The Shakespeare Requirement

by Julie Schumacher

  Cassovan frowned. He didn’t consider curricular disputes harassment, but most faculty meetings, in English, were certainly hostile. It was obviously time for a change of topic. He cleared his throat and opened a folder. So: where were they? Had Lincoln checked the citations he had given him?

  Citations? Yes, he had checked them. Or, at least, some of them. As he’d already said, he was running behind, but he would have them done by the following week.

  Cassovan reminded him, sternly, of the deadline for the conference in the spring. If they didn’t have the paper revised and submitted by—

  Yes, yes, Lincoln knew all about the deadline; he was well aware. And he hoped Professor Cassovan knew how much he appreciated the opportunity to collaborate and to showcase even his minor contributions. He was so looking forward to the conference, never having scored an invitation before. In fact—now that they were talking about the conference—Lincoln had a thought about the informal, open sessions in the evening. Ironically, it was the contempt for Shakespeare at Payne that inspired the idea.

  “The open sessions?” Cassovan disapproved of the freewheeling portions of the annual conference, which consisted of amateur readings and other juvenilia scheduled after 8:00 p.m., when many participants had already spent several sodden hours at one of the hotel bars. Cassovan attended only the refereed portions of the proceedings and was indifferent—if not actively opposed—to costume balls, ribald sixteenth-century pun-offs, debates with anti-Stratfordians, Shakespeare look-alike contests, Bardolatry, and overflowing glasses of mead. “I don’t want to discuss the open sessions. For now, I’d simply like to make sure that—”

  “Wait: let me show you,” Lincoln said. He removed an object from his pocket. “This one’s a prototype, but you’ll get the idea.” In his hand was a button, about an inch in diameter, attached on the back to a sharp metal pin. On the front of the button was a black-and-white drawing of Shakespeare with the bars of a jail cell over his face, the bars tightly clutched in two cartoon fists. In bold red writing beneath the bars of the cell were three capital letters: SOS.

  “I don’t understand,” Cassovan said. “What is it? What is it for?”

  Lincoln indulged in a brief, oleaginous grin. “ ‘Save Our Shakespeare.’ We can distribute them at the conference.” He brought a second button, attached to a fleck of lint, from his pocket. This one, in bright red letters, said simply, “SAVE WILL.” Lincoln explained that other universities and other Shakespeare scholars would be interested in what was happening at Payne; they might be experiencing similar struggles, and the buttons would provide a valuable point of contact.

  Cassovan, dumbfounded, was unable to answer.

  “You can keep this one,” Lincoln said. “I’m making more.” He pinned the SOS button to Cassovan’s gray wool scarf, which hung with his coat on a hook by the shelves. Then, perhaps noticing that Cassovan was struck silent, he said that plenty of others on campus—and not only students—had taken notice, and frankly they were outraged, because vandalism was essentially bullying. In sum, the issue was not just Cassovan’s anymore. When an esteemed professor was targeted, his life’s work demeaned, no one on campus could be considered safe. Had the campus police offered any idea about who was involved?

  They stared at each other over the desk. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cassovan said.

  “Your door,” Lincoln said. He gestured behind him. “You haven’t…seen it?”

  They stood up. Cassovan followed his RA into the hall and turned around and looked at his office. There was his nameplate—Professor D. Cassovan, English—with his office hours and e-mail address and phone number listed underneath, and there was his—

  For multiple decades, a black-and-white poster of William Shakespeare—bought by his wife in a Stratford-upon-Avon gift shop—had graced the glass-front portion of the door to his office. Someone had removed the poster from its protective plastic sleeve (how? the paper was brittle and faded now in the corners) and before reinserting it, had circled the dramatist’s face and bluntly X-ed out his eyes. In a cartoon dialogue bubble next to Shakespeare’s mouth, in all caps and in bloodred marker, the words “KILL WILL” occupied most of the poster’s right side.

  EIGHT

  PAYNE-FUL DRAMA UNFOLDS IN ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

  —by L. R. Young

  The Campus Scribe (November 30, 2010): To be, or not to be: that is the question that Payne’s Department of English is currently debating in regard to the teaching of Shakespeare. Should the study of the playwright’s works be required of students majoring in English?

  Department chair and creative writing professor Jason Fitger (above, left) did not return calls and was unavailable to comment on this question, but Professor Dennis Cassovan (right), reached in his office, argued strongly for continued study of the Bard. “Students should certainly have choices and electives and the opportunity to study contemporary and theoretical literature,” Cassovan said. “But Shakespeare’s plays are fundamental. Those who would cheapen our discipline and pander to fashion or expediency will obviously begin by trying to extinguish this essential work.”

  Cassovan further suggested that the elimination of Shakespeare at Payne is “intellectual theft,” and that students majoring in English are being cheated by shortsighted budget cuts as well as changes to the curriculum.

  An indication of the heatedness of the debate: a poster of William Shakespeare on Professor Cassovan’s door has been vandalized.

  Any questions or comments about the proposed shift in policy or the harassment of Professor Cassovan and the affront to his office should be directed, Cassovan says, to Fitger, the chair.

  What kind of jackass—Janet posed this question to herself—would allow a photo like that to appear on the front page of the paper, even a student publication like the Campus Scribe? On the right, Professor Cassovan, all ninety-six pounds of him, looked appropriately fusty and indignant against a backdrop of books, while on the left, Professor Fitger, local madman, sported a weird gray smokestack of hair and a depraved expression.

  Well, it was none of her concern. Fitger had caused her enough trouble already: following the party for Econ, she’d had an awkward conversation with Phil, who had retreated to his own apartment for two or three days before picking their relationship up where it was before. If Fitger was determined to blame the mob or, godforbid, Fran for his own stupidity, so be it. At work, Janet muted the volume on her phone: Fitger’s extension—0729—continued showing up on her caller ID.

  Midweek, the phone calls ceased, and at three o’clock on Wednesday afternoon a thin young man—dressed like a law or business student—appeared in her doorway and introduced himself as Ashkir. Did he have the pleasure of speaking to Ms. Janet Matthias?

  Yes. How could she help him?

  Ah! Excellent. He was delighted to meet her. Might he sit down?

  Janet offered him a chair and, from a bowl on her desk, a leftover chocolate from Halloween. Every office at Payne had given out candy for the holiday, which had transitioned, on campus, from an occasion for little children to play with costumes into an R-rated brawl.

  Tucking the chocolate into his pocket, Ashkir spoke about his experience at Payne. His family was from Somalia, he was an immigrant and a child of refugees, and as a junior majoring in entrepreneurship, he appreciated the sense of community and the willingness of staff, faculty, and students to assist one another and to help one another succeed. It was so important. He had heard others complain about their experiences at the university, and certainly no institution was perfect—but he had always found Payne to be a place where cooperation and kindness could be expected, where respect and the mutual furtherance of academic and personal and professional goals could—

  “Let me cut in for a moment,” Janet said. “Did someone send you here to my office? Perhaps someone from English?”

 
Ashkir looked surprised, then disappointed.

  “I’ll take another stab in the dark. Could that person possibly be Jason Fitger?”

  Yes, she was correct. Professor Fitger had been trying to reach her. He would like to meet her that afternoon—in town at the Flagon, at five-fifteen.

  “Interesting,” Janet said. “But I’m afraid that’s not going to work with my schedule.”

  Ashkir seemed to regain his self-assuredness. He accepted a second chocolate. “Professor Fitger understands that you may be reluctant, and he told me to assure you that he is proposing a meeting that is purely professional. He has no intention of discussing personal matters.”

  “I don’t suppose he mentioned any plans to apologize?”

  “I am not sure…I don’t…” Ashkir glanced at her copy of the Scribe. “He asked me to say that he found your previous assistance very valuable; and he finds himself in dire need of additional advice. He wants to discuss the problem of quality in his department. He says you will understand what that means.”

  “Quality,” Janet said. “I see.” She sipped from a bottle of flavored water. “Ashkir, I’m sorry you had to come all the way over here to—”

  “And if today isn’t convenient,” Ashkir said, “I believe you will see me again tomorrow. I work on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from one o’clock until four-fifteen. Professor Fitger says you will not want to see English flushed down the toilet.”

  She screwed the cap back onto the bottle of water, having paid four dollars for a sprinkle of orange food coloring and a bullshit marketing campaign. “Are you majoring in English, Ashkir?”

  “No.” He held up his hands like side-by-side stop signs. He did have some sympathy for the discipline, but—no. He might have a future interest in law school, however. Did Ms. Matthias have information about student scholarships?

  Janet directed him to a website and they talked about funding and the LSAT. Ashkir thanked her and stood. She was very kind to have spent so much time with him; she was very generous. Professor Fitger would be waiting for her, he said, at the Flagon at five-fifteen.

  * * *

  —

  Fitger had planned to station himself in the Flagon’s hindmost booth by 5:00 p.m. at the latest (Janet had a Swiss watch for a brain, and one of the sources of her ever-replenishing well of anger was the lateness of others), but due to no fault of his own (he had forgotten, again, that the clock in the English office was broken), he was running behind.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Have you been waiting?”

  What did it look like? Janet asked. She was sipping a half-finished drink and cracking a peanut shell in two fingers—a trick she had perfected at the Flagon years before.

  She had ordered a double, god bless her. Fitger had always enjoyed drinking with Janet. Booze was a mutual, frequently practiced activity; they did it well. He signaled the barkeep, a bearded man with a ring in his nose and with crescents of dirt forever embedded under his nails.

  “I got here ten minutes late, counting on your inability to be on time,” Janet said, “and still I waited for another ten minutes.” She watched Fitger take in their surroundings; he had an inexplicable fondness for the Flagon’s Neanderthal furniture and permanently disagreeable waitstaff. The imprint of his buttocks, she thought, had probably shaped the cushion on which he sat. He had told her once that, postmortem, he wanted his ashes scattered over the Flagon’s sticky wood floor.

  “So.” She splintered another peanut. “I spoke to your charming entrepreneurial assistant. And I read the article in the Scribe. Did you really refuse to return a reporter’s phone calls?”

  “I don’t think I got any reporter’s phone calls. But I guess it’s possible that—”

  The bartender trundled over with Fitger’s drink, his thumb inserted up to the knuckle inside the glass. It was the Flagon’s unstated public-spirited mission to expose everyone who walked through the door to a spectrum of germs.

  “That what?” Janet asked.

  “I’m not good with voicemails. I might have deleted them accidentally.” Lifting his glass and noticing the gnat-like insect hugging its rim, he updated and summarized for her benefit (because he knew that, secretly, she wished she were running it) the administrative nightmare that was the Department of English: in short, (a) Roland and a team of like-minded marauders (aka QUAP) were going to keep English from obtaining its budget by insisting on unanimity on the Statement of Vision; (b) Fitger had already rewritten the SOV several times (one iteration was so vague that no one could possibly dispute it), but the English faculty would not, at this point, agree with one another that the earth was round; and (c) without resources, Fitger was forced to stand helplessly by while the portions of Willard Hall that had once been the province of English were cannibalized by the number-crunching assassins upstairs. The remainder of the academic year would resemble an eternity in hell, each day spent in crossing and recrossing the river Styx with a hundred versions of the Statement of Vision in hand. He had thought about quitting, but the second he forfeited the chairship, Roland Gladwell, jeweled scabbard at his hip, would plant an Econ flag on the English floor.

  Phil Hinckler, perhaps understandably, had not responded to Fitger’s e-mail. Absent the interest or protection of the dean, where might Fitger turn?

  Because a broad knowledge of university politics was important to the law school and therefore her job, Janet had made it her business to learn a few things about QUAP. Roland was a controversial choice to lead the committee: already chair of a powerful department and capable of pulling strings when it came to the university’s budget, he was known for a ruthless promotion of Econ’s interests above everything else. But Phil had claimed that he had no option other than Roland. Besides, he said, QUAP was an advisory body. Its recommendations would have to be approved by his own office (and Janet knew how Phil felt about the arts and humanities) as well as the provost’s, after which President Hoffman would give them a cursory glance and probably bury them at “the bottom” of a bottomless drawer. Still, Janet thought, it was good to be cautious.

  Fitger watched while she drummed her fingers—long and elegant and well-kept—amid the peanut shells on the table. She was thinking; Janet loved strategy. This gave him hope.

  “I told you that you need to raise money,” she said. “Did you e-mail Perrin Wilcox in the development office?”

  Yes, he had e-mailed Wilcox but gotten nowhere. Like almost everyone who worked in development, she was weirdly secretive, her correspondence elliptical, seeming at times to require the use of a decoder ring. Her response to Fitger’s request for donor information had hinted at a possible person of interest who had once been an English major at Payne but eventually graduated from W*sc*ns*n. This unidentified individual had founded a successful manufacturing firm, Wilcox cagily informed him, in the east—which might have been Pennsylvania, Maine, or Beijing.

  “It’s easy for you to talk about money,” he said. “We don’t have millionaire alumni. I can’t sell advertising space on my syllabus. ‘Today’s discussion sponsored by Glenwood Plumbing and Septic.’ Maybe I should auction off naming rights to our diminishing half of the building: The Janet Matthias Janitorial Closet. The Jason T. Fitger Limited Edition Urinal Puck.”

  Janet said he should put her name down for a dozen of the urinal pucks, particularly if they were emblazoned with Fitger’s likeness. She drummed her fingers for another minute. Phil wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, she said; still, Fitger had at least temporarily set that bridge aflame during the Econ celebration. What about moving up a level and asking for an appointment with Rutledge, the provost?

  He had already tried. Twice he had entered the hushed terrain of the administration building (thickly carpeted to muffle the sound of petitioners’ feet), only to learn that the provost was “not available”—this according to his administrative assistant, Harvey Wu, wh
o reported, without glancing up from the three computer screens on his desk (given the rate at which he was typing, he appeared to have more than a dozen fingers), that he had “no idea” when his boss might be in. This was not surprising: Rutledge was famously elusive, to the point of being almost mythical.

  Fitger looked down at the detritus of peanuts and shells that littered the table. “You’re opening these things but not eating them?”

  “That’s right.” She was prehypertensive, and she was trying to cut down on salt.

  Fitger wanted to know what her blood pressure was. A hundred and forty? That was bad; his was 125 over 80. Was she taking meds? Or was she going to be stubborn and opt for a heart attack instead? What about that New Age meditation class she had talked about signing up for?

  Janet didn’t remember telling him about the class; actually, she had tried it but it hadn’t gone well. During the first session, instructed to concentrate on her breath, she had spent fifteen minutes contemplating the state of her toenails, one of them wrinkled due to some kind of fungus, and the remainder of the hour deciding that if the dry cleaner didn’t get that spot out of her blouse, which hadn’t been there when she brought it in to be cleaned, she was going to sue.

  Fitger was glad to see, he said, that she hadn’t cut back on her drinking: she was fifty pounds lighter than he was but had twice his tolerance for booze.

  Janet cracked another peanut. It was possible, she said, that Roland would use QUAP to target English. But Fitger—in failing to sort out the Shakespeare business and the Statement of Vision—had left his department vulnerable to attack. It was time to unite and defend. “You have to talk to your faculty,” she said. “Go door-to-door if you have to. Find out what they want, and what they’re willing to compromise for. Every single one of them is going to want something. They’ll all have their own price points.”