Chapter 40

Ron’s tutoring appointments were sporadic. The process was involved. He would get a call from the Learning Disabilities Testing Coordinator or the LDTC as she was known and then he would go in and meet with her to get his assignment. The length of time that the students were on what was called “bedside instruction” varied depending upon their injury or condition. In the winter months, he would wind up tutoring every afternoon and sometimes all day on Saturdays. The money was nice. It was far more than he was being paid at the school but there was a catch. Ron was not certified and Quimpy had made arrangements for this lack of credentials never to be mentioned. It was Quimpy whose job it was to keep a record of the certificates and so Ron’s was never mentioned. The plan was that if he was ever asked that he would admit that he had lied and Quimpy would say that he thought that his secretary had kept them all on file and would have mentioned it to him if there was a problem.

Mostly Ron was given the kids who had been excluded from school because they had drug problems. The Superintendent’s strategy was just to keep those kids on bedside indefinitely.  But this afternoon’s case was different. Ron was ushered into the office of the school’s psychiatrist and sat with him and the LDTC.

Charles Rothstein had been doing the job of school psychiatrist for about twenty years. He was a thin man with a very short gray beard and closely cropped hair. He spoke with a New York accent that Ron placed somewhere like Brooklyn. Charley began by asking Ron about his other two cases.

“So how are the fuck-ups doing?”

Ron smiled and shook his head. “Well they show up most of the time, but the only work that gets done, gets done while I am there with them. They don’t really believe in homework.”

“If they understood what school was about in the first place they wouldn’t be in this situation would they, Ron?”

“I don’t know,” said Ron. “They aren’t bad kids. They’re just, like you said, fuckups.”

Charlie nodded and teased, “And that’s why Quimpy recommended you for them. He figured that if anyone would understand how to work with fucked up kids that it would be you.”

“Yeah, said Ron. “I’m not sure how to take that, but thanks.”

“If they give you too much shit, just remind them that this is their only chance of getting any credit for the year and to have a new start next year. You’ve got them over a barrel and don’t hesitate to use it if you have to.”

“I know.”

“Now, James Devin is a whole different matter.  This kid is seriously fucked up. He’s a normal sixteen year old kid who is going through his father’s drawer one day looking for rubbers or who knows what, and he finds a picture of the old man dressed like a woman and sucking some guy’s dick.”

Ron involuntarily glanced over at the LDTC but her face was an inscrutable mask.

“How did the kid take it?” said Ron.

“Not very fucking well at all,” said Charlie with a bitter laugh. “He locked himself in his basement and he hasn’t come out since.”

“Oh Jesus,” said Ron.

“Now I’m trying to get him some good shrink help but we don’t make house calls and the kid refuses to come out. If we can’t get him some education, the boss wants to move on him for being an incorrigible truant and have him turned over to the courts. Which, I believe, will complete the job of totally screwing the kid.”

“Ok,” said Ron thoughtfully. “What do you want me to do?”

“Teach the little fucker.”

Ron laughed, but Charlie was no longer smiling. “I have spoken to his teachers and everyone is going to be cooperative here. Just give us something that we can use to say that the kid did some work and they will pass him. If that doesn’t work, I’ll have you made the teacher of record and you can give him his grades.”

Natalie, the LDTC, spoke for the first time. “We don’t think that it will come to that and we have seen some of the work that you have been able to do with kids that wouldn’t do anything for other tutors.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Ron.

“Just do enough to get it done,” said Charlie. “I think this is a temporary condition and if we can help this kid enough to get him into counseling by the summer time, I think he’s got a chance.”

“Where’s the father now?”
Natalie said, ”That’s the other thing, when James found the pictures, he brought them to his mother who had no idea,” at this point she dramatically rolled her eyes, “and she threw the father out. They are getting a divorce.”

Charlie broke in, “So now on top of everything else, the kid thinks that he was responsible for ruining his family.”

“I can understand that,” said Ron. “My parents are divorced.”

“But not cause your father sucked dick and had pictures taken of himself doing it,” said Charlie.

They gave Ron a pile of books and assignments and a phone number and then he left the office and walked out through the line of cubicles thinking about how much more professional this school looked than his did.

He drove back into Clifton’s border section with Paterson and rang the bell for his other tutoring appointment. Dennis Mooney was caught selling pot at the school. Ron had been working with him for about a month. Dennis was a blonde kid with a bad complexion and poor hygiene. Ron didn’t particularly like going to the house because it smelled bad and he always felt like itchy when he left. He rang the doorbell and heard movement inside, then Dennis’s face behind a curtain. Dennis said from the other side of the door, “I can’t do it today.”

“Come on Dennis,” you know what they said about missed appointments. They have to pay me anyway.”

“No offense Mr. Tuck, but I really don’t give a fuck.”

Ron shook his head. “Ok Dennis, see you next time.”

Ron got back into his car and drove home. He thought to himself that he shouldn’t care. He was getting paid.  The school was just covering its ass because they didn’t want Dennis in the building. And Dennis didn’t give a fuck. Why should he? But images of a bleak future for the kid haunted Ron all the way back home. He stopped off at a new Chinese restaurant that had just opened up down the street from him and ordered some hit spiced shredded beef with carrots.  He sat at the desk in his front room and ate the food out of the container while he reread Macbeth and thought about the next day’s classes.

 

Chapter 39

 

Ron’s seniors sat in front of him with expectant faces.  He had taken attendance. He had explained that because of the lost day yesterday that it was necessary to get right to work.

“Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s strangest plays.  It was written after the death of Queen Elizabeth and Willie was doing a few things. Mainly he was kissing up to his new King, but at the same time he was instructing him on how to be a king. Now that is a delicate thing to do and you will see his genius in doing it.

People in the theater are frightened of this play. The legend is that it’s bad luck to mention the name in a theater and so they always refer to it as The Scottish Play. There are all kinds of stories of bad things happening, people being killed during performances, theaters burning down. Lots of weird stuff and then, of course, there are the witches.” Ron stopped and looked at their faces. He was checking to make sure that none of them had drifted. “What is the word in Spanish for witch?”

“Bruja,” they said in a chorus.

“And what does it mean to be a witch?”

“Sometimes it just means an old woman,” said Connie Gonzalez.

“I think it means a sorceress,” said Imelda Cruz.

“Both of those things are true in this case. But it also means a servant of the devil. Witches were a big thing in Shakespeare’s time. The King, his name was James, actually wrote a book about how to identify witches.”

“Sometimes it means a prostitute,” said Barbara Rodriguez.

Ron noticed that his Spanish students were the only ones responding and realized that he had to get the other girls involved again. It was a tough balancing act to meet the needs of some students in this school without alienating others. “Well, in the English tradition, it doesn’t really mean that. And besides, these women were so ugly that they would have had to pay men.”

The girls giggled nervously and Ron wondered if he should have said that but he went on. “Ok so he’s kissing up to the King and he is also writing a great play about ambition and obsession. Now the language is going to be difficult, but I’ll help you through it and last year many of the girls told me that this was their favorite book for the year. So let’s get started. I want notebooks out there are going to be lots and lots of notes. But right now, just listen.”

Dutifully they looked up at him. It amazed Ron to see their faces and he felt this incredible surge of power and responsibility.  He wondered for at least the one hundredth time how Lashly could have ever allowed himself to become sexually intimate with his students. It just wasn’t even close to fair.

He started dramatically. “Now there is this war, a civil war. I’ll explain later why it was being fought. But one of the main guys on Macbeth’s side went over to the enemy and convinced this guy Norway to attack Scotland. And some of the Scottish troops fought with the traitor. Now our guy Macbeth, we’ll call him Mac.” There were more giggles. Ron liked to call Shakespeare Willy and to shorten or give slang names to the characters. He felt that it made the play more accessible. The other teachers in the English department had scoffed disdainfully when he mentioned the idea at a department meeting. “So Mac sees the traitor and wades across the battlefield killing people as he goes.”

Ron mimicked Mac, wading into the class shoving the desks with the girls still in them back until he made a path for himself.

“Mac’s like a superhero,” said Connie.

“Yes, he is. He’s a very brave and forceful fighter.” Ron fixed his eyes on Imelda, who was sitting in the last row. He pushed his way towards her, making a mess of the configuration of the room. Finally, he stopped in front of her desk. “Then Mac takes his sword and unseams him from the nave to the chops,” said Ron, quoting from the play. “Which means he sliced him open,” he turned to the class and pointed to his navel, and then traced a line up his chest to his throat, “from here to here. Then he cuts off the traitor’s head and holds it up on the end of his sword and lets up a loud whoop.” Again Ron mimicked Macbeth’s action and whooped, just as he saw Irene Emanuel at his door.

The principal entered the room and the girls sat up very straight and tried to look studious in the mess of a classroom. Some went so far as to open their books and to look down. She looked at them for a long moment and then let her eyes take in the disarray of the room and then she finally settled her gaze on Ron.

Ron grinned at her and said triumphantly and with an absurd confidence and enthusiasm, “Come in Sister, we are just starting Shakespeare.”

“Let’s do hope the building survives the play, Mr. Tuck. May I see you for a moment?”

“Yes Sister. Straighten out the desks, girls and start to look at the first scene. I’ll be right back and remember, notebooks out.”

Ron went to the door with the nun. She smiled at him and said, “Please don’t get them all worked up so that the rest of the day is spent talking about what Mr. Tuck said or did in their other classes again.”

Ron lowered his head in mock penance and said, “No Sister I won’t, but the language is hard for them and if I don’t get them hooked into it early, I think it will really be a tough go.”

“Well, I’m happy that I don’t have to follow your act, Mr. Tuck,” she said  with her pursed lips, but by now he knew her well enough to be able to tell that she wasn’t really upset. “There’s a meeting of the faculty council after school and after a very short meeting of the whole faculty to discuss what happened yesterday.  Do not discuss any rumors with the girls today until I have had a chance to meet with the faculty and then we’ll have the council meeting afterwards.”

“Yes Sister.”

 

After classes the faculty congregated in the convent. Students who normally stayed for after school activities were told to report to the cafeteria, where two of the nuns were assigned to supervise them. Not too many of the girls attended. Most took the opportunity to crowd into the corner store where Ron still got his coffee twice a day. Those who went to the cafeteria either disliked the luncheonette or were forbidden to go there by parents, whose punishments made it not worth the risk.

Ron took a few drags on a cigarette as he walked the outside route to the convent.  When he rang the bell, an elder sister who no longer taught but spent her days with housekeeping and cooking answered. “Yes?” she said warily.

“I’m here for the faculty meeting,” said Ron.

“Are you from the police?” asked the nun her face was pudgy and her steel rimmed glasses continued to regard him with suspicion.

“No, Sister, I’m a teacher at the high school.”

She sniffed the smoke that was radiating from him and challenged him. “At this high school?”

“Yes Sister. My name is Ron Tuck.”

She scrunched her face into a sneer, stepped back from the door and opened it wider. “Oh,” she said.  As he walked passed her, she caught the odor of cigarette smoke on him, and she shook her head in disgust.

“As all of you know, we had an unfortunate incident that occurred yesterday. I know that I told you there was a gas leak and for that I apologize, but that stretch of the truth was necessary.  It seems that a man, a street person really, we used to call them hobos when I was younger, was found to have met the lord in our basement. We have all prayed for the repose of his soul and I invite you to join me now in doing so again.” She led them through an Our Father and 3 Hail Marys. “May his soul and all the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God rest in peace”

Ron felt like they were all doing penance for the dead guy. When the prayers were finished, Irene Emanuel continued. “Now I know there have been lots of rumors swirling about and most of them are utter foolishness. There was no foul play that occurred on our school grounds and it is important that we get that message out when we are asked. It is also important that we do not let this unfortunate incident distract us from the business at hand, and so it is my hope that after today we will hear no more about it. However, people being the way that they are, if you are asked by parents or by students and they have further questions, please direct their calls to me. They should not be calling the rectory or anywhere else to engage in their quest for details.” She enlarged her eyes and pursed her lips with the word “details” elongating it and pausing both before or after it to ensure the fact that her meaning was very clear. “Now, unless there are any other questions, many of us have students waiting and I suggest that we resume our duties.” After this last line she smiled and stood adding, “I wish to thank you all for your anticipated cooperation.”

Clearly questions were not being encouraged.  But Doris who had been at the school longer than Irene Emanuel and did not have a particularly high opinion of her since the nun had stopped giving her the last period of the day off and allowing her to leave school early, raised her hand.

“I would like to know if the school is safe,” said Doris loudly.

“Of course, we are safe,” said Irene Emanuel with look of mock shock and real condescension on her face.

“Well how did the bum get into the basement?” persisted Doris.

“Father is checking into that and we are having the maintenance man and two of the church deacons checking all of the locks on doors and windows to make sure that this can’t ever happen again.

Doris turned to Marsha and muttered sarcastically, “Oh, now I feel safe.”

Irene Emanuel heard her as did most of the people in the room. But Irene just chose to ignore the quip and made note that Doris would never have a late afternoon prep again. The meeting adjourned and people either left for the day or made their way back over to the school.

The girl who was to be seen by the faculty council that afternoon was not given the option of leaving and coming back or of going to the cafeteria. She was seated in one of the hard back chairs in the principal’s office with her secretary as visible evidence of her misdeeds. Ron knew the girl very well. Her name was Immaculada Santiago and she had been in his reading class the year before. He liked the girl but knew that she was an airhead who had minimal interest in reading writing or, Ron would have suspected, any of her other classes. She had a boyfriend. She was there marking time until she got married.  She had had her “Fifteens” coming out party in the fall and soon after she had formally began dating her brother’s best friend. Ron knew why she was there. The girl was excessively late to school and to her classes. The end of each class required a trip to the lavatory where she primped and studied herself in the mirror. Re-combed her hair, washed her hands and put on hand lotion to make sure that she did not chap. This was her second visit to the council. The first had come after she had amassed her initial ten lates. If the teachers had marked her to the minute, that would have taken less than a week, but most let it go saying that was just how Immaculada was.  Now she had amassed twenty lates and it was required that a parent join her for this second appearance before the faculty council. Her mother sat next to her staring at her shoes and wondering how long this nonsense would take.

The faculty council met in the lay teachers’ lunch room. On the days when these meetings were held, there was a note attached to the inside of the front door by Irene Emanuel reminding the teachers that there was going to be a meeting that afternoon in the room and that it should be in “presentable condition.” This year’s council consisted of Ron, Sister Bernadette, Marsha and Irene Emanuel. Bernadette and Ron conspired as often as they could to keep the girls out of trouble and Irene Emanuel knew that it had been a mistake to allow Bernadette to serve on the committee. But she had volunteered and garnered support and although Irene Emanuel, who could have blocked her appointment with the choir rehearsals as an excuse, had allowed things to move forward.  Ron had been given the job as chairperson of the committee, an election that both startled him and most of the rest of the faculty, who were sure now that the school was going to ruin. The truth was that Irene Emanuel ran the committee and every other committee in the school and she could, if she chose, overrule the council’s decisions as the principal’s discretion, but she did like the appearance of democracy.

They sat around the round table and Ron read through the card that had the dates of Immaculada’s unexcused latenesses on them. Then he read the additional excused latenesses and did some quick math in his head.

“Immaculada,” he said gently, “you are late almost half of the days that school is in session. Can you tell us what’s wrong?”

Mrs. Santiago shot Immaculada a feigned look of anger and then moved her hair to the side and stared out the window and tapped her long manicured fingernails on the leather purse that she held on her lap. The girl put her head down and muttered, “I don’t know. I will try harder,” looking up after the last statement with the absurd hope that her promise would be enough. It was what her mother had told her to say.

But Bernadette was having none of it. “Are you unable to get out of bed early enough?”

“Immaculada was almost indignant. “No Sister, I get up every morning at 5:30.”

Irene Emanuel said simply. “School begins at 8 am.”

Bernadette looked at Mrs. Santiago. “What time does she leave the house?”

The mother and the girl exchanged a worried look. The mother set her jaw and said, “I’m not really sure, Sister Bernadette.”

But Bernadette already knew where she was going with this. She had seen it before. “Do you come straight to school when you leave the house?”

Immaculada stared straight down like she wanted to burn a hole into the floor. “No Sister.”

“Do you go to your boyfriend’s house?”

Her face was so flushed and her voice was barely a whisper. “Yes, Sister.” Then she began to cry. Ron felt sorry and was moved by the sight of the tears rolling down the girl’s rouged cheeks. The women were not.

Bernadette now sat back. She had heard what she expected to hear.  She knew that the girl was going to her boyfriend’s house to make his bed and to help his mother and learn to cook his meals in the way that he was accustomed to having them prepared. She knew that this happened with full knowledge and probably the support of Mrs. Santiago.  It was all a matter of priorities.

Irene Emanuel directed herself to Immaculada. “Do you understand that a continuation of this behavior can result in you being asked to leave this school?”

The girl was sobbing now. “Yes Sister.”

Then Ron spoke up. “Does your father know about this?”

The girl abruptly stopped crying. The look of fear that blazed onto Mrs. Santaigo’s face was evident. The tension in the room became immediately thick.

The older woman leaned forward and looked at Ron. “Please, Mister. Please don’t say that you are going to tell him.”

Now everyone was uncomfortable. Irene Emanuel broke the silence. “I don’t think that there will be any reason to involve anyone else as long as this behavior is corrected. However, this Saturday and next Saturday morning, Immaculada, we’ll see you at the convent at 8 am so that you can work off the time that you owe us.”

The principal escorted the mother and daughter out of the room. They both looked as if they had been tortured. Bernadette leaned over and whispered to Ron. “He’d beat both of them for shaming him.”

Chapter 38

The energy in the school that Monday morning was amped up to a degree that was startling. Many of the girls had been locked away in the houses since before the snow had started to fall, and they descended on the school with a burst of energy that was throbbing and palpable. They had tired of their mothers and siblings.  They embraced the school like it was freedom itself.

Ron was overjoyed to see them and he smiled so much that his face hurt. He had gotten there early. Last year’s experience had taught him that while part of the lot would be plowed out for the teachers’ cars, that there would be a premium on spaces. Street parking was non-existent. Where there were spaces, chairs and boards had been pulled out to fill them until those people who dug the space out returned. It was an unwritten law of the city during snow. You cleared the space out and you owned it until the snow was gone. And if someone was foolish enough to move your chair, it was license to do whatever you wished in retaliation against the disrespectful car.

Last year’s seniors were gone, but they had been replaced by another group that looked strangely younger to Ron. His 9^th graders were now world wise sophomores who had gotten through their second fall. Many of them had signed up for one of the two electives that he was teaching: public speaking and creative writing. Some of them had taken both classes. Ron was not teaching Reading anymore and still taught Ninth grade and Twelfth grade English along with his electives.

His public speaking class was the first of the day and today he was going to introduce them to Extemporaneous Speeches. He had gone to the store that Sunday and bought five copies of the Star Ledger and five copies of the New York Times. The idea was that they would have 15 minutes to read, research, and then speak from their notes on a topic that he selected. The night before, he spent time scanning the papers and circling articles that were short enough for them to accomplish the task. Almost immediately, he abandoned much of the Times. The articles were just too long for what he had in mind. But another idea occurred to him and he had also circled pictures with long captions, thinking that they could just as easily work from those.  But first he wanted to know how they were.

“So, how have the last four days been for you?” he asked at the very start of class.

The answer was loud and responsorial, “Boring,” they said in unison. Then all of them laughed and Ron laughed with them.

“Didn’t anyone do anything that was interesting?” said Ron.

Elena said, “You don’t really want us to tell you about that stuff, do you Mr. Tuck?” Her dark eyes were dancing and her lips were curled into a tempting smile. There was a wave of giggles.

Ron made his exaggerated look of mock exasperation. “No Elena, not that stuff.”

Sandy said, “Well I ate so much that wasn’t sure that my uniform was going to fit.”

Ron laughed. “I wound up living on chicken roll and Swiss cheese until Saturday because I didn’t have food in my house and just about every place was closed.”

There was a scattering of “Ewws” about his diet. Then Sonia said, “Don’t you have anyone to cook for you, Mr. Tuck?”

Ron blushed and the girls laughed merrily. Some of the girls thought that they would be happy to cook for him while Ron explained the assignment. “Speeches will be short. Only two minutes each. Those of you that don’t get to go today, will go tomorrow. I put all your names into this basket, he held up a small wicker basket that he had found in his closet, left by the previous teacher in the classroom. So, it will be random who goes when.”

He watched them as they worked. Some were trying to write out their speeches and Ron corrected them and said in a whisper, “You don’t have time for that. Just take notes. I’ll show you what to do.” They smiled up at him and he knew that they trusted him and he felt his chest swell with pride at their trust. Fifteen minutes became twenty as Ron paced up and down the aisles. They were all working hard and he decided to let it go until he got the sense that they were mostly ready. It was not their fault if he had underestimated the amount of time that it was going to take them.

Finally, about twenty-five minutes in, he said, “OK, times up. Put down your pens, fold the newspapers and lay them aside.” He heard their groans but knew that he wasn’t rushing them too much. He let another minute go by. “Now,” he said, “let’s see who goes first.”

Their eyes followed his hand as he reached unto the basket.  He opened the slip of rolled up paper dramatically. “Angela Peronne.”

There was a burst of laughter. Maria said, “She’s absent, Mr. Tuck. You forgot to take attendance.”

Ron laughed and quickly went in back of his desk and took attendance, saying, “See I was so happy to see you, that I lost my head there.”

“Tammy Padilla, are you here?” Ron knew that she was and the tall girl with blonde streaks in her hair raised her hand. “Ok Tammy, up here in back of the podium.”

“I have to do it up there,” she said hoping that maybe if he forgot to take attendance, other things might have changed as well.

Ron moved to the side of the room, his face growing serious. The girls saw the shift and Tammy wiggled out of her desk and went to the front of the room.

“Now,” said Ron. “Remember your posture, feet shoulder width apart, back straight, eyes on us, just glance down at your cards when you need them. Voice nice and loud, speak slowly.

“The Shah of Iran has left his country,” said Tammy.

Sister Irene Emanuel’s voice broke in over the loudspeaker. “May I have your attention please.” Her voice was crisp but Ron detected a bit of tension in it. “Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are going to have to close the school for the rest of the day. Girls you are to go to your lockers and collect your things. Anyone who needs to call home, is to go to the convent where we will provide you with a phone and local calling privileges.”

 

The girls looked disappointed but they quickly got up and left. Ron felt disappointment as well. He had missed being with them and his mind had already raced ahead to his next classes and what they would be like. He gathered his books and slid them into the green canvas shoulder bag that he carried and walked over to the principal’s office.

Irene Emanuel looked distracted and rushed. She was in the hall in front of the office and shooing the girls out the door. “Is there anything that I can do to help,  Sister”

She looked up at him almost not recognizing him at first. Then she smiled and said, “Please make sure the other building is cleared, Mr. Tuck and then if you could let me know.”

Ron crossed back into his building and looked around the first floor. Then he went to the girls’ room and knocked and waited. And then he opened the door and went inside. It was empty and well-manicured. He felt uneasy about being in there and quickly backed out and shut the door. He climbed the steps to the second floor. It was deserted. He came back down and saw that he was the only one in the building and then crossed back over the courtyard to her office. There was a circle of nuns and teachers standing around her. He caught her eye and said, “All cleared out Sister.”

She nodded and said. “We have a gas leak that has been determined to be dangerous. We will all be leaving this area at once. You can expect that school will be in session tomorrow unless you hear differently. Mr. Tuck, would you be willing to stay behind with me for a few moments?”

“Of course, Sister.”

He answered her without thinking. Sister Margaret Evette said, “Does this mean that we can’t work in our classrooms?”

The look of annoyance that passed over Irene Emanuel’s face was unmistakable. “Sister, for the safety of everyone concerned, we would be better served to clear the area.”

Margaret Evette nodded in an uncomprehending way. She wanted to go back to her class and be a model of vigilance. People started leaving the hallway. Ron heard Doris tell Marsha that she was getting as far away from this dump as she could. Marsha nodded and they both waddled towards their cars. Irene Emanuel reached out and touched Ron’s shoulder. “Thank you for your help,” she said.

Ron answered, “You’d better be leaving too Sister.”

Irene Emanuel nodded. “I am as soon as I am sure that we have everyone out of here.”

“Do you want me to run upstairs and check around?”

“No, Ron. I’ll take care of it.”

Ron walked out the door and thought that it was funny that no one had mentioned smelling gas. He made his way along the shoveled paths to his car and then he saw Sister Bernadette standing over by the Rectory. She was pacing, which was unusual for her. He large shoulders were straight and square and her black shawl was gripped around them. “You ok, Bernadette?” She had told him to drop the “Sister” unless they were in front of other people by the end of the first year.

“What did she tell them was wrong?”

“Gas leak, but the funny thing is that I don’t smell anything.”

“You would have by the end of the day,” said Bernadette with her sarcastic humor that she only showed to certain friends and some of her older students.

“I found a body in the basement,” said Bernadette. “Father Jones decided that we should clear the school before calling the police. He was worried that the idea of a body might worry some of the parents. Now,” she said pointedly, “he seems to have gone out and I have to wait here for him before I call the cops, which I am going to do for about two more minutes before I just make the call. I mean how could the old fool go out when he knew there was a body in the basement?”

Ron searched her face and wanted to comfort her. He had never heard her talk disparagingly of the priest before. He knew that she must be genuinely distressed and admired her. He wasn’t sure that he would be able to hold it together this well if he had just found a body. “I’ll wait with you.”

She smiled at him. It was a loving smile and Ron had seen it flash across her face before when they were helping some kid together or when he made a joke while they were talking over morning coffee, which they had together when he got in early. A couple of times he thought that he had seen desire in that smile, but he dismissed that idea, telling himself that he was completely nuts.

It was then that Father Jones opened the door of the Rectory and seeing Ron standing there with her frowned. “You’d better go,” she said quietly. She started towards the Rectory door. Ron wanted to go with her but held back. It wasn’t his place and he knew it. Jones watched the nun and knew that she had told him the truth. He had told Irene to not have her say anything and he kept her waiting while he was on the phone with the bishop making sure that he was doing the right thing.

Ron got into his car and drove around the city. The streets were all cleared and the snow that was shoveled to the sides rose in high piles that blocked the view of the sidewalks. After a few minutes, he circled back towards the school. There was a collection of police cars in the parking lot and a large red city ambulance. All had their lights flashing.

Ron wanted to stop and to offer some assistance but he knew that at this point his presence would just be an embarrassment to people that he had come to truly like. So he drove up Heller Parkway and through the park and out of the city of Newark and into the Bellville Silver Lake district.

The stores and sidewalks were clean here. There were sanitation trucks that were gathering the snow and leaving the streets completely free. Ron smirked and thought to himself that nothing was too good for Silver Lake. The legend was that it was the place where the connected guys had their parents installed. The shops had the best meats and produce. It was rare that you ever heard anyone who was not speaking Italian when you were in these stores.  The legend was also that if you were black you could drive through the area but that you were not allowed to walk the streets or shop in any of the stores.

What was he doing back here? Bodies in the basement, restricted neighborhoods and priests that lied. Hadn’t he seen all of this before and decided that it was not going to be part of his life? Hadn’t he decided that these people were so clannish in the way that they saw the world that he would always be an outsider? The thoughts flooded him in torrents and he wanted to go back home and write again. But he drove his car up to his Mom’s new ceramics shop on Bloomfield Avenue just outside of Newark.

Ron found a place to park about a block and a half up the Avenue. He was in front of a liquor store a safe spot. He stuck his hands into his pockets and walked down the street. People were coming out today. They looked like nocturnal creatures who were wincing at the sight and feel of sunlight.  The reflection off the snow made the glare worse and they squinted and shuffled with uneasy steps.

Only Marjorie and her new partner Lois, who had somehow gotten the nickname Bumpy, were in the shop. Marjorie was stunned but happy to see him. “Ronald,” she smiled “is everything ok? Did something happen at work?”

“We got sent home,” he said.

“Did you lose your job? Did something happen? Did they fire you?”

Ron was surprised at the remarks. “No Mom, the only one who has ever fired me was you.” It was true. He was in college and working at her employment agency.  Things were starting to get rough in her business and she called in an expert to tell her how she could cut her overhead. The guy had looked at her business and cash flow and recommended that she let one of her agents go. There wasn’t enough of an outside business to support all three agents now. Marjorie was bringing in the bulk of the referrals with her contacts at local banks and she was really paying about a quarter of the salaries of the others out of her share. Ron was working part time, cold canvassing for new leads and his efforts were producing some listings but when the man said that somebody had to go, Marjorie decided that her son was the most expendable. She knew that he could get another part time job and these other people were feeding their families from what they made at the agency. So, she fired him that afternoon, no notice. Ron had been pissed at the time but the benefits of throwing it up over the years had already eclipsed what she was paying him.

“Do you always need to bring that up?” she said.

“They sent us home,” said Ron. “They said it was a gas leak but Sister Bernadette told me that they found a body in the basement.”

“Again with the bodies in the basement?” she said. “What is this fixation that you have about bodies in the basement? Do you think that you need to talk to someone about this? It really is getting to be too much.”

Ron laughed and remembered his dream and the way that he had told her about it.  He thought that it really was funny that he hadn’t made the connection. The truth was that there wasn’t a connection, as he saw it. It was a coincidence.

Bumpy was carrying in a batch of new molds and Ron was impressed at the way that the short, stocky woman was able to heft the weight. She really was as strong as a man.

“I haven’t seen you in a while and I didn’t expect to have the afternoon off.”

“I’m glad that you came Ronald. I’ve been waiting to call you.” She paused and sat down close to him and lit a cigarette. She was smoking Virginia Lights these days and every time Ron saw the package he couldn’t help but hear the jingle and the line, “You’ve come a long way baby.”

She drew in on the cigarette and said, “George moved out.”

Ron was stunned. The idea of George or his mother or his father going anywhere had never even slightly occurred to him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he moved out. He’s living with another woman and he wants a divorce.” Ron watched as her faced tightened and saw the tears that filled her eyes. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Thank God for Lois or I think I would go out of my mind.”

Ron sat there feeling stunned. George had left? What was gonna happen to his Mom?

 

Chapter 37

Ron was asleep in his clothes when the phone rang. It was 3am. He knew immediately.

“Hi Ron, I know I’ve woken you.”

“Hi Robin. It’s ok. I don’t have work tomorrow. I figured you didn’t. I was talking to my Dad earlier and he said that it was snowing like hell. How are you?”

Ron tried to think. How long had it been since he’d heard from her, six months. She must be working at a bar again and just getting home from work. “I’m ok. I’m snowed in but it’s warm here.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Can we talk for a while?”

“Sure.”

“I’m struggling with a decision Ron and I wanted to hear your voice. My boyfriend Keith wants me to move in with him.”

Ron was silent. He felt his hand tighten on the phone. Well there went the rest of this night’s sleep. “Do you love him?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

Ron felt tears start to run out of his eyes. “Well, that will help,” he said, hoping that she could not hear it in his voice.

“It didn’t help us much did it?”

“I guess not.”

“I never thought that I would be able to live with anyone but you.  But I have been seeing him for a while now and it seems like the next step.”

“I think you’ll be fine Robin.”

“He reminds me of you, but he’s different.”

Ron wasn’t going to take the bait. He held the phone away from his mouth and tried to clear his throat so that his voice didn’t sound heavy. Then he tried to be light. “Well, concentrate on the differences,” he said.

“How’s the teaching going?”

“It gets better all the time. I know the girls now. I know the school. I make fewer mistakes. I feel confident when I stand up in front of them.”

She was silent for a while. Then she said, “Maybe I should come for a visit.”

Ron almost choked out a sob. “You could stay here.”

“I think that I would like that.”

“When do you want to come?”

“In a couple of weeks. Before I do anything.”

Ron said that he would pick her up at the airport and she said that she would call him with the information and then she was gone.

He sat up turned on the lights and went back to his typewriter. Maybe, just maybe if he could recreate how he was when she fell in love with him, she would fall in love with him all over again. Either that or at least it would be as if he had never met her. He wrote until he looked up and saw light coming through his windows. Then he went back to bed and was asleep almost immediately.

 

Chapter 36

 

Ron was sound asleep in bed when the phone rang. He heard it as if in a dream and then it grew louder and her sat up in bed and fumbled for it. His voice was thick with sleep. “Hello.”

“Good morning Ron,” said the crisply starched voice of Sister Irene Emanuel. “The school is closed today because of the snow. Enjoy your holiday.”

“Thank you, Sister.”

He put the phone back into its cradle and looked around the dark room. He rolled on his side and stretched up to look out the window. He could see nothing but a white sheet of snowy ice that stuck to the plane of glass in the darkness. He heard the muffled whisper of wind.  He threw the covers off and got out of bed naked. He walked into the living room of his three room apartment and went to the bay windows that looked out onto Glenwood Avenue.  The sight stopped him. Everything was buried under a blanket of snow and the wind was blowing the small flakes down in a slant that made everything look askew.

He smiled and padded back to his warm empty bed and crawled under the covers and pulled them up to his chin and closed his eyes.

Two hours later he woke up again and saw that there was light outside. The telephone was ringing again and Ron rubbed his face and reached for it. “Hello.”

He could hear breathing on the other end of the line but there was no answer. He repeated, “Hello.” Still there was no answer and he knew why. “Zoe, it’s ok. You can talk to me. It’s ok.”

Still there was nothing but silence and the breathing. He waited several minutes and then said, “If you aren’t going to speak, I’ll just hang up.”

He heard the receiver click and lay back down staring up at the ceiling. It had been this way since she left and went to Boston. Once a week, sometimes more, the phone calls. Sometimes, she actually was able to speak, but then she just began to cry and tell him how much she missed him and before he could answer, there would be that click.

They had been living together for months before he really figured out about her eating disorder. He didn’t even know what bulimia was then. But he took the approach of trying to understand and being careful not to have any food in the house. He took her out to eat every single night and stayed with her after they came home, sometimes following her trips to the bath room with his own and looking for the tell-tale smells of either vomit or air freshener. It came to a head the night that he had forgotten about a half-gallon of ice cream that Quimpy had brought over and woke up in the middle of the night to find her frying it and then pouring it into a bottle and gulping it down until she could make herself sick.

Ron closed his eyes. It was then that he told her that he would never consider having a baby with her while she was like this. After that, she talked about art school more and more. Her father had convinced her that she could not get student loans because of his income. Ron had showed her how to get around that, and then she left him to go to an art school.

Ron opened his eyes again. He didn’t want to think about her anymore. He knew that if he kept thinking about her, it would come back to him how she had fucked Quimpy, and he would get angry and feel betrayed all over again.

Ron got out of bed and dressed in warm layers. He really didn’t own a winter coat so he made up for it with two sweaters and his warmest jacket. He did have boots and wore two pairs of socks under them. His feet felt huge as he trudged through the snow to the corner luncheonette.

He never kept coffee in the house, or that much food at all.  No one had been out to shovel their sidewalks and the one black walk required him to lift his feet high and feel a bit off balance.

The sidewalk in front of the luncheonette had been cleared and the lights from inside pulsed out through the windows.  The snow blew into his face and melted on his lips and found its way into his mouth.

He stamped his feet when he entered. The counter man looked up and recognized him and nodded. “What a fuckin’ mess this is,” he said.

Ron nodded. “Half expected you guys to be closed.”

The guy pointed up the ceiling. “It’s an easy commute.”

Ron got two containers of coffee and a buttered roll. He bought a quarter of a pound of chicken roll and a quarter of Swiss, figuring that he wouldn’t be going out again anytime soon with the way that this storm looked. He trudged back out into the snow, holding one container in each hand, the roll stuffed into his shirt with the deli food tucked under his belt. The walk back was precipitous and Ron was sure that he was either going to fall or drop one of the containers. About half way back he felt the deli food slide down below his belt. “Fuck,” he growled as he felt it inch lower with each step that he took. Still more than a half-block away and already feeling the package slip down to his upper thigh.   Trying to bend his body forward gripping the coffee containers in each hand and feeling it slip lower and lower; the deli meat now just above his knee.

Ron stopped and looked around and saw no place to set the containers down so that he could adjust. He bent lower and tried to press his elbow against the escaping package. Finally trying to cradle the second container against his chest, Ron reached down and grabbed the package through his pants. The pressure of his arm was too much and the lid popped off and the coffee spilled out against his jacket. Ron watched with dismay as it gurgled out over his glove, at first very hot and then swiftly cooling. Finally he just let it drop into the snow. He watched the brown circle spread out. He clutched the package and trudged the rest of the way back to his apartment feeling defeated.

Ron ate his roll and drank his remaining coffee sitting in front of his bay windows watching the snow come down. He liked watching the spectacle. His eyes watched the cars coming slowly down the street, some carrying absurd roofs filled with mounting snow and some completely cleared. He heard the click of chains as a bus rolled passed his windows. He felt like this was time in a bubble. His work was done for his next class. His papers were all graded. He knew what he wanted to do for the next couple of weeks.

It was then that a thought flashed in his mind. “Suppose I wrote the truth.”  The idea stunned him for a moment, but it didn’t go away. Suppose he did write the truth? What difference would it make? He stared over at his typewriter and the pile of paper that rested, well stacked and empty, next to it. It was then that he saw the plow truck push the snow against his car and the other cars that were on that side of the street. The snow was icy and caked and dirty when it slid against his car and all but obliterated the sight of his wheels and parts of the front and rear fenders. “Shit!” he said aloud.

Wrapped in a scarf and with more layers of clothing on and slogging in his boots, Ron reached the car. His shovel was in the trunk so he held his arm against the top of trunk and tried to sweep the snow off. He got about halfway when the weight of it stopped his progress and ice made its way under his glove and up under his sleeve.  He lifted his arm and shook it to get the ice out and this motion sent his glove into the snow. Ron looked down at the glove with a helpless feeling. Snow was already working its way into the fingers. He bent over and picked it up with his bare hand. His fingers were already turning red.  The glove was wet and cold on his hand. This time he used his other hand to sweep and made it to the end before the ice and snow went up his other sleeve. “Motherfucker!” he said under his breath. Then he reached with his trembling and now bare fingers for his keys. He got them out and tried to insert the key into the lock. It was frozen solid. He made a fist and slapped the lock. Then he put his gloves back on and tried to punch the ice off. Both of his hands were cold and stinging and going numb and the lock wasn’t budging.

Sullenly, Ron trudged back across the street and up the stairs into the kitchen. When the ice on the underside of his boots contacted the linoleum of his lichen floor, his feet went up into the air and he came down flat on the floor. He lay there a moment in panic and checked his knees. They were ok. He exhaled a long sigh of relief and slowly got up, clinging to the side of the sink as his boots began to slide again. He bent down and took them off and hurled them at his door.

Ron ran the water until it was very hot and then filled an aluminum pot.  He knocked the ice off of his boots in the tub. He put them back on and carried the pot of hot water down the stairs but he had forgotten to use a lid and the water sloshed out over his gloved hands and down his pants leg. It burned and he opened his mouth into an oval of pain. By the time he got across the street, almost a third of the water was wasted but he thought he still had enough. He poured it on the lock and watched it steam the ice away. They key went in easily now.

Ron liked to dig and he was good at it. He bent his back into it and found a rhythm and then he was able to open the car door and get inside and start it up.  The exhaust made a black circle of soot by the tail pipe as Ron dug and listened to the car engine hum. An hour or so later, he was ready to give it a try.

He felt exaltation when the car nosed its way out onto the street. And then he backed it in again. He gathered his now very cold aluminum pot and put the shovel in the back seat and went back up to his warm apartment, feeling a sense of accomplishment. Ron piled his wet icy clothes in a corner of the kitchen, put on clean, warm, dry clothes. He sat down at his desk and rubbed his hands together and looked back out admiringly at his work, just as the snow plow came back down the street and pushed a fresh load against the side of his newly re-encased transportation.

He laughed to himself. It really was absurd. Then he sat down at his typewriter and began to write. Where to start was easy. Lashly’s class. What class? It just came out in a stream. Ron felt his hands flying over the keys and then he looked up and it was dark. How long had he been doing that? He was hungry. It was still snowing.

Ron went into the kitchen and took out the lunchmeat. He had no bread, but he did have some mayo. He rolled the chicken breast and the cheese into cylinders after coating the insides with mayo and went back into the front room to read what he had written. He was appalled. The truth was that he could not write a sentence without having at least three typos and two misspelled words. He wanted to take out his red pen and put an F on every page, but set about to correcting the errors with a dictionary opened up beside the stack of fifteen pages that he has written. When he was finished he felt sick to his stomach. Whatever made him think that he could write anything? What was the matter with him? Of course his poetry was shit. Because he didn’t know the language!

Ron ate silently and sulked, staring at the red marks that he had made like they were accusations. Then he heard a feint tapping at his door. He walked through the rooms and opened the door. No one was there, but on his mat was a small plate of macaroni and sauce. He looked down at it, both wincing and smiling at the same time. It was the old woman who lived next door to him. She was forever leaving him scraps like he was a pet. But Ron chose to see them as gifts. He never told her what he ate and what he flushed down the toilet. He always washed her dish and knocked politely on her door the next day and thanked her for being so kind to him and told her that she didn’t have to do that. She never really answered and when Ron looked at her face, he saw someone who did not understand what he had been saying. He was unsure if she was hard of hearing or did not understand English.

But this time he was hungry and without thinking about it he just ate the food. It tasted good. It was cold but tasted good.

He was just finishing when his phone began to ring.

“Ron the school will be closed until Monday. Enjoy your weekend and stay warm.”

“Thank you Sister Irene. I’ll see you on Monday.”

It was Thursday night and his bubble had just gotten much bigger. He felt a rush of freedom surge through him as he walked back through the rooms. He turned on his stereo and Bob Dylan’s voice sang “Changing of the Guard.” He cranked it up and rolled a joint. He filled a large glass with water and sat back down at the typewriter. The music was distracting him. He tuned the volume down, but still the power of Dylan’s words broke through and he found himself thinking about them as he tried to write. It was no good.  He got up and found one of his Bill Evan albums and slipped it on. No voice, no words and now the piano was helping. It could give him a rhythm that he could write to. It was like his soundtrack. It kept the thoughts arranged in his head. The side was long finished before he realized that it wasn’t playing anymore.

Ron turned the record over and then watered his plants. They were healthy and wild and they loved him back when he loved them. The music drew him back to the desk. It was Zoe’s desk. She had wanted it back. He had said that he would give it to her when she made some effort to pay back some of the money that she had borrowed from him. He had felt like an asshole doing that, but enough was enough. It’s not like she ever used the desk and of all the dozens and dozens of drawings that she had made of him, she had given him none. He wondered why she had done that. She would just have destroyed them anyway. He loved the way that he looked through her eyes. What had Julian called her? A boardwalk portrait painter. Julian was an ass. Yeah, maybe he was, but he hadn’t stolen her desk.