Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (30 page)

At first I was a little bit afraid: the girls were so beautiful, they had such a reputation, and so forth. I would try to meet them, and I’d choke a little bit when I talked. It was difficult at first, but gradually it got easier, and finally I had enough confidence that I wasn’t afraid of anybody.

I had a way of having adventures which is hard to explain: it’s like fishing, where you put a line out and then you have to have patience. When I would tell someone about some of my adventures, they might say, “Oh, come on–let’s _do_ that!” So we would go to a bar to see if something will happen, and they would lose patience after twenty minutes or so. You have to spend a couple of _days_ before something happens, on average. I spent a lot of time talking to show girls. One would introduce me to another, and after a while, something interesting would often happen.

I remember one girl who liked to drink Gibsons. She danced at the Flamingo Hotel, and I got to know her rather Well. When I’d come into town, I’d order a Gibson put at her table before she sat down, to announce my arrival.

One time I went over and sat next to her and she said, “I’m with a man tonight–a high-roller from Texas.” (I had already heard about this guy. Whenever he’d play at the craps table, everybody would gather around to see him gamble.) He came back to the table where we were sitting, and my show girl friend introduced me to him.

The first thing he said to me was, “You know somethin’? I lost sixty thousand dollars here last night.”

I knew what to do: I turned to him, completely unimpressed, and I said, “Is that supposed to be smart, or stupid?”

We were eating breakfast in the dining room. He said, “Here, let me sign your check. They don’t charge me for all these things because I gamble so much here.”

“I’ve got enough money that I don’t need to worry about who pays for my breakfast, thank you.” I kept putting him down each time he tried to impress me.

He tried everything: how rich he was, how much oil he had in Texas, and nothing worked, because I knew the formula!

We ended up having quite a bit of fun together.

One time when we were sitting at the bar he said to me, “You see those girls at the table over there? They’re whores from Los Angeles.”

They looked very nice; they had a certain amount of class.

He said, “Tell you what I’ll do: I’ll introduce them to you, and then I’ll pay for the one you want.”

I didn’t feel like meeting the girls, and I knew he was saying that to impress me, so I began to tell him no. But then I thought, “This is something! This guy is trying so hard to impress me, he’s willing to _buy_ this for me. If I’m ever going to tell the story . . . So I said to him, “Well, OK, introduce me.”

We went over to their table and he introduced me to the girls and then went off for a moment. A waitress came around and asked us what we wanted to drink. I ordered some water, and the girl next to me said, “Is it all right if I have a champagne?”

“You can have whatever you want,” I replied, coolly, ’cause _you’re_ payin’ for it.”

“What’s the matter with you?” she said. “Cheapskate, or something?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re certainly not a gentleman!” she said indignantly.

“You figured me out immediately!” I replied. I had learned in New Mexico many years before _not_ to be a gentleman.

Pretty soon they were offering to buy me drinks–the tables were turned completely! (By the way, the Texas oilman never came back.)

After a while, one of the girls said, “Let’s go over to the El Rancho. Maybe things are livelier over there.” We got in their car. It was a nice car, and they were nice people. On the way, they asked me my name.

“Dick Feynman.”

“Where are you from, Dick? What do you do?”

“I’m from Pasadena; I work at Caltech.”

One of the girls said, “Oh, isn’t that the place where that scientist Pauling comes from?”

I had been in Las Vegas many times, over and over, and there was _nobody_ who ever knew anything about science. I had talked to businessmen of all kinds, and to them, a scientist was a nobody. “Yeah!” I said, astonished.

“And there’s a fella named Gellan, or something like that–a physicist.” I couldn’t believe it. I was riding in a car full of prostitutes and they know all this stuff!

“Yeah! His name is Gell-Mann! How did you happen to know that?”

“Your pictures were in _Time_ magazine.” It’s true, they had pictures of ten U.S. scientists in _Time_ magazine, for some reason. I was in it, and so were Pauling and Gell-Mann.

“How did you remember the names?” I asked.

“Well, we were looking through the pictures, and we picked out the youngest and the handsomest!” (Gell-Mann is younger than I am.)

We got to the El Rancho Hotel and the girls continued this game of acting towards me like everybody normally acts towards them: “Would you like to gamble?” they asked. I gambled a little bit with their money and we all had a good time.

After a while they said, “Look, we see a live one, so we’ll have to leave you now,” and they went back to work.

One time I was sitting at a bar and I noticed two girls with an older man. Finally he walked away, and they came over and sat next to me: the prettier and more active one next to me, and her duller friend, named Pam, on the other side.

Things started going along very nicely right away. She was very friendly. Soon she was leaning against me, and I put my arm around her. Two men came in and sat at a table nearby. Then, before the waitress came, they walked out.

“Did you see those men?” my new-found friend said.

“Yeah.”

“They’re friends of my husband.”

“Oh? What _is_ this?”

“You see, I just married John Big”–she mentioned a very famous name–“and we’ve had a little argument. We’re on our honeymoon, and John is always gambling. He doesn’t pay any attention to me, so I go off and enjoy myself, but he keeps sending spies around to check on what I’m doing.”

She asked me to take her to her motel room, so we went in my car. On the way I asked her, “Well, what about John?”

She said, “Don’t worry. Just look around for a big red car with two antennas. If you don’t see it, he’s not around.”

The next night I took the “Gibson girl” and a friend of hers to the late show at the Silver Slipper, which had a show later than all the hotels. The girls who worked in the other shows liked to go there, and the master of ceremonies announced the arrival of the various dancers as they came in. So in I went with these two _lovely_ dancers on my arm, and he said, “And here comes Miss So-and-so and Miss So-and-so from the Flamingo!” Everybody looked around to see who was coming in. I felt _great!_

We sat down at a table near the bar, and after a little while there was a bit of a flurry–waiters moving tables around, security guards, with guns, coming in. They were making room for a celebrity. JOHN BIG was coming in!

He came over to the bar, right next to our table, and right away two guys wanted to dance with the girls I brought. They went off to dance, and I was sitting alone at the table when John came over and sat down at my table. “How _are_ yah?” he said. “Whattya doin’ in Vegas?”

I was sure he’d found out about me and his wife. “Just foolin’ around . . .” (I’ve gotta act tough, right?)

“How long ya been here?”

“Four or five nights.”

“I know ya,” he said. “Didn’t I see you in Florida?”

“Well, I really don’t know. .

He tried this place and that place, and I didn’t know what he was getting at. “I know,” he said; “It was in El Morocco.” (El Morocco was a big nightclub in New York, where a lot of big operators go–like professors of theoretical physics, right?)

“That must have been it,” I said. I was wondering when he was going to get _to_ it. Finally he leaned over to me and said, “Hey, will you introduce me to those girls you’re with when they come back from dancing?”

That’s all he wanted; he didn’t know me from a hole in the wall! So I introduced him, but my show girl friends said they were tired and wanted to go home.

The next afternoon, I saw John Big at the Flamingo, standing at the bar, talking to the bartender about cameras and taking pictures. He must be an amateur photographer: He’s got all these bulbs and cameras, but he says the dumbest things about them. I decided he wasn’t an amateur photographer after all; he was just a rich guy who bought himself some cameras.

I figured by that time that he didn’t know I had been fooling around with his wife; he only wanted to talk to me because of the girls I had. So I thought I would play a game. I’d invent a part for myself: John Big’s assistant.

“Hi, John,” I said. “Let’s take some pictures. I’ll carry your flashbulbs.”

I put the flashbulbs in my pocket, and we started off taking pictures. I’d hand him flashbulbs and give him advice here and there; he _likes_ that stuff.

We went over to the Last Frontier to gamble, and he started to win. The hotels don’t like a high roller to leave, but I could see he wanted to go. The problem was how to do it gracefully.

“John, we have to leave now,” I said in a serious voice.

“But I’m winning.”

“Yes, but we _have_ made an appointment this afternoon.”

“OK, get my car.”

“Certainly, Mr. Big!” He handed me the keys and told me what it looked like (I didn’t let on that I knew).

I went out to the parking lot, and sure enough, there was this big, fat, wonderful car with the two antennas. I climbed into it and turned the key–and it wouldn’t start. It had an automatic transmission; they had just come out and I didn’t know anything about them. After a bit I accidentally shifted it into PARK and it started. I drove it very carefully, like a million-dollar car, to the hotel entrance, where I got out and went inside to the table where he was still gambling, and said, “Your car is ready, sir!”

“I have to quit,” he announced, and we left.

He had me drive the car. “I want to go to the El Rancho,” he said. “Do you know any girls there?”

I knew one girl there rather well, so I said “Yeah.” By this time I felt confident enough that the only reason he was going along with this game I had invented was that he wanted to meet some girls, so I brought up a delicate subject: “I met your wife the other night..

“My wife? My wife’s not here in Las Vegas.”

I told him about the girl I met in the bar.

“Oh! I know who you mean; I met that girl and her friend in Los Angeles and brought them to Las Vegas. The first thing they did was use my phone for an hour to talk to their friends in Texas. I got mad and threw ‘em out! So she’s been going around telling everybody that she’s my wife, eh?”

So _that_ was cleared up.

We went into the El Rancho, and the show was going to start in about fifteen minutes. The place was packed; there wasn’t a seat in the house. John went over to the majordomo and said, “I want a table.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Big! It will be ready in a few minutes.”

John tipped him and went off to gamble. Meanwhile I went around to the back, where the girls were getting ready for the show, and asked for my friend. She came out and I explained to her that John Big was with me, and he’d like some company after the show.

“Certainly, Dick,” she said. “I’ll bring some friends and we’ll see you after the show.”

I went around to the front to find John. He was still gambling. “Just go in without me,” he said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

There were two tables, at the very front, right at the edge of the stage. Every other table in the place was packed. I sat down by myself. The show started before John came in, and the show girls came out. They could see me at the table, all by myself. Before, they thought I was some small-time. professor; now they see I’m a BIG OPERATOR.

Finally John came in, and soon afterwards some people sat down at the table next to us–John’s “wife” and her friend Pam, with two men!

I leaned over to John: “She’s at the other table.”

“Yeah.”

She saw I was taking care of John, so she leaned over to me from the other table and asked, “Could I talk to John?”

I didn’t say a word. John didn’t say anything either.

I waited a little while, then I leaned over to John: “She wants to talk to you.”

Then he waited a little bit. “All right,” he said.

I waited a little more, and then I leaned over to her: “John will speak to you now.”

She came over to our table. She started working on “Johnnie,” sitting very close to him. Things were beginning to get straightened out a little bit, I could tell.

I love to be mischievous, so every time they got things straightened out a little bit, I reminded John of something: “The telephone, John . . .”

“Yeah!” he said. “What’s the idea, spending an hour on the telephone?”

She said it was Pam who did the calling.

Things improved a little bit more, so I pointed out that it was her idea to _bring_ Pam.

“Yeah!” he said. (I was having a great time playing this game; it went on for quite a while.)

When the show was over, the girls from the El Rancho came over to our table and we talked to them until they had to go back for the next show. Then John said, “I know a nice little bar not too far away from here. Let’s go over there.”

I drove him over to the bar and we went in. “See that woman over there?” he said. “She’s a really good lawyer. Come on, I’ll introduce you to her.”

John introduced us and excused himself to go to the restroom. He never came back. I think he wanted to get back with his “wife” and I was beginning to interfere.

I said, “Hi” to the woman and ordered a drink for myself (still playing this game of not being impressed and not being a gentleman).

“You know,” she said to me, “I’m one of the better lawyers here in Las Vegas.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” I replied coolly. “You might be a lawyer during the day, but you know what you are right now? You’re just a barfly in a small bar in Vegas.”

She liked me, and we went to a few places dancing. She danced very well, and I _love_ to dance, so we had a great time together.

Then, all of a sudden in the middle of a dance, my back began to hurt. It was some kind of big pain, and it started suddenly. I know now what it was: I had been up for three days and nights having these crazy adventures, and I was completely _exhausted_.