Untitled Document

In The Shadow Of Fitzgerald
Laurence Fenton

Walking the streets I glimpsed them accidentally. My head groggy with dismay since the previous hour I had stopped still in the street and winced to prevent tears dropping in public. Raising my head to denounce the nebulous god in the sky, any god, I found only the underside of a store's green awning. I took its existence as another slight on my day but was then grabbed by a commotion raging from the opposite side of the street: the raucous laughter of acolytes a floor above the pavement, Scott and Zelda's backs to me.

I sensed abstractedly the swift movement around me, unsavory, uncomplimentary murmurs, intended brushes against my shoulders. I disturbed the New York bustle but my focus was steady. I remained standing, staring up, briefly blinded by the midday sun that rose so as to silhouette and separate their two bodies from the other diners. Scott's body lunged forward then rolled more fluidly back. In the midst of animatedly telling a story, I knew, for I had been part of the jovial scene there, as we all sat comfortably, laughed uproariously at his every utterance.

He sat straighter, now, perched nimbly on a backless stool, thick gel shining from his trimmed tan locks. She was to his left, reclined deep into her seat that was angled in toward him. Her oval white hat obscured the top of her face, it did not matter, I knew it intimately, remembered it with deep hurt; her thin lips and tiny mouth almost permanently pouting and rouged, cheeks puffed and red from the summer sun, soft liquid eyes. I knew precisely how her loose bosom moved with breathing, how the pattern and pace changed with mood. I had seen this exact pose innumerable times before, the slight slouch, the mind in seeming reverie and detached from the table, the sheer paining sultriness of her disinterest and regal repose, a posture that bespoke Southern indolence. Only the indifference was feigned, it was for the consumption of the table of guests. Her eyes would be alert and alive. They had been for me, I was certain.

Trapped in my spot on the pavement I sensed what was coming, but unable to leave my spine shuddered and I froze. I watched his left hand appear from in front and move. I knew I would hurt, felt my chest heave. No rain but with face drenched I was blinded again and instinctively looked away a second, his wrist had turned and the dazzle of a ring with the sun caught me and cut right through me. Then I was back watching rapt his hand glide through the air, short but fine fingers, felt it purposefully flaunt its destination before me.

He couldn't know I was so close, still his every move seemed perfectly designed to destroying me. His hand hovered over her, over her parts; it verged on what I never touched. Momentarily I forgot its intentions, became hypnotized by the simple swaying motion, it was as if his hand was caught in a light wind and like a delicate leaf unable to land. Then callously it plunged through the space between – to its final luxurious destination.

The back of the unforgiving hand came to rest on the material of her thin, gauzy dress on her thigh. She made no start. She played at not noticing. It was a secret from the table and the subterfuge thrilled her. The hand, hidden from all view but mine, turned, and so did my stomach as its fingers stretched over her and squeezed without reproach. Then it lay there a while, welcomed by the flesh it touched through small open segments. I stood, horrified, transfixed.

The rest of his body continued to roll with conversation and conviviality, the same motion as ever, slight tilt of the head back as the spine stretched and arched then the great surge of his body forward with some confident declamation. I heard laughter again and at the same time was bumped into by a passing woman, but not knocked out of my absorbed gaze. His hand still lay upon the delicate material and the thigh, fingertips roaming further, to the broad plains of her inner thigh, pressing in deeper. She acted oblivious. Was she noticing the hand? Of course she was. I tried to convince myself otherwise, imagined weakly she was simply putting up with it, suffering in silence like me, that she would push the hand harshly off but for the scene that would surely follow. I hoped she grimaced as he felt her up but the dream was as foolish as I.

At last she moved, the inertia of her body broken by her right hand leaving lazily its resting place on her ribs. All else was still. It slid a path diagonal along her body. ‘Push it off, push him off' my head screamed. I was perspiring again, still this would be my moment of sublime triumph; the moment she tired of him openly and explicitly. My face clenched tight awaiting the rejection that would end them. In expectation of recall to her affections I watched engrossed – suddenly certain again. A brief and stupid digression of a failing mind. Nothing good happened, she placed her hand on top of his and their fingers tightly interlocked. The whole movement was so subtle; maintained the sense of surreptitiousness. They were married but still found excitement in each other's bodies and a thrill in private public affection. The businessmen around them smoked and drank and were inane. Scott and Zelda were titillated. Their faint touches a sure prelude for more amorous contact, for a carnality I never shared with her.

In a fit of self-deception, or even self-preservation, my mind changed suddenly and I saw it all as a sordid game. I tried to believe that they were degenerates, that I was cleaner, their moral superior. It took but one secret squeeze of her by him to bring me crashing back into love and lust and envy and sorrow. Then the exertions of the crazed mind began to toll – endurance waning, my body sapped of energy began to give up. I felt close to crumbling over on the spot.

A regular, open embrace might have been easier. It was the veil of secrecy to their intimate contact that most tormented. It brought back to mind the occasions when I was at similar tables for similar lunches, when one day absorbed by her radiance and languor and vital eyes she had caught me looking and steadfastly held my gaze. She smiled slyly and I had fallen in love. The full table of people disappeared and I was locked in on her, into her, until every facet of her body and being enthralled me. And she encouraged me, I was sure, asked me to make love to her in my daydreams. No woman could feign such inner fire, I believed then. Now I wasn't sure.

What if … what if? I couldn't bear to think it through. Had she even noticed me? Sure, she looked in my direction but was she looking at me? Or were her eyes so alive that afternoon because they were the one part of her that could not lie, that could not hide the thrill of him touching her near there. Her whole body might have been ecstatic from his warm hand but only her eyes betrayed the fact and I had fallen for fake idolatry. Was some man at today's table making the same mistake? We all fell for her in the end. She wanted me … she hadn't seen me … his hand caressed her … she made love to me with her swelling eyes … he touched her inner thigh … she duped me … I duped myself.

Finally I left them and my hollow spot in the shadow of the awning. People rushed through the veil of myself that remained there, regardless of its hurt. I walked some more as I had before but with my misery deepened a hundred fold. Intermittently my mind returned to the first tragedy of the day, the rejection of my first manuscript.

When at last I got back my apartment seemed smaller, more putrid than ever before. I avoided it all in a bottle of scotch. Thoughts of her and them came back strong: the highballs I had shared with Scott in clubs where we three had briefly dazzled. Now I was shorn. I curled up on my strewn floor, played with the glass, shook the melting ice cubes about and listened to the crisp crunch of their rubbing in a shallow pool of drink. I lie there now, sickly, at the bottom of a bottle, in the perpetual shadow of Fitzgerald.

Laurence Fenton has had stories published
previously on the internet and in The Evening Echo newspaper.