Indecent Proposal

by Jack Engelhard

  So don’t go giving yourself away, I thought, and when we left the casino I tried to be cheerful.

  “I got a royal flush,” she said.

  “You sure did.”

  “Hope I don’t get hooked. That was fun.”

  “Sure was.”

  No mention of the thousand dollars. She did not see things that way.

  We walked back, and near Bally’s Park Place police had a black man down on the ground. Bystanders said he had snatched a purse. The black man, held tight to the boards by five officers, was saying, “It wasn’t me. Let me go.”

  They had him pinned in police hold number two.

  I turned to Joan. “Do something?” I said.

  “There’s nothing to do,” she admitted, but we sped up and hastened back to the Galaxy.

  But before heading back to our room, a thought suddenly depressing, we strolled over to the Boardwalk railing and gazed out at the ocean. We stood there for some time and said nothing, and I knew her mind was working--she kept shooting me side glances, occasionally sighing and smiling and now and then touching my face.

  One of the rolling-chair boys shouted out, “Give the lady a ride!”

  I waved back.

  Before he took off again, he said, “Beautiful lady like that!”

  Then it became quiet again, as if everybody had left. She resumed her study of the ocean, following the waves lapping in gently, and she turned to me in great determination to say something monumental--staring firmly into my eyes and pressing her hand against my chest. But no words came. She had said something monumental, but she kept it to herself. Then she turned from me to face the ocean again.

  I felt that something great and deep and wonderful and awful had just passed between us, only I didn’t know what it was, exactly, except for this powerful impact of the unsaid.

  Now she said, “My father...for a time I thought all men were like my father. He was, and he is, a brutal man. Not physically. Never touched me or my mother or my sister, but that made him no less brutal.

  “He had wanted boys, and we were girls, and he never took us anyplace and he seldom talked to us. He had no patience at all for girls, and I’m sure he’d have been different with boys.

  “He actually blamed Mother for giving birth to girls, as though it was all her fault. She asked him, she said, ‘Would you have been happier with no children at all?’ He said yes. Yes! He even said that to my face, and Sunny bawled for a week.

  “But it’s a strange thing between daughters and their fathers. I remember when we went to see him off at the airport that one time, and when they started boarding I waited for him to turn and wave to me and--he didn’t. I felt so devastated.

  “I must have been about twelve and it made a terrific impression.

  “I thought all men were like this...like my father. Oh I had a wonderful childhood in many ways. Of course we were wealthy, but when you grow up wealthy you don’t know you’re wealthy. I mean we passed all those slums when we had to go into Philadelphia--but that was just scenery.

  “Father even said, ‘These aren’t real people. Think of them as extras.’

  “I’m not kidding.

  “Charles was the same way, and I’m sorry to bring his name up but he was my first husband. I mean he was and that’s a fact and I thought I loved him. Because I was supposed to love him.

  “He was a good man and he loved me but he was so...I mean he never exceeded himself. He never surprised me. I once bought him a book for his birthday--he only read those legal things, so I thought I’d buy him something literary. Updike I think it was--and he said, ‘What would I want with this?’

  “So I could see it happening. This was my father all over again.

  “You’ve met my father. You were there when he said, ‘Nothing is offensive.’

  “Well Charles was more sensitive, but not much.

  “Then you came along...Josh, it was so different...so exciting.

  “If you only knew how much I loved you, from the very beginning.

  “You were so perfect. In you own quiet way, so dashing. You were shy and brash and confident and insecure and so masculine and so vulnerable and you had been around and seen things and done things and yet you were not spoiled or ruined by it all, and not even cynical, though you like to think of yourself as cynical. But you’re not. No, Josh. You’re open and available.

  “I’ve been around, too, though not in the ways you have, all these things in Europe and then Israel and the women you’ve tried not to tell me about--but I’ve heard. Some rake you were. I’ve told you I’ve only been with two men, Charles and you, and it’s true. But my life really started when I met you. That’s when the adventure began. You are my adventure.

  “You’re not a woman so you’ll never understand, but take it from me, however liberated a woman is, she lives to please her man. It’s as old as the caves and there are a million exceptions, but it is a rule.

  “I’m a woman, Josh, and you know I fight for my rights--make all the fun you want about us whining about our disadvantages while sipping iced tea on the veranda of the country club.

  “All right, I’m not wholly with them and I’m not wholly against them. I’m me, an individual, an irreplaceable soul as you say, and the point is this--I may fight it when I find myself too confined, too much into you, too much a part of you, but I am yours. I want to please you.

  “I’m that old-fashioned.

  “I mean even the sex we do... you must admit some of it is kinky. But it pleases you so it pleases me--and I love it! I never thought I would do all those things, but I do love it, Josh.

  “But it’s not only the sex. The sex is even the least of it. It’s everything else. The books you read, the thoughts you think, the feelings you feel--I want all of that for me.

  “I wish I had been there with you in France, and on those sidewalks in Montreal, and I even wish I could have been there with you in battle. No, I’ll never understand you and you’ll never understand me--but that’s the fun.

  “I even have dreams of being a nurse and saving your life and falling in love. It’s rare, isn’t it to have fantasies about the man you already have!

  “You have to know all this, Josh, no matter what happens. And we know things are happening and we’re scared and we have every right to be because to use that word--it’s awesome, this thing. It’s awesome.

  “But you have to know that even when I get modern on you, and liberated, and rebellious, and remain a shiksa, deep inside I’m your Sarah, your Rebecca, your Rachel, your Leah. Now let’s go inside.”

  Now in our room, reality was back. Ibrahim and his offer were alive and well and living in Atlantic City.

  Time to go.

  She took her shower and got into her night things, and I said, “I’m ready.”

  “You are?”

  “To go home.”

  “Our vacation isn’t over,” she said.

  “For me it is.”

  “Isn’t this running away?”

  “Yes it is.”

  “You can’t run from this, Josh.”

  “Watch me.”

  “You’re a fighter, Josh.”

  “So I’m fighting.”

  “By running away?”

  “Strategic retreat.”

  “You’re a war hero. You have all those medals from Israel.”

  “I can face an Arab with a rifle. How do I stand up to an Arab with a million dollars?”

  We sat down on the bed. Now we were weary. Exhaustion overtook us both at the same time. As if by signal we knew we had come to the end, for now. Joan’s face, usually shaded by high crimson, was now chalk white.

  “So what do we do?” she asked.

  “Forget,” I said. “We forget the whole thing.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I still think we should go home.”

  “Whatever you say. I love you, Josh.”

  “I love you, Joan.”

  I decided against joining h
er in bed. Instead I went down to the casino to play my game. Blackjack.

  I won $180. Once upon a time that would have been a fortune. I’d have sped up to Joan to report the wonderful news. But now... what was $180? Compared to, say, a thousand.

  Compared to, say, a million?

  We left Atlantic City the next morning.

  Chapter 13

  THE ALARM woke me at six. Monday morning, this was, in Philadelphia. Atlantic City was over. Philadelphia had begun. Joan was slumbering beside me. She still had a week to go on her vacation. My time was up. The alarm said so.

  “I hate Philadelphia,” I said as I pulled myself out of bed.

  “You’re waking me,” Joan murmured into her pillow. “Please be more quiet.”

  So I leaned over and whispered in her ear. “I hate Philadelphia. Have I told you lately how much?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll never know how much.”

  “I know. I know. Shh.”

  What shall I wear today? Me and my wardrobe of two and a half suits. I did a lot of mixing and matching. I’ll mix and match again today, I thought. No, I’ll wear the blue suit. Should wear a blue suit on my return.

  Should wear a suit always, of course, this being the wonderful world of business. Public relations, no less. Not to mention that this was the age when we were all supposed to look as if we’d been processed instead of born.

  But as often as not I wore jeans to the office and that upset the people, one vice president in particular. Word got back to me--from Myer Lipson--that this vice president had said, “The way Josh dresses you can tell he’s not serious about this job.”

  Serious? I should be serious about this job? Brain surgery, that’s serious! This was business. Didn’t anybody see the joke? Was I the only one who knew what was beneath the bottom line?

  The way they talked market and profit you’d think they were going to live forever. If anything, these business people died sooner than most. They had short life spans and, as far as I could tell, they left everything behind, even their markets and profits.

  Blue suit, I said to myself. I’ll wear the blue suit. I checked the armoire drawers.

  “I only have one pair of shorts left,” I said.

  “I have to do a wash.”

  “Only one pair of socks.”

  “So? Wear them.”

  “But they’re brown. I was going to wear my blue suit today.”

  “So wear your brown suit.”

  “No shirts to go with the brown suit.”

  “The white shirt,” she said.

  “The blood stain is still on the collar.”

  “It’s just a speck. It’s almost out. You should get the soles fixed on your shoes. Need heels, too.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  I tottered to the bathroom, urinated, showered and cut myself shaving in the same spot as always, right by the Adam’s apple. I ruined more shirts this way. Damn, that got me mad.

  “Why are you swearing?”

  “Cut myself shaving. I hate Philadelphia.”

  I got dressed in the blue suit and brown socks. Who looks at socks anyway? I went down for the paper.

  “Guess what?” I said. “No paper.”

  “Call.”

  “I don’t have time to call. They keep you on hold for an hour. They play music while you wait. You call.”

  “When I get up.”

  I had some corn flakes and a cup of hot tea.

  “Bye,” I said.

  “Have a nice day.”

  “Too late.”

  I walked up to the bus stop on Old Bustleton. I passed neighbors getting into their cars. We didn’t talk. We only talked in the wintertime when we were out shoveling snow. In the summer we never talked.

  Once I talked to a neighbor and a week later he installed an aluminum fence around his house. Then he bought a mad dog that went berserk any time I passed the property. I got the hint.

  Now I waited for the bus. Please God, I prayed, let it be air conditioned and let there be a seat.

  But no bus showed up. Are they on strike? I wondered. I hadn’t been following the news. Somebody was always on strike. In this city they thought nothing of shutting down schools, highways, trains, garbage collection and even hospitals. This was a city that did not work.

  The bus did come though, as ordered, air conditioned and with room to sit. Incredibly, I did not have the right change. For three years I’d been doing this routine--but today I forgot. The smallest I had was a ten.

  “Exact change only,” said the bus driver.

  “You mean you won’t give me change?”

  “Exact change only.”

  I turned to the people on the bus. I said, “Can anybody here give me change for a ten?”

  But I was talking to the dead. A bus full of dead people.

  “All right,” I said to the driver. “Will you take my ten?”

  “Put it in the machine.”

  I had to slide the bill through the slot, face up. But I didn’t. I tried to slide it through face down. The bus driver--all he had to do was tell me, remind me. But he just sat there and watched me. They don’t tell you anything here in the City of Brotherly Love. They just watch you. Finally, I got it right.

  These new buses were built for half-assed people. I squeezed in, in the back of the bus, between a middle-aged lady to my left and a well-dressed--for Philadelphia--man to my right. He was about thirty and there was nothing especially disgusting about him.

  I took out a book from my briefcase to have cover in case it go crowded and some old lady tried to pity me out of my seat. I used to be a sucker for old ladies, but the Philadelphia variety were so mean-spirited that there was no choice but to be scornful of them.

  As we moved along I did some sightseeing on Bustleton Avenue. Trash everywhere! Incredible. I should have been used to it by now, but I wasn’t. I wondered, are the brooms on strike? The outdoor garbage containers had signs that said Help Keep Philadelphia Clean. Keep? This is clean? But yes, in Philadelphia filthy is clean. Or clean enough.

  The well-dressed man to my right let out a big juicy ball of spit.

  “What?” I said.

  He did not hear me. He was also dead.

  What am I doing here!

  In the winter they coughed in your face, sneezed, wheezed and snorted. You thought you were in a zoo. In the summer it wasn’t so bad. But now I had me a spitter. That was something new.

  I’d often said that the inhabitants should be removed from Philadelphia, and then the place ought to be bombed. Now I wasn’t so sure, I mean about removing the inhabitants.

  How, I wondered, did all the slobs of the world manage to collect in one place? How did they all find Philadelphia? Had there once been a convention where it was decided that this was the promised land of slobs?

  This had been the city of the Declaration of Independence. Now it was the city of the soft pretzel. This was the city that went mad when Leonard Tose threatened to move the Eagles football team to Phoenix. Years earlier when the teachers went on strike nobody cared, certainly not as much.

  Then, of course, there were the Mummers.

  Now he spat again, a big fat juicy blob of spit.

  “Hey,” I said.

  I gave him an elbow.

  “Yo!” he said.

  That was what they said here: “Yo.”

  Yo, Angelo!

  He spat again.

  I thought, I paid ten dollars--ten dollars!--for this?

  “Slob,” I said.

  Right, I thought, Slob City USA.

  He spat again. There was now a puddle in front of us.

  I gazed around for support, for an uprising. But no, they were still dead, the other passengers.

  One more time, I thought, and I belt him in the mouth. For now, I merely tapped his hands. This was not real violence, but it was physical contact--and this was not like me, not at all, to hit people in peacetime. Only this was war.

  “Yo!” said a
voice from the front.

  It was my friend the bus driver.

  “What’s going on back there?” he wanted to know.

  “This guy’s hitting me,” the slob said.

  “This guy’s spitting,” I said.

  The bus driver stopped the bus--we were at Bustleton and Roosevelt--and walked back.

  “All right,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  “He’s hitting me.”

  “He’s spitting,” I said, “on your bus.”

  “Aren’t you the guy...”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m the guy.”

  “I can order you off this bus.”

  “I paid ten dollars for this bus.”

  “Look, I don’t want trouble.”

  “Tell this guy to stop spitting.”

  “No trouble, understand? Or I call the cops.”

  Most of the cops in Philadelphia were in jail anyway.

  The driver walked back to his seat and moved us out again.

  “I have a condition,” said the slob. He said it in such a confidential tone that I could not be angry at him anymore.

  “What condition?”

  “A condition.”

  “Everybody’s got a condition,” I said.

  “Mine’s special.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said. “Sorry I hit you.”

  “You shouldn’t go around hitting people.”

  “Usually I don’t. You’re the first.”

  Now the bus stopped at the terminal at Bridge and Pratt, and all the dead people got out and began a dash for the els, as the subways here are called. I got out with the rest of them and was met by heaps of debris and pigeons that flew straight for your face. They were also Philadelphians, the pigeons.

  I got on a train and sat where somebody had just vomited and began the twenty-five-minute ride to Center City, a ride that took you past ten miles of rot on both sides. Nothing but windowless row houses, decaying factories, ravaged warehouses. Only the bars were still in business. There was graffiti on everything from top to bottom, from end to end, as a signature to surrender. This was a gasping city.

  Chapter 14

  THE OFFICE was on the seventh floor of a renovated building on Twelfth between Market and Chestnut. There had been a riot here a couple of weeks before I had left for vacation. Smashing and looting and nobody knew why. This wasn’t the sixties. The mayor had said that it was just kids having fun.