A Noble Works The Corner

[AMERICONORMAN]

Copyright 2005. Jose Gainza. All Rights Reserved.

A NOBLE WORKS THE CORNER—By Jose Gainza

How did we meet, you ask, Doctor? I was writing at my window watching the city go by at the intersection where my second floor apartment sits. I was writing my novel, when suddenly at the southwest corner he walked into my life. He stood there all black haired and blue-eyed like one of those angels that they tell you about when you’re a kid. The bright sun even gave him a halo. He had this light yellow shirt on, wide open at the collar, and he had these topaz blue jeans on that hugged his long legs with not too much tyranny. He leaned his back on the red bricked wall at a slant, the top portion of his back serving as the primary support, and the length of his body serving as the hypotenuse of a triangle—standing there all provocative. Surely I wanted a handshake on that Monday.

The previous Saturday was a wild night with drinks and dancing to celebrate the great literary work of the ending week. But Sunday I was paying with a headache and a sore back, so I spent the day laying back, watching movies and eating fruit. I promised myself that Monday I would surely wake up at a good hour and get back to working on my novel.

By noon I was well into The Looking Glass by Simon Sevilla, my novel. It’s a story about falling in love. A passionate artisan of glass and mirrors has never been in love, never found his perfect reflection. But he never adopted the false conviction that thus love must be a toy of distortion. He had met noble women but all failed to grasp, to his satisfaction, his passion for glass. And thus all of them were poor reflections. One day I have him meet an interior designer who genuinely loves and actively uses his work. He immediately falls in love but in an unrequited fashion. It is only by the gradual accumulation of his creations that her love for him begins to grow …

I spent the morning actively drawing the artisan’s romantic past and bringing him to the first meeting with his beloved, when Jacob Herzer walked into my life, standing all provocative in the sunlight. I immediately had a feeling of jealousy because of the possibility of him waiting for someone else. And even if he wasn’t waiting for a lover, that acquaintance would be down on the sidewalk being seen by his eyes and I would be up in my room with only my pen as company.

So I sat there and watched him, watching his every movement. One of his hands moved a lock of his bangs from his face, the sole of a foot backed on to the wall, a breeze made his shirt shiver, the pressing of his lips for lubrication, the sudden increase of his breath by a heaving chest—all delighted me with little shocks.

And then a female beauty walked by him, almost missing him because of the wall where he was leaning on. He called out to her and she returned to him with a smile. They kissed each other on the cheek and walked east in an engaging discussion. I couldn’t write for the whole half hour that I waited. Then they both returned. She put a money bill in his shirt pocket and hugged him with great enthusiasm, and went her way. He made a note in a small red book.

He looked at his watch and then leaned back on the red wall, casually. This time it wasn’t a brown haired dame with tight jeans and black blouse, and juicy red lipstick—but a magnificent blonde with short shorts and a blue spandex shirt that accentuated her feminine provocations, who met Jacob at 1237 hours. She pinched him on his chest all lovingly, and they walked east engaged in some mysterious discussion. Jacob returned alone at 1340 hours. Two beautiful people can do much in an hour on a hot summer afternoon.

My second floor apartment was located at exactly the northeast corner of Dundas and Dufferin Streets. Jacob’s spot was by the telephones on the southwest corner. As he was leaning on a wall and facing east, he could not see the woman with the two cones walking from the west, with that runway model gait. She licked one of those vanilla ice creams with paradise licks, licks that could make a man reach for an apple. By the nature of that lick I knew this vixen would be meeting my Jacob with her red hair and those creamy lips.

The tall office towers of Toronto in the east are quite impressive and majestic from this corner and Jacob must have been taken by this sight, for the woman waited a moment with her hands behind her back before Jacob noticed her. There was no kiss, no pinch but there was the swing of a silky female arm and the presentation of an ice cream cone. Jacob bestowed her with a wide smile. They walked east licking their ice cream cones. I shot right up from my chair and paced my room for an hour. Then I sat down and waited a half hour before he came back with the woman.

Her energy looked drained and he seemed exhilarated. She wrote him a check and walked west again. He made a note in his notebook and looked at his watch, then crossed the street to the northwest corner and into a pizza shop. I could see right into the place from one of my windows. Pepperoni by pepperoni I saw that pizza disappear into his body. I grew hungry myself. If the eighteenth century sculptor, Houdon, could see that jaw exercise as it bit away, he would have been driven to sculpt that bust himself. Jacob chugged down his vanilla coke, disposed of his trash, and walked back to his wall.

This time it was another beautiful blonde but in a red Ferrari that took Jacob from my vision. She drove him north. I couldn’t write. I turned on the television and watched a talk show hosted by a middle-aged, lanky, tomboy-dressed female comedian. I chuckled a few times. I heard the engine roar and I jumped to the window. I saw the woman go into her purse, pull out a few bills and give them to Jacob. I thought of what a woman could do from the driver’s seat of a red Ferrari to a beautiful god of a man for a whole half hour. My heart didn’t like my question.

I saw Jacob get out of the car and walk east alone. Why didn’t I follow? Because by this time, the fourth beautiful woman in one afternoon, I was convinced that I could not have him like I felt, and I told myself that ethically I should not want him. I waited a few hours but he never came back. I wanted tomorrow afternoon to come that same moment. I asked myself how I could induce sleep. I remembered a bottle of brandy in a kitchen cupboard. I needed no glass. My anxiety made the swigs quite sweet. I watched television with my companion Napoleon. A few hours later, when I noticed that I was watching re-runs of Oprah, I decided that I was sleepy.

I woke up the next morning at eleven o’clock to the sound of my alarm—though I didn’t remember when I set it—ready for a big breakfast and Tylenol.

I thought I had no chance with the slut but my hope returned when I saw him walking with a younger but certainly eighteen year old boy who looked up at Jacob all adoringly. The boy was one of those pretty black-haired Portuguese males with baggy jeans and t-shirt as long as a skirt. They went into the coffee shop on the southeast corner into which I could see even better than the pizza shop from another of my windows. Jacob did most of the talking while the boy nodded mostly. Then they got up and walked east. In twenty minutes they returned. The boy offered him money but Jacob refused it and petted the boy on the head. They then separated and went their respective ways. I sat there thinking about what pleasure a guy who sees four women in one afternoon could receive from a stallion of a man in the prime of his youth fed by a Portuguese mother. I considered also that coffee has aphrodisiacal powers. It is good that Jacob had already walked away in that moment for I would have hollered obscenities at him, in the midst of the hearing of my neighbours.

So I had to think about the issue. I remembered in that moment that I was a virgin of twenty-six. And I kept my purity waiting for the right guy, my own mirror. I had from my earliest teenage years thought of the beauty of the gesture that would touch my beloved so when he found out that I was all for his original taking. And I reproached myself for feeling such lust for Don Juan. But then I thought that there must be a perfectly good explanation for every single encounter of Jacob with a beautiful creature. What that explanation was, I had no clue but I was longingly certain that there was a perfectly good one.

I picked up Plato’s Republic hoping that his prudery would extinguish my hunger for Jacob. It worked. I read a few O. Henry stories then decided I would easily wait until tomorrow to try to find the solution to my mystery.

He never came on the Wednesday. After hours of waiting I reckoned that he must be exhausted. A Monday occupied with the juggling of four beautiful women would surely tire even the strongest of men—not to mention topping it off with the cherry of twenty minutes on a Tuesday with a young stallion.

After damning Jacob for a while, I resolved to go back to my novel for comfort. I was fortunate that I’m in love with writing and it is usually not hard to get back into the groove. I became occupied with a new plot twist. The glass artisan has a work on display in his shop that is not for sale. His beloved is in love with it but he refuses to sell it to her. This particular work is a symbol of an error in his past moral thinking. He actually plans on smashing it to pieces is some ceremony celebrating the purification of his moral character. The beloved is horrified at the possibility and threatens to end the love affair if he dares destroy his work …

At noon on Thursday I was at my window again. Jacob was not yet at the red wall but the man there was just as heavenly. I almost forgot about Jacob until he came strutting from the west all gallant and precious. There was something his spirit wore that that blonde California beach boy at the red wall did not have. The latter still had anger on his face, as if he needed to settle a vendetta or something, whereas Jacob seemed that he had already found the express train to bliss. And this was Jacob’s mystique: I had never until then seen someone in his line of business, walk the streets with such glee.

The surfer dude hugged him with passion. I was thrilled to watch Jacob push him away, speak as if in reproach, and as if in warning. I saw the violator speak as if apologizing and I saw Jacob seem to accept. They walked east talking with excitement and jovial. Two hours later when they returned, I saw the blonde beauty give Jacob a thick gold chain. And then an action occurred that stabbed my chest: Jacob hugged the blonde beauty and gave him a kiss on the cheek. When alone he made a note in his book.

By the end of that Thursday I was convinced that Jacob had the masculine prowess of a marathon runner. He took appointments every half hour, one young energetic male after another. There was a brunette with short hair who had provocative legs. There was a blonde with long hair, who wore army pants and a white baggy mesh tank top, and one of the nicest tans I had ever seen. There was a tall lovely black guy lightly shaded, with scattered European features on his face and bright eyes. There was the black-haired Portuguese with that naked chest and soccer shorts. And there was that skinned head boy from some suburbia with Anglo-Saxon genes.

For a man of his profession I was surprised that Jacob was fortunate enough to trade exclusively with beautiful people. Like usual, he was paid and the customers seemed satisfied. He made a note in his book. What was a consolation for having a thing for this type of man, was that he at least had lovely aesthetic standards—this was still a way of remaining principled, I thought; I didn’t have to feel guilty and bad.

And then I saw the beast. He was tall, obese, hairy, wearing a moustache, wearing a fluffy green jogging suit. In that moment I had to judge Jacob as devoid of adequate moral status. Jacob and the bear went for the walk. I had an urge to confront Jacob, to guide him to better ways perhaps, the urge to do so as soon as he came back to the corner. But he never came back. And I went to bed with the puzzle of what kind of sick fetish could possess my workingman.

I will be honest and admit that I woke up with a hunger for Jacob. I was dreading his arrival at the corner for I feared I could not resist being a patron of his services. I knew how easy it was to have him. I had enough in my bank account to have him for a whole week, I reckoned—but my reason knew of better morals. I convinced myself that I would talk to him. I would show him a better life. I would be a friend, a brother, I would teach him of self-respect.

It was 1400 hours when I approached him that Friday while he was eating at the pizza shop. Jacob spoke first to my delight for it was thus evident that he was quite aware of my existence, tickling me with the following words:

“It’s you!” And looking at me with eyes of tenderness. Though shocked, I continued with my script,

“Hello beautiful,” and we both smiled. So I continued:

“ … I’ve wondered all this week what great services you provide to Torontonians from this corner that seems to please your customers so? … I would like to try a sample—what would you recommend?”

“I recommend us going for a walk this instant,” did he boost a shot of anandemine to my brain like twenty minutes at six miles an hour on a treadmill could do.

We walked east with the towers in the distance, the mahogany Scotia bank, and the white bank of Montreal, strong in the distance. At Gladstone Avenue, which is the first street east of Dufferin, we walked south and came soon to a bench on the property of an elementary school. On our walk there, he inquired into my work and intellectual interests.

When we sat down I then asked, “isn’t this spot too public for what I need from you?”

“I get this a lot … no, no one can hear us here … and if they do, who cares …”

“So what exactly do you service,” I asked.

“I service minds.”

“What mind servicing do you recommend?”

“From what you’ve told me already, you would most benefit from a discussion on Aristotle’s principle of

Temperance though I would most enjoy discussing the dramatic appreciation of Schiller’s Don Carlos—with an emphasis on the admirable characteristics of the Marquis of Posa.” I was intellectually excited but sexually confused. So I asked a probing question,

“How would you name your job title for the services I am currently seeking from you?”

“ In two words, I am an ‘Intellectual Companion’. I discuss a wide array of philosophical and literary topics and people pay me for my time and effort.”

At the completion of that line, I laughed. I rolled off the bench, lay with back on the concrete, and let my spirit roar. Minutes later I faced Jacob at the cession of that spectacle. He was smiling so I supposed he enjoyed the sight.

“I thought I was being vicious in asking for your services … I’m glad I’m not—but it is still hard to believe—I have a few questions.”

“What are you a religious mystic of some kind?”

“God no! Will you answer my questions?”

“Who was that Monday radiating brunette who kissed you in greeting and hugged you so fiercely on departing?”

“Brunette … Ah, Carlotta … she wanted to discuss the moral conflict of Cyrano De Bergerac in

Rostand’s play.”

I pursued my inquiry,

“And that same day—the short wearing blonde at 1237 hours who pinched you with such familiarity?”

“She wanted to discuss Brand’s commitment to the idea of ‘all or nothing’ in Ibsen’s play Brand.”

I wanted to know more about this subject but I resolved to continue with my original line of inquiry,

“And the sweetheart with that talented tongue and the ice cream cones?” Jacob smiled with a little pink on his cheeks and answered my question.

“Her father didn’t approve of her boyfriend because he was not Jewish … I discussed the priority of personal happiness in the realm of love … I filled her with hope.”

“So you never sleep with you clients?”

His eyes squinted at me in reproach. And then he pinched my cheek. But my probing kept going.

“And the Ferrari driving girl with the face of a passionate horse rider?”

“Her father wants her to take over the family tool and dye corporation while he runs for Ontario Premier but she really wants to be a poet, plus she’s secretly a lesbian … So I discussed the antagonistic natures of the honest businessman and the politician, the importance of finding a career one is passionate for and the need to fight for it. I also recommended that she read Victor Hugo’s Hernani.”

“Okay … so the pretty young stallion on Tuesday that you didn’t even charge?”

“I was introducing him to the world of philosophy … he overheard me one day at a coffee shop and had the courage to ask for help … wonderful kid.”

“And all those young studs you saw on Thursday!”

“Stop it!” He commanded. “I’ve never had sex with any of my clients … and that I’ve been answering you questions, should tell you something.”

I blushed, felt that tremor of embarrassment inside me and waited for him to go on.

“When was the first time you saw me?” He asked.

“Monday.”

“I saw you on the previous Friday. You bought a Vanilla coke at the northeast corner and then got on the street care heading east. I asked the storeowner if he ever saw you before. He told me you’re a regular. I could meet my clients anywhere in this city—I chose that corner for a specific reason.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to meet you … Perhaps we should discuss the idea of love at first sight.”

“But I still have one question … who was the guy with the gold chain?”

“Now he wants to sleep with me! But he has an annoying dark side. I’m helping him with his doctorate thesis on the synthesis of the epistemologies of Aristotle and Alicia O’Connor. We’ve discovered many wonderful things together … isn’t the chain beautiful?” And he raised it from his throat with his thumb.

“Yes, it is.” I stood up as he leaned to recline on the bench, his legs shot forward. It was my opportunity to look at him with pride and naked admiration, to note the details of his form.

Overall Jacob has a large head and face that integrates pleasingly into a long and narrow face. His nose is straight except for a small knob at the end that lifts to the heavens. In relation to the rest of his face, his forehead is not disproportioned, so one could say that it is short though long. He has thin, long eyebrows. In relation to the unity, his cheeks are flat except when he grins (as you can see), and then they are small high bulbs. And he has a beauty mark on his left cheek. His cheeks are also high because of his long chin. His lips are thin; beautiful when narrow and serious; awesome when long and smiling. His chin extends, when in profile, just slightly past his forehead but much farther than his lips, that exaggerate when they grin. His mouth is set more narrow than his cheeks ending in an even more narrow and thin chin that seem to desire to point, like his nose, towards the sun. His ears are small, seeming to be lying on their back, with lobes at level with his nose. The borders of his eyelids are remarkably thin, thus exhibiting an attractive delicacy about them.

Hours later, when we lay in bed, after activities that made my bed sheets wet, as we lay side by side, like two bricks on the wall, looking at my ceiling, he told me about the danger that faced him:

“I am going to trial next month for tax evasion,” I didn’t have to say the word ‘why’, “ … I’ve made a decent amount of money tutoring people (among other moral but still black market deals … they have seized my past account books.”

“How would a peaceful intellectual like you be even noticed on the government’s radar?”

“My first boyfriend is a prosecutor for Revenue Canada. His willingness to be a tax police, his unwillingness to even consider the absolute evil of taxes, his defense of the welfare state—all combined and contributed to me leaving him … He declared me evil and he vowed to destroy me … this trial seems to be the culmination of his master plan … I suppose he understands how great my mind is and that I will eventually be a man of some influence … yes, he knew I tutored people for money even in high school … it’s odd—he used to seem jealous at me getting away with not paying taxes for the wages I made from private teaching.”

“But you’re still out there teaching for money, in the wide open, even though you can go to jail for it.”

“Yes, and they probably even have private investigators taking pictures—and so it is evident that they have their case won already—and old Ricky (the prosecutor) is fantasizing about my time in jail taking orders … the irony is that even in jail I’ll teach and I’ll even charge my barter price.”

“That’s courageous.”

“I don’t want to win by hiding an activity that is absolutely moral and so life giving. I will speak of the rights of man at my trial. Every human has a right to think because he has a right to live—it is the same process. Look at the action that they forbid: planting the seeds of friendship with intellectual conversation but receiving dollar bills for that. Money is money and I am acting just as viciously if you give me three pineapples for the specific payment of some intellectual value to you. I am being punished for taking advantage of the laws of economics, supply and demand, following the profit motive that thinking about certain topics because people want to hear my thoughts, will fuel more thinking in those marketable topics. Thinking is not an end in itself. It is just a coincidence that my thoughts are my trade product but everyone has a right to think—except when thinking profits on the market. The prosecution is effectively forbidding my thought. Just imagine if Ricky knew that I stock up on alcohol before statutory holidays and sell it on those days to the frustrated when the government stores are force closed.”

After giggling, I asked, “You admit that to me—You trust me that much?”

“Of course! Look how much you trust me—You were a virgin this morning and now you’re not all because of me.”

And this is why we come to you, Doctor Pathway. We have both realized that we want to spend our lives together and that his battle is my battle. Before he goes to trial next week, I want you to conduct and sanction our commitment ceremony.

“But I’m just a philosophy professor. I have no legal authority to marry both of you. And besides, men can now be legally married in this country.”

You’re more than just a philosophy professor; you are a philosopher, and the greatest mind in the province. And a government official cannot understand the nature of mine and Jacob’s love. You are the only professor in this province who understands the rational and egoistic grounds of romantic love. You are actually an authority on such subjects. And besides, if we are legally married before the verdict, my assets will be seized too.

“Simon, Jacob … I will conduct you ceremony. I will be your societal-ethical sanction … you do understand that this action we will take is unprecedented?”

Yes, of course—we will make history.

“Are you aware, Jacob, that my son is a leading constitutional lawyer in North America. I am confident that I can persuade him to take your case … Man, if the government wins the case against you, they will go after tax managers next, probably. That won’t be good … Jacob, do you want me to join your battle?”

“I do.”

Thank-you.

Edited February 1, 2006 by AMERICONORMAN