Quite a Man

Jon Bodine was quite a man.

Jon was not at all like the others who worked in the quarry. In fact, he was not like anyone I had ever known, or even seen. I told myself that I did not like him, that he was all flash, and would not last. After all, history was on my side. The flashy ones seldom do last when the work turns hard.

Like many of us in the quarries, Jon Bodine was cajun, his skin coppery, his hair long, in the style of the curly black mane of a Friesian stallion. In fact, a Friesian stallion was what came to mind whenever I looked at Jon Bodine, or watched him with his shovel, or hammer. While obviously muscular, he was not a particularly imposing man. He moved with a light, unpracticed gracefulness- seeming to flow through time and space with the ease of thin water over a submerged bayou log, rather than depending upon clunky muscles and sinews for locomotion as the rest of us must do. Jon would arrive at the quarry every morning already shirtless, his eager muscles rippling beneath dark skin. He ignored the clusters gathered to loiter, sip coffee, gossip, or complain. Instead, Jon Bodine took up his hammer, and strutted gamely to his place on the line. When that hammer began swinging our curious eyes lifted to watch it; envious, cautious eyes, two-by-two-by-two. When it did, conversations tailed away. It’s ring brought forth from each clot of men a collective sigh. Cold coffee was pitched aside, the day having begun, as though the silvery clang of Jon Bodine’s hammer was in actuality the sounding of our work bell.

And a beautiful bell it was, producing a crisp, sharp ping upon impact, with no mis-strikes, or “shin poppers.” It was a ring that produced in the others, myself included, a desire to pick up their own hammers with the aim of making them replicate that same, lovely chime. We were proud men, and were all a bit jealous of Jon Bodine’s hammer, and his stamina. In our pride we strove to match it.

I was often called the toughest man on the lot back then, and the strongest. I was proud of all of that, though not eager to show it off. I was good enough with a drill, a pick, or a hammer, so that one day I shamefully tried to match strokes with Jon Bodine, but did not last long. While my swings broke rock, they were long, jerky, and slow, while his were quick, efficient, and powerful. The muscles of his back and shoulders rolled the hammer with a fluid ease that I could not hope to equal.

The ends of our days at the quarry were much like their beginnings. Jon Bodine never hung around to talk, nor did he join those others of us at the “The Tin Cup” for a cold one afterwards, we not being eager to rush home to unhappy, and unsatisfied wives, the wives themselves being victims of the hard work in the quarry, every bit as much as their men were.

Curious as to where Jon Bodine hurried off to every evening, one night I followed him to a dimly lit street in the old quarter, and to an antiquated apartment building with crooked shutters and weathered brick patios hidden behind twisted ivy, and scrolls of rusty ironwork. Jon soon again emerged from the building with wet hair, glowing skin, and brushed trousers. It was the first time I had seen him in a shirt, and it a collared, pressed one; sparkling white, with pearl buttons.

I spied on him as he crossed the street then to an undesignated, freestanding house where well dressed men of varying ages hurried up and down the front porch stairs without lingering, their heads bowed, their lowered hat brims shading guilty, but pleasurable secrets. When finally satisfied as to the unsavory nature of the Victorian building and its business, I found myself curious about it... about it’s insides; it’s smells, it’s furnishings, it’s “agents.” For a man like Jon Bodine to rush so from work to get here the faster, those agents inside would have to be beautiful, young, and alluring, would they not?

I felt a curious sensation as I stood gazing at the house, an emotion never before realized. I found myself desiring. I found myself wanting to enter that house, to see what Jon Bodine saw, to feel what he felt. I found myself needing to smell those smells, to test that furniture, and to meet those agents. The desire came to me through rushing blood, through a pounding heart, and through a dry, thick tongue. Long I stood there; smoking, thinking, looking, feeling... but mostly imagining.

I imagined velvet sofas where sat nervous, quiet young men. In the corner a woman played softly at a piano, singing with a low, sultry voice to someone from long ago, but never forgotten. I imagined dim lamps, hefty perfumes, painted eyes, and bare shoulders. I imagined an older, whiskered man exiting with an ivory pipe satisfyingly clenched between yellowed teeth while the lingering odor of apple tobacco trudged along behind him and out the door, as if not wanting to go. More importantly, I imagined a young woman with ebony skin reaching for my hand, and I imagined offering mine back to her. I imagined the young woman leading me down a dark hallway lined with soft, plush rugs underfoot, and into a small room with rich wall coverings, and lace curtains.

I imagined the young woman naked then, her skin gleaming dull in the candlelight as she stood over me lying on the bed, staring down at my nakedness, at my erection for her standing tall, and embarrassing.

I imagined her ravaging me then, and then me her, pleasurably, painfully, desperately.

Yes. It was long that I stood there in the shadows of that house, deep into the early hours. It was long that I imagined, and dreamed.

When I did finally snuff my cigarette and start back for my own shack, I wondered that Jon Bodine had still not emerged. Questions filled my mind as I walked, questions I would never know the answers to:

Did Jon Bodine have a girl who worked inside?

Or perhaps he chose a different girl nightly?

Or, and the thought was tantalizingly shocking, maybe more than one per night?

Was he wasting his life, and his earnings?

Or was he right to avoid the trappings, the monotony of marriage, and married life?

Was Jon Bodine’s way right, and mine wrong?

Once home, I threw the questions aside. What did they matter, after all? But I found that my admiration for Jon Bodine had not dimmed. Why would it? Tomorrow would be another long day under a hot, Louisiana sun, and it requires quite a man to swing one hammer with the men through the long day, and to swing another with the ladies through the night. It certainly took a man with more vitality than myself.

But the night was not wasted. There was one thing I was now sure of, one fact gleaned from the night that was certain, and unimagined.

Jon Bodine was quite a man indeed.