One Summer at Stevens Point Ch. 04

(Conclusion) by K. Nitsua. Revised version copyright 2006 by the author.

I can't postpone getting up any longer. I haul my body out of bed--for a guy in his mid-forties I'm holding up okay--and get ready for the first class day. It's business as usual this year--three master classes, each with four children and their parents, and two larger groups. No teacher course this year, thank goodness.

I go through the motions of teaching, cajoling, exhorting the students to improve, using lots of positive reinforcement. By the middle of the first day I find that I'm having fun in spite of myself. Stevens Point has that effect on almost everyone.

There's a boy in my final afternoon class named Jared Morgan, five years old. His mother is dark-haired, pretty and very attentive to my instruction. She and the home teacher have taught her son well. We work on polishing his song as the week flies by.

"You're playing so well," I praise him one day.

"My Mommy plays the violin even better than I do," he replies. Mrs. Morgan laughs and shakes her head.

"So you play?" I ask her.

"Yes," she says. After class that day she lingers in the room until the other parents and children have left.

"Mr. Hewitt," she says, smiling and offering her hand. "I really should have introduced myself to you before this. Molly Morgan."

I shake her hand, thinking she looks vaguely familiar. She seems to realize that more needs to be said.

"My name wasn't Morgan, of course, when I was your student."

"You were my student?"

"Yes," she says, "Here at Stevens Point, a long time ago. You worked me hard on that Vivaldi Concerto, I learned a lot. My name was Molly Wagner back then."

It all suddenly falls into place. Of course. She'd be in her twenties by now. She has a kid of her own and is having him take violin lessons, as so many former Suzuki children do.

"I remember," I say. "I'm glad you still play."

"Well," Molly laughs. "My son is being kind. I don't play much these days. I did get a music degree before I got married and had Jared, though."

"You came here with your father." I'm trying to work up the nerve to ask the question.

"That's right. We came here for several years in a row after my mother died. Those were wonderful times. Funny thing is, after that summer I had you as a teacher, Dad kind of changed. Started saying stuff about we should do other things, maybe go to other institutes. I cried, I loved coming here, but he was an incredibly stubborn man when he'd made up his mind."

Was? "How is he now?" I ask, dreading the answer.

Molly laughs again. The good humor I remembered in her as a little girl is unchanged. "Oh, just fine. Sixty-two years old, retired and running marathons. He lives in St. Paul now with his friend. He'll be coming to see Jared play on the final concert Friday night, actually. I'm sure he'd love to see you."

I'm not so sure, but I say, "I'd like to see him too."

"Mommy, can we go?" Jared asks. He's been sitting in a chair all this time holding his instrument, waiting with remarkable patience for a five-year old.

"In a minute, honey." Molly turns to him, then says over her shoulder, "Look for us in the gym Friday night, Mr. Hewitt."

The final violin concert at Stevens Point is a huge, noisy, festive affair, quite unlike the usual staid classical music concert. Some teachers elect not to play but I always do. Everyone who studies Suzuki violin plays the same songs, and one of the cornerstones of the method is knowing all of the old ones. So all the violin kids, from the oldest to the youngest, stand on the stage and also a large portion of the floor. The gym is the only place on campus they can pack them all into one space and also have room for the audience of doting parents, relatives and friends. The students who are most advanced play first. Then the concert works its way backward through the literature. The further back they go, of course, the more students know the songs. The grand finale is always the Twinkle, Little Star variations, the first song in the first book. By that time everyone who can hold a violin in that place is standing up and playing their heart out. It's a sight and sound to behold, and many mothers cry. I'm not ashamed to admit I still get choked up too.

As we release the last note of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," the entire audience stands, applauding, whooping, and shouting "Bravo." A galaxy of flashbulbs goes off as the group bows again and again, violins and bows bobbing in unison, cued by chords banged out by the brave pianist who has accompanied the concert with the aid of a P.A. system.

Finally it's over and the audience begins to break up in cheerful chaos. I put my fiddle in my case and walk into the crowd, aware of how difficult it will be to find anyone in this milling mass of people. I've agreed to meet Molly and her family, but haven't said anything about where. I suddenly realize that I very much want to see Mike Wagner.

I start to search faces in the crowd without much hope, first going to the main entrance at the back of the gymnasium, then walking around the building, looking at the lines of people pouring from the other doors. No luck. I run into some other parents and students that I've worked with this week, further distracting me from my quest. When I finally extricate myself from the last conversation, there's almost no one around. Depression settles over me. I'm turning to go back to my dorm room when I hear someone call my name.

Molly's walking toward me, waving. Behind her follows Jared, clutching his small violin case in one hand. Holding his other hand is a tall man with curly silver hair, dressed in denim shirt and jeans. He's clean-shaven, but even in the dim summer twilight I recognize Mike Wagner at once.

Molly reaches me and speaks breathlessly. "I'm sorry, it was so stupid of me not to say where we would be after the concert. I'm glad we found you. Dad, you remember Mr. Hewitt?"

We shake hands. Molly's father has a conventional smile on his face, but his eyes hold another expression that I can't read.

"Sure I do," he says. "How are you, Alan?"

"Good to see you, Mike," I say just as mechanically. To my surprise, there's a lump in my throat and it's difficult to talk. "It's been a long time."

We're saved from having to make more conversation at that moment by Jared. "Mommy, when are we going to get the ice cream?" he says, tugging at the waistband of his mother's jeans.

Molly looks at me and rolls her eyes. "I promised him ice cream if he remembered all his Twinkles for the concert. Of course he says he did."

I look at Jared and smile. "I believe it."

Molly says, "Would you care to join us?"

I look at the three of them together, not directly at Mike. "I'd like that, if it's okay with everyone."

Jared jumps in the air. "Goody!"

Mike says, "Great."

We walk in the cool evening air to a Dairy Queen on the main drag, just across from campus. Unfortunately, we're the last of many people from the Institute to have the same idea. The place is packed and noisy with parents and children. We're hard put to get served or even find a place to sit. Mike suggests he stand in line while we find seats. There are none inside, and Molly, Jared and I end up outdoors, perched on concrete barriers at the edge of the parking lot.

Jared's grandfather finally appears, carrying chocolate-dipped cones for the boy and his mother, Diet Cokes for himself and me. By this time Jared is tired and fretful, his violin lying forgotten in a nearby patch of grass. He doesn't even finish his ice cream before he begins to nod off in Molly's lap.

Molly looks at him, then at Mike and me. "I'd better put him to bed. He's had a long day, and so have I."

We all stand up. "It's okay, we all don't have to go," she says. "Why don't you guys stay and talk? I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow morning, right, Dad?"

Mike nods. "Meet you at the Burger Chef at eight."

She turns to me and offers her hand. "If I don't see you, Mr. Hewitt, thanks for a wonderful week. You really helped Jared. And brought back some nice memories for me."

I shake it, saying, "The pleasure's all mine, Molly." She's leaving me alone with her father. I don't know whether I'm glad or sorry.

She hugs and kisses Mike on the cheek, then tries to deal with her sleepy son and his violin--Jared doesn't want to carry it. Molly gently tries to persuade him, without success.

Mike says, "Leave that with me, Molly. I'll give it to you in the morning. Jared isn't going to be practicing tonight anyway."

Molly nods, says good night one more time and walks off, cranky son in tow. Mike and I watch them go. Some distance away on the sidewalk they stop. I hear her clear voice in the evening air. "Okay, I'll carry you across the street, but you'll have to walk once we get to the other side, okay? You're too heavy for me to carry you the whole way back."

"She's a good mother," I say to Mike.

Mike chuckles. "She's a perfectionist. Must be that Suzuki training. You should have heard her grousing because Steve--Jared's dad--couldn't be here this week. He travels a lot on business."

Silence falls between us, gradually becoming strained. I pick up my paper cup and finish my now diluted drink.

Mike says, "It's a nice night. Want to walk awhile?"

I nod and we move down the sidewalk away from campus. Mike clutches the small violin case in his hand. He smiles when he catches me looking at it.

"This brings back so many memories. I did this for Molly when she was little. Then her teacher told me she was supposed to carry her own."

I stay silent, concentrating on the view down the main street. It's past ten now, completely dark, and the stores are closed and silent. The traffic lights are blinking yellow.

"Molly says you've been terrific with Jared. I figured you would be."

"I've enjoyed working with him, and seeing her again," I say, carefully. "I hope you've had a good visit with them. He's a great kid."

Mike says, "It's been nice, yes." Then he adds, "But I didn't come just to see them."

I keep my voice casual. "Mike, all that was long ago. It looks like we're both doing just fine. Why don't we just leave it at that."

Silence falls over us again. In a minute we'll be on the highway heading out of town. Then Mike says, "Well, I do want to say one thing--I've always felt bad that I didn't respond to your letter."

Old feelings surge up, hot and unexpected. "Why didn't you?" I'm still trying to sound polite and neutral, but Mike's face tells me I'm not fooling him.

"Why don't we sit a bit?" he suggests. There's one last store, a sporting goods shop, along this strip. We head across the empty parking lot and sit on the concrete stoop, our violin cases at our sides, looking like two itinerant musicians lost in the heartland.

Mike stares across the asphalt for a long time. Finally he speaks. "That night I came to your room--you can't know what it did to me."

He looks over at me. "It was unbelievable. Everything felt so good, so right. It scared me to death."

Again he waits for me to say something, but when I don't, he continues. "I went back home and decided I couldn't ever do anything like that again. I told Molly we were going to go somewhere else next summer. The next year, when I got your letter, I tossed it without opening it. I'm sorry about that still.

"Of course it didn't work. After a while I started doing stuff--anonymous, mostly. The guilt and pressure of sneaking around got so bad I thought about ending it. I actually tried once--took some pills I'd been prescribed to help me sleep with booze. Everyone thought it was an accident but I did it on purpose."

"What got you through?" I ask, my own feelings forgotten for the moment.

Mike's face softens. "My daughter, of course. Lying in that hospital bed after having my stomach pumped I realized what a selfish bastard I was, thinking I could just check out and leave her. That was when I made up my mind."

"To do what?"

Mike's chin comes up in the same determined gesture I remember from so long ago. "I'd wait till Molly went to college, and could be on her own. Then I'd sell the house, move, live the life I had to live. And that's what I did."

He shakes his head. "It wasn't as simple as I'm making it sound. Molly was plenty upset when I told her about me. Took her a long time to come around. She's still not sure about letting George spend time with Jared, which makes me real sad."

"She told me you had someone."

Mike brightens. "Well, maybe that's a good sign, that she can talk about it now. Anyway, in the past few years, since I settled in St. Paul with George, I've thought about you a lot, Alan. When Molly told me you were teaching Jared this year, it seemed like the right time to come back here." He reaches out and places a hand on my arm. "I wanted to thank you properly."

I look at his hand. "Well," I say. "Better late than never, I guess."

Mike withdraws uncertainly, aware that I'm pissed off but not understanding why. I'm not sure myself. Out of nowhere I start to tell a story.

"Right after I graduated from college, I was living and teaching in Boston. I had a little boy who was really good, a nice kid. Nice mom too, or so I thought. We stopped lessons one summer after they'd been with me a few years. They were going on vacation, I was teaching at some summer things, you know, the usual. That fall I called them to talk about starting lessons again and their phone was disconnected. She'd never said a word about moving.

"Years later I saw them at some weekend workshop. The boy was older but I recognized him. I went up to the mother. She was embarrassed but I have to give her credit, she stood and talked to me.

"It took a while but finally she said she was sorry. She had been thinking of changing teachers for a while, they were moving further away anyway and it just seemed like the best way, she said. Never mind that she made me feel like dirt."

"I see."

"Do you, Mike?" Now that I was letting myself feel things I had kept buried for so long, my breath was coming rapidly and my heart was pounding. "Even after that I don't think she understood. I cared about that kid. He—they were a part of my life. So maybe she didn't think something was going well. She had no right to just cut me out, as if I were the hired help."

I turned and looked him straight in the eye. "I only knew you and Molly for that short week, Mike. But I cared. For years I wondered how you were doing, how she was doing. But you'd decided I wasn't going to be in the loop, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. That hurt."

Mike said nothing.

"So, you got yourself together and came out. You have a good life with your lover, and you still have your family. You did it on your own, and that's great. But don't expect me to fall all over myself being happy for you."

Mike nodded slowly. "I'm sorry. I had no idea."

I storm on. "Did it ever occur to you how I felt about that night? It was damn terrific for me too. I knew it might not happen again. But I wanted it to."

"You did?"

I snort. "Don't give me that modesty crap. You were fucking hot and you knew it. The way you came up to me that morning with only those tiny little running shorts on. The way you sat in my room and snickered about how the other moms were checking you out. Letting me see you hard in the shower. You knew exactly what you were doing."

Mike's eyes flash. "So, Alan. If I told you that you look better than ever now with that bit of gray in your hair and that goatee, does that mean I'm trying to seduce you? How about if I tell you I'm staying in a room by myself at the new motel on Route 10?"

I shake my head in disbelief and start to turn away, only to be abruptly pulled back by Mike's hands on my shoulders. The next moment his lips are on mine, warm and tender. I don't pull away.

We break apart. After a moment I start to laugh, softly.

"What's so damn funny?" Mike demands, but he's smiling too.

I'm laughing as much at myself as at Mike. "You are something else." I slap him gently on one cheek, then run my hand through his wiry, close-cropped hair. "You did that on purpose, didn't you? Got me mad enough to tell you how I really felt. Good work."

"So does this mean you're coming back to the motel with me?" Mike asks.

"What about George?"

"George," he says firmly, "is sick to death of hearing me moan about you. You know what he said when I was coming down here? I hope you drag him to your room and get him out of your system, he said. That answer your question?"

I lean forward, grab his head and kiss him again, harder and longer.

"My car's back at the visitor lot," Mike says when we come up for air, his voice breathless. We stand together, my arm thrown around his shoulder. Then I remember where we are and drop it.

Mike understands. "Let's not forget the fiddles," he says, pointing to the ground.

In his motel room I watch Mike Wagner unbutton and remove his shirt. His skin is leathery from years of sun, but his body's in astonishing condition, his torso so devoid of fat that the ribs show, every row of abdominal muscle visible. Something nags at my brain and after a second I realize what it is. I walk up to him and run my hand over his smooth chest. Mike smiles.

"I know what you're going to ask," he says.

"Electrolysis?"

Mike laughs. "Yikes, nothing that drastic. I shave it. George and I belong to a gay runners' club back home. I know it's vanity, but my chest hair's snow white now. That's why I shave the beard too. Otherwise I look like an anorexic Santa Claus."

"Go on, you look great," I say. "I'm embarrassed to get naked in front of you."

Mike shakes his head as he reaches out and draws me to him. "Don't be. You look just fine."

Once we're in bed I forget about my own body in the joy of having his in my arms again. Mike quickly gets me underneath him, overwhelming me with his urgency. He doesn't in the least resemble the shy, hesitant lover of years ago. I shudder at the constantly changing touch of his fingers, his hands, his mouth.

He sucks me for a while, then his hands are lifting my thighs in the air and his head is between my cheeks. I feel his tongue flicker into my hole. Soon I'm groaning as he rims me greedily, one hand reaching up and grasping my hard, hard cock.

Mike's face reappears, lips swollen, blue eyes dancing. He clambers up my body until his face is over mine. "I have to tell you something," he says. "George is what you might call an insatiable bottom. So I've learned a few things since we were together."

I can't help chuckling at this former Suzuki dad uttering the words "insatiable bottom." "Fine with me. I'm versatile."

"Good." Mike gets off the bed, his cock swinging in front of him, and returns with rubbers and lube. He quickly sheathes himself and covers the condom with more of the clear gel. Then, without putting any on me, he bends me double, positions himself above my hole and slides all the way in with one huge, smooth motion. "Jesus Christ!" I scream as what feels like a flaming sword surges through my insides. I writhe and struggle, but Mike leans his full weight on me and grips my wrists, pinning me to the bed. My body can't escape the invader.

"Gotcha," Mike grins. The shock of the quick penetration is starting to recede. I don't know whether to laugh at his goofy triumph or spit in his face in anger at being blindsided like this. I decide I'm mad.

"You could have warned me, asshole," I shout, trying to get a hand free so I can clip him one. Not a chance.

"Could have," Mike agrees, not at all bothered by my struggles.

"Fuck you."

"Think you have it backwards," Mike says, pulling his cock partway out and slamming it back in, drawing another astonished "Oomph!" out of my lungs. A few more of these pelvic assaults and my resistance is gone. Mike senses this and releases me. He grins again and begins to fuck me in earnest, his powerful thighs working in rapid staccato thrusts. Soon his expression becomes manic, as his face reddens and sweat from his brow begins to drip like rain on my face. I'm hanging onto him for dear life.