Tara Ison - Ball - Stories

“Fourteen,” LouAnn tells him. “We have fourteen flyers slashed with swastikas.” LouAnn is keeping a file of them, all the dates listed, just as the police instructed. Every time one is swastika’d we immediately replace it, so all the residents coming on or off the elevator, collecting their mail, don’t have to walk by it and get traumatized. Everyone is waiting, hoping, praying, they tell us, for this to end, for us to do something.

“He does it sometime between midnight and 6:00 AM. Every third or fourth night,” I say.

“We thought about staking out the lobby ourselves, but. .”

“No, no, you ladies are doing the right thing.” Cliff checks his watch and programs in the correct date and time. “You don’t want anyone getting hurt. You get him on camera, that’s it, you got him. He’s not getting away with shit.”

LouAnn and I return to the lobby to post a brand-new notice: Please Note: Do Not Buzz Anyone Into The Building You Do Not Know Or Expect Personally! We Must Look Out For Each Other! We stand for a moment, looking at the fake fire detector. She waves at it like a tourist.

“This is creepy,” she says. “Every time we get on and off the elevator, we’re being watched.”

“I know. But I feel like I’m being watched, anyway. Every time I take Zosia for a walk at night, or just going into the garage. Who knows when this guy is hanging around or not? When he’s going to show up next time?”

“How about what he’s going to do next time? I keep waiting for it to get worse.”

“Me, too,” I say. “I’m not sleeping at night. I keep waking up, all the time. Every little noise. . I feel like we’re all so vulnerable .”

“We are ,” she says. The elevator opens, and we get in. “I mean, c’mon, we have a building full of dykes, kikes, fags, and cripples. This guy could have a field day.”

“I’m only half-kike,” I remind her, and she laughs.

I WANT SObadly to hate her; the best I can do is to feel bored. Despite the SAT scores, which I continue to be told were very, very high; her intelligence is responsive, the bright and supportive follow-ups in conversation. It doesn’t matter. She is sweet and sincere, with Edwardian curls, bird-like bones, and healthy pink gums. She is delicate, sweatless. She answers the phone when I call him at home and keeps me there for long minutes, asking a vast range of personal questions, revealing private details, creating intimacy between us. Eventually she stops turning the phone over to him at all and goes ahead to make the plans herself, for the three of us. Eventually I stop asking to speak to him at all and succumb to the girlfriend chat. She is insultingly unthreatened.

The three of us go to dinner at El Coyote, where Chas and I each finish two double margaritas before our Numero Ocho combo platters arrive. Missy delicately picks the canned green beans from her vegetarian tostada.

“So, you got him?” he asks, excited. “That’s great, you got him. I love it.”

“Yeah. Three different nights on tape. At 2:33, 2:41, and 2:27 AM.”

“Nazis are very punctual.”

“At one point he actually stops, turns his head, looks right at the camera. LouAnn and I were sure he figured it out. But then he turns and carves a second one.”

“Balls. Big, Nazi balls.”

“Chuck said none of you recognize him, right?” asks Missy.

“Nope. He’s some fat, schlubby, thick-necked guy. He’s wearing the same T-shirt and shorts every time. And he’s totally blasé about it, just strolls in. . ”

“That’s so gross,” Missy says.

“At least we’re doing something about it. The video thing was brilliant.”

“You’re Simon Wiesenthal. You’re Beate Klarsfeld,” Chas pounds a fist on the table in tribute.

“And this schlubby guy. . I’d always pictured some well-groomed, goose-stepping Aryan eating streusel and drinking Riesling.”

“No, the Nazi from Cabaret ,” Chas says. “That beautiful, sweet, blond angelic kid, who gets up in the tavern and sings ‘Tomorrow belongs, To morr ow belongs’—”

“To morr ow belongs to meeee !” I join in singing, and the two of us raise our margarita glasses like beer steins. “Did we rent that, or what?”

“No, Beverly Cinema.”

“Oh, yeah, with the guy at the ticket window—”

“With the hair!”

“Yeah!”

“I saw that movie once,” says Missy, smiling. “It was really good.”

We all smile and sip our drinks.

“So. . ” Chas says.

“So, anyway, tonight the cops are finally staking us out. They’ll grab him in the act. LouAnn and I are going to wait up. I want to see this guy suffer.”

“You know, even with the videos they’ll plead him down. You’ll probably wind up with a few counts of vandalism, defacement of property, maybe a terrorism statute. Misdemeanors. He could even get off.”

“Then we’ll form a posse, track him down, and string him up by his hairy Nazi balls.”

“You’ll let me know, right? You’ll call me tomorrow?”

“You don’t want me to call at 2:47 AM?”

“Nah. I’m in court early.” He gets up, heads to the bathroom. “Order me another, right?”

Missy and I smile at each other.

“Chuck told me how much he loved your book,” she says to me.

“Really?” I ask, although he and I have already discussed it. He calls me every few days from his office. It is when we talk. I decide not to tell her this. I decide to spare her.

“Yeah,” she says. “He told me he thought it was incredible. I can’t wait to read it.”

“I hope you like it.”

“Oh, I know I will. Wow. . ” She sighs, takes a sip of her margarita. “I wish I could get it together. Maybe I should go to grad school. I don’t know. I just think it’s incredible, everything you’re doing. Both of you.” She gazes toward the bathroom; Chas is on his way back to us. She leans a little closer to me. “I feel so insignificant,” she says quietly.

I want to throw my drink in her face. No, I want to claw her first, rake my nails across her creamy cheek, so the alcohol burns.

“Hey, sweetie,” Chas says to her.

“No, wait, I’m going next.” She slides out of the booth. “Chuck, finish my margarita.” She heads to the bathroom, calling back to me: “I’m such a lightweight!”

“How’s Zosia?” Chas asks.

“She’s delicious.”

“I’m converting to Judaism,” he tells me.

“You are?”

“Yeah.”

“You are.”

“Monday I begin instruction with the Janowsky family rabbi.”

I suddenly get it. “You’re getting married.”

He nods. “Next August somethingth.”

“You’re a devout atheist.”

“It means something to her. Kids and everything. It’s okay. I like Jews.”

“What does your therapist say?”

“He approves. Well, he did. I’m not seeing him anymore.” He pours half of Missy’s margarita into my glass and the rest into his. He raises his glass. “ L’chaim .”

We drink, and the salt burns my lips. Missy returns.

“ Mazel tov ,” I tell her.

“Oh. . ” She slides in next to him, smiling, and slips her arm into his. “He told you. I wanted to tell you. . ” She playfully punches his arm. “I’m so excited. I can’t wait.”

“I bet. . well, indeed, a big, fat, hairy mazel tov .”

“Thanks,” they say together. He takes her lovely hand and she lifts her head to kiss him, perfectly on the lips, her white throat delicately arched. I think, unwelcomingly, of the last time I went down on him, my desperate, inelegant head-bobbing. Give me a chance, I want to say, one chance to do it over. I’ll do it right this time, be everything you want, all of it, achieve everything, for you.