Chapter 10

Monday morning: Mr. Tuck stood in front of his 9^th grade reading class grateful for the faces and the immediacy of their needs. They were reading “An Open Window” and it was painful for all of them.

Ron said “Close your books.” And then he told them the story of the nervous guest and the imaginative girl who played with his fears and her longings. They listened quietly and understood. Then he said, “Now, I’m going to read it for you.” And then he did and they understood. Then he said, “Let’s go line by line and when we find words you don’t know, raise your hand and I’ll put them on the board and we can see what this is about together.” They did.

It was a two page story but he filled the three panels of the chalkboard once and then he filled them again. He had no time for a dictionary and so he told them what the words meant as he understood them.

He paced down the aisles as they copied everything that he had written. His handwriting frustrated them and so he printed, which only added to the frustration because his printing would lapse into a combination of block and cursive writing and sometimes m’s had three humps and sometimes they just had two.  He said that that night they should take the story home and tell it to their families. Tomorrow he wanted to talk about what everyone had said.

“Suppose nobody’s home?’ said Connie DeMatteo

Ron thought for a moment and then said, “Tell the story to yourself like you are somebody else. Imagine that you are somebody listening. That’s what I used to do. My mom was never home and so I’d turn the TV on to a news station and turn the sound down and talk to the face like it was someone I knew.” They all giggled He could be very silly.

After lunch, he met with his senior class. Returning their essays, he thought about what Andrea had written and his response to it. “Poetry can cause an emotional reaction, a deep thought or even a physical response. The power is not in the language alone but in the connection that the reader makes to the language. All by itself, the poem is powerless. It needs you, even more than you need it.” Was it a copout considering the nature of what she had written? He decided that it wasn’t. It was what he could in good conscience communicate to one of his students in a high school.

The class was surprised that he had their essays ready. Rosa said, “Didn’t you go out at all this weekend, Mr. Tuck?”

Ron grinned at them showing them his white teeth and his dimples. “Why would I go out when I could stay at home and read your papers?” he said. They laughed.

“It’s ok,” said Rosa. “Most of us don’t have a life either.”

“Rosa has a life,” chirped Tina. Then she muttered under her breath, “She spends it on her back.” Two or three of the girls closest to Tina began to laugh and Rosa shot the group a hard look that dissolved into a deep smile.

“I know, I know,” said Rosa, “but I just can’t help it.”

“How is Beowulf a story about people who are partying too hard?” asked Ron.

“These men don’t do anything but brag about themselves,” said Tina.

“Why do you think that?” asked Ron.

Tina was thoughtful then she said, “Look at the way that they go on and on about themselves. They have more titles for each other that there are grains of rice in a Carolina box. It’s all exaggeration. They just exaggerate everything.”

“Why would they do that,” said Ron.

The class was silent. He waited. He liked it when they were quiet like this. It meant that they were thinking. It scanned their faces trying the read their thoughts. Ron’s mind was running full speed. They had been right of course, but Lashly had taught him that it was easy to put characters down and that it was important to learn to defend literature. How could he teach them that? How had Lashly taught it to him? Ron thought, by doing it. He taught me that it should be important by how important he made it to himself. That wouldn’t work on these kids. There were too many other things competing for importance in their lives. But Rosa had said that some of them didn’t have lives either. Ron smiled to himself about the “either” as he paced around the room rolling chalk between his palms, listening to the way that it clicked on his ring. He looked down at the Minnesota Jasper that Robin had given him the day that he’d arrived in Minneapolis. “This is for getting your ass out of New Jersey,” she said to him.

Then an idea hit him. “When I was growing up around here reputation was really important. For girls, it meant that you couldn’t have dated too many guys and for guys it meant it mostly had to do with how tough you were.”

Rosa whispered to Andrea, “Or how big a dick he has.” Andrea laughed.

Ron ignored them. “Why would a guy want a big reputation?” said Ron. Rosa and Andrea burst out laughing. This time Ron turned to them. He walked straight towards Andrea not realizing that at their seated height they were right at cock level. The girls laughed harder. “Come on,” said Ron, “stay with me here. Why is it important to have a reputation for being a tough guy?”

“So that people won’t try to step on you,” said the girl looking up at his face and seeing his green eyes very intently looking first at her and then at Rosa and then at the rest of the class.

“Why would it be any different for them?”

“Because they were like from biblical times. Everything was different,” said Barbara, a chubby girl who shifted from side to side in her seat as she spoke.

“Maybe some things don’t change,” said Ron.  “Maybe that’s why it is important to read this stuff to see that some things don’t change.”

Rosa said, “Does that mean that after we learn that some things don’t change that we can stop reading this corny stuff and read something that is interesting?”

The class laughed. Ron laughed too. Rosa was right. It was kind of boring but he didn’t think that their studying it had to be boring, not if he could make them see the connection between them and it. “All these people thinking about a lot of the same things that you and I are thinking about. Maybe they’ve thought of some things that we haven’t. Maybe some of them were smarter than us and we can learn from them.” Ron hesitated. It wouldn’t do any good to scold them, not yet. He hadn’t hooked them deeply enough yet. He needed to lure them in just a little more first. “When does the monster appear?”

“At night,” said Tina quickly.

“What have they been doing before the monster comes into the mead hall?”

“Sleeping,” said Andrea.

“And before that?”

There was the silence again Ron sent them back to the book, to the story. The read together about the first time that Grendel had appeared. Then he sent them to another section and another.

“They’ve always been drinking,” said Ron finally. “What do men do after they’ve been drinking?”

The girls laughed. Rosa said, “They pee.” The girls laughed again.

Laughing with them, Ron said, “What else do they do?”

“They get all hot,” said Rosa loudly. The girls laughed very hard now.

Ron said, “And what do they do after they get hot?” Then he blushed realizing that they would take it differently from the way that he meant it. Rosa said in a mildly mocking voice, “Mr. Tuck, you don’t want us to talk about that.”

“Do they ever fight?” said Ron. The room got very, very quiet. “Could people sometimes get hurt?”  The room was so quiet now that he could hear his own footsteps as he paced back and forth in front of the room. “Maybe this is a story about the monsters that come out from inside of men after they’ve been drinking too much. These were violent men.  Men who were used to killing and fighting. Is it any wonder that if you put a bunch of them together in a bar, that someone would get hurt?” And then almost as perfect punctuation to what he said, the bell rang. He smiled. His timing was getting better.

Ron got into his car and drove back towards his house. His mind was still back with his classes. He could see their open faces and their deep, dark eyes like they were indelibly printed somewhere inside of him. He asked himself for at least the tenth time if what he was trying to do was any good for them. Did he have anything that he could really give them that was any different or better than what the other teachers had to offer? They looked at him with faith in their eyes. They trusted him, or at least it seemed to him that they trusted him. Suppose he fucked it up? Suppose some Catholic thing just made him go off and somehow they were taken away from them. He would be just another in what he knew to be a long list of disappointments for them. He couldn’t let that happen. If he had to pretend to still be a Catholic, he would. Then another voice said inside of him said, “They’re just kids. Who are you, the fucking Catcher in the Rye?” He screamed back at the voice that he was sane. That he would battle for his sanity. That he would not let himself go crazy again. It was giving up. He didn’t want to give up on them and he didn’t want them to know how quickly, how completely, he wanted to be part of their lives. He wanted to be a teacher that they would smile about when they were older and to do that he had to give up some things and be there for them now. Nothing that he had ever done was as important as what he was doing right now, and he would not allow himself to let them down.

Back at his apartment, he found a note from Zoe that said that she had taken the train back to her father’s house. Ron noticed that she never called it her parents’ house. It was always her father’s house. He missed not having her there and yet he didn’t want to miss her. He had learned to be alone again. Robin had taken that away from him and he had it back now. He could be alone without waiting for someone to call up and save him. It had been so hard without the aid of being a kid who could have imaginary friends and games. What he had now was music and pot. He rolled a joint and turned on the radio. He lit the joint and sat next to the fan so that the smoke would be sucked out into the alleyway. He sat back in his Danish rocking chair, one of the two chairs that he had taken from his Aunt Dottie’s house after she died.  He looked over at the place of honor that he gave her fan back chair. He didn’t sit in it as much as he stared at it and imagined her when he did. She wouldn’t like these kids. She would think that he was wasting his time and that they didn’t pay him enough money.

The phone rang twice before he moved towards it. He expected to hear Zoe’s voice but it wasn’t Zoe. Robin said, “I was thinking about you and wondering how you were.”

In a stunned voice, he said “I’m teaching in a little Catholic school in Newark.”

Robin laughed. “Are you pretending to be Warren?”

“I think that I can do this, Robin. These kids grew up on the same streets that I grew up on. I can help them to learn what they need to learn to get out.”

“So, you want to save them?”

“I don’t know. I wish that you could see what happens to me when I’m in class. It’s very strange and kind of wonderful really.”

“Are you smoking pot again?”

“Not so much,” said Ron, stubbing the joint out in his ashtray.

“I’m coming back for a visit.”

“When?”

“In three weeks.”

“How long will you be staying?”

“I haven’t decided. Can I count on you to pick me up?”

“You can always count on me. Didn’t I tell you that?”

“Things change.”

“Yeah, they do,” he said. She was fully alive in his mind now and he could see her face so very clearly, the high cheekbones, the blonde straight hair, and the blue eyes that saw everything.

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“No,” he lied.

“You should see other people, Ron.”

“I want to see you.”

There was what seemed like an incredibly long silence over the phone line.

“I’ll call you again when I know when I’m getting in.”

“OK,” said Ron. And then she was gone and he was alone in his one room apartment in Elizabeth and the radio was annoying him and he felt very lonely. He picked up his book bag and began to prepare for the next day’s classes. He relit the joint and in a while it felt as if he must have imagined that she had called.

It was dark when the phone rang again. This time it was Zoe and her voice sent a wash of guilt that felt like a cold shower run through his mind and then down over his body.

She said, “I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

He said, “I had to work.”

“Is it too late to come and get me?”

Ron broke into a grin and said, “I’m half out the door already.”

 

Chapter 9

 

On Sunday morning, Ron told Zoe that he was going to need to spend most of the day with papers. She smiled and stretched in front of him. His eyes grew perceptibly larger as she spread her legs and said, “Are you going to want to visit me later?”

Ron cleared his throat but he couldn’t take his eyes away from in between her legs. “I assigned all these essays,” he said unconvincingly.

She laughed and snapped her legs shut so quickly that it made him blink. “Maybe I’ll spend the day at my parents’ house and go for a swim and show my face. Do you want to drive me there now?” The angular shape of her jaw had a strong curve and with the way the sunlight was dancing off of her hair he could have sworn that she was throwing off a radiation of light that came from within her.

“Do you think that maybe we should talk about living together?”

She smiled broadly and slid her arms around his neck and said, “We just did.”

He drove her home feeling very close to her and not wanting to send her off anywhere, almost as if some spell would be broken if she wasn’t in contact with him. She talked to him about her sisters and how they used to put on puppet shows for their parents on Sundays. The girls had constructed a miniature stage and Zoe painted the comedy and tragedy Greek theater masks on it. They would practice all week long. Hiedi would write the script and Barbara, the only one of the daughters named for someone on their father’s side of the family, would make clothes for the dolls that they had converted to hand puppets. Zoe would paint scenery. Her face became very dreamy when she said, “Do you think it’s possible to have a childhood that is too happy? So happy that growing up can’t help but be a letdown?”

“You’re asking the wrong guy that question,” said Ron in a voice that at that moment felt very old and far away from childhood. Except that childhood was sitting right next to him in its entire splendor. That thought made him smile.

Back at home, he unpacked his briefcase and spread the papers onto the bed. The scent of her in the sheets made him lie on his back and just close his eyes, turn his face into the bed sheets and inhale her. He felt a stirring between his legs and his eyes opened like some kind of alarm sounded in his head. He needed to work.

Coffee and papers and a red pen carried him through the next hours. He learned that they had uniform difficulty with the placement of nouns and verbs. He drew circles and wrote to each of them. By the time he was finished with a paper, there was as much red on it as there was any other color ink.  When he could link a face with a paper, it made him smile. To each of them, he wrote a few sentences at the end. He told them what he thought were their best ideas and what they needed to work on to express themselves better. Lashly had very rarely paid him any compliments at all and he wasn’t going to be one of those teachers who made it an ordeal for students to read their graded work.

He was insatiable for their ideas. He almost sighed when he finished reading some of the papers. He wanted to talk to the authors right then and show them what could make their papers better. They were so vulnerable and transparent. He was almost finished with his senior essays when he read he came to Andrea’s paper.

In the second paragraph, she wrote about the power of language. She had learned the year before that poetry could inspire emotional and physical responses with the power of words. Then she wrote, “I once read a poem that said the words ‘a candle between my thighs’ and when I read it I felt jolted. Then I read it again and again and it made me want to have that feeling.” Ron read to the end of the paper and then started reading it again. He noticed that he was sweating and that he hadn’t turned on the widow fan even though it was a warm day. He got up and to his shock saw that he had an erection. He walked to the fan and switched it on. Then he lit a cigarette and read her paper again. The words “a candle between her thighs” jumped out at him again and he stared at them. She said that it came from Dylan Thomas. What was he supposed to say about this? Was he supposed to ignore it? It was the most powerful line that he’d read all day but how was he supposed to respond to a seventeen year old girl who was writing about a candle sliding between her legs? She deserved a response. That was exactly what poetry was supposed to do: stop you dead in your tracks and make you want to go back, but how was he supposed to tell her that. He was sure that he’d never heard the line before. He would have remembered it if he had. He wanted to know where it came from. Then he saw again that she said it was Dylan Thomas. What was this girl doing reading Dylan Thomas? He went to his bookshelf and looked for his complete Dylan Thomas poems. He had to admit that he hadn’t read them ardently. He loved the prose things like “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” and of course “Do Not Go Gentle” but he didn’t know this piece and now he was determined to find it.

The phone rang and it was Zoe. “I want to be there with you,” she said.

“Can I come and get you?” he answered.

“Come now,” she whispered.

He left the book of poems lying on the bed but carefully packed away each of the stacks of papers. He glanced over at his clock. It was 6 o’clock. He’d been reading for more than 5 hours and he hadn’t once looked up at the time. He hadn’t straightened up the apartment. Before he left, he pulled the sheet up and tried to smooth it out and put the pillows at the head of the bead next to the rougher fabric of the sofa portion of the hide-a-bed. He left the book in the middle of the bed and was out the door.

She had run to the curb almost before the car stopped. She dove in and ran her arms over his shoulders and kissed him and straddled him so that she was between him and the steering wheel. Then she said, “I guess you can’t drive this way can you?”

She settled onto her side of the car, rolled down the window, the first rays of the sunset were bouncing on the sides of her glasses and her presence warmed him. She waved at the closing drape as he pulled away.

When they were back inside his apartment, she said, “I did something for you today. I hope that you like it.”

Ron looked at her quizzically. “What did you do?’

She pulled her shorts down and unbuttoned her top. He lay back on his bed and she tucked her hand into the waistband of her panties and slowly wriggled them down until they were just over her knees.

Ron’s eyes were drawn and then they saw the bareness, the nakedness of her pubic triangle. “I waxed myself for you.” She stood very straight until the panties gathered below her knees and then slid down to her calves. Then she stepped out of them. Ron was transfixed. He knew that his mouth was open but he didn’t care.

“I want to kiss it,” he murmured.

She crawled onto his bed and lay on her side and then her left toe raised and pointing at the ceiling, she let it slide down to the back of her right knee so that he could see her the way the flower of her opened and swelled with the feel of his gaze.

She tasted moist and fresh like a saturated breeze and he let the tip of his tongue wiggle along the slit of her sex; appreciating her with soft licks. She slid from her knees to the mattress and raised herself up for his mouth. She held herself up like a delectable morsel and quivered for him. He shifted his shoulders between her thighs, inclined his head and placed his lips on her. She tightened her cheeks and thrust up at him. He bit into her naked lips and shook his head like a warm, feral lover and she felt the waves of the first orgasm pulse through her.  It caused her to buck against his hard teeth. He swallowed. He sucked and shook his head, gulping her. His lips pushed against her hips, his hard teeth squeezing her like a fruit that he wanted to split open. Then he rubbed the wet of her all over his face; he glistened with her. He pressed the chin that he hadn’t shaved since the day before against her lips, while his fingers peeled back the hood of puffed flesh that gathered in protection of the small bundle of nerves that was throbbing and pulsing and sending electric shocks like Morse code.

 

His sandpaper chin was pressing to her lips, his fingers were exposing a swollen clit, his tongue was lapping at it like a soft gentle whip; she exploded again. Juice was squirting out of her. She tossed her head as the erotic explosions rolled over her.

His eyes traced the tender shape of her flowered lips, blinking so that his long lashes brushed her into deeper frenzy. She locked her elbows in back of her knees and rocked for him, incoherent moans formed in her brain. She was not at all sure that they came out of her mouth that was locked wide open and gasping, head in jerking spasm that moved it from side to side. He had never seen a depilated vagina before.

Robin had been covered in a soft angel hair, a tangled swirl and she had told him it felt funny when he sucked on her and drove his curled tongue wiggling in and out of her, just as he was doing now with Zoe. She screamed with this orgasm or maybe it was a continuation of the last one that hadn’t stopped, but the urge to mount her was overwhelming.

He was so hard and he wanted to feel the silky warmth of that tight wet glove that she slid around him. He needed to feel her fingers on his ass urging him in and out. Wait! She didn’t do that, Robin did that! A voice inside of him screamed, “No!” and he sat him with a dazed expression.

She panted and tried to relax and managed to say, “I was about to pass out.”

He sank deep inside of himself, clawing and screaming against the silence like a man that had been tossed down a well, fingertips ripping against the stony sides of the chasm. He blinked up at her; had he been blind? What had he been seeing? Where had he been? Then his thoughts merged into clarity. It was Robin’s hand that slapped on his bucking ass, her small voice in his ear saying “I love you,” repeating it over and over.

He looked Zoe straight in her face and realized that what he wanted was that Robin would be this way with him. He told himself it wasn’t true. Zoe was in tune with his spirit; he loved the way that she saw him. For Robin, he had been all potential and doubt and now it was himself that he doubted.

How could he let a woman inside of him again? What was wrong with him? Look at what had happened the last time that he’d made that mistake! And then Zoe had his head in her arms and she was holding him to her breasts and he realized that he had been crying.

Chapter 8

 

Back at Ron’s apartment she took her clothes off and then took his clothes off smiling and squirming as he caressed her. Then she ran the first bath that Ron had ever seen in his tub and filled it with bathing salts that smelled of vanilla. She knelt on a towel that was folded on the tile floor next to the tub in which he lay back and closed his eyes.  Her egg-shell blue eyes followed the progress of her hands as she stroked his shoulders and his ribs and his thighs that she knew would become hard, unyielding and forceful. She wanted them that way. She dabbed exploding bubbles onto his nipples and admired the taunt hard kernel that stood out for her. She slid her strong forearm muscles in ascending and descending waves of soapy pleasure along the length of him. Her nipples were hard and her clit was swollen as she worked her thumbs higher and higher on his thighs and then saw his cock swell so that the head poked through the top of the water.

His eyes were deep green when he opened them and stared at her from a dreamy haze. They startled her as she worked over his wet body. He sat up and turned the hot water on full blast. He stood up and lifted her with a cooperative ease, his body dripping.  He lowered her into brim filled, warm, sudsy tub.

Starting with her toes he silently rubbed the bubbles from the sponge into her flesh with the help of his trailing hand. One hand was holding the loaded sponge and slowly squeezing it. The other was rubbing slow, soft, smooth circles into her thighs, into her breasts, along her belly. When she thrust her pelvis up he emptied the sponge onto her sex and then massaged it with those concentric maddening circles and she moaned, fitfully.

Ron carried her dripping body to the bed and stretched her legs up over her head and entered her with the thrust of a suitor. She bucked for him; pelvis unable to stop and he pounded into her and then shot seed  inside of her and she hoped that he had impregnated her, and wrapped her arms around him holding him  until she was asleep.

In late September, the coolness of the evening comes late to Elizabeth. Ron was reading papers when she opened her eyes. His body was long and relaxed but his eyes were intent on the words. When he saw that she was awake, he turned the stack of papers over and said, “I loved watching you sleep.”

She said, “Can we go for a ride?”

He said, “We’ll have to get dressed”

She frowned. He said, “I have to get dressed but I can wrap you in something.” She brought a pad and they drove into the hills, curled in a plaid comforter, sketching with a pencil, as the fading light softened the full rich greens into shades of dark.

Ron wondered what his students were doing right now; the voices of the essays were whispering in his mind. Zoe repressed her feelings of hunger with the need not to vomit again.

 

Chapter 7

On Saturday morning, Zoe told Ron that she wanted to run. “I know a place,” said Ron. They got into his car and drove up the parkway towards his parents’ house. The high school field in back of the house had a quarter mile track that wrapped around a football field and a baseball diamond and a softball field.  Ron said, “I haven’t run in a long time. He was wearing a bathing suit and a sweat shirt over a t-shirt. He wore an old pair of sneakers.  He couldn’t remember the last time that he had them on. Zoe looked resplendent. Her thick blonde hair hung loose over her shoulders, her legs were thin and muscular. She had borrowed one of his t-shirts and tied it at her waist. “Let me watch you run around just once,” she said.

Ron started off tentatively. The track did not hold good memories for him. Embarrassments of having dry heaves, of having his knee buckle while he was jogging with the team rushed over him. Now she would be there to watch. She would see it all. She wouldn’t want him. She would look at him like he was a pathetic mess.

He started off anyway, looking down at the way that his feet struck the cinders of the track He wasn’t gonna let it beat him again. If he ran until his heart exploded, he wasn’t gonna let it beat him. To his amazement, his body moved with a light footed grace and he circumnavigated the track almost before he was out of breath. She was sitting in the wooden bleachers watching and her smile was as broad as a sunrise coming up over a hill on a summer morning. “You’re an athlete,” she said coming over to him. “I can see it in your stride. It’s strong and solid.” Ron blushed. He had not thought of himself as an athlete for a very long time. Then she said, “You run clockwise and I’ll run counterclockwise. That way nobody will be trying to keep up with anyone else.”

Ron laughed. “I’m not silly enough to think that I can keep up with you. You finished the Boston Marathon and I just ran my first quarter mile since Nixon was President.”

She laughed and bounded off. He watched the cute little jiggle of her cheeks and that erotic sway of her hair as it brushed back and forth and bounced on her back. Then he ran too, in the other direction. He felt his breath started to give out and was breathing hard when they passed each other for the first time. She smiled and held her hand out as she neared him. They slapped palms and Ron kept running. He pushed and then the most amazing thing happened. He felt his breath slow and his heart settle in his chest. He saw the track and felt the cool air speed past him. He heard birds and smelled the fresh cut of the grass and then they were passing each other again. Ron sped up. He felt himself start to lose his breath and slowed just a little. His breathing returned to the comfort zone and he felt like his feet weren’t touching the ground anymore although he could hear the soft slap of his old sneakers on the track.

He didn’t know how far he ran but he stopped because his legs started to get wobbly, not because his breathing was giving out and then he walked. The first wave of retching, body shaking coughs hit him about 30 seconds later. They doubled him over. Leaning against the wooden bleachers, palms flat on the wooden slabs, Ron coughed and coughed until he was dizzy. The he straightened up and breathed in deeply. Another burst of body shaking heaves coughed their way out of him. He staggered. Then he breathed in again and it was clear and he felt a wave of euphoria warm his body with a sensation that he’d never in his life felt. She was flying around the track now, her hair no longer touching her shoulders but spread out in back of her in golden plumes. Smiling like he’d just smoked opium, he sat in the bleachers breathing easily, feeling each intake and exhale of air like it was the sweetest food he’d ever taken.

After what seemed like an hour she finally stopped and simply walked over to him. She wasn’t breathing hard. She was hardly sweating, but she was smiling broadly.

“How far did you run,” said Ron.

She grinned. “I don’t know. Till I got bored.”

Ron stared at her in complete amazement. What was she doing with him? Why did she want him? How could he ever keep up with her?

“How far did I run?” said Ron.

“I think a mile and a half, which is great for a first run.”

“Then you must have run ten miles,” said Ron worshipfully.

They got back into his car. Ron did not want to stop in and see his mother. He wasn’t ready to explain Zoe to anyone. It wasn’t going to last. He wasn’t going to be able to keep up with her. He didn’t want to answer any questions after she left him. He thought about Robin for just an instant and then he shoved the image away from his brain with a screaming “No!” that he kept deep inside of him.

They drove up Bloomfield Avenue towards Welmont Lanes. Ron was showing her the neighborhoods. They passed the new high rise apartment building that skirted the border of Glen Ridge, into one of the black sections of the city where second hand stores and soul food eateries and the Jehovah’s witnesses all had storefronts. The apartments were dilapidated, the side streets were worse. Zoe felt a look of appall spread across her face and tighten her mouth and darken her eyes. Ron talked about walking these streets like it was a badge of honor. She just felt endangered. As they approached the center of Montclair from the south, it all changed with a four-cornered plaza of banks and fine shops that were designed for upscale patrons. The shift was abrupt and obvious. She felt herself settle back against the headrest with a certain amount of reinstated ease. Ron was talking about movie theaters and music shops and she was looking at the people who seemed so much more like her. How could they live so close to such an obvious lack of safety?

The neighborhood was slowly shifting again when he turned onto the street next to Welmont. Some things were clean but others were run down. The mixture gave her a tolerable sense of danger that she found more exciting than threatening.

Quimpy maneuvered his Caddy with the glow of a man who had just had a good night and was expecting things to continue in the same vein. He’d tacked his 3 game score sheet up on the refrigerator. He was interested in a match but he wasn’t hungry for one. It was a good place to be. He felt that he could sit back and let things come to him and sort them through and take the best bet without needing to prove anything else this weekend. He could have even skipped today, but he wanted to bask in last night. A perfect game was one thing, but a 700 series was an accomplishment that was not so much based on luck as it was a credit to sustained excellence.

Ron reached down and squeezed Zoe’s bottom as they walked through the dark, cool, enclosed parking lot. She instantly turned to him and pressed her glowing body against his and whispered. “You can take me out of here whenever you want and just bring me someplace and do whatever you want to me. You don’t even have to say anything. Just snap your fingers of give me a look, and I’ll be right in back of you.”

Ron smiled, felt his chest puff and said. “Let’s get something to eat here. I have to see this guy that called last night. Then we are out of here.”

She reached her hand out and squeezed his ass and repeated, “You can do whatever you want to do to me.”

When they walked in the back door the usual collection of heads turned. There was a crowd on 15 and 16, a match was going on. Ron smiled remembering when it would have been the most important thing happening in the day, but now he walked passed not even bothering to see who was bowling.  His arm was around Zoe’s waist as they walked to the luncheonette.

Butchie nudged TJ after they walked by. “Ronnie’s finally got a hole that he can crawl into. It’s a skinny hole, but any hole is better than none.”

TJ puffed on his cigar and laughed but did not answer.

Sal was watching too and turned to the deskman. “Well at least she‘s white. I half expected that jerk-off to walk in with some niggar broad one day.”

The deskman laughed. “He might yet. Didn’t Quimpy bring some dark meat in here one day?”

“Who knows if Quimpy humps anything but his bowling ball.” said Sal.

Quimpy was having coffee with Buster at the counter. He turned to smile when he saw Ron and Zoe. “Well, glad to see you finally got around to coming back.” he said, ignoring Zoe.

Ron laughed and held up Zoe’s hand wrapped in his own. “This is Quimpy, Zoe. He’s one of my oldest friends.”

Quimpy nodded and looked up at Zoe smiling and said, “You know he’s a crazy fucked up lunatic right?”

Zoe laughed and blushed but did not answer. They three of them slid into a booth and Buster went up to see what was happening on 15 and 16.  They ordered cheeseburgers and coffee. He hadn’t let go of Zoe’s hand and she was holding on to him as if some strong wind might blow through the luncheonette any minute and carry her who knows where. Quimpy said, “708.” And then allowed the number to settle in.

“Last night?” said Ron

Quimpy nodded smiling and then Ron smiled and turned to Zoe. “708 is a huge number.”

Zoe let go of Ron’s hand and interlaced her fingers on the countertop between them. “It’s nice to meet you Quimpy. “

Quimpy bobbed his head without saying anything at first and then smiled. “I can see why Ron wouldn’t want to be wasting his time around here.”

Ron slid his hand below the counter and grasped her thigh, fingers close to the top of it, squeezing her leg, feeling the muscles and the heat that was radiating from between her legs. “So what’s this about a job?” he said to Quimpy.

Quimpy answered, “Eighteen an hour, takes a couple weeks to see cash, but the job is nothing. You pick up some books and go and sit with these kids for a couple of hours. You talk to them. Teach them if you want. Then you leave and turn in your time sheet. Kids give you any shit, you just walk out. They need you. It’s an easy bit.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Show up at my office sometime through the week and I’ll show you. You gonna stick around here?”

“Not at all,” said Ron. “You heard from Hank?”

“Somebody told me that he got a job as an assistant golf pro. He ain’t around anymore.”

Ron took two fast bites of his burger, saw that Zoe had already demolished hers and said, “Me neither”

“That’s cool,” said Quimpy. “This place was never anything good for you.”

“It ain’t good for nobody,” said Ron, sliding into the vernacular.

Zoe asked where the bathroom was and both he and Quimpy watched her walk away. “That’s a very pretty tail that she’s got.”

“No shit,” said Ron and finished his burger in large bites.

When they got back into the car, he thought he smelled a feint staleness on her breath and noticed that’s he did not kiss him as they drove back to his apartment.

He thought about Welmont. It must have been at least four years since he’d been there last, and they acted as if he’d been there every Saturday. He wondered if that was their way of ignoring him or if they hadn’t really missed him. The place just didn’t change. It was frozen in time like a village in a glass bowl that you could shake and cause snow to fall. He wondered if Quimpy changed or if he was just the same as everyone else at Welmont. He wasn’t. He’d called Ron and asked if he could help him up with some extra money. Nobody at Welmont would ever do such a thing. The only money they would let go of was a lure that was supposed to suck a fish into deeper water. Ron wondered if Quimpy’s job offer was a lure and into what deep water Quimpy might be trying to suck him. He looked over at Zoe; she was staring out the window with her hand up over her mouth.

“What did you think of Welmont?” he asked.

“It was an ugly place,” she said without taking her hand away. “They are ugly people.”

“Do you think I’m like them?”

“I think that they are jealous that you aren’t like them and would like nothing better to make everyone and everything just as ugly as they are.”

A Bob Dylan line surged through Ron’s brain. “… drag you down into the hole that he’s in.”  It repeated like it was on an unending loop as he parked the car and they walked towards his apartment.

She took his hand and held it as they walked. “You’re nothing like them. You are a beautiful man.” He stretched over to kiss her but she danced away and said, “Wait until we are inside.”

Chapter 6

Elton John was singing “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” with some English girl as Ron’s car snaked its way up the hills into New Providence. He knew the ride to Zoe’s house now, and as soon as he pulled up she was out the door and running towards him with a large duffle bag thrown over her shoulder. She was wearing tan shorts, a white cotton shirt, no socks and runner’s shoes. Her hair gave her the look of a halo as she pulled his door open, threw her bag into the back seat and kissed him. “I was waiting for you all day,” she said smiling. Ron laced his fingers between hers as he drove and they listened to Paul Simon say that there were “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.”

“What do you want to do?” said Ron.

Zoe smiled and brought his hand between her legs. She pressed the backs of his knuckles to the swollen lips inside of the light fabric. She moved his hand up and down and closed her eyes, and then she smiled over at him coyly. Ron had already lain in the fastest route back to his house. She was already taking off her clothes as he put the key into the door. He heard the telephone ringing. She wore no bra, no panties. She pulled off the runner’s shoes and dove into his bed as he picked up the phone.

“Hey man,” said Quimpy. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I ain’t been around much Quimp. What’s happening?”

“You need some extra cash?” said Quimpy. He was sitting in his apartment at the kitchen table. There was a bottle of wine open and a half finished pizza box on the table. He was smoking a joint and stroking his black beard with a smile as he spoke.

“Sure,” said Ron. “What’s the deal?’

“Tutoring kids who are fucked up. I figured you’d be a natural.”

Ron laughed. “Of course, I’d love it but I got this gig teaching in Catholic school.”

“This would be after school,” said Quimpy. “Can you meet me down at the alley tonight?”

Ron shook his head. “Not tonight, man.” It was the first time that Quimpy could ever remember Ron not being willing to come and meet him.

“How about tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” said Ron. “I’m not sure.”

Ron was being too evasive and Quimpy said, “You shacked up or something?

“Yup,” said Ron.

Quimpy laughed. “Alright well that explains it. Look gimme a call over the weekend or stop up. I’ll be around on Sunday for the games.”

“I will,” said Ron. He felt Zoe tugging at his clothes and laughed. “I gotta go, man.”

Quimpy laughed too. “See you on Sunday.” He put down the phone and picked up the ever present nail file that was always in a mug on his table. He began to work the cuticles of his right hand. They were always an obsession. He wanted them long. He didn’t care about dirt under his nails, but he wanted the curve to be just right so that when he lifted the ball, the nails gave his fingertips just the right amount of support to follow through. It made the ball finish strong. He put down the nail file, picked up his keys, finished his last swallow of wine and headed out the door. Friday night was a scratch 375 pairs league at Welmont. He felt ready.

 

When Ron got off the phone, Zoe pulled him onto the bed and then lay on her belly. “I’ve been so naughty all day that you should spank me,’ she said. Ron stared as she lifted her bottom and then pressed it down onto the mattress.

“I should?” said Ron. He’d never spanked anyone, but the idea seemed erotic and she was lifting her bottom up in the air and then pressing her pelvis down onto the mattress in a way that that was making his cock twitch in his pants. He crawled up across the bed to her. He moved his palm over her cheeks gently. She made them go up and down faster. Then he slapped her ass.

The flesh against flesh feel gave a sting to his hand but she moaned the way that she did when he put his cock in her and gyrated her hips in a circle on his bed. He raised his hands again and slapped down harder than he did the first time. He was surprised at the way that the sound bounced off of the walls. His stared at her cheeks. There was a slight glow where his hand had slapped her and he felt his cock get unbelievably hard in his pants. It was sticking against his zipper. He opened the button of his jeans and pulled down his zipper. She saw what he was doing and squirmed over to him, pressing her lips to exhale warm breath against his stretched tight jockey shorts. He slapped her ass again and she wriggled, pressed her nose in between her thighs where his balls were full tight and murmured, “That felt so good. Do it again.”

Ron’s hand was a blur as he raised and lowered it against her cheeks. She kissed his thighs and let her hair spread out against them and over his belly; she exhaled warm breath against the fabric and dragged her hair back and forth, squirming and moaning.

Quimpy got into his 1963 Pink Convertible Cadillac. The long sleek fins sliced into the night as he drove with the top down and his black hair trailing behind him. The car was smooth and Quimpy stroked his beard appreciative of the silence of the ride as he thought about tonight’s games. He was throwing the ball good. If Buster just didn’t get crazy, they could win the league. The idea of Buster and not crazy was an oxymoron that amused Quimpy. Buster was always a fucking nut, playing lines that made his ball work harder than it had to, and just killing the pocket all night long from the wrong angle. Stubborn Polish fuck that he was. Quimpy pulled into a parking space in the lot, far away from anyone else’s car. He didn’t want to give anybody any excuses.

Ron’s hand slapped down hard on Zoe’s ass again and this time she writhed for him and said, “Please, please do it to me now.”

 

Quimpy’s ball drove into the pocket with purpose. Pins splattered like shacks against the surge of a tsunami.

“Nine in a row,” said Butchie. “You got three more in those lucky cakes of yours?”

“We’ll see,” said Quimpy, stroking his beard. “But we both know your bet, even with the ridiculous spot, is history.”

“I know, Cakes,” said Butchie. “But you still got to be feelin tight in the collar.”

Quimpy smiled at Butchie “I ain’t tight. You already paid for my night.

 

Ron’s had slapped down hard on her raised ass. His left hand had grabbed hold of her hair like it was reins. His cock was driving in and out of her and his right hand was slapping her raised red cheeks with the tempo of his thrusts. He was riding her and she was moaning and panting, lubrication leaking out her.

Quimpy mounted the approach and felt himself drifting slightly to the right as he moved toward the foul line. He adjusted by giving his arm just a slightly harder lift, fingers coming out after his thumb slipped free, the ball sliding and then catching its line, churning fast and hooking, catching the head pin and sending it careening off the side wall and then bouncing back to take out the 5 pin, the deck a dancing gyrating collision of wood that cleared and left everything spinning and down on the deck.

A cheer rose up in back of him. The house had stopped and gathered to watch. Everyone wanted to be there for perfection or the anguish of coming this close to perfection. A perfect game in a league earned you a diamond ring. Sal was watching from the next pair. He hated Quimpy but looked down at the perfect 300 that he wore instead of his wedding band, twirled it once and hoped silently for failure. The more exclusive the club was, the more he liked being a member.

 

Ron’s hips were quivering like he was a feral thing. The electricity between them was sending jolts through their bodies. With each slap and thrust and backward coiling and tug on her hair and moans that came from deep inside of them where their organs were joined and desperately in need of each other and of yet another release. He felt like he was a heated piece of wood inside of her. Every inch of him was tense. She was bouncing her hot, red cheeks back against him when he felt the release shoot out of him like the hose of a pump that was just under too much pressure. Hot seed blasted into her, he bucked harder and the second blast sent him lurching on top of her. She was crying now and wanting him to not stop to not ever stop.

The ball was dead in the pocket. The expectant cheer that went up from the crowd was silenced by the stiff straight unmoving defiance of a 10 pin that looked like it must be a mirage because of the way everything else had blown off the deck and into the pit. Sal smiled and got up to throw his ball. Excitement over! Quimpy screamed down the lane, “Motherfucker!” He kicked the ball rack as the collection of appreciative faces dissolved into business as usual on Friday night.