by Aaron Thier
Mr. Pinkman III rose and was no doubt on the point of uttering another abstruse formulation when Fitzgerald Simon, professor of francophone language and literature and himself the descendant of Afro-Caribbean slaves, came unexpectedly to his defense. Professor Simon reminded us that Mr. Pinkman III had not, himself, ever owned slaves, nor was there reason to believe that he had ambitions in that respect. He also wished to point out that in robbing Mr. Pinkman III of his natural rights, we were ourselves guilty of the very crime for which we were trying to atone. Perhaps we could distinguish the issues of reparation and revenge from the more practical questions of how Tripoli should deal with 1) the bad publicity, and 2) the gifts we had received from the Pinkman family?
This was very reasonable, and the secretary was sorry that in all the confusion we had managed to forget about Professor Simon. Surely he would have made a better conscience than the troublesome Professor Kabaka?
Professor Wilson agreed with him in principle, but she insisted that he was being idealistic. The issue was not whether or not Mr. Pinkman III was himself a slaveholder—she was willing to concede that, in all likelihood, he was not. The problem was that he was now perceived as a symbol of American slavery. The “publicity problem,” in short, was inseparable from the problem of Mr. Pinkman III’s existence.
Professor Herring asked if he had missed something. Had we decided that Depatrickson White would not be allowed to whip Mr. Pinkman III in a “cathartic public spectacle”?
The secretary, at least, could appreciate the appeal of this suggestion. He had been thinking again of his humiliation at the hands of the car salesman. He now recalled an argument he’d had with his wife the day before. Nothing in his life had turned out the way he’d once hoped it would. Someone—and why not Mr. Pinkman III?—ought to pay.
The president had begun to respond, but she was shouted down by Pierce Reynolds, professor of computer science. Professor Reynolds was incredulous. “I can’t believe we’re thinking of locking this man up,” he said. He cited the prohibitive cost of food, water, and basic chamber-pot service. There were also the bribes we’d have to pay to maintenance workers—“the cost of silence.” He reminded us that this was a time of financial hardship and proposed that we simply kill Mr. Pinkman III and dispense with the whole problem that way. He even had a knife in his boot.
This provoked a flurry of discussion: Professor Carlyle, though hastening to explain that he was “no fascist” and apologizing for his “protofascist aesthetic declarations,” was in agreement, saying that this was even better than whipping him or locking him up. Monica Fletcher, professor of economics, wondered if there might be legal repercussions associated with killing a member of the Tripoli community, “even if he is a slaveholder.” But Professor West was confident that there wouldn’t be any problem—she “knew some people” at the Tripoli Police Department. And indeed she did. The secretary had read her salacious memoir.
The president, who looked more disaffected by the moment, said that probably this was going too far. She was sorry that she had allowed the discussion to get so out of hand. The truth was that she had not slept more than a few hours in the last three days. She was feeling, she said, “deranged.” She then echoed Professor Fletcher: Murdering a member of the Tripoli community might have unwelcome consequences. Did the faculty not understand this?
The faculty did not, or would not, understand this, and ignored the president’s remarks. Professor Beckford then proposed a comprehensive solution: Mr. Pinkman III would be imprisoned in Ulster Hall. Additionally, Professor Beckford’s own committee, the Committee on the Committee on Committees (CCC), would undertake an investigation of the VWP, which was partly endowed by the Pinkman family, and it would also draft a provisional statement indicating the position of the college viz. slavery. It might be a good idea to change the committee’s name in order to reflect these new obligations. He proposed the following: the Committee on Curriculum and Core Programming (CCCP).
Francis Amundsen, professor of English, leapt to his feet in order to second the motion, commending Professor Beckford for his decisive leadership. But Michael Herman, yet another professor of English, and indeed one whose hatred for Professor Beckford was proverbial, demanded that we “repudiate” Professor Beckford before it was too late. He cautioned us against a policy of appeasement. We didn’t want today’s meeting to be “our Munich.”
To the surprise of the secretary, at least, who kept forgetting that he was in the room, Mr. Pinkman III now declared that he wished to speak in his own defense. He was not permitted to do so.
The president asked for a vote on Professor Beckford’s proposal, adding that she herself was “beyond caring” and that she would simply cast her vote and let the chips fall where they might. A vote was therefore taken and the motion passed almost unanimously, with no one except Professor Herman and Mr. Pinkman III dissenting, not even Professor Beckford’s many additional enemies. Despite her claim, the president herself did not vote.
Only now did Dev Gupta, professor of computer science, ask if we were empowered to make such a decision. Was the original idea not simply to make a recommendation?
The president shrugged and declined to answer. The provost, Alexander Kosta, recognizing that she had come to the end of her strength, took the reins: He said that he did not know—in fact, nobody knew—which cast the whole meeting, and all previous meetings, into suspicion.
“And yet there can be no precedent,” he said, “unless a precedent is first established.”
The faculty seemed pleased, but the president remained impassive. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, doing nothing and saying nothing. Her face was expressionless and pale.
The provost, who had now assumed command of the meeting, asked if there were any more announcements. There were not. Time was running short, after all. Many of us would have to hurry if we wanted to be home in time for dinner.
With an expertise that could only have derived from experience, Professor Carlyle seized Mr. Pinkman III and bound his wrists with an extension cord. The secretary found himself shouting encouragement. It seemed that the misfortune of another was indeed some consolation for his own disappointments.
Then Professors Carlyle and Reynolds dragged the prisoner away, and although the secretary would have liked to go with them, if only to make sure that there was nothing in the designated Ulster Hall office with which Mr. Pinkman III might contrive to kill himself, his duties were at an end. He said his good-byes, grabbed a Big Anna® brand Banana Bran Muffin® for the road, and skipped down the stairs and out into the dark. It was a cool night; it was good to be at liberty.
From: “Maggie Bell”
To: “Chris Bell”
Date: November 5, 2009, at 4:15 AM
Subject: (no subject)
C,
Kabaka is gone! Apparently he left everything in his office, coat and hat and books and everything. He took his laptop and that’s all. What this amounts to is that he talks and talks and then, instead of just talking some more, he does something about it, which is why I admire him, I guess, but it’s also kind of an insult, like we’re not worth his time and effort. But it’s not our fault that we were born American, is it? Should we really feel so guilty and awful all the time?
I got drunk and played basketball with Big Ben last night, and this morning I feel like a squashed bug. I’ve just been sitting here groaning and drinking tomato juice. Sometime today I have to do laundry. I did that thing yesterday of going to the store and buying underwear instead of just washing my clothes.
So: You’re right. I am not doing so great. I admit it. Big Ben is practically the only person I’ve been hanging out with. I don’t know why. Nothing really happened with Becca and Francoise or anyone else, but it’s just that I suddenly feel like I can’t talk to anyone. I’ve actually been talking sometimes to the dean! I told you I hung out with him at a party? He’s a very sweet old guy. I think maybe he loves me but
at the same time I’m totally positive that he cares about me as a person. Maybe it’s just nice to talk to someone a lot older. He’s a grandfather figure. Also, he understands loneliness. He’s very lonely too.
You don’t have to come up here. It’s okay. I’ll see you pretty soon anyway. I’ve just got to work through some stuff on my own. My eating thing is under control, don’t worry about that.
Maybe I was expecting an answer from Kabaka? When I got home last night I spent twenty minutes looking at lynching photographs online. I know what you’re going to say and it isn’t what you think, it isn’t like I was crying and cutting myself and flipping through these things. It just seemed like if I only concentrated really hard I could figure out what makes people do these terrible things. But either there’s nothing to figure out or the explanation is so awful that it’s better not to think about it. Those white southerners bringing their kids to watch a lynching. The whole thing escapes me. I can’t get to the end of it. Going to the lynching and then coming home refreshed and eating dinner and sleeping soundly. Professor Kabaka says the devil is real. The devil lives in the human heart.
Chris! What’s happening to me! All I talk about is myself but I think about you all the time. I’m really glad everything is okay with Max. I started to worry something had happened. Obviously it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I like Max.
I had a dream last night that I peed in my dresser drawer. In the dream it seemed like a perfectly acceptable place. I was telling one of the Chloes, “This is one of the places you’re allowed to pee.” When I woke up I had to check.
Love,
M
From
The Tripoli College Telegraph
November 6, 2009
THE SPORTING LIFE
Tyrants’ Woes Continue
This season, the Tripoli Tyrants are contending with more than just the legacy of American slavery.
Tyrants kicker Ernst Blovitch was arrested Saturday night following a dismal performance in the Tyrants’ 31–24 loss at Barnum College.
Blovitch, who missed two extra points and a 25-yard field goal in the game, allegedly parked his car at the intersection of Main St. and Sycamore Ave., where police officers discovered him lying on the hood.
“It was a cold fall night,” Blovitch said later, “and the hood of the car was warm. I was gazing up at the night sky. I was haunted and bewitched by the sweet moonlight.”
Alcohol does not seem to have been a factor, and Blovitch was released later that night.
The incident is just the latest in a series of bizarre events involving Tyrants kickers, who have missed 13 consecutive field goals and all but one extra point this season.
Giles Saint-Paul, who missed two field goals and two extra points in Saturday’s game, explained the problem this way:
“When you watch from the stands, you can’t hear what the football is saying.”
The news isn’t all bad for Tripoli. Depatrickson White and Teshawnus Marchampton didn’t seem at all distracted by the Pinkman slavery scandal. The two freshmen combined for 220 yards and four touchdowns last week, and quarterback Tom Hoffman went 16 for 22 in another efficient performance. If the Tyrants could make their field goals, their offense would easily be the most dangerous in the conference.
Undercover Dean: Blog Post #3
The other day I ran into Megan in the dining hall. I waved and asked if I could sit with her. She shoved her backpack aside.
“Did you know that Pacific Islanders made it all the way to the coast of South America?” she said. “Way before Columbus crossed the Atlantic.”
I told her that people said they were the greatest navigators in history.
“They brought sweet potatoes back with them. In some parts of the Pacific, sweet potatoes are still known by their Quechua name.”
She sighed and looked down at her empty plate.
“I just ate a muffin and pudding sandwich,” she said. “Pretty gross. Do I look fatter to you?”
To me she was almost inconceivably beautiful, although I couldn’t think of a way to say it without embarrassing her. I told her she looked very healthy and fit.
She shook her head. “Did you know that Professor Kabaka left?”
“He what?” I said. “He left? Who left?”
“Kabaka left. He said he was going back to St. Renard. To fight against neoliberalism, he said.”
I told her I was sorry to hear it, and I was sorry, but from the tone of her voice and the way she looked down at her plate, I could also tell that she must have had feelings for him. I’d been starving just a moment before, but now I didn’t even want to look at my Drippy Wrap w/Fish.
Poetic Excursions
I went back to Hogbender Hall and took a nap. I didn’t know what else to do. Luckily, college is full of distractions. Sometimes it seems to consist of little else. While I was sleeping, Lehman pinned a poem to my shirt. He’d written it just for me.
On the Occasion of His Birthday
My suitemate has a bad hip
From crossing the Bering Sea land bridge.
He has a scar on his cheek
From the first Punic War.
He says dodo tasted great
But mastodon was better.
My suitemate smells like a urinal cake,
Like an old papaya, like a musk ox
Running from a wolf running from death
Through the long tunnel of the years.
My suitemate is one year older today—
A college freshman
On his last legs.
It wasn’t even my birthday!
Burke had also been trying his hand at a little verse. He was reluctant to share his work, but Lehman was able to make him understand that we were all friends here, and we’d give him the most balanced and well-intentioned critique we could.
Darkness at Nightfall
I peeled myself off my bored bed,
Aching to confront another day.
It’s 2 AM in my soul
And it’s midnight in my heart
And it’s too late,
It’s been too long,
(How can I go on?),
Since I saw her in lecture yesterday.
Cold days, long nights,
And the hardest thing is knowing
That Akash banged her.
Every night in this nightmare of love,
I put a dagger in my
Imaginary
Heart.
I was thinking of Megan. The truth is that I felt jealous of Professor Kabaka, so I could certainly relate to the thematic content of Burke’s poem, but I think I was prejudiced against it for that reason. Its poor execution made me worry that my own feelings were cheap. As a result, I’m afraid I was a little too hard on this unhappy young man. I tried to explain that his work was perhaps too honest, but all I ended up saying was that I preferred Lehman’s poem. The comparison was unfair and unwarranted, and immediately I felt bad about it.
Burke looked at me with misty eyes and said, “How can a poem be superior if it isn’t sincere?” His features, already very small, looked smaller still. His eyes were like two currants in a big ball of rising dough.
I told him that I wasn’t discounting the importance of sincerity. Or at least I didn’t mean to.
Lehman said, “Should the work of art always be conceived and executed in a spirit of deadly earnest?”
“I just think you should try to say true things,” Burke said.
“In my poem, I address themes of history, mortality, and the migration of peoples. I resent the suggestion that there’s anything insincere about it.”
The Dean in Deep Cover: Scenes from Undergraduate Life
Who can believe that we’re already more than halfway through our first semester? College life seems to move quickly and slowly at the same time, and the last few weeks come back to me in flashes:
Here I am in the common room with Akash. It’s a somber moment. He’s describing a feeling o
f despair and emptiness in the face of mortality. I’m saying to him, “Everybody gets old, Akash. It’s a part of life. Everybody dies.” He nods sadly, but then Lehman shouts from the other room, “Whoa! Spoiler alert!”
Here I am with Megan at a protest rally, carrying a sign that says A Vote for Big Anna Is a Vote for Slavery. We’re marching in solidarity with the workers on Big Anna®’s Renardenne plantations. We’re also calling for more detailed nutritional information on Big Anna® product labels, because they tell you there are only 120 calories in a Banana Bran Muffin®, but when you eat one, all the sugar makes your eyes ache. So I’m also holding a sign that says What’s in My Muffin?
Here I am staring into the mirror.
Here I am standing on my chair, risky business for a man my age, reciting Tennyson’s “Ulysses.”
Here we are at “Pub Night” in the dining hall. I’ve eaten Fried Cheese Bollocks, Fish and Chips, British Buffalo Wings, and a Scotch Egg, which is a hard-boiled egg wrapped in Italian sausage and deep-fried. I feel like I’ve swallowed a meteorite.
Here I am at a party, where a student wearing a bathing suit and a shiny toreador’s blouse is telling me how surprised everyone was when he threw his turtle into the pool earlier that day. He holds a beer in one hand and a Gatorade in the other. He says, “So he starts swimming, my turtle, and everyone’s like, ‘Holy shit!’ And I just say to them, ‘He’s a turtle, man. Of course he can swim.’ ”
Here I am washing my socks and underwear in the bathroom sink while Lehman shows me that you can get a little drunk from swallowing mouthwash. The dean in me is alarmed, but in the mirror I see that my face is stony and expressionless.
Here we are at Casino Night!
Here we are at the Battle of the Bands. Our favorites are the Singing Waxworks, Free Pat Down, and Benign Neglect.
Here’s another bright crisp fall day, and I can hardly see for the storm of yellow leaves. I’m wearing a coat and scarf and I’m walking up the hill to the science library, even though I’ve stopped attending classes and I don’t really have anything to do up there. I’m listening to the Velvet Underground on my new iPod.
