3. The brick-colored Volkswagen was gone.
The brick-colored Volkswagen was gone; the lot looked packed-down and barren in the morning light. The hay bales that filled the shed to the south had been sloppily piled, with the east end of the stack already toppling inward. A note on my windshield, in large but feminine handwriting, said "NEXT TIME DONT BLOCK DRIVE WAY. YOUVE BEEN WARNED." I crumpled the note, tossed it on the ground, and got in my truck. My way back to Lincoln took me east on A Street, and on a whim I dodged a few blocks south once I came into town. There was a little cafe on South Street, in the shadow of the grain elevators and next to the tracks, where I thought I might have time for an extra breakfast. I knew from experience that my stomach would feel much better if I kept food in it. As for my head, well, there wasn't much I could do. I could get an Alka-Seltzer, maybe.
My rusted truck did not look out of place in the cafe's crushed-rock lot, nor did my clothes look out of place inside. This was the intimate morning haunt of unlicensed electricians and hippie carpenters, the sub-subcontractors who did most of the remodeling work, cutting up fine old homes into apartments in the part of Lincoln south of the Capitol and west of 17th Street. The place was owned by a pair of tallish blondes, loose-fleshed free-walking women who looked as if they had a pretty good time running a cafe.
"Hey, bozo," the waitress greeted me as she poured a cup of coffee. "How about a glass of tomato juice? You look like you could use some vitamins."
"Right on, tomato juice," I said. "I hope it changes my karma. While you're at it, bring me a cake and a side of bacon, and don't make me late for work."
"Got ya," she said. "Cake and a side. You want a large or a small T. J.?"
"Large," I said. "Look pretty bad, do I?"
"You look like shit," she said cheerily. "If you're not going to shave anyway, why don't you grow a beard?"
I glanced around to see that most of the customers were bearded. "My whiskers would scare you," I told her. "They start right below my eyes. If I was found unconscious some weekend they'd take me down to the zoo."
She laughed. "I guess you'd have to stay conscious, then. Started your weekend kind of early, didn't you?"
"Just warming up," I said. "Put that order in, I told you I'm in a hurry."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Work Ethic," she said. "One emergency breakfast, coming right up." She moved down the counter, opened a refrigerator, and returned with my tomato juice. "If this does happen to come right up," she said, "please oh please don't do it in here."
"Seen it before, have you?" I asked.
"When it comes to that," she replied, "tomato juice is not my favorite."
I wolfed the pancake in four-inch-square bites, wrapped up the stiff bacon in a napkin, and headed out to my truck. 10th Street took me straight across downtown Lincoln; I parked in a lot behind Memorial Stadium, home of the mighty Cornholers and their billion-dollar football program, and began a sprint—soon slowed to a jog, then a walk—toward my office in Andrews Hall. This abrupt exertion made me feel the full panoply of hangover effects, from a throbbing head to a queasy stomach to— Halfway to Andrews I began to pick up speed again, and as soon as I got through the door I headed straight to the men's room, just in time to unload my quivering bowel.
A few minutes later, I was shaving my face and neck at the sink—I kept a razor and shaving cream in my desk for emergencies—when I looked up, or rather down, to find beside me, running a trickle of water across his dainty fingers, Assistant Professor Dennis Deaner, Ph. D. (Harvard). Denny Deaner was new to the University as I was, or newer since I'd been an undergraduate there. His specialty was Linguistics, but since there was already a senior linguist aboard, some wag had put him in charge of the Composition program. He was nominally the advisor of myself and others like me, some better, some worse; his reports had influence over whether we would be reappointed. It was a responsibility beneath his talents, which was unfortunate for the T. A.'s under him.
"Good morning," he said, glancing at my clogged razor with distaste. "How's it going?"
"Fine," I said, putting my denim shirt back on. By shaving I'd removed Grace's makeup from my neck, but now I noticed a glossy spot the size of a quarter on the right breast of my shirt. Bacon grease? I touched it; my finger stuck. Pancake syrup. I debated taking the shirt off to rinse out the spot, then decided my class would think I'd suffered a drooling fit.
"Have you turned in your midterm grade reports?" he asked. "The deadline is noon tomorrow." As if anyone in Administration was going to spend Saturday afternoon compiling grade reports.
"Coming right along," I said confidently, my fingers hovering over my shirt buttons, thinking: five minutes to class time, I've got a spot on my shirt, and he wants to hold a meeting about grade reports?
"This is Friday, you know," he said dryly.
"I'm aware of that," I replied. "I hardly ever fail to notice Friday." Denny Deaner be damned; I tore the shirt off again and began running the left-hand tap, waiting impatiently for it to live up to its name. In the mirror, I watched him watching me; when he glanced at my reflection, I gave him a homicidal smile.
"Those reports go out on Monday afternoon," he continued. "If any of your students are failing, it's University policy that they must receive fair warning. Otherwise they might initiate legal action."
"We wouldn't want that," I said, holding the spot under the tap and rubbing it with a little soap. "Anything else?"
He hesitated a moment. "I always keep an extra shirt in my office for just such emergencies," he said, in a tone that was a tint less formal.
"That's nice of you," I said, "but I don't think I could wear one of your shirts. Might look a little small on me."
He stiffened visibly. "I wasn't offering to lend you mine," he said coldly. "Doesn't your apartment have running water, by the way?"
"It does," I said. "I keep a razor here in case I have to work all night. Those midterm grades, you know." I wrung what water I could out of the shirt and put it on again; where I'd twisted it, the cloth stood out in a little puckered nipple. Also, of course, there was now the blotch, which I hoped would dry. "That looks better, don't you think?"
"Much," he said sarcastically, discarding the paper towel on which he'd been drying his hands and turning to leave. "I advise you to get those reports in on time. Oh, and for your information," he added, pausing at the door, "you smell."
"Thanks, you miserable little tight-assed Harvard prick," I muttered when he was gone. I adjusted my collar, gave myself a final squint, and went to collect my books and face my class.
My classroom in the basement was appropriately numbered Room 13. When I walked in, lugging the course's two fat textbooks in a leftover Air Force briefcase, I was confronted by the habitual blankness of a dozen sleepy eighteen-year-old faces. With two painful exceptions, everyone was in his or her first term at college; the painful exceptions, along with a good part of the class, were not present. I glanced around, took a deep breath, and seized the offensive. "All right," I growled, "who are all you people and what do you want from me?"
A nervous silence settled in the room. Finally, from somewhere in back, a small voice piped up. "Our papers?"
"Nahrrrr! Not a chance, myte!" I snarled. "Oi said pypers nex' week, didn't Oi? Isn't 'at roight, Smee?" "Roight you are, Cap'n," I answered myself timidly. "Roight, 'en," I replied in my bold Captain's voice. "No bleedin' pypers for you lot. Bunch a' bleedin' squabs." I glanced from under my eyebrows to see whether my Captain Hook routine was having any effect. Their soft clean faces, if anything, looked emptier than before.
"Okay," I said, opening my gradebook and trying out my normal voice. "Time to get the show on the road. Adams? Alberts? Callaway?" I made the job of taking roll last as long as possible, meanwhile racking my brain to try to think what we were supposed to be doing that day. For some reason, there was a gap; I knew what came the following week, but Friday? Nothing. Also, it seemed that a lot of my students were missing. Halfway through the roll call, I looked up. "Where the heck is everybody, anyway?"
A young man just in front of me, whom I liked because he usually kept his mouth shut, replied, "Some of them already went to the library. They thought you must've told us to meet over there."
The library! The class was gearing up to work on research papers, and I'd scheduled a library tour that day! Thankya Jeesus, thankya thankya! I thought. Hallelujah, my moldy ass is saved again. "I hope so, or they're in trouble," I grumbled out loud. "Well, I guess we'd best be getting over there ourselves."
As we stood up, a young woman in the second row held up a folded paper where I could see it. "Do you want these first?" she asked. The rest of the class groaned.
God help me, I'd made some stupid assignment; another batch of execrable pecking and scratching to pile up on my desk. "Of course I want them," I said, smiling painfully. "Thanks for reminding me." As my students passed through the door, I collected their offerings and put them into my already stuffed briefcase. Then I followed them up the stairs and out into the chilly air, congratulating myself, with qualifications. How could I possibly have guessed that I'd get so stinking drunk on Thursday night that I wouldn't be in shape to teach? Too much room for irony in answering that one. Screwing Grace, though, that was a wonder truly beyond expectation. I stole a moment to glance at a note I'd made and slipped into my billfold. Meet in front of Circulation Desk, the note said. Thelma Anderson. The Circulation Desk would be straight ahead as we went in the door; all I had to do was look for some librarian named Thelma.
Inside the main entrance, I scanned the crowded foyer. Scattered about in clumps was the remainder of my class; off to one side, talking animatedly with a slender, rather petite red-haired girl, were Krupp and Kerrigan, or "Crap" and "Come-again," my two pain-in-the-ass upperclassmen. Finally, I spotted a short, blocky, iron-gray-haired woman in a tweed suit, standing directly in front of the Circulation Desk; I approached her confidently. "Thelma Anderson?" I asked.
"I beg your pardon?" This iron-haired woman turned to me, looking up with a pair of ice-gray eyes that glittered with such intelligence that I involuntarily stepped back.
"Uh, I was supposed to meet someone for a library tour," I stammered. "Are you Thelma Anderson, by any chance?"
"By no chance at all, I'm afraid," the woman said, smiling. Just then a foreign student behind the desk came up to us. "Your books, Dr. Justman," he said to her. "And may I help you, sah?"
"I'm looking for Thelma Anderson," I told him, "for a library tour."
"You won't find her," the woman in tweed interrupted. "That's because you have the name written incorrectly. If you're looking for Selva Andersen—ess, ee, en—I can help you." I gaped at her, unable to see how she could be both "Dr. Justman" and this new person. Before I found my voice, she turned away from me and moved toward the door. As she passed, she touched the red-haired girl on the arm.
"A gentleman to see you, Ms. Andersen," she said, and rolled her eyes. "An instructor." The redhead, Selva, turned to face me, and I got my first good look at her.
When Shakespeare said that 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' what he probably meant was this: on those few occasions, two or three times in your life if you're lucky, when you meet someone who, just by inhaling the same air you do, makes your sympathetic nervous system go haywire—on those two or three occasions, if you're stupid enough to confide in someone later, what he'll say is this: "Oh, her? Yeah, she's OK, but you ought to see her sister." Which sister, when you do see her, turns out to have as much appeal as a plastic Barbie. Beauty is partly in the object, but the part that hurts, that extra ten per cent that makes all the difference, is already present like an aneurism in your brain, waiting there to stab you since before you were born.
All I'm saying here is that after this red-haired young woman came over and, with her sea-green eyes looking up contemptuously into my shocked and scalded brown ones, offered to shake hands, I was not able to breathe properly for some time.
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