Page 3 of Exquisite Things

The boys are already singing a slurred rendition of “Happy Birthday” to Cyril Wilcox when I enter Brendan and Jack’s dorm room.

Prohibition has been the law of the land for a few months now, but those rules don’t apply at Harvard.

The boys who come from money, the ones with fathers who can make problems disappear with a phone call to some politician or dean, can always take what they want, even if it’s illegal, and in this room, no one wants anything legal.

“There he is!” Brendan exclaims when he sees me standing sheepishly at the door, holding a glass jar filled with Mother’s

famous oatmeal cookies. “And he’s got cookies.”

“Turn around, young man,” Jack demands with a finger pointed at me. I turn awkwardly, unsure of why until Jack exclaims, “Yes

indeed, he does have cookies.” Jack raises one of his sharp eyebrows. Everything about Jack—his wit, his slender fingers,

his imposing nose and devilish smile—feels sharp, like he was quickly sketched by an artist who forgot to blend and soften

the lines. Sometimes, he calls himself “The Jackal,” a nickname he wishes would stick, and an animal he bears a strange resemblance

to. His joke is received with applause. I know it’s meant in good fun, and I don’t mind these boys admiring me even if I don’t

like any of them. Well, not that way at least. I like them very much in other ways. Their freedom, humor, and irreverence

is intoxicating.

When I’ve thought of an appropriately witty response to Jack’s comment on my backside, I turn to the group and smile. “Well

now, I’ve just arrived and already I’m the butt of the joke.” I’m learning to talk like them, to wrestle with words.

“Look at my baby cousin, giving as well as he receives,” Brendan says as he puts a chunky arm around me.

Brendan has the typical Doherty build. Thick all over, with hulking arms and legs, and a layer of baby fat on the cheeks that will likely never go away.

But unlike us, he’s also unnervingly tall, which gives his torso the feel of an old tree, and makes his thick limbs look like branches reaching out into the world.

He takes the jar of cookies and holds it up.

“Who wants the best cookies in Boston?” Brendan doesn’t wait for an answer.

“Birthday boy first.” He tosses a cookie to Cyril, who catches it.

Then moves on to the rest of the boys. One of them has rouge on his cheeks just like I once did.

The room is littered with little hints of their hidden life.

Women’s makeup and jazz records. Pomade and a bouquet of green carnations.

When the cookie throwing is done, I ask Brendan, “Did I come too late? You’ve already sung happy birthday.”

“We’ll be singing throughout the evening. One happy birthday for each stop we make. Tonight, my cousin, you’re getting a tour

of all our spots.”

“Well, perhaps not the tearooms and orchards,” Jack says. “Baby boy is far too innocent for those haunts.”

“I’m not a baby boy,” I snarl defiantly.

“Is that so?” Jack says with a wink. “Care to prove it?”

“Ignore him,” Brendan instructs. “He thinks everything is about sex.”

“Except sex!” Jack squeals. “Which is about power.”

“Thank you, Oscar Wilde.” Brendan blows a kiss up to the ceiling, like Wilde himself is up there somewhere.

“If you’re attempting to send some love to dear Oscar, he’s not up in heaven. He’s down in some gutter, looking at the stars.”

Jack’s tone suddenly changes for a moment. He blows a kiss down to the ground, and with startling sincerity, he whispers,

“Thanks, Wilde. You suffered for us. Rotted away in jail so that we could be here, drinking champagne, billing and cooing.”

Jack stands up and takes Brendan’s hand. Twirls him around. “Dancing with each other.” He leans in to kiss Brendan. “And also...”

But Brendan stops him. “Sorry, dear roommate, bank’s closed.”

“And what time does the bank open?” Jack asks.

“For you, dear roommate, never.” Brendan pulls a pouty Jack next to him. “You’re my best friend. Let’s not destroy it all for a night of sin.”

“But why must it be a night of sin?” I ask.

“Because that’s all Jack is capable of,” Brendan says lovingly, like he doesn’t really mind.

“Shameful but true,” Jack admits. “I bore easy. Not to worry, dear roommate. I’ll find myself some ripe fruit with less self-respect

than you have later tonight.” Jack approaches the Victrola and the sound of Sophie Tucker crooning “Some of These Days” fills

the room. Brendan and Jack dance together like clowns, laughing, spinning, twirling. I see what they can’t. That for all their

jokes, there’s real love in their gazes. Perhaps Brendan likes Jack’s power. Jack is a son of influence and carries himself

as such. His grandfather was a German immigrant and a chemist who started a small drug company. His father took over the company,

renamed it Whitman & Whitman, and turned it into a pharmaceutical giant. As for what Jack sees in Brendan, that’s obvious.

Brendan is the only person willing to say no to him.

“These cookies are absolutely tremendous,” one of the boys says with a full mouth. “Just tremendous.”

“The secret’s in the nuts,” I say slyly.

“It always is,” Jack snaps as he whirls Brendan’s huge body around and cups his crotch. “The secret’s always in the nuts.” Jack transforms Mother’s innocuous statement about oatmeal cookies into something raucous and bawdy. They speak

in code, Brendan’s friends, and I love that about them. It’s like learning a new language. Or a new instrument. They’re in the life , as they say, which means they know the hidden things, the things my mother doesn’t see happening in her city, to her beloved

son.

The birthday boy, Cyril, approaches me. “Brendan says you’ll be coming to Harvard.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say sheepishly. “I hope so. But I need a scholarship. I’m not like Jack over there. My father isn’t a millionaire.”

“Nor mine,” Cyril says.

“How old are you today?” I ask.

“Twenty,” he says. “You?”

“Seventeen. Eighteen this summer.” I bite my lip anxiously, wishing I were older, ready for the rest of my life to begin.

“So what can a twenty-year-old teach a seventeen-year-old?” I ask. “Is there some secret wisdom you’ve finally uncovered?”

“Yes, actually.” His eyes brighten. Cyril isn’t like Brendan or Jack. Those two feel like they’ve crossed the threshold into

manhood. Cyril still looks and acts like a boy. Like he’s still a sketch in a coloring book, waiting for someone to fill him

in. “I’ve been thinking a lot about how twenty feels like the perfect age to stop thinking about nothing but the future. All

my life, I’ve worked to get to Harvard. Now that I’m here, I’m constantly told to keep my head down and study so I don’t get

put on academic probation again.”

“Why were you on probation?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Poor grades.” Then he adds, “Sometimes, when the pressure feels too... overwhelming...”

I feel him struggling and say, “You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t—”

“It helps to talk,” he says quickly. “Well, to a good listener like you.”

I feel myself glow from the compliment. From the sense of belonging I feel in this room.

“I just get overwhelmed sometimes, that’s all,” he says.

“And when I do, I break out into hives. It makes me look like a rotten cabbage, as Jack likes to say, and I get so scared that I’ll break into hives again that I spin myself into a state of worry about it, even though worrying seems to be what causes it in the first place. ”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“But this is why I’m sharing the wisdom of my two decades with you,” he continues. “Because I know now that we can’t just

worry about the future. If I can’t live for this moment , then all I’ll do is worry and fret until I die.”

“That’s morbid,” I say. “You’re not close to death.”

“Aren’t we all?” Cyril asks sadly. “After the Great War and the pandemic, it’s hard not to think we must live every moment

like it could be our last.”

The words chill me. It wasn’t just men like my father we lost these past few years. There have been boys too, taken by war,

by the virus. The wails of grieving mothers who know all too well what a firm knock on their door means. Dreams and potential

and lives, vanished. We tell ourselves, and each other, that it’s all over now. But that’s foolish, isn’t it? Nothing is ever

over. Everything continues. I saw Father’s body buried and still I fear his wrath sometimes, don’t I? He’s not dead as long

as the fear of him lives inside me.

“You’re right,” I whisper. “And very wise for a ripe twenty.”

“Not you too,” Cyril says with a shake of his head. “Jack loves calling me ripe fruit and chicken and brownie. Anything to

get my goat.”

I feel my face get hot. “I didn’t mean it that way,” I insist. “I just meant you’re still very young. But not like a chicken.

More like a wise old owl in a chicken’s body.”

We both laugh now. It feels nice. This is why I come here.

For small moments of camaraderie. For brotherhood, which I never felt with my own brother, who takes after Father the way I take after Mother.

Sometimes it feels like we were never a united family.

There was the two of them, and the two of us.

“If I’m a wise old owl,” Cyril says, “then listen to me and waste no more time. We’re always being told that our happiness

is in some distant future. What I’m saying is, be happy now.”

Brendan approaches and pulls us both close. It really does feel like we’re brothers here, or like what brothers should be.

“I love this kid,” Brendan slurs as he tousles my hair. He’s a little drunker now. Spending too much time with Jack will have

that effect. Jack loves to pour and pressure. “And I love this kid, too.” Brendan firmly squeezes Cyril’s cheeks.

“That sort of hurts,” Cyril says.

“I’m sorry. I forget my own strength sometimes.” Brendan laughs.

Jack stops the record mid-song. “Let’s get to the Golden Rooster before you pansies start passing out,” he yells. As soon

as the decision is made, Jack pulls the green carnations out of the vase, and pins one to each boy’s lapel.

I eye Brendan nervously. “I should go home. Mother will worry if I’m out too late.”

“Stop living for her,” he says. “Live for you.”

“They won’t let me into the Golden Rooster anyway. I look younger than the rest of you.”

Brendan laughs off my trepidation. “You’ll be with Jack. Nobody says no to Jack Whitman.”

I feel my heart flutter in my chest. I’ve been to the dorm room.

I’ve joined them for nighttime walks around campus.

But I’ve never gone out into the city with them.

Never to one of those establishments they’ve told me about where men from all over the city and beyond congregate.

“I don’t know...” I feel the eyes of the room on me.

The record is off. There’s no music. No conversation or laughter.

“Your mother thinks you’re here at Harvard with me.” Brendan puts a hand on each of my cheeks. “You worry too much.”

“I just don’t know if I’ll— Well, will I—fit into that place?” I stammer out.

Jack taps an impatient heel on the wood floors. “Perhaps baby boy is right,” he purrs condescendingly. “The Golden Rooster

is positively rancid. It’s no place for a clean-cut baby boy like him.”

I throw an angry gaze at Jack. I don’t like him baiting me like this, calling me baby boy twice in a row. But I don’t change

my mind because of Jack. I do it because Cyril’s eyes catch mine, and his words of wisdom hit me anew. Be happy now. And so I reluctantly announce I’ll be joining.

Brendan squeezes my shoulder, pleased with me. “If you want to use a bathroom, I’d do it here. You’ll understand why when

we get there.”

“As for The Jackal...” Jack waves an arm in the air dramatically. “He loves to park himself in the bathroom of the Golden

Rooster and wait for his next conquest.”

“And that,” Brendan says, “is why you should avoid it.” I let Brendan pin a green carnation on me before we go. I’m officially

one of them now. I hope I’m doing this for me, and not simply to please Brendan. I wish there were a way to tell why I do

the things I do. A way to be certain of my own heart.

When we enter the Golden Rooster, it’s the sounds that hit me first. Music. Laughter. The mashing of two young men’s lips

against each other. The pounding as they push each other against a wall passionately. The swish of men’s eyes as they assess

each other.

And then the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen catches my eye. My age, I would guess. When I look at him, all the sounds seem to dissipate. The world goes quiet.

I don’t know who he is, or where he comes from, but something tells me he doesn’t belong here. Not the way the rest of us

do, we children of Boston, we boys of Irish Catholic stock with our rosy cheeks, blue eyes, and doting mothers. Perhaps he’s

Italian. He has dark hair, slicked back with pomade, and a lithe body that wouldn’t stand a chance on the wrestling mat. He

has none of the nervous energy of these other boys, all drunkenness and performance. There’s a stillness to him that mesmerizes

me.

He raises a hand up. I’m curious who he’s waving to. Perhaps he’s meeting an equally mysterious friend. But when I look behind

me, there’s nobody there waving back. I turn to him. He points at me, then waves again.

“Me?” I mouth in disbelief, and he nods. So I wave back. He smiles. My heart leaps through my chest.

Just when I’m about to approach him, Brendan pulls me into a bear hug from behind. I keep my eyes glued to him as Brendan

pulls me away. “Goodbye,” I mouth silently to the mystery boy.

“Hello,” mystery boy mouths back, his smile mischievous.

His peculiar eyes seem to glow like two fireflies in the darkness. “Who are you?” I mouth. “And how did you become so magical?”