Pete Hamill - Loving Women

She stopped dancing and squinted at me, her eyes vanishing the way they did in the slits of the men.

“What’d you say?”

“I said it all seems a little nutty to me. You know, religion.”

“ Religion seems nutty to you?”

“To tell the truth: yeah.”

“Well, I never—”

We were near one of the poles along the edge of the dance floor. I had seen people say Well, I never in comic strips and heard the words on the radio; but she was the first live human who ever said them to me. Well, I never — I thought the next word I’d hear was “pshaw.” She looked flustered, and that made me feel like an even bigger man of the world. Something I’d said had actually made her react to me. She’d think I was sophisticated, fearless, a rebel. And instead of shutting up, or telling lies, bending my knee to Jesus the better to see up her dress, I went on talking.

“I mean, here’s this Jewish carpenter, Jesus, who died two thousand years ago, and all over the world people are still arguing about what he said, and killing one another over it. Does that make any sense ? And—”

“You better mind what you’re saying.”

“They’re all Christians , aren’t they? So why are they all split into a hundred different groups? It’s nuts . Jesus—”

“You said he was a Jew ! You said the Lord was a Jew!”

“Well, he was . He was born in Nazareth, he went to the synagogue, he—”

“He wunt no Jew ! The Lord wunt no damned Jew ! The Lord was a Christian !!”

She turned abruptly away from me, pushing people aside, heading toward the front of the hall. I went after her, sorry I’d talked so much, saying: “Hey, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings , Sue Ellen!”

Then I saw that some faces were turning to examine me or gaze after Sue Ellen. A few dancers stopped. I saw them talking, nodding at me, and wondered where Sal and Max had gone. Then I saw a heavyset man in a tight shiny blue gabardine suit go to Sue Ellen. I came closer, still hoping to recover my lost moment, take back the words, try to find my way to those luscious hidden tits. He took her hand, as if about to bow and kiss it. Then he turned to face me. He had small abrupt features bunched together in a large round face. Staring at me, he said to her: “What’s the problem, Sue Ellen?”

“Buster,” she said, “this sailor said the Lord was Jew!”

“Now, hold it,” I said. “What I said was—”

Buster said to me, “You said the Lord God, our Savior and Redeemer, was a Jew ?” Then louder, as he dropped her hand: “A Jew ?”

I tried to smile and turned slightly, keeping Buster in my sight, and saw Sal coming through the crowd. The band was playing loudly now. Then I saw Max coming over too. I relaxed (or grew braver, knowing I wasn’t alone). And then saw that Buster was no longer on his own, either. Two, six, then a dozen young men were assembling behind Buster and Sue Ellen. In this sudden formation, they looked like some odd football team where the quarterback had big tits and a pockmarked face; she looked at me now as if possessed, suddenly realizing that she could call the signals. Ah, the power of cunt.

“What’s going on?” Sal said in a flat even voice.

“A little theology discussion,” I said, performing my cool part as much for him as for the others. “I was explaining that Jesus was a Jew. And—”

“See?” Sue Ellen said, as if I’d just snapped the ball from center. “He said it again !”

Then Max stepped in and raised his hands with the palms out, like a referee separating fighters.

“Please, please, folks, please ,” he said. They waited, looking at him in a puzzled way. “I happen to be an expert on this subject. And I have to say that my friend Devlin here is right. It’s a fact of history, beyond any question, that Jesus was a Jew. I know. Because I’m a Jew myself .”

A stunned moment, and then Buster said: “You’re a Jew ?!”

“Born and bred, my friend. A card-carrying New York Jew.”

Suddenly the preacher was there, pushing through Sue Ellen’s brawny backfield, his face ashen, and I thought: Holy Christ , his nose has a hard-on!

“What is this all about?” he said.

At that point, we could have bowed, shook hands and gone off to the Dirt Bar. But Sue Ellen then changed the terms of the debate. She pointed at Max, her eyes wide.

“This boy … this boy’s a Jew !”

Her face was all snarled up now, her eyes indignant.

“And this one, that I made the mistake of dancing with, this one says that the Lord was a Jew!”

The preacher turned to me, his erect nose throbbing. But before he could say anything, Sal stepped in. He began to speak in a British accent, even drawing on some secret supply of phlegm.

“Reverend, reverend, with all due respect, dear boy, I think I’d better explain some of the theological ramifications and deep secular philosophical roots of the discussion between this barbaric young man and this lovely Christian lady.”

He touched the side of his nose, as if raising spectacles. Everyone looked at him.

“You see, it wasn’t, ahem, a discussion of phenomenology or epistemology they were engaged in, old chap.”

He cleared his throat. “Nor were they involved in the historical roots of the Hebraic-Christian traditions and the shared tenets of all Mediterranean civilization including Christianity.” He pursed his lips. “You see, dear reverend, what they were actually discussing was—” a pause— “pussy.”

For one long moment, nobody moved. Buster’s jaw dropped. The preacher’s nose wilted. Sue Ellen widened her stance, as if trying not to swoon.

And then Sal turned, grabbing Max and me with each of his hands, and we were running and laughing through the hall, with Buster and the football team after us. Chairs went flying, a table toppled over with a crash, there were shouts and screams while the band blasted harder than ever. We burst into the cool night air, Sal laughing and leaping, and Max turning, raising both muscled arms at the sky, shouting at the doors of the hall: “I’m a Jew, I’m a Jew, I’m a Jew Jew Jew!”

And then we were running and I could feel my blood pulsing and the muscles bunching in my legs and pain spearing my side as we raced for the highway. We could see the bus pulling around from the base to the bus stop and Sal started yelling for it to stop, as we went over a low fence and across a lumpy field. We could make it! We’d get on board and ride away to town and finish our night at the Dirt Bar, with Tons of Fun arriving in the van and Dixie Shafer telling me tales of the vanished hills. Yeah. Simple. And then I turned and saw Max fall and four of the rednecks coming over the fence, Buster leading the pack.

“Max! Come on, man! We can make this goddamned bus!” Sal shouted.

But Max got up and turned to the oncoming rednecks and planted his feet. It was as if he were saying, to us and to the world, that he was a tough proud Jew and he just wasn’t going to run. Not from these morons. Not from anyone. So we stopped running and let the bus leave and joined Max. The first man came in a rush and Max bent low, twisted, let the right hand fly and the man went down. A second one came at me, a guy who looked like an auto engine in a shirt, and I threw the right hand hard and straight and felt the impact all the way up in my shoulder and the man’s face seemed to explode in blood and he fell to his knees. I kicked him over on his side.

But then Buster was there, his rage ferocious, and I wasn’t so lucky this time. I threw a punch and it glanced off Buster’s head and then I was slammed, and lifted, suddenly without breath or bone or strength, and then was on my back. Time stopped. And sound. I saw the sky. Black, with pinwheeling stars. And thought: I’m knocked out. He knocked me out .