The Matador in the Bulrush Part Four

What came next defined me. It defined my life and the magic I felt around me. It gave life to the moss and the reason of faith. I watched as Joshua’s chin dropped, dipping to his chest. He dropped his spear, and I could almost hear it slither into the water. Then his hand lifted and untied his make believe cape before letting it drop beside him. Next, he unsnapped the button of his shorts and peeled them off, oblivious as they floated close by in the water beside him. He was standing in his white underwear, his chin still deposited at his sternum.

Fat Albert had backed up to the safety of the shore, while Pinch was frozen in the water, staring at Joshua.

“Oh My God Pinch....Hes a FAG!!!...Just wait.....”

Pinch raised a hand and cut him off...”Just hold on a sec’ Albee...give it a minute now. Spears gone and all....give it a moment”

Fat Albert went quiet.

. Pinch had moved away until he was standing on the shore beside his brother. I don’t know if Joshua saw them or heard them, but standing thigh deep in the water he slowly raised his hands above his head; his eyes remaining closed as he clapped once. Then he lowered his hands until his arms were extended outward, as if in crucifixion, and stopped.

I watched as Joshua bent his wrists and began circling his hands to music only he could hear. His fingers spread wide while the two at his hands center remained tightly joined and bent, moving as if he was scooping cold heavy peanut butter from a half filled jar. And then he was moving through the water, brushing the tops of the bulrushes with the tips of his fingers, at the same time bending his body to match the lapping waves. As the light struck his nude body, as the water droplets lit to fire, I witnessed Pinch sit down on the sand. I was as mesmerized as he was, watching as Joshua tilted his chin skyward to drink the dusk. His body was taught and youthful, with stringy muscles running down his arms, and his legs looked suddenly capable of deer sprint speed. His long back rippled as if it were part of the waters reflection, arching and bending while his buttocks seemed anchored and as chiseled as stone.  Without his clothes he seemed taller, graceful, and more naked than I could ever dream of being. His movements looked rehearsed, yet not so, until he was chest high in the water, his dance becoming more liquid than the water he was moving through and always..always..the soft brush of his wrists across and between the reed tops. I may, to this day, never find the words to describe what I saw, but I know this….If kindness, surrender, love, bravery, the honest and lonely poverty of art,, could ever be given form,,,, this was it.

Magic.

At some point, when Joshua was pulling his own shadow amongst the others,  I watched as Fat Albert bent towards Pinch and whispered  in his ear.  It must have annoyed Pinch, because he grabbed his brothers’ hand and pushed him backwards before standing up. They both stood watching Joshua for a few more seconds, before turning and moving away and down the shoreline, pushing and shoving each other as brothers do, as they made their way back to town. At some point, some hundred or so feet far from Joshua, Pinch turned around and yelled, “ Hey Witch Boy!!!  Im sorry I hit you okay???” This got him another punch from his brother, which Pinch seemed not to notice as he waited for a response. But Joshua didn’t hear him, couldn’t have, since he was still in that place far away from us all, dancing in the water. I watched them both until they were mere specks on the shore, eventually disappearing around an inlet and into the forest.

I stayed longer than I should have, knowing at some point that too much time had passed and my trip home would be completed in darkness. Eventually Joshua stopped. In the open water as deep as his thighs he simply ceased moving, opening his eyes again as his arms slowly returned to his sides. He looked around as if waking, before gathering his clothing and ungracefully pulled the wet shorts and shirt onto his body. After glancing up and down the shoreline he simply and unceremoniously, left.

On the walk home my mind raced with what I had seen. I knew that I had witnessed something....something,...just out of reach, but the solution was trapped outside my age.  In time my thoughts went to my bike, and I was sure as I exited the forest, as the last of the light left and the darkness swallowed me, that it could and would be fixed. I promised myself that, somehow knowing, that all things could be.

Over the next few days I was sure that I would hear about Joshua, sure that Pinch and Fat Albert would make a mockery of the moment in the water, but I heard nothing. In time I knew that it was something that neither brother would ever speak of, even to themselves. Two years later and Joshua was gone. I never saw him again, but for once, when all the childish years had passed.

In 2006, in the August owned of that year, I was in Boston. It had been another horrendous business trip, dealing with squabbling photographers, graphic artists, billboard contractors and lawyers. It may have been my responsibility to oversee my firms interest, but when the arguments turned, as they always did, to inconsequential details that were only designed to increase the lawyers hourly totals, I broke the meeting until the next morning. It was four o’clock when I walked out of my hotel. I hailed a taxi and, after following the cabbies recommendation, made my way to Chinatown and Lo Nins restaurant. The food was as good as he had suggested, even after my struggle with the menu resulted in something arriving at my table that I had never seen before. From Chinatown I made my way to Essex, down Boylston and its side streets until I was deep in the college district.

When I was absolutely sure I was lost I found Farnings and Smiths Theatre. I was standing across the street, trying to get my bearings, when I saw it. It was a building like all others, handcuffed to its neighbor, almost invisible amid the shared beauty of them all. All of them looked to me subdued, leaning on each other in their run along the sidewalk, but it was its sign that caught my attention and divided it from the rest. It was a simple white placard attached to the wall beside its two large wooden doors. Its lettering scrolled across its face in old English script and said humbly, “Farnings and Smith Theatre”, and beneath that, was a hand written message on white paper tacked to its bottom edge, “Rehearsal in progress...free entrance, donations welcome.” I made my way across and opened the door, feeling it slide easy as if its hinges had never lost their oil.

The small lobby was dimly lit, its side wall lights barely able to send their luminescence as far as the carpeted floor. The room reeked of cigar smoke and stale liquor and its obstacle course of folded chairs and worn leather couches made each step a dare in the darkness. I took a seat at the back, listening as the music started and stopped, paying close attention to the dancers and actors moving without the accompaniment of a complete score. At some point my eyes moved to the left of the stage, by the floor area, where a middle aged man was adjusting a camera and starting and fine tuning the ebbs of recorded music. He was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, slim and strong looking with an air about him that seeped confidence and surety. It was when he started the music again that he did the one thing that caught my breath. As the notes filled the room, as the symphony rose in volume, he tilted his head back, raised his arms to his side, and began to rotate his wrists and hands as if he were dipping his fingers into invisible jars. My memory did not come slowly. Immediately I was awash in summer, in years gone, on the beach with him while he danced. I was as mesmerized in that moment as I had been, watching as his hands dipped and moved, each flick a compliment to the pluck of each violins string. To me, with years behind me and my spirit so tainted by life, he was music. As the recording ended and he was beginning to pack the equipment away, I moved towards him, dodging chairs and workers until I looked up and saw him looking at my approach, his arms crossed and his expression patient. And then I was standing before the question in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, ‘ I said weakly, “ I think I know you. Is your name Joshua?”

He smiled apologetically, “Its John actually.”

I stuttered then, embarrassed at having travelled so far for some fantasy of reason. “ I’m sorry....”I turned away, “I thought...I just thought...you reminded me of something...”....I began to walk away until I heard him again.

“It’s John now....I haven’t used Joshua in years. How is it that you know me?”

I turned around to look at him. His face expressed a concrete of emotion, giving me nothing but his smooth stare.

“I was a child once. I remember. Do you?”

His expression softened as he moved towards me, extending his hand to mine. “My name is John Joshua Kalinkovy.....and yes...I remember.”

I grasped his hand feeling his strong grip loosen politely to the weakness of my own. “I know you’re a busy man, but if it’s possible, ...I mean...if your not too busy? Can you meet me at my hotel...The Hyatt....I’m only here until tomorrow evening..it’s about twenty minutes from here. There’s a lounge...good drinks...bad service...but quaint. I would love to talk with you...catch up on....” he was holding up his hand, holding me at my plea.

“Give me an hour”, He smiled.

I nodded, turned and left.

An hour and a half later, and three scotches, I was sure he wasn’t coming. I sat in the lounge, alone, thinking about the years and year of him. The lounge was empty of people, except for a bartender with a permanent boredom imprinted on his face, and two women sitting at a far table sipping drinks crowned with plastic umbrellas. The lone waitress was working both sides of the hotel, the late cafe as well as the lounge, and her visits to my table were infrequent. As I stared into my glass, swirling its tiny ice capsules, trying my best to make the last drops of scotch hang on, he was suddenly there, sliding into the seat across from me.

“I’m sorry I’m late...it all takes longer than I ever expect it to. People and questions, carpenters, dancers and ....actors,,,,,actors...” he rolled his eyes, “split personalities, voices in heads and words heard backwards....frothing, spitting diatribe of abstractions.”

I laughed, “I’m just happy you made it. I will do my very best...to steer us away from acting.” The waitress was standing at his shoulder, adjusting herself as if she had just zipped into her job.

“What is your pleasure John?...and please...run it on my tab.”

He looked at her, smiling before turning back to me, “It seems youth has its promise.” He winked at me, not looking at her, but holding me in his gaze, “ My lady, I seem to be fastened to two places at the same instant. In deference to that, in honor of time travel and a time so travelled, I will have a child’s brandy, that grog of sleepy lids, the silk of many a dream. And…on its side…far away from its crib…black broth from the cauldrons, finely ground, thick and steeped with the aged hour.” I watched the next few seconds pass with the waitress sporting a new expression of lost confusion.

Joshua sighed, then giggled. “ I apologize. I’m jailed in the overly dramatic. Occupational hazardary. Please….Just a small glass of chocolate milk…and a black coffee.” She nodded, satisfied that her world still made sense, turned and left to countries unknown. Ten minutes later, Joshua was sipping his coffee, speaking with firmness words that were devoid of posturing, absent of hesitancy and sure in their sentence. To his left his glass of chocolate milk remained untouched, as well as the complimentary menu on his right.

Over the next ninety minutes he told me of his life since. He told me about attending university in York, before taking a teaching position in Toronto. He spoke of his wife, her life, her gifts and his love. He told me that she was a musician, a talented harpist that could move his tenement to silent reverence whenever she practiced. She had just gone through the trials and had been accepted as understudy talent for a musical opening at the Stratford theatre, when the blood tests had come back. Twelve years of marriage, and seven months later, and she was gone. And didn’t that just say something…and didn’t that just speak of justice and unrequited love? And he was saying he was fine..just fine…and how every note he heard was a reminder of the twelve years that made his life. How he smiled at the thought of how he had kept her empty bottle of perfume on his nightstand, and how every second day he opened it and breathed the last few remaining molecules left in its vessel. There were no children; a mistake they shared in thinking there would always be time. And then he apologized for spending too much time on such things.

Shortly after, he resigned his teaching position, choosing to follow his soul into the arts. He made his way to a small Baptist college in some shade less area of Oklahoma, where he was quickly placed in charge of all artistic direction. A year later and he was moving again, gaining employment in Philadelphia’s underground theatre scene where he earned a reputation as THE musical director, the go to guy for score compilations. He laughed then saying. “Fame is a fickle thing for swollen heads. I met Jack Nicholson once, someone’s friend of a friend’s friend that had asked him to stop by, have a look, and inject his brand of inspiration and awe on everyone. He walked right over to us at the end of one production run, to shake our hands. I was relieved when he didn’t ask for our autographs.”