Erich Segal - The Class

“Thanks, but I never touch the stuff,” he replied.

His glance made them curiously self-conscious about their attire.

“The final dinner, huh?” he inquired. “Yeah,” Wig replied casually.

“The Porc?” he asked.

“Right the first time,” Newall sang out.

But neither Mike nor Dick sensed the tinge of bitterness in Jason’s voice.

“Was it a tough decision, guys?” he asked.

“Not really,” said Wig. “We had a couple of other options, but the P.C. seemed the most attractive.”

“Oh,” said Jason. “It must feel great to be wanted.”

“You ought to know,” Newall quipped. “Every lovely at The Cliffe burns incense to your picture.”

Jason didn’t smile. “That’s probably because they don’t realize I’m a leper.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Gilbert?” Andrew asked.

“I’m talking about the fact that while almost every guy I know got at least one invitation to the first punch of a club, I wasn’t even asked by the lowly BAT. I never realized I was such an asshole.”

“Come on, Jason,” Newall said reassuringly. “Final Clubs are a bunch of crap.”

“I’m sure they are,” he replied. “Which is why you guys are all thrilled to be joining one. I just thought that being tuned to the club mentality, you might have some notion as to what precisely they found so obnoxious about me.”

Newall, Wig, and Andrew looked uncomfortably at one another, wondering who would have to explain to Jason what they had assumed was obvious. Andrew could see that his roommates weren’t up to it. So he made a stab at the not-so-commendable facts of Harvard life.

“Hey, Jason,” he began. “Who are the guys that mostly get asked to the clubs?

Preppies from St. Paul’s, Mark’s, Groton. It’s kind of a common bond. You know, birds of a feather flocking together and so forth. You can see what I mean?”

“Sure,” Gilbert retorted ironically. “I just didn’t go to the right prep school, huh?”

“Yeah,” Wig quickly agreed. “Right on target.”

To which Jason replied, “Horseshit.”

There was a deathly silence in the room. Finally Newall grew annoyed that Jason had broken their mellow mood.

“For Christ’s sake, Gilbert, why the hell should a Final Club have to take Jews? I mean, would the Hillel Society want me?”

“That’s a religious organization, dammit! And they wouldn’t want me. I mean, I’m not even —”

He stopped, his sentence half-completed. For a moment, Andrew thought that Jason had been about to say he wasn’t Jewish. But that would be absurd. Could a Negro stand there and suggest he wasn’t black?

“Hey, listen, Newall,” Wigglesworth piped up, “the guy’s our friend. Don’t piss him off more than he is.”

“I’m not pissed off,” Jason said in a quiet fury. “Let’s just say I’m uncomfortably enlightened. Good night, birds, sorry to have interrupted your flocking together.”

He turned and left the room.

That called for another round of brandy and a philosophical observation from Michael Wigglesworth. “Why’s a neat guy like Jason that defensive about his background? I mean, there’s nothing so bad about being Jewish. Unless you really care about stupid things like Final Clubs.”

“Or being President of the United States,” added Andrew Eliot.

November 16, 1955

Dear Dad,

I didn’t get into a Final Club. I know in the scheme of things it’s not that important, and I really don’t care that much about having another place to go and drink.

Still, what really bothers me is that I wasn’t even considered. And most of all the reason why.

When I finally worked up the guts to ask some of my friends (at least I always thought they were my friends) for an explanation, they didn’t pussyfoot around. They just came straight out and told me that the Final Clubs never take Jews. Actually, they put it in such a genteel way that it hardly sounded like prejudice.

Dad, this is the second time I’ve been rejected for something simply because people regard me as Jewish.

How do you reconcile this with the fact that you’ve always told me we were Americans “just like everybody else”? I believed you — and I still want to. But somehow the world doesn’t seem to share your opinion.

Perhaps being Jewish is not something you can remove like a change of clothing.

Maybe that’s why we’re getting all of the prejudice and none of the pride.

There are lots of really gifted people here at Harvard who think being Jewish is some kind of special honor. That confuses me as well. Because now more than ever I’m not sure exactly what a Jew is. I just know lots of people think I’m one.

Dad, I’m terribly confused and so I’m turning for help to the person I respect most in the world. It’s important that I solve this mystery.

Because until I find out what I am, I’ll never find out who I am.

His father did not answer this disturbing letter. Instead, he canceled a full day of business meetings and took the train straight up to Boston.

When Jason walked out of squash practice he could hardly believe his eyes.

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“Come on, son, let’s go to Durgin Park and have one of their super steaks.”

In a sense, the choice of restaurant said everything. For the world-famous chophouse near the abattoirs of Boston had no booths or private corners. With its inverted snobbery, it placed bankers and busmen at the same long tables with red checkered cloths. A kind of forced democracy of the carnivorous.

Perhaps the elder Gilbert was sincerely unaware that inti mate communication was impossible in such a setting. Perhaps he chose it merely out of an atavistic feeling of protectiveness. He’d feed his boy to somehow compensate for all the hurt he felt.

In any case, amid the clatter of heavy china plates and shouting, from the open kitchen, all that Jason came away with was the fact that Dad was there to back him up. And he’d always be. Life was full of disappointments. The only way to deal with minor setbacks was to fight back harder still.

“Someday, Jason,” he had said, “when you’re a senator, the boys who turned you down now will be mighty sorry. And believe me, son, this painful incident — and hey, I really hurt with you — won’t mean a thing.”

Jason accompanied his father to South Station for the midnight train. Before he climbed aboard, the elder Gilbert patted Jason on the shoulder and remarked, “Son, there’s no one in the world I love more than you. Always remember that.”

Jason walked back toward the subway feeling strangely empty.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No!”

Sara Harrison sat bolt upright, her face flushed.

“Come on, Ted. How many times in your life have you refused to make love to a girl?”

“I take the Fifth Amendment,” he protested.

“Ted, it’s dark here and you still look embarrassed as hell. I don’t care how many girls you’ve slept with before me. I just wish you’d let me join the club.”

“No, Sara. It just doesn’t seem right in the back of a Chevrolet.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Well, I do, dammit. I mean, I want our first time to be somewhere a little more romantic. You know, like the banks of the Charles.”

“Are you crazy, Ted? It’s freezing! What about the Kirkland Motel? I’ve heard their policy is pretty lax.”

Ted sat up and shook his head. “No go,” he sighed despondently. “The guy that owns it is a family friend.”

“Which brings us back to this lovely Chevrolet.”

“Please, Sara, I want this to be different. Look — next Saturday we can drive to New Hampshire.”