Norman Mailer in the 1960s

I went to Wharton with Donald Trump. We were both from praetorian families in Queens – his more martial than mine – in the first line of defense on the crabgrass frontier. We went out one night together to a hotel behind Rittenhouse Square. His date was a wised-up girl from Philadelphia society who dreamed of becoming a stripper; mine was a retreating waitress, with a hyena body that gave off a whiff of the inquisitive. After the drinks – Don drank seltzer – we took them to a room we’d booked upstairs. My date gashed my face with her high-heel after I tried to shuffle her into one of the bedrooms. There was panting from Don’s quarters, the sound of a teetering vase, then mechanical chanting, until a final flesh-on-flesh “Whaaaap!” A volley of sweet-talk followed. “If you want to be a dancer, there’s nobody who’s going to stop you, not even your father,” Don whispered. “I know some of the best dancers in this town. The finest.” He was soft-voiced, clerical; a big papa trainer in her corner. That year Don shoveled his charm around campus and made his attention a rare metal. His mania gathered up the particles of other people’s giddy subservience. I didn’t see much of him after the night on Rittenhouse. During the final finance exam, I remember him unfurling the answers on small print scroll that he’d fitted inside an extra-bulbous cufflink. I’m now a retired bank manager in Eerie, PA. We summer on Lake Michigan and my daughter just graduated from Oberlin.