I FOUND the solution. Sleep. I went on a rampage. I slept everywhere. In shopping malls, on barber chairs, in restaurants, movie theaters, trains, at the kitchen table, on the couch, sitting, even standing. A strange promiscuity. I could do it anytime, anywhere, in any position.
What made me so tired was the knowledge that I had everything, a million dollars and the world’s most glorious blonde shiksa for a wife. There is nothing more to have, I thought.
This is it! The American jackpot! Bingo!
“See a doctor,” Joan said.
“I’m not sick.”
“Do you know how many hours you sleep a day?”
“I’m catching up. Had a rough childhood.”
“You’re not funny.”
No, I was not funny.
In one sense I was better off than ever. The jealousy was gone. Used to be when I caught a guy giving her the eye I’d steam. Now, nothing. Anyhow, the risk of her being unfaithful was nil. In that respect she was thoroughly cured. She was even depleted of the urge to have fun.
This was not altogether terrific, the fun urge being the characteristic that had made her so triumphantly and endearingly American. Fun, after all, was America’s religion. Remove fun and we’re no different from the Russians. (Talk to a Russian about fun.)
So this was finished. She even gave up tennis.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
“Oh?”
“You’re thinking of going back to Israel.”
“That had been part of our plans.”
“No, you’re thinking of going alone, back to the army.”
“Fat chance they’d take me again.”
“Oh they’d take you all right. You’re thinking of getting yourself killed.”
“Frankly, there are eight hundred places around the world where it’s even easier to get yourself killed. You don’t have to go to Israel. In fact you can stay right here. Try riding a subway. You can get just as lucky.”
“Yes, but you want to go down a hero. I thought you already did the hero thing in sixty-seven?”
“The hero thing.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You don’t understand, do you?”
“I do understand.”
“No you don’t. You never did. You never will.”
“Because I’m a shiksa?”
“That has nothing to do with anything.”
“Because I’m a woman? Because I’m a broad? Because I’m a cunt? Come on. Come on. Let’s have it out!”
“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You hate women. Why, you’re no better than Ibrahim!”
“You had to mention that name?”
“You’re all the same.”
“There’s a universe between me and that other guy.”
“Not when it comes to women.”
We began to taste the bread of affliction every day. Every single day we got into another ugly flare-up, and these began to make her physically ill. She lost weight. She learned migraines. Her hands vibrated. Spasms under her eye, over her lip.
People, I thought, do not die from lack of love. Only dogs do.
I tried to fake it but she was no dummy. She could separate pity from love.
Still, she was undaunted. She had made up her mind. She had decided we were going to be as before, when life between us had been pure and sweet and sensational. That was it! Nothing else. Nothing less.
Maybe I didn’t love her anymore, but I began to respect the hell out of her. One thing really got me. I did buy a ticket to Israel and she tore it up. “You’re staying here,” she said. She pushed me into a chair, “Here!”
I should have been furious except that I wasn’t. I liked it, in fact.
She insisted, one day, that I take her out on a date. I managed to get us box seats at Vet Stadium and there, under the big lights, I turned to her to say something trivial and found myself staring. Her looks had gone. This caught me by surprise, how vacant she was! Now, her most prominent feature--at this bad moment--was a mustache. I had noticed it in the past and it had been ever so slight, given her natural blonde hair, and even now there wasn’t much to it--just enough, though, to be repulsive.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“Nothing.”
We had the best seats in the park, down along the rail on the first base side. Foul balls whizzed above our heads inning after inning and she said she always wanted to catch one. The other team’s Andre Dawson obliged, except that it wasn’t foul.
The ball skipped over the first base bag and zoomed in at us, low, ready to ricochet into the glove of the Philadelphia outfielder. Joan reached down and gobbled up the ball. A terrific catch, except that on account of it the runner was awarded second base. He may have been thrown out had the outfielder been given a chance. The umpire declared fan interference.
The crowd--some thirty-six thousand--went berserk. Joan flashed her smile and held up the ball as a trophy. She thought they were cheering her. I said, “Joan, they’re booing.” She said, “No they’re not.” I said, “Yes they are.”
She caught on when hot dog wrappers and beer cans came showering down and all those wrathful faces were turned on us. The jeers grew louder and louder. This was an inflamed mob.
I feared a riot. The stands were throbbing. Men in tee-shirts shook their fists directly at Joan and bellowed, “Whore! Bitch!” From the sound of it the entire world was in an uproar.
A stadium guard rushed to our side. At this, the crowd erupted again.
“You’re gone,” he said.
“What?” said Joan.
He grabbed her arm.
“Don’t grab her arm,” I said.
“You too, mister. You’re both gone. Compliments of the management.”
“All right, but don’t grab her arm.”
“Just follow me,” he said. “Just follow me.”
As we got up, the crowd cheered.
“But people do this every day,” said Joan as the guard escorted us to the tunnel.
“The ball was fair,” I said.
“How was I to know it was fair?”
“Let’s go,” said the guard. “You’re losers.”
“All right,” I said. “Just don’t be grabbing my wife.”
“You’re losers,” he said.
The crowd kept cheering as we neared the exit. It was a long walk.
“I didn’t know the ball was fair,” said Joan.
“Let’s just get out of here alive,” I said.
“Is this the grand old game of baseball?” she said.
In the car, on the ride home, she was quite giddy. “We’re not losers,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“They’re losers,” she said.
“That’s right,” I said. But it’s amazing, I thought, how it happens to people. When the magic goes, it goes. As if you’re allotted so much grace--and, until recently, Joan had never known a moment without heaven’s charm--and once it’s used up, boy does it go!
This lady who had always been everybody’s Miss Congeniality had just been booed by thirty-six thousand people.
But she was defiant.
She said, “They’re a sixth place team, aren’t they?”
“That’s right.”
“They’ve only lost eight straight.”
“Nine, counting today, most probably.”
“We didn’t lose the game for them.”
“Maybe not.”
“We’re winners, aren’t we, Josh?”
“I think so.”
I liked the fact that she was defending herself and not giving in. This was the Joan of old. But I did not care for the urgency in her voice, something approaching panic. She was being altogether too smug, which usually meant she was wide open.
She said, “We’ve never lost eight in a row.”
“Nine.”
“We’re winners.”