DISCLAIMER: Danny Reyes belongs to Carlos Pedraza and Judas Kiss.
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.
~ Tommy, The Who
Paper Planes
I wasn't the only one with a thing for older men. The age difference between Danny and Ivo wasn't as great as mine but indisputably he was the type to fall for his teacher. I didn't understand until later that like my own proclivity his was rooted in his childhood experience.
Danny's mother died of cancer when he was nine but his father had begun to visit his bed at night in search of consolation long before then. That he disliked dreaded the touch was obvious. But he wasn't afraid of the man. He needed him – without the financial support his dreams would have been shattered. Like me, Danny had learned from an early age to manipulate his unpleasant situation, rendering his impotence advantageous. His father would stagger drunkenly down the hall to his room, fuck him and fall asleep. Danny would use the opportunity to clean out his wallet. By the time he was 18 and ready for college, he had more than five thousand dollars saved. Even during the school year he made it a point to return home regularly to ensure that his father continued to pay his tuition. As well as to appropriate some spending money.
We were, the both of us, fine hustlers - on a par with the Artful Dodger or Our Lady of the Flowers.
Did that make us immoral? Amoral? Anti-social? We were children, getting by the only way we knew how, feral animals making our own way in a lawless brutal society. Does a child have an understanding of morality? They only know what they are taught. We were clever boys, making the rules of the game on our end.
How can a child be inherently evil?
I see now that Danny's and my lives were parallel, each placed in unhappy circumstances, each given the opportunity to heal in Ivo's careful loving hands. I wonder if he fought as I did, resisted help, was dragged kicking and screaming to that state of inner peace? I suppose only Ivo knows that.
And he's not telling.