The Visiting Professor

by Robert Littell

  Word Perkins, half-dozing on a nearby mattress, props himself up on an elbow, smothers a yawn, adjusts his hearing aid and listens to the lecture for a while. “Can anyone ask a question, huh, Professor?” Perkins interrupts. “It’s interestin’, what yaw savin’, I don’t mean to infer otherwise, but I don’t follow how these trashcans was able to vote whit art.”

  “America is a country where anyone can ask a question,” D.J. murmurs dryly. “Anyone has.”

  In the holding pen nearest Jerusalem, not far from where the Rebbe is praying, Lemuel and four fellows of the Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Chaos-Related Studies discuss chaos theory in low, animated tones. “Every time I read an article tracing the origins of chaos to the origins of the universe,” one of the fellows complains, “I am left with the queasy feeling that the exercise is pointless. What’s the difference whether chaos came into existence before or after the Big Bang? Surely the point is that it’s here.”

  “Shema yisro’eyl, adoynoy eloheynu, adoynoy ekh-o-o-o-d …” the Rebbe intones, covering his eyes with a hand, drawing out the last syllable of the word “one.”

  “There once was an orphan from Killarney …”

  “And when they looked,” the Baptist minister mumbles, “they saw that the stone was rolled away.”

  In the middle holding pen, Word Perkins sits up and addresses D.J. directly. “The trouble whit eggheads is they think once they know something, they own the thing they know.”

  “The origins of chaos,” Lemuel tells the Institute fellows, “can tell us a great deal about the nature of chaos. Did the Big Bang, in a microsecond of quirkiness, beget chaos? Or was the Big Bang itself determined but unpredictable, and hence chaotic from the start? What was the sequence?”

  “Adoynoy eloheynu emes …”

  “There once was a wrestler from Baltimore …”

  “Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.”

  Word Perkins snatches the hearing aid out of his ear in disgust. “I hate folks who own what they know. …”

  “Sequence can be elusive,” one of the Institute fellows remarks to Lemuel. “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

  “I tend to agree,” says the fellow who raised the original question. He nods toward the Baptist minister. “Some things appear to come before other things. But do they really? Did Jesus disappear from the sepulchre before the stone was rolled away from the mouth of the cave, in which case we could conclude He was resurrected? Or did He disappear afterward, in which case we could conclude He somehow survived the crucifixion and walked off on His own two feet?”

  Lemuel turns to look at Rain, who is sitting on a nearby mattress cradling Mayday in her lap, deep in whispered conversation with Dwayne. Shirley squats behind Rain, braiding her ponytail. Rain’s face is drawn, her eyes dark and damaged, as if she is seeing what might have been. Her sucked-in cheeks still bear the traces of a river of tears, so it seems to Lemuel.

  He turns back to the fellows. “It is true that choices made now, today, have a way of projecting themselves backward in time,” he says, massaging his brow with his thumb and third finger to keep a migraine at bay. With a self-conscious grunt he paraphrases Einstein: “It is the theory which decides what we observed.”

  “Mi khomoykho bo’eylim adoynoy, mi khomoykho ne’edor bakoydesh, noyroh sehiloys oysey feleh …”

  “There once was a lady from Tulsa …”

  “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

  “Do you consider it possible to observe something independent of all theory?” one of the fellows asks Lemuel.

  “I can say you the fact that you consider observation a useful technique,” Lemuel tells the fellow, “is a theory.”

  “We are the prisoners of theory,” another fellow says dejectedly.

  “Hey, what we’re the prisoners of,” Rain calls, scratching Mayday’s ragged ears, gesturing with her chin toward the deputy sheriff who has appeared at the door, “is the military-industrial dudes who think they can palm off their goddamn radioactive garbage on us.”

  “Right on, babe,” says Dwayne.

  “Borukh atoh adoynoy, goy’eyl yisro’eyl …”

  “There once was a scout from Milwaukee …”

  “As I was saying,” Professor Holloway tries to pick up where he left off, “the Etruscans, and most especially the early Etruscans of the 900-to-800-B.c. period, considered votive pieces—”

  Carrying a clipboard, the deputy sheriff comes into the cage area. The prayers, limericks and discussions break off. “This is the last call for McDonald’s,” he announces. “To recapitulate, I got thirty-seven burgers, sixteen with cheese, twenty-one without. I got fourteen medium fries—”

  Shirley raises a hand. “Hey, Norman, can I still switch from medium to large fries?”

  “Uh-huh,” the deputy sheriff acknowledges the change. With infinite patience, he scratches out one medium and adds one more to his column of large fries.

  After dinner, Lemuel goes around collecting the garbage in a plastic sack, then wanders into the front office to have a word with the sheriff.

  “I was just now asking myself if you got my message the other night,” he says.

  The sheriff, a balding, middle-aged man with a potbelly spilling over a wide, tooled-leather belt, is writing in his logbook. “What message are we talkin’ about?”

  “It concerned the serial killer.”

  The sheriff turns back a page, verifies an entry, flips the page, starts writing again. “What do you know about the serial killer that I don’t know?” he asks without looking up.

  “I telephoned a radio talk-show host to say him the serial murders were not random. He said me he would pass the information on to the sheriff’s office.”

  The sheriff slowly raises his eyes. “How would you know the murders wasn’t random?”

  “These crimes may look random, but this seeming randomness is nothing more than the name we give to our ignorance.”

  The sheriff purses his lips. “What are you, some kind uh criminologist?”

  “I am a randomologist who has never found pure randomness, for the simple reason it probably does not exist. I can say you there is a pattern to the crimes, you only have to find it.”

  Sheriff Combes, who is nobody’s fool, closes his logbook and sizes up Lemuel. In the trade he has a reputation for being able to reckon a man’s height and weight within one inch and two pounds. “I figure you for five nine ‘n’ uh half, uh hundred seventy.”

  Lemuel quickly converts inches to centimeters, pounds to kilos. “How did you know that?”

  The sheriff ignores the question. “You gotta be from that Institute over at Backwater … the Advanced Confusion-Related Studies, whichever.” When Lemuel nods, he adds, “I happen to be old-school law enforcement, which means unlike some uh the hotshots workin’ for the State Bureau uh Criminal Investigation, I don’t rule nothin’ out when it comes to solvin’ crimes. I wouldn’t want this to get around—the state police would laugh me outa the county—but I got me uh gypsy in Schenectady who reads entrails, I got me uh stone-blind Rumanian lady in Long Branch who reads tarot cards, I got me uh defrocked Catholic priest in Buffalo who dangles uh silver ring over uh map. They’re all workin’ on the case, so why not uh randomologist? Tell me something, Mr. …”

  “Falk, Lemuel.”

  The sheriff cocks his head. “So you’re the Falk everybody’s talkin’ about. I ain’t personally had uh opportunity to catch you on the tube yet. So tell me, Mister Falk, what makes uh random event random?”

  “An event is random,” Lemuel explains, “if it is not determined and not predictable.”

  The sheriff’s eyes stretch into a professional squint. “Let’s say you was to find uh pattern to the crimes, it might lead to uh motive, u
h motive might lead to uh perpetrator. Hnnn. If I was to fix you up with photocopies uh the files, would you be willin’ to comb through ‘em with an eye to ascertainin’ whether or not the crimes in question was genuinely random?”

  Lemuel says, “I have never done anything like this before. It could be an interesting exercise.”

  Later, before putting out the lights for the night, Norman, the deputy sheriff, threads his way around the mattresses in the holding pens and distributes plastic cups and thermoses of scalding herb tea brought over by the wives of several of the professors.

  “Hey, thanks, Norman.”

  “Yeah, man, thanks a lot.”

  “Why, how thoughtful of you, Norman.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Sitting cross-legged on a mattress in the third holding pen, Rain fills two plastic cups and passes one to Lemuel, who is on the mattress next to hers, his back against the mesh of the cage, a blanket pulled up to his neck.

  “D.J. told me what all those letters you wrote on my blackboard meant,” Rain remarks. “I scored points for asking the question.” She takes a sip of herb tea, finds it too hot, rolls it around in her mouth before swallowing.

  “I’m gonna hafta turn out the lights now,” Norman calls from the doorway. “I’m leaving the lights on in the cans and the doors open, okay? Breakfast will be at eight. The trial starts at nine. On behalf of the sheriff and the other deputies, I want to say we’re as much against putting nuclear-waste dumps in the county as you are. We hope you don’t hold it against us, getting arrested. We was only following orders. Anyways, we want to wish you all good night and sweet dreams.”

  “ ‘Night, Norman.”

  “ ‘Night, Norman.”

  “ ‘Night, Norman.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  In the darkness, Rain reaches under Lemuel’s blanket and caresses his knuckles. “Hey, you don’t really believe L. Tolstoy’s coded message to Sonya, right?” Touching her lips to his ear, she quotes: “ ‘Your youth and your thirst for happiness remind me cruelly of my age and the impossibility of happiness for me.’ “

  “I believe it,” Lemuel mutters after a moment. “You are a figment of my fictions.”

  Rain leans her head against his shoulder. “Like how did L. Tolstoy and Sonya finish up?”

  “Badly. They fought like wildcats for most of their married lives.”

  “Oh.”

  “In the end he ran away to die in a train station in the middle of nowhere.”

  Rain’s voice is pitched higher than usual; she is conscious of having the first intellectual discussion of her life. “From what D.J. says, this Tolstoy dude was a phony, he liked to play at poverty, he liked wearing peasant shirts but he changed them every day, the ones he’d worn were washed and ironed by servants. You’re no phony, L. Falk. A girl’d be auspicious to latch onto someone as straight as you.”

  “You do not know me,” Lemuel groans. “What you see is not what you get. There are parts of me you have not been to yet. … There are parts of me I have not been to yet.”

  “Hey, I have nothing against the occasional side trip.”

  “Everyone likes the going,” Lemuel shoots back angrily, though the person he is annoyed with is himself. He discovers that his thumb and middle finger are massaging his eyes again. “It is the getting there that gives you migraines.”

  Lemuel, insomniac, is too distracted to use the night. Dark shapes stir restlessly on the mattresses, reminding him of the reformatory he was sent to after his parents ran afoul of the KGB. He wishes he could remember where and when he lost his Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Manual. He wishes he could remember why he cannot remember something as simple as the fate of a book. If only he could, a weight might lift from his shoulders. …”

  If …

  If … His entire life seems to be constructed on pilings of ifs that have been driven into a quicksand of shifting memories.

  His thoughts drift to the girl Rain. Trying to reconstruct the love-making, to figure out what came before what, he feels himself being sucked into an erotic fiction. A hand slips under the blanket, discovers his hand and begins stroking his thumb as if it is something that can be coaxed into becoming longer, thicker.

  A voice breathes into his ear. “Yo! You were totally hype this morning. Lying down on the ramp. … You could have been killed. … Now you’re going to get your just desserts.”

  Lemuel, talking food, not sex, hears himself say, “I have not yet had the main course.”

  The voice, talking sex, not food, murmurs, “We’ll begin the meal with the dessert anyhow. Think of it as the foreplay that comes after.”

  Lemuel hears someone fumbling with a thermos. He hears herb tea spilling into a cup. He hears someone drink. Then a body leans against him, a hand finds his hand, a warmed mouth closes over his thumb and begins to caress it with tongue and lips.

  After what seems like a lifetime the warmth wanes, the mouth pulls back. More herb tea is poured into a cup and drunk. In the still darkness Lemuel thinks he can hear the liquid being rolled around in a mouth. A hand slips down to his fly and works the zipper. A voice breathes into his ear. “Like here comes the main course,” it says.

  It dawns on Lemuel, as the warmed mouth closes over a part of him it has not been to yet, that he is not in a fiction after all.

  The court clerk is calling the roll and checking off the names on his clipboard.

  “Starbuck, D. J.”

  “Present.”

  “Perkins, Word.”

  “Present, huh?”

  “Holloway, Lawrence R.”

  “Present.”

  On a wooden bench in the back row of the county court, Rain inches closer to Lemuel, who is thumbing through file folders in a plastic shopping bag. Fondling the dog on her lap, she talks to him without looking at him. “Sometimes I think, Why bother?” she says out of the corner of her mouth. “With wheeling and dealing, I mean. With safe sex, I mean. Sometimes I think I ought to buy a boat and sail off to the goddamn horizon.”

  “When you reach the horizon,” Lemuel tells her, “there is another horizon on the horizon.”

  “Fargo, Elliott.”

  “Present.”

  “Afshar, Izzat.”

  “Present.”

  “Hey, it’s a lousy idea. Anyhow, boats make me nervous. They’re usually on water. I can’t swim.”

  “Woodbridge, Warren.”

  “Present.”

  ‘Jedzhorskinski, Zbigniew.”

  “Present.”

  “About last night.” Lemuel broaches the subject warily. “Where did you learn that trick?”

  Rain, coy, scratches Mayday’s ear. “You mean drinking tea to warm my mouth?”

  Lemuel, embarrassed, grunts.

  “Nachman, Asher ben.”

  “Present.”

  “Macy, Jedediah.”

  “Present.”

  “Dearborn, Dwayne.”

  “Present.”

  “Stifter, Shirley.”

  “Also present.”

  The court clerk removes his eyeglasses, breathes onto the lenses and starts to clean them with his handkerchief.

  “I learned it in junior high school,” Rain says. “I must have been twelve going on thirteen. They caught me in the boys’ locker room sucking face with my cousin Bobby, the basketball player I told you about? and packed me off to the school shrink, who packed me off to my mother, who packed me off to the parish priest. The priest must have suspected I was holding out on him because he asked if Bobby had touched my tits. He asked if Bobby had slipped a hand inside my underwear. He asked if I had touched Bobby’s pecker. He asked if I had indulged in oral intercourse. Later I found a dictionary and looked up indulged and oral and intercourse. Which was when the priest’s next question started to make sense. He was leaning right up against the grille, I could hear him inhaling and exhaling to beat the band when he asked me if I went and warmed my mouth beforehand. Here I was, right behind the Virgin Mary in
the innocence department, right? exploring the frontiers of forbidden sex. I got the message. Thanks to the priest, I understood there was more to sex than kissing my first cousin Bobby on the lips.”

  “Morgan, Rain.”

  Rain looks up. “Yo.”

  The court clerk peers over the tops of his reading glasses. “The traditional response is Present.’ ”

  Rain flashes a defiant smile. “Yo,” she says again fiercely.

  The football players and cheerleaders snicker at Rain’s insolence. Dwayne whispers encouragement. “Right on, babe.”

  The court clerk sucks in his cheeks.

  “Falk, Lemuel.”

  Lemuel raises a paw. “Yo.”

  This time there is a wild burst of applause from everyone on the benches.

  “Darling, Christine,” the bailiff calls over the noise.

  One of the cheerleaders leaps into the aisle. “Give me a yo!” she yells.

  All sixty-eight defendants respond in joyous chorus, “YO!”

  “I can’t hear you,” the cheerleader calls.

  The defendants crank the decibel count up a notch. “YOOO!”

  “I still can’t hear you.”

  “YOOOOOOOO!”

  Rain leans toward Lemuel again. “When I was twelve going on thirteen, I was thin as a nail file and flat as an ironing board. I had buck teeth and knobby knees. For a while I stuffed cotton into my bra to break even. I was all arms and legs, I used to trip over myself getting out of bed. I even came down with terminal acne, I thought I’d caught it from my cousin Bobby. You can bet I was depressed, right? That’s when I decided to give myself ten years to become beautiful.” With a nervous toss of her head, she flicks her hair away from her eye. “This is my first year of being beautiful. I am enjoying it. A lot.”

  Lemuel turns to look at her. “I can say you, me too, I am enjoying it. A lot.”

  A door at the back of the court opens. “Everyone rise,” the bailiff cries as a lady judge makes her way, heels tapping on the wooden floor, to the high bench. “County court is convened,” the bailiff announces. “Honorable Henrietta Parslow presiding.”