In
May of '75, I graduated with highest honors and an AA in Humanities
from The County College of Morris in Randolph, NJ. The following fall
I entered Montclair State Teacher's College as a junior, majoring in
both Psychology and Sociology. Several of my friends from CCM had
also transferred so we soon developed the habit of meeting regularly
at a couple places on campus namely the cafeteria in the theater arts
building and the Rathskeller, a beer hall nestled in the basement of
the student center. As we shared experiences, it wasn't long before
it surfaced that among our fellow classmates, our fellow psych.
majors, there was a playboy bunny.
Now,
understandably, the concept of playboy bunny as student produced
different expectations for me, who was married at the time and not on
the prowl, and my cohorts who were younger and perpetually horny.
While I envisioned her as good-looking, but studious, wearing glasses
with dark rims that made her look highly intelligent, always with a
notebook in hand into which she recorded detailed notes and thoughts,
my cronies pictured her bouncing around campus in a scant bikini,
blowing kisses to all her fans.
It
wasn't long before the bunny popped up in one of my classes, then
another, and another. She was indeed a beautiful girl, a raven haired
beauty, with a body that wouldn't quit. As it turned out, my friends
were off the mark when it came to her deportment – the bunny
remained fully clad at all times. They were, however, much closer in
their imaginings than I was with my vision of her as a bespectacled,
intelligent beauty. In truth, she was dumber than dirt.
She
was continually disrupting classes with dumb questions, questions
that could have been answered by your average 7th grader.
I remember one day in Statistics she had taken up the last twenty
minutes of our class getting the teacher, a very patient woman, to
explain what was meant by the arithmetic mean. Everyone else in the
class already knew -- I mean this wasn't rocket science. Not only
were we bored, but mid-terms were fast approaching and we were eager
to get on to new material. But she kept on asking for clarifications
on every single point. Finally, when the professor was sure she had
explained the mean in it's entirety and Miss Luscious had responded
with a positive nod and a thank you, another student observed that it
was basically the same as an average. That's right, said the prof. “I
don't understand,” said the bunny.
By
our second semester all fascination with the bunny had dissipated and
I, for one, was glad she wasn't in any of my classes. I may have
spotted her occasionally, after that, walking around campus, but I
don't think I ever thought of her again. Not for years.
In
1977, I graduated from Montclair State College summa cum laude. I was
one clever dude when it came to school. I could write papers and ace
exams like nobody's business. That's all you needed to get good
grades. Regarding the kind of smarts that allowed one to succeed
outside academia, I, unfortunately, came up rather short. But that's
another story.
The
job market was saturated with recent grads and I wasn't making much
headway in my job search until one day I read a notice in the local
paper announcing that there were several openings in The Morris
County Probation Department. To be considered, I would first have to
take a test. Knowing my abilities in test-taking, I signed up
immediately, me and a couple hundred other people. True to form, I
did well and had the fourth highest score out of the fifty people who
passed.
The
story was that as jobs opened up the department would work their way
down the test list. But, based on my previous experience with Morris
County, I was a little skeptical. A year or two prior, after I had
graduated from junior college, I had learned of an opening at the
Morris County Juvenile Detention Center up on West Hanover Avenue in
Morris Plains. It was an official listing, I met the requirements, so
I applied. When I was called in for the interview a few weeks later,
I was told that there was already someone in the position, but
because he didn't meet the qualifications the listing had to remain
open. The director explained to me that since I was qualified I could
have the job if I wanted it, however, he added, the staff was very
fond of the young fellow who was presently holding the job and if I
were to displace him, he said, it wouldn't sit well with them. In
other words, they would hate my friggin' guts. It seemed to me that
there were already enough people in the world who didn't like me, so,
I declined the offer.
Despite
my misgivings, I really hoped that I could land a job in the
probation department. I'd been a troubled youth with a history of
screwing up and thought I might be able to help people in similar
situations. When I was notified that the head of the probation
department wanted to see me, I couldn't help getting excited. On the
appointed day, I donned my favorite double-knit suit and headed to
Morristown. Expecting a tough interview, I was more than a little
anxious. I was wrong – everything was pretty straight forward. I
was offered a position, it seemed, based solely on my test scores.
There was an opening, I was told, in the Boonton office and as soon
as I completed the basic formalities – medical exam, background
check, etc. etc – I was to report there and assume a caseload. I
was elated. This was exactly what I wanted – a caseload of people
who needed my help.
Unfortunately
for me, while I was fulfilling my pre-employment obligations, a
couple vacancies popped up in the Pre-Sentence Investigation
Department. Because of the urgency to fill these posts combined with
the fact that I had already completed the preliminaries, I was
redirected to that department and named a pre-sentence investigator.
Rather than helping probationers, this job required me, along with
the other three fellows in the office, to investigate all defendants
who had either plead guilty or been found guilty and to prepare a
report for the court that presumably would assist the judge in
rendering a fair and appropriate verdict. In truth, I'd be surprised
if one of the dozens of reports we completed every week had the
slightest effect on a sentencing. Our recommendations were routinely
ignored.
I
remember one young fellow who had committed a theft, been prosecuted
and sentence to 4 years in prison and then released. Ironically, the
charge he was now being sentenced for had occurred prior to the
offense that had landed him in prison. A good lawyer, you might
think, could have disposed of those charges a long time ago. Now,
with a wife and daughter to take care of, he seemed to have turned
his life around. He was working for a billboard company and,
according to his boss, he excelled at his job. “He climbs around up
there like a monkey,” his boss said during a phone interview.
Considering all this, I recommended to the judge that in lieu of
further jail time the defendant be placed on an extended stint of
probation. No such luck. The judge saw him as a repeat offender and
threw him back in jail, this time for five years.
That
was the job in a nutshell – recommendations for leniency ignored;
defendants thrown back in jail. It was disheartening.
Accordingly,
I was already growing disenchanted with the job when one day I ran
into Willie McDonald, a childhood friend, in the hallway outside one
of the courtrooms. He explained that he had been charged with
contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The minor in question was
his girlfriend. They had been going out for several months. He had
even accompanied her several times to dinner with her parents who
never protested when she ordered cocktails. How was he to know she
was under age?
Anyway,
he had had no previous run-ins with the law, so I asked him why he
hadn't applied for pre-sentence intervention which basically is a
program that enables first offenders to keep their records clean. He
told me he had applied but that the officer in charge had turned him
down.
Which
brings me back to you-know-who – the playboy dummy, I mean bunny. I
don't know how she had landed a job in the probation department -- I
know it couldn't have been based on test scores – but she had. She
not only was responsible for admitting people into the pre-sentence
intervention program, she was the person who had turned down my
friend Willie's application.
I
couldn't help myself – I had to confront her. Of course, she didn't
remember Willie McDonald off hand, but once she pulled his file it
all came back to her. “On, I didn't like him,” she said.
“He's
a great guy! What's not to like?” I said.
“Well,
I didn't like the way he acted, talking soft and pretending he was
all meek and mild. I wasn't about to fall for that.”
I
left her office. If I had stayed, I might have wrapped my hands
around that pretty throat of hers and strangled the shit out of her.
If she had made the slightest bit of effort to know Willie she might
have learned that, aside from her, there wasn't a single person in
the world who didn't like him. Even the parents of the girl involved
in the contributing charge gave him their full support. And, as for
his quiet manner, since as long as I remember we'd been calling him
Whispering Willie because he always talked so softly that you could
barely hear him.
I'd
had enough. Next day, I went into my boss and explained that I was
tired of the pre-sentence department and wanted a caseload. When that
didn't happen in the next month, I handed in my notice. After one of
the other men in the department killed himself, they told me I could
stay on if I wanted, but I declined.
It's
been so long ago, I couldn't tell you where I landed next but,
wherever it was, I have the bunny to thank.
