The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters

by Chip Kidd

  “Alright, so here's the rub: It's February. You're stuck in the middle of nowhere, on the side of the road. All you have is the clothes on your back, a Magic Marker, and a big ol' piece of paper. Now,” he grinned. “Get home.”

  Mike raised his hand.

  Winter nodded. “Bestine.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “Good question. I'm very glad you asked that, Besty,” he said. “In fact, nobody do anything yet. I just want you to think about it. Five minutes, then do a rough sketch of your solution on a piece of scrap paper.” He left the room. I could hear his muffled voice, talking to someone on the pay phone in the hallway.

  We sat.

  I formed a couple of ideas in my head (howdy, girls!), picked one, and worked it out. Winter broke the silence.

  “Okay everyone. Field trip. Grab your gear.” He pulled on a bulky navy pea coat, black felt mariner's hat, and tan leather gloves. “And don't forget the markers and boards.”

  A university bus was waiting in front of the building. Soon we were leaving the campus limits. Hims slumped next to me, silent. Maybelle and Mike ended up together, in the seat across from us. Mabes and Bestine: the stoppable force and the movable pole. We headed north, towards Blue Mountain. The sky was coconut ice cream. Flat, fallow fields, under mattress-thick snow, stretched east and west to the horizon. After about ten minutes, a small stand of fir trees appeared to the left, and we slowed to a stop. Winter stood. “Heads up, kidlings. Everybody off.” We grudgingly followed him out. Air felt like ten degrees, if that.

  “Thank goodness I brought my ear muffs,” muttered Maybelle.

  “Listen up!” Winter shouted through the wind. “Here's how it'll work. The class will hide behind those trees, out of sight of the traffic. One at a time, you will stand at the side of the road, with your sign. A car comes by, you get picked up, it's an A. It keeps going, you drop one letter grade. Second picks you up, it's a B. Third, it's a C. Four cars and no luck, you fail. Let's move it out.” We crossed the road, headed for the trees, waited.

  Winter leaned into the vehicle's window, said something to the driver, and pulled out his briefcase, coming to join us.

  Then the bus made a three-point turn and drove away.

  “Hey!” Mabes screamed. Winter smiled.

  “Can't have a back door, sweetheart. Might be tempted to use it.” It shrank in the distance. Ohmigod, it was really leaving. “Now, aren't you all glad I didn't let you commit your little thoughts to the boards already? Show of hands, how many of you are going to ditch your original idea? C'mon, don't be shy, it won't affect your grade.” Just about all of us raised our mitts. I flirted with the impulse to run, to escape. To where? No. He was our key to get out of this. “Thought so. You're thinking about it differently now, aren't you? I'll bet that back there, in our semiheated little classroom, you were trying to figure out how to make it pretty. But right now, Graphic Design doesn't have to be pretty. Graphic Design just has to save you from getting frostbite.”

  The site proved well chosen, because as desolate as it was, the road had a fairly steady stream of cars, shuttling people between campus and the Blue Mountain ski resort. There was actually one within sight about every five minutes or so.

  “Okay, who's first?”

  “ME, thank you,” said Himillsy, bolting to the roadside, more than ready to extricate herself from this ridiculous plight.

  She stood on the shoulder and scrawled something on the board. Then she threw off her floor-length hooded cream woolen cape. As luck would have it, she was wearing one of her own Hello! dresses—a full-skirted sleeveless number made of a cotton so red that in this light it fried your eyeballs. Practically a stop sign.

  “She'll freeze to death!”

  “Don't bet on it, Maybelleen.”

  Then she lifted her sign, horizontal, up to her mouth and clenched it in her teeth. Hands behind her back, Hims made herself into the top half of her head, a sign, and a laser-red skirt. She had written:

  I AM

  NOT

  ARMED

  In about thirty seconds, a blue Ford station wagon approached, coming from town, on the opposite side. She pointed herself in its direction. The car spun in a wild U-turn and sidled up to her. Mills tossed her sign and ran up to the driver—a kind-looking middle-aged fat man. They exchanged about three words, and she got into the backseat. He put it in neutral, opened the door, went to the roadside, collected her things, and placed them on the passenger seat in front.

  She rolled down her window, waved in our direction like the Queen on Coronation Day, and they were off. Winter clicked his tongue and shook his head.

  “I just hope she leaves enough of the poor bastard intact so his family can perform a decent burial.” He sighed. “Next!”

  “Me, please? I'm FREEZING.” Mabes was hopping up and down. He nodded.

  As could be expected, her approach was a little-more conservative than Himillsy's, but it was still pretty clever. She raised it high over her head and knitted her brow.

  S.O.S!

  SORORITY

  PRANK!

  “She's weathered her share of those, actually,” I offered.

  “Not a bad idea,” allowed Winter, “though fat lot of good it would do her anywhere else.” Soon a van full of the girl's downhill slalom team showed up and took her in.

  One by one, people gave it a go. A few got it on the first try, most on second, some the third. No one failed, probably because of our Siberian location and the provincial tenor of the area. It eventually came down to David David, Mike, and me.

  “Give it a shot, D Squared.”

  David D mustered as much energy as he could bear, and shuffled up to the road. There was a weary, pained look on his face, and his sign drooped listlessly at his side. At the sound of an approaching motor, he managed to raise it waist high. It read:

  DON'T

  EVEN

  BOTHER.

  “Interesting, but risky,” Winter clucked. “Nihilism and Solicitation are uneasy bedfellows.”

  And indeed, the first car zoomed right on by. But the second driver was intrigued enough to stop. Turns out he was, of all things, a priest.

  “Lucky,” said Sorbeck, “Probably would have stopped for anybody.” He paused. “ . . . in theory. God, can you imagine what they're going to talk about? Alright, let's finish this up.”

  Mike looked at me.

  “I'd like to go last, actually,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  He shook as he walked, either from nerves or the cold, or both. He was Baby June, shoved out onto stage for the first time, looking as if he'd just drunk Drano on a bet. He held his sign to the skies.

  PLEASE!

  FOR GOD'S

  SAKE!!

  HELP ME!!

  Winter moaned. “Christ, that's not going to work.”

  One, two, three cars whizzed by.

  “See? They all think he's on the lam from the laughing academy. I wouldn't go near him. Thing is, you don't just design the sign, you've got to consider the whole package—what you're wearing, the look on your face.” I felt privileged, as if I were being let in on the secret. “That's why girleeny's really hit the spot.”

  As the fourth car, an old black DeSoto, approached, Mike abandoned himself to panic and ran into its path. It swerved and laid on the horn.

  I was shocked. “Whoa!”

  At least he stopped it without injury, running to the driver's window—an old woman who could barely see over the steering column. He beseeched her in pleading tones. She finally acquiesced and let him get in.

  “Bestine is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.” Winter rubbed his eyes, as the buzzing lump was lost to the horizon. “Son, you're on.”

  Son. I let the idea live in my head for a single, dreamy instant, and filed it away.

  I walked to the road.

  Scary—the epiphany: I had never, ever been really stranded before.

  My first idea, right after the
bus pulled out, was:

  MY TEACHER

  IS INSANE.

  YOUR ASSISTANCE

  APPRECIATED.

  But I soon realized this was more a reflection of my mental state than any sort of effective enticement. So I took a cue from David David's, and adjusted it to allow for a broader, hopefully voraciously curious automotive audience:

  ASK ME

  WHY

  I'M HERE!

  It took a little longer than the others for a car to show up. Then I heard it. An engine in the distance. I strained to see . . . a green . . . sedan . . . Chevy come into view. A pair of skis strapped to the top. Terrifying. “Please,” I thought, “whoever you are, be curious and accepting.” Closer, closer. Oh. Merciful God, it slowed down.

  And stopped. The driver, a youngish guy in a Bean checked sweater, rolled down his window.

  “Pardon me,” I was obscenely polite, clearly uninsane, “but could you possibly give me a ride to North Halls?” He sized me up and said, “Goin' to Pollock.”

  Close enough. “Thanks! That's great! Um, excuse me a sec, please. Be right back.” I ran back to Winter. We'd been there a good two hours. Ears ready to fall off. Just starting to get dark.

  “Not bad.”

  “Oh, thanks.” I asked, hopefully: “Aren't you coming with?”

  He smirked. “No, Hap. Fair and square.”

  I was going to insist, but thought better of it.

  “See you Thursday,” he said.

  “Right.”

  I scooted to the car and popped in.

  “So,” the guy asked, gunning the engine, “what gives?” As we pulled away I looked out the rear window, at the flowing road, until I was pretty sure I saw a dark shape emerge along the right bank, far away, lost to the twilight. God, is that where we were? What a triumph, to get out of nowhere.

  Good luck, Dad.

  “Well,” I turned and looked ahead, towards campus and a hot shower, trying to feel my feet again. “I'm taking this class . . . ”

  • • •

  “. . . so you see, that's what a logo, for yourself or anyone else, has to do. It has to flag people down, either by invitation or mystery, or any other means, actually.” It was two days later. Winter emptied his pipe. Spack! “And by limiting your materials I gave you a huge break—one that you can give yourself anytime you want. Always remember: Limits are possibilities. That sounds like Orwell, I know. It's not—it's Patton. Formal restrictions, contrary to what you might think, free you up by allowing you to concentrate on purer ideas.

  “As graphic designers, you want the world as your palette. But beware: You can be crippled by too many choices, especially if you don't know what your goals are. The Hitchhiking Model is a perfect example of how to avoid this, because the parameters are so clear, so black and white. However, few actual graphic design problems are, and it will be up to you to set up rules for yourself in order to properly solve them.

  “Had I given each of you an arsenal of squeaky pens spanning the spectrum, I'm sure at least two or three kiddies would still be out there, turned into a popsicle trying to decide between light green and dark green.”

  • • •

  It was almost time for midterms, and Himillsy wanted cram company. We shanghaied a corner booth at Zingorelli's from fourP.M.till closing. In order to avoid being kneecapped we'd order a medium Pompeii Pie, and once the cheese had congealed on the leftover crusts, call for another. Mills had taken another fourth-level Art History—Cathedrals—and was deeply regretting it. “I don't know my apse from a holy wall.” Flipping madly through texts, notes. "Let's see, early Renaissance churches . . .”

  I had Abnormal Psych and Geo Sci to worry about—Nuts and Sluts and Rocks for Jocks.

  Over the first two hours at Zingo's, I became aware that Mills was taking a lot of notes. Wasn't it a little late for that? Then I realized she wasn't writing them on paper.

  “What are you doing?”

  “My most brilliant creation. The Dodd Cheat 'n' Chew.” A set of architect's mechanical pens lay open in front of her, next to a box of pencils and her textbooks. She held up her pen. “Ever use one of these? A Ko-inhor .000. Works the best, as long as you keep it going or keep it wet. Tip clogs instantly—Garnett would kill me.” It looked like the shortest, thinnest syringe I'd ever seen. “You could do a tat on a tick's tit with one of these babies.” She licked it, and went back to writing—or copying, more specifically—from her textbooks onto . . . the side of a standard garden variety No. 2 pencil. “Now, Chartres was built in . . .”

  “Wow. Can I see one of those?”

  She put it back on her tongue, and handed me a finished Dodd Cheat 'n' Chew pencil labeled “Rheims.” “Yeth, ut ee carehul. I ha-hent thpray ih ith hix yeh.” I took it, gingerly, by the eraser.

  “What?”

  She went back to writing.

  “I said be careful. I haven't sprayed it with fix yet. It gets wet, it's ruined. Water-based ink doesn't clog as fast.”

  From about two feet away, it looked completely normal. A little darker yellow than usual, but not enough to raise any suspicion. Most of the midterms and finals for the nonelective classes took place in good-sized amphitheaters that held at least three hundred kids. Monitors— grad students, usually—patrolled the aisles to keep everyone honest. But certainly a dutiful test-taker contemplating his or her pencil every now and then wouldn't be the slightest bit out of place.

  Ingenious.

  “Wow. You must have a surgeon's hand.” Those Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not people who paint The Last Supper and The Battle of Bunker Hill onto grains of rice had nothing on her. Encyclopedic amounts of microscopic information, lengthwise, covered each side.

  “Actually helps to have a few belts first, but the lighting in the Skeller is abysmal. Guido here practically has search beams on the ceiling.”

  “And right now he's throwing us dirty looks. Better order another Spitzollini, we don't want our fingernails yanked out.”

  Midnight. Time to quit. “Whew! I'm beat. I'm never going to get all this down. Just too damn many terms.” Was regression a displacement of externalization? Did Approach-Avoidance Conflict generate Cognitive Disorder, or Suprathreshold?

  “Want me to make a couple for you?” She waved a drying DCC.

  “Wow, would you?”

  “Sure. When's the test?”

  “Friday.”

  “No sweat. I'll do 'em tomorrow night. Give me your notes . . . ”

  • • •

  On Friday at ten, she showed up with an envelope, at the door to Piper Pavilion.

  “Here ya go. Gotta run. Break a leg.”

  “Listen, thanks. I really—”

  But she was already making tracks.

  Felt sort of dirty. Tests were sacred—I'd never so much as ever looked over at my neighbor's outfit, much less their test answers. I told myself I'd only use them as a last resort. At first I was fine, but then:

  11.) The Law of Contiguity asserts that:

  A. the distinction between classical and operant conditioning is often hard to make.

  B. is generally considered of little importance in most learning situations.

  C. events experienced together become associated with each other.

  D. maximum conditioning occurs when the CS and UCS are presented at least one minute apart.

  Yipes. Could not remember. Nuts. I discreetly broke the point on my pencil and pulled a DCC from the envelope. I read, turning it, line for line:

  Maybelleen

  and Baby Laveen

  lay upon the bed.

  She spreads them wide,

  her buttock and thigh,

  and devours his monstrous head.

  ©1958 H.D. Educational Products, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Used with permission.

  That was all it said?

  That was all any of them said.

  Dodd, you're dead.

  • • •

  �
�Must you shriek?”

  “I am not shrieking! In fact, I think I'm being remarkably CALM.”

  “Oh, don't be such a sorehead. It was just a gag. Besides, I was going to do them, really. Ran out of time.” Sunday brunch at the Diner. A half-eaten waffle in the shape of the school mascot lay in front of her, in a puddle of cold syrup. Hims was on her third cup of joe. She was so hungover, my head hurt just looking at her.

  Didn't make me any less steamed, though. “A gag? I'll be lucky to get anything above an eighty!”

  “A schoolie like you? That's rich. You'd get extra credit from a loan shark. And I told you, pipe down—I've got a hangover I could sell to science.”

  “You can't just assume that!”

  “Shhh! You could have sized them up ahead of time, Mr. Moto.”

  “Well, I think I'll just let the dean do that.”

  She was a little worried now. Good. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  Me: very, very serious. “It means you have to learn that actions have consequences, and if you're going to put me on the spot, I won't go quietly. Or alone.”

  She opened her eyes, fully, for the first time that day.

  “It also means, that I've composed, addressed, and posted a long, detailed letter to Dean Kane concerning the Dodd Cheat 'n' Chew. Complete with an illuminating profile of the company founder. You can expect to hear from him shortly, I'd guess. Kept a copy, for my files.” I pulled out the envelope from my breast pocket and held it chin level.

  Her face: White as the paunchy members of the Tuft Trees County Club.

  “You. Wouldn't.