Nathan in Spite of Himself Read online

  I agreed, but her contrition softened me up. “No, it’s mine. I shouldn’t have tried anything.”

  “Let’s say we both got carried away.”

  I said okay, but I was far from that. For once I envied my dad, or at least his sales ability. Now I’d have to satisfy my “urges” by myself.

  Again.

  #

  I returned home a little after 11 and tiptoed into the den. As usual at this time of night my parents were dozing, Dad on the recliner, Mom on the sofa. His head was flopped back, mouth open, nose pointed skyward. She drooped sideways, like a wilted flower, if a wilted flower could snore.

  On a typical evening, my parents retired to the den after dinner, turned on the TV and fell asleep, either promptly or an hour later, maybe two hours if they’d had more than their usual one cup of coffee. At the moment they were sleeping through John Cameron Swayze, who seemed not to notice, or if he did, not to mind.

  I crept down the hall to the bathroom, confident my parents would snooze until after the “Star Spangled Banner,” which meant I could do what I had to do uninterrupted. And thank God for that, since I was embarrassed enough at having to resort to this without one of my parents intruding.

  I knew guys who jerked off as a matter of course, like peeing when they felt the need, but for me self-gratification spelled failure, more humiliating even than paying for sex, which I couldn’t afford anyway. I’d suffered amorous defeats in the past—after all, I dated mostly Jewish girls—but none hurt like tonight’s. Coming so close to the Promised Land and then being turned away was physically painful.

  I locked the bathroom door, stood over the toilet and raised the seat. I noticed my hand shaking, probably from anger as much as eagerness, because I was pissed—at my dull-as-dishwater parents, at prick-teasing Diane Goldfarb and at a cruel world bitterly opposed to my getting laid. And I wanted revenge. Against all of them. I knew how to get it, too: by committing the biggest sin of all, the one Jewish parents frowned on even more than their son marrying a shikseh, namely his screwing a shvartz. And I’d do it in the one place where anything was possible. In my imagination.

  I lowered my pants and briefs and closed my eyes. I tried visualizing an attractive Negro girl, but then realized I didn’t know one, since few coloreds attended Central High. Then a Negro girl in my French class, Francine something, came to mind. She was no raving beauty, seeing as her teeth were mottled and her eyes slightly crossed. Yet her boobs and booty were substantial, fully qualifying her for this assignment. I envisioned Francine standing next to me, admiring my cock, and then, unable to contain herself, reaching over and stroking it, which I couldn’t do yet or I’d finish prematurely. She finally let go and, in rapid succession, removed her clothes, strode over to the tub, lowered herself into it and lay on her back. Wearing a lascivious smile, she motioned me over. Naturally I went. Which is when someone rapped on the door.

  “Nate, are you in there?”

  My mom.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You were both sleeping.”

  “Oi, we were so tired.”

  My schlong was also tired—of being ignored. So it did what Mom should have done instead of interrupting me. It went to sleep.

  “Okay, we’re going to bed,” she said.

  Now they’re going to bed? “Oi” was all I could say, and only to myself.

  “We’ll see you in the morning,” Mom added, “and you can tell us all about your date.”

  I couldn’t wait.

  I said good night and tried resuming, which proved impossible. So I pulled up my briefs and pants, washed my hands and, while drying them, gazed in the mirror over the sink. Staring back at me was a sad sack with mournful eyes and down-turned lips. Which wasn’t surprising, since he couldn’t even get laid in a fantasy.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  I went to bed without an answer.

  Chapter 6

  I poured milk over my Puffed Rice, a poor substitute for the Corn Flakes my parents had failed to restock. The cereal was like everything else around me. Hardly there, less substantial even than Rice Krispies, which at least snapped, crackled and popped. The cereal shot from guns, on the other hand, just floated along, going nowhere, waiting to be consumed.

  It reminded me of my parents, floating along, going nowhere, waiting for time to consume them. Their range of interests was narrower than a hair strand. All they could talk about was people’s comings and goings. Who’d moved into the neighborhood, who’d left, who’d gone on vacation, who’d returned, who’d come into the world, who’d departed. Mom specialized in births, Dad in deaths. Neither was particularly fond of books or magazines, which helped explain their limited fund of knowledge.

  My dad at least read the News’ sports section, which he was doing now rather than listen to Mom go on about some twelfth cousin who’d gotten preggers, to use Diane’s scholarly term.

  I will say this, though. Despite the headache Mom was giving me, I’d rather listen to her chatter about minutiae than answer any inquiries she might make about my date last night. Maybe she’d even forgotten I’d gone on one.

  “Nu, how was your date last night?”

  Shit.

  She’d sprung the question without even pausing between subjects. I tried countering it by playing dumb, with a little hard-of-hearing thrown in.

  “What?” I asked.

  “How was it?”

  “How was what?”

  “The date.”

  I tapped the tablecloth a few times with my spoon but said nothing.

  “Nu, tell us,” Mom insisted.

  “It was okay.”

  Dad peeked from behind the sports pages and looked from me to my mom and back. He resumed reading without comment, though his silence could be construed as one.

  Meanwhile, Mom resumed her prying.

  “Just okay?”

  “Yes, just okay.”

  “No better?”

  More silence from me.

  “Well, I guess you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Nothing much to talk about.” At least not with them.

  Mom shoveled down a spoonful of cereal, which she’d topped with thick slices of banana and strawberry. “That’s all right,” she said. “I never told my parents what your father and I did on our dates.”

  Now she was crossing a line, and I prepared to bolt rather than hear what my parents did on their dates.

  Dad set the paper aside. “So, is it my imagination or do the Lions stink this year?”

  Bless you, Father.

  Taking advantage of this escape route, I suggested the gods were punishing the team for trading Bobby Layne to the Steelers after he’d led the Lions to the NFL championship last year. So what if he’d broken his leg and couldn’t finish the season? If Tobin Rote, his replacement, had played every game, the Lions would have stunk last year too.

  Before Mom—who couldn’t tell an end run from a home run—returned to my date with Diane or to hers with Dad, I glanced at my watch and asked for permission to leave the table.

  Which, thankfully, the two of them granted.

  Chapter 7

  The Monday after my fiasco I was trudging toward school over a snow-slick sidewalk when Sheldon caught up with me, his face flushed, his breathing labored. After catching his breath he gave me his equivalent of Nu?

  “So?”

  Then he flapped his eyebrows in a poor Groucho imitation.

  I knew what his abbreviated question referred to, since I’d informed him beforehand of my pending date with Diane. Now he no doubt wanted to know the outcome. So I described the evening in morbid detail, perhaps as penance for another failed attempt to lose my virginity.

  “Man, that’s the shits,” he said when I’d finished. “But you’re a schmuck.”

  No, I was a glutton for punishment, and proved it by asking,
“Why am I a schmuck?”

  “Because you know as well as I do you ain’t gonna make it with a Jewish princess. Arlene’s an exception, and thank God for that. But what you need is a shikseh. At least she won’t give you some lame excuse for not doing it.”

  This time he batted his eyebrows, in imitation of who knew what. But the strange eye-batting accompanying his advice was the least of my objections to it.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked, knowing full well he was dead serious. “My parents would kill me if they suspected I even dated a shikseh, let alone shtupped one.”

  “Now how they gonna find out, pray tell? I’m curious.” He showed it by plowing ahead before I could answer. “And even if they did find out, at least you wouldn’t die a virgin.”

  As if on cue, two girls, one a gangly brunette wearing glasses, the other a green-eyed blonde wearing a knowing grin, pulled up next to us. They glanced our way, then sped ahead while jabbering nonstop.

  Sheldon pointed his chin at them. “You should take that blonde out. Name’s Nanette or something. and she’d put out for sure.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “She’s a shikseh. And the word is her father got her started.”

  “You mean …”

  “I mean.”

  I let this sink in while watching a Cadillac crawl by on the icy street. I’d heard whispers about such things, but couldn’t bring myself to believe them. So I told Sheldon he was full of crap.

  To which he replied, “I’ll bet it’s true. And from what I hear, she hasn’t stopped since. Hell, even Ernie Schwartz did her.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me.”

  “What if he’s lying?”

  Sheldon halted abruptly and wagged a stubby finger at me. “See, that’s the trouble with you. You’re always thinking, always questioning. You’ll get nowhere that way. You wanna do something, do it. Screw all the questions, which is the only thing you will screw at this rate.”

  I couldn’t argue the point. People were always telling me I thought too much, and when I thought about it, I could see my thinking had gotten me nowhere and given me nothing, except maybe an occasional headache. It certainly hadn’t gotten me get laid.

  We resumed walking and my eyes gravitated toward Jeanette’s rear end, the outline of which not even a winter coat could conceal. Instantly, my friend down below awakened.

  “Go on, ask her out,” Sheldon said.

  “When? Now?”

  “No, in thirty years, when she’s almost fifty.”

  I cringed at the thought of doing it with a hag. “But I don’t even know her.”

  “So? Introduce yourself.”

  I was skeptical and hopeful at the same time, with optimism ahead by a nose. If that weasel Ernie Schwartz could have this girl, anyone could.

  “Don’t think about it,” Sheldon said. “Go on, ask her out. Now.”

  The two girls swiveled around. The brunette giggled and Jeanette smiled, maybe. I couldn’t be sure because my eyes were tearing from the cold. But let’s assume she did smile. I’d still want to think about this, alone, with no distractions. Sheldon was right, though. If I thought about it, I wouldn’t take action. So, contrary to my nature, I ran after the girls as they continued toward school. I slipped once on the hard-packed snow but regained my balance, a pleasant surprise and maybe a good omen.

  A foot behind the two, I was still gasping but managed to get out, “Uh, excuse me.”

  They kept going, so I scurried in front of them and backpedaled. I stared past Jeanette rather than face her head on. “Can I, um, talk to you a second?”

  She glanced at her giggling friend, then returned to me. “Do I know you?”

  “No, but—”

  “I think I’ve seen you around.” Her smile was unmistakable now, revealing a gap between her two front teeth.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen you around too,” I said. “And that’s sort of what I want to talk to you about.”

  “You wanna talk to me about seeing me around? That sounds kinda boring.”

  Her friend giggled while Jeanette’s eyes flashed a challenge.

  “No, I mean, please. It’ll only take a second.” I hoped my desperation didn’t show.

  “Well okay, go ahead.”

  “Alone, maybe?”

  She glanced at The Giggler. “You mind? I’ll catch up.”

  Her friend shrugged and departed.

  “So talk,” Jeanette said.

  “First off, I’m Nate Rubin.”

  She seemed to think this over. “Jewish, huh?”

  Shit.

  Don’t ask me why, but the only thing I wouldn’t do to get laid is deny my heritage. So I said “Yes” and swore if this turned out to be a deal breaker I’d vow celibacy forever. I could handle goys calling me “kike” or “hymie” occasionally, but a shikseh punchboard rejecting me because I was Jewish? That would be too much even for me.

  “I’m Jeanette Bigelow.” She extended her hand.

  I took it and we shook, but the hand felt limp so I still sensed failure ahead.

  “I guess I’m blowing this,” I said on impulse.

  “What? You saying you want a blow job?”

  She said this without hesitation, without even a second’s pause, so maybe I’d misheard. I searched her face for a clue that I had.

  Nothing I could draw only one conclusion; I was in over my head. Now my only goal was to escape. With a shred of dignity if possible.

  “Look, I’ve seen you around, I think you’re pretty, I’d like to take you out. If you say no I’ll un—”

  “Sure.”

  “Sure what?”

  “Sure I’ll go out with you. What else we talkin about here?”

  “Um, uh, it’s just that—”

  “Too easy?”

  I remained noncommittal.

  “Hey, I like that zit on your nose,” Jeanette explained. “Goes with mine. See?” She raised a chin that bore one small pimple. “All right, now memorize this.” She recited her phone number and gave me a wink, then resumed her trek toward Tuxedo Street.

  “By the way,” Jeanette said without turning, “you can drop the bumpkin act. You don’t fool me a bit.”

  I watched her recede, but was too busy thinking to admire her ass.

  Chapter 8

  Hoping to strike while Jeanette was hot, I called her the next day and suggested we take in a double bill at the Astor on Saturday. To my surprise, and chagrin, she proposed that we go bowling instead.

  I say chagrin because bowling to me was serious business, no doubt because I was good at it. In fact, it was the only sport I didn’t suck at. Baseball, basketball, football and all the rest—let’s just say I was the last guy they chose in a pickup game. But for some reason I took to bowling the first time I accompanied my parents to the Bowlodrome on Dexter Avenue. I was no all-star, like Buzz Fazio or Andy Varipapa, but eventually I held my own in a Saturday morning league, averaging 175 and rolling high game two years in a row.

  The problem with bowling on a date was that while I took the game seriously, most girls did not. No matter how smart they were, they became dimwits on the lanes, squealing, clapping and gamboling about like drunken lab mice. This of course ruined my concentration, and since I dated mainly Jewish girls I not only laid an egg on the lanes, but failed to get laid off them. Last year I vowed never again to take a girl bowling, so I was less than ecstatic about Jeanette’s suggestion.

  Still, I relented. She was my best bet yet of losing my virginity, so why louse things up over a stupid vow?

  #

  Jeanette’s performance on the lanes pissed me off, but not for the reason I expected. Turned out, she was serious about the sport, and not only that but good at it. Which is why she whipped me two games out of three.

  I should have seen it coming, but my expectations blinded me to the clues. To begin with, Jeanette herself had suggested bowling, which should have alerted me to the possibility she
excelled at it, or at least was proficient. Also, she didn’t just grab a ball off the rack, like most girls were inclined to, she tested several for fit and heft. She apparently didn’t own a ball, probably because, like me, she couldn’t afford one, but she did bring her own shoes, another hint that failed to register.

  Admittedly, I took defeat badly. When Jeanette creamed me the first game, 179 to 163, I became despondent. When I bested her the second game, 178 to 147, I thought maybe her victory was a fluke, and my spirits picked up. But when she drubbed me in the finale, 181 to 166, I sank into a funk.

  I was still mired in it driving back to her place on Detroit’s east side.

  “You gonna sulk the rest of the night?” Her question didn’t help my mood at all.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, when you gonna stop?”

  I had no idea, so I said nothing.

  Seconds later I sensed motion to my right and glanced over. She was playing with the hem of her skirt. I quickly turned away.

  “I’m just not used to getting beat,” I said. “Not at bowling anyway, and especially not by a girl.”

  “Oh, you poor baby.” She said this in a sulky voice I found strangely appealing. I couldn’t resist another glance. Sure enough, she’d formed her lips into a pout that seemed more enticing than mocking, at least to me. So I set aside my shameful defeat and focused on winning the next “game.”

  I placed a hand on the knee nearest me.

  “Whaduhyuh think you’re doing?” Jeanette asked.

  I jerked my hand away as if from a flame.

  “I didn’t say don’t put your hand there. I just asked what you were doing?”

  I returned my hand and she covered it with hers.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well what?”

  “Whaduhyuh think you’re doing?”

  I’m making initial contact, hoping eventually to shtup you.

  “I like you,” I said aloud.

  “Even though I kicked your butt back there?” Her hand disengaged and sought my forearm.

  “Even though,” I said.

  “Well, I like you too. But we can’t do it tonight.”

  “Do what?”