Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 06 - Death without Tenure

by Joanne Dobson

  What should I do? What could I do? I sat down at my desk and hid my face in my hands, waiting for inspiration. When it struck, it was in the form of a single word: Google. Spinning my chair around, I grabbed the computer mouse, called up the Internet search engine, and typed in joe lone wolf.

  Nothing. A couple of bars in Texas called Lone Wolf Saloon, with owners named Joe. One called Lone Star Wolf Cafe.

  Oh, here he was: a single mention of Professor Joseph Lone Wolf, English Department faculty, Enfield College. But that was simply pro forma. We all had a listing on the Enfield College website. I kept scrolling. A Joe Wolf seemed to be connected to an online gambling site. But otherwise—nothing.

  For comparison, I searched my own name. There was more than one Karen Pelletier, but I came up first. I was definitely an Internet presence—conferences attended, talks given, publications cited. And I’d made absolutely no effort to get my name out there. No blog. No website. But here was my colleague, a professor at Enfield at least as long as I had been, with nothing noted on the Web.

  It was almost as if he were intentionally underplaying his existence.

  I felt as if I were in danger of losing tenure to a ghost.

  I closed down the computer, packed up the ungraded papers and walked to the door. Before I opened it, I turned back and stood there, taking it all in: my expansive but cluttered desk, the green vinyl chair in which so many students had sat, the overflowing bookcases, the tall windows that looked out onto the Common, the cushioned window seat. The long oak conference table stacked with books and articles to be submitted for tenure. The box.

  I felt as if I were saying goodbye.

  Chapter 2

  Friday 10/2

  Without even leaving a note to cancel my office hours, I drove away from campus, feeling as if all the hounds of academe were at my heels. The exquisite Indian-summer air—golden with sun and leaves—mocked my sudden despair. I don’t remember the drive to my little rented house in the woods twenty minutes north of Enfield. One minute I was turning left out of the college parking lot, the next I was in my driveway pulling the key out of the ignition. I sat there in the car staring at the empty house. It was an old one-story farmhouse, a little shabby, centered in a narrow strip of grass that I kept cut with a hand mower. Every once in a while on a walk in the woods—second-growth oaks, maples and birch—I’d come across remnants of the meandering old stone walls of what for a couple of centuries had been rocky New-England farmland. Hay, potatoes, sheep, a few cows, a dozen or so hens, a pig: everything a family would have needed to sustain a frugal life.

  Maybe that’s what I’d do after Enfield denied my tenure petition, I thought: I’d farm. I’d buy a few hens, build a coop, live off the land, stack up a woodpile, bathe in water from a steel-hooped rain barrel. Reinvent myself: English professor turned dirt farmer. And I already had the grindstone I’d need to put my nose to—er, to which I’d need to put my nose. The one summer I’d tried to grow a vegetable garden in a small, flat patch of ground on the far side of the driveway, my shovel struck something so unyielding three or four inches deep in the sandy soil that I had to dig around it until I discovered its perimeter. When I saw what the impediment was, a huge, tan, hand-chiseled sandstone disk, I asked Charlie to excavate it for me. It’s in the living room now, standing against the wall next to the fieldstone fireplace, ready to sharpen any tool I might ever need, except those that would win me tenure.

  ***

  Charlie. More than anything else I wanted to talk to Charlie and tell him about Miles’ warning, wanted the comfort of his solid, sensible presence, the security of his arms around me when my entire world seemed to be spinning out of control. But there was no way I could call him. For the next ten months, he’d have to call me. For the next ten months Lieutenant Charlie Piotrowski, Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Massachusetts State Police, would be unreachable—in Iraq with the National Guard.

  He had to go, he said, when he was called up. He had no choice. It was his duty. And, besides, he said, it would be an adventure, maybe even the adventure of his life.

  Adventure. It was a guy thing, I guess. My pleading got me only a promise that he would call or e-mail me every day. If he could.

  And he had, for all nine of the days he’d been there so far. Only nine and three-quarter months left to go.

  I missed him. I worried about him. Some nights I worried myself sleepless. And, now, when I needed him most…Sighing deeply, I got out of the car. The phone was ringing in the house. Charlie! It was the wrong time of day for him, half-way across the world. He usually called at the end of his day and the beginning of mine. Nonetheless, I sped across the unpaved driveway, house key extended, twisted the doorknob.

  The phone stopped ringing.

  Damn. But the red light was blinking. I snatched up the receiver. Not Charlie. The message was from Earlene Johnson, my good friend, so—cancel that damn.

  Karen, remember—we’re meeting at Rudolph’s at seven. Girl’s Night Out.

  Thank God, dinner with a rational human being. A friend. Someone I could trust to have my best interests at heart.

  Friday evening 10/2

  “He’s sure not drinking like a man who expects to get tenure,” Earlene whispered in my ear. It was shortly after seven, and given the empty glasses in front of him on the bar, Joe Lone Wolf already had two drinks under his belt and was well into the third. Whiskey, it looked like. Double. Neat.

  Professor Joe Lone Wolf of the Enfield College English Department, a squat man with a straight dark braid dangling over his left shoulder, sat on the high barstool at Rudolph’s Café, hunched over, glaring at nothing, his shoulders preternaturally wide in the fringed deerskin jacket.

  I groaned. All I’d wanted in going out with my friend for a burger and a drink was a brief respite from the angst that had hounded me since Miles’ dire warning that afternoon. And, here I found myself in the same bar as my nemesis.

  Earlene turned to the student host with the menus. “Is there another table free, Winky?” As dean of students, she knew all the kids by name. But “Winky?” With his shaved head, multiply pierced lip, and earlobe plug, this looming young man looked like an ogre escaped from an online fantasy game.

  I pulled out the brushed aluminum chair and sat. “That’s okay, er, Winky,” I said. “This’ll be fine.”

  At Rudolph’s Café, the usual weekend hubbub was building. In the refurbished neo-funky lounge, exposed silver-painted pipes and vents stood out against forest-green walls and ceiling. Dim lighting, cast up from embedded bulbs around the floor’s perimeter, gave the room a general air of illicit goings-on, as if it were a prohibition-era speakeasy. But Rudolph’s was simply your high-end college-town dinner joint, a place to hang out, order pricey food that looked artistic on the plate, and wind down from a brutal week of studying and teaching. Those students who could afford to pay twelve dollars for a basic burger tarted up with ciparelli onions and shitake mushrooms were there already. Faculty members would drift in as the evening grew later, and they’d made at least a few small dents in the mounds of midterm papers on their desks.

  Earlene took the opposite seat, back to back with, and almost touching, Joe. “I’ll sit here, Karen,” she muttered. “Give you at least a little distance from him.”

  “Thanks,” I said. The only problem with the seating arrangement was that now I had a direct view of Joe’s brooding visage. Elbows planted on the dented-copper bar-top, he was in the process of ordering another drink.

  The first time I’d met my colleague Joe Lone Wolf, I hadn’t pegged him as Native. His skin was dark olive rather than brown, but, once I was told his ethnicity I could see the dark Native tint in his eyes and the monumental Native bone in his sculpted high-bridged nose. Some Indian nations insist on a full one-half blood quantum for tribal membership; others are inclusive, requiring only one-sixteenth Native blood among any hodge-podge of European and African ancestry. Joe must be a descendant of one of the more incl
usive tribes.

  Earlene leaned toward me, her bead-trimmed gray dreadlocks hanging across her forehead. “How many times do I have to tell you,” she scolded in a whisper, “you don’t have to worry about Joe Lone Wolf. You’re a shoo-in for tenure.”

  “Shoo-in? I don’t knooow,” I moaned. “After today I wouldn’t count on it.” I spilled my tale of woe, giving her a stuttering version of what Miles had told me. Then I fussed with the single bamboo shoot in a purple ceramic vase on the table.

  Earlene brushed dreadlocks back from one side of her beautiful dark face and regarded me quizzically. “So, he’s American Indian. And that brings in the affirmative-action factor, right? And you don’t seem comfortable talking to me about it because I’m black. Right”

  “Yes, I guess,” I said sheepishly. “Affirmative Action Is Important.” I sounded like a sixth-grader.

  “Yeah, it’s damn important, but it’s not a mandate for reverse discrimination. What’s crucial is stereotype-free perception and advancement. Face it, that tenure-committee meeting wasn’t about social justice—it was about Ned. Finally he’s in his puny position of power—dogmatic and single-minded, like all petty tyrants. But just how influential is he? Think about all the ways in which you surpass Lone Wolf.”

  I told her about what Sally Chenille and Harriet Person had said; I was too successful and too popular with students. Earlene chortled. “I know those women—they just want to flex their muscles. Makes them feel good. But they’ll vote the right way.”

  “You think?”

  “Listen, you need a little reality therapy. What are the three cardinal points of tenure decisions? Collegiality, scholarship, teaching.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Number one, you get along with your colleagues, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course. When they’re not being idiots.”

  “What about Joe? Isn’t he notorious for shirking departmental obligations?”

  “I don’t think he’s served on a single committee—not even the new-faculty integration committee, which is a slam dunk.”

  “Two: you’ve published two scholarly books, right?”

  I sighed. “Yes. They’ve been well reviewed. And I’ve got a bunch of nicely placed articles.”

  “How many books and scholarly articles has Joe published?”

  I shrugged. “None, as far as I know.”

  “Okay. Number three: teaching?”

  “That’s the most important to me. My teaching evaluations are…gratifying.”

  “I’m not surprised. The students love you.”

  “Do they? Miles says the students love Joe, too.”

  “So that’s one in his column to your three. She spread her hands wide. “So, like I said, you’re a shoo-in. But…” Earlene twisted around to grab the waiter, “…where are our drinks?” Catching a glimpse of Joe, she turned back and leaned over the table toward me. “And just look at the guy.” She jerked her head in his direction. Her voice was one notch above mute. “He’s hammered.”

  I sighed and responded at the same nonvolume. “Yeah, and if I was looking to get smashed, I sure wouldn’t do it a block and a half from campus. Let’s forget about Joe Lone Wolf and get on to real life. I’m being paranoid.”

  Earlene laughed and snatched a thin pretzel from the bowl the waiter delivered with the two glasses of red wine we’d ordered.

  Just then a tall, well-built man in jeans and cowboy boots brushed past me, knocking against the table. I grabbed for the pretzels. “Hey!”

  He didn’t acknowledge me, but strode toward the bar and pulled out the stool next to Joe. He doffed his broad-brimmed hat, and shoulder-length blond-white hair flew loose around a tanned and weathered face.

  Joe crooked his arm at the elbow, slowly raised it, peeled back the cuff of his jacket, and checked his watch. He made quite a production of it.

  “Late, am I?” the newcomer drawled, slapping Joe on his leather-clad back. “Well, damn, then I’m just gonna hafta drink all the harder to catch up with you. What’re you havin’, hombre?” He threw his arm around Joe’s bulky shoulders. “Hey, bartender! Down this way!”

  “What do you know?” I said, in a demivoice. “Who would have expected McCutcheon to be buddy-buddy with Joe Lone Wolf, of all people?”

  Clark McCutcheon, distinguished visiting professor at Enfield College and superstar in the academic world at large, was a big, hearty Montanan. He was broad-shouldered and rangy, and the kind of outdoorsman garb he favored might have elicited no comment on a rich man’s hobby ranch. In this New England college town, however, the Stetson and custom-tooled boots turned heads.

  “So that’s McCutcheon? I’ve heard about him.” Earlene gave him a long once-over and sighed. “You suppose he has a horse tethered to the hitching post out front? I wouldn’t mind riding off into the sunset with that cowboy.”

  “He sure is an eye-catching dude,” I responded. “If you like that kind.”

  “What kind is that? Hot? Or gorgeous?”

  “The kind who’s full of himself. You should have heard him at the meeting of the comparative American studies faculty last month. We were trying to choose a big-name academic to give an endowed lecture in the spring, but McCutcheon dismissed every scholar mentioned as having an ‘inflated reputation.’ An inflated ego seems to be no problem for him, though; he’s hot stuff in academic literary studies, and he doesn’t let us forget it. About ten or fifteen years ago he wrote a really knock-out essay. It’s called, ‘Whaddya Mean, “We,” White Man?,’ and it revolutionized the field of whiteness studies. The English department is lucky to have him.”

  Keeping her dark eyes on McCutcheon, she sipped her wine. “Well, he certainly does up the testosterone equation on campus.”

  I mimed fanning my face with my hand.

  She laughed. “But what the heck is whiteness studies, anyhow?” McCutcheon was adding so rambunctiously to the growing din in Rudolph’s bar that Earlene spoke now in a normal tone of voice. “I’m no literary scholar, but I would have thought that it’s all pretty much been whiteness studies ever since Enfield College was founded.”

  “Well, yeah, in a way. But McCutcheon’s style of scholarship critiques whiteness—it doesn’t celebrate it. Whiteness is seen not so much as a skin color, but as an inchoate dominant structure of power, and whiteness theory reads white texts—literature, film, popular culture—to expose white privilege and condemn its consequences.”

  Earlene snickered. “Yet another bleeding-heart scholarly outlet for white liberal guilt,” she said. With the back of her hand to her forehead, she gave a melodramatic, silent-movie, toss of her head. “Oh, the unbearable whiteness of being,” she sighed.

  I laughed. “Funny lady. But McCutcheon’s a good bet to be appointed to the Palaver next year.” The Palaver Chair of Literary Studies was an unfortunately monikered but prestigious named chair funded by an Enfield College alum. Extremely well endowed as the chair is, the English Department hadn’t fared well with its recent choices for the Palaver. “Ned hopes Clark McCutcheon will bring ‘muscle as well as prestige’ to the department. He thinks he’s hiring an intellectual John Wayne for the job.”

  I glanced over at the bar. Joe was tilting his head in my direction now. He said something to McCutcheon, who glanced my way, widened his eyes briefly, then responded to Joe sotto voce. The men regarded me together, then picked up their drinks and moved to the far end of the bar, completely out of earshot. Immediately they went into a huddle, as if, instead of being new acquaintances, they were old friends with much to talk about.

  “What’s that all about?” I asked Earlene.

  But she was gazing distractedly over my shoulder, in the opposite direction from the bar. “Karen, don’t be obvious, but look over toward the door. Who’s that stunning woman?” I stretched my neck, as if I were working out a kink, then I turned my head. Just coming through the green plush door curtain was a tall brown-skinned woman with exquisitely molded Native cheekbones and a strong, arched
nose. She wore a denim jacket and skin-tight black pants.

  “Pocahontas,” Earlene breathed, answering her own question. So much for stereotype-free perception.

  As the woman stood there peering into the dim room, my two colleagues at the bar continued their conversation, unheeding. Her dark gaze settled on Joe Lone Wolf and stayed there. She took a step in his direction, waited for a waitress with a shoulder-held tray to pass, took another step, pushed a chair aside, and marched toward the two men. When she reached them, she slammed the oblivious Joe between the shoulder blades with the flat of her hand, grabbed his arm, and spun his stool around so he was facing her.

  At the sight of her he paled.

  She clenched her fist and pulled her arm back. McCutcheon, now off his stool, grabbed for her arm, but missed. Then he stood there, boots planted wide, staring at this wilderness apparition, his blue eyes gleaming.

  “You bastard!” the woman screamed at Joe. “You cheating, double-dealing, no-good, two-faced bastard.” She hauled off and slugged him. Right in the kisser.

  Joe slid off the barstool onto his feet, dazed and shaky. “Graciella—”

  McCutcheon lifted his tanned, long-fingered hand to hide his mouth. It looked to me as if he were attempting to hide a grin, as if this face-off were the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

  Things like this don’t happen at Rudolph’s—brute-force confrontations, I mean. Oh, there’s lots of one-upmanship, multisyllabic name-calling, maybe even a little genteel tossing of drinks in faces. Or at Maccio’s, on the far side of town, a drunk or two will get out of control on the weekend and noses will bleed. But…Rudolph’s? Fisticuffs in the house of purple cauliflower and sweet-potato fries? This had to be a first.

  I sat there and gaped. Twenty years of advanced literary study, including intensive reading of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Dickinson, and what deathless poetry came to my brain in that moment of crisis? From Amanda’s childhood I recalled, “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” And then she hauled off and hit him again, and he did.