Browning Chief

BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET
Attack of Amnesia Transforms
Milquetoast Into Roost Ruler
By BILLY ROSE

The other day I picked up the telephone to call Eleanor, and it was almost half a minute before I could remember my number at home. At the time, this memory lapse didn't seem worth brooding about, but last night I happened to meet up with a well-known psychiatrist at the Stork Club, and over a jigger of ginger-beer I told him what had happened.

"It was probably a mild attack of amnesia," he said. "As a rule, the victims are folks who, consciously or unconsciously, want to escape from their routine chores, and every now and then their minds blank out as a protest against doing the same old things the same old way."

"What kind of pills should I take?"

"Fun pills," said the mind-meddler. "Buy yourself a sailboat, take skeet-shooting, get a set of water colors and learn how to paint."

"And supposing I don't?"

"Chances are nothing will happen except that you'll forget a few more phone numbers."

On the other hand, there's always the possibility that the spells may get longer and more frequent. That's what happened not long ago to a good friend of ours."

JERRY—and I'm sure you know the Jerry I mean—used to be one of Broadway's leading juveniles and stay-up-lates. Five years ago, as you know, he put away his hair-oil and got a job producing radio shows. And not long after, he married the daughter of a network executive, bought a home in Scarsdale and decided to settle down.

"Well, as often happens when a girl has too much dowry, his wife did most of the settling for him. She made him exchange his friends for hers, his fun for hers and within six years, the man who used to be a gay old dog became all dog—a Westchester version of Caspar Milquetoast.

"After two years of being yammered at by his missus, Jerry came in to see me one day and said that he was having trouble with his memory—that it was blacking out on him now and then. I asked him some questions about his home life, and when he told me what it was like I advised him to stand up to his wife, and if necessary, slap her down occasionally. He told me, quite seriously, she wouldn't stand for such a thing.

"One morning several months later, he came to my office, and told me quite a tale. It seems that on his way home the night before he had had an attack of amnesia, and when he came to 15 hours later he was in a New York hotel room, with no idea of what had happened in between.

"I phoned his wife, and from her story, managed to put the pieces together. Jerry's memory had snapped as he got to the door of his house in Scarsdale—perhaps in protest against the stuffy people his wife had invited to dinner and all he knew was that he was standing on a strange stoop.

"AFRAID TO RING the bell, he sneaked into the back yard, found an open window, hoisted himself through, then recognizing nothing, stopped to puzzle out the situation. Who was he? What sort of man would climb through the window of a strange house? Only a burglar, of course. Ergo, he must be a burglar. And so he tiptoed up stairs, entered his wife's bedroom and began stuffing her jewelry into his pockets.

"As this point, his missus walked in, told him to stop playing cops and robbers, and began badgering him at the top of her over-sized lungs. But Jerry, the burglar, instead of melting into the carpet, belted her one right in the teeth.

"That's all there was to it. Somehow, he got back to New York, checked in at a hotel, and when he woke up his amnesia was gone."

"Did you tell his wife that her husband wasn't himself when he clipped her on the chin?" I asked.

The psychiatrist smiled. "Of course not, and what's more, I advised my patient to keep mum. Jerry went home to a big reconciliation scene—the old worm-turns story—and ever since, the more spine he has shown the more supine his wife has become.

"I went out to his house for a poker session recently, and the only time she came in the room was when she brought in the drinks. To date, there have been no recurrences of amnesia, and it's my belief that if Jerry doesn't take any more nonsense from his wife, there won't be.'"

"Are you suggesting I go home and hang a shiner on Eleanor's eye?" I asked.

"In your case," said the psychiatrist, "I doubt if it's necessary. However, if you have any more trouble remembering telephone numbers, I'd suggest you invest a few dollars in a water-color set."