Read Online Joe Gould's Secret by Joseph; Mitchell - Free Book Online Page A

long after I had left home and long after my father had died, I was walking along the street one night here in New York and happened to think of it, and it must’ve been the first time I had ever thought of it objectively, for I suddenly burst out laughing.”
    At this moment, the waitress put a plate of fried eggs on toast and another mug of coffee in front of Gould. As soon as she turned her back, he took up a bottle of ketchup that was about half full, and emptied it on the plate, encircling the eggs with ketchup. Then he darted around to the next booth and brought back another bottle of ketchup, which was perhaps a third full, and emptied this on the plate also, completely covering eggs and toast. “I don’t particularly like the confounded stuff,” he said, “but I make it a practice to eat all I can get. It’s the only grub I know of that’s free of charge.” He began eating, using a fork at first but quickly switching to a spoon. “Sometimes I go in a place and order a cup of tea,” he said confidingly, “and I drink it and pay for it, and then I ask for a cup of hot water. The counterman thinks I’m going to make a second cup of tea with the same tea bag, which he doesn’t mind: that’s all right. Instead of which, I pour some ketchup in, and I have a very good cup of tomato bouillon free of charge. Try it sometime.” Gould finished his breakfast, and the waitress came to take away his plate. Catching sight of the empty ketchup bottles, she said, “You ought to have more self-respect than do a thing like that.” “When I’m hungry, I don’t have any self-respect,” Gould said. “Anyhow, I didn’t do it.” He motioned with his head in my direction. “He did it,” he said. “He turned both bottles up and drank them. You should’ve heard him. Glug, glug, glug! It was really quite embarrassing. Besides—and this is something you people can’t seem to get through your heads—I’m not just an ordinary person. I’m Joe Gould—I’m Joe Gould, the poet; I’m Joe Gould, the historian; I’m Joe Gould, the wild Chippewa Indian dancer; and I’m Joe Gould, the greatest authority in the world on the language of the sea gull. I do you an honor by merely coming in here, and what do you do in return but bother me about such things as ketchup.” This did not amuse the waitress. She was a portly, distracted, heavy-breathing woman, almost twice as big as Gould. “Who the hell do you think you are, you little rat?” she said. “One of these days, I’m going to pick you up by that Joe Gould beard of yours and throw you out of here.” “Try it,” said Gould, his voice becoming surprisingly intimidating, “and it’ll be you and me all over the floor.” He took a fistful of cigarette butts from a pocket of his seersucker jacket and put them on the table. As he did so, a shower of tobacco crumbs fell on his lap and on the floor and on the table, and I was afraid that he and the waitress would have some more words with each other. While she watched with disgust, Gould picked through the butts and chose one and fitted it in a long black cigarette holder. Paying no attention to the waitress, he lit it with an arch-elegant, Chaplinlike flourish, and she walked away.
    â€œNow,” he said, “to return to the story of my life for just a minute, I finished school in Norwood and then I went to Harvard. In 1911, I graduated from Harvard, and I spent the next few years debating in my mind what I should do next. By 1915, I had about given up hope of coming to any conclusion about this matter when I somehow became interested in the subject of eugenics. In fact, I became so interested that I borrowed some money from my mother and went to the Eugenics Record Office, at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, and took a summer course in eugenical field-work