Richard Feynman - “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” - Adventures of a Curious Character

“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.