Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey

  We took our lab coats from our lockers and headed for class. "My folks would never sign the papers."

  "They would if you explained the alternative."

  As we entered the biology lab, and each moved to our different sections, I was surprised at the smell of formaldehyde. On the marble worktable in front of each student's station lay a covered tray. I reached out to uncover it, but the props voice called out: "Do not touch the tray in front of you!"

  His lab assistant was moving from student to student dropping off a rolled-up dissection kit and a pair of rubber gloves in front of each tray. When he was done, the prof called out, "Put on the gloves and then uncover the trays."

  I peeled back the cover, startled to see a dead white mouse on its side.

  "Today," he announced, "you will dissect a real specimen."

  I knew the bio lab required dissection, but I'd expected a warning. Obviously, the professor enjoyed springing this as a surprise on his students. Not that it bothered me. I was taking bio as a premed requirement because I was going to be a surgeon.

  In the Boy Scouts I had taken the Advanced First Aid Merit Badge, and in the Sea Scouts during cruises, I was considered "ship's doctor." I treated wounds, boils, and abrasions and had become used to the sight and smell of blood. I had hardened myself.

  On one Dutchman weekend trip up the East River, the crew nearly mutinied over the terrible meals. Since I'd held part-time jobs as a sandwich man in a luncheonette, I was drafted into being ship's cook as well. The joke on that voyage was that if I didn't kill them as doctor I'd poison them as cook.

  Dissecting a mouse would be no problem.

  "Open your dissection kits." He pulled down a chart in front of the blackboard. It showed a mouse's internal organs. "Now, with the scalpel, make an incision in your specimen from the neck through the abdomen to the tail, then pull the skin back with the forceps."

  I followed his instructions. The incision was quick and neat and revealed that my specimen was female.

  "Proceed to remove the organs, placing them into the petri dishes, and labeling each one."

  My specimens uterus was distended. I cut it open, stared in disbelief, and backed away from the table. It contained a cluster of tiny fetuses curled up, eyes shut.

  "You look pale," my neighbor across the table said. "What's the matter?"

  What had startled me at first now saddened me. Several tiny lives had been snuffed out so that I could have a hands-on dissection experience.

  A young woman on my left leaned forward to look. Before I could catch her she fainted, knocking over her stool with a loud crash. The lab assistant rushed to revive her with smelling salts, and the prof told us to continue dissections on our own as he and his assistant took her to the infirmary.

  But I, great surgeon-to-be, was paralyzed. The thought of removing the fetuses sickened me. I dashed out of the lab into the lavatory, washed my face and hands, and stared at myself in the mirror. I had to go back and finish what I'd started.

  After a few minutes, I returned to the lab.

  Embarrassed at having fled, I covered up my overreaction by blurting out, "As the proud godfather of a litter, I'm handing out cigarettes in lieu of cigars."

  Laughter, pats on the back, and mock congratulations steadied me, but as I finished the dissection a jingle went through my mind:

  Three blind mice, see how they run.

  They all run after the farmer's wife,

  Who cut off their tails with a carving knife.

  You never saw such a sight in your life,

  As three blind mice.

  "Good job," the prof said, as he examined my work. "I'm giving you an A."

  On the way out, Stretch punched me playfully. "Lucky guy, getting the pregnant one."

  That night, as I opened my English Lit anthology for the next day's quiz on British poets, I scanned the table of contents and saw Algernon Charles Swinburne. I thought, What an unusual first name.

  3. Second Acting

  ALTHOUGH I'D ALWAYS WANTED to become a writer, I wasn't sure what kind of writing. After I read Nathanael West's horror story of Hollywood—The Day of the Locust—I ruled out screenwriting.

  That left plays, short stories, or novels. I'd read hundreds of each, but my only experience with live theater were student performances in school. I was on stage once, in third grade, and I played an oracle. In a deep voice, full of portent, I said to the king of the Aztecs, "Thy days are numbered, Montezuma."

  That was the extent of my acting experience.

  In my teens, I glorified Manhattan. It was Baghdad-on-the-Hudson, city of the arts, of publishing, and Broadway theater. I could reach that mecca for a nickel, and see two-thirds of a show free of charge. All I had to do was mingle with the crowd that stepped out for a smoke after the first-act curtain. When the buzzer announced the second-act warning, I would drift in among them and quickly find a seat before the lights dimmed. I called it second acting.

  The year was 1942. I was fifteen, and the play was The Skin of Our Teeth. Since I had read Our Town in high school, and seen the movie, the thought of second acting a Thornton "Wilder play excited me.

  I was clever enough never to try it on weekends. On a midweek evening, I put on my navy blue suit, a conservative tie, and took the subway to Times Square. I was early that night, as I walked to the theater district, so I lingered outside Lindy's Restaurant for a while and peered through the window. I imagined Damon Runyon's hustlers, gamblers, and gangsters, guys and dolls hanging out at the restaurant. Runyon called it Mindy's. When I could afford to splurge, I'd go inside, sit near the window looking out at the Broadway passersby, and gorge myself on the cheesecake Runyon had immortalized.

  I stopped daydreaming and focused on the task at hand. I didn't mind missing the first act of The Skin of Our Teeth. I could usually figure out the opening situation, but even if I couldn't, it didn't matter. I would develop the opening in my mind, write a beginning that brought the characters and the story together. In those days, I saw many second and third acts, but never any firsts.

  Always after the final curtain, I would applaud with the others, and visualize the glories of a playwright's life. Curtain calls on opening night of a smash hit. Shouts of "Author! Author!" Bows and bouquets. Then to Sardi's for celebration with champagne and caviar as everyone waited for the early Times review.

  That night started out the same as usual. I blended in with the crowd of smokers that spilled out of the theater onto the sidewalk, took a cigarette from my imitation gold case, and lit up. I mingled with the paying customers and listened to the chatter about the first act, picking up clues about the opening.

  When the second-act warning buzzer sounded, I merged with them into the lobby. Above their heads, I caught a glimpse of the faces of Fredric March and Tallulah Bankhead on the life-sized poster. I'd seen them both in the movies, of course. Tonight, I would see them live, on stage, in a Thornton Wilder play.

  Once inside, I hung back at the rear, scanning the rows for an empty seat, ready to slide into it before the lights dimmed. I saw two in the center off the aisle, but as I made my move I was jostled aside by the latecomers.

  Only then did I realize that the crowd was larger than usual. I moved to the wall, peering through the dimming light, my eyes growing used to the dark. Every seat was occupied. Did I dare try the balcony? I'd come this far. Might as well. I went back and headed upstairs two steps at a time. I found a Playbill, slipped it into my jacket pocket, and headed for an empty seat in the center of a row.

  As I sat down, a woman glared at me. "What are you doing? That's my husband's seat!"

  "Sorry," I said. "Wrong row."

  I jumped up and squeezed my way back to the aisle as a huge man headed toward me. I'd waited too long. I had to backtrack to the other end. People grumbled as I stepped on their feet.

  An usher with a flashlight was waiting for me. "May I see your ticket stub? The curtain is about to go up."

  Heart pounding, I pr
etended to search my pockets. "I must have dropped it somewhere. I had it right here."

  She looked at me suspiciously. "There are no empty seats in the balcony."

  "I'll go down to the lobby and see if I can find it."

  "Let me light your way."

  "Not necessary," I whispered, moving quickly. But I missed the last step and fell.

  "Sir, are you hurt? Let me take you to the managers office."

  "No. No. That's all right. I'm fine."

  I ran down the steps two at a time into the empty lobby. There I saw the full length of the poster with a banner announcement that had been hidden by the crowd heading inside for the second act: TONIGHT'S PERFORMANCE SOLD OUT!

  Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

  Out of the lobby, into the street. Only then did I look back at the marquee at the play's title that now mocked my close call. THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH.

  I walked north on Broadway to Central Park South, telling myself I might find an adventure along the way. Since it was late, I didn't enter the park, just sat on one of the benches and looked up at the luxury hotels. The name Essex House impressed me and I wondered about the lives of wealthy people who lived there. Someday, I would look down from one of those windows to where I was sitting now.

  As I passed the theater district on the way back to the subway, I saw the street filled with the exiting theater crowd. Some people entered waiting limos or hailed taxis. Others walked toward brightly lit Broadway.

  Once again, I merged into the crowd, as if by being among them I could be part of them. Many held the Playbill in their hands. I pulled mine out of my pocket, and held it as a badge that showed I belonged in their world.

  One group turned off into Sardi's. I followed them in and looked around. After they were seated, I saw the head waiter approach. I waved my Playbill at him and asked for directions to the men's room.

  When I left Sardi's and continued on to the subway, I tried to imagine what the play I had not seen might be like. I couldn't. So on the ride back to Brooklyn, I made one up, about a boy who had a great adventure, a narrow escape—by the skin of his teeth—as he tried to second act a Broadway play.

  Twenty-five years later, in 1967, I received a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony for Creative Artists in Peterborough, New Hampshire to work on my second novel The Touch.

  I was assigned a luxurious studio deep in the woods. On the first day, I was told that to preserve solitude for creativity, the only distraction would occur at noon each day when a car would drive up the gravel path and someone would leave my lunch basket at the door.

  Exploring the studio, I noticed a piece of wood in the shape of a paddle on the fireplace mantel. It was inscribed with a list of names of former visitors, some at the top faded, others at the bottom fresh. As I glanced up the long list, I saw the name: Thornton Wilder. In 1936 or 1937 he had written Our Town in the same studio where I would be working on The Touch for the next month.

  Remembering my failed evening at the theater, I added my name at the bottom of the paddle.

  4. Breaking Dishes

  IT WAS OBVIOUS TO ME in my youth that my parents wouldn't be able to send me to college, much less medical school. If I was to get a higher education, I would have to work and save.

  During summer vacations, when I was eight or nine, I quickly graduated from street corner lemonade stands to selling soda pop and sandwiches. I bought rye bread and salami at a delicatessen and made sandwiches. I bought bottles of soda pop from a nearby wholesaler and packed them in ice in my little red wagon. I sold lunches to women who worked in a garment factory on Van Sinderen Avenue, the borderline between Brownsville and East New York.

  I did very well until I was squeezed out by the owner of the delicatessen. Able to gauge my success by the increase in the size of my orders, he put his nephew to work on my route, undercut my prices, and drove me out of business.

  In the years that followed, I delivered tuxedos for weddings, assembled screwdrivers in a factory, and worked the first frozen custard machine in Brownsville. None of them paid much, but I had to save for college.

  Two other jobs that I stored away in what I later called my mental root cellar—working as a bakers boy, and later as waiter in a luncheonette—stayed hidden in deep memory until Flowers fir Algernon needed them.

  When I was fourteen, I went to work as a deliveryman's assistant for the East New York Bagel Bakery, beneath the elevated train, around the corner from where I lived. To start at four in the morning, I had to get up at three A.M. I worked until seven A.M. until the driver dropped me off at Junior High School 149. Out of school at three in the afternoon, homework, dinner, and then to bed while it was still daylight.

  At first, my job was to help the driver load the back of his van with baskets of hot bagels, some plain, some with poppy or sesame seeds, some with salt. I would sit beside him in the passenger seat while we drove to groceries and restaurants that had not yet opened for business.

  As we approached each location in the predawn hours, the driver consulted his order list and called out the size of the order. "Two dozen. One plain, one poppy."

  The back of the passenger seat had been removed, so I would turn, grasp three still-hot bagels in each hand, and call out "Six! A dozen! Six! Two dozen!" There were no baker's dozens then. Poppy- and sesame-seed bagels were painful because they scraped my fingers. But the salt-covered bagels hurt most of all when they touched my raw skin. I bagged them, and as the driver pulled to the curb I jumped out and left them in still-dark doorways.

  I remember the day he changed the route to deliver to a new customer. As we passed the corner of Livonia and Saratoga avenues, I saw lights on in a candy store. "That's strange," I said. "Maybe it's being robbed."

  He laughed. "Midnight Rose is open twenty-four hours a day. Nobody in his right mind would rob that store."

  When I asked why, he shook his head and said it wasn't too smart to ask questions about the wiseguys who hung out at Midnight Roses place.

  At about this time, I got to know an older boy whose family moved in across the street from my home on Snediker Avenue. He was training to become a boxer, he said, but since he was actually too young to box, he confided in me that he planned to use his older brother's nickname, "Kid Twist." He would fight as "The Kid."

  I told him I wished I had enough money to pay for the Adas Dynamic Tension Method so that I could put on muscles like Mr. Adas in the magazines and comic books and learn to defend myself against some of the bullies who picked on me.

  The Kid weight-lifted at the Adonis Club on Livonia Avenue, and one day he took me with him and introduced me around. Some of the musclemen laughed when they saw how skinny I was, but they were very polite to The Kid, and gave me advice on how to pump iron. I see them clearly in my mind now, standing in front of mirrors after lifting weights, flexing oiled muscles, the smell of sweat filling the air.

  Hoboes dropped in from time to time, to wash up and sometimes to sleep in the back for a night or two. I listened with fascination at their stories of hopping freight trains across the country and meeting old friends with strange names at hobo camps. I thought of quitting school and hopping a freight in the nearby rail yards to see America. Then I'd have something to write about.

  Later, I learned about "Kid" Reles's brother. I still have the newspaper clip from November 13, 1941.

  ABE RELES KILLED TRYING TO ESCAPE

  Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, a major hit man for a murder-for-hire ring, had been testifying against his confederates, and the Mafia who used their services. Early ... Wednesday, November 12, 1941, although closely guarded by five detectives, Abe Reles either jumped, fell or was pushed out of the sixth floor window of the Half Moon Hotel on the Coney Island boardwalk. Reporters dubbed him "the canary that could sing but couldn't fly."

  Then I understood what the bagel delivery driver had told me about the men who hung out at Midnight Rose's Candy Store. They were the Mafia's execution squad, and reporters called them "MurderInc.
"

  The killers operated right in my neighborhood, and received their hit contracts from the bosses in Manhattan who phoned them at the candy store. My boxer friend's brother, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, had been one of their most feared killers. Shortly after the article appeared, my friend and his family moved from the neighborhood without warning, and I never saw him again.

  I was soon promoted from the bagel delivery van to an inside job as bakers helper. Later, when I was practicing writing scenes from my own experiences, I wrote a brief sketch of my impressions of the bakery. Here, unedited, is that memory.

  The bagel factory—the smell of raw dough, and the whitened floors and walls ... working and kneading the dough in circular motions. Rolling it into long thin tubes, and then with a quick twist of the wrist making them into little circles ... another [baker] laying these out neatly in a huge shallow wooden tray ... stacking them high ... to be wheeled over to the urn and oven. There a boy stands lifting them out of the tray three at a time and throwing them into the bubbling urn ... then scooping them out, dripping and slimy, with a wire net ... dumping them on the baker's table. The baker spreads them neatly along the long wooden oar, slides them into the kiln, leaving long deep rows of bagels on wooden paddles while he fills up the next oar ... Pulls out an oar covered with browned bagels, and runs a string along beneath the bagels to separate them from the wood ... finally, dumping them into huge wicker baskets where they will be taken out into the waiting truck for delivery in the early dawn. The baker with the lame foot ... the one who has the rasping voice...

  Many years later, I used that setting in the novel version of Flowers for Algernon.

  The night shift at the bakery interfered with sleep and study and my grades suffered, so I took a job as dishwasher in Parities ice-cream parlor on Sutter Avenue. He soon promoted me to soda jerk, then to sandwich maker, counterman, and short-order cook. At sixteen, I found a better job on Pitkin Avenue, a more prestigious location near the Lowes' Pitkin Theater, to wait tables in Meyer's Goody Shoppe.