Chapter 91
Dr. Reed’s office was a standard shrink’s room. There was no couch but there were big easy chairs. The doctor sat in back of his desk and secretly taped all of his sessions for later analysis and to have a complete record of what was actually said. The silver pen with which he took notes was only meant to give him prompts and actually he sometimes simply recorded the exact time that something was said so that he could access it later.
Ron didn’t tell him that this was far from the first psychiatrist’s office that he had been in. That would mean telling him about Marjorie and her agoraphobia and her emotional fragility. Ron was definitely not going to do that. But he could not help but compare this place to the other offices. This one was much more lavish than the clinic at Presbyterian Hospital had been. That one had wooden chairs and overhead lights. Here the lighting was indirect and soft. Ron wondered why their offices were not bright and cheerful. They always had a somber look and he always felt sleepy after having to be in them.
“Have you had any episodes this week?”
“Not really,” said Ron. He didn’t tell Reed about the two that he faked. He found that if he said that he felt like he was losing control, they left him alone and got worried looks on their faces. At least he had some control now.
“Are you ready to go back to school?”
“No.”
“You have to go back to school at some point Ron and I’m concerned that you are falling further behind. And that will only increase your stress.”
“When I go back to school, they’ll be angry that I was gone so long. Then they’ll hit me.”
“Maybe you should go to a different school.”
All of a sudden Ron felt very nervous and scared. “That would make everybody really mad at me.”
“Do they know that you are hit at school?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you tell them?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because my father taught me that if I got in trouble in school and came home and said anything that I would be in trouble there too.”
“Do you think that is a good lesson?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know.” Ron knew why. It was a good lesson because it came from his father and, secretly, he cherished everything that came from his father.
“Ronnie, it’s important that you value your therapy.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“Your mother says that she is only able to pay ten dollars an hour for your sessions.”
Ron shifted in his chair and didn’t understand and then it occurred to him. His father had taught him what a shakedown was. He didn’t say anything. There was a long moment of silence. Ron stared into Dr. Reed’s eyes and they were blinking like the ticking of a clock.
“I think that it would be good for you to contribute to your therapy.”
“Really? Don’t you think I might be better off in a clinic? You know, where they help you for free.”
“Well that would be a choice for your mother and for you.”
“Ya know, I really don’t like you very much.”
“Why is that Ronald?”
“You’re greedy.”
“I place a value on what we accomplish here and I want you to feel that sense of value.”
“Yeah.”
“I think it’s time for you to go back to school Ronald.”
“Sure.”
Chapter 92
Ron was able to walk without the immobilizer by the end of that week. Their game was against Passaic. They had a running back who was destined for at least Division 1, if not the NFL. Their coach kept it simple. There were ten plays to the right and the same ten plays to the left. A stop us if you can philosophy. Steve wanted Ron on the sidelines, and sent Paul upstairs. They ran the right plays but the guard, Vinny Farbritsio, came to Ron and said, “Coach, I pulled out and ran hard and I hit him as hard as I could and he just didn’t go down.”
Vinny weighed 165. The player that he was blocking weighed 220. They were both agile. Ron looked over at Artie. “We just can’t block it.”
Artie rubbed his face and said, “Tell him to go lower.”
Vinny should have been reporting back directly to Artie, but Ron was his English teacher and his coach. He just gravitated to him and Artie was OK with it. Ron was a maniac and Artie could respect that.
Ron said, “Let’s run the trap again,” into his headset, where Paul and Steve could hear it.
“They stuff it,” said Paul.
“We’re going low,” said Ron.
Steve growled, “Run it. Let’s see if we can do anything right.”
Artie held Vinny by the facemask before he sent him back in with the play. “Go low, he’s bigger, but you can get low on him.”
Vinny nodded bravely.
The block on Caesar McElroy flipped him into the air and play ran for six yards. Vinny’s nose was bleeding but he was smiling. Steve faked the dive and the sideline pass was open and there was connection. Rufus McElroy slammed hard into the pass receiver and the ball popped out.
Players dove. The ball squirmed like a hot worm. The coaches held their breath. Caesar McElroy’s large hand were on it as Vinny rammed his helmet into McElroy’s balls. The ball squirted into the air again. Ron could almost touch it, as it rolled out of bounds.
They lost 14-7. The coaches had never been more proud of their outmanned team. Everyone was drained and, while not happy, they had avoided embarrassment.
Steve said, “Well, boys, that was like watching a man playing against children.”
“I’ve never seen anyone that big and that fast at the same time,” said Paul.
“He’s a specimen,” said Steve.
“Looks like he came straight from the jungle,” said Artie.
Ferry growled, “I don’t want to hear that kind of shit in my locker room, Artie. Can it.”
With that Ferry walked off naked for his shower. Artie gave him the finger behind his back. Ron said, “It did sound racist, Artie.”
“I don’t really care what it sounded like. Don’t you start on me too, Pegleg.”
Artie had taken to calling Ron that when he wore the immobilizer. Ron grimaced and Artie, now jovial again, laughed.
Chapter 93
Ron met with Grant Pritchard in his office after class. It was a small room that had floor to ceiling bookshelves that were stuffed with an array of books and folders and mementoes from his teaching career. Grant dropped his satchel on the floor and slid in back of his desk. He ran his hands through his curly hair and said, “So, tell me again what you want to do.”
“I know that the version of the tapes that was released was redacted but what they show reveals the true quality of the man that we twice elected president. My girlfriend and I have some stage training and I’d like to make a recording of some of a reading of some of the conversations on the tapes.”
Pritchard nodded. “I can see some value to that. Which conversations do you want to record?”
“Well, March 21st I think is essential.”
“Obviously,” said Pritchard. “But I’d like what you do to reflect more than just the break-in. Some of the other shit that is on those tapes is far worse than that.”
“The March 13 tape goes into some of that,” said Ron. He’d devoured the book when it was rushed into print.
“Refresh my memory of what they talk about in that conversation,” said Pritchard.
“Dean talks about the infiltration of Peace groups and says that a story is out there about how CREEP had paid a minor to do that and that the kid had bragged about it at school. Dean told him that he had access to the IRS and that they could use it to apply pressure in the right places. He spoke with disdain about Hugh Sloan’s need to cleanse his conscience. They talked about the mistake that Liddy had made in using a third person to cash his cheeks from CREEP. He talked about the tail that had been placed on Edward Kennedy and how they had data that they had collected in their two years of following him. And he told Nixon that Haldeman knew about Donald Segretti and his pranks before they happened.”
“That’s all good stuff. Anything about the Pentagon papers?”
“I don’t think so. Not in that conversation.”
“Do you know what that one was?” said Pritchard.
“I think it was between Nixon and Mitchell, but I’ll have to look.”
There was a pause and the each sipped some coffee. “Do you think that this is more important that JFK assassination right now?” said Ron.
“Right now it is because Nixon is still the President. Historically though, what happened JFK was one of the largest events in the history of the country.”
“I remember William Buckley saying that he didn’t care who killed Kennedy as much as the fact that Kennedy was dead.”
“That’s because Buckley is an asshole,” said Pritchard.
Ron decided that it was best not to tell Pritchard that he still watched Firing Line and that he actually liked Buckley. “It just seems like we will never know what happened in Dallas,” said Ron.
“That’s probably accurate.”
“Isn’t it like beating your head against a stone wall and expecting the stone to break before your head does?”
“You can’t think that way.”
Ron didn’t like being told how he could or couldn’t think. He felt the same way about the war in Viet Nam now. He had tried. He had tried for years and it didn’t make any difference. Some people would never believe the truth even if it was right in front of them, and when you showed them things that were so clear that they couldn’t be avoided their response was that they were all a bunch of crooks anyway. That was short for saying that they wanted the conversation to be over.
That night Ron and Robin sat on the floor together. Now that Hank was gone, Robin walked around the house in her panties constantly and Ron found it incredibly distracting. He’d find himself staring at her ass and unable to take his eyes off of it. She sat cross-legged on the floor and now he was staring between her legs. He pretended to be looking down at the paperback book that had the transcripts of the Watergate tapes in it.
“You should be John Dean,” she said.
“What are we going to do about the stuff that is blanked out?” he said.
Robin smiled. “I think that I should just pause for a beat and then say clearly in my own voice, expletive deleted.”
“Let’s try it and see how it works.”
They read through the transcript with a cassette player between them. They read well together. They understood the cadences of each other’s voices and when to wait and when to move faster.
It occurred to Ron that they missed the stage and had been at their best performing with each other. When he told her that he wanted to write instead of act, she said, “You’re better at acting.”
It was true and he knew it. When he just relaxed and let it flow through him, he could feel and act like anyone, any character. He found it dangerous and exciting, but he also felt like an instrument and he yearned to be the composer. But a composer needed vision and where was his vision? What did he have to say that anyone would fine worth reading? Ron stared between her legs again. Nothing felt as good as when he was inside of her there. That wasn’t true. When he was there, he felt the need to perform and satisfy. When they dreamed together, he felt free and light. He thought about that and then looked up at her face. She had seen him staring. It excited her to act with him. There was an energy that sparked between them. It occurred to her for the first time that it wasn’t real. She didn’t really like the way that they fucked. He seemed to enjoy thrusting in so hard and then needing to turn her over and take her from behind in order to achieve orgasm. She didn’t understand why he didn’t want to look into her face when he came. It made her feel alone. She wanted to study the sparkle in his eyes and she couldn’t see them lying on her stomach.
Chapter 94
Returning to school, Ron found that he was helplessly behind in every subject. He was also isolated. It was a funny thing about guys in the school. If a person was away for a while, they became forgotten. People moved on without them. Ron didn’t have any friends in his class and was considered weird because he had been out of school so much.
Brother Alvin stood in front of his desk looking down at Ron as he stumbled through the pronunciation of some French. “You really are rather hopeless aren’t you, Tuck?”
Ron didn’t answer.
“Did you hear my question, Mr. Tuck? I said that you really are rather hopeless, aren’t you?”
“Not as hopeless as a man wearing a dress who is named after a singing chipmunk, Brother.” Ron braced himself for the slap, the kick or the punch that he knew was coming. He heard the class laughing hard. He saw the darkness in Brother Alvin’s eyes.
“Wait in the hallway, Tuck. You don’t deserve to sit in my classroom.”
“Yes, Brother Alvin,” said Ron, accenting the Alvin in a way that caused the class to laugh harder.
Ron stood against the lockers in the long, clean, empty hallway. Why had he done it? Why couldn’t he have just said nothing? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. Maybe what Alvin would do to him would land him back in the hospital. The Brothers at Jersey Catholic did not believe in calling home. They did not believe in suspensions. This was something that gratified the parents of the students there.
Ron saw Brother Kelly turn the corner and see him in the hallway. When he saw Ron standing there a frown passed over his face and he moved towards him. Ron knew that this was going to be bad.
“What are you doing out here, Mr. Tuck?”
“Brother Alvin told me to wait out here.”
“And why would Brother Alvin need to remove you from his class after you have missed so much time already?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s find out, shall we?”
Brother Kelly opened the door to the classroom and Ron heard it go silent inside. Then Brothers Alvin and Kelly were standing in the doorway talking very quietly. They both came over and stood in front of Ron.
“Why don’t you repeat for Brother Kelly the foul things that you just said to me,” said Brother Alvin.
“I don’t remember,” said Ron.
Kelly backhanded him across the face and his head snapped back and bounced off of the metal locker with a loud clang. “Does that improve your memory, Tuck?”
Ron felt a hot trickle of blood run down from his lip and splash on his white shirt. He didn’t answer. The punch to his stomach that followed doubled him over. “Still experiencing memory problems, Tuck?”
Ron clutched at his stomach and tried to catch his breath. “We’ll give you thirty seconds to compose yourself, Tuck. You are wasting my time and Brother Alvin’s time and the time of your classmates. I do not wish to have my time wasted, Mr. Tuck.
“I got angry because he said that I was hopeless, Brother.”
“You do appear to be hopeless, don’t you Tuck?” taunted Brother Kelly.
“I guess so.”
Ron felt Kelly’s hand grip him like a vise between his neck and shoulder. He walked him down the hall holding him that way. Ron’s hands raised to try to move Kelly’s hand away and then he thought better of it and just winced a long, painful, silent gasp of pain.
They got into the elevator and rode down to the main floor. Ron knew that there were thousands of people in the building, but it seemed to have swallowed them and everything was very quiet.
Ron was not allowed to sit in Brother Kelly’s office. “Perhaps Jersey Catholic is not a good fit for you, Tuck.”
Ron felt hot tears in his eyes. He tasted his blood on his lips.
“Why have you missed so much school?”
“I was in the hospital,” said Ron.
“What was wrong with you this time?”
“I have an ulcer.”
“A boy your age with an ulcer? That’s ridiculous. Do you have a weak stomach?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you disrespectful to Brother Alvin?”
“Yes, Brother.”
“Why would you ever fail to show respect to someone who was teaching you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry that you got caught.”
Ron looked into Brother Kelly’s eyes with real confusion. How could he have failed to get caught? “I don’t understand, Brother.”
“That much is clear, Mr. Tuck.”
Chapter 95
It was a Sunday and that meant that Celeste was able to come to Ron’s apartment. The almost had a routine now. First, they had sex like horny rabbits, then they luxuriated in each other over Chinese food.
“Where do you want to live?” said Ron.
“Where do you want to live?” said Celeste.
“My mother is willing to ask her tenants to leave and the amount of money that she wants for the apartment is ridiculously low.”
“Do you think that we can do that?”
“I don’t know but I do know that Glen Ridge has a great school system and that Angel would get a great education.”
“That’s a couple years away, Ron. Sometimes I think that you forget how young she is.”
“We don’t have to live there, but it’s safe and we would have support.”
He kissed her bare nipples and she shivered. Lips on lips they were fantastic kissers. Ron slid his hand down her back and she felt a spreading warmth. He was letting her know that he would be ready again soon.
He was asking a lot and he didn’t understand the ways that women dealt with each other. It was Marjorie’s house and if Celeste had learned anything it was that Marjorie didn’t get up what she thought was hers without a struggle.
“We played against a really good team yesterday,” said Ron.
Celeste asked, “How are your classes?”
“I made a mistake,” said Ron.
“A bad one?”
“Yeah,” Ron shook his head back and forth. “I told them that Walt Whitman was homosexual and now that’s all they think about and see.”
“Why did you tell them that?”
“It’s the truth. That’s the deal that I make with them. I always tell them as much of the truth as I can.”
“What will you do now?”
“I’m going to downplay it and try one more time with Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. It’s a great poem.”
Celeste stroked his eyebrows. “Then what?”
“Depends on how it goes. If they can’t get passed it, I have to move on.”
“To what?”
“I’m not sure. I should do Emily Dickinson but I never seem to arouse much enthusiasm for her.”
“Why do you think they don’t like her?”
“I’m really not sure but what I have come to learn is that if I’m not enthusiastic about a writer, my students never like the writer. And I think my lack of enthusiasm for her shows through.”
“So, if you like the writer and communicate that to them, they like the writer?”
Ron laughed and cracked open a fortune cookie. “I wish it was that easy. I’ve been teaching for years that The Odyssey is a great poem that is the foundation for almost everything that came after it. It and The Iliad. It’s hit and miss. Some years the students love it and other years they don’t care for it at all and find it boring.”
“Maybe they aren’t ready for it,” said Celeste.
Ron asked, “Did you like it?”
Celeste blushed. “I never read the whole thing.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t like it,” she said laughing.
Ron read his cookie to her. “Nothing good ever comes easy.” He looked into her deep brown eyes. “Do believe that?”
Celeste thought for a long moment and they each chewed half of the cookie. “I think that it’s true for some people and not true for others. Did you ever see the movie, The Way We Were?”
“I don’t think so. Who’s in it?’
“Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand.”
“I like both of them.”
“You’d like the movie too. I’ll look to see if it ever comes on TV. Anyway, for him things came easy and for her nothing came easy. I think it depends on what kind of person you are.”
Ron laughed, “We are definitely the kind that things don’t come easy for. Let’s play a game.”
Celeste grinned that smile that just melted him because of the way that it spread across her face and showed her enthusiasm. She snuggled down against his chest. His skin was very smooth and his muscles hard. She listened to his heart beating.
Ron said, “Ok, you have to answer fast, without thinking about it.”
“I’ll try.”
“Favorite author?”
“James Michener.”
“Favorite song writer?”
“John Lennon.”
They each felt the pang. It was still fresh for both of them. “Yeah,” said Ron. “I can understand that.”
“Why Michener?”
“He takes me places that I have never been. I can go back to those places each time I read the same book. I must have read Hawaii six or seven times and now it’s like an old friend.”
“I never read anything of his. He’s never taught in the schools and he never was on any syllabus for any of the college courses that I took.” In Ron’s mind that meant that he wasn’t good enough to be on those lists, but he didn’t tell her that just then.
Celeste said, “My turn. Favorite author?”
Ron laughed, “I don’t know.”
Celeste mock pouted. “You made me just say the first thing that I thought.”
“You’re right. F. Scott Fitzgerald.”
“Songwriter?”
“Bob Dylan.”
“Favorite movie?”
“I think that I’d have to say The Godfather but it used to be The Hustler and when I was younger it was The Young Philadelphians.”
“I don’t know that one,” said Celeste.
“Paul Newman,” said Ron.
“He’s in The Hustler too isn’t he?”
“Yes, he plays Fast Eddie Felson.”
“So, he’s your favorite actor?”
Ron laughed again. She could hear the laugh rumble inside of him and it echoed in her ear. “Maybe, but I really like Humphrey Bogart.”
The game went on until it grew dark. They talked about food, clothes, flavors, times of the year, holidays, and heroes. They did not mention sports.
“Do you have a favorite way to make love?” said Ron.
Celeste reached down and squeezed him in her hand. “With you.”