The Memory of Running (25 page)

The big day for Bethany and Jeff Greene was less than a week away. I had made the decision
to forget about the bow-wow call. After all, Dr. Glass had assured me that Bethany was
perfectly harmless, and, in truth, her behavior, in this particularly tense time in a
girls life, was the picture of calm. Now, Mom, on the other hand, was the one causing
problems. Once she got it into her head that Bethany should have a wedding train, nothing
could stop her from pushing the idea. Bethany held firm to her hopes of simplicity. She
said, Mom, I dont want a wedding train. I really dont. And Mom would say, Please. And
Please and Oh, please, until, finally and maturely, Bethany gave in. It was this kind of
compromise that helped me put Wiggy in perspective for a while.

Jeffs best man, Dave Stone, his college roommate, came down from Nashua, New Hampshire, to
help him with the stuff a guy needs help with when hes getting married. Jeffs dad was
dead, and his mom had become a more or less permanent resident at Bradley Hospital. Dave
also had come down to plan and execute the all- important bachelor party. I didnt like
Dave. He didnt like me either, but wed smile and pretend we did for everybodys sake. But
now I can say that Dave Stone had an attitude that he was much smarter and cooler than
you. When he said something, I always had the feel- ing that you were supposed to consider
his words and nod and agree. What really pissed me was how wonderful he felt the Baltimore
Ori- oles were. I mean, its true they had a couple of great players, but he was from New
Hampshire. What about the Red Sox?

Dave scheduled the bachelor party at the F.E.I. Club in Pawtucket. It was a striptease
place where bad old comedians introduced old dancers who would dance and take their
clothes off all the way down to a kind of shiny bikini. I had been to strip places when I
was in the army where the dancers would have actual sex with themselves on

the stage. The F.E.I. Club was tame stuff, I guess. I was glad, because of course my pop
was going to go, and I didnt think Dave was the kind of guy to take the older men into
consideration. Anyway, we all met up there, and we brought silly gifts. They put us at two
tables down at the end of an elevated runway bar. The place smelled of old beer and a sour
mop. Dave ordered pitchers of beer. There were fourteen of us. Dave and Jeff s pals, and
me, my pop and the Count. Pop and Count had on their Sunday suits. I had on a sports
jacket that wouldnt button.

I hope everybodys heart is good, because these girls are hot! yelled Dave over the loud
three-piece orchestra.

I could go any second! yelled Count. What? yelled Dave. My tickers shot. I could go like
that. Count snapped his fingers.

My pop shook his head and chuckled. Youll outlive me, Count. Only if you get hit by a
truck, Count guffawed. The beer arrived, served by dancers from a later show, and the

drumbeat pounded a slow, dirty introduction to Brigitte Bardoni, the opening salvo of
entertainment. A checkered-suited man with a bad toupee did the honors.

Ladies and gentlemen. Wont you meet and greet a young lady who has brought modern dance to
a new high. All the way from Florence, Italy, the one, the only, Miss Brigitte Bardoni.
Its been a while, but Im guessing Brigitte was somewhere in her forties. She wore a
sparkly white fancy dress that cut over her large chest at the nipples and flowed bumpily
to the ground. The high heels made it difficult for much modern dancing, but that was
okay, because she seemed too drunk to even balance on them. She had her blond- white hair
piled high onto her head, and she wore a benign, know- ing snarl, which she shared with
everyone. After a tentative strut from one end of the runway to the other, she did a
little kick and nimbly tore off one of her long black gloves. She twirled it at the

faces of the men barside and snarled again. Then the other glove. With a flourish she
tossed them into a safe pile behind the bar.

My pop looked around the room, pretending to be interested in anything except Miss
Bardoni, who by now had unzipped the side of her gown and was attempting to shimmy it to
the ground. I know for sure that Pop was embarrassed because he was there with his son. I
respected that. I was embarrassed also.

Miss Bardonis dress bunched up at her knees. Apparently some of the sparkles had gotten
tangled up in her stockings.

She struggled to undo them for a second, then lost her balance and crashed to the floor.
Fuck! she said, to the heavy backbeat of the drum. Brigitte Bardoni rolled over into a
sitting position and sen- sually detached the dress. She stood triumphantly and snarled at
the room in general. She resumed her strut. Our tables at the south end of the runway
watched in a relative silence. Maybe the whole table had picked up on Pops discomfort, Im
not sure. She pulled her slip over her head and twirled that also. Brigitte Bardoni was
now down to the essence of the F.E.I. strip: a too-small, sky blue, shiny bikini set of
underwear with black stockings attached by a garter belt. It had been a struggle for her,
but she had taken her clothes off.

Take it off, baby! Count yelled. Everybody looked at my uncle with a kind of shock and
disbelief. Take it all off! he yelled again. Count drained his beer and

poured another. Va-va-voom, he said, shaking his hand at Miss Bardoni as if she

were something that had just burned his fingers. Settle down, old-timer, Dave said in that
squirrelly voice I still

remember. Theyll throw us out. This is neat, said Jeff. What a nice person he was. That
was his

way of telling his best man to leave Count alone. Count ignored them both. Brigitte
Bardoni was strutting down to the south end.

Va-va-voom, he said again at each heavy stride. This time the dancer did not snarl. Her
face softened, and her eyes

became sort of kind. She had bluish liner all around her eyes. In a snarl, it made them
seem dangerous, but without the snarl they be- came like Mrs. Harrys eyes, who was my
kindergarten teacher and was probably the kindest person I had ever met. Anyway, Brigittes
snarl left, and she focused in on the supportive Count. She stopped in front of him and,
elevated there on the runway, pushed her pelvis out and around to the annoying beat.

Yeah! yelled Count. Hey, countered Dave. Baby, youre the greatest! Count yelled, holding
up his beer to

Miss Bardoni in a toast. Dave was coming unhinged. He had deliv- ered a direct command to
my Uncle Count, and he was being ig- nored.

Thats enough, goddamn it, Dave said, standing up.

My pop stood up, too, and got between the asshole and my uncle, who saw only Brigitte and
heard only the downbeat.

Ahhhooooooooh! he howled in his best wolf call. You better knock it off ! screamed Dave.
Now, if we had all drawn guns and begun shooting each other,

the other patrons would continue to sip their beverages and Miss Bardoni would finish her
number. This essential fact of the F.E.I. was lost on Dave. He had planned the event but
somehow had skewed the reality of honest down-and-dirty, with fraternity-house down-
and-dirty. Dave was the complete jerk. No college diploma could change that.

Hes not bothering anyone, said Pop kindly. Sit down, Dave, said Jeff. This is neat. Oh,
baby! You know what I like! yelled Count. Stop shouting, Dave commanded.

But Count was not under orders, and Brigitte Bardoni had made the decision to cross the
Pawtucket fire code. In an instant she had stripped off the top of her underwear, exposing
her impossible, un-

manageable breasts. She bent at the waist and happily held them out to Count.

Hubba, hubba, hubba! yelled my uncle, who by now was clap- ping like a seal.

They were water balloons about to burst. They were liquid gold, and I stared with an open
mouth.

Im disgusted! cried Dave. Look at him! Look at him clapping!

Beautiful, baby, beautiful! yelled Count squeezing his fingers into thin air.

Ugh! cried Dave.

This is neat, said Jeff, his face fire-engine red under the heavy balls of flesh hanging
inches above his head. This is really, really neat.

Youre not supposed to have your breasts exposed! Dave screamed at Brigitte. She reached
down and pulled the front of her panties a touch, so that a great tuft of pubic hair
became exposed.

Shes not supposed to do that! Dave cried, pleading to Jeff. Va-va-va-voom! Count
countered. Maybe you boys ought to take off. Ill stay here with Count,

Pop coolly said. But then the bachelor party would be ruined! Dave cried, by

now hysterical. Everywhere he looked, the sky was blocked by breasts.

No, really. Lets go over to my place. Watch the Celtics, Jeff said.

Jeff stood up and joined the reluctant Dave. His loyal celebrants also rose, although I
knew that most of them would rather stand in the rain than go with Dave. Jeff shook hands
with Pop, and they filed past us and out the door.

They are the best! Count yelled, pointing to Brigittes peaks. They are the very best!

Pop turned to me and said, Smithy, you dont have to stay with us.

I want to. I figured. Count had started accentuating the drummers downbeat on the

wooden tabletop. Pop looked at him for a long moment. Like me, he wore the concerns of his
life in deep, sad, heavy eyes that could have been the Narragansett Bay on a hot August
night.

Pop, I called from across the table. He turned and saw me and smiled. Bethany will sure be
a beautiful bride, huh? Pop kept smiling and nodded, but I knew him as a man who had

been places and seen things and who knew things for, I guess, what they were.

And the drum ended, and the saxophone, too. Brigitte Bardoni proudly strutted her wondrous
chest off the ramp. The bass drum began again, and our host introduced Alberta Einstein,
the dean of the scientific strip.

I lay there awake. The harder I concentrated on sleeping, the more impossible it became.
Chriss smell lingered around me, and Bethanys face, now near the Seswan lunch table,
glimmered under the fluores- cent lights. About one-thirty I listened to my heart, moved
it around in a sort of energy prayer, and slipped out of my sleeping bag. I packed my
saddlebags tightly and quietly, stopping each time Chris or Rosie or Joanie stirred. I put
the bags onto my bike, then used the mens room, and finally, around two-thirty, I called
Norma. Its two-thirty here, so it must be five-thirty there, I said when she picked me up
on the second ring.

Smithy, she said quietly, wait a sec.

I waited for a minute or more. The phone bank was under a light at the corner of the
tennis club. There was a frost on the ground. I had on my sweats and longjohn top, but I
still jogged in place to stay warm.

Okay, she said. I had to splash water on my face. Sorry. Where? Williams, Arizona.

Wow! Ive been in a bicycle-club ride, but now I have to leave. Why? Im not sure. I think
its best, though. Are you all right? Well, I guess. Im tired a lot with this boat-design
drafting. I

mean, I have to keep all my other accounts going and not short- change them, but the
Blount boat thing is the biggest job Ive ever had. Also . . . I dont know. . . .

What? Bea is sick again. She had a mastectomy about four years ago, and

now shes sick again. I took her to the doctor, and he thinks she has to go into the
hospital for more tests, but shes just so stubborn.

Im on a bike, I thought to myself. Im riding to God knows where, and nobody knows why, and
Norma lives in real time and real things. I felt shamed and dark. I felt a shadow of a
person. I let the phone pause fill it all up.

Finally Norma said, Smithy? Im here. What? Norma, Im sorry. You got real things going on.
Beas sick.

Youre tired. I ought to be helping you, not calling you to help me. You wouldnt say that
to me if I wasnt a damn cripple.

Would you? The wind rushed out of me as surely as if Id been punched in the

chest. Norma . . . If I were a person who felt sorry for myself, Id say that all the

time. Poor me. Poor cripple. Its ugly, isnt it? Its hateful. Thats why I dont say it, and
thats why I dont feel it. Okay, Im tired. Okay, Beas sick. Thats life, Smithy, we cant get
away from that. We have to go on and be strong, and the best way to be strong is to rely
on people and be brave enough to trust them.

She stopped talking for a moment, and my silent admiration of this woman loaded the
American countryside and flooded the cities. Im . . . Im not sure exactly where Im
supposed to go in Los Angeles. I lost the letter. Its a funeral home that gets paid by the
city

to keep the . . . bodies until someone comes. Okay, she said, all business now, heres what
well do. Ill make

the necessary calls, and if you phone me tomorrow, Ill give you all the information.

That would be wonderful, Norma. Almost at once she said, I dreamed we made love. She
stopped talking, and I saw Bethany watching from across the

double-lane highway. She had her look of attention, as if something

very important had happened or would happen soon. She was still, but it was not the
stillness of a pose.

After Id stood a long time by the cold phone bank, Norma said, Sorry. Thats dumb.

I couldnt release myself from Bethanys stare. Looking at my sis- ter, I said into the
phone, Thats not dumb, Norma.

And in another moment, I said like a stupe, We . . . the best way to be strong . . . is to
rely on people.

And . . . to trust them, she whispered.

The dry cold of Arizona took Bethany, and the stars twinkled down upon a fool.

Call tomorrow, and Ill have the information. More silence and stars. Bye, Smithy. Bye.

Count had slept for most of the ride to his house. He stretched out on the backseat of
Pops wagon and sawed logs. When we pulled into the driveway, he woke up immediately with a
terrible headache.

It was late, and the night was wet and foggy. A true Rhode Island May had spread out from
the Narragansett Bay and rolled in from the ocean. Aunt Paula switched on the light the
instant we had turned into the drive, and she stood on the front steps, watching me and my
pop coax Uncle Count out of the car and toward the house. Aunt Paula didnt say anything
right then. It wasnt that she was angry as much as worried. Count had gone down hard with
his heart for as long as I could remember, and Paula had always borne the brunt of his
dance with the Big Man, as Count referred to death.

The overload of cold beer and hot breasts had swelled my uncle to bursting. He held his
head, and his bulging gray eyes pressed against their sockets.

Looks like a migraine, said Paula, leading the way into their bedroom. We struggled on
either side of my epic uncle. We could have steadied a mountain. We could have supported
the Empire State Building. We sat him on one side of the double bed. I remember be- ing
astonished that another human being could share that space with the Count, but Aunt Paula
was not just another human being. She was powerful and brilliant in the way a pilot fish
is, or a kitten maybe. I realize that sounds stupid. She fit, is what it is.

Theres some ice already in the ice bag. Its in the big freezer in the garage.

I left Pop and Paula pulling off the moaning Counts pants and went through the kitchen
into the connected garage. I had always thought it was the height of modern living to have
your garage at- tached to your house. You had access. Our garage was a typical one- car
structure that didnt seem functional. Especially in the winter.

Now here was a foggy, damp, dark Rhode Island night, and all I had to do was flip the
switch.

I walked around Paulas Dodge Dart that Count liked to keep warm in the garage and over to
the large white freezer. I opened it and scanned the top for the ice bag. Count and Paula
had frozen din- ners of every variety set neatly box to box on top. I began to rum- mage
for the blue-and-silver ice bag. There was a large bag of turkey parts, and Paula had
Scotch-taped a white piece of paper to it and written Good for Soup. There was a paper bag
of small, round things wrapped in aluminum foil, and on the bag Paula had written Fresh
Tomatoes. Good.

It was inevitable that the ice bag would be at the bottom of the freezer. I needed it, so
it had to be in the very most inconvenient spot possible. Below the stacks of frozen
juices, I saw the top of the ice bag. The silver screw top with the word thermos in black
letters. I gave it a pull, but it seemed stuck to something. Probably a leak, condensation
from when it was last put in, something.

Great, I said, sourly and out loud. Already I had begun sharing my moods with nothing and
no one.

I pulled again and felt the slightest give. Finally I yanked hard, and the rubber ice bag
with the silver screw top loosened and rose heavily in my hand, and Wiggy rose, too, his
icy mouth clamped desperately to the rubber bag under the hard frozen foods.