It Chooses You - Miranda July [21]
Miranda:
What do you love to do?
Ron:
I love to sing.
Miranda:
What do you like to sing?
Ron:
I like – for example, there’s a song called “A Teenager in Love.”
Miranda:
The Everly Brothers?
Ron:
Dion and the Belmonts, or maybe just Dion. Sometimes I really feel like I want to belt it out and just release that tension.
Miranda:
Yeah – people who sing, it’s like they can pour out emotion in a way that other people can’t.
Ron:
Well, I tell you – here’s the bottom line of what people have always told me. They said I’ve always been good with kids. I worked in Reseda through a court order monitor – when the husband had a court order for the wife that required somebody to be there for the kids, or the wife had an order, I was the one there. So that shows you how risky of a person I am, okay?
Miranda:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ron:
The court checked my background out. I did that in the ‘80s part-time. And I actually had a problem because a lot of the kids were requesting me and the agency says, “Hey, Ron. There’s too many people requesting you.”
Miranda:
Yeah.
Ron:
I’m good with kids. I know how to get down on their level and enjoy myself with them. Not a Michael Jackson type, but –
Miranda:
No, I understand. What’s been the happiest time in your life so far?
Ron:
A happy time was when I had a three-year relationship with a younger girl when I was twenty-six, a girl that I truly, truly loved. But she was too young to marry. And I told her, “In a couple of years, when you’re eighteen, if you feel that way, let me know then.” But I knew she would spread her wings and see what life was all about. I was smart enough to know that.
Miranda:
So that was a happy time?
Ron:
That was a really happy time. Another good time was being with a woman out here that was much older than me. Until she had to go into a home. I actually had to call her two sons that were about my age to let them know that she was going to hurt herself.
Miranda:
That must have been hard.
Ron:
I mean, it was like a steady, very steady thing with her and I. And she was much, much, much older than me.
Miranda:
How old was she?
Ron:
I’ll just say she was well into her seventies. But she was slender. She was clean. She was soft-spoken. She was warm. She was the love of my life.
After a long time I began to understand that he would never let us leave. We just had to go. I silently counted to three and stood up. I brushed off my thighs as people do and made thank-you sounds and gestures. As we said goodbye and walked toward the door, Ron stopped me.
Ron:
Miranda, quick question.
Miranda:
Yeah.
Ron:
Do you have family?
Miranda:
Mm-hmm.
Ron:
Kids?
Miranda:
No kids. I just got married.
Ron:
Oh, you just got married.
Miranda:
Yeah.
Ron:
I was going to say, somebody as adorable as you can’t be single. I’ve really opened up to you about who and what I am. And part of the company I have, I do marketing research. I do a lot of things where – well, I can show you better than tell you.
Miranda:
We have to go, because we’re –
Ron:
Okay, well, I was just going to simply grab something right here and show you.
Miranda:
Okay, okay.
Ron:
These are Starbucks cards. There’s twenty of them there. Do you see them?
He fanned them out like million-dollar bills, like our minds were going to be blown by these twenty Starbucks cards.
Miranda:
Uh-huh.
Ron:
I also have Exxon Mobil cards. I have more than twenty of them. I have wallets up there that are full of Wal-Mart gift cards, okay?
Miranda:
Wow.
He was showing me his dowry. His nest egg.
Ron:
These didn’t come because I stole them. These took a lot of time. They took a lot of patience, a lot of discipline, a lot of keeping track. But with that, with that comes the benefit of, well –
Miranda:
Well, thank you. I wish –
Ron:
Thank you.
Miranda:
– we didn’t have another interview after this.
Ron:
Yes. Okay.
Miranda:
We could stick around.
Ron:
That’s okay. I took so much of