The Draw

by Lee Siegel

  I had a special fondness for the poem’s first lines, though I had no inkling of what they meant, either—“The expense of spirit in a waste of shame / Is lust in action.” The lines contained three words that I thought best expressed my singular virtues—“spirit,” “lust,” “action”—and one word that never failed to draw my attention: “shame.” The girls would sometimes smile, and sometimes look annoyed.

  * * *

  Not long after the sheriff paid his visit to our house, four of us, so drunk that we had to take turns at the wheel, drove by the Paramus Police Department at night, shouting, “Dostoyevsky! Dostoyevsky!” My friends, who were, like me, bookish yet not academic, thought the Russian name presented a strong anarchic statement. I had in mind Dostoyevsky’s notion, in one of his tales, that the illogic of two plus two equals five was more truthful to human existence than the constructions of rational thought. Rational thinking was too compromised by considerations of survival and prosperity. I was also enamored of this line from the same book: “Lucidity is a great disease.” The idea that clear thinking was a deficiency of character meant a lot to me.

  Books provided a complete, self-sufficient alternative world. In this world, the gloom of economic misery that had driven happiness from my house was itself dispelled by new reference points, new parameters. The old stories, and the old ideas, usurped what I felt was money’s supremacy. Even when a work of fiction—or play, or poem, or philosophical essay—was about money, money surrendered its status as being the abstract of everything. My cherished books themselves were about everything. Money was just one element of existence alongside all the others.

  Money never had the last word in these books, even when money was the determining influence in a plot, or the central idea in a philosophical argument. The perspective from which the plot or argument was shaped occupied a plane above money. Rather than portraying money as gravely consequential, this higher perspective demonstrated the absurdity or inhumanity or at least insufficiency of a social arrangement in which money had such grave consequences.

  * * *

  My friends and I would often begin our drunken drives by smoking pot in someone’s car in an empty parking lot. Later, we would buy a few six-packs of beer and move to another parking lot to finish those. After that we would drive around shouting our tokens of superiority, then gradually calm down and fall into long conversations about the meaning of life, and so forth. We often ended the night back in one of the original parking lots. There we vowed eternal allegiance to each other before parting.

  One night, when we had dispensed with the pot-smoking prelude and sat thoughtfully drinking beer in Alex Tarmanian’s light green Toyota in the parking lot of a bank, an orange Ford Pinto pulled up beside us. We often roamed through the night in a caravan of two or three cars when there were a few of us, so it was not unusual to be joined by someone in another car.

  Tonight it was me, Paul, and two other friends: Peter Camino, a Puerto Rican kid who was the only person in town from what we used to call a “minority” background, though his father was a modestly successful commercial artist in New York; and Arthur Teitelbaum, whose father had patented a new and better machine for stringing tennis rackets, an invention that had propelled the Teitelbaums into the solid middle of the middle class.

  Arthur was my only Jewish friend, besides Terry Cushman, though I was closer to Arthur. Terry never laughed at my jokes until other people did. It seemed to me that he laughed with a touch of hostility, as if he resented having to satisfy the emotional need that lay beneath my comic capering.

  Arthur looked sad and dreamy most of the time. As soon as someone made a joke, he burst into easy laughter. Then he would abruptly look sad and dreamy again. He really belonged with the Goldbergs and the Cohens, but he fell in with us because he did not excel academically. He felt more comfortable with kids who pretended to laugh their shortcomings away. It was our laughter and lack of conscientiousness, however, that seemed to make him sad, since what he really wanted was to be with the Goldbergs and the Cohens.

  The boy behind the wheel of the Pinto was not Jewish or Puerto Rican or ethnic at all. His name was John Linville. His father, Michael, was a prominent architect in town. Michael also served as one of the leaders of the Paramus Rotary Club, which numbered among its members various local politicians and zoning officials. Because of his success as an architect, and his eminence as a Rotarian, he stood at the convergence of wealthy clients and town officials who could be useful in the awarding of bids to developers and contractors—who in turn might be useful in bringing a realtor on board at the right time.

  * * *

  My father was courting Michael Linville in hopes of being invited into the Rotary Club. One day, when I was fourteen or fifteen, he came home beaming with excitement. Linville, he proudly informed us, had asked him to join the Rotary Club on a trip to the Army-Navy football game, which was to be played in Philadelphia. To my ambivalent delight—he embarrassed me; I wanted to see the legendary game—my father asked me if I would like to go with him.

  Monroe was as far from WASP decorum as Jupiter is from Mars. Sitting next to my father on the bus that had been chartered by the Rotarians, I listened as he mentioned to Michael Linville something about some property somewhere. Linville commented on the Army quarterback. My father countered with a reference to another property. Linville commented on the Navy quarterback. Not one to be outdone, my father raised the subject of a beautiful commercial space that he had seen in Hackensack from the window of the Electra, and Linville smiled. He turned away to speak to his wife.

  A couple of weeks later, my father returned from work ashen-faced. Following a wordless dinner, he vanished into the den, where he listened to jazz and ate cookies for hours before going to bed. I later heard my mother telling Judy Baum on the phone that he had been turned down by the Rotary Club, after all. For this reason, I both hated John Linville and longed to be accepted by him.

  * * *

  The straw-haired Linville had tiny yellow pinwheels embedded in his hazel eyes. He squinted behind wire-framed glasses. Rolling down the window of his Ford Pinto, he asked us what we were up to. He reached beside him and held up a six-pack of Heineken. This was, at the time, an exotic import that reduced our Budweisers and Michelobs to drab old standbys. He nodded to me and I immediately nodded back.

  Hey, he said, nodding to me again. Ride with me.

  Do you mind? I asked my friends, though I looked at Paul when I said it.

  We’ll be right behind you, Camino said.

  It’s strictly business, said Teitelbaum, echoing the line from The Godfather, which made absolutely no sense in the context. He laughed. Then he gazed sadly out the window.

  Good stuff, said Paul. He patted my arm as I got out of the car.

  Linville nodded to me again as I settled into the passenger seat next to him. When Paul and the others started to move, he began to slowly follow them. As they drove out of the parking lot onto the road that ran behind it, he sped up and raced toward Route 17, at the opposite end of the lot.

  Where are you going? I said.

  He held up a bottle of beer. Have one, he said. He pointed with the bottle to the glove compartment. The opener’s in there, he said. He steered the trundling Pinto out onto the shoulder, pressed his foot to the accelerator, and we whipped onto the highway.

  * * *

  Route 17 ran, as I have said, north up into New York state, and south toward New York City, where it ended at the George Washington Bridge. Its stretch in Paramus was thick with furniture stores, shoe stores, car dealerships, diners, pizzerias, and other businesses. During the day and early evening, the highway was crowded with commuters and shoppers. On a Saturday night like the one with Linville, the highway gradually, as the night wore on, gave way, in some survival of the fittest in reverse, to drivers who were less and less sober. Accidents were common late at night, and also during rush hour, when merging onto or off the shoulder made you a sitting duck for car
s performing the same operation.

  Until recently, Route 17 had claimed its share of pedestrians, too. Kids dashed across the six-lane highway out of impulse, or on a dare. They would cross the three lanes of traffic going in one direction, stop in the narrow strip in the middle, wait for their chance, and race over the final three lanes.

  For this reason, Route 17, as well as its east-west twin, Route 4, haunted the parents of Paramus. They warned their children, on pain of harsh punishment, to stay away from the highways. They begged for action from town officials, who in turn appealed to the state. But because of the expense of putting up a barrier between directions, plus the lack of a financial incentive for any New Jersey politician to take on the bureaucracy to implement the plan, the pleas came to nothing. Every once in a while the monster highways devoured another victim. It was chilling to see, on a dark Halloween night, children dressed as ghosts and skeletons trick-or-treating along the shoulder of Route 17 or Route 4.

  The menace began to be brought under some kind of control when I was in junior high. As if in some macabre sacrifice, a teenage girl rushed across Route 17 to be with her friends as they stood waving and beckoning to her on the other side. A car hit her without braking, at seventy miles per hour. The impact had so much force that, as her friends watched, her separated leg spun up into the air over the traffic.

  Weeks later, money was found to begin construction on a concrete wall, two and a half feet high, that would divide Route 17’s two directions. A year or two after that, and about five decades since Route 17 was inaugurated as a major highway, during which time countless people died on it, various local politicians and zoning officials took credit for what was touted as the life-saving measure of the divider.

  But the long, shallow wall had the effect of, literally, raising the bar for some kids. Now it served as a coveted marker. The ultimate gamble became to race to the divider and sit, straddling it, shouting and whooping in triumph, before scrambling across the final three lanes to the other side. Kids still died. Parents still lay awake at night, confused by their inability to guarantee the welfare of their children in a place they had moved to in order to be safe. My friends and I would never have dreamed of setting foot on either of the highways. Depending on how you looked at it, crossing them was either an advanced rite of passage for people who had the inborn confidence to take their future for granted, or a destructive test of courage for people who refused to accept their essential fearfulness.

  * * *

  John Linville was picking up speed, squinting harder at the streaming night-lights of the cars, stores, and streetlamps. He turned on the radio. Captain and Tenille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” was playing. He turned it up, singing at the top of his lungs.

  Cars had two seat belts for each person back then. I buckled the one around my waist, then pulled the sash around my shoulder and locked it into its clasp.

  Don’t you trust me? said Linville.

  I saw that he had not buckled either of his seat belts.

  For a moment I thought of undoing mine, but the cat was already out of the bag. I was obviously scared. Demonstrating that I wasn’t would have made me look scared twice. I shrugged and laughed. I wanted to show that I at least had the courage not to care about appearing frightened.

  How about some jazz? I said, reaching for the radio.

  Linville pushed my hand away. I hate jazz, he said with a smile.

  Swaying back and forth behind the wheel, he continued to sing along with the radio. The car began to sway, too. I looked at the odometer. We were going almost sixty-five.

  Gliding into the middle lane, Linville placed his hand on the gear selector and moved the car into second gear. Since the car had an automatic transmission, there was no reason to do this, and downshifting made no sense anyway, but we all drove cars with automatic transmissions, and we all liked to pretend that we were driving a stick. Focusing on this driving make-believe, Linville had stopped veering to the left and right. I relaxed a little and spoke to him with gratitude.

  Cool car, I said.

  Yeah, he said. My dad bought it for me last year. Pintos are very cool, he said.

  Tony Orlando and Dawn’s “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You)” came on. Linville started to sing loudly again. He jerked the car left to right as he swayed back and forth. I tried to recall some of my favorite jazz songs, “Autumn Leaves” or “Poinciana,” to calm myself. The terrific speed of the car reduced the tunes in my head to a silly irrelevancy.

  This car really moves, I said.

  Yeah, he said. Watch this. Shifting senselessly from drive into second again, and then back into drive, he moved into the fast lane. Now we were moving at about seventy-five.

  Whoa, I said.

  Yes! he cried. He took a swig of his beer. Then he pressed the brake pedal, slowed the car down, and swerved into the concrete divider. The Pinto bounced off it, shook and vibrated like crazy, and stabilized.

  Yeah!! he screamed. I began to yell in fright, but fear of seeming frightened overwhelmed my fear of being hurt or dying, and my yell came out as a wild hoot of complicity. Whooo-hooooo! I cried. Gulping down my beer, I pulled another one out of the carton and flipped off the top with the opener. Linville finished his beer, opened his window, and threw the bottle out of the car. I heard the popping and shattering glass grow fainter in the distance.

  Fuck yeah! he yelled, and hit the divider again. I could see that he was pressing the brake as the car struck the divider, quickly taking his foot off on impact, then braking again. But the car shook and vibrated even more violently this time. For a moment Linville lost control.

  Whoaaaaa! he cried. He wrestled the Pinto down and straightened it out.

  That was a close one, I said.

  Not as close as this, he said, hitting the divider. The Pinto bounced off it again, and again he struggled to straighten it out, breathing heavily and pushing his glasses up his nose after he did so. He turned to me. Fuuuuuuuck! he shouted, staring into my eyes while he steadied the car with the brake. Fuuuuuuuuuck! he shouted again. He accelerated and struck the divider again and again. There was a maniacal fixity in his eyes. In the green and yellow reflected lights of the highway, he looked like a ghoul.

  I stopped yelling. Summoning the Old Man, I described to myself what was happening, as if the world was watching and listening years later, when the night’s events became a story. “The car is hitting the divider. Linville turned to look at me. I sat quietly, letting it happen. My eyes stung with anguish and anger. In the green light of the highway he looked like a ghoul.” But the Old Man couldn’t help me that night. I felt all the more helpless for relying on him.

  Tiring of hitting the divider, or feeling that he should not push his luck any further, Linville was now weaving in and out of traffic at about ninety.

  I love this fucking car, he said. Don’t you love this fucking car?

  It’s a cool car, I said shakily. Linville peered over at me.

  Maybe it’s time to meet up with those guys, he said.

  I nodded.

  Where are they? he said. I had no idea. Up ahead I saw the Century movie theater, which sat near the intersection of Route 17 and Route 4.

  They’re there, I said. We always meet up in the parking lot over there.

  Linville looked at me and smiled.

  Sure, he said. We have to get you to your friends. Don’t worry, we’ll get you to your friends. Do you see them?

  No, I said. But they’ll be there. We arranged to meet there.

  This was untrue. My friends and I had said nothing about meeting at the Century. But getting away from Linville was worth the price of the transparent lie. I felt desolate. The castle was a dreary split-level house, the Old Man had disappeared, and the jazz songs were not my songs.

  Here you are, said Linville, stopping at the edge of the parking lot.

  Thanks, I said as I got out of the car. Good stuff.

  He smiled straight into my eyes, locking th
em into his. He did this for about thirty seconds. Then he drove off without saying a word. I could not see the side of the car that had struck the divider, but it must have been all banged up.

  Standing alone at the edge of the parking lot, now deserted because of the late hour, I fought off the impulse to drop to my knees and kiss the crossroads of Route 4 and Route 17. There were too many Saturday-night revelers still passing by. I checked my watch. It was nearly three o’clock. Paul would be home by now. I decided to risk angering his mother and call him to ask if he could come get me. I walked along the highway in search of a pay phone.

  * * *

  Caught up in my escapades with my friends, and in my withdrawal into books, I was suffering in school. I might have been able to talk with relentless sincerity about Othello—whose bombast, meant by Shakespeare to reveal Othello’s fatal flaws of insecurity and self-regard, I envied—but the outcome of this was that I grew alienated from subjects, like math and science, for which I had no flair. I had convinced myself that I was endowed with a unique connection to literature. As a result, I granted myself a reprieve from any type of academic work that brought me frustration rather than the pleasure literature afforded me.

  I did much better in my English classes than in math and science. But Othello’s formal diction didn’t help me when it came to taking the standardized aptitude tests that colleges used to help determine your suitability. My performance on the verbal part of the exam was just respectable. My math scores were so low that I felt I had to go around and tell everyone how low they were in order to make light of them.

  When the senior-year ritual of conferring about college with the high school guidance counselor came around, I should have presented a rich contradiction. Possessing a knack for language and for analytical reading, I was faltering in school. Devoted to books as living forms of experience, I performed without distinction on tests meant to measure my grasp of literature as a repository of sacred information. The contradiction, however, was in my eyes only. My teachers and school administrators looked at me as a touching fuckup and daydreamer, who required too much time and energy to be set straight.