Potatoes Are Cheaper Page 2

“What’s wrong?” said Albert.

  “So many things I don’t know where to begin,” I said. “But for openers, where are two losers like you and me gonna find rich broads?”

  “That’s easy,” he said. “We’ll enroll at the University of Minnesota.”

  I looked at him like the way I told you earlier my mother and father and Libbie looked at me. “Albert,” I said, “it costs a fortune to go to the University.”

  “I checked,” he said. “Tuition is a hundred bucks a year.”

  “Like I said, a fortune,” I said. “Where you gonna get a hundred bucks?”

  “Remember my ma’s fur coat?” he said.

  Did I remember Aunt Lena’s fur coat? Everybody on Selby Avenue remembered it. It was a sensation when she got it way back in 1928—the first coat in the neighborhood anybody ever bought retail. But it had been at least five years since Aunt Lena used to parade that coat up and down Selby. When times got tough she put it away in cold storage to protect it from moths and thieves.

  “What about the coat?” I said.

  “I found where Ma hid the cold-storage ticket,” said Albert. “I got the coat out and sold it for $100.”

  “Albert!” I gasped. That’s all I could say.

  “She’ll never know,” he said. “She’s gonna leave it in storage till the Depression’s over, and the Depression’s never gonna be over.”

  “Okay, Albert,” I said. “So you’re all set. But where will I find $100?”

  “That’s a problem,” he admitted. “But we’ll work it out.”

  “How?” I said. “But even if by some miracle I do raise the money, your plan is still ridiculous.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “I’ll tell you why,” I said. “You say first we boff these girls, then we marry them. True?”

  “True,” he said.

  “Albert,” I said, “if you marry a girl, she got to be Jewish.”

  “I know,” he said. “So?”

  “So Jewish girls don’t put out,” I said.

  “Have you tried?” he said.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “And what happened?” he said.

  “They told me, ‘I’m a Jewish girl. I don’t put out,’” I said.

  “Morris,” he said, “shut up and listen carefully because now we come to the heart of my plan. Now, I myself have never boffed a Jewish girl either. In fact, I don’t know anybody who has. We all tried, I guess, but we all ran into the same thing. They told us no, so we quit. Why? Because we believe the propaganda: ‘Jewish girls don’t put out.’ But, Morris, think it through. Shicksas also say no at first, don’t they? But do we quit? Of course not. We figure even if they mean it, they’ll be grateful later … Well, Morris, why can’t we give the same courtesy to Jewish girls?”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you suggesting that Jewish girls really want it?”

  “Why not?” said Albert. “Aren’t they human? Do you think a little tongue sucking is enough for them, a little grabass through a panty girdle? Don’t you suppose they’d like to get their gun off just like everybody else?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Nobody has,” said Albert. “And that is why the world is full of Jewish girls who are dying for a piece of tail. Well, Morris, you and I are gonna do something revolutionary: we’re gonna give it to ’em.”

  I got thoughtful. As I’ve mentioned, Albert is no dope, and although his theory was something nobody ever figured out before, that didn’t necessarily make it wrong. In fact, the longer I thought about it, the more sense it made.

  But whether Albert was right or wrong, the big problem was where would I get a hold of $100? Which brings me back to my father’s broken tailbone.

  “I want the money to go to college,” I said to my family and they all looked at me like my hair was on fire. I pressed on while I had them standing with their mouth open.

  “In college I will have a chance to meet rich girls,” I said, “and let’s face it, the only way this family is ever gonna see any money is if I marry it.”

  Then I stepped back and waited for Ma to give me the whammy.

  But she just stood and rubbed her chin for a couple minutes. “Makes sense,” she said finally.

  Libbie wasn’t happy. “Wait a minute, Mother,” she said. “If this is the way it’s going to be, why shouldn’t I go to college and meet a rich boy?”

  “Because,” said Ma, “you are too old for college boys, and you ain’t no beauty into the bargain.”

  Libbie cried of course, and Ma did some more thinking. “Listen,” she said, giving me a forefinger in the ribs, “no shicksas, you hear? Don’t be like You-Know-Who.”

  You-Know-Who was my cousin Seymour whose name you couldn’t even mention since he married a shicksa a few years ago. His family went into such conniptions like you wouldn’t believe. They wailed and cried and said the prayer for the dead and sat shivah and ripped their lapels and poured ashes on their heads. I know because I had to bring them ashes from our furnace; they had an oil burner.

  “No shicksas,” I promised Ma.

  “Another thing,” said Ma. “Very important. Pick an ugly girl.”

  “What?” I said, puzzled.

  “Use your head, Morris. Don’t be like him,” said Ma, pointing a thumb at Pa. “A pretty girl got plenty of dates, ain’t she? Plenty of rich, high-class fellas. So what does she need with a cocker like you? Find an ugly.”

  “Okay, Ma,” I said.

  “But not just a little ugly,” said Ma. “Real ugly.”

  “Okay, Ma,” I said.

  “All right, that’s settled,” said Ma.

  “No,” said Pa, “I don’t agree.”

  “You don’t what?” said Ma.

  “After all, I am the one who broke the bone,” said Pa. “I think I should have the money.”

  “No, Nathan dear,” said Ma. “But I’ll tell you what you can do.”

  “What?” said Pa.

  “You can turn on Amos and Andy,” said Ma.

  Chapter Two

  Freshman registration was on the Friday after Labor Day, and there we stood on the campus of the University of Minnesota, Albert and I, the Gold Diggers of 1936, and all around us we saw the other freshmen, every one of them beautifully dressed—the guys in tweed coats and flannels, the girls in angora sweaters and pleated skirts and saddle shoes. Albert and I were pretty spiffy ourselves. I was wearing my bar mitzvah suit, and Albert had on his zipper jacket from the Golden Gloves.

  “Albert,” I said, taking a gander at our new classmates, “do you think we look all right?”

  “You worried?” he said.

  “A little, maybe,” I said.

  “Morris,” he said, taking me by both shoulders and looking straight in my eyes, “listen carefully to what I’m gonna tell you. It’s true we ain’t got clothes. Also we ain’t got money, we ain’t got looks, and we ain’t got breeding. Therefore there is one thing we got to have.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Confidence,” he said.

  He was absolutely right, of course. I mean how are you ever going to win a fight if you’re covered with flop sweat before you start? So right there and then I made up my mind to shake off all my doubts and walk tall and keep smiling and talk loud. “You’re absolutely right,” I said to Albert.

  He grinned and gave me a playful little punch I can still feel in damp weather, and off we went to see our freshman advisers.

  Mine was named Mr. Harwood, a skinny man about thirty-five with chalk dust and no lips. “Hello,” I said, “I am Morris Katz.”

  This news didn’t excite him too much. Without looking up he pointed to a chair in front of his desk. I sat down. He opened a folder that had my name on it. “Mr. Katz,” he said, “I have made a careful examination of your high-school records and your aptitude tests, and I have one question to ask: what in God’s name are you doing here?”

  I tried to
think of an answer, like “How would you like a rap in the mouth?” but it turned out I didn’t need it because he went right on talking.

  “However,” he said, “that is not properly my business. Since you have fulfilled the stringent entrance requirements of the University of Minnesota—which is to say you have a high-school diploma and one hundred dollars—my job is to help you make out a program of studies. What major are you interested in?”

  “What’s the easiest?” I said.

  “Home economics,” he said.

  “What’s the next easiest?” I said.

  “It’s between sociology and library science,” he said. “To my certain knowledge nobody has ever flunked either.”

  “Which one got the most girls in it?” I said.

  “Home economics,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “I mean between sociology and library science.”

  “The most are in library science,” he said. “However—and I think this is what you’re getting at—the best looking are in sociology.”

  “I’ll take library science,” I said.

  His eyebrows went up. “May one ask why?”

  “I’d rather not say,” I said.

  “Come to think of it, I’d rather not know,” he said. “Now, what other courses would you like to take?”

  “It don’t matter too much,” I said. “I’m not expecting to be here long.”

  “I share this feeling,” he said.

  “Mr. Harwood,” I said, “this is my first day at the University. I’m confused and I’m bewildered and what I need is help, not sarcasm. With respect, Mr. Harwood, why do you have to be such a schmuck?”

  “You’d be surprised how many people ask me that,” he said.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” I said.

  “I don’t have an answer really,” he said. “I can only point out that in addition to counseling several hundred freshmen each year, I teach three sections of composition, two sections of American lit, two of Shakespeare and one of Chaucer—plus I am supervisor of student publications and coach of the University chess team, making a work load of roughly twenty hours per day. Add to all this the fact that I have remained in the grade of instructor for the last twelve years, and possibly a picture begins to emerge. I offer this not in mitigation, you understand, but simply to clarify.”

  “How do I get another adviser?” I said.

  “Don’t bother. We’re all schmucks,” he said. “Now, about your other courses—”

  “Whatever you think,” I said. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

  “I shall try to justify your confidence,” he said and put me down for three credits in Dewey Decimals, three more in Shelving and Stacking, and then to add what he called “a leavening of culture” he gave me five credits in Remedial English and three in Birds of Minnesota.

  “Good luck, Mr. Katz,” said Mr. Harwood, “and welcome to the community of scholars.”

  When I met Albert later I found out he had exactly the same program as mine, except his adviser gave him Fingerprint Identification instead of Birds of Minnesota. “Well, what’s the difference?” I said to Albert. “By this time next year we’ll be married and laying around our own swimming pool.”

  “You bet your ass,” he said and gave me another playful punch that stayed black and blue till Thanksgiving.

  On Monday classes officially began. Albert picked me up at 7 A.M. and then we picked up Bruce Albright and Henry Leibowitz who I will tell you about in a minute. First let me explain about transportation.

  St. Paul and Minneapolis are called the Twin Cities because they’re right next to each other. But still it was ten miles from where Albert and me lived in St. Paul to where the University was in Minneapolis, so we needed some way to get back and forth. We had Albert’s Maytag Six of course, so the car itself was no problem. The problem was where to find money for oil, grease, tire patches, spark plugs and parts that kept falling off. Gasoline was not an expense; that we siphoned from parked cars naturally.

  What we needed were some paying passengers to ride with us and share expenses, so we’d spent last summer looking around the neighborhood for other guys who were enrolled at the U. It was slim pickings, I can tell you; who could afford foolishness like college? But finally we got lucky and found Bruce Albright.

  Bruce, a Gentile, was going to med school, which he didn’t especially want to, but his father, also a Gentile, insisted. His father was the most successful doctor in St. Paul, which was not surprising since he had the Jewish trade locked up. I’ll tell you a curious fact you might not know: when Jews have operations—and, believe me, that’s every chance they get—they always go to a Gentile doctor. They’ll trust Jewish doctors with colds and constipation and everyday stuff like that, but when it comes to surgery, they yell for a Gentile every time.

  The reason is simple: Jewish doctors are too young. Figure it out. If a Jew is, say, forty or fifty years old, he’s almost sure to be an immigrant. So when could he have gone to med school? No, it’s the sons who go to med school and, as my mother says, “You think I’m gonna lay there unconscious from chloroform and let some young punk cut me open who was making in his diapers a couple years ago?”

  Well, that’s how it is. Maybe as the years go by and Jewish doctors grow older, they’ll get in on the big Jewish surgery boom, but as of 1936 it’s a goyish monopoly.

  But about Bruce. He was a big, strong guy about six feet four who never would have gone to med school if his father didn’t make him. What Bruce liked was the outdoors—hunting, fishing, camping, canoeing, and all kinds of things Jewish mothers don’t let you do. Only once did I manage to sneak away with Bruce. He took me fishing a few years ago at Bald Eagle Lake, and I want to tell you it was a day I’ll never forget. The fishing itself was nothing to rave about—ten hours in a cloud of mosquitoes to catch eight little sunfish—but afterwards we went to a nearby farmhouse that Bruce knew and the old farmwife, for just one dollar, cleaned and fried our fish and served them to us with a dozen ears of golden bantam corn and a pitcher of fresh milk and a loaf of home-baked bread with plenty of country butter and after supper sucked us off.

  Our other passenger, Henry Leibowitz, was also going to college because his father made him, but there was a big difference between Henry’s father and Bruce’s father. Bruce’s father was loaded, but Henry’s father was so poor I get hunger cramps just thinking about it.

  Henry’s father was called Reb Leibowitz, but he was a good long way from a rabbi. What he did was give Hebrew lessons to twelve-year-old boys, which got to be the lowest-paid profession in the world next to biting off chickens’ heads in a carnival. The Reb usually charged ten dollars, never more than fifteen, to get a kid ready for his bar mitzvah, and can you imagine how long that took? Can you picture the resistance of a twelve-year-old boy who’s spent the whole day in public school and now he can’t go out to play ball because some old guy with bad breath is hocking him in Hebrew? And worse yet, the Reb didn’t get paid till after the bar mitzvah, so whenever a kid cocked up the ceremony—about one out of three, I’d guess—there was no money at all.

  Well, my house was poor and Albert’s house was poor and nearly everybody’s house was poor, but the Leibowitz house—that was POOR. What they ate I don’t know, but I can tell you this: Reb Leibowitz, in full tfillin, couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds. Mrs. Leibowitz was smaller around than my thumb. Henry looked like a thermometer, and his brother Max who was five years older, looked like a thermometer with glasses.

  Max, who I think was born with glasses, got nothing but A’s in grade school and high school, and he ended up at the University with a full scholarship. I believe that’s what kept Reb Leibowitz alive—not food, but pride in Max. “My Max! My Max!” the Reb would tell everybody. “He got the traditional Jewish love of learning!”

  We all hated Max. “Why ain’t you got the traditional Jewish love of learning?” our mothers would holler when we came home with a report card full of red ink. But
of course it was toughest on Henry. He didn’t have the traditional Jewish love of learning either, and he had to live in the same house.

  (Incidentally, if you ask me, this so-called traditional love of learning is another Jewish myth, like Jewish girls don’t put out. Some Jews love learning, some don’t. Remember this: for every Einstein we got ten thousand dentists, and Barney Ross is by us a bigger hero than Louis Brandeis.

  (No, love of learning is not what’s kept the Jews going. It’s something else, something nobody knows. My cousin Albert thinks it’s corn beef. Well, maybe.)

  But back to Henry Leibowitz. Henry didn’t want to bust his ass working for all A’s but he was afraid not to. Once, I remember, when he came home from high school with six A’s and just one single C, his father took a look, turned pale, and heaved all over the report card.

  Well, Henry finally got so good at getting A’s that he wound up with a full scholarship to the University just like his brother Max five years earlier, and Albert worked out a deal to drive him back and forth to school. Not for money naturally; where would Henry get money? But in exchange for transportation, Henry agreed to do Albert’s homework every night and mine too which was a blessing, believe me, because it meant we wouldn’t have to waste time studying and could concentrate on broads.

  So anyhow, we got to school on this first day of the semester, and Albert and I went off to our eight-thirty class in Dewey Decimals. One look around the classroom and I knew Mr. Harwood hadn’t been exaggerating about the number of girls who take library science; in fact, the only males in the whole class were Albert and me. We listened carefully to the roll call to find out who was Jewish, and we picked out four: Miss Bernstein, Miss Chodorov, Miss Zimmerman, and Miss Zucker.

  Two of them we eliminated immediately: Miss Bernstein because she was good-looking, and Miss Chodorov because she didn’t have a pledge pin on her sweater. We knew that any girl who didn’t pledge a sorority was a poor girl, and a poor girl we needed like another nostril.

  So it boiled down to Zimmerman and Zucker. “You got any preference?” Albert asked me.

  It was like asking if you preferred the bulldog clap to a rusty nail in the foot. “No,” I said.