Nathan in Spite of Himself

by Bernie Silver

  He squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them they were watery. “Tell me something, Nate, why do we do it … mess around on our women?”

  He was asking me, the guy who couldn’t mess around on a woman even if he wanted to because he had no woman to mess around on? He was asking me? Yes, I decided, since he was looking right at me.

  I figured the least I could do was answer him. “Sorry, I haven’t a clue.”

  Dan went on as if he hadn’t heard me, not that he’d have gained anything if he had. “It isn’t a matter of intelligence. The best and the brightest do it all the time. There’s a rumor that Kennedy cheated so often it was hard to keep count. And he had Jackie, for gosh sakes.” Dan’s voice caught as he added, “The way I had Irene.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I ordered a couple more drinks. While waiting for their arrival I asked, just out of curiosity, “How’d she find out?”

  Dan said nothing, so I thought he hadn’t heard me. I was about to repeat the question when he finally replied.

  “I told her.”

  “What?”

  That escaped before I could head it off.

  “What I’d done,” he said, “it preyed on my mind the whole next day. By the time I saw her that night I couldn’t stand it anymore so I came right out and confessed.”

  Our drinks arrived and we both sipped.

  “She didn’t even get angry,” Dan said. “Just told me, as calm as can be, she appreciated my honesty but it was over between us. I begged her to reconsider but she wouldn’t budge. Said she was giving up on men.” He took another swallow. “Claimed we have no self-control.”

  I wouldn’t know about that, since I’d never had to exert any, at least not when it came to women. Which got me to thinking. What if Irene Driscoll had showed up one night without Dan Feeney, and what if she’d plied me with drinks and insisted I take her to bed? That would have been a test, which I’d no doubt have flunked. I couldn’t begin to imagine resisting such an invitation, even from my best pal’s girlfriend, especially when she looked like Irene.

  The inescapable conclusion: she was right about men.

  #

  Dan Feeney and I met several times for drinks over the next few months, and on each occasion he cried in his Scotch and thanked me for my friendship. To avoid disillusioning him I withheld my thoughts regarding his ex-girlfriend.

  And so when February 2 rolled around I was grateful to be leaving Kodiak before I could say something stupid, maybe in a drunken stupor, and add to Dan’s pain. This rare act of discipline, which is how I viewed my restraint, allowed me to savor all the more my flight off the island.

  And out of the fucking Navy.

  Chapter 45

  1965

  The first thing I noticed after returning to civilian life was nothing much had changed on the home front. In fact, nothing at all had changed. Things were as neat and tidy as ever, and I mean all things, from the garbage cans in the alley to the canned goods in the cabinets to the knickknacks throughout the house. All were neatly aligned in tidy little rows, as if awaiting personnel inspection.

  I entertained these thoughts as I sat on the plastic-covered sofa in our immaculate living room staring out the spotless front window. Hell, even the blanket of snow covering the lawn was neat and tidy. Wrinkle-free, you might say. I felt like going out there and messing it up, and I might have done so if it weren’t so damn cold out. Not Alaska cold, but cold enough to send shivers down my spine. In fact, I shivered at the mere thought of going outside.

  “Have you eaten?”

  Mom’s voice.

  I turned to see her and Dad standing at attention, she in a pink cotton housedress, he in a blue terrycloth robe. They also wore smiles, but these seemed strained for some reason. Which reminded me of the scene at the airport yesterday. I’d no sooner strolled through the gate at Detroit Metropolitan than Dad grabbled me and gave me a bear hug, which must have stopped all the clocks in the city, so rarely did he display this form of affection. Finally he held me at arm’s length and peered at me for what seemed like an hour. When at last he said, “Welcome home, my boy,” I knew something was up. Dad never called me his “boy.” His “pain in the ass” maybe, but never something Ozzie might call David or Ricky. As for Mom, I knew she was fond of schmaltz—and I don’t mean chicken fat—but after Dad finished mauling me she poured it on even more than usual, devouring me with kisses and throwing in a hug that almost matched his.

  Now here were the two of them, smiling yet looking downcast.

  “Yes, I’ve eaten,” I said in answer to Mom’s question. “I grabbed a bowl of cereal.”

  I hardly expected them to click their heels, but neither did I think Dad would snap at me.

  “What? You couldn’t wait for us?” he said snappishly.

  Strange. I often ate without my parents, especially on Saturday mornings before they got up, and not once had they protested. I was pondering how to answer Dad’s question when Mom saved me the trouble.

  “You eat without me all the time, Al Rubin. Whenever you’re hungry, you eat.”

  “What’re you talking about? I always wait—”

  “You do not.”

  “Do too.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do … all right, all right already,” Dad said. “Let’s not argue on his second day home. Tomorrow we can argue.”

  “We won’t argue tomorrow either,” Mom said. “I’m tired of arguing with you all the time.”

  “Is that right? Then why do you pick fights with me all the time?”

  “I pick fights? I pick fights?”

  Now they sounded more like their normal selves, so I tuned them out for a while. When I returned Mom was saying “… have coffee with us while we eat.”

  I searched for an excuse to decline but drew a blank, so I followed them into the kitchen, where the weirdness continued. This was Saturday, right? And yet Dad was gathering the ingredients for fried matzos.

  Had I entered the Twilight Zone?

  I poured myself some coffee and sat in my usual spot, a bit more relaxed. Maybe because familiarity bred content, or something. My parents eventually joined me, their plates fully loaded.

  “You sure you won’t have some matzos?” Mom asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “One bowl of cereal can’t be enough.”

  “It was a big bowl. And it was more than enough.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’m positive, in fact.”

  Jesus.

  “We want you to be well, that’s all,” Mom explained. “And to live a long and healthy life.”

  What the hell?

  I was well, and she knew it. And of course I’d live a long and healthy life. What made her think otherwise?

  “Have some matzos,” Dad said. “Please.”

  Please?

  I couldn’t take much more of this. Maybe they were softening me up for another move. On the drive home, besides continually asking me how I was, they’d kvetched about dwindling property values, a result of the increasing number of shvartz moving into the neighborhood.

  “We have nothing against them, of course,” Dad said.

  “Yes, they have a right to live anywhere they want,” Mom added.

  “But our house is an investment.”

  They were definitely thinking of moving again. Were they concerned about my reaction? They needn’t be, since I intended to move out after landing a job, hopefully with a newspaper. The very thought of being on my own boosted my spirits, so I relented.

  “Okay, I’ll have some matzos. But only a small portion.”

  Looking pleased, Mom went to the kitchen and loaded a plate with Dad’s specialty, thus forgetting, or more likely ignoring, my request. She returned, set the plate down and reseated herself.

  “Ess.”

  I took a bite to satisfy her.

  After a moment, and without having eaten anything herself, she
said, “You knew Ernie Schwartz, right?”

  Of course I knew the little weasel. And she knew I knew him, because I mentioned him from time to time, for instance when he said or did something even dumber than usual. But I let that go.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “He’s … well … that is …”

  “He’s dead,” Dad said.

  No he’s not. He couldn’t be. People Ernie’s age—my age—didn’t die. People I knew didn’t die. Maybe an ancient relative now and then, but never a young person. Whether or not I liked Ernie was beside the point. He shouldn’t be dead.

  “He was killed three days ago in Vietnam,” Mom said. “I read it in the Free Press the day before yesterday.”

  It was true then. A paper wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.

  My stomach knotted.

  Mom continued anyway. She’d called Ernie’s mother, whom she knew through Hadassah, to offer her condolences. Irene Schwartz explained between sobs that her son had been shipped to Vietnam and killed when two choppers, one carrying Ernie, collided in midair.

  My mom paused to collect herself. “That poor boy. He was so young, like you.”

  “We were sick all day just thinking about it,” Dad said. “And we thought about how it could have been you, flying off that ship or something.” He patted Mom’s hand. “We’re just glad you’re back safe and sound.”

  With that, the realization I could have been killed sank in. When I’d enlisted, the possibility of my dying in battle seemed remote; the country hadn’t fought a war in nearly a decade. But hostilities broke out in Vietnam while I was still in the Navy and the Coral Breeze could easily have been sent there, might even be there now since the country was located in PacFleet territory. If I’d enlisted a year or two later, I could still be aboard ship, getting shot at or bombed or whatever enemies did to each other at sea.

  I lost what little appetite I had and asked to be excused. My parents, absorbed in conversation, consented absentmindedly and I stumbled to my room and threw myself on the bed. I’d hoped to banish thoughts of my demise by napping, but a troubling recollection kept me awake. I remembered how we’d treated Ernie Schwartz at school—heckling him, laughing at him, sometimes even calling him names. Would we have done that if we knew he’d be dead soon? Maybe. But now that he’d died, our behavior in retrospect seemed cruel, even vicious.

  As if I weren’t feeling shitty enough, I realized something else. I was glad Ernie Schwartz had been shipped to Vietnam and not me.

  I never did fall asleep, and slept only fitfully that night.

  Chapter 46

  For the next several weeks I was paralyzed, unable to do much beyond eat, sleep, shower and relieve myself. Just thinking about reading a book or talking on the phone, let alone looking for a job, exhausted me. The one thing I managed beyond the essentials was to watch television, especially the afternoon soaps, my favorites being Guiding Light and General Hospital.

  I don’t know what caused the paralysis. Maybe fear of death, or of reentering the world, or of enduring the still-wintry weather. Any one of these things or something else entirely may have been the culprit. What I knew for sure, but acknowledged only grudgingly, was that on some days I actually enjoyed doing nothing, maybe because I normally felt obliged to do something, preferably something useful. Or perhaps because I’d skipped childhood and gone directly to adulthood, bypassing act-crazy and laze-about. In ninth grade, Sheldon accused me of being fourteen going on forty. I told him he was full of shit, or words to that effect, but these days I wasn’t so sure.

  Anyway, I knew one other thing for certain, besides my (probably temporary) enjoyment of idleness: though no longer in the Navy, I was more at sea than ever.

  #

  About a month into this lethargy I was lying in bed communing with Miss Russell when the phone rang. I waited for my Mom or Dad to pick up, then remembered they’d gone to see some Doris Day confection at the Linwood.

  Que sera sera.

  Such fatalism failed to work with the phone, however, since it threatened to ring forever unless I answered it. So I grabbed the extension next to the bed and growled a hello.

  In return I got, “Fuck y’all and that ship you was on.”

  Instantly I felt better, like I might live after all.

  “Hey, man, how you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m doin,” Wonderman said. “Question is, what you doin thass so portant you couldn even call. You been home for what now … four, five weeks?”

  I skipped the excuses and went directly to an apology. “I’m sorry, I truly am. You’re right … I should’ve called by now. What can I say except I’m an asshole?” I paused before asking, “How’d you know I was home?”

  “I wrote it down, the day you said you was gettin’ out. Febooary 2, 1965. I figured I’d give you a week, maybe two, but this be March, man. Time’s up.”

  “I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Ain’t nothin you can say.”

  His laughter saved me the trouble of saying anything.

  “Thass okay,” Wonderman said. “I’s juss glad you ain’t done what I fraid you done … sign up for more a that shit. I hoped you too smart for that, but then you dumb enough to sign up in the first place …”

  I wish I could say, unequivocally, he was wrong, that I hadn’t even considered re-upping, but the fact is I had. Fleetingly, and not while I was on active duty, but after learning of Ernie’s death. I don’t know how to explain it, except that I wanted to strike out at something, to punch or shoot someone, preferably the enemy. But who was the enemy? The North Vietnamese? What the hell did they have to do with Ernie and me? If you believed the politicians, everything. If you believed in common sense, nothing. This domino theory they were pushing, that the commies would conquer the world, or at least part of it, if North Vietnam took over the South—that made no sense to me. The inescapable conclusion was that Ernie Schwartz had died for nothing.

  Maybe the politicians were the enemy. Maybe I ought to shoot them. Revenge became complicated, so I decided against it.

  “No,” I told Wonderman. “I may have been stupid enough to enlist, but not to sign up for six more years.”

  “Like I said, I kinda hoped thass how it’d turn out.”

  We talked about this and that for a couple minutes, then he asked, “You okay? You sound like yo mama done died.”

  “Not my mama …”

  I told him about Ernie.

  “Aw man, I’s sorry, I truly is. Them recruiters, they don’ mention that shit when they strokin yo dick. Sign up ’n see the world. They leaves out the part bout you gettin yo ass shot off. The guy what got killed, Bernie—”

  “Ernie.”

  “What?”

  “His name was Ernie.”

  “Yeah, Ernie. He ain’t the first one bought it over there, won’ be the last. Them gooks, they’s tough little fuckers. Prolly be a lot a dead mens fore this thing’s—”

  “Look, I’m sorry, I gotta go,” I announced abruptly.

  Wonderman took a beat, then said, “Hey man, I don’ know where my head’s at sometimes. I—”

  “It’s okay. I’m just in a shitty place.” Which I was. Again.

  “Tell you what,” he said. ”Let me buy y’all a drink … when you feelin better. We got some catchin up to do.”

  “Okay, I’ll call you.”

  “Yeah, like you done already.”

  “No, I promise.”

  “You better, man. You my token honky, so I can’t be losin’ yo ass.”

  Wonderman chuckled and hung up, as did I. Without the chuckle.

  Chapter 47

  It wasn’t an epiphany that finally got me off my ass and on my feet. Ah-hah moments were rare in my life. Nor was it scarce funds. I’d socked enough money away to get by for a while. It wasn’t my parents’ prodding, either. Thankfully they’d adopted a hands-off policy toward my current lifestyle.

  What drove me out of the house was the thing tha
t drove me crazy in the Navy. Boredom. I could take only so much staring at a screen or into space before I longed for a little action. I was hardly ready for gainful employment, but I itched to go somewhere and do something. Not something useful, as in the old days, but something I enjoyed.

  So I carefully examined my options and chose the most enjoyable of them all.

  #

  For the next month I visited half the bars in Detroit, no small feat given the vast number scattered throughout the city. And yet if I’d learned anything in life, and surprisingly I had, it was that with enough determination you could accomplish almost anything.

  I even expanded into the suburbs, specifically into Dearborn, where Mario’s Lounge on Michigan Avenue became my favorite haunt. For some reason, places with Lounge in their name appealed to me more than those calling themselves Something-or-Other Bar, Pub or Club. I had nothing against bars, pubs or clubs, but “lounge” implied intimacy, meaning an intimate relationship, meaning sex. Never mind why lounges suggested carnality to me. They just did.

  My peculiar tastes aside, what undoubtedly drew most guys to Mario’s was its main attraction, that newest craze in male entertainment called go-go dancing. A strip-tease-minus-the-strip, the art form featured half-naked, well-endowed “dancers” wiggling their butts to beat-heavy music like “Louie, Louie,” “Pretty Woman” and “Hang on Sloopy.” No doubt many men fantasized that one of these performers would eventually succumb to their charms, meaning their stares, and accompany them home after last call. Me, I harbored no such illusions, except when I was lit.

  Anyway, even longer than the odds against screwing a go-go dancer was sighting a Negro in Mario’s. Or anywhere else in Dearborn, for that matter. The dearth of blacks was attributable to Mayor Richard Lee Tubbin, a northern redneck and Dearborn’s greatest claim to fame next to the Ford Motor Company. Tubbin had been the city’s top dog for more than two decades, mainly because he kept them away, or, failing that, kept them at bay. He accomplished this through his police department, whose good old boys made Negroes as welcome in Dearborn as men in a nunnery.