Raul sat there now, having explained a truth that was close to him; Alec believed him his intellectual superior, and might have reacted with awe except for Raul’s mad way of carrying himself. Raul relaxed, speaking of trivia, had no power, whereas Alec was a master of control at all times. Raul made up for his long periods without it by the intensity of his bursts.
“You know it just hit me,” Alec said, “that you’re a ninth grader. It’s incredible.”
“It has always astonished me. When I hit my fourteenth birthday and it was pointed out to me that I was fourteen, there was nothing I could do but laugh. It was a marvelously ridiculous idea.”
Alec looked at Raul for a time. “You’re too Elizabethan,” he said. “You shouldn’t be in this century.”
Raul smiled.
Alec suddenly became suspicious. But he had a test, which, though very simple, always worked well. “Raul, you said something before…Look, are you a virgin?”
“Well…” Raul stopped thoughtfully.
All of Alec’s system whirred back into action. Perhaps this had been phony, a formula might be reached.
“Frankly,” Raul said, “yes.” And he laughed.
Raul seemed ironic; it caused havoc in Alec’s system.
“It is to my disgrace, I admit it. But I’ve already pointed out the logic of it. I can’t focus my love on one being, and if I could it would dissipate my art.”
Alec became fatherly, “Ah, but who parts with his soul or being into fucking? Fucking, itself, is an art.”
“It’s an extension of art for you, I said that already. But I can’t fuck hypocritically. I have an infinite capacity for guilt.”
“But the way I made it into an acting part, why can’t you?”
“It would ruin all my imagery of loners, of insane blackness. It is the Hamletian rejection of Ophelia.”
“But Hamlet wasn’t mad.”
“He was mad in terms of the society. That makes him sane, of course. And that’s my madness — every time I see or hear about the embarrassments of adolescent sex, I am in real pain. A lot of my abstention, which really isn’t one at all because I simply can’t handle it psychologically, is almost a political act.”
“But what you’ve just said amounts to meaning you’re neurotic about it.”
“And you’re neurotic about it in reverse. You can’t avoid neurosis if you’re an artist.”
“Neurosis is a repression. You’re repressing, I’m not.”
“Listen,” Raul said, laughing, “let’s not make this name calling. But, Alec, we’re both repressing. We are repressing the emotion of love. Or, ’cause I don’t want to say love, we are repressing the instinct toward real, human relationships. It’s just the same if you’re married. That can be just as much a repression as chronic bachelorhood.”
“Touché.”
“Ah, we’ve reached an understanding.”
They smiled and relaxed.
“But, Raul, you must have had some sex sometime.”
Raul chuckled at Alec’s desperation. “Oh yeah. And it was ecstasy. But I had as much respect for the girl as I have for a toothpick. There are really good possibilities for me being a seducer. But you see, the moment I think thoughts like that, everything eats away at me. I’m corroded and empty. If it approaches any beauty, I begin to subconsciously destroy the relationship.”
Alec, remembering, sighed. Raul, suddenly bathing in memory, began, “I remember one time…No! I don’t want to remember one time.”
He spoke with the intense seriousness of a child. Alec laughed at that. Raul captured the laughter and nodded. “Ah, life! Passing so…”
“Eternity and the depths of hell.”
Raul murmured his agreement. The two were quiet until Alec asked for the time. Raul strained forward to see the clock. “It’s about twenty of.”
“Really? That’s all it is?”
“Yeah, it does seem like it should be later than that.”
Alec looked about to see for himself: the knowledge of time was emptying for both.
All the sounds of Mike & Gino’s were of loneliness. Broad gusts of air blew from the open door down the corridor. Outside, New York was gray. People went up and down the subway steps hurriedly. About now, all Riverdale executives went downtown to their jobs: suits, attaché cases, and brisk steps. One came in and, out of breath, asked for the Times. Mike (or was it Gino?) spun agilely about and in the same circle of movement handed him the paper. The man meanwhile placed a dime on the counter and with the same brisk step was gone. It couldn’t have been more than four seconds. The man moved up the subway steps two at a time, the tails of his gray jacket fluttering slightly.
Raul had cramps from too much coffee and smoking on an empty stomach. He got up to buy a glazed doughnut.
“Where’re ya goin’?”
“Huh? Oh. My stomach doesn’t feel good. I’m gonna get something to eat.”
Seeing Raul come back with the doughnut, Alec said, “That’s what you got to settle your stomach?”
“That is pretty strange, isn’t it?”
The two fooled around for a while, Alec grabbing a piece of the doughnut, with Raul curling up in the corner of the booth, his left eye twitching, shoulders hunched, mumbling incoherently of thieves. Then Alec, staring ahead acridly, would let a hand stray, coming back eventually with another piece of the doughnut. Raul, in a livid state, pushed the rest of the sticky mass into Alec’s face.
Alec let it hang there loosely between his lips, placidly picking up his red bookbag and beating Raul over the head, finally hurling the doughnut too.
He then rose swiftly. Looking in the mirror, he daintily pushed his hair behind an ear. His face looked acidly dry. Raul crouched low beside Alec. “O beast, consumed of worms, thy fair mother awaits,” he intoned, laughing huskily.
Alec fixedly stared ahead into the mirror. He yawned. Raul quickly straightened up, like plastic snapping back from being bent. He looked at Alec mildly.
Alec rigidly turned toward him. Raul collapsed to the floor. Alec burst out laughing. Raul got up, saying, “The tiles are dirty. Mike and/or Gino should do something about them. They’re in disgraceful condition.”
Raul began brushing himself off. Alec got back into the booth. “You did that fall well.”
“Ah,” Raul said, sliding back in, “I have had practice.”
Alec stared off vacantly. Raul lit a cigarette, glanced at Alec, and began rummaging about for a book. Suddenly Alec remembered Raul had said he had been cutting for two weeks. Before, Raul meant nothing to him, and so did the comment, but now…“Christ!”
“What?”
“You’ve been cutting for two weeks?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you crazy? They’re gonna find out.”
“I’ve cut before, and I’ve been caught before.”
“Well, they must have put you on probation, right? So…”
“No, they didn’t put me on probation. They just said forget it. Anyway, they already know I’m cutting. They’ve called twice.”
“And what happened?”
“Nothing. First time, my father lied. Second time, he didn’t.”
“Raul, they’re gonna throw you out this time.”
“If they do, they do. I can’t do anything about it.”
“Do you wanna get thrown out?”
“Yes and no. Yes, I find school, any school, intolerable. No, I don’t want to lose the theater. There isn’t any other school with as good a theater.”