Fifteen

The faxes from McCloskey began arriving on a daily basis, each one less informative than its predecessor. After a few days, I started putting the same sheet of paper in the fax machine at night, and after a few days, it was completely black.

I’ll spare you the gory details of my night of racquetball. Suffice it to say I got all the exercise I so richly desired. Still, after the usual pandemonium the next morning, I managed to drag my sorry butt to the car and drove to the local YM/YWHA, where I perform those tasks I laughingly refer to as a “workout.”

The Y was once a very large residence, a brick structure parked in one corner of Midland Heights that overlooks the Raritan River and reminds us of the good old days, when Midland Heights actually had the room to include a home with 23 rooms, columns in the front, 20-foot ceilings, and four fireplaces.

About 30 years ago, it was determined that said residence was far too grand for a town like ours, and so it was bought by the YM/YWHA, converted into a public facility and, eventually, expanded to include an indoor, Olympic-sized pool, a Jewish pre-school, a basketball court, a couple of meeting rooms and, to my everlasting consternation, a “fitness center,” where young and (especially) old alike could kill themselves on any number of torture devices.

My current device of choice was something called an “elliptical trainer,” which presents itself as a sort of “Stairmaster-Meets-NordicTrack” contraption, requiring constant pedaling motion by its user, who is not allowed the luxury of sitting down, as with the old exercise bicycles. Level of incline and resistance can be regulated through a control panel, and the thing is actually sadistic enough to tick off the seconds you’ve spent and the calories you’ve burned on an LED screen right in front of your face.

Among the initiated, we call the elliptical trainer by its more appropriate name, “The Medieval Instrument of Torture,” or “MIT,” if you’re an acronym fan.

I had my Walkman headphones on, and was playing a compilation cassette I’d made of fast-paced, inspirational songs by Paul McCartney, ELO, Santana, Sam Phillips, Matchbox 20, Bare-naked Ladies, and Fastball, among others. If the beat is fast, you’ll move your torso quickly to keep up with it. At least that’s the theory.

I try to avoid looking at the other people in the room while I’m working out. For one thing, I wouldn’t be too nuts about them looking at me. I’ve been meaning to talk to the Y management for years about their sadistic predisposition toward putting mirrors right in front of the MIT. But I also keep my eyes averted because the Y’s fitness center is often populated with Jewish exercisers over the age of 70, and that’s a preview of coming attractions I can live without, thank you. If I’m ever spotted on the MIT wearing corduroy pants, black, orthopedic shoes, and a button-down short-sleeve shirt, it’ll be time to put me out of my misery.

So I usually close my eyes and let the tape motivate me as best it can. But today, I was on the lookout for the nosy type of parent who can be of help in any story involving the Midland Heights school district, and I got lucky. Faith Feldstein took the MIT right next to mine about five minutes after I got on.

Faith, a past president of the PTO at Buzbee School and present Board of Education member, is the queen of Midland Heights concerned parents, which is to say, she is never happy with the way the school system deals with anything, and is therefore a prime source of information and gripes on any school-related subject.

I had to admit, though, that working out had benefited her greatly. In the slinky unitard she was wearing, it was clear she’d lost a good 20 pounds in the past year, and was looking quite fit, for a woman in her early forties, or for that matter, any other age. I, on the other hand, was wearing a baggy pair of sweat pants from the Gap and a T-shirt announcing the upcoming video release of Forrest Gump, so you can imagine how swell my ensemble was making me look. I nodded in Faith’s direction, and she smiled the vague smile you get when someone isn’t exactly sure how they know you.

“How you doing, Faith?” I said. “Is Estella having a good school year?”

Her mind immediately compartmentalized me, and she knew how to respond. Faith rolled her eyes. “It’s been a nightmare,” she said. “She’s not being challenged by the curriculum at all. Gifted children are totally ignored by this school district.”

I knew Faith’s daughter Estella from Leah’s Brownie troop, and the only time she’s actually “gifted” is on the first night of Chanukah. I let that go, however, and nodded at Faith in a sympathetic manner.

“Did you hear about this stink bomb thing?” I asked as casually as I could. But I did pump a little harder on the MIT.

Her eyes practically sprang out of her head, and since she only had the MIT on level 2 for resistance, I knew I’d struck a nerve. “It’s a disgrace!” she said loudly enough that a 75-year-old codger on the treadmill halfway across the room took off his headphones and stared at her. “Some little hooligan thinks he can ruin three days for a bunch of girls who just want to play soccer, or close the gym for three whole days, and they’re going to let him get away with it. Why, Karen Mystroft’s little girl didn’t even want to go to school the next day, she was so upset.”

Hooligan?

For the moment, I shook the word out of my head and concentrated on the task at hand, ignoring the fact that Faith didn’t care if boys couldn’t use the bathroom, because she doesn’t have a son. “Him? You know who did it?” I asked.

“Well, it was obviously a boy,” she replied, with the air of someone explaining that the sky is, indeed, blue. She also said the word “boy” with the same inflection most people reserve for “slug.” “A girl wouldn’t have thrown such a projectile into her own locker room,” she added.

“Why not? I would have been happy to throw a stink bomb into my high school locker room if I didn’t have to shower with Harold Ramiriak for a week.”

Holy mackerel, did I say that out loud? Worse, could Faith actually know Harold Ramiriak? The way she was looking at me, it was possible she’d actually showered with him, and believed it to be a more enjoyable experience than she was having now.

“Of course,” I added, trying to cover my faux pas, “I was a boy.”

Faith chose to ignore me, which is something I’m used to. “Any way you look at it, it’s the administration’s fault,” she went on after a stunned pause. “Things just haven’t been the same since Mr. Ramsey left.”

Elliot Ramsey, the principal of Buzbee for seven years before Anne Mignano took over, was the type of self-help psychologist, crunchy-granola-bar principal that Midland Heights took to its bosom. I’d met him only once, since my children hadn’t started yet at Buzbee when he left, but his sneaker-wearing, benignly smiling demeanor practically begged for New Age music to be played behind him as a soundtrack. By some parents in the school district, he was considered to be an appropriate candidate for sainthood. Thus, one didn’t argue with Mr. Ramsey.

So I didn’t. I nodded reverently, then adopted the most confidential tone I could muster, and leaned over toward her. She almost recoiled, thinking I had designs on her fabulous body, but then she realized I was going to speak quietly, and leaned toward me expectantly.

“Who do you think did it?” I asked, as if I had my own suspicions and wanted her to confirm them.

Faith looked profoundly disappointed, and went back to pumping away on the MIT. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said, looking away from me. She spotted another soccer mom walking in, and waved, doing her best to point herself in another direction. “Hi, Marcie!” she cried, and was soon involved in a heated discussion of Harry Potter vs. Lemony Snicket.

I put my headphones on and cranked up Fastball so I would-n’t have to hear the conversation taking place to my right. But no matter how loud the music was, it couldn’t drown out one question left over from the last conversation: Did she actually say hooligan?