`Yeah, maybe. But I'm the real Jake Ecstein.'
`How extraordinary. I am too.'
`I mean in the outside world.'
`But that's what I mean too. And so does the tall thin Jake and the young muscled Jake and the lovely young girl Jakie
Ecstein. All of them.'
'But I'm really the real Jake Ecstein.'
`How extraordinary! I too am really…'
Jake passed up a love experience and got rid of his teacher and decided he needed to have a good dinner. He had read
the center's Game Rules and knew as he ate in the cafeteria that the waiters might not be real waiters, that the guy
slinging hash behind the counter might be a bank president, that the cashier might be a famous actress, that the woman
sitting opposite him might be a writer of children's stories although she was apparently pretending, despite weighing
close to two hundred founds, to be Marlene Dietrich.
`You bore me, dahling,' she was saying, her chubby mouth manhandling a cigarette.
`You're not exactly dynamite yourself, baby,' he replied eating rapidly.
`Where are all the men in this place,' she drawled. `I seem to meet only fruits.'
`And I meet only vegetables. So?' Jake answered.
`I beg your pardon. Who are you?'
`I'm Cassius Clay and I'll slug you in the teeth if you don't let me eat in peace.'
Marlene Dietrich relapsed into silence and Jake ate on, enjoying himself for the first time since his arrival. Suddenly he
saw his wife enter the cafeteria, followed by a teenage boy.
'Arlene!' he cried, half-standing.
`George?' she cried back.
Marlene Dietrich left the table and Dr. E waited for Arlene to join him, but instead she sat down at a corner table with
the teenage boy. Annoyed, he got up when he'd finished and went over to their table.
`Well what do you think of it so far?' he asked her.
`George, I'd like you to meet my son, John. John, this is George Fleiss, a very successful used-car salesman.'
`How do you do,' the boy said, sticking out a thin hand. `Pleased to meet you.'
`Yeah, well, look, I'm really Cassius Clay,' he said.
`Oh I am sorry,' Arlene answered.
`You've gotten out of shape,' the boy said indifferently.
Dr. E sat down with them, feeling glum. He did so want to be recognized as Jake Ecstein, psychiatrist. He tried a new
tack.
`What's your name?' he asked his wife.
`Maria,' she answered with a smile. `And this is my boy, John.'
`Where's Edgarina?'
`My daughter is at home.'
`And your husband?' Arlene frowned.
`Unfortunately, he has passed away,' she said.
`Oh great,' said Dr. E.
I beg your pardon!' said she, standing abruptly.
`Oh, ah, sorry. I was overcome with disturbance,' Dr. E said, motioning his wife to sit, `Look,' he went on, `I like you.
I like you very much. Perhaps we could stay together a while.'
`I'm sorry,' Arlene said softly, `I'm afraid people would talk.'
`People would talk? How?'
`You are a colored man and I am white,' she said.
Dr. Ecstein let his mouth hang open and for the first time in his last nineteen years experienced something which ha
realized later may have been self-pity.
Chapter Seventy-six
Being an American born and bred, it was in my bones to kill. Most of my adult life I had carried around like an