Winning is Everything (14 page)

25 

It took Ron close to fifty minutes to load up the bus, since each time they were set to take off, someone would realize another couple was still missing. With the last of the stragglers rounded up from the dunes and the sun well on its way into the sky, the bus finally puttered down the driveway and eventually onto the highway toward New York.

The journey back to the city was a great deal more subdued than the energetic trip to the Island hours earlier.

Ron looked around at his sleeping guests and got depressed. “It’s a flop, isn’t it?” he asked Gary. “They’re having a terrible time.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Gary. “They had a ball; it was a great party. The greatest of the summer. You outdid yourself. They just can’t keep their eyes open any longer.”

“What about the Staten Island ferry?”

“What about it?”

“I wanted to take everyone on it when we got back to the city,” said Ron. “Figured that might be a good way to cap the evening.”

“These kids have been drinking since nine o’clock yesterday morning, Ron. That’s practically twenty-four hours. You delivered the goods. The house in East Hampton was an inspiration. People got drunk, they danced, they got sick, they got kissed; some probably even got laid—all because of you.”

“I’m depressed,” Ron told the floor.

“But why?”

“Because I hate when it’s over.”

“The fair?”

“Of course not the fair, you dodo. The party.”

“This party?”

Ron looked at Gary straight in the eye and said sadly, “Any party. Don’t you know that yet?
Any
party.”

“Well …” Gary searched for encouraging words. “Look on the bright side. Parties are a lot like buses. One ride ends and there’s always another waiting to take off.”

“Believe me, if I thought there weren’t going to be any more parties, I’d have taken a gun to my head years ago.”

“You really are down about this, aren’t you?”

“Maybe I’m just tired, like everybody else.”

“I’ll cheer you up. Let’s talk money. How’d you do all this?”

Totaling figures in his head, Ron finally said, “Let’s see, everything included I spent a hot eight hundred and twenty-five dollars, which, from my original budget of twenty-five hundred, leaves me with a profit of only …” Ron feigned an exaggerated yawn. “One thousand, six hundred and seventy-five dollars, and no cents.”

“Not bad for one party,” Gary observed. “I think you came out okay.”

“Does that mean you want me to pay you back the money I owe you?” asked Ron.

“Well,” said Gary, “I wouldn’t refuse it.”

“Greedy little bastard, aren’t you?” Ron sighed. “Fellow makes a small killing, and suddenly everyone’s his best friend.”

“Not me,” said Gary. “I’m the dumb one. I was your best friend
before
you got wealthy. Remember that.”

“I will,” said Ron as he removed a wad of money from his pocket and began counting out twenty-dollar bills. “Just remember, a fool and his money are soon invited everywhere!”

Gary accepted the stack of bills. “Cheer up. Look at how much you still have left.”

“You kidding?” Ron waved the rest of his wad at Gary and flapped it in the air. “Sol Hurok makes more than this with one phone call.”

“Sol Hurok imports the Bolshoi,” said Gary.

“Someday,” said Ron. “Someday soon my guest list will include Princess Margaret and Frank Sinatra; Audrey Hepburn and Truman Capote; Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton; the Carlo Pontis …”

“That’s what I like about you, Ron,” said Gary. “Always both feet firmly planted on the ground.”

Ron closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest. “Someday, Gary … someday …”

“Someday what?”

Ron opened his eyes and looked Gary smack in the face. “Someday …” he said, totally serious. “Someday I’m going to get there. I know I will … my mother promised me!”

“I hope you’re right.”

Ron laid his head against the headrest and once again closed his eyes. He was asleep almost immediately.

The “stewardess” walked over and Gary placed a finger on his lips, nodding at his sleeping friend.

“Oh,” she said quietly, “the driver is coming to the Midtown Tunnel, wants to know if he should go down to the Staten Island ferry or just drop everyone off at the Seagram Building.”

Gary looked carefully at Ron and knew from the uncommon expression of pleasure on his roommate’s face that he had checked out of this party and was now hosting another in the privacy of his mind. “Head for the Seagram Building,” Gary said. “This party is definitely over.”

26 

If Ron had found New York to be a summer festival, autumn seemed, by comparison, a veritable renaissance of activity. The weather improved. People changed out of their shorts and T-shirts into plaids, tweeds, wools, displaying less flesh but more style. Society folk stopped running out to East Hampton each weekend. The ballet season began. The opera. The Philharmonic.

And if all these cultural changes weren’t enough to convince the most doubting of Thomases that the season was most assuredly in transition, he could stumble through Central Park, the city’s own personal backyard, to view the leaves of rust and red and orange and tan and gold shimmering in an afternoon breeze.

Rather than settling for a hike in their monthly rent, Gary, Ron, and Kip told their landlord they would sign a year’s lease. Manhattan was a nonstop adventure none of them cared to abandon.

Ron, for one, felt more alive and excited than ever before in his life. Each day’s newspapers invariably contained something of interest. A movie. A play. The blessed gossip columns: Eugenia Sheppard, Earl Wilson, Suzy saying Who was Where, Who wore What, Who was In, Who was Out; with photos of faces he recognized from the dance floors.

Ron had, in fact, become so regular a regular at Arthur that he was on a
first-name
basis with most of the staff. When La Sybil herself asked if he’d like to work there as a waiter, he jumped at the opportunity. No more waiting in line, no more having to overtip the captain, no more praying not to be seated in left field, no more worrying about what to wear, when to arrive, when to leave. No longer an observer, Ron was suddenly part of the machinery.

Gary began receiving rejections for his manuscript. Although one or two editors did take the time to say they enjoyed his literate style, the rest were the standard “This is not the type of material we’re looking for at this time” refusals.

So Gary started making the rounds. He went from one publishing house to the next, applying for jobs as a reader, an assistant editor, a gofer, but without any success.

Most of the time he never got past the personnel office. He tried magazines, newspapers, and finally the story departments of movie companies. No one was interested.

When he was at Cinema Artists filling out still another application, the door to the story editor’s office sprang open and out walked a woman projecting so much warmth and personality, Gary liked her immediately.

The lady was quite lovely in a nongimmicky sort of way. She sported high cheekbones, large round eyes, and a long no-nonsense nose that suggested intelligence. Her hair was pulled back, neat and easy to care for, in a sophisticated chignon; her skirt and blouse were well-tailored; and her walk was classy.

Nora Greene handed her secretary some papers, saw Gary, and asked, “Can I help you with anything?” Her dark blue eyes signaled a genuine interest.

“He’s filling out an application,” said the secretary, and at the same time Gary said, “Looking for work as a reader.”

“What’s your name?” Nora asked.

“Sergeant,” said Gary, trying to drown the uninvited frog in his throat. “Gary Sergeant.”

“Nora Greene,” said the story editor with a smile. She took Gary’s completed application and headed back into her office. “Come in. Let’s talk.”

Nora Greene’s office was lined with glass-and-steel-framed posters:
Casablanca, A Night at the Opera, Lawrence of Arabia
and travel ads for various mountains—McKinley in Alaska, Pyramid Peak in Colorado, Everest in Nepal, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

“Nice photos,” said Gary, admiring the colorful snowcapped peaks.

“Don’t I know?” Nora sighed. “Please … I miss the mountains already. I just got back from my fifth trip to Nepal. I’m still readjusting to life down here at sea level.”

“Sounds great,” said Gary. “I adore mountain climbing.”

“We were on trek for twenty-seven days,” said Nora. “It was paradise. There is just no feeling in the world like reaching the summit of a mountain!”

She looked down and scanned Gary’s application. “I see you were on the ski team at school.”

“Right,” said Gary.

“Not exactly a key requisite for becoming a reader for a movie studio.” Nora smiled. “Still, it’s nice to know we have that in common.”

“I’m going skydiving at the end of the week,” Gary offered, hoping to hold her attention.

“Sounds like a sure cure for airsickness.”

“Don’t worry.” Gary smiled. “I’ll probably chicken out.”

“All right,” said Nora, putting Gary’s application inside a drawer in her desk. “Let’s have some serious talk.”

She told him she had been with Cinema Artists for five years, was married to Sam Greene, the noted political editor and columnist for the New York
Times,
had a summer home in Water Mill, near the tip of Long Island, was politically conscientious, and had, as Gary observed when Nora swiveled in her chair, one terrific set of legs.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “there isn’t much going on in New York movie-studio offices lately.” She had more than her quota of readers, but was glad to have met with him, and if she should somehow hear of a job opening around town, she’d be sure to recommend him.

Gary thanked her and stood to leave.

“You’re cute, you know that?” said Nora with a playful smile.

“Cute?”
asked Gary, thinking it an odd choice of adjectives.

“Real cute,” Nora repeated. “I hope something comes your way soon. I’ve got a good feeling about you.”

“Well, thanks,” said Gary. “Thanks so much. I’ve got a real good feeling about you, too….”

27 

At five o’clock in the morning the following Thursday, Gary awoke in a cold sweat. It’s nerves, he told himself, trying to calm down. A natural feeling anyone might have hours before jumping out of an airplane.

JUMPING OUT OF AN AIRPLANE?

He sat up in bed and looked over at Ron to see if he, too, wasn’t experiencing a similar anxiety attack. No, he was dead asleep. But then, he wasn’t going skydiving. Gary punched his pillow, knowing he would never be able to doze off again.

An hour later, Kip rapped on Gary’s door. “Six o’clock sharp!” he shouted.

“I woke up a while ago,” Gary told Kip. “With this premonition of impending disaster.”

Kip put his hands on his waist, very coachlike. “You’re not pussing out on me, are you?” he asked directly.

“Me?
Never!9’
said Gary, the last of the true jocks.

“Good,” said Kip as he turned and left the room.

By the time Gary showered, dressed, and walked into the living room, Kip had been waiting twelve minutes.

“How ‘bout some coffee?” asked Gary on his way into the kitchen. “A last breakfast?”

“No time!” said Kip, clearly too excited for sustenance. “We’ll catch something on the road.”

They met Mike and Jack Kennedy and drove out to the tip of Long Island. Despite the early hour, there was a lot of activity on the field. The more experienced skydivers were packing their own chutes, getting ready for their jumps.

Each of the boys coughed up forty-five dollars and got fitted with a rented jumpsuit, clunky military boots, a sturdy crash helmet. Then, with two other fresh recruits, they were ushered into a small quonset hut where the morning training session was about to begin.

The jumpmaster turned out to be Ray, a sturdy ex-marine with a small parachute tattooed on his left forearm, a lot of hair sticking out from the neck of his jumpsuit, and a five-o’clock shadow at nine in the morning. He gave them a two-hour lecture on technique peppered with encouraging tidbits like “It’s important ya keep your eyes open and watch out for things like landing in da trees. Trees is bad ‘cause ya can get a branch in your nuts, you can lose an eye, crack a few ribs.”

Trees were not the only problem. You had to watch out for electric wires, pools of water, cars, hard dirt, soft dirt, manure, houses, people, and most of all, you had to make sure your chute opened correctly.

As Gary sat through the lecture wondering why he was sitting through the lecture, he felt his heart sink.

“Important thing to remember,” said Ray, nonchalant, “is when you’re falling through air and you’ve got a problem … don’t panic.”

The second part of the training course consisted of being strapped into a harness suspended from a ten-foot beam, from which you practiced jumping.

Grab your shoulders, grab your tabs, pull your flanks, grab your ass, pray to God.

After an hour and twenty minutes of dropping to the ground, practicing landings, Ray declared that the six guys in his troop were ready to board their Cessna.

Gary’s courage did a skydive of its own, and free-fell down into his stomach, rendering him momentarily nauseated.

Parachutes were strung on their backs, emergency chutes strapped to their stomachs; helmets secured to their heads, dark nylon straps snapped across their chins.

Standing next to the tiny Cessna, Ray watched as his boys marched up to him one by one in single file, preparing to board.

“Look!” cried Ray suddenly pointing.

All eyes went to the sky.

Way up, another Cessna had just let four chutists out in the sky.

One by one they opened, tiny colorful Rorschach mushrooms blossoming beneath the clouds. Except there were three. The fourth mushroom didn’t mushroom at all.

“Oh, good!” said Ray, pointing to the fourth chutist, now free-falling through the air. “You’re gonna see a cutaway.”

All eyes remained fixed on the sky as word flashed across the field that a streamer was on its way down.

“He better cut away soon,” said Ray, the picture of calm and tranquillity.

“Cut away!” cried several voices around the field. “Cut away!”

The skydiver falling through the air couldn’t hear. He was twenty-five hundred feet above the strip.

“Call an ambulance!” screamed the receptionist in the office.

By the time the skydiver was several hundred feet above the ground, he had picked up so much momentum he was falling to earth with astonishing speed.

The spectators could hear him scream as he approached the ground. The falling man screamed louder than all the people screaming up at him.

He landed in the parking lot on the hood of a Pontiac. There was one dull thud heard by everyone as flesh became one with twisted sheet metal and shattered windshield. And then, snap, just like that, it was over.

For the shortest of moments, there was silence.

Then all hell broke loose.

People running over to the parking lot. To the phone. The bathroom. Ray instructed his students to wait right there and high-tailed it over to the Pontiac.

Gary and Kip and the Kennedys stood transfixed, unable to comprehend what they’d seen, as a fire truck, a police car, and an ambulance soon descended upon the landing strip.

One by one, the three other skydivers landed in the field of high weeds across from the bustling parking lot. After checking to be sure
they
were still intact, they collected their chutes and, arms loaded down with gathered nylon, ran toward the parking lot.

“He dead?” one of them shouted to Kip as he arrived at the Pontiac and saw the sight of the fourth diver, his diving companion, facedown on a shattered windshield, his lifeless body eerily molding its form to the V-8 engine, a long colorful trail of orange-and-white streamer still extending from lifeless shoulders, a Superman cape never having taken wing.

A man in white, part of the ambulance delegation, was the first official to reach the body. He pushed his way through a small crowd of gawkers, placed his fingers across the skydiver’s neck, and pronounced what everyone already knew: deceased.

A girl from the office wept on a friend’s shoulder. The second sky-diver knelt on the side of the Pontiac, too shocked to cry. The owner of the Pontiac was wondering if his insurance would cover a major collision from a flying object. And Gary breathed the slightest sigh of relief: no one would expect him to jump after that.

It took twenty-five minutes to clear the corpse from the area. In time, the police got their story, the men in the fire truck returned to their poker game, the ambulance drove off to make a deposit at the morgue. And the owner of the Pontiac waited impatiently for the AAA to remove the debris that had once been his source of transport.

Jumpmaster Ray walked over to the spot where Kip, Gary, and the Kennedy brothers were still standing, still watching, and asked calmly, “You guys still wanna go up?”

Go up? thought Gary. Was Ray crazy?

“Sure,” said Kip firmly, and Gary’s heart kicked him in the lungs.

“Good for you!” said Ray, pointing collectively to the four of them. “No sense in getting upset. This kind of thing happens all the time. Best to just pack up and get on the next plane. Okay, guys.” Ray stood tall, again taking command of the troops. “Let’s get into our chutes. We leave in ten minutes.”

“Hold on a minute …” said Mike Kennedy, and Gary stopped walking, hoping that the Kennedys would call an end to these samurai-kamikaze proceedings.

“What’s up?” Ray wanted to know, on his way into the supply room.

“Maybe this ain’t such a good idea …” said Mike Kennedy, and Gary knew it was the best badly constructed sentence he’d ever heard.

“Well, come on, you guys, let me know,” said Ray, stomping at some dust on the ground. “You wanna go, you don’t wanna go. Make up your minds.”

“I don’t wanna go,” said Mike Kennedy.

Gary brightened.

“Me neither,” said Jack Kennedy with a shrug.

The hammer inside Gary’s head stopped pounding. Happy to be included with the quitters, he chimed in, “Yeah, it’s a lousy day to jump out of a plane.”

“Hey, you guys, come on!” protested Kip.

“Come on, yourself!” said Jack Kennedy. “I’m no longer stoked.”

Kip walked up to Ray. “Well, Sarge,” he said quietly. “Looks like it’s just you and me.”

“No can do,” said Ray, squinting at his band of deserters. “Gotta be two of you, or it wouldn’t pay for the gas consumed.” He walked into the supply room.

Gary started back to the cashier’s office to turn in his equipment and get his money back.

“Hold on!” Kip called.

Gary stopped and took a deep breath. “Yeah, boss?”

“There have to be two of us or it’s no go,” said Kip.

“Looks like it’s going to be no go!” answered Gary firmly.

“I want to go!” Kip said firmly.

“Go with the Kennedys,” said Gary.

“The Kennedys are out. They quit.”

“So did I,” said Gary.

“You can’t,” Kip told him.

“And why not?” asked Gary.

“Because if you don’t go, I don’t go. And I’ve been planning this for a long time. I’m counting on you not to let me down.”

“Did you see that fellow fall on his face or not?” Gary asked. “This is a sport for very crazy people.”

“Please,” said Kip. “Don’t do this to me.”

“Please “
said Gary. “Don’t do
this
to
me!”

“I thought you were my friend,” said Kip softly to the ground, and suddenly the entire tenor of the afternoon took a sudden change.

“I
am
your friend,” said Gary, knowing his argument was fast sinking. “I’d do anything for you. I’d cut off my right arm …”

“Don’t be silly,” said Kip. “Following me out of that plane will be more than enough.”

“You’re—pardon the expression—
dead
serious, aren’t you?” asked Gary.

“Completely,” said Kip. “I’ll tell Ray there’ll be two divers this afternoon.” He began walking toward the supply room.

Gary called after him, “I hear that slitting your wrists in a warm tub is the most painless way to end it.”

“Slashing wrists is for cowards,” Kip called back. “Stick with me, kid. I’ll take care of you.”

More excited than he’d been in ages, Kip headed into the supply room to inform Ray there would now be two of them making the leap into space.