Portnoy’s Complaint

"I'm going to Iowa," I tell them from the phone booth on my floor. "To where?" "To Davenport, Iowa." "On your first college vacation?!" "-I know, but it's a great opportunity, and I can't turn it down-" " Opportunity ? To do what?" "Yes, to spend Thanksgiving with this boy named Bill Campbell's family-" "Who?" " Campbell. Like the soup. He lives in my dorm-" But they are expecting me. Everybody is expecting me. Morty has the tickets to the game. What am I talking opportunity? "And who is this boy all of a sudden, Campbell?" "My friend! Bill!" "But;' says my father, "the cider" Oh my God, it's happened, what I swore I wouldn't permit!-I am in tears, and "cider" is the little word that does it. The man is a natural-he could go on Groucho Marx and win a fortune guessing the secret-woid. He guesses mine, every single time! And wins my jackpot of contrition! "I can't back out, I’m sorry, I've accepted-we're going!" "Going? And how, Alex-I don't understand this plan at all," interrupts my mother-"how are you going, if I may be so bold, and where? and in a convertible too, that too-" "NO!" "And if the highways are icy, Alex-" "We're going. Mother, in a Sherman tank! Okay? Okay?" "Alex," she says sternly, "I hear it in your voice, I know you're not telling me the whole truth, you're going to hitchhike in a convertible or some other crazy thing-two months away from home, seventeen years old, and he's going wild!"

Sixteen years ago I made that phone call. A little more than half the age I am now. November 1950-here, it's tattooed on my wrist, the date of my Emancipation Proclamation. Children unborn when I first telephoned my parents to say I wasn't coming home from college are just entering college, I suppose-only I’m still telephoning my parents to say I'm not coming home! Fighting off my family, still! What use to skip those two grades in grammar school and get such a jump on everybody else, when the result is to wind up so far behind? My early promise is legend: starring in all those grade-school plays! taking on at the age of twelve the entire DAR! Why then do I live by myself and have no children of my own? It's no non sequitur, that question! Professionally I'm going somewhere, granted, but privately-what have I got to show for myself? Children should be playing on this earth who look like me! Why not? Why should every shtunk with a picture window and a carport have offspring, and not me? It don't make sense! Think of it, half the race is over, and I still stand here at the starting line-me, the first one out of his swaddling clothes and into his track suit! a hundred and fifty-eight points of I.Q., and still arguing with the authorities about the rules and regulations! disputing the course to be run! calling into question the legitimacy of the track commission! Yes, "crab" is correct, Mother!"Sourball" is perfect, right on The Nose's nose! "Mr. Conniption-Fit"- cest moi!

Another of these words I went through childhood thinking of as "Jewish." Conniption. "Go ahead, have a conniption-fit," my mother would advise. "See if it changes anything, my brilliant son." And how I tried! How I used to hurl myself against the walls of her kitchen! Mr. Hot-Under-The Collar! Mr. Hit-The-Ceiling! Mr. Fly-Off-The- Handle! The names I earn for myself! God forbid somebody should look at you cockeyed, Alex, their life isn't worth two cents! Mr. Always-Right-And-Never-Wrong! Grumpy From The Seven Dwarfs Is Visiting Us, Daddy. Ah, Hannah, Your Brother Surly Has Honored Us With His Presence This Evening, It's A Pleasure To Have You, Surly. "Hi Ho Silver," she sighs, as I rush into my bedroom to sink my fangs into the bedspread, "The Temper Tantrum Kid Rides Again."

Near the end of our junior year Kay missed a period, and so we began, and with a certain eager delight-and wholly without panic, interestingly-to make plans to be married. We would offer ourselves as resident baby-sitters to a young faculty couple who were fond of us; in return they would give us their roomy attic to live in, and a shelf to use in their refrigerator. We would wear old clothes and eat spaghetti. Kay would write poetry about having a baby, and, she said, type term papers for extra money. We had our scholarships, what more did we need? (besides a mattress, some bricks and boards for bookshelves, Kay's Dylan Thomas record, and in time, a crib). We thought of ourselves as adventurers.

I said, "And you'll convert, right?"

I intended the question to be received as ironic, or thought I had. But Kay took it seriously. Not solemnly, mind you, just seriously.

Kay Campbell, Davenport, Iowa: "Why would I want to do a thing like that?"