Chapter 41
“Motif is a literary term that means,” Ron turned to write on the chalkboard as he spoke, “a repeating theme or image that gathers significance as it is repeated.” He wasn’t sure that was the dictionary definition but he knew that it wasn’t far from being the truth. “Shakespeare uses lots of motifs in Macbeth. One is clothing. The way that people’s clothes are described as fitting them and the way that people’s lives are described with images of clothing is one of the motifs. Mac says, ‘Why do you dress in borrowed robes?’ when the witches first call him the Thane of Cawdor. Now what are some of the motifs that use clothing that we use today?”
Connie raised her hand. Smiling she said, “That girl dresses like a slut.”
The girls laughed their nervous laughter when one of them made a reference to sex. Ron stopped as if he had been frozen by the comment. “Now that’s not exactly what I had in mind.” The girls laughed again.
Barbra raised her hand. “Is it like when we call the nuns penguins?”
She said it in a hushed voice and the class was quiet after she said it.
Ron smiled a big grin. “That’s it exactly! Now that image is considered a bit insulting, but that is exactly what I am talking about. What do we learn about people from their clothes?”
Immelda said, “Whether or not they have any taste.”
The girls were in a comfort zone again and laughed merrily.
“Whether or not they have money,” said Barbara.
“Sometimes,” said Ron, “but people make lots of mistakes by judging others based on their clothes, don’t they?”
The girls nodded but Ron knew that they didn’t believe him. He knew that they judged everyone by the appearance that person made, maybe more than any one single thing.
Connie had a devilish look on her face. “What about the way that you dress, Mr. Tuck?”
Ron paused dramatically. He stood close to the girl’s desk and said with feigned sternness that they knew by now was not actually real, “And what about the way that I dress?”
More giggles.
Connie was silent as if his nearness had taken away her courage but Immelda, who Ron had cast as the traitor, said. “It is kind of corny.” Then she added quickly. “I’m not saying that you are corny, Mr. Tuck but the way that you dress is.”
Ron smiled. “And what is so corny about it?”
Carmella said. “A pale green leisure suit, Mr. Tuck. Are you really asking us what is corny about that?”
The girls cracked up. They laughed really hard and Ron laughed with them. Then he said, “Well Carmella, the truth is that I didn’t have anything to really wear when I got this job. I spent my life living in jeans t-shirts and work shirts. So when I got hired here, my stepfather gave me some clothes.” Then he repeated. “Borrowed robes. What does that mean?”
Connie said, “What do you call it… hand downs.”
“The phrase is hand-me-downs and that is exactly right. So what does it mean?”
Connie said, “Is Mac insulted because he thinks that they are saying that he is poor?”
“Not exactly,” said Ron, “but you’re on the right track.”
Then Barbara’s face lit up. Without raising her hand she said, “Why are you saying that I’m something that I am not.”
“Perfect!” exclaimed Ron and he smiled triumphantly at the girl.
Barbara continued, “Cause you aren’t corny even if you look like you are.” And then everyone, including Ron, laughed too.
That afternoon Ron drove up to meet James Devin. He was a tall kid and very pale. His hair was dark and curly and piled up on his head. He answered the door promptly and called up to his mother saying that the tutor was here. She answered with an OK, but Ron was a bit surprised that she didn’t come downstairs to meet him. He made a mental note to stop upstairs and say good-bye to her unless she came down during the lesson. For some reason, Ron expected him to be disheveled but his shirt was neatly pressed and so were his jeans. They even had creases. Then Ron looked down and saw that James was wearing purple flip-flops and that his toenails were painted black. He made a mental note. It was the kind of detail that Charlie would want to know.
The young man’s voice was very soft. He caught Ron up on where he was in each of his classes and slowly Ron reviewed each of the assignments that the teachers had provided. He was annoyed when James told him twice that he had already done the assignment that had been given to Ron.
“We did that before I stopped attending,” James said in a voice that Ron thought seemed dignified.
“OK,” said Ron. “I’ll work on getting you new assignments but in the meantime do this.” Ron looked ahead in both the history and English books and assigned the next story or chapter along with the study guide questions that accompanied it. It was a boring approach and Ron knew it, but it was also what the teachers wanted to see. Ron had the feeling that it was also what they did in their classes. He knew that when he talked to the kid about the chapters or stories that it was then that there might be an opportunity for some learning to take place.
About forty-five minutes into the review of where James was with his studies, Mrs. Devin came down the stairs. She was shockingly pretty. Ron smiled and stood up but James just sat back and seemed to shrink.
“I’m Sheila Devin,” she said extending her hand.
Ron took her hand and found it warm and dry and soft. He introduced himself. And they both remained standing while Ron reviewed the rules of Home Instruction. She nodded from time to time and said that there would be no problem for her to be home for each of his visits. Ron scheduled him for two days during the week and a Saturday appointment. James seemed to grow smaller and smaller as the conversation continued. When Mrs. Devin left, James had actually brought his knees up to his chest and turned on his side facing away from Ron. One flip-flop was dangling off the end of his foot. He did not respond to Ron’s first question.
Finally he said in a voice that was barely audible, “Did they tell you why I am at home?”
“They told me that you had trouble leaving the house.”
“That’s a joke,” said the boy.
“What do you mean?”
“I never leave the house. I never leave the basement.”
“You will,” said Ron.
“Sure,” said James. “I will.”
Ron tried to turn the conversation back to history but James didn’t respond. Ron said, “Why don’t we call it a day. You have plenty of work to do.”
“Will you come back or am I too much of a freak?”
“I don’t think you’re a freak at all,” said Ron.
“Yeah, right,” said James his voice trailing off.
He did not get up to see Ron out the door.
When Ron drove back to his house, he checked his mailbox as he normally did. He was surprised to see that he had mail. Usually when his checks came from tutoring, he knew to be expecting them, but he had just gotten that check last week. This was a postcard and Ron was half expecting that it was some advertisement until he recognized the handwriting on the other side.
Ron,
I won’t be coming to visit. I have decided to move in with Keith. Good luck.
Robin
He turned the card back over to the front and saw that it was a picture of the Guthrie Theater. He turned it to the back and reread it. He walked up his stairs heavily and found a small plate in front of his door with four cookies that were wrapped in a napkin . He opened the door and went in and threw the cookies and the postcard into the garbage.
He walked into the front room and then walked back out to the kitchen. He just couldn’t face being alone in the apartment right then. He dropped the book-bag that was still slung over his shoulder onto his kitchen table, locked his door and went back down the stairs.
He turned on his car and began to drive not sure where he was going. Then he was on the Parkway and heading south. At first he thought that he was going to drive to Rahway, but quickly he knew that was a silly idea. He thought about how he developed an attachment to people and places and how once the people were gone, he revisited the places hoping for the same feeling to still be there. He found that it was people and place and time and when all three did not come together, then it was different.
He got off the parkway at Elizabeth and drove down to Cherry Street where he and Robin had lived in their last apartment in New Jersey together. His car rolled passed the place slowly and he looked and saw a weird familiarity combined with an emptiness that reassured him of his earlier thoughts: people and places and time. Now the place just had ghosts. The car continued down the street and went passed his old apartment. An image of the fire sprang up in back of his eyes and seemed to be calling to him. He continued down the street and turned off onto a main street and realized why he had come here.
The French Maid was a go-go bar. Ron had not been able to afford to go to it when he lived in Elizabeth but now he had extra money from tutoring and he could not remember the last time that he had been with a girl. He wanted to sit in the dark with some wine and stare at them gyrating on the stage and imagine that they were twisting and wiggling for him as he listened to the loud bar songs.
He walked into the club and the music almost blew him back out the door. It blared painfully loud. The room was filled with a haze of smoke and spotlights burned down on the rectangular stage. There was a pole on each end of the stage and 3 girls wearing G-strings and tiny bras were twisting and turning to the incredibly loud sound. Ron slid into bar chair and almost immediately a barmaid in French Maid t-shirt was in front of him putting down a cocktail napkin. She was chewing gum and had short dark hair.
“What can I get you, honey?”
“Some white wine please,” said Ron.
She was gone in a wink and back with a large tumbler that was filled to the brim with white wine. Ron laid a twenty dollar bill down on the bar and it too disappeared almost before it hit the wood. When she returned with his change it was all in single dollars.
Ron sipped and sat back to watch. Slowly his eyes and ears adjusted. He drank from the glass again. One of the dancers was in front of him and shimmying her hips back and forth and smiling down at him. Ron watched her and grinned back. She stayed on the ends of his eyes for about ten seconds and then she strutted away proudly and took up position in front of another guy. Ron watched as the guy stared at her and then saw the man take a dollar bill and hold it out. The dancer sat on the bar floor and then hopped down and held her breasts out to the dollar bill. The guy slipped it between them and the girl squeezed them closed on it and then hopped back up on the stage. Ron thought, so that’s how it’s done. The girl stood in front of the man who had given her the dollar and then turned and bent over and looked at him from between her spread legs. She waved to the guy and then moved away, strutting and moving her eyes down the bar. As Ron watched, he saw a pattern develop. Two of the girls would dance against the poles and on the stage but the 3rd girl would walk along the bar and deftly pull the skimpy bra to the sides revealing her nipples to the men who would then slide the bill towards her. She would clasp it in her fingers and then squeeze her breasts alongside them as she moved on to the next man. A girl could get called down for a tip, but then she went right back up on stage until it was her turn in the rotation to work the bar. Not every guy would tip her and as she moved along the bar she would smile and wiggle and watch to see if the man’s hand moved towards his money. If it did not she would toss her head to the side like she was discarding him and move to the next patron.
The bar walk signaled the end of her set and then she would disappear and a new girl would come out and begin to work a pole walk the stage and one of the other girls would come down from the stage and begin to work the bar. It was continuous.
Ron waited nervously as he saw the girl coming to his side of the bar and beginning to make her way from one stack of bills to the other. He reached out dutifully and folded his bill lengthwise and when the redhead was in front of him and standing straight and wiggling her shoulders and making her breasts shake back and forth, he extended his arm. The bill projected out from his fingers and poked her in the chest as she leaned towards him. She clasped and smiled for him. He had been awkward and didn’t get a chance to feel her smooth breasts slide along his fingers. He would do better next time. The hour went by in a comfortable haze of light and sound and wine.