Moo

by Smiley, Jane

  JOY, too, was ruminating over her plans while eating lunch, and her goal was not dissimilar—passage through the current difficulties and into a more relaxed and spacious life. She unwrapped the elements of her repast and set them on her desk. She had a meat loaf sandwich, a nice pear, two Chips Ahoy!, a cranberry Sundance, and a small bag of sour cream and onion potato chips. Five items, five goals: Find someone who would marry her. Have at least one child. Move back to the West, preferably the Southwest. Vacation in Alaska. Save enough money to buy a Swedish Warmblood—European-bred with big sturdy hooves. Dean was not an item on her list, but even so, when they got home that night, she was happy that they seemed more easy and pleasant with one another. It was not something they talked about—Dean thought that now that he’d gotten himself on a schedule, the details would work themselves out, as they always did, and Joy thought that now that she had given up focusing her inchoate desires upon Dean, who clearly couldn’t handle them, she could relax until her inevitable departure from his big, pleasant house. They even went to bed together for the first time in a couple of months, and once there, it seemed both possible and fun to make love, so they did, and so they fell asleep, and so they found a way to go on together for a while longer.

  43

  Up or Out

  DR. GARCIA DID NOT mind the thirty hours or so of reading articles like “The Tractatus Humorus of Antonius of Cesena: Notes Toward an Arrangement of Extant Fragments,” or “Folding and Unbinding Transitions in Tethered Membranes,” or even “The Use of Strain-Specific Monoclonal Antibodies to Model the Field Spread of Soybean Mosaic Virus.” There was a free-floating quality to his sojourns into these disciplines and their codes. Some ideas emerged from the murk like answers in those old black “Eight Balls” he and his friends once had—“The answer is no,” “Ask again later.” Others did not. It was not his responsibility, anyway, to judge and interpret the articles—that would have been done in the department and those judgments and interpretations were passed on to the college committee in each chair’s recommendations, which Garcia did understand. But he read the articles anyway, at least one per candidate, just to get a global apprehension of who the candidates were, of how their self-presentation differed from the department chair’s presentation of them. The reading was quiet time, investigative work in the mysteries of the mind, in this case, the intellectual mind, of the sort that he enjoyed.

  But the meetings were a trial. The five of them had suffered through two so far, each four hours in length, each voting on and discussing eleven or twelve cases, each expressing, with every remark and every vote, the fact that this particular committee/family was dysfunctional in the extreme.

  And now they had to take up the promotion of Timothy Monahan, one of the few candidates whose work Dr. Garcia could actually understand. Margaret left the room. Garcia sighed.

  Gift said, “I have a communication from the department chair.” He looked over his glasses and read, “ ‘Professor Monahan’s third novel has been accepted for publication over the Thanksgiving break. The publisher, the well-known and highly respected house of Little, Brown, has agreed to provide a letter confirming that the novel needs only minor editing work, and should be out in about a year. This letter is coming by overnight mail, and should arrive in a day or so. It is my opinion and the opinion of the departmental committee that this acceptance should clinch Professor Monahan’s promotion to the rank of full professor.’ ”

  Dr. Gift cleared his throat. He said, “This is the book, I believe, that we read selected passages of, and part of which has been published in—yes, Playboy magazine. I believe one page of the selection ran alongside a picture of a nude young woman.”

  “That’s the one,” said Cates.

  Garcia wrote down in his notes, “ ‘That’s the one,’ said Dr. Cates.”

  Dr. Gift said, “I am not sure I see how the mere publication of salacious material renders it superior to what it was before it was published.”

  Helen said, mildly, “Lionel, I’ve told you before that I don’t consider the selections from the novel salacious.”

  Dr. Garcia wrote, “Dr. Levy objected to the characterization of Professor Monahan’s work as salacious.”

  Cates said, “I think ‘trivial’ is a better term for what I read.”

  Dr. Garcia wrote, “Cates characterized the work as trivial.” Now they were all looking at him. He put down his pen and worked up a meditative look. He paused as long as he thought he could. Then he said, “I would not say that Professor Monahan is writing great literature, but I also would not say that this university is positioned financially, geographically, or culturally to attract or keep a writer of great literature who might simultaneously be, let’s say, a drug user, an alcoholic, a victim of bipolar disorder, addicted to sex with younger female students, or given to any number of other problems that can accompany remarkable creativity.”

  He jotted down, “Dr. Garcia remarked that such a second-rate institution as this one probably was doing well to have attracted Professor Monahan in the first place.”

  “Frankly,” said Helen, “I don’t think that any of you has the literary experience to judge Professor Monahan’s work. Just because you read Crime and Punishment in college doesn’t mean you have any discernment.”

  Dr. Gift gave an audible sniff.

  “Okay, Lionel,” said Helen, “how about this. A magazine like Playboy gets thousands of submissions in a year. They pick twelve or eighteen. Professor Monahan’s excerpt was one of them. That means that he’s succeeding in a tough market. The same with his first novel, the same with his second novel. Thousands upon thousands submitted, a few hundreds, at the most, accepted. And, this should appeal to you, Lionel, he gets paid for his work.”

  “How much?” said Dr. Gift.

  “I believe the advance on the first novel was around twenty-five thousand. The average for a commercial publisher is under ten.”

  Garcia thought Gift looked a little swayed. Gift said, “Can we find out the advance on this novel? How it ranks nationally on the scale of advances?”

  Helen said, “Oh, for God’s sake, Lionel.”

  “These factors are relevant, in my opinion.”

  Cates said, “Does that mean we aren’t going to decide this case today?”

  Garcia wrote, “Discussion arose of whether Professor Monahan’s candidacy should be discussed at a future meeting.” Then he said, “That WOULD entail a special meeting. This is our last scheduled meeting.”

  Helen said, with thrilling decisiveness, “I don’t want to meet again. Lionel, this is a candidate, maybe the only one we’ve discussed, who has a direct relationship to your favorite institution, the market, and who does fairly well there. He’s the only person we’ve discussed who’s actually engaged in FREE ENTERPRISE! Stick by your principles, Lionel!”

  Garcia could see that old Dad was torn, and that he was offended, too, at having Mom speak to him so sharply in front of the children. On top of that, there was the way in which she had attacked him. Garcia had once written a paper called “Patriarchal Privilege and Its Relationship to Principle in the Nuclear Family,” in which he had demonstrated that in over 90 percent of traditional families, the father was given considerable leeway to diverge from behavioral norms, even those that were clearly defined and upheld by that particular family. Father, in short, did not HAVE to set an example. What was interesting was the different ways that the two parents excused the father from adhering to professed norms: the father almost always declared that hard work outside the home and consequent earnings gained privileges (one reason many men were resistant to women working outside the home—they knew that extending such privileges to another family member might put at risk the moral life of the family); the mother almost always offered the opinion that men were inherently wayward, and could neither control themselves nor be controlled by women or by abstractions. Thus, Dr. Garcia had suggested, a wife’s conflict strategy of holding up principles that the husband fai
led to live by could be an especially volatile one, depending upon whether the husband saw her move as a power play, a reminder of his failures as a man, or, positively, as an opportunity to embrace the common life of the family.

  He watched Dr. Gift.

  Dr. Gift said, “I suggest that we vote.”

  The voting was done on a scale from 1 to 10. The candidate could squeak by with a 6.5, but a 7 or 7.5, for promotion to the rank of full professor, was a much stronger recommendation, and would surely pass through the provost’s office with no trouble. Garcia, as secretary, opened the slips of paper. “4”—that was Cates. He was almost never swayed by discussion. “5”—that would be Dr. Gift: his answer to Mom. “7”—Garcia himself. There had been stronger candidates, with three books actually published; you had to consider that. “8”—Helen, who often argued in extreme terms, but then voted rather conservatively. Dr. Garcia said, “Well, we’ve recommended him with a six.”

  Dr. Gift said, “In my opinion, that’s realistic.”

  Cates said, “Generous, if you ask me.”

  Garcia sighed.

  Helen was rummaging around in her briefcase.

  Dr. Gift settled his body into his chair with perceptible self-satisfaction. Garcia opened the door and motioned Margaret, who was sitting on the bench outside the door, reading a book called Feminism Without Illusions, to come back in. That’ll be the day, thought Dr. Garcia. Cates went over to the coffee machine.

  “Here,” said Helen. “Let’s take a break and discuss this.” She pushed a stapled, typewritten document across to Dr. Gift and then passed copies to everyone at the table.

  Dr. Lionel Gift could count on one thumb the number of times he had been taken by surprise, and even that surprise, the stock market crash of 1987, he would have foreseen if he had been in the country, but he had been in Costa Rica, calculating the costs and benefits of his then brand-new vacation home. Nonetheless, he was surprised at the sight of his confidential report on Seven Stones Mining sliding across the table toward him. It was as if Helen could reach into some magic bag and draw forth whatever she pleased. His first thought was that he should have gone ahead and voted his principles rather than his instincts with the Monahan fellow. That was a lesson to him—any divergence from principle was a mistake.

  He said, “Where did you get this?” And he saw that there were five other copies, too, as if his copy had magically spawned. He said, “This is confidential.”

  “Not anymore,” said Helen.

  Elaine Dobbs-Jellinek. Dr. Gift stood up, and said, “I’m going to make a call.”

  “Good,” said Helen. “That will give the others time to read this.”

  “They can’t read it. It’s confidential. It was never meant to be read.” He sat down again.

  Dr. Bell, who had been skimming the first few pages of her copy with her eyebrows lifting ever higher, said, “That’s an interesting point you raise, Dr. Gift. There is actually a significant body of literary theory that proposes that the ultimate power in any writer-reader transaction lies with the reader. The writer may persuade, attract, or lure the reader, but it’s the reader who chooses how to interpret, and even whether or not to read. One critic says that giving up control over material by writing it down is analogous to having an orgasm. Both frightening and thrilling.” She gave Dr. Gift a covert glance, then allowed herself a private little smile. She went on, “Of course, I think that’s a very masculinist interpretation, but it may have some validity.”

  Dr. Gift was staring at her, but not, Garcia thought, as if he was listening to her, more as if he were weighing his next move. Helen said, “Wondering whom to sue, Lionel?”

  “There are certainly university regulations protecting the confidentiality of a faculty member’s papers.”

  “No doubt there are,” said Helen.

  “Well, then, I shall pursue that course.”

  “On a Saturday morning? Does your lawyer wear a beeper to the golf course? I happen to know that the university lawyer is in St. Louis this weekend, at a large family wedding. You could try and reach Provost Harstad, of course. He’s driven to Kansas for the basketball game and should be back by midafternoon tomorrow. Even if you can reach him, I doubt whether there’s anything he can do until he meets with the university lawyer on Monday.” She smiled.

  Dr. Gift tried to reach across the table and grab Dr. Garcia’s copy of the document. Dr. Garcia instinctively snatched it out of his reach, then saw that he had committed himself. For once he had inclined to Dr. Gift’s point of view, but Dad’s graceless attempt at bullying revealed a disrespect for himself, Dr. Garcia, that he resented. He pushed his chair back from the table a foot or so and leafed through the report. He felt joy in doing so. He felt principles vanish from the room and simple desire take over, first in the form of curiosity, as each of the children partook of old Dad’s secret.

  Outside of his discipline, Dr. Garcia was just a citizen. He did not profess special knowledge, or even special interest in environmental concerns. For as long as his friend X, in Horticulture, had been ranting at him about the ozone layer, biodiversity, endangered species, the disappearance of the rain forest, and overpopulation, he had been attributing X’s overinvestment in global issues to long-standing psychological stresses typical of the high-idealism, low-tolerance personality type. The patterns X conformed to were all well known—he had the instability, the anger, the deep self-doubt, the background alcoholic, the charisma, too. Garcia was very fond of him.

  But despite Garcia’s manifest indifference to most extrapsychological issues, he did feel a little clang of shock at the proposed gold mine beneath the largest remaining virgin cloud forest in the world. He even felt a sense of unpleasant surprise at the knowledge that the forest was entirely ringed by land owned by this company, International Cattle. The images were primitive, and all the stronger for that—the ring of private land like a noose, the tunnels of the gold mine literally undermining the forest’s attachment to the earth.

  Cates said, “You know, Seven Stones Mining is an interesting company. About ten years ago, they were taken to court to prevent them selling off a company they owned called Appalachic Coal, that was being sued to provide compensatory damages to the residents of a town that sat on top of an old mine that had caught fire underground. I believe that fire’s been burning for twenty years, anyway. As the judgment neared, and it looked like it was going to go in favor of the town, Seven Stones made plans to sell off Appalachic so that Appalachic could go into bankruptcy and not pay any damages. As it turned out, the Kentucky court in the case did allow the sale, and no damages were paid.”

  Helen said, “Where did you see that? I would love to have a reference.” She picked up her pencil.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t have a reference. I have some cousins in a nearby town. I always thought it was an interesting case, though.”

  As always, Garcia thought, Cates was cool, almost indifferent. The chemistry professor went on, “Actually, my relatives didn’t suffer until Appalachic went out of business. Then they lost the little store they had.”

  Dr. Bell was scowling at him. She said, “Now isn’t that just typical?” Garcia didn’t know if she was referring to Cates or to the situation he had described.

  Dr. Gift bestirred himself. He let his gaze rest upon each of them in turn, then said, “Perhaps the best policy is to finish our work here, as we only have four candidates to go, and their cases are fairly clear-cut.”

  Everyone nodded. After all, it was always a relief to take refuge in routine, thought Garcia. It gave you something to do while you were getting ready to do the next thing that you desired to do but knew deep down that you shouldn’t. In his case, that would be a little ride over to X’s house, where he would drop off Gift’s report. X, he knew, would commit it to memory on the first, fiery reading. Then, who knew? In Dr. Garcia’s experience, this matter was unprecedented. He smiled to himself. That was exciting, too.

  44

  Some
Research

  GARY WAS well aware that one of Professor Monahan’s favorite sayings was “Fear no research.” To that end, and solely as an exercise for intellectual growth, he called Lydia and invited her out, careful to do so when Lyle was at work, so as not to arouse his roommate’s entirely unjustified suspicions. Lydia had not seemed especially enthusiastic about their date, and seemed even less so when he assured her that it was no big deal. That was an annoying thing about girls—if they weren’t especially interested in you, and you tried to reassure them that you weren’t especially interested in them, either, they just got offended. Guys were not like that. Living with roommates, for example, depended on everyone’s conviction that they were almost totally indifferent to one another.

  He had never finished any version of “The Boy” or “Lydia.” He had made a gallant effort with other material—a man in a spaceship hearing a voice that he finally realizes is God playing dice with the universe, and a crazy Vietnam vet who blows himself up because he can’t take it anymore. Professor Monahan had not cottoned to either story, and to tell the truth, Gary himself had found them a little boring to write. So, when the teacher reiterated that research for stories did not necessarily mean going to the library and sifting through primary source material, Gary returned to the theme of Lydia’s tragic future with renewed enthusiasm, and called her up.

  They met outside the Black Hole but walked up the street to Down But Not Out, an undergraduate hangout that catered to both men and women. It was cold, and Lydia was wearing a matching scarf and mitten set of vibrant blue and purple mohair. When she took off her coat, he saw that she had a sweater to go with the scarf and mittens. They sat at a table, and with both hands, she reached behind and tightened her ponytail, which Gary knew she knew also lifted her breasts and separated them just for him. Gary slouched down in his chair and stretched out his legs. They both smiled, exchanging the information that these gestures were impersonally meant, impersonally recognized. Now they could get down to business. Lydia said, “I didn’t see you at that party at Berkeley Hall? It was an unbelievable crush.”