Vivid Memoir
No thanks for the memory
By Gertrude Faust Berger
Mismatched as Johnny and I seemed — he was a gorgeous blond bartender and I a short Jewish schoolteacher — he became my life’s unforgettable love.
Two colleagues and I were celebrating the end of the term with a Broadway matinée followed by cocktails. Overhearing our learned-sounding conversation, Johnny the bartender bet a dinner that I couldn’t spell a certain well-known word. A champion speller caught up in the mood of the moment, I accepted the challenge and quickly fell from high spirits to shocked and humiliated. I lost! (If you want to know the culprit word, it’s desiccated.) Johnny wasn’t kidding about the bet. He insisted on a meeting place for the next night. What conversation could I have with a bartender? He’d probably choose an expensive steakhouse. Besides, my ideal guy was Rudolph Valentino, my teenage idol.
The next evening the sky was murky and overcast, as was my mood. At the corner of 86th Street, in Yorkville, Johnny, looking like a glowing sunflower, bounded toward me holding two fat peonies. How did he know they were my favorite flower? As he hugged me warmly, I questioned his excessive enthusiasm. He had worried that I wouldn’t show up, since I’d seemed pretty doubtful to begin with. His choice of words impressed me, as did his choice of a restaurant, a café-concert place named Geigers. He said he loved the romantic soulful music there because he was raised by his maternal grandmother, an Astro-Hungarian who always played gypsy records.
Of course I adored the restaurant and was amazed at Johnny’s sophistication and myriad interests. He had skipped his senior year in high school to enlist in the Navy, where he was a frequent professional boxer until deciding that boxing was not a sport and then quitting.
Seeing my Star of David pendant, he said he was an atheist and enumerated all the wars caused by religion. He said the Aztecs would have sacrificed me, a beautiful virgin. When I protested that his passionate atheism was also a religion, he responded: “Yes, but we don’t make war, we make love.” and kissed me softly on the cheek. I loved the smell of his aftershave. Changing the subject, he showed me his article on horse racing, published in a sports magazine. I asked why he had chosen me for the spelling test. Running his fingers through my hair, he said: “Because of your cute black-sheep curly hair.” My hair? My detested kinky hair? I asked if he had a girlfriend, perhaps one of the Rockettes from nearby Radio City?
“No way, they’re shallow narcissists.”
And then, since I’d lost the bet, it was time for me to pay the bill. As I got up to go to the cashier Johnny grabbed my arm and said: “Sit down, before I knock you down.” I felt a real feminine pleasure, a sweet almost sexual sensation. After paying the check, he urged me to join him at the racetrack the next day. How could I? My parents, immigrants from Poland, recounted their suffering at the hands of the goyim – the anti-Semitism, and now the daily extermination of the Jews by Hitler. Would they believe that Johnny was different? “Yeh, yeh!” they’d scold.
But, I reasoned, going out for just one day wouldn’t be a crime, so I met him at the track. It was a glorious day in the fresh air, and Johnny, calling me his lucky charm, won a lot of money betting on a long shot. We celebrated at a Spanish restaurant where he loved the singer, Diosa. That’s what he’d call me from then on, instead of harsh Gertrude. The rat of conscience was gnawing at me, but I couldn’t resist another date. So it was, one more day and one more day, all his free days, blissful kaleidoscopic days. We hiked through all the islands: Coney, Staten, and City. Johnny held my hand and put his arm around my shoulder. I felt so taken care of. In City Island I was overjoyed to see a quince tree. Johnny picked up a fruit and gave it to me. I couldn’t believe there was a real fruit tree in the city. Johnny said he loved my joie de vivre, like a child’s – also my erudition, my beauty, my modesty, my humanity. In short. he seemed totally smitten with me. I loved his tender affection and kisses.
Unfortunately my sparkling days turned to pitiful nights when I got home. I was met by morose silence or sermonizing. “For this we struggled to make you a teacher? To pick up a goy, and a bartender?” I couldn’t disagree with their struggles. It was the Great Depression and they ran a mom-and-pop fruit store to pay my way through college. A virtual apostate, I couldn’t bear their moody silence, and especially the sad, haggard face of my sweet father. I knew that the end with Johnny was inevitable.
Whenever Johnny sensed that a gray cloud was hanging over me, he covered me with an embrace. “We were meant to be together. We’ll work it out.” He quoted Browning: “The light of a whole life dies when love is gone.” I felt sorry for him. I had my own favorite fitting poem: “For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest of these, it might have been.”
Instead of breaking off, I agreed to teach him Spanish a couple of afternoons a week before he left for work. There was always a malted-like drink waiting for me at his studio apartment. Since I often tutored in the morning, I was tired and napped when Johnny left for work. He left endearing notes and occasional romantic trinkets. I took it as a sign of true love that he resisted my “milkshake”-inspired libidinous zeal. It wasn’t due to his impotence as I realized from his ardent hugs. Rather than finding it lewd, I was fascinated by the sudden bulge in his pants.
Johnny made the inevitable end easy. He was always upset and angry about my curfew. “Don’t your stupid parents know that you can do all day what you can do at night?” I explained that it didn’t look good to the neighbors and he yelled: “Screw those fossils, too! Those nut-cake Jews!”
The next afternoon as he opened the door for his lesson, dazedly as if obeying orders from a hypnotist, I robotically mumbled: “I’m not coming in. I can’t see you anymore.” Bewildered, he said, “That’s not funny.” As I turned and rushed down the stairs, Johnny wailed: “How can you do this? I love you, I love you.”
I felt numb but relieved. With my dilemma gone, my euphoria lasted a few weeks. Because it was the end of school I was very busy, but on non-school days I saw no reason to get out of bed to deal with the everyday world. Johnny was like a ship that left waves in its wake. When I went to the synagogue on the High Holy Days to ask God for forgiveness, I rebelled. Forgiveness for being truly loved? I had a right to be happy. I rushed down to Johnny’s bar. As soon as his coworker saw me he called out: “Johnny don’t work here no more. He got a good city job.” When I ran to his apartment, he was gone. I was my parents’ “good girl” again, and their prayers were answered when a gossipy yenta neighbor recommended a possible mate for me. A nice Jewish guy with a secure job, Max approved of me on sight. My simple hair and nails showed him that I hadn’t wasted money on a beauty parlor, which was his No. 1 requirement. All of his previous dates had been dumped because of their fancy hairdos and manicures. Poor girls. How were they to know they were doomed before they began? Max was bright and in great shape, but compared to Johnny, he struck out. He did push-ups on the living-room floor. He was pleased that I rode to work on my bike, that I was a teacher and in robust health. Yes, he saw himself as lord of the manor but I went through with it and had a functional marriage. Pushing 30, I figured that at least I wouldn’t be considered a frumpy old maid.
But Johnny’s ghostly emanations kept intruding into my life. On my birthday I remembered how Johnny would have spoiled me. Max would say: “What’s the big deal about a birthday? Everybody has them.” I remembered Johnny whenever I passed a florist and saw the same orange twigs that Johnny had cut for me in the woods near Orchard Beach. I remembered Johnny when it rained and he lifted me across a flooded pothole. If only I could see him again!
And I did!
Our paths crossed after two decades. The minute he got my number he called. We arranged to meet at a restaurant the next afternoon. My heart raced as I imagined our loving reunion. Would he remember my flowers? I could barely lift my glass and dropped my luscious hors d’oeuvres — I hardly recognized the portly ample-bellied gentleman smoking a cigar. “Johnny, I presume?” was all I could say.
“Very funny, ha ha!” He took the seat opposite me and ordered a Heineken. We exchanged the usual autobiographies. He was the warden of a large prison and unhappily married; I was still a teacher and happily divorced. He had to leave as he was on his dinner break. I coyly said: “Well, I’m glad you remembered me.” My one true love assured me: “Of course I do. Man, you sure could fuck.” Four words, and I metamorphosed from goddess to slut. I sat slack-jawed as he said: “Hasta la vista.” What happened to Johnny’s vow of eternal love? Then he turned and added: “By the way, you’re still built like a brick shithouse.”
Then a waiter with dazzling gold teeth woke me from my trance. “You want I bring you another tapa, señora?” He swept up my dropped dust-covered hors-d’oeuvres. “You call me, my name Juanito, Johnny.”
Plus ça change, plus c’est la mème chose.
