Archives for November 2013

Chapter 66

 

            It was a seven on seven drill, something that was done for the linemen to improve the crispness of their timing and to learn to move like a unit. Ron was running the drill with Artie Harris but he felt that the holes were opening too slowly. Finally he handed the center a ball and said, “Oh my count, snap it back to me.” The players looked confused. Artie looked confused. “I’m going to run through the holes, don’t tackle me,” said Ron.

            He stood in a shotgun position that would roughly mimic how far behind the line the running back would be. He would wait a beat to simulate the handoff, and then he would run through the hole. He felt the rush of adrenaline rush through him as he ran and planted and cut up into the hole. The play got crisper. He did it again and again. Bodies were flying around him, he loved it! He’d forgotten what this felt like. He had been sure that he would never feel it again.

            When the drill ended, the coaches gave the team a water break. Artie came over and said out of the side of his mouth, “You’re fucking crazy.”

            Ron nodded and grinned. “So they tell me.”

            “God-damned craziest, animal, English teacher I ever met.”

            Ron laughed and felt his chest swell.

            In the coaches’ room, Artie said to Paul Pamenteri, gesturing at Ron, “This maniac was taking the ball up through the holes in a seven on seven.”

            Paul looked up at Ron in disbelief, “What for?”

            “I think that it improves our timing,” said Ron.

            “I can’t afford to have you getting hurt,” said Steve Ferry.

            Ron nodded. He had almost felt unstoppable, but maybe they were right. He couldn’t afford him getting hurt either.

            Ron showered and changed back into his street clothes and walked down to the teachers’ room where he’d left his book bag. Larry Viola was there and he was working some scissors on a piece of cloth.

            “Hi Larry.”

            “Hey Ron, what do you think?”

            Larry draped what Ron now saw was a sheet over his head. He had been cutting out eyeholes.

            “What’s that for?”

            Larry beamed excitedly. “I convinced Brother Howard to let me try my pre-game rally idea. This is going to be for when we play East Side.”

            Ron eyes got larger. “What do you mean?”

            “They’re known as the Ghosts, so when their bus pulls in, I’m going to be there with a group that I get together to help me and we’ll be wearing these.”

            “You can’t do that,” hollered Ron.

            “Brother said I could try it out. I have his permission.”

            “Larry, do something else.”

            “Why?”

            “Paterson East Side is basically an all-Black and Hispanic school.”

            “So?”

            “Are you fucking crazy? They are going to come to an all-White suburban school and be met by a group of people with sheets over their heads?”

            “They won’t take it that way.”

            “They sure the fuck will and they’ll never get off the bus and they’ll go to the newspapers and you will be so screwed that you won’t even know what hit you.”

            “Well, I’m doing it. It’s all in good fun. They’re the Ghosts.”

            “And you’re a moron.”

            “Fuck you. I don’t need your approval.”

            Ron was in a quandary. When he had gone to Brother O’Malley before, the results had been brutal. If he went to Brother Howard about this, Larry Vila could be in serious trouble. Why were these things finding him? He’d just wanted to change and go to see Celeste and Angel but now here he was stuck with this mess. Larry couldn’t be that naïve to think that he could do something like that, could he? He was a history teacher for Christ’s sake.

            Ron saw Brother Howard walking back to his office puffing his after dinner cigar. He sighed and put the book bag down. Damn that thing was heavy. “Brother can I have a moment?”

            Brother Howard smiled and said, “Sure Ron, come on in.”

            Ron sat in the office as Brother Howard turned the lights on and slide down in back of his desk. “How was practice?”

            “We’re getting better.”

            “Are your classes going well?”

            “Yes, Brother. I’m enjoying them.”

            Brother Howard looked perplexed. Classes were going well. Practice had been good. He hoped that Ron wasn’t going to need time off or worse still have found a new job and need to leave them. “How can I help you Mr. Tuck?”

            “Brother, I know about the pep rallies that you gave Larry Viola permission to organize.”

            “Alright.” He puffed his cigar and scarped the ash into the ashtray. This wasn’t going to be some foolish thing about coaches being above all of this was it? No, Tuck didn’t seem like the type.

            “Brother he’s planning to have kids wear sheets over their heads when we play East Side.”

            Brother Howard’s laugh was more like a guffaw. “You’re joking right?”

            “I wish that I was. He’s in the faculty room now, cutting eyeholes into sheets.”

            Howard guffawed again. “Well, he can’t do that.”

            “I tried to tell him Brother but I honestly don’t think that he believes that it is a problem.”

            “Why don’t you just go on home now, and I’ll casually wander in to see what’s going on. We’ll keep this conversation to ourselves.”

            Ron felt relief. “Thank you Brother.”

 

 

            It was about eight o’clock in the evening when Celeste carried Angel, straight from her bath, down into the basement. She still wore a diaper at night, and she was wearing a lilac nightgown. She crawled into his arms with her brown eyes filled with wonder and wrapped her very small and fragile arms around Ron’s neck. Celeste slid in next to them and entwined her feet with Ron’s feet.

            A surge of the need to provide and protect rushed through Ron’s body with one of the most delightful jolts that he’d ever felt. Angel purred like a cat and put her small hands up against each of his ears and leaned in to kiss him. Ron felt his spirit soar. She was magical at this moment.

            Celeste watched the love affair with a warm and heartfelt smile. She wished with everything had she had inside of her that this had been his baby, and would be his child.

            Angel nestled between them and wiggled her body from one to the other and then drifted off to a contented sleep. Celeste and Ron gazed into each other’s eyes and smiled.

 

Chapter 67

            Ron was standing in the main office, on the first floor of Jersey Catholic. He’d never been here before. The female clerk said, “What is it?” Her tone wasn’t hostile, just businesslike.

            “I need an elevator pass,” said Ron. He offered up the note from the doctor’s prescription pad.

            She read it. Ron watched her hands and then her face. “One moment.” Her tone was clipped and she turned away from the counter to prepare the pass. Elevators were reserved for faculty and those students who had incurred some form of injury that would grant them a temporary privilege. Anyone requiring that privilege on a continual basis was not considered for admission.

            Brother Kelly was the school principal. He made it a point of delivering each elevator pass personally. The elevators were old and elegant and Kelly wished to keep their usage to a minimum. “What seems to be the problem with you, Ronald Tuck?” Kelly glanced down at the card to be sure of the name as he spoke it.

            “I hurt my knee. The doctor says that I shouldn’t climb stairs.”

            “And how did you hurt your knee?”

            “I’m on the football team,” said Ron.

            Kelly handed Ron the signed pass. “Let’s hope your recovery is speedy, Ronald Tuck.”

            The elevators had steel grates that slid closed and Ron stood towards the back trying not to be conspicuous as he rode up to his floor. Teaches got on and then got off. Some of them eyed him suspiciously. Ron fought the urge to hold up his pass each time one of them looked at him.

            In the class, he found that the position into which one piece desk molded him was uncomfortable. He could bend it far enough to put his foot on the floor but after a few minutes it began to throb. He tried sliding down and extending his legs until they straightened. Then that became uncomfortable and he tried sitting up again. It was this progression of positions that filled his next few hours.

Because he had missed three days of school, he was behind with everything. As his assignments mounted, so did his sense of panic. By lunchtime, he was depressed and anxious. He got into the elevator while some students walked quickly passed him. He could hear their feet going down the stairs quickly, the way that he used to be able to go down the stairs. In the lunchroom, he tried to avoid being jostled. Dr. Polino had wrapped his knee in an ace bandage, but when he’d tried to do it, it had creases. All of the sliding down and straightening had made the creases worse and now they dug into the back of his knee. They made it sore and impossible for him to think about anything other than his knee.

When Brother Delban asked him to conjugate the verb to carry, Ron explained that he had been absent. Delban walked over to him and rapped his knuckles down on top of Ron’s head. He recited the first three variations of the verb, accenting each part of the recitation with a rap on the top of Ron’s head with his knuckle. Ron closed his eyes and waited for Delban to finish. Now there was a throb on the top of his head, and he fought the urge to rub it. He stared at the clock, wishing that by some miracle it would move more quickly, but it didn’t.

By the time he climbed the stairs to his apartment, his leg was throbbing and the knee had swollen up again and was hot. With some effort, he got his shoes off and pulled his pants down and unwrapped the badly creased ace bandage. His leg felt better after he took the bandage off, like it could breathe. Why did everything that the doctor told him to do make his knee hurt worse?

Ron tried to think of something to look forward to, but he couldn’t. The tension of this was building inside of him and he had no way to get it out. He lay on his bed and turned on the radio. The End of the World was playing. He closed his eyes as Blue Velvet played and then he was asleep.

 

Chapter 68

Celeste and Ron were talking on the telephone. “We should start looking for places to have the reception,” she said.

“Isn’t it too soon for that?”

“Some people book these things a year in advance,” said Celeste.

“Why?”

“They just do. There’s a lot to consider. Ron, I have something to tell you.”

“OK.”

“I’m going to have my marriage annulled.”

“How can you do that? I thought you could only do that if you hadn’t had sex.”

“In the Catholic Church you can do it if one of the people tries to avoid having children.” Andrew Canigliaro had surely qualified for that. The problem was that there was now a baby and he had accepted the responsibility to contribute to her support. But Celeste was willing to trade. She would allow him unsupervised visitation if he agreed to the annulment.

“Are we just going to have like a cookie cutter wedding?” said Ron.

            “I hope not. I think that we can do better than that.”

            “I do too. I think it’s why I have always hated weddings.”

            “We’ll make ours special and memorable,” said Celeste.

            “I think so too.” Ron thought and felt and spoke. “I don’t blame anyone for having doubts about us.” He stopped and smiled and then laughed. “That’s not really true.” He heard The Rolling Stones in his head and Mick Jagger singing those words. Ron said, “I said that and then I heard that Rolling Stones song that begins I’m a leaping screaming monkey. All my friends are junkies, but that’s not really true. Do you remember that song?”

            “I remember it. Why did you think about that?”

            “Just because of the words I guess. I’m not sure. Things pop in and out of my head all the time.”

            “I don’t blame them for doubting, but I wish they could be more kind about it.”

            “My dad’s been ok,” said Ron hopefully. “The only thing is that I’m not sure if it’s just because he doesn’t care enough about what happens.”

            Celeste heard that and it caused a ripple to pass through her. She knew that her parents cared, didn’t she? She felt herself drawn to his voice when he spoke again.

            “Part of me is like him. I used to think that part was cool and strong.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “When you can put yourself in a place where nobody can get to you.”

            “I never wanted to be in that kind of place,” said Celeste. Another ripple. Was that as honest as she could be? “Maybe I did, a little, but I like people.”

            “So, my mom wants to have the ceremony at her church.”

            “Ron, there has to be a priest. There just does.”

            “I thought about that. There’s a guy that I teach with. He’s from my old neighborhood. Maybe he would do it. He’s Italian. They could do it together, Protestant and Catholic.”

            “I need to get the annulment for him to be able to do that.”

            “I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” said Ron.

            They listened to each other breathe for a while. It was comforting.

           

 

Chapter 69

            It was a twist to the right that caused the pop to happen again. He pressed his foot down when he felt it and thought that maybe it had popped back into place. Somehow he had told himself that his knee was just out of place and could pop back at any time. He smiled as he felt the jolt. He’d seen things like that on TV where an arm or leg could just be popped back into place. Maybe that was what was happening. He wished very hard for that to be what was happening.

            His first step felt spongy. But at least he felt stable. Maybe that was it. A few moments later he felt it starting to swell and reached down and felt the heat coming from it.

            It went on like that for several weeks. Ron was now being given a hard time about the elevator pass and told that he would have to renew it every week and that he would have to produce a new note from the doctor each time that it had to be renewed. Life had changed dramatically. There were few days that went by without him getting slapped for one thing of the other.

            He told Coach Peters that he was going to have to leave the team.

            “That knee hasn’t gotten any better?”

            “No Coach, it seems to be getting worse.”

            “Tuck, you know you have to want it to get better.” The coach eyed him with an unsympathetic gaze. Injury was weakness and when a player couldn’t respond, Peters never lost the feeling that it was at least in part due to a lack of desire, a lack of toughness.

            “I do want it to get better, Coach. Football was the best thing about my life and now it’s gone.”

            “Clear out your locker then, Tuck.”

            Ron felt slapped again. That was it? Just clear out your locker?

            “Make sure that you’ve turned everything in. We have records of everything that we issued to you.”

            That was so not how anyone who was on the team was spoken to. Ron felt the distance. The team had moved on. The coach had moved on. He was no longer a part of it. He sat in front of his locker and tried to sort everything out. When it was empty, a locker room felt like a deserted hovel. There were only a few things there that belonged to him. He didn’t want them anymore and threw them into the garbage.

            The limp home was now something that he was used to. It was weird how the pain became more manageable as he became accustomed to it. He replayed the scene in his mind. He felt like the discarded soda bottle that he saw lying in an alley. Then an anger rose up in him and he thought to himself that he really didn’t need the team or football or anything.

            His knee was tapped for the first time in late November. It was a Friday. He was being taken to his Aunt Dottie’s house. The rules were absolutely no stairs, no walking, he was to keep his knee elevated and stay off it completely. The doctor gave him a set of crutches. Somehow they felt comforting. They were proof of his injury. They would tell everyone that he hadn’t been faking or had wanted to not get better. There would be another few days away from school.

            The trip home took him passed Jersey Catholic and Ron was shocked to see that the school was being dismissed. Marjorie was driving the Chevy that reminded her of Rocky. Ron slid down in the seat as they passed the school. He didn’t want anyone to see him.

            “I wonder why school is being let out?”

            Marjorie didn’t answer. The doctor’s visit had been expensive. She felt shaken by the size of the needles that the doctor had inserted into his leg. She knew that he must be in pain, although Dr. Polino said that he’d given him a cortisone shot and that in a few days that his knee should feel a lot better and that the swelling would go down for good.

            When they were a safe distance from the school, Ron reached out and turned on the radio. Instead of music he heard the announcer say, “At this point there is no way to know how badly the President has been injured. There are reports that he was hit in his head. To repeat, shots were fired at President John Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas about forty five minutes ago. There are reports of multiple injuries. The President is believed to be among those who have been injured. Texas Governor John Connelly is also believed to be among the injured. The President and Governor Connelly have been taken to Parkland Hospital. Defense Forces have been placed on alert.”

            Ron turned to his mother but she didn’t seem to be reacting. “Do you think that he’ll be alright?”

            “I’m sure that he will,” said Marjorie. “Those people are trained to take care of him.” Marjorie was only half listening. She was worried about the bill and what George was going to say.

            Dorothy had the back room all prepared for him. The crutches were of no use in her house and so Ron left them in the kitchen and limped slowly back down the long hall to his Uncle’s room.  Dorothy had pulled out the sofa bed and added extra pillows for his knee.

            “I’m going to fix you a plate of cookies and get you some milk,” said his aunt.

            Ron tried to smile. The feel of her apartment was comforting and no one was going to holler at him or slap him here. Dorothy turned on the TV as she left to get the cookies and milk.

            Ron saw Walter Cronkite in his shirt sleeves. There were people moving around in back of him. Everyone looked tense and nervous and busy. The scene shifted to a larger room and in back of a scene of milling and crying people, Ron heard that there were unconfirmed reports that the President was dead. He sat up bolt straight in the bed. His knee didn’t seem to mind. He blotted out everything else in the room and stared hard at the TV. The camera shifted back to Cronkite who reported that President Kennedy was receiving blood transfusions in the emergency room. That must mean that he was still alive! Ron hoped with all his might that everything w aging to be ok. Then a voice from off camera said that there was a rumor that was circulating that the President was dead. Ron felt his mind go numb and waited to hear what Cronkite said. Until Walter Cronkite said it, it wasn’t true and rumors were just rumors. Then there was another report from the hospital itself that said one of the doctors was now reporting that President Kennedy was dead. Ron felt his eyes welling up with tears. Then Cronkite said that Father Hubert had been called into the operating room to administer the sacrament of last rites to the President. Then Cronkite said that there was a twenty five year old man who had been taken into custody at the scene, he interrupted himself to say that correspondent Dan Rather was now confirming reports that the President was dead. Tears were streaming down Ron’s face as his aunt walked back into the room with the cookies and milk. She placed them on the table and sat down with Ron to watch.

            The TV showed pictures of the ball room where President Kennedy was scheduled to speak. People were praying. Cronkite said that Vice President Lyndon Johnson had not been seen at Parkland but that there were unconfirmed reports that he had been wounded slightly in his arm. Ron thought, why couldn’t they have killed him instead? His aunt was sitting hunched forward with her hands clasped. Marjorie had gone back to work as soon as she dropped Ron off. He was worried about her because her face had that tense look that it seemed to always have now. Then Ron realized that his Aunt Dottie was praying. He had never seen her pray before. Cronkite reported that some four hundred police officers in Dallas had been called in on their day off because there had been reports that there might be trouble in Dallas. Instantly, Ron hated Texas and everyone who was from there. Cronkite reported that it had only been in late October when United Nations Ambassador Stevenson had been assaulted in Dallas. Ron thought, why does anyone go there? Why don’t we just stay the fuck out of Texas altogether? Then Cronkite said it. It was official. The President had died thirty-eight minutes earlier. Cronkite took off his glasses took a deep breath and appeared to be crying. Ron cried too. His Aunt Dottie cried. They sat staring at the TV in disbelief, tears rolling down their faces. Cronkite gathered himself and said, Lyndon Johnson would be sworn in as the thirty-sixth President of the United States shortly.

            Ron watched the TV endlessly. He couldn’t stop. A man who had been there with his son and was waving to the President and the President was waving back and then he was shot and the man saw the expression on his face and then he was shot again and he was gone down into the limousine. Ron cried again. Four years ago, before Rocky left, before George intruded, they had taken him to a rally at the Newark Mosque to see JFK.  Kennedy was late. They waited endlessly.  Just when Marjorie was saying that she had to go to work at seven am, he was there. He was tan, he was filled with a light that seemed to shine from him. Ron was transfixed. Understanding what he said seemed less important than being able to have been there. Now he was dead. People were talking about watching him die. There were pictures of his wife and then a photo was released inside of an airplane. Johnson looked flabby and old and grisly.  Jacqueline Kennedy looked like she didn’t really know where she was or what was happening.

            Dorothy had switched the channel over to NBC. Robert Abernathy was reporting on the return of the President’s body, along with the garish presence of the new man who thought that he was the president. There were a couple thousand people waiting. Many were members of Congress. Ron watched the mostly dark screen that showed the blinking lights of the plane’s arrival. Somehow those lights seemed sacred and important. Then the plane was visible and the words The United States of America could be seen lettered along the side of it. A row of small windows were visible underneath the words but nothing could be seen from them. Diplomats and Cabinet officers waited for the arrival. Ron believed with all his heart that they waited to be in the presence of that person who had been John Kennedy. Lyndon Johnson, in his mind, was merely a passenger. It was so very dark as the honor guard walked up to the plane. Ron was alone now. It was late. Everyone else had gone to bed. Then he heard a shuffling and Dorothy came in. She sat down without saying anything.

            “I just can’t sleep, Aunt Dot.”

            “Me either,” she said.

            They moved a special piece of apparatus out to accommodate the coffin. The men struggled to remove the casket. Each jostle felt almost like a slap. The dark brown casket glistened in the dark and Ron felt that it must be that light that he had seen, the light in back of the words that had listened to and read. They reported that it was a bronze casket.

            “This is so bad,”

            “It almost reminds me of the war,” said Dorothy.

            A Navy ambulance arrived to transport the casket. JFK had always been Navy. It was fitting. No one knew exactly where the body would be taken. One report said that it would be flown directly by helicopter to the White House. Another said that it was going to Bethesda Naval Hospital.

             “How many times have you seen this now?” said Dorothy.

            “I don’t know, a few. It just seems wrong to stop watching.”

            And then Robert was there and he was holding her hand and helping her down. Ron watched it for the third time. It wasn’t going to be any different but it right to be here right now. She got into the ambulance with the casket. One man in a military navy hat was opening the door. People were milling around.

            “She’s lucky to be alive,” said Dorothy.

            “I bet she doesn’t feel lucky,” said Ron.

            Dorothy felt a twinge and stared at him. At this moment he seemed much older than he was.

            People moved in formation as the ambulance drove away. Then they showed Lyndon Johnson and his wife who was called Lady Bird. They looked like vultures to Ron as they walked out from the plane. People were shaking his hand. Ron felt anger. The congressman and cabinet members advanced. They were there to greet him. They hadn’t come to see if anything was left of the light that he had seen and knew was still there. Only his wife and brother still saw it. But Ron had seen it. His Aunt Dottie has seen it too. Then Johnson came to a group of microphones to speak. Ron didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Ron closed his eyes and didn’t want to listen.

            When he opened them, a man with short brown hair and a bruise over his left eye requested assistance. He said that he hadn’t been charged with any crime and that he was requesting legal representation. He said that he’d been hit by a policeman. Ron lay there and watched. His knee was an afterthought.

It was reported that a rifle with a telescopic site had been found in the Texas School Book Depository. There were three spent cartridges and one shell left in the chamber.

            Oswald was just wearing a t-shirt now and he said, “I’m a patsy.”

            Ron didn’t know what that meant but he hated the sight of Oswald.

 

Chapter 70

            “What is it about death that is so intriguing?” Ron Tuck looked out at his class. “That was one of the themes that Poe wrote about almost endlessly. In last night’s story, he used the word ‘House’ in several different ways. For instance. There is an actual crack in the physical structure of the house. The word house here can also be used to represent the word family. It was once considered that a family could be identified by the word house which actually referred to its bloodlines and the branches of its family. On top of that, the house in this story seems to have the attributes of a character in the story. The way that Poe explores all of this and wraps it into a story is the use of an extended metaphor.” He turned and wrote that on the board. His students took notes. “What is an extended metaphor?”

             He watched while his students turned to the back of the book and looked up the meaning. Mark Simon, who was always the first to raise his hand when Ron asked questions like this, shot his hand into the air. Ron waited. Slowly two more hand raised and then a fourth hand went into the air. Ron smiled. Patience and silence were two of the things that he had learned could serve a teacher very well in the classroom. It was learning to trust the power of the room. Then it hit him. The house and the classroom shared a power.

            “When you read this story again tonight,” he paused and waited for their reaction, the groan was audible. “I want you to pay particular attention to Poe’s description of the house and compare it with his description of Roderick Usher. However, in Usher you will see evidence of the House of Usher, meaning the entirety of his family line. I want you to find examples of this and to also find five vocabulary words that you think will be of use to you.” The class wrote down the assignment. Ron was pleased with them and he showed it. “From what I see in this classroom, college level work is not going to be a problem. I see smart and capable students who are ready to do their study.”

            Back in the teacher’s room, Father Tom Orecchio was smoking a cigarette. Ron slid in across from him and said, “Tom, I’m getting married.”

            Orecchio exhaled and said, “Congratulations.”

            “I was wondering if you are allowed to do an ecumenical service?”

            Because he was not affiliated with a parish, Tom didn’t get a lot of call to do weddings and baptisms. They were easy money and most always went to the parish priests. Sometimes, a family member would ask, but they would expect that it would be done for nothing, or at the family discount as they called it. “Sure, I can pretty, much do any fucking thing that I want,” said father Tom. He was fond of cursing and enjoyed the reactions that people had to hearing the word fuck come from a man in a collar.

            “Well, here’s the thing. I was a convert and really I’m not the best Catholic in the world.”

            Orecchio laughed. “No, really? You’ve got to be shitting me,” His receding red hair and freckles led the students to believe that he had a diabolical side to him. He had come to the priesthood late. He was almost forty years old when he was ordained. But he had been stupid and gone on a diet of grapefruit in order to lose weight for his big day. Something had gone wrong and now his kidneys had stopped working. Every third day he went for dialysis and the sessions left him worn old, cold inside, and cranky. He’d had dialysis that morning and was in no mood for bullshit.

            “Celeste is Italian and it would mean a lot to her family to have a priest there.”

            “Sure, why not.”

            “Where’s the wedding going to be?”

            Ron swallowed. He knew this part wasn’t going to go over well. “The Glen Ridge Congregational Church.”

            “You’re
fucking kidding.”

            “That’s where my family moved to when we left the old neighborhood.”

            “You must have fit in really well there, Ronnie.”

            It never ceased to surprise Ron that people from Newark always slipped into calling him Ronnie. He hated the name Ronnie and when he went to college he made sure that people knew him as Ron. “Not so well, no.”

           

Chapter 61

            It was a warm Saturday evening late in October. Ron was taking a walk up to Elwood Park to see if any of his friends were around.  He was amazed at the reactions that people had to him playing on the upper level team. They seemed to look at him differently. He basked in the glow of it but not as much as he loved to play. He was as happy as he could remember being in a so long. He hadn’t been slapped since the football season had started. His grades had improved. He was even passing French and Latin and Algebra, although the last was much in need of improvement and he hoped that somehow it would just begin to click for him.

            The days were shorter now and it was dark early, but the streetlights that ringed the park created a twilight that allowed you to see. There was a large group of guys and they were playing football. Ron knew that he wasn’t allowed in these kinds of games anymore. It was against the team rules, but he wanted to play. He wanted be unstoppable and with these guys, he could still run with the ball.

            He was invited into the game and quickly said yes. He’d dressed in jeans and a sweat shirt. If he had been honest with himself, he would have admitted that this was why he had come here. It was a seven on seven game. Ron was playing his position on defense, he was a linebacker. When his team had the ball, he was in the backfield.

            On the sixth play of the game, he caught a short pass and pivoted the way that he had learned from Richie. The fake worked and he raced up the sidelines and scored. The elation sent waves of euphoria racing through him.

            Instead of kicking the ball to the other team, these kids threw it.  Ron was lined up on the left. The ball spiraled down the middle of the field. When it got higher than the lights, it couldn’t be seen. Ron raced to where he thought it would land and then it was coming down and bouncing and Larry Bonet picked it and ran up the middle of the field. Ron cut in towards him and lunged. As he lunged he planted his foot, the way that he did when he was wearing cleats. But he was wearing sneakers and they slipped and the lunge came up short and he felt his arm curl to grab Larry’s hip, but there was no force behind it.

Ron bounced off harmlessly and hit the ground hard. The pop that he heard was followed by electric jolts of pain. He’d never felt a pop in his body before. He tried to jump up and run after they play. He got to his feet, the adrenalin rushing through him, and ran. On the second step, her heard the pop again and went down hard, rolling and clutching at his left knee.

            He tried to get to his feet but he was having trouble straightening his leg. It seemed to be bent like a dog’s leg and he couldn’t manage to straighten it out. He tried to take a step, but his leg wouldn’t move. He stood there with a helpless look of pain and embarrassment. “I don’t think that I can play anymore tonight,” he said.

            His immediate problem was how to move. He couldn’t just stand there in the middle of the field. He needed to get home and look at his knee, but he couldn’t take a step.

            Larry Bonet and Phillip Rolandelli, helped him to a car that was parked alongside of the park. He felt some relief when he leaned against it. Maybe if he just stood there until the throbbing went away, everything would be alright.

            Ron felt his knee swelling. He looked down and to his horror it was pressing out against his jeans. They seemed trapped by the swollen knee. Ron leaned over and tried to pull the jeans down. Another wave of electric shocked rushed through him. This was bad. This was really bad. He watched the guys play a while longer and then the game broke up and the kids started home.

            Ron found that if he pressed down on his toes when he tried to hobble that he could propel himself forward. Maybe if he had a stick, something to lean on when he stepped he could make it.

            The six blocks he needed to cover to get to their apartment took over an hour. Once he sat down to rest on a porch, but the effort that it took to get back onto his feet convinced him that he shouldn’t do that anymore. He was sweating profusely. The pain just wouldn’t stop. When he reached the apartment he was shaking with the effort that it took to take a single step.

            His mind went into shock when he looked at the steps. How the fuck was he supposed to manage them? He had an idea. He placed both hands on the railing and hopped on his good leg. The jolt squeezed tears out of his eyes. He had another idea. He sat on the steps, bent his arms and used them to raise his body to the next step. On his ass, he managed the two flights of stairs. The hallway of the apartment was dark. Ron could see the glow of the television coming from the living room. He hobbled slowly to his room.

            Marjorie heard the noise and said, “Is that you Ronald?”

            Ron tried to make his voice sound normal. “Yeah Mom.”

            “Come in here a moment.”

            “I can’t,”

            “What do you mean, you can’t?”

            “I fell. I’m having trouble walking. I think I did something to my leg.”

            “Well, take your time. I want to talk to you.”

            Marjorie had seen Ron come home bruised before. He always tried to hide his bumps and bruises so that Marjorie wouldn’t get angry with him. She waited.

            Ron tried to take a couple of steps, but he had used all of his energy to get home and then to get up the stairs.

            Marjorie heard it in his voice when he half cried, “I can’t.”

            Marjorie and George left their TV program and the light went on in the hallway. Ron stood there hunched over. He was leaning against the wall and his left legs wasn’t touching the ground.

            Marjorie gasped when she got closer. He was drenched in sweat. His hair was matted to his head. He had been crying. George moved towards him and Ron felt his supporting bulk. George said, “Just lean on me.” Ron could smell the beer on George’s breath as he half carried him into the living room. They laid him on the couch.

            Marjorie said, “What did you do to yourself?”

            “I don’t know. I tripped in the park.”

            She suspected immediately. “Were you playing football?”

            Ron shrugged.

            “Don’t you get enough of football all week long? Now look at what you’ve done.”

            Ron felt guilty, but angry too. Other kids’ mothers felt sorry for them when they got hurt. His mother took it as something that he had done to himself to hurt her.

            George showed him how to use a kitchen chair to lean on when he tried to move. He would lean against the back of it and then slide it forward across the wooden floor, but it didn’t work on the stained, shaggy white rug. “I’m going to bed,” said Ron.

            “Well I hope it’s better in the morning,” said Marjorie.

            Ron slid his chair down the hallway and made it to his bedroom. When he finally got his jeans off, he saw that his left knee was twice the size of his right knee and it was hot to the touch.

            Ron had trouble sleeping. Each time he turned in his sleep, the pain woke him up.  In the middle of the night he sat up and rubbed his palms up and down the sides of his knee. It seemed ever larger and hotter. Ron knew that he was in trouble. He’d never been hurt like this before. The closest thing was when he fell from the top of a chain link fence and his right ankle had bounced up from the ground and been impaled on one of the twisted bottom ends of the fence. He’d hidden that one from his mother and still had a deep scar.

            Why had he done it? How could he have been this stupid? Now he might have ruined everything.

            The next morning was no better. They set him in the living room with his knee propped up on his chair and George covered it with an ice bag. Ron felt helpless. The least little thing that he tried to do was an ordeal.  Trying to stand on one leg and urinate was impossible. He felt humiliated when he sat on the bowl to pee. He assured Marjorie and George that he was fine and they were to George’s mother’s house for dinner, promising to bring him a plate home for him. At least he’d gotten out of that.

            Ron tried to do homework, but his mind would not allow him to concentrate. What was going to happen to him? What was wrong with his knee? How much trouble was he in? The questions tormented him as much as the pain.

            After two ice bags, the swelling went down a bit and Ron was elated. Maybe it was going to be ok. He’d heard about sprained knees. Maybe that was what he had done. But in his ears, he could still hear that sickening pop.

            On Sunday night, Marjorie said, “I don’t think that you can go to school tomorrow. I’m going to have to find some way to get you to the doctor. Of course I don’t know how I’m going to do that and I might lose my job, but I’m glad that you had fun playing football.” She spit the word football out like she hated it.

            Ron kept the ice on his knee all night long. He listened to the radio, hiding it under his pillow and pressing his ear down to the music. Puff the Magic Dragon and You Don’t Have to be a Baby to Cry filtered up into him. He heard Louie Louie at least four times and still didn’t understand what the words meant. Every two hours, he used the chair and limped down the hall as quietly as he could and refilled the ice bag. 

Marjorie thought she heard him each time but was too angry at him for getting hurt to get out of bed. He wasn’t supposed to get hurt and now she’d seen him hurt over and over. Was that the joy of being a mother?

By morning Ron said and showed that he could walk without the chair. He limped and he was tentative, but he was improved. “Mom, just let me stay home today, no doctor, you go to work. George was right. The ice is working.”

George had long since left for work. What Ron was offering made the day simple. It was routine. “Ok, but I need to call your father.”

Ron was watching a rerun of The People’s Choice when the phone rang. He liked that Cleo the dog talked. He wanted to see the mayor’s daughter without her clothes. Absently, he was stroking his penis when the phone rang.

“Ronald?”

His erection dissipated in an eye blink. “Hi Dad.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Ron closed his eyes. Now he needed to pee. “I was stupid. I got hurt because I was stupid again.”

“That’s how you learn,” said Harry. “How bad is it?”

“I’ve been putting ice on it. I can almost walk now. It hurts but it’s going to be ok.”

“I’ll call you later. Try not to be stupid again.”

Ron flushed at the admonishment. “OK.”

The receiver clicked. Ron looked back up at the screen to see the Mayor’s daughter walk away with her hips wiggling. He began to stroke it again.

 

 

Chapter 62

 

“Edger Allen Poe was way ahead of his time. So far ahead and so sophisticated that it took his country decades to really catch up to what he was doing. In France, he was loved and respected. Not here. He suffered from what he believed were certain demons inside of him and his stories always seem like an attempt at expiation.”

Ron turned to the chalkboard and wrote to expiate in block letters on the board. “What does this word mean?”

Mark Simon carried a pocket dictionary with his books. He fished it out of his bag and thumbed through pages. Ron saw him and waited. Other students tuned to a dictionary that was in the back of their literature books, but Ron doubted that they would find it there. Mark said, “To atone for as in atoning for one’s crimes.”

Ron smiled. “That’s right. Now after you read tonight’s story, I want you to give me a paragraph that discusses the connection between The Black Cat and expiation.” Ron knew that they had probably read the story before. He had been surprised to see it included in the book. It was something that was usually taught in middle school or perhaps ninth grade. It was a warm up to The Fall of The House of Usher. He gave them the writing assignment to assure that they would read and not try to rely on their younger memories of the story

.

Ron waited outside of Brother Todd O’Malley’s office. It was his prep and he had been given something shockingly disturbing in one of his freshman classes. A student, a rather strange, short and stocky kid named Carl Flack had signed his name in blood on his quiz. Then he’d announced it to the class as he walked his paper up and handed it in. Ron looked at the paper. The penmanship was good and perfectly in red was his name, written in blood. He had pricked his finger and managed to squeeze up a bubble of blood that he dipped his pen into as he worked the letters.

Brother O’Malley was a giant of a man. He stood six feet and six inches tall and weighed over three hundred pounds. He was in charge of disciple. His size, his demeanor, and his baritone voice made him feel imposing.

“How can I help you, Mr. Tuck?”

Brother O’Malley sat in back of his desk. He did not invite Ron to sit. Ron sat anyway and opened his large book bag. He extracted the quiz carefully. He had placed it between two blank sheets of paper. “A student, a freshman named Carl Flack, handed in this quiz and announced to the class that he had signed it in blood.” Ron extended the paper.

O’Malley’s eyes darkened as he took it. “I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen anything quite like this before,” said O’Malley.

“I haven’t either,” said Ron.

“Are you sure that it’s blood”

“Either it is or this kid has one heck of an imagination, Brother.”

Brother Todd O’Malley said flatly, “A diseased imagination.”

Ron’s mind flashed on Poe, but he wasn’t teaching Poe in this class.

“Let’s take a walk,” said Brother O’Malley. He stood heavily, and together they walked to the main office where he looked up the location of Carl Flack’s locker. Ron stashed his book bag in back of the counter and quietly followed O’Malley who was carrying a large ring of keys and his clipboard.

When O’Malley opened Flack’s locker, the disgusted look on his face caused its lines to deepen and become a menacing scowl. Hanging in Flack’s locker, on the hooks that were designed for coats or sweaters, were three strings. From each dangled a freshly amputated rabbit’s foot. He opened the door wider for Ron to see.

The color drained from Ron’s face when he looked. There was something seriously wrong with this kid. O’Malley shut the door without disturbing anything. He’d expected to find some kind of substance, but not this. He felt the anger rising in his massive body. Ron followed him to Flack’s class.

O’Malley opened the door without knocking, stood in the doorway silently. He’d looked at a picture of Flack when he found the location of the locker. Slowly his eyes panned the room. Students fidgeted and put their heads down. The teacher stopped speaking and stood frozen in the center of the class, half turned to the chalkboard. O’Malley’s eyes found Flack. He walked towards him, his long black habit swaying like the motion of a moving battleship. He towered over Flack’s desk. “What have you done?” rumbled the baritone voice.

Carl Flack tried to escape but he tripped and fell to the floor. Calmly O’Malley reached down, grabbed his heel and dragged him out of the classroom, holding his leg in the air.

Ron stood with his mouth open as O’Malley silently dragged the boy, still sprawled on his back, down the hallway to his office. He wasn’t invited to follow.

 

Chapter 63

 

On Monday night, Ron told Marjorie that his leg felt better and that he wanted to go to school. “Did you talk to your father?”

“He called. He told me to try not to be so stupid.”

“That sounds like him,” said Marjorie. She always pumped Ron for information about his conversations with his father. He always resisted, but she knew how to wear him down. Harry didn’t have the ability to express emotions like most people. He was uncomfortable with intimacy. He’d built walls around what was important to him for a very long time. Marjorie had been fool enough to think that she was inside those walls and that he trusted her. Now she knew that Harry wasn’t capable of trusting anyone. He had a good heart but he was short on trust and set in his ways. “No football practice.”

“I have to show up, but I’ll tell them that I’m hurt.”

“Will they know how you got hurt?”

“No.”

“Will you tell them?”

Instinctively Ron sensed the danger in the question. It invited conspiratorial confidence, but Ron didn’t trust it. There were always consequences. “Yes,” he lied.

Ron stood in front of Coach Peters in the coaches’ office.

“How did you hurt your leg?”

Ron had stripped off his shoes and pants but left his underwear and shirt on when he went to see the coach. He knew that Peters would want to see the knee. The day’s walking and the lack of ice had caused it to swell noticeably and it was warm to the touch.

“I fell.”

“What were you doing when you fell?”

“I was in the park running sprints, coach.”

“Were you alone?”

Coach Peters suspected that the answer wasn’t true but he wanted to know if any of his other players were involved. “No coach, I was with some friends.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“No, coach.”

“Looks to me like it should be looked at. I can’t have you practice on that leg, Ronnie.”

Ron felt the ease of relief flow through him. Coach Peters would never have called him Ronnie if he was pissed.

 

Chapter 64

Reading the paragraphs that his students had written about Poe, Ron was surprised that they seemed incapable of separating the actions of the author from the actions of the main character. They write about Poe’s cruelty to animals and about how guilt had driven Poe to write the story as a confession.

Ron was feeling pretty guilty himself. The sight of Carl Flack being dragged down the hallway and then the notice in his mailbox to remove him from the class  lists and determine a grade for the work that he’d down so far, left Ron feeling that he had done the wrong thing. At Our Lady of the Forlorn, Ron would have talked to the student. He would have had input into what happened. But his girls would never have acted this way.

Mark Simon had written, “Poe is trying to expiate his thoughts by revealing them and turning them into something better than they were.” Ron smiled. Well at least he’d gotten the difference between author and character.

When the phone rang, Ron expected it to be Celeste, but Elena, one of his former and best students said, “Hello, Mr. Tuck, it’s Elena Rodriguez.”

Ron felt his face break into an immediate smile.

“I hope that I haven’t reached you at a bad time, have I?”

“Not at all Elena. I’m just reading essays. I could use a break.”

“Are they as good as our essays used to be?”

Ron laughed. There was no reason to tell her that these boys had been better prepared than her classmates had been. That was surely true but she didn’t need to hear it. What was also true was that they were nowhere near as sensitive as his girls were. “I don’t think that anything will quite touch me the way that you girls did,” said Ron. It was an honest response and it avoided hurting her feelings.

“Mr. Tuck, I need advice.”

Ron’s mind flashed on when she had called him from a bathroom with a boyfriend waiting in the next room and wanting to have sex with her and her asking him what she should do. Ron laughed in his best teasing way. “I think that you’re old enough to make that decision for yourself now, Elena.”

He could feel the girl blush right through the phone. She laughed. “Not about that, Mr. Tuck. I have that figured out. I can’t believe that I did that and that I was actually able to look you in the eyes for the rest of the year.”

“It was fine Elena. How can I help you?”

“I hate it here, Mr. Tuck. I never knew what racism really was until I got to Princeton.”

Ron face grew troubled. His mind flashed on his old friend Sister Bernadette who had accused Ron of setting his students up for failure because he wanted to be special by making them be more special. “Tell me what’s going on Elena.”

“They look down on the scholarship students. They keep us in our own dorm. They treat us like we are charity cases who need to remember how lucky we are to be here. One of my classmates actually said that her tuition was so high because she was also paying off my tuition.”

“How are your grades?”

“My grades are fine. It’s the people who suck. It’s Americans who suck.”

“Come on Elena. I’m American and so are you.”

“I’m Puerto Rican, Mr. Tuck, and the more I learn about what was done to my country the more I hate being American.”

“Maria, if you lower yourself to that, they win.”

“They already won and they want to make sure that I know it and never forget it.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I called you.”

“Elena you are succeeding academically. You are too tough to let prejudice stop you at this point in your life.”

“You don’t know what it’s like here. They look at you like you are a lower life form, someone who should be waiting on them in a restaurant if you are lucky enough to have a job. They don’t care how smart you are. They want you to know that you will never be as good as they are.”

“Elena, do you have friends?”

“Sure I do. I have the other scholarship students who live with me and eat with me and who go to classes with me and also get treated like shit.”

Ron hesitated. He wasn’t sure what to say to her. He didn’t doubt her voracity but he didn’t want her to be weak. “Elena?”

“Yes?”

“Stop whining.” He knew that she must feel like he’d slapped her in the face. “You’re there to get an education and maybe this is part of your education. Did you think that it was going to be easy to change the world?”

Her voice seemed to shrink. “No.”

“You’re letting it get to you.”

Her voice got stronger again. “Of course I am. I’m human and I’m sensitive and I don’t want to be treated this way.”

“You’re Puerto Rican and you’re from Newark. You’ve seen more of life than they have. You haven’t been sheltered.”

“Believe it or not I was sheltered from this until now.”

“So you want to give up. You want to have come all this way just to give up?”

            “No, I don’t want to give up.”

            “Then stop whining and get on with it.”

            They talked for a few more minutes, but he could tell that she wanted to hang up the phone now. She didn’t ask any questions about his life and so he never told her that he was getting married. It was harder to get back to his papers after the phone call. Was it possible that Bernadette had been right?

 

Chapter 65

            The doctor’s office was in an old home that had a fireplace that had been stoned shut. There was a perimeter of chairs that had varying degrees of comfort. Marjorie was thumbing a magazine. Ron was staring at each aspect of the room and rubbing his hands along his jean covered thighs. Most of the people were old and sat patiently. It seemed incongruous when someone was there alone. Everybody went to the doctor’s office with someone.

            The wait seemed to go on forever. People judged how many others were in front of them by surveying who was seated in the room when they arrived. There were pocket doors that led into Dr. Polino’s office. His desk was visible each time they opened. There was a second door through which patients left. The examining room was off to his right and just had an open arch between it and the front, conference room. The office smelled of antiseptic alcohol.

            Dr. Polino treated Ron when he had asthma attacks. Ron used to go to a doctor who had been one of Rocky’s family. He liked Doctor Merck, but that was just something else that changed when Rocky left them. “So what seems to be the problem Ronald?”

            “I hurt my knee.”

            “How did that happen?”

            “I was playing football. I landed wrong.”

            “Let’s take a look at it.”

            Ron pulled down his pants while Marjorie waited in the conference room. She didn’t want to see his swollen knee again. It made her start to cry.

            The doctor probed and bent and twisted Ron’s leg. He could feel it starting to swell again. The doctor was making it worse. Ron winced and when he couldn’t help it, he yelped. His eyes were involuntarily fixed on the distant figure of Marjorie and he watched her, after each yelp had passed, recovering from it.

            “You have what we call a hot knee, Ronald. It’s swollen and there is fluid that has built up inside of it. Sometimes, with rest and elevation, it can heal itself. Other times the fluid needs to be drawn out.”

            “Ok,” said Ron.

            “You can get dressed now.” Dr. Polino walked to his desk, sat down and took out his prescription pad. He was pretty certain that the knee was going to need to be drained, but there was a chance of reabsorption because he was so young.

            When Ron was dressed, Marjorie came out of the corner of the conference room and sat in one of the chairs facing Dr. Polino’s desk. Ron limped over and sat in the other chair. His knee had felt so much better before he came here. “This will help the swelling to go down. I need to see him again in two weeks. Until then I want Ron,” Polino turned from Marjorie and directed his words to Ron. “Until then, no strenuous activity, no sports and you are to sleep with a pillow under your knee. Avoid stairs whenever you can. Do not take gym.”

            Ron felt like each statement was a punch in his stomach. “What about school?” said Marjorie.

            “Keep him home for the next few days. That knee really needs to stay elevated if it had any chance of draining. Ronald, use ice whenever it feels hot.”

            For the next three days, Ron felt like he was living in a cocoon that brought him back to a time when he was happy. There was no homework. There was no time to go to bed or to wake up. There were morning TV programs that he’d almost forgotten had existed. As the swelling went down and his range of motion improved, his hopes soared. Football players had injuries, but they got better. Even the great Frank Gifford had been knocked out of commission for a season. Maybe everything was going to be ok.

           

 

 

 

Chapter 57

 

            The sophomore team’s first game was against East Orange. They had no game uniforms and were told the night before to take their pants and jerseys home and have their mothers clean them. Ron was in a quandary. His mother hated doing laundry. There was no laundry room in this building. He sat on the edge of the tub that he’d filled with hot water and detergent and bleach and soaked his filthy uniform. He took a scrub brush to the harder stains. When he was pretty sure that he’s gotten everything acceptably clean, he hung them up to dry.

            George got home before Marjorie. When he saw the uniform dripping into the now filthy tub, he said, “What are you doing?”

            George had an idea. He got a plastic garbage bag and loaded the wet uniform in it. He could not fault Ron’s desire to look clean. He would help him with that. Secretly, he’s told all the guys at work that his son was playing football on the JV as just a freshman. His chest had swelled when they congratulated him and said that maybe this would keep Ron out of trouble.

            When Marjorie came home, George said, “Let’s have dinner at my mother’s house. She has a washer and a dryer. Ronald has a game tomorrow and this fabric will never be dry like this.

            Ron felt touched. For George it was a win win. He’d get to eat dinner with his family, and he’d done something for Ronald that he could use when he and Marjorie argued about Ron’s lack of respect. Marjorie was glum but agreed. She was hot and tired and the last thing that she wanted to do was have a noisy dinner at her mother in law’s house where the women didn’t trust that she knew how to do anything in the kitchen.

            They ate escarole and beans. George was in heaven. It was accompanied by a tomato salad from the garden and the tomatoes were plump and juicy and ripe and swimming in olive oil with some onion.

            Ron picked at his food and was grateful to George for helping him out.  After dinner and while the dryer was running, George snuck down to the Arrow where he placed a $20 to win bet on Touchdown, a colt who was running in a qualifier down at Monmouth.

            The next day’s classes went smoothly. Ron had been prepared both times that he was called on. He’d taken his Friday Algebra quiz. He wasn’t sure about that. He barely passed the first two and they were review.

            In English, his black frocked teacher had asked the class to explain the difference between an adverb and an adjective. Ron had been tentative but correct and concise.

He hadn’t been hit and so it was a good day, but he’d watched other get slapped. In Religion, Brother Cecil had rapped his knuckles down on the top of Anthony Malone’s head for speaking out without raising his hand. The sound had echoed and Anthony held a hand on top of his head for several minutes afterwards.

Brother Alvin had pinched his fingers into Malone’s neck earlier that day. He said that he was helping him with his accent. The class bonded. They were all going to take a beating once in a while but that was the way that it was.

Ron lined up on the receiving team for the kickoff. He was on the front line. Just before the whistle blew he felt his gazed pulled up and saw his father standing alongside his car. His body froze and his mind went blank. The ball was kicked to his left and his team mate covered it. Ron stood there in shock at the thought that his father was watching him play as a large black boy from East Orange slammed his body down on top of the Jersey Catholic player who lay on the ground with the ball curled into his belly.

Ron felt a surge rush through him and felt like a river in his ears. He was on offense. The same kid was lined up across from him. Ron’s assignment was to drive on him and he fired off with low slanted speed and the need for collision. It came. His shoulder bucked into the kid like a kick. He heard the grunt and the play ran for eleven yards. He looked for his dad. He was still there, standing and watching.

When he heard the same play called in the huddle, he grinned. He was gonna get to do it again. He fired out but this time the boy tried to circle him. Ron changed his trajectory and lunged and hit and the kid went down on his back. Helmet to helmet, Ron looked into his face. He saw fear. He liked what he saw. Jersey Catholic didn’t score but they drove and when they punted the ball was deep in East Orange territory.

            Ron was second string on defense. At least he thought he was. When he got to sidelines, Coach Connors put his hands on his shoulder pads and slapped his ass. “Linebacker on the left,” he said. He gave Ron a shove and sent him back out to play.

The perspective was different when you weren’t down in a stance. Ron bent his knees and coiled his torso. The play went the other way, but he sprinted and got there just as it ended. Coach Peters turned to assistant and smiled, “Ronnie likes to play football.”

The game continued and Ron flew all over the field. He loved to tackle. He was unstoppable. His dad was watching. His team was up by one score. Then Allen Watkins fumbled in back of the line of scrimmage. There was a pile and Ron was in it. The ball was wedged under him. A hand punched him in the stomach. A knee came up into his groin. Ron was clutching for the ball, but other hands were clutching for it too. They heard whistles but no one was letting go or stopping. And then it was gone. He’d lost his tentative grip on it. When he got up, the fat Black kid was smiling. He held out the ball. “Lose something?” he said with a smirk.

Ron was about to go for him when he heard another whistle and a ref was between them and a yellow flag was fluttering in the air. “Unsportsman like conduct,” said the ref.

            East Orange was backed up. Ron felt a fury rushing through him like the sound of a train whistle in his ears. He wanted to hit. He saw the play coming right at him. It was a sweep to his side. He moved towards it and felt a sharp pain in his back knock him off balance and send him sprawling onto his face. He jumped to his feet with fury in his eyes and a throbbing pain at the middle of his back. He saw another yellow flag.

The East Orange player who was called for clipping said, “Oh fuck these white refs and this white boy Jesus school.”

The field erupted and players were grabbing at each other. Whistles blew loudly. The coaches were instructed to get their players to the sidelines. They met with the refs in the middle of the field. They stood there talking and the coaches were gesticulating at each other. The whistle blew again and the ref raised his hands in the air and waved them. He picked up the ball trotted over to the East Orange sideline tossed them their ball and then the two refs, still completely dressed headed for their cars.

Coach Peters’ face was very red when he got back to his sideline. “Gather up our stuff men. We’re going home. Game’s over.”

The players looked shocked. They didn’t realize what was happening. “Fellas, I want you to stay together on the way back to the school.”

No one said anything until Allen asked, “Did we win?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back to the school,” said Peters.

Ron looked for his father’s car but it was gone.

Coach Peters circled around the team with his car. His assistant walked back with the team. Everyone was eerily quiet. Back in the locker room Connors explained that because they had a lead and that they hadn’t instigated the trouble, they were declared the winners. The guys cheered and smiled. Connors said, “It’s a lesson in self-control boys. We had it, they didn’t. Anyone bloodied up or have an injury to report?”

Two hands went up into the air almost ashamed. Each of the coaches went to one of the boys.  Ron stripped out his jersey and shoulder pads. He sat in front of his locker waiting.

Allen walked over and said, “Come on Tuck, you need a shower.”

 

 

Chapter 58

            The next time that the Bombascos and the Bragos met was at Angel’s birthday party. Celeste had planned a lavish meal and everyone, including Angel’s father and his family, was invited. It was scheduled for a Sunday and Ron was relieved that there would be no pressure for him to be anywhere else.

            Joey and Mario worked all morning to set up the backyard with tables and tablecloths and chairs that they borrowed from neighbors. Anna sat in her kitchen holding her fly swatter. With all the ins and outs through the back door, she was sure that her house was now infested. Celeste was at the stove. She had four burners going and she felt tense and happy. Her daughter was two years old.

            Anna said, “Any chance that Ron is intending to lend a hand?”

            “He’s working, Mom.”

            “On a Sunday morning? And you believe that?”

            “He does his papers and prepares for the week on Sundays.”

            “Jimmy never had to work on Sundays.”

            Celeste unsuccessfully tried to hide the sarcasm in her voice, “Jimmy’s a gym teacher.”

            “Oh,” said Anna. “So now this Ronnie-come-lately is more important than your cousin?”

            “I didn’t say that or mean that.”

            “Who knows what you are talking about half the time.”

            Exasperated, Celeste reached for the pot of boiling water without a pot holder or a mitten. The hot metal pot burned into her hands. She dropped it and screamed.

            “Oh, for God sakes.” Anna got up with difficulty. “Go into the bathroom so I can take care of you.”

            Before Celeste had become a nurse and before Tina had become a nurse, Anna had nursed during World War 2. She’d seen burns. She dressed her daughter’s hands efficiently. Celeste watched as her sedentary mother’s hands worked with agility. The burns were minor. It wouldn’t be a problem. Anna gazed into her daughter’s eyes and saw her dreams and felt a pang of jealousy. It wasn’t jealousy without love. Maybe it was envy.

            Anna had settled on a life. Mario had hardly been her first and only choice, but he was sensible and romantic. Most of all, he made her feel safe. He didn’t play an instrument anymore, but he’d serenaded her outside of her window when he courted her. The difference was that Mario no longer had ambition. The war had taken that away. Being a paratrooper as part of the preparation for D-day had taken that away. The people that he’d had to shoot had left him incapable of wanting more. Being peeled out of the night ice at the Battle of the Bulge had convinced him that he wanted a warm and easy life, with easy comforts. They had two children. They made a life. Anna looked into her daughter’s eyes. She had given her a grandchild who was beautiful and who Anna could tell embodied her spirit. She felt that Celeste’s choices in men had been astoundingly abysmal. They were either both entertaining and good for nothing or cold fish.

            “How does it feel?”

            “I’ll be ok,” said Celeste.

            “He should have been here.”

            “You don’t know him the way that I do. He’s kind and good and he’s really smart. He loves the baby.”

            “I still don’t think that this is a good idea,” said Anna. “I don’t think that you know what you are getting yourself into.”

            “Why?”

            “I want to read his cards,” said Anna.

 

            People began arriving for the party and there was still no sign of Ron.  Celeste slipped off to dial his number and when there was no answer, she felt a twinge. She came upstairs and broke into a grin as she heard him squeaking around the corner. Barb was dressing Angel, who insisted that she wanted Aunt Barb to do it because she knew how to make her look the prettiest. Barb had beamed.

            Tina arrived with little Joey and hollered, “Where’s the birthday girl?”

            Mario had come in the back door. He smiled and picked up his grandson. “She’s upstairs making herself bea-ut-ti-ful.” He enunciated each syllable and drew them out so that the word had a feel of cacophony.

            Celeste kissed little Joey and opened the front door just as Ron was coming up the stairs. He immediately saw the bandage on her hand and said, “What happened?”

            “A little accident,” said Celeste. “It’s nothing.”

            Anna was back in her chair, she reached for her cigarettes and found that Mario had slipped the clear plastic off and turned it around so that it covered the open pack. She frowned and tore it off. “You know Mario, it’s doesn’t do anything but annoy me.”

            Mario didn’t answer.

            Ron said, “Tell me what happened.”

            “I burned my hand reaching for a pot and forgetting that it was hot. It was my own fault.”

            Anna waited for her to add that her mother had bandaged it, but she didn’t. She looked at her grandson in Mario’s arms and smiled. He was a big boy and very happy. He slept through the night. He entertained himself in front of the TV. In short he was ten times less demanding than Angel was. Publically, she credited Tina with this. Privately she knew that Angel was just more of a problem child. It was good to keep Celeste in her place though. Then she frowned with the thought that all of that would be changing now. She grimaced at Ron.

            Barb and Angel came downstairs. Angel was wearing a pink dress with white hearts on it. Her hair had a pink ribbon and hung down passed her shoulders with delightfully bouncing twirling curls. “Here’s the Princess,” announced Barb.

            Angel took hold of the hem of her dress and did a little half curtsey, just the way that she and Barb had practice upstairs. Anna smiled until she laughed. Mario repeated, “You look bea-ut-i-ful,” elongating the word even more than the first time.

            Ron crouched down as Angel ran to him. “Do I look pretty?” she said.

            “You’re the prettiest two year old in the entire world,” said Ron.

            Then Angel ran to her grandmother, who leaned over and hugged her and whispered into her ear. “You are a knockout.”

            Angel wasn’t sure what that meant, but she grinned with the faith that her grandmother always said nice things to her.

            Tina smiled. “Hello gorgeous girl and Happy Birthday!”

            There were about fifty people in the backyard, when the Bombascos arrived. Ron grimaced when he saw that Lois was with Marjorie and George. He hoped that he didn’t have to explain that. There was a polite reception for them and introductions were made. Marjorie went up to Angel and said, “Happy Birthday” and handed her an elegantly wrapped gift.

            Angel took it and ran over to the stack of presents that was taller than she was and twice as wide. Marjorie waited to be thanked. Celeste came over and kissed Marjorie on the cheek and said, “Thank you very much and please enjoy yourself.”

            Marjorie’s eyes were fixed on the huge pile of presents. She watched Angel toss it onto the pile and saw it disappear. Well so much for the time that she had spent wrapping that.

            Ron said, “Come over here. Let’s sit in the shade.”

            Andrew Canigliaro arrived with his mother and father. There was a clear awkwardness. There were exchanged looks among the guests. He had a lot of nerve coming here after the way that he’d acted. They all knew that while Celeste was pregnant that he had called her repeatedly and begged her to have an abortion. Then his father had called her and told her that she should have an abortion. The general consensus was that he should hang his head in shame for the rest of his life.

            The sight of the child and feel of the tension was just too much for Andrew’s father. Donald Canigliaro clutched at his chest and collapsed. Rose Canigliaro screamed. Tina and Celeste ran. Angel had not seen what happened and discreetly Barb took her inside so that she would not be frightened. The sisters acted quickly. Tina loosened his shirt. Celeste took his pulse. Their eyes met and exchanged a troubled glance.

            Donald was unconscious and he wasn’t breathing. Celeste did CPR. Tina ran to call for an ambulance. Anna’s belief in god was reaffirmed. Marjorie thought, what kind of a party was this? George watched the efficiency with which Celeste worked and admired it. Ron tried to stay out of the way.  He was caught between wanting to go to Angel and wanting to help Celeste and knowing that he needed to stay close to his mother so that she didn’t lose it.

            It seemed that everything was moving in slow motion and then the siren could be heard. A stretcher was rolled up the along the side of the house. Celeste backed away when she saw the EMT’s there. She had done all that she could. She hoped that it was enough.

            As quickly as they had arrived, the Canigliaros left.

            Mario said, “Is he OK?’

            Celeste answered, “I think he’s having a heart attack.”

            Anna patted Celeste’s hand. “You and Tina did very well and Barb got Angel inside so that she didn’t get scared.”

            Ron sat there watching and then turned to Marjorie. “Celeste may have saved his life.”

            “Don’t be so dramatic,” said Marjorie. “It may just have been the heat. She isn’t a doctor.”

            “You’re incredible,” said Ron. He got up and walked away.

 

Chapter 59

           

            Harry Tuck was drinking coffee with Marjorie and George when Ron got home. Ron lit up at the sight of his mother and father together. He blocked out the existence of George Bombasco, or shoved him far enough away in his mind to make him irrelevant. It was the three of them. It was the way that it always should have been, without a Rocky and certainly without a Bombasco.

            “How was the game?” said Marjorie.

            Ron grinned and the two of his parents smiled at the way that his face dimpled. “Dad was there,” said Ron.

            “I saw the way that those Coons tried to bully you,” said Harry.

            Ron nodded. “But we won.”

            “And they hate you all the more for it and will say that it was stolen from them.”

            “They stopped the game because they were afraid,” said Ron. “We weren’t afraid. The kids on the field weren’t afraid.”

            “I don’t know what they even play against a nigger school,” said George.

            Ron ignored George. “I was excited to see you there Dad, thank you.”

            Marjorie smiled. He’d always known what his father needed to hear and said it to him naturally. When would Harry realize that Ron only said the things that he knew that Harry wanted to hear because he was afraid of not seeing him anymore? Marjorie waited for Harry to say that he was proud of the way that his son played, but in her heart she knew that he wouldn’t say it. He just couldn’t.

            Harry got up to leave. A look of disappointment spread over Ron’s face and then Marjorie watched him try to hide it. She hadn’t been wrong to leave Harry Tuck. She told herself that again. She was sure that it was what she had to do and it didn’t matter now anyway.

            She both hated and loved Harry for the cool ease with which he slid out. She looked at George and closed her eyes. “Well, we better have dinner.”

            Ron could feel that his teachers knew what had happened in the game yesterday. Each of the Brothers smiled at him. Nobody put him on the spot. Even Brother Cecil gave him a pass. Ron was doing his reading. His mind was not willing to submit to Latin or French. He did the assignments, but he just couldn’t commit the words to memory. They didn’t make sense to him. He had words. He was squeaking by in Algebra, but some of his classmates weren’t.

            Brother O’Shea said, “Mr. Dalton, you got a 59 on the quiz didn’t you?”

            Stan Dalton had been called up to the front of the room to receive his quiz. “Yes Brother.”

            O’Shea rocked back on his heels. “And that isn’t good enough is it?”

            “No Brother.” Stan Dalton’s left eye began to twitch.

            “Would you prefer them on your palms or your backside?”

            “I don’t understand Brother.”

            Brother O’Shea removed a strap from his belt that looked like the one that Joe the Barber used to sharpen his razor when he was about to shave the back of Ron’s neck after a haircut. “Hold out your hands,” Mr. Dalton.

            Stan Dalton extended his palms. They were shaking. The strap was a blur when it cracked down on the boys open palms. He yelped and pulled his palms back.

            “One more,” said O’Shea. “You decide, which hand?”

            Stan Dalton hesitantly extended his left hand, the one that he didn’t have to write with. The fingers were curled and O’Shea used the strap gently to straighten them. Then he raised it over his head and cracked it down on the trembling flesh. Dalton yelped and then whimpered. His shoulders slumped.

            “You may take your seat, Mr. Dalton”

            The class watched Stan Dalton meekly return to his desk. He was rubbing his hands on his thighs.

            “Now,” said O’Shea, confident that he had their attention. “Let’s talk about Algebraic equations.”

           

Chapter 60

            When it was time for Angel to open her presents, Celeste set up a lawn chair in front of the huge pile of gifts and placed her daughter between her thighs on the chair. Angel squirmed until she was comfy and then Celeste handed her the first gift. It was from her grandmother and grandfather and was a pink snow suit with a hood that had a fluffy white fringe on the top. Celeste smiled at her parents. It was just what she had asked them to buy. “Look,” she said, “It matches your dress.”

            Angel couldn’t remember snow and didn’t know what the heavy garments were for but she said, “Thank you Papa. Thank you Nanna.”

            There were smiles and a few “ohhs” from the party goers. Angel was on to the next gift. Celeste tried to fold the suit back up and get it into the box, but Angel was excitedly ripping into the wrapping paper of her next present. Barb came to help Celeste and took the snowsuit and box so she could re-box it and let Celeste concentrate on Angel. It was a summer dress. It was blue and had a huge pink heart on the chest with a picture of a kitten inside the heart. Celeste read the card to Angel. It was from Aunt Barb, one of the eleven presents that Barb had bought her for the day.

            Ten presents into the process, Angel was bored. Everyone had gotten her clothes and they were nice but she felt hot and confined with her mother in the chair and wanted to run around. When Celeste handed her Marjorie and George’s gift, she said, “No more now,” and squirmed free.

            Ron could feel the tension emanating from his mother. Marjorie turned to Lois and said, “They just let that child do whatever she wants to do.”

            Lois nodded. “She spoiled and she’s too young for this kind of thing.”

            Marjorie rolled her eyes and looked at Ron but directed her statement to Lois. “Oh no, she’s a prodigy. The smartest girl the earth has ever seen. Just ask my son.”

            Ron’s green eyes flashed dark. “She’s two years old.”

            “Then she should be treated like she’s two years old.”

            “That’s enough now,” said George. His fear of embarrassment was one of his strongest emotions and Marjorie knew that he hadn’t wanted to be here in the first place.

            Celeste realized her mistake. It had already been a long day for Angel and she had missed her nap. Celeste had let the party and the preparations and the tension of having the Canigliaros and the Bombascos there, along with her desire to just have the day run smoothly to cause her to forget the nap. Angel was cranky. She wanted Ron. She saw him sitting off to the side and ran over to him. She literally dove into his lap and Marjorie recoiled.

            She turned to George and said, “You’re right, it’s more than enough.”

            She turned to Ronald who was tossing Angel gently into the air and catching her and said. “We’re going to be going.”

            “Just a second,” said Ron. “I’ll walk you to the car.”

            “I think you should stay with what’s important to you, Ronald,” said his mother.

            She and Lois walked away. George said, “You know how she is. Let her get over it.”

            “Get over what?”

Angel no longer tossed and giggling ran off to find someone else to play with her. She was on overdrive and headed for a crash.

            “You know how she is,” repeated George.

            Janine had heard everything. At Anna’s request, she had positioned herself where she could hear what Marjorie and George were saying without interacting with them. It was going to be an interesting phone call tomorrow morning.

            It was about eight o’clock in the evening. Just about everyone had left. Celeste brought Ron out of the basement where he’d been reviewing for the next day’s classes.

            The dining room table had been cleared off except for the coffee that was in front of Anna along with her deck of Tarot Cards. Janine and Anna had taken classes together to learn how to read them and Anna was uncannily good with them. Janine’s mother Hannah was the best in the family, but her skills came from an old tradition of divining that was mysterious and involved pressing her thumb into the forehead of the person she was working with and sometimes stroking the tips of that person’s ears.

            Ron sat down across from Anna. He didn’t tell her that he also had a Tarot deck and that he’d done readings and astrology charts in the past.

            “Would you mind if I read your cards, Ron?”

            “Not at all,” said Ron smiling.

            She spread the cards on the table, face up. “Pick the card that you think best represents you,” she said.

            Ron gave her his dimpled grin. “Well, let’s go with popular opinion,” he said. He selected The Fool. Janine giggled and Celeste smiled. Anna’s face was expressionless, except for the feel of a tired sadness.

            She handed Ron the deck. “You shuffle them.”

            Celeste and Janine watched along with Anna as Ron shuffled the cards again and again. Janine stared at his hands. They weren’t as big as Jimmy’s hands. She’d ask Celeste about his equipment the next time that they were alone.

            Ron finished shuffling and laid the deck down in front of him. He waited.

            “Cut them,” said Anna. Her short red hair was mixed with grey and white. Ron tried to read her face as she shuffled. He couldn’t.

            Ron cut the cards and handed them back to Anna.

            “Place them on the table,” said Anna.

            “Do you know your question?” said Anna.

            “Yes,” said Ron.

            “Don’t tell me,” she said.

            Ron obeyed and watched. Anna turned the deck towards her and picked it up. Slowly she laid the first card down, “This is in back of you.” The ten of Wands appeared. Ron stared at it. A man with his back turned was carrying a load of 10 wands or staffs. Out of the top of each one small green flowers were visible. In the distance was a house.

            Anna turned the next card. “This covers you.” The ten of Cups came up reversed. Ron saw the cups in a semi-circle in the air. Underneath them a man and a woman were dancing.  In the left corner of the card was the sun and it the other corner was the moon. Anna turned the next card saying, “This is in front of you.” Ron hoped that by doing this that maybe they would be closer together. Maybe she would give him a chance. The two of Swords was revealed. This depicted a blindfolded woman sitting on a rock with her arms crossed at her chest and a long sword projecting from each of her hands. She turned the next card. “This card indicates the emotional factors that are influencing you.”  A Woman and a child were seated in a boat. A man standing behind them was using a staff to propel the boat and six Swords were lining the sides of the rowboat. Anna stared up at Ron’s face. She thought that she saw fear and that he was about to ask something. “Just wait until I’m finished” she said. Then you can ask questions. The fear seemed to vanish from Ron’s face and he nodded.

            “This next card indicates the outside influences on you. The Queen of Swords came up reversed. A woman wearing a crown was seated on a throne and held up a single sword. “This card indicates your hopes and fears,” said Anna. She turned the card and The Hanged man appeared. A man with his hands behind his back was suspended upside down from a cross by one foot. His other foot was bent at the knee and in back of him. There was a halo around his head. “This last card indicates the outcome to the situation about which you have a question.” The Hierophant appeared. She looked like a priestess of a queen seated on a throne. Two monks were kneeling before her. In her left hand she held a scepter and right hand was raised in a symbol of peace.

            Ron stared at the pictures. His emotional mind flicked from one to the other. He knew that The Fool meant hope. It was why he had chosen it. He wondered if there was any attempt to reach out to Anna that would meet with a measure of success. He tried again to reach into her.

            “So what do you see?”

            “A confused situation with a troubled past and influences that are stacked against things working out. Although, there is hope in these cards.”

            Ron was drawn to the boat and the man standing with a staff, rowing a woman and child. He’d learned to trust what he saw in the cards as much as he trusted the written explanations of what was there.

            Ho looked at Celeste. He saw that she didn’t see anything in the cards but was hopeful that maybe there was a place of agreement of peace. He felt the warmth of her there with him. Agreement and peace and a chance to make it work. That’s what they were asking for. Why was it so difficult to achieve?

            Janine’s eyes flicked behind her tinted glasses from one card to the other. She knew what she saw. She didn’t need to be told, but it was Anna’s reading.

            “The answer to your question is that there is a difficult path in front of you and no guarantee of success. You are haunted by a past that you could not control. You’re impetuous to believe that you can control your future. You’re wrong and you know it. But you want a fighting chance. You feel like you deserve it. That’s also wrong. You may get it but it won’t be because you deserve it.”

            Janine felt her eyes widen. Anna truly was uncanny.

 

Chapter 51

Ron smiled as he saw his students enter.  Their disheveled youth amused him. He felt kindly towards them. “So, good morning. I hope the weekend was good but good or not it’s over and time to go back to work.” He paused. He stared at them. They gazed back, proud and young and waiting to be filled. “Your responses were good. Some of you have learned how to write. That was satisfying to see. The others of you who do not, catch up. This is an honors English class. If you don’t know how to write, I’ll help you to find a more suitable placement. Otherwise, get to work.”

He passed on their essays complete with comments. He said, “Take a moment. If you have trouble with my handwriting let me see it. I didn’t take time writing those comments because I wish them disregarded. Your grades will be a reflection of how you perform on tests. But your learning will be a conversation between the two of us.  Please read my responses to your papers.”

He waited and watched. They read. His heart missed his girls and their shyness coupled with their sometimes brazen approach. These guys deserved his best. He didn’t intend to short change them. One by one, their heads raised and let him know that they had read what he’d written. He surveyed them. “Questions?”

Mark Simon said, “What does suspend disbelief mean?”

“It means that literature requires imagination and that if you keep what you think weighted down by the hard facts of life that you will find it much harder to dream.”

He let that sink in.

Paul Panini said, “I don’t think that too much of that is any good.”

Ron tried to absorb that. It was an unexpected comment. He liked that it surprised and challenged him His mind reached back. Something that Lashly had taught him. “Balance is everything, Paul. But one person’s balance is another’s tipping point.” The look on Paul’s face told Ron that he didn’t understand, but Ron did.

Edward Lang said, I didn’t find William Bradford boring. I thought that the poem was boring.” The poem that Ron read that first class went:

We The First People

 

I’m proud to belong to one of the original clans

Whose Ancestors occupied all of these lands

Before we were “found” by some wandering seaman

Who knew just where he was and we became “Indian”

 

Talk to me of our victories, and I will listen

Tell me about our history, a tear will glisten

Stories of how life use to be, bring a rueful smile

Drums and flutes will find me dreaming all the while

 

In order to “save” us, they killed us

Our peaceful cultures were “dangerous”

And they thought they could just ravage us

But by fighting back, we became “savages”

 

Call us lazy indeed – we’re not driven by their greed

To gather “materials” about them

But my question is

How did we exist

For hundreds of centuries without them?

 

— Unknown

           

Ron picked up the book and read it again. He knew now that poems were like songs. The more that you heard them, the deeper their effect would be. “Why does this bore you, Ed?”

            “When you read it, it didn’t. When I read it, it did.”

            Ron thought hard about that. He had the sense that the information was important, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it. When the class ended, he walked down to the teachers’ lounge with it still on his mind.

            His department chairman was Sam Felice. Sam was hunched over a book and eating an egg salad sandwich at 10:30 in the morning. Ron slid in across from him.

“Hi, Sam.”

Sam looked up and wiped his mouth.  He had dark hair and glasses that had slipped down his nose. He pushed them back. “How’re things Ron?”

“Kid just stopped me with a question.”

Sam laughed. “You’re letting them ask questions already?”

Ron grinned. They’d had many conversations about teaching. Sam was serious about it and Ron respected him. “Yeah well, it’s my honors class. You get them next year. I figured that I’d get all their questions out.”

They shared a chuckle and Sam said, “What did he say?”

“He said the poem wasn’t boring when I read it but that it was when he did.”

Sam smiled. “Did you tell him that it was because he didn’t know how to read?”

That comment hit Ron hard. They knew words but they weren’t sure how to hear them. He nodded. “Thanks Sam.”

Ron drank coffee while Sam finished his sandwich. “How’s the football team?”

“We lost on Saturday.”

“I know,” said Sam. “But how does it look?”

“Like we are 0-1,” said Ron.

 

Chapter 51

            There were two lunches at Jersey Catholic. The cafeteria was vast and crammed full of long lunch tables that were set in identical rows spanning both the length and width of the room. Once you were down, getting up was a navigation. Ron sat with Phillip from Our Lady of the Forlorn.

            Phillip said, “Seniors are allowed to smoke at their table.”

            “Really?” said Ron. “Where’d you hear that?”

            “I forget,” said Phillip. “But if one of us gets caught at their table we’re in big trouble.”

            “I got no reason to be over there,” said Ron.

            “No, but good to know, isn’t it? I mean suppose one of them invited us over there just to laugh at us when we get in trouble?”

            Phillip was right. Anything that they could figure out about the way that things really were could be helpful. It would be like that until they had things figured out.

            To some extent, seniors were allowed to pick on the freshman. It was considered a rite of passage. The younger kids stayed away from them and the seniors were always on the lookout for some easy fun during lunch. They had gone through it. Now it was their turn to be in charge. They’d looked forward to this for three years.

            “You going to play football, Phillip?”

            “I’m gonna try. Tryouts are tomorrow.”

            Phillip and Ron were about the same size. They had been the best two players when their friends lined up. They were never allowed on the same team and now they would be. “We’ll both make it,” said Ron.

            “I don’t know. I heard there are a hundred guys who want to play and the team only carries forty.”

            That rumor was true, but it was hard to tell what was true from what was just a story. They ate quickly. Looking around at the noisy throng of guys and in the distance seeing the cloud of smoke that hung over the senior table in the low ceilinged room. From the corner of his eye, Ron watched one of the seniors walk passed. His mouth dropped open. The guy looked like he shaved every day. Ron had never shaved but he wanted to. Phillip shaved about once every two weeks. Ron wondered if that meant that he was less of a man.

            Ron got his books from his locker with a feeling that he had gotten through the first morning and could see the pattern. It was simple. Shut up, stay put and do your work. That message was loud and clear.

            History was taught by the first lay teacher that Ron had seen. He was a slight man with thin hair and a redeeming hairline. He appeared to be in good shape. He smiled at them and said, “My name is Mr. Connor. This is World History.” He paused for a moment and looked over the class. “There sure are a lot of you. Take your jackets off fellas, it’s too hot for this.” He stopped and removed his own jacket across the back of his chair. His students did the same thing.

            Connor peered out into the class. “Are any of my runners here?”

            Everyone looked around. Ron hadn’t known that Connor was a coach. Two hands went into the air. One was the red haired kid who sat in back of Ron. He’d been one the kids who had to stand during Algebra. Ron thought I guess that’s how it goes. You can be a jerkoff in the morning and distinguished in the afternoon.

            Connor spent the rest of the class talking to them about why he felt history as worth knowing. “The President’s knowledge of history probably saved us from annihilation during this Cuban thing. He knew that the Bear had more growl than bite.” Ron wasn’t sure who the Bear was but he did like the easy way that Connor seemed to be running his class. They didn’t take out their books until the end when he provided them with an assignment.  It was five pages of reading. Ron flipped through the pages. There were more words to a page on these books then there had been in the books that they used in grammar school.  He took that to mean that he was growing up. He flipped through the pages delighted when he saw pictures that took up large parts of the page.

            There were two of his classmates standing at the door waiting for a teacher to arrive to start the next class. Brother Cecil looked down at them from the doorway.

Tim DeFalco said, “Brother, can I use the bathroom?”

Cecil had arrived early and some of the students still had their jackets off. Brother Cecil had a baritone voice that spread out from his mouth like a rumble. “What a wonderful greeting. I walk into the room and the first thing that is said to me is ‘can I urinate.’ He eyed DeFalco. “I surely hope that you have the capacity to urinate. What is your name?”

Tim face was now fire engine red. “Tim DeFalco, Brother.”

“Do you think that you can urinate, Mr. DeFalco?”

“I don’t know, Brother, but I need to.”

“The proper way to express yourself is to ask ‘may I use the rest room?’ Saying can I use it implies that perhaps you don’t know how. I assume that you know how, or am I incorrect?”

“No Brother.”

The class had gotten back into their jackets as they watched DeFalco suffer. Ron could see that his hand kept starting to reach for his penis to squeeze it and try to hold it back, but he kept checking himself and stopping. Brother Cecil saw it too. “Hurry up, DeFalco, but I’m not waiting for you.” Brother Cecil turned to the class and said, “Welcome to our study of Christianity.”

Ron couldn’t help it and began to laugh out loud. Brother Cecil shot him a harsh look and Ron attempted to stifle his laughter. But the sight of Tim resisting the urge to try to squeeze his penis shut combined with the enjoyment that Cecil took in the exchange had him laughing and he couldn’t stop. He bit his lip hard. Cecil was walking towards him. “May I ask exactly what was so funny?”

Ron couldn’t help it. “Sure you can,” he said and the giggles erupted again.

Brother Cecil rocked back on his heels and slapped Ron hard across his face. His giggles vanished into shock. Ron’s eyes widened as they looked up at him. “I hope that I’ve been able to help you,” said Brother Cecil.

Ron couldn’t resist the urge to bring his hands to his face. It wasn’t fury or fear that raged in him. His reaction was mixed. He’d stopped laughing. His face hurt. The rest of the class faded back in his mind. He floated for that instant. “Thank you, Brother,” he said and lowered his eyes.

Cecil smiled. “What is your name?”

“Ron Tuck.”

“Where are you from?”

“I live about three blocks from here.”

“Not the first time that you’ve had your face slapped then?”

“No Brother.”

“Let’s make it the last time that I have to do that.”

Brother Cecil continued with his introduction.

 

 

Chapter 52

            After the JV game on Monday, the coaches gathered to watch the game film of the varsity’s loss. If The varsity played at home, the JV played away. Some players participated in both games. It was a lot to ask, but Ferry wanted to give them a taste of victory and although it wasn’t really a second chance, it could be something. Paul Pamenteri was the head JV coach. Artie was his assistant. Artie also had the advantage of being able to do fast and good tapings and acted as their trainer. Ron broke down the film with Ferry and the starters who were beyond playing in a JV game.

Ron had expected Steve to rail, but the coach silently let the film run through most of the first quarter. Then he stopped it. “Watch here,” he clicked it forward again. “See this? We run the hell out of this dive to both sides. Let’s make it even better.” He let the film run. The players were viewing it intently. They either liked or hated seeing themselves but it was never a neutral reaction. Ferry stopped it again for the pass plays to the flat. Ron felt a rush of pride. Those were plays that he’d suggested. Well almost. Ferry had asked him about the flats and he’s been correct.

“Those are the things that we can build on men. We can run and we have a quarterback who can play catch with a wide receiver. We also have a pretty tough defense.”

Ron thought Steve Ferry was masterful and his respect for him deepened. It had been the first game of the year. They had been outflanked by a new defense. Maybe it was new. For now, Steve was giving that the benefit of the doubt. Ron tried to absorb that.

“Let’s stretch and jog a couple of easy laps and call it a day, boys.”

 

They sat in the coaches’ room with two pizza boxes in front of them and watched the game film for the second time. This time Ferry stopped it after each play and dissected what he saw. Ron watched as he ran it forwards and then backwards…in slow motion. Each play was dissected. Ron took notes. So did Paul. Artie tried to stay awake and ate one entire pizza by himself.

“We did pretty well up front,” said Ferry. “But we aren’t all coming off the ball at the same time. Artie, see how the left side is just a half step behind?”

“I see it,” said Artie.

“Time for more sled work,” said Ferry.

Artie grinned. He loved to ride the seven man sled. And you could feel the slightest variation when the players didn’t fire out together and put a shoulder into it.

“Paul, watch the quarterback’s feet.”

Ferry ran the play again. They all watched the quarterback. “He’s taking extra steps. It’s slowing the play down and the running back has to hesitate before he gets the ball.”

“I didn’t see it on the field,” said Paul. “I see it now.”

“I didn’t see it on the field either.

 

Larry Viola did not join them for this film work. He sat in Brother Howard’s office explaining his idea. “I think that pre-game rallies would help our attendance. It would get people to the games earlier and the concessions would sell more. Our students would feel like they were more part of the team.”

Brother Howard puffed on his after dinner cigar and listened. He could see the benefits. “What about your scouting?”

“I can still get to the games and three of the teams that we play have their games on Friday nights, so that won’t be a problem.”

Brother Howard rubbed the ash off into his ashtray. “What did Steve say?”

“He said that I wasn’t a cheerleader. But I am Brother. I’m a cheerleader for this school and you know that.”

“I do,” said Brother Howard. “I’ll speak to Steve. Our next home game isn’t until a week from Saturday, so you’ll have time to put something together.”

Larry Viola preened. This was going to be fun. He thought about whether it was a good time to bring Artie up and decided that it wasn’t.

“If this works out the way that you think it will, there will be a little something extra

 for you Larry.”

Viola smiled. “Thank you Brother, but you know that’s not why I’m doing it, don’t you?”

“Everybody has to live, Larry.”

 

Chapter 53

The day seemed to stretch on forever. Mr. Wisnewski was their English teacher. He was tall, slender and had dark brown hair. What was striking about his appearance was that he taught in a long black, cap and gown style robe that was zippered up tight and revealed only the knot of his tie and the white, starched collar of his shirt. He spoke in clipped tones. He did not allow them to remove their jackets

The clock did not seem to be moving. Ron’s mind wandered. Wisnewski did not seem to ever look at his students. He kept his eyes fixed at a point on the rear wall up over their heads. He didn’t smile or ask for questions. When it was finally over, Ron felt like cheering.

Out as his locker, he noticed that several of the guys were hanging their blazers in the locker. That seemed like a good idea. At least he wouldn’t have to wear the thing to and from school.

Ron went home that night, ate dinner with Marjorie and George. They asked the obligatory questions about how his first day was. He didn’t tell them that he had been slapped in the mouth. He wanted to forget that it had happened. Besides, he wasn’t a baby. He could take it.

After dinner, he read. He was lying on his bed with a transistor radio playing Surfer Girl. His door was closed to blot out the sound of the TV and their voices. His eyes felt heavy. Then he was asleep with his book still open and still dressed.

The next day felt like a copy of the first. It was just as hot. It was just as interminably long. Gym at the end of the day felt like freedom. His mind was focused on the tryouts. He wouldn’t even have to change and he would be right there.

The freshman coaches lined them up on the track which was in back of the school and had once been a parking lot. The Brothers had dug up the asphalt and planted grass. The lot was surrounded by a pointy tipped, ten foot high, iron fence.

Ron’s belly felt like it was fluttering. He wanted this so badly. The coaches showed them how to stretch out their legs and arms. There were five coaches watching. They were going to run sprints, four across. Two coaches were at the starting line and three were at the finish. When it was Ron’s turn, he was placed in the lane closest to the school. He looked at the other three guys who also looked nervous. Coach Jensen said, “Ready,” He paused and then said in a louder, more urgent voice, “Go!”

Ron ran. He tried to run faster than he had ever run before. People were watching.  He felt himself pulling ahead. When he crossed the finish line, Coach Peters said, “Good job.”

A few minutes later they had him lined up with another group. At “Go!” he felt himself flying. His arms pumped. The heat of the boring day in a jacket was behind him and he was putting as much distance as he could between it and him. This time it was a tighter finish, but he was still first. He felt Coach Peters’ eyes on him and then Peters turned to the other two coaches. Peters pointed at Ron and called him over. “Can you go again?”

Ron almost shouted his reply. “Yes, Coach.” He trotted back to the starting point. Peters signaled to Jensen to put him right on the track. Ron ran as hard as he could. This time he was second, just behind a lanky kid who really could fly.

Coach Peters called Ron over. “What’s your name, son?”

“Ron Tuck, Sir.”

“Ron, you’ve got some size and speed and endurance.”

Ron blushed.

“Do you love football, son?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Do you know how to use those shoulders?” Ron was confused and didn’t know how to answer. The coach waited for a reply. Were they going to cut him already? He won the first two races. Did you have to win three to make the team?

“I’m asking if you know how to block and tackle Ron.”

A light lit up Ron’s face. He smiled. “Yes Sir.”

“Wait over there.”  Connors pointed to a spot on the grass on the field. Ron trotted over and sat down. Soon there were three other boys sitting with him. They watched the rest of the sprints. Then the other boys were taken into a group with Coach Jensen and Connors walked over to them with Coach Timlin.

“Well boys, got a little surprise for you. The sophomore team is a little light this year and we’re moving you three up. Go with coach Timlin and we’ll get you suited up.”

Ron’s heart sang an aria. He watched as Coach Jensen sent some of the other boys home and then started a second round of sprints.

The locker room that the football team used smelled of sweat and sweat soaked clothes and equipment. The Varsity had already been practicing for a week. Ron was fitted with a helmet. Coach Timlin picked up from a pile of neatly stacked helmets. It was a hard plastic and had a facemask with two bars running horizontally from ear to ear and two short, vertical bars that connected them. It was much heavier that the helmets that he had tried on in sporting goods stores.

Timlin said, “How’s that feel?”

Ron was almost giddy. “Heavy.”

Timlin grinned. “You’ll get used to it.”

Next they moved to shoulder pads. Timlin fitted him like a tailor. When the pads were on, he raised both of his fists and slapped them down hard on Ron’s shoulders. Except for the pressure of the contact, Ron hadn’t felt a thing. They shared a grin. Hip pads, thigh pads, knee pads, pants and a jersey went quickly.

“Get dressed and let’s have a look at you,” said Timlin and walked off to start with the next kid.

Ron stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself. He loved what he saw. He was still standing there when Peters walked into the locker room with a fourth kid. Now he had a team.

 

Phillip and Ron went to their lockers together. “I don’t know why they picked me out,” said Ron.

“You’re big and you’re fast,” said Phillip.

“I wish they picked you too,” said Ron.

“I’m glad they didn’t pick me, Ronnie.”

“Why?”

“They guys they picked you to play with are older and bigger and faster, and they’re gonna make you pay.”

“I figured that,” said Ron.

Chapter 54

            Mr. Tuck picked up the literature book and skimmed passed Bradford.

            “So now we know what it was like to get here,” he said. “And what they found after they arrived. For the most part they had nothing to go back to and so no choice.”  Ron thought about his girls at Our Lady of the Forlorn. They would have understood exactly what he was saying. But they had also moved on with their lives and he had done that too. He felt a pang.

            “Ben Franklin is something else. He may very well have been the most accomplished man in the world by the time that he died. People don’t talk about him the way that they talk about De Vinci, but they should. He had a wider sphere of influence.”

            He had their attention. He walked to the window side of the room and sat on the combination heater and counter that spanned the length of the room. “Let’s start with this,” Ron read, “Observe all men, thyself most.” He repeated it and looked out to them. “Five words, easy enough. What do you think?”

            The class looked down and read it again. They looked up. Mr. Tuck was waiting. Teachers normally hated silence in their classrooms. It gave them the uneasy feeling that nothing was happening. Usually they could wait a teacher out.

            Ron was silent. Then he read it again. “What do you think?”

            “Ok,” said Mark Simon. “I get it. Be aware of the people around you and what they do, but pay closer attention to what you do.”

            Ron smiled. “Why?”

            Chris Fortuna said, “What you do is more important.”

            Mr. Tuck smiled at Chris. “Because?”

            “Because you do it,” said Chris.

            “Seems simple right? But is it? Is Franklin hinting that we need to both be aware of our environment and how we interact within it, but that personal growth increases from self-knowledge? Did that idea also lead him to take part in the Revolution?”  It was a simple concept but he wanted them to see it. Who you were and what you did should be the results of self-awareness. “Now,” said Ron. He picked up the book and read, “Fish and visitors stink after three days.”

            The class laughed and Ron laughed with them. He knew that if he repeated this line that they would just laugh again. “What do you think this means?”

            Bobby Taylor raised his hand. “Well I know that my mom won’t even cook fish in the house. Either she buys it already cooked or they cook it outside.”

            Ron thought about that. He wondered why. “And what does that have to do with visitors?”

            The class was quiet. Ron paced back and forth rolling chalk between his palms. It clicked against his ring.

            Chris said, “After a few days, you get tired of having them around.”

            Ron nodded. Now back in the 18^th century, it had more practical meanings as well. No refrigeration and so it was important to eat things fresh. They also didn’t know a lot about hygiene, and so visitors would probably not have bathed. That is one of the things that made Franklin uniquely American and popular.  There was both wisdom and practicality in what he said and wrote.”

            Back in the teachers’ room Ron huddled with Sam. “I want to skip over some of this stuff and go more in depth with other pieces,” said Ron.

            “It’s your class,” said Sam.

            “Yeah, I’m just concerned about the finals. But I figure that I did a couple of Native American things I’ll do Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, doing Franklin now, I’ll mix in some of Jefferson and Thomas Paine, but then I want to skip right to Poe and do a bunch of his things.”

            Sam’s eyes got a little wider. “That’s a big skip, but I know why.”

            “Yeah,” said Ron. “The writing sucked and I’ll lose them.”

            Father Tom Orecchio was sitting there listening to their conversation while he puffed his cigarette. There was something about Ron’s mannerisms and his patterns of speech that he found familiar. “Where you from, Ron?”

            Ron looked up, surprised by the question and lit a cigarette. “Newark,” he said exhaling.

            Orecchio smiled. “Whereabouts?”

            “Broadway, Lincoln Avenue.” Then it dawned on him. “You from there?

            “First Ward,” said Orecchio nodding.

            Sam said, “So I guess the message here is to never let either of you get really pissed off at me.”

            Tom Orecchio and Ron Tuck shared a grin. That was always the reaction from people who didn’t grow up there unless they grew up in Paterson or Jersey City. Father Orecchio said, “It’s not that we’re that tough, just that vicious.”

            “Where’d you go to school Tom?” There was a slight pause. Ron had never called him Tom before, neither had anyone else.

            “St. Rose’s grammar school, then Jersey Catholic.” He noticed a tension in Ron’s face.

            Then Tuck said, “I went to Jersey Catholic too.” He added, “For a while.”

           

Chapter 55

            The next day’s practice was hard. After classes, they changed into their uniforms, carried their cleats and walked the mile up to Branch Brook Park. It was a huge park, more than 360 acres big, and it skirted the border of Newark. Ron felt that the park was designed to keep Newark caged in. He walked up 2^nd Avenue with the other players. The sophomores didn’t talk to the freshman that had been added to their team. They were embarrassed to have them there.

            The team stretched and Ron smelled the freshly cut grass. When he lay on his back and did leg lifts, he stared up at the sky and felt like his helmet was a cocoon. He felt relaxed and yet tense at the same time.

            Coach Connors said, “OK men listen up. You all know we have some new players. They didn’t ask to be here. We picked them because we thought they could help us. They are on the team and I expect them to be treated like everybody else.”

            A large red headed kid named Allen muttered out of the side of his mouth, “Yeah, like shit.”

            Connors heard the comment but didn’t respond. Ron tried not to laugh. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got.” Connors explained the drill. He lined the team up facing each other about ten yards apart. There were twenty-six of them. Thirteen on a side. “On my whistle, squad on my left runs like they have the ball. Squad on my right, you tackle them. The idea is to run straight ahead guys. Ron was on the left. He could do this. He felt determined. In front of him was Allen, who was bigger than Ron. For a second Ron felt fear. Then he tugged on his face mask and thought, fuck it.

            He ran straight at Allen. The impact was not like anything that he’d ever felt before. He felt that he’d run into a car and then he left his feet and came down on his back with a thud that made his head spin. He closed his eyes and opened them again. It was still spinning. He heard Coach Connor’s whistle and his voice say, “Ok, pop up.”

            Ron wasn’t sure that he could move but then he found himself on his feet wondering how he’d gotten there. Now it was his turn to deliver a blow and he couldn’t wait to wipe the smirk that he say on Allen’s face right off. The whistle blew. Allen ran with a galloping churn of his legs. Ron tried to aim himself at Allen’s waist but it was covered with his churning legs. He reacted by going low. He cracked into his knees and wrapped his arms around and hung on tight. He thought this is what it feels like to tackle a moose. Allen went down hard. Ron didn’t feel dizzy this time. He felt completely alive.

            Coach Connors walked over to them. “That was two good hits men.” He looked right at Ron. “Do you know why you got creamed?”

            Ron shook his head.

            “You gave him too big a target. You let him get into you where you were soft. You need to run low and pump your knees higher.”

            Ron nodded. He wasn’t sure that he could change the way that he ran, but he would try. At the whistle, he ran hunched and pumped his knees high. It felt like it slowed him down. He felt Allen grab at his ankles and he pumped harder and then fell flat on his face. There was grass sticking out of his facemask when he got up. He didn’t care. He wanted to smack into the moose again.

            As they walked back to the school, every part of him ached. He was smiling. He stripped off his jersey and shoulder pads and sat in front of his locker. Allen and two of the other sophomores came over to four freshman and said, “You take your showers when we’re done.”

            They waited together. One of the four had stripped naked and sat with a towel draped over his thighs. Ron felt the ache spread through him like ease. It took the edges away. He could relax. He didn’t mind waiting.

            By the time they’d finished showering there were position assignments on the bulletin board. Ron was listed at linebacker and guard. He understood. He wouldn’t get to run with the ball anymore.

            Having the ball in your hands or even touching it was so much more special in football than in any other sport. You held the ball. You squeezed it tight. You didn’t let go like your life depended on it. Ron walked the three blocks to his house. He’d have to be able to steal the ball.

            Marjorie was waiting for him. She smiled when he came through the door. She didn’t tell him how hard it had been for her to get home from work and that Harry Tuck had detoured in order to make sure that she got there ok. She was working downtown in a clothing store now. She saw a chance at some advancement. She could sell. But the manager wanted her to learn credit and she saw him more than once leering at the fullness of her breasts and her behind. She didn’t mind.

             She saw her son and the slight bruise on her chin and the way that he seemed to glow. “How was your day?”

            Ron grinned. “I don’t know. I got knocked down a lot but I got up and I loved it.”

            Marjorie said, “What about school?”

            “I didn’t get into trouble,” said Ron.

            “What do you mean?”

            “It’s different there.”

            “Why?”

            Part of Ron wanted to tell her that they made you afraid to do anything but what they wanted you to do. He fought the urge to tell her. “I’m one of the little kids again,” said Ron.

            Marjorie smiled and stroked her fingers lightly over the bruise. She rarely touched him. She preferred to look at him. She felt him pull back, like his father.

She took her hand away.

            “Do you want to go for a ride?” she said.

            “I’m supposed to read.”

            “You can read later,” she said.

            They drove north back to Broadway. She stopped the car in front of their old basement apartment in the five story building. Ron tried to look into the windows and see who lived there now. He wondered if those people were anything like he was.

            Marjorie turned the corner and headed the car up Montclair Avenue. They parked in front of number 89. It was his Aunt Dottie’s building. She gave them iced tea that was fresh brewed. That told Ron that she had been expecting them. The ache was almost gone. He missed it.  He realized that he was hungry when he saw the plate of homemade corned beef hash on his plate. He launched into it with gusto. The women ate more slowly and smiled as they watched him devour the food.

            After dinner, they sat in the living room. Ron sat on the floor and tried not to touch anything. Dorothy sat in her fan backed chair. Marjorie sat on a couch with an enormous, white, goose-down cushion that would take an hour to re-fluff. The evening light hardly filtered in through the drapes and they turned on a lamp that had a Chinese design. He gazed at the centerpiece which was also Chinese and depicted a lone fisherman waiting for a fish that he would never catch, but eternally hopeful.

            Dorothy said, “A man that works hard is an asset. It hurts when you can’t talk to him.”

            “I know,” said Marjorie. “Sometimes when I talk to him, I wish that I hadn’t.”

            Ron was silent and listened. He stared at the fisherman and felt wisdom in his gaze.

            “Has he hit you?”

            “No, but he’s punched things to avoid it.”

            “That shows that he knows how to hold back,” said Dorothy.

            “I don’t love him.”

            “So what? You think I love the old fart that I’m married to?”

            Aunt Dottie met Ron’s eyes and let him know that he wasn’t allowed to laugh. He’d wanted to and she knew it. But he couldn’t and her look was communicating that in the sternest terms. Ron held it in and it passed. Marjorie hadn’t seen it. She was absorbed in the thoughts of a loveless marriage.

            “I have an idea,” said Marjorie.

            Dorothy listened.

            “I want to put him into so much debt that he can’t even think about gambling again.”

            Dorothy was genuinely surprised. “How?”

            “I want to buy a house and get out of Newark.”

            Ron’s heart was beating very fast as he listened. He wanted to be on the island with that Chinese fisherman, and the dwarf tree and the moss and the water. He might as well be there as out of Newark.

            Marjorie continued. “There’s trouble coming here. This isn’t going to be a good place to live anymore. I want to take you with me.”

            At first Dorothy bristled and then she smiled. “We’re getting too old for keeping up with this.” She spread her arms upward to indicate the 22 apartments over her head.

            He knew that something had happened and that his life was changing in some unexpected way, but he didn’t understand it. The light was soft but the air was heavy. He breathed in the scent of her carpet. Ron looked up and she was gazing back at him. How he loved her and everything that she was. If they could all live together, he could be happy.

            Dorothy said, “That could be a long way off. A lot could happen between now and then.”

            Marjorie nodded. “But that’s my goal.”

            Ron’s eyes lifted to his mother. He could see determination and fear.

           

 

            Chapter 56

            The meeting between the Bombascos and The Bragos happened at Marjorie’s house. Harry Tuck was also invited. They sat around the table in the dining room. They were there to discuss numbers. Ron and Celeste were nervous. It was his first wedding and her third. Her parents had been here before and were embarrassed at the prospect of being here again. Marjorie had waited to be sitting at a table like this forever. But not with them.

            George served drinks. Mario and Anna took Scotch on the rocks. George was shocked when Marjorie said that she would have some wine. Ron had what Marjorie did. Harry took Scotch straight up. Celeste had the wine. George fixed himself a Manhattan and sat down.

            Marjorie tried to smile. She clasped her hands together on the table and said, “So they want to get married.”

            There was nervous laughter around the table. Mario said, “God only knows why.”

            Marjorie frowned. They should feel grateful at the chance of having her son who was making the biggest mistake of his life. “Yes, I’ve wondered why as well.”

            Eyes were on Ron and Celeste now. They sat there looking down at the table and then Celeste spoke. “I didn’t expect to have your son come into my life. I’d lost hope that he was out there. But he’s here now and I can’t help but love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him.”

            Anna just closed her eyes. How had she raised such a fool to believe in true love at her age? “We don’t have a lot and we’d like to keep this small for obvious reasons.”

            “What are they? said Marjorie.

            The two women eyed each other and just when Ron wished for it, he thought he saw his Aunt Dottie come into the room. He blinked and squinted and she was gone. She would have known how to handle this. But she was dead and wasn’t coming in the door anymore.

“Celeste has been married before, twice.”

            Marjorie’s face was grim. “My son hasn’t. Why should he have to pay for your daughter’s mistakes?”

            “We’ve all paid for Celeste’s mistakes,” said Anna.

            Celeste wished that she could shrink down to nothing and just disappear.

            “We’re straying from the point,” said Harry. “Marjorie was married once before. I was married once before. We know that not all marriages work out. No one needs to pay. I thought we were here to discuss this wedding.”

            Celeste smiled at Harry. Marjorie capitulated. Anna sulked but did not respond. In the back of her mind, she hoped that if she started a big enough fight that Ron and Celeste would call the whole thing off. Marjorie has been a willing participant and things would have escalated. But this Harry guy had thrown a pail of cold water on that and now she was stuck, but only for a moment. “I understand that you had the privilege of meeting my grand-daughter. Isn’t she beautiful?” said Anna.

            “She’s cute,” said George.

            Marjorie’s head snapped towards him. He never opened his mouth at the right time and he never, never said the right thing. “She alright,” said Marjorie.

            Anna and Mario recoiled like they had been slapped in the face. Their Angel was being called ‘alright.’       

            “I think that she’s a very special little girl and so very smart,” said Ron.

            Anna nodded. He’d better say that or she was getting up and walking right out of here this instant.

            “We’d like to get married at the end of March,” said Ron.  “I’ll have Easter vacation and so I won’t need to miss any time from work.”

            Marjorie said, “Are you both really sure that this is what you want to do? I mean there is more involved here than just the two of you. There is a child to think about. And all the expenses that come along with her.” She turned to her son. “Where are you going to get the money to support a wife and child? A few years ago, you were taking cans out of our pantry so that you could eat in the summertime.”

            Now it was Ron’s turn to want to disappear as he saw Anna and Mario exchange a look and both shake their heads.

            Celeste started to say that she was going to get a job, but Harry spoke up first. “We were poor when we got married,” he said to Marjorie.

            “That was different,” she said. “Everybody was poor then.”

            That had been true of Mario and Anna too but they weren’t about to wash those dirty clothes in front of these people.

            Marjorie stared at Harry and then said in a defeated voice, “I think we can give them $5000.”

            Harry said, “I can do that too.”

            Mario and Anna had decided on $2000 but Anna said, “We’ll help all we can, but we don’t have that kind of money. Maybe we can go $3000.”

            Mario spoke before thinking. “I thought that we decided on $2000.”

            Anna wanted to kick him in his shins until he bled. She hated that he never minded looking cheap.

            George said, “I can also get all of the printing of invitations done for nothing.”

            Marjorie smiled. He finally said something useful. She would make their wedding favors at her ceramics shop, but she wasn’t going to say that just then.

            Ron and Celeste smiled at each other. They had a budget and an uneasy truce, but they had make progress.

Chapter 46

            During the middle of his eighth grade year, students began talking about where they were going to go to high school. In Ron’s part of Newark, if you weren’t going to Barringer, you had to compete for entrance into a school.

            “I don’t understand why he can’t go to public school,” said George.

            “I don’t want him there.”

            “How are we going to pay for it?”

            “We’ll find a way.”

            Ron listened to them talking and his face showed his utter contempt for George. George caught the look and said, “I’m just saying Ronald.”

            “Saying what?”

            “That Barringer is a good school.”

            “It’s not as good as the private schools and they don’t put up with any nonsense,” said Marjorie.

            George felt defeated. They never listened to him. He couldn’t even tell them that he’d won $50 in a card game because she would be crazy about him gambling.

            The entrance exams were on Saturdays. They staggered them so that guys would have a chance to apply to the big three, which were Seton Hall, St. Benedicts and New Jersey Catholic. St. Peters was an even better school but it was in Jersey City and that thought frightened Marjorie.

            The tests were long. At St. Benedicts, it was a three hour exam. Seton Hall and NJ Catholic were both two hours long. Each came with a $20 application fee.

            For girls, the choices were more limited. Of course the nuns encouraged them to attend Our lady of the Forlorn, and there was East Orange Catholic but that was about it unless someone wanted the trek across the Passaic River to a co-ed high school called Queen of Peace.

            His friends talked of little else. It caused a gender separation because none of them wanted to consider Queen of Peace.

            Richie announced, “I’m going to Seton Hall.”

            Dave Spenelli said, “I think I’m going to Jersey. My parents think it’s a good school and it’s the closest.”

            Ron didn’t say anything. He’d been accepted into all three schools, but wasn’t sure if there was enough money for any of them. He would have liked to go to The Hall with Richie, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up.

            “Ronald, I’m really proud that you did so well on the entrance exams.”

            “Thanks Mom.”

            “George is proud too,” said Marjorie. She was trying to cue George to say something. George nodded and grunted.

            “New Jersey Catholic is a good school,” said Marjorie.

            Ron nodded.

            “The tuition isn’t a lot more than where you are now.”

            “It’ll be fine,” said Ron. He was trying really hard to hide his disappointment. He was relieved that it wasn’t going to be Barringer.

            He went into his room and tore up the acceptance letters to Seton Hall and Benedicts. Through the door he heard George’s muffled voice say, “I don’t know how we’re going to do it.” Ron punched his mattress as hard as he was able. He felt stupid. Why should he care if the sent him to Barringer or Seton Hall or New Jersey Catholic? Things still wouldn’t feel right.  Right now the best thing about George that Ron could conceive was that he belonged to a club that had a rotation of paperback porn.

            He found that certain lines excited him. He didn’t know why. He would just feel this rush after he’d read them and want to read them again and again, and then it would happen. At the same time that he loved his time alone with those books, they caused his disdain for George to even grow deeper.

            He hid them, buried in the dirty clothes of the laundry basket in the bathroom.  Ron would take them out and bring them back into his room and then return them. He knew that it was his mother who emptied the laundry. He wondered what she did with the books when she found them.

 

Chapter 47

            Ron read and was impressed.

            Paul Panini wrote: Not all Indian cultures were peaceful. Some were as brutal as the Europeans.

            Mark Simon wrote: I liked the first part. How do you find a people?

            Ron smiled. These two were smart and the classroom had been a catalyst. He thought, maybe a classroom has less to do with being a physical place than I thought it did. Maybe a classroom is only special for that time and those moments when it’s functioning.

            His mind flashed to classrooms that he’s been in. The first one that he remembered was Mrs. Francis kindergarten class. It was a huge room with wooden floors that creaked and lots to do. He loved it. Things got darker. He saw himself in 4^th grade hurling his books when he was told that he had detention for something that he didn’t do.

            Ron glanced back at the papers. Edward Lang had written: Civilization comes at a price, but it’s good. Ron smiled and relaxed into his papers and forgot the time or where he was expected to be.

            Celeste came into the basement quietly. Ron was sprawled on the bed and there were stacks of papers everywhere. His incredibly large and clumsy book bag was open. She smiled. She approached. He didn’t know she was in the room until a blur caught the corner of his eye. Now she was standing there naked. Ron scrambled to put the papers away. He knew that his boys would understand.

            Celeste slept quietly and Ron put on the desk lamp. He finished reading William Bradford for the second time and tried not to hate it. Then he smiled. They would read it and hate it too. Maybe he could teach them to find a new perspective on the things that they seemed to hate but were forced to accept.

            “This is what we have in our literature book as the first piece of reading. Let’s look at it. A hard crossing. Illness. Only a fragment left of what had come.

This is our fragment. Our piece of what has survived. That’s why I wanted you to read it,” said Ron.      

Paul Panini said, “Don’t we have to read it?”

“That too,” said Ron. “I tried for a while to find some way to come here and tell you why I think that you should read this. It’s not great writing. It’s not even good. Why then? How can I stand here and expect you to trust me when I have to choose from a selected group of material? Answer is that I’m trying to work that out and giving it my best shot. Let’s see how it goes. I have an idea.”

Ron picked up their literature book. It was his copy. The pages were dog-eared. There were foreign objects slid between the pages. “I’ve taken a hard look at this and decided that it would benefit you to know what is in here.”

Ron looked out into the room. There were the two in the back, Panini and Simon, but there were two more. Sal Taleno could catch, He’d always been able to catch. He could run and he wasn’t afraid to take a hit, but he also was under some pressure to read. It was parentally induced. Ron understood that. But Sal was now in his class. Even though they had little contact on the field, they were on the team. There was a tentative bond. Sal looked up and met his eyes.

Sal grinned. “Tell us what it is.”

“This book isn’t what’s important here. It’s our minds meeting and exploring. There is some really good stuff in here. I’ll cut out the crap as best as I am able. This is what I want. You gotta read what I tell you to read.”

They were quiet. They weren’t sure what he was telling them to do. What was the assignment?

“I want you to read it until you understand it. When I assign too much, tell me. That’s what I want from each assignment.” Ron looked the football player in the eyes. “Can you do that Taleno?”

“Yes, Coach.”

 

Chapter 48

On the day that Ron graduated from Our Lady of the Forlorn’s Grammar School, his father and his mother and his Aunt Dottie embraced him with a warm feel of approval that was genuine.

His Aunt took him aside. “People seem to be pinning their hopes on you.”

“I know. What happens if I let them all down?  Will my mother get sick again?”

She looked into his eyes. “Ron, it’s your life, not theirs.”

“What do you mean?”

“Their expectations don’t have to be your expectations.”

“Aunt Dot, I’m still not sure what that means.”

“That’s ok,” she said grinning.

They took photographs of him standing with each of them. There was always an arm around his shoulder. He was supposed to smile, but he was scared. What was he supposed to be?

Students who were accepted into Jersey Catholic were required to do summer reading. Ron smiled to himself as he scanned the list. He’d read four of the six. There was just these books called Lord of the Flies and another called Animal Farm.

 

Ron Tuck was an avid reader.  He’d plowed his way through book after book that was supposed to be over his head and gleaned whatever he could and hoped that somehow, osmotically, enough would filter into him. He opened Animal Farm and began to read.

Neither book was long. He felt that they were his introduction to the high school. These books would tell him what the school expected of him. He grinned as he listened to Major. He wondered if pigs were that smart and told himself that he would look that up the next time that he was in the library.

When Boxer collapsed Ron’s heart sunk. He knew that horse was hurt and he believed so deeply in the farm and in the rights of the other animals to govern themselves.

Boxer had worked himself too hard. He needed to take more breaks and to relax once in a while. He wanted for the other animals to take care of their hero. His hands gripped the book tightly when he realized what was happening to the horse. Then he saw and felt his tears. They were rolling down his face and plopping onto the pages. He forced himself to keep reading. He couldn’t hear or see anything but the book which was now blurry.

His mind screamed for Boxer to break out of the cart that was taking him to the glue factory and to stomp those worthless, traitor pigs with his powerful hooves. It didn’t happen, and then they lied about what had become of Boxer. Some of the other animals knew but were too frightened to say anything. They had screamed for Boxer to break out of the cart.

The unfairness of it all seared into his brain as something that he couldn’t accept. He wanted to get it out of his head but it was stuck there and he was crying like a baby laying in his bed.

When he finished the book, his reaction continued. He couldn’t look at the cover without seeing Boxer too weak to break out of his confinement. His mind hadn’t processed Orwell’s ideas, but it felt the pain. Ron slid the book under a stack of others so that he wouldn’t have to look at it, but he still knew it was there. He fished it out of the pile and put it under the clothes in the bottom drawer of his dresser. Maybe he should toss it into the hamper with George’s porn. He pictured George as one of the pigs. His mind saw him sitting at their kitchen table shoveling food into his face.  He did grunt a lot.  Ron walked into their living room and stared down at one of the stains on the white rug. It was further evidence.

George looked up from his TV program and saw Ron standing there. His face was tear streaked and there was a sick look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Ron. He didn’t want to talk to the pig.

 

Chapter 49

            The season opener was against Ridgefield. Larry volunteered to organize a pregame rally. Ferry looked at him with disdain. “You’re a coach, not a cheerleader.”

            Larry Viola walked away, shoulders slumped. He stood next to Ron’s locker and mumbled, “He made it sound like an insult that I wanted to organize a rally.”

            Ron pulled on his brand new coach’s game day jersey. It was gold with black lettering. His cap was black with an interlocking PH in the center of the front. When he and Larry had scouted together last year, Ron had been puzzled when Viola had said that he couldn’t wait for halftime because Bergenfield had one of the best bands that he’d ever seen.

            None of the other teams scouting the game had coaches who watched the halftime. The stood in a circle eating hotdogs and talking about what they had seen in the first half. They tried to pick up on tendencies that the others had seen and maybe they had missed. It was friendly but competitive and no one ever showed anyone else what they had drawn on their play pads.

            Ron stood towards the side of the circle of men who were wearing their team hats so that everyone knew who they were. He saw Larry up in the stands clapping loudly as the band finished a number. He was a good guy, thought Ron. He just wasn’t a football coach.

            Ron was happy that he wouldn’t have to go to those games with Larry anymore. He’d been embarrassed to be seen with him. Now he felt sorry for Larry. He’d wanted to do it to make things fun for the kids and for him.

            Ron would be in the booth wearing a headset that was connected to Steve Ferry. He was to tell him what the defense was doing and to make any suggestions that he thought would be useful. This would be one of the first times Ron got to see the varsity play live. Last year he was always out scouting with Larry.

            Paul Pamenteri pulled Ron aside in the hallway. “Remember that I’m on the system too.”

            “What do you want me to look for?”

            “We can’t see the line splits from field level as good as you can see them from up top.”

            “Got it.”

            “Ronnie, listen sometimes during the game, Steve loses it. He gets disgusted by mistakes. He’s bitter about being overmatched. He forgets and starts calling plays that he hasn’t put into the playbook.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Old plays from teams that he’s had in the past.”

            “What do we do then?”

            “I talked to him about it. This year, I’m going to send the plays that he calls in. I need you to be ready with something if he starts to lose it.”

            “Ok.”

            Paul looked at Ron seriously. “No one else knows. Not Artie and certainly not Larry. You can’t let Steve know that I told you.”

            The game was evenly matched. In the first quarter, Ridgefield almost scored on a long pass play that was wide open but the pass wasn’t any good.

            “What happened there?” growled Ferry.

            “We bit on the short pass fake. It was wide open,” said Ron.

            “God damn it! Why do we practice these things?”

            Paul voice was composed. “Coach, we need a play.”

            “Run the damn dive to the left. Maybe we can do that without screwing up.”

            The blare of the loud speaker drowned out everyone’s voice. The play went for six yards. Ron said, “Paul, run it to the other side.”

            Ferry said, “Ok, let’s see if we can educate them and get them to pack it in tight.”

            The play ran for six more yards and they had a first down.

            “Run that baby again,” said a gleeful Ferry.

            This time the inside linebacker for Ridgefield anticipated the play and stuffed the hole for just a two yard gain.

            “Linebacker cheated up,” said Ron.

            “We saw it,” said Paul.

            The quarter ended scoreless. Ferry said, “Now we fake the dive and run a toss to the same side. Go to the left, Paul.”

            Ridgefield came out in an odd man front. Both guards were covered and when the onside guard pulled out to lead the sweep, the inside linebacker crashed the hole and blew the play up. The ball bounced crazily in the center of the field and then they were on it.

            “Where the fuck did that come from?” screamed Ferry. “Ron didn’t you say that when you scouted the game scrimmage that they only ran an even front?”

            “I wasn’t there, Coach.  That was Larry.”

            “Call a defense, Steve,” said Paul.

            “Artie, set them in a 4/4.”

            Ridgefield scored and then scored again. Perpetual Hope’s defensive back bit on the short pass fake again and this time the pass was true. It was 13-0 at the half because Artie had put in a play that defeated their second extra point attempt. It was an illegal play but Artie was betting that he could get away with it once a game. The defensive man over the center pulled his man forward just as he was snapping the ball. Things happened in the interior of the line. One ref was watching to see that the kick was good. The other was looking for an offside. They couldn’t see it.

            At halftime, Ron came down to the locker room. The players ate oranges. There were no real injuries. The coaches gathered in the office. This had to be quick. They had maybe ten minutes and then they had to talk to the players.   

            Ferry said, “Well, we look as confused as a three legged cat on ice trying to take a shit.”

            “We haven’t practiced against an odd man front all week,” said Artie. “Can’t blame the kids for being confused.”

            “Can we protect?” said Ferry.

            “Can’t run those sprint passes without exposing the backside and they have some speed. Now that the linebacker has a sniff of it, he’ll be up our asses every time,” said Artie.

            “How do the flats look, Ron?’

            “They’re packed in. If we can get it out there, there’s space.”

            “Paul, two things. Get that fucking numbnuts who bit on that fake twice off the field. Sit him down. We’ll work with him this week.”

            Paul nodded.

            “Instead of carrying through with the fake on the dive, I want Scutero to teach that crashing linebacker a little lesson. Ring his bell.”

            Artie laughed. This was his kind of football. 

            At the start of the second half Sal Taleno caught three passes in a row and when the defender fell on the third one, Sal scored. There was jubilation on the sideline. Ron pumped his fist from on top of the announcer’s box.

            Ridgefield couldn’t move the ball. They went back to the wider splits of their even front. Scutero had rung number 51’s bell good. He was on the sidelines.

            “Run the dive,” crowed Ferry.

            “Stick it right down their throats,” screamed Artie. He had run over and yelled in Ferry’s ear. It was loud enough for Ron to hear. He looked down to see an animated Artie waving his arms and snorting as he stomped around in a circle.

            On the third play of this drive, Perpetual Help fumbled again. This time they got it back but lost fourteen yards on the play. Ridgefield finally closed up the line splits and continued to sprinkle in the off man front. They were content to sit on their lead. The game ended 13-7.

            Larry Viola walked into the coach’s room excited. “That was a great game. We almost had them.”

            Ferry was in no mood. “It ain’t fucking horseshoes, Larry.”

            Larry slumped again. Sure he could understand that losing wasn’t what they were after, but it was a sunny day. The stands were filled. Both bands sounded good. Didn’t you have to enjoy that?

            Ferry picked up Larry Viola’s scouting report. “Didn’t you tell us that they exclusively ran an even front?”

            “Yeah,” said Larry.

            “Were you surprised today?” said Ferry with a note of menace in his voice.

            Looking back on it, Ferry realized that he just should have said yes, but he didn’t. He was still stung about Ferry’s attitude about the rally. He blurted, “I didn’t notice.”

            “That’s just great, Larry.” Ferry was already thinking about beer.

            Ron needed Celeste and Angel. He didn’t shower or change. He drove to their house. Everyone was in the backyard. Ron walked around the side and up the driveway. Celeste loved the squeak mobile. It always alerted her. It was her friend.

            Joey watched young Joey in the pool with Angel. She had water-wings. She was splashing. Joey cuddled his son and splashed back. He was getting soaked but didn’t care. Anna and Mario were watching. The garden was in full early September bloom. Tomatoes needed to be picked. There were peppers and zucchini. Tina was in the kitchen. The sauce was simmering. She added some fresh basil.

            Celeste and Ron embraced. She felt ripe and warm and good. It stirred him. He wanted to take her into the basement and lay her face down and pump himself into her. The urge was strong. He resisted it.

            Angel’s face lit up when she caught sight of him. She tried to climb out of the pool. Joey left his son flat in his tube and helped her. Then Ron was there and he swept her up into his arms and held her drippingly wet and her happy body clung to him.

            “I’m so happy to see you,” he whispered.

            She grinned with the feel of him. Lost herself for a moment in the embrace. Then she said, “I missed you.”

            “I was working.”

            She hugged him with her entire body. “Don’t work anymore.”

            Ron’s heart was flipping in his chest. He lifted her back into the air and carried her to the pool. He plunked her squirmy little body back into the water and continued the embrace.

            “I need some help to put dinner in the table,” called Tina.

            Celeste went inside. No one asked if they won or lost. Ron didn’t care.

 

 

Chapter 50

            Ron was nervous as he walked to school. It was the day after Labor Day and it was hot. Ron wondered why the weather always seemed to get hotter after school started. There would be those sometimes cool and rainy days of August and then he’d go back to school and SPLAT. Summer would seem to come back with a vengeance.

            His blazer was gray wool and had the emblem of the school on its breast pocket. His slacks were black and his tie felt tight. After one block, he was sweating.

            His books had been expensive and they were heavy. He thought that it was probably a mistake to try to cram them all into his book bag on the first day, but he wanted to make a good impression.

            Although Jersey Catholic was one of the newer parochial schools in Newark, it was the largest. There were 2000 students and all of them were male. Students came from as far away as Cedar Grove and Verona to attend. Their bus ride was an hour long. Ron had a three block walk.

            The school was housed in a huge stone building on Broadway that used to belong to an insurance company. Now it was run by the Christian Brothers. It was ten stories high and covered an entire city block.

            The sight of it intimidated Ron. It was him feel small and weak. What was even more intimidating was the throng on young men who were gathered on the side steps waiting for the doors to be opened. They were packed in and all were wearing the same blazers. Ron tried to tell himself that he was one of them but it was a hard sell.

            The way that the building was organized allowed for a floor for each year of students. Students were assigned a classroom and that’s where they stayed. Their teachers came to them. It had the unintended effect of making it difficult to get to know very many students outside of the ones that were in your class.

            Freshman were assigned to the fifth floor. There were twenty-five freshman classes and each held thirty-five students.  Ron looked at his schedule. Algebra was his first class, then French, then Latin, then History, Religion and English and Physical Education. Students were not allowed out of their rooms between classes. They were only allowed to visit their lockers before and after lunch. They were not permitted to use the elevators.

            The room was hot and Ron tried to forget about the heat. Brother O’Shea was a short blonde man with a reddish tinge to his skin. Ron wondered if he was sun burned. He rocked back and forth on his heels as he spoke to the class.

            “Take off your jackets men.” There was a wave of relief and activity as the guys removed their blazers and draped them over the backs of their desks. “After class make sure that you put them back on. It is the prerogative of each teacher to allow or not allow you this privilege.” He rocked back and forth on his heels. “My rules are simple. One chapter a week and a quiz each Friday. The only times that we will not have a Friday quiz is when we will be having a unit test. Your tests will be returned on Monday and then we will begin the cycle again.”

            Rob thought that it seemed simple enough, but Algebra intimidated him. He’d never been great with numbers. He hadn’t really liked fractions and when Richie had tried to explain the concept of equations to him, his mind just went blank and wandered.

            “Let’s begin,” said Brother O’Shea. “Take out your books.”

            Now Ron was happy that he’d carried the heavy bag to school. He looked around. Not everyone had their books, and the kids that didn’t had this kind of frozen look on their faces and their bodies seem to have gone a little rigid.

            O’Shea looked around and then he smiled. “Not all of you are prepared. What did you boys think we were going to do today? Did you think we were going to play Let’s Get to Know Each Other? We aren’t here to get to know each other. We’re here to get to know Algebra. You men without books, put your jackets back on.” Ron heard a groan from in back of him. He turned to see a slender kid with red hair in back of him outing his jacket back on. “Bookless boys, stand up!” said O’Shea. Move into the aisle and take a step either forwards or backwards and stand next to one of your classmates who did knew enough to come prepared. You can follow along.”

            O’Shea ran his hands underneath the broad waistband that cinched his brown habit. “A quick review on the multiplication and division of fractions he said.”

            Ron looked down. That was Chapter 1. His mind said, how do you review something that you never really learned the first time? Maybe he would get it this time. O’Shea spoke quickly but not loudly. He had the habit of sometimes speaking to the chalkboard instead of the classroom and this made him both difficult to hear and to understand. Ron did understand a lot of it. Maybe he would be ok. What O’Shea basically did for the rest of the class was say exactly what was in the book, using the exact words from the book, and writing the exact some examples that were in the book on the chalk board. He finished talking just before the bell rang. Then he quickly packed up and left.

            They were alone. The guys looked around and grinned at each other. Somebody said, “Let’s get our jackets on.”

 

            Two minutes later Brother Alvin appeared at the doorway. “Bonjour.” He said. The class silenced. He was a very tall man and he carried just his French textbook in his hands. “Bonjour, is the French form of greeting. Loosely translated, it means hello. It is expected that when someone says Bonjour, that you respond in kind.” He paused dramatically. “Bonjour!” There was a smattering of mumbled responses. He walked to the teacher’s desk in the front of the room and slammed the textbook down onto it. The sound was like the explosion of a gunshot and the boys jumped. They sat up straighter. “Bonjour!” he said loudly.

            “Bonjour,” said the frightened students.

            Brother Alvin did not mention their jackets and the temperature had risen. The students were sweating. The class seemed to go on forever. When it ended and Brother Alvin left…the students took off their blazers and fanned themselves with their books.

            Ron barely tolerated Latin. There would be declensions and conjugations. His mind screamed, what the fuck for? Brother Delban was wirey.  There was grit in his voice. He expected cooperation. The lack of it would result in punishment.

Ron’s mind ached. Was that the message? He was one of the animals on the farm. He’d be penned and instructed. His mind howled. It was time for lunch.