Jonathan Ames - The Duel 

 

 

Okay. Well, I'm going to tell you my story now. In 1984, I was a sophomore at Princeton, and I was one of the captains on the fencing team. I briefly want to explain fencing to you a little bit for everyone. There are a few Jews knew what a mohel was, and certainly the male Jews remember what a mohel was. But for those of you who don't know what fencing is, I'm going to give you a quick lesson. In fencing, there are three weapons. I'm not going to make a joke about a pen being mightier than the sword, but I'm going to use a pen as a sword tonight, which is only fitting since it's the pen festival.

 

So, quickly fencing, there are three weapons. The most common weapon that people know about is the foil. And in foil, the torso is the target area. And you use the tip of the blade like that. And so, just the torso, not the arms, only the torso. Another weapon is the epee. And with that weapon, the whole body is the target, including the feet, the legs, the head, everything. But again, you only use the point. Now, the weapon I fenced was saber. And it was, for me, the most dashing, the most romantic, the most Errol Flynn-like. Because the way you scored touches was a slashing motion. Oftentimes I have a real saber when I do this, and you would have been in peril. But because I'm an expert, I merely would have just snipped a hair for a moment, but very lovely right in the front here.

 

Anyway, so, the saber is a slashing weapon, and the whole target area is everything above the hips, including the head and the arms. And so, you make cutting motions like that, and you slash across the body, and it's very dynamic. So, I was the captain, and I loved the romance of fencing, so I named all my fellow saber fencers after great swordsmen in history. There was Sir Gawain the Green Knight, one goofy freshman we called Don Quixote. And myself I named El Cid. I was a Charlton Heston fan. I loved his face. This was before he was wearing that horrible wig and became an NRA spokesman. But even that was okay. He had a great face. You don't see faces like that every day. So, I called myself El Cid, after the great Charlton Heston role.

 

Now, I had a secret goal that sophomore year at Princeton while training, and that was to beat the number one saber fencer at Columbia, Russell Wilson. My lifetime record against Russell Wilson was about 0 and 13. I'd been fencing him all through high school. I'd been fencing him at Junior Olympics. He was always beating me. Once at a party at the Junior Olympics, he snubbed me socially, which only added to my growing wound. He trained in New York City with expatriate Russian coaches. He had incredible skill. He was snobby. He was also a little bit chubby, and he had these sophisticated moves. So, his whole worldview was opposed to mine, and I was always losing to him. So, my secret goal sophomore year was to beat Russell Wilson.

 

Now, to get ready for this, I would go for early morning lessons with my French fencing coach at Princeton, who was a gorgeous man. He had a bald head. Not that that's gorgeous, but he had a bald head and beautiful gray eyes. Kind of looked like Sean Connery. He'd been a commando in the French Algerian war. He would train me early in the morning, coming at me with a steel rod to make my parries extra firm, because you block here, you block here, you block here for the head. He'd come at me, "El Cid, come on, El Cid. Commando, commando." Because he was big into being a commando and he was seeing me as a possible commando. He would come at me with this steel bar, going, "Commando, commando" 

 

I would get ready, and he would tell me to be in my en garde position, which is like this, "You must have a band of steel in the groin, El Cid." I don't know why we had to have a band of steel down here, but it wasn't chaste or anything like that. But he liked us to have a band of steel down here, come at me with this rod. Then afterwards, he would tell me stories of the war. He would often tell this one story. He'd go, "One time, El Cid, I was walking along on patrol, and suddenly an electric cable shot me in the buttocks, and I went flying in the air. 30 feet, 40 feet. I was flying through the air, but then I landed on my feet like a cat. Like a cat, El Cid. That's how you have to be with balance when you fence, El Cid." 

 

And then, two days later he'd be like, "El Cid, one time I was on patrol and an electric cable struck me in the buttocks and I went flying through the air, and then I landed on my feet like a cat. That's how you have to be." I don't know, he was on some loop. Because every two or three days, I would hear this electric cable story in the buttocks and flying through the air, and I'd be like, "Yes, coach, you're the greatest." He had a huge ego. He would claim that when he was my age, he could fly. When he went at someone with his saber, he goes, "I became plein av.” This was plein av, like, he would be totally flying through the air with his saber. Somehow, at the time, though, I believed him, he said it with such conviction.

 

Anyway, so, we were both training like crazy. Finally, the big meet against Columbia happened. We took a van from Princeton up to Columbia. The coach also wanted me to win terribly, because his wife had left him and was shacking up with the Columbia's coach. [audience laughter] She had a thing for swordsmen, I guess. He really wanted me to win. We both had a vendetta. So, we go up to Columbia, and we're in the gym getting ready, and the Columbia team's not around. We're in our white outfit, stretching, starting to work out a little bit. And then, suddenly, the whole gym fills with Wagner music, The Ride of the Valkyries. This scary Wagner music.

 

And for me, I'm Jewish, and I'm like, "What is this? Wagner?" This is rocky music for the Nazi party. This is horrible. [audience laughter] And then, suddenly, the Columbia team comes racing in with their white outfits and their swords, trying to intimidate us to this Wagner, like the Nazi party. It only made me more incensed, made me want to beat Russell Wilson even more.

 

So, anyway, before I got to fence Russell Wilson, though, I fenced the lesser saber guy on the Columbia team, and I lost to him. I was so keyed on Russell Wilson, I lost, which was disastrous. But our team was still competing. So, then finally, I got to fence Russell Wilson, this bout I'd been training months for these commando lessons with the iron rod in the morning, the buttock story, all so I could beat Russell Wilson. I get down in my band of steel, we're moving back and forth, I feint to his head and I cut him across the belly, and I go up 1-0. 

 

Now, to win a fencing bout, you have to score five touches. And so, I had gotten the first one. When I scored a touch in fencing-- The language of fencing is French. And so, when I scored the touch, I went, "Ela." Ela means and there. Like, "And there. You swine, you fool, you idiot." [audience laughter] You Londoner or something like that. So, "Ela." I said it really loud. And then, we're moving back and forth. He tried to cut me here. Boom, I hit him right in the head. I'm up, 2-0. This is incredible. I'm winning. It's beautiful. Then he got a touch, 2-1, but then I went ahead 3-1. This was wonderful. But then, he started coming back. 3-2, 3-3. It's like, "Oh no, I got down to my band of steel.” 

 

Then I went ahead 4-3. But then, sure enough, he feinted to my head, cut me across the belly. It was now tied, 4-4. I could sense it going out of my hands. My inner loser was asserting itself. [audience laughter] My whole Oedipus upbringing. My father was always trying to crush me, to keep me out of my mother's bed and everything like that. And so, I could just sense it was happening again. "Oh no, I'm going to lose." It was 4-4. Now, when it's 4-4 in fencing, it's called la belle, the beautiful touch, because it's like the touch right before death.

 

The French love the death. Le petit mort, le grand mort, they love it all. [audience laughter] And so, 4-4 is la belle, because if you're recreating a duel to the death, the next touch would be the death touch. So, my coach calls time out. I lift up my mask, and he starts speaking to me in French. "Ou va faire le contretemps?" At this point, I'm not absorbing any French. I'd been saying ela with every touch. “Ela.” That was the only French I could get out of me or in me. But he's giving me all these instructions with French, and I'm going, "Okay, coach," but I sense I'm going to lose. And so, he walked off, my mask came down, and then he turned and looked at me with these beautiful bullet gray eyes he had, and he said, "Commando."

 

And that was like our secret communication. Commando, the iron rod. Everything. Okay, I'm good. So, I got down on my band of steel, and I decided to do something very risky. I tried to win by playing it defensive, because I knew Russell Wilson, he wanted to really humiliate me. And one way to humiliate a saber fencer, the hand would also be target area. And in fencing, you're supposed to keep your hand back. But to keep your balance, sometimes it would come forward. Even though it's macho and Errol Flynn-like, it does look a little fey as you're moving forward with this hand, very genteel, and the pinky up or something like that. But anyway, my hand was out, and I knew he was going to want to cut it to really defeat me terribly.

 

So, I kept it out there, almost like a trout fisherman with a lure. "Come on, Russell Wilson. Go for my hand. Try to humiliate me. I know you're a sadist. You snubbed me at that party in Cleveland. Come on, cut my hand." [audience laughter] So, I was leaving it dangling out there. And now, the danger was when I went to parry, if I went too far, if I overcompensated, he would quickly move and cut me here. That was the danger of going for that. But I'm leaving it out there, I'm leaving it out there. I'm drawing him in, and he's moving back and forth. It's a beautiful dance, fencing. And then, suddenly, sure enough, he makes his move. He goes for my hand. 

 

I wait till the last second. Boom, I parry him. It was beautiful. It was delicious. It was a wonderful clang of steel. I had him blocked. And his head was right there, because he had extended himself. So, all I had to do was go like that, tap him right on the head and I win. All I had to do was go tap him right on the head. Now, I've been fencing, like everything in life. The closest distance between two points is a straight line. So, just like that, plein av, like the coach had been telling me.

 

But instead, like an idiot, like an inner loser, like blinded Oedipus. I rear back like that, exposing my arm. "You fool." I sense my foolishness. But Russell Wilson was so shocked that I parried him. I still had time, so I compensated. I came down ferociously on top of his head, I said, "Ela." I went so nuts, so much craziness, my whole life, so much confusion. All came out right on his head. My saber snapped and broke over his head. Went flying into the air. Probably blinded a co-ed Barnard. It went flying into the air. It was beautiful. I went like that. 

 

I had scored the touch. But then, I went nuts, I started going, "Ela, ela, ela, ela, ela, ela, ela, ela." It was like I had French Tourette's. I was like a dog in an alleyway making love like the greatest lover ever. Up and down, this pumping motion, the ela’s. The whole place was going crazy. And the judge, who was actually a Holocaust survivor, was with one eye and a lump and a bad leg, somehow he'd seen this. Nobody could miss that. I had broken the blade over his head. He goes, "Touch to the left, to Ames, to Princeton." And I had won. Whoever wins in life? No one. That's why we're here tonight. You never win. But I had won, and I was lifted up by my teammates. The greatest fencing victory of my life. I was ebullient. 

 

And then, I saw Russell Wilson down below, just kind of dizzy. And I said, "Oh, nice bout." Completely disingenuous, but showing good form. We shook hands. And so, that is the story of my greatest fencing victory. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Thank you. So, just two little quick things, almost like a coda. Several years later, I was at a dinner party. I mean, a few years ago, at a dinner party, and several years after the fact, and I took my knife and I told this story. And a girl at the dinner said, "I know Russell Wilson. He's an arms dealer now for the government." I was like, "What?" [audience laughter] Anyway, so, then I was like, "Wow. Well, I defeated him. I don't care about him going in helicopters over the Middle East." But anyway, so, then she emails me a week later. "I mentioned you to Russell Wilson. He said he didn't remember you." [audience laughter] So, he snatched it away from me. Anyway, thank you.