Barefoot Boy with Cheek

by Max Shulman

  Irma swore out a complaint against Gothic, charging him with fraud.

  Mrs. Flanders, when she heard of it, did not believe that her “son” was married. She thought he was the victim of a blackmail plot by Frances Bucolic. She charged Frances with extortion and fornication. She further swore out a complaint against Irma, charging her with stealing four spoons when she left home.

  Frances filed a counter-charge of defamation against Mrs. Flanders.

  The distraught St. Paul police threw them all in jail while they tried to clarify the issues of the case. They stayed in jail for months as more and more arguments were heard, and the case got more and more confused.

  They might be there to this day had it not been for one peculiar circumstance. The custodian of the St. Paul jail, one Yale Towne, was engaged in a shady deal with a certain Sam Provendor, a grocer. Provendor had a contract to provide the jail with groceries. He was paid for good quality food, but instead he delivered the cheapest kind of substandard merchandise and split the profits with Towne.

  During the course of this ramified case Provendor delivered a supply of condemned salmon to the jail. It was given to the principals for dinner. After they had eaten, they all complained of feeling poorly and went to bed. During the night every one of them quietly passed away.

  The police were so grateful to Provendor for relieving them of this muddle that they did not prosecute. In fact, they gave him a police card that let him through fire lines. As a gesture of appreciation Provendor throws a picnic for the force at Phalen Park in St. Paul every summer.

  Yetta or Noblesse?

  I passed the engineering building. Minnesota has one of the finest engineering schools in the country. It is filled with excellent modern equipment—gyroscopes and catapults, and catalysts, and catacombs, and what not. Minnesota once came within an ace of having an atom smasher too.

  That was a few years back. Carl Cantilever, an engineering professor, designed an atom smasher that would cost $1,000,000 to build. He asked for the money from the Board of Regents of the University which passes on all appropriations. Since Cantilever wanted such a large sum, they called a special meeting and asked him to attend.

  All the Regents sat and listened while Cantilever explained the function of the proposed atom smasher—that is, all except Phineas Topsoil, who was out looking at some bottom land and said he would get there as soon as he could. Cantilever finished his explanation and asked if there were any questions.

  “After you get the atom in the machine,” said one Regent, “can you see it?”

  “No,” said Cantilever.

  “Can you hear it?” asked another.

  “No,” said Cantilever.

  “Can you smell it?” asked a third.

  “No,” said Cantilever.

  “Well,” they chorused, “then how do you know it’s there?”

  Cantilever rubbed his chin and smiled. “Gentlemen,” he said, “have you ever had a toothache?”

  They nodded.

  “Could you see it?”

  “No,” they said.

  “Could you hear it?”

  “No,” they said.

  “Could you smell it?”

  “No,” they said.

  Cantilever spread out his hands. “Well, then, how do you know you had it?”

  Well, sir, he certainly had them there.

  Then Phineas Topsoil walked in.

  “We’re going to give this here man a appropriation of $1,000,000 for to build a atom smasher,” the Regents said to Topsoil.

  “What’s a atom smasher?” asked Topsoil.

  Cantilever patiently explained all over again.

  When he had finished Topsoil asked, “After you get the atom in the machine, can you see it?”

  “No,” said Cantilever.

  “Can you hear it?”

  “No,” said Cantilever.

  “Can you smell it?”

  “No,” said Cantilever.

  “Well, then, how do you know it’s there?”

  Cantilever rubbed his chin and smiled. “Mr. Topsoil,” he said, “have you ever had a toothache?”

  The Regents winked and nudged each other.

  “No,” said Topsoil.

  Cantilever frowned. “Never had a toothache?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a little one?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe a long time ago?”

  “No.”

  “That’s hard to understand,” said Cantilever.

  “No, ’tain’t,” gummed Topsoil. “No teeth. No appropriation.”

  Noblesse or Yetta?

  I was in front of the music building. Minnesota has one of the finest music schools in the country. Students are given every encouragement to become accomplished musicians, and achievement is well rewarded. Every year the top students in the school give a public recital, which is indeed a gala musical event.

  At a recital some time ago there was a rather interesting occurrence. A Miss Grace Barren was piano soloist for the evening. She was to play two numbers. De Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance” was the first. At the conclusion of this number Miss Barren rose to take a bow in acknowledgment of the thunderous applause. She did not know that her dress had become entangled in the thread of the music stool.

  As she leaned over to bow there was a rip and she stood on the stage divested. Her deepest secret was revealed to the world. She wore false pectorals.

  But Miss Barren was a trouper. Back to the piano she went and played her second number. It was Bach’s “Two-Part Invention.”

  Yetta or Noblesse?

  Yetta, the proletarian. Noblesse, the patrician. All through the fall I had taken out first one, then the other. To both I had confessed my love. To both I had given my Alpha Cholera pin. Now this vacillation must cease. Was I a man or a shuttlecock?

  I stopped by a stately oak (Minnesota has some of the finest oaks in the country) and removed a coin from my pocket. Let the impersonal gods of chance be my arbiters, for a decision must be reached.

  My thumb flexed under the coin ready to flip it on its fateful spin. I closed my eyes for a moment. Then, as if a being apart from me, my thumb snapped up.

  The coin flew into the air. Languidly, it seemed, it turned over and over and over as it ascended. Suddenly it plummeted downward, my destiny in its inscrutable, minted features.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Il sait jouer du piano. —DE GAULLE

  The coin fell in a snowbank.

  I got down on my knees and began to shovel rapidly with my hands. Deeper and deeper I dug, but the elusive coin was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly I heard footsteps in the snow behind me. I looked up. It was Mr. Ingelbretsvold, the freshman adviser.

  “Good evening, Mr. Ingelbretsvold,” I said, rising to my feet.

  “Why, it’s Ira Hearthrug,” he said.

  “Asa,” I corrected.

  “That’s what I meant,” he said. “Well, well, out taking a little air, I see. It certainly is fine weather. This early snow will certainly help the farmers.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It should freeze every pumpkin in Minnesota.”

  “That’s what I meant,” he said. “Freeze those damn pumpkins. Altogether too many people going around scaring people with those damn jack-o’-lanterns. But enough of this agricultural chitchat. Are you walking this way?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Good. We’ll walk together. I have to meet a lady down here a little way. Tell me,” he said as we walked, “how are you getting along in school?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “You’re following the program I made out for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re learning a great deal?”

  “A little of everything.”

  “Fine,” he said. “That’s what college is for—to make you a well-rounded-out personality. You’ve got to know a little of everything. You can never tell when somebody is going to come up to you on the street and ask you
if monkshood is ranunculaceous or how many pence there are in a groat. College should prepare you for those things. If there’s anything I hate it’s somebody who is going to college to learn how to do something. Why don’t they go go to a trade school if they want to learn how to do something? Do something, do something, do something—it makes me so damn mad!” he screamed furiously, slashing me across the face with his alpenstock.

  “Do something,” he continued in a milder tone. “What’s the use of knowing how to do something if your personality is not well rounded out, huh? I tell you, colleges aren’t what they used to be. When I was a boy there were no schools of medicine or law or engineering in a university. There was an arts college, and when you finished, you didn’t know how to do anything. No sir. But, by God, you were a well-rounded-out personality. Now, every year, I see more and more students going into the professional colleges and the technical colleges, and I can see that the day of gentlemen in a university is drawing to a close. Sometimes I feel like giving it all up.”

  “Take heart, Mr. Ingelbretsvold,” I cried, “for there are still those of us who know what a university is for.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” he said. “I spoke hastily. There’ll always be some who don’t want to do anything. The arts college, sir, will survive. But tell me about yourself. How else, besides classes, are you rounding out your personality? Are you reading?”

  “Yes. I just finished a mystery by Chrisgitha Aggie. It’s called The Case of the Hernious Hostler. It’s about the disappearance of a prime minister. He is scheduled to make a vitally important speech at noon. At fifteen minutes before noon he is seen by many people, but at noon he has disappeared from the face of the earth. The leader of the opposition party rises and says that the prime minister has deserted his country and that the people should revolt. Well, they are all set to follow the advice of the opposition leader when at twenty minutes past twelve the prime minister drops from the sky. It seems that he had been walking in the roof garden of the parliament house meditating before his momentous speech. In his preoccupation he had slipped and fallen off the roof. Luckily the minute hand of the clock on the wall of the parliament house had caught in his trousers and prevented him from crashing to earth. The minute hand at this time pointed to fourteen minutes to twelve. It was not until the hand swung to twenty past twelve that gravity allowed the prime minister to continue his fall.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Ingelbretsvold. “How about extracurricular activities? Are you active in them?”

  “I’m an Alpha Cholera,” I said proudly.

  “Fine. Splendid. And”—he prodded me slyly in the ribs—“how about the fair sex?”

  “More than I can handle,” I said modestly. “Twice as much.”

  “Excellent, my boy. You’ll soon be a well-rounded-out personality.” He stopped walking. Across the street a woman stood under a lamppost. “Well, this is as far as I go,” said Mr. Ingelbretsvold. “There’s my party across the street. Stop in and see me if there’s anything I can do for you. Good night.”

  He walked across the street, and took the woman’s arm. It was Mother Bloor.

  As I walked slowly home Mr. Ingelbretsvold’s words kept running through my head. “A well-rounded-out personality.” That’s what college should make you. You must learn a little of everything. Everything. Suddenly my problem was solved.

  I did not have to choose between Noblesse and Yetta; I did not have to give up either of them. Yetta and Noblesse represented the opposite poles of collegiate life. What better way to learn a little of everything than by going with both of them? What better way to round out my personality?

  My step was quicker now, and I was whistling. I decided not to go back to the snowbank and look for that coin. I would undoubtedly find it during the January thaw.

  CHAPTER XV

  Monsieur, les autres personnes qui habitent cet hôtel protestent contre ce bruit insupportable. —LOUIS XIV

  On Monday nights the Alpha Cholera actives held their chapter meetings. I used to sit outside the door of the chapter room, feeling lonely and left out, hoping to overhear something of the momentous business that was going on inside, for I was but a pledge and I could not go in. But now spring had come, and I had become an active. Now truly I was a part of Alpha Cholera, a performer of its functions, a shaper of its destiny. I could go to chapter meetings.

  I’ll confess that I was nervous at my first chapter meeting and that I had doubts about my ability to fulfill all my new responsibilities. But everyone was so kind and reassuring that I was soon confidently at ease. After we sang the Alpha Cholera hymn Roger opened the meeting. “For the benefit of the new actives,” he said with a kindly glance at me, “I will explain the procedure of the chapter meetings. In these meetings we take care of the routine business of running a fraternity—dances, parties, financial matters, and so forth. But what is perhaps more important, we make and consider suggestions on how to improve our fraternity, how to make it even better than it is. Oh, of course we know that we have the best fraternity at the University now, but just the same—and I want to impress this on the new actives—a fraternity that is not constantly progressing is a fraternity that is moving backwards.

  “One of the best ways to improve a fraternity is to improve each individual member, for, after all, what is a fraternity but a group of members, huh? To improve the individual members, at the beginning of each chapter meeting we have what we call a ‘friendly criticism period.’ During this period we give friendly criticisms and helpful hints to any members who have not been conducting themselves in a manner that reflects credit on Alpha Cholera. These criticisms are made and accepted in the spirit of good fellowship and for the good of all.

  “All right, let’s get started with the ‘friendly criticism period.’”

  An active stood up. “I want to say a few words to Asa,” he said. “I am going to say these things because I know we are all friends here and we are all interested in the welfare of Alpha Cholera. I have been noticing Asa’s clothes, and I do not think they reflect credit on the fraternity. In the first place, he wears pants, coat, and vest from the same suit. As we all know, this is not being done. Your coat must never match your pants, and vests are not being worn unless they do not match either coat or pants. Furthermore, pants must be pegged to fit snugly around the ankle, and coats should extend to the midpoint of the femur except on festive occasions, when knee length is permissible.

  “Now, to discuss haberdashery. I notice that Asa’s shirts do not have button-down collars. Well, one might as well wear no shirt at all. As for neckwear, I should like to point out that only dark red, knit wool ties are à la mode—unless, of course, one is going to a funeral or public execution, where black knit wools are proper.” He sat down.

  Another rose. “I want to add a few words about Asa,” he said. “What I have to say is in the spirit of the greatest friendship and for the good of the fraternity. It has been reported to me, and I have seen it myself, that Asa has been observed riding in a convertible in which the top was up, the seats were not filled, and nobody was yelling. I want to say, in a friendly way, naturally, that it’s things like that that can give a fraternity a bad name. When riding in a convertible the top must always be down, no matter what the weather, and there must never be fewer than eight people in the convertible, and they must all be yelling.”

  As soon as he sat down another stood up. “I have a few suggestions to make to Asa in the spirit of friendship and for the benefit of Alpha Cholera. As you know, people are not judged so much on what they say as on how they say it. Consequently, I think we must all be careful with our diction. I have heard Asa, when speaking of music, call phonograph records ‘phonograph records.’ Nobody in the know says that. Phonograph records are called ‘discs’ or ‘platters.’ And one doesn’t ‘turn a record over and play the other side.’ One ‘flips and spins the plattermate.’

  “Also, I have heard Asa say that he was going to ‘hear a Negro band.’ No
. One ‘digs the colored men.’”

  Another active continued the discussion. “While on the subject of diction,” he said, “I want to make a friendly criticism for the good of the fraternity about Asa’s speech. Asa says ‘on the campus.’ That is incorrect. One says simply ‘on campus.’ And the plural of campus is ‘campi.’”

  “Yes,” put in another. “Asa must learn the proper diction concerning women. I make this criticism in a friendly spirit and for the good of the fraternity. I have heard Asa describe a pretty girl as ‘pretty’ and an ugly girl as ugly.’ A pretty girl is described with a leer as a ‘smooth operator.’ If the girl is extremely pretty it is correct to drool. An ugly girl is described as ‘not what you would call a beauty, but a awful swell kid, loads of fun, lot of personality, lot of drive.’”

  There did not seem to be any more, so I stood up. “I want to thank my brother members for their kind interest in me and for their helpful suggestions. Now I would like to say a few words in the spirit of friendship and for the good of the fraternity.”

  “We will now proceed to the business part of the meeting,” Roger interrupted.

  Eino Fflliikkiinnenn, the sergeant at arms, hit me in the mouth. “You outa order,” he growled.

  Roger continued: “We have received a request for one dollar from the Crippled Children’s Hospital. Is there any discussion?”

  “I’d like to say something,” said Shylock Fiscal, our treasurer.

  “Go ahead, Shy,” said Roger.

  “Thanks, Rog,” said Shy. “Now, nobody likes crippled children better than I do. I’m simply mad about them. But I don’t think we should be too hasty about granting this request. A dollar here, a dollar there, it mounts up. In these times, like Daddy says, with a bunch of visionaries and radicals in Washington, you never know where you’re going to be tomorrow. I say charity begins at home. I move that we refuse this request.”

  “Motion carried,” said Roger. “Now we’ll have a discussion about our spring formal which is going to be held in another six weeks. I’m going to call on Shy, who has been working very hard as arrangements chairman, to give his report.”