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By Root 588 0

to me, and I was for a Palestinian state, and it’s true, but was that the real reason, or was I intent on ingratiating myself with them? Hey, Charnofsky is a nice Jew. He doesn’t break the arms of Arab kids on the West Bank. Jessica once taunted me at a board meeting, come clean, she said, if I saw her three sons walking toward me on, say, 46th Street, wouldn’t I cross to the other side of the street for fear of being mugged? They’ve all got those flat-top haircuts, but one of them has a scholarship to Juilliard, and the other two are at Harvard. It’s raining, they hail a taxi, it shoots right past them. And if I were driving a taxi maybe I’d do the same. You too. Jesse Jackson cracks a joke about Hymietown and everybody has a fit, but I’ve heard you call them shvartzes, and I’ll bet had your daughter married one you wouldn’t have cracked open a bottle of champagne. I also have to say that both Jessica Peters and Shirley Wade are far more intelligent than I am. But instead of being pleased — There I go again. Being pleased,” he said, banging his fists against his forehead. “What right have I to react like that to an African-American’s superior intelligence? None whatsoever. But at the time I was secretly resentful. After all these years I was still only an associate professor at NYU, I said to myself, but Shirley’s a full professor at Princeton only because of ‘affirmative action.’ Yeah, sure. But Shirley and Jessica are both witty and fast. I hardly dared open my mouth at board meetings, I was so intimidated, they could cut you down with a quip just like that.

“Listen to this. When they voted themselves an annual retainer of thirty thousand dollars for attending board meetings and other duties, I fought it like crazy, but boy oh boy was I ever thrilled. I could taste it. The money. But Jessica, with that smile of hers, she says, why, Norman, if you’re so offended, you could always waive your retainer. No, I couldn’t do that, I said, terrified, because it would appear I was being critical of my respected colleagues. It might be interpreted as a moral judgment.

“You want to hear something even more shameful about me? Jessica is not only brilliant, but she is also a beauty, and has a reputation for sleeping around. Now I have never made love to a black woman. What am I talking about? I’m sixty-three years old and I’d never done it with anybody but Flora. I could die and I wouldn’t know if I was missing out because it was a lot better with somebody else. Anyway, at board meetings I would catch myself sneaking glances at Jessica’s breasts, or her crossed legs, and she knew, you bet your life she knew. She would be sitting there in that short skirt, if it ended any higher, never mind, expounding brilliantly about Henry James or Twain, doing riffs, throwing out ideas I hadn’t been able to come up with in thirty years of teaching, and I would have an erection. I used to order lunch for those board meetings from the restaurant downstairs, and one day it’s chicken pieces and potato salad, and Shirley is about to serve me a quarter of breast when Jessica stays her hand, and says, I think it’s the dark meat that Norman fancies, and the two of them are into those belly laughs, and I’m red in the face. Oh, I’m so ashamed. I’m such a pig. And Doris, yes Doris, I couldn’t stand her teasing, but she was right about me. I wouldn’t want my daughter moving in with another woman. The truth is I don’t really feel comfortable even sitting in a room with a lesbian or homosexual. Why? I’ll tell you. Like Doris said, I’m insecure about my masculinity. If I were lying in bed with my eyes closed, and it was a man who was sucking me off — pardon me for talking like this — but would I know the difference? Wouldn’t I come just the same? I think something like that and I’m just about sick to my stomach with fear. But I’ll bet it would be the same for you, if it were a man doing it, and that’s why you make jokes about fags, but not me any more.

“Okay. Enough of that. No more stalling, Norman. What you are really dying to ask is why I, quote, stole,