A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [43]
Quinn set the drug limit. After seeing two men on the team smash up on LSD and coke, he drew a line. She broke the rule once with cocaine, and he moved out for two weeks until she swore, and kept her promise of, no more coke. “Coke is the devil, baby. The devil is at his smartest when you don’t believe there’s a devil. Chrissake, when you were cruising Eighth Avenue, didn’t you see what it did? How about coke at work?”
“Yeah, some girls and fellows at the studio really busted themselves up. Thank God, I’ve got you.”
The honey kisses—passing a syrupy ice cube into each other’s mouth and letting it melt and run down their necks and licking it off. Daring, risking, they opened each other up entirely.
The touch, the touch, the touch. That’s all it took as a forerunner to a full night’s journey or a quick leap off the pier. They read each other perfectly.
After a few visits to the ranch Dan softened considerably. Siobhan’s usual loveliness was always tempered by the hidden fear that Greer might not return to New York. These two kids were filling up huge storage tanks for a lifetime, for a hundred and twenty years.
The first chill was at Christmas, which they had to awkwardly split between Grand Junction and the ranch. However, it was a good thing they went outside and got some fresh air. Quinn liked her father, a double-A shortstop…
“Dad could have made it to the show, but he could never hit a motherfucking slow curve inside,” Greer explained.
“That was the first thing you taught me,” Quinn said.
“Too bad she was born of the opposite sex. But you know, she sure can manage a team. Little Leaguers. One kid was pushing her button the year they won the state. She soaped out his mouth in front of the rest of them and made him apologize…well, in my estimate Jimmy Foxx was the greatest power hitter of them all because he was right-handed.”
Joyful and Triumphant.
After a gallop through the low meadow Quinn had to carry her into the house and set her in a tub. Roping was out of the question.
O Come Ye, O Come Ye.
NEW YEAR’S EVE, 1971
New Year’s. All the apartments opened their doors. Sad revelers and happy revelers wondered what it meant. Nuclear devastation was all the talk. A downer ran through the land.
But most of those on downers had each other. The New Year’s kiss was always a kiss of hello. In that instant Greer and Quinn knew it was a kiss of goodbye; the awful countdown had begun.
At a late-winter indoor baseball practice, Quinn was whacking the ball as though he had Superman’s eyes. He had crossed a magic line where his psyche could slow the ball down.
She watched him now as though she had turned a page forever and it didn’t read like the old madcap joy of the other page. Although they still had months left on their odyssey, a residue of discontent had begun in the pit of her stomach.
Quinn was, as usual, hunched over the kitchen table, far away, into Joseph Campbell, when she came home rather draggy. She mussed his hair and turned on the teakettle.
“How was your day, honey?” Quinn asked.
“Oh, fine except for one little thing,” she said, sitting opposite him.
“You’re pregnant,” Quinn said.
“How did you know?”
“I can count to twenty-nine.”
She shook her head. His hand pulled her over to his lap. He rubbed her stomach. “Not too much room in there.”
“You don’t seem too upset, Quinn.”
“The way we’ve been going at it, we don’t keep throwing a dare at God. Anyhow, I thought about it early on. Last few days, I’ve thought about it much. We’ve gotten down a lot of road. Let’s talk, Quinn-and-Greer talk.”
“Oh, Jesus, you’re wonderful,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder and allowing herself to sob.
“I love you, Greer. We decide, I’ll abide.”
“My own Reverend Jackson. It’s not that big a deal these days. They’re happening every day on campus. When I found out, I was just going to have it fixed, have an abortion and string you along. I, uh, even made an appointment. I couldn’t do it. I love you, man. We won’t marry and I’ll go on to New York with the baby.”
“That’s got a bad