Read Oliver's Story for Free Online

new wave of immigrants would work for even less!
    “Blank blank blanking blanking blank!”
    Later that semester I was grinding in the Radcliffe Library. There I met a girl. Jenny Cavilleri, ’64. Her father was a pastry chef from Cranston. Her late mother, T’resa Verna Cavilleri, was the daughter of Sicilians who had emigrated to . . . Fall River, Massachusetts.
    “Now can you understand why I resent my family?”
    There was a pause.
    “Five o’clock tomorrow,” Dr. London said.

Chapter Nine

    I ran.
    When I left the doctor’s office I felt much more angry and confused than when I had begun. And thus the only therapy for therapy seemed to be running hard in Central Park. Since our chance reunion I had managed to con Simpson into working out with me. So whenever hospital commitments gave him time, we’d meet and circumambulate the reservoir.
    Happily, he never asked me if I ever followed up with Miss Joanna Stein. Did she ever tell him? Had she diagnosed me too? Anyway, the subject was conspicuously absent from our dialogues. Frankly, I think Steve was satisfied that I was talking to humanity again. I never bullshit with my friends and so I told him I had started seeing a psychiatrist. I didn’t offer details and he didn’t ask.
    This afternoon, my session with the doctor had me very agitated and unwittingly I ran too fast for Steve. After just a single lap, he had to stop.
    “Hey, man, you go this one alone,” he puffed. “I’ll pick you up on number three.”
    I was pretty tired too, and so I slowly jogged to get my own breath back. Nonetheless, I trotted by some of the many athletes who appear at eventide in multicolored, multiformed and multipaced variety. Of course the New York club guys would go by me like a shot. And all the high school studs could dust me off. But even when I jogged I did my share of passing: senior citizens, fat ladies and most children under twelve.
    Now I was flagging and my vision slightly blurred. Sweat got in my eyes and all I vaguely could perceive of those I passed was shape and size and color of their plumage. Hence I can’t accurately say just who was running to and fro. Until the incident I now relate.
    A form was visible some eighty yards ahead of me, the sweatsuit blue Adidas (i.e., quite expensive) and the pace respectable. I’ll groove along and gradually pick off this . . . girl? Or else a slender boy with long blond hair.
    I didn’t gain, so I accelerated toward the blue Adidas. It took twenty seconds to get close. Indeed, it was a girl. Or else a guy with a fantastic ass—and I would have another issue to discuss with Dr. London. But no, as I drew nearer still, I definitely saw a slender lady whose blond tresses were a-blowing in the wind. Okay, Barrett, make like you’re Bob Hayes and pass this runner with panache. I revved up, shifted gears and gracefully gunned by. Now on to newer challenges. Up ahead I recognized that burly opera singer whom I regularly took in stride. Mr. Baritone, you’re Oliver’s next victim.
    Then a figure passed me in a flash of blue. It had to be a sprinter from the Millrose Club. But no. The azure form was that same nylon-packaged female whom I’d calculated to be twenty yards behind me. But now she was ahead again. Perhaps it was some new phenom I should have read about. I shifted gears again to get another look. It wasn’t easy. I was tired, she was going pretty well. I caught up at last. Her front was even nicer than her back.
    “Hey—are you some champion?” I inquired.
    “Why do you ask?” she said, not very out of breath.
    “You went right by me like a shot. . . .”
    “You weren’t going all that fast,” she answered.
    Hey, was that supposed to be an insult? Who the hell was she?
    “Hey, was that supposed to be an insult?”
    “Only if you’ve got a fragile ego,” she replied.
    Although my confidence is shatterproof, I nonetheless was pissed.
    “You’re pretty cocky,” I replied.
    “Was that supposed to be