The Party So, um, yeah, like, uh, when I was a kid I was all fucked up.

And no one knew it. I mean, I was a saintly altar boy. My parent used to call me the (good) little boy. The nuns all loved me. They thought I was the best behaved child in all of St. Anne s Catholic Grade School. And who else is there? Oh, yeah, the parents. The parents all taunted their kids with the question: Why can t you be like Timmy Ruane? And I didn t know I was fucked up. I mean, I got all A s and B s, mostly A s, in school, and I was an excellent athlete. I mean, I received really prestigious awards twice. I mean, when I was in sixth grade, I was voted the best football player in the entire Washington, D.C., metropolitan area by the Touchdown Club. And this included all grade schools, high schools and colleges in the area. I mean, I was given the award along with Sonny Jurgensen, who was voted in as the most valuable Redskin of that year, and some huge studly fullback from Notre Dame who was voted in as the best college football player in the nation. So there I was up there on a podium in a full tuxedo getting my picture taken with the immortal Sonny Jurgensen and some monster fullback from Notre Dame. And in eighth grade I was voted as one of the top five basketball players in D.C. s grade school Catholic league. So, yeah, I mean from all appearances I was the All-American kid. But as I said the truth was I was all fucked up. I mean, I was seeing this psychologist once, when I was 29 or 31 or so, just after my second nervous breakdown. And he was a good guy and all, kindafaggy, but he was married and had two children, so maybe he wasn t gay. And his name was Douglas LaBiere. And Douglas used to psychoanalyze me and all. And he would give me advice about what I should do with my life. And I mean, there was this one time, again when I was around 29 or 31, and I was working for the old Washington Post. And I started out there in the editorial department as a copy aide; they used to be called them copy boys in the old days, in the days before political correctness. And after two years of working part-time, I got promoted. I got promoted to the position of copy editor right there in the old editorial department in the good old Washington Post. And I mean, I had been working as a copy editor for, like, a year or somethin , and everything was going along smoothly. They had me editing the letters to the editor four days a week, and then they had me doin the Saturday op-ed page. I was happy, as it is said, as a clam. Then one day the old Post s writers and editors union passed out a list of all salaries by position and years of experience. I saw that I wasn t making nearly as much as a first year copy editor was supposed to be making, and initially I was confused. And then I figured it out. I was being paid as a news aide, a position just beneath that of a copy editor. I mean, I wasn t mad about this or nothin for I never used to get angry about anything at all. I mean, I was distraught and nervous. When I told old Douglas about this, he said on thing: Well, Tim, you are going to have to confront Meg Greenfield. This made me even more nervous. I mean, old Meg Greenfield was the editor of the editorial department down there at the good old Washington Post and all, and in some circles Greenfield was said to be the second most powerful woman in Washington, second to only Katharine Graham, who was the owner and publisher of The Post, and one of the most powerful figures in the world. And Greenfield was best buddies with K. Graham. So, yeah, I was scared to death of the prospect of having to confront old Meg Greenfield, and I mean, it wasn t just because she was the second most powerful woman in D.C. I mean, truth be told old Meg Greenfield ruled the editorial department like a tyrant. I mean she used to stalk the hallway, and the editorial department was essentially this long hallway with offices and a conference room on either

side. And I mean,old Greenfield always used to wear this purple dress. And I mean, it wasn t particularly stylish or nothin . I mean, it was cotton, I suppose. And it tucked tight around her neck and then tight around her chest and back and underarms, and then it just splayed out to the bottom of her knees like a starched, upside down umbrella. And I mean she didn t wear hats, but she may as well have been wearing one of those World War I, Kaiser, pointy headed helmets as she walked the hallway. That would have been fitting. And old Greenfield used to stalk the hallway like a prison guard or somethin or a wolf or a coyote or somethin , sprayin out their urine in circles to define their own turf. And I mean, I always thought of old Greenfield as a combination of Ray Nitschke and Dick Butkus. I mean, she swankered her shoulders to and fro as she walked, and she always had this scowl on her face. And she was always firing one of her female writers or another,and she made every female copy editor working under her cry at least once, usually several times. I mean, old Meg Greenfield was vicious toward women. And yeah, so I did what old Douglas LaBiere told me to do and confronted oldMeg Greenfield in her office one day. And I told her what the issue was, and she scoffed and scowled and everything, and she never admitted to having cheated me and all. She just said, I ll take care of it. Ans so on my next paycheck,I say a considerably larger amount of money than I had been seeing and the past and was finally being paid what I was due. But old Greenfield never gave me any back pay, which clearly I deserved, and I never found the gumption to call her on that. I mean, if I had I d prob ly have had my third nervous breakdown, if you ask me. I mean, I didn t really wanna talk about my experiences at the old Post with old Meg Greenfield and all. I mean, what I wanted to get to was the fact that one day old Douglas La Biere said to me, You sound like a scared little boy. And I thought that was perceptive and everything, and I agree with old Douglas La Biere, analyst extraordinaire,. At the age of 30 or something I was emotionally a scared little boy. I mean, my father scared the shit out of me. I mean, he was a real old school kinda guy. I mean, he was a small time insurance salesman most of his life and all, but his claim to fame was the fact that he had worked for J. Edgar Hoover as a special agent in the FBI. And I mean, I think that this is where my father got his toughness and his meanness and his crudeness. I mean, old dad worked in the FBI from 1941 to 1945 or so. And during his last two years in the bureau, he was tailin and chasin around KGB agents and spies and officers and all in Washington, D.C. I mean, we all know here in America what goons KGB agents were. And I mean, the FBI agents who fought them were goons too. We just don t like to admit it to ourselves. So I mean, I ll give you some examples of my father s gooniness. I mean, my sister Alice,is real smart and knows twice as much art history as I do. And she didn t even go to college. She learned it all on her own. And I mean, I went to all Georgetown U. and minored in art, and like I said I mean, my sister can talk for hours about Leonardo da Vinci, and I can t even tell you what century old Leonardo lived in. And so, yeah, Alice was not the greatest student and all in grade school and high school and all, and after she finished second grade, the good old nuns announced that they wanted Alice to stay back a year and repeat the grade. Well, my daddy, good old John J. Ruane, wasn t having any of that, and he told the nuns that no child of his was going to repeat the second grade. I mean, that would have been too much of a humiliation for my good old dad. The nuns relented, and Alice went on to the third grade. The thing was, my dad took to tutoring Alice every morning from 7:30 to 8:00 from third to seventh grade. My father would take Alice down to the basement of our home, which he used as his

office, and pounded historical facts and arithmetic equations and whatnot down Alice s throat. I mean, it was horrible. My father would be screamin about fractions or somethin , and Alice would come upstairs cryin elephant tears or somethin . I mean, when I saw my sister cryin the way she did, I wanted to beat up my dad. And he used to call Alice big head. Come on, big head, he used to cry out loud. You can get this! You can get this! You re not a dummy! Your mother is the dummy! You can get this! And I remember one time, when Alice was in sixth or seventh grade, my father was shouting down in the basement: Looky here, big head! I m Junipero Serra! Junipero Serra! I m sailing down the Mississippi! I guess my father was abit of a thespian too. And my dear old dad used to threaten to beat us all the time, though he never actually did. But actually I saw him hit my brother one time. It was down in the basement again. I don t remember what the situation was. Maybe my brother, Kevin, had brought home poor grades from hisfreshman year in high school. I mean, Kevin was always bringin home bad grades, especially from his freshman year at St. Gonzaga Aloysius Catholic High School. I mean, all my brother wanted when he graduated eighth grade was to go to the Catholic St. John s Military High School, where all his friend were going. But my father forced him to go to Gonzaga, a Jesuit school. My father always said the Jesuits were the best educators. Whatever, my father was in one of his rages, and his head looked like a tomato which was about to burst, and his veins were poppin out all over his forehead and everything. And it was like he was tryin to speak, but he couldn t get any words out, only grunts and groans. It was like he was a man in a strait jacket, struggling ferociously to get out, and he was moanin and groanin and whatnot. Whatever, Kevin was squared up to my old dad, standin right in front of my old man. And Kevin was defiant and fearless and brave. Silently, he begged for my father to hit him. He wanted to prove to my dad that he could take anything the old man had to dish out. Then my dear old dad cocked his right arm back and thrust it like an alligator or somethin right into the center of my brother s chest, knocking him straight back. Kevin bashed into the old coffee table we had there down there in the basement. Then he fell squarely onto the table, snapping off one of its legs. My father, his face still looking like a tomato which was about to burst, rushed at Kevin, screamin , Now look what you have done! Now look what you have done! You broke the God-damned coffee table! And Kevin quickly responded, Timmy did it! Timmy did it! And my father screamed, Now you re lyin to me, boy! Now you re lyin to me! And that s when I stepped in. I mean, I was standin there watchin all this happen, and I just stepped in between my father and my brother. Kevin didn t do it! He didn t do it, daddy! I shouted. I broke the table! I broke the coffee table! This seemed to mollify my father, and I don t remember what all happened next. I suppose my father turned away, walked up the stairs and left. And my brother said, Thanks, Timmy. Thanks for saving me. And I mean, I was speaking the truth. I had broken the table, like, a week earlier. I mean, I had sat on it or somethin , and one of the legs snapped off. I mean we my four sisters and brother had a big conference about it. We decided my father would kill me if he found out that I had broken the table, and so we decided we had to fix it. We got some Scotch tape and taped the thing the leg, that is back on, hoping my father wouldn t notice. I mean, it was our only hope. I mean, my sisters and brother and I were always banning together in order to prevent some outburst of rage from my father, which we always knew was comin . I mean, I could cite other examples of my father s cruelty and crudeness. I mean, there was one time my father told one of my sister s dates that he would no longer be permitted to go out with my sister because he was only a construction

worker. And then there was the time when my father turned away from the front door of our house one of my sister s dates because said date was a Jew. I mean, I think you get the idea. So I mean, yeah, rotten childhood, scared little boy and all and all screwed up and all, and what I was getting to was my first drink of alcohol. I mean that this was clearly a sign that things rattling around my brain weren t rattling like they were supposed to. I mean, I was 14 at the time, 14 and in eighth grade. It s possible that I was 13, but 14 is more likely. I mean, I think it was April 1967, which would have made me 14. And I used to hang out in those days with a kid named Jimmy Day. And Jimmy was the worst behaved kid in all of St. Anne s, and I was the best. I guess we were proof of the contention that opposites attract. And Jimmy s parents were alcoholics. I mean, for sure his mother was. I mean, when she got drunk, she couldn t speak. She just sort of blabbered. And she couldn t stand up straight when she was drunk, which was almost all the time. And when and Jimmy came home after school at around 3 p.m., Jimmy had to take his mom from the kitchen, where she kept a bottle of whiskey in the cabinet beneath the sink, and guide her upstairs and put her to bed. Jimmy always instructed me not to go into his parents bedroom. And Jimmy s dad used to drink bourbon all the time too. But he could talk when he was drunk, and he had a job down there at the old passport section of the old State Department and all, but he never lost his job from drinkin or nothin . So maybe he wasn t an alcoholic. But for sure he got drunk a lot. So there was always booze in Jimmy s house. And so one day out of the ether I said to Jimmy, We should get drunk. And Jimmy said, Yeah, we should, and I know justhow to do it. And one day after school, after Jimmy had put his mother to bed, and this time he locked his mother in the bedroom, Jimmy said to me, We re gonna get drunk today. Come on, Timmy, we re gonnadrink a boilermaker. And Jimmy took me to his kitchen, and he pulled his mother s bottle of bourbon from the cabinet beneath the sink, and he set the bottle on the kitchen table. He next pulled a can of Budweiser beer from the refrigerator and put it on the table too. Then he pulled a tea cup from a cabinet. He filled the cup halfway with bourbon then filled the rest of it with the beer. Here, he said, handing me the cup. Drink this! It s a boilermaker! I took the cup into my right hand and brought it to my mouth. I hesitated because I could smell the bourbon mixed with beer, and I was revolted by the smell. Drink it! said Jimmy. Drink it! So I put the tea cup to my lips and took a small sip, but I drank no more. I didn t cough or nothin , but I hated the taste of the drink. I wasn t too keen on these boilermaker things, and I handed the cup back to Jimmy, and I began to leave. As I approached the back door, Jimmy said, What? You re not gonna drink your boilermaker? What a sissy! What a sissy boy! Then I left, thinkin about how my father, who used to point out as an example of who not to be like the male dancer on The Lawrence Welk Show, had told me to never be a sissy boy. The next day I asked Jimmy if he drank the boilermaker, and he said yes. I asked him if he got drunk, and again he said yes. I got good and drunk, as a matter of fact, he said. And I was jealous. So from a very early age, I wanted to

get drunk. I mean, for some reason, practically ever since I can remember, I wanted to get out of my head. Harsh childhood aside, I think I was just wired that way. I think I was wired to get wasted. So Jimmy and I started drinkin on the weekends after that. We didn t steal any more of his mother s bourbon though. We got his older brother, Larry, to buy us beer, and we took the beer into the woods behind the old Hot Shoppes up there at Wisconsin Avenue and Van Ness Street. We and Jimmy usually used to drink alone, but sometimes we drank with this other guy in our class, Clay Evans. And Clay was a skinny kid and all, and he weighed something like 70 or 75 pounds or somethin . And he d take two or three sips of beer, and he would put his thumbs under his armpits, and he d start walkin around in circles, squawking like a chicken. I m Super Chicken! he used to say in between squawks. And Jimmy used to get disgusted with Clay about this. Not that he minded his strutting around claiming to be Super Chicken. Jimmy thought that was pretty funny. But Jimmy used to say, God damn it! Nobody can get drunk on two sips of beer! You gotta drink more than one or two sips to get drunk! And so every weekend, on both Friday and Saturday evenings, me and Jimmy used to get drunk in the wood behind the old Hot Shoppes, sometimes with Clay Evans sometimes not. And we drank Iron City beer, and in case you don t know it, Iron City was pure rot gut. It went for something like 75 cent a six pack in those days. So come June, after like three months of drinkin on the weekends, Jimmy Day, sometimes known as J. Day but more often Crazy Day, decided he was going to have an eighth grade graduation party at his house. And he was going to have a lot of beer there too. And so there were like seven of us: me and Crazy Day; Clay Evans and his girlfriend, Stephanie Kernan; Dennis Lynch; Tessie Connors and Sharon Tufts. We were all graduates of St. Anne s well, not exactly. I mean, were all 14 at the time, but Stephanie and Tessie had just finished seventh grade. They were originally in our class, but they both stayed back a year, I think in sixth grade it was. Whatever, the seven of us got together one Friday evening in June there in 1967 at about 7 in Jimmy s basement. Jimmy s parents were away, I don t know where, or maybe they were just out for the evening. So I mean we all started drinkin the Iron City beers up. I mean, we all drank one or two, and Jimmy probably drank three or four, for he always drank more than everybody else. And we were all goofy and drunk, and what I remember was that Stephanie Kernan and Clay Evans were lyin down together, Clay on top of Stephanie, on this cot on a far end of the room. They pulled this old green Army blanket over themselves and were makin out like drunkIndians or somethin . I learned years later from Clay that both he and Stephanie lost their virginities at that party. And the girls were all drunked up and all, and we must have been playin Smokey Robinson and the Miracles or more likely My Girl by the Temptations, for we were always listenin to the Motown hits back then in the old late 60s. In the middle of the room, old Crazy Day was sort of attacking old Tessie Connors, and this was unusual for Tessie was hugely overweight. I mean she was obese. I mean, no one wanted to be her boyfriend or nothin , and certainly no one wanted to kiss her. I mean we, cruel children which we were, used to call her Two Ton Tessie and all. Nevertheless Jimmy persisted. Stop, Jimmy! Stop, Jimmy ! Tessie protested. And Jimmy was in a stupor, you know, the semiconscious state real bad drunks get into. I mean, Jimmy always used to get into a stupor when he drank. I mean, I think her really inherited his

alcoholism from his parents. And Jimmy was slow dancin with Tessie, and My Girl had to be playin real loud and all, and he had his head pressed to and in the middle of Tessie s ample bosom. He had his hands behind her back, and rather than holding old Two Ton Tessie to his chest, Jimmy was spending a good deal of energy tryin to unhook her bras. Stop it, Jimmy! Stop it! Tessie pleaded. And after valiant effort and great frustration, Jimmy yanked at the bras, snapping apart its metal hooks. No, Jimmy! No! said Tessie over and over again, but she really wasn t puttin up much resistance. I myself, uproariously drunk, had taken off my pants and after running around manically to all corners of the party in my underwear, settled on and zeroed in on old Sharon Tufts. Now we, the boys of St. Anne s, were all in agreement that Sharon Tufts was a good lookin girl and all, and we all used to comment on and admire her big tits. Sharon and I were slow dancing, and I was tryin to pull Sharon and her breasts to my chest, but Sharon resisted. Then I put my face toward Sharon s, tryin to kiss her with my exaggerated pursed lips, but Sharon shook her head back and forth. I mean, the girl was clearly drunk, like me, but she said, No, Timmy! No, Timmy! You love Mary Pat! You love Mary Pat! That was a reference to my girlfriend, Mary Pat Cosimano, who had enough sense to stay away from the party when she heard there was going to be booze there. I mean, Mary Pat always had a lot more sense than I did. And Mary Pat was an exceptionally beautiful girl, the most beautiful girl in all of St. Anne s, and I loved her passionately, probably pathologically passionately. No matter, as I held Sharon Tufts in my arms, I wished I didn t have a girlfriend. I wanted kisses from Sharon Tufts. Come on, Sharon! Come on! I pleaded. Just this time!Just this time! And throughout all this I m not sure what Dennis Lynch was doing.I mean, I suppose he was mostly drinkin . I mean, Dennis was a good drinker, and he was the only one who could drink almost as much as Crazy Day could. But his drinkin was interrupted because his mother appeared on the scene. The back door of the basement was open. I think we needed some air circulation in the June D.C. heat. And the door led to some steps which went up a stairwell, and Mrs. Lynch stood at the top of the stairwell. She cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled, Dennis! Dennis Lynch! You come out of there right now! And Dennis kinda sobered up real quick and ran up the stairs and returned home with his mom. I always wondered whether Mrs. Lynch saw me running around in my underwear. I later asked Dennis if he got in much trouble, and he said not too much. He said he got grounded for a week and his mother told him that he was not allowed to go to any parties aver again. And I mean, I don t know how the party resolved itself. I mean, I don t know if Crazy Day felt up Two Ton Tessie s tits or not, and I don t know how or when Clay Evans and StephanieKernan disengaged. I do remember that I didn t kiss Sharon Tufts though. I mean, she just wouldn t let me. I mean I can still hear her now: No, Timmy! No! You love Mary Pat! I mean, that s all she would say, but put out, as we used to say in those days, Sharon did not. And I mean, that s really the end of my story. I mean, I just wanted to get across the idea that I was a real screwed up kid. I mean, I was like a young Holden Caulfield, if you ask me.