Everything That Collides
by A. Loudermilk
I wrote to someone back home how I got this job in this city, hardly bragging. The reply congratulated me on making it at last.
*
Years went by, the office supplies room never less bright or white, its big printer cramped. I can still feel tension in the spine of whatever book I’d pressed flat against the glass. Dazed by scanning light—gasping at Margery’s sudden hello. She offered a “Sorry Thomas” I’d heard before as I confessed: “Oh you know I startle easy.” And joked: “A telltale sign of childhood trauma!” She looked at me like I was crazy, saying “Okay” in a patronizing way not devoid of affection, retreating with something like a fresh post-its cube from one of the cabinets. Her weight had dropped over summer. I tried not to notice. Her retirement looming—two more years at that point? My time there was a chronic unknown. We were friends no more than foes, busily circling the drain.
Had I consciously decided to stop taking the hallway that passes her office? Being the Department Secretary, her door stood perpetually open; as well there’s her large hallway window distinguishing hers from the offices of professors. I did stop in to visit her during my first three-ish years, invited to take the soft chair against the wall rather than the hard chair across from her desk. Her office had the atmosphere of a private person longtime employed: lit by precisely arranged lamps, plants thriving in an afternoon-sunny corner, a tapestry covering one wall and on others artwork that’s not weird (her word) like so much of the artwork hanging in the university’s corridors (her complaint). Initially I can be susceptible to acceptance by someone with influence. A shared love of old movies gave us something to talk about, but the bond prickled.
It wasn’t that I enjoyed screwball and she sought adventure, including sword-and-sandal of all things. That I overlooked romance while her eyes dazzled. That I wondered at Clifton Webb and she pined for Tyrone Power. I borrowed her Tyrone Power boxset and could only yawn at him, so wooden and uninspired. Deeper than her mere faves, Margery revealed herself to be the kind of authoritarian straight woman who identified with traditionally strong males and she resented me exposing Power’s personal life to her, wanting to dismiss his affair with Cesar Romero as low rumors. I insisted rumors are a form of history for LGBT people because the truth was rarely made plain, not even by biographers. Margery looked unimpressed, twitched at me dismissively. She had a sergeant’s work to do, more practical in her smarts than every professor in The Department. Where’d we all be without Margery running things? A question not lost on me.
I pulled back from Margery cautiously, still plying her with thank you cards for this or that, sometimes ginger snaps. I turned into a strategist. Part of Margery “running things” was assigning classes to the adjunct faculty, we freelance-style part-timers who must take what we get. Margery bragged on my evaluations and while giving me the classes I needed to survive, she also reminded me—as an adjunct—not to count on it. She spoke once of an adjunct’s lawsuit, shortly before I arrived, and how he lost the case despite “playing the race card,” a phrase half-whispered to me as if in confidence. The Department had “to be careful now.” I was “lucky” to get classes. And lucky that Margery liked me.
Unlucky for my officemate Mick. She’d mention him with an eye-roll that seemed too quick to care, calling him “that dope.” Her barrette-restrained hair flashed a straight silver-ash, otherwise her look was earthy plus scarfy. In flats she’s taller than me. I didn’t say what I should’ve: You know Mick is my officemate, right? Not that I see him much but he’s so quiet-lanky, so awkward-sweet, how can you not like him? As strategist, though, I bite my tongue, intrigued to find myself worthy to hear Margery’s gripes and gossips. There’s a secretary downstairs she can’t stand. She wags a fist at certain university “higher-ups” as if they stood before her. After 22 years, how dare they all of the sudden require her to maintain a timecard, clocking in, clocking out—“Humiliating!”
Had I consciously decided to stop taking the hallway that passes her office? Being the Department Secretary, her door stood perpetually open; as well there’s her large hallway window distinguishing hers from the offices of professors. I did stop in to visit her during my first three-ish years, invited to take the soft chair against the wall rather than the hard chair across from her desk. Her office had the atmosphere of a private person longtime employed: lit by precisely arranged lamps, plants thriving in an afternoon-sunny corner, a tapestry covering one wall and on others artwork that’s not weird (her word) like so much of the artwork hanging in the university’s corridors (her complaint). Initially I can be susceptible to acceptance by someone with influence. A shared love of old movies gave us something to talk about, but the bond prickled.
It wasn’t that I enjoyed screwball and she sought adventure, including sword-and-sandal of all things. That I overlooked romance while her eyes dazzled. That I wondered at Clifton Webb and she pined for Tyrone Power. I borrowed her Tyrone Power boxset and could only yawn at him, so wooden and uninspired. Deeper than her mere faves, Margery revealed herself to be the kind of authoritarian straight woman who identified with traditionally strong males and she resented me exposing Power’s personal life to her, wanting to dismiss his affair with Cesar Romero as low rumors. I insisted rumors are a form of history for LGBT people because the truth was rarely made plain, not even by biographers. Margery looked unimpressed, twitched at me dismissively. She had a sergeant’s work to do, more practical in her smarts than every professor in The Department. Where’d we all be without Margery running things? A question not lost on me.
I pulled back from Margery cautiously, still plying her with thank you cards for this or that, sometimes ginger snaps. I turned into a strategist. Part of Margery “running things” was assigning classes to the adjunct faculty, we freelance-style part-timers who must take what we get. Margery bragged on my evaluations and while giving me the classes I needed to survive, she also reminded me—as an adjunct—not to count on it. She spoke once of an adjunct’s lawsuit, shortly before I arrived, and how he lost the case despite “playing the race card,” a phrase half-whispered to me as if in confidence. The Department had “to be careful now.” I was “lucky” to get classes. And lucky that Margery liked me.
Unlucky for my officemate Mick. She’d mention him with an eye-roll that seemed too quick to care, calling him “that dope.” Her barrette-restrained hair flashed a straight silver-ash, otherwise her look was earthy plus scarfy. In flats she’s taller than me. I didn’t say what I should’ve: You know Mick is my officemate, right? Not that I see him much but he’s so quiet-lanky, so awkward-sweet, how can you not like him? As strategist, though, I bite my tongue, intrigued to find myself worthy to hear Margery’s gripes and gossips. There’s a secretary downstairs she can’t stand. She wags a fist at certain university “higher-ups” as if they stood before her. After 22 years, how dare they all of the sudden require her to maintain a timecard, clocking in, clocking out—“Humiliating!”
*
My mother wouldn’t open her purse for anyone. Instead of directing me to get something from her purse, like a five-dollar bill or her cuticle scissors, she’d tell me to bring her purse to her and she’d get it herself. Not that she had any dirty little secret, no flask hidden in an interior pocket like her own mom. She watched over her money because she had so little. I can’t imagine my mom navigating a modern world of everyday security, opening my bag just to go up to my own office or classroom. Nothing to conceal is everything to conceal. And it’s awkward, really. I didn’t arrive late yet I was rarely early—humid in myself, trying not to appear out of breath. I remember lobby guards who waved me by with a casual smile. And those who startled me with barked monosyllables: “Bag, please!”
“Oh sorry,” I’d say, realizing I’m not flashing my faculty ID but a dead Blockbuster card.
One guard reminded me of a cousin back home I hoped never to see again. I remember retrieving my ID for her and her cutting sigh as I dropped a book. Mick, whom I’d not noticed behind me, offered me the book. His hair was thick and spiky, his shirt yet another casual plaid tucked into skinny jeans. I thanked him and gaped open my satchel for the security guard to inspect. The guard barely looked, barely nodded, a nod that nodded me away, and turned to Mick who was standing ready. Something in me was triggered—I feel insulted, I feel oppressed—but I knew these feelings were out of proportion with the situation.
In the elevator, Mick seemed even taller. He commented, “Security can take their jobs too seriously. We’re only a liberal arts college, a private liberal arts college.”
It was reassuring to hear him say it and I recalibrated my sense of indignation. I replied, “This year’s stepped-up bag check feels oppressive.” I wanted to rant or change the subject. I asked him, “How’s the baby? Or should it be toddler by now?” I wasn’t really interested in anyone’s children.
“Toddler! A lot to keep up with.” He seemed baffled, hesitating. “Turned out to be good timing I didn’t get my full class-load this semester.”
The elevator door was about to open and I said, “Well I don’t think it’s right.”
I could tell Mick felt hurt as the fifth floor presented itself and we took the long way around to our office, soon greeted by the janitor for our floor. With a masculine face and a friendly Southern voice, she greeted all and was beloved by all. I tried not to overidentify, a tendency with an unfortunate record. Working-class solidarity can be tricky across lines of race. “And hello to you, Janetta,” I said. “Happy it finally feels like autumn?”
“It’s nice, isn’t it?”
I echoed her tone: “I know we both love our cardigans.”
She laughed and we wished each other a good day, Mick too. Every time a ritual of cordiality fully realized. There were days I was thankful to slip by unseen—and into an empty silent office. Not today, with Mick’s cup suddenly overflowing.
Behind our office door, Mick chattered about a band I remembered distantly, naming its guitarists in a way I’m not prone to doing, and then just like that he wanted us adjuncts to unionize. The words didn’t quite sink in as he tallied up over two hundred adjuncts currently teaching here, how we contributed so much and deserved more than we got. “If not full benefits, then some. For sure job protections. I know our wages are better than the national average but still—” And such words. I could only imagine myself leaving this city and so I resisted his righteous vision for this university.
Of course I signed the petition.
“Oh sorry,” I’d say, realizing I’m not flashing my faculty ID but a dead Blockbuster card.
One guard reminded me of a cousin back home I hoped never to see again. I remember retrieving my ID for her and her cutting sigh as I dropped a book. Mick, whom I’d not noticed behind me, offered me the book. His hair was thick and spiky, his shirt yet another casual plaid tucked into skinny jeans. I thanked him and gaped open my satchel for the security guard to inspect. The guard barely looked, barely nodded, a nod that nodded me away, and turned to Mick who was standing ready. Something in me was triggered—I feel insulted, I feel oppressed—but I knew these feelings were out of proportion with the situation.
In the elevator, Mick seemed even taller. He commented, “Security can take their jobs too seriously. We’re only a liberal arts college, a private liberal arts college.”
It was reassuring to hear him say it and I recalibrated my sense of indignation. I replied, “This year’s stepped-up bag check feels oppressive.” I wanted to rant or change the subject. I asked him, “How’s the baby? Or should it be toddler by now?” I wasn’t really interested in anyone’s children.
“Toddler! A lot to keep up with.” He seemed baffled, hesitating. “Turned out to be good timing I didn’t get my full class-load this semester.”
The elevator door was about to open and I said, “Well I don’t think it’s right.”
I could tell Mick felt hurt as the fifth floor presented itself and we took the long way around to our office, soon greeted by the janitor for our floor. With a masculine face and a friendly Southern voice, she greeted all and was beloved by all. I tried not to overidentify, a tendency with an unfortunate record. Working-class solidarity can be tricky across lines of race. “And hello to you, Janetta,” I said. “Happy it finally feels like autumn?”
“It’s nice, isn’t it?”
I echoed her tone: “I know we both love our cardigans.”
She laughed and we wished each other a good day, Mick too. Every time a ritual of cordiality fully realized. There were days I was thankful to slip by unseen—and into an empty silent office. Not today, with Mick’s cup suddenly overflowing.
Behind our office door, Mick chattered about a band I remembered distantly, naming its guitarists in a way I’m not prone to doing, and then just like that he wanted us adjuncts to unionize. The words didn’t quite sink in as he tallied up over two hundred adjuncts currently teaching here, how we contributed so much and deserved more than we got. “If not full benefits, then some. For sure job protections. I know our wages are better than the national average but still—” And such words. I could only imagine myself leaving this city and so I resisted his righteous vision for this university.
Of course I signed the petition.
*
Fourteen years had passed since the turn of the century. The turn of my thyroid. Ten years since finishing grad school. Since unstarting my last romance. Nostalgia had me wound around its middle finger. My life here might’ve felt realer to me had the university boasted a real campus instead of a scattering of buildings in a historic (according to signage) neighborhood. When I first visited, for a regrettable poetry reading, I knew I didn’t like it, indeed I disappointed my friend Wynn by leaving a day early. God forbid I be so Midwestern-conventional to need a hub of some kind, if not a town square then real campus grounds. I thought I’d adapt, be a professional who adapts to new places, and then I’m trapped, paycheck-to-paycheck disoriented—and no more than the illusion of professional.
Margery didn’t care for the city either, lived outside the city in a spinsterly little house surrounded by trees. She was not a spinster, occasionally spoke of an ex-husband, but for a long time she’d lived alone with her dogs and cats. Other than old movies, our initial bond related to being loners with pets and not being city people. I was not too scared (her word) to travel the city on foot because I had no choice. I liked taking the El and managed the subway but avoided buses and couldn’t afford cabs. I could walk to Wynn’s in fifteen. So how brave was I? How compelled? With what sense of agency? I lived where I worked: in a student neighborhood patrolled by segwaying security officers.
I was glad for Indian food, two buffets in walking distance. The basement-front restaurant Akbar was cheaper, becoming my mainstay after a run-in with Margery at The Blue Elephant. I guess it rubbed because she’d once declined a lunch invitation from me, claiming she never leaves the office for lunch.
Margery—there with the Chair of The Department whom I could not admire. I paused at their table (surely they won’t invite me to join mid-meal) and upon noticing me Carlson nodded with what seemed approval, asking how are my classes? I said I’m excited to be teaching the memoir workshop after having taught memoir as a lit course. He feigned avuncular, encouraged me to get myself on the market. “Too much adjuncting on a C.V. is not a good look,” he warned.
Margery spoke up, over her paused fork, asserting that she’d hate The Department to lose me, then added: “Anyway, Thomas doesn’t interview well. You said it yourself.”
Margery didn’t care for the city either, lived outside the city in a spinsterly little house surrounded by trees. She was not a spinster, occasionally spoke of an ex-husband, but for a long time she’d lived alone with her dogs and cats. Other than old movies, our initial bond related to being loners with pets and not being city people. I was not too scared (her word) to travel the city on foot because I had no choice. I liked taking the El and managed the subway but avoided buses and couldn’t afford cabs. I could walk to Wynn’s in fifteen. So how brave was I? How compelled? With what sense of agency? I lived where I worked: in a student neighborhood patrolled by segwaying security officers.
I was glad for Indian food, two buffets in walking distance. The basement-front restaurant Akbar was cheaper, becoming my mainstay after a run-in with Margery at The Blue Elephant. I guess it rubbed because she’d once declined a lunch invitation from me, claiming she never leaves the office for lunch.
Margery—there with the Chair of The Department whom I could not admire. I paused at their table (surely they won’t invite me to join mid-meal) and upon noticing me Carlson nodded with what seemed approval, asking how are my classes? I said I’m excited to be teaching the memoir workshop after having taught memoir as a lit course. He feigned avuncular, encouraged me to get myself on the market. “Too much adjuncting on a C.V. is not a good look,” he warned.
Margery spoke up, over her paused fork, asserting that she’d hate The Department to lose me, then added: “Anyway, Thomas doesn’t interview well. You said it yourself.”
*
It’s November deeply. I couldn’t know, looking down on the city street from Wynn’s condo window, that I’d ever get away to somewhere else—if only back to the Midwest. I felt guilty to feel so uninspired by the city Wynn loved. She’d rather be an explorer than a native and the grit of street life made every day a dog-walking adventure.
She asked me if I wanted red or white wine. I don’t like wine at all. I said white. She wore a slimming black turtleneck, her blonde hair an enduring phase. We chatted while her partner in his office typed to something Philip Glass-y. They’re both prolific writers, sharply intelligent and wickedly judgmental. They lived a life of means that I dreamt about, with leisure and productivity a self-perpetuating cycle. I owed her money I couldn’t repay. Or so I thought. Wynn’s confidence in me was greater than my own. Not that she wanted her money back. She’s a good friend since grad school when we co-taught a summer course called Apocalypse Culture.
“Do you ever hear from that serial killer expert?”
She laughed. “Which one?”
I gestured touché, answering, “The one you invited to speak to that class we taught.”
“Oh yeah—no. Not for years. I think he’s a librarian.”
I reminded her how he talked about the interstate system—it helped to perpetuate serial killing in the 20th century. Which I thought was a great point. “And when I thanked him after the class, for speaking, he told me, with a twisted little wink, if he ever sees me hitchin’ on the interstate he’ll be sure to pick me up.”
Wynn nudged her wine glass against mine. “Sounds like a date!”
She and I drank lots of wine that summer of Y2K when the world had not blown its clock after all. We’d meet out at a winery—off the interstate—and revel in Riesling, a sweet wine we didn’t know enough to disdain. We shared the sweet tooth of nihilism, related keenly to the Larkin poem that begins with the line “They fuck you up, your mum and dad” and ends with the line “And don’t have any kids yourself.”
Wynn asked: “Shall I schedule Jane for a vet appointment—when I do Honorable?” Her accent is English, her bulldog French. At the sound of his name, he stood on her lap. Wynn also had two cats. And a surgically removed part of her own body in a specimen jar.
“Sure,” I said. It was harder for me to get my cat to the vet in the city. “Thanks.”
“You okay?”
I admired her grotto of serious quirks and playful clashes, wished I felt more everyday-gabby here, a more natural addition to her salon, more interested in her library. I’d grown weary of books, couldn’t catch up. I sipped my wine and told her my back hurt a bit, adjusting a pillow behind me, then confessed my latest tale of Margery.
“So I didn’t get Margery a birthday card this year,” I started, sighing. “Instead I sent a funny image to her by email. You know how she loves Star Trek and William Shatner. It was an image of Kirk from the episode about the tribbles.” Wynn looked vague. “Well, I don’t care either. But it’s iconic and only funny and yet she thought I was notifying her that William Shatner had died! She came into my office wagging her finger at me, saying I practically gave her a heart attack. I was like, but it said ‘Happy Birthday’ below. She said, ‘Don’t do that again!’ with a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. Mick looked at me like what did you do?”
Wynn chortled, said she loves Margery: “She is order verging on chaos.”
I countered, “She’s apoplectic with a gavel.”
Wynn nodded her wine glass at me, taking a gossipy tone to tell me how upset Margery was about the timeclock thing. “You should have seen the look on her face, when she told me about it. Not so much apoplectic as confounded. Which I didn’t quite believe. She does seem to enjoy a good number of short days—during certain stretches of the semester, anyway. I can’t imagine who’d tell tales.”
“Did somebody—? I assumed it was a new policy.”
Honorable bolted after one of the cats, under the white piano and not quite over a book-splayed ottoman. “Honorable!” Wynn scolded, not really meaning it. He’s her id on paws.
She asked me if I wanted red or white wine. I don’t like wine at all. I said white. She wore a slimming black turtleneck, her blonde hair an enduring phase. We chatted while her partner in his office typed to something Philip Glass-y. They’re both prolific writers, sharply intelligent and wickedly judgmental. They lived a life of means that I dreamt about, with leisure and productivity a self-perpetuating cycle. I owed her money I couldn’t repay. Or so I thought. Wynn’s confidence in me was greater than my own. Not that she wanted her money back. She’s a good friend since grad school when we co-taught a summer course called Apocalypse Culture.
“Do you ever hear from that serial killer expert?”
She laughed. “Which one?”
I gestured touché, answering, “The one you invited to speak to that class we taught.”
“Oh yeah—no. Not for years. I think he’s a librarian.”
I reminded her how he talked about the interstate system—it helped to perpetuate serial killing in the 20th century. Which I thought was a great point. “And when I thanked him after the class, for speaking, he told me, with a twisted little wink, if he ever sees me hitchin’ on the interstate he’ll be sure to pick me up.”
Wynn nudged her wine glass against mine. “Sounds like a date!”
She and I drank lots of wine that summer of Y2K when the world had not blown its clock after all. We’d meet out at a winery—off the interstate—and revel in Riesling, a sweet wine we didn’t know enough to disdain. We shared the sweet tooth of nihilism, related keenly to the Larkin poem that begins with the line “They fuck you up, your mum and dad” and ends with the line “And don’t have any kids yourself.”
Wynn asked: “Shall I schedule Jane for a vet appointment—when I do Honorable?” Her accent is English, her bulldog French. At the sound of his name, he stood on her lap. Wynn also had two cats. And a surgically removed part of her own body in a specimen jar.
“Sure,” I said. It was harder for me to get my cat to the vet in the city. “Thanks.”
“You okay?”
I admired her grotto of serious quirks and playful clashes, wished I felt more everyday-gabby here, a more natural addition to her salon, more interested in her library. I’d grown weary of books, couldn’t catch up. I sipped my wine and told her my back hurt a bit, adjusting a pillow behind me, then confessed my latest tale of Margery.
“So I didn’t get Margery a birthday card this year,” I started, sighing. “Instead I sent a funny image to her by email. You know how she loves Star Trek and William Shatner. It was an image of Kirk from the episode about the tribbles.” Wynn looked vague. “Well, I don’t care either. But it’s iconic and only funny and yet she thought I was notifying her that William Shatner had died! She came into my office wagging her finger at me, saying I practically gave her a heart attack. I was like, but it said ‘Happy Birthday’ below. She said, ‘Don’t do that again!’ with a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. Mick looked at me like what did you do?”
Wynn chortled, said she loves Margery: “She is order verging on chaos.”
I countered, “She’s apoplectic with a gavel.”
Wynn nodded her wine glass at me, taking a gossipy tone to tell me how upset Margery was about the timeclock thing. “You should have seen the look on her face, when she told me about it. Not so much apoplectic as confounded. Which I didn’t quite believe. She does seem to enjoy a good number of short days—during certain stretches of the semester, anyway. I can’t imagine who’d tell tales.”
“Did somebody—? I assumed it was a new policy.”
Honorable bolted after one of the cats, under the white piano and not quite over a book-splayed ottoman. “Honorable!” Wynn scolded, not really meaning it. He’s her id on paws.
*
The nearest store to my apartment was a Save-a-Lot, off-brand groceries and sad produce but not untidy. I never saw college students at the Save-a-Lot. I saw them at the Rite-Aid Pharmacy next door sometimes, but not at the Save-a-Lot. (When I got a ride to the Safeway, however, I saw my students there. The differences between Save-a-Lot and Safeway were profound to me.) Neighboring the pharmacy was a 23-machine laundromat ruled by a wall-mounted television on which I’d see talk shows or local news. I remember one afternoon, my bedclothes spinning, seeing protest. I had two quarters left, plus a twenty-dollar bill to last until payday. Typical. I’m a car crash at money. A lifelong slow-mo car crash at money.
“I’m a car crash at money” could’ve made my six-word memoir for the week. Workshops that semester began with each student—and myself—sharing a six-word memoir for the week. “I’m a car crash at money” wasn’t great. “A borrowed scooter crashes into authority.” Sounded like a fortune cookie. “And suicide is my retirement plan.” That’s an actual quote from an article about being an adjunct professor.
The laundromat was without charm but it had become my laundromat as laundromats do. I was not spoken to nor unacknowledged. As I would anywhere, I brought a book. Though now all eyes were on the news. A cop had killed a 12-year-old this time, a black boy at a playground holding a toy gun. In Ohio. A woman standing to fold a pink sheet sobbed the words “Evil motherfuckers” and pressed her face into the sheet and then continued folding. Others nodded but no one went to the woman. Protestors were “taking to the streets” in cities all over the country, said the news. I tried to remind myself what it means to be 12, having to reckon with 12 as colliding realities.
“I’m a car crash at money” could’ve made my six-word memoir for the week. Workshops that semester began with each student—and myself—sharing a six-word memoir for the week. “I’m a car crash at money” wasn’t great. “A borrowed scooter crashes into authority.” Sounded like a fortune cookie. “And suicide is my retirement plan.” That’s an actual quote from an article about being an adjunct professor.
The laundromat was without charm but it had become my laundromat as laundromats do. I was not spoken to nor unacknowledged. As I would anywhere, I brought a book. Though now all eyes were on the news. A cop had killed a 12-year-old this time, a black boy at a playground holding a toy gun. In Ohio. A woman standing to fold a pink sheet sobbed the words “Evil motherfuckers” and pressed her face into the sheet and then continued folding. Others nodded but no one went to the woman. Protestors were “taking to the streets” in cities all over the country, said the news. I tried to remind myself what it means to be 12, having to reckon with 12 as colliding realities.
*
Sometimes Margery got calls for me from bill collectors and I’m sure she was efficient at putting them off. I thanked her again and she laughed, waved it away like yesterday’s fly. An echo of my relief was a deep-distant pang. I sat in the soft chair against the wall. There was a fly in the room, really, and Margery called it yesterday’s fly. She was shopping online, describing potential Christmas gifts for a friend I tried to imagine her having. She unfriended me on Facebook. “No offense” but my posts were a “bit edgy” for her. I don’t remember her posts.
“Oh you’ll like this,” she said. I looked on her screen to see a Hercule Poirot mug.
“Cute!” I said, and it was cute enough I guess. If I saw it at a thrift shop.
“Curtain was a downer,” she complained, referring to the very last Poirot adaptation that aired recently. I agreed, said the book is not so religieux. A word that got side-eye. Margery was a big reader without reading anything that might align her with the academics who surrounded her every day. Thankfully we’d Agatha Christie in common. She surfed onward now, tittering at her own description of Poirot’s mincing walk. And then her searching eyes landed on something apparently dreadful and she made an “ugh” sound, disapproving of--
“What?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Selma,” she answered.
I pictured the famous Selma-to-Montgomery march. “The new Selma movie?” It wasn’t out yet but was already getting Oscar buzz.
“Why can’t they leave it alone?” Margery wondered, frustrated. “Stop looking backwards! Look forwards!” A bright silence punctuated the dim room and her face sharpened: “You can’t be the victim forever.” I sat still while thinking on my feet: what? who? really? She continued with a sighed sorry, admitted to feeling oversaturated by all these protests across the country, on every channel. “They try to make everything about race but it comes down to one thing,” she insisted. “You can’t break bad with the police.” I took “break bad” as an allusion to Breaking Bad, a TV series she loved. “You can’t break bad with the police,” she said not once but twice, on the verge of a mantra. I didn’t understand, didn’t know if she was using the term right, didn’t ask.
I replied only, “I’m sure I’d never.”
“I hate the attitude, Thomas, I do,” she almost pleaded, “especially the women,” pointing downwards to implicate a downstairs secretary she’d griped about before. “I hate it. It’s so aggressive.” She mocked a head-swiveling gesture associated with black women, not to mention gay men. I—shrugged.
Is she so frank with the many progressives in The Department? Am I not one of them? I said how Selma is getting Oscar buzz but then doesn’t everything and, announcing the time, of which I’d long been aware, much like the fly, I returned to my thankfully empty office wherein I closed the door and felt overtaken by a sordid freedom. I realized I no longer had to feel conflicted about not liking the Department Secretary. Because she is a racist. It made me giggle.
“Oh you’ll like this,” she said. I looked on her screen to see a Hercule Poirot mug.
“Cute!” I said, and it was cute enough I guess. If I saw it at a thrift shop.
“Curtain was a downer,” she complained, referring to the very last Poirot adaptation that aired recently. I agreed, said the book is not so religieux. A word that got side-eye. Margery was a big reader without reading anything that might align her with the academics who surrounded her every day. Thankfully we’d Agatha Christie in common. She surfed onward now, tittering at her own description of Poirot’s mincing walk. And then her searching eyes landed on something apparently dreadful and she made an “ugh” sound, disapproving of--
“What?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Selma,” she answered.
I pictured the famous Selma-to-Montgomery march. “The new Selma movie?” It wasn’t out yet but was already getting Oscar buzz.
“Why can’t they leave it alone?” Margery wondered, frustrated. “Stop looking backwards! Look forwards!” A bright silence punctuated the dim room and her face sharpened: “You can’t be the victim forever.” I sat still while thinking on my feet: what? who? really? She continued with a sighed sorry, admitted to feeling oversaturated by all these protests across the country, on every channel. “They try to make everything about race but it comes down to one thing,” she insisted. “You can’t break bad with the police.” I took “break bad” as an allusion to Breaking Bad, a TV series she loved. “You can’t break bad with the police,” she said not once but twice, on the verge of a mantra. I didn’t understand, didn’t know if she was using the term right, didn’t ask.
I replied only, “I’m sure I’d never.”
“I hate the attitude, Thomas, I do,” she almost pleaded, “especially the women,” pointing downwards to implicate a downstairs secretary she’d griped about before. “I hate it. It’s so aggressive.” She mocked a head-swiveling gesture associated with black women, not to mention gay men. I—shrugged.
Is she so frank with the many progressives in The Department? Am I not one of them? I said how Selma is getting Oscar buzz but then doesn’t everything and, announcing the time, of which I’d long been aware, much like the fly, I returned to my thankfully empty office wherein I closed the door and felt overtaken by a sordid freedom. I realized I no longer had to feel conflicted about not liking the Department Secretary. Because she is a racist. It made me giggle.
*
For a bright and snowless Christmas Day outing, Wynn took me exploring. We drove an hour-plus and to my surprise didn’t get lost trying to find the old Glenn Dale Tuberculosis Hospital and Sanatorium—abandoned, grown over, latent. We entered the grounds from behind, through a tense bamboo patch, to find four stories of ruin porn. All the ways decay can blossom were on display, lit by blasts or shafts or diffusions of coldly clear sunlight. There was vandalism too, but spray-paint turns cave art. We drank champagne in a crumbling theater, under the winter arm of an old spider web.
Our getaway from the city—where “decay” was so economic that it shouldn’t be aesthetic—had been good for me. Or so I told myself and then felt okay to say aloud. “And there’s no fear of coppers patrolling today,” Wynn added, recalling a close call at a previous site. So why did being no more than an hour away from my apartment trigger little impulses to panic that I must control? We sipped from plastic flutes, Honorable from a collapsible bowl. The champagne was cold because the day was cold. We took pictures of each other with the dog. I’d taken a lot of pictures of broken windows framing other broken windows, rust-winding stairwells, and poetically curling paint casting microshadows. The sun dropped steadily. We talked about true crime documentaries, our distaste for reenactments.
I asked about a true crime book I gave her, Murder in Little Egypt, set near my hometown. She loved it. She spoke of her ongoing obsession with a man who jumped off her apartment building. She’d started writing a book about him, even hired a private investigator.
“Is he very gumshoe?” I asked, “the private eye?”
“No, well just a touch gumshoe.”
“I’m jealous.”
“Hearing that thud,” she said, not finishing a thought I’d heard before.
She was home when the man jumped. Or—was pushed?
Our epic turn led us to the morgue. There stood a wall of cadaver drawers, many wide open, one with its empty “body tray” pulled out. We felt good, felt love for each other. Wynn stretched out for a selfie.
Our getaway from the city—where “decay” was so economic that it shouldn’t be aesthetic—had been good for me. Or so I told myself and then felt okay to say aloud. “And there’s no fear of coppers patrolling today,” Wynn added, recalling a close call at a previous site. So why did being no more than an hour away from my apartment trigger little impulses to panic that I must control? We sipped from plastic flutes, Honorable from a collapsible bowl. The champagne was cold because the day was cold. We took pictures of each other with the dog. I’d taken a lot of pictures of broken windows framing other broken windows, rust-winding stairwells, and poetically curling paint casting microshadows. The sun dropped steadily. We talked about true crime documentaries, our distaste for reenactments.
I asked about a true crime book I gave her, Murder in Little Egypt, set near my hometown. She loved it. She spoke of her ongoing obsession with a man who jumped off her apartment building. She’d started writing a book about him, even hired a private investigator.
“Is he very gumshoe?” I asked, “the private eye?”
“No, well just a touch gumshoe.”
“I’m jealous.”
“Hearing that thud,” she said, not finishing a thought I’d heard before.
She was home when the man jumped. Or—was pushed?
Our epic turn led us to the morgue. There stood a wall of cadaver drawers, many wide open, one with its empty “body tray” pulled out. We felt good, felt love for each other. Wynn stretched out for a selfie.
*
Christmas week and the first three weeks of January were unpaid weeks for me, as were summer months. The University denied my unemployment claims during these unemployed periods, insisting that being on the upcoming-semester schedule disqualified me (“reasonable assurance” of re-employment). Knowing I’d won my appeals, Mick asked me to write some kind of unemployment-procedures leaflet for adjuncts. His email switched me to autopilot, typing “Sure”—while really I felt exposed and paranoid, like trash getting away with something.
More reasonable was my bitterness over a new department policy limiting part-time faculty to three courses a year, down from four. More than four courses a year and the university was required to give us health benefits—not happening; only four courses a year didn’t add up to enough to cover summer rent; three courses was unsustainable. While the university reportedly profited $30 million during my time there alone. I felt the dagger-like shadow of Carlson’s snobbery. I won’t say teaching is a calling but it is the job I do best and most sincerely. I wanted to plot my exit or my revenge or my memoir. I just didn’t think I had the Norma Rae realness to stick around and unionize. I was impressed by Mick, overcoming his shyness—though I think he was in a band once, in the ‘80s, so who knows about his shyness. He had his adjunct labor facts well-aimed while managing to disarm institutional hypocrisy.
I didn’t even like saying the phonetically crowded word adjunct, especially beyond campus where met with blank stares. Human Resources jargon like contingent faculty, auxiliary personnel, and non-tenure track could no longer veil the “adjunctification” of higher education that destabilized a once middle-class career. In scores of articles from the last decade, adjuncts have been referred to as temp workers, fulltime part-timers, disposable professors, the Dixie cups of academia, migrant professors, the hypereducated poor, academia’s indentured servants, and adjunct whores. And most recently: the “gig economy” workers in academia.
Students, like their parents, seemed long-blind to differences between fulltime professors and adjunct professors, in professional terms and in sociocultural terms—how adjuncts constituted a growing “precariat class.” And then suddenly our students were rallying for us. By the end of last semester, a student group distributed their own adjunct-awareness flyers; they started off this semester with an adjunct-support rally and petition. They showed they can mobilize, sensitized by the protest culture of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. If not outright supportive, university response to student activism preferred uncertain silence over certain disapproval. And so the semester began. I refrained from asking Margery how she felt about it all.
As for what happened between us: As if nothing happened.
I left a bargain books catalog in her doorbox with a “new 2015 edition” post-it. A hollow gesture, I suppose, as their catalog was online.
It’s a pretend-nothing-happened gesture.
I felt so indifferently, still vulnerable yet now also superior.
Did this—irony—carbonate my helpless giggle that ugly afternoon? I didn’t want to remind myself of the embittered son in “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” He doesn’t care about racial injustice as much as he enjoys contempt for his racist mother—on whom he depends because he is a loser. “Julian did not like to consider all she did for him.”
Margery and I ran into each other in the hallway and I startled her this time. She thanked me for the catalog. I recommended the Mysteries section. She said it was the first thing she checked. She looked tired and I complimented her amber brooch. We asked about each other’s pets.
More reasonable was my bitterness over a new department policy limiting part-time faculty to three courses a year, down from four. More than four courses a year and the university was required to give us health benefits—not happening; only four courses a year didn’t add up to enough to cover summer rent; three courses was unsustainable. While the university reportedly profited $30 million during my time there alone. I felt the dagger-like shadow of Carlson’s snobbery. I won’t say teaching is a calling but it is the job I do best and most sincerely. I wanted to plot my exit or my revenge or my memoir. I just didn’t think I had the Norma Rae realness to stick around and unionize. I was impressed by Mick, overcoming his shyness—though I think he was in a band once, in the ‘80s, so who knows about his shyness. He had his adjunct labor facts well-aimed while managing to disarm institutional hypocrisy.
I didn’t even like saying the phonetically crowded word adjunct, especially beyond campus where met with blank stares. Human Resources jargon like contingent faculty, auxiliary personnel, and non-tenure track could no longer veil the “adjunctification” of higher education that destabilized a once middle-class career. In scores of articles from the last decade, adjuncts have been referred to as temp workers, fulltime part-timers, disposable professors, the Dixie cups of academia, migrant professors, the hypereducated poor, academia’s indentured servants, and adjunct whores. And most recently: the “gig economy” workers in academia.
Students, like their parents, seemed long-blind to differences between fulltime professors and adjunct professors, in professional terms and in sociocultural terms—how adjuncts constituted a growing “precariat class.” And then suddenly our students were rallying for us. By the end of last semester, a student group distributed their own adjunct-awareness flyers; they started off this semester with an adjunct-support rally and petition. They showed they can mobilize, sensitized by the protest culture of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. If not outright supportive, university response to student activism preferred uncertain silence over certain disapproval. And so the semester began. I refrained from asking Margery how she felt about it all.
As for what happened between us: As if nothing happened.
I left a bargain books catalog in her doorbox with a “new 2015 edition” post-it. A hollow gesture, I suppose, as their catalog was online.
It’s a pretend-nothing-happened gesture.
I felt so indifferently, still vulnerable yet now also superior.
Did this—irony—carbonate my helpless giggle that ugly afternoon? I didn’t want to remind myself of the embittered son in “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” He doesn’t care about racial injustice as much as he enjoys contempt for his racist mother—on whom he depends because he is a loser. “Julian did not like to consider all she did for him.”
Margery and I ran into each other in the hallway and I startled her this time. She thanked me for the catalog. I recommended the Mysteries section. She said it was the first thing she checked. She looked tired and I complimented her amber brooch. We asked about each other’s pets.
*
With alliances across departments, and a surge of student support, Mick’s turn at unionizer had gone fulltime with unexpected success. He seemed transformed by purpose, featured in city papers and on the news: family man, teacher, speaker, unionizer, taking on an aura of reluctant saint. If not one to sing out “Which Side Are You On?,” then he’d write his punk band memoirs. Anyway, a liberal institution like ours couldn’t afford to look too anti-union. The vote was set for end of April.
I disappointed Mick, telling him next year in The Department would be my last.
Moving anywhere seemed impossible, money-wise, but so did staying.
I disappointed Mick, telling him next year in The Department would be my last.
Moving anywhere seemed impossible, money-wise, but so did staying.
*
The Department was busy with first-week good will and last-minute tech glitches, a fleeting familiarity to it all. My semesterly composition course was located in another building, a block away in distance and a century away in time. Flanked by classical statuary, the slippery marble stairs up to the second floor exhausted me, too shallow to take one step at a time naturally yet two steps made a risky stretch. I’d popped in already this week, to check the classroom tech, and found the door locked, which meant going back down the stairs to fetch the security guard who didn’t believe I was a professor until I showed him my ID again. I said I taught in 203 my first year here and never did I find the door locked. I remember his annoyance.
As I climbed treachery’s staircase for my first class, I felt dubious.
Indeed it was after ten ’til and my students stood waiting in the hallway.
Pointlessly I tried the doorknob, even as I was told it’s locked.
“I taught in this room my first year here and never did I find the door locked.”
I go knee-length hot under my winter coat. The young faces surrounding me were all new to me, strangers, roster names. “Well I guess I’ll be right back,” I assured them, my satchel heaving.
I paced my descent, not watching my feet too much, too uptight to call out halfway down but no matter as the security guard was absent from his front-desk post. Peering around the wide lobby, cussing mentally until I spotted his uniform outside the lobby doors, I felt the day’s teaching agenda retreat from the front of my brain and I was resentful. It was a warm afternoon for late January and the guard was outside flirting with a young woman. She wasn’t carrying a bookbag or backpack, probably just walking by. He’d surely not flirt with a student? She smiled, moving away with a slowness I couldn’t read. Her hands dug into her coat pockets. He still hadn’t noticed me.
“My classroom door is locked,” I interrupted. “Again.”
In an instant, the guard looked me up and down and his face said “What the fuck?”—a look I’ve known well in my life. I’m worse than an intrusion; I’m an offense. He is stout, almost pudgy, and perhaps I’ve caught him in the middle of something worse than flirting, like being rejected.
“My classroom, 203—it’s locked. Again.”
He checked his watch. “You got five minutes,” he insisted, illogically.
The young woman was slipping away.
I didn’t know what to say so I said, “That’s not how it works.”
She’s turned her back on him now, walking freely into the rest of her day.
He puffed up at me, his dark face glaring with condescension. “I know how it works,” he said, reentering the lobby as if my following him or not made no difference.
I feared a lobby echo as I entered, announcing, “You know, never mind.”
I swept past him, up the stairs—asked my 19 students to follow me.
Back down.
It’s all too physical.
Near the bottom of the stairs, my students lining up behind me, the guard halted us with a palm and a grin. “Go back up, let me unlock the door,” he said, his tone modified, almost seductive.
“No.” I was firm. “I will find another classroom.” I’m unsure this is possible.
“Aww now come on,” he said. “Don’t be like that.”
I can’t think how else to say it—he treated me “like a woman.”
He repeated his plea, holding out his keys on their ring and jingling them lightly, as if I’m a kitten.
“No,” I burned the syllable, aware that my students were all watching, each gaze a spotlight. I took the last step onto the lobby floor and he stepped in front of me, his uniform a wall to tear down. Then he began speaking again and it’s like a shadow fell over me, like the moment caved in, like I could’ve fainted, and I interjected in bursts: “I—do not want—your help.” I felt small yet flaring as he insisted with a laugh:
“Okay bro. No need gettin’ hysterics.” He looked up at the students. “Right?”
Which confused me several times at once, a confusion that propelled me out of the building with students in tow. My right hand ached from the weight of my satchel, as though its handle throbbed my heartbeat. I didn’t know where--
As I climbed treachery’s staircase for my first class, I felt dubious.
Indeed it was after ten ’til and my students stood waiting in the hallway.
Pointlessly I tried the doorknob, even as I was told it’s locked.
“I taught in this room my first year here and never did I find the door locked.”
I go knee-length hot under my winter coat. The young faces surrounding me were all new to me, strangers, roster names. “Well I guess I’ll be right back,” I assured them, my satchel heaving.
I paced my descent, not watching my feet too much, too uptight to call out halfway down but no matter as the security guard was absent from his front-desk post. Peering around the wide lobby, cussing mentally until I spotted his uniform outside the lobby doors, I felt the day’s teaching agenda retreat from the front of my brain and I was resentful. It was a warm afternoon for late January and the guard was outside flirting with a young woman. She wasn’t carrying a bookbag or backpack, probably just walking by. He’d surely not flirt with a student? She smiled, moving away with a slowness I couldn’t read. Her hands dug into her coat pockets. He still hadn’t noticed me.
“My classroom door is locked,” I interrupted. “Again.”
In an instant, the guard looked me up and down and his face said “What the fuck?”—a look I’ve known well in my life. I’m worse than an intrusion; I’m an offense. He is stout, almost pudgy, and perhaps I’ve caught him in the middle of something worse than flirting, like being rejected.
“My classroom, 203—it’s locked. Again.”
He checked his watch. “You got five minutes,” he insisted, illogically.
The young woman was slipping away.
I didn’t know what to say so I said, “That’s not how it works.”
She’s turned her back on him now, walking freely into the rest of her day.
He puffed up at me, his dark face glaring with condescension. “I know how it works,” he said, reentering the lobby as if my following him or not made no difference.
I feared a lobby echo as I entered, announcing, “You know, never mind.”
I swept past him, up the stairs—asked my 19 students to follow me.
Back down.
It’s all too physical.
Near the bottom of the stairs, my students lining up behind me, the guard halted us with a palm and a grin. “Go back up, let me unlock the door,” he said, his tone modified, almost seductive.
“No.” I was firm. “I will find another classroom.” I’m unsure this is possible.
“Aww now come on,” he said. “Don’t be like that.”
I can’t think how else to say it—he treated me “like a woman.”
He repeated his plea, holding out his keys on their ring and jingling them lightly, as if I’m a kitten.
“No,” I burned the syllable, aware that my students were all watching, each gaze a spotlight. I took the last step onto the lobby floor and he stepped in front of me, his uniform a wall to tear down. Then he began speaking again and it’s like a shadow fell over me, like the moment caved in, like I could’ve fainted, and I interjected in bursts: “I—do not want—your help.” I felt small yet flaring as he insisted with a laugh:
“Okay bro. No need gettin’ hysterics.” He looked up at the students. “Right?”
Which confused me several times at once, a confusion that propelled me out of the building with students in tow. My right hand ached from the weight of my satchel, as though its handle throbbed my heartbeat. I didn’t know where--
*
I got to Margery’s office. I started crying.
She came to me and hugged me, which she’d never done before, then told me to sit, got me a box of tissues. I undid my coat, collecting myself enough not to show how fractured I was. I gazed at a painting on her wall of Navajo baskets in setting sun. I wanted to be home with my cat. I wanted a life of never having to leave the house—an actual house, like Margery’s. I’m becoming my mother. My thoughts raced my breaths, pulling back on each other until I could tell Margery what happened. I paced myself, like I was stepping down the marble stairs all over again. And then she asked, “Now, which one is he?”
I didn’t know his name. I don’t say he’s black. Anyway, many of the security guards were African-American. “He’s stout,” I said. “Tall. Ish. Thin mustache. Youngish.”
Margery nodded, eyes narrowing: “You’re not the only one who’s had problems with him.” She propped her elbows on her desk.
I noticed Janetta passing in the hallway, pulling a cart. Eavesdropping? I would if I was her. But she’s listening to her earphones. I remained uncertain I’d not had a breakdown of some kind, like a panic attack that’s hanging fire. I wondered what she’s listening to. Does she have job security?
Margery asked, “Where are the students now?”
“I had them wait in the library.” The library was on the first floor.
She extracted a binder from a file cabinet and, in a matter of seconds, found us a new classroom for the semester. It’s downstairs, fourth floor: a gray-beige conference table of a room with dry-erase boards.
“Now you go teach and put this business out of your mind,” Margery told me, like she’d handle everything.
She came to me and hugged me, which she’d never done before, then told me to sit, got me a box of tissues. I undid my coat, collecting myself enough not to show how fractured I was. I gazed at a painting on her wall of Navajo baskets in setting sun. I wanted to be home with my cat. I wanted a life of never having to leave the house—an actual house, like Margery’s. I’m becoming my mother. My thoughts raced my breaths, pulling back on each other until I could tell Margery what happened. I paced myself, like I was stepping down the marble stairs all over again. And then she asked, “Now, which one is he?”
I didn’t know his name. I don’t say he’s black. Anyway, many of the security guards were African-American. “He’s stout,” I said. “Tall. Ish. Thin mustache. Youngish.”
Margery nodded, eyes narrowing: “You’re not the only one who’s had problems with him.” She propped her elbows on her desk.
I noticed Janetta passing in the hallway, pulling a cart. Eavesdropping? I would if I was her. But she’s listening to her earphones. I remained uncertain I’d not had a breakdown of some kind, like a panic attack that’s hanging fire. I wondered what she’s listening to. Does she have job security?
Margery asked, “Where are the students now?”
“I had them wait in the library.” The library was on the first floor.
She extracted a binder from a file cabinet and, in a matter of seconds, found us a new classroom for the semester. It’s downstairs, fourth floor: a gray-beige conference table of a room with dry-erase boards.
“Now you go teach and put this business out of your mind,” Margery told me, like she’d handle everything.
*
Can a memoir rarely leave the house? Or apartment? If my cat looks out the window, isn’t it my room? I couldn’t open the window because of the trees blooming pungently along every street in this historic neighborhood—where an author I didn’t care about wrote a book I didn’t like. They’re some kind of pear tree, crudely referred to as “Cum Trees” or similar: The cum trees are in bloom again.
April was not babbling and strewing flowers this year, however; it was protesting and rioting. I can see myself lit by clamp-lamp and the glow of live coverage on my laptop screen. The more I watched, alas, the more state of emergency abstracted into entertainment. At least the protest narrative and the riot/loot narrative were not so blurred in reportage. The nearby Save-a-Lot had been looted. I saw recurring images of its broken windows. And elsewhere, the same burning cars again and again. But the protest footage, the citywide outrage, the police in riot gear—the stakes so high—to cower until cozy seemed wrong. “The revolution will not be televised,” I reminded myself, turning on a light and another light and another light.
My mom called, worried about me—as if she were gripping her Midwestern purse a little tighter just watching the news. Of course she’d mention looting. “Why do they do that?” We rarely talked about things like social justice. Not anymore. She’d never been around any people but blue-collar white people, which was Dad’s hometown. Being around any people at all was never Mom’s preference. And no pets. I not only had a cat, I wanted to have a cat.
Jane had a tortoise back, a calico face and belly, white paws. She’d become my “old sister” cat, as I imagined her when I named her after Jane Marple over fifty cat-years ago. I wanted to call her Marple, truly; she insisted on Jane.
Kind of like Margery was not Marge. But Margery was retiring early.
Margery acted more betrayed than liberated. Wynn didn’t know why.
Her early retirement, though more certain than department rumor, got lost under the clamor of social unrest in the city; it begged questions I dared not ask.
My last meaningful interaction with Margery had occurred weeks earlier—about a week after the security guard confrontation, after Margery did not handle everything, which I admit she hardly promised to do. But I said it: I said I was hiring a lawyer over it, for harassment. She looked down her nose, a spasm of disdain. Silently accusing me of playing victim? I think I just wanted help figuring out the degree to which I was powerless versus the degree to which I only felt powerless. Especially after the head of security’s email, wanting to arrange a time for me to meet with him and with the security guard himself—like I was the bullied middle-schooler forced by the principal to shake hands with the bully. Dismayed, I refused the meeting. And so I made things worse for myself. My “nuclear kook” core had been exposed. I trembled with illegitimacy.
Perhaps I just wanted to be the kind of person who could speak of hiring a lawyer.
My fantasy failed to reckon with students as witnesses, a likelihood that undercut my empty litigiousness with a cringe. I tried not to speculate about how they saw me that day, that semester. I recovered and it turned out an okay semester. It’s better to start with a downfall scene than to end on one. I whimpered with positivity.
Outside my apartment, I could hear voices, gregarious young women singing “Killer cops have got to go!” and I concurred. I wondered if they were my students, protesting all the way home. I’d seen online about a march the next day—something momentous, maybe historical. I wanted to be there.
April was not babbling and strewing flowers this year, however; it was protesting and rioting. I can see myself lit by clamp-lamp and the glow of live coverage on my laptop screen. The more I watched, alas, the more state of emergency abstracted into entertainment. At least the protest narrative and the riot/loot narrative were not so blurred in reportage. The nearby Save-a-Lot had been looted. I saw recurring images of its broken windows. And elsewhere, the same burning cars again and again. But the protest footage, the citywide outrage, the police in riot gear—the stakes so high—to cower until cozy seemed wrong. “The revolution will not be televised,” I reminded myself, turning on a light and another light and another light.
My mom called, worried about me—as if she were gripping her Midwestern purse a little tighter just watching the news. Of course she’d mention looting. “Why do they do that?” We rarely talked about things like social justice. Not anymore. She’d never been around any people but blue-collar white people, which was Dad’s hometown. Being around any people at all was never Mom’s preference. And no pets. I not only had a cat, I wanted to have a cat.
Jane had a tortoise back, a calico face and belly, white paws. She’d become my “old sister” cat, as I imagined her when I named her after Jane Marple over fifty cat-years ago. I wanted to call her Marple, truly; she insisted on Jane.
Kind of like Margery was not Marge. But Margery was retiring early.
Margery acted more betrayed than liberated. Wynn didn’t know why.
Her early retirement, though more certain than department rumor, got lost under the clamor of social unrest in the city; it begged questions I dared not ask.
My last meaningful interaction with Margery had occurred weeks earlier—about a week after the security guard confrontation, after Margery did not handle everything, which I admit she hardly promised to do. But I said it: I said I was hiring a lawyer over it, for harassment. She looked down her nose, a spasm of disdain. Silently accusing me of playing victim? I think I just wanted help figuring out the degree to which I was powerless versus the degree to which I only felt powerless. Especially after the head of security’s email, wanting to arrange a time for me to meet with him and with the security guard himself—like I was the bullied middle-schooler forced by the principal to shake hands with the bully. Dismayed, I refused the meeting. And so I made things worse for myself. My “nuclear kook” core had been exposed. I trembled with illegitimacy.
Perhaps I just wanted to be the kind of person who could speak of hiring a lawyer.
My fantasy failed to reckon with students as witnesses, a likelihood that undercut my empty litigiousness with a cringe. I tried not to speculate about how they saw me that day, that semester. I recovered and it turned out an okay semester. It’s better to start with a downfall scene than to end on one. I whimpered with positivity.
Outside my apartment, I could hear voices, gregarious young women singing “Killer cops have got to go!” and I concurred. I wondered if they were my students, protesting all the way home. I’d seen online about a march the next day—something momentous, maybe historical. I wanted to be there.