Five Classic Spenser Mysteries (43 page)

“Suze,” I said over coffee, “since I’m spending the rest of the evening at ballet. I was hoping this would be the high point.”

“Did you really,” she said. “Am I to gather you’re disappointed?”

Paul was eating pineapple ice cream for dessert. He stared down into it as he ate. I looked at him then at Susan.

“Well, you seemed a little quiet.”

“Oh?”

“I think I will pursue this, if at all, another time,” I said.

“Fine,” she said.

“Would you care to join us at ballet?” I said.

“I think I will not,” she said. “I don’t really enjoy ballet.”

The waiter presented the check. I paid it.

“May we drop you somewhere?” I said.

“No, thank you. My car is just down Newbury Street.”

I looked at my watch, “Well, we’ve got a curtain to make. Nice to have seen you.”

Susan nodded and sipped her coffee. I got up and Paul got up and we left.

I had never been to a ballet before, and while I was interested in the remarkable things the dancers could do with their bodies, I wasn’t looking forward to the next time. Paul obviously was. He sat motionless and intent beside me throughout the program.

Driving back to Maine I said to him, “Ever been to a ballet before?”

“No, My dad said it was for girls.”

“He’s half right again,” I said. “Just like the cooking.”

Paul was quiet.

“Would you like to do ballet?”

“You mean be a dancer?”

“Yeah.”

“They’d never let me. They think it’s.… they wouldn’t let me.”

“Yeah, but if they would, would you want to?”

“Take lessons and stuff?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded. Very slightly. In the dark car, trying to keep an eye on the road, I barely caught the nod. It was the first unequivocal commitment I’d seen him make, and however slight the nod, it was a nod. It wasn’t a shrug.

We were quiet. He hadn’t turned the radio on
when he got in the car, as he almost always did. So I didn’t either. Past the Portsmouth Circle, on the Spaulding Turnpike, an hour north of Boston, he said without looking at me, “Lots of men dance ballet.”

“Yes,” I said.

“My father says they’re fags.”

“What’s your mother say?”

“She says that too.”

“Well,” I said, “I don’t know about their sex life. What I can say is, they are very fine athletes. I don’t know enough about dance to go much further than that, but people who do know seem to feel that they are also often gifted artists. That ain’t a bad combination, fine athlete, gifted artist. It puts them two up on most people and one up on practically everybody except Bernie Casey.”

“Who’s Bernie Casey?”

“Used to be a wide receiver with the Rams. Now he’s a painter and an actor.”

There were a few streetlights and not many towns now. The Bronco moved through the night’s tunnel as if it were alone.

“Why do they say that?” Paul said.

“Say what?”

“That dancing’s for girls. That guys that do it are fags. They say that about everything. Cooking, books, everything, movies. Why do they say that?”

“Your parents?”

“Yes.”

We went through a small town with streetlights. Past an empty brick school, past a cannon with cannonballs pyramided beside it, past a small store with a Pepsi sign out front. Then we were back in darkness on the highway.

I let some air out of my lungs. “Because they don’t know any better,” I said. “Because they don’t know what they are, or how to find out, or what a good person is, or how to find out. So they rely on categories.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean your father probably isn’t sure of whether he’s a good man or not, and he suspects he might not be, and he doesn’t want anyone to find out if he isn’t. But he doesn’t really know how to be a good man, so he goes for the simple rules that someone else told him. It’s easier than thinking, and safer. The other way you have to decide for yourself. You have to come to some conclusions about your own behavior and then you might find that you couldn’t live up to it. So why not go the safe way. Just plug yourself into the acceptable circuitry.”

“I can’t follow all that,” Paul said.

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “Let me try another way. If your father goes around saying he likes ballet, or that you like ballet, then he runs the risk of someone else saying men don’t do that. If that happens, then he has to consider what makes a man, that is, a good man, and he doesn’t know. That scares the shit out of him. Same for your mother. So they stick to the tried and true, the conventions that avoid the question, and whether it makes them happy, it doesn’t make them look over the edge. It doesn’t scare them to death.”

“They don’t seem scared. They seem positive.”

“That’s a clue. Too much positive is either scared or stupid or both. Reality is uncertain. Lot of people need certainty. They look around for the way it’s supposed to be. They get a television-commercial view of the world. Businessmen learn the way businessmen are supposed to be. Professors learn the way professors are
supposed to be. Construction workers learn how construction workers are supposed to be. They spend their lives trying to be what they’re supposed to be and being scared they aren’t. Quiet desperation.”

We passed a white clapboard roadside vegetable stand with last year’s signs still up and the empty display tables dour in the momentary headlights.
NATIVE CORN
.
BEANS
. And then pine woods along the road as the headlight cone moved ahead of us.

“You’re not like that.”

“No. Susan says sometimes in fact I’m too much the other way.”

“Like what?”

“Like I work too hard to thwart people’s expectations.”

“I don’t get it,” Paul said.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “The point is not to get hung up on being what you’re supposed to be. If you can, it’s good to do what pleases you.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Even now?”

“Yeah.”

We ran five miles in the late May warmth and both of us glistened with sweat when we got back to the cabin. The new cabin was on the verge of beginning to look like something. The concrete pilings had cured. The sills and floor joists were down. The big plywood squares that formed the subflooring were down and trimmed. The composting toilet was in, the stool perched flagrantly on the unadorned subfloor.

“We don’t lift today,” Paul said. His breath was easy.

“No,” I said. I took two pairs of speed gloves off the top of the speed bag strike board and gave one pair to Paul. We went first to the heavy bag. “Go ahead,” I said.

Paul began to hit the bag. He still pushed his punches.

“No,” I said. “Snap the punch. Try to punch through the bag.” Paul punched again. “More shoulder,” I said. “Turn your body and get your shoulder into it more. Turn. Turn. No, don’t loop. You’re hitting with the inside of your clenched hand now, on the upper parts of your fingers. Look.”

I punched the bag. Jab. Jab. Hook. Jab. Jab. Hook. “Try twisting your hand as you hit. Like this, see, and extend.” The bag popped and hopped as I
hit it. “Like this. Punch. Extend. Twist. Extend. You try it.”

Paul hit the bag again. “Okay. Now keep your feet apart like I told you. Move around it. Shuffle. Don’t walk, shuffle. Feet always the same distance apart. Punch. Left. Left. Right. Right again. Left. Left. Left. Right.”

Paul was gasping for breath. “Okay,” I said. “Take a break.” I moved in on the heavy bag and worked combinations for five minutes. Left jab, left hook, overhand right. Left jab, left jab, right hook. Then in close and I dug at the body of the bag. Short punches, trying to drive a hole through the bag, keeping the punches no more than six inches. When I stopped I was gasping for breath and my body was slick with perspiration. Paul was just getting his breath back.

“Imagine if the bag punched back,” I said. “Or dodged. Or leaned on you.” I said. “Imagine how tired you’d be then.”

Paul nodded. “The speed bag,” I said, “is easy. And showy. You look good hitting it. It’s useful. But the heavy bag is where the work gets done.” I hit the speed bag, making the bag dance against the backboard. I varied the rhythm, making it sound like dance steps. I whistled the “Garryowen” and hit the bag in concert with it.

“Try it” I said. “Here. You’ll need this box.” I put a wooden box that tenpenny nails had come in upside-down under the bag. Paul stepped up. “Hit it with the front of your fist, then the side, then the front of the other fist, then the side. Like this. I’ll do it slow.” I did. “Now you do it. Slow.”

Paul had little success. He hit the backboard and bent over red-faced, sucking on the sore knuckles.
The box wobbled as he shifted his weight and he stepped down and kicked it, still holding his knuckles to his mouth, making a wet spot on the glove.

“You’ll probably hit the swivel at least once too,” I said. “That really smarts.”

“I can’t hit it,” he said.

“It’s easy to pick up. You’ll be able to make it bounce pretty good in about a half hour.”

It took more than a half hour, but the bag was showing signs of rhythm when it was time for lunch. We showered first. And, still damp, we sat out on the steps of the cabin and had cheddar cheese with Granny Smith apples, Bartlett pears, some seedless green grapes, and an unsliced loaf of pumpernickel bread. I had beer and so did Paul. Neither of us wore shirts. Both of us were starting to tan and signs of pectoral muscles were beginning to appear on Paul’s chest. He seemed a little taller to me. Did they grow that fast?

“Were you a good fighter?” Paul said.

“Yes.”

“Could you have been champion?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“They’re a different league. I was a good fighter, like I’m a good thinker. But I’m not a genius. Guys like Marciano, Ali, they’re like geniuses. It’s a different category.”

“You ever fight them?”

“No. Best I ever fought was Joe Walcott.”

“Did you win?”

“No.”

“That why you stopped?”

“No. I stopped because it wasn’t fun anymore. Too much graft, too much exploitation. Too many guys
like Beau Jack who make millions fighting and end up shining shoes someplace.”

“Could you beat Joe Walcott in a regular fight?”

“You mean not in the ring?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe.”

“Could you beat Hawk?”

“Maybe.”

I drank some beer. Paul had another piece of cheese and some grapes.

“The thing is,” I said, “anybody can beat anybody in a regular fight, a fight without rules. It matters only what you’re willing to do. I got a gun and Walcott doesn’t and poof. No contest. It doesn’t make too much sense worrying about who can beat who. Too much depends on other factors.”

“I mean a fair fight,” Paul said.

“In a ring with gloves and rules, my fight with Walcott wasn’t fair. He was much better. He had to carry me a few rounds to keep the customers from feeling cheated.”

“You know what I mean,” Paul said.

“Yes, but I’m trying to point out that the concept of a fair fight is meaningless. To make the match fair between me and Walcott I should have had a baseball bat. In a regular fight you do what you have to to win. If you’re not willing to, you probably shouldn’t fight.”

Paul finished his beer. I finished mine.

“Let’s start on the framing,” I said.

“You can turn on the ball game if you want,” Paul said.