by Max Shulman
“But you promised,” said a girl.
“But we’re counting on you,” said another.
“Do you realize what this means to us?” said a third.
“Means to you?” I said with a short, bitter laugh. “To you it means a silver cup. To me it means light and life and laughter.” I looked at Celeste and felt my throat fill with lumps. “But I cannot, must not, put Sam outdoors today.”
“Gillis,” said Betty Kleinhans, and her voice was like a lash, “you’re through here. Turn in your dickey.”
“And I’m through here tool”
I turned. The voice was Celeste’s.
She marched over to me and took my arm. “I go with Dobie,” she declared.
I looked at her in slack-jawed wonder.
“Celeste,” said Betty Kleinhans sternly, “you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do too, you old snob,” replied Celeste hotly. “I love Dobie, even if you did make me break up with him.”
“They made you?” I asked, blinking in astonishment.
“Sure; they told me all that stuff about going with a B.M.O.C. They made me write that letter.”
“Celeste, you forget yourself,” said Betty Kleinhans. “You are a girl of poise, breeding, wealth, beauty and position.”
“Am I?” said Celeste. “Well, Dobie has got a noble nature. Look what he’s doing—turning down a chance to be a B.M.O.C. just for a smelly old wildcat.”
“Celeste, honey, cookie, animals don’t smell so bad when you get used to them,” I said earnestly. “You must make an effort.”
“I’ll try, dear Dobie,” she promised, nuzzling my cheek. “I’ll try.”
About Miranda McCreedy, the outcome was very odd. Conscience-stricken about jilting her again, I avoided her at first, but finally I decided that I was behaving too badly—that the least I could do was to go and tell her the truth.
“Miranda,” I said, finding her on the campus one day, “I have come to make a clean breast of things.”
“Oh, hello, Dobie,” she said pleasantly. “How do you like my hair this way?”
“Fine,” I said. “Listen, Miranda, you’ve got every right to hate me. I wouldn’t blame you if you slapped my face right now and walked away from me.”
“I slap your face? Why, don’t be ridic, Dobie,” she said with a little tinkly laugh.
“You’re not mad?” I asked, looking at her in confusion.
“Mad? Certainly not. I am the happiest girl on campus.”
“What happened?”
“A vacancy in Alpha Rho,” said Miranda. “I tried again. This time they pledged me.”
As for Celeste, my usual luck prevailed.
I took her to the zoo every day and before long she got to be good friends with all the animals. She also got to be good friends with Mr. Minafee, the nice, young zoo keeper—such good friends, in fact, that I got a card from them last week from Gretna Green where they eloped.
Bah.
CHAPTER NINE
MY GENES YEARN FOR YOUR GENES
by Dobie Gillis, aged 21
“I love you,” I said.
“And I love you,” said Chloe.
“The gestation period of mice is twenty-one days,” said Mr. Kraft.
“I didn’t know love could be so wonderful,” I said.
“Nor I,” said Chloe.
“Would you be good enough to stop stroking that girl while I am lecturing?” said Mr. Kraft.
Blushing, I released Chloe. Ordinarily I was able to tear my attention away from her and give it to Mr. Kraft while he lectured, for he was a forceful speaker and psychology was an interesting course. But every now and again—as on this occasion—the bonds of decorum were rent asunder by the strength of my passion, and though I recognized that a classroom at the University was not the place for such demonstrations, I could not prevent myself from occasionally clutching Chloe and making throaty outcries. So great was my love.
From this description of Chloe’s effect on me you have no doubt surmised that she is a beautiful creature of lush development. You are wrong. I’ve had that kind, and they’re not for me. Chloe is a small weak girl, which is exactly the kind of girl I require since I am a small weak man. And don’t think it’s easy to find a small weak girl these days. What with vitamins, the matriarchy, and competitive sports, the modern girl has achieved appalling proportions.
Chloe possesses another virtue besides being small and weak. She has a great warm compassionate heart. She loves all helpless things—dogs, cats, birds, me, but most especially, children. Never in all my years have I known a girl with such a strong maternal instinct.
I learned about it early in our relationship. I had been observing her for a couple of weeks and had found her pleasing. So one day I said, “Chloe, will you go steady with me?”
“That depends,” she replied.
“On what?”
“On how you feel about children.”
“I can take them or leave them,” I said truthfully.
“In that case,” said she, “you are not for me.”
“I am only fooling,” I said perceiving which way the wind blew. “I am really mad about children. Each morning I rush to my doorstep, hoping that someone has left a foundling during the night.”
“Ah, good,” she said, nodding approval. “You are the kind of man I have been looking for.”
“Your search is ended, madam,” I said and kissed her palm.
“After we are married, how many children would you like to have?”
I saw my chance to really nail down this dame. “Fourteen,” I declared.
She looked at me with adoration not untinged by alarm. “I really hadn’t planned on that many,” she confessed. “I had been thinking of a family of three.”
“No!” I said, feigning disappointment.
“But they will be wonderful children,” she assured me. “I’ve got it all figured out.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, munching her ear lobe.
“The first will be a boy,” she said, her eyes sparkling at the thought of him. “His name will be Peter and he will have lots of freckles.”
I consider freckles about as attractive as yaws. “Charming,” I said, managing not to retch.
“He will be a sturdy little man, our Peter, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and fine strong legs.”
Such a behemoth will eat me out of house and home, I thought with sinking heart. But I managed a smile for Chloe.
“The next will be a girl named Amelia.” A look of infinite tenderness came over Chloe’s face. “Amelia, my angel child,” she whispered. “Amelia, my gossamer fairy.”
“She doesn’t have freckles, does she?” I asked hopefully.
“Amelia will be pale as the light of a waning moon. She will sit quietly and look out the window and smile sweet sad secret smiles.”
What a tiresome little broad, I thought but made no comment.
“She will have an ethereal beauty not of this world.… She will not be with us long.”
“Where will she go?”
“Back to the angels,” said Chloe quietly. Then she went suddenly to pieces and fell into my arms, weeping piteously.
“Cheer up,” I said, patting her bony back. “We all got to go sometime.”
“I suppose so,” she sighed. “And anyhow,” she said, brightening, “little Nannette will be with us soon after Amelia leaves. Laughing roly-poly freckled Nannette!”
Another one with freckles! Some family I was going to have! Out of three kids, one drops dead and two are pinto.
But I concealed my loathing because to Chloe these three horrors were as fine a litter as had ever been spawned. She never tired of talking about them. We used to sit by the hour underneath a tree, and while I rested my head on her bosom, such as it was, she would speak with sweet longing of how she would cuddle and coddle Peter and Nannette and Amelia. Meanwhile, pending the arrival of this trio, it was I who received all of the cuddl
ing and coddling, the fondling and dandling, the loving strokes and gentle embraces, and it was good. Believe me, it was good. When one is so unprepossessing a figure as I, one is not used to such tender ministrations from women.
Daily my love for Chloe widened and deepened—grew, finally, so wide and so deep that the rules of common deportment were often insufficient to restrain me and I had to show my affection, no matter how inappropriate the surroundings, as I did, for example on that morning in Mr. Kraft’s class in psychology.
“Would you be good enough to stop stroking that girl while I am lecturing?” said Mr. Kraft and, blushing, I desisted.
“As I was saying,” continued Mr. Kraft, casting me a reproachful look—he was a large beetle-browed man whose reproachful looks carried a full cargo of reproach—“the gestation period of mice is twenty-one days. Because they reproduce so rapidly, mice make an ideal subject for our next experiment, which will deal with heredity.”
I reached across and gave Chloe’s hand a squeeze to remind her that though my eyes were on Mr. Kraft my mind was, as ever, on her.
“In our laboratory,” Mr. Kraft went on, “we have developed two breeds of white mice—one bright, one dull. Today we will cross the breeds to demonstrate the influence of heredity. We will mate a dull mouse with a bright mouse. The offspring, as we have proved many times, will be better both mentally and physically than if we had mated the dull mouse with another dull mouse. In other words, by injecting superior genes we are going to improve the breed.”
I stole a glance at Chloe. She was listening to Mr. Kraft with far more attention than was her habit. Bless her sweet maternal heart, I thought with a rush of warmth. She was all ears as soon as the discussion turned to children—even the children of mice.
“If you will accompany me into the lab, we will proceed,” said Mr. Kraft. We all followed him into the laboratory. The place was full of small wire cages, each containing a white mouse. On a table in the center of the room stood a maze—a labyrinth of little walls about six inches high. In one corner of the maze was an entrance; in the opposite corner was a box of strong-smelling cheese.
Mr. Kraft pointed to one of the cages. “Note the tag on the door which says ‘DF four thirty-six.’ That stands for Dull Female number four thirty-six.”
I tugged at Chloe’s sleeve. “You are my Dull Female number one,” I said giggling, but she did not hear me, so engrossed was she in Mr. Kraft.
He reached into the cage and removed the white mouse, a pretty little thing, quite tame and unafraid. “I will have her run the maze for you,” he said. “Observe how slowly she runs and how many errors she makes.”
He placed the mouse in the maze entrance. “She cannot see the cheese but she can smell it, so she has an incentive to keep going. For two days before this experiment she has not been fed. That is very important. No mouse, whether bright or dull, will run the maze unless he is truly hungry. Otherwise it is not worth all that trouble to get to the cheese.”
I saw what he meant when DF-436 started running the maze. After ending up in several dozen blind alleys it was clear that she wanted nothing more than to say the hell with it and lie down. Only hunger kept her plugging away. Finally, after nearly ten minutes, she made it.
Mr. Kraft let the poor dolt nibble the cheese briefly and then put her back in her cage. “Now,” he said, extracting a mouse from a cage marked BM-981, “we will have Bright Male number nine eighty-one run the maze. Observe the difference.”
BM-981 was a rodent Einstein, compared to the previous contestant. He too made mistakes, but unlike his colleague, he only made each mistake once. His running time was less than one third the dull female’s.
“This completes the first step in our experiment,” said Mr. Kraft. “The next step will be to mate DF four thirty-six with BM nine eighty-one.”
I felt my face redden. I was about to caution Mr. Kraft to watch his language in front of Chloe, but she seemed not to mind. Indeed, she was listening with more interest than I had ever seen her display in class. Classrooms usually induced lassitude in Chloe, sometimes actual slumber.
“We have proved it over and over again,” said Mr. Kraft, “and in a few weeks you will see for yourself. The offspring of this mating will run the maze faster and make fewer errors than their mother. And they will also be better physical specimens, stronger, quicker and healthier.”
The bell rang, signaling the end of the session. But Chloe was looking at Mr. Kraft prayerfully, as though she were hoping he would speak more.
He obliged. “Just one last thing before you go. I want to make it quite clear that I don’t claim heredity is the answer to all the riddles of personality. But this much I do know—you cannot improve a strain without the injection of superior genes. This is true of all breeds—from bacteria to human beings. Class dismissed.”
Chloe was uncommonly pensive as we left the classroom. “What’s the matter, Icky-Boo?” I asked looking with concern at the furrows that creased her tiny brow.
“Dobie,” she said, “I want to ask you something.”
“Yes, dear?”
“What kind of man is your father?”
“A good old scout,” I replied chuckling. “Fond of medical journals, card tricks and light wines, very popular with the boys. Yes, sir, everyone loves old Shorty.”
“Shorty?”
“Dad is five foot six,” I explained. “So am I. So will my brother Dan be when he gets his growth.”
“I see,” she said glumly. “Tell me, would you describe your father as intelligent?”
“Good gracious, no!” I laughed. “Dad doesn’t know his elbow from second base.”
“Hm,” she said, her frown deepening. “Tell me about your mother.”
“Finest little mother in the whole world,” I declared ringingly.
“What do you mean—little?”
“She is five foot two,” I said.
“I see,” said Chloe with a notable lack of joy. “And is your mother dull too?”
“I love her silver hair and careworn hands,” I said, “but honesty compels me to answer yes.”
Chloe nodded her head and gave several sad sighs. “You see?” she said. “It’s just like Mr. Kraft was saying. You need superior genes to improve an inferior strain. When people like your mother and father mate, the result can only be someone like you.”
“Just a moment, madam,” I said stiffly. “I do not mean to be unkind but you are no bargain yourself.”
“That’s just the point. I’m also the product of two inferior strains. You should see my parents. They’re nice enough people, you understand, and I love them dearly, but all they do is sit and look at television.”
“Real dopes, huh?”
“And puny too.”
“Chloe,” I cried with a sudden sinking of the heart, “are you trying to say that—”
“Yes, Dobie. We must stop going together.”
“But we love each other!” I protested in anguish.
“Yes,” she admitted sadly, “but we must think of our children.”
“We have no children,” I pointed out.
“But we will some day, for I want them more than anything in the world. And I know you want them just as badly. Indeed, Dobie, I could not love you otherwise.”
I bit my tongue in a seizure of frustration. Now I was properly boxed. If I told her how I really felt about children she would leave me posthaste. On the other hand, if I kept up the pretense she would leave me anyhow. No matter how I looked at it I was a dead duck.
“Think of little freckled Peter,” said Chloe. “Don’t you want him to be sturdy and broad-shouldered?”
“I suppose so,” I mumbled glumly.
“And Amelia, don’t you want her to be lovely and delicate and ethereal?”
“With her I don’t really care,” I said. “She is not long for this world anyhow.”
“True. But what about little Nannette? Don’t you want her to be roly-poly and bursting with health?
”
An inspiration struck me. “I’ve got the solution,” I cried happily. “We won’t have children. We’ll adopt them!”
“No,” she said flatly. “I want my own.”
I saw that she was immovable on this point. “Chloe,” I moaned, “I can’t give you up. I love you.”
“And I love you, Dobie. But both of us have a higher duty. We owe it to our children to see that they get superior genes. We must each find a handsome intelligent mate.”
“And where, pray, are a couple of sad sacks like us going to find handsome intelligent mates?”
“A thorny problem,” she admitted.
“Listen,” I said with my whole heart. “Even if I could find a handsome intelligent girl, I wouldn’t want her. I’ve had experience with handsome intelligent girls. They spend all my money, they giggle about me in the ladies’ room and then they won’t even kiss me good night. I don’t want a handsome intelligent girl. I only want you.”
“And I want you, Dobie. But we must not think of ourselves now. Our duty is clear. Surely you understand that—a man who loves children the way you do.”
“Bah,” I snarled, but silently. Caught in my own trap, that’s what I was.
“Then let us part and go seek handsome intelligent mates. Goodbye, Dobie, and good hunting.”
She gave me a gallant smile, a brisk handshake and was gone.
Three weeks later Dull Female No. 436 gave birth to a litter of five mice and Chloe and I were still without handsome intelligent mates. I hadn’t even tried to find one. Chloe, on the other hand, had tried without ceasing. Also without luck. The only time she even came close was when a sorority sister got her a blind date with a 100-yard-dash man from the University track team. He took one look at her and sprinted away.
Still she persisted. She did everything she knew to make herself attractive. She anointed her person with fragrant unguents, she bought a charm bracelet weighing eight pounds, she learned to blow smoke rings. To me all these things made her more maddeningly desirable than ever, but nobody else seemed to notice.
I was not, however, reassured. I knew it was only a matter of time before Chloe found a suitable man. A beauty she was not but neither was she a gargoyle. Before long, I felt sure, she would manage to get a date. And some man, if he had an ounce of discernment, would see what a jewel lay wrapped in that plain package, what a great heart beat beneath that flat chest, and he would be filled with exultation and make her his.