THE HEN GETS COCKED, a great experience in itself. The egg-making mechanism takes the initial ingredients, mixes them for a time with digested chicken feed, fashions the white and yellow into a nice balance, wraps it in a shell. Plop. But instead of another chicken, a guy comes along, snatches the egg, bangs out the contents, sucks up the juice, puts the nasty powder into an envelope, marks it air mail, sends it to you, you add water, heat and eat. All alien to the original process and purpose. I mean, even if it tasted like something! Everything swirls around me, also in a kind of balance, and I reduce it to a few hundred words, mark it air mail and send it out to you. I told you about this male-type fag instructor at school. Nice guy really. But a poor baby. Talks about faking an orgasm with his wife. Harvey said he met him in the pisseria one day, and the guy went to great lengths to explain how wrong people were to think peckers were dirty. His pecker was the cleanest part of his body. Anyway, this guy’s going off next semester to be headmaster of a fancy boys’ school in New England, and he offered me a job there, except that I have to have an M.A. Duffy told him I have a great talent, which is so. Right after you left, Duffy brought one of my stories into class and read it, the one about the guy who couldn’t laugh. I had handed it in for the senior fiction contest. Anyway, you know how Duffy runs that course, passes around mimeographed copies of stories with no author. This day he apologizes for not having had copies made and just reads. It wasn’t until he was a quarter through, that I realized it was mine. I thought it was somebody else’s story I knew by heart. Then, get this, he reads a Chekhov story and goes on to conduct a discussion about Story One and Story Two, Writer One and Writer Two. I lost, Chekhov beat me, which was as it should be. I mean, I didn’t talk to anyone for a week as it was. But really, I remember walking down along the river that afternoon, being Writer One. So I have a great talent, but what do I know from fancy boys’ schools in New England? I was pleased to be asked, you understand. You have your own house on the grounds, six M per annum, or is it anus? I said Maybe. But the M.A. Did Harvey tell you about his M. A. experience? He showed up at the initial seminar, run under the guidance of a wall-eyed grad-school prof, who kept saying Indeed. So wall-eyed that no one at the conference table knew whom he was addressing. Much confusion, and when Harvey said he wanted to do a translation of Catullus for his thesis, the guy coughed and said that Catullus had already been translated into English, a number of times. I don’t think he’s been well translated, Harvey said. Well, said the wall-eyed cougher, if you should produce the best translation of Catullus in English it would indeed be acceptable for a degree, but isn’t that rather taking a chance? You see, he went on, we must try to make a contribution to the history of ideas. For instance, if you care to describe the important occurrences of a certain year in a certain place—1712 in London, say—that would indeed be a contribution to the history of ideas. Many years and places have been covered. Many others are indeed still open. I mean, talk about powdered eggs! You didn’t take General Psychology, did you? I thought it was going to be full of wet libido. Instead the department had fallen into the hands of the behaviorists, guys with the dedication of Chinese Communists. Charting, charting, charting the responses of caged rats to various stimuli. And rats were only the beginning. The department head addressed us one day, he must have been carried away (he should have been), because he confessed that the behaviorist’s mission was someday to chart all the possible human responses to all possible stimuli. Then, he said, the human psyche would be an open book. Harvey stood up and suggested that the book might prove unwieldy. The bastards gave him a C, which screwed Phi Beta Kappa for him. Me too. If Duffy hadn’t gone on leave I would have had one. But screw it. Who cares? I care. Anyway, did I tell you I was sitting in the cafeteria with Harvey and two other guys—I don’t think you know them—and we started talking about Phi Beta Kappa keys. I said if I got one I’d wear it under my foreskin, which I noticed at the time kind of stopped conversation. Later Harvey said that was a very snotty-clever remark I had made. What remark, I said. About the foreskin. Were you unaware of the religious persuasion of our two companions, he asked. You know, I felt very bad about that, and the next time I met one of them I tried to explain that I had meant no offense, but he gave me the freeze. For Chrissake, it could make one anti-semantic. I mean, powdered eggs, man! Anyway, this male-type fag instructor and I got to talking about jobs. He was complaining how low-paying the academic life was and said that, off campus, he moved with a theatrical crowd, producers, directors, and such. That’s where the money is, he said. Or some of it. The rest, according to him, was spread among his nonworking kin. It seems he’s the only poor member (sic) of an illustrious American banking family. Do you know how much money is lost on a stage flop, he said. Two, three hundred thousand. Anyone who could tell hits from flops beforehand could make a fortune for himself. I can do that, I said. He looked at me, profoundly, mystically, and said How? Well, I said, I’d read the play first. Yes, yes, he said. I’d read the play first, and then if I liked it it would be a hit. If I didn’t like it it would be a flop. This knocked him out, because after a silence he began to mumble, Maybe you can, maybe you can. Go down to see my friend at the Burton Shotwell Agency and tell him you can do this. Tell hits from flops, I asked. Yes, and tell him I said you can do it. How about the job in the boys’ school, I said. The hell with that, he said, you can make a fortune in the theater, what do you want to teach for? Which made sense, and he gave me the guy’s name and even said he’d call him up beforehand. So today I went down to the Burton Shotwell Agency. Tremendous waiting room. Big horseshoe desk at one end, inside of which was the second-most-beautiful woman I have ever seen, the receptionist. Without looking at me—I mean, she looked over me, under me, through me—she told me to sit down and wait. I was splendiferous, she didn’t know what she was missing. And the splendor I bore was that gabardine sports jacket and a great pair of Oxford-gray English flannel slacks I got for twelve bucks, pressed to a cutting edge. I too was beautiful, I fit right in. Around this big room, along the wall, was a leather-cushioned bench, and opposite me, seated thereon, fine legs crossed, was the first-most-beautiful woman I have ever seen, reading. Walking up and down in front of her, paying no heed, was the first-most-beautiful man I have ever seen, also reading. I sat and pondered. How come these two delicious persons do not fall into each other’s arms and raise the world’s beauty quotient? After much thought I discovered why. They were actors. Anyway, I was much impressed, and their dumb show distracted me as I waited. Waited, O Christ, how I waited, feeling infinitely sorry for myself, until I chanced to look down, and there in my lap my fly bloomed. Dilemma. Should I brave out the interview thus, risking the loss of a fortune, or should I try to do myself up, chancing that these three beautiful people would think I was a pervert? After anguish I decided to invest the present in the future, and with one quick and agile flip I zippered up the jewels. Had I unconsciously been trying to appeal to the male-type fag’s friend, or have I just been reading too much neo-Freud? Anyway, the three beautiful people couldn’t have cared less, wherein lies a moral, which I leave to your definition. At last I was summoned. Extrapolating from the size of the reception room, I expected the male-type fag’s friend’s office to be de trop, the guy himself in front of a large window behind a mahogany desk, carpets and a bar and Picassos on the wall. Actually he was crouched over a metal desk in his shirt sleeves, and beside him with the tip of her can on the edge of a chair was a secretary taking dictation. Grandly I stood in the doorway. He looked up, the secretary looked up. I announced my name. Yes, he said. I announced it again, as if it had meaning. Yes, he said. I reminded him that probably his friend had called about me. Still he said Yes, and the secretary gave an impatient twitch with her can. I came to read plays, I said. His face eased. Have you got a girl, he said. What, I said. His face tightened. Have you got a girl? Yes, I said. Which was a lie, I haven’t seen Mary for three weeks. But I thought the guy wanted to know whether I was straight, especially since I had been recommended by the male-type fag. So, Yes, I said. Where is she? This question I didn’t understand. At home I guess, I said. The secretary twitched her can again. How can you read if she’s at home, he said. Well, the three of us hung on this question for longer than I care to remember, until finally it was me that understood what was going on. O you think I’m an actor, I’m not an actor, I came to read plays to see if they would be hits or flops. It sounded wretched, saying it out like that, but, after all, that was the case. The bastard made me repeat it. I came to read plays to see if they would be hits or flops, I said. Well, the can twitched, and he drew his hand across his face like sandpaper on a board. I do that, he said, Mr. Shotwell does that. And I left. I mean, I thanked him and I left. What can I say?