Reinforcements

Chapter 1

Warren Lashly saw ten more classroom faces than he expected, he dropped twenty-five copies of his syllabus on the front desk and drawled, “There are two kinds of people in this world: poets and shit-heads. I am a poet, and you are shit-heads.” Then he left.
Ron Tuck sat among the dumbfounded group. He was sure that something would happen next, but people just began approaching the desk and taking copies of the syllabus. He got up, took his, and was out the door.
Idling in his ’59 Catalina cruiser at a corner street light on the avenue with the radio blasting The Beachboys “Fun, Fun, Fun,” the car suffered a series of frame-shaking convulsions. Metal to metal grinding hurt his ears, and he brought his arms up over his face. When he opened the hood, a ruptured hose sprang out and danced like a performing snake, dancing in clouds of steam and smoke. Ron tried to settle and think. Maybe it would just start up once more, and he could get it across the street. He turned the key, but there was only a weak, weird moan from the Catalina.
He strained against it from the open door and tried to get his feet going, but there wasn’t even a hint of give. He pushed harder, determined that he could move the car. It was then that he noticed the gearshift snugly in park. “Ahh!” exploded from him and he collapsed onto the front seat, staring down at a pile of trash collected by the corner of the mat. There was a matchbook cover, a penny, and some sand. If he could shrink down and crawl into this pile, he could stay there until this all went away.
He looked up. The light was green. He snarled, “This really sucks!” and wanted to bang his fists into something. Instead he popped out of the car, flipped the gearshift into neutral and waited for the light. A steady trickle of oil and water was dripping from the Catalina. “Cocksucker!” he hissed. The light changed, and he drove into the frame like he was trying to move a seven-man football sled. He could hear the coach’s voice screaming, “Drive! Drive! Move those feet! Short choppy steps! Drive, babies, drive!”
The car arced into the center of the street. Horns complained. It was starting to slip back. He threw it into park and collapsed again. Horns blew louder. He ignored them. He needed to breathe. Then a suit with black-rimmed glasses appeared outside his door and said, “Let’s try it again.” He popped up like the team was going to run a fresh play. The Catalina rolled across the yellow line and started for the other side. He was gonna make it! It coasted to the fringes of the station blacktop. Ron yelled a “thanks” back to his Samaritan, who didn’t turn around.
Ron entered the garage and stood by a raised hood. “I got my car here,” he said triumphantly.
A black apron came out from under the hood and stopped when it saw the cruiser, dripping oil and water. The apron-wearing man moved towards the car and looked at it with a shit smell expression. He turned to Ron. “You got big problems,” he said smiling.
“Can’t ya’ fix it before you close up?”
The owner laughed. “You probably need a new engine, kid, which nobody is gonna drop into this pile of shit.” He started to walk away but turned back on his next thought. “I got no place for that wreck here.”
Eventually, Ron made arrangements to have it towed to the junkyard. Seeing decent tires and battery, the owner took the carcass off the kid’s hands for what it would cost to get it to the yard. Ron could come back later that evening and get his stuff. The walk home wasn’t long. Ron started in a dazed condition. The man had been right. He had big problems. How was he supposed to get to school on Monday? How was he supposed to go anywhere that night?
Instant immobilization. First he would have to borrow their car to get back up to the station, and then he would have to beg. He tried to phrase the way that he would explain himself, but just that morning his mother said that she was ready to scream because she needed $400 worth of dental work done and had no idea where she was going to get the money
Slamming his way from the bathroom to the kitchen and back into his room, he shouted out the story of what had happened. His mother screamed at him to stop yelling and knocking things around like he was a crazy person.
“Don’t you understand? I now have no way to get anywhere.”
“Well,” she said, “you’ll just have to get another car.”
“With what?”
Marjorie Bombasco seemed surprised by the question at first, but then a resolute expression spread across her face. “I don’t know, but I don’t think that I can help you.”
Ron slammed back into his room.
“I’m not going to walk around with rotten teeth so that you can have a car.”
“Do you think George has any money?”
The resolute expression dissolved to mock disbelief. “George! You don’t even talk to him and now you want to ask him to buy you a car!”
“I don’t know,” he said, his shoulders slumping.
It was a macaroni night. They had pasta three times a week. Sometimes it wasn’t bad, but when the weather was warm, the idea turned his stomach. It left him feeling bloated and burping, and it always would end up stuck to him someplace. He’d get coated with the stuff and find it on him hours later. He wasn’t Italian; and he hadn’t ever been Italian. This, however, wasn’t the best night to complain. He’d eat what they were having and keep his mouth shut.
Steam whooshed back into Marjorie’s face as she poured the boiled pasta into the colander. She grunted. The steam continued up the wall and outlined an old water stain. She was sweating when she looked at her son. “Do you think you could do something to help me?”
“What?”
“You could set the table and put out three glasses, three knives and forks, and three macaroni dishes.”
He wanted to scream but didn’t. He set the table as George Bombasco came home from work and grunted hello. He looked at his wife. “How do you feel?”
“Well,” she said, striking a pose, “At the moment, the sweat’s pouring off me; and from the way he’s acting, I don’t know if I’m going to be allowed to eat this friggin’ dinner or whether I’ll end up puking it all over the floor.”
George moved toward the bathroom without answering. “What’s the matter?” he asked as he closed the door and turned on the water.
At dinner, Ron tried to repeat the story of what had happened to him. His mother moaned, “Why do I have to listen to this shit over dinner? My ulcer is now good and frigged up, and I can’t eat anything, but neither of you give a damn. Ron and George ate in silence, as she stared angrily at her plate. Finally, she picked it up and carried it to the sink. She came back with her cigarettes in her hand. “Well,” she said, “what are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” said Ron.
“Do you think we can afford to help him, George?”
George froze with the fork about 2 inches from his mouth. “We haven’t got it.” he said and continued eating.
“Maybe I’ll ask my father if he can loan me the money,” said Ron.
Marjorie nodded. “Yeah, why don’t you ask your father for a change?”
Ron addressed himself to George. “Can I borrow your car to get my things out of the Catalina?”
George froze again. “I might have to go out for a little while.”
“I’ll only need it for about 20 minutes.”
Silence.
“Can I use it or not?”
“You know,” began his stepfather, “I’ve been asking you for two weeks to get the cover on the swimming pool.” Ron felt helpless. “I’ve asked you in a nice way and you treat me like shit. You make believe that you don’t hear me, and then you ignore me. But when you want something, you ask for it like you deserve to get it.”
Ron pushed back from the table and got up. He went to the telephone and began to dial.
“Why can’t we ever discuss anything like normal people?” said Marjorie. “Why do we treat each other like we’re animals?”
The phone was ringing. His father’s voice sounded happy and strong. “Hi Dad! Are you going to be around tonight? You are? Yeah… OK, then I’ll see you later”
Ron came back to the table. “When you’re sure about whether or not you’re going to need your car, can you let me know? I want to go over my father’s house and see if he can give me the money to get some transportation.”
“Why can’t he come over here?” said Marjorie.
“I already told him that I’d go over there.”
“Well, call him back!”
“No. I’ll walk over there and maybe I’ll have to wait to get my belongings out of my car, and maybe they’ll get stolen or that’s just the breaks I guess, huh?”
George finished eating. He threw down his fork. “Take the car,” he said. “I’m just a piece of shit around here anyway, so take the car.” He lit a cigarette and threw down his lighter. He picked up his newspaper and headed toward the living room.
“Nice meal,” she said.
Chapter 2

It began to get cool around 11 o’clock that evening. Ron and Hank were riding the loop in Hank’s VW. “Hank, I want to get so fucked up tonight that I don’t know anything.”
“After a while you just don’t get any higher,” said Hank.
“That’s not true, man. We just haven’t smoked enough dope yet.”
A Dylan song came on the radio. They both laughed when it came to the “Ah, Mama” part. Ron shook his head appreciatively. “Fuckin’ Dylan. He knows. He knows where the shit is, and he tells you how you’re gonna get hit with it. He knows that if you don’t keep your eyes open, there won’t be any difference between the shit and you.”
“Even Dylan’s full of crap,” said Hank.
“Nah, but he sure is telling us that we are. The trouble is that knowing he’s right doesn’t help.”
“The Beatles help,” said Hank. They both laughed.
“That’s my point,” said Ron. “They say that if you stay fucked-up enough of the time, you won’t notice that it’s shit, and therefore, it won’t really be shit for you.”
“Yeah, but when you’re that fucked up, everybody dumps on you anyway.”
“Do you think Mick knows it’s all shit, man?”
“Mick is one of the big shot dumpers,” said Hank sliding into his Reginald Van Gleason voice.
“He just dumps with style though, you know? But sometimes,” Ron went on, “I think he’s really cool and sometimes I think I’m a jerk-off for thinking he’s really cool.” They didn’t talk for what seemed like a long time. Then Ron said, “Let’s light the last joint.”
“I don’t think I want to smoke anymore,” said Hank.
“Come on, man! I spend half the day with a piston shoved up my ass and the other half begging somebody to take it out.”
Hank lit the joint.
“Let’s ride down past my old man’s house, you know. I just walked over there and explained things to him and he said that it would be okay. Said that he’d see what he could do about getting me some transportation. He can’t get me much more than transportation, but what else do you need?”

Chapter 3

When Ron woke up on Saturday morning, his first impulse took him toward the front door. He picked up the paper and took it to the bathroom. He began to read through the classified ads, but most of what he saw was beyond the range of transportation. There was an ad for a ’58 Ford station wagon that planted a disgusted look on his face. He could hear the thing rattling down the street the way all old station wagons did. He hated station wagons. There was an ad for a ’66 Chevy Malibu with a vinyl top and a stereo tape player. It was definitely not transportation, but he smiled as the ad drew its picture. There was nothing in the paper.
Later that morning, the first real word of a prospect came through one of his stepfather’s friends. It was an Oldsmobile that had suffered a rear end collision. “The car’s been well kept,” said George. “Jerry always knew how to take care of a car.”
Marjorie nodded her head. “It’s a nice car, or at least it was anyway.”
“It runs fine,” George hollered. “It’s got a dent in the trunk, that’s all! Jerry had that car in the shop every other week.”
“Something was wrong with it every week!” said Ron.
George came to the end of his patience immediately. He was fully committed to defending his friend’s product. The discussion was going to descend to the stage that called for raw mimicking and the slamming of objects. The stepfather galloped to the refrigerator. When he was angry, he didn’t walk. It was a hurried, shuffling double time that increased in pace with the level of his agitation. He was a rather large man who weighed well over two hundred pounds. He had come to think of himself as a quiet person who had cultivated a distaste for verbal communication. When he was forced to talk, it was with a resentment that clenched his teeth and distorted his face. George lit a cigarette and walked away saying, “Do what you want.”
There was something about the thought of a car that had been kicked in the ass which Ron found both impossible to live with and fitting. It was like taking out an advertisement for ridicule. Anyway, there would be a two-week delay until that car was ready. At least it would buy him time until something better came along.
“I gotta have faith in something,” Ron told his Aunt Dottie. “Sometimes I feel that there really is something that I’m supposed to be doing with my life.” He didn’t realize that it was a rather common thought to have, and so he took a secret delight in his destiny fantasies.
Aunt Dottie lived upstairs. She was a gutsy old woman who had survived husbands and a rags-to-riches-to-rags life, which had seen her laced with diamonds, minks, yachts, and rum & coke. She had survived heart attacks, cobalt treatments and the removal of several inches of intestines while continuing to puff her Chesterfields every day. She and her nephew exchanged a look that ended in a shared smile. He had been her favorite since his mother had named him after the son Dottie had not been able to keep alive.
“You shouldn’t drive junk,” she told him. “People will always judge you based on what it is they think they see. If you show them junk, they’ll treat you like garbage.”
“I don’t care what they think,” he told her.
“I was the same way and it made my life a hell of a lot harder. It’s stupid to be a target for what people don’t like about the world.”
“Suppose I don’t let them get me?”
She squinted through her glasses at him. “Driving a car like that, who’s going to believe that you can’t be gotten?”
Silver gray hair added to the look of transparency in her skin. He reached over and patted the top of her hand. After a moment she drew her arm away. He stood up and, as was his custom, took a tour of her rooms. Everything spelled elegance and fragility. The living room sofa cushions were fluffed as plump as ripe vegetables,. The gloss of polish gave everything in the room the feel of a photograph. When he was a little boy, he felt like a moving smudge in her rooms. Now, as always, her drapes were closed. He patted the arm of a Queen Anne chair that was done in silk thread paisley.
He walked back out through the rooms. “I’m gonna try to make Jerry’s car work, but if it doesn’t maybe you could help me get something else.” She smiled at his con man tactics. She liked it that he was always a few moves ahead, even if he didn’t know it. She wore her donations to him like they were badges of honor. She nodded her head. “What did it feel like to have money, Aunt Dot?”
“Didn’t feel any different except it made me think who I was more than I had a right to.”
Her parakeet flew down and landed on her shoulder and she lifted him up close to her lips. “What do you want, Sonny?”
She was late into her sixties, and the skin she had spent the better part of her life tanning and creaming had developed into a leather tapestry of veins and patterns. “Go see Ronald,” she said with an upward motion of her hand. Instead the bird flew back to its continually opened cage.
This was Sonny the 5th. His unknown and coincidental namesakes shared his coloring and had always lived in the same unconfined circumstances. Sonny was her student, her whipping boy (when there wasn’t a husband available), her pet, and her confidant. All five Sonnys had been taught the same tricks and language. They could say: “Pretty, pretty boy; you god-damned fool; son of a bitch; where’s Margie; take another drink; you dirty bird.” This last phrase was one that each bird learned without her patient repetition. It became sort of paradoxical irony that evolved from her reactions to their bowel movements, something that she had tried over and over again to teach them to control. She would find their droppings and automatically accuse them of being “dirty birds”. They, of course, learned to repeat the phrase back to her, particularly right after they’d accomplished the expulsion. They would continue to repeat the phrase until she threatened to put them in the cage and cover it up. Then they would fall quiet.
Aunt Dottie got out of her chair and walked into her bedroom. She stood only a fraction over five feet and had spent 85 percent of her life weighing less than 100 pounds. She did develop a little paunch in her fifties, but the illnesses, especially the cancer, slimmed her right back down. She walked with an easy motion, an overall suppleness that she seemed to maintain through the sheer force of her will. She came back out of the room holding a $20 bill. She waved it at Ron.
“You take this in case you need to take a cab somewhere.”
He slumped back in his chair and looked embarrassed. He looked up just at the moment that the bird sprang into the air and landed on his head. Ron didn’t like the thought of the bird sitting up there. He had seen his uncle toddling through the house with more than one load of bird shit nestled in his hair. The bird hopped on his fingers and he waved him back toward the cage. “I don’t think I need it,” he told her.
“Take it anyway.” She placed it in front of him. “Show somebody a good time with it. Waste it! I don’t care what you do with it.”
Ron looked at her face and saw that she was serious. They exchanged a look of camaraderie that neither of them had ever felt with anybody else in the world.

Chapter 4

On Saturday afternoon, Ron began to think about why he didn’t have a girlfriend to call. The thought depressed him and made him pace. His mind pounded his hand into his fist, and he began to breathe a little more heavily. He lit a cigarette, walked out to the Avenue and stuck out his thumb. Twenty bucks, it was gambling money for sure. She had just as much as told him to take his best shot with it.
Welmont Lanes was a 36-alley house that contained a pool hall, a luncheonette, a bar, and a long, waxed hall that connected everything. Ron had been a hanger here ever since his family had gotten out of Newark. It was a place that always held the promise of action. A small fortune could be won on any day that a person was skilled or lucky enough to take it. He would have liked to picture himself as a shrewd player on the tables and a dark horse on the lanes, but Ron had lost as many times as he’d won and a lot of his winnings had come on side bets. Playing with $20 for a bank was short money and that made him an automatic long-shot anywhere.
The smell and feel of air-conditioned lacquer permeated the place, and it took a moment for him to adjust to the cool, acrid feel. Up the hall past the poolroom and luncheonette, Ron saw a familiar group of shadows. There were only two pairs going, a small group of men that had gathered on 13 and 14 and a trio of teenage girls on lane 22.
Butchie Alletta and TJ were playing Quimpy and Zeke. Ron hoped there was some sucker silly enough to think that Butchie and TJ had a chance. There were seven or eight guys watching the match. The score was being projected onto the overhead viewer that was customary with a money match. The management gave the regulars certain privileges: unlimited practice balls, the privacy of having the adjoining pairs empty and a place to cash your payroll check. But these privileges could be revoked from certain individuals who caused trouble, and sometimes from the majority of the group, when one of the owners got a hair up his ass. Ron didn’t spend enough money to rate these privileges, and he was always hanging out with the troublemakers.
The deskman gave customers such as Ron a tolerated nod when he acknowledged them at all. To those troublemakers that did spend enough money, there was a begrudged “hello” and reluctant privileges that always had to be checked with the boss before they were rendered.
Quimpy was a teacher who had been simultaneously touched by the revolutionary bugs of the ’60s and the much older lure of a gambler’s call. He was a short, chubby guy with a high forehead and a big brain. He’d been bowling for money since high school and had used the game to put himself through college. Sporting long, springy, black hair that wrapped itself around into a full beard, he wore a Screw magazine T-shirt that advocated “PRICK POWER”. Quimpy had ordered the shirt especially for the alleys, where it was not only sure to state a significant and obvious truth but would also cause the greatest amount of disruption. He grinned broadly when he saw anyone reading his chest. He would simply point to it if anyone tried to hit him up for a stake. Quimpy shouted a “What’s happenin’ man?” when Ron arrived at the scorer’s table.
Ron sat down and picked up a wax pencil. Butchie was shaking his head as he carried his ball back to confront Quimpy. “I’m not sure that I want him keepin’ score. I got enough to think about without havin’ to consider any tamperin’ with the numbers.”
Butchie was a construction worker who threw the biggest hook in the house, but his control and smarts were minimal. Convinced that he was meant to be screwed by life, he took pleasure relating accounts of his ordeals. He didn’t really dislike Ron, but he sure didn’t trust Quimpy. “Ah what the fuck. You can keep score but make sure those pins don’t go through any numerical changes from the time your eyes see them until they get where I can count ’em.”
Ron didn’t answer. He slid forward in his chair and began to write. He could feel Butchie watching him, and then he heard some mumbling that included his name and was followed by gravelly laughter. Ron quietly snapped the pencil between his fingers and stared straight ahead.
Quimpy mounted the approach, inserted two fingers of his right hand into the ball and brought it to a spot off to the side and just below his waist, where he hooked in his thumb. He swayed for a few seconds of suspended concentration, shuffled forward and eased the ball out onto the lane. It took hold smoothly and began to churn toward the headpin like a curve ball, picking up revolutions as it went. It hit the pins with the hollow hammer sound of the head pin being struck straight on. The pins collapsed in a less than picture perfect hit. Quimpy lifted his hands over his head, and Butchie exploded. “This guy’s got the biggest ass in the house. Man, you need a bus to transport your cakes around.”
Quimpy always said that Butchie believed in luck because he was stupid. He didn’t say it then though. He wasn’t going to insult his paycheck while he was in the process of collecting.
When Butchie’s partner TJ approached the foul line with his compact three-step delivery and effortless swing, he buried the ball in the pocket and left a ringing four-pin. His body jerked back in a spasm of disapproval.
“That’s right,” Butchie screamed. “We put the ball right in the hole and get screwed. These guys throw it in the fuckin’ gutter and everything goes down like magic.” He started down the lane after the pins. “What have you cocksuckers got against me? Why do you always stick it right up my ass?” Then he noticed the three girls watching him and grinned. He raised his voice even higher. “I could be home crawlin’ in my old lady’s hole,” he stopped and turned directly to the girls,” or maybe somebody else’s hole.” He turned back to the scorer’ s table and jerked his thumb at the bewildered girls, “To tell the truth, all them holes look the same.”
Quimpy said, “Come on man, let’s play.”
“Why should I bother to play? Why don’t I just give you the money and avoid the exertion. I couldn’t look like any more of a jerk-off than I do now.”
Ron figured the match had gone too far to even consider looking for a bet; but, almost on cue, the backdoor opened and all the regulars’ heads turned instinctively towards it.
“Ain’t this nice,” said Quimpy. Butchie whistled a satisfied signal of approval as six men carrying leather bowling ball bags walked into the place in a tight group. It was the regulars from the Paladrom. The only reason they were here was big action. Everybody could suddenly feel that it wasn’t going to be a boring afternoon after all.
The deskman squeezed the counter and looked like he wanted to sound some kind of alarm. There probably wasn’t going to be any trouble, but he hated having strange niggers around when he was on duty.
A fat man wearing a tight silk shirt walked up to Quimpy with a toothy grin. “How’ya doin’ Quimpy?” he said with cool, clipped tones.
“Brewster! What’s happenin?” Quimpy got up to throw his ball.
“What brings you to this hole?” said Butchie, who was looking like a boy who was about to do something that he knew was wrong.
“Do some bowlin,” said Brewster.
The Paladrom formation had stayed pretty tight and was now withdrawing for a small conference. Brewster was talking to a light skinned, large man, who had stayed back in the group.
Brewster called over to Quimpy. “You want to play?”
“I’m playing this match right now.” Quimpy feigned a bit of disinterest.
“This ain’t a match, this is practice,” cooed Brewster.
Quimpy laughed, and Zeke got up to throw his ball. Negotiations for the matches were ritualistic. Everybody knew that there would be a match and that Brewster and Quimpy would be somehow involved, but the partners and pairs and the bet all had to be decided. Zeke and Quimpy’s beating of TJ and Butchie was summarily decided to be over, not that Quimpy was quite ready to admit that into the negotiations as a leverage point.
“We’re just interested in doing a little sociable playing,” said Brewster, panning the faces and hitching up his pants with a series of tugs that might have once been used as signals.
“You come in here and tell me that you want to play. Now what do you want to do? I’m just as content to go back to the match I was playing.”
“Who you want to play with?” said Brewster. He removed a linen handkerchief and wiped the back of his neck. “You want with Butchie or Zeke?”
“I don’t need you to pick a partner for me, Bro!” said Quimpy. “Name your team and then I’ll tell you who I want to play with.”
There was a brief huddle. They withdrew at the drop-back signal of Brewster. Quimpy stared stiff-eyed into the group. He believed that if you paid attention to the subtle aspects of your opponents’ thinking, you could come up with an attack that wasn’t easily recognizable. No one was talking on the Welmont side of the circle, but the nucleus of this group was also alive and creating its orbiting interests.
Brewster led his group back to its bargaining position. “I’ll bowl with Joseph T. against you and who?”
Quimpy glanced at Zeke and together they surveyed the Welmont bowlers. The men all looked at one another, and Butchie said, “Just about anybody can play that match, Cakes.”
Ron looked around the circle and saw two real possibilities and decided he could bet on either one of them. What would be best was if he could put his money in as a piece of the main action. That was a safe bet, but you could get squeezed out. If the bet went up, so did your part of it. Nobody liked people who begged off because of high stakes.
Quimpy was carrying a thousand dollars in his pocket and he knew that Zeke had at least that much. The truth was that he had never really seen Zeke go broke. Zeke always had enough if he thought the match was right. Quimpy and Zeke had bet together for a long time and respected each other’s ability to not make bad bets. “I could bowl with my brother Nicky.”
“Where’s Nicky?” said Brewster in an alarmed sort of way. He looked around the room. He paid attention, too; and he hadn’t calculated Nicky. Brewster felt an uneasiness coming from Joseph T. He stepped forward and shook his head slowly “Nicky’s too strong.”
“Look,” said Quimpy with gesticulation and a voice that was slighter higher in pitch and a hair faster and louder than before, “You guys come over here and asked me to pick a partner so that we could play. That’s who I want to play with!”
There was a second retreat. One of the crew was dispatched a telephone and walked off at a hurried gait. Brewster came back to the group slowly and alone. “You want to play with Nicky against Brown and Joseph T.?”
“We can play that match,” said Quimpy. He exchanged a quick look with Zeke that shared the disappointment that it was Dennis Brown instead of Brewster. “I don’t see Dennis Brown.”
“Jackson went to call him over at the Paladrom.”
Quimby, Zeke and most of the Welmont crew went down to the luncheonette to talk to Nicky. TJ and the houseman stayed at the desk and spoke in mumbled tones. The Paladrom crew had some pairs turned on and began to practice. Maybe Joseph had been right to call Dennis Brown to play the match, but Brewster was feeling shown up in the process. He had been made to look like an asshole in front of these assholes. He needed to get well on one of these chumps and he knew exactly where he was going for it.
The luncheonette had a winding counter, several tables, booths, a cubicle sized kitchen and a grill. Quimpy and Zeke sat at the counter. Nicky walked over from the telephone and slid in between his brother and Ron. The rest of the crew spread themselves out along the counter. Butchie was at the far end, and Quimpy watched Brewster come into the luncheonette and slide into a seat next to him. Then he turned to Zeke and Nicky.
The blonde waitress smiled a delicious little grin that caught the eyes of each of the men individually. As she walked over, it appeared to Ron that she was sliding her hands up and down her thighs inside the pockets of her uniform. Ron stared at her open mouthed as she took orders. He thought that she looked like the greatest fuck in the world. He let his eyes roll over the sides of her hips and stare at her backside. She didn’t look at him once. She spoke to Quimpy first and then she waited while each of the men put in his request. She struck a slightly different pose each time one of them put his order in. She had thin, white blonde hair and a uniform that was as short as her round little apron. Her mouth was unbelievably long and smiled into ripples that made Ron want to leap over the counter. Then he realized that she was walking away and that he hadn’t had a chance to put his in yet.
An embarrassed splash dyed his face with a prickly sensation that caused him to want to hide his head in his arms. He’d wait until she came back and put his order in then.
“I’d love to have your box lunch,” said Butchie as she was bending over the coffee urn.
The bet was set at $125. It would probably move up to $200 by the third game. The Welmont crew decided they would rather play on a pair near the back of the house, the place they called “The Woods.” It was a philosophy that was meant to keep scores low, frustration levels high, and spare shooting important. “The Woods” weren’t as well maintained as the lower numbered pairs and they tended to be more idiosyncratic. It was all decided with a few short words, nods, and gestures.
As the procession started back up to the lanes, Ron asked Quimpy if he could have a $5 piece of the action. Quimpy asked him if he wanted $10. Ron put his head down, shrugged and mumbled, “No.”
For brothers, Quimpy and Nick didn’t really act alike. Nicky was filled with explosive emotions that would cause him to punch walls and kick ball racks. He gambled with a higher percentage of his stash than most people would have dared risking and threw himself completely into the situation. Quimpy often said that Nicky threw the best ball in the house. He also thought that his brother was crazy. Nicky carried on strange conversations. He spoke in and out the side of his mouth, telegraphic voice that was indecipherable to anybody who didn’t know him. It was not unlike a convict’s style. “You know Bro, this match is tough,” said Nicky.
“I figure that we pay attention and slaughter them,” Quimpy accented his comment with a decided bob of his head. Nicky held out a lightly closed fist. Quimpy bonked down on it, “Alright.” Zeke put his hands in his pockets and Ron smiled.
The Paladrom crew was practicing on lanes 5 and 6. They didn’t do anything for free and always looked at their change with an air of suspicion. It cost l5 cents more a game at Welmont than it did at the Paladrom, but they were ready, cool and a bit jubilant.
When Dennis Brown arrived, he advanced and extended a multi-braceleted arm in Quimpy’s direction. He wore a loosed fitting, silk shirt always open enough for people to see the thin gold necklaces that matched the bracelets.
“Quimpy, how are you doin?”
They both laughed and exchanged genuine smiles. “It’s good to see you Brown.”
Brown nodded to Zeke and Nicky and returned to his group. He brushed his hair back with his fingers and then ran them easily around the waistband. He headed for the bar. Quimpy looked at Joseph T. “Where do you want to play?
“I don’t know. Right here would be OK.”
Right there would have been OK with Nicky and him too, but Quimpy decided that he had nothing to lose by being disagreeable. He looked down the row of lanes and scrunched his face into an expression of unconcern. “What about 17 and 18?”
“That’s gotta be your favorite pair,” croaked Brewster who had left his conversation with Butchie when Dennis arrived.
“How about 35 and 36?” That was Quimpy’s sucker pair because they were the last 2 lanes in the house and the presence of the wall was a distraction that they wouldn’t be used to.
Joseph smiled and shook his head no.
“33 and 34?”
Joseph shook his head again.
“Come on for Chris-sakes,” said Quimpy. “OK, you pick a pair that you’d like.”
Joseph grinned again. “What about 15 and 16?”
They were a sewer pair, which meant they’d produce higher scores, but Quimpy felt that even though it wasn’t the plan, he and Nicky could out-bomb them. Nicky’s eyes gave an “ok” flash. Then everybody headed toward the pair.
Butchie sauntered up to Dennis who was just turning away from the bar with a scotch and soda in his hand. “I think you’re playing on 15 and 16. Good fuckin’ luck.”
Dennis Brown smiled but didn’t answer. He carried his drink over to the Paladrom group, went into his pocket and handed some money to Joseph T. There were two small huddles of men reaching into side and back pockets. Clumps of bills inside money clips that flashed in the light were counted and watched. The bowlers practiced for a solid five minutes. The deskman totaled the price of half of the used frames. Zeke slid in at the scorer’s table, and the bet was set at $100. Both groups settled into vantage points that spread over three pairs of lanes.
Brown mounted the approach, put his fingers to his lips and licked their tips. He blew on them and then tugged at his cock. He slid his fingers in and out of the ball’s three holes. With his grip set, he began shifting his feet. He went forward and then back a full step before he approached the line. The ball was lofted with slick precision that caused it to slide, grab and then churn its way to the pins. The hit exploded with a loud pop that lifted Dennis Brown off his feet and turned him around. He gave the Paladrom crew a quick grin.
Nicky brought his ball to his chest, set for a count of one and was ready to go. The economical approach ended with a steel trap arm motion that put the ball on the lane with no sound and propelled it like a shark on ice. There was a crack and the deck was clear of pins.
“Freight train.'” screamed Quimpy. He popped off the bench and bonked fists with Nicky.
Ron was still looking for a good place to sit. He found an empty chair next to TJ who had walked over just in time to make a $20 side bet with Brewster that wasn’t part of the regular bet. Ron knew about three other side bets that had been made, but he was happy that his $5 was part of the main action. “What do you think T? TJ gave Ron a wait and see gesture. He wasn’t as worried as he was suspicious.
When the back door opened, the tangle of Hank’s curls were immediately visible. He exchanged a cordial “Hello” with the deskman and drifted over to the match. He gave Quimpy a reassuring nod before he sat down next to Ron and TJ.
“What’s happenin’ Hanky?” said TJ in his gritty comical voice.
Hank wrinkled his face into a grimace and shrugged, “Same old shit, TJ.”
When the first game ended, Ron moved in to pick up his share of the winnings.
“l0,” said Quimpy. Ron hesitated. “Either bet $10 or take $10.
“Bet $l0,”said Ron.
He felt an itching pressure in his stomach as the second game started. He moved toward the luncheonette to get some coffee. Jo Lee smiled when she asked him what he wanted. He stared at her ass as she walked away and then saw the cook giving him a condescending grin. Ron looked down at the napkin holder and switched the positions of the salt and pepper. He touched the palm of Jo Lee’s hand when he paid her for the coffee. He started back quickly for the lanes and realized that the coffee was going to spill. His mouth opened in a silent oval of pain as it ran over his hand. When he clenched the fist that held the cup, he forced more of it out over his scalded hand. Finally, he shifted the cup to his other hand, stood still and shook his steamy paw. Then he wiped it to a dry stickiness on the side of his jeans. He stared up at the projected numbers and saw that he was losing.
Joseph T. and Dennis Brown had started the game by throwing three strikes each. Nick and Quimpy were down by 30 pins. He cursed, lit a cigarette and crossed in back of the crowd to rejoin Hank and TJ.
“Nicky’s head is getting fucked up,” said Hank out the side of his mouth. TJ had adopted a set back, hands folded posture that wasn’t saying anything. Ron was looking for more of an explanation from Hank.
“Why?” he said.
It had been five and a half years since TJ had worked in the poolroom. He shot a pretty good game of 9 ball, but he was mostly there to take bets on horses. Every once in a while, with the help of a friend at the track, TJ would send in a bet that he was sure couldn’t lose. TJ had pulled it off three times in four years. But it had been five and a half years since he walked up to the owners and told them what they could do with their job. He told them that he would never work another day in his life. The story was that he’d landed a rich woman who wanted to marry him. He was gone for four years. He had resurfaced the winter before last and started hangin again as if nothing had happened. Within a week, he felt and Welmont felt as if he had never left. His vacation wasn’t even mentioned now. “They got me on the 3rd shift, Hanky.”
“How do ya like it TJ?”
“It’s quiet and peaceful,” he said, folding his hands and twirling his thumbs. He’d gotten a room in the center of town and a job at the Ford plant.
Ron wondered if anything could ever change at Welmont. It was as if they were part of an urban Brigadoon put together by someone who had a sick sense of humor. TJ thought that he had it by the balls, but now he was back there like everybody else.
In the eighth frame of the game, Quimpy and Nick pulled even. Ron’s blood was pounding and even TJ had let out with a short, encouraging, “Come on,” when Nicky’s ball had torn up the alley. The pins bounced off the sideboards like paper houses in the Godzilla movies.
“Oats!’ screamed Butchie.
Joseph T had a slight hesitation in his delivery but the ball was frightening. It moved with the sameness of a machine and hit the pins like a cannon. It was always like a miracle when anything stood up. It cleared the deck as effortlessly as a drill press. Brown followed by slicking in a quick strike. The pressure was on Quimpy now. After he came out of the ball, Nicky started yelling, “Fingers, fingers.” Quimpy raised his hand straight up in the air and the pins scattered. Now the pressure shifted to Nicky. Quimpy leaned forward and whispered something to his brother. Nicky nodded his head and lined up. His ball was buried and left a solid 4. Hank thought to himself that Nicky’s line was too tight, it left no room for error. But Joseph T. also left a single pin. The match was still even. Joseph made his spare before he had time to think about it.
Ron felt helpless; if Nicky and Quimpy lost, he would be out money and his next bet could be his last. His mind raced to the gloomy situation that left him with five bucks. Then he realized that he’d forgotten about his original six dollars. He breathed easier. At least he could have two more shots if they lost. Both Quimpy and Brown made their 9th frame strikes. Then Joseph’s ball belted the pins. Ron closed his eyes for a second and froze. When they opened, he saw a 10 pin. He couldn’t believe that it hadn’t gone down. Neither did Joseph, who stood on the approach like he was waiting for a mistake to be rectified. He came back to the wooden bench and grabbed hold of a towel as Nicky’s ball hit the pins like a Mack truck. A burst of noise came from the Welmont group. Nicky strode back swinging his arms from the elbows. He stuck his hand in front of the air blower. He threw the next strike and clasped his hands together like the seal of a private contract that he had lived up to. A second burst came out of the Welmont group like a background chant.
The teenagers from a few lanes away found that there was no one there to take their money at the desk. They left their sheets and walked out without being noticed by the houseman who also had a little something on the match. Dennis Brown danced his way through an easy double. He turned and grinned at Quimpy, who didn’t return his look. Quimpy had decided that he would see if Brown could double before he took his first shot. Now, he was just anxious to get up on the approach. He raised the ball up to his ear and slowly brought to the spot off to the side and below his waist. There was the suspended moment of concentration that preceded the shuffle to the foul line. The ball looked high on the head pin, but everything collapsed like the supports of a mineshaft cave-in.
“Goddamn!” said Brewster.
Quimpy’s second strike came off a light hit with the ball charging. Pins spun around the deck and flopped like wounded animals. Brown waited and Quimpy waited. Neither one had to look at the score to know the way that it broke down. Quimpy had him by a pin and couldn’t resist playing a little. “You want me to throw another one?” he asked innocently.
“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Brown. He mounted the approach and launched his ball out onto the alley. It was a picture strike that caused the Paladrom crew to erupt. “Mr. Brown!” they shouted. The houseman got nervous and retreated back to his desk. He found the unpaid sheets and pairs of bowling shoes. “Damn niggers!” he said to himself.
Quimpy was out on the approach. He would try to repeat everything with the same stroke that he’d shown before. He would swing the ball out passed the 12th board and let it come home with everything that it needed. He felt the ball drop below his waist and checked the alignment of his feet. He was ready to push off. His arm and fingers felt just right when he let the ball go. It was right where he wanted it. He leaned out over the line and waited. When it hit, the pins splattered and for a second he saw an 8-10 split, but then it kicked out like somebody had pulled a string and the deck was empty. There were grumblings and acclamations.
“How could anybody bet against those cakes,” said Butchie. Then money was exchanged. Ron collected his $10 with a smile that stayed on his face until he’d folded the bill into his pocket and patted it. TJ got up to get a drink, and Quimpy came back for a word with Hank.
“What do ya think, coach?”
“You got ’em,” said Hank, spitting out a piece of minute, bitten nail.
Joseph T. and Brewster approached the scorer’s table together. “We want to raise the bet,” said Brewster. Nick and Quimpy stared back at them. “Let’s play for $200.”
Quimpy turned around and looked at Zeke, who wasn’t reaching for his pocket. If Zeke had thought it was a good idea, that’s what he would have been doing.
“What’s the matter Quimpyman?’ said Brewster, “You lose a little heart when you see real stakes?”
“Man, this ain’t your match! What business you got doing the talking?” Quimpy calculated that the outburst would throw things off for long enough to give him a chance to think it over, but Nicky whirled on Brewster.
“Bet two hundred more! We’ll see who’s got heart.”
Brewster lit up like neon. “Your little brother got more heart than you’ll ever have, Quimpyman.”
Quimpy felt embarrassed and wanted to smack Nicky on the side of the head and ask him what the fuck he was thinking about. He glared at Nicky who seemed to stare back at him without any sense of doubt.
Nicky and Quimpy lost the game. Quimpy exploded at Nicky halfway through for not paying attention and causing himself to miss a one pin spare. In the 6th frame, Nicky left the same spare again and kicked the ball rack hard enough to knock two of the other players’ balls onto the approach. Then he smacked the scorer’s table and dumped two containers of coffee. He limped over to the wooden bench and stared intently and with menace at the far wall. Butchie came over and growled, “Ya better take it easy.”
Nicky pushed Butchie’s hand away and said, “Why I got to take it easy? Who are you to say that I should take it easy?”
Butchie raised his hands and said, “You don’t need to get your bowels into an uproar is all I’m saying.”
Nicky pointed a serious finger at Butchie. “I don’t need you to tell me that either.” He mounted the approach and flung the ball down the lane. It seemed to miss the spare on the short hop. He kicked the table again and more coffee spilled. This time it went on Quimpy and Zeke.
“What’s the matter with you? ” hollered Quimpy. He turned for the houseman and asked if he could get something to clean it up.
“It’s your mess, you clean it up.” said the houseman.
After being beaten for six lines of games, he was damned if he was gonna go clean.
Butchie and Ron came out of the toilet with a mess of paper towels, the Paladrom crew proceeded to run through the rest of the game. Ron’s heart sank. Now he was only up five bucks and if they lost again, he would be down money. Again his mind raced to a tapped out image of himself with nothing to do.
“Let’s raise the bet again,” said Quimpy. “Let’s play for $250. Quimpy walked back to TJ, Hank and Ron. First he looked at Ron. “You want any more of the bet?”
“I’ll stay with ten.”
“How much is open?” said TJ. Quimpy went over and whispered in his ear and they both nodded. Quimpy and Nick won the next 2 games. The Paladrom crew wanted to double the bet for another game. People began coming in from the night crew. The afternoon had become evening without much change in atmosphere. This game was for $500.
“They shot their wads,” said Butchie.
Everybody, including Ron, doubled his bet. Even if he lost this game, he would be up money. TJ wiped an imaginary line of sweat from his forehead and looked at Hank. “I can feel them marching trombones comin’ up on me now.” Then he flinched and pretended to duck something that was gaining on him. Hank laughed and Ron wondered what TJ was talking about. Quimpy and Nick won their bet “going away” as Quimpy put it.
Quimpy agreed to take a trip over to the Paladrom at some point in the near future, which wasn’t going to happen as long as he had their money. He turned to Nicky and said, “When they have my money, that’s when we’ll go over there.” Nicky smiled and they bonked fists. Zeke called up his five-year fiancée and made plans for a late dinner.
As Quimpy was changing his shoes, a young, fat kid named Randy came over and asked about a letter of recommendation for his probation officer. Quimpy laughed and asked Randy where he’d been all day. Randy grabbed one arm and rocked back and forth with his eyes closed. “I been in my crib, all fucked up. I love to get fucked up and lay around my crib all day.” Quimpy shook his head and said that he would have the letter when he came back next Saturday. He told Hank and Ron that he would be around his house later that night, if they wanted to take a ride out there. Hank gave Ron a ride home and then returned to Welmont to read the book on partial differential equations that he’d been thinking about all day.
The Paladrom crew disappeared. Well, actually Dennis Brown went back to his alleys to practice and drink scotch and soda. He called his girlfriend Georgina to come down for the time when he wouldn’t want to practice but would still want the alcohol. Brewster and Joseph T went to a bar called Caspers where they could sit in the dark, listen to music, and talk about the match. That night they were both drinking shots and beers.
On Saturday nights, TJ bowled in a league at a house up Route 46 that was named after two baseball players who lived in Jersey. Before he left he had time to go home, strip down to his underwear, eat some bologna and cheese with Italian bread and drink a bottle of beer.
The deskman thought bitterly about how his heart attack had caused him to have to retire from his civil service job. Now he was a nigger helper. He told his wife that if she didn’t leave him alone that he’d drop dead to spite her when she asked why he refused to share his problems with her.

Chapter 4

At 8 o’clock Jo Lee asked Hank if he would mind giving her a ride home. When he looked up, she could tell that he was startled.
Small rainbows of light jumped from his glasses as he said, “Sure. Yes. That would be no problem.”
She said, “goodnight,” to the cook who leered that slobbery way he had whenever she said anything to him. Hank closed a napkin on the place where he’d been reading and walked out with her past the night manager who wondered if Hanky was getting any and then decided that she was just using him as a flunky.
When they pulled up to her house she thanked him for being so nice and asked if he would like to come over to listen to records and talk some time. Hank said, “That would be really nice. Then she asked him if he wanted to come over on Monday night, adding that her husband would be out on the road with his truck and not expected back until at least Wednesday. Hank said that he thought he would be able to come over her house any time she wanted him there. She smiled and hunched her shoulders together. Then she got out of the car.
Hank’s parents were sitting in the kitchen when he got home. They had drunken little smiles on their faces that looked up at him and said “Hello.” Hank grimaced and went to his room. He’d just settled into an earphone blast of Eric Clapton when he noticed that his mother was standing in his doorway waving her arms. She looked like an overweight propeller. He grimaced and took off the phones. He recognized the silky voice, but he still couldn’t believe it was her. “My husband is leaving tonight at 11 o’clock instead. Do you want to come over then?”
He felt himself beginning to sweat. His heart fluttered but he recognized it as anxiety. He managed to mumble, “Yeah, sure. That would be no problem,” and then she was gone before he said anything else.
His mother had a worried look on her face. This must be bad, thought Hank. She’s actually going to talk to me about it.
“Who was that, Henry?”
“A girl.” Hank grimaced.
His father beamed and bulged his striped undershirt like he was waiting for someone to take his picture. Hank returned to his room. He was scared. He’d seen her husband the last time he gave her a ride home. Tony was short with a large, hard stomach. He carried a crazy “looking for trouble” expression plastered on his face all the time. Small groups of burns and scars were always visible on his hands and lower arms. Hank went to the bathroom where he sat and contemplated his insanity. This was perhaps the most ironic indignity foisted upon him yet. The world just wouldn’t let him alone. He felt his groin and thought about the few times a month that he allowed the sheets to get wet. Then he let go of an anger that caused a groan to accompany his grimace. He took a shower and the water felt splendid as it rivered from his hair down his back. At least it wasn’t gonna be the same old shit again tonight. He was drying his hair in his room when the telephone rang again. He heard his mother say, “just a minute,” in the sarcastic way that indicated it was Ron. Hank wrapped a towel around his waist and grimaced at his mother as he picked up the phone.
“What’s happenin’ man?”
“Not much,” said Hank.
“Let’s go out for a while?”
“Maybe for just a little while, in about twenty minutes,” said Hank. Ron didn’t say anything. Hank added. “I’ve got an appointment at eleven.”
Hank dressed, returned to the bathroom for some of the cologne his father had given him last Christmas as sort of a family joke and returned to the kitchen. Hank’s father draped an arm around him and sniffed the cologne. “Who are you gonna use it on?” he asked with a thick lilt.
“I don’t know,” said Hank, disengaging himself and looking his father up and down. “Why don’t you and Ma find somebody for me?”
It had been an impulsive remark. He noticed his mother’s face and saw her computer running. He ducked back towards his room and his father followed. “Do you need any money, Henry?”
“Sure,” said Hank in his best bowling alley fashion. His father left a twenty on the dresser. Hank stood in front of his reflection staring at his jaw line. He snuck himself a quick grin. Perhaps some things could work out after all.
He gained speed as he moved toward the kitchen. He was hoping for a quick exit. His mother and father had gotten out the bottle again. She sat quietly with her eyes focused on her drink. His father was grinning and had lit his cigar. “Come back whenever you feel like getting here, Hank.”
His father never called him Hank. His mother didn’t take her eyes off of her drink, though both her husband and son saw her wince at the remark.
Ron sat on the porch waiting with his Aunt Dottie and their dog Chipper. She was smoking, rocking back n’ forth in her chair and asking him where he was going with the feeling of satisfaction that she had helped make his going possible. Before Ron could answer he heard Ilsa, the next door neighbor, call, “How are you tonight, Mrs. Thomas?” as she made her way across the lawn.
“Christ,” said Dottie under her breath. “Can’t even come out without getting attacked.” She swatted away an imaginary bunch of insects.
“The bugs is bad this time of year Mrs. Thomas.” She made her way to the porch steps while Aunt Dottie stared at her like she was a Martian. She called her Ilsa because Ilsa called her Mrs. Thomas. Whenever Ilsa would switch and start calling her Dorothy, she would immediately start calling her Mrs. Rudolph.
“Did you know that you left the light on in Mr. Thomas’ room all night last night?”
“Did you see anything going on in there, Ilsa?”
“What do you mean, Mrs. Thomas?” Ilsa had shock in her voice.
“Just anything that you might want to report to me before you told anybody else.”
“I was just hoping that you had no trouble, Mrs. Thomas.”
“Mr. Thomas left for the hospital from that room two years ago and died. I doubt that there’ll be any more trouble there.”
Mrs. Rudolph turned to start back across the lawn to her property and Ron saw Hank’s VW turn the corner. He rubbed Chipper’s head and started down the stairs, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Aunt Dot,” he said.
Hank sat with his hands on the steering wheel. As Ron closed the door, he hit the gas and pulled the gearshift into second. He felt tight. Ron said, “So, what’s going on?”
Hank was unsure as to whether he’d be stupid enough to let Ron in on what was happening. People’s lives were at stake here. He brought his fingers up to the tip of his nose and squeezed. He grimaced, “I don’t know how to say it. Let’s just say that there’s somebody who I have to talk to at 11 o’clock.”
Ron said, “A chick?”
Hank said, “Yeah” and laughed with Ron. He saw himself as a subject of envy.
Ron said, “Where’d you meet her, man?”
“It’s a secret,” said Hank.
“What do you mean, a secret?”
“Well, she’s married.”
Ron was excited. “You’re gonna see a married woman, man! Fuck!” He rolled down the window and stuck his arm out like it was a rudder. “How’d it happen?”
Hank was quiet and then he said, “I didn’t do anything, it just happened.” He repeated the line a few seconds later. He felt comfortable making dramatic statements around Ron and this was more drama than he’d ever had before. Hank decided that he’d better tell somebody about where he was going in case something happened to him. Finally, it came out like a calculated blurt. “I’m going over Jo Lee’s house.”
Ron’s face grew with the news. “Jo Lee!” Hank grimaced when he heard Ron say her name. “You’re going to see Jo Lee! Holy shit, man!” Hank grimaced again. He knew that it had been a mistake. “She’s pretty old, isn’t she?”
Hank hadn’t thought much about her age. This was partially the result of his mind being still somewhat paralyzed from thinking about her husband. He created a picture of the brute in his mind. He put the crossbow that Jo Lee said he owned in the brute’s hands. Then the image readied an arrow in the bow and turned toward him. Hank clicked the picture away.
“Are you sure that you should go, man?”
Hank considered the question. It was always preferable not to do something that he might not like, he thought and glanced at the quizzical expression Ron was giving him. The image of the crossbow returned to him. It was still pointing in his direction. He could see the blood pulsing through the monster’s arms, swimming through the scars and veins with a swirling action the reflected agitation. Hank looked desperately for another place to focus his attention.
“Let’s stop and get something to eat,” said Ron. “I don’t really care where we go; but if it was up to me, I’d be heading for burgers.”
Hank peeled off toward the quickest route to the Dairy Queen and switched on the radio station. “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes” filtered into his ears and he saw Jo Lee’s long, dimpled smile. Hank sat back and let himself float on the song until he reached the Dairy Queen lot. They let the song play through and went inside.
Ron said, “Do you think you’ll get laid?” Hank’s mind created an image of him, hurriedly closing up his pants and running out the backdoor as a truck stopped in front of her house. They couldn’t have sex until they talked about how to sidestep her husband.
Ron was going to offer to shake Hank’s hand but decided that it would look too corney. In a Dylan voice, he mimicked, “Good luck.” and Hank dropped him off.
Turning off the radio, Hank tried to quiet himself. Everything would be all right if he just kept his sense of self- control. He drove past her house without slowing down and then circled back toward his target. On the floor that she occupied there was a single light burning. The shades were drawn and the curtains were closed in back of them. He parked his car around the corner and sat waiting for his breathing to become regular. It wouldn’t do to be waiting at her door panting. He’d brought three records and two joints along with him. If his father really knew anything, he would be proud of his son’s preparedness. He dug into his wallet until he found the condom. His face showed embarrassment and fear as he outlined the circular band with his finger. Fidgeting, he stared at his watch. It said 10:50 and Hank figured that he was cutting things a little too close.
When Jo Lee opened the door, Hank looked up and took a step backwards. There were no food stains on her clothes; no trace of anything that had gone on before. She looked radiant. Hank smiled as broadly as he could. He scolded his mind, saying that it was his sickness that pictured her in a uniform or a dirty bathrobe. He told himself that he was a real jerk. Her face and neck were covered with beautiful freckles that she hid under pancake when she went to work. They made her look healthier. Hank brought his hand up over his mouth to hide his smile, and Jo Lee giggled at the way he was staring at her.
“I wasn’t sure that you would come,” said Jo Lee giving Hank the longest and most beautiful smile that had ever been given to him. Her mouth seemed to open like a splendid flower.
He brought the records up from his side. “I wasn’t sure if you’d heard these or not.”
Jo Lee wasn’t wearing any shoes and it made Hank feel taller than her for the first time. She tilted her gaze so that she could see his neck and chin. Hank was looking at the floor. She took the albums out of his hand and sat down on the carpet with them.
The living room contained a two-piece couch and a one-piece record player. The rest of the wall space was occupied by a set of drums.
“Let’s hear this one,” she said, holding up the Crosby, Stills and Nash album. She stood up and gave him that tremendous look that was making him dizzy. She was wearing thin, white slacks and Hank was transfixed by the view afforded him when she bent over to put on the record.
Jo Lee sat back down on the spot where the album had been. They listened to the first strums of “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes”. She sucked her tongue for a moment and, while he was watching, snapped it back into her mouth with a distinct pop. She ran her fingers along the insides of her thighs.
“I think you’re a very interesting person,” she said. Hank felt as if she had reached over and taken him by the hands, even though she was caressing her slightly more parted thighs. He looked into her face, saw the lines crossing her forehead, and saw her as a tormented princess whose rescue from this cheap prison would become his undeniable goal in life.
“I know what you must think of me, but I don’t love my husband. He doesn’t ever satisfy me,” she paused, “or talk to me and I’m afraid when he gets drunk, ya know?”
Hank could sense her distress. His mind raced to the contemplation of her rescue. They were fleeing from this house, and she was carrying a hastily packed suitcase. He blocked a shot from the beastly husband’s crossbow with the door of his VW and roared down the street like super jackrabbit.
“Will you come see me, Tuesdays and Saturdays,” said the song and Hank smiled at the thought of what he would be doing on Tuesdays and Saturdays from now on. He was feeling strong until a creak of the stairs and a knock at the door sent panic waving through him with an intensity that he was sure was going to end his existence.
Jo Lee looked strangely at Hank and went to the door. He couldn’t see the door from where he was sitting, and he was afraid to move. There was good-natured talking, but it was going on forever. A cold tingling passed over his body. He was sweating through his tee-shirt. He looked around the room and spied traces of the defects of life with her husband: the frayed arms on the couch, the discolorations in the rug. Life with this pig must be hell, he thought. His mind pictured the very tidy house that his mother kept. He thought that Jo Lee must always feel like she needs a shower from living in this dump.
She came back into the room grinning. “That was Jack from upstairs. When Tony goes away, I go up there sometimes.” Hank look worried. Jo Lee was still grinning. “I have a couple beers with him and his wife.”
He cleared his throat. “Is it ok, you know? Do you think I should…?”
She grinned again. She put an ashtray on the floor between them. She placed her foot provocatively on the other side of the border the ashtray made. Her face became serious. Hank tried to meet her gaze with a sense of steadiness. For a second he felt like he’d never accomplish the feat and would have to run out with his tail between his legs. Then he grimaced and met her eyes with a grimness that dwarfed her concern. She smiled broadly and took his hand into her lap. She brought his fingers up to her lips and kissed the shocked mitt. Hank was frozen.
“Now what problems do we have, Hank?” she said softly. Hank’s head bent in helpless agreement while his heart was doing butterfly tricks. Shee took his head in her hands and made circular strokes in the short patches of reddish blonde curls that covered his temples. She traced the sides of his glasses with her index fingers sliding back and forth along them. Her fingers came to rest on the insides of his ear lobes.
Hank was in an enraptured state. The phrase “How Sweet It Is” was stuck in a section of his brain, but even that indignity didn’t lessen his feeling of ecstasy. Jo Lee’s long sweet tongue slipped into his mouth like a curling wave. He entangled himself and held her waist. Although he was still too shocked to move the bottom half of his body, he felt her squirming and vibrating. She was seeking him out and he was ready to come through. He struggled briefly when he thought he needed air, but she wouldn’t release him; and he learned to breathe through his nose. Every part of her was moving, and all the parts were touching him.
When she got up to change the record, he followed her movements with open satisfaction. He was still gasping slightly for air and beaming with a combination of emotions that he wouldn’t have thought possible. He could still feel her legs rubbing on his hips.
She returned from the record player and sat on the couch he was leaning against. She brought him to her knees and separated her legs. She let go of his hands and he lost balance. His glasses fell to the edge of his nose and brought his hands down to brace himself on the couch. She stared at the picture of his arm between her legs and laughed a sheet-rustling giggle. She closed her thighs around his arm. They kissed and she reached down and squeezed the bulge at his crotch. Hank was startled because he hadn’t been thinking about his cock and now she was there. It was large and very hard. Next she took her foot and rubbed the patch of contained genitals. He was going to acquit himself well. Then he heard himself groaning. She stopped, squeezed his dick and said, “Let’s have a drink.”
When she got up, the telephone rang. It felt awkward to hear her voice and the ease with which she was talking and now laughing. He lit a cigarette and exhaled deeply. She came back into the room holding two drinks and Hank remembered that she worked at Welmont. The thought sent a twinge through his body.
“I’m not really married to Tony,” she began, “but I’ve been with him for a long time. I told him that I’d do anything to get out of Pennsylvania.” Hank exhaled more deeply. He felt his swelling sinuses cause pressure in his forehead and hoped that he wasn’t going to start to sneeze. “I really feel attracted to Tony in a lot of ways.” Hank’s head shook with understanding and he drew in on his cigarette. He tried to decide if he should break out the pot. Maybe it wasn’t the right time.
“It certainly sounds like you’ve been through a lot with him. He didn’t know what to say next. He put his head down and pictured the way she looked when he masturbated to the fantasy of her.
They were the only ones in the luncheonette and he’d walked in back of her and unzipped her uniform. She straddled the counter and slid herself down its length stopping where he was now sitting and opening her legs wider with movements of her fingers and toes that called to him. He’d thrown himself into her with a casualness and grace that belied comparison and now he couldn’t find the strength to lift his head.
Jo Lee said “I want to show you something.” They got up and moved to an alcove she’d created in back of the drum set. There were large, colored pencil drawings on grey cardboard. She turned them around like Ferris wheels in a slow animation that changed the expressions on the faces of her caricatures.
“Are these yours?”
“Here’s one I did of Tony,” she answered. At first the picture had the head of a pig. When she began to turn it, the features changed so that in the next position it was the body of a gorilla with the pig head on it. Finally, it evolved into a bull with a big red ring dangling from his snorting nose.
The next drawing showed the cook frying his tongue and cock, stuck to the grill, using his feet as spatulas. Hank jumped back from the cartoon in a way that made Jo Lee laugh. She kissed him on the neck and showed him the last picture. It was a self-portrait created out of the shapes and eyes of at least a dozen cats. The feline family was observing. Hank looked up at Jo Lee’s mouth, which also changed from the shape of an “0” to a long slit out of which she slowly stuck her red tongue.
“These are real works of art,” said Hank.
Jo Lee smiled and said that he was sweet. She remembered the night that Tony had pulled them out for his friends. “Look at these pieces of shit that my wife wastes her time doin’!” he’d said. He always had the right to call her his wife – that had been part of the agreement. She looked at her tangle-haired visitor and decided that he was definitely a little strange. She kissed him again and this time he stroked the front of her legs with his fingers. “I told Jack that I’d be up for a beer before I went to bed,” she said. She undid his shirt button and kissed him on the chest. “Tony will be leaving again on Tuesday. Can you come back over on Tuesday night?”
Hank said “yes” and found himself being walked to the door. It was a swift good-bye. He wanted to make sure that she knew how much his life had changed in the last couple of hours. She stopped him by kissing him good-bye and saying that it was mostly going to be him that she thought about between now and Tuesday. Hank didn’t really want to go.
“What else will you be thinking about?” he said.
“What comes after Tuesday,” she said and gently closed the door on his bewildered face.
Hank rode home in shock. He was unable to form any words or ideas. He could only feel his body.

Chapter 5

“I’ll call you at home at 4:30 and let you know if you should pick me up,” said George. “Don’t race around.” George removed the ignition and trunk keys from his leather case.

Ron said, “Thanks, George” without looking up at his stepfather. Something in him wouldn’t allow him to feel good about anything that George did for him. All he heard was the line “Don’t race around.”

The door slammed and George headed for the entrance of the shop where he was a foreman. A look of power and security crept into his step. Only two people on the other side of that door could tell him what to do. If Mario would let him trim some of the dead wood out from the rest of the staff, they could get a good product with less of an overhead. In George’s eyes, Mario was a second father. The principal owner deserved whatever it was that he needed. Without Mario, he wouldn’t be able to eat.

Ron threw some gravel as he took the Olds out of the parking lot. He was finally headed back to school. He changed the radio station and turned the volume up to its loudest blare. He rolled down the window and stuck out his elbow. He felt like he was picking up speed on the freedom of a life, which had up to now eluded him.

He pulled the car into the college driveway oblivious to the yellow speed bumps. He thought he’d run over a bicycle. He felt the Olds lurch and then heard it scrape the ground. “Shit!” he cried and threw the gear shift into park. Horrendous thoughts ran in his head. “Two fuckin’ cars in four fuckin’ days. Way to fuckin’ go!” He got out to look for damage and glared at the size of the bump and the fact that it had been put there intentionally. He turned to the nearest college building and snarled.

Ron sat in an empty, pastel colored room looking out a wall of windows that opened on one of the parking lots that surrounded the place like a series of moats. There were still 15 minutes before the class was supposed to begin, and the empty desks were embarrassing him. He got up and headed for the door. When he arrived, he found himself looking full in the face of a young woman who intended to enter. It was awkward. He would have liked to stay but felt committed. He nodded as he held the door for her and started down the hall to get coffee.

The crowd and din of the cafeteria was startling. It was all over-ridden by the radio station speakers. It was loud, but he could take it. He stood at the end of the nearest line and looked for a familiar or desirable face. His body flexed when he noticed that over half of the people in the room were women who probably weren’t attached that strongly to anyone. With excellent eye coordination, he squeezed every breast that he could grab hold of. He inhaled deeply and brought his hand to his stomach to assure himself that it at least gave the appearance of being flat.
The line evaporated and he received his container of coffee from a middle-aged dyed blonde with a saggy arm. As he made his way back to the hall, the coffee spilled on his hand. He didn’t flinch but did turn around for some napkins and a lid for the coffee.

He used the coffee as a gyroscope as he zoomed back over the half-familiar track. He walked to the end of the hall and lit a cigarette by the entrance.

A thin, brown haired guy with a prominent Adam’s apple walked up after him. The guy lit his cigarette with a metal lighter that dropped back into his pocket with a bell type chime that caused the man to smile as he exhaled quietly and acknowledged Ron.

Ron gulped his coffee, drew in on his cigarette and looked away. “What do you think of this place?” he said in a non-committal tone.

“It’s pretty good,” the Adam’s apple bobbed, “pretty good.”

Ron could think of nothing else to say to him. He stared at the way the sun beat down on the line of cars. None of them had bashed-in trunks. The pavement was steaming and everything looked uncomfortable with the late summer heat. He dropped his cigarette into the metal cylinder that was filled with sand and made him think of the beach.

By the time things were supposed to begin, Ron counted 20 people in the classroom. It seemed to him there had been more last time. He wondered if the ones who weren’t there were the smarter ones.

Warren Lashly was a skinny guy with tinted glasses and a lamb chop beard that sprouted from the sides of his face like pubic hair. He walked into the room about five minutes after the class was supposed to have begun, carrying a stack of photocopied papers and two large, lidded containers of coffee. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved work shirt that was covered by a red wool vest. He placed the materials on top of the desk and stared down at them for a full minute. There was a giggle in the back of the room.

The instructor peered out into the class like he was looking through a window. He mumbled an inaudible bit of advice to himself and any in the class who had the ability to read lips. He split up the pile of papers, going through a still silent period of dramatic confusion about the order he had intended for things. He opened his vest and produced a pouch of tobacco which he stuffed into a pipe as he called the roll. He undid the first of the coffee containers and backed over to the windowsill. He fixed his eyes on an unrecognizable point then brought them back to the class.

“What words would you use to describe God and his opposites?”

No one ventured an answer. He waited a sufficient length of time and struck a match. He puffed a few times and took a swallow of coffee. “My name is Warren Lashly. I’m from the South.” Lashly brought his knee up to the windowsill and rested his coffee arm elbow on it. “It has come to my attention, for quite some time now really, that America, and I really love her, is in deep trouble. There are obvious, outward signs of this trouble that I prefer not to dwell on. What I intend to explore are the more real problems of the exhaustion of our cultural underpinnings. I am talking about the sickness that has come to the concepts upon which we have been built.”

“Great!” Ron said to himself. “Now what the fuck does this have to do with English?”

Lashly continued, “Now all of you have either been at this college for a year or have shown some talent in the field of language. Language is what binds us to the cultural foundations of our society.” Lashly emptied the first container of coffee and discarded it. He undid the second lid and placed the container carefully on the sill. He divided one slab of the blackboard in half. “What words describe God and his opposites?” he repeated.

Lashly pointed to a girl in the seat in front of the window aisle who hadn’t raised her hand. “Love,” she said.

Lashly grinned broadly. “Well, that’s what your generation is supposed to be about.” He raised his eyes up over the top of his glasses and gave the class an incredulous stare.

Ron tried to get a look at the girl who’d made the comment, but Lashly had moved on to the guy in back of her. “Power,” the guy said. Ron could see him with no trouble. He had bucked teeth and chipmunk cheeks. Ron was the fourth person in the row, and he had no idea of what he was gonna say.

Lashly pointed to a raised hand on the other side of the room. “Big Brother,” Ron heard the sarcastic voice say. Everybody laughed and Ron wondered what they were laughing about. He tried to formulate a word and waited for the question to come back his way.

As people gave their words, Lashly recorded them on the board. Ron noticed that he printed. When someone said, “expanded consciousness,” Lashly was momentarily stumped with the spelling. Then he gave up his attempt with an abbreviation and told the class in confidential tones that penmanship and spelling weren’t his strong points. He went on to say that his script had so deteriorated that he exclusively printed these days. “Most of my writing now is done on a typewriter anyway,” he added.

Ron was interested. His own handwriting and spelling had usually put him at odds with English teachers. Lashly ended his digression by saying, “The result is that we’re exploring literature, much more than English, this year.”

Ron wasn’t sure that he understood the difference and let his attention wander around the room. He was stopped by the sight of a girl with unbelievably long hair, who was bobbing her head in agreement with Lashly. Ron shifted his position to see her better. Her face was covered with soft pink freckles, and she was dressed expensively.

After about ten people had given their words, Ron noticed that Lashly had put them all on one side of the board. He walked back to his container of cooling coffee, took a quick sip and headed for the stacks of photocopied sheets. He spoke quickly as he distributed them to the group. “Here are the syllabus and course requirements. I expect you to always have reading done prior to the date when it appears on the calendar.”

“Any of you who wish to earn an A or B should make an appointment to see me about additional requirements. If you do not see me, I shall assume that you are working for a C. A “C” can be obtained by reading all of the assigned material, keeping a journal that will be collected, and coming to class regularly.”

“That should be enough for an A,” Ron whispered to himself. He looked down the list and saw that one of the class readings was the story of Abraham and Isaac. He looked up at the instructor with an ‘are you kidding me’ expression. He hadn’t come to college to read the Bible, and this guy seemed more than a little nuts.

Lashly pointed to the board and said that all the words up there were used to describe a Christian God/Devil duality. “Some of them are even more limited to the Catholics’ understanding of things.”

Ron saw the girl with exquisite red hair bring her hand up to finger the thin gold cross that hung around her neck. “Only this word,” said Lashly, circling “power” and bringing a line over to the other half of the board, seems to be a universal. Lashly paused, reconsidering the list of words. “I’m not sure what this word,” he said, drawing about 10 circles around “love”, means any more, but I think the Christian version is dangerous and ultimately fatal. He tapped the end of the chalk on the word “power” and said, “See you next time.”

The hand of the girl who’d said “love” shot into the air. “Can I see you about my grade now?” she asked shyly.

Lashly broke into a grin that made his Abe Lincoln mole disappear. “If you’ve got some time to wait, I can see you in about 20 minutes.” The girl nodded her head, and Lashly turned back to the remainder of papers on his desk while the class emptied.

Ron hit the hallway and zoomed toward the cafeteria. There were no seats, and the din blew him back into the hall. He made his way through glass doors that opened onto a quad. He sat down on a patch of grass next to a recently landscaped evergreen. He looked at the syllabus. “Western Literature: A Search for Madness.” It stated those things that had already been said in class and went on to state that all papers would be graded with comments and a happy face that indicated acceptance or a sad face that indicated rejection. Ron didn’t understand the point of drawing stupid faces instead of giving grades. “Additionally, most classes should be preceded by a comment that you feel sums up the reading of the day, placed on the side board before the beginning of class. I reserve the right not to start class until half of the students present have commented.”

Ron scanned the reading list but didn’t recognize any of the other titles. There were one or two books that he’d heard about, but that was all. He really didn’t like sitting around reading, and the work that this piece of paper represented didn’t cheer him. He looked up in time to see Lashly and the first girl in the first seat walking along the quad together. Lashly threw back his head in a cackling laugh as they entered the set of doors on the other side of the quad. Ron got up and started for the parking lot. He wondered who would be at the bowling alley.

Chapter 6

Hank was too nervous to go to school on Tuesday. He left his house in his routine way and drove around. His nerves had been making his stomach quiver all morning. He kept asking himself if he really wanted to become involved in this situation. It was a loaded question; he knew that he had to go through with it. Abruptly, and with grim determination, he turned onto the street that led directly to hers.

The sight of Tony’s truck almost stopped his heart. It sat there idling in the driveway like a greasy, gluttonous slob. He gunned his VW and sped down the street. He lay in a 30-minute junket that would make sure the coast was clear. He felt a sense of relief when he was an untraceable distance from her house. About half way through his loop, he turned back toward her house. He was about a quarter of a mile away when he saw the truck belching and jostling its way down the tree-lined street. He knew that things still weren’t safe and turned onto a route that would swing him past Welmont. He put himself on automatic pilot and thought about his meeting with Jo Lee. He lit a cigarette and made a list of things that he definitely wanted to discuss.

Looping around Welmont, he accelerated and started back towards her house. He scratched the bottoms of his palms. His pants felt tight in the crotch. He climbed her porch steps without raising his head to look at the house, scratched his palms with a last series of quick slashes, and rang her bell. Jo Lee appeared instantly and closed the door behind her. “We should get away from here for a while,” she said quickly.

They headed back to his VW. Hank felt that every window on her street was hiding a face that would catalog the details and times of their liaisons.

“Did you eat?” he asked.

She tilted her head to the side in a way that brought the light into her eyes. “No, but I’m hungry.”

“Good.”

“I know a place,” she said.

Hank felt like he would follow her anywhere. He was ready to blast off for other planets. He watched her out of the corner of his eye. At first she didn’t seem comfortable and shifted, trying to find the right position. The toy car feel coupled with Hank’s boyishness didn’t seem right, but there was a smile that was tugging at the ends of her mouth. She decided that her discomfort was very silly and that she liked Hank a lot. He sat there trying to formulate what he could now say to her actual presence. He was grateful for the silence and felt that they must be attuned in some cosmic fashion. Attuned in a way that his newest favorite author, Alan Watts, would approve.
Chapter 7

“Did you fuck her?” asked Ron.

Hank was offended by the question. Getting fucked was something that happened at Welmont, and this was different from that. Hank scowled at the existence of Welmont in his life. He’d been going there since the place had first opened and everyone he knew had grown to associate him with the place. He did meet Jo Lee there, but it was no comfort to his beleaguered spirit at the moment. Ron didn’t have to put it in those terms and besides, the answer was no.

They’d bought deli food that she liked and spread out a blanket at The South Mountain Reservation. She had rubbed her pantied pussy all over his crotch and up and down both of his legs. He’d been sure that he was going to explode right in his pants and suggested that they go to a motel. She’d stopped rubbing herself on him and moved to a cross-legged position on the blanket. “Do we have to?” she’d said in a small voice. He’d tried to sound gentle when he asked her what the matter was. “Do you know how many men I’ve been to bed with?” He was about to tell her that it didn’t matter, when she continued, “Do you know how many people have told me that it didn’t matter and then never allowed me to talk about my feelings for anyone that I’d ever been with?” She stared full into his face. “That was what you were going to say wasn’t it?”

Hank bowed his head. It was true. He felt totally responsible for all the wrongs that had ever been done to her. His was now the face of the oppressor. He had wronged her beyond measure. He grimaced in a long, hard way that allowed his consciousness to enter the web of her hair. He sat there quietly sorry about the bulge that he had between his legs, sorry that he’d ever gotten the sheets wet using her image as inspiration. His sinuses swelled, and he lit a cigarette. He blew out hard and watched the cars that passed in front of their vantage point.

Jo Lee hugged her knees and felt like crying when she considered the relative mess of her life. Her dealings with Tony had become hateful and bitter. She’d known that it was time for a change even before she’d singled Hank out. She smelled his cigarette and wanted one. She turned and offered him an open view of her face. She tried to look at his eyes but the thickness of his glasses reflected the light in a way that made it difficult. Reaching into his shirt pocket she took one of his cigarettes, lit it and asked herself if she really wanted to sleep with this kid. Hank watched her face, more sure than ever that he was in love with her.

Ron cranked up the volume on the car radio, and the change brought Hank out of his reverie. Ron felt the time had come to talk about Jo Lee’s husband. Hank hadn’t mentioned him at all. Ron wanted to tell Hank that when girls got married or pregnant, it was best to leave them alone. Ron wanted to tell him how suffocating it was when they got so close they figured they had a right to your time. They started making plans that you were included in but not asked about. Ron knew that Hank wasn’t as emotionally tough as he was. Hank was the kind of guy who could be taken for a sap. Maybe that was why Hank had never really had a girl before. Ron quietly prided himself on the girls he’d gotten, but the thought that he hadn’t had a date in weeks sent him running over his list of past girlfriends to regain his sense of security.
Reassured, he returned his thoughts to Hank and Jo Lee. She was a whore. Sure, Ron had spent his share of time thinking about what a great fuck she must be, but Hank was taking her seriously. Ron could tell by the whole way his friend looked and talked. He was fucked up about her. Besides, this would definitely screw up their routine. Ron pictured his life without the loop and the FM and the jokes that only he and Hank understood.

Hank pulled the VW into the Dairy Queen lot. They ordered some food and sat down. Ron surveyed the crowd. There was no one worth staring at.

“Do you really feel like you could love her?”

The question was overly dramatic, but Hank took this as a sign of sincerity. “She’s really beautiful,” said Hank. He didn’t know how to describe the feelings that Jo Lee gave rise to inside of him. Her vibrations stroked his manhood and gave purpose to his being. There was no way to explain that to Ron. He replayed Ron’s voice asking if he fucked her. Ron would think he was stupid for the way he felt and that was probably true but he didn’t care. He didn’t feel that way when she was there. Jo Lee stood between himself and his mind. The only problem was all the things standing between the two of them. Images of their problems stampeded into his head and displayed themselves grotesquely in front of his eyes. Hank tossed down his unfinished cheeseburger with a look of disgust.

Ron gobbled his chilidog in five gulps. He finished his soda, lit a cigarette and watched Hank stare at his food. Sometimes he admired Hank’s steadiness. Ron thought himself too sloppy, fast and awkward. Maybe that’s why Hank, and not him, had gotten Jo Lee. Ron told himself it was because he had no idea of how to take his time. Hank hadn’t taken a bite or moved since Ron had been watching. Ron told himself that if he went as slow as Hank, he would be mistaken for dead or wounded.

“So, when are you going to see her again?”

Hank raised a napkin to his mouth and tried to decide if he wanted to tell Ron anything more. Ron knew Jo Lee and a lot of the people that Jo Lee knew. What would happen if Ron opened his mouth and this leaked out for everybody to see and talk about? Hank decided it wasn’t a good idea to tell anybody about her, but then the thought of how much Ron already knew washed over him. Hank called himself a jerk. How could he have sat in Welmont all those years and still thought that it was possible to trust somebody else who sat there. He consoled himself with the idea that not many people actually talked or listened to Ron. Maybe Quimpy, but Hank had already decided that he had to tell Quimpy at some point.

“I’m going to see her tomorrow morning,” he said.

“What do you think is gonna happen?” said Ron.

Hank was, again, instantly sorry for his disclosure. “I don’t know,” he said very slowly. He smiled at Ron. “I don’t think that there will be any problems.”

“Really?” said Ron. “Well, how close did she actually let you come to her box?” Ron had decided now that Jo Lee was using Hank to make Tony, or maybe even somebody else, jealous.

“There are some things that I don’t want to talk about, “said Hank.”There are some arrangements that have to be taken care of before we can let anything else happen.” Hank hoped vainly that Ron would somehow see their need for privacy.

“Wow man! You’re really serious and you didn’t even get to finger her, did ya?”

Hank hated him instantly. He hated his own petty weakness that ever allowed him to get close to anybody. He clenched his teeth and stared harder at the uneaten portion of the burger. “I guess I’m pretty strange,” he said, picked it up, closed his eyes and bit into it.

Ron began to laugh. “I didn’t mean that, man. You know I really didn’t mean that. You know what I mean? Everything is just all fucked up.”

Ron tried to use this last statement as the basis for a treaty between them that would allow for mistakes and oversights. Hank recognized the intent and decided it was easier to agree with Ron than to try to show him how he ever felt about anything.

Chapter 8

Hank arrived at Jo Lee’s house about five minutes early. She asked him in with a lazy smile on her face. Hank held the smooth fabric of her summer robe when they kissed. It was scented with a fine, lingering odor that he had never whiffed before. Jo Lee drew back and told him she had to get dressed. She opened the robe just before she turned to go. Hank didn’t have time to focus on the flash of her body. He cursed his glasses and the bad vision that necessitated them.

The room was even more distastefully shabby in the daylight. The rug was covered with a deluge of discolorations that told the same piggish story of life with Tony that Jo Lee’s picture did. He inclined his head to listen to the room she’d disappeared into, but heard nothing. He allowed himself another triumphant gaze around the room and was staring intently at the doorway when he heard her call his name in a cheerful voice. At first he couldn’t speak but eventually mustered what he though sounded like a nonchalant “yes.”

She didn’t answer and Hank went searching for her. She was bent over a box at the foot of the bed. She was partially covered by a cloud of sheer pastel material. He stopped in the doorway and said, “yes,” again.

“Would you come here and help me with this?” She bent lower into the box and began to wave her ass back and forth in the air. It was a slow, unmistakably deliberate swaying motion. He stared gluey-eyed at her. He wanted to squeeze and rub her ass. He found himself moving forward but not deciding to move forward. He put his hands on the frame of his glasses to steady himself. Then he reached out and ran his palms up the back of her thighs and squeezed her cheeks.

An “ummmh” echoed from out of the box. His cock got immediately hard, and he wanted to take it out of his pants. Hank submerged himself in the picture she was presenting to him. Her ass was firm and he loved the line of its crack. Now she slipped one hand back through her legs and searched out his cock. Hank was jolted. He hadn’t expected her to touch him there and now he was pushing his pelvis toward her. She traced his zipper with her fingernail. Then she squeezed the whole front of his pants and began jerking him up and down. He’d gotten very hard and was pushing his pants front noticeably out. She gave him a last squeeze and let go. When she straightened up and turned around, he came back towards her. She smiled one of her liquid, slow smiles and flexed her fingers on his chest. “I have to get dressed,” she giggled and walked into the bathroom, leaving Hank staring at the open box and Tony’s unmade bed. A long wince crept onto his face. He forced his eyes to roam the room.

Their wedding picture was standing open on an unkempt dresser. Hank glared at the drunken leer on Tony’s face. Hank hadn’t cared if she was married, but the story she’d told him about it being a fake marriage was sending prickly heat sensations over his skin like an allergic reaction would. Had she lied to him? He felt his face getting hot and stared blankly at the picture.

Jo Lee came out of the bathroom in blue jeans and a bra. She walked over to the dresser and casually stood between Hank and the picture. She inhaled so that he would see the rise of her tits. Then she noticed that his face was crumpled up like a paper bag and that his eyes weren’t following her. There was a stiffness in the awkward way he held his head and the bulge in his pants had collapsed.

She turned back to the dresser and stared at the picture with him. She tilted her head to meet his eyes and smiled. “That’s a fake. We rented those costumes for a picture that we could show to people who asked.” She stood close to him and rubbed her nylon-covered tits on his chest. A hand that he hadn’t told to do anything reached up and squeezed her nylon cup and then fell back to his side.

She started to put on her shirt, and he retreated to the front room. He was looking for a magazine or a record jacket, something to read so that he could focus his mind.

They left and Hank walked quickly to his car. He didn’t feel the stare of the neighbor’s eyes, but he knew they were there. As the car turned off her street, he asked if she wanted to take a ride down to the shore. In the sunlight, it was even easier to see the plumage of freckles that colored her face and made an extraordinary contrast to her white blonde hair. She was watching him look at her with the ever- present slender smile she had these days. Now she turned to face him, and he reached into his pocket for the toll money he’d need. He tried to watch her and the road and his head bobbed between them like a flicking switch.

Ron took a swallow of coffee and looked at the total of his book bill with despairing astonishment. The figures ascended in front of his eyes like huge stone columns, which he dreamed of picking up and flinging into outer space. He had one more class to go and the figure was already more than $80. He brought his hand up to his forehead and squeezed. How could he have possibly forgotten to compute a book bill into the cost of going to school!

He pictured himself as a complete fool, incapable of advancing beyond the stage of toilet training. The strangeness of the image stopped him until he remembered the phrase was something that he’d heard in his first psychology class and that he’d picked up the phrase from his professor.

He took out a fresh cigarette pack and wondered which side you were supposed to tap and why. He tapped both ends and opened the pack. He put the cigarette into his mouth backwards and looked around to see if anyone was watching him. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. He didn’t have to buy all the books at once, and the teachers didn’t quite seem ready to start giving assignments, except for Lashly.

There had been a mix up in orders at the bookstore, and some editions hadn’t arrived yet. Ron pictured his psychology professor dusting off a pant leg as he gave the class that information.
For a moment Ron considered the possibility of chucking the whole idea and driving back to IBM in the morning. He could tell them that going to college had been a great error and that maybe they could give him his old job back. He thought about the cork- lined, windowless room in which he’d worked for the last two years. He swallowed hard on another gulp of coffee and heard a voice standing over him saying, “Would you like to be part of the best frat on campus?”

Ron looked up at a hand that was extending a sheet of paper in his direction. Behind it was a curly-headed guy in a gray sweatshirt and white, cut-off Levis. The shirt had the letters G.I.A. spread out across its chest.

“What?”

“My name is Phil Frybush,” said the voice, and Phillip sat down in the chair next to Ron. “Do you know what a service frat is?”

“No”

“We provide community services and donate our time to worthy causes, but mostly we just party.” He added the last part with a salesman’s grin that Ron had seen many times before. “Each semester we make rounds and choose those people we think would get along well in our kind of organization. We keep out the niggers and freaks without hurting anybody’s feelings.”

“I don’t think I’m the fraternity type,” said Ron in the ‘I want to get back to what I’m doing’ voice that he used on Jehovah Witnesses.

Phillip was a business major who wanted to go into sales. He took Ron’s lack of interest as an opportunity to practice his difficult customer routine. He continued positively, as if nothing had been said.

“You know pledging with us isn’t half as bad as what some frats put you through, and we have a sister sorority right here on campus.”

Ron watched him hoping that his obvious lack of interest would get rid of the guy.

“Did I mention that one of our brothers owns a Jaguar and that we have a shore house that is ours all year long?”

Ron continued to stare at him.

“By the way, what’s your name?”

“Ron Tuck.

“Well Ron, we currently have about 20 active student members and about 35 more dues- paying alumnae, but that’s not all. You’d be connected to frats all over the Northeast that are part of our organization.”

“I don’t have the time or money,” said Ron. “And besides, I don’t think I’m interested any way.” Ron used his official IBM voice.

Phillip looked punctured, and the smooth collegiate smile disappeared as the boy frowned. He began to scan the room for another prospect. Ron swallowed down the rest of his coffee and stood up. “Baby you’re a rich man, Baby you’re a rich man, Baby you’re a rich man, too” pounded out of the speakers and echoed in his ears after he was out in the hallway.

His last class of the day was math. He stopped in front of the door and looked in. He saw an old man with white hair sitting drowsily at his desk while three students sat in their chairs watching the teacher. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Spinning on his heel and picking up speed, he headed for the parking lot.

He left the radio off in the Olds because he had forgotten to adjust it back down yesterday, and George had brought it up this morning. Images from the day went through his mind like a number of transparencies that he was trying to align. They slid across each other’s surfaces like glaciers. Without words, there was a motion and peacefulness to silence.

A GTO whooshed past him with the blare of its radio. Ron saw the driver’s blonde hair and stared at the rear end of her car. He flipped on the radio and began to scan his mirrors for an opening. He jumped over into the right hand lane and began making tracks. He tailgated a station wagon until there was nothing left to do but cut off the Buick to his left. Ron beeped at the Buick and made his move. The woman in the car stomped hard on her brake and threw her arm out to protect the slumbering cat who lay next to her. An “Oh God,” escaped from her lips, and she began to tremble.

Ron was humming along with “Surf City” and passing cars easily now. George always did buy cars with plenty of pick-up. He had a clear view of the pale blue GTO now. They were approaching a toll plaza that would help him catch up. He knew how to make the most of toll booth openings. There were 12 of them to choose from, and they were fed by only 3 lanes. The trick was to keep your speed up and be ready to bank to the left or right. All you had to do was pick your slot and not stop.

He was able to slide in right in back of the GTO. A naked-to-the-elbow arm flipped a coin, and Ron noticed a bounce in her hair as she pulled away. Gliding through the plaza, he flipped the coin without stopping. The light blinked green when the Olds was halfway through. The timing was good. The Olds was almost alongside her now, and Ron goosed the pedal to pull them up even.

She drove with both hands on the steering wheel. Ron was able to scope her before she noticed him. She looked like a heavy-set dog, and he pinched the pedal again so as not to prolong contact. The Strawberry Alarm Clock called on “Incense and Peppermints” as he settled into the middle lane and continued home.

Jo Lee’s legs were spread like a two-pronged fork. Instead of the jack-rabbit Hank usually pictured himself as, he was now batting out the springy tattoo of a bedroom jack-hammer. Without his glasses, he saw her as a blur. But he could feel her all over his body. It was blind ecstasy, until she shoved her finger up his ass. Hank thought he was going to swallow his tongue from the shock, but he told himself that he didn’t care as long as he was allowed to continue to fuck this amazingly fuckable woman. She scraped her nails along the inside of his ass, and Hank was sure that he’d started to bleed. He didn’t care. He was going to run like an engine no matter what. Jo Lee clamped her legs around his kidneys and beat her heels on his spine. She was twitching involuntarily and then her eyes opened like someone who was coming out of a coma. Hank felt his hips moving with the urgency of a water pump whose speed had shifted. He felt droplets of sweat trickling from his armpits. He wanted to make noise when his orgasm sent him bucking into her but buried his mouth on her shoulder and issued muffled moans. She brought her palm to the back of his head and stroked him until the spasms subsided. Her skin glowed with pink and white luminosity that seemed to wash the lines of men and years away.

Chapter 9

The next week was as slow and painful as hemorrhoids during a cherry pepper shit. Ron had no way to get anywhere most of the time and Hank, who was walking around with the barefoot paradise feeling of wiggling his toes in four-inch thick carpet, wasn’t going to bail him out with the VW joint loops that worked on his head like ex-lax.

Ron was having trouble trying to talk to anyone and, worst of all, his twitch had returned. It was a simple flicking of his neck that was only noticeable when pointed out, but it left him with the compulsive need to stand in front of the mirror and wait for it to happen. When he finally made himself do it, he doubted that it looked the same as it did when he wasn’t watching. It was Thursday afternoon before he got a call from Hank.

“Hey man, where you been?”

“I don’t know,” said Hank happily.

“You been gettin’ laid, haven’t ya?”

“Yeah,” said Hank with a new feeling that was turning his grimace into a smile.

“Go fuckin’ get her,” laughed Ron. “Hump her once for me. ”

Hank didn’t answer, so Ron continued, “What are you doin’ now?”

“Nothing.”

“Well, when are you going to see her again?”

“I don’t know,” said Hank. “We gotta wait for her husband to go away. She has to spend some time with Tony, so that he doesn’t figure anything out.”

“Do you want to come over and get fucked-up? You could tell me about it.”

Hank thought that getting stoned was probably what he meant. “OK.”

“Come on down as soon as you want. You got any pot?”

“Yeah, I still have some of that yellow stuff.”

“Great,” said Ron, “but don’t roll anything up. I found an old piece of hash in my sock drawer. We can make hash joints.”

“Sounds good,” said Hank. “I’ll be there in about 20 minutes.”
Hank cradled the phone as his mother, who seemed to be on cue, called from the kitchen, “Are you going to have supper with us tonight, Henry?”

The thought of sitting at the same table with them and eating her cooking made him grimace. “I don’t think that I feel like having anything.” He headed for the bathroom. After he washed the upper half of his body, he patted himself with powder. He grimaced when he felt the stuffiness’ in his sinuses. He walked back to his room and slapped on some aftershave. He slipped into a madras shirt with Western snaps. He tilted his head down as he closed them because he liked the neat, little clicking sound they made when the shut. He measured about half of his pot into a black film container and tamped it in with his finger. He stuffed his front shirt pocket with cigarettes and his lighter. He slipped the film case and some rolling papers into his jeans. He picked up his keys and some momentum as he headed for the door. He glanced at himself in the hallway mirror and didn’t grimace.

His mother sat in the kitchen looking into the glass door of her empty oven. “Your father hasn’t seen you in a week, Henry.”

“Did he mention it?” He stopped to look at her with his head tilted at a 45-degree angle. He put one hand on his shirt pocket and with the other he squeezed the film container. “Tell him that I’m alright and that I probably won’t be home too late tonight.” He didn’t wait for the next question. He headed down the stairs thinking that his old man would be too blasted to ask him about anything by the time he came home.

They would probably both sit there after a soggy dinner and drink gin and tonic. He would eventually try to kiss her, whereupon she would remark about how humid and uncomfortable it was. He would get depressed and talk about Henry. He would accuse her of spoiling him. They would exchange loud words that would end when he headed for the couch. He would read the paper and fall asleep. Hank played the drama through his head with a frozen grimace on his face. Then he smiled at the thought of the hash joints.

The dog began to bark immediately when Hank rang Ron’s doorbell. He grimaced. He knew it wouldn’t stop until he was well into the house. He saw an approaching figure moving like Ron or Ron’s mother. “Be quiet!” Marjorie hollered to Chipper who continued to bark a safe distance away from her. The hallway opened into Ron’s parents’ room and then into the kitchen. Hank always thought the arrangement of rooms was weird but never mentioned it except for once when he was telling his mother what Ron’s mother was like.

Ron’s room was off the kitchen. Hank could hear the stereo on the other side of the door, which Marjorie opened without knocking. Ron threw up a sharp glance as she ushered Hank into the room. She made several return trips, making a point of not knocking so that Ron didn’t forget whose house it was.

She asked Hank if he wanted anything to drink. She returned to ask if he wanted anything to eat. When Ron answered that they’d be going out in a few minutes, she told him with a large smile and wink at Hank that she’d been talking to his friend but that he could also have something to eat if there was anything they were having that he wanted. Ron’s face flushed, and Hank sat there in awkward silence.

There were two more incursions: one to ask Hank if he was sure about not wanting anything and another to use the sliding door closet that belonged to George and her. When Ron calculated that she was finished, they broke out the dope. Ron was excited. He fingered the joints respectfully and squeezed off their ends. “Do you know how fucked up we can get on this stuff?”

“That’ll be good,” said Hank with a decisive nod. He placed the joints in a plastic bag that Ron gave him and they headed for the door.

Ron trumpeted an “I’ll see you later.” Chipper began to bark again as they left the house and got into the VW. Ron threw his head back and blew out a breath. “Wow! What it feels like to get out of there. Head for the loop so we can smoke one of these joints man.”

“Did you eat anything yet?”

“We’ll do it later. Let’s get knocked on our asses first. I don’t want to know who the fuck I am by the time the night’s over.”

Hank thought that was a pretty good image of what dope did to a person. There was something about Ron that made him, and others, nervous. It was also the part he liked about him. The “I don’t give a fuck” attitude produced much of the humor that they shared.

Hank wanted to get stoned too and have the car feel like a ball on an endless alley without pins, but there was this ache between his legs that kept reminding him of Jo Lee’s mouth. He wondered if he would be able to control his mind at all when he got stoned.

Ron stuck his elbow out the window, pretending to be contemplating some far off idea. “If you’d rather eat first, it would be fine with me. I mean if you want to go to the Dairy Queen or something like that.”

“Nah, let’s get stoned,” confirmed Hank.

Ron felt his heart start to pump blood at a good rate again. He turned up an indistinguishable song on the radio. Hank winced and headed for the loop.

They smoked the first joint without saying a word. Hank drove extra smoothly, and Ron made sure there were no stupid oversights where cops were concerned. They passed the joint at the level of the gearshift, while each of them kept a cigarette going

“So what the hell is the story with Jo Lee?”

Hank grimaced. Ron had mentioned her as if she was a problem, as if they were talking about their home lives or Welmont or something equally perverted. “She’s fantastic,” he said trying to put as much truth into each syllable as he could. “We’re gonna go away together. ”

Ron stopped smoking and looked at Hank like he’d just received a gland that no one else had. “Where are you going to take her?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe out to live with her sister.” Ron had the panicky feeling that someone was watching them and put out the joint. “Why do you want to do that?”

Hank slid over the memories of his life like they were a stream of phlegm. It had been like one huge allergy except for when he made love to Jo Lee. He had felt stronger the second time and taken 45 minutes to come. She had cried because she’d been too happy to smile. She’d told him about how it was with her husband. Hank answered that she didn’t have to call Tony her husband if she didn’t want to. She scratched his head and told him that he looked like a cat.

“It just seems like a good idea,” he said to Ron.

Ron exploded. “What the fuck kind of an answer is that? You sound like you’re from fuckin’ Texas or something!”

Hank’s mind automatically dressed Jo Lee in a cowgirl suit and put a lasso in his hand. He tried not to giggle out loud but couldn’t help it. Ron couldn’t understand what Hank was laughing about, unless it had something to do with his line about Texas. He laughed too. Hank was certain that he was getting his chance to have what everybody really wanted out of life and felt satisfied at where he currently fit into his image of the world.

Ron switched the radio stations until they got Neil Young’s “On the Way Home.” They settled into the music, and Hank pictured himself appearing at a door in a dreamlike cloud. Jo Lee answered it wearing a freshly scented, flowery bathrobe, holding their first child up to her naked breast. Hank saw himself move forward and hold out a finger or the infant to hold. Then he returned to the reality of Ron. “Let’s go to the Dairy Queen.”

Ron nodded from his “lost-in-the-music posture,” but when they got to the highway he said, “Fuck the Dairy Queen, man!”

“Why’s that?” Hank was hungry. He’d been composing his order and savoring the flavor of the sesame seed bun that his burger would be served on.

“Let’s get eggs or something else. Ya know, I just got the feeling that it’ll be noisy and crowded there. Let’s go to the diner or the pancake house.” Ron stopped. He was confused because he didn’t know why he really didn’t want to go to the Dairy Queen. “I don’t care,” he said. “We can go to the Dairy Queen if you want.”

Hank was flustered. He’d already started to decide where he could get off the highway and turn the car around when he caught hold of Ron’s last phrase. The sesame seeds danced through his brain. They tasted like Jo Lee. Hank gave Ron his “what do you want me to do?” expression.

“You decide, man. I don’t care. Anything is ok.”

Hank pulled into the Dairy Queen lot. The place was only half full. Ron exhaled with relief and nodded at Hank. They put in their usual orders and headed for an empty corner of the room. Ron tapped on the table with an empty straw left behind by a previous customer. He ripped down the paper so he could blow it off.

Hank’s mind honed in on the first time he’d seen her working at Welmont. He remembered the mysterious rustle her fabric made when she walked. It was a soft signal that perked his ears and seemed to communicate her smooth firmness and its electrifying needs. He imagined her serving him at their own private counter, his hand sliding up her leg until she smiled down at him with that long, beautiful mouth. He held the image for as long as he could. Then he felt Ron get up and head for the counter. Their numbers must have been called. He smiled at how good his timing was becoming since he’d met Jo Lee and headed for his food.

After they’d finished two more joints and done three circles of the loop, Ron told Hank the story of the fraternity recruiter. Frybush had been a squat curly-haired kid who grew more stupid and overmatched at every turn of Ron’s rapier wit. Tears bubbled in Hank’s eyes, squinting from laughter. Ron ended the story embellishing everything except the core of truth.

The idea that he should write it up as an article for the school newspaper struck him in a silencing way. A dumb voice from his recesses belched out, “The fucking school newspaper” and shook a head back and forth in a “you’ll never learn” way. He remembered first reading “Avant-Garde” magazine and being frightened by how innocent and stupid he was. He wondered if he’d get jumped and called a nigger lover. At the thought, he drew his arm muscles tight, checked them and threw a hard-as-nails look out the window. Suppose everybody laughed and called him a jerk-off? Suppose it was something that everybody knew and had almost always known and didn’t need to be told again. He told himself that it didn’t matter. His scared self would always try to keep him from doing anything new. It was more likely that he wouldn’t be able to write anything worth being read. He’d never seen the school newspaper nor did he have any idea of why he thought of it.

There was this kid who said hello to him in one of his classes, and he’d seen the kid going in and out of their offices. Then he remembered seeing the front page of it tacked over the office window. It was a large cartoon that pictured the sun rising over “Pleasant Valley Munchkin Land.”

Hank had forgotten that Ron was in the car. He was startled when Ron asked to light another joint. Hank couldn’t believe that Ron wanted to smoke more. He grimaced. “I don’t know. I’m really stoned. I don’t think that I can drive if I smoke any more.”

“Do you want me to drive?” said Ron sarcastically.

Hank was ready to give in and smoke the thing when an interior voice objected, “You mean you’re gonna take a stupid chance like this for something that you don’t even want?” Hank saw a wise finger shaking at him. “This glut next to you has never known when he’s had enough. Hank watched himself take out the last joint. Then he saw Jo Lee’s arms reaching out to him like she was a Gypsy dancer calling him to her tent. He handed the joint to Ron unlit. “You smoke it,” said Hank. He lit a cigarette and the harsh taste of the tobacco brought his concentration back to the road. He wondered how he’d been driving for the last he didn’t know how long.

“You want to head back to my house and listen to some music?”

Hank said that he did. Ron sucked easily on the hash joint and concentrated on the cradling canopy feeling he got from the tree branches. They protected everything and defended everyone. All of a sudden Hank felt relieved and completely able to handle the car. He scooted through the streets with his crusader rabbit fantasy playing in back of his eyes.

They slipped around to the back door and came in through the kitchen. They went directly to Ron’s room. Hank walked on his toes and cast sidelong glances into the corners. Ron walked back into the living room and said that they were going to listen to some music.

“Not too loud,” said Marjorie, “we’re watching a story.”

“I’ll check to see if it’s okay.”

This time her voice sounded annoyed. “Just make sure you keep it down.”

Ron went back to his room and turned on whatever record was on the turntable. It was Dylan. Hank grimaced. This was all he needed, somebody else to tell him he was a fool. “All I really want to do-ooo-ooo is baby be friends with you.” Hank put his hands up to his face, began rocking, and then moaned.

Ron laughed. “Really makes you feel good to hear his voice, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, real good.”

“Do you want to hear something more soothing? Maybe a love song? Ron was grinning and enjoying himself.

Hank didn’t know why Dylan’s voice had been kicking him in the ass every time he heard it lately. He closed his eyes and there was Bob, big beak and all, snarling at him. Ron was turning his reveries into Popeye cartoons.

Ron got up and changed the record. Neil Young started singing “Cowgirl in the Sand” and Hank immediately put Jo Lee in a bikini and stretched her out on a beach blanket. He was rubbing oil into the backs of her thighs. The voice squeaked, “Hello woman of my dreams,” and Hank nodded his head in assent.

Ron was searching the room for something to write with. Marjorie was going to get her commercial time snack and paused at the door to see if the music was too loud. She knocked on the door and then quickly opened it. Ron winced when he looked up and saw her. “What’s the matter?”

“Turn it down some. It’s getting late.” She quickly closed the door so she could get what she wanted and be back in the living room before the movie started again. Ron threw a short hard punch into the mattress. Hank shook his head back and forth when they exchanged looks. Ron got up and yanked the record off the turntable. “I got to get outta here. Do you want to go for a ride?”

They exchanged a look of friendship and headed for the door.

Ron’s hands were clenched tight. He was crossing and uncrossing his legs. His neck was twitching. Hank turned the radio on without mentioning Ron’s spastic condition. His mind drifted to Jo Lee, and he realized that he was driving towards her house. Ron probably wouldn’t even notice if he turned down her street and took a quick look at her house. It was a familiar ride even from this approach. Hank was pleased with the idea of approaching a woman with whom he was also familiar. It made him feel especially strong when he looked over at his twitching friend who had sort of rolled himself into a ball against the car door and was inhaling a cigarette at a vacuum cleaner rate. They turned onto the street that led to Jo Lee’s house and Ron raised his head like an animal feeling something in the wind. “Where are we goin’?” Hank grimaced and didn’t answer.

He drove slowly past the house, looking at the curtains for silhouettes. None of the front room lights were on. The truck cab sat in the doorway like a stuffed gargoyle. Hank stared at it with fearful disgust. They went around the loop twice; but there was nothing else to smoke, and the radio stations seemed to have saved up all the shitty songs to play at once. Ron had a headache and wanted something to eat.

“Let’s get some coffee,” he said, turning the radio off. “I’m going to give this article to the student newspaper, man. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. I don’t care what happens.”

Hank smiled. He headed for a West Orange location where they could just have coffee and sit in a booth as long as they wanted to. Hank’s mind created Jo Lee’s lawn and slid his eyes up to her window. “Silhouettes on the Shade” played cornily in the background. He entered the window like a camera at the beginning of a movie. Jo Lee was holding her dress up in the air like she’d seen rodents. Tony moved across the kitchen on his hands and knees. Beer dribbled from the corners of his mouth. His t-shirt had large stains on the stomach and rips under the arms. Jo Lee was the girl in a horror movie who was about to be snagged by the creature. Hank saw the thing’s hairy hands on her smooth knee. He clicked the picture away and just remembered her real life voice saying, “Hank, you did me good.”

When Ron arrived back home, he headed for the refrigerator where he saw a large note with his name at the top of it. “Ronald, Jerry called and you can have the car anytime you want.” He studied the note without reaction. He noticed that his heartbeat had picked up its pace. He smiled to himself and said, “What the fuck, it’s only transportation.” He bobbed his head as the idea of owning a car that had been knocked on its ass sunk in. He’d been knocked on his ass a few times.

He was in 6th grade the time Richie Porkelli had come running down the street full speed and belted him before he could look up from the book on human anatomy he was reading. He saw himself go up and back and then bounce hard on the pavement. His vibrating elbow sent electric shocks up and down his arm. His eyes blurred and refocused and then blurred again. Richie was the toughest kid in the 6th grade. He clenched and unclenched his fists as he grinned at Ron. “I did it as a dare,” he said. “Don’t be a baby, you ain’t hurt.”

“Fuck you,” snapped Ron. Then he realized that he was dizzy and couldn’t bend his elbow. He knew he wasn’t gonna fight. “You really suck, you know that?” Porkelli walked away laughing. Ron tried to remember if he’d gotten even with Porkelli.

There was the time in 8th grade when they had spent an evening wrestling on Richie’s mats. Ron broke out with chicken pox the next day and about a week or so later when Easter vacation was just starting and he was better Richie called to say that he had them. A get-back is a get-back he told himself.

He wondered what happened to the car that had hit his car. He tried to picture it but all he could remember was that it was black and square. He took the note off the refrigerator and headed for his room.

When Ron saw color coming through the green shades, he crawled across the room to look at the clock. It was 5:30. There were scattered balls of yellow paper all over the floor. Ron put them in a pile and began to take basketball shots at his lampshade. They all missed. He gathered them up to try again. When he made one, it dropped down directly into a water glass under the lamp where it opened a little like a water lily. The paper grew as it opened and then fell out of the glass onto the floor. “That’ll never happen again,” he said out loud. When he got up, his body creaked like a flight of wooden stairs. He walked out to the back porch and lit a cigarette. He sat hunched with his elbows resting on his knees. It was a heavy-aired morning and too early to judge the weather of the day. Ron felt like the chorus of birds asking him why he hadn’t been to sleep. His eyes felt watery as he flipped the cigarette onto the wet grass and staggered back to his room.

He picked up the last draft he’d made of the article and stood in the center of the room trying to read it one more time. He liked the title: A Darker Shade of White. He started to read but his mind became a snowy TV set before he got through the first few sentences. He took off his pants and shirt and flopped on the bed, almost asleep before he landed.

Hank masturbated until he came like a water sprinkler. It had taken him a while to get it going, but when he started squirting he felt like the spurts would go on forever. He was exhausted by the time his cock quieted down. He remembered the puny, dribbly little orgasms he used to have. He thought of Jo Lee and smiled the most satisfied smirk he’d ever let out with in his life. The sheet was moist and his grimaces were fading like wrinkles on a hanger-hung, permanent press shirt.

Chapter 10

Ron’s 8:00 am class was in the auditorium where he couldn’t hear half of what the professor said, where his legs stiffened and fell asleep, and where he still hadn’t figured out how you were supposed to take notes without a desk, a black board, and someone who made sense to you.

He drove George’s Olds down the parkway for what he hoped would be the last time. He’d found another note on the table this morning that said Jerry and his wife would be over to play cards that night and they were bringing the car with them. Ron was enjoying the Olds. He goosed the engine and the car shot over to the left lane with a strong power surge. The radio was playing “Hitchin’ a Ride” and Ron increased his speed until the needle began to descend and the speedometer arc. He saw that he’d gotten up to 85 mph and panicked. He looked into the rear view mirror to see if he was screwed and realized that he’d been so busy looking for cops that he hadn’t slowed down. He took his foot from the accelerator, and the car seemed to relax and begin to cruise. He moved back to the center lane where he would be less conspicuous.

Walking through the parking lot, he realized that he hadn’t brought his history notebook for the second class in a row. “Fuck,” he said and pushed through the doors of the building, gave his cock a reassuring tug and went into the auditorium.

The history class was depressing because it was dark and he never got to make out a familiar face. The teacher was a balding bearded man who wore a suit and laughed at his own jokes and anecdotes. Ron liked to sit low in his seat so that it was easy for him to not even see the instructor. He slipped in and found his place but discovered that he’d also forgotten to bring a pen. He groaned audibly. He stared down at his Math notebook and wished that he’d never come to college with its bullshit courses and its asshole teachers.

The subject for that particular ‘Western Civilization to 1600’ class was Professor Paul Lanza’s first real lecture on Paleolithic man. It was, by structure, a short wrap-up of information stretching from the dawn of man on down to the magical numbering of years which Lanza assured his class he would refer to as often as (ha, ha) the first amendment. Lanza stroked his beard and said several things that Ron couldn’t hear.

Ron squirmed uncomfortably trying to decide if he should ask somebody for a pen or just get up and leave. He looked around to see if there was a girl he’d like to ask to coffee after the class. There was nobody. He stared tensely at Lanza. He gnawed the inside of his forefinger and then said, “Fuck it. I can’t hear what he’s saying anyway.” Professor Lanza did not see Ron leave, but he did hear the back door close with a jarring thud that toppled him from his line of thought about “pre-historia” as he fondly called it. He stammered and the freshman class smirked.

Ron slumped over his coffee with the cheerfulness of a stranded astronaut. The feeling of not being where he belonged enveloped him like the smell of rotten eggs. His face reacted likewise. He bit into his glazed donut like it was his future. He tore it off in chunks that he sloshed down with coffee. In his English notebook was the final draft of “Darker Shade of White.” The title stared back at him. He admired it. He sure did like that title.

As he read his account of the encounter with Frybush, he looked around to see if there was anybody from that group present. He located their table at the back of the room and looked over at it periodically as he reread the article. There were several words that he’d guessed the spelling of, but he figured fuck it. If they didn’t print it on account of the spelling, they would be the ones making the error. He hadn’t embellished the story this time. He’d spelled out what happened and what he thought was wrong about it. His coffee had developed a sickly white film on its surface. He swallowed it down with his eyes closed.

The newspaper office had the officially cluttered look of a place where lots of people came to do their work. At the moment, it was empty floor in the center with conference tables and typewriter tables lining the walls. Ron stared down a large head of stringy blonde hair that was hunched over a pad and didn’t look up. Ron silently checked the article with the feel of the room and decided that it would be all right. He cleared his throat, but the pile of greasy straw didn’t react. Ron took a few steps into the room and there was still no reaction. “Are you on the paper?” he said in a little voice that he wasn’t even sure had gotten out of him. There was still no movement. He could see that it was a large guy and that he was working on a drawing. His skin was splotchy to the point that he looked allergic to everything. Ron thought to himself that he wouldn’t look as bad as this kid if he’d been dragged along a dirt road. He didn’t know what to do and he didn’t want to leave, so he lit a cigarette, put his books on one of the typewriters and kept staring at the growth. The bottoms of its jeans were ragged and torn up the legs. It wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Then the door to the room opened and an indistinct brunette walked past Ron squealing, “Richard! How are you?”

Richard rose slowly. “Vee. Oh far out. Got any acid?”

Vee, who now seemed fully aware of Ron, rested her hands on Richard’s shoulders. “Hello,” she said in the best formal voice she could muster.

Ron moved quickly toward her with the article in his hands. “I wrote this for the newspaper. Do you know where I can leave it?”

Vee cracked her chewing gum and pointed to a wooden box that had ”New Submissions” written on it. ”Right here,” she said.

Ron moved toward the box and gently put his article into it. He picked up his books and headed for the door.

“Are you new around here?” she said.

Ron looked down at Richard and smiled. He looked back up to Vee and broadened the smile so she could see his dimples. “Yeah,” he said and then he was out the door.

“Vee Vee,” said Richard, “Was that somebody? I’m trippin my brains out!”

“Far out, Richard” she said as she picked up her books and headed back out the door.

Ron breezed out a set of double glass doors that led to the quad. Several blankets had been laid out by sunbathers, and a football was being tossed around. Ron stopped and watched the flight of the ball. He grinned when he saw the slap against the bare chest of a stocky kid who then threw a tight spiral to his friend. Ron’s mouth fell open as his eyes panned the blankets. Some of the girls were wearing skirts that were so short they didn’t even bother trying to cover their panties. There were cut-offs and halter tops, tight jeans and long, loose hair. He had at least ten minutes before his next class. He stood against a wall and brought his knee up so that he could rest his books on them. The other hand deftly snagged his cigarettes and matches. He comfortably saw that there were other people in the same position doing the same thing. He was almost relaxed and blew his smoke out easily.

He didn’t notice Vee, who didn’t notice him as she walked by. She was upset. A stranger at the school was not her idea of somebody it was cool to talk about acid around. She dismissed the worry with the thought that she’d ask Chris to tell Richard to be more careful. Ron felt like he was part of the panorama. He counted the nipples and the delightfully wiggling behinds and then he thought that it must be time for his class. In the hallway he saw a clock that told him he was late. He said, “Shit,” and walked quickly to the class.

Ron was mechanically copying down all the numbers the math teacher was putting on the board. He hadn’t the slightest shred of understanding of anything the guy said. He aimlessly connected circles and squares and wondered if he was ever going to get a date with one of the girls who seemed to be everywhere. The time he’d spent at IBM had left him feeling sexually deprived and turned him into a desperate man. Maybe he couldn’t get a date for tonight, but what about tomorrow? If Jerry’s car was coming over tonight why couldn’t he get a date? He drew a ”$” in his notebook that answered his question. The check for his first student loan hadn’t come through yet and tuition had taken everything that he’d put aside when he was working. He did have about $12 but that wasn’t the point. The point was finding somebody to go out with.

Ron raised his head to the blackboard to write down some more numbers and then turned around to a full-faced, picturesque smile that was sitting in back of him. She was as smooth as cultured pearls. The pearls smiled again and Ron tried to smile back at them but wasn’t sure if he’d smiled or just stared. He turned back to his notebook. He felt a tension in back of him. She was right there and she was fuckin’ beautiful. Okay, he thought, this is my shot. We’re going to be leaving together. It would be okay if he found the right way to make connections and the connections didn’t already have something plugged into them.

Ron wrote more numbers and thought about a good excuse to turn around again. He didn’t want to look like an obvious jerk-off. He could drop something. He sneered at his own thought. That was the way he and his friends looked up girls’ skirts in the 7th grade. He flashed back on Susan Lucarelli, the chunky, dark-haired girl who sat with her uniform hiked up high enough for anybody to see whatever he wanted to look at. He remembered telling his friend Paul to get a look at her. Paul thought she was schievy but began dropping his pencil as much as Ron. Later that week, Paul and Susan had told everybody that they liked each other and Ron had felt screwed.

Okay, so he couldn’t drop anything. What about asking her what was going on with the class? It was an honest question and probably good for later on, after he’d starting talking to her but it didn’t help him right now. Ron wrote down another set of numbers and tried to look at Professor North like he was listening. He actually did understand about a third of what the old geyser was saying. Maybe if he paid attention, he would understand it all before long.

He shifted in his chair and turned so that he was facing the aisle. He looked down at the floor again and then at her desk and then at her face. She smiled again. Ron judged the second smile to have been smaller than the first and wondered if he’d fucked up. The exit was the important move now. There were at least ten minutes left in the class. He wanted to groan. He wondered if he should ask her to go get some coffee. His attention then turned to Professor North, who was saying that it was rather warm today and that they were at a time of year when summer weather was at a premium and so he was letting the class go early. Ron decided that the old guy was okay.

Everybody started to stand up and now Ron felt that it was almost happening too soon. He turned around as he stood up. She was still seated, arranging her books and pens. Ron watched as she opened different compartments of her handbag to put things away. He’d stood up too soon, and now there was nothing for him to do except leave the room. When he got out into the hall he turned with the door to look back into the room. She was making her way down the aisle. Okay, he told himself. All I’ve got to do is stall for a few seconds. He found a beautifully convenient bulletin board covered with sheets of computer print-out paper. He stared at them thinking about how the perforations made it resemble toilet paper.

He gave the pearls a big smile when she walked past him, but she didn’t seem to notice. He watched her tight jeans and the sway of her superb ass as it wiggled down the hall. Out of my league, he told himself. This is a real piece of ass. “Fuck it.” said a voice from inside him. He quickened his pace and was up alongside her in a few seconds.

“That was pretty nice of him to let us out early like that.”

She smiled the way he’d seen her smile the first time.

“I think he’s a nice man.”

She turned through the doors and out into the parking lot. Ron stayed alongside her, not knowing where his car was or in what direction they were headed.

“Would you like to get something to drink?” he said awkwardly.

A polite little smile answered him. “No, I don’t think that I can. I really have to be getting home right away.” As she turned him down, they arrived at the apron of the parking lot. “See you next week,” she said and started for her car.

Ron heard the voice say, “stop worrying,” and called after her to wait a second. “What I really wanted to ask you while we were having coffee, was whether or not you’d like to go to the G.I.A. rush party with me on Saturday night.”

She looked at him without saying anything. It was almost like she was silently stuttering.

“I know,” he said figuring that he’d better go on, “that it’s a bit sudden, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to get to know you better and I waited for you after the last class (this was, of course, a lie) but I couldn’t find you. I mean, well the truth is that I think you’re very pretty and that it would be great if you went to this party with me.” Ron decided that he’d said enough.

She had to admit to herself that she didn’t have a thing to do on Saturday and that she’d been complaining to her friend Joyce that very morning about how not one of the boys at the school had done anything except stare at her. She’d told Joyce that she was sure there was something wrong with her. She’d seen the signs for the beer blast but this didn’t seem quite right. She was on her way home and this guy who’d never even said hello to her was asking her out.

“I don’t know,” she said.

It was a small opening and Ron was going to try and scoot in before it closed. “What’s your name?” he said grinning. Everybody told him he had a beautiful smile, so he might as well put it to use.

“Veronica.

“My name is Ron,” he offered. “Hey, you know, this does sound weird, but I think that we could have fun together.”

“Why not,” she heard herself saying.

She clunked her books down on top of her car, a ’64 Ford that Ron told her looked to be in great shape, tore out a piece of paper and gave him the necessary information. He stared at her breasts as she wrote.

“I’ll be seeing you on Saturday night then,” he said. “At about 7:30?”

“Why don’t you give me a call at around 5:00 when I get home from work,” she said thoughtfully.

“OK,” said Ron and smiled.

She thought that he had a round face. He backed away and gave her a silly little wave. She looked down at her books and then back up as she got into her car. And big shoulders, she thought.

Ron’s pulse was beating like the drum solo from “Pipeline.” He maneuvered his way to his car feeling like Superman. Her ass was outstanding and the jeans were super tight. She must have known how it wiggled and done it on purpose. He wondered if he’d get laid. He ran his hand over the sheet of directions that he’d put next to him on the seat of his car. The phrase “Treasure Hunt” went on in his head like a sign. He saw himself running down aisles stacked with footlockers that had girls’ faces pictured on them. Jan Murray urged him on and the audience clapped wildly. He stopped at the locker with Veronica’s face. The pearls shone with a smooth luminosity. He pushed the button on her locker and the face was replaced by a picture of her tight-jeaned ass. Ron cheered with Jan and the audience.

He switched on the radio in the middle of a commercial for Raceway Park that featured the sounds of Big Daddy Don Gartlet and his funny cars. Ron was happy. When the Four Tops began to sing about Bernadette he sang along with them and thought about how good it was gonna be to get his hands on Veronica’s behind. The ride home took about 20 minutes. There was a fair amount of traffic that made zig-zagging fun. He floored the gas pedal when he heard “Paint It Black.” Then he saw a trooper’s unit and slowed up. He felt like he was always surrounded by cops.

The police station in his town was located on the corner and patrol cars went past night and day. The fuckin’ town judge lived across the street with his screwy daughter. Ron vaguely remembered a story about how she used to put on a show with frozen hot dogs for some of the guys on the football team. There was supposed to be a whole lot more to the story but he hadn’t been a part of the group, and the girl had only barely ever said hello to him. He swung George’s car into the driveway, trying to come close enough to a tree that marked its far corner to break off a twig that jutted out from its trunk.

Aunt Dottie was sitting on the steps that led up to her apartment with Chipper beside her. “How are you doing, Ronald?” she said fishing into her pocket and coming out with a $20 bill. Go on down to the corner and get me 4 packs of Chesterfields, will you?”

“OK,” said Ron taking the bill and heading back out the door.

She watched him leave and put her arm around Chipper. “I guess I’d better let him have the change, don’t you think Chip? He’s probably broke. Twenty years old he is and still in school. Been married two years and lost a child by the time I was his age. He is a handsome boy though, isn’t he Chip? Just like my brother before he went into the Navy. Thank God this one is smart enough not to want to go!” She hugged the dog’s neck. “Well, I don’t think I’ll get to puff that many more packs of Chesterfields.” She paused and the dog whined. “Do you want to go out?” Chipper barked and wagged her tail. She made her way into the back yard.

When Ron returned, she told him to keep the change. Ron was confused by a mocking voice from inside him that kept laughing at him and saying that he was too old for this sort of thing. He settled for a hollow, “I’ll get this back to you sometime, Aunt Dot”

She gave him a stern look. “I should live so long.”

“You’ll be around,” he said with a look of reassurance that made her want to spit at him. She turned her back and walked to the other end of the yard wondering why nobody except for her was willing to see that she was obviously dying.

They were having Larusso’s sausage mixed with potatoes, onions and oil for dinner. Marjorie had met the owner of the market when they’d been on vacation a few years ago and now they bought their meats exclusively from the market. George loved to go back to the old neighborhood and shop whenever he could and Ron loved to sop Italian bread in the stuff, so it was usually a happy meal.

Ron told the story of how he’d gotten his date and added that Jerry’s car had come along just in time. Marjorie laughed to Dottie that he was already making plans for a car he hadn’t gotten yet.

“What do you expect from a young man,” snapped Dottie.

“At least he’s got some life in him. This house would seem like a graveyard if somebody didn’t bring some life into it.”

“What’s that remark supposed to mean,” said Marjorie. Then George said, “How are you going to drive the car and make sure it’s registered and has plates and insurance?”

Ron froze with a mouth full of sausage. He started to say the word fuck and caught himself. He hadn’t thought about any of that or what it would cost. He swallowed, forgetting to chew the food any more, and a glob of sausage fat caught in his throat and made him start to cough. A few seconds later he realized that he was choking. It wasn’t fat at all, it was a sausage string and it was caught halfway down his throat. He reached, red faced, into his mouth and tried to pull out the string. He gagged and had to run to the bathroom where he vomited his dinner into the bowl.

“Jesus Christ!” said Marjorie. “What did you tell him that for?”

“What did I say?” screamed George waving a fork full of salad.

“I’m taking my plate upstairs,” said Dottie, who was a bit ashamed of Ron and saw that the meal wasn’t taking a good turn.

Ron came out of the bathroom with beads of sweat on his red face. “Why do they put string in the meat?” he growled intensely.

George looked down with a secret smile at the two pieces of string carefully laid out on the fringes of his plate and didn’t say anything.

“Sit down and have your coffee,” said Marjorie. She replaced the mug and filled it for him. She picked up her dish and scraped it into the garbage.

“What’s the matter?” said George.

“I’m not hungry any more,” she answered.

George stabbed his last piece of sausage pointedly. His fork pierced the skin with a little pop that emphasized the fact it was good Italian sausage and that he liked LaRusso’s market.

Ron knew that George would never let him have the car to take Veronica to the party but was struck with an idea.

“Won’t the car have plates on it?”

“Probably not,” said George.

“Well then how are they gonna get the car over here?”

“I don’t know,” said George stumbling. “Maybe he left the plates on and just turned in the registration. The car still won’t be insured.”

Ron thought that this seemed like the best time. “Well, can I borrow your car on Saturday night then? You’re smirking.”

“Your mother and I are supposed to go out,” said George.

Ron looked at his mother, who nodded in the affirmative. Ron looked up and headed for the phone. He dialed Hank’s number with a hand that wanted to punch something. The line was busy. He slammed the phone down and headed for his room.

“You are really something,” hollered Marjorie.

Ron walked back into the kitchen holding his shoes. “What do you mean?”

“Here we are trying to help you get a car. Is it our fault that your car blew up? Is it our fault that we work all week and want a little friggin’ enjoyment on Saturday night?”

“Did I say it was?”

“But the way you act is shitty?” Nothing can go wrong in your life without you blowing up. Grow up for God’s sake.”

Ron’s face was a tense mask of muscle when he got to the sidewalk. There was a booth on the corner. He dialed Hank’s number again. The line was still busy. “Fuck it,” he said and went to the avenue and stuck out his thumb. Nobody stopped for the ten minutes that he stood there. He saw a bus in the distance and dug into his pocket for some change.

Chapter 11

Hank hung up the phone and sailed toward the back door with a hop in his step. He issued his normal, but this night slightly extra cheerful, “Good-bye, see you later.” He trotted down the wooden steps. Tony had called Jo Lee to say that he had a chance for a quickie overnight haul that would pay about $200 after expenses. Jo Lee told Tony that she didn’t mind if he went. She said she would go to the movies and he should have a good trip. She told Hank about it with excitement in her voice. She said they would be able to make their own movie. Hank asked what time he should come over and Jo Lee said that depended on how much he wanted to see her. “I’ll be there in 5 minutes,” said Hank. Jo Lee giggled as she hung up the phone.

Hank jumped into his car and started the engine with the phrase “reckless abandon” in his head. She was waiting for him at the curb and popped into the car with a freshness that made Hank want to toot out a happy trumpet sound. “Drive away from here so I can kiss you,” she said in a way that put a bulge in Hank’s pants.

“You look wonderful,” he said.

Jo Lee blushed and turned her head to the side. Something in the silly way he said things made her act like a girl and she wasn’t going to have to sit home getting loaded and watching Friday night clunkers on TV. Suddenly she said that Hank had to stop the car right away. She took hold of his head and stuck her tongue in his mouth. Hank felt like even his hair was shivering. She ran her hand along his stomach and up to his chest, found his nipple and tweaked it, something that Tony would have slapped her for doing. Hank just jumped a little and started his face back towards hers.

“Let’s see a movie,” she whispered.

Hank reached into the back seat and resourcefully produced the daily paper’s movie section, opened and folded right to the theater timetable. “Let’s see a drive-in,” she said. Hank smiled and wished that he still had his Chevy with its bench seats. The bug wasn’t that good for a drive-in.

“Would you rather see “2001” or “Midnight Cowboy?”

“Either one is okay with me,” he said.

Jo Lee’s mouth made a little “O” and said, “I know what you want to see. You want to see “Danish Delights” and Mrs. Hill’s Fanny” don’t you?” She watched him holding the paper in front of her face like a veil.

“That’s at a drive-in,” said Hank weakly.

“I’m not going to tell you where it is because then you’ll just take me there and do who knows what to me.” Jo Lee put her fingers on the edge of her skirt and began to roll it back. It took Hank a few folds to notice but once he realized she was pulling up her skirt right there in his car, he became the driver of a rather reckless vehicle. He couldn’t stop looking at her. His expressions changed from excitement to lust to anticipation to frustration. His confused voice said, “Have you seen ‘2001’?”

Jo Lee’s skirt was well over the edge of her panties and she stopped with a last fold that clearly intended to leave it there. “No,” she said, “what’s it about?”

Hank wanted to stare at her and wanted to drive and wanted to tell her about the story. The overload had frozen him. “I don’t really know. Different people have written really different things about it.”

“Don’t you want to see for yourself?” she said in a strange voice that made him return to staring at her.

Her hand was between her legs and she was walking her second and third fingers up and down the front of her panties like a joyful yellow pages commercial. Then they came walking over her left thigh towards Hank. They leaped to the gearshift and Hank realized that he hadn’t looked at the road for what must have been minutes. Somehow they were still going down the street normally and not seeming any different from any of the other cars. “Helicopter, helicopter,” she said as her hand popped into the air with wiggling fingers and landed between Hank’s legs. She scratched the corduroy that covered his cock. She whispered close to his ear “Do you want to come out to play?” Hank held the wheel firmly. She bit into the bottom of his ear. “What film would you rather see, Hank?” Hank tried to say that he wasn’t sure but she plopped her tongue in and out of his ear and he moaned. “I think you’re a ‘Midnight Cowboy’,” she said and squeezed his cock again. It was hard and pressing against his zipper. If he hadn’t been watching the road, he would have seen how much the erection impressed her. Hank was breathing hard and his sinuses hurt.

“We can see “Midnight Cowboy”,” he managed to say. His throat was beginning to clog from the migration of mucus. She kissed him underneath his sideburn and read out the name of the drive-in on Route 3.

Chapter 12

It had just turned dark when Ron, bored with being at Welmont again, started to walk home. He wanted to make sure that he was there in time to see “The Hustler.” It was his favorite movie although “The Ten Commandments”, which he hadn’t seen in some time, still got some billing on his list. He stared into the window fronts and thought that the streetlights made him look good. When he reached the corner by the Tremont Theater, he studied the poster of an actress holding Steve McQueen’ s hands up to her tits.

The picture and the location made him think of Cindy, who lived just up the street. They’d dated during the year after he graduated high school and they’d fucked at least once a week. He used to love to bounce her tits on the palms of his hands. She’d said that she liked it when he squeezed them gently and sucked them hard. Thinking of those huge creamy tits and her red bush, he walked up her street. He wondered if she’d gone back to high school and stopped across the street from the driveway that ran alongside the apartment building she lived in. He pulled on his cigarette and stood still like a picture. Then he flipped the butt away just like Sinatra would’ve done it. He almost imagined a spotlight following him back down the street.

As he turned the corner he came face to face with two policemen who had been watching him from the other side of the corner store window front. Ron’s eyes caught the flash of a long silver cylinder and then he was blinded by an explosion of light.

“Hey,” said Ron, bringing his hands trying to turn away.

“Where are you coming from?” said a voice from the other side of the light.

“Welmont Lanes,” said Ron. He felt himself being backed up against a wall and held there with one arm. Two other hands patted down his chest, sides, and legs.

“Welmont Lanes isn’t up this street,” said the cop who clicked off his flashlight in time for Ron to see two patrol cars pulling up at the curb.

A tankish guy with a bald head, wearing a short sleeve shirt and baggy pants with the flourish of a handkerchief sticking out of his rear pocket, approached Ron with a swagger that made him look like a rumbling machinery. The two patrolmen backed away a step as Detective Gavonelle stopped in front of Ron, who thought the guy was going to hit him. “What’s your name?”

“Ron Tuck. Can I ask what I did wrong?”

“You know what you did,” said the tank. Detective Gavonelle turned around to make sure that the other men were paying attention. “OK, you found him coming from up there?” He pointed up Cindy’s street. “What did he tell you?”

The voice from in back of the flashlight had blonde hair and a broken tooth. “He lied. He said he was coming from Welmont.”

The tank turned its barrel mouth on Ron. “You said you came from where?”

Ron looked past the tank and saw that a small crowd had gathered in twos and threes. The people had come from nowhere and were staring at him. He heard a voice say, “There’s Betty! Hello Betty.”

“I was walking home from Welmont, and I took a little detour.

“Sure you did kid.” The tank put his hand on Ron’s shoulder and was leading him to the car.”We’re going to take you in Ron,” said Gavonelle. Ron slid into the back seat next to the flashlight holder who smirked and showed his broken tooth.

Ron felt dull and detached. I’m in a squad car, he thought, and they’re taking me in. He felt like he must’ve done something very wrong and first they would show him what it was and then they would put him away for a long time. As they reached the police station, he thought, this could really be the end of my life. I’ll be out on the streets and probably die in some gutter when they’re done with me.

Ron was led to the Sergeant’s desk. The blonde guy left him standing there and went around the side through a swinging door. He stopped in front of a guy with a cigar in his mouth and gestured over his shoulder at Ron. Ron started back at them and fought off the inclination to put his head down. Then the blonde guy came back towards Ron and said, “Come with me.”

They walked slowly down a fluorescent-lit corridor. Ron kept looking for a clock and wondering if “The Hustler” had started yet. They entered a room that held a dozen large, wooden worktables and a wall of file cabinets. Ron reached for his cigarettes but found they’d disappeared during the confusion. “Are you guys gonna tell me why I’m here?”

“In a few minutes,” said the broken tooth who Ron noticed had a tattoo creeping down from under the edges of his shirt sleeves.

“Can I make a phone call?” said Ron in a voice that he was sure would get action.

He was startled when the cop replied, “Not yet.”

“I dropped my pack somewhere when you guys picked me up. Do you think I could have a cigarette?”

The cop looked back at Ron quizzically. He reached into his pocket and drew out his pack along with the lighter his wife had given him for his birthday. He watched protectively as Ron used it and snapped it shut with a click, which was rougher than the treatment Patrolman Peters thought it deserved.
The tank rolled into the room just as Ron was finished looking at a bulletin board full of messages that he couldn’t quite read from where he sat. The tank was followed by a man in a blue uniform with a jacket Ron hadn’t seen before. Gavonelle stopped in front of Ron and leaned over the worktable saying, “Okay Ron, you can make this a lot easier if you just tell me what happened.” He had a sickly kind of scary look on his face.

“Well, I was walking down the street and you guys, he looked over at Patrolman Peters, came along and grabbed me.” He looked into the barrel of the tank as sincerely as he could. His voice was beginning to quaver. He was aware that this wasn’t like being told to move on and then getting caught standing on the same corner a few minutes later. He tried to remember what he’d done wrong and summoned up a courage that was born out of innocence and curiosity. “Would you tell me why I was brought here? What am I supposed to have done?”

“Purse snatching,” said Gavonelle. He delivered the charge at Ron’s face with a searching expression that would clue as to the type of individual he was dealing with. Ron was in a state of semi-shock that could only be compared in his life to the way he felt when they told him they were going to operate on his left knee, or when they told him they were going to operate on his right knee, or when they told him after the second operation that they’d found a tumor in his knee and that they were going to check for malignancy, or when they told him that he was being thrown out of his first high school, or when he’d gotten caught stealing money from Marjorie’s piggy bank and he was told that he was being taken to Boystown. He was unable to do anything for at least 30 seconds. He wasn’t dizzy but everything seemed to blur in front of him. He tried to look at something he could grab hold of.

Gavonelle interpreted his silence for resignation and even went so far as to nod his traditional nod, something he reserved for a private job well done that he learned to give himself because there was no one else there going to give it to him. He was disappointed when Ron mumbled, “I didn’t take anybody’s purse,” in a rather believable way. Some of them held out longer than others and some of them never did admit to things they’d done no matter what the evidence was. You could never really figure out how they were going to react. It was only a guess as to whether the evidence would put some sense into them as it was built up.

“All right,” said Gavonelle, “You’re not going to do this the easy way, right? You’re going to sit there and make us listen to your bullshit story about where you were, aren’t you? I’m telling you right now, Ronnie, I’m not gonna give you a break if you put me through a load of crap. Do you understand what I’m telling you kid?”

Ron shook his head “yes” and then said, “But it’s not crap. I didn’t take anybody’s purse.”

“Okay,” said Gavonelle throwing up his hands and gesturing to the guy in the blue jacket. “This is Sgt. Brady. He’s going to take your fingerprints and check them out to see if you have a record. Do you have a record, Ron?”

Ron immediately flashed back to the time when he lived in Newark. He was in 6th grade and had been caught with a butcher knife that he’d stolen from his mother’s utility cabinet. He and his friends were going after the niggers because they had gone too fuckin’ far this time. The war never came off because the cops got wind of it and showed up before anything happened. Even though they were Protestants, his mother had put him in a Catholic school after that.

Sgt. Brady led him over to another table. Ron wanted to yelp when Brady pressed his fingers onto the pad and then across the paper, but he only looked up at the tank and waited to see what was going to happen to him next.

“Okay,” began Gavonelle in a tired and sarcastic voice, “Where were you about 9 o’clock tonight?”

Ron said, “Can I make a telephone call and let someone know that I’m here?”

“Why do you want to do that?” Gavonelle was now more convinced of the suspect’s guilt. He’d been in the station less than an hour and he hadn’t really been asked any questions and he was already requesting counsel.

“Isn’t it my right?” said Ron.

The three cops in the room smiled at each other and the broken-toothed one shifted his feet and relaxed. At least now he was starting to act like someone who’d gotten caught.

“You’ll get all your rights,” said Gavonelle. “Where were you at 9 pm is what I asked.”

“I was probably at Welmont Lanes or had just left.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I went to shoot some pool and see if any of my friends were around.”

“Who did you meet?”

“Nobody was really there, so I had a cup of coffee and played by myself for a while.”

“Okay, Okay,” said Gavonelle. He was impatient to get to the rest of it. “When did you leave the bowling alley?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Didn’t you just say that you left at 9 o’clock?” Gavonelle shook his head. He was sure that his instincts were correct. The kid would come around in no time, especially after they got the woman to identify him.

“Can I have another cigarette?” said Ron.

Peters didn’t answer this time, nor did he appear particularly pleased when the tank swerved around to him and said, “Let’s make sure our fearless purse grabber gets his rights. Give our boy a cigarette. He’s a hero who grabs old ladies’ purses in the dark. He deserves not to be deprived.”

Peters put his pack of cigarettes and the lighter on the table a distance away from Ron. Ron looked down at the black-tipped fingers which made him look like a shoeshine boy. He held up his hands to show them that he couldn’t touch anything without smearing it. Gavonelle tossed a single butt and a pack of matches from his own pocket in Ron’s direction. “Helpless as a baby, right,” he said with a short, bitter laugh. The other cops looked at Ron like the word asshole was written on his forehead.

A fourth cop came into the room and leaned down to say something near Gavonelle’s ear. The detective got up and pulled out his back pocket handkerchief. He wiped his face and gestured to Patrolman Peters. “Make sure gorgeous George here doesn’t burn himself trying to light his cigarette.” He started for the door after the fourth cop.

Ron wondered if this was when he was gonna get hit. He’d heard stories about the room downstairs at this police station. When Gavonelle was out of the room, Ron turned to Peters. “Look man, I didn’t do anything. How do I get this guy to stop acting like I’m guilty?”

Peters didn’t seem to want to answer but said, “The detective is only doing his job. If you haven’t done anything wrong, everything will work out okay for you.”

Ron didn’t believe a word of it. He had a panicky feeling that told him he was about to get screwed really badly. He got up and started to pace towards the door. Peters instantly moved around so that he was in front of Ron. It was odd how this kid didn’t realize that his freedom had been taken away and that things were going to stay this way until a matter was settled and probably after that. Peters would show him exactly what that meant if he did anything stupid.

Ron backed up and sat down in the chair again but was unable to stop fidgeting. These fuckin’ guys sucked and they were about to make one of the most jerked-off moves of all time! He wanted to tell Peters about how he knew the judge in his town and that he was gonna make sure that they were the ones who got screwed for this. Too scared to say anything more, Ron formed his accusations in his mind and tried to write them on his face with his expression. Peter’s wasn’t moving, and Ron wondered if they taught you to stand there and do nothing at policeman’s school. Peter’s probably thought there were no contradictions in the world. What a jerk-off! He’s got it figured out so that things always come out even or in his favor, thought Ron.

The door opened, and Gavonelle rolled back into the room. Ron could have sworn that he made squeaky sounds when he walked. “Get up and come over here,” he ordered. “Stand in front of this mirror.”

Ron thought, “This is where I get belted.” He felt very small and like there was a big hole in his pants. The mirror reminded him of a clothing store that he once worked in. He put his head down with shame at how innocent he’d been back then.

“Look straight into the mirror,” said the tank. “Stand up straight.” After a few seconds he barked, “Say something.”

“What should I say?” Ron turned around to the tank like he was a friend who would help him in this time of need. Gavonelle nodded his head understandingly. “Say: if you scream, I’ll kill you.” Ron repeated what the detective had said. “Say it louder and meaner,” said Gavonelle like he was firing a machine gun. Ron closed his eyes and bit his lip. He screamed out the line Gavonelle had given him. “Turn sideways,” said the tank, who Ron now decided resembled a bull dog. He felt almost too weak to stand up anymore. “The other way,” barked Gavonelle.

Ron showed the mirror his other side. He was ready to scream out, “Okay! You’re right! I’m disgusting! I disgust myself too.” He wanted to ask for another chance to straighten things out. A voice in his head said that only little kids get second chances and that he should have known that they’d catch up with him sooner or later.

“Sit down here,” said Gavonelle, placing a chair in front of the mirror and mumbling to Peters, “Keep him in the chair.”

Ron squeezed the bridge of his nose from his eye sockets.

Why had this happened to him? How the fuck could he ever explain this? He had just been on his way home like any other fool who didn’t have anywhere to go on a Friday night. Maybe that was why it had happened. Maybe it was because he didn’t have places to go like normal people. That was probably what this was all about.

“Is there any place where I can get some water?”

“Just sit there,” said Peters.

He turned and left the room. Ron was by himself for the first time in what seemed like hours. He let out a breath and cracked his knuckles. Peters didn’t seem to be coming back. Ron got out of his chair and went to the door to see where his water was. Peters met him at the door with a 2-ounce Dixie cup in his hand. “Didn’t I tell you not to get out of the chair?” he said in a raised and worried voice.

“No,” said Ron. “You told me to stay where I was. I haven’t gone anywhere.” Peters clenched his fist, and Ron moved back to the chair draining the cup that teased his thirst. He stared at his own reflection. He could have sworn for a minute that he could make out the smallish figures of the tank and the silhouette of a dress in the mirror. They appeared to be inside a camera. It wasn’t until then that he realized that he was in front of a two- way mirror. He stiffened and looked down at his shoes. He did not look up at the mirror again.

A long time passed. Ron did not ask for a cigarette or any more water. He ceased to search out the details of the muggy room. He no longer wondered if “The Hustler” had started. The flesh and lines of his hands became increasingly interesting to him. He studied them intently as if he was tracing the route of a long, winding river. He dug at the creases of his knuckles like his nails were bulldozers that he could just go on digging with until he made some real progress, until he had done some real structural damage that would even impress these punchpress people. He was happy when his hand began to bleed. He held the cut up to the corner of his mouth and gnawed at it like a merciless rodent. His lips got sticky from the blood.

When the tank came back into the room, he was swinging his arms loosely. “Okay Ron,” he said cheerfully, “everything checks out for you.”

Ron stared up at him. “What?”

Gavonelle immediately looked annoyed. “I said that everything checks out for you. You can leave but watch yourself in the future.”

“What do you mean I should watch myself in the future?” Ron was reviving quickly. He shoved his left hand into his back pocket. “What the hell did I do that I should watch myself about? Walking home? Is that what I did wrong? You wonder why people my age can’t stand you!” Gavonelle was walking away and Ron started following him. “I should tell you what I did and make things easy,” he spit after the tank as it rumbled into the hallway.

Patrolman Peters moved in front of the door. “Calm down before you get yourself in real trouble.”

“What did I do to get myself brought in here?” shouted Ron.

“Just relax!” screamed Peters, a little louder than Ron had shouted. He held out his arm to keep the punk from running after the detective. If there was going to be trouble from this smart assed punk who was probably right for the first time in his life, Peters would love to deck him. Ron stared at the cop and shifted on his feet. In his gut, he wanted to race at the cocksucker and drive a nail into the broken tooth with his fist. What fuckin’ right did these bastards have to put him in here and do this to him? Ron was led out of the room some two minutes later and was escorted down the hall by Patrolman Peters, who stood him in front of Sgt. Brady

“They’re spoiled, that’s what the matter with them is! How do they think they’d make out in any other country in the world? For about ten minutes they’d last. They all act like it,” Brady shouted over to Gavonelle. Ron saw him out of the corner of his eye.

Ron wanted to scream “Fuck all of you” and drive the stapler that was sitting on Brady’s desk into the prick’s eyes. He was certain that he could do damage before they got him. It seemed that everyone in the room was smirking at him. They’d gotten the best of him.

He hit the door, saw his bus coming down the street and ran to meet it. As he paid the fare, he wondered why they hadn’t searched him. On top of being cops, which was bad enough, they had been fuckin’ stupid cops.

He could hear the hum of the air conditioner as he approached his house. When he climbed the steps, he could make out the background noise of the television. He smiled at the familiarity.

The apartment was dark except for the TV light. Ron walked over to the floor lamp and switched on the brightest light. Marjorie and George were temporarily blinded. Ron watched them squinting and thought they resembled mole people.

“What’s the matter with you? We’re watching something!” moaned Marjorie. George groaned, got out of his recliner and headed for the bathroom.

“I was arrested tonight,” Ron announced.

George stopped in his tracks and Marjorie looked scared when she asked, “For what?”

“Purse snatching,” said Ron, adding sarcastically, “I didn’t do it.”

George walked away shaking his head and muttering. When he was safely in the bathroom, he reached into the hamper and pulled out a copy of “The Kitten.” He began to read from the place he marked that morning. The kitten had just decided to help out this couple whose marriage had become dull. She was telling Mrs. Undee to open her legs and that she would do the same. Mr. Undee would play bunny rabbit. Mr. Undee had gotten very excited when George heard Marjorie call, “Would you please come out here and call this police department that arrested Ronald?” George closed the book, put it back in the hamper, stared at the shower curtain and got up wearily.

Chapter 13

While Hank and Jo Lee were waiting for the start of the movie, they stared out into the playground that was set up at the base of the screen. Jo Lee gazed at Hank’s profile and saw a softness in his expression as he watched the children. She wondered what a child of theirs would look like. She took her yellow page fingers and twined them in the hair above his temples. Dangling in front of her eyes was Shirley Temple singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” She stared down disapprovingly at his glasses. The thought that they might have a blind child frightened her. Suppose he went blind and she got stuck taking care of him.

Hank was smoking a cigarette and quietly letting Jo Lee play with his hair. He knew that this was the way life was supposed to be. He had been slightly concerned about whether the car speaker would be broken or fuzzy, but by now not even an essential like that was more than a detail.

They tickled each other and laughed when the movie started. They pointed like they were visiting a zoo. Hank became interested in the plot, while Jo Lee grew bored and decided it was one of the stupidest movies she’d ever seen. She wondered what Hank could be thinking about while they watched this thing. She liked the title but the people were all the same. There was no monster, no action, none of the things she liked in a good story. She reached for Hank’s hand. “It’s so dark now that we could go anyplace,” she said. “I feel like there are people breathing all around here.”

Suddenly the weight, mass and sweat of the palpitating crowd oppressed Hank like he was locked in a closed closet in August.

He took the speaker off the window and asked her where she wanted to go. At first Jo Lee couldn’t believe that he was doing it. She had never walked out of a movie in her life, except for the time she was in the balcony with Dennis Worth. She had been jerking him off and then there was a power failure and everyone had been given passes to come back whenever they wanted. She hadn’t liked the drive-in but it gave her a strange feeling in her stomach that she just said that she didn’t like it and he was ready to go. They turned onto the highway and she said, “Hank, can we get dinner?”

Hank had $60 dollars in his pocket and didn’t care how much of it he came home with. His mind scanned a list of blue ribbon restaurants he’d constructed for just such a purpose. “How about a seafood place called The Fin and Claw,” he said in a smooth ‘Jonathan Schwartz reading a commercial’ voice.

At dinner they smiled over and over again at how good everything tasted. They drank two bottles of red wine. They talked about actors and movies that Hank had never told anyone he’d seen. He knew no one else who liked Fred Astaire, even though Fred made Mick Jagger look like he was afflicted with a disease of the nervous system. For the first time that he could remember, he allowed himself to be critical of rock music. Sure, he and Ron had talked about how Jagger was nothing but a prick who fucked on everybody’s head and took their money to boot, but that had been said with admiration and laced with envious laughter. “I think Mick Jagger is a lazy slob who’s done nothing with his talent except created absolute shit,” said Hank.

Jo Lee was thinking about a fantasy she once had about giving Mick a blowjob while he stood on stage and sang “Jumpin Jack Flash.” She said, “Why do you think that?”

“He just hasn’t changed and it’s getting harder and harder to find something about their songs that isn’t dull.”

“So who do you like now?” She knew that he wanted to talk and decided to let him run along what he would consider a wonderful conversation during which she would say little and offer not one opinion. It was the way most men and boys liked it.

Hank opened his musical heart to Jo Lee’s scrutiny. She listened with an expression of studied interest. He was totally oblivious to the fact that she didn’t care about rock music at all. She wondered why men drew women into the useless confidences. She studied his cheekbones as the subject came round to San Francisco groups. Hank rambled about his quandary concerning groups like Quicksilver Messenger Service, a great band that could reach real stardom if they could find a distinctive vocalist. Someone who would jump out at you like one of the instruments instead of just droning along.

Jo Lee decided there was something about Hank’s faces that reminded her of an embryo. He had moved on to talk about Jefferson Airplane, and she giggled at the thought of an embryo with glasses. She scratched his sideburn and Hank thought that he must be impressing her with what he knew.

They each drank a brandy after dinner. Then, at Jo Lee’s suggestion, they moved to the bar and had gin gimlets. Hank liked the alliteration in the phrase and had taken to repeating it as often as he could. Long after his words began to slur, he told her about how Ron always put down people who drank too much. Jo Lee really didn’t care for Ron and by the fifth or sixth time his name had come up, she was openly hostile.

“Don’t you see that he only criticizes to make himself feel better?” Hank was stunned. He had never noticed what was now an obvious thing. He liked the way Jo Lee had just pinpointed it.

They were very drunk when the reached the parking lot. Jo Lee was enjoying leaning against him while they moved. She walked up to his side of the bug and said sneakily, “I want to get in this way.” Hank knew immediately that she’d forgotten about the gearshift. It made him bite down on his lip and think about his Chevy.

“We found that your son was as clean as the driven snow,” explained Detective Gavonelle, slowly giving the phone the finger as he shook his head and said, “Of course I would have let him call home if there was ever a question about us holding him.” A pause. “Yes Mrs. Bombasco, it would be our duty to let you know if anything had really been wrong.”
Marjorie again mentioned her connection with Judge Mathewson, and Gavonelle’s face tightened the same way it had tightened when his chief had told him that he should call the woman up and smooth things over after the chief had listened to her mention the judge’s name several times during their conversation. The chief had been right on the mark when he told Gavonelle that his actions had been 200 percent in the right but that he was requesting that Gavonelle make the call so that Judge Mathewson wouldn’t have to listen to this woman complain for the next 20 years. Gavonelle had been around long enough so that the chief didn’t have to say another word. Gavonelle concluded the mission by repeating that the department was sure that Ron was “as clean and pure as the driven snow”.

Marjorie said that she would accept the apology but that she thought the police could find better things to do than harassing innocent people. Gavonelle thanked her, put down the phone, exchanged a disgusted look with Sgt. Brady and walked out for the night dramatically ringing out his ear with his finger.

By the next morning, Ron was beginning to feel proud about having endured the situation in the police department. He had been waylaid by the enemy and kept his cool and he had broken free with the logic of the situation demanding his release. When Marjorie told him about her conversation that morning, first with the chief of police and then with Gavonelle, he looked at her with contempt. He swallowed down two hard rolls and a cup and a half of coffee. He kept his eyes half open and silently repeated to himself that he had a real date that evening and that this was a good time to ask about the car again.

Marjorie finished telling him about what Gavonelle had said and asked if he would go out and get some breakfast cake. “Sure,” said Ron, “but couldn’t you call Jerry’s wife and make plans to ride in their car tonight? This is a really pretty girl and do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a date? Weeks!”

“Oh you poor thing,” said Marjorie smiling.

“Come on,” he said, returning the smile, “You’re gonna laugh at me?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Ron was back with the buns by the time George came to the table. George usually drank his coffee without saying anything. She never criticized him for being quiet in the morning since she was usually quiet herself. He was pleased to find that Ron had included some apple turnovers in the sack. They were his favorite and he was the only one who ate them. He placed them on his napkin, sweetened his coffee, poured in the milk in the same orderly manner that always gave him a sense of satisfaction. He had taken about three bites of the turnover when Marjorie said, “Aren’t they good, George?” He didn’t quite say yes but he nodded an assent. “George,” she began. He stopped eating with the frozen look that waited for what was coming. “Why don’t we see if we can use their car tonight? We could really go out in their new car just as easily and I’m sure Jerry would like us to go for a ride in it.”

“Go ahead,” droned George in a defeated voice that didn’t want to start the day with an argument. Ron headed to empty the garbage in appreciation. He hadn’t bought books and that meant he had almost $30 which gave him about $10 to fuck around with at Welmont. As he took the garbage can out the back door, he saw Jerry’s old car, his new car, parked by the garage. He had forgotten all about it. From this angle he couldn’t see any dents at all. He put the garbage down beside the cans and went to have a look at it. As the back of the car came into view from behind the hedges, he saw the shot it had taken. Ron thought that it must have been hit by a pointy nosed thing. He checked the gas tank and saw that it was solid and in place. The car sat up straight. There was only this huge needle-nosed gash that pushed its trunk about a third of the way in. The steering wheel was a big silver thing, not like the tight leather wheel of his Batmobile. Everything else checked out fine and the hood had these two silver tips that he knew he would like guiding the car by.

George was reading the morning paper when Ron came back into the house. “The car looks really good,” he said.

“Never try to tell you anything,” said George, who stood up and folded the paper under his arm. Then he turned and headed for the bathroom.

“He’s right,” said Marjorie. “You always give him a hard time and this time he’s right,” she repeated with emphasis.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Stick around and give him a hand once in a while. He never has any help when he tries to do anything.”

George stopped reading his paper and listened. He smiled with the knowledge that at least she took his part sometimes, but he could only make out about every third word that she said.

“Hank, your father and I want to talk to you before you go out. Just for a few minutes,” she added with a reassuring nod of her soft, double chin.

Hank stared down at his nails and then strapped on his thick leather watchband. He was walking with a hop in his step and was sure that he was just missing bouncing of the ceiling. He found them at the kitchen table, watching him with an avid curiosity. They always acted like something was wrong with him. They were like a comedy act when they tried to talk to him. Phony as the way I used to recite the pledge of allegiance, he thought to himself. He sat down opposite them. His eyes studied them back and his face was expressionless.

“Hank,” began his father, “we’re worried about where you’ve been going at night. We know that you’re keeping company with a girl and now your mother tells me that you didn’t want to say where you were going the other day. We feel it’s our duty to advise you not to do anything that you’ll regret. You’ve got your whole life in front of you Henry.” Hank’s father leaned forward with an open grin on his face. “Have fun with her but don’t screw yourself up.”
Hank’s mother shifted her bottom nervously around the kitchen chair in a way that showed she’d been made uncomfortable. Hank grimaced when his father stopped talking and asked her if anything was wrong in a sarcastic voice. She looked at him coldly and then turned her eyes sadly to her son. “We just don’t want you to make any stupid mistakes. The world is filled with nice girls.”

Hank grimaced. No matter how hard he tried, he knew that his mother would never like Jo Lee. He’d known that before and now he realized why it bothered him. Things were going to be just that much more difficult now. His parents both had sympathetic expressions plastered on their faces. Hank knew that it wouldn’t be necessary to say anything to them. He sat there for three or four minutes clasping and unclasping his watchband while they looked at him. When he felt he’d shown them that he’d contemplated their words for a decent interval of time, he asked if there was anything else they wished to discuss with him. He watched them shake their heads and look at each other gravely. He started for the door and his father followed him onto the porch and said, “Here Hank, take this. I know it’s expensive to have a girl these days.” Hank took the money without smiling and barely saying thanks. He started down the stairs and his father called after him, “Your mother and I want you to have fun, Hank”

Chapter 14

Standing with the showerhead pointing right into his face, Ron would close his eyes and mouth and take it for as long as he could. He liked it better when it didn’t make him choke. It was tradition to give his cock several extra soapings on the night of a date. It reminded him of doing warm-ups prior to a game. After he rinsed his crotch, he re-soaped the pubic hair in slow circles that started on the outside and worked their way into the center. He took hold of it, bent it up and squeezed so he could see down the hole at the top. He rubbed it with the bar of soap like he was shining it up and then moved it toward the bristling water with a trace of timidity. He closed his eyes again as the sensations traveled through his body.

He felt like he was in a cloud ship when he turned off the water. The mirror was a portal he was anxious to have cleared. His feet slipped on the wet tile. He ran the sink water until it was ice cold on his hand and drank four or five glasses in gulping swallows. Sweat and dripping shower water mixed in rivulets, making lakes at his toes. He rubbed a towel across his shoulders as if he was trying to take off a layer of skin. He opened the door a crack and watched the escaping steam. My stomach sticks out again, he thought. He pulled in the muscles as tightly as he could and struck an Atlas pose with his arms. He always looked very strong when he did that.

Ron sat on the edge of the tub and pictured Veronica’s ass. He spread the towel he’d been using on the floor and began to dry again with a second towel. The word dipsy-doodle danced across her swinging cheeks as he remembered the way she walked. He grabbed the baby powder and doused his genitals with four puffy shakes. He stood up trying to avoid the sight of his gut. The toothpaste tasted good and he gave his teeth two extra cleanings to ensure against bad breath. He rolled deodorant sumptuously on his still dripping armpits. He rolled it experimentally across the patch of hair on his chest, but he immediately decided that it was too sticky and rinsed it off with a scowl that lasted as long as the rinsing process took. Stretching his Jockeys over his still wet ass, he headed for his room. The cool air outside greeted him with the aroma of the meatloaf his mother was making. He licked his lips.

Hoping to find something he’d never seen before, Ron threw open his closet. A row of blacks and blues hung neatly on hangers. They called for starched shirts and sweaters or sports jackets. “Fuck them!” he said under his breath. He wanted clothes that didn’t have to be cleaned and pressed after each outing – stuff that could be crumpled up and kept in drawers. Stuff that wouldn’t make him feel like an old man who worked from 9 to 5. He slammed the closet door and brought out a new pair of jeans he’d bought a couple of weeks ago. He hated wearing jeans for the first time. He still hadn’t shaken the feeling that they were unlucky for him.

He’d been wearing jeans on the Sunday morning when they discovered he’d been taking money from his mother’s bank. They called his father, his real father, to come down and punish him. They made him wait in bed. It was just the day before they had agreed to start giving him an allowance, the lack of which had been the reason he was clipping their money. Lying in bed, he kept feeling the harsh, scratching sensations that his new jeans were making on his legs. His father was out golfing and his father’s wife said that he wouldn’t be back until late that afternoon. He stayed in bed all day, waiting. They let him get up and eat and go to the bathroom but no one said a word to him.

When Freddy arrived, he just walked into Ron’s room and took off his belt. He asked Ron which hand he’d taken the money with. Ron couldn’t remember and raised his right arm. He closed his eyes and heard the skin crack. He heard himself say “Owwwh,” before he felt much pain, but he was determined that he wasn’t going to cry or move his hand. It was the intense burning that finally made him draw it back and roll over while his father continued to strap him through the new jeans.

When he was finished, Freddy led Ron out of the house by his other arm and left him standing in the hall of his mother’s basement apartment. Ron rubbed his face on the cool plaster walls. He could feel wetness and his face and neck and flashes of pain running through his arm like jolts of electricity. The welts were puffing out. He slipped on the floor but the blue jeans were digging into the welts that he couldn’t see on his legs and ass.

His father came out of the apartment and walked Ron stiffly to the car. Ron was sniffling as he got in. “I was playing in the back of the big closet. I saw the bank laying there for a long time and didn’t touch it and then one day I was playing pirate and I thought it would be a fun adventure to go to Levy’s candy store and buy soda with the treasure I’d captured. I just kept doin’ that every day.”

“There’s no excuse for stealing,” his father said firmly. “Since you are obviously too much for your mother to handle, I think you’re going to spend some time at Boystown where you’ll learn a real lesson.”

Ron was silent until he felt the car going over the bridge that led to Kearny. He’d seen the large letters spelling out Boystown from the opposite bank of the river. He felt himself slide down to the floor on the passenger side of the car. The heater irritated his skin through the blue jeans.

“Can I come and stay with you?” he asked.

“I don’t want a thief in my house,” said a sharp voice he was afraid to look at.

He could think of nothing else to say and slumped against the door and let the scenery move past him without noticing it for the first time he could ever remember.

The car stopped and he heard his father’s voice say, “Let’s go,” but he was too numb to move. He felt his father’s door slam and felt the door against his back being opened. He still didn’t move. “Don’t be so dramatic about this,” said Freddy. “You make a federal case out of everything.”

In the end, he took Ron up to the door and when the boy began to beg, brought him back home. If it was up to him, he’d have left his son there for a day or two, but his ex-wife would never have stood for such a thing. She had spoiled the shit out of him anyway. No wonder he lay there like a blubbering baby. No son of his should act this way about anything. When he was left alone, the kid was really tough, but his mother just wouldn’t leave him alone. She always gave in to him. He didn’t blame Ronald. Kids try to get away with everything they can, if you don’t draw a line and just not allow them to cross it. What the hell was he doing playing in the back of a closet anyway. The kid should be out playing football. Well, things were going to be very different starting right now.

George handed the keys to Ron and said that the gas tank was full and he expected the car returned that way. “Pay attention to what he says and it won’t be so difficult for you to get the car the next time you need it,” said Marjorie.

“Okay,” said Ron. He would have said anything and they both knew it, but at least this time he had to stand still and listen without one of his smart-assed answers. “How do I look?” he asked after they’d finished their warnings.

“You like fine,” she said sternly and then had to smile at the way his face adopted the innocent pose which he’d been using his whole life. She swore that when he made that face, she would sometimes forget time and where she was. She told herself again that there were still plenty of years for him to find out what he wanted to be and who he really was. She wouldn’t tell him again, just yet, that leaving IBM had been a terrible mistake. She’d let him find it out for himself, the way he always said that he wanted to find things out. IBM was a terrific company to work for and their benefits had been outstanding. He’d assured her that it was just an educational leave of absence, but how would it look for him to take off all this time after just being there for two years.

She looked at the window in time to see the white fins bounce as the car left the driveway. She heard a metallic scrape and saw his head bounce off the roof of the interior. “Son-of-a-bitch,” she said. This was the last time she was gonna let him drive the car until he learned to use it properly. She was glad that George hadn’t seen or heard it. The phone was ringing. “No Hank, he isn’t. He had a date,” she said.

Hank walked out of his door not sure where he was going but certain that he wanted to be out of the house before his parents got back from shopping. There were two records that he wanted to pick up and he had been meaning to go out to Arrow Electronics to see if they’d gotten the new Bose speakers in yet. Hank smiled at the way his engine turned over. Maybe it didn’t have Chevy seats but he was sure it was going to start whenever he turned the key and that was what was really important. He liked the distinctive tapping of the engine so much that sometimes he left the radio off and listened to it.

He set his course for Sam Goody’s thinking that maybe he’d drop by and see TJ at his night league later on. He withdrew what Ron would have called a toothpick joint from his pocket and lit it with the smooth click of his lighter. Just enough to be nicely buzzed he told himself with “and away we go” feel and sailed up to the parkway heading north.

Veronica met Ron at the door with a very friendly smile and a large “hello.” Their phone conversation had been short and she couldn’t even remember what he looked like very well. Ron smiled back from the other side of the screen door, and she decided that she liked his row of straight, white teeth and hoped. She hoped he wasn’t an octopus.

She left him out on the porch and grabbed her thin white sweater before her father had a chance to say to her mother, “Natalie, isn’t the boy Veronica’s going out with even going to come in for a moment.” She tossed a grateful good-bye to her mother and assured them both that she wouldn’t be home too late.

Ron thought she looked great and let her get a couple of steps in front of him so he could sneak looks at her dreamy ass. Veronica saw him look and thought “uh-oh” but gave her hips a little more of an involuntary swing. Her backside was stretched out in green corduroy and she wore a tucked in button down shirt. Ron looked back over his shoulder and saw her parents watching them. He walked quickly so that he could catch up to her by the time they got to the car.

Veronica’ s mother seemed to be waving sadly as her daughter got into the car. She turned back to them with the innocence of a well-shaped lamb and “baahed” silently in their direction. Natalie bleated back at her daughter and Veronica’s father offered to stop the whole thing before they had a chance to pull away. He’d already seen enough to know what Ron’s interest was. “I mean who the hell ever heard of it, Natalie. A good girl going off with some punk she knows for less than five minutes. Think of it Natalie! What kind of guy waits for that time of day to make a proposal (the use of the word made Natalie smile) to a girl he’s never met? A pathetic, desperate character, that’s the kind of person climbing into his car with our daughter right now.”

“Oh stop being silly,” said Natalie.

“He’s probably desperate because he’s some kind of weirdo. I’m telling you that’s the story with this bird. Did you see him drooling over her? And the way you’ve raised that girl, she’s gullible enough to be taken advantage of.”

“You’re not fair,” said Natalie. “I remember how you used to drool over me.” She closed the door wishing that she were seeing an exciting, new person for a change.

Not knowing what to expect, Veronica began the conversation formally. “Did you have any trouble with the directions?”

“Nah,” said Ron, “but I lost the directions to the beer blast, so we’ll just head in the general direction and find out what happens.”

Veronica wasn’t sure about how to take that remark. She thought he seemed like a very confident boy. Sometimes they were the best and sometimes they were the absolute worst. “I thought you knew where we were going,” she said with a slight stiffness in her voice.

Ron grinned at her gently. “I do but I’m a little disorganized sometimes and I forgot to bring the directions with me.”
“You know,” said Veronica, “I think I’ve got a copy of the map.” She dug into her purse and came out with it. “I used it to write somebody’s phone number on.”

Ron felt a pang for a reason he didn’t understand. He didn’t really want her to have anybody else’s number with her while she was out with him. “Whose number is it?”

“Just someone I met at school,” she teased. She wasn’t going to tell him that it was a girl from her biology class.

Ron’s instinct said that it didn’t matter whose number it was, so he let it slide. It wasn’t going to affect him and besides he liked the idea of her being bright enough to have the directions with her. It showed resourcefulness and the ability to be prepared that he admired and lacked. It became evident that she was the kind of person who fit well into things, the type of person who definitely wouldn’t understand what had happened to him the night before.

Ron smiled and took out his cigarettes. He offered one to Veronica, who surprised him by taking it. He’d definitely figured her for a non-smoker, certainly not the type who would take anybody’s. He gave her his lighter and smiled at her awkwardness with it. She gave it back with a little girl look that tickled him. He flicked it on easily and thought about how simple things were more fun with a girl.

TJ was in the middle of the third frame of his first game when Hank got to the alleys, and had just thrown his third consecutive 9 count. First the 10 pin, then the 7, and now the 5 pin confronted him like wobbly visions. Hank watched him convert the spare and walk away rubbing his eyes, shaking his head with the hope that not only the pins would disappear but that he would wake up and find out that things had turned out differently than they had. One day he would get up and throw a strike that would cause time to snap its fingers right along with him. It would be the way the genie popped out of the bottle but TJ was gonna do the popping and wind up in an exotic land, walking down the beach with white leather shoes and a walking stick. TJ had told Hank about that dream on Sunday night after they’d closed the doors at Welmont and had the real money matches. Nobody cared who drank what at the bar as long as the bartender got to tack a quarter onto each drink to make up for his time. Hank and TJ were huddled over TJ’s tenth drink when he told him, secretly, why he snapped his fingers after each strike. The information stuck with Hank and caused him to view T3 as an H.G. Wells type character.

TJ liked Hank because he was a smart kid who knew how to keep his mouth shut and never brought their friendship around to matters that dealt with money. When TJ had fixed Hank’s car and wouldn’t take any money, the kid had made sure to buy him a couple of good bottles. They laughed at each other’s jokes and TJ had the comfortable feeling that there was something about his view of the world that Hank admired. Under normal circumstances, TJ wouldn’t let anyone admire him, not with him being a semi-bum, loafer-crook; but Hank had been at the alleys long enough to have seen worse. “Hanky, it’s been so long since I seen you, I told myself that you must be some sort of ghost.”

Hank stopped and dramatically patted his chest, shook his head and smiled at TJ. “No, I seem to be alive.”
TJ laughed a short gritty kind of chuckle and waved for the waitress. Hank slid into his spectator’s seat, lit a cigarette and put his hand under his chin with an easy motion. TJ broke out a cigar and asked Hank if he had a light. Hank never remembered TJ in need of anything and moved quickly. TJ puffed dreamily on his cigar and asked Hank, since he hated to turn around and look in back of himself, if the waitress had moved into the area. Hank was a little nervous because he was still technically breaking the law. But TJ had said that he didn’t mind doing it and that it didn’t matter so often that Hank was mostly at ease. He realized that he never thought about being underage with Jo Lee. Ron’s voice popped into his head saying that was because she was old enough for the both of them.

TJ got up to bowl, and Hank admired his economical style with a sense of connoisseurship. Anybody that didn’t really know bowling would say that TJ looked funny because he only took three steps and didn’t seem to bring the ball back high enough to get a good swing, but Hank knew that it was all there. The necessary motion was concentrated into an easy walk and roll, TJ looked as effortless as he felt when he walked alongside Jo Lee. The ball was a strike and TJ snapped his fingers and hitched his belt. Hank felt his mind traveling down a corridor. At the end he could see himself playing in the sand with Jo Lee. Her silver hair was in pigtails and she wearing a brightly colored sundress with flowers on the pockets. Hank was himself holding a shovel and pail and for some reason that he couldn’t figure, not wearing his glasses.

“You off in the stratosphere, Hank?”

“I think I’m in love, T,” said Hank taking his first in gimlet.

“Take something for it as quick as you can,” said TJ that Hank realized wasn’t comical.

“Go pick up a slut that you can really knock it into better than you do right now and in the long run it’ll even out if you give her $40 or $50 for a specialty.”

“I wouldn’t be too good at that kind of thing T. I couldn’t work with a whore.”

“Hanky, I’ve seen the look that you’ve got on your face pasted on my own kisser and what I’m telling you is the best advice I ever gave to anybody. If you let yourself get involved with a woman that makes you feel like you’re feeling, chances are she’ll squeeze off your cock in six months.”

TJ’s imagery left Hank speechless. He trusted T’s opinions and now, without even knowing what Hank considered the bad part of things, TJ had told him that it was all fucked up. “I don’t understand,” said Hank. “Why are you worried about me feeling my way through this?”

You’re in no condition to feel your way through anything. You’re more fucked up than you are when you and that lunatic friend of yours go out and smoke those funny looking cigarettes.”

“T, I haven’t even told you the drawbacks of the situation yet. I haven’t knocked your socks off and told you who she is.”

“You think I’m stupid, Hanky? If I didn’t know who you was taking about, do you think I’d react this way?” Hank looked at TJ with disbelief. “It’s around the alleys, Hank. You better think fast because her husband’s gonna know real quick.”

Hank was impaled on an arrow. He emptied the gimlet into his mouth as a dull throb started up the back of his throat. It must have been Ron who betrayed him. How could anybody else find out what was going on? He smiled to himself with the thought that he would poison the bastard. He would watch him curl up like a dead leaf on the floor of the luncheonette. “Where’d you hear about it T?”

“The insurance men were teasing her about her new boyfriend when they were in for lunch. Joey Face asked her if she would sit on his knob if he frizzed his hair and started ordering fruit cocktails. She got embarrassed and told him to fuck himself. She wouldn’t even go back to their table. She made the cook bring their food over and wouldn’t take the $3 tip they left her. Then I hears Norman and Si talking about how you spend more time than money in the place and that they don’t want any trouble so that maybe it would be better if they just kept you out.”

” Hank sat there like he’d been lured into a showing of “Your Life.” He realized for the first time that all the Welmont including TJ, were alike.

“One thing that everybody’s happy about though is that you’re not a fag, Hank.”

Hank stared into his ice cubes as TJ went to throw his ball. He contemplated suicide. He thought of selling his car for as much as it would take to buy enough heroin to do in 5,000 people. He would cook it into a jell-o and trick Ron into splitting it with him just to see the look on the asshole’s face when he told him what they’d just eaten.

TJ threw his ball and a wiggly 5-7 collapsed for his first double. TJ snapped his fingers as Hank thought about dying. It was no great solace that everybody was relieved that he wasn’t a fag. He knew he wasn’t a fag. The cunt who’d started that rumor was just a crazy bitch who he didn’t want to have anything to do with. After convincing him that she was his friend and no longer interested in having him as a boyfriend, she spent the next three years telling everyone she met that he was a fag. Until Donna Lewis had gotten up the guts to ask him if it was the truth while they were standing at a bus stop with about eight other kids. Hank had tried, with Mr. Clean memory cleanser, to scrub away the image of how he’d been too shocked to answer her. He thought that Donna was probably engaged in some kind of leftover grammar school behavior or it was a joke that he wasn’t falling for. He stood there stubbornly waiting in the awkward tension that followed her question. Then he grimaced his most definite “No” but knew that he was marked as some kind of deviant forever. He tried to snap his mind back to Jo Lee on the beach where they were dancing like gods who were pulling the earth together with their movements.

“You see what I mean, Hank? You could have been hit by a car just now and you wouldn’t have even known it.”

Hank needed a cigarette. He steadied his gaze by fixing it on the overhead scoreboard and saw that TJ had just completed his first game. “How’d I miss the rest of your frames?” he asked.

“You better get used to it, Hank, because this is just the beginning for you.” TJ puffed on his cigar, and the waitress brought their second round of drinks.

Hank paid closer attention to the second game but the idea of everybody at the bowling alleys knowing what was going on had taken over his mind. The fact that Ron had sold him out and that he had been stupid enough to tell the asshole left him feeling like a two- day old cup of coffee in a hot room. Maybe he should stop Jo Lee from ruining her life by becoming involved with a buffoon like himself. Why should she risk the only security she had in the world to involve herself with a fishbowl clown?

“She isn’t any good, Hanky.” Hank noticed that TJ always looked sinister when he tried to sound sincere. “Do you have any idea of how many guys have had their pud in her patch?” Hank stared at his new ice cubes. “Just at Welmont, there are three guys she gave blowjobs to when they drove her home.”

“Why should I believe that?” said Hank. Everybody at Welmont lies through their teeth!” Hank stared at the alley in front of him. His eyes slid down the oiled wood. When he came to the pit, he punched the pins which had taken on the appearance of Welmont characters.

“The guy who told me right out was Pete the bartender. Jo Lee told him about you. You know why? Because she had to get him out of the way to make room for you.” Hank had liked Pete. Somehow it didn’t matter that Pete had been seeing Jo Lee. Then TJ just as suddenly, changed his mood. “Ah, everybody’s got the right to be stupid for the right reason, right Hank? I guess it’s what makes things interesting. I’m not gonna say one more dark word about her, Hank.” TJ put down his cigar and walked away to throw his ball.

Chapter 15

The dance floor at the beer blast was washed with spilled mugs and polished with the sweat of the awkwardly slithering dancers. The place was actually a VFW hall on which the frat had been able to wangle a discount. Streamers and half deflated balloons that the dancers kicked like trash as they bumped and staggered across the room, mixed with soggy paper tablecloths that had been pulled off fold out tables.

Ron smiled at Veronica so frequently that he felt like Howdy Doody. There was nothing he could say to her that wouldn’t have to be shouted. “I’m going to get a couple more glasses,” he told her slowly through his cupped hand. Veronica smiled and scanned the floor. She saw broad shoulders hunched over bared necks and everything was being pulsed by what she thought was a good rhythm. It surprised her that at least half the girls had been silly enough to wear dresses. Anyone dumb enough to make that mistake was going to be out the cost of a dress or a twice-through-the-cleaners bill. She had figured it just right, except that as her shirt got wetter it stuck to her bra in the most obvious way. It wasn’t a good idea to give Ron any extra inspiration. She’d been a little put off by the way he tried to rub her pelvis with his the first time they danced together. He seemed to be the type of boy whose idea of dancing was to hump you in some corner, but there were certainly plenty of cute guys here who had seen her. Some of them she actually recognized from the halls as being in her group of outstanding catches.

At the back entrance to the kitchen was a girl wearing a black bathing suit who was drenched in beer. She had the type of hair that tended to be stringy. As the night progressed, she had given up trying to keep it off her forehead, where two or three large tangles of it were matted down with beer, perspiration, and saliva that sprayed from the mouths of the drunken boys who tried to grab her tits while she poured their beers. She’d been paid $25 in advance and promised another $25 if she kept everyone happy until the kegs ran out.

Ron watched her belly and licked his lips. As she handed him his glasses he was pushed from behind and watched helplessly as the foamy head sloshed over the top of his mugs and into her cleavage. He tried to apologize but she ignored him. He felt himself being moved away by the crowd and started back to find his table. He carried the glasses at high port and tried to keep them turned away from his collisions, until a polyester elbow crashed through his defense and sent half of one of the mugs down his shirt. Ron felt the fizzing liquid gather at his belt. The elbow turned to say it was sorry. Ron growled a “don’t worry about it,” without looking at the face attached to the elbow. He shook out his right leg like a character who’d just taken a leak. The dance crowd suddenly being to stomp their feet in unison and chant, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” to a thumping base. Ron stopped and looked around hoping that one of the girls was going to take her clothes off, but the shouting stopped and people began to sway to the new riff the guitar had broken into. He was still standing there waiting for something to happen and looking foolish when he saw Veronica sitting about ten feet away. She gave him her “bahh” smile and had a sympathetic look on her face.

When he sat down, he felt a reservoir of beer empty into his Jockeys. He frowned and squirmed a little. He now felt like he had to piss. A voice inside of him mocked, “Why move? Nobody will notice the difference.” Finding his soggy cigarettes shredding in his shirt pocket, he took them out and splashed them down in a crumpled ball on the saturated tablecloth. Veronica looked down at his cigarettes and smiled. Ron tried to pour half of the mug he’d saved into the one that spilled. Carefully tipping the edge, he watched as the beer dribbled down the side onto his ball of tobacco.

When Phillip Frybush saw Ron at the blast, he knew what was meant by laying seeds which would later sprout. He shook his head sagely and engineered his way in Ron’s direction. Ron had ripped away a semi-dry piece of tablecloth and was trying to mop up in front of them. Phil clasped his hand on Ron’s shoulder and pronounced a “Hey, good to see you!” with the same enthusiasm he’d shown a number of other prospective pledges he’d recruited.

Phillip produced a pack of Winstons and handed them to Ron who had been hoping for menthol. eronica wondered when Ron was going to introduce her to this college looking type who seemed to know his way around, but all Ron did was take out two cigarettes, return the pack, and turn his back on Frybush, who shrugged and moved off in another direction. Veronica decided that Ron was impolite and didn’t care that their friends would call them Ron and Ronnie. She wished she’d come here with someone else. Someone who knew his way around and knew how to have fun. They finished their beers and Ron suggested that they leave. She was quick to agree. As they got to the door, Ron heard somebody yell, “Beer’s gone!” The crowd cheered.

Ron thought they were leaving just in time. He would have bet at least $10 that there would be a fight within the next fifteen minutes. When the cops were called, a bunch of people without proof were gonna get busted, he thought. He laughed when they got into his car. “Wow! At least we can talk in a normal tone of voice now, “he said a bit too loudly. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

She was about to answer that the evening had been interesting, but he continued talking. “I’m not very good at things like that. You know, I never enjoyed high school dances either. I’m a lot better at being able to sit and have a conversation with one or two other people, four or five at the most you know what I mean?”

Veronica enjoyed large parties and dances. “Yes,” she said, “I know what you mean.”

Ron decided that he wanted to kiss her, except that he was driving. “Why don’t you come over and sit next to me,” he said, scratching the seat next to him. Veronica stared down at the scratching hand and imagined him trying to scratch her that way. She didn’t go as far as the hand, but she did reduce the distance between them. Ron’s right hand traveled along the back of the seat and rubbed its knuckles on her shoulder. He liked the fleshy way her skin felt. Veronica hoped he was able to still drive with one hand on the wheel. Ron asked if she’d always lived in New Jersey. She told him that she had lived in the same house for as long as she could remember, but that when she was two her parents lived in Illinois. He asked about how she was doing in school and thought about how he could get the conversation around to sex without getting her suspicious. Ron was certain that the way to turn this girl on was without her knowing it. She was the type who could be led up to anything if the right foundation was laid.

Hank was starting on his 10th cigarette and 4th gimlet. The happy humming of the bowling alley reminded him that he was at a hub of activity, a human beehive filled with the energy and strength of over a hundred people.

“You know T,” he slurred, “I like the idea of being able to sit still while everybody runs around. It’s a time when I feel like I belong.”

“That’s why it’s a good thing you’re getting an education. The only thing you got to worry about is keepin’ your wits about you. It’ll be like you’re seeing it all from your living room chair, if you make it work,” he said sentimentally.

Hank sucked his ice cube and cracked it with his teeth. If the night went on like this, TJ would soon be telling stories about growing up. He could describe scenes and situations with more clarity than anyone Hank knew. It always amazed him that TJ, who was everything Hank knew a city to be, had grown up in a small town in Virginia. Hank especially liked the stories of how T had gotten laid under the town gazebo and how one night two squirrels were chasing each other under there and TJ and his girl had gotten scratched up and scared shitless. TJ would say that he’d never been so worried about his nuts in all his life. “For years after,” said T, “whenever I saw one of those bushy tailed rats, I tried to kill it.” Hank remembered laughing so hard that tears welled up in back of his glasses and how it felt like he was coming up from under water when he took them off. He wasn’t sure exactly when he decided that he really was gonna run away with Jo Lee but by the time he left the alley, he was resolved.

On the way home, the idea that she resembled the blonde witch in the TV sitcom took his fancy. He dressed her in a sheer black nightgown with a high open neck collar. He could see her nipples and navel, through the material. As they stood gazing at each other, she twitched her nose. They both stared down at the baseball bat sized hard on she presented him with. She smiled with that long, liquid mouth that promised to be so bad that he couldn’t stand it. She rested her hand on the head of the hard on, turned gracefully pulling him along in tow. The witch rubbed the tip of his cock lightly and a clear lubricant oozed out. “And’ what’s this?” she said. Hank grinned his Andy Griffith after breakfast grin. “Well, I think you need to be tended to right now, honey. You just lie down and I’ll take care of everything. She twitched her nose and they were both in bed naked. She bent over him and planted a slow sucking kiss that left a red lipstick ring on his cock top. “How many different girls do you want me to be tonight, Hank?”

The thought startled him out of his fantasy. “That’s closer to what living with Jo Lee would really be like,” he told himself. He was breathing fast and saw his dick was rock hard. More proof of her power, he thought. He turned on the radio and thought she’d be every fantasy he’d ever dreamed of.

Ron knew the evening wasn’t going to be a total disaster when she let her head rest back against his arm. Maybe he wasn’t going to get laid, but what could you expect from a first date? The important thing was getting her to relax with his body. He’d taken her for coffee and Danish that had settled everything inside him in an excellent fashion.

Veronica put her head back and swirled with a blend of alcohol and caffeine. There was a warmth in her belly and a delightful buzzing her brain. Everything was soft and comfortable. The creature sitting next to her was named Ronald. The name sounded better than the product appeared in its entirety. She let her eyes drift in the car shadows and wondered if he was cute in his entirety.

At the next red light, Ron threw the car into park and went for her. His face moved in like an animated slinky toy. She pulled back with a startled flinch that was accompanied by an audible gasp. At first she thought she was being choked and was relieved to find that he was just kissing her. The kiss was hard and when it was over, her lips felt a numbness that was followed by a tingling that signaled the refilling blood vessels that had been squeezed off during the encounter.

Ron put his car in gear and stepped on the gas with a huge sense of exaltation. Veronica turned her head to the side and rubbed the nape of her neck. Her breathing was just becoming regular when she saw another red light approaching in the distance. She pressed down on the floor with her foot to gain some leverage and waited. When the assault came, it was rapid and complete. He hovered over her like a thunderstorm cloud and when he pulled away she felt washed and scrubbed. She rubbed her lips lightly and tried to judge how many more lights there were before they got to her house. It was impossible to tell because she didn’t know where they were.

Ron could feel the quickening of his pulse as he moved the car toward a place where they could park for a good long time. She hoped that this was the end for a while. She wondered if he planned to test her survival instinct further. The answer was obvious but she had started recognizing the street and knew her house was only a few blocks away. It was odd. He seemed like a nice, intelligent boy when he’d asked her out.

Veronica felt secure when he stopped the car across the street from her house. With his peripheral vision, Ron checked to see if she was making any obvious moves toward the door. When she didn’t bolt, he kicked off the engine and the lights. He left the radio playing.

“I’m sorry if you were surprised when I tried to kiss you back there at the light. Sometimes I move in ways that startle people. It’s not that I mean to do it. It just seems to always turn out to be the way I am.”

“You didn’t really scare me. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I like surprising you,” said Ron flicking his cigarette out the window and moving back in on the sentence. As they kissed, he slipped his arm around her back. He dropped his mouth to her neck and nudged her head back with his shoulder. His free hand fell to her waist, where he began tugging at her shirt. Veronica’s brain lit up like a billboard. He was pulling her clothes off! They were parked in front of her house! She deftly slipped her hand on top of his and pried it loose. It traveled up the front of her shirt and latched on to her breast. She squealed and struggled to sit up.

“What’s the matter,” said Ron.

“I don’t do that,” she answered curtly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re a boy that I met two days ago and I don’t intend to get involved with you this way.”

Ron lit another cigarette and stared at her. “Why not?”

“I guess what I really mean is that I have rules about what I will and won’t do, until I really know someone.”

“And how long does that take?” Ron blew out the question with the smoke he exhaled.

“I don’t know. Certainly longer than I’ve known you for.”

Ron watched the image of her green corduroy ass dancing away with “Fuck You” spelled out in block letters across her cheeks. At first he felt like he should apologize for what he’d done but a sullen air of disappointment blew into his face like bad breath. “What you want is for a guy to say he’ll marry you before you let him feel you up.”

“I don’t want you to say anything at all.” She reached for the door handle and opened the door.

“Hey wait a minute,” said Ron. “I shouldn’t have said that to you. You got me pretty excited and I just got carried away myself, you know?”

“You get carried away easily, Ron, don’t you?” She reached back and squeezed his shoulder and was almost out the door when his arms came around her like a steel trap. He trailed his left hand down over her hip and reached around to give her cheek one good squeeze. She pulled away. “You are the most persistent boy.” She was free from the car but there he was running around in front of her.

“Can I call you again?” he asked innocently.

“I don’t know and good night now.”

He came up on her in the dark and planted a quick light brush of his lips on her forehead. Veronica was elated at the way the breeze lifted her hair, and the freedom of being able to walk alone again.

Ron drove home on automatic pilot. He kept one hand between his legs, opened and closed on his cock like it was a tourniquet. He thought about how Cindy would let him put his head on her lap while she slipped her hand inside of his pants and masturbated him. She’d sometimes complain about her hand getting tired when it took him a long time to get there. It made Ron feel guilty because he knew that he would have no trouble coming if he hadn’t already jerked-off a couple of times that day. He would wonder if that made him a jerk-off. The connection between the insult and the act always bothered him. He felt that he had to be secretive about masturbating. It wasn’t like when he was a little kid and they had circle jerks. He had only ever been involved in one of those anyway.

They’d gone into Billy’s living room. Richie was there too. Ron couldn’t remember exactly but he thought it was when he was about 11 years old. The stared at pictures of Marilyn Monroe and talked about Billy’s sister and the girls in their class. It had taken Ron the longest to come. Billy and Richie had even begun to say that they didn’t think he was able to do it. That he wasn’t old enough to make it work. He wanted to tell them that it worked better when he read about other people doing it than it did when he looked at pictures that didn’t really show anything at all. The harder he’d pulled his cock the more convinced he’d become that it just wasn’t going to work right. His dick even seemed to get skinnier as he worked it. He knew he would be embarrassed after the way Richie’s sperm had shot all over Billy’s living room. There was so much of it that Billy started getting worried that his parents were gonna find the stains. Ron knew that his wasn’t going to jump off the bat like a Mickey Mantle home run. His was more like a drag bunt that seeped out and rolled over his fingers. After what seemed like a half hour, Richie said that he was sick of sitting around watching Ron try to jerk-off and that he was gonna go shoot some baskets in his backyard. Billy frowned at Ron’s dick dourfully. “Look” he said, “I’m gonna give you threee more minutes.” Billy held up the Monroe pictures and Ron concentrated and tried to work harder. Richie waited to watch Ron race the clock. He felt his cock starting to swell when the first minute lapsed. He told his friends that he thought he had it going now. He asked to see the picture where she was lying alongside the pool. Billy and Richie grinned at each other, glad that their cocks had worked when they were supposed to and without all this bullshit. Sweat was forming on Ron’s forehead as Richie leaned over and started talking to him. “Look at those tits! Wouldn’t you like to rub your thing on them? Don’t they make you want to blow your wad?” Ron was breathing hard now. He pulled on it fiercely. Richie and Billy watched it cream like they were viewing a TV show. Ron pulled up his pants quickly.

Billy looked surprised. “It’s pretty screwy that you didn’t even wipe it off.”

“I bet it gets pretty cakey down there when it dries,” said Richie.

“Hey wait a minute,” said Ron. “I usually wipe it off.”

“I’ll bet he doesn’t,” said Richie, as Ron squirmed with the wetness in his pants and wished he could take a bath right away. He wished that he’d never agreed to the circle jerk in the first place. Besides, Richie was two years older and what was he doin’ hanging around with them anyway. Ron winced as he remembered that Billy had told the story at baseball practice and everyone had laughed at him and called him “cakey.” It took him weeks before he talked to Billy again.
It had become Hank’s habit to drive down Jo Lee’s street whenever he could. He took the route on the way home from the alleys. He saw her shadow on the shade and stopped his car in the middle of the street to gaze at her. He had the feeling that she was either standing crooked or was hunched for some reason that he didn’t know about. He decided that he didn’t care who she was or what she’d done and vowed silently to rescue and protect her for as long as he was able. He decided that it didn’t matter what he had to go through to have her.

Chapter 16

Jo Lee called Hank the next morning and asked if he wanted to live with her at her sister’s house in Mount Freedom. Hank was stunned. The call had come at about 10:30 in the morning when Hank was still trying to milk his swollen sinuses, so that he wouldn’t feel like he was going to burst. His mother answered the phone and Hank heard her very stiff voice say that she would bring Hank to the phone momentarily. She tapped on his door in a nervous way. Before he could answer, she announced that there was “some woman on the phone.” Hank looked at the closed door with a tissue stuffed up his nose and muttered Jo Lee’s name. His mind raced like a pulse beat. He pulled the door open and strode to the phone.

He heard her say his name in her long river-like way and before she could say anything else she was sobbing. Hank felt a little odd standing there in his underwear talking to Jo Lee while his mother listened from the other room, but as she continued to cry, he realized that he didn’t care how it looked to anybody. She told Hank that Tony had gotten drunk the night before and that he’d wanted to fuck her. She told him that Tony only thought of her as a piece of meat with a soft hole in it. She told him how he kept belching beer into her face and that he’d passed out while he was on top of her.

The images were on a grotesque carousel twirling in front of his mind to the music of her tears. Tony had started by pulling off some of her clothes in front of one of his friends. When she protested he slipped a half-nelson on her. She sat frozen while he showed his friend how bouncy her boobs were. She didn’t tell him about the nights when she voluntarily jiggled her tits and put her ass in front of his friends’ faces. She told him that after the man was so embarrassed that he left she started crying and shaking uncontrollably. He told her that she could cry her fuckin’ eyes out but that he was gonna stick it to her good before he went to sleep. She was still crying when she laid back on their bed and spread her legs. When Tony lost his hard-on, he slapped her face and said that she was a stinking whore who put out for everyone except the guy who was putting a roof over her head. Then Jo Lee couldn’t talk anymore and Hank said that he wanted to see her and was there any place where they could meet. She said, “No,” in a quiet and pathetic way, adding that there was no way she could get out but that when he left for work on Monday, she was taking everything that was hers and leaving there once and for all.

“Are you coming with me?” she asked.

Hank put his head down and tried to think. He couldn’t and there was no time to think right now anyway. “Yes,” he said. They arranged a time later that night when he could call and she would make sure that she was next to the phone. Then they said good-bye.

There was a swagger in Hank’s step when he walked back into his room that would have challenged Matt Dillon. He closed the door and blew out his sinuses like a triumphant elephant. He looked at himself in the mirror and smiled at the way his eyes twinkled. He curled the short hairs above his sideburns and gave his mirror a sheepish grin. He told himself that this time he was gonna find out what he was really made of. “A real life, slithering cat of a woman has just as much told you that she wants you forever and your alternative is this comfortable, stupid, dough-faced life you’re stuck in.” Hank saw himself as Crusader Rabbit, slashing his way out of a wall of breathing flypaper as the music rose and footsteps approached.

The phone rang again. In her exasperated voice his mother said, “He’s in his room, Ron. Hold on a second.” He heard her approach his door and tap more firmly. “Hank, telephone,” was all she said. She retreated down the corridor back to the kitchen.

Hank answered the phone and Ron blared in his ear, “Have I got a fuckin’ story to tell you!”

“Oh yeah,” said Hank, not trying to hard to hide his disinterest.

“I was fuckin’ arrested, man. Thrown in the slammer and everything.”

“Why?”

“It’s really complicated, but basically for walking down the street. Hey, are you seeing Jo Lee today?”

“I don’t think so.” Hank had decided to spend the day planning an approach to the mountain of problems that confronted him.

“Do you want to get together? Have you got any of that good pot left?”

“Not very much at all,” said Hank. He wasn’t going to spend the day getting stoned and furthermore he wanted to split the rest of his pot with Jo Lee, who had told him that she only tried it once and that it made her so horny that she was afraid to smoke it again
“Today probably wouldn’t be any good,” said Hank in a voice that he was proud of.

“OK, man. Well, I’m gonna have my car tomorrow and…” There was a pause. “How come today isn’t any good?”

Chapter 17

“A Darker Shade of White” was published in the next issue of The Commuter. Ron was surprised that none of it was changed, including his five misspellings. They leaped out and made him cringe when he read them. The day after the paper came out, Ron was confronted by two members of the fraternity. They approached him in the cafeteria as he waited in line for his first morning coffee. “We just want you to know that we think you’re a fucking jerk-off,” said the larger one. Ron laughed nervously and set himself, figuring that if they were gonna do anything, a public place was his safest bet. It would be harder for them to jump him and the fight would be quickly broken up. Ron felt that he had nothing to lose by cold-cocking the first guy who moved toward him, nothing came of it. They stood behind him as the line moved and threw evil looks in his direction. Ron decided they were a pair of pussies and he was glad that he hadn’t started hanging around with them.

Hank had run away with Jo Lee without a word to him and he’d been shocked. It happened faster than Ron thought Hank was able to do anything. Actually, Hank’s mother had been impatient and told Ron on one of his calls that Hank didn’t live there anymore. He’d stammered and asked if she could give him the message that he called when she saw him. Hank called the next week and told him that he had run away with Jo Lee. He said they were hiding out because Tony was looking for them with a gun. Hank went on to say that he couldn’t give him a number or tell him where they were staying, but that if he heard anything important he should call his mother and say that he needed to talk. “We’ll be able to get together at a place that we can both drive to after that,” said Hank. Ron had convinced Hank that he’d told no one about Jo Lee but Hank wasn’t taking any chances. He said he’d call Ron again when things looked better and they could get together. Ron hadn’t heard from him in the five days that had gone by since then.

Hank faded from his memory. Ron began to hang around the newspaper room and ask if there was anything that he could do to help with the paper. Peter Shaffer, a tall blonde kid who reminded Ron of somebody who should live on a farm, was the managing editor. The editor-in-chief hadn’t been to school since the first week when she’d gone on a ridiculously bad trip. Ron had discovered that Peter wasn’t the type who would stab someone in the back for the hell of it and he’d also discovered that Peter was a slob and not too bright. It confused Ron that a person like this could wind up in a position of power at a college. Peter assigned Ron to cover the speeches of those students who were running as Freshman Reps to the Student Council.

Ron sipped his coffee seated in the back of the auditorium and surveyed the group. The candidates stood in a group with their backs to the audience waiting for things to get started. He couldn’t see any of the girls’ faces but he did pick out two tightly-circled asses to stare at. He tried testing a theory about telepathy that his psychology teacher had talked about. It consisted of concentrating on a subject and then letting the thought go and trying to direct it to a specific receiver. He formed the wording of his message: “I’d like to hump you silly,” and sent it off in the direction of the two asses. e quickly shifted his gaze to the rows of theatrical lights that were visible above the heads of the candidates, who were now taking their seats
He moved up to the front row to get a reporter’s eye view of what was happening. There were about 65 people in the auditorium when the first speaker got up to the podium. Ron wrote a large 65 across the top page of his notebook.

Chris Calvin brushed the hair out of his eyes. From behind the square, tinted lenses, they all appeared shadow-like in the darkened auditorium. He glanced down at the word “greeting” which was next to the number 1 on his 3×5 file card. He told himself that he wanted to speak clearly and keep in mind where their heads were at. He told himself that it was minimally important that this portion of things went well. It would allow him to focus in on the executive perspective. The phrase had a pleasing sound when he applied it to himself. He cleared his thoughts and throat. “It’s good to see you all here for these speeches. My name is Chris Calvin.” He removed his glasses, squinted for a second in the theatrical lights and focused straight out at them. “I’m this year’s Student Council President. I think there are more people in the auditorium right now than the number who voted for me, but that’s far out because it’s a good idea that we all work together to enjoy ourselves as much as possible.”

From Ron’s vantage point, up front and off to the side, he saw that Chris’ leg was shaking back and forth violently. Ron wondered if he had to take a leak, or if he was in some way afflicted. Chris continued, “The purpose of these speeches is to see who the candidates are and get an impression of them. There will be four people chosen from this group to represent the first year students.”

Ron wondered why he hadn’t heard about these elections before and how the people seated in back of the speaker had been chosen. He moved his eyes down the row of candidates discovering two facts: four of the seven people up there were females and he could see straight up the dresses of two of them.

One of the girls had short blonde hair and a busty chest. She was sitting so that anybody could see up her skirt with no trouble at all. There was a smile on her face that told the audience she knew it. Ron gaped at her open legs. He moved forward and craned his neck for a better view. He felt a little embarrassed at the obvious intent of his position after a while and slunk back lower in his chair.

From his lower vantage point, he looked up the second dress. She was a girl with dark brown hair and a tight sweater. She had her legs crossed at the ankles and Ron could glimpse a patch of white at the tops of her thighs. His eyes bored luxuriously into her panties. He looked up at her face, relieved to see that she wasn’t watching him. She was curling her hair around her fingers and listening nervously to the first candidate, a pledge from the Psi Omega frat who said that he thought he could honestly represent the fraternities and sororities on campus. Ron ignored him and stared back at the first and then the second cunt. He wanted to sneak up on stage and sit down in front of the second girl. He would secretly work his hand up her dress, without touching those fleecy thighs, and sensually drag his finger across the ridges of her pussy. It would be like a beautiful itch. She would smile down at him and say, “Please do that again.” He would rub her cunt until she got up to speak. When she stood up to speak, the patch of panties disappeared and it snapped his attention back to the business at hand. She was the second speaker and Ron hadn’t caught her name when she’d been introduced. His eyes traveled with her on the way to the podium. He absently stroked the notebook page with the 65 written across the top of it. She looked well manicured and organized. She held her two sheets of paper and began.

“I think that I would make a good representative because I’ve been around people who are connected to the law my whole life. My mother is a legal stenographer and my father is an agent with the FBI.” Ron saw a shifting of positions on stage and noticed that Chris began tapping his right leg again. He saw that the blonde had turned sideways in her seat and was smiling broadly, her legs still open, at Chris. When the girl in the white panties finished her speech, Ron applauded until she looked in his direction.

Chris approached the podium and said, “That was Cathy Quill whose father is an FBI agent.” Ron wrote her name underneath the 65. Ron paid only casual attention to the rest of the speakers. He was busy wondering what the best method of approaching Cathy would be. It was true that when she reseated herself he could no longer see up her dress, but he decided that he liked her anyway.

The blonde was the next speaker. She was giggling her way through her speech when Ron remembered that as a reporter he had the perfect excuse for approaching any of the candidates. He was immediately sure that he could meet any of the four girls on stage. He loved the newspaper! He imagined what Giggles up at the podium would do for a positive mentioning of her name.

Ron tried to listen attentively the rest of the time. Then he tried to figure out who would win. The one black candidate who wore sunglasses and seemed very cool was a shoe-in. He had the history of slavery and the civil rights movement on his side. The frat bum would turn out votes and who could keep from voting for Giggles with the open legs. That left one spot to go.

Chris got back to the podium and thanked everyone for coming. He snapped his fingers and said, “Well, that’s it. Far out,

Chapter 18

Hank woke up with the sticky feeling of being a fish on a pan. He turned on his side and faced, with blurred vision, the sight of Jo Lee’s armpit. It looked like a biology slide. His eyes roamed the surface, snapping wide-angle shots and doing slow, inspective sweeps. He wondered if she’d open her legs and and let him study her like this. He’d tell her it was a game called eyeballing and she’d love it. He thought he could probably spend the next five years doing nothing except watching her. It was morning, he was almost sure of that. A few days ago, he’d thought that it was morning too and Jo Lee had laughed and told him that it was 7:30 at night. She’d brought his uncombed head to her chest and he’d sucked at her tits like an eager puppy. He could never leave this room and feel like he was in paradise forever.

He sat up in bed and reached for his glasses. The minute Jo Lee felt him move, she reached for his cock. It was soft. She squeezed it in her palm and pressed it back against his balls. Hank sat there holding his glasses and watching her hand. She murmured and ran her fingers up and down on him. Hank put his glasses back on the nightstand and dove back under the sheets.

Her thighs were moist as his fingers moved steadily up to her pussy. He put a finger in and stirred like a spoon in a cup of coffee. She let go of his cock and opened her legs wide. He replaced his index finger with his thumb and slid the wet index up her behind. She wiggled her ass happily to help it slide in. The two fingers searched for each other through the squishy-firm membrane. “Are you my Roto-Rooter man, Hank? Are you gonna put your big snake in both places? Please!

“Hank, put your big snake back there too!”

Hank had never had his big snake in both places before. His cock hadn’t made any stiffening movements yet, and Hank was a little worried that it wasn’t gonna let him go anywhere right then. “I can’t get my big snake started this morning,” he said.

“Is it all done in?”

“I don’t know,” said Hank. He wondered if doing it this much was bad for you. Butchy Aletta said that you could wind up with a hard-on that wouldn’t blow its wad or go away. He said that when that happened to him, they had to pack his cock in ice at a hospital.

Jo Lee struck the pose of a dissatisfied customer. “Well, I’m not going to pay unless you get your big snake going real fast.” Hank started his head down towards her cunt. Her fist grabbed a handful of his tangled curls with a fierce jerk. “None of this sucking around Roto-Rooter man. I want a hard pole right now.” She smiled. Hank didn’t mention that she hurt him when she pulled his hair. “Maybe if I bite this little worm real hard.” She dove down at his cock like a hungry bird. Hank got his hands free and held them over his dick with a frightened little boy look on his face “Take your hands away, Hank.” Hank stared up at her. Being reluctant was part of the rules of the game. His hesitation excited her. She had a wicked smile and there was a glint in her eyes. “Maybe you’re right to be frightened. Maybe I should go back to Welmont and you should go back to school and your mommy. You better take your hands away this very minute and let me give you what you deserve.”

Hank drew his hands back from his dick, which had now shriveled to almost nothing. She looked at the tiny member and laughed.

“Come on out Mr. Turtle,” she said in a cartoon voice. “I want to see your fat red head.” She laughed again and lowered her mouth to his dick. Hank sighed and closed his eyes. She sucked his cock magnificently. When it was hard and thick, she said in a little girl voice, “Are you gonna put it back there and give it to me real good for being bad?” She put her eyes down demurely and held his cock in a beautiful squeeze.

“Not yet, “said Hank.

“I don’t want to suck it any more.” she turned on her belly and began to hump the mattress.

Her mouth had felt so good and he’d desperately wanted her to continue, but then a groan broke out of him and he bounced up on his knees thinking that he was gonna shove it in so hard that her was gonna knock on the door and ask if everything was ok. She had her ass up at his face and waved it back and forth. “Don’t forget some Vaseline on first, honey.”

“No Vaseline,” said Hank gruffly. Now it was his turn to play.

“Oh please, baby. Please grease it up first or you’ll never get it back there and it will hurt too much.” He was holding her cheeks apart and rubbing his big snake against her crack.

“Believe me! It’ll hurt so much.”

Hank bounced off the bed and headed for the bureau. He put a large blob of the stuff on his finger. The line “I’ll bet you know how much it hurts,” flashed silently in his brain.

Hank and Jo Lee emerged from their room about 3:00 pm. Jo Lee’s sister Myrtle met them in the kitchen. Her hair was wrapped in a kerchief, she said, because it was dirty. Hank noted with a trace of disgust that she’d been saying that for three days. While they were having their coffee, Myrtle announced that she was going grocery shopping and asked if they wanted anything. Hank took a $10 bill from his wallet and said “Get whatever you can use.”

“Are you sure, Hank?” she said putting the money away as she spoke.

Hank said, “Sure,” and turned his head in away that caused the sun to reflect the light off his thick glasses and temporarily startle her.

“What was that?” she hollered holding her breasts up against her chest. “My God.”
Hank watched her with a hidden and controlled scorn that he was accomplished at concealing. Myrtle had a washed out haggard look that Hank associated with people who came from the dirty little towns in Pennsylvania. She drank beer every night and stayed up until she couldn’t stand up on Fridays and Saturdays. There was no way to tell how old she was but Hank felt that it made no difference. She’d been frumpy since her early 20’s when her body lost its last traces of natural suppleness. Hank thought she was pathetic but kept telling Jo Lee how nice of her it was to let them stay there.

When the three dogs realized that Hank was up, they crowded around his feet, licking his toes and whimpering. On his second night there Myrtle had asked Hank if he would mind feeding the dogs. Her boyfriend Ernie was out and it was always his job to feed the animals. She told Hank that she didn’t think she could handle them and that they would probably knock her down.

Myrtle told Ernie that night that Hank had fed the dogs. It hadn’t been a big deal because they’d been out of the house and Hank just filled up the bowls and told Myrtle to let them in. Ernie clamped a hammy hand on Hank’s shoulder and said that he appreciated it with a wide, triple chinned grin that opened up like rising bread mix. Hank stared at the greyish white tee shirt that Ernie wore and wondered what size it was, figuring that Ernie’s stomach was at least two sizes larger than the largest stomach he’d ever seen before. While Ernie held his hand on Hank’s shoulder the rank odor of perspiration was visibly weakening Hank.

“Any time,” Hank was able to say smoothly but not without some difficulty.

“That means every time!” Ernie screamed in his ear. He laughed and lifted his hand only to reclamp it on Hank’s shoulder. Hank was beginning now to feel the effects of Ernie’s breath which hit him a second or two after the laughter.

Myrtle laughed too and wiped the hair out of her eyes. “He sure got you there. Ernie ain’ t one for doin’ jobs he can get out of.”

Jo Lee looked sadly at Hank.

“He sure got me there,” echoed Hank.

They were three two-year old hunting beagles that had been trained for ducks. They were kept in the house and only let out when they cried or somebody remembered. They patrolled the house, ceaselessly wandering through the rooms. Hank had heard them nuzzling the door when he and Jo Lee fucked. They had laughed and Jo Lee had said, “I bet that’s Casper who’s all hot and bothered out there. He’s always trying to sniff me.” Hank had a picture of Casper licking the front of Jo Lee’s panties. He’d giggled and let out several moaning yelps.

He’d taken a liking to Casper after that fantasy.

The other two dogs were a spayed bitch named Betty who tried to bite Casper every time he went to mount her and Dagger, whom nobody trusted because of a blood clot in his eye that gave him a cranky and sinister appearance.

Ernie liked to sit in his chair and throw dog biscuits off the walls and down the halls into the other rooms. The dogs would charge after them, climbing over each other and snarling. When two dogs would square off over one of the biscuits, Ernie would wait to see if one backed down, then get up and go over and kick the biscuit to the dog that he thought deserved it. Sometimes he’d also slap the other dog with the scolding motion of a referee. “I thought I told you that you had to try for it fair and square.” He’d laugh in the direction of whoever was present and go back to his seat. Often he’d try to get other people to bet on which dog would get the prize. If Myrtle’d had a few drinks in her, she’d play the game laughing loudly and bouncing up and down in her seat.

“Ain’t that smart of Ernie?” she said to Hank and Jo Lee.” Ernie’s gonna think up something one of these days that’ll make everybody take notice.”

“Could very well be,” said Ernie as he took a long pull on his beer.

Because of the game, there wasn’t one piece of furniture that hadn’t been ripped, pissed on, or in some way broken. The aluminum legs around the kitchen table held up best.

The dogs were barking in a deafening crescendo that rose up around Hank’s feet. He spooned food into their dishes with wet plops and pulled a giant package of dry food down from the pantry. When he walked away from the wet food, the dogs bayed and tried to jump on the counter, a feat that Ernie had enjoyed seeing and rewarded with an extra bowl.

This time Hank knew enough to place the dishes far back on the counter so they couldn’t be touched. On an earlier occasion, one of the dogs had snagged the edge of a bowl and sent it splattering against the kitchen wall. Hank had felt obliged to clean it up. When Hank tried to put the dogs in the other room so he could safely place the bowls on the floor, the frenzied animals (who didn’t know Hank that well anyway) had threatened to attack with dangerous sounds that Myrtle could distinguish from the normal howling. She explained the rules of the bowl game to Hank and told him that if he didn’t want to play, he should just push the bowls back on the counter and wait for the dogs to forget and wander off. She went on to say that the jumping for the bowl game made a lot of mess but that she didn’t have a lot to do anyway and if it made Ernie happy, that was what was important. She poked Hank and said, “Ain’t that right?” Hank put his head down and said that it was.

Hank sat back down over his coffee and tried to inhale the aroma. Myrtle threw a quick glance at Jo Lee, who nodded her head. “Hank,…” she said and stopped. Hank raised his head without succeeding in clearing out his sinuses even a little bit. The rural pollen was more potent, but Hank had taken to accepting the discomfort and doctoring himself only when he could do so without arousing much attention. “Hank,” she said again, “I really don’t know how to ask you this but would you mind being out of the house between noon and 7 o’clock tomorrow night.” Hank was about to say that he didn’t mind when she continued.
“The welfare people are coming over and well, you know, I’m gonna say that my sister had to move in with me.” Hank looked sharply at Jo. He had expected they’d be going out together and now wasn’t sure.

Jo Lee looked back at him and confirmed, “I’m going to see if I qualify.”

Hank was silent. She hadn’t said anything to him about this in all the time they’d been alone together. They were only supposed to be staying at her sister’s house for now, until it was safe to go out. Then Hank was gonna get a job and they were gonna get their own place. That’s what they talked about. He looked at Jo Lee with a confused expression.

“We have to have some money besides your allowance, Hank.”

He was stung as surely as if he’d been lashed with a bullwhip. His face froze masking interior, prickly heat pain. He looked down into his coffee. He stood up and walked to the back door, a cross between the sad sack and Gomer Pyle. The dogs rose after him and crowded around his legs. Hank lit a cigarette and opened the door. Yelping appreciatively, the dogs ran down the wooden steps into the tire littered yard.

Ernie saved inner tubes and talked about going up to the lakes and selling them to the bathers for 75 a piece. He never did get up to the lakes, but continued to save and inflate the inner tubes. Lately he’d taken to stacking them and stuffing the centers with newspapers and old rags. He put old lawn cushions on top of the rags and called them “Ernie chairs.” Myrtle first showed Hank and Jo Lee the creations with pride. There was another stack of tubes with a board across it that he called an “Ernie table.”

Hank dropped his cigarettes down onto the Ernie table and dropped into one of the Ernie chairs. He panned the back yards of the other houses with the phrase “nestled in the hills” in his mind. He thought about why people should have to work for anything. They didn’t and the alternative was welfare. Why was he, all of a sudden, feeling so grimy and cheap? This is what it feels like to be colored, he thought to himself. He thought sadly of how he now knew why people shot dope, or sold themselves, or just gave up in order to escape this experience. He wondered if there was any real difference between Ernie and himself, not just a variation of personality, a deeper, more profound distinction. If they weren’t a different species, he felt there was no hope for mankind.

He focused his eyes on the rims of his glasses, which if he dropped his head to the side, he could see as an all-encompassing blur. From a distance it gave him the odd appearance of someone who’d been hung. “No wonder I’m crazy,” he thought to himself, as if in some secret way, it had been his glasses that were responsible for the way he was. “What can you expect from somebody who sees the world through a cage,” he said.

The screen door slammed. Hank looked up and saw Jo Lee sauntering in his direction with a small smile on her face. She sat down on an Ernie chair and lit a cigarette. Neither of them said anything. A bumpy row of houses, all of the six-room variety and in various states of disrepair, stretched in both directions. Hank counted clotheslines and torn screens. Jo Lee thought the tangle reminded her of drunken hands trying to wrap yarn.

“Hank, I know that we didn’t plan on being here that long, but trying to collect some money wouldn’t be a bad idea. Hank continued to count as he listened. “Anyway, that’s not really why Myrtle asked you to go out tomorrow.”

Hank stopped counting. The answer was stuck in his head but he didn’t want to say it for fear that it would be an admission. He turned to face her. He could see that she’d taken a shower and stared in lost admiration at the perfection with which her ear curved down to her neck, where the hair was so white blonde that it reflected light like a finely spun web.

“Why did she tell me that she wants me to go out?”

“Tony’s coming over to talk to me.”

Hank couldn’t remember how many screens he’d counted. He turned away from her ear and saw the ramshackle row of pink and brown and green and blue houses. He felt tears burning in his eyes. His glacier-like sinuses shifted ominously. He concentrated on a TV antenna he’d located at the end of the row.

“Hank,” she said softly, he just wants to come over and talk to me. There’s not going to be any trouble. I feel like I owe him an explanation. I’ve been with him a long time, Hank”

He wanted to tell her that everything she said was true, but between the sinuses and the tears he was holding back, there was no way for him to speak. He slipped his fingers under his glasses and squeezed his nose. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he choked out over his shoulder and walked quickly to the bathroom.

Jo Lee watched the screen door close and thought that she’d never been in love with a man who was this much of a baby before. She immediately corrected herself saying that she’d never been with a man who was this sensitive before.

She sat waiting for Hank to return as Ernie waddled up alongside the house. He didn’t move around much and took on the look of an invalid after a long illness when he did. He chuckled when he saw Jo Lee. It always tickled him to see someone in one of the Ernie chairs. Jo Lee didn’t have much to say to Ernie. She had asked Myrtle, with a grotesque sense of curiosity, what it was like to do it with somebody who was that fat. She went on to say that she could take care of Ernie all right, whenever he wanted her to, and sometimes without him even asking her for it. But the truth was, she swore Jo Lee to secrecy, that Ernie couldn’t really lie down very well. She looked around conspiratorially when she divulged the information. She’d taken Jo Lee’s hand and led her into their room. Jo Lee felt very close to her sister when she took her by the hand. All of a sudden they were kids sneaking up into the attic. Jo Lee was frightened by what her sister was going to show her. Myrtle showed her another of Ernie’s chairs that was covered with a red and green flower print upholstery. The fabric had also been sewn around a hassock at the base of the chair. “I don’t really mind,” said Myrtle. “It would be tough on me to have him in the same bed. We tried it a while back and it didn’t work out, you know? Sometimes he can get it sort of half in if I bend over and he stands up but his stomach gets in the way and he’s been putting on more weight lately, so we don’t try it anymore. She got a naughty smile on her face and said, “A lot of times we play with these.” She walked to the bureau and pulled out two large dildos.

Jo Lee watched Ernie as he splashed into one of his chairs saying, “This is the kind of furniture that was made for a man of my quality.” Jo Lee hated him for saying that while she was thinking about Myrtle. She wanted to cry when she thought about what her sister had to look forward to. Tony wasn’t half as bad as this blob on his best day. She wasn’t living with Tony anymore. This was the first time she’d slipped like that since she and Hank came up here.

Hank came out the door and Ernie shouted to him. “Where was you, Hank? On the throne? You wouldn’t ever want to get off the bowl if they was as comfortable as Ernie chairs, would you?”

“No, you wouldn’t,” said Hank. He picked up his pack of cigarettes from the Ernie table. He waited to see what Jo Lee would do. He thought it was obvious that they weren’t finished talking. Ernie rocked back and forth in his chair.

“I didn’t think that what the two of you have been doing made it difficult to sit down, Hank.” Then he laughed and rocked harder.

Jo Lee waited to see what Hank would say. He certainly didn’t have a quick wit. She got out of the Ernie chair and started back for the house. Hank turned to follow her. The dogs, who had emptied themselves and scouted the yard, crowded around Ernie’s face wagging their tails and wanting to play biscuit ball.

Chapter 19

Ron listened to the radio broadcast with a dark look of despair. The world was a place of irreparable mutilations that cynically robbed victims of even their honor. It had been that way since John Kennedy had been killed. When Bobby had run for president, everyone said “Somebody’s gonna shoot him too.” Ron had been working the graveyard shift at IBM and waiting for the results of the California primary. He let out a war hoop of victory when Bobby made his speech and concluded with, “And now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there.” A few minutes later he was shot. Ron had been changing stations, looking for analysis of the results. At first the words Kennedy had been shot were confused in his mind. He thought he commentator was talking about him shooting into the lead in the delegate race. The truth was a bizarre shock. He listened for the rest of the time, a dull monitoring robot. After work, his head hurt too much for him to sleep. He rode around in his car clinging to the announcer’s voice. He’d been with the same reporter for several hours and he was reluctant to turn the radio off, at least until the announcer had been replaced. It was his private way of keeping vigil at the spot where he had met Bobby Kennedy most often. The reporter was saying that with head wounds of this type the range of damage went from severe mental incapacity to the projected ability to be back on the campaign trail within six weeks. “At this point,” the announcer had said, “There was still room for guarded optimism.

It was bullshit. Robert Kennedy was already just about dead. The reporter had continued with a story about his mother Rose, who had been awakened and told that another son had been shot in the head. He had blubbered so uncontrollably that he had to pull the car over to the side of the road. Nothing had really made sense since either one of them had been killed. Johnson was a horror. The convention he had followed the path towards so fervently was a horror. The war was a horror. And there was no way to make the horror stop. There was no way to be sure that he wouldn’t be sent to Viet Nam and asked to be part of the horror. He really didn’t think he could bring himself to run away from his country. But it didn’t matter what he said now. If they really ordered him to go, he knew there was a force inside him that would demand to be right at the center of things. He knew he would get himself killed. It would be part of the plan. He knew his sense of reality wasn’t strong enough to stand up to that.

Today’s newscaster was talking about the execution of a prisoner. They held the poor bastard at the ends of four ropes with rifles arranged around him. They taunted him for hours and made him beg for his life and eat animal shit and lick their shoes. Then they blew his head off. Ron saw himself trapped inside the man. He knew now that flies were swarming over his body and that nothing else had changed or stopped. The man had just been used to make things more gruesome. Maybe I should just kill myself in some pleasurable way, he thought. He had never fit into the social scheme of things. If he could do one great thing before he killed himself, his life would be redeemed. He was sure the barker wouldn’t say, “Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.”

He turned off the radio, looked down at his note pad with the number 65, the list of candidates; names with all the circles around Cathy’s name. How the hell was he supposed to write an article based on that? “You’re stupid,” a voice screamed from inside him. “Not stupid,” corrected a second voice, “just immature.” Then the second voice added, “Don’t ever let anyone call you stupid.” It was almost time for him to leave for school. He had a class in less than an hour and wanted time to pick up a container of coffee.

During the first week he had the car, Ron tied the trunk down with an assortment of things. He’d started with twisted coat hangers, but the hadn’t gotten five blocks from the house when they’d pulled apart, sending the trunk bobbing up and down in the air. Next he’d tried a heavy-duty extension cord, which he’d taken from George’s workbench. By the second day, the cord had stretched and begun to rip. He thought of having it chained or welded shut but it never did occur to him. The trunk was just a pain in the ass. He ended up using rope that had to be retied every couple of days.

The drive to the college went as smoothly as a Sunday morning dream. He would finish writing his article after class, find Cathy and see if she wanted to go to the Birth of October Party that “The Commuter” was having. Ron liked his prospects for the day as he turned off the parkway and cruised down the road the led to the college. About six blocks outside the center of town, out of the corner of his eye, Ron saw what appeared to be a policeman waving for help. Ron stopped and looked in his rear view mirror. The cop was bent over the open hood of an obviously disabled vehicle. Ron figured the situation to be an off-duty patrolman who had broken down and was in need of a ride, probably back to the cop shop about a half mile down the street. Maybe he wasn’t even a cop, maybe he was a mailman or something like that. Ron parked his car and started back up the street to see what he could do to help. As he got closer, he saw that it was indeed a cop. on shuddered briefly but told himself that not every cop was the tank.

“Can I help you officer?” he said when he got to the hood.

To his amazement, he saw a breadbox sized electrical unit propped on top of the engine. “You were going 37 in a 30. License and registration.”

“Oh no!” screamed Ron. “That’s radar? You’re not stuck here?” You mean this is what you wanted me for?”

The cop grinned at Ron with an amused expression. “Get your license and registration out, please.”

Some last particle of Ron’s brain clung to the notion that everything was going too well for this to happen today. It held to the idea that this was really a misunderstanding that would be cleared up. “You mean you’re not kidding?”

“I wouldn’t kid you, kid,” said the cop with a snaggle-toothed grin that sent Ron back to his car muttering that he should just get in his car and take right the fuck off, that’s what he should do. But then again, how many cars looked like his? His eyes attached themselves to the battered trunk. “Cocksucker,” he said, “if I didn’t have to come this way every day for rest of the year.” He plucked the registration from his glove compartment and started back to the speed trap. The cop was already writing initial information on the ticket. Ron studied the cop’s face. His skin had a leathery look that reminded him of his father but Ron could tell by the swollen neck and forehead curves and red tinges around the bulbous nose that the pig was a drinker. He had been in too many bars with his old man not to be able to pick one out every time.

The cop compared the license and registration. “Who’s Marjorie Bombasco?”

Ron felt like he’d been answering this question all of his life. It never ceased to feel like an invasion of his privacy. “My mother,” he said looking at the cop in a way that wanted to slam the hood down on the black box and his fingers.

The cop wasn’t satisfied. “You say it’s your mother but it says here that your name is Ronald Tuck?”

If Ron had shown the bloated face bastard his hands, he would have seen that they were clenched and shaking. He bit on his words sharply as he spoke. “My parents were divorced when I was two. My mother remarried. I kept my name.”

The cop proceeded to write out the ticket. “Now Ronnie, this is a summons for driving 37 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone. If you wish to plead not guilty, you must contact the court prior to the appearance date.”

“The town must definitely need the money, huh? I mean you guys must really be hard up if you’ve got to trick people to earn your salary.”

“You should move along now. If you’re unsatisfied, you can tell the judge about it.”

“I hope you got to be there on your birthday because that’s just what I’m going to do.”

“That’s fine,” said the cop turning back to the machine.

Impulsively, Ron jumped out into the street waving his arms like a distressed duck. The approaching car came to a stop. “Just wanted you to see this speed trap here,” shouted Ron pointing to the cop, who waved the motorist on.

“Look, you little prick, if you don’t get outta here right now, I’m gonna take you back to the station and personally kick the shit out of you.” The cop’s face had gotten a lot redder and Ron saw spit stuck in the corners of his mouth. Ron felt better. He looked down at the ground, turned and walked back to his car. A voice told him to go very easy because he’d pushed things to the point where they might go right over the edge.

He drove the rest of the way to the college in insulin shock. The ticket would probably cost at least $25. he voice inside him said, “Fuck it. You don’t have to pay it right now. You can stall it for weeks and weeks so that when you finally do have to pay, it’ll just seem like an old bill. So the truth is that it didn’t really happen.” Ron liked the rationalization and was beginning to feel better by the time he got out of his car again.

The class was English. The story was “Abraham and Isaac” and Ron was fuckin ready. He decided that he would like nothing better than to blow Warren Lashly’s version of God right out of the water.

Ron had listened to Dylan’s “Highway 61” until he got the first verse copied out verbatim. Since Lashly encouraged his students to write their reactions to the readings for each class on the side board, Ron decided to copy out the whole opening of the song. Lashly had started with the story of Creation and Fall from the Bible, then they read the Greek plays Agamemnon and Antigone and Ron had thought they were done with the Bible, but he’d gone right back for the “Abraham and Isaac” fiasco.

Picking up his coffee, Ron started for class. He’d seen the red haired girl drinking coffee and Lashly knocked out two containers during each class, so he guessed it must be ok. He put his container on his desk and went to the side board. It was the first time he could remember writing on the board since his 9th grade math class. He stepped back to look at what he’d done so far. is letters were very large and round. They were twice as big as anybody else’s writing. For a second he considered whether he should just erase the first line he’d put up and sit back down before anybody noticed, but nobody seemed to be watching him. There was a steady hum of normal conversation, which Ron decided wouldn’t be there if his writing was that laughable. He studied the line on the board, “God said to Abraham…” A voice in his head completed the line with, “…joke’s on you jerk-off.” That was a little different than the way Dylan wrote it. “…kill me a son,” went up and Ron’s interior commentary broke in. “Abe fell down thankful that God wasn’t for real.”

Ron looked up from the board in time to see Lashly enter the room carrying his books and one container of coffee, followed by the red haired girl, who carried two containers of coffee and her notebook. She tried to set one of the containers down casually on Lashly’s desk, but none of it was missed by any of the other girls in the class who had figured out what was going on already. Ron had also figured out what was happening. He cursed to himself. What kind of a democracy was it when the teacher glommed the best looking piece of ass in the class? He returned to the board and continued copying from his sheet of paper. He turned briefly to see if Lashly was ready to start. There was no sign of it. People were still coming into the room. He cramped, “Abe said ‘man you must be putting me on'” into the first line. “God said, ‘No. Abe said, ‘What?'” He was out of space. He looked over to Lashly, who’d taken the lid off his first container and moved over to the window sill from which he usually started things. There was no place to put the rest of it up. What should he do now? What he had up there made no sense, but it was too late to erase and write smaller, the way he should have done at the beginning. Lashly had a big grin on his face. He had recognized the song and the predicament simultaneously.

“Let’s begin by dealing with the problem right in front of us,” said Lashly.

Ron quickly scribbled, “could not finish” at the bottom and sat down. He tried to open his coffee but squeezed the middle of it too hard. Hot coffee ran out over his hand.

Lashly watched Ron and then looked back at his unfinished quote. “What really does that long thing over there stand for? I mean, it doesn’t make much sense to me.”
The teacher was staring right at Ron who knew he was speaking to him. “It’s from a Bob Dylan song.”

“I don’t really care where it’s from.” said Lashly, pointedly looking at the class for emphasis. Clarity meant more than source was the message he was trying to deliver.

“I copied this quote of Dylan’s,” said Ron determined to explain himself, “because I thought it was pertinent to our class. It wouldn’t fit into the space on the board and well…” Ron was becoming more flustered. “I’ve got the rest of the quote here, if you want me to read it.”

“The quote itself is unimportant,” stated Lashly categorically. “The more interesting question, and incidentally the question that Abraham had to ask himself, is what do you do when you’ve run out of space and it’s time to go. Abraham’s faith was tested to see if he had the will to follow his conscience.”

Ron didn’t understand and he felt used. “I started to put the quote up because I thought it would have some bearing on things.”

Lashly took a long pull on his coffee, stared back at Ron and then out at the whole class. “If you weight your thoughts down to a one-dimensional view of what happens to you, they will become old and stifled.” Ron had nothing to say. He stared at his sticky hand and waited for Lashly to continue. The professor opened his imitation horsehair vest and pulled out a small white box of cigars.

A chubby, brown haired girl, who’d been calling him Warren for the first two classes, said, “Oh no! Now you’re going to smoke cigars?”

A slow grin spread over Lashly’s face like honey. “You don’t want to let me smoke these?” he said in a high-pitched, whinnying drawl.

She brightened noticably at his attention. She shifted seat and to hold of her desk. “Maybe we should have a vote to see if we’re going to allow smoking?”

“You’re gonna make all these people vote on such a silly thing?” said Lashly with feigned anger.

Her smile grew so broad that it threatened to rip at the corners of her mouth. She straightened her army shirt and soaked in the pleasure of making this many people, especially him, do anything. “It’s not a silly question.” she said.

“It’s not only silly, it’s a stupid question for people to have to concern themselves with because it lacks form and a major concern. It’s like the Dylan thing.” Ron felt newly embarrassed.

Lashly tossed his head back in Ron’s direction. “The concern is limited and it avoids the larger issue. And that’s what I’m interested in, the larger questions behind these situations, not the petty concerns involved in them. If you take away the larger question, none of it becomes very interesting and there’s no need for these stories, unless you are obsessed with the details of history, which I’m not.” He’d said all of this very quickly and in the same breath. Several people in the class giggled when he took a badly needed deep breath. The chubby girl sat back, satisfied that he hadn’t lit the cigar, which had been her small but very necessary point. She smiled over at him like he’d given her a candy bar.

Lashly looked at her and spread out his best topping style grin. “You’re happy because you got what you wanted, right?” She felt gently exposed by him and was delighted again because he had tugged the idea out gently like he was taking off her blouse. He could do that any time as far as she was concerned. Lashly shifted back towards Ron with a harsher tone. “And you’re still upset because you didn’t get to finish your quote, right?”

“It’s not that I’m upset,” said Ron. “It’s that it seems foolish that you wouldn’t hear my explanation.” Ron knew he shouldn’t have said that the minute the words left his mouth. He felt a tightness in his throat and wanted a cigarette.

“It’s really that your ego is too involved for you to even know why you’re upset.” Ron’s face flushed again. He wanted to get up and leave but didn’t. Lashly saw that there were no more opening questions and raised the Lit book to commence his rendition of the book attributed to God.

The class couldn’t have ended soon enough as far as Ron was concerned. He was out the door before most of the students had gotten out of their seats. He swept down the hall like it was a runway he was using to build up speed. There was a clanging and shuffling of lockers being opened. Friends were calling to each other and doing imitations of what they’d just heard and were in the process of transcribing’ into their own language.

Ron made it across the quad and into the newspaper room in record time. The place was empty, populated only by stacks of books that people had left there on their way to class. Ron sat down. His eyes roamed the room and settled on two large manila envelopes marked Liberation News Service. Ron pulled out one of the envelopes and started looking at pictures and reading articles that were concerned with the war. He made a note to study theses things in the future but not right now. Right now, he needed another coffee and about six cigarettes.

Chapter 20

There were two places that served food at the college. One was the cafeteria where the usual mediocre assortment of burgers, dogs, chips and cold sandwiches was served. There was a long row of tables reserved for faculty and staff who seemed to be keeping a watchful eye over the other tables, and the kids who weren’t into anything, mostly the math and science students, dutifully did as they were told. Ron got his coffee there often and hated the place. Most of the conservative organizations, including GIA also had tables set up in the cafeteria. Somebody from their table tried to stare Ron down each time he was noticed.

Ron learned, since the publication of “Darker Shade of White”, that all the fraternities and sororities were all white. Supposedly, one of the sororities had a light-skinned pledge who quit after reading Ron’s article and talking it over with her friends.

The other place that served food was the snack bar. If you were cool or just wanted to look that way, you hung out at the snack bar. Music from the radio station was pumped in there at a louder volume and there was an adjoining lounge filled with plastic covered chairs and couches you could lie down on. The student council people, the newspaper people, the freaks, the jocks, and the unattached inhabited the snack bar. It was also the place where the dope deals were possible. It had never occurred to Ron that drugs were available at his college. He’d read about things that went on at college campuses around the country, but he’d never been involved with any of it and didn’t think that any of the people he saw around him were capable of pulling it off.

Vee Vee walked through the door talking. “I’ve got some many things to do and there just isn’t enough….Well that’s not your problem, right? Ron didn’t answer. “You’re going to do the article on the new student council reps, right?” Ron nodded thinking that this girl was just too annoying to fuck. “OK,” she said, spreading her fingers in the air as if she was trying to remember something important. Ron looked at her body, not bad but… “Peter told me that he assigned you to write the article that talks about the speeches, right?”

“That’s right,” said Ron.

“Well here’s the list of candidates that we want endorsed. Now it would be far out if these were the only names that you mentioned in your article. Chris says that if you really want to, you can stick the other names in somewhere down near the end. You know, also running are the following, but that wouldn’t really be as cool.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What don’t you understand?” she said turning her head sharply. Then she looked at the wall clock and checked it against her wristwatch. “Look,” she smiled, “it would be really far out to rap with you but I’ve got to run. We’ll try it once more quickly. Here is a list of the council’s endorsements for freshman representatives. If you have any questions, show the list to Peter or Julian and they’ll tell you want to do.” She smiled at him again.

Ron thought it was the phoniest smile he’d ever seen in his life. She would really look like a little plastic doll if she didn’t have such a plain to ugly face. “Look, I don’t know who Julian is and I don’t think anybody should be telling me who to write about in the article.”

The newspaper room door opened and a skinny, hawkish faced kid with horn-rimmed glasses entered. on remembered him vaguely.

“Vee Vee!” he said with a big grin and an open mouthed gesture.

“Hi Julian,” she said in a cheerful voice. “Julian, I’ve got to run. Do you think that you could explain what this guy doesn’t understand about this?”

Julian looked over at Ron and the back at Vee. He smirked. “What are you trying to explain to him?”

“I’m not sure what the problem is,” said Vee Vee. She scuffled quickly to the worktable where her stack of books was, pointed down at the list in front of Ron saying, “Julian’s on the Student Council too,” waved goodbye to Julian and was out the door.

Ron felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the birdlike face behind large brown frames that regarded him with a snooty expression. “What is it that you need to have explained to you?”

“I’m not sure,” said Ron, blowing smoke out through his nose.

Julian picked up the piece of paper Vee Vee had pointed to and read. “Oh,” he said in an obvious tone. “These are the people the Student Council would like to have join them from the freshman class.”

Ron detected a slight lisp in his speech when he said freshman class. “I thought the representatives were elected,” said Ron sarcastically.

The door opened again and Nan Timsek walked into the room with Sophie Warren. Ron watched with obvious delight the sway of Sophie’s peasant dress. Nan was Peter’s girlfriend. Everybody said hello and Julian moved to the side of the room opposite Ron, taking overly long strides with his arms held stiffly at his sides. Ron thought that it was an awkward sort of gait but that he seemed to do it smoothly. Julian stood watching Ron with his hands folded behind his back. Ron thought that he resembled the smart-assed lieutenant who always started trouble with the Indians by being a jerk-off. Ron stood up and moved over next to Julian. “Look,” he said, “I don’t believe this is any of your business. I mean this isn’t the fuckin’ two- party system.”

“No,” said Julian. “We’ve adopted the improved concept. We have one basic party, but it doesn’t seem that you were invited.”

“Hey man, I didn’t ask for any of this shit.” This was one too many times to be fucked over on a day that had been so promising. “I’m supposed to write a story about all the candidates, but I think Peter would agree that this would make much more interesting reading.” Ron glared at Julian’s throat as he answered.

“It just makes perfect sense for us to say who should get elected because we’re the only ones who pay attention to what’s going on. It will improve attendance at the polls if we tell them who to vote for. Most of them won’t vote at all or even know there’ s an election. There’s the explanation. It’s really as simple as the alphabet, which, by the way it would be a good idea for you to learn.”

Ron was ready to stomp on his Adam’s apple until it resembled a squashed acorn. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you should proof read. Do you even know what proof reading is?” Ron wasn’t sure that he did, but he knew that this wasn’t the time to ask.

“Look,” continued Julian, “why don’t you wait right here and work on your article, or your penmanship or something and I’ll send someone back who knows how to talk to you.” He slapped his hands down to his sides like a vehicle trying to cut wind resistance and headed for the door with splint-like steps.

Sophie swayed over sumptuously. “How are you, Ron?” Her eyes reminded him of Chipper but her hips did move so nicely. “Are you going to the party tonight?”

“I’m not sure,” said Ron remembering that he still hadn’t looked for Cathy. Ron looked over at Nan, who was standing quite still and straight without an expression on her face. “I probably will go,” said Ron. Sophie had large breasts and wasn’t wearing a bra. She watched Ron stare at her tits and wondered how long they would hold his attention. She and Nan were so stoned that she’d never be able to figure out how long it was.

“Nan and I are looking for Peter.”

Ron snapped his head up to her face. She frowned and realized that she’d distracted him.

“Are you gonna go?” said Ron.

Sophie raised the back of her hand up to her forehead the way he’d seen silent screen actors do. “Alas, no,” she said with exaggerated sadness and a large smile.

The door opened again and Chris Calvin came in led by Julian Willy. Ron was surprised that such a small thing could attract so much attention. There was the Student Council President in a different colored Nehru shirt, carrying a hard shell briefcase like a business man. “I’m Chris Calvin,” he said.

“My name is Ron Tuck.”
Chris said “Good to meet you,” but didn’t extend his hand. He did smile and the look put Ron immediately more at ease. “What’s the problem?” said Chris.

“I don’t know. It seems to have something to do with your people trying to fix the election of freshman representatives.”

Chris didn’t like the sensationalized way that Ron worded it. It sounded too much like a headline. Of course he could stop him from writing just about anything in “The Commuter,” but what about the other publication. The Paper would love to print something like this.

“These are just suggestions. They’re righteous endorsements based on who we think we do a good job.”

“Based on what somebody’s father does for a living?” Ron had noticed long ago that Cathy’s name definitely was not on the list.

“What is this idiot talking about?” said Julian. He walked around in a circle like a giant crane.

The door to the room opened and closed again. Vee Vee was coming back from her class with a surprised look on her face. Ron was beginning to feel outnumbered.

“It just doesn’t seem right,” he said shaking his head.

“There’s nothing at all wrong with it,” said Chris trying to be patient and not sound in the least upset.

Vee Vee had returned to the room. She moved forward and cracked her gum twice. “Why are you bothering to argue with him?” she said to Chris and Julian. “He’s absolutely nobody!”

Everybody in the room looked at Ron. He tried to appear nonchalant but it was useless.

Vee Vee started for the door again. “Well, I’m sure not going to stand around here doing nothing.” She enunciated the last word directly in Ron’s direction in a way that made Julian snicker.

“You know,” he said, “she’s obviously right.”

Chris didn’t like it. He looked at Julian nervously and then he said to Ron, “Do you have a class now?”

‘No.”

“Let’s go upstairs where we can talk a little more quietly.”

Julian sensed something was coming that he wouldn’t like one bit. “I’m on my way to Black Literature,” he said. Ron was sure that he was about to click his heels.

“OK Julian. What are you going to be doing later?” said Chris.

“I’ll call before I leave for the party.”

“Why don’t you just stop over on your way there.”

“I’ll call you first.” said Julian. He turned and looked Ron full in the face. “There are blackboards up in the student council room. Perhaps you could practice up there.” He turned quickly and was out the door in two crane-like strides.

“I’m gonna practice on his nose,” said Ron, moving after him.

Chris stood up in front of the door and burst out laughing. “Right. You’ll get used to him. It’s just his way.”

“That’s what they said about me I was a kid.” Julian’ s insults were still stinging him.

Chris laughed again. “Come on upstairs.”

Ron checked where his books were stacked, patted his breast pocket to make sure he had his cigarettes, picked up his pad and the list of endorsements. He felt like he was going to some kind of an interview. He’d never seen the upstairs portion of the campus center before. He hadn’t seen the black tubular pipe designed like an owl. As he rounded the first of two flights of stairs, he noticed that the people passing by on the other side of the double glass doors appeared to be fish moving in the corridor stream.

The second floor of the campus center contained the radio station, the student council room, an art gallery, and some teachers’ offices. There was also the formerly prestigious General Livingstone Room where the Board of Trustees used to meet before students were given access to the place.

Ron followed Chris into what used to be a classroom. It now was equipped with three long tables arranged in the shape of a C. There were about 15 chairs placed around the configuration. Old couches and folding chairs lined the walls. Metal filing cabinets topped with large stereo speakers stood in two of the corners. Ron lit a cigarette and offered one to Chris, who produced his own pack. Chris checked the memo pad next to his telephone to see if there were any messages, lowered the volume of the speakers and watched Ron soaking in the atmosphere of his set up. “What do you think?”

“What do ya mean?”

Chris quickly shifted back to his topic. “About the freshman reps?”

“It doesn’t seem to be fair,” Ron repeated.

“You were at the speeches, weren’t you?” Ron nodded. “What’s wrong with the people that I’m endorsing?”

“But why should you have the power to say who’s going to get elected?”

“Because practically speaking, they have to be people I can get along with. So that we can all do good things for the people in this school.”

“Like what?” said Ron, feeling like he was calling a bluff.

“This year, I increased the student activities budget from $4000 to $40,000. With that kind of funding, we can expand the newspaper and do a lot of things that we couldn’t even think about before.”

“But why can’t you do those things based on who everybody chooses to have elected? Look, I’m not stupid enough, despite what your friend Julian thinks, to really think that I have any power to keep you from endorsing anybody you want. I’m concerned about two things: why that screwy broad Vee told me I could only mention certain peoples’ names in my article and why you would lock somebody out just because her father’s a pig.”

Chris was absolutely sure that he wanted this guy to have no idea that pounds of pot were passed at the school every week. He was also sure that he didn’t want him to know all the reasons he had for carrying his briefcase. Ron noticed that Chris’ leg was tapping again. He stared at it. Chris flicked his ash awkwardly toward a silver paper ashtray. “I was elected through the agreement of a number of people last year. A coalition of different groups that shared the trust that I was going to do the right thing.” Chris hunched his shoulders, looked his fingers to represent the coalition and looked into Ron’s face.

Ron was impressed. Chris was telling him that he really did run the student segment of the school.

“Now the job of “The Commuter” is completely up to the people downstairs. I did some writing for the newspaper last year and I think I have its best interests in mind. Vee Vee and Julian are both sophomore reps. Vee Vee is also president of her sorority.” Chris was looking at Ron with assurance. Ron believed, on the instant, that Chris really would try to do the right thing. He wanted to say that he’d be glad to help but was hit by the realization that Chris didn’t need any help.

Ron looked at him with admiration. “The truth is, man, that there’s this girl who I’m desperately trying to fuck. She’s got the nicest… Well, she’s pretty anyway. I can’t write an article about the speeches and not include her.”

“Saying that her father was a agent for the FBI was terrible,” said Chris.

“I felt that too, but some parts of me are totally blind.” Ron flashed his grin for the first time.

“The idea is that we all like to party and, you know, really enjoy things.” Chris was bobbing his head as he spoke. “With a coalition, we can act as a single force. Look why don’t you just write an article about something else? We won’t put anything in “The Commuter” either way.”

“That sounds great,” said Ron. He hadn’t much liked the assignment anyway. He looked over at Chris who was playing with the end of his mustache and judging the effect of his words with pleasure. “I’d like to do an article about speed traps around the school.”

“Far out,” said Chris, bobbing his head in agreement.

“Well, I’d better start getting it together,” said Ron.

[Insert missing copy here.] to politics.”

“You move on to something else. Last year, when I was new to things, I worked on “The Commuter” a whole lot. I haven’t quite decided what I’m going to do this year.”

She tilted her head and Ron thought she was going to take off her glasses. Ron had trouble seeing the color of her eyes, but Jade’s face left him astonished. His eyes ran uncontrollably over her face and neck. They danced on her shoulders and made swan dives to her slender waist. They skated across her leather boots and curled between her thighs. When he returned to her face, he saw a small smile at the corners of her mouth and slightly colorless eyes that stared amusedly at him with a soft gray shimmering appearance. She knows that I’ve checked out her body and it’s ok, registered in Ron’s brain like the first day of spring. “Would you like to walk over and get some coffee?” he blurted out.

“I don’t think I want anything to drink right now,” she said and returned to her book. Ron’s spirit sunk like a paper plane in a thunderstorm, but then she added, “You go get what you want. I’ll be here.”

“OK,” he said. “I’ll be right back, but are you sure that you don’t want anything?”

“Not right now,” she said without looking up. As he went out the door she thought that he was easy to control, the type you get to run as fast as you wanted in any direction you pointed him. That was fine, she thought, smiling at the way Sophie had told her that he sounded smart when he talked. He was anything but smart, but he was certainly trainable.

Ron needed a strategy. She was gonna stay in the Commuter room and wait for him. He licked his lips thinking about the way the seam of her jeans ran right up to her cunt. She’d been sitting there with her legs open the whole time, he thought. He paid for his coffee and remembered to take a lid, happy that he was learning to stop spilling hot coffee on himself. He stopped in the hall with the thought that he couldn’t just go back in there and stare at her again. “Say anything,” he told himself, “But get the fuck back in there before something happens to ruin it.”

Jade saw Ron coming back and looked into her book. She glanced up and smiled quickly when he entered the room but returned to her page.

“This has been some day,” said Ron.

She closed the book on her finger again. “Why is that?”

“First I get a ticket for speeding from a cop I think I’m stopping to help and then I make a fool out of myself in English class.”

“I didn’t think you made a fool of yourself. I thought Warren was just being cruel.”

Ron’s mouth dropped open. She was in Lashly’s class! She smiled and held up the book she’d been reading. Ron saw to his further embarrassment that it was his English book. “Gee,” he said, “I never noticed you there. Jade didn’t think that was the most complimentary thing for him to say.

“Why do you call him Warren?”

“I don’t know. It seems more comfortable and natural. You know, why do I call you Ron?”

“But he’s the teacher,” Ron protested.

Jade thought that was a rather uncool remark but decided to overlook it. The conversation became less strained after that. They talked about the other classes they were taking. Ron finished his coffee and smoked two cigarettes. He was relieved to see that Jade also smoked. It always made things easier. Finally, Ron asked her if she was going to the Birth of October party.

“I might but I really don’t have a way to get there.” She was leaving him an opening big enough to drive a Mack Truck through.

“I’d really like to take you with me,” said Ron gallantly.

“You would?” She smiled and showed Ron the tip of her tongue. “Why would you want to do that?”

“I feel very comfortable with you. In fact I think you’re quite great.”

“Do you know how to get to Scotch Plains?” she said softly.

“I’ll find it,” said Ron.
“It might help if I drew you a map,” she said looking for a piece of paper.

Ron ripped a sheet out of his notebook and brought it over to her. Standing up, he felt a tightness in his pants that told him he had a hard-on. She could almost see detail on the tip of his cock as it reached out to her. For a second, she thought about rubbing the top of its head to say hello but decided against it. He hurried back to his chair and crossed his legs, hoping she hadn’t noticed. Jade held her giggle back and drew the familiar road map, automatically adding her address and phone number at the top of the page.

Ron felt a bit relieved when Peter and Nan came into the room. He wanted to go home and take a long shower so that he would look good that night. He made a quick exit.

Jade watched his big shoulders and little round ass as he strode out of the room. She wondered how strong his arms were as she gathered her legs together and smiled at Nan.

“Did he ask you?” said Nan.

Jade nodded her head and blew on the tips of her fingers. “Just like a homey little lamb.”

Nan laughed without moving her mouth

Chapter 21

Ron was up as he drove towards Jade’s house. Everything had gone well so far. He had discovered that he still had two joints in his dwindled seed stash and mixed them with the last of his hash. He was almost sure that she would enjoy getting high. He was certain that she was different from anyone else he’d ever met. He’d been too excited to take a long shower, too excited to dry himself off fully before he dripped his way to his room and slipped on his newly washed jeans. They fit him like a smooth glove and his stomach had disappeared.

When Hank called, he seemed like a visitor from another dimension. Ron agreed to get together with him at 2 o’clock the next afternoon. It meant that he would have to cut his math class. “Any excuse…” he told himself. But the best news of all was that his loan check had come through. He showed George the voucher and asked to borrow $20. He was surprised when George gave it to him easily. He had decided it was better to pay the speeding ticket without mentioning it.

He’d estimated almost perfectly how long the trip to Jade’s house would take. When he found the place, he was exactly seven minutes early. It was a Cape Cod with a dark screened-in porch. He rang the bell and shifted his feet. The woman who approached wore a large apron that covered most of the length of her dress. Her gray hair was pulled back tightly along the sides of her head. There was no expression in her eyes.

“Is Jade home?” Ron said politely.

“My daughter’s name is Clarisse. Come in.” There was an angry flatness in her institutional tones. She left Ron standing in the foyer and climbed the stairs that led to her daughter’s room.

She found Jade standing in her underwear, watching her hips in the mirror as she turned them from side to side. “Someone is here to see you,” she said, flashing her look of disapproval. She headed, as was her custom, to her room. She would wait there until her daughter had left the house.

Jade watched her go carefully. From under her blanket, she withdrew the antique tablecloth that had come from her father’s mother. She draped it over her shoulder in the style of a semi-transparent toga. She pinned it at the waist and folded it so that only a hint of her panties showed through. She decided that she still needed a half-slip and wriggled into one. She threw a sweater across her shoulders and went to meet him.

When they got into the car, she took off her sweater and spread the material out across her thighs. Ron couldn’t believe what he was seeing and smelling. Her perfume was magnetic. Her hair was combed, perfectly straight, down to the small of her back.

“Do you want to go to the party right away?” she said.

He didn’t care if they ever got to the party. He thought he should ask her to marry him. “Do you smoke pot?” he asked.

“Everybody smokes pot,” said Jade.

“I’ve got some hash joints rolled. Would you like to do them?”

“Let’s go over my friend Pearl’s house.”

“OK,” said Ron. “Who’s that?”

Pearl’s my best friend. She’s got a place in town. I stay there when I don’t feel like going home.”

“Does she like to get stoned?”

“Pearl and I? We’ve tripped together a bunch of times.”

“Great,” said Ron. He hadn’t ever tripped, and he hadn’t ever talked to a girl who made him feel this young and inexperienced.

Pearl’s apartment was located over a group of storefronts. Pearl looked like a faded flower. Her face was drawn and sunken and her body so spare that she couldn’t find clothes that weren’t embarrassingly loose. Jade led Ron through the rooms for her like he was a prize bull. Ron smiled unknowingly, hoping to please his audience. Pearl’s husband was in Viet Nam. They’d gotten married two weeks before his lA arrived from the Selective Service. He was gone within six months. They’d thought about having a baby but found that it was too late to matter.

“Did you think about leaving the country?” said Ron.

“You mean go to Canada, or someplace like that? Jimmy’s not the type who would let anyone think he was a chicken.”

Jade and Ron exchanged a look. Jade said that going to Canada was just as much an act of bravery as going to Viet Nam, that it was even harder to turn your back and try to start things over.

“He just wasn’t raised that way,” said Pearl.

“And where has that left you?” said Jade sharply. Ron saw a metamorphosis in her face, which hardened like a stone pillar as she spoke. Ron was about to break out the pot when Jade said that they had to be going and that they might be back later. When Ron turned his back, Pearl mouthed the word “fine” and pointed in the direction of the room that she could use. Jade shrugged her shoulders and softly said, “duh.” Pearl smiled in a “so what” way and Jade laughed as Ron turned back and said it was nice to have met her.
Ron lit one of the hash joints and handed it to Jade when they got back into the car. She took a long toke, feeling the smooth taste of the hash after the initial taste of pot. She rolled her head back against the seat and handed the joint back to Ron. He was alternating between the street and the whiteness of her neck and the way she stood out against the shadowy backdrop of the trees they were passing. After a few more tokes, she moved her head forward and let her hair hang down. Ron saw that it reached well below the car seat. She cupped the joint to her mouth with both hands and straightened up, exhaling and shaking her hair so that it hung in a freshly washed, slightly wild cascade.

“When we get to this party,” she began. Then she paused and started over again. “I’m going to this place with you and most likely, I’ll be coming home with you, but while we’re there, I don’t want to be attached to you all the time. Do you know what I mean?”

“Great,” said Ron, not knowing what else to say. “I’d like to get around and say hello to a bunch of people that I know too.”

“It’s not that I’m not there with you,” she said.

Ron smiled over at her. “I’ve never been out with someone who looked as good as you do tonight.” Ron flashed on his high school dates with their sticky teased hair and their panty girdles. Jade quietly traced her finger along the outside of Ron’s ear. He looked down at her thighs and thought that he wouldn’t mind getting three speeding tickets a day if they’d all end like this one.

They were pretty stoned by the time they got to The Birth of October party. From the outside, the place looked almost identical to the spot where the frat dance had been held. Veronica’s name registered in his mind. He looked at Jade. No comparison. He hadn’t even touched Jade and she’d excited him more than Veronica could have with the help of a storeload of aphrodisiacs. The porch was vibrating with music as they climbed its steps. Two sullen looking dark haired guys were smoking cigarettes and standing on opposite sides of the door. The guys said,” Hello,” to Jade. Ron opened the door and sound and smoke came out to meet them like a host welcoming them in.

Most of the people were sitting on the floor. Of the ten who were dancing, seven were women who held each others’ hands with a camaraderie that made them look like nymphs running over wild hills, picking berries. Jade had already spotted someone that she knew and was headed off with a good-bye that trailed back at him like an after-thought. Ron went looking for a spot where he could get something to drink. The joint had dried out his throat and he wanted a cigarette. At the back of the room, he found Nan and Peter serving wine, beer, soda and something called potluck punch. Nan was moving efficiently with the stylized gestures of a dispensing machine. Her face still hadn’t changed expressions. Peter seemed to know everybody who came back there looking for something to drink. He waved his arms and talked continually as he poured. Nan acknowledged her name with a flick of her eyes.

Ron waited for a quiet moment to go over there. “How’s it goin’?” he said.

Peter started to answer, but then he stopped. “Wow, look at Jade!” She was walking in their direction. She said, “Hello,” to Peter and Nan then she took Ron’s arm and brought him closer. he rubbed the tips of her breasts along his chest and asked if he would get her a drink.

“Anything!” his brain screamed. “Anything in the world that you want.

She was watching Peter. “What’s the punch got?”

Peter scrunched his mouth. “Straight.”

“I want a beer,” she said turning to Ron, drawing out the words.

“I’ll have one too,” said Ron. Ron handed him a bill in exchange for the glasses, but Peter shook him off.

“There’s no charge for you. You’re staff.”

Ron withdrew the bill and gave Peter a look that said Ron thought he was all right. A tall, slim dark-haired guy with a thin mustache had come up in back of Jade. He put his hands on her hips and drew her back towards him. He kissed her on the neck. She turned and kissed him on the lips. Ron rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Then he put down his mug and moved off in a direction where he couldn’t see what was going on. This was what she had told him about. He could only look like an ass by getting upset.

The evening passed like a series of brief encounters. Ron and Jade threaded themselves through the group, touching each other with an increasing bit of sensuality when they met. After a while Ron enjoyed watching where she went. He got particularly excited when she rubbed against people. His eyes were drawn like a camera to the point of contact. When she danced, it was usually with Ron. There was no wild flailing of arms and legs. None of the twitchy jerkiness that resembled lurching. Her feet remained quite still as her hips and ass knocked out the baseline with a regularity that hypnotized him. Then they would drift apart in different directions.

Ron found himself against a wall, sliding down to the floor as he watched her. From this angle, the tablecloth was nothing more than a lightscreen that she used for the sake of mystery. The music ended and she walked over and stood in front of him. She was standing very close when he got up. Her tongue was sweet and thick as it stroked the inside of his mouth. His muscles tensed with an energy that flowed out through his hips and arms. She said, “I’m ready to leave if you are.” They moved to the door, a unit with a destination. Their steps were a singular sway joined at the hip. They got into the car, lit a cigarette and rolled down the windows. Jade sat facing him. “You know, I think I really had you all wrong,” said Jade with a devilish grin.

“How?”

“I was afraid that you were gonna make me nervous, but you were great in there.” She studied his face. “Have you ever tripped?”

“No,” said Ron. “Have you tripped a lot?”

“I stopped counting.”

It was there in the dark when he saw that her eyes were green. His mind repeated the racy report. The first time they had looked like a grayish shimmer.

“What color are your eyes?” he asked suddenly.

“The same as yours,” she answered. She grinned down to herself.

“Hazel,” she reassured him. “Don’t your eyes change colors with the seasons and moods and stuff?”

“I always thought they were brownish,” said Ron.

“No,” she said secretly. “They’re very green right now. People whose eyes change colors can’t get trapped into a single way of looking at things.”

“Come on,” he said. “That’s not true. How could you prove something like that?”

“That’s just it. You don’t have to prove anything. Things are always changing without anybody’s proof.”

He wasn’t sure that he understood what she meant. He asked her if she was hungry. She said she wasn’t. He asked her if she wanted to smoke the other joint. She said not right then. As he nosed the car onto the highway, she said that she just wanted him to drive. He asked her if she wanted the radio on. She said she didn’t care. He asked her if she would mind if he stopped to get another container of coffee. Annoyed, she said that she would have one too.

They sat in the diner parking lot for what seemed like hours. Jade answered all Ron’s questions about Woodstock and LSD. She was being patient with him, but she secretly loved the idea of someone being willing to listen insatiably to her and then ask questions about her experiences. She could never remember talking about herself this much. She loved the way he watched her face and always came back to things that he didn’t understand. It made what she’d done seem to have more value than she’d thought it did. Ron confided that he imagined tripping was just like getting stoned, only more intense. She shook her head with a derogatory smirk. “It’s totally different.” Ron tried to get specific about exactly how it was different, but she told him that it couldn’t be explained. “You can’t know what it’s like until you’ve tried it. What are you so afraid of?”

Ron said that he wasn’t exactly afraid. He was thinking privately about the shrinks they’d sent him to see after his shaking fits. “It’s just that you read all these stories about people thinking they can fly and staring at the sun until they go blind and, you know, not being able to get back.”

“You have to be together to enjoy yourself. If you don’t think you can relax with it, you should stay away.”

“But do you think that it can be really dangerous?”

“Anything can be dangerous if you let it get out of hand.”

Ron felt rebuffed and wondered if he’d fucked up. They talked about Woodstock for the rest of the ride back to her house. Ron told her straight off that his friend Hank had suggested going to this great concert but that he couldn’t get off from work that weekend. “And who knew?” he ended by saying.

She listened to him carefully and then began her story. “Mostly, I was tripping my brains out too much to remember what really happened. Everybody I met, it seemed, was saying ‘Want some of these?’ and I kept saying ‘yes.’ She told Ron that she was going back there with her sociology class research group to talk to the local residents and find out what their experience had been.

She showed Ron a place where they could park and smoke the other joint. Ron wanted to have a cigarette lit at the same time. Somehow, he felt like the cigarette gave him a plausible story that he could hand to the cops. He and Hank had decided that this was the best way to do things a long time ago. He was just about to light up when Jade said, “Do you want to go back to Pearl’s place and smoke it there?” A look of disappointment spread over his face. He didn’t want any more of the tragedy of Viet Nam. He shrugged his shoulders. She slid next to him and slid her fingertips across his chest. She undid his top button and pressed her palm against his skin. “Do you want to spend the night there with me?” she said.

It was a long kiss. He arched his body until it was diagonal to the seat. He drew her hips toward him. He squeezed her ass. She wrapped her leg around his. He could feel himself get very hard. He rubbed it against the front of her pelvis. She moaned and moved back and forth quickly. Then she stopped in mid-air and drew her tongue back into her open mouth. She settled back against the seat and opened her legs as wide as she could. The inside of her thighs was damp. He traced the slit of her cunt with his finger. She bit his neck and sent her hand out on a mission to find his cock. She got there and squeezed the whole area. She started plunking his cock from side to side.

He didn’t remember much of the ride to Pearl’s house, but the sight of her ahead of him on the stairs was too much for him to ignore. He put his hand under her tablecloth and lodged it where everything came together. She stopped climbing with her back towards him and reached around to bring him closer. He wiggled his fingers and she shook her ass and let a whispering moan escape from her. Ron picked up her scent and was more excited than he thought possible. They finally got to Pearl’s door and she slipped her key in quietly with the look of a thief on her face.
The apartment was dark except for a small shaded lamp that had been left lit on the kitchen table. Jade turned it off. It was her signal to Pearl that she had come back with him. In the parlor, they closed the door and pulled out the hide-a-bed. Ron knew his cock would hemorrhage if he didn’t get it out of his pants soon. He lit a cigarette and took off his shoes. Jade turned around with a worried look on her face and her tablecloth wrapped tightly across her shoulders. He got up and held her. He moved his finger down her spine and made slow circles on her behind. After a minute, he felt her fingers at the top of his thighs. She moved a hand to the center and traced along his zipper. Ron quivered. She pulled away and said, “I’ll be back in a minute.” She left the room without looking back at him. Ron tried to make himself comfortable in his pants, but things were too tangled to fix them without taking it out. He did it quickly, laying it flat against his belly. It was hotter than the rest of him and bulged its head out at his waistband. He closed up and finished his cigarette nervously.

Jade came back into the room after taking everything off except for the tablecloth. She uncovered her breasts and walked over to him. She went straight for the snap on his jeans, crouching over him and pulling on it with her teeth. When he felt her breath through his jockeys, he shivered again. Her hand slipped inside and took out his cock. She rubbed it up and down. “Do you want to get undressed?”

Ron pulled away from her and went to the other side of the room. He was ready to come. He tried to calm himself. Naked, he started back in her direction like he was trying to steady a pitcher that was filled to the brim. She didn’t take her eyes off it when he walked. It wagged like a pointer’s hungry tail. She put her hand back around it and drew him on to the bed. He felt the silk of her legs on his legs. She lowered her belly down against him. He began to shake convulsively and buck. At first she looked down at him with a sense of alarm. She managed to say, “Not yet!” as the first hot squirt of sperm splattered against her navel. It was exciting to watch, but the passion and expectation faded from her face as he continued to buck and squirt without her touching him. She wondered if it was the first time he’d ever been with someone. It would be okay, if that were true. She rubbed the throbbing dick and he moaned very loudly. She tried to forget about her own unrelaxed tension. His cock was getting softer and oozing clear drops now.

“Ron?”

“I’m sorry,” he managed to choke out. “I guess I just couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“It’s okay,” she answered. “Don’t worry about it.” At the end of her words was faintly audible, completely disappointed sigh. She reached for some tissues to clean herself off. She handed some to Ron who had difficulty looking at her. The tension that spread between them now was thick and different. He was going to say that he was willing to finger-fuck her, if she wanted him to, if that would help… or if she would just wait a while, everything would be okay. He didn’t know how to say either thing. He wanted to light a cigarette, but somehow thought the satisfaction it would give him would be insulting. He lay there quietly, trying not to think about what had happened.

She thought that it would be easier if he said something and reached for her pack of cigarettes. When she moved, so did he. “I really am sorry,” he said exhaling smoke as he spoke.

“It’s really no big deal,” she said. “Ron, have you had many girlfriends?”

He raised his head and looked at her. “I don’t know,” he said and put his head back down.

“What I’m trying to ask is whether you’ve done this many times before.”

Embarrassment flushed over Ron like he was a bum lying in the street when the street cleaner rode by. His first thought was to find a way to get the fuck out of there. She was really telling him that he didn’t know how to do it. “Look,” he said with a soft anger, “the problem isn’t that I haven’t been with enough girls to know what I’m doing. The problem is that I’ve never been with anybody as exciting as you, ever before.”

They put their arms around each other and started again. His fingers found that her cunt was still wet. She bent her legs at the knee and spread them with her feet flat on the mattress. He moved his thumb around in her like he was making ice cream. He lowered his head toward her pussy. He tasted her juice and confirmed the idea that it didn’t bother him. He curled his tongue into a cylinder and pushed it in and out of her. She put her hands in back of his head and tried to guide him up to her clitoris. Then she took hold of his finger and tried to show him where she wanted him to rub, giving herself several long strokes with his finger. He rubbed and tried to shove his tongue as far in as it would go, brushing against her ass with his chin in a way that she liked. He felt his cock getting hard against the mattress. He had a rush of satisfaction that told him he was going to perform better this time. He slipped his finger around and rubbed the opening of her ass. She wiggled, delighted by the way it felt. Now he would fuck her good, he thought, getting up on his knees.

She took hold of his still sticky cock. It grew in her hand. She couldn’t say that he didn’t have plenty of energy. She lifted up and sent her head down to kiss it. He felt a quick, convulsive shudder when her lips touched him. He lay her back down and she opened her legs with an elegance that made him gasp. From the minute he was inside her soft, wet pocket, he knew he was in trouble again. His cock stiffened like a hose under pressure. He thrust deeply into her, hoping that he could just get it going and it would become accustomed to the tremendous feel of her. He was rigidly straight. She started moaning and rocking back and forth. Her cunt muscles flapped against him. When she took hold of his ass, he felt like a little boy holding his finger in the dike and being tickled at the same time. His hips began to move faster and his mind screamed, “No, not yet, not yet.”

She was moaning easily and building up to a wonderful rhythm. She first felt him come through the tightening of the muscles in his ass. She heard the voice that she usually kept inside of her saying “No Ron, please. Don’t come yet. Not again!” Frantically, she bucked at him in a vain effort to get there too. He was squirting again. She continued to roll her hips around on him. Maybe he would stay hard for a little while. A few strokes later, he withdrew his shrinking, wet, selfish, little prick. She looked down at it when it came out of her. She hated it.

Ron closed his eyes and concentrated on trying to disappear. After two long minutes, he heard her say that she was tired and wanted to get some sleep. He asked her if she would rather that he went home. She hated him for the question. What else could she expect from a specimen like this? “Do whatever you like,” she said into her pillow. She was looking at him sideways.

“Well,” he said, “I do have an early class. Maybe it would be better if I took off.” Ron put on his clothes quickly and she let him out the door without kissing him.

Ron beat his fist viciously into his leg as he drove up the highway. He called himself every name he could think of. He pictured the stupid look he’d had on his face each time he’d come too soon. “Taking a chance on me really paid off for her, didn’t it?” he sneered, his voice dripping with disgust. He flashed on the beautiful images he had of her. Then he was reflooded with what she had said and the looks on her face and how she couldn’t even look at him after the second time.

He didn’t go to school at all the next day. It had taken him forever to get to sleep. When he woke up, he saw that it was after 11 o’clock. He slammed his hand into the pillow, angry that he’d allowed himself to miss an entire day of classes.

Chapter 22

On first seeing Hank at the door, Ron didn’t know how to react. Part of him wanted to grab Hank by the elbow and clamp him on the shoulder. Hank probably wouldn’t be comfortable with that anyway, and there was the matter of how he’d disappeared, no word from him, nothing. All of a sudden, he just wasn’t around anymore. Ron let this resentment cool his greeting. It was a bright autumn day with a chilling breeze and a still potent sun that was capable of heating things up by midday.

“What’s happening?” said Ron

“Ah, you know,” said Hank.

“No, I really don’t have any idea,” Ron shot back as he moved off his porch steps toward the bug. “See my car?” he called over his shoulder, pointing at the trunk of his demolition derby survivor.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” said Hank appraisingly.

Ron looked back at him and saw that he couldn’t see the trunk from his angle. “Walk round to the other side.” he said.

When Hank saw the trunk, he took two steps backward. “Jesus, that’s some dent.”

Ron examined the streaks of rust building up along the creases of the dent. They seemed to be worse than the last time he looked at them. “How long do you figure before it rusts out?”

“That depends on the weather.”

Ron liked hearing the sound of Hank’s voice. He felt an old comfort in having him around. It didn’t matter that were also a little rusty with each other. “What kind of a sloppy way is that to express it?” he heard an odd voice that had been speaking out of turn inside him say.

Less from hunger than habit, they drove to the Dairy Queen. Ron ran through the complete story of how he’d been arrested, embellishing the end of the story, where he got to tell the cops off and walk out on their shocked stupid faces. “So,” he said at the end, “What’s it like being with Jo Lee?”

“Incredible.”

“Is Tony still looking for you?”

Hank decided instantly that he wouldn’t tell Ron that Jo Lee was seeing Tony this very minute. “I don’t think so,” he answered.
“Did he ever find out where you were?”

“No,” said Hank, hoping the subject would soon change. But it was a tricky change to try and effect with Ron. Acting like you didn’t want to talk about something was like sending up smoke signals while surrounded by hostile Indians. What had to be achieved was a demeanor of boredom and a lack of available information on the subject.

“Do you think that he’ll try to see her?”

Hank almost swallowed his newly lit cigarette. “I don’t think that she’d want to see him,” he said quickly trying to sound as strong as possible. For a second it seemed like Ron’s fault that Jo Lee was seeing Tony, something that was forced upon her at Ron’s insistence.

They really didn’t have much in common anymore, he thought as he looked across at Ron. He was still living at home and all excited about school. Hank was sort of finished with that kind of life for right now. They ate their burgers, each with a private set of thoughts. Ron was feeling bad about having missed a day of school and trying to repress what had happened with Jade. He told Hank about his meeting with Chris Calvin and about his article on speed traps, but Hank didn’t seem too interested. He was just sitting there with his arms folded across his chest and a disinterested expression plastered on his face, which communicated the fact that he really didn’t give a shit about anything that was being said. Finally Ron stopped the school rap. ‘You get laid every night now?”

Hank continued to stare as if the question hadn’t penetrated his protective screens. Then he said, “What?” like he hadn’t understood or heard.

Ron wasn’t sure if the question had offended Hank, but he didn’t care. I said, “Do you tuck her every night?”

“Not always at night,” said Hank thinking of the incredible games which they usually played. The games that got skipped so Jo Lee could “get ready.”

“But you get it every day?”

“Yeah,” said Hank with a self-deprecating smile, “I get it every day.”

Somehow Hank had made it seem comical. Ron was out of control and laughed until coffee came out of his nose. Hank laughed too, as much from tension as from the one liner. The truth was that he got laid several times a day. Hank thought about how many people from Welmont would enjoy making that statement. He remembered Butchie saying that he was getting it from a couple girls on the side and banging his wife every night. “It don’t matter what I do,” he heard Butchie saying, “as long as I fill up my old lady’s snatch every night.” Hank wondered what Jo Lee was doing right now. He made a mental picture of her face and told himself that he absolutely and truly loved her.

“Where the fuck are you?” said Ron. “You sure ain’t here. I think getting laid every day has softened your brain.”

“What?” said Hank.

“Sleeping with Jo Lee all the time– has it changed your life that much?”

Hank believed that he hadn’t been alive before Jo Lee, but the truth was that he didn’t want to think about anything that had happened before he met her. A vision of his parents staring at him, as he sat in front of a soggy meal at the kitchen table, covered him like a cloud.

“Do you want to go back to my place and listen to some music?” said Ron.

“No, I’d better be getting back.”

On the ride back, Ron asked him what he intended to do about school. Hank said that he would probably get back to it sooner or later. Ron counseled him not to wait too long. Hank looked at his watch and decided that after he dropped Ron off he would go and hit some golf balls. Then he would visit his mother. After that it would be safe to go back.

They stopped in front of Ron’s house. Hank said that he would be sure to stay in touch. Ron was anxious for Hank to pull away and jumped out of the bug. The VW started to click away and Ron shouted, “Hey, take care of yourself, you know.” Hank stopped the car and backed up. Suddenly, Ron felt guilty about being glad he was going to split. “I said, take care of yourself. I really don’t have a way to contact you, so I’ll wait for you to call me.”

“That sounds good,” said Hank and started back down the street.

Inside his house, Ron was immediately bored. He took a half-gallon of milk and drank in huge, gulping swallows. Thin lines of excess milk ran down his chin and onto his shirt. He returned the bottle to the refrigerator, pulled off his shirt and used it to wipe his mouth. He decided that he was going to drive down to the college before anybody got home. His last class had been over for twenty minutes, but he would feel better if he at least got there.

The place was in the deserted hiatus between day and evening classes. He wandered the empty halls looking for a trace of what he’d missed. The Commuter room was empty. A couple he didn’t know was having coffee in the snack bar. He paid for his container and for the first time wandered into the gym.

Ping-pong tables were set up at the far end of the room. A group of about ten people was playing and watching the games. He sipped his coffee carefully and walked over. No one took notice of his presence, but Ron did see two frat sweatshirts in the group. After two or three points, he asked how he could get into the game. He was told that he had to wait his turn to get a crack at the winner of one table but that he could have the next game five winner at the other. He watched the second table’s volley and decided they weren’t any good. Sitting down with his back against the wall, he called the last game at the good table. It had been years since he’d played seriously but he could still give these guys a game. However, the next player up at the good table was excellent and played with his own paddle. Ron thought that even when he’d been playing every day, this player would have been tough to beat. His thoughts began rubber banding back to when he could really play.

He was at the Newark Boys Club and Joey Tracelli’s face popped up on the other side of the table. He’d beaten Ron for a lot of quarters while Ron was learning the game. This was about six months after that and Ron had been playing for at least three hours a day all summer. It was late summer, and Joey had recently come back from the shore. The match started with him spotting Ron his usual five points for twenty-five cents a game. Ron won the first two games and Joey cut the spot to three. Ron won the next two games and Joey said that he wanted to play even up for a dollar a game. A crowd developed. Some of the guys told Ron that he was crazy to play Joey for that kind of money. Ron told one of the doubters he could have a side bet for an extra twenty-five cents. Then he beat Joey ten straight with the last three games going at five bucks a piece. oey gave him all the money he had and let him have his bankbook as collateral for the rest. Ron was so excited that he went into the bathroom and vomited. He remembered how happy he was when he told his mother and George that he’d won over $30 playing ping pong.

At this point in their marriage, Marjorie and George were still thousands of dollars in debt due to George’s old, pre-marital, gambling debts. When Ron produced Joey’s bankbook as proof of his winnings, his mother jumped out of her chair and slapped his head from side to side like he was a ping-pong ball. They made him go back to the Boys Club and immediately return all the money. Then they grounded him for three weeks. He wished he could manipulate time the way he did in his memories.

The game he played in the gym was over quickly. He lost 21-12. He was surprised that he was able to hit the ball as well as he did. He was a couple of weeks’ practice away from being competitive. He put down his paddle and smiled. He walked out of the gym and down the hall at a good pace, with no idea of a destination.

Chapter 23

When Hank and Jo Lee left Myrtle and Ernie’s house, Jo Lee got a job at The Dover Inn, and Hank worked out a steady arrangement with his parents: they gave him $35 a week. Between the two incomes, they were able to pay rent and buy food. After a few days of having the basement floor to themselves, they decided to get married. It was an economical move. In the privacy of their underground rooms, Hank calculated that a marriage could net them about $3,000.

Hank told his mother that he intended to marry Jo Lee. She said that she was glad he was finally doing the right thing and invited them to dinner. Hank accepted the invitation and fell into a depression, the likes of which Jo Lee hadn’t seen since her meeting with Tony. She tried to cure it with an all night blow job. She wouldn’t let him do anything except lie back and be sucked. Even during his orgasms, he was inconsolable. Afterwards, he felt like he’d been treated for snake bite.

Jo Lee also seemed tense while they were dressing for the dinner. Her mouth was pencil-line tight and her eyes followed each of his movements around the basement like those of a child that knows punishment is at hand. Hank held her tits and said that everything was okay, and that he didn’t care if his parents liked her or not because she meant much more to him than they had ever meant to him, or wanted to mean. Jo Lee cried and told Hank she’d make him a good wife.

The introductions were tense. Hank’s mother said, “Hello,” with a cool politeness followed by nothing. Hank’s father had been drinking all day and, as always, his face was swollen and red. Jo Lee, frightened as a 17 year old, stayed glued to Hank. Her hands were sweaty and trembling when he held them. They were ushered into the parlor and sat on the couch where Hank’s father always fell asleep. A football game was on the TV set. After a few moments of stiff, uncomfortable sitting, Hank realized that his folks had left them alone there and had retreated into the kitchen where they were sitting with their heads down. The game banged itself out for them. Jo Lee leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I like the way the players pat each others’ rear ends.” Normally she would have said “asses.” Then she whispered again. “Hank, where are your mother and father?”

“I don’t know,” he said getting up and walking out to the kitchen.

“Dinner will be ready in about 10 minutes,” said his mother cheerfully, just as he reached the kitchen doorway.

“Great!” said Hank throwing a grimace at her.

“She’s a very nice girl,” said his mother without looking at him.

“How could you tell,” said Hank.

His mother and father exchanged meaningful glances and then she said, “Did I tell you that Ron called here the other day?”

“What did he want?” asked Hank, curtly.

“To talk to you I guess,” she said. “He’s a nice boy.”

Hank looked at her with disbelief and said nothing. His father leaned forward heavily as he got up. “Would you and Jo Lee like something to drink before we eat?”

“That would be good,” said Hank.

His father headed for the closet. “Find out what she wants.”

Hank went back to the parlor. He could tell that Jo Lee wanted to leave. Her chin was quivering. “Hank, how long do we have to stay?”

He studied his watch and tried to gauge how long the process would take. It had been a week since he’d gotten his allowance and no one had mentioned money yet. “About an hour more.” She closed her eyes and put her head back against one the white doilies that covered the backs of the couches and chairs. “Do you want a drink?” he said walking over and standing in front of her. “It will just make things easier if we get a little soused.”

The thought of getting drunk with these people was amusing, and she giggled with her first signs of loosening. Hank turned and went back to the kitchen without asking her what kind of drink she wanted. The image of her quivering chin was a vendetta stuck in his mind.

They saw him standing in his familiar sulking pose, his hands on his hips, waiting to see what they would say. His father said, “Did you find out what Jo Lee wants to drink?”

When Hank looked at him, he saw a dollar sign flashing on his chest like a tee shirt decal. The dollar sign was waving to him like a beckoning prostitute whose faceless body now added Jo Lee’s face. Hank shook the image off. Something about her being that close to his father’s skin turned his stomach. He was going to say, “Don’t you think everybody would be happier if we left?” But there was the $35 and not only that. There was the wedding present and the $35 next week.

Chapter 24

Early in November Ron got his notice to report for his draft physical. The letter scared him. On first reading it propelled him through the rooms, repeatedly stopping and staring incoherently at the notice. One voice inside him kept repeating, “This is our death warrant.” Another screamed in a strong, hoarse voice, “You fuckin’ coward! You slimy chicken!”

On the outside he kept repeating, “Why did this happen to me?” and thinking that if he was born at another time or born richer, it never would have happened. Ron was tangled in his web of contradictions when his letters occurred to him. They were the documentation of his two knee operations and would be enough to get him out, probably. He did remember one draft counselor saying that it all depended on how many men they needed to make their quota for that month. What would be enough to get you out one month, might not work the next. “It all sucks,” he had said bitterly.

Then he told himself that he was just scared shitless. Images of not being able to run fast enough when it was time to run, flooded him. He knew stories about how prostitutes booby- trapped their cunts with razor blades. The thought caused him to shake. It would just be all over before it had meant anything.

After reading the notice, the counselor at the college asked, “What happened to your 2S deferment?”

“I never got one,” said Ron.

“Why not?”

“I guess I didn’t think of it.”

The counselor’s mouth dropped open. He had been in the service and he had been in Viet Nam. He firmly believed that the fact he wasn’t dead was as coincidental as whether or not a rain drop rolled down your back while you were caught in the rain. “I don’t believe that you’re for real, man.”

The death warrant voice inside Ron began to shout that Ron was the world’s biggest jerk-off. “I’ve got these,” said Ron, producing his two doctor’s letters. The counselor looked at the envelopes and said, “What wrong with you?”

“I had these two knee operations,” continued Ron, trying to smile. He explained how the cartilage had been taken out of both of his knees. He watched the heavy, black eyebrows and dark expression on the counselor’s face. Ron knew the guy was sincere, but had the feeling that there was no one home in back of the guy’s eyes. Ron figured that maybe the guy was unbalanced. A thought crept in on him like a soft aroma. “I’m stupid and he’s crazy. Great!”

The counselor wasn’t any help. Ron left with the same feeling he’d had when his mother had sent him to the shrink. It was a sense of none of the possible answers fitting in with how he felt. The idea of his being irreparably fucked up and also a weird kind of explorer was what he carried around for his mental balance.

He stood in line and waited for his coffee. His first shrink’s name had been Minsky. “Why do you think you’re here?” said Minsky. He lit a cigarette and pushed back from his desk in his doctorly way. He routinely pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and propped his foot up on it, using it as leverage to rock back and forth in his chair.

“I guess it’s because I had a fit,” said Ron.

What kind of fit do you think you had?” The shrink emphasized the word fit in a way Ron took to be a snicker.

“Well, my step-father came home one night. I think he had been working at the bar or out with his friends. I was sitting in the kitchen eating a sandwich. He asked me if I’d done something, I don’t remember what it was now, but I hadn’t done it because I’d hurt my knee again and was using a chair to get around. I don’t mean a wheel chair. I mean a regular straight back chair that I could rest my weight on when I took a step, like a walker I guess. He walks in and asks if I’d thrown out the garbage or something stupid like that and I tell him that I should have thrown it out the window or some smart-assed thing. He comes at me like a bull elephant. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t run or fight back and my mouth was filled with food.”

Minsky joined his fingers at the tips and continued to rock. “What happened then?”

“I don’t remember,” said Ron.

Minsky noticed that the boy’s ears were large for the size of his head and jotted down his first entry in the personal notebooks he kept on his patients. The taping system would record the verbatim of the session, but the doctor’s personal observations were kept in his own handwriting in his own notebook. Minsky stared at his custom weighted, finely crafted pen. He ran his fingers up and down the golden shaft. He tried to bring his mind back to his patient. The boy wasn’t saying anything and was staring intently at him. His dumbo ears had gotten red and intensified his expression.

“People, like animals, often get excited when they eat,” began the doctor. For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off those ears. “If you bother a normally friendly dog during his meal, he may very well snap at you. You feel upset about being injured and you responded.”

“I told you before. He belted me and I spit the food out and he belted me again and I couldn’t stop shaking.”

“But the important thing is that you felt helpless.”

“That’s how I usually feel,” said Ron.
“Why is that?”

“Because I usually can’t do anything about what’s happening to me. At school, they hit us all the time and we can’t do anything about it.”

“Maybe we’ll keep you out of school for a while,” said Minsky.

Ron brightened. He was going to get help at last.

“But,” Minsky continued, “there is one thing that you can do for me. Your mother tells me that she can’t afford to pay more than $15 a visit. Now, since we’re keeping you out of school, I’d like you to look around for some kind of part-time job so that you can add another $10 a week on and be paying the normal fee.”

“Sure,” said Ron wondering how quickly he could be out of there and how long he could stay out of school.”

“Then I’ll see you next Thursday at the same time.”

“Okay,” said Ron.

He remembered going back twice more at the $15 fee, but he couldn’t remember telling Minsky anything else about his life. He did remember telling him that his real father loved to play golf and that he had developed a hatred for any mention of the game. It seemed to Ron to be the reason that he never saw his father any more. Weekends and golf matches were at the same time and Ron lost out again and again. He remembered Minsky telling him about the beauties of the game and how great it felt to get a feel for it.

He didn’t remember what else they talked about until the end of the third visit. Minsky told Ron that he or his mother had to find a way to come up with the extra $10. That was the last appointment. Ron flunked two courses and was thrown out of Catholic school. George and Marjorie bought their house in the suburbs. Minsky died of lung cancer two years later.

Ron decided to tell as few people as possible about his physical. He would have to tell his family and perhaps he would mention to the teachers whose classes he would be missing. That would be it. There was a certain feeling of maturity that came with being called for his physical that Ron was secretly enjoying. He could finally control the voice that said he was a slimy chicken. He would go and become a man. Chris and Vee Vee walked over to the snack bar table where he was having his coffee.

“Far out. What’s happenin’ in the snack bar?” said Chris.

“Hi Ron,” said Vee in a particularly friendly way that Ron thought was probably phony.

“I don’t know what’s happening. I’m sitting here wondering if I should go to Canada.”

“Excellent!” said Chris. “What’s up there?”

“Escape,” said Ron miserably.

“Uh oh. Did you hear from the government?” Ron nodded. “How did you lose your 2S already? The semester’s not even over yet.”

“I never got one. I guess it just slipped passed me.”

“That wasn’t too bright of you,” said Vee in her cheerfully admonishing tone. When she cracked her gum for emphasis, Ron wanted to dump his coffee on her. “Chris,” she said matter-of-factly, “I’m going over to the sorority table and see who’s coming to the shore house this weekend. Ron watched her faded, tight bluejean ass as it left. It didn’t matter how good her ass was. He could never put up with the rest of her.

“What do you think is going to happen?” asked Chris.

“I’ll probably get shot for one reason or another,” Ron answered morosely.

Two weeks after the dinner with his parents, Hank and Jo Lee announced that they were married. He bought a ring, which he put on her finger while he was inside of her. She claimed that it was the position from which all wedding vows should be exchanged. She asked Hank to make love to her until one of them passed out. The idea excited him and her pumped her vigorously. She raked his back with her nails and whispered fiercely that she wanted to see his blood when she came. She did. After what seemed like hours, they fell asleep. Hank tried to keep his dick stuck between her legs the whole time, but it must’ve come out while they were sleeping.

As he woke up, one of his first thoughts was that he was now living with her under the same arrangement that she’d had with Tony. He grimaced for a minute but decided that it didn’t matter. He was going to be happy and he was going to make his woman happy.

He smiled at her lovingly. Who wouldn’t give their left nut to be where what he was able to do, anytime he wanted. He was never going back to Welmont again. The only reason his parents had ever tolerated him was that he wasn’t a threat. They hadn’t understood how sensitive and real he was. If he hadn’t found her, he’d be a creep, just like the rest of them. He looked around the room and was surprised again at being underground. But it was cozy. They snuggled in a quilt, naked and he was soon asleep.

Chapter 25

Between the arrival of his notice and the date of his physical, Ron told everyone he met about his situation. It was also during this time that he joined the radio station and got to do his first program.

What was called the radio station at the college, was actually a PA system hooked up with about fifteen speakers. The station itself consisted of three railroad-like windowless rooms, but there were two sliding glass panels that opened on the auditorium. The first room served the dual purpose of being a control area for the auditorium’s lightboard and microphone systems. The second room was filled with tape decks, speakers and other audio equipment that Ron didn’t know about. The third room was cork-lined and equipped with two turntables, record racks, swivel chairs and a silver microphone. A thick, white shag carpet lined all three rooms.

Ron’s first program was between 9 and 10:30 in the morning. Thinking it was a good idea to let his audience know who was playing their music, Ron had prepared a short rap for his inaugural.

“Hey you, down there drinking coffee in the snack bar or cafeteria, you working on that paper or reading what you should have finished last night, this is Ron Tuck, who’s going to be playing music for you for the first time. I guess I should tell you right off that I like a lot of Bob Dylan because I think he’s important. So, what that means is that if you don’t dig Dylan, you better get your head buried, man.”

Ron turned off the mike and realized that he’d forgotten to cue up the record. He turned the mike back on. “I seem to be a little slow at this, so you’re gonna have to bear with me for a second. I’m sure I’ll be able to get it together.” Ron tried to remember how the station manager had showed him to cue up the record by getting to the first bit of music and giving the turntable a half turn backwards to give it time to pick up the necessary speed. When he felt like he had everything in place, he let it rip. The music whined into the cut. He’d started it too close and in his anger banged his fist on the table where the turntable sat. The needle jumped into the air and came down in the middle of the chorus.

Dylan was fuckin’ with him. He was sure of it. Dylan was trying to make him look like “Mr. Jones” for everyone else to see and hear. “I’m really sorry about that folks,” he said. Then he repeated the line with the mike switched on. “I don’t seem to be starting out too well, so let me tell you something about myself while I try to get this god damned thing to work.”

Ron flipped off the mike the second he realized that he’d just cursed through fifteen speakers that went into the snack bar, the cafeteria and who knew where else. “I guess the reason my head is so screwed up is that I just got a notice to report for my draft physical and it’s really got me feeling like shit… I mean lousy. Anyway, now I think I’m ready to give you Dylan.” Ron had cued up the first song on the record. He was too ashamed to go back to “Ballad of a Thin Man”. As “Motor-psycho Nightmare” crooned its way into the college, Ron lit a cigarette and tried to figure out what to hit them with next. There was a sharp knock on the door. Ron dropped his cigarette into the ashtray and froze like someone caught with his pants down. He moved to the door where he was greeted by Rebecca Renelli.

“Do you know that you’re piping the music into Professor Lanza’s class? He’s very angry and says that he wants it to stop right away.”

Ron didn’t know how to make it stop. “I’ll take care of it,” he said and abruptly closed the door in her face. He paced back and forth feeling the wetness of his sweat. He sat down and turned on the mike. “Sorry for the interruption down there in Professor Lanza’ s class, but at least it was better than the normal, dull grind. Wasn’t it? I’m gonna have to close the station down for a little while and try to figure out how to stop going places where I’m not wanted. And until then, what I said about the Dylan thing, that’s the only important thing that really happened.”

Ron walked out of the radio station and into the student council room. Julian Willy was sitting with Vee and three other very weird looking people. They all burst out laughing when Ron walked into the room. Julian came up to Ron and stood at attention like he was going to pin a medal on him and then snickered, “You were really cool under pressure in there. I’d like to congratulate you on how you handled that.” Ron was too nervous to pay attention to what Julian was saying or he would have had to rip out his throat this time.

Vee was right on Julian’s heels saying, “Do you want me to show you how to run the controls?”

Ron smiled and followed Vee out of the room with the look of someone who had just received a care package. “And a particularly good selection of cuts too,” added Julian as they left. Ron closed the door concentrating on at least turning that knob correctly.

As time got closer, the physical blotted out everything else that Ron thought about. Two days before he was to present himself for inspection, he got a call from Hank. They were going to get together the night before he was supposed to go.

“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” said Hank cryptically.

“What?” blurted Ron.

“I’m going to be living with Jo Lee for a long time.”

“I figured that,” said Ron trying to conceive how anything could be more important than the government getting its hands on him. “We can talk more when we get together. Have you got any pot?”

“Not a joint,” said Hank.

“Yeah, I haven’t been smoking the stuff either,” said Ron. “OK, I’ll see you about 6 o’clock tomorrow.

Ron had always liked the feel of Hank’s VW. It was tan with a fake wood interior and a walnut gearshift that Ron was crazy about. It gave the lever more substance than the little plastic thing that looked like a wheel off a kid’s toy truck. Ron had a similar attraction for Hank’s thick, brown watchband, which Hank had worn since Ron had known him. He watched the wrist and the gearshift moving as the car clicked down the street. Ron realized that he missed the security he’d once felt inside this car. It had been the place he first tried out his ideas. Hank had already been to college for two years and had done well. Ron was startled with the thought of how many times he must have seemed incredibly stupid to his friend. He’d only been a college a couple months and already he knew how flawed his logic and methods of expression were. It was that he’d never done that much in his life that had any meaning. It had almost always been to get over, or to earn money, or to impress somebody that he liked. Hank must have had to be very patient with him.

After Ron was in the car, Hank felt awkward. No one, except for Jo Lee, had ridden with him for a long time, and this reminded him of living at home and going to Welmont. Hank knew that Ron would be very into school and didn’t want to talk about that at all. After he’d run away with Jo Lee, he’d withdrawn from his classes quietly. Hank stared at Ron. He’d been hoping that he’d been able to score some pot. All along it had been getting stoned that had made Hank comfortable enough to get things out.

“It’s been a long time since we rode the loop together, hasn’t it?” said Ron when he saw Hank make one of the familiar turns.

“Fuck! I didn’t even realize that I was doing it.”

They both laughed. “The loop is something that’s in your blood,” said Ron. Do you want to go get something to eat?” Hank grimaced. “Do you want to go up to Welmont and see who’s around?”

“I’m never going in that place again,” said Hank emphatically.

“Let’s shoot some pool,” said Ron with a tone that indicated that was his last suggestion.

“Do you want to get some coffee?” said Hank.

“Sounds good.”

They drank the coffee and each of them seemed to have thoughts that were drifting away from each other. Hank snuck a glance at his watch and Ron, who was always attentive to the watchband, tried to read the dial from up side down.

“So you really love her?” said Ron.

“It’s not like anything that has ever happened to me before.”

“Have you thought about having kids?”
The question was a surprise because he hadn’t thought of it all. It didn’t seem that what he and Jo Lee were doing had any connection to the idea of creating a family at all. Then he wondered why the thought hadn’t ever occurred to them. Ron interrupted his thoughts by saying the waitress on the other side of the room had a beautiful body. Hank looked over, but she seemed like a little kid and her body like a bud that hadn’t begun to open. She looked puny compared to Jo Lee. “She’s pretty,” said Hank.

“Of course, as luck would have it, she’s in the other room and I can’t think of a reason in the world that could make me go there.”

Hank smiled and decided that it served Ron right that what he thought he wanted. “How’s school?”

“It’s where I should be,” said Ron. “Why the fuck is the government trying to get its hands on me?” “They try to get everybody I finally got myself to a spot where I’m going to stop acting like an insane lunatic who’s never comfortable with anything, and now they want to rip it away. Just when I was starting to get a good sniff of it, they shove pepper up my nose.”

“It sucks,” said Hank.

Ron raised his voice to an intense whisper that could easily be over heard. “I mean what do they want? They want me to slit throats. That’s what they’re really looking for! I’d rather do myself in than become a no good fuckin’ throat slitter!”

Hank looked around the room quickly. “We should go,” he said. He felt very far away from things like war and school. Somehow, he was sure that they were part of the same thing and it had nothing to do with him anymore.

When they got back in the car, Ron said, “She doesn’t like me, does she?”

Hank was relieved that the evening was almost even before the question came up. He would have enough time to drive Ron home and go have a drink at The Dover Inn before it was time for Jo Lee to get off work. “She doesn’t say that much about you.”

Ron felt that Hank was saying that he wasn’t important enough to come up in their conversations. “But what she does say isn’t good, is it?”

“She thinks that you don’t like the idea of her and me being together. She said that she thinks you’re too immature.”

“What the fuck does she mean, ‘I’m too immature!’ So she’s getting to choose your friends for you now, huh? Did you tell her that I used to have a job at IBM with an immense amount of responsibility? What does she mean, ‘I’m too immature?'”

“I don’t know,” said Hank, very amused. “She doesn’t know you very well.”

“I never did anything to her. Why does she think that?”

“Because of the things you said before we got married.”

Ron looked at him with an incredulous face. He wanted to say, “You’re not even really married, and she thinks I’m immature!” But he let his look say it for him and Hank was pleased that the subject was going to pass. They were quiet for a while.

“What things did you tell her that I said?” said Ron, finally.

Hank thought, Oh shit. He isn’t going to let it pass. He had just come up for air. He had fainted and was coming around in back of him with a rabbit punch. Hank was tired of blocking and ducking just because people were upset at the way he was living his life. “Look,” he said with profound conviction, “you’re probably not gonna be seeing that much of her anyway. It doesn’t really matter what she thinks of you.” Hank felt better. He’d thrown a good conversational punch and landed it squarely.

Ron decided that he didn’t have time for this petty bullshit. He was gonna take his physical in the morning. He slipped his hand down to the door handle when they turned on to his block. “I’d better get some sleep, so that I have some idea of what they’re doing to me tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” said Hank. “Good luck.”

Ron smiled because Hank had intoned the phrase with a Dylan accent that made it sound like the bad dream it was. “No wonder everybody’s gotta get stoned” he said laughing and heading towards his house.

Hank drove off thinking that he’d been hard on Ron, but that Jo Lee was right. He was immature.

Chapter 26

Ron was told to assemble with the other inductees at 7 a.m. He decided to walk up to the place where the bus would bring them to Newark. No one said anything special to him about the way things would go and he was feeling better off for the lack of information. His fear had disappeared during his sleep, and he’d decided that he wanted them to take him. At least he would be acceptable to someone. He couldn’t face trying to get out like some misfit. What if a lot of guys did hide out in colleges. That wasn’t his reason for going back to school. A determined calm was inside him. His voices spoke with soft advice. “If your country needs you, you have an obligation to go. That’s why we’re free and that’s the only way for us to stay that way. If it was different, the government wouldn’t spend all this money training guys to be soldiers.”

Ron thought about his high school history books: the picture of Douglas McArthur wading ashore with his sunglasses and leathery tanned face rose up in back of his eyes. Then it shifted and became the photo of a mushroom cloud that always appeared on one of the back pages as a portent of the future. His mind shifted again and it was “Back to Bataan” on “The Million Dollar Movie.” John Wayne and Anthony Quinn led a charge with their machine guns blazing. He’d re-enacted the scenes in his bedroom when he was a little boy, throwing himself across his bed holding his baseball bat while he tumblesaulted and came up shooting. He would get hit in the shoulder and fling himself back on the bed and then come back firing. But then he heard Dylan’s voice singing “Masters of War.” He tried to shake it from his head by walking faster.

He fingered the brown manila envelope that held the letters in his pocket about his knees. It always went back to football. The first day of freshman practice when he ran faster than anyone even close to his size and hit the blocking dummies with a vengeful pops that turned his coaches’ heads. He was immediately moved up to the junior varsity. He squinted when he saw himself bouncing off some guy’s hip in a full extension attempt to make a tackle. He hit the ground and heard his knee crack like a walnut. The next year of trying to play ball in between the doctor’s draining of his knee every couple of weeks. He saw himself spread out on the table with his pants around his ankles. The doctor was a mousy man with glasses. He rubbed alcohol on the leg.

“Is this gonna hurt?”

“You’ll feel the needle break the skin, but after that the pain will be minimal.”

When the doctor took out the syringe, Ron sat bolt upright. It was at least seven inches long. He’d never even imagined a needle that was that big. “Wait a minute! You’re gonna drill that into my knee?”

“We’re going between the plates of your kneecap. Under them is the sack that’s swollen up with fluid. We’re going to drain it.”
Ron began to sweat. He lay back on the table and stared at the ceiling. The doctor stood over him and rubbed his leg with a reassuring smile. “Now you’ve got to relax, so that the needle has a smooth path.” Ron panicked. How the fuck was he supposed to relax. He looked for his mother, who had crept into the corner and wasn’t watching. That was reassuring! He tried to relax. He told himself that he wouldn’t think about what the guy was going to do to him and then it would be over. When the needle entered, a scream burst out of him.

The doctor looked down with calm annoyance. “You’re not making this any easier.” He pressed on the needle and shoved it through. The doctor looked at the vial connected to the end of the syringe. It wasn’t filling up with anything but blood. He’d missed the sack and would have to try again. He withdrew the needle and looked down at his patient. Ron’s eyes were glassy. “Now you’ve got to relax so that we can find the sack.”

“You mean you’re not through yet!”

“It’s a very narrow shaft and when you tighten the muscles in your leg, you constrict it even more.” The pain in his leg wouldn’t go away. He clenched his fists and told himself to relax. Ron stared up at the way hair curled out of the doctor’s nostrils. Then the burning pain hit him again. He didn’t scream. The needle was in and the vials began filling up rapidly. There were eight of them that Ron counted. He was now able to tolerate the shaft being stuck in his knee. When Ron saw that the eighth vial had stopped filling, he smiled. It was over, he thought. Then the doctor said, “Now we’re going to milk the bursar.” He pressed his thumbs down on the areas around the needle. Ron’s brain became a fireworks display and tears rolled down his cheeks. When the doctor took the needle out, the knee felt like it was still in there. He couldn’t bend it. “That will go away in a few hours,” said the doctor. Ron stopped counting after the twentieth time the procedure had been repeated, and everybody agreed that he needed surgery.

The orthopedic surgeon said that the knee should have been cut a year ago. There was damage that was caused by re-injury and the constant drainings. He told him that the reason his knee kept filling up with fluid was torn cartilage. “Then, if I have the operation, it will be like it was before?”

“Probably not,” said the surgeon. “Ron, your knee won’t ever be a hundred percent again and you’ve got to learn to live with that.”

When he was alone in the hospital, he cried. “I’m crippled, “he said into his pillow. He saw images of himself hurling through the air and running with a joyous abandon and told himself that nothing would ever be the same.

His mind shifted to the day of the operation. In the recovery room, he told the nurse to “fuck yourself” when she tried to wake him up. Then there was the pain and the pain shots and how they made him feel dreamy while he was still awake. He remembered trying to tighten the muscles in his thigh and finding that nothing responded. His knee had been split open and they’d taken things out of him. Nothing would ever be the same. He remembered his mother and Uncle Mike coming to visit just after they’d brought him back to the room. From the way they looked at him, Ron knew that he must look bad.
“We brought you something to eat, and your Uncle Mike has a wonderful card for you,” said Marjorie.

Uncle Mike sat down on the edge of Ron’s bed and squeezed his toes, saying, “How do you feel?”

Ron screamed. It was an involuntary burst that came out before he had a chance to check himself. He tried to sit up and couldn’t. The leg was bandaged from the ankle to the top of his thigh. He tried to rock himself up and the split knee effect hit him square in the face. He screamed again. “Get offa my bed, goddammit!”

“Don’t you dare talk to your Uncle that way!”

“Get him off my bed!” hollered Ron and dropped back with his hands over his face. Letting them cut him open had been a mistake. It was only a year later when they had to do the other knee.

“It may have been a mistake,” he told himself, “but it’s all I got going for me today.” He stood in the doorway waiting and thought that it would be honorable if they didn’t take him because of his knees. They were something he’d really suffered through and had the scars to prove it. He wouldn’t be a misfit like he’d be if he told them about the shrinks. Then the door opened and he was brought inside.

Potential recruits were informed that transportation to the induction center would be arriving momentarily. The sergeant continued in a professionally dispassionate way with a toothy grin, “You will also be given tokens for return bus fare. Anyone who thinks he can cheat the army in regard to his physical condition will be sadly mistaken. Those of you who seek to have psychiatric evaluation will be the last to leave the center. If you breeze through the preliminary examinations with no trouble, you can expect to be on your way back by 2 or 3 this afternoon.”

The sergeant called names from a list. Most of the names responded. Ron’s ‘here’ was so weak that he felt he had to repeat himself immediately. He flushed when several heads turned in his direction. He’d spoken with a voice that sounded like it hadn’t changed. He’d begun to make a fool of himself already.

He got a window seat on the bus and watched the passing panorama. The Avenue resembled the huge bazaars and market places he’d seen in documentaries. He liked its familiarity and told himself that part of this country’s greatness was that its markets stretched on for miles. The bus passed by the Lowe’s Theater and Ron flashed back on seeing “Psycho” there when he’d been a kid. He remembered the gales of screams that came out of the theater as they waited in the lobby for the next show. He was still unable to take a shower without periodically peeking around the corner of the curtain. Ron watched people walking freely along the downtown streets and felt like he’d been arrested again. He was unable to pull the buzzer cord and join them on the streets. The only remaining question was whether or not he’d be thrown back as a defective catch.
The prospective inductees were met by Corporal Worsham. Service life had been good to the corporal except now he was stuck in this asshole city up North, but the army had entrusted him with a large responsibility and he’d was damned if he was gonna fuck it up and find himself back in Saigon with his ass in a sling. He split the draftees into two large groups. The first group was sent to begin their physicals. Ron moved with the second group into a classroom for their intelligence testing.

“For the period of time during which you are stationed here, you are under the control of the U.S. Army. During the course of this day, you will be exposed to a battery of tests designed to determine your fitness for military service.”

Ron listened to the corporal thinking that the guy must scrub himself with a wire brush every morning. His skin seemed clean to the point of being raw. Ron discovered a tattoo on Worsham’s left forearm. It resembled the kind of ink pad stamps they put on your hand at a dance and said only “U.S. Army.”

“These tests that you will be taking are cheat proof. It would take a real imbecile to fail the intelligence test and anybody who does fail will be taken off, retested, and then sent on for further special testing. Anyone who is sent off for special testing will probably have to remain overnight so that his test can be properly evaluated. Anyone turning up abnormal levels on the urine test will be kept overnight unless he can produce documented proof of a legitimate problem. Uncle Sam will always be fair to you, but he hates cheaters, and so do I.”

During the next two hours, Ron answered each question as well as he was able. He thought that some of the questions, like being able to distinguish between a cow and a wrench, were incredibly stupid but this was no place for complaints. Besides, the last thing Ron wanted was to be held over for special testing.

Worsham or his relief partner stayed in the room during the entire testing period. At one hour and eight minutes into the test, Corporal Worsham saw the hand of the potential inductee in the second seat of the fourth row go into the air. Ron stopped working and momentarily looked at the kid next to him sitting with his hand in the air like he was in school. Worsham gaped at the punk in the brown tee-shirt, who now was a distraction to others, and moved in to handle the situation quietly and with dispatch. He leaned over and read the name of the questioner. “What’s the problem, Henzel?” Worsham’s face scrunched when he said the name. He’d already decided that this kid was trying to become a pain in the place where the sun don’t shine.

“The correct answer to this problem is unavailable on this test.” Henzel showed Worsham the problem. The corporal stared at it blankly, seeming to be unable to comprehend the nature of the question. “You’re telling me that the test is incorrect?” he said finally. Henzel launched into a description of the nature of the question and the mistake he thought the army had made on this particular problem.

“I’ll tell the U.S. Army that in your opinion they are mistaken on this question. You should now resume working.”

“But what do you want me to do about this question?” asked Henzel. Ron stopped working and watched the disturbance to his left. He thought about what a jerk-off Henzel must be to think that it made any difference at all.

“I’ll have it checked. What else do you think I should do about it?” said Worsham. “I could arrange to have you wait and point this matter out to the Captain yourself. Would you like that?” Henzel shook his head and went back to work.

About forty minutes later the test ended. The group was led downstairs in single file. They stripped and placed their belongings into wire baskets that were then tagged. Ron felt stupid standing in his jockeys holding his manila envelope. He looked down with dismay at his stomach. It sloped and jiggled a little when he walked. He cursed the fact that he liked cake and sucked the thing in. That looked a lot better, but he wondered if people could tell that he was holding in his gut.

The next two hours consisted of endless standing in line with his arms across his chest. The only time Ron talked to anyone was when he said,” no,” to a kid who couldn’t piss in the bottle and asked to borrow some of Ron’s. The kid had been in there a while and they’d told him that he wasn’t allowed to move on until he’d filled up his cup at least halfway. It took Ron less than five minutes to conjure up the needed waste, but he saw that a lot of guys were having problems.

Ron liked the hearing test best of all. It was the way the earphones took away the constant noise of everybody talking and moving around. It was like being off by himself and fully alert at the same time. It was almost like being stoned.

At the conclusion of his physical, Ron was examined by a doctor. Every potential inductee had to be examined individually. Those who wished to mention specific handicaps were assigned to a second examination. If you wished to have a second examination, you had to wait.

Dr. William Stepfield was smoking a cigarette and wondering how many more he would have to check before he was finished when Ron entered his office. Ron tried to show Stepfield his letters but was told he would have to wait for his specialty examination to present those. Ron was frustrated. Stepfield told him to take down his shorts. Ron felt sick when the doctor took hold of his testicles. “Cough,” said Stepfield. Ron coughed. “Again.” Ron hated it. Why did they grab you by the nuts and order you to do things? “Again please,” said the doctor adjusting his grip to another part of the scrotal sack. Ron coughed loudly in his face before he realized the defiance of what he was doing. H e began to sweat. “Okay, now bend over and spread your cheeks,” the doctor was putting on a finger cot.

“What?” said Ron. Before he opened his asshole up to any weird government functionary, he was at least going to get an explanation.

“It’s a rectal examination,” said Stepfield, as he put his hundred-and-fifty-fourth finger cot of the day on and hoped against hope that this kid had learned how to keep his asshole clean. Ron did as he was told and concentrated on how the blood flowed into his face.

“Do you have a history of mental instability?”

“No,” said Ron folding his arms more tightly across his chest. The idea of asking for a quick smoke was impractical.

Then he was in the hall again, sitting on a wooden bench in his underpants, holding his manila envelope. No one seemed to be taking notice of him. The orthopedic appointment was over almost before it began. The guy read his letters and said, “Do you have any pain?”

“Sometimes. ”

He told Ron to lie down on the examining table. He twisted his knee from the ankle and Ron yelped. The doctor said that he was recommending that he be exempt from military service. Ron became confused by the sense of rejection and happiness. By the time his clothes were back on he was smiling. His life was going to go on like it was before today. He was humming along with the bubbly music that was playing inside of him.

Corporal Worsham was seated at a desk outside of the dressing room. He stared at Ron’s papers from the back of his metal type, standard issue desk. “You have been determined to be unfit for military service,” he said sharply.

“I know,” said Ron continuing to smile.

“Your new draft card will be sent to you in the mail. Until then you are to carry your old draft card with you at all times.”

Chapter 27

Hank and Jo Lee started furnishing their apartment with the first of the wedding gifts they received. She called him a “chicken livered asshole” for the first time about two days after the first of the money came in. The occasion was his suggestion that they ought to budget their money more carefully so that they wouldn’t have to ever be broke. She began mildly by saying that she intended to live things up as often as possible and budgeting was definitely not something she intended doing with the money she earned. Hank tried to reason with her. He told her that if they put something away each week they could live things up regularly.

“You don’t know how to live things up because you’ve never had it tough. You’ve been babied all your life and still are.” She had never talked to him that way. He was immediately crushed and took to silence. He got up and started looking for his cigarettes. “And why do you walk on your toes all the time? It makes you look like a weirdo as soon as you take your shoes off.”

“I don’t know,” said Hank. He bit down tightly on his and stared at the floor.

She smiled at him and walked over with the sweet elastic smile that he loved on her face. “I just don’t want you to keep on being a chicken livered asshole,” she said sweetly.

“You shouldn’t call me that,” said Hank dramatically. She rested her head on her shoulder, sighed and said she was going to take a bath. She closed the bathroom door and stared into the mirror until she was able to produce three tears that rolled down her cheeks. While the water swarmed into the tub, she thought about the jawline of the piano player at The Dover Inn.

Hank settled into their chair and thought about what had just happened. They’d had an argument but realized that they loved each other. He especially liked the way she rested her head on his shoulder. It had reassured him that she was always going to be his no matter what happened. He wanted to take care of her and he would be able to if only… He grimaced. He’d been in the midst of a crucial insight and now the fucking phone had rung it right out of him.

“Hey man,” said Ron “what’s happening? What happened to me is that I just got out of going into the fuckin’ army. I go right before the women and children and the way I figure it, that’s the only time it would really be necessary. What do you think of that?”

“That’s really good,” said Hank.

Ron waited for him to say something after that but nothing. “Want to get together and get blasted?”

“I don’t think so,” said Hank.

“Well, I guess I’ll catch up with you at some point later on,” said Ron, who was now sorry that he’d called and wanted to get off the phone quickly. When he got off the phone he told himself that he and Hank were going in very different directions. Hank was so caught up in Jo Lee that he couldn’t let himself think about anything else. Ron told himself that he’d just have to stop thinking about Hank in the present tense and that he really didn’t feel too bad about the development. It would be like resisting change and look what happened when you tried resisting change: you became a fossil. He told himself that he wasn’t fucking dinosaur and that if Hank wanted to walk around with his outdated “it’s my woman and me against the world” approach that was his problem. Sooner or later he would see that he was irrelevant.

Ron drove out to Quimpy’s house that evening. Quimpy had no phone, so the only way to catch him was to find him in. His feelings about his family were the subject of the thoughts he sorted out on the way. Their reactions were mixed. George was silent. Marjorie said, “Thank God.” Aunt Dottie said that she wouldn’t have wanted to go either if she’d been a man his age. Ron thought their reactions were a pretty good indication of how they felt about him. George wanted them to take me. My mother was just afraid that I was going to die. He thought about his Aunt’s reaction and smiled. She thinks like I do, he thought. Hers was the only reaction that made him feel better.

Ron piloted onto Quimpy’s street and was glad when he saw the lights on in the garage. Ron parked across the street in front of the factory and crossed over warily. This was one of the darkest streets he visited regularly and he was always a bit nervous about it. He threw glances over his shoulder while he waited for Quimpy to come to the door.

A small, white window shade went up and Ron could see the top of Quimpy’s head. Quimpy, raised on his toes, was sidling below the window, trying to determine the identity of the visitor. After about fifteen seconds of this, Ron began to get resentful. “Jesus Christ!” he said under his breath. “I get saved from the jaws of death and nobody gives a shit.” Quimpy opened the door and Ron said. “I hope I didn’t get you at a bad time.”

“Nah, that’s alright.” Quimpy stroked his beard and looked up and down the street before he closed the door in back of Ron.

It was a renovated garage filled with embracing clutter. A kitchenette that contained all the necessaries, plus a thirty-gallon fish tank that was stretched across the length of the table, a collection of a hundred dusty wine bottles stacked on top of the cabinets, walls filled with elementary school art and bowling sheets that displayed great games. The rest of the place was similarly packed with stacks of magazines and old newspapers and rugs laid over rugs–all threadbare. An American flag hung draped across the entrance to the bathroom.

“When did you get the aquarium?”

“I don’t remember when it was,” said Quimpy, who continued to stroke his beard and weave from side to side. Quimpy’s habit of weaving had actually become accentuated since Ron stepped inside the garage, so that now he was actually picking his feet off the floor at the end of each lean.
“Man, do you look stoned.”

“Not any more, but I smoked a bone this afternoon that had me flying. This black chick Laurie and I went apartment hunting.”

“Did you get anything?”

Quimpy smiled. “No. But we sure provided some people with anxious moments.”

“She didn’t feel insulted, huh?”

“Nah, she didn’t give a fuck.”

“I beat the draft today Quimpy”

His Ginsbergish face broke into delighted laughter. “Ah yeah.” He headed for his closet, reached into a sports jacket pocket and came out with some pot and a pipe. “That calls for a celebration. Did you have to tell them you were a crazy fag drug addict?”

“No, but I would have. My knees got me out.”

They sat down in front of the fish tank and Quimpy stuffed his pipe.

“Man,” said Ron. “When was the last time you moved anything around in this place?”

“Nothing needs to be moved,” said Quimpy, inhaling and passing the pipe to Ron. He sucked in deeply and began to cough with a radical baritone quiver.

“You’re too greedy. Take small hits.” Quimpy demonstrated and handed the pipe back to Ron.

After a tiny toke, Ron was amazed by how much smoke came out of him. He still liked joints better. After they had successfully knocked out the pipe, and Ron hadn’t coughed any more, Quimpy refilled. “See Fuck-up, all you got to do is pay attention.”

“You always say that,” said Ron.

“That’s because it’s true. It’s true at Welmont. It’s true at school. It’s true with broads.”

“But sometimes I get to paying so closely that I forget what’s going on.”

Quimpy thought that Ron was filled with contradictions. “You got to learn to pay attention to the right things in the right ways.”

Ron’s face was filled with anticipation. “How do you know what the right things are?”

“Pay attention,” said Quimpy. He laughed and lit the second pipe. Ron laughed too.

Chapter 28

Hank was pacing nervously. The club had been closed for over an hour and it had never taken Jo Lee that long to get home before.

The Simon and Garfunkel line, “Are you worried cause your girlfriend’s just a little late,” repeated in his head until he put the record on. “It isn’t good to get upset about absolutely nothing,” he told himself. Then he heard her on the stairs. She seemed to be in a happy mood when she came through the door.

“How’ve you been?” said Hank, trying to look happy too.

She came over and sat on the arm of their chair without taking off her jacket. “I’ve been thinking that maybe I haven’t been taking good care of you lately. I’ve been thinking about it all night and I think I know what the problem is.” Hank was getting nervous and his throat was dry. He got up and started across the room and stopped when he realized that he was walking away from her while she was talking. He turned around in the center of the floor and stood there looking awkward. “I want to love you and take care of you Hank.” He realized that she’d been drinking. “But you’ve got to stop living on the allowance that your parents give you and get a job.”

Hank grimaced. So that was it. Just a stupid thing like where his money came from. He didn’t understand why it bothered her, but he didn’t understand why a lot of things didn’t bother her either. Maybe they couldn’t have conversations that communicated the exactness of their feelings, but with some work they could do better than a country mile miss.

The truth of it was that Jo Lee didn’t like the appearance of Hank living off her. It made her feel desperate and taken advantage of.

“I’ll see what I can do about getting a job tomorrow,” said Hank with a soothing resignation.

“You will?” said Jo Lee. She smiled that smooth, elastic smile that was a little crooked on account of the booze. “You’re gonna be the best man I ever had. I know it.” She looked at him in a way that said she wanted to have her brains fucked out.

Chapter 29

When Ron next saw Rebecca Ranelli, he didn’t recognize her but she remembered him and smiled as they passed in the hall. Ron instantly changed his direction and started back after her. He caught a break when she went into the cafeteria. He scanned the hall closely and darted in. He stood in back of her in line and waited for her to notice him. She didn’t.

Ron fixed his coffee and watched Rebecca make her way to an empty table. He swallowed hard and thought what the fuck, she can always tell me to get lost. He presented himself at her table and said, “Hi, how are you doin’?” Subtlety, he thought. It was cool to just skip over the fact that he had no idea who she was. She looked up and Ron commanded himself to smile. “Can I sit down?”

“Sure,” said Rebecca, glancing to both sides to emphasize the fact that there were a lot of other empty seats and tables. Ron sat down feeling like he was on a tv game show. A voice in his mind said, “Now, you can stop here or try for the next plateau, but remember you risk the chance of giving up your winnings and the right to keep playing if you do the wrong thing. A first degree screw-up disqualifies you forever. A second or third degree screw-up can possibly be reversed into points scored.” Ron told the voice that he intended to keep playing. “Okay Ron, now we’re going to show the audience that word that’s going to be spelled out on your forehead.” A voice that Ron wasn’t supposed to be able to hear said, “The word is jerk.” “Remember, if you have more screw-ups than points scored and all the letters appear on your forehead, you will go off and never be heard from again.”

Ron pushed the daydream out of his mind telling himself that he was really losing it. He tried, for what seemed like an eternity of seconds, to come up with an opening line. ‘Why did you smile at me?’ seemed a bit abrupt, even to Ron.”I’m sitting her trying to figure out how to not sound corny, and the truth is that I can’t remember where I know you from.” he began. He detected a bit of movement at the edges of her mouth. “I’m a bit mad at myself for forgetting having seen you. That’s for sure.” Ron looked full into her face and grinned until he was sure that she could see his dimples. The announcer’s voice assured him that he still hadn’t received his first letter or committed any screw-ups.

She giggled, “I think it was at the radio station.”

Ron’s mouth dropped slightly as he stared at her with a sense of recognition. J E R K was spelled out in blinking neon across his forehead.

“Professor Lanza got really angry, but the rest of the class thought you were absolutely hysterical.” Her brown eyes were dancing and for a second Ron felt completely held by them. The announcer and game show faded under their gaze.

“I didn’t know what the hell I was doing up there.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I mean, it was my first show and I didn’t have anybody or any station hand there or anything.”

“Did you make out all right with your physical?”

Ron flashed on an image of himself bent over with his cheeks spread. “I was just being paranoid. I guess there really wasn’t much of a chance of them taking me and I should have known that. I had these two knee operations and well… They didn’t take me.”

“That’s good,” said Rebecca. “I’ve been trying to decide how I feel about the war and a lot of other things. Ron was intrigued by the cascading browns of her hair. “I used to go out with this guy who joined the Marines. I guess he must be over there right now.” She twined the end of her hair around her fingers. Ron stared at her chest. “When I was going out with him, I thought the war was necessary and all that, but since we broke up last April and I came to school, my opinions have been changing.”

“I know what you mean. For the last couple of years, I haven’t really thought too much about it either. I was too busy working or running around, but for the last six months I’ve been changing too. Now I think the whole thing stinks.” Ron saw Chris Calvin standing in the doorway of the cafeteria looking in his direction. He waved for Chris to join them. When Chris started over, Ron sat up a little straighter. Having the Student Council President for a friend meant that he was a member of the in group at the school. He would be viewed as someone who knew what was happening. He imagined this judgment of him to be passing through Rebecca’s mind.

“Far out,” said Chris as he sat down with them.

Ron watched the introductions, learned her name and, with a bit of envy, noticed the look of recognition in her face as Chris told her who he was. “So, I hear you made it through your physical ok?” said Chris.

“Yeah, I got lucky.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know,” said Ron. “I’m just having coffee here and then I don’t know.”

Rebecca stood up and gathered her things. “It was nice to meet you Chris,” she said with a polite smile. She turned to Ron. “I’ve got a class that starts in five minutes.”

Ron was confused. He wanted to stay and talk to Chris but he wanted to get something started with Rebecca. All he could manage was a weak, “take care,” as she turned to walk away. “Hey, wait here a second, will you?” he said to Chris and found himself starting after her again. He caught her in the hall. “Are you doing anything later?” he said with a sense of urgency. When she didn’t answer right away, he continued. “I mean could I have your phone number and give you a call later on?”

Rebecca paused and then smiled at him. “My home phone number?” She paused again. Ron shifted from one foot to the other. Without actually saying yes, she took out a sheet of notebook paper and wrote her name and number on it. Ron smiled broadly and stored it in his wallet. “I’ll call you later on,” he said and walked away before she had a chance to answer him.

Chris was sitting at the table tapping both his feet to the radio station music and bobbing his head. Seeing Ron, he said, “Let’s go over to the Student Council Room.” Back at his office he softened his tones and spoke in a more congenial way. “Did you know that Peter was leaving school?”

“No.” That wasn’t good news. Peter had been the person who Ron had counted on to help him on The Commuter. He was the only person in a position of power that Ron knew would get his articles into the paper.

“He and Nan are quitting so they can get married. I was thinking. You know, last year I was on the staff and I need someone down there that I can depend on.”

“Margaret What’s-her-name is in charge, right?”

“I doubt very much that she’ll be back in school either. She’s been on an awfully long trip and there’s no telling where she is.” He played with the corners of his moustache as he talked. Ron couldn’t decide whether he was sinister or just looked that way, but figured that it didn’t matter. There was something about him that was easy to like. “So I think that leaves you.” Ron looked at Chris, his face in a question mark. “To be managing editor of The Commuter,” said Chris, bobbing his head.

“A lot of people down there have been on the staff a long time,” said Ron.

“Leave that to me. Julian says he’s gonna quit working on the paper anyway and everybody else down there seems to like you. I think you’ve got a good knack for stirring up the controversy that a paper needs.”

Ron was stunned. He couldn’t think of one reason in the world that this guy was doing this for him. The idea that everybody on the staff liked him kept repeating in his head like a happy tune. He couldn’t remember if there had been a time when everybody had liked him anywhere. “I’d be happy to do it.”

“Do you ever get stoned?” said Chris. He was bobbing his head again.

Ron was beginning to feel a little dizzy. He wasn’t sure how to answer this question but said, “Yeah, I have.”

“Why don’t we go over to my house and smoke a joint?”
Now it was Ron’s turn to bob his head. “Sounds great.”
Chris drove a red and white Plymouth with a push button transmission and no dents. Ron felt comforted by the piles of debris in the car that mostly consisted of Blue Castle hamburger bags and empty coffee containers, but there was also a healthy supply of mimeographed paper: some yellow and some crisp and smooth. Ron liked the contradiction with the briefcase image. “It’s better than throwing it out the window,” he said.

“Yeah, keep America beautiful,” said Ron.

Chris bobbed. “Are you from around here?”

“Newark,” said Ron automatically. He never told anyone he was living in the suburbs now until he had to.

Chris’ house was on a tree-lined street with no sidewalk. It was a two- family job that resembled the one Ron family owned. In the driveway was a contractor’s van that read,”T.B. Calvin, General Contractor.” Ron followed Chris along the side of the house. His room was off the back of the kitchen and had its own entrance. Ron envied the feeling of privacy. The room itself was gigantic. It held a double bed mattress and box spring, a full sized couch, two overstuffed chairs, a table piled with books and papers a stereo and a guitar amplifier. In the shadows of the corner of the room, Ron made out the doleful face of Julian T. Willy.

“Chris, you must be kidding,” said Julian’s disgusted voice.

“What’s up Julian?”

Ron felt instantly out of place and wanted to leave. The thought that he didn’t have his own car made him more uncomfortable.

“I stopped by to tell you that I’ve got tickets to see John Mayall. You and Vee Vee and Digby and I will go.”

“Who’s John Mayall?” said Ron.

Julian sneered. “An English blues band,” said Chris.

Julian got up and walked passed them toward the door with a smirk on his face. “What’s on your calendar for tonight?” he said to Chris.

“Listening to the tapes.”

“I believe I’ll abstain,” answered Julian. Ron noticed his lisp again and wondered if it might be his Achilles heel.

“So what are you doing?”

“Purple blotter acid,” said Julian quickly. “And I believe Laureen is coming over. You can come over late if you want to. There’s no telling when I’ll be peaking and I’ve got homemade pecan pie for the occasion.”

“Far out,” said Chris with a great deal of enthusiasm.

He got up and followed Julian out the door.

Ron fished for his cigarettes. When Chris returned, Ron said, “What’s the story with him? He acts like he’d like to kill me and I’ve got no idea of why.”

“Julian doesn’t like many people, but he’s a good person and he’s very intelligent.”

Something fished in Ron’s head and he knew that Julian didn’t like him because he thought Ron was stupid. Chris took out a bag with at least two ounces of pot in it. Ron watched with the look of a kid observing the preparations for an ice cream sundae as Chris rolled two fat joints. Putting out his cigarette, Ron lit the joint Chris handed him. He loved the sweet taste and smell.

“So what are you gonna do tonight?” said Chris. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve never been to a Student Council meeting, have you?”

“Well, I taped one yesterday and I’m having some people over to listen to it tonight. You know some of them and it would give people a chance to meet you if you want to come over.”

“Maybe,” said Ron. He wondered why anybody would sit around and listen to the tapes of a meeting. If you were there, you knew what happened. If you weren’t there, why would you care? Ron didn’t like tape recorders anyway. They made his voice sound like he was nine years old and he always seemed to have too much air coming out of his mouth. If he stayed there, he wouldn’t be able to call Rebecca and maybe she would want to see him tonight. Maybe she would even hint there was a chance that he could get laid. Maybe Jade would be at Chris’ house tonight. He wasn’t sure that he ever would be able to face her again, although he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of her since The Birth of October party. If he didn’t ask Rebecca out tonight, it would be too late to do anything with her this weekend. Chicks didn’t like to be asked out as late as Friday. It was a point of honor with them. They didn’t want you to think that they weren’t always busy, but maybe they didn’t think like that at all. Ron got stoned in the shady darkness of Chris’ roomwhile Chris rolled a supply of joints for that night’s company.

Hank had been sitting in so many bars that he felt his skin had turned a pale shade of amber. It had started because he liked to go out and have drinks with Jo Lee. She would nibble on his ear and play with his cock under the table, mostly while he was trying to talk to the barmaid. She was delighted by the flustered look it put on his innocent, child-like face while she was doing it. This week he had started coming to The Dover Inn while she was working. She told him that things were slow and that other people had their friends come in. Hank agreed willingly. Usually, the three hours he spent there flew. It seemed more like they were out together than it seemed like she was at work. She took good care of her customers and Hank brought a book with him. The house paid for most of his drinks, so what was the harm?

This particular Thursday night, she had only been a work for two hours when Hank felt the need to get out. He had intended to stay home and read or listen to records but none of those activities held his interest. He and Jo Lee wouldn’t have another evening together until Monday and he missed her already. He took a shower and got dressed. He felt dapper. That was the word and he liked the sound of it. It was a word Jo Lee used to describe him when she thought he looked good. He’d lost quite a bit of weight since he’d moved in with Jo Lee. His comfortable pudginess had disappeared and he was developing a lean look. He smiled to himself all the way down to the club.

The place was almost filled when he got there. He heard piano music and realized that this was one of the nights when The Dover Inn offered live entertainment. He was bit disappointed when she didn’t seem that happy to see him. She did smile and say, “;What a good surprise,” but he would have bet that the thought wasn’t genuine.

During his third gin gimlet, it occurred to him that he’d traded this place for Welmont. The first time Hank noticed the piano man put one of his hands around Jo Lee’s waist while he continued to sing, play the song one handed and smile at the crowd he thought it was good natured fun. He didn’t feel dapper anymore but by the 3rd gin gimlet, he felt soothed. Then he saw Jo Lee sneak the piano player a kiss on the neck. Hank grimaced sharply. That wasn’t for the crowd and she’d avoided looking in his direction after she’d done it. Hank lit a cigarette without finishing the one that was burning in the ashtray. He looked at his watch and saw that it was only 10:15. She wouldn’t be off work for almost 4 hours. He began to feel sick to his stomach. Coming here tonight had been a mistake and now he was going to have to find some excuse for sneaking out. He blew out his smoke and took a swallow of gin. It made him feel lightheaded. He tried to fasten his eyes on something stationary but couldn’t find anything that wasn’t too loud or moving too much. He was going to pass out, but maybe he would be okay if he could get to the mens’ room and put some water on his face. Jo Lee was too busy to notice what he was doing and for the moment he felt happy about that. He left his second cigarette burning in the ashtray and headed for the “Gents” sign. He saw that the musician was a greasy twerp as he walked passed him. He felt better for a second but the smell of urine caused him to vomit at once.

Ron’s finger started dialing Rebecca’s number three times before he was able to complete the sequence. He then decided that it was too early to call because she might still be having dinner and hung the phone up after the first ring. He paced through the rooms trying to think of what to say. She had to be a little impressed by the fact that he’d been made managing editor of The Commuter. Ron realized that he hadn’t told anyone in his family about what had happened on the newspaper either. Maybe he would just wait for the first issue he was doing to come out with his name on it. Besides, what would they really care about it? It wasn’t for a grade or for money, so they’d probably say, “that’s nice, and go on watching tv or playing cards, or whatever else they were doing.

The phone rang four times before somebody picked it up. A voice that was loud and grating said, “Hello.”

“Can I speak to Rebecca, please?”

He heard a wary, “Just a minute,” followed by a screeching, “Becky! Telephone!” It immediately showed Ron another side of the girl he’d met today

And then it was her voice on the line. Her, “hello,” sounded smooth and warm. Ron forgot about her mother or whoever it was that had answered the phone like a dockworker. “Hi Rebecca. This is Ron Tuck. What are you up to on this crisp, autumn evening?”

“Hi Ron. I’ve got some studying to do and then my aunt is coming over to get her hair done.”

He liked the cheerful sound in her voice. He was in. It was all right that he’d called.

“I was wondering if I might be able to talk you into a cup of coffee or something.”

“I can’t tonight,” she said with a slinkiness in her voice. He could picture her standing there curling that luxurious hair around her fingers. “But I’m not busy tomorrow night,” she added with a voice that he could hear smiling.

Ron couldn’t control himself. “Really?” he burst out. “Do you want to go see a movie or something?”

“Anyplace you’d like,” she said teasingly adding, “almost.”

“Great!”said Ron. Then he felt like he should have something else to say. It was for him an awkward period when calling for a date. He knew that the date really started on the phone and he’d completely missed the intonation of the tease. Rebecca was amused. The boy sounded nice. “You know what happened after you left for class today?”

“What?”

“They made me the managing editor of The Commuter.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Her voice was as smooth as a guitar run that makes you close your eyes. When he hung up the phone he was flying. Rebecca and being the managing editor of the newspaper in the same day. Ron felt fully involved in college life and loved it. Before, he’d felt like his generation had passed him by. Now, he’d caught up to it.

Hank never told Jo Lee about getting sick at the club. She didn’t mention his visit or abrupt departure when she came home that night. The next morning, while they were having sex, she screamed in his ear, “Come, you lousy bastard! Why does it always take you forever?”

He perspired heavily as he concentrated on making himself ejaculate. He didn’t care how it felt anymore, he just wanted it to be over. Jo Lee’s eyes were closed and her mouth was stretched in a tight slit. Hank wanted to stop and talk about things before the craziness that was overcoming them left nothing more to discuss. His thought pattern was broken by the insertion of Jo Lee’s finger and the raking of her long and sharply curved nail on the inside of his asshole. He yelped loudly and jumped off of her. The erection he had been straining to bring off, collapsed like a deflated balloon. They were both surprised at the rapidity of its descent. He needed to see if he was bleeding. Without a word, he moved with burning difficulty, towards the bathroom.

Chapter 30

The next morning Ron walked through the Commuter room door with the feeling that it was his. He removed the contents from the mail slot marked “Managing Editor,” finding that they mostly consisted of releases from various college press services. There were also four articles that had been submitted for publication. He took the pile over to Peter’s old wooden desk and read for hours. It was the first time since he was 13 years old that he remembered reading in such a way that he lost track of time.

His previous education about the war had come from mainstream media, but this stuff was appalling. He learned about the uses of tiger cages. He saw, for the first time, the ghetto into which Viet Nam had been transformed. And he saw the pictures of torture. The interrogation of a suspected VC sympathizer was particularly haunting. American soldiers were standing there watching a man who had been staked out on a tree. His interrogators were carving initials into his belly. Ron’s hands began to quiver as contempt blasted through him like a squall. He pulled his shirt out of his pants and began to pace as he read. He compared what he was seeing to his pre-existing body of information.

When he took a coffee break, the morning cafeteria laughter and conversation annoyed him with a force that turned his expression into a solid glare. He watched the middle-aged woman behind the counter with a stony bitterness. How the fuck could anybody laugh while they were scrambling eggs when people were getting their guts carved up because they wanted their own country left alone. He paid for his coffee and returned to the room without uttering a sound. He snarled because it was no longer empty. Without looking at whoever the person was, he headed for his desk and resumed his reading. He gulped coffee as he read.

After a few minutes, he heard a familiar voice say, “How are you, Ron?” Jade was watching him over the top of her book through a pair of pink sunglasses.

Ron stammered, “I didn’t see you.” He gulped the last of his coffee. “I got to get some more coffee before class starts.”

She gave him a half smile and looked back into her book. Ron felt compelled to get up and leave. The last batch of coffee was still fresh in his mind but he felt like he had to get another one. When he got to the cafeteria line, he saw Rebecca standing there with her back towards him. He moved in behind her and said, “Hi.”

She turned in a semi-startled way. “Oh, hi Ron.”

“You know, I forgot to ask you for directions to your house.”

“I thought about that.” She reached into her pocketbook and came out with a map that was complete with arrows. As he looked at it, the glare disappeared from his face. He saw two small flowers that she sketched at the top of the map. A nice touch. “What are we doing tonight, Ron?”

Without anything that could be called a thought, he said, “How about a play?”

Her face brightened. “That would be exciting.”

“About 7 o’clock?”

“That’s fine.”

Once in class, Ron tried to remember what he was supposed to have read for that day. So much had happened in the last 24 hours that he didn’t even blame himself for not knowing what was going on. It probably would have been better if he’d asked somebody. He certainly would have looked less conspicuous if he hadn’t forgotten his textbook, notebook, and pen.

Lashly came into the room his usual few minutes late. He was carrying two containers of coffee, a folder of papers, his book, his coffee mug, his pipe and pouch, and a package of small cigars called “Between the Acts.” Ron watched the elaborate setting up routine, not caring how long it took this time. Lashly began calling names. Ron’s was the second name he called. Lashly tucked his chin down and looked sternly at Ron as he returned his paper. Ron remembered it was a reaction piece he’d written about the two Greek plays they’d read. It contained a vicious and inescapable conclusion he’d reached about Greek drama. The two plays had convinced him that the whole of it was stale, stagnant, and without excitement. He remembered ending with the idea that people should just do what they felt like doing and not spend as much time on all the complaining about what had happened to them and worrying about what would happen next.

Lashly had rejected the paper and typed out a point-by-point analysis of why it was flawed. Ron read the first reason and felt the coffee start to come back up his throat. He choked. The coffee dribbled out the sides of his mouth and came out of his nose. He wiped his face with his sleeve and checked to see if anyone was watching. He looked at the first reason again:

“1. Your inability to accept characters is the result of your inability to see anything other than as an extension of yourself.” After a second reading of Lashly’s first reason, Ron was still asking himself what the fuck??? Ron was amazed. How could such a thing have happened? It didn’t sound like it was true. Ron looked back at his rejected paper:

“2. Learn to defend characters and artists so that you will be able to learn from them. You can never really understand what somebody is trying to say unless ‘you walk a mile in their shoes.'” He understood that one a little better, but he wasn’t sure how it fit with his paper.

By the time Ron looked up, Lashly was well into his second Pascal story. “… on this one night he claims to have seen God and begins to write about these incredible visions of the smallness of things through which he views his own significance.” Lashly stopped and took a deliberately deep breath. “I give you all of this as a way of introducing The Inferno.” Ron had no idea of what Lashly was talking about. “If there was a heaven and a hell and, according to your own rules of morality, you were to be placed in one of them; where would you find yourself?”

Ron returned to his paper: “3. Your language is obvious and uncreative because you use it to serve your own ego.” Ron read the line again. People were voting about whether they wanted to go to heaven or hell. He looked at the board: 4 hells, 1 heaven. He looked down the row of people who had voted. He didn’t know what they had said or how he would vote. He was sure that he had no feelings about the issue.

“4. You are hard and language is feeling.” Again he didn’t understand, but all of a sudden it was his turn to vote. “Everybody likes to think of himself as good,” said Ron, “but lately when I picture heaven, I get bored. I guess I’d like to picture myself in a place with more variety.”

Lashly looked his student square in the face. “You probably won’t have a choice,” he said and moved on to the next student. Ron’s mouth fell open. What the fuck did that mean? Of course he had a right to choose and at that moment his choice was to get out of there. There were five minutes left in the period.

“5. You have talent but abuse it with laziness. 6. You will have to learn to write well or we will both be broken on the wheel of trying. 7. Of those to whom much is given, much is expected.” Ron stared at the last two and read them again. They were compliments. At the bottom of the page was Lashly’s handwritten note that they get together to discuss his next attempt.

When the bell sounded, Ron literally bolted from the room. Lashly followed his progress and looked down at the first girl in the first row to see if she had also caught the reaction. “I guess it affected him,” he said and smiled in a way that conjured back the bed in his Manhattan apartment where he’d shown her what he’d written to Ron.

Ron walked directly to his car where he read his paper over. He winced at each of the numerous misspellings and grammatical errors that Lashly had painstakingly circled. He lit a cigarette and reread the list of criticisms. He sucked so hard on his cigarette that it seemed to be gone in less than ten puffs. He took hold of his steering wheel and thought about driving home to concentrate on his date with Rebecca. “I didn’t come to college just for pussy,” he said out loud and decided to go to Lashly’s office immediately.

He stopped in the cafeteria to get a container of caffeine courage and headed out to find Lashly’s office. It turned out to be in the student center, right down the hall from the radio station and the student council room. The familiarity bolstered his confidence. He knocked on the door and heard a drawling, “Come on in.” Lashly was seated in back of his desk smoking his pipe and reading his Lit book. “How are you?” he drawled. Ron thought his accent sounded comical.

“I’m ok, I guess. I came to talk about this paper. That is, if you can spare the time right now.”
Lashly looked over Ron’s shoulder into the corner, and Ron realized they weren’t alone in the room. “Irene, would you mind very much if I spent a few minutes talking to Ron here?” The girl looked at Ron and frowned. She gave what Warren liked to call “her dirty, little grin” to the professor and started to leave.

“I guess I’ll go have lunch and go to work,” she said.

Lashly protested. “I thought we were having lunch together.”

“You’re too busy,” said Irene, smoothing her jeans along her hips, then picking up her purse and books. “Maybe I’ll see you later,” she said to Lashly as she brushed past Ron. She was the short spongy type. Ron liked her because it was obvious that she loved to fuck. After she left, Ron apologized again for the intrusion. Lashly looked uncomfortable for a minute and then said not to worry about it.

“I’m not really sure what it is about this paper that you don’t like,” began Ron. “That is, aside from the grammar mistakes and the spelling errors.”

“They’re not very important really,” said Lashly out of the side of his mouth while he was lighting his pipe. “Your problem is more fundamental.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s more of a childishness that sees itself as the center of the world and is unable to admit anything except that which is feeding immediate needs.”

Ron’s face flushed. “Where do you see anything like that in my paper?”

“It’s more a question of what I see in you as a result of your paper. Finally, your paper isn’t very interesting because of your limited thinking patterns. The interesting question is why you’ve chosen to limit yourself like that.”

Ron was getting angry. “What do you mean, ‘limit myself’?”

“You don’t know how to give characters – or I suspect anything else – a chance to breathe. As a result, the things around you become earthbound.”

Ron was sure that he hated the idea of being earthbound. He stared into Lashly’s face. The guy seemed so damn sure of what he was saying; it must be the truth. He was sure that it would be useless to try to continue this discussion until he had turned in a “letter-perfect” paper. He wasn’t sure that he believed what Lashly said about the grammar and spelling not mattering. “I’m not really sure that I know what you’re talking about, let alone have any idea of how to control it or change it.”

“It might be that you want too much control,” said Lashly.

“Somehow, that seems doubtful,” said Ron. He was at least sure about being out of control most of the time.

“The road to self-knowledge seems to be the one you have been called to travel on.”

“I’m not sure what that means either.”

“You want instant illumination because you want to have it, but it doesn’t come that way.”

“Well, how does it come?”

“The first step is to learn to get off of yourself. Nothing positive can happen until you succeed with that and the way things stand right now, I have my doubts.”

Ron decided that a word of explanation was clearly in order. “I’ve been away from school for a while, and I’m just trying to get back into the swing of things. I was working at IBM until I realized that I would never be cut out for a 9-5 job. I wanted to do something with my life. You know, make some kind of a mark . I figured that in order to do that, what I needed was more of an education.” Ron gave his face the most sincere look that he could muster. He looked Lashly straight in the face as he spoke to him.

The professor relit his pipe. “You won’t be any more successful here than you were at IBM. You won’t be anymore happy anywhere else, if you don’t learn to stop trying to bend things to suit your own needs.”

Ron thought that it was about the tenth time Lashly had insulted him since he’d been in the office. “I don’t think that I do that.”

“That’s also a part of the problem because you do. If you can’t recognize it, things will be impossible for you.”

Ron was totally frustrated. There didn’t seem to be anything he could say to make things right with this person, and this had been the class he’d enjoyed the most. Imagine how he must be doing in his other classes! “I’ll redo the paper and try to keep what you’ve said in mind.” Ron wasn’t even sure how to make an exit. He stared nervously at the Lit book on Lashly’s desk. “I’ll have it for you next week, “he said and started for the door.

“By the way,” said Lashly stopping him in his tracks, “I thought one of those essays you wrote for the paper had some good points and showed promise.”

“Which one?” said Ron, turning around and being more than willing to discuss something that he’d done right – something that wouldn’t make him feel like a total baboon.

“I don’t actually remember if it was yours or someone else’s. Besides, you don’t really need the praise. He looked at Ron with the same stern expression that he’d given him when he’d returned his paper.

Ron came away from Lashly’s office desperate for an outlet. He found a ping-pong game and slammed at the ball for the next 90 minutes, playing and replaying the conversation in his mind. He tried to pay close attention to everything Lashly had told him. He came to the conclusion that he’d finally met someone who knew what was wrong with him, but wondered if it all was so visible to the outside world. Was he a glass door that could be opened, closed, or looked through at the discretion of the user? Fuck that, he thought as he won another game. He didn’t want anyone walking on him, but the more he thought about Lashly’s conversations, the more he saw his life as a string of carelessly done papers.

When he went home, he called Hank but there was no answer. He decided it was time to pick up the new pair of glasses that his mother had been reminding him about, octagon shaped steel frames with brown tinted lenses.

Before he left the house again, he went up to see his aunt. He knocked but there wasn’t any answer. He opened the door and entered the apartment. She was lying propped on a pile of pillows that was bigger than she was. She seemed to be sitting up, but she had taken her teeth out and it gave her face a sunken, deathlike look. He stepped closer, anxiously, and then relaxed with the sound of her sleepy breathing.

On his way out, he stopped in the kitchen. Dottie opened one eye and watched him grab two of her Malomars. She knew that she had another box, but it galled her when somebody depleted the supply of the only food that she still enjoyed eating. After he left, she got up and took a $20 bill out of her drawer along with an envelope on which she wrote out his name in her finest script. She studied her writing skeptically. It was shakier than it had ever seemed before. She would give him the $20 whenever he came back up. She lit a cigarette. It burned its way down her throat like charcoal. She shook her head and said, “what a way to go.” Then she took another puff.

The glasses cut into the back of his ears but he liked them. The tints gave the world a more removed look and he enjoyed the way the brown blended into his hair and made his face look. He ran his mind over what he knew of Rebecca’s body like a hot-to-trot butterfly. He wondered what she would have to say about the glasses. He brushed his teeth for the third time since he’d been in the bathroom. He decided that his face had definitely changed. It was more than just the glasses; it had something to do with the structure of his jaw and the area surrounding his eyes.

The name of the play he’d chosen was Endgame. Ron saw that it had been written by a guy named Beckett. Ron made a connection between the movie ‘Becket’ and the guy who’d written the play. It was in this way that he told his aunt about it before he left to pick up Rebecca. She said that she didn’t know anything about the play and hoped that he had a good time.

“I think I will,” he answered quickly. “This girl is really something special.”

“Don’t fall head over heels, or else you’ll never get her. You’ve got to let a girl do a little work before she lands you, or else she’ll never appreciate you.” She eyed him and wondered what a young man his age must feel like before a first date. Her mind skipped back to Mike Demonti and how strong he looked when he’d shown up at her house. Of course her father threw him out, but he was Italian and she’d expected her father to throw him out. sShe got fluttery thinking about all the excitement she’d caused. sHe sisters told her that he was handsome and started calling her Dottie Demonti when nobody else was around. She looked at Ron and for a second overlaid the image of her father shaking his fist on the porch and shouting that if that Dago ever came back on his block, he would break a railroad tie over his back. “Treat her to something after the show,” she said handing him the envelope. “Don’t be cheap with this and buy me a pack of butts once in a while.”

Ron took the envelope and smiled at the way his name was written across it. “You have the best handwriting of anybody I’ve ever seen,” he said.

She waved her hand at him. “It’s nothing but scribble anymore.” They put their arms around each other and hugged for a brief instant. Without knowing it, Ron shared a feeling of many men before him. He was just feeling that he’d gotten hold of her and she was pulling away.

“Are you taking her in that beat up wreck?”

“Yeah, I am, Aunt Dot.” He put his head down at the memory of her opinion of his kicked-in-the-ass buggy.

“She must be desperate,” she laughed.

“I’m sure she isn’t, but I might be,” he said happily as he headed for the door.

She tried to conjure back her image of Mike Demonti, but her mind tricked her by calling forth the picture of the blind old man living in a basement in East Orange. “Nuts to that,” she said and turned on the TV news.

While he was driving to Rebecca’s house, Ron tried to figure out how he could start seeing things as other than an extension of himself. He couldn’t figure out how to begin or what things he actually saw as an extension of himself. He concentrated on Rebecca but decided there was no way he saw her as an extension of himself. He would like to see her on the end of his extended cock but that was about the size of it. Still, he hoped that she had a good time at the end of his cock. He tried not to think about Jade. Right there was an example of him taking other people’s feelings into account. He resolved to forget about the whole Lashly thing and just pay attention to the evening.

He’d left himself 45 minutes to get to her house and the ride had taken just under a half hour. He drove past her white house with the green shingles. He tried to figure out what to do for fifteen minutes. He checked his gas gauge and saw that he was okay for the evening. Her heard the time on the radio. There would be just enough time to drive over to the college, turn around and drive back. At least it would give him a sense of destination. I f Lashly thinks I’m gonna just sit back and take it, he’s out of his mind. There was no way he could do that even if he wanted to. He didn’t understand how people could ever do nothing about things, why people like Hank allowed others to shit on them without making a sound. Ron wondered if Hank saw himself as someone who other people shit on. “No,” said Ron out loud,” he only gets laid six times a day. How would he know if other people shit on him?” Ron laughed with delightful envy. Whenever he pictured Jo Lee, he saw that long mouth and the way she rubbed her hands against her thighs inside her apron.

Butchy always said that her snatch probably stunk anyhow. He’d preface the remark by saying, “Now I ain’t saying that my old lady don’t get them fishy odors, too. The cleanest snatch gotta get fishy occasionally. What I mean is being downwind from skunk.” Ron laughed and shoved Butchy out of his head.

“At least,” he said out loud again, “I’ve never been that bad.” Then he told himself that Butchy was sick and stupid and he, himself, wasn’t too bright for wasting his time with this while he was on the way to Rebecca’s house.

He was less than five minutes early and decided to check himself in the car mirror and go in. A dough-fleshed woman in a flowered kimono opened the door and invited him in. She led him into the kitchen. Stuffed animal heads looked out from the walls. There must have been twenty of them. He looked away and glanced involuntarily at the enormous sway the kimono ‘s hips were making as he followed it through the hall.

The male members of the Ranelli family confronted him in the kitchen. Mr. Ranelli and his son Chuck wore work pants and tee-shirts. They smirked at the four-eyed freak with the funny glasses. The youngest Ranelli wasn’t wearing a shirt. He looked up from his 8th grade science book with the visitor came in.

“This is my husband,” said the kimono.

Mr. Ranelli was a small man. Ron realized how much taller he was than anybody else in the room when Rebecca’s father stood up. “How are you? I’m a butcher,” said Ranelli.

“This is Becky’s brother Chuck,” continued the kimono.

“How are you doin’?” said Ron nodding.

“And this is Robert,” said the kimono in a tone that wanted to jump for joy. Robert stuck up his hand without looking up from his book and continued to read.

“How’re you doin’?” Ron said waving at him.

“Robert where are your manners!” shouted the kimono. She was always embarrassed when he acted like this.

“I’m reading,” said the kid.

“Don’t ever let me hear you say that to your mother again.” said Mr. Ranelli with a look that froze Robert in his tracks. “Not while I’m here.” Robert sat with his head down, the now closed book in front of him. “Did you hear me?” demanded Ranelli, rising and taking a step in the direction of his son.

“I’m sorry,” said Robert quickly.

Rebecca came into the room as the kimono said, “You shouldn’t talk that way to him in front of strangers.”

Ron watched with the guilty feeling that he had somehow caused the kid’s trouble. Then he saw Rebecca; she was dazzling! They said hello and Ron found that he was unable to take his eyes off her. The kimono smiled when she saw the way the boy looked at her daughter. She asked Ron “Where are the two of you going?”

“To see a play in East Orange.”

“Parts of that city are a real jungle,” said Mr. Ranelli. Then he turned to his daughter. “What time are you coming home?”

Rebecca blushed and said she didn’t know. “Just have a good time and try not to be too late.” She nodded to Rebecca who seemed to understand that it was okay to leave now.

In the dark, Ron could hardly see the battered backside of his car and he was hoping that Rebecca didn’t notice it right away either. She said, “I hope my family wasn’t too strange for you.” He shook his head and she smiled at him in a delighted way. Ron thought that this was going to be one of the best evenings of his life.

He handed her his second map of the evening. “This one explains how to get to the Cafe Theater.” He kept the conversation light and topical while he put his arm around her shoulder. She had no obvious reaction and let it stay there, moving closer under its circle. She told him that this was a wonderful idea for something to do.

The theater was in a cafe with round tables, each covered with a red and white checkered cloth and in the center, an empty Mateus bottle that held a candle. Rebecca moved close to Ron’s ear and he could feel the aroma of her perfume stroking him. “This place is perfect,” she said.

Ron didn’t tell her that it was his first time here. He didn’t tell her that he’d seen an advertisement for the place in his daily paper. He decided that it would be pretty easy to just seem comfortable and familiar with whatever happened. He lit a cigarette and panned the room. Lighting equipment was suspended everywhere and the walls were painted or draped in black.

The curtain opened on an old man strapped into an ominous looking chair. He was questioning a jailor-servant who informed him that there was no sun, no moon, no stars anymore. The man seemed to decompose further as he heard each piece of news. Finally, he just resembled a large quiet scab. Rebecca stared at Ron with a complete lack of understanding. He felt the same way but leaned over and whispered, “It’ll become more clear as we go along.”

When two more characters began to pop their heads out of what appeared to be flour barrels, Ron began to see that this must be one of those new types of plays that didn’t really have a meaning until you read what the theater critics said about it. He looked at Rebecca, who was earnestly concentrating on the stage.

At the intermission, Ron asked Rebecca if she was enjoying herself. She said that she wasn’t sure but that she was determined to figure out what was going on. They went into the lobby and Rebecca excused herself to go to the ladies room. Surveying the crowd, Ron heard strands of conversation that sounded like broken radio signals as they wafted in to him. Rebecca was a very pretty girl and she was enthusiastic about things, but she approached stuff with a wholesome innocence that had Ron a little worried and kept him unsure of where he stood with her.

“Beckett is Kafkaesque but even more so than anything else that’s been created in the contemporary period.” The lady was dressed in a smart burnt orange skirt with a contrastingly lighter blouse – all of which complimented her naturally blonde hair and glittering jewelry. Her three companions were listening intently and trying to ignore the fact that they were in a local, New Jersey theater.

“But his sense of humor is much more slapstick, as if it might have been influenced by Chaplin. It has a belly laugh quality that adds to the absurd effect.” The man who was speaking held his all-weather coat draped over his arm in a studied pose.

“I’m enjoying him completely,” said the other woman in the group. She threw a quick glance to the man standing at her side. “The confusion is very appropriate to my life.”

Her companion in the group stared back resolutely. “I think the guy’s a nut. If this is good, then I have no taste at all.”

The confused woman took hold of his arm. “I might agree with the analysis of your taste, and tact as well, for that matter.

The burnt orange skirt said, “Don’t you see the relevance of Beckett right here?”

“Let’s go back inside,” said the all-weather coat, trying to shut his wife up. As they turned, Ron noticed that her burnt orange behind was pretty tight for a middle-aged babe. Ron saw Rebecca coming out of the ladies room and moved up to meet her.
The second half of the play did nothing to alleviate their confusion. Ron had grown bored and thought the whole thing had become tiresome. Maybe he just wasn’t ready for this sort of thing yet. He needed to do more reading and he needed to talk to a whole bunch of people. He looked at Rebecca and instinctively felt that she would never be ready for this sort of thing. He casually put his arm around her waist as they left the theater. He could feel the smooth circles that her hips were making as they walked. What the fuck did it matter if she did or didn’t understand something that he wasn’t even sure he would ever be able to comprehend.

“Would you like to get something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry,” said Rebecca, “but I would like some coffee.”

“That’s easy,” said Ron.

“We could have it back at my house.”

Ron thought about the kimono and the butcher and didn’t say anything right away. She noticed his hesitation and said, “My parents won’t be around, especially if they know I’ve brought someone home with me.”

“That’d be fine,” he said. He tried to tell himself that it wouldn’t be too bad and decided, as they got into his car, that it was time to kiss her. He reached across for her before he turned on the engine. She seemed a little taken by surprise but then melted into the kiss. She opened her mouth a little and he quickly ran his tongue across her teeth and gums. He squeezed her shoulders and pushed further into her mouth. She exhaled through her nose and opened her mouth wider. His body felt hot enough to boil water. She remembered, a moment later, that it was their first kiss and pulled away.

“Wow! That was some kiss!”

Ron blushed and wished she hadn’t quite put it that way. She sat close to him and alternately let him hold her hand and rub her thigh on the way back to her house. Ron had a hard-on. He wanted her to touch it and yet he was afraid to let her know that it was there. His body pissed him off sometimes. He wasn’t supposed to stand up like a flagpole after their first kiss.

Rebecca had been right. There was no one in the downstairs area of the house and they found a note on the kitchen table. “Your father and I are playing cards at Aunt Gib’s house. Your brothers are here spending the night with their cousins. We probably won’t be home until very late, so make sure the doors are locked before you go to bed. Love, Ma.”

Rebecca walked out of the kitchen toward the front door after she read the note. She put the night lock on so no one could walk in on them unexpectedly. Rebecca liked what she knew about Ron, but she stopped in the foyer before returning to the kitchen and asked herself, in a voice she acquired from her mother, “How involved did she really want to get with this boy?” She knew that he was at least as horny as the rest of the boys his age. She did want to make out and let him touch her. Nothing between my legs she thought to herself, and I’m not going to let him take anything off me either. She gave herself a little mischievous smile. She would let him unhook her bra, if he did it nicely.

Ron was smoking a cigarette when she re-entered the kitchen. She watched the way he looked at the floor and let his hair dangle in front of his face. She moved toward the refrigerator. “Would you like anything to eat?”

“I don’t know. What have you got?”

“Well,” she said in a proud voice that was in control of its subject, “There’s cold cuts, or cheesecake, or eggplant that I could heat up for you.”

“Eggplant would be great, but I’ll eat it cold.”

“That’s the way my father likes it,” said Rebecca excitedly. I could never stand it that way.” She paused. “Are you Italian, Ron?”

“No, but I was sort of raised in an Italian family.” His Aunt would die if she ever heard him say that.

Rebecca felt Ron move up behind her while she was taking the plastic wrapper off the leftover eggplant. She turned around, and they launched into another tongue twirling kiss. He pushed his front up against her, and she responded by moving her hips and sticking the tips of her breasts into his chest. He moved his mouth to her neck when they broke the kiss, and licked the area just below her ear. She shivered when he moved up a little and exhaled into her auditory canal. She giggled to herself thinking about the way she and her friend Lisa described ‘making it’ in purely biological terms. It sounded so funny then and right now it seemed exciting to think of the word biological.

Ron was proud of the way he restrained himself so far. He thought that it was probably a good time to cool it and have coffee. Then they could really get into it. Life with a woman like this would be okay, he told himself as she brought the plates over to the table. Ron liked her mouth. There was a certain wave her lips had and right now they looked just a little swollen, like certain parts of him felt. He needed an excuse to rub his cock just one time, but she was looking at him and he couldn’t figure out how to do it.

“Let’s talk about the play,” she said sitting down on the other side of the table with a piece of cheesecake and her coffee.

“I think it was frustrating.”

Rebecca smiled and felt relieved. “Did you understand what the point was?”

“Not really,” said Ron. He was eating this very good eggplant and relaxing, and he’d spoken before he’d thought about what he was gonna say. He realized it and drew inside to yell at himself. He was not to accept the fact that there was anything that he didn’t understand, not ever again. “I think,” he began again without knowing what he was going to say, “that he sees suffering in life everywhere, and so he says that’s all there is to it.” For a second he thought of an absurd song that he’d heard on the radio “Is that all there is?” The singer was someone his mother used to like, named Peggy Lee. He’d even seen Peggy Lee at the Copa while he was working for IBM. Whenever he heard her name, it reminded him of Porky Pig in tights, singing in a Disney movie. Suddenly he was identifying himself with Porky Pig and sucked in on his stomach muscles. “It’s like Bob Dylan,” he found himself saying more comfortably. Then he paused. “Do you know who Bob Dylan is?” he asked pointedly.

Ron would have liked for her to jump in the air, clasp her hands together and cry, “He is my favorite singer in the world and you’re just like him,” but that didn’t happen. The question seemed to come to her from out of nowhere, and she wasn’t quite sure what it had to do with what they were talking about. Ron took her silence to mean that she didn’t know who Dylan was and saw the chance to be evangelical.

“You know the guy who wrote “Blowin ‘ in the Wind” and “Mr. Tambourine Man”? You never heard of him, huh?”

“Yes,” she said, “I know who he is.” Rebecca felt a little insulted but decided to let it pass.

Ron wasn’t convinced. “Have you got any of his albums?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You should let me play some of my Dylan albums for you sometime. I think you’d really like them.”

“That would be nice.”

Ron continued, “Like what Dylan did in ‘Desolation Row’ is similar to what we saw at the theater, but Dylan’s better because he gives you something to hang on to.”

“Maybe we just didn’t see what the author was giving us tonight.”

Ron was in high gear. “I’m not sure that I want to see what somebody like that is saying. He’s just trying to make me feel rotten about being alive because he sees no point to it. Maybe he’d be better off dead but that’s no reason for him to drag me into the hole that he’s in.”

“Would you like more coffee?” Ron was hoping that they weren’t wasting precious time with all this talking, but he accepted. “What I don’t understand,” she said as she poured, “is why those people were stuck in the flour barrels.”

“It’s probably symbolic of old age,” said Ron, speaking without thinking and then deciding that what he said made absolute sense.
“You think so?”

“Yes, because that would explain why their skin was all white and why they couldn’t move and why they always seemed to be complaining.”

“I guess that is what it feels like to get old,” said Rebecca. Ron thought he detected an edge of worry in her voice.

She returned the coffee pot and Ron got up after her. She turned back around and caught him in an awkward middle ground. He didn’t seem to know what to do. Rebecca was amused and considered sitting back down and leaving him with the obstacle of the table to overcome, but she said, “Would you like to have coffee on the couch?”

He nodded his head eagerly and reached for his cigarettes. He followed her into the TV room staring at her ass and wondering how far she was going to let him get. Rebecca was going to suggest watching TV, but he was on her almost immediately. She was ready for his tongue this time and opened her mouth to let it scour her. She liked the feel of it, particularly when it brushed across the tip of her tongue. He rubbed her stomach and started his tentative journey to her breast. She didn’t do anything to stop him, but Ron thought he noticed a tightening in her body. It’s probably just my imagination, he thought to himself, adding that if she didn’t like what he was doing, she would say or do something. He squeezed her breast. He liked the large, firm feel of the softness underneath the material. He massaged her tit with a back and forth motion. Rebecca placed her fingertips lightly on the hand that was kneading her chest. At their feel, Ron stopped moving and waited for her to take it away. She kissed him harder when he stopped and he took it to mean that she was happier kissing him than having him play with her tit, but she hadn’t removed his hand.

After a minute he began to knead again. He moved his mouth up to her ear and found a large clump of hair covering it. He tunneled through with his tongue stuck out like he was aiming for a target. The sound and feel of the live thing in her ear was exciting. She thought about the tingly way it would feel to have the thing wiggle all over her. Ron put his hand on her hip and tried to draw her down on top of him. She thought that things had begun to move a little too much at his speed and stopped her slow descent by bracing against the back of the couch and trying to sit Ron back up. He took hold of her breast for assurance. She left his hand there and gave him a wistful smile. on tried to pull her back down at the sight of the smile. “Take it easy,” she said. “Don’t rush it.”

For a second, Ron felt like he was being told not to gulp his soda. Nobody understood that he liked it better when he gulped it. He let go of the breast quickly and lit a cigarette. He gulped some coffee and liked the way the hot liquid burned his throat. He took another drag on the cigarette and brushed the hair out of his eyes. He realized that he’d lost track of where he’d put his glasses but quickly remembered the image of them resting on Rebecca’s kitchen table. Now I have to put up with worrying about whether I’ve lost them all the time, he thought. She hadn’t said a word about them. He looked at Rebecca and was startled at the sight of her coming towards him. She put a hand on each of his shoulders and looked intently into his eyes. He was caught holding the coffee in one hand and the cigarette in the other. “Do you want me to kiss you with what I feel inside of me right now?” she said in a low voice that Ron thought didn’t sound natural.

He wanted to say, “Can you wait until I put these things down,” but was afraid to break her mood. She moved so that her face was just an inch from his. She brought a finger to his lips and traced the outline of his mouth. Then she took the coffee cup out of his hand. His heart was beating hard and held a drop of perspiration trickle down his back. She brought her hand to his chest and lightly rubbed the exposed skin just below his neck. She kissed him in a way that pushed his head back. He was looking at the ceiling. She pushed her knee between his legs and wedged it against his crotch. Her hands rubbed circles inside his shirt and her tongue softly lashed in and out of his mouth. After the kiss she put her head on his chest and purred in a contented hum. Ron was dumbfounded. He even forgot about the stiffness in his cock. He looked through her hair with soft eyes and put out what was left of his cigarette. He started to speak without knowing what he was going to say again. “Are you doing anything tomorrow?”

“Not in the evening.”

“Do you want to go to a movie?”

“Maybe,” she said, turning to face him. At close range, her features looked so perfect. He stroked her cheek. Her skin was nothing but smoothness.

While he was on his way home, Ron wondered if he’d fallen in love with Rebecca. He could still feel her knee between his legs, and it had felt indescribably good when they were standing on the porch kissing and she wrapped the ends of her hair around his head and said that now she could keep him there as long as she wanted. “Damn,” he said out loud. He thought about how she knew how to make a man want her. On the porch, she had let him touch her tits as much as he wanted to and seemed to like him doing it. He wondered how many guys she’d done it with. Then he thought, maybe she’s never done it with anyone before and I was the first person to make her feel this way.

Ron would have liked to believe that, but the voice he’d thought it in conjured him back to the images of the game show. There he was on stage again, and the professional voice was talking to the audience. “The new word for this contestant is S A P.” Ron saw the neon flash across his forehead. He had to give up on ideas like virginity. They were making him lose sight of the great thing that had just happened and he was too old for this sort of nonsense. It was like believing in Jesus, and he was too old for that sort of thing too.

His mind drifted to the flood of pictures he’d seen in The Commuter room that morning. He felt frustrated because there was no way he could make the experience of Rebecca and the way he’d felt about the war fit together. He lit a cigarette and turned up the volume on the radio. It made him feel isolated enough to view the problems in perspective. It’s because it’s war and peace, he said to himself with a sense of astonishment. Then he felt embarrassed to have thought such a thing. Of course it was war and peace. Just like this was night and next it would be day. Both realizations were in the same category. Julian Willy would have loved to have witnessed this little bit of logical reasoning. An image of how his face must have looked when he’d gone for help with his radio program flashed in his brain. All I needed was a banana. There was a part of him that wanted to laugh at that thought, but he wasn’t going to laugh about making a fool of himself anymore.

“I’ve got to stop being an asshole,” he said. He paid the toll and exited the parkway. He was becoming something different, and he wanted Rebecca to be a part of it. Ron felt confused again. Is that what Lashly had meant by seeing things as an extension of himself? It was. That meant Ron was more fucked up than he’d ever been. He parked the car at the end of the driveway and wondered if she’d noticed the bashed in rear end. “Fuck it,” he said and went into the house.

Chapter 31

Hank got a job driving the jeep that picked up balls at a combination pitch n’ putt driving range. The jeep pulled a contraption that looked something like a harvester. It scooped up the balls and funneled them into large cans. He was to spend the remainder of his work time taping club handles and keeping the pitch n’ putt course in shape. When he told Jo Lee about his job, he didn’t elaborate. He simply said that he was working at a golf course.

“Which golf course?” she wanted to know. Several of the girls she’d waitressed with had told her there was more action in those places than at any ten diners, and the men who went to those places couldn’t afford to be cheap because they had a lot at stake.

“It’s not exactly a golf course. It’s a pitch n’ putt place with a driving range,” he said with a smile that would have looked sheepish to her a month ago but now only looked stupid.

“Oh.”

“It’s full-time days,” said Hank proudly.

“When will we see each other?”

Hank felt touched by her need to see him. “We’ll work it out.”

Jo Lee was going to cry. She got up from the table and walked toward the bathroom. She wasn’t sure why she’d left Tony anymore. It didn’t seem to matter as much that he’d been a disgusting pig. Hank sat alone at the table wondering how he’d failed to make her happy this time. He had no idea why doing what she wanted him to do had made her want to cry. Maybe it was because she wanted to be proud of him, and he’d gotten a job picking up used balls.

She’d gone with Hank because he wasn’t a pig. There were things about him that made him different from any other man she’d ever known, and some of them were good things; but all of them had begun making her uncomfortable. She headed back to the table thinking that she had to learn to adjust to him better. He was still sitting in the same position. She wondered why he never moved. “Hank, do you want me to call in sick tonight and help you celebrate your new job?”

“That would be really nice.”

“How do you want to celebrate?”

“We could go to a movie.”

He did so remind her of a little boy. “I don’t want you to move, Hank,” she said kneeling in between his legs. She ran her finger up his zipper. She took out his cock and kissed the top of it. Hank felt like he should be doing something. He hadn’t even really wanted her to do this right now, but who was he to say no to this kind of treatment.

“This is a present for getting your job,” she said. She sucked his cock with a smooth steady motion that put it all the way into her mouth. After about five minutes, Hank started to worry about not having an orgasm soon enough. There she was on her knees and what would happen if he didn’t make it work. He tried to stop thinking and concentrate on how it felt.

“Here you are sitting in the kitchen, and Jo Lee is on her knees giving you a great blow-job,” he told himself. “It should be wonderful.” He repeated these things to himself for a long time.

Finally, with the pain of a hard wood floor on her face, Jo Lee said, “Do you want to fuck me, Hank?”

He was almost as anxious as he was on his first day of work. His boss, Joey, was a muscular man who was always spitting out ends of his cigar. He told Hank that starting him on a Saturday was like throwing him to the wolves, but that he had to learn the job sometime and this way he would learn quickly. “This fuckin’ job is as easy as shit,” said Joey, “but I want you sober when you’re here and here when you’re supposed to be here. I won’t hesitate to kick your ass right out if I ever see you giving a customer a hard time.” Hank said that he understood and extended his hand to shake on the deal. Joey looked at the hand from in back of his cigar, spit and took hold of it with a sneer on his face.

That Saturday he reported to work. Joey didn’t say good morning or give him a chance to sit down and get his bearings straight. “There’s about a thousand balls layin’ out there, and we’re gonna need em’ real soon. So get your ass movin’ on the jeep.” Hank walked off to the jeep without answering. It hadn’t been necessary to talk to him like that. The jeep rattled loudly as he set it into motion. All he would have to do was crisscross the field and hold a straight line. It was easy. Hank lit a cigarette and began to relax.

The first ball that hit the jeep sounded like an explosion as it whacked off the door. Hank was jarred from the daydream where he was being served pressed duck and champagne by a naked Jo Lee, who was telling him what a good provider he was to make it possible for them to eat like this all the time. Hank wasn’t sure where the explosion had come from. He stopped the jeep and got out to take a look.

Brad and Brian had each bought a bucket of 75 balls. When Brian bounced his drive off the jeep, he yelled, “Got it,” and raised a triumphant fist. Brad set himself with a look of determination. The bet was five bucks for each time one of them hit the jeep or the ball harvester. Brad was concentrating on whacking his shot smoothly and with everything he had. He was just bringing his club back when Brian stopped him. “Wait a minute!”

“What’s the matter with you?” said Brad angrily.

“The jerk-off driving the truck got out to see what the matter was when my shot hit.”
“It’s got to be five bucks if I can nail him.” Brad was gleeful.

Hank didn’t see the shot coming but heard it land about fifteen feet to his right. He started back to the truck when the next shot whizzed over his head and crashed against the wire mesh that covered the side window. Instinctively, Hank hit the dirt.

Brian cracked up. “That’s got to be worth something for making him fall down!”

When they saw Hank crawling back to the truck, they broke into new gales of laughter. “Look at that asshole!” said Brad.

When Hank got back into the truck, he was trembling, puffing. He was on a battlefield. He glared in the direction from the shots and saw the two boys laughing and pointing at him. He felt like the clown who sat on the bench over a vat of water. He grimaced deeply and put his head on his shoulder. He cried. No one should have to be humiliated like this. What right did anyone have to degrade him like this? Why didn’t people realize that all he really wanted was to be left alone.

“You scared the shit out of him,” said Brad. “Look, he doesn’t even know how to get the truck started again.”

“He’s too busy pissing in his pants,” said Brian.

Hank felt tears dripping from his chin. He didn’t know what was making him cry. What difference did it make if they were hitting golf balls at him? He was doing this to make Jo Lee happy. They would give a hundred buckets of balls to have her for five minutes. If she could wait on drunks, he could do this. He was no better than anybody else. Hank wiped his eyes and drove on bravely.

Ron was getting dressed for his second date with Rebecca when the call came from Hank. “Hey man, where have you been?” he said when he got the phone.

“No where,” said Hank.

Silence.

Ron decided that he really didn’t have much to say; and since Hank called, he must have something on his mind. Ron was determined to wait him out. He wasn’t going to suggest that they get together, which was what usually happened.

“Have you got any pot?” Hank finally managed to get out.

“A little,” said Ron. He’d been able to buy a dime from Chris Calvin.

“Are you going to be doing anything later?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “I got a date. In fact, I was getting dressed when you called.”

Oh.”

“Look, I’ll probably be around tomorrow afternoon if you want to get together.”

“That would be good,” said Hank.

Ron thought Hank’s voice sounded funny. “Is something wrong, man?”

“It would be better if we talked tomorrow. Wait! Tomorrow’s no good. I got to work.”

“You got a job!” Ron blurted.

“Yeah, there a lot of stuff I got to tell you.”

There was a pathetic ring to Hank’s voice that made Ron want to shove it away. He was finished riding around, getting stoned, and moaning about how bad everything was. He was going to start doing something about the way everything was and Hank wasn’t a part of it. He wouldn’t be able to travel at the pace Ron intended to set. “Look, call when you can. I’ve got to get going. I don’t want to be late.”

“Fine,” said Hank quietly.

Ron clicked down the phone without saying anything else. He just didn’t have time right now. He didn’t feel like hearing about how wonderful everything with Jo Lee was, or how it was all fucked up with her or whatever it was with her. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference in how the world was.

Hank went to the kitchen cabinet and brought down the bottle of gin. He took ice cube trays from the freezer and set them next to a large glass. He dropped his pack of cigarettes on the table in front of the chair he’d chosen. He turned on the radio and let his mind pretend he was driving the loop. He visualized the turns and stops as he drank and smoked. After a while he could even feel the bumpy parts of the road. It was a clear night and he had as much gas as he would need. He could make all the lights and stop signs work just the way he wanted them to; and if he had decided to get into an accident, there would be nobody there to tell him he’d made a mistake.

Ron was a full ten minutes early to pick up Rebecca. She answered the door and came out on the porch. Before he knew what she was doing, she put her arms around him and launched into a long kiss. He stared at her face. There was a pimple on her cheekbone that he hadn’t noticed the night before. It was pointed at his right eyeball. Ron wondered if it had popped out all of a sudden. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a pimple and he was sure that he’d only had about five of them in his life. He found them to be curious and on occasion would make them a topic of conversation, but decided he was better off not mentioning this one.
She was wearing super tight jeans and a flowered peasant shirt that sprouted sprays of roses at the neck. She had a long red ribbon tied in her hair that bounced happily off the cheeks of her behind when she walked.

“What do you feel like doing?” he said on the way to his car. She couldn’t help but notice his dent this time but didn’t mention it.

“I brought the movie sheet with me, but I’m not really sure what’s playing.”

“Anything would be fine,” said Ron.

“Could we do something else then?”

“Like what?”

“Let’s drive until we don’t know where we are, and then let’s find a diner and have coffee and talk.”

“The idea of being lost didn’t really appeal to Ron but the rest of it sounded okay. He could pretend to be lost and she’d never know the difference. “Which direction should I go in?”

“Which one will get you lost the quickest?”

“West,” said Ron.

At Ron’s suggestion they stopped and got a couple of containers for the ride. He showed her how to rip a small piece out of the lid so she could drink it in the car without spilling it.

“What a great idea,” she said.

Ron couldn’t remember where he’d picked up the technique. He didn’t like the idea of copping credit for something he hadn’t really thought up, so he decided to make up something. “My parents were divorced when I was a really little kid and on Saturday or Sunday, I used to get picked up by my dad. He fixed juke boxes and pin balls for a living. Anyway, he had to leave me in the car a lot. I used to watch the people walking by and count cars. I felt like I could see everything but that I really wasn’t a part of it, you know? Well anyway, this one afternoon, I was sitting outside of a place he didn’t think it was a good idea for me to be in – sometimes I think he left me in the car when he was sick of listening to me – and I was watching this bunch of guys standing up against a wall outside the bar my dad was in. A real slick looking guy came around the corner in a long sleeve, silky shirt that didn’t have a wrinkle in it. He’d just gotten a container of coffee, and I saw him do it and I guess I’ve been doing it ever since.”

“My father carries a Thermos to work.”

“Do you ever bring coffee with you to class?”

“No,” said Rebecca. “I guess I just don’t feel free enough to do that in a classroom setting yet.”

“It depends on your teachers, too,” said Ron. They caught each others’ eyes and smiled.

When Ron wanted to light a cigarette, Rebecca could see it in his face. She took his coffee container so he had a free hand. Ron moved deliberately and was pleased with his confidence. Things were going smoothly and sometimes he even seemed coordinated.

When they crossed over the Watchung Reservation, Ron was comfortably lost. He knew that if he continued to work his way south he would eventually get back to the highway. The conversation continued non-stop. Rebecca told Ron about how her parents weren’t getting along because her father hit her brothers too much and made them help butcher the deer he sliced up for local hunters as a sideline. Neither of the boys wanted to do it, but the only choices were $15 for a day’s work or nothing and get picked on for the rest of the week. Mr. Ranelli always said that he wanted his sons to know the meaning of a dollar.

Ron said, “Let’s turn up the heat and roll down the windows.”

“Why?”

“I like the feeling of air and the sense of speed you get with the windows down and I don’t want us to be cold.”

Rebecca watched him for some very long seconds. She wanted to kiss him, but he was driving. She moved closer on the bench seat. He smiled and she stared at his white teeth that seemed so straight.

Her eyes followed the curve of his ear and the way his hair flopped over his collar. She saw a patch of skin on his neck that the razor had completely overlooked. She reached out to touch it.

Ron wasn’t sure what kind of message he was getting from Rebecca when she stroked his neck. He had the instinctive idea that it meant something. Possibly, it didn’t mean anything that big, but it couldn’t be that bad either. “Are you comfortable?” he asked.

“I’m not sure how comfortable you make me feel, but I enjoy being with you.”

Ron smiled his dimple-showing grin without planning it. “What I mean is, are you okay with the windows down?”

“It’s fine. After a couple of minutes, I didn’t notice anything different.”

“I wish I could find some place to stop the car.”

“Are you tired of driving?”
“No. I want to concentrate on you instead of looking where I’m going.”

For a second Rebecca felt sorry for Ron. Not that he wouldn’t find a place to stop the car and make out with her, she was sure he’d work that out. But not wanting to think about where he was going was true of him on a whole different level. “Where do you want to go, Ron?”

“Straight to your heart, or the vicinity around there.”

“Do you always try to make a joke out of things that bother you?”

Ron wasn’t sure what she meant, but he could be that way if she wanted him to. “Sometimes it’s just funny, you know? You’ve got to laugh to keep sane. Every time I take things for real, I get screwed.”

“So does that mean you don’t take me for real either?”

Ron felt a certain tension around him. He began talking without thinking. “We’re in this date situation and sometimes I feel that everything we do or say has been all laid out for us already. And that’s the way I think things are a lot of the time. It’s in the way.”

Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “In the way of what?”

“You see what I mean. You just did it. We’re playing this game that’s all wrapped up in this boy-girl bit. What are we really going to find out about each other if we just fuck around?”

“I don’t think you have to put it quite like that.”

“It’s the way I really feel it.”

She paused. “Maybe I’m just not used to be talked to like that.”

“But don’t you see,” said Ron. “I feel like I just learned something real about you.” Ron’s mind felt sharp and alert for some reason that he didn’t understand. He felt like he knew what he was talking about. He liked the feeling and thought about how to pursue and elaborate on it.

“When I talk to you sometimes I feel like I’m being interrogated or tested.”

“I’m just curious about you.”

“With a vengeance,” she said.

Ron felt like his face had been slapped. She hated him. She thought he was a slob. As he sulked, he allowed the words D O P E and S A P to blink on his game show forehead.

“It’s not that I don’t like being with you.”

“What’s at all likable about what you’ve just described?” said Ron a tone louder than he’d said anything else in her presence. He looked at her impatiently. “What are you doing here if that’s the way you feel?”

“Everything changes,” said Rebecca.

“You’re here to change me? That’s just great!”

Rebecca looked at the rug underneath his dashboard. This wasn’t the way she wanted the conversation to go. “Are you afraid to change?” she said quietly.

“No,” said Ron without looking at her. “I’m goddamn angry that anybody thinks they have the right to tell me how I should be. You wouldn’t know that Dylan line that goes, ‘I try real hard to be just like I am, but everybody wants me to be just like them,’ but that’s how I feel.

There was a protracted pause. “How would you say we did at really talking, Ron?”

He didn’t know how to answer. He stared at her face and scoped in on the pimple. Maybe I should ask her where the scuz on her face comes from, he thought, but scolded himself for having such an immature thought.

They had been driving for some time; and when they reached Morristown, he started to work his way back without telling her. Driving without a place to go, trying to get yourself lost was stupid. He wanted to something but all his ideas seemed stale. There were movies, bowling, a diner, a bar, or finding a place to park. That was it. He could think of nothing else to do.

As if she was reading his mind, Rebecca said, “You know what I really feel like doing with you – since we’re not playing this dating game or anything – there’s a movie on TV that I always wanted to see that starts at 10:30. Did you ever hear of ‘Guys and Dolls’?”

“It’s a musical isn’t it?” Rebecca could have sworn she had visibly seen him turn his nose up at the idea.

“The people in it aren’t musical though. Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, and Jean Simmons,” said Rebecca recalling the program listing in the TV Guide.

Ron figured that his chances for the evening would be dramatically improved if he did something to make her happy. “That sounds fine,” he said “Let’s see it at my house””

Rebecca was startled. “Is anybody going to be there?”

“I don’t know; but if they are, they’ll leave us alone.”

Rebecca was sure that she wasn’t prepared to meet Ron’s family tonight, and especially not without some advance warning. Mothers always held stuff like that against the girl. It was an excuse to say that she should have had the decency not to show up when everything was a mess. She wasn’t ready for that. “I’m sure there’s nobody home at my house,” she said.

“That’s fine too.” At last Ron felt the relief of a destination. “Things really got going back and forth a few minutes ago,” he said.

He was being nice again. She took his hand. “It’s because you’re so intense about everything, Ron.”

“I can’t help the way I am. I only know how to go at things with everything I’ve got. Otherwise I get bored.”

“Don’t you ever enjoy slowing down?”

“It makes me feel like I’m less alive than I was when I was letting it go.”

“You just need to learn to relax,” she said putting her hand on his leg. He wasn’t sure whether or not he should tighten his thigh muscles. They could get really hard, but he wasn’t sure what signal he was supposed to give.

They didn’t watch much of the movie. Ron discovered that Rebecca got very excited every time he plopped his tongue in her ear. He did it constantly. Everything was fine with squeezing her tits, and he had begun rubbing her behind when they were still in the kitchen. There was only one area of exploration left before he would have scouted the entire territory. As he sucked her ear, he planned the assault. The plan called for tonguing her into enough of a commotion that she wouldn’t realize, or care, that he was going for her pussy.

First he positioned his hand on the inside of her thigh and squeezed so that she would get accustomed to him being there. Rebecca pulled away from him, and Ron cursed to himself. She was studying his face. She kissed him on the cheek. “You get me really excited, you know.”

“It’s good for you,” he said.

She pulled off her blouse and undid her bra. Ron’s eyes got wider. They were the most perfect tits he’d ever seen anywhere. “They’re really beautiful,” he said sliding a palm under each one.

“I’m trusting you to be nice with me, Ron.” She looked down at his crotch, brought her hands in back of his neck and drew his head down to her breasts. Ron started to suck the nearest nipple while she ran her hands through his hair.

When they heard the key in the door, Ron all but spit tit. “Your parents are home!” he said. Rebecca harnessed herself frantically and pulled the blouse back over her head.

“They weren’t supposed to be home until really late,” she said in a frightened voice. They sat like wooden statues with tense looks on their faces. As Mrs. Ranelli entered the room, Ron remembered he had an enormous erection. He crossed his legs quickly, but was uncomfortable and sure that he was going to hurt himself being all twisted up like that.

Mrs. Ranelli found her daughter and the boy sitting in the dark with their hair out of place and just the television light in the room. She turned on the bright overhead light. “It’s not good for you to watch TV in the dark, Becky. We just bought you new reading glasses and there you are squinting in the dark. Just what the doctor told you not to do.”

“We weren’t really watching TV,” said Rebecca with an undertone of defiance. As her mother’s face changed, she added, “We were talking.”

Mrs. Ranelli gave her a skeptical look. “Well, I’m going upstairs after I get your father and me a snack. Make sure the doors are locked before you come upstairs.” Rebecca got up and followed her mother into the kitchen. Ron lit a cigarette and watched the movie.

Marlon Brando was about to get laid in Cuba with Jean Simmons. Ron felt like he’d almost been there when the bimbos came home. He tried to picture Rebecca’s tits. They were plump and the nipple he’d been sucking had a hard little knot right at the tip. He rolled it back and forth in his mind. He uncrossed his legs and tried to untangle himself. It always seemed that his cock took a tremendous beating at times like this.

“Are you in trouble?” said Ron after Rebecca came back and turned off the overhead and turned on a table lamp.

“Nah,” she answered easily. “My mother is pretty understanding. We get along well.”

Ron stared in between her legs as new plans for the assault rose in his mind. “Will she be back down?” he said.

“No,” said Rebecca.

Setting his sights on the familiar area of her tits for starters, Ron leaned over to kiss her. She kissed him back easily but when his hand squeezed her breast, she stopped him.

“Why are you seeing me?” she said.

The question took Ron by surprise. She liked the dumbfounded look that came into his face. It was like seeing an infant who had been astonished. “I really like being with you.” She didn’t say anything. “You’re the most exciting girl I’ve ever been with.” She gave him a skeptical look and Ron caught it. “You don’t believe me! Damn! Next to being made editor of The Commuter, you’re all I’ve thought about since we met.” He stopped to consider what he’d said. “And not in that order of importance either,” he added.

“Do you know what happened kissing my neck? If I didn’t trust you, I would never let you suck on my ear again!”

“I want you to trust me,” said Ron in a small voice.

He’d made a jackass out of himself again, he thought. He cursed silently at his greedy, grubby hands. Rebecca watched his little boy show and smiled. She took her hair away from her neck and offered it to him. The first thing Ron saw was the brightening hickey he’d given her. He ran his finger along it. “I gave you a hickey,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.”

Rebecca winced. “I hate those things,” she said and got up to look at it in the downstairs bathroom mirror. Ron wondered how many she had before, but she returned quickly. “You sure did give me one,” she said happily. “Oh well.” She sat on his lap.

This is it, thought Ron instantly. He kissed her deeply and brought his hand up to her crotch. He felt the zipper on her jeans. She moaned and stuck her tongue in his ear. I’m there, Ron thought. He squeezed her zipper and listened to the aquatic show in his head. Rebecca pushed his hand further into her crotch and rubbed against it like it was a bedpost. Ron continued to squeeze and rub. She closed her eyes and moaned again. Involuntarily, Ron squeezed too hard. “Ouch,” she yelped, opening her eyes quickly.

“I’m sorry,” he said stopping at once.

“You’ve got to be more careful down there,” she said like she was telling him a secret. Ron reached out weakly and took hold of her breast. Rebecca didn’t react or look at him. Ron let go of her breast. He told her that he didn’t mean to hurt her. Rebecca wondered if she was going to have a mark there too. This boy was too rough and oafish. Ron lit a cigarette, and they watched the end of the movie.

“Would you like something to eat?” said Rebecca, looking for an excuse to move into the other room.

“I’d like some coffee,” said Ron. The ribbon was wrinkled and dangled in an injured way as he watched it leave the room. He apologized to her several times while they were having coffee. Rebecca watched him quietly. Inside, Ron was calling himself a jerk and conjuring back D O P E and S A P as further evidence against himself. Rebecca thought that he really seemed to care about what she thought of him as she listened to the apologies As he was talking, she wondered if she still wanted him – not that she was sure that she could have him. She decided that he was okay for right now. He was going to have to learn to be careful with her though. She hated the feeling of being treated clumsily.

“Are you doing anything tomorrow afternoon?” he asked.

“I have dinner with my family on Sundays,” she said with a note of finality.

“How about tomorrow night?” he said.

“What do you want to do?”

“I think I really would like to see a movie,” he said smiling.

“OK, maybe,” she said. “You’ll have to call first to make sure though.”

“That sounds good,” said Ron.

He drove home happy that he had a girlfriend. When he got into bed, he masturbated wildly. He conjured back images of the way she had shown him her tits. He created fantasies of her opening her legs and telling him to put it in fast and do it hard. It took him more than an hour to get to sleep. After the third time he’d come, he dropped back exhausted and told himself that maybe he’d get it for real the next night.

Chapter 32

On the second day of his new job, Hank called in sick. He was immediately fired. “If they don’t believe that I’m sick, then I don’t want to work for them,” he told Jo Lee.

At first she didn’t answer. Then she said, “You can get a job like that anywhere.” She thought about the amount of money she could make in a good week at the club. It made her feel superior to know that she was worth more on the open market than he was.

“I’m gonna take a ride down and see Ron.”

“What for?”

“He called last night and asked me if I would,” Hank said.

“Do you want to lie down for a little while first?”

“That would be good,” said Hank. She got up and he followed her into the bedroom.

Hank rode on the pleasurable sensation that he had satisfied her needs on the way to Ron’s house. He smoked a cigarette and settled into the comfort of driving. Alternately, he stared at the road and the way the sunlight was streaming into the trees. The radio had played nothing but Neil Young since he’d been in the car. Hank was floating on the music. He liked it when he didn’t have to say anything. The emptiness in the next seat felt as good as the sunshine. He could look in that direction without having to be careful of what was on his face.

Marjorie and Chipper answered the door. Chipper cried, wagged his tail and peed on the hallway carpet. “Jesus Christ!” said Marjorie, “The dog pissed all over the hall. Excuse me, Hank. What a way to be greeted!” Hank smiled and then grimaced when he saw a few drops on the top of his shoes. Chipper had slunk away at the sound of the “Jesus Christ” and had gone to let Ron know that Hank was here.

Ron was spread across the Sunday paper, which was spread across the bed. He hadn’t expected to be seeing Hank without hearing from him. Marjorie showed Hank into Ron’s room. “Look at this place! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“No,” said Ron quickly. “Hey man, how are you doin’? I thought you’d call. Didn’t you have to go to work?”

“I just came down instead,” said Hank.

“Look at that paper!” said Marjorie. “How is anybody to read that thing now?”

“I’ll put it back together when I’m done.”
“Are you staying home for dinner?”

“No.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s very nice,” said Marjorie, walking out of the room and closing the door sharply for emphasis.

“Do you want to get fucked up?” said Ron.

Hank bobbed his head. “That would be really good.”

“I’ll roll up some joints, and we’ll head out on the road. It wouldn’t be good to smoke here during the daytime with them home.” He noticed that Hank was still standing by the door. “Sit down man. I’ll put some music on. It’ll take me a few minutes to get things together here anyway.” The easy chair in the corner of Ron’s room was piled high with a stack of books and papers. It seemed odd to be finding these things at Ron’s house.

Hank picked up the stack and put it on the floor. “How’s school?” he asked.

“It blows me away. I can’t believe it. I’ve been made the managing editor of the student newspaper, “The Commuter.” And it’s strange man. All of a sudden I can do whatever I want with this newspaper.”

Hank wasn’t expecting this. He’d read his college’s newspaper about a half dozen times in the two years he’d been there and he thought it was all bullshit stories about civil rights and cafeteria food. Ron showed him the issue with his latest article in it. Hank looked at the paper. It was a sixteen-page tabloid. He turned to Ron’s article. It was a four-paragraph opinion piece about the 18-year old vote being turned down. It began: “Once again the intelligent voters of New Jersey have shown their ignorance by keeping the rightful act of voting out of the hands of the people who have to fight their stinking war.” Hank started to say that Ron had spelled “intelligent” incorrectly but kept it to himself and scanned the rest of the essay. It ended with: “If they won’t let us take part in making the laws, then I say why should we bother to obey the sick things that are only evidence of how screwed up they are anyway.” Hank didn’t know what to think about it. He hadn’t ever thought that voting would change his life. If he had, he would start paying attention to all the rest of the stuff that the government was inflicting on everyone everywhere. He didn’t want to think about it. It had always been fucked up. Governments had always caused wars. Hank had decided that in his 10th grade history class and nothing had come along since then to change his mind. The only thing to do was to stay out of their way and not let them get their hands on you.

“This is really incredible,” he said to Ron.

“You like it, huh?” Ron had been standing there watching Hank read his article. It occurred to him at several points that Hank didn’t seem to be reading that much, but maybe he was just thinking about what he was reading. “I guess you didn’t read the other two that I wrote either,” said Ron suddenly scouring the room for the back issues of the paper. “I think you’re sitting on them.”

Hank was just leaning back but sat forward and reached under himself. “I put the pile of things you had in the chair right here.”

Ron dropped to his knees and sorted through the stack. “They’re not here,” he said looking up in dismay.

“Was one of them about the fraternities?”

“Yeah. Did that come out before you ran away with Jo Lee?

“I don’t remember,” said Hank. “Right about the same time, I think.” Hank wondered what Jo Lee might be doing and wondered why he’d left her alone. The answer hit him as suddenly as something Ron would say without thinking: to get away from her.

Ron sat down on the floor and took out his pot cleaning tray. “So what’s it like to live with her?”

“It’s really something,” said Hank.

“She’s making you lose weight, huh?” said Ron.

“She sure is.”

“I can’t believe it, man. It all happened so fast, you know?”

“I guess it did. ” It seemed to Hank like it had been going on forever.

“Does everybody still think you’re married?”

“I guess so. My mother said that a lot of them aren’t sending gifts because they weren’t invited to the wedding though. She said that it cost her part of the family but that was okay because she didn’t care much for them anyway.”

“Does she really believe you’re married?”

“It’s hard to say. The other day my father asked to see the marriage license.”

“What did you say?”

“I said ‘sure.’ I’ll just keep saying that and eventually he’ll drop it.”
“How’s the job?”

“It sucked. I quit.”

“That didn’t take long.” Ron remembered, with a swollen chest sense of pride, the jobs he’d stayed with in order to get money. He’d stayed at IBM a full year after he knew it wasn’t for him. He wondered if Hank would ever learn to do the things that needed doing. He thought that Hank was just lazy because he’d always had it so easy. “Are your folks still giving you money?”

“Sure. Every week.”

“Let’s get outta here,” said Ron. He was feeling the pressure of having people in the next room. He wanted to get a container of coffee and smoke the joints he’d rolled. He lit the first joint as soon as they got into the car.

“You’re not even gonna wait until we’re off the block, huh?”

“I’m not waiting for nothin’,” said Ron.

Hank took the familiar route to the loop. It wasn’t quite as comfortable during the day as it was at night, but the principle was the same: you could pretty much drive non-stop without going anywhere. They passed the joint down by the gearshift and each kept a cigarette lit.

“Did you really like the article or were you just putting me on?”

“No, it was good.”

“You don’t think that it matters about the words being misspelled?”

“No,” said Hank, “I could tell what they were supposed to be.”

“That’s what I figure.” Ron felt like his suspicion that grammar was for English teachers had been confirmed. “This guy Lashly has really been fucking my head up. I wanted to show you the letter he wrote me. It’s like I got every word of it burned into my brain.”

“You don’t have to bother listening to anything they say. Just get the grade and get out.”

“Not this time,” said Ron. “Whatever he’s got to say, I want him to hit me with, whenever he wants. Pretty soon I’m gonna go right for his jugular, and I won’t feel too bad if he gets his shots in too.”

Hank puffed the joint as he drove along the northern border of the loop. “I really didn’t miss this stuff but it sure is nice.”

“I do believe I could get hooked on it,” said Ron, “but it’s ok because you can take a vacation from it whenever you like.” He lowered his voice to do his “It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?” imitation. “Until it leads to harder drugs,” he paused dramatically “like tobacco, alcohol and caffeine. Which is where it’s just led me.” He puffed greedily on his cigarette to complete the effect. “Do you want to get some coffee to ride around with?”

“Sure,” said Hank.

They stopped at a 7-11 and each got a large container.

“These places are like munchy heaven,” said Ron. “Designed with the mass consumption pothead in mind.”

“They know how to get you at every turn,” said Hank.

“I met this girl,” said Ron. Hank didn’t answer. “I think she’s going to be around for a while.”

“What’s her name?”

Rolling his R’s, Ron said “Rebecca Ranelli.”

“Rebecca Ranelli,” repeated Hank for emphasis. “Do you want to drive over to Welmont and see if Quimpy’s car is around?”

“Do you want to take a ride up through the Reservation?”

“Not especially.”

“Well, what do you feel like doing?”

“I don’t know.” Hank had a sarcastic pith in his voice.

“Hey man, I don’t really give a fuck what we do, you know? Up to you.”

“It’s up to me,” repeated Hank with a grimace that spread down through his arm to the walnut bulb which he jerked into a downshift.

“We could just smoke the last joint and ride back to my house and listen to some music.”

“That would be okay,” said Hank thinking that it brought him one step closer to having the seat next to him empty again. As they passed the joint, Hank got them back to Ron’s house quickly. When they got to his room, they found Marjorie stripping the bed and cleaning out his room.

She was surprised to see them back so soon. “As long as your room is in my house, I’m going to do my best to see that I don’t have bugs,” she said.
Ron paced through the rooms like a penned animal. He couldn’t believe that he had to put up with somebody deciding that it was time to clean his things. He strode back into his room. “Look,” he said to Hank, “I can’t stay here and there’s nothing that you really want to do, so I guess that I want to go up to Welmont and hang out.”

“I guess that I’d better get going,” said Hank. He didn’t want to arrive at the apartment before Jo Lee left for work. He sat down in Ron’s room to contemplate the problem. Ron stared at him.

Marjorie said, “I guess that I’ll have to leave this right in the middle.”

Ron glared at her. “I’ll do it.”

“When?” she said, turning for the door. “In six months?”

They sat in his room without saying anything for a long time. “Do you want to hear some music before you go?” said Ron.

“Not really.”

Ron gave him a look of exasperation.

Hank stood up. “I think I’ll go over my parents’ house and pick up some money before I head back,” he said. He started to walk and realized that his foot had fallen asleep and that he couldn’t really lift it off the ground. Hank set his jaw in a determined way. He looked like Bela Lugosi as he limped out of the room. Chipper trotted over to say good-bye. The tingling was jumping up his leg like a short circuit. Hank said, “So long,” to Marjorie with jovial difficulty.

Ron called Rebecca, but there was no answer. He decided to do some homework and opened his Lit book to the section that had ‘The Inferno’ in it. He read the first few lines and didn’t understand them. He read them again. They didn’t seem any clearer. He went again to call Rebecca. Still no answer. Back in his room, he wondered if college textbooks were designed to be harder as you went along. He started the first page for the third time. He told himself that he did understand and ignored the confused messages from his brain.

Some hours later, Rebecca picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Hi,” said Ron.

“I was wondering if I was going to miss your call,” she answered.

“This is the first time I tried to get you,” he said. “Anyway, would you like to get together and do something?”

“I haven’t done any studying all weekend,” she answered. “I’ve been trying to do some reading myself. “It’s not that I don’t want to see you,” she said. “I could drive down and bring my books with me, although I don’t think we’d get any work done.”

Ron smiled. She was right and she was also telling him what she liked to do with him. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow at school then,” he said.

Ron went back into his room and sat down with the book again. He skated in his other classes by just paying attention to what was being said, but he wanted to know this cold. He read it again. It was 11 p.m. by the time he’d finished the piece to his satisfaction. He was smiling. Except for a few words, he saw how it was supposed to fit together. He was too tired to be playing with the dictionary now. He was gonna go to sleep and be ready for the next morning.

An hour later, he was sure that he was never going to get to sleep. He turned on his light and rolled a joint. He opened the window over his bed and turned the light back off. The pot tasted better in the dark. e stared out the window. The air was getting colder each day. He blew smoke through the screen that he hadn’t replaced with a slide-down storm window for just this reason and peered into the row of hedges in his back yard. After his eyes became adjusted, they were clear. The next group of shadows was the garage. He fixed his eyes on it and waited for the details to come into focus.

Footsteps in the kitchen and the opening of the refrigerator tensed his body. He froze and waited for trouble. He was sure that they knew he smoked in his room and thought that some night they would decide that it was in his best interests to call the cops and have him straightened out. He wondered what they thought of him. It couldn’t be anywhere close to the truth. Maybe they just didn’t think about what went on inside of other people, only what came out and how well it fit into their idea of things. The steps went away.

He’d smoked the joint down two-thirds of the way and wished he was just starting it. The warm, good feeling had just filled him up and if he had just been starting, he would have the whole joint to look forward to. He put out the joint and began to roll another one. He wondered if he could put the music on very softly. It was too late and he was getting stoned. He decided to compromise and turn on the radio. It was Sunday night and the dial was virtually empty. Hoping for something he could stand to hear, Ron turned slowly from one end to the other.

Bob Fass’ voice put an immediate grin on his face. It was a whisper filled with tonality, resonant enough to be soothing and at the same time lively enough to contain a controlled excitement. Ron had stumbled into the very first words of the show. Fass had run twenty minutes of dead air to get rid of the unwanted. He knew his regulars would understand what was happening and be patient.

“Good morning Cabal,” began Fass. “It feels like it must be by some decree of nature that I’m here tonight. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be up at Woodstock.” He paused to call forth the sacred image. “Old Woodstock,” said Fass. “With a strange colony of artists and artisans and poets and perhaps even a couple of singers. But it didn’t happen. I thought it was going to happen when I went to bed last and when I woke up. But by the time the evening that has just passed into night arrived, I knew beyond a shadow of doubt and unequivocally that it was out of the question.” There was a pause. “Volkswagens,” he paused again. “They can be looked upon as German military machines or beetles,” he pronounced this last word with a combination of respect, sadness, and snobbery, “friends of man, necessary evils, toy cars and, yes by some– ” he lowered his voice to a paranoid whisper– “the invasion of foreigners.”

Ron could almost see the look of mock shock on Fass’ face. “Volkswagens,” repeated Fass sadly, adding with a sense of hurt, “That’s all I can say about it. That’s all I really need to say about it. That’s all my temporary state of equilibrium will allow me to say about it.” This was followed by 30 seconds more of dead air. Ron moved closer to the radio. “When I found myself at the station, there was, in my mail box, left by some anonymous personage of the night, this tape. I don’t know what this tape contains but we’re going to find out together.

It was a woman’s voice. She introduced herself as a member of the Weather Underground and went on to outline the disruptions that her organization was planning in order to topple the government of the United States. Ron listened to the tape for its full ninety minutes. The idea of bombing public buildings went against his grain, but as the night wore on, the tape communicated the idea that the only things Americans were willing to pay attention to were violent things – things that affected their comfort. “As long as Johnny Carson comes on every night and laughs about the good life, all’s right with the world. But if dear John was afraid of being blown up, he’d quickly change his attitude and find out what the story was. That would only be of interest to him and the countless millions like him if something was going to affect their own little island.” She concluded by saying that the Weather Underground could not be contacted, could not be joined. That you couldn’t write for membership and get a free tee-shirt or frisbee that told you who you were.

When Fass returned to the air, Ron could sense mixed emotions in his voice. Fass had been a pacifist all his life, but he had also been in Chicago and been beaten and arrested. He told his audience that although the ideas they’d just heard were misguided, violence was a natural reaction to being beaten. Fass put on some Dylan music, and Ron let it carry him to sleep.

Chapter 33

Ron overslept and missed his third consecutive Western Civ class. He looked at the clock and kicked himself out of bed. He wanted to know why somebody hadn’t gotten him up. He came into the kitchen after his step-father had left for the day and while his mother was having her morning coffee and preparing one of her endless lists.

“Why didn’t anybody have the common decency to wake me up?”

“I don’t know,” said Marjorie.

“You people never forgot wake me up when it was time for me to go to IBM,” he said and slammed into the bathroom.

“Look,” she shouted at the closed door, “don’t start your shit first thing in the morning. I don’t want to have my stomach frigged up for the rest of the day. You’ll just let off your steam and walk out of here with nothing bothering you. I’ll wind up with another ulcer.”

“I just asked why nobody woke me up,” he said coming out of the bathroom. “Did you ever see what you look like when somebody forgets to wake you up on time?”

“You’re gonna keep it up!” she screamed and slammed down her coffee cup so that the liquid spilled all over her list. “I asked you to leave me alone because I just woke up and I’ve got to get myself ready for the week. But I can’t even get a goddamned cup of coffee into me. Not me!” She raised her voice to a painful shriek. “Go ahead, Ronald! Run the house and have everything your own friggin’ way, you rotten little son of a bitch!”

He thought “that’s what I am for sure,” but he decided not to say any more and was out of the house in twenty minutes. They didn’t speak to each other again until he said, “good-bye,” and she barely answered him.

Hank got up before Jo Lee was awake and went out to get some breakfast buns and the newspaper. Monday morning was the beginning of her time off, and Hank wanted to treat her to a sense of holiday. He made coffee and opened to the classified section of the newspaper. He looked for openings under actuarial analysts. He wouldn’t like the work but the pay would be good, and Jo Lee would like seeing him putting on a suit every morning. The insurance men who came into Welmont for lunch had once told him that he would do very well in that field if he was interested. Hank saw himself nestled in the palms of the “good hands” people. Then he was sitting on top of a bronze horse, leading the charge to freedom and respectability. There were no openings for analysts without experience.

He turned to the “drivers” section of the classified listings. There was an opening for a delivery man to drive a light van. “Over 18, good driving record, must have knowledge of the area.” He grimaced when he read the last part. He was certain that he would get lost constantly.
His mother had given him the $30 his father had left for him and added $30 of her own to make sure that he had enough. Hank felt the money in his shirt pocket. If he really had a choice, he would like to work at Bell Labs. He knew that they paid people to do nothing but think up there. He was willing to think about anything that they told him to think about, as long as they left him alone and took care of him. He had always dreamed of working for Bell Labs. The only things he still needed were some kind of advanced mathematics degree and a more fluent knowledge of computers. That would be easy. He had learned RPG in an hour. By the end of the first day, he’d written four very simple and successful programs; and they had all run without a hitch.

Hank decided to drive out to the Labs and make a general application. Maybe they could find a place to start him, and he could finish the rest of his education on a tuition refund plan. Maybe he wouldn’t even have to go back to school. Perhaps they would take him under their collective wing and show him all that he ever needed to know about anything. Hank pictured himself in a study with a few small plaques on the wall, an honorary degree from M.I.T. and one from the University of Chicago in appreciation of his contributions in the field of the mathematical discovery of human good. Hank smiled to himself. That seemed admirable and yet vague enough not to be limiting.

Jo Lee came out of the bedroom hiding her face in a blank stare. She saw Hank had been out for breakfast stuff and had made coffee. She allowed her mouth to smile, rummaged through the bag of buns and poured a cup of coffee. When he was pretty sure that she’d fully woken up, he said, “Would you like to take a ride down to Murray Hill with me today?”

She smiled and thought that at least he didn’t plan to sit around the house and mope all day. She tilted her head to the side and took hold of his arm. “What are we gonna do down there?”

“I’m gonna apply for a job at Bell Labs,” he said with a tone of determination in his voice.

“OK,” she said happily bringing his arm to her chest and hugging it.

The breakfast was the best meal they’d had together in weeks. Jo Lee allowed herself to loosen up and comment freely with the sense of humor that Hank found delightfully contagious. They kissed with gentle lips that left them dizzy. Recently, when she wanted to get laid, she had mashed her mouth down on his like he was some kind of vegetable she was about to consume, but now they touched delicately. They made love rocking back and forth. She closed her eyes and cried softly about how good it felt. At the height of her moaning, Hank felt himself start to come. They were gonna get there together. Hank had made a hole in one. He held his body still while his hips bucked the sperm into her. She had her legs back as far as they could go and was sucking it out of him with her cunt. “You’re so good to me,” she said. She held him and patted his behind the way she’d seen the football players congratulate each other on TV. Hank felt so good. Sex should be peaceful, he thought, allowing himself to drift.

Ron carried the day’s first container into The Commuter room thinking about the tape he’d heard. He would have been smarter to have been taking notes than getting stoned. He couldn’t write a single line about it because he couldn’t remember the chick on the tape’s name.

He found the notification of the November 18 Moratorium included in a Liberation News Service press release that was in his mailbox. It was only five days from now. What was he supposed to have organized in five fucking days! He decided to call a staff meeting for that afternoon. Maybe not everyone would be able to get there on short notice but some of them could at least get started on something. The idea of a series of demonstrations designed to bring good information about the war to people was what he was after They were a newspaper. They were supposed to keep people informed about things. He posted a sign in The Commuter room that announced a 1 o’clock meeting.

Ron and his second container were waiting for class. Lashly entered the room, and Ron was surprised to see that he had chopped off most of the hair that had been curling down to his shoulders. He had also shaved off his chin bear and side burns. His clothing was the same jeans and vest get-up, but he’d exchanged his tiny square green lenses for clear lens, black-framed plastic ones. Ron wondered if pressure had been put on Lashly by the administration. He decided to find out after class. The full weight of The Commuter was behind Lashly if they were fucking him over because he wanted to dress in way that made him feel comfortable.

Lashly began his class. “I want to talk about Dante and explore a little of what he finds on the rest of his descent through Hell and his – for some reason not half as eloquent and passionate – ascent towards God.” The hand of the big blonde kid with hair down his back was raised. Lashly seemed a bit stunned. “I haven’t said anything yet,” he said looking at the kid.

The kid grinned broadly put his hand down and spoke anyway. “How come you look so funny?”

A relieved laughter smattered through the class. “Why do I look funny?” said Lashly. Irene, sitting in her usual seat in the front row, folded her arms across her chest and turned around with a smug look on her face.

“You know,” said the kid, making an imaginary scissor and cutting imaginary hair.

“I know,” said Lashly, “that I was at a party this weekend, a get-together with some of the students that I had last year and some of the students I’m teaching now. It’s a tradition I enjoyed very much when I was a student. The opportunity to sit around, drink some beer and wine with my teachers and friends. I can truly say that I learned as much, if not more, on these occasions than I learned studying or in class.” Ron nodded his head. That was how he learned best too, by listening to, and talking with other people. “Well this weekend we had a gathering at Jim MacFibber’s house.” Ron knew the name belonged to one of the other young teachers in the department. He looked around the class and tried to figure out who had been there. The people he suspected were mostly looking at each other and smiling when their eyes met. Jade was one of them. Ron looked away quickly, so that she wouldn’t see him looking in her direction. “What happened this weekend has convinced me that this generation has lost its sense of creativity and maybe its soul. Its members have certainly lost the desire to use their brains.”

There was a startled shifting of body positions that reminded Ron of the first class. “I know that this idea of drugs and the pursuit of the East is unhealthy and potentially fatal. The way this Love and Woodstock generation is frantically trying to become unconscious is sick. All any of my students wanted to do was get stoned to the point of physical and mental immobility. I tried talking to people who fell over in the middle of conversations. When I did bring them back to their senses, the first thing they wanted to do was knock themselves back out. You people can do that with your lives if you want to, but I want no part of it.”

The blonde kid brushed the hair from his eyes and spoke again. “I was there,” he paused and looked around the room, “and it seemed that everybody just wanted to have a good time.”

Lashly nodded at him emphatically. “If drugging yourselves into oblivion is the way you have a good time, then I don’t want any part of it.”

The kid turned around to look at his friends. Ron noticed red splotches on his face that seemed to justify what Lashly was saying. How could you believe somebody with a splotchy face as opposed to someone who had given a situation hard thought and come up with a solid conclusion.

A hand went up in the back of the room. Lashly pointed at it. “It’s just that not everybody is interested in getting into heavy raps all the time,” said a voice that Ron didn’t turn around for. He was too busy monitoring Lashly’s gestures.

“Then I don’t understand what being part of an academic community is about. It’s supposed to be a search for knowledge and experiences. I don’t know what college is for if it’s not to gather as much knowledge and experience as you can,” said Lashly.

“Some of us had good experiences,” said Irene, taking her hands away from her chest and smiling at Warren.

“I’m not questioning that,” he answered quickly after seeming to freeze on the instant of her statement. “I’m not questioning the fact that certain individuals might be serious people who have the capacity to learn and grow, but the environment of the society is a pervasive thing. It seems to be inside of us in ways that we aren’t aware of.” Lashly looked down at his desk and put his hand on the Lit book.

Ron raised his hand. He hadn’t been there but he wanted to say what he was thinking. “There is a sense where we all feel we’re in some kind of hell,” he said. There was a silence. Lashly stared at him and blinked. Ron figured that since he’d stopped the flow of the conversation, he’d better pick it up again. “I mean, how do you expect us to be sane when the truth is that everything around us makes no sense at all. Half of us are sitting in classrooms while the other half of us are carrying guns and dropping bombs for some unknown reason in some unknown country on an enemy that we don’t even know for sure.” Ron stopped and bit his lip. He decided to continue. “It doesn’t seem to me that running away from what’s happening and saying it’s wrong like you’re doing, makes any sense either.” He felt a pressure in his ears after he’d stopped talking. He waited to see how others would respond.

“When the cattle are charging over the hill,” said Lashly, “it’s not ‘running away’ to move off in some other direction.”

Ron thought about The Sheep, the title of an imagined book he had told his IBM manager that he intended to write about his experiences with the company. The thought that he had just moved from one herd to another flashed in his mind. He shoved it away, telling himself that he’d go crazy if he thought like that.

The class never really got started again. Lashly did a fast recap of what had happened to Dante on the rest of his journey and then announced that the reading for the next class would be King Lear, a play by Shakespeare. Lashly told them they would be responsible for the first two acts of the play. “Every word in this play is important. Don’t fudge on me or yourself by skimming it.”

The class was over. Ron had spent the last couple of minutes replaying his exchange with Lashly. Then he remembered that he hadn’t written the paper he’d promised to redo over the weekend. This wouldn’t be the best day to tell him that, but he had to tell him something. Why hadn’t he written the stupid paper yesterday? He was part of the herd. As the room emptied, Ron felt like he was being driven through a corral. The shuffling sounded like hooves, and the talking seemed more like grunts. He could almost taste the dust they were kicking up as they left. When he got into the hall, he stopped and turned around. Maybe he should go back and tell Lashly that he hadn’t meant to embarrass him with his comment about running away. Then he could move the subject around to the trouble he was having with the paper.

He waited by the door while Lashly collected the props from his desk. Irene hadn’t moved and appeared to be reading. Ron figured she was paying attention to everything that was happening at the desk and had only read enough to answer in case he asked her something.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” asked Ron.

“OK,” said Lashly, “but just for a minute because I’ve got to get back to my office and get some work done.”

“I don’t want to hold you up.”

“You won’t hold me up for long,” said Lashly, looking over at Irene, who was opening her legs ever so slowly for him.

“Maybe I should find another topic for my paper.”

“Fine. What?”

“That’s my problem. I’m confused about what I should be working on. It seems that we’re done with the Greeks, and I want to be working on something that’s coming up.”

Lashly reached for one of his small cigars. “Although what you write about is subject to my approval, the choice of topic must be your own.”

“What about a Shakespeare play?”

“I’m not sure that you’re ready to work on something like that yet,” said Lashly in a cold, flat voice.

Ron blushed. If the rest of the class was reading a Shakespeare play, why wasn’t he ready to work on one on his own. “I’d still like to try it.”

Lashly didn’t answer. He drew in on his cigar and motioned for Irene to get up. Ron stared at her thighs as she brushed the wrinkles out of her skirt. Then he looked at Lashly, who was watching him watch Irene with a comically strained smile. “I’ll be back in my office at 2:30. Why don’t you do some more specific research about what you want to write and bring it to me then.” He started walking towards the door and threw a comment back over his shoulder. “I suggest you come up with something of more interest to you than I think Shakespeare is at this point in your life.”

Ron watched them pass out of the room. It felt strange to be the last one in the class. He stared at the empty board. Except for the first day, this was the only time he hadn’t used it. Ron thought that he must’ve been very upset. He decided he needed some coffee.

He wanted to avoid Rebecca if he saw her. He was going to get his coffee, pick out a topic for his paper, and then see who willing to help on the Moratorium issue of The Commuter. He picked up his container and started for the library. He spied the card catalog and told himself it was a good place to start.

Sharply and in an official tone, a voice called after him. “You can’t bring that in here!” The desk revealed the top half of the librarian. She wore a dead flower print dress covered by a pipe-stitched, white sweater. Her gray hair was tinted silver and combed in a wave-like curl that broke right over the top of her nose. She picked up the glasses that hung on a beaded chain around her neck and placed them on the bridge below the wave. Ron looked down at his container which was bubbling up through the air holes and swirling around on the top of the lid. “You can’t come in here with food!”

“This is coffee,” blurted Ron. “What kind of a stupid rule is that?”

“It’s certainly not a stupid rule,” she said inhaling indignantly. Ron noticed that the veins on her hand stood out. “And it’s been the rule at every library that I’ve ever worked at in my life.”

Ron thought she was certainly a prissy old babe. “That doesn’t make it right,” he said. He thought of telling her about how this little encounter would make an interesting little editorial in the newspaper.

“You’re spilling it on the rug at this very instant,” she said pointing at him and raising her tone. Ron saw a man in a suit starting towards the desk.

“Well, can I leave this here while I look something up?”

“Outside the door!” she said with exasperation as the assistant dean arrived at the desk.

“Mrs. Giles, what’s wrong?” said the man. He looked at Ron with disgust. “Why are you standing in here with food?”

“That’s the problem we’ve been discussing,” said Mrs. Giles in her best Christian- suffering way. It told the assistant dean he was sure to hear her complaining about this for the next three days. At least three days of her telling every administrator she encountered how the place was being run more like a lavatory than a library.

“What is your name?” he asked Ron.

“Ron Tuck.” Ron pronounced his last name, slurring the first letter and accenting the rest of it just enough for Mrs. Giles to think that he was going to spit or say something obscene. He stared at her face after he’d said his name. She drew her sweater around her neck and started to walk away. When she was safely behind Mr. Barth, she turned around to see what was going to happen.

“That’s your real name?”

“What do you mean, is that my real name?”

“Can I see your ID card?”

“Yeah,” said Ron taking out his wallet. “I feel like I’m being arrested.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Barth. “Have you been arrested often?”

Mrs. Giles gasped audibly. They were letting killers into the college now. She felt tears starting to well in back of her eyes. She was going to quit. That was all there was to it. The trouble was that if she quit at her age, she’d have to take early retirement benefits because she was too old for anyone else to hire. I’m a librarian for hooligans, she thought, and they get worse each year – although this mutation was clearly an indication of things to come.

“That’s none of your business,” said Ron.

“What are you looking for here?” said Barth.
“I don’t know,” said Ron. “I was walking in and she stopped me.”

“Because you had coffee.”

“Why can’t I have coffee while I’m studying?”

“The college provides,” said the assistant dean straightening his tie and handing Ron his ID card back, “lounges for that purpose. Can’t you simply take out the book you need, bring it to a lounge where you’ll be free to drink as much coffee as you please.”

Ron felt like an asshole. “I didn’t know which book I wanted,” he muttered.

“We must all learn to restrain ourselves for the general benefit of others on occasion,” said the assistant dean. “Now, if you would be so kind as to leave until you’ve finished your coffee and perhaps had a cigarette,” he gestured to the pack bulging Ron’s shirt pocket, indicating that smoking was also prohibited with a patronizing smile and a nod of his head, “you’ll be free to return.”

Ron just turned and walked out. If he played his cards right, he wouldn’t have to go back there ever again. He had liked libraries when he was a little kid. He went to the neighborhood library every day after school for a while. One day the woman there asked him why he didn’t like going home after school. Ron stopped going right after that.

Fuck it, he thought. This is stupid shit to get caught up in when I’m as busy as I am today. He headed for the newspaper room and saw Rebecca see him from halfway down the hall. “Ah shit,” he said under his breath. He looked down at the unopened container of coffee which had probably gotten cold by now.

“Hi Ron,” she said, “I was just wondering if I was going to see you today.”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “I was just thinking the same thing.” He felt far away from her. She looks really good too, he thought. “Do you have time to sit down with me while I drink this coffee?” he said.

“Can I get some too?”

They headed back into the cafeteria. Ron figured that he could give this a little time and then he would be clear for the staff meeting. Her eyes were sparkling as she stared at him.

“So,” she began, what have you been thinking about?”

Ron didn’t know where to begin. “A lot of things,” he said.

“Did you think about the play we saw?” she said enthusiastically.

“Not at all.” Ron stared back at her. She might as well know the truth.
“Oh,” said Rebecca, feeling like a deflated paper bag.

Ron sensed that he’d said the wrong thing. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind thinking about the play, but so many things are happening right now.” He paused and grinned. “I didn’t say that I hadn’t been thinking about you though.”

Rebecca smiled and let her eyes search his face. He wondered what their impressions were as he watched them. “There’s gonna be a Moratorium on the 18th.” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m trying to make it an effort to educate people about the war. Instead of Bio 101, you can learn something about defoliants and germ warfare.”

“Is the college going to let you do that?” she said opening her eyes a little wider.

“They’re not going to have any choice,” said Ron darkly. His mind went back to the tape he’d heard the night before. He couldn’t shake the feeling that The Weather Underground was partially right, and more than that. They were living it instead of just talking about it.

“Don’t get into trouble,” she said.

“Why not?” said Ron. “We’re already in pretty big trouble, don’t you think? Just because you don’t see it all around you all the time is no excuse for acting like it doesn’t exist. It’s got to be more than ‘Let’s talk about the war and other controversial issues.'”

“What do you think I should do?” she said defensively.

“Get involved,” snapped Ron. “Stop worrying about whether your father makes your brothers slice up dead deer, before they’re out there slicing up live people.” Ron gave her a hard look feeling that she was just as much a part of the problem as the Pentagon. Since she really didn’t care what was happening, she helped allow those military lunatics to do anything they wanted to do.

“I don’t think that my father and brothers have anything to do with it. I also think you’re in a mean mood.” Leaving her coffee unfinished, she started gathering up her books.

“My mood is fine,” he said, not quite sure why she was so upset.

“Isn’t that nice for you,” shot Rebecca. She started to walk away.

Ron stared down at the unopened coffee that he was sure he was never going to get to drink. “Wait a minute,” he said and started after her. She didn’t turn around. “Look,” he said, overtaking her at the door of the cafeteria, “something happens in my head once in a while, and I just get screwed-up about things. I’m sorry for what I said.”

“Don’t apologize unless you really want to, Ron.” She stared full into his face, turned and walked away.

He went after her again. “I said I was sorry. What do you want me to do?”

“It would help if you learned to be nice.” She walked away again.

He hesitated this time. Maybe he would be better of if he just let her go. Just when he was deciding that was the right thing to do, he found himself trotting along to catch up with her again. “Can I call you tonight?”

“If you want to,” she said without looking at him.

“Okay,” he said, trying to sound happy and showing her how nice he could be, “I’ll call you later.” He stopped and walked off in another direction. He needed to blow off some energy before he went back to the newspaper room.

Jade watched him walk into the room with a quiet annoyance. He went to the mailbox without speaking to her and took out the pamphlets on the Moratorium. “Who called the meeting for this afternoon?” she said icily.

“Me,” said Ron.

“Why?” Her voice was made of solid stone.

“Because there’s going to be a national anti-war action and maybe we should do something about it here.”

“Did you talk to Chris about it first?”

“Why should I?” said Ron.

“You’re hopeless,” said Jade. “Don’t you realize that we’re all together here and Chris needs to know what’s going to happen.”

“I’ll leave a note up in his office,” said Ron. He watched her smooth face and the overly exciting body that was stretched out across three wooden chairs. “You know,” he said, “I wanted to call you.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if you did,” said Jade.

Ron felt hurt. What had he done to her? Why was everybody mad at him all of a sudden. “Look,” said Ron. He hesitated, noticing that he seemed to be prefacing everything he was about to say with that word. He didn’t understand what the thought meant and dismissed it in confusion. “If I’m making mistakes, will you help me out?” He couldn’t help thinking that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever been associated with and that she was sophisticated enough to make Rebecca look like she belonged at a high school hop.

“I’m involved in other things right now and other people. I don’t have time to look out for you, Ron.”

“I didn’t mean that,” he said.

“I don’t care what you meant,” she said pulling her pink sunglasses down over her eyes and staring back into her book.

Ron sat down to read through the pamphlets again. By noon time he was ready for the staff meeting. Jade had left the room but he hadn’t heard her go. “I fucked that one up real good,” he said out loud to himself. He went upstairs and found Chris sitting at one of the long tables. He was staring at his math book with a pencil in his mouth and a cigarette in his hand. His legs were tapping to the beat of the music. “How are ya doin’?” said Ron. “Would I be bothering you if I came in?”

“No. This room is for everyone,” said Chris. “Everyone we know, anyway.”

“Am I supposed to check with you before I call a staff meeting?”

“I don’t know,” said Chris. “Are you?”

“I didn’t know that I was really supposed to check with anyone.”

“I’m on the staff,” said Chris in an even tone, putting down his pencil. “So I guess I’d like to know about it. What’s it for?”

“There’s going to be a Moratorium next week.”

“Right,” said Chris.

“Did you know about it?”

“Yeah,” said Chris. “I’ve got a meeting with President Sewerman this afternoon to see about getting the day’s classes canceled so they won’t interfere with any of the workshops.”

“Wow! You guys got the whole thing organized already?” said Ron, feeling stupid for the 20th time that day.

“But The Commuter really isn’t doing anything, right?” Chris picked up his pencil and began tapping it to the beat of the Traffic song that had just come on Julian’s radio show.

“Right,” said Ron. “Do you know what happened?”

“It just got lost in the shuffle of Peter leaving and people not paying attention to details. So that’s the idea of the meeting, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Far out,” he said bobbing his head. “What do you want to do?”

“Print up a special issue, a small one, right away and get it out to the high schools on the morning of the event.”

“That could cause problems. If kids cut school to come here, the schools could say we distributed material that encouraged them not to go to school.”

“Just don’t sign anything and deny that we ever distributed off-campus. The paper is free around the school. We can’t help it if somebody else brings it to a local high school.”

“That’s pretty wild,” said Chris laughing, “But don’t tell too many people that you’re doing it.”

“Okay,” said Ron. He got the definite impression that Chris wasn’t going to be one of the people helping to do it, but that would be no problem at all. “By the way, do you know some guy named Lashly?”

“English, right?”

“Got any idea about a good topic for a paper in his class?”

“I’m not really sure. Ask Julian,” said Chris thinking that would be comical.

Julian T. Willy had just entered the room wearing a red and black scarf that he’d kept wrapped around him despite the 80 degree heat in the radio station. He wasn’t sweating. “How did you like the show?” he said, stopping so that his back was to Ron.

“Far out,” said Chris tapping his pencil like a short burst of applause. He ended the gesture by throwing his pencil in the air and leaning back in his chair to catch it.

Julian laughed and loosened up his scarf. Ron could see that he was wearing a shirt and a tee-shirt underneath his heavy sweater. He was painfully skinny.

What do you think Ron should use for a paper in Lashly’s class?”

“Some sort of primer,” said Julian quickly.

Ron got up and started out of the room. He had about a half hour before the meeting. “I announced your meeting on the radio,” said Julian, “but I’m planning on missing it.”

“Good,” said Ron.

After Ron left, Julian said, “Does he know that I’m the art editor?”

“I don’t know,” said Chris. “I don’t think so.”

“Let him do without an illustrator and tell him to find a new masthead,” said Julian.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Chris, he’s a baboon. He predates higher thought.”

Chris laughed. “Maybe not.”

“Sometimes you’re a fool,” said Julian, throwing his scarf back over his shoulder.

Hank arrived at Bell Labs just after noon. He parked his car in the visitors’ section of the vast maze of lots that had been landscaped to be as unobtrusive as possible. The guard at the gate had directed him to the proper personnel area. Jo Lee kissed him goodbye like Donna Reed in an old movie where the star had played the part of a happy and supportive wife. He strode off toward the building in his brown corduroy jeans, his green checkerboard shirt, leather patched sports jacket and brown penny loafers. He turned around to smile and wave at her before he went in.

The receptionist was young and very pretty. Her face was a perfect oval and her clothes created the touch of class you would expect to find in a fashion magazine. She gave Hank her warmly professional smile when he approached her desk. He looked like a young scientist with his tightly curled reddish blonde hair that sprouted like a Scotch Afro. His thick glasses were a dead giveaway, along with the distracted way he stared at the floor while he was talking. “Can I help you?” she said.

“I’m looking for a job,” said Hank.

“May I see your resume,” she asked, telling herself that she’d been right and wondering if he was married.

Hank stared at her without saying anything. He was stunned. “Resume,” he said finally with a slow nod of his head.

“If you don’t have one, you can just fill out an application, but it would be better if you had one.” She smiled again.

“That sounds good,” said Hank, nodding to himself again.

He seemed to be a curious man, she thought. Probably like most of the other eccentric ones that came through. “In what area did you intend to apply for a position?”

“Mathematics.”

“Could you be a little more specific? In that general area we have dozens of openings.” She calculated that a PhD. in Mathematics would start anywhere between $ 18,000 and $25,000, depending on particular expertise. It was her pastime to sneak looks at all the salary scales and play out little fantasies about how she would fit into particular men’s lives. When she’d first started working there, she imagined herself to be the applicant, but as time passed she’d stopped doing that because it made her uncomfortable about her own inadequacies. It was much more fun to play this game, because the men were always trying to put their best foot forward whether they realized it or not. She was their first encounter with the company. She’d heard that phrase repeatedly endlessly in her training films.

This poor thing doesn’t know how to go about things at all, she thought to herself. He wasn’t handsome but she didn’t mind the way he looked. If he was older and thinner, he might look like Danny Kaye. She tried to picture him dancing and had to stifle a giggle. He really didn’t look that much like Danny Kaye at all.

“Do all the jobs that you have require degrees?” inquired Hank.

“Even maintenance,” she said changing her expression abruptly. Suddenly he was wearing fat greasy overalls and carrying a wrench. “Are you a student?”

“I was,” said Hank looking back down to the carpet.

“I don’t think that we’ll have anything for you until you finish school,” she said, sympathetically slinging a book bag over his shoulder and feeling like she was sending him off to class.

“Thanks anyway,” said Hank mixing a smile with a grimace and heading towards the door.

“What happened?” said Jo Lee.

“I have to send them a resume,” said Hank putting his key in the ignition and feeling her fingers curl the hair behind his ear.

“I like it around here,” she said. “What’s a resume?”

“Where I went to school, where I worked, and what I’m qualified for…”

“An application?” she said suspiciously.

“Sort of.”

“You didn’t even get to fill out an application?” she said clenching her fist and drawing tighter on his curls.

“Ouch.” Hank winced. He rubbed his hair. “They asked for a resume. Why did you do that?”

“Who did you speak to?” she said sarcastically.

Hank stopped the car in the right hand lane of the highway. He stared at her without saying anything. She thought that he looked creepy and felt a little frightened. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said quietly.

“Yes, you did.” Hank lit a cigarette, threw the car into gear and set his gaze on the road.

The meeting started late. Ron had panicked when it was 1 o’clock and no one had showed. Jade told him to relax. She told him that everything would eventually happen and that everybody was always late for meetings. Ron thought about the way she had looked with her legs open and her heels pointing toward the ceiling. He wanted to tell her that he had more control of himself now and would even get better in the future, but this wasn’t the time.

What Ron was thinking was written all over his face and pose . She wasn’t going to go to bed with him again, not unless she changed her mind and she couldn’t imagine what would make her do that. As he paced in front of her she thought that she’d tell him that, the next time they were together. She would also tell him that his hair was getting greasy because he needed to wash it more frequently now that it was longer. She remembered the feel of his hair. It was as fine as baby hair, which had highlights of blonde that had totally disappeared now. Rex was dark like the winter and had a silver chain hanging from his belt that she loved to watch swing. She saw that Ron was sweating and told herself that he had no idea of how to be cool.

When the meeting actually started, everything went smoothly. About twenty people were crowded into the room, and Ron started by briefing them on the Moratorium. Like himself, more than half the staff had been unaware of the whole thing, so there was a sustained level of interest. He told them he wanted to get something four to eight pages long to the printer in two days. He said that there wasn’t actually enough time to do the job properly, but that informing people about what was going to happen was their main objective. Ron stopped and looked at Chris who was bobbing his head and twirling his mustache. “Chris is going to write one of the articles and right now the rest of the space is up for grabs.” He pulled out a list of possible areas that he’d worked up. He passed around the picture of the interrogation of the Viet Cong prisoner that he’d saved. “I want to blow this up and use it for the cover.”

“That’s a bit heavy handed, don’t you think?” asked Ted Gleason, a cartoonist whose major themes centered around hairy arms projecting out of the inside of commodes.

“It’ll get their attention,” he answered.

Ron was amazed at how easily things had gone when the meeting broke up. He’d told some girl to prepare a list of activities going on at the college, and she just said that she’d do it. Several people had come up to Ron and asked what he wanted them to do and he’d assigned articles from his list. A thin girl with jet black hair and an awkward look on her face said that she wanted to do some of the writing. Her tone warned Ron that he’d better give her a good assignment, so he just showed her the list and told her to pick anything she wanted. Her name was Laureen. Ron felt like he should know her but he didn’t.

It was at the close of the meeting that Julian T. Willy burst into the room and announced that as his personal tribute to the Moratorium, he intended to wrap The Commuter room a la Cristo. Ron wasn’t sure what it had to do with the Count of Monte Cristo but figured it was because he had never been able to sit through the entire movie. Julian was excited as he continued, “I’m going to have to settle for masking tape as my primary material.”

“Where are you getting the money for all the tape?” said Chris.

“The Commuter budget,” said Julian, looking over at Ron with a gleeful smile. Laureen moved into the circle around Julian and Chris as they walked to the door.

Jade said “See there wasn’t any reason to get excited.”

Ron hated it that she kept referring to his penchant for getting excited. He wanted to ask her why she kept bringing it up, but instead he asked, “What’s Julian going to do?”

She shook her head at him and he felt embarrassed and gave his boyish expression. “He’s going to wrap everything up in masking tape.”

“Why?”

“It’s a form of art.”

“Yeah,” said Ron bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t think that you would.”

He asked her out and she refused. She did so quite convincingly.

Undaunted, he asked, “Why?”

She was angry when she answered. “I said no, Ron. That’s enough.” She left the room.

Ron had a little time before he had to go back and face Lashly. Country Joe and the Fish filled the snack bar, and there was no line at the counter. Ron plunked down his fifth quarter of the day and got a container. He saw Laureen sitting at one of the back tables by herself. She seemed to be straining to overhear a conversation that was taking place at the next table between a guy and a girl. He saw her notice him from about ten feet away, but wnen he got there she looked up and gave him a startled, “Oh hi.”

“Can I sit down?” he said.

“Sure.” She picked up her books from the seat next to her, but he’d already grabbed a different chair. They exchanged an awkward look.

Ron thought she had a crooked mouth. “What do you think you’ll write?” he said.

“You mean for the newspaper?” She lit a cigarette, holding her lighter in both hands for the operation. She exhaled in a large stream and stared up at the way her hair was curling down on her forehead. “The normal thing.”

“There’s a lot of that around,” said Ron.

She flicked her wrist out in a stylized gesture that resembled a branch snapping back after it had been pushed down. “When I was the editor of my high school paper, we did a lot of anti-war stuff. Did you ever see anything that the Rahway Rivulet turned out.” She was trying to sound more professional than he was trying to sound.

“I’m not from around here and besides, it’s been a long time since I was in high school.”

She shifted her eyes to the long line of people who were now waiting at the snack bar. “Class must’ve gotten out,” she said. She fixed her eyes on him. “What do you think I should write?”

“‘Well part of what we’re doing is trying to get younger kids in the high schools interested. Why don’t you write something geared to them?”

“I might,” she said.

For a long minute they sat without saying anything. Then Ron picked up what was left of his coffee and excused himself. He went up to Lashly’s office but nobody was there. He smoked a cigarette and waited. After he smoked another cigarette he left.

Chapter 34

“Why don’t you want to eat, Hank?”

“I’m not hungry,” he said after a pause.

She came into the room where he had been listening to Wes Montgomery’s smooth guitar. Hank was pretty sure that he’d never heard anybody play the instrument like that before.

“Can we go out tonight, Hank?”

“Sure,” he said with a grimace.

Jo Lee sat down and combed her hair with her hands. With all the shit that she’d pulled, he’d never abused her. She could always respect him for that. She thought that maybe he was afraid of her, but told herself that she had to stop being such a bitch. She wasn’t making herself at all happy. “Hank, let’s start over again.”

He looked at her for the first time. “How?”

“I think that we’ve made some stupid mistakes, and I know that I’ve hurt you. You must think that I’m pretty rotten and hate me. The problem is that I don’t know if I can do better. Maybe the truth is that you should get away from me as soon as possible.”

At first she was just sniffling in between sentences. Her face let go toward the end, and she started sobbing. He began to cry, too. Her eyes were red and her nose running when he took her in his arms. She cried into her shoulder until everything was dry and she got hungry. “Let’s get dressed and go out?”

Hank pulled himself away from her and took off his glasses. His sinuses were clogged, but it was the best he’d felt in weeks. She told him that she was going to take a shower and kissed him holding her lips like a puckering flower. He smiled at the sway of her hips when she walked away. “What music would you like to hear?” he called after her.

“Beatles.”

“Sure,” said Hank. It was a sure sign that everything was going to be okay.

By 3 o’clock Ron was ready to go home. He considered calling Rebecca and seeing if he could drop by her house on his way but dismissed the idea by telling himself that there really wasn’t much chance of getting laid on a Monday afternoon. Actually, he just wanted to talk with her but telling himself that there was no chance to have sex caused a loss of appetite for the meeting. He was almost out the door when he saw Chris Calvin wave in his direction.

“I came to your meeting. Are you ready for mine?”

“What meeting?” said Ron again appraising the attaché case that Chris never seemed separated from.

“The Student-Faculty Relations.”

“I’m not on that committee.”

“You are now,” said Chris. “It’s part of being an editor for the newspaper.”

“It’s a lot of work,” Ron replied, “ but I really dig it. It feels like it’s just got to be done.”

“Do you think we could do it just as well if we went to smoke a joint before the meeting?”

“Better,” said Ron.

“Do you think we should take anybody along with us?”

Ron wanted to say “no” but said, “Like who?”

“How about MacFibber and Lashly?”

Ron thought that sounded like pure lunacy. “Definitely not Lashly.”

“Okay,’ said Chris. “I’ll go ask Mac Fibber.”

Ron watched him walk back upstairs, feeling very uneasy. Maybe he would have been better off going to Rebecca’s.

Chris was back quickly. “MacFibber says that he couldn’t handle it but that we should go enjoy ourselves.”

Ron said, “Why would you want to take teachers with us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it would be better for them to be with us in a more relaxed atmosphere. It makes it harder for them to assert college policy later on. Besides they’re both dating students and seem like they’re different.”

“It would be harder for them to give out fucked up grades after they got stoned with us wouldn’t it?”

“That’s certainly true,” said Chris,” but it wasn’t exactly my point.”

“You wouldn’t even consider it if you’d been in Lashly’s class today.”
“This pot is special,” said Chris. “It’s really good. The story is that it’s supposed to have been blessed by the monks that grew it.”

Ron watched Chris light the joint without answering. What Chris said seemed childish, but he was curious. By the time they’d smoked it half down, Ron could feel a cold tingling in his spine. He tried to pass the joint and realized his motions had been slowed to the comical. “Holy Shit!” he said. Chris twirled his mustache and bobbed his head as he drove. Ron was sure that he couldn’t speak a word when he put out the roach. He was amazed that he could still sit up. “What was this stuff?”

“Pot,” said Chris, thinking about how he loved understatement.

“I have never been this stoned in my life.”

Chris pulled his car into his reserved spot in the faculty lot. “You’ll probably have to give some kind of summation about what The Commuter’s activities will be during the Moratorium.”

“I can’t talk,” said Ron, laughing in a bubbly way. “Will other people have to talk too?”

“I’m sure that everyone will talk sooner or later,” said Chris.

Ron stayed in his seat after they had parked. “Who’s going to be there?”

“Marvel for the administration, Lashly, MacFibber, Weinstein and Dougherty for the faculty and me, you, Patti Thomas and Bobby Albano, and Tim Potter for the students.”

Ron knew some of the students vaguely. Patti was the editor of the daily announcement sheet and conservative answer to his paper. Bobby was the manager at the radio station. Bobby had longer hair than almost anybody else at the school. It was difficult to have conversation with him because he was always ready to say that he was tired of listening to people’s bullshit. Ron had seen Bobby say it to three different people and each time he was grateful that he hadn’t been one of them. He didn’t know Tim Potter. He knew Lashly for sure and had heard people talk– including Lashly in this morning’s class–about MacFibber. Marvel just seemed to be this black dude who smiled a lot when he talked and the others were names he didn’t know. “How long do we have before the meeting?” asked Ron.

“We can go over whenever we want.”

Ron was very interested in studying the bulging greens of the hedges in front of them. A person would occasionally walk out from in back of them and get into a car. It seemed like a mystery. The scene was as peaceful as a painting and Ron was happy to be part of it. “Can we get out of the car?” he said.

“Sure,” said Chris and opened the door. They walked upstairs to the student council room.
“It feels good to walk,” said Ron. He laughed. “I mean my body moves so easily.”

The radio station was blasting the “Crown of Creation” album, and Ron felt like a tourist who was seeing everything for the first time. It reminded him of monologues he used to do from the back seat of the car when he was a little boy, especially when they were approaching Newark from the south. “On the right we have the famous New Jersey smokestacks. Notice the way they populate the air with tiny puffs. Coming up on the left, we have miles of oil barrels, one of the finest collections of oil barrels in existence. Here are rows of weeds that house an healthy army of rats, snakes, dead Mafia victims, and the flamingos of the Garden State, here only for summer engagements, and mosquitoes.”

Marjorie was laughing very hard and said, “Stop it,” in a way that wanted him to continue.

He continued. “If we’re lucky, we’ll see and ask him about swamp life. But wait! There’s a man, a bum no doubt, a stinking slob for sure, but remember we’re all equal in the eyes of the Lord. Let’s hold our noses and go over to speak to the unfortunate.”

“That’s enough,” said Marjorie, thinking he had gone too far and that she had a headache and his voice was beginning to grate on her.

“I think we’re late,” said Chris.

MacFibber nudged Lashly with his elbow when Ron and Chris entered the meeting. “Feel better?” he said to Chris as they sat down.

Bobby Albano got up and extended his hand to Chris from the student side of the table. “I’m drunk as a skunk, and I don’t care who knows it,” he said. The students huddled at their corner of the table and waiting for the missing faculty members to arrive.

Chris looked at Tim Potter, a smallish kid with a Kirk Douglas face and a deep voice, “Are you straight, Tim?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Tim with a smiling chuckle. “Micro-dot washed down with boilermakers.”

“Let’s go out to my car and have a quick drink,” said Bobby. “It’ll smooth everything right out.”

“Why don’t you do the talking Chris,” said Tim. “I mean you start things and we’ll all contribute where we’re able.”

“Where you’re able,” said Chris laughing. “I’ve been smoking this knockout pot all afternoon and, well, I’m gonna need a little more help than that.”

“Down with the ship!” said Bobby loudly. He raised a clenched fist and tossed his hair from side to side so that it looked like a long mop.

Weinstein and Dougherty had arrived. “Look at them,” said Lashly. “They’re like a group of natives preparing for battle.”

“There is something primitive –and very much to the point– about the motivations for their behavior that we have to discuss in regard to the Moratorium idea,” said Weinstein. “This situation could very easily get out of hand and be a political embarrassment to those of us in the educational community who have lent it our good names.”

“What situation are you talking about, Oliver?” said Lashly with an undercutting tone in his voice. “They’re going to take a day off. They want to educate people about the war. We’re probably going to split and argue over the way we intend to react to them. That’s the problem. They’re going to be rightly shown as having better organization and more leadership on this issue than we do, and probably on any other issue that they want to bring up.”

“That’s precisely what I’m talking about,” said Oliver Weinstein. “The administration will accuse us of encouraging them to go out on a limb.”

“Oliver’s really afraid of being called a Communist,” said Lashly

Weinstein bristled. His bald head and wrinkled face showed the lines of experience and wisdom that was trying to convey to this particular Southerner. “If you had to live through the times that I’ve endured you wouldn’t be so glib,” he said sternly.

Lashly felt the need to back off. “I didn’t say that your concern wasn’t legitimate.”

Bertrand Marvel, the administration’s representative, came into the room holding a clipboard. He was well manicured and smiling. “Do you think that we could get started, Chris?” he called to the four students standing in the opposite corner of the room. They broke their huddle, after a quiet count of three, imitating various monster walks. Chris did Count Dracula, Tim the mummy, Bobby the Hunchback and Ron did Frankenstein. They had planned the illusion to last to no more than a count of 1,000 and 3, hoping that no one would actually be sure if they’d seen anything. Patti Thomas was sitting quietly at the meeting table not saying a word to anyone. Ron couldn’t remember ever playing pranks like this before. When they broke their characters and sat down at the table, he was still uneasy.

The fourth member of the faculty, Ernestine Dougherty, literally recoiled at the sight of them. She stood and looked around at the assemblage. “I’m not sure that I should be here,” she said hesitantly.

“Sit down and relax,” said Oliver, who hadn’t been looking at them.

“Excuse me,” said Professor Dougherty. She turned and Patti leaned across the table to Chris and said, “That was cruel.”
“We were only playing,” said Chris, “come on.” Oliver put on his glasses and read the minutes of the previous meeting. He was upset about three things: he had just received the minutes that day; his account of the meeting and Marvel’s notes differed in significant areas; the meeting time and place for this gathering had been incorrectly listed. He claimed that these examples of “neglect” were part of the administration’s entire attitude toward the committee in particular, and to the students and faculty in general.

Marvel responded. “The only possible neglect was my own, which was surely unintended. I was of the opinion that having the minutes delivered today would put everything freshly into people’s minds. The mistake about the time and place was obviously an oversight, but since we’re here, a moot point– unless there’s a pressing obligation for someone that I don’t know about. You’ll have to be more specific about your other objection.”

“Instead of various proposals being attributed to individual faculty members, I think the cause of solidarity and uniformity would be better served by simply attributing them to the faculty.”

“Why’s that, Oliver?” said Mac Fibber.

The reason was plain. Weinstein’s name was plastered all over the minutes of the previous meeting.

“It is because I have no intentions of being set up. If that’s what you had in mind, you’d better try someone else.” He closed his faculty-student relations folder and sat back waiting to see what kind of reaction his statement would bring.

“I don’t think that anybody intends to set anyone else up,” said Marvel with his serious smile.

“I would have no problem lending my name to any of the proposals that came from this committee; that is, the faculty portion of the committee,” said Lashly. It was an effort at consoling Oliver Weinstein.

“The question that we’re all here to discuss,” said Chris easily, “is how much support the faculty is going to give us with the Moratorium. Is the faculty willing to take part in workshops and cancel classes for the day?”

“We can’t speak for the entire faculty,” said Oliver. “Since Professor Dougherty has chosen to leave, we are, in fact, even less representative than we were before. It is my belief that any suggestions we make along these lines will be resented by our colleagues.”

“What the fuck would ever please some of the assholes you’re talking about?” said Bobby Albano. Ron and Chris smiled and watched Patti stiffen. Tim kept a straight face.

“You are certainly entitled to think of them in any way you choose, but calling them ‘assholes’ surely won’t enlist their support.”
“I vote that we totally ignore the faculty,” said Tim Potter. No one responded.

“I don’t recognize this person,” said Weinstein looking at Ron and closing his folder for the second time.

Chris introduced him. “Ron’s the new editor of The Commuter.”

“Ron Tuck,” said Professor Weinstein. “I’ve heard it said that you are the Mark Rudd of this college, Mr. Tuck. Are you also an anarchist?”

“A what?” said Ron.

“The question is clear enough. Are you part of what’s being called the New Left’s fascism?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He’s just a student, Oliver,” said Mac Fibber with a nasal voice. “Aren’t you? Although he’s a particular kind of student. You’re a bit older.”

“I suppose,” said Ron.

“What have you been doing since you left high school?”

“This isn’t what we’re here for, Oliver,” said Lashly abruptly. “He’s one of my students. I guarantee you that he’s just as confused as the rest of them.”

“That’s not quite necessary or true,” said Chris darkly.

“I’m speaking figuratively,” said Lashly quickly.

Without acknowledging Lashly, Chris continued. “The first order of business on today’s agenda was the faculty’s response to our requests about the Moratorium.”

“The faculty has responded by saying that they feel the issue really doesn’t concern them,” said Weinstein in a dejected voice. “They took the position that classes are always optional and will continue to be held for those students who wish to attend them, unless the administration directs otherwise.”

“What a scared shitless copout that was,” said Bobby Albano. Ron, Chris Lashly and MacFibber started laughing. Marvel smiled. Weinstein shook his head in a further show of disgust. Patti sat there tensely without a sound or an expression.

“The administration is open to providing facilities for the workshops, as long as they don’t interfere with the normal class schedules. However, if faculty members choose to teach their classes along a particular theme, that is always their choice.”
“And will the administration be monitoring classrooms?” said Oliver Weinstein.

Marvel smiled and looked at Chris, who shrugged his shoulders. The Dean of Students looked over at Weinstein. “As far as I know, the administration has the right to do that any day they choose to do so.”

“You people all talk like your thumbs are stuck in each other’s assholes,” shouted Bobby suddenly. “I resign from this fuckin’ committee.” He got out of his chair.

“Take it easy,” said Chris.

“No good,” he screamed. “They’re all full of shit. We’ve been jerked-off by this committee for almost an hour, and I’m through wasting my time worrying about whether the administration is going to observe classes.” He pointed his finger at Oliver Weinstein. “Is he willing to worry about what’s going to happen to me if I get caught drinking a beer in the parking 1ot? Fuck no! He’s going to toddle through his days worrying about whether the integrity of education is offended by his body odor.”

“That will be quite enough,” said Oliver Weinstein.

“You’re finally right about something, Oliver. I don’t belong here.” He left.

Ron admired him but didn’t want to go with him. Ron stared at the door for a few seconds while nobody said anything. The tingling in his body had stopped and he was able to follow everything that was being said now.

“What do the students plan to do with the Moratorium?” said Marvel.

“I’m not sure that we want to talk about that right now,” said Chris. “If you’d like to schedule another meeting before the Moratorium and develop something of a consensus among yourselves, it would be difficult to get together but not impossible.”

“Why don’t you want to talk about what you intend to do?” asked Lashly.

“There’s no reason to discuss our plans at this forum. Considering the fact that the faculty has more or less absented themselves from taking any real part in what’s going on, I don’t see the point.”

“What you’re saying is detrimental to the spirit of an educational community,” said Lashly.

“If you’d like to have some further discussions with other members of the faculty, we can have another meeting.” Chris looked directly at Oliver, closed his folder and returned it to his briefcase.

“I’m willing to discuss it further, if we’re going to talk seriously,” said Lashly.
The meeting was adjourned with the idea that Marvel would coordinate the time and place for another meeting in the next couple of days.

Ron was home eating dinner when he got a call from Rebecca.

“Hi, Ron.”

“Hi, how are you?” He felt lucky that she was calling him at all.

“I’ve been thinking about you all afternoon. How did your meeting go?”

“Things are pretty confused and crazy but I guess they’re going all right.”

“What are you going to do tonight?”

“I’m supposed to write an article for the newspaper.”

“Do you want to do it down here while I’m doing my homework?” There was an unmistakable overtone of sexuality in her voice.

“I can be there in a bout an hour,” he said. He was at least gonna spend part of the night squeezing a nice set of tits and from the sound of her voice on the phone, who knew what else might happen. He thought about stopping at the drug store to buy some rubbers, but the phrase “like taking a shower with your socks on” stopped him. He told himself that he probably wouldn’t need one anyway. His mug-hot book memory settled on Jade’s tight-lipped stare, and he decided that he might be better off if she didn’t want to sleep with him. He brought his half filled dinner plate into the kitchen and headed for the bathroom.

“That’s all you’re going to eat,” said Marjorie.

“I want to be thin,” said Ron. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Now?”

“I’m going out.”

“When do you study?” she yelled through the door.

“At school,” said Ron. “Why are you picking on me?”

“I thought you left IBM to get an education?”

“I did and I am,” said Ron.

“Let’s go over to Myrtle and Ernie’s for dinner,’ said Jo Lee.

Hank grimaced and continued to grimace until he shuddered. He could smell the dogs and see the Ernie chairs piled up around the house. “I can’t do it. Not there.” He knew he couldn’t willingly get into his car and drive over there.

“What would you rather do?” She had almost expected this kind of reaction because she knew how he felt about them, but if she had to go and visit his mother, she could drag him over to her sister’s.

“I would rather do anything, anything else.”

She didn’t answer. They each took a shower. Afterwards, she asked, “Want to go to New York City and eat at a French restaurant?”

“That would be fine,” said Hank.

They drove to the city in a happy mood. Neil Young’s “When You Dance” led the way. The rush hour traffic had just cleaned out and the night belonged to them.

“What were you like as a little boy, Hank?”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. What the youngest you can remember?”

“Eleven,” said Hank.

She laughed hard. “That old? Maybe you weren’t born the normal way, Hank. Maybe you’re a Martian.” She seemed carried away by her own giggles . “Do you think you’re a mutant, Hank?” She laughed harder. “I’m sure that you’re a mutant.”

At first he felt offended but eventually began to laugh along with her. “I always liked my favorite Martian when I was a kid.”

“You mean the show where the guy sprouts little antenna?” said Jo Lee. “You know where I saw that show for the first time? I was in a hotel room with this boy named Mickey. We were on vacation with our parents, and he and I snuck back to the room when we knew they wouldn’t miss us. He had the weirdest thing…” She stopped. “Hank, does it bother you when I talk about other guys?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Of course not,” she said laughing again. “You’re a Martian.

The car went through the tunnel and her transformation was immediate and complete. She’d forgotten to tell him that she’d much rather go over the bridge. She curled up into a ball and timidly reached for his hand. She brought it to her mouth and sucked lightly on her index finger. Hank had never seen her react like this before. He squeezed her hand and didn’t ask any questions. By the time they’d left the tunnel, he loved her more deeply than ever before. He asked himself what her childhood must have been like to cause her to react this way.

Ron made it to Rebecca’s in record time. When he didn’t think about the bashed-in trunk, he had to admit that he liked the way the car rode. She had her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Ron didn’t like the effect. It enhanced her little girlishness and revealed two more zits on her face. He liked it better when she looked full grown.

“Where are we gonna work?” said Ron hoping for immediate isolation from the Ranelli clan.

“Up stairs,” said Rebecca, showing her dimples.

“In your room?”

“No, in the attic.” he leaned against the fold-down ladder with a dreamy look. “This place was always very special to me. It’s where I used to go to be alone.”

Ron was anxious to get upstairs before he was intercepted by any of the Ranellis. The A-shaped attic had been furnished, carpeted and filled with enough stuffed animals and pillows to give it the appearance of a cross between a sheik’s den and a dollhouse. “It’s really quiet up here,” she said. Ron had just shaken his head in agreement when he felt someone shake the ladder and call up to them.

“Becky,” Ron recognized the kimono’s voice. “Would you like some brownies and coffee?”

“Do you want some coffee, Ron?”

“Do I ever say no to that?”

“I’ll come down and get it, Ma.”

She was gone a while and Ron settled into work on the article. She came back carrying a tray filled with fruit, cake, brownies, rolls, and cold cuts and a pot of coffee. “My mother gets insulted when people don’t eat,” she said, smiling.

“She probably jealous because they’re not fat,” he said

Rebecca didn’t like the comment at all. Her mother was generous with food and Rebecca had been raised to think it was important to be that way. “Why are you always so critical?”

“What do you mean?”

“Forget it.”
“I hate that,” said Ron dropping his spoon onto the tray for emphasis.

“Hate what?” said Rebecca with a glare.

“When people tease me. You know start to say something and then don’t finish it like it’s some sort of big mystery.”

“I don’t understand you. You can be really nice. Then it’s like you see yourself being nice and have to do something to change it.”

He spread his arms in a show of innocence. “What do I do?”

“Let’s not argue,” said Rebecca. “Let’s get to work.”

Ron lit a cigarette and tried to think about the article. He drew a blank, not an image, not a word. He looked over to see what Rebecca was doing. History. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d opened his history book, or his math book, or his psychology book. He’d dropped his language class so he wouldn’t have to walk around with the sinking feeling that he was sure to fail one. He tried to get back to work.

About forty-five minutes later, he had a draft of something that spoke in general terms about people’s need to become educated about the war. He liked the ending that he’d penned. “The only serious question that we must ask ourselves, is whether the good life is worth the slaughter. If your answer is yes, then all I can say is that some day I hope to be looking to slaughter you.” Ron reread it. It was very short, but all he really wanted to say was contained in that one line. It was the truth. He felt it with every part of him while he looked around Rebecca’s playroom.

He leaned back and watched her as she read. He thought it was odd the way her mind seemed only able to go so far with things.

After that something happened. It was like she went on overload. A voice inside reminded him that she would probably earn better grades than he would this semester. If grades are all I’m really interested in, I might as well go back to IBM and get evaluated every six months.

“What are you thinking about?” said Rebecca, noticing that it had been some time since he’d been writing or staring at her chest.

“IBM,” said Ron. He tried to catch her reaction. People always reacted to his association with the company. He thought he saw her eyes widen a little but nothing more.

“It seems strange that you came from there.”

“Don’t I look like the type?” he said with a conceited grin.

“It’s not that. It makes you seem like you should be more experienced than you are.”

Ron took her in his arms. “Don’t I seem experienced?” He decided that the last line of the article was a good one.

“Not really.”

Ron flinched and let go of her. “You’re so abrupt,” she said. Ron got gloomy as instantly as a damp cellar. Rebecca was sorry that she had hurt his feelings. She hadn’t planned for the evening to go this way. She looked around for some way to give things a different tone. “Do you want to listen to some music?” she said.

She got the reaction she was looking for. His scowl instantly disappeared and was replaced by curiosity. She smiled. “Let’s take a look.”

Ron settled on a Byrds album because it had two Dylan tunes that he wanted to tell her about. She didn’t bother to point out that it was her record as they talked. After “Mr. Tambourine Man” was finished, he said, “Did you ever want to die?”

“No,” said Rebecca. “I don’t even feel like I’ve begun to live yet.”

“I’ve dreamed of being dead a lot of times.”

She squinted her eyes. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Ron, “I’m pretty crazy, you know. I’ve been through three shrinks.”

Rebecca squinted again. She wasn’t sure if he was making it up and if she really should be seeing this person. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing contagious or harmful to anyone but myself,” he said, thinking that she wouldn’t think he wasn’t experienced now.

Rebecca was curious in a way she hadn’t felt before. She wondered why he was troubled. She wondered if she was fated to be the one who helped him. She wanted him, at that moment, to need her. She felt Ron squeeze her right breast and said, “You like to touch them, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to see them too?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Turn your back a second.” She unbuttoned her blouse and slipped her breasts from their halter. She took hold of one in each hand and held them up, hoping he would be gentler this time. “Ron,” she said. Ron turned around and gaped. They looked great. He lowered his mouth onto the one he’d been squeezing. Rebecca thought he looked just like a little baby. She leaned back and let go of the breast in his mouth and continued to stroke the one he hadn’t gotten to. Ron sucked for all he was worth, wondering if he was doing it the right way and hoping it was getting her hot. He wanted her to touch his prick. Everything had been one sided up until now. If she would just rub his cock one time, it would be indescribably good. His crotch began to look for her hands to rub against, but it was too awkward when he located them. He let the tit come out of his mouth, leaned across her body for the other one and pulled it to him like it was made out of rubber. He straddled her knees and lowered his starch stiff cock onto them. The feel of her legs against his jeans made him quiver. He rubbed harder. Rebecca though he looked comical and was having trouble not bursting out in the gale of giggles that swirled around inside of her. He moaned and it was more than she could take. Because Ron was suctioned to her chest, he didn’t know what the shaking of her body was. He thought that she must be very excited and maybe even having an orgasm. He sucked steadily and waited for her to touch him. Then he heard her laughing.

He popped away from her and got off the couch. “What’s that matter?”

“I don’t know,” she said trying to compose herself. “Maybe I’m just not in the mood for this tonight.

He wanted to tell her that she looked stupid sitting there laughing with her tits hanging out and that he didn’t care if she touched his cock or not. She probably didn’t want to anyway. She’d probably never touched a cock in her life, he told himself while he lit a cigarette and tried not to let her see him staring at her boobs. He pictured her sitting at a reception desk at IBM with her boobs hanging out. He pictured his boss walking in holding his morning coffee. “Good morning, Boobs,” said his boss. Boobs smiled and squeezed her pride and joys.

Rebecca closed up her blouse loosely and sat up.

“Do you want to hear what I wrote?” said Ron.

“Yes,” said Rebecca, thinking that he didn’t have too good a sense of humor and wondering why boys didn’t understand that seduction is silly and happy, too. He finished reading it to her and she said, “Why are you so angry?”

“I don’t know,” said Ron. “I guess it’s part of what I write about.”

“Don’t you ever write about other things?”

“Just things that are important,” said Ron. “You know,” said Ron, “I don’t spell that well, and I don’t have a good sense of grammar. It makes it sound pretty silly to want to be a writer, doesn’t it?”

She tucked in her shirt and sat up on her knees. “Did you always know what you wanted to do?”

“It changes,” said Ron. “Rebecca what’s going on with us?”

She took hold of his hands and stared at him intensely. “Ron, when a woman wants to be intimate, she let’s the guy know. A sign went on in his head. This was it. He began to breathe faster. “Tonight just doesn’t seem like the right time.” Ron stared at her and blinked. “It’s not that I don’t find you attractive.” She paused and could see that he was sulking. “Okay, don’t listen to me if you don’t want to.” She let go of his hands and began to gather up her books thinking that she hadn’t really gotten any work done.

Ron wanted to leave and it seemed like she was ready for the same thing. He inadvertently yawned. It was after 10 o’clock and he had to be back at school early in the morning and go to all of the classes he’d been cutting regularly.

Chapter 35

A bright sun shone on the morning of the Moratorium. Ron took it as a sign that the day was going to go well. At 9 a.m. he, the cartoonist and Laureen made a clandestine drop of five hundred Commuter issues at three local high schools. Everything went without a hitch. They simply walked in when they heard a change of class bell and left the materials in scattered piles around the hallways. They’d quickly tell anybody in the vicinity who looked cool to be sure that the word got around. They encountered several semi-startled teachers, one of whom Ron presented with a personal copy of the paper and a “just visiting” thrown back over his shoulder. Walking quickly, he made his way out the back door feeling like a commando.

The Moratorium program was in full swing when they got back to the college. Film clips by Viet Nam Vets Against the War were shown non-stop in the gym, followed by twenty-minute question and answer periods each hour. The social science teachers had come through in spades, providing a series of lectures that traced our history of involvement in Southeast Asia and projecting into the future, implications for global politics. A guerilla theater project was slated for the auditorium at noon, and the vets who still supported the war put on a program of opposing viewpoints in one of the larger classrooms.

The college was filled with strange, milling bodies. The snack bar and cafeteria ran out of food by noon and had to close. They reopened after some hasty and gleeful shopping. The administration took the occasion to set up a table outside the admissions office stacked with applications and booklets. Ron traveled from seminar to seminar with a notebook in which he made very few entries.

It seemed that he was always too busy to write anything down. He spent the day traveling alone and avoiding the newspaper room so that he wouldn’t come into contact with Julian’s wrapping ceremony. In his rush to get the last issue out, he’d neglected to assign any of the staff to cover any of the events. When the thought occurred to him, he dismissed the notion by thinking there was nothing he could do about it now. When he finally decided that it was safe to go to the newspaper room, he found it empty and untouched. He told himself that it was evidence that Julian was full of shit. The day had been successful. As far as Ron could figure, most of the faculty had canceled classes and were taking part in seminars that seemed to be happening everywhere or attending the ones at which their colleagues were speaking. Ron had even seen real newspaper people there.

Rebecca came into The Commuter room, and Ron felt uncomfortable about her being there. It didn’t seem like she belonged. He looked down into a group of pamphlets that were spread out in front of him and looked up again when she standing next to him.

“Are you very busy?”

“Not any more,” he said. “Do you want to get some coffee?”

“I can’t. I’ve got to go. I just wanted to stop by and say hello.”

Ron glanced back down at the group of things he’d been pretending to read and decided that he did want to read them. “Did you go to any of the seminars?”

“I went to see both groups of veterans,” she said.

Ron thought, “That’s all?” It sounded like she hadn’t taken full advantage of things.

“What did you go to see?”

Ron disliked the way she phrased the question. She made it sound like rides at a carnival. “I don’t remember everything. It seems like I was all over.”

“I know. Joan said that she saw you.”

“Who’s Joan?”

“One of my friends.”

“I don’t know her.”

“She knows you.”

“How?”

“A lot of people know you, Ron.”

He wanted to tell her how much he hated the idea that one of her friends had seen him and reported back to her. “Was I doing anything special when she saw me?”

“She didn’t say that you were.” Rebecca began curling her hair around her fingers. “Why? What were you doing today?” she said teasingly.

“What?” He escalated his voice so that his annoyance was unmistakable.

“I’ve got to go now,” said Rebecca.

She left the room and he began pacing. He lit a cigarette and headed to get some coffee. There were still plenty of people around but, for the most part, things were over. Laureen called to him from one of the snack bar tables. She was sitting with a guy that he didn’t know. When he arrived at the table, the guy stood up and said that maybe he would talk to her some other time. Laureen dismissed him and turned her attention to Ron. “So,” she said, “how are you doin’?”

“Good. Do you think any of those high school kids came?”

“Sure,” said Laureen. “A chance to get outta school with what they considered to be a good excuse. hey came.” She sounded like she was talking about a successful sale.

Ron didn’t think she was that pretty and he wasn’t even sure that he’d want to fuck her, but she was smart. “Are you doing anything on Saturday afternoon?”

“I don’t think so.” She looked at him sharply and wasn’t smiling.

“Did you know that the Jefferson Airplane was giving a free concert in Central Park?”

“I heard something about it.”

“Do you want to go?”

“All right.” She gathered her hair at one side of her face. He smiled his acceptance smile at her. She returned a quick grin that only drew her mouth into a momentary line, but the line never curved into the U of a smile. It just disappeared. He gathered that she had tried to smile.

“I’ll need to know where you live.” She drew a map on a napkin and explained how to get to her house. Ron didn’t pay much attention because directions never made any sense to him when people said them. He would just look at the map later and figure things out.

With that out of the way they talked about which people they both knew at the college. He noticed that her eyes lit up, and she was able to muster a smirk when he told her that Chris was one of his friends.

“He just tries to be everybody’s friend, doesn’t he?” she said, teasing.

“I guess so,” said Ron, feeling relegated. “I guess you also know Julian?”

“He introduced me to almost everybody I’ve met here.”

“He’s gonna love to hear that you’re going out with me,” said Ron.

“Why?” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Ron smiled but she wasn’t looking. Ron could have sworn that she’d seen the smile coming and deliberately turned away.

They both looked up when Chris trumpeted his “All right!” and sat down with a can of soda. He was bobbing his head emphatically. He lit a cigarette and began tapping his foot.

“Why are you always so antsy?” asked Laureen, laughing for what Ron thought was the first time in her life. It was a stuttering laugh that resembled someone pronouncing the word “oh” and getting stuck in the middle of it. Ron and Chris watched her laugh for a few seconds.

“I don’t know,” said Chris, looking at his tapping foot without stopping the rhythm.

“Have you seen Julian? He was supposed to meet me here but there’s no sign of him.”

“Oh yeah,” said Chris snapping his finger and sitting up straighter. “He called me upstairs before and said that if I saw you, I should tell you to give him a call at home.” Chris was surprised that he’d seen her and even more surprised that he’d remembered to deliver the message.

“Is something the matter with him?”

“I think he’s crashing again.”

“Well I better go call him.”

Ron watched her ass as she walked away. It was nothing either. “Do you know her good?” he said to Chris. “She’s a friend of Julian’s”

“I’m taking her out on Saturday.”

“Well, all right.” Chris snapped his fingers again. “What do we do now?”

“I’m too tired to do anything else today.”

“Do you want to get stoned?”

“Always.”

Ron followed Chris back to his house, saying that he would leave for home from there. Chris had a joint rolled, and they smoked it as he rolled another one, which he lit immediately.

“This is pretty good pot,” said Ron. Actually it had the taste of low grade Jamaican, but he was getting pretty high. “It’s not the same stuff we smoked the other day, is it?”

Chris shook his head sadly. “That’s all gone.”

“That’s the way it always is. You start getting used to something good and then it isn’t there anymore.”

“The good pot will start coming in soon,” said Chris.

“What do you mean?” Ron knew about summer droughts but he never made a connection between time of the year and quality.

“The crops will be in. They been harvesting for a little while already. You can tell by the number of seeds and the amount resin whether or not they were mature when they were cut. The stuff we’ve been getting has very little seed in it.” Chris picked up his guitar and was strumming it as he talked.

“I guess I really don’t know anything about it,” said Ron. “Do you know any Dylan songs?”

“A couple” Chris broke into a series of chords that were nothing to brag about.

“It Ain’t Me Babe.”

“Give it a try,” said Ron. He watched the way Chris’ hands moved on the guitar neck with admiration. It was a Fender Stratocaster, but Ron didn’t know it.

Chris stopped playing and plugged the guitar into an amplifier. “Did you take lessons?” said Ron.

“2 years.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“Watch.” He played a scale. Then he played another. And another. “After two years this was what I was still doing.” He began to sing, “Go away from my window…” He shook his head. “What comes next?”

“Leave at your own chosen speed.”

“Leave…” he stopped again. The chord hadn’t sounded right. He tried again. “Yeah, that’s it. Leave at your own chosen speed.” He couldn’t remember anything past the first verse, but he played it three times and Ron was satisfied.

“Did you ever play?” said Chris.

Ron thought about Stanky Delvello. The guy was a midget. Ron had gone to his music shop to learn how to play the piano. He loved it and practiced whenever he could, but the problem was that nobody he knew owned a piano. He rented time on the one in back of Stanky’s shop, but it got too expensive and they never heard him play anything that resembled anything. They thought he probably wasn’t any good.

At one point, Ron tried drawing a keyboard on toilet paper. It took over an hour and it ripped immediately. The solution was simple; they got him an accordion. He told Marjorie and Stanky that he liked it alot. The truth was that he hated it more than anything else he’d ever seen in his life. It wheezed and reminded him of being sick. He found excuses to drop it and knock it over but the thing was as durable as steel. Then he just wouldn’t practice anymore. He told them that he wanted to play the saxophone. The doctor said that because of his asthma it was out of the question. So they gave him a coronet. He felt like he was in the army and practiced by waking them up with it. He tried the trombone briefly but bent the slide during a tantrum in his second week of practice.

“No,” he said, “I don’t play anything, but I love music.” Ron listened as he played soft blues riffs. “You need calluses for the guitar, don’t ya?” It was the one thing he knew about playing the instrument.

“Yeah, but they don’t hurt.”

“The real question is how they feel on tits,” said Ron with a mock seriousness.

“I’ve never had any complaints,” said Chris.

“Ah, but what about compliments.”

Chris broke into an instrumental version of “As Tears Go By” and Ron said, “How far can I go with the newspaper before I get into real trouble?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke, right?”

“Within reason.” Chris played as they talked for a long time. Finally, he said, “What are you going to do now?”

“Head on home, I guess.”

“Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve got to get some reading done for class tomorrow.”

“Are you going out with Rebecca tomorrow?” said Chris.

“Maybe.”

“I think I might take Patti out.”

“The girl from the meeting?”
“She’s friends with Rebecca, “Do you want to do something together?”

“That might be ok.”

“Where does she think you’re taking her?”

“I haven’t asked her yet.”

Patti was not the type of girl he would have pictured Chris with. Ron figured he had his pick of anybody he wanted and Patti had stiffened up every time Bobby had said anything off color. She looked okay but she wasn’t spectacular and there was surely no hope of getting laid anytime soon. “When do you think you’ll ask her?”

“Why don’t you call Rebecca and give me a call back later,” said Chris. “Otherwise there’s a party on Saturday night that I know she’ll be at. Want to take a ride down there with me?”

“Sure,” said Ron a little bewildered.

He was relaxed on the ride home. He pictured news of the Moratorium going out to each of the houses he drove past. He pictured families in heated discussions about the necessities of other wars. Then he pictured the responses of people from his generation talking about the horror of present and future wars. He pictured himself saying, “What do these people want that’s so different from what we wanted when we became a country?” There’s was never an answer to that. Older people just shook their heads and said that things weren’t like that now.”

Chapter 36

“Explain the difference between what is public and what is private.” Lashly divided a board into two panels and placed the key words on either side. Ron had finished the assignment but saw no connection between it and the question.

“Private is what you don’t want people to know and public is what it’s okay for them to know,” said the long-haired blonde kid who was always talking.

A brown-haired girl who wore a cape with a playboy insignia on it said, “Private is what you feel inside. Everything else is public.”

The girl with the longest red hair Ron had ever seen, said, “I don’t agree with that. My family knows a lot of things about me that I wouldn’t want to see published in a newspaper or even mentioned in this class.” Irene turned around to watch her when she spoke.

“If, at a party this weekend, your father turns to you in front of all his friends and allies and asks you how much you love him, what would you say?”

“That it was a stupid question,” said the redhead.

Lashly laughed. “Why would you call it stupid?”

“Because he should know how much I love him and not embarrass me like that.” The girl was almost indignant, and Ron agreed with her. Then she said, “I’d tell him, I guess.”

Lashly wasn’t finished. “Would you give him your private or your public answer?”

“What do you mean?”

Lashly returned to the board. “What is the difference between what is public and what is private?” No one’s hand went up.

He let the question sit like a fog moving in with the twilight. He lit his pipe and wandered over to the windows. Ron hadn’t taken his eyes or concentration off what was going on for a second. He was convinced that every action was in some way a tie into what he was talking about. “All right,” said Lashly, “let’s drop back some. A parent owes a child certain obligations. What are they?”

The tension was relieved when several people contributed with easy, rapid fire answers. Ron didn’t say anything. He waited to see if everything he thought of was brought out. It was. It surprised him. You could sit there quiet sometimes and still get your point represented. “Okay” said Lashly. “Now let’s go the other way. What obligations do children owe to their parents?”
The blond kid pointed to himself and said, “What do we owe them?”

Lashly sucked on his pipe and smiled condescendingly. “You got the idea.”

“I know what I owe my old man,” said the kid making a ‘one of these days I’m gonna get good and drunk and give it to him’ fist.

Lashly threw back his head and laughed his horse laugh. “That’s very good.” He picked up the tempo by speaking quickly. Ron watched about six quick words go up. “Is that all?” said Lashly rhetorically. “I guess so. Let’s see the hands of the people who put their answers on this side.” A group of hands, five female, one male, lifted into the air. Lashly made mention of it.

Ron stuck up his hand. “What’s that supposed to mean to us?”

“I suppose it could mean that women have a stronger sense of family responsibility than men do.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Ron.

“Well just hang on for a minute there and we’ll see if we can make sense of it for you.”

Lashly never returned to Ron’s point. Ron waited for there to be some coming back to it for the rest of the class. The last minutes were taken up with a reading of the “Nothing will come of nothing” exchange that occurs during the first act. Ron felt tricked when the class ended. He told himself that what he’d said was too much trouble for Lashly to deal with.

“I decided on a topic for the theme of my paper.”

“Hadn’t you already decided on something?” said Lashly.

“No,” said Ron.

“What is it?” he stuck his pipe in his mouth and fumbled for his matches.

“I want to write about how different writers have reacted to wars,” said Ron proudly.

“What writers and what wars?” Lashly was leaning back in his chair and smiling at Irene who sat at her desk bolding up a book.

“What about people who are still alive and this war?”

“Nobody has really written about this war yet,” said Lashly.

“What about Dylan and Ginsberg?” said Ron like he held a trump card.

“Dylan’s not a poet at all, and Ginsberg’s second rate at best.” Lashly knew, of course, that several other writers had written about Viet Nam, but he was almost certain that Ron didn’t and the lesson was to have him work hard at something.

Ron thought about how to tell him that he thought he was a jerk-off. He decided to deal with the Ginsberg thing first. After he told him what he thought of his comment about Dylan, there wouldn’t be a lot more to say. “What do you mean by second rate?”

“He’s an imitation of Whitman and he’s not as good,” Lashly said crossly. He leaned forward and tamped down his pipe.

Ron remembered that Whitman had written a long thing about himself. Ron had been told to read it in high school, but it was confusing and he didn’t read it. Ginsberg was in the flesh now though. His brain was alive and reaching for answers that hadn’t been discovered. That was true of Dylan also. What he thought about The Civil War wasn’t going to change anything, but if more people didn’t wake up real the fuck soon. “Look man,” said Ron as Lashly sneered. “Ginsberg is a goddamned good poet and you just don’t understand Dylan at all.”

Lashly studied him quietly. “So what you want to write is a piece of research comparing Dylan and Ginsberg’s positions on the war?”

“Sort of,” said Ron. It sounded like what he wanted to do. But the way Lashly pronounced Dylan’s name left him feeling sure that they didn’t have the same thing in mind. Lashly made him sound stupid and taken for granted.

“I think it’s beneath your capabilities and that you really won’t learn anything but go ahead.”

Ron stared at his shoes. It was difficult for him to say, but he mumbled out, “Is there something else that you want me to do?” He looked up in time to catch Lashly grinning over at Irene. Anger flared up again but it was confused by the sense of embarrassment that he was feeling. He clenched his fists. He needed to hit something – the blackboard, the wall, anything to keep from hitting Lashly, he told himself. He couldn’t act like he used to. He remembered the time at D’Amato’s bowling alley back in Newark. He hadn’t thrown a strike when he needed to and lost the game for his team. The other team cheered when he put the ball right in the pocket and left a five-pin. “No ball,” they screamed. Ron headed for the stucco wall and pounded it until everybody was quiet. He put a large hole in the wall and his hand was dripping blood onto the alleys when he came back over to his lane. His friend Billy came over with a towel and told him to wipe his hand. Ron was surprised when he saw the blood. “You’re a fuckin animal,” said Billy.

“The topic has to be yours,” said Lashly.

“Look, I’ll just redo the other paper, ‘ said Ron.

“That’s fine,” said Lashly grinning. Ron hadn’t wanted to return the grin, but he did, without knowing why he was grinning.

On his way back to the newspaper room, he was stopped by Dean of Students, Marvel. He looked well groomed as always. “Ron, can I see you in my office for a few minutes?”

“Do you mind if I get some coffee first? I’m really draggin’, you know?”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” said Marvel.

The same smile that Ron had left him with still seemed to be on his face when Ron came into Marvel’s office holding his container. “Would you close the door, Ron?”

Ron sat down and took his pie slice out of his container lid. He wanted to be sure not to spill any coffee in Marvel’s office. “Do you know anything about this last issue of “The Commuter” being brought over to Westfield, Cranford, and Union High Schools?”

“I don’t think so,” said Ron. “It looked like there were a lot of high school students here and ‘The Commuter’ is free to anybody who takes it.”

“All three principals said that large bundles of the paper were brought into their schools on the morning of the Moratorium. They attribute the abnormal number of cuts they had to the paper’s unauthorized presence.”

“It would have been better if they’d canceled classes and sent their students over to learn something,” said Ron quickly. He took out his cigarettes and lit one. Marvel watched him light it. “Do you have an ashtray?” said Ron.

Ron took a drag on the cigarette and before he realized what he’d done, blew smoke at Marvel. “I think our discussion is over,” said Marvel without a smile.

Surprised by what he’d done, Ron left the office without saying another word. He saw a no smoking sign hung on Marvel’s wall. He wondered if he was in trouble. Marvel seemed to know that he’d done it.

Hank and his mother sat in silence at the kitchen table. She had been reading a book when he arrived. It lay face down on the table. She stared at the cover. Hank was watching her with a sense of calm within him. At the very quiet times, when they were alone, he liked her company. “Are you going to stay for dinner, Hank?” she asked without looking up.

His watch read barely 1:30. “I don’t think so.”

“Have you decided when you want to go back to school yet?” she whispered, sounding to Hank like a kitchen librarian.

“Maybe in January.”
“You know how your father and I feel about your education.”

Hank shook his head. “It’s not going to be a problem.”

Her face was pudgy and smooth. She had no chin. “Aunt Margaret was asking for you.”

“How’s Aunt Margaret?” he said in the sarcastic voice he always used when he talked about any of his relatives. She used to like it that he wasn’t taken in by them, but now it made her want to cry.

“I don’t like Aunt Margaret much either,” she whispered.

“You never did,” smiled Hank.

“She gave me $50 for you and Jo Lee.” Hank’s face got bright, and she stared into his eyes. “Are you really married to this girl?”

“Yes.”

She looked back down at the cover of the book and handed him two envelopes. One had Aunt Margaret’s $50. The other had $40 in it. That was from her. It was a $90 visit. His value was on the rise. Hank, your father wants to know if you want him to find you a job?”

“A job? With him?”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” said Hank firmly.

She agreed. “But what should I tell him?”

“That it’s too far for me to travel.”

“I know.”

“Tell him OK, he’ll believe that,” said Hank’s mother.

Hank went into his old room to look around. She had already there. She fills up any crevice that doesn’t get used daily. Everything could be a closet. His father said that she’d always been like that. She would visibly squirm when he asked her about it. Hank saw his bowling ball in the bag and looked at it with disdain. “At least I’m not taking that with me ever again.”

On his way home, he stopped off and bought Jo Lee a pair of lace silky panties and a bottle of champagne. She was never sleepy when she just got home from work, and he was going to wait up for her.

They could live it up on the $20 he’d brought home when her days off came.
Ron heard the phone ringing as he opened the door. He heard Marjorie say, “Who’s calling please?” in the voice that meant it was for George or him.

“I’m home,” he called from the hallway.

“All right Chris, I’ll have him call you when he gets here.”

“I am here,” said Ron holding out his hand for the phone.

She waved him away and said, “So long.”

“What did you do that for?”

“I’m expecting an important call. You can call him back later.” She looked at the name she’d written. “Do you know him?”

“He’s the President of the Student Council,” said Ron trying to make the title sound as important as possible.

“He sounds like a little kid on the phone.”

Ron’s face hardened. “What call are you waiting for?”

“The place I called for dinner reservations tomorrow night said they would have to call me back to verify our seating.”

“That’s the important call?” He turned around and started to walk back out of the house.

“Where are you going?” she called.

“To use the phone booth on the corner,” said Ron dejectedly.

“Wait a minute. Here’s $5. Get me a box of Kotex from the drugstore.”

He stared at her in disbelief. Why did she do things like this to him. He’d never understand. He felt like she was making him into a pretzel. “I got to get outta here,” he said as he walked to the corner.

Chris had called to say that Rebecca and Patti had everything all set up. “Far out,” said Ron. Then he felt stupid for having said it. “Where do you want to go?”

“The traditional movies or bowling alley,” said Chris.

“They’re both fine.” It would be great if Chris picked bowling.

“You and I are picking them up at Rebecca’s house. I’ll drive,” said Chris. “Come on over whenever you want. We’re supposed to meet them at 7:30.”

Chapter 37

Ron drove to Chris’ house feeling a little strange about never having discussed the date with Rebecca. He wondered if he should have called her to check things through, but he hadn’t thought of it until he was on the road. She seemed secondary to the evening. I’ll tell her that it seemed romantic and exciting to meet her without having spoken to her first, he thought. Then he thought that if he said that it would be the first time he’d ever made up anything that stupid.

They’d smoked two joints by the time they got to Rebecca’s. Rebecca answered the door, and Ron greeted her with a stoned smile plastered on his face. He could see Patti standing at the other end of the room scratching one of her hands with the other. Chris hung off to the side and out of sight from the doorway.

Ron noticed that Rebecca was wearing these earrings that sparkled in the light. He thought they looked kind of stupid. “Hi,” she said. “Are you guys gonna come in, or do you want to leave right away?”

“I don’t know,” said Ron.

“Let’s split,” said Chris.

“Hi Chris,” said Rebecca with a charming smile. “Okay, we’ll be right back.”

“I hate parents,” said Chris.

“They never like me either,” said Ron.

“The worst.”

They were still consoling each other when the girls came out onto the porch. Ron couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was a little off and out of place. He was too old or not the right blood type or something. Patti and Chris fell into step behind Ron and Rebecca. “Where are we going?” said Rebecca.

Ron didn’t answer. It wasn’t like him to not have a solid plan, but this didn’t feel at all like one of his dates.

“What would you like to do?” Chris asked Patti.

“I don’t know.”

Ron thought that it might be the first time he’d heard her speak. He didn’t care what they decided to do as long as he could afford it.

“Nunzio and The Neurotic Nemesis is playing up in Morristown,” said Chris. “We could go catch some of that.”

“That sounds good,” said Ron. He was in the mood for live music.

“I would enjoy that,” said Rebecca.

“What about your vote?” Chris said to Patti.

“I don’t care,” she answered.

On the ride up to hear the band, Chris lit a joint and handed it to Patti. “This is pot!” she said loudly. She held it in front of her and stared at it. “I don’t take this.”

“That’s cool,” said Chris. “Pass it back to Ron. I think he’d like some.”

Rebecca was watching Ron closely as he took a hit on the joint. He stared back at her. “Do you want some?” She didn’t answer. “Does it bother you?”

“It’s not my decision,” said Rebecca.

Ron wondered why she had to express herself with such little cool. He wasn’t asking for her approval. He decided to offer it to her again.

“I don’t want it,” she said sharply. Ron wished they could dump the girls right there. He handed the joint back to Chris.

Jo Lee came home from work and found Hank sitting at the kitchen table with the champagne iced in a converted planter next to two glasses and a corkscrew. He’d wrapped the panties in fine, white tissue. “Hi,” he said cheerfully.

“Hi,” she said with a definitely restrained happiness. She walked slowly up to the kitchen table and didn’t sit down. She looked at the bottle and the tissue. “Would you mind giving it to me in the morning. I’m really tired right now.”

“Sure,” said Hank. He looked down at the bottle and the tissue. “What should I do with these?”

“We’ll have it for breakfast,” she said. She hugged him. “Come to bed with me, Hank.”

Once they settled into the double bed, Hank snuggled the covers over his shoulders so that he was warm and comfortable and they would stay there without him having to hold them. She was staring at the ceiling. “Hank, do you know how much I hate the job I do?”

Hank didn’t know what to say to her. Finally, he said, “Yeah, working sucks,” and went to sleep.
The date was a disaster. The music gave Patti a headache. Ron could think of nothing he wanted to say to Rebecca and even Chris stopped trying to perk the evening up when he realized it was doomed. On the way home Ron asked Rebecca if he should have Chris drop them at his car before he took Patti home.

“Patti is staying at my house,” said Rebecca.

“That figures,” said Ron before he was able to check himself.

“Your attitude is just wonderful,” she said.

“I’m glad you like it.” He’d been through enough of this. He didn’t care if she ever touched his cock.

There was a note on the table saying that there was something special in the refrigerator for them. It was Becky’s favorite box cake. Trying to manage a little privacy for Patti and Chris, Rebecca asked Ron if he would help her make some coffee. In the kitchen she imagined that Chris was asking her out. She would want to go out with him very much. She couldn’t figure out why he wanted Patti.

“What are you thinking about?” said Ron.

“Chris and Patti.”

Ron gave her a demeaning chuckle. Rebecca’s eyes flared at him. How crude he could be. It was almost as if no one had ever taught him anything. He stared at the floor for a long minute and then walked over and stood next to her at the counter. He blew in her ear. She flinched and moved a step away. “Things aren’t working out that great between us, are they?” he said grinning what he hoped was a sweet smile.

She turned to face him trying to remember what caused her to think this bastard was interesting. “No, they’re not.”

“I’m really fucked up,” he said in a self-pitying, bitter voice.

“The problem isn’t that you’re fucked up,” she said harshly. It was the first time he’d ever heard her use the word fuck. It intrigued him. “What do you mean?”

“We’re just different that’s all.” She’d been thinking about it for two days and it finally was clear enough for her to express. “We’re moving in different directions and rubbing each other the wrong way.”

“Oh yeah. Where do you figure you’re going?”

“I can’t talk to you at all any more.”

“That sounds like the solution to me,” said Ron.

Rebecca blinked. “What?”

“Let’s do it,” said Ron. He felt more confident with her than he had felt all week. “Let’s forget this… a…” He stopped and showed her a hard mask of a face. “What would you call what we have?” He spit the question at her with a voice that had lost all the restraint he’d been telling himself that he needed. He growled it.

Rebecca felt confusion. She had been more than prepared to let this thing go. It had only been a couple weeks. She hadn’t even slept with him yet. There had been a few good times when he brought her feelings alive with a tiny series of electric tingles that weren’t exactly in her body and weren’t exactly in her head. “I don’t really feel that we should be talking like this while we have friends over,” said Rebecca.

She’s treating me like I’m her fuckin’ husband, thought Ron. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

They had their coffee and cake with a smooth dullness. Each of them directed conversation at Patti and Chris and were very polite. They got in the car to leave and Chris said, “Pretty boring, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. By this time he was just happy to be out of there. He would feel even less restricted when he had access to his own car. He thought affectionately about it. For all the abuse he’d heaped on the thing, it was coming through for him in spades. It was true that he’d never come up with a combination of ropes and wires that lasted for more than a couple days, but that was cosmetic. The important thing was that it never kept him from going anywhere.

“I feel like driving down to the ocean,” said Chris.

“When? Now?”

“Maybe not. Do you want to see if the frat party is still going on?”

“By now they should be drunk enough to be puking on each other, right?”

Chris laughed. “Some of them probably will be.”

“Yeah, I don’t care, let’s go.”

The party was at the Pi house in Roselle Park. Ron was amazed at how everybody seemed to know Chris so well. The living room fireplace bulged with a pile of empty cans that extended up the chimney. Four frat brothers were lying across two couches with beer cans in their hands. They weren’t talking or moving. Chris and Ron moved into the kitchen where an argument was progressing about whether the girl upstairs was spending the night.

“That whore has been bangin’ away up there since 11 o’clock,” said Bill who let a slight trail of beer dribble out of his mouth as he talked. “The bed is going to stink of cunt as it is. Real nice for Judy and me.”

Dave looked up from the Formica table with a tired disgusted expression. “Did you really expect to be able to spend a quiet night here with a party going on.”

“I don’t give a shit about the party. I’m paying a full rent and I want the room now!” he banged his fist on the table.

Dave didn’t look frightened. “I don’t know what to tell you. Chris,” he waved. “Come on in.”

“This is a friend from school. Ron Tuck,” said Chris.

Dave gave Ron a funny look. “The radical press, huh?”

Ron didn’t respond, but Bill wove his way over to him.

“You gonna write a story about how there’s no niggers here either?” Ron tensed and wondered if he should get the first shot in. He clenched his fists and hardened his face. He knew he could take this guy.

Dave stood up and moved in front of Bill. “Go back downstairs. You’re drunk and somebody’s probably down there playing with Judy’s tits, or trying to, while you’re up here fucking around.”

“This ain’t an open party,” said Bill. “What are these guys doin’ here?”

“They’re my friends,” said Dave. “We both lived at the shore house with Chris last summer.”

“You know I’m not talking about Chris.”

“Just go on downstairs.”

“Fuck everybody,” said Bill and slunk downstairs.

“The party’s really just about over anyway,” said Dave. They drank a beer and left. Ron was glad when they were back in the car. “Tonight was one huge success,” he said glumly.

“Fuck it,” said Chris. He rolled down the window to let the cold air in. Ron breathed deeply. Chris looked out at the clusters of suburban homes that spread for miles on all sides of them. “None of the people in these homes really want anything to change,” he said

“Then they’re useless,” snapped Ron.
“They’re just happy with what they have.”

“The price of what they have gets paid by other people who got nothing,” said Ron darkly.

“That may be true,” said Chris.

After Ron got home, he rolled a joint and went to bed. It was more of a ritual than a need to get any higher. He tried to sum up his relationship to the universe without the aid of a list or a common set of symbols. There may have indeed been a language through which he communicated with the images in the dark back yard, but he was never more than fleetingly aware of them. Whenever he tried to go back to what he thought was established between them, it changed. The eyes he stared with tonight would have made almost anyone ask him what the matter was, but he found a sense of comfort inside the dramatic intensity. The screen felt cold on his nose. When he blinked, his eyelashes brushed the wire. If I could just learn to be quiet, he told himself. Then the mood was broken and he went to sleep.

Jo Lee was gone when Hank woke up the next morning. The note said that she’d gone to her sister’s and would see him later. He went to the refrigerator to look for the champagne. It was untouched. Somehow, he wished she’d taken it with her. He drank a slow cup of coffee and chain-smoked until his sinuses began to clear. The slow moving mucus made its glacier-like move down the back of his throat until he could taste it. It would finally gag him, and he would run to the bathroom to spit it out. Then he’d return to the chair and repeat the process. An hour later he was ready to move around. He was usually sick to his stomach by then. Most of his days began like this, except for when he’d first gone to live with Jo Lee. It had almost completely disappeared. Now it happened every day again.

When he explained it to her, she screwed up her mouth and said, “That’s disgusting. I thought that you just got the shits.” After that, he tried to hide it from her whenever he could. If he could just stuff himself with enough coffee and tobacco, he could get along without it being noticeable, next to the pain in his chest that he got from all the coffee and tobacco. It might not have been the best solution but the operation to correct the problem was painful and Hank’s parents had convinced him that he didn’t need it because eventually it would just go away. Besides he didn’t ever seem to complain about it any more. Hank had learned to use it to keep them from coming around him. He could always drive them off by bringing up the presence of the slime. “The mucus,” he would say, putting his hand up over his mouth and nose. They would scurry off. He mostly used it to gain access to the bathroom where he could sit and wait for them to go out.

Chapter 38

Ron called Larueen to check on their date for The Airplane in the Park but got no answer. After the fourth call, he realized that he’d been stood up. He told himself that he really didn’t have enough money to be going to New York for any reason. He told himself that he was better off. She had only smiled at him one time in their whole conversation. That was probably why she was Julian’s friend. He wondered if Julian was behind him being stood up and decided that it wasn’t important. He was supposed to call Rebecca today anyway.

He spent the morning rewriting his paper. After a few hours, he felt good about the changes he’d made. It was closer to the way he saw things in his head than anything else he’d ever written. It bore a relationship to what he actually thought and described the process that brought him to his conclusion. It didn’t exactly look slick, but it sure as hell wasn’t sloppy either. There was just this one problem he had with pronouns. He was staring at the page in a state of complete immobility because he had no idea of the difference between its and it’s, or to and too for that matter. At least he knew they weren’t pronouns. Finally, he picked up his notebook and threw it across the room. It knocked over a glass of old water.

“What was that?” called Marjorie from the kitchen. She knocked quickly on the door as she opened it.

“I dropped a glass,” said Ron. He sat encased in a pile of crumpled papers and pointed to the overturned glass on the other side of the room.

“Aren’t you going to clean it up?”

“It’s only water. It won’t do any damage if I let it soak in. In fact, if I drop an occasional glass on different parts of the rug, it will eventually get washed.”

“You’re a son of a bitch.”

“That’s right,” he yelled as she closed the door. He got up to pick up the glass. He knew this wouldn’t be the last of it. He reached into his laundry bag and took out a dirty tee-shirt and stomped it into the wetness with his foot. Marjorie came back into the room while he was in the middle of the operation.

“You’re a pig.”

“Would you leave me alone so that I can get some work done,” he hollered.

“What work? Crappin’ up the house?” She raised her volume.” George, come here and see what he’s doing.”

“I’m leaving,” said Ron. “I mean for good. The hell with college. I can’t take living with you. You treat me like I’m twelve years old.”

“You got it pretty damn good here. Twenty years old and he quits a good job to go back to school. To learn what? ‘I don’t know’,” she said mimicking his confusion.

“You win,” he said speaking very slowly. “I’ll lap up the water if you want. Just go away and leave me alone. You’re right. I quit a good job and I’m not sure why. So you’d better hope that it works out or you’re going to have to buy padding for the walls in this room.”

“No,” she snarled back. “You’re the one that will drive me crazy. Then you can come and visit me at Overbrook on Sundays, and you won’t have to worry about what I say and what I don’t say.”

It was a standoff. She walked away and George came into the kitchen yelling, “What the hell is going on here?”

She’d wanted him five minutes ago to help her make a point. “Nothing,” she snapped. “You don’t care what happens here.”

“What did I do?” hollered George.

“What do you ever do?” she snarled back.

He turned red and hollered louder. “Don’t be treating me like an animal because you had a fight with him.”

Marjorie started to cry. It succeeded in making Ron feel guilty. He cleaned the room and they left him alone. While he was on his knees changing the mattress sheet, Chipper came over and licked his face. The dog always needed to be reassured after they hollered. Ron finished the cleaning and went out. He walked to the corner booth and called Rebecca. She was formal. “I thought about us last night,” she said. “Thanksgiving vacation starts on Tuesday. Let’s take a vacation from each other until after that.”

“Let’s just not see each other any more,” said Ron quickly. He wasn’t in the mood for this shit either.

“If that’s what you want.”

“You’re not leaving me much of a choice,” said Ron.

“Do you want to come down and talk about this,” she said.

“Not now,” said Ron. “I’ll call you again later if you want.”

“I don’t know,” said Rebecca. “I just don’t want to talk to you right now.”
“You called me!”

“Right,” said Ron, “Good bye.” He watched his hand hang the receiver up. He asked himself why he’d done that. He walked out of the booth and made a circle around it. He told himself that he was really going nuts.

Hank spent the day calculating the diminishing time he and Jo Lee had left before it was time for her to leave for work. She didn’t show up. He realized she wasn’t coming and he felt hurt, then angry, and finally worried. This last condition was the easiest for him to cope with. He spent the evening wondering if he should go down to the club or try to call her there. At midnight he realized that the only movements he’d made all day, that weren’t connected with the bathroom, had involved sitting in all four of the chairs around their kitchen table. He grimaced for what seemed like an hour and went to bed. He couldn’t sleep but it was quiet and he didn’t mind lying there.

He heard her come into the apartment, and he heard that she wasn’t alone. The refrigerator door opened and closed, followed by the popping of the champagne bottle. He flinched like he’d been hit and a tear squeezed out of his eye. She came into the room and turned on the overhead light. “We’ve got company,” she said. He squinted his eyes and sat up. “Don’t pretend to be asleep.” She smiled her elastic smile. “Come out and have a drink.”

“Who’s here?” said Hank.

“Vic, the piano player from the club,” said Jo Lee.

Hank flashed on how he got sick down at the club. “Why is he here?”

“Come out and have a drink,” she said firmly. “We want to talk to you.”

Hank didn’t like the way it sounded. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten to the other side of the “we” she had mentioned. “I’ll be right out,” he said.

When they were all in the living room, Hank in the armchair and the two of them on the couch, Vic casually draped his arm around Jo Lee’s neck. She moved out from underneath it. Hank watched her. She leaned forward and rubbed her palms on her thighs. “Do you want to do something exciting, Hank?” She had a secret smile on her face.

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s all go to bed together.”

Vic grinned and brought his arm back around Jo Lee’s shoulder. Hank watched as she let him hold her. “Have you been sleeping with him?” he asked weakly.

“We’ve slept together.” Her secret smile was fading. She leaned back against Vic, who was lighting a cigarette with one hand. “Come on Hank.” she said dreamily, “don’t get weird. It would be fun.”

“I’m going out,” said Hank. He walked into the bedroom to change into some reasonable clothes. She followed him.

“Are you leaving me?” she said.

“It doesn’t seem like you want me around.”

“I’d do this for you,” she said.

“I’m sure you would,” said Hank. The prisms of light that reflected down from the overhead were bouncing off his glasses.

“Where are you going?”

“For a ride.”

“Do you want me to come with you.”

Hank was flustered. He didn’t know why she was doing this to him. Everything that was supposed to make him happy was ripping at the inside of his stomach. She had twisted everything.

“You wait here,” she said. “I’ll tell him to leave. She left the room closing the door. Hank plunked down on the bed and stared at his toes. He hoped that he’d speak softly so that he wouldn’t have to hear what they were saying. Where had he thought she was when she was sleeping with Vic. She had wanted to compare them, right in his and her bed. He got up like he wanted to get away from the thing. He went to the door and put his ear against it. He heard her laugh and say good night.

Hank drove the VW smoothly. He didn’t know where he was going. They hadn’t exchanged a word since she’d gotten rid of Vic. He thought maybe he could just drive until he died.

Jo Lee had begun to watch him. The blondish-red curly hair was more of an uncombed tangle that she’d ever seen it before. His glasses looked like handcuffs on his eyes. His shirt collar drooped down like a noose. In short, he looked unhealthy and disheveled. “I haven’t been any good for you, Hank”

“I guess not,” said Hank. “Give me a cigarette, will you?”

“You hate my cigarettes.”

“I just want one because they’re yours. I’m not sure how to get close to you any more.”

The voice that came out him was sad but calm. “I couldn’t have been any good for you either.”

“What am I supposed to think of myself when I do something like I just did to you?”

“When did you sleep with him?”

“Today.”

“Are you gonna sleep with him again?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a self-disgusted tone.

“Promise me that you won’t sleep with him any more.” Hank said it and knew that it was what he felt, but could not for the life of him figure out where the words had come from.

“Can I touch you?” she said. Hank held out his hand. She put it between her legs and closed her thighs on it. “Do you want to have a baby?”

Hank straightened up behind the wheel. He pushed his glasses further up on his nose, cleared his throat and said, “Yes, I do.”

“I needed to do this, Hank. I don’t know why. Some kind of sick test that I wanted to put you through. Hank, I want to be a good wife. I want to spend afternoons thinking about you coming home from work and giving me a good fuck. I can make you happy, but I can’t handle the feeling that you just sit around all the time.”

“I can start working for my father next week. I can work enough so that maybe you’d only have to work part time, but let’s get away from here. It doesn’t feel right around here.”

When they got back to the apartment, she sat him down with the face of a geisha and did a modest striptease for him. Then he pounded into her like a piledriver. The harder he fucked, the further apart she spread her legs until she had her heels locked behind the bed post and was chanting, “Do whatever you want to me, baby.”

Ron’s eyes opened and headed straight for the door to get the Sunday paper. He put on some coffee, lit a cigarette and settled down to read. Most of what he saw disturbed him. Articles about the necessity of victory in Southeast Asia made him feel desperate and angry. He wondered if young people in Greece and Rome had felt the same way when their countries had gotten perverted. When he could smell the coffee perking from across the kitchen, he knew that it was done. He heard one of them moving around and beat it back into his room with the paper. The possibility of spending another day at home made him nervous. He got dressed and slipped out.

He hadn’t had a shower, or brushed his teeth, or combed his hair but he was on the road. He stopped an ordered some coffee at a diner and used the sink to wash and gargle and his fingers to straighten out his hair. He took a quick sniff under his armpit to see how objectionable he was and decided that it wasn’t bad at all.

He was taking the scenic route to the college but didn’t know why he was going there. The round trip would take about an hour and a half. It gave him a goal and a sense of destination, both of which were comforting. He flipped the radio dial between stations thinking about the way the streets were slow to wake up on Sundays. He wondered if he should call Rebecca and invite her to breakfast. Why not? It was almost 9 o’clock.

On the fifth ring a sleepy voice answered the phone. Oh shit, thought Ron. Against his better judgment he said, “Is Rebecca there?” A gnawing voice inside him was saying that he just should have hung up.

“Who wants her,” said Mr. Ranelli.

“Ron Tuck.”

“Oh yeah. Isn’t it a little early on Sunday morning to be calling her?”

The question amused Ron and he decided to run with it a little. “Just got back from Mass and Communion, you know. It’s a great way to start the day off right.”

“Wait a minute,” said Mr. Ranelli. He staggered out of bed and stuffed his hand down the front of his pajamas. He scratched and yawned until he got to his daughter’s door. He took his hand out and knocked lightly “Becky, are you awake?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He loved it when he heard her call him Daddy. It never ceased to impress him. “That turkey Tuck is on the phone,” said the butcher.

“I’ll be right there,” she said quickly. Mr. Ranelli’s smile disappeared. Her door opened and she ran passed him down the stairs to take the call in the kitchen.

They planned to meet for lunch, and Ron decided that maybe he’d better go home and take a shower. He replayed what he’d said to her. “We’re two pretty good people who like each other. We should be able to work this out better.” She had agreed. By the time he got back to his house, he was in a good mood.

“I want to talk to you,” said Marjorie. “It’s about Thanksgiving.”

“When is it?” said Ron.

“This Thursday,” she said trying to be patient.
“What about it?”

“I want to know if you’re going to be here.”

“Of course,” said Ron.

“For the whole day?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“For how long are we to be honored with your presence?”

“How should I know?”

I don’t want you eating and running out the door or standing in the kitchen and trying to hurry the meal up because you ‘ve got someplace to go.”

“I guess this marks the beginning of the holiday spirit,” said Ron.

“I can do without your lovely disposition.”

“I’ve got a great solution to that. I’m not eating here on Thanksgiving.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know yet.” He went into the bathroom. When he came out, she was still sitting at the table.

“Do you want some coffee?” she said.

Ron looked at the clock. “Maybe, quickly.”

“Why do you always have to watch the time?”

“I’ve got a date.”

“With that nice girl?”

“Which nice girl?” said Ron. “You mean Rebecca?”

“Would you like to bring Rebecca here for Thanksgiving?”

“I think she’ll probably eat with her family, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe that’s why you didn’t want to be here.”

“I’ll be here,” said Ron. “You know there’s no need to lay down rules and regulations about how I should act.” He paused and thought. “Who’s coming?”

The way she looked down at the table told him that they’d finally gotten to the point of the conversation. “I did invite some people that I haven’t told George about yet.”

“Who?”

“The new minister, his wife, and their two adopted daughters.”

Ron looked at her in amazement. “You didn’t even mention it to George?”

“No,” she said. “And unless I can count on you to back me up, it’s going to be very difficult. We’ll all be sitting at the table and nobody from our side, except Aunt Dottie, will have anything to say.”

“Have you told her?”

Marjorie looked down at the table again. “Not yet.”

“I’ll make sure that I’m here and in good form, but by evening I’ll probably have had enough.”

“Just make sure that dinner goes smoothly. You’re the only one in the family who can discuss religion with people like that and not look stupid.”

“I don’t know about that but I’ll be around.”

“Thanks,” said Marjorie.

Ron wanted to hug her but didn’t. He wanted to tell her that he knew her life was pretty boring most of the time and that she was always looking for ways to make it better.

Rebecca was wearing a turtleneck top and a suede skirt. Ron immediately told her how good she looked. He was glad that he’d gone home and changed. “Where do you want to have lunch?”

“I don’t know,” she said as they crossed the street.

“Let’s take a ride first,” said Ron.

“Okay.”

His idea was to go up to the reservation and walk on one of the paths that led back through the woods. He didn’t expect to get laid there or anything, but for some reason he wanted to see himself there with her.
He was sure that he didn’t want to break up with her by the time they went to lunch. The tension that was still between them for yesterday’s phone call gave them a newness around each other that had been lacking in the last week.

“Part of the problem,” said Ron, “is that I really want to sleep with you.” He watched her smile and decided to continue. “The truth is, that I’m sort of obsessed with the idea.”

“I just can’t plan to sleep with you, Ron. You make me feel excited and like I want to sometimes. It just hasn’t worked out yet. It’ll happen, if you would learn to relax and not try to push things. Just be a little patient.”

“I suppose I could tell you that it would be a lot easier for me to relax if we slept together. That’s what you mean by being patient, isn’t it?”

“That’s not quite it. It’s like you’ve got it on your mind all the time, and I can see it on your face most of the time you talk to me about anything. You aren’t gentle with me. It’s like you want it get it over with.”

“It must be awful for you,” said Ron feeling like he’d had just about as much of this as he was able to stand.

“You don’t make me feel comfortable.”

“I hope that I’m not comfortable until I’m dead,” said Ron.

Deciding to ignore his last statement, she said, “I know that sex is different for a man. Sometimes I feel sorry for you.”

He started to say that anybody’s pity was of no interest to him but lit a cigarette. “What are you going to do later?”

“I’ve got a paper that’s got to be done before vacation. n fact,” she said suddenly, “it has to be done by tomorrow because that’s the last class we’ll have before we leave.”

Ron saw that she had truly forgotten about it and was in a minor panic. “I’d better take you back,” he said.

Hank woke up with an erection that was ready to make babies. He told Jo Lee about it and she put it to work instantly. They stayed in bed until after 3 p.m. and then it was time for her to go to work. Hank was worried about the piano player. “Is Vic going to be there?”

She reached under his robe and stroked his cock. “He doesn’t stand a chance.” She got down on her knees and gave his dilapidated dick a goodbye suck. She left Hank grinning so much that his mouth hurt. Then he began to feel the mucus slide down the back of his throat and headed for the bathroom holding his book. Thirty minutes later he came out and called his parents.
“Do you want to come to dinner?” said his mother. “I can’t,” said Hank. He asked to speak to his father. There was an awkwardness on the other end of the phone followed by his father’s voice saying, “What can I do for you, Hank?”

“I need a job with you,” said Hank flatly.

“When can you start?” he said smiling at Clara. Not tomorrow, thought Hank. Jo Lee would be off and he still had a money in his pocket. “Tuesday or Wednesday,” he said. “I’ll see if I can have things arranged by then.” Hank wasn’t interested in what he would be doing or how much he would be making. He could tell Jo Lee that he’d gotten the ball rolling and that was all that mattered.

Chapter 39

Ron got himself to school in plenty of time for his first class. If there were only two days left before Thanksgiving, he could at least finish up strong. He got some coffee and went into the auditorium to begin working on the two hundred pages he’d fallen behind. Once he sat down and was doing his work, he was fine. The hard decision, he told himself, was getting himself to start. The auditorium was just warming up from the night, and Ron was enjoying his reading when he heard the back door open. “Do you now if there’s going to be a class here today?” said a tall girl with thick black hair. Ron wasn’t sure that he recognized her. It hadn’t occurred to him that there might not be a class. He turned around and looked at the time. The class was supposed to start in three minutes and they were the only two people there.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been here for a while.”

She said, “Thank you,” smiled and left.

Ron was out of his seat wondering which direction she was heading in before she knew. She decided to go to the cafeteria. Her stomach could use a little breakfast once in a while. Then she’d see if any of her other classes were going to meet today. Anthony had told her not to bother coming to school this week, but she thought it was just an excuse to get her to spend the night last night. She’d accused him of it openly. He’d flown into a rage that made all the cords on his neck stand out. He threatened to break her ass for being suspicious of everything he said. She thought that maybe he would break her ass someday. The idea was a lot cuter than the reality could ever be and she knew it. That was the problem with Anthony and that was why she had to expose herself to other people.

Perfectly on cue with her reflections, Ron called after her and trotted up alongside. He remembered her now. “Hey do you know if our Math class is canceled too?”

“I was just trying to figure that out.”

“Do you want to take a walk over and see if there’s anything up on his office door?”

“That’s a good idea.” She decided that the cafeteria could wait.

On his various walking loops of the college, Ron had located the offices of each of his teachers. It was an excuse to get him around the college and it was gonna come in handy right now. “What’s your name?”

“Irma.

Ron stared at her profile. It seemed to be all chin and eyebrows except for a ski slope that made its arc into outer space. This chick is really lucky she has a body, Ron thought. “My name is Ron Tuck.” he said.
“I know who you are,” she answered smiling.

Ron stared at her. He couldn’t believe that people kept saying that to him. He took an easy route to the math teacher’s office. She felt comfortable walking beside him and Ron decided that he would ask her out.

“My boyfriend said that there wouldn’t be much happening here today or tomorrow, but I thought he was just teasing.” She watched the look of disappointment that crossed his face when she mentioned Anthony. So he was interested in her. The office door was empty and there was no one inside.

“We’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow at class. I’d cut it but I’ve missed too many classes already,” said Ron.

“Do you know about the mid-term?”

“When’s that?”

“Next week.”

“Isn’t that a little early?”

“You mean late. We only have four weeks left.”

“Holy shit,” said Ron. “Are you kidding?”

“It goes fast, doesn’t it?”

“That’s not the word for it. Do you want to get some coffee?”

“Okay,” she said.

After they had settled in the cafeteria, Ron asked, “Are you really serious with your boyfriend?”

“We’ve been going out for three years, and he wants to get married when I’m finished here.”

“What I mean is, do you go out with other guys?”

“I haven’t but I suppose that I could.”

“Would you like to go out with me?”

“I think that would be really nice, but I don’t know how we could manage it.”

“You could give me your phone number, and I’ll keep trying until I hit on a time that’s good for both of us.”

“Don’t you go out with anybody?”

“Nobody special,” said Ron. “I like my freedom too much.”

“I wish I could feel that way,” said Irma. “Freedom sort of scares me, you know?”

“You just have to get used to it,” said Ron. He provided her with a pen and some paper. She recorded her address and phone number. He felt like a salesman who was closing a deal with an interested customer. “When do you think you might be free?” he said smiling.

“Not tonight or tomorrow.”

“How does Wednesday look?” He was staring at the pointed tips of her bra. He watched her see him staring at her chest. She moved her hands away so he could get a better view. It gave him an immediate hard on.

“It might be okay.” she said.

Things were at a touchy stage. He might be pushing it or he might be making it seem real and like something she was going to want have happen. “What would you like to do?” He hadn’t expected her to really have a suggestion. They never did. But if she would agree to whatever he was going to come up with, he would have secured a beach head.

“That could be up to you. I don’t get to go many places with my boyfriend, so anything you think of would be something I haven’t done for a while. She had a far away look on her face while she was talking. “You’re really easy to talk to, you know?”

“I am,” said Ron. He was liking her better all the time.

“It’s just that Anthony and I are stuck in a rut. The problem is that I think he likes it and I’m starting to want more.”

“How old were you when you met him?”

“Sixteen.”

“Are you anything like you were at sixteen now?”

“Only in some ways.”

“You owe it to yourself to find out what’s happening.”

“I’ve been reading some of the things that you wrote in the newspaper.”
Ron blushed. He put his head down and took hold of his elbow. “I don’t mean to pretend to know what’s happening,” he said smiling at himself. “I’ve spent the last two years of my life in corporations and bowling alleys, so what could I possibly know? It just feels like something important is happening, and we’re alive and shouldn’t miss it, you know?”

When she reached out and touched his arm, Ron tightened muscles he hoped he still had. “You’re a nice guy,” said Irma. “You don’t act like you’re God’s gift or something.”

“I can be like that,” said Ron. “Who I’m with makes a big difference in who I am.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“I know, but some people make you feel at ease and sure of yourself. You make me feel like that.” It was the truth. He did feel like he was talking to her more freely than anyone else he’d met there. It’s too bad about her boyfriend, he thought. Maybe it’ll clear up. He appraised the way her thick black hair tumbled down onto her shoulders like a Viking’s rug. He loved her dark tinted stockings and short black skirt. Most of all, she wasn’t thinking who she was either. If he hadn’t ever left Newark, this was the type of girl he would have. It was almost like her presence was reconnecting him back to that part of himself. She didn’t seem overly smart and was calm about it. Things were already established. He was the more aggressive, the smarter, the leader. She was kind, had a beautiful body and could talk to him. She seemed to fit into his strengths. Ron’s thoughts and feelings were running faster than he could contend with. Even his coffee was working against him this time. He lit a cigarette. “Ohhh!” he said. She was grinning when she asked him what the matter was. “I don’t think I’d better tell you.”

Her look became serious. “Don’t start not talking to me already.”

“It’s not that I’m trying to shut you out, believe me it’s not that. It’s just that I was getting these strong impulses about the way you make me feel.” She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t mean just sexually. I feel like you could understand me and enjoy me at the same time.”

“I don’t even know you, Ron,” she said softly.

“I know,” he said laughing. “I know. Do you see why I didn’t want to tell you?” She gave him an uncomprehending look and his sense of ease rapidly disappeared.

She told Ron that it would be better if they met at the college and that he should call on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. and she would let him know what was going on.

Ron watched her black-skirted bottom walk away with a hypnotizing wiggle. He walked to Lashly’s door and found a note that canceled his class too.

On Monday afternoon, Hank got a call from his father. Everything was set, but his father thought that Hank should plan on starting the Monday after Thanksgiving. “Everything is all screwed up here on account of the holiday.” Hank said that next Monday would be fine. “I’ll give your mother some extra money for you tonight.”
“That would be good,” said Hank.

“Are you and Jo Lee going to be at the house on Thursday?”

There was no answer on the other end of the phone. Hank stared into the receiver as the familiar grimace spread across his face. “Your mother told me to ask you.”

“I’ll let her know tomorrow,” said Hank. He had no idea of how he was gonna explain this to Jo Lee.

Hank went back into the kitchen and found Jo Lee making herself an afternoon drink. She was wearing sun yellow panties and had one of his plaid shirts tied at the waist so that her tits kept popping out. “My father,” said Hank, looking down at the table. “Are we gonna have drinks?”

“You’re gonna have a drink with me?” she said in her kitten voice.

Hank chortled, “Sure. I’m going to start work next Monday because of the holiday.”

“What are you going to be doing?”

Hank looked at his drink. He didn’t know. He hadn’t cared enough to ask. He still had no idea of how much he would be making. He’d sit in the washroom and clean out bowls if it would keep Jo Lee acting this way with him. “There are a couple of things that still have to be decided on. All the jobs down at that place are pretty much the same anyway.” Jo Lee didn’t understand how that could be but let it pass. My father wants to know if we’re coming to their house on Thursday for dinner?”

“I suppose we should,” she said easily. She wondered briefly what Myrtle would be doing but figured that whatever it was included Ernie and that meant they wouldn’t be going anywhere. Ernie had a lot of trouble sitting in cars. Myrtle had told her last week that it wouldn’t be long before he had to go to the hospital.

Myrtle’s voice had gotten strange. “When I look at him when he’s naked, it’s hard, at first, to remember that it’s a person.” She didn’t want to see Ernie and Myrtle.

“Maybe we should have Ron and one of his little friends come up at night,” she said. “The club is going to be closed.”

The Commuter room was empty and didn’t seem like it had seen much traffic that day. Ron went through the material from the news services. There was a striking similarity to what he’d read in other releases. Ron guessed it was because there wasn’t a whole lot of variety when it came to dealing with war. Laureen walked in and Ron said hello to her without remembering that she’d stood him up. He was reading an article about how some Vietnamese families were using downed aircraft for homes. The wrecked planes were sometimes fired upon because of the human activity. When they exploded entire families went up with them sometimes.
“I’m sorry about Saturday,” said Laureen.

“What was Saturday? Oh yeah. Where were you?”

“I guess that I just didn’t think it was a good idea for us to get involved that way.”

Ron looked at her, not really giving a fuck about what she thought of him. “Why not?”

“Usually, I wouldn’t tell someone this, but I think we would kill each other.”

“We’re the same. I can see it in you.”

Ron concluded that he didn’t really care what she was talking about. He felt pretty lucky that she hadn’t wasted his day. “It’s really a drag to get stood up.”

“I never did it to anybody before in my life.”

“That doesn’t make me feel a lot better.”

“I just wanted to tell you that it’s not because I don’t like you or anything. The truth is that I have a boyfriend that I love.”

“It’s good that you didn’t go out with me then.”

Laureen felt like laughing when Chris walked into the room. It seemed to her that every time she stopped to talk to anyone, he showed up.

Chris was giddy. “Good afternoon,” he said giggling.

“What’s happening?” said Ron.

“Snow is due any minute.”

Ron walked over to the window and looked out. “I don’t think it’s cold enough yet, man.”

Chris and Laureen laughed. “Not that kind,” said Chris. “The kind that goes up your nose.”

“I’d like some of that,” said Laureen.

Chris snapped his fingers. “All right. That’s entirely possible. Although I don’t think this is the most judicious place to do it.”

“That’s certainly true.”

Ron still had no idea of what drug they were talking about, but at least he’d figured out that they were talking about a drug.

“Let’s go back to my house in a few minutes,” said Chris.

“I’d like to but I don’t think I can,” said Laureen. “My brother is coming home tonight and I’ve got to be there for dinner.”

“Where’s he been?” said Ron.

Her face tightened and she spit out the answer “Away. Overbrook. He flipped out. He’s a junkie.”

Laureen looked at the bewildered expression on Ron’s face and was glad she’d stood him up. He looked a bit like a monkey. lian had been right. She looked at Chris. “If I came over for a while, could you give me a ride home?”

“You don’t have a car?” said Chris.

“Oh, I have a car. It’s just that I’ve got to bring it home so my mother can do some shopping.”

“So,” said Chris. “First you want me to follow you back to your house to get rid of your car and after we’re through at my house you want me to drive you back home?”

“Somewhere before 6 o’clock if it’s not too much trouble,” she said easily.

Chris laughed some more. “I suppose I could do that.”

“Let me call my mother first and make sure I’ve got everything straight.” She fished a dime out of her purse and went to make the call.

“How are you doin’?” said Chris to Ron.

Ron replied, “I’ve been here all day waiting for something to happen, but I met a good looking girl this morning.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name’s Irma.”

“Far out”, said Chris.

Laureen looked sickly when she returned. “Damn,” she said. Chris asked her what was wrong. “My sister found some of my brother’s old stash and brought it to class. Analyzed it in Chemistry.” Ron and Chris laughed. Laureen looked like she was going to vomit. “I’ve got to go,” she said .

Chapter 40

Hank didn’t know how long he’d slept or why he’d woken up. The depth of Jo Lee’s snores signaled that it was the middle of the night. He went out into the kitchen and found his cigarettes. He really didn’t mind being awake. The idea that there was nothing he had to feel guilty about not doing comforted him. About halfway through his cigarette, the notion that this baby thing was a desperate sham that could wind up getting somebody killed gripped him.

It was too bad, too. He’d felt healthier with her in the last few days than he had since the beginning. The question was how to tell Jo Lee that he didn’t want to go through with it. For courage, he told himself that she would be just as relieved as he now was, but he didn’t believe it. The quandry of his new worry was like nausea inside him. As surely as if it had been playing in the room, he heard the line from the song, “Did you ever have to finally decide?” echo in his mind. In the morning it would be Thanksgiving, and they were having dinner with his parents. That was depressing enough in itself, but suppose Jo Lee told his parents they were trying to make a baby. A little Hank running around… Hank grinned at the way their faces would look when they heard it, but the humor didn’t last. If she told them, it would almost be like it had already happened. It would be something else that would follow him forever. Hank made his way back to bed and fell asleep.

He woke up a few hours later to the steady slippery rhythm of Jo Lee’s mouth as it slid up and down his cock. Her hair was touching his balls and thighs like an elegant feather duster that was taking away the cobwebs. “I want to suck your cock all day,” she said when she saw that he was awake. “Just let me know when you’re gonna shoot your wad so that I can get it in between my legs.” Hank was speechless. “How many times do you think you can pop off, if you let me suck it as much as I want?”

“I don’t know,” he said. The words came out of him like billiard balls rolling across green felt, bouncing softly everywhere and not colliding in back of his closed eyes.

The horn sections first resounding blasts, as the band had its last warm up for halftime of the game, jolted Ron awake. He felt like he was being brought back from the dead for some unnecessary reason. He listened to the theme of “On Wisconsin” with a deep frown. The day wasn’t gonna be bad enough; it had to start like this. He staggered through the door scratching his crotch.

“Look who decided to roll out of bed,” said Marjorie, who was already dressed and in high gear.

Ron blinked and scratched as Aunt Dottie glared at the sight of him standing in his underwear in the kitchen and scratching himself to boot. “You’re a fine sight,” she said nodding methodically. Ron was now reeling from the aromas in the kitchen that gave smells that said it was dinner time to his body.

“Is there any coffee?”

“You can’t make a mess in the kitchen now,” said Marjorie.

“Isn’t there any coffee?” Ron said with a desperate, panting look.

“Yes, there’s coffee,” she said smiling and moving toward the electric urn she used on holidays.

Aunt Dottie waited until she figured enough time had passed for him not to know what was coming. “Do you always walk around scratching yourself like that?”

“What?”

Aunt Dottie got out of her chair and stood in the center of the kitchen. “I mean,” she said dramatically, “that you come out of the bedroom scratching yourself all the time.” She backed herself up in front of Ron’s door, yawned, staggered and scratched herself between the legs with long exaggerated motions.

Ron flinched at the image. Marjorie began laughing hysterically and Aunt Dottie joined her. She dragged herself across the room continuing to scratch her crotch. Ron wanted to disappear badly. “Give me a break, Aunt Dot. I gotta entertain the clergy today.”

“Don’t scratch in the middle of dinner,” said Aunt Dottie.

“I won’t if you don’t let on that maybe you’re becoming a little senile.”

“Senile,” Dottie raised herself into full battle posture “You slovenly lug,” she glared, “at least I don’t come out of my room scratching myself like this.” She returned to her imitation. Marjorie laughed harder this time.

“You win,” he said trying to skirt around her as he headed back for his room.

Aunt Dottie exchanged a smile with Marjorie. They’d spent plenty of time moaning about how he acted when he first got up. “The last thing I need is to have him in a bad mood today,” said Marjorie.

“Don’t worry about it. He’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve got some money to give him for the holiday.” They smiled again. It didn’t take much to buy Ron’s forgiveness.

Jo Lee and Hank were in the car on the way to his parents’ house. She was toying with his curls and whispering in his ear. “Any time you want. I’ll just take your cock out, get on my knees and suck it for as long as you want. I’m gonna be thinking about doing it all day, Hank.”

Hank smiled. He knew this must be the eye of some hurricane that would reburst its fury on him at any second, but he heard himself say, “Do it now,” as the trusty VW made its way to the turkey dinner.

“This fuckin’ sucks,” thought Ron as he set the table for dinner. Here he was, without a real girlfriend, wasting his time talking to a minister and his brood. He knew how dinner would go; he would eat too much. There would be no way not to eat too much. Everything would taste really good and even if you passed up all but your favorites, you spent the rest of the day trying to get comfortable with your bulk.

Willard Mueller and his family were a group of five. His wife and he were very tall and wore glasses. Their three children were adopted. The twins, girls of fourteen that the Muellers had taken off the hands of the courts, were the latest additions. Shannon had been adopted as an infant and was now almost eight years old. The Muellers hadn’t told her, or anyone else, that they met up North, that she wasn’t a natural child.

The arrived a festive ten minutes late. The adults, with whom Ron was uncomfortably included, had a drink. George was always happy when he was serving alcohol. Ron figured it was a holdover from his days as a bartender. Mr. Mueller announced that they didn’t usually drink but would join him in honor of the occasion . Mrs. Mueller reminded her husband of the presence of the children and Willard reassessed the situation. They would join George in a glass of cider to toast the holiday. George became instantly glum and turned to Ron with a sense of desperation. “Do you want anything?”

“I’ll have some wine,” said Ron.

Aunt Dottie made her entrance about fifteen minutes after the Muellers arrived. She was dressed totally in black and wearing nothing for contrast but diamonds. Her hair was tinted silver and even her glasses had diamond chips in the frames. She told George she would have a rum and coke. He rubbed his hands together and scurried off to pick up some ice.

“Before we begin to eat,” said Marjorie, addressing herself to Willard, “I would just like you to tell my son how you came to be doing this work with your life.”

Ron, who had been absently staring at the freckles on the arms of the twins, saw the girls exchange a quick look of disgust. Shannon looked up at the long face of her mother and asked if she could go to the bathroom. “Ask Mrs. Bombasco to show you dear,” said Mina Mueller. The twins giggled. Ron wondered how his mother developed her ability to embarrass other people.

“It’s not that I’m trying to put you to work,” she said to Willard. “It’s just that I think we can all profit from hearing about your experience and knowing that the world is still a place where miracles can occur.”

Ron lost his appetite as immediately as he found himself reaching for his cigarettes. He saw his aunt doing the same thing and wondered why his mother always set them up this way. Sensing some reluctance of the part of the Muellers, Marjorie added, “Perhaps after we’ve eaten.”
Willard did agree to say grace. Ron was waiting and hoping for some small reference to the fact that on this day of Thanksgiving we were slaughtering people on the other side of the world, but there was none. “We thank Thee for this beautifully prepared bird,” said Willard. Mina kept her eyes on her plate and gave a small Christian smile.

Marjorie said, “Thank you.. .I mean Thank God… .I mean A-men.”

George was unable to contain himself and laughed at Marjorie. Ron made the sign of the cross to piss Aunt Dottie off and to distance himself from the rest of the people at the table. Ron’s last Protestant minister had been Reverend Waldo. Ron was always bored when he and his mother went to church. He would count the number of people there as Waldo gave his sermon. He remembered how he hated to face his great grandmother, Aunt Dottie’s mother, when he came home. At the end she was always in bed, turned on her side toward the wall or on her back staring at the ceiling. She and Ron slept in the same room and it used to scare him to hear her breathe at night.

“Did you go to Sunday School, Ron?”

“We got there too late, Grandma.” A sweep of pain crossed the old woman’s face. “There were only 58 people in church today, Grandma.”

“Why did you count the people?”

“I couldn’t understand what the minister was saying.”

Her forehead wrinkled but her mouth remained soft. “If you listened, Jesus would help you to understand, Ron.”

“He doesn’t talk loud enough for me to hear him, Grandma.”

“I’m tired now,” she said. “I’m going to take a little rest.” Only 58 people. When she was a little girl and her father was preaching, they used to line the walls and afterwards everybody stayed and talked and shook hands.

Willard Mueller wasn’t wearing his minister’s clothes. He seemed reluctant to talk, but Ron sensed that he was just hanging back waiting for the best time to strike.

Marjorie asked him again to tell the story to her family – the story of how he found Christ. She even started it for him. “It began with your secretary coming in and announcing that you’d just become a millionaire.” Ron fixed his eyes on Mueller.

“I was a lawyer practicing in Alabama. Before I quit, I suppose it was actually worth closer to five million. But I had an ulcer and high blood pressure. I found myself delivering speeches at organized meetings of the Ku Klux Klan. My wife and I were talking about divorce because we were both so well aware of our marital infidelities. But instead of getting a divorce, we decided to take a good hard look at our lives from the perspective of our Christian morality. Neither of us liked what we saw, and it was time for action. The time for blaming and complaining was over. It was very hard to decide to give most of the money away but a lot of fun to do it. That was seven years ago and here we are.”

Hank and Jo Lee ate without speaking. Hank’s mother had tried preparing the turkey with a tomato sauce that she’d seen advertised with chicken in a magazine. Jo Lee forked at the meat with bewilderment. Hank’s father, who already two sheets to the wind, announced that it was delicious without eating any. Hank looked down at the mass of bird mixed with red tinged stuffing and thought that it looked disgustingly fresh killed. He never understood why his mother insisted on taking perfectly good food and ruining it. No one asked for seconds and about twenty minutes after the mess had been spread across the table, it was mercifully removed.

At that point all four of them began drinking. Hank felt the alcohol curl around his brain and watched the way his father leered at Jo Lee. He thought smugly that she was the finest piece of ass his old man had ever come into contact with. He appreciated the way Jo Lee was putting up with his father. She would smile and let the old man touch her shoulders and arms. Then the old boy blurted, “Have you and Hank gotten around to any serious baby making yet?”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” said Hank’s mother, squirming one of her most uncomfortable squirms.

“What’s wrong with it? They are married. Hank does know how he got here, doesn’t he? You do know how you got here, don’t ya Hank?”

“It’s not the kind of thing I want talked about at my table. And it’s certainly not the kind of thing I want talked about on Thanksgiving.” She took a long swallow out of her drink and left her eyes down with the glass.

“Someone’s got to give thanks for it,” said Hank’s father.

Jo Lee giggled, and Hank’s mother looked up at her sharply. This was it. The old broad hated her and Jo Lee knew she was going to have to fight off at least one attack today. There was a long pause at the end of which Hank’s mother said nothing. She stared at them all for what seemed like minutes and remarked cheerfully, “I’d better get started on my pies.” Hank’s father squeezed Jo Lee’s arm and looked at Hank with a nod of approval before he got up to help with the pies.

“They’re weird,” whispered Jo Lee.

“They sure are,” said Hank.

Marjorie brought out apple, pumpkin and mince pies. She added a bowl of whipped cream and two coffee pots’ worth of coffee. Dinner conversation had been amiable and centered mostly on the food and New England, where both Dottie and Mina had been raised. Aunt Dot must be feeling good, thought Ron, as he watched her eat a1most everything on her second plate. Ron eyed the twins a few times and they were obviously interested in him, but the whole thing was too weird. They were fourteen and probably had trench mouth or something. Ron wasn’t actually sure what trench mouth was but he assumed it was something you caught that made your breath smell like you’d been caught in a trench for a long time.

“I understand that you attend college,” said Willard.

“It’s a small commuter school.” Ron tried to think of something that would keep the conversation moving. “So, how do you feel about Viet Nam?” he said abruptly.

“That does seem to be the topic on everyone’s mind,” said Willard. “There have always been wars, Ron. It’s not a fact but it is nonetheless true.”

“Do you think they were all as crooked as this one is?”

“The ones that were unpopular were thought of as such. I think, however, that the conscience of this country is being tested.”

Ron was almost exasperated already. This guy wanted to talk about abstract morals and ethics. These people all ended up the same way, doing nothing for any number of good reasons. “I think the soul of the country has been stolen myself.”

“I think that you’re a bunch of spoiled babies,” said George. The remark was unexpected. It was one of the first things George had said that didn’t have to do with what people were drinking. It threw off the rhythm of the interchange, and Marjorie was giving George dirty looks.

“I’m sure that for a man who had served his time proudly, it must feel that way,” said Willard.

“Yeah? Tell me what sense it makes to equate babiness with a desire to not kill people who want the same things out of life that I do.” interjected Ron.

George was silent.

“It seems,” said Willard, “that this is the test of conscience to which I was referring: the people who feel they’ve done their duty and the people who feel that it is their duty to say no.”

Marjorie bobbed her head in assent.

It wasn’t good enough for Ron. “It’s not that we’re just saying no. We’re trying to find better answers to things, including religion.” Ron felt like he’d thrown things back at Willard. He knew the guy had never really answered him about how he felt. It was an old minister’s trick to make everybody think that he agreed with them.

“A lot of what you say is really silly,” said Marjorie. “Like that guy you talk about all the time,” she paused… “Abbie Hoffman. Before him it was Bob Dylan.”
“You make it sound like we’re talking about Bing Crosby and Patti Page. These are important people. It’s not the same as ‘How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?'”

“There’s no need to get nasty,” said Marjorie with a mother’s threat in her voice that irritated Ron to the point where he wanted to scream or do something else that would drive the discomfort away. He settled for lighting a cigarette. “It’s usually when I make a good point that you accuse me of being nasty.”

Mina Mueller turned her head and patted the hand next to her of Aunt Dottie, whom she had learned had cancer. Aunt Dottie sneered at her. “I always swore that I never would want a son of mine to go. I’d tell him to get out of the country before I’d want to see them take him.

“I agree with you,” said Mina Mueller as her small, unremembered act of kindness for the day. Dottie wondered if she could get away with spitting at her and blaming it on her throat.

The twins asked if they could go for a walk. There was an uneasiness among the Muellers before they said yes. Shannon asked it she could stay behind and listen. Mina hugged her. Ron liked the twins more as they left. After they were safely out of earshot, Mina confided to the group, “Things are very much still on a day to day basis.”

Willard cleared his throat and looked down at Shannon. Mina reacted like she’d forgotten about the presence of their youngest. “It’s day to day living with Jesus in your heart that’s really important.” she said. Shannon seemed oblivious to it all.

“Hank, your mother and I have a little something for the two of you.” His father put his arm on his mother’s shoulder and squeezed a clump of puffy flesh. His mother squirmed. “Since you’ve gotten married and you’re going to start working, and the truth is that you’ve never really had a wedding at all, you’re going to need a nest egg Hank. Your mom and I would like to start you off with $500.”

Hank stared at him. They were obviously waiting for some reaction. “It’s really nice that you would do that for us.”

“We don’t want you to want for anything, Hank,” said his mother.

“And chances are,” his father went on with a sense of slurred joviality in his voice, “that advancements could come pretty quickly for you at work. That might not mean much to you right now, but when the eagle comes around, you’ll be glad the stuff lands on you.”

Jo Lee smiled at Hank’s mother. She didn’t return the smile. Before they left, Hank’s father pulled him off to the side and slipped him another hundred. “It’s good to always have some money the wife doesn’t know about. It saves the egg from getting cracked once in a while.”

“I’ll try not to let it crack right away,” said Hank.

Chapter 42

A cold rain dumped buckets of water against Ron’s windows. It was Saturday morning and he was on his way to Welmont, but he stopped the car at the recruiting station and decided to have a look at the place from the outside. The posters were like marquee pictures. Ron wondered why they didn’t show a picture of a guy with no legs or somebody who’d gotten his head blown off. That would sure bring the people in. He told himself that he should stay away from places like this one. He was afraid that somehow the tendrils could reach out and grab him. “That’s because you’re a fuckin’ chicken,” said a voice inside him. Ron recognized it as being the one that spoke with a newsreel kind of tone and narrated episodes from war movies.

“Fuck you!” he shouted at the voice and the building. “You didn’t get me and I’m not ever gonna be like you.”

“You sound like a baby having a tantrum,” said another he couldn’t dismiss because it looked and sounded like his father. He threw the car into gear.

There was one spot in the indoor parking lot, and Ron decided not to try to squeeze into it. He was embarrassed by the thought that someone who hung out there would see him punking down from the spot. He inched the car back and forward and tried to turn around. It took him five back and forths.

The instructor looked at Ron and said, “I’m afraid you didn’t pass. You failed to properly parallel park your vehicle and in my judgment you were driving too slowly.”

Ron had expected to fail parallel parking, there was no disgrace in that. He was driving this boat of an Oldsmobile that was at least twenty-five feet long, but how the fuck could the guy say he was going too slow? It took two problems to fail. If the guy just knocked him down for the parking, he would be in. “I was trying to be careful.”

“That’s the point,” said the instructor. “If you reacted this way on an open road, you could be a hazard.”

Ron studied his face. He wore reflecting sunglasses and had a mustache, which gave him a suave, well oiled appearance. If I was a cunt with my skirt hiked up around my ass and my legs open, you wouldn’t care what kind of hazard I was.

“I’m going to recommend that your permit be extended and that you be tested again in two months.”

“Great.”

About a month later he passed his test with the help of a friendly instructor from Jersey City who bought his clothes where Ron’s mother worked. During the test Ron knocked over several cones and almost damaged a vehicle that was peacefully making its way along the course. It happened because he made a U-turn without looking in the mirror and because he’d forgotten his glasses and had to borrow his mother’s boss’ extra pair. The instructor had to mash his foot onto the brake on top of Ron’s foot in order to avoid the collision. The car the instructor was trying to avoid was frozen about four inches from Ron’s rear bumper. Ron didn’t realize how close they were until he removed the borrowed glasses. He found himself transfixed by the pale, trembling face of the instructor, who managed to turn off the engine on Ron’s borrowed car. They didn’t finish the course but Ron got his license anyway. The pair of glasses had broken when they came off during his almost collision, and Ron apologized to his mother’s boss while thanking him for bribing the instructor.

Ron found an easy space on the street and went into Welmont through the back door. The same small group of heads stopped what they were doing and looked when the door opened. Ron smiled and thought that no matter what else happened in the world, this would always remain the same. He walked up to the counter from which Butchie and TJ surveyed the world.

“What brings you in here, Homer? I heard you was out demonstrating and gettin’ all that free snatch.”

“You don’t really think that anything comes for free, do you Butchie?”

“Well Homer, I don’t know. Some of them freaky lookin’ snatches I see walking around got to get rid of it for free because it’s so bad that not even you guys would want to be stuck into it for more than a few minutes.”

“How’re you doing TJ?” said Ron.

TJ nodded, looked at Eutchie and wiped away an imaginary line of sweat. “Have you heard anything from Hankie?”

Butchie burst like an over ripe fruit. “Hank’s got a tasty snatch to chew on,” he laughed. “You don’t see him out there demonstrating because he gets private demonstrations whenever he needs them.”

Ron liked the idea of being taken for someone who demonstrated. It made him feel like he was wearing a badge of courage. “He’s okay, T,” said Ron. He felt the back door open and his own head moved involuntarily towards it.

“Here comes the captain of the loony tunes crew now,” said Butchie as they all saw Quimpy make his way through the doors.

On Saturday afternoon, Jo Lee and Hank went out to shop for Hank’s work clothes. Hank felt alternately drafted and convicted as he stared at the brown khaki. Jo Lee was brimming with pride and patted Hank’s belly. “I’ll bet you get nice and flat,” she said.

“I’ll bet I will,” said Hank, not thinking about his stomach muscles. It was too much to bear. No matter what the stakes, he couldn’t figure out how he’d let this happen to him. Jo Lee loved the way he looked in work pants. They felt terrible, thought Hank. They were baggy and rustled like canvas sacks.

“Do you think we could go visit Myrtle and Ernie tonight?”

Hank began to get sick at the sound of their names but he said, “Okay.” and went into the other room to change back into his real clothes.

“Why don’t you leave them on?” said Jo Lee. She was picturing her father sitting around the house on Saturday afternoons in finely laundered work clothes.

“Because I hate them,” said Hank.

Jo Lee stared at the closed bedroom door and began to feel twinges of warning. This was like sending a child off to school. She remembered how Tony was always anxious to jump into his big rig and roar down the street for her.

Hank could smell the dogs as they waited for someone to answer the door. He was holding the bag of donuts that Jo Lee had suggested they bring. Myrtle opened the door and greeted them with a big “Guess who’s here to visit, Ernie?” greeting.

The dogs caught sight of Hank and in one startled moment he realized that the dual excitement of seeing him and smelling the donuts was going to be too much for them. The first dog to hit let out a whooping kind of yelp as she planted her paws on Hank’s chest. The second dog went straight for the donuts and unceremoniously ripped them out of Hank’s hand. As he fell down, Hank heard Ernie’s voice gleefully shouting. “Wowee! Isn’t everybody happy to see you?” The dogs took turns, alternately moving to the bag of donuts for furious sniffs and licking Hank’s face.

“Well give him a chance to get in the house first!” said Myrtle as she shooed the dogs. “Those animals really love you,” she said to Hank, who was grateful for being allowed to stand up.

Ernie’s newest game consisted of trying to work himself up to super duper burps. He said that it started because his diet soda gave him gas. He was trying to teach the dogs to respond to specific burp commands that he’d devised. Ernie was sure the act would be of interest to any of a number of variety shows that featured people like himself with unique and creative talents. Hank watched the demonstration through a mask of interest. On a few occasions, he felt his eyes stray to the closed door of the room where he and Jo Lee had stayed when they had first gotten together.

Hank was too depressed to get out of bed the next morning. How interesting could any place that made storm windows and screens be? His father was going to be his boss and he knew his old man would show him of like a little pet when old customers came into the shop.
Hank would be forever called into his father’s office to meet Bill Somebody or Harry Whoever. “Are you excited about starting work tomorrow?” Jo Lee had asked him as soon as he’d opened his eyes. Actually, she said it to him over coffee, but it was the first thing she thought to say to him that day.

“I haven’t been able to think about anything else,” said Hank.

“Do you think that possibly I could interest you in something else?” she said and reached for his cock.

“I don’t think so,” said Hank. He was sure his dead meat was in too deep a depression to do anything but slump over.

Jo Lee felt more twinges but she was going to try to remain cheerful in spite of them. At 2 p.m. she would be back on duty and work until 2 a.m. the next morning. “What are you going to do this afternoon?”

“I don’t know,” said Hank. “In a few minutes, I’m going to call Ron.”

Ron had abruptly said that he had no one to bring to their house and that the girl he was trying to date had just told him the night before on the phone that she didn’t think she was ever going to be able to sneak out on her boyfriend. Jo Lee thought he was even more of an asshole. She wondered when Hank was going to stop chasing after him.

Ron listened to Hank’s story without saying much. He could understand how Hank felt all fucked up from the amount of shit that was being dumped on him. “You ain’t got to do any fuckin’ thing that you don’t want to do.”

“It really is that simple, isn’t it?” said Hank.

They were sitting in Ron’s room in the midst of the piles of books and papers Ron had buried himself in for the last two days. Irma was already a memory, and he hadn’t called or heard from Rebecca, but he was catching up on everything that he hadn’t been doing. Marjorie and George were out for the afternoon and Hank had a joint that they smoked in slow appreciation. Hank felt warm and melancholy around so many reminders of school. He felt for the first time in a while that he belonged there. He decided to tell Ron everything about how he hated the idea of working for his father but how losing Jo Lee would be worse. The pot was giving Ron a comfortable distance from everything. He studied his pile of books and they looked back with a friendly spirit. “Why did you stop going to school, Hank?”

“Mathematics,” said Hank decidedly.

“Is what you got now better than mathematics?”

Hank repeated the question with a smile that showed his dimples. Ron had never noticed them before and figured that Jo Lee was somehow responsible for them being there now. “I don’t know,” said Hank. “Is it?”

Ron had the feeling that Hank was asking him if he had any idea of how good it was to get laid with a woman like Jo Lee every night. “Is she really that good a fuck?”

“All the time,” said Hank in a weary tone that Ron took to mean Jo Lee liked to fuck more than Hank did. He decided that was a big part of the problem that Hank really needed to talk about. “I get the feeling that they’re going to get me no matter which way I turn.”

“Why do you think they want to get you?”

“Because they get everybody,” said Hank, feeling like he’d been gotten so many times and in so many places that his mind and body were a mass of scar tissue.

“It’s probably because they don’t want to see us get anything they weren’t able to get away with. Well fuck ’em,”

“We don’t owe them a thing.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t be able to get me if I went back,” said Hank.

“I guess they can get you anyplace,” said Ron. “Do you ever think about the war anymore?”

“No,” said Hank. “Has it changed?”

Ron thought that Hank sounded like Dylan. He observed how Hank’s uncombed hair looked more and more like Dylan’s as it got longer. “Are you ever gonna comb your hair again?”

Hank tried to run his fingers through part of the reddish blonde tangle. “I never try.” They both laughed hard. “Sometimes though, it gets knots that really hurt if you don’t get rid of them.”

“Just like your life,” said Ron quickly.

“Just like my life,” repeated Hank.

“Do you like your knots?” said Ron

Hank grinned his “I really am crazy smile” and said, “Sometimes they sort of have intricate patterns in the curls.”

“Do the patterns tell you anything?”

“No. They’re just pretty.”

“We already know where your desire for pretty things has gotten you.”

Hank had the realization that for the first time in a really long time he was talking to another human being and not worrying about what Jo Lee was doing. He told Ron about it.

“It probably just means that you don’t love her as much anymore.

Hank was stunned and didn’t say anything.

Chapter 43

December passed like numbers on a dial. Ron made plans to attend a demonstration in Washington slated for the 15th of the month. He left three pages of the coming issue open for articles. He’d also gotten approval for five bus tickets that staff members who were going could use. Ron’s idea was to have it all laid out and ready to go to the printer before they left. Then they could break their asses and hope to have it back from the printer by the 19th. The semester was officially over on the 21st. Ron figured that he wanted the issue out a couple of days before they broke.

On the first Wednesday of the month, Ron attended a student council meeting. He’d missed the last meeting and decided that nothing of significance to him could have happened without him hearing about it. He listened casually to the proceedings and watched the way Chris Calvin directed things. His style called for sitting back and letting conversation take place. When discussion on an issue seemed exhausted, Chris would lean forward and state his mind. Ron noticed that the council seemed to always adopt Chris’ positions. Chris also smiled a lot and was polite and respectful to everyone.

Julian T. Willy was sketching in his artist’s pad with a bored look on his face. He was abstaining on every vote. Because all the issues were being decided by lopsided margins, Chris was into giggling at Julian’s abstentions.

Laureen and Jade were sitting at the wooden desk by the telephone. Ron looked away quickly when Laureen smiled at him. He wondered if she’d stood him up because Jade had told her he was inept as a lover. Fuck her anyway. He looked quickly back to Jade who was quite oblivious to his presence. Her attention was divided between Chris and Bobby Aletti, who claimed to be drinking nothing but red wine as a protest against the war. Ron had laughed with Bobby in spite of his resolution never to laugh at anything concerned with the war again. Ron wished he could have one more shot at Jade but it was hopeless. He was sure she saw the words “too soon” everywhere on his body whenever she looked at him. Ron squirmed uncomfortably. For a few seconds he believed that everyone in the room was aware of him not being able to control himself when it counted. A voice in his head said that he jerked-off too much and that he was a bit too old to still be doing that. Ron snapped out of it. He’d been hanging with Hank too long. Now he was sure they were all out to get him too.

John Cloane and Jim Durant were people that Ron didn’t know or care to know. They were they representing the conservative fraternities. There were about fifteen other students in the room.

About an hour into the meeting the topic of new business came up. “Resolved: That the council should allocate $250 dollars for the purchase of 10 round trip bus tickets to the Moratorium in Washington on the 15th of December.”

Chris asked casually whether anyone needed to be heard on the issue. Cloane and Durant raised their hands. Since Durant was the student council officer, Chris recognized him first. Jim Durant folded his hands on the table in front of him. “It is not the place of the student council to take a position on something like the war. We are here to resolve matters of school importance.

Ron’s hand shot into the air, and Chris recognized him with a half smile. “The question,” said Ron in a sarcastic voice, “is whether we are going to allocate funds to support an educationally related experience.”

“By supplying people with school funds so they can attend a protest,” said Cloane, “we are taking a position that is not in accord with the beliefs of the majority of the student body.”

“A representative democracy,” said Chris, “is one where the people elect representatives whose judgment they feel is sound.”

“Were you elected by a majority of the students enrolled in this college today?” said Cloane.

Chris looked at him with soft confidence. “Do you know who the last American president to be elected by a true majority of the people was?”

“That’s not the point,” said Cloane.

Ron saw the hand of an older guy, standing against the back wall in a suit, go into the air. Chris looked up cautiously. “Are you a student here?”

The man was small and Ron figured him to be about thirty-five years old. “Yes,” he said with a tight grin on his face.

“Are you a representative from any group on campus?” said Chris.

“Is that a requirement for speaking in this forum?” retorted the man.

“It just helps if we understand where you’re coming from,” said Chris bobbing his head.

“My perspective is that I don’t like the way I see my interests being represented by this group of people. I happen to be a part-time student who is also an elected member of the State Assembly.

“You are funded by public money and it seems to me that law makers have a right to see the way tax dollars are being used.” He held up a copy of the newspaper. “This piece of propaganda is representative of the worst of the points of view being expressed about the war, uninformed radicalism.”
“I’m not quite sure,” said Chris, raising his tone just enough to let the guy know that he wasn’t intimidated, “that it’s all the law maker’s money. Secondly, I don’t think we have any uninformed radicals here.”

“With possibly one or two insignificant exceptions,” said Julian Willy, looking up from his sketchpad to stare at Ron, who lit a cigarette and glared back at him.

The assemblyman raised his voice to match Chris’ level. “I think that you should know that I intend to bring to the light of public scrutiny the activities of this newspaper. I also intend to bring a motion before the assembly that would review your funding on a larger basis.”

“I’m sure that if that actually happens, we’ll hear about it through proper channels.” With that comment Chris seemed to dismiss the assemblyman. He was about to call for a vote on the matter of the bus tickets when Jim Durant raised his hand again. “Yes Jim,” said Chris with a feigned weariness.

“I think that what Mr. Slurp is saying is important enough further discussion. I move that we table the motion until when we can find out more about what Mr. Slurp is saying.”

“We’re about to take a vote on the motion before the council,” explained Chris.

“Roberts Rules of Order states that a motion can be made to table at any time,” said Jim Durant.

“Do you ever know what you’re talking about, Jim? asked Julian. “Roberts Rules of Order were suspended at the beginning of this and every other meeting that we’ve had this year.”

“Is that true?” said Jim Durant, looking very surprised and confused.

“It’s the first vote we take at every meeting, Jim,” said Chris.

“Then why did you give me Roberts Rules to read when I asked you to explain how the meetings were run?”

“I figured it would help you,” said Chris, shrugging his shoulders and smiling in spite of himself. Even Slurp smiled as Chris twisted the end of his mustache and stared at Jim.

Cloane raised his hand again. “I think that upset is that “The Commuter” doesn’t seem to be looking for of the story.”

Chris looked over at Ron, who realized he was supposed to respond. “We can only print what is submitted to us. I don’t ever remember telling anyone what opinion to express on any issue. I don’t even remember asking what their opinions were,” said Ron.

“But it all works out the same, doesn’t it?” said Cloane.

“I guess it’s sort of like a fraternity only attracting a certain kind of person.” Ron watched Cloane’s face get red.

“We’re a Veterans Fraternity!” screamed Cloane. He was clearly ready to jump at Ron or ask him to step outside. “You gotta be a veteran to qualify.” Ron’s article and the damage it had caused were well known to Cloane. He hoped Ron didn’t know that there were several black vets on campus and that none of them was a member of his group. He was also frustrated because he saw there was nothing he could do about the way this was being handled. Chris had all the cards and Slurp hadn’t made a dent in him. Cloane knew that Ron’s ideas and the rest of his friends’ ideas were sick but there was nothing he could do about it. Who were these ass holes to judge when they hadn’t done their time!

“You don’t seem to attract all the vets either, do you Jim?” said Ron. He was on thin ice, but fuck Cloane and the rest like him, thought Ron. Let them get their little soldier acts together and win the fuckin’ war.

“Now what does that mean?” said Cloane, smiling with the two other members of his group.

Ron was glad that he had been able to shift the focus of the meeting. “There are over twenty Viet Nam veterans attending this college who are not in your frat.”

“You can’t please everybody,” said Cloane. He wondered how he would best like to jack Ron up.

“Does it bother you that all of them are black?”

“First of all, I’m not sure that what you’re saying is accurate, but I know that it doesn’t have anything to do with what we’re supposed to be discussing.”

Ron wasn’t finished. “Is the assemblyman also interested in my little piece of news? Is he a member of this racially segregated group? Does he think we should do more articles on the nature of prejudice in our system of local politics?”

Chris decided to take a vote on Jim’s motion to table the discussion of funding for the bus tickets. Jim’s motion was defeated. Next Chris brought up the actual vote on the money for the tickets. Durant refused to vote for, against, or even to abstain on the issue, which easily passed.

By the Thursday after Thanksgiving, Hank was sure that if he had to continue to work with his father, he would just commit suicide. Jo Lee got up with him on Monday morning, but Hank didn’t tell her that he felt sick to his stomach. He convinced himself on the way to work that he would be happy to have a place to go every day. Jo Lee would love him and get pregnant. The owner and his father would retire and leave the thriving business to him. He could hire somebody else to run it and show up to sign cheques on Fridays. He would be fair to everyone that worked for him and they would see that you didn’t have to be a bastard to get ahead in life. It would change the way he looked at things too. Hank shifted gears easily on the VW as he drove to work and reran the scenario in his mind.

Hank’s father was waiting in the parking lot when he arrived.

“You’ve got to park your car around back,” he beamed. “You can’t be using the visitor’s spaces any more.” When they reached his father’s office, the old man sat in back of his desk. Hank stood there looking at him. “You may as well take a load off now. You never know when you’ll get another chance to sit while you’re working for me.” Hank hated the way the work clothes bunched on him when he sat down. He lit a cigarette.

“Storm windows are wonderful things,” began Hank’s father. “They allow you to see what’s going on outside while keeping everything that’s important in. They’re like friends or relatives to me.” Hank’s father patted his chest, thinking that perhaps his son would be able to understand being related to a highly durable, shock resistant, triple slotted housing with interchangeable panes. Hank stared at his father and tried to make him uncomfortable. “We make a lot of screens too, Hank. We are a company that employs about a hundred and fifty full time workers and actually hundreds of thousands of pieces are moved through this shop each year. On the other side of the building is the door area. You’ve probably never been over there, but that’s the other half of the business. Any company that makes protective windows must also make protective doors. The volume of business isn’t as high over there.” Hank’s father clasped his hands together and brought them up to his mouth thoughtfully. “I guess that the explanation of there being more windows in a house than doors has something to do with it, but there are more doors out there than we’re knocking on, Hank. And for now, that’s going to be your job.”

Hank’s mouth dropped slightly open and he saw his father break into a big grin. “You want me to knock on doors?” Hank had already decided that he couldn’t do that. He would not allow himself to be slammed on and insulted more than he had been already. This was it. This was his absolute last line of defense. He could say no whenever he wanted to.

“That was sort of a little joke, Hank,” his father said laughing at his son. “We’re not going to actually send you out to knock on doors, but you are going to be spending most of your time soliciting new business for us in both retail and wholesale. The old man got really excited and stood up. Hank stood up too. “You’re going to have your own office, Hank; and it’s almost going to be the same as mine.”
The office was a ten by ten by ten pre-fabbed cube. Wherever it was possible, the boss was sub-dividing his factory space with them. The boss’s office sported the latest in one-way glass joined together by metal frames. Hank’s father showed it to him proudly as they were on the way to Hank’s cube.

As soon as he started, Hank felt like the company’s pet turtle. He told himself that he liked the idea. He would only come out when he was forced to, then he would mysteriously creep back in, do a good job, and live to be two hundred years old.

On Tuesday, Hank said to his father. “What do you want me to say to people when I call them?”

“I want you to sell them our product,” said his father stiffly.

“You expect me to say, ‘Good morning, do you need windows or doors?’ I mean, is there something I could read that would tell me about the product?”

“You can’t get everything out of books, Hank.” The old man loved the chance to say that to him.

“I need some idea of what to say.” Hank was as determined as a tortoise.

“Charlie Hargrove is due in here next week. I’ll have him talk to you.” Hank’s father started toward his duties for the day.

“What do you want me to do today?” said Hank.

“You’ve got be a self starter, Hanky. You can’t be asking me what to do about everything. Do the best that you can and maybe you’ll pick up something on your own. Study the line of products. Fill in where you can; but for God sakes, don’t mope! I’ve got a reputation to keep up here. Hank, these men have come to feel a certain way about me. They’ll be watching my son to be sure that he earns his way. It’s all a question of attitude, Hanky. These people are all off the boat. Some of them can hardly speak the language yet. It’s your job, as well as mine, to set an American example for them.”

Uncontrollably, Hank thought of the stacks of screens and windows that his father brought home and doled out to those members of the family who had learned to appreciate what it meant to be related to a window man. Hank watched his father leave the office and wondered how much he was gonna get paid for all of this. It had better be a damn sight better than my allowance, he thought bitterly.

When Hank woke up on Wednesday morning, his sinuses were giving him a lot of trouble. The steady, glacierish movement of slime was especially uncomfortable as it made its way down the back of his throat. He tried to clear himself without success. Holding a handkerchief up to his mouth and nose, he drove to work. Soon the nausea that accompanied the condition began to take hold. Hank huddled into a deep grimace. He thought about turning around and going home, but how would he explain it to Jo Lee? And what about the meeting with Charlie Hargrove?

Hank’s father never fully believed that his son didn’t have control of his nose. When he saw Hank with the familiar look on his face and the handkerchief crumpled up to his mouth, he frowned deeply.

“What’s the matter, Hank? Have you got a little cold?”

“It might be the air conditioning system in my office,” said Hank.

“Charlie will be in about 11 o’clock, so make sure you’ve got your questions straight and know what you’re going to say.”

“I don’t think I can do it today,” said Hank.

“We all learn to put up with minor discomforts so that we can do our jobs, Hank.”

His father turned and walked away. Hank went into his fishbowl and settled down. He had no intentions of calling anyone. Hank began by counting the moments that went by, and then he just stared at the panorama. He felt unattached. They were like an intricate mobile that moved in accountable patterns. They always and never seemed the same. He wished that he could find out what the patterns were supposed to be. By the time Hank’s father came to tell him that Chalie would be a little late and that they would go out to lunch, Hank was paralyzed. He had only moved twice that day. One time he went to the coffee wagon, and once he went to the bathroom. “He’ll be going to lunch in about twenty minutes. We’ll pick you up on the way out.”

“I don’t want any lunch.”

“That’s when you’re going to meet Charlie Hargrove,” said his father.

“I’d rather not have lunch with you.”

Hank’s father froze and closed the door to his son’s office. “If you’re ever going to be anything Hank, you’ve got to learn how things work. Especially when somebody is trying to give you a break with some free information- which, by the way, nobody ever gave me.”

The father was incensed. Why had she raised him to dote on his own comfort so. They had a boy and he had been proud. Then he seemed to be out of things until Hank had become the way he was now. Hank’s father told himself that it was time for the baby to become a man, and working made you a man. Hank had better learn fast. A little snot never kept a man from doing what had to be done.

Hank knew that the meeting with Hargrove never really had a chance of being a success, but he was unprepared for total disaster. If he went out to eat in his present condition, he stood no chance. He had to move quickly. He strode over to his father’s secretary and said, “Would you please tell my father that I’ve left for the day on account of illness?”

Mrs. Preston knew about the meeting with Charlie Hargrove, as did everybody else in windows. Hank’s father had been keeping them posted on his son’s progress. “You want me to tell your father that you went home sick? Are you sure you don’t want me to get him on the phone first?”

“There’s no need to do that,” said Hank. By the time he was in the back parking lot he was moving quickly. He felt better already. He had just about made it when his father ran out the back door waving his arms and hollering. Hank either had to stop for his father or run him over.

The old man was breathing heavily when he got to the car. “You can go home right after lunch, Hank. But if you walk out on me like this, I’ll never be able to hold my head up around here.”

“I can’t talk,” said Hank. He had begun to sneeze when he saw his father running out the back door. There was now a constant leakage from his nostrils.

“Park the car and come to lunch,” pleaded his father.

Hank was thinking about giving it another try when a violent round of sneezing hit him. Huge amounts of snot overflowed his tissues and ran down his hands. His father watched in disgust as rubbery streams of the stuff bounced down to his son’s pants. Hank pushed one crumpled mass of tissues after another into his face. If his father had just let him go, this would have happened in private. Having it happen in front of his father and the two heads that watched from in back of office curtains was more embarrassment than either one of them was ready for. “I guess maybe you should take the rest of the day. I’ll explain it to Charlie Hargrove.

Chapter 44

“For any of the last part of this course to make sense to you, you have to understand that Shakespeare blew the seams off the worlds of art, philosophy and communication.” Lashly lit his pipe, took his coffee and moved to the window. “I’ve got this theory that I want you to listen to. I’m only going to try it for today, and I promise never to mention it again if absolutely no one knows what I’m talking about.” Lashly smiled, and there was a gentle laugh along murmur in the class. He listened to it like it was a body of water. He studied it and tried to perceive areas where the light of understanding, that his father taught him to look for, shone. Then he spoke softly.

“In King Lear, Shakespeare goes out the bottom end of the world of tragedy. He has a vision of existence more frighteningly real than the mind could tolerate. At this point in his life and writing, he undergoes a dramatic change. He begins to see the world as a magical place. He sees language floating off into a more pure form of communication, music. He envisions a place in creation where one can live, once again, beyond the realm of tragedy.”

Lashly made his now familiar journey back to the desk where he shuffled more papers and picked up his second container of coffee. He listened to the class. Again, he looked for the light. “Shakespeare writes four plays after Lear. King Lear was the last installment in a series of tragedies, which are generally considered the greatest plays in the English language; but each of these last plays is a radically different attempt to understand the nature of life itself. All of Bill Shakespeare’s work is highly treasured; but in the first three plays of this new series, it seems to me that he is unclear about what he is trying to say. He’s a rich man now with a large reputation, so we know that he is no longer writing for money but because he believes in the theater the same way a scientist believes in his laboratory. He has stretched the dimensions of his lab well beyond what was thought to be possible.”

“I can imagine him standing in the wings and looking out at his audience. He’s watching a mysterious woman about forty years old. He sees her face at the conclusion of Cymbelline and knows that she is confused. He goes off and writes Pericles and realizes that, for all intents and purposes, the second play is even murkier for her. She begins to have some flashes of understanding during The Winter’s Tale but she still doesn’t get it until he writes The Tempest.”

Lashly stopped for a disclaimer. “Now I know that someone is going to read that he wrote another play and perhaps portions of still another, but I want to tell you that those didn’t matter. What matters is whether or not this woman is finally able to understand. Shakespeare delivers his farewell to the stage at the end of this play. It is my belief that he is talking directly to this woman, and it is in that spirit that I want you to read this last piece of literature for the semester.”

As soon as Ron went home, he opened the book and began to read. At about 9 p.m. he started it for the second time. By 2 a.m. he had finished recording his journal entry and went to sleep.

He cut all his classes again on Thursday. The preparations for the trip to Washington seemed endless and not without impediments. Which people was he actually taking with him? What would be their role once they arrived? Were there certain events that must be covered? The school’s conservative daily ran two large articles which opposed student participation and funding because it would give the college a bad name and attract outsiders who would do the school no good. There was a letter from the President of the college, addressed directly to him, that stated any students arrested because of involvement in illegal activities would be candidates for the proper disciplinary action, which remained undefined. Chris advised Ron that everybody was just covering their bases and that there was nothing to be upset about.

When he ran into Rebecca, she told him that she wanted to be his friend. Ron answered that he had no time for the type of friendship she was talking about.

After reading the play again on Thursday night, Ron felt extremely confident about the next day’s class. He drove to school early and drank two containers of coffee in the newspaper room while he was waiting. Ron was nervous as he waited for Lashly to arrive. The long haired, blonde kid asked if anybody had read the assignment and received a series of “who had time to read” answers. Lashly arrived with an entourage. First Irene, followed by the red haired girl, followed by the clicking of Lashly’s heels in the hall which always seemed to be moving at galloping speed.

Ron had placed two questions on the side board. “Why isn’t Prospero guilty of the same kind of action the US is taking in Viet Nam?” and “What is the stuff that dreams are made of?”

Lashly placed his material in neat piles and moved over to the windowsill with his coffee. Ron liked the way he seemed to drink in questions along with the coffee and then use his pipe for the pondering process. Ron saw Lashly read his first question.

“Whose question is that about Viet Nam?”

“Mine,” said Ron.

Lashly took a long swallow of coffee and stared back at the board. “You didn’t understand the play at all, did you?”

There was a smattering of laughter and a smirk from the blond haired kid that Ron didn’t notice. Ron was busy blushing. “No! I guess I didn’t see the play the way you wanted me to at all.”

“It has very little to do with anything I wanted, except of course, your reading the play,” said Lashly, shrugging at the blonde haired kid, who shrugged back at him. Lashly looked back at the board and then back at Ron. “Your second question is genuine and therefore better. At least I think it’s genuine,” said Lashly raising an eyebrow at Ron. “Now the real question is what is Shakespeare after here?”

Ron raised his hand. “Isn’t that just your question?”

“That’s not the idea–whose question it is–but the more beautiful and greater questions of the play.”

Ron still felt insulted. “Where do you figure the answer’s questions are?”

Lashly moved quickly. “Let’s get rid of your first thing early so that we don’t have to talk about it anymore. Prospero is set adrift with his daughter, by the state, to be victimized or learn to survive in nature. The United States was driven to Viet Nam by different motivations. But what is the stuff of dreams?”

The beautiful, red haired girl laughed and said, “A bit of cheese or an undigested piece of beef?” The line seemed somehow familiar, but Ron couldn’t quite place it.

“In keeping with the season,” said Lashly smiling at her. “Yes, I’m sure that there’s some truth there, but that’s not the kind of answer Ron is looking for, is it?”

Ron was still fuming about why Lashly had avoided his question about the war. “I still don’t understand why my first question isn’t important.” Lashly sighed but Ron had the ball and he was going to run with it. “The island belongs to Caliban and Prospero conquers him and makes him a slave.”

“Caliban tried to rape his daughter,” said Lashly.

“There’s no excuse for slavery anywhere,” accused Ron. He felt that Lashly’s drawl hung out like a burning KKK cross in front of the class.

“What you mean to say is that Prospero conquers Caliban in order to enslave him? Caliban makes himself a slave.”

“That sounds an awful lot like the excuses that people use to justify slavery in this country.”

Lashly seemed to visibly straighten. “I know what most of the reasons and excuses for slavery are. They’ve been given to me all my life. What I’m trying to tell you is that this isn’t the place to ask those questions.”

“You have to ask those questions everywhere,” said Ron in a loud, victorious voice.
“I suppose that you do, if you don’t know where or when to best find the answers; but what I’m trying to talk about goes beyond the two-dimensional world of politics.”

Ron didn’t know what he meant by two-dimensional, so he decided he’d better keep his mouth shut. Later, Lashly ended the class by saying that he was gonna spend Monday on the same play and that he was also going to have some things to say about the final exam.

On Friday, Hank woke up just before dawn with the feeling that he had run out his string of options. He thought about pool. The grace of the way a good player separated his shots from the pack and lined things up just right was skill brought to perfection. A good pool game was the applied synthesis of mathematical principles coupled with fate and good fortune. It was exquisite. He wanted to go through life with the same feeling he experienced during a long run at the table. He would be fully alive and paying attention. Only he would decide where and when he should move. It would be he who held the timing of the world for as long as he could keep making shots. Hank closed his eyes. The problem was that things had become so complicated that every step he took began to look like a shot and trouble was that you couldn’t be sure of making them all.

The day before he had told Jo Lee that he was going to work and instead, had driven to his mother’s house. She was expecting him and had laid out a coffee mug and napkin next to his uncollected mail. He was surprised by her insight but didn’t mention it to her. The gist of things was that he could go back to work on Friday, but after that the job was gone. “Your father is very upset.” Hank started to say that he didn’t care but she cut him off. “He feels hurt and let down.”

“Does he?” said Hank. “It’s good to know that he feels things.” Hank told his mother that he would go back to work but it was like she didn’t hear him.

“If things don’t work out, you’ve always got a home here.”

Hank figured that he had about an hour to decide if he should go back to work there. He could really take any shot he wanted, as long as he could gain enough position to get him through the table.

“Hank, you’re gonna be late for work,” said Jo Lee shaking him. He must’ve fallen back to sleep. When he had come to his senses, he saw that she had made him breakfast and laid out his work clothes. Hank put them on quietly. He was a prisoner who lived behind his own thoughts because that was the only place that was his own.

Drinking his coffee and eating his buttered roll, he tried to figure out what he was gonna do with the day. The phone’s ringing caused his heart to beat faster. He was squirming by the time Jo Lee answered it. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she returned to the room quickly and announced that his father wanted to talk to him. Hank hadn’t expected his old man to call and his first thought was that he didn’t want to talk with him, but he found himself moving to the telephone. “Hello,” he said trying to sound bland and noncommittal.

“Hank, I’m getting ready to leave or work and I want to know if you’re gonna be there or not.”

“Probably not,” said Hank.

“Hank, has your mother explained to you that I can’t carry you beyond this week?”

“I know that.”

“And you’re telling me that you’re not coming in?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t want to give it one more try?”

“It’s not a good idea.”

“Okay Hanky, your mother wants to talk to you.”

Hank felt himself sweating.

“Hank?”

“Yes.”

“Will you be down to see us soon?”

“I suppose so.”

“I’ll be expecting you sometime next week then.”

They said good-bye and Hank went back into the kitchen. “What did your father want?”

Jo Lee was expecting to hear something about the business that required the old man’s checking with him.

“He called to tell me not to come into work.”

Her face became tight and hard. Hank saw the reaction and it made him angry. “Why not?” she said darkly.

“Because I’m fired.”

“Your father called up and fired you?”

“Sort of.”

“What happened, Hank?”

He didn’t care anymore. He felt the weight of it was just too heavy and didn’t care what that said about him or anything else. “I’m fired because I didn’t want to go back to work anymore.”

“What are you telling me? Are you telling me that your father up and fired you or that you don’t want to work?”

“What difference does it make? I don’t have a job anymore.”

“It makes a big difference to me, Hank. I want to know why your father called and what happened.”

Hank’s mind was running like a spinning carousel. “Why do you want to know? So you can belittle me and badger me about it? So you can tell me how Tony would have handled it and laugh because I’m a Martian?”

“I’m past the stage of laughing.” She sat down and didn’t say anything. She looked into her coffee and thought about where she would be living when all this was over. She wondered if she could afford to stay in this apartment. Hank was right about one thing; there was always Tony. She looked up and saw Hank smirking at her. It washed away her sadness with a burst of anger that seemed to come up around her from everywhere. “You’re always going to be a pathetic little worm, aren’t you, Hank?”

“It’s certainly a long way from being a big snake, isn’t it?

Hank’s sarcasm gnawed away a little at what was keeping her from battering him with something. She wanted to take a light bulb and crush it into his face. “I hate the way you make me feel.”

“So do I, but at least it’s good that we feel something.”

Jo Lee couldn’t hold it back any longer. “You worthless prick!” she screamed reaching up for two handfuls of Hank’s tangled reddish blonde hair. She shook his head back and forth trying to tear it out of his head. She was screaming and crying at the same time.

At first Hank thought that he was going to pass out from the pain, but if he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as hard as he could, it might stop. Jo Lee pushed him away, picked up her coffee cup and hurled it into the sink. It shattered. She screamed again. Picked up his coffee cup and threw it through the window, which also shattered. She reached for the chair and Hank tried to stop her. He wasn’t quick enough. She caught him flush in the neck and chest with the back of the chair and drove him into the refrigerator. “You’d be better off if I killed you, Hank.” There was only a trace of tears on her face now. “I should take a knife and stab you or bash your head in with a frying pan while I’ve got you like this.” Hank was gasping for air. She pushed the chair harder against his neck. “You’re even too sad to kill.” She released the chair. Hank grabbed it and threw it across the room. She cried with wrenching sobs that shook her body. “I loved you and you made a fool out of me.” Hank watched her with his eyes frozen on her words. “The joke is that you’re too big a fool to blame.”

“I guess I’d better leave,” said Hank.

“I knew that you’d say that.” She was still crying but softly now.

Hank went back into the bedroom and changed from his work clothes. A voice that said, “How could she do this to me?” pounded in his head.

Chapter 45

On Saturday morning, Marjorie asked Ron what he was going to do about Christmas. Specifically, she wanted to know about his father. Were they going to invite him over on Christmas Eve as the tradition had been, or was Ron going over to Freddy’s house to deliver his presents like he’d done last year?

“It doesn’t matter,” said Ron. “I haven’t got any money anyway.”

“You’ll just have to send cards and explain to people that you couldn’t afford to make presents this year. Everybody knows that you’re in school”

“It doesn’t feel like Christmas. I don’t care about those things any more.”

Marjorie said, “Well, that’s a very nice way to feel, Ron. What should I tell the people who have already bought you things? Oh, Ronald doesn’t care about Christmas anymore, so why don’t you take everything back?”

“I don’t care what you tell anybody.” Ron was now fully annoyed. “Tell them it’s hard to make presents while people are being bombed and shot daily.”

“You take the joy out of everything, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ron wished that she would leave him alone. He just wanted to get out the door and it seemed like she was working her way up to giving him something to do.

“Don’t you even intend to send Christmas cards?”

“I just told you that I didn’t have any money for those kinds of things, didn’t I?”

“It can’t be too expensive to buy a box of cards and sit down and write them out with a little message for everybody.”

“Okay, I just don’t want to do it. How’s that?” Ron knew he was taunting her now. He saw that her lip began to quiver.

“How did you get to become such a bastard?”

“Oh Christ! You never try to understand anything.”

When the doorbell rang Marjorie said, “Do you think it would be too much trouble to ask you to answer the door?”

Ron walked to the door with Chipper close behind him. When he saw Hank standing there, it didn’t make him happy. Chipper ran over to Hank leaving a trail of wet spots behind her. “What are you up to?” said Ron. Hank shook his head and walked past Ron and into the kitchen. Fuck me, thought Ron. He ignored the wet spots and followed Hank.

Thinking that Hank would lend support to her argument, Marjorie was happy to see him. She often found that Hank leaned toward her way of thinking when it came to Ron’s behavior. “How are you, Hank?”

Hank put his head down. “Not too good,” he muttered.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“That would be good.” Hank looked strained and pale. Each gesture that he made seemed to require a large effort.

Finally, Ron began to warm up to the fact that something was wrong with Hank. “What’s happenin’ man?”

Hank grimaced and tried to smile but the smile just became a larger grimace. “I don’t know,” he said shaking his head. Then he blurted, “I’d like to be able to stay here for a while.”

Ron and Marjorie exchanged a look of shock. “What happened, man?”

“I don’t know.”

Marjorie said, “You’re always welcome to stay with us, Hank.”

Hank looked at her with an extreme sense of relief. He bent down and began to pet Chipper. He looked into the dog’s eyes for a long time– long enough to make both of the observers uncomfortable.

Marjorie served them all a cup of coffee. Ron decided he had a little time before he was supposed to be at the noontime meeting at Chris’ house. On closer observation, Hank looked even worse had first appeared. Ron wondered if he was sick or if he’d snapped and was now unbalanced somehow. “Do you feel okay Hank?”

“I don’t feel much of anything.”

“Did someone die?” said Marjorie.

“Not exactly.”

She pressed. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“I think I might be.”

“Did you leave Jo Lee?” said Ron.

“She threw me out,” said Hank exhaling.

Marjorie tried her best to hide her amusement at Hank’s dramatics. “What did she say?”

“She said that I was a dirty little worm,” said Hank.

“She should know about dirt,” said Ron.

It took Hank about twenty minutes to sketch in some details of the story. He left out the parts about him quitting his job and Jo Lee pinning him against the refrigerator with the chair. He was too embarrassed to mention either event in front of Marjorie. By the end of the story, Ron had become impatient. “Hank,” he said, ‘look, I’ve got to get going. We’re going to Washington next week and this is the last real planning session before the trip.”

Hank didn’t say anything. Marjorie said, “Why don’t you take Hank with you to meet your college friends?”

“It wouldn’t be a very good idea,” said Ron. “This isn’t a social gathering. Hank wouldn’t know anybody there or have any idea of what we were talking about.” Ron put on his shoes. “I’ll see you when I get back,” he said as he left Hank and Marjorie sitting in the kitchen.

“Ronald, wait a second.” Marjorie’s voice grabbed him just as he was about to clear the door. She came out into the hallway and whispered. “What am I supposed to do with him? I’ve got to go to the cemetery to fix the graves with Aunt Dottie this afternoon.”

“Just leave him in my room. I’ll take care of him when I get back.”

“When is that going to be?”

“Probably not for quite a while.”

“Do you think it’s fair to just dump him on me like this?” Ron didn’t answer “He is your friend, you know.”

Ron knew, but he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t giving up his meeting to console Hank. “I’m sure that he won’t be here very long and I don’t think that he’ll make a lot of noise or cause any trouble.

“You say that now, but you won’t really be here long enough to know.” She had an idea and was heading towards it with a gathering momentum. “Why don’t you give me the number at Chris’ house, and I can call you there if anything goes wrong?”

Ron flushed and froze in the same instant. He could see himself sitting there trying to map out an important strategy that he was beginning to believe could change the world and then the telephone would ring and it would be his mother wanting to know what time he was coming home for dinner. “I won’t be that long. It’ll be okay, I promise.” Ron slipped out the door and she followed him onto the porch.

“Why can’t you give me Chris’ number?”

“What do you need it for?”

“Because I want it. I can’t understand why you’re so afraid that I’ll call you there. Is it now an embarrassment to talk to your mother?”

“You’re only using this Hank thing as an excuse to get the number so you can keep tabs on me. I don’t really know the number.”

“Then give me the address, and I’ll get the number from information.”

“I don’t know the address. I just know how to get there.”

The planning session was exciting. It reminded Ron of a marathon stickball game that went on until you couldn’t see what you were doing anymore. Ron was going to Washington in the second car. He’d thought that everybody would be traveling on the buses but learned that Chris was funding two cars worth of his friends out of miscellaneous student council funds. The coolest way to travel was in privacy. The cars were equipped with a supply of pot and an equal number of guys and chicks. Ron found himself unsolicitedly paired with Ronda Beamer.

She had a great body, but he never would have picked her out for himself.

He wasn’t really paired with her; but the other four people in the car represented two couples, and Ron felt sure he was being given a shot at Ronda.

“What are you going to do now?” said Chris when people started going home.

“I got a friend staying at my house who’s really on a bad trip. I guess I should go back and hang out with him for a while.”

Chris nodded. “We’re both invited over to Ronda’s house.”

For some reason, Ron didn’t like it. “Who else is going to be there?”

“Me, you-if you want- a couple of other people.”

“It sounds like it would be great. She’s got a fine ass, but I got to do this thing at home, you know?”

“Okay man,” said Chris.

Ron found Hank camped in his room reading the copy of The Hustler that he still kept by his bed. Hank was anxious to tell him the real story of what had happened. He went into all the details and ended by telling Ron how much better it felt not to be there anymore.

“She fucked you over,” said Ron. “What happened to the job with your father?”

“I can’t take working with him.”

“Do you think that’s what set things off between you?”

“I don’t know,” said Hank. “It seems now that anything might have set things off.”

“Tell me why it was so bad with your father,” said Ron.

“I couldn’t breathe in the office they stuck me in and my sinuses got clogged and after that everything was just a mess.”

Ron thought that it sounded like a piss poor reason for walking out on a job, but he kept it to himself. He told Hank about the planning session but left out the Ronda Beamer thing. He waited for Hank to say something when he was done talking, but Hank was quiet. Finally, Ron said, “Do you want to go down there with us? I think I can arrange things if you want to go.”

“I don’t think so,” said Hank.

“Why not?”

“Because those people don’t really know what they’re doing. There’s nothing they can do that’s going to change anything and people get hurt at those things.”

“Yeah? What about the principles involved?”

“Look,” said Hank, “I think the war is bad. In fact, I think it’s horrible but there isn’t anything that I can do about it.”

“That’s wrong Hank. There’s a lot we can do to take the place of sitting around and feeling sorry for ourselves.” Hank winced. Ron saw him wince and felt guilty. “The people involved in the peace movement need help. And really, man, what are we doing? Nothing. What have we ever done except make up a bunch of games and develop a bunch of habits to pass the time.”

“That’s right,” said Hank sarcastically.

“Well, this isn’t a fuckin’ game. This is trying to do what’s right and trying to save people’s lives.”

“You go ahead and try to save them.”

Ron knew Hank was telling him that he was being a sucker, but he decided he didn’t care as long as he was being a sucker about the right things. It was better than doing nothing and just dreaming about what things you might do. “I’m not trying to be an evangelist, man.”

“That’s certainly not how it sounds,” said Hank.

“How did it sound when Jo Lee called you a dirty little worm?”

At first Hank looked stunned. Then he managed to say, “Just like that.”

“That’s what I mean. If we get tangled up in this emotional crap, we lose sight of what’s important. Then anybody can come along and turn you into a frog, a worm, or anything else because you’re afraid to do anything about it.” Hank didn’t say anything. Ron wished that he could tell him to go home. “Do you want to take a ride or something?”

“That would be good,” said Hank.

Hank had Sunday dinner with Ron, Aunt Dottie, Marjorie and George. Marjorie said that it seemed almost natural having him there and that he should make himself at home and consider himself part of the family for as long as he needed to take to straighten things out. Ron wondered if he would have to move out to get away from it. After dinner, Hank sat and talked about Jo Lee with everyone except George and Chipper, who had gone to take a nap. Ron almost wished he could join them.

Marjorie said, “It doesn’t sound like the girl was for you, and that’s all there is to it.”

“That’s all,” said Hank pathetically. Ron wanted to kick him. He could understand why Jo Lee had ended up grabbing him by the throat.

“Hank,” began Aunt Dottie. She had listened to the story twice by now and had decided she needed to take some steps to insure against a third repetition. “If you want this girl, you’ll have to go out and get a job that you’ll be proud of. Either she’ll wait for you to get back on your feet or she wasn’t worth having around, but no woman likes a crybaby, Hank. A woman has to feel like she can respect her husband…” She paused and stared at Hank fixedly, “or boyfriend . She’ll never be happy if she feels she can walk all over you.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Hank.

“Don’t say that you think I’m right when you haven’t understood a word of what I’ve said. In Jo Lee’s case, even if you had clouted her, you would have been better off than running away like a little puppy, which is what you did.” Ron wanted to laugh but covered his mouth. Dottie wasn’t finished. “As things are, what have you got? You’re even afraid to go home because you haven’t stood up to anybody. It’s not my business what you do, Hank, but it seems to me there are plenty of fish in the sea.”

On Monday night, Marjorie asked Ron how long he thought Hank intended to stay.

“I don’t know,” said Ron.

That night at dinner, she raised the question of why Hank hadn’t called Jo Lee and told her that he wanted to make up.

“It doesn’t feel like the right thing to do,” said Hank squirming.

“What are you going to do, Hank?” said Marjorie. “Are you going to let her walk away from you like you don’t care?”

“It’s not at all that I don’t care.”

“How is she supposed to know that if you don’t tell her?”

Ron had seen the trap coming, but Hank just walked right into it. Ron felt like he’d paid a lot of dues to know it was coming. He decided not to rescue Hank from what he knew was the next step.

“How is she supposed to know that?” repeated Hank. Ron thought Hank looked like a holiday turkey.

“She’s not going to know until you make the first move and call her. You can go in the other room. No one is going to bother you.

“You mean right now?” said Hank.

“What are you waiting for?” pressed Marjorie.

“She wouldn’t be home now anyway. She’s supposed to be at work.”

“You’ll never know unless you call,” said Marjorie. “I’ll bet she is home.”

Hank was trapped but to Ron’s surprise, he didn’t seem to mind that much. Ron decided that his mother was just pushing Hank to do something that he really wanted to do anyway. It was useless to try to resist Marjorie when things had gone this far. Hank figured that he could go to the phone, dial the number and there would be no answer. Then they could spend some time talking about what she would have said, and Hank could feel more prepared for the time when he really did have to speak to her.

With a lilting “hello,” Jo Lee picked up the phone on the second ring. Hank was so sure there wouldn’t be any answer that he hadn’t even gone into the other room. He tried to move quickly but got tangled up in the phone cord. Jo Lee said, “Hello,” for the second time. Hank didn’t answer. She said, “Hello,” again and followed it by saying, “Is that you, Hank?”

“It’s me,” said Hank, still struggling with the phone cord and Ron, Marjorie and Aunt Dottie watched. Then Hank told Jo Lee that it was a bad connection and that he would call her right back. Aunt Dottie told him that he could use the phone up in her apartment so that he could have some privacy. Hank gratefully accepted the offer and hurried up the stairs. He sat with the phone in front of him for some long minutes. Then he dialed.

Jo Lee picked up the phone on the third ring and said, “I thought you chickened out, Hank.”

“I think that we should talk,” he said thinking that he deserved the line about being a chicken. He began to think that maybe he could go back and work for his father.

“We can talk,” she said pausing,” but I want you to come over in the next day or two and get your stuff outta here.”

Hank felt like she’d burned him with a match and what came out of him next was more of a reaction than something he thought about saying. “But that’s our apartment. It belongs to me just as much as it belongs to you.”

“You couldn’t afford the rent and besides, you don’t have a reason to be up here anymore.”

“What do you mean?” said Hank weakly. He was trembling.

“You make me feel like an awful person, Hank, and I know I’m not that bad.”

“I don’t think that you’re awful at all.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She paused again “Your things have to be out by Friday because starting this weekend somebody else is going to be staying here.”
Hank began to cry. “The piano player,” he blubbered.

“It’s none of your business anymore, Hank.”

“It is the piano player though, isn’t it?” Hank felt an adrenalin force its way through his words.

“No, it isn’t.” Hank quivered more violently. “I’ve decided to patch things up with Tony.”

Hank gasped and said, “You can’t go back to that. Hank saw images of Tony and the stains on their rug. They were etched in his mind, super-imposed on images of his mother and father.

“I’m tired of moving on to new things, and I know what life is like with Tony. I don’t want to be scared anymore, Hank, and you make me feel like an asshole.”

Hank was crying. “I guess I’ll get my things tomorrow,” he choked out.

“I’m not going to be here, but make sure you lock the door and leave the key.” Hank winced and there was a silence. “This way I won’t have to hate you anymore.” After a moment she ended the conversation with a quick “good-bye.” She felt very uncomfortable talking to him, and she knew that was the feeling she wanted to get away from.

Hank sat in Aunt Dottie’s kitchen crying. The front of his shirt was quite wet. Sunny flew over and landed on his shoulder. Hank moved his hand back to pick up the bird, and Sunny sunk his beak into the too quickly moving finger. He squawked, shit on Hank’s shoulder and flew back to his cage.

Ron saw the bird shit and tears on Hank’s shirt and knew that it didn’t look good. Marjorie was too anxious for results to notice Hank’s condition. “How did it go?” she said. “It wasn’t that hard, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t hard at all,” said Hank.

When Hank didn’t speak for a full minute, Aunt Dottie said, “She gave you the gate, didn’t she?”

“She gave me the gate,” repeated Hank nodding sadly.

“She probably didn’t mean it,” said Marjorie.

Ron figured that it was time for him to step in. Hank was his friend, and he couldn’t stand to watch the thing continue like this. What Hank needed was a couple of joints and a ride. “Let’s go for a ride, man?”

“I don’t think that I can drive right now,” said Hank.

Ron offered to drive the bug. Marjorie protested in a silent way. She thought that after all the time she’d spent with Hank that she at least deserved to know exactly what had happened.

Chapter 46

Ron stayed at Ronda Beamer’s house the night before the moratorium. Ronda’s father owned a furniture store, and he wanted to be known as a man whose family and home were a showcase. Ronda showed Ron the marble tables in the vestibule, the French provincial chairs and couches in the parlor, the form-fitting, Plexiglas chairs in the kitchen and the little girl, canopy bed – which was truly her favorite thing in the world – with a sense of pride and reverence.
“Who sleeps in here?” Ron asked, expecting to be told about a little sister.
“This is my room,” beamed Ronda.
Ron looked at the bed again and smiled. “I guess that you don’t mind sleeping sort of all scrunched up.”
“I never had a problem,” said Ronda defensively.
“I’m all over the bed,” said Ron.
“I’ll bet you are.” Ronda smiled when she saw he was staring at the cleavage her low-cut sweater showed him. “The gang will probably all sleep in the rec room.”
“What gang?” Ron was quickly deciding that he didn’t care if he got nowhere with this chick.
“The college gang. You know.” said Ronda. “Anybody who wants to come over. Would you like something to drink?”
“Some coffee.”
“Would you like to trip a little?” she smiled her best showcase smile.
“Are you gonna trip?”
“I think I’ll just take some speed. It probably won’t change anything. I’ve been speeding all day.”
“I just smoke pot,” said Ron, feeling like he was saying ‘I’m a meat and potatoes man’. “
“That’s too bad really.” She licked her lips and Ron saw that they glistened. They seemed to sparkle up at you.
Ronda’s smile had been the best gift her daddy had given her. The cost of her braces and orthodontist’s work could have furnished an entire house. Mr. Beamer liked to stand back and admire the work. “Ronda,” he would say, “you are a very pretty girl in your own right, but with that smile you could be one of the stars.” Ronda had forgotten by that time the way she cried when she first heard him use the same line on one of his customers. “Mrs. Liverman, your house is very pretty in its own right but with this carpet, you could be one of the stars. She had sulked for days and never told her father why. After a while, she wasn’t even sure why it had upset her so.
She led Ron into the rec room. It sported an artificial brick fireplace and an artificial fire. The chairs were covered with heavy plastic, and the floors were block tile. It was hard to wash, but Mrs. Beamer didn’t mind as long as they could afford a colored maid. Mrs. Beamer was fond of calling the cleaning lady who came on Thursdays the maid.
Ronda sat on Ron’s lap. He loved the way her ass felt on his legs. He could put up with a lot for an ass like that. “I’m really happy that we’re finally getting a chance to know each other.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Ron. He squeezed her thigh and she gave him a short, sexy giggle. Maybe if he could fuck her, he would even like her.
“It would be really great to drop acid in Washington together tomorrow, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess so,” said Ron, “But I really want to see what happens. What I really think can happen seems more immense than acid.”
“You think the war is more immense than acid?”
“Yes,” said Ron.
“Maybe we shouldn’t trip together, huh?” She started to wonder where the rest of the gang was, especially Chris.
They arrived in Washington about 7:30 the next morning. Ronda and Ron made the trip with four other Commuter people. There was no sign of Chris in either car. Ron slept through most of the ride with his hand holding Ronda’s soft, sweatered tit. The talking in the car seemed inane, and Ron kept on wondering what had happened to Chris, but he was really more excited about the thought that he was finally going to do something. This would be a damn sight better than just sitting around and talking.
The morning was bright and extremely cold. Ron had been awake since they left the interstate at the exit marked for Washington. Everything seemed like a normal place and then all of a sudden there it was all around them. As he saw the buildings and read the names, he was sure that he had entered one of his high school history books.
The major rally was scheduled for the Washington Monument. The marchers were going to converge from three separate locations. Ron’s group assembled at the Lincoln Memorial. The other two groups were assembling at the Capital Building and the White House. The plan was to march to the Washington Monument simultaneously. When they reached full strength, they would hear speeches and songs. They parked in a 10th Avenue parking lot that was at least fifteen blocks from their assembly point. Ronda grabbed Ron’s arm as they got out of the car. “Let’s separate from this group as soon as possible” he whispered.
“I’m with you,” she said with a conspiratorial smile and a sense of glee. Maybe Ron would be fun to be with after all.
Ron walked over to Rex Michaels and asked what time they should get back together. “I want to get out of here by 5 p.m.,” said Rex. “Where are you people off to?”
“Oh we’re just going to try to take everything in,” said Ronda.
“Just don’t get lost,” said Rex.
Ron said, “I’ve got the address in my head.”
Rex shrugged and tucked his shoulder length black hair under his cowboy hat and walked out with his chick and their friends. Ronda and Ron laughed their way down 10th Avenue and headed for the Federal Triangle. He liked the way they walked together. They squeezed each other’s asses under their coats.
“My father brought me here when I was a little girl. He said that he wanted me to see how beautiful our way of life is.” They stopped for coffee.
“Peace,” said the vendor when Ron paid him.
“Yeah peace,” said Ron flashing the guy a quick sign as they walked away. “How does your father feel about the war?”
“He said that he’s happy that he didn’t have a son.” Ron’s first thought was that Mr. Beamer was somehow a coward for not having a son. He looked at Ronda and for some insane reason thought that if she wasn’t Jewish, she might have been a boy. He wondered if he should tell her that his grandfather was Jewish. Maybe it would help get him into her pants. “I’ve never been here before,” he said casually.
She gave him a searching look. “You should come back here some time. It’s really a beautiful city.”
“This is just the place the war comes from. When things have changed, maybe then it’ll be a good place to just visit. That is if they don’t kick us all out of the fuckin’ country.”
As they neared the Federal Triangle, they saw large numbers of people in the streets. Mostly everybody was wearing blue jeans and field jackets or pea coats. “A lot of these people are carrying sleeping bags,” said Ron.
“There are places to stay all over town,” said Ronda nodding her head. “That’s what I think Chris and the rest of the gang decided to do. A lot of people came in last night for the candlelight vigil.”
Ron didn’t know about any of that stuff, and he admired Ronda’s knowledge of what was happening. Who the fuck was he to think that she was an out of it chick? She had been around the council longer than he had. It wasn’t exactly her fault that all she talked about was her father. Ron stared at her thoughtfully wondering if she had ever wanted to fuck her father.
When they got to Constitution Avenue, it was like they had entered a magical kingdom. All the buildings were immense and seemed tremendous in their magnitude. They were breathing the ideals they stood for out into the morning air. Ron knew he had entered the generator that fueled the pulse of the world – the unreal place where news really happened. It was too large for the real world. It was the front line and he was one of the reinforcements who had been brought in to bolster the action. It’s too large for me, Ron thought to himself. The street was packed with people who were smiling and saying peace as they passed each other. Ron and Ronda walked down to the IRS building. Then they turned and retraced their steps, passing the National Archives and crossing the street in front of the National Art Gallery.
“Why does something so beautiful have to be so fucked up?” said Ron. Ronda didn’t answer.
At the end of Constitution Avenue, the groups of people became small crowds. Everywhere he looked, Ron saw banners. They carried all the slogans that Ron had heard before but somehow they looked more impressive and seemed to have a deeper meaning in this setting. Ron thought there must be more people here than there were on most battlefields and that must count for something. The two of them walked arm in arm through the crowd. “This is incredible,” said Ron.
“I guess we won’t run into any of the other people from our college,” said Ronda.
A car with mounted loudspeakers drove by advising people to leave the area directly after the main demonstration at the Monument. Ronda and Ron found themselves standing with a contingent from NYU. The group was chanting slogans and the two joined in with them. After about twenty minutes of chanting, Ron saw a group of demonstrators carrying red banners and making a running entrance shouting, “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Mihn, NLF is gonna win!” Ron watched the group with a hard stare.
They were running hard and seemed determined to push their way to the front of the march. Scattered boos rose up from various sections around the Monument. The red flag demonstrators changed their tune to a two-part chant. One half of the group screamed, “America,” the other half answered, “Sucks.” Ron tightened his fists. This didn’t seem right. These people were looking for trouble. Tension rose as the red flag group splintered into various sections of the crowd continuing their taunts. “America” screamed the groups that had gone to the left side. “Sucks!” came the answer from the right. Ronda took hold of Ron’s hand.
“Why don’t you people shut the fuck up?” yelled somebody from the NYU contingent.
“Fuck you, assholes!” came the reply.
Ron looked at Ronda and said, “I’m sure this isn’t good.”
“You people are really assholes!” screamed Ronda.
Ron stared at them with the hardest look his face could muster. “They make us all look like jerk-offs,” he said to the people around him. “And it will be them that the TV cameras use for the news.” Ron was thinking about Chicago. What would happen if there was a fight here. He remembered watching pictures from the convention on the news. The cops were just cracking open people’s faces but maybe that was only the part the media decided to show about that too.
Again Ron heard the chant, “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Mihn, NLF is gonna win.”
In the middle of the NYU group was a small, skinny, dark haired guy who was ignoring the chants and telling jokes. “So the Western Union comes to the door and says that he has a telegram. The lady who answers the door asks him to sing it for her. The Western Union guy looks uncomfortable and says that he doesn’t think it’s the type of message that he should sing. The housewife says, ‘oh please! I’ve always wanted just one singing telegram. I’ll give you a really good tip if you sing it.’ The Western Union guy says ok and sings, ‘da da da dat dat da. Your son is dead.'”
Ron laughed but he thought it was grizzly and disgusting, and he didn’t know why he was laughing. Another student in the group had a portable radio and was listening to news reports about the march. “Hey,” he shouted, “there are over a million people here!” The crowd buzzed as the word was passed along. Over a million people and Ron was one of them. It was too unreal. A million people who were willing to show up, stand in the cold and forget about their differences. The crowd began to move. The chanting grew more rhythmic and was timed to their steps. They were walking up the small hill that led to the base of the Monument. Ron’s breath was taken away by the sight from the top of the hill. It was a huge flood of people making themselves comfortable. There was music playing and the chanting subsided with the sound of it. Ron smelled pot. He looked over and saw Ronda taking a hit off a huge joint that was making its way down their row. She gave it to Ron and giggled. He took two tokes and passed it on. The person to his immediate left was a tall girl with reddish brown hair and a magnificent multicolored Indian coat with an intricate design. Ron glanced back over to his right at Ronda’s wool coat. The word “Bambergers” flashed in his mind and he wished he could be with the Indian coat.
“I’m not even cold anymore,” said Ronda.
Ron realized that he’d forgotten about the cold too.
“It’s all the people,” he said.
“This is absolutely far out,” said Ronda.
“It sure is,” said Ron.
Richie Havens opened the program with a rendition of “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Ron floated on the acoustic strumming and the humming voice. The second of the huge joints passed his way and he took two more hits and gave it to Ronda.
“I can’t believe this,” she said smiling. She put her head on Ron’s shoulder. “I’m enjoying being here with you,” she said softly.
“Me too,” said Ron as he stared intently at the stage.
By the time Arlo Gutherie was introduced, Ron had lost more inhibitions and cheered along with everyone else. They were all there to show they enjoyed a different brand of life. They were they to show that they had a different definition of what was right and good. They could do it effortlessly and with laughter.
“I’m gonna sing one of the songs my father is famous for,” said Arlo. “Only I’m not gonna leave out the parts they won’t let you hear in school and on TV. I’m gonna sing all the verses he crowd cheered. Arlo began singing, “This land is your land…” and Ron listened for what he hadn’t heard before.
The girl in the Indian coat lit a joint and handed it to Ron. She smiled at him with deep, dark eyes. He took the joint and meekly said, “Thank you.” He took a hit and tried to give it back to her.
“Give everybody else a chance first,” she said smiling.
He tried to give the joint to Ronda who turned her head abruptly back to the stage just a little too late. “Do you want some of this?” Ronda gave him a distracted look and said, “Not right now.”
Ron passed the joint to the guy in back of him. Some of the crowd began to sing along with Arlo. Then they listened to David Dillenger talk about the need for peace in the world. They listened to Abbie Hoffman joke about the situation with the Chicago Seven. Hoffman said that he knew of certain demonstrations scheduled for later in the day that were earmarked dangerous and unauthorized. “What you have learned and what they must learn is that real danger exists and grows when people are silent. Real danger flourishes when people didn’t care. And because you are not silent and do care, you have scared the shit out of them all.”
Ron was inspired. He felt admiration for Hoffman, who was speaking in spite of a court order that had tried to silence him. He had felt that way about Bobby Kennedy. There were more joints and more music. A Viet Vet said that the army was being kept there by false promises that the war was nearly over. He said that the soldiers were tired of hearing it and that he had a message from them to give to the President and the rest of the country. “Mr. President,” he said, “you may not be here to listen, but the country sure seems to be here.” He paused while the crowd cheered itself. “The message is, Mr. President, if you don’t bring us home soon, we’re gonna come home all by ourselves.” Ron was stunned by the implications. Suppose the army did just that. They couldn’t shoot all of them. Suppose the army decided all by itself to come home. What the fuck could anybody do?
The demonstration ended with an announcement that the Moratorium Mobilization Committee recommended that everyone leave the city in an orderly fashion and as soon as possible. “Don’t give them anything negative to say about us because you can be sure that if you do, that’s all they will talk about tomorrow. What we’ve accomplished today doesn’t deserve to get put down by cheap shots from the press.”
Ron and Ronda walked back down Constitution Avenue pumped up by the energy from the demonstration. There was a guerilla theater scene being played out on the steps of The Natural History Museum. People, mostly children, were kneeling down while a man dressed like a priest was pouring red liquid over them and saying, “These people’s blood will keep you free.” Ron noticed that the priest was also wearing a black cape and when he raised his head and smiled, he was a perfect caricature of Dracula. Ron stared fixedly at the image as they walked by.
“This is very strange,” said Ronda. “I feel very funny when people use religion to attack each other.”
“Anything that has grown weak and useless deserves to be attacked,” said Ron, “particularly if it causes death and destruction.”
“That’s a really frightening idea, Ron. And it’s not the peace movement at all.”
“The beauty of the thing is that if it doesn’t matter why stop the war as long as it ends, right?”
The first National Guardsmen that Ron and Ronda saw were assembled outside the National Art Gallery. They had set up a blockade across from the National Archives Building. A group of about twelve people came up the street quickly saying, “Stay away from the Justice Department.”
Ronda hadn’t understood them, and Ron wasn’t sure what department they were talking about. Ron looked over at the National History Building and pointed.
“I wonder what that is over there?” he said.
“Why are those soldiers in the street?” said Ronda.
“I don’t know,” said Ron. “They’re probably blocking off some place they don’t want people to go.”
“10th Avenue is back the other way,” said Ronda. “Let’s turn round and walk back toward the car. I’m really pretty tired and we could just hang out by the car for a while.”
“That sounds fine.”
The crowd along Constitution Avenue had thinned considerably. Ron saw the IRS building and turned right. They were immediately faced with a huge blockade of army jeeps and policemen in full riot gear. The two stopped and looked at each other. Everything had an eerie, quiet intensity. About fifty people were on that block of the street and they all seemed to be wandering in a sort of dazed way. When Ron heard the screaming, he grabbed Ronda’s hand and said quickly, “Let’s get out of here.” They jogged back toward Constitution Avenue where Ron felt everything was too beautiful to be other than safe. When they got to the corner there was a sound like gunshots. There was a rising cloud of smoke and they saw people running frantically from around the corner of the National Art Gallery. They were joined by another group that ran down the street alongside The Federal Trade Commission. Instinctively, Ron and Ronda ducked back into the recesses of the IRS Building.
An angry scene exploded in front of them, alongside the Justice Department. As marchers stormed around the side of the building trying to escape the tear gas that had been lobbed into the area, they began pointing and screaming at the balconies of the Justice Department. Ron looked up and saw what appeared to be officials and cameramen looking down at the scene. The marchers were goose-stepping and shaking their fists up at the balconies. They chanted, “Jump, Jump, Jump.” A volley of shots came from the blockade set up at the far corner of the Justice Department. A canister exploded about fifty feet in front of them. Ron instinctively turned toward the doors of the IRS Building. He was staggered by the line of National Guardsmen that stared back at them from inside the building. Their images were distorted by the glass doors and they all seemed wavy. He turned back toward the street. He couldn’t see the Justice Department through the smoke that was choking both of them now. When he looked up all he could see were cameramen on all the roofs shooting down at them. He grabbed hold of Ronda. They ran. Ron was sure that troops were going to burst out of all the buildings with fixed bayonets at any minute. His brain was beating out the message that this was a setup.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he screamed at the line of soldiers and policemen who were set up at the end of the street. They stared straight ahead and Ron felt them start to flinch like they were preparing to move forward. They turned and ran back down the side of the IRS Building. From the time he had screamed, Ron had begun to choke hard and he was now crying uncontrollably as the smoke burned his eyes. He couldn’t really see anymore and then he couldn’t feel Ronda’s hand. He felt her hit the pavement in back of him. She had tripped on her coat and torn away part of the lining. He helped her up and they ran again. They almost stumbled into a jeep.
“You can’t pass through here,” said an official sounding voice. “This demonstration is being contained in the area immediately adjacent to the Justice Department.”
“Just let us out!” screamed Ronda. She reached down, grabbed her torn coat lining and held it up in front of the policemen. Neither could distinctly make out what she was holding through their visors and the smoke. It only succeeded in making them more nervous than they already were. Ron grabbed Ronda’s hand and bolted through the barricade. He didn’t give a fuck anymore. They were gonna have to knock him down to keep him from getting out of there. He ran straight for it ready to throw his shoulder at anything in his way. They got through and kept running. They’d gone about a half a block when they heard the loudspeaker from in back of them. “There is no permit for this demonstration. Since you have not left the area in an orderly fashion, you are all under arrest.” The announcement was followed by another burst of canisters.
They wandered down the street for several more blocks. The tear gas seemed to be following them everywhere. Their heads were throbbing badly. “Let’s stop for a minute,” said Ron. When they slowed down they both began to cough again. Ronda puked. The streets were filled with sirens.
“I really feel sick, Ron,” she said gagging. They stopped moving and. he held her up and tried to grab control of his ability to talk. Then they started to look for the car.
They found it rather easily and their first reaction was complete relief. Everything was going to be ok now. After a half hour of waiting they started to shiver. The running, coughing, and general excitement had built up a sweat that was starting to freeze.
“I wonder what time it is,” said Ronda.
“They gotta be back soon. don’t see how anyone could stay in there much longer.” They huddled against the car. Ron tried to squeeze her tit but she said that she was too sick. Everything was just a long blur. Ron thought about the time his father had taken him to the swamp to shoot rats.
“Put your hand here,” said his father, fixing Ron’s fingers around the trigger. “Now sight your target and just squeeze.” Ron did as he was told. His father and his father’s friend watched him close his eyes, raise his barrel in the air and pull the trigger. Ron was immediately knocked to the ground by the recoil. His hands stung and his head was ringing. Then he heard and saw the men laughing. “I guess I forgot to tell you about the kick, huh?” said his father. Ron gave a dazed nod, and the men laughed harder.
He felt Ronda rest her head on his shoulder. “It must be hours,” she said. They had watched people coming up the street crying, bleeding and throwing up. Then the traffic seemed to disappear and a dark, choked haziness settled over everything. “This has just been too weird,” said Ronda.
“I don’t know what we thought it was going to be like,” said Ron. All at once he felt very tired. He wanted to believe that people were crying from more than just the gas. Then he got mad at himself for the thought. I’m still thinking with the mental weight of a sitcom, he scolded himself. He flashed on the one where the funny long dog could talk and the fat politician kept his daughter from getting laid whenever he could.
Ronda shouted, “They’re here!” Ron looked up to see their companions arriving in another car laughing and then waving to the people who had dropped them off. “Where have you been?” demanded Ronda.
“We met some friends and went to a party over in Georgetown,” they said.
Ronda whirled on Ron accusingly. He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t know about any party,” he said.
“Of course you didn’t,” she sneered. “Ron’s idea of a good day was having us beaten and gassed,” she announced.
“Let’s just get out of here,” said Ron.
When they got back to Ronda’s house, she told him that she liked and admired him but didn’t think they were the same type. “I think you’re right,” said Ron in a tired voice. “But you know, when we were in the soup back there, I thought you were okay.”
She smiled. “You were pretty good yourself.
She let him kiss her good-night. Ron decided that since it was the last time he was getting his hands on it, he was gonna squeeze her magnificent ass for as long as he could. It struck her funny because she read the thought in his face and let him rub it for at least a minute before she laughed and pushed him away.
Ron found Hank reading in his room, sitting in the chair Ron invariably used for a closet. By the time he’d gotten home, all he wanted was to smoke a quiet joint and in the backyard behind the garage with a hot mug of coffee in his hands, take a hot shower, and lay down with his pad pen and books. He had almost dreamed about the plan on the way back from Ronda’s house. He walked into his room having totally forgotten about Hank.
“You’re back,” said Hank nodding his head and putting the book down.
“Ah shit!” said Ron before he was able to stop himself. He dropped his coat in the middle of the floor and walked into the bathroom without saying another word. He took an extra long shower in the hope that maybe he could wash Hank away with everything else. It didn’t work. Hank put down the book for the second time when he walked back into the room wrapped in a towel.
“Well, how did it go?” said Hank.
“Exactly the way I should have expected it to go.”
Hank nodded. We heard on the radio that there was some trouble and that some people got arrested.”
“It was a war zone. It was the National Guard’s way of bringing the war home and getting a piece of the action for themselves. Nixon fuckin’ sucks. I wish they had fuckin’ sent him to Viet Nam.” Hank didn’t answer. He stared first at Ron and then down into his lap at the closed book. His concentration seemed to be drifting. “So what have you been doing all day?”
“What have I been doing?” repeated Hank in a way that was really starting to annoy Ron. “I guess I haven’t been doing much of anything.”
“You’re still all hung up on the Jo Lee thing?”
“The Jo Lee thing,” repeated Hank shaking his head sadly.
“You gotta snap outta this shit, man! You’re gettin’ to be like a fucking zombie. Can’t you feel it?”
“I can’t feel too much at all.”
Ron flopped onto his bed and tried to make some notes. Hank sat with his hand in front of his mouth staring straight ahead. Finally Ron said, “It was a set up man. They drove us up a blind alley and gassed us like a bunch of concentration camp prisoners or animals.” Hank didn’t answer. Ron stood up and moved to the record player. He put on his copy of Jefferson Airplane’s “Volunteers” and turned “We Should Be Together” up very loud.
Marjorie was at the door almost immediately. She knocked on it and opened it with the same motion. “Do you think you could have some consideration for us?” She stared at him and waited for an answer.
“I’ll do anything you want if you just promise to leave me alone,” said Ron.
“Your attitude stinks,” said Marjorie. “You don’t care about anyone or anything.”
“Look,” said Ron getting back on his feet. “I’ve been cold, gassed, and generally crapped on all day. f you want to have your crack at me, just let me know beforehand so that I can get out of here. Okay?”
She glared at him. You’re a miserable bastard.” She started to back out of the room. “A miserable, rotten son of a bitch,” she said and closed the door.
“And you wanted to come and stay here?” said Ron to Hank.
“I just want to say one more thing,” said Marjorie walking back into the room without knocking at all this time. “You don’t have to live here.” She pointed at him. “You’ve got a pretty good racket for an oaf your age. No rent. No responsibilities. You quit a job with a wonderful future and great benefits to go back to school. But you haven’t got the right to ruin my life. You haven’t got the right to walk around the house in your moods. You haven’t got the right to make my house look like a pigsty.”
“You want me to move? I’ll get out tomorrow.”
“Let’s face it,” said Marjorie striking a pose with her hand on her hip. “How would you be able to live? You’d starve in a month.’
Ron said, “I’m getting out of here.” He turned to Hank.
“You like it here so much, you put up with this crap.”
George waddled towards Ron’s room at a serious pace. He had been trying to watch his movie over the fight and had missed a good scene. With Christmas just in front of them, he had an incredibly hectic week coming up. “That’s enough,” he screamed. “I don’t want to hear another word out of either one of you.”
Marjorie screamed back. “Who do you think you’re talking to? What am I supposed to do? Just sit around like an old fart all the time like you?”
Hank watched the bewildering patterns of logic that were being played out in front of him and searched for some clue of what had happened to Jo Lee and him.
George said, “You’re an animal, and your son is a spoiled brat who needs to have somebody kick the shit out of him.”
Ron advanced toward George with his fists clenched. “Want me to tell you what you need?”
Marjorie stepped between them. “Just stop it, Ronald.”
Ron went to his bureau and started to pull out fresh clothes. “I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” said Marjorie. “I’ll stay out of your way, and we just won’t have very much to do with each other.”
“I got to get out of here for a while,” said Ron. He stared over at Hank. “I need some privacy.”
The next day Hank told his mother that he hadn’t ever really been married to Jo Lee and that it was over now. He was bringing his things back home. Jo Lee wasn’t there when he got to the apartment. It took him a couple of hours to pack up his things. He worked at a slow and comfortable pace. He was happy that he hadn’t seen her. It would have only made things worse. It was over now and he told himself that he had no reason to ever see her again, and he didn’t want to ever set foot in Welmont either. Hank started to smile. He walked out of the apartment and slammed the door shut. He’d left the keys on the kitchen table. He walked briskly to the car, and it started up right away. He liked the clicking of the engine. He stared around at the world outside the car. For the first time in months, he felt like Crusader Rabbit after a successful raid on a cabbage patch. “They didn’t get me,” he said.
What surprised Ron the most was that there was no penalty for failure. He got his first semester’s grades; and, of course, he failed his Western Civilization class. At first he panicked about how he was going to explain himself, but then the thought that he didn’t need to explain to anybody crept in. He simply told his mother that he’d gotten two B’s and three C’s. She said that she thought he could do better and that he would get the hang of it in time. None of the school officials said anything to him about his failure. The truth was that he’d been awarded 12 credits: lB, 3C’s and an F. Now it was time to get on with things and start the next semester.
Chris Calvin asked Ron if he would be interested in moving into a house that he was putting together. Ron told him that he didn’t have any money. Chris showed him how that just wasn’t true. All it took was the right combination of grants, reduced tuition and another loan to make ends meet. Chris also got him a part time job tending the art gallery on campus. For $5 an hour, he sat in the empty art gallery that still lacked paintings and did his homework three hours a day.
Lashly had given him the B. He ended the course by introducing the subject for the next semester: The 20th century. Ron was very excited by the thought of it. This was his life now; it was exciting. It was unreal. It was what he always kind of hoped for except… well he never really did get laid that much that semester.
On the first day of the second semester, Ron introduced himself to a girl named Gail. She had a tight chubby ass and fat bouncy tits. “I know who you are,” said Gail smiling. “Just about everybody around here has heard of Ron Tuck.” Ron felt his cock harden. This was what he called living.