The Arcturus Man

by John Strauchs

  “But then who will protect the hawk?” asked young Jared.

  Chapter Thirteen – Floral Rocks

  Eagle’s Head Island – August 2013

  Jared took a deep drag on his Cuban Macanudo, closed his eyes and sank deeper into the soaking tub until only his face, Martini, and cigar were sticking out. The bathroom was dark. A small candle flickered in the corner. The Belvedere Gibson was half full. The cocktail onions were already consumed. He had to clear his head. He had to understand his feelings for Jenny. How did she fit into his life? Did she fit into his life? He felt deeply about Jenny. He may be in love with her but he wasn’t sure that he was capable of love. It seemed impossible, and yet, something was there.

  Except for rare, thin slices of time when he was with her, he always felt a deep aching loneliness. It was always there. His sadness was always with him as if it was his skin. Sometimes he felt melancholy even when he was with Jenny, though he always concealed it. It was depression. It was his Black Dog. It was so common now it became natural, like breathing. He couldn’t shake it. Life was as bad as he imagined it to be. The depression was a consequence, not a cause. It wasn’t just his body chemistry. He understood his chemistry. This was something else. This was something in his genes. He knew it. He knew that it would be with him the rest of his life.

  “The rest of my life,” he thought. Now that was something he had control over. The agonizing loneliness was also always present, even when he was with Jenny. He couldn’t talk to her, not the way he wanted to talk to her, to someone…anyone…anyone who would understand him. It was hopeless. It was like an adult taking to an infant. You can’t have a conversation with a child. Jenny was an infant. He wanted to share his visions and thoughts with her, but she would never understand. Jared knew things and understood things that no one else could know and understand. He was watching the birth of a new star in a distant galaxy that no one else on earth could see. He was a lone alien visiting the earth thousands of years in the future, gazing on the remnants of the Great Pyramid of Giza on a barren planet devoid of people like him. How could he enjoy the wonders of such sights if there was no one to share it with? It had no meaning if it couldn’t be shared. It wasn’t important if you knew that no other person would ever see what you saw. Life without wonder was sterile.

  It wasn’t her fault. She was one of the most intelligent women he had every known, but they couldn’t converse on his level. He was in a world into which he could never fit.

  He hurled the martini glass into the shower stall. The migraine was starting again. He tried to will it away, but it wouldn’t leave. It was just too deep inside of him.

  Had he ever been happy? Maybe? Yes, there were those marvelous first few years of his life, but after that, had be ever been happy? Maybe there was one time. He closed his eyes again and conjured up the images of happy moments.

  Jared surfaced. He had been entirely submerged. He wasn’t sure how long. He could hold his breath a very long time. His cigar was soaked. He took a deep cleansing breath and climbed out of the tub.

  Jenny was going up from Cambridge this evening. He longed to see Jenny. They hadn’t been together for almost two weeks. He went through the house getting it ready for Jenny.

  Chapter Fourteen – M.I.T.

  M.I.T. – September 2013

  Jenny knocked on the heavy door. She knocked gently. The carved and paneled oak door was unyielding. Her light taps barely made a sound. She didn’t like Professor Hartung. He was pompous and imperial. Megalomania came to mind whenever she thought about him. She needed him to renew her Sea Grant. Her doctoral program depended on that grant. He had delayed this interview for a month. She’d be happy to wait another month so she didn’t have to face him. She was half-hoping that he didn’t hear the knocks, but he did.

  “Enter,” she heard. The words were shrill and strident. It was a heavy smoker’s voice.

  She opened the door and peered through the crack before pushing the door wider. Professor Hartung was sitting behind a massive oak desk in an immense tufted high-back leather chair. He was a little man. He looked like a child sitting in a grownups chair.

  Virtually everything in the office was made of oak. “He was made of oak,” thought Jenny. There was a small stool in front of the desk. The stool was short. The seating was much lower than Hartung’s.

  “This is calculated,” she thought.

  “Be seated,” said Hartung.

  Jenny gathered her skirt beneath her and sat demurely on the edge of the stool. Her hair was up. She wore little makeup; just a touch of lip stick. She was wearing a crisp white shirt with small pearl buttons and lace on the edges. Her skirt was grey wool that went down to her calves. It was the most conservative outfit she had. The top button on her shirt cracked while she was ironing it. There wasn’t time to sew a new button. She had tried to hold it closed with a safety pin but that was even more unsightly. She was showing just a bit of cleavage. His eyes darted to her chest, to her face, and back to her chest. The little slug was staring at her boobs.

  Hartung was in his sixties, but he looked eighty. He was infamous for chain smoking, even during his lectures despite campus prohibitions against smoking. The constant nicotine doses had carved hundreds of lines into his face. Jenny observed that the leather in his chair also had a million cracks. The chair and the man were a symbiotic organism.

  He hadn’t changed his hair style since he was a boy. It was a crew cut. White hair and a crew cut didn’t gel. That craggy face was framed by heavy tortoise shell eyeglass frames with thick lenses. His eye brows needed a hair cut—badly. He was one of the many bow tie professors at M.I.T. He only wore Navy blazers. The brass buttons clicked in a fast staccato each time he rested his arms on his desk. There was nothing about him that wasn’t annoying. Even his name was annoying—hard tongue. He constantly pulled on the hair growing in his ears. It was irritating to watch him.

  “I am very disappointed, Ms. Nilsson.” As he spoke, his eyes darted down her shirt front again. Jenny sat more upright and pulled her shoulders back.

  Jenny was expecting criticism and had practiced looking surprised.

  “Really? I thought you would be pleased.” She shifted and sat more upright.

  She had vowed last night that she would maintain her composure no matter what he said. She was not going to be emotional and play into his little pink hands.

  He pulled a paper from a pile on his desk and threw it below Jenny’s lap. It spilled on to the floor and landed open and askew. A sheet broke loose from the spiral binding and fluttered a few feet away. She knew he did that purposely. She bent down and gathered the report and the loose sheet. She held the top of her shirt closed with her left hand until she sat upright again. Jenny was angry, but she said nothing.

  “We expect much of our doctoral candidates, Ms. Nilsson. Revise…no…rewrite this report and get it to me by 10 A.M. sharp tomorrow morning.”

  “Of course! It would be an invaluable benefit and help me change the report to your liking if you would share your critical comments with me. I based my projections on table 4. It correlates changes in sedimentation patterns with the long neck clam landings in recent years along Maine’s lower coast. Were my conclusions correct?” asked Jenny.

  “Your summary reads like a freshman term paper. What I learned about clams last summer,” he said in an ugly falsetto. “No, I didn’t look at the tables. I am not going to waste my time reading inferior work.”

  “But that is just the first two pages. You mean to say that you didn’t read the rest of my report? You only read the summary?”

  He swiveled his chair away from her. He was now talking to her without looking at her. It was a deliberate dismissive act. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. Blue threads of smoke slowly rose in the still, stale air of his office.

  “That is all of the attention this substandard work merited.” The smoke wafted around his head. The morning sun came through the blinds and highlighted denser
bands of smoke drifting across his desk.

  Jenny fanned the air in front of her face. She thought for a moment about asking him not to smoke but then thought better of it. There was nothing to be gained by provoking him.

  He was still facing away from her.

  “To begin with…I strongly suggest you sign up for a freshman English class in writing. GEMS scholars are expected to be able to write, Ms. Nilsson. Publishing is the cornerstone of the Sea Grants program.”

  Jenny thought she was an outstanding writer. Everyone told her so. Of all her abilities, she was proudest of being an excellent writer. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He had crossed the line.

  “That is hardly objective Dr. Hartung. You’re basing these comments on two pages of a 121 page report. And summary pages, at that.”

  He turned his chair and faced her. He stared into her eyes but said nothing. The thick lenses made his glare menacing. His eyes were dry and dark. There was no spark of life in them. Finally, he spoke.

  “Ms. Nilsson. You are the dullest graduate assistant I have ever had the misfortune to know. I don’t plan to read your dribble until you learn how to write.” He spoke the words slowly, in a measured pace. It was clear that he rehearsed this in his mind before he vocalized the thoughts.

  This was more than Jenny could bear. She broke.

  “Statistically speaking…DOCTOR Hartung…me being the dumbest grad that you ever had would be too much of a COINCIDENCE. “

  He bolted off his chair. Jenny stood up slowly. She tucked her report under her arm and turned toward the door slowly.

  “You must thank your lucky stars each night that someone invented tenure…you miserable has-been,” she said.

  “Consider…yourself…fired. GET…OUT.” He said it in a slow guttural tone, enunciating each syllable.

  When she was turned completely away, she silently mouthed, “ass hole!” It wasn’t enough. Her rage had to be quenched in one symbolic act of defiance.

  She whipped around, stooped forward, and shimmied her boobs. Another button popped off.

  “Here you go you dirty old man. You like staring at women’s chests? Have a good look.”

  Jenny straightened her shirt as she pulled open the door. She walked out--slowly. After a long silence, as she was half way down the hall she heard screaming from his office. It was a gagging sound. words. Now she had done it. She couldn’t make it out. She wasn’t even certain it was Her face was flushed. People she passed in the darkened hallway stared as she walked by. She stared them down.

  “Jenny…you moron!” She said to herself.

  The faculty hated him but he chaired the Sea Grant Program and either doled out the money or withheld it—at his whim. That he was given the program strictly on the basis of seniority was a trifle not worth reflecting on. The annual student evaluations were always brutal. Academic monster like him actually felt pride if the evaluations were damning. All academics like Hartung rationalized their pathetic lives with the mythology that the faculty that was most hated was the most able. Good teachers would never win popularity contests. They would point to Socrates and that he was despised by his students. There is no historic basis for that view but it fit well into the delusion. These thoughts whirled through Jenny’s mind—to no avail. She became emotional. She insulted him. This wasn’t smart. She was a moron. She was out of money and she wasn’t going to get her PhD. It was over and it was all her fault. She lost control…again…and she was going to pay the price. She closed her eyes in self revulsion as she walked out of the building.

  She knew ahead of time that he would be a jerk. She knew it. She even rigged a small digital recorder in her purse so she could provide evidence for any appeal she might decide to pursue. What good was it? She was as bad as he was. The recording damned them both. At least the recording wouldn’t reveal that she had jiggled her boobs. That was so infantile. Jenny tired to imagine Madame Curie flashing or mooning a critic. No way! Thank Goodness she didn’t think of mooning Hartung. Her long dress had saved her from that ultimate humiliation. But she would have enjoyed that—mooning that pompous little gnome.

  “Thank goodness I didn’t,” thought Jenny.

  She was a moron. She was ashamed of her loss of composure. Maybe she deserved being kicked out of the program. She certainly hadn’t acted like a scholar. She had been as petty as he was. Worse! She was screwed. She fucked it up—again!

  Cambridge Afternoon

  Jenny pulled her bike out of the boxwoods and jumped on it at a run. Her long wool skirt made it hard to pedal. She hiked it up. She pulled out on to Ames Street in front of an oncoming car, forcing the driver to brake.

  “ASS HOLE!” yelled Jenny.

  “Now everyone on the planet is an ass hole. I am losing it.” She thought. Time stood still when she was pissed. Jenny was still fuming as she ran onto the

  sidewalk in front of Mary Chung’s. Mass Avenue was packed as the lunch crowd was slowly building. It seemed like seconds but she had been pedaling twenty minutes. She wasn’t sure where she had been. She looked at her watch. It shouldn’t have taken twenty minutes. Still, she was an hour early and she couldn’t think of any other place to go. The library was always nice, but she was too mad to study. She walked her bike to the stand and snapped on the Kryptolok®ATB. Jared bought her this bike a few days ago. It probably cost more than some of the cars many students owned. She pulled off the front tire for good measure. This was a crappy day and having her bike boosted was not going to happen. No way!

  With two buttons gone, she was showing more cleavage than she was used to. She tugged on her shirt to gather more material to the front. It didn’t help much.

  “Heck with it.” This was not a good day.

  She got a table for four. The hostess paused but finally relented and seated Jenny. The hostess checked the bicycle wheel and came back with the claim ticket.

  Normally Jenny wouldn’t order beer in the middle of the day. Sweet iced tea was her beverage, but this was a beer day if there ever was one.

  “Get me a Sam Adams. A big one!”

  “We have bottle,” said the Asian waitress.

  “OK, a bottle,” said Jenny.

  She was calming down but still felt despondent. She nursed her bottle of beer for almost an hour. The restaurant was filling up and the hostess looked increasingly displeased with Jenny. She was hogging a large table.

  “Having a PMS day?” asked Jared. It was easy to see that she was upset about something.

  He was early. Jenny was delighted to see him despite the jibe. She needed some tender loving care. “Hmmmm… Jared isn’t a TLC guy..new plan!,” she thought.

  “I just got fired from the Sea Grant Program.”

  “OK, we’ll get you unfired. I am a major alumnus contributor. And, yes I am a TLC kind of guy.”

  “Stay out of my head. Not today Jared. OK?”

  “No problem,” he said.

  “You’re early. That’s great. I need the company.”

  “What happened?” asked Jared.

  “Professor Hartung hated my report. He told me to take a freshman English course in writing. The…” she was searching for a word, “doofus never read past the second page. And he threw the report at me. And he stared at my boobs the whole time,” said Jenny.

  “Doofus. Interesting choice. Clearly not the first descriptive word that came to mind. Scottish Gaelic for fool—a doof or dolt.”

  “Please quit it. I don’t need this Jared.”

  He wanted this to be a good day. Their relationship had been getting a little rocky. He could be a real ass hole. He vowed to make it a good day this time.

  “I’m sorry. I was just trying to lighten things up. Not to worry Jenny. I’ll make a few calls. Problem solved.”

  She closed her eyes. “I sort of flashed him.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I shook my boobies at him. The creep was staring at them the whole time he was berating me.” Jenny was mortified.

/>   “You flashed your tits? Why would you ever do such a thing no matter what he did?” He glanced down. “Why would you wear your shirt like that? What did you expect?”

  “I did not flash my…boobies. I just shook them a little bit,” she said. “You know… a shimmy. You ever watched really good dancers? They do it all the time,” she said.

  She wasn’t finished. “That is a typical male response, Jared. The woman’s at fault for inviting a lecher to stare. Thanks for being so understanding. The buttons broke, DARLING. The buttons broke. I obviously didn’t break the buttons intentionally.” She was steamed.

  “I didn’t mean to imply you did,” said Jared. “It’s just that this makes it a little more difficult to patch this up.”

  “I’m sorry. I know it was infantile but he made me so darn mad.”

  “Did you record the meeting?”

  “Yes.” She opened her purse and took out the digital recorder. “It won’t be of any help. I was as much of a jerk as he was. I lost it. I called him names. I’m sorry.”

  Jared turned it on. He turned down the volume and held it to his ear. After a few minutes, he smiled.

  “That would be too much of a coincidence,” he said laughing. “That is really clever. A great come back. I’m impressed. I have to remember that one,” he said.

  She couldn’t hold back her grin even though she wanted to. She wasn’t ready to stop being angry but Jared had this way of managing her moods.