The Barefoot Evangelist: (Book; Part X)

 

The Meeting of Souls and Bodies

This is what I sell

“No matter how old I am, I still have the energy to follow you to the end and do what ever you wish to do and you will not be disappointed without you having to compromise anything, my dear girl.”

“Can’t you give a straight answer to a simple question?”

“Your question was not simple there is purpose behind it,” answered Erik with great simplicity.

Without any further ceremony, she gave him a pretentious goodbye kiss and went out of the door rather hastily.

Erik walked over to the bartender and told him to give him the bill for the door damages and he too walked out. It was a rainy day so he rushed into his car and drove off looking behind him with a complete concentration.

Eventually he walked into the fast food restaurant, the young woman rushed to him and the way she embraced him seemed to the onlookers that he had just returned home from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of years and the way she looked at him up and  down he  had become utterly changed and had renounced his old  habits and manners of life.

“How long has it been?” asked Erik, looking at her up and down.

“Over twelve long years it seems,” she replied loudly.

Four old patrons sitting on nearby table, having nothing better to do than to keep each other company talking about the past as often older people do, were monitoring the situation with a lot of interest, hearing the  number twelve, they became astonished to say the least.

“She must be his daughter and has not seen her for twelve years,” said one of them.

“She could very well be his sister,” returned the other older man.

“She may be his lover,” said another.

“If she is his lover, twelve years ago she was a mere child,” said the first one who had  spoken.

“He maybe a living, breathing child molester who is standing before us,” said the second old man. “We should really call the police.”

“No, fools, you don’t have to call them, they keep track of those child molesters. Communists is the problem. If you see a communist then you call them.”

“How can you tell who is communist and not an American?” asked the first old man with the green sweater.

“The communists have red and puffed up faces and most of them are blond. That is why they call them Reds” responded the man.

“No, those are not communists they are rednecks from the south, and they don’t have blond hair they have red.” responded another old man.

Erik and the young lady walked out holding hands. They got into their own cars and drove off the parking lot leaving the four idle old men, one of which stayed silent, with four half consumed coffees in front of them and three unanswered question in their heads.

The young woman, after making a right turn waited to Erik to catch up with her. Erik drove right behind her with the Greek music blasting in his car.

Erik drove up one street after the other until the Greek music had abated all his worries and then the revulsion of guilty feelings put him in a celebrating mood. They both arrived one after the other at the apartment building where she lived. They parked their cars and ran because of the rain, and took the elevator to the third floor. She opened the apartment door and he was invited to walk in first. He stood there as soon as they entered. She left and went into another room. Looking around the place, he became amazed by all the flower pots of different sizes and colors; some sitting on the floor, some on the tables and others hanging from the ceiling by the widows. When he finished his surveying he sat on the couch, in the living room of the three room apartment as if he were waiting to have his portrait painted. He heard a sound of steps coming his way, turning around saw the young woman standing by the door wearing nothing but a smile. There she was the true representative of the female species. Her statue, her face, her breast and legs, all that, filled his eyes with great excitement. The feeling of life emptiness which makes men like Erik so restless lost its plausibility, its evil influence dissolved in a flow of joyous emotions. He saw her well. He saw her as a high class woman. What ever her history was, he thought, she preserved the stamp of ladyship. She was a rare woman according to his thoughts. She was one of those creatures whose mere existence is enough to awaken an unselfish delight. He felt good to be in the world in which she had her being.

 

Here I am

“Jesus, I have removed my garments of shame and I am prepared for us to unite and be one, so come to me and lay on my bed and you will see the light,” she said.

Erik sensed that she wanted him to grin and he did briefly.

“I thought I was the one to show you the light,” he said.

“Things have changed since Jesus’ time, now women can show the light too.”

He saw her being so unbelievably youthful without an ounce of excess of fat anywhere on her body; the blond hair and pale, pale skin went together like one couldn’t live without the other.

“If you want to know the real thing,” he said smiling, “seeing your body without the garments it looks younger than I had imagined. I am so ashamed to show you mine, I can feel myself blushing with anger for thinking that I am old enough to be your father and I feel like, instead of taking you to bed, I should  put you over my knee and spank you.”

“That’s a good start. But there might be more to it than that.”

“I feel as if I am about to neck with a young girl on the living room sofa with papa and mama upstairs,” said Erik.

“You don’t have to worry about that, Papa and Mama are in their house about four hundred miles from here, Youngstown Ohio,” she said, coming to him slowly. “Let me teach you a few things. First thing is for me to undress you, but you must first stand up.”

Rolling his eyes in amazement and with a smile wider than the Hudson river, he slowly stood up, with his eyes nailed on her face.

She soothingly removed his coat and then his shoulder holster and placed them on the couch, and looking up to him she smiled, too.

He lost his smile and put his arms around her, feeling her breasts lying heavy against the chest of his shirtfront, he sensed sexual stirrings and his breathing increased. It was not sex he was after; it was that incredible unbelievable youth she was covered with.

“Let me handle you the way you intrigue me,” said the girl, pulling back her body from his, then slowly she let her fingers walk softly downwards. They stopped for a short moment, then she began to unbuckle his belt. The feeling in her hands, the thought in her mind and the look in her eyes, expressed her desire to surrender. Every note and every string of love making was about to start playing a symphony of ecstasy, and her begging to be conquered, brought upon him a thrilling sensation that was too hard to endure, but being a good soldier to women in their pursue of thrill and love making, he stood there motionless. When the buckle was undone she pulled down his zipper and slid her soft hand inside his under shorts, while the other moved upwards and touched his face and lips.

“How old did you say you were?” he asked, with his breathing louder than his voice.

“I’ll be twenty two, soon,” she blushed.

“How soon?”

“In eleven months,” she whispered, running her fingers around his ear.

“I think I am old enough to be your father,” he whispered.

“So, do you want me to remove my hand from inside your pants?” she breathed in his ear.

“If I say yes, take my gun and shoot me because I am good no more,” he mumbled.

“Oh, you’re good I see with my hand. Besides, I have more surprises for you in store.”

“Pleasing?” he said now, with a whispering air.

“Pleasing for me anyway.”

Suddenly her eyes were opened as if she were awakened by something unusual. It was not unusual, but unexpected and pleasing for her to feel his hands on her breast.

“What happened?” she asked in a whispered. “You want to lead.”

“I told you I am too old for this anymore, but keep on trying,” he said.

“I don’t see you as old,” she continued, whispering and working around his face with both hands. “I see you as something else. You are a smart, tough and a wise lion who has been running his forest forever.”

“You are right,” shouted the man, grabbing her and stretching her on his arms he carried on the bed, threw her on it, kicked off his pants and shirt, fell right on top of her, and said, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. We will do it my way.”

After a while they were lying side by side and looking at each other, wearing only a smile, and they both looked that they had received the feeling of good satisfaction.

“If you really want to know the truth, you have more aces up your sleeve in making love than there’re thieves in a crooked judge‘s funeral,” she said.

 

 

“Experience is the only good substitute for youth,” he said, turning on his back and looking on the ceiling.

“Erik, where are we going from here?”

“You know, this the first time you called by my name?”

“Well, you beat Jesus to the punch; in your mind you have legalized polygamy.”

“What is your name, Polish pheasant?”

“Carol.”

“Carol. What a lovely name. I don’t think I have ever made it with a Carol,” he  said, “Oh yes, I did, now I remember. I remember well a Carol. A very interesting story with Carol.”

“Don’t tell me Larry Gottner in the army, was Carol,” she  mused.

“No. Carol was a beautiful freelance photographer, she and I went together long enough for almost to fall in love. Her peculiar constant complain was about her mother who had  divorced her father and she alone raised Carol and her sister. But her main complain was that her mother was a nymphomaniac. While the girls were very young her mother brought many different uncles at home, day and night and she would make it in her bedroom and she was a screamer too. One night I took Carol to my friend’s restaurant. I was surprised to see the young lady who was the bartender, to come out from behind the bar and make a commotion with Carol, embracing her and kissing her. After we sat down Carol told me that the bartender was a bisexual and had gotten to know her mother well. Before we were served, I went to the wash room and when I came back I found Carol standing with a grimacing look on her face ready to leave me right then and she said with clenched teeth,  “You bastard, you have made it with my mother too.’ She slapped me across the face and dashed out of there. I found out later on that the bartender told her about me and her mother, with whom I only had one night’s stand and had never given me her name. Three years later I found out that Carol had died from breast cancer and I went to the wake. As soon as I walked in two big men came and carried me out on her mother’s orders,”

“I am glad my mother is over four-hundred miles from here. But being married to my father, who is indecently younger than you, she would think that you are too old for her,”

“How much younger is you father?”

“Enough for my mother to think that you would be too old for her.”

“The world is so lopsided. The two immoral dames, Carol’s mother, Stephanie her name was and the bartender thought I was immoral; and you now say that I am just  right for you, the daughter, but I am too old for your mother.”

“That is probably the bitter truth.”

“But I have got the best of the two.”

“Now what are going to do with me?”

“Tomorrow night I will take you out to dinner to very nice restaurant and spend over one hundred dollars on you so you will not think I am cheap. You see, when I’m about to fall in love with a girl, I spend one hundred dollars on a dinner. Last year I must have spent over a thousand dollars.”

“You mean to tell me last year alone you fell in love over ten times?”

“A thousand dollars comes to ten love affairs? My God what they are going to think of next?”
“You street dog,” she said, with a pretentious grimacing look on her face.

“Street dog? A while ago you said that I was a lion in the forest, now I am a dog on the streets? What am going to into next, a donkey?”

The young woman picked a pillow and hit him several times in a very playful manner imparting insults. “Goddamn Greek, that is what I am going to call you next.”

When that fit of madness subsided he grabbed a hold of her arms looked her in the face and said.  “You are a true representative of the female sex; you think of the worst instead of the best. Instead of you being happy that I may end up falling in love with you, you are attacking me like a mad cat thinking that I had fallen in love ten times last year.”

“You are right,” returned the young woman soothingly, “Let me show you the many ways of the love I feel for you,” plunging her beautiful body on top of his, she began to kiss him softly at first then violently. She suddenly stopped, withdrew her arms from around him and said, “You didn’t finish your story with the three fishermen at the river. For some reason you stopped short. All that happened, you described perfectly and in detail but the story about the fishermen remained hanging. If you remember you told me that after you kicked the door from the cabin you came on deck and found nothing but Gottner’s pistol, which according to you, was never fired. Now can you complete your story for my satisfaction.”

A question like this might have been answered easily, either in accents of apologetic tone for omitting the end or with a visibly sorrow for the death of the three fishermen, but he didn’t say anything. He only frowned. It was an angry frown. She waited and nothing else came.

“What’s the matter?… Can’t you tell me what happened?”

He looked as startled for a moment as though he had discovered her presence only at that very moment. But he changed to normal almost immediately. He put on the air of indifference, but he supposed he had to say something.

“I thought you said that the military police found all three of them shot in the head.”

She looked as if she had repressed an impulse to jump up, and stayed put to hear further information about the death of the fishermen.

Waiting a few minutes to hear something more, but when she heard nothing, stood up and rather hurriedly walked in the other room.

Erik lay there motionless. Through the open door he had a view of her covering herself with a night robe. She re-entered the bed room sighed, glanced at him inquisitively, as if as much to say, “Aren’t you going to get up and leave.”

“How could Gottner have shot them? The whole story smells funny to me. I suppose you had your hands pretty full of tangled up business. One more thing; the story with Jason was all a lie, now I realize. You couldn’t have a brother almost thirty years younger than you. If you remember you told me your mother was thirty five years old when she gave birth to your bother, who is only four years younger than you. That is why I asked for your age. You created that story for Jake not to suspect that you were trying to verify his identity, but he smelled fish with you. Like you said, you shot and killed the crow but you scared the vulture. Jake is not a vulture, he is a hawk and you opened his eyes wider. Now live with that cowboy.”

Erik stood up slowly got up and got dressed. He went near her and extended his hand warmly and she accepted not knowing why, and he said softly, “Good night.”

That was all he said: “Good night”. Nothing more. From the way he looked and the peculiar movement of his facial muscles couldn’t be guessed what he intended to say, but surprise made him swallow it, what ever it was. He chocked slightly and then with a calm manner and soft voice: “What ever you do, keep to the right side of it. The wrong side is dangerous. Don’t let anything tempt you over. You’ll find nothing but trouble there.” Erik said and without taking the time to hear a response he jerked the door open, but left as softly as he spoke, leaving it open.

Having spent over fourteen hours in the young woman’s apartment, it was three in the morning when he appeared running, pounded by the pouring rain, from the building to his car. In his car behind the wheel, he always got closer to himself than anywhere else. He sat there and thought. Somewhere in the back of his mind there had always been the idea that someday when his desire of conquering women, which was a ongoing war, that some day when that war was over he would settle down with his wife and kid and be one unit. Become one unit again as once had been, but now, grown and wiser from the war and service.

The idea had always been a pipe dream, of course. But as long as there were women to be conquered he had to go on. He had realized what made Alexander the Great tick, Napoleon and all the other dreamers from the beginning of history to go on. They were cursed like he felt he was. But the only good difference between him and the rest of the historical conquerors, he had not been celebrated in any glorious way. He thought hard and in the process of his thinking to find out where he was and what he was doing there he went on asking himself questions. Did these famous warriors and conquers ever suffer from feeling naked, alone and orphaned as he many times did? Did they ever fear that someday there would be no more desire to conquer and no more space to take? Did they ever feel guilty causing the death to anyone for the sake of conquering? Did they feel the need to be punished for some wrongdoing as they felt for the need to be rewarded for the good?

Being a man living on the fence between good and evil and a performer of many errors and omissions in life, he learned to automatically look over his shoulder. It was not difficult to spot a red pick up truck that matched the Big Jake’s personality, and the one which Carol described to Erik when they were leaving the bar. It was parked two rows of cars behind him. Driving away with one eye on the road the other on the red pick up truck through the rearview mirror, Erik noticed the red truck was moving and staying a little distance in the rear.

At the first opportune moment, he made a sudden right turn and stopped. The red truck did the same, but not knowing Erik had stopped, the red truck came close behind, close enough for him to see that there were two others in the truck besides the driver. Fearing the unexpected, Erik sped up and the red truck followed discreetly. They traveled at high speed in the pouring rain through a long endless forest. Suddenly Erik heard two pistol shots, but being blessed with a unique sense for survival, made the last left turn which brought him to an alley hidden from the road. He very slowly and carefully came out of the car and glued himself on the wall a few paces away and waited. A few minutes or rather seconds later Erik turned and poked down the larger street, he suddenly saw the little truck coming slowly as if the driver had lost direction but in reality he lost Erik. Suddenly the truck stopped, the doors were open loudly and began their search for Erik in a very brave and rsckless manner.

“Hey!” whispered Erik who out of nowhere appeared and planted himself behind them.

The three hunters, turning around and seeing Erik standing there, holding something that resembled a rifle pointed at them they turned and ran in three different ways and none of them waited for the other. Erik, holding on to what turned out to be a three feet long old 2×4, walked away a few yards, and sat on box and waited for the threesome to return.