Read Breakdown Lane, The for Free Online Page B

great, something we could share.
    “Vikram Leo!” I said, and began to applaud, the first time he limped into the house, so sweat-soaked he looked as though he’d been caught in a downpour, after an hour of contortions. Every few years, Leo would purchase a new pair of expensive running shoes, run twice through the neighborhood, then give the shoes to our tenant, Klaus. But no more. Days went by. Months. It began to seem like the real thing.
    As I virtuously rubbed arnica into his legs, he asked if I might not like to try it, too. “I don’t know if you could do it, though,” he said, “given the ballet. Ballet makes you stiff.”
    I did get…stiff, then, with indignation, and rubbed a little harder than was strictly necessary. But I forced a constipated little chuckle. “I, um, I’m actually pretty flexible, Leo. I think the two disciplines have a lot in common. So sure,” I told him, “I’ll come along….”
    “One works against nature and one with it, Julie. You should see people in this class, Jules. Women your age who lift a leg, standing, into an entirely straight plane, like a split standing up.”
    “I could probably do that. Uh, not.” “Not is right. And I never will. They’ve been doing a daily practice for years.”
    “You may be onto something. Everybody swears by it now. Even movie stars. I just can’t imagine the sitting-still part.”
    “That’s the big challenge. Just being in one place with yourself. I don’t know if you could concentrate enough. You’re Julie, my human jumping bean. Remember when you tried the self-hypnosis for labor?”
    “I remember that you were the one who got hypnotized.”
    “Well, I can concentrate.”
    “Leo, I can concentrate,” I hurrumphed. This was a lie. I can never think of fewer than four things at once. “I just can’t go into a coma. Remember before you went to law school? And I had the idea right after college I might go to law school, when you were still going to be a merchant prince? I did better on the LSATs than you did.” This was a sore point, still, and Leo bristled.
    “The LSATs are different from actual law school . Anyhow, ballet never led anyone to any kind of spiritual enlightenment.”
    “Neither did law school. And I was twenty-one when I took the law boards, Leo. You were thirty-five. And lots of religions use dance in their rituals and the stories dance tells.”
    “It’s the breathing, Jules. I feel as though I’ve taken my first real breaths since I was a kid.”
    “Well, all those monks just got head trips by hyperventilating. But, hey. I’ve always wanted you to work out with me. We can get long muscles and spir-it-u-al enlightenment together.”
    “Don’t mock it, Jules,” Leo said. “We’ve failed our kids in that area. They have no concept of Judaism or Christianity….”
    “They’re good Democrats, though,” I pointed out.
    “Oh, Julie,” Leo said with a sigh.
    But we had been relying on Mark Twain, Robert Frost, and Meredith Willson as the foundation of our kids’ moral development. Church just seemed to require such a big…effort. Still, we began to attend the Unitarian Meeting House in Sheboygan when Gabe was in about seventh grade and Caro in sixth. I liked it. I loved the Mozart, the old hymns such as “Simple Gifts,” the fiery political sermons. For Gabe, who couldn’t sit still, they had a Sunday school class for kids through ninth grade, in which they learned why early man worshipped fire and how to build one from nothing but a little dandelion fluff, and why planting trees for reforestation, which they did about every other week, was holy; and one for Caro about how the myths we consider fairy tales really were the basis of religions (Gabe called Caroline’s class the gospel according to Walt Disney). But during the silent prayers, Leo looked as though he were trying to take a shit. I think he was concentrating on all the sins he’d failed to repent, all the people at work he’d