Wild World

by Peter S. Rush

  “I am more me than I have ever been.”

  CHAPTER 3

  TEACH YOUR CHILDREN

  Andy sauntered into Manny Alameda’s Ring Side Lounge in Fox Point with an Orioles cap perched on his blond afro. An all-American midfielder, he had been close to Steve since freshman year. He had a slow, deliberate way of speaking, almost squeezing the words from his lips. He liked to mock Steve’s intensity on the field but admired how hard his roommate worked. Steve was sipping his Narragansett at a table by the side door under four posters of long-gone lightweight Latin boxers.

  Manny’s was the designated dive bar where the Brown students knew they could buy twenty-five-cent beers without fear of being carded. It was a popular hangout for the frat boys and athletes. The regulars from Fox Point, Portuguese immigrants, kept a quiet distance. Miguel, the bartender, knew many of the boys and appreciated them for their tips. The jukebox was playing “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye.

  “Any decisions on after graduation?” Steve asked. Andy had drawn number ten in the draft lottery in December. That night last December when the first draft numbers were drawn, all the seniors sat together, drinking to every number, high or low. Andy had gone very quiet, drinking harder: shots and beer. Steve watched the dull grey men in dull grey suits draw the ping pong balls on television that determined their future. When Country Joe and the Fish played, the room erupted in the chorus. “What are we fighting for . . .”

  Andy stood, singing at the top of his lungs as he and Steve tried some harmony. “We’re all gonna die.” The draft had changed their lives and hung over graduation like a shroud: One more reason to hate the war.

  “I already have the notice from the draft board to report for the physical,” he said, flopping into a chair. “Good thing for this strike—everything is pass-fail.”

  Cal joined them at the small table, eating a hard-boiled egg from the bar. Cal was thin and bookish and had come from New England boarding schools. He affected a worldly weariness from his extensive international travel.

  “I don’t know what med school will think about it. I’ve asked some professors if they could give separate letter grades to me—at least in the courses I aced,” Cal said. He liked being around two athletes as much as he liked putting them down as jocks. He paid for the beers.

  “Any chance for the National Guard?” Steve asked.

  “Not looking good. My father wants me to enlist. Says it’s the right thing to do and that I should apply for Officers Candidate School. It would build my character. Right—a college lieutenant like me leading a bunch of grunts in the rice paddies. That would be a sure way to get a bullet in the back of the head. But I found out that Peace Corps is a two-year deferment. I just got the letter accepting me. I hope the war is over by then.”

  “Peace Corps sounds exotic,” Steve said. “I’ve always wanted to travel, so I’m a little envious. Was it hard to get into? Did you have to take a test or pass an interview?”

  “No. They have the application at the placement office. If you’ve got a foreign language and a college degree, they told me it’s pretty easy. Travel for free where they aren’t shooting guns. So I’ll be serving my country making peace.” He saluted with a mocking face.

  “Where are you going?” Steve asked. He knew that Andy had made his decision—a decision forced on him by his draft number. He would get into it once he was there, but. . . . Why were they being forced to make these decisions?

  “Latin America,” Andy shrugged. “The reward for six years of Spanish: I can go anywhere from the jungle to the Pampas. I was hoping for Jamaica, sitting at Montego Bay with some grade-A ganja. Have you decided what you’re doing yet?”

  “I got into Georgetown Law. My dad desperately wants me to go. I don’t want to disappoint him, and I don’t have anything else to do. Lawyers get rich, don’t they? My draft number’s in the middle, so I should be safe. But who knows; maybe the Army will need more lawyers for the war crimes trials after the My Lai massacre.”

  “But?” Andy smiled, raising one eyebrow.

  “I don’t know. Still looking at my options. It would be nice to have a job here that pays money.”

  “You mean getting drafted into the Army isn’t a good career choice?” Andy finished his beer and signaled for another. “I didn’t know that.”

  “I start med school applications in the fall,” Cal said. “The extra year will give me the double major that should me get into Harvard. And med school is a four-year deferment. And when I’m out, who knows?”

  “Cal, you sure have changed since freshman year. Remember when I had to go out on the ledge of the dorm to convince you that LSD didn’t convey the physical power to fly.” Steve laughed.

  “You both need to get serious about your lives.” Cal’s Boston accent increased an octave.

  “Cal, you’ve gone from the acid freak to the career freak,” Steve said. “You’ve really become a real grind. Doesn’t all this shit that’s going on in the country bother you?”

  Money, career—if there wasn’t the draft? Was the Ivy League about money and a career but not doing anything useful? Steve began thinking he was an idealist, but grinding away as a lawyer hoping to make partner and big bucks didn’t have much appeal. Maybe being a great lawyer defending innocent and not-so-innocent people, like Clarence Darrow. But most lawyers just defend the system.

  “The government may be fascist and the war an abomination, but I’m concerned about my future. You guys can change the world,” Cal said as he left the table.

  “That’s a little fucked up. It’s your country, too.” Andy turned to Steve. “And you?”

  “If you had a chance to change the world, do something really big even if you knew it would change your life, would you do it?” It was a rhetorical question. “I don’t know anything about the real world. I grew up in a cookie-cutter Long Island tract house and went to school here. What do I know?” Steve was looking at his beer with a slight smile on his face. He was struggling wanting to do more, be more.

  “What about law school?”

  “Another lawyer or banker. Is that what the world needs?” He handed Andy a display ad for the Providence Police Department, torn from the Providence Journal. Andy read the ad and then read it again. The ad said that applications were open for the fall recruiting class, and there was a phone number at the bottom.

  “Are you crazy?” Andy asked.

  The challenge was right in front of Steve. “I’d know so much more when I go to law school. I don’t mean for a career, but maybe a couple of years—until Roxy graduates. And see,” he pointed to the ad, “Providence cop starts at ten thousand a year.”

  “What does Roxy think? Did you ask her?”

  “No, not yet.” Steve shook his head. He wanted Andy’s approval first. “She wants me to be someone or do something. After meeting this Sergeant Durk, he’s actually fucking doing it. The article in the Times says the mayor and the police brass appointed a commission. The media is all over the story. And Durk is the hero. He made an impression on me—something I never thought of—something real I can get my mind around. Law school is in the abstract. Durk is the law every day. Besides, leaving Roxy right now wouldn’t be good for her. She’s had too many people she loved disappear. She’s having a hard time talking to her mother. I’m afraid she’d feel I was abandoning her. But we haven’t actually talked yet.”

  Andy scowled. “Or good for you? I don’t know; is this about her or you? Are you afraid of losing her?”

  “Look at you—you’re going to Latin America so you don’t get drafted. And you might be doing something good: getting your hands dirty in the real world,” Steve laughed. He was afraid of losing Roxy. A long-distance romance would kill him.

  Andy laughed too loudly and sipped his beer. “Yeah, well, if Uncle Sam didn’t want to ship me off to another jungle. But hey, this might change my life.”

  “Agreed. Peace Corps. New country, new culture . . . Thinking and living in anothe
r language . . .” Andy spun a quarter on the table, waiting for heads or tails. Steve felt he was nervous about his decision. “Two years . . . look what can happen in just one year,” Andy said.

  “You will be building something for other people. Maybe you’ll help change their lives. It won’t be this college-thing, ivory-tower shit. I don’t think I could go to an office every day. I guess we’re thinking the same way.” Steve posed the answer almost as if he were asking a question.

  “I guess you could be helping people—giving them tickets and hassling kids with long hair.” Andy squeezed the words out with a stern face before he gave Steve a sideways smile. “Have you called yet? They might not accept a lowlife like you.”

  “No, just thinking about it. Just a crazy idea.”

  “Shit man, I leave in September. We can at least enjoy our last summer.” Andy raised his glass and they smiled, satisfied. Steve trusted Andy’s instincts as the idea continued to turn over in his mind.

  “I have to go home to see my mother.” Roxy’s tone was concerned but not panicked as she put the black phone into its cradle. “Since they have canceled classes for the rest of the year, she wants me to come home.”

  “To visit or for the summer?”

  “Probably for the summer. She’s all upset about the protests. She says since Kent State, the National Guard has occupied Ohio State’s campus, but the students are still protesting. She sees it on the news every night, and who knows where her head goes?”

  “I can come. We can drive.”

  “Really? You would do that?”

  “What would I do here without you?” He put his arms around her. “Plus, I always wanted to live in the Midwest.” He figured he could find some kind of job.

  She punched him, and then they kissed passionately.

  They started out in the evening on 95 South for the 12-hour drive in the little VW Beetle. Roxy and Steve talked and laughed as he pointed out the wonders of the Jersey Turnpike like the Linden refinery, which gave New Jersey the noxious smell. She talked about her father and all the dreams he’d had for her. He was self-made, a union man who worked hard. She was his girl, and then he was gone—dead of a heart attack before he could see her graduate valedictorian of her class. Now it was her dreams of finding a cure for some disease. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was tight, built in another era, for less traffic. The pavement was rough; the potholes weren’t yet filled from the winter.

  The small AM radio struggled to find signals in the Pennsylvania Mountains, but when they found some, the news talked about the upcoming trial of the Manson Family for the murders of Sharon Tate and others in California. The police called them “dirty hippies.”

  In the little Beetle, he felt the world was shut out. It was he and Roxy against the world, and the summer would bring them closer together. She talked about growing up with her sister and putting a rope down the middle of their room to divide it. Stay on your side. She laughed at herself but turned her head to the window at the memory. Steve knew she was torn about going home.

  Roxy dozed as Steve stole looks at her, wondering what meeting her mother was going to feel like. He knew Roxy didn’t have much of a relationship with her, going back to the days after her father’s death, when it had been up to Roxy to take care of her sister, Audrey. Roxy was, in fact, still angry about that.

  But Roxy felt the obligation to spend the summer with her. Perhaps the time together would help heal the rift. Steve wasn’t certain going to Ohio was a good idea for him, but he wasn’t going to Long Island and didn’t want to be in Providence without her. A few months in the Midwest would give him another point of view—if only about baloney. As he looked at her sleeping on the pillow against the door, he knew he had never really been in love before.

  Steve thought about when she had moved in right after Christmas break. “I’m going to need more room. I need the top three drawers and most of that closet.” She looked at the oak Salvation Army sideboard that Steve used as his dresser.

  “Mom’s fine. Praying and going to prayer meetings. My aunt and the cousins have her back into some saving religious moments.” She rolled her eyes. “I may need this whole thing,” she said, looking at the dresser, “if I’m going to move in.”

  “I’ll go to the Salvation Army tomorrow to see if they have an old box for my stuff.”

  They laughed.

  “I have to keep my dorm room for mail and stuff so Mom still thinks I’m living there. But it’s on the way to class.”

  “Roomies covering for you?”

  “Sure. They’re delighted; more room for them.” She finished emptying her last box of clothes and sat on the bed next to him. “I have a present for you.” She reached into her black purse and handed him a round plastic container of pills sealed with a movable plastic top. He looked at it, confused. He turned it over to read the pharmaceutical name on it. She grabbed it away from him playfully.

  “Men! I’m on the pill,” she said as she twirled in a little circle.

  “What? Isn’t it illegal for unmarried women to have it . . .? You’re on it . . . now?”

  “Yes, silly. The law changed January first. We made an appointment at Planned Parenthood—Suzi, Liz, and me—before we left. We don’t think you men are responsible enough. We went yesterday. Physical, prescription . . . all done.”

  “So we can do it . . .”

  “Yes, big boy, any time I want.” She was smiling at his confusion.

  “I have something for you,” he said, holding the moment while she looked quizzically at him.

  He went to the closet to retrieve a shoe box with holes in it. He carried it over to Roxy, who sat on the Indian print blanket. He put it in her lap, and, as she opened it, a small black-and-white six-week-old kitten gingerly lifted its head to survey the surroundings. Roxy picked it up against her shoulder, and it began to purr.

  “You said you were never allowed to have a pet and you always wanted one. So I thought it would be . . .”

  “You remembered that. How? When did you get . . .”

  “There was this lady on the Pembroke green with a box of kittens needing homes. And knowing what a softy you are, I couldn’t resist.”

  “Oh, here, little one. That’s a good kitty. What should we call him—her?”

  “Him. I’ve been calling him Cyrano because he will always be in love with his fair Roxanne.”

  She looked at him a minute and then nodded at the reference.

  “How sweet. Don’t you think so, Cyrano?” She gave Steve a wet kiss and continued to pet the kitten.

  Now he was going home with her to meet her mother. Roxy was an effortless beauty with a smart scientific brain that defied the stereotype of girls and math. She was as determined to succeed as he was, maybe more. They had the same fight in them, and he admired how far and how much she had already dealt with both her father and sister dying. He wanted to give her balance and help her—them. And the sex was great. Before her, it had been fleeting, illicit sex—and only a few times. Now they looked forward to exploring each other in a way he didn’t know was even possible.

  As the sun came up, he drove west on I-70, heading toward Columbus. He realized he had made a commitment to her without even discussing it with his father. That could wait; he didn’t need any approval. Going with Roxy was the right decision, the only one he could make. Roxy began to stir with the light.

  “You okay?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “You’ve been driving all night.”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. We need to stop for gas. I’ll get some coffee.” He smiled at her. “Can you get us home from here?”

  Stopping at a Union 76 truck stop, Steve filled up the VW and paid the attendant $3.50 for the full tank. The thick coffee with some powdered Coffee-Mate tasted as if it was scraped from the all-night hot plate and placed into the cup. But it was black, hot, and caffeinated. He stretched his hamstrings, holding his toes from a standing position. Then he rotated his back in circular motions, followed by
side-to-side twists. He wanted to do some sprints, but the parking lot didn’t seem the most appropriate place. With the blood flowing again, he was ready for the final leg. Roxy had a black coffee and a copy of the Columbus Dispatch.

  “How long to Westerville?” Steve asked.

  “Half hour. We can take the ring road. This coffee is awful.” She poured half of the hot black liquid onto the matching-colored asphalt parking lot.

  “You don’t know Westerville, do you?”

  “Only that I’m going to be with you there.” Steve was looking forward to a hot shower and cold beer.

  “Welcome to the dry capital of America.”

  “What?”

  “Westerville went dry in 1859. And the town was serious about it. The good citizens blew up the first saloons when they opened in the 1870s. In fact, the town was so staunchly dry that the Anti-Saloon League was headquartered here. It published more propaganda about the dangers of liquor than any other town in America and was firmly behind the 19th Amendment.”

  “And today?”

  “Religious, not fanatical. You can buy booze in town. But self-righteousness is just below the surface of the politeness. I really can’t stand being here—it’s not home. I only went to senior year here and pretty much hated the entire year. But my mom is happy because she is near her sister and the cousins who, if you meet them, will make you understand why I don’t come home much.”

  They pulled into an apartment complex comprised of four, three-story rectangular brick buildings. Entering through the green steel door to apartment 2G, Roxy was greeted by her mother’s gasp of, “I can’t believe you’re here.” She took Roxy’s purse and ushered her into the small living room occupied by a yellow winged-foot sofa and Queen Anne chair that looked transplanted from a larger room.

  “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Steve. I told you about him,” Roxy said. Her mother stopped straightening a doily on the side table to look critically at him—long hair, mustache, jeans, a lean, muscular body, and a drawn complexion from having driven all night.