If It Didn't Suck....

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you haven't already read RATBOY REPORTS...A BRIEF INTRO please do so before you read on. Thank you. Enjoy.

Mark came up to the second floor of Boylan Hall with a huge Conway bag. The bag that he was carrying was full of scripts. He says that he brought in all his scripts to get free copies at the GSO (Graduate School Organization). He then tells me that there are no more free copies there, he gets mad and says,

"Fuck them. They're not good for anything now."

I just nod in agreement knowing he is probably the reason for them stopping us from getting free copies. He picks up his bag and proceeds to go "visit" Jack, for the tutorial portion of the program.

I had originally wanted to enter the MFA fiction program but was rejected. I also applied to the playwrighting program, and was surprised to find out I was accepted. So in the fall of 1994, after my first year of teaching, I went back to college enrolled in Brooklyn College’s MFA program. The “Jack” that Mark mentioned was Jack Gelber.

Jack Gelber, was an Obi award winning playwright for the play “The Connection.” He ran the MFA playwrighting course for many years. He was a nice, and decent human being who has since passed on. Me and Dominic sometimes referred to him as Slappy, because of his bald head and resemblance to the bald Benny Hill actor who was often, and repeatedly slapped in the bald part of his head. Despite our musings of the man, we were deeply saddened when we learned of his death. He will truly be missed.

Aside from the 3 hour class, we also had a tutorial. At that meeting you usually discussed what you will bring in to class, what you had brought in and you would discuss your thesis plans. Mark was in there for a long, long time. When he came out he looked upset. I didn’t have a chance to ask him what was wrong because I ahd to go in next. I wasn’t worried either because I knew I would be hearing all about it on the bus ride home.

I entered Jack’s office and sat down. Before my but hit the chair, Jack sighed loudly.

“So Mark believes he is being stalked?” Jack asks.

I laugh and fill him in. It appeared that Mark was being stalked or felt he was being stalked on the Internet by some married woman who wanted him as a sex slave. When Mark refused her advanced because she was married, and he would never do a thing like that, she became nasty and calls his house and hangs up. His mother got so worried she told Mark to go to the police.
Jack leaned back on his chair, with his feet on the desk, and laced his fingers behind his head. SLAAAAPPPYYYY I thought, as a smile spread across Jack’s face. He was amused beyond comprehension.

Class started at six, we were all there except Mark who came in late. He sits next to the hot Cuban chick proceeds to rap to her, informing her that he’s Latino; though unfortunately he speaks almost no Spanish.

After class he says he thinks the hot Cuban chick digs him.

The bus ride brought more of the same and his added paranoia.

“Do you think Jack will be a mother fucker?: he asks.
“No, not at all.”
“Do you think he will accept my thesis?”
“Sure, why not? He has too doesn’t he?”
He shrugged. “Do you think he will like it? Do you
think he will let me go next week?”
He was referring to having his piece read in class the following week.
“I don’t see why not.”
“ Do you think I have to do another reading?”
“I am sure he will Mark, just relax.
“ Do you think he'll fuck me? I don’t think he likes me.”
And on and on and on. I had never been so happy to get off of a bus in my life.