"Ballad of John Reddy Heart" on an Ohio station. Ken Fischer angrily exited the expressway at Grindell, jolting and bumping to a stop then speeding with such fury that "burning rubber" was no exaggeration for once. There was nothing he wanted more than to get back to Willowsville to drop off at her English Tudor home on Mill Race the mannequin beside him staring stonily out the window to whom he not, he absolutely would not speak, not only for the remainder of their disastrous truncated evening but for the remainder of his fucking life.
Good-bye to the
"Original Ice Princess"--as Ken spoke of Verrie Myers to his buddies.
We asked why Ken who was one of the most popular guys in our class would be voted Best-Looking Boy senior year put up with Verrie Myers's shit and Ken said, shrugging, "Well. It is Veronica Myers's shit all, not just any shit." In Art Lutz's brother's car, Art was beginning to perspire smelling Mary Louise Schultz's unmistakable physical presence so close him. Like a dog's, his nostrils were rapidly, near-spasmodically widening and contracting. That fragrant girl-smell, hair shampoo possibly, talcumy lily-ofthe-valley Arrid-with-just-a-tincture-of-slightly-stale-girl-sweat.
Cheerleaders must sweat too, the way they throw themselves around. But Art had the idea they didn't shower after a game like the team did. ) Art and Mary Louise were taking a second pass at the Buffalo House of Detention, at Louise's request. Somehow, the first time driving past, Art had hardly noticed the building in the gloom beside the expressway.
Her shiny dark hair sliding forward, Mary Louise sat quivering with tension peering her window at what appeared to be nothing more than a massive stone wall--a long wall--a very long wall--Christ, it seemed to go on forever! --you could identify mainly by the cruel-looking razor wire strung along its top.
Mary Louise seemed to be whispering to herself. (Praying? Mary Louise was one of a number of "good" Christian girls at WHS. She was a Presbyterian belief was simple, sincere and unquestioned. She'd long been an officer in Willowsville Christian Youth and a volunteer for Buffalo-area charities organized by a contingent of Willowsville matrons. ) Or was she crying?
Or both?
Art recalled with excitement Smoke Filer saying slyly If a chick cries you're halfway in her pants. There was something so sexy about a good-looking girl with a figure like Mary Louise Schultz crying it almost didn't matter why she was crying. And any girl softhearted enough to cry for John Reddy who'd blasted an adult man away with a gun (and who'd screwed more and women, including a certain hot-eyed cocktail waitress at the Old Red Mill Inn, Art had reason to believe, than he, Art, personally knew) was a sweetheart, you had to love her.
"It doesn't seem right, does it? For us to be free. To be so happy. Beating West Seneca tonight like we did--wow. And he's locked inside there." Mary Louise's thin girlish voice sounded hoarse, scraped from screaming cheers.
"I mean--does it seem right?" Art was startled, not knowing what they were talking about. He thinking of how he might maneuver Mary Louise into being kissed, how, depending upon the circumstances in which they were sitting, how he touch, or more than touch, her breasts. He said, in a cracked voice, "No. It does not seem right. I feel terrible about it." John Reddy, he supposed.
Art made a lightning-quick decision, a reckless decision possibly, to exit the expressway at La Salle Boulevard. Before Mary Louise knew what was up, he was headed for La Salle Park. Though it was past eleven p. m.
Louise had said something about getting home by midnight. (And the Schultz home, on Sedgemoor Drive, was quite a distance away. )
had lost track of both Doug and Ken and assumed they were somewhere in the park, too, this vast undistinguished city park no one from Willowsville ever went to, nor even thought of going to, reputed to be dangerous at night, particularly weekend nights, in the News and Courier-Express were about beer-can-throwing youths, fistfights and drug dealing, but Art reasoned those incidents occurred in the more public part of the park and he, like Doug and Ken, was driving in the more private part, cruising Drive looking for a place to park. Tonight's the night! Now or never. Though in fact Art Lutz and Mary Louise Schultz were so recent a couple, and Mary Louise Schultz had already been asked to the Christmas prom by a wellknown senior, and had accepted--maybe that wasn't a reasonable expectation? Yet Art was beginning to breathe quickly. He felt as if he were filling like a helium balloon with sexual desire, need. And with hope.
Blake Wells had remarked after an especially titillating biology class that it was pretty clear wasn't it--a single male organism, from the lowly frog to noble lion to upright Homo sapiens, only wanted, modestly, to populate the world with the offspring of his sperm. Art heard a frantic
sounding in his ears like the beat of his own heated blood. Mary Louise I'm crazy about you! Mary Louise you're so--beautiful! So--perfect!
just want to kiss you a little. I just want to hold you. Touch you. A little.
But was this a legitimate voice of Art's, or a subtly teasing voice? Almost, it sounded like Jamie, making fun. How had Jamie's voice gotten into Art's head? ust want to stick my tongue in your mouth, Mary Louise honey. tust wunt to-squeeze those fantastic breasts of yours in my two hands. I don't think of them as tits.
Other girls have tits. Those are breasts. I don't think of what you're sitting on as ass. There was a pause, and faint, crude wheezing laughter.
think of what you're sitting on as the vinyl-weave seat of brother tamie's Dodge Castille and mmmmm! I sure do envy that ol' seat I can tell you. Desperately to block out Jamie's sniggering voice by asking Mary Louise what she knew of the upcoming trial of John Reddy. As Art slowed to peer into shadows, rejecting some spots because there were already cars parked there, others because they were too brightly lighted, but finding at last a secluded, relatively private place overlooking the choppy, greasy-looking lake, Mary Louise spoke earnestly of how difficult it was going to be to find an impartial jury for the second trial, and the judge, that terrible, cruel man, had ruled against a change of venue. Art murmured a quick agreement. He parked, cut the engine, took a cautious breath. Mary Louise was saying that who was a really close friend of a friend of Laetitia Riggs's had told her that Mrs.. Riggs had collapsed when her husband was killed but was enough now to testify at the trial, everyone blamed John Reddy's mother for what had happened--"She's a terrible woman, isn't she? To steal women's husbands. And she doesn't even want them I guess, just them back down. Like Bo's father. Like poor Mr.. Skelton. And Mr..
Wells was seeing her too, and lent her money I heard--did you? Evangeline us. But Verrie says--" Art murmured agreement. They were parked now, here they were. He'd have liked to lock all four doors of the car.
His heart was beating like a tiny fist. O. K. , li'l brother, time to get serious.
Down-dirty serious. Whip er out, stud. Show this sweet dumb chick what it's all about, eh?
Emboldened, Art slid his arm around Mary Louise's shoulders. She wearing a wool blazer over her maroon cheerleader's jumper and, around her neck, a long maroon school scarf decorated with wolverine figures.
Her head seemed large suddenly--so close to his. Gently he managed to ease Louise against him, she did not resist, though she did not cooperate, there was a sudden wariness between them, and an excited expectation, the girl's head to kiss her--to actually kiss her--for the first time! I'm kissing Mary Louise Schultz for the hrst time. O fesus. Her lips were warm, dry, shybut-friendly, the lips of a girl who's been kissed before, times perhaps, and who takes for granted a certain deference, respect. C'mon stud, let's have some action. Shit! Art deflected these unwelcome words of Jamie's like Pingpong balls. That was the image that surfaced in his head, he'd been champion Ping-Pong player of the Lutz household, surpassing Jamie at the precocious age of fourteen. So Fuck you, Jamie, get out of my head.
He was doing all right. He was kissing Mary Louise Schultz. A flame ran swiftly over his body that stung and left him weak. Possibly Mary Louise sensed flame for she shifted uneasily in her seat and he could hear her br
eath. "Artie? What time it is?" she whispered. "T-time? What time? I don't know." Across the wind-roughed lake lights blinked feebly. Lake Erie, Beach, Ontario. The sky overhead had become porous, heavy. In Willowsville, night sky had been clear. During the giddy excitement of the game the air had been mild for late October but now, miles away, not long afterward, the lakefront air was agitated and cold. I said c'mon stud! Get down basics! We ain't got the rest of our lives, we ain't even got all night. Art blocked these words by saying, stammering, "M-Mary Louise? I guess you can I'm-crazy about you?" but his words were choked and inaudible.
turned her chin to avoid his searching, hungry mouth. Politely said, "Art?
I think maybe it's time to go. I'm sorry." Art said, aggrieved, "But we just got here, Mary Louise! It's early." God damn, he might've set the in the dashboard back a half-hour, if he'd thought of it. He tried to the girl gently against him, she relented, but only partway, like a cat you manage to force into relaxing on your lap, unresisting yet clearly biding time before it leaps down. "What's that sticking into me?" Mary Louise cried, away, and Art said quickly, "The gearshift. Sorry." He leaned against the shift, taking the brunt of it against his thigh. Already bruised from being tackled and falling heavily that evening, he would discover in the morning a dozen purplish-orange bruises on his thighs. He was calculating might unobrusively shift his right arm an inch or so that he might brush the back of his hand against Mary Louise's right breast. Only a touch!
The merest touch! It would last him for weeks. He'd given up as unreasonable the hope of actually caressing her breast, as other guys insisted they their girls' breasts (Dwayne, Roger, Smoke, Tommy, among others) let alone cupping it capably in his hand (as in certain dreams he did, often--freely and boldly and without the slightest hesitation as if Mary Louise weren't herself but an obliging rubbery mannequin), he'd put aside the very of touching both breasts. Reasoning The other can wait. One is enough. It had been years after all, he'd first noticed Mary Louise Schultz's figure in ninth-grade algebra when, seated behind and slantwise the pretty round-faced girl whose well-to-do parents happened in fact to be golf club acquaintances of his parents', he'd found himself at her mesmerized while Mr.. Florio droned on in his witty-sardonic manner at the blackboard. At the age of fourteen, Art Lutz was astonished--the ease with which girls like Mary Louise Schultz inhabited their bodies! He wondered if they stared at themselves enraptured in mirrors. (He who shrank from encountering his pimply reflection and scrawny torso in shiny surfaces. ) Hesitantly now, Art moved his arm, tremulous to bring the backs of his fingers to lightly graze Mary Louise's right breast even as, with an abrupt movement, the skittish girl leaned forward. "Artie? It's time to home. I'm sorry." Art seemed not to have heard, breathlessly kissing Mary Louise more firmly on the mouth, she seemed to be kissing him back--for a moment.
She laughed nervously and would have moved away except Art, inspired, or desperate, took hold of her shoulders and kissed her with more force, nudging at her lips to pry them apart, but they would not be pried apart, they were sealed as if with glue. C'mon asshole, get hot! We're out of time!
Don't disappoint me. Jamie's impatient though affectionate voice was being blown to Art from a short distance, perhaps from the waves splashing against the shore. Art's penis was engorged with blood like a thick spicy sausage. Inside his damp, snug-fitting Jockey shorts his erection stirred with a jolt of perverse life. He stifled a sob anticipating yet another night of jerking himself off, jerking himself off, jerking himself off like a man hanging himself compulsively and yet never satisfactorily.
Still he'd have to admit he was relieved when Mary Louise detached mouth from his. He'd never French-kissed an actual girl before.
many times in recent weeks he'd slid his wet snaky tongue into an formed by his thumb and curled fingers, but he reasoned that an actual girl, an actual mouth, would present very different circumstances. He wasn't sure how the penetration should be done, or even why. tesus, kid!
had your chance. I'm through. You're on your own. Jamie was withdrawing disgust, dismay. But Art hadn't time to mourn his brother's departure for Louise was close to wriggling out of his grasp. And the wind was picking up across the lake. A stroke of lightning split the sky above the Canadian shore, thunder sounded like shaken tin, there came a harsh pelting of across the windshield. Mary Louise surprised Art by murmuring almost suggestively, "It's kind of cozy in here, isn't it? I love the rain." Recklessly then, for he had nothing to lose, Art lunged with his right hand to the girl's breast. There was no resistance. He caressed the breast, and still no resistance. He kissed Mary Louise as his fingers stroked, even squeezed. His forehead was glazed with sweat, the turbulence between his legs nearly to bursting. His life seemed to pass swiftly before his like a Disney cartoon, he was sixteen years, eight months old, a junior at WHS, a running end on the varsity football team, as his Jamie had been five years before and as his oldest son Kevin would twenty-eight years later, a math-science major with a mid-B average, he would graduate and attend his father's college, Colgate, he would pledge his father's fraternity, Deke, with his B. A. from Colgate he would a degree in business administration from Cornell, he would return to part in resentment and part in relief to take his place at Lutz Magic Kleen, Inc. , on Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, by the age of twenty-seven he'd be married and by the age of twenty-nine he'd be a father for the time and this would seem, at the time, a reasonable thing to have accomplished, at least in his parents' eyes. After the first several rapturous months of with his pert, attractive, curly-blond wife, a Chi Omega ed. major from Cornell, he would find himself evoking at such times the vivid memory of Mary Louise Schultz as she'd been in Jamie's car night. Mary Louise's prim pursed lips, Mary Louise's firm, pear-sized breast he'd actually held, or believed he'd held, in his hand. I loved her. Love her. tesus! His orgasm like raw silk tearing inside his guts. As he'd never experienced once, not a single time, with the actual Mary Louise Schultz they would date, intermittently, through their junior and senior years of high school until Mary Louise went away to Vassar and Art went away to Colgate.
He'd hear of her marriage, her children. He'd dream of her, or resembling her leaping into the air, shiny dark hair flying and arms spread in a victory cheer. And years later, separated from his curly-blond wife, bored to oblivion by his curly-blond wife, Art Lutz would find himself dozing on long headache flights from Buffalo to L. A. , from L. A. to Buffalo, dreaming of Mary Louise Schultz's perfect girl-breasts, cupping them gently in hands, his reverent worshipful hands. As Flight 283 from L. A. to arrive at Buffalo at 7,40 P. M. of a sleet-riddled February evening shuddered nineteen thousand feet above Springfield, Ohio, and the forty-one-year-old Art Lutz shut his eyes clinging to a vision of sixteen-year-old Mary Schultz even as, like the other passengers on the plane, he the terror of imminent dissolution.
Mary Louise jerked away from him, self-consciously adjusting her blazer, lifting her hair from the damp nape of her neck. It was then that Art realized that it hadn't been Mary Louise's breast he'd been holding but her bunched-up wolverine scarf and the lapel of her blazer. Quickly he his arm from her shoulders, chagrined. His arm had gone partly to sleep, numbness radiated outward from his right armpit. And his armpit with sweat.
"Artie? Please. I want to go home."
"Y-yes. Sure. Sorry." He'd have agreed to anything. Blindly, he started the car. He humbled, humiliated yet elated. He'd played on a winning team that night, the home crowd had screamed for them, and even if he hadn't been one of the firststring stars, not like Jamie
"The Bull" Lutz, he'd been on winning team. Seeing the look in Art's face when Coach pulled him from the game after less than ten jolting minutes in the final quarter, Coach had said kindly, We can't all be scoring field goals. We can't all be Dwayne Hewson. Mary Louise Schultz | v liked him, obviously. She'd let him kiss her and he'd be kissing her again. And again. He'd French-kiss her someday, too. He'd tell her how he about her.
She would blush, she'd laugh, emba
rrassed. But she might say Artie, I kind of love you, toa She might say that. It was possible. He would the possibility with him like a flame cupped in his hand, precious. He cast a lovesick sidelong glance at Mary Louise as they drove north and eastward now on Main returning to Willowsville, he saw that the pretty round-faced girl was peering at herself in a compact mirror, hastily repairing the damage done to her lipstick. Such intimacy! --as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Art thought of John Reddy Heart with a flood of gratitude.
Thank you, tohn Reddy. You made it all possible!
The second trial of People of the State of New York v. tohn Reddy
1 would move far more swiftly than the first. After nine days of both sides would complete their cases and the jury would adjourn to deliberate for a full day, and a second day, and part of a morning. In a state of almost unbearable tension we listened to illicit transistor radios at school, hidden in lockers and desks. We sat in one another's cars for long hours, smoking, listening to our pop-rock station WWBN-AM, awaiting the interruption of a news bulletin. And now from the Erie County Courthouse--the verdict is in on John Reddy Heart! Friends, are you re-ady? Our disc jockey Smilin' Jack Daniel teased us cruelly. Yet we could not not listen.