A Spy in the Ruins. Christopher Bernard

was the scald of the first betrayal the one that would not heal. But this comes later we are anticipating. We are always anticipating the disaster that must come. Yet never actually arrives.

      For what excited him in his boyhood was boys. It would be always the masculine that gave him the supreme thrill though the gonads shifted their interest. He identified with the boy the boy was both invader and invaded in his fantasies where he was roped to a stake at the far end of the bathroom facing a firing squad his little chest bared to the guns heaved out in defiance the muskets would shoot or the arrows fly he was a fan of Robin Hood and the Swamp Fox freelance hero of the revolution and he would collapse writhing in agony to the floor imagining the blank astonished faces of his heroes gazing down at him or away in a distant stare as he excitedly humped the bathroom mat. After taking his bath for the hot water relaxed and aroused him. In the far children’s wing of the house where he was alone with his solitary ecstasy the rest of the family upstairs watching TV. He was caught only once and warned but it was too late he was far too accustomed to his play. So much so he was deeply shocked to learn later that sex was something two people could do together. Which he never became entirely used to a partner always seeming an unnecessary intrusion into the fantasy.

      In the meantime. His first infatuation was for a reckless halfdelinquent who led the pack in the fifth grade a year ahead of him. Pale skin wild-eyed dark shutter of bang over his forehead a crazy happy look on his face a mischievous glitter following him a curiously feminine face retailing boy-man outrages he shouted through the playground raced leading his pack down the field had a bullying streak was often in trouble then shrugged it off and with an aimless laugh ran back into the air. He never knew his last name only Bobby. He spent most of recess in search of Bobby generally fruitless. For Bobby was a furtive brat only appearing then vanishing into the wilderness of the solitary one’s imagination. Any solitary one’s imagination. For he was an image of bravado only and at the end of a single year disappeared.

      Except in the solitary executions beside Robin and Fox of the bathroom.

      The cold sleek ravishing face with the withdrawn luminous eyes blurs after a dim pause into a cold and gorgeous girl with the ambiguous name of Geri. She sits behind you in the next row in English and history smiling vaguely and ignoring you as she ignores everyone except the fat ugly girl her best friend who serves her as a perfect foil. Her face is smiling or expressionless she never laughs nor scowls. This gives her an aura of almost frightening power. Perfectly dressed at all times. You suspect make-up but cannot prove it. You corkscrew in your chair at every opportunity trying to catch her eye when the teacher throws out a question. You show off your little bookish learning. Triumphantly tickle the class into laughter. Make smart remarks that prove your ignorance like a theorem. And in an entire year catch her eye perhaps twice. It must have been more often than that. It is laughing each time it skims over you. In barely acknowledged contempt.

      In no other eyes but your own do you exist was the lesson begun now and to be repeated ad nauseam until you mastered it. Of the nightmare that was beginning called love. It was serenely cold and even rather kind. At first. A gentle quizzing foreshadowing more brutal rites. No knowing of course that the student would prove so slow. So dense. So deservingly failed.

      The agonies of those years unbearable yet bearable and unfatal and silly. A form of torture without the dignity of killing you merely spitting you out into the world a spastic wreck shamed inadequate despised by the one inescapable authority yourself put through the paces of the genes stumbling rebelliously obedient despite yourself as you performed each night to the bored crowd in the sideshow hoosegow of

      Where you were convict prison guard clown

      In the absurd torture chamber you

      In the prison of circling shadows you

      Became

      Were

      Must be

      Wobbling like a calf in your head a ridiculous grandeur.

      No.

      No. Too soon to tell.

      Somewhere back there the fork and the turning.

      The building up then the tearing down.

      Somewhere in the principle of the building up the principle of the tearing down.

      The lump of gold of the melted crown mixed according to plan in the rubble.

      The ranks in to assembly a scum bouquet those tousled heads a rhubarb murmur clouds of arms mobs of legs row on row aimless spitballs targeted whistles insults weak as jokes but inadvertently crippling the simmer of hormones in ranks of laps thrumming knees in nervous leery paradiddles little male titters at the flumed bouffants of that never-so-innocent era monitors stalking the side aisles heads bobbing like marionettes elbows in the ribs dominoing down half a row the ever-lookout for objects of scorn what one learns about the psychology of a crowd one need look no further than an assembly of teenagers lashed into nervous order by the gazes of their defied and obeyed teachers.

      He sits cold and alone at the end of his row pretending to look over his notes not one of them never to be one of them proud scornful despising them in despair.

      How do they do it how do they live so easily in the heavy light how can they breathe what makes them so calm and cheerful as they butcher each other with blows of breath in preparation for the bloodbath of adulthood?

      Yet he too is at ease even cheerful in his scorn as he calmly condemns them from his niche high in the shadow of the nave. Knowing no better. Sometimes even suspecting he knows no better.

      But not here. Not yet. Not now.

      As the rhubarb climaxes to the sound of the bell.

      As the ridiculous prinicipal the principle of the ridiculous calls the principle of anarchy to order.

      Beyond the confines of the days’ routines the scheduling of classes the ranking of curriculum examination promotion the grid of grades and the false measure the click and shove of hour and term the petty rebellions and petty punishments the little triumphs and little defeats the looking forward to Christmas vacation in the fall the looking forward to summer vacation in the spring the hope for snow and the disillusion of Monday mornings the gradual light and darkness of a world beyond the terrors and boredom of this little bootcamp for the mind they gathered in a crowd against the classroom window it lolled its tongue at you like an idiot.

      It was all fantasy what you dreamed beyond the schoolyard fence. You built little towers without compensation piling sand on sand of exuberant hope romantic disaster. Yes! A catastrophe would be exciting. So you taught yourself a loathing of security. You despised safety though careful not to actually endanger your own. For the most part. How eloquently you soared heroic and unwary when completely alone in your room or at the edge of a field hidden in the shade. How nervous withdrawing stuttering in the presence of any other person at all. The distance between the mask and the face grew daily. Sailed toward opposite horizons between them a baffled sea and a radiant sun. But which is the mask which is the face? Am I what I think I am or what others think I am? And which others? Or am I neither but something else entirely? Then what am I? A confused and morbid preadolescent came the most convincing and unbearable answer. From which you ran. Toward your dream of the world.

      Which one day broke you. And scattered you like salt over the cuts on your hands.

      But not yet. Let’s stay a while longer cooped in the boring safety of school intrigues and routines. The games of dominance and submission the exercises in triumph and failure the comparisons the trade-offs the contests the betrayals the pricking sarcasms the pen-knife victories that would seem meaningless in the years to come. But I am anticipating as always an author’s prerogative. Because after all I survived or I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this for you. Am I sitting here writing this for you. Something wrong there but I can’t think what. Anyway I didn’t sink like a stone as he did. Almost did. Did I? Am I? In fact my hand extended toward him and my eyes watched him as he sank. Amazed and horrified and pleading and contemptuous. Loving and hating. Before coldly turning back toward safety. The little victory to come time and leisure and just enough money