by Ron Irwin
It was a surprise to hear that. I was expecting her to tell me to go away. “Yeah? And, so…? How come?”
She stood up abruptly, clearly ready to go. I followed her outside into the afternoon cold. The flagstones leading from the shop door were dark and muddy with footprints. We walked a little way along the road and then headed toward the school. We cut across the last lawns in front of the town and started down the hill leading to the river.
“What do you want out of life?” Ruth suddenly asked me.
Her questions were all over the place but the answer was easy. “I want to be untouchable, the way the guys on the team are untouchable. The way Connor is untouchable.”
“Why is he?”
“The same way you are. Because you’re rich. Because you’re smart and have connections and tradition and you’re everything everyone aspires to back home only they can’t even visualize or imagine it so they’ll never have it.”
“It’s just luck, Rob. It’s not about being special at all.”
“Do you want to know something I’ve found out in the last month?”
“No. You’re going to talk about crew and I can’t bear it.”
“People want something more and more the closer it gets to them. As long as it’s just out of reach, you want it like you’ve never wanted anything, because you can see it so clearly. You can smell it. Until you can’t imagine wanting anything else.”
“You think being on a team is like that?”
“I think winning is like that. And leaving home behind. Leaving the past behind and starting again, somewhere else. Being a whole new person.”
“Do you really think you can leave the past behind just like that?” She smiled, as if she pitied me. “And what happens if you get what you want? What happens then?”
“The past is dead, Ruth. It’s over. You have to be able to dump it.”
“I hope so. For both our sakes.” She stopped midway down the hill, her fingers hooked in the cuffs of her coat. I looked over the river with her, saw the school in a sparkling haze through the trees.
“Here’s what I know about leaving the past behind and being close to things you want,” she said. She still hadn’t turned her eyes to me. “When my parents got divorced—separated, sorry, they got divorced later—they told me right before a cocktail party they were throwing for some German conductor. I was in the kitchen of the old apartment in New York and my mother came in with a big smile on her face. She asked me what time it was. Then she asked me what I thought about her leaving Daddy.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I was holding my balance, facing her on the wet hill.
“I should have pulled her hair out. Instead, I said that I thought her leaving Daddy was a bad idea. There were all these people walking in and out who were there to help with the bar and the hors d’oevres and everything. Then the caterers arrived and my father came out of his room and I thought that if I pretended my mother hadn’t asked me that question, then everything would be fine. And since Mom was doing the exact same thing, and Daddy didn’t even know we’d spoken, we could all pretend things were fine, and that’s what we did.” Ruth’s face was getting red in the cold.
The good thing was that I’d found something to say. “Ruth?”
“What?”
“I once went to this funeral where the dead person’s brother got into a fight with one of the mourners. The brother hit him so hard that the guy threw up.”
“That’s pretty unreal, Carrey.”
The story was true. Tom hit me so hard that I had to go out behind the hearse we’d rented for Wendy and puke while they finished putting dirt all over her.
I was walking backward now and pulling Ruth down the hill with me. She was having trouble with her balance. I was lower than her now, my boots digging into the snow. I was unbuttoning her coat. Her lips were cold and her mouth was warm and tasted like coffee and something else. Hope, maybe. I slipped and we fell but it’s funny how sometimes you don’t mind the cold.
* * *
Connor received a video in the mail from Warwick a few days after we came back from Thanksgiving break. The five of us assembled in the Rowing Cottage to watch it.
“Warwick has three Junior National team guys on the boat,” Connor informed us in a monotone. “Eddie McFarlane, a cox named Brendan Cooper, who is a total psycho, but that’s beside the point, and Tony Brickman, the captain, who has hated my guts since we went to Trinity together in kindergarten. I hate to admit it but Brickman is good—he has a place near my parents’ house in Osterville and he’s a beast, he’s the missing link. Their coach, by the way, is on his way to Princeton to take over the freshman crew.”
The video flickered to life on the TV screen. It had been shot from the bow of a coaching launch. You could see how fast Warwick’s crew was by the distance between the puddles left by their oars in the water. They were smooth and ominous looking. There was absolutely no sound, just frame after relentless frame of their perfect form. I allowed myself to consider if we were up to competing against a boatful of champion returners.
We watched for two minutes and then Connor shut off the machine, popped out the video and dropped it in the garbage. The message was clear. It had been a mistake to watch that video and see how good their boat was when the Fenton God Four hadn’t even been formed. I hadn’t rowed one stroke with these kids. I hadn’t even been officially selected yet. It was too late, though. I looked around the Rowing Cottage. Everyone was subdued. The video had done exactly what Warwick intended; we were intimidated.
WINTER
19.
Only two rowers came back from Christmas break early; Connor Payne and me. My father didn’t raise an eyebrow when I said I was going back a week before the start of winter term. He handed me some cash, told me to call the bus station myself and not to ask for any more operating capital until the end of February.
I took the bus out to Albany with my bag next to me on the seat. The bus smelled like old, stale food. The seats were mostly empty but a guy got on and came and sat directly across the aisle from me. He put his boots up on the seat next to him and pulled his wool watchman’s cap down over his eyes. It was snowing outside while we cut through the darkness. Once, the guy rolled his hat up and gave me that deadeye look you get from ex-cons. Finally he asked if I had a cigarette and when I shrugged and shook my head, he rolled the hat back down and went back to sleep. I had to switch to two more buses before I got to Fenton. Fifteen hours of travel in all, half of it through sleet.
When we hit the town, I was let off opposite the Fox and Fiddle Inn. I could look right across the street at the glowing windows and the people inside dressed up at the bar. I walked down the main road swinging my bag, thankful for the fresh air. I crossed the front soccer fields to the school in the clear dark and the air had a real bite to it. I ate in the snack bar, collapsed into bed and slept for eighteen hours straight. I awoke to watch the numbers on my bedside clock flip by 6:00 P.M. I swung my feet to the floor and shed my blanket, felt the freezing dusk air brush away the warmth of my long sleep. I pulled on my stiff running pants, my T-shirt, sweatshirt, and running shoes, and trudged into the weirdly silent hall breathing the odor of old showers and Lysol that would probably never leave that building until they tore it down.
I ran stiffly down the main walk and passed the Rowing Cottage. There was Connor, sitting idly on the front steps leading into the cottage, as if he was enjoying a warm sunny day rather than the blustery cold of late December in Fenton, Connecticut. He looked up at me as if he barely recognized me or remembered me.
“Carrey. Long time no see.”
“What are you doing back here?”
He reached into his sweatshirt, pulled out a letter. “Reading the mail. Catching up with my affairs of state. How was your vacation?”
“It was all right.”
“You have a good time with the folks?”
“Yeah. What about you?”
“Do you really use that w
ord?”
“What word?”
“‘Folks.’ I asked you how your folks were and you didn’t call me on it. Where’d they find you, Carrey?” He squinted in a sudden hard gust of wind that came off the river, and stood up. He held out the letter as if looking at it for some sign of hidden value. He waved it in the air. “From my dad. What a man. What a towering figure. Fuck him.” Connor stuffed the missive into the pocket of his sweatpants. “Let’s run to the boathouse, see if Channing opened it for us.”
We started out at half speed, the wind blowing against us. Connor labored beside me, slipped once and swore. When we hit the main drive of the school leading to Route 7, I pushed up our pace. I felt the air in my chest flow ragged suddenly and I pressed by him but I knew he was directly behind me. I could hear his quick, harsh breaths. When I saw the boathouse rising out of its own narrow, unplowed drive, I made for it, my arms swinging, my hands unclenched and free. Behind me, Connor slipped again and a quick, rasping sound escaped from his throat. In ten paces I had beaten him. I touched the boathouse door and rattled the icy lock. He bent over, put his hands on his knees, and sucked the air in rattling gulps. Then he stood, patted my shoulder. “Good job.” He tried the lock himself, clearly irritated. “Channing told me he’d open this up for me.”
“He probably forgot. Who wants to work out in this weather anyway?”
“True. We’re supposed to be on vacation.” His nose was running and he pushed his hand across it. He walked away from the boathouse doors, looked out at the lonely drop to where the dock would be in a few months’ time. The gray sky seemed hushed and expectant above. Connor stared at the river, which had yet to freeze, mesmerized by the black water running by us. I breathed its cool, living smell.
“So what did it say?”
“What did what say?”
“The letter you were waving around.”
“Oh, that. My father dropped me a note. He wished me well for the winter term and informed me that he and my mom will be in London for the foreseeable future. If I need anything, I’m welcome at my grandmother’s. I love that.”
“Where does your grandmother live?”
“New York, where else? But she’ll be out in Osterville soon. If I need a break from this place, I can go hang out there. You’re welcome to join us, Carrey.” He looked at me with a suddenly sincere face.
“Might need to take a rain check on that.”
“I’m thinking I’ll fly to London instead. Surprise my parents.”
“Just like that? You’d hop on a plane and leave all this?”
“I checked out airline fares. They seem surprisingly affordable.”
“Are your parents coming back for the Warwick Race?”
“They will fly back for that. Of course. They wouldn’t miss it for the world. That’s their plan.”
A light rain that felt like it wanted to become snow started to fall. The river was running high. I tried to listen to its flow but the harder I listened the more I heard my own heart.
Connor looked up at the white sky. “I have a question to ask you.”
“Ask it.”
“Did you fuck Ruth? It’s totally cool if you did. She’s worth it, I have to say. I think you banged her. That’s what I think.”
I didn’t even bother looking at him. “Nice, Connor. What kind of question is that? I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”
“When she was a freshman, she did the old captain of the team, Bruce. It’s why she was made coxswain, in my humble opinion. She’s been around the block, our Ruth. I’ve always been shocked by her behavior.” He was trying hard for a reaction he wasn’t going to get.
“I’m going home. You are so full of shit, Connor, and you’re an asshole. If you were my kid, I’d ship you off to boarding school and move to another country, too.”
He laughed. “You’re going ‘home’? To where? Niccalsetti?” He turned to the river. “Niccalsetti, New York. Home of Rob Carrey.”
“Keep talking to yourself. It’s a good sign. Knock yourself out.”
“Look how defensive you are about her, Carrey! You’re a romantic at heart. Like me. We’re the last of the poets.”
“Right. Some poets.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I am. Okay? I’ll grant you the fact that I’m an asshole. But you need to at least admit you’re a cheese dog. You really are. And you have, like, no sense of humor. Nada.”
“Be funny, and I’ll laugh.”
“I’ll tell you one thing I am serious about. I can make the jump off the covered bridge. You could, too. You’re crazy enough to try it. I know you are. You pretend you’re not, but it’s still a temptation.”
“The covered bridge? Are you kidding? You can’t make the jump. It’s not something you’re meant to make. It’s not like you can just decide to miss those rocks on your way down, Connor.”
“We could do the jump right now. The water’s not frozen yet. Think about it. Even if we win the race, some other crew will have a faster time. But nobody wants to make the jump. It’s the stuff of legends.”
“It’s freezing out here. Even if you didn’t die jumping off the bridge, the water would kill you.”
“Us! You’d be with me! We would not freeze, goof. We can swim for two minutes to the shore. Come on, Rob. You have the balls to do it. I promise, if you say the word we’ll do it.”
“You really want to run down to the covered bridge and jump? Now? In the dark?”
“It’s not dark! I can see perfectly.”
“In half an hour you won’t even be able to see the water off the bridge.”
“So what? I’m not kidding, Rob. We could do this. We could make the jump. Ruth would do it. She’d think it was cool you did it. She wouldn’t say so, but she’d think it.”
“She’s not that dumb. And she would never even try it.”
“That’s where you’re dead wrong, mon ami. She’s the one who’s most likely to do it. Before you came along, I was fairly sure she’d go over with me.”
“She changed her mind?”
“Something like that.” He grimaced. “Listen. This is your last chance. We can start down there now and be back for dinner. The river will be frozen soon and then we have to wait until spring. It’s now or never.”
“Nobody would believe we did it, even if we did. Which we won’t.”
“Carrey, they know I wouldn’t lie about jumping off the covered bridge. And I’d have you to back me up. You’re as honest as they come.”
“If you were going to jump off that bridge, you would have done it long before I came here. And I don’t want you to kill yourself, Connor. If you do, Leonsis gets moved up into your seat. And if that happens, we lose against Warwick.”
He smirked, a Cheshire cat in the gathering shadows.
“I saw the video just like you did. We need you around for a few more months. Just until we beat Warwick. Then you can feel free to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, for all I care.”
“Just remember that it would never even occur to Leonsis to jump off the covered bridge. That’s what sets him apart from you and me.”
“It would never occur to me, either. This is your weird thing.”
“So, keeping me alive is Robert Carrey’s public service. Your selfish nobility humbles me.”
“Connor, you don’t know anything about dying.”
“I think you’d be surprised at what I know.”
“You don’t know jack crap.”
* * *
The trip back from Zambia was unadulterated hell. I arrived in New York after a total of thirty-two grueling hours of travel. Ten hours from Lusaka to London. A twelve-hour layover in Heathrow. Ten hours to Kennedy. My entire body ached from the pounding I had been given and I had a screeching hangover, the desperate kind that makes you chew aspirin, tear up cocktail napkins, toss back water two bottles at a time. I had eaten nothing. The meals on the flights revolted me. Halfway across the ocean I finally vomited, standing in the small closet of a bath
room, retching water and snot into the steel bowl. It was almost a relief. I tried to call Carolyn from Lusaka International, then again from London. Nothing. I called her father and mother, both of whom had moved to Boca Raton a year before, and asked if they had heard from Carolyn. They were puzzled by my call and I realized she had not told them what had happened, and that was a bad sign. I told them she had miscarried and I had not been with her. She had gone to the hospital and been discharged, and I was on my way back to be with her. I promised to call them when I got into the city, I was sure everything would be fine. Their thirty-two-year-old daughter was in good hands, she’d call them if she needed them.
I edited out a few facts. The pathetic condition I was in; the hammering headache, the dry lips, the shaking. My bruised, possibly fractured, ribs. Everything was not going to be fine.
I also omitted the things I didn’t know yet. That Carolyn had woken on a sheet painted with blood at 2:00 A.M. a week before, had called the ambulance. The ambulance guys had come in through the fire escape because they couldn’t get the gurney into the freight elevator. Carolyn wouldn’t send it down to them as she was passing in and out of consciousness on the floor and was half hysterical with fear. They eventually loaded her onto a seated gurney and carried her down the stairs covered in blankets with an IV in her arm. Carolyn was howling. The neighbors, even the sweatshop workers, were out in the street to see her. Under the sheet, her legs were smeared with blood. She was in the middle of a hemorrhaging miscarriage, this woman who had started to sustain herself by dreaming about a baby that was now trickling out of her.
They had her in the hospital within half an hour and the procedure was finished while she was sedated. Carolyn did it all alone. When it was over, she wanted to continue to be alone. It was just that simple.
When I finally touched down at JFK, I practically ran to the taxi stand and sat through the interminable drive into the city, dreading what I would find. I dialed the number to the loft ten times on the way in and got the same cheery answering machine each time, finally crushing the cell phone in my hands in frustration. I had no idea who else to call. I just did not have the numbers for the rest of the people we knew in New York—those were in a book by the phone in the loft.