Chapter 96
“Do you think it’s possible to know what someone else is thinking?”
Robin answered, “If you really want to, yes.”
Ron said, “I don’t understand.”
“If you really want to know my thoughts, they come with a price tag.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. It depends on the situation. It depends on what I want you to know.”
Ron shifted in the bed. They were dressed. She was sipping wine and reading a play called Ring Around the Moon. “Suppose it’s something that you don’t want me to know?”
“Then either you won’t find out or the price will be higher.”
“Why do you want me to pay?”
Robin looked at him with the same eggshell blue eyes that he’d seen when he looked at his father. She smiled and said, “Because you fell in love with me.”
Ron tried to digest that. He loved her, did he? She held back from him. He mistrusted that. She wanted to exact a price for his trust. He didn’t understand but he should have.
“I think the recording sounds smooth and good. I like what you did with the mumbled words and the expletive deleted parts.”
Robin grinned. “You sounded just like a lawyer.”
Robin came to class the night that Grant Pritchard played their tape. She was wearing a white wool sweater that had small pearly buttons that she left open halfway down. She wore boots and jeans.
Ron was wearing yesterday’s clothing. He’d listened to the tape at least a dozen times. He wished that they had another shot at it but Robin told him to leave it alone.
The class listened very quietly. Ron and Robin looked at each other as the tape played.
When it ended, Grant Pritchard said, “I want you to notice some things before we listen to this again. Now remember, Nixon knew that he was on tape and he’s a skillful lawyer. Dean did not know that he was on tape and thought that he was speaking with attorney-client privilege. Nixon asks how much money they would need to pay off their blackmailers and Dean tells him a million dollars. Nixon very carefully says that it could be gotten, that he knows how to get it. Someone might leave that conversation and think that had been told to pursue that avenue, but Nixon never actually says that is what he wants Dean to do. He retains deniability.”
A student asked, “Wasn’t he just exploring options?”
Pritchard nodded. “That is exactly what he makes it sound like he is doing. Now in and earlier part of the conversation Dean talks about the things that the Plumbers have done. They mention the burglary of Daniel Ellsberg’s doctor’s office. The attempt here was to discredit the Pentagon papers, but it was only one of the things that they had done. They used prostitutes, buggings, and infiltration of the opposition’s organization. It is clear that they also infiltrated antiwar groups. In other words there was a wide spread attempt to compromise the opposition and dissent.”
Ron said, “So when we thought we were being followed and had people join us who were there to make trouble, we weren’t mistaken.”
Pritchard laughed. “No you aren’t paranoid if they are truly after you.”
The class laughed and Ron felt old. He’d been in college longer than most of the people in the room and many of them had been in high school when he was involved in the Moratoriums. He didn’t find it funny that he and others had tried to stop mass killing and had been characterized as anti- American. It made him angry. Watergate might be the biggest I told you so that he could have imagined but his classmates seemed to think of it more as a game.
Pritchard turned their tape on again and Ron and Robin found each other’s eyes. She had been tense during the laughter because she could see what he was thinking written on his face and she knew that he wasn’t above admonishing them and that was always counterproductive.
After class, Pritchard said, “Ron, you did a great job with that tape and Robin thank you so much for donating your time to the effort.” They both beamed the way that they did when they got applause.
On the way home in the car, Robin said, “That was a lot of fun.”
Ron smiled. “You were worried I was going to say something, weren’t you?”
“I’m always worried that you are going to say something. Accepting compliments isn’t exactly your strong suit. For someone who craves approval as much as you do, it amazes me that you respond so poorly to it.”
Ron grinned. “I’m better than I used to be.”
She shook her head and laughed again. “Yes, it wasn’t as bad as the drama festival when they gave us an award and you got up and told them that we flubbed the lines and jig sawed the scene back together.”
Ron blushed. “That was really stupid. You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Only if you promise to never do it again,” said Robin.
Chapter 97
Ron trudged home after his ninth consecutive day of jug. He only had one more day left. His mother and George were sitting at the kitchen table. She was smiling and he looked worried.
Marjorie said, “Ronald we’re moving.”
Ron’s mouth dropped open. “Where?”
“A beautiful little town called Glen Ridge.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s right off of Bloomfield Avenue. Wait until you see it. You’re going to love it.”
Ron stared at them in disbelief. “We’re leaving Newark? We’re leaving all my friends?”
“You’ll make new friends,” said Marjorie.
“I don’t want new friends.”
George said, “I just don’t see how we are going to afford it. What happens if one of us gets sick? How are you going to get to work in the morning?”
Marjorie’s face was resolute. “George, this is what I want. You promised that if we found the right house that we could do it. There is a tenant and that will help a lot with the mortgage.”
“You can’t count on that.”
“We have to count on it.”
That night, after a dinner that consisted of a green salad and steak, the drove down Summer Avenue, passed George’s family’s home and turned right onto Bloomfield Avenue. The Avenue ran like an artery through Essex County. It began in the north end of Newark and wiggled an almost straight line up to West Caldwell where it intersected with one of the highways that was constructed during the Depression, US route 46. There were farm stands out at the end of the Avenue and people lived very differently than they did at its base.
Marjorie had taken Ron to a pumpkin farm in Verona where they had swiped a Halloween pumpkin that they’d carved and lighted. Ron remembered the squishy feel of the pumpkin seeds and the long stringy tendrils that enveloped them. The further away from Newark they drove, the more the memory of the tendrils on his hands made him sick to his stomach.
The he saw a Woolworth’s to his right and a bank like the one that was down in Newark where Bloomfield Avenue began.
The road climbed and there were lots of oak trees. The Avenue broadened into a wide sweep and the air seemed cooler and fresher. They made a right hand turn by a small row or stores, a police station, two gas stations and a tiny A&P. It was a one block one way street.
A little more than halfway down the block, they stopped in front of a grey house. “Here it is!” said Marjorie.
It rose up slightly from the street. The top of the roof came to a peek. There were green bushes and no broken glass. Ron’s eyes absorbed. What had this place to do with him? How could he ever be more than a visitor to a place like this? Ron thought for maybe the first time that George might be right. They didn’t belong here.
When Ron went back to school, he felt strange. The time that he still had to go there had seemed endless and now he was unsure of how long he had left. Brother Alvin no longer spoke to him or looked at him. When he checked homework, he didn’t even pause at Ron’s desk. He just walked by like Ron was invisible. Ron didn’t know what to do and so he did nothing.
Brother O’Shea was still handing out the weekly smacks for failing grades, but Ron had managed to catch up to the point that he was barely passing each Algebra quiz.
Brother Cecil, who Ron had managed to impress with his knowledge of the life of Jesus, told Ron that he knew more religion that the other kids in his class and that Brother Cecil wanted him to stay quiet when he asked questions or when they had discussions in the room.
English and History continued to go well, but Ron was finding that he had to force himself to read the pages and was always looking ahead and hoping that large portions of the pages would be taken up by pictures. He seemed to forget what he read as soon as he was finished reading it. Sometimes it would come back to him and sometimes it was just gone.
In Latin, he was totally lost and stopped even opening the book. The days were very long and very quiet. The quieter they grew the more withdrawn Ron became. He stopped seeing the psychiatrist. Marjorie told him that they needed to save every penny they could now.
Between teacher arrivals, Billy Mitchell said, “I got indefinite fucking jug.”
“What did you do?”
“Didn’t go to school so that I could get laid.”
Ron was impressed. Billy grew in respect in his eyes. Ron had never gotten laid and he wondered if he would ever get laid.
“We’re moving,” said Ron. He knew that Billy took the bus down from Verona every day and thought maybe he would be able to tell him something about Glen Ridge.
“Where to?”
“Glen Ridge.”
Billy Jenkins laughed and said, “You’re fucked.”
Ron felt slapped. “Why?”
“Rah-rah heaven.”
“What do you mean?’
“That’s the land of madras shirts and penny loafers.”
Chapter 98
When the literary magazine came out, Ron was impressed by its size and cover. The cover was a high gloss explosion of fruits, flowers and birds that were arranged in the middle of a wooded scene with a hint of blue and white sky in the background. The yellows and blues and purples and reds sprang out at the reader.
Ron thumbed through it quickly to see which of his four submissions were in the magazine. When he saw his name in print a rush of adrenalin surged in him. It was his poem Leopards in the Temple. He’d written it about Franz Kafka and borrowed the title from one of Kafka’s Parables and Paradoxes. His eyes moved quickly over the lines. He liked what he saw. His was the only poem on the page. He winced when he saw the parenthesis that he’d grown too fond of using. He realized again that they added nothing to the piece. He wanted to erase them, but there they were in print. He heard Warren Lashly’s admonishment in his head about being foolish for letting things go before they were ready. He could hear his Southern drawl saying, “Your impatience causes your poems to be flawed. Well, it’s one of the things that causes them to be flawed.” Ron felt his ears burn.
He leafed through the pages and there was another of his poems. The title of this one was a line of French that he’d copied out of The Magic Mountain. When he wrote the poem, he pictured Robin and himself as figures in a painting. She was looking out at the world and he was staring only at her. But there were the stupid parenthesis again. Ron glared at them. Warren had been right. And now the way that he had placed the words on the page, the lines that he felt looked so elegant when he had written them with a quill pen on parchment paper now appeared to just be confusing.
Ron wondered if any of his other pieces had made it to the magazine. When he got to pages 54 and 55, his eyes grew larger. Herman Horvack had taken his other two poems and combined them into one very long poem. He’d changed the title of his poem. A look of horror twisted Ron’s face. He heard Melanie’s voice singing, “Look what they done to my song, ma.” He felt a rush of rage. He had an urge to find Herman and confront him about it. Then a voice in his head said that he should also remember that they had published every word that he had submitted to the magazine.
Later that night Robin read the magazine and said, “You turned your poems into a choo-choo train.”
“What do you mean?” It sounded almost childish but with insight.
“Your poems are strung together like railroad cars. Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t.”
“They changed your poems?”
“I don’t know if it was an accident or on purpose.” Ron knew. The title had been changed. He didn’t want to tell her.
The next day Herman said, “I saw a connection between the two poems and thought they would look great as a single piece.”
Ron’s anger had dissipated some. “I wish that you would have talked to me about it first. I see your point but I would have made it a part one and part two, not run them together.”
“Here’s the exciting news. The magazine is being considered for a national award.”
“Really?”
“The combination of artwork and poetry and prose and photography is getting a great reception,” said Herman. “Your poems look great.”
“So do yours, but one in English, one in French, and one in German without translations. Are you trying to be Thomas Mann?’
Herman laughed at Ron’s reference to the thirty pages of untranslated French that was in the middle of the Magic Mountain.
Chapter 99
Ron was tired. He went straight home from practice and stopped at his local deli and bought two rolls and some turkey breast and Swiss cheese and added some mayo. That was dinner. He just didn’t want to face papers tonight and he was enough on top of it so that he could let it go for a day.
Ron was watching this new show called Cheers that took place in a bar in Boston. He thought the blonde was hot and loved the way that she stood up so straight with her legs together. It gave her ass the cutest little wiggle when she moved her arms as she spoke. He turned the sound down when the phone rang.
Celeste’s voice made him smile. They talked briefly about their day and she told him that her friend the bartender was arranging for the alcohol for the wedding and that she had found a place called the Englehard Women’s Club.
“Wow, that’s a long way from Glen Ridge, isn’t it?”
“I just couldn’t find anything else on short notice.”
Ron didn’t understand how several months could be short notice but he trusted her that it was. He laughed, “You know more about these things than I do.”
“It’s going to start moving very fast now, Ron. It will be here before you know it.”
“I know.”
“Do you have the TV on?” she said.
“Did you see the special on the Kennedy Assassination?”
“No,” said Ron. “Why are they doing something about the assassination?”
“The anniversary of it is coming up.”
Ron grimaced. He hated the way they dredged it up every year now. He hated what it had done to the country. “I used to be really involved with looking at the conspiracy theories around it. But after the Church hearings, I just gave up. I knew that we were never going to know the truth and that it was so long ago that it didn’t matter anymore.”
“I don’t know why but every time I see something on TV or see an article in a magazine, I read it. I just can’t help myself. I feel like I am being loyal to his memory somehow.”
“I know what you mean, but it’s like banging your head on the wall. Walls don’t bleed but your head does.”
“Do you remember where you were when it happened?”
“I remember everything about it. That’s why I can’t watch those specials. It just dredges up all that pain and anger.”
“I know it does but it reminds me of a time before I knew that there was anything wrong in the country.”
“You knew it during the Civil Rights Movement,” said Ron.
“Yes, but it was getting better and JFK and Bobby and Martin Luther King were changing things. It felt so filled with energy and hope.”
“I know it did. Then we grew up.”
“Do you think that they three of them are connected?”
“I don’t know,” said Ron. “I would have said that we would never know the truth about anything until Watergate. I was pretty sure that we weren’t going to know the truth about that either, but then Nixon and his tapes.”
Ron lay his head back on the pillow. He closed his eyes and listened to her voice and heard his voice. Their telephone calls had a soft intimacy that had nothing to do with the topic but everything to do with the way that each of them sounded to the other.
“Did I tell you that I worked for the Underground Railroad?”
Ron’s grinned widened. “No you just told me that you worked for Harry Chapin and World Hunger Year. What did you do?”
“I drove guys from New Jersey up into New York State.”
“Then they met somebody else?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever learn what happened to any of them?”
“No, we didn’t even know their names.”
“Did you talk to them much?”
“We weren’t supposed to. The less we knew the better.”
“How long did you do that for?”
“A year.”
Ron smiled into the phone. “Pretty risky stuff.”
“It didn’t seem that way then. Looking back on it, yeah. What do you really think about the assassinations?” said Celeste.
“I think it’s all really connected by Watergate and what it reveals,” said Ron.
Celeste felt stunned. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Here is what I believe. Six months before he died, JFK said that he wanted American troops out of Viet Nam by the end of the year. That was 1963. There was ten more years of war to be waged. Profits to be made. Weapons to be tested.”
Celeste feel shivers as she heard his whispers. “What about Bobby?”
“That’s a tough one,” said Ron. “Here’s the common denominator. Bobby became a peace candidate. He was going to win. It had only been five years. Camelot was a dream that was not so far away. That’s how people were responding. Remember it was only 1968. We had five more years of war at stake.”
“Sirhan killed him,” said Celeste. “It might be the one time that it really was a lone assassin.”
“I don’t know or think that I will ever be able to know any of that. We got Nixon. He could never have beaten Kennedy. The Kennedys were his nightmare. They would have brought out the worst in him very early in in 1968.”
“What you’re saying is scary,” said Celeste.
“Fairly buried in Watergate is what Nixon did to the Peace Movement. They discredited it. They sabotaged it the way that Nixon sabotaged for his whole career. The Pentagon Papers,” said Ron. “They were a key. It showed that we knew how fucked up what we were doing was and didn’t care. It was a kick in the balls to every person who had supported the war. But you know what?”
Almost automatically, she said, “What?”
“They didn’t want to read it or know it. Then they shifted the focus to those gallant man who served their country. Private Benjamin and Officer and a Gentleman. They got away from Apocalypse Now. It was back to You’re in the Army Now.”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said Celeste.
“After I read 1984 and Brave New World, I knew about how propaganda worked. It was all about manipulation. Everything that is designed to affect our desires for a better world is manipulated but what we know and what we don’t know.”
“That’s very dark,” said Celeste.
“I’m sorry. Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” she said quickly like there was a scary movie in her ear and she wanted to hear where it was going.
“I think Howard Hughes had it right. Make movies that support what you want.” Ron laughed. “See Nixon is a key to it all. He was either there or a representative of what controlled him from the start.” Ron laughed. “But he’s fucked up. Or, they set him up because while he was useful, he wasn’t likable. His greatest nightmare, to be reviled.”
“You’re all over the place,” said Celeste.
“I know that it sounds that way. I really do. Here’s what I learned from Watergate. Follow the money. Translated that means follow the power.”
“That’s thinking the game is rigged,” said Celeste.
“I’m thinking that we don’t know what the game is.”
“You sound like Quimpy.”
“Quimpy is a very smart man.”
Celeste said, “He sure is but he’s also great evidence for brains not being everything.”
Ron said, “He and I go way back. I think I was sixteen when I met him.”
“At the bowling alley?”
“Yes.”
“That seems like such an odd place for you to hang out.”
“I was different then.”
“Do you mean you’re older now?”
Ron thought hard. “Maybe I do. Maybe it took me a long time to figure out what getting older really means.”
Celeste said, “I know what you mean, but I didn’t really learn it until I gave birth to Angel. It just changed everything. Do you understand?”
Ron murmured, “No.” He thought about telling her. He’d never told anyone about that conversation and how it made him feel. The he just found himself saying, “Robin and I never wanted children. I think, for me, I was just too young to understand. For her, it was something deeper and I don’t know what it was or is. Zoe wanted children and begged me to impregnate her.” Ron laughed as he remembered. “Can you believe that we had sex multiple times each day and used no birth control except for withdrawal and she didn’t get pregnant?”
“It depends on a lot of things,” said Celeste. He had caused her nursing brain to activate and give her multiple options of symptoms such as age and eating disorders to consider.
“Anyway,” said Ron. “I had this friend named Paula. She used to come over to see me before my apartment got burned out and when I lived in Elizabeth. We were friends and we liked sex. That’s how it was for me. Looking back, that was a stupid way to feel. I was staying in Rahway a couple days after the fire and she called me there. She told me that she’d been pregnant but had an abortion. She said it had been my child.”
Celeste winced. What had she told him that? The answer came swiftly. She’d loved him and he hadn’t recognized it and so she punished him with both the abortion and the call. Celeste conjured his face in her mind. Why did his lovers feel the need to punish him? Was it something that he was doing? She’d not felt that way. Did he pick women who liked doing that? No, that wasn’t it. What was it? “We all do crazy things sometimes,” said Celeste.
“Why?” His word was a plea to understand.
“I don’t know. There’s lots of evidence for it though.”
They laughed sweet and warm smiles into the phones.
“I think it’s because we live in the instant but then our brains keep recreating that instant over and over.”
Celeste’s voice was gentle and filled with understanding. “Not everyone’s brain needs to do that, Ron.”
Chapter 100
Looking at his grades, Ron felt his head begin to spin. He had never failed a subject in his life and there they were, two failures staring up at him. French and Latin had both turned out to be a mess.
Marjorie said, “How did this happen?”
“I just didn’t do well.”
“But you’re so smart. I never had to help you with homework. You never needed help before.”
“I know.”
“What happened this time?”
“I don’t know. Those subjects were hard and I missed so much time.”
“That’s a terrible excuse.”
Ron felt his ears begin to hum. She was right. He had given up on both of those subjects and he hadn’t liked the teachers very much. “I’m sorry. I know that you’re right. I just gave up on those classes.”
“You gave up?” Her face showed genuine surprise. “How could you give up?”
“I didn’t like them.”
“Do you think that I like all the things that I have to do, Ronald? What would happen if I gave up?”
Ron didn’t answer. If he answered he would have gotten into deeper trouble because the truth was that he had seen her give up and give into her fears all the time. So she was allowed to give up and he wasn’t?
“Well, you’ll do better in your new school.”
Ron looked shocked. “What new school?”
“There’s no reason to pay to send you back down to Newark to a school where you are failing when the public schools where we will be living have a great reputation.”
Ron felt confusion. Newark was all that he had ever known and now everything was going to be taken away. He knew the rules on the streets but this new place that he had only seen once and was now going to be his home was different. He didn’t know the rules and he would have no friends and he wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to play football again. “I guess not,” said Ron.
“I have something to tell you,” said Marjorie.
Ron listened.
“When I got your report card, I went to Jersey Catholic and met with Brother Kelly.”
Ron felt a flush of embarrassment. Why did she do things like that?
“I asked him why you had done so poorly and he told me that it was your attitude.”
Ron felt the buzzing in his ears again.
“He said that you had been insulting to your teachers and had missed a lot of time and showed no desire to be successful.”
Ron put his head down. He’d never told her that he was hit at school. He never told her any of what had happened to him there. She wouldn’t have understood and would have only made it worse.
“He did say that it was not unusual for a boy to have a rough transition from grammar school. I told him that you were a convert and he seemed surprised by that.”
Ron knew that his face must be very red now. He could feel the heat. His palms were beginning to sweat.
“I told him that it had been your dream to go to Jersey Catholic and would you like to know what he said to me?”
Ron didn’t want to know but said, “Yes.”
“He said that you were like an untrained animal that had no discipline.”
Now Ron felt his anger beginning to rise. He saw the hurt on her face. He knew how much she must have hated hearing that.
“I felt humiliated, Ronald.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. You shouldn’t have gone there.”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s happened to you, Ronald. You’ve changed. Something is going terribly wrong with you and I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s just been a hard year.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Sure,” said Ron. “It was going great until I got hurt. Then everything changed. I started worrying that I would never be able to play football again.”
“Football is just a game, Ronald.”
“I know, but I’m good at it. I was anyway. There aren’t that many things that I am good at.”
“That’s nonsense. You’re very smart.”
“Being smart and being good are two different things.”
“So this is all about football?”
“No,” said Ron. He wanted to tell her how much he missed his father but knew that if he did that she would call his dad and yell at him. Then his father would be angry with him. “I’m frightened about moving.”
Marjorie said, “Moving is going to be a very good thing. Newark is changing. There is trouble coming.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s something that I feel.”
“Like what?”
“Tension and bad feelings,” said Marjorie. “George is carrying a baseball bat in the car. He doesn’t play baseball.”
In his mind’s eyes, Ron saw the image of his dad. His father could pick it at third base and had an elegant swing. The thought of George carrying a baseball bat was obscene to him. “Why does he have the bat?”
“He says that it’s for protection.”
“What does he need to be protected from?”
Marjorie looked into her son’s eyes. “I don’t know.” Then her voice got soft. “Every man I have ever known has lied to me.”
Ron winced and knew that included him. He said, “I miss Dad and since he started really playing golf, he never come to see me anymore. I know he’s busy but…” His voice trailed off.
Marjorie looked at him and felt sympathy. More than any other man, Harry Tuck had lied to her the most and, sadly, loved her the most. She thought about Rocky. She couldn’t help it. Was a lie different from a betrayal? Was every rejection a betrayal or maybe an acknowledgment of a person’s failings? “Your father had a hard life.” She wondered how much of Harry had seeped into her son.
“I just miss him,” said Ron.
Marjorie wanted to cry for him the same way that she had cried for Harry, but in some ways his connection was stronger than hers. He had Harry’s blood in him. He couldn’t help but have it. She wanted to kiss him but they rarely touched and it would have been awkward. “Well, you aren’t going back to Jersey Catholic. That’s over now.”