Chapter 50

“George came to see me.”

Marjorie was sitting up in bed. She was able to shower now and she had done combed in hair the way that she liked it and she was wearing her own pajamas.

“That took long enough,” said Ron.

“He wants to come back home. He said that he misses being there and that he’s given up the woman.”

“What happened? She get sick?”

Marjorie’s face looked shocked. “How did you know?”

Ron felt his fists tighten. “You’ve got to be kidding. I was just being sarcastic.”

“Ronald what am I supposed to do? It’s his home and his money. He works very hard.”

Looking at his mother tenderly, Ron saw that she was trying to make the very best of things. She was stuck and feeling more vulnerable that perhaps she had ever felt in her life. Harry was good for a visit or two but he had made his own life and this was Marjorie’s life. “Whatever you want to do, Mom. I’ll be as supportive as I can be.”

Marjorie looked at her son and Ron realized that something that he did not like was coming. She had that look. He had seen it before and he recognized it. “He wants you to apologize to him.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” she said shaking her head. “I guess the two of you argued after I got sick.”

Ron was literally speechless. He didn’t want to upset her. He wanted her to get well. He didn’t want to live with her. That was a trap from which he would never be able to escape. “OK, let me think about it,” was all that he finally could manage.

 

When he got home, he felt dejected and exhausted. He had wanted to ask his mother if George had apologized to her. He had wanted to flat refuse to do anything but kick George in the balls the next time that he saw him. None of that would have been productive. Dr. Gutberg had explained that stress was one of Marjorie’s biggest dangers and Ron was determined not to up the stress level. Maybe he would take the approach that George took. He would do nothing and buy time. It was going to be at least two weeks until his mother came back home. He at least had that long to figure out what to do. Inwardly, Ron shrugged to himself. Maybe he should just say he was sorry. They would both know that he didn’t mean it. What difference would it make? Why did he so rebel at the thought of it?

The phone rang. Charlie Rothstein’s voice was gravelly.

“Ronnie, Charlie Rothstein.  What’s the soonest that you can get up to my office tomorrow?”

“What’s wrong Charlie?”

“The Devin family is dead. Seems the father came home, shot the mother, shot the kid and then shot himself.”

“Holy Shit!”

“You were there yesterday, right?”

“Yeah late afternoon, let me check.” Ron opened his book bag turned to his log sheet. “In the afternoon from 3:30 to a little after 5pm.”

“That was lucky,” said Rothstein. “You missed the old man by less than an hour. Anyway, the cops want to talk to you. Looks like you were the last person to see them alive.”

“Fuck!” said Ron.

“It’s even more fucked up than that. I’ll tell you more tomorrow. The Superintendent wants to meet with you and me and Quimpy before you go to see the cops.”

Ron felt an instant of panic. “Ok.”

“You aren’t in any trouble. Don’t be worried. The Sup just wants to have an idea of the big picture before you talk to the cops. Any way that you could make it a little earlier?”

“I’ll do my best,” said Ron.

“Well we’ll be waiting on you so the sooner that you can get here the better. Good night kid.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 49

 

On Monday after noon the staff gathered in one of the classrooms for their first getting to know you meeting with Sister Donna Maria.  Ron got there a little late because at first he went to the convent but when no one answered the door he made his way back to the high school main office. He saw a hand written sign on the principal’s office that directed him to where the faculty meeting was being held. Ron wondered why the new principal hadn’t come over the PA to either introduce herself to the students that day or to tell the faculty where the meeting was going to be. He had spent a good part of the day telling students that he didn’t know when they asked him questions about what the new principal was like. When he arrived at the classroom, he saw that all of the nuns were seated on one side of the room and the lay teachers were on the other side of the room. Ron slid into desk towards the back of the room. Sister Vincent Salvatore turned around to him and held up a 4”by6” index card that had her name written on it and which had been creased down the middle so that it would stand up.  “We have assigned seats,” she said happily.

Lifting his head, Ron saw that there was an index card on an empty desk in the first row, on the lay faculty’s side of the room and moved towards it. Sure enough, there was his name printed in block letters: Mr. Ronald Tuck, 2^nd year, English. He slid down into the chair and looked up at the nun who was standing with her eyes closed and swaying slightly back and forth in front of the room. Ron saw that her lips were silently moving.

The physical appearance that she made could not have been more different from Irene Emanuel. Irene was tall and stately. Donna Maria was short and plump. Irene Emanuel moved with a flowing grace. Donna Maria shuffled. Irene Emanuel’s skin was very white and it seemed to Ron almost powdered. Donna Maria had a reddish splotches at her cheeks and on her forehead.

As the faculty watched, Donna Maria lifted her crucifix from her chest and pressed it into her splotchy forehead as her eyes remained closed and she continued to silently mumble. Ron looked at her in bewilderment and then his eyes sought out Bernadette who was staring daggers at her new principal. When she felt Ron’s eyes on her she gave him a quick eye roll and went back to her stare.

“I want to thank the Lord Jesus, the blessed Mother, our Holy Father, all of the saints and those dedicated souls in heaven who have brought me to be with you.” Ron felt his stomach begin to flip. “When I first learned of my mission here, I fell right to my knees and prayed that I would be worthy of the honor that was being bestowed upon me, an honor and a challenge to help bring the young ladies of this parish closer to God. To help keep them turned away from the devil’s temptations in this world and to perhaps even send the most worthy to the mother house as novitiates.” Ron felt his stomach flip again. What the hell was she talking about?

“I have prayed over the weekend so that I could appear here confident of my choices.”  Silently, Ron wondered if perhaps someone else could have prayed for her to have gotten into some debilitating and non-fatal accident on the way there. “As you can see, I have assigned each of you a seat and given you a name card. Please remember to bring your name cards to each of our faculty meetings. We will have those meetings in a designated classroom every two weeks for the remainder of the year, so that I can become more familiar with each of you and the good work that you are doing. The host teacher will be told a couple of days in advance so that she can have her classroom prepared for visitors. That way,” she clapped her hands together with enthusiasm, “we can all see the pretty decorations that you have hung up and perhaps get ideas from each other. The convent is the home and refuge of the sisters and it did not seem right to me to continue to have the faculty meetings there. However, on special occasions, I am hopeful that we can all meet and pray together in the convent.” Ron took a mental snapshot of his room. Except for the Lincoln portrait and a skeleton that he had hung at his door at Halloween and never taken down, there were no decorations.

Then she stopped suddenly. “Does anyone have a question?”

Ron wondered what anyone could possibly ask about other than if she was out of her fucking mind. He looked around and to his shock there were two hands in the air. Vincent Salvatore said, “I would just like to say how happy we are to have you here and to ask if perhaps I could possibly help choosing the rooms for the meetings?”

Donna Maria clasped her hands at the side of her left ear and said, “Of course you can help, Sister. I am going to need everyone’s help.”

Ron was almost shocked to see that Doris had her hand in the air. “I’d just like to volunteer to bake some cookies for the next meeting.” His mouth fell open.

“Of course you can and I hope that others volunteer for other meetings.”

Now Ron was seriously nauseous. He put his head down and closed his eyes. Donna Maria saw this gesture and assumed that Ron was praying.  She moved towards him with a shuffling burst of evangelic fervor and places fingertip on his desk. “I ask for guidance all day long as well, Mr. Ron.”

Ron looked up into her eyes and said slowly and he hoped without obvious sarcasm, “I’m sure that you do, Sister Donna.”

She smiled and said, “Sister Donna Maria, please.”

Then she shuffled back and said, “For now, everything else will stay as it is. Change will come slowly but it will surely come.”

 

As they left the classroom, Ron felt a hand on his shoulder. Sister Rita Julia smiled and said, “Ron, can we walk together?”

“Of course, Sister.”

“Irene Emanuel thought the world of you Ron and told more than once that you had the makings of a great teacher. At first I disagreed with her and thought that you were misplaced, but I have come to see that she was right. Sister Donna Maria has a good heart. Give her a chance to show it to you.”

“I’ll try, Sister.”

“I know that you spoke to Irene Emanuel often about teaching. Although we have not been close, I’d like to tell you that my door is always open to you.”

“Thank you, Sister. I would like to get to know you better.”

“Sister Donna Maria has asked me to take her place on the Faculty Council for the rest of this year, so I am sure that we will, Ron.”

 

The next day Sister Donna Marie appeared with a bag of Cheese Doodles.  She made her way along the corridor offering a Cheese Doodle to each of the girls who passed her in the hallway. For each Doodle that she gave out she also ate one. For those that lingered, there were what Sister Donna Marie called a golden moment where they clasped hands and she crushed the Doodle bag between them and they closed their eyes together and gave silent praise to the Lord and to the Virgin. Some of the girls watched agape. Others seemed to enjoy the contact and ate their Cheese Doodle like a host.

Unfortunately, Sister Donna Marie also had the habit of kissing the girl tenderly on the cheek after they concluded their worshipful reverie and this left a slight orange mark from the Cheese Doodle. By noontime, Ron’s sophomores pointed out the girls who had been “Doodled” by Sister Donna Mary, forever to be known among them now as Sister Cheesy.

In the hall at the end of the day, Bernadette said to Ron in her side-mouth way of speaking that she always used with him now. “It’s going to become a circus here.”

“Let’s just make sure they don’t put us in the cages,” said Ron.

 

 

Chapter 48

 

Ron ate his dinner sitting alongside Marjorie’s bed. He’d stopped in the hospital cafeteria to get a couple of sandwiches so as not to make Marjorie feel badly about what she had to eat. He noticed that as he unwrapped his food that Marjorie had not even taken the tin cover off of her meal.

“Aren’t you hungry, Mom?”

His mother’s face had guilt written all over it. Ron looked over into the waste basket and saw a grease stained bag and some oily waxed paper that had been crumpled. Then he looked back up to his mother. She followed his eyes and her face hardened.

“Don’t say anything please. I was so hungry and Lois was kind enough to bring me something.”

Ron shook his head. “What did she bring you?”

Marjorie’s face lit up. “An eggplant parm from the Town Tavern. They make the best sandwiches.”

“Great,” said Ron with a disgusted look on his face. “Is she too stupid to realize how dangerous that is for you right now?”

“Don’t be a bastard, Ronald. She was just doing me a favor.”

“I just want you to get out of here and be healthy.”

Her face changed back from combative mother to little girl. “One nice sandwich isn’t going to hurt anything and it made me feel better.”

“OK,” said Ron. “I’m not going to lecture you. But promise me that you won’t have her mule that crap in here for you every day, please?”

Marjorie said in a small, guilty voice, “I won’t.”

He unwrapped his sandwich and began eating.  “What did Dr. Gutberg say today?”

“He kept on about that other test. You know who he reminds me of, don’t you?”

Ron looked at her with a lack of comprehension.  He said nothing but just kept chewing.

“You are smart enough to have been a doctor.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Well it’s too late for that now.”

Marjorie’s face returned to her look of resolve. “You could do anything that you wanted to do, anything that you set your mind to doing.”

Ron grinned. “Well obviously you are feeling better. Did my father stop by?”

Marjorie shook her head, “Not today.”  But the question seemed to trigger a new topic that was brewing inside of her. “Have you heard anything from the other one?”

Ron knew “the other one” was code for Robin. “No Mom, that’s over.”

“What about the mouse?”

Ron laughed in spite of himself. “She isn’t a mouse.”

“Well, have you heard from her?”

Ron thought about the silent phone calls. “Not really.”

“She’s a nice girl Ronald. She just isn’t for you.”

“Why?”

Marjorie tilted her head to the side. “She’s a little girl who needs someone to take care of her and that’s not what you want.”

Ron wondered if it was what he wanted.

“When are you going to start seeing a nice girl?”

Ron grinned at her. “When I find one.”

“There are lots of nice girls who come in the ceramics shop.”

“Yeah,” Ron said sarcastically, “that would be perfect for me.”

“You thought the mouse was artistic.”

“Could you please stop calling her a mouse?”

“I think there are some lovely girls who come in there,” said Marjorie. “They might even be smart enough for you, if you gave one a chance.”

“Do you want me to start talking about the eggplant parm again?” said Ron with a tone of warning.

 

 

When Ron left the hospital, he drove down to the French Maid. It had been a solid week of tutoring and he had gotten paid that day. For some reason his father’s words echoed in his ears about the difference between Blacks and Whites was that white guys didn’t take their paychecks and got to the bars and blow them on Friday nights.

 

The place was packed and Ron slid into a seat at the far corner of the bar. He ordered his wine and lit a cigarette. There were three girls on the stage and the tall short haired brunette caught his eye.  Ron was quite sure that he had never seen anything like her in his life. She had the ability to wrap her ankles in back of her head and she would hold that position and stroke between her legs along the slit of her pussy until her lips puffed and the patrons could see her labial lips outlined against the thin fabric. The move drew noise from the usually very quiet crowd. They whistled and their encouragement seemed to excite her to continue. She began to push the fabric inside of herself with her fingertips. Ron gawked.

When she walked the bar a few minutes later, he gave her two dollars and said, “You were something to see.”

She stroked the side of his face with her fingertips and said, “You’re cute.”

A few minutes later she was standing next to him holding a drink and said, “Want to give a girl a place to sit?”

Ron quickly stood up and offered her his chair. She looked at him quizzically. “Don’t you want me on your lap?”

Ron blushed. One of the guys next to him chuckled and said, “You can sit on my lap, sugar.”

Ron sat back down on the barstool and she straddled his knee. He could feel the heat from between her legs through the fabric of his pants. It aroused him and she could feel him hardening.

“So what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a teacher.”

She looked at him cautiously. “And what do you teach?”

“English.”

“I always loved to read. If things had worked out differently, I wanted to go to college.”

“You’re young,” said Ron.

“I have a kid,” she said. “It’s not going to happen for me.”

“You never know,” said Ron. “Things have a funny way of working out.”

“You married?”

“No, I’m not. I live alone in a little three room apartment that is not much at all.” Ron was embarrassed when he told her this, but to his surprise she smiled.

“Some lucky girl is gonna scoop you right up,” she said.

Ron laughed. “Yeah, I’m a real catch.”

As the night went on she danced and Ron tipped her while she danced and then without him asking or buying her a drink, she came back to him. Ron looked forward to her sets ending. He felt himself getting drunk but it felt so good to have a girl that he was not really buying want to sit with him.

“So where are you from?” asked Ron.

“Long Island,” said the dancer, who he now knew went by the name Julie.

“That’s a long ride home.”

“Well, I probably won’t go home tonight. I am working early tomorrow and I’ll stay around here.” After she said this she smiled into his eyes. Ron saw the twinkle of a question in her large mascara rimmed eyes and smiled.

During her next set, she seemed to be dancing only for him. She crawled on the stage for him. She turned herself into a pretzel for him. She bent over, looked at him through her legs and smiled and waved at him. Ron felt the room throbbing with sound that seemed to vibrate from the walls and the stage. After her set she went into the dancer’s dressing room and then came out with her small valise wearing street clothes and a jacket. The jacket was form fitting leather. She was wearing tight jeans and a pale blue shirt. She stood next to him and pressed against him. “It was nice to meet you.”

Ron spoke automatically. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

Julie grinned widely and said, “I was hoping that you would ask.”

In his car, Ron said, “Where do you want to go?”

Julie gave him her best teasing grin and said, “Where do you live?”

“Bloomfield.”

“I don’t know where that is,” said Julie.

Shrugging, Ron told her that it was about twenty minutes up the highway.

“Isn’t that a long ways to drive for a club?”

Ron nodded. “I used to live around here. I like this club. Where are you working tomorrow?”

“Some place called High Heels. It’s in Paramus.”

“Well,” said Ron, “where do you want me to take you?”

She didn’t answer. She stared at him in the dark car and Ron turned the key, started the engine and drove towards his house.

“This isn’t something that I do all the time,” Julie said. “But you are so nice and easy to talk to that you just charmed the pants right off of me.”

Ron slid her arm along the back of the bench seat and she curled herself into him and brought up her knees and closed her eyes. Very soon she was asleep in the cradle of his arm as he drove home hoping that he had not committed some really stupid blunder.

He showed her the bathroom and she took a very long shower. She came out wrapped in a towel. Ron was lying on the bed. The stereo was playing jazz, Bill Evans piano and Miles Davis on trumpet with John Coltrane on sax for the Kind of Blue album that had become a classic. He was still dressed and lying on top of the bed covers.

“Will you be nice to me?” she said in a soft voice as she lay down next to him. “I don’t want it rough tonight, just easy and sweet, ok?”

She snuggled into him and began to undo his pants and then his zipper and then she had his cock out and was massaging it. Ron was more than ready and his penis stood up for her straight and hard and very hot. She covered him with her mouth and said, “You don’t have to do nothing baby. Just relax and enjoy.”

She moved her mouth up and down on him and Ron slid his fingers through her short hair. He had never been with a girl who had short hair before. When she began to massage his prostate Ron bucked his hips hard. He had never felt anything like that before and it was overwhelming.  She felt him expand and lifted her face away and moved on his cock like it was a pump. She didn’t have to wait long. Having watched her all night and now the scent of her and then feel of her naked and in his bed along with that incredibly wonderful and wicked things that she was doing in back of his scrotum and right below his anus made his shoot like an uncorked bottle of champagne. Afterwards she grinned at him and said, “That was healthy.”

Ron wasn’t able to speak. He felt his body purring.

“It must be so difficult for you guys to sit there and watch us do what we do and not have any way to relieve the pressure.”

Later she produced a condom from her purse and handed it to Ron. “Now,” she said, “you’ll be able to take your time.”

Ron wanted her to get into that pretzel position but he was afraid to ask about it. The night was going so well and he didn’t want to remind her of how they had met. He did take his time and she showed him how much she appreciated it. She did things with her abdominal muscles that were incredible. She could make her hard lean belly flutter against him while he was inside of her. She could squeeze him so tightly with her legs that he was sure that he would have had trouble pulling out of her. The last thing he wanted to do was pull out of her.

This time Ron had remembered to call his tutoring appointments. He changed them till the afternoon and they spent the morning in his bed naked and drinking coffee and exploring each other’s bodies. Then he drove her to Paramus.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” Julie said.

“Do you want to give me your number?” asked Ron.

“Why?” she said.

“So I can call you.

“Why would you call me?” said Julie.

Ron looked at her and felt flustered. Julie took his hands, turned towards him and smiled.

“You are very nice. I have a kid. I have a boyfriend who helps me to take care of my kid. Let’s see this for what it was. I was hot for you and you wanted me too. Now, we go our separate ways.”

Ron felt a mixture of disappointment and relief. He knew that she was right. He just never expected her to say it.

Chapter 47

 

“Up until the time that Macbeth kills Duncan, has he done anything wrong?” Ron started his class on Monday morning with a feeling of rededication. Maybe he had stumbled but he would pick himself up and get back on track.

“I don’t really like him. He only thinks about himself,” said Barbara.

Ron looked at their smooth expectant faces and smiled. They smiled back.

Sonia raised her hand. “Are you feeling better, Mr. Tuck?”

“I wasn’t really sick, Sonia. My mom had a heart attack and was taken to the hospital.”

The girls’ faces in unison turned to instant concern. “Is she going to be Ok?” said Barbara.

“I hope so. I think so. We’ll know more after today.” He was so tired of saying that she had a heart attack. Part of him still wanted it to be a bad dream. “Macbeth is deeply troubled about killing Duncan and maybe this is a good time to stop for a second and do a little history.” Ron moved to the chalkboard. “The real Macbeth lived in the 11^th Century.  By rights, when the king died, Macbeth had the best chance of succeeding him to be king. But Duncan named his son Malcolm as his successor.  Now this was a break from tradition. And it caused a conflict and Macbeth did kill Duncan, but not at his house. In reality, Macbeth was not a bad guy. He was seen as a good prince. But for all the world, since Shakespeare, he has been viewed as a horrible monster.  The point is the power of literature is greater than the power of an army. Who remembers that Macbeth was a good guy? Nobody does and nobody cares. They don’t care because the Macbeth that Shakespeare created was more interesting than history.”

The girls looked confused and Ron sensed that he had made a mistake. He had spent weeks building up Shakespeare and now he had taken him down a peg.

“Why did Shakespeare lie?” asked Barbara.

Ron paced and rolled his chalk between his fingers. “Why do any of us lie?”

Ron stopped and looked at them. “Anybody here never told a lie?”

No one’s hand went up and Ron waited. “Ok, so think of a time when you lied and ask yourself why did you do it?”

Connie turned to her friend Barbara and then raised her hand. “To save my….” She stopped and giggled. “To stay out of trouble,” she said grinning to Barbara more.

“That’s why Shakespeare did it,” said Ron. “He wanted to stay out of trouble with the new king. But it was more than that. He wanted to tell a good story and to tell a good story, sometimes the facts get twisted. Sometimes we exaggerate. Sometimes we attribute the thoughts of others to ourselves to make us look good in a story that we are telling.”

Imelda’s almond shaped eyes glittered as she said, “Do you do that, Mr. Tuck?”

Ron enlarged his eyes in mock shock. “Me? I wouldn’t know how to lie to you guys. You’d catch me anyway.”

The class laughed and Ron started the tape of the play. He hoped that he had salvaged a little bit of the damage that he had done to Willie.

That night after tutoring and the hospital Ron drove home happy and tired. The test had gone pretty well and no real blockages had been seen. However Dr. Gutberg cautioned that this was not the most reliable test and told Marjorie again that he really needed to do the cardiac catheterization. But Marjorie was feeling less tired and was now in a regular room. Ron felt better about things with the shrouded machines and screens removed, as if it was their presence that announced ominous possibilities.

Tutoring had been smooth. Dennis Mooney had even showed up and had done some work.  Ron had gotten new assignments for James Devin and the kid was responding to the tutoring and his desire to please Ron.

Ron stopped for some Chinese food and got coral shrimp which he ate out of the container sitting in his front room and reading papers and listening to music. It was strange to him that when he read, he blotted the sound out but liked the soundtrack in the background. He had learned to be alone again after Zoe had gone to art school. At first it had been difficult. He had grown used to her presence. He loved the daily sex and the games that they played. Now he was relegated to masturbation, but his house was his own and each evening he felt like he returned to a cocoon and was replenished.

Occasionally it occurred to Ron that no one ever called him. There were the crazy silent phone calls from Zoe but they didn’t count. Chris never called. Quimpy never called. Warren had never called him once. Ron wondered if these people were truly his friends. Didn’t friends have an interest in you? Weren’t they curious to see how you were doing? Maybe he was guilty of the same thing. He had never called April after she had asked him to contact her because she did not have his new number. Ron wondered if the reason that he never called April was that he was pretty certain that he would not be able to sleep with her. He tried to think if there were any girls that he didn’t want to sleep with that he had ever phoned. The answer jolted him. There was only one, Laureen. He had thought of her as his friend, but he had written those songs about and depicted her in a cruel and insulting way. He had made her look horrible. And then there was the trouble in Rahway. No wonder that they weren’t friends any longer.

His apartment had warmed up by the time that he finished dinner. He was too tired to read anymore. He had just lain down on his bed and turned on the TV when the phone rang.

“Ron, it’s Bernadette.”

Ron was startled and smiled. “Hi, what’s up?”

“I don’t know when they are going to announce it, but Irene Emanuel is leaving at the end of the week.”

“Leaving for where?”

“She’s been sent to South America.”

“At this time of year?”

“I know. It’s very odd and everything is hush hush.  Rita won’t even talk to me about it and she tells me everything.”

Ron had always assumed that Irene Emanuel was the Mother Superior in the convent. She just seemed to be in charge of things wherever she was. He had found out at the end of last year that the Mother Superior was a tall business teacher named Sister Rita Julia. Rita Julia had never had a conversation with Ron but she always had smiled for him.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Ron. “I’m going to miss her. She’s taught me a whole lot.”

“Well, you know that she was never really happy here.”

Ron hadn’t known that. It was something that had never occurred to him. “Who is replacing her?”

There was a pause and in a whisper Bernadette said, “Sister Donna Maria.” There was a tone of disgust in her voice. “She’s a dangerous woman. She believes in things that have been out of date for a long time. We’re going to have our hands full on the faculty council.”

“We’ll be fine,” said Ron, not knowing what he was in for.

“Can you come in early tomorrow? We can have coffee and talk more about this.”

“Absolutely,” said Ron.

Ron put down the phone and lay back to watch Monday night football and was quickly asleep.  He woke at some point in the middle of the night and turned the snow off the screen and then immediately fell back to sleep.

 

The next morning he waited for Bernadette to come for coffee but she didn’t show up.  She walked in just a few minutes before class began and when their eyes met she put a finger to her lips and shook her head almost imperceptibly.  The stood together in the hallway as was their custom when the classes changed. Talking like a convict out of the side of her mouth, she said, “I think someone overheard me on the phone last night. Don’t say anything to anyone.”

The week rolled by with the sameness that winter has: white to gray to black. Macbeth killed Duncan and then he killed Banquo. Marjorie grew stronger and started walking to the bathroom on her own. Harry stopped at the hospital every couple of days and Marjorie never failed to mention it to Ron when he did. Lois started living at Marjorie’s house to take care of Chipper. It seemed to Ron that Lois avoided him when he was coming to the hospital.

On Friday afternoon at the very end of the school day, Irene Emanuel came onto the PA system.

“Good afternoon ladies, Sisters, teachers. As some of you know, I have been at Our Lady of The Forlorn for almost six years. It has been my privilege to be your principal and to watch you grow and teach and come to a deeper understanding of God. After today I will be leaving the school. I am very excited about my new assignment in Chile. It is one for which I have waited a very long time. As you may know, it is the end of summer in Chile and I will be taking on the responsibilities of principal at Our Lady of Heavenly Treasures High School in Santiago. I hope that I have done good service to you while I have been here and I will miss some of you very much. Thank you for your kindnesses to me and for the good work that you are doing. This is our good-bye and I would ask that none of you come to the principal’s office after school as I will have already left and my replacement is not due to arrive until tomorrow. I trust that you will show her the same respect that you have always afforded me. Please remember me in your prayers as you will always be remembered in mine.”

Then she was gone and a few seconds later the bell rang to signal the end of the day. Ron’s students left quickly. He sat down at his desk and had the sensation that he was going to cry.  It was then that he realized how much he had loved and respected Irene Emanuel. He thought about his earliest mentor. His Aunt Dottie was long deceased now, but Ron had seen a similarity between them that he had never put together before. It was like he shared a secret with them and that secret had somehow given them confidence in him. He wished that he knew what the secret was. Ron stood up, packed his books and locked his door. He looked across the hall at Bernadette’s classroom but it was already locked and dark. He walked across the courtyard and into the other building. The principal’s outer office was lit up but her door was closed and no one was around. For the first time the school seemed dreary.

Chapter 46

The hospital was different on Saturday mornings.  There were more visitors but fewer staff. There were fewer doctors around and fewer call downs for testing. The doctors tended to make their rounds early in the day, before visiting hours began.  Ron wondered if part of the reason was so that they could also avoid family members who not only wanted assurances and promises but firm timetables. The monitors alongside Marjorie’s bed were kept permanently covered now. When Doctor Gutberg came in he did not even look at them. He told Marjorie that if all went well that he would have her moved to a regular room on Monday morning.  She had told him again that she did not think that she could go through with the test that he wanted to do and asked what other tests were available. He was disappointed but saw that she was stubborn about this and told her about an echocardiogram. After Marjorie was told that nothing was going to be stuck into her and that she would not have to be anesthetized, she agreed to have the test. The doctor scheduled it for Monday with the plan that if proved to be non-substantial that he would simply have her moved from the testing area to a regular room. He had figured out that this was a very nervous patient who had a history of emotional instability and now he tried to factor that into his decisions, but it annoyed him that such a silly thing was going to get in the way of him treating this patient in the way that he knew was best.

Ron spent the morning with her and they played gin rummy and watched TV and talked.

Ron asked, “Have you heard from George?”

“He sent a card,” she said. “He wrote that hopes that I get better soon and that he is staying away because he doesn’t want to upset me.”

“Why doesn’t he realize that his staying away is upsetting you?”

“I don’t love him,” said Marjorie. “I’m not sure that I ever loved him and I feel very guilty about that.”

Ron nodded.

“I just knew that I had to get you out of Newark. That’s why I married him.”

Ron winced. It wasn’t the first time that he’d been told that. “I don’t know Mom.”

Marjorie bit her lip. “I’m worried about health insurance now. What if he wants a divorce? What will I do? I’m not going to be able to work for a while and my kind of job does not come with healthcare. And I would never be able to afford the house without him and I just can’t imagine having to go back into an apartment.”

“Has he mentioned anything about wanting a divorce?”

“Not really, but you know George. I’ll find out when he files the papers.”

“The only thing that we should be thinking about right now is getting you well,” said Ron.

Marjorie put down the cards. “I’m just going to close my eyes for a little while,” she said. “I don’t sleep at night. I get too frightened when it’s dark.”

Ron read the newspaper that he’d brought for her and watched her sleep. After about an hour he saw Lois in the doorway and held his finger up to his lips, hoping that she would stay still but she had already began to talk.

“How is she feeling?” said Lois.

Marjorie’s eyes blinked open and Ron shot Lois a look that said why couldn’t you just be still? Lois ignored him. She moved to the bed and took his mother’s hand. Marjorie smiled and said, “I just had a wonderful nap.”

Ron said that he was going to go and his mother nodded.

“Will you come back tomorrow?”

Ron had planned on stopping back later that day but said that he would be there.

“Do you think that you could stop at the bakery and bring some jelly donuts?”

Ron said, “Mom, that isn’t a good idea.”

Lois opened the bag that she had brought with her and said, “Look what I have.” It was an old fashioned donut from Dunkin Donuts and a container of coffee.

Ron thought that it was good that she was hungry but was horrified that Lois had brought coffee and donuts to a woman who had just had a heart attack.

Marjorie’s face lit up and she sat up in bed. “I’m so hungry. The food that they bring me is terrible. I can’t smoke but to have a good cup of coffee. Did you get it with half and half?”

Lois smiled. “Just the way that you like it.”

Ron’s face tightened as he watched her open the donut bag and put the coffee down on the tray. He struggled to not say anything.

It was just then that one of the nurses walked in to take her temperature. She spied the coffee and donut. “I hope that you aren’t eating that, Mrs. Bombasco.”

Marjorie looked up with her hands outstretched and her face took on the appearance of a little girl who had been caught doing something wrong. “I was just going to have this coffee and donut.”

The nurse gave her a look that Ron was sure would have made Irene Emanuel proud.  “You are on a strict diet and you know that. No coffee and no donuts. If you’re hungry I can get you some Jell-O.”

Almost involuntarily Marjorie stuck out her tongue both at the nurse and at the thought of Jell-O. “I’ll keep this at the desk,” said the nurse, gathering the bag and the container. Ron watched his mother’s face sink. “Your visitor can take it with her when she leaves.”

 

Ron drove down Valley Road towards Paterson. He knew the city from his visits to Quimpy, but he didn’t know a place called The Hitching Post there.  As he drove, he conjured up images of Emerald and then right at the end of Valley Road as if by design there it was.  When he got out of the car he realized that he already had an erection. He adjusted himself and walked into the bar.

This place was not at all like The French Maid. It looked a bit dingy. There was a bar that was pretty standard looking rectangular with stacks of glasses and bottle in the center island. Off to the left was an area that had a small gate around it. The area was square and about twelve feet by twelve feet. In front of the gate was a scattering of tables and chairs. Ron looked around while his eyes adjusted to the light. There were two bartenders and about fifteen customers at the bar. Seated at the tables were another eight men. The only women in the bar were the dancers.  Ron watched as a guy walked passed him holding two drinks and camped out at one of the tables. He moved towards the bar, decided that was not a place to order white wine and asked for a bottle of beer. His change came back with the standard arrangement of three singles, a five and a ten. He moved to one of the vacant tables. It was in the second row and after a moment he casually slid closer to one of the empty tables that bordered the gate. He dancer was a chubby brunette whose act consisted of squeezing her breasts together and then shaking them back and forth against her arms.

Then he saw Emerald. She came out of the ladies room that also doubled as the dancers’ changing area and moved towards the side of the gate. She opened it and stepped in just as the other girl was gathering her boa and skirt and moving out. He thought that Emerald looked tired. She wasn’t wearing make-up and in the better light, Ron could see that she had freckles. He liked the scrubbed clean look on her. She also seemed a little thinner to him than she had the night before. When the next song began she moved with an easy glide. Ron tried to catch her eye but she still had not looked in his direction.

When he held up his first dollar bill, she looked towards him and flashed a smile that Ron took as recognition. He smiled back and extended his arm. She took the tip and folded it under the waistband of her G-string so that she was wearing it like a pelt at her belt. She turned and gave him a little wiggle and then resumed dancing. For the most part she was being ignored.

When he gave her the next dollar he said, “At least you don’t have to climb down from the stage.”

She didn’t respond at first as if she hadn’t heard him or his comment just hadn’t registered. Then he saw the recognition light up her face. “Oh, it’s you,” she said.

Ron wasn’t sure but after that she seemed to dance more and more for him than she did for the other guys. She got a single dollar here and there and for each one she turned and gave her ass that cute little wiggle.  Ron grinned broadly as he watched her. When he gave her the fifth tip, this time two dollars, she turned away and bent over until her palms were flat on the floor and then carefully she raised one leg and hooked the heel into the top of the gate’s rail so that she was almost completely exposed to him. Then she bent her knee so that she started to slide herself back towards his face. When she stopped the thin fabric of the G-string was so close to him that he could see a label’s imprint on the other side. She moved herself forwards and back. Ron felt his face flush red hot. He stared at the line that her pussy made against the fabric. Then she straightened herself and moved back into her set.

When it was over, she stood close to him at the rail and said, “I’ll be at the other side of the bar.”

Ron’s beer was now gone. Normally he didn’t drink beer, but after what Emerald had done, he found himself very thirsty. He had gulped the rest of the bottle down like it was soda.

He got up and moved to the rear of the room and stood against the wall. He stayed there and hardly watched the brunette squeeze and shake her breasts. His eyes glued to the ladies room door. The sight of her crotch still throbbed in his brain.

She came out five minutes later, still wearing the same outfit that she had worn in, the white sparkly one from the night before. He moved to a chair at the empty side of the bar and sat down. When she came over, the bartender did as well.

She slid in next to him and Ron felt her brush her knees along his thigh. The fronts of his pants were tented out.  She ordered a white wine and Ron asked for another beer.

“I’m happy to see you again,” he said.

She looked down and then back up at his face. “Yeah, you seem happy about it.”

Ron blushed. She watched him blush and thought it was cute. “I really didn’t expect you to show up here today,” she said.

“I told you that I would find the place. I didn’t know that it existed.”

Emerald looked into his eyes and then formed a smirk. “Yeah, if I believed every guy that said that he was going to come see me dance, I’d be even more of a fool than I am, wouldn’t  I?”

Ron sat there smiling and said, “Do I look like every guy?”

She leaned close and whispered into his ear, “They mostly don’t get hard this fast.”

And then she reached between his legs and squeezed. Ron thought that he was going to explode right there. He had the beer bottle up to his lips and almost bit into it. Then she got up and said, “Time for me to dance.”

Ron sat there wondering what he should do. He didn’t have enough money to sit there all day. He didn’t have enough money to invite her out to dinner. He thought she would not appreciate a trip back to his three room cold water flat. His second beer was empty and now he was feeling the effects of them. There was only one thing to do and he resolved himself. He got up quietly and left.

He scolded himself on the way home. What was wrong with him? It was a world based on money and how could he have been so stupid to think that he could have the vices of that world. He didn’t like to drink and now he felt drunk. He didn’t have money to waste and now he had spent more in the last two days that he usually spent in a week.

Tutoring! The word blared in his mind like a trumpet. He had forgotten his tutoring appointments.  “Fuck!” he screamed and hit the steering wheel.  The car swerved and for a second he felt like he was losing control of it. Then it straightened out and he looked into each of his mirrors paranoid that he was going to see flashing lights. Two miles and a two turns later he felt himself settling down. He had intentionally turned off the road that he was on and then turned again to make sure that no one had seen anything in back of him. He was in Montclair, where he had not had the best luck with the cops.

“How could I forget tutoring?” he said aloud in the empty car. Technically his appointments had been in the morning and technically he had been with his mother while he was supposed to be tutoring. So technically he could call and use her heart attack as an excuse. That thought made him sick to his stomach. He would have remembered about the appointments if he hadn’t gone out on Friday night. It was the go-go bar, but he couldn’t tell anyone that. He was having a hard time telling himself that. Even he wanted to spit on himself for being such a cock driven asshole. What was he doing going to a go-go bar while his mother was in the hospital?

When Ron got home he called the Mooney Residence and explained what happened. Then he called the Devin residence. Mrs. Devin was curt when he apologized for missing the appointment.

“My son waited for you all day. After a while it was pathetic to see him keep going to the doorway and moving the curtain aside to look out.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ron. “I had an emergency.”

“I’d like to know what was so important that you could not find the time to call. I’d like to know so that when I call the school I can explain why I don’t wish to have you back here and why I think that you pumping my son up with confidence and then letting him down was mean and careless and hurtful.”

“I was at the hospital,” said Ron. “My mother has had a heart attack.”

He heard Mrs. Devin gasp on the other end of the line. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I do try to remember that my students are in a fragile way, Mrs. Devin, but I admit I was not thinking about James and it didn’t occur to me until I was driving home.” In his head he added, from the go-go bar.

Afterwards, he collapsed back down onto his bed and slept for hours.