A group of press men shoved the Comstockers into the street and Aseel appeared at my side. She was utterly calm, and said something quietly to Salina that made the weeping woman break into a shaky smile. Then Aseel turned to me, her lips thinned with rage. With a fierce yank on my shoulder, she pulled me close enough to hear her jagged whisper. “What you talked about last night? I’m in. We are going to bring those men low.”
Before I could reply, Sol took to the center of the room and waved his hands to quiet everyone down. “Chicago is a great city! A city of progress and industry! We don’t need yesterday’s moralists to tell us what’s right and wrong. We can see for ourselves, and judge for ourselves. I hope you gentlemen learned something from the show.” Then he winked. “And maybe you had a little fun too, before that ruckus. Remember, the Algerian Theater is right next to Cairo Street, below the great Ferris wheel! You can see more of this beautiful, secret tradition for only two bits! Show opens on May first!”
And with that, he hustled us back to the carriage waiting outside. I had never seen Sol upset before, so I couldn’t be certain that’s what I was witnessing now. He kept up the jolly patter as we rode back to the Midway, complimenting the women on their performances, and giving each of us an extra dollar for our trouble. Still, I thought I saw him wince a few times. When we got out of the carriage, he told the driver to take him straight to his favorite club for a drink.
Aseel looked thoughtful as he drove away. “You know he makes the same salary as the president? But they still call him ‘Jew’ instead of Sol Bloom. Kind of makes me feel bad for him.”
“Yeah.”
I thought of my father reading the Haggadah at Passover, letting me ask the Four Questions for the first time. I stumbled over the unfamiliar word “reclining,” and my grandfather gently corrected me. As a kid in the liberal 1970s, I had no way to understand how much anti-Semitic shit they’d eaten in their lives. Of course, there were things about me that they would never understand either.
TEN
BETH
Irvine, Alta California… Garden Grove, Alta California… Tustin, Alta California (1992 C.E.)
It had been a week since I took the home pregnancy test, and three days since Hamid said he’d be home. He hadn’t called yet, which was a bitter kind of relief. I didn’t want to tell him anything about my plans with Lizzy and her mom Jenny, but maybe if he’d called I’d have changed my mind.
I told my parents I was sleeping over at Lizzy’s house, so they suspected nothing when Jenny and Lizzy picked me up. It wasn’t a complete lie, of course: I would be staying with the Bermans that night. I left out the part where we’d be driving to Garden Grove for an off-the-books doctor’s appointment, paid for with a year’s worth of my saved allowance.
I kept having panic flashes as Jenny drove. I was going to die. My parents would find out. A fucked-up larva covered in teeth and eyes would squirm its way out of my womb and eat the world.
The doctor was a kinetic, pale man with matted hair on every part of his body except his head. It was weird to see him sitting in the receptionist’s chair when we walked in. “You can call me Bob, because we don’t stand on ceremony after hours.” He reached out to shake my hand, then grabbed my fingers and turned the gesture into a little bow. “Milady. Welcome to my humble chamber.” I could see bright lights in the office behind him, and a vinyl-covered exam table with metal stirrups attached.
Jenny hugged me. “We’ll be right out here, honey.” She and Lizzy sat in the waiting room while I followed Bob to the back.
He kept up the mock chivalry routine, twirling his hand in the air as he gestured for me to sit on the table. “You’re quite a young one. How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Naughty, naughty girl!” He waved an admonishing finger at me. “Take off all your clothes and I’ll be back with my instruments.”
I wasn’t sure why I needed to take everything off, but I also didn’t think it was a good idea to ask questions. There was no hospital gown for me to put on, so I lay bare on the sticky plastic of the table, heels in stirrups and knees pressed firmly together. Hamid was probably back at home in Irvine right now, having a nice dinner with his family.
Bob erupted back into the room, trailing a device on wheels that I couldn’t properly see. After craning my neck, I thought maybe it looked like one of those hair dryers my mom used at the salon, with the silver helmet that blew hot air evenly all over her head.
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you, naughty girl.” Bob adjusted a lamp nearby, and suddenly I could feel heat against my legs. “The good news is that this is a state-of-the-art machine that’s sort of like a vacuum, and it does the job really quickly. The bad news is that you might feel a little cramp. Can you handle a little cramp?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, open wide.” He slid a hand between my knees and I opened my legs.
Suddenly I felt his gloved hand inside me, covered in a cold slime. He grunted, withdrew, and pushed in the speculum. I could hear and feel its metal paddles clicking as he cranked me open until I thought I would rip. I focused my eyes on the ceiling, covered in white tiles, and tried to decide whether they were fissured or perforated. Then I heard rattling and what I thought was the low hum of a motor. Without warning, my abdomen wrenched with pain worse than anything I could have imagined.
I clenched my teeth and fists and stared at a place in the ceiling where a water leak had left a cloudy brown stain behind. I wondered if it was normal to feel like a giant lamprey was chewing and digesting my guts.
“Almost done.” Bob sounded distracted. “It’s not so bad, right? Some women love it. One of my patients had an orgasm when she was giving birth.” He paused, as if pondering. “Maybe one day you will too, when you find the right boy.”
Everything hurt so much that his words were just sounds that meant time was passing. Soon it would be over.
When he withdrew, it felt like I was giving birth to a machine. All the mechanical parts slimed out, and I was nothing but scraped tissue and diminishing anguish. I could feel warm liquid oozing out of me, like when I got my period.
“You’ll be spotting for a few days, but if it starts to bleed a lot go to the emergency room right away.” Bob scooted his chair around the table so I could see his face. For the first time, he sounded like a normal doctor. “Also, no sex for a couple of weeks. That’s it. Feel free to go when you’re ready.”
He wadded up his gloves and threw them in a silver trash can, the kind that pops open like a mouth when you step on its foot. Then he jangled out of the room, trailing the vacuum cleaner. I sat up slowly and another warm lump dribbled out of me onto the plastic table, creating a heart-shaped puddle of lubricant and blood. I couldn’t see any tissues or cloths for cleaning up, and finally hobbled to the sink to grab some rough paper towels. I washed up as best I could, and jammed some fresh paper towels into the crotch of my underwear just in case.
When I stumbled out of Bob’s office, I suddenly needed to throw up. The only place to do it was in the receptionist’s trash can, so he wound up with two samples of my bodily fluid that day. I didn’t mind leaving the smell there for him to find.
Lizzy and Jenny jumped up as soon as I came back to the waiting room. They put their arms around me and we walked out together like that, squashing through the doorframe three abreast. It was awkward and warm and safe. I felt shaky when we got into the car, but my bleeding had slowed to a mild seep. I really was going to be all right.
The radio blipped to life as Jenny started the car, and that shitty Don Henley song “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” came on. I thought I was going to scream, but instead I started talking, my words coming faster than outrage.