Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 20:50:21 -0400
From: Duncan Ryder <duncanryder@hotmail.com>
Subject: The gift of bob dylan

The Gift of Bob Dylan

By

Duncan Ryder

This story is for "Michael."  You were right.  I did.  I do.  He is.

I was barely 16 that fall and looked younger -- a small, fine-boned slip of
a boy, blonde, blue-eyed, in clothes my mother bought for me.  Which was
fine, because I never paid much attention to what I wore.

Actually, I didn't pay much attention to anything, except my studies.  I
was a scholarship kid in a posh college, two years younger than everyone
else and away from home for the first time.  I wasn't so much shy as
withdrawn.  Self-contained.  Out of my element in so many ways.

If I even had an element.

I hadn't quite figured that out yet.

I hadn't quite figured out a lot of things.

What I did know about myself was that I loved words.  What I didn't know
about myself was... pretty much anything else.  I had no idea who or what I
was, who or what I wanted to be.

I mean -- think about it.  I'd been a precocious child, and by the time I
was in grade four I'd skipped two grades.  Because I was small for my age
anyway, it just got... ridiculous.  My parents made them stop skipping me,
and made up my own supplemental reading program with help from a friend of
theirs who was a high school English teacher.  Between them, they did their
best to nurture my word passion, and their best was very good indeed.

So, at school, I felt like everyone's kid brother.  At home, I had words.

And then came high school.

There I was, two years younger than the kids in my class, and a late
bloomer to boot.  I didn't understand any of it.  Is it any wonder I didn't
relate to girls?  I didn't relate to anyone.  Intellectually, I was way
ahead of them.  Socially, they were on another planet.

Still, I had my own little world, a world of words.  I was happy there.

I guess I was lucky.  I mean, I didn't really suffer in high school, not
the way I've since learned that some boys like me suffered.  I mean, I
didn't even know there were boys like me.

I didn't even know I was like me...

Anyway, high school wasn't so bad.  There were good teachers, and some of
them went out of their way to keep an eye on me.  Sometimes I got teased
for being little and young and smart, and there were bits of meanness, but
there was no real cruelty.  I was always fine.

Some the girls were sweet.  Especially when they learned about me and
words.  There were always girls who loved words like that.  They found me
and talked to me and showed me the love poems they wrote for the boys they
longed for.  I didn't understand their desire, but I understood their need
to express it.  I talked to them about imagery and internal rhythms.  I
helped them shape their words.

As for the boys... well, the boys pretty much ignored me.  I didn't think
much about them either.  They were all older and bigger and stronger than
me.  I suppose they seemed almost like men.  Part of a world I wasn't ready
to think about.

So, anyway, there I was, just turned 16, living on my own in college where
the only place I really felt at home was in the seminar rooms and lecture
halls.

I'd never heard of Dylan.

Who had?

It was 1993 for God's sake.  Dylan's time was past and not yet come again.

***

His name was Michael.

He was a graduate student, a suave and sophisticated 23, an academic don
not in my House, but in a neighbouring House.  Economics, so he wasn't even
my don.  He was tall and strong, and had brown curly hair and these strange
and lovely coppery eyes with gold stars around the pupils.  He dressed like
no one else I'd ever met -- tight jeans and thin turtleneck sweaters and
tweed jackets.  He wore a silver ring with a delicately carved frog on the
baby finger of his right hand.

I met him for the first time at an evening of sherry-to-meet-the-dons (it
was that kind of posh college).  What I especially remember about that
first meeting was that he was wearing a thin copper-coloured sweater that
made his eyes positively shimmer, and when he took his jacket off, I could
see the outline of his nipples.  It was the first time I'd ever noticed
anything like that, and for some reason I didn't understand, I couldn't
seem to stop looking at them.

I remember thinking it was a very odd thing for me to notice.  It made me
feel funny.

Anyway, it was a couple of weeks after that when I literally bumped into
him coming down the front steps of the research library.  It was late in
the evening, and I was thinking about Beautiful Losers, the novel by
Leonard Cohen that confused and, well, scared me a little.  I had just
started reading it, and it had, well, a guy in it who was maybe real and
maybe a figment of the narrator's imagination, and who, if I understood it
right, might, um, have sex with men.

It was very puzzling.  I mean, I was sixteen, I wasn't a kid.  I knew what
homosexuality was.  Vaguely.  Theoretically.  But it wasn't real.  It had
nothing to do with me.  Hell, sexuality had nothing to do with me.

But for some reason I found the idea curious, and... distracting, and... I
couldn't figure it out, and... I couldn't let it go.

"David," he said, grabbing my arm as I tottered on the stairs.  His smile
looked real, like he was genuinely happy to see me.  "How are you?"

"Good," I said.  "I'm good."

"You going back to your room now?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Why don't you come and have a glass of port with me first?  Tell me what
you're up to, how it's all going."

Port.  Not beer.  Michael was that kind of guy.  It seemed so... wonderful.

I said yes, of course.  I didn't think anything of it.  I mean -- dons did
that.  Spent time one-on-one with freshman, to make sure they were ok, not
overwhelmed.  It was their job.  I'd had coffee with my own House don just
the week before, and had met with the English Literature don several times.

He took my arm and led me back to the college, asking me about my classes,
what I was reading.  By the time we got to his room, I found myself telling
him about Beautiful Losers.

He'd read it -- twice -- and was very kind about my confusion.  He was also
very understanding about my obvious embarrassment about the... mysterious
character and his mysterious desires.

"Just keep reading," he suggested.  "It's a difficult book.  But Cohen
sneaks up on you, gets under your skin, and eventually you just get it.  Or
not, in which case it doesn't matter."

He poured me a small glass of port, and put some music on his turntable.  I
curled up on the corner of his bed, while he sat at his desk chair.  He had
a turntable and vinyl records, and, with music playing softly in the
background, we talked.  Minutes became hours.  One glass became two
glasses, then three.  Michael was just so easy to talk to, so open, so very
understanding.  I felt safe and sleepy, and very happy.

And then he put on an album that I found myself paying attention to.  The
words, the music, would capture me for seconds at a time, and I would fall
silent or Michael's voice would face away.  Until there was this song, this
soft raspy song, that was so sad, so sweet, so full of desire, that it
seemed to reach into my heart and twist.

I sat up suddenly.  "My God, what is that?"

"What?"

"That song.  What is it?  Who is that singing?"

He looked at me and smiled.  "Tomorrow is a Long Place" he said.  "Bob
Dylan.  Not one of his best-known songs, but one of my favourites."

"Bob Dylan?  Who's that?  Is he new?"

Michael laughed, and shook his head.  "New?  He's an icon, baby.  Ask your
parents."

"An icon?"

Michael had a complete collection of Bob Dylan albums.  He played them as
our conversation continued, weaving in and out of the songs over the course
of the night.  I don't know if we really drank an awful lot of port, or if
I was just so young I had no tolerance for it.  I do remember that I felt
very slow, and languorous, and easy inside myself and easy with Michael.
Opening up to him about what I was doing and reading and dreaming and
thinking was somehow the easiest thing I'd ever done.

Sometimes we stopped talking and just listened to the words, let them wash
over us.  Some of them I didn't understand any better than Beautiful
Losers, but it didn't seem to matter.  Somehow, somehow, these were the
words I had to listen to right then, and Michael was there to play them for
me.


In the candlelight, his wonderful dark brown curls had streaks of red.  His
eyelashes looked incredibly black, and his copper and golden eyes very
beautiful.

***

I must have dozed off, because I felt a warm hand on my shoulder shaking me
awake.  I opened my eyes and smiled up into Michael's face.  He smiled
back.

"I think it's time to take you home, young man," he said.

"Don't wanna," I said, trying to curl back into his pillow.

But he insisted, and eventually, I got to my feet.  I was groggy from sleep
and from the port.  Michael insisted on walking me back to my room.

The night air was cool and woke me up, and I was suddenly giggly and
unsteady on my feet.  Michael put his arm around my shoulder to steady me.
I'd forgotten how tall he was; my head barely reached his shoulder.  That
struck me as incredibly funny, and fed my giggles.  We crossed the quad
from his House to mine like that, his arm around me, and me giggling
softly, half my weight leaning against his arm.

We reached my House, made our way up to my floor, down the dim, deserted
hallway.  When we reached my room, I fumbled in my pocket for my keys, but
my fingers were clumsy.  I turned to him, leaned back against the door.

"Thank you so much for a lovely evening," I said, trying hard to remember
my manners, then succumbing to a few more soft giggles.  "Really.  It was
special.  My best evening here.  Thank you."

"You're very welcome," he said, raising one hand and resting it on my
shoulder.  Then, with the other, with a single finger, he lifted my chin.
He looked down into my face and smiled the most beautiful smile.

And suddenly my breath caught in my throat, and something moved inside me
that I didn't understand.  .  "David, David," he said softly, and for the
first time, the sound of my name was beautiful to me.  "You are so very
sweet.  And so very, very young."

His breath was warm on my cheek.  I trembled.  And suddenly I knew that I
-- wanted.  I didn't know what exactly, but something.

Something... mysterious.  Something... wonderful.  Something just... out
there.

And whatever it was, I wanted it very badly.

He brushed my hair from my forehead, and looked down at me.  There I stood,
trembling and looking up into those amazing coppery eyes, and I remember
thinking that I had never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life.

The hand that had brushed back my hair slid from my forehead, trailed down
until his fingers were whispering against my ear, his palm cupping my jaw.
He sighed softly.  The sound of it seemed to be right inside me.

And then, somehow, my hand was up, and my fingers were around his wrist,
holding him there, and my hand against his skin was shaking, and I wanted
to laugh or cry or something.

Something.

He looked down at me, so very tenderly, and his mouth softened into a smile
that made my knees go weak.  He ran his thumb over my bottom lip and I
heard a little groan.  It was me.

He moved his thumb again, so softly, and suddenly the want in me was almost
desperate.  I wanted to taste his thumb so badly, which seemed weird to me,
but beautiful.  I couldn't help it; I just wanted to taste it.  But I
didn't understand the desire, and so I didn't dare.  Instead, I parted my
lips beneath his thumb, and touched my tongue to my lips, searching there,
where he had touched, for the taste of him.

He shook his head slowly, once, side to side.

"Some day," he said, and there was a new, soft roughness in his voice that
reverberated inside of me.  "Some day you will figure all this out."

I just looked up at him, lost in those beautiful copper eyes.

Figure what out? I wanted to ask, but I couldn't.  The question just
wouldn't come.  All I could do was look at him. Lose myself in those eyes
and look at him.  And tremble.

I couldn't even breathe.

Finally I managed to choke out two words.

"I will?"

He nodded solemnly.  "You will," he said.  "I promise.  And when you do
--," that thumb again, and another little groan, and another little smile.
"When you do, you will make some man very, very happy."

I didn't know what to say.  I truly didn't know what he meant.  Some man?
What did that mean?

He held my eyes, and I knew he could see everything I was thinking.
Everything.  The confusion.  The wonder.  The want.  He looked, and I
looked, and his thumb moved again, and I whimpered.

And then very, very slowly, he did the most amazing thing.  He bent his
head and touched his mouth to mine.

Just -- that.  Touched his lips to mine.  Softly.

My eyes closed and I was inside that touch like it was the most important
thing in the world.

For a few seconds, it was.

When he moved away, I didn't know what to do.

I opened my eyes and he was still looking down at me.

"Just make sure he's worthy of you," he said.

I couldn't seem to do anything.  I just stood there, my back pressed
against the door to my room, hardly able to stand on my own.  Finally, he
fished the key out of my jacket pocket, opened my door, led me into my
room, sat me on my bed.  With gentle fingers, he pushed the hair back from
my forehead.

"'Night, David," he said.

He kissed my forehead.  And then he was gone.

***

Throughout that year, I saw Michael regularly, at college functions, at
meals, sometimes coming or going from the library.  I felt he was watching
over me, thoughtfully, from a distance.  He was always kind, always
interested.  We often went for coffee, but he never again asked me to his
room, nor did he ever come to mine.

I got myself a turntable, and took to scrounging second hand stores looking
for old Dylan albums.  Listening to them became a very private, personal
thing that I did on my own.  It wasn't until the following year, when
Michael had moved on to study in Europe, that I finally figured it all out,
and was ready to share.