Archives for November 2013

Chapter 91

            Dr. Reed’s office was a standard shrink’s room. There was no couch but there were big easy chairs. The doctor sat in back of his desk and secretly taped all of his sessions for later analysis and to have a complete record of what was actually said. The silver pen with which he took notes was only meant to give him prompts and actually he sometimes simply recorded the exact time that something was said so that he could access it later.

            Ron didn’t tell him that this was far from the first psychiatrist’s office that he had been in. That would mean telling him about Marjorie and her agoraphobia and her emotional fragility. Ron was definitely not going to do that. But he could not help but compare this place to the other offices. This one was much more lavish than the clinic at Presbyterian Hospital had been. That one had wooden chairs and overhead lights. Here the lighting was indirect and soft. Ron wondered why their offices were not bright and cheerful. They always had a somber look and he always felt sleepy after having to be in them.

            “Have you had any episodes this week?”

            “Not really,” said Ron. He didn’t tell Reed about the two that he faked. He found that if he said that he felt like he was losing control, they left him alone and got worried looks on their faces. At least he had some control now.

            “Are you ready to go back to school?”

            “No.”

            “You have to go back to school at some point Ron and I’m concerned that you are falling further behind. And that will only increase your stress.”

            “When I go back to school, they’ll be angry that I was gone so long. Then they’ll hit me.”

            “Maybe you should go to a different school.”

            All of a sudden Ron felt very nervous and scared. “That would make everybody really mad at me.”

            “Do they know that you are hit at school?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Do you tell them?”

            “No.”

            “Why not?”

            “Because my father taught me that if I got in trouble in school and came home and said anything that I would be in trouble there too.”

            “Do you think that is a good lesson?”

            “Yes.”

            “Why do you think that?”

            “I don’t know.” Ron knew why. It was a good lesson because it came from his father and, secretly, he cherished everything that came from his father.

            “Ronnie, it’s important that you value your therapy.”

            “I don’t understand what that means.”

            “Your mother says that she is only able to pay ten dollars an hour for your sessions.”

            Ron shifted in his chair and didn’t understand and then it occurred to him. His father had taught him what a shakedown was. He didn’t say anything. There was a long moment of silence. Ron stared into Dr. Reed’s eyes and they were blinking like the ticking of a clock.

            “I think that it would be good for you to contribute to your therapy.”

            “Really? Don’t you think I might be better off in a clinic? You know, where they help you for free.”

            “Well that would be a choice for your mother and for you.”

            “Ya know, I really don’t like you very much.”

            “Why is that Ronald?”

            “You’re greedy.”

            “I place a value on what we accomplish here and I want you to feel that sense of value.”

            “Yeah.”

            “I think it’s time for you to go back to school Ronald.”

            “Sure.”

 

            Chapter 92

                        Ron was able to walk without the immobilizer by the end of that week. Their game was against Passaic. They had a running back who was destined for at least Division 1, if not the NFL. Their coach kept it simple. There were ten plays to the right and the same ten plays to the left.  A stop us if you can philosophy. Steve wanted Ron on the sidelines, and sent Paul upstairs. They ran the right plays but the guard, Vinny Farbritsio, came to Ron and said, “Coach, I pulled out and ran hard and I hit him as hard as I could and he just didn’t go down.”

            Vinny weighed 165. The player that he was blocking weighed 220. They were both agile. Ron looked over at Artie. “We just can’t block it.”

            Artie rubbed his face and said, “Tell him to go lower.”

            Vinny should have been reporting back directly to Artie, but Ron was his English teacher and his coach. He just gravitated to him and Artie was OK with it. Ron was a maniac and Artie could respect that.

            Ron said, “Let’s run the trap again,” into his headset, where Paul and Steve could hear it.

            “They stuff it,” said Paul.

            “We’re going low,” said Ron.

            Steve growled, “Run it. Let’s see if we can do anything right.”

            Artie held Vinny by the facemask before he sent him back in with the play. “Go low, he’s bigger, but you can get low on him.”

            Vinny nodded bravely.

            The block on Caesar McElroy flipped him into the air and play ran for six yards.  Vinny’s nose was bleeding but he was smiling. Steve faked the dive and the sideline pass was open and there was connection. Rufus McElroy slammed hard into the pass receiver and the ball popped out.

            Players dove. The ball squirmed like a hot worm. The coaches held their breath. Caesar McElroy’s large hand were on it as Vinny rammed his helmet into McElroy’s balls. The ball squirted into the air again. Ron could almost touch it, as it rolled out of bounds.

            They lost 14-7. The coaches had never been more proud of their outmanned team. Everyone was drained and, while not happy, they had avoided embarrassment.

            Steve said, “Well, boys, that was like watching a man playing against children.”

            “I’ve never seen anyone that big and that fast at the same time,” said Paul.

            “He’s a specimen,” said Steve.

            “Looks like he came straight from the jungle,” said Artie.

            Ferry growled, “I don’t want to hear that kind of shit in my locker room, Artie. Can it.”

            With that Ferry walked off naked for his shower. Artie gave him the finger behind his back. Ron said, “It did sound racist, Artie.”

            “I don’t really care what it sounded like. Don’t you start on me too, Pegleg.”

            Artie had taken to calling Ron that when he wore the immobilizer. Ron grimaced and Artie, now jovial again, laughed.

 

            Chapter 93

            Ron met with Grant Pritchard in his office after class.  It was a small room that had floor to ceiling bookshelves that were stuffed with an array of books and folders and mementoes from his teaching career. Grant dropped his satchel on the floor and slid in back of his desk. He ran his hands through his curly hair and said, “So, tell me again what you want to do.”

            “I know that the version of the tapes that was released was redacted but what they show reveals the true quality of the man that we twice elected president. My girlfriend and I have some stage training and I’d like to make a recording of some of a reading of some of the conversations on the tapes.”

            Pritchard nodded. “I can see some value to that. Which conversations do you want to record?”

            “Well, March 21^st I think is essential.”

            “Obviously,” said Pritchard. “But I’d like what you do to reflect more than just the break-in. Some of the other shit that is on those tapes is far worse than that.”

            “The March 13 tape goes into some of that,” said Ron. He’d devoured the book when it was rushed into print.

            “Refresh my memory of what they talk about in that conversation,” said Pritchard.

            “Dean talks about the infiltration of Peace groups and says that a story is out there about how CREEP had paid a minor to do that and that the kid had bragged about it at school. Dean told him that he had access to the IRS and that they could use it to apply pressure in the right places. He spoke with disdain about Hugh Sloan’s need to cleanse his conscience. They talked about the mistake that Liddy had made in using a third person to cash his cheeks from CREEP. He talked about the tail that had been placed on Edward Kennedy and how they had data that they had collected in their two years of following him. And he told Nixon that Haldeman knew about Donald Segretti and his pranks before they happened.”

            “That’s all good stuff. Anything about the Pentagon papers?”

            “I don’t think so. Not in that conversation.”

            “Do you know what that one was?” said Pritchard.

            “I think it was between Nixon and Mitchell, but I’ll have to look.”

            There was a pause and the each sipped some coffee. “Do you think that this is more important that JFK assassination right now?” said Ron.

            “Right now it is because Nixon is still the President. Historically though, what happened JFK was one of the largest events in the history of the country.”

            “I remember William Buckley saying that he didn’t care who killed Kennedy as much as the fact that Kennedy was dead.”

            “That’s because Buckley is an asshole,” said Pritchard.

            Ron decided that it was best not to tell Pritchard that he still watched Firing Line and that he actually liked Buckley. “It just seems like we will never know what happened in Dallas,” said Ron.

            “That’s probably accurate.”

            “Isn’t it like beating your head against a stone wall and expecting the stone to break before your head does?”

            “You can’t think that way.”

            Ron didn’t like being told how he could or couldn’t think. He felt the same way about the war in Viet Nam now. He had tried. He had tried for years and it didn’t make any difference. Some people would never believe the truth even if it was right in front of them, and when you showed them things that were so clear that they couldn’t be avoided their response was that they were all a bunch of crooks anyway. That was short for saying that they wanted the conversation to be over.

            That night Ron and Robin sat on the floor together. Now that Hank was gone, Robin walked around the house in her panties constantly and Ron found it incredibly distracting. He’d find himself staring at her ass and unable to take his eyes off of it. She sat cross-legged on the floor and now he was staring between her legs. He pretended to be looking down at the paperback book that had the transcripts of the Watergate tapes in it.

            “You should be John Dean,” she said.

            “What are we going to do about the stuff that is blanked out?” he said.

            Robin smiled. “I think that I should just pause for a beat and then say clearly in my own voice, expletive deleted.”

            “Let’s try it and see how it works.”

            They read through the transcript with a cassette player between them. They read well together. They understood the cadences of each other’s voices and when to wait and when to move faster.

            It occurred to Ron that they missed the stage and had been at their best performing with each other. When he told her that he wanted to write instead of act, she said, “You’re better at acting.”

            It was true and he knew it. When he just relaxed and let it flow through him, he could feel and act like anyone, any character. He found it dangerous and exciting, but he also felt like an instrument and he yearned to be the composer. But a composer needed vision and where was his vision? What did he have to say that anyone would fine worth reading? Ron stared between her legs again. Nothing felt as good as when he was inside of her there. That wasn’t true. When he was there, he felt the need to perform and satisfy. When they dreamed together, he felt free and light. He thought about that and then looked up at her face. She had seen him staring. It excited her to act with him. There was an energy that sparked between them. It occurred to her for the first time that it wasn’t real. She didn’t really like the way that they fucked. He seemed to enjoy thrusting in so hard and then needing to turn her over and take her from behind in order to achieve orgasm. She didn’t understand why he didn’t want to look into her face when he came. It made her feel alone. She wanted to study the sparkle in his eyes and she couldn’t see them lying on her stomach.

 

Chapter 94

            Returning to school, Ron found that he was helplessly behind in every subject. He was also isolated. It was a funny thing about guys in the school. If a person was away for a while, they became forgotten. People moved on without them. Ron didn’t have any friends in his class and was considered weird because he had been out of school so much.

            Brother Alvin stood in front of his desk looking down at Ron as he stumbled through the pronunciation of some French. “You really are rather hopeless aren’t you, Tuck?”

            Ron didn’t answer.

“Did you hear my question, Mr. Tuck? I said that you really are rather hopeless, aren’t you?”

“Not as hopeless as a man wearing a dress who is named after a singing chipmunk, Brother.” Ron braced himself for the slap, the kick or the punch that he knew was coming. He heard the class laughing hard. He saw the darkness in Brother Alvin’s eyes.

“Wait in the hallway, Tuck. You don’t deserve to sit in my classroom.”

“Yes, Brother Alvin,” said Ron, accenting the Alvin in a way that caused the class to laugh harder.

Ron stood against the lockers in the long, clean, empty hallway. Why had he done it? Why couldn’t he have just said nothing? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. Maybe what Alvin would do to him would land him back in the hospital. The Brothers at Jersey Catholic did not believe in calling home. They did not believe in suspensions. This was something that gratified the parents of the students there.

Ron saw Brother Kelly turn the corner and see him in the hallway. When he saw Ron standing there a frown passed over his face and he moved towards him.  Ron knew that this was going to be bad.

“What are you doing out here, Mr. Tuck?”

“Brother Alvin told me to wait out here.”

“And why would Brother Alvin need to remove you from his class after you have missed so much time already?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

Brother Kelly opened the door to the classroom and Ron heard it go silent inside. Then Brothers Alvin and Kelly were standing in the doorway talking very quietly. They both came over and stood in front of Ron.

“Why don’t you repeat for Brother Kelly the foul things that you just said to me,” said Brother Alvin.

“I don’t remember,” said Ron.

Kelly backhanded him across the face and his head snapped back and bounced off of the metal locker with a loud clang. “Does that improve your memory, Tuck?”

Ron felt a hot trickle of blood run down from his lip and splash on his white shirt. He didn’t answer. The punch to his stomach that followed doubled him over. “Still experiencing memory problems, Tuck?”

Ron clutched at his stomach and tried to catch his breath. “We’ll give you thirty seconds to compose yourself, Tuck. You are wasting my time and Brother Alvin’s time and the time of your classmates. I do not wish to have my time wasted, Mr. Tuck.

“I got angry because he said that I was hopeless, Brother.”

“You do appear to be hopeless, don’t you Tuck?” taunted Brother Kelly.

“I guess so.”

Ron felt Kelly’s hand grip him like a vise between his neck and shoulder. He walked him down the hall holding him that way. Ron’s hands raised to try to move Kelly’s hand away and then he thought better of it and just winced a long, painful, silent gasp of pain.

They got into the elevator and rode down to the main floor. Ron knew that there were thousands of people in the building, but it seemed to have swallowed them and everything was very quiet.

Ron was not allowed to sit in Brother Kelly’s office. “Perhaps Jersey Catholic is not a good fit for you, Tuck.”

Ron felt hot tears in his eyes. He tasted his blood on his lips.

“Why have you missed so much school?”

“I was in the hospital,” said Ron.

“What was wrong with you this time?”

“I have an ulcer.”

“A boy your age with an ulcer? That’s ridiculous. Do you have a weak stomach?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you disrespectful to Brother Alvin?”

“Yes, Brother.”

“Why would you ever fail to show respect to someone who was teaching you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry that you got caught.”

Ron looked into Brother Kelly’s eyes with real confusion. How could he have failed to get caught? “I don’t understand, Brother.”

“That much is clear, Mr. Tuck.”

 

 

Chapter 95

 

It was a Sunday and that meant that Celeste was able to come to Ron’s apartment. The almost had a routine now.  First, they had sex like horny rabbits, then they luxuriated in each other over Chinese food.

“Where do you want to live?” said Ron.

“Where do you want to live?” said Celeste.

“My mother is willing to ask her tenants to leave and the amount of money that she wants for the apartment is ridiculously low.”

“Do you think that we can do that?”

“I don’t know but I do know that Glen Ridge has a great school system and that Angel would get a great education.”

“That’s a couple years away, Ron. Sometimes I think that you forget how young she is.”

“We don’t have to live there, but it’s safe and we would have support.”

He kissed her bare nipples and she shivered. Lips on lips they were fantastic kissers. Ron slid his hand down her back and she felt a spreading warmth. He was letting her know that he would be ready again soon.

He was asking a lot and he didn’t understand the ways that women dealt with each other. It was Marjorie’s house and if Celeste had learned anything it was that Marjorie didn’t get up what she thought was hers without a struggle.

“We played against a really good team yesterday,” said Ron.

Celeste asked, “How are your classes?”

“I made a mistake,” said Ron.

“A bad one?”

“Yeah,” Ron shook his head back and forth. “I told them that Walt Whitman was homosexual and now that’s all they think about and see.”

“Why did you tell them that?”

“It’s the truth. That’s the deal that I make with them. I always tell them as much of the truth as I can.”

“What will you do now?”

“I’m going to downplay it and try one more time with Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. It’s a great poem.”

Celeste stroked his eyebrows. “Then what?”

“Depends on how it goes. If they can’t get passed it, I have to move on.”

“To what?”

“I’m not sure. I should do Emily Dickinson but I never seem to arouse much enthusiasm for her.”

“Why do you think they don’t like her?”

“I’m really not sure but what I have come to learn is that if I’m not enthusiastic about a writer, my students never like the writer. And I think my lack of enthusiasm for her shows through.”

“So, if you like the writer and communicate that to them, they like the writer?”

Ron laughed and cracked open a fortune cookie. “I wish it was that easy. I’ve been teaching for years that The Odyssey is a great poem that is the foundation for almost everything that came after it. It and The Iliad. It’s hit and miss. Some years the students love it and other years they don’t care for it at all and find it boring.”

“Maybe they aren’t ready for it,” said Celeste.

Ron asked, “Did you like it?”

Celeste blushed. “I never read the whole thing.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t like it,” she said laughing.

Ron read his cookie to her. “Nothing good ever comes easy.” He looked into her deep brown eyes. “Do believe that?”

Celeste thought for a long moment and they each chewed half of the cookie. “I think that it’s true for some people and not true for others. Did you ever see the movie, The Way We Were?”

“I don’t think so. Who’s in it?’

“Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand.”

“I like both of them.”

“You’d like the movie too. I’ll look to see if it ever comes on TV. Anyway, for him things came easy and for her nothing came easy. I think it depends on what kind of person you are.”

Ron laughed, “We are definitely the kind that things don’t come easy for. Let’s play a game.”

Celeste grinned that smile that just melted him because of the way that it spread across her face and showed her enthusiasm. She snuggled down against his chest. His skin was very smooth and his muscles hard.  She listened to his heart beating.

Ron said, “Ok, you have to answer fast, without thinking about it.”

“I’ll try.”

“Favorite author?”

“James Michener.”

“Favorite song writer?”

“John Lennon.”

They each felt the pang. It was still fresh for both of them. “Yeah,” said Ron. “I can understand that.”

“Why Michener?”

“He takes me places that I have never been. I can go back to those places each time I read the same book. I must have read Hawaii six or seven times and now it’s like an old friend.”

“I never read anything of his. He’s never taught in the schools and he never was on any syllabus for any of the college courses that I took.” In Ron’s mind that meant that he wasn’t good enough to be on those lists, but he didn’t tell her that just then.

Celeste said, “My turn. Favorite author?”

Ron laughed, “I don’t know.”

Celeste mock pouted. “You made me just say the first thing that I thought.”

“You’re right. F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

“Songwriter?”

“Bob Dylan.”

“Favorite movie?”

“I think that I’d have to say The Godfather but it used to be The Hustler and when I was younger it was The Young Philadelphians.”

“I don’t know that one,” said Celeste.

“Paul Newman,” said Ron.

“He’s in The Hustler too isn’t he?”

“Yes, he plays Fast Eddie Felson.”

“So, he’s your favorite actor?”

Ron laughed again. She could hear the laugh rumble inside of him and it echoed in her ear. “Maybe, but I really like Humphrey Bogart.”

The game went on until it grew dark. They talked about food, clothes, flavors, times of the year, holidays, and heroes. They did not mention sports.

“Do you have a favorite way to make love?” said Ron.

Celeste reached down and squeezed him in her hand. “With you.”

 

 

Chapter 86

Ron’s first experience with detention, Jersey Catholic style, came when he forgot his Latin book.  Brother Delban wrote out the jug slip like he was handing Ron a piece of candy.

At the end of the day Ron reported to jug. The boys were lined up facing away from the desk in the empty room. They were positioned in front of a clock. They were told to stand with their arms folded across their chests, their backs straight, and their heels at forty-five degree angles. It wasn’t uncomfortable for the first five minutes, but then Ron felt his left knee begin to stiffen and throb.

Brother Conrad was in charge of jug. The students called him the silver fox because his hair was silver and grey and he seemed to have the ability to sneak around silently and be just where you didn’t want him to be. The rumor was that he used to be a Marine.

About fifteen minutes into the one hour detention, Brother Conrad silently glided down the aisle between the punished students and found a boy who had been cradling a book between his folded arms. The room had been silent except for the ticking clock and Conrad had heard the turning of a page. There was a smirk on his face when he found the culprit. “What have we here?” he said in a deep booming voice that seemed to shatter the endless ticking in the quiet room.

Jimmy Rollins shrunk. Conrad’s hand slapped him on the back of his head and his hair stood up comically after the blow. Ron felt himself starting to giggle at the sight of the exaggerated cowlick that now stood up like an accusation. Conrad moved it front of the boy and peered into his face. “Did you really expect to be allowed to cheat my clock, Rollins?”

“No Brother.”

“And now you are lying to me. Do you think that I am some ass of a fool, Rollins?”

“No Brother.”

“Of course you do Rollins. You think that you are cleverer than I am. Let me show you where your cleverness has gotten you.” Brother Conrad extended both of Rollins arms out straight. He placed the history book on his left palm and then walked quickly back to his desk and retrieved another heavy book and placed it on Rollins right palm. “Each time you drop a book Rollins, you get the reward of another day of jug. Of course if you are strong enough to stand like this for the next forty minutes, you will have proven that you are indeed more clever than I am, but I sincerely doubt that.”

Now the boys could not help but stand there and stare at stare at Rollins. In a very short time, his arms started to shake and the double thud of the books hitting the floor could be heard. This time Conrad did not bother to get up from in back of his desk. “Two more days Rollins. Resume your position.”

A moment later the books dropped again. This Conrad came down the aisle again. “Now you owe me four days.”

Jimmy Rollins was shaking and he was fighting to hold back his tears. “I can’t do it, Brother.”

“Don’t feel so clever now, do you Rollins?”

“No Brother.”

“And not particularly strong are you?”

“No Brother.”

“Well Rollins, if you are neither clever nor strong what does that make you?”

“I don’t know, Brother.”

“Neither do I Rollins, neither do I.”

Conrad walked away without saying anything. Rollins was in a quandary. What was he supposed to do now? He timidly lay the books at his feet and resumed his original position.

The hour ticked passed. Ron was given his signed jug slip that proved that he had lived up to his obligation. His walk home felt triumphant.

 

 

Chapter 87

 

Robin and Ron walked up to the corner to buy a Christmas tree. The holidays had drained their pockets and they weren’t sure that they would have enough. Ron had a surprise. He had an extra twenty that he hadn’t mentioned to her. When they got to the tree stand, he picked out a perfect tree and said, “What about this one?”

He could see the sparkles in her eyes and then the doubt that crept along her face. “I don’t think that we can afford this one.”

Ron reached into his pocket and took out the twenty. “Yes, we can.”

“Where did you get that?”

“I was saving it.”

She reached into his pocket with her small hands and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “That’s very romantic, Ron.”

The tree was wrapped and Ron hoisted the trunk on his shoulder. She followed along, holding up the top of the tree. They had no decorations, and so they made them out of costume jewelry, cuff links, popcorn, and greeting cards. They admired their creation sitting with a glass of wine and smoking a joint.

The apartment was theirs now, although they were seldom in it except to sleep and on some weekends. During the week, she worked and then went into New York City for her acting classes. When Ron was finished with school and his part time job delivering drugs for a local pharmacy, he took a train into Manhattan to meet her. After her classes, they had coffee at one of the village bars and then drove home together.

Ron loved the pattern and spent lots of evenings walking the streets of the village while he waited for her. But now they were both on Christmas break and the apartment was warm and bright.

“Do you think that we’ll always be together?” said Ron.

“I don’t know. Do you think that you could ever pry yourself out of New Jersey?”

“It depends. I’d like to. Where do you want to go?”

Robin grinned. “Someplace warm.”

She cradled her glass of wine and feel the warmth of it mixing with the pot. “Do you know this song?” She began to sing in a soft voice that got louder. Robin sang, “I would die, I would die, I would strangle myself with my tie. If ever you said goodbye, then I’d die.”

She stopped and they both laughed. “Maybe that should be our song,” said Ron.

“You hate ties.”

Ron laughed, “That’s why I’d die.”

He got up to refill her glass. As she watched him she said, “You know you have a really nice ass.”

Ron felt himself blush but stood there with his back to her so that she could see it.

 “Two of the gay guys at school were talking to me about it. They asked me if you were bisexual.”

Now Ron could feel his ears turning red. “What did you say?”

Robin grinned mischievously. “I told them that I hadn’t found a kind of sex that you didn’t like.”

“Why did you say that?”

“Because it’s true. You’d fuck me five times a day if I let you.”

Now it was Ron’s turn to grin. “Why don’t you?”

“Because I get sore.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“No.”

“Tell me why?”

Robin laughed. “We’d never get anything done. What fun would that be?”

“I know, but eventually I’d weaken and we could do things.”

Her grin had a wicked tinge. “What kind of things?”

Her words flicked his switch. He knew what she was asking. They smiled as he paused before invoking their code words. “Other things.”

He watched her tremble at the sound of it. She had two glasses of wine in her and had smoked a joint with him. They decorated a Christmas tree with things that were unusual and what they had. Other things meant sex. Robin smiled an impish grin. “I love adventure.”

 

 

Chapter 88

Two days after the surgery, Ron showed up at the coaches’ office. “I’m back.”

            Artie Harris and Steve Ferry looked at him with a startled faces. “You just had your knee cut.”

            Ron said, “They don’t cut it anymore. Now they puncture it and suck things out. Then they pump things in. It’s like a lube job and an oil change.”

            Artie Harris burst out laughing. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

            Steve Ferry grinned but then his face got serious. He’d learned that Ron was considered a serious teacher of English. Steve believed in education as much as he believed in football. Besides, Ron’s girlfriend had a great ass. “Ron, you don’t have to prove anything to me. It’s a long year. You really want to do this?”

            The smile that spread across Ron’s face was contagious. Ferry realized that it must be the expression that he used in his classroom. “I want to do this because it’s what we do. I want to be able to do what we do and I think I can.”

            Paul Pamenteri said, “You taking drugs?”

            Ron lied. “Just aspirin.”

            Steve assigned Artie to watch Ron during practice. Ron was holding a clipboard now, and limping back out of the range of contact. Artie looked at his face. When Ron walked, Artie could see that he had pain. Then he watched him roll his neck and flex his shoulders and breathe. Ron called the next play.

            After practice Paul Pamenteri asked Ron how he felt. Ron smiled. “I’m great. I’m getting married.”

            Paul smiled. “When?”

            “Late March,” said Ron.

            “Might be nice to be able to walk down the aisle,” said Paul.

            Ron laughed and made eye contact until Paul laughed as well. “I’ll be fine.”

            After practice Ron changed his clothes back to his classroom apparel before he went over to Celeste’s house. He saw Angel’s face looking out from behind a curtain. He saw her smile light up her mouth and then her cheeks and her eyes. He saw her mouth form an O and then the curtain closed and she ran to the door.

            Ron watched her expression change as he bobbled over with his immobilizer on his right leg. He sat down on the porch and she tentatively kissed his cheek and sat next to him. “I have to wear this because I got hurt.”

            “Why did you get hurt?” Her tone had a glimmer of petulance in it. Ron felt its admonishment.

            “It was an accident.”

            “Why?”

            “There isn’t a why about accidents. They just happen.”

            “Why did it happen to you?”

            Ron was totally flabbergasted. He was talking to a two year old child and felt outflanked. He didn’t realize that children her age weren’t supposed to make complete sentences and now she was refusing to look at his face and just staring at the thing on his leg. He unstrapped the Velcro and took it off. He placed it under them on the steps. “Does that make you feel better?”

            The searchlight eyes lifted to his face. “Are you still hurt?”

            Ron smiled his best dimpled grin. “Not right now.” He eyes looked at her hair, her curly light brown tangle of hair, and then her face. “I love you,” he said.

            “I miss you here,” she said.

            “I have to work.”

            “Why?”

            “We need money, but I’m a teacher and my students miss me.”

            He was astonished as he saw two tears roll down her cheeks. “I miss you too.”

            “Adults have to work.”

            “Are you one?”

            Ron felt a jolt strike him. “I think I have to be.”

            “Why?”

            Ron smiled and knew he had her. “Because of you.”

            He expected her to grin and she did. Then she stretched her arms up and held his neck. Ron completely ignored the pain in his knee as she pressed on it.

           

 

Chapter 89

            Ron could not pinpoint what he had done wrong. He was just walking home and his foot came down on a place where the sidewalk was lifted and split and his knee twisted and he felt it again. He tried to walk it off. It had just been a small twist. Maybe it would be fine in just a few minutes. It wasn’t.

            Ron felt the weight of his leg as he limped up the stairs with his book bag slung over his shoulder. He got into the house and George said, “Would you run down to the corner and get some bread?”

            “I can’t run anywhere,” he answered bitterly.

            “What’s wrong now?”

            “Same shit that’s always wrong,” said Ron.

            George galloped from out of the kitchen with a menacing look on his face. “I don’t want you using that kind of language around here.”

            “Nah, it’s only ok when you say shit huh?”

            George backhanded Ron across the face. The rage boiled over in him and he forgot about his knee and lunged after him. He felt the pain shoot up his leg and he fell. This time what snapped was not in his leg. It was deeper inside and he found himself lying on the floor shaking uncontrollably.

            George stood there looking stunned. Ron couldn’t really see and felt his lips trembling and a rushing in his ears that blotted out everything else. He was admitted to the hospital that evening.

            He liked the hospital. The nurses smiled at him. He roamed the halls and talked to other patients. There was no one hitting him. There was no school. He thought that maybe he could just stay here until he was old enough to be somewhere else.

            An upper GI series revealed that he had the beginning of an ulcer.  His chart showed that his blood pressure was vacillating. He was easily set into a depth of not speaking or doing anything except staring at the wall and hoping to go back to sleep. When the nurses’ notations showed that he was often asleep during the day, eating little and talking less, it was decided that Ron should see a psychiatrist.

            The man came to his bedside, and drew the curtains as Ron watched.  “I’m Dr. Reed, Ronald. Would you prefer that I call you Ronnie or Ron?”

            “It doesn’t matter.”

            Reed made a notation and Ron watched his silver pen flash as he wrote on his pad. He wondered if he had said something wrong already.

            “Do you know why I am here, Ronnie?”

            “No.”

            “No one told you that I was going to be stopping by?”

            “No.”

            “You’ve been sick, Ronnie.”

            Ron let his eyes roam the curtains. He was in a hospital. What kind of an observation was that? Was this guy a moron? Ron didn’t answer.

            “Dr. Polino thinks that your ulcer may be the result of emotional distress. Do you think that is a possibility, Ronnie?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Have you been upset recently?”

            “I guess.”

            “Do you know what is upsetting you?”

            “No.”

            “You can talk to me in confidence, Ronnie. Anything that you say to me will be between us.”

            “I don’t believe you.”

            “Why don’t you believe me?” said Reed.

            “Everybody lies to kids. I think it’s part of the adult code.” Ron bit his lip. He hadn’t wanted to say anything and then he just blurted that out.

            “Who’s been lying to you Ronnie?”

            “No one.”

            “If you aren’t willing to work with me Ronald, I’ll simply tell Dr. Polino that I don’t think that I can help you and he’ll send home and you can go back to school”

            Ron felt defeated. “What do you want to know?”

            “Do you know what’s upsetting you?”

            “I hate my life. I hate that my knee is hurt. I hate my step-father. I hate my school. I hate that I don’t see my father anymore. I hate that I’m too young to do anything about anything.”

            “Everyone has those feelings sometimes, Ronnie.”

            “Then I guess that I’m fine and just don’t know it.”

            “There’s no reason for sarcasm, Ronald.”

            “There isn’t?”

            “It isn’t helpful.”

            “It’s not?”

            “Do you find that you are sarcastic often?”

            “I honestly don’t know.”

            “Do you think that you might be?”

            “What I think is that people don’t really want to hear what I think. They want to hear what they think that I should be thinking.”

            “You’re a smart boy.”

            “Nothing that I say to you is going to make any difference.”

            “Suppose I told you that I could arrange to have you stay home and rest for a couple of weeks after you got out of here.”

            Ron’s ears perked up. Maybe this guy could help.

 

Chapter 90

            Robin and Ron listened to the news intently. It was a Saturday night. It was still warm. Richard Nixon ordered the Attorney General of the United States to fire the special prosecutor who’d been hired to investigate the Watergate break-in. The Attorney General refused and resigned in protest. Nixon ordered his Assistant Attorney General to fire the Special Prosecutor. He refused and also resigned. Finally, Robert Bork, who was then the Solicitor General, agreed to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who been hired to investigate Watergate.

            They held hands. She said, “Can we get some ice cream?”

            “I think that it’s all coming apart and years ago I wanted that. I thought it had to come apart. Now, it’s scary as hell.”

            Robin kissed his fingertips. “Do you want strawberry? Are you listening?”

            “I heard every word that you said. They’re proving that they are as crazy as we always thought they were.”

            “I know.”

            “Are you frightened to be right?”

            “I have to think about that.” The cascade of thoughts that flowed through his brain suggested that she might be correct. Hadn’t it been a lie since he was old enough to figure out what a lie was? Hadn’t Viet Nam been even a blacker and darker lie than he ever imagined it to be? Kennedy had whipped Nixon’s ass, well almost. But Kennedy was dead and Nixon was president. Johnson and then Nixon were like the nightmare monsters that were sent to make someone afraid of dreaming. “Yeah, I’m frightened that I’m right about this?”

            She smiled and kissed his fingertips again. “Let’s get some ice cream.  We can listen in the car.”

            The radio news said that we were headed for a constitutional crisis. Ron looked over at her face as she licked her cone. He watched the relish that she took as her tongue swirled over the strawberry ice cream scoop.

            Then the radio was reporting that agents of the FBI had sealed the offices of all three men. Cox’s staff was told that they would only be allowed to remove their personal papers from the offices. Richardson and Ruckelshaus, the former Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General, were not allowed to take anything with them.

            “Do you think that he’ll try to destroy all of the evidence against him?” said Robin.

            Ron thought about the Kennedy assassination again. Something inside of him clicked. “I’m not sure that he can. I mean, wouldn’t someone have to go over there and do it for him? The President can’t exactly go over there and do it himself? Besides, we never get to see the actual evidence. It all gets covered up and bleached or locked away so that the people will never know.”

            “You think about things too deeply,” she said. “Sometimes it causes you to miss the simple things.”

            She ran her foot along his thigh as he watched the TV.  She wondered how long it would take him to realize that she wanted to get laid. Robin thought to herself. For someone who likes sex as much as he does, he is terrible at picking up on signals. It’s like he never learned that language.

            “I don’t think I miss the simple things,” said Ron.

            Robin laughed. “No Ron, you’re always right on top of things.”

            Ron said, “I’ve been thinking about the Kennedy thing.”

            Robin burst out laughing so hard that she snorted wine up her nose. “Of course you have.”

            “There’s nothing funny about that,” said Ron indignantly.

            She laughed again and Ron started to get angry. She spread her legs on the couch and lifted the hem of her dress up to expose herself up to her waist. “Is it clear enough now what simple signal that you might be missing?”

            Ron grinned the dimpled smile that she loved. “Oh.”

 

Part 3

Chapter 80

 

 

 

 

            Hank, Ron, and Robin sat in a circle on the floor around a coffee table smoking a joint in their apartment. It was very good pot, the kind with a golden tinge and a deep resin, which blackened the sides of the white Zig-zag in which it was rolled. They were listening to a new album from The Eagles. Hank bought it from the music store where he worked.

            Robin stopped smoking halfway through the joint and sipped white wine from a delicately shaped pink glass that was shaped like a large V. She held it in both hands and grinned as she stared at their faces and listened to the music.

            Ron rolled another joint as soon as they had finished the first. Hank said, “I can’t, man. I have to go to work.”

            Robin smiled to herself and wished that they could get rid of him. It had been Ron’s idea to have him live with them. It allowed them to afford a much nicer apartment, but she didn’t like Hank and she hated the loss of privacy.

            Ron lit the second joint and Hank walked on his toes to his room where he put on his shoes and walked down the stairs from their second floor apartment, got into his tan VW and was gone.

            This was their third apartment together. The first had been when they decided to live together and spent a summer in Rahway, staying in Warren Lashly’s room while he was in Greece. Then they moved to Elizabeth and had a place that Robin loved in Bayway, but Ron hated it and found this place and convinced her to have Hank live with them. It was a nice apartment. Robin loved living with Hank’s two cats, Leni and Bob. She was going to school in New York City and working full time in Westfield. Her days were long and busy and she liked it that way. It made the weekends seem like so much more of a pleasure.

            Ron was working an insurance scam that paid him $5000 a year, and was going to school at a State College. As he smoked the joint, he stroked the side of her face with the backs of the fingers of his left hand. Then he dipped his finger into her glass and coated her lips with the sweet, dry wine. He put down the joint and kissed her.

            Robin moved into his lap and curled her arms around his neck. He felt the press of her breasts against his chest. The kiss was long. She gazed into his green eyes and saw them tinged with the red that came from the smoke. Then she stood up and slid her panties down as he watched her. She was wearing a light cotton summer dress that was loose and covered in small flowers. She straddled his lap, undid his belt, pulled down his zipper, found him hard and slid him into her. His hands squeezed her cheeks as she bobbed up and down like a happy cork on the ocean.

            Then they heard the door open and heard footsteps on the stairs. Abruptly, she pulled off of him, picked up her panties and hurried into their bedroom while Ron fumbled with his pants. Hank didn’t come back into the living room but went to his room, picked up the check that he had forgotten and left the apartment again without a word.

            Ron found her sitting on the bed.

            “This isn’t working, Ron.”

            “I know.”

            “This is what you wanted. This is what you created. Fix it.”

            “How do you want me to fix it?”

            She fixed him with a hard stare. “Get rid of him or help me find my own place.”

            Ron’s face looked hurt. His long brown hair was covering his right eye and he lifted it back over his ear. “You would want to live somewhere without me?”

            Robin thought, how could he be so smart and at the same time so dense? She enunciated very clearly and spoke slowly in a very small voice. “No, Ron but I’m unhappy. You promised that if I was unhappy that I wouldn’t have to stick with it. When you were unhappy in Elizabeth, we moved, didn’t we?”

            “He’s been my friend for a long time. I can’t just kick him out.”

            “Do you love me?”

            “You know I love you.”

            “Do you like seeing me unhappy?”

            “I didn’t know that you were unhappy.”

            “Then you haven’t been paying attention.”

            Robin knew that last thing would stick in his head. He hated the idea that he might be missing something. She watched his eyes flicker and saw his brain working.

            “Can we wait until after the semester is over?”

            “Maybe you can. I can’t.”

            Ron reached out for her, but she pulled away and got off the bed. “I’m really not in the mood right now, Ron.” She grinned to herself. Leaving him flustered like this was fun and he never saw her doing it until it was too late. “I’m taking a ride down to see my mother.”

            Ron nodded. She knew that he wouldn’t want to go with her there. Let him think about what she had said a little bit.

            Robin still wasn’t back when Hank came home from work. Ron had two rolled joints waiting. Hank made himself a cup of coffee. He didn’t ask where Robin was. He didn’t realize that he had almost walked in on them.

            Halfway through the first joint, Ron said, “Hank, we gotta move.”

            “Where do you want to go?” said Hank.

            “It’s not where exactly. Robin and I need to be alone. This just isn’t working anymore. It isn’t natural. It isn’t fair to her.”

            Hank stopped smoking the joint and lit a cigarette. Ron lit one too. “So it’s her idea?”

            Ron tried to look him in the eye. He said, “No, it’s our idea.”

            They heard the front door open and shut and heard Robin on the stairs. The cats ran to greet her, tails up straight. They heard her talking to the cats on the stairs.

            “Robin, can you come in here a minute?”

            She came into the room, smelled the pot and said, “Give me a few minutes.”

            Ron said, “I was just telling Hank that we needed to live alone.”

            Ron and Hank looked at each other as they waited. Their friendship had been long and strong. Hank was not doing well. He’d stopped confiding his feelings to Ron after he realized that Ron shared everything that he said with Robin. Hank understood that she wanted him gone. They’d lived together almost a year. They had both tried, but there was no place for them to connect other than Ron and she wanted him for herself. Ron’s face showed Hank that he just wanted to get this over with.

            Robin put on the light flowered dress and took her panties off. Ron was going to go to sleep a happy boy tonight. He’d listened to her.

            Hank said, “It’ll take me a while to find a new place.”

            Robin slid down next to Ron and parted her thighs slightly. She touched his arm. “How long do you think it will take, Hank?” She tried to say it gently. She knew she was being impatient and that she had let it go on too long and that now what was becoming haste had really been pent up frustration.

            “I don’t know yet. I’ll look around. I’ll keep to myself until then.”

            Ron felt a pang but Robin squeezed his arm ever so promisingly.

            Hank got up and put his cigarettes into the breast pocket of his button down shirt. “Goodnight.”

            Ron and Robin exchanged a grin when he was gone. She said, “I didn’t think that you’d do it that fast.”

            Ron put his head down. “You said that you’d live somewhere else.”

 

Chapter 81

 

            The radio was playing Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Elton John sang, “Maybe you’ll get a replacement. There’s plenty like me to be found. Mongrels who ain’t got a penny, sniffing for tidbits like you…”

            The music escalated and his voice rose. Ron thought about his class. He’d been reading Keats. He’d typed out a verse from Ode to a Nightingale and taped it over his desk on the wall. He wondered what Keats would have thought of the song. He wouldn’t have known about the Wizard of Oz.

            Now the radio was playing Desperado and Ron rode along on the sound of the vocal and its simple words. He wasn’t getting any younger either. He was almost twenty-four and still didn’t have a degree.

            Like it always was, the parking lot was packed. Ron searched up and down the long rows of cars and finally would up rolling slowly along next to a student who was on the way back to her car. The walk to the class was a long one and Ron slung his book bag over his shoulder and walked quickly. He liked to move at a good pace and especially liked blowing passed people who were meandering.

            The class was on the top floor of a large square brick building. He settled into his desk and waited.  The professor was a short, heavy-set man with very curly hair. His name was Grant Pritchard and his reputation for being a good history teacher was accurate. The class waited while he set up the projector.

            “Abraham Zapruder purchased a Bell and Howell Zoomatic camera in November of 1962.  The camera was relatively new and he didn’t use it much. This was the original cartridge that came with the film. The first twenty five feet of the film are family shots that were taken on his patio.”

            Ron thought about the sheet that Rocky used to hang in their basement apartment so that they could watch the videos that he took with his camera. Then he shoved those memories away, like he always did.

            “He told his family that he was bringing his camera to work that day so that he could film the president’s motorcade. It was quite by chance that he was there and the record that he made was a coincidence that has provided the most valid argument to date about the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. We’re going to watch that film, which until recently has not been available to the public.”

            Ron had seen the Zapruder film a few years ago in Quimpy’s garage apartment. It was Quimpy who had first told him about an author named Mark Lane. Quimpy had told him about Harold Weisberg’s Whitewash and Josiah Thompson’s Six Seconds in Dallas. Ron read all three books and knew where Grant Pritchard was going.

            “At the time of the assassination, Zapruder screamed to his secretary, ‘They killed him. They killed him.’ Later he was heard saying, ‘I know he’s dead. I saw his head explode like a firecracker. It’s the worst thing that I have ever seen.”

            Ron remembered the part of the film where Kennedy’s head exploded and a flash could be seen coming from the front of his brain when the bullet struck. He wasn’t sure that he ever wanted to see it again.

            Pritchard stopped speaking and ran the film. The classroom was dark and silent. When the bullet hit Kennedy, he heard gasps coming from his classmates. Pritchard stopped the film and then ran it back to the seconds after Kennedy’s car emerged from in back of a sign. He painstakingly went through each frame, showing Kennedy grabbing both hands to his throat. Jacqueline was reaching for him. He slumped against her shoulder and then the shot blew his brains all over the back seat of the car and her. She tried to crawl out of the back of the limousine and a Secret Service agent climbed on the trunk of the car. The flowers that she had been carrying flew into the air.  She fell onto the backseat floor of the car, which was now speeding off.

            “This is what truly happened to our President,” said Pritchard. “Seeing this film makes it impossible to believe that the President was shot from the rear, where Oswald is said to have been. The question is why the government of the United States has kept these frames of the film a secret for the last ten years and why they covered up the assassination of the President of The United States.”

            When the class was over, Ron stayed behind to talk with Pritchard. He told the professor about the books that he had read and that how his friend had been researching the assassination for more than eight years now.

            “Would you be interested in doing some work for the Assassination Information Bureau?”

            Ron thought about that. He was pursuing a degree in English. This wasn’t going to have anything to do with that. He was going to have to think about supplementing his income now that he and Robin were getting rid of Hank. That was also going to take some time, but Ron found himself nodding and saying, “Yeah, I’d like that a lot. The more people that know the better our chances of knowing what happened are going to be.”

            “There’s a lot more information out there now than there was back in the ‘60’s,” said Pritchard. I’d like you to familiarize yourself with some of it. There will be a meeting of those who are going to work with the Bureau this Saturday night at my house.”

            Ron looked at the list of books that Pritchard had given to him. There was one by Sylvan Fox. There was a book by Jessie Curry whose name and face Ron would never forget. It was entitled His Personal JFK File. The Assassination of JFK, the Reasons Why was a book written by Albert Newman. A Citizens Dissent: Mark Lane Responds to Defenders of the Warren Commission. Ron’s eyes scanned the list. He didn’t have time to read all of these. He wondered if he should just forget this idea and go back to his literature and poetry and the things that he had decided to do with his life.

 

Chapter 82

 

            Paulo DeFreio sat his class in a circle. They were reading Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.  It was a strange story. Hans Castorp had gone to visit his cousin in a sanatorium that was designed for people who had tuberculosis. They had found symptoms of the disease on his lungs and he’d been invited to stay for the cure. He was falling in love with a Russian girl.

            Ron’s mind whirled. He was in love with a Russian girl. Robin Ravelka was unmistakably Russian. Ron felt like Hans. Kennedy faded away. Herman Greenfield Horvack sat in the circle too.  So did Anthony Fiangelo. And Victor Strauss.  They read and they understood. Herman was in charge of the school’s literary magazine. Paulo DeFreio was the advisor. Ron’s finger followed along as he read.
His other classes included a seminar in the American Presidency and a Creative Writing class and a study of Western Drama. His Creative Writing teacher had recently published an article in Playboy. Ron thought that he was a lucky, self-centered, consumptive prick. The prick liked the way that Ron wrote and thought. Paulo DeFreio did as well, but he was experienced enough to dangle his approval and then withhold it.

            DeFreio conducted close examination of the text, in some instances going line by line to point out nuances and help his students to see the way that the writer created a portrait. Ron was having trouble concentrating on The Magic Mountain. It was indeed a Mountain of a book with many long reveries that happened when Castorp lay bundled under blankets  on his outdoor balcony, inhaling the cold, crisp mountain air that led him to dream. Ron’s mind kept wandering back to Grant Pritchard’s class and the Zapruder film and then it took a shift.

            He’d been home with his mother and was watching an episode of Firing Line. It had been six or so years ago. Ron’s fascination with William F. Buckley Jr. had been something that he kept secret. His college friends would dismiss Buckley as a tight assed right winger who had defended racist points of view during the Civil Rights Movement, supported the unjust war in Viet Nam and literally looked down his nose at most people. Ron never mentioned his like of Buckley to his high school friends, who already thought that he was an alien that they had to tolerate. His pool hall buddies would not have had the slightest idea who Buckley was nor would they have cared, but Ron did like him. It was the only TV program that he ever watched with an open dictionary sitting next to him on the floor.

            Buckley was interviewing Mark Lane who had written Rush to Judgment. Lane and he had jousted over the larger questions of trust and Lane had thanked Buckley for a favorable review of his book in Buckley’s magazine The National Review. He remembered two things that Buckley had said. The first was that the Right wished that Oswald had been a Communist agent sent by Moscow and that the Left wanted Oswald to be a southern racist. The second thing was that he cared much less about who killed Kennedy than the fact that Kennedy was dead. Wasn’t there a place where Ron believed that also? Then he remembered that Buckley also had supported the release of the autopsy photographs. He came back from his reverie to find the class staring at him.

            “Ron,” said DeFreio, “you seem to be lost in thought.”

            Ron blushed. “I am. I’m sorry. I apologize.”

            DeFreio bristled quietly. He’d told Ron what he’d thought of him as a special student. He’d smoked pot with Ron at his house in Montclair. Paulo expected him to try to contribute to the class or at least to give it his attention.

            DeFreio asked patiently, “What do you think Mann means by the tempo of experience?”

            “I think that he means that our minds control the speed at which we experience time. I think that he means that some experiences repeat on us, like indigestion and that others are treasured and enhanced by the way that we feel about them and remember them.”

            “And how do you see that portrayed in the novel?”

            “I think that love makes him stupid and is ruining his life. He treasures an x-ray of her lungs as a token of her love for him.”

            “Did it occur to you that Mann might be using a form of satire?”

            Ron laughed.  “I don’t find a nook that’s more than 700 pages long to be particularly funny.”

            The class chuckled and DeFreio laughed along with them. He said in his best European accented voice, “Not everything is meant to be gulped down and chugged like beer. Some books are meant to be sniffed, sipped, and rolled around in the mouth before swallowing. You might think of it as a glass of brandy that is meant to last all night.”

            “Ok,” said Ron. “I’ll try not to chug it.”

            After the class ended a small group of them went for coffee. DeFreio went along with them and they seat around a table in the student center.

            Herman Horvack was an emaciated blonde with a prematurely receding hairline. He had a love of decadence which he touted as the savior of the culture. “The magazine is almost ready to be proofed,” he said.

            “Bring it by my office and I’ll take a last look at it when you have it ready,” said DeFreio. “Ron, can I bum a cigarette?”

            It amused Ron that DeFreio refused to buy his own pack but always bummed smokes. He handed it to him and as DeFreio lit one, he said, “So what has your mind wandering?”

            Another Fiangelo quipped, “Either drugs or some girl would be my bet.”

            Herman looked at Ron, “You’ve got to stop smoking that crap. It clouds your brain.”

            “It helps me to write,” said Ron. “I can block everything else out when I smoke.”

            “You only think that it helps you. If you stopped doing it, you would remember your dreams better and they are a more fertile reservoir.” Hovack’s newest form of decadence was denial of any intoxicants of any kind. He talked about it before. Ron thought that it sounded boring. He justified his thinking by telling himself that Horvack had no girlfriend.

            “Actually I was thinking about the Kennedy Assassination.”

            “I truly believe that there is no more trite a subject upon which to waste your reveries,” said Herman.

            Fiangelo said, “It’s all a crock of shit.” Fiangelo had been scrambled in Viet Nam. There was an undercurrent of violence in much of what he said and his typical line of dismissal was that the topic was a crock.

            Victor Strauss looked over at Ron. “Why were you thinking about that?”

            Ron shrugged. “I don’t know. Grant Pritchard showed the Zapruder film in his class and I’m thinking about doing some work with the Assassination Information Bureau.”

            “A crock of shit,” said Fiangelo.

            “Did you think that about the Pentagon Papers too?” said Ron.

            “What I thought about them was that not fucking one of my friends was any less dead by knowing that we were fucked in the ass for having to go there. It didn’t get one person home safely. So yeah, it was a crock of shit too.”

            Victor Strauss said, “But the assassination might make for a good science fiction story.”

            Ron had no desire to write science fiction or prose of any kind. He hated writing essays. He was a poet. “So Herm,” Ron called Horvack Herm because he knew that it pissed him off. “Did any of my stuff make the magazine?”

            DeFreio and Horvack exchanged a grin. “You know that I’m not supposed to tell you that.”

            “Careful Herman,” said Fiangelo. “He’ll let Robin bite you again.”

            That brought laughter from everyone. Robin found Herman Greenfield Horvack incredibly pretentious. During one of his one way lectures on the aesthetics of decadence, she has casually taken his hand and sunk her teeth into it while he was in mid-sentence. Herman had recoiled and now referred to Robin as “the little savage.”

           

 

Chapter 83

            Robin let Ron sleep in. The night before, she had urged him to pound into her and met his need with the hot, frenzied thrusts of her hips. She’d slept on the wet spot that they’d created. She woke him with kisses between his shoulder blades. She brought him breakfast. “Do you know what you’re going to read?”

            Ron felt his sleepy haze slowly disappear. “Yeah, I have about fifteen things.” He paused and watched her bite into a fig. Her teeth were sharp and fingers caressed the skin as she chewed in small bites. “Is there something special that you want to hear me read?”

            “Leni’s poem.”

            Ron smiled. “Ok, I’ll read that first.”

            Ron was scheduled to do three sets. There was a rock band a comedian and him. He was paid twenty-five dollars. He stared out at the audience. There were more than sixty people. “This is a poem that I wrote about a cat who comes and goes as she pleases. The problem is that she is a black cat and causes people to have odd reactions.” Ron smiled. “We spend quiet time together, sometimes.” He glanced at Robin. “Sometimes” was their favorite word. It meant that sometimes I want to sleep with you. Sometimes I want you to leave me alone. Sometimes you make me angry. Sometimes I want to hurt you. She smiled up at him from her chair. He wasn’t sure what they had communicated, only what he felt.

            He read Leni’s poem.

“A piece of cheese, very small, turned up on its end and stuck to the floor

            Attracted a black cat with licked white paws.”

Ron smiled and paused to let the image sink in. “Raw chopped meat excited her more. She made sounds that I was attracted to.”

Ron blinked and heard Leni purr. “It sounded friendly, and I wanted to stay, so I gave her some more cheese.”

 He pictured the kitchen where this had happened. He was barefoot, standing at the sink with a paring knife and a cutting board. “She licked it. She liked it.” His eyes searched for Robin and she was grinning for him. “More than the first piece she had seen.”

 Ron stared out at his audience and tried to gather them all in. “I was ecstatic. I had made a friend that I could keep and tell her so, out loud. She would agree and nod her head and make such friendly sounds.” He had them. It was the erotic and playful nature of his words.

Ron took a breath, searched for Robin’s eyes and said, “I dropped some bread, and she gave it a clout, raised her head, licked her chin, turned around and walked out.” Ron quietly shuffled the pages to let them know that the poem was over and then he heard applause.

            It was a long night. Ron had to read some things twice. He read stories a prose poem and ad-libbed an ending so that he had something new to read. But he saved one for the last set.

            “This is a poem that I wrote in honor of the films of Federico Fellini. I don’t know why I have called him Fellinea in the poem except that the syllables sounded right coming out of my mouth.” Ron read.

            “Fellinea wake, come close and hear. Your mind’s been rented for another year. To beat your breast and dance around with the confetti streamers of a priestly clown.” Ron saw the dance. He felt the dance. He breathed. “Life is a child that sucks and leaves life grown older, depleted and meek. Life in days worn cold and thin. Fellinea see? I’ve come home again.”

            Ron had read this poem for the first time in a class he took at the New School for Social Research. His instructor, Adam Fitzgerald, was about to have poems published in The New Yorker. He smiled condescendingly and told Ron that his poem had a lot of life in it.

            Ron felt and afterglow of excitement as he and Robin drove home. “So what did you think?”

“I thought you were great except I thought that they made you read too long. You read for almost two hours.”

            Ron laughed. “I know. Kind of strange to be on the bill with a rock band and a comedian.”

            Robin took his hand. “I think it was kind of a tribute to you that you were able to hold your own.” She slid his hand under her long suede skirt and between her legs. She knew that he enjoyed playing with her as he drove, and tonight she was proud of him and wanted to make him very happy.

            Ron was feeling on top of the world. Maybe he had really, finally found his place in the world again. He hadn’t felt this good since he played football. Then Robin moved his hand away and reached down and lowered his zipper. He popped right out and she giggled. She liked looking at it. Every once in a while she stroked it just once. She liked it when he got this hard. He would do anything that she told him to do.

 

Chapter 84

            Ron went back to school with yet another doctor’s note for an elevator pass. Brother Kelly said, “What seems to be the difficulty this time Tuck?”

            “I had my knee drained, Brother. The doctor is hoping that this will be the end of the problems with it.”

            Brother Kelly was not smiling when he said, “We are all hoping that will be the case Mr. Tuck. I see that you have been missing lots of school. You are probably way behind in all of your subjects.”

            “Yes, Brother.”

            “Keep your head down and your mouth shut and do your work, Mr. Tuck.”

            Things were decidedly different at the school. The Brothers were based in Ireland and they were in a foul mood. The students had been cooped up in their houses for days. It just didn’t seem right to allow them to go outside and play while the country was in mourning, but now it was time to get back to work and get on with life, such as it was.

            Brother O’Shea greeted Ron by showing him the last quiz that he had taken. Ron stared at the 59 that was written and red and circled at the top of the page. “You didn’t expect that I had forgotten about this, did you Mr. Tuck?”

            Ron blurted, “I forgot about it, Brother.”

            “Let’s see if I can help you remember then. Hands or cheeks?”

            Ron looked at him with a confused expression that turned his face into a question mark. O’Shea pulled the strap from inside the cord that bound his cassock at the waist.. He closed his eyes when he heard the hiss. The smack of the belt turned his left hand white hot and then cold and numb. He teetered back and forth on his feet and watched this time as the strap came down on the palm of his right hand. He yelped when it struck. His palms were sweating profusely as he tried to rub feeling back into them on the sides of his pants.

            “You’ll be ready to take the quiz that you missed tomorrow,” said O’Shea.

            “Brother, I’m not prepared.”

            O’Shea looked down at the red circled 59 on the quiz until he was sure that the boy saw him looking at it and was now looking at it too. “You’ve already demonstrated that, haven’t you Mr. Tuck?”

            “Yes, Brother.”

            Ron was having trouble gripping his pencil and he could feel the blood rushing in his ears which also felt hot and red. To make things worse, he didn’t understand any of what O’Shea was talking about. He was saying that if you did the same thing to either side of the equation that the equation remained the same and that by manipulating both sides that you could solve the equation.

            Between classes Bob Foster said, “We’re all screwed now.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “They’re pissed off about Kennedy.”

            The motorcade and the drums and the bagpipes and the endless repetitions of Oswald being shot seemed to have happened in another world, a place where he felt loved and safe and ate cookies. In Latin, Brother Delban ran through endless declensions on nouns. They were boring and his mind wandered. He was lost in a reverie about being able to run and feeling unstoppable when he heard his name being said like it was being repeated. It startled him and the class laughed. 

            Brother Delban said, “Well, not only are you not here very often Mr. Tuck. It seems that when you are here do don’t feel the need to grace us with your attention. Delban rapped his knuckles down on the top of Ron’s head and said, “Pay” the knuckles raised and came down again, “attention” there were two more raps. His hands had just stopped hurting and know there was a throbbing pain at the top of his head. He rubbed it with his palm and tried to concentrate better.

 

            Chapter 85

            Ron awoke from the anesthetic with an immobilizer on his leg and it made him want to scream. He’d thought that somehow, because it was this new kind of surgery, that his leg would finally be free and that he would be able to walk. The hospital bed’s side rails had been pulled up and he needed to urinate. He pressed the buzzer. Celeste walked into the room. She looked radiant.

            Ron said, “I need to get out of this bed.”

            Celeste just nodded and lowered the side rail. She helped him to stand. He tried not to put too much weight on her as he hobbled. The immobilizer actually helped with his balance. Celeste said, “I’ll give you some privacy,”

            Celeste convinced the doctor that he could go back to her house after he’d urinated.

            The ride to Celeste’s house was slow and a bit painful. Ron felt every bump in the road shoot through his leg like a knife. Celeste tried to drive carefully as they squeaked back to her house.

Ron was quiet and stared out the window. It had been a never ending battle and he seemed to lose each one. Each time they went into one of his knees, he felt like he lost a little more. He could feel the dark cloud of it around him. Three surgeries were too many intrusions.

Celeste debated how to tell him what Dr. Fulack had said privately to her. She knew some of his history with knees bit this was the first time that she was experiencing it with him. She got him downstairs and brought him a plastic container that he could use to urinate. The look of sheer disgust that crossed his face when she showed it to him, told her that something deeper was going on with him. She gave him a pain pill. Ron grimaced at the sight of it.

“It doesn’t hurt right now.”

“And you want to keep it that way. The best thing to do is to stay ahead of the pain.”

“I’ll put up with the pain if I can get well faster,” said Ron.

“One thing has nothing to do with the other, Ron.”

“What do you mean?”

Ron shrugged. “They told me that the sooner I got off of the pain meds, the sooner I could get out of the hospital the last two times.”

Now it was Celeste’s turn to feel disgusted. The level of medical care that he had been given was slightly and she meant only slightly better than he would have gotten as a side of beef in a butcher shop. “That just isn’t true and they shouldn’t have told you that. I can’t believe that a doctor really said that to you.”

“A lot of things that I have been told about my knees are hard to believe. Did I ever tell you that I don’t think that I really needed the second surgery?”

Celeste looked a little shocked. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, I hurt it playing football up in Glen Ridge when I was a senior in high school. Up until then my right knee had been my good knee. The same doctor who did the left one, examined it and just scheduled the surgery. He never tried anything else. There were no x-rays. Nothing. Cutting it was his first option.”

“That’s what surgeons do, Ron. They solve problems by cutting and repairing. At least some of them do.”

“Is Fulack like that?”

Now was the time to tell him. “Ron, he told me that when you heal, he’s going to talk to you about having a total knee reconstruction.”

Ron felt his world spinning like he was on some fiendish amusement park ride. “Doesn’t that mean that they cut my knee out?”

“That’s over simplified, but essentially yes, that’s what it means.”

“I’m not doing it.” His voice was cold and the tone final. “I’ve had enough.”

“The doctor said that the deterioration of your knee is pretty bad. You are bone on bone and there is a lot of arthritis.”

“I’m thirty-three years old,” said Ron. “Arthritis?”

“It’s the repeated insults to your knees,” she said. She was speaking clinically now and Ron noted the change in her voice. It sounded professional. He didn’t like it.

“These fucking surgeries have taken something away from me each time that I’ve had one. I don’t trust them. I don’t trust doctors. I think they do it more for the money than they do to really help anyone.”

“They aren’t all like that.” She tried to sound sympathetic but she could see that it didn’t penetrate.

“I know this is your profession but they’re my knees.” Ron paused. “Can I tell you how I really feel?”

“Of course.” She saw that his eyes had grown darker. The brooding look on his face made him sound angry, like he was spitting out the words. His face looked hard and almost cruel.

“Doctors are no different from mechanics or carpenters. You hire them to do a job, but they work for you. You tell them what you want, not the other way around.”

Celeste almost felt slapped. Then she saw that what he said came from pain and bad experiences. She wanted to reach out and stroke his face, but something told her that touching him wouldn’t be a good idea right now.

Chapter 76

 

            Ron was having difficulty driving. He stretched his encased leg out across the hump in the middle of the floor of the squeak-mobile. He tried to work the pedals for the gas and break with his left leg but he was unaccustomed to using his left leg and it caused his body to be at an angle that had him staring almost out the driver’s side window rather than through the windshield. His leg was throbbing and the squeaking of the car seemed to announce him as damaged goods. He definitely could not drive on the highway like this and decided that he had no option other than to go to Celeste’s house.

            Then he pictured Angel being frightened by the way that he looked and Anna holding it against him and taking it out on Celeste. He pulled his car over to the side of the road and unstrapped the Velcro that was holding the immobilizer in place. He reseated himself and drove home, painfully. He reattached the immobilizer and found that the stairs that had so difficult when he had previously hurt his knee, were now manageable, one step at a time.

            He lay on his bed and took off the immobilizer and his pants. The sight of his knee caused a grimace to wash over him. It was swollen to the point of looking distorted. He limped into the kitchen for some ice and then dialed Celeste.

            “Where are you?” she said.

            “I’m home.”

            Her voice sounded hurt. “I thought that you were coming for dinner. Angel has been sitting by the window waiting and listening for you.”

            “I know. I didn’t want to frighten her.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I got hurt at practice. There was an accident and I hurt my leg.”

            Ron expected this to be greeted by anger. It wasn’t that he thought that Celeste was anything like his mother, but it was what he was used to.

            “How badly are you hurt?”

            “I don’t know. I’ll give a day or so and see what happens with the swelling.”

            “I’m coming down there,” said Celeste.

            “It’s late,” said Ron. “What about Angel?”

            “There are plenty of people here to take care of Angel. You didn’t eat dinner did you?”

            “No.”

            “I’ll bring you some food. Stay off of it until I get there.”

            Ron felt himself smiling for the first time since the injury occurred. She wanted to take care of him. Ron rolled a joint and smoked it while he waited for her. He did not think about calling his mother’s house. He would have to take off from work tomorrow. His book bag was still in the car and he needed to prepare assignments that he could leave for his students. His mind whirled. He didn’t need the book bag. He could tell them what he wanted them to do. It would be simple. He’d assign a vocabulary lesson to each of his freshman classes. It would require them to write something that they had to turn in at the end of the class and so it would be easy for the substitute. He had Sam’s home phone number.

            It took Celeste about an hour to gather the things that she needed and a plate of food. Anna’s mother said, “What happened to him?”

            “He had an accident at football practice. He’s had two knee surgeries already Mom. This could be bad.”

            Anna was different in an emergency than she was in everyday things. Her nursing training kicked in and that part of her brain worked quickly and logically. “Make sure you bring him something for the pain. Call me when you get there.”

            Celeste smiled and kissed her mother’s fleshy cheek. She looked more worn than she usually did.

            She knew it was bad the minute she saw the knee. The swelling was much more pronounced above the knee than it was below the knee but she could feel the heat there too and the softness of the flesh told her that there was fluid buildup below the knee cap as well.

            Ron didn’t own a bed. What he did have was a mattress and box spring that were on the floor. It made getting up much more difficult. The high that he felt from the joint along with Celeste rubbing and squeezing his thigh caused him to have an erection. They both laughed when they saw it sticking up. She took it out of his underwear and said, “You just lie back and relax. It will make you feel better.” Ron obeyed and closed his eyes as she stroked him.

 

Chapter 77

 

            Dan Rather was reporting that there was going to be a news conference conducted by the Dallas County District Attorney that would provide every shred of evidence that they had gathered in their case against Lee Oswald. Ron was thankful that Rather at least left the Harvey out. He couldn’t help but picture Jimmy Stewart talking to his imaginary friend Harvey who was a gigantic rabbit in a movie that he half remembered.

            “This evidence was gathered largely by the Dallas police department which has done an excellent job on this with the help of some of the federal agencies. I’m going to go through the evidence piece by piece for you. Number one some of this you will already know and some you won’t, I don’t think. As all of you know there are a number of witnesses who saw the person on the sixth floor of the book store building. Then there is the window from which he was looking out. Inside this window there were a number of bookcases and packages piled up, hiding someone who was at the window from people on the same floor looking in. There were some boxes in back of the bookcases where the person was apparently sitting because he was seen from that window. On this box that the defendant was sitting on, a palm print was found and was identified as his. The three ejected shells were found right by the box. The shells were of an odd caliber and found to fit the gun that was lying on the floor. The gun was hidden on this same floor behind some boxes and bookcases. As you know the gun was found to have been purchased through a mail order house under an assumed name, Hidell, and mailed to a post office box here in Dallas. On his person was a pocketbook and in that pocketbook was found identification with the same name on it. Pictures were found. Pictures were found of the defendant with this gun and a pistol on his holster. Oswald was brought to Dallas from Irving by a neighbor. Usually on Monday but this time he came home a day early and returned the next day and said that Oswald was carrying a package under his arm. He told his neighbor that it was window shades. The wife said that he had the gun the night before ad that it was missing that morning after he left.”

            Ron felt his face harden. He had the gun. They had pictures of him with the gun. He brought the gun to work. Ron was glad that he was dead. He was glad that the police had him killed by their friend. The District Attorney went on to say that immediately after the assassination, a police officer had tried to arrest him but that the manager had said that he was alright, that he worked in the building. The District Attorney continued saying that after all of the other employees had been identified, a description of Oswald, who was no longer in the building, went out. Then Oswald was seen on a bus, laughing very loudly and saying that the president had been shot. He then got off the bus and caught a taxi. He went to his home in Oak Cliff, changed his clothes hurriedly and left. As he left, three witnesses said they saw a police officer, Officer Tippet, motion to him and say something to him. He walked up to the car and the police officer got out of the car and Oswald shot him three times and killed him.

            He was just a madman, thought Ron. He half expected to hear that drool had been running out of his mouth after he killed the cop. He was then seen walking across a vacant lot and reloading his pistol. One of the witnesses reported seeing him go into the Texas Theatre. He was approached the movie theater and one of the arresting officers reported that he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger but that the gun hadn’t been reloaded properly and that the shell didn’t come out. Ron almost smiled. He had been too stupid to load the gun right. The District Attorney then corrected himself and said that Oswald had placed the gun to Officer Mac Donald’s head when it jammed. There was some confusion about whether the gun had misfired or whether the officer had prevented him from pulling the trigger. Henry Wade, the District Attorney, had then given the press all of the information that they had collected in their case against Oswald. Then Dan Rather showed the film of Oswald being shot again. Ron wanted him shot over and over. He wanted him to suffer the way that he was suffering and the rest of the country was suffering over this thing, this horrible thing that he’d done. Rather concluded, “It’s been that kind of day in grim, shamed Dallas.”

            Ron slept on the sofa-bed. The light from the TV illuminated the room. Marjorie hadn’t come there but she’d called and said that she would be there sometime on Monday. It was a national day of mourning. Everything was closed. Dorothy sat in her parlor smoking. She couldn’t bring herself to sleep in the same room as her third husband for one more night.

            There had been times when she had thought about asking Marjorie to just let Ronald live with her, but she wasn’t sure that she had the energy for him. And Marjorie would never have agreed. There were few things that she couldn’t impose upon Marjorie. One was to stop asking questions about who her father had been and what had happened to him. The other would be to ask her to give up Ronald.

            Dorothy’s first husband had been Mickey Fairmount. He was a boxer and she was twenty and wanting to escape the drudgery of caring for the young brothers and sisters that her father and weak mother were imposing upon her. She wanted out and she wanted better.

            Mickey took her travelling with him. She met Jack Dempsey and George Bellows and Sugar Ray Robinson, who had the audacity to stare at the shimmy of her hips and lick his lips.  Mickey was a lightweight and he took a lot of punches before he was able to use his hammer of a right hand to end a fight. Dorothy was excited by the sheer power of his masculinity and then she saw it decline and he started losing his eyesight. He only hit her once and it was out of frustration, but his blow had broken two of her ribs and sent her to a hospital. She had kept her mouth shut and sent herself flowers and when she was released, she left him. The cigarette smoke wafted over to encase the Chinese man who was sitting by the pond with his ever hopeful fishing rod extended. She’d used nail polish to coat his fishing line in gold. It was just the right shade, a dulled burnish that fit with the muted surroundings.

            Frank Hess had been another story altogether. She loved her second husband with a passion that caused her to accept whatever it took just to be close to him. Then the egotistical son-of-a-bitch had gotten himself killed.  She lit another cigarette. This Kennedy thing had gotten to her in an unexpected way. Sure, she understood politics, but she understood it in a way that she could work it to her advantage. Frank had taught her that. He always told her that it was just a game about power and that power meant currency.  That was his word, currency. She’d asked Frank if he didn’t just mean money. “There’s lots of kinds of money, Dot,” had been his answer. Frank was a gangster. She knew that. He had girlfriends and she knew that. The life that he showed her was an answer to her dreams and she knew that as well.

            The procession came out of a gate that went passed Lafayette Park where a crowd had been waiting for several hours. Some of them had waited all night to file passed the President’s coffin and then they came here. The lonely procession carrying Jacqueline Kennedy, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy who stepped out of the black limousine. She wore a veil of heavy mourning and they wore formal mourning coats. She knelt. They stood. None of them tarried there.

            A military guard brought the casket out to the east front. Behind the flag bearers walked two priests. The band played Hail to the Chief as the casket emerged. Ron felt his heart fill. That song was followed by a mournful version of Let Freedom Ring. The brothers and widow returned to their car. Robert was holding her hand. Ted walked a pace behind them. The sound of the hooves of the seven horse drawn caisson dominated. It was followed by a rider-less black horse. Then there were just muted drums. The procession made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue, which Ron heard called the Avenue of the Presidents for the first time. Then he could hear the drums and the hooves. The picture never changed. The casket was draped in an American flag. The caisson rolled smoothly. The pace was excruciating and Ron wanted to turn away but couldn’t. Then there were the sounds of coordinated boots marching. It blended with the hooves and the drums and the bells that now intoned with mournful remark. Then there were commands and a snap to of swords and guns was heard moving crisply from one position to the next. The bagpipes of the Black Watch drowned it all out in an eerie song of death.

            The brothers and widow followed along behind on foot. They were followed by other members of the family and then President Johnson. Ron wanted to gag when he heard him called that. Dignitaries followed in no particular order. These were heads of state who had come to pay respect from their countries. Queen Fredrica of Greece was the only other woman who was scheduled to walk in the procession.

 

Chapter 78

 

            Dr. Wilson Fulack was the first person that Celeste thought might be a good idea. After a night of ice, Ron made it downstairs with the immobilizer on his leg and then unstrapped it when he got into his red Ford. The ride up wasn’t horrible although pressing on the break caused him to wince and the position required of his leg caused it to throb by the time he got onto the parkway.  At least there wouldn’t be any braking for a while. It was smooth shot to Bergen County.

            Ron reapplied the immobilizer in front of Celeste’s house. She’d heard squeak and was out the door before he got himself out of the car. She walked over and said, “Can we take your car?”

            “Sure.” Ron had never sat in the passenger seat before and it felt strange. The squeaks seemed louder. The ride seemed bumpier.  It was a short ride to Fulack’s office.

            The doctor removed the immobilizer and asked, “Where did you get this?”

            “I’m a football coach,” said Ron. “We have a couple of them in case of emergencies.”

            “This is an old style and the wrong size, but I have something that will help you.”

            Ron knew what was coming and he wasn’t disappointed. Fulack pressed and twisted and bent his knee and Ron could not help but cry out.

            “When did you have this open knee?”

            Ron stared at the zipper on his right leg. The memories that it brought back were brutal. “When I was nineteen, that’s fourteen years ago.”

            “And the other leg?”

            “The year before when I was eighteen.”

            “Things have changed quite a bit since then. We rarely cut into knees like this anymore, unless it’s a torn ligament or a reconstruction. Were they meniscus tears in both knees?”

            “Yes,” said Ron, “but they also found bone chips and a benign tumor in my left knee.”

            “Alright,” said Fulack. “I want to do an arthrogram of your knee. There is quite a bit of swelling so it will be necessary to do an aspiration first. Then we will inject the knee with a dye and use a fluoroscope to get a good look at it.”

            Ron wanted to scream. He knew what an aspiration was. He had been subjected to more than twenty of them before surgery was done on his left leg. They were excruciating. He must have gone pale because Celeste said, “Will you be numbing his knee first?”

            Dr. Fulack chuckled. “Of course. Why would anyone aspirate a knee without numbing it first?”

            Ron stayed silent and Celeste spoke. “His was done repeatedly without anesthetic.”

            “Well, surely we don’t do that anymore.”

            Ron felt a sense of relief. Fulack walked to his phone and buzzed his nurse. The procedure was scheduled for the next day.

            “Were you hurt on the job, Ron?”

            “We were at football practice.”

            “Are you a paid coach?”

            “Yes, I get a stipend.”

            “You’ll want to file a workman’s comp case then.”

            “What does that mean?”

            Celeste and Fulack exchanged a look. “If you are hurt at work you are entitled to compensation. Make sure that you have filed an accident report. It will all be paid for by your employer Ron.”

            Ron felt fear. Suppose they fired him for getting hurt? Suppose they took away his honors class? “I’m not sure I want to do that.”

            “Your employer carries insurance, Ron. They’ll expect it.”

 

Chapter 79

            Luigi Vena sang Ave Maria in the church and underneath it the gritty voice of Cardinal Cushing could be heard praying in Latin. A group of priests with white lace tops covering their cassocks assisted. When it came time to read the gospel, a commentator in hushed tones, who was not Cronkite, told the people watching that this was the most solemn part of the mass and that all would stand in respect for the word of God. Ron wondered why he said that. The consecration was the most important part of the Mass. Ron felt Catholic.

             The commentator translated. “As we offer our fruits and praise to God, we pray to God for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the servant of God, that he may be given everlasting rest.”

            The Communion precession began with his widow and brothers and then other moved up and opened their mouths and extended their tongues to receive the sacrament. They read passages from scripture that Kennedy loved and then the procession continued out of the church to Arlington National Cemetery, but first the Cardinal sprinkled holy water over the coffin and kissed the flag that draped it. Ron burst into tears when Kennedy’s three year old son saluted the casket of his father. It was explained that the children were deemed too young to attend the burial and that this is where they would say goodbye to their father. The tears were hot on his face and he didn’t try to wipe them away. He mouthed the words to the song that the band played. “Praise him all creatures here below. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” St Mathews Cathedral was bathed in sunlight that contrasted with the black bunting that was draped over the door.

             Then the tolling of bells and the distinct command to “Present arms.” The muffled drums began again as the caisson began to slowly roll. They moved down Rhode Island Avenue. People in overcoats lined the streets on both sides. Most of the women wore hats. Many of the men, in the fashion change popularized by Kennedy, did not. The funeral dirge moaned. The white gravestones of the cemetery stood in endless rows. The camera pulled back to show its proximity to the Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac River.

            When the caisson was pulled to a stop, a band played, “Hail to the Chief.” Ron could almost feel the chill in the air as the brass notes rang out over the graves. Was there such a thing as another world? Was there an awareness? Ron wondered if this wasn’t what people did because, like him, they didn’t know what else to do. That song was followed by the Star Spangled Banner. Ron thought that it sounded proudly defiant. Everyone was standing still although Jacqueline seemed to be wavering just a bit. Ron wondered how much she was expected to take.

            The bagpipes of the United States Air Force Bagpipe Contingent moaned and wailed as the men marched over the hill. They accompanied the casket as it was removed from the caisson. They carried it what seemed like a long way. Ron admired their strength and endurance and it caused him to look at his knee. Through his pants, it seemed just like the other. Jets in multiple combinations of threes flew over the grave. There were places for just a few people to sit while others stood in back of them. More jets flew overhead drowning out the voice of the commentator. The voice of Cardinal Cushing, in its rasping tone, invoked a blessing upon the grave. The flag had been stretched taunt over the casket during the blessing and now it was folded and music played again. The folds were precise and practiced. The flag changed hands many times and each time it was saluted before it was accepted. The music rose in a crescendo and Ron felt like he was watching a spectacle.  It was a live and real spectacle, but that was what it was. Jacqueline, holding the folded flag under her arm, lit the flame. Holding her hand, Robert Kennedy led her away. The commentator’s simple statement was, “Now the president belongs to the ages.”

 

End of Part 2

 

Chapter 71

            Cronkite reported that Evangelist Billy Graham had a premonition that something awful was going to happen to Kennedy in Dallas and had tried to reach him and warn him not to go. It did not occur to Ron how convenient that was to say afterwards. He had been taken to see Billy Graham in Madison Square Garden with Rocky and Marjorie. His mother had urged him to go forward and declare himself as saved, but he didn’t. Now he wished that he had.

            Then Cronkite said that a small blonde boy followed by two pretty girls had plucked hibiscus blossoms and laid them in the doorway to a home where Kennedy used when he was in Florida. Things like that were happening all over the country. Ron felt bitter that he had to stay here, but did admit that his leg was feeling better today, and it was cold out and raining anyway.

            The TV scene shifted to Washington DC, where a reporter named Herman said that while the Secret Service knew, and President Kennedy knew, that it was impossible to protect him in a motorcade through a large city with thousands of windows, that if it had been raining it Dallas, if the rain had lasted just one more hour, that the president would have been underneath the large, plastic protective bubble that would have saved his life. They said that the Secret Service had always urged the President to use the bubble but that it liked to be seen by the people. Ron felt another wave of anguish wash over him. Maybe if he had listened, none of this would happen. Why would anyone want to be seen by the people in Texas? The reporters discussed the love that Kennedy had for going beyond rope lines to shake hands and let the people of America feel as close to him as possible and how his predecessor, President Eisenhower did not share that view and more often than not acceded to the wishes of the military. Ron felt anger mixed with his grief. Were they trying to say that the President had brought this on himself?”

            Then Cronkite was back. Ron wondered how long it had been since Walter Cronkite had slept. He reported that people were gathered in front of the White House and were silently standing and watching dignitaries file in to pay their last respects to the President, who was now lying in state in the East Room. A man said that he was trying to picture JFK as the way that he was, a hero and an inspiration to people and that he just couldn’t see him anymore. He was a tough looking man with a hard face and yet it was creasing and tears were running out of his eyes as he spoke. Ron had never seen so many men cry in his life. It made him feel better that he couldn’t control his tears. Then a Black man who was smartly dressed and wearing a tight brimmed hat like Ron saw his father sometimes wearing said that he had no words to describe his feelings and that the White House now seemed empty and that no one could fill it the way that JFK had. Ron felt himself nodding. Certainly it couldn’t be filled by a guy from Texas of all places. It was then that the thought occurred to him that maybe Texas had wanted their guy to be President and that maybe Texas had put Oswald up to it. Reporters were saying that the downpour of rain had driven most of the people standing across the street from the White House away but that large numbers of people had stood there all night just staring at the floodlit north portico.

            Almost on cue the scene shifted to Texas. Police Chief Jessie Curry was surrounded by a group of reporters in the hallway. He was asked a lot of questions about how he knew that Oswald was the man and how Oswald had been apprehended and about whether Oswald had a lawyer. Ron didn’t quite understand the answers and he could care less if Oswald had a lawyer. The scene shifted to Cronkite who said that Oswald’s mother had stated that her son was a good boy and that she was willing to pay for a lawyer. Cronkite added that Lee Harvey Oswald had been the youngest of three sons that Mrs. Oswald had raised on her own after the death of her husband. He died shortly after Oswald was born. Ron thought that they were saying that somehow the birth of Oswald had caused his father’s death. The grim thought that hit him next was that they were saying that it was because Oswald had been raised without a father’s influence, that this was one of the causes for what he had done. Why did they always make everything about broken homes? Did that mean that somehow he would grow up to do something awful because his parents had been divorced? Isn’t that what the cops had implied when he was caught with the knife? That he was damaged goods. He looked down at his knee. Well, they were right about one thing. That was for sure.

            Cronkite then shifted the scene back to Dallas and Captain Glen King of the Dallas Police force said that a man who had been an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald had his house searched and that he had been invited in to be interrogated by police and that the interrogation was happening at that moment. He then said that the Dallas Police Force was asking that anyone who had been in the vicinity of the assassination and had taken pictures of it to please turn all of those pictures into the Dallas police department at the request of the FBI. King refused to identify the man who was being interrogated. Then a bombshell. Oswald had been interrogated by the FBI two weeks prior to the assassination. Ron wanted to scream. They had him and then they let him go?

            Cronkite then reported that John Kennedy’s body was now lying in state in the East Room of the White House and that the casket was resting on the same structure that had been used to hold Abraham Lincoln’s casket after he had been assassinated. He then said that Jaqueline Kennedy had informed reporters that she had told her children, Caroline, age six, and John, age three, that their father had died.

 

Chapter 72

            Celeste said, “I have a friend named Ricky, but everyone calls him Bottles. He’s a bartender and he could get us the alcohol for the reception at wholesale and he knows somebody who can tend bar.”

            “That sounds great,” said Ron.

            “There’s a catch,” said Celeste. “He’s my first husband’s best friend.”

            Ron grinned into the pillow. He’d told her some about Robin and now he wanted to hear about Alex. “Tell me more about Alex.”

            Celeste hesitated. Ron was surely one of the stranger people that she’d ever met. He wanted to know everything. She’d expected him to ask her to handle it, and he’d surprised her again. “Alex was exciting. Life was one long, large party and he changed the games often enough so that I was always interested.”

            “What do you mean?” she could hear in Ron’s vice that he was grinning into the pillow.

            “In our first apartment, we had a large room. It was in Kearny and we had this great apartment and instead of a living room we had these board games set up everywhere. Friends were always there and we moved from one board game to the other and then we’d go out and play softball and go to one or two or three of the bars and come back and play the games until Alex passed out.”

            “Didn’t that get boring?”

            Celeste hesitated. Should she really tell him the truth? Did she know what the truth was? “No it didn’t get boring because he kept changing things and he was so talented and big time people recognized his talent, but he couldn’t help submarining himself.” Celeste found that she was breathing easily into the phone as she told him these things. She knew that whatever she said, he would not think any less of her. What a strange feeling that was. It was almost disconcerting and she understood why women were attracted to Ron and then ran away from him. She understood in that instant that he would never stop. There would always be a probing and a searching and a next question and maybe more questions than she was ready for.

            “I think that you loved him,” said Ron.

            “I’m sure that I did.”

            “Did he love you?”

            Now that was a question that she hadn’t expected. She felt her heart beat a little faster. “I think that he thought that he did.”

            “Robin said that about me. What does it mean?”

            Danger signs blinked in back of her eyes. What was he searching for now? “It means that love has got to be more than just in your head and in your imagination.”

            Ron felt a jolt. He let it pass through him and then he whispered, “I know.” There was a silence and while it wasn’t comfortable, it was necessary. The quiet electric hum of the phone lines between them, and the intimacy that it created, flowed. “I think that we can really love each other.” He said finally.

            The words washed through her stronger than a blow of cocaine, which she loved.

 

Chapter 73

 

            On the evening of the second day, it occurred to Ron that Jesus had been crucified on a Friday. He felt like he was observing John Kennedy’s descent into hell. Some miniscule insanely-faithed part of him, dreamed of resurrection.

            From Dallas, Captain Will Fritz, chief of detectives, announced that they had the case cinched but would not go into details. Brook Benton reported that Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife and mother had been up in the jail to see him. Ron wondered if they called him Lee Harvey. Had he really gone through life being called Lee Harvey? The route that Oswald would be soon taken from an upper floor to the garage on the ground floor in order to be transferred to the county jail was broadcast.

            The scene shifted back to a view of the White House and Cronkite’s voice  said that John Kennedy’s son, who the President referred to as John John, and who would be three on Monday the day of his father’s funeral, was reportedly walking through the halls of the White House saying, “ I don’t have anyone to play with.” Cronkite said that he was reported to have said that his father had been killed by a bad man.  Then it was back to Brook Benton and Captain Will Fritz was described as one of the most astute law enforcement officials in the south west. He wore glasses and a white cowboy hat. He said that he felt very confident that he had his man in both the killings of the president and the killing of Officer Tippet. Ron hated the look of him and hated that he equated the killing of John Kennedy with the killing of some Texas cop.

            Cronkite finally signed off saying that tonight there would be a memorial concert in honor of the president that was being performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra. He also announced that coverage of these events would continue nonstop through the President’s funeral on Monday.

            When Ron woke up on Sunday morning his leg felt much better. He walked to the bathroom without a limp for the first time that he could remember he was actually able to urinate while standing up. Ron wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t seen his mother since Friday afternoon. She tended to stay away from him when he was sick. He didn’t take this as a lack of love on her part, rather he felt that she was letting him heal and didn’t like seeing him injured. He would tell his aunt to call her today and say that he wasn’t limping anymore.

            Back at the TV, Ron heard Harry Reasoner say that they were shifting away from the coverage in Washington to go to Dallas, where Lee Harvey Oswald was being moved to the county jail. Turmoil was breaking loose and the report was that Oswald had been shot. An ambulance pulled into the garage, Oswald was wheeled out on a stretcher. The reporter said that he was ashen and unconscious and not moving. They had to wait while the armored truck that was supposed to transport Oswald was moved out of the way. People climbed into the back of the ambulance with Oswald. There was shouting and the newsmen were being cordoned off away from the actual place where the ambulance sat idling.

            Then the scene shifted back to New York and Reasoner said, “We have re-racked that video tape that shows that whole scene of confusion. We will now roll it and you can see it as it happened.” It was dark and a bit confused and two men led Oswald out when suddenly a man who was described as wearing a black hat and a brown coat rushed forward and shot Oswald in the stomach. Ron stared in numb horror. What was happening? Was the world completely crazy? He felt frightened. Ron heard the reporter say over and over again, “Oswald has been shot, Oswald has been shot!” Then Reasoner was there again and said they were going back to Dallas for live coverage. The reporter asked a man in a police uniform how many shots had been fired. The man said, “One shot.” The reporter asked if the man was known to him and he said, “Yes, he is.” The reporter said that he knew that the officer could not divulge the name but would he tell them what business the man was in. The policeman answered, “I’d rather not say.”

            Abruptly, the scene shifted back to Washington and Jacqueline Kennedy was standing dressed in black with a black veil over her face. Her daughter Caroline was on her left and her son John was on her right. The casket was being loaded onto a caisson. They carried it out as band music played a mournful brass song that seemed to blare and echo in the halls of the building as the honor guard carried out the body of President Kennedy. Dorothy came into the room and sat down next to Ron.

            “Someone shot Oswald.”

            “I knew they would. They were never letting him out of Dallas alive.”

            “It’s just crazy. I don’t know how I feel. I’m glad that he’d dead but Texas is just a bad place. They’re all crazy.”

            “His wife looks beautiful,” said Dorothy. She was holding a cup of coffee in her hands and staring at the TV. She put her coffee down and lit a cigarette.

            Jacqueline Kennedy walked to the casket and kneeled and kissed it while Caroline held the hem of the flag that was draping it. John wasn’t with them. The reporter said that she was saying her last goodbye for today.

            “Why are they putting her through this?” Aunt Dot. “With everybody watching this way?”

            “They don’t know any better,” she answered.

            “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of it.”

            “She’s numb. She isn’t feeling anything right now. Her grief will really come later. I was her age when your Uncle Charlie died. He just went out one morning and then his brother called me and told me that he was dead.”

            “How did he die?”

            Dorothy drew in on her cigarette and said as she exhaled, “He had a cerebral hemorrhage?” This of course wasn’t true but she had, over the years, made it true by repeating it and not varying from it. If she ever told anyone the truth it would probably be Ronald, but he was still too young and if she told him now, he would tell his mother and she would start in again with questions and wanting to know what had happened to her father.

            Then they were showing the footage of Oswald being shot and Dorothy thought that they led him right into it like he was an animal that was about to be slaughtered, but that was how it was down there.

            “Will you tell my mom that my knee feels better?”

            Dorothy looked at him and laughed in spite of the situation. “You mean tell her that it’s safe to come out now?”

            Ron laughed too, then he felt bad for laughing while people were being shot and kissing caskets and losing their father. “She just gets upset when anything bad happens to me.”

            “I’ll fix you some lunch,” said Dorothy. “Do you want to try to come to the table and eat it?”

            “Yes.”

            When Ron got back to the TV, it was two thirty in the afternoon. Cronkite was back. Ron wondered if he hadn’t been there on Sunday morning because he went to church. Church seemed very far away right now. Walter Cronkite reported that Lee Harvey Oswald was dead and that he had died in a room that was just ten feet from the room where President Kennedy had died. Cronkite said that he was taken down by a single bullet. Cronkite said that the man who shot Oswald had been identified as Jack Rubenstein who was known in Dallas as Jack Ruby. He had moved to Dallas from Chicago and ran two nightclubs there. He was fifty-two years old and was balding with black hair. Dallas police were reporting that they would charge him with the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

            The scene shifted back to Washington and a reporter said in a subdued voice that just as Walter Cronkite had just reported that word was coming through to people in the Capital Plaza, many of whom had transistor radios and that a cheer had gone up from the far right hand side of the plaza. Ron didn’t feel like cheering but wondered if he should.

            Then they were back in the studio and Dan Rather was showing a picture of Jack Ruby who had moved to Dallas from Chicago in 1948, and left his real name behind. He said that they were going to run a film that had been taken by George Phoenix who was a camera man. Rather directed the audience to pay particular attention to a man on the right, in the lower right hand corner who was wearing a black hat. Ron wondered why all the policemen down there wore white cowboy hats.

            Rather narrated the scene as they showed it slow motion. Ron felt sick to his stomach. Then Cronkite was back saying that here was an associated press still photograph of Oswald just a split second before he was shot. Ruby’s hat looked gray with a black headband, Ron thought. He guessed that things just got confused in the heat of the moment.

 

           

 

 

Chapter 74

            Practice was going smoothly. Ron was standing next to Artie Harris when James Fitzpatrick knocked Kirk Hammerfield off balance and he staggered and crashed into the back of Ron’s legs. Ron never saw it coming or even heard it. He was concentrating on a chart that Steve Ferry had given them on new line splits for the upcoming game with the Ghosts.

            Ron heard the pop before he hit the ground. His face was in the grass. Electric shocks were shooting up his leg. His mind screamed, “Not again! Not again!” Everyone crowded around Coach Tuck who lay on the ground and tried not to cry or scream or move. It was his right knee. The one on which he had the second surgery. How could this be happening again?

            Steve Ferry blew his whistle and hurried over to see what had happened. He looked at Artie. “Was he doing something stupid?”

            Artie shook his head. “No, it was an accident. We were just standing here.”

            “Can you stand up, Ron?” said Ferry.

            “I’m not sure,” said Ron. His entire leg was throbbing with that all too familiar pain. Ron wanted to pound his head into the grass. He felt Artie and Steve left him up between them. The two brawny men accomplished this with ease. Ron weighed 175 pounds but he was a solid 175 and it wasn’t that easy to just lift him that way.

            When they got him into the coaches’ room, Artie said “I’ve got something here that will help you.” He produced an immobilizer and fitted it to Ron’s leg outside of his pants. “This will keep you from aggravating it further until you can get to a doctor.”

            “Maybe I won’t need a doctor.”

            Artie looked into his eyes. “I heard it, Ronnie. I was standing right there.”

 

 

           

Chapter 75

            “This is Walter Cronkite back in our CBS newsroom in New York. Lee Harvey Oswald the twenty-four year old, Marxist, pro-Castroite, which the Dallas police said they had a cinched case against, accused assassin of President Kennedy, was himself shot to death in Dallas an hour and a half ago.”

            Ron saw the photograph in his mind. The still picture taken just before it all happened. One policeman, wearing a white hat and on his right, had his arm held open. The other policeman was gripping his left arm. The gun got stuck right into his ribs. He was confused. It looked so brutal.

            Ron’s attention drifted back to the TV. Cronkite was saying that Rubenstein or Ruby as he was known in Dallas had no expressed political affiliations. Cronkite shifted to an interview that Dan Rather was conducting with a comedian who had been employed by Jack Ruby. The comedian said that he was a good guy who had always done right by him. Rather asked what kind of place the Carousel club was and the Comedian said that it was a nightclub that employed five or six exotic dancers. For a moment, involuntarily, Ron tried to picture exotic dancers. Then the comedian said that he had seen Lee Oswald in the Carousel Cub’s audience about eight or nine days ago. The Comedian, who was also an MC, was doing a memory exercise and he asked for audience participation. He remembered Oswald because he had participated. Rather asked if Oswald had been seen talking to Jack Ruby and the Comedian said that was fairly certain that Jack never knew that he was in the club. The Comedian said that he was sure that Jack Ruby carried a gun in a bag that he carried with him, regularly. He’d seen it once. It was small and short-nosed. Bill Demar said, “He carried it with him because he had the money.”

            Rather asked, “Do you ever recall seeing any unsavory characters around the club?
“No,” the man who was now described as an Entertainer and MC for Jack Ruby.

            The scene shifted to Washington and the large crowd of people who had been waiting were allowed to file passed the coffin, two abreast One of the soldiers who stood guard was wearing a green beret and the significance of his headpiece was described. The paintings that hung from the walls were described as being done by an aide to General Washington. They depicted four events that led up to the formation of the federal government. Ron felt his chest swell with pride. His country. His history. The line of people was endless. It was reported that for the next six to eight hours that the people would have a chance to say good-bye to their president by following this path. It was an endlessly mournful progression. People’s hearts brought them there and they just kept coming. It felt like the outpouring of a sea. They had to change the plans to close the doors to the Capitol Rotunda and the White House announced that the doors would remain open as long as there were people waiting to say goodbye. A flag draped the coffin. The honor guard could not help but stand at attention, even though they were allowed to stand at ease. The crowd advanced slowly like small people with large hearts. Together, everything about them was large. It was reported that President Eisenhower had worn a black armband yesterday in honor of his successor.

            Then Cronkite sent the coverage back to Dallas and Dan Rather reported that there was yet a different angle to show the shooting of Oswald and ran that tape. It was like they couldn’t get enough of seeing him shot over and over and Ron wondered if there was some solace in seeing him killed again and again. Rather reported that more and more comments were coming in from friends of Jack Rubenstein and that they were all shocked by the event and that Jack Ruby had been able to shoot anyone. It was also reported that Rubenstein was known to many on the Dallas police force. Rather said that the truth seemed to be that Ruby was so well known to the Dallas police that no one thought anything of him being there. Ruby had been around the police station each day for the last several days offering to give reporters free drinks if they came to one of his clubs. Then Cronkite reported that Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas Police Department was now saying that with the death of Oswald the case of the assassination of President Kennedy was now closed. Cronkite reported that the death of Oswald came almost exactly forty-eight hours after Kennedy’s assassination and that it happened while eulogies were being said over the casket of the late President as it lay in state in the Capitol rotunda.

            The scene shifted back and showed that the endless line of mourners was continuing to wait for their chance to pay last respects to Kennedy and that the line was flanked by blue uniformed policeman who stood at parade rest. So many people thought Ron and they all loved him. He could not grasp how so much love could be mixed with such a violent act. He felt the sadness and grief welling up inside of him again and tried to force it back. Ron wondered if they were mourning the TV images that had led them to believe that they knew this man or if they were mourning the loss of hope that he seemed to embody. Cronkite was now reporting that numerous threats against various officials in Dallas were coming in from all over the country. Most notably there had been anonymous threats sent to the mayor of Dallas and to members of the Dallas police force who had been shown on TV and to a lawyer who had defended Jack Ruby at a time before the killings.  He had said on TV that if asked, he would defend Jack Rubenstein.