by Max Shulman
The most horrid thing of all was that I could not fight for the woman I loved. I dared not stop her in her search for a new man. In fact, I had to pretend to encourage her, for unless I supported her plan, she would conclude that I didn’t really love children—a conclusion that would automatically cross me off her list. It was a dilemma that shrank my little frame still littler.
One morning, in psychology class, Mr. Kraft made an announcement that hit me like an ax blow. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we are going to take the five offspring of Dull Female number four thirty-six away from their mother and put them in the maze. You will see how much brighter and faster they are, what a great improvement superior genes can bring about.”
This intelligence was the knell of doom. For tomorrow’s demonstration would be the clincher for Chloe. It would be the final incontrovertible evidence that she and I must not be mated. After tomorrow there would be no appeal, no hope. If the situation were to be salvaged, it had to be done immediately.
I caught up with Chloe as she was leaving the class. “Hi,” I said, somehow managing a smile despite my melancholy.
“Hi. Found a mate yet?”
“No. How about you?”
“Not yet but I’m sure I will. In fact, quite soon. I am getting something this morning that ought to swing it.”
“What?” I asked.
“A convertible,” she said.
My limbs turned to lead and my blood to sorghum. Now I was really, truly, irretrievably licked. Chloe was right of course. She would soon get a man. In fact, she would be besieged by men. Any girl with a convertible—it doesn’t matter if she looks like a Hubbard squash—can get a man.
“Daddy promised me one for my birthday,” she continued, “but I persuaded him to give it to me now. Do you want to come to the garage with me and pick it up?”
I wanted to go to my bed and weep. But, too deadened to protest, I allowed myself to be dragged along.
In spite of my wretchedness I gasped in admiration when I saw the convertible. So lovely it was, so long, so sleek, so yellow.
“Would you like to take it for a little drive, Dobie?” asked Chloe.
“Oh, may I?” I cried.
“Of course.”
She got in beside me and away we went. It was balm. It was tonic. The breeze that swept back my hair also blew away my troubles. For the moment I forgot everything but the joy of handling this magnificent automobile. I careened around corners, dashed in and out of traffic, dodged and sped and raced, and all the time I blew the horn and pounded on the side of the car and shouted Indian war cries.
But later, when the ride was over and I was alone, I was doubly miserable, for it came to me that I was losing not only a great-hearted girl but also a yellow convertible.
“I’ve got to get her back,” I told myself, smacking my little fist into my little palm until both bled. But how? There was no use arguing with her. I had to try something else. But what? Back and forth I paced until finally a thought came to me—really more a wish than a thought. What if tomorrow morning the five new mice, the offspring of DF-436, ran the maze more slowly than their mother had? Then Mr. Kraft’s statements about heredity would be knocked into a cocked hat and Chloe would be mine again. Also her car.
But it was an idle dream. Mr. Kraft had said flatly that the new mice would run the maze faster than their mother and he spoke from long experience and careful scientific observation. I would be a fool to cling to any wild hope that he was wrong.
Was it possible, I wondered, to fix an event of this kind? Could I bribe Mr. Kraft to make the five new mice run more slowly? But again the notion was without value. Mr. Kraft was not the type man who took bribes. Besides, I only had four dollars which didn’t seem enough to fix even a mouse race.
Then, in a great flash of white light, the solution blazed into my mind. All at once I knew how to make the five newcomers run more slowly than their mother—feed them before they ran! Stuff their little bellies and they would quit before they were halfway through. Mr. Kraft had said so himself: “No mouse, whether bright or dull, will run the maze unless he is really hungry. Otherwise it is not worth all that trouble to get to the cheese.”
I was in a transport of glee. I knew exactly what to do. The psychology building was open at eight in the morning. Class did not begin until eight-thirty. I would sneak into the building soon after it opened. I would slip unobserved into the lab. There I would find the five new mice, fill them with cheese and slip out. Nobody would see, nobody would know.
At five minutes past eight the following morning I stole quietly into the psychology building. I darted down the empty corridor to my classroom, opened the door, popped inside and closed the door behind me. The classroom was silent and bare. I walked to the door leading to the lab, went through, closed the door behind me.
I found the cage of DF-436. There she sat with her five children almost full grown now, all in a row by her side. They looked up at me gravely. “Good morning, you little rats,” I whispered cheerfully. “I’ve brought your breakfast.”
I took a half pound of cheddar out of my pocket, unwrapped it and put it in the cage. “Enjoy,” I said with a benign smile.
They sniffed at the cheese, then backed away without tasting it.
“Go on and eat,” I urged them. “It’s delicious.”
They sat motionless.
“It’s delicious,” I repeated, starting to perspire slightly. “Here, I’ll show you.” I broke off a piece and ate it myself. “Yummy!” I said heartily, smacking my lips and rubbing my stomach.
They were not convinced.
“Please, fellows,” I begged, “just take one bite. You’ll love it.”
They lay down and went to sleep.
I was damp now and my tongue was getting furry and my eyeballs burned. Then, as though I didn’t have trouble enough, I heard the door to the classroom open. I froze in terror. I heard footsteps coming across the classroom floor—heavy footsteps, the footsteps of a big man, a man, for example, about the size of Mr. Kraft.
I looked desperately about for a hiding place. In the corner of the lab was a broom closet. I grabbed the cheese, closed the cage, leaped for the broom closet, pulled open the door, dived into the darkness.
I hear the lab door open. The footsteps sounded through the lab—loud, authoritative, definitely Mr. Kraft’s. I heard him come close to the door of the broom closet and I wished fervently that my breathing were not so loud. No matter how hard I tried to control my breath, it seemed abnormally noisy.
Finally I clapped my hands over my mouth and nose. Still the sound of breathing was audible. A chilling thought came to me—I was not alone in the closet!
I reached out a trembling tentative hand. I touched an elbow. Bony. Chapped. Familiar. “Chloe,” I whispered.
“Dobie,” she whispered. “Oh, thank goodness. I was scared to death.”
“Shh,” I whispered.
Mr. Kraft’s feet approached the closet door rapidly, then stopped as though he were standing and listening. I clapped one hand over my mouth, the other over Chloe’s. After an eternity, Mr. Kraft’s feet moved across the lab and out the door. I waited a few more minutes, then opened the closet door a crack and peeked out. Chloe and I came out.
We stood and shifted from one foot to another and did not meet each other’s eyes. It was obvious what had happened. She too had come to feed the mice. The reason they would not eat my cheese was that they were too full of Chloe’s. All this was clear enough. But what had made her do it?
“Chloe,” I said, “why?”
“I’ve been fighting it from the beginning,” she replied in a tiny voice. “But that ride in the convertible yesterday was just too much. The way you looked. How happy you were. I suddenly knew that I could never bear to have anyone but you beside me. And I didn’t dare ask you to take me back because I know how much you love children and I have such dreadful genes.”
Then the tears were coursing down her cheeks and she was
in my arms. “Don’t cry,” I whispered. “I can’t stand to be without you either.”
“But aren’t we being mean and selfish?” she wailed. “Thinking of our own happiness instead of our children’s genes?”
“Who can tell about children?” I replied. “Heredity hasn’t got all the answers. Even Mr. Kraft admitted that.”
“That’s right,” she said brightening slightly.
“And what if we do produce runts? Runts can be happy. Look at me. I’m the happiest, luckiest guy I know and I wouldn’t trade you for all the brains and beauty in the whole state.”
“Kiss me, Dobie,” she said.
And there among the mice I did.
CHAPTER TEN
THE COSTLY CHILD
by Dobie Gillis, aged 30
I married Chloe right after we finished college, and it is to this fine woman that I am indebted for the great discovery of my life. Until the blessed day when I met Chloe, I had spun from girl to girl in a mad tarantella of unappeased longing. Girls! Girls! Girls! Though I owe everything I am to them, was there to be no cure for my incessant involvements?
And then I married Chloe—and peace! I never fell in in love again. Marriage—and here is the great discovery!—marriage is the cure for girls!
Sure, I still notice pretty girls when they come switching by, and how about you, Charlie? But I mean, it stops right there. So now at last I’m free to turn to practical matters. For instance, money.
I’m not looking to be rich, mind you. All I want is what any married man wants—a modest nest egg, a hedge against adversity. Chloe has helped me in the pursuit of this simple objective—like a kink in an air hose helps a deep sea diver, like sugar helps diabetes.
The trouble started early in our marriage. For the first few months she busied herself with furnishing our little apartment, with studying cookbooks, with exploring New York where I had found employment. Her great, clawing drive toward motherhood was for the moment dormant.
But of course it could not last. One night I came home with a handful of inexpensive flora to celebrate the seventh month of our marriage and found Chloe incandescent with joyous tidings. “Darling,” she cried, kissing my eyes, ears, nose, and throat, “I’ve decided that we’re going to have a baby.”
“Sweetheart,” I said, forcing a wintry smile, “of course we’re going to have a baby—lots of babies. But right now we’re trying to accumulate a little nest egg. Remember?”
“Oh, pish-posh,” she said airily. “Babies cost hardly anything.” And proceeded to argue so knowledgeably that I was persuaded.
That was eight years ago. Today I know that if instead of having a baby I had taken my wife out and had her gold-plated, I would be way ahead.
I mean, of course, financially. In every other respect I am delighted with our son Pete. He is a fine, freckled little fellow, well formed, bright, courteous, quick to smile, and friendly as a pup. When I can forget that he keeps me teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, I love him madly.
From the beginning that kid has cost me a bundle. Even before the beginning. When Chloe first learned she was pregnant, she tore right out and bought an assortment of medicines that must have provided our apothecary with funds for a world cruise. “What is all this?” I asked, fighting back vertigo as I looked over a half acre of nostrums.
“Oh, iron, calcium, vitamins—stuff like that,” she replied lightly.
“But why do you need so much?” I asked, staring in horror at the vast display of medicine bottles.
“For the baby,” she explained. “I take them now so the baby will be born sturdy and healthy. This is called prenatal care.”
“Madam,” I said feelingly, “if the gestation period were nine years instead of nine months, you would be hard pressed to devour all these capsules. Take them back.”
“I will not!” she declared, with a burst of ferocity I hadn’t thought her capable of. “I want my baby to be strong and straight.”
“How strong and straight can he get? Chloe, you’ve got half a million dollars’ worth of pills here.”
“I don’t care!” she answered, her eyes blazing. “I’m not going to skimp when it comes to my baby. If I have to, I’ll save on other things. I won’t buy new clothes. I’ll stop entertaining. I’ll do my own hair. But my baby is going to have the best of everything!”
In the face of such passion, I fell into an abashed silence.
This was only the beginning—this mass purchase of vitamins and minerals. The next day she really drew blood. She announced that during her pregnancy she would be attended not by old Dr. Horowitz, our regular family physician, but by young Dr. Merivale, a Park Avenue obstetrician.
“What is the matter with Doctor Horowitz?” I asked. “He may be a bit rumpled, but who looks for chic in a medical man?”
“Doctor Horowitz is just a general practitioner. I want a specialist for my baby,” said Chloe.
“But Doctor Horowitz knows all about obstetrics,” I protested, “and he is much cheaper than Doctor Merivale.”
“Why don’t you send me to a midwife, you stingy, hateful man?” retorted Chloe, bursting into tears.
“Really, Chloe,” I said earnestly, “Doctor Horowitz has delivered thousands of babies. In fact, he delivered Doctor Merivale.”
But she was not to be persuaded; it had to be Dr. Merivale. At a fee that tore the heart and liver out of my savings, he performed a delivery that Dr. Horowitz would have done for one-tenth the money. In fact, any cop in the city would have done it for a cigar.
But I must say I forgot all about the price when I went to the nursery and saw my son Pete. Even as a whelp he was good to look upon. And later, when I saw Chloe holding young Pete for the first time, I went slack with rapture. Pride warmed my blood; love quickened my respiration. There is nothing so beautiful as a mother with her first child. There is nothing so touching. There is nothing so expensive.
After a week, Chloe and Pete came home from the hospital. We were living then in an apartment on West 105th Street—living room, dinette, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a large storage closet. One day when Pete was about six months old it occurred to me that the storage closet would make a fine playroom for Pete. I told Chloe all about it. “I’ll paint it white and put decals on the walls and build bookshelves and make a toybox and—”
“It is a needless expense,” interrupted my wife.
I blinked in astonishment. Could I have heard her correctly? “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” I said. “I want to spend some money on the baby.”
“I know,” said Chloe. “It is a needless expense.”
“Why?”
“Because we have to buy a house in the country.”
“Chloe,” I gasped, “you are unhinged. What do we need with a house in the country?”
“For Pete,” she answered promptly. “He must have grass and trees and fresh air.”
“What is Central Park?” I shrieked. “A dungeon?”
“Central Park is no substitute for your own back yard, or for living in a small, homey town with a friendly community spirit and woods and streams and nature, and don’t shout at me.”
I argued. Zola never pleaded for Dreyfus, or Bryan for free silver, the way I pleaded for our New York apartment. Passionately, cogently, earnestly, I described the expense involved in country living—the commutation tickets, the mortgage, the taxes, the fuel bills, the gardening, the plumbing, the roofing, the painting, the thousand sneaky items that make householding horrid. My arguments were unanswerable, but Chloe found an answer—her usual one. She would go without, she would make do, she would scrape and save and deny herself the very essentials of life if need be, but Pete must have a house in the country. And so, for Pete’s sake, we moved to the country.
One night—Pete was three years old at the time—Chloe and I had a conversation about our son. Let me reproduce it for you.
We had just put Pete to bed and were sitting in the living room. “Isn’t he a fine boy?�
�� said Chloe, smiling ecstatically.
“He certainly is,” I agreed. “And healthy, too.”
“Yes, very healthy,” said she.
“I would like to talk to you about his health,” said I.
“Yes?” said she.
“His diet, I take it, is well balanced?”
“Oh, yes. He eats a very scientific diet.”
“It contains all the required vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients?”
“But of course,” she replied.
“So how come you are buying him all those expensive, fishy-smelling concentrates?”
“Those are a supplement,” she explained.
“You told me he gets everything he requires from his diet. What does he need with a supplement?”
“Fie, Dobie!” she cried, pointing a scornful finger at me. “Is money more important to you than a healthy child?”
“If he’s so healthy, how come you rush him to the doctor for checkups every single month?” asked I.
“Just to make sure there’s nothing wrong.”
“The kid is ruddy as an apple. His chest is already bigger than mine. What could be wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” said Chloe, her color rising, “but I regard medical care for my child as necessary.”
“All right,” said I. “Let us discuss dental care. Did you or did you not take Pete to the dentist last week?”
“I did.”
“Did he or did he not have a tooth filled?”
“He did.”
“Would you mind explaining to me why you have a baby tooth filled that is going to fall out anyway?”
“Because the dentist told me that when a baby tooth is prematurely lost, the other teeth drift and the jaw may become misshapen.”
“Did the dentist also tell you that he just bought a new Cadillac?”