The Advocate's Devil Read Online Free Page A

woman—but rapists? Clods, maybe, cavemen, even, but I don’t see how an average guy could change over the course of
     an evening from a good date to a violent predator.”
    Abe was a 1960s liberal who believed in free speech, equality for minorities, environmentalism, abortion rights—the whole
     agenda. This new feminism, on the other hand, had him confused and a bit hostile. On sexual issues,
he
—along with all men—was the target, the bad guy. He really
didn’t
get it, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He had always treated women as equals, hiring several as associates even before
     it was voguish. And then there was Rendi, who was any man’s equal. But when it came to issues such as date rape, Abe had real
     difficulty understanding what all the fuss was about. What did they want from him?
    As usual, Emma read his mind. “Why do guys have such a hard time believing date rape can happen, anyway? It’s not like we’re
     saying you’re all rapists or anything. Yet it happens, guys get crazy. You can’t change facts just by saying it’s the victim’s
     fault.”
    Hannah, where are you? Abe thought. What do I say now? Out loud he asked: “Is this what they teach you in school?”
    “No, of course not. You know our headmaster, Mr. Cravers. Talk about antiques! He’d never let us discuss this stuff. No way.
     We study it in our feminist group.”
    “I thought your feminist group was about politics—you know, women candidates and all that.”
    “It is about politics. We discuss the politics of rape, the politics of sex, of marriage. It’s great.”
    I can’t deal with this, Abe thought to himself, removing his glasses and massaging his temples, which he had noticed just
     that morning were showing small streaks of gray. Suddenly he was looking his age, unlike his father, who had remained youthful
     looking until his death at seventy-five a year ago. Harry Ringel had died at work while cutting the hair of a friend whom
     he had barbered for more than fifty years.
    A tear formed in Abe’s eye as he thought about his father. Harry Ringel had been a real barber, Abe recalled with tender pride—not
     a hairdresser. He cut and shaved, never coifed or layered. He was proud of having been the first white barber in the Boston
     area to cut the hair of Negroes, as he insisted on calling them till his dying day. “I’ve got plenty of Jewish customers with
     curly hair. I know how to cut curly hair. I’m in the hair business, not the skin business.” He drew the line, however, at
     women. “I’m a man’s barber,” he would insist. Harry was not only a man’s barber, he was a man’s man. He loved his customers.
     He loved his three sons. And he respected his wife, Sylvia, in whose presence he rarely uttered a word.
    Sylvia, who had moved to Florida following Harry’s death, had written “the book” on Jewish mothers. Less than five feet tall
     and under a hundred pounds, she was a benevolent despot. She insisted on being addressed as “Mrs. Ringel” by anyone other
     than her immediate family and a few close friends. When Abe had briefly dated a southern woman, it had created a minor confrontation
     when the woman had once used the term
you-all
to Sylvia’s face. Sylvia was an absolute master of the put-down, capable of humiliating the strongest man or woman with a
     well-chosen word or phrase. She was also capable of seeing the dark cloud in any silver lining. When her sons and grandchildren
     had gotten together and bought her a beautiful diamond watch for her seventy-fifth birthday, her response had been, “Oy, now
     I have to decide which one of you I should leave it to in my will.” Abe loved his mother, but his personality was closer to
     his father’s.
    Emma quickly brought Abe back to the moment. “Tonight in our group, the topic is ‘Taking Control of Your Own Sexuality.’”
    “Enough, my darling daughter. Can we please not talk about your sexual comings and goings anymore? You really