Idiots First Read Online Free Page A

sick mother, I couldn’t ask her to come to my apartment, and she didn’t want me to go home with her where she lived with her brother’s family on West 115th near Lenox Avenue. Under her purple dress she wore a black slip, and when she took that off she had white underwear. When she took off the white underwear she was black again. But I know where the next white was, if you want to call it white. And that was the night I think I fell in love with her, the first time in my life though I have liked one or two nice girls I used to go with when I was a boy. It was a serious proposition. I’m the kind of a man when I think of love I’m thinking of marriage. I guess that’s why I am a bachelor.
    That same week I had a holdup in my place, two big men—both black—with revolvers. One got excited when I rang open the cash register so he could take the money and he hit me over the ear with his gun. I stayed in the hospital a couple of weeks. Otherwise I was insured. Ornita came
to see me. She sat on a chair without talking much. Finally I saw she was uncomfortable so I suggested she ought to go home.
    â€œI’m sorry it happened,” she said.
    â€œDon’t talk like it’s your fault.”
    When I got out of the hospital my mother was dead. She was a wonderful person. My father died when I was thirteen and all by herself she kept the family alive and together. I sat shive for a week and remembered how she sold paper bags on her pushcart. I remembered her life and what she tried to teach me. Nathan, she said, if you ever forget you are a Jew a goy will remind you. Mama, I said, rest in peace on this subject. But if I do something you don’t like, remember, on earth it’s harder than where you are. Then when my week of mourning was finished, one night I said, “Ornita, let’s get married. We’re both honest people and if you love me like I love you it won’t be such a bad time. If you don’t like New York I’ll sell out here and we’ll move someplace else. Maybe to San Francisco where nobody knows us. I was there for a week in the Second War and I saw white and colored living together.”
    â€œNat,” she answered me, “I like you but I’d be afraid. My husband woulda killed me.”
    â€œYour husband is dead.”
    â€œNot in my memory.”
    â€œIn that case I’ll wait.”
    â€œDo you know what it’d be like—I mean the life we could expect?”
    â€œOrnita,” I said, “I’m the kind of a man, if he picks his own way of life he’s satisfied.”

    â€œWhat about children? Were you looking forward to half-Jewish polka dots?”
    â€œI was looking forward to children.”
    â€œI can’t,” she said.
    Can’t is can’t. I saw she was afraid and the best thing was not to push. Sometimes when we met she was so nervous that whatever we did she couldn’t enjoy it. At the same time I still thought I had a chance. We were together more and more. I got rid of my furnished room and she came to my apartment—I gave away Mama’s bed and bought a new one. She stayed with me all day on Sundays. When she wasn’t so nervous she was affectionate, and if I know what love is, I had it. We went out a couple of times a week, the same way—usually I met her in Times Square and sent her home in a taxi, but I talked more about marriage and she talked less against it. One night she told me she was still trying to convince herself but she was almost convinced. I took an inventory of my liquor stock so I could put the store up for sale.
    Ornita knew what I was doing. One day she quit her job, the next she took it back. She also went away a week to visit her sister in Philadelphia for a little rest. She came back tired but said maybe. Maybe is maybe so I’ll wait. The way she said it it was closer to yes. That was the winter two years ago. When she was in Philadelphia I