by Robert Klein
Chapter Nine
Ducks in a Row
I chose to live in the fraternity house my junior year. Happily, Mrs. Alcott, the house mother, was more out of touch with reality than ever, and the boys living there were totally unrestrained. Thanks to several sensible upperclassmen, it was still possible to study there, but it could be difficult, and more and more guys headed to the library.
My roommate was Bob Matolka, one of eleven children, from Endicott, New York. He was an engineering student with excellent grades, who became the steward of the house, in charge of meals and snacks. Before coming to Alfred, the closest he had ever been to Jews was when he ate a kosher pickle from a jar in 1956 in Binghamton. Yet for all his bucolic upbringing, he proved incredibly sophisticated and wise, and he had the respect of one and all. He was a serious type, but the zany and nonsensical carried the day at the house, with wild practical jokes planned and executed nonstop. Bobby Chaikin continually rolled an automobile tire down the stairs from his room in the attic, which would smash open the door below with an explosive sound and pin the occupant to the wall. He liked the element of surprise, like four in the morning. Not surprisingly, he became a dentist.
At supper one night, the main-course platter came out of the kitchen, the lid was removed, and on a lovely decorative bed of lettuce sat the head of a dead cat that Steve Levine had purloined from the zoology lab. Mrs. Alcott, whose sight was not much better than her mind, had to be restrained from taking a portion. “Oh, I love hash,” she said as Levine swiped the platter away. At the end of the meal, she was still slightly perturbed that the main course had been removed before she could taste it. On another occasion, Mike Wiener put flour all over his naked body and hid himself in the large industrial-size freezer in the kitchen. Munchkin, the house scaredy-cat, was induced by some of the guys to open the freezer. Wiener fell out like a corpse, and Munchkin almost had a cardiac arrest.
Bessie Hurd, the elderly churchgoing local farm woman who cooked five nights a week for the brothers and had never met a Jew until she took the job, was unfazed by any of this. Naked boys popping out of freezers did not deter her from preparing her hearty farm fare, which was frequently delicious and featured outlandish peach and blueberry pies. The guys treated her like some eccentric aunt, but unlike the house mother, whom she disliked, her perspicacity was intact, and she was unlikely to mistake a cat’s head for hash. I did a fair imitation of Bessie, who was prone to saying “God bless you,” even to people who hadn’t sneezed. She meant well.
I had become the court jester of Kappa Nu, the house comic. I had developed somewhat of a repertoire, which included several accurate impersonations of faculty members. The guys loved sitting around the living room hearing their reserved, scholarly teachers say incongruous things: cursing, soliciting sex, and telling dirty jokes, the more vulgar the better. My imitation of Professor Russell, a Yankee American-history specialist with a down-east Maine accent, was my best. Henry Liederman, a sweet, gullible basketball jock in one of Russell’s classes, was busy studying for the midterm exam and had in his possession several old tests. This was quite common among the students and entirely legal and aboveboard. I called the house from another phone and asked for Liederman. The whole house was in on the caper, and everybody gravitated toward Henry as he took the call. “Mr. Liederman?”
“Yes.”
“This is Professor Russell. Mr. Liederman, it has come to my attention that you have acquired an advance copy of my midterm examination. As you know, this could be grounds for expulsion.”
“What? Oh, no, sir, I don’t have the test. I have some old ones, but not the one you’re going to give. I swear.”
“That’s not what I hear, Mr. Liederman. I’m afraid I’m going to have to report this to Dean Whitlow.”
Henry believed it completely and was in a panic. I kept it going for a couple of more minutes and then decided to give up the ruse by saying something that Willis Cleaves Russell would never say in a million years: “Mr. Liederman, I’ll let you off the hook on one condition.”
“What, sir? Anything.”
“I want you to come to my Pesach seder and eat three helpings of gefilte fish. Is that clear, Mr. Liederman?”
“Oh yes, sir, I’d love to come.”
“And Mr. Liederman, bring a little sponge cake with you, if you don’t mind. Goodbye, Mr. Liederman.”
“Goodbye.”
“Hey, guys I’m in big trouble unless I go to Russell’s seder. I didn’t even know he was Jewish.” Henry was almost in tears. Everyone was cracking up, but he still didn’t get it. Finally, I burst through the door and went right to him and spoke in the professor’s voice: “Mr. Liederman, it has come to my attention . . .” He finally got it and chased me around the house, too relieved to be angry.
There were some attempts at practical jokes that were loathsome, and fittingly backfired on the perpetrators. One such circumstance occurred at the annual Valentine’s Day blast, a highlight of the Kappa Nu social season and a very wild night. Warren Shamansky, a witless senior pre-dental student, hatched a secret plan to hide a tape recorder in the bathroom of the new wing, which on party nights became the ladies’ room. It had showers, sinks, and was a three-bowl affair with no partitions. Only Shamansky knew about his plan. He was hoping to hear comments from the girls about the boys as they powdered their noses. He wound up hearing plenty. He revealed his stunt the next evening, which appalled some of the guys, but everyone wanted to hear the tape, so ethics took a backseat.
The boys gathered around the tape recorder, and Shamansky turned it on with a flourish. The sound quality wasn’t great, but it was good enough to hear an assortment of tinkles and flushes and an occasional fart, all of which cracked up the listeners, some of whom clinked their beer mugs. Several happy girls sang while they urinated. One hummed while she defecated. A few of the voices were recognizable as the steady girlfriends of brothers, and these boys were not pleased, since an intimate line had been crossed, and the entire house had heard their sweethearts fart. If word of this got out, they would have a lot of explaining to do.
So far, the toilet conversation had been innocuous chatter, but it slowly dawned on the listeners that the caper could prove highly embarrassing to the boys as well. We heard Billy Gildner’s date tell her friend about what a lousy kisser he was, and then she complained about “the stench of his breath.” A few guys roared, but Billy wasn’t laughing. Joel Belson was one of the house drunks, and we learned that his date was disgusted by his drinking, was afraid of him, and wanted to leave early without him. Shamansky’s date, who was going out with him for the first time, couldn’t stand him and delivered a monologue that was the hit of the evening. It was as if she knew the tape recorder was on. “He’s such a creep, Madeline. Boring, self-centered. He never stops talking about his two-point-six average. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. Can you imagine? An ugly jerk like that. He makes my skin crawl. He’s asked me out four times, and I always turned him down. He’s not even nice. Ugh. I’m sorry I said yes. I can’t wait till the night is over. I’m telling you, he positively makes my skin crawl. Can I borrow your lipstick?”
Then she flushed, and Shamansky’s social standing went right down the toilet. He put on a weak front of amused nonchalance that no one believed. There were some snickers, but the mood had changed to a more somber tone. There were a few who said “I told you so,” and someone said something about Shamansky being hoisted on his own petard. A few of the guys were remorseful about the disrespect accorded their girlfriends, some of whom they were pinned to. In any case, Shamansky got what he asked for.
One evening Ricky Sampson, Bob Chaikin, and Mike Benedict were sitting on the front porch of Kappa Nu when a customized 1952 Ford with loud mufflers and a continental kit pulled up in front of the house. The driver revved the noisy engine a few times as five guys got out of the car holding beer bottles. They stood there looking at the guys on the porch until one of them finally spoke. “Hey, Sambo, ho
w come you’re hanging around with those Jew boys?” Another one, good and drunk, said, “Hey, you fuckin’ Jew bastards! Jew boys! Christ killers!”
Immediately, Ricky the halfback leaped over the porch railing and grabbed one of the shouters before he could get back into the car, with Chaikin and Benedict right behind him. He was pummeling the shit out of the guy by the time the rest of us, twenty strong, poured out of the house. The look on the faces of those guys when they saw a horde of angry Jews coming at them was worth remembering. A brief melee ensued, but after each of the cretins had taken a few good blows, cooler heads prevailed, as a homicide would look bad for the house.
The intruders were all subdued, some of them bloodied, and then came the beauty part. Ricky had the guy who’d called him Sambo by the hair and on his knees. The guy had a look like he’s about to be killed, but instead of punching him again, Ricky made him apologize like a kindergarten kid. “Say ‘I’m sorry and I will never do that again.’ ” When the guy hesitated, Ricky pulled his hair. “Say it, asshole.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry and I’ll never do it again.”
Ricky released him. The driver tried to make nice and blamed it on too much beer. “We didn’t mean anything by it, we were drinkin’, just kiddin’ around,” he said.
Steve Murray stepped forward. “You were just kiddin’ around? I like kiddin’ around.” He ran his hand along the ’52 Ford. “Nice car,” he said. Then he took a baseball bat and smashed the rear window. “Now you got air-conditioning in it.”
Ricky’s stock among the boys rose threefold after the incident, and Mike Benedict, a popular Methodist basketball player from Syracuse, was eventually elected president of the fraternity, though not for his fighting prowess. Unfortunately, there were three or four more such fights in my time at Alfred. Drive-by shouting was more frequent than the brawls. The miscreants were stupid enough to scream obscenities and peel out, yet prudent enough not to get out of their cars.
An odd confluence of two aspects of my life at Alfred occurred one day. I was cast as Shylock in the university production of The Merchant of Venice, thus combining theater and anti-Semitism in one enterprise. I wondered how certain segments of the audience would react to the play. Shylock was an actor’s dream, my grandest role thus far. In rehearsal, I developed certain affectations of old age, like stooped posture and trembling of the hands and head. This was a hard sell, as I was only nineteen and Shylock was about seventy, though a gray wig and lots of makeup wrinkles were planned to aid in the effort toward authenticity.
The play involves itself, among other things, in the abstractions of obligation, revenge, and mercy. The way the sixteenth-century author has written the part, Shylock is a vengeful, unpleasant man; certainly not Mr. Nice Guy. Nevertheless, he is a human being vilified for his beliefs who has been wronged, and Shakespeare cannot resist dealing with all sides of the human issue: even expressing, persuasively, the logic of the apparently villainous Jew.
Twentieth-century history being what it is, contemporary productions tend to give Shylock a more sympathetic interpretation than perhaps Shakespeare intended. Given the Elizabethan context, it is unlikely that the Bard was crazy about Jews or even knew many, yet there is a brilliant speech in the third act that is as eloquent a statement on prejudice as has ever been written. It is in the form of a series of questions which I performed in front of a packed Alumni Hall, with all appropriate dramatic pauses and quasi-authentic trembling. “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?”
“NO!” came the answer from the Alfred audience. Then they charged the stage, coming at me like a murderous mob, some with growling German shepherds straining at the leashes. I was forced to flee, blowing through the stage door with hundreds of people chasing me, screaming “JEW BOY! JEW BOY! KILL HIM!” They pursued me all over the campus, carrying torches and homemade weapons. I sought refuge everywhere, knocking on doors and pleading, but even the ethics professor, after considering the matter, wouldn’t let me in.
Then I woke up. The nightmare reminded me that the issue was a sensitive one around here, certainly to me, and that this portrayal would not be just another role. It would be a mission much larger and more momentous than merely playing the role; a mission with sociological implications and real-life meaning.
Still, this was such an obvious dream—too obvious. Most of the time, the meaning is hidden and the dream is not about what it appears to be. The one I had was right on the money . . . too right on the money. I began to suspect that it was not what it seemed. I mentioned it to Sam Chororos at the final dress rehearsal, after which I came to an amusing conclusion. The dream was not about anti-Semitism at all; it was about the fear of failure. I was terrified that the old-man act wouldn’t go over. Despite their words, the people were chasing me not because I was a Jew; they were chasing me because I was giving a lousy performance. Regarding the play, I was scared, plain and simple. This revelation cleared my mind and allowed me to concentrate on the role in a new and unfettered way. I gave the passages a lot of thought and made decisions that I applied in rehearsal, which was, after all, its purpose.
Smith and Brown and the other actors noted the progress, which resulted in my confidence shooting way up. When I performed the speech on opening night, I heard not a “no” in the joint, the attentive silence a testament to the veracity of the words and, dare I say it, a hell of a performance. Everybody bought into my old-man act; no one laughed; people were touched. One of the best compliments I received was from James Knox, an associate professor in the philosophy and religion department. He was a bespectacled Lutheran minister, about forty, with a wonderful sense of humor, who always had a good joke or two and told them well. He wore a beret and rode his bicycle around the place, and his secular-oriented course on the Old Testament was one of my favorite classes. He was also one of the few faculty members who was outspoken against the university-approved exclusionary policy of the fraternities. Late in the term, word got out that Dr. Knox had been denied tenure and would not return next year. Everybody in the community knew why, to the shame of half the faculty. There was a small protest, but it was to no avail, and life at Alfred, good and bad, went on.
* * *
The Phoenix Theater Company, a professional bus and truck touring group, came to the campus doing George Bernard Shaw’s Androcles and the Lion in the afternoon and Hamlet in the evening. I had seen a few Broadway shows from the cheap seats, but I had never seen a professional production at such close range. With their additional lights and expert sets, they transmuted Alumni Hall into a real theater. I got to mingle all day with the actors, since we campus thespians acted as hospitality volunteers, and it reminded me of meeting big-league ballplayers close up. They were not stars, but they were otherworldly; somehow not like us. They looked different; they were different. They didn’t have a typical job. I had always disliked routine, with a particular disdain for getting up every day at the same time for school, putting my underwear on the radiator to warm on cold winter mornings, or egging the classroom clock on to that three o’clock bell. To know for the next ten years exactly where you will be, and when you will be there, struck me as wearisome. Every adult I knew had a conventional job. Was that what I wanted? We observed these actors closely, especially interested in their preparation, how they applied makeup and put on their costumes and got ready to do the play. Then we went out front and watched the very people we had been socializing with transform themselves into exciting characters of the imagination onstage. The performances were thrilling and alive: the attack of their speech crisp, so you could see tiny sprays of spittle going over the footlights into the first row. It was an excellent lesson in craft.
What a wonderful life, I thought: tra
veling around to different places and performing plays; a sense of freedom, doing something they love. I liked everything about the actors: their nonconformist clothing, hair slightly long, and their self-assured manner, even if it was only acting. Law school seemed a dull prospect compared to this. I was especially fond of John Heffernan, who played Androcles and Polonius: a tall, willowy gentleman who cordially answered a barrage of questions from the members of the Footlight Club. Eight years later, I would appear in a Broadway show with him: Morning, Noon and Night.
Shortly after the Phoenix Theater visit, I had a momentous encounter with Sandra Sherman, Footlight Club member and English scholar. This event was not like the cold, anxiety-ridden episode with the prostitute when I was fifteen; nor was it a matter of grabbing what I could in the back of a car in the Catskills. Though we were not in love, this was real lovemaking, starting with intelligent conversation, into kissing and caressing, all the way to home plate. It took place at an off-campus apartment that had been generously lent by a stage-manager graduate student. There was danger here, because such behavior even away from campus was forbidden and severely punished. Furthermore, all female students, regardless of age, had a curfew, though after freshman year the boys did not, at forward-thinking Alfred University in 1960. We couldn’t stay the night together, but the time we did have was well spent and unhurried, thanks to her calm confidence, which mitigated my deep fear of being caught.
Among other things, Sandra first removed her hornrimmed glasses, then let down her red hair. I had never seen her like this. It was like one of those Hollywood movies in which the secretary takes off her spectacles, undoes her conservative hairdo, and her boss suddenly realizes, “Why, Miss Jones, you’re beautiful.” Miss Sherman was not beautiful, but she had fine facial features; she was gentle, affectionate, mature; and her intellectual nature made her all the more appealing. After sex, I lay in bed with her, and we had intelligent conversation, sort of like a French movie. I was not the first Footlighter to take pleasure from intimacy with her, but that was no matter. She was an independent thinker, a woman ahead of her time on whom I had no claim.