The Middleman and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

to San Vincente, to the German bar with the pay phone: I’ll wear Clovis’s Braves cap and I’ll salute the Indians. “Turtle eggs,” I’ll say. “Number One,” they’ll answer back. Bud’s truck has been commandeered. Along with Clovis’s finer cars. Someone in the capital will be happy to know about Santa Simona, about Bud, Clovis. There must be something worth trading in the troubles I have seen.

A WIFE’S STORY
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    IMRE says forget it, but I’m going to write David Mamet. So Patels are hard to sell real estate to. You buy them a beer, whisper Glengarry Glen Ross, and they smell swamp instead of sun and surf. They work hard, eat cheap, live ten to a room, stash their savings under futons in Queens, and before you know it they own half of Hoboken. You say, where’s the sweet gullibility that made this nation great?
    Polish jokes, Patel jokes: that’s not why I want to write Mamet.
    Seen their women?
    Everybody laughs. Imre laughs. The dozing fat man with the Barnes & Noble sack between his legs, the woman next to him, the usher, everybody. The theater isn’t so dark that they can’t see me. In my red silk sari I’m conspicuous. Plump, gold paisleys sparkle on my chest.
    The actor is just warming up.
Seen their women?
He plays a salesman, he’s had a bad day and now he’s in a Chinese restaurant trying to loosen up. His face is pink. His wool-blend slacks are creased at the crotch. We bought our tickets at half-price, we’re sitting in the front row, but at the edge, and we see things we shouldn’t be seeing. At least I do, or think I do. Spittle, actors goosing each other, little winks, streaks of makeup.
    Maybe they’re improvising dialogue too. Maybe Mamet’s provided them with insult kits, Thursdays for Chinese, Wednesdays for Hispanics, today for Indians. Maybe they get together before curtain time, see an Indian woman settling in the front row off to the side, and say to each other: “Hey, forget Friday. Let’s get
her
today. See if she cries. See if she walks out.” Maybe, like the salesmen they play, they have a little bet on.
    Maybe I shouldn’t feel betrayed.
    Their women
, he goes again.
They look like they’ve just been fucked by a dead cat.
    The fat man hoots so hard he nudges my elbow off our shared armrest.
    â€œImre. I’m going home.” But Imre’s hunched so far forward he doesn’t hear. English isn’t his best language. A refugee from Budapest, he has to listen hard. “I didn’t pay eighteen dollars to be insulted.”
    I don’t hate Mamet. It’s the tyranny of the American dream that scares me. First, you don’t exist. Then you’re invisible. Then you’re funny. Then you’re disgusting. Insult, my American friends will tell me, is a kind of acceptance. No instant dignity here. A play like this, back home, would cause riots. Communal, racist, and antisocial. The actors wouldn’t make it off stage. This play, and all these awful feelings, would be safely locked up.
    I long, at times, for clear-cut answers. Offer me instant dignity, today, and I’ll take it.
    â€œWhat?” Imre moves toward me without taking his eyes off the actor. “Come again?”
    Tears come. I want to stand, scream, make an awful scene. I long for ugly, nasty rage.
    The actor is ranting, flinging spittle.
Give me a chance. I’m not finished, I can get back on the board. I tell that asshole, give me a real lead. And what does that asshole give me? Patels. Nothing but Patels.
    This time Imre works an arm around my shoulders. “Panna, what is Patel? Why are you taking it all so personally?”
    I shrink from his touch, but I don’t walk out. Expensive girls’schools in Lausanne and Bombay have trained me to behave well. My manners are exquisite, my feelings are delicate, my gestures refined, my moods undetectable. They have seen me