New York Echoes

by Warren Adler

  We finally did it in Harold's bed. It was a real emotional scene with both of us sobbing like babies as we finally went all the way, which was the way it was described then. Physically, it was a lousy experience for both of us. I did the deed but it hurt us both like hell.

  But, to tell the truth, that really was not the important part. The sexual thing was not as connected as one might think. Maybe it was because of the way we were brought up and thought about the opposite sex. I wasn't doing it for pure pleasure. It was for love, for bonding. Even in our own minds, we did not call it fucking. There was something holy about it nor was it something that I was going to brag to the boys about. This was really private stuff, intimate. It had to do with love.

  We only did it once that night and, of course, I wore a rubber and we clung together for the longest time. Helen got hell from her parents for coming home late. The very next day, I remember, I bought her an ankle bracelet, which we called "a slave chain." We loved each other deeply. We had been with each other every day and night for almost three months. We had been inseparable, like Siamese twins.

  I'm sure that others in our crowd that summer were having the same experience, although I don't think many of them went all the way like we did. Strange to say, we boys never discussed that part of it, not about the girls we loved. Of course we liked to brag but never about the girls we loved. Never that.

  That last night, our crowd spent the night on blankets around a bonfire on the beach. We weren't much for drinking then. After we toasted wieners and ate our spuds we paired off on blankets and made love while the fire burned low. Most of us were under the blankets as well and, of course, Helen and I had our pants off and were kissing and hugging and crying as we made love.

  I'm sure we both pledged undying faithful love to each other. I know we both meant it. I'm sure I did. God, I loved that girl.

  When we got back to town, I called Helen every day and saw her every Friday and Saturday night. I got into the swing of things at CCNY, which was a long schlep from Brooklyn in itself, all the way up the West Side. But every chance I got I either called Helen or went up to see her. Her folks never invited me to stay over and I always went home, usually getting there when the sun was coming up, but not before Helen and I had made love on the living room couch. Ironically, her folks never got out of bed to catch us at it.

  I think they trusted Helen. But I was never sure they liked me. Thinking back, maybe they thought Helen was too young to make a long lasting commitment. She was still a senior in high school. Also, I could never be sure, but I don't think girls confided as much in their parents as they do today.

  But the facts of distance did not mean our love diminished. In fact, I think it got stronger. When we met we were like hungry lions and couldn't get enough of each other. Even the sex part became better. It was really awkward and very frightening to make love on the living room couch while Helen's parents were sleeping in the next room. We never got totally naked and since there was only one bathroom and you had to go past her parents’ bedroom to get to it I used to have to wrap all my used rubbers in Kleenex and put them in my pocket. I wouldn't throw them away until I got to the trashcans at the Burnside Avenue station.

  Once I had a real scare. When we made love for the last time on a certain night, I heard her father get out of bed and go to the bathroom. I pulled up my pants, hastily zipped and belted and said good night. It was probably three or four in the morning by then. Anyway, I left the house before her father got out of the bathroom and walked down the four flights and started up the hill to the Burnside Avenue station.

  When I got the station, I discovered that somewhere between Helen's parents’ couch and the Burnside station, the rubber had slipped off. I was petrified with fear. Suppose it dropped off inside of Helen's parents’ apartment, right in the center of the living room. Or in the hallway. Or just outside the front door. I don't think Helen's parents would have understood.

  It was still dark out and, panicked, I retraced my steps back up toward Helen's apartment, my eyes peeled to the ground, looking for that used rubber. Christ, my heart was pounding and I'm sure I was calling for help from every celestial being known to man. I got back to Helen's apartment house without finding it. I even retraced my steps up the stairs. Still no sign of it.

  I got to Helen's door and searched the area in the hall, but couldn't find it. But I didn't have the guts to ring the bell again and scare the shit out of everyone. I can tell you I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't wait until I called Helen the next morning. Her mother answered. She wasn't home, but she seemed very polite on the phone, which relieved me somewhat. Later when Helen called back she laughed when I told her my story. I never did find out what happened to that rubber.

  I wrote Helen love notes every chance I got. I managed to study and get passing marks but my mind was never once free of thoughts about Helen. Sometimes I would talk to her for an hour on the phone. It was hell being away from her.

  Sometimes when I got off really early from school, I would pop up to her place in the middle of the week, but I would always go home earlier because usually I had classes the next day. At times, because I couldn't get her on the phone, I sometimes surprised her, which was quite exciting for both of us. Not once did I question the mutuality of our love. Not once.

  But sometime in February when the nights were very long and the weather very cold, we happened to get off from classes early. I think one of the professors was sick. There wasn't any homework to speak of and, besides, that's the way I passed the time on those long subway trips, reading mostly. I read all the novels in my European history class going from Brooklyn to CCNY.

  I tried to get Helen on the phone. Nobody answered. I got to Burnside Avenue just as it was getting dark and started to walk swiftly up the hill to Helen's apartment filled, as always, with expectation and love. I remember there was a candy story a block before University where a crowd of boys and girls about my own age used to hang out. In those days hanging out around the candy store was a way to pass the time.

  But what I saw startled me. It was Helen standing against a brick wall next to the glass front of the store. She was kissing a guy, actually kissing a guy, right there in the street. Nobody was paying much attention to them. People did that in those days.

  I stopped dead in my tracks. My heart banged against my chest. It wasn't just a question of disbelief, I was physically hurting. My breath came in short gasps. I had to actually lean against a street light for support. It was awful and the sense of pain beyond any that I had ever experienced.

  But it wasn't only a sense of overpowering betrayal and defeat that I was feeling. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and it only exacerbated my emotions to feel that and make me more ashamed of my shame. After all, it wasn't me who should feel that. I wasn't the one being disloyal and untrue. I vowed not to look at them, but, as in all vows like that, I could not keep my eyes away.

  By then, they had separated and were merely holding hands, which, in that context, was equally as bad since it implied a relationship. I had had no warning. I had been with Helen just three days before, had not the vaguest hint of something like this. I hung back in the shadows, watching them, further humiliated by the act of spying. Was that really Helen, my Helen, my true love. Thankfully, they moved away, still holding hands, heading up the hill.

  I watched them until they faded from sight, trying to hold down a feeling of nausea. I really wanted to vomit. I gagged but held it down. I had no idea what to do, where to go, how to cope with this monumental disaster in my young life.

  I could never remember how I got home. I felt dazed, punchy, like a person who had been emptied of all life and hope. I know I didn't sleep. In the mirror the next morning, I saw a pale, bearded face with circles under my eyes. I felt feverish, sick at heart. My Helen. I still longed for her, wanted to hold her in my arms. I must have run through a gamut of emotions, all new.

  And yet, when Helen called me next day, the sound of her voice mom
entarily chased the pain. I told her I was sick.

  "I'll come over if you want," she said. Not a hint. Not an iota of guilt did I detect. I couldn't understand it.

  "No. I'll be fine," I said.

  "Do you love me?" she asked.

  "Of course, I do."

  I knew I was saying it by rote, although I also knew I loved her still. But a totally new feeling had crept over me, a kind of aura of self-protection. It even over-rode the sensation of jealousy that was now growing inside my gut. What could be bigger than jealousy? Betrayal. I was sure of that. I could not stand the idea of being betrayed, and I was determined to exorcise it from my system. I have since learned that nothing, but nothing, beats being betrayed as an act of inhumanity.

  I didn't let on to Helen what I had seen. Deep down I tried to tell myself that it was all a mistake. Perhaps the guy she was kissing was an old childhood friend, maybe a cousin? It was all harmless kidding around, I speculated, searching for the bright side, if there was one. After all, I still loved her deeply. But I sure had doubts about its reciprocity.

  It must be understood that, in those days, a great premium was put on faithfulness. Divorce was more a rarity than the norm. People made pacts with other people and kept them. Or so it seemed. Certainly, it was supposed to be that way with Helen and me. We had made a pact, an irrevocable one. We had vowed to love each other forever and ever. I had not the slightest doubt that, from my end, my commitment was iron bound.

  But I was not a fool. Before I was going to do something I might regret for the rest of my life, I had to be sure. To be absolutely sure I had to commit myself to be a shadow. Put her under surveillance. That meant neglecting everything and dedicating my energies to the service of that one purpose. That wasn't, of course, very practical. In those days we had to be practical. There wasn't much room to maneuver. We hadn't any money and to get ahead you had to keep up. And applying yourself to college was one of the ways you got ahead. So I wasn't going to jeopardize that under any circumstances.

  Sick at heart, doing my best to mask my feelings, I did not waver from my pattern of calling Helen every day. We talked and I tried to keep my voice from cracking and my conversation light enough.

  "Are you okay?" she asked.

  "Still a little down," I told her.

  "Friday I'll make you a very happy young man," she told me. "I love you so much." At those words, I thought my heart would break.

  On Friday I appeared as usual at her apartment.

  "Good news," she said grabbing me around the neck and giving me a deep kiss. "Mom and Dad won't be back until very late. They've gone to a party on Long Island."

  That meant that we could spend the whole evening together in her bedroom. Ordinarily that would have been a wonderful event. Not tonight. That night I was planning to be clever, manipulative. I was going to force the truth, one way or another. However the chips fell.

  We hopped into bed and got naked and made love. It is possible to separate your mind from your body. I hoped she was not noticing any difference in the way I performed. I even whispered to her, as I always did, telling her how much I loved her, how much she meant to me, how I would love her forever and ever and ever. I'm sure she said the same things to me as we lay there locked in each other's arms. All the time, on another level, I was thinking about what I was going to say and when I was going to start. I waited until I cooled down.

  I held her in the crook of my arm and we both lay there looking at the ceiling.

  "Helen, sweetheart, I often wonder what you do when I'm not around?" It was, I thought, blandly put as a matter of idle conversation, typical afterplay talk, I supposed.

  "I go to school, do my homework, talk to my girl friends, listen to records. The usual."

  "And you miss me?"

  "That especially," she said.

  "You don't hang out with a crowd."

  She stiffened slightly, although that could have been my imagination.

  "Not really," she said.

  "Does that mean yes or no?"

  I was deliberately not threatening, just coming on the subject easy, not wanting to scare her.

  "Sometimes I go down to Murray’s with my girl friends and kid around."

  "The candy store."

  "Down the street," she mumbled.

  "Every night?"

  "Not every night."

  "Every other night?"

  "Maybe."

  Still, I didn't look at her. But I was sure she knew something was up.

  "Lots of boys there?"

  "A whole crowd."

  I could tell that she was getting just a wee bit defensive. I was afraid of that. I was still hoping to get her off guard.

  "I can't blame you, I suppose," I said, changing my tactic slightly. I wanted to keep lulling her, afraid of going too far to soon. "I'm all the way down there in Brooklyn. You've got to have some fun when I'm not around."

  "It's just hanging around with people I've know for years," she said. I could tell she was slightly relieved.

  "I don't mind," I said.

  "I don't see why you should," she said, with just a bit too much innocence showing. I held my breath. It was, I was sure, time to strike.

  "I don't even mind your going out with that guy," I said blandly.

  She stiffened now, lifted her head and looked me in the face. I made sure I was smiling.

  "What guy?" she asked, but a frown had already wrinkled her forehead.

  "You know how it is," I said as if it didn't really matter, as if I wasn't bleeding inside. "You hear things. People talk."

  She wasn't sure what to make of it, but I could see that she was getting really scared now.

  "They're all busybodies. Bernie doesn't mean a thing to me."

  It was a dagger in my heart. Bernie? God, I hated Bernie.

  "That's not what I hear, Helen," I said.

  "They're all liars," she said with some vehemence, sitting up in the bed. It was getting tougher and tougher for me to keep up the game. I could feel rage and jealousy mounting inside of me.

  "They say he's more than just a friend," I pressed.

  "People are such bastards," she said, her own anger mounting.

  "They say you go out with him," I said, my voice no longer gentle.

  "You can't believe them."

  "I know you went out with him," I said, taking the shot in the dark. I really felt like a prosecutor and it pained me, especially the answers I was getting.

  "Just once or twice," she admitted cautiously. I could tell by then that she was lying through her teeth.

  "Or more?"

  "Maybe more," she said. I was not giving her enough time to think, to be evasive.

  "A lot more," I said.

  "No. That's not true."

  "He did it with you, too. That I know for sure."

  "I didn't," she snapped, on the verge of hysteria.

  "Listen. I know the truth. Why are you lying to me? Everybody knows."

  Tears rolled over her eyes down, her cheeks.

  "I didn't," she repeated through her sobs.

  "Bernie told everybody, Helen. Everybody knows."

  Her sobs became louder. Her shoulders shook.

  "I only did it once. I swear it. He made me,” she cried. "Only once."

  "Lots more than once Helen," I said as if I knew.

  She really started to ball then, crying like a baby. Clutching me around the waist. I felt her warm tears on my naked chest.

  "I didn't mean it, Kenny. I swear I didn't mean it. He made me. He pushed me. It's you I love Kenny. Please, please Kenny, forgive me. I'll never do it again. I swear it. I swear on my mother. I swear."

  It became a litany, all this swearing never to over and over again. I felt sick to my stomach and soon the dykes broke and the tears ran down my cheeks and onto her hair. I was still holding her, you see, still hugging her, still loving her. But I was also grieving, grieving for this lost pure love. I had, I truly believed, given her my essence, my sou
l, and she had betrayed me. It had dealt me an awesome, monumental, painful blow.

  I don't know how long we lay there, but I do know that for me it was the end of the world, the absolute end of the world. I've been through lots of defeats since, lots of betrayals of one sort or another, but nothing ever had the force and power of this betrayal.

  I knew it was over then, although we did go through the motions of making love. I'll never understand that. I knew it was over, that I would never, could never see her again, and yet I made love to her. I even whispered in her ear how much I loved her and heard her whisper that to me.

  I think that kind of farewell eased the parting for both of us. I never saw her again after that night, and I don't think I ever loved anyone as much.

  Sporty Morty

  by Warren Adler

  Every time Max Ruben passed Bloomingdale’s, he thought of Sporty Morty Millstein. Even now in his late seventies, Max found that Sporty Morty was the dominant character of his long-term memory.

  From their earliest days together hanging out in front of the candy store on Saratoga Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Sporty Morty was the acknowledged leader of their pack. With his nifty double-breasted, blue serge suits, jaunty gray fedora, ties that screamed out their authority with large Windsor knots on gleaming white-on-white spread collar shirt, pointy-toed, mirror-shined shoes, Sporty spun stories of female conquests that boggled the mind of his deprived sycophants who were relegated to the dubious delights of Madame Palm and her Five Sisters.

  No one really knew how Sporty could afford his lifestyle, although he broadly hinted that he was involved in various enterprises that smelled like number running or bookmaking, far more romantic undertakings than his supposed front carried out behind the counter of his father’s delicatessen on Pitkin Avenue.