We did too many things that day. Walked everywhere, saw this, saw that, ate everything. Both of us knew the whole time that if we kept good and busy, we could temporarily skirt the issue at hand. I think that's what we both wanted.
New York is good for that. It has everything to show you and never enough time in any day to do it all. We took a subway to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked along the Promenade, looking at the harbor. We were holding hands by then and both of us held on tight, but made as little eye contact as possible. We were acting like fourteen-year-old jerks, and since both of us were suddenly so shy with each other, it reminded me of how people must have courted back in _Friendly Persuasion_ times.
For the first time, I asked Danny about his family. His father was dead, but his mother and sister lived in North Carolina. This was surprising, because he spoke with no southern accent at all. When I mentioned this, he said he had lived in New Jersey until he was fifteen. Then his father – who was a furniture designer – was offered a job in North Carolina at one of those big furniture firms down there. The family moved to a small town named Hickory which was the home of the factory. Nine months later, Mr. James had a cerebral hemorrhage at work and that was that.
Mrs. James got a job teaching at a local private school and her income – along with her husband's lite insurance money – enabled the family to settle into a comfortable, sad way of life. Danny went to college on a basketball scholarship.
The boats in New York harbor shuffled and steamed and chuffed from side to side in the open water and in their dark berths. Boats that had been on the high seas for months, loaded down with enough bananas or Spanish shoes or Japanese watercolor sets to keep the city going forever. I looked on those boats and realized for the zillionth time that I had never been anywhere in the world outside of Chicago, New Brunswick, New Jersey and New York City. The only Greece I knew was _souvlaki_ and posters of the Parthenon in a tired Greek restaurant I liked on 46th Street. I had never owned a passport, never needed a visa. The only Europe I had ever known was through sleeping with a European. The only adventure I had ever had was an abortion.
«Danny, what's it like living over there?»
«Like? Well, you always find odd coins in your pockets. You'll be looking for a hundred lira and you'll find five francs in there instead. You think you're giving a guy five schillings for a newspaper and it turns out to be five drachma.»
«_Drachma_. Have you been to Greece too? God, I hate you. What's it like?»
«Athens is loud and messy. But the islands are exactly what you'd hoped for.»
«And London?»
«Dirty.»
«Vienna?»
«Very clean and very gray. Are we playing 'Twenty Questions'?»
We were sitting on a bench watching the day's traffic float by: those boats in the harbor, parents with baby strollers, old men moving slowly and complaining to the air.
«No, but Danny, what's it _like_? Is it all that different? Is the world really different over there?»
«Why? What's the matter, Cullen?»
«Oh, I don't know. I want things to change, Danny. You know? I want to look out of my window in the morning and see . . . and see orange streetcars!»
«Those are in Milan.» He smiled and took my hand in both of his.
«All right, see, they do exist! I want orange streetcars, or booksellers along the river selling books in Italian or Hungarian or some other language I can't understand. I want to sit in a cafй with marble tables and eat a real croissant. Oh Danny, I know I'm being a big brat, but I'd do anything to see those things. I really would!»
«Then why don't you go to Europe?»
«Because I'm a chicken, that's why! I don't want to be disappointed. And I never had anyone I wanted to go with, but basically because I'm a chicken.»
He licked his lips and then pressed them tightly together. Whatever he was about to say was going to be hard for him.
«Come and stay with me in Italy, Cullen. We'll do all the things you want, together. You keep saying you don't like your job or living in New York. So come to Milan for as long as you want and I'll treat you to as many rides as you want on orange streetcars.»
«Things sure happen fast sometimes, don't they?»
«Uh-huh. But you know, I'm totally serious about this. I want you to come, if _you_ want!»
I took hold of him and hugged him, right there on that park bench. Hugged him with all of the strength I had. Not because it was the end of the movie and we were about to live happily ever after. And not because it was his way of proposing to me and both of us knew it. Mostly it was because he had reaffirmed to me that there _were_ such things as orange streetcars in the world and some time soon, no matter what finally happened between us, we would be seeing those things together.
We didn't make love until the night before he left. We kissed a lot and touched and _slept_ together, but none of the big stuff until we only had a few hours left. That fact – notwithstanding the happiness and excitement (and speed!) of our new bond – scared us into the final, ultimate act of affirmation.
There's no reason to go into any detail about that night, but there were a few things he did that knocked me for a loop.
The first was that he didn't actually enter me for ages. For the longest time he seemed content just to touch and kiss and, true to his word, look at me. I wasn't used to the slowness of everything. Peter and my other horizontal acquaintances were always hurrying. Hurrying to get undressed, hurrying to get hot, hurrying to begin the «Main Event.» But beside the fact that hurrying often hurt me physically because I wasn't ready for them, I kept thinking that there ought to be some subtlety in it; subtlety and gentleness, and many minutes invested in an act that _could_ mean a very great deal if you really worked at it, rather than just bounced on it. Too often I had spent my time staring at designs on different ceilings while a hot little human locomotive pounded his way inside me toward . . . who knows where?
Danny was not the best lover I had ever had, but he was by far the most generous. He touched and stroked me until I was slick with sweat and hope. And when he finally did enter me, I had to urge him to do it. As he did, he asked me two or three times if he was hurting me. The expression on his face said he was very concerned about that. I touched his cheek and said it felt great.
He put his head next to mine and whispered in my ear, «'It' doesn't feel great. _You_ feel great!»
When he came, he arched his back like a driver going off a high board. But he was looking right at me and I don't think he took his eyes off me the whole time. As he moved very hard up and through me he said, he hissed with a smile on his face a mile wide, «It's a _song_, Cullen!»
The next morning he was leaning up on one elbow and smiling at me when I opened my eyes. I smiled back and reached out my arms for him. He came over and I took hold of him and rocked him back and forth. He was twice as big as me, but right then he felt weightless; as if I could hold all of him in one hand.
«How do you feel, Cul?»
«Terrific. I'm only sad that you're going.»
«And last night?»
«Sleeping together? It was lovely.»
«You're sure?»
«Absolutely.»
We lazed around for a while and then he got up. «Stay where you are. I have a surprise.»
A half hour later he came in with a tray full of fresh croissants, fruit, hard-boiled eggs, and coffee in two ceramic mugs I had never seen before. One was red, the other green. Best of all, there was an old book of Italian fairy tales – in Italian.
«See, you don't even have to go to Europe to get the croissants and books in Italian! The mugs are a going-away present. You get the green and I get the red. If you let anyone else drink from my mug, I'll poke you in the nose!» His voice was playful, but the expression on his face was the first and last hint he ever gave that said he fully expected me to remain faithful to him. Not faithful so much in body, although that was part of it, but faithful more to the idea of what had been growing between us since he had arrived.