Nathan in Spite of Himself

by Bernie Silver

  Politics reminded me of the impression I’d gotten from my college reading assignments, that human beings had fought one another tooth and nail since the beginning of time. Cavemen, tribes, gangs, religions, races, countries, sections of the same country, and not least of all political parties—all had gone at it with rocks and clubs, spears and swords, rifles and grenades, bombs and missiles. And words. Let’s not forget them. So far they were the weapon of choice for both political parties. So far.

  Ellen drank more coffee. “Tell me something, and keep being honest. Are you a Democrat?”

  Would she shoot me if I were?

  Just curious.

  “No,” I answered honestly.

  “Are you a Republican?”

  “No.”

  “A so-called Independent?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Then you’re one of those anarchists. You want to blow up the country and be done with it.”

  I’d seen newspaper photos of those guys, with their scruffy beards and woeful eyes. They reminded me of rabbis.

  I shook my head. “The truth is I hate politics, even though I cover it for the Gazette.”

  Ellen stared at me. “Do you even bother to vote?”

  Now I was in deep doo-doo and knew it.

  “Um, no. Uh-uh.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said no.”

  “So let me get this straight. You’re neither religious nor political.”

  “No. I mean yes, I’m neither religious nor political.”

  I swallowed more coffee, wishing it were whiskey.

  “Nate, what are you?”

  “Meaning?”

  “What do you believe in, for Pete’s sake?”

  People just had to know that, didn’t they? First Wonderman and now Ellen. What difference did it make to them? Couldn’t a guy not believe in anything without his friends getting all pissy about it?

  To add to my discomfort, Sourpuss reappeared. She slapped the check down, gave us one last scowl and retreated.

  Which gave me an idea.

  “Maybe we ought to go,” I said. “Traffic’s probably thinned out by now.”

  Ellen looked at me with something less than affection. “Oh, I suppose so.”

  Emerging from the restaurant, I felt chilly.

  On an Indian summer night.

  Chapter 65

  The roller-coaster jerked to a halt, leaving our car suspended at its apex and my stomach begging me to put it out of its misery. And no wonder, after what I’d put it through—an entire day of tortuous rides and indigestible food. But I refused to heed my belly’s plea, because no way would I repeat the performance I’d given in Rachel Solomon’s car, after that night at Sal’s, and on this occasion two people would witness me puking: Jane Bartolo and her son Tony. So I swallowed hard, really hard, until the urge receded.

  As usual, I’d made my own bed. I didn’t have to spend the day at Edgewater Park just because Jane and Tony asked me to. Nor did I have to accompany them on all those dizzying rides, including the Mad Monster we were waiting to exit. And no way was I obliged to match Tony corn dog for corn dog, curly fries for curly fries, funnel cake for funnel cake, and so on, up to and including cotton candy. I’d gone on all the rides to please Jane and consumed all the garbage to befriend Tony in order to please Jane. Meanwhile, I’d made an enemy of my stomach.

  Our car finally arrived at ground level and an elderly gentleman sporting a veined nose and snow-white hair unlocked the steel bar that had kept us from flying into space, which, come to think of it, might have been preferable to survival. En route to our next destination I was fighting nausea again when Jane stopped and looked at me, concern engraved on her face.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  I nodded, carefully, unwilling to admit I felt like I looked. In contrast, Jane looked incredible in skin-tight jeans, a shrunken T-shirt and a charming ponytail. She wore only a smidge of makeup, and could easily have done without that.

  “Why don’t we take a break,” she suggested, then guided me toward a nearby picnic table under a shady elm while motioning for her son to catch up.

  Tony’s defiant slouch signaled he’d rather not, and, in fact instead of joining us at the table he swooped around it while flapping his arms and emitting guttural noises. My guess: he’d transformed into a warplane engaged in aerial combat.

  Sitting across from me, Jane reached over and stroked my hand. “That better?”

  Whether she referred to my sitting down or her stroking my hand I couldn’t say, but since the answer was yes in both cases I went with that.

  “Maybe we ought to go,” she said. “We’ve been here since ten this morning.”

  I glanced at my watch.

  3:35 p.m.

  “We can stay as long as you like,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster.

  “That’s sweet, but I can tell you’ve had your fill,” Jane said, then glanced at her son. “Him, he could go on until midnight.”

  I started to protest but she interrupted. “You know you’re not feeling well, so please don’t deny it.”

  Instead of denial I offered a compromise. “How about we stay, but instead of going on more rides I’ll watch the two of you.”

  Jane seemed to think this over. “To tell you the truth,” she said, “I’ve about had it myself. So what say we sit here for a while and enjoy a soft drink, then both of us can watch Tony do his thing.”

  “Perfect,” I said, and meant it.

  I got up to fetch the drinks but Jane also stood and pushed me back down.

  “You still don’t look so good.” She kept one hand firmly on my shoulder. “Coke?”

  I nodded, again cautiously.

  “Keep an eye on Tony, okay?”

  “Sure. I like watching a good dogfight.”

  That got a chime-like laugh.

  Shortly after Jane left, two parents with a pig-tailed daughter about Tony’s age stopped to admire his performance. The guttural sounds soon grew deeper and the arm-flapping more rapid. Was this an early attempt to impress a girl? If so, the effort paid off, since Pig Tails smiled approvingly. This of course reenergized Tony’s efforts.

  To his credit, though, he kept up the good fight even after mom and dad led their daughter away. I was admiring his vast amount of energy when Jane returned with our drinks, Cokes for Tony and me and lemonade for her. After setting the cups down, she strode over to her son, stooped to his level and whispered in his ear. Reluctantly, he joined us at the table.

  After gulping half his Coke down, Tony gazed at me and without preamble asked, “Do you like me?”

  Caught off guard, I resorted to a tactic often used by interview subjects. I answered a question with a question.

  “Why do you ask?

  “Because Mom’s friends usually don’t like me.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They don’t talk to me, or they tell me to scram.”

  “Well I—”

  “Don’t lie,” Tony cautioned me. “All adults do, except my mom.” Who, I noticed, was listening in, looking amused and curious at the same time.

  “You want honesty, is that it?” I stalled.

  He bobbed his head.

  “Well okay. I don’t know you that well, but from what I’ve seen, you’re a hell … a heck of a fighter plane.”

  “Answer my question,” he insisted.

  “And you’re a good kid.”

  I was shameless, no doubt about it. Meanwhile Tony was relentless.

  “But do you like me?”

  Finally I gave up. “Yes, I like you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “That’s all I wanted to know.” And off he went on another combat mission.

  As I watched him fly away I realized I’d told the truth. I did like Tony, which I found surprising because normally I didn’t care for children (a fact I’d managed to hide from Jane). I mean, who liked kvetchy
midgets with runny noses, untied shoelaces and really bad manners? And yet I’d enjoyed Tony’s company that day, despite my precarious condition. Maybe his exuberance appealed to me, or his lack of self-consciousness, or his childlike behavior, the kind I hadn’t indulged in even as a child. For whatever reason, yes, I liked Tony Bartolo.

  “You were honest with him, right?” his mother asked.

  “Yes. I’m fond of your son.”

  “I’m glad.”

  As proof, she took my hand and pressed it to her cheek. “Do you like me?”

  I answered by taking her hand and kissing it, hoping to convey with a gesture what I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, in words.

  Apparently the message got through.

  “I’m glad,” she said.

  The rest of the day passed as we’d planned. Jane and I watched Tony go on several more rides, including a whirling dirigible and rocking (upside-down) cage.

  Exhausted, we drove home in silence, with Tony asleep on the back seat. When we finally arrived at Jane’s house, he disappeared inside and she and I kissed at the front door. Before leaving I extracted a promise, readily given, that we’d spend our next date alone, just the two of us.

  Doing as we pleased.

  Chapter 66

  1965-1966

  In the year’s waning months Sheldon invited me over to his pad for dinner, not once, not twice, but thrice. And canceled each time for varied reasons. The first cancellation resulted from an unspecified emergency at Dandy Randy’s, the second from an outing his wife had planned without telling him, and the third from a virus his daughter had given his spouse who had passed it on to him.

  “Our family likes to share,” he said on deferring a third time.

  In January he issued yet another invitation, which, happily, he did not revoke. And so mid-month I finally got to see the Feinbergs’ new residence, a two-bedroom apartment in Oak Park, located across the Eight Mile Road border separating Detroit from the suburbs. This particular ’burb was a key destination point for what some referred to as the third Jewish “exodus.” The first and second were escapes, from slavery in Egypt and persecution in Europe, while the third was a flight from Negroes in Detroit. Since blacks themselves had been the victims of slavery and persecution in the South, this latest migration struck me as ironic, but maybe I had a perverse sense of irony.

  Anyway, the five-story redbrick building in which the Feinbergs dwelled reflected its surroundings—spotless and commonplace. Its one distinctive trait was the pungent aroma of Jewish cooking that followed me down the corridor leading to the family’s first-floor apartment.

  Sheldon opened the door on my third knock. “Hey, man, welcome to the castle.”

  He bowed low, or as low as his bulk permitted, and made a sweeping gesture directing me inside. The scene that greeted me was, shall we say, chaotic. Based on my acute powers of observation, I attributed this state to the family’s youngest member, whose books, games, toys, dolls, crayons, brushes and barrettes were scattered everywhere, including on the floor, chairs, tables, sofa and television, as well as in several nooks and crannies.

  Sheldon observed my reconnaissance. “Sorry, it’s a losing battle.”

  “No need to apologize. I like chaos.”

  He looked puzzled but moved on. “Sally’s in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove while Debbie cheers her on,” he said. “Other than our daughter, my wife permits no one in the kitchen while she’s cooking, so introductions will have to wait. ”

  He grabbed a large box of Crayolas off a brown Naugahyde chair. “Zitz.”

  I sat, the cushion whooshing beneath my tush.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Sheldon asked. “As if I didn’t know.”

  When I hesitated, he frowned, which was understandable. After all, he hadn’t been there for my New Year’s Eve shenanigans that almost cost me Jane Bartolo.

  After dinner at Lelli’s, Detroit’s finest Italian restaurant (maybe the finest in the world, including Italy) we’d spent the rest of the night at Baker’s Keyboard Lounge on North Woodward Avenue. George Shearing, the mellow fellow himself, provided the entertainment and I was so excited to see him in person that after drinking a bathtub’s worth of whiskey I tried joining his quintet. My main obstacle, besides a lack of any discernible musical talent, was the club’s bouncer, who interceded while I pled my case to Mr. Shearing. He was ushering me toward the exit when Jane rushed over to argue on my behalf, or at least on behalf of my staying if I promised to behave. Most men bow before Jane upon first encountering her and this guy was no exception. Like a good subject, he escorted the queen and me back to our table and suggested, as politely as he could, that she keep me in tow or he’d throw me out on my butt. To soften this threat he gave her a gap-toothed smile.

  For some reason Jane seemed unhappy with me, as evidenced by her silence the rest of the evening and by the mere peck on the cheek she gave me at midnight.

  Her mood hadn’t improved much the next day, a conclusion I drew when she promised to break up with me—or break my neck, I forget which—if I pulled a stunt like that again, meaning, I assumed, if I publicly humiliated her by getting rip-roaring drunk and making an ass of myself. As a postscript, she said if I ever got bombed in front of Tony, she’d cut my balls off.

  At first I offered the old I-was-just-having-a-little-fun defense, but when that fell on deaf ears I surrendered, begging for mercy and promising never to pull a stunt like that again. This produced the desired effect, as she gave me a pardon and sealed it with a juicy French kiss.

  Despite Jane’s forgiveness, her anger over the incident alarmed me, and for the first time that I could recall I became concerned about, or at least self-conscious of, my drinking. Which is why I hesitated when Sheldon made his offer.

  But what the hell, one brewski couldn’t hurt, right?

  “Beer,” I told him.

  My host showed his relief by grinning. “Be back in a jiff.”

  On his way to the kitchen he turned. “Tell you what. I’ll send Debbie out so you can at least meet her.”

  A moment later a kid with large brown eyes, curly hair and a button nose trotted out and shouted, “Hi, Uncle Nate,” like I was a long-lost relative whom she was thrilled to see again.

  My “niece,” wearing a tan blouse under blue corduroy overalls, leaped into my lap with a yelp, which I answered with a grunt.

  “See what I got?” She waved a fresh-faced Barbie doll at me. “Daddy bought it for me because my other one broke.”

  Sheldon buying a Barbie doll. I couldn’t picture it but played along anyway.

  “Cool,” I said.

  “It’s very cool,” Debbie agreed.

  “What’s cool?”

  Sheldon had returned with two bottles of Bud, each with a tall upside-down glass over it. He swept The Grinch Who Stole Christmas off the small end table next to me and set one of the bottles on it, then slid a completed Santa’s Eight Reindeer Plus Rudolph puzzle off the coffee table and into its box, replacing it with the other bottle. He righted my glass, placed a coaster under it and poured, careful to minimize the foam by aiming the stream down the side. He eased himself onto the matching sofa and repeated the routine with his own beer.

  He sipped, smacked his lips and reiterated, “What’s cool?”

  In answer, Debbie gave the doll another shake.

  “I bought her that,” Sheldon said.

  “So your daughter informed me.”

  “Can you believe it? I still can’t. But the thing is, I’d do anything for her and she knows it.”

  He heehawed, and Debbie jumped off my lap, sidestepped the table and hurled herself at her father, bowling him over upon impact. Fortunately, he’d set his glass down in time to avoid spilling its contents.

  “Yes, Daddy would do anything for me,” Debbie said.

  Sheldon straightened, arranged his daughter on his lap and folded his oversized arms around her.

  Looking at him looking at her, I sens
ed paternal devotion. Would I ever feel that devoted to anyone—man, woman or child? I wasn’t sure.

  “It’s true. He spoils her rotten.” This came from a sprite of a woman standing in the kitchen doorway. “Wait’ll you see the two of them at dinner, which by the way is ready.”

  Sheldon set Debbie on the floor as he might a Ming vase, then stood and introduced me to his wife. Wearing a bib apron over a pink blouse and black jeans, Sally Feinberg smiled and nodded, setting her waist-length hair in motion.

  “I apologize for not coming out sooner,” she said, “but I need to concentrate when I’m cooking or I’ll screw everything up. Maybe the result will compensate for my rudeness.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it will,” I said. “I mean … uh … that is …”

  Mrs. Feinberg chuckled. “That’s okay, I know what you meant. And thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  She placed a hand on her husband’s back, gently, affectionately, and being a pervert I pictured the two of them in bed, though I wasn’t entirely successful given the vast difference in their sizes. Well, they’d produced a child, so maybe they’d learned to accommodate each other, and maybe that was love. Like I knew anything about it.

  We adjourned to the dining room, where a meal of lamb chops, candied yams, a peas-and-mushrooms combination, and an elaborate salad awaited us. The Feinbergs’ one concession to Jewish culture was a bottle of Manischewitz wine, of which, still on the cautious side, I had only two glasses.

  Sheldon confined himself to one, so I knew he wasn’t shikker when he began entertaining his daughter after cleaning his plate. First he oinked like a pig, then crossed his eyes and wiggled his ears, and in a memorable closing act dribbled wine down his chin. Intentionally, I think.

  Sally pretended disgust while Debbie doubled over laughing. “You’re so funny, Daddy.”

  Naturally this triggered an encore. And maybe Sheldon’s willingness to act a fool for his daughter’s sake was another sign of love.

  I continued to ponder this possibility on the way home, and by the time I got there I’d formulated a theory, albeit tentative: sometimes acting like a child is a sign of maturity.