Nathan in Spite of Himself

by Bernie Silver

  “Wait!”

  I don’t why I yelled that. Maybe I wanted to do the honors myself. What I did know was that I was aroused beyond endurance, so at a pace not much slower than a gale-force wind I removed all my clothes and scattered them willy-nilly, revealing to the universe my stiffened condition. And yet for once I didn’t care, so focused was I on my final destination. I fairly leaped into bed, crawled between Jane’s legs and, in another display of chutzpah, ripped off those panties.

  Soon after that I discovered. for the first time really, what all the shouting was about.

  #

  “You owe me,” Jane said.

  We lay there in the early morning hours, entwined, exhausted and unable to perform another encore. At least I couldn’t.

  I tried breaking it to her gently. “I’m not sure … I don’t know if I can …”

  Her laughter reminded me of Shearing’s gentle chords. “Not that. Panties.”

  “Oh, okay, I can buy—”

  More laughter, louder but no less melodious. “I’m kidding. I’ve got so many pair now I use them for dust cloths.”

  Apparently my ability to read women’s minds still needed honing. I gazed out the window at the low-riding moon, which seemed to be laughing too.

  Me, I was laughing on the inside. Here we were, Jane Bartolo and I, naked in bed after a night of unrestrained sex. Come to think of it, that wasn’t funny. That was miraculous.

  “… something else I love about you,” Jane was saying when I returned to Earth. “You’re so, I don’t know, naïve. Or maybe that’s not the right word. Innocent, I think. That’s it. Most guys try to act tough and hide who they are, but you, you let it all hang out.” With a wink she added, “So to speak.”

  She’d mistaken ignorance for innocence, but far be it from me to contradict her. Instead I slipped a hand under the covers and slid it along her thighs, first one, then the other, so as not to play favorites. In return she nipped at my neck.

  “Hon,” Jane said after several nips, “you have to go.”

  I may have looked bewildered.

  “It’s Tony,” she explained.

  “What about him?”

  Jane sat up and tugged the percale sheet over her lovely breasts. “How can I say this? I don’t want to confuse him by having someone, a man, here in the morning. Foolish, I know, but I can’t help it.” Her smile glowed in the dark. “Of course, someday I’d like a man here permanently.”

  How many guys had this woman slept with? Was she auditioning prospective husbands? I hardly wanted to get married yet, even to a goddess like her.

  Jane leaned toward me. “Uh-oh, I can hear the wheels turning. Of course I hope to get married again, this time to a man who loves children. But I won’t rush into anything, not even with you, Nate Rubin.” She reached down and grabbed my dingus.

  And that’s all it took. Battery recharged, I asked if we had time, pretty please, and she said yes if we didn’t dawdle.

  Which we didn’t.

  Chapter 64

  I’d been caught in traffic jams before but not of this magnitude. In the old days, when sports still had a stranglehold on me, Dad and I sometimes attended a ball game at Tiger Stadium, whose surrounding streets, especially Trumbull Avenue, were so clogged with cars that no matter how much time we allowed for the snarl, we barely arrived in time for the opening pitch. And yet the congestion Ellen and I encountered outside Cobo Hall made the streets around the stadium on game day seem as vacant as a schoolyard on weekends. Helping explain the logjam was the fact that in addition to Ann McCory’s speech, Cobo Hall was hosting three conventions that Saturday, and don’t ask me what they were. One was a gathering of proctologists, I think. And no, I’m not kidding.

  After finally driving into the parking structure, I joined the conga line winding up I don’t know how many ramps and a year later found an open space on a level high enough to cause nosebleed. We took the packed elevator to ground level and began race-walking to reach our seats before Ann McCory’s spiel began. We were moving as fast as Ellen’s high heels and my scrawny legs would permit when another obstacle appeared. Outside Cobo Hall a group of demonstrators were chanting “Ann, Ann, Kiss My Can” and carrying placards that informed passersby that, in case they were unaware of it, “War Sucks.”

  We started to do an end run around the overheated group but then someone to my rear tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Hey, man, how yuh doin’?” said a vaguely familiar voice.

  I turned and saw a stranger, a creature with rimless glasses, matted, shoulder-length hair and a mangy beard that allowed little room to breathe. He wore a T-shirt and jeans, both badly in need of repair.

  I looked at him blankly.

  “Lenny Klinger,” he said. “Cuba Libre, remember?”

  I peered more closely but couldn’t connect the man before me with the Lenny Klinger I’d once interviewed for the Post. Still, the fellow ought to know who he was.

  “Yeah, Lenny, I remember you.”

  Just not this incarnation. Whatever happened to khaki-clad Leonardo with the Spanish accent? I had no time to find out, especially with Ellen Drury tugging on my arm.

  “Sorry, I’d love to stay and chat,” I said, “but we’ve got a speech to catch.”

  “Not that fucking McCory I hope. Please don’t tell me—”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Man, you don’t wanna listen to that bitch. I mean, that fascist bitch.”

  But Nazis were fascists, were they not? Ann McCory was a Republican. Were Republicans Nazis? I was tempted to ask, but Ellen was yanking really hard now.

  “Thanks for the advice, Lenny,” I called out as she hauled me off.

  At the front door to Cobo Hall Ellen expressed her curiosity. “Who was that … that … man?”

  “Name’s Lenny Klinger. I went to high school with him and interviewed him for the Post. He’s a character.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. I suppose another is that he too is a child of God. But still …” She finished the sentence by shuddering.

  We entered the building and followed the signs to the ballroom in which the fascist bitch was scheduled to speak. We ran into still more congestion outside the room’s double-doors, where three women wearing angelic smiles and identical gray suits sat at a folding table taking tickets. Ellen and I eventually presented ours, got our stubs and strolled down a waiting line that stretched to infinity, or so it seemed. Upon reaching the end we began moving forward, as if the line had been waiting breathlessly for our arrival before advancing. As we progressed toward the entrance a gentleman dressed in a dark-blue suit and powder-blue tie strolled up and down the line, assuring everyone that due to the exceptionally large crowd the program would be delayed until all ticketholders were seated. After finally entering the ballroom we headed down the center aisle to our reserved front-row seats, secured by Ellen through a McCory Enterprises staff member who owed her one for behaving in an ungodly manner on their first and only date.

  Once seated, Ellen squeezed my hand. “I can hardly wait, can you?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  This was true because my companion had failed to specify what she could hardly wait for, allowing me some latitude in my response. I could hardly wait for a lot of things, including another heated session in bed with Jane Bartolo. On the other hand, for Ann McCory’s speech I could wait a century, or until the country elected a black man president, whichever came last.

  After delivering my tame reply to her question I looked over at Ellen. Her childlike eagerness, as evidenced in her flushed cheeks, sparkling gray eyes and buoyant manner, rendered her especially appealing on this particular day, as did the burgundy dress that stressed her riper, more mature qualities. Perhaps to stress the pious aspect of her nature, she also wore a beaded necklace with a large gold cross appended to it.

  As for me, I had on my usual stepping-out outfit, a knit shirt and gabardine slacks plus plain loafers to go with my conspicuous lack of j
ewelry. Curious about the crowd behind us, I turned and saw that their attire varied from suits and ties to jeans and sandals, from dresses and heels to skirts and flats. But regardless of their apparel, the attendees to a person seemed aquiver with excitement. I swiveled back to face a stage clothed in red-white-and-blue bunting and a lectern similarly attired. In the foreground, stage left, stood a flagpole with a banner at rest.

  A half-hour past the official starting time Tim Byersmith strolled on stage wearing a charcoal suit and pale-yellow tie, looking for all the world like the tight-assed skeleton I remembered.

  Ellen leaned over and whispered, “They’re married now.”

  Which answered that question.

  In the same sonorous voice that I also recalled, Mr. McCory asked everyone to rise for the national anthem. We all did so and while straining my vocal cords I let my thoughts stray to Jane Bartolo, with whom I had another date tomorrow. I’d phoned her midweek to suggest we spend Sunday together, going where and doing what to be determined. She said yes if she could bring Tony along, and I said sure and swore under my breath. But even with the prospect of a kid in tow, I looked forward to seeing Jane again and, perhaps later in the day, repeating our previous performance in bed.

  Following the anthem’s torturous finale we reseated ourselves and Tim Byersmith introduced his wife to the strains of wild applause. Ann McCory then strode out from stage right, looking even heftier than the last time I’d seen her on TV.

  “Hi there, how’re all God’s children today?” was her congenial greeting.

  With a broad smile on her bloated face, Ann strutted across the podium, waving at her admirers as she went. Her additional weight notwithstanding, she radiated self-confidence, which no doubt constituted part of her appeal. Her charm certainly didn’t lie in a buoyant attitude toward the country’s current condition, seeing as she began with a gloomy account of how the commies in Washington and the hippies on campus were destroying America. The Supreme Court had ruled that anyone could vote no matter how illiterate. The president had tied our troops’ hands in Vietnam by taking nuclear weapons out of them. And Congress had butted in where it didn’t belong, again, by passing the Civil Rights Act and Medicare legislation. And if all that wasn’t enough to lower your spirits, hippie men were burning their draft cards and letting their hair grow long while hippie women were burning their bras and letting their legs grow hair.

  This litany of transgressions, abbreviated for your sake and mine, drew murmurs of agreement and widespread headshakes, which bothered me because I liked a little dissent with my harmony (maybe Skolnick’s speech, or at least part of it, had adhered after all).

  Anyway, Ann’s powerful delivery and personal magnetism kept the audience attentive. Well okay, I nodded off twice, but only twice. I was taking my second nap when Ellen Drury shook me awake for the big finale.

  “… and so, my fellow patriots,” Ann was saying, “remember this. Just as our ancestors fought for their freedoms, we must now fight for ours. Not with the bullets or bayonets reserved for our brave men in uniform, but with the power of the ballot. America is still a democracy, thank God, so we must win our war in the voting booth. The enemy may have triumphed in our last crusade, but the good Lord willing we shall prevail in the next one.”

  The audience erupted in applause and shouts of approval, amid which Ellen took time to wink at me, apparently ignoring my inert hands.

  Ann McCory waited patiently for the clapping to subside while sipping from a glass of amber liquid. Tea or whiskey? My money was on Lipton, which, needless to say, would not have been my choice.

  “Good for you,” Ann said after the crowd quieted down. “Passion is crucial to our war against the Devil. But … and this is a big but … it’s useless if we confine it to this room. You must take your enthusiasm out there, into the world. And you must do it now. The next election is three years away, but it’s not too early to prepare for battle. And battle we must, rather than stand idly by, as so many of us did last year, while that vulgar Texan defeated the one voice for liberty on the ballot.”

  I glanced at Ellen, who was shaking her head, apparently also displeased that the GOP had deserted its own candidate in the last presidential election.

  Pacing again, Ann continued. “Democrats expect us to remain apathetic, like we were toward Senator Goldwater. Let’s disappoint them this time. Let us support whoever runs against that pinko in the White House, especially if it’s Ronald Reagan, who delivered the best speech ever at last year’s convention …”

  The applause, though not equal to the previous round, was still considerable.

  What puzzled me about the Gipper was why he’d changed professions, from a perfectly honorable one to the sleaziest of them all. True, thespians and politicians both put on an act, but actors were supposed to act. That’s what made them act-ors. Politicians were not supposed to play someone they weren’t in order to get their way.

  Ann went on. “… or our candidate could be former vice president Richard Nixon, still fighting the good fight against communism after all these years. But no matter who we choose to run for president, we must get behind him, because … and I cannot emphasize this enough … if those Democrats retain power, this country’s future will be in jeopardy. I don’t have to tell you those jackasses, forgive the language, are destroying the United States at home and aiding its enemies abroad. So now is the time to spread the word, the gospel if you will. Tell everyone, including your friends, neighbors, family members and even strangers, to vote Republican in the next election. Tell them we, all of us, must take this country back!”

  Back? Back from whom? The Democrats? If so, would I be any better off if the Republicans took over the country? I couldn’t say for sure, but I was skeptical.

  The rest of the audience apparently was not. They gave Ann a standing ovation, signaling they knew who had the country and were eager to wrest it away from them. Regardless of who had what, I knew one thing for sure. I’d had enough speechifying for one day.

  “We should go now and beat the traffic,” I shouted to Ellen above the uproar.

  Though hesitant at first, she assented and we headed for the exit. Once we hit the street she suggested we grab a cup of coffee and talk.

  Talk? Talk about what? What was there to talk about?

  “We’re trying to avoid the heavy traffic,” I reminded her.

  “It’ll thin out by the time we’re finished.”

  She took my hand and we searched for a coffee shop.

  The neighborhood, like the John R-Rush area, featured barred windows, littered streets and menacing pedestrians, whose stares I swear I wasn’t imagining. Fortunately, we found a restaurant, Trixie’s Fine Dining, within three blocks of Cobo Hall.

  After finding our way to an empty, heavily patched booth, we slid in and a thickset waitress showed up, smiled pleasantly and presented us with food-stained menus.

  Ellen handed hers back. “Just coffee, please.”

  “Same here,” I said.

  Our friendly matron scowled and stomped off.

  Whereupon Ellen started in. “So what’d you think of the speech, the parts you didn’t sleep through.”

  In no mood to argue, I tried the middle way again. “Interesting.”

  “Interesting? Really? That’s all you have to say?”

  “What else do you want me to say?”

  “I want you to say what you think. Give me your honest opinion.”

  I sipped some cloudy water. “Ann was incredibly passionate, and I can see why she has a lot of followers.”

  Ellen sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “And?”

  “And what?”

  She shook her head. “Nate, what did you think of what she said?”

  I sipped some more murky water and continued to skirt the question. “To be honest, I didn’t like that audience.”

  “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “Because everyone responded in lockstep, like a bunch of, I
don’t know, religious zealots.”

  Now I’d done it. I expected her to hurl her glass of water at me, so I was preparing to duck when the waitress arrived with our coffees. She turned on her heels before we could thank her, or ask for cream and sugar.

  Ellen sipped her pristine caffeine. “Religion has nothing to do with it. We all love our country and hate to see it destroyed, so we have a common response when Ann talks about saving it.”

  “Saving it from what, or whom? Democrats? Don’t they love their country too??“So they say.”

  “But they don’t?”

  “That’s arguable.”

  The last thing I needed was a political debate with Ellen Drury, so I returned to the audience’s behavior. “My point is, all that cheering and clapping made me uncomfortable.”

  “That’s called enthusiasm, Nate. We’re excited about our beliefs and want to, need to, express our passion.”

  You can imagine what images that conjured up in my sex-crazed mind. But I laid them aside as a non-sex-related thought entered it. If Democrats had filled the ballroom to listen to one of their evangelists, the same thing would have happened. The speaker would have trashed Republicans and the audience would have expressed its passion by stomping and yelling its approval.