Portnoy’s Complaint

fields; and the leaves of course, a lot of ooing and ahhing. Once we stopped to watch somebody in the distance, high up on a ladder, hammering away at the side of a barn-and that was fun, too. Oh, and the rented car. We flew to Rutland and rented a convertible. A convertible, can you imagine? A third of a century as an American boy, and this was the first convertible I had ever driven myself. Know why? Because the son of an insurance man knows better than others the chance you take riding around in such a machine. He knows the awful actuarial details! All you have to do is hit a bump in the road, and that's it, where a convertible is concerned: up from the seat you go flying (and not to be too graphic), out onto the highway cranium first, and if you're lucky, it's a wheelchair for life. And turn over in a convertible-well, you can just kiss your life goodbye. And this is statistics (I am told by my father), not some cockamaimy story he is making up for the fun of it. Insurance companies aren't in business to lose money-when they say something, Alex, it's true! And now, on the heels of my wise father, my wise mother: 'Please, so I can sleep at night for four years, promise me one thing, grant your mother this one wish and then she'll never ask anything of you again: when you get to Ohio, promise you won't ride in an open convertible. So I can shut my eyes in bed at night, Alex, promise you won't take your life in your hands in any crazy way.' My father again: 'Because you’re a plum, Alex!' he says, baffled and tearful over my imminent departure from home. 'And we don't want a plum to fall off the tree before it's ripe!'

1. Promise, Plum, that you'll never ride in a convertible. Such a small thing, what will it hurt you to promise?

2. You'll look up Howard Sugannan, Sylvia's nephew. A lovely boy- and president of the Hillel. He'll show you around. Please look him up.

3. Plum, Darling, Light of the World, you remember your cousin Heshie, the torture he gave himself and his family with that girl. What Uncle Hymie had to go through, to save that boy from his craziness. You remember? Please, do we have to say any more? Is my meaning clear, Alex? Don't give yourself away cheap. Don't throw a brilliant future away on an absolute nothing. I don't think we have to say anything more. Do we? You're a baby yet, sixteen years old and graduating high school. That's a baby, Alex. You don't know the hatred there is in the world. So I don't think we have to say any more, not to a boy as smart as you. ONLY YOU MUST BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR LIFE! YOU MUST NOT PLUNGE YOURSELF INTO A LIVING HELL! YOU MUST LISTEN TO WHAT WE ARE SAYING AND WITHOUT THE SCOWL, THANK YOU, AND THE BRILLIANT BACK TALK! WE KNOW! WE HAVE LIVED! WE HAVE SEEN! IT DOESN'T WORK, MY SON! THEY ARE ANOTHER BREED OF HUMAN BEING ENTIRELY! YOU WILL BE TORN ASUNDER! GO TO HOWARD. HE'LL INTRODUCE YOU AT THE HILLEL! DON'T RUN FIRST THING TO A BLONDIE, PLEASE! BECAUSE SHE'LL TAKE YOU FOR ALL YOU'RE WORTH AND THEN LEAVE YOU BLEEDING IN THE GUTTER! A BRILLIANT INNOCENT BABY BOY LIKE YOU, SHE'LL EAT YOU UP ALIVE!

She'll eat me up alive?

Ah, but we have our revenge, we brilliant baby boys, us plums. You know the joke, of course-Milty, the G.I., telephones from Japan. 'Momma,' he says, 'it's Milton, I have good news! I found a wonderful Japanese girl and we were married today. As soon as I get my discharge I want to bring her home, Momma, for you to meet each other.' 'So,' says the mother, 'bring her, of course.' 'Oh, wonderful, Momma,' says Milty, 'wonderful-only I was wondering, in your little apartment, where will me and Ming Toy sleep?' 'Where?' says the mother. 'Why, in the bed? Where else should you sleep with your bride?' 'But then where will you sleep, if we sleep in the bed? Momma,, are you sure there's room?' 'Milty darling, please,' says the mother, 'everything is fine, don't you worry, there'll be all the room you want: as soon as I hang up. I'm killing myself.'

What an innocent, our Milty! How stunned he must be over there in Yokohama to hear his mother come up with such a statement! Sweet, passive Milton, you wouldn't hurt a fly, would you, tateleh? You hate bloodshed, you wouldn't dream of striking another person, let alone committing a murder on him. So you let the geisha girl do it for you! Smart, Milty, smart! From the geisha girl, believe me, she won't recover so fast. From the geisha girl, Milty, she'll plotz! Ha ha! You did it, Miltaleh, and without even lifting a finger! Of course! Let the shikse do the killing for you! You, you're just an innocent bystander! Caught in the crossfire! A victim, right, Milt?

Lovely, isn't it, the business of the bed?

When we arrive at the inn in Dorset, I remind her to slip one of her half-dozen rings onto the appropriate finger. 'In public life one must be discreet,' I say, and tell her that I have reserved a room in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Mandel. 'A hero out of Newark 's past,' I explain.

While I register, The Monkey (looking in New England erotic in the extreme) roams around the lobby examining the little Vermont gifties for sale. ' Arnold,' she calls. I turn: 'Yes, dear.' 'We simply must take back with us some maple syrup for Mother Mandel. She loves it so,' and smiles her mysteriously enticing Sunday Times underwear-ad smile at the suspicious clerk.

What a night! I don't mean there was more than the usual body- thrashing and hair-tossing and empassioned vocalizing from The Monkey-no, the drama was at the same Wagnerian pitch I was beginning to become accustomed to: it was the flow of feeling that was new and terrific. 'Oh, I can't get enough of you!' she cried. 'Am I a nymphomaniac, or is it the wedding ring?' 'I was thinking maybe it was the illicitness of an 'inn.' ' 'Oh, it's something! I feel, I feel so crazy… and so tender-so wildly tender with you! Oh baby. I keep thinking I'm going to cry. and I'm so happy!'

Saturday we drove up to Lake Champlain, stopping along the way for The Monkey to take pictures with her Minox; late in the day we cut across and down to Woodstock, gaping, exclaiming, sighing. The Monkey snuggling. Once in the morning (in an overgrown field near the lake shore) we had sexual congress, and then that afternoon, on a dirt road somewhere in the mountains of central Vermont, she said, 'Oh, Alex, pull over, now- I want you to come in my mouth,' and so she blew me, and with the top down!

What am I trying to communicate? Just that we began to feel something. Feel feeling! And without any diminishing of sexual appetite!

'I know a poem,' I said, speaking somewhat as though I were drunk, as though I could lick any man in the house, 'and I'm going to recite it.'

She was nestled down in my lap, eyes still closed, my softening member up against her cheek like a little chick. 'Ah come on,' she groaned, 'not now, I don't understand poems.'

'You'll understand this one. It's about fucking. A swan fucks a beautiful girl.'

She looked up, batting her false eyelashes. 'Oh, goody.'

'But it's a serious poem.'

'Well,' she said, licking my prick, 'it's a serious offense.'

'Oh, irresistible, witty Southern belles-especially when they're long the way you are.'

'Don't bullshit me, Portnoy. Recite the dirty poem.'

'Porte-noir,' I said, and began:

'A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.'

'Where,' she asked, 'did you learn something like that?'

'Shhh. There's more:

'How can those terrified vague fingers push