Pierced by a Sword (3 page)

Let's round it off to four women per year. That's not that many, really.
Nathan wondered why it seemed that somewhere around number seventeen his sexual activities started to feel more like running on a treadmill than a day at the amusement park.
The word you're lookin' for is empty, Fat Boy. Sex gets old, like playing XBox over and over again.

Nathan did not consider himself promiscuous. He was relatively inactive compared to some of the other men in his circle.
Only four a year, and not as many in the last few years,
he told himself, trying to assuage his guilt.
Old Charlie goes through that many every month, easy.

Charles "Charlie" VanDuren was the owner of Nathan's firm, VanDuren, VanDuren, and Brooks–known as VV&B on the exchange. VanDuren had inherited the firm from his father and relied heavily on Nathan's abilities, even though Nathan was not a
partner. Charlie had promised Nathan a stake in VV&B two years earlier when he lured Nathan from another trading house. Nathan was somewhat bitter, but not surprised that VanDuren had strung him along about becoming a partner. He didn't trust VanDuren. He trusted very few people in this world except for Father Chet Sullivan–and he didn't even trust Chet on morality. He took pride in finding his own
way through life. He even held the VanDurens of the world in disdain for needing to conquer women to puff themselves up.

Don't need no woman,
he thought.
I'm the captain of my own ship. A veritable master of my own destiny, an island–a rock. A rock! And a roll. A donut, really. A jelly donut. With sprinkles.
Chocolate
sprinkles–jimmies.

Nathan took a sip of Red Bull as he chuckled numbly at the
strange stream of humorous flim flam that sputtered from his mind like stock numbers slipping silently across the big board. Only he could read the numbers.

For Nathan, sleeping with women was more a form of relaxation than anything else. He never got emotionally involved with the women he slept with, and was always perfectly clear about his intentions towards them beforehand. At least he thought
he was.

A modern version of a gentleman.

Did this nice girl really want to sleep with you?
The voice was back, asking questions Nathan didn't want to answer.
Shut up!
He ordered.
I'm a rock, remember? With jimmies.

By his own lights he was a moral person. He didn't lie, he didn't cheat on his taxes, and he didn't mess with people's heads like Charles VanDuren often did. He knew for a fact that
VanDuren had a knack for juggling several women at once. An image of Charlie juggling buxom starlets on the Ed Sullivan Show–replete with circus music–popped into Nathan's head. He let up on the gas a little and looked queerly at the can of Red Bull.
What are they putting into this stuff?

A moment passed.
And I don't sleep with married women like Charlie does.

For Nathan this somehow made sleeping
around okay. He had told Father Chet just that several times over the years during their infrequent discussions on sexual morality. Nathan didn't like to talk about those kinds of things with Chet. Moral conversations made Nathan uncomfortable.
Old Chetmeister made a lot of sense, even if he was wrong.

How can Chet make sense and still be wrong, Fat Boy?
His little voice mocked him.

Don't go using
logic with me,
he shot back.
I'm a numbers man.

Nathan was also living his life under a burden which the vast majority of men never carry. Women were
extremely
attracted to him. It was not uncommon for him to enter a nightclub and within an hour have three or four women make it clear to him that they wanted to sleep with him.

It's like they smell something on me,
he often thought as they lined
up before him at the bars and pool tables in loud smoky dance clubs.
They don't even know me. It's like they think they can sign up for me like signing up for Little League.

His ability to attract women was legendary among his party friends. Even Charles VanDuren held him in a kind of awe. VanDuren tried much harder than Nathan to add women to his own list, which ran into the hundreds. Most of
Nathan's friends assumed he seduced many more women than he actually did.

He was also much less promiscuous than his own father, who had been more like Charles VanDuren. Harry Payne had given Nathan the distinct impression that being a man meant sleeping with a lot of women. His father had also been cruel, distant, and lacking in all affection. Nathan hadn't talked to him in years. He couldn't–Harry
Payne had been murdered in jail.

Okay, when this chick wakes up, just ask her. If she didn't want to get started with you, she'll tell you. If she did want to, fine. If not, say you're sorry. End of story. Now shut up, Fat Boy!

Fat Boy,
Nathan thought, and remembered George the Animal. George Moore had given Nathan the nickname Fat Boy at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois, during Nathan's
freshman year. Although Nathan wasn't thrilled with the nickname, he was very shy and not many students at Fenwick had noticed him enough to tease him, much less call him Fat Boy to his face.

Nathan tried to avoid the Animal. George Moore was not a mental giant. He also had the annoying habit of teasing all the students who were smarter than he was–which is to say, practically the entire student
body. Students were terrified of the Animal. George Moore was over six feet tall and weighed a muscular two hundred and fifty pounds. Everyone expected him to get a football scholarship to some Big Ten school. Even teachers looked forward to the day of his graduation.

During Nathan's junior year, George saw Nathan chatting with Betty Gabelli at a football game. Even as a somewhat pudgy teenager,
women were attracted to the painfully shy Nathan. She had struck up a conversation with Nathan, who happened to be standing next to her so he could get a better look at the field. Like George, Betty was no rocket scientist. Betty was not even a rocket scientist's
assistant
. Nathan was quite uncomfortable. He failed to see George glaring at him from the huddle on the field. He didn't even realize
that the Animal had taken offense until a couple of days later, before gym class.

Two days after seeing Nathan talking with Betty Gabelli on the sidelines, George lingered in the locker room and asked Nathan to stay behind and help him "with something." He naïvely waited next to George as the room cleared out, figuring the Animal was going to ask for tutoring help in math.

George stood, pushed
Nathan into the locker and punched him in the stomach. Nathan doubled over. Then the Animal kneed Nathan in the forehead, barely missing his nose. Nathan, dazed, collapsed on the cold concrete floor of the locker room. He could still remember seeing George's shoelaces from his prone position.

George leaned over and spoke menacingly, "Stay away from Betty, Fat Boy."

Then George spit on the floor
next to Nathan and walked out. It took Nathan a few minutes to regain his wind, and a few more to figure out what George was talking about.

Betty who? Betty Gabelli?
He suddenly remembered talking with the airhead cheerleader during the game. He hadn't even known that Betty was George's girlfriend!

Three minutes after he figured out the reason for George's violent warning, Nathan formulated a
plan to get revenge. He made up his mind to follow through with it. It would take about ten months to accomplish, he figured, and it would do the entire school a favor. Nathan mentally dubbed his plan Nathan Payne's Personal Bequest to Fenwick High School. Someone had to tame the Animal before he killed somebody.

The next day Nathan went for a jog. He also signed up for Judo classes at a dojo
in Elmwood Park. He took a job after school at McDonalds to pay for the Judo classes. Within four weeks he was running five miles a day and lifting weights in his basement for two hours a day, three days a week. He often played the theme to the movie
Rocky
when he lifted weights–not for inspiration, but because it struck him as funny.
Yo Adrian! You don't understand! I gotta fight dis guy! Gotta
fight da Animal!

Nathan decided the Fat Boy wasn't going to be fat ever again. He didn't have any close friends so there was no one to miss him after school. His only extracurricular activity was the Math Club, which met twice a month.

Nathan took up cigarettes despite his running because he associated smoking with mental toughness–and his father. His chain-smoking father was doing ten to fifteen
for grand larceny at Rahway State Prison in New Jersey at the time of Nathan's little high school project.

He surfaced from his reverie about George Moore. His Mustang had rapidly caught up to a truck laboring up a long, low hill. Considering the speed at which he was traveling, Nathan guided the Mustang around the truck with a deftness that belied the difficulty of the maneuver. He pulled a cigarette
out of the pack with his lips, expertly popped his Zippo in the wind despite the top being down, and stepped on the gas pedal. The needle shuddered up to ninety. The edges of a green sign glimmered as the sun rose beyond it: Notre Dame 7 Miles.
Notre Dame. Knute Rockne. Rudy. Fighting Irish–the whole nine yards. Chet says it's the most beautiful campus in the country and Joanie here is from South
Bend. Maybe I'll drop in, see the place. Need gas.

Nathan's high school memory persisted. George the Football Animal. Ten months after taking up his bequest, Nathan patiently waited for the big football player near the back of the school building.

"Hey Fat Boy!" George sneered when he spotted Nathan, who was smoking a Kent. "See you ain't so fat no more." George laughed at what passed for a joke
in George's book.

Nathan casually flicked the butt down and ground it under the heel of one of his Converse All Stars.
You can do it, Rocky!
Burgess Meredith's gravelly voice rang in his head.

The two loners were alone together in an alley of sorts, with a cyclone fence on one side and the red brick wall of the gym on the other. Nathan stood in the middle of the path. Some brown leaves from the
previous autumn scattered the dirt path that was a favorite shortcut through the woods for some students. Senior year had started a month before. Nathan had been studying George's habits for weeks. Every day the Animal walked alone down this path after football practice. Nathan felt a mixture of fear and anticipation.

He had imagined walking up to George and insulting him, picking the fight, beating
on him for several minutes, and then calmly telling him something like, "Watch who you decide to beat up for the rest of the year, you animal." Now that the moment of revenge was upon him, Nathan waited until George was a stride away before speaking to the massive football player.

"Stop," Nathan stated calmly but firmly.

George stopped, looked at what he thought was a now pitifully thin Nathan,
and came up with this brilliant retort, "What's your problem, Fat Boy?"

George was in a hurry. He wanted to get home and watch his new pro wrestling video.

With one economical but powerful motion, Nathan cracked the fingers of his left hand crisply onto the small but sensitive area just below George's nose and above his upper lip. George collapsed in pain, completely surprised by Nathan's blow.

The Animal goes down! Just like they taught me in the dojo,
Nathan thought absently.
Wax on, wax off.

Nathan stood over George's body. No insults. No kicks. Still writhing in pain on his back, George comically tried to kick Nathan, who easily grabbed his ankle and twisted it just so, knowing George could feel pressure at the knee. George screamed again, more out of fear than actual pain. A scream
echoed off the brick wall of the school.

"Don't hurt me, Fat Boy!" George begged in a whiny voice.

What a moron! The dumb bastard is still calling me Fat Boy!

For months Nathan had imagined he would be elated at this moment, and now, almost like a surgeon observing a new procedure, he felt nothing but cold surprise. And then boredom. He dropped George's leg, which made a small thud on the dirt
path.

Nathan leaned over and put his mouth next to George's ear. George had his eyes squeezed tightly closed, and was whimpering.

"Stop," Nathan repeated, softly, coldly. He turned and retrieved his books, which he had stored next to the brick wall.

Let him figure it out for himself,
Nathan thought. Then he walked away. It had been the last time he struck anyone in violence.

Neither George nor
Nathan ever mentioned the incident to anyone at Fenwick. Keeping it a secret gave Nathan a certain satisfaction. George had his own obvious reason for keeping silent. He had been humiliated by a nerd and the fewer people who knew about it the better.

Happily, the Animal seemed to have figured out Nathan's cryptic command and immediately ceased teasing and bullying other students. Nathan avoided
the Animal but gave him a look across the lunchroom the next day.

Stop being a bully or I'll really hurt your knee next time. No knee. No scholarship. No football career. I can destroy you, George Moore. It's our little secret. Down boy!

To the surprise of both Nathan and George, a kinder and gentler Animal made a few friends as other students realized that George had somehow changed. Nathan's
outlook on life also changed. Feeling good about himself and his bequest to Fenwick, he became slightly more outgoing in the Math Club, and struck up friendships with some of the other shy students. It was the beginning of his new social personality, which he quickly built upon at the University of Illinois the following fall.

In his Mustang over a decade later, Nathan was pleasantly surprised
to find that he held George's memory with nostalgia, not rancor.
Before the fight, nobody knew either one of us, really. Maybe we had that in common. I wonder if George's dad was a first class jerk like mine was? We changed each other.