Rebecca Montana
English 101.15
Freedman’s University
Special Topics: Loneliness
Dr. Chambers
Journal #1
I think it was the first or second day of class that u, Dr. Chambers, asked us all what compelled us to take a class themed around lonelines. Most everyone shrugged as you went around one by one trying to get at our motivations. No one seemed to know that this was a themed course. One girl said it was the only class that fit into her schedule. A guy toward the back laughed at you, It’s just a class, man, he said. It’s not even that deep. But I could see by the disappointment on your face. It was that deep for you. Even deeper than we could have imagine. Since it was easier for me to lie, I shrugged right along with my classmates, but the truth is, Dr. Chambers, it is that deep for me. Even deeper than you could know. I suspect some of my classmates were similarly lying to be cool. Loneliness has always haunted me like a shadow, but it was last semester—my first in college—that the dark shadows rose up an became ghosts, something scary and capable of destroying me. I never knew lonliness could be such a powerful force. For a short time, Cross River, Freedman’s University, became for me the very loneliest place on the planet.
I’ve always been a good student until loneliness came barrelling into my life. I came from the West Coast to be part of history. My mentors told me to go to Freedman’s, become an AKA, see the river, be 1 with the insurrectionary ancestors. I got on campus and forgot how to speak. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the majesty, but by the ordnriness of it all. I don’t know what I expected. Daily insurrections in the land of the Insurrection? Maybe toward the end of the second week, I looked around and it seemed like everyone around me had formed cliques, social groups designed to keep me out. I had no place. I went weeks without speaking and no one noticed. Anyone who cared about me was in california and they didn’t really care. Out of sight, out of mind. I went to class a little, but I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even know how to do anything. I cursed myself. Laid on my side in my bed and tried not to cry. I asked why I was the way I was. I looked in the mirror and offered myself affirmations while my roommates were out. Nothing worked.
One of my roommates, Stacy, heard one of my affirmations, I think, and invited me out with a few girlfriends. The Garden is lit, she said. You should come out. It’ll be fun. She picked my clothes, loaning me something tight-fitting and revealing. Banished my glasses so I had to squint, told me my makeup wouldn’t do and smeared her own onto my face.
We came together, Stacey said to the four of us while in line for The Garden. So we’re leaving together. Understand? We nodded and for a time we held hands like a line of children while we snaked thru the club. But the hand I held grew tired of mine and let it go and before long I didn’t see Stacy and them.
I became just a body to be felt on and pressed against. One of thousands of bodies in The Garden that night. Music with the volume raised to distortion levels. Hands reaching for my hands, stranger hands brushing against my body. There were moments I could, oddly enough, think clearly and deeply in the club—I suppose this is solitude, to be comfortably alone tho in the presence of thousands—and then a hand would grab at my butt and I’d suddenly feel so alone. I walked from the Riverbeat room to the hip-hop room, to the r&b room, to the Top 40 room. I didnt find what I was looking for. Connection thru a grinding sort of dance. Connection thru shouted small talk. Thru sips of alcohol. I found no such connection. Sometimes I looked for Stacey and the girls, sometimes I just walked. I felt dehydrated as if I’d crossed a desert. I probably wouldn’t have recognized Stacey if I saw her. Everyone’s faces turned into smiley-face emojis. The hot air was suffocating me. I needed the fresh air of the street, the breeze from the river.
I stepped outside and the stars in the sky looked like emojis. Winking and smiling and crying down on me. I must have looked drunk, stumbling about, pupils dilated. Intoxicated by loneliness. Men called to me. Hey girl. Come talk. Their intentions were only to increase my loneliness. I ignored them. I looked at my phone. Stacy had texted me two times.
Hey gurl.
Where are you?
I ignored my phone and walked thru the town looking at people with emoji faces. They clung to stop signs. They laid on the sidewalk. They shouted to me. I thought they would destroy me.
When I made it back to the dorm room, Stacy was asleep and we never spoke about that night. We pass by each other like we’ve beceom shadows. In the dorm. On the way to the bathroom. In class. she’s in this section and her name is not Stacy. I failed all my classes cuz I could barely get out of bed for part of the semester. Tell me, what would’ve been the purpose of getting out of bed? I booked a one-way flight back to LA and then I saw your class listed, Prof. Chambers. I saw the chance to really, really understand this thing that was trying to eat right thru me. Forgive my shrug and the shrugs of my peers. I couldn’t explain all that when u asked. Stacey couldn’t explain that she took the class to understand why she needs to always be surrounded by idiot girls she barely cares about so she lied to be cool when you came to her.
Also, forgive me. I took longer than the ten minutes you told us to alot for the writing of our journals. I hope u understand.
8.
Dr. Chambers’s unraveling became visible in his face, in the way he held his body, in his very steps, after that first journal assignment. He looked gray and drained, and sway-walked as if all energy were falling away from his body.
He mentioned in passing the full classes consisting of only eyes staring back at him. His days became just hours of speaking to himself mostly. I observed this deteriorating man from a distance, usually, measuring just when would be the right moment to intercede, to become an ear for him to speak into, a mouth of advice.
One afternoon after his last class of the day, I followed the shambling Chambers through the halls, just watching. It was as if many devils had possessed him and were tearing down the entirety of his physicality, his face became a fright mask; gaunt; he held his features, the movable ones, in such a way that drained any beauty from them. His face wasn’t actually scarred, but it appeared scarred, you know? Pale and lined with haggard worry. His walk was no longer a walk, but an attempt not to tumble over.
I arrived to his office just as he sighed and collapsed into his creaking chair. He dumped a bottle of water into his electric kettle and set the thing to boil. It steamed and rocked. Chambers looked to the floor without noticing me in the doorway.
Tea break? I said finally.
Ah, Reece, glad you’ve come by.
Oh?
I need the company, I would visit you in your office, but . . . say, where the hell is your office, anyway?
Funny, Chambers. It’s the rough patch of the semester, already?
I don’t know, Reece, he said. Not a single one of them did the journal assignment. Well, one of them did it. I walk into the class. Lecture my heart out. No one is paying attention except one student, man. Barely any of them have read the book.
Tough shit, man. I shook my head and looked to the floor. My words were nothing-words that just filled space. Tough, tough shit.
More than tough, Reece. It’s a gigantic waste of time and energy. How many problems could I solve if I weren’t preoccupied with this dumb shit, huh? Maybe I should just cut my losses, fall back on some busywork, and ride the semester out.
Chambers sighed. I backed up, watching that kettle steaming and shaking up a storm as if it held a tempest within.
Be grateful for that one student, Chambers.
Yeah. I guess. She did the assignment perfectly too. Grammar issues, but yeah. If more of them were on it we could get somewhere.
Just as I thought that kettle was about to topple to the floor, dousing us in boiling water, it dinged and clicked to signal it had finished its work. It now sat still and silver and peaceful, except for the ribbons of steam rising from the spout. Chambers took down two Styrofoam cups from a shelf above.
Tea? I nodded and he poured the water. He cast the tea bags like fishing lines into the steamy depths of the cups. The steam seemed dark and bluish, resembling smoke.
Let me come in and lecture, I said. I have a fable for all occasions.
He scooped maybe six or so spoons of sugar into his tea from a silver tin. I became concerned and grabbed mine before he could poison my cup.
Next semester, Reece. I already have Kin Samson coming in to talk about Hudson, if I can get him to pin down a date. Chambers sighed again. Maybe I should just cancel with Kin.
Look, Chambers, when the students aren’t on, that’s when you go harder. Double down! Give them much more complicated work. Not busywork. Work you’d give a grad student, even. Watch some of them rise to the challenge. Let that one student lead them all.
You think?
I do. Very deeply.
That bit of bad advice seemed to bring color back to Chambers’s cheeks. He sat up a bit, resembling a puppy in his chair. He sipped at his tea, the blue smoke-steam obscuring his face.
A little corner of one of his porn pictures peeked from the top drawer of his desk. The fuckface of a woman in the throes of passion. And don’t you know that little fuckface winked at me?
What about the essay?
Let me get a handle on this class, Reece.
I sipped. The tea tasted blue.
9.
To: Dr. Reginald S. Chambers, Assistant Professor—Department of English and Cultural Studies
Sent: March 29, 2018, 11:03 p.m.
From: Rebecca Montana
Cc:
Bcc:
Subject: Todays Lecture
Wow. What a lecture. Electric! I want to thank you for bringing Angela to discuss Roland Hudson with us! I’m reading Hudson with new eyes. I’m reading Audre Lord and Nurruda like Angela suggested. And the Bell Hooks essay she recommended: “The Firewater Next Time: ‘Love’ as Bad Politics or Imagining More Loving Visions of Black Love Within the Torment and ‘Love’ of Roland Hudson” was extremely illuminating. And I’m reading Kin Samson, now! And Angela has been giving me some feedback on my final essay ideas so has Dr. Samson (when are you posting the prompt???) What a class we had today!
Thanks
• • •
To: Professor Akinsanya Samson, Lecturer—Department of English and Cultural Studies
Sent: April 1, 2018, 5:54 a.m.
From: Dr. Reginald S. Chambers, Assistant Professor—Department of English and Cultural Studies
Cc: Angela B. Watson,
Bcc:
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Class visit?
Dear Prof. Samson,
I was unaware that Angela was back on campus, no longer an adjunct, but instead a doctoral student. I invited you to speak to my composition classes about Roland Hudson and The Firewater because of your expertise in Cross Riverian poetics, so it was a bit disorienting to see Angela saunter into my class alone, offering little explanation or apology for your absence, but instead offering herself as a substitute. And I can’t explain it (or really I don’t care to here), but it was like I eased out of myself and was standing on the muddy river floor watching the muted light from the sun fade as it tried to reach me. Since she’s your charge, I would imagine you would like to know how Angela’s presentation went. There was no substance there, she essentially played hypeman to your flawed assertions. Angela knew nothing of Roland Hudson until I introduced her to the poet in the semester she adjuncted with us. It’s almost as if she understands less now. It’s great that Angela is working to ascend out of the adjunct a-class-here-and-there merry-go-round; however, after watching her presentation, I am concerned with the sort of education she is receiving with respect to Hudson specifically and Cross Riverian poetics in general. Everything about her presentation was unwelcome and unsettling.
During Angela’s talk yesterday I closed my eyes and took a series of deep breaths as she spoke to my students, counted to ten. Anger management training I learned when very young. Strange thing happened, my mind took me away from the presentation and deposited me in history: the moment Mama Hudson arrived at the Cross River, baby Roland in her arms. She had walked from Texas to Maryland trying to get free, unaware that slavery had come to an end. When I saw her, she collapsed into the dirt mumbling the mantra that so many had used to motivate their movements, I get to Cross River, I’ll be free.
She said it fourteen times, a perfect sonnet.
Mythmaking you say? I peeked back through the veil of history and heard Angela citing you, telling my students that Mama Hudson’s triumph likely never happened. The poet invented it in a fit of madness or of grandiosity.
Maybe. Perhaps.
Do you think that’s what our students need to hear? That’s more important to hear than the idea that you can take words and remake yourself with them? Like Hudson did. Like Angela is attempting to do. Like you, yourself, did.
It surprised me yesterday to see so many of my students coming to life to Angela’s commentary, some even momentarily drowning out Ms. Montana, who, as I mentioned previously, is the only student in any of my classes who regularly comments or asks questions. If you look at it from that perspective, the class visit was a great success, however there are a few issues I would like to address with you.
The disdain and disrespect Angela showed and requested the students show toward a true master like Roland Hudson is not only concerning with respect to her scholarly judgment, but also is counterproductive to my class. I am attempting to instill within these students a true love of poetry. We are in Cross River and most of our students are Riverbabies. What better place to start than with the great poets who wrote and write with the rhythm of the River? Where would poets like Darley Jeffers, David Sherman, Anika Winters, Phoenix Starr, Samantha Michaels, Marcus McMurry, Ama Akoto, Gerald “Comrade” Osei, L’Ouverture, James Rivers, J. Larry Peckerman, and, yes, Kin Samson, be without the example set by Roland Hudson? We don’t have to start with Milton and end with Whitman.
Mama Hudson’s walk, as narrated by Roland Hudson in the beginning of Firewater, is more real to me than even Angela is.
If there’s one moment that I can point to that encapsulates my frustration with yesterday’s lecture, it was when Ms. Montana raised her hand and asked, What about love?
I don’t think Angela understood her. How could she, of course? Water-women understand almost nothing about love. She paused and looked up at the ceiling. Floated in the moment, like a ghost. The messy knots of her dreadlocks, her maroon Phoenix Starr shirt and ripped jeans. The shirt so faded it looked nearly white, as if she thought my students weren’t worthy of professorial clothing.
She stuttered a bit, but the impatient Ms. Montana cut her off: “all I ever do / all I can ever do / is write fire blue missives to // a love never known. Wasn’t it an act of love that inspired Roland Hudson to capture his unrequited lover Gertrude in his verse, to keep her between the lines for all time?”
Rebecca actually used the phrase unrequited lover, and that’s what makes her special. Angela scoffed. “Love,” she said, floating there a ghost human being. I could actually hear the quotation marks she put around the word, those ugly little walrus teeth set down to break the dream. “There’s no such thing as an ‘unrequited lover,’ ” she said. “All your unrequited annoyances are irritations, not lovers. Love? [Here she laughed.] Love is so often discussed, but still so uninterrogated. Love does the same thing to your brain that cocaine does, but Hudson’s obsession for Gertrude can’t be excused by way of addiction. You pose that question as if ‘love’ is inherently a beautiful thing, as if Hudson’s ‘love’ for Gertrude wasn’t, for her, a torture. Imagine being the woman chased and hunted and haunted, and then finally robbed of her humanity, turned into a mythical being: a siren, a woe, a water-woman, a shauntice, all for exercising her free will not to
return the ‘love’ of some lunatic. These aren’t so much poems as they are records of a specific type of harassment. You see, men are taught that a woman’s no is a speed bump on the way to yes. Hudson wrote flowery odes to that idea and then drowned himself and blamed Gertrude for his death. And then literary scholars have the nerve to accept and praise this! That’s beautiful to you? Imagine being on the receiving end of that ‘love.’ What am I saying? I’m sure some of the women in this class have been the subject of this kind of ‘love.’ I have. [Some of my female students nodded and grumbled assent, reluctantly, I think, moved by Angela’s prodding.] Not so beautiful when it’s not presented in metaphor, is it?”
By then I had had enough. “Don’t you think, Prof. Watson, that you are being harsh?” I asked. “Thinking about people from history as if they had the benefit of modernity?”
“Reggie, let me ask you this, has the human heart changed since the late 1800s when Roland Hudson was writing? Have you read any poetry by Gertrude? Didn’t she come to him as a student? What happened to her voice?”
Mercifully class ended. I had to sit through some version of that six times that day. Perhaps I should have asked her to leave after the first class. I hope reading our exchange will show you how wildly out of order your student was and I hope you will speak to her; I won’t die holding my breath, though.
Let me let the poet have the last word:
Ever think of your brain in the complete darkness of your skull?
That’s where it lives
Does its work and dies
Never seeing light.
And you, my love:
Churning, loving, roiling, conflicted, loving
Walking through storms.
Just walking.
Never knowing your destination
Never understanding your strut.
Strutting anyway.
Dr. Reginald S. Chambers, Ph.D.
The World Doesn't Require You Page 25