'Damn,' I replied, 'why can't I ever quit when I'm ahead?'
'Because, Preppie,' said my loving wife, 'you never are.'
15
We finished in that order.
I mean, Erwin, Bella and myself were the top three in the Law School graduating class. The time for triumph was at hand. Job interviews. Offers. Pleas. Snow jobs. Everywhere I turned somebody seemed to be waving a flag that read: 'Work for us, Barrett!'
But I followed only the green flags. I mean, I wasn't totally crass, but I eliminated the prestige alternatives, like clerking for a judge, and the public service alternatives, like Department of Justice, in favor of a lucrative job that would get the dirty word 'scrounge' out of our goddamn vocabulary.
Third though I was, I enjoyed one inestimable advantage in competing for the best legal spots. I was the only guy in the top ten who wasn't Jewish. (And anyone who says it doesn't matter is full of it.) Christ, there are dozens of firms who will kiss the ass of a WASP who can merely pass the bar. Consider the case of yours truly: Law Review, All-Ivy, Harvard and you know what else. Hordes of people were fighting to get my name and numeral onto their stationery. I felt like a bonus baby — and I loved every minute of it.
There was one especially intriguing offer from a firm in Los Angeles. The recruiter, Mr.— (why risk a lawsuit?), kept telling me:
'Barrett baby, in our territory we get it all the time. Day and night. I mean, we can even have it sent up to the office!'
Not that we were interested in California, but I'd still like to know precisely what Mr.— was discussing. Jenny and I came up with some pretty wild possibilities, but for L.A. they probably weren't wild enough. (I finally had to get Mr.— off my back by telling him that I really didn't care for 'it' at all. He was crestfallen.)
Actually, we had made up our minds to stay on the East Coast. As it turned out, we still had dozens of fantastic offers from Boston, New York and Washington. Jenny at one time thought D.C. might be good ('You could check out the White House, Ol'), but I leaned toward New York. And so, with my wife's blessing, I finally said yes to the firm of Jonas and Marsh, a prestigious office (Marsh was a former Attorney General) that was very civil-liberties oriented ('You can do good and make good at once,' said Jenny). Also, they really snowed me. I mean, old man Jonas came up to Boston, took us to dinner at Pier Four and sent Jenny flowers the next day.
Jenny went around for a week sort of singing a jingle that went 'Jonas, Marsh and Barrett.' I told her not so fast and she told me to go screw because I was probably singing the same tune in my head. I don't have to tell you she was right.
Allow me to mention, however, that Jonas and Marsh paid Oliver Barrett IV $11,800, the absolute highest salary received by any member of our graduating class.
So you see I was only third academically.
16
CHANGE OF ADDRESS
From July 1, 1967
Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Barrett IV
263 East 63rd Street
New York, N.Y. 10021
'It's so nouveau riche,' complained Jenny.
'But we are nouveau riche,' I insisted.
What was adding to my overall feeling of euphoric triumph was the fact that the monthly rate for my car was damn near as much as we had paid for our entire apartment in Cambridge! Jonas and Marsh was an easy ten-minute walk (or strut — I preferred the latter gait), and so were the fancy shops like Bonwit's and so forth where I insisted that my wife, the bitch, immediately open accounts and start spending.
'Why, Oliver?'
'Because, goddammit, Jenny, I want to be taken advantage of!'
I joined the Harvard Club of New York, proposed by Raymond Stratton '64, newly returned to civilian life after having actually shot at some Vietcong ('I'm not positive it was VC, actually. I heard noises, so I opened fire at the bushes'). Ray and I played squash at least three times a week, and I made a mental note, giving myself three years to become Club champion. Whether it was merely because I had resurfaced in Harvard territory, or because word of my Law School successes had gotten around (I didn't brag about the salary, honest), my 'friends' discovered me once more. We had moved in at the height of the summer (I had to take a cram course for the New York bar exam), and the first invitations were for weekends.
'Fuck 'em, Oliver. I don't want to waste two days bullshitting with a bunch of vapid preppies.'
'Okay, Jen, but what should I tell them?'
'Just say I'm pregnant, Oliver.'
'Are you? 'I asked.
'No, but if we stay home this weekend I might be.'
We had a name already picked out. I mean, I had, and I think I got Jenny to agree finally.
'Hey — you won't laugh?' I said to her, when first broaching the subject. She was in the kitchen at the time (a yellow color-keyed thing that even included a dishwasher).
'What?' she asked, still slicing tomatoes.
'I've really grown fond of the name Bozo,' I said.
'You mean seriously?' she asked.
'Yeah. I honestly dig it.'
'You would name our child Bozo?' she asked again.
'Yes. Really. Honestly, Jen, it's the name of a super-jock.'
'Bozo Barrett.' She tried it on for size.
'Christ, he'll be an incredible bruiser,' I continued, convincing myself further with each word I spoke. ' 'Bozo Barrett, Harvard's huge All-Ivy tackle.' '
'Yeah — but, Oliver,' she asked, 'suppose — just suppose — the kid's not coordinated?'
'Impossible, Jen, the genes are too good. Truly.' I meant it sincerely. This whole Bozo business had gotten to be a frequent daydream of mine as I strutted to work.
I pursued the matter at dinner. We had bought great Danish china.
'Bozo will be a very well-coordinated bruiser,' I told Jenny. 'In fact, if he has your hands, we can put him in the backfield.'
She was just smirking at me, searching no doubt for some sneaky put-down to disrupt my idyllic vision. But lacking a truly devastating remark, she merely cut the cake and gave me a piece. And she was still hearing me out.
'Think of it, Jenny,' I continued, even with my mouth full, 'two hundred and forty pounds of bruising finesse.'
'Two hundred and forty pounds?' she said. 'There's nothing in our genes that says two hundred and forty pounds, Oliver.'
'We'll feed him up, Jen. Hi-Proteen, Nutrament, the whole diet-supplement bit.'
'Oh, yeah? Suppose he won't eat, Oliver?'
'He'll eat, goddammit,' I said, getting slightly pissed off already at the kid who would soon be sitting at our table not cooperating with my plans for his athletic triumphs. 'He'll eat or I'll break his face.'
At which point Jenny looked me straight in the eye and smiled.
'Not if he weighs two-forty, you won't.'
'Oh,' I replied, momentarily set back, then quickly realized, 'But he won't be two-forty right away!'
'Yeah, yeah,' said Jenny, now shaking an admonitory spoon at me, 'but when he is, Preppie, start running!' And she laughed like hell.
It's really comic, but while she was laughing I had this vision of a two-hundred-and-forty-pound kid in a diaper chasing after me in Central Park, shouting, 'You be nicer to my mother, Preppie!'
Christ, hopefully Jenny would keep Bozo from destroying me.
17
It is not all that easy to make a baby.
I mean, there is a certain irony involved when guys who spend the first years of their sex lives preoccupied with not getting girls pregnant (and when I first started, condoms were still in) then reverse their thinking and become obsessed with conception and not its contra.
Yes, it can become an obsession. And it can divest the most glorious aspect of a happy married life of its naturalness and spontaneity. I mean, to program your thinking (unfortunate verb, 'program'; it suggests a machine) — to program your thinking about the act of love in accordance with rules, calendars, strategy ('Wouldn't it be better tomorrow morning, Ol?') can be a source of discomfort, disgust and ultimately terror.