Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker (7 page)

LEON MATRIX (Sets and Lighting) is one of our most versatile designers, whose work ranges from the long-running
Leafy Green Vegetables
to the costumes for
Mary’s Nose.
Trained under Schlemmer and Gropius, he did pioneering work at both the Bauhaus and the Bau-wau-haus, the avant-garde Theatre for Hounds he designed for Piscator in Berlin. More recently, he won the rarely awarded Mortimer for
Roach!,
the musical version of Kafka’s
Metamorphosis,
which will be presented on Broadway every season by David Merrick. He is four feet tall.

ARNOLD BATFISH (Author) spent several years as an advertising copywriter and burst upon the theatrical scene with a cathartic evening of one-acters:
Spearmint, Doublemint,
and
Excremint,
which won him both a Nudlicer and a Peavy. His dental trilogy,
Drill, Fill,
and
Rinse, Please,
was hailed as the finest American dental writing in fifty years and was compared to Gogol’s
The Overbite
and Sophocles’
Oedipus in Pyorrhea.
Mr. Batfish resides with his wife, Laura, and her wife, Leslie, at Nutmeat College, North Carolina, where he holds the Robert Goulet Chair of Dramaturgy.

AHMET ERGOTAMINE (Producer) has been represented on Broadway by
Goodbye, My Toes
and the smash hit musical
Morons Over Manhattan,
currently in its third season. In association with Max Rubric he produced
The Man in the Paper Pants
and
The Smell of Shapiro
for the Colloid Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. Mr. Ergotamine’s reputation as a promotional genius dates from 1950, when he employed a chimpanzee in a miter to unicycle through the theatre district to publicize his knockabout religious farce,
Bishopzapoppin!
His innovative all-black production of
The Dance of Death
was followed by an equally successful all-male-Pakistani
Riders to the Sea
and an all-parrot
Importance of Being Earnest.
Next spring, he will produce
Death of a Salesman
in New Orleans with everyone (cast and audience) wearing giant papier-mâché Mardi Gras heads, borrowed from the Grand Krewe of the Knights of Toulouse.

1976

DANIEL MENAKER

HEALTH DEPARTMENT LISTS RESTAURANT VIOLATIONS

S
EPTEMBER
27—The New York City Health Department has cited the following restaurants, food shops, and other eating places for violations of the health code:

P. J. Murphy’s, 1100 Second Avenue: early-seventies jukebox.

Au Contraire Restaurant, 79 East 54th Street: gross disproportion of foundation executives among clientele.

Tyrone X. Shabazz Nation of Islam Cafeteria, 79 West 148th Street: reverse-quota seating.

Joe’s Spot Food Shop, 987 Amsterdam Avenue: abandoned automobile in kitchen.

Gang of Four Shanghai Restaurant, 37 Mott Street: makes hungry where most it satisfies.

One Man’s Meat Antivegetarian Restaurant, 34–561⁄4 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn: trace elements of soybean extender in chopped round steak.

Zoom ’n’ Dolly Avant-Garde Triplex Theatre Candy Stand, 9 Greenwich Avenue (third-floor hallway): no Jujubes.

Jekyll’s Deli, 10 East 7th Street: dropping rodents.

The Upper Crust Penthouse Restaurant, 665 Fifth Avenue: overt ridiculing of tip.

Let’s Eat Right to Get Off Health Food Café, 37 St. Marks Place: undernourished waiters.

Sauce for the Moose Alaskan Hideaway, Jerome Avenue and 210th Street: fused after-dinner mints.

VIOLATIONS CORRECTED

Mi-Mi-Mi Opera Café, 49 West 66th Street: “I Loves You, Porgy” dropped from singing waiters’ repertoire.

Nadine’s Bigshot Hangout, Third Avenue and 89th Street: Tongsun Park barred from premises.

INSPECTOR VANISHED

Punch Bowl S&M Diner, 294 11th Avenue.

1977

CHARLES M
C
GRATH

THE DELTS OF VENUS

(SELECTIONS FROM ANOTHER VOLUME OF EARLY WRITINGS BY ANISE NUN)

PREFACE

Gomez told me about the Collector. I was living in Paris, finishing up the eleventh installment of my memoirs of infantile sexuality, and I was so poor that for days on end I ate nothing but string and leaves. Gomez said that the Collector would pay a dollar a page for stories about sport.

“Well,” I said, “we know a little about sport, eh, Gomez?”

What else was I to do? Arnold needed cash for some dental work, Helga needed wallpaper for her garret, and Lazlo wanted to hire a dozen convent girls for his experimental film. So Gomez told me the story of the Stewardess and the Swedish National Track Team, and I wrote it up for the Collector. A day or two later, the Collector called me on the telephone. “More action,” he said. “Leave out that sex stuff and just give me the sport.”

I swore that never again would I work for a man so cold and unfeeling—so insensitive to the true sport of love—but Arnold wanted money for opium, Helga’s cat needed an operation, and Lazlo wanted to buy a dozen see-through middy blouses. Swallowing my pride, I wrote for the Collector the stories published here.

—
ANISE NUN

EUGÉNIE AND THE BARON

When Eugénie awoke, it was late in the afternoon, the draperies were drawn, and the Baron was sitting in a velvet-covered chaise, smoking and regarding her coldly. He was wearing a soft peaked cap and a loosely cut suit of fine striped flannel, and his eyes had the fixed, hypnotic gaze of an animal, or of a man who has not slept for several months. There were furs on the floor, exotic plants in the window, and a replica of the American League pennant of 1975 hung from the ceiling.

When the Baron saw Eugénie begin to stir, he crushed out his cigarette, strode over to the bed, and pulled back the sheets. “Here, put this on,” he said, handing her a catcher’s mask. “And this, too.” He slipped a chest protector over her chemise and began fastening the straps in back. Eugénie felt his warm breath on her shoulder and she quivered involuntarily. He smelled of stale popcorn.

“That’s too tight,” she said. Her skin was very sensitive, and she was afraid the leather would give her an equipment rash.

“They’ll work themselves loose,” the Baron said hoarsely, and then he held the mitt out to her. It was huge and fat, laced at the bottom, and had a deep, soft pocket. Burned into it were the words “Official Yogi Berra.”

“Please,” Eugénie said. “I don’t feel like it right now.”

The Baron said nothing but led her out into the long hallway and motioned for her to crouch. “Just give me a target,” he whispered. “Give me a good target.”

The Baron paced off sixty and one-half feet along the carpet, then turned and—softly at first, then faster and harder—began throwing to Eugénie a hard white ball, which she caught, reluctantly, and tossed back to him. After a while a light sweat broke out on the Baron’s forehead, and Eugénie could hear him begin to breathe heavily. The throws came even faster now, and the ball began to move curiously, shooting down and to the inside, or else at times seeming to pause a moment and then soaring up and away. Eugénie was still tense and uncertain, but the shape of the Baron’s leg, as he kicked it toward the ceiling just before delivery, was so graceful and the arc of the ball as it spun and curved through the air was so vivid and poignant that she felt a part of herself begin to thaw. Her left hand, inside the dark, odorous mitt, grew warm and then began to tingle with a kind of delicious pain, and, without entirely willing it, Eugénie found herself calling out, “Hum, baby, hum. Atta boy. No batter, no batter. Way to go, way to go,
babe!
”

MARIE

Marie had fallen into a way of life that caused her family and relatives to disown her. She lived above an all-night lanes in Montparnasse, and she liked to bowl for money. Her father, who was dying of consumption, prevailed on her to change her habits, and he obtained for Marie a position as a governess in a large house on the Rue Victor-Massé. The work was not arduous—it consisted simply of caring for a small boy named Pierre and wearing sheer black stockings and a garter belt so intricate that only the Master knew how to fasten it—but Marie soon grew restless. At night she had difficulty sleeping, and thrashed in bed for hours, practicing her four-step approach and her body English.

At last Marie could bear this state of craving no more, and early one morning, before the sun was up and while the rest of the house was still asleep, she stole into Pierre’s room and gently shook him awake. “Pierre, darling, I have a surprise for you,” she said softly, full of self-loathing and yet unable to help herself. “Something very nice.”

She helped the boy off with his pajamas—his skin, as she allowed her hands to linger over it, was smooth and almost unnaturally cool, like the finish on a duckpin—and she dressed him in powder-blue Sans-a-Belt slacks and an open-collared satin shirt with the words “Café Joe” embroidered on the back.

“What a lovely boy you are!” said Marie. Breathlessly, she handed him a bowling ball. “Roll it,” she whispered. “Let me see you roll it.”

Pierre looked at her questioningly, and a faint blush came to his cheeks.

“Surely you must have bowled before,” said Marie. “Perhaps with one of your little chums?”

“No,” said the boy timidly.

“A big strong boy like you? Never been bowling? I don’t believe it.”

“No, really,” said Pierre.

“But you know how, don’t you?” Marie said gently. “Haven’t the boys in school told you how?”

Pierre nodded shyly.

“Well, then!” Marie laughed. “Now I will teach you some things they
didn’t
tell you. I will teach you some things even Papa doesn’t know!”

Arranging ten of Pierre’s lead soldiers in a triangle on the nursery floor, Marie showed the boy how to make the 4–10 split, how to handle the groove in a worn-down lane, and how to put a duck hook on the ball so that it slammed into the pocket from the Brooklyn side. “There!” she said, her bosom heaving. “Now you try, and if you’re a very nice boy I’ll tell you about Bowling for Francs.”

MATHILDE, GEORG, AND THE KNICKS

Mathilde was young, wealthy, and very beautiful—she had many lovers—but she had never been to see the Knicks. The one man she wished to share this experience with, a tall Hungarian named Georg, for many weeks refused to oblige her. Finally, he yielded to her entreaties, and on a soft, rainy evening in March they took the A train together to Madison Square Garden, to catch the Knicks and SuperSonics.

The game proved to be all that Mathilde had hoped, with the Knicks jumping away to an early lead on three dazzling picks by Bob McAdoo, and before the end of the first quarter she had grown feverish with excitement. Her lips were moist, hoarse cries issued from her throat, and at crucial free throws her hand unconsciously sought out Georg’s. Mathilde then understood why so many men refused to introduce their lovers to the Knicks: they feared awakening in them an insatiable passion. Georg, however, was behaving very strangely, almost as if he were afraid of her ardor, and in the last quarter she noticed that his eyes were tightly shut. On their way home in a cab after the game, Georg sighed and told Mathilde this story:

“When I was fourteen, and still innocent, my family lived in a dangerously overheated apartment in Budapest, which had a great many balconies. I was bored, with nothing to do but wander aimlessly back and forth from one balcony to the next, and one afternoon when I was doing this I noticed a woman shooting baskets across the courtyard. She was wearing filmy black knee socks, boxer shorts, and a halter made of feathers, and she was tossing two-handed jumpers into a basket that had been attached to a marble column. I felt sure she knew she was being watched, but she gave no sign; instead, she tried more and more difficult shots: hooks, driving layups, double pumps, and even a behind-the-back slam dunk. Observing her gave me the most intense pleasure imaginable. ‘She must think I’m a scout,’ I murmured to myself.

“The next day, I went out on the balcony carrying a clipboard and binoculars and wearing a whistle around my neck. As if by magic, the woman appeared again, clothed this time in a sweatsuit of diaphanous gauze, and rewarded me with a display of shot-making worthy of the great Doctor J himself. These scenes continued every day for more than a week, and then one morning when I stepped out onto my balcony I saw that the basket had been torn down and the woman’s windows boarded up. My father had found out, you see. That evening, he sent me to my room for three years.”

“Oh, poor darling,” Mathilde said, covering Georg with kisses. “And you never saw the woman again?”

“Worse than that,” Georg said, blushing furiously. “The truth is, I can take no pleasure in the Knicks unless I watch them with my binoculars on the television set of the doorman in the lobby across the street.”

YVONNE, GISÈLE, THE BASQUE, AND THE CUBAN

It was a languid, febrile afternoon, and the Basque stirred with euphoria and anticipation. It seemed to him as he hurried along the Rue de Rivoli that all over Paris there were raised enclosures fenced with chicken wire, where people cavorted wantonly, and that every man he passed was carrying, like himself, a pair of sneaks and a dark wooden paddle suggestively perforated.

The Basque met Gisèle in the doorway of the English bookstore (she was wearing white fur warmups and a pair of extremely low-cut Adidas), and together they ascended the stairs that led to the rooftop. “My husband almost found us out,” Gisèle whispered to the Basque, trembling and pressing herself against him. “He asked where I was going dressed up like this, and I told him I was just popping out for some absinthe.”

“We will make it fast,” said the Basque. “Who are our opponents today?”

“There’s Yvonne, who was a friend of mine at school,” said Gisèle. “She has mastered many unusual strokes, and you will like her very much, I know. And then the Cuban. I have never met him, but it is said he possesses a top-spin backhand taught to him by André Gide himself.”