Chapter 27: June 3, 1974

The next day when I got down Stoney was making blueberry pancakes and sausage links. Mrs. W was having a smoke and reading the paper. I got a cup of coffee, refilled her cup, and sat. She thanked me and passed me part of the paper. I had figured he was going to make pancakes because when were at the grocery store the day before he’d bought the blueberries and so I’d asked him to buy enough for me to have blueberries and cream for breakfast. He had something that looked like motor oil boiling in a small saucepan. It smelled sweet.

Two days in and we already had a routine.

I got through the front page of the Chattanooga Times and had some questions. “So who is Charles Colson?” I asked. She was about to answer when Stoney placed a plate of blueberry pancakes and breakfast link sausages in front of her, with a glass of milk. He returned a few seconds later with a small china pitcher of hot syrup for her. The butter on top of the pancakes was just about completely melted. It looked good. A few seconds later he placed a double ramekin of blueberries and a small pitcher of cream in next to my coffee cup. A silver sugar bowl was already on the table. “You guys go ahead,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

Mrs. W smiled at her plate as she picked up her fork. “Stoney, this is just beautiful!” she said. She poured some of the syrup on her pancakes and then took a bite. Her eyes rolled up as she shut her eyes in pleasure. “Oh, my God, where did you get this syrup?” she asked. “I don’t know. Where were we?” he asked me.

“On the Red Foods store over on Dayton Boulevard,” I said.

“What brand is it?” she asked, surprised.

“It’s that same Vermont stuff you like,” he said. “I just thought it was a little watery so I boiled it down some. Maybe by a third,” he said.

“Oh, my God, Stoney!” she said, and ate some more. Stoney joined us with his own steaming plate and tiny pitcher of maple syrup.

“Cheers,” he said, smiling, and began to eat his own breakfast. I poured some cream on the blueberries and then sprinkled some sugar on them, then had a spoonful. They were very good.

“What were you saying, Henry?” she asked.

“I forget.”

“Something about Charles Colson,” said Stoney.

“Oh, right. He’s in the paper this morning. He’s pleaded guilty to something. Going to cooperate with prosecutors on the Watergate deal,” I said.

“So what’s the question?” she asked.

“What’s this Watergate deal?” I asked. Stoney looked up quickly from his pancakes.

“Yeah!” he said. “People talk about it all the time, but I have no idea what it’s about.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she said, exasperated. “How can two boys who are so brilliant be so completely stupid?” Stoney looked at me with a worried expression. “The most important news story of our generation and you two don’t know anything about it. How can you vote if you don’t keep up with the news?” Stoney and I exchanged glances. I wasn’t registered to vote, and Stoney’s expression suggested that he wasn’t either. “Your duties as a citizen extend beyond chasing … love interests and playing pool and drinking whiskey. You need to stay informed. You look at the paper every day Henry, how can you not know about this stuff?”

“Well,” I said, taking a spoonful of blueberries to give me a second to compose my thoughts, “Often I scan the headlines.”

“What are you doing with the paper then?” she asked. She was still savoring her pancakes, but talking while she did so.

“Well, there’s the sports pages, during baseball season. And sometimes in March.”

“And that’s it?”

“No ma’am. I’m also deeply involved in crossword puzzles and the Cryptoquote.”

“No news?”

“Well, I do look at the headlines on the front page. And, as you just saw, ask intelligent questions about them.”

“Intelligent, my ass,” she said, finishing her pancakes and taking a swallow of milk. Stoney had finished his breakfast, at about the same time.

“You?” she asked him. He stood to get the coffee pot to pour Mrs. W and himself a cup and warm up mine.

“Um, I must admit, my schedule at school is often a bit different from the one we follow here. I’m often not up as early as I am here, and scrambling to get to class on the days when I have testes occupies all of my attention. Here, I find myself encumbered only by mild hangovers of a morning and I have much more time than I am accustomed to having on my hands, and so it’s possible I’ve not been keeping up with the news as much as a citizen might.”

“You guys remind me of George Dantzig,”

“Who?” I asked.

“Whoa,” Stoney.

“He was this German guy in one of my math classes in grad school. Actually, it turns out he wasn’t German—his father was German but he was born somewhere on the West Coast. This was in the thirties and things weren’t looking so good in Germany, so we made lots of assumptions about people with German names.”

“Where you go to grad school?” I asked.

“This would have been at Berkeley in 1939,” said Stoney.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Hush,” said Stoney. “I thought this story was a myth. I want to hear it.” He took a sip of his coffee and propped his chin on his hands.

“All right, so you’ve heard it,” she said, looking up at us and lighting a cigarette. I shook my head. I certainly hadn’t heard it.

“Say on,” said Stoney.

“I figured George was just another German high school math teacher trying to stretch out his education until the war started and the borders closed and he couldn’t go home. I was wrong, like I said, but in the thirties all the famous math and physics goyim in Germany were pledging to stay in Germany and support the Reich but all the Jews and young men were looking to get out. Anyway, George is this slightly dorky married guy who was in one of my advanced statistics classes. I didn’t like statistics much, but I thought it might help me some with Bohr’s quantum mechanics, which it didn’t at all—all statistics are not the same, either numerically or theoretically—but it was interesting, in its way. Remind me to show you Gaussian principles before the summer is over. It’s not hard, but it’s slightly more complicated than they present it in undergrad math books. Anyway, George was nice and pretty smart but wasn’t really a standout. He looked a little disorganized and was always getting to class late. So one day Professor Neyman came in and before class got started put two equations up on the board. Once class began he explained that they were classical statistical theorems which, while quite useful, could not be proven. He told us what they might be useful for in making conjectures in the weeks ahead, but warned us that they could not be cited for proof of anything, then went on to talking about the day’s lesson. George wanders in, making a clatter, takes out his notebook and copies down the theorems. According to the way Dr. Neyman told the story, George mistook the two equations as homework problems and worked out proofs for them, and then apologized for handing them in late, saying they were ‘a little harder’ than most of the homework problems.. Eventually both of George’s solutions got published as brilliant solutions, but both times he was published as a co-author, first with Dr. Neymann, then with some other guy who also hit on the same solution.”

“That really happened?” asked Stoney.

“Yes, Stoney,” she said. “I was there.”

“Wow. I love that story,” he said. “Always have.”

“You guys are a little like George. “Out there, but really clever. But that’s not what we meant to talk about.” Stony and I sat up. “Your knowledge of current events is appalling. So we are adding ‘Civics’ as a course for summer school.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Cool, said Stoney.

“Did you take Civics at City High?” Mrs. W. asked me.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

“Who from?”

“Mr. Cronk.”

“Good teacher,” she said. “Were you one of his favorite pupils?”

“I liked his class, but I did not smoke marijuana with him, no ma’am.”

“People smoked dope with their teachers? That is so cool,” said Stoney.

“No, Stoney, it is not.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Civics. From here on out, we’re going to read the paper every day at breakfast, we’re going to talk about the news over lunch, and we’re going to watch the national news every day at six.”

“Yes, ma’am,” we both said.

“Which network?” asked Stoney. I had no idea what he was talking about. She took a drag off her cigarette and a sip of her coffee, nodding.

“You know, we should look at them all and pick one, I guess. I like Cronkite , but a case could be made for Howard K. Smith. ”

“I like Chancellor , but I have to admit it’s like NBC’s not really trying any more,” Stoney said.

“Okay, so we’ll alternate between ABC and CBS until we figure out who’s better.”

“Cool,” said Stoney.

“You guys really need to be more aware of what’s going on around you, she said. We passed the paper around and drank our coffee. She returned her attention to the newspaper.

“Mrs. Wertheimer, may I ask you a personal question?” Stoney asked, after a few minutes. This worried me. Se looked up and took a drag off of her cigarette. Stoney, contemplative, shook out one of his Winston Gold 100’s and lit it.

“When Dr. Ladd was being rude to Henry, if I understood what happened, he didn’t seem to believe that Henry knew you.” She thought about her answer, and tilted her head one way then another as she thought.

“I guess that sounds like Ladd,” she said. Stoney paused for a few seconds, mindful of his manners. I wasn’t sure where this was going.

“He referred to you as Doctor Wertheimer,” Stoney said.

“Well, he would,” said Mrs. W, still looking at the paper.

“Why’s that?” he asked

“He and I have only bumped into each other at math conferences,” she said. “I like to go to a few every year to keep my hand in.”

“So you have a doctorate? A Ph.D.?” he asked.

“Oh, of course,” she said. “I have two, both issued in 1940 by the University of California at Berkeley. One in Physics, and the other in Mathematics. I must admit it seemed like cheating at the time, because it was essentially the same thesis submitted to both departments, but expressed with slightly different … how do you say … nomenclature. But that was right at the time things changed.”

“What changed?” I asked.

“How strong is your quantum mechanics?” she asked.

“Anemic. It makes no sense whatsoever. I can do the calculations, but they’re inane. No grounding in physical reality.”

“Henry, you’re going to have to let go of that to succeed academically.”

“I have no goals regarding academic success, but isn’t it called Physics because it relates to the physical world?”

“Okay, you two, to get to the point I was leading to a minute ago before the conversation went off on a tangent,” said. Stoney, “So you have two Ph.D.s from Berkeley?”

“Yep. And if you like rock star details, I knew Albert Einstein.”

“Yeah, well, I figured that,” said Stoney.

“How so?”

“Well, I’ve heard he had an eye for the ladies,” said Stoney. She smiled, blowing smoke through her nose.

“He did indeed. Time for school,” she said, standing. Stoney and I grabbed out coffee cups and followed her into the dining room, which now contained three chalkboards, all blank. She then proceeded to introduce us to complex variables, conjugate coordinates, and in started on analytic functions. Stoney had never heard of cream cheese and olive sandwiches, so she showed him (and me) how to make them at lunch, and Stoney accompanied them with a cantaloupe and prosciutto salad that was to die for. Analytic functions are pretty interesting, once you get into them.

Chapter 26

Chapter 25: Traveling to Summer School

After exams Stoney took a few days to get himself together to pack his possessions and get ready to drive down to Chattanooga. I was going to call Ginny to offer her a ride, but before I got to it Cisco told me he was taking her, at Walt’s request.

“You know, he’s, um, pretty set on her. Tennis deal,” Cisco said. He’d dropped by to flip a coin to decide which one of us was going to get the inside and which the outside room at McTyeire. That was our dorm for the next year, and it had originally been set up as a dorm of four room suites in which two men shared four rooms and a bathroom. Each resident had a sitting room and a bedroom, on either side of the bathroom, which seems very genteel, even by 1974 standards. By the time 1974 actually arrived, though, times were considerably less genteel, so when we inhabited it, it was up as four bedrooms sharing one bathroom, with the sitting rooms converted to bedrooms, which meant that the person who lived in what had once been the sitting room had to put up with the other resident at his end walking through his room every time he needed the bathroom.

“I think they have this whole country club background scene they share,” I said, about Walt and Ginny. I hadn’t seen either of them since Cisco had driven us all back to school following the Christmas holiday.

“Yeah, you’re right, but it’s more than that. They’ve been playing tennis together a whole lot and apparently they’re pretty good as a mixed doubles pair. They’re going to spend the summer going to tournaments everywhere. Walt thinks they may be the number one mixed doubles pair in the SEC next year.”

“That sounds like something good,” I said.

“I’m picking that up too. Let’s do this,” he said, pulling a quarter out of his soft khaki pants. He flipped it high into the air and said “call it!” tracing the quarter’s arc with his eyes.

“Tails,” I said. He caught the quarter in his right hand and smacked it over onto his left wrist.

“Before we look, let’s talk about this, he said, without revealing the coin. “We’ve resorted to a traditional conflict-resolution process, but perhaps this is unnecessary. Perhaps there really is no conflict. Which room would you prefer to have?”

“The outside one.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t like to have other people going through my room.”

“Which room do you think I want?” he asked.

“The same one, the outside.”

“Why do you think that?” We were standing in the door to my dorm room at Hemmingway, him still with his right hand covering the quarter on his left wrist, right next to his steel Rolex.

“’Cause you’ve always got girls in your room. I’d imagine you’d value your privacy.”

“I do,” he said, and smiled at me. “My impression is that you go to bed relatively early,” he said.

“True, if you judge me as compared to this lot,” I gestured to our hall, left and right. “I get tired around midnight.”

“You also don’t seem to gossip much,” said Cisco, hand still on wrist.

“About what?” I asked.

“Who’s José fucking?” he asked.

“Yeah, well. Who knows?”

“You do. You saw Roz Martin and him leave his room together at 7:00 a.m. last Wednesday.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that kind of thing.”

“I have deep respect for this aspect of your personality,” he said.

“Why thank you.”

“And it is one of the factors that makes the inner room more appealing to me.”

“No shit?” I asked.

“None. It’s possible that any … friends … I bring to my room will be joining us after you’re asleep. And your … taciturn … nature will be … handy. And guests from my room will not need to pass through yours to have access to the bathroom. Are we agreed?”

“Yeah, well, sure.”

“Excellent! It’s a deal, then?”

“I’m outside, you’re inside, and I don’t talk?” I asked.

“That sums it up. No need to look at the coin, then.”

“It’s tails,” I said.

“How can you know that?”

“I never lose a coin toss.” He lifted his right hand from is left wrist and revealed the spread eagle tails side of a Washington quarter. He smiled that smile, then flipped it with his thumb so that it spun through the air and I caught it in my right hand.

“You’re the man,” said Cisco and headed out, topsiders, khakis, alligator shirt and all. At the door he stopped and turned around in the middle of lighting a Marlboro red. “About the Ginny and Walt deal, they’ve been playing tennis together.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

“A lot.”

“Okay…”

“He told me last month that he’d given up smoking,” he said.

“Yeah, well. He’s getting in shape for tennis,” I said.

“He said he’d given it up because she didn’t like the way it tasted.”

“A very specific comment,” I said.

“Thought you should know,” he said.

“Well, look, for some reason people think there’s more going on between Ginny and me than there is. This is not a problem, but thanks for keeping me informed.”

“Later, dude, ” he answered, and left. The phone rang a few minutes later.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Okay, so, I’m almost all the way packed. If I get all my stuff into the trunk will you be able to fit yours into the back seat?” asked Stony, without preamble.

“Yeah, sure. All of my stuff fits into a steamer trunk.”

“Not sure what that is man, but as long as it’ll fit in the back seat, we’re cool. And you’re okay with having my aquarium at your feet?”

“You have an aquarium?” I asked.

“Of course. Oh, shit, you don’t have one too, do you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Okay. That’s cool. It’s just a ten-gallon one and you’ll get used to having it at your feet pretty fast. I’ll be over in about ten. Wait. You’re in the one that’s closest to Tex Ritter’s?” My dorm was across the street from a fast-food hamburger place called Tex Ritter’s.

“Yes,” I said.

“O.K. That’s cool. That might come in handy. I haven’t eaten anything today and it’s past lunchtime. At least I don’t think I’ve eaten anything today. Anyhow Tex Ritter’s bein’ right across the street is pretty cool. Oh, wow! And then there’s IHOP right down that one-way street. And Jesus! Mack’s Fine Foods and Fresh Vegetables Daily is right across the street from that!”

“Stoney?”

“Yes?”

“Just get here. Then I’ll drive you to wherever you want to eat lunch, I’ll buy your lunch, then I’ll drive us to Chattanooga.”

“But then I’ll have the aquarium down between my feet,” he complained.

“Yes, you will.” I could hear him sigh as though he was resigned to this onerous condition even though he knew it to be patently unfair.

Two hours later, Stoney knocked on my door. He was wearing bell-bottomed Levi’s, his cowboy boots, the vest from a navy blue pinstriped suit, an Oxford cloth buttoned down shirt much like my own, and his aviator shades. “Cool. Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah sure.” He helped me negotiate my steamer trunk down the stairs. That was pretty easy because I’d sent all my books to Mrs. W, parcel post, just like when I was on the road. Once my trunk was loaded into his back seat, he looked at me and said “burgers?” We walked across the street to Tex Ritter’s. Both of us had the Chuck Wagon Special, a good double cheeseburger with fries and your choice of soda.

“I think I should drive,” I said, when we got back to the parking lot.

“Really?” he asked. “I’ve driven this car for so long.”

“To feel comfortable having you drive me through steep mountain passes, I’d want to know everything you’d ingested since yesterday,” I said.

“Oh, God. Who takes notes? And more to the point, what have you ingested since yesterday, Henry Baida. Answer me that!”

“Food and water,” I said. There was a pause during which he looked puzzled.

“Yeah. Sure. No beer or whiskey. I bet.”

“I don’t drink.”

“I know you say that, but I mean really,” said Stoney.

“I really don’t drink.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Everybody drinks. Except these weird religious fanatics you have down here. Are you one of those?”

“No. Let me have the keys, please,” I said.

“Why do you want the keys to my car?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m offering to drive you to Chattanooga.”

“Cool!” he said, and threw me the keys. We moved to get in. “Ah, shit. I forgot about the damned fish,” he said, after opening the passenger side door. “Lemme drive.”

“No.”

“But there’s no room for my feet,” he said.

“There would be no room for my feet, either,” I said. He seemed confused by this information. “Let’s go Stoney,” I said. We both got in, him placing his feet carefully alongside the aquarium. It contained a single, blunt-looking palm-sized fish, a combination of goldfish-gold and silvery white that faded into river green. Once he was seated I started the car and pulled into traffic.

“Why are you driving, again?” he asked right before we got on the freeway. “This is my car.”

“Because you’re completely fucked up,” I answered.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, well. You know what they say.”

“What do they say?” I asked.

“Reality’s for people who can’t handle drugs,” he answered.

“I’ve heard that before,” I said.

“But I made it up.”

“No, you didn’t. Okay. In a little over two hours you’re going to meet my friend Mrs. Wertheimer. She has little patience for drugs.”

“Why?”

“Partly because intoxicated people are only interesting to other people who are also intoxicated. Recall that one condition of you staying in her house all summer, and so getting a pass to take the math courses you want, is that she said no drugs are allowed in her house at all.”

“Oh, she didn’t mean that,” said Stoney.

“Yes, she did, and if she catches you with anything illegal in her house, my guess is that she’ll send you packing. She’s tolerant, but she enforces rules.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Surely she suspects that you smoke reefer when you’re home for holidays.”

“But I don’t.”

“Not at all?” he asked, baffled.

“Nope.”

“Why not?” he asked, suspiciously.

I shrugged. “Just not interested.” He shook his head in a troubled, baleful manner.

“This is a total bummer,” he said.

“Which part?”

“That you don’t smoke.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“I ran out of reefer just before lunch and I thought I could bum some off of you.”

“No. Stoney, you have agreed not to do drugs all summer.”

“Oh, that’s one of those summer romance promises. Nobody expects you to keep those.”

“Yes, she does.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She doesn’t occasionally take a toke herself?”

“No.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“Sober up?” I asked back.

“No, no, I’ll think of something,” he said. He was lost in his own thoughts for maybe an hour. He never seemed to fall completely asleep, but I couldn’t monitor him very carefully because I was driving. He was quiet until I got to the top of the Monteagle Pass.

“Okay, so, hypothetically, if I were to smoke some weed off by myself in my bedroom and she never knew it happened,” Stoney asked. “Could I do that?”

“Not in her house, no. Her deal is no drugs in her house.”

“Okay,” he said, and thought for a few minutes.“No smoking in her house?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And that’s it? I may be able to work with that.”

“Well, no. No possession of illegal drugs in her house would be more accurate,” I said.

“Ah, shit. Now that’s just unreasonable. What does she care what’s in my pockets?”

“Stoney, she disapproves of drugs.”

“But why?” he asked, beseechingly, mystified.

“She’s never done drugs—”

“She doesn’t drink?”

“Yes, of course she does. Not much, but she does. She also drinks coffee and smokes cigarettes. A lot. And I’m sure she takes aspirin and drinks tea. But all of that is different.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. If Mrs. W has a glass of wine with dinner, it may affect her mood, and if she has a lot of wine with dinner, hypothetically, she might become intoxicated. But no cop is going to show up at her door with a search warrant telling her they suspect her of having a glass of wine and haul her off to jail on suspicion that she did.”

“It’s not fair,” said Stoney, looking in his pockets for a cigarette.

“I hear that the only place you find justice is in the dictionary.”

“Good line,” said Stoney, meditatively, nodding and lighting his cigarette.

“Mrs. W disapproves of drugs. She’s some bad experiences.”

“Really? Like bad acid trips, or what?” he asked.

“No, no. Students whose drug experiences worried her.”

“‘Needle and the Damage Done’ shit?” he asked, speculatively.

“No. The only one she’s mentioned to me was this classmate of mine, Ed Bork. Ed was a weird guy even before he started eating acid, and acid put him kind of over the top in a major way. He started quoting Aleister Crowley about devil worship and that kind of crap. He had these pamphlets and tracts he’d hand out to us as we filed into school, him wearing a black velvet robe, with a hood, talking about Satanism. It was all stupid. He had bad hair, too.”

“What kind of bad hair?” Stoney asked.

“Kind of helmet shaped.”

“What did he look like?”

“Five ten, bony. Smiled too much, but that was the drugs.” I said.

“What did he do to … your math teacher?”

“He claimed to put a hex on her.” We’d come through the pass and were on the flatlands that lead into Chattanooga.

“What kind of hex?” asked Stoney.

“He didn’t even attempt to answer the exam questions because he’d placed a powerful curse on her so that she would be dead before grades came in, or something like that, so that she would be unable to fail him, try as she might. She gave him a failing grade on the exam, which should have failed him for the class. The school administrators overruled her and gave him a passing grade just to get rid of him.”

“Witchcraft is powerful,” said Stoney.

“Mrs. W is still alive,” I said.

“True,” he said. He took a drag off of his cigarette. “Why are we talking about that?” he asked.

“Don’t remember.”

“Okay, so, no drugs in the house, but what if there happened to be a stash outside the house but hidden nearby, where a man might stop by and refresh himself?”

“This is a gray area I am not equipped to address.”

“Or what if I found legal drugs of some sort? I could bring them into the house, right?”

“Like codeine?” I asked. “Like you talk some Chattanooga doctor into giving you something you want to take?”

“No. Like psilocybin mushrooms. Nothing illegal about them. ”

“I don’t think they grow in Tennessee,” I said.

“Who would know?” he asked.

“A mycologist,” I said.

“Henry, please be serious. I’m trying to work out a plausible strategy for surviving the next ninety days.”

“I have no idea.”

He was lost in his thoughts for a few minutes. “Booze?” he asked.

“She won’t mind drinking,” I said.

“Well that’s something. What about advanced, graduate-level drinking? ”

“It’s not illegal,” I said.

“Is there a liquor store on the way?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“That’ll help until I can come up with a real solution,” he said. The wheels were churning, and he had a troubled expression. I took him to Nick’s liquor store, across the street from the shuttered Union Station, and he bought a half gallon of Jack Daniel’s black label , a half gallon of Smirnoff hundred proof vodka, and a fifth of something called grappa. He distributed them amongst his possessions in various areas of his car, and then pronounced himself ready to go. We were just a few minutes from Mrs. Wertheimer’s house.

“Okay, bud,” I said, in Nick’s parking lot, just before putting his car in drive. “Mrs. W is very important to me. I’ve asked her to invite you into her house. I need you to respect her rules.”

“I will,” said Stoney, “Incomprehensible as they may be, but you shouldn’t fault me for seeking to understand their limits. Lawyers, priests, penitents, all need to understand what the rules are, and they all interpret them, I guess I’m more accustomed to seeking forgiveness than permission. This is a prices that I, as a Catholic, am accustomed to. Unfortunately, you are telling me, in essence, and I apologize for reducing your elaborate, elegant argument into a catchphrase, that I can’t transgress. This is new territory for me. I can tell you that I’ll comply, but I can’t promise that I won’t explore the boundaries of this rule business.”

“No dope of any sort in her house,” I said.

“Got it, man. But you can’t fault a man for wanting to get high.”

“Yes, I can,” I said.

“Not unless you’re a Baptist,” he said. “That’s like faulting a man for wanting to get laid.”

“What’s the attraction, anyhow?”

“To getting laid?”

“No, no. To drugs.”

“Oh, man, until you try it, you’ll never understand. On acid, you think in poetry. Listen! Listen!” The radio was on and he turned it up as I left Nick’s parking lot. “Magic! Jimi is a genius.”

“‘The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow, and shine in emptiness down on my bed?’ Did I hear that right?” I asked.

“Yes! You see? Genius!”

“Stoney, it makes no sense whatsoever. Since you understand it and you’re still stoned I’m guessing that people on drugs say things that other stoned people understand, kind of like stoners are more interesting to other stoners than they are to straight people.”

“And by straight, you mean ….” he said.

“Unstoned.”

“You’re missing the point,” he said. “Jimi was on acid when he wrote that really cool lyric to ‘The Wind Cries Mary.’ I’m just a teeny bit maybe high from some reefer I smoked hours and hours ago. I may not even be high at all,” he said, glumly.

“Okay,” I said, pulling into her driveway. “The rules are, no drugs of any sort in her house.”

“That’s not what you said before!” he said, distressed. “Before you said no illegal drugs in her house.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said. “She smokes and drinks.”

“It’s a starting point.” We got out of Stoney’s car. Both of us stretched. I grabbed my trunk and Stoney grabbed his fish tank and we walked to the front door. I rang the doorbell, and Mrs. W answered the door within a few seconds.

“Hello, Henry!” she said, and she might have hugged me had I not been holding an enormous steamer trunk.

“”Mrs. W, may I introduce Stoney Jackson,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Wertheimer,” Stoney said, trying to reach a hand out under his fish tank. She reached under the tank to shake his hand, parking her cigarette between her lips while she did so. “And what do we have in the aquarium?” She adjusted her glasses and took a drag from her cigarette while Stoney was getting ready to answer. “Mr. Jackson, do you have a piranha in there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What do you feed it?”

“Fishing minnows, when I can find them. Goldfish, when I can’t.”

“So you have to keep two aquariums going to own one fish?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right. You boys show yourselves upstairs. Henry, show Stoney to the room upstairs that’s neither yours nor mine. Stoney, leave that aquarium on the floor. We’ll put some kind of rubber mat on the desk tomorrow so you can put your aquaria on it without worry, but that’s an L. & J.G. Stickley desk and I don’t want anything bad to happen to the finish.”

“Yes, ma’am. We made several trips up and down the stairs taking heaps of his belongings upstairs, then he wanted to fill up his aquarium, and turn on the pumps and filters. This took a few minutes, not least because it’s not as easy as it might seem to find a container in the upstairs of a suburban house that will hold several gallons of water.

Chapter 26, lengthened

Chapter 25: Summer School

After exams Stoney took a few days to pull himself together to pack his possessions and drive down to Chattanooga. I was going to call Ginny and offer her a ride with us, but Cisco told me he was giving her a ride, at Walt’s request.

“You know, he’s, um, pretty set on her. Tennis deal,” Cisco said. He’d dropped by to flip a coin between us to decide which one of us was going to get the inside and which the outside room at McTyeire. It was our dorm for the next year, and had originally been set up as a four room suite with two men sharing a bathroom, both of whom had a sitting room and a bedroom, which seems very genteel. Times were now less genteel, so it was now set up as four students sharing one bathroom, with the sitting rooms converted to bedrooms, which meant that the person who lived in what had been designed as the sitting room had to put up with the other resident at his end walking through his room every time the other wanted to leave the suite or go to the bathroom.

“I think they have this whole country club background scene they share,” I said, about Walt and Ginny. I hadn’t seen either of them since Cisco had driven us all back to school following the Christmas holiday.

“Yeah, you’re right, but it’s more than that. They’ve been playing tennis together a whole lot and apparently they’re pretty good as a mixed doubles pair. They’re going to spend the summer going to tournaments everywhere. Walt thinks they may be the number one mixed doubles pair in the SEC next year.”

“That sounds like something good,” I said.

“I’m picking that up too. Let’s do this,” he said, pulling a quarter out of his soft khaki pants. He flipped it high into the air and said “call it!” tracing the quarter’s arc with his eyes.

“Tails,” I said. He caught the quarter in his right hand and smacked it over onto his left wrist.

“Before we look, let’s talk about this, he said, without revealing the coin. “We’ve resorted to a traditional conflict-resolution process, but perhaps it is unnecessary to do so. Perhaps there is no conflict. Which room would you prefer to have?”

“The outside one.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t like to have other people going through my room.”

“Which room do you think I want?” he asked.

“The same one, the outside.”

“Why do you think that?” We were standing in the door to my dorm room at Hemmingway, him still with his right hand covering the quarter on his left wrist, right next to his steel Rolex.

“’Cause you’ve always got girls in your room. I’d imagine you’d value your privacy.”

“I do,” he said, and smiled at me. “My impression is that you go to bed relatively early,” he said.

“True, if you judge me as compared to this lot,” I gestured to our hall, left and right. “I get tired around midnight.”

“You also don’t seem to gossip much,” said Cisco, hand still on wrist.

“About what?” I asked.

“Who’s José fucking?” he asked.

“Yeah, well. Who knows?”

“You do. You saw Roz Martin and him leave his room together at 7:00 a.m. last Wednesday.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that kind of thing.”

“I have deep respect for this aspect of your personality,” he said.

“Why thank you.”

“And it is one of the factors that makes the inner room more appealing to me.”

“No shit?” I asked.

“None. It’s possible that any … friends … I bring to my room will be joining us after you’re asleep. And your … taciturn … nature will be … handy. And guests from my room will not need to pass through yours to have access to the bathroom. Are we agreed?”

“Yeah, well, sure.”

“Excellent! It’s a deal, then?”

“I’m outside, you’re inside, and I don’t talk?” I asked.

“That sums it up. No need to look at the coin, then.”

“It’s tails,” I said.

“How can you know that?”

“I never lose a coin toss.” He lifted his right hand from is left wrist and revealed the spread eagle tails side of a Washington quarter. He smiled that smile, then flipped it with his thumb so that it spun through the air and I caught it in my right hand.

“You’re the man,” said Cisco and headed out, topsiders, khakis, alligator shirt and all. At the door he stopped and turned around in the middle of lighting a Marlboro red. “About the Ginny and Walt deal, they’ve been playing tennis together.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

“A lot.”

“Okay…”

“He told me last month that he’d given up smoking,” he said.

“This is consistent with getting in shape for tennis,” I said.

“He said he’d given it up because she didn’t like the way it tasted.”

“A very specific criticism,” I said.

“Thought you should know,” he said.

“Look, man, for some reason people think there’s more going on between Ginny and me than there is. This is not a problem, but thanks for telling me.”

“Later, dude, ” he answered, and left. The phone rang a few minutes later.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Okay, so, I’m almost all the way packed. If I get all my stuff into the trunk will you be able to fit yours into the back seat?” asked Stony, without preamble.

“Yeah, sure. All of my stuff fits into a steamer trunk.”

“Not sure what that is man, but as long as it’ll fit in the back seat, we’re cool. And you’re okay with having my aquarium at your feet?”

“You have an aquarium?” I asked.

“Of course. Oh, shit, you don’t have one too, do you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Okay. That’s cool. It’s just a ten-gallon one and you’ll get used to having it at your feet pretty fast. I’ll be over in about ten. Wait. You’re in the one that’s closest to Tex Ritter’s?” My dorm was across the street from a fast-food hamburger place called Tex Ritter’s.

“Yes,” I said.

“O.K. That’s cool. That might come in handy. I haven’t eaten anything today and it’s past lunchtime. At least I don’t think I’ve eaten anything today. Anyway Tex Ritter’s bein’ right across the street is pretty cool. Oh, wow! And then there’s IHOP right down that one-way street. And Jesus! Mack’s Fine Foods and Fresh Vegetables Daily is right across the street from that!”

“Stoney?”

“Yes?”

“Just get here. Then I’ll drive you to wherever you want to eat lunch, I’ll buy your lunch, then I’ll drive us to Chattanooga.”

“But then I’ll have the aquarium down between my feet,” he complained.

“Yes, you will.” I could hear him sigh as though he was resigned to this onerous condition even though he knew it to be patently unfair.

Two hours later, Stoney knocked on my door. He was wearing bell-bottomed Levi’s, his cowboy boots, the vest from a navy blue pinstriped suit, an Oxford cloth buttoned down shirt much like my own, and his aviator shades. “Cool. Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah sure.” He helped me negotiate my steamer trunk down the stairs. That was pretty easy because I’d sent all my books to Mrs. W, parcel post, just like when I was on the road. Once my trunk was loaded into his back seat, he looked at me and said “burgers?” We walked across the street to Tex Ritter’s. Both of us had the Chuck Wagon Special, as I recalled, which was a good double cheeseburger with fries and your choice of soda.

“I think I should drive,” I said, when we got back to the parking lot.

“Really?” he asked. “I’ve driven this car for so long.”

“To feel comfortable having you drive me through steep mountain passes, I’d want to know everything you’d ingested since yesterday,” I said.

“Oh, God. Who takes notes? And more to the point, what have you ingested since yesterday, Henry Baida. Answer me that!”

“Food and water,” I said. There was a pause during which he looked puzzled.

“Yeah. Sure. No beer or whiskey. I bet.”

“I don’t drink.”

“I know you say that, but I mean really,” said Stoney.

“I really don’t drink.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Everybody drinks. Except these weird religious fanatics you have down here. Are you one of those?”

“No. Let me have the keys, please,” I said.

“Why do you want the keys to my car?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m offering to drive you to Chattanooga.”

“Cool!” he said, and threw me the keys. We moved to get in. “Ah, shit. I forgot about the damned fish,” he said, after opening the passenger side door. “Lemme drive.”

“No.”

“But there’s no room for my feet,” he said.

“There would be no room for my feet, either,” I said. He seemed confused by this information. “Let’s go Stoney,” I said. We both got in, him placing his feet carefully alongside the aquarium. It contained a single, blunt-looking palm-sized fish, a combination of goldfish-gold and silvery white that faded into river green. Once he was seated I started the car and pulled into traffic.

“Why are you driving, again?” he asked right before we got on the freeway. “This is my car.”

“Because you’re completely fucked up,” I answered.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, well. You know what they say.”

“What do they say?” I asked.

“Reality’s for people who can’t handle drugs,” he answered.

“I’ve heard that before,” I said.

“But I made it up.”

“No, you didn’t. Okay. In a little over two hours you’re going to meet my friend Mrs. Wertheimer. She has little patience for drugs.”

“Why?”

“Partly because intoxicated people are only interesting to other people who are also intoxicated. Recall that one condition of you staying in her house all summer, and so getting a pass to take the courses you want, is that she said no drugs are allowed in her house at all.”

“Oh, she didn’t mean that,” said Stoney.

“Yes, she did, and if she catches you with anything illegal in her house, my guess is that she’ll send you packing. She’s tolerant, but she enforces rules.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Surely she suspects that you smoke reefer when you’re home for holidays.”

“But I don’t.”

“Not at all?” he asked, baffled.

“Nope.”

“Why not?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Just not interested.” He shook his head in a troubled, baleful manner.

“This is a total bummer,” he said.

“Which part?”

“That you don’t smoke.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“I ran out of reefer just before lunch and I thought I could bum some off of you.”

“No. Stoney, you have agreed not to do drugs all summer.”

“Oh, that’s one of those summer romance promises. Nobody expects you to keep those.”

“Yes, she does.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She doesn’t occasionally take a toke herself?”

“No.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“Sober up?” I asked back.

“No, no, I’ll think of something,” he said. He was lost in his own thoughts for maybe an hour. He never seemed to fall completely asleep, but I couldn’t monitor him very carefully because I was driving. He was quiet until I got to the top of the descent of the Monteagle pass.

“Okay, so, hypothetically, if I were to smoke some weed off by myself in my bedroom and she never knew it happened,” Stoney asked. “Could I do that?”

“Not in her house, no. Her deal is no drugs in her house.”

“Okay,” he said, and thought for a few minutes.“No smoking in her house?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And that’s it? I may be able to work with that.”

“Well, no. No possession of illegal drugs in her house would be more accurate,” I said.

“Ah, shit. Now that’s just unreasonable. What does she care what’s in my pockets?”

“Stoney, she disapproves of drugs.”

“But why?” he asked, beseechingly, mystified.

“She’s never done drugs—”

“She doesn’t drink?”

“Yes, of course she does. Not much, but she does. She also drinks coffee and smokes cigarettes. A lot. And I’m sure she takes aspirin and drinks tea. But all of that is different.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. If Mrs. W has a glass of wine with dinner, it may affect her mood, and if she has a lot of wine with dinner, hypothetically, she might become intoxicated. But no cop is going to show up at her door with a search warrant telling her they suspect her of having a glass of wine, and haul her off to jail because she did.”

“It’s not fair,” said Stoney, looking in his pockets for a cigarette.

“Somebody once told me that the only place you find justice is in the dictionary.”

“Good line,” said Stoney, meditatively, nodding and lighting his cigarette.

“Mrs. W disapproves of drugs. She’s some bad experiences.”

“Really? Like bad acid trips, or what?” he asked.

“No, no. Students whose drug experiences worried her.”

“‘Needle and the Damage Done’ shit?” he asked, speculatively.

“No. The only one she’s to me was this classmate of mine. Ed Bork. Ed was a weird guy even before he started in on acid, and acid put him kind of over the top. He started quoting strange things from Aleister Crowley about devil worship and shit. He had these tracts he’d hand out, wearing a black velvet robe, with a hood, talking about Satanism and shit. It was all stupid. He had bad hair, too.”

“What kind of bad hair?”

“Kind of helmet shaped.”

“What did he look like?”

“Five ten, bony. Smiled too much, but that was the drugs.” I said.

“What did he do to … your math teacher?”

“He claimed to put a hex on her.” We’d come all the way down the mountain and were on the flatlands that lead into Chattanooga.

“What kind of hex?” asked Stoney.

“He didn’t even attempt to answer the exam questions because he had placed a powerful curse on her so that she would be dead before grades came in, or something like that, so that she would be unable to fail him, try as she might. She gave him a failing grade on the exam, which should have failed him for the class. The school administrators overruled her and gave him a passing grade just to get rid of him.”

“Witchcraft is powerful,” said Stoney.

“Mrs. W is still alive,” I said.

“True,” he said. He took a drag off of his cigarette. “Why are we talking about that?” he asked.

“Don’t remember.”

“Okay, so, no drugs in the house, but what if there happened to be a stash outside the house but hidden nearby, where a man might stop by and refresh himself?”

“This is a gray area I am not equipped to address.”

“Or what if I found legal drugs of some sort? I could bring them into the house, right?”

“Like codeine?” I asked. “Like you talk some Chattanooga doctor into giving you something you want to take?”

“No. Like psilocybin mushrooms. Nothing illegal about them. ”

“I don’t think they grow in Tennessee,” I said.

“Who would know?” he asked.

“A mycologist,” I said.

“Henry, please be serious. I’m trying to work out a plausible strategy for surviving the next ninety days.”

“I have no idea.”

He was lost in his thoughts for a few minutes. “Booze?” he asked.

“She won’t mind drinking,” I said.

“Well that’s something. What about advanced, graduate-level drinking?”

“It’s not illegal,” I said.

“Is there a liquor store on the way?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said.

“That’ll help until I can come up with a real solution,” he said. The wheels were churning, and he had a troubled expression. I took him to Nick’s liquor store, across the street from the now-shuttered Union Station, and he bought a half gallon of Jack Daniel’s black label , a half gallon of Smirnoff hundred proof vodka, and a fifth of something called grappa. He distributed them amongst his possessions in various areas of his car, and then pronounced himself ready to go. We were just a few minutes from Mrs. Wertheimer’s house.

“Okay, bud,” I said, in Nick’s parking lot, just before putting his car in drive. “Mrs. W is very important to me. I’ve asked her to invite you into her house. I need you to respect her rules.”

“I will,” said Stoney, “Incomprehensible as they may be, but you shouldn’t fault me for seeking to understand their limits. Lawyers, priests, penitents, all need to understand what the rules are. I’m … accustomed to seeking …. forgiveness, I’ve done it hundreds of times. You’re telling me, in essence, and I apologize for reducing your elaborate, elegant argument, into a catchphrase, that I can’t transgress. This is new territory for me. I can tell you that I’ll comply, but I can’t promise that I won’t explore the boundaries of this rule business.”

“No dope of any sort in her house.”

“Got it, man. But you can’t fault a man for wanting to get high.”

“Yes, I can,” I said.

“Not unless you’re a Baptist,” he said. “That’s like faulting a man for wanting to get laid.”

“What’s the attraction, anyhow?”

“To getting laid?”

“No, no. To drugs.”

“Oh, man, until you try it, you’ll never understand. On acid, you think in poetry. Listen! Listen!” The radio was on and he turned it up as I backed up then left Nick’s parking lot. “Magic! Jimi is a genius.”

“The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow, and shine in emptiness down on my bed? Did I hear that right?”

“Yes! You see? Genius!”

“Stoney, it makes no sense whatsoever. Since you understand it and you’re still stoned I’m guessing that people on drugs say things that other stoned people understand, kind of like stoners are more interesting to other stoners than they are to straight people.”

“And by straight, you mean ….” he said.

“Unstoned.”

“You’re missing the point,” he said. “Jimi was on acid when he wrote that really cool lyric to ‘The Wind Cries Mary.’ I’m just a little high from some reefer I smoked hours and hours ago. I may not even be high at all,” he said, glumly.

“Okay,” I said, pulling into her driveway. “The rules are, no drugs of any sort in her house.”

“That’s not what you said before!” he said, distressed. “Before you said no illegal drugs in her house.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said. “She smokes and drinks.”

“It’s a starting point.” We got out of Stoney’s car. Both of us stretched. I grabbed my trunk and Stoney grabbed his fish tank and we walked to the front door. I rang the doorbell, and Mrs. W answered the door within a few seconds.

“Hello, Henry!” she said, and she might have hugged me had I not been holding an enormous steamer trunk.

“”Mrs. W, may I introduce Stoney Jackson,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Wertheimer,” Stoney said, trying to reach a hand out under his fish tank. She reached under the tank to shake his hand, parking her cigarette between her lips while she did so. “And what do we have in the aquarium?” She adjusted her glasses and took a drag from her cigarette while Stoney was getting ready to answer. “Mr. Jackson, do you have a piranha in there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What do you feed it?”

“Fishing minnows, when I can find them. Goldfish, when I can’t.”

“So you have to keep two aquariums going to own one fish?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right. You boys show yourselves upstairs. Henry, show Stoney to the room upstairs that’s neither yours nor mine. Stoney, leave that aquarium on the floor. We’ll put some kind of rubber mat on the desk tomorrow so you can put your aquaria on it without worry, but that’s an L. & J.G. Stickley desk and I don’t want anything bad to happen to the finish.”

“Yes, ma’am. We made several trips up and down the stairs taking heaps of his belongings upstairs, then he wanted to fill up his aquarium, and turn on the pumps and filters. This took a few minutes, not least because it’s not as easy as it might seem to find a container in the upstairs of a suburban house that will hold several gallons of water.

Chapter 25: Summer School, extended

After exams Stoney took a few days to pull himself together to pack his possessions and drive down to Chattanooga. I was going to call Ginny and offer her a ride with us, but Cisco told me he was giving her a ride, at Walt’s request.

“You know, he’s, um, pretty set on her. Tennis deal,” Cisco said. He’d dropped by to flip a coin between us to decide which one of us was going to get the inside and which the outside room at McTyeire. It was our dorm for the next year, and had originally been set up as a four room suite with two men sharing a bathroom, both of whom had a sitting room and a bedroom, which seems very genteel. Times were now less genteel, so it was now set up as four students sharing one bathroom, with the sitting rooms converted to bedrooms, which meant that the person who lived in what had been designed as the sitting room had to put up with the other resident at his end walking through his room every time the other wanted to leave the suite or go to the bathroom.

“I think they have this whole country club background scene they share,” I said, about Walt and Ginny. I hadn’t seen either of them since Cisco had driven us all back to school following the Christmas holiday.

“Yeah, you’re right, but it’s more than that. They’ve been playing tennis together a whole lot and apparently they’re pretty good as a mixed doubles pair. They’re going to spend the summer going to tournaments everywhere. Walt thinks they may be the number one mixed doubles pair in the SEC next year.”

“That sounds like something good,” I said.

“I’m picking that up too. Let’s do this,” he said, pulling a quarter out of his soft khaki pants. He flipped it high into the air and said “call it!” tracing the quarter’s arc with his eyes.

“Tails,” I said. He caught the quarter in his right hand and smacked it over onto his left wrist.

“Before we look, let’s talk about this, he said, without revealing the coin. “We’ve resorted to a traditional conflict-resolution process, but perhaps it is unnecessary to do so. Perhaps there is no conflict. Which room would you prefer to have?”

“The outside one.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t like to have other people going through my room.”

“Which room do you think I want?” he asked.

“The same one, the outside.”

“Why do you think that?” We were standing in the door to my dorm room at Hemingway, him still with his right hand covering the quarter on his left wrist, right next to his steel Rolex.

“’Cause you’ve always got girls in your room. I’d imagine you’d value your privacy.”

“I do,” he said, and smiled at me. “My impression is that you go to bed relatively early,” he said.

“True, if you judge me as compared to this lot,” I gestured to our hall, left and right. “I get tired around midnight.”

“You also don’t seem to gossip much,” said Cisco, hand still on wrist.

“About what?” I asked.

“Who’s José fucking?” he asked.

“Yeah, well. Who knows?”

“You do. You saw Roz Martin and him leave his room together at 7:00 a.m. last Wednesday.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that kind of thing.”

“I have deep respect for this aspect of your personality,” he said.

“Why thank you.”

“And it is one of the factors that makes the inner room more appealing to me.”

“No shit?” I asked.

“None. It’s possible that any … friends … I bring to my room will be joining us after you’re asleep. And your … taciturn … nature will be … handy. And guests from my room will not need to pass through yours to have access to the bathroom. Are we agreed?”

“Yeah, well, sure.”

“Excellent! It’s a deal, then?”

“I’m outside, you’re inside, and I don’t talk?” I asked.

“That sums it up. No need to look at the coin, then.”

“It’s tails,” I said.

“How can you know that?”

“I never lose a coin toss.” He lifted his right hand from is left wrist and revealed the spread eagle tails side of a Washington quarter. He smiled that smile, then flipped it with his thumb so that it spun through the air and I caught it in my right hand.

“You’re the man,” said Cisco and headed out, topsiders, khakis, alligator shirt and all. At the door he stopped and turned around in the middle of lighting a Marlboro red. “About the Ginny and Walt deal, they’ve been playing tennis together.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

“A lot.”

“Okay…”

“He told me last month that he’d given up smoking,” he said.

“This is consistent with getting in shape for tennis,” I said.

“He said he’d given it up because she didn’t like the way it tasted.”

“A very specific criticism,” I said.

“Thought you should know,” he said.

“Look, man, for some reason people think there’s more going on between Ginny and me than there is. This is not a problem, but thanks for telling me.”

“Later, dude, ” he answered, and left. The phone rang a few minutes later.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Okay, so, I’m almost all the way packed. If I get all my stuff into the trunk will you be able to fit yours into the back seat?” asked Stony, without preamble.

“Yeah, sure. All of my stuff fits into a steamer trunk.”

“Not sure what that is man, but as long as it’ll fit in the back seat, we’re cool. And you’re okay with having my aquarium at your feet?”

“You have an aquarium?” I asked.

“Of course. Oh, shit, you don’t have one too, do you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Okay. That’s cool. It’s just a ten-gallon one and you’ll get used to having it at your feet pretty fast. I’ll be over in about ten. Wait. You’re in the one that’s closest to Tex Ritter’s?” My dorm was across the street from a fast-food hamburger place called Tex Ritter’s.

“Yes,” I said.

“O.K. That’s cool. That might come in handy. I haven’t eaten anything today and it’s past lunchtime. At least I don’t think I’ve eaten anything today. Anyway Tex Ritter’s bein’ right across the street is pretty cool. Oh, wow! And then there’s IHOP right down that one-way street. And Jesus! Mack’s Fine Foods and Fresh Vegetables Daily is right across the street from that!”

“Stoney?”

“Yes?”

“Just get here. Then I’ll drive you to wherever you want to eat lunch, I’ll buy your lunch, then I’ll drive us to Chattanooga.”

“But then I’ll have the aquarium down between my feet,” he complained.

“Yes, you will.” I could hear him sigh as though he was resigned to this onerous condition even though he knew it to be patently unfair.

Two hours later, Stoney knocked on my door. He was wearing bell-bottomed Levi’s, his cowboy boots, the vest from a navy blue pinstriped suit, an Oxford cloth buttoned down shirt much like my own, and his aviator shades. “Cool. Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah sure.” He helped me negotiate my steamer trunk down the stairs. That was pretty easy because I’d sent all my books to Mrs. W, parcel post, just like when I was on the road. Once my trunk was loaded into his back seat, he looked at me and said “burgers?” We walked across the street to Tex Ritter’s. Both of us had the Chuck Wagon Special, as I recalled, which was a good double cheeseburger with fries and your choice of soda.

“I think I should drive,” I said, when we got back to the parking lot.

“Really?” he asked. “I’ve driven this car for so long.”

“To feel comfortable having you drive me through steep mountain passes, I’d want to know everything you’d ingested since yesterday,” I said.

“Oh, God. Who takes notes? And more to the point, what have you ingested since yesterday, Henry Baida. Answer me that!”

“Food and water,” I said. There was a pause during which he looked puzzled.

“Yeah. Sure. No beer or whiskey. I bet.”

“I don’t drink.”

“I know you say that, but I mean really,” said Stoney.

“I really don’t drink.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Everybody drinks. Except these weird religious fanatics you have down here. Are you one of those?”

“No. Let me have the keys, please,” I said.

“Why do you want the keys to my car?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m offering to drive you to Chattanooga.”

“Cool!” he said, and threw me the keys. We moved to get in. “Ah, shit. I forgot about the damned fish,” he said, after opening the passenger side door. “Lemme drive.”

“No.”

“But there’s no room for my feet,” he said.

“There would be no room for my feet, either,” I said. He seemed confused by this information. “Let’s go Stoney,” I said. We both got in, him placing his feet carefully alongside the aquarium. It contained a single, blunt-looking palm-sized fish, a combination of goldfish-gold and silvery white that faded into river green. Once he was seated I started the car and pulled into traffic.

“Why are you driving, again?” he asked right before we got on the freeway. “This is my car.”

“Because you’re completely fucked up,” I answered.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, well. You know what they say.”

“What do they say?” I asked.

“Reality’s for people who can’t handle drugs,” he answered.

“I’ve heard that before,” I said.

“But I made it up.”

“No, you didn’t. Okay. In a little over two hours you’re going to meet my friend Mrs. Wertheimer. She has little patience for drugs.”

“Why?”

“Partly because intoxicated people are only interesting to other people who are also intoxicated. Recall that one condition of you staying in her house all summer, and so getting a pass to take the courses you want, is that she said no drugs are allowed in her house at all.”

“Oh, she didn’t mean that,” said Stoney.

“Yes, she did, and if she catches you with anything illegal in her house, my guess is that she’ll send you packing. She’s tolerant, but she enforces rules.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Surely she suspects that you smoke reefer when you’re home for holidays.”

“But I don’t.”

“Not at all?” he asked, baffled.

“Nope.”

“Why not?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Just not interested.” He shook his head in a troubled, baleful manner.

“This is a total bummer,” he said.

“Which part?”

“That you don’t smoke.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“I ran out of reefer just before lunch and I thought I could bum some off of you.”

“No. Stoney, you have agreed not to do drugs all summer.”

“Oh, that’s one of those summer romance promises. Nobody expects you to keep those.”

“Yes, she does.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She doesn’t occasionally take a toke herself?”

“No.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“Sober up?” I asked back.

“No, no, I’ll think of something,” he said. He was lost in his own thoughts for maybe an hour. He never seemed to fall completely asleep, but I couldn’t monitor him very carefully because I was driving. He was quiet until I got to the top of the descent of the Monteagle pass.

“Okay, so, hypothetically, if I were to smoke some weed off by myself in my bedroom and she never knew it happened,” Stoney asked. “Could I do that?”

“Not in her house, no. Her deal is no drugs in her house.”

“Okay,” he said, and thought for a few minutes.“No smoking in her house?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And that’s it? I may be able to work with that.”

“Well, no. No possession of illegal drugs in her house would be more accurate,” I said.

“Ah, shit. Now that’s just unreasonable. What does she care what’s in my pockets?”

“Stoney, she disapproves of drugs.”

“But why?” he asked, beseechingly, mystified.

“She’s never done drugs—”

“She doesn’t drink?”

“Yes, of course she does. Not much, but she does. She also drinks coffee and smokes cigarettes. A lot. And I’m sure she takes aspirin and drinks tea. But all of that is different.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes, it is. If Mrs. W has a glass of wine with dinner, it may affect her mood, and if she has a lot of wine with dinner, hypothetically, she might be intoxicated. But no cop is going to show up at her door with a search warrant telling her they suspect her of having a glass of wine, and haul her off to jail because she did.”

“It’s not fair,” said Stoney, looking in his pockets for a cigarette.

“Somebody once told me that the only place you find justice is in the dictionary.”

“Good line,” said Stoney, meditatively, nodding and taking a drag from his cigarette.

“Mrs. W disapproves of drugs. She’s some bad effects.”

“‘Needle and the Damage Done’ shit?” he asked, speculatively.

“No. The only time she’s mentioned it was over this classmate of mine. Ed Bork. Ed was a weird guy even before he started in on acid, and acid put him kind of over the top. He started quoting strange things from Aleister Crowley about devil worship and crap.. He had these tract he’d hand out, talking about Satanism and shit. It was all stupid. He had bad hair, too.”

“What kind of bad hair?”

“Kind of helmet shaped.”

“What did he look like”

“Five ten, bony. Smiled too much, but that was the drugs.

“What did he do to … your math teacher?”

“He claimed to put a hex on her.” We’d come all the way down the mountain and were on the flatlands that lead into Chattanooga.

“What kind of hex?” asked Stoney.

“She told me that he didn’t even attempt to answer the exam questsions because he had placed a powerful curse on her so that she would be dead before grades came in, or something like that. She tried to fail him, but the administration overruled her and gave him a passing grade just to get rid of him.”

“Witchcraft is powerful,” said Stoney.

“Mrs. W is still alive,” I said.

“True,” he said.

“Okay, so, no drugs in the house, but what if there happened to be a stash outside the house but hidden nearby, where a man might stop by and refresh himself?”

“This is a gray area I am not equipped to address.”

“Or what if I found legal drugs of some sort? I could bring them into the house, right?”

“Like codeine?” I asked. “Like you talk some Chattanooga doctor into giving you something you want to take?”

“No like psilocybin mushrooms. Nothing illegal about them. ”

“I don’t think they grow in Tennessee,” I said.

“Who would know?” he asked.

“A mycologist,” I said.

“Henry, please be serious.”

“I have no idea.”

He was lost in his thoughts for a few minutes. “Booze?” he asked.

“She won’t mind drinking,” I said.

“Well that’s something. What about advanced, graduate-level drinking?”

“Well, it’s not illegal,” I said.

“Is there a liquor store on the way?”

“Yeah, we can do that,” I said.

“That will help until I can come up with a real solution,” he said. The wheels were churning, and he had a troubled expression. I took him to Nick’s across the street from the now-shuttered Union Station, and he bought a half gallon of Jack Daniel’s black label , a half gallon of Smirnoff hundred proof vodka, and a fifth of something called grappa. He distributed them amongst his possessions in various areas of his car, and then pronounced himself ready to go. We were just a few minutes from Mrs. Wertheimer’s house.

Chapter nummbers have changed, which is a little confusing. Some of this you've sen before. I'll post partial chapters here and whole chapters on FB

“You’re the man,” said Cisco and headed out, topsiders, khakis, alligator shirt and all. At the door he stopped and turned around in the middle of lighting a Marlboro red. “About the Ginny and Walt deal, they’ve been playing tennis together.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

“A lot.”

“Okay…”

“He told me last month that he’d given up smoking,” he said.

“This is consistent with getting in shape for tennis,” I said.

“He said he’d given it up because she didn’t like the way it tasted.”

“A very specific criticism,” I said.

“Thought you should know,” he said.

“Look, man, for some reason people think there’s more going on between Ginny and me than there is. This is not a problem, but thanks for telling me.”

“Later, dude, ” he answered, and left. The phone rang a few minutes later.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Okay, so, I’m almost all the way packed. If I get all my stuff into the trunk will you be able to fit yours into the back seat?” asked Stony, without preamble.

“Yeah, sure. All of my stuff fits into a steamer trunk.”

“Not sure what that is man, but as long as it’ll fit in the back seat, we’re cool. And you’re okay with having my aquarium at your feet?”

“You have an aquarium?” I asked.

“Of course. Oh, shit, you don’t have one too, do you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Okay. That’s cool. It’s just a ten-gallon one and you’ll get used to having it at your feet pretty fast. I’ll be over in about ten. Wait. You’re in the one that’s closest to Tex Ritter’s?” My dorm was across the street from a fast-food hamburger place called Tex Ritter’s.

“Yes,” I said.

“O.K. That’s cool. That might come in handy. I haven’t eaten anything today and it’s past lunchtime. At least I don’t think I’ve eaten anything today. Anyway Tex Ritter’s bein’ right across the street is pretty cool. Oh, wow! And then there’s IHOP right down that one-way street. And Jesus! Mack’s Fine Foods and Fresh Vegetables Daily is right across the street from that!”

“Stoney?”

“Yes?”

“Just get here. I’ll then drive you to wherever you want to eat lunch, I’ll buy your lunch. Then I’ll drive us to Chattanooga.”

“But then I’ll have the aquarium down between my feet,” he complained.

“Yes, you will.” I could hear him sigh as though he was resigned to this onerous condition even though he knew it to be patently unfair.

Two hours later, Stoney knocked on my door. He was wearing bell-bottomed Levi’s, his cowboy boots, the vest from a navy blue pinstriped suit, an Oxford cloth buttoned down shirt much like my own, and his aviator shades. “Cool. Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah sure,” he said. He helped me negotiate my steamer trunk down the stairs. That was pretty easy because I’d sent all the books I might want to keep to Mrs. W, parcel post, just like when I was on the road. Once my trunk was loaded into his back seat, he looked at me and said “burgers?” We walked across the street to Tex Ritter’s. Both of us had the Chuck Wagon Special, as I recalled, which was a good double cheeseburger with fries and your choice of soda.

“I think I should drive,” I said, when we got back to the parking lot.

“Really?” he asked. “I’ve driven this car for so long.”

“To feel comfortable having you drive me through steep mountain passes, I’d want to know everything you’d ingested since yesterday,” I said.

“Oh, God. Who takes notes? And more to the point, what have you ingested since yesterday, Henry Baida. Answer me that!”

“Food and water,” I said. There was a pause during which he looked puzzled.

“Yeah. Sure. No beer or whiskey. I bet.”

“I don’t drink.”

“I know you say that, but I mean really,” said Stoney.

“I really don’t drink.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me. Everybody drinks. Except these weird religious fanatics you have down here. Are you one of those?”

“No. Let me have the keys, please,” I said.

“Why do you want the keys to my car?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m offering to drive you to Chattanooga.”

“Cool!” he said, and threw me the keys. We moved to get in. “Ah, shit. I forgot about the damned fish,” he said, after opening the passenger side door. “Lemme drive.”

“No.”

“But there’s no room for my feet,” he said.

“There would be no room for my feet, either,” I said. He seemed confused by this information. “Let’s go Stoney,” I said. We both got in, him placing his feet carefully alongside the aquarium. It contained a single, blunt-looking palm-sized fish, a combination of goldfish-gold and silvery white that faded into river green. Once he was seated I started the car and pulled into traffic.

“Why are you driving, again?” he asked right before we got on the freeway. “This is my car.”

“Because you’re completely fucked up,” I answered.

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, well. You know what they say.”


“What do they say?” I asked.

“Reality’s for people who can’t handle drugs,” he answered.

“I’ve heard that before,” I said.

“But I made it up.”

“No, you didn’t. Okay. In a little over two hours you’re going to meet my friend Mrs. Wertheimer. She has little patience for drugs.”

“Why?”

“Because the intoxicated are only interested in others who are intoxicated. You will recall that one condition of your tenure in her house over the summer, and getting a pass to take the courses you want, is that she said no drugs are allowed in her house this summer.”

“Oh, she can’t have meant that,” said Stoney.

“She did, and if she catches you with anything illegal in her house, my guess is that she’ll throw you out.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Surely she suspects that you smoke reefer when you’re home for holidays.”

“But I don’t.”

“Not at all?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“I don’t care for it,” I answered. He shook his head in a troubled manner.

“This is a total bummer,” he said.

“Which part?”

“That you don’t smoke”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“I’m out of reefer and I had assumed I could bum some off of you.”

“No. Stoney, you have agreed not to do drugs all summer.”

“Oh, that’s one of those summer evening promises. Nobody expects you to keep those.”

“Yes, she does.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She doesn’t occasionally take a toke herself?”

“No.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” he asked.

“Sober up?” I asked back.

“No, no, I’ll think of something,” he said.

Chapter 26A: Another chapter that will come out in segments

After exams Stoney took a few days to pull himself together to pack his possessions and drive down to Chattanooga. I was going to call Ginny and offer her a ride with us, but Cisco told me he was giving her a ride, at Walt’s request.

“You know, he’s, um, pretty set on her. Tennis deal,” Cisco said. He’d dropped by to flip a coin between us to decide which one of us was going to get the inside and which the outside room at McTyeire. It was our dorm for the next year, and had originally been set up as a four room suite with two men sharing a bathroom, both of whom had a sitting room and a bedroom, which seems very genteel. Times were now less genteel, so it was now set up as four students sharing one bathroom, with the sitting rooms converted to bedrooms, which meant that the person who lived in what had been designed as the sitting room had to put up with the other resident at his end walking through his room every time the other wanted to leave the suite or go to the bathroom.

“I think they have this whole country club background scene they share,” I said, about Walt and Ginny. I hadn’t seen either of them since Cisco had driven us all back to school following the Christmas holiday.

“Yeah, you’re right, but it’s more than that. They’ve been playing tennis together a whole lot and apparently they’re pretty good as a mixed doubles pair. They’re going to spend the summer going to tournaments everywhere. Walt thinks they may be the number one mixed doubles pair in the SEC next year.”

“That sounds like something good,” I said.

“I’m picking that up too. Let’s do this,” he said, pulling a quarter out of his soft khaki pants. He flipped it high into the air and said “call it!” tracing the quarter’s arc with his eyes.

“Tails,” I said. He caught the quarter in his right hand and smacked it over onto his left wrist.

“Before we look, let’s talk about this, he said, without revealing the coin. “We’ve resorted to a traditional conflict-resolution process, but perhaps it is unnecessary to do so. Perhaps there is no conflict. Which room would you prefer to have?”

“The outside one.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t like to have other people going through my room.”

“Which room do you think I want?” he asked.

“The same one, the outside.”

“Why do you think that?” We were standing in the door to my dorm room at Hemmingway, him still with his right hand covering the quarter on his left wrist, right next to his steel Rolex.

“’Cause you’ve always got girls in your room. I’d imagine you’d value your privacy.”

“I do,” he said, and smiled at me. “My impression is that you go to bed relatively early,” he said.

“True, if you judge me as compared to this lot,” I gestured to our hall, left and right. “I get tired around midnight.”

“You also don’t seem to gossip much,” said Cisco, hand still on wrist.

“About what?” I asked.

“Who’s José fucking?” he asked.

“Yeah, well. Who knows?”

“You do. You saw Roz Martin and him leave his room together at 7:00 a.m. last Wednesday.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that kind of thing.”

“I have deep respect for this aspect of your personality,” he said.

“Why thank you.”

“And it is one of the factors that makes the inner room more appealing to me.”

“No shit?” I asked.

“None. It’s possible that any … friends … I bring to my room will be joining us after you’re asleep. And your … taciturn … nature will be … handy. And guests from my room will not need to pass through yours to have access to the bathroom. Are we agreed?”

“Yeah, well, sure.”

“Excellent! It’s a deal, then?”

“I’m outside, you’re inside, and I don’t talk?” I asked.

“That sums it up. No need to look at the coin, then.”

“It’s tails,” I said.

“How can you know that?”

“I never lose a coin toss.” He lifted his right hand from is left wrist and revealed the spread eagle tails side of a Washington quarter. He smiled that smile, then flipped it with his thumb so that it spun through the air and I caught it in my right hand.

“You’re the man,” said Cisco and headed out, topsiders, khakis, alligator shirt and all. At the door he stopped and turned around in the middle of lighting a Marlboro red. “About the Ginny and Walt deal, they’ve been playing tennis together.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

“A lot.”

“Okay…”

“He told me last month that he’d given up smoking,” he said.

“This is consistent with getting in shape for tennis,” I said.

“He said he’d given it up because she didn’t like the way it tasted.”

“A very specific criticism,” I said.

“Thought you should know,” he said.

“Look, man, for some reason people think there’s more going on between Ginny and me than there is. This is not a problem, but thanks for telling me.”

“Later, dude, ” he answered, and left. The phone rang a few minutes later.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Okay, so, I’m almost all the way packed. If I get all my stuff into the trunk will you be able to fit yours into the back seat?” asked Stony, without preamble.

“Yeah, sure. All of my stuff fits into a steamer trunk.”

“Not sure what that is man, but as long as it’ll fit in the back seat, we’re cool. And you’re okay with having my aquarium at your feet?”

“You have an aquarium?” I asked.

“Of course. Oh, shit, you don’t have one too, do you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Okay. That’s cool. It’s just a ten-gallon one and you’ll get used to having it at your feet pretty fast. I’ll be over in about ten. Wait. You’re in the one that’s closest to Tex Ritter’s?” My dorm was across the street from a fast-food hamburger place called Tex Ritter’s.

“Yes,” I said.

“O.K. That’s cool. That might come in handy. I haven’t eaten anything today and it’s past lunchtime. At least I don’t think I’ve eaten anything today. Anyway Tex Ritter’s being right across the street is pretty cool. Oh, wow! And then there’s IHOP right sown that one-way street. And Jesus! Mack’s Fine Foods and Fresh Vegetables Daily is right across the street from that!”

“Stoney?”

“Yes?”

“Just get here. I’ll then drive you to wherever you want to eat lunch, I’ll buy your lunch. I’ll drive to Chattanooga.”

“But then I’ll have the aquarium down between my feet,” he complained.

“Yes, you will.” I could hear him sigh as though he was resigned to this onerous condition even though he knew it to be patently unfair.