Day 26: Saul

I have been sitting on this one for about three weeks.  When I first wrote it, I didn't feel comfortable posting it, so I wrote another one.  Reading this one today, I wonder: what was I worried about?

Tonight I had my pals at Shelter Sundays read it aloud and give me feedback.  The physicality in the story bothered no one, but they still had things to say.

I fixed the easy stuff.  The deeper issues I have not addressed.  The experience reminds me how bad I am at revisions: I so fear breaking what works that I hesitate to change much--at least after the first creative impulse has passed.

Saul

Saul is hot. Saul is cold. Saul wants to skip like one of the nerdcore kids. Saul is holding Kate Gerlacki's hand. Kate Gerlacki is wearing her dress with the roses on the front, the one that goes down to her knees. Saul wants to lift the dress up and feel what is underneath. Or even have the wind come up and do it for him. See if she wears a thong or granny panties or nothing at all.

They let go of hands and hook it into Pizza Tim. That's what they call it, Pizza Tim, because the E has fallen off the sign leaving a pale reversed image of itself. Inside the new version of Pizza Tim. Grand opening. Owners fixed up the interior but no one bothered to fix the sign.

On the wall brown and orange painting of old guys with mustaches and not much hair on the tops of their heads. Behind the counter one of those same guys, he must be the owner, and also a bunch of Dominicans and also a woman who Saul hasn't seen before. On the other wall, dark grainy pixelized versions of Frank Sinatra and all the other heroes.

Saul gets two lasagne slices and a giant Coke and Katie gets one plain and a large Diet Sprite. They eat and talk about how goofy Katie's parents are with their obsession with raw milk and ugly tomatoes and how specifically Katie's dad is actually kind of cool about the piercings thing, not that Katie actually has any piercings, she is seriously considering getting some, but hasn't yet, she's actually waiting for her mother to stop freaking out about the idea. Saul rubs his shin on Katie's calf.

He has a truly terrific hard-on, an unusual high-grade hard-on, and is definitely feeling a buzz, not certain if this is from the giant Coke which is almost gone now or the warm resilient softness of the flesh on the side of her knee which is touching the side of his knee. Saul is like one of those lobotomized robots on Invasion of the Body Snatchers and he can feel his ability to form a definite plan melting away--aside from the plan that maybe they could go right out the door and one door down and then upstairs to her place, and check out her dad's old yearbooks to see if possibly he could have been that cool when he was in High School, because sometimes you know a guy can be a nerd and then grow out of it. Right?

They shove their paper plates into the bin. Saul rubs his hands with his napkin and throws it away because you can never be sure if a girl is going to notice. And specifically he wants to make sure that he isn't sweating when they hold hands again.

As it turns out she doesn't have a moment for him to hold her hand or even open a door for her as she unlocks the gate and then the inner door and then goes up the stairs ahead of him and he considers for a second looking up her dress but isn't sure if she'd catch him, so he races up the stairs right behind her almost too close, was it too close, or does she like that?

While she looks for the yearbooks he drinks a glass of water and swishes it around in his mouth to make sure he doesn't have any cheese between his teeth. It is a good chance that they would make out now. He walks to the front windows and looks down.

Down on the street he can see Tommy fake-punching the back of Esteban's head and Esteban fake-pulling Tommy's backpack off. Some guy in his thirties looks like he was about to pull out his phone to call the cops in case the altercation becomes violent.

Saul inhales the Gerlacki family funk. It smells like B.O. and mint-scented trash bags and cookies. There is a little bit of dust on the top of the window unit air conditioner so he drags his fingers across it leaving five exactly parallel trails. He thinks about pressing against the A.C. to restore his hard-on, like he does on the washer when it's in spin cycle, but then maybe the cold air would cancel out the vibration and besides how gross would that be if Katie sees him doing that?

She couldn't find the yearbooks she says from the hallway as she walks up behind him smelling like Clinique Happy just like she has been smelling for the past couple of hours only it is stronger now. He turns around and she is almost on top of him and it is an accident when their lips touch because he didn't really realize that she was that close. The buzz travels up inside of him and now his lips are trembling and he definitely does not want that to happen so he presses harder with his lips on her just to ease the buzz and her lips slide across his and he thinks he is going to slide right off and get whiplash. He moves his head back the other way and now her lips are parting and her tongue is coming out and pushing between his lips. Just a little bit. Not being nasty or anything.

This is the first time that any of this has happened to him before, and Saul isn't going to say or do anything to give that away.

He stands there looking into Katie's eyes, which are green flecked with gold and brown and she has a thin irregular trace of eyeliner on each of her eyelids and also there are tiny almost invisible freckles on the bridge of her nose.

Then he kisses her again and he traces the outside of her elbow with his fingers. His fingers are itching to touch her breasts but definitely not sure if that is cool right now.

Then they are sitting on the couch and he is touching her breasts because she has put his hands there. The back of his neck is prickling with sweat so hopefully she doesn't touch him on the back of the neck.

They are leaning on the couch, this ugly woven fake wool with flowers thing that has dark shadows on the armrests. She rubs his shoulders and his biceps, which admittedly are pretty pumped right now.

Then her hand is on his hip, and he's working her breasts well, squeezing them, and she's making noises, like little sighing noises, and then her fingers brush his junk, and a shock runs through him from his lower back to meet the tips of her fingers on the front of his pants, and now the inside of his baggies are wet, and Saul feels really cold.

“Uh, sorry, I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Cool..okay.”

Not exactly like she's cool with it at all, but the first thing is to get out of there and to somewhere else where he can check out the damage.

And he's in there with the fake flowers and the Renuzit and drops his pants and boxers and there it is, a wet spot all over the inside of his boxers, shining slick in the light.

Saul stares at his fuck-up. Figuring out what to do.

He uses toilet paper to scrape most of the fuck-up off the inside of the boxers and flushes the t.p. down the toilet. Nothing on the inside of his baggies.

So he pulls everything back up again, washes his hands, and goes out into the living room.

Katie's in the kitchen taking brownies out of a plastic container and putting them on a plate. Saul teases her, saying he didn't know that she was a baker, but in fact he definitely knows that her mom bakes brownies all the time, Katie brings them to school like she did last week on the last day of school.

Katie says: “Want a brownie?”

“Yeah.”

He takes the brownie. Her mom's brownies are good.

He eats it.

This is the best brownie ever.

Saul leans forward a bit, so his baggies hang right, that is: so the wet spot doesn't touch him as much.

Katie says: “You wanna watch the Yankees beat the Angels? My Dad just hooked us up.”

He looks into her eyes, the green flecked with gold and brown, looks for any sign that she's going to make fun of him. But she's just looking right back at him, steady, whatever that means.

“Yeah, I do, but I got to get home.”

“Okay.”

Saul scoops up his backpack, throws it over his shoulder.

Now he's standing at the door. She's eating a brownie and breathing its scent on his face. She puts the brownie down and gives him a bro-hug and then he tries to kiss her on the lips but kind of gets the side of her cheek. She hugs him for real and he finds his hands on her hips pulling her to him. Her breasts are on his chest, which is nice, but he can feel his wet spot and after a second he lets go.

“See you tomorrow?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “We're leaving for Greenport tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, right.”

“Text me.”

“Yeah.”

Then she closes the door.

He rattles down the stairs to the outside. He slips out and grabs his phone and sends a text to Esteban.

.wat up

.nothin bro you peg katie?

.sure. want to catch yankies

.you mak enny promizez?

.nup free man

.cool bro common over

Saul walks down the street toward the bus stop.

He passes Caitlin Estevez, Katie's best friend who looks almost exactly like her, walking the other way.

Caitlin smiles at him, and he feels hot and cold all over.

(C) 2011 Michael Bernstein