“I regret this,” I said to Maishe that night over drinks at the Hilltop Bar in Mount Adams.
“Women,” he said.
“People.”
“Give us our daily temptation,” he said, about a religious experience he’d had the other night; he’d been seduced by a preacher’s wife. Maishe said he noticed something about us. We seldom had dates, regular dates with regular girls, and here we were, supposed to be the two greatest Romeos Cincinnati had ever seen – which was by itself a clue as to why we didn’t have girls of our own. We usually had somebody else’s.
That’s why when holidays came around, even New Year’s, we were usually home watching Dick Clark.
Or stuffing ourselves with chili dogs at White Castle next to a drunk singing My Melancholy Baby.
“Ironic,” Maishe said.
“So the question is, why don’t you have a woman of your own? Because the right one hasn’t come along?”
“No. Because the right one has, every other night.”
Maishe had something going with Demona Karenina, yes, Demona Karenina, a Russian-Israeli lady who’d passed through our territory, from Los Angeles, to promote her new novel. She was a writer, of course, and gorgeous, and very much in love with Maishe and Maishe was in love with her, probably, but could not muster the enthusiasm to go chasing after her. Demona Karenina was roundly intellectual and hotly political and Maishe, if he wanted to, could match her smarts for smarts, politics for politics, but he didn’t want to upon the proposition that, as to world events especially, it’s all reruns. We’re only repeating ourselves. He was tuned out and had dropped out some time ago when all that happened to him – whatever it was. Keep it simple and bring on the girls.
So it came to this – a preacher’s wife. That hurt Maishe.
I asked him what denomination the preacher was. He didn’t know. He said it wasn’t the preacher he had in bed.
I asked him if he had ever made love to a rabbi’s wife. He said yes.
“I’ve got to stop this,” he said.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said about the preacher’s wife. Or maybe about the rabbi’s wife, too.
“Of course it was my fault.”
“You said she seduced you.”
“But it still takes two.”
“What denomination was the rabbi?”
“What do you mean?”
“Orthodox, conservative, reform?”
“What difference does it make, Eli?”
“Big difference. A reform rabbi, or even conservative wouldn’t be so bad. But orthodox…”
“Eli, that was years ago, the rabbi’s wife. The preacher’s wife was last night. I’ve got to stop this.”
“How did she seduce you?”
“She was visiting her daughter on campus. I was in the sorority house.”
“You’ve got to start keeping away from those sorority houses, Maishe. Was she attractive?”
“I specialize in wives now.”
“That’s cause you’re older.”
“It’s awful.”
“So don’t do it anymore. Quit. Like smoking.”
“I think I will.”
“Did she pray?”
“Eli…”
“I’ll tell you why it’s important to know her denomination. In case she has to confess.”
“They don’t mention names.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me. She said she wouldn’t use my name.”
“She told you she was going to confess.”
“I’M confessing, aren’t I? To you.”
“But I don’t give forgiveness or salvation.”
“We’ve got to stop this, Eli.”
“We?”
“You’re no better.”
“I’ve been behaving.”
“No more wives. That’s my slogan.”
“I really can’t feel sorry for you, Maishe. If I felt sorry for anybody it would be the preacher.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve never had a preacher’s wife.”
“But you had a politician’s wife.”
“That’s no sin.”
“Yes it is, Eli.”
“But not as unholy.”
“Something’s wrong with us,” Maishe said.
“That’s a fact.”