A Reputation

"Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood." (James Joyce, "Araby")

I was beginning to lose myself. Things were changing. I was still a kid, but I felt that much. The boys I knew now were smoking cigarettes, and I did, too. Not often, of course, but when I was with them. It seemed as if most of them didn't have parents. Maybe a single mom who worked all the time, but they were able to do what they wanted to do without supervision. It was dangerous.

I was not like them. I would never do what most of what they did. I was sweet, not mean. Still, things seep in. As my aunt told me around this time, "If you play with shit long enough, you will start to smell like it.

"Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires." (James Joyce, "Araby")

Carol and I were at a basketball game. We sat in the bleachers on the far side of the gym. Everyone could see us. I held her hand. She leaned against me. There was nothing. There was no basketball game, only us, there, together. My nose rubbed against her neck. A whisper, the hint of a kiss. My hand went up the back of her sweater. No one could see. Slowly. My fingers felt the edge of her bra, slipped under. Spinning, hot, upward, burning.

The next day at school, she was called into the girl's gym teacher's office. There was a conference. That night, Carol called. She could not see me any more. She cried. I could say nothing. It was over. We had what was then called "a reputation."

"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger." (James Joyce, "Araby")