My Famous Brain

by Diane Wald

  “He’ll drag you into it, Don. Just let it go. There’s more than just my reputation at stake here.”

  “Did that bother you when it was a question of defending Sarah’s honor? Never mind. Forget it for now. We’ll talk again. How are you feeling—physically I mean? Need any milk-shakes or anything?” He’d noticed my growing enthusiasm for life’s little comforts.

  “No,” I laughed. “I just had one this morning, as a matter of fact. I’m doing okay. I’m just really, really tired. Even when my head doesn’t hurt it just takes me so goddamn long to do everything now.”

  He breathed out heavily, and I was sorry I’d complained. “I know. Don’t try to do it all yourself. Give me a call whenever, will you?”

  I said I would. My brain was swimming with all he’d said—all of it.

  And then I was fired. Or, as the academic bullshit-speak put it—my contract was not renewed. I’d stuck to my guns about keeping Mussel’s past a secret, and I don’t completely understand that to this day. Partly, as I’d explained to Don, I was just so incredibly tired. Partly, I knew that if I put up a fight, or if Don put one up on my behalf, the gossipmongers would inevitably get hold of Mussel’s affair with Frances. I didn’t care a pin about that anymore (except, I suppose, that it would have hurt what was left of my pride), but I didn’t want the boys to be involved. And partly, I thought, there was the chance that the whole world would find out about me and Sarah too, but I doubted that: Mussel wouldn’t want that part of the past dug up at all.

  Sarah. Did I really care that she, as Mussel’s wife, would share his shame? Not really. Was I afraid that I still wanted to hurt her? No, I wasn’t. I actually didn’t care. Too much had happened since she’d been part of my life. Somewhere within me I felt she was suffering dreadfully already. I thought the whole thing might tear her apart—finish her off, so to speak, so that she’d never have the chance to be whole again. From my wiser vantage point now, of course, I know I was way off base. Sarah was basically finished before she started; there wasn’t really any hope for her, but I couldn’t see it then.

  I received a note from Mussel one afternoon asking me to stop by his office at my earliest opportunity. I waited three days before I went—not because I was trying to put off the inevitable, which was of course entirely out of my control, but just because the phrase “at your earliest opportunity” tickled me so.

  When poor, pathetic, crazy Dottie, looking flustered, sad, and shy, and little suspecting what Don and I had discussed about her, ushered me into the pig-man’s den, I realized with a funny little shock that I had never been in his office before. In all the time I’d been teaching in that department, I’d never once entered the holy of holies. Not only was Mussel loath to subscribe to an “open-door policy,” he treated his office like a private boudoir. He was on the phone when I came in, so I took a good look around.

  My first impression was an olfactory one. The air in the room was stale, musty, slightly sour, with a pervasive odor of something like liniment overlaying the surface of all the other smells like a waxy film. I wondered which part of his grotesque anatomy had been rubbed with what soothing concoction—and by whom. Gagging a little, I made my way to the chair farthest from Mussel’s desk: an ancient, heavy, leather recliner that would have been more suited to the basement playroom of a taxidermist. It was comfortable enough, actually, but when I ran my hands over its wide arms, I was amazed to find them grimy to the touch. I knew the building’s janitorial crew personally and knew them to be some of the most fastidious, thorough creatures ever to wield a feather duster or mop, so Mussel must have made his office off limits even to them. I stifled a smile when I thought of how delighted the old bastard would have been to find Don Rath rifling through his desk that time: ah, what a jolly little scene that would have been.

  I looked around the room but could see nothing of interest until my poor eyes fell upon what appeared to be an antique prayer bench that must have been uprooted from some ancient cathedral. Obviously pricey, and gleamingly polished, it seemed to be the one item that Mussel considered worthy of being kept clean. Its blood-red, velvet-covered kneeler looked as if its cushions had been recently reupholstered. My Freudian instincts began to play delightedly with this apparition, and I wondered whether Wally would invite me to kneel down while he bestowed upon me his evil benediction. But I did not have much time to ruminate.

  His phone call over, Mussel came out from behind his desk and approached me, hand outstretched for a shake. I barely touched it with mine.

  “Dr. MacLeod,” he said, in his wheezy whine. “Thank you for stopping by. Would you care for some coffee?”

  Fat chance, I thought. He’d probably serve it in unwashed cups.

  “Thank you, no,” I said, and nothing more. I was going to make this little execution as much work for him as possible. Several hundred scenarios had played themselves out in my head during the three days and nights since I’d received Mussel’s note. I didn’t really know which one of them I’d set into motion until I got there; all I did know was that I would be in complete control. Devious and cruel as Mussel might be, I knew we were not a match intellectually. His wits were slug-slow. I also knew he wasn’t at all aware that I could best him; he and I had never had more than a cursory conversation, and it was probable that he simply considered me a poor, befuddled chump, someone of whom he need take little notice. After all, hadn’t he been screwing my wife for quite some time right under my nose? I didn’t know then whether he was aware of my affair with Sarah, but I was just getting into embellishing my imaginings when he finally spoke. “I’m sorry to tell you, Jack—may I call you Jack? —that I have some rather bad news for you,” he began.

  I put up one hand and stopped him immediately. “Please don’t call me Jack,” I said evenly, “if you’re going to fuck me over. I come by my title honestly, so I’d like you to use it.” He made a small, low-pitched gasping sound. It was like being in a stuffy room with a tiny, near-to-erupting volcano. I actually thought I felt an increase in air temperature.

  “Listen here, MacLeod,” he burbled, “I’ll call you any damn thing I please. If you don’t want to conduct this meeting in a civilized way, that’s all right with me, but—”

  “Is there anything civilized,” I asked, “about your skulking around behind my back questioning my students and making indirect assaults on my personal and academic standards?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he sputtered. “You are certainly mistaken.”

  “Am I? Of course I’m not. Let’s not waste a lot of time here, okay, Mister Mussel?” I laid a lot of emphasis on the Mister. “It’s perfectly obvious that you’re going to get rid of me. If I don’t go quietly, you’ll see to it that I go out with a bang—but go out I will. I don’t doubt your ability to carry off your plan. And I don’t much care; I’ll go, you’ll be relieved to know, quite willingly. I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of you and your ignorant, criminal, bullying ways. I only came here today so you could have the pleasure of telling me in person. Now, please go on with your happy task. I’m all ears.”

  Mussel had clasped his hands in front of him, as if he were going to say something very intimate. “You surprise me, MacLeod. I have to admit, you surprise me. You’ve got more guts than I thought you had, but then that’s probably part and parcel of your superior attitude. You came here with your famous brain and expected special treatment. Well, that’s not what’s happening. Since you already know why you’re here, let me tell you a few things you don’t know. It’s not as bad as it might be, you see. I could have just booted you out; I have the means; I have the power …” There was a whinny in his voice when he said the word power.

  “But I’ve decided simply to fail to renew your contract. You don’t even have to bother to resign; you can just fade out, tell everyone you’ve decided to let things go, to move on elsewhere. I won’t put anything in your way. You may have the same letter of recommendation we send out for any departing
faculty.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” I said. He didn’t catch the tone of my voice.

  “Yes, it is, considering that you could easily be terminated for various infractions of the rules, not to mention your obvious personal deterioration. I think you may be completely unfit to teach, but that is not my concern any longer. I don’t know what your problems are, physical or otherwise, and I’m frankly not interested. You can take your problems to some other institution. Do you have any questions?”

  “How’s your wife?” I said.

  He was off balance. “I beg your pardon?”

  “How’s Sarah?” I repeated. “How is it we don’t have her on our esteemed faculty since your marriage?”

  “My wife is very well, not that it’s any of your concern. Whether or not she chooses to teach here is none of your affair either. I meant, do you have any questions about your contract not being renewed?”

  “I know what you meant.” I got up from the chair and went over to lean across Mussel’s desk. I could smell his foul breath from four feet away, but I still leaned forward. I knew a bully could be intimidated by the physical threat of even such a weakling as I had become.

  “Please sit down,” he said. “Or better yet, leave. I think you’ve become completely unhinged. Don’t forget, MacLeod, all I have to do to summon help is to call out for Dottie. I should think a man in your situation would want to preserve some semblance of dignity.”

  I pushed his Rolodex aside and sat on a corner of his desk. “Don’t call for Dottie just yet,” I said. “You can tell her all about this later, the poor besotted woman. I’m not going to hit you; I wouldn’t want to soil my hands. I just want to have a little chat. About old times. Friendly-like. About me and you and Sarah and Frances. About your college days, old sport. Stuff like that. Won’t that be fun?”

  He pushed his chair back as far as it would go. “You’re going too far,” he said. “I want you out of here. You’re crazy. Get out.”

  “In a minute,” I told him. “I have some more questions. About your contract, as a matter of fact. I wonder how well your fat old contract would hold up if anyone knew that you never even graduated from college. I really think it would be very interesting to find that out, you know, Wally? May I call you Wally?”

  I was having a ball.

  He stood up and backed up against the window ledge. “I’m going to give you ten seconds to get out of my office,” he said.

  “Now calm down, Wally. I told you I’ll be going soon. If you call Dottie, I’ll just have to tell her what we were arguing about, and goodness only knows who she’d tell. You know how gossip spreads around here, right? Or maybe you don’t; I don’t suppose anyone but Dottie ever tells you anything, do they?” He was breathing in quick little snorts, like a bull; I wondered if he’d have a heart attack before I’d finished. “For example,” I went on gleefully, “did anyone ever tell you that just before your romantic elopement with the delightful Dr. Bowe, that she and I were—how shall I put this delicately? Courting?”

  He didn’t say a word. He shifted his ample rump upwards and put his entire weight on the windowsill; it occurred to me how easy it would be to lunge at him from my perch on his desk (the angle was perfect) and push him through the glass to his everlasting reward. Then I remembered we were only on the second floor. Just as well. I went on with what was turning into my monologue.

  “You didn’t know that? I’m shocked. I guess Dottie didn’t know it either, or she would have told you. But it’s true, you see. You don’t know much about me, but I know all about you. I don’t, I admit, understand why Sarah married you, but that’s beside the point right now. No doubt you forced her to it, just as you forced her to submit to your sick desires for years before that.”

  “Wait a minute, MacLeod.” His voice had changed to the noise a balloon makes when you force the air out through a pinched valve. “Why are you doing this? What do you want? Your job, is that it? We can talk about it, we can—”

  “No, no, no, Wally. I already told you I don’t want to work here anymore. I’m not even trying to make you feel bad—because I don’t believe you’re really capable of doing that. But you are capable of fear, of paranoia. I just wanted you to know, from here on out, that there’s somebody out there who knows your whole story. That’s kind of a comforting thought, you know? Everyone wants to be understood. And I understand you, Wally.”

  “You can’t get away with threatening me,” he said, struggling to regain control of his whine. “You can forget about that letter of recommendation, for one thing, and—”

  I thought I’d die laughing. I howled and hooted. Dottie knocked timidly, opened the door, and asked if everything was all right.

  “Fine, Dottie, fine” I panted. “This clever boss of yours was just telling me one of the jokes he’s planning to use in his next speech. Have you heard it? The one about the department chairman and the spy who loved him?” She giggled and said no, he hadn’t, and withdrew quietly, closing the door. Abysmally stupid, tragic woman. I got off Mussel’s desk and went back to the chair, settling back and crossing my legs as if I intended to stay quite a while.

  “You really are very funny,” I told him. He must have been sweating all the way through his crappy suit; I could smell it. “Who the hell cares about your letter? There’s nothing at all you can hold over me. In fact, for reasons of which you are entirely unaware, I am perfectly indestructible.”

  He snorted. “No one is that,” he said.

  “You’ll see,” I replied. “But there is one little topic we’ve yet to mention: good old Frances. Now it’s really of no concern to me what Frances chooses to do with her time and her body, demented as I might feel her choices are. But I am concerned about my boys. I don’t want you near them; I don’t want you even in the same universe they inhabit. So I’m telling you right now that from this moment on you’ll be having nothing further to do with my ex-wife. Is that clear, Mister Mussel?”

  “You can’t tell me what to do,” he sputtered.

  “Oh, but I can. Because if I find out—and believe me, I find out everything, even without a slave like Dottie reporting to me—that you are still seeing Frances, or if I find out that you’ve divulged any part of this conversation to Sarah, or that you’ve taken any action whatsoever against her, or that you abuse her in any way, ever, you will be quick to discover your tawdry little story has mysteriously become the talk of the university—and beyond. Newspapers just love stories like yours. I don’t think I need to explain to you what effect something like that might have on your distinguished career.”

  “Get out.”

  “Okay,” I said, affably, shrugging my shoulders. I approached him with my hand outstretched, just as he’d approached me a few long minutes earlier. He did not take it. I had a hilarious vision that he might go over and fling himself upon his kneeler.

  “Very well,” I said, “if you wish to be rude. Just to wrap things up: the semester ends next week. I’ll be out of my office by Friday afternoon. Thank you for your time, Mister Mussel.”

  I bestowed a gracious smile on Dottie as I passed her desk and sauntered out into the hallway like David Niven. I deserved an Oscar. I doubted if anyone could tell that my head felt like a blazing kettledrum hammered upon by a madman. Once safely behind my own office door, I locked it and took out a little flask of brandy that had been hidden in my bottom drawer for years. I took a long swig with two of my pain pills and put my head down on my desk. I trembled violently and wept for a long time. Though my performance had nearly felled me, I felt wonderful. I thought about how wonderful I’d feel later on when I called Don Rath and told him what I’d done. I slept for a few minutes with my head on my notebooks. Nobody came to look for me: no devils, no angels, no students or colleagues. I was truly gone from the place; I knew it would take me no time at all to pack.

  35. Don’t Worry About a Thing

  When Don and I arrived at Dr. Gerald Hamilton’s office the day after my
tests, he had some very interesting news to tell me.

  “It’s as I suspected, Jack,” he said, and my heart did a little loop-de-loop, expecting to hear I had five days to live. But Gerry’s verdict was somewhat to the contrary.

  “The tumor has grown quite a bit since I first saw you. There’s no way to really tell, since I haven’t been able to follow you closely, but I have a feeling that it was more or less dormant for a long time, then started a growth spurt not too long ago. The sudden increase in symptom severity that you noticed recently is probably due to the fact that the lower half of the mass is now pressing heavily against the side of your skull. I can show you the pictures later if you want to see them. That’s bad news, I know, but it’s good news as well because I think we can get at it now, at least a good portion of it. Are you willing to give it a go?”

  For a moment I had no idea what he was saying. Give what a go? Then I realized he meant surgery. Gerry was saying that given the new size and position of the tumor, a surgeon might just be able to saw off a part of my head and go in and get the thing out—or part of the thing, anyway. The question was, is that what I wanted? A million philosophical dilemmas galloped through my brain, but I put them aside. I needed more practical information from Gerry.

  “You mean surgery. You think it could succeed?”

  “If I didn’t think so, I wouldn’t suggest it, Jack. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some big risks; I’m sure you realize that. And an operation won’t cure you, not completely, or at least the odds are against it. It will, however, buy you some time.”

  “How much?”

  “I can’t say exactly, of course. But with a little luck, if they’re able to remove a good portion of the tumor, we could be talking a couple of years.”

  “Jesus. You mean good years, not vegetable years?”

  Gerry ran his hands through his hair and smiled at me. “I can only give you my best educated guess, but yes, I think they could be pretty good years. You’d still have problems, and they would gradually become worse again, just as they have now. But they’d let up for a while at least. I can’t promise anything about your sight, though. That’s just too iffy; we’d have to wait and see. The headaches would definitely diminish, and I think your balance problems and left-side weakness would disappear entirely for a while.”