`

March 19, 1977

Saint Joseph’s

           

               Vast horizons stretched out beyond dead cornfields on the right into the weary haze hanging over the south. On the left, recently burnt canes and rushes descended the steep banks of the United Rivers. In the middle, tearing down the arrow-straight asphalt, trundled a robin’s egg blue Fiat 500 bearing Nevio, Viller, and Attilio. Bruno was there too, though he was wondering why he had let his friends convince him to go along. Bruno was the smallest and his university classmates crushed him: big burly Attilio was crammed against Bruno in the tiny back seat of their shiny car. The other boys’ spirits were high and Bruno was the only one who noticed how uncomfortable the miniscule auto was. Bruno was being put upon the most; he was the only one studying science and could actually calculate the kilos per inch in corporeal pressure that Attilio was exerting on him.

          Viller, the owner and driver, had curled his lip up like Elvis Presley’s while he berated Nevio.

“Ah, go get fucked. You’ll be alright, no one’s going to tell our mommies,” sneered Viller as he drove past a boarded up villa on their right. “Are you such a little piece of wuss that you’re afraid of catching pneumonia?”

“Besides  Nevio, we’ve got plenty of towels and blankets. All you got to do is jump in and jump out if you want. You gotta take the first swim of the season on St. Joseph’s Day at least once or you’re a dumb fucking faggot. Or are you afraid of getting sand into your Daddy’s ragged, hand-me-down cashmere sweater you’re wearing, Mamma’s little boy?” insinuated Attilio.

Bruno held his tongue and kept his own council. These guys had been a little bit of fun while they were back in high school, but now that they were in college and supposed to be adults, their puerile attitudes and spoiled ways had begun to grate. Viller’s only purpose in teasing Nevio about their trip to the sea was so that Viller could assert he was more of  a he-man than the others. The four boys would jump in and jump out of the water and it would all be over. How important was all of this anyway? Their St. Joseph’s Day plunge was just another dumb thing for dumb young men to do.

Attilio and Viller and Nevio! Whew, they were all such Mamma’s boys. Bruno looked at Viller’s shirt collar pressed to perfection and Attilio’s immaculately shined shoes. These guys didn’t  iron their clothes or polish their expensive loafers. Their mothers did it for them and the mothers never complained about caring for their sons’ their clothing or how much they had to wash. Romagnol Mammas had enormous crosses to bear, taking care of just about everything for their families while their sons caromed through the countryside searching out restaurants or new cafés or discothèques or any other place to meet girls. The only thing their husbands did was go to work, come home for meals and leave to play cards or watch the soccer games at their cafes.

 Bruno had lost his mother eight years ago, just before he entered his slightly overdue adolescence. Even from beyond the grave, Bruno’s mother had managed to exert her influence over his clothing. Bruno was wearing a white button-down shirt, and though it was as wrinkled as it could possibly be, it was actually new (in a manner of speaking). His mother had purchased a five-foot tall stack of white, button-down shirts, she had found on sale when Bruno was still a little boy. She had told Bruno’s father: “Bruno’ll grow into them, just you wait. You won’t believe how much money we’ll save!” Bruno had indeed just grown into them, and they were the only shirts he ever wore. They were the only shirts he needed. They were the only shirts he owned. There were still three and a half feet to go.

An only child, Bruno’s father offered him a roof and rudimentary food but comfort consolation and less consolation. Bruno’s father did however grudgingly pay Bruno’s tuition in science at the University, but only after convincing Bruno to abandon his major in political science.

Viller pushed the gas pedal hard on a long straight stretch of road and started holding forth: “How about that Spanish girl I picked up at the disco the other night? Once I got her off the dance floor, I could hardly keep her hands off me 'till we got to the parking lot. When I got home, I found I was bleeding everywhere; she had pubes like steel wool. But she kept going on about how big I am.”

“Your dick? Ah, go on. Ants have got bigger thumbs than your dick,” said Nevio, smiling lasciviously. “Here we are. Lido di Dante.”

An old wooden and iron bridge appeared ahead of them across the river on the left, placed there by the Canadians during WWII. On the right, a set of tightly shuttered low houses, huddled against the blank opacity of this bright but chilly March afternoon. The car plowed straight into the empty seaside village a little too fast when Attilio spied a café.

“Stop. Let’s have some coffee. And maybe a pastry!”

“Damn, Tili, is that all you can ever think about: something sweet to put in your fucking stomach? You and your pastries. Nahh, let’s get to the beach while the sun’s still out. I’m no pussy but that water is going to be so cold it’ll push my nuts up into my liver. You just wait and see. We’ll stop on the way back and have a glass of white wine or a grappa,” responded Viller.

“Yeah, let’s get to the beach,” Nevio piped.

They drove between the pine forest and fallow tomato fields and parked it about half a mile from the tiny town on the edge of the woods. They extracted themselves, their blankets, and towels from the small car. The sun was brighter near the sea and the sky turned bright blue. About twenty cars had parked on the same white dirt road running between field and forest. The three friends followed Nevio down a sandy lane with a canal on the left and the pine forest on the right. A couple with their lapdog was strolling perpendicular to them on a sandy trail that lay between the dunes and the pine forest. The woman was wearing a glistening white plastic belted trench coat, all her jewelry, and a white headscarf.

“I forgot it was St. Joseph’s,” she said to her husband as she walked past them in white patent leather go-go boots that rose up to her mid thighs and then had been folded back to just above her knees. “You know what they’re going to do, Lino: they’re out to take the first swim of the season! If I haven’t lost my sixth sense, I’ll just bet you a bottle of champagne they’ll be taking the plunge naked. Let’s give them five minutes and then turn around and find a little windbreak nearby in the dunes. This afternoon could be more adventurous than we thought.”

The boys climbed across the dunes and walked down to the beach through driftwood and broken shells. The low tide reached out to the horizon: high sand bars appeared above the gentle waves and an oil platform floated beneath the sky dozens of kilometers out at sea. Off in the distance landward, Nevio could make out a few people walking down the beach and a few men climbing up and down the dunes. The boys spread out their blanket, placed their towels on it, and disrobed.

“Damn, it’s cold,” said Attilio pulling off his trousers. His meaty thighs were hairy and his briefs, blindingly white. “I’m going in before I change my mind.” Off came his shirt and undershirt and briefs and he started to run towards the water, his chubby legs, butt and  hips wobbling left and right.

Bruno, short, skinny, reticent Bruno dressed in dark blue was the only one who wasn’t taking his clothes off.

“You’re such a pussy, Bruno.”

“I already did this two years ago; I don’t need to do it again and I sure as Hell don’t want to.”

Nevio, the least muscular of the bunch, buck-naked and wiry, followed Attilio into the sea. At nineteen, you could start to see Nevio’s hair was thinning; he would be bald before thirty. The water lapped at their ankles as they walked out the first ten feet. It almost froze their tendons.

“How far out do we have to go before we can jump in? I’d forgotten how shallow it is here.”

Viller was now in the water too, and bent over to splash his muscled torso with the brine. “Just keep walking until it gets up to your balls. Then you can jump in. Be careful of the sand bars; they’re always popping up when you least expect it.”

Indeed, the boys had been up to their knees in water and they suddenly came upon a sand bar that just barely kept their ankles under water. Their shoulders were hunched over and they beat their chests with their hands and pretended this somehow warmed them up. Once the trio got past the sand bar, the water deepened and Viller turned around, splashed his companions, and jumped in, headfirst.

“Fuck! Goddam this is cold! I’m getting out,” shouted Viller and he ran back up the sandbar and across the sea to Bruno, who had been standing there, smoking a cigarette. Bruno looked down at the cigarette he was smoking and decided it would be his last. It really was a disgusting habit. As he stubbed it out in the sand, he heard Viller bellow at him.

“Bruno, bring me my towel! Now!”

“So Viller, how much of a pussy are you? You’re supposed to go swimming, and not just jump in and jump out.”

“Don’t give me that shit! Just gimme the towel,” retorted Viller. Bruno handed him the towel as Viller shivered and dried himself off.

The lady in the go-go boots and her husband had reached the top of the dune the boys had forded earlier. The little dog barked at the swimmers.

“What a great bod! Do you see him? His peapod looks like it’s just ready for the picking, don’t you think?”

“Is that good looking young man making my little mamma hot? Why don’t you let me warm you up a little bit, Iside?” Her husband slid his hands inside her coat and across her tummy.

Nevio and Attilio actually swam ten strokes. Attilio gave in first: “Damn, it’s cold. I’m getting out.” They both ran back to the blanket as Viller was getting dressed. As they were walking, Nevio noticed the couple standing up on the dune, staring at Viller and Attilio and Nevio as they got dressed. Sparse men wandering around the dunes were starting to converge on the couple from all points.

“Hey guys, look at that!” whispered Nevio. The man was standing right up against the woman, his trapezoidal Rayban sunglasses glinting in the bright sun as they both stared at the quartet of young men.

“I guess we know what she wants,” said Attilio. “Maybe I’ll give her a little taste of my prime salami.”

The boys were now dressed and the couple disappeared from the peak of the sand dune. Men continued to trudge across the dunes to the vantage point where the boys had seen the couple. As the clot of men neared the place where they couple had been standing, they stopped one by one at the tops of different points on the surrounding dunes, forming a loose circle. The men looked at the boys on the beach gathering up their towels and blankets, and then turned to look at a spot just behind the dunes. The men all had their hands in their pockets.

“What’s going on?” asked Attilio.

“It looks to me like the lady is looking for a knight ready to mount her and I don’t mean put her on a horse,” said Viller. “Do you really want to give her a little swipe of your peapod Attilio? There seems to be a pretty good chance of it.”

As the boys walked back off the beach to the dune, the ring of men moved closer to the center of their circle. Bruno was the first of the boys to arrive and what he saw hardly surprised him. He had heard the dog bark and had been vaguely paying attention to what was going on behind him in the dunes while his friends were taking their first dip of the year. Bruno had overheard men at the bar talk about what happened in the sands of Lido di Dante but Bruno had not paid much attention because he was not interested. There was certainly a better way to spend the day than watching what he saw now.

The woman was laying flat on her back against the windbreak of the dunes, her trench coat open and the man had his hand under the lip of her go-go boots, very gently caressing her thigh. The ring of men surrounding them slowly closed ranks and came in closer. A Moroccan among their number advanced the farthest toward them. When his shadow fell on the woman’s boots, the man pulled the woman’s skirt up over her stomach and stroked her panties, insinuating his finger under the elastic. The opening act was a reclining striptease.

Nevio, Attilio, and Viller had stopped dead in their tracks, unwittingly forming part of the knot of men.

“Whoa, look at that,” whispered Nevio. “We could get some and not even have to pay for a drink.”

“Yeah, and you can pay the doctor for a syphilis shot. I’m leaving. There are way too many men here for one woman. I’ll see you back at the car.” Bruno trudged off leaving his three friends to sink in their own erotic  quicksand.

As the second line of pine trees of the inner forest came into view, Bruno remembered what he had just read about planting of the trees, which apparently did not grow here naturally. An unreliable but oft repeated chronicle reported that 12^th century Benedictine monks had created the pine forest on the unwanted land they had been given by the pope: their papal endowment extended from the tidal bore in the rivers and canals to the sea. It was not much of a gift. Even the groundwater was too brackish for crops, and nothing would grow there, except for pine trees and blooming sea rocket. In order to have some sort of a crop and reclaim the land, the monks had planted pine tree seedlings, and as they planted each one, they said a prayer to the Lord and asked Him to forgive the rough local people (whom the Benedictines more or less ruled over), for their many sins. One pine tree and one prayer for each local person, one pine tree that would grow away their sins. This was an ironically fair exchange since the pope had legally stolen the infertile land from these very “faithful sheep of his flock” and given it to the monks.

As Bruno looked at the forest, he now saw the trees: individuals, each unique, each different, and each paradoxically similar to the other pines. As mindless tree after mindless tree eventually make a forest, the mindless men around him all the way to Rome all add up to a community and nation of pricks. The only thing that men thought about what was what they could do with their dicks, where they could put them, how to protect and glorify their dicks. They were all dickheads. Literally.

Bruno experienced enlightenment. It was true. Nevio and Viller and Attilio were ruled by their dicks. They would do just about anything their dicks wanted them to do, as long as their dicks were happy. These three guys were just big dumb dicks with bodies attached to them, and this was no mere metaphor. Viller and Nevio actually had some brains whereas Attilio barely grasped how percentages worked but none of the three guys actually used their brains unless they were forced to. Or they could get a piece of ass. Nevio and Viller and Attilio continually made their choices about today and tomorrow and the rest of their lives, based on how their dicks reacted to it. If some sort of frisson stimulated them, they would do anything. They would always be that way. Dumb is forever.

Why was Bruno hanging around with them?

The answer came to him from his current field of study: Newton’s First Law. Bruno was finally illuminated after uselessly (he thought at the time)  learning it from Professor Bedeschi in physics class. Bruno was still hanging around with these dickheads through inertia, static inertia. Bruno’s instinctive decision to abandon his friends at the dunes was an outside force that had changed his static inertia into to a vector with active inertia. Bruno would think, he would follow the news, and try to understand the developments unfolding around him. He might not ever be able to change things but at least he would be able to grasp what was happening and not be a complete slave to his dick.

He decided he would go ahead and walk the ten kilometers home. Who knew how long they would be there back on those dunes trying to get into that woman’s knickers?   

Iside smiled at the Moroccan, stared at his crotch, and motioned him to come over.

“Well, you look nice and big and yummy. Why don’t come and stand a little closer so I can see you better. I bet you wear a size 30 belt, don’t you? Why don’t you take “your belt” off so I can measure it,” she said loud enough for everyone to hear. “Get the tape measure. Why we could have a little contest here!”

The boys shifted uneasily, their hands in their pockets as they watched the Moroccan and the woman.

“Damn, look at her! Saint Joseph in heaven, her husband wants the guy to fuck her! Damn, this is a million times better than the dirty movies,” whispered Nevio. “And you can’t argue with the price!”

Attilio turned and noticed one of the men had come up behind them. He was standing on a dune and taking in the little spectacle over their heads.

This unnerved Attilio. He sure didn’t want any guy touching his dick, “I’m off too. I’ll find Bruno and we’ll meet you at the bar.”

Iside now stood up, pulled her scarf off her head, and tied it around the Moroccan’s eyes like a blindfold. When Iside (and her husband) were finished with him, the Moroccan pulled up his drawers as the scarf fluttered brightly to the sand. The dog barked at the scarf, picked it up in its mouth and brought it back to Iside. Her husband put his hand back on Iside’s thighs and motioned to Viller.

“Damn Viller, you’re next!”

“Yeah, except I ain’t going to have no mask on.”

 Viller walked over toward the couple with feigned nonchalance and stood at a distance of about four feet from them, staring at the man stroking his wife with his thumb. The woman smiled at him, and licked her lips. “Why don’t we see if Mr. Whiteboy’s “belt” here is longer and bigger than Mr. Blackman’s.”

Viller could hardly believe his ears. The woman opened her trench coat and gave him a complete view, so Viller unbuckled his belt. The woman gave a soprano chortle of delight as she pulled out the tape measure again.

Lino’s toupee flapped up off his head from a gust of wind as he walked over behind Viller.  Lino clapped it back down on his scalp. Nevio could hardly believe what he was seeing. Another man had joined the two men near Nevio on the dune and they were all standing close enough to touch one another, while another man slowly descended from the dune and made his way toward Nevio. This was just what Nevio had wanted to look at but Viller kept turning around and winking at Nevio, attempting to get him closer to the action and be next in line. Nevio crossed over the ridge of dunes and walked down to the beach where he trudged off toward the little village to join Bruno and Attilio.

The woman’s husband took up his position behind Viller, holding his belt loops to slow him down.

“Take it easy son, take it easy.”

Viller ignored him but Lino persisted: it was worth it.

Viller had never felt anything like it: every nerve on his body from his toes to his scalp jolted. The woman gave a tiny scream of joy and pulled away from Viller. The dog barked and barked and barked.

The circle of men twitched as they moved in closer. Viller hastily pulled up his trousers and zipped them closed as he strutted off toward the pine forest, completely forgetting Nevio and Attilio. Viller could only think of his body, every pore, every muscle, every blood cell glowing and happy. He was so overcome he had forgotten his belt.

Nevio knew several things, several things more than Bruno or Viller or Attilio did. The woman’s name was Iside Cesari, and she must have been at least thirty-five years old. She had taught Nevio mathematics in middle school. The man was her husband and he was from Ferrara where he ran a very good shoe shop right across from the Este Castle. The Moroccan who started things off was named Habib, and he sold contraband cigarettes door to door in the countryside. The rest of the men were local farmers or sailors off the big cargo boats from Russia at dock six miles away. They were more or less the same cast of characters that took part in this little show from late March to early September each year.  

Occasionally the men would come out in the cold winter months if the sun were shining. Often, the performance took considerably longer, an hour or two and entailed an endless overture of looks and gestures but no action. The Moroccan and Viller’s willingness to perform today had upped the tempo considerably. There had been very little time for the endless and often inconclusive overture.

Nevio had not left because he was disgusted or uninterested; he left because he was scared. He had been facing away from his friends ever since they had gotten dressed; he did not want his friends to know that this open-air sex show fascinated him. Nevio never did anything there on the beach, he never ventured close enough to see every little hairy detail, and he never spoke to anyone. But whenever Nevio got the urge, he would take his bicycle, pedal out to the beach, and spend an hour or two watching couples quickly mate in five-minute stands. He had seen a man doing it with a man, men doing it with men, a woman doing it with a man, a transvestite doing it with a whole group of middle-aged farmhands. He had even seen two women caressing and cuddling in the pine forest alone, where no one looked on. It entranced him.

Viller caught up with Nevio trudging through the pine forest. “Goddam that was good! I feel like a million bucks. Did you see the way she . . .”

“I sure didn’t. I left just as soon as you started to unbuckle your belt. The last thing I want to see is your tiny little peapod again.”

“Ah, you’re just envious.”

“I hardly think so. The last thing I want to be is a sex synmbol for all those grimy farmers and Russian sailors on a cold afternoon.”

Viller had not considered this. All he could think about was his dick and getting off. Viller had already decided he would go back for more when his friends weren’t around and he was alone. Damn, it was great. It was exciting in every sense of the word. And it was free.

A week later Viller went back to Lido di Dante, to the dunes, to the same windbreak. Iside and Lino were not there. Who did Viller see, sitting in the grass clumps of a dune?

Nevio.

Nevio saw Viller.

Neither spoke to the other; they both stayed until they had gotten what they came for.

Nevio and Viller returned to the dunes and the pine forest at least once or twice a month for decades, and oftener in the summer, even after they both married. They never spoke about it.

Their wives found out, but they never confronted their husbands. 

Iside told them.