Yeah, That Old Seven-Year Itch-Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

You never know when a guy, a rationale ordinary guy under most circumstances is going to go off the deep end, going to get, ah, that seven –year itch. You know what I am talking about if you are a guy, hell, now that we live in a more enlightened time, a little more anyway, women too. But today I speak of the male version of the itch. Take Professor Joseph Sanders, yes, that Joseph Sanders, the well-respected second generation acolyte of Sigmund Freud, who wrote the book, THE book, on the psychological dysfunctional of American family a generation or so back, and which is still footnoted by eager doctoral candidates, and for all I know is still frantically consulted in tough family-related cases in the real world.

That though was in the days before the good professor got the itch, before he went off the deep end, back in the days when one and all would see him coming and going cutting diagonally through Washington Square, New York City’s Washington Square, the one made famous, or infamous if you prefer, by Henry James back around the turn of the 20^thcentury, with that patented homburg of his and that obligatory cigar sticking out of his mouth as he headed to the Compton Club after a hard day of lecturing the young and innocent at New York University where he had taught for many years. But that was before she, and you knew damn well if a guy was going off the deep-end, stevedore or professor, a dame, a frail, a twist, a femme fataleif you go for such descriptions, or whatever you call a heart-breaker of a woman in your neighborhood, had to go with the story. So we might as well get to it.

Funny, funny because of all people Joe Sanders, he liked to be called Joe to show that he could be a regular guy and show too that he hadn’t forgotten his working poor roots growing up in Paterson across the river, the Hudson River if you need to know the exact river, was the guy least likely to get the itch, to go off the tracks. For one thing off he was strictly a square, although that was not the term used in his circles, his mainly male club circle who hiding their own, ah, placid existences, liked to call Joe, ah, stuffy. Joe kept to a routine, up at dawn, maybe before, do some work, some heavy think work, eat a light breakfast, teach a couple of classes in the morning, then heading across that Washington Square diagonal to lunch at the Compton Club, a little advising on this and that in the afternoon, then back to the club for a few drinks, home, supper and to bed by nine or ten. Like clockwork and like I say a square. No lady’s man, not with that homburg and cigar a constant presence, and not with his tight circle of male friends who, with their own secret lusts well disguised behind grey flannel suits, the male professional attire of the time, gathered at the club and provided whatever he desired for non-family companionship (desired like I said before until she knocked him of his moorings).

Funny too because strictly speaking Joe Sanders did not technically have a seven-year itch, although he had an itch all right, but it came at the thirteenth year of his marriage. His rather late marriage to the former Louise Daye, whom he courted for almost a decade before he married and with whom he produced two daughters, and whom he constantly said, said to her and to one and all, that he was quite happy with. And maybe that was to be his downfall. New York City had been a bear that summer, that summer of 1953, had had day after day of high temperatures and high humidity which made things worse in the closed- in city. So because he loved his wife and two daughters dearly he sprung for a summer’s vacation for the whole lot down at Atlantic City. He had to finish some paper and would join them on week-ends later so on the face of it the whole idea would work splendidly.

No sooner than the good Professor had seen his family off on the train at 42^nd Street than he ran into her. Now the guys, his friends, his circle of male friends in particular, at the club later, later when recalling the start-up events counted, were not sure whether he bumped into her or she bumped into him but there was no question that an off-hand bump started it. He made that clear when he started to miss the club gathering, for, for, pressing business, That is when Joe “met” Alice, Alice Reed, the woman for whom he would go off the rails. Not in dispute is that Joe, in any case, made apologies as a well-bred and thought of gentleman would, and offered to buy her a drink as a token of good –will.

The good professor expected to be turned down and that would be the end of it. He expected to be turned down mainly because, at best, he was aware that he a very ordinary looking aging guy with homburg and cigar, not appendages that would set a flaming young New York City woman on fire. And turned down too because one Alice Reed, a photographer’s model, and make of that what you will, was drop-dead beautiful, was all that a man, a handsome young rich man would try to catch, and an old man dream of, dream of to disturb his sleep. Alice, a brunette wearing her hair in that longest 1950s New York fashion, long legs, well-turned ankles, nice figure, maybe a bit on the slim side, and great big laughing blue eyes.

What one Professor Joseph Sanders, now many years removed from those from hunger Paterson tenement days, dead father, single mother working the textile mills to bring in a few dollars, did not know was that drop-dead beautiful girls, or maybe ugly women for that matter, who were struggling in the New York City heat and night were not turning down an offered drink from anybody for any reason that year. And so it started. They went to the Skyline Club, a couple of blocks from the train station, ordered drinks and more drinks and talked for a couple of hours. She said he was funny, witty, amusing and he said she was beautiful. At the end of the evening, and here again there is a dispute whether he or she said they should get together again, for dinner maybe. That maybe turned into a date. And so they had dinner the next night.

After that next night dinner, or maybe it was that first encounter, that first off-chance bump, she, Alice Reed she, had her hooks into our good professor bad, bad as a woman can have those hooks with a man. He started to send her presents, started to visit her at her flat (a walk-up studio, fold-up wall bed, small kitchenette, you know small as befits a struggle young, ah, photographer’s model), started taking her build-up of him more seriously as time went on. At first he could not quite believe her protestations that she was tired of flashy guys with no manners and big wanting habits, wanting habits with nothing but front to show her. That she was tired, very tired of living hand-to-mouth and tired of not having things, not having what the Mayfair swells who would buy photographs of her had to offer.

She said he was different, that he knew from hunger after he told her his Paterson poor boy story, knew her needs. As time went on though Joe began to believe her words, wanted to believe her words. His only complaints, silly things really, were her constant chewing of gum, Wrigley’s, that he said took away from her look while chewing and her dropping of her “g’s” which bespoke (his word) of a lack of language skills. Then the other shoe dropped.

One night while they were having supper at her place an ex-lover, Jack Rogers, well, really an ex-walking daddy, a sugar daddy as she explained to Joe later, turned the key to her door and walked in on them. Needless to say this Rogers who was an older man, rich, and a sugar daddy that Alice had neglected to mention had until the month before been paying her, ah, rent and expenses. They had had a row over expenses, overhead expenses for beauty, or something and they had split up, or so she thought. This Rogers had quite apparently been drinking and put up a frenzied an argument about why was Joe there, arguing too right in Joe’s face that Alice was private stock, and things like that. Rogers tried to attack Alice and Joe, no prize-fighter, somehow had to fend him off. They finally got him out of the flat, and Joe thought that would be the end of it, especially when Alice stated that Joe was the only man for her.

And that is really where a woman getting her hooks into a man came into play. Alice convinced him, although he probably needed little convincing by that time, that their happiness depended on getting rid of Jack, getting rid of Jack for good. So in the course of events Joe purchased a gun, a gun for Alice’s protection he said. About a week after that first encounter with Jack Rogers he came to her door again drunk, drunk and nasty. Before Joe realized what had happened Alice took the gun from a desk drawer and shot Jack point blank, shot him dead, very dead.

Once Joe realized what had happened, once he started thinking he knew his die was cast, knew that their fates were now joined. They fled the flat, her taking a rushed suitcase of things with her, went to his house where he got a suitcase full of his things and grabbed a cab to the bus station, the Greyhound bus station, and headed out of town. The last anybody had heard, and that was sketchy by an old friend of Joe’s, a manlooking very much like Joe and a young woman were seen in Paterson, seen being escorted by an old time hood, a gangster from his boyhood streets, from Joe’s old neighborhood to parts unknown. Yeah, you never know about that itch, that seven-year itch.