Nathan in Spite of Himself

by Bernie Silver

  Now I resolved to get things back to normal between us, meaning friendly but sadly chaste.

  #

  On the drive back we gabbed as if nothing had happened at the park, and in a way nothing had. Unfortunately.

  We continued yakking at the entrance to Ellen’s west Dearborn apartment building until she stopped talking, gave me a look I couldn’t interpret and surprised me by putting her arms around my waist and resting her head on my chest. “It’s sometimes hard to be good, you know?” she said.

  I knew. I also knew it was sometimes hard to be bad, although God knows I’d tried. Hell, I couldn’t even get wicked overseas, where most guys did things that would give their parents a coronary. And now here was a beautiful woman with her arms around my waist and her head on my chest, a situation most men would have taken advantage of despite her earlier protestations. That’s because most men agreed with Wonderman that when a woman said no she meant yes. But I wasn’t most men. I took a woman at her word.

  What an idiot.

  To prove it, I disengaged from Ellen, said I hoped she’d had a good time and, before parting, kissed her lightly on the forehead. That’s right, on the forehead.

  For someone whose number-one priority was getting laid, I had a funny way of showing it.

  Chapter 58

  Wonderman took a swallow of Bud and slammed the bar with his fist. There was no cause for that really, other than his being drunk.

  I’d invited him to join me at the White Horse Bar and Grill on North Gully Road, and for the past hour and a half he’d downed his beers at a brisker pace than usual, and thrown in a shot now and then for good measure.

  Belatedly, a thought occurred to me: was our proximity to Dearborn making him nervous?

  “You gonna gimme a medal for comin here, riskin my life and such?” Which answered my question.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, answering his.

  “Purple Heart is what I deserve.” He nodded, apparently agreeing with himself.

  “That’s for getting wounded in battle. You’re not in battle and you’re not wounded.”

  “You bein awful picky, which you is a lot, case I ain’t tole you.”

  “You’ve told me. A lot.”

  “Well, I tellin you again. Thing of it is, I’s in a battle wit the man alla time. And Dearborn’s fulla mens, most of’m crackers, so I could get wounded any time now. Or even kilt.”

  “This is Dearborn Heights, not Dearborn,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”

  Was I being picky, or had I erred in inviting my friend to a bar so close to the Confederacy? Was I risking his life, or at least his well-being? No, I decided. Richard Lee Tubbin’s influence and authority stopped at the border, so Negroes could not only eat, drink and shop in the Heights, they could live there without being harassed.

  “Turn it anyways you like,” Wonderman said, “I still thinks I oughta get a medal.” He emptied his bottle in two more gulps. “Ole Tubbashit, he as bad as that Wallace in … I forgit the state.”

  “Alabama.”

  “Yeah, thass it. Ala-fuckin-bama.”

  I waved two fingers at the bartender as Wonderman continued. “I ever tell you bout Jackson Heywood, frien’ a mine moved to Dearborn from De-troit?”

  I shook my head.

  “Yeah, I tried warnin his ass, but he like you, stubborn as this thing.” Wonderman brought his fist down again, twice this time. Sure enough, the bar failed to give.

  Meanwhile the bartender, whose scar-tissue eyes and cauliflower ears branded him an ex-boxer, gave Wonderman a less-than-kindly look. Instead of trading punches, though, he exchanged two fresh beers for our empty bottles.

  “So what happened?” I asked after Pug Ugly left.

  “What you think happened? Neighbors threw rocks at his windows, dumped dog shit on his porch, planted signs on his lawn sayin ‘Nigger go home.’”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, ole JC woulda turned t’other cheek, but not Jackson. He seen the one what throwed them rocks and chased him with a gun, one a them big mothers, a maggum or somethin. They was no bullets in it, seein as Jackson juss wanna scare the man. The cops, though, they ’rested him anyways and kept his ass in jail overnight. Next mornin, they say he be stayin till hell frozed over or he ’greed to move elsewheres, whichever come first. Never did learn where my frien’ removed hisself to.”

  While I was absorbing all this a black woman, considerably above average-looking, strode through the entrance, hips swinging, eyes surveying the tables. She wore a plain beige dress, buttoned to the neck and ending below the knee. After finding an empty table, she sat with her hands folded and ankles crossed—obviously a proper lady, swinging hips to the contrary notwithstanding. I thought of Amanda for no good reason, unless you counted my obsession with her.

  I sipped my beer and glanced at Wonderman, who was eyeing the new arrival.

  “Pretty nice, huh?” I said.

  “Yeah, pretty nice.”

  Judging by his level of enthusiasm, he might have been appraising his cocktail napkin.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Wonderman turned back to the bar. “What make you think somethin goin on?”

  “I don’t know, just a guess.”

  His eyes turned sorrowful. “She dumped my ass.”

  “Who dumped your ass?”

  “Gal I been seein past couple months.”

  I found this puzzling. Wonderman’s women came and went like tropical rain, and he never seemed troubled when one of them went.

  “What’s the big deal?” I asked with my usual delicacy. “You’ve lost women before, probably because you wanted to lose them.”

  “Thass just it, man, I dint want to this time. I believe I loved that woman.” Before I could process this admission, he elaborated. “I tried not to, but I couldn help it. Clemmie, thass her name, she pretty, she smart, she fuck real good, plus she love me … or at leass she did.”

  “What made her, um, change her mind?”

  Instead of answering, he grabbed a pretzel from a nearby bowl and munched.

  “Do I need to repeat the question?” I asked.

  He washed the pretzel down with a sip of beer. “No, you don’ need to repeat no question.” Then, in a near-whisper, “She find out.”

  I waited.

  “Bout my cheatin.”

  Instead of feigning shock at his infidelity, I asked, “How? I mean, how’d she find out?”

  Wonderman took his time lighting a Kool, partly because his hands were under the influence.

  “The usual,” he said after taking in a lungful. “Smelt the perfume, seen the lipstick. Dint take no detective work.”

  “Was your relationship exclusive?”

  He blew smoke my way. “What you askin me, man? Speak English for once’t.”

  “Did you and she agree not to screw other people?”

  “Now what kinda greement that be for a man such as I, what like fuckin more’n breathin?”

  Though still no expert on the opposite sex, I’d picked up a few things.

  “I think women like their men to be faithful,” I said.

  “Tell me bout it.”

  Wonderman’s wandering reminded me of Dan Feeney, who’d strayed at least once. Maybe this was further proof that Irene Driscoll was right: men have no self-control.

  Wonderman emptied his bottle and waved it at the bartender, who promptly brought us two beers.

  We drank in silence for a while, then my friend said, “Well, thass enuff bout me, jack. Whass goin on wit you and all yo women?”

  All my women?

  Further evidence, if I needed it, that Wonderman was soused.

  With no harem activity to report, I offered him a condensed version of my picnic with Ellen Drury, omitting my failed attempt at seduction. All the while he kept eyeballing Miss Proper, now listing to starboard as she poured from a wine bottle.

  “Hey, you listening?” I said to the back of his head.r />
  “I hearin every word, man.” He spun around and grabbed another pretzel. “So, you have her for dee-sert?”

  This gave me a narrow channel to navigate. I didn’t feel like lying for once, nor was I eager to admit failure. So I tried ambiguity.

  “We got real cozy after we ate.”

  “What do that mean, ifn you don’ mind my askin?”

  I did, but answered anyway. “It means no, I didn’t have her for dessert.”

  Wonderman stared at me as if I’d grown antlers. “Aw, man, tell me you tried but she slap yo face.”

  I tried copping a feel—did that count? I suspected not, so reluctantly I told the truth. “No, she didn’t slap my face. Said she was saving herself for marriage, and I didn’t press her. To do the deed, I mean.”

  “Is you referrin to fuckin?”

  “I is … I am.”

  Wonderman shook his head, whether at what I’d said or at how I’d said it I wasn’t sure. “Why dint you, you know, what you said. Press ’er?”

  Because I’d taken her no seriously. But I knew this wouldn’t satisfy him, so I went with, “I’m not sure.” Which also proved unsatisfactory.

  “You’re not sure?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Wonderman shook his head again. “Man, sometimes I don’ know bout you.”

  Only sometimes? I never knew about me. I did know this conversation was starting to get on my nerves, so I tried to end it.

  “Anyway,” I said, “this whole thing is academic.”

  ”There you goes wit dem words again. What you sayin, boy?”

  “What I’m saying is, even if I’d had sex with her, we couldn’t have a relationship. We couldn’t be tight.”

  Belatedly, I realized this clarification would only prolong the conversation. Which it did.

  “Aside from fuckin bein one thing and a re-lay-shun-ship another,” Wonderman said, “why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why couldn you be … how’d you say it? … tight?”

  “She’s religious,” I reminded him, “and I’m not.”

  “No shit.”

  “Not even a little.”

  “You thinks I don’ know that? Like I tole you once’t, I ain’t ignorant.”

  “I don’t even believe in God.”

  Why I divulged that I’ll never know, since it was barely, if at all, germane to the subject. I’d confessed the truth to Ellen because she’d already guessed it, but usually it was booze that forced me out of the closet.

  Was I drunk too?

  Before I could decide, Wonderman said, “You don’ believe in God? How you splain all this then?” He waved at the room—a surrogate, I assumed, for the universe.

  “I—”

  “In fact, how you splain anythin?”

  He swiveled toward Miss Proper, now washing her wine down with a cigarette. After staring appreciatively, Wonderman returned.

  Better he’d stayed.

  “What do you believe in?” he asked.

  I was forming a reply to this unreasonable question when he rose and laid some bills on the bar. “Scuse me, but I got some business to take care of. Meantime you think on what I axt.”

  He teetered toward Miss Proper while I thought on what he’d asked. What did I believe in anyway? After a couple more beers and considerable contemplation, I drew a blank. I was still trying to fill it in when Wonderman returned, his prey clinging to his arm.

  “Nate, this Doreen. Doreen, baby, this my friend Nate, what don’t believe in nothin.” Introductions accomplished, he informed me, “This sweet gal and me, we gonna get us a bite.” He winked at no one in particular.

  “You okay to drive?” I asked.

  “Course I okay to drive. What, you think I’m drunk?”

  “The thought never occurred to me.”

  Wonderman turned to Doreen. “My friend here talk funny, but he a good man ifn you overlook his de-fects.”

  She smiled, a rather sweet smile, but said nothing. Meanwhile I stood, though none too steadily.

  “You okay to drive?” Wonderman asked.

  “Of course I’m okay to drive. What, you think I’m drunk?”

  “He also a funny man,” Wonderman said to Doreen, “ifn you ignore his jokes.”

  She laughed politely at his so-called humor.

  The two of them left and I did the same after paying the tab. As far as I could tell, I got home in one piece.

  Chapter 59

  Coincidentally. the leaves and I changed colors at the same time. They went from green to red and yellow, while I went from pale to ashen. The reason for these changes was simple. The leaves, as usual in fall, lost their chlorophyll. I simply lost my mind. I say that because I, Nate Rubin, fearful of stepping off a curb, agreed to jump out of an airplane. In other words, to go skydiving. And if that’s not insane, then nothing is.

  I struck the agreement with Larry McCloud, owner of Ripcord Skydiving School in Farmington, and to give myself credit where little is due, I did not consent easily.

  The madness began on a Monday afternoon when McCloud called and offered me a free dive in exchange for a story about his school. Naturally I told him we didn’t trade articles for products or services.

  “Okay,” he said, “write a story about the school because it’ll interest your readers, and dive with us because it’ll help you write the story.”

  I observed that I could write an article about horseracing without racing horses and about car-racing without racing cars. “And,” I said, “I can write a story about skydiving without diving from the sky.”

  McCloud countered with, “But wouldn’t the story be stronger if you were more than just an observer?”

  “Maybe” was the best I could do, but that wouldn’t do for him.

  “C’mon,” he said, “do it, if not for the story then for the experience. There’s nothing quite like it.”

  That I could believe.

  “And don’t forget,” he added, “the dive will be free, so you’ll have nothing to lose.”

  Except my life.

  So I groped for another excuse.

  “Your school’s located in Farmington, right?”

  “Mm-hmm—”

  “Well, you’re out of our coverage area.”

  “—but I live in Dearborn Heights.”

  Shit.

  The Gazette covered local residents who did something newsworthy or deserving of a feature even if they did it in Outer Mongolia. And apparently McCloud knew this. Either that, or his powers of conjecture were on a par with his sales ability, under the sway of which I found myself falling.

  Out of sheer desperation I resorted to honesty. “Look, the truth is, the thought of skydiving scares the crap out of me.”

  I may as well have shot an elephant with a BB gun. McCloud kept charging at me, insisting my concerns were commonplace among beginners. Then he suggested we talk things over face-to-face. He’d be happy to visit me in my office—would I be available at three o’clock tomorrow?

  I checked my calendar. Regrettably, I would.

  #

  At the appointed hour, McCloud hobbled into my office on crutches, his right leg encased in a thigh-high cast. Not an auspicious start.

  He introduced himself, moved the guest chair to the side of the desk and eased into it, stretching his injured limb in front of him. “Ain’t this a bitch?”

  Assuming the question was rhetorical, I merely stared at the cast.

  McCloud smiled apologetically. “It’s my own damn fault.”

  He explained that he’d broken the leg after failing to land properly during an exhibition in Sault Ste. Marie. He assured me that novices seldom injured themselves because they tended toward caution, whereas cocky veterans like himself sometimes grew careless.

  He tapped his cast. “So don’t sweat this.”

  Before I could, he asked if I’d given his offer more thought.

  I said I had, but my fear of getting killed persisted.

&
nbsp; He laughed, like I’d told a joke. “Nah, not going to happen. We haven’t lost anyone yet.”

  I took a closer look at this hotshot salesman. His receding hairline and rooster-like wattle suggested he was older than he sounded over the phone. Mid-forties maybe. Perhaps cockiness and old age had led to his injury. Then I noticed the beer belly punctuating his thin frame. Maybe he’d been high in the sky, if you know what I mean. Which couldn’t have helped him land correctly.

  Regardless of what led to his mishap, I was determined to resist his sales pitch. So I trotted out several traits that might disqualify me from diving.

  “Okay,” I said, “I didn’t want to bring this up because it’s embarrassing, but I’m afraid of heights.”

  “We get that from time to time, and we tell people … whether they’re acrophobic or not … don’t look down before jumping.”

  “All right, but doesn’t skydiving require some sort of physical dexterity and motor coordination, you know, a degree of athletic ability. I’m a total klutz.”

  This produced a chuckle. “I know the feeling. You should see me try to skip rope with my kids. Gets a good laugh out of them.”

  “Also, I’m practically blind.”

  Okay, that was stretching it, and McCloud must have sensed this because he ignored the claim.

  Leaning as far forward as his cast would allow, he said, “Look, I’ve got over two hundred dives and I’m still alive. In fact, this is my first injury. Diving is as safe as walking down the street only more fun. And on a first jump, there’s no way you can get into trouble.”

  He paused to remove a pack of Marlboros from the front pocket of his denim shirt. He offered me one and I gratefully accepted. We both lit up.

  “Don’t forget, we’re a school,” he said through a cloud of smoke. “We’ll teach you stuff, like how to pack your parachute, dive from an airplane, pull your ripcord and land the right way. But you won’t even have to do most of that. We’ll pack your chute for you and, once you’re in the aircraft, attach a static line so your parachute opens automatically. All you’ll have to do is step out of the plane and enjoy the ride down.”