The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens

by John Rechy

  “Was it strange of me, Lyle, not to follow you, yesterday—or the day before—isn’t time strange?—was it strange that I didn’t follow you when you clearly wanted me to and I had defended your life with my sacred body against those bullies? Was it, was it?”

  “Yes,” Lyle knew he should agree.

  “You want to know why I didn’t follow you?”

  “Because you’re strange?” Lyle asked.

  “Yes!”

  He studied her, to locate their mutual strangeness. He didn’t feel strange.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Maria pretended Lyle had asked her what she had wanted him to ask. “Why do you think I’m strange? Because of how I look—?” She waited for him to remark.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said.

  “I know. That’s strange, isn’t it? Because not everybody is beautiful—or handsome, like you. I think about that a lot, you know, it’s so mysterious, isn’t it?” As if overwhelmed by the mystery of things, she paused to look up, up. A bird sliced across the windy blue sky. “Oh, my God,” she trilled. “A bird, at this exact moment! Imagine!—at this very moment a bird flew across the sky!”

  “Wow!” Lyle said, although he had no idea what was strange about a bird in the sky.

  They walked toward the unfinished wall where he often sat in the abandoned lot.

  There, they faced each other, his guitar slung over his shoulder.

  “Your body—” He couldn’t find words. He outlined her form, without touching her, the curves, his hands drawing the shape of her hips, as if he was caressing them without touching her, though in his imagination he was, touching her warm flesh, his hands resting on her breasts, his mouth kissing—

  “And yours—” she said. She couldn’t find words. He was so handsome, so sexy, so different from anyone else, so marvelously strange, so wonderfully strange, like her! She raised her hands, to outline the length of him, while he continued to shape her with motions. When they both lowered their hands, slowly, Maria laughed, shy and bold at the same time.

  Lyle imagined they had made love, although they hadn’t touched, not yet—just shaped each other’s bodies, desiring, imagining—

  “Goddamn!” Lyle said in appreciation.

  “Goddamn!” she echoed him.

  They sat together, among the now-aging pieces of the uncompleted building. Tiny buds of flowers sprinkled the patches of brave grass. He bent over and kissed her, a long, eagerly accepted kiss.

  “Will you sing to me?”

  He strummed a few chords, a few more, making up a song for her, just for Maria the Strange One.

  If you looked any more beautiful than you do

  —and were even stranger, then … then—

  “Dammit!” He plucked a dissonant note, to accentuate his frustration at not finding the exact word.

  “That was beautiful,” Maria said, leaning her head against his.

  He held her face, and kissed her again, eagerly, and she responded just as eagerly.

  “This is so romantic,” she said. “Will you sing me the Amazing song?”

  Sylvia’s song? How did she know about that? He messed up his hair, as if that would help him decide what to do. He was crazy about this beautiful girl, God knew. But that song—

  “Will you?”

  “How did you know about it?”

  “Clarita—you know?—isn’t she marvelously strange?—I run into her now and then and she told me you were asking her about that song that your mother loves so much. She said she thought you were practicing it in secret.”

  He wasn’t. That song belonged to Sylvia.

  Maria leaned back, closed her eyes. “Sing it for me, Lyle, make it special for me.”

  Goddamn she was beautiful, so beautiful he had to gasp. His desire pushed against his pants, and he rubbed his legs to welcome it. Goddamn where had he gotten all this horniness? Not that he minded. … Oh, that flesh of hers!—light brown—and her breasts!—not large but round and full and perfect, and he longed to lean over and—

  “The special song, please, Lyle.” Her eyes remained closed.

  Lyle sat upright. He fumbled with the guitar.

  “Don’t you love me?”

  “I do, I do. But—”

  “Lyle?”

  Maria stood up. “You won’t sing the special song for me?”

  Lyle shook his head, No.

  Maria got up, ran from him, pausing, with a smothered but loud cry, to throw up her hands toward heaven to indicate her despair at having her loving request turned down. She waited, sobbing loudly, before disappearing.

  8

  A definition of where love is and isn’t, according to Rose. A lesson well taught, well learned.

  It’s entirely possible—quite probable, perhaps certain—that Lyle inherited Lyle the First’s lustiness, without having known the cowboy, or anything about him. Perhaps a gene—a sex gene, or many—flowed, or overflowed, from one to the other within Sylvia. How else to account for the fact that Lyle detected the possibility of sex almost as if it were a vapor he breathed, like the time Miss Stowe had, perhaps without even knowing it herself, invited him to kiss her. He longed to lose his virginity, longed to lose it several times, if possible—and that was possible only in his fantasies. In his daydreams, he lost it with Maria, who gave him hers.

  He was ready, for sure, when, walking to work, he saw a woman he had seen before about town—and, sometimes, thrillingly, sitting on her porch—an older woman who was goddamned sexy. There she was now, standing in front of her porch, one hand on her hip, which was ample enough, and a blouse that exhibited her breasts, which were more than ample.

  “Hey, cowboy!” she called.

  He tilted his hat at her. “Hey yourself, ma’am. Oh, and, uh, I’m not a cowboy, I’ve never even been on a horse—“

  Rose didn’t hear his protestation. Her heart had sunk when he called her ma’am! But only for a second because when duty calls, there are always obstacles, and she knew that. “Come over here, I wanna ask you something,” she said.

  He welcomed this opportunity to come closer to her. He inhaled deeply because he could smell the rose in her hair, and it added to the sensuality of the moment.

  It was there, all right, desire, Rose knew. In fact! She glanced down between his legs. In fact! “Got time for a cup of coffee?” What a dreadful line. But what else?

  Lyle looked toward his destination, the stationery warehouse. He went there early because in the shift before him there was an old man who often had a backache. Lyle would know when it was bothering him by the way he planted his hand on his back. He would then relieve him early. Now he told himself that yesterday the man had seemed all right, and so there wasn’t any reason to think that his back problem had flared up overnight. So—

  “What about it, cowboy?” Why was he hesitating? Rose’s smile held, despite a tinge of apprehension. Had she lost this opportunity to help the young girl he was courting?—an opportunity which, of course, would help him, too, making him worthy of her prized virginity. “Well, cowboy?”

  “Ma’am, I’m not a cowboy, I’ve never been on a horse. Yes, I could do with a cup of coffee.” He didn’t like coffee, and he didn’t like liquor because he associated it with sadness, Sylvia’s sadness.

  “Come on in.” She gave a nod of her head that displayed her luxuriant hair. Her duty was progressing.

  No coffee, no. Just water. He didn’t ask for his favorite, iced tea with a wedge of lime, because that might take time to make, and he just knew that time should not be squandered now, not with the urgent itch he was feeling.

  “You a virgin?”

  “Uh …”

  “Oh, come on, nothing wrong with that. Everyone is at one time or another. I was. Are you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He hoped he hadn’t blushed; he did feel a certain warmth on his face, or was he confusing the source of the warmth? This woman, so near him, was—Wow!

  “Wanna stay like that?”

  “
No, ma’am, but there’s a girl, Maria—”

  “Very pretty, too. I’ve seen her. She deserves you.”

  “Thank you.” Maybe she did deserve him, but she was still sulking after the incident in the vacant lot.

  “Deserves you to be experienced, not clumsy, not awkward.”

  He understood what she was suggesting; she had emphasized it with a smart heft of her breasts. Still, he felt he had to say, “You mean—?”

  “I do for a fact, cowboy. Women’s virginity—girls’ virginity—that’s special, they give it over only once, whereas men—“She shook her head, the rose remained within the cascade of waves.

  He wondered how he could lose his virginity more than once. However that could be, it seemed promising.

  “When men take a girl’s precious virginity, that should be a special time for her, and if it’s clumsy, it turns all wrong.” She spoke from memory, and for a moment her voice quivered. Then it was husky again. “How can that be avoided?”

  “I guess—”

  She wasn’t going to risk a wrong answer. “With experience, that’s how. You don’t wanna hurt that pretty girl, do you?”

  “Hurt Maria? Never!”

  “Then you owe it to her to lose your own before you take hers.”

  Lyle kept sniffing at the rose perfume on her; it seemed to come from between her breasts, wafting the air every time she breathed. He shook his head. “I’d feel … unfaithful.” He was disappointed to have to say that, disappointed to feel it.

  “Unfaithful!” Rose stood before him. “Unfaithful isn’t here—” She placed a hand almost on his groin, held it away, pointed with a finger. “That’s not where infidelity is. Unfaithful is here—” She touched her heart. “That’s the only place where infidelity occurs, and that’s the only place where love endures.” It was true, she knew it. Many men had made love to her; she had loved only one. “So, cowboy?”

  He nodded. What she had said made sense. In his fantasies, he sometimes did something wrong during a sex encounter, wondered where his legs would be in relation to hers when … The position would shift in his mind, and, sometimes, limbs would tangle. Too, there was this important consideration. His cock was about to bust right out of his pants, that’s how horny he was feeling. He straightened out his legs, to conceal from her what was happening—he felt suddenly shy—but that only increased the fact of the situation.

  Her hand fluttered down to touch him there. “Oh, Lord,” she said. “Oh, yes, Lord,” she said.

  So Rose taught Lyle how to make love to a virgin, patiently, carefully, lovingly—and passionately, sighing through it all.

  When the lesson—several lessons—were over, Lyle dressed, feeling exhilarated while Rose lay in bed with a robe on, the rose still miraculously in her hair, although slightly askew—there had been a lot of motion, a lot.

  Lyle knew that he would be rehearsing, in his mind, all that he had learned, all this wonderful woman had taught him. He felt terrific, ready for Maria, to do justice to her now, to her virginity. He kissed Rose, the way she had taught him. Was what he felt now love? If love made you feel this great, yes! “Thank you, Rose,” he said. “Thank you a lot.”

  “Goodbye, cowboy,” Rose said, feeling sad because her duty was over.

  9

  Can King David’s serenade withstand the passage of time?

  Sylvia shook herself awake. What was that singing? It was hardly dawn. She stumbled to the window.

  From her own room, Clarita looked out. How beautiful, how beautiful—on Sylvia’s birthday!

  Lyle was outside, under Sylvia’s window, with his guitar, singing:

  Estás son las mañanitas, que cantava el rey David—

  A las muchachas bonitas se las cantava el así—

  Lyle was serenading her! Sylvia leaned out of her window, arranging her hair to look her prettiest for—

  When had she rushed away from the window? Yesterday? Today? The day before? What was that sound in her throat? What was this moisture on her face? Who sobbed so hideously? When had she reached for another sleeping pill to swallow with the bottle she kept next to her? Oh, but everything was fine now. She felt the world before her grow light. Then the lightness became an increasing heaviness that seemed to be pulling her down, down into a pit of darkness. Was she asleep? The darkness pulled lower, darker.

  “Sylvia! Sylvia!”

  Lyle was trying to rouse her, calling her name, and Clarita was slapping at her wrists, as if to waken her. Where was she? On the floor, yes. But why?

  She had stumbled, Lyle had run to her, Clarita had joined him.

  Sylvia opened her eyes, looked at Lyle. Her vision blurred, and then memory settled it.

  “You came back, you son of a bitch,” she slurred.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1

  The mystery of a grain of sand. A painful confession.

  A grain of sand, raised by a whip of sudden Texas wind, made its way into Lyle’s eye as he sat alone in his lot, considering life’s mysteries. He blinked several times, the grain smarting. That grain of sand had probably roamed the world—perhaps the universe—for centuries, maybe once aroused by a caveman chasing or being chased by a saber-toothed tiger, and it had floated on, and been stirred up by a flood that swept it over the land and spilled into the ocean, tossing it with a million others onto a beach, where feet had trampled on it—bare feet—and it had clung, and the feet, now wearing shoes—or boots—had trudged on across continents, maybe onto a boat—or a horse—and then it was shed among other grains of dust and someone sneezed and roused it, sneezed again, and sent it on its way—Lyle shortened the journey—into his eye! Damn!

  Amazed, he went on to ponder the intricacies of a tiny purple flower sprouting on … a weed!—a sputter of beauty, within which a golden stem popped out, growing there, unseen by anyone if he hadn’t come along and sat at this exact place today.

  If only life could be that clear! What a mistake he’d made on Sylvia’s birthday, to serenade her, to try to lift her deepening moods. That had only stirred her anger in a way that added to his bafflement about her, especially since, after that, she alternately dismissed it (“I was just overwhelmed, that’s all,” she dismissed), or pretended not to remember the incident at all (“except that you sang so sweetly”); had her memory been so blurred by that day’s liquor and pills that she actually forgot most of it? But if—

  Then Raul was there, in the lot—he had walked back and forth before deciding to approach Lyle in the lot. “Hello, Lyle,” he said, without facing him.

  “Hi, Raul.” He was glad his thoughts about Sylvia were interrupted.

  “You know my name?” Raul was delirious.

  “Yeah, sure,” Lyle said—he liked to remember people’s names. The kid—cute kid—was shy now, although he had been aggressive during the fight.

  “I wanna thank you for punching out that bully the other day. He and his friends used to call me shitty names all the time, and shove me around, and that’s stopped. … If they’da done that to you, what would you’ve done?” he asked gravely.

  “I guess,” Lyle pondered it, “I’d’ve told them to stop it.”

  “Stop it? Man, they’re bullies. You wouldn’t kick ass?”

  “If they didn’t stop it,” Lyle extended, “then I think, yeah, I’d kick ass. If they hadn’t stopped messing with you, I’d do the same, if you didn’t.”

  Raul beamed. “Lyle, you’re really strange.”

  Oh, no, not from him, too!

  “What I mean is that with your looks—you are really good-looking, you know?—with your looks, shit, you could be the biggest bully in the City.”

  “Wouldn’t want to be,” Lyle said.

  “What makes you strange is that you look one way and act another, like you feel for other people, like with that kid you give sandwiches to. I guess you got a lot of empathy, huh?”

  Clarita’s word must be spreading; she’d probably been using it a lot around town. He supposed t
hat was what he felt; it pleased him that Clarita would approve—and you sure might consider this kid “down-trotten,” with those bullies doing bad stuff on him. Lyle had a feeling about this kid, that he was stronger than he thought he was.

  “Uh—” Raul was clearly uncomfortable. “You mind if I ask you a real personal question?”

  Weird, Lyle thought. How did he know whether he’d mind before he heard the question? He answered, “No,” to find out.

  “Are you a bastard?”

  “Yes,” Lyle answered. “My goddamned son-of-a-bitch father just disappeared. Did yours?”

  “I’m a bastard twice. I don’t have a father and I don’t have a mother and they’re not dead. I have an aunt, who can’t stand me.”

  That was really sad, Lyle thought, no mother, no father, a mean aunt. At least, he had a mother, who loved him, never mind that she didn’t want him to call her that.

  Raul sat down when Lyle moved over to make room for him on the weathered step he was sitting on.

  Raul gasped, “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Oh, sure. We got a lot in common.”

  Raul was very serious. “You know what those guys called us—I mean, me—I mean, you know, Lyle?”

  Lyle had forgotten the name they had called him and Raul. Bastards? But he didn’t want to reduce the gravity of what the kid was preparing to say, and he was clearly trying to string difficult words together, not succeeding. He seemed about to speak, instead wiped his lips, finally expelled more words:

  “It’s true, about me. I’m—” He paused, shook his head.

  “You’re what?” Lyle encouraged. He suspected what the kid was about to say, and he wanted to make it easy for him.

  “I think … Well, I know … Yeah, I’m gay.”

  Lyle looked at the kid’s pained look, half expectation, half apprehension. He wondered what to say. “Yeah?”