And so it appeared. Unaccompanied, Larry was sitting at the end of the mahogany bench of the ’28 alcove, poring over a text. The guy might be boning up for midterms too, it occurred to Ira. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Let him be, and slip into the unappetizing lunchroom until time for his ed class. Instead he allowed himself to stand at the entrance to the alcove, until Larry spied him.
“Ira. Hey.”
“Larry. Wotcha got? Midterm next?”
“No. Lewlyn — Dr. Craddock,” Larry corrected himself, “said the finals would be enough.”
“Yeah?”
“Sit down.”
Ira slipped into the well-polished space between Larry and Yerman, who had already gotten there.
“I just came from Mott’s little midterm,” Ira informed his colleagues.
“Do you know why he bothers?” Yerman, slight of build, but with a plump, impassive face, had the reputation of having read everything, and retaining it — phenomenally.
Ira shrugged. “What’re you gonna do with goyish religion and Jewish students?”
“Why? What was the test?” Larry asked.
Ira mugged. “Why we got driven outta the Garden of Yeeden.”
Larry smiled. His mustache was now fully rounded out, black and thick, contrasting with his dappled skin. “You didn’t have to read Milton to find that out. I could have told you.”
“No.” Yerman remained staunchly serious. “You don’t have to trivialize the course, just because it involves Christian theology. Mott ought to emphasize the difference in the Puritan construction of religious doctrine — and practice too — as against the upper class, the Cavalier Anglican. You don’t get any idea of what a radical Milton was.”
“You mean Satan wouldn’t give Sin the business?” Ira jibed at Yerman’s lecture.
“Oh, come on. That’s not what I’m talking about. It was the sixteenth century, not ours. And there was a helluva split going on at the time. How many in the class realize that Milton was speaking for the same Puritans who came over here on the Mayflower? They were radicals. They were the Reds of their day.”
“We didn’t know because we took a later boat,” said Larry.
“Ah, go on. Even if the course dealt with the contrast between the prevailing knowledge of the cosmos in Milton’s time and what it was in feudal times, we’d get more out of it.”
“Oh, boy,” Larry interjected.
“There’d be a little life to the course, instead of Professor Mott just sitting up there reading and commenting. As if we couldn’t read for ourselves.”
“All right, tell Seymour to suggest it.” Ira leaned heavily on the facetious. “Sure, I know Milton mentioned artillery. And Milton must have looked through Galileo’s telescope too. So?”
“So the globe wouldn’t be hanging from Heaven by a gold cord—”
“Okay. Okay. So where’s Paradise?” Ira questioned.
“It’s done lost, I heard,” said Larry.
“There’s more truth in that than you suspect. Even John Donne had to acknowledge that the round earth had imaginary corners. Milton’s cosmos lacks all unity — just compare it to Dante’s.”
“Okay. I believe you. Here comes Sol.” Evidently fresh from the lunchroom, Sol pried morsel from teeth by dint of tongue and toothpick. “Hey, Sol, when did Paradise get lost?” Ira asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“Yerman.”
“Yerman shouldn’t know? He’s covering up.”
“You’re a Philistine. What’s the use of talking to you?” Yarman commented on Sol and Ira’s exchange.
“It comes in handy to be a Philistine,” said Sol. “What’s wrong with being a Philistine? So I don’t read the Dial, and I don’t read Mencken. But the whole country is Philistines. Do they read the Dial, do they read The American Mercury? No. They read the tabloids. They make a living. They dance the Charleston, listen to soaps on the radio. And they’ll support cool Cal Coolidge, because he stands for prosperity. And prosperity is what I want. Look at the stock market. It’s way up in the sky, and going higher. The best people are playing the market. You think I’m gonna fight prosperity? Only a mishugeneh aesthete, like Yerman here, would do that. That’s not what I’m going to college for. I wanna be up there with the other Philistines. You know, we’re gonna read Samson Agonistes next week. Did you take Hebrew? Did you go to cheder? You were Bar Mitzvah, no?” Sol addressed Yerman.
Yerman merely shifted disdainfully in his seat.
“You remember Samson saying, ‘Tammus nafshi im plishtim?’ You know what it means?”
“No, I don’t, wise guy.” Yerman was satiric.
“So you do know what it means. That’s you aesthetes. You’re gonna wreck prosperity — if you could. Why did your father come here from the shtetl? For the same reason my father came. To come to the goldeneh medina. So it’s a goldeneh medina. Fine! Why should I complain?”
“It’s mercenary, crass, banal, and materialistic.” Yerman listed.
“So take advantage of it.”
“Sell more trusses on Delancey Street.”
“Listen, that’s ad hominem!” Sol accused. “Because my father happens to be in the orthopedic supply business— You owe me an apology. You know that?”
“Here, makher, take my seat.” Yerman stood up.
“I don’t want your seat.” Redheaded Sol followed Yerman out of the alcove. “What’s wrong with selling trusses on Delancey Street?”
“Don’t get excited,” Yerman replied.
“Who’s excited?” They moved out of earshot.
“Is that what your Milton midterm did to you?” Larry asked.
“No. The questions were really a snap, too. But when Sol and Yerman get together, you better duck: the bullshit flies at high velocity.”
“Does Sol’s father really own a truss shop on Delancey Street?” Larry asked.
“Yeah, trusses, artificial limbs. Braces,” Ira replied.
“Nothing wrong with it.”
“No, but you know how they bait Sol. He gets so excited. The old man has already put his two older brothers through law school.”
A moment of silence ensued as Larry relit his calabash. “I’ve just been made a job offer,” he said.
“Just? A job offer?” Ira asked. “No kidding.”
“By Chapman.”
“The head of the ed department?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean it? Are you that good in your ed courses?”
“I just sling the bull.”
“There must be more than that. You’ve got some kind of knack.”
“I don’t know.” Larry let a billow of fragrant smoke mushroom before his open lips, and reclaimed it before it escaped. “He seemed to think I was unusually qualified to go into ed. He practically offered me a tutorship if I’d go on and get a master’s.”