Philip Roth - Indignation

Well, those were the very clothes on which I had vomited in Caudwell’s office. Those were the clothes that I wore when I sat in chapel trying how not to learn to lead a good life in accordance with biblical teachings and singing to myself instead the Chinese national anthem. Those were the clothes I’d been wearing when my roommate Elwyn had thrown the punch that had nearly broken my jaw. Those were the clothes I was wearing when Olivia went down on me in Elwyn’s LaSalle. Yes, there’s the picture of the boy and girl that should adorn the cover of the Winesburg catalogue: me in those clothes being blown by Olivia and having no idea what to make of it.

You don’t look yourself, Marcus. You all right? May I sit down?”

It was Sonny Cottler standing over me, wearing the same clothes that I was wearing, except that his wasn’t an ordinary maroon pullover sweater but a maroon and gray Winesburg letter sweater that he’d earned playing varsity basketball. That too. The ease with which he wore his clothes seemed an extension somehow of the deep voice that was so rich with authority and confidence. A quiet kind of carefree vigor, an invulnerability that he exuded, repelled me and attracted me at once, perhaps because it struck me, unreasonably or not, as being rooted in condescension. His seemingly being deficient in nothing left me oddly with the impression of someone who was actually deficient in everything. But then these impressions could have been no more than the offshoot of a sophomore’s envy and awe.

“Of course,” I answered. “Sure. Sit.”

“You look like you’ve been through the ringer,” he said.

He, of course, looked like he’d just finished shooting a scene on the MGM lot opposite Ava Gardner. “The dean called me in. We had a disagreement. We had an altercation.” Keep your mouth shut! I told myself. Why tell him? But I had to tell someone, didn’t I? I had to talk to someone at this place, and Cottler wasn’t necessarily a bad guy because my father had arranged for him to come to visit me in my room. Anyway, I felt so misunderstood all around that I might have looked up at the sky and howled like a dog if he hadn’t happened by.

As calmly as I could, I told him about the dispute over chapel attendance between the dean and me.

“But,” Cottler asked, “who goes to chapel? You pay somebody to go for you and you never have to go anywhere near chapel.”

“Is that what you do?”

He laughed softly. “What else would I do? I went one time. I went in my freshman year. It was when they had a rabbi. They have a Catholic priest once each semester, and they have a rabbi over from Cleveland once a year. Otherwise it’s Dr. Donehower and other great Ohio thinkers. The rabbi’s passionate devotion to the concept of kindness was enough to cure me of chapel for good.”

“How much do you have to pay?”

“For a proxy? Two bucks a pop. It’s nothing.”

“Forty times two is eighty dollars. That’s not nothing.”

“Look,” he said, “figure you spend fifteen minutes getting down off the Hill and over to the church. And if you’re you, serious you, you don’t laugh off being there. You don’t laugh off anything. Instead you spend an hour at chapel seething with rage. Then you spend another fifteen minutes seething with rage while getting back up the Hill to wherever you’re going next. That’s ninety minutes. Ninety times forty equals sixty hours of rage. That’s not nothing either.”

“How do you find the person to pay? Explain to me how it works.”

“The person you hire takes the card the usher hands him at the door when he goes in, then he hands it back signed with your name when he goes out. That’s it. You think a handwriting specialist pores over each card back in the little office where they keep the records? They tick off your name in some ledger, and that’s it. In the old days they used to assign you a seat and have a proctor who got to know everyone’s face walk up and down the aisles to see who was missing. Back then you were screwed. But after the war they changed it, so now all you have to do is pay someone to take your place.”

“But who?”

“Anyone. Anyone who’s done his forty chapels. It’s work. You work waiting tables at the taproom of the inn, someone else works proxying at the Methodist church. I’ll find you somebody if you want me to. I can even try to find somebody for less than two bucks.”

“And if this person shoots off his mouth? Then you’re out of here on your ass.”

“I’ve never heard yet of anybody shooting off his mouth. It’s a business, Marcus. You make a simple business arrangement.”

“But surely Caudwell knows this is going on.”

“Caudwell’s the biggest Christer around. He can’t imagine why students don’t love listening to Dr. Donehower instead of having the hour free every Wednesday to jack off in their rooms. Oh, that was a big mistake you made, bringing up chapel with Caudwell. Hawes D. Caudwell is the idol of this place. Winesburg’s greatest halfback in football, greatest slugger in baseball, greatest center in basketball, greatest exponent on the planet of ‘the Winesburg tradition.’ Meet this guy head-on about upholding the Winesburg tradition and he’ll make you into mush. Remember the drop kick, the old vintage drop kick? Caudwell holds the Winesburg record for drop-kicking points in a single season. And you know what he called each of those drop kicks? ‘A drop kick for Christ.’ You go around such creeps, Marcus. A little detachment goes a long way at Winesburg. Keep your mouth shut, your ass covered, smile — and then do whatever you like. Don’t take it all personally, don’t take everything so seriously, and you might find this is not the worst place in the world to spend the best years of your life. You already located the Blowjob Queen of 1951. That’s a start.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You mean she didn’t blow you? You are unique.”

Angrily, I said, “I still don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“To Olivia Hutton.”

Fury swiftly mounted in me, the very fury that I’d felt toward Elwyn when he called Olivia a cunt. “Now why do you say that about Olivia Hutton?”

“Because blowjobs are at a premium in north-central Ohio. News of Olivia has traveled fast. Don’t look so puzzled.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“You should. Miss Hutton is a bit of a nutcase.”

“Now why do you say that? I took her out.”

“So did I.”

That stunned me. I jumped up from the bench and, in a dizzying state of confusion about what there was (or wasn’t) in me that made relations with others so wretchedly disappointing, fled Sonny Cottler and sped off to my government class, and the last words of his I heard were “Withdraw ‘nutcase.’ Okay? Let’s say she’s the kind of oddball who’s exceptionally good at sex, and it’s a function of being disturbed — all right? Marcus? Marc?”

The vomiting resumed that night, accompanied by stabbing stomach pain and diarrhea, and when finally I realized I was ill because of something other than my interview with Dean Caudwell, I made my way through the dawn light to the Student Health Office, where before I could even be interviewed by the on-duty nurse, I had to make a run for the toilet. I was then given a cot to lie down on, at seven I was examined by the college doctor, by eight I was in an ambulance bound for the community hospital twenty-five miles away, and by noon my appendix had been removed.

My first visitor was Olivia. She came the next day, having learned of my operation in history class the previous afternoon. She rapped on the half-open door to my room, arriving only seconds after I had got off the telephone with my parents, who had been contacted by Dean Caudwell after it was determined at the hospital that I needed emergency surgery. “Thank God you had the sense to go to the doctor,” my father said, “and they caught it in time. Thank God nothing terrible happened.” “Dad, it was my appendix. They took out my appendix. That’s all that happened.” “But suppose they hadn’t diagnosed it.” “But they did . Everything went perfectly. I’ll be out of the hospital in four or five days.” “You had an emergency appendectomy. You understand what an emergency is?” “But the emergency’s over. There’s no need for any more worrying.” “There’s plenty of need for worrying when it comes to you.”