling rash. “Where can I buy you a drink?”
��“Maui,” she answered, referring not to the island but to the garish dance club on the riverfront. “My friend’s taking me to Maui tonight in her new Grand Am.”
��Gianna mentions plenty of friends, none by name. One friend knows a mobster’s apprentice who drives a Jaguar and tosses $20 tips at bartenders. Another dances in a cable TV commercial for an expensive go-go joint as patrons chant “I like it, I like it.” Gianna’s espresso eyes shine when she tells these stories. Conspicuous spending impresses her even more than well-defined muscles.
��“Afterwards, we’ll eat at Alexandria,” I said, referring to a trendy restaurant across from the nightclub. “You like Alexandria?”
��Her smile was beatific. Girls at the state college where I teach these days flash the same smile when I rattle off an immortal rhyme: For the sword outwears its sheath/And the soul wears out the breast/And the heart must pause to breathe/And love itself to rest. They smile, I think, at the contrast between my lively demeanor and Byron’s weary words, at the gulf between Byron the legend and Byron the man, at the degree to which the potency of a legend depends on its distance from so-called fact. Or maybe they’re just happy to see me.
��“Do I like it?” Gianna asked as I ran in place. “That’s like asking do I like a full-body massage and Jacuzzi.”
��It was settled. Drinks, dinner, dancing. Then home to my apartment, if all went well. Or to a hotel near the airport, or a motel in Jersey. It would be hours before we got there, wherever it was, judging by what she’d told me about her socializing, and by my experience, from which I’ve gleaned the following data:
��Gianna and her ilk are obsessed with teeth and skin and clothes. They are meticulous toenail painters, zealous patrons of hair and tanning salons, compulsive users of deodorants and depilatories. They expect to be wined and dined, served and serviced, and woe onto him who fails to pick up the check.
��On the other hand, they are lusty and will fuck you into next week if you bring condoms and pamper them as lavishly as their daddies do; if you drive, buy the drinks, reserve the table, leave the tips, and present them with expensive tokens of esteem. Even better if you make occasional rude jokes about their appearance and manners, to signal you’re not the sort of simpering romantic who’ll do anything to get laid. And sometimes they’ll stun you with a sweet remark or involuntary moan at that moment when passion most fully supercedes reason, the only moment that reveals anything about anybody.
��None of which mattered to my fellow exercisers, who ambulated ‘round and ‘round, acting out a rite with no apparent meaning. The wind dragging a plastic bag across the gravel sounded like water sloshing down a drain. The sun was a white hole in a black sky. I was on the verge of the dreamtime stage of my run, my only relief from thoughts of sex and death, when a soccer ball rolled off the grassy field and onto the track.
��“Wait, I’ll pass it to you,” I said to a 7- or 8-year-old boy who was chasing the ball. I stopped it dead with my left foot, squared off to fake a kick downfield with my right, then stepped past and kicked it sideways to him with my left.
��“How’d you do that?” the boy shouted, picking the ball up as I resumed jogging.
��“Practice, kid,” I said over my shoulder. “Everything worth doing takes practice.”
��What crap. It’s an easy move, as the kid will realize when someone takes a minute to show him. But he and his friends were impressed, watching from a distance. He reminded me of my eldest son, who thinks I’m of hell of a guy, despite what he hears from his mom, Madame Pinstripes. I rarely see him since she became a corporate stooge in Delaware and moved in with some pigeon-toed twerp who wouldn’t know a soccer ball from a sack of spuds.
��Gianna saw me handle the ball — I looked to make sure — but she was gone when I glanced up again. The next time around, a red Grand Am was parked under her deck. Her friend, I assumed.
��Just as well, I thought, noticing a tall runner in a black spandex suit under a white sleeveless jersey jog down the driveway to the gate near the bleachers, at a pace even with mine. The runner proceeded along the ribbon of concrete that borders the outside of the track. I licked my lips, tasted the salt, and felt an immediate attraction, followed by a stab of doubt. Boy or girl?
��I lengthened my stride and gained ground by hugging the low curb that divides the track from the field. The mystery runner showed the elegance of a natural athlete. Long legs and arms, a deceptively fluid stride that made quickness look easy. She — I hoped it was a she — had hair as short and curly as mine, exposing the nape of a long, dark neck.
��But she looked manly from a distance. I don’t know how else to say it. Most women, and some men, run mostly with their lower bodies, because they have low centers of gravity and little power up top. This one, you could tell, had equal strength in shoulders and legs, and the sort of resolute cool that indicates great stamina. She/he reminded me of me.
��Now the Gang of Four was between us, obstructing my view while discussing their favorite topic, prostate cancer. Sunshine swept the field from directly ahead. Even from 40 yards, it was impossible to tell whether the runner’s baggy jersey concealed breasts.
��Armond was saying, “My son thinks I’m bored, he wants me to find a girlfriend. I said, ‘And do what with her, you stupid fuck?’ Part of me ain’t screwed on no more.”
��The others hectored Armond for his sour attitude. “Sex ain’t all it’s cracked up to be,” one of them said. “Get your rocks off these days, it might cost you more than you bargained for.”
��I passed them hurriedly, gratefully, and edged forward till I was almost even with the runner whose perfect form was so arousingly familiar.
��Just ahead of the Gang of Four were Rocco and his dog again, and then the Suspended Octogenarian, proceeding with stiff-legged precision in his usual ensemble: white sneakers and T-shirt with blue dress pants held chest-high by red braces. He smiles at women the same way I’d look at family pictures in an old photo album.
��I picked up the pace to get a closer look at the mystery runner. Even before I descried the outline of firm little breasts, I’d compiled enough sensory data — a down-turned hand, a dainty cough, a slight flutter of the feet before they touched the ground — to conclude with some confidence that yes, thank God, my twin was a woman.
��I pulled up beside her and said, “Jogging on concrete is bad for you.” She knew jogging was the furthest thing from my mind, I could tell by her grin.
��“Everything is bad for you,” she said, turning her head to eye me calmly, as if she’d expected me. “I do what feels good.”
��She was Mediterranean-looking and definitely female, about 10 years younger than I, with a slight, clipped accent and an apparent tendency to overdress when she ran. But the similarities were striking: the hair and high cheekbones and long stride, the pleasantly ironic style of speech, the sulky countenance dissolving to a double-dare-you grin. It was eerie, flirting with myself. The ultimate kick.
��“Well, you look good,” I said in typically straightforward fashion. “You could star in an exercise video.”
��This time I meant it. Gianna, bless her, will never have good form or keep off the extra weight for long, any more than I’ll ever teach physics or have an enduring high-fidelity relationship. Her charm is fugacious. But the tall one — she said her name was Ronnie — is my ideal, or this month’s version of it. A strong, clear-eyed creature whose beauty is enigmatic precisely because it’s so modestly functional. She laughs like one who enjoys the act of laughing even more than the jokes that inspire it. Her face in repose is sad and calls to mind a garden locked behind high stone walls.
��Maybe I assume too much, but that’s my style. A glimpse, a whiff, a taste of new territory and I throw my compass overboard. Already I was guessing the facial expressions Ronnie makes while climaxing, and whether she cries out or holds steady and purrs with her full lips clamped shut. And I meant to find out, instead of regretting not making love to her if, God forbid, I live to be an old capon like Armond.
��“This will probably sound sexist,” I said, “You move like a man, but without seeming unfeminine.”
��“Naive, not sexist,” she replied. “Define feminine.”
��Again the ironically friendly glance, as if she was daring me to share a joke.
��“Graceful, sensitive,” I said, undaunted by the semantic quagmire up ahead. “Not necessarily passive, but serene.”
��“Men can’t have those qualities?” she countered.
��Fortunately, I was used to this sort of discussion. It’s an occupational hazard at colleges, especially if you run afoul of the sob sisters and saber-rattling viragoes in Women’s Studies, most of whom personify sin as a promiscuous heterosexual male. Pardon the hyperbole, but sexually stunted female academics get my back up and have stretched my tolerance to the limit.
��“You are aware, fraulein, each man and woman is a mix of masculine and feminine,” I said. I was on my sixth mile and tiring. Ronnie’s handsome face was inscrutable. Eye contact with her was like a tennis match. Every time I served the ball, she politely sent it screaming back at my head. She was indeed my twin.
��“Your mix seems more balanced than most people’s,” I said, dropping the accent. “It seems close to mine.”
��I felt false, but what could I say? I’m an addict, Ronnie. When I need babying, be my mama. When I need sex, be my lover. When I need both, wrap yourself around me and don’t talk.
�� Or I could be her daddy — actually, her older, lusty brother — though that sort of thing is what started the neo-Puritan watchdogs barking at the prestigious citadel of learning where I used to wow future schoolmarms with my looks and erudition. Ronnie, at least, was no schoolgirl.
��“Am I more balanced than Gianna?” she asked casually.
��“She’s way out of balance,” I replied, without showing the slightest surprise at the mention of Gianna’s name.
��“She looks like a goddess and talks like a Teamster.” I explained. “Passive until she gets riled, but no more sensitive than that goal post over there. An interesting mix maybe, but not for long.”
��“For as long as it takes to fuck her,” Ronnie said, as brightly as Katherine Hepburn would have if they’d used the “f” word in The Philadelphia Story. “Or should I say fuck her over?”
��The clouds parted slightly and a single ray of milky sunshine beamed on Veterans Stadium, looming just beyond the highway to the south. An ugly ball park, outside and in: intersecting slabs of pre-fab concrete, balding artificial turf, bad food. The locals don’t seem to notice. The stadium suits them. They wouldn’t know beauty if it ran up and bit them on the ass. Here was beauty, circling a drab little track where only smeared chalk lines separate the lanes.
��“I’m not sure I can afford Gianna,” I said. “You’re her friend, right? The one with the Grand Am.”
��“I’m her lover,” Ronnie said cheerfully. “And you’re right, you can’t afford her.”
��It was sad, the way she distanced herself. Our hearts were beating as one, our footfalls synchronized and so silent I could hear Armond 50 yards ahead, telling tall tales about life before he was gelded, describing nights he treated showgirls from the Trocadero to sausage sandwiches at Pat’s Steaks.
��“You must be bisexual,” I said, with a sidelong glance at Ronnie. “You’re too attractive to be totally queer.”
��She rolled her eyes, as I was expecting, and said, “According to you, I look manly. What’s that say about your sexuality?”
��That got me thinking about the sexual orientation index, developed by an ex-colleague in Vermont for articles in several obscure journals. I called his questionaire the homo factor index, to deflate his pretensions to scientific method, and to annoy him, especially after he said my narcissism indicated latent homosexuality. Before his breakdown, he was working on an instrument that would take the guesswork out of gauging orientation. I still get a kick out of applying his concept, albeit with facetious intent. If my ‘mo factor is 3 on a scale of 10, then Ronnie’s must be 7. Unless she was putting me on.
��“Who knows?” I said after 30 yards of silence. “Some effeminate guys are straight, some football players are as queer as Liberace. I have no desire to fuck men, if that’s what you mean. But I do like bisexual women.”
��It was an invitation of sorts, but Ronnie wasn’t biting. She wiped sweat from her glistening brow with the back of her left hand, exactly as I do, and said softly, “Just leave Gianna alone. She has enough problems.”
��I could have told her about problems — two ex-wives, two mortgages, three kids, a lawsuit that won’t go away, an untenured professor’s salary — but instead I said, “Are you her lover or her mother?”
��It took balls for me, of all people, to ask that, given my insatiable need for female affection.
��“Let’s say I’m her sister,” Ronnie said pleasantly. “Don’t mess with my sister, mister.”
��And then my twin — my sister — veered toward the driveway and disappeared behind the parked cars. OK, I exaggerate. She’s not my twin, except maybe in the metaphysical sense, although she has yet to realize that. Maybe the quaint expression “better half” is more accurate. Or simply “other half.” She shaves under her arms, I hope. I draw the line at that. And at penises, of course. I’m confident Ronnie doesn’t have one of those.
��I stopped next to the bleachers to pick up my water bottle, then started the half-mile walk that ends my workout. The Gang of Four was directly behind me. Armond had changed the subject from prostate cancer to coronaries, which seemed to spark fewer objurgations from his cronies.
��“I was dancing with my daughter at her wedding,” he declared. “My heart started racing till I thought it would bust. I went to sit down and collapsed face-first in a big bowl of onion dip. Soon as I got out of the hospital, I started exercising. It beats pushing up daisies.”
��To each his own, but who needs half a man with a healthy heart? I’d rather help the flowers grow. Byron, at least, knew when to check out.
��Armond was still holding court when I left for breakfast with Carla, my part-time girlfriend with the big breasts and the homemade bread and the bankrupt theatrical company. Not my twin, by any means, but a real wiz at reminding me that all the parts are still screwed on. She has pet names for our privates and a color photo of my smiling face on the dresser with the drawer full of toys and special jellies. A few hours with Carla before my afternoon classes will boost my sagging morale and bring my ‘mo factor back down to zero.
��Only then can I think of colliding again with Ronnie. She’d like me to believe she’s happy playing big sister to bovine beauties like Gianna, but I know her quicksilver sadness and its secret cause: She hasn’t had a lover like me yet. Someday I’ll spell it out for her. I can already hear her laughter as she ducks behind the walls.



Scars Publications


Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.




Problems with this page? Then deal with it...