the all american Boy

Sun 8.4.19

      Have you ever noticed that in order to start on a new path one must dance with the devil?  A ritual in which . . . well here’s a story to illustrate.  I had a boyfriend once upon a time; we saw each other 2, maybe 3 times, dancing, movies, a sailor boy from the Brunswick Naval Air Base.  I had nothing in common with him, but he was good-looking.  Dylan was the type of person who doesn’t trouble himself much about the world he lives in; just a regular guy wanting to have a girlfriend, go out on Saturday night, work out, play ball.  Shy with me, he made effort at conversation. 

      My world was more complicated, divorced, back at college, party girl, smoking reefer, dancer, director of a campus feminist organization, in therapy, taking a serious look at who she was and what she wanted to do.  The world looked pretty bleak.  It was all an effing lie.  No one ever talked about what was really going on in the world, everyone lived inside a make-believe story, and many knew it, but felt compelled to follow the script.  Most of the subjects taught in college were a farce, pseudo science.

      The boyfriend dropped by my home unexpectedly one summer evening to show me his new car.  Dylan was a rebound guy who showed up shortly after the end of the 2-year love affair. He had black hair, cut short, creamy skin, well-built, good strong hands.  “Let’s go for a ride,” he said.  I lived in the country then and we travelled back roads, a warm night, peaceful.  We listened to music on WBLM radio, and he talked about his car, about how the back seat could fold down and create cargo space. He pulled off to a wooded area “Come, I’ll show you, he urged me over to the back seat.”

      It was the purest sexual moment I have ever experienced.  He never said word as he undressed me.  And I, amazed, entered into intimate connection with him.  What did I think?  I did not think.  The moment was foreordained.  We two were expressing something with our bodies that can never be said, can never be named.  He drove me home afterward in silence, and he kissed me at the door, not a word from either of us. 

That weekend he invited me to a beach party with a couple of his friends and their women.  I had nothing in common with any of these people and was glad to get away when the opportunity presented itself.

      We never met again.  I had had my dance with the devil and now there was work to be done.

To dance with the devil is not necessarily sexual, but a coming to an expansion of one's awareness into the unknowable and unnameable essence of being. The devil turns one's head in a new direction.