I’m almost to Dr. Weathers’ office. Her office, like the other professors’, is far removed from the graduate students.
I have arrived. She is at her desk, typing. I knock on the trim of the door. She looks up and smiles. “Hi, Rhett. Come in.”
“Hi, Dr. Weathers. Thanks for meeting with me.”
“Sure, my pleasure. Tell me about your summer,” closing her computer, sliding back in her chair. “Give me the full update.”
“Well, since we last met, in March for the proposal, I traveled to Notre Dame, Charleston and then to New Orleans. All my research was completed by June.”
“Yes,” she says. “You sent me an email about that.”
“Right.” She must think I’m an absolute idiot! How are we ever going to get to the O Canada! Castle together? “ So next I sketched out my chapters and kind of planned the whole thing. How I wanted to approach the topic and where I saw it going.”
“You’re focusing mainly on the coastal regions?”
“Yes.”
“So what do you have know? Have you started writing?”
“Yes. I just completed a rough draft of the introduction and I’ve started on the first chapter.”
“Good, you’re going to have a lot of work to do to graduate in May. Especially because the defense will be in February and there’s always bound to be ample revisions. You have to plan for that. But, I don’t think there should be any problems.”
I nod.
“Okay,” she says. “I’m very happy to hear that you’ve been moving along well. Now that we’re both back on campus it will be much easier to meet. Let’s keep everything on schedule the best we can. Can you send me the introduction?”
“Yes,” I say, feeling slightly embarrassed that I hadn’t emailed it to her earlier, when I finished the draft about a month ago. Why hadn’t I sent it? I don’t know. “Of course.”
“Send me the introduction and I’ll get you some preliminary feedback within a week or so. Can you send me the first chapter in a month, at the end of September?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. What you need to do next is figure out when you’re going to be submitting the rest of your chapters to me. It all goes to me first. Once I give you the initial approval you can send them along to your second reader, Dr. Walters. I’d like to have this completed before the New Year. Is that a possibility for you?”
I pause to think. I can write pretty fast when my materials are in order. They are. “Yes.”
“Good.”
“So I don’t send anything to the rest of the committee now?”
“No” she says. “If Dr. Walters and I have everything by the end of the year you will be able to send the whole work to everyone in January. They’ll have a few weeks to give you feedback. Then you will submit the polished draft to the whole committee prior to the defense. Even after the defense we’ll give you some final revisions to do before you graduate. I know it can be frustrating, but that’s what writing the dissertation is really about: constant revisions.”
I nod. What if she and I did a music video together to Omi’s ‘Cheerleader’?
“Okay,” she says, “I think that should do it.” Like always, the meeting has been direct, to the point. We rarely meet for longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. She really is the best.
“Send me the intro and we’ll go from there,” she adds.
I remember her telling me to make a list of submission dates. I ask her if we could establish those now. She agrees. I will submit the second chapter at the end of October, the third in the middle of November, and the fourth and final chapter three weeks after that. I will submit the conclusion right before the New Year. It’s a very compressed schedule, but I’m eager to finish. I would rather have the stress and workload now and be able to have my PhD in the spring instead of postponing graduation by a semester.
I thank her and leave.
Before leaving Allen Hall, I make a pit stop at the men’s restroom. All the urinals are unoccupied. Excellent. There’s nothing more uncomfortable than while stationed at a urinal, immobile, a fifty-something bald guy comes up right next to you, right next door instead of making use of the other urinals not next to you, every other urinal, and starts making small talk. So, you see the game last night? What game? I don’t know, any game. Sometimes it’s questions like, You think I should buy some of that Chevron stock? Or, you wanna hear a knock-knock joke?
One time I had to suffer through an entire joke, an anti-joke, the next-door latrine neighbor dropped on me, unprompted, as he scooted up by me along a long wall of open urinals at least a score in number. This guy walks into a bar and he’s super well dressed, got a beautiful woman draped on each arm and money literally falling out of his pockets, bro. He’s also got an orange for a head. Sits down and orders a drink. Bro, money falling out of his pockets, women like massaging his shoulders and stuff, but the bartender can tell he’s got a case of the blues and so he asks him about the head. Like, bro, why you got an orange for a head? The guy’s like “Okay, so I was walking along the beach and tripped over a lamp. Genie comes out and gives me three wishes. I ask to be irresistible to women, check. I ask to be cash-loaded, certifiably benjaminificated; done. But then, look, then it all went downhill on the third wish, bro. I asked for an orange for a head.”
Today, all the urinals are unoccupied. I take the closest one. Immediately, I notice the graffiti above the urinal. I am so grateful for these unheralded, anonymous bathroom artists, toiling at their craft far away from the spotlight. These are the people who do it for the love of the game. Not for the money. Not for the fame. Not even for the acclaim of their peers. Art for the sake of art. Sometimes the work is detailed and elaborate. Other times it is simple, understated. (Trust me, I know. I’m something of an amateur bathroom art critic. It’s the closest thing I have to a hobby. MoMa has nothing on the various bathroom galleries scattered throughout the Greater Starkville area).
In purple Sharpie the work is before me, a message that is really a clarion call, a blazing trumpet imploring one to action, deftly hidden in the inconspicuous grayness of the men’s bathroom wall inside the ugliest building in the history of Mississippi State University, in the history of every university, in the history of every building and edifice in the whole of human history.
U wanna know a little secret? Its right here!
Bahind u dumbass!
U struck yur pot of gold you stupid irush leprekon.
Right bahind u!
Stop lookin at yur kahones and turn around!
Go see for yurself that stall right bahind you.
Hottest craPPer in #Starkvegas!!!
It’s well before noon and my day is already over. My obligations. I don’t do any work on my dissertation the days that I meet with Dr. Weathers. I want to let what she said sink in. Or, I’m lazy. I’ll send her the introduction later today, but I won’t do any more writing until tomorrow.
I ride back onto University drive and head over to City Bagel for some breakfast. I call Brent. No answer. I try David. Nothing.
City Bagel is aptly named because their breakfast bagels are very good. They have a dinner option some nights of the week. It’s okay. Their coffee is not good. I drink it anyways. Not just one cup but a few refills. Still, it’s not good coffee. The bagels make up for any and all deficiencies because they really are fantastic.
I eat outside by myself. A few bites in I remember that I have my laptop. I pull it out and watch some YouTube videos. I go back up to the counter and order another bagel. The guy at the register gives me that weren’t you just here, bro? look. I go back out and eat and watch more videos.
I sit at my table for a while after I’ve finished eating. I decide to go lift. I go home and change my clothes and drive onto campus. The student weight room is in the Sanderson Center and as far as student workout facilities go the Sanderson Center is top quality. Some college student gyms are embarrassing. Some are as bad as hotel “workout rooms.�
�� These have a few old treadmills, free weights that go up to twenty-five pounds, and a machine no one knows how to use. All guaranteed to waste your time.
The Sanderson Center has a real weight room. It has a pool, a two hundred meter indoor track, dancing studios, racquetball courts, and even a small rock-climbing wall. It has five or six basketball courts.
Halfway through my lift some guy comes up to me and tells me I shouldn’t be dropping the weights on my power cleans. I tell him that’s exactly what you should do. That’s the whole point of bumper plates. No, he says, if you can’t bring it down slow and controlled than you shouldn’t be doing that weight. I tell him that if you do that you’ll never make any gains because you need to be working with a weight you can clean but is heavy enough that you need to drop it. He insists I’m wrong. I tell him to watch Olympic lifters. He tells me he has a degree in kinesiology and years of experience as a personal trainer. I’m wrong, he says. Just take my word for it buddy, kay? Sounds good. I really want to. But he bears a striking, doppelgänger-like resemblance to the Pillsbury Doughboy so I’m not convinced he should be doling out unsolicited advice.
I finish my lift. I head home. I grab a protein bar and drink a glass of milk and then sit down on my couch-bed and stare out the window. It seems like a few hours pass by. Days like this I feel marooned in the torpor doldrums: nothing to do, don’t know what to do, bored, alone. Thinking of Dr. Molls and Shannon makes me temporarily happy, then sadder than before.
I know what I’ll do! I pull out my PlayStation 2, plug it in, and decide to play a few games of NCAA Football 2002. When I say, ‘pull out my PlayStation 2,’ I mean take it out from an unmarked brown box under my couch-bed that is normally covered by two or three blankets and a few pillows and maybe even some duct tape. This is my guilty pleasure and if anyone found out that I play video games, especially women, I don’t know what I’d do. If a girl asked me if I ever played video games and I had to answer honestly I think I’d jump in the Mississippi River instead.
Only one person knows of my guilty pleasure. My friend Tyrell and I would play NCAA Football 2002 for hours at a time over the past few years. Both of us grew up on this version of the game and like that, because it’s older, it’s not as realistic as the newer games. Why would you want a video game to be realistic? Escaping reality, maybe even escaping the torpor for a moment, is the whole point of playing video games. In the new games, or so I’ve heard, you have to play as if it’s real football; reading defenses, working hard for five and seven yard gains. How boring. How pointless.
In NCAA Football 2002 all you have to do is edit your players’ features, give your quarterback “99” speed for example, the highest possible rating, and watch him gain 500 yards on eleven scrambles with eleven touchdowns. Well, that’s if he hasn’t thrown eleven touchdowns because he also has 99 arm strength and 99 accuracy and he’s throwing to receivers with 99 speed and 99 catching ability. I also turn off fatigue and injuries.
Tyrell and I once played nine games in a row. We had to stop because it was becoming an addiction. Tyrell is gone now. He earned his master’s degree last year and took a job teaching high school history in Los Angeles.
Now that I play by myself I only do the dynasty feature. Dynasty mode is a type of gameplay where you play multiple seasons with a school and try to build them up into a powerhouse. Even though I went to school and played football at Boise State, I play my dynasty with the University of Idaho. The Idaho Vandals are one of the lowest ranked teams on the game. This makes it all the more fun to take them from the bottom of the barrel to the National Championship.
I’m in my fourth season on the dynasty and my coaching record is a spotless 41-0. I’ve won three national titles and the Vandals are ranked #1 in both polls. My quarterback, Meathead Wilson, a guy I made in the “Create-A-Player” feature, is 6’8 300 lbs. and has 99 everything. (I bet he still can’t talk to women, though. Probably, in large measure, because of his unique first name). He’s a senior now and has won the last three Heisman trophies. Last year he threw for over 6,700 yards with 84 touchdowns and ran for another twenty-some touchdowns.
I play a few games, winning them all. I beat Middle Tennessee State 106-14. Middle Tennessee because in 2001 (the game’s title set one year in advance of the season) they, like Idaho, were members of the Sun Belt conference.
I turn off the game and hide the PlayStation again. It’s getting close to dinner and I’m hungry. I feel sick. I feel this way every time I finish playing NCAA Football 2002. I think it’s maybe because video games are the emotional, or psychological, or intellectual equivalent of the worst junk food. The junk food that is not just all sugar and fat but has plenty of trans fats and could survive one hundred years on the surface of the moon without the least signs of decomposition. The kind of junk food that haunts gas stations and the discount bin at dollar stores.
I end up making some spaghetti for dinner. It’s okay. I watch a documentary on my computer about trappers who live and work in the Siberian wilderness. I fall asleep before it’s over.
CHAPTER FOUR
It’s been two weeks since I met with Dr. Molls. She returned my introduction with comments a few days ago. Much work remains to be done. Also, Dr. Molls is so fine.
I want to be a better Catholic. I go to Mass on Sundays. I go to confession. I pray; daily but sporadically; often distracted. I resolve to start praying a daily rosary.
It’s true that I love beer. The closest I’ve ever come to discerning the priesthood is when I think on the life of a beer-brewing Benedictine monk. Ora et labora. A life ordered by, rather immersed in, the worship of God. Saturated in God. The daily silence and tranquility pierced and elevated by Gregorian Chant. Hard work under the sun, dirt sticking under the nails, callouses ripping open from the pressure of squeezing shovels, slow trickles of blood tinged with dirt emerging from the callouses, all regimented by Matins, Lauds, Terce and Compline. The beer as thick and sweet and balanced as the sung prayer, each fashioned from the same love. And all this built around man’s unspeakable privilege and inestimable gift: getting to eat God.
I don’t go to daily Mass often, hardly ever. Sundays and holy days, that’s it. But today I go to daily Mass. The times I have gone to daily Mass I’ve often been roped into staying for breakfast with the geriatric wing of the Saint Joseph’s parish family. (Thankfully, I don’t have gerontophobia). They’re all a bunch of very nice and very kind, good ole’ Southern Catholics.
My favorite of the group is Ms. Esmeralda Santiago Castilla de la Mujersabia Hernández. She’s a real Buena Abuela. Ms. Esmeralda owned a pastry shop in town. Although now retired, she still kind of oversees the business that has been passed along in her family. She is a devout Catholic, organizer of prayer groups and parish-wide meetings. She spearheaded the efforts to get Saint Joseph’s an annual summer bazaar, a three day weekend of priest in the dunk tank, pin the tail on the donkey, John Deere bumper carts, funnel cake and copious amounts of local ice cream, especially of the soft-serve with sprinkles on top variety. Wyatt Pervis showed up every day.
Unlike people who have many different hobbies, who like to dabble in this or that, who go from the garden to the card table to pick-up basketball on Thursday nights, Ms. Esmeralda is a one-hobby woman. She is something of a conspiracy theory aficionado. Right winged, Left winged, Moderate, US, Mexican, European, Asian, Italian, Extra-terrestrial, it doesn’t matter of what variety. She has a place for all of them in her heart.
She told me over one of these post-daily Mass breakfasts one time, with the deepest sincerity, and with a watchful eye to make sure our table wasn’t being bugged, just in case they were listening in, that America and even the whole world was in grave danger. How so, Ms. Esmeralda? Oh, Rhett, she said, you poor poor child. So blind, so unaware, just like all the young people today. Don’t you know, Rhett? Haven’t you heard? she asked me. No, I confessed, I hadn’t. What was going on? A plot, she told me. Not just a plot but the plot, the real big o
ne. Who’s behind this plot, Ms. Esmeralda?
Everyone, she said. The FBI and the CIA. The Russians, the Army and the Navy, the Air Force Academy, Army’s football team, the Belgians, the Coast Guard, the Merchant Marine, the European Parliament, Regis Philbin, Abu Dhabi oil magnates, Warren Buffett, Jewish bankers, Joel Osteen, the atomic scientists formerly of Alamogordo, even some members of the Curia. Can you believe that, Rhett? Infiltration in the highest levels of the Vatican! Can you believe it? No, I confessed, it all seemed very unbelievable. I know, Ms. Esmeralda said, nodding, if only it weren’t true.
Can you handle the truth, she proceeded to ask me, all the while shaking my left forearm furiously with a clenched hand, her nails digging into my skin even through my shirt sleeve, can you? Because I’m warning you that if I’m going to tell you this I’m going to tell it all. Just take a moment and really think if you can handle the implications. Because once I tell you, there’s no going back. Whatever comfortable life you’re leading now, all that will change. Your entire worldview will be shaken to the core. Are you sure you want to know?
I braced myself and nodded solemnly. Yes. I want to know.
She stared at me for a brief moment and then nodded herself; twice, the second time with a grim expression, grimmer than her oft-worn default grim, across her face.
The president of the United States—our very own president, Rhett— had been bought of by a coalition of wealthy underground officials from Egypt by way of Finland by way of Peru who would soon initiate a one-world government headquartered in the Denver airport. The first step, the first domino to fall in this long con, was to begin wide scale implantation of electronic tracking devices into the bodies of Americans. It’s always about America. Those foreigners see Lady Liberty and they get green with envy. Can’t they see you just can’t ever be as green as her, Rhett? This is why you should never get your children vaccinated. Promise me you won’t get them vaccinated, Rhett. Oh, please, please promise me!
The Holdout Page 5