Although they have been chafing each other all semester, Leo and Solange are not so different. Both are friendless, so far as I can tell. Neither seems to have discovered a way to exist in the world. Solange fancies herself a poet, and to her this has less to do with writing poetry than it does with adopting a superior attitude. She dresses in black, eschews makeup, smokes dope, feigns a kind of exhausted boredom. She’d like to think she’s smart (she is) but fears she isn’t, at least not smart enough to justify her superiority. She’s pale-skinned and bony, and this, I suspect, is partly why she objects so strongly to Leo’s lurid adolescent fantasies. In his stories girls like Solange don’t rate notice, much less ravishing. To attract the attention of one of Leo’s vengeful ghosts, a girl has to have big breasts, not a protruding breastbone. Last fall, Solange fled Gracie’s poetry seminar, I suspect, because Gracie herself is all womanly excess, and not above conveying to young women like Solange that their hips may be too narrow for childbearing, their breasts too flat to satisfy infant or lover, their lips too dry to inspire passion, their eyes too cold to welcome.
Of course such things cannot be said to students like Leo and Solange (or, for that matter, to Gracie). And since the only things that might be helpful are the things that cannot be said, I am without a strategy for the present circumstance. I should tell Solange she’s out of order. Clearly, that’s what everyone expects me to do. They all know my view that tough, rigorous criticism is predicated on good, not ill, will. And so they are confused by my reluctance to take Solange to task in this instance. Is it because her personal assault took place before the official beginning of class? Or am I suggesting that in this instance the attack is justified, that Leo has brought it on himself over the last several months, aggressively exhausting our charity by assaulting us with one bloody pussy story after another?
The truth of why I do nothing is that imaginatively I’m still back in my mother’s basement, still feeling the lingering effects of whatever it was that washed over me there. For some reason the tips of my fingers are tingling, and I can’t shake the feeling that I should have examined the contents of all the cardboard boxes stacked up against the wall, that one of them contained something of importance to me, something I’ve forgotten. I flex the palm of my hand where I grabbed the hot water pipe. The skin there has that smooth, shiny, burned look, like it might split open. If I am right that Leo is red to his very core, what color is William Henry Devereaux, Jr., at his center? I wonder.
So, instead of earning my pay with this group of expectant students, I exercise the prerogative of all bad teachers by conveying that I’m disappointed in the lot of them, that they have proven unworthy of my guidance, that they will now have to earn their way back into my good graces. I tell the class that I don’t intend to say a word until somebody locates an issue worth discussing. Something specific and objective, not general and subjective. Sorting out these terms, I rationalize, will give everyone time to simmer down. I take off my watch and set it on the table beside me, watch its hands move, study my chastened students. Solange, having had her say, takes out a Penguin Macbeth and pretends to read it. Leo has become catatonic except for throwing the occasional murderous glance in my direction. I know what he’s thinking. I have allowed this bitch to unman him. Whatever.
When, by my watch, there are only two minutes left in class, I rouse myself from my lethargy and summon the muse of melodrama by allowing my forehead to clunk heavily down on the metal seminar table that happens at this moment to be the only thing we all have in common. When I raise it again, everyone is looking at me, wide-eyed, fearful. Even Solange, who’s dropped Macbeth like a bloody knife.
“I know you, Tiffany,” I say.
Everyone groans. I’m returning them to the beginning, to a character exercise from their intro class. It’s called “I know you, Al. You’re (not) the kind of man who—” The exercise is designed to test the writer’s understanding of his characters by challenging him to complete the sentence in an interesting and revealing way. I know you, Al. You’re the kind of man who still opens doors for women. I know you, Susie. You’re not the kind of girl who forgets an insult. In advanced workshops, “I know you, Al” has become shorthand for suggesting the story’s characters are not sharply defined.
“Are the victims in this story characters?”
A general shaking of heads, Leo alone abstaining.
“What do we know of the murderer beyond what was done to him?”
“Nothing.” Grudging grumbles. This is old, insulting stuff.
“There,” I say. “If someone had been astute enough to observe that this story has no characters an hour ago, we could have all gone home.”
“Tiffany is very real to me,” Leo insists. He looks like he would like to slaughter us all. “Very real.”
“The only thing real to you”—Solange puts Macbeth in her bag—“is her bloody snatch. Grow up.”
Since this should not be the last word, I say, “Class dismissed,” just as the bell rings.
Everyone files out. Except Leo, who wants to escort me to my office. He can’t believe I’ve actually said there are no characters in his story. He reads part of the rape scene aloud as we walk, just to show me how wrong I am. By the time we arrive at my office, my good spirits are restored.
CHAPTER
10
Rachel has several messages for me.
Herbert Schonberg, the union rep, is very disappointed I’ve chosen not to return his calls. To me, his choice of the word disappointed suggests insincerity. June Barnes, Teddy’s wife, wants me to call her at home at my first convenience, never mind why, just do it. Mysterious and intriguing. Orshee wants to consult me about a real estate matter. Mysterious without being intriguing. Gracie still begs an audience. Neither mysterious nor intriguing, but possibly dangerous. Tony Coniglia wants me to know he’s booked a racquetball court for four-thirty and asks if I could be on time for once. Vaguely insulting. And Rachel says there’s another message for me on my desk, which there is. In the center of my blotter sit five peach pits, a dark, wet spot radiating outward. As I study these, it occurs to me that a lot of people are taking liberties with my excellent disposition. After all, I am the chair of a large academic department, however temporarily.
There’s no reason I should be treated as if I were wearing a Kick Me sign.
Rachel buzzes and says she’s going home.
“Already?” I say. “You’re going to leave me all alone?”
“It’s three-fifteen?” she says, her intercom voice full of all too real guilt. “I have to pick up Jory?”
“I’m kidding,” I tell her. “Go.”
“You really liked the stories?”
“I sent them to Wendy, my agent,” I tell her. “At least I think she’s still my agent.”
I wait to see how Rachel will react to what I’ve done without her permission. Last fall she started submitting her stories for publication but then quit when her husband began saying I told you so about the rejections and complaining about the cost of postage. I’ve told her to use the department mail so it won’t cost her anything, but she’s far too ethical. Besides, she suspects that her moron husband is right about her not being good enough. She may even believe he’s right about my trying to get her into bed.
Rachel doesn’t say anything for a minute, and in the silence I consider whether I just might be trying to get Rachel into bed. I can almost picture it, but not quite, probably because I’m still staring at the peach pits soaking my blotter. Can Meg Quigley have eaten all these peaches? And what is she trying to say? Is she extending Eliot’s metaphor by suggesting that, unlike timid Prufrock, she dares to eat a half a dozen peaches? What would that mean, in purely sexual terms? Or does she just want me to understand I’m the pits?
Imaginatively, I appear to be in bed with both of these women at once, unequal to either task. I go through the batch of memos again, hoping there’s a message from Lily that I missed—she ought to have arrived i
n Philly by now—but there isn’t.
“Thanks?” Rachel finally says. “When?”
“Last week. I made a copy.”
Another silence. “Promise that if she hates them you won’t tell me?”
“Why?” I ask her. “What makes her the final arbiter?”
Silence, for a moment. “Who is?”
“I am,” I say. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
“I really have to go?” she says.
Me too. All this imagination is not without consequence. I have to pee again. My last visit was on my way to class, what, an hour ago? Now I have to go again.
The intercom crackles, and Rachel is on again. “Professor DuBois would like to see you.”
“Okay,” I say, directly into the intercom, loud enough so that I’m sure Gracie will hear. “Frisk her and send her in.”
Gracie enters. She’s dressed beautifully, expensively, in a beige dress that looks like it could be cashmere. As her always lush body has gotten bigger, so has her hair, as if it’s her intention to keep her general bodily proportions the same. She looks, frankly, heroic and quite wonderful, a brave woman intent on one last sexual conquest before menopause. I can understand Mike Law’s having become dispirited. If ever a man was unequal to a task presented by a woman, Mike is that man. As always, Gracie’s perfume precedes her, and I remember that it was the sensation I had of asphyxiating in Gracie’s perfume yesterday that got me started on her.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could conduct this meeting like adult professionals?” she says, not unreasonably, given the fact that I have slipped on the false nose and glasses I got from Mr. Purty. I’ve detached the mustache on the theory that it doesn’t contribute to the effect I’m after, which is slight exaggeration, not broad parody. The black plastic glasses to which the fake nose is attached are not unlike my own reading glasses, just as the plastic schnoz is only slightly more ridiculous that my own ruined proboscis.
However, Gracie’s reaction is disappointing. I was counting on a double take at least. If I had done to Gracie’s person what she has done to mine, I’d have had a bad moment. I’d have concluded, however briefly, that I’d injured her worse than I thought. Guilt would have made the comic nose look momentarily real in the cruel light of moral imagination. Either Gracie has no moral imagination or she knows who she’s dealing with.
“Gracie …,” I begin.
“Dr. DuBois,” she corrects me, waits. I myself don’t have a Ph.D., is her point, and she doesn’t want me taking liberties.
We both wait.
“Fine,” she continues. “Well, I only have a few minutes, but I wanted to see you before I left town.”
My wife, the dean, my mother and Charles Purty, now Gracie. That makes five.
“Actually, I’ve come to apologize, Professor Devereaux. I never intended—”
“Hank,” I correct her, with a magnanimous gesture. When I take off the fake nose, Gracie, to her credit, does wince.
“I’ve thought about the whole thing,” she says, “and I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is separate the personal issues from the professional.”
Though I have no idea what this means, I tell her I think that’s an excellent idea.
“I’ve decided to file a grievance against you,” she continues.
“Is that the professional part or the personal?” I interrupt.
Gracie ignores this. “That way my position as a senior faculty member will be clear. And that I have no intention of being pushed aside.”
Here Gracie pauses so that I may digest this.
“I know you think this is small of me, but I must protect my turf. If we were hiring another fiction writer, you’d do the same.”
I consider telling Gracie that we’re arguing a moot point since the funding isn’t going to come through and no one’s turf is going to be invaded, but I have promised Jacob Rose that this will remain our secret, and, besides, most academic arguments end up moot, so there’s no particular reason to surrender this one, which has already cost me a nostril. “Gracie—” I begin.
She holds up her hand. “Maybe you’re more secure than I am. I admit you’re a successful writer. I just think it’s cruel of y’all to want to show me up. I’ve given fifteen years to this institution. I won’t be moved aside.”
If this weren’t so pitiful, it would be funny. Not just Gracie’s feelings of inadequacy, which are real enough. But as a tenured full professor in our egalitarian, unionized, colonial outpost, Gracie couldn’t be moved aside with a backhoe. I open my mouth to tell her this when it occurs to me that she’ll take the comment as a cruel reference to her having gained weight. The other thing that shuts me up is incredulity. Gracie’s concession—that I am a successful writer—illustrates how little we have in the way of expectation around here. My slender book, published twenty years ago, and forgotten the year after, is the cause of Gracie’s insecurity. The last thousand copies of the eight thousand print run were purchased by the campus bookstore at remainder price and have been sold there for full jacket price for the last fifteen years. Last I checked, there were still a couple hundred left. Who but Gracie would be jealous of such success?
“Anyway,” she continues. “The grievance is only part of what I want to talk to you about. You may not believe me, but I’ve always liked you, Hank. You’re like a character in a good book. Almost real, you know? Not like professors. I know I’m one of them. I wasn’t always, but I am now.”
Of all the odd things Gracie has ever said to me, this is surely the oddest and the most touching. No less absurd, of course, this professed admiration for the fact that I’m almost real.
“You should know,” she says, her voice lowered now, “that Finny is sounding people out on the idea of a recall. I think he plans to introduce the motion at the next department meeting. The way things stand, I’m afraid I know the way I’d have to vote.”
Gracie’s wrong about herself, it occurs to me. She’s more real than she knows. But she’s right about what she’s become.
“Do we understand each other?” Gracie wants to know. Her smile has a suggestion of the lewd about the edges.
“Better than we understand ourselves,” I tell her, putting the false nose and glasses back on to illustrate my point. “By the way,” I say. “I expect to file a grievance against you as well.”
A flicker of fear, closely followed by surprise. The latter is probably because I am the only member of our department who’s never filed or even threatened to file a grievance against a colleague.
“And I should warn you that a charge of sexual harassment is a serious matter,” I tell her, deadpan.
“Sexual harassment?” Gracie knows better than to ask this question. I can tell she senses a trap, but she just can’t help herself. In English departments the most serious competition is for the role of straight man.
“You weren’t turned on yesterday?” I say, mock incredulous. “I mean, I was turned on.”
When she’s gone, I quickly remove my disguise and, like Clark Kent, hasten to the men’s washroom down the hall, where I stand in front of the unforgiving mirror awaiting my water. While I’m standing there, three students come in, unzip, pee, zip, and leave without washing their hands, and I’m still right where I was, contemplating the things in life that youth takes for granted. I have all the classic symptoms of age, however—sleeplessness, creaking bones, inflexibility (physical and other). I know a great many older men who admit to silent, lonely vigils, sitting like old women on their commodes at three in the morning, waiting, waiting, falling asleep finally with their heads in their hands, only to be startled awake by the sound of their own tinkle. William Henry Devereaux, Sr., I suspect, is one, and though I am still some months shy of fifty, I am apparently to be another.
Like today’s theoretical physicists, and like William of Occam, my six-centuries-dead spiritual guide, who sought to reconcile Faith with rational inquiry, I’m seeking a uni
fying theory. Twenty-four hours ago I stood in front of this same mirror filling rough brown paper towels with blood from my punctured nostril. Today, I’m back, dick in hand. Yesterday, my blood flowed more freely than my urine does today. What I’d like to know is whether this is funny or tragic.
I have my suspicions.
Here’s the kind of twice-a-week racquetball game Tony Coniglia and I play. Tony, who’s fifty-eight and built like a fire hydrant, stands in the center of the court and serves. It’s what he does best. His thick, compact body generates considerable power, and on the serve he can blister the ball low and hard down either side of the court. His mechanics never vary, which means his opponent can’t go into the point with any preconceived ideas. The rest of his game is similarly sneaky. He can pass, dink, and kill off the same motion, which means he can make you look silly, and there’s nothing he likes more than making you look silly.
What Tony can’t do is run. He’s had heart trouble on and off for the last five years, and his doctor allows him only mild exercise. This is where the most beguiling feature of our contests comes in. Tony has decided that it’s all right for him to play racquetball if he takes no more than one step in any direction from center court, which means it’s my job to hit the ball back to him within this radius. Otherwise he deems the ball unplayable and takes the point. I’m allowed to kill the ball directly in front of him if I’m able, but I can’t use angles. Since racquetball is a game of angles, my handicap is so huge that he has to give me points, usually six to eight a game, and even then I seldom win. When he gets too far ahead, he turns and glowers at me, his bushy eyebrows knitted, and tells me to bear down.
Straight Man Page 13