touching person she is. Sometimes you are positively lyrical about her.” “Am I?” “Yes, yes, and you know that.” “But there is still too much that’s wrong there, you know that.” “Yes, well, this I could have warned you about at the outset.” “Please, the husband of Maureen Tarnopol understands that the other gender is also imperfect.” “Knowing this, the husband of Maureen Tarnopol should be grateful perhaps for a woman, who despite her imperfections, happens to be tender and appreciative and absolutely devoted to him. She is all these things, am I right?” “She is all these tilings. She also turns out to be smart and charming and funny.” “And in love with you.” “And in love with me.” “And a cook-such a cook. You tell me about her dishes, you make my mouth water.” “You’re very hung up on the pleasure principle, Dr. Spielvogel.” “And you? Tell me, where are you running again? To what? To whom? Why?” “To no one, to nothing-but ‘why?’ I’ve told you why: suppose she tries to commit suicide!” “Still with the suicide?” “But what if she does it!” “Isn’t that her responsibility? And Dr. Golding’s? She is in therapy after all. Are you going to run for fear of this remote possibility?” “I can’t take it hanging over my head. Not after all that’s gone on. Not after Maureen.” “Maybe you are too thin-skinned, you know? Maybe it is time at thirty to develop a thicker hide.” “No doubt. I’m sure you rhinoceroses lead a better life. But my hide is my hide. I’m afraid you can shine a flashlight through it. So give me some other advice.” “What other advice is there? The choice is yours. Stay or run.” “This choice that is mine you structure oddly.” “All right, you structure it.” “The point, you see, is that if I do stay, she must realize that I am marrying no one unless and until I want to do it. And everything conspires to make me think that 1 don’t want to do it.” “Mr. Tarnopol, somehow I feel I can rely on you to put that proviso before her from time to time.”
Why did I stay with Spielvogel? Let us not forget his Mosaic prohibitions and what they meant to a thin-skinned man at the edge of he knew not what intemperate act.
Thou shalt not covet thy wife’s underwear.
Thou shalt not drop thy seed upon thy neighbor’s bathroom floor or dab it upon the bindings of library books.
Thou shalt not be so stupid as to buy a Hoffritz hunting knife to slay your wife and her matrimonial lawyer.
“But why can’t I? What’s the difference any more? They’re driving me crazy! They’re ruining my life! First she tricked me into marrying her with that urine, now they’re telling the judge I can write movies and make a fortune! She tells the court that I ‘obstinately’ refuse to go out to Hollywood and do an honest day’s work! Which is true! I obstinately refuse! Because that is not my work! My work is writing fiction! And I can’t even do that any more! Only when I say I can’t, they say, right, so just get your ass out to Hollywood where you can earn yourself a thousand bucks a day! Look! Just look at this affidavit she filed! Look what she calls me here, Doctor-’a well-known seducer of college girls’! That’s how she spells ‘Karen’! Read this document, will you please? I brought it so you can see with your own eyes that I am not exaggerating! Just look at this version of me! ‘A seducer of college girls’! They’re trying to hold me up, Doctor Spielvogel-this is legalized extortion!” “To be sure,” said my Moses, gently, “but still you cannot buy that knife and stick it in her heart. You must not buy a knife, Mr. Tarnopol.” “WHY NOT? GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON WHY NOT!” “Because killing is against the law.” “FUCK THE LAW! THE LAW IS WHAT IS KILLING ME!” “Be that as it may, kill her and they will put you in jail.” “So what!” “You wouldn’t like it there.” “I wouldn’t care-she’d be dead. Justice would come into this world!” “Ah, but Just as the world would become following her death, for you it still wouldn’t be paradise. You did not even like the army that much, remember? Well, jail is worse. I don’t believe you would be happy there.” “I’m not exactly happy here.” “I understand that. But there you would be even less happy.”
So, with him to restrain me (or with him to pretend to restrain me, while I pretend to be unrestrained), I did not buy the knife in Hoffritz’s Grand Central window (her lawyer’s office was just across the street, twenty flights up). And a good thing too, for when I discovered that the reporter from the Daily News who sat in a black raincoat at the back of the courtroom throughout the separation proceedings had been alerted to the hearing by Maureen’s lawyers, I lost all control of myself (no pretending now), and out in the corridor during the lunch recess, I took a swing at the dapper, white-haired attorney in his dark three-piece suit with the Phi Beta Kappa key dangling conspicuously from a chain. He was obviously a man of years (though in mystate, I might even have attacked a somewhat younger man), but he was agile and easily blocked my wild blow with his briefcase. “Watch out, Egan, watch out for me!” It was pure play-groundese I shouted at him, language dating back to the arm’s-length insolence of grade-school years; my eyes were running with rage, as of old, but before I could swing out at his briefcase again, my own lawyer had grabbed me around the middle and was dragging me backward down the corridor. “You jackass,” said Egan coldly, “we’ll fix your wagon.” “You goddam thief! You publicity hound! What more can you do, you bastard!” “Wait and see,” said Egan, unruffled, and even smiling at me now, as a small crowd gathered around us in the hall. “She tricked me,” I said to him, “and you know it! With that urine!” “You’ve got quite an imagination, son. Why don’t you put it to work for you?” Here my lawyer managed to turn me completely around, and running and pushing at me from behind, shoved me a few paces farther down the courthouse corridor and into the men’s room.
Where we were promptly joined by the stout, black-coated Mr. Valducci of the Daily News. “Get out of here, you,” I said, “leave me alone.” “I just want to ask you some questions. I want to ask about your wife, that’s all. I’m a reader of yours. I’m a real fan.” “I’ll bet.” “Sure. The Jewish Merchant. My wife read it too. Terrific ending. Ought to be a movie.” “Look, I’ve heard enough about the movies today!” “Take it easy, Pete-I just want to ask you, for instance, what did the missus do before you were married?” “The missus was a show girl! She was in the line at the Latin Quarter! Fuck off, will you!” “Whatever you say, whatever you say,” and with a bow to my attorney, who had now interposed himself between the two of us, Valducci stepped back a ways and asked, deferentially, “You don’t mind if I take a leak, do you? Since I’m already here?” While Valducci voided, we looked on in silence. “Just shut up,” my lawyer whispered to me. “See you, Pete,” said Valducci, after meticulously washing and drying his hands, “see you, Counselor.”
The next morning, over Valducci’s by-line, in the lower half of page five, ran this three-column head-
PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR TURNS COURTROOM PRIZEFIGHTER
The story was illustrated with my book-jacket photo, dark-eyed, thin-faced innocence, circa 1959, and a photograph of Maureen taken the day before, her lantern jaw slicing the offending air as she strides down the courthouse steps on the arm of Attorney Dan P. Egan, who, the story noted (with relish) was seventy years old and formerly middleweight boxing champion at Ford-ham; in his heyday, I learned, he was known as “Red,” and was still a prized toastmaster at Fordham alumni functions. The tears I had shed during my contretemps with Red did not go unreported. “Oh, I should never have listened to you about that knife. I could have killed Valducci too.” “You are not satisfied with page five?” “I should have done it. And that judge too. Cut his self-righteous gizzard out, sitting there pitying poor Maureen!” “Please,” said Spielvogel, laughing lightly, “the pleasure would have been momentary.” “Oh, no, it wouldn’t.” “Oh, yes, believe me. Murder four people in a courtroom, and before you know it, it’s over and you’re behind bars. This way, you see, you have it always to imagine when your spirit needs a lift.”
So I stayed on as Spielvogel’s patient, at least so long as Maureen drew breath (and breathed fire), and Susan McCall was my tender, appreciative, and devoted mistress.
