The Axeman's Jazz

tears.
    Skip had a sadness of her own: No one is ever who you hope they’ll be.
    He’d had enough. That was it. He was never going back. Abe crumpled his phone messages, tossed them in the wastebasket. Perfect shot.
    Shit. Last night had been an unmitigated fiasco. Skip had left with Alex. The new blonde had been a bimbo, probably never dated anyone over thirty. And Missy had been with Mr. Beautiful-but-Dumb. He was starting to think they were two of a kind. He’d gone prowling after leaving Di’s, had actually gone into the Quarter, that was how desperate he was. But all the women there were cheap and country. Probably had AIDS and herpes both.
    Why did it have to be this way? Why did he have to be in this goddamn hellhole? He knew for a fact that two people in the firm had had parties last night, and he hadn’t been invited to either. That was the way New Orleans was. Closed.
    Tighter than a strongbox unless you’d been born here or at least gone to Tulane.
    Or weren’t Jewish. That was probably a big part of it. They hated him here because he was Jewish. Not that he was really Jewish, gave a damn about it or anything, but nobody’d asked him, had they? They just assumed he was and that was that.
    Mary Ann had been like that. His first girlfriend. He could still remember her from seventh grade. A beautiful little blonde with blue eyes, the most popular girl in the class. She called him every night for two weeks, and then they went to the movies, his mother driving. And after that, she didn’t call anymore. His mother said it was because her mother had recognized her when she picked Mary Ann up, and knew she was Jewish, knew Abe was. So that was the end of it.
    After that he’d given up girls for a while, and when he finally emerged as a dater, he chose only Jewish girls—dark-haired, which he didn’t like, brown-eyed when he preferred blue. But he didn’t mind the colors so much as the fact that their hair was not only dark but usually curly. He was uncomfortably reminded of black people’s hair. He liked straight, silky hair, to this day couldn’t understand why women got perms.
    He’d noticed something right away about the Jewish girls in high school. Those who’d already had their noses done wouldn’t go out with him, invariably chose guys on the football team or class officers. That was the way they were—snotty bitches. The others were bad enough, but these were ball-breakers. There was no other word for it. They always had to choose the movie, always had to pick the place to go afterward. One of them had done him at the drive-in, though. But the bitch wouldn’t fuck, that was as far as she went. He’d gotten her a really great birthday present too—a single pearl on a chain.
    When he looked back on it, it was ironic. Half the grown-up ones wouldn’t go down on you, or expected you to do it to them every time. He didn’t mind on a first date or something, just to get things rolling, but it was too much work. He certainly wasn’t going to keep doing it over and over again, as if it was his idea of a million laughs. It was a disgusting practice, gooey and smothery. Jesus, you could end up with hairs caught in your teeth. While a penis was perfectly smooth and sanitary. Hell, he’d suck his own if he could reach it. (But no one else’s, of course—talk about revolting.)
    Who needed Jewish princesses? He’d graduated to the blondes and redheads when he got to Princeton. They liked his Southern accent.
    After college he thought it was time to get serious. First there was Inge, the nurse he would have married if the cunt hadn’t been so fucking interested in ending up with a doctor.
    Then there was Amy, the secretary with the perky ass. Amy had dumped him for a senior partner in the firm. That wouldn’t have been so bad except that the guy was sixty-five and married. What was wrong with chicks, anyhow?
    It never got any better. Finally, he’d married Cynthia, mostly because she wasn’t Jewish and therefore didn’t judge him on the basis of income and status in the firm. She looked good. She wanted children. She could cook. She liked to fuck. What could go wrong?
    She was a bitch, was what could go wrong. He should do half the cooking, he should help with the children, he should mow the lawn; shit, she even wanted him to help her paint the bathroom, go shopping for furniture—there was no end to the crap she could dream up. And all to control him. She wasn’t happy unless she was