Taken from “Surely You're Joking, Mr.
Feynman!” Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Phillips Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton edited by
Edward Hutchings
When
I was at Cornell I was asked to give a series of lectures once a week at an
aeronautics laboratory in Buffalo. Cornell had made an arrangement with the
laboratory which included evening lectures in physics to be given by somebody
from the university. There was some guy already doing it, but there were
complaints, so the physics department came to me. I was a young professor at
the time and I couldn’t say no very easily, so I agreed to do it.
To
get to Buffalo they had me go on a little airline which consisted of one
airplane. It was called Robinson Airlines (it later became Mohawk Airlines) and
I remember the first time I flew to Buffalo, Mr. Robinson was the pilot. He knocked
the ice off the wings and we flew away.
All
in all, I didn’t enjoy the idea of going to Buffalo every Thursday night. The
university was paying me $35 in addition to my expenses. I was a Depression
kid, and I figured I’d save the $35, which was a sizable amount of money in
those days.
Suddenly
I got an idea: I realized that the purpose of the $35 was to make the trip to
Buffalo more attractive, and the way to do that is to spend the money. So I
decided to spend the $35 to entertain myself each time I went to Buffalo, and
see if I could make the trip worthwhile.
I
didn’t have much experience with the rest of the world. Not knowing how to get
started, I asked the taxi driver who picked me up at the airport to guide me
through the ins and outs of entertaining myself in Buffalo. He was very
helpful, and I still remember his name—Marcuso, who drove car number 169. I
would always ask for him when I came into the airport on Thursday nights.
As
I was going to give my first lecture I asked Marcuso, “Where’s an interesting
bar where lots of things are going on?” I thought that things went on in bars.
“The
Alibi Room,” he said. “It’s a lively place where you can meet lots of people.
I’ll take you there after your lecture.”
After
the lecture Marcuso picked me up and drove me to the Alibi Room. On the way, I
say, “Listen, I’m gonna have to ask for some kind of drink. What’s the name of
a good whiskey?”
“Ask
for Black and White, water on the side,” he counseled.
The
Alibi Room was an elegant place with lots of people and lots of activity. The
women were dressed in furs, everybody was friendly, and the phones were ringing
all the time.
I
walked up to the bar and ordered my Black and White, water on the side. The
bartender was very friendly quickly found a beautiful woman to sit next to me,
and introduced her. I bought her drinks. I liked the place and decided to come
back the following week.
Every
Thursday night I’d come to Buffalo and be driven in car number 169 to my
lecture and then to the Alibi Room. I’d walk into the bar and order my Black
and White, water on the side. After a few weeks of this it got to the point
where as soon as I would come in, before I reached the bar, there would be a
Black and White, water on the side, waiting for me. “Your regular, sir” was the
bartender’s greeting.
I’d
take the whole shot glass down at once, to show I was a tough guy, like I had
seen in the movies, and then I’d sit around for about twenty seconds before I
drank the water. After a while I didn’t even need the water.
The
bartender always saw to it that the empty chair next to mine was quickly filled
by a beautiful woman, and everything would start off all right, but just before
the bar closed, they all had to go off somewhere. I thought it was possibly
because I was getting pretty drunk by that time.
One
time, as the Alibi Room was closing, the girl I was buying drinks for that
night suggested we go to another place where she knew a lot of people. It was
on the second floor of some other building which gave no hint that there was a
bar upstairs. All the bars in Buffalo had to close at two o’clock, and all the
people in the bars would get sucked into this big hall on the second floor, and
keep right on going—illegally, of course.
I
tried to figure out a way that I could stay in bars and watch what was going on
without getting drunk. One night I noticed a guy who had been there a lot go up
to the bar and order a glass of milk. Everybody knew what his problem was: he
had an ulcer, the poor fella. That gave me an idea.
The
next time I come into the Alibi Room the bartender says, “The usual, sir?”
“No.
Coke. Just plain Coke,” I say, with a disappointed look on my face.
The
other guys gather around and sympathize: “Yeah, I was on the wagon three weeks
ago,” one says. “It’s really tough, Dick, it’s really tough,” says another.
They
all honored me. I was “on the wagon” now, and had the guts to enter that bar,
with all its “temptations,” and just order Coke—because, of course, I had to
see my friends. And I maintained that for a month! I was a real tough bastard.
One
time I was in the men’s room of the bar and there was a guy at the urinal. He
was kind of drunk, and said to me in a mean-sounding voice, “I don’t like your
face. I think I’ll push it in.”
I
was scared green. I replied in an equally mean voice, “Get out of my way, or
I’ll pee right through ya!”
He
said something else, and I figured it was getting pretty close to a fight now.
I had never been in a fight. I didn’t know what to do, exactly, and I was
afraid of getting hurt. I did think of one thing: I moved away from the wall,
because I figured if I got hit, I’d get hit from the back, too.
Then
I felt a sort of funny crunching in my eye—it didn’t hurt much—and the next
thing I know, I’m slamming the son of a gun right back, automatically. It was
remarkable for me to discover that I didn’t have to think; the “machinery” knew
what to do.
“OK.
That’s one for one,” I said. “Ya wanna keep on goin’?”
The
other guy backed off and left. We would have killed each other if the other guy
was as dumb as I was.
I
went to wash up, my hands are shaking, blood is leaking out of my gums—I’ve got
a weak place in my gums—and my eye hurt. After I calmed down I went back into
the bar and swaggered up to the bartender: “Black and White, water on the
side,” I said. I figured it would calm my nerves.
I
didn’t realize it, but the guy I socked in the men’s room was over in another
part of the bar, talking with three other guys. Soon these three guys—big,
tough guys—came over to where I was sitting and leaned over me. They looked
down threateningly, and said, “What’s the idea of pickin’ a fight with our
friend?”
Well
I’m so dumb I don’t realize I’m being intimidated; all I know is right and
wrong. I simply whip around and snap at them, “Why don’t ya find out who started
what first, before ya start makin’ trouble?”
The
big guys were so taken aback by the fact that their intimidation didn’t work
that they backed away and left.
After
a while one of the guys came back and said to me, “You’re right, Curly’s always
doin’ that. He’s always gettin’ into fights and askin’ us to straighten it
out.”
“You’re
damn tootin’ I’m right!” I said, and the guy sat down next to me.
Curly
and the other two fellas came over and sat down on the other side of me, two
seats away. Curly said something about my eye not looking too good, and I said
his didn’t look to be in the best of shape either.
I
continue talking tough, because I figure that’s the way a real man is supposed
to act in a bar.
The
situation’s getting tighter and tighter, and people in the bar are worrying
about what’s going to happen. The bartender says, “No fighting in here, boys!
Calm down!”
Curly
hisses, “That’s OK; we’ll get ‘im when he goes out.”
Then
a genius comes by. Every field has its first-rate experts. This fella comes
over to me and says, “Hey, Dan! I didn’t know you were in town! It’s good to
see you!”
Then
he says to Curly, “Say, Paul! I’d like you to meet a good friend of mine, Dan,
here. I think you two guys would like each other. Why don’t you shake?”
We
shake hands. Curly says, “Uh, pleased to meet you.”
Then
the genius leans over to me and very quietly whispers, “Now get out of here
fast!”
“But
they said they would …”
“Just
go!” he says.
I
got my coat and went out quickly. I walked along near the walls of the buildings,
in case they went looking for me. Nobody came out, and I went to my hotel. It
happened to be the night of the last lecture, so I never went back to the Alibi
Room, at least for a few years.
(I
did go back to the Alibi Room about ten years later, and it was all different.
It wasn’t nice and polished like it was before; it was sleazy and had
seedy-looking people in it. I talked to the bartender, who was a different man,
and told him about the old days. “Oh, yes!” he said. “This was the bar where all
the bookmakers and their girls used to hang out.” I understood then why there
were so many friendly and elegant-looking people there, and why the phones were
ringing all the time.)
The
next morning, when I got up and looked in the mirror, I discovered that a black
eye takes a few hours to develop fully. When I got back to Ithaca that day, I
went to deliver some stuff over to the dean’s office. A professor of philosophy
saw my black eye and exclaimed, “Oh, Mr. Feynman! Don’t tell me you got that
walking into a door?”
“Not
at all,” I said. “I got it in a fight in the men’s room of a bar in Buffalo.”
“Ha,
ha, ha!” he laughed.
Then
there was the problem of giving the lecture to my regular class. I walked into
the lecture hall with my head down, studying my notes. When I was ready to
start, I lifted my head and looked straight at them, and said what I always
said before I began my lecture—but this time, in a tougher tone of voice: “Any
questions?”