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By Root 12415 0

by a harelip?” Nathan cackled, too loud, startling a pair of window-shopping Hadassah matrons, who drifted past us with expressions of agony as Nathan sailed blissfully on, doing a job on Mammy. “You done knocked up mah precious baby again!” he boohooed in female plaint, his voice a heavenly facsimile—down to the perfect shading of falsetto—of that of some weak-witted and godforsaken wife and victim, blighted by wedlock, history and retrograde genes. As impossible to reproduce as the exact quality of a passage of music, Nathan’s rollicking, dirty performance—and its power, which I can only barely suggest—had its origins in some transcendent desperation, although I was only beginning to be aware of that. What I was aware of, as my wild laughter sprang forth, was that it was a species of genius—and this was something I would wait another twenty years to witness, in the incandescent figuration of Lenny Bruce.

Because it was well past noon, Nathan and Sophie and I decided to postpone our “gourmet” seafood meal until the evening. To fill the gap we bought beautiful long kosher frankfurters with sauerkraut and Coca-Colas at a little stand and took them with us to the subway. On the train, which was thronged with beach-famished New Yorkers carrying huge bloated inner tubes and squalling infants, we managed to find a seat where we could loll three abreast and munch at our humble but agreeable fare. Sophie fell to eating her hot dog with truly serious absorption while Nathan unwound from his flight and began to get better acquainted with me over the clamor of the train. He was ingratiating now, inquisitive without being nosy, and I responded easily to the questions. What brought me to Brooklyn? What did I do? What did I live on? He seemed tickled and impressed to learn that I was a writer, and as for my means of support, I was about to lapse into my silkiest plantation brogue and say something on the order of “Well, you see, there was this nigger—Knee-grow—slave I owned, that was sold... ” But I thought this might provoke Nathan into thinking I was pulling his leg; he might then embark again upon his monologue, which was becoming a trifle exhausting, so I merely smiled thinly, wrapping myself in an enigma, and replied, “I have a private source of income.”

“You’re a writer?” he said again, earnestly and with obvious enthusiasm. Shaking his head back and forth as if with the minor marvel of it all, he leaned across Sophie’s lap and gripped my arm at the elbow. And I did not feel it at all awkward or emotional when his black, brooding eyes pierced into mine and he told me in a shout, “You know, I think we’re going to become great friends!”

“Oh, we’re all going to become great friends!” Sophie echoed him suddenly. A lovely phosphorescence enveloped her face as the train plunged toward sunlight, out of the claustrophobic tunnel and into the marshy maritime reaches of south Brooklyn. Her cheek was very close to my own, flushed with contentment, and when once again she linked her arms in mine and Nathan’s, I felt on cozy enough terms to remove, between my delicate thumb and forefinger, a tiny thread of sauerkraut clinging to the corner of her lip. “Oh, we’re going to be the best of friends!” she trilled over the train’s rackety noise, and she gave my arm a tight squeeze that was certainly not flirtatious but contained something in it more than—well, casual. Call it the reassuring squeeze of one who, secure in her love for another, wished to admit a new-found companion into the privileges of her trust and affection.

This was one hell of a compromise, I thought, pondering the harsh inequity of Nathan’s custodianship of such an exquisite prize, but better even this savory little crust than no loaf at all. I returned Sophie’s squeeze with the clumsy pressure of unrequited love, and realized as I did so that I was so horny my balls had begun to ache. Earlier, Nathan had mentioned getting me a girl at Coney Island, a “hot dish” he knew named Leslie; it was a consolation to be looked forward to, I supposed in the stoic mood of the perpetual