Chapter 23: In the Swing of Things

November, 1981, Chicago, Illinois

The days were growing shorter — well, the daylight portion, anyway, because the days were still twenty-four hours long — and the weather was getting cooler.

On Monday, Mike, the guy in my calculus class, asked me if I’d be interested in joining a fraternity. He was a member of Theta Xi. They had a house on the fraternity quad and most of the guys were into engineering, and their president was the head teaching assistant for Doctor Bauer. That made it mildly interesting, because getting to know Steve Krastev would be valuable, but I wasn’t sure about joining a fraternity.

He invited me to come to a party on Friday the 20th, the last day of school before the Thanksgiving break, and meet everyone. He made a point of saying that they had girls from a nursing school and an all-girls college that were ‘little sisters’ — girls who came to parties regularly. I realized that on a campus that was almost 90 percent male that was huge, but I’d had no trouble meeting girls. I didn’t say it to him, but his ‘come-on’ didn’t entice me. On balance, I decided to check it out so that I could at least meet Steve Krastev.

I didn’t see a problem with going to the party, because I had already talked to Stephie about our travel plans for the break. She would be flying home that Friday evening and she had arranged a ride to the airport with a girl from the dorm heading out at the same time. I’d just make it a point to tell her I would be going to the fraternity’s party. I was driving home on Saturday morning, Elyse was driving her car home, and Kathy was riding with me. Kathy had asked Kurt to come with her, but he hadn’t decided. I assured her there was plenty of room in the car for him if he did decide to come along. I checked with Bethany and she was driving from Madison, but Gene was going home to Colorado. She wanted her car for the week in Milford, so we weren’t going to do the carpooling we’d done for Labor Day.

On Tuesday, I arrived at the Stuart building thirty minutes early to talk to Jackie as she’d asked.

“Thanks for showing up early,” Jackie said when we sat down in the student lounge with cups of coffee she had brought with her.

“What can I do for you?” I asked evenly.

“I hope you won’t hold Papiya’s behavior against me. I’d like to have you as a friend. And I apologize for saying that I wanted to be with you that way. Will you accept my apology?”

“Yes. Look, don’t get me wrong, Papiya is free to do whatever she wants and I’m not judging her, but she said some things that really bothered me, especially when she made it clear that she felt cheating was OK.”

“She just wants sex. She doesn’t care about relationships or if the guy has one. It’s all about finding the best guys she can. She’s frustrated because you’re the first guy to refuse her AND she says you were the best of any of them.”

I chuckled, “Oh, for Pete’s sake. I mean, I’d like to think I am THAT good, but good enough that she’d be frustrated?”

“Well, not to be indelicate, but she says you fucked the living hell out of her, made her cum several times, and lasted twenty minutes. That’s pretty damn impressive.”

“Whatever. Can we change the topic, please?” I asked.

She laughed, “Are you embarrassed?”

“No. It’s just I’d rather forget about it and focus on being your friend. That was a ‘one and done’ thing for me. Period.”

“She’s going to try.”

“Let her. I’ll tell her ‘no’. You see, she said, almost verbatim, something that another girl said to me about cheating. And I just can’t abide by that kind of thinking. And before you think I’m some kind of hypocrite, I have a firm rule about not being with girls who are in serious relationships. If I’d had a serious relationship, I wouldn’t have gone near Papiya for all the tea in India,” I grinned.

“Cute,” Jackie said, “So why the big deal about cheating? How did that come up?”

“Because I told her that I wasn’t likely to do it again because I was working on a relationship with a special girl. She told me not to tell the girl and that I shouldn’t worry about it because it was, to quote her, ‘just a fuck’. That kind of thinking bothers me. So that’s why I won’t do it again even if I didn’t have a special girl. Add to that the idea that she thinks she’s so good that I’ll come running back. No thanks.”

“So, what kind of girl DOES interest you?”

“Intelligent, caring, and open-minded.”

Jackie laughed, “Cut the bullshit. Guys are interested in looks more than anything.”

“Maybe. But I learned a lesson on that one. One of the most amazing girls I’ve ever had sex with was plain looking and a bit on the chunky side. She thought nobody would ever want to do it with her. Well, she’s one of the most enthusiastic and skilled lovers I’ve ever had. So, sure, hot bodies are nice and all, but in the end, personality wins every time.”

“Who are you and where have you been all my life?” Jackie asked.

“Maybe you’re just looking for love in all the wrong places.”

She laughed, “I saw that movie. It was pretty bad, actually.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Urban Cowboy wasn’t that terrible. I’d give it a six or so on a scale of one to ten. But seriously, how do you pick guys?”

She sighed, “By how they look. Maybe you’re right. That said, do you know that you have really sexy eyes?”

“So I’ve been told. But what is it about me that you like?”

“Besides those damn bedroom eyes?” she giggled. “Well, you’re smart, funny, and seem like an all-around good guy.”

“And if I didn’t have at least passable looks, would you have even talked to me enough to find out? Would Papiya have approached me to be your partners for the project?”

“No, I guess not,” she sighed, dropping her gaze for a moment. “Would you like to have coffee on Tuesday mornings before class like this?”

I figured that was safe. Sitting in the student lounge was about as public a place we could be without being in the library or Hermann Hall.

“Sure. Friends?” I asked.

“Friends!” she said.

We walked to class. Papiya looked at me, winked, and licked her lips. Having a sexy girl do that would normally make me want to talk to her. In this case, it just repulsed me. Maybe it was the mental link to Becky, who fortunately hadn’t called back, or maybe it was just the disgust at the way she treated people as things to be used.

I did know that I could be accused of that based on the way I’d handled girls in the past. Maybe it was self-justification, but with rare exceptions, the girls hadn’t complained, nor had they felt used. And I had learned my lesson from the few that had.

That was part of what gave me pause with Stephie, who I met after class for lunch. I took the opportunity to tell her about the party, and she smiled and told me to enjoy myself. When we had finished lunch, she went to her next class, and I headed home to pick up the computer equipment to do the demo.

After loading the equipment into my car, I drove about an hour to Downers Grove, a suburb west of the city. The demo went off without a hitch and I got an order on the spot. Beth had done a fantastic sales job over the phone. I provided a list of things the vet would need to buy and asked him to call me when he was ready for me to come set up the computer and train him and his staff.

When I arrived home, there was a message on the machine from Theo. I had only heard from him once, other than the regular envelopes with my weekly pay. I erased the message and called him back. He asked me to meet him at the coffee shop on 50th in ten minutes, and I agreed. I left right away and was there when he walked in. The waitress brought us coffee, and I waited to hear what he needed from me.

“I got a problem with a guy who’s not paying like he agreed. I want you to come with me when I go talk to him. You don’t got to do nothing but stand there and look tough. Wear your hat, and wear a jacket, so it looks like you might be packing.”

“Do I need to?”

“You got a piece? Even better. Yeah, strap on before you meet me. You won’t need it, but the bulge in your jacket will show him we mean business. He knows I got a piece, but seeing a second person with one might just shake things loose.”

“When and where?”

“Tonight. About 9:30pm. Meet me at this address. You can walk,” he said, handing me a scrap of paper.

I took the piece of paper and memorized the address, then tore it into bits and put it in the ashtray. Theo nodded.

That evening, after dinner and karate, I let Elyse know I had an errand to run and went into my room and put on the holster that Andreas had given me and then took the gun, which I’d brought inside when I’d come home from meeting Theo, in the holster. I pulled on a windbreaker that I’d unzip when we met this guy. I kissed Elyse goodbye and walked the seven blocks to the address. Theo was standing at the corner just down the street, smoking a cigarette.

“Right on time, kid. Let’s go. Don’t unzip until we’re at the door. Don’t want no Chicago cop seeing anything.”

I nodded and followed him to the steps of a bungalow. He unbuttoned his jacket and pulled his snub-nose revolver from his belt. I unzipped my jacket, pulled my fedora down to shield my face a bit, and waited. Theo knocked hard on the door. A guy, not much older than me, opened and immediately turned white as the blood drained from his face.

“I came to collect on your bets, Jack. You’re a week late in paying, so there’s vig as well. Five hundred. Now.”

“But I don’t have it!” he whined.

“Kid, you made the bets. We took them because you were always good for it. We pay you when you win. You can’t welsh when you lose. If you can’t pay, then pay the vig. It’s fifty bucks. But next week it’ll be another fifty and so on until you pay back the four hundred and fifty you lost. My friend here will be back every week to collect the vig. We’ll just consider this a loan now. But no more bets until you pay off. What’s it going to be?”

Theo raised the pistol, but it was pointed towards the door frame, not at Jack. I figured it didn’t make any sense to shoot the kid because then he’d never pay. I also was thankful I’d never gotten into betting of any kind. It was way too easy to lose. And outside of Las Vegas, it was certainly mob-run, which meant they didn’t call a collection agency to get their money! Well, not a legal one, anyway. Theo and I were debt collectors at the moment. I thought again and realized that gambling in Vegas probably had mob involvement of some kind.

“Wait here. I’ll get the fifty.”

He was back in about thirty seconds and handed the cash to Theo, who took it and shoved it in his pocket.

“Next week, same time, my friend here will come by. If you pay the full amount, you’re back in good graces. If you don’t, you keep paying vig until you come up with the cash.”

Jack nodded his head and shut the door.

“Piece of cake, kid. Thanks for coming along. It’s funny how many people will resist, even when I wave the gun around. But if I bring a second person? They pay every time. He’ll pay you on Thursday. He’s done this once before when he took a bad beat. This time he had the Bengals over the Saints and the Saints beat them by 10.”

“No problem. I’ll come by and get the cash. What do I do with it?”

“Just drop it by my place. Put it in an envelope, mark it Cincy, and drop it in my mailbox. If he doesn’t pay, call me.”

I headed back home and went straight to my room and put the gun back in the lockbox, then ran it out to the car and locked it in the trunk. I came back inside and put on comfortable clothes and plopped onto the couch with Elyse.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“Just something I needed to take care of for a friend. It’s all good. On Thursday I’m cooking dinner for Stephie, and it won’t surprise me if she stays again.”

“What’s up with her, anyway? You aren’t the type to be in bed with a girl just to sleep!”

“On the contrary, I’ve done that before! She’s just overwhelmed by coming from a small town in Georgia to a big city. If you think about it, there’s only like 175 adults in her town and there are that many kids in our Chemistry lecture. She’s so out of her element that she needs comfort and a good friend.”

“What’s going to happen when Kara comes to Chicago?”

“Hopefully, Stephie and I will stay friends. She knows about Kara. I hope that by the end of Freshman year, Stephie will be adjusted well enough. Honestly, there’s a good chance we’ll never get as far as you’re implying.”

“Just be careful. I plan to go out with Warren tomorrow again. Are Kurt and Kathy coming again this weekend?”

“Yep. She hasn’t called to say that they aren’t. We seem to be settling into a nice comfortable pattern.”

Elyse let me know that there was a party on Saturday night that Warren had asked her to go to. I suggested that she should go, and she said the rest of us were invited as well. I said we’d see what Kathy wanted to do, but I was up for it. We talked for a bit and then headed to bed.

When I arrived home on Wednesday, I found a letter in the mailbox from Tatyana that invited me to Washington, DC, in January. She and her mother would be visiting her father for a week around Christmas. She explained that the Russian Calendar was different from the American one and that December 25th on the Russian calendar was January 7th on the US calendar. I recalled something about the dates changing in 1752 when the new calendar was put into use in the US, but didn’t remember the details. She hoped I would come to DC on January 7th and stay until January 10th. Her father was renting a house, and I was welcome to stay in the guest room, if I wished.

I wrote her back and let her know I’d be happy to come and that she should give me as many details as she could. I let her know in the letter that I would be in Cincinnati during the last half of December and gave my little sister’s number as a contact number. I also wrote that I’d be back in Chicago by the 29th.

Another thing her letter said was that she had been accepted to Harvard and would be going to Boston in March. I checked the dates, and it was during my Spring Break. That would be a hard sell with Kara so I wrote Tatyana that I’d have to see if it was possible to come to Boston, and if I did, it would only be for two days at the most, and even that was only a remote possibility. The last thing I wanted to do was mess things up with Kara.

That evening, after being happy about hearing from Tatyana, an unwelcome call from Becky brought me back to earth. I hadn’t called her and she was calling to find out why. At this point, I wasn’t sure how she didn’t get it, but I patiently explained it to her again.