Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

Part Two

I was happy the next day when John visited my office. His girlfriend had visited that weekend as well, and we compared notes. I was surprised by his casual attitude toward sex, as he was an observant Catholic who had skipped lunches to go to the Cathedral for mass.

As we talked, he noticed a particularly strong review I had received on a recent project.

"Well done, Mr. Davis" he said. "You must be smarter than I thought."

It was a reverse accolade. It sounded like a compliment, but it wasn't one, once you thought about it. I decided to chide him.

"Nope, I'm just a dumb hoosier from Chucktown who gets lucky every once and again. Even a broken clock is right twice a day."

Chastened, John apologized for the unintended slight.

"I did not mean to suggest I did not think you were smart. It is just that, you do not come across as a law geek. I was surprised you are at Northwestern. I thought you were somewhere like Mizzou. You just seem . . . remarkably normal."

I had no idea what he was talking about or how to respond. But, I did not think I should say "thank you" to "remarkably normal." I thought maybe I should use two words, one of which was "you" and the other of which ended in a K, but was only four letters and did not rhyme with spank. Instead, I said nothing.

Later that day, all of the summer associates received a memorandum from John through interoffice mail (there was no such thing as email, much less texting, in 1990). It read "Mason Davis has become the carrot. Please react accordingly."

I ran into John later in the library. "The carrot?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "The mule chases the carrot. With that review, we are the mules, chasing you, the carrot."

From that moment on, he called me "Carrot." It stuck, and soon the rest of the summer class followed his lead.

*****

Two days later, I received another interoffice memorandum from John. It read:

To:The Carrot

From:John C. Frederick III

Re:Friday

Date: June 20, 1990

Vi is not visiting this weekend. So, here is an alternative plan for your consideration/participation: Leave work at 5:30. Travel to my apartment to change into casual clothing. Travel to the Delmar Loop to meet Mark and Jennifer (friends from CODASCO) at Blueberry Hill. Eat greasy burgers. Drink Bud Dry. Play darts and pool.

"Vi" was short for Vivian, his girlfriend of four years from Yale. Vi had stayed in Chicago for the summer, where she was getting her Ph.D. in Psychology from Loyola of Chicago. CODASCO was short-hand for The Country Day School, St. Louis' most exclusive college preparatory academy that prided itself on feeding students to the Ivy League. Like I said, it was snappy.

Rather than respond by memorandum, I used the switchboard to telephone John's office.

"John Frederick," he answered.

"Not John C. Frederick the Third?" I asked.

"No. That seems haughty."

"And, John Frederick doesn't?"

"No."

"Well, John Frederick, this is Mason Davis," I said, adopting the most formal tone I could. "Regarding your memorandum, I have considered it and am willing to participate in your alternative plan."

"Excellent, Carrot," he said. "If I do not see you beforehand, I will meet you in the lobby at 5:30 on Friday, two days hence."

I was excited all day on Friday. So far, I had spent summer weekends at home. I did not want to hang out with people from high school, and my college friends had scattered after graduation to careers or graduate schools.

When we got to John's University City apartment that night, he made two gins and tonic, announced he was going to shower before changing, and suggested I put music on. I changed into shorts and a t-shirt and started combing through the CDs stacked on the floor next to the stereo. I settled on "You and Me Both" from Yaz, skipping to the "Mr. Blue" track.

As Allison Moyet sang about the winter sounds crying and an old man slowly dying, John stepped out of the bathroom in white boxers, toweling his hair.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"Know what?" I asked back.

"This was my favorite song in college?"

"I didn't. But, it was mine, too."

"Well, that is quite a coincidence, indeed" he suggested, stepping back into the bathroom.

It was. Actually, it was quite a coincidence that we were together, planning a night out. Nothing in our backgrounds suggested our paths would cross. The 25 miles between his childhood home and mine were, in reality, a chasm.

John looked much younger without his glasses. And, he was thicker and more muscled than I expected. He was carrying a little extra weight around his mid-section, but his arms, back, and chest were more muscled than they appeared when he was suited up for work.

John was also hairier than I expected, his chest covered with the same straight brown hair that covered his head. The hair was especially thick in the middle of his chest, where it formed a trail that traced his stomach and disappeared into his boxers.

"Talk with me while I dress," John said. I followed him through the apartment, which consisted of a series of rooms you had to walk through to get to the next. It went living room, kitchen, bedroom, bedroom. The first bedroom was empty. John slept in the second bedroom, on a mattress and box springs directly on the floor. The second bedroom was an add-on above a porch. It had no windows, but plenty of wood panelling.

"This seems pretty grim," I offered.

"Not at all. I love to sleep, and this room is like a tomb. I started in the first bedroom, but it was too bright. I do not even know what time it is back here."

"What does the C stand for?" I asked.

"It is a bit much."

"Coitus?"

"No, Carrot, my middle name is not coitus."

"Cunnilingus?"

"Yes, you guessed it. My mother loved oral sex so much, she put it in my name."

"Good for her. Very avant guard. But, it doesn't seem very blue blooded to me. It seems a bit base."

"My middle name, Carrot, which you are not share with anyone at work, is 'Chester.'"

"As in 'the child molester?" I asked, laughing.

"No, as in Vera Winfield Chester, my mother's maiden name."

"I guess it's better than 'Winfield,'" I said. "Still, 'John Chester Frederick the Third' seems like a lot of name for a little boy to carry around and up to which to live." John was a grammarian, so I was working on mine. Hard.

"It is."

"Does your family call you Trip or Trey?" I asked.

"No, they call me Jo. My dad is John, so I am Jo."

"You call yourself John at work," I observed.

"I like it better. Only my family calls me Jo. J-O Jo seems like a woman, to me."

I decided then and there that I would call him Jo. As I thought about it a bit, "Jo" became "Jo C," which then became "Josie."

We took John's blue Cherokee to Blueberry Hill. As he drove, I explained that I would call him Josie going forward.

"As in Josie and the Pussycats?" he asked.

"No, as in Jo C. Frederick the Third."

"I am not sure I like it."

"Well, I'm not sure I like being called Carrot," I reminded him.

"Touche . . . Carrot."

Mark and Jennifer were already at the Hill, playing darts. They were lovers. John had dated Jennifer in high school, and she had taken his cherry. But, they had broken up when he went to Yale, and Mark had stepped in to fill the void. They had been together since.

John eschewed his glasses for contacts that night. With John's eyes no longer obscured by his silver, wired frames, I noticed two things. One, while his eyes were bright blue, they were flecked with silver. Two, he had the longest eyelashes I had ever seen. They looked fake.

We drank way too much for way too long. Somehow, we made it across town safely. We stumbled drunk up the stairs to John's apartment, which was on the third floor of a house.

"You are welcome to stay," John offered.

"I don't think I have a choice, Josie," I slurred. "I don't think I could find my car, much less drive it."

As John fumbled around in the bathroom, I stepped out of my shorts, pulled off my shirt, settled onto the couch, and pulled the throw over me. I was nearly asleep when John shook me.

"This will not do," he said. "It will be too bright come morning. Stay with me. There is plenty of room."

I followed John to his room. He undressed as we walked, dropping his shirt and his shorts along the way. We passed out as soon as we hit the bed.

John was right. The room was a tomb. When I woke up the next day, it was pitch dark, and I had no idea what time it was. John was still asleep, and I needed water. I sneaked out of the room and to the kitchen, where I discovered it was already past noon. My parents were going to be worried, so I found John's telephone and called them. I got the answering machine, so I didn't have to explain much, other than that I was fine and would be home later.

I took water for John back to the bedroom. I left the door open, so I could see enough to put the water down without spilling it. The light cut across John's body, and I could see that he was sporting morning – technically afternoon – wood. He looked thick.

John woke up when I settled back into bed. "Good morning, Carrot."

"Good morning, Josie. I put water on the floor for you."

"So thoughtful," he said, rolling over, grabbing it, and gulping it down. The people in the apartment below were playing dreadful music (James Taylor) loud enough that we were unlikely to fall back asleep. John rolled onto his right side, looked at me, and said "tell me about yourself, Carrot."

So, I did. In summary fashion, hitting the lowlights. It was a relatively grimy story until I headed off to Wash U and started to make my way.

"You mentioned three siblings, but talked only about two."

"My youngest sister died in a car accident on her way home from school a little over a year ago," I admitted. "It's still hard to talk about."

John grabbed my arm. It was the first time he had touched me, and I felt a jolt. "I am sorry to hear that," he said. "I have never lost anyone. I suspect it is terribly painful."

"It is," I said, noticing that his hand was still on my arm. "It's always there, stalking you. You can be bomping along, not a care in the world, and a song comes on, or someone is wearing her perfume, and a feeling of sadness and loss grabs you and just overwhelms you."

"Come here," John said, rolling me into him and wrapping his left arm around me. My head was in his chest, and his chin was on my head. I could still smell the Calvin on his neck. I had never had a homosexual urge (at least that I recalled), but I had a strong desire to kiss his chest. Before I did anything stupid, John released me and rolled onto his back.

"I am sorry for bringing her up," he said. "But, I am glad to know. It explains a lot."

I raised my eyebrows, silently asking "what?"

"There's something going on behind your eyes most of the time. Even when you are enjoying yourself, there is something holding you back, lurking. And, you get lost a lot."

"Lost?"

"Yes. It is like you drift away. You are there, but you are not."

We stayed in bed for awhile, not talking, just relaxing and listening to the bad music. I finally broke the peace.

"So, tell me about yourself."

"There is not much to tell. I am an only child. My parents were older when I was born. I have lived a great life. I went to great schools. I have traveled to great places. Your life is totally alien to me. I would not have wanted to live it."

"You know, each experience makes us who we are. I wouldn't want to re-live, but I like my life today, and I like where I'm headed. So, maybe it was all worth it."

"Maybe."

I changed the subject. "I require sustenance. And, this 'suicide' music is bringing me down even farther than our talk. If we don't get up, I may do something drastic."

"Well, we do not want that," John responded. We got up, dressed, and headed to Steak 'n Shake to get greasy burgers to soak up some of the alcohol that was poisoning us.