Three weeks after the terrorists shot his wife Goldschmidt took up tennis. No longer interested in working for Reuters, he quit his job in Teheran and retreated to the neutrality of the New York Racquet Club where for the next six months he spent upwards of eight hours a day attacking tennis balls. To the surprise of everyone, within a matter of months the ex-chronicler of international turmoil had developed, among other things, a formidable serve, an impeccable drop shot, and a two fisted backhand that was nothing less than devastating.
Come evenings, he’d rush home to his posh eastside townhouse where inevitably he’d wind up spending his nights plotting revenge. At first his intention was to blow away the Iranian mission and leave things at that. But that was only at first.
Perhaps it was the balding Arabian who delighted in grunting loudly each and every time he hit the ball in order that he might totally disrupt the concentration of the man on the other side of the net. Or, then again, it may have been an abrasive Ugandan who was unwilling to acknowledge the compulsive regularity with which he foot-faulted, not to mention his predilection for always pleading ignorance as to the score, unless, of course, he was the one who was winning. Yet whoever or whatever it was, in what couldn’t have been much more than a few month’s time, Goldschmidt’s antagonisms extended well beyond their original boundaries, so that by early summer the man’s ire encompassed most if not all of the citizenry of Asia and Africa. Iranians, Angolans, Pakistanis, Nigerians. He hated them all.
Curiously, the bulk of his hostilities had materialized on the green decoturf of the racquet club where, after all, the man did spend upwards of eight hours a day. Of course, there were assorted antagonisms that had germinated while he was in transit. A one-eyed Kenyan wrapped in gaudy ceremonial garb who’d appeared out of nowhere and summarily dived into a cab which only seconds before Goldschmidt himself had commandeered to take him to the club. And then there was a huge limousine filled with assorted Indonesians, Zambians, and Afghans, all grinning like a litter of Cheshire cats as their mulatto driver propelled them through a large stagnating puddle, and, in the process, irretrievably soiled Goldschmidt’s favorite warmup suit.
At first it seemed as if Goldschmidt’s own private little war had been declared almost exclusively on the inhabitants of third world countries. It was as if he’d begun to see anyone whose skin wasn’t lily white as little more than an extension of the tanned barbarians who’d slaughtered his wife in the marketplace of Teheran. Yet hatred being the compelling mistress she is, it was only a matter of time before the man’s venom knew no bounds. So it was, that before year’s end he’d declared war on half of Europe. Turks, Greeks, Serbs, Croats — by Christmas fewer and fewer seemed immune to the man’s ire. Like Hitler, his antipathy multiplied at an almost exponential rate, so that by the spring of the following year when he had accumulated all of the materials necessary to build a nuclear bomb, his enemy was no longer the People’s Party of Iran, but instead was anyone whose skin color deviated from his own. Anyone with a trace of an accent. They all had to be annihilated.
At some point during his grim psychic decline, in deference to his children, Goldschmidt reluctantly agreed to discuss his smoldering emotions with a professional. In view of this, in between the hours he bashed tennis balls and built atomic bombs, he visited the office of one Wendell Cohoes Smith, a mild-mannered, ethnically neutral psychiatrist who, according to certain people, had had more than modest success in bridling the passions of certain violent types. Thrice a week Goldschmidt reclined on Smith’s couch fondling the throat of his tennis racket as he related to the aging analyst residues from a thoroughly pacific childhood which, of course, the latter suggested was directly responsible for his recently choleric disposition. As it was, six weeks after his introduction to the couch Goldschmidt quit. Informing Smith he’d come to the conclusion that it was far more important for a man to have a healthy backhand than a healthy ego, he headed directly home and inserted the final component in the nuclear bomb that for the past two weeks had been sitting on top of the armoire in his bedroom.
It was during the next two weeks that Goldschmidt’s descent into psychic anarchy became final and irreversible. To begin with, a hopeless schism developed between him and his children — no doubt attributable to the fact that the latter persisted in badgering the man to purge his soul on the proverbial couch. In view of this, Goldschmidt no longer perceived his progeny to possess that classic Anglo-Saxon physiognomy he’d put such a premium on, yet which, in reality, they’d never had to begin with. Instead, he began to perceive subtle innuendoes of offensive ethnicity about their personages, so much so, that by summertime he numbered his offspring among the countless other barbarians who had to be destroyed.
To further compound matters, by this point in time his tennis game had degenerated into little more than an ill-conceived, albeit skillful, vendetta, the intent of which was to extinguish as many members of the human race as possible. More and more it had become his practice to propel the fuzzy little missiles that bounded off the strings of his racket into the bellies and groins of his opponents. Yet, incredibly, he was tolerated — mainly because of his exceptional skills, which admittedly were competent to the point of being frightening. Curiously, his bombastic style drew crowds and generated a heretofore unheard of interest among the clientele of the racquet club — the latter consisting of a group that was not only used to but, indeed, seemed to thrive on contentious personalities. So it was that politicos, diplomats, and other questionable types scrutinized with an almost perverse sort of fervor the perilous decline of Goldschmidt’s mind. Yet even as they did this they could not help but marvel at the fact that such a lunatic could thrash his way to the finals of a tournament in a club populated by more than its share of outstanding players.
Matched up against the son of some oil rich Middle Eastern sheik, Goldschmidt surprised everyone when on the day before the finals he delivered to the family of his opponent a magnificent mahogany trunk which years before he and his wife had purchased in Iran. He did this in deference to some arcane Moslem custom which he claimed dictated that it was both proper and desirable for opponents to exchange gifts before some crucial competition. Indeed, Goldschmidt himself accompanied the box which two stevedores deposited in the living room of the sheik’s midtown mission apartment. Observing that he’d become familiar with Moslem protocol during his years in Teheran, Goldschmidt made it a point to apologize for the fact that the box was sealed, yet promised that he’d bring the key with him to the match the next day. Appearing a bit perplexed, the sheik, who fancied himself to be something of a mavin when it came to Moslem law, raised his bushy eyebrows, yet, nevertheless, regained his composure, so much so in fact, that he reciprocated and sent Goldschmidt off with a rather large, exquisite ivory statue fashioned in the image of an Arabian stallion.
It was during the ninth game of the third set in the finals that Goldschmidt snapped. Up to that point in time he’d exhibited remarkable self-control — a rather amazing feat considering the fact that his opponent, a cinnamon skinned youth with the stealth and speed of a jungle cat, had given him all that he could handle. Yet, incredibly, Goldschmidt, who was thrice the lad’s age, had matched the Arabian prince stroke for stroke, and might well have won the match had he not let his venom get the better of him.
It all had something to do with a topspin lob that Goldschmidt was sure had landed on the baseline, yet which the youth in a shrill, heavily accented, adolescent voice that Goldschmidt positively despised insisted was out. Responding to what he considered to be the juvenile’s inherent deceitfulness and offensive ethnicity, Goldschmidt propelled a ball off the strings of his racket and all but eviscerated the youth’s nose. Seconds later, ranting and raving, the ex-chronicler of international turmoil was dragged off the court by three thugs who were supposedly in the employ of the boy’s father. Escorting Goldschmidt into the locker room, this triumvirate straight out of the Arabian Nights proceeded to break a few of the man’s ribs, not to mention destroying two thousand dollars’ worth of bridgework that connected his upper molars to his incisors. By the time it was all over Goldschmidt was totally incoherent and the management of the club, which in the interim had awarded the championship trophy to his opponent by reason of default, had no choice but to petition the man’s eldest son to come with a straightjacket and take his daddy home.
Hours later, confined to his midtown apartment, a sedated Goldschmidt strapped to a chair rocked back and forth and engaged in an endless monologue, during which time he cursed his fellow man and prophesied a nuclear holocaust, the center of which would be the east side of Manhattan. All the while he chattered the timer of the nuclear device hidden in the hollowed out bottom of the mahogany trunk inside the sheik’s midtown apartment upon which his most recent opponent’s championship trophy now rested clicked its way down towards zero.
All in all it promised to be a bad day for Manhattan, and a good day for that compelling mistress known as Hatred.
