Nathan in Spite of Himself

by Bernie Silver

  “Do it, is what I say. While you’re still young and unattached.” He flicked his cigar at the ashtray next to the register and missed.

  I stared at the ash a moment. “You ever been in the service?”

  “Four-F. I had a mild case of emphysema, plus all this weight even back then. Army wanted perfect specimens for Dubya Dubya Two.”

  Finished with the dollar bin, he proceeded to the fives. That he could talk and count at the same time impressed me. Really. But what I said was, “So you don’t know what it’s like, the military.”

  Harry glanced at me. “I know what it’s like. My brother-in-law was in the Navy. Said he never had it so good. Three squares a day, sleeping accommodations and a girl in every port.”

  “Every port?”

  “Yeah, broads love guys in uniform.”

  At last, things were looking up.

  #

  I wasn’t sure what to expect from Sam Hushley. “You’re joking” is what I got after telling him the news.

  “No, I mean it.”

  He placed his elbows on his near-empty desk. “Sorry to hear that.”

  I figured I’d heard all the arguments opposing my decision but couldn’t resist asking, “Why?”

  “Because you’re a good writer and an excellent reporter.” This nearly sent me into shock, since Hushley had never appraised, let alone praised, my journalistic efforts. “We’ll regret seeing you go,” he added,

  I thanked him for the belated acclaim.

  “Don’t thank me. We’re grateful for all the kick-ass work you do around here. In fact …”

  His voice trailed off and I wondered where he was going. So I nudged him. “Go ahead, I’m curious. In fact what?”

  “Well all right. For what it’s worth, we were thinking of making you an editor next quarter. Maybe copy chief, since unlike the rest of us you know how to spell.”

  “I … um … uh …”

  He forgot to mention how articulate I was.

  Hushley played with his letter opener and I wondered if anyone ever used those things to open letters. And I wondered something else: was I about to make the biggest mistake of my life? No small feat considering all the doozies I’d made so far.

  Being an editor, a gantseh macher, had never occurred to me. But apparently I might achieve that status if I stayed in school. Maybe I could boost my grades after all. Perhaps if I settled down, dug in, tried harder …

  Christ, who was I kidding? Not even me, and I was highly susceptible to lies in addition to telling them.

  Hushley leaned back in his chair, causing it to squeak. “Well, all of that’s academic now. The important thing is, you’re a fine journalist and you’ll do well wherever you go, as long as …” His voice trailed off again, but this time he finished without any prompting. “… as long as you keep the booze in check.”

  I beg your pardon?

  How the hell did Hushley know about my drinking habits? I’d always shown up on time, completed my assignments and, unlike Dewey Clifford, never passed out on the newsroom floor.

  My puzzlement must have showed.

  “C’mon,” the editor said, “my old lady’s a drunk so I can spot one a mile away.” In case I was curious, which I wasn’t, he elaborated. “It’s mainly here.” He pointed at his eyes. “Most drunks don’t get a lot of sleep.” Interesting after all; I’d have to check my eyes in the mirror someday. “You’ve never let alcohol affect your work,” Hushley went on, “but as a friend I’m telling you, cut back on the vino or it’ll bite you in the ass.”

  I glanced up at Ike for support but the new president had replaced him. I couldn’t say how Kennedy viewed my drinking, but as an ex-PT boat commander he must approve of my enlisting.

  Hushley consulted his watch and stood. “Sorry, gotta run. Luncheon engagement with one of those dull department heads. Be well, be good and all that, and don’t be surprised if we throw you a bon voyage party.”

  #

  Despite their inevitable opposition, I felt obliged to inform my parents about my intention to enlist or they’d wonder where I was for the next four years. They’d both softened since my all-nighter last month and apparently decided to keep me in the family, though they hadn’t officially announced their decision. My new policy of coming home at a decent hour, meaning before dawn, may have allayed their concerns and helped in the softening process. I made my announcement while the three of us sat in the living room, where I’d suggested we gather before dinner to avoid giving them heartburn.

  After breaking the news I prepared to dig in my heels, but instead of opposing my plans Dad calmly assessed my mental state. “You’re crazy.”

  Mom, as usual, disagreed with him. “He’s not crazy, Al. Don’t say that.”

  “Then what is he, a son who joins the Navy for no good reason?” Dad folded his arms across his chest. “You tell me.”

  “I’m not sure.” My mom said. “What’s wrong, Nate? Is it something we said or did? I know we’ve been a little harsh sometimes but—”

  “You don’t have to apologize to him,” my dad informed her. “We haven’t done anything wrong, except maybe dote on him too much.”

  “We haven’t doted. We’ve made him do his chores and pay for his own schooling, plus we’ve punished him when he’s done something wrong.”

  “We haven’t thrown him out of the house, which is what he deserved.”

  “Well, apparently we didn’t need to.” Mom’s lower lip quivered. “We made things so hard for him he’s throwing himself out.”

  “Hard my ass. He doesn’t know from hard. Now he’ll find out. The Navy will teach him a thing or two. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s joining.”

  “It’s not a good thing,” my mom countered. “It’s not a good thing at all.”

  “I know better than you,” Dad said, his voice rising. “They drafted me during World War II, if you’ll recall. I was much more mature than he is now, but the Army finished the job and made a man of me. We fought in the Philippine jungles, in summer yet. You could fry an egg on your helmet and get shot by Japs hiding in the trees.”

  “Someone will shoot him? Oi gevalt!”

  My dad shook his head. “No one’s going to shoot him, or even at him. It’s peacetime, so the worst that’ll happen is he’ll get seasick.”

  Mom gave him a withering glance. “Go ahead, make jokes. Meanwhile we’re losing a son.”

  “We’re not losing a son. We’re gaining a man.”

  “Al Rubin—”

  “I’m sorry I called you crazy,” Dad said to me. “Although in a perfect world you’d finish college first, you’re doing the right thing. And don’t let her tell you otherwise.”

  I remained silent lest I lose my new ally.

  #

  The next morning, over toast, coffee and cigarettes, I tallied the score. Mom, Sheldon and Wonderman were against my enlisting, as was Hushley more or less, while Harry and my dad (belatedly) favored the idea. Four nays and two yeas. Not what I’d call overwhelming opposition, but one of the arguments against my enlisting, the only one I’d overlooked, was worth revisiting.

  If I stayed in college I might become an editor. This would not only serve as an ego booster, but as a major credential in my search for a job after graduation. Yet the promotion was by no means a certainty even if I raised my grade-point average to 2.0, a nearly impossible feat.

  By failing several classes through non-attendance last quarter, and then failing to apply for incompletes in several of them, I’d lowered my GPA to a D-minus. For it to rise above C level in a single quarter I’d need nearly all A’s, as likely an accomplishment as my seducing Jane Russell.

  Of course, remaining in college wasn’t the only alternative to joining the Navy. I could get a job, maybe even on a newspaper, a small weekly perhaps. But I didn’t want to work in Detroit, my distaste for which grew with each passing day. I could move, either elsewhere in the state or out of it altogether. But starting my career in a new, unknown en
vironment didn’t appeal to me either.

  No, I had to get away, but just temporarily. My destiny after that remained to be seen.

  #

  For once I refused to put off until tomorrow what I could do today. Let me amend that. Since the Federal Building was closed on Sunday, I waited a day to enlist. After thanking me for volunteering to serve my country, the grateful recruiter scheduled me for a physical, which subsequently, and miraculously, I passed.

  My ship-out date was February 3, 1961.

  Chapter 37

  I will not get drunk. I will not get drunk. I will not get drunk. Maybe if I repeated the words often enough I would not get drunk. I didn’t want to, I don’t think. After all, getting plowed at an event thrown in your honor might seem ill-mannered. And yet, this being a party, I was very likely to get wasted, which had been my policy at every party I’d attended since my introduction to alcohol. The reason for this practice was fairly obvious. Parties consisted of people. People were threatening. Ergo, parties were threatening. Unless you were too drunk to feel threatened. Whether I knew and liked the people at a particular party, such as this going-away bash, was immaterial. People were people. Why members of my own species frightened me I couldn’t say. I was a journalist, not a therapist, though I probably needed one.

  That said, and to briefly digress, I was skeptical of shrinks. My Dad’s Realtor friend, Franklin Rivers, often visited the house to unload his troubles on my parents, these visits being in addition to his weekly sessions with a psychiatrist. Mr. Rivers had been in therapy for a full decade, which added up to five-hundred-plus sessions at who-knew-how-much per. The time and money spent might have been worth it if the patient had shown even a hint of progress, but Dad said he’d known Mr. Rivers for all those ten years and he seemed the same today as when he started out. Maybe even wackier.

  Anyway, there was something else about parties, besides my fear of people, that limited their appeal. They imposed an unwritten but strictly enforced rule that restricted conversations to small talk, which made me crazy, maybe even crazier than Franklin Rivers. I tried schmoozing at parties, believe me, but I could discuss the weather, gossip, hairstyles and clothing fashions for only so long before my head exploded. Not even sports talk got my juices flowing these days.

  Yeah, you heard right. For reasons unknown to me, all sports—baseball, football, basketball and the rest, including boxing—all of them had lost their charm. If Joe Louis, Detroit’s native son and the greatest fighter who ever lived, were still in the ring, he’d put me to sleep. And I don’t mean with an uppercut. My dad couldn’t understand this sudden loss of interest and I couldn’t explain it, which upset him even more. But there wasn’t much I could do about it either, because you can’t force yourself to like something that no longer appeals to you. Think of an ex-anything and you’ll get my meaning. I think.

  And speaking of brainteasers, Rachel Solomon apparently thought an occasional nod in my direction constituted civility, and yet she hung out with Ellen Drury, with whom she had nothing in common except a distaste for me—a poor foundation for a friendship, if you asked me. I say “distaste for me” with some hesitation, at least in reference to Ellen, because even stranger than her friendship with Rachel was her recent treatment of me, which I can only describe as friendly, or at least friendlier. I doubted I’d made Ellen’s People I Adore Most list, but she occasionally offered me a scorn-free greeting, which, compared to her past salutations equaled a declaration of love. If that weren’t bewildering enough, she’d shed a few pounds and now bordered on attractive. I’m not kidding.

  I was admiring her slightly slimmer self as I stood off to one side of the newsroom, chomping on a pretzel and watching Ellen and Rachel chattering away under the Bon Voyage sign suspended from the ceiling. They were both flushed and excited, so the topic must have been the president’s savoir-faire or his wife’s haute couture. Or maybe I was cynical.

  For sure I was thirsty, as I hadn’t had a drink, not even a soda pop, since the party began a half-hour ago. That sort of restraint merited a reward in my opinion, so I strolled over to the cooler on Hermann’s desk, swept clean for the occasion, and checked out my options. Nestled among the ice cubes were bottles of beer, soda and cheap Italian wine. I reached for a Budweiser.

  Uh-uh, I told myself. Not a good idea. A very bad idea, in fact. So I went for a Coke to quench my thirst at least. But the Bud slapped my hand away. “Hey, boychik,” it said affectionately, ”live it up, for chrissake. You’ve made a tough decision in the face of heavy opposition. And on top of that you’ve chosen well … a daring adventure over bland security. That’s well worth celebrating, no? And I don’t mean with a soft drink.”

  I found this argument compelling.

  And yet.

  “I see you’re still hesitating, probably because you’re afraid of embarrassing yourself in front of Rachel again. Am I right? But here’s the thing … you don’t have to get plastered. How much you drink is up to you, buddy boy, because you’re in control, and don’t you forget it.”

  I’m in control? Nice thought. And yet my hand still hovered.

  “For God’s sake, stop giving a shit about Rachel Solomon. Don’t you get it? That ship has sailed. By the time you’re out of the Navy she’ll have graduated from college, married a doctor and given birth to a lawyer. And she’ll still hardly speak to you. So drink up, goddamnit.”

  In the face of such logic I relented.

  And drank up.

  #

  I awoke lying on the floor next to Hermann’s desk. With no little effort I raised myself to a sitting position. A sheet of paper floated off my chest and landed next to me. A note of some kind, but instead of reading it I gazed out the window. A full moon gazed back. And laughed.

  I wondered what was so funny, so I surveyed the room for clues. Everyone else had left. Bunting sagged on the walls. Empty bottles lay all about. And two large trash cans threatened to overflow. I failed to see the humor in any of this. Maybe the note lying on the floor had something funny to say. I grabbed it and read.

  Dear Nate,

  This time you’re on your own.

  Have a good life.

  Rachel

  P.S. And for heaven’s sake get help.

  That wasn’t funny either, not the least bit. Maybe the moon had an odd sense of humor. Or I’d lost mine.

  If so, I had the next four years to recover it.

  Chapter 38

  February 3, 1961

  This is it. I’m on my way. There’s no turning back. Those were my initial thoughts as I rode the bus to the Federal Building in beautiful downtown Detroit. Then I thought: since I haven’t taken the official blood oath yet, I can reverse course if I want to. Change buses and return home. But that would merely add another embarrassment to a life already teeming with them. And it would leave me in the same place, both emotionally and geographically, that steered me toward the Navy in the first place.

  No, I’d go through with this. No more mind-fucking. No more mental masturbation. No more useless deliberation. As if to reinforce this decision, one of my discontents—call it meteorological—loomed outside the window through which I was staring, reminding me that no matter what happened between now and February 2, 1965, I wouldn’t have to put up with this shit, this feckuckteh snow that blanketed everything from trees and lawns to driveways and sidewalks, plus streets, many of which remained unsalted, unattended and therefore slippery and perilous.

  To escape this shitty, feckuckteh snow I’d chosen the recruit training center in San Diego, California over the one in Chicago, since the West Coast facility promised nine weeks of balmy weather and assignment afterward to the Pacific Fleet, where I’d surely enjoy more of the same. Many Midwest recruits selected the Chicago center, either because they adored snow and cold or because they were masochists.

  I was a masochist, but my capacity for pain had its limits.

  #

  I knew I’d made the right choice as soon a
s I and twenty-three other recruits disembarked at San Diego International Airport. The temperature hovered in the mid-fifties, in February mind you, while the sun shown bright in a clear blue sky and palm trees swayed in a soft gentle breeze.

  I almost teared up.

  Scruffy and disheveled, we gathered outside the terminal, then boarded a bus whose destination sign read “San Diego Naval Training Center.” The vehicle dropped us off at a redbrick building marked Administration, where a toothpick wearing dungarees and holding a clipboard took roll call. After struggling with the last name on the list, which naturally ended in “ski,” he herded us aboard another bus, this one headed for parts unknown. We got off in front of a gray two-story building, where another dungaree-clad guy, this one with a protruding belly and Mixmaster voice, offered us his version of a cordial welcome. “All right, girls, form two fucking rows, and I mean straight fucking rows, twelve of you in each.”

  We did our best while suffering from jet lag or battle fatigue or whatever you called the weariness we all seemed to feel, but admittedly our lines were a little—okay, very—raggedy. Looking slightly disgruntled, Potbelly informed us that in case we didn’t know it, we weren’t in Kansas anymore. We were in the U.S. military, and the building behind us was our home-away-from-home for the next nine weeks. Whenever we, the company, departed this residence we were obliged to stay together, and wherever we went we had to follow orders.

  Rah-rah talk over, he ushered us onto yet another bus that would transport us to yet another unknown destination. Minutes later we exited in front of a squat gray building, which, our tour guide informed us, was the base barber shop. He divided us into two equal contingents and led the first, including me, inside. A denim-covered cement block—or maître d’, if you prefer—directed us each to a pneumatic chair.

  Behind mine stood a tallish gentleman wearing a beatific smile. I made myself comfortable as he whisked a white cotton sheet over me. “And how would you like your hair cut today?” he asked.

  “Light trim with a ducktail. Leave the sideburns and don’t touch this.” I pointed at the pompadour.