We were having a Going Out of Business Sale. Fat Jack proudly announced it to me when I walked in, after I saw the signs outside – Everything Must Go. I was surprised. I had thought business was good, even though business was always bad. Fat Jack was in a terrific mood.
“We’re closing shop?”
“What makes you say that?”
I pointed to the signs.
“Oh that! That’s our latest advertising campaign.”
“You mean we’re not going out of business?”
“Why should we go out of business?”
“My mistake.”
This was like the time we had a fire sale, except that there had been no fire. When the Ohio River flooded we always had a Flood Sale. The Ohio River was miles away. Harry Himself had gained GENIUS status within the retail community when we had tried to trademark the word SALE, so that nobody else in America and perhaps the world could use the word without breaking the law, or paying him royalties, and even though the attempt failed, the legend continued.
I told Fat Jack I wouldn’t use that pitch upstairs as it would be unethical and he gave no static.
But he added: “You’re no salesman.”
“Thank you.”
He wanted the latest on Stephanie.
I said she was in California.
“So you lost her again,” he said and I said yes, I lost her again.
The best way to forget about her, he suggested, was to hire a bunch of new girls.
“Fresh blood,” he said. “Fresh pussy.”
That wasn’t such a bad idea all of a sudden.
I interviewed a beautiful blonde named Donna Mylstrom, from Clifton Heights – incredibly beautiful. Put movie stars to shame. Her resume said she had finished high school and had one year of college. I had never heard of the college, but she was going back after she saved some money to train for something paralegal, or para something. She had a body that refused to quit. I gave her the voice test, which she flunked. She had no voice. She whispered and had absolutely no oomph. She’d never get a lead.
I hired her.
First day on the job she walked over to my desk all flustered. She was hemorrhaging. She was so embarrassed. She protested when I offered to drive her to the hospital. On the way there, to the Jewish Hospital, she said the bleeding had probably stopped, so I drove her home. “I’m so embarrassed,” she said when I dropped her off. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a woman,” she said.
“No I don’t,” I said.
“I’ll make it up to you,” she said.
A week later I had her over to my apartment in Mount Adams and she was terrific in bed, although I kept worrying about a repeat of her problems. You really didn’t want them bleeding all over your lily white dick unless you were going to marry them and even then it wasn’t much fun and only proved what Maishe had always said, that women were more than just tits and ass, unfortunately; they bled, they had headaches, they got into moods. That’s why you went from one to another. Soon as one started to bleed, you moved on. Anyway, Donna Mylstrom had taken care of her problem just in time and was really terrific, really sensational, really superlative in bed. She didn’t do much. She just spread her legs, which was quite enough. She was so gorgeous. I loved her nipples. She was so gorgeous that I thought this could be a lasting thing – weeks! She came over every night and it developed into something of a routine. We walked in, threw our clothes off and went right to work. No lights out. No music. No talk. I just drove straight into her and worked her until she screamed.
Then I drove her home. I had no complaints. She did.
“You never talk,” she said.
I shrugged.
“You never talk to me,” she said.
“Is something wrong?”
“No.”
I was giving her my body. What more was there to give? She was so beautiful.
I tried talking to her but every topic was a topic I had already covered with Stephanie. I told Donna that it might be best if she found a guy who talked. I didn’t do talk. Talking was extra. She said it was all right the way it was. I didn’t have to talk but I persuaded her I wasn’t right for her, so she quit the job and was gone.
Every night after work I drove over to Stephanie’s house in Hyde Park and parked down the bottom of her drive. I knew where her room was and thought of climbing up. I stayed parked down there for about an hour, then drove off. I drove there this night and a cop was there in the drive. He asked me what business I had. Checked my driver’s license. Told me to leave and never come back. I was back the next night and the cop was still there, so I left.
I hired a few more girls, four of them. Two of them were named Sue. I took them both to bed, at different times. One was married, the other had a boyfriend. I learned that these things didn’t matter. The other two were named Carol and Barbara and I took them to bed, too. They all complained that I didn’t talk. Barbara, or maybe it was Carol, complained that I didn’t kiss.
“All we do is go straight to bed,” complained Carol, or Barbara. Or maybe it was Sue.
Marie, Fat Jack’s old standby, was next. She offered to cook me dinner. She cried while I drove her to my apartment. She cried while she cooked us dinner. She cried while we ate. She cried while we made love. She cried after we made love. I put on the ballgame and watched the game.
She asked why I didn’t wonder why she was crying. Wasn’t I going to ask?
“In a minute.”
The Reds had runners on first and third.
When they failed to score I said, “Why have you been crying?”
She explained that she had become Fat Jack’s mistress only to please me.
“That doesn’t say much for me,” I said. “I’d never ask a woman to do something like that.”
“I was afraid I’d lose my job. I support my mother, you know.”
“I’d never fire you over something like that.”
“Maybe not you. But what about Fat Jack?”
“He’d never EVER do that, either.”
“You don’t know men,” she said.
“You don’t know Fat Jack,” I said.
She cried.
She said I had forgotten what lovemaking was for, that I made love like other people drank or took drugs.
For the diversion.
I hired two girls named Kathy and I liked one better than the other, Kathy Ann Sanger was the one I liked, and I decided to love her. I decided to TALK to her and take her places. But I couldn’t take her to Fountain Square. All of downtown Cincinnati belonged to Stephanie. The ball park was out, since I had twice taken Stephanie to ballgames. Kathy Ann wanted to go to the Covington Landing on the river, but that was out, of course, since that also belonged to Stephanie. Forget Sugar n’ Spice. Forget Joe’s Bar or Maxy’s.
So we ended up in my apartment every night and even the walls laughed when she said: “You never talk. We never go anywhere.”
* * *
Maishe said, “Let’s go to New York.”
I shrugged.
“There’s nothing here anymore, Eli. Cincinnati’s finished for you.”
“There’s Sonja. I’m not finished with her.”
“You want revenge?”
“Justice.”
“What world do YOU live in?”
Even Stephanie, Maishe explained, wasn’t seeking justice. She wasn’t pressing charges.
“Of course not,” I said. “She’d have to appear in court and obviously, after what was done to her…”
“She doesn’t want to appear anywhere,” Maishe agreed.