His Name Is Ron Read Free Page B

close and said firmly, “Kim, just call your dad.” He was wearing a T-shirt with a low collar, and Kim noticed that his chest was flushed and his heart seemed to be beating fast.
    A small light went on in her brain. She and Joe had been discussing the possibility of marriage. Ah-hah, she thought. The phone is in the bedroom. Maybe Joe’s got a surprise waiting for me in there! She made a quick stop in the bathroom and then headed for the bedroom.
    No surprises were apparent and Kim was a little disappointed, but she decided that as long as she was there, she would go ahead and call home. As she dialed, Joe came into the room and motioned for her to sit down on the bed. He sat very close, as if he wanted to listen in on the conversation.
    Patti and I answered the phone on two extensions at the same time. The conversation went very, very fast.
    â€œKim, are you at home?” I asked.
    â€œYeah,” she said.
    â€œIs Joe with you?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œDid you watch the news today?”
    This is totally weird, Kim thought. “No, I didn’t. Why?”
    â€œDid you hear about Nicole Brown Simpson?”
    â€œI don’t know who that is.”
    â€œShe’s O. J. Simpson’s ex-wife.”
    â€œWho’s that?”
    Kim could tell that I was stalling. Get to the point, she thought. Who are these people he’s talking about?
    How could I tell her this? I had to do it. I said, “Well, she was killed with somebody else, with a friend. Did you hear that?”
    â€œNo.”
    There was another short pause.
    â€œKim,” I said, my voice breaking, “Ron was killed.”
    Kim’s mind raced erratically: I didn’t call him back. Ron called me last week and I never called him back! Why didn’t I call him back?
    She could hear Patti and me crying on the other end of the line. She looked at Joe. He was crying too.
    When you learn that someone has died, you think cancer. When you hear that someone was killed, you think car accident. Ron had a car accident? Kim thought. She threw the phone down and screamed, “How did Ron die? Did he die in a car accident?”
    Joe picked up the phone and heard me crying. “Calm her down,” I stammered. “Get her some Valium. Calm her down.”
    I told Joe that it was not a car accident. We did not know yet what had happened, just that he had been murdered.
    Kim grabbed the phone out of Joe’s hands. “Do we have to identify him?” she asked.
    I told her that would not be necessary.
    I kept crying and begging her to calm down, but Kim was falling backward into what she would later describe as a bottomless black tunnel. Ron was gone. Her brother was gone. Those were the only words she heard.
    Before Kim had arrived home, Joe had called the airline and changed their reservations from Wednesday night to tonight. They would leave for the airport in a few hours and would be in L.A. later this evening.
    Kim paced, dry-eyed, around the apartment. Adrenaline rushed through her like some kind of unknown, frightening narcotic.
    Suddenly she was five years old again. She began to ramble: “I’ve got to pack. Do I have to go to a funeral? Is there a funeral? Do we bury? I have to pack.”
    Joe watched silently as she threw dozens of pieces of underwear, and nothing else, into a suitcase.
    *   *   *
    Michael did not know how long he sat on the edge of Ron’s bed, crying. Finally he composed himself as much as he could and went downstairs. He heard me on the phone, repeating over and over again, “It’ll be okay, honey. We’ll make it through.” He knew that I was talking to Kim. Patti was standing over me, watching carefully.
    Michael knew how close Kim and Ron were. How will she ever be able to handle this? he wondered.
    He turned and ran back upstairs to Ron’s old room. He still needed to cry in private.
    Patti phoned two of our close friends, Rob and