class made the Sweathogs on Welcome Back, Kotter seem like Rhodes Scholars. They probably traveled to school on the half-sized, yellow school bus and even in high school they had their mittens clipped to their jacket sleeves.
I knew there was a mistake, and as soon as the teacher came in, I went to his desk to attempt to arrange for my prompt exit. But, before I could speak, the teacher held up his hand between his face and mine, and commanded me to “shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.”
Our relationship got worse after that.
The first classroom assignment was intended to assess our degree of reading retardation. The reading teacher distributed neatly printed pages, bearing four simple paragraphs with short words printed in large type.
It looked more like an eye chart than literature.
We were instructed to read the paragraphs, and then turn over the paper and answer the questions on the back of the page. Once we started writing our answers on the back, we were not supposed to turn the page over again to the front.
The stories were only slightly more complex than the “Oh, Sally, see Dick” adventures we read in first grade. I finished the assignment in approximately 14 seconds and then noticed that my classmates were laboriously sounding out each syl-la-ble.
The teacher noticed I had stopped reading, and said, “What’s the matter, dumbass? Too tough for you?”
I meekly said that I had finished the test but he refused to believe me. Eventually, he looked at my paper and saw that I had answered the questions, and answered them all correctly.
At this point, most of the kids had flipped over their papers, and were trying to copy answers from each other.
Seeing their overt and clumsy cheating led our teacher to the only logical conclusion: I must have stolen a teacher’s copy of the test and copied the answers onto my paper.
I was escorted to the principal’s office, and then I eventually got to see my guidance counselor, and she uncovered a scheduling error. I was given three free periods a week to swim or hang around the library, and someone else got a chance to “shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.”
Most days, my major academic accomplishment when Mrs. Samson asked me a question was to reply with the Hebrew equivalent of “I don’t know.” I had a lot of practice saying that particular phrase. I said it better than anyone else.
Because of a strange anatomical quirk, I had a very sensitive nose. If Mrs. Samson gave us a “pop quiz” I could just tap my nose and, in seconds, a red river would be gushing from my right nostril. I’d soon be heading to the nurse’s office for a nice 30-minute nap until the hemorrhage subsided.
After a while, Mrs. Samson realized that I was a hopeless case. She was friendly with my parents and didn’t want to flunk me. So just like Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Frances Samson made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
She said, “I know you’re not doing any work, but I want you to get into a good college, so I’ll give you a B.”
Mrs. Samson didn’t have to put a gun to my head to convince me to take the deal. It was a better deal than I deserved, and I owe her a lot.
Chapter 18
Grandma, the lesbian painter, and arroz con caca
(Where were you when the shit hit the floor?)
After numerous changes of curricula and colleges, I pulled the plug on my formal education at the end of 1969 and moved to New York to become a magazine editor.
I spent the first week living in the Bronx with my grand-mother, but we were the Odd Couple.
Grandma Del was like a fastidious female Felix Unger. She was a neat freak who ironed shoelaces and wrapping paper (I’m not kidding) and had floors that were clean enough to eat off of (not kidding about that either). I was more like Oscar Madison. I was a 23-year-old male who had been living unsupervised since graduating from high school, and my standards were different from my grandmother’s.
We loved each other, but as with a lot of marriages, we could not live with each other. I had to move out.
Although I had the title of Assistant Editor, my salary was only $115 per week, and even in 1970, that didn’t pay for much real estate.
I schlepped my suitcases downtown and checked into the Grand Central YMCA, where I could afford a cell-sized cubicle within walking distance of my office. I spent weekends wandering the streets of Manhattan, looking for a more permanent and pleasant residence where I could bend over in the shower if I dropped my soap without attracting a new boyfriend.
I quickly found out that I was about 20 years too late for a $100-per-month loft in Greenwich Village, so I looked at the East Village. There, I found places that I could afford but didn’t like, and places that I liked but couldn’t afford. There were novel architectural touches, like bathtubs in the kitchens, roaches in the bathtubs, and drunks and drug dealers in the hallways.
Then I had a revelation.
If I did somehow find a suitable place in the East or West Village, I’d have to take the subway to and from work, which would probably take about 20 minutes in each direction. Since I had to be on the train anyway, why not consider living in one of the “outer boroughs,” outside Manhattan, with a slightly longer commute?
I could have gone to Staten Island, Brooklyn or Queens, but I was born in the Bronx. It was familiar turf. That’s where Grandma’s familiar cooking was, I knew the stores and the restaurants, and it would be an easy train ride.
I went to a real estate agency that specialized in apartment rentals, and was directed to a potential home on Walton Avenue, near both the number four train that goes down Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, and the D train that runs on Sixth Avenue. (Tourists say “Avenue of the Americas.”)
The apartment was no palace, but it was affordable ($66.21 per month, thanks to New York’s weird rent-control laws), convenient and good enough. It was considered to be a “professional apartment,” the type of dwelling often rented by a doctor, on ground level with its own private entrance. My front hallway turned out to be the perfect place to park my Vespa motor scooter.
The law required landlords to paint apartments for each new tenant, but my landlord refused and wasn’t worried about prosecution. He was, however, willing to give me a free month’s rent and six gallons of white paint and some brushes, rollers, trays and drop cloths if I agreed to take care of the painting.
I agreed.
I had recently met a beautiful, smart and very funny girl named Laurel at a mutual friend’s party. It was a terrific party. One of the guests had a copy of a studio master tape of what would turn out to be Elton John’s 11-17-70 album.
Laurel, too, had recently moved into New York and she offered to help me paint. I liked her a lot and hoped
