The Taming of Frankie Carrozza

The Night Visitor

A large portion of the sky was filled by a full moon that poured milky light into his bedroom and flushed the cobbled streets of Eton below with purple night. Left with his subsided ache and roused soul, Charlie sat hunched over his desk and wrote feverishly into his journal; he had ran out of things worth telling it shortly after he began it in the summer, but had recently felt inspired to put pen to paper. He brushed pens, pencils, scraps of paper, and notebooks aside to turn off the radio and abruptly end Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren", before fingers moved across to kill the lamp. Dropping his pen and folding his arms, the rickety wooden chair creaked protests when he pressed against the back of it, eyes drifting from the journal to the posters, photographs, fliers, and British flag on the wall above the desk.
A hand roved, rising over his chin to touch his cheek. Despite his best efforts to ignore all thoughts of him, he pictured Frankie Carrozza on that island counter—his white shirt carelessly unbuttoned, having disposed of all articles of the Eton uniform that he could do without once the bell rang at the end of the day to allow him to make a place his playground. Still feeling the ghost of his touch from when his warm cheek had slightly grazed Charlie's, he envisioned their bodies pressed firmly together like a statue of duality, almost fused like mating anglerfish.
'Spur of the moment, a misunderstanding, or a notch on the bedpost,' Charlie explained to the two flames dancing a fiery ballet on their candlewicks, before the boy, one who drifted in from old Sparta with a puzzle for a heart, a vault for a mind, and a soul full of childlike adventure and elder wisdom, faded like a milky morning dream to join all the other untold almost stories. 'May the world damn you both, Frankie Carrozza and Charlie Chance—this one, and the next.'
He closed his journal over, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Staring into the hypnotic sway of the candles, he reheard himself trying to explain to Iggy that, in the end, he did not know Frankie from Adam.
'Maybe so, but you've just missed your only chance to ever know him by heart rather than by ear,' Iggy had cried back incredulously, refraining from punching his lights out. 'No, instead, you committed an act as blasphemous as Peter disowning Jesus Christ thrice before the rooster crowed.'
Charlie reached for his father's pocket watch on the desk; at this hour, Perkins was most likely still sharing a bed with that godawful prefect from Hawtrey House. Sharing a bed, he mused, just as I do now with Frankie Carrozza, one wrapped in a sheet of regret, blanketed with fear, and pillowed by misfortunate for us to rest our heads on. In bed with danger, the brief night visitor.
His trousers dropped around his ankles to puddle on the floor, and he removed the tie hanging around his neck like a noose. Once he'd blew out one of the candles before fire could touch the saucer, he was just unbuttoning his shirt when he heard a strange noise: something metallic collided nosily into the wall underneath his window, scraping along the side of Baldwin's Bec before settling. Somewhat startled, his blood cooled like forgotten tea. Granted vague form by his imagination, evolving into something sinister, spindly, and quick, the metallic rustling was followed by a continuous, squeaky thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
Sliding the journal in between his florilegium of literary classics, Charlie balanced on two legs of the chair and looked directly to the left of him towards his bedroom window.
A face popped into view, then beamed merrily.
'Good grief!' Charlie cried incredulously, feet creaking floorboards once he leapt up. Ducking under the slanted roof of the nook, he kneeled on his bed to open the latch on the narrow window. 'Carrozza, what are you doing?'
'What do you think I'm doing, fishing for birds?' Frankie glanced down the length of the ladder he was standing on the final few rungs of before he looked at Charlie exasperatedly. 'Let me in, you idiot!'
After he'd opened the casement window fully, Charlie slid to the top of the bed to allow him to slither in through the slender gap to block the blueish moonlight with a shadow that poured like silk onto the floorboards. The bed creaked as he kneeled on the bottom of it, manoeuvring around to hook the window shut again.
Charlie's fear did not immediately disperse; instead, it shifted subjects. Lost for words, he suddenly found himself asking, 'How'd you get passed Windsor bridge into Eton without any of the teachers on patrol seeing you?'
'Do you think that punt is used for skywriting? I'll have you know that I've completed the Five Point Challenge about a dozen times,' Frankie whispered, his eyes finding him in the gloom to zigzag over his white underpants and blue jumper. 'Were you expecting company? I mean only to say that you're dressed—or, rather, undressed—like a minxish mister prior to entertaining. Tommy Todd had chosen the wrong day not to wear underwear when Bucks debagged him in front of the whole school for calling him a soulless ginger. That's why he was nicknamed Tommy Todger for the rest of his Etonian days.'
'You think you're so witty, don't you?' Charlie responded, finding himself somewhat irked by his inability to decipher whether certain things Frankie said were only just highly Rabelaisian or blatantly flirtatious. 'I was in the middle of getting ready for bed.'
'As a matter of fact, I do actually find myself a little chuckle-worthy.' A complacent smile tugged his lip. 'I'd give you a hand, but I'm a tad overdressed.'
'Something I can help you with?'
'Oh, naughty.'
'I—I meant ... what are you doing here, Frankie?'
'Isn't it obvious? I'm here to whisk you off into the faraway, somewhere that lies just beyond the curve of the world.' He winked, and then slid off the bed to pace the room. The firelight took to him generously, dashing his tall silhouette over the walls to surround Charlie in a siege of Carrozzas. 'No, truthfully, I couldn't sleep, so I came here at this godly hour to iron out some creases in the bedsheets between us: I want to be your friend.'
Charlie's head nudged back as though the words had prodded his forehead. 'You—you came all the way over here on foot from Windsor to tell me that you want to be my friend?'
Frankie looked to the ceiling to contemplate the proposal for a moment, then nodded. 'Yes. Some friends I take fishing, and others I take punting—if you get my meaning. And I know you want to be mine, too: I felt it in the quickening ariose of your pulse when I held your wrists this afternoon. Just as I feel it in mines right now.' No longer so surefooted, Frankie rested his hands on his sides and tilted a foot, wagging a disapproving finger at Charlie like a magician who couldn't quite figure out his rival's trick. 'It's just that ... I'm stumped, because this is the first time this has ever happened to me before.'
Hardly able to hear him over the sounds of his heart pounding ferociously in his chest, the boy's presence playing with the operations of his body until it throbbed triumphantly like an orchestra, Charlie spluttered, 'What, that—that you were prevented from becoming ... friends with someone?'
'Christ!' Carrozza throttled the laughter in his throat. 'Lord, no. Whether surprisingly or unsurprisingly, that has happened a fair few times. Just, this is the first time that I've actually given a sodding toss about it in a long while. Now see here, coy boy—'
'LIGHTS OUT!' boomed the house captain, his voice blasting down the corridor like a foghorn.
'GET OUT!' Charlie cried, glancing to the door once he heard others opening and closing. 'You've got to leave! If Gillespie finds you here, he'll make certain that I'm beaten an inch from death; he's determined to ruin me.'
Looking casually over his shoulder towards the door, Frankie shook his head, then said, 'No.'
'You're joking, aren't you?' Panic-stricken, Charlie rushed towards the taller boy to push and pull at his greater stature, but he stood as stubborn as an effigy in the middle of the bedroom. 'Carrozza, please!'
'Will you be my friend?'
'Wait—what?'
'Will. You. Be. My—'
'Oh, for goodness' sake, yes! I'll be your blasted, bloody, blooming friend, dammit. Now will you leave?'
'Nope.' Barely reacting to Charlie driving his shoulder into his back, Frankie had the audacity to start giggling.
'Stop laughing, you great, big oaf! They're going to absolutely murder me.' Charlie slapped a hand over his forehead in sheer panic, trying not to sink to his knees and accept defeat. Frantic, he hissed, 'Hide then! Hide in the wardrobe! Hide beneath the bed! Hide under the desk, or out on the ladder, or behind the door!'
'Shan't,' he replied, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he'd be caught in the fallout of whatever punishment was dealt—whether capital or corporate. Then again, the boy was mythicised to be flameproof. Rather than seek escape, he started unbuttoning his shirt.
'What the bloody hell are you doing? For heaven's sake, for the love of God, please, just hide!' Charlie pleaded, certain that he would soon suffer heart failure.
'I intend to,' he murmured. When his shirt slid from his shoulders onto the carpet like a broken dove, his hands ventured to his belt buckle.
'What exactly is it you intend to do, grab a fig leaf and a fustibal and pretend to be Michelangelo's statue of David in the corner? Honestly, Carrozza, tell me this instant, is there something mentally wrong with you?' Under different circumstances, he might have gladly welcomed Carrozza undressing in his room, but he didn't so much as steal an appreciative glance of the now half-naked vision of a boy, who had dropped trou and slipped from his shoes—all he did was huff and puff and scowl. 'Well, isn't this marvellous? You're actually mad. What are you doing?'
'What do you think I'm doing? I'm hiding, Chance. Isn't that what you wanted of me? To stow me away like a dirty little secret. As it is entirely your prerogative, it is up to the freewill of your own mind to decide whether it is risky or risqué—to chisel off the fig leaf, so to speak. I don't think your housemaster would be best pleased to discover a young chap half-dressed and awaiting him in the middle of your bedroom. Depends on the inspector, I suppose. Also, you've a filthy mouth on you when you're riled up; I'd like to see more of that one.'
Trembling slightly, Charlie tried to speak—to complain, bargain, and protest again—but the words jumbled together when Frankie strutted over to his bed in nothing but white briefs that flashed in the dark like headlights and roadsigns against the contrast of his varnished beige skin. Heedless, he drew the curtains closed, and then slid under the covers. When he leant up on his elbows to blow out the candles, his breath harmonised Charlie's aghast gasp over the wondrous flesh slipping assuredly under the sheets like a diver braving choppy waters. Once he'd engulfed them in darkness, it had muted Charlie as effectively as a cloth over a birdcage.
'C'mere to me, Chance,' summoned a whisper in the dark.
Strangely, as though mesmerised, he crossed barefooted towards the bed; it wasn't the house captain drawing alarmingly closer that encouraged him forward, as he'd only just remembered about Gillespie when he heard him thundering up the corridor towards them.
'Charlie?' the dark called out softly again.
'I'm here.' His reply was barely a breath, feeling Frankie's hand clasp around his wrist to tug him closer to the bed.
'In,' Carrozza ordered, ricocheting tingles throughout him.
Hesitant, he muttered, 'Frank—'
'Listen, if you don't want to be caught by Gillespie, I advise you to do what I say and get in with me,' commanded the self-assured, headstrong seventeen-year-old, his unwavering confidence inducing a calming effect over Charlie. Blankets rustled as he pushed them aside, and Frankie gently coaxed and lowered Charlie to him, politely forcing him into the bed. Reluctant, he placed his hands and knees on either side of his body to straddle him. When Frankie pushed his head downwards, Charlie popped upwards indignantly, quietly questioning the other boy's intentions, but he pressed his head lower still. Once far enough, he threw the blankets over him, making Charlie think of forts and tents in childhood. Giving voice to his breath, Frankie whispered, 'Remain as flat and as still against me as much as you possibly can.'
'Just how thick do you think Gillespie is?' Charlie retorted, muffled by the covers. Nudging his head out like a turtle, he leant on his hands and knees, looking to the spot he believed housed Frankie's head. 'He mightn't be the brightest candle on the mantlepiece, but he'll see that it clearly isn't me!'
'Trust me, all they look for is a head to count.'
'That's a bit rich, coming from you! What about you?'
'Never worry about me; you forget, I'm a Windsor oppidan, somewhat. Now, get your head down.'
'I—'
'Shut up. Head down.' Looking to the large gap between their bodies, he asked, 'Are you leaving room for Jesus?'
Unable to prolong the part he'd been trying to avoid any longer, Charlie swallowed his cowardice and sighed bravery, dropping onto his elbows and turning his head to the side to rest his ear against Frankie's chest. Trying to remain as weightless as possible to keep him comfortable, he lay down tight against Carrozza until his own body felt numbed. The blankets rose overhead like a tide to fall over him, covering him completely. His skin was as smooth as heated marble against his cheek—a divinity, though his skin was as hot as Hell. As his own heart supplicated on his tongue, he listened to the rhythmic throbbing of Frankie's heartbeat, galloping freely in his breast against his ear—the wildest of rustic hearts he'd come to know—and smelled the oranges he'd eaten on his fingers.
'I'm a bit ticklish, so stop squirming about.' He snorted quietly when Charlie moved his hand up to brush aside his fringe nestling against his stomach, his lower body writhing with fear. A moment later, Frankie said, 'Relax.'
As though hypnotised, Charlie slackened against the fleshy bed that he'd made of the other. Are we safe under here? he wondered, as all of him pressed onto all of him. When he felt the prickly tickle of the fine, delicate hairs on Frankie's leg pass between the two of Charlie's that encompassed it, he bundled a hand against his mouth to conceal a smile that nobody would ever see, fitting there as though he had always been moulded against his form like a spare and expendable part to their sepulchre. Are we hidden from the eyes of Heaven and Hell?
Like an automatic response, when Charlie's knuckles accidentally grazed his side, he felt Frankie's fingertips slide down his ribcage to thumb his underwear band—until he mustered the guts to push the wandering fingers away. Carrozza chuckled deeply, heartily, and Charlie rose and fell on his navel with the waves of his amusement. The hand retreated to its brother like a beaten snake, returning to fidget with the hem of his jumper. Seconds later, nails scraped gently across the small of Charlie's back from either side and interlocked fingers in the middle to warm it with his heels.
To distract his roused mind, he focused on picturing disgusting things—slug soup, maggot-infested wounds, galleons of pus, kangaroo-splattered roadsides, rat kings, and nylon.
The door tore open, and Charlie stiffened against the lesser god of danger, who immediately turned his head to the window and produced a convincing snore. As light spilled into the room for longer than he deemed necessary, Charlie's heart thumped as fast as the heart of a child fearful of the monster under the bed—whereas he feared the one in it. It did not harmonise the rhythm of Frankie's heartbeat, which hummed a calm and steady song as he danced fingers down his spine towards his briefs. He was simply undisturbable.
'Mark my words: I'll get you, worm,' hissed a sour voice that belonged to neither of the boys.
The door slammed shut again.
Throwing the covers off to get cold air around his cheeks, Charlie rose, and Frankie simultaneously rose, too, grinning madly and staying close enough to kiss.
'That was far too close for my liking,' Charlie whispered gravely, sensing the presence of the other boy in the dark, just a second away from him; the tips of their noses grazed, and he felt hot vanilla breath brush his mouth to make him ravenous.
'I dunno, it could have been closer for mines,' Frankie joked, his hand still holding him by the small of his back, the bed rustling and creaking like woodland sounds underneath them. Unintentionally, and without attention drawn to it, as the two boys stared at one another in the darkness and breathed heavily, their legs and hips slowly stirred together, rising and falling with each inflation of lungs drawing deeply. Unfazed, Frankie sniggered, and then they began to giggle like children looking at dirty magazines with a torch at night for the first time—knowing they shouldn't be, and sharing the secret. 'You were so worked up, I thought for sure you'd explode and splatter brain matter over the walls.'
A short gasp emitted from him when Frankie's hand reached around to cup his bottom and push him off his legs.
'Can I ask you a question?' he said, crossing the carpet to pull his clothes back on in the dark.
'Now he seeks permission.' Charlie sat amongst the wrinkled sheets, crumpled around him like silvery hilltops, once the lad reached passed him to open the curtains again.
Wearing a cheeky smirk, Carrozza asked Chance, 'Don't you fear dying having not yet truly lived?'
Without waiting for the answer, Frankie sprung over the moonlit windowsill and slid stealthily down the ladder. Failing to ask who'd been the informant that had told him which room was his, Charlie crawled to the edge of his bed to watch him hide the equipment down an adjacent alleyway. Inhaling September and the Thames, Charlie exhaled a breath that he felt he had been holding in ever since the boy arrived. Jogging backwards, Francesco Carrozza fired a whimsical salute, before the night visitor sprinted down the street and vanished around the corner.