Chapter 31

The next day Ron was sent out of class and told to report to the principal’s office. This was never a good sign but Ron was pretty sure that he hadn’t done anything wrong. Sister Wilma Delores smiled broadly when she saw him.

“Ronald, Father Joyce is waiting to see you over at the rectory. Don’t be nervous and just tell him what you told Sister Mary Salvatore.”

Ron rang the bell and waited outside of the rectory. It was a long wait and he was unsure if the bell had rung or if he should ring it again. If he rang it again they might think that he was pushy and lacked patience. If he didn’t ring it again, he might just be standing here while the priest was inside waiting for him to appear. He rang it again. He could see motion through the small window in the center of the door.

Father Richard Joyce was disappointed by Ron’s age and size. Ron was almost as tall as he was and the priest did not get that powerful rush that he felt when he looked down at smaller, younger boys. A convert was a convert though.

“It’s my understanding that you have an interest in Catholicism,” said Father Joyce.

“Yes, I do Father,”

“And how did this interest arise?”

“I attend the grammar school.”

“What is your current religion?”

“I’m Protestant.”

“Which denomination?”

“Well I was Presbyterian, but my church closed and so I attended a Reformed Lutheran church for a while because it was the only one that I could get to.”

“Your parents didn’t attend with you?”

“No, Father.”

“And why was that?”

            “My parents are divorced, Father.” Ron hated the endless repetition of this litany. He hated the way that people looked at him with baleful eyes after he said it. Joyce’s eyes and face showed no expression, except for a hint of disapproval.

            “And how did you come to attend Our Lady of the Forlorn’s grammar school?” Joyce of course knew the answer to this question but he wanted to make the boy describe it.

            “My mother got me admitted,” said Ron. He didn’t want to go through it again and was taking the chance that it was just one of the questions on the list and that Joyce really didn’t care about his answers.

            “Why did your mother, a non-practicing Protestant, want you in a religious school?”

            Anger flashed through Ron. He’s going to make me say it, he thought.

“I got into some trouble, Father and the police thought that it would be best if I didn’t attend Broadway Junior High.”

“Were you arrested?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know?”

“No one said that I was under arrest.”

“What had you done?”

“I brought a knife to school.”

“Did you hurt anyone?”

“No Father.”

“Well, everyone makes mistakes Ronald.”

That was the first really kind thing that he’d said to him. Maybe the worst was over.

“Thank you, Father.”

“A boy your age would have already been confirmed and would have studied his religion extensively.”

“I have studied religion a lot.”

“The Catholic faith, Ronald.”

For a moment Ron’s pride was stung. Part of him wanted to say, go ahead ask me things. That wouldn’t be a good idea. Ron didn’t answer.

“You’ve read the bible haven’t you, Ronald?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing scripture isn’t a bad thing, but it really has very little to do with being a good Catholic.”

“First of all you have to convince me that you are sincere. Then we can do the study together.”

            “How do I convince you of that?”

            “First of all by being patient.”

            “Yes Father.”

            “Secondly you will come here this Saturday and each Saturday after that until I feel that you are ready to be baptized.”

            “What time?”

 

Chapter 32

 

            Ron left Celeste’s house early that evening. He didn’t rush his departure, but there was something he needed to do. He parked the car in front of his mother’s house. Again, for maybe the one thousandth time, he wished that his Aunt Dottie was still alive.

            You only get so many guardian angels. She had been his. They had blood between them and there was an acceptance and a soul to their connection.

            Ron opened the door with his key. Dandy barked. Marjorie and George were in the living room watching TV. His entrance startled her.

George was half in the bag.

“Ronald, I didn’t expect you.”

“Would another time be better?”

“She got up and said, “Come into the kitchen.”

The settled in their customary chairs. The gazed into each other’s eyes and there was that love, that honey sweet flow of love that a mother and child share, if only sometimes.

            Ron spoke softly. “I want you to know that this thing with Celeste is serious. She’s going to become my wife. She’s the woman that I’ve chosen.”

            “What about Robin?”

            Ron was shocked that she said her name. “It didn’t work. We tried. She tried more than you know.”

            “What about the mouse?”

            Ron could not help a grin. She refused to stop calling Zoe that. “Too crazy,” said Ron. He thought a moment. “Maybe she just scared me.”

            “Sometimes it’s right to be scared.”

            “I’m not scared of Celeste or Angel.”

            “You should be.”

            “I’m going to do this. Please don’t make me fight you for it tooth and nail.”

            “What about Julie?”

            Ron said, “Why did you do that?”

            “She’s a nice girl.”

            “I know.”

            “She loves you.”

            “I know.”

            Ron looked deep into her eyes. “You know the feeling that you had with Rocky, before it went bad?”

“Of course I do.”

“Robin was like my Harry Tuck.” Ron smiled. “We should have had a kid but we didn’t want one. We thought that the world was full and that we needed to learn to take care of those who were already here. It still wouldn’t have worked and there would be a child who needed protection and raising.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” said Marjorie.

“This little girl needs protection and care too. The bonus for me is that I’m in love with her mother.”

“She has a family. Why don’t you want a family of your own?”

“The way that I feel about her is very special. I’ve been in love.” Ron tried his best to speak as earnestly as he could. “This feels more real and stronger than anything I have ever felt.”

“You’re making a mistake,” said Marjorie. “Please listen to me. I know that you’re sincere. And I know that you are making a huge mistake.”

“How do you know?”

“I feel it”

“I don’t trust your feelings about this. I’m going to marry her.”

 

End of Part 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 33

            The heat baked the asphalt so hot that Ron could feel it radiating up through his sneakers. He walked across the parking lot and into the back door of the school.  It was the team entrance and opened into a low slightly darkened narrow hallway. To his left was the door to the boys’ locker room. Ron entered and walked through the empty room that soon enough would carry the sounds and the yearlong smell of perspiration soaked equipment and clothing of teen aged boys.

            Steve Ferry was a bull of a man who did not seem to fit in the desk chair. He stood about six feet and three inches. He had a huge back and head that was covered with a baseball cap out of which stuck the ends of greyish white hair. He looked like he could pull a plow.

            Laying on the worn couch that many people suspected was his only bed, Artie Harris looked up and opened his eyes at the sound of Ron’s entrance. “Hey Crazy Ron is here. Now things will get lively.”

            Ron smiled. “Hiya, Artie. How was your summer?”

            It was still the end of August but it was pretty much acknowledged that summer was over when practices began. There wouldn’t be any more quiet mornings. No more endless days that could be filled any way that a person wanted to fill them.

            Steve turned from the clipboard that had multiple sheets of paper with templates for designing football plays attached to it. “Ron, it’s good to see you.”

            “Good to see you too Steve. How was your summer?”

            “They get shorter all the time,” said Steve.

            Ron didn’t really understand that and just nodded. “Where are we going to meet?”

            Air conditioned rooms were at a premium on this side of the building, but Artie knew where they all were and Ron was pretty sure that he had scouted out a room and turned the air on so that it would be cool.

            Artie said, “They put air in the teacher’s room over the summer. That’s a good spot.”

            Steve shook his head back and forth. “No chalkboard in there. We’ll need one.”

            Artie looked crestfallen. There were no classrooms with air conditioners. Ron said, “We could bring in one or two of the rolling boards.”

            “Fine with me,” said Steve, flicking his eyes over at the rotund and now happier Artie and then winking at Ron.

            Ron and Steve were classroom teachers. They were not unaccustomed to oppressive heat. It didn’t really bother them as much as it did people like Artie who roamed the halls searching for any place to cool off on a day like this. Classroom teachers had to be models for their students or else the complaining and moaning would never allow them to finish or start the school year. No one was really sure what Artie did. He worked around the school. That was it. He coached Hockey. He got up and waddled out to find the rolling chalkboards and bring them to the magnificently cooled teachers’ lounge.

            Larry Voila arrived just as Artie was leaving. They just nodded as they passed one another in the hall. Larry thought that Artie was bad to have around kids. Artie felt the same way about Larry.

            Greetings exchanged. Ron was happy not to be working with Larry this year. Larry had gone to Steve complaining that Ron had undermined his authority last year. The truth was that Larry had never played the game and they all knew it. When he denied the freshman team water after a poor showing at a scrimmage, Ron had instinctively blown his whistle and called for a water break. It happened ten minutes after Larry said, “No, they’ve got to get tougher.” Larry had stomped off the field like an angry child who had his toy taken away. He was even more humiliated when Steve moved Ron up to the varsity staff. Steve was always politely condescending to Larry, who never realized it.

            When Paul Pamenteri arrived, they were ready to start. It was a meagre staff for the one hundred players that would be in the program. They settled in the teacher’s lounge and drank cans of soda that Artie had pilfered from one of the soda machines for which he had a secret key.

            Steve stood and passed out play books. “We need to go through it all,” said Steve. “I made a lot of changes over the summer.” Steve was a physics teacher and a farm boy. To him, football was purely a matter of leverage, angle, strength, speed and desire, but he did like to scheme. They would begin with the offense. This afternoon he would lecture on the defense. Tomorrow he would continue with the same pattern. The next day, his players would arrive and he would begin to see what he actually had.

            Young men’s bodies changed quickly. A boy could go away for the summer standing five foot seven and come back a few months later at having grown inches and thinned out considerably and be in need of bulking up. You had to actually see them before you truly knew what you had. That kind of change might necessitate the need for changes in the scheme. His team was going to be white and slow. He didn’t expect a good year, but in his thirty-fifth year of coaching, his second after retiring from public school, taking a pension and coming to teach and coach here. It was just what he did. Besides, you could always be surprised.

 

Chapter 34

            Ron knelt at the altar rail, opened his mouth and extended his tongue. His mouth was dry and the Communion wafer was dry. It felt a moment of panic as he walked back to his pew with his hands clasped and his eyes down. The wafer had stuck to the roof of his mouth. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t reach in and scrape it off. He wasn’t supposed to let his teeth touch it. He rubbed against it with his tongue and hoped that it would dislodge.

            He wanted that magical feeling of having Jesus inside of him. When he had Communion in his former church they drank grape juice. It was made clear that this was a commemoration of what Christ had done. Ron knew about transubstantiation. This was really God that Ron had inside of him. His tongue couldn’t get the wafer to move. His mind said, Oh Fuck. Then he panicked. He had sinned while the host was in his mouth. There might be a special place in hell for people who did that. Maybe he was the only one who had ever done it. Maybe God didn’t realize. Another lightening thought hit him. He had just sinned again! God was supposed to know everything and here he was doubting Jesus who had bled every drop of his precious blood for him.

            After Mass, Ron ran across the street to the candy store and bought a bottle of coke. He washed his Savior down with a long relished swallow. What a way to begin! Some first Communion he screamed at himself as he walked home alone.

            George was spreading a dirty white rug across the living room floor of their apartment. Marjorie was watching him with a sick look on her face. It covered the hard wood floor that she loved with an ugly combination of white and stain. George contended that it would muffle the sound and that it was important to be considerate of the people downstairs.

            Ron and Marjorie just stared at each other when he said it. They had lived in apartments all their lives. This was George’s first experience.

            “Where did you get this thing?” said Ron.

            “This used to belong to Wobbles,” said George proudly.

            “Who’s that?” said Ron.

            George smirked at Ron’s ignorance. “He’s a friend of George’s,” said Marjorie glumly trying to be patient.

            “He’s probably the most important man in Newark and one of the most important men in the state,” George explained.

            “Never heard of him.”

            “You wouldn’t,” said George.

            Marjorie stayed silent and Ron could see that she hated the thing.  He said, “Why is he giving away his dirty rugs?”

            “Maybe we can cover some of the stains with furniture,” said Marjorie.

            George looked up, exasperated. Each stain felt like a thorn stuck up his ass and these two were going to mention each and every one. “Do you know how expensive this rug was?”

            “You bought this thing?” said Ron.

            George turned redder. “I mean originally.”

           

 

Chapter 35

            Ron drove from the school to Celeste’s house. Anna heard his squeaking approach and saw the delight that spread across Angel’s face. Celeste got up and ran downstairs to change like a love sick school girl. What was happening to her house? He came and went like some storm that you could hear approaching and then had to clean up after.

            Angel was running towards the picture window to look out. Anna waited in her chair at the kitchen table. She lifted her fly swatter and smacked it down at some imaginary bug. If only she could eliminate him the same way.

            Before the doorbell rang Angel was pulling the door open. Ron scooped her up into his arms and kissed her. She squealed with delight.

            Anna said, “Can’t you do something about that squeaking?”

            “I tried. They told me that old Fords get that way but that there was nothing wrong with the car. It isn’t dangerous,” he tried to reassure her.

            Anna didn’t answer. Danger wasn’t the only consideration. It was embarrassing to have the neighbors hear the squeaks and say, “Oh, Ron’s on his way.” She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction of saying that to him, but she had said it to Celeste.

            Celeste hadn’t cared. She opened the door to the basement and came into the dining room. She embraced Ron. They kissed softly. Anna scowled. They did that right in front of the baby. Who knew what else they had done in front of her.

            “Would you like to go for ice cream and to feed the ducks after dinner,” said Ron.

            “Yes!” squealed Angel.

            “You shouldn’t tell her that before dinner,” objected Anna. “Now she won’t eat anything.”

            “If you want ice cream, you have to be a member of the clean plate club,” said Celeste.

            “Ron already said that we could.”

            “Well if Ron said,” Anna repeated bitterly staring at Celeste.

            “Let’s go into the yard, “said Celeste.

 

Chapter 26

 

Before Ron had known Robin and before he had known Zoe, he’d been with Julie. She had long straight dark hair. She loved Marjorie. They had a bond. When Ron left her, Marjorie had cried but then she had written and over the years she learned that Julie had won an award for being a reporter in Texas. She’d gotten a promotion to a station in Windsor Canada that broadcasted into Detroit.

Marjorie wrote, “Ronald is making a terrible mistake and I think that you are the only one who can save him. I know that he loves you and that you have never wanted anything but what was best for the both of you. I want you to come here. I’ve always wanted to embrace you like my daughter.”

When Julie got the message, she stared at it for a long time. Did Marjorie know that she had a daughter now? What was she asking her to do? She looked over at her sleeping child and felt a pang. She had dreamed more than once that it was Ron’s child, but she knew that it wasn’t. In the final analysis, he just hadn’t wanted her.

Maybe he would now? Maybe the years and the experiences had changed him. Maybe he was ready. If he was, she was too. She felt a fire inside of her when she thought about him. He was unabashed. She felt that tingle between her legs and cursed her pussy. Except that her vagina had produced her daughter. It wasn’t all bad. And if he saw her daughter and met her, he would be captivated. That was how he was and she knew it. But why was Marjorie so insistent and what was this mistake? It could only be another woman who was not Robin. Marjorie wouldn’t have written if it was Robin. She’d sent her into that battle before and hugged her after she was bruised and cut from previous skirmishes. Most of all, Marjorie knew that Julie couldn’t win. She wouldn’t do that to her again. She picked up the phone and dialed Marjorie’s number.

“Marge, it’s Julie.”

“I’m so glad that you called.”

“What’s wrong?”

“He wants to get married.”

“To who?”

“Some Italian girl that he hardly knows.”

“Why?”

“I think that he feels like time is passing him by, and he wants to start a real life.”

“I think that we all get that way sometimes,” said Julie.

“Do you still love him?”

“Yes.”

“After all this time and everything that he’s done?”

“I know I sound stupid Marjorie, but yes.”

“Then you’d better get out here.”

“How can I do that? I have no reason.”

“It’s going to be George’s birthday and you’re invited.”

“This is the last time that I’m going to do anything like this,” said Julie.

“It should be,” said Marjorie.

It was easy for Julie to schedule a flight. Her Dad was a pilot and she had a card that allowed her to fly for the price of the tax. Newark Airport was a hub. She thought about how she met Ron and the roller coaster that had been their relationship. She had been taking a summer course at the local community college when they met. By the time the fall began, they were an item and spent each weekend together. One weekend he would drive up to her college and spend the nights in her dorm room and the other she would drive down to his house and stay in his room. That was when she grew close with Marjorie. They played with each other’s hair. They shared secrets. Marjorie told Ron that as long as he was on the couch when she woke up in the morning that she wouldn’t give him a hard time. She stopped walking into Ron’s room without knocking on the door. He introduced Julie to Chris and Laureen and the four of them went places together. She gave him a guitar and he played it horribly. She smiled and grimaced at the same time thinking about the way that he abused that poor guitar. Then she remembered the feel of his hands and the incredibly long eye lashes that he had. She pictured the broadness of his shoulders and smiled. Warren Lashly had been the death of them. Maybe that was unfair but she had grown to hate Warren and his interrogations. She hated the way that Ron looked up to him and let Lashly’s words and ideas become his guiding principles.

Then she met Jeff. He went to her school and she began sleeping with him during the week. He knew about Ron but didn’t care. He managed the radio station and there were plenty of girls that he could have. If she wanted her shift to be regular, she knew what he expected. She brought Ron to the radio station and instantly the two young men took a dislike to each other. Ron had gone with her into Manhattan when she was getting her 3^rd class broadcaster’s license. He quizzed her on the train ride in and then decided to take the test as well. It had amazed her that he passed and she let him talk on the air during her show.

Then they drifted. Every weekend became every other weekend and then it was one weekend a month and then he was gone. It had been tearful but she was relieved. She felt it was coming.

Years later he came to see her while she was doing news updates on the AM dial. She was lonely and he felt so good. He was working in a jail trying to teach kids to read and write, and she had just been named woman broadcaster of the year for a ten part series that she’d done on women in Texas. When he left, she cried and decided that their timing was just so bad that it just wasn’t going to work. Now they were in their 30’s and she knew that she looked good. It was time. She had a failed marriage and a daughter and he had been ripped apart by a relationship with a woman who enjoyed watching him suffer. She could see where that could become addictive.

 

Chapter 27

 

What actually happened was Phillip confided to Carol that Ron wanted to know if Barbara liked him.

Carol scrunched up her face and said, “I don’t think so but I’ll ask her.”

Among the girls it was known that Barbara really liked Richie, but that wasn’t something that she would share with a boy. It would be a betrayal that would make Barbara her enemy forever.

When she told Barbara, the girl let out one of her patented, “Eww’s”

Carol giggled. “Well you did say that his thing got all excited.”

“Exactly,” said Barbara.

The girls giggled again. Then a thought struck Barbara. “He sits right next to me. How am I going to look at him?”

“And not get his thing excited?” teased Carol.

“I’m serious, Carol. How am I supposed to look at him now and read his sloppy papers?”

“How bad are they?”

“The answers are mostly right and he studies but he writes like he is using some kind of tool and needs to cut the words into the paper.”

“In other words, he’s rough and careless?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe he’s just nervous,” said Carol. “Being the new kid and those rumors about him and then he broke Richie’s nose.”

“Did you know that he doesn’t know how to ride a bike?”

“You’re kidding!” said Carol.

“Nope, Richie told me that the guys all made fun about him because of it.”

Carol felt sorry for Ron but she could understand why Barbara didn’t want to be linked to him.

 

During the next day of classes, Barbara was careful not to look at him. He seemed oblivious. That angered her. She wanted him to look at her so that she could ignore him, but he didn’t seem to care. She thought of passing him a note that read, I don’t like you. Leave me alone. But he was leaving her alone and the note would look stupid.

All Ron was able to think about was how much he hated George. His mother had punished him for his outburst and he hadn’t been allowed to go out of the house the next day. He just stayed in his room and read. He came out for dinner and ate without saying anything. He helped to clean up and then he was back in his room.

Ron was wallowing in his reverie of hostility when he heard his name. He looked up to see the faces of the kids in the class turned in his direction. Mary Salvatore was coming down the aisle in his direction.

“So nice of you to join us, Mr. Tuck. May I see what you have been so absorbed with that you didn’t hear me call on you twice?” She picked up the book that was on his desk. It was the same book that they were all reading from and there wasn’t anything hidden in it but he was two pages behind. She stared hard at him. “So you’ve been daydreaming. Would you like to share what you were daydreaming about with everyone?”

“No, Sister.”

“Do you find what we are doing here so boring that you are unable to concentrate?”

“No, Sister.”

“That’s good. Then you’ll be happy to stand up and read for us.”

Carol wrote a quick note and passed it to Phillip. “Maybe he’s thinking about Barbara.” They both grinned.

 

Ron stood and read flawlessly. It was written in children’s language. It retold the story of the Prodigal Son. Ron almost stopped and asked if would be ok if he read it from an actual bible, but he knew that he was being reprimanded for not paying attention. It was time for him to learn how to make things easier on himself. Hadn’t his mother done that when she married George? At least, wasn’t that what she thought that she doing?

That night at dinner Ron announced, “I want to convert to being a Catholic.”

Marjorie looked stunned. George didn’t react. He was born Catholic. He was staying that way. That’s what you were supposed to do. You looked at your plate saw what was there and ate it without complaining.

“And just when did you decide this?”

“While I was walking home,” said Ron.

“Your grand-mother would turn over in her grave.”

“You’re the one who made me go to that school. It’s not my fault.”

“You know very well why you were sent to that school, Ronald. Would you have rathered that I let them send you to a reformatory?”

“Well, now I want to be a Catholic.”

“Do we have to have these conversations at dinner?” said George.

Marjorie took the opportunity to turn on him. “When would suggest that we have them? Whenever anyone starts talking about anything that has any importance, you get up and walk away. Maybe he figures that as long as there is food, at least you’ll stay and listen.” Then she turned back to Ron. “You’re not becoming a Catholic. You were born a Protestant. You were raised a Protestant and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

“No it isn’t, Mom. We have freedom of religion in this country.”

“I don’t know what’s happening to you,” she said staring into his eyes. “You used to be such a nice boy.”

“Look where that got me.”

“Why are you doing this to me? Why do you need to hurt me?”

“You said that I should think for myself and that’s what I’m doing.”

Marjorie hated it when he gave her that look and sounded like his father.

 

 

Chapter 28

Ron tried to be cheerful as he drove Celeste and Angel down to meet Marjorie and George for the first time, but he had a sense that it might be tense.  Celeste was nervous about it. They had waited a while, but things were moving quickly now. It was hard to realize that she had only been with him for a little over two weeks. It seemed so much longer.

The plan was for dinner in the backyard and the weather was cooperating. It was a mild evening with a light breeze. Maybe that was an omen that everything was going to be ok, thought Ron.

Marjorie had cooked and the kitchen was very warm. She was sweating and she blamed it on Ron and this girl, whoever she was. He still had his key to the house, but it didn’t seem right to use it on this occasion. He walked up to the front door with angel in his left arm. Her hands were around his neck as he rang the doorbell. George came to the door. Dandy barked. Angel tensed. Celeste said, “I didn’t know your mom had a dog”

George opened to the door and said, “You forget your key?”

Ron shrugged. “George, this is Celeste and this is Angel.”

“Nice to meet you,” said George smiling.

They walked down the hall next to the flight of stairs that led up to the second floor apartment. In the dark blocking the side door that was never used, Ron glanced down at his Aunt’s old record player. He missed her and sure could have used her help tonight.

“They’re here,” announced George as they walked into the dining room that had once been their bedroom when Ron still lived there. Marjorie came out of the kitchen and smiled politely.

“Mom, this is Celeste and this is Angel.”

The sight of the little girl in his arms made Marjorie want to cry. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Celeste.” Marjorie tried not to look at Angel who was waiting to be greeted and made a fuss over.

“I’m happy to meet you too,” said Celeste, noticing that neither one of them had said anything to Angel, who did not want Ron to put her down.

“We should go out into the yard. It’s too hot in this kitchen,” said Marjorie. She picked up her cigarettes and led them out the back door.

Celeste glanced around. It was a large kitchen, the kind that she loved. She could see immediately that a lot of time was spent there. They walked out into a backyard that was good sized, long and more narrow than hers was. Marjorie sat down at redwood table and lit a cigarette. Then she said, “Ron, would you go into the kitchen and get my Crystal Lite?”

“Sure.” Ron handed Angel to Celeste.

“Would you like something to drink, Angel?” said Marjorie.

Angel felt shy and a little frightened of the white dog who was energetically wagging his tail and wanting to play. She didn’t answer for a moment and then said, “No, thank you.”

“Oh you do know how to talk?” said Marjorie smiling. Celeste wasn’t sure that’s he liked the comment, but knew that Marjorie would find out soon enough how well-spoken Angel was.

“That’s a great tree,” said Celeste, looking at the massive oak that shaded the entire yard.

“It’s been here longer than we have,” said Marjorie.

Ron came back with his mother’s glass of ice tea in one hand and a pitcher of the stuff in his other. He set them down and said to Angel, “Watch this.”

He picked up a beach ball that was lying on the grass and Dandy barked and wagged his fluffy tail furiously. Ron tossed the ball to Dandy who perfectly head butted it back up into Ron’s hands. Angel giggled and said, “Make him do it again.”

Ron happily obliged as they all watched and Marjorie smoked. He was showing off for them. It was cute but she hated it.

“Would you like some Crystal Lite before dinner?” said Marjorie, looking at Celeste.

“Thank you.” Celeste put Angel down and reached for the pitcher but Angel clung hard to her back and Celeste dropped the glass. It spread across the tablecloth that Marjorie had laid out. George got up and hurried into the house for some paper towels. “I’m sorry,” said Celeste. “I guess she’s a little nervous.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” said Marjorie in a tone that implied that there was. The Crystal Lite had almost reached the stack of paper plates, when George came out with a roll of paper towels. “Hurry up! We don’t want it to ruin them too.” George caught it in time. Ron dropped the ball and came over to the table. Angel clung to Celeste. Dandy followed him eagerly. Ron picked up the stack of plates as George wiped the table.

“You’ll have to wipe it down with a sponge,” said Marjorie. “Otherwise it will be a sticky mess.”

“I’ll get it,” said Ron.

Celeste wondered if they could just leave and come back again like this never happened. She said, “What a way to make an impression.”

Marjorie said, “Well, let’s eat.”

 

It took several trips in and out the backdoor to carry out the bowls and platter. George and Ron and Marjorie made the trips. Celeste sat there wanting to help but Angel was back in her arms. She wasn’t used to not helping.

 

“I made one of your favorites,” said Marjorie.

Ron smiled at the platter of pork chops mixed with sauerkraut and potatoes. “Did you use Aunt Dottie’s pot?”

“Of course I did. It won’t be as good as hers was though.”

 

Chapter 29

Ron stayed after school the next day and asked Sister Mary Salvatore what he should do if he was interested in converting. She looked very surprised and pleased.

“This is an important decision Ronald. Are you sure that it is what you want?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Why is it what you want?”

That was a good question and Ron wasn’t sure how to answer. He thought for a moment. Suppose he said the wrong thing and they wouldn’t let him. “This Church goes back to the time of Jesus,” said Ron. “It’s the religion that he wanted.”

“Well that’s a good reason. Is it your only reason?”

Ron decided that he would tell this nun the truth. “No, but it’s my best one.”

“What are your other reasons?”

“The Church I used to go to closed. I really don’t feel like I have a church now and I don’t think that’s good for me.”

“You don’t go to church at all anymore?” The nun looked concerned. No wonder he had gotten into trouble.

“At Christmas time and at Easter. That’s pretty much it.”

“Is there any other reason?” the nun probed.

Ron sighed. “I want to fit in.”

“That’s the first reason that you’ve mentioned that isn’t a good one. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Have you spoken to your mother about this and your father?”

“I told my mother.”

“Does she support your choice?”

“She’ll get used to it.”

“Have you told your father?”

“Not yet.”

“May I ask why?”

“I don’t see him very much anymore. He plays golf now, and sometimes he forgets to come and pick me up.”

“Don’t you think that you should tell him?”

“To be honest Sister, I don’t think he’ll care. He’s not a religious man. He’ll say that I should do what I think I should do.”

“I’ll set up an appointment at the rectory for you Ronald.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 30

 

After the dinner during which Angel pissed Marjorie off by being clingy with both Ron and Celeste, Marjorie caught Ron in the kitchen and said, “This girl isn’t for you.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Didn’t you learn from happened to me?” she said flatly.

“I learned,” said Ron. “I learned not to believe people’s promises. Is that how you want me to go through life, not trusting anyone?”

“I’m just saying that I know you better than anyone, and I telling you that you can do better than this.”

“It isn’t a contest, Mom.”

“Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I love her and that’s what matters to me. She loves me as well.”

“She’s desperate and you’re her way out.”

“That’s unfair.”

“I might as well tell you now then. I’ve invited Julie to come to George’s birthday party.”

Ron was stunned. He hadn’t spoken to Julie in years. He didn’t even know where she was and he surely didn’t know that his mother was in touch with her. “That’s great Mom. I’m bringing Celeste.”

“Julie is a nice girl who cares about you.”

“Just stop it, OK?”

“Sure, I’ll just sit by and watch my only son ruin his life.”

Ron went out the back door and found Celeste sitting with Angel in her arms. She looked nervous and Angel looked sleepy.

His mother followed him out the door and Ron said, “I think we are going to get going. Angel needs to have a bath and she’s getting sleepy.”

‘Do what you want,” said Marjorie. “You will anyway.”

George said, “It was nice to meet you, Celeste. I hope that I see you at my birthday party.”

Marjorie looked at George like she wanted to spit on him. Ron decided that a quick exit was in order. Celeste thanked Marjorie for having her and Angel to dinner.

“I’m sure we’ll get to know each other sooner or later,” said Marjorie.

 

 

 

Chapter 21

It was a Monday night and Ron was stretched out on the floor watching TV and reading Damien the Leper for his English class. Then he saw President Kennedy’s face come on the screen. He began talking about missiles in Cuba and saying that the United States was placing a naval blockade around the island. Then he said that any attack on the United States by Cuba would be considered an attack by the Soviet Union and that we would respond by attacking the Soviet Union. Ron stared. Was the world going to end? Would he never get to grow up?

George was out working his second job as a bartender. Marjorie wasn’t home. Ron lay there listening to the President who didn’t smile once. Ron loved watching his press conferences because of the way that he joked with everyone, but he wasn’t in any mood to be joking tonight. He wondered if we could beat the Russians. He felt his anger begin to rise. He was too young to fight. He wondered if they would make an exception because of his size. He had broken Richie D’Orio’s nose. Would that make a difference?

After the president was done speaking, a commentator showed a map of Cuba and showed the places that the missiles could reach. New Jersey wasn’t on the map. Did that make a difference? Maybe New Jersey wasn’t important enough to be on a map of the United States when they showed it on TV. New York was there. So was Washington. Miami was there. Ron pushed thoughts of Miami out of his head. He had gone there with Marjorie and Rocky a long time ago and Rocky had taken him fishing. Ron felt something burning in his throat and then he vomited.

The next morning the world looked very different. There were lines outside of the church when he went to school. They said special prayers in the classroom and then Mary Salvatore said that they would be going over to the church to attend a special mass and pray for peace and for God to give President Kennedy the wisdom to do what was best. Ron stared up at the picture of Kennedy that was on the wall and wondered if the picture would be there if he was not a Catholic.

The church was warm and crowded. As the students were marched down the aisle, Ron thought that he heard someone gasp at the sight of them and then begin to cry. Then he saw that many of the women were holding tissues to their eyes.  The nuns looked serene. Ron wondered if they were anticipating heaven.

The priest, Monsignor Gerard, was in the pulpit. Before the mass began, he said, “I’m sure that Our Heavenly Father is pleased to see so many of you in His house today. I’m sure that he wished that his house was this full when people were not frightened, but in His wisdom, he knows that we are weak.” Then he turned his back on them and began to celebrate mass. Ron thought, that sure will make folks feel better.

The days wore on and the tension built. After the first rushes of panic, a sameness set in about it, almost a grim acceptance. There was a spike in the construction of fallout shelters. In school they practiced what to do in the case of an attack. The nuns assured frightened children that the best place in the world to be was in the church. And then when things seemed to be inevitable, it was over.

The United States had prevailed. Kennedy had backed down the Russians. Ron got a copy of Profiles in Courage from the library and read it. Then he read Why England Slept, although he didn’t understand much of it. Then he read The Making of the President.

When report cards came out, Ron was moved from the last seat in the last row to the last seat in the middle row. He was seated across from Barbara Infante. She smiled at him. Sometimes when they exchanged papers, they graded each other’s papers. Her penmanship was beautiful and she wrote with a light touch. Ron’s handwriting was sloppy and he wrote hard.

Marjorie was thrilled with his grades. Of the 16 graded areas, Ron had earned an “E” in nine of them. “E” stood for excellent. Mary Salvatore gave him a “G” in religion. The nun knew that Ron had earned an “E” but she just could not bring herself to give it to him. He was a smart boy and she liked him, but she certainly wasn’t going to make the mistake of trusting him. Everything else was either a “G” for good or an “S” for satisfactory. Richie was in the first seat of Ron’s row. He had gotten straight E’s.

Things were different after Ron broke his nose. Richie was angry and embarrassed, and he was sure that Ron had done it on purpose. They never talked about it and Ron would have told him that it was just a play and that he didn’t mean anything by it.

After the Cuban thing and his impressive report card, Ron’s popularity began to rise again. He learned that while he hid his love of reading in public school because he didn’t want to appear to be brainy, in Catholic school, brainy was good.

 

Chapter 22

 

Janine and Jimmy arrived for coffee and the after dinner stupor seemed broken. Ron was still in the basement and Celeste was just finishing setting the table for coffee. Jimmy kissed Celeste on the cheek and said, “So where is he? You keep him chained to your bed downstairs?”

Celeste blushed.  Janine came over and said, “Better to keep him chained than to have him chaining you.”

Mario and Joey came into the dining room and sat back down. Mario shook Jimmy’s hand and said, “Mr. Lattimore.”

Jimmy grinned, “So I hear that you are going to have a new son-in-law.”

Joey added, “Again.”

Anna tensed and put her head down. Mario just nodded. Janine said, “Well, three is a charm.”

Celeste knew that Anna had passed this information along during her morning phone calls and she was sure that it wasn’t accompanied by an endorsement.

The door to the downstairs basement opened and Ron tried to slide into the room unnoticed. That wasn’t going to happen.

“We need another chair,” said Anna.

Ron moved to get it and Anna thought in spite of herself that at least he tried to help. Celeste introduced Ron to Jimmy and Janine.

Jimmy smiled and stick out a large hard hand. It engulfed Ron’s hand but he tried his best for a manly shake.

“Good to meet you,” said Ron figuring a smile at Janine would cover his response to go along with the handshake.

“So,” said Jimmy, “you’re a football coach.”

“I’m just an assistant, said Ron. “This will be my second year.”

“Good money?” said Jimmy laughing.

Ron flushed. The money was awful. He calculated it last year to work out to be about fifty cents an hour.  Ron laughed. “Not so much for the money. But it’s good to work with the kids that way.”

Jimmy didn’t answer. It had been a joke and Ron had given his a straight answer. Jimmy hoped that Ron had a sense of humor. He was going to need it in this house.

Neither Mario nor Joey understood why someone would work when the money wasn’t any good and the hours were long. But he was a teacher and they both had a mistrust of teachers. It was true that Jimmy was a teacher, but he taught drivers education and gym. That was different and Jimmy was family. He liked to work with his hands.

The last thing in the world that Ron wanted was a hot cup of coffee. He didn’t drink coffee after dinner. They had consumed too much food. He wished that he could go for a long walk and maybe even a run, but that was out of the question. Angel took his hand and Ron lifted her up onto his knee after he sat.

 

Chapter 23

Ron was invited to his first party. It was at Barbara Infante’s house. He took a very long and hot shower. He combed his hair about six times. He used some of George’s aftershave. He made sure that there was copious amounts of deodorant under his arms. He selected a white on white high roll and used gold colored cuff links with it. He slid on a pair of black mohair and silk slacks that had a knife sharp crease. His socks were thin and almost see through except for the black ribs that Ron made sure were very straight as they slid up over his ankles. He tied his feather-tipped shoes tightly and made sure that their shine was high gloss. Then he slipped on his three quarter length black leather jacket from Cooper leather, where his mother had taken him when he said that he needed to have one.

He wanted to slip on his sunglasses but it was night and George said that he was trying to look like a wise guy when he wore them. Marjorie said, “You look very nice,” when he came out of his room. Ron had the sunglasses safely tucked away in his inside pocket. “Do you have money?” she asked.

“I have a few dollars,” said Ron. “I don’t think that I’ll need any.”

“Where is this party?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he lied.

“How can you be going to a party and not know where it is?” said Marjorie.

Ron lied again. “I’m meeting Richie and some of the other guys up at the school. They know where she lives.”

It had been a pointless lie and Ron knew that it probably was, but the thought of her driving over there if he was late, or calling her house if she felt like it, was reason enough to keep her in the dark.

“Stay out of trouble,” said George.

“He isn’t going to get into any trouble!” snapped Marjorie. “He’s going to a party.” Then a thought hit her. “What is this girl’s name?”

“Barbara.”

“Does she have a last name?”

“Infante.”

“I know a Tony Infante from 4^th Street,” said George.

Ron thought, who cares?

“Are her parents going to be at home?” said Marjorie.

“I don’t know,” said Ron. “I’m sure that they will be.” And then he was moving towards the door. He needed to get out of there. He slid on his shades as he bounced down the stairs. The evening air felt like freedom.

 

Chapter 24

Later that night Ron and Celeste lay in bed talking. They had mastered the art of having quiet sex and Angel was two floors away in her bedroom. Celeste had an intercom set up so that she could respond if Angel woke up.

They were facing each other and searching each other’s faces as they spoke.

“Life is going to change a lot in a couple of weeks,” said Ron.

Celeste felt a quiver in her stomach. “Because of work?”

“Yes, and coaching and then tutoring. I get very busy and we have to plan for it.”

“Will I ever see you?”

“Every day,” Ron blurted. “As long as we can find a way.”

“At least we’ll be able to talk on the phone, won’t we?’

“Every night,” said Ron. “I know this is going to sound screwy, but I don’t think that I could manage to get to sleep if I hadn’t spoken to you.”

Celeste felt her heart swell. She decided that she needed a job and maybe needed to go back to school. She was going to have to do something to work towards their goals and keep from sitting by the phone or listening for his squeaks.

Ron drove home at about two am. He was smiling and at the same time he was worried. Her family didn’t like him. His family wasn’t ready for her. Did they have any chance that things would work out for them?  What about Angel? This wasn’t like having a girlfriend or even someone with whom he lived. This was like acquiring an instant family, most of which didn’t like him. It confused him.

When he got home, the phone was ringing. It was Celeste calling to say good night. Ron was tempted to tell her about the doubts that he was having but decided that it was a conversation that was better had in person.

 

Chapter 25

The party bored Ron and he wondered if there was someplace else that he wanted to be. The girls were pretty and were wearing makeup. Some had their hair teased up. Ron danced with Barbara Infante. It was a slow dance and he could feel the buds of her breasts pressing against him and the motion of her hips pressing against him and he knew it was going to happen and it did. He was sticking out against her. He was sure that she could feel it. He blushed with embarrassment.

When the dance ended he gulped down a paper cup’s worth of fruit punch. It reminded him of the “bug juice” that they served on his one disastrous trip to camp. They had been on a hike and his asthma had kicked in and he had to be taken to the infirmary and the kids nicknamed him “wheezer” because of the sounds that came out of him when he tried to breathe. Marjorie and Rocky had come for him the next day, and he was able to sneak into his cabin while the other kids were at the lake. He was able to pack his things and slip out and never see any of them again.

It wasn’t like that here. If you made a fool of yourself, it followed you forever. He was pretty sure that his erection had gone unnoticed. Barbara Infante was whispering to her friend Carol that she had felt his thing get hard while they were dancing. Ron heard the girls giggle and his entire body stiffened.

He and Richie and Phillip and Dennis walked together after the party. They were talking about how boring it was and how they hated having adults watch them like they were swimming in a fishbowl.

Ron blurted, “Do you think Barbara likes me?”

When he heard the laughter from his friends he knew that he had done one of those stupid things that just wasn’t going to go away.

“So, you’re in love with Barbara Infante,” said Richie.

“No,” said Ron.

“Why did you ask that?” said Phillip.

Ron stammered. He was glad that it was dark and they couldn’t see the way that he was blushing. “I don’t know.”

They laughed again. This was just getting worse.

“Want me to ask her if she likes you?” said Dennis.

“Maybe we should all ask her,” said Richie.

When Ron got home, his mother said, “Ronald you are eleven years old.”

“I know,” said Ron.

“Ten-thirty is far too late to be coming home for an eleven year old boy.”

“It’s because I have to walk so much further than the other kids do,” said Ron.

“Then plan ahead,” said George. He had been drinking. Ron could tell from the red bloat of his face and the smell of beer. His father told him that fools got drunk. Ron thought, right again Dad.

Ron didn’t answer. He wasn’t going to give George the satisfaction of answering him.

“Did you have a good time?” said Marjorie.

“Up until now,” snapped Ron before he thought about it.

“What this kid needs is a good beating,” said George.

Ron snapped again. It was like his mouth was no longer attached to his brain. “Not from you.”

George got up. Marjorie screamed, “George don’t.”

“Go ahead,” said Ron. “I’ll tell my father.”

“You think I’m afraid of Harry Tuck?”

“Say it to his face,” said Ron.

Marjorie began to cry.

Chapter 16

            Ron was invited to Sunday dinner with Celeste’s family. The men were in the backyard and the women were in the kitchen. Celeste came out to greet him when she heard his nearby squeaks. They kissed and he squeezed her ass. She grinned and said, “Not here,” smiling and looking around to see if anyone had seen. Then she said, “My father and Joey are in the backyard.”

            “OK,” said Ron. He knew the drill but strangely he didn’t mind. “Do you want me to go into the kitchen and say hello first?” Then his face brightened. “Where’s Angel?”

            “Barb came and got her this morning. She took her on an adventure. And yes, you better say hello first. They’ll say something to me if you don’t.”

            Celeste led him around to the front door. Ron stared at the twitch of her hips as she walked. She didn’t wiggle or roll her hips. They seemed to snap from side to side, like a metronome. He gloried in the way that they moved.

            The house was cool and the hum of the air conditioner was loud. Anna sat smoking her Chesterfields in her chair at the table. Tina was getting things out of the refrigerator and there was a pot of water being brought to a boil on the electric cooktop. The woman all hated the electric cooktop and longed for the days of fire. They complained that you just couldn’t regulate it properly, but they would work with what they had.

            Celeste led him through the dining room and back into the kitchen. Anna looked up, saw Ron with her elder daughter, and reached for her cigarettes. 

            “Hello, Mrs. Brago,” said Ron.

            Tina turned at the sound of his voice. She sized him up. She had been in love with Celeste’s first husband, David. She was still a girl then and David was dashing and exciting and funny. He’d taken Celeste to Europe and Tina had almost died with envy. Everyone in the family had loved David. They had hated her second husband, Norman, just as much. Tina had already decided that she wasn’t giving this one a chance.

            Anna said, “I suppose that you’d better call me Anna. Mrs. Brago just sounds stupid.”

            Ron took it as an act of conciliation, not noticing that Anna had avoided saying hello to him or using his name. Ron grinned his best dimpled grin. Tina turned away and rolled her eyes. “Anna” said Ron.

            Anna looked at Celeste and said, “Janine and Jimmy are coming for coffee after dinner.”

            Ron saw Tina’s back turned to him, inwardly shrugged and opened the back door to the yard.

            Mario was stretched back in his hammock watching Joey play with his grandson, Little Joey in the above ground pool. Ron moved toward the Hammock and stretched out his hand to Mario. He wanted to avoid the name thing again and so he said, “How’s it going?”

            Mario grasped Ron’s hand and they shook. He had large beefy hands. He was a big man with a barrel chest. Joey was the son that he never had and the kid had learned to drive a trailer truck in no time. Mario hated them and pretended that he couldn’t learn so that they would keep him with straight jobs.

            Ron turned to the pool and repeated, “How’s it going?” in the direction of Joey, whose wet hands were holding his son. To his surprise, Joey curled young Joey under his left arm and extended his right hand towards Ron.

            Ron said, “I think there’s a game on.” He hoped that they weren’t Mets fans.

            “I don’t like sports,” said Mario.

            “Me either,” said Joey.

            It was gonna be a long afternoon.

 

Chapter 17

            The classroom was arranged with boys on one side and girls on the other. The students were seated in the order of last year’s final grades. The best performing girls and boys were seated next to each other, the top rows. The arrangement was meant to be a constant reminder of performance and sent the subliminal message that only those who had proven that they could handle distraction would be allowed proximity to the opposite sex. Ron was assigned the last seat of the row furthest away from the center.

            Sister Mary Salvatore was their teacher. She had been informed about Ron’s special circumstances. Ron had been staring at the girls’ heads on the other side of the room. He wanted to see more of them. Then, to his utter disbelief, the nun said, “Ronald Tuck, would you please stand up.”

            Ron felt heat on his face as he stood. He had been thinking about the girls and he had an erection. It was tenting out the front of his pants and she was making him stand there. Everyone’s head turned to look at him. He had stashed Aunt Dottie’s rosary in his pants pocket. He put it there because it reminded him of his Aunt. Ron prayed that no one would notice how he was sticking out. He heard some of the girls giggle. Now he was blushing furiously. He cursed his penis and how often it became hard without him really realizing it.

            “Ronald is a new student here,” said Mary Salvatore. “And it is important that we all help him to learn to be at home. Ronald isn’t a Catholic boy and so a lot of what we do will seem very strange to him. I am sure that none of you will hesitate to give him all the help that he requires.”

            Ron prayed to be allowed to sit down. He wondered if he could get away with adjusting his pants, moving it to the side so that it didn’t stick out so obviously, but then he would be sticking the crucifix on the rosary with his penis. He wondered if that was a sin.

            “Do you have anything that you would like to add, Ronald”

            Maybe it was going to be over and she would let him sink back down into the oblivion of the last seat in the last row. “No, Sister.”

            “Do any of you have any questions for Ronald?” said the nun. She seemed to want to prolong this and continue the torment. No one asked anything and mercifully, Ron sat.

 

           

Chapter 18

Ron wandered around the Brago backyard. He couldn’t remember having been in a place quite like this one. Their Cape Cod house was situated on a circle and from one back yard you could see into all the other back yards next to yours and those from the other side of the circle.

Sometimes they would cook the food on a grill that was linked to the house’s natural gas supply. Ron had never seen one that didn’t have to be refilled.

Mario was cooking at the grill and Joey was inside changing little Joey. Ron lit a cigarette and walked around the yard. In one corner was a large tree with a tire suspended from a rope. Ron looked at the makeshift swing and thought it had a friendly feel to it. Along the back of the chain link fence was an old grape vine. It was in bloom and Ron could see the deep purple luster of the fruit. He reached out and touched one of the grapes, thought about plucking it off to taste it, and decided it wasn’t a good idea. Along the other side of the yard was a vegetable garden. For a second, Ron was flooded with memories. They made him uncomfortable and he wondered if he knew what he was doing, but then Celeste was walking towards him and his doubts vanished.

She was wearing a sleeveless yellow top that tied in back of her neck. Her breasts jiggled as she moved. Her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her tan skin radiated. She was carrying a clam on a half shell and held it out to Ron. He took it and slurped it down. The hot sauce had a sweet burn in his throat. They grinned at each other.

“You don’t fool around with the hot sauce, do you?” said Ron.

She shook her head from side to side with a wide grin. Then she said, “Do you like the garden?”

“I like gardens,” said Ron. He wanted to tell her what he had been thinking, but decided it wasn’t a good time. He didn’t understand this urge to just tell her everything. Could he really tell her everything? He wasn’t sure that he could ever tell anyone everything. If they knew what ran through his head, they would think him too fucked up for words. He had learned that from the few times, that he had taken a chance and revealed some of what he was thinking. People grew silent and sometimes horrified, or laughed uncontrollably and told him that he was crazy. Quimpy had referred to him as a “crazy fucked up kid” from the time that he was sixteen years old. Chris thought he was nuts. Robin, his first love, had said that he wasn’t real. Why did he feel this freedom with Celeste? His answer came in a flash. If I don’t tell her, I will never be able to really open up to her, and what kind of a marriage would we have then? If I do tell her, and it drives her away, maybe she would have left anyway and it would better if she found out before they were married. He resolved to tell her later, when they were alone and he could gaze into her face and see her reactions. He wondered if everyone who was planning to get married went through this kind of doubting about how much of themselves they should be revealing. He thought that they should. It also struck him that it seemed women wanted to know these things, but that didn’t mean that they were necessarily revealing the same kinds of things about themselves.

Celeste watched Ron’s eyes go a little dreamy and for a second he was lost in thought. She wondered if this family thing was just going to be too much for him, but wasn’t sure that she should ask. He’d told her that he wanted her to tell him everything, but guys just say that. What she believed was that they wanted you to tell them everything that they wanted to hear. Then she said, “We’d better go inside for dinner.”

“Aren’t we eating out here?”

“No,” said Celeste. “My mother doesn’t like to eat outside.”

This was very true. Anna was overweight and didn’t like to sweat. She had allergies and hated being around plants. And then there were the flies. Anna hated flies with a passion that bordered on obsession. Next to a telephone, a cigarette, or a cup of coffee in her hand, the thing that you were most apt to see there was a fly swatter. If one got into the house, she would hunt it to distraction, cursing it each time that she swung and the fly escaped. Anna did not move quickly and had to use stealth in order to be successful. Mario had bought her the fly swatter soon after they were married and he found her banging her shoe against the wall and crying. That had been many fly swatters ago.

Ron got to the door and held it open for Celeste.

“Don’t let the flies in,” hollered Anna. Ron didn’t understand and waited for Celeste to climb the three stone steps to the back door. Anna glared. Celeste hurried and shut the door in back of her. Just as Barb came through the front door with Angel. The house went into immediate celebration and the flies were forgotten.

Angel exuded the radiance of discovery. The world was always new, and then some parts were always the same. Her Grandmother’s face, soft and warm and sweet and waiting for her. Her Papa’s chuckle at whatever she decided to do. Her mother, her mother, her mother. And there was Ron standing in back of Aunt Tina, his hand on the door. He looked so happy to see her. He missed her being there. This was home. This was the warm place after adventures.

 

Chapter 19

Ron knew exactly one kid at Our Lady of the Forlorn, but luckily it was a good friend. Rich D’Orio and Ron played stickball or football or some kind of sport most days. Ron was often invited to the D’Orio house for dinner. The D’Orios were happy when they heard that Ron was going to Our Lady of the Forlorn. Richie hadn’t told them about the incident with the knife. He knew that would not go over well. Richie was popular in school and he introduced Ron to all of his friends. There was a tentative acceptance. Some of the girls even said hello to him now

Ron spent hours doing homework each night. As much as he didn’t care what his teachers at Elliott Street School thought, he found that he had this instinctual desire to please the nuns. He wondered if it was because they frightened him. Or if it was because of their strange costumes, or if maybe it was because of some dedication. But to what?

 

One afternoon during his second week there, Richie said, “The guys are going to the park to play football this afternoon. I told them that you were good, and they want you to play.”

Since George and Marjorie had gotten married and moved to an apartment over two miles away, Ron hadn’t been able to play with Richie in the afternoons. In order to get to the park in time, he would have to run home, change quickly and then make it double time up to the park. The rest of the guys would take their bikes. Ron didn’t know how to ride a bike. He didn’t want the other guys to know. He didn’t realize that Richie had already told them.

He was sweating when he got to the park. Dave Spenelli watched him arrive and laughed. “Long walk?” The other guys laughed and Ron, glared at Richie. Anger flashed through him like electricity. They chose up sides. Ron was picked somewhere in the middle of the pack, mostly because of what Richie had said and his size. He was tall, muscular and lean.

It was a tough game. They had no equipment. They wore sneakers, jeans and sweatshirts. There were always bumps and bruises and cuts after the game, but they were badges of honor.

Richie was faster than Ron but he was smaller. Baseball was really his game and he could pick it at shortstop. During football season, he played end and liked to catch the passes, fake like he was going to the inside and then dart along the sidelines. Ron knew the move. Richie had burned him with it enough times. When Ron saw the play developing, he sprinted from the middle of the field to the sideline. Richie caught it with his back to the defender and used his fake. The kid bit on it, and Richie pivoted to the outside and rammed face first into Ron’s thrusting shoulder. He left his feet and the ball flew into the air and rolled out of bounds. Richie lay on the ground, his hands covering the blood that spurted from his broken nose. At first Ron was sorry when he saw him there crying in front of his friends, bleeding and covering his face with his hands. Then he thought that his father would be proud. The game ended on the hit. Somebody had to take Richie home. He was bleeding too much to ride his bike. Ron didn’t volunteer to walk with him.

As they were walking away, Ron heard Dave Spenelli say, “That was some hit!”

He swelled with pride but didn’t turn over his shoulder when a faceless voice said, “I don’t want to get hit like that.”

Richie didn’t come to school for the rest of the week. Ron was ashamed and noticed that fewer kids were talking to him. He didn’t realize that they were frightened.

Word had gotten out. Ron was the kid who brought a butcher knife to school and threatened people with it. Maybe he was better left alone.

 

 

Chapter 20

 

Ron expected the meal to be noisy and it was. The air conditioner was a wall unit in the dining room and when they sat around the long table, it caused them to raise their already elevated voices. Ron was seated next to Celeste who had Angel, in her high chair, on her other side. Angel was not happy with this arrangement and started to cry.

Mario bellowed, “What’s the matter, Princess?”

Angel cried louder.

 

“Don’t let this baby cry,” hollered Mario. He was looking at Celeste. “Do something to help her.”

Celeste unstrapped her from the high chair and took Angel into her arms. She scrambled across her mother’s lap and held her arms up to Ron. Anna’s mouth dropped open. Tina grimaced. Mario grew quiet.

Barb said, “Oh she wants to be next to him,” and got up and moved the high chair so that it was between Celeste and Ron. Angel stopped crying immediately. Ron lifted her up and strapped her into the chair.

“Check those straps and make sure that they are secure,” Anna said to Celeste.

The hum of the air conditioner was now the only sound. Little Joey pointed at Angel and said, “Crying.”

Angel ignored him. Tina took Joey’s arm and said gently, “Don’t point at your cousin.”

After dinner, the men went into the living room to lay down and wait to be called back for coffee and dessert and for the arrival of the after dinner guests. Ron started to help clear the table. He had been taught that it was what he should do and the lesson had stayed with him. It made the women nervous. They were not used to him to begin with and now he was in their kitchen and doing things, like a woman.

Tina called Celeste into the dining room and whispered, “Tell him to go into the living room with Joey and Daddy.”

“Did you even bother to say hello to him?” said Celeste.

Tina turned and walked away. Celeste motioned for Ron, but he didn’t see her. “Ron, could you come here a minute?”

Ron put the plates on the counter and Tina quickly lifted them up and brought them to the sink.

Celeste said, “Do you want to go downstairs and have a cigarette?”

“Sure,” said Ron.

“Go ahead, I’ll be right there.”

This was going to be an afternoon of juggling, thought Celeste as she went back into the kitchen.

Anna was sitting at the kitchen table smoking and watching her kitchen be cleaned. “If he breaks that baby’s heart, I’ll beat him with a shoe.”

 

Chapter 11

 

“Ronald, this is George’s Mother and his grandmother and his Uncle John. This is his sister Linda and her husband Robert and their children Roberta and Robert Junior.”

Ron tried to smile a hello to everyone and put his hands in his pockets and stood there looking at his shoes. His mother had married George Bombasco two months earlier but they had kept their marriage a secret, until George could find a way to break the news to his family. He had started spending some nights at their apartment and though Ron had kind of liked him initially, when George started telling Ron what to do, difficulties began.

“You can sit there until it’s time for dinner, Ronald,” said George’s mother.

Ron sat and watched women work at the table in the basement of the house. Uncle John had the newspaper spread open on one section of the table and he was looking at the ads from the food circulars. “Look here,” said John, “carrots for 12 cents for two pounds at Pathmark and bacon for 67 cents a pound at the Acme. We can go out and get both of those things tomorrow.”

“I saw a box of Cheerios for 24 cents at the A&P,” said George’s mother. “Isn’t that good?”

Ron listened and tried to find something about the conversation that was interesting.

George’s mother said more emphatically, “Isn’t that good?” She was looking at George. Her chins wobbled. She scrunched her glasses back up against her face with a questioning grimace.

“I think so,” said George, “but I’ll have the Foodtown circular tomorrow and you can see if it’s better there.”

Ron stared out the back window at the garden. He saw the plump tomatoes bulging the vines, and the white strips of cloth that were used to tie them to the wooden stakes fluttering in the late summer breeze. He closed his eyes and inhaled the smell of the tomato sauce and felt a little sick to his stomach.

When he stood up, it seemed to signal everyone to stop and stare at him. “I’m going to go outside for a little while.”

“Stay close,” said Uncle John. “The shines are out on their porches down on Broad Street.”

Ron looked at him with a quizzical expression. “I just wanted to see the garden.”

John shifted, a little uncomfortable with this information. His thin grey hair sprouted out to the sides over the top of the black rims of his glasses. “Be careful not to touch anything,” he said.

Linda came out of the back of the basement holding Junior in her arms. Roberta followed her with her hand holding her mother’s skirt like it was a reassuring tether. Ron did not make eye contact with any of them as he went out the door.

Ron had never seen a vegetable garden before, and he looked at it with some reverence. Then he found a spot in the shade back by the garage and squatted back against the wall. The garden was split in the center and had distinct rows on each side. It was very green. Ron saw the tomatoes and the peppers on the vine. He thought that they looked like magical apparitions. He had seen pictures on the early morning show, The Modern Farmer, but this was so much more real and alive. At least he had found one thing that he liked.

 

 

Chapter 12

 

Jake Clifford smiled broadly when he saw Celeste and Angel getting out of Ron’s squeak mobile. He walked towards them with an athletic glide in his step. “So this is the lucky guy that has you smiling,” said Jake. He extended his hand to Ron and they shook.

“How’s everything, Jake?” said Celeste.

“Things are great. I heard from Spalding and I think that they are going to buy it.”  Jake grinned and put his head down and shuffled his feet back and forth a little.

Celeste turned to Ron with an excited grin on her face. “Jake has an invention that he’s about to become famous for,” she said.

“Why don’t you and Ron come over later? We can toot some lines.” He sized Ron up and asked, “Do you play ping pong?”

 

 

 

 

When school was over Ron was out the door like a sprinter. His book bag was slung over his shoulder and he was running south on Summer Avenue towards Bloomfield Avenue. He veered left at Elwood and then picked up speed when he got to Lincoln. He ran the length of Lincoln Avenue and right up the stairs and into the Boys Club.

Off to the back of the huge room, under a hanging cloud of smoke, the old men were playing chess. Ron’s book bag dangled from his shoulder as he walked over trying to look inconspicuous. He really wasn’t supposed to be there yet. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, the Club was taken over by the Retired Men’s Club and they played chess and pool and cards until 3 in the afternoon. The chess players were allowed to stay longer though. They were out of the way and brought their own pieces and plastic chess mats.

Ron was always very quiet and careful not to move around. The men were cranky and usually his presence was more tolerated than accepted, but he loved to smell their pipe smoke and watch the way that they manipulated the pieces and sometimes, if there was no one else to play, he was allowed to sit in for a game.

Some of the men were happy to teach him and it didn’t take Ron long to become a regular at the end of these Tuesday and Thursday gatherings. Ron thought that they played the game with an elegant flair and though he knew none of their names, he did have his favorites.

He was just settled into his second game of watching when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Ron, can I speak to you for a moment?”

It was Danny McCarthy, a short red faced man in his thirties who always wore a lanyard and whistle around his neck.

“Sure,” said Ron. He got up and walked past the pool table and towards the windows where there were six ping pong tables set up next to each other.

They sat on the low window ledge in back of the table and in front of the windows. Danny looked very serious. “Ron, you know that there is no gambling here, don’t you?”

Feeling the heat rise to his face, Ron tried to control his reaction. “Sure, I know.”

“Is it true that you beat Joey Baltiari for so much money playing ping pong that he gave you his bankbook?”

“I didn’t take any of his money,” said Ron.

“How much did you beat him for Ron?”

“I don’t know. I kept saying that I wanted to quit and he kept wanting to do double or nothing and he couldn’t beat me.”

“But you know that there is no gambling here. You told me that you knew.”

“I took $4 in cash and he owes me another $125,” said Ron. The guilt had overtaken him and he wanted to be rid of it.

“Ron, this is wrong. You know that it’s wrong. You knew it was wrong when you did it.”

“I gave him a spot,” said Ron defensively.

“But you knew that he couldn’t beat you, didn’t you?”

Ron nodded and hung his head.

“And now the boy is so upset that he got sick and wasn’t able to go to school today and finally he told his mother what you had done to him and she called me.”

Ron stared out the window. Then he looked over at the smoky cloud of chess players. He waited for what was going to happen next.

“I want you to return his bankbook, Ron and promise me that you’ll never do anything like this again.”

Ron reached down into his book bag where he’d kept the bankbook hidden. He fished it out and gave it to Danny without saying anything.

The Director took the book and opened it to look at the balance. He was interested to see how much Joey had, and he wanted to check to see that Ron hadn’t been able to make any withdrawls. “Ron, I want you to tell your parents what happened and I’m going to take your membership card until one of them comes it with you to get it back.”

Ron’s mind went blank. The words “Oh shit” formed in his brain. This was going to be bad. This was going to be really bad.

He didn’t eat much of his dinner. He sat across from George and Marjorie in their third floor apartment toying with his food. They didn’t seem to notice that he wasn’t eating and George was shoveling the food in at a rate that did not allow for conversation.

“Something happened today,” started Ron.

George stopped eating and Marjorie lit a cigarette. “What happened?” she said.

“Sometimes at the Boys Club we play ping pong for a dime or a quarter a game,” said Ron trying to ease into it. George and Marjorie exchanged a look that was a mixture of anger and fear.

“How much did you lose?” said George.

“I didn’t lose,” said Ron. “I beat this kid for all his money and he went home and told his mother that he had to give me his bankbook and she called the Boys Club, and now they won’t let me back in unless you go down there with me to pick up my membership card.”

“You’re just becoming a hoodlum, aren’t you?” said Marjorie. “Is this the way that I raised you?”

“Look, I didn’t try to take all his money. He kept wanting to play double or nothing and I kept winning.”

“Why didn’t you just say no and give the boy his money back?” said Marjorie. She began to cry. “Is this what I’ve raised you to be? Your grandmother would be spinning in her grave.”

George looked at Ron and gave him a disgusted grimace and before Ron knew what he did he said, “Well at least I won.”

George’s face got very red. Ron knew that they were still paying off George’s gambling debts. He knew that George had to work a second job just to keep up on the payments.

“You’re a bastard,” cried Marjorie.

“What you need is a good beating,” said George.

Ron had gone too far to quit now and he said, “Look my dad taught me how to gamble. It’s not my fault that I did it right.”

“Let your father go and get your card back,” said Marjorie. “I’m sure that he’ll be very proud of you.”

 

Chapter 13

Anna spent her mornings on the telephone. She sat in the kitchen with her Chesterfields and her coffee. She lived a sedentary life, but seemed to come very alive when she was on the telephone. It would not be unusual for her morning telephone
marathons to go on for several hours.

There was a list of people with whom she spoke daily. These included her sisters, several cousins, and her daughter. The fact that she would see many of these people on a daily basis did not change the need for the morning calls.

Today’s theme was her outrage at the ungrateful Celeste, who never seemed to pass up the chance to find a new way to screw up her life. She began with Vivian.

“Can you believe the shit that she is trying to pull now?” said Anna in a rhetorical opening.

“What’s wrong with her?” said Vivian. “She has a nice home and a safe place for her daughter. There’s no pressure on her and she wants to throw all that away.”

“Stars in her eyes over another loser,” said Anna. “It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for Angel. That baby is happy here.”

“Wouldn’t you think that she would have learned to start putting her child first? She’s not twenty-one anymore. The party is over.”

Vivian had been a hard worker in her youth and it was true that Celeste had never been afraid of work either. But in their eyes she had thrown away nursing school, then married a photographer who considered himself too much of an artist to open a shop and take graduation and wedding pictures. She’d left him and hooked up with Angel’s father who they both knew was a humorless jerk the first time that they met him. At least he worked. She left him and found out she was pregnant and had run back home. Everyone in the family had pitched in to help her. Janine’s husband had redone what had been the girls’ shared room upstairs and turned it into a beautiful nursery. Tina’s husband had helped her refinish the basement. Mario had kept quiet about her being back home. Everything had been perfect, but now Celeste had dragged home this stray dog and his squeaky junk of a car.

They reviewed this litany together and Anna was sure that Vivian was on her side. “I swear that when I see my precious Angel strapped into a seat in the back of that deathtrap that my heart is in my mouth.”

“If you don’t think that his car is safe, you shouldn’t let her go,” said Vivian.

“How am I supposed to stop her?”

“Raise a stink,” said Vivian.

Anna laughed bitterly but thought that an event like that might drive Ron off.

Her conversation with Janine didn’t go as well.

“Is he cute,” Janine made the mistake of asking.

“I don’t know,” said Anna. “I can’t bring myself to stand to look at him. Besides, what difference does that make to me?”

“I’m not disagreeing, Anna, but if Celeste sees a future with him, shouldn’t you try to make the best of it?”

“No,” said Anna resolutely.

The she added, “Can Jimmy find out about this guy?”

Janine’s husband Jimmy was Angel’s godfather. He had a good job working in a school and he coached and knew other coaches.

“Find out what?” said Janine.

“If it turns out that this guy is a loser, like her other losers, maybe she would listen to Jimmy and not want to screw things up again.”

“I’ll ask him but you know how Jimmy is.”

Anna laughed, “Ask him after he’s just had a ride on that Napoli ass of yours.” Napoli was Anna’s maiden name and the power of their posteriors had been a running family joke among the women for a long time.

Janine and Anna giggled.

 

Chapter 14

 

Sister Wilma Dolores inspected the boy that the rectory had called about. She had been directed to accept him into the school, but she insisted that she wanted to meet him first. The idea of a non-Catholic boy in her school angered her and made her queasy at the same time. This one would be going into 7^th grade, an age when things could get out of hand if the school wasn’t careful.

Ron sat in the hard wooden chair with his hands folded. He was nervous. He had never spoken with a nun before and their costumes made them look other worldly.

“What brings you to us, Ronald?”

“I’m not sure, Sister,” said Ron. He’d been told that he should call of them that. It was respectful and it saved having to remember their names.

“Why aren’t you sure, Ronald? This is no place for the undecided.”

“To be honest, Sister, it was decided for me,” said Ron, quite honestly. Then he hurried to add, “But I like to read and I think that I can be a good student.”

“You know that you’ll be expected to study Religion, just as all of the students here do and that you’ll be expected to take part in daily prayers and attend Mass.”

“I know, Sister.”

“Of course you won’t be allowed Communion and you’ll be expected to able to recite the necessary prayers, which you will learn as soon as possible.”

“I think that I already know most of them,” said Ron.

“Oh?” Wilma Dolores raised an eyebrow. She was wearing summer whites, but the tightly fitting, starched habit gave her face a puffiness in the heat. It fitted across the forehead and over her ears and under her chin. A round white heavily starched bib projected from under her neck and the black nylon strings that held her crucifix lay across it.

“I remember things easily,” said Ron.

“They aren’t just words to us, Ronald. They have a sacred meaning.”

“I can recite scripture too,” said Ron, trying hard to be cooperative.

This last piece of information was troubling to the school principal. She doubted if any of the students in the school had read the Bible. They read their catechism, lives of the saints, and the children’s book of New Testament bible stories. “That might be something that you should keep to yourself, Ronald. No one likes a showoff.”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Now, I know that you’ve been in trouble and that kind of behavior will not be tolerated here. You will be on a short leash Mr. Tuck and any whiff of incorrigibility and you will find yourself on the outside looking in.”

Ron thought that there wouldn’t be anything new about that, but it was the first time that he remembered anyone ever calling him Mr. Tuck. He kind of liked it.

 

Chapter 15

Dorothy Thomas told her nephew that she had something for him. She walked back through her kitchen and into her bedroom, the room furthest away from the place where her third and final husband slept. Even though it was midday and sunny, she needed to switch on the light to see. Ron had never remembered the drapes to his aunt’s bedroom being open. They were heavy drapes and contained multiple layers that both kept out light and muffled sound. They also blotted out the fact that this was a basement apartment that was given to the superintendent and family rent free.

Her bedroom set was pure and polished mahogany. It glistened under the overhead light, which she switched on as she opened her closet door. Ron’s eyes followed. There were two minks, one a full length coat and the other a jacket. Next to them hung a heavy black lamb’s wool coat. Dorothy pushed them to the side and revealed a stack of shoeboxes. The shoes, though not new, were in their original boxes and were still wrapped and rewrapped after each wearing into their tissue paper. Inside one of the boxes there was a velvet pouch tucked next black high heels. Ron’s eyes widened. It looked like treasure.

She opened the pouch and removed a set of black beads. It was a rosary. She slipped it into Ron’s hand and said, “Don’t tell anyone that I gave this to you. Your mother would have a fit.”

Ron’s family had always been staunchly anti-Catholic. When his great grandmother had been told that she had the “map of Ireland” on her face, she took it as a great insult. Dorothy was actually his great aunt. Marjorie had always suspected that she was actually her mother, but that family history had been so mangled over time, that there was no way to discover the truth. Dorothy certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone.

Ron fingered the beads. “Why do you have these?”

“When I was younger Ronald, I used to sneak into Catholic churches. I got these so that I wouldn’t look out of place.”

Ron was astonished. He stared down at the crucifix. She had kept them all these years. She was a woman of endless secrets. “Why did you go there, Aunt Dot?”

“Because they were beautiful and I loved the stained glass windows and all the gold. Our church was drab. I loved the smell of incense. I liked the pageantry. It was like going to a show and I didn’t have to buy a ticket.”

Ron smiled. He wanted to ask if it had anything to do with the religion but he didn’t. He didn’t want to spoil her secret by cluttering it up with facts. He slipped the beads into his pocket. She hadn’t given him the pouch, which she placed back into the box and then restacked with her other boxes. Ron wondered if more strangely wonderful things were concealed in them, but she was closing the closet door and turning out the light and then they were back in her kitchen and she wanted him to stay for dinner. Marjorie was working and she liked having him around.

“Sure,” said Ron.

“Go and say hello to your Uncle John,” she said.

Ron walked passed the birdcage and glanced down at the ceramic boxer that she kept of the floor guarding the entrance to her parlor. It was a long narrow corridor that led back to his Uncle’s room.

John Thomas was watching the Mets. They were an awful team and his love had been the Dodgers, but like his first wife, they had gone and he was stuck with this.

He didn’t mind the boy but when he stayed overnight John was forced into the twin bed in Dorothy’s bedroom, which only further reminded him of what he didn’t have.

            “Hi, Uncle John.”

            “Hello, Ronald.”

            John was sitting in a Danish rocker and smoking his pipe. Ron slid down to the floor in front of the couch. He hated the Mets. He was a Yankee through and through. John disliked the Yankees and had tried to explain to Ron that they bought their success. Ron didn’t understand what that meant and rested his argument on his two favorite players, Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford.