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start spending.
'Why, Oliver?'
'Because, goddammit, Jenny, I want to be taken advantage of!'
I joined the Harvard Club of New York, proposed by Raymond Stratton '64, newly returned to
civilian life after having actually shot at some Vietcong ('I'm not positive it was VC, actually. I heard
noises, so I opened fire at the bushes'). Ray and I played squash at least three times a week, and I
made a mental note, giving myself three years to become Club champion. Whether it was merely
because I had resurfaced in Harvard territory, or because word of my Law School successes had
gotten around (I didn't brag about the salary, honest), my 'friends' discovered me once more. We had
moved in at the height of the summer (I had to take a cram course for the New York bar exam), and
the first invitations were for weekends.
'Fuck 'em, Oliver. I don't want to waste two days bullshitting with a bunch of vapid preppies.'
'Okay, Jen, but what should I tell them?'
'Just say I'm pregnant, Oliver.'
'Are you? 'I asked.
'No, but if we stay home this weekend I might be.'
We had a name already picked out. I mean, I had, and I think I got Jenny to agree finally.
'Hey - you won't laugh?' I said to her, when first broaching the subject. She was in the kitchen at
the time (a yellow color-keyed thing that even included a dishwasher).
'What?' she asked, still slicing tomatoes.
'I've really grown fond of the name Bozo,' I said.
'You mean seriously?' she asked.
'Yeah. I honestly dig it.'
'You would name our child Bozo?' she asked again.
'Yes. Really. Honestly, Jen, it's the name of a super-jock.'
'Bozo Barrett.' She tried it on for size.
'Christ, he'll be an incredible bruiser,' I continued, convincing myself further with each word I
spoke. ' 'Bozo Barrett, Harvard's huge All-Ivy tackle.' '
'Yeah - but, Oliver,' she asked, 'suppose - just suppose - the kid's not coordinated?'
'Impossible, Jen, the genes are too good. Truly.' I meant it sincerely. This whole Bozo business
had gotten to be a frequent daydream of mine as I strutted to work.
I pursued the matter at dinner. We had bought great Danish china.
'Bozo will be a very well-coordinated bruiser,' I told Jenny. 'In fact, if he has your hands, we can
put him in the backfield.'
She was just smirking at me, searching no doubt for some sneaky put-down to disrupt my idyllic
vision. But lacking a truly devastating remark, she merely cut the cake and gave me a piece. And she
was still hearing me out.
'Think of it, Jenny,' I continued, even with my mouth full, 'two hundred and forty pounds of
bruising finesse.'
'Two hundred and forty pounds?' she said. 'There's nothing in our genes that says two hundred
and forty pounds, Oliver.'
'We'll feed him up, Jen. Hi-Proteen, Nutrament, the whole diet-supplement bit.'
'Oh, yeah? Suppose he won't eat, Oliver?'
'He'll eat, goddammit,' I said, getting slightly pissed off already at the kid who would soon be
sitting at our table not cooperating with my plans for his athletic triumphs. 'He'll eat or I'll break his
face.'
At which point Jenny looked me straight in the eye and smiled.
'Not if he weighs two-forty, you won't.'
'Oh,' I replied, momentarily set back, then quickly realized, 'But he won't be two-forty right away!'
'Yeah, yeah,' said Jenny, now shaking an admonitory spoon at me, 'but when he is, Preppie, start
running!' And she laughed like hell.
It's really comic, but while she was laughing I had this vision of a two-hundred-and-forty-pound
kid in a diaper chasing after me in Central Park, shouting, 'You be nicer to my mother, Preppie!'
Christ, hopefully Jenny would keep Bozo from destroying me.
17
It is not all that easy to make a baby.
I mean, there is a certain irony involved when guys who spend the first years of their sex lives
preoccupied with not getting girls pregnant (and when I first started, condoms were still in) then
reverse their thinking and become obsessed with conception and not its contra.
Yes, it can become an obsession. And it can divest the most glorious aspect of a happy married
life of its naturalness and spontaneity. I mean, to program your thinking (unfortunate verb, 'program';
it suggests a machine) - to program your thinking about the act of love in accordance with rules,
calenders, strategy ('Wouldn't it be better tomorrow morning, Ol?') can be a source of discomfort,
disgust and ultimately terror.
For when you see that your layman's knowledge and (you assume) normal healthy efforts are not
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