What was I doing in a trench coat with no clothes underneath? It must have been something I saw in a French film. It wasn’t like me, but love puts us out of our minds.
I first saw him in a Medieval History Class; he sat in the front row, always arrived a bit late, so I could catch a glimpse of him before he sat down. The professor, Marvin Becker PHD, was a real catch for our not Ivy League University in the heart of Cleveland Ohio.
I tried to concentrate on “The Waning of the Middle Ages “ but I was thinking about him. Who was he? He walked with such grace. His very black hair and the flannel lumber jack shirt he always wore. The dark semitic looks I always went for. How could I meet him?
My roommate, Dorrie, it turns out, began to talk about him. And he asked her out! I was almost sick to my stomach, but I was quiet. As she planned for the date I listened trying not to hate her.
“Joanie, isn’t he delicious? He’s a grad student getting a PHD in history. I can’t believe he asked me out after we had a coffee. He loves everything Spanish; that’s his major interest-Spanish literature and history from the inquisition to Franco. My God, he’s brilliant and he looks kind of Spanish doesn’t he? He adores Avant Garde film and Garcia Lorca and everything I adore. Music especially Mahler. He’s taking me to a concert at Severance Hall Friday night. Isn’t he dreamy? He’s in our Medieval class. We both sit in the front row.”
“I’ve never noticed him.” I lied.
Dorrie and I had been great friends. It was hard to believe the resentment I was feeling now. She was the one who convinced me to take Becker’s class at eight on Wednesday mornings. She’d wake up at seven to shower and get ready even on the coldest of Cleveland’s winter mornings.
“Get up, Joanie or you’ll miss him in his medieval robes; he’s talking about Mount Saint Michel and Chartres. It’s one of his magic moments and you’ll miss it!”
It was freezing in Cleveland in the winter of “62, all I wanted to do was stay curled up under my quilt, but somehow, Dorrie prevailed. I followed her through the snow at quarter to eight, in my ballet flats. I couldn’t find my boots that morning; the result was chill blains and a cold. But, I admit, Becker was impressive in medieval robes and hood as he lectured about the building of Chartres.
After class over coffee at The Student Union, my toes hurt like hell and Dorrie was going on and on about Cathedrals:
“Joanie, when I hear Becker talk, I’m back in the time of Chaucer. Don’t you love it when he compares the way Mount St. Michel and Chartres were built. How many centuries and people were involved in making the spires ascend to the heavens?”
My toes felt like they would fall off if I tried to walk back to the dorm. I’d just sit here letting myself thaw as my nice, skinny waif of a Jewish roommate from Highland Park talked on and on. A Jewish girl with such a passion for Cathedrals. I kept thinking of my dad back in Scarsdale ranting against the Pope and how he hadn’t helped a single Jew in the Holocaust.
The night of her date with John, I helped her pick out the ugliest sweater she owned and told her to wear red lipstick which drew attention to her pale skin and a huge zit that had blossomed near her nose.
“Oh shit, a big zit”
“You don’t really notice it.” I was really becoming a terrible liar.
I knew she had to be back by eleven, that was the curfew. If broken, a girl was “campused”…stuck in the dorm for a month after 8. I heard her open the door. I pretended to be asleep.
“Joanie are you asleep?”
“I was.”
“Oh, I just have to tell you about the date. Szell played Mahler, Bruckner and Shostakovich. It was thrilling!”
I was more tempted by The Temptations, but for Dorrie it was anything classical or Edith Piaf.
“ And John is fascinating. A bit shy, no kissing. But I’ll wait. I know where he studies in the library.”
“Where’s that?” I said in a groggy voice.
“ The History Section where you need permission to take out rare books.”
“ Dorrie, tell me more in the morning.”
“Ok, roomie, love you.”
I let out a fake snore.
A few weeks went by. Everyday Dorrie checked the little notes pinned to a bulletin board near the phone booth in our dorm. When a girl received a call, a small note would be posted there, but no note, no call. John nodded to her a few times in class and that was that.
Next to the library was a hill. It was Spring and students studied or talked on the hill overlooking a pond and the Art Museum with a big statue of Rodin’s The Thinker in front.
Every day that Spring I sat on the hill pretending to read some impressive text, probably Camus, hoping I’d run into John. And one day , I did. He was wearing that red and black checked flannel lumber Jacket. He waved and actually sat down next to me.
“HI, he said, you’re in Becker’s class Right? I see you’re reading Camus.”
“Oh, hi. Yes. I love the existentialists.”
“How do you like Becker?”
“Oh my God, I find him thrilling. That day he came to class dressed like a medieval scholar, I practically wet my pants.”
Oy, this was probably the worst thing I could say, but he laughed.
We talked for quite a while, and I found that I could make him laugh. He asked if he could walk me back to my dorm. I just hoped Dorrie wasn’t around.
He was on his way to a philosophy class.
I had taken a mandatory 101 class and what I got out of it was a rhyme I made up.
“Tired of reading Locke and Hegel? Have a bit of Lox and bagel.”
I recited this and he cracked up and then he asked me to meet him for a drink!
I was allowed beer with a small percentage of alcohol , being underage, which they served on Euclid Avenue at Tom’s Bar. We agreed to meet there the next evening.
That was how it began. We were a couple, inseparable. I had to tell Dorrie who said she’d gone back with her high school boyfriend, Hal. I’d seen pictures and he looked like an artichoke. Far from the dark good looks of my John. We spent a lot of time snuggled in his twin bed in an apartment he shared with three wonderful medical students. We listened to music and kissed.
When John was studying in another room, I’d practically memorize his record jackets so that I could sound more intelligent about classical music. I think we were sometimes undressed partially because looking at his body made me weak, He’d touch me, but he’d always say, “I don’t want to rob you of your virginity”. Meanwhile I’d envy the sounds of pleasure coming from other rooms during the night. On weekends I’d stay with John telling the dorm mother I was visiting relatives. In the morning John made the most delicious, scrambled eggs. He told me his history professor at Antioch taught him to cook when he was an undergrad; he’d come to Cleveland specifically on the urging of this professor to be mentored by Becker. We took a course together in Avant Garde film. I was fascinated by Jules et Jim, although I found it thoroughly confusing.
Soon it was almost summer. John was going to take classes in Spain. I was going back to my boring suburban home. John told me he’s write often, and the fall would be here before I knew it. The days that summer were endless. I worked in my dad’s office in the city. Dad said it would be good experience to have a real job. I didn’t consider filing papers for my dad a real job.
All that summer, I fantasized about being next to John or underneath him. As I did busy work in my dad’s office at 1407 Broadway, the textile building, filing and filling orders, I thought of him like the song “Night and Day”. As I filed orders for romantic names like Magic Symphony Underwear, Desiree Designs and Sensual Like Silk, I thought of the times I’d seen John naked when he was unaware of my gaze.
Being in that office was depressing. There was a bit of comic relief from Sally, the secretary at the front desk who had been working for dad and his brothers forever.
“Bangor Mills, good afternoon, whom shall I say is calling? Mr. Sidowski, hold on a minute please.”
“Mr. Schwartz, Sidowski from Magic Symphony on line 1.”
When the salesman Sidowski came calling, his fly was always open. He was a bald ,portly fellow who winked at me. When daddy or one of the brothers needed to signal an open fly, the password was always Sidowski.
I’d commute with my father each morning from Scarsdale in his chauffer driven car to the hot streets of the garment center.
Dad and each brother had a huge office which they shared. On the wall was a huge portrait, an ancestor portrait of Grandpa Henry who died when they were young and living in tenement on The Lower Eastside. The portrait made him look rich and regal, like an Astor or Carnegie. Behind Grandpa Henry was a kind of secret door that opened onto a fully stocked bar replete with crystal glassware and all sorts of hard liquor. And a full-size photo of Marilyn Monroe, very young before she was a movie star. She’s in tight cut off denim shorts turning around to wink. Her hair is in innocent pigtails.
I never saw my dad, or his brothers take a drink, but all the underwear salesmen including Sadowski imbibed.
I guess with enough whiskey, Sidowski winked back at Marilyn.
How slowly those weeks went by and then suddenly, there was a letter from John!
It was written in his tiny scrawl:
July 3, 1963
Dear Joan,
Had a great time in Spain especially the beautiful Siges. Hope you got my postcards. Meet me in Boston and we’ll drive back to school. Stay at my house in Newton and from there will stop at Antioch and I’ll show you my old undergrad haunts. There’s a summer session so things will be open. We can look around Boston too. I’ll show you Widener Library at Harvard and the museum of Fine Arts and the Isabel Gardner. So, let’s pick a time near the end of August.
Fondly,
John L.
Fondly not love. But, oh well, he’s shy. I was still excited. Meeting his parents, seeing his college, maybe sleeping in a motel! He was sharing his history. An important sign.
Before I left for Boston, mother lectured me on saving it for marriage.
“Don’t let any man pressure you into something you’ll regret.”
I was thinking about John’s “Not robbing me of virginity remark”, and I so wanted to be robbed.
I packed all my best things, the new things that looked bohemian, and the Pappagallo flats, and took the shuttle to Boston.
John picked me up in his little red VW ; we kissed, and I never felt happier. We toured Boston before driving to John’s house in Newton which looked a lot like Scarsdale. His parents were nothing like mine. His dad was a professor at Harvard, of something, an intellectual, always in the distance. His mother put me in his old childhood bedroom and John in the guest room. She was quite a beauty in a Frida Kahlo way, her black hair pulled back in a tight bun. Breakfast felt uncomfortable. His parents asked me no questions and I didn’t know what to say.
When we were back in his red VW headed to Ohio, John said:
“ My mother said you were ripe.”
This stung. It was like something one man would say to another about a woman on a barstool somewhere. I tried to forget it as we journeyed to Yellow Springs Ohio, home of Antioch college, famous for its liberal students and democratic ideals. It had been a stop on The Underground Railroad and was integrated way before other colleges.
As we passed trees and fields changing for Autumn, I thought of the small town in Pennsylvania where I spent my first years. It was so beautiful, and I felt content. I forgot all about his mother’ remark as I sat as close to John as I could.
We made a stop at a real commune filled with hippies; I had never met a real hippie though I tried to look like one, hair parted down the middle like Joan Baez clad in earth colors. John had an old friend who was part of the commune. It was still warm enough to sleep in their houses in the trees. The men and women all had long hair, wore sandals, smoked pot. They were vegan; except when a baby was born and then they ate the placenta. I was enchanted.
After a tasteless vegetarian meal, maybe it needed a placenta, John drove me to the woman’s dorm.
“I thought we’d be staying together”, I said.
“I thought you’d enjoy meeting some Antioch girls.”
My heart fell to the floor.
“I’m staying with old friends. I’ll drop off my stuff and introduce you.”
The rest of the night is a blur. I don’t remember who the friends were. But the dorm was not far from the house. I couldn’t sleep. I listened to strange girls and moaning in the night. I got out of bed, removed my nightgown and wearing just my trench coat, I left the dorm. It was chilly and a ran quickly in my bare feet to the house where John was staying. Was I flying on the wings of love or fear?
I found John asleep on a couch in the front room; he looked beautiful as he slept. I was reminded of Michelangelo’s David in the Cleveland Art Museum. I never passed it without thinking of John.
And then he woke up!
“What are you doing here?”
I slowly peeled off the coat exposing my chilly young body.
The trouble with remembering is that it always involves some form of forgetting. But this is what I remember:
John looked sad and angry when I said, “I love you. I want you to be the first.”
“Sit down, Joan.”
I sat down on the couch, and he looked at me in an odd way.
“There’s this professor here at Antioch, a history professor. I’ve had a love affair with him.”
“The man who taught you to make eggs?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the bathroom?”, I asked.
I vomited into the toilet as he stood outside the bathroom asking, “Are you ok?”
I didn’t think I’d ever be ok. He walked me back to the door in silence.
I didn’t sleep. I wondered why he had asked me here over and over again.
The trip back to Cleveland was silent too. The radio played Dylan.
When he dropped me off, John told me he was transferring to Berkeley to work on his PHD.
And then: “ If I could love a woman in the way you want, it would be you.”
For years I wondered how I didn’t know what I didn’t know and how could I have been taken in when there was nothing underneath?