Once before I had felt this, coming through. Every Choate boy was required to endure Public Speaking, the province of Mr. Pratt, a theatrical character who wore a cape, carried a cane and said the most abusive things I have ever heard a human being say to another human being. The boys hated and feared him, till they left Choate, when they agreed to revere him. We would sit thirty at a time once a week in the basement of the chapel; Mr. Pratt would call on five of us in turn, according to a system of his own devising, so that five times a year, perhaps five weeks in a row, each of us would speak for five minutes on a subject of his choice. If he didn’t like what he heard Mr. Pratt would beat his cane and scream; he seldom liked what he heard. My first year I sat trembling week after week for seven weeks before he called on me. I wanted to tell him I stammered, but I didn’t want to tell him I stammered. What I wanted most was not to stammer.
Mr. Pratt called on a slow-witted bully, a Lake Forest boy who elected to disarm the ogre with low wit. He began his speech smirking: “Doctor Frood, the infamous” (he said it in-fay-muss) “Hun, tells us there is a war between the supernegro and the yid. I’d like to explore …”
Two words into this monologue I heard Pratt mumble; then a sound like a death rattle came from behind us, and rose. We scrunched down as the words rumbled past us, hitting the silly, blushing boy at the lectern:
“You vile thing! You cur of a child. Where do you think you are?”
As the boy considered a response to this bewildering question, and perhaps developed an alternate presentation—on The Greatness of Napoleon, or Why I’m Proud to Be a Midwesterner—Pratt bowled down the aisle with his cane raised and his cape spread out behind him, showing its blood-red silk lining. He climbed the dais stage left as the boy exited weeping stage right, as though pursued by a bear. Mr. Pratt spoke:
“WOLFF! NEXT! TALK TO ME!”
I stammered an exposition of powerboat racing. I had committed to memory three double-spaced pages, and twenty minutes after I began, shaking my head wildly from side to side to force the words out, forcing them out, every word, no substitutes, no cheating on the sadistic plosives, no tricks to push off to a new sentence (let’s see, the fastest hydroplane in the world is, let’s see, let’s see, Slo-Mo-Shun, let’s see), just getting it done … after twenty minutes I knew something I had not known before. Doing it is never as bad as not doing it. Before I reached the end of my speech Mr. Pratt held up his hand:
“We have to eat, Wolff. That’s enough. Well done.”
That was as good as it ever got at Choate, and at Eastbourne it was better than that all the time.
• • •
In Florence my Denver heiress turned out to be no heiress, but neither was I what she expected. Her mother had made unwarranted assumptions about a Choate boy Princeton-bound by way of an English public school; she had installed me in the Excelsior, in a room overlooking the Arno. This, I soon learned, was to be my treat, and I was expected to give her and her daughter dinner of an evening. This was careless fortune-hunting; I had three hundred dollars to lavish on my six-week continental holiday, but before I understood I was to pay, and before the heiress and her mother discovered I could not pay, I had the pleasure of a night alone with a beautiful and experienced seventeen-year-old girl.
The next night we fought. I thought that our combat was about love rather than my disappointing Dun & Bradstreet. I got drunk and morose on grappa at the Grand, where we listened to a bad American pianist play “When Sonny Gets Blue,” again and again, as long as I paid for his drinks. The girl unaccountably bit my finger, and caused it to bleed. I thought of myself as Dick Diver even as I slapped her, thinking how lucky I was to have fallen in with someone so interestingly unstable. After I slapped her she even more unaccountably kissed me, languorously. Then she left me, “forever,” as she said. I stood on the Ponte Vecchio at three in the morning and contemplated suicide. The following morning I skipped out on my bill at the Excelsior, took the sleeper to Paris, met some American pals and had the devil of a time. Then I spent the spring holidays with them in Spain for six weeks, following the bulls, of course, telling Smith College Junior-Year-Abroaders we were older than we were, which the girls pretended to believe.
At the end of the year I broke a rule much like the rule I had broken at Choate that had put me at the mercy of the Honor Committee. On the Sabbath I went to the cinema. This was serious; I was meant to be at rest or worship. I was caught by a master’s wife, summoned to the headmaster.
“Did you worship today, Wolff?”
“No, Sir.”
“Do anything?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Tell.”
“I saw a film, Sir.”
“You’re a damned fool.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What film?”
“The Man with the Golden Arm, Sir.”
“Good?”
“Very, Sir.”
“You’re a double-damned fool if you think so. I should beat you. Instead there’ll be no more London weekends for you. Go away.”
“Yes, Sir. I’m sorry.”
“Of course you are. What difference does that make?”
The headmaster wrote my father: “He has really done a very good year here. It was unfortunate that he made a fool of himself at the end, but that will be forgotten and the good impression that he made will be remembered. He is a good boy.”
They even gave me a prize, The Brian Tunstall Imperial Studies Prize, for my paper explaining the colonial insurrection of 1776. The prize came with a book—The Collected Stories of Ernest Hemingway—and handshakes from the Bishop of Chichester and Duke of Devonshire, president and vice-president of the school’s governing body. The next day I was to leave for a summer in France with my American friends, but Duke telephoned. Alice was gone again, and with her the cash. I was to borrow passage money home, quickest. The phone connection was weak, but I heard for the first time that my father’s Oxbridge honk didn’t come off, quite, that it went flat on the a, which was too narrow, and that it wasn’t sufficiently slurred.
I wanted to stay, but said I’d be home “toute suite.” I had to go to Paris first, I said, to “fetch up with a chap who owes me lucre.” My father instructed me to borrow passage money home from the school, or from his dear old RAF pal, Nick Van Sittart, now Lord.
“Call Nick,” said Duke. “He’ll give you lunch at White’s and a hundred quid till you get home.”
I telephoned Lord Van Sittart, and said I belonged to Duke Wolff.
“Never heard of him.”
“Arthur Wolff? During the war? An American pilot?”
“Oh him. The Yank who liked pilots. Always asking for an introduction to one’s tailor. Hardly remember him, sorry.”
18
EASTBOURNE advanced me passage money home on the Île de France. By some hook or crook my father got together eight hundred dollars to pay for my first semester at Princeton. After that, it was understood, I was on my own. At Eastbourne I had dreamed fine dreams of Princeton, and of myself. But even before I got there I felt them slipping away. The summer in Wilton before my freshman year was awkward. Alice came and went, always drifting. I understand why she left, but not why she returned. She couldn’t bear my father, it seemed, and he seemed indifferent to her. I think she was lonely, but I don’t want to condescend to her. Neither do I underestimate loneliness.
At the time I welcomed loneliness for myself, or rather welcomed the state of being alone, the illusion of self-reliance. I felt my father to be a force field of unmakings, and I avoided him. I began to put things together, to remember that alone I had managed to survive, in Niagara Falls, New York, Old Lyme, Sarasota, flying to Seattle, at Eastbourne. No: I had never been alone in those places; what I meant by “alone” was apart from my mother, father, stepmother.
Duke drove me to Princeton. The new scholars wore raccoon coats to our Freshman Week, second week of September, 1956, despite temperatures in the high eighties. Three-by-fiv
e-foot felt rectangles hung on their walls, orange PRINCETON against a black field, to remind them where they were spending the night. Most of my friends from the class of 1960, friends through college and now, I met within a week of our arrival. We recognized one another at a glance: no fur coats, no banners on our walls, never a reference to Scott Fitzgerald. The Exeter graduates set the tone: sardonic, smart, quick to laugh and dismiss; “negative” was an honorific. There were Choaties at Princeton, but I kept apart from them.
“We” kissed off the pushers, strivers, tweedbags (“the idiot looks like he was hatched from a madras egg,” a friend said about someone who wanted to be his friend), jocks, lounge lizards (one wore his Chesterfield coat to early morning classes, pretending to have just returned from a “do” in The City; everyone knew better, the train schedules didn’t fit and the college wouldn’t let us drive cars), the greasers, Christers, doers … Kissing off was natural selection. Discrimination. Criticism, judgment: this was better than that. Here was our education. Choate told me I had been selected from among many; Princeton told me I had been selected from among many good enough for Choate. Now “we” selected from among many good enough for Princeton.
Within weeks the English and the French bombed Egypt, the Soviets crushed the Hungarian freedom fighters, Ike crushed Adlai. We watched history on the tube at the Nass’ and the ’Nex. The Nassau Tavern was dark and moist, a ritzy cellar where the Princeton heroes of yore were enshrined on oars and hockey sticks. The Annex Grill was better: Italian bartenders, roadhouse grit.
We drank ourselves silly. Wait: I drank myself silly. My friends knew when to quit everything. I always went too far.
Princeton was easier than Eastbourne, easier even than Choate, too easy. Everything was first principles, surveys, field requirements. Like everyone I had to take a laboratory science course. There were only two choices for wiseguys: “Rocks” (geology) and “Misfits” (psychology). Chemistry, physics, biology … these were exacting, students sometimes flunked them. I chose Misfits, and flunked it. At the final I appeared with my pencils and the professor—Smilin’ Jack Somebody—wrote some names on the blackboard of the huge lecture hall; my name was among them, listing the labs I had missed.
Some of the young gentlemen had missed two, four, even six labs. I had missed thirteen.
“Is Mr. Wolff in the room?” I sat in the front row, nodded. “Just wanted to meet you before we say bye-bye,” said Smilin’ Jack, smiling. “No need for you to take this exam. Your grade is already registered.”
Here was trouble, the mighty seven! Princeton gave a one for excellence, six for failure, seven for something special, “Flagrant Neglect.” I would be punished by a special summer reading course but worse, at the end of my first semester and my father’s eight hundred dollars, I was an unlikely candidate for a full scholarship.
Then I flunked another course, but this failure conferred a distinction. Air Force R.O.T.C. was a joke at Princeton, but I didn’t know this when I signed up. I wanted to fly, but a month after I entered college I knew there’d be no Eagle Squadron for me. I needed glasses, just like my father. I bought wire rims, just like his. And flunked Air Force. The commanding officer pointed out to my faculty advisor that among other evidence of ill-preparedness (unshined shoes, unpolished belt buckle) were incorrect replies to the following true/false first semester examination questions:
The United States of America is the most powerful nation on earth. T or F (circle one)
Scientific and industrial excellence can be achieved as easily in the yoke of communist repression as in our Free Society. T or F (circle one)
With two failures I was on a sticky wicket. My friends—even the negative, knowing ones—urged me to pull up my socks, drink less, cut fewer classes, play ball. I hadn’t applied for a scholarship when I applied to Princeton, and didn’t think I was eligible. I asked for a job and got one, washing and delivering my schoolmates’ laundry for a dollar an hour, fifteen hours a week. It wasn’t enough. I explained my predicament to the bureau of student aid. Despite two failing grades, they went the distance for me: if my father was broke, that was a pity, but I wouldn’t have to leave Princeton on that account. Ways could be found, not to worry, do your part and we’ll do ours. One thing: ask your dad to pop a financial statement in the mail, so we can work out terms with him.
He wouldn’t do it, said his circumstances were no damned business of Princeton’s. I asked him not to visit me in the Mercedes, wearing bespoke suits and hand-lasted Lobb shoes. He visited in the Mercedes, wearing bespoke suits and the rest, what he always wore. My friends were charmed by him, and called him The Duke, though not to his face; they thought him to be quite the most swank (or most risible) dad they knew. He was sometimes invited to parties, and came.
Three weeks after I entered Princeton the bursar of Eastbourne wrote the headmaster of Choate about an “awkward” matter.
The fees for the Michaelmas Term, and the extras for that term and fees for the Lent Term were paid, but no payment has been made for the extras for the Lent and Summer Terms, or the fees for the Summer Term. We had to advance the boy considerable sums for the Easter holidays and also had to advance his fare back to America. The result is that the parent now owes us four hundred eight pounds, eighteen shillings and fourpence. I have written to the parent without reply, A.S.A. Wolff, Esq., “Driftways,” Nod Hill Road, Wilton, Connecticut on July 18th, August 15th, and September 10th. What should I do?
St. John wrote my father, with a copy to me:
I have just received through the English-Speaking Union a most disturbing letter from Eastbourne College … I am naturally concerned on several counts: your and Geoff’s good name, our good name, and our relationships with England … Eastbourne says it is writing this letter as a last hope—before taking legal action … Geoff apparently did such a good job at Eastbourne, and has such a happy future ahead of him, that I should feel terribly to have it blighted in any way …
I wrote St. John the truth. Tuition and fees were twelve hundred dollars a year at Eastbourne, third-class passage back and forth another four hundred, and this left about eight hundred from my inheritance, which my father promised to deal out as bills came in. Other people promise that the moon is made of cheese.
“Dad said he had received NO BILLS from Eastbourne. He said this as recently as this weekend. I fear I now know a different truth. What can I do? I have no money. I shall call Dad immediately. I fear he has none. Needless to say, any pride I might have taken in what I accomplished is more than outweighed by this disgrace to my family and my country.” Dear me.
St. John answered compassionately. He was relieved to report that my father had assured him a check was in the mail. It must have gone astray. I paid the debt three years later. But meantime, to mark the “disgrace to my family and country,” I got falling-down drunk and was shaken awake on the steps of Palmer Physics Laboratory by a student, on his way to a 7:40 A.M. engineering class, who half carried me to the infirmary. It was thought that I had fallen from a height, but I had in fact fallen my own height, to lie six hours in the mid-October rain. A doctor noticed that I was incoherent; perhaps there had been a blow to the head? There were X-rays, a blood test. I was drunk. The following morning I was still drunk. That afternoon I was sent to the Assistant Dean of Students. He observed that there was a pattern here of self-destruction. I saw that this was so, and said it was so. How did I explain it? I tried, I really tried to explain it. I explained about predetermination, being a father’s son. The dean explained fresh starts, clean slates. Self-pity blocked my ears; also, a fast slide downhill is sometimes exhilarating.
I began to run up bills, why not? I couldn’t travel to Poughkeepsie and Northampton wearing rags. We’d drive eleven hours in a roommate’s ancient and illegally registered Buick convertible, in violation of Princeton’s injunction against student driving, so I could take a Smith girl to Rahars and three hours later kiss her (maybe) on the steps of her house, while her hous
emother watched, an hour before midnight. Then we’d spend the night on someone’s cousin’s friend’s floor at Amherst, and the next day drive back through the rain. This we called “dating.”
My other “dates” were perquisites of my baritone crooning with a singing group called The Tigertones, a close harmony chorus of a dozen or so. We sang funny songs and we sang sad songs. During the winter of my freshman year I had Langrock fit me with a suit of tails, so I could sing at coming-out parties. Spring vacation we Tigertones flew to Bermuda to sing at the Belmont Manor. There were fewer girls than boys in Bermuda when we were there. Surprisingly, singers did not seduce them. Football players, in Bermuda ostensibly to play Rugby but in fact for spring football practice, seduced them. Football players shaved their ankles before they taped them. That was how you recognized them as football players, by their shaved ankles. I shaved my ankles. This was a metaphor, the kind my father had understood for many years. I was learning, nothing to it, soap and a razor, jubilee.
That summer I went to Colorado with a quartet of Princeton singers, The Boomerangs. We sang “Sweet Adeline!,” “Mavourneen,” “Bandoleros” (“We are brave and happy Ban-do-laaaay-rose;/ We conquer, or diiie!”) and “Teasin’.” We wore striped jackets and boaters. The bass, son of an undertaker, taught me to drink martinis in the Mineshaft Bar near Central City, where we sang at the Glory Hole Saloon for meals and tips. We didn’t sing very well, in part because of the martinis. We went broke and broker, and now when we passed the boater for tips we salted it with a fiver, till one night we got it back with less than two dollars. I borrowed money first from the second tenor, and then from the first. I was supposed to bring back at least a thousand to help me through Princeton my second year. I came back empty-handed, with a hangover. My friends helped me, and wanted me to be other than who I was. Who? There was a saying at Princeton they should have embroidered on samplers and sold at the U-Store: “Be yourself at all times, and if that isn’t good enough—be someone else.”
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