Wild World

by Peter S. Rush

  They moved outside to the porch for some fresh air. Steve put his arm around her. She was flushed with the exercise and the beer. “You want to get married?”

  “You know it. I’d marry you right now, but you couldn’t support me.” She smiled with a playful turn of her mouth, creating little parentheses of pleasure which outlined her lips.

  “It makes more sense after I graduate, preppy,” she said.

  Steve picked up on the reference to Love Story, which they’d just seen. She was more beautiful than Ali McGraw, with her dark hair parted in the middle and hanging over her shoulders. “That’s three years away.”

  “Think you can wait? We can still have sex to keep your mind off it.”

  Bill, his shaggy brown hair wet with sweat, was in a denim vest with silver studs. He was on the porch with two girls in long skirts and Frye boots, weaving with intoxication. The smell of pot was in the cool night air. It felt like a century ago Steve had been at his first frat party, getting so smashed he couldn’t stand. But now he sipped a beer, the adult on the porch.

  Some boys broke into laughter as the band struck up “Satisfaction.” Steve saluted Bill with his can. He was happy, if out of place. Things would get better. The boys jumped to their feet and drunkenly sang:

  I can’t get no . . .

  Steve sat on the wall, holding Roxy’s hand and feeling more disconnected from college. He was trying to hold on, but he could feel it slipping away.

  Around the table at O’Malley’s, Steve, Dylan, Meatball, and others were in street clothes after their shift. There was a pitcher of beer and mugs.

  “Hear Rocky is working undercover with the narcs,” Meatball said. He was well-connected to the back-channel information in the department. “Heard he made a bust of some PC kids for a bunch of pot. Understand they may target Brown pushers next.” He looked at Steve with a sly smile.

  “I hear the chief has a huge house in Jamestown on the water and a big boat, too,” Dylan said. “Not just on a cop’s salary.”

  “He’s wired. Nothing goes on without him getting his piece. He knows all the politicians.” Meatball smiled. “Now, that’s a smart cop.”

  “About those Green Berets,” Steve asked Dylan. He felt Dylan was a straight arrow, someone to be trusted. He couldn’t say that about others from his class. “You started the story but never finished.”

  “I was on duty one night on base when a few mortar rounds landed. The post sounded general quarters and everyone was supposed to get to his defensive position. This young captain had us go with him for barracks inspection. In one bunk, there were these two Berets fast asleep. Now, you think about soldiers as all spit and polish. Well, these two had been in the jungle in Laos or Cambodia or someplace else we weren’t in, working with the Montagnard tribesmen. They hadn’t bathed in six months, and you could smell them the minute you entered the barracks. Seems in the jungle, you want your scent to blend in with the natural odors.

  “They had long hair and beards and wore calf-length leather moccasins with a knife scabbard on the outside. So this captain walks up and yells at them, ‘Soldier! Out of bed! General Quarters! Get to your posts!’ But neither of them moves. So this tight-ass captain walks over to one and pushes him with the butt of his rifle.

  Before the captain can say a word, one of them was out of the bunk, holding a Bowie knife to the captain’s throat while the other one had dropped to the floor and had us covered with his M-16, ready to waste us. All of the color was drained from the captain’s face. I think he pissed in his pants.

  “‘In the jungle, if you touch a sleeping man, you will die. Either kill me while I’m sleeping, or leave me the fuck alone,’ the beret sergeant hissed. The captain only nodded. Here, me and my partner are hanging with our balls out to these two stone-dead killers. You could see it in their eyes—the zone. They hadn’t adjusted yet to being back on a secure base. These guys were the best of the best.”

  “And . . .” Steve leaned forward. “They didn’t kill you.”

  “No, no,” Dylan laughed. “The captain, after shitting in his pants, apologized for disturbing them and asked if he could do anything for them. They grunted and went back to bed. I saw them a week later after they had shaved, bathed, and changed clothes; they were pretty good guys, but they were trained killers. Wouldn’t like to meet them in a dark alley. When you went to Nam, it did different things to people. Depended upon you, but you definitely came out changed—for good or bad.”

  Rizzo stormed over and sat down with them without waiting to be invited.

  “Rookies night out?” He looked at the waitress, who came over. “Sweetie, two pitchers. These guys look thirsty.”

  He slapped her butt as she walked away. She looked back at him playfully as if he did it all the time.

  Dylan began his next story. “I was at the wedding; this fight broke out. They arrested the groom for hitting his new father-in-law.” Dylan added, looking at Meatball, “Must have been one of those wop weddings.”

  “Or some drunken Mick?” Meatball threw back.

  Rizzo smiled. “Weddings. They can be pissers. Brings out the best emotions in people. Last year, there was this big wedding between this Italian girl and this Irish guy. They had it in that big hall in North Providence. It was a big wedding, couple of hundred guests. Well, after they’d been drinking a while, the two families start going at it, and the call goes out, disturbance. So the NoProvs—all five of them—get there, but it’s completely out of control. So every cop is starting to find a reason to move closer to the city line: go for coffee, check on a suspicious car—we’re all waiting for the call for help. But the NoProvs call for help from the Staties.” He laughed.

  “Shit, what do those smokies know except writing speeding tickets and acting like puppets with sticks up their ass. So you can tell we’re getting a little pissed at being passed over like the ugly girl at a dance. But listening to the radio chatter, it’s not going any better with the couple of Staties that show up. So the cars are moving to the border, and we have two wagons, as well. Finally, the call for help to Providence. Shit, the cavalry is on the way. We have like thirty guys there in two minutes, with sticks flying. But you know who gets it first?” He looked around at the faces at the table. “The Staties.” He laughed. “We cold cocked the first two we saw, and the rest of ’em rounded up their wounded and got the hell out. Shit, it was worth the price of admission. They think they’re real street cops like us.” He laughed and raised his glass as the boys saluted.

  Was Rizzo serious—beating up other cops for fun? How much was BS, and how much was true? Steve knew there was some truth in the story, and it made him very uneasy because there didn’t seem to be any control on the violence.

  Steve and Rizzo were the first at the scene of the car accident, a Chevy Corvair that hit a telephone pole. The impact had thrown the driver, a man in his mid-thirties, through the windshield, splitting his head open. The rear-mounted engine had pushed its way into the backseat from the force of the collision. There was blood on the windshield, door, seat—more blood than Steve had ever seen. The man’s head, still warm, was splayed like roadkill across the hood of the car. Steve could felt the nausea, but he fought it back down his throat, the acid taste lingering as he turned to the gathering crowd.

  He began pushing the silent gawkers back with his baton so that the paramedics and firemen could cut the dead body out of the car. Steve hoped he wouldn’t die like that—instant, violent, unexpected. He’d rather go like the old man in the apartment.

  A car stopped, and he saw Suzi and Roxy gaping at the bloody man, whose eyes were still open as if frozen with fear. Steve moved toward the car.

  “You can’t stop here, Suzi. The paramedics need to get in,” he said.

  “All right, Officer, I’ll . . .” Recognition came across her face. “Steve? What happened to . . .”

  “He bought it. Too much speed, too much pole. But you’ve got to move.” He signaled with his hand as the ambu
lance arrived. The girls fled without waving. He knew that his presence had personalized the tragedy of this lone motorist. He wasn’t just a uniform; he was part of the system. And that was still foreign to her. She saw him leave in the uniform but had never watched him in action. Could she bridge the gap in her own mind?

  Several weeks later, in the living room of their apartment, Roxy, Cal, Bill, Heather, Liz, and Suzi and several other young men and women were sitting around listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water.

  Steve could smell marijuana coming from the living room as he approached the doorway, which was half open. He was in uniform, returning from work. The table had four candles flickering from two Almadan bottles and two Chianti bottles in straw baskets. A slim incense stick burned in a glass jelly jar. If the captain sent someone to check on him like he did to Johnson . . . He paused for a second.

  “Police. Don’t anyone move.” He stood outside the door just enough to stay in the shadows. Everyone in the room froze, looking at the uniform at the door. Steve entered the room, smiling.

  “Pig Alert!” Heather announced in a spacey voice. “Forgot to tell you we live with a pig.”

  “Fucking fascist bastard. Haven’t they issued you jack boots yet so I can hear you coming?” Cal said, looking for the joint he had hastily thrown in the corner.

  “You’re not funny!” Roxy said, looking at some of the stunned faces around the room.

  Steve fell into a chair, looking for the joint to be passed around. He felt relaxed around these friends. They knew who he was.

  “You leave the door open, anyone can come in,” Steve said with an edge to his voice.

  “Chauvinism,” Suzi said. “That’s what we were talking about. Men and their power trips.”

  “What?” Steve tried to focus on the conversation, realizing he might be the punch line to their discussion.

  “Women must demand equal rights, equal opportunities,” Liz added. She was a tall, thin girl with a Miss Porter’s accent. “We’re not accessories; we have rights as well.”

  “Do you think they will go to co-ed dorms next year?” Roxy asked.

  “We have the administration trying to back down from their commitment. But the faculty is with us,” Suzi said with authority. “One dorm, an experiment. But that’s not enough. We want our degree to be from Brown, not Pembroke—Pembroke isn’t the Ivy League school. We want equal admission for men and women. We want equal access to leadership positions, more female faculty, female athletes.”

  “And a female lacrosse team?” Bill tried to lighten things up.

  “Why not?” Liz continued, “There should be as many female athletes at Brown as men.”

  “I’m for female wrestlers. Mud wrestlers,” Bill said, moving out of reach of Liz’s punch.

  “That comment shows the sexism in what men do and say,” Roxy said, looking askance at Bill. “Sexualize and objectify the female. It’s our civil rights movement.”

  Cal smiled. “Give you the pill, and next you want to rule the world. Anyone going to burn a bra?”

  Liz looked down at her flat chest. “I can only contribute a t-shirt. I haven’t graduated to a training bra yet.” Everyone laughed, even Roxy.

  “How many cops are female?” She turned to Steve.

  “We have matrons for the female prisoners,” Steve said. Equal rights for women, co-ed dorms. He enjoyed listening to the college debates even though it was so far from his daily life. Women cops. They’d be laughed out of the academy.

  “Are they full cops? Do they carry guns?”

  “Guns? Why would they want guns?” Steve knew where the conversation was going. He looked at the girls and couldn’t imagine any of them wanting to be a cop in Providence.

  “For the power,” Liz explained, tilting her head back with the proper Connecticut Hepburn charm. “Then the men won’t be the only ones packing a pistol.” The girls laughed, the boys following a second later.

  “And girls will be on the Supreme Court, run the university, be in the army—dream on,” Bill said, not ready to concede.

  “Why not?” Suzi challenged, this time getting up from her chair.

  Bill playfully cringed. “In your dreams,” he said as Suzi gave him a hard punch to the arm.

  With the group breaking up, Steve and Roxy walked people to the stairs. Liz and Suzi gave them hugs.

  “Watch it, pig. We’re coming,” Suzi smiled at Steve.

  “Keep the door closed and the pot out of sight, or I may be coming for you.” Steve said it lightly, not wanting to spoil the mood, but he was beginning to worry. They had to be more careful. He needed to tell her to clean up every day—just in case.

  “That was a fucking immature thing to do. Where’s your head?” Roxy said as she changed into red flannel night shirt. “You can’t come in and scare our friends to death.”

  Steve slowly removed his uniform, hanging it over his gun belt on a hook in the closet. He was certain about the reaction his entrance had made. It woke them up.

  “Just fucking with their minds. They’re living in this Ivy League bubble where parents pay the bills and the kids pretend to have all the answers. Shit happens. I’m out there in that world; shit I don’t tell you . . . the part of the city you can’t see from up here.” He didn’t want to kill the mood. “Besides, they’re smoking dope in my house.”

  “You’re changing. Is this what you would have said before becoming a . . . Whatever macho right-wing crap you are learning from your tough-guy cop friends, it’s making our life shitty.”

  “What the fuck makes you think . . . What gives you the right to criticize . . .” He looked harder at her, his voice rising in anger and resentment. It was so much easier when he was in school and didn’t know as much. Seeing that junkie with the neglected kids and the domestic fights over crap . . . “Shit,” he paused. “Yeah, it’s shit. It’s nothing like here. I’m not in law enforcement, I’m a garbage man, picking up the human garbage and keeping it away from this hill. That’s what you want up here—keep the crap away.”

  “Want? It’s what you wanted . . . but . . .”

  “Me wanted? Yeah, that’s right. Me. I wanted . . .” He stopped, allowing his thoughts to catch up with his emotions. But his anger and hurt were racing too far ahead. He had made the choice to stay and thought he could do something noble. Who was he kidding? He didn’t want to fight with Roxy, but he was feeling isolated from everyone. “I really want to be at the bottom of the hill to catch everything that rolls down. This is a real meritocracy—except the cops have guns. Shit, I’ll trade for another senior thesis. Do you have any idea how unreal this academic world is? What is the real human condition? Why are the people exploited? Why don’t we all live in harmony? Why, why?” He shook his head. “I’ve read the books, too.” It wasn’t just cynicism, but he was feeling alone.

  “I don’t know—it’s not the same anymore. It’s not working.” She pulled away from him, sitting heavily in the desk chair. “Maybe you should get your own place.”

  “Move out? Move out? Shit, the first day I landed on the street, I moved out—from this fairytale land called college. Let’s debate again how things should be while we go skiing this weekend at Stowe. Now what . . .” He realized he was shouting. It had become so confused between them. They were seeing each other more in passing, without the fun of a stolen kiss in the Rockefeller Library. He wanted her to understand how he was seeing things but knew there was no way she could.

  “You scare me sometimes.” She lowered her chin and turned aside. “You come home, and I can feel there is something . . . you are not telling me. There’s an anger you’re trying to contain. Sometimes, I’m almost afraid you might hit me. I never felt that way before.”

  He tensed his shoulders, pulling in his stomach to control his emotions. He lowered his voice. “There’s shit I don’t tell you. It’s the ugly side of life. You read about it or hear news reports, but it’s different up close, when you’re dealing with i
t. I’m trying to do something better. I know I chose it, but what did I know?” His voice became quieter as he looked for words. He wanted to make it all right between them. “I think I’m trying to . . .”

  “But it’s not right for us, for me. I have to concentrate, to study. I need the grades for med school.”

  Steve was not quite registering what she was saying. “What?”

  “Your hours are crazy; you have a gun in the house. You come home drunk from partying with your cop friends. You scare some of our friends so much that they don’t come over here anymore.” She placed her hand on his cheek, holding his head still. “You should get your own place so you can come and go as you like—at least for now. Until I finish this school year.”

  Steve was focused; his emotions cleared from the fog of night. Roxy began crying, her soft, little tears delicate dew on her cheeks. He knew she was serious.

  “I said I can’t do this. I want to, but I can’t. I know I pushed you . . . I thought it would be okay, that I could handle it, but it’s not what I thought. I’ve already dealt with so much. I don’t want to wonder what’s going to happen every night. I don’t want to guess who you are when you come home. I don’t . . . I don’t. Oh, Steve, it’s not what I want.”

  Steve tried to put his arms around her, but she pulled away.