THAT BOY
 

March 5, 2007
French Quarter
New Orleans
 
 
     The sidewalk cafe's waiter, his head a tangle of blond curls, sat the iced latte down in front of me with that crisp click that glass makes against marble.

     "Just the thing on a hot day," he said.
     I answered with a smile and a "Yes," and as he turned away I raised the frosty glass.  I came to an abrupt pause.  What was this sudden terror I felt?  This sudden burst of joy?  What could possibly be filling me with such excitement?  Then, gazing over the top of my iced latte, I understood, for there he was..."that boy."

     How can I describe him?  I can't, its' beyond my ability to make words do such work.  Let me rather liken the experience of seeing him to an exquisite spasm, a delicious chill, as though I'd just heard Van Clyburn play Clair de Lune, just gazed upon a canvas by Renoir.  All truly beautiful people impress just as art does.  They can change our mood, lift our spirits, but there are also those--the most beautiful of the beautiful--who can instill in us a certain terror when they come into view.  Why?  Because it is they who can stop our hearts, for that briefest of moments murder us.

     "That boy" began to make his way through and around the tables of the cafe with a graceful swing of his hips, aloof of a covey of lovely young girls--they looked every bit like a gathering of swans (not a sparrow among them)--who sat around two tables pushed together.  Oh, how they stared at him!  And oh, after they'd recovered from what was obviously their own spasms and chills, how they buzzed and giggled!  Watching "that boy" come toward me, his eyes looking neither right nor left just straight ahead, I felt another exquisite rush of joy and excitement, and, yes, another rush of terror.  Knowing my risk, I stood up.

     "An iced latte, just the thing on a hot day," I said to him, pulling the other chair away from the table as an invitation.
     He stopped, his eyes swerved to meet mine, focused.

     A butterfly poised on a nearby palm stopped winking its wings, the giggles of young girls ceased.

     Then his smile and "Yes" stopped my heart, and I was, on that afternoon in New Orleans, for the briefest of moments, murdered by "that boy."
 
 
S.D.J.