Chapter 58

Ron finished tutoring a little before 2 pm on Saturday. He drove down to his mother’s car and traded his two door for Lois’s hatch back Nissan. The hatch and the collapsible back seat gave him enough room for the plaster casted pieces that he would load into the back and the excellent springs on the new car made the ride smooth enough so that he didn’t have to worry about breakage.

Denise gave him very precise directions to her family’s house in the Forest Hills section. It was one of the only remaining upscale sections left in Newark and Ron pulled into a driveway that was short and elevated up to a modern looking home with a statue of the Blessed Virgin outside in front of the house. The statue was clad in blue and Ron felt queasy when he looked at it. He wondered if his teaching at the Catholic school had perhaps given Denise and her mother the wrong idea.

Denise was wearing a matching shorts and top set that was blue and covered in daisies. Her white strapped sandals also had daisies on the crossing strap.

When she got into the car, Ron said with a grin. “You’re looking fresh.”

She held out up her right foot and fingered the plastic flower. “As a daisy, right?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Ron.

“Well, a girl’s got to be coordinated.”

“Why?”

“Because, Ronald,” she said with a teasing grin, “when I look good on the outside it helps me to feel good on the inside.”

“I never thought about it.”

“You’re a guy. Most guys don’t think about it that way.”

“I used to,” said Ron. “When I was a kid and worked for Ripley Clothes, I did the whole bit. I wore the high rolls and I had a leather and a suede from Cooper Leather. I sent everything that I wore to the cleaners.”

“What happened?” she asked with sincerity and a serious gaze.

“Well, we moved for one thing.”

She put her arm lightly on his shoulder and said, “You can take the boy out of Newark but you can never really take the Newark out of the boy. That’s what I think anyway.”

There was something about the boy girl thing that she kept doing that Ron was finding disconcerting. It was like she had this manual in her head about the way that things were supposed to be. “Do you really believe all that?”

“I don’t know if I believe all of it. I know that if I was walking down the street with a guy like you that I would feel safe. I don’t think that part of you is changeable.”

Ron thought about that. Robin had always said that she felt very safe with him. Zoe had said that he wanted to protect her. Maybe she had something.

“I think college changed me,” said Ron.

“Was it a good change?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “I think I would have gone crazy without it. Not that I’m not fairly fucked up now, but I mean really crazy.”

“Do you always use that language?” she said quickly.

“What language?”

“You know. That word.”

Ron laughed. “We used it all the time in Newark.”

“But not on a first date,” said Denise.

They were on the Parkway heading south and Ron wished that he could turn to look into her eyes but he was going too fast for that. “One of the things that I learned in college was that there is no such thing as a bad word, Denise.”

“My Dad says that college people think too much.”

All at once Ron felt like he was with a being from another planet. It was Planet Pasta where everyone had statues of saints and never shit where they ate. It was the world of frozen behaviors where people acted out the same melodramas over and over. He felt superior. But then again, didn’t she want him to feel superior? Wasn’t that one of the rules on Planet Pasta?

Ron turned on the radio. “What kind of music do you like?” he asked.

“I like all kinds but mostly I like the oldies,” said Denise.

Of course you do, thought Ron.

Then Denise added, “But Sinatra is still the best.”

This last comment threw Ron into confusion. In his heart he loved Sinatra, but he kept this passion well hidden from his friends. They would never understand and the one time he had talked with Chris about it, he had made a dismissive face and said “Strings make me sick.”

“I was raised on Sinatra,” said Ron.

“Me too,” said Denise.

Then Ron said very quietly, “His politics suck.”

“I don’t know what his politics are,” she said. “But what have they got to do with his music?”

“I like music that is sung by the people who wrote it. It makes me think that it is really what they feel and think.”

“How do you know that it isn’t what he feels and thinks?”

“It could be,” said Ron. He felt some inner confusion and turmoil that he didn’t want to feel. It dismissed it all saying, “It’s my mother’s music. It’s World War 2 music. It’s over. It’s music for a different time.”

“Whose music do you like to listen to?”

“Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen.” Ron recited from his internal pantheon.

“I’ve heard of Bob Dylan but I don’t know the rest of those people.”

“Joni and Jackson are kind of the California sound.”

“Like the Beach Boys?” said Denise. “I like their music.”

“Not quite like the Beach Boys,” said Ron patiently. Internally he was feeling guilty about rolling his eyes when he said it. He couldn’t help but remember the hours that he spent playing Help Me Ronda and I Get Around and he even liked the Sloop John B. but that wasn’t serious music, not the way that his music was serious.

“Ron, do you think that you’re a snob?”

Ron laughed and said, “I think that I probably am and I worked hard to get this way.”

“Why did you do that?”

Ron thought for a moment. Somewhere deep inside of himself a voice said that it was because he wanted to be accepted, but he dismissed that response with a cynical voice that said he should never disclose anything like that on a first date. Quietly he said, “Because I didn’t want to be second rate and backward anymore.”

He saw her wince and felt her recoil as surely as if he had slapped her in the face. He felt the need to continue. “When I got to college, I realized just how ignorant and ill prepared I was and made a promise to myself that I could be better.”

She touched his shoulder again and said, “I admire your drive.”

Street Fighting Man came on the radio and Ron prayed that she would not ask him if he thought that Mick Jaggar really believed in his heart the things that he was singing about.

The ceramics warehouse was a large, dusty hanger that looked like it used to house much larger equipment. The unpainted, unfired pieces were stored on long low shelves that stretched along all of the walks and made aisles in the center of the structure. Ron had a shopping list and a flat bed, two tiered trolley on which he would carefully place each piece after inspecting it for cracks or chips. It was definitely a buyer beware situation and Ron had learned to inspect each piece with a careful eye. Denise walked in back of him and he could feel her eyes on him as he lifted the pieces up and ran his finger gently across the surfaces and the bases of the soon to be ceramic projects. He felt responsible for this phase of the business and both Lois and his mother would praise his eye and the care that he used to make sure that they only got those things that they could sell.

When they passed by the eagles and the owls, Ron grinned teasingly and said, “I can see these in your future.”

Denise started to say that she liked the owls but then she stopped herself when she saw the slight smirk and twinkle in his eyes. She would have to learn when he was teasing her or else she would never feel like she had firm footing. Maybe she should let him enjoy teasing her. Maybe he would like that. It was kind of exciting that she wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but it also made her nervous. She supposed guys needed to be a little bit arrogant. It was who they were. But it was better when their egos were more transparent, like when he stared at her body with that lust filled look, but he hadn’t looked at her that way once since they had come into the warehouse.

Denise moved in front of him and bent over at the waist for apiece on one of the lowest shelves. She smiled to herself when she felt his eyes on her. There it was. He was still interested. She lifted a pumpkin up and said, “Do you like Halloween?”

“Not so much,” said Ron.

After they checked out and he loaded the pieces into the hatchback, he said, “Would you like to walk by the ocean?”

She took his hand and said, “I would love that.”

She watched as he took off his shoes and socks. She frowned when she saw the bear claws that he had for toenails but didn’t say anything about them. She slipped off her sandals and they walked along the sand. Ron had his shoes in one hand with the socks stuffed inside of them, and she held her sandals and felt his hand slide around her waist and rest low on her hip. His hand was a little bit too low on her hip and she tried to raise it up to her waist, but compromised by moving closer so that her hip pressed against his as they walked.

Ron could not help but think of Robin and the way that the two of them had always fallen into a perfect rhythm when they walked. He grew quiet and stared at the water.

Denise said, “I know that I’m changing my ideas about things, but the changes don’t happen overnight and, with work and all, it’s real easy to get into a pattern.”

“Do you think that your patterns are good for you?”

“I never thought about it. They just are there and I go along with them.”

“You can’t change if you go along,” said Ron. Then he stopped in the middle of the beach and kissed her.

She had wanted him to kiss her. She felt her heart speed up at the feel of his lips on hers but then he was opening his mouth and his hand was sliding lower on her hip and squeezing her behind. She stiffened and broke the kiss off and stepped back. “Ron, I just met you.” She saw the disappointment on his face. He looked like her father did when her mother said that they were having chicken for dinner. “I liked kissing you,” she said in a conciliatory tone.

“Let’s go back to the car,” said Ron.

She wanted him to say something else. She wanted him to ask her one of his hard questions that would make her think and she could feel like she was learning, but he wasn’t saying anything. The kiss was hanging over them like a dark cloud that wasn’t doing anything but blocking the sun. “Don’t be mad at me,” she said.

When he started the car, Ron said, “When I was seventeen I went out with this girl named Patty. I really liked Patty. I thought she was one of the prettiest girls I had ever seen”

Denise was happy that he was talking but why was he talking about an old girlfriend? That wasn’t exactly the conversation that she was hoping to have.

“Anyway, you remind me of Patty. She had rules too.”

“Everyone has rules, Ron.”

“That’s true,” said Ron. His jaw tightened and she saw those high cheekbones, and the way that they gave a hollow to his cheeks and seemed to darken his eyes. “My rule is not to make a game out of intimacy.”

Ron knew, of course, that this wasn’t true. He just liked different kinds of games, and the idea that on the second date that he got to squeeze her tits and maybe by date five she might brush her hand over his cock was his idea of a gigantic waste of time. She would kiss him passionately before the night was over but anytime he went to touch one of the hotspots on her body, her “good girl” would kick in and she would stop him. What was he doing here? He was truly a moonlight mile further down the road than this.

“It’s not that it’s a game. It’s what I feel comfortable doing.”

Ron smiled at her but there was sadness in his smile. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry that I offended you.”

“I wasn’t offended,” she protested. Now she was confused. He was making her feel like she was a silly kid and she didn’t like the feeling. “I guess that I’m just a traditional girl.”

“I gave that up a long time ago,” said Ron. “I think it would be pretty impossible for me to go back to it.

Chapter 57

The ceramics shop was right on Bloomfield Avenue just one block out of Newark. Ron knew that this small distance was important to his mother. Somehow, she would have seen it as a failure if she had returned to work in Newark for any reason, but that shop had a Bloomfield address and that made all the difference to her. Lois, who had also been a lifelong resident of Newark and a neighborhood fixture didn’t care or see it that way, but she was glad to accommodate her partner.

It was a storefront that was located between a meat market and a liquor store and that made parking difficult, but Marjorie had worked out a deal with a bank a short block down the street and in exchange for giving free classes to any of their employees, her clients were allowed to park in the bank once they had secured cards that read The Ceramic Kitchen and placed them on the driver’s side of their front windshield. Marjorie carefully monitored the distribution of cards and chastised Lois every time one of her family members or friends used a card to park with convenience. Lois took the verbal punishment, but surreptitiously continued to distribute the cards while cautioning their recipients to not “say anything.”

Ron did not have a card and so he circled the block several times before he was lucky enough to catch someone pulling out and parked on the street. The shop itself consisted of a large, open workspace with long banquet style tables and folding chairs. There were heavy wooden shelves along two walls of the room and it was here that the customers marked and stored their unfinished pieces. At the front of the store was another large, lighted case that contained finished pieces that Marjorie and Lois had completed and which were for sale. They were also the demonstration models, showing what could be accomplished when someone was proficient in the craft. Christmas trees with embedded lights, lamps, large dolls and platters along with various other kind of dust-catching bric-a-brac decorated every square inch of the front shelves. Wedding favors were becoming a new favorite and Marjorie had large books that she could use to encourage people to take advantage of what she referred to as the personal touch. The smaller back room held two kilns and a supply of newly casted pieces. Marjorie and Lois had not yet purchased the molds that they would need to really turn a profit. It was also here that a large collection of paints and brushes and water dishes were stored. A small bathroom was off the side of the back room and Marjorie had taken pains to make sure that it was neat, decorated and cleaned every day. She did not do the cleaning herself anymore, but Lois was glad to oblige.

There were a dozen women seated around the tables when Ron came through the front door. Marjorie was smoking a Virginia Slim with a half painted clown in front of her.

“Ronald,” she called out. “What a nice surprise.”

Ron smiled and moved to his Mom and kissed her on the cheek. “Hi Mom.” He knew from her greeting that he was supposed to play along about him coming there casually.

“Everyone,” announced Marjorie, “this is my son Ronald.” Marjorie beamed as Ron flashed his best dimpled grin at the women. Marjorie began her introductions. “This is Mrs. Porcelli, and Mrs. Triano and Mrs. Rolandelli and Mrs. Scafetti and Mrs. DelaTorre and her daughter Denise.” Marjorie went on and on until she had introduced Ron to everyone in the shop. Ron tried to keep the smile on his face but it got plastered there and then begin to hurt and cause his face to ache until he was sure that his smile had turned into a grimace. He tried giving each of the women a new smile commensurate with her name and that seemed to help. He noticed Mrs. Delatorre nudge Denise and the girl stood up and went to into the back room to use the bathroom.

Ron’s gaze took her in quickly. She was about 5’6” and had a set of gorgeous breasts and a firm and round rear that moved with an easy sway as she walked in front of him and then disappeared into the back room. She was wearing snug brown slacks and tan flowered blouse that was color matched to her pants. Her hair was a deep lustrous brown and bounced on her shoulders as she moved.

“Ronald drives down to the shore and picks up new pieces for us every weekend.” The ladies smiled and nodded.

Mrs. Delatorre nodded and said, “What do you do for a living, Ronald?”

“He’s a teacher,” said Marjorie. Ron felt himself start to bristle but took a long slow breath, inhaling from his nostrils and then exhaling from his mouth in an easy way that he hoped was not noticeable.

“In the summer time, I mostly tutor,” he said.

“It must be very nice to have the summers off,” said Mrs. Rolandelli. “I think that you know my son, Butchie.”

“Sure,” said Ron. “I remember Butchie Rolandelli from the old neighborhood. How’s he doing?”

“He’s a fireman. He’s married and has two children.”

“Wow,” said Ron. “That’s great. Give him my best.”

“Look at the time already,” said Marjorie. “The hour and a half just flies, doesn’t it?”

“It always does when you are among friends and are out of the house,” said Mrs. Triano.

Everyone laughed softly and then they began to clean off their tables and put their pieces back on the shelves.

Denise came out of the back room and moved towards Ron and his mother. She flashed her sparklingly white teeth in a warm smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Ron.” She extended her hand and Ron took it. It was slightly damp from the bathroom sink and she squeezed his hand lightly as they completed their introduction. Ron looked into her face and it was warm and welcoming with a sparkle in her eyes that told him that she was also playing along.

“So what are you working on?” said Ron.

“Oh, let me show you,” she said.

She moved to her place at the table making sure that Ron got a good look at her from behind. Ron followed and found himself attracted to the way that she moved and seemed so easy with him.

“It’s a group of bluebirds in a tree,” she said as she picked it up from under the base and held it up for him.

“It looks like a lot of work,” said Ron, not sure what else to say about the tree and the birds that perched on its branches.

She shrugged and grinned. “It’s for my grandmother. She loves birds.”

“Maybe you should buy her a parakeet,” said Ron.

Denise giggled and said, “I don’t think she would like a real bird. They make noise and my grandfather likes the house quiet.”

Ron wondered how much longer he was gonna have to stay before he could flee this place. He nodded.

“You know how the old people are,” she said. She leaned into him and said softly. “Thank you for not saying how ugly it is.”

Ron was slightly startled by this. “It’s just different from me.”

“Me too,” confided Denise, “but my Nana would do anything for me and it’s the least that I can do for her.”

Ron liked this and smiled for her. “I can understand that. I was the same way with my Aunt Dottie.

“There’s the real smile,” she said. “So much better than the other one.”

Ron felt himself blush. This girl wasn’t dumb. “I guess you’re going home with your Mom now,” he said.

“Yes, I get up very early during the week, but tomorrow is Friday, thank God.”

“When are you driving down the shore, Ronald?” called Marjorie from the other side of the room. “Mrs. Porcelli wants to order a piece and I’m hoping we can have it for her by Monday.”

“I’ll go down on Saturday afternoon after I get done with my appointments,” said Ron.

Then on an impulse he turned to Denise. “Want to take a ride down with me on Saturday?”

“Well it is Thursday night and I think that I’m supposed to say that I’m busy, but I’m really not doing anything and I would love to go.”

She gave Ron her phone number and Ron told her that he would call when he was done on Saturday and she could tell him where she lived.

“That will be exciting,” she said. “I love the ocean.”

That night Ron called Chris Calvin. Although months went by during the school year when they did not speak to each other, during the summer it was different. Chris had just passed the New Jersey Bar exam and was now a full-fledged lawyer. Although he was still living on East 6^th Street, the reasons for his residence in Manhattan were dwindling.  He had graduated from NYU. He had graduated from New York Law. Much of the tuition for both institutions had come from the dealing of pot, which he had not done in over a year now. He still liked to see Ron but it was time for Chris to begin his serious life and that meant making connections. Ron really wasn’t going to be of any help in that regard and Chris knew that the two of them would no doubt drift further and further apart until they saw each other once or twice a year, if that. Chris thought Ron was bright but he was still hopelessly idealistic and did not want to do what it would take to be able to enjoy the finer things in life. That was what Chris wanted. The first step in the plan was someone with whom he could start a family, a woman that he could see himself with for a long time. He wanted a woman who was interested in having children and he was pretty sure that he had found her.

Hope Stafford was a pretty woman. She was divorced and had a little girl but she was young and strong and healthy. What’s more she came from a socially secure family and had been a debutante. Chris liked this very much. She had good genes. She knew how to conduct herself and she could show Chris things that he needed to know and tell him things that he needed to do. It never occurred to Chris that the money would not follow but what he knew he needed was a good foundation upon which he could build.

“Hey Chris, its Ron. How ya doin?”

“Good,” said Chris. “What are you up to?”

“I was thinking of driving in, maybe play a little music and hang for a while.”

“That would be cool,” said Chris. “I was thinking that I could use a day off tomorrow.”

Ron laughed. “Alright. How is the supply situation?”

“Low but easily rectified.” said Chris.

When Ron got there, Chris called “dial-a-dime.” He had been turned on to it while he was at New York Law. A quick call with an address that was on the customer list and within a half hour, someone appeared on the street in front of your apartment with a quarter ounce. The cost was $20 and the quality was good.

They sat cross-legged on the floor of his tiny apartment while Ron cleaned and rolled and Chris selected some music. He always had music that Ron hadn’t heard and Ron usually found it good although he tended to want to return to his favorites after he listened to the new stuff. More and more Chris was finding that it was the only time that he listened to this music and it occurred to him more than once that Ron seemed trapped in it and willing to listen to it over and over. Ron was different since Robin. He seemed more interested in reliving old experiences than he was in having new ones. Chris hoped that it was a phase from which he would emerge before it became too boring to continue to tolerate. Ron had even started writing a book about their days at college. Nostalgia was not all that attractive.

Mose Allison was cooing the song “Everybody’s Crying Mercy” as they smoked the first of the three joints that Ron had rolled.

“I met a girl,” said Chris.

“Alright!” said Ron triumphantly. “What’s her name?”

“Hope.”

“And is there?”

Chris grinned. “I think there might be.”

“What does she look like?”

“Well, why don’t you hang till tomorrow morning and you can see for yourself and maybe give us a ride back over to Jersey.”

“I can do that,” said Ron. “So, what does she look like?”

“Strawberry blonde hair, sweet face I’d say about 5’5” and well- constructed.”

Ron was nodding and smiling and sucking on the joint. He passed it to Chris. The smoke was filling his brain and giving the apartment a comfortable easy feel. The warm, humid air now seemed to have the whisper of a breeze. The pillows felt soft. Ron felt himself climbing up the music on spirals of smoke. His head was starting the feel good. His body was relaxing. He sucked in very hard when the joint came back to him and then he began to cough and choke. The lack of air made his head buzz and he closed his eyes and rode the spasmodic coughs until he could breathe again and when he reopened his eyes, he was in an even better place. “Damn, dial-a- dime. That was good!”

Chris giggled. “Iron lung still going strong,” he said. He sat back still somewhat amazed that Ron immediately lit the second joint. “You are amazing.”

“What?” laughed Ron.  “We’re almost there but it’s like the big leagues. It’s hard to get there but you have to work even harder to stay at that level.”

Chris lay back against the pillows and smoked the second joint with Ron. They passed it between them over a large Italian pasta bowl that Chris used to collect his seeds and stems. He was always able to eke out another joint if he needed it, unless Ron stayed around too long.

“You heard from The Sheriff?” said Chris.

“Not in a while, but I heard from April that he asked Laureen to move out.”

“Of course,” laughed Chris in his imitation Southern drawl. “There was only so much that he could do for her.”

They both laughed. The idea of Warren “doing it for ya” was shorthand for him wanting you around only as long as he found the situation amusing and then finding some excuse as to why it would be in everybody’s best interest if that person left Rahway, which Warren would explain was not really that person’s home but his home. And now it was time for that person to move onto something new.

After the second joint, Ron immediately lit the third. Chris reached for his guitar and told Ron to go ahead. He lay back and sucked it like a sweet nipple while Chris played his version of “Long Black Veil.” His voice was low and the rhythm of his guitar was right on the melody. When he forgot some of the words as he inevitably did, he would pause before starting again. It always amazed Ron that he could start and stop the melody that way and always seem to go right back into the feeling of the song. They did best when Ron sang and Chris played. It allowed Chris to just concentrate on the guitar and there weren’t a lot of songs to which Ron did not know all the words. His singing was awful but at least it kept him involved.

Ron thought that Hope Stafford was perfect for Chris. They seemed like two pieces of a soon to be joined puzzle. His thick, dark hair and her light flowing crop with wisps that occasionally dangled down in front of her eyes and caused her to raise her fingers and push them away as if there was something that she did not want to miss passing in front of her gaze. They both giggled contagiously. She seemed to strike these natural poses for him, and he seemed to delight in watching her. They spoke to each other tenderly and she would run her fingers along his shoulders for no apparent reason except for the joy of touching him, and he would sit very still for it like a cat that wanted to purr.

She smiled for Ron and kissed him on the cheek and pressed her breasts into his chest when she did it. Ron did not find himself aroused by it, but he was pleased at what the promise of her meant for his friend. In the few seconds that they had alone, he smiled at Chris and said, “She’s got my vote.”

Chris smiled at Ron as if what he had said mattered and nodded enthusiastically. By now Ron had figured out that when Chris had a woman that his tendency was to disappear with her into a cocoon that did not extend to his friends. So Ron knew that he wouldn’t be seeing a lot of Chris, but it really didn’t matter that much. The school year would be starting in just a couple of weeks.

 

Chapter 56

 

The sun was strong and the air was humid. The sky was a high pale blue. At ten o’clock in the morning the temperature was already at 90 degrees. Ron’s breath was an easy flow as he ran around the cinder path track. He was starting his third mile and his feet were lightly slapping down on the track. His legs felt strong and his arms were swinging in an easy and free motion. As he circled the backstop of the baseball part of the quarter mile oval, two kids who had started playing just after he arrived waved to him. Ron felt that easy smile on his face as he leaned into the curve and started down the sundrenched, longer straightaway of the oval. He could hear birds and he could smell the cut grass. The oval was moving quickly in front of his eyes. His breathing was his speedometer; it told him when he needed to slow his pace or when he could let himself loose.

His longest run had been seven miles, but he wasn’t after that today. He had read that the maximum cardio vascular benefit was reached after a three mile run and made the decision that only once or maybe twice a week he would push himself to run until his legs began to feel wobbly. It pleased him that it was never his breathing that caused him to stop. All those years of smoking cigarettes and pot and now his body was turned on like a smooth running machine with fragile tire rods. It was true that most of the people that ran his kind of daily distance did not use a track, but his knees liked the soft, even surface and the round and round repetition of the oval took him along the bleachers that separated the field from the back yard of his mother’s house. It felt like home.

Now he was at two and half miles and it pleased him that he wasn’t thinking. He felt both totally in and out of his body at the same time. His shadow extended out in front of him and Ron stared at it as he ran. With a lap and a half to go, he picked up the pace and waited to see how much of a kick he had left. His breathing quickened and his arms pumped harder. He churned his legs. The only question now was when he was going to begin his sprint. With a half a lap left, he kicked it up another notch.  Not quite all out yet and he could feel the more rapid intake of his breaths, but his mind was on his legs. He would shut it down if there was any wobble to his strides but he was hoping to be able to push. With 120 yards to go, he let it rip and felt himself flying down the track. He could not feel his feet striking the ground. He pumped and urged himself with the internal chant of “faster.”

When he crossed the finish line, he saw a burly man sitting in the stands watching him. The man smiled and waved. Ron jogged and walked in a two hundred yard loop that brought him back to the stands where the man was sitting.

“If you had been in that kind of shape when you played for me, you would have been an all-state guard,” said Max Kresge.

“I was too stupid to know that I had to be in shape to play football then,” said Ron, grinning with the sublime euphoria of the endorphin rush.

“Yup, it showed.”

Ron laughed and peeled the heavy, wet sweat-stained t-shirt over his head and off of his body. Despite the heat, it had made him feel chilled but now the sun was warming him and he extended one leg up straight onto the lowest bench on the bleachers and began to stretch his hamstrings.

“How are the knees?”

“They feel good, coach, maybe the best they have ever felt. How are you doing?”

“Not bad for an old man that got kicked to the curb,” said Kresge in that gravelly voice. He was a thick man with a gut and a barrel chest. He must be pushing seventy now and was still a formidable presence.

Ron switched legs. “Did I ever tell you that I became a teacher?”

Kresge chortled. “That just convinces me that football players really are dumb shits.” Kresge did not ask what he was teaching. “You ever see any of the guys that you played with?”

“Not since I graduated,” said Ron. “I’m not big on the reunion thing and besides they weren’t the happiest days of my life.”

“I remember that.”

As a kid coming from Newark, Ron had not exactly fit into the Glen Ridge social set. The one place where he had always been able to make friends had been the football field, but the team had already been successful before he got there. They had lost a single game the year that he transferred, when he was still considered ineligible because he had come from a parochial school, and the loss had stuck in the town’s craw. They were supposed to win every game. When Ron got to play as senior, they did go undefeated, but he was a peripheral player who could hit like a truck but had bad knees and no speed.

“This town never knew I was a Jew until they decided that it was time for me to go, then I became the money grubbing kike who didn’t know when it was time to quit.”

“I didn’t know that coach. Do you still come to the games?”

“Screw that,” said Kresge. “I go down to Florida right after the first frost. Plenty of good football down there.”

Ron sat down on the bleachers and pulled on a dry t-shirt. He loved that a medium hung loose over his stomach. “I’m in charge of discipline too,” he exaggerated.

“Ronnie, you got to learn. That’s the worst fucking job in the school. Don’t let them make you believe that it’s an honor.”

Ron nodded and wondered how this man who had been a wall of strength had cracked into such bitter pieces. “I love the kids and the classroom.” He did not mention that it was all girls.

Max Kresge looked at him from behind his sunglasses and baseball cap. He had tried to tell the kid but the dumb son-of –a-bitch had never been fast on the uptake.

 

Ron stashed his wet t-shirt on the front seat of his car and climbed the steps to his mother’s house. He went around back and entered through the unlocked door. Lois and his mother were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee.

“Ronald, look how you’re sweating!” said Marjorie.

“I was just running, Mom.”

“In this heat? You’ll have a stroke.”

“It feels good.”

“There’s some Crystal Light in the refrigerator. Pour a glass and sit down and cool off. My god, you’re dripping on the floor.”

Ron poured a glass of the stuff and carried the pitcher to the table.

“How are you feeling?” he said.

“It takes me a while to get moving in the morning but then I’m good,” she said. She lit a Virginia Slim. Lois lit a Virginia Slim.

‘You look really healthy,” said Lois. “I make your mother have a nice slow cup of coffee before we go anywhere on days like today.”

“I’m glad that you came, Ronald. There’s something that I want to talk with you about. I want you to come to the ceramics shop on Thursday night.”

“I have a tutoring appointment.”

“At night?”

“I have to go when the parents are at home.” This was technically the truth although Ron didn’t really have an appointment on Thursday.

“There’s a nice girl that I want you to meet. Her name is Denise Delatorre.

“Mom.”

“She’s a very pretty girl with a cute shape and a lovely mother.”

“That’s the first thing that I look for in a girl, Mom. Always have.” Ron nodded in mockery. “Within the first few minutes, I always ask about her mother.”

Lois laughed in spite of the situation but then withered as Marjorie glared at her. “If you aren’t going to help, the least that you can do is not encourage his shitiness.”

Marjorie decided on another tact. “Robin dumped you and the mouse moved away. What are you going to do? You gonna sit around that tenement of an apartment and play music and feel sorry for yourself?”

Ron bit. “That’s not what I do, Mom. You know that’s not what I do. You know how many hours I work.”

Marjorie knew that she had him now. “And who helped you to get that job?”

Ron shoulders sagged. “You did.”

“And you fought me about that but when you trusted me it all worked out, didn’t it?”

He nodded.

“It was me that sent your resume to that school, wasn’t it? You were stuck working in the jail where they slashed your tires and beat you up.”

“No one beat me up.”

“You came home filed with bruises, didn’t you?”

“Do we really have to do this? You want me to come and meet the girl, right? Even though I haven’t dated an Italian girl since I was fifteen years old. Even though there is nothing about a girl who goes to a ceramics shop with her mother that could possibly be of even the slightest bit of interest to me.”

“The mouse was artistic.”

“She’s a painter and a sculptor. Doing ceramics isn’t quite the same thing, Mom.”

Lois raised her eyebrows and thought about interjecting that she loved to paint and loved to do ceramics. She decided that she would rather say that to Marjorie after Ron left. She could make it sound like she was on Marjorie’s side.

“Oh, I forgot. You’re too good for anybody who would come to a ceramics shop, anybody that your mother might possibly like.”

There was just no way out without just refusing. Ron felt locked neatly into a corner. He tried his ace in the hole. “Have you heard from my father?”

“Yes, he called. I guess that now that you don’t need his help anymore that he is also not good enough for you to visit.” She paused strategically. “I see things differently since the heart attack, Ronald. I don’t know how much more time have left and I would like to see you settled before anything else happens to me. Who is going to care enough about what happens to you after I’m not here anymore?”

Ron closed his eyes. She had him. There was no way out. Now if he refused, it would be a much bigger problem than he was ready for. “What time on Thursday?”

Marjorie lit another Virginia Slim.  “Don’t do me any favors, Ronald.”

Ron shrugged. “OK.”

“Find another girl who breaks your heart or throws up on you.”

Ron winced. He should have known better than to have shared that with her, but she was so vulnerable and he had let his guard down. “Do you want me to come to meet her?”

“The class is from seven o’clock until eight-thirty. Do what you want.”

“I’ll be there.”

“She’s a nice girl with a good job in a bank. Who knows if she would even look twice at you, even though she would be a jerk not to.”

Ron stood up. “I said that I would come.”

Marjorie eyed him again. “Have you stopped eating again?”

“No, Mom. I eat.”

Lois said. “A man with a flat stomach like that always looks good, Margie.” Now Lois looked at him trying to make peace. “You’re as flat as a washboard.”

Ron smiled.

 

Chapter 55

As Easter approached Ron felt very hopeful. His mother was home now and Lois was spending more and more time in Glen Ridge. George had moved back in and there seemed to be a silent, if angry truce between Marjorie and him. Ron tried his best to avoid George altogether. On the evenings that he knew George was working late, he would stop by after tutoring, or the other nights he would call.

The days were getting longer and the weather was turning mild. On some days Ron could get away with just wearing his sports jacket and some evening he would get home before it was dark.

The English Department at the school consisted of four teachers. There was Sister Ruth Dolores, the department chairperson, who was a thin brown-haired nun with dark rimmed glasses and a close to the vest voice that never rose much about a whisper. There were two lay teachers, Emily Spinoza and Holly Risotto. The one was a newly married girl from the neighborhood who talked to her kids about how much she wanted to get pregnant as she did about grammar. The other, Holly, was a tall, somewhat overweight woman with reddish blonde hair and tinted glasses. She also taught drama. And then there was Ron.

The department rarely met and Ron saw little of his department colleagues who were all located in the other building. To commemorate the coming of the most sacred day of the year, Sister Donna Maria announced that the meeting would be held in the convent to celebrate the mystery of Christ Risen.

They gathered on the Tuesday before Good Friday and the day before the last day of school prior to the beginning of the holiday. By now, Ron had noticed that his vacations were longer than those of the public school teachers. He had also figured out that it was another way that the school kept the loyalty of its students and faculty. They got more vacations.

Before the meeting, Bernadette, drew Ron aside and said, “Keep an eye on Holly. We had to cover one of her classes this morning. She has been in with Donna Maria praying for most of the morning.”

He gave her a look that said that he did not understand the import of what she was saying. She just put her finger to her lips, gave her head an almost imperceptible shake and used her eyes to direct his attention to Sister Cheesy.

Donna Maria was giving Holly a warm and benevolent smile. The teachers were filing in. Ron had lost his place card soon after the first meeting and had not seen the need to bring it again, but many of the teachers dutifully placed them on their laps and some of the more enterprising had found a way to attach it to their blouse collars.

“Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again,” said Donna Maria as a sign that the gathering was to come to order.

The faculty came to silence. Except for Holly who threw back her head and opening her mouth wide with her glasses askew on her face, screamed, “I see Him.”

Heads turned. Mouths opened. Donna Maria frowned.

Holly turned to the crucifix on the wall and looked up with a radiance of torment on her face. “He’s coming into me. He wants me.”

Sister Donna Maria moved to her and placed both of her hands on the crown of Holly’s head in an effort to soothe her. “He wants all of us,” she said rapturously and lifted her eyes upward and then closed them and began to whisper prayer.

“It hurts!” screamed Holly. “He’s coming into me.”

Bernadette rolled her eyes but her face showed concern and anger. Doris got up and moved next to Holly. This last statement caused Donna Maria to back up a step or two as if she had been repulsed by the unbridled electricity of what she heard.

The next scream was a wordless cry of anguish. It was feral and shrill. Ron was stunned. He waited for someone to escort Holly from the room or to call an ambulance but no one moved. The scream echoed in the room and when Ron looked at the faces of his colleagues he saw that they were swiveling between Holly and the crucifix.

Incredibly, Donna Maria tried to continue the meeting. “As we prepare students for these coming days, remember that our first consideration is…”

“He’s naked and he wants me,” yowled Holly. She began to pull at the collar of her white button down shirt and the top two buttons popped off and bounced across the top of the table that was in front of her.

Now two of the nuns jumped to their feet and Donna Maria said, “Sisters, please help Miss Risotto.”

When they took her by the elbows and tried to help her to stand, she looked at them wild-eyed. “He doesn’t want you. He wants me.” she said in tortured accusation. She stood and faced the faculty. “Can’t you see how he wants me?” She rolled her hips in grotesque invitation at the crucifix.

Ron looked around for Rita Julia, but the Mother Superior was not in the room. And then to his shock, Bernadette stood quietly and left. She must be calling the police or the hospital, thought Ron.

But now Holly was walking towards him, flanked by the two nuns, Ruth Dolores and Alma Mercedes.

Holly stopped in front of Ron. “Can you help me?”

“I don’t know how,” said Ron trying to meet her eyes. He sensed the sincerity of her pain and looked at her with a mixture of compassion, fear and revulsion.

“Please,” she said, lowering her head and crying. “Please take me out of here.”

Ron felt a rush a cold desperation wash through him like ice water. “Holly,” he said gently. “We need to get you some help.”

She cried harder. Her shoulders were shaking like a trembling dead leaf that clung to spring branch that was trying to get rid of its excess baggage to make room for new growth.

Abruptly, Doris stood up. “I’ll go with you,’ she said to Ron.

Ron felt himself go pale. They couldn’t be serious. This woman needed a hospital and a strait jacket and they wanted him to take her home.

“Please,” blubbered Holly and she began to get down onto her knees. The nuns held her up. Ron looked for Donna Maria, but she had shrunken into the corner of the room and was not looking at them.

Then Donna Maria rose out of her corner and walked towards them. “Mr. Tuck, you may be excused from the rest of the meeting so that you can take Miss Risotto home. She needs to rest.” Then she turned to Holly. “Please take tomorrow off, Miss Risotto. I will see that your classes are covered and then you will have the entire vacation to get your strength back.”

Holly’s shoulders trembled and she did not look up to meet Sister Donna Maria’s gaze. Muffled moans worked their way out of her mouth and nostrils along with mucus and drool. Her eyeliner had run in dark streaks down her cheeks and give her the appearance of a crying clown. Doris held her hand and Ron could see that Holly was squeezing it so tightly that her fingers were white. Tears that were blackened from the makeup under her leaking eyes dripped down onto her white shirt and left wet, black trails.

Doris spoke to Sister Donna Maria. “I’ll help him with her and make sure that she is alright.

The three of them made a slow, carefully watched procession from the convent’s meeting room and towards the front door. Holly looked up at a statue of the Blessed Virgin and wailed again. The sound pierced the silence of the convent like a muffled blade.

When they got to the car, Doris helped Holly into the front seat. Ron went and around to the driver’s side and flicked the lever that allowed the seat to move forward so that Doris could access the rear seat, but Doris didn’t get in. She looked at Ron with a defensive glare.

“My husband will be expecting me. I’m having a crowd for dinner on Good Friday.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. You said that you would help.”

“This is as far as I go,” said Doris and without waiting for a reply turned her back to the car and quickly waddled away.

“You’ve been a big help,” said Ron.

He clicked the seat forward and slid in. Holly was holding her head and staring out the side window.

“Where do you live, Holly?”

“Bellville.”

Ron started the car. “Where in Belleville?”

“On Little Street. Upstairs from a family.” She began to cry again.

Ron put the car into gear and began to drive. He knew approximately where Little Street was and so he headed up towards the park thinking that he could save lights and time by winding along a road the rimmed the outskirts of the park.

After a few blocks, Holly said, “I have dreams about you.” Ron didn’t answer. “In the dreams I’m wearing a uniform and you are scolding me.” Ron began to perspire in the cold car. “You tell me that I am a bad girl but it feels good when you say it. Do you know why?”

Ron said, “Holly, do you have a doctor?”

“No.”

“Maybe I should take you to the hospital.”

Immediately, she turned to him and said, “No. no please. No hospital. I’ll do anything that you want me to do. I’ll be anything that you want me to be, but please no hospital.” Her voice was rising in desperation and Ron could see that the only way that he would get her into the hospital would be with the help of the police. He did not want to do that. “The girls are all in love with you,” she said as if she was revealing a dark secret. We talk about you all the time.” This idea was incomprehensible to Ron, but somehow the thought of their minds being entrusted to Holly made him angry. What kind of a role model was she for the nuns to put in front of his students? How could Irene Emanuel have hired this woman?

They came out of the park on Heller Parkway and Ron headed towards Silver Lake. Holly screamed like a siren. “No railroad tracks! No railroad tracks! No, no, I can’t ride over the crosses on the railroad tracks!”

Ron pulled the car to the side of the road. If he just drove ahead and crossed the tracks he could get her to Claara Maas Hospital within a couple of minutes, but then he felt guilty. He would just be dumping her like unwanted furniture on the street. He couldn’t do that. It would make him no better than Doris.

“OK,” he said. “No railroad tracks.” His brain began to run through the possible permutations. There were railroad tracks that separated Bellville from Newark with every route that his mind saw. He clicked in one route after another and the he saw it. Where Broadway became Washington Street there was an overpass. He could drive under the railroad tracks. He turned the car around.

She was silent as the streets passed and then in a very small, little girl voice she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“I know a place where there is an underpass,” he said.

In the same small voice, she asked coyly, “Do you wear underpants?” Ron didn’t answer. “Sometimes, I don’t,” she said like she was confessing.

The image was not one that Ron chose to picture, but it set off a chain reaction in his brain that asked the question, “Would I be this anxious to drop her off if I thought she was pretty?” The fact that he even asked himself the question filled Ron with self-disgust.

“I could be your geisha and you could tell me to do anything and I would do it for you,” she said.

“Holly, you really need to see a doctor.”

Her voice shifted and became deep and almost menacing. “Why? Is it because I am a woman who is strong enough to say what it is that she really wants? Is that why you are pushing me away?”

“No, “said Ron quickly. He didn’t want to set her off again and they were coming up to the trestle now and he felt that if he just got under the railroad tracks that somehow things would be better.

“The girls told me that you don’t have a girlfriend when I asked them about you.”

Ron wanted to strangle his students. He wondered if they had fueled her fantasies. If they had used her vulnerability to get out of doing work or because they thought that she was amusing. For a moment he was very angry with them. He vowed to not tell them anything else about his life.

Now they were on Washington Avenue and heading north. It was then that she seemed to gather herself and began to calmly provide him with directions. Ron was hopeful. Maybe this episode was passing and he could just drop her off.

When they pulled up in front of her house, she said “Would you like to come in for some tea or a drink?”

“I don’t think so,” said Ron.

She began to cry quietly. “You think I’m disgusting and pathetic, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” said Ron. “I think that maybe you have been working too hard and need to get some rest and maybe see a doctor.”

“I don’t need a doctor. I need a man who isn’t afraid.” Then she opened the car door and said, “Thank you for getting me home, Mr. Tuck.”

Ron watched as she walked up to the house, took her keys out of her purse, opened the door and disappeared inside. As he pulled away her felt a twinge of concern but it was overcome by a huge wave of relief. Why did all the crazy women want him?

 

End of part 2

 

 

Chapter 54

 

The anticipation of the test caused the girls to be nervous and to perspire. Ron could smell it in the classroom as he walked back and forth across front of the room passing out the test. They started reading and writing instantly. Their heads were down and their mouths moved as they silently said the words to themselves and then repeated the words again. Some of the girls just began writing furiously from the moment that they got their tests. Some took a moment to read over them. One or two just stared straight ahead like they had been found guilty and were awaiting sentencing, but eventually they were all working. He liked to watch them work. It was like they were emptying their brains for him, telling him everything that they knew. They were talking to him on the tests. They were writing for him. He knew that this was the illusion that he had created and that really they were writing for themselves. Eventually they would make the transfer and be able to write for anyone. What difference did it make if they felt that they were doing it for him right now? It occurred to Ron that school was practice life. Silently he wondered if they would ever get the chance to use these skills after they left school.

He announced the incrementally decreasing amounts of time left in the class. As the end grew closer, the girls began to sweat more and write faster. Ron watched them with pride and fascination. He had been a good standardized test taker in high school and in college but he did not do as well on teacher created tests. Either he had not read or studied the material or he found himself distracted by some tangential path that his brain decided to take. In college, he had been accused of doing this purposefully. He learned that even if he was not aware that he was doing it intentionally, his professors did not accept the notion that unconscious action was something for which he should not be held accountable. Invariably though, he would write a paper of make a presentation or offer a unique perspective on a piece that caused more than one teacher to excuse his test taking distractibility.

When the bell rang, the girls groaned. None of them had turned in their tests. He had made it too long. They looked up at him with a simultaneously accusatory and plaintiff stare.

“I can see that it was too long,” he said. “I’ll work something out.” They were not happy with him when they reluctantly gave up their tests and went on to the next class. He had already decided what he would do. He would give them the tests back the next day. This was a mixed bag solution. It did penalize those who crammed, but at the same time it rewarded those who had truly learned the material or those who were interested enough to go to the book that night and see what it was that they had missed. He would not tell them of his solution. He would spring it on them. He smiled when he pictured the way that they would groan and pout.