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74. My new
routine. . . .
My
new routine was not too different from the fall semester. Because I’d been late
once or twice to my eight-o’clock Freshman Comp class, Deaner reassigned me to
one that met on Thursday evenings, the time slot filled by Rey’s seminar on
William Blake. I’d already registered for the Blake seminar; now, Lewis Rey and
Blake were out of the picture, so I had to add something to round out the full
nine hours I needed for the G.I. Bill. The only thing left on
Monday-Wednesday-Friday was a class in Critical Theory, taught by the Marxist
critic in the department, Larry Whyffe. I’d been hesitant to take Marxist
theory at eight in the morning—it hadn’t seemed like a perfect way to start the
day—but on that first Monday in Whyffe’s class, I congratulated myself on my
choice when Selva Andersen walked in, looked around, smiled, and chose a seat
beside mine. The next time class met she’d found a place nearer the front, but
she’d greeted me as though we were old friends when, on Friday, I’d migrated
after her to the front of the room.
So,
on the Wednesday morning following the Agnew demonstration, the prospect of seeing
Selva had me capering toward Andrews Hall like a puppy. Naturally I was full of
ants to find out if I’d gotten away with my attack on Adrian. I arrived early
and had to gaze out the window while the room filled up and life on campus
began. Stratus clouds, backlit by the yet-to-rise winter sun, drifted above the
gray quadrangle; students ran by trailing scarves of cloudy breath. As the
bells of the carillon struck the hour, I eyed the empty chair on which I’d
placed my coat and my foolish hopes.
Whyffe
came in with his pupils dilated and began passing out magazine-thick packets of
Xeroxed stuff. I took an extra for Selva in case she came late. He’d just
finished with the pamphlets when she came in the door, slouched apologetically
to the front of the classroom, slid down the row as I removed my coat from her
chair, and crash-landed in a bounce of papers and books right underneath
Whyffe’s capacious and reddened nostrils. “Hello,” I whispered nervously. She
gave me a surly look, a yellow speck of phlegm caught in the tear-duct of one
eye. “You look as if you just got up.”
“Why,
thank you, Smith,” she replied. “I needed to hear that.”
Not
only did she look untidy, Selva actually smelled a bit like sea life. The
thought of her soft body warming stale sheets flooded my brain entirely as I
gazed up misty-eyed into the caverns of Larry Whyffe’s great nose. Oh, for such
a nose, I thought, to sniff out women’s secrets! Then I recalled that some of
what I smelled might well be Adrian Fisher’s fishy residue; this olfactory fact
jogged me in time to realize that Whyffe had just asked me a question.
“I
said, have you read Mao on the need for relentless self-criticism?”
“No,”
I replied with assurance. I definitely hadn’t.
Whyffe
looked steadily down at me; he seemed to be examining my beard. “All right,” he
said. “I keep forgetting I’m in Nebraska. How about Hegel on the nature of
apprehension?”
“Afraid
not,” I admitted.
“Wittgenstein?”
I continued to strike out. “Adler? Freud? Well,” he said, sighing deeply through
his nose. “I can see we’ve got our work cut out for us here.”
Whyffe
launched into a long digression on the sources of radical thought. He returned
at the end of the hour to his main point, which was that we were to take notes
not only on the course’s content but also on the form it took: who asked
questions, who answered them, who got cut off and who interrupted. We were to
practice “relentless self-criticism” on ourselves as we behaved in the
classroom setting, recording our subjective thoughts as well as our outward
observations. Only in this way, he said, would the correct direction of the
need for change be revealed.
“Well,”
Selva said under her breath as I held the door for her on the way out, “I can
see we’ve got our work cut out for us here.”
“No
kidding,” I said. “I thought he was supposed to be easy.”
“These
theory classes are never easy,” she said. “Did you go to the Agnew thing the
other night?”
“What
do you mean, did I go? I got arrested!” I couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed
me in the thick of things.
“You
didn’t happen to see someone throw something at Adrian?”
“No,”
I said. “Why?”
“Someone
at that rally hit Adrian with a slab of ice. I have to take him to the eye
doctor this afternoon; he thinks he’s got a detached retina.”
“Tch,”
I said. “I hope it’s not that
serious. Will you miss any classes?”
“I’ll
miss an acting class,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m never going to be in
theater anyway.”
“Why
should you never be in theater?”
“I’m
not pretty enough for the stage,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I’m late
for work now. See you Friday.” She started off rapidly down the hallway.
“Not
pretty enough?” I called after her. “If you’re not pretty enough, who is?” But
I was already talking to myself.
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