Anthropology of an American Girl (66 page)

“So,” Rob continues, “spring rolls along—it’s 1979 now—and Diane graduates. Her parents want her in New York so they can keep an eye on
her. She’s not saying nothing, but you can see the writing on the wall—she’s gonna stick to Harrison like shit on a shoe. Her folks give her a trip to Europe for the summer and then set up that cozy job on Long Island for September, dressing it up into a “career opportunity” by making a couple anonymous donations here and there, figuring it’s East Hampton in winter—if she goes berserk on dope again, nobody’s gonna be the wiser. Meanwhile, did anybody think for a second about those kids stuck with that freak? Well, surprise, surprise, she refuses to leave him in L.A.

“That’s when Harrison decides to go for the Olympics. It’s the honorable way out all around. Jimmy Landes, the trainer he’s had in Jersey since he was a kid, was working in Brooklyn with two other guys for the Games, and to top it off, the Olympics is just about the only organization big enough to intimidate Diane. Harrison commits to moving back east, in order to convince her to come back too. Diane agrees, but fate steps in and a big television job opens up for her—she’s some kind of entertainment reporter now. With a little added incentive from her folks—new house, new car—she falls for it. The whole package was too good to pass up. Even a cokehead like her could see that.

“Then Harrison offered to take her spot in that school job to help her parents save face and to throw Diane off the scent, so to speak. It boiled down to, like, ten hours a week for him, but it was worth it to make Diane think he’s on board so she stays out of trouble in L.A. until she settles into the new life. He figured she’d settle. Nobody else believed it. But he was right. Her parents owe him big-time. Very smart maneuvering on his part.”

Rob breaks to drink some of his beer. I remember Alicia asking about Rourke.
You two must have been completely in love
, she’d said. She must have known about what he’d done on Diane’s behalf.
He would never hurt anyone
, Alicia had said.

“Now you see why Mark hates him. Harrison saves the day and looks like a prince, whereas Mark dumps his nightmare on the rest of us, runs for cover, and comes across like the rat he actually is. Mark’s father almost disowned him for it, but he had a massive coronary instead. I’d like to say it was related, but I know you love the old man, so I won’t. Let’s just say that Mark being in the spotlight looking like a dick didn’t exactly
lower the household stress levels. Mr. Ross had open-heart surgery, but he can’t take a day off because he’s afraid of the damage his son will do. And he’s counting on you to make Mark a better man. Good fucking luck.”

“Were you upset to leave California?” I ask.

“Me, nah—I hit bottom out there. That’s another story for another day. Anyway, Harrison was better off coming home. It got Diane’s claws out of him. You know me, I’m superstitious. Last thing I wanted was her bad blood hanging over his head or
mine.”

Rob clears his throat. “Long Island turned out to be a good deal. Harrison was ready to focus on the Games, get his mind off—
things
. And Jersey full-time was out of the question. The temptation would’ve been too great to make money. Between his talent and mine, it’s like sitting on a gold mine. Montauk was perfect, not just because of the kind of shape he got into physically, but mentally. After L.A. he needed a
wash
. He was running, biking, swimming, coming into Brooklyn on the days he wasn’t teaching at the school, four, maybe five a week, to train with Jimmy—doing qualifiers, the Pan Am Games, the Eastern Trials, the whole bit. Next thing you know, the Soviets invade Afghanistan that December, President Carter starts talking boycott in January, and by the end of March, it’s official.
Poof
, that’s that. No more Olympics.”

He takes a minute to reflect. We both look at the television set. There’s an ad on for Michelob Light Beer. It shows a couple of white guys with headbands playing racquetball. The men in the ad seem worlds away from the guys at the bar.

“Remember the night in the meat district?” Rob asks. “You asked what I said the first time I saw you.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“And I’m not going to now.” He sucks back his cheek again, and his head twitches right. “Something dumb, not bad, just the kind of thing guys say to each other. Well, it practically got me killed. I was like,
Jesus
.” He returns his gaze momentarily to the television. He drags a finger around the top inside of his glass. I wonder what he’s thinking about.

“I never told you this,” Rob says, “but if I hadn’t been there that day, I think that blond kid you were with would’ve taken a short walk off that
cliff. Like joined the parade from top down.” His hand makes a diving motion.

“Ray Trent. He’s a nice guy.”

“Nice
alive
guy,” Rob adds. “With nice
operative
legs.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well, he wasn’t just a
friend
either. That was clear to Harrison at least. Was he wrong?”

“No,” I said. “He wasn’t wrong.”

Rob holds his jaw with one hand and smiles, shaking his head. “That’s funny,” he says of Rourke. “Fucking guy.”

I feel something peculiar on my face, something cold. A tear. Strange, I thought all the tears had dried. Like bouquets of upside-down flowers. Rob reaches to catch it.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Rob says, handing me one of his cocktail napkins. “You’re thinking,
He left her, he left me; he lied to her, he lied to me
. You’re making a comparison, only there’s no comparison. First off, with Diane he was dealing with a hysteric and a cheat. The thing about cheats is, they don’t just cheat
you
, they make you cheat. That’s their objective—the failure of your character.” His voice deepens. “With you, it was different. You would never cheat to hang on to someone. You did Harrison a favor. You let go.”

That’s not what I’m thinking, but it’s sweet of him to feel this way and to have been feeling this way all along. As if I
hadn’t
become hysterical,
hadn’t
lied,
hadn’t
cheated Rourke, Mark, myself. Perhaps a stronger woman, a better woman, one with a good family, a house, a car, and a job—an entertainment reporter, for instance—would have fought for her rights. Mrs. Ross calls them
go-getters. “Go-getters!”
my mother said in disgust when I once mentioned the term. “Every woman is a go-getter
. Go get
me a cup of coffee!
Go get
the groceries!
Go get
the kids!
Go get
undressed.”

The bar phone rings. “Take a number, Pink,” Rob says, not even looking.

“Did he—did they—”

“He never touched her, if that’s what you’re asking. Not that I know of. Even if she’d been halfway sane, he wouldn’t have touched her.”

“Because of Mark.”

“Because of the
code
. Because Harrison doesn’t just
follow
the code. He wrote it.” Rob is so close I can feel the downward stamp of his breath. “He wasn’t gonna stay in Montauk that summer, Evie. After the Olympics fiasco, he was just gonna come back to Jersey to fight for cash. He was in shape, he had the apartment in Spring Lake, contacts in Atlantic City. The idea was to stay strong, make money, figure things out. A gym, maybe. We always said we’d open a gym, a chain—Jersey, L.A., Miami, Vegas, the Bronx. Maybe we’d reach out to kids in trouble. Give back what we got.”

I consider all that Rob has lost. It’s there in his face—a grasping sadness, a lonely frenzy. No one likes to surrender the best place to be. It’s like forfeiting riches. It’s not
like
that; it’s
exactly
that.

“But that shit wasn’t happening once he met you. Especially once Ross got into the picture. What a fucking judgment lapse. I think about the night we all went to that place in Amagansett. What could Harrison have been thinking? My guess is he introduced Mark for a reason. He wanted to force his own hand, force himself to come back. And he did. What did he last in Jersey, like, two
weeks
before turning back to get you?”

“Fifteen days,” I say.

“Fifteen
days,” Rob says with a smile. “Well, he trained hard for fourteen of them, sparring every night, wiping out the entire local roster. Everybody’s going crazy—radio, newspapers, the whole boardwalk is coming to life. On the fourteenth day, we set up a fight—very casual. He kicks the shit out of Chester Honey Walker, who hasn’t missed a day in the ring since he was born. Harrison cracks his jaw, right in the second round. You could hear the snap through the auditorium, and we had a couple hundred people there, then he lays him out with a body shot—Rourke’s impeccable on the inside.

“Next day he says to me, ‘Let’s take a drive.’ I’ll never forget it.
‘Let’s take a drive
. Two cars.’ Okay, I say. We go to Montauk, East Hampton, we show the girls around—the beach, the town, shopping. We go to your house. Just me and Harrison. You’re not home. Your mother is—nice lady, by the way. She sits on the back of the little couch there and
folds her arms. She says to Harrison, ‘Eveline hasn’t left the house for two weeks. Are you the one she’s been waiting for?’ Harrison just goes, ‘Yeah, I’m the one.’”

You have a mother
, Rourke said to me the last night in Montauk,
I’ve met her
.

“She tells us where she thinks you are, at Alicia Ross’s party, that some girl from school drove you over. Harrison realizes Mark’s involved and he shuts down. Before we go find you, I make him stop at the beach. You know, toss a ball, cool off. I figure with the way he’s been fighting, he might take lives. What happens? You pull up with Mark—in that freakin’ car.” Rob looks at me. “I will tell you what I was thinking at
that
moment. I was thinking,
This girl’s dangerous
.”

“I never would have—”

“That was obvious. How you felt was obvious. Obvious as how Harrison felt. Obvious as what Mark was doing. The whole situation was painfully fucking clear. Remember I told you that night in Jersey—
Be careful
?” He points to the counter. “This is what I was talking about. This very day. Mark made his decision the first time he laid eyes on you. He
mastered
the obvious. Here we are. Four years later.”

Pinky hands me a half-empty soft pack of tissues. I thank him.

“The rest is history. You come to Jersey for a couple days. Harrison goes to Montauk for the summer. And who could blame him? No sense rushing out to get hammered when you got a thing—a girl—you know, whatever.” He nudges me with his shoulder. “We had a lot of fun that summer, didn’t we?” His voice darkens. “Sooner or later, a man’s mind turns back to money, usually from
some
money to
big
money. Harrison had to get back to reality. What was he supposed to do that would’ve been better or faster than fighting? Maybe he didn’t want you watching him get beat up—it’s not pretty stuff. Maybe he thought you should focus on your own life, school, what have you. Maybe he didn’t do the right thing. Maybe he didn’t know
what
to do. He just figured you’d be okay. I guess he had more faith in you than he did in himself. That’s what I mean by saying he had no choice.”

He takes a tissue from me, “Fucking allergies.” He blows his nose hard. “The part that threw
me
was him going alone. At first I was pissed.
You were there—on my birthday, out at Surfside in Montauk. He told me that night he’d bought a ticket to Miami, that Jimmy Landes hooked him up for four months with some killer Cuban coach. Right off with the way he was talking, I knew I wasn’t part of the plan. ‘We’ll meet up later,’ he said. ‘A couple months.’ I wanted to fuckin’ kill him.” Rob shakes his head. “Miami.”

He tears open a pack of Halls and tilts it in my direction. I decline. He pops one out, unwraps it, sets it in his mouth. “Eventually I chalked it up to a misunderstanding. I mean, no promises were exchanged. I never asked anything; he never said anything. He’s not exactly chatty—as you know.” The cough drop flips around between his teeth. I hear it click; I smell eucalyptus. “But I checked out on him for a long time. Eight months went by, the longest we ever went without talking.”

Eight months. April of my freshman year. When Rourke sent me the letter; when Rob came to see me in my dorm.

“Harrison called in April. We hadn’t spoken since that night in Montauk. He was coming to New York. He wanted to see you. He figured you and I’d kept in touch. I set him straight, but said, no problem, I’d find you. There was no listing in Manhattan. NYU had your dorm, the one on East Tenth, but no student phone number—I figured your roommate got the phone. I would have tried your mother, but her name is different from yours. Like an idiot, I called Mark, thinking he could get your number through Alicia. Well he’d been
waiting
for that.”

Rob stammers into a burdensome silence. Suddenly it hits me. I know what he’s referring to. Mark told
Rob
what happened to me.
Rob
told Rourke.

“Mark said you didn’t want anything to do with Harrison, then he explained why in no uncertain terms. How you were found practically dead in the street, how he had had to deal with the hospital, how he paid the doctor, how he cleaned up after that animal, how he was the only thing standing between you and a nervous breakdown.”

I must be in shock, because the first thing I think of isn’t Rourke. The first thing I think of is Mr. Ross. I can almost hear Mark say,
Dad, I need to have a private conversation
. How like Mark to use the tragedy of my private circumstances to elevate his image and dismantle Rourke’s. I can’t
believe I’d allowed it. No wonder they’d all tiptoed around me. Next I think of Rourke, how I’d hurt him. Last is Mark. How Mark hurt him.

“First of all,” I say, “Mark
loaned
me money. I paid him back.”

Rob lays his elbows on the bar and rubs the inside of his eyes with his fingertips. “Sure, sure. Mark blew it out of proportion. The fact is, you could’ve called me. You
should’ve
called me. You gotta understand, men are funny about—well, you can’t have another guy stepping in like that—I mean—well, you know what I mean. It’s a big decision.”