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Rebound


by Jim Esch



��On the way from her car to the front door, Louise stopped at the playground to watch the basketball players. She clutched a link in the fence and leaned her hip against a metal upright. It was a pickup game, three on three, halfcourt. She listened to the skidding sneakers chirping and the measured bounce of the roundball. She watched a black-skinned boy jerk and jump, flip the ball behind back, toss lobs, stuff dunks. The players' movements were fluid, like lithe fish darting about in an aquarium.
��She shifted her weight from left to right and clutched a different link in the fence. What struck her the most was not the dunks or the softly swishing jumpshots but the rebounds. The ball clanged against the rusty backboard and zinged out towards the foul line, where in mid-air several hands bounced up to meet it, grab it, slap it, contain it. The ball was finally clutched and become one with the player, whom gravity brought swiftly back to asphalt. In another fluid motion it was shot out to a teammate and the flurry of play began again.
��She nodded her head, registering and approving the impression this activity had made on her, and walked a little more confidently down the block to her front door. The cat greeted her in what had become a late afternoon ritual. Upon the opening of the door, it purred two or three times and rubbed its calico fur against her ankles, approximating the circuit of a figure 8 as it smoothed alongside both legs. Hello Rocky, she said. She flipped through the day's mail and removed her pumps. Were you a good kitty kat?...Yes you were! The cat looked around to see if anyone else was there. This was part of the old, stupid routine, the part she wished he'd figure out. He had been gone from her life for a year, but the cat still looked for him.
��This day was no different from the daily routine: feed the cat, change clothes, wash up, stretch out on the sofa, open the mail, read the mail, pet the cat, watch televison, cook supper, read a magazine, go to bed, rise early, walk to the bus stop, take the bus to 17th and Market, rise 14 stories to the accounting department, take her seat at an off white desk, turn on her computer, survey the stack of invoices before her, work, mingle with coworkers, eat lunch with friends, do some window shopping along Chestnut St., return to work, finish the day, get back on the bus, get off, walk past the playground to her row home apartment, open the door, and greet the cat again. This she did five days a week.
��The mail was not interesting today. An electric bill, junk mail from the Literary Library of America, and a sweepstakes notice. She had won either a color TV, a diamond watch, a trip for two to Orlando Florida, or a portable stereo. To claim her prize she had to drive up to Hidden Lake Resort in the lovely Pocono mountains and participate in a guided tour of the homesites, still under development. For a second she considered a drive up to the mountains a distinct possibility this weekend; after all, wasn't the city getting to her lately? And didn't she need the fresh air? And weren't the Poconos close? In fact she'd never been to the Poconos. She envisioned placid scenes, lakes, pine groves, and green towering peaks. Something different from the dull routine. Before, they were going to take a trip to the mountains. Before, they were going to travel and he always said there would be a time for wining and dining. She remembered what it felt like to hope for that, then she tossed the brochure into the wastebasket. The next day, she was sitting at her white desk. She had just finished a stack of invoices, and nothing more sat at her IN basket. The OUT basket was full. She sighed and leaned back, stretching her arms and legs. Her friend Marjie approached from behind.
��Good morning Louise!
��She yawned. Hi Marjie. You're late this morning.
��Marjie grinned.
��Come on Marj, fess up. You been out again last night?
��Marjie nodded quickly, then winked. Was out a little too late. But I met these two hunks. God, you would not believe it. And you could talk to them too.
��Where did all this occur may I ask?
��South Street. Flanagan's. The new place. Remember, I told you last week I saw Rod Carver from Channel 3 there.
��Oh yeah, I remember. I still haven't been there yet.
��Well that's the good part, Louise. You would love the one guy, his name is Jerry, and he's adorable!
��Louise's easygoing interest in Marjie's adventure last night turned into an embarrassed fear. Not again, Marjie. Please don't try to set me up with somebody again.
��Oh come on Louise. This guy's not like all the rest. He's...different. How?
��Well, he's better than average looking...he's not from this area.
��Hmm. Where from?
��I think he said upstate.
��Louise straightened a little in her chair.
��Anyway, I haven't told the best of it yet. So I'm sitting at the bar, you know. And I'm like drinking a rum and coke. And like they're sitting there next to me. And one of them, Jerry, just started talking to me like he knew me all his life. Real easy going. So easy to talk to. And interesting too. He's a lawyer.
��And what about the other one, said Louise.
��Don't remember what he does. Anyhow, they're both just adorable. And I know that they go to Flanagan's often. So I was thinking...maybe you'd like to try tonight? Come with me to South St., try your luck? I wouldn't steer you wrong, Louise.
��I don't know.
��Oh come off your perch. You can't hold the torch forever for him. I don't mean to be blunt, and this she whispered, ...but you just can't wait forever, you know. He's not going to come back. He hasn't even called you or written you for what is it, a year? Think of it Louise, a whole long, lonely year. It'd be very innocent, you know? All I'm asking from you is to keep me company. If you don't like these guys, fine. My mistake. But I really think it would do you some good. From a friend to a friend, Loiuse. She put her arm on Louise's shoulder.
��Angie, the boss, waltzed to Louise's desk and threw a stack of invoices into her IN basket.
��Let me think about it, Marj. I'll tell you after this stack.
��He is from the Poconos. Must be a clean living, beautiful area. Nothing like the city. There would be a lot to talk about. Don't know. Just don't know. Maybe it's time again. How do you ever really know anymore? The threat of AIDS. Abortion. Precaution. Why did he have to go. Left me here. Left me all alone. Will the cat be okay if I go. Will I be okay if I go. I don't know these men. Louise, you're a grown woman. Of Catholic upbringing. Tell yourself you can control the situation. You're just out of practice. What are the Poconos really like anyway. Who's telling me that I sbould go. The voice of Satan. My conscience. My guardian angel. Marjie. It's a deep voice. It sounds like him. Like the way he hissed his s's. He's telling me to move on. Bounce out of it. I'm sure he would want me to. No I want to.
��She had alarmingly finished her stack in a third of the time. The smudged number pad of her computer keyboard had borne the brunt of her nervous pounding fingers. She would take the chance tonight. She dialed Marjie's extension. Marjie was pleased.
��Flanagan's was one of the new breed of old taverns. Phony looking antiques, lots of brass and old wood. A few dark green plants, tiffany stained glass lamps. The place evoked something in Louise of time's past, the times when, maybe around the turn of the century she guessed, men would line the bar, talk about Ty Cobb? JP Morgan? (she was so ignorant of history); all of those misty things that could still be captured in this place, if you always had a drink in your hand. It was also a place to be seen. No neighborhood bar. It had ulterior motives. Less overt than the other chic bars on South Steet. More overt than others. They were here to meet men. Real men.
��Marjie tapped Louise's shoulder. There they are!
��Where?
��Right there. She discreetly pointed to the end of the bar. Two attractive men. One dressed in a blue suit (lawyer uniform), other in a tweed jacket, shirt open at the collar (professor?).
��The women approached. Louise became hyper conscious of her dress. Was she really prepared for this? Red dress. Was it too sexy? She hadn't planned to be sexy. She didn't know this morning that she'd be on South St. exploring potential lovers. What was this talk about lovers? Just friends. She would keep things on a friendly basis. No jumping the gun.
��Something about the guy. His tweed jacket looked decades old. Was it a thrift shop item, or maybe his father's? The yellow oxford shirt looked clean enough, maybe some sweat stain around the inside collar. Wearing a pair of brown corduroy slacks that also looked old. He leaned against the bar strangely, yet not too strangely. More of a leaning into the bar. Neck craning out. One hand notched in his hair.
��Sbe was initially afraid to look at his face, then his eyes caught hers, and she smiled forlornly. Did she still know how to play the game? His face was slightly pocked with tiny face craters from his adolescence. But not disgustingly so. She reprimanded herself for looking immediately for defects. What was there good to say this guy? His eyes were green, yet not sparkling, like puddles of dirty antifreeze on a cloudy day. His nose angled sharply from his face, and his hair needed a washing, in her opinion. She would try to make the best of it. After all, she wasn't playing for keeps. But what good could she say about him? His entire manner was unthreating, almost suppliant. He instantly made room for her at the bar and extended his hand.
��Bob Albright, nice to meet you.
��Hi I'm Louise.
��The group had immediately split into pairs. Marjie was talking to Jerry the lawyer about the Phillies, one of her passions since childhood. Louise didn't know what to talk about.
��Marjie tells me that you two work together.
��Uh-huh. Yes, we work together, at 17th and market.
��Oh. Hey, isn't that the big tall skyscraper, not too old, what's the name of it, Freedom One or something?
��Liberty Place. Yes, that's where I work.
��Beautiful. Liberty Place, that is. I mean not to say that you're not -- He rolled his eyes, embarassed.
��Louise detected a humane streak in her soul. It's okay, I understand what you mean. You know, working there though, it gives you a different perspective. I walk inside of the thing every day, see it from inside looking out.
��What floor you work on? By the way, buy you a beer?
��Scotch and soda thanks, I've got it. Um, what did you say?
��How high up are you? In the liberty building.
��34th floor.
��Ever been to the top?
��Once. You could see everything. William Penn looked like a little boy playing hookey, standing on top of city hall.
��Did you know that from a certain angle, it really looks like Billy's relieving himself, taking a whizz?
��She shook her head. Bad taste. No, I can't quite say that I actually noticed that, nor would I jump to that conclusion.
��Me neither, it's just something I heard.
��Ah, the politics of romance. Sometimes it starts slowly, but with the aid of alcoholic lubricant, it starts to steam, pistons charging in and out. And you ride the bulldozer of love wherever it leads.
��You know, he said a little later, after another beer and another lull in the conversation, that Freedom Place building always struck me like a modern city hall. Real Phallic.
��She overlooked his crudeness and tried to focus on the concept.
��It's like, City Hall is this big stone penis that's been at the heart of Philly for what a century or more? Now, they build an eighties version, even bigger, sort of like the Chrysler building in New York, but that's a slim tall dick. This Freedom Place is more thick, got more blood in it, more shiny, almost like it's got a condom on it. A thick, shiny, stiff-prick condom.
��She cursed Marjie to herself for having brought her here.
��And then they light up the tip of it at night. Like it's some kind of glow in the dark condomized power trip, you know. Male domination. Phallo-centrism. Learned all about it in college.
��Where did you go to college? Try to change the subject without sounding too interested.
��Another beer over hear. Yo. 'Nother beer. What's this, number four, hey, the night is young, right? What?
��College, where did you go?
��Um, Notre Dame. Hell of a time I had there too. Had a hell of a time. It was good. Great. Learned all kinds of stuff. Stuff you can only make use of in a bar. Like the stuff we been talking about. You know, historical stuff, trivia, you know.
��He was getting drunk, and he was on the crude side. But he was innocent she thought. Boyish. Something attractive about that. Something that kept her from leaving and going back past the playground to the apartment to the cat. That routine would take care of itself. She wanted to test this, explore this strange attraction. Maybe with her help, he could become less crude without losing that boyishness.
��What kind of things did you learn in school, specifically?
��Oh, I was mostly interested in the historical stuff. Majored in history. Now I'm in paralegal. Let's see. I liked American history, learning about the presidents and their wives and their enemies. Politics, conspiricies, wars, what people were thinking. Stuff like that. Did you know they say Warren Harding died of food poisoning?
��Who's Warren Harding?
��He was a president. Of course they can't prove it, but it don't suprise me at all.
��Where you from originally?
��Upstate. Scranton.
��Is that sort of in the Poconos?
��Sort of. Scranton isn't no resort town though. More industrial. In the valley along the river. Not far from all the Pocono shit. Not a heartshaped tub to found in Scranton.
��I've never been to the Poconos. Is it nice there?
��Ah you know. It's like, I know it from living around there. So I see it differently than you would, probably. It's got a lot of parks and honeymoon resorts and skiing, you know. Nothing to get real hot about. But it's nice.
��I was just curious because I've never been there. I grew up in Kensington, and we never went to the mountains. We always went to the Jersey shore. I'd like to go to the Poconos sometime. Just to see what's it like for myself. She felt foolish for going home with him that night. After all, the comments about Liberty place were off the wall. He was on the crude side, but hadn't she lived through worse cruelty? Hadn't she been dumped, left for another woman, or another place? Wasn't the fact that he never called her again more crude than anything anyone could say?
��He lived in a small apartment in the Old City section of Philadelphia. He was drunk, and she was walking him home. There was a slight tinge of romance in this activity, something almost Hollywood-musical-like about it, a fizzy, precarious, fragile feeling. Louise was sure she wouldn't be taken advantage of, and the fact that he was stomping drunk reduced the threat. She was being a humanitarian. She needed to start helping people, most of all herself, again. Tonight would be a start.
��Her attraction to him was almost lewd. He wasn't handsome in a fashion magazine way. Yet his looks were very normal. Very safe. The kind of guy you could take home to Momma, and she'd approve. She thought she'd play it safe tonight. Not take any chances; just make sure he gets settled in, then leave. Maybe leave a phone number to show her interest.
��He unlocked his apartment door and heaved into it with his shoulder, causing the door to blast open with a loud thud.
��He laughed. Door sticks.
��She nodded and immediately evaluated his environment. A small sitting room. One green armchair by the window with a standing lamp next to it. Various magazines on the coffee table. A small television. Two large windows looking out onto the street. Safe enough to sit down.
��Let me make some coffee, he said. I need to sober up.
��I can't stay long, she said.
��Don't worry. I need it anyway. You can stay for just a cup.
��She resisted the initial urge to sit down and walked around the room, the way visitors do when they first come to a place. She noticed that his bedroom directly adjoined this room, and she peered into the half open door. It seemed to be clutterd with paramphenalia: pictures, stacks of film or tape, and artifacts that she couldn't dwell on for fear of seeming to snoop. Then he walked in the room.
��What're you looking in there for?
��Huh? she said. She was playing dumb.
��Why are you staring into my bedroom?
��I wasn't staring. I was just looking around, you know.
��Oh. Well I guess you saw what was in there.
��Not really. I wasn't snooping, if that's what you mean.
��Let me show you. Come on in here.
��I don't know. I don't want you to get the wrong idea, she said in a futile voice that trailed off at the end of the sentence.
��They walked into the room and he turned on a low wattage bulb next to the bed. Covering the wall facing the bed was a huge poster of a man being murdered. His face was contorted into a grimace of abdominal pain. The hatted gunman's hand plainly visible to the lower right. It was a familiar image to her, but she couldn't name it.
��Something, isn't it, he said proudly.
��Why do you have this in your bedroom?
��You know who it is, right? He was nodding his head.
��I mean, it's a familiar picture...I can't tell you exactly who it is.
��You mean you don't know who this is?
��No. And I wouldn't have it hanging in my bedroom either.
��Oswald. It's Oswald.
��Oswald?
��Lee Harvey Oswald. Killed on national television. The guy they say shot President Kennedy.
��She flashed back to childhood. And she remembered the astonishment on her parents faces. She was too young to distinguish the scene from a cop show, but she now remembered it.
��His eyes were very wide open, like he was undergoing a religious conversion. I bought this poster in New York. Took me months to locate it. I read that they were available in some magazine, but I couldn't find it until I went to New York. Little novelty store on 42nd street. Incredible, right?
��She turned and saw on his bureau a post card of downtown Dallas, the book depository, the grassy knoll, with the trajectory of Oswald's bullet traced in broken dashes to the point where it entered the president's head.
��That I got in the Dallas airport. Went there just to see the assasination sight. It was my vacation last year. Year before I went to the Loraine Motel in Memphis.
��What for?
��Don't you remember? Where Martin Luther King was gunned down.
��What?
��Yeah, and I've been corresponding with James Earl Ray for, what is it, a couple of years already, I guess. You know he still claims he's innocent. I think he might have a case.
��Her eyes were still fixed on the bureau. A framed picture. Not of his mother and father, or his girlfriend, but of Kennedy's corpse. A rare photo of the dead president on the autopsy table. She felt her gut heave.
��The room's walls were covered with assasination trivia. Pictures of the dead Gandhi, the moments after Martin Luther King died, the Newspaper, Magazine headlines. The attempts on Reagan and Ford. Stacks of video cassettes and 8 millimeter film with hastily written labels stuck to the spines: Zapruter footage, Special Report: George Wallace shot, Huey Long newsreel, ABC Reagan covereage -- Baker reported dead, Malcom X story.
��Why are you so interested in this gory stuff? I can't believe you. I spend a whole evening with you and you never mentioned that you've got this, this obsession!
��I never was interested in it before. But it was Lennon. He was my favorite Beatle. You know the day John Lennon was shot, I don't know, I went kind of haywire. I couldn't get it out of my mind. It was like, how could some fan do this do him? How could anyone assassinate anybody. I understand a lot better now. It's just so interesting. I love it. I mean, it's like maybe the only thing that you can do, that'll break into the news no matter what's going on. You assassinate someone, and ABC's got to go to Ted Koppel, they gotta break into the Soap Opera. I mean, I remember when I was littler, like I'm in my piano teacher's house waiting for my lesson, and in the middle of the Edge of Night, or maybe it was a game show, they break in with this story about George Wallace being shot. It gets you famous. You make your mark on history. I don't know why I got so into it. I can't help it I guess.
��This is disgusting. It's like you're glorifying it. Like you've built some shrine to it.
��He seemed to be unstable. Well, you can say that cause you got no sense of history. Don't you remember RFK? Shot down in a hotel kitchen on a night of triumph. Probably would have been president. Don't you see how that affected you and me? I mean don't you see how the JFK thing totally started the sixties? I mean that's what we're all about? How do you think Reagan got that teflon image? Because he took a bullet and survived. Because he broke the jinx of a president dying every twenty years.
��She was buttoning her coat.
��You think this a hangup right? You think I got some kind of problem in the head, right? Well, just remember, while you were watching Gunsmoke with Mommy and Daddy, someone was getting shot. History was getting changed. It's the only way one person can change things. Don't you see. It's the only way you can make a difference in this world. I mean, look at Lennon. Somebody who tried like hell to use his fame for a good purpose. What happens to him, he gets offed by his biggest fan. There's no way to change things except with a gun.
��She reprimanded him. Next time you meet someone in a bar, why don't you fess up that you're a weirdo with an assasination complex. Just try to be honest. God, I feel like such a fool.
��She left the apartment abpruptly.
��He was crying. He wasn't that weird, was he? No one understood. She was walking to the bus stop, trying to think about the Poconos. Focus on some handsome man with thick arms. Maybe a lumberjack. A normal lumberjack from the Poconos with a straight jaw. She wanted to find that guy. She wanted to have the determination to go there herself, without relying on anyone that would let her down. When she got off the bus her walk home was ghostly, as it was very late. The basketball court was empty, and one backboard was dented, as if someone had fired a cannonball at it. When she thought of that apartment she shuddered. The cat was glad to see her. She turned the blinds in her bedroom and saw police lights flashing against the building down the block. Looked like another driveby. She tried to read a magazine but couldn't focus. She was thinking about renting a car and going to Poconos herself. She was glad she hadn't given that creep her last name.
��At last Louise heaved a sigh of contentment and smiled. We would never have hit it off anyway, she concluded. Her favorite Beatle was always Paul.



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