The Memory of Running

by Ron McLarty

  “They were lovely young girls, but this woman sank into my unconscious. I called her again. And again. And each time she laughed and chatted in her breathless little way.”

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  “Words,” he said. “I just don’t know about them. We were on the phone, and I was upstairs in my little bedroom, and I asked about her kid and his progress with Ad Altare Dei, et cetera, and she said . . . she said, ‘It’s very hot. I’m just going to take this off, just a second.’ Well, I’m on the other end thinking, My God, what? What has she taken off? So I ask her casually. I say, ‘So . . . what did you have to take off?’ and she says, ‘Oh, my sweater,’ and I say, ‘Are you cooler now?’ and she says, ‘Actually no, I’m still pretty hot,’ and there’s a pause, and finally I say, I say . . . ‘Why don’t you, why don’t you take off the rest of your clothes so your full, ripe breasts can cool off?’ ”

  He looked at me as if I should say something. But I don’t know things. I’ve always thought they must get hot, but I just don’t know. I smiled stupidly.

  “Jeneen Dovrance said, ‘What?’ And I said like a ritual lamb, like a cow in the Chicago stockyards, I said, ‘Why don’t you slip out of your clothes so I can imagine you there, nude, with your lovely breasts and sweet love box all full and juicy.’ She—joke’s on me, all right, old celibate Benny Gallo—she hangs up. Know how I can remember what I said word for word? Because Jeneen Dovrance pressed ‘record’ on her answering machine after I said the word ‘breasts’ the first time, and Bishop Fuget and his goddamn toadies played it for me, over and over and over during the inquisition. She had transmitted this intensely private conversation to a hierarchy of pansies. You know what they call me behind my back? Shall I tell you? They call me ‘old full and juicy.’ ‘Full and juicy,’ ho, ho. Very funny. Assistant pastor. God Almighty.”

  He put his face into his hands, then went to the sink and splashed some cold water on his eyes.

  “So you see how we go on? How we don’t give up?”

  I saw. I slept on a couch in the rectory, and I dreamed that Bethany was running around our backyard and Norma was chasing her. Laughter dreams good.

  14

  As soon as he was out of sight of my mom and pop, Bobby Myers lit a Marlboro.

  “Open the glove compartment,” he said to Bethany.

  Inside was a quart bottle of Four Roses Canadian whiskey, which was a favorite of the Riverside mondos.

  “That’s the good stuff. I stole it from my old man. We’re gonna have some fun tonight.”

  Bethany thought Bobby Myers looked good and cool with the Marlboro in his mouth.

  “Did you remember to get the corsage?”

  “Oh, shit, I’m glad you reminded me. It’s in the trunk. I’ll get it when we pick up Sal.”

  Sal Ruggeri—or Sal the Dago, which he was sometimes called behind his back, way behind his back—was the boy in East Providence High School who, by example, led the Riverside mondos. Without Sal we probably never would have had spot locker checks, for example. Certainly we never would have had the Sal Walk, which all the mondos were required to do. Hands in pockets, as close to your balls as possible, shoulders hunched so the leather jacket rode up around your neck, and a sort of slide step with your hobnail boots. And, of course, you chewed Dubble Bubble. It was their aroma. Sweet-smelling marauders.

  Sal’s mom and pop were lovely people who both worked for Campenella & Cardi Construction. He operated backhoes, and she did payroll. They went to mass on Wednesdays and Sundays and were active in most of St. Martha’s activities. They were pretty typical of the lower-middle-class people in East Providence. They saved for everything they wanted. They worked hard. They were terrific neighbors. And they adored their only child—the evil-minded, pimply-pussed Sal the Dago.

  Bobby and Sal were best friends in a way that the mondos were best friends. They’d punch each other on the arms and try to make the other one quit. Friends that way, the mondo way. Sal was taking Debbie Gomes. They weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend or anything like that, but she was a tough girl, and she gave hand jobs. At least that’s what it said on the wall above the urinal in the first-floor boys’ room.

  Sal came out of the house on the first honk of the Impala. His tuxedo pants were skintight, and instead of a bow tie, he wore his shirt open so his furry chest could breathe.

  “Hey, man,” Bobby said coolly. Sal jumped into the backseat.

  “Hey, man,” Sal said.

  Bethany felt a little uncomfortable around Sal. Everybody did. It was a feeling you’d get that was magnetic and repulsive at the same time. Turmoil. But Bethany also felt pretty excited and happy. Bobby was so cool, and she looked great. She knew she did. She felt all her choices were the exact right ones—from her tight curls, which had loosened up enough to bounce, to her sexy blue heels. She had practiced walking in them for weeks and had perfected a natural-looking glide step. It was a very nice package, and she knew it.

  Now, I’m not sure about anything, as I’ve said, but I think generally there’s a rhythm to young girls that they don’t have to think about. It’s not really spontaneous either, because it’s always there. It’s the big events with gowns and tuxedos and heels that point this up. The girls somehow hear this beat, this rhythm, and that’s what the night is like. The boys do not have this rhythm, at least not for an entire night, and that’s why the liquor gets into glove compartments.

  Bobby steered the big Impala with one hand and reached for the Four Roses with the other. He handed it back to Sal.

  “The good stuff. There’s cups and orange soda to mix it with. Under the seat.”

  Sal filled the cups about halfway with the whiskey, then smoothed them out with the orange soda. He handed Bobby his, then Bethany.

  “This is fucking great,” Sal said. He lit a Marlboro. Bobby took a big swallow and watched Bethany sip a little.

  “Great?” Bobby asked.

  “Really good,” Bethany said.

  “Hey,” Sal said, “we don’t have to pick up Debbie or nothing. She lives next to the car place across from the school. I told her to walk.”

  It was a warm evening, warmer than usual for Rhode Island. Bobby pulled into the half-full parking lot. Sal climbed over the trunk and walked to the mondos on the grass next to the school gym. Their dates were inside.

  “Why don’t you go in and stuff. I got to see these guys,” Bobby said.

  The mondos laughed that Debbie was inside waiting to give Sal his hand job. Sal smiled, grabbed his crotch, and went inside the gym. Bobby followed him. Big Brother Jackson Dees from WICE in Providence spun the records and in between peppered the space with East Providence High School references. He played lots of the Drifters, Elvis, Dion and the Belmonts, and the fabulous Fabian. The girls went back and forth to the girls’ room. The boys smoked cigarettes just outside the door to the gym. It was, all in all, a pretty nice prom. At eleven forty-five, Mr. Burke, the principal, flipped the gym lights on and off, signaling last dance, and the formal portion of the evening came to a close.

  When Bobby and Bethany reached the car, Debbie was wiping her hands with some Kleenex, and Sal was relaxing with a tall Orange and Roses.

  “Weren’t the decorations neat?” Bethany gushed, getting into the front seat.

  “Real cool.” Debbie yawned.

  “Yeah, real cool,” added Sal.

  “It was Sharon Davis’s idea to have a Colonial theme. I think Sharon did a real, real neat job.”

  “How about some drinks up here,” said Bobby. He finished his before he started the car.

  “Let’s go to the beach,” Sal said on cue.

  “Hey, what a neat idea,” said Debbie.

  “The beach? Hey, that does sound good.”

  “But it’s past twelve already. I’m supposed to be home,” Bethany said. My sister felt awkward and childish, but she wanted to be responsible to Mom and Pop, and maybe even me.

  “We’ll just go to Barri
ngton. Fifteen, twenty minutes.” The big car powered out of the parking lot, up Pawtucket Avenue, through Riverside, and into Barrington. Bethany didn’t say anything. Debbie and Sal the Dago had disappeared onto the backseat. Juicy kiss sounds and occasional groans oozed into the front. Bobby finished Bethany’s drink as they pulled onto the rise above Barrington Beach. He turned the motor off, and they both sat looking out over the bay. Crickets chirped. The tiniest waves rolled beneath them. Debbie growled quietly, out of sight in the rear darkness. Bobby gently put his arm around Bethany.

  “Did I tell you how pretty you look tonight?”

  She smiled but felt her body begin to go rigid.

  “I thought you were the prettiest girl there.”

  Bobby leaned over and kissed her cheek, then kissed down her jawline until he reached the lips. He’d kissed her before, and on the lips, too, but not with Sal and Debbie in the backseat, and not quite so differently. She felt his tongue push through her tightened lips and whap at her teeth. In the backseat the slurping of tongues overpowered the waves. Bethany turned her head away.

  “I don’t know . . .” she said.

  “I just like you so much,” he whispered. “I just like you so much.” Bobby licked at her ears. “Do you remember when you took off your clothes in the school parking lot? All your clothes? I saw your titties. I just like them so much. I like the way you took off all your clothes.”

  Bethany felt his wet lips on her neck. She remembered the parking lot. She remembered how the other girls had stopped speaking to her and how her skin felt all icy and then like Brillo soap pads, and Smithy finding her underneath the water tower in the snow. And really how her voice had lied then, no matter what it said now, tried to say. How it lied, behind the walls, in the air above her head.

  Bobby Myers turned her toward him, and his tongue jumped into her mouth like a lizard. His left hand brushed against her chest, and his finger squeezed where her nipples would be.

  “I liked the way you took off all your clothes. I liked the way your titties were all pretty and exciting.”

  “Oh, God!” Debbie screamed, still out of sight.

  “Baby, baby,” Sal gushed.

  “Titties, titties, titties,” uttered Bobby. “Take them off. Take all your clothes off. Please. Please. Please.”

  Bobby grabbed her right hand and pulled it toward his crotch. “See what you do to me? See how you get me all excited and everything?”

  “Don’t wipe it on my tuxedo,” Sal said from behind them. “I have to take this shit back to the store.”

  “So what am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Rub it on the rug.”

  “Please,” Bobby pushed, “take it off. Take it off so I can see. Please.”

  “I got this stuff all over my dress,” Debbie whined. Her and Sal sat up in the backseat.

  “Pass the cups back here,” Sal said.

  Bobby released the suction on Bethany’s neck. “You guys think you could take a walk on the beach or something?”

  “We’ll close our eyes,” Sal snickered.

  “We won’t watch.” Debbie laughed.

  “C’mon,” Bobby pleaded.

  “Shit,” said Sal. He climbed on the hood. Debbie followed him.

  “Thanks!” yelled Bobby after them. Bethany felt heavy and sleepy and somehow chilled. She watched Sal and Debbie walk toward the water. She felt separated from this place, and the beach, and even the water. It seemed sometimes that the only connection in a world of disconnection was the steadying call of the voice deep in whatever it was she was. She never spoke of the voice, the words, anymore, and she regretted she ever had, because no one could give her the understanding, the sympathy, her private voice required. Indeed, it seemed to anger the people who loved her more and more, until no matter what problems arose, the voice was always assumed to be at the center.

  Bethany looked down, and Bobby was removing her panties. He pulled them over the blue heels. She watched his hands run up her thigh and his fingers plunge into her pubic hair. He kissed her lips. She watched herself as if in a mirror.

  “Touch me,” he breathed. “Touch me now.”

  She looked away from herself and saw that Bobby had unbuttoned the tuxedo pants and brought his penis into view. He moved her hand to it.

  “My dick,” he breathed romantically. “My dick, my dick, my dick.”

  Bethany held the object of his intensity curiously. She moved it left and right like a stick shift.

  “No, no, up and down,” he drawled.

  “I understand it now. Now I get it,” she said, removing her hand.

  “Get what?”

  “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  She looked to where Sal lay humping Debbie on the sand.

  “I want to take all my clothes off for you,” she said shyly, “but I want it to be a surprise, too.”

  “Why don’t you just take them off? I’ve already seen your thing.”

  “I just want it to be a surprise. How about this? How about you get in the trunk, and I’ll take off all my clothes, and then you can see all of me, with nothing on?”

  “And I’ll take my clothes off, too. I’ll take them off in the trunk.”

  “And I’ll give you a big blow job,” she said sweetly.

  A blow job? A blow job? Blow job? This was thought about by the Rhode Island mondos to distraction, but none of them ever believed they’d get a girl to actually put her mouth around it and blow! Crazy girls were great. They were crazy, man. Bobby ran around to the rear of the car and unlocked the trunk.

  “Give me the keys, quick,” she said. “I have to get out of my dress. I have to let my titties out.”

  Bobby leaped in, and Bethany closed the trunk. She walked around to the driver’s side of the car and put her panties on.

  “That’s enough,” she said out loud. “I don’t have to do more than that.”

  The clear water kicked back the three-quarter moon’s shape. “I don’t want to do more,” she said loudly. “Don’t tell me to do more. Please.”

  Sal heard the car engine start and raised his head.

  “What?” asked Debbie, beneath him.

  “The car started.”

  They saw the headlights flash on, and the light covered them. Sal jumped up and zipped his pants. He gave the car the finger.

  “He’s a dick,” he said.

  Debbie stood, and they brushed sand from each other.

  “What’s the matter with that jerk?”

  “He’s a dick,” Sal said.

  The big car squealed backward and stopped at the far end of the parking lot. It sat revving. An angry rev. A crazy rev. Then the sound fell into the gentle hum of the Chevrolet’s eight perfect cylinders.

  “What’s he doing?” Debbie asked.

  “Sshhhh,” whispered Sal. He looked behind him. They were about twenty or thirty yards from the water. He didn’t know why, but he noted it. He looked back at the idling Impala. Someone was talking in the car, but the voice didn’t belong to either Bobby or Bethany. It was cackly and high.

  “Who’s that?” Debbie whispered.

  “I do not have a fucking clue.”

  Suddenly the car charged across the blacktop, toward the thin wooden barriers separating the parking lot from the cement tidal wall and beach. It ripped apart the barriers and flew off the wall. It seemed to Sal that the Impala actually rose higher before it thudded to the beach, its wheels spewing a tall arc of fine sand. It roared on through the soft granules, but as it closed on Sal and Debbie, the beach became harder packed and the car found new traction.

  “Shit!” Sal screamed. He grabbed Debbie’s hand and headed toward the water. Behind them the snarl of engine grew louder.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” Sal urged.

  They hit the freezing May Atlantic at a gallop, then frantically dragged their soggy bodies deeper into the bay. The Impala swerved, half in the water, half out, and the closeness of the heavy metal chassis seemed like th
e end. The engine faded, and they turned their eyes back to land. The car had driven onto the lip of the ocean and was now several hundred yards down the beach. In the distance Warren, Rhode Island, twinkled in its harbor. Sal thought he heard a muffled scream from inside the car; then it turned into the high reeds and disappeared.

  15

  I lay in bed semi-awake and tried to yawn. My eyes were dry, and I knew a good yawn would activate my tear ducts. Is it like that for everybody? The door to the rectory opened, and Benny Gallo walked in carrying some huge Kmart bags.

  “We had a guy in seminary used to sleep late. We called him the ‘big sleeper.’ ”

  “What time is it?” I said.

  “Almost twelve. You’re getting up at the crack of noon.”

  Benny was wearing sneakers, running shorts, and a blue T-shirt that said PRIESTSDON’TDOIT.

  “I wanted to get this stuff before one. There’s the regional girls’ softball championship and picnic over at Chariho High. I’m umpiring the first game and then judging brownies. Serious stuff.”

  I sat up and swung my legs to the floor.

  “Saturdays are always hectic,” he said.

  “It’s Saturday?”

  “If Saturdays don’t run like clockwork, I’m lost. I fall behind and never catch up. Mass at six. Jog. Breakfast. AA meeting. Rounds at the nursing home. Coaching or umpiring, there’s always something going on. Hospital calls. Knights of Columbus, whatnot. It’s a bitch.”

  But Father Benny was buoyant in his activity-loaded schedule, and the room thumped with his energy.

  “I got you some stuff,” he said. And he described each of the items as he pulled them from the bags.

  “Toothbrush and toothpaste. Got to have this. I got you the soft bristles. Fruit of the Loom. I guessed XXL. Jockeys. Running shorts. Three pairs. Again XXL. See, these are extra stretch in the waist and wide in the leg, so they shouldn’t bind on you when you’re on the bike. T-shirts and sweatshirts—and look at this baby.” Father Benny reverently took out an enormous red-flowered Hawaiian shirt that two of me could have fit in.