The Taming of Frankie Carrozza

The Body of Carrozza, Amen

'Ever since the summer has gone and jilted us, I've got an out-of-practice brain and hands that feel withered or new,' said Charlie, as he followed Perkins across Pococks Lane. 'It wasn't until well after dinner that I started to feel comfortable writing my name and dating the page. Do you think that if we don't keep doing things, we completely lose the ability to do them at some point?'
'I don't know,' replied Iggy. 'Stop talking rubbish, and we'll hope for the best.'
Scowling, Charlie halted. Absorbing their surroundings, he asked, 'Why are we on the playing fields? There isn't going to be an unannounced match two days into the Michaelmas Half if that's what you're hoping for.'
Iggy pointed towards the Dutchman's half of the huge expanse. 'Look there.'
'The Senior Sides are practicing tactics, so what?'
'Sit it and zip it, Charlie,' he commanded. 'I just want to check in and see how our rugby team is doing. Besides, where else would we go to avoid Peter Gillespie?'
Aside from aesthetics, iconic women, sequins, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (to name a few), Ignatius Perkins' various interests also included supporting his favourite sports teams, which eventually led to him embracing Eton's own.
Removing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe from his bag, Charlie frowned. 'Why are we avoiding Gillespie?'
Iggy gaped at him. 'Because you essentially waved a large slab of cheese under his nose just yesterday by being a prick to him.'
'Do I care? No. Should I care? Probably.'
'Well, don't come crying to me if you turn up missing,' Iggy exclaimed, an ardent gleam in his eye as he studied the players just as Caesar might've the gladiators. 'Michaels needs to work on his evasive manoeuvres; that sidestep wouldn't dodge a bullet meant for his worst enemy.'
'Go sports team,' Chance murmured disinterestedly, busy thumbing the pages of his book.
'My, Carrozza's arm has got quite the throw. Oh, it's over the touchline. Oh, it's out of bounds! Oh, it's—oh, sweet fuc—' The ball nosedived into the puddle a metre in front of them, splattering Iggy and his topaz coat with a wave of wet mud.
Several players sprinted down—including Carrozza—but stopped once Michaels bounded passed them to rejoin the game.
'Sorry!' The boy guffawed as he retrieved the ball, struggling to be heard over Charlie's hysterical howls as he rolled in the grass. 'Are you alright?'
'Am I alright, Michaels? My mouth tastes like your brains, so what do you bloody think? Sidestep away from me right this instant before I plant you in the grass,' Iggy barked. Michaels quickly jogged away.
'I never thought I'd be so happy to be dragged here today,' Charlie confessed, wiping tears from his eyes. 'You don't have to get me a thing for Christmas after that.'
'Think this is funny, do you?' Iggy asked him, using a salmon-coloured scarf to clean his face. 'I doubt you'll be laughing so heartily once I help Gillespie enact his revenge on you.'
Despite resembling a muddy Dalmatian, it didn't take the fizz out of Iggy; they stayed to watch the remainder of practice once the players reformed. Since his eyes were drawn to a more riveting event, Charlie slid the book back into his bag. He beheld an evangelical marvel: as beautiful and as rare as the aurora borealis, a celestial being soared across the fields. The swollen grey skies shattered with staggering radiance. Like the red glow cracking the crust of molten lava, golden torches speared through the gaps and descended from the heavens like divine intervention, cocooning the bellwether archangel and his brethren as he led an assault against agents of evil. Storming up the pitch like invaders on the beaches of Normandy, the players crashed together into a disorderly ruck, taut leg muscles flexing and feet pounding grass to spray dirt. Like the mighty gods of the Greek pantheon tackling the fearsome titans, shoulders smashed together like boulders to the sounds of the sky thundering angrily.
The speculations of Frankie Carrozza and his summer adventures had dwindled considerably. Yet, like the aches and groans of the earth beneath the din, the poundings of hearts and blood heard in heads when breath is withheld, his glories haunted the corridors like the wickedness of the Devil, whispering in the ears of the good-hearted in the hope of being invited in. By Friday, they'd all have the splendour of a wet dishrag. If his name was to truly forsake the halls, perhaps they would seem colourless and dead, or perhaps they'd know some semblance of peace.
When I hear his name or see his face, there is a diminutive part of me that electrifies momentarily from a spark inside, Charlie would later write in his journal that night, as though I am a very large cavern, and a very small explorer is trying to light a campfire in the tunnels. I begrudge every flicker.
'Look at those boys, practically begging for his attention like pesky bluebottles hoping to get swatted.' Iggy shoved his palm outward to gesture towards the teams. 'You'd think he was the Eighth Wonder of the World.'
'I couldn't have said that better myself,' Charlie replied. 'But didn't you write "IP+FC! T.I.D. and T.I.N.D." inside a heart on the back of your jotter?'
'Oh shut up, Charlie.' After a moment, Iggy added, 'He's still positively sex-on-legs.'
Charlie looked towards the object of Iggy's affections, a boy of average stature. Because of the distance, he was barely anything more than a smudge of dusky pulchritude, his games gear clinging to a body—one that was firm, taut, full-grown, and suggestive—as superlatively as a crown fits a king. Too far away for Charlie to see the Belt-of-Orion beauty marks dotted diagonally across his rubescent right cheek, as red as his wine-stain full lips, as he neared, Carrozza combed fingers through wavy hair that was matted to his forehead from sweat underneath the scarf he was using as a headband, the same shade of blue as his Eton College jersey. His hands gripped his hips, his tongue tongued his top lip, his ears wiggled, his eyebrows danced, and his chest rose and fell rapidly as he joked with a teammate, looking as enticing as those magnificent girls who wore short shorts as they bent over the Austin-Healeys, the Cadillacs, the Ferrari Dinos with ice-creams dripping over fingers to pluck tickets from the windscreens.
His mind's eye saw his testament, where most of him obtruded from—his vivid green irises, like dew-drenched leaves sewed together with loops of golden sunlight, potent and bright emeralds that had been poached from the very stars upon his cosmic creation.
Finished sparring with his mate, Frankie lifted the bottom of his jersey to wipe sweat and muck off his brow, and Charlie struggled to swallow.
'Good heavens!' Iggy cried. 'Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord—damn his beatitude!'
Despite operating a body that was almost whetted enough to prick fingertips on, his hips still showed the doughy remnants of his youth—yet, that in itself was charming enough to break hearts asunder. A world away from thuggish, his flesh was sporadically tattooed, little black blotches like hedges on a heath seen from afar. Ink splattered down his arms, gleaming on his torso and knuckles and beneath the treasure trail of fine hairs slipping down to touch the coarse patch curling out from the band of his shorts. Rumours, his locust plague, told them that he had dodged a reasonable expulsion by threatening a lawsuit after he'd recited quotations he'd found in law and theology books in the library and supported them with the Eton mandate, presenting loopholes in clauses to his prosecutors to protect the rights of his (false) archaic religious practices and beliefs that entitled him to the symbols marking his body.
Ogling the boy now spooning yoghurt into his mouth, Iggy confessed: 'I would give whatever tatters remains of my soul to be that spoon.'
A pleasurable shiver climbed the ladder of Charlie's spine at the thought. Preferring to confront Peter Gillespie than to become a slave to his impulses, he rose to leave.
'Sweet Chaeronea!' Iggy gasped. 'Charlie, wait!'
He felt a grip latch around his elbow before he was sharply yanked back down onto the grass. 'For goodness' sake! What is it, you loon?'
'Chaeronea's handiwork!' Iggy hissed.
'What are you blabbering about?' he sniped. 'I often wonder what goes on inside that strange little head of yours.'
'Michaels has performed Chaeronea's handshake,' Perkins replied, positively gleeful. 'I'm sure of it.'
'Chaeronea's what?'
'You're very precious, Charlie Chance, did you know that? They're initiating that salaciously indicative bum pat!' Iggy giggled childishly, eyes sparkling excitedly as he observed the boys huddled together after practice broke up.
Like a stroke of genius, a fuse was lit inside Charlie's skull and a memory exploded to the forefront: Iggy had found the definition of the short ritual penciled into an old, worn dictionary in the library last term. Prior to decrypting the term, they had heard it being used around College, but they'd initially assumed it had innocent connotations—only a secret "handshake" for a secret society, perhaps. However, they'd been fully informed on the underground phenomena by their investigative journalism friends responsible for publishing the newsletter, who'd been hell-bent on uncovering the cloak-and-dagger operations of the controversial club. Chaeronea's handshake was a somewhat sordid, secretive signal, and the functions of it were as follows: the initiator slapped the buttocks of a person, passing it off to all appearances as one of the many harmless, homoerotic gestures that develop between sportsmen and friends alike, but the user was to leave his hand there for three seconds or more. It was inspired by the Order of Chaeronea, a secret society founded by George Cecil Ives in 1897, which he'd named after the location of the battle where the Sacred Band of Thebes was finally annihilated in 338 BC, for the cultivation of a homosexual moral, ethical, cultural, and spiritual ethos as a result of his belief that homosexuals would not be accepted openly in society and must therefore have a means of underground communication. The clandestine gesture had been designed by the elusive and exclusive organisation in Eton so that members could make others covertly aware that they were offering the willingness of themselves, and so that a rebuffed student could still save face if the signal wasn't returned. If the ceremony was a success, a lucrative agreement was decided upon, allowing both parties to make mutually beneficial arrangements for coital liaisons. In an attempt to conceal its existence, their headquarters were constantly on the move—the shadowiest corner of the library, the surrounding fields, bathroom stalls with hands over mouths, disused classrooms with a lock, behind the altar in the chapel, on blankets up in dusty garrets, or in their beds after midnight. The holy grope was kept as secret and sacred as the old gospels in the catacombs of the Vatican, causing Iggy to often stress over missed opportunities—when he failed to recognise that his derrière had been swiftly pinched by the dark caress—before they'd deciphered the system.
'Look!' Iggy cried. 'I think it's being returned!'
Flustered and red-faced, Michaels rubbed vigorously at his grass-stained blue-and-white checked shirt. Another boy strode up behind him, an ivory smile decorating his mouth as he slapped his behind. Reconstructing the espionage of spies exchanging delicate and dangerous data in a public location, Frankie Carrozza's hand lingered for a moment before it swooped up to muss Michaels' hair.
When Charlie's heart plummeted somewhat like an anchor to empty his belly until it felt stone cold and hollow like the ocean, he muttered, 'What an absolute farce.'