The Taming of Frankie Carrozza

The Unconquerable Foe

It took him longer than he had initially expected to scrub himself free of the remnants gathered over the last few days in Glastonbury—the alcohol, the drugs, the copulation, the music, the laughter and the reprimanding of the local villain, be it justly or unjustly, depending on the spectator's perspective. To wash it all from himself, stuck to him like a second coat of skin, and feeling it pool around his toes was like an extraordinary massage; yet, still, he'd throw it all away for another bath in a lake, another day on the road and another fine hour in that gregarious company.
When the clock chimed nine o'clock in the evening, Charlie woke from dozing off in the armchair, cradled over both arms. By the time the large hand of the clock had reached quarter past, he was finally hopping along, simultaneously yanking on a pair of pale blue jeans and a faded peach-coloured jumper, optimistic with the prospects of adventure that the night still sung of in the eaves, leaves, and moonlight. He was just hurrying down the corridor, buttoning up his jeans, when he was stopped by two figures standing in Izzy's doorway, already waiting for him like chocolates in an advent calendar. Imogen Rose and Isaac Perkins stood in bathrobes and towels wrapped up around their heads like turbans, their faces plastered with thick lime paste and clutching mugs of tea, looking like a pair of shrewd spinster aunts.
'Enjoy, love's young dream.' Imogen cackled as she carelessly flicked the ash of her fag onto the gleaming floor. 'Do make sure he pays handsomely in return.'
Izzy offered him a sultry wink. 'Mind you don't do anything that we would do.'
'Well, that would leave me with hardly any options available, wouldn't it?' he responded, rolling his eyes and playfully shoving them back in through the doorway, causing them to run shrieking and giggling with delight.
With a laugh in his cheeks, he leaped down the stairs, jumping two at a time, and bounded out the door. He ripped Izzy's bicycle from the shed and sped off across the town on his lilac steed, thankful for the snow having melted, as he'd have most likely broken open his face upon the cement if it hadn't, due to such an eager burst of a take-off.
He soared through the town mid-flight, jingling the bell of the bike to those he knew well, standing outside the old apothecary and buying jam, hard-boiled sweets, coffees, and toffees. Pulling his tweed flat cap over his head and grinning madly as he swept down the long tongue of a steep hill and coursed around the war memorial, he stood up on the pedals to let the wind caress his throat, slipping a sneaky incorporeal hand down his jumper to cop a feel of his clavicles. He mightn't have been born with wings to fly, but this contraption between his legs wasn't a poor substitute for them, offering the same thrilling delectation of flight, he believed.
The last time that he had been on a bicycle had been with that dastardly and drastic boy, Frankie Carrozza, the little slice of magic. It had been sometime last year, when the trees were burnt and rusted with autumn, just before they had gone camping. Carrozza had coaxed him into going cycling with him, urged by his kidnapping of The Hobbit book that he was in the middle of reading, and so, to ensure the safety of the hostage, off they went, galavanting into sunlight. They had sailed out of town and roved along another rural road that Frankie knew too well, as familiar to him and as similar to the valves around his cherished heart.
Charlie smiled fondly. He distinctly remembered Frankie's flirtatious disposition in that little scorcher of an afternoon when the love was as young as them, circling around Charlie much too close in his scarlet and yellow bicycle or dangerously swaying left to right in front of him, wiggling long snakes out in the stones, dust and sand with his back wheel, causing Chance to keep his fingers hovering over the brakes like they were the triggers of a gunslinger. As the birds sung the songs of their halcyon days, he recalled the image to the forefront of his mind: of Frankie Carrozza standing up on his pedals and looking over his shoulder at him, grinning madly. He could see the sun and the wind combing through his wavy brunette hair, spilling over his eyes and shining Californian-blonde, his swarthy skin briefly bared from the breeze blowing a gust up his shirt to show off the back of an English and an American dream, and his emerald and mahogany eyes lit lively with joy, bright like a forest fire. He was the poster child of youth—unable to contain himself, unable to sit still, and finding wonder in the littlest of things. Almost unobtainable, he looked like a snapshot from a magazine, with all those immortalised happy faces; but it was that boy ahead, laughing through beautifully hoarse voice of his as he soared on, just barely out of reach of him.
They had finally arrived at a field at the end of the country lane and Charlie followed Frankie, as he always had, over the rusted metal gate and through the pastures until they discovered a secluded area hidden inside woodlands. In the centre, they found a large, still, untouched, and, perhaps, unexplored blue lake. With the temptation and the assurance from Carrozza, they left their clothes in bundles upon the water's edge and leapt into the lake and swam away the day. There was no warmth against the chilly embrace of the lagoon, other than what the other could offer with their own.
'It's like we're living in a masterpiece painted by Henry Scott Tuke,' Carrozza had said, peeling a lily pad from his shoulder. 'I should know, since I have several of them on my walls.'
They'd covered a slab of rock with the stacks of towels they'd brought with them and laid across them beside a small fire to warm up and dry off, sharing a spliff to keep the midges away as Carrozza fished until a crimson and lilac sunset came peeking in from over the tops of the trees.
Autumn, winter, and spring, Charlie counted as he rose up on the pedals and skirted by a tractor carrying bales of hay, swerving in through the market stalls to take the shortcut through the cobbled alleyway behind the butcher shop, almost knocking packets of ham flying from the hands of Mrs. O'Kane and the butcher to intercept the exchange, twinkling the bell for an apology as he skidded under strings of fairy lights and zoomed down the narrow alley. With only summer left before us, notions of a sun as bright as the morning yolk, he mused, and the last to explore. It'll be the greatest of them all.
Charlie careened into the grounds of Frankie's dorms, almost accidentally smashing the bicycle up against the wall due to it being adjusted for someone much taller than himself as he dodged the willow trees spilling over the tarmac, rustling in the wind like bows on violins. He swept beneath the bedroom lights that poured from above like magical portals to another land, strode into the foyer and bounded up the stairs, two at a time, smelling a sickly sweet scent of perfume lingering about the stairs.
He was giddy from having accidentally forgotten to wear an article of clothing beneath his trousers and how it made him feel ever so funny and, surprisingly, ever so free.
'I like to feel a breeze around me jollies,' Cahir Quinn had once said, spreading his legs brazenly in a pair of black GAA shorts, jokily doing a few squats against a tree stump and giving Charlie a giggle and an eyeful.
He caught his breath back on the top floor, clutching the banister to take in air and compose himself, before he roamed his hand along the corridor wall, treading nonchalantly towards Frankie's room, with all the time in the world in his pockets. He seen the face of no other Etonian boy, usually coming streaming from the doorways and walkways like rowdy blood vessels that sprung a certain inexplicable pulse of life inside the walls that only the buoyant stampeding energy of youths can conjure.
He knocked on the door, only to be answered with silence. Catching a whiff of that floral scent ingrained faintly into the wood and reminding him of cherry blossoms and peaches, Charlie knocked the door again. A hush responded. Impatient, he seized the handle and slowly pried it open.
Inside, the room was gloomy. Darkness advanced from all corners, but a circle of lamplight kept it at bay from one area down the stairs. It was in that illumination, at the centre of the open-planned layout, that he caught sight of Frankie sitting crosslegged upon the carpet in the middle of the floor underneath the lamp with his back to him. He was huddled into himself and his body was shaking, wearing only a shirt and underwear, and his hair wet from recently exiting the shower.
Charlie cocked his head to the side ponderously. He appeared to be silently sobbing or engaging in something all the more inappropriate. He smiled to himself as he stepped passed the bed, watching the body slowly rock on the carpet. Perhaps Carrozza is playing a game, the mischievous little tike, he wondered as he touched the newel. He's reenacting one of the horrors we watched to frighten me; I knew we should never have watched The Evil Dead or Rosemary's Baby—albeit, mostly from behind pillows, blankets, and fingers.
'Frankie?' Charlie called hesitantly, as he began to slowly walk down the steps towards him. 'This isn't funny at all, Carrozza. You're becoming very mediocre with your tricks and in great need of a revival in your extravagance. What has become of your grandiose? Where is the silly string, the sellotape, the cling film, the foam, and the scissors? I swear, I'll turn around and walk out of this door forever, never looking back, never searching for your face again, I promise, if you—if you jump around or if you ...'
Frankie did not turn, he did not stir, he did not answer or make any sort of notion or motion that he had even heard the boy as Charlie neared his quivering back.
'Frankie, what's wrong? Has something happened? What's the matter with you?' Charlie whispered unevenly. He felt his heart thump hard against his chest like a punch and his blood apprehensively ran cold, turning to icy slush in his veins, fearing this unresponsive state he was receiving from the other boy—he was never ever known to be so quiet for more than a few seconds. He swallowed with difficulty, feeling dread empty out his gut and a chill scraping the bottom of his oesophagus like a scraggy hand made of icicles, tangling his vocal cords. An unpleasant, inexplicable and foreseeing sensation stirred in his belly.
'I ought to have known, but I know now ... I now know why she has returned.' Frankie's voice was toneless, trembling, unfamiliar and glacial. 'I've solved the mystery of Beth Holiday.'
Charlie did not dare speak. He only attempted to register the slumbering child cradled in the crook of Frankie Carrozza's arms and legs.