Chapter 15

 

On Sunday morning, he left early with Zoe and drove her up to her father’s house and then headed over to see Quimpy. The plan was that he would call her later. Zoe had said that his fire should earn him a day off, but Ron didn’t want a day off. He was yearning to be Mr. Tuck on Monday morning.

Quimpy opened his door smiling and bobbing his head. “I just finished making this guacamole and shrimp thing and we got chips and some great exotic buds to smoke.”

“Games start yet?” said Ron, not sure who was playing or what time it was.

“Just about,” said Quimpy.

Then Ron told him about the fire and what he wanted to accomplish with Zoe. He left out the feeling of the flames on his face and concentrated on the things that he had lost. Quimpy was comfortable in that territory. The living room was a jumble of street furniture and dusty antique tables and stacks of magazines and books. Ron saw that in one corner Quimpy was replaying the Fischer-Spasky matches on a board that was set up with a book about the championship. Ron looked at it but didn’t touch anything. In another corner was another desk set up with stuff on the Kennedy assassination. Quimpy had been in contact with this newspaper guy from Dallas and there were his newsletters and their exchanged letters along with a yellow legal pad of notes and books that had been written about what had gone on. Six Seconds in Dallas, next to Whitewash and Rush to Judgment and a strange book called the Rich and the Super-Rich were lying in these piles.

Quimpy noticed Ron looking and said. “Lamar Hunt, now

there’s an evil mother-fucker. Texas oil money and connected in unbelievable ways.”

Ron nodded. He didn’t know who Quimpy was talking about. The one thing that he did know was that if Quimpy thought that it was important that it probably was. It was Quimpy who had been Ron’s early mentor, before there was a Lashly and before he became Mr. Tuck. It was Quimpy who had realized that Ron was smart enough to grasp things and began to show him the music of Lightin’ Hopkins and Phil Ochs and the talking albums of Mark Twain made by Hal Holbrook.

Now Ron flopped down into a bean bag chair as Quimpy opened a small jelly jar, one of the 30 small jelly jars that he had had sealed from the best pot that they had smoked over the last few years. Ron admired Quimpy’s ability to collect and preserve things, even if wherever he lived did seem to have a musky dusty smell that spread across everything.

Midway through the first game, Quimpy stroking his beard said, “I know a studio apartment that might be available right now. It’s in Bloomfield and the guy isn’t staying there anymore. He left his wife and then got cold feet and went back to her. Everything that you need might be right there, if you can cover the monthly nut.”

Chapter 14

When Ron called Zoe, he was politely told by her mother that Zoe was not at home and that she really didn’t know when Zoe would be back from Boston. Yes, she would leave a message.  Ron took a deep breath and said, “Please tell her that I’m not going to back at my apartment.”  Then he looked around at Rahway and said, “Tell her to please leave a message for me at Laureen’s.”

Mrs. LaDue said, “I’m not sure that she’ll be home this evening.”

Ron could not help but smile at her assumption and said with a grin that almost showed through the telephone, “That’s ok. She can leave the message here anytime over the next few days.”

Then he hung the phone up on its wall cradle and walked back through the kitchen passed the very clean sink and  down the step into the living room, moving the length of the long, very large room he moved straight to Laureen’s door and knocked lightly.

“Come in,” said Laureen.

Ron pushed the door open; she was sitting in a chair that was tucked in a corner by the window. It was a low chair and covered with soft brocade of off white linen. She was reading a book that she closed when Ron came in.

“I just need a few minutes,” he said.

“Sure.”

Ron moved and sat down on her bed. He let his eyes travel around the room. It wasn’t the same color as when he and Robin lived in it and the double beds that Warren had strapped together were in his room now.

“Is it gonna freak you out if I take Warren up on his offer?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think that I’ll like living with you. You carry too much baggage of too many memories that you never let me forget, Ron.”

“I know. And me being me is not an easy thing for you.”

Laureen laughed. “That’s certainly true.”

“I’m gonna do my best to find a place quickly. I really don’t want to stay here. I’m worried about Chris and how it will make him feel.”

She laughed again. “Do you think that Chris would be worried about you if the roles were reversed?”

Ron didn’t want to answer that. The roles weren’t reversed and he knew that Chris would not take that into consideration but they weren’t the same people. He had never been Chris, could never have been Chris. “That doesn’t really matter.”

“So you are just going to spring this on Zoe?”

“We’ve talked about it.” Ron lied. There had been the short conversation that wasn’t really a conversation at all.

“She’s fragile,” said Laureen. “She is the craziest person that I know and that is really saying something. If you use her as someone to make Robin jealous, it will just tear her to pieces and if you do that, I’ll never forgive you.”

Ron looked straight into her face with his green eyes. He gave her a deep gaze that she did not meet. “We’ve all done unforgivable things,” he said.

“See, that’s what I mean, Ron. You do that to me all the time.”

“Ok,” he said “I’m being defensive. But I’m not interested in fucking Zoe or anyone else over and that includes you. We used to be friends.”

“We still are friends,” she lied.

“Do you have the number at Zoe’s sister’s house?”

“No,” she said, lying again. “But I might be able to get it.”

“I just don’t want her to keep calling my apartment and getting no answer.”

Laureen thought that after he left, she would call and give Zoe’s older sister the whole story and they could figure out how they wanted to handle this.

Ron said, “OK, listen, I’ll just try and stay out of your way and make this as painless as possible for you.”

“Where do you think you’ll live?”

“Somewhere north of here, closer to my school.  I want to be close to those kids.”

“That’s fine,” said Laureen, without any interest in which kids and which school he was talking about. She knew that he had taken a job teaching but figured it was definitely a temporary thing.

“If you get the number, leave it for me on the refrigerator.”

When he walked back through the living room, classical music was on the stereo and Warren was sitting on his couch with a couple of piles of papers and books stacked neatly on the table in front of him. It felt off balance in a way that made Ron both at ease and uneasy. That’s what Warren always did to him. He knew that he could have gone to the car and got his book bag and gotten some much needed work done, but the idea of sitting in the same room while Warren controlled the environment made him want to rebel against the control.

Warren looked up smiling and said, “Did you have a good conversation with Laureen?”

“She’s going to get a message to Zoe for me said Ron.

“I’m going into the city in just a little bit and then the place is yours. You can have either one of the back rooms.”

Ron nodded and said, “Thank you, again. I’ll be back later.” He walked out the back door and listened to the very familiar sound of the chimes as it closed and get into his car and backed out of the driveway and onto St. George’s Avenue.

He drove over to the college by a familiar route. He knew all of the approaches and on Saturday afternoon it was a clear sail. He wasn’t as sad about the apartment as he thought he would be. The truth was that he always felt half in the hall there and when his landlady had told him that she could get “a good whiff” of his pot in the side alley, he wanted to get out. He did not, however, wish to be burned out.

He wondered if the fire was inside of him still. He had stared into it. It would have hurt him; it would have eaten him if it could have. Then a strange thought occurred to him. Why hadn’t it attached to his bed linens? They were certainly flammable. Why had it spread across the top of the couch portion of his hide-a-bed without spreading down around him? Why hadn’t he been burnt?

Ron thought about whether or not he was lucky. He wasn’t lucky the way that his father was lucky, but his Dad had more skills than he had. He had earned his skills with lots of bruises. Ron had gotten what he inherited there and not done much with it, except for football.

It was the fall and Ron didn’t know anything about what the Giants were gonna do. He hadn’t followed a team in a long time. Football had grown to mean his knees and what he could no longer do. He had been as good a football player when he wasn’t hurt as anyone, well almost anyone. Maybe the game was a part of things he had lost. Maybe Robin was another part of what he had lost. Maybe Welmont was gone too, like the Kennedys and Martin King, and the Viet Nam War. Maybe at 25, he was old enough to have some things be a part of history.

Ron drove passed the college and kept going. This was also a part of history and then he found the car pointed in the direction of Westfield. Colonial Westfield with its snobbery and the history of two people who thought about the most in his life: Chris and Robin. The thought that struck Ron next was that neither one had heard from him since the fire. Robin, as it turned out, had known and had tried to help but Chris knew nothing about any of it.

Laureen was able to reach Zoe easily. First she called Barbara and filled her in. Her friend sounded worried about her sister. “Do you think that he cares for her?”

Laureen answered, “I think that he believes that he does, which is not the same thing, particularly with Ron.”

“She’s crazy about him,” said Barbara.

“Ron isn’t the artist that she is, at least I don’t think he is, but he gives off this feeling of being able to protect the people that he cares for. They might be good for each other.”

“What do you think I should do, Laureen?”

“Give them a chance. Maybe they really are in love.”

“Maybe just she’s in love and he is getting laid regularly.”

“I don’t think that’s him. I think he’d like to think that’s him but I don’t think that it is.”

Ron circled through Westfield slowly. He drove along Palsted and then over to Robert and then around through the center of town. It looked very pristine and secure. He thought about his time there and how he had never felt like anything more than a loose thread on the fringe of the piece of material that made up the fabric of this place.

Heidi answered Laureen’s call on the second ring. Her voice sounded young and filled with spirit. It made Laureen grin. “Heidi, this is Laureen, how are you?”

“I’m more than terrific, Laureen, how are you?”

“I was wondering if Zoe was there.”

“Sure, hold on.”

It took a long minute for Zoe to come to the phone. Her voice sounded strong although not as exuberant as Heidi’s voice had sounded. “Hi Laureen.”

“Zoe, Ron’s looking for your number.”

Zoe almost squealed in delight. “I’ve been trying to call him. Is he there?”

“He had a problem. He’s alright but he had this fire that burnt up his apartment.”

“He had a fire,” repeated Zoe, “but you’re sure that he’s OK?”

“He seems fine, a little worse for wear maybe but fine. Zoe, he wants to get in touch with you and he’s going to ask you to live with him.”

There was a long pause and then a small voice said, “I want to live with him.”

“Zoe, Ron’s got a lot of baggage.”

Another long pause followed by, “I want to talk with him now.”

Ron headed his car back towards Rahway. Springsteen was singing Jungleland on his radio and his thoughts drifted along the line of the music. He needed to call New York. He needed to call Zoe.

Returning to Rahway, Ron found the back door open and walked in with the sound of the jingling bells over his head. For a second he thought that it must be what a jester’s hat sounded like in a king’s court, a bit of a fool. On the refrigerator was a note that read, “Spoke with Zoe, she’ll be back tonight, she’ll call you as soon as she gets in.” Ron smiled and opened the refrigerator where the note had been tacked. Except for the crumb bun with his Mom, he could not remember the last time that he’d eaten. There was nothing that he wanted to eat in the frig and so he started brewing a pot of coffee and sat at the oval oak table and rolled joints.

With a hot mug of coffee in one hand, a joint in the other and the phone tucked under his chin, he listened to the phone ring in Chris’s apartment.

“Hello,” said Chris in a voice that seemed almost surprised that someone was calling him.

“Hey Chris, it’s Ron.”

“Hey, what’ happening?”

Ron took a dramatic breath and said, “Well, let’s see…I got burned out of my apartment late last night and it looks like I’m going to have to spend a little time in Rahway with Snake and Sheriff.”

“You got what?” said Chris.

“I had this electrical fire, Chris. It burned up almost everything.”

“Are you OK,” Chris’s voice sounded tremulous.

“Yeah, aside from being homeless, I’m fine.”

“What are you goin’ to do? I mean, do you need help?”

“As usual” said Ron, “I need lots of help, but for now. I’m going to stay in Rahway and see about getting an apartment with Zoe.”

Chris didn’t acknowledge what Ron said about Rahway. It was almost as if it didn’t register. Ron waited for him to bring it up and then saw that he wasn’t going to say anything about it. Ron loved that about Chris. It was something that he wouldn’t have been able to do.

Dragging on the joint and walking back out to his car, Ron walked the book bag back into the kitchen. Although he hadn’t checked, it felt like he was the only one there. He dusted off the bag and got some damp paper towels and tried to rub the remains of the fire off of his work. Then he opened the bag and began to prepare. A second and then a third cup of coffee and the second of the joints and he was deep into his work when he heard the announcing jingle of bells. Laureen walked into the kitchen followed by Zoe and Barbara.

Laureen said, “I see that you’re recovering nicely and making yourself at home.”

Ron didn’t answer her cause in the next seconds Zoe was in his arms and squeezing him with her body and shamelessly rubbing herself against him in front of her sister and her sister’s friend.

Watching them together, Laureen turned to Barbara and said, “Well this is obviously no time for conversation.” Then the two girls laughed as Ron and Zoe kissed and stroked and held each other, seemingly oblivious to them.

In Ron’s room, they fell onto his bed and she whispered, “It feels like forever since you held me, can you just stick it in me right now?”

Ron did and they came hard together and then they lay in each other’s arms, him feeling relieved of a tension that he hadn’t realized was building inside of him. She wondered if this was the time that he had impregnated her. “Do you want to live with me?” said Ron.

“I want to live with you and make babies with you,” answered Zoe.

Chapter 13

He drove south towards Rahway and then his brain began to start working again. How the fuck had Warren known to call the hospital? If he knew that Ron was in the hospital, why hadn’t he gone there? He thought about the message again. He could stay there if he needed to. He swung the car into right turn and headed west towards the parkway. No, he didn’t need to. He stopped for some coffee at a diner in Bloomfield and then he went to a bakery and bought some freshly baked goods. If he was going home on the crest of a wipe out, he might as well bring food.

He had a key but he felt funny about using it. It was very early and there was no way that Chipper wasn’t going to start barking. But then he had an idea and put the key gently into the lock and opened the door. Chipper padded out in the hallway and began wagging his tail frantically when he saw Ron. Then he peed on the rug as was his custom. Ron smiled and whispered, “Come here, Chip.” The dog ran to him and Ron carefully backed out of the door and sat with the dog on the porch drinking his container of coffee and looking up and down the quiet street. He looked at the newspaper that had been delivered. It was Saturday morning. That’s right. Last night he had been in the city with Chris.  He stroked Chipper’s head and whispered into her ear. “It’s good to see you, Chip. Boy is this news going to go over like the Hindenburg.” Chip perked his ears as if he understood, but continually kept sniffing at Ron’s clothes and licking his face like he was trying to make it better. When Ron heard stirring inside, he picked up the bakery bag and opened the door calling out, “Hello?”

George Bombasco walked quickly to the door, his pants undone in the front. He saw Ron and blinked. “What happened?”

“I had a fire, but I’m OK.”

“What kind of fire?”

“In my apartment. Everything is toast.

“Jesus,” said George shaking his head.

Ron held up the bag of donuts. “At least I brought breakfast,” he said.

“We’d better let your mother sleep until she wakes up. You know how she is.”

“Is it alright if I take a shower? I want to get this smell off of me.”

Then George noticed the hospital band on his wrist. “You were in the hospital?”

“They were just being careful,” said Ron. “I’m fine.”

“Do you need clean clothes?”

“I have some things in the car.”

When Ron got into the bathroom to take a shower the sight of his face startled him. His eyebrows were almost gone and the front of his hair sported frizzled clumps. His face hadn’t felt hot but it sure as hell looked red.

The water sprayed over him like he was a farmer’s crop in need of nourishment. He felt the grime of the fire and his nervousness and the long, long night wash away. This wasn’t that bad. He wanted to live with Zoë anyway and now there was the perfect opportunity. What was damaged could be replaced and it would be new and different and not have an inconvenient history attached to it. The fire had spared Aunt Dottie’s chair, he was going to be ok.

Marjorie Bombasco came out of the closed door of her bedroom slowly. Ron watched her from the kitchen table. He was drinking the coffee that George had had made and munching on a crumb bun. George had happily devoured the apple turnover that Ron always tried to remember to get for him. Marjorie had schooled him repeatedly, “Make sure that you buy an apple turnover for George. He appreciates it.”

Now, she looked at her son with a happily surprised, “Good morning, Ronald. You’re here early.”

Ron said, “I bought you jelly donuts.”

Marjorie smiled and Ron got up and poured her a cup of coffee. The sugar was on the table and he pulled the refrigerator door open and saw the half gallon of milk in the bottles that they rinsed out and returned, right where it was supposed to be. She had just bitten into the sweet fully stuffed jelly donut when Ron said, “I had a fire last night. I got burned out of my apartment. I got taken to the hospital, but I’m fine.”

A large glob of jelly plopped down onto Marjorie’s paper plate as her teeth clenched. “What kind of a thing is that to say to person when they’ve just opened their eyes,” she asked?

“If I didn’t tell you, you’d say that I was keeping things from you.”

“But at least let me open my eyes.”

“Are they open yet?” said Ron.

“Why are you such a bastard?” she said dropping the jelly donut down onto her plate. “You bring this nice surprise and then you ruin it by saying something like that.”

“Mom, I woke up n the middle of the night and there was this wall of fire a few inches from my head. I’ve been up all night. Give me a break, ok?”

She looked at him more closely and saw his hair and his face. “Nunny, I’m sorry.” She reached over and took the sides of his head into his hands. “I love you. I’m sorry.”

Ron hadn’t even flinched when she had called him the baby talk name that was kind of a pig-Latin among his aunt, his mother and him. It felt warm and good, like a crumb bun and hot coffee, sitting with his mom at the breakfast table and able to think about the world from this place of security.

He told her about all of it, except the part about the pot and almost driving to Rahway. He looked around her kitchen.  She had all the plants that he’d given her. She had learned to take care of them. Traces of Aunt Dottie were interlaced among her things. “Have you told your father?”

Ron shook his head, “I haven’t told anyone. I just came here.”

“This is always your home, Ronald.”

“I know but you and George have a life and this place is small and perfect the way that you have it set up now. You know I gotta live alone, Mom.”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t stay here until you get on your feet.”

“I don’t know, said Ron. “ I think I’m gonna get an apartment with Zoë.”

“The skinny girl with the glasses who squints all the time?”

Ron laughed and said, “Stop it.” Then he said, “I need to use the phone. I’m gonna drive down there and assess the damage in a while.”

It was almost 10 o’clock now; it was a safe time to be calling Rahway. Ron dialed the number with an automatic sense of familiarity.

“Hello,” whinnied Warren, with a voice that said he was awake and ready for the day.

“I got your message,” said Ron. “Thanks.”

“Are you ok?” asked Warren.

“Are you at home today? I’m gonna take a ride down to Elizabeth in a while and see how bad this is.”

“We’re here.”

“Maybe I’ll see you later. By the way, Warren, how did you know?”

“Robin called Laureen, very early this morning.”

Ron’s heart began beating faster. He repeated, “Robin called?”

“Yes,” drawled Lashly. “We’d like to see you here.”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “I’m sure I’m like a favorite song that you can’t wait to get back on the turntable.”

“I’ll see you when I see you,” said Warren.

Ron managed to leave his mother’s house without saying when he would be back. His mother always understood the need for business and she had plans for her day.

He rang the bell outside of his landlady’s door. He waited for a moment and then pushed the painted gold circular button again.  Her face appeared on the other side of a lace curtain with gray white hair and the lines of Ireland in their creases. She pulled her door open and smiled. The fire inspector had listed 23 violations and she was thrilled that finally the owners were going to be forced to put the building into shape. Ron’s fire had been a blessing. No one had been hurt and now everyone was aware. Her son, who was usually good for not much, had even made a useful suggestion and Ron had been taken to the hospital while they had time to make things right.

The owner’s voice sounded nervous on the phone. “Get the people that are needed to complete the work. Don’t go overboard of course, but do what needs to be done. We don’t want any problems with the fire department.”

“What about the tenant?” she’d said.

“Do you think that he’ll sue us?” said the owner accentuating the ‘us’ and making them a team against this possible threat.

“I think he just wants to get what he has left and be moving on.”

“Let’s not do anything to upset him,” said the owner.

 

Ron said, “Some night, huh?”

“How are you feeling, Mr. Tuck?”

“Lucky,” said Ron. “Nobody was hurt, right?”

“Everyone is fine,” she said reassuringly.

“I think I’d like to come by and get my things before too much longer. There’s going to be the need to fix the place up and…” his voice trailed off. “I don’t think that I can stay there anymore.”

“Take a couple of weeks if you need to,” said the landlady. This was perfect. The apartment building fixed and this pot smoking hobo out of her life.

“I’ll just come in and get things when I need them,” said Ron.

Back in his car, he set sights on Rahway. Driving down the main street that became St. George’s Avenue, he stopped at the congestion that was created by the Linden Pathmark and thought about the years of scammed meals that they had eaten from there. He smiled. He wondered where April was now. It was almost as if she had disappeared from existence, but they weren’t in college anymore and that meant that people began living their own lives in a more separate way, at least it meant that for some of them.

Ron made the left off of St. George’s and rolled into the gravel driveway, under the carport and into one of the slots in the back yard. There was only Warren’s car there. Ron never ceased to wonder how someone who had been in New Jersey for what seemed like ten years could get away with driving on North Carolina plates, but Warren did.

It didn’t surprise Ron that the back door was locked. It had never been locked when he’d lived there; it had never been locked when Chris lived there. It was symbolic of who Warren and Laureen were that it was locked now. He tapped on the glass. There was no response and so he tapped again. He fought an urge to get back into his car and just drive away, but he didn’t. Then he saw Laureen coming down the back steps and opening the door.

“Come in, Ron,” she said with a politeness that measured the distance that had grown between them.

Ron felt strange about being invited into Rahway by Laureen of all people. He had nicknamed her The Snake and had written a song about her. Chris had tried calling her The Deputy but Snake was a better fit. Ron walked passed her and went up into the kitchen. Warren was seated in his chair in front of the window at the table where they had shared so many meals. Ron felt very awkward.

“Well,” said Warren smiling, “how are you?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what to do next,” said Ron standing there.

“And what do you think that you want to do next?” said Warren.

“Well obviously, I’ll need a place to live.”

Laureen who had slid into a chair at the table between them stiffened and Ron saw her glance over at Warren.

“Yes,” said Warren, “you will need that.”

“I’m going to ask Zoe to move in with me.”

Laureen visibly relaxed. “Nothing like setting a fire under you to get your ass to do what it should have done a while ago,” she said.

“I’m not sure how she feels about it.”

“Oh she wants to,” said Laureen. “In spite of anything that her sister or I have said, the girl is quite in love with you, Ron. And you haven’t told her about Robin at all, have you?”

“Robin’s not finished with him yet,” said Warren.

“Oh Warren, just shut up when you don’t know what you’re talking about. Robin is more than finished with him.”

Ron sat there listening to them and then Warren smiled in a slow grinning way. “You are welcome to stay here until you find a place.”

“Zoe knows,” said Ron. “How could she not know? You and her sister showed her every poem that I wrote about Robin.”

Laureen laughed. “And we can all see what a lot of good that did.”

Ron said, “It’s nice to know that I can stay here, Warren. Now if the two of you could just tell me how I explain that to Chris.”

It seemed to Ron that they both winced simultaneously at the mention of Chris’s name. It held a power that neither one was truly able to deal with.”

“I can see it now,” continued Ron. “Hey Chris, how are ya? I had a fire and have no place to live so I’m gonna stay with Warren and Laureen until I get myself re-situated. Yup, he’ll understand that.”

“Chris knows that ultimately what I did saved his career and quite possibly his life,” said Warren.

“Ya think he sees it that way huh, Warren?”

“I’m not ready to have this conversation,” said Laureen. She got up and walked back into her room.

Warren looked Ron straight in the eyes and said, “Do you think that I don’t care for him? Do you think that it was easy doing what I had to do?”

“I think that I need a place to stay and that I’m in a bit of trouble and that it’s a good thing for me that you are willing to help out. I think that it’s gonna tear Chris up and that there is no way that he’s not going to see it as a betrayal. But thank you. It’s a kind offer. Please understand that I have to figure out how I’m going to explain it to my friend that his one time partner and one time lover want me to live in the place that they drove him out of.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Last night,” said Ron. “I saw him last night.” He sat in complete wonderment at how fast things had changed in his life. Then he said, “I’m going to try to get in touch with Zoe.” Ron stopped. “I know that I sound ungrateful and I don’t mean it to come out that way, Warren. Truly, thank you for the offer.”

Warren smiled. “It’s my delight.”

 

Chapter 12

 

Ron fell asleep quickly. He remembered thinking that he wished that Zoe was there to sleep alongside of him and then he didn’t remember anything at all. From somewhere inside of a dream he felt heat, very hot on his face, on his hair and it pulled him awake. He lifted his head and stared into a very real wall of fire that was crackling and dancing with devouring merriment.

Jumping up quickly he stared at it, was transfixed by it. The flames were climbing up the side of his wall. A calm came over him as he pulled himself into his jeans and made sure that his pot tray was tucked away in the drawer under the writing table that doubled as his eating table. Then he opened the door and ran down the hallway to the fire extinguisher. Turning it upside down as he knew you were supposed to do, he took hold of the hose and nozzle. When he got back to the apartment the entire back of the hide- a-bed was engulfed and he pointed the extinguisher at the conflagration and then nothing happened. The god damned thing was empty. He shook it and cursed and dropped it on the floor and ran into the hallway screaming “Fire!” He screamed as loud as he could scream. It was only then that he realized that he’d been choking. He tried to clear his voice and screamed again, “Fire!”

Ron heard doors begin to open and people coming into the hall and he ran back into the apartment and dragged his Aunt’s Dottie’s chair as far away from the flames as he could. He tried to fill something with water; anything that he could throw on the flames that were eating everything around him. He saw the paint on the dresser that he’d had since he was a little boy begin to blister and peel away. His feet were bare and now the floor seemed very hot. The water that he flung at it did nothing. It disappeared into the flame and belched out one quick thick puff of black smoke.

He could hear people around him now and someone said, “Get him out of there,” and another voice screamed, “Get out into the street.” Ron was dazed but he kept filling this bowl with water and flinging it at the fire. His lamp shade went up in a brightly lit crackle that surrounded it and then seemed to engulf it and then it wasn’t there anymore.

Ron was dazed and staggering around what was once his apartment and then hands were on his shoulders and he was being moved and large men in hats and rubber coats were moving passed him and there was a burst of white powder everywhere in the apartment and he was being carried out into the hall and down the steps into the street.  He stood there transfixed at the sight of the truck and the people coming out of the other buildings. More and more firemen were arriving now and they ran passed him and through the double glass and wrought iron doors and up the few steps and down the hall. Ron watched them pass like shadows. No one was talking to him, but people were staring at him.

Two firemen wearing heavy gloves and coats carried the smoking remains of his hide-a-bed out the front door and dropped it on the small lawn in front of the building. People gathered around to stare at it. Then he saw his landlady and she looked scared and even more horrified when she saw Ron. “Are you hurt?”

Ron stared back at her. “I don’t know what happened. I was sleeping”

“I think he’s in shock,” said the landlady’s son.

Ron looked over at his couch and wondered if he could sleep on the floor of his apartment for the rest of the night. It seemed like only a few moments later when the firemen came out and said that people could go back inside. Maybe it had been longer than a few moments. Ron started to walk back inside with the rest of the occupants of the rather large apartment house.

Men were milling around in his studio. Ron wondered if they’d found his pot and whether he was going to be arrested.  He walked up to one of the men and said in a voice that was very strangely soft and raspy and thick, “Will I be able to sleep here tonight?”

The men looked at Ron with disbelieving eyes. Ron looked past them and saw that everything that he owned in his life was covered with white powder; his records, his books, his papers, his furniture, except for Aunt Dotty’s chair that he had somehow managed to drag into the bathroom. Had he dragged it in there? Had someone else realized the value of it and dragged it in there for him. Ron looked for someone to thank.

His landlady was standing in front of him now. “What did you do to cause this?” she demanded.

Ron just repeated, “I was asleep.”

One of the fireman said, “It wasn’t the kid’s fault. Look over here.”

The three of them walked towards what had been his wall and the man pointed at the black char, the flash point spidery web that spread out from the electric socket on his wall. “What did you have plugged in there? said the landlady.

“My radio, I think, and my alarm clock,” said Ron.

The radio was a melted mass of plastic on the floor and one of the firemen kicked at it. The alarm was nowhere to be found. There were two gaping holes in the wall where someone had taken an axe to it. Ron stared at the slashes and felt wounded.

 

It was the middle of the night in Minneapolis when Robin’s phone began to ring. She answered on the third volley with a sleepy hello.

“Robin, this is your father.”

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” There was instant concern and anticipation in the timbre of her voice.

“Your boyfriend’s had a fire.”

Robin looked over confusedly at Richard, who snoring softly next to her in bed. “Who?”

“Robin, Ron was burned out of his apartment tonight. You know that he lives on my street now and that he took that apartment just a block from where you used to live on Cherry Street. I think they took him to the hospital.”

Robin’s voice was filled with fear. She said accusingly, “Didn’t you do anything to help him?”

“I tried to talk to him Robin. His eyebrows were singed and his face was very red and I could smell burning hair on him.”

“Oh God, Daddy is he OK?”

“I think that they took him to the hospital Robin. He was very dazed. I don’t think that he was burned badly but he kept apologizing to everyone in the street and saying that he was sorry for disturbing their night.”

“OK, Daddy thanks for calling and letting me know. I’ll take care of it.”

“I didn’t know whether I should tell you or not. The two of you are hard to figure with each other.”

“It was good that you called.”

Robin put down the phone. Her hands were shaking. Leni looked back out her from her shadows in the corner and gave her a plaintiff “meow.” She shook her head and picked the phone up again, wondering if she would ever look at that damn cat without thinking of him. She dialed the number from memory.

Laureen answered on the fourth ring like she was wide awake even though it was almost 4am. “Hello?”

“Laureen, its Robin.”

Laureen felt herself brighten into a nervous laugh. Ron’s not living here anymore, Robin. He hasn’t lived here in two years.”

“I know,” said Robin with a patient cool in her voice. “And I know that it’s very late and I’m sorry to call so late but Ron was burned out of his apartment tonight. I think that they took him to the hospital.”

“Did he call you?” said Laureen with a touch of amusement in her voice.

Then Robin outflanked her as she was invariably able to do. She never dealt with Laureen from anything but a position of strength. They were too much alike. “My father lives on the street. He saw Ron and tried to talk with him. Ron didn’t know who he was and he was burned. I can’t call his mother, but if you or Warren could help him.” Then she didn’t say anything.

“Do you know which hospital they took him to?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’ll see what Warren wants to do.”

“I’m sure that you will,” said Robin.

Laureen walked back through the kitchen and through the middle room that was now equipped with a dining room table and chairs and paintings. She went to the bathroom, had a pee and straightened her hair and then she knocked on Warren’s door.

Warren answered with a, “Hang on just a moment and then he got up and moved to the door. He was wearing a t-shirt and jockeys. Laureen looked down and then up at his face. “Robin just called. It seems that Ron had a fire down in Elizabeth and that he was taken to the hospital.”

“How bad was it?”

“She didn’t know. Her father is one of Ron’s neighbors. He called her. She wants to know if we can do anything to help.”

“Alright, give me a moment.”

“Warren, he can’t live here. I’ll leave if you move him in.”

“That’s not why she called,” said Warren.

 

After the doctor looked Ron over and they took his blood pressure and gave him a breathing test and inspected his body for burns, they released him. Ron felt himself moving from somewhere deep inside of him, but all he could see was that wall of flame in front of his eyes and the way the fire danced, like something that he was in love with, something that wanted to hurt him.

Warren called Elizabeth General and tried to get some information. Yes, there had been a Ron Tuck, who had been in a fire. No they had no information about whether he had been admitted. Yes, he might still be in the emergency room, but he might not be. It was a busy night. Yes, they would see if someone could get a message to him but they could not promise anything. Warren said, “Tell him that Warren Lashly called and that he’s welcome to come here if he needs to.”

Ron got the message as he was walking out the door of the emergency room. He was wearing a white bracelet with his name printed on it. There was a band-aid on his hand from where they had put the heparin lock and where they had pumped a bag of fluid into him. He got into the first of a line of 3 cabs in front of the hospital and sent the driver back to Cherry Street. The sun was just coming up when he got out and paid the driver and looked around for his car. He felt for his keys reassuringly. He thought that he remembered that it was the weekend. He wanted to take a shower. He wanted to change his clothes, but he had no clothes to change into and he had no place to take the shower.

He walked over and stood in front of his building staring at the remains of his couch and saw that his rug was in a pile next to it along with his melted radio. Someone had taken a knife to the couch and exposed the stuffing to the air. He could smell the fire. He could see the fire. He could feel it still on him.

He walked over to his car and got in and thought about driving towards Rahway. He hadn’t wanted to go there. The last thing that he wanted was to be broken at Rahway again. It was too early to drive up to his mother’s house and he wasn’t ready for her to be angry with him for having had a fire and demanding that he come back there and live. Then a thought hit him. He didn’t have his book bag. A feeling of panic swept over him. Then the next thought. Why couldn’t he go back to his apartment and get the things that he needed? What was going to stop him? He got out of the car and walked up through the double doors.

The quiet of the building was thick with the smell of something stronger than a burnt dinner. It didn’t smell like charred food. It smelled like catastrophe. His door wasn’t locked. When Ron pushed it, the door squeaked on its swollen hinges. Ron saw that it was wavy on the inside. Things were strewn everywhere on the floor in the center of the room where his couch used to be. And there was the smothering white powder on everything. Ron’s eyes searched until he saw his book bag and he smiled for the first time since he didn’t know when. It was slid under the coffee table over by the window under the fan that had been pushed out of the window and was lying in the side alley. He picked the bag and shook it just once the way that he always shook it. He smiled again. He was feeling a little better. He went to his dresser. His mood swung hard in the other direction when he saw it. It was the only dresser that he had ever owned. It was part of the set that was in his room in Newark when he was a small boy and slept on one of the twin beds, his great- grandmother in the other. The beds were long gone and the chest of drawers was up in the garage in Glen Ridge, but he had loved this dresser. He found a roll of plastic trash bags under his sink and stuffed handfuls of clothes into them. He went over to his writing desk and held his breath and opened the drawer under the white powder covered material. It was there. He emptied the tray into the baggie and stuffed it into his pants and then, without looking back he walked out dragging the plastic bag stuffed with smoky clothes in one hand and holding his schoolbag in the other.

Chapter 11

 

The next day Ron was invited to the principal’s office. Sister Irene was in back of her desk. There was a large arrangement of cut flowers underneath the picture of the Blessed Virgin. Off to the left and directly over her desk was a crucifix. “Things seem to be going rather well for you, Mr. Tuck, but we have to talk about some things.”

“Yes Sister.”

“First of all the girls are very excited to have you here and I’ve already had two calls from parents asking about who you were.”

Ron stiffened. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “It must be a tad difficult for a man like you being here with us, Mr. Tuck. These girls are very young and sometimes very obvious in their interests.”

“I like them very much, Sister and it’s not at all difficult. I know my place.”

The nun smiled. That was exactly what she was worried about and she liked that he was bright enough to anticipate what could have been a tense conversation.

“I came from around here, Sister, and these kids deserve someone who is willing to see them as what they are.

“And what is it that you see them as, Mr. Tuck?”

“Young girls who could benefit from learning the language, Sister.”

The nun smiled and came around from behind her desk. “We’d like to have you over for dinner next Wednesday. Do you think that you can make it?”

“I’d like that very much, Sister.”

“Good, then we’ll expect at six o’clock. We’ll be back from prayers by then. Enjoy your day, Mr. Tuck.”

And Ron did enjoy the day. The pattern of his classes was a constant in his life now. Whenever he had nothing to do, he had preparation for the next class and papers to grade and pieces to read again with an eye towards what he would say to them the next day or the day after that. Twice a day, he dutifully went to the coffee shop and got his coffee. He didn’t sit on the fire escape and drink it and smoke the way that he had done on the first day or two. Now, he took it back to his car and sat there with a stack of papers, the front seat rolled back, his watch placed on the dashboard so that he didn’t lose track of time. Each story or each fragment of a larger piece of literature that he read was seen with a new eye, in a new light. He wasn’t seeing them for himself as much anymore as he was studying them for his students.  He found that his thoughts went deeper into the ideas. He saw not only what the ideas were but what the ideas were meant to do. It was an entirely new way of looking at what he read that he’d never experienced before. What would his classes think of this? How could he structure something to attach it to an earlier idea? When should he say this? He didn’t take notes, he absorbed what he read. He felt himself wrapping around it and internalizing it. It grew inside of him and became part of how he looked at everything. The stranger thing was that it didn’t only happen with literature, it happened with everything he saw and everyone he saw.

When he wasn’t teaching or preparing he was with Zoe and that was magical. He never told her that he’d heard from Robin. In fact, he told himself that he had not heard from Robin and made the lie stick, although it didn’t stick too deeply. He was unable to do that. If he saw the truth of something a certain way, he didn’t seem to have the ability to consciously lie to himself. He couldn’t lie to himself. It had always been a problem and he knew that he’d gotten it from his mother

She had been told so many lies as a child that she had taught him and re-taught him the value of truth. She seemed far away now. Although she was always just a telephone call away, or a short drive away. If he needed her, or more possibly if she needed him, he could be there.

He’d gone to see Quimpy’s office and had been duly impressed by its size and the wonderment that Quimpy actually had a secretary. It would take about two weeks to process his forms and put his name in front of the board of education. Ron didn’t understand any of that but Quimpy had said that it was all bullshit and not to worry about it. They had agreed to get together for the games that Sunday.

Zoe was going to visit her youngest sister up in Boston and Ron was alone on Friday afternoon. His phone rang.

“Hello, Ron,” said Chris.

“Chris, how are you doing?”

“I’m getting blasted with the law round the clock. It’s like the Sheriff’s revenge.” Ron laughed hard and genuine. “Anyway, what I was thinking was that if you weren’t doing anything tonight that you could drive in and we could get some dinner and maybe play guitars.”

“I’d love to do that,” said Ron quickly. “I’m on my way in.”

“See ya then,” said Chris.

The drive into the lower east side on a Friday afternoon was a nightmare. Ron fought his way down to the parkway and then up to Route 82.  That would take him to the tunnel. The skyway was a stinking crawl. It was a warm afternoon and the industrial combination of smells rose like an uncomfortable tweed suit that assaulted his nostrils and would not let them go. The cars rolled and then stopped for no apparent reason. They sat idling and then would roll forward less distance than he hoped that they would. Ron had brought some joints with him but he refused to light one. Everyone that he knew that smoked in their cars got busted. He’d seen it after Hank, who had been so careful about the way that they smoked in the car and where they smoked in the car, got popped. Even Chris had been popped. Joseph had been popped. Ron was not about to get busted. He had learned a long time ago when and how to pull back so that didn’t happen. It was only with Chris that he stretched those limits.

The tunnel squirted him onto the streets like he was ejaculate. He moved around a circle in a tight speeding line of other cars that moved around the circle, and then he saw the street and turned and he was on Broome Street and he careened his way across town, wincing at every pot hole and uneven street over which he rolled and bounced.

East 6^th, between Avenues A and B, was humming. Windows were up and some people were cooking their dinner on the fire escapes so as not to heat up the small kitchens. Ron parked, grabbed his guitar from the trunk and walked down the street feeling very cool but scared at the idea that someone might actually think that he could play and ask him to play. He remembered the looks on faces when he played his guitar for them, how people would just start to talk to each other by the third verse of some of his songs. The idea made him wince and grip the guitar case handle tighter.

Ron was never sure how many flights he had to walk up to get to Chris’s apartment. He only  knew that it was the landing after the strong smell of gas that always gave him the feeling that the building was unsafe. He could hear Chris’s stereo as he turned the corner for the last half flight. The door was slightly ajar but Ron knocked anyway. “Hello?”

Chris called out. “Come on in.”

He was on his knees in a small living room that had large windows that faced the south.  There were rugs, a thick oriental rug on the floor and wall hangings and pictures that reminded him of Rahway. Chris put down the guitar that he had been playing along with to the stereo and reached in back of him for a large pasta bowel that was filed with pot, along with various seeds and stems. He had a playing card and was sifting through the shake and ridding it of seeds and twigs.

Ron reached into his pocket and dropped his contribution of three joints into the bowel. He put his guitar case down and sat cross legged across from Chris, who looked somehow thinner than Ron had remembered him and focused in a different way that Ron had seen him before. On the other side of a large pillow that was on the window side of Chris there was a stack of law books and notebooks.

Ron said, “How’s school?”

“It’s almost over now, but then it’s the fucking bar exam.” Chris shook his head with amazement at the thought. The fucking bar exam where it mattered how many people took it at one sitting as much as it mattered what they wrote.

Chris handed Ron the bowel and lifted up from his knees in a fluid unfolding. “Listen to this.” He went to the stereo that was mounted halfway up one of the floor to ceiling book shelves that were filled with books and records and piles of papers.  Ron lit one of the pre- rolled joints that he’d wanted so much when he was stuck in traffic. Chris was careful with the needle and got it down into the perfect hissing silence between the tracks.

“One soft infested summer me and Terry became friends, trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in”

It was Springsteen and his voiced hissed and wailed and glistened with hope, disappointment, strength, the past and the present all at once. They smoked the joint. And then they smoked another. Chris turned off the stereo and picked up his guitar and began to play it softly. He was playing blues and the single notes slid out of the sound hole and teased Ron’s imagination.

“Do you ever think about Rahway, Chris?”

Chris looked down at the guitar, not making eye contact with Ron. There was a pause and then Chris said, “Have you ever been to Zabars?”

Out on the street Ron and Chris set a good pace as they moved east up 6th street and then they turned south and went into a delicatessen. Ron realized that he’d been hungry. Chris just wanted to buy cake or donuts, but they each ordered a sandwich and walked back to the apartment. The opened things up on the floor of the living room and Chris said, “I try not to think about it because it just makes me feel bad and I want to have something other than feeling bad connected with my memories of the place. It’s just Sheriff’s place now and it will never be anything else than that while he’s there.”

Ron took his guitar out and they began to play and the night got a bit cooler and the sounds from the street turned into night time sounds. There was a siren and there was a radio and there were the sounds of people speaking different languages and hollering their greetings. Ron thought about how much it reminded him of Newark, not that New York City was like Newark but that this part of it was.

In the middle of one of their songs a mouse dropped down from the chimney and ran frantically surprised along the wall and into Chris’s kitchen. Chris laughed. Ron had jumped when he’d seen the rodent but Chris went looking for it with a cardboard box and was talking softly as if he could lure it out and make it come to him and then Ron heard the box slam down and Chris exclaimed, “Ah, now I got you.” Then he carried the box down the four flights of stairs and let the mouse out. When he came back he said, “I suppose that isn’t the smartest approach but I didn’t feel like killing it.” They settled back into their play with the guitars and in just under an hour another mouse or perhaps the same mouse dropped down the chimney and Chris laughed very hard and said, “That’s what I get for not killing it when I could.”

Ron tried to tell Chris about Zoe and about his students. And Chris tried to listen, Ron noticed that he didn’t have any questions and that it seemed as if he was just waiting for Ron to finish what he was saying.  Finally Ron asked, “Are you seeing anybody?”

“Just law books and mice,” said Chris.

It was very late when he drove home and it was a clear sail over the same streets that had been so congested when he’d come in. Chris’s apartment seemed larger and somewhat more private than his one room studio. He did have a real bathroom and Chris’s apartment only had this alcove with a box and pull chain.  Chris had a stall shower in the middle of the kitchen, but at least there was no limit on sound and Ron was sure that there was no landlady keeping tabs on what Chris was doing or not doing. It was always that way when you wanted real privacy. You had to sacrifice a certain amount of comfort in order to get it.