As the fame of the Anderson House Tarzan grew, someone at the Daily wrote, “I was reminded of those old film reels from Mussolini rallies in the thirties, where the crowd would scream ‘Il Duce’ over and over until he appeared on the balcony.” Tarzan-themed parties sprang up around campus, serving “jungle juice” (naturally), and campus conversations were of little else. Things in East Quad eventually got so unruly that the administration felt the need to intervene. They narrowed the possible Tarzans down to five and let it be known through the Anderson RAs that Tarzan could have one final call, and then no more.
That night, over a thousand people gathered in East Quad, many dressed as Tarzan or Jane. There were one or two ape suits as well. The Devon Marching Band showed up, playing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” over and over, it being the only jungle-themed song they knew. A reporter from the CBS Evening News even came, planning on doing one of those human-interest pieces that come at the end of the broadcast, the ones that always start with “And finally tonight…” All this had the effect of whipping the crowd into a barely contained frenzy. One observer later described them as a “mob, coiled as a spring.” Finally, the window opened, and a single hand emerged to silence the faithful. As a midnight calm fell, there came the most beautiful, perfectly executed Tarzan call that anyone had ever heard. When it stopped, there were a few moments of reverent silence, the crowd moved by the beauty of what they had just heard.
And that’s when everyone pretty much lost their minds.
They became a mob in seconds, throwing rocks at Anderson, smashing most of the windows. Were they angry that they could no longer have their Tarzan? Perhaps. Or were they just whipped up into a frenzy of self-amusement? Those asked later didn’t have an answer. It just seemed like the thing to do.
Having dispensed with Anderson, the mob moved out onto Dudley Street, trampling cars, tearing off their shirts, making apelike jungle noises and beating their chests. By the time the Havenport police arrived, over a dozen vehicles had been damaged. Two dozen students spent the night as guests of the city. The CBS Evening News got its story, but it was no longer of the human-interest variety. The lead-in was “Violence Erupts on Devon Campus.”
No one ever did figure out who Tarzan was. Sheldon said that at his twenty-fifth reunion at least seven classmates claimed the Tarzan mantle for themselves, though he knew the real Tarzan would never be one to take personal credit.
Reading the story, and further considering the tale of Mattress Girl, Lulu hatched a plan. She’d have to put herself out there, really out there, but that’s what it would take to separate her from the pack. It might just work. In Silicon Valley, they called this a pivot.
Lulu 2.0.
She flipped open her MacBook Air and jumped on eBay, entering a search term. They had everything on eBay. Sure enough, they had over a dozen of what she was looking for, although she required only one. She opted for “Buy It Now” and arranged for overnight delivery. The only thing left was deciding what to wear.
That always took some thought.
The Passion of Lulu
LULU STOOD IN the vestibule of Grafton Hall, home of the English Department and Ephraim Russell’s classroom. The dilemma regarding what to wear for her social experiment had been resolved neatly. Most—well, all—of her clothes were designer, and she hated the idea of ruining them. Also, rich and privileged wasn’t what she was going for here. She had considered blue jeans, but they would rip, and nothing said chic like distressed jeans, so jeans were out, too. Then she’d had an idea, one she thought terribly clever. She ran out to the—ugh—Gap that morning and bought three pairs of khakis and a couple of blue button-down shirts. Back at Duffy, she tried them on and examined herself in the mirror. God knows, she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something like this under normal circumstances, but the outfit hit the mark. Khakis and blue button-downs were exactly what Ephraim Russell wore every day. That the outfit was vaguely butch was an added bonus; it would play with the militant fems. She’d also made it a point to go without makeup and not wash her hair.
She picked up a gym bag she’d brought and removed the lone item inside: an old cast-iron ball and chain. There had been plenty to choose from on eBay, including fake plastic ones, but plastic wouldn’t do. It cheapened the message. The real ones ranged in weight from seven to fifteen pounds; she’d gone with the seven-pounder. No need to make this any harder than it was already going to be.
Tossing the gym bag aside, Lulu clasped the bracket around her right ankle and slipped a pin through the small hole to secure it. She wore heavy socks, hoping to avoid too much chafing.
She walked out the door, ball in her arms, and glanced at her watch. It was a cheap Casio purchased that morning. (Her Cartier?—not on earth.) It was precisely nine p.m. She’d deliberately chosen a quiet hour so there would be no confusing her “mission” with anything else that might be going on. This is going to be a serious pain in the ass, but fuck it. Fuck all of them.
Taking a deep breath, she dropped the iron ball onto the stone path. It made an enormous clank. A couple of nearby students turned and looked, but only briefly. Strange things were always happening on campus. Lulu then dropped to all fours and began.
To crawl.
She painted her face with a look of tragedy, one she’d practiced in the mirror earlier. And she crawled. It was slow going, but she crawled.
Her route was carefully thought out. Beginning at Grafton, it crossed Bingham Plaza, traveled down Mathers Walk, across Dudley Street, and through the East Quad gate. Fortunately, Duffy was the first house on the Quad. Crossing Dudley might be tricky, but traffic should be light this time of the evening. All told, the journey was about 250 yards, and it was going to completely suck.
As she crept across the largely empty Bingham Plaza, the iron ball made a metallic, scraping sound as it dragged behind her. Bingham was a broad granite space bordered by Grafton, Stockbridge, and the Dix. Piles of snow were still around but the path was clear. Just a puddle here and there.
The iron ball didn’t seem to be an issue yet, but her knees concerned her. It wasn’t like she’d ever crawled hundreds of yards on stone before, plus it was fucking cold. She only had the button-down, plus a T-shirt underneath. The granite felt even colder than the air, and the feeling of it seeped up through her hands and arms. Gloves would have been nice, but they might also have lessened the visual, the authenticity.
She almost laughed at that thought. This was perhaps the least authentic thing she’d ever done, but if she’d noticed anything in her half year at Devon, it was that people here were gullible as hell, particularly if the message was something they wanted to hear.
A few students noticed her, but only laughed. Was it sorority pledge season? Perhaps an art project? She made her way down Mathers, with its rows of antique streetlights poking through the snowbanks. Some other students came from the other direction but gave her a wide berth. God, I feel stupid, Lulu thought.
Arriving at Dudley Street, she considered her situation. Mathers dead-ended into the normally busy street, and she needed to get across. There was a crosswalk, and a traffic light that was activated by a large metal button. She crossed here several times a day and knew that pushing the button activated a green light with a fifteen-second countdown timer. That wasn’t much time (city planners hadn’t taken potential crawlers into account), but standing and walking was out of the question. Reaching up, she pushed the button. A few seconds later the light changed to green and several cars came to a stop. She crawled out into the street, one hand after another, right through the glare of headlights. Both her hands and knees were in considerable discomfort. Halfway across, the orange numbers on the countdown timer said five seconds. She was shuffling as fast as she could, considering she was dragging a large iron ball, but it wasn’t fast enough. Still, she refused to stand. When the timer ran out, she had at least twelve feet to go. Several cars started honking. One man leaned out his window and yelled, “Crazy bitch!” Anoth
er just drove right around her, horn blaring. Lunging the last few feet, she finally reached the other side. She waited a few moments, catching her breath and allowing her pulse rate to subside. Shit, that was no fun. Thankfully, the gates to East Quad were right in front of her. It only remained to go through them, take a brief left, and she was at the entrance to Duffy.
Three stone steps led up to Duffy’s door. When she reached there, someone came out, a classmate. “Hey, are you okay?”
Lulu said nothing. She didn’t—wouldn’t—respond. The boy walked on, perplexed.
She made her way up the three steps, each bowed by generations of undergraduate feet. Standing at last, she turned to face East Quad. The large yard had crisscrossing paths and six separate freshman dorms. It was mostly empty at this hour, with most of her classmates either in their rooms or at a library. She could see maybe a dozen people out near the center of the quad walking this way or that.
Then, to an audience of none, Lulu drew a deep breath of cold air and threw her arms back, as if offering herself. And she let out the longest, loudest scream of her life.
The Story Breaks
Devon Daily
March 18
Professor Accused of Assault
Assistant Professor of English Ephraim Russell has been accused of sexual assault by one of his students, the Daily has learned. According to a source inside the administration, the assault took place in Grafton Hall in December. Dean Arjun Choudhary has confirmed Professor Russell has been suspended pending an investigation. Graduate students in the English Department have been asked to take over his two classes.
This is not the first time Professor Russell has been at the center of troubling events. In October, he was accused by students of allowing racially insensitive language to be used inside his classroom, a charge that was ultimately dismissed.
In a possibly related story, a student, identified as first-year Louise Harris, has been waging an unusual protest for the last several days. At the same time each evening, Harris has been seen crawling with an iron ball and chain from Grafton to her dorm on East Quad. There, she stands each night and screams. A handful of students have started to accompany her on her nightly journey and have joined in the scream. Drew Stokes, a sophomore, is one of those who has been following Harris on her nightly crawl. “Clearly, this is a cry against gender violence,” he told the Daily. Others seemed to agree.
Harris herself has not responded to repeated requests for comment, and she remains steadfastly silent during her nightly procession. It can be confirmed, however, that she was a student in Russell’s English 240 class this fall. Furthermore, Russell’s classes are given at Grafton, where Harris begins her crawl each night. One person even noted that Harris’s clothes are similar to those typically worn by Russell. While these facts are suggestive of a connection between Harris and the accusations against Russell, it cannot be confirmed at this time.
Eph stared blankly at the brick walls of his apartment. All he’d been told was that he was suspended pending an investigation. Teaching assistants would take over his classes. He could have learned all that in the Daily.
After he got word, he’d headed to Grafton to collect some things from his office. They only allowed him in after conducting a “search.” For what, Eph had no idea. He noticed that a couple of the departmental offices near him had SAFE SPACE stickers on their doors. Were those there before?
He’d hardly been able to function since his night at Casey’s with Fred Hallowell. D’Arcy had been sympathetic, but Eph could swear he heard doubt in her voice. They’d met earlier in an empty classroom to talk.
“Why do you suppose that girl would make something like this up?” she asked.
Eph had played that day in the office over and over in his head. “How the hell should I know?” He allowed his frustration to show. “I think she was annoyed I wasn’t interested in her. Or, maybe she’s just crazy. In fact, based on my experience with her, I’m quite confident that’s the case.”
“I recognize her from around campus. She doesn’t strike me as the militant type. She’s always wearing expensive clothes, for one. And why would she bail you out on Huck Finn just to do this to you now? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Not to me, either. But she apparently now thinks it’s good sport to ruin my life.” Eph also told D’Arcy something else Fred Hallowell had told him that night: that the university had a photo of Eph and Harris, in his office, dated the same day as the alleged assault. He recalled that Harris had sent him that photo. Did the university look through his emails? The thought made him nauseous.
“I don’t get it. Why did you take a picture with her?”
“She just ran around my chair and took it. It was a selfie. I don’t know why.”
“But why would she just do that?”
Eph was getting angry, although more at circumstances than D’Arcy. “Again, I don’t know. Maybe she planned all this. Or maybe, as I said, she’s batshit crazy. Just look at what she’s doing, crawling around and screaming every night like some animal.”
“Hey, I’m on your side. I’m just trying to understand, okay? Maybe you should tell me everything.”
“She came to my office to drop off a paper. She hands in her paper and then tells me she was the one who cleared me on Huck Finn. Then she starts talking all flirty, and just when I’m trying to process the shift in the conversation, she jumps on my damn lap and plants her face on mine. I shove her off, she gets up, takes the picture, and leaves. Door was open the whole time. End of story.”
“And that’s it?”
“She came by my office one previous time to talk about her paper topic. Also, she emailed a lot, but it seemed like harmless stuff. Other than that, she was a face in the crowd.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this at the time?”
“I don’t know. I should have, but it was right around that other stuff, and I guess I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of magnet for trouble.”
D’Arcy thought about this. “Listen, I believe you. Of course I do. This will work out, just like the last time. I think this girl may be troubled. Let me keep my ear to the ground and see what I can find out.”
“Don’t do anything that’ll get you in hot water. Please.”
“I’ll be careful.”
* * *
Sitting alone in his apartment, Eph knew what had been left unsaid, that the stakes were higher this time, much higher. Devon had erected a wall of silence. Not even Titus was returning his calls. Tenure? That was a fantasy Eph could put to bed. This was about survival now.
His apartment seemed even smaller than usual.
The Crawl: Day Ten
“THE CRAWL” HAD turned into a growing nightly procession. Yolanda Perez mustered some troops from the Devon Womyn’s Collective. The collective’s president, Pythia Kamal, started coming by the fifth day. Kamal was a Fourth Wave feminist, believing in the use of modern technology and social tools to advance the cause. The Crawl was tailor-made for Fourth Wave feminism. Others who came didn’t go to Devon at all but heard about Lulu through the collective’s outreach. There were better than a hundred now, many carrying candles in silence.
Lulu never spoke, not a single word. Nor did she make eye contact or engage with anyone in any way. It lent the impression of a fugue state, a damaged soul. She just crawled and crawled, the iron ball scraping along behind her. The others let her lead, following slowly in her wake, a slow-motion parade. By the eighth day, Pythia realized that complete silence didn’t translate well on social channels so she started a chant. She would yell, “Crawl!” And the others would answer with “Peace!”
“Crawl!”
“Peace!”
Even though Lulu wasn’t talking, it was widely understood she was the victim in the Russell case. The clothes, the route, the timing … the message was there for anyone to decipher, and she was gaining considerable stature from her choice to protest symbolically. There was a power to it.
>
Part of the way down Mathers, a familiar voice cut through the chanting. “Lulu, what the fuck are you doing?”
It was Shelley. Lulu kept crawling, eyes focused on nothing.
“I had to see for myself. You know damn well this is bullshit. Do you hear me?”
Pythia Kamal quickly interceded. “How dare you. Lulu’s a survivor. We honor survivors on this campus!”
“Kiss my ass. No one is buying this, Lulu. And, not that I really care, but when your bullshit is exposed, you’re only going to make it harder for real victims to come forward. What about them?”
Several people stepped up and surrounded Shelley. “You need to leave. Now. This is a peaceful march,” said one male student, striding toward Shelley, chest thrust out.
“So these are your new friends, Lulu? Attractive lot you’ve hooked up with.” A few marchers hissed at that, which struck Shelley as pathetic.
Lulu still gave no indication she knew Shelley was there, which was hard, because she wanted to belt Shelley in the nose. But how could she? She was in a fugue state.
“All of you can piss off,” Shelley barked. With that, she turned and left.
* * *
Lulu’s followers had solved the problem of crossing Dudley each night. Once the light turned green, they made two lines across, forming a human channel. The light would always change when Lulu was about halfway, but traffic had effectively been blocked. Horns would blare, but not a single person would break rank until she was safely across. The honking also served notice to the nearby dorms in East Quad that the Crawl was close. Dozens would run downstairs to join the primal scream. Most were supporters, some just enjoyed a good scream.
Turning the corner into the quad, the crowd waiting in East Quad appeared twice as big as yesterday. Not sure what the appropriate reception was, some snapped, while others clapped, and they came to walk next to Lulu for the final few feet. Making it to the top of the steps, Lulu stood. She breathed heavily, her chest heaving with the effort. On her face was a thousand-mile stare, fixed on nothing and no one. The crowd quieted at this moment, as they had learned to do. Then Lulu threw back her arms, looked to the sky, and screamed. This deep and tortured scream went for as long as she could hold a single breath. The crowd stood, transfixed by this perfect distillation of distaff rage. When her voice finally trailed off, Lulu simply turned and entered Duffy. There was a pause, then the crowd answered with their own scream, throaty and maniacal, a single contrapuntal note.
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