Memories of Miss Mandelbaum

by AL CAPP

1

RECENTLY a man from Santa Barbara, California, wrote to a weekly news magazine to complain that I am overpaid for the pictures I draw, in contrast to what other people get for doing something useful. Well, I may be overpaid now, but I wasn’t when I started out in the world as a professional artist, which was when I was eleven years old and in the seventh grade of P.S. 62, in Brooklyn. I was paid ten cents a picture then, and risked being clapped into the reformatory every time I drew one. Today, thanks to the willingness of the average American to laugh at a group of characters even more bedeviled than he is (a necessarily fictitious group, of course), my price has risen somewhat and I now risk nothing more than having my income disapproved of by people who live in places I can’t afford to live in.

My career as a professional artist started during the year we lived in the teeming hot-pastrami and block-gang-warfare jungle of the Brownsville (or Murder, Inc.) section of Brooklyn. My father had moved us (my mother, my two younger brothers and sister) there from the serenity of New Haven, Connecticut, because he had just gone bankrupt in a new business.

My father’s new businesses never lasted long enough to become old ones. These businesses were based on my father’s ever-new ideas (part of which, always, was to move his family to a new community, a new city, a new state even — where we would find a new and glorious life). My father was a gifted artist and a brilliant idea man. He should have used his ideas in a comic strip, like I do, in which he could create a world he could manage, like I can. But there weren’t enough comic strips in the early 1900s, and so my father’s ideas had to be tried in an inferior, unmanageable real world. These business ideas would have worked out perfectly in a comic strip, for they all had just the right touch of fantasy, but they inevitably ended in disaster in real life. For events in a comic st rip can be controlled to follow reason and sanity; the characters in one can be made to behave with kindness, humor, and faith. But in uncontrollable reality, unreasonable misfortunes overtook my father’s brilliant ideas (nobody bought his stuff) and the characters he dealt with behaved unspeakably (they wanted their money) and so we were constantly moving out of used-up communities and into bright, new El Dorados, and my father was constantly going out of new businesses and into even newer ones, with new ideas, and new, romantic backers.

And so, in 1920, we came to Brooklyn, and I was enrolled at P.S. 62, a huge, barren, penitentiary-like structure, bursting with a brawling horde of children of all races, presided over by a senile, dipsomaniacal political appointee, and staffed by frantic, overworked, and bad-tempered teachers, as unlike the Connecticut type as vodka is from milk.

It was my luck to enter P.S. 62 at the time when Mr. Lawless was organizing his Experimental Class. When I tell you that a few months later the Experimental Class was discontinued because Mr. Lawless himself was hauled off to an insane asylum (where he spent the rest of his days) you may get some idea of the thinking behind the experiment itself, and, indeed, of that of the School Authorities, which permitted this project.

Mr. Lawless’s idea was that if you combined twenty of the school’s worst boys (subnormals, petty thieves, rapists, and thugs) with twenty of its best boys, association with the good kids would make the bad kids better. What actually happened, of course, was that the good kids were so enchanted with the bad kids that, from the first day on, we tried to be like them, and, in some cases, so spectacularly surpassed them that, in the end, they were hard put to it to be as lousy as we were.

You’ll notice that, by using the word “we,” I include myself among the good kids. This was never officially established. I just supposed I was, and always have.

2

ONE fact about me did get established immediately. I was the “best drawrer” in the class. I was always the “best drawrer” in every class (for there is seldom more than one kid who can draw decently at all, in any class). In Connecticut, this had given me about twenty minutes of distinction once a week, for in a school curriculum sanely designed to prepare kids for life, this was all the drawing considered necessary. But in Mr. Lawless’s Experimental Class, drawing became increasingly important as the experiment became increasingly disordered. In fact, drawing became a lifesaver. For instance, when Mr. Lawless would announce a quiz, based on reading presumably done at home the night before, the Smart Kids (who had done their reading) would settle back and yawn. They knew that Mr. Lawless wouldn’t call on them, because he knew they’d done their homework. (By the way, as this sort of thing went on, the Smart Kids stopped doing any homework. They were smart enough to realize that Mr. Lawless would always believe they had.) But the Bad Kids would stiffen up, alert, rebellious, and ready for trouble. They knew they’d get called on, because Mr. Lawless knew they never did their homework the night before, if for no other reason than that they never went home nights.

These quizzes would begin with the clouding of Mr. Lawless’s face and the clenching of his teeth. He’d start getting mad at the answers he knew he’d get before he had asked the first question. For the first answer would, inevitably, be a request to repeat the first question. Mr. Lawless’s face would then get darker, his jaw muscles would twitch violently, and he would repeat the question. This, in itself, was a victory for Badness over Authority, and the other Bad ‘Uns, knowing what was coming, would titter, with a few of the weak-willed Good ‘Uns, even, joining in. The question hav ing been repeated (which Mr. Lawless knew very well the Bad ‘Un had clearly heard in the first place —and which the Bad ‘Un knew Mr. Lawless knew he’d heard), the formula for the destruction of Mr. Lawless’s control went relentlessly on.

It was a simple formula. You just answered a question by asking another question, until Mr. Lawless exploded. Like this: —

“Who was the first: president of the United States? ”

“I didn’t getcha, sir. Would you please repeat th’ question?”

“Who — was — the — first — president — of — the — United — States?”

“Of the United States?”

“Yes. The United States.”

“Oh. I getcha.” ‘Then you sat down, with the air of one to whom everything had been made clear, and was now satisfied.

This accomplished the first stage of the destruction of Mr. Lawless’s control. His jaw muscles would twitch more violently. He would clench and unclench his fists, and he would rise behind his desk.

“GET UP!” His voice would have the hint of a scream in it. “You haven’t answered my question !!!”

You arose, and asked, “What question?”

“The question about the first president.”

“I toldja. He was the first president of the United States.”

“Who was??” — and now Mr. Lawless was screaming. You pretty nearly had him. You just had to keep answering his questions by asking him questions.

The answer to “WHO was?” was, of course, “Who was WHAT?” Any moron in the class knew that, and knew too that, any minute now, Mr. Lawless’s control would snap and he’d call you a sonofabitch and you could say, “You got no right to call me no sonofabitch, sir,’ and the poor dazed man would realize that somehow he’d been maneuvered into being in the wrong, that he was licked again, give the whole thing up, and announce a drawing class. These drawing classes became, as I said, lifesavers. The passing out of “drawring paper” and crayons and the borrowing of rulers and erasers gave legality to the jabbering and conviviality that always went on anyhow.

Mr. Lawless pretended to himself that these drawing classes weren’t just outs from hopeless situations, but, rather, shrewd psychological probes, by announcing “Themes” for each drawing. Like “What I Would Like to Do Tonight When I Get Out of School.” Announcements like these caused a great deal of foul merriment among the subnormal. They were stupid, all right, but not stupid enough to confess what THEY’D like to do that night when they got out of school.

The “What I Would Like to Be When I Am a Man” theme first indicated to the Bad Kids that my drawing, which up to then was merely admired and envied, could be put to some practical use. Most of them wanted to be gunmen, bookies, and thieves when they grew up, but these hopes and dreams they preferred to keep sacred. For Mr. Lawless’s eyes, they represented themselves as yearning to become policemen, firemen, and senators. Now policemen, firemen, and senator uniforms are not easy to draw, if you are subnormal, and so they began to drift over to my desk for help with their idiot seratchings.

I extended myself for them. Being slowed up by having lost my left leg at nine, I couldn’t win the respect of such heroes as Cowboy Sealenzo, Six-Toe Tanglebaum, or Crooksie Rattigan in the ordinary way — namely, by attacking my classmates from behind, and running off with their possessions before they could scramble up.

3

AT FIRST, all I got for my efforts, and all I wanted, was respect. This is how money came into it, and after that, Miss Mandelbaum.

One day Cowboy Scalenzo came into class with a black eye and many purple bruises on his face. He didn’t offer to tell us how badly moidered the other two or three guys were and so we knew these were not the scars of victory, but something that the (’owboy preferred not to discuss. The drawing session came early that day when Six-Toe Tanglebaum wittily replied to a statement by Mr. Lawless that if he (Six-Toe) was a little rat then he (Mr. Lawless) must be a big rat. The theme that day was “My Greatest Ambition.”

After I had drawn Crooksie Rattigan as a G-Man and Jackson Jackson, a colored boy, being inaugurated President of the United States, Cowboy Scalenzo came over with his usual request — to draw him like a cowboy. As always he would fascinatedly watch me draw his pinched, swarthy little face in a huge Stetson, and then put a kerchief, star-studded Western vest, boots and spurs on his drawn-much-healthier-than-life body. As always he would offer no suggestions with these technicalities of costume, but just breathe harder as his image became like a cowboy. It was never until I reached the drawing of the gun and holster that the Cowboy ever spoke. At that point, he would carefully describe just whaat kind of gun he was carrying that day, how the gun barrels were shaped, exactly how the handle was curved. He was very particular about these things. You had the feeling that up to that time we were in fantasy and artistic license was tolerated, but when we came to the gun, we had come down to business and that had to be right. On this day, however, the little bruised, bitter face said, “I ain’t only holdin’ the gun, see — I’m shootin’ it.’

I drew him shooting it.

The Cowboy looked at the billows of smoke coming from the nozzle with grim satisfaction.

“Got room for anudder guy?” he asked.

There was room.

“I’m shootin’ it at my brudder. Drawr the bullet goin’ right into him.”

“What does your brother look like?” I asked.

“His name is Angelo. He’s older than me. He looks lousy.”

With this description, it was the work of only a few minutes to draw Angelo accurately, a look of anguish on his face, a bullet going right into him, and his legs kicking wildly in the air.

The Cowboy studied the drawing with pleasure, meanwhile tenderly rubbing his blackened eye and bruised jaw.

He didn’t turn the drawing in. He continued to study it at his desk the rest of the day, seeming to forget the pain of his injuries in the joy of his revenge on Angelo.

When school was over, he laid two pennies on my desk. “You done good,” he said.

And that’s how I became a merchant of dreams. For all my little subnormal classmates had their little subnormal dreams which were, generally, of assault and battery on those larger than themselves. At first I was glad to draw their dreamings for free, for their respect. But, then, my commissions became so many and so intricate, and I, with my increasing importance, became such a prima donna, that the shrewder little morons began offering me pennies, then nickels, and finally, a dime apiece to do theirs first.

That dime a drawing cut the number of requests down, but there still came in more than I could comfortably handle, and I was looking around for an assistant. I had read in The Book of Knowledge how Peter Paul Rubens, an artist of another age but with practically the same problem as I, had hired assistants to help him with detail, and I had my eye on a comer in the third grade, when Miss Mandelbaum appeared and all hell broke loose.

Miss Mandelbaum taught drawing, and was the first female teacher (in fact, the first female of any kind) to enter our classroom. Miss Mandelbaum was new and young and no one had told her. She had simply noticed that the quality of drawings coming from Mr. Lawless’s class (mostly done by me) was pretty high for a class composed mainly of morons.

It quickly became apparent to Miss Mandelbaum that I was the Talent, and she showed a great interest in my work, coming in every day, bending over my desk to watch me draw and (nothing is more distracting or destructive to the artist) coaching me as I went along. My classmates showed a great interest in Miss Mandelbaum’s coaching, mainly because of what happened to her neckline when she bent over to coach me.

Their respectful crowding around Miss Mandelbaum during her daily visit to my desk, and their silent, rapt attention, delighted Miss Mandelbaum and gave poor Mr. Lawless his first glimmer of hope that the Experiment was stimulating those little subnormal minds. He was right. After Miss Mandelbaum, my commissions changed.

For the first time, Cowboy Scalenzo didn’t order a murder. “Drawr me Miss Mandelbaum wit’ a one-piece bathin’ suit on,” he said. In the early 1920s, the one-piece bathing suit was no more than a mad rumor then appearing in the more sensational press. No one had ever actually seen anyone wearing one, and even the most advanced and hopeful among us doubted that anyone ever would. I was a little hazy about the arrangement of a plump lady teacher with a one-piece bathing suit on, but the Cowboy helped me with details. He was visibly pleased by the drawing, gave me a dime, and took it to his desk to study it.

After a while, he came back. I was busy drawing Miss Mandelbaum in a one-piece bathing suit (the idea had caught on) for Six-Toe Tanglebaum, who had canceled his order for a picture of him knifing Cowboy Scalenzo in the back (I played no favorites).

“Can that one,” proposed Cowboy Scalenzo, “and I’ll make it a quarter if ya finish this one.” He laid on my desk the original One-Piece Bathing Suit Miss Mandelbaum.

“Finish it?” I asked, perplexed. “Didn’t I draw everything you told me was there?”

“Sure you did, Al,” said the Cowboy, “ but I want you to draw me lookin’ at her.”

I drew Cowboy Scalenzo, in a cowboy suit, looking at Miss Mandelbaum in a one-piece bathing suit.

This caught on.

I then drew Tanglebaum looking at HIS Miss Mandelbaum.

Before the end of that day I had drawn dozens of Portraits of Young Morons Looking at Miss Mandelbaums. It had been my biggest day, at the new rate of two bits a Portrait, and I was loaded with commissions for the next day. I look some of the more urgent jobs home with me, and felt that I could no longer delay my talk with that comer in the third grade. Rubens was right.

The next day Fourfingers Bastardo came over to my desk.

“You finish that pitcher o’ me an’ Miss Mandelbaum yet?” he asked.

“Not yet, Fourf, I’m still kinda working it up,” I replied in a lying tone that was, in later years, to become familiar to deadline-worried syndicate editors.

“That means you ain’t started on it yet,” said Fourfingers, who even as a twelve-year-old subnormal was a better judge of my character than syndicate editors, “an’ that’s okay, because I don’t want you should do it.”

“Well, that’s okay with me, Fourf,” I replied, confident that this wouldn’t become a trend. “I’ve got plenty o’ others I can —”

“I don’t want you to work on no others,” said my patron. “I don’t want you should drawr me simply LOOKIN’ at Miss Mandelbaum.” He bent over and whispered, “I’ll give you a extra dime if you drawr Miss Mandelbaum in that one-piece bathin’ suit and me in a policeman’s uniform, and she’s sittin’ in my lap.”

I followed his instructions, putting everything down very lightly, so that I wouldn’t have to erase if I made any mistakes. It was all very complicated, and terribly engrossing, and before we realized it, Miss Mandelbaum had slipped into the room and was bending over my desk.

“Doing a wrestling scene, I see,” she remarked brightly. “But the penciling is so light, so timid — as if you weren’t sure of the anatomical details.” She beamed at me, and picked up my pencil. “The only way out — to bring out the real meaning — is to emphasize all the main construction lines, with good, bold strokes!!”

She proceeded to do this, penciling vigorously over my light lines. Fourfingers’ face emerged, and then the positions of both figures. It wasn’t until she put in the few good bold strokes that brought out her own lightly, but accurately, sketched-in face that she realized what she was doing. She screamed a terrible scream of anguish and betrayal, dropped the pencil as though it were red-hot, and ran out of the room. She never came back. My father’s business failed, we moved to Massachusetts, and my career as a professional artist didn’t get going again for ten years.