A Fistful of Fig Newtons (5 page)

The crowd sensing his malevolent competitive nature, fell silent. He handed the box to me, and to this day I can’t clearly remember what happened. Maybe it was the excitement; maybe I just didn’t have it. I don’t know.

Just as I reached for the Boomo-Lax I had the uncontrollable sensation of becoming suddenly inflated, as though someone had cruelly blown me up like a helium weather balloon. I felt my Jockey shorts stretching and cutting into my middle. They were so tight that there was an audible thrumming sound. My arms stuck out at right angles from my distended body. I felt like a Macy’s Thanksgiving parade Donald Duck float in a high wind. I caught a fleeting glimpse of Umbaugh’s lip, curled in disdain. I was beyond caring.

“Yes, with the action of a hand grenade,” he hissed.

I bounced and skittered to the door. Through the buzzing sound in my ears I could hear the crowd faintly, as from a long distance, as they cheered and hooted. The seventy-five feet or so down the corridor seemed to grow longer and longer as I wildly
waddled, my teeth clenched, trying to hold back the molten lava which boiled inside me, a human volcano about to erupt, slaying thousands in its devastation.

At last I crashed through the door marked MEN and, moaning weakly, I hurled myself into one of the blessed booths. Even in my feverish panic I saw Goldberg’s foot extending out from under the third booth down, his pitiful shower clog resting forlornly fifteen feet away. I heard him rumbling and crying piteously for help. I was busy with my own troubles.

It was as though a runaway Roto-Rooter had gone berserk in my gut. Bits of chewed salami spurted from my ears. Never before, or since, had I had such a horrendous experience.

“Ooohh, I’m gonna die …” Goldberg moaned.

I envied him, since it was obvious that I had already passed into the Great Beyond and was paying for my sins. Was I in hell? Was Satan himself squeezing me dry like a human washrag?

What seemed hours later I tottered weakly out into the hallway, a wraith of my former self. The crowd had doubled in front of my room. They were still at it!

I edged through the mob, my body sore and aching. Umbaugh still stood as he had all evening. Big Al was casually leaning against the concrete wall next to the casement. They were eyeball to eyeball. It was the age-old confrontation; mano a mano, High Noon. The Intellectual, the Man of Ideas versus the Beast.

“Round twelve,” Umbaugh barked. Spectators murmured. There was a scattered burst of applause. Umbaugh, with the maddening air of the intellectual who firmly believes that he is one of the very few who holds the key to the mystery of the Universe, downed his deadly bit of chocolate.

The greatest defensive tackle the Big Ten had yet produced followed suit, a sneer creasing his naugahyde features.

“You dumb fuckers never learn,” he muttered.

A voice in the crowd murmured, “That’s just the way he looked before he nailed Snake Hips Leroy Johnson in the Ohio game. Oh, God, I can’t watch.”

Umbaugh casually waved a limp-wristed salute to his few supporters, who were mainly from the staff of
The Literary Quarterly
and
The Barbaric Yawp
, the campus poetry rag.

“Courage, Schuyler,” one of them piped.

Another, a short wartish person in a Samoan toga, lisped:

“It’s Ape Man Sweeney versus Daedalus.”

Umbaugh turned and withered him with a glance. “I presume you mean Icarus, you oaf. However, the thought was well meant.”

The Wart scrunched deeper into his toga, his acne reddening. Old 76’s face darkened.

“Who the hell does Ape Man Sweeney play for? Never heard of him.”

Umbaugh smiled benignly. “I never heard of him either, noble foe. Shall we continue?”

I had edged my way through the crowd and back into my room and was now busily mopping up the gushing perspiration that ran into my eyes and dripped off my nose. Something told me that I would soon be making another trip down the hall.

Umbaugh, noticing me at last, acknowledged my presence.

“You fought gamely and well. Feel no shame.”

“Thanks.”

“Round thirteen.”

In silence, the gladiators put away their deadly potions. Somehow the crowd sensed that we had reached the turning point. Tension was so thick that it hung like a fine blue haze in the room. The rain had finally ceased and the first faint silver fingers of dawn had touched the ancient oaks of the Quad. Saturday was beginning to happen, the biggest Saturday of the season, in fact. We were playing Michigan today for the Big Ten championship, the winner, of course, to go to the Rose Bowl.

Umbaugh leaned forward, his washed-out gray eyes peering unblinkingly into Big Al’s bbs. He whispered, barely audible to any outside the room, drawing out the syllables of his words to underline their import.

“Rounnnnd … [long pregnant pause] four … teee …”

Before he could complete his announcement, Big Al stiffened. An inchoate bellow of animal intensity shook the concrete walls.

“UUUUUOOOOOONNNNNKKKKKK!”

He lurched forward and then began to topple slowly, like a great redwood felled in the forest. Umbaugh, moving backward, with snakelike agility, his voice lashing out, warned:

“Move back. This could be dangerous.”

With a muffled thud that rocked our immense dormitory building, Big Al hit the floor, his red-and-white jersey darkened with sweat. The “6” of his famous number curled weakly under his bushy armpit.

Umbaugh casually hoisted up his drooping shorts as he coolly stood over his fallen foe.

“Jane Austen lives.”

It was all over. My room was never the same again, even after hosing it down repeatedly and soaking the walls and floor and, yes, even the ceiling with powerful disinfectants. Big Al lay prone, his immense bulk quivering as giant spasms shook his frame. His followers, white-faced and stricken, rallied to his aid. They tugged and pulled his almost lifeless hulk down the hall, trailing noxious fumes. It was then that Umbaugh displayed the style of a true champion.

“Well, boys.” He stretched luxuriously and scratched his ribs with satisfaction. “It’s been an exciting evening. And as a nameless Phoenician captain once wrote: When the ship sinks, you’ve lost the battle.”

His followers, their eyes glowing with admiration, applauded their hero. I kept my silence. After all, he had disemboweled me.

From far down the hall came the sounds of rushing water and the rumble of an expiring beast.

Walking to the casement window, Umbaugh squinted out into the dawn, the faint red glow of Jack’s neon sign playing over his ascetic, chiseled features.

“I feel like a spot of breakfast. A healthy hunger or, as the English would say, I’m a bit peckish. A stack of blueberry buckwheats
drenched with maple syrup and a scoop of butter would just hit the spot. And since I am now somewhat flush this morning, I’ll treat the gang to what the old Golden Dome Diner has to offer. What do you say?”

I lay back limply on my monk’s slab. Within moments the room was empty. The arena was silenced. Only the ghost of the heroic struggle remained.

Later that fateful day our Alma Mater went down to humiliating defeat. Michigan, a decided underdog, had pulled off an upset. I still have a clipping that reads:

I shifted uneasily on that goddamn bean-bag loveseat, which I have hated since the day I bought it. Taking a deep, inhaling suck at my bourbon, I squinted closely at Umbaugh’s triumphant face on the screen.

“I hope that some of our viewers today, Mr. Cooke, have come to appreciate the role Boredom has played in the world’s history. As a little-known Phoenician captain once inscribed: ‘When the ship sinks, you’ve lost the battle.’ Yes, Mr. Cooke, it is never wise to put your bets on the favorite. As the legend of Icarus shows …”

The truth, after all these years, hit me. With a hoarse cry I toppled
forward, knocking my precious Thomas Jefferson tumbler to the floor with a crash, his stony visage shattering into slivery shards, the rich amber bourbon staining the
Times
editorial page, thoroughly soaking a Tom Wicker column entitled: “The Intellectual; America’s Most Precious Asset.”

You Benedict Arnold. You crummy, rotten Quisling. Selling out State to Michigan. You son of a bitch. For the first time I truly understood why the Archie Bunkers of the world, the slobs of the universe, instinctively distrusted the Intellectual. They were right all along!

I moaned weakly in my shame. I had been cruelly used by this smarmy, poetry-quoting wimp. My simple, innocent lust for Fig Newtons had led to the defeat of my beloved State by the hated Wolverines. Oh, God, if the
Alumni Journal
ever gets wind of this!

I took a deep swig of Jack Daniels straight from the bottle for sustenance, courage in my hour of self-revelation. I knew then with a deadly certainty that guilt would pursue me the rest of my life.

THE BASTARD HAD LAID A BIG BET ON MICHIGAN!

Me, and Goldberg, and poor dumb Big Al Dagellio were just pawns, shills if you will, in Umbaugh’s sinister game. No wonder he had all that dough to pay for those postgraduate credit hours, that convertible, that vintage Beaujolais, those stupid imported Egyptian cigarettes. Oh, Lord, will perfidy never end?

A line from Tennessee Williams’
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
came back to me in that moment of fevered illumination, Big Daddy bellowing, “Mendacity, my boy. Mendacity is what life is about!”

I shook my head in rueful admiration, the kind of admiration that you feel for John Dean of Watergate fame, the little pimple pulling off the Big Steal and coming out of it rich. Umbaugh, you son of a bitch. Few people in the world know what your true talent is. The greatest Boomo-Lax hustler who ever lived. You hustled us, you talented horse’s ass!

Once again I felt the terrible panging clutch in my vitals
known to the trade as “Boomo-Lax Backlash.” I staggered toward the john, flipping off the TV just as Alistair Cooke said:

“This has been a highly enlightening program. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Umbaugh for …”

I gasped out, “Them dumb fuckers never learn!” as I barely made the blessed sanctuary.

Sad but true, they don’t. Learn, that is. But did you note that the victim was heading for the right place to soothe his soul?

So much of my best solid contemplation is done in the john. If venerated ancient thinkers hung around in ivory towers, it certainly follows that today’s pundits do a lot of serious work in tiled sanctuaries far from the madding throng. And no wonder, with the price of ivory
.

Archimedes hollered out “Eureka!” in his bathtub. No mention of his study or library. How many cosmic concepts came to Benjamin Franklin while in the privacy of what passed for a john in his day? Come to think of it, they had outhouses, didn’t they? Two-holers. Somehow, it’s a little unnerving to picture George Washington heading out into the rain, carrying a corn cob, while contemplating various profundities that would affect free men for centuries
.

Just where was Edison when the idea for the light bulb struck him? It would be easy to say, “The laboratory, stupid,” but is that true? Did he merely
execute
his idea in the laboratory?

The fathead behind me gave out a loud blast on his air horns, jarring me out of my restless inner debate. That’s one of the things
I find myself doing more and more, debating with myself. George Washington contemplating democracy while in the outhouse? No, you fool. He sat in his eighteenth-century study, scratching away with a quill pen on parchment, while wearing a powdered wig. Come on, you dummy, you know better than that
.

I noticed that the temperature gauge in my car was creeping up to around 200 degrees. Jesus Christ, overheating! Am I going to be the next yellow light? When was the last time I checked my radiator level?

Ahead, the Rutgers crowd appeared to be singing. I glanced in the mirror. The Horn Creep was right on my rear bumper. Is that his tongue lolling out or is he sucking a popsicle? When will this ever end?

My mind seized that thought like a rat terrier grabbing a chicken bone
.

After all this torture in purgatory, you end up in Jersey. Jersey, for Chrissake!

The moment that I peered out to sea through the unblinking eye of the magnificent Margate Elephant, I sensed that somehow I was in the spiritual heart of New Jersey. A gigantic wooden pachyderm of distinctly irritated mien, the Margate Elephant, constructed–if that is the proper word–about a century ago on a sandy remote beach, was an instant success among the stylish toffs of the period. New Jerseyites wearing beaver hats and sequined bustles jostled for reservations to spend a weekend, or perhaps a honeymoon, in its rooms, finished in polished teak and a curious combination of nautical and pseudo-Bombay décor.