Desdemona, Tag Cavello [classic literature list TXT] 📗

Desdemona

Desdemona

Tag Cavello

Copyright 2018 by Tag Cavello

 

“’By now you will, of course, have understood

how little of the truth they see who claim

that every love is, in itself, a good;

 

for though love’s substance always will appear

to be a good, not every impress made,

even in finest wax, is good and clear.’”

 

Dante, The Purgatorio, as translated by John Ciardi

 

For all the ones we’ve lost, and all the ones we have, and will have, with love in every world









DESDEMONA

 

SOMMARIO

∞

 

CHAPTER ONE… … …DANTE

 

 

CHAPTER TWO… … …HORATIO

 

 

CHAPTER THREE… … …SUNNY

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR… … …NASCOSTO VILLAGIO

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE… … …LOCKER SIXTEEN

 

 

CHAPTER SIX… … …MERMAID PIZZA

 

 

CHAPTER SEVEN… … …MARIS

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHT… … …THE GLASS BLOCK

 

 

CHAPTER NINE… … …A DRIVE NORTH

 

 

CHAPTER TEN… … …GIRL TO GORILLA

 

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN… … …DINNER AND A PHONE CALL

 

 

CHAPTER TWELVE… … …SELF-LOATHING

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN… … …LOVE RHYMES

CHAPTER FOURTEEN… … …HOSPITAL VISIT

 

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN… … …HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN… … …FOR DUKEY

 

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN… … …I THINK A MAN SHOULD BE STRONG…

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN… … …THE GIRL DOWNSTAIRS

 

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN… … …DEPLOYMENT

CHAPTER TWENTY… … …SUNNY COMES TO DINNER


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE… … …THE IDES OF MARCH

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO… … …DOGS ON ICE

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE… … …SUNNY AND MARIS

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR… … …WIN ON THE ROAD

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE… … …CONVALESCENCE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX… … …IN MEMORIAM

∞

CHAPTER ONE: Dante

Norwalk, Ohio is strange. Or so the boy, whose name was Dante Torn, had in his thoughts always arranged.

 

Especially in the early dawn light. Every summer he delivered newspapers for a local publisher, which obliged him to wake before sunrise and tie his bundles with rubber bands, stuff them in a bag, and take to the quiet streets.

Though the bag was heavy, he was able to ride his bike during the week, his tall, wiry frame accepting the load with little complaint. Helping with this task was the fresh smell of flowers from neighboring lawns, and the twittering of birds from high in the ancient trees that lined Norwalk’s streets.

Of course during the week it was already a little bit light out when he left the house. He would step off the front porch of the fine, federal style brick mansion at 54 West Main Street where he lived, with the sun already peeking over the eastern hills between here and Cleveland, a cheerful eye. Also, the papers were light, especially on Mondays. What news came on Mondays, the day after everyone was supposed to rest?

“We pray on Sunday,” Dante’s father once said, “so there will be no news on Monday.”

He’d spoken it on a Monday morning whilst watching his son bundle papers full of meaningless fluff. School lunch menus. Artists with bad paintings and no one to come to their shows. Museum pieces.

Dante supposed it was one prayer to which God always acquiesced. If only humankind would take up its habit for supplication to invisible deities on Saturday as well. Then Dante might not have to get up before dawn on Sunday mornings to tie papers three times as large as the weeklies. Then he might not have to carry them in a wagon instead of a bag. Then he might not have to be unnerved by streets that were sometimes a little too quiet, even for a small town. For it wasn’t just heavy papers that made Dante dread the Sunday edition.

He’d seen things along the dark streets. Caught between wakefulness and dreaming, the town would every so often lose face. The Civil War mansions of Main, State, and Newton Street no longer looked like friendly old men, their doorways smiling, their gabled roofs fancy hats in want of a hand for tipping. Oh no. In the humid August shadows their doors rather seemed to gape, as if in awe for his temerity to disturb the stillness. And the roofs resembled furled, hairy brows over angry black eyes. They were faces, all, that would lunge at Dante—if they could—to swallow him whole.

Sometimes they tried. Halfway down Newton Street was a railroad crossing where he’d once seen a squirrel fall out of a tree. It lay still after hitting the sidewalk. Concerned for its well-being, Dante had approached it with caution. He knew these beasts carried rabies. And yet something about its mass of black fur made him curious. Closer and closer he had pulled his wagon of papers, until he was nearly on top of the thing. Then the fur had rolled to reveal a woman’s tortured, screaming face with accusing red eyes. Her long black hair coated the sidewalk like ink. With a gasp of terror Dante had leaped back. That was when the face, or whatever it was, disappeared, leaving him alone in befuddlement.

Another occasion found him on Manahan Avenue with his route nearly finished. Six papers remained in the wagon. Dante was glad, not because this morning had been particularly frightening, but because the thunder, which had begun half an hour ago, was getting louder. The sun had not arrived on schedule that day. Charcoal clouds, shot with lightning, roiled low in the sky. Dante was glad because he still had a chance to make it home without getting wet.

Hoping the rain would hold off, he heaved one of the papers. It landed hard on Mr. Jergenson’s porch. Dante winced. No tip for you this week if you woke him up, he thought.

An abandoned Magnavox, left on the curb for disposal, regarded him with its blank screen. Dante paused for only a moment to look at the broken knobs protruding from a cracked wooden frame. The console looked old and heavy. Left over from a forgotten time. When the screen began to flicker he assumed it was a reflection of lightning. He glanced skyward. Nothing there but more gray. Deeper now. Ever threatening.

Clenching hold the handle of his wagon, the boy began to move on…

Except there was a face on the TV screen now. A misshapen visage of dark eyes and horned forehead. Scowling with its sharp teeth, it snarled a message through the console’s broken speaker:

Carpe noctem!

Next moment, the face had gone, and the skies were raining so hard Dante could hardly see.

∞

Those things had happened a year ago, in 1991, when he was eleven. This summer had been much more quiet. In June he’d been frightened. Every Sunday morning was a minefield of weirdness he and his wagon traversed like soldiers of the mundane. When nothing happened in June his confidence increased. Rather than the pup’s face he’d had on since school let out, he faced July with something more regal, leaving the house each Sunday with a determined tug on the wagon, his chin high, his eyes keen. It all worked, or at least seemed to. Because nothing happened in July either.

Now here he was in August, two weeks before the start of school.

“You’re in love!” a girl said presently, as Dante made his way down West Main.

“No I’m not!” another insisted. “I just really like him. A lot.”

The two girls—teens—stepped around Dante’s wagon, not looking at him. But their giggles rose through the branches of the maple trees, and when Dante turned back, they both wore smiles like the sun, which had risen directly on time this morning. Neither of the girls, Dante noticed, had red hair. Too bad. For even if they liked him, he knew he could not like them back. At least not in that way.

Do either of you know Sunny Desdemona? he almost asked, like an idiot.

They might have laughed harder at this. Or maybe they would have grown curious. Made inquiries. Though only twelve, Dante was already developing into a handsome brown-haired boy, his frame tall and lean. Carrying newspapers all summer worked wonders for his muscles as well. If these two girls liked him, shouldn’t they know more about the competition?

We don’t know her but who is she? they might have wondered. Come on! Tell us!

“Nah,” Dante said under his breath. “Wishful thinking.”

Less than a minute later the girls were just two distant figures on the sidewalk. They were headed downtown, though for what Dante had no idea. Most of Norwalk’s shops had relocated north to Sandusky. North to where the action was. Cedar Point, Perkins Mall. Marblehead Peninsula and Kelly’s Island. And of course Put-In Bay, the hottest little island on Lake Erie. These days Norwalk was just a town you drove through on your way to better places. A town of closed shops with soapy windows that read closed or going out of business.

Dante turned to look at the girls again. They’d reached the Methodist church and were crossing the street. This puzzled him even further. Not only were the teens out early, but they had ventured to a side of the street where nothing but jewelry shops (all closed on Sundays) and banks stood.

“Hey kid!”

Dante jumped. A man at number ninety-nine glared at him from a tarred circular driveway. His house, like so many others on West Main, was huge. A Grecian beast with white pillars and green shutters.

“How ‘bout a newspaper to go with my coffee?” he asked.

“Sure,” Dante said.

He remembered the man’s name as being Ken or Keith. Ken or Keith did not expect to have to walk to the end of his driveway to get his paper. He expected the “kid” to bring it to him. This was clear by the way he put his hands on his hips. To Dante he looked like an umpire listening to Mike Hargrove gripe about a questionable call. Whatever. He pulled his wagon onto the driveway. The tar looked immaculate. Deep and rich. Would he sink if he stood still for too long?

“Hand it over,” Ken or Keith said.

Like Dante, he was tall and lean. A pair of rimless glasses decorated his face.

Dante handed him his paper. “Kenny Lofton has never agreed with a called strike in his life,” he then couldn’t help but let spill.

It utterly confused the other. “What was that?” he asked.

“Baseball,” Dante told him.

Now the man sneered. “I don’t watch baseball.”

“Sorry. Enjoy your paper.”

The boy turned to go. He got halfway to a row of hedges near the sidewalk when Ken or Keith called, “No tip for you on Thursday!”

You mean no tip for me ever, Dante thought, because never once had this customer laid extra coin in his palm. Not looking back, he kept pulling his wagon.

“Sunny Desdemona!” Ken or Keith yelled.

Dante froze. Slowly, he turned to look at the prim, privileged man standing beside his stately manor. And in a quivering voice he said: “I’m sorry?”

“Money says I owe ya,” the other repeated. “But a smile says I’m your friend. Try one on sometime.”

“Of course,” Dante nodded, without smiling. “Of course. I will. Good morning.”

“And good morning to you, young man.”

The wagon trundled along behind him, a dog on a leash. Tiny bumps on the sidewalk made it jounce. At the corner of Main and Pleasant stood a dentists’ office slash residence. It too was large and quite old. Dante tossed a paper onto its wooden porch. WHAP! No one came out to retrieve it. The dentist, whom Dante knew was female, was probably still asleep in her basement coffin.

You’re in love, he heard the teen girl say again. Only this time the girl was referring to him.

No, Dante thought,