Nathan in Spite of Himself
By Bernie Silver
Copyright © 2017 Bernie Silver
All rights reserved.
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Dedication
To my parents, wife and pets. My mom and dad are no longer with us, but their memory, and the lessons they imparted, linger on. My mom taught me nobody's perfect but all deserve kindness, and my dad taught me the virtue of tolerance and the value of words. My wife Patty, the artist, has taught me everything else, including that life is an art form. As for our pets—two dogs and a cat (Freddie, Sadie and Pookie, respectively)—they've taught me the benefits of napping, nuzzling and cuddling (not necessarily in that order).
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
1958
I hated Detroit winters. I mean, I hated them.
I was reminded of this while trudging up La Salle Street on my way home after another boring day at Central High. My rubber boots helped me negotiate the snow-covered sidewalk, but not even a flannel shirt, wool sweater and sheepskin jacket could shield me from the cold eating at my bones.
Hyperbolic? Maybe. But only a little.
By the way, have I mentioned lately I hated Detroit winters?
And in case you’re thinking I’m a hateful person, believe me I’m not. Some things, like insects, gym class and smelly cheese, I merely disliked. But Detroit winters were something else. They deserved to be hated, along with rats, spiders and malodorous farts. Oh, and devious politicians. Meaning all politicians.
The current deep freeze was even worse than usual. It showed up early, the first week in November, and wasted no time in assaulting drivers and pedestrians alike. It even played pranks, like icing the streets and sidewalks, then covering them with innocent-looking snow. Now, the second week in November, we could look forward to four more months of this shit.
Slogging home, I did everything but torch myself to keep warm. I turned up my coat collar, hunched my shoulders, tucked in my chin and said a prayer, or at least my version of one. When all these measures flopped I told the weather to go screw itself, but for some reason that too failed to warm things up. Next I jogged, trotted, cantered or whatever you called my sorry excuse for running. Same result. Plus, once stationary, I could barely catch my breath. When I finally regained it, I tried distracting myself from the weather by whistling “Heartbreak Hotel.” But my lips refused to cooperate, maybe because they were numb.
I was about halfway home, still freezing my ass off, when a familiar voice rang out. “Hey, Nate! Wait up!”
I rotated slowly, like a frozen turret. Lumbering toward me was Sheldon Feinberg, fellow senior and good friend, or as close as anyone came to that status. While awaiting his arrival I did a jig to keep my blood from coagulating. When he finally arrived I stopped jigging and tilted my head upward, the better to see his large, moonlike face. Most guys towered over me, but it was only standing next to Sheldon that I felt like David in the shadow of Goliath.
“Smooth moves, Comrade,” he said. “Speaking of which, you getting any yet?”
I looked around for a slingshot.
His greeting, if you could call it that, pissed me off. For one thing, in addition to rats, spiders, stinky farts and frigid winters, I hated trendy words, like gig, dig, square, daddy-o and the latest to gain popularity, comrade. Why this particular word was in vogue I couldn’t say. Maybe the country’s obsession with communism and Russia had something to do with it, seeing as the Russians addressed each other as “comrade” rather than “buddy” or “pal. ” If you believed Hollywood movies, anyway. The second thing that ticked me off was Sheldon’s question, because it reminded me I wasn’t getting any, and in fact had never gotten any. Still, rather than bite his head off I bit my tongue.
“I’ll take that as a no,” my good friend said, his usual response to my silence on the subject. Nor did he cease badgering me after we resumed walking. “Hey, you really wanna be a virgin when we start college next fall?”
“Oh, and I suppose you won’t be?”
I knew damn well he wouldn’t be, since he never stopped bragging about shtupping his girlfriend, Arlene Shapiro, who’d distinguished herself from most Jewish girls by consenting to go all the way before marriage. But lacking a clever retort, I’d gone with a question I already knew the answer to. Which raised the question: why were zingers never around when you needed them?
Sheldon shifted his books from one arm to the other and adjusted his watch cap around an unruly mop. “I keep tellin yuh. Arlene and I do it whenever my parents are outta the house for the evening. Which ain’t often, but at least I don’t have zits.” Now he was attacking my acne as well as my virginity. I said nothing
even though doubly pissed off. Apparently Sheldon didn’t notice, or didn’t care. “That stupid pimple on your schnoz,” he said, “you get a little pussy and shazam!” He tried in vain to snap his fingers. “It’s gone, man.”
My mood and the sky both darkened as the sun vanished in a graying sky. “Forget my zits,” I said. “You’ve got other things to worry about, like knocking up your girlfriend.”
He gave me a look that pronounced me hopeless. “I already told you, I use Trojans. The things are a royal pain, but they keep her from getting pregnant and me from being a daddy, which I’m not ready for yet. Not by a long shot.”
So rubbers were a pain? Funny, that’s what this exchange was, at least to me.
I tucked my books in the crook of an arm and scooped some snow from a two-foot drift paralleling the sidewalk. I packed it tight and hurled it at a nearby lamppost, missing the mark by roughly a mile.
Naturally, Sheldon had something to say about that too. “Nice pass, Bobby Layne.”
He could at least call me Bob Waterfield, former Rams quarterback whose wife, the succulent Jane Russell, occupied most of my fantasies. I spent more time than I’d care to admit imagining her beneath me, mammoth breasts pressed against my chest, soft lips whispering in my ear …
We stopped at Cortland Street.
“Think about it,” Sheldon said. “You wanna do good on your wedding night, right? Well, you’re gonna need more than that baby face of yours. You wanna satisfy your wife, you gotta practice, man. So pick a girl you don’t care about and do it.”
This last instruction puzzled me. “But you and Arlene … I mean, I thought you were tight.”
“She’s going to UCLA next year, so how serious can we be? ’Course, she thinks I’m gonna follow her there, but you gotta lie a little or you’ll never get any. See what I mean?”
I saw, but so far my lies, and I’d told more than a few, had failed to produce results. Hell, I hadn’t even copped a feel, let alone gotten laid. How pathetic was that?
Sheldon gave me a bassackward wave as he headed down Cortland, while I continued north toward Sturtevant, still stewing over my lingering virginity.
Frankly, I couldn’t believe that some guys had gone all the way, and even more amazing, that some girls had let them. To me, sex remained a fable, a tale told by a boastful friend and most of my classmates. Yes, characters did it in the trashy novels I studied along with my texts, but Harold Robbins might be lying, right? I mean, wasn’t that what authors did, make things up? It’s what I planned to do when I wrote my first novel.
True, Descartes once said, “I am, therefore my parents have screwed” (okay, I’m paraphrasing), but that meant my parents had screwed, which I couldn’t imagine and didn’t want to.
So rumor and logic weren’t enough. I needed firsthand proof, and I don’t mean babies, that sex existed.
God, how I needed it.
Chapter 2
I kept glancing at Diane Goldfarb, as if looking at her equaled having her. She sat two rows to my right in fourth-period Econ, legs crossed so a good portion of them showed below her hiked-up skirt. Did she know what effect this had on guys? All right, on me. Hell, was anyone else even watching the show? I looked around. No, everyone was feigning interest in the charts Mr. Hinton was pointing at, like they were important.
An ex-Marine impersonating a teacher, he faced his captive audience while standing ramrod-straight between two wooden easels. He swept one arm to the right. “Adam Smith.” And the other to the left. “Karl Marx.”
Well, that explained everything.
I suppose the numbered lists below the two names offered some illumination, but truthfully the only explanation that interested me was how to get laid.
“Mr. Smith believed what about capitalism?”
Like I gave a damn. I believed in Diane Goldfarb’s legs, so I resumed admiring them. After a moment I heard from afar, “Mr. Rubin.” Followed by a slightly louder repeat of my name. And then, “Mister Rubin.”
I tore my eyes from those legs and directed them at The Jarhead.
“Ah. Thank you for joining us.”
This show of gratitude confirmed my theory that teachers memorized the same script. All of them, without exception, said “Thank you for joining us” after disrupting a sound sleep, whispered conversation or erotic reverie. Did they think they were being witty? Amusing? The least bit entertaining? Whatever they thought, they were none of the above.
“What did Adam Smith mean by the ‘invisible hand,’ Mr. Rubin?”
How the hell should I know? I’d retained almost nothing of yesterday’s reading assignment.
“Come, come. Who, or what, governs the marketplace?”
My response escaped before I could head it off. “Um, the government?”
My classmates snickered while Hinton hurled the supreme insult. “Mr. Rubin, you’ll make a fine politician someday.”
He looked pleased with himself as the class went into convulsions. Meanwhile I willed the bell to ring, and when it finally did I rushed out the door to escape the inevitable razzing. I’d traveled a short distance to my next class when someone, a female, called out, “Nate?”
Apparently there was no getting away. I turned and saw Diane Goldfarb heading toward me. While recovering from the shock—we’d exchanged maybe two words in three years—I stopped and waited for her to catch up.
“I zone out too,” she confessed as we continued down the hall. “But I try to look interested.”
Since Diane had made the honor roll three years running, I figured she was interested, or at least paid attention in class.
After her confession, we strolled along in silence, which suited me fine because I was so nervous around girls I often said things that I later, if not instantly, regretted. Didn’t matter if they were pretty or homely, I got jittery around girls, though admittedly the jitters increased around good-looking ones.
While Diane stared straight ahead I checked her out, as unobtrusively as I could. She certainly was no beauty, thanks to a large nose and long chin, but her waist was slim and her boobs, now straining against a yellow wool sweater, were substantial. Though I couldn’t see those legs at the moment, I knew they too were among her assets.
I tried to relax by studying my environment, but that just reminded me school was a prison, with its dim lights, faded paint, concrete floors and omnipresent guards, in this case called “hall guards.”
Diane stopped outside room 126. “This is my next class, American History.” She yawned for effect.
“I’m off to Trig, I guess.”
“You guess?”
I gave her a weak smile. “No, for sure.”
Jake Baumgartner, a beanpole with ratty hair and concave cheeks, approached us with a smirk on his face. “Hey, Rubin, when you gonna run for mayor?”
We ignored him, so he shrugged and slouched away.
Diane ran a hand through her lackluster hair. “So tell me something. Why haven’t you ever asked me out? I’m curious, because I see you staring at me all the time.”
So much for stealth surveillance.
“I, um, I don’t know.”
“Really? You don’t know?”
“No, I mean yes, I really don’t know.”
I could make a calculated guess, but why bore her? Instead I said, “You want to?”
“Want to what?”
“Go out.”
“Of course, silly.”
Diane rummaged through her purse and extracted a chewed-up pencil and small spiral notebook. She scribbled, tore off the sheet and thrust it in my shirt pocket.
“Call me.”
#
I got home in late afternoon, stretched out on the bed and gazed at the Jane Russell poster on the opposite wall, above my desk. That pose from The Outlaw almost made a believer of me. But if God really wanted to prove he existed, he’d persuade Diane Goldfarb to have sex with me.
Though optimism usually eluded me, in this case I had reason t
o hope. After all, unlike most girls, Diane had practically asked me out, thus breaking the unwritten rule against a girl making the first move. So maybe she’d ignore that other instruction, widespread among Jewish girls, that stipulated she must save herself for marriage. Shiksehs were rumored to be more flexible, but they remained off limits to Jewish boys who wished to remain members of their families. So I’d prayed an atheist’s prayer, if there was such a thing, for a slutty Jewish girl like Arlene Shapiro.
And maybe now I’d found one.
Chapter 3
Since I was slow to take action, to put it mildly, I waited a whole week before phoning Diane Goldfarb. Even then, I discussed news, sports, weather and the latest rock-and-roll hits before getting to the reason for my call, which was to ask her out, specifically to a double feature at the Linwood Theatre on Saturday.
Diane readily accepted the invitation despite my tardiness, and even put a smile in her “Of course, silly.”
The night of our date I shaved, showered and deodorized, then took a year to fuss with my hair, dousing it with Wildroot, then shaping, reshaping and re-reshaping it until I had the perfect pompadour and duck’s ass. I required a little less time to dress.
After arriving at Diane’s Glynn Court residence—on time, incidentally, despite the lengthy preparation—I parked my parents’ Dodge in the alley behind her apartment building, entered through the rear and rode the elevator to the fourth floor.
I knocked on 408. When the door opened I couldn’t help but stand there and gape. My date wore a mid-calf red skirt that emphasized her thin waist and long legs, and a snug white blouse that stressed her other plusses. Her lifeless hair had come alive, reborn as long, lustrous and sexy. Not Veronica Lake sexy, but close enough.
Eventually we exchanged greetings, after which she led me into a small living room crammed with a plastic-covered couch, two high-backed chairs, a thirteen-inch television set, an upright radio and a cabinet full of tchotchkes. I relaxed a bit until two sourpusses entered the room and Diane introduced them as her parents.
Mr. Goldfarb offered a bony hand while his wife, three times his size, folded her arms across her chest and gave me the evil eye. “Where you going?”
Her daughter jumped in before I could answer. “I told you, Mom. To the movies.”
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