At 23–24
Perhaps you think it easy for a shy youth of twenty-three
To be head of an East Side school of four hundred adoring girls …
My report is: Not so … it is a life of fascinating terrors …
To come into a classroom and have a whole class say “Ah” out of pure love,
To scold intransigent tomboys and expect at any moment a sexual attack,
To be in love yourself with certain light and dark beauties, the stars among the clustered heads, and yet not betray it,
To have all the teachers jealous of you, and you afraid of them all,
To have to get up on the auditorium platform and show your thin legs that quake with fright
And then to have to speak wisely, sagely, authoritatively out of a mouth plugged tight with your heart,—
Give me my burglar on a dark night—but omit this …
A little Jew-lawyer, of large benevolence and nose, and endless assumption of wisdom,
Furnishes the money and the authority …
I am his alter ego: together we boost the lady Superintendent out of her job,
And I am installed …
I form clubs, I introduce an early soviet system, I speak of God and Darwin …
In short, I get into trouble …
The benevolent Jew denounces me from the platform before the school,
I burn up in the public gaze, as if I were being lynched with a bonfire …
This is too much: I resign …
There is a Russian revolt, not without Jewish female Trot skys …
I am called to the meeting of the Presidents: do I counsel violence?
My four hundred loves are ready to die for me …
I put on the soft pedal … but class by class marches spontaneously into the auditorium,
While the Board of Directors stands outside, looking in, trembling for life and limb …
I am called for: the school yell is given: I make a speech …
“Continue,” I say, “the work I have begun by carrying it out in good order” …
I say good-bye: there is sobbing of anguish among the four hundred …
A Director shakes hands with me: he likes me …
I get into the street: a bevy of lovely girls swarms about me all the way up to the station platform …
I get home: I am bursting with exultation and exaltation …
I cry to my wife: “I'm bounced—I'm free” …
And so I am …
Never, thereafter, do I hold a job again …
I have decided to be a writer.
To be head of an East Side school of four hundred adoring girls …
My report is: Not so … it is a life of fascinating terrors …
To come into a classroom and have a whole class say “Ah” out of pure love,
To scold intransigent tomboys and expect at any moment a sexual attack,
To be in love yourself with certain light and dark beauties, the stars among the clustered heads, and yet not betray it,
To have all the teachers jealous of you, and you afraid of them all,
To have to get up on the auditorium platform and show your thin legs that quake with fright
And then to have to speak wisely, sagely, authoritatively out of a mouth plugged tight with your heart,—
Give me my burglar on a dark night—but omit this …
A little Jew-lawyer, of large benevolence and nose, and endless assumption of wisdom,
Furnishes the money and the authority …
I am his alter ego: together we boost the lady Superintendent out of her job,
And I am installed …
I form clubs, I introduce an early soviet system, I speak of God and Darwin …
In short, I get into trouble …
The benevolent Jew denounces me from the platform before the school,
I burn up in the public gaze, as if I were being lynched with a bonfire …
This is too much: I resign …
There is a Russian revolt, not without Jewish female Trot skys …
I am called to the meeting of the Presidents: do I counsel violence?
My four hundred loves are ready to die for me …
I put on the soft pedal … but class by class marches spontaneously into the auditorium,
While the Board of Directors stands outside, looking in, trembling for life and limb …
I am called for: the school yell is given: I make a speech …
“Continue,” I say, “the work I have begun by carrying it out in good order” …
I say good-bye: there is sobbing of anguish among the four hundred …
A Director shakes hands with me: he likes me …
I get into the street: a bevy of lovely girls swarms about me all the way up to the station platform …
I get home: I am bursting with exultation and exaltation …
I cry to my wife: “I'm bounced—I'm free” …
And so I am …
Never, thereafter, do I hold a job again …
I have decided to be a writer.
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