The place where Louis dwells

I had rushed out of class the moment the lecturer put down his sheets of notes. I had run up four flights of stairs to my room on Old Campus. I had dressed in my finest khakis, sportcoat, and tie. I ran past my usual haunts off Broadway, past Au Bon Pain and Willoughby's, while the unobtrusive and yet oh-so-imposing white building between Toad's Place and the Hall of Graduate Studies beckoned me onward. I was going to eat lunch at Mory's, the first step in my joining the venerable association itself. I was convinced this would make me a card-carrying member of the cultural elite.

Things didn't quite work out the way I imagined they would. When I opened the impressive wooden door and stepped into an even more impressive lobby, my friend and sponsor was nowhere to be seen. A maitre-d', whom I hoped would be threatening and snobbish but instead was a pleasant enough, mustachioed man who vaguely reminded me of my philosophy professor, explained that Mr. K had not arrived yet but that I could be taken to his table.

I was led up a staircase into a small, wood-paneled room already filled with Mory's members. Two old men were discussing some serious topics and drinking some serious cocktails. A couple in shorts and T-shirts was yelling at each other in Spanish over small bowls filled with what looked like hot mud. I was more formally dressed than anyone but the serving staff. I ordered a Coke, and when the kindly, middle-aged waitress asked for some sort of secret code, I explained awkwardly that I was the guest of a member.

The soda arrived, and I sipped it slowly, looking over the crudely typewritten menu. I read the names of past presidents of Mory's Association carved into the wooden walls and the initials of past Yalie vandals carved into my table. I stared at the vacuous faces of Yale varsity captains from decades past gazing at me from their frames. I took off my jacket and loosened my tie.

My sponsor ran in, unkempt and jean-clad, almost a quarter of an hour later. He had been up all night writing a paper on Kant, had woken up minutes earlier, and apparently never dressed up for lunch at Mory's anyway. He ordered Baker's Soup and Welsh Rarebit, and I, not knowing what either of these dishes were but trusting his judgment, did the same.

It turned out the Baker's Soup was the hot mud the clamorous Spanish-speaking couple had been consuming. Sprinkled with exactly three croutons, it tasted vaguely of vegetables. The Welsh Rarebit was a bowl of boiling cheese with a piece of bread in it, so hot the bread leapt to and fro in the bubbling sludge like a condemned soul in the pits of hell. It was nothing more than a grilled cheese sandwich with a flair for the dramatic. Though both selections were superior to typical YUDH fare, I was unimpressed.

"I am unimpressed," I told my patron.

"Well, what did you expect? A Whiffenpoof as your waiter? George Bush as your busboy?"

"No, it's just that with this whole exclusive membership thing and all, I guess I was expecting something..."

"Hey, they give the sponsors five dollars in credit for every new member who joins. I've sponsored people I hardly know at all for that money. That's lucrative, but not exactly exclusive."

"Well, it is Mory's after all. A smoke-filled private club, the playground of the intellectual elite...."

"And you thought joining would somehow magically add your name to the social register?"

"Well, not really, well, yes. Yes, that's exactly what I wanted. I wanted to join so I could smoke expensive cigars with fat cats, meet the daughters of old money at debutante balls."

"And you probably came to Yale so you could say you went to America's best university, the iviest of all Ivies."

"That was part of it."

"You loser, just eat your Welsh Rarebit."

Funny thing is, once I put enough Wosterchire sauce on top, that bowl of bubbling cheese wasn't bad at all.