Joanne Dobson - Karen Pelletier 06 - Death without Tenure

by Joanne Dobson

  Greg grinned. “‘Puny hands,’” he chortled.

  “Samoorian! Don’t encourage her!”

  I pulled the soup toward me and began spooning it into my mouth. That way I didn’t have to talk.

  Greg still had that smirk on his face. “One absolute necessity for success in the academic world,” he intoned, “is the ability to suffer fools—if not gladly, then at least mutely.” He took a sandwich plate from the waitress and placed it in front of me. The smell of bacon was almost irresistible. “And speaking of fools, did you see today’s Student Voice? Ned gave them a long interview.”

  “I really couldn’t care less.” A former student of mine with long red hair entered the diner. I gave him a dispirited wave and hoped he wouldn’t come over to talk to me. He didn’t. Turning back to Greg, I said, “But, okay, I’ll bite. About what did he give them the interview?” I sounded like a well-educated foreigner who’d read all the grammar books: Never end a sentence with a preposition.

  “About the subject of the book he’s working on, Hallucinogenic Ideation in 1960s Counter-culture Poetry.”

  I stared at Greg over my soup. “That’s what Ned Hilton’s working on? ‘Hallucinogenic ideation?’”

  Greg shrugged. “I guess he wants the kids to know just exactly how cool he is.”

  “Cool? Ned?”

  “Cool…Not.” He laughed. “Supposedly it’s about how the imagistic, linguistic, and spiritual manifestations of hallucinogens differ from maryjane to LSD to mescalin to…whatever. There’s a chapter for each drug.”

  The B.L.T. was crispy and flavorful. “So that means he has to do primary research?” I quipped. “Maybe that explains why he’s been so strung out this semester—he’s got the DEA on his heels.”

  Earlene frowned. “Given the increased problems we’re having on this campus with drugs, it’s irresponsible of him to publicize that— But, listen, we’ve gotten sidelined. We’re here to help you get through all this stress. What can we do?” She wasn’t about to let me off the hook.

  “You’ve already helped. I hear you—I’m my own worst enemy sometimes.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Two sets of brown eyes were fixed on me. It was a come-to-Jesus-moment.

  I sighed. “Apologize. I’m going to apologize to both Joe and Ned.”

  Greg smiled with sympathy. “It’s like you’re telling us you’ve decided to drink the Kool-Aid.”

  “Do it, Karen.” Earlene was looking very sober. “And, listen, I have a question for you.” She leaned toward me in a hush-hush manner. “Have you ever considered going into therapy?”

  “Therapy?” My voice scaled upwards. “Me? Why on earth would I want to go into therapy?”

  ***

  On the way home, I drove six blocks out of my way just so I could pass the little green house that was for sale on Elm Street. If it were mine, I would get rid of those lacy curtains in the large front window and replace them with wooden-slatted interior shutters, one set closed on the bottom for privacy, another set open on the top to let in the light. And on the wide sill, currently dominated by a scraggly spider plant, I’d place a huge Christmas cactus—the kind that blooms three or four times a year.

  Chapter 7

  Wednesday 10/7

  I knew I had to apologize to Ned and to Joe, and the sooner I got it over with the better. So the next morning before my nine a.m. class I peeked in the department office to see if Ned was in yet. He wasn’t, and Monica Cassale, the department secretary had no idea when he would be. “Not that it much matters,” she said, pushing her chair back from the desk. Monica, a chunky woman with chopped-off brown hair, wore blue jeans and a turtleneck sweater that would have been better suited to raking leaves in the privacy of her back yard than to staffing the front desk of the English department office.

  “Not that it matters?” I echoed. Monica can be honest to the point of insolence, but if you were willing to tolerate the lip you could always count on her to tell it like it was.

  “I’m not saying anything the faculty isn’t aware of, Karen, and you know it. Either he comes in or he doesn’t come in. When he’s here, either he works or he doesn’t. Most of the time he sits at his desk staring out the window. I’m getting to the point where I miss Professor Jewell. He may have been a crabby old geezer, but he knew how the department was supposed to run. If it wasn’t for me…”

  This was nothing I was in a position to address, so I ignored the grumbling. “You’re telling me I’ll see Ned when I see him?”

  “Yeah, if he’s not too spaced out to talk.”

  “Spaced out?”

  “I’m not sayin’ another word. I got a kid to support. I can’t afford to lose this job.” She pivoted back to the keyboard. In the hall outside the office I paused, listening to her type at her usual preternatural speed. Everyone knew Monica was a witch. I mean that literally. She was a member of a local Wiccan coven. It was no secret; she wore the silver pentagram on a leather thong around her neck for all to see. No wonder she could type so fast.

  Back in my own office I gathered up books and notes and headed out to Emerson Hall to meet my class. My apology to Ned would have to wait.

  ***

  Ayesha Ahmed’s hijab was green today, a wonderful celery color that contrasted beautifully with her dark eyes and skin. She had been uncharacteristically quiet during this morning’s discussion of our assignment, “The Schooldays of an Indian Girl,” by Zitkala Sa, a Sioux Indian. “Schooldays” is an astute and angry narrative by a woman who, “a wild little girl,” as she called herself, was lured by white missionaries to the “iron routine” of a missionary boarding school designed to “civilize” native children. There, she says, her “spirit tore itself in struggling for its lost freedom.”

  My other students, thoroughly versed in the discourse of racial politics, responded with well-educated outrage, tending toward terms such as “assimilationism” and “cultural genocide.” Stephanie drew manga. Garret typed on his keyboard. Ayesha seemed preoccupied. Finally she raised her hand, and I called on her immediately.

  “None of you know what you’re talking about.” Her voice was shaky. Something was troubling her. From her first sharp words a breathless silence overcame the other students. “Oh, yes, you’re all very glib and politically correct about this memoir, but I’ll bet not one of you understands it like I do—with your heart and your blood. And your skin.”

  Garrett glanced from his laptop, eyes suddenly fixed on the Muslim girl. Hank Brody sat up straight, his expression concerned.

  Ayesha jumped up from her seat, and I feared for a second that she was going to rush out of the room. But instead she took her anthology, walked to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk and began to copy Zitkala Sa’s words out of the book in bold capitals.

  “The throngs of staring palefaces disturbed and troubled us.” She underlined it.

  Then she began a new line. “I scarcely had a real friend, though by that time several of my classmates were courteous to me at a safe distance.” She underlined this twice.

  The chalk cracked in half as she finished the final line: “I no longer felt free to be myself, or to voice my own feelings.” She hesitated, and then plunged ahead, her manner regal. “You Americans! All so smug! So self-righteously outraged about atrocities that occurred a century ago. But you don’t recognize yourselves in this narrative, do you? Here and now—today?

  “How many of you have been detained at airports by Homeland Security—seven times? How many have had their freshman roommate switch to a room with someone of her own religion and skin color? How many have ever gotten hateful—”

  The bell rang. I was baffled. Ayesha had always been extremely composed; she’d seemed to have lots of friends. Something dire must have happened to elicit this bitter indictment. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth, trusting that appropriate words would come out.

  “Ayesha,” I said, “will you stay a moment, please?” Then I turned to t
he rest of the students, sitting in their seats embarrassed and stunned. “We’ll take up the issue of forms of racism and their consequences in the next class,” I said. “See you Friday. And, remember, your mid-semester papers are due.”

  Cat Andrews cut me off before I could get to Ayesha. “Don’t you want to friend me on Facebook, Professor? I asked you because I really admire you, and I want you to be part of my network of friends.”

  “I’m too old for that social networking stuff,” I replied, annoyed by her persistence. I was staring over her shoulder, trying to locate Ayesha.

  “Ayesha,” I called. But she was out of the room before I could stop her, with Hank right behind her.

  I thought maybe I should ask her to come to my office, so I could find out what was behind her outburst, but life caught up with me, and I didn’t get around to it.

  I e-mailed Amanda. I miss you! Be careful. Love, Mom.

  ***

  “Joe,” I said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you the other day. It was uncalled for, and I hope you’ll accept my sincere apologies.” I was standing by myself in the women’s room speaking to the pale apparition in the mirror. She wore a harvest-gold silk blouse with a longish brown wool skirt, and her dark hair was clasped tightly at the nape of her neck in a large ebony barrette. Her pale lips were tight. Shadowy smudges circled her gray eyes. She looked like hell.

  Joe had been in his office with the door open when I walked by on the way back from class, but he was talking to a student and I certainly couldn’t interrupt the discussion with my mea culpa. In the bathroom combing my hair and applying a red lipstick called “Slash,” I rehearsed three or four different apologies, from just plain “Sorry, pal,” to the more dramatic, hand-on-the-heart, “Je suis désolée…”

  Less nauseating than some and more sincere than others, “I’m sorry,” and “uncalled for,” sounded like words I might actually be able to get out of my mouth. “I’m sorry I yelled at you…,” I rehearsed again, took a deep breath, exited the women’s room, turned right in the hall and headed to Joe’s office.

  The door was shut.

  The light was out.

  Apology deferred.

  Friday 10/9

  Friday morning the students looked exhausted, having no doubt stayed up half the night to get their papers done. Also it was the last class before the holiday weekend and their minds were clearly elsewhere. “You can go now,” I said, when they’d all given me their mid-semester papers. I was too tired to go through the motions of teaching comatose students. “I’m sure you remember Monday is Columbus Day. No classes. See you Wednesday. We’ll be discussing Native American oratory.” I hadn’t deliberately scheduled Native literature to coincide with Columbus Day, but there was a nice irony to it, Columbus being the prototype of European oppressors who brought about Native genocide. At Enfield College, however, tradition trumps political correctness and, with much professorial protest in the more enlightened classrooms, the holiday survives. No student, as far as I knew, has ever protested; a day off from classes is, after all, a day off.

  It wasn’t until I was back in my office, checking the mid-semester papers into my grade book, that I realized Ayesha hadn’t shown up, hadn’t even submitted her essay by proxy. This wasn’t like her. In fact, after that blow-up between Joe and me in the hallway, she hadn’t come to see me about her mid-semester topic. Then that odd episode in class. And, now, no paper handed in.

  I pulled the phone toward me and dialed a number from the college directory.

  “Hello?”

  “Ayesha, this is Professor Pelletier—”

  “Oh, Professor, this is Edie Sosa, Ayesha’s roommate. Her brothers picked her up last night. She’s gone home for the long weekend. Why don’t you try her by e-mail?”

  Skipped class to go home early? Without submitting a required assignment? Well, maybe Ayesha was just like an American college kid, but I hadn’t expected such lax behavior from my diligent Moroccan student.

  I thought about her reaction to the writings of Zitkala Sa, the bitter remarks directed to her classmates, and I picked up the phone again—this time to call the Dean of Students office. Maybe Earlene could help me understand what was going on with Ayesha Ahmed.

  To: charles.piotrowski@army.mil.gov

  From: kpelletier@enfield.edu

  So good to talk to you Monday night. I could say heavenly or fabulous or stupendous, but good covers it. Good. Good. Good.

  I know you said you’d be out of touch for a while, but, wherever you are, maybe my love will reach you through the ether.

  Karen

  Saturday 10/10

  The new library is a civilized gathering place for students and faculty—plus books. After decades of cramped reading rooms, echoing stone staircases, and some book stacks still numbered by the Dewey Decimal System, the Enfield library has joined the twenty-first century: five stories high, a bright two-storey lobby with cozy overstuffed chairs, portable ottomans in primary colors, low tables holding half-completed jigsaw puzzles, and hardly a book in sight—just islands of computer tables, three computers each, with sturdy, ball-wheeled office chairs. Off to one side is the jazzy new coffee shop, which was raising faculty and student caffeine levels to unprecedented, jittery heights.

  I sat in a red vinyl booth half-hidden behind a raw concrete pillar. A gigantic paper-lantern-like chandelier lighted my hideaway as I paged through the New York Times. Across from me, a woman student wearing a fluffy pink scarf was curled up on a banquette, with her iPod in front of her, earbuds in, reading a much thumbed copy of Lolita. The rich scent of fresh-ground beans pervaded the bright, spacious room.

  I wasn’t really here to read the newspaper but to do final checking for the bibliography and footnotes of that one last essay for my tenure file. The research would be tedious, checking page numbers, exact wording of the titles, publication dates, correct spelling of authors’ names, etc. I needed to fortify myself with coffee first.

  No sooner had I settled down with my steaming “ecotainer” when someone slid onto the seat next to me, bringing with him the scent of high skies and wide open plains and, perhaps, just a hint of something that might be sagebrush—although, to tell the truth, I didn’t have a clue what sagebrush smelled like. I glanced over: Clark McCutcheon, Wizard of Whiteness.

  “Karen Pelletier,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to get to know you.” The toothiness of his smile and the directness of his intense blue gaze signaled that “knowing” me could—possibly—take any form I chose.

  “Oh?”

  “Oh, yes. Nothing escapes me, you know.” He winked. “Beyond all doubt you are the most…intriguing woman on campus.” He must have had his teeth enameled, they were so uniformly white.

  “Is that so?” I responded. Then I couldn’t help myself. “I thought you found Sally Chenille ‘intriguing.’”

  “Ah.” He laughed and shook his head like a wayward stallion. The shoulder-length gray-blond mane spun out around his strong, square jaw. “Funny you should say that. The good Professor Chenille wishes, above all else, to intrigue, but, sad to say, there’s nothing substantive there. I find Sally to be totally predictable, an academic construct, a self-created projection of sex, postmodern theory, and celebrity culture. But, you—I think you’re the real thing.” He paused, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes looking straight into mine. “I like that.”

  I leaned back as far in the booth as I could without going through the wall. “Well, Professor McCutcheon, I’m very flattered, but I don’t…what I mean to say is, I’m in a committed relationship.”

  “That’s not a problem for me.” The effect of his slitted blue gaze was almost, but not quite, hypnotic. “Is it for you?” His hand was on my knee now, the hand that I had last seen groping Sally Chennile’s ass. Then he grinned—Robert Redford as cowboy roué. “And do call me ‘Clark.’”

  I took a deep breath and stood up abruptly, dumping newspaper all over the floor. “Well, Clark, it’s
very nice to talk to you, but…I’ve got work to do.”

  He chose to remain oblivious to my discomfort. His slow gaze bathed me in the sunlight of his approval. Standing now, towering over me, he gave my arm a strong, meaningful squeeze. I inadvertently checked out his hand: square and workmanlike, with the nails recently polished. He spoke in a considered drawl. “I like women, Karen. It’s only natural, right? Give me a call anytime you get tired of commitment. I’ll…buy you a drink.” He winked again.

  I walked out, leaving my much-needed coffee behind. When, on the open, curving staircase to the second floor, I looked back down into the busy lobby, I could just see the back of his denim work jacket disappearing out the library doors. From its cut and quality the “work” jacket must have been a Ralph Lauren.

  I went back downstairs to retrieve my coffee. I needed it more than ever now.

  ***

  It was midnight when I left the library. The work had proven even more tedious than expected. I wasn’t dressed for the autumnal chill, and I quickstepped my way across the well-lit campus with its eerie blue safety lights glowing chimera-like against the solid brick and stone. The faculty parking lot held only a few cars, one of which was Joe Lone Wolf’s lime-green Volkswagen bus—nostalgia on wheels. As I clicked open the door of my Subaru, a high-visibility-yellow sports car, low-slung and mean, squealed into the lot. I recognized it as belonging to Sally Chenille, she of the sex-postmodern-theory-celebrity construct. I was in my car by the time Sally’s sporty vehicle pulled up to Joe’s old bus, barely pausing to let Joe out. Joe slammed the passenger door and the yellow car took off. He glared after it as it peeled out of the lot. Then he shrugged and inserted his key into the VW’s door lock. The engine reluctantly turned over, then caught, and the bus rolled slowly toward the exit.