Chapter 7
On Saturday morning, Zoe told Ron that she wanted to run. “I know a place,” said Ron. They got into his car and drove up the parkway towards his parents’ house. The high school field in back of the house had a quarter mile track that wrapped around a football field and a baseball diamond and a softball field. Ron said, “I haven’t run in a long time. He was wearing a bathing suit and a sweat shirt over a t-shirt. He wore an old pair of sneakers. He couldn’t remember the last time that he had them on. Zoe looked resplendent. Her thick blonde hair hung loose over her shoulders, her legs were thin and muscular. She had borrowed one of his t-shirts and tied it at her waist. “Let me watch you run around just once,” she said.
Ron started off tentatively. The track did not hold good memories for him. Embarrassments of having dry heaves, of having his knee buckle while he was jogging with the team rushed over him. Now she would be there to watch. She would see it all. She wouldn’t want him. She would look at him like he was a pathetic mess.
He started off anyway, looking down at the way that his feet struck the cinders of the track He wasn’t gonna let it beat him again. If he ran until his heart exploded, he wasn’t gonna let it beat him. To his amazement, his body moved with a light footed grace and he circumnavigated the track almost before he was out of breath. She was sitting in the wooden bleachers watching and her smile was as broad as a sunrise coming up over a hill on a summer morning. “You’re an athlete,” she said coming over to him. “I can see it in your stride. It’s strong and solid.” Ron blushed. He had not thought of himself as an athlete for a very long time. Then she said, “You run clockwise and I’ll run counterclockwise. That way nobody will be trying to keep up with anyone else.”
Ron laughed. “I’m not silly enough to think that I can keep up with you. You finished the Boston Marathon and I just ran my first quarter mile since Nixon was President.”
She laughed and bounded off. He watched the cute little jiggle of her cheeks and that erotic sway of her hair as it brushed back and forth and bounced on her back. Then he ran too, in the other direction. He felt his breath started to give out and was breathing hard when they passed each other for the first time. She smiled and held her hand out as she neared him. They slapped palms and Ron kept running. He pushed and then the most amazing thing happened. He felt his breath slow and his heart settle in his chest. He saw the track and felt the cool air speed past him. He heard birds and smelled the fresh cut of the grass and then they were passing each other again. Ron sped up. He felt himself start to lose his breath and slowed just a little. His breathing returned to the comfort zone and he felt like his feet weren’t touching the ground anymore although he could hear the soft slap of his old sneakers on the track.
He didn’t know how far he ran but he stopped because his legs started to get wobbly, not because his breathing was giving out and then he walked. The first wave of retching, body shaking coughs hit him about 30 seconds later. They doubled him over. Leaning against the wooden bleachers, palms flat on the wooden slabs, Ron coughed and coughed until he was dizzy. The he straightened up and breathed in deeply. Another burst of body shaking heaves coughed their way out of him. He staggered. Then he breathed in again and it was clear and he felt a wave of euphoria warm his body with a sensation that he’d never in his life felt. She was flying around the track now, her hair no longer touching her shoulders but spread out in back of her in golden plumes. Smiling like he’d just smoked opium, he sat in the bleachers breathing easily, feeling each intake and exhale of air like it was the sweetest food he’d ever taken.
After what seemed like an hour she finally stopped and simply walked over to him. She wasn’t breathing hard. She was hardly sweating, but she was smiling broadly.
“How far did you run,” said Ron.
She grinned. “I don’t know. Till I got bored.”
Ron stared at her in complete amazement. What was she doing with him? Why did she want him? How could he ever keep up with her?
“How far did I run?” said Ron.
“I think a mile and a half, which is great for a first run.”
“Then you must have run ten miles,” said Ron worshipfully.
They got back into his car. Ron did not want to stop in and see his mother. He wasn’t ready to explain Zoe to anyone. It wasn’t going to last. He wasn’t going to be able to keep up with her. He didn’t want to answer any questions after she left him. He thought about Robin for just an instant and then he shoved the image away from his brain with a screaming “No!” that he kept deep inside of him.
They drove up Bloomfield Avenue towards Welmont Lanes. Ron was showing her the neighborhoods. They passed the new high rise apartment building that skirted the border of Glen Ridge, into one of the black sections of the city where second hand stores and soul food eateries and the Jehovah’s witnesses all had storefronts. The apartments were dilapidated, the side streets were worse. Zoe felt a look of appall spread across her face and tighten her mouth and darken her eyes. Ron talked about walking these streets like it was a badge of honor. She just felt endangered. As they approached the center of Montclair from the south, it all changed with a four-cornered plaza of banks and fine shops that were designed for upscale patrons. The shift was abrupt and obvious. She felt herself settle back against the headrest with a certain amount of reinstated ease. Ron was talking about movie theaters and music shops and she was looking at the people who seemed so much more like her. How could they live so close to such an obvious lack of safety?
The neighborhood was slowly shifting again when he turned onto the street next to Welmont. Some things were clean but others were run down. The mixture gave her a tolerable sense of danger that she found more exciting than threatening.
Quimpy maneuvered his Caddy with the glow of a man who had just had a good night and was expecting things to continue in the same vein. He’d tacked his 3 game score sheet up on the refrigerator. He was interested in a match but he wasn’t hungry for one. It was a good place to be. He felt that he could sit back and let things come to him and sort them through and take the best bet without needing to prove anything else this weekend. He could have even skipped today, but he wanted to bask in last night. A perfect game was one thing, but a 700 series was an accomplishment that was not so much based on luck as it was a credit to sustained excellence.
Ron reached down and squeezed Zoe’s bottom as they walked through the dark, cool, enclosed parking lot. She instantly turned to him and pressed her glowing body against his and whispered. “You can take me out of here whenever you want and just bring me someplace and do whatever you want to me. You don’t even have to say anything. Just snap your fingers of give me a look, and I’ll be right in back of you.”
Ron smiled, felt his chest puff and said. “Let’s get something to eat here. I have to see this guy that called last night. Then we are out of here.”
She reached her hand out and squeezed his ass and repeated, “You can do whatever you want to do to me.”
When they walked in the back door the usual collection of heads turned. There was a crowd on 15 and 16, a match was going on. Ron smiled remembering when it would have been the most important thing happening in the day, but now he walked passed not even bothering to see who was bowling. His arm was around Zoe’s waist as they walked to the luncheonette.
Butchie nudged TJ after they walked by. “Ronnie’s finally got a hole that he can crawl into. It’s a skinny hole, but any hole is better than none.”
TJ puffed on his cigar and laughed but did not answer.
Sal was watching too and turned to the deskman. “Well at least she‘s white. I half expected that jerk-off to walk in with some niggar broad one day.”
The deskman laughed. “He might yet. Didn’t Quimpy bring some dark meat in here one day?”
“Who knows if Quimpy humps anything but his bowling ball.” said Sal.
Quimpy was having coffee with Buster at the counter. He turned to smile when he saw Ron and Zoe. “Well, glad to see you finally got around to coming back.” he said, ignoring Zoe.
Ron laughed and held up Zoe’s hand wrapped in his own. “This is Quimpy, Zoe. He’s one of my oldest friends.”
Quimpy nodded and looked up at Zoe smiling and said, “You know he’s a crazy fucked up lunatic right?”
Zoe laughed and blushed but did not answer. They three of them slid into a booth and Buster went up to see what was happening on 15 and 16. They ordered cheeseburgers and coffee. He hadn’t let go of Zoe’s hand and she was holding on to him as if some strong wind might blow through the luncheonette any minute and carry her who knows where. Quimpy said, “708.” And then allowed the number to settle in.
“Last night?” said Ron
Quimpy nodded smiling and then Ron smiled and turned to Zoe. “708 is a huge number.”
Zoe let go of Ron’s hand and interlaced her fingers on the countertop between them. “It’s nice to meet you Quimpy. “
Quimpy bobbed his head without saying anything at first and then smiled. “I can see why Ron wouldn’t want to be wasting his time around here.”
Ron slid his hand below the counter and grasped her thigh, fingers close to the top of it, squeezing her leg, feeling the muscles and the heat that was radiating from between her legs. “So what’s this about a job?” he said to Quimpy.
Quimpy answered, “Eighteen an hour, takes a couple weeks to see cash, but the job is nothing. You pick up some books and go and sit with these kids for a couple of hours. You talk to them. Teach them if you want. Then you leave and turn in your time sheet. Kids give you any shit, you just walk out. They need you. It’s an easy bit.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Show up at my office sometime through the week and I’ll show you. You gonna stick around here?”
“Not at all,” said Ron. “You heard from Hank?”
“Somebody told me that he got a job as an assistant golf pro. He ain’t around anymore.”
Ron took two fast bites of his burger, saw that Zoe had already demolished hers and said, “Me neither”
“That’s cool,” said Quimpy. “This place was never anything good for you.”
“It ain’t good for nobody,” said Ron, sliding into the vernacular.
Zoe asked where the bathroom was and both he and Quimpy watched her walk away. “That’s a very pretty tail that she’s got.”
“No shit,” said Ron and finished his burger in large bites.
When they got back into the car, he thought he smelled a feint staleness on her breath and noticed that’s he did not kiss him as they drove back to his apartment.
He thought about Welmont. It must have been at least four years since he’d been there last, and they acted as if he’d been there every Saturday. He wondered if that was their way of ignoring him or if they hadn’t really missed him. The place just didn’t change. It was frozen in time like a village in a glass bowl that you could shake and cause snow to fall. He wondered if Quimpy changed or if he was just the same as everyone else at Welmont. He wasn’t. He’d called Ron and asked if he could help him up with some extra money. Nobody at Welmont would ever do such a thing. The only money they would let go of was a lure that was supposed to suck a fish into deeper water. Ron wondered if Quimpy’s job offer was a lure and into what deep water Quimpy might be trying to suck him. He looked over at Zoe; she was staring out the window with her hand up over her mouth.
“What did you think of Welmont?” he asked.
“It was an ugly place,” she said without taking her hand away. “They are ugly people.”
“Do you think I’m like them?”
“I think that they are jealous that you aren’t like them and would like nothing better to make everyone and everything just as ugly as they are.”
A Bob Dylan line surged through Ron’s brain. “… drag you down into the hole that he’s in.” It repeated like it was on an unending loop as he parked the car and they walked towards his apartment.
She took his hand and held it as they walked. “You’re nothing like them. You are a beautiful man.” He stretched over to kiss her but she danced away and said, “Wait until we are inside.”