Read The Temple of Gold for Free Online Page B

dove at him, pinning his arm behind him, yelling right back. “I-loved-that-poem! I-was-only-kidding. I-loved-it. I-think-it’s-beautiful. Honest-but-I-think-it’s-the-prettiest-goddam-poem-I-ever-read. Now-will-you-stop?” He was swearing at me but my voice was louder so that he had to listen. And he knew I meant it. Every word.
    “You do?” he said. “You really do?”
    I nodded, letting him go.
    “Euripides,” he said. “You are the smartest guy and the best critic in the whole world.”
    “Naturally,” I said. “But let’s cut out this fol-de-rol and go do something useful. Let’s so scare Miss Blaul.”
    Now I’m not the smartest guy or the best critic in the whole world, and I’m the first to admit it. But just the same, Zock showed me every poem he ever wrote after that. They got better all the time, except I still liked that first one best, with love dropping like love. I know they got better because when Zock was sixteen, he won a national poetry contest and by the time he was seventeen, he’d had several poems published. He would have been a fine poet, maybe even a great one, if only I’d given him the chance.
    High school was a disappointment at first, as it wasn’t much different from grammar school which I had eight years of, nine counting kindergarten. We stayed within our own gang, not meeting many new people. We did the same thing as before, but now nobody cared. The work wasn’t any more interesting, only harder, and although I stunk at algebra, Zock pushed me through.
    So by the time spring came around, there wasn’t much to show. Then, on the night of the third of April, something happened and I’m not sure yet for better or worse. But I date my high school career, such as it was, from that night, for to all intents and purposes, it began then.
    Spring vacation it was, with me living at Zock’s house since my parents were up East someplace where my father had been invited to give a couple lectures dealing with Symbolism in Euripides which, I must admit, doesn’t sound any too racy. Zock’s folks were off at a party and there we were, a soft warm night, both of us feeling itchy, and nothing to do. Just who got the idea first I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter though, for we both wanted to and, almost before we knew it, we were standing in front of his old man’s liquor cabinet. At this time, neither of us knew for beans about alcohol. There never was any at my house, only dry wine, and Zock had never cared much, one way or the other.
    “Well, Zocker,” I said. “How do we start?”
    “I don’t know,” he admitted.
    “And how do we know when we get there?”
    “I don’t know that either.”
    “Then you must be pretty stupid,” I told him, grabbing a nearly full bottle of rum and pouring myself a glass. Zock took out a bottle of Scotch, a wise move and one that accounted for his better condition through the night and next day or two.
    We started swilling it down, sitting in two easy chairs, facing each other and laughing. I drained the first glass pretty fast. It didn’t affect me at all, but halfway into the. second, I began feeling rocky.
    “Yes sir,” I said. “You can say that again.”
    Zock looked across at me. “I didn’t say anything.”
    “Well, don’t say it again if you want to. I’m a liberal.”
    Which confused him, I think, so we didn’t talk for a long time but concentrated instead on our drinking, gulping it down. And I must admit that, pretty soon, I was in my cups, as my mother would say.
    “My mother would say I’m in my cups now. How about that. In my cups. Isn’t that the stupidest expression?”
    “Isn’t what the stupidest expression?”
    “Aren’t you listening to me?”
    “I’m trying,” Zock said. “But you’re not coming through very clear.”
    “If my father knows so much about Euripides, why isn’t he rich?”
    “Who’s Euripides?” Zock asked, which stumped me awhile.
    “I am,” I said finally. “That’s