The Shakespeare Requirement

by Julie Schumacher

  In the Scribe, the article detailing Fitger’s malicious treatment of freshmen was followed by a perfunctory little squib about President Hoffman’s commitment to “efficient, cost-saving measures and the need to eliminate duplication across departments.” This was coded language, of course, foreshadowing the day when Hoffman—prepped by Roland and QUAP, and ill-disposed toward Fitger’s department—would stroll through campus, swinging a scythe to eliminate entire disciplines. Education was expensive and inefficient; teaching students to think and write clearly was the same. But Hoffman, a business school graduate with the single-cell mind of a banker, had never taught anyone anything. Her ultimate plan would be to reorganize the campus into two simple units: “Numbers” and “Words.”

  Fitger let the paper slide to the floor and snapped off his headlamp, staring into the dark. He wondered whether English would survive until the end of the year. Marie Eland had sent him an e-mail the previous morning, asking if he had heard about the end-of-semester event and the announcement soon to be made by his gladiatorial neighbor upstairs: a Very Large Gift to Econ from two mega-donors. She was referring, she said, to the kind of money that could alter the minds of presidents, deans, and provosts, allowing them to free themselves of all scruples.

  He had thanked her for the heads-up and immediately drafted an e-mail to Janet: What could she tell him about Roland and Econ? His fingers paused over the keyboard. He deleted the message, replying again, instead, to Marie Eland. Would she like to get together for that long-delayed drink?

  Perhaps in February or March, she answered. She was preparing for a trip out of town.

  Fitger refolded his pillow, which had developed a wafer-like and inelastic quality. The spring semester, now under way (he was teaching an undergraduate class on Narratives of Adventure as well as pinch-hitting a section of comp for Kentrell), promised to be no easier than the first. Tossing and sleepless, he wanted to go downstairs to retrieve his briefcase (which he believed he had left in the kitchen, near the bottle of bourbon by the sink) but Kentrell had the hearing of a hunting dog, and at the slightest hint that Fitger was awake he would emerge from the study and begin a meandering conversation.

  Still, all was quiet downstairs…and now the concept of leaving his bed had sent an urgent body-gram to his bladder, which over the years had become a thimble-sized organ with an impetuous streak. He lay studiously inert for several moments; then, giving up, he swung his pajama-clad legs out of the covers and, without turning the light on, began to grope his way down the hall. Almost immediately he heard the parallel shuffling of Franklin Kentrell heading toward the toilet downstairs. The two bowls flushed in synchronicity.

  “Jay?” Kentrell flipped the switch on the klieg lights that illuminated both the upstairs and downstairs hallways, capturing Fitger at the top of the steps. “I thought I heard something,” he said. “Are you up?”

  Of course he was up; why would he sleep when there were new humiliations to be endured? Fitger shaded his eyes and descended the stairs, heading for the kitchen. Where was his briefcase? Hadn’t he left it right there on the counter? He was probably losing what was left of his mind, due to Kentrell’s prolonged convalescence, which was even more unpleasant now that he wasn’t as sick. Still claiming he was too weak to teach, he seemed to treat his visit to Fitger’s place as an in-town vacation. He watched TV or relaxed in the study; he left his toothbrush, bristles splayed, at the edge of the sink; he sampled the wares in the kitchen; and left the indentation of his oily, rectangular head on the pillows and chairs. He seemed to enjoy the status of invalid: though he walked fairly well without his walker, he occasionally unfolded it and used it, as if indulging in a sentimental mood.

  Aha: there was the briefcase, half hidden beneath a dish towel on a kitchen chair. On top of it was a sticky note he had written to himself and forgotten: Wilcox, it said. Shit. Wilcox was Janet’s development officer friend; he had meant to follow up on their earlier non-conversation, to ask if she might be harboring a rich and childless Payne alum on life support, or if she knew of any prize-winning authors who might want to help the Department of English improve its image by delivering a lecture or giving a reading for free.

  Kentrell sidled into the kitchen, already yammering on about something. His conversational style was a slow-motion list of random autobiographical tidbits, his mind like a kitten with a ball of yarn. He popped the tab on a can of Ensure and put a pillowcase, some (borrowed) socks, and something that looked like a corset into the dryer. Fitger was determined not to ask questions. He was going to burn all his linens in a great flaming purge the day Kentrell got the OK on his flooded row house and finally moved home.

  It was probably no use contacting Perrin Wilcox—during their only previous interaction, she had impressed him mainly because of her ability to speak in code—but he owed it to Janet to make an effort; she would surely ask him about it (she would have returned by now from her amorous respite in the Caribbean) at their annual divorce anniversary meal.

  Kentrell was trimming his fingernails at the kitchen table, blue bathrobe sagging open between bony thighs. He was rambling on about a grandfather’s ranch in Wyoming, where he had spent his childhood summers: yadda yadda split rail fence yadda yadda pronghorn yadda yadda rattlesnake in a boot.

  In an effort to drown out this mini-marathon of non sequiturs, Fitger twisted the cap off the bourbon, muttering to himself. He had to stop Roland and Econ. He needed money, he needed faculty consensus, he needed President Hoffman off his back, he needed a world-renowned donor-novelist to drop out of the sky. Forget the novelist; he would even settle for a playwright or, god forbid, a poet.

  Scattering fingernail shards across the table, Kentrell began to interleave his own rambling remarks into Fitger’s. No, there weren’t many poets of renown, at least that he knew of, in Wyoming—other than his own childhood friend, Orest Weisel. Weisel—Fitger, undoubtedly, had heard of him—had grown up only a few miles away, on a neighboring ranch.

  “Weisel?” Fitger turned to face his colleague. “I don’t know his work.”

  Kentrell sipped at his Ensure and then licked his teeth—a jagged mountain range in shades of gray. He was surprised that Jay hadn’t heard of him. Weisel was fairly well known. He was famous, really. He had won multiple prizes and had quite a following. Of course, he didn’t need to make a living as a poet (Kentrell chuckled): his family had made a fortune in oil in North Dakota, so Orest could write or not, as he chose.

  Fitger took a seat at the table across from Kentrell and filled a glass with two inches of bourbon. So: Orest Weisel, he said. Maybe the name did sound familiar. And his family had oil money? How many books had Weisel published?

  Oh, at least eight.

  Really? And were he and Franklin still in touch?

  Kentrell tugged on his earlobe with his fingers. He hadn’t seen Orest for a few years, but as boys they’d been close.

  What kind of close?

  Well, they were friends. This was Buffalo, Wyoming; there weren’t hundreds of children around. Orest had moved away at fourteen, but they’d stayed in touch. Only a few years ago, it seemed, Orest had sent him a condolence card when Kentrell’s uncle Wally died. Uncle Wally had taken them fly-fishing during the summers, and…

  Fitger sluiced some bourbon into his colleague’s Ensure. “I’m just thinking aloud, here,” he said, “but let’s say you contacted Weisel and invited him to campus.”

  Kentrell crossed one hairy leg over the other. “What for?”

  “He could give a lecture. Or read from his work.” English wouldn’t be able to pay him, but since he and Franklin were friends…A poet of renown wouldn’t want to see a literature department starve or suffer. And of course Kentrell could introduce him. Perhaps, during his visit, given his family’s financial situation, Orest Weisel might make a contribution to the English fund.

  Kentrell bobbed hi
s slippered foot up and down. His mind moved slowly, like a cutworm inching through an ear of corn. He would have to think about it, he said. Did Jay have any bread? He wasn’t usually hungry at this hour, but he suddenly thought he might be up for some buttered toast.

  Fitger stood. He opened the bread box and found two matching heels from a loaf of dark rye. He put them both in the toaster. “Jam?” he asked.

  Butter was fine. But perhaps a soft-boiled egg if there was one?

  Fitger, envisioning Orest Weisel’s check for $100,000 made out to English, set two eggs in a pot of water on the stove. He put a small plate and the butter and salt and pepper on the table.

  “I suppose I could reach out to him,” Kentrell said. He sipped at his drink while Fitger busied himself at the counter, humming softly and waiting for the ding of the timer that would signal that the eggs were done.

  * * *

  —

  Janet’s lawyer had assured her during the divorce that her soon-to-be ex-husband’s stipulation of two yearly meetings—one on their wedding anniversary, August 6, and the other on the anniversary of the divorce itself, February 3—was not legally binding. But Janet had agreed to it anyway, perhaps having more respect for the dissolution of their marriage than for its vows.

  She was nervous. They had toasted their other divorce anniversaries over lunch. But lunch didn’t fit their schedules this year, so they had ended up—probably a mistake—with an early dinner right after work. She watched Fitger shrug himself out of his jacket and stuff his scarf (a dark blue cashmere; it looked expensive) into a sleeve. “This is a cushy little place,” he said, looking around. “I haven’t been here before. Is it new?”

  “Somewhat.” On top of his artfully folded napkin, Janet had set a copy of the most recent Scribe, opened to reveal letters to the editor airing complaints about English and its incompetent chair.

  Fitger glanced at the letters, then tossed the paper onto a nearby table. “I didn’t think to bring you a gift,” he said. “But happy divorce anniversary.”

  “To you also.” Janet examined a strip of sunburnt skin on her wrist. “Jay, I need to tell you something,” she said.

  Fitger heard the apprehension in her voice and froze. She was going to tell him that she had gotten married to that heffalump of a boyfriend; that’s what the trip to the Caribbean had been for. She would soon be showing him her wedding photos: Hinckler carrying her into the ocean, Janet carving their initials (J.M. & P.H. 4-ever) into a coconut shell. It pained him, that she would divulge this unwelcome news on a significant date and at very close range—ostensibly out of kindness, but perhaps also in order to enjoy the sight of his dismay. Fortunately, planning ahead, he had already rehearsed several potential reactions. He could choose from among mild congratulatory interest (tepid smile, head inclined forward); doubtful concern (head tilted back, one eyebrow lifted); or rank bewilderment (both eyebrows lifted, and hands palm-up toward the ceiling—the international symbol for what the fuck).

  In the end, needing time to strategize, he opted for delay-of-game. “Hold on,” he said. “We just got here. How was your day?”

  How was her day? That was a very un-Fitger-like question. It was a day like a thousand others, she said. It had begun with caffeine and ended in a desire to slam her head into the drawer of her desk.

  “And how about your blood pressure?” Fitger asked. He hoped she was taking regular readings, keeping track.

  A waiter arrived before she could answer. “Good evening. Have either of you dined with us before?”

  “I don’t see why that matters,” Fitger said. “We know what a restaurant is; we know how it works.”

  Janet hadn’t intended to order a drink—she wanted to keep her wits about her—but found herself requesting, on an immediate basis if at all possible, a large glass of red wine.

  “Yes! Two of those,” Fitger said.

  The waiter nodded. “If you need anything,” he said, “my name is Beck.”

  “I assume your name is Beck even if we don’t need anything,” Fitger said. He turned to Janet. “At least he didn’t use that horrible phrase about taking care of us, as if he were our nurse.”

  Janet reached for the breadsticks and snapped one in half. Fitger jumped as if startled. “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He had seen her left hand: no wedding ring. So they hadn’t gotten married in the Caribbean; but of course it was still possible that the dean, inspired by sun and surf and sand (or his hatred of Fitger), had knelt down and proposed. Would Janet accept him? If Hinckler bought her a ring it would probably be large: diamonds like mushrooms erupting from a hollow log. Fitger’s leg was bouncing a jig beneath the table. He watched Janet nibbling at her breadstick. She looked good. She always did; physically speaking, she inhabited a point on the spectrum midway between comely and austere. A silver rivulet of hair swept left to right above her forehead. They had both entered the cocoon of middle age, from which they would one day emerge in the form of the cobwebbed creatures they were able now to observe from a distance: the men with drooping bellies and oversized ears, the women with spun-sugar coiffures and furrowed flesh.

  Why was Fitger staring at her? Janet wondered. He looked older all of a sudden. The parallel runways of baldness on his head had widened, leaving a peninsula of almost colorless hair in their wake.

  Beck arrived with their wine.

  Janet thanked him, then collected their menus. “I’ll have the salmon, and this rude person across from me would like to order the special pasta, with a Caesar salad on the side.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look at the menu yet,” Fitger said.

  “That’s because you were late. Don’t worry; I got you something soft, for your teeth.”

  Beck walked away, and Fitger probed a molar with his tongue. This was the amiably banal sort of dialogue, he thought, in which he and Janet would have indulged if they had stayed married. Over dinner, they would have discussed hemorrhoids and cataracts and the replacing of knees. “Just tell me they didn’t put quotation marks around ‘special’ pasta,” he said. “You know I can’t eat things that are badly punctuated or misspelled.”

  Having finished her breadstick, Janet seemed to be preparing herself for conversation again. Fitger quickly forestalled her. “How are things at the office?” he asked. “How does Angela like her internship?”

  Janet planted her elbows on the tablecloth and massaged her temples.

  “Headache?” he asked.

  “No. Angela’s in your class again this semester, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.” Fitger agreed that she was.

  “Have you noticed anything different about her?”

  “Different?”

  “About her appearance,” Janet said.

  Fitger sipped at his wine. Did Angela Vackrey look different? Undergraduates were always adorning themselves and revising their self-conceptions, adding tattoos or piercings or arriving in class wearing combat gear or a shirt made of rubber bands and string. But for obvious reasons, he had always been careful to cultivate an impassive demeanor in regard to students’ bodies and clothing (which was sometimes a challenge: he had once sat for thirty minutes across from a senior who was wearing a T-shirt that said, I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR IDEAS). He strived never to glance at any student below the neck, and couldn’t imagine Angela taking drastic measures with her appearance. Shy, of course, and lacking in sartorial skills, she nevertheless exuded a clarity and a consistency…He smiled. It still happened sometimes: he found a student who surprised him, and whom he admired. “You like her too,” he said. “Don’t you?”

  Yes, Janet said. It was almost impossible not to like Angela. Her face was an ingenuous canvas; she was bright but naive; her fingernails had been nibbled down to their blood-flecked moons. On her first day in the office, Janet reviewed with her the information she ga
ve all the interns—but in Angela’s case, she’d had to make an effort to refrain from additional counsel: Don’t get married in your twenties; don’t take a job at a university; use the word “underwear” and not “panties”; learn to speak in statements rather than questions; don’t waste your time being impressed by people (usually men) who are already adequately impressed by themselves.

  Fitger had begun talking about an essay Angela had written for his apocalypse class. She hadn’t turned anything in yet for his Narratives of Adventure (which began with Jules Verne and ended—in case Janet was curious—with Ursula Le Guin), but based on her—

  Janet interrupted. “Jay, for god’s sake, she’s pregnant.”

  “What?” Fitger put down his wineglass. “Really? Angela? She told you?”

  “I asked her. You just have to look at her. She’s four months along.”

  “Four months.” Already too late for a reversal of fortune, Fitger thought, if she’d hoped to have one. He counted backward: October. In class, they’d been struggling through Riddley Walker in October. He wasn’t sure why that mattered, but he felt that it did.

  “She hasn’t told anyone,” Janet said. “She said she stopped by your office last week but lost her nerve.”

  “She was going to tell me?” he asked. “Why?”

  Janet had asked Angela the very same question and had concluded, after hearing the girl’s whispered, convoluted answer, that, having misunderstood the role of the academic adviser, she hadn’t been able to think of anyone else.

  “Well,” Fitger said. “You ended up talking to her. What will she do?”

  Coworkers in Janet’s office occasionally suggested that someone else—other than Janet—should take on the burden of supervising the interns; but Janet liked working with students. She liked interacting with people who were at an earlier stage of their lives, and in a more malleable condition. And (Fitger had been right) she found Angela particularly appealing. Coming upon her one day in the copy room, and noticing the pill-covered sweater over the girl’s shoulders, one sock slipping down the shapeless plank of her leg, it had occurred to her that the new intern was precisely the age that a child conceived by herself and Jay would have been. They had never intended to have children, but occasionally they had been less than assiduous in their efforts to avoid them; and during one single long weekend Janet had kept to herself the tantalizing suspicion that she might be pregnant—a possibility that, several days later, had proved not to be. It was during that moment in the copy room that she knew, without being told (why had her eyes overflowed at the thought?), that Angela was pregnant herself.