by Max Shulman
I saw the first signs of trouble about six weeks after I started going with Esme. We were dancing together one day when all of a sudden I noticed that her eyes, which used to be on a level with the bridge of my nose, were now on a level with my eyes. “Oy!” I said to myself, coming all over goose pimples, and I went home that evening in fear and trembling.
First thing in the morning I ran to the shoemaker and had some lifts put on, and that stemmed the tide for a month or so. Then one afternoon I saw her eyes come level with mine again, and I knew my days were numbered.
Sure enough, week by week her eyes crept up—first to my eyebrows, then to the middle of my forehead, then to my hairline. For a while I dazzled her with footwork. I leaped and bounded and spun and whirled and ducked and crouched and bucked and winged and made up steps that Fred Astaire never even thought of. But it was only postponing the inevitable. Finally there came that fatal day when she looked clean over the top of my head, and all was lost.
“Dobie,” she said, “go.”
I didn’t even argue. What for? When dancing is your whole life, which it is Esme’s, how can you go through life with a partner half your size?
Well, naturally I was all busted up, and the next day at school, I couldn’t even eat my lunch. All I could do was go outside and lay with my face in the grass and wish I was dead, which I did.
By and by somebody sat down next to me—Gidgie Tremblatt. “I know all about it,” she hollered, stroking my nape.
“Oh, blast off,” I said.
“Dobie,” she yelled, “life goes on. You must plunge into work and forget your heartbreak.”
“Hah!” I said with this bitter laugh.
“Work is the only solution,” screamed Gidgie. “Why don’t you build a boat or sell bluing door-to-door or like that?”
“Hah!” I said with another bitter laugh.
“I’ve got it!” she shrieked, suddenly all excited. “The annual eighth grade Talent Show is going to be held a week from Friday night. Why don’t you work up a little act and enter it? You could maybe balance things. That’s not hard if there’s not too many. You might even win a prize. In any case, it’ll help you to forget.”
“But I don’t want to forget,” I said with a sob in my throat. “If I can’t have Esme, at least I can have her memory, which might not seem like much to you, but to me, it is all that matters.”
Then I got to my feet and lurched into the setting sun, a tragic figure.
A couple of days later Gidgie grabbed me after school. “I love you,” she yelled.
“Please,” I said. “It’s no use.”
“Let me finish,” she said. “I love you, Dobie. I love you so much that I’m going to get you the only thing that will make you happy. I mean Esme.”
“You?” I said. “How?” I said.
“Listen,” she said, “what does Esme admire and respect more than anything in the whole world?”
“Rock and roll,” I replied, which she does.
“All right,” said Gidgie. “A week from Friday night you are going to get up at the Talent Show and play the guitar and sing a great rock and roll song—a song you wrote yourself—and you will win first prize in a breeze and Esme will be so impressed that she will take you back even if she is a whole head taller!”
I looked at Gidgie like she was from another planet. “Have you blown your stack? Me play the guitar? Me write a song?”
“I already wrote the song,” said Gidgie. “And it’s a gasser, if I say so myself. As for the guitar, I can teach you enough chords to fake it.”
“Gidgie,” I said, taking both of her hands in mine, “this is the noblest thing one person ever did for another, and I will never forget you!”
“Oh, talk, talk, talk!” said Gidgie. “Come on. Every minute counts!”
So we raced to her house where she took down her guitar and played me the song she wrote. She wasn’t kidding; it was a gasser all right! It had a real driving beat, but the beauty part of it was the lyric. Man, it was the coolest! Here, I’ll write it down for you:
Ooblee
Ooblee ooblee wa da
Ooblee wa da
Ka ooblee blee blee blee wa da da.
Well, I got a gal, her name is Esme;
I will kiss her if she le’s me.
Ooblee
Ooblee ooblee wa da
Ooblee wa da
Ka ooblee blee blee blee wa da da.
Well, I love her in history, I love her in science;
If she was a lawyer, I’d bring her some clients.
Ooblee
Ooblee ooblee wa da
Ooblee wa da
Ka ooblee blee blee blee wa da da.
Well, some day we’ll marry and live connubially
Singing ooblee ooblee ooblee.
Well, naturally I knew I couldn’t fail to get Esme back with a great song like this, and I kept trying to tell Gidgie how grateful I was, but she kept brushing me off. “Come on, come on,” she kept yelling. “There’s work to do.”
Boy, she was right! We worked like a couple of maniacs, day and night, night and day, but still it was touch and go if I could learn to chord that guitar in time for the Talent Show. We worked right up until curtain time and then we shook hands and Gidgie went and sat with the audience and I went backstage and trembled like an aspen.
The first act was Larry Duberstein playing a tambourine, and then came Bonnie Morgan throwing her voice, then Nate Gahagan did some back bends, then George Bassman imitated a chicken, and then came the last act: me.
Everybody in the whole John Marshall was sitting out there, and when I looked at their faces, I thought I was a goner. My knees were rattling and my head was spinning and my mouth was like wired shut. Then Gidgie caught my eye and gave me a smile and a wink, and I got a grip on myself and took a good, solid, spread-legged stance, and opened my mouth, and slammed that guitar, and let her rip!
Well, you’ll think I’m bragging, but it’s the simple truth: I broke up the joint. I mean I never heard such clapping and stamping and whistling and screaming in my whole life. Man, they did everything but tear the seats out of the floor and they would of done that if Mr. Lambretta, the principal, hadn’t of been there.
They never even bothered to take a vote for first prize. Mr. Lambretta just came out on the stage and pinned the blue ribbon on me, and that started the applause all over again.
Well, I stood there kind of stunned and bleary at first, and then everything came in focus. I saw Esme sitting in the first row, and there was no mistaking how she felt. Her face was dripping with love; her eyes bulged with mad longing. All I had to do was crook my finger and she was mine again without a doubt.
Then I looked over at Gidgie. Naturally her ducts were off and running. The tears came pouring down her cheeks like two little waterfalls, but she was smiling and clapping her hands, and every now and then she’d stick two fingers in her mouth and give a great big whistle.
I tried to take my eyes off Gidgie and look back at Esme, but suddenly I couldn’t. Suddenly it was like something busted inside of me, and I felt all hot and melty, and I knew I was nothing but a no-good, crummy heel.
I stepped forward on the stage. I raised my hand till the audience got quiet. I took off the blue ribbon. “This does not belong to me,” I said, holding up the ribbon. “This belongs to Gidgie Tremblatt and so does your applause because the song I sang was not mine, it was Gidgie’s. She gave it to me because she is a sweet, noble, self-sacrificing girl, and I have treated her mean and rotten. But this I cannot do: I cannot steal from her tonight’s great honor which she so richly deserves!”
I leaped off the stage and pinned the blue ribbon on Gidgie, and then I said, “Gidgie, will you do me the privilege to go steady with me?”
“Oh, no!” she screamed, crying on all four. “I can’t, Dobie! I am not worthy of you! I have been a rat—an evil, conniving rat! I plotted this whole thing tonight. I let you think that I was noble and self-sacrificing, b
ut all the time I knew that you were going to do what you just did. I knew because it is you, Dobie, who are noble and self-sacrificing, and I am bad clean through!”
Well sir, that gave me pause, you may be sure! I stood there scratching my head and thinking, and she sat there looking up at me like a dog that has just done something you trained him not to. Finally I said, “Gidgie, come outside. I want to talk to you.”
“Yes, Dobie,” she said, not screaming for a change.
I took her out to the playground and we sat on a teeter-totter and teetered for a while till I collected my thoughts. Then I said, “Well, Gidgie, I got to give you this: it was pretty smart, that plan you figured out.”
“It was treacherous and deceitful!” said she, crying again.
“True,” I said. “But smart. I mean you were using the old noodle, which is something I should of been doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what if I did get Esme back tonight? Sooner or later she’s got to find out I can’t write rock and roll music. So then what? Then she’s stuck with a guy who can’t write rock and roll and a midget into the bargain. So what does she do? She dumps me, that’s what.”
“But before she finds out, you might suddenly start growing and maybe catch up with her,” said Gidgie.
“Yeah?” I said. “And what’s she supposed to be doing while I grow—stand still? She’ll be growing, too, won’t she? Gidgie, let’s face it: I’ll never catch up.”
“You might,” said Gidgie.
“Sure, I might,” said I. “On the other hand, there’s no guarantee that she won’t go to eight feet, what with the matriarchy and all.… No, Gidgie, the only one I can be sure of around here is you.”
“You mean,” she said, breathing hard, “you want me back?”
“It’s not a question of want,” I said. “It’s a question of what’s available—and you’re it, I’m afraid. Sure, I’d just as soon have a girl without so many tear ducts, but on the other hand, there’s no danger of ever losing you, and surely that’s worth something.”
“Oh, I love you, Dobie,” she screamed, “and you will never, never regret this decision! Never!”
Which I haven’t. We’ve been going together for six months now, and it’s been chuckles all the way. Only one thing bugs me a little: Gidgie has started to grow. Oh, it’s nothing alarming. She’s moved up from my shoulder to my nostrils, which still gives me plenty of clearance. Anyhow, my mother keeps telling me not to worry. I will soon have my fourteenth birthday and Ma says Dr. Gesell, who knows everything, says that fourteen is the year of greatest growth for boys.
Well, let’s hope so. But meanwhile I’ve been doing a little casual scouting in the seventh grade. I mean it doesn’t hurt to be ready.
CHAPTER TWO
HAVE GIRL, WILL TRAVEL
by Dobie Gillis, aged 14
From trying to stand up tall I used to have a posture that was the envy of the whole eighth grade at John Marshall Junior High School, but now I am so bent and stooped that people sometimes retch and turn away. The reason I am so bent and stooped is because for the last six months I have had a 132-pound woman on my back. I mean my mother.
A million times I have tried to reason with her. “Ma,” I say, “why don’t you be a good fellow and leave me alone?”
“Alone?” she screams and clutches me to her bosom. (Ma always screams and clutches me to her bosom. I didn’t mind it too much when I was little, but now that I am a man of fourteen years old I would prefer a quiet conversation at a distance of like twenty feet. In fact, I would really prefer a dead silence.) “Alone?” Ma screams. “But you are not alone, Dobie! Always remember when things go wrong, your mother loves you and wants to help!”
“I appreciate that,” I say, which I do. I mean I am very fond of my mother, who is a fine, great-hearted woman, and you would certainly go far to find anyone who takes a greater interest in their family. I’ve got one younger brother named Dan, and a father named Herbert Gillis, M.D., but Ma still finds time to get on all our backs.
“Dobie,” Ma screams, “you must trust me. Tell me about the report card.”
“I can’t,” I say, which I can’t. I am not one of those guys who claim you can’t tell your mother anything at all. I say there are certain uncomplicated things which your mother can grasp without too much trouble, but this report card was definitely not one of them.
This card was my midterm report from John Marshall Junior High School and it showed an F on every single subject—F for Flunk—and naturally Ma got pretty tense when she saw the card, especially since I never before brought home anything less than an A. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying I’m a genius or like that. It just so happens that I’ve got a good memory. Like some people happen to have blue eyes, I happen to have a good memory. Believe me, it has nothing to do with intelligence. If you put me up against a new situation where my memory can’t help, I will goof nine times out of nine.
Well, Ma took one look at the report card and she turned a kind of pale blue and she clutched me to her bosom and screamed, “What happened?”
“Oh, well, you can’t win ’em all,” I said with a little chuckle, trying to pass it off as a joke, like.
“Oh, darling, how have I failed you?” screamed Ma, squeezing my head.
“Relax, Ma. It’s just one of those things,” I said, but she just kept on riding me and I just kept on telling her nothing.
Later that night she sent my father up to my room to talk to me, which was very unusual because once my father gets in his contour chair after supper, he never leaves it except to switch from Channel 4 to Channel 2. Pa actually doesn’t like television too much. What he likes is to lay there in the contour chair, but if he hasn’t got the set on, Ma will come over and talk him into a stupor.
Anyhow, Pa came up to my room and we stood around for about twenty minutes not saying anything, which is the way we usually carry on a conversation, and to tell you the truth, it suits me just fine. Pa’s a great guy and I love him and like that, but what do we need with conversation? I mean Pa used to be a boy so he knows how things are with me. As for my knowing how things are with him, I’d frankly rather not.
So we stood for about twenty minutes and then Pa said, “Is there anything you want to tell me?” and I said, “No,” and Pa looked relieved and went back to watch I’ve Got a Secret.
Then Ma sent up my kid brother Dan, who is a natural born stool pigeon, to see what he could worm out of me, but I flung him out of the room, and then Ma came up herself and stayed on my back till midnight.
Well, sir, I wouldn’t tell Ma anything so she came to her own conclusion and, man, it was a gasser! She figured that I was turning into a juvenile delinquent! Is that the end? Me, Dobie Gillis, who wouldn’t know a switchblade from a croquet mallet, turning into a j.d.!
I laughed like a loon, but Ma wouldn’t budge. She said the report card was the first step, the switchblade would come later. She said I was a member of the shook-up generation, born into a time of strife and tension. She said I was full of ferment and torment. She said my report card was a protest, a blind, unconscious protest, against a world built on false values.
Well, this was so far out that I was tempted to tell Ma the truth. In fact, I would of if I could of. But how could I of? Ma would never understand about Alma Gristede. In fact, I have all kinds of trouble understanding it myself.
Alma Gristede was the cause of all those Fs on my report card. It wasn’t a world built on false values or strife or tension or ferment or torment. It was Alma Gristede—with an assist from that dirty rat Nate Gahagan.
I can forgive Alma because, after all, I haven’t known her too long, but Nate Gahagan has been my best friend for three whole years. That’s how long Nate has been living in the house next door to mine, which is the longest anybody has ever lived in the house next door. Let me tell you about that house.
It’s a nice enough house, you understand. I mean it’s real modern a
nd it’s got big windows and room dividers and storage walls and radiant heating and all kinds of up-to-date jazz like that. There was even an article about it once in House Beautiful with a picture of the architect standing there with a big, proud smile on his face. Well, he’s not smiling now. In fact, he’s hiding. Last I heard, he was drinking himself to death in Honduras or Tahiti or someplace that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.
What the architect did was he put a flat roof on the house, which was one of the major errors in the history of architecture. You see, we live on a street called Ocean View Drive. It is called Ocean View Drive because if you drive far enough you get a view of the ocean. Anyhow, all the houses in the neighborhood—except the one Nate lives in—are New England seaport type houses. I mean they’re big and old-fashioned and built out of weathered shingles with widow’s walks upstairs and—this is the important part—peaked roofs. Nate’s house is the only one with a flat roof, and it didn’t take the sea gulls long to find out about it.
We’ve got about ninety jillion sea gulls in our neighborhood, and when people talk about bird-brains I wish they would exclude sea gulls because these birds are smarter than dogs. In fact, they are smarter than a lot of people. What these sea gulls do is they go down to the beach and dig up clams at low tide. Then they fly around looking for a place to drop the clams so they can crack open the shells. Well, a peaked roof is no good for dropping clams because they slide right off. But a flat roof is perfect. So twice a day at low tide these gulls, wave after wave of them, come zooming down on Nate’s house and drop their clams on the roof. Man, the noise! I mean it sounds like the St. Valentine’s Day massacre or Chinese New Year’s or like that. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat! Bam! Bam! Bam! I’ve been in Nate’s house a few times when the gulls came over and I thought I was inside of Gene Krupa’s drum.
Well, naturally most people move out of that house as soon as they can. In fact, I remember two different families who moved out the same day they moved in. But Nate stayed three whole years. He isn’t a very sensitive type, and I guess his folks must be pretty insensitive too, or maybe a little deaf, but anyhow they stayed. So Nate and I got to be great buddies. I mean we were together all the time, day and night, night and day.