The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty Read Free Book Online Page B

them.
    The coxswain on the Brown crew that was heading toward the bridge was named Sheila
     Rothenberg. Its the coxswains job, I found out, to steer the boat and keep a single rhythm
     going by using a little megaphone. Racing boats arent set up for the rowers to turn around
     and glance at what direction theyre going in. The rowers purpose is to row in an enormous
     stretch and pull, and there is simply no time for worrying where the boat was headed. That
     was Sheila Rothen- bergs job. She was a junior at Pembroke, which was really Brown,
    but in those days it was considered classy to have a division of the college just for
     women. At least thats what Sheila Rothenberg told me. Our family saw her maybe six times,
     because Mom and Pop were trying to figure out what happened. I thought it was enough that
     it had happened and they should leave it alone, but I surely liked this Sheila Rothenberg,
     who had the nicest breasts I had ever seen and never wore a bra.
    Here it is. The crew had passed under the Washington Bridge, where they did a wide turn
     before they shot up and away from the Providence Harbor toward the Pawtucket line. These
     boats fly, and the training for races, which they were doing, consisted of all-out,
     full-blast rowing until the crew almost died. There were one-man crews, two-man crews,
     four-man crews, and eight-man crews. Sheila Rothenbergs crew was eight-man, and, as I
     said, they were flying up the river. Sheila was concentrating on straightening out the
     heading by directing a stronger pull from her left rowers when she looked up and saw
     Bethany. At first she thought it was a statue, because she was about two hundred yards
     from the bridge and Bethany had gone into a pose. It must have been a good one, because
     Sheila could not see any movement at all except her hair blowing. My sister once tried to
     explain her poses to me. She said she was always trying to be com- pletely still. More
     than completely, actually. Bethany told me that if she could stand so even her heart didnt
     beat against her chest, every- thing, everywhere, would be all right. But, God, I hated
     her poses. I hated them.
    When Sheila got about seventy-five yards out, she could see it wasnt a statue but my naked
     sister, and before she could yell, Stop rowing! Bethany flew out from the metal girder at
     the top of the bridge and back-flopped into the icy, oily, polluted, horrible Provi- dence
     River.
    The clippings from the Providence Journal, December 28, 1962, say this:
    Twenty-Year-Old in Death Leap Saved by Brown University Crew
    A twenty-year-old East Providence woman attempted to take her life yesterday afternoon by
     leaping into the Providence River. Apparently the young woman had removed her clothing,
     climbed to the top of the old Red Bridge, and hurled herself into the freezing water.
     Luck- ily, a crew from Brown Universitys rowing team pulled the woman to safety.
    Then the paper quoted a couple of the guys and made them sound like heroes. The truth was,
     though, that the crew had hurt her worse than the fall. Sheila had trouble getting out her
     stop com- mand, and when Bethany bobbed to the surface, the boat popped her in the head.
     It opened a huge gash over her right eye and broke her nose. Im not saying it was their
     fault, because they did rescue her, more or less, but they became another link in the
     chain of nice people who, trying to help, changed my sisters face.
    My pop wanted all the facts. He became like a detective. He had to know when. When did she
     leave the Grace Church Thrift Shop? He had to know why. Why did she make that turn off
     Weybosset and over to the Red Bridge? All of it. Every night Pop would come home from the
     tankers, drive Mom to the Bradley Hospital, where Bethany had to go again, and from there
     start his rounds of investiga- tion. He spoke to each crew member, to the cops at the
     scene, drove the route to the Red Bridge,