Cow Country

RETURN TO COW EYE

In truth, my first impression of Cow Eye Junction was less of fulfillment or productivity than of desiccation and despair. I’d just been offered a job with the area’s local community college and after selling all my earthly possessions and leaving no forwarding address for family or friends — but vowing to inform the world of my whereabouts someday — had jumped on an old bus that would take me halfway across the country and deposit me along the highway just outside the town. It was late summer then and the entire area — from Cow Eye Junction all along the breadth of the Diahwa Valley Basin — was in the midst of its worst drought in collective memory. Ranchlands were scorched and the golden pasture grasses that in wetter seasons had waved poetically in the summer breeze now lay low and brown outside the windows of late August like barren prose. By then the cattle industry that once dominated the landscape was in its death throes, the local ranchers were coping as best they could, and the cottage enterprises that always seem to rise from the carcass of moribund industry — the writer’s colonies, the yoga studios, the guided nostalgia tours through the abandoned meat-processing plants and slaughter houses — were already popping up like so many mushrooms from the scabbed-over dung piles of the countryside. The area was both dying and being reborn. And as I stood over my luggage in the hot sun, sweat running in thick streams down the back of my neck, I got the faint sense that the air of the place had lost its ability to move, as if the wind were trying to blow in too many directions at once but instead had ceased to blow at all. Watching my bus drive away, I ran my hand over the back of my neck and shook the sweat from the tips of my fingers. Then I sat down on my suitcases to wait for my ride into town.

*

The president of the community college where I’d been hired was a man named William Arthur Felch, an ex-rancher and veterinarian who’d held the school’s highest position for more than twenty years and had come to be recognized by everyone in town as the grandfatherly face of higher education. It had been Dr. Felch’s recommendation to bring me to Cow Eye despite a bruising three-hour screening committee interview that left me bewildered and insulted and questioning whether I really wanted to work at such a dysfunctional community college in the middle of nowhere. “You’ll be facing a deep cultural divide,” he’d warned me by phone a few hours before my interview. “So be prepared for the worst.”

The “worst” turned out to be a raspy phone connection and six unseen committee members who grilled me on everything from my favorite U.S. Supreme Court justice to my views on the current political situation in Cow Eye Junction. The connection was bad and as I listened I found myself squinting to make out their words. Several questions concerned my relevant experience in highly divisive work environments and how I might resolve a series of hypothetical conflicts — for example, what I would do if one of my colleagues tried to sever the head of a key administrator. Another hypothetical question asked me how I would respond upon learning that a tenured faculty member had provoked an untenured peer by leaving a bloated calf’s scrotum in her faculty mailbox on a Friday afternoon knowing very well that it would sit there until at least the following Monday morning and that by then the grisly mess would be covered in swarms of flies and maggots. There was a question about a burning building (I was given a list of instructional disciplines — math, chemistry, philosophy, eugenics — and asked to rank the order in which I would drag their respective department chairs out of a flaming, smoke-filled meeting room); and then a battery of word-choice exercises (in one I was offered a pair of nouns — tenderloin and arugula, for example, or rawhide and tantra — and asked to choose the one that in my professional opinion was more indicative of an effective student-centered learning environment). As part of my interview I was made to extemporaneously recite my philosophy of education in blank verse; then to give a self-critique of my recitation; and finally to self-critique the structure and meter of my own self-critique. One question asked me to choose a political entity of the world that best characterized my temperament (I chose Benelux); another to name my favorite branch of Christianity (Anglicanism?); and a third to compare two significant works of literature from different cultural contexts and to provide an example of how these works illustrate a common theme or principle (my comparison of the Vedic imagery in the Upanishads to Gatsby’s green light at the end of the dock concluded with a plea for a literary reconsideration of Fitzgerald’s obscure yet defining work.) During the interview there were trick questions and leading questions and open-ended questions that provided just enough rope for me to hang myself like an effigy from a tree. There were allusions to ancient geometricians and medieval poets and a lumbering digression on the rise and fall of the Roman numeral. At one point the committee reminded me that I had neglected to provide the requisite urine sample, whereupon I dutifully excused myself; yet when I came back into my living room holding the steaming plastic cup in one hand and my cold telephone receiver in the other, and when I had described this grave dichotomy in effervescent detail, the committee seemed decidedly unmoved by the results:

“What is your greatest strength?” they asked.

“I am a lot of different things,” I answered.

“And your greatest fault?”

“While I may be many things,” I sighed into the telephone, “I tend to be none of them entirely.”

Other questions seemed to want to probe my family’s history in Cow Eye Junction as my grandfather had once lived in the area before moving his wife and kids first to another part of the state and then across country; by now desperate for a job of any kind, and seizing upon this rare coincidence, I’d made sure to mention this bit of trivia in my cover letter.

“So you’re a descendant of Cow Eye then?” one of the voices asked over the phone line.

“Well, I’ve never actually been there myself. But I have heard many stories….” And here I volunteered a legend passed down through our family about my grandfather, who had once rescued a suffragette from drowning in the Cow Eye River. Our family was truly proud of his gallantry and for several generations the tale had been told with abandon.

“So!” a female voice interjected just as my grandfather was laying the woman’s limp but still-breathing body on the bank of the river. “Would you allow for the possibility that women are equals to men? Or do you think it fair that a female surgeon performing late-term abortions should earn significantly less than her male counterpart in the neighboring clinic?”

“And if so,” another voice interrupted, “would you, or would you not, support one of the many initiatives to allow more red communists and their homosexual allies into our schools through the proliferation of government-subsidized arts programs?”

“And if I may…?” a third voice chimed in just as quickly. “You’ve claimed in your application that you have significant experience working with colleagues of diverse ethnic backgrounds. So would you please tell us which of them, in your opinion, has the greater natural facility for learning and should therefore be more highly represented in educational settings? Which is to say, if recruiting for an important administrative post would you be more inclined to hire the mongoloid, the caucasoid, or the negroid…?”

Then a fourth voice asked:

“Not to beat this particular horse to death, but if you happened to see a horse being beaten to death would you intervene? Or would you simply turn away as if it were an inevitable consequence of life? Like the coming and going of the seasons. Or like the emergence and disappearance of this or that civilization of the world, along with its language, its culture, and the institutions that it holds dear?”

For three tiring hours the committee prodded and poked with question after question about my previous experiences, my current proclivities, and my long-term plans for the future. If hired as Special Projects Coordinator would I stay at Cow Eye? Or would I leave within the first year like so many other transplants who’d been hired sight unseen after a single impressive phone interview? Would I buy a house? Was I looking to get married? Did I have any domesticated animals that I would be bringing? Any allergies? Did I practice yoga? Enjoy fishing? Hunt? What kind of truck did I drive and how many cylinders did it have? Were there any children on its front seat? In my rearview mirror? Had I ever had a particularly severe case of scabies? And if so would I be willing to volunteer the specifics of a non-invasive yet reliable and effective cure?

But the most perplexing question came toward the end of the interview just as it seemed that the three hours had mercifully run their course and that all my various skeletons had been disinterred and brought to air before the committee. A voice on the other end broke in suddenly, even urgently:

“Look,” it said. “Let’s get to the heart of the matter here. What each of us really wants to know is….do you eat bovine or don’t you? And what role, if any, should vegetarianism play in the ongoing rumination and excretion of innovative ideas?”

I admittedly had not been prepared for this particular question. But here my conciliatory instincts took over:

“Of course there is a time and a place for all things,” I said over the crackling distance of the rotary phone. “If you want to make a stew that is truly worthy you need both beef and vegetables!”

(I later learned that it was this flavorless response to the vegetarianism question — even more than my brilliant and memorable reply to the hypothetical bloated scrotum, even more than my tenuous ties to Cow Eye Junction — that got me the job.)

It would take more than two weeks for the committee to make its decision, and so, hanging up the phone, I was left to replay in my mind the answers I had given and to wonder how they would be taken. Still in a daze, I pondered how I had fallen so low, so quickly: from unbridled salutatorian of my high school class, to aspiring English major, and then to weary graduate student running on fumes but with just enough left in the tank to cross the academic finish line clutching my Master’s degree in Educational Administration with a special emphasis in struggling community colleges. Now after two failed marriages in quick succession (the first solely my fault, the second only primarily my fault) and a host of lackluster jobs leading pretty much back to where they started…here I was. Here I was in my dingy living room groveling before faceless strangers, a cup of tepid urine in my hand, pleading for a job at a community college I had never even seen. By now my life had become nothing more than a disjointed collection of half-starts and near-misses. My marriages tended toward ignominy. My jobs turned toxic. (“May we contact the references you’ve listed?” the committee had asked over the phone. “I’d rather you didn’t,” I replied.) Friends came and went — or I came and went from them. It was clear that the hot potential of my youth was cooling off like the cup of forgotten urine in my hand. Suddenly there was something very enticing about an ill-advised move to a desolate and distant place in the middle of a story that wasn’t mine. In the general direction of a new beginning. Toward the makings of a fresh start. Strangely and surprisingly, I found myself coveting the uncoveted position at Cow Eye Community College; intuitively I must have seen the legacy that I might finally be able to leave if given the chance. “Just don’t squander it,” I told myself. “Don’t flush it away like you have all the other advisable things in your life. Your marriages. Your career. Your friendships.” And as I dumped the cold urine into the bowl in my bathroom I promised myself that if given yet another chance to create a meaningful legacy I really would be more conscientious about it this time around. For life is not a random convergence of water to be cast away lightly with a single finger. It is a long and free-flowing river that meanders and winds in its own strange way but that always reaches its destination. A river is made of water, and water derives its essence from moisture. My life, I realized, was that very river and it had been dammed for too long. Let it flow! I told myself. Let my river flow from its eternal source through time and space to the awaiting campus of Cow Eye Community College!

*

Dr. Felch phoned me personally to offer the position. “Nice job handling the bloated scrotum,” he said. “That was an inspired answer on your part.” I thanked him and told him that I thought I’d blown the whole thing — especially the bloated scrotum question. “I’m grateful you’re hiring me,” I said. “And a little surprised.”

“Well it definitely wasn’t easy. Your references weren’t exactly unequivocal. But after two weeks of bitter debate among the committee, you were the only one left standing. Congratulations.”

Dr. Felch outlined the terms of employment at Cow Eye and promised that if I accepted the position he would take me under his wing and personally help me navigate the cultural divide on campus that had come to the surface during the committee’s questioning. “We’re at a crossroads,” he explained. “Not just the college. But our community as a whole. We need someone who can walk softly along the path. Someone unburdened by the encumbrance of meaningful friendships or strong personal beliefs. A person who can inspire others to action while himself remaining aloof and non-committal and slightly above it all. Someone who can do all this while being safe and dull and blandly palatable. In short, we need an effective educational administrator. And that’s why we have high hopes for you here.” These were not flattering words necessarily but I took them to heart. For once, it seemed, my ambivalence was a virtue. And what was more — my penchant for sidestepping commitment offered a promise of sorts; strangely, it inspired hope! What had always been my greatest curse now became a great blessing as well: to be a lot of different things yet none of them entirely! I called back the next day to accept the job.

That was a month ago, and now as I sat on my luggage next to the makeshift bus shelter I took in what would be my first real view of the edge of the town proper. Across the road two covered wagons from the nineteenth-century stood collapsed and broken, a flaming arrow still sticking out of one of them. Next to it was a filling station where an old rusted Model-T was returning to the earth near a battered gas pump from another era. Wrinkled men sat on a bench discussing the events of the day. A cashier in the general store across the way leaned her elbows into the newspaper pages she was reading; in the background the soulful drone of a harmonica could be heard. Sitting there I gazed across the ominous red dirt stretching around me through the centuries. The arid shrubbery reaching all the way to the horizon. The dead wind that could lay low for what felt like a moment lost in time, then suddenly swirl up out of nowhere to lift the dust high into the air. Large flies buzzed in the glare around me — I waved them off with the back of my hand — and black ants scrambled over the tops of my shoes. Everywhere I turned, it seemed, was a remnant of a thing that had once been but now no longer was. A section of old train track where the trains used to go. An abandoned cotton gin lying on its side. A rusting phone booth, its cord severed and its windows smashed out. The decaying remains of a buffalo carcass with coyotes still picking at the meat. To the left of me was a bucket of wampum and to my right, nailed to a telephone pole with a single ten-penny nail, a faded flyer for a concert that had happened more than a generation ago. All of this struck me as sad and meaningful and somehow mildly poignant. This was a strange future to have. But it was my future, and at this moment I was more ready for it than I had ever been before.

After a few minutes an old pickup truck pulled over to where I was sitting and Dr. Felch stepped out. “Sorry I’m late, Charlie,” he smiled. “Nice to finally meet you!” Dr. Felch was a graying man in worn cowboy boots and green John Deere cap and his grip was so strong it crushed my hand when he took it. “Hop in,” he said and hoisted my two heavy suitcases into the back of his pickup bed, easily, with one hand each; then he leaned over the tailgate and shoved a large bale of hay to one side so my suitcases could lie flat. “Sorry. This ain’t the cleanest truck in the world….” He motioned toward the front of the cab and I climbed in.

“Thanks for picking me up,” I said and pulled the heavy door shut. The inside of the cab was cluttered with litter, and the seat between us held a stack of manila folders with papers sticking out at different angles and a box of bullets resting on top. Dr. Felch did not use his lap belt and my side of the cab had none at all — just a thick layer of grime between the grooves of the cracked vinyl seat.

“It’s the least I could do,” he said. Dr. Felch explained that it was his personal tradition to pick up every arriving employee to Cow Eye Community College and that he’d been doing it religiously for the past twenty years now. “In this truck!” he laughed and started the engine back up with a roar of the big-block V8. The air was hot and each of us kept our windows down. Dr. Felch was hanging his elbow out the driver’s side and as he drove — never threatening thirty miles an hour — he had to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the eight cylinders coming in through the windows. “I’ve picked up more than two hundred employees in my time,” he added. “From as far away as California!”

The college was on the opposite edge of town and driving along the dusty road leading from one end to the other, Dr. Felch pointed out the notable sites of Cow Eye Junction. Bleak as it all might have seemed, there was also a strange charm to the place: the rusting railroad depot; the beat-up post office with its soaring flag pole and twenty-three stars at full mast; the sprawling log headquarters of the Cow Eye Ranch — the original outfit that spawned the town of Cow Eye Junction and inspired its name. A mile or so from the bus stop we passed a sign welcoming us to Cow Eye Junction — “Where Worlds Meet!” it promised — and a few miles later the town’s lone convenience store where a single pickup truck was parked next to a hitching post with two horses tethered to it. Then we drove along the lip of a dried-up river that took us past abandoned sheds and pastures with decaying field equipment and shriveled cattle hides stacked up in heaps. There was a closed bait-and-tackle stand and a boarded-up nail salon and then we took a left and were driving through the town center where the mayor’s office stood shuttered — it was a Saturday — next to the county jail and across a sidewalk from the building that housed the local newspaper and a one-room museum dedicated to the history of the cattle industry in Cow Eye Junction. All of this, I learned, was inextricably interconnected, and almost everything and everyone he pointed to would in very short time have something to do with my new role at the college:

“That’s Mrs. Grisholm’s place,” he would say. “Our librarian. You’ll meet her at convocation on Monday. And that house right there is where Merna Lee used to live before her kids came from the city to get her. She was our longtime data person but sorta lost her trinkets there toward the end…”

To each of these things I nodded.

At one point Dr. Felch pulled out a pack of Chesterfields from his shirt pocket.

“You smoke?” he said.

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“Your loss,” he said and tapped out a cigarette on his steering wheel, then plucked a book of matches from his shirt pocket. As he drove he took both hands off the wheel to strike a match and cup it to his cigarette; immediately the truck began to veer into the oncoming lane and I couldn’t help reaching out for the wheel. But Dr. Felch just laughed. “Relax, Charlie…I’ve been driving since I was eight!” Then he threw the match out the window and calmly took the wheel again.

Dr. Felch’s manner was friendly and direct and you couldn’t help liking him; yet there was also a detectable uneasiness in his movements — as if he were trying to have two conversations at once. We rode for a while without talking, and to kill the silence I asked him about my job; I had been so quick to accept the position of Special Projects Coordinator over the phone that I’d forgotten to ask what my new role would actually involve.

“I mean I probably should have asked you before jumping on that bus.”

Dr. Felch laughed.

“You must’ve been pretty eager to leave where you were coming from, Charlie?”

“Yes, I suppose I was. I suppose you could put it that way…”

“Well, whatever the case, I’m glad you’re here. A Special Projects Coordinator doesn’t have set duties. Or at least ours don’t. You’ll be my right-hand man, so to speak. Which means that from time to time I’ll be asking you to put out some conflagrations on campus. As well as starting a few controlled burns of our own…”

I looked over at him for an elaboration. But none came.

“Sounds intriguing,” I said finally. “I hope I’m up to the task.”

“Don’t worry — you’ll be fine. I’m asking Bessie to show you the ropes….” Here Dr. Felch informed me that Bessie was his assistant and she was “a Rottweiler” — but that I would love working with her because she was one of the few people in the world who had seen both day and night and who wasn’t afraid to articulate in blunt terms the difference between the two. In fact, on an honesty scale of one to ten — with ten being an old nun testifying in a courtroom and one being what the college wrote in its most recent accreditation self-study — she was about a twelve. “Just be sure to keep your pistol in your pants, or she’ll snap it off and hand it to you.”

“The nun?”

“No. Bessie.”

“I’ll do my best, sir,” I said.

Dr. Felch talked for some time about my position at the college — his manner optimistic and expansive, if seemingly cryptic at times — but then suddenly changed tone. “I don’t want to discourage you, Charlie, but you’re the third Special Projects Coordinator we’ve hired in the last two years. The first didn’t even make it past his first bloated scrotum. And the one after him — well, she turned out to be an epic disaster. So let’s just say you won’t exactly be wading into a sea of high expectations.”

At the mention of my predecessor’s failings my ears perked up. “What happened with your last coordinator?” I asked. “Why was she such a disaster?”

Dr. Felch paused to take a drag of his cigarette and it seemed that he might change the subject. “It’s kind of a long story….” But then with no further invitation he launched into the sordid tale of how his most recent Special Projects Coordinator had proved to be an epic disaster.

“It’s ultimately my fault,” he began. “You see, we needed someone who could work with our divided campus and so we hired this gal after just a phone interview. She’d come to us with all the bells and whistles. Degrees from two Ivy League colleges. A sparkling curriculum vitae. Experience up the ying-yang. Countless awards and commendations. References from the Queen of England and Archduke of Canterbury. You know the type….”

I laughed.

“….So she gets in to Cow Eye and I pick her up at the bus stop. In this truck. And she refuses to get in. It’s dusty, she says, and there’s no passenger belt. You’ve got to be kidding me, I’m thinking to myself — dusty?! — but I give her the benefit of the doubt and call our art history teacher on a Sunday and she drives out here in her Saab and picks this lady up with all kinds of luggage and her shih tzu and takes her back to campus. The next day the two of us meet in my office and I start to lay out the job expectations with all the usual caveats: that she’s facing a divided campus and that she’d better be prepared because these divisions run deep and if she’s not careful they’ll eat her up. Look, she says, I’ve got degrees from two Ivy League colleges, mediation experience up the ying-yang, personal references from the Israeli Knesset and the Shah of Iran….”

Here Dr. Felch stopped in mid-thought. Up ahead was an old house where a man in denim overalls was washing his truck in his driveway. Soapy water rushed down the pavement and spilled out into the street. “That’s Rusty Stokes,” he said. “Our animal science instructor. He runs the museum. And he’s chair of our College Council. A good person to know. He’ll be at convocation on Monday too….” Dr. Felch gave a double-honk and a friendly wave to Rusty, who looked up, gestured back at our truck, and then went right back to his washing. Dr. Felch waited a few moments and then continued:

“So anyway I was just trying to warn this gal about some of the ins-and-outs of our college. How there are deep divisions. How the faculty is polarized. How there are two factions on campus that are as different as night and day and that these two factions despise each other and will do anything to keep the other from getting an upper hand. You know, in the way that vegetarians deplore meat while meat-eaters deplore…. vegetarians. So I’m telling her that she’s got to find a way to work with them both. And here she holds up her hand and tells me I’m wasting my breath, that she’s worked with diverse faculty in the past and they’ve all been happy omnivores and she doubts that Cow Eye will be any different. Well, of course it’s different, I say. All places are different! But there’s no shaking her. She’s got it under control, she says. She’s had training courses and she’s an expert in finding win-win solutions. When she’s done with everyone, she says, there will be no need for nocturnal or diurnal divisions because our entire campus will be adamantly and happily crepuscular. Just trust her, she tells me. And so I step aside…”

“This sounds a bit ominous…”

“…Just wait. So I step aside and she starts her first day with guns a-blazing and I figure just to get her feet wet I’ll put her in charge of the Christmas party because, well, what could be simpler than that? We’ve had a Christmas party every year for as long as we’ve been a college. It’s a highlight for everyone. In fact, it’s the only time that all faculty and staff put aside their differences to come together in a display of harmony and goodwill. Of course having free alcohol doesn’t hurt the cause! So it’s a given, right? It’s straight-forward and non-controversial! Well, to make a long story short: within a couple weeks the Christmas Committee was at each other’s throats too. They were refusing to meet without their lawyers in the room. There was at least one physical altercation involving thrown chairs and hurt feelings. I tried to jump in to help but it was too late. The Christmas party never happened. Just like that — POOF! — gone. A long-standing tradition wiped away. Charlie, last year was the first time in the history of Cow Eye Community College that we didn’t even have a goddamn Christmas party!”

Dr. Felch had finished one cigarette and was using its butt to light another one. Angrily he tossed the first butt out the window.

“So is that why she left?” I asked. “Because she failed to pull off the Christmas party?”

“As if…!” Dr. Felch shook his head. “No, she still believed she was doing a great job. She felt that she was a great asset to the college. It wasn’t her fault of course. Nothing was ever her fault! Besides, we didn’t have time to dwell on it too much because we had the accreditors breathing down our neck.”

“Accreditors?”

“Yeah, every couple years the accreditors come for an inspection visit and this was our year. And she was coordinating the process — compiling the self-study report, organizing their accommodations and such. So the day they’re supposed to arrive I get a call from our chemistry instructor, who just happened to be passing the bus shelter on the other side of town — where I picked you up — and he says they’re all standing around waiting for a ride to campus. All twelve of them. In coats and dresses and holding clipboards. They’ve been waiting for two hours under the sun and by now they’re hot and thirsty and pretty much acutely pissed off at the world in its entirety and at Cow Eye Community College and its aspirations for reaffirmation of its accreditation in particular. She’d mixed up the times! So I drop everything and rush out to pick them up before they get heat stroke from being in the sun much longer …”

“You picked them up… in this truck?”

“Right, in this truck. And I get there and only two of them can fit in my cab and so out of respect for organizational hierarchy I give the team chairman the seat next to the window — where you’re sitting right now — and the vice chair gets the middle seat with one leg on my side of the stick shift and the other leg on your side….” Dr. Felch pointed to where the vice chair’s two legs had once been splayed. “He’s a President of his college — PhD in Applied Linguistics or some such — and I have to reach between his legs to go from second to third gear. And I’m driving about as slow as I can so I don’t have to use the fourth gear because — well, no advanced degree is going to prepare you for that! And meanwhile the rest of the accreditation team is hanging out the back of my truck with their clipboards. All ten of them crammed into the back. Hell, if I’d a known they might end up there I would’ve hosed it down….”

I laughed:

“That’s unfortunate, Mr. Felch. But I’m sure they took it all in stride. They probably saw it as one of those exotic small-town adventures that city people seek out. You know, like digging a hole with a shovel. They’re probably still telling the story fondly to their friends….”

“I doubt that.”

“…Although in their telling it was probably even hotter and you drove even slower. But aside from that first impression, how did their visit go?”

“Not well. The college got knocked down to warning status. Now we’re a report or two away from losing our accreditation. Sure, it wasn’t all her fault — our college has some glaring shortcomings we need to fix. But that first incident just sort of set the tone for their visit. I mean, geez, at least we could have picked them up at the damn bus shelter!”

While Dr. Felch was saying this an oncoming truck approached and he gave a familiar wave as it passed.

“One of my ex-wives. She runs our fiscal office.”

I watched the truck retreating in the mirror.

“You said one of your ex-wives. How many ex-wives do you have?”

“Four. And that’s not including my current wife….”

“You’ve been married five times?”

“That’s right.”

“To five separate wives?”

“Well, yes. And they all live in Cow Eye. Which means I get to see them on a daily basis. One’s a career counselor at the college. Another just retired from the Ranch. My third ‘ex’ runs our fiscal office. And the last one, well let’s just say I’d rather not talk about that one.”

“Sure, no problem, I understand completely. I have a couple ex-wives myself….”

Between us passed a tender moment of shared male remembrance. And when it had subsided I decided to divert the conversation:

“So, Mr. Felch, any children from your marriages?”

He laughed.

“Of course. I’m intact, you know. I’ve got three sons and a daughter. But they’re all grown and moved away….”

Here Dr. Felch took his time telling me the name, age, and special talent of each of his children — along with their favorite cut of meat, what they drove, and at least one cute story from their respective childhoods. Proudly, he told me the names of his children’s spouses, what they drove, and the different places around the country where they now lived with their own families.

“I keep inviting them to visit,” he said. “But they haven’t made it back. I guess there’s not much to see in Cow Eye once you’ve already seen it. And it’s quite a damn long bus ride for the pleasure….”

“It sure is,” I said. Then I added, “You know, Mr. Felch, I give you a ton of credit. I can’t help but have immense respect for any man who’s been married five times….”

Between us passed another wistful moment and when it had passed I continued:

“So it sounds like that last Special Projects Coordinator didn’t exactly endear herself to the campus?”

“To put it mildly. And yet somehow she did. You see, there are some people who loved her, and still love her. But I haven’t even gotten to the funny part yet. So now, if you remember, we’ve sunburned our accreditors and compromised our accreditation. We’ve got a dozen cases of Christmas liquor gathering dust in a storeroom somewhere because there’s no party to drink it at. And to top it off, our divided faculty are starting to climb even further down each other’s throats. If the cultural divide seemed bad before — and it was; in fact it’s been escalating for years — now it’s just totally out of hand. And would you believe, at the height of all that, this person comes into my office to ask me for a raise?”

“In salary?”

“She says she’s tired of being everybody’s bitch and wants a cost-of-living adjustment to accommodate her for the hardship of living in such a rural, godforsaken place. Keep in mind we’d already paid to ship her car here from halfway across the country, not to mention giving her a one-time allowance to relocate her dog and her eclectic collection of Siamese cats. We’d sent her to tantric conferences for professional development. We even gave her a couple months of free housing while she looked for a permanent place more to her liking.”

“She didn’t want to live in the faculty housing on campus?”

“Oh, no. That wouldn’t work — not enough yard for the shih tzu. So it took her six months to find a place. All the while, she’s canceling Christmas Committee meetings to check out places. Realtors are leaving notes on her door. And amid the rubble she asks me for a raise. A raise! She probably believed she deserved one, too.”

“Did you give it to her?”

“Hell no! And I told her as much. Though I didn’t use those exact words. And that’s when she hit me with the lawsuit….”

As he was recounting this saga Dr. Felch seemed to be getting even more animated. And as he got further into the telling of his story his smoking became more insistent. He had already gone through a second cigarette and used it to light a third, then held up the glowing end of the third to light a fourth. Clearly his lungs were now paying the price for his decision to hire my predecessor sight unseen after a single phone interview.

“…I mean, you figure you’ve done your due diligence by hiring an award-winning administrator with personal references from the president of Rhodesia. She should know what she’s doing, right? Charlie, dammit, she had two Ivy League educations…!”

I shook my head sympathetically. Dr. Felch continued:

“So anyway, this is what you’re stepping into as Special Projects Coordinator. You’ve got to do better, Charlie. I can’t afford for this position to fail again. Too much is at stake. I can’t afford for all these phone hires to keep turning out like this…”

“It sounds like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

“Mildly speaking. I’ll be asking you to help me shepherd the Christmas party this year. And I’ll be trusting you to lead the accreditation process on your own. Our next report’s due in November and the accreditation team will be visiting next March. And we really need to get that right. I mean, do you have any idea what it’ll do to us if we lose our accreditation as a college?”

“Well, if Cow Eye isn’t accredited it’ll mean your students can’t get valid degrees. Their degrees won’t be recognized.”

“Right. Which means they would have to go to other places for their education. And they will. All of our best and brightest will leave. And not come back. Just like my own kids went away and will probably never come back….”

Here Dr. Felch explained the recent demographic shift in the community: how families who’d lived in Cow Eye Junction for generations were moving away in search of jobs — and how a horde of newcomers was moving in. A few years back some rare healing minerals had been discovered in mines on the northern side of town — a part of the town called the Purlieus — and now the makings of a new boutique industry were growing up around it: vendors sold magic mineral crystals to weekend visitors and mingled with a new throng of healers, hippies, prophets, and priests. “Freaking weirdos,” Dr. Felch concluded. “Only half the people in Cow Eye were actually born here. The other half just moved to the area from some other place. Either in search of magic minerals. Or escaping their own histories. Or both. Did you notice how your screening committee had exactly six people?”

“That's what I heard….”

“Well three of them were from Cow Eye proper and three were from other places. That's how we get things done here. Nowadays each group makes sure it’s never outnumbered….”

Dr. Felch had stopped at a cattle crossing and a line of cows was being herded in front of us by three men on horseback. Cattle dogs were trotting alongside to keep the herd in line.

“…I mean, don’t get me wrong — it’s great that we have faculty from exotic far-off places. Hell, we once had a tenure-track instructor from California…!”

Dr. Felch beamed. He seemed especially proud of this fact.

“…But it’s getting tougher and tougher,” he continued. “At some point you’ve got to hire your local folks too. And nowadays it’s getting impossible to do that. Nowadays they have to go away to get their degrees — and once they leave they never come back. They say they will but they just don’t. Would you?”

I shook my head:

“No,” I said. “I guess not. Cow Eye has a certain allure for a stranger like me. But I can see why a local person might want something more.”

Dr. Felch laughed.

“Actually,” he said, “you’re one of the few who’s come back.”

“Me? But I’m not from here! I’d never even been to Cow Eye before arriving at the makeshift bus shelter. I’m not from here at all!”

“In a way you aren’t. And yet you are. Remember, your grandfather lived here. He even rescued that suffragette from drowning in the river — and I’m sure there are voting descendents of that woman still living here in Cow Eye. And I’m sure her descendents have their own stories to tell. So you’re about as close as we’ve had to anybody coming back. I think that’s what the committee saw in you and why I was able to get all six to sign off on your hiring. Half of them liked the fact that you were from here. And the other half liked that you weren’t.”

“That tends to be my story,” I said. “Being a lot of different things yet none of them entirely….”

We had moved on from the cattle intersection and were now passing an old meat-processing plant whose long fence seemed to run ahead of us into infinity. The fence was weathered but imposing, and so vast that it seemed it might never end.

“That’s the world-famous Cow Eye Ranch. In its heyday it fed half the country. Now it’s just barely hanging on….”

The fence was old and made of wood about eight feet tall, faded white, and with red painted slogans every so often: “EAT MEAT” one would say, and then a few hundred yards later: “BEEF IS BETTER!”

Another oncoming horn sounded and Dr. Felch gave a slight wave. “Ex-wife,” he said. “The career counselor.” As he drove it seemed as if every second or third car coming in the opposite direction warranted a wave or a double-honk or a shout out the window. And of these, every fourth or fifth was an ex-wife of Cow Eye Community College’s beleaguered president. To my right we were now passing a section of the long fence that proudly proclaimed, “COW COUNTRY.”

“Ok,” I said after a few moments. “So it sounds like I’m going to be helping with those two things? Accreditation and the Christmas party?”

“That’s right. And some other duties as assigned…”

Dr. Felch was now pulling off the main road into a gravel parking lot where a sign outside read Champs d'Elysees Bar and Grill. In the lot were several parked trucks — and not a single car. “But we’ll get to all that a bit later. First I want to introduce you to some of the guys….”

Dr. Felch shut off the engine and threw the key on the seat and without rolling up his window headed toward the entrance below the pink neon outline of a busty Frenchwoman riding a bronco. I followed him through the door.

The bar was dark and cool and once inside it seemed as if we’d descended into a parallel realm of time and space. A fifty-year-old juke box spewed out a song from my grandparents’ time. College football played on a single black-and-white television mounted above the bar, long rabbit ears jutting out of its back. We took our seats at a table in the corner and an old man in a cowboy hat clenching a cigar between his teeth came up and set two cans of Falstaff on our table.

“You drink beer?” Dr. Felch said.

“You could say that,” I answered and opened the pull-tab on my can.

“Glad to hear it,” he nodded. “You never can tell with educated men nowadays.…” Dr. Felch opened his own can and set the curled ring in the metal ashtray. I took a long drink from my can and did the same. Then I said, “Thanks for bringing me to Cow Eye, Mr. Felch. I really appreciate it.”

“No need to thank me just yet. Save it for when you’ve made it through your first semester. Hell, thank me at our Christmas party!” And here he gave a sly wink.

“Right,” I nodded. “I’ll be sure to sing you a yuletide carol or two.”

We drank and talked and a few minutes later two of Dr. Felch’s friends came into the bar and pulled up chairs at our table.

“This is Charlie,” Dr. Felch said when the two had joined us. The men opened their own cans and set their pull rings into the metal ashtray with the others: there were now four. As he spoke, Dr. Felch lit a fifth cigarette with the butt of his fourth, then crushed out the dying ember just like he had with the three before. “Charlie’s going to be our new Special Projects Coordinator,” he said.

“Special Projects Coordinator?”

“I’ll be Dr. Felch’s right-hand man…”

The men nodded.

“…I’ll be leading the college’s accreditation process….”

The men nodded again.

“…And helping with the annual Christmas party.”

Here they laughed.

“Good luck with that!” they said.

Dr. Felch continued:

“Guys, Charlie’s the one I told you about….with the unexpected answer to the bloated scrotum question.”

“That’s you?!” they said and slapped me on the shoulder congratulatorily.

We drank, and when we were done another round of beers was brought out by the third man and we drank again. As we sat, the conversation went where it might; here and there the men would look up at the game on the old television and a shout would ring out after a long run from scrimmage or an important defensive stop.

“I hope you brought the rain, Charlie!” one of them said after a discussion of the drought in the area — a drought for the ages, they called it — and I told them that I had in fact brought a little bit:

“It’s outside in my suitcases.”

The men laughed and the conversation meandered further along. With small-town curiosity they asked about my previous jobs and my marriages and what brought me back to Cow Eye after all these years — and I answered their questions as best I could. But mostly I listened as the three discussed the goings-on around town and other timely chatter that in its very evanescence is also infinitely timeless. Passionately they talked about the most pressing political issues of Cow Eye Junction and the ways the town had changed over the years from the one they used to know as young men. In tones of weary resignation they spoke about the new people and their strange ways and about the old-timers of the area that they hadn’t seen for a while — those who had died or moved away, and those who would soon be moving or dying away.

“Did you hear Merna’s sister finally sold her house?” one of them would ask.

“Really?” another would answer. “The one who drives the Dodge?”

“That’s her other sister. This is the one with the Ford.”

“The six-cylinder?”

“Right.”

“With the wood paneling on the side?”

“That’s right.”

“And the pipe rack?”

“Yes.”

“That's a fabulous pipe rack she has…!”

And the men would nod in appreciation. “She will be missed,” they would say and take a drink in Merna’s memory. Again the conversation would meander and again it would come back to the important topics of the day: the changing politics of Cow Eye Junction, the various impositions caused by the new people, and the latest hardships and challenges of the many townsfolk they knew and had grown up with.

“I hear Merna’s other sister is still trying to sell her truck though….”

“The sister who drives the Dodge?”

“Right.”

“And which truck is she selling? The Jeep?”

“No, the Ford. She already sold the Jeep.”

“She did? Who would buy that piece of junk?”

“Rusty.”

“What does Rusty need with a Jeep? He’s already got two trucks!”

“No, he don’t. His daughter wrecked his Chevy last month.”

“You don't say?”

“Yeah, the girl pulled off into a ditch coming home from the river one night.”

“Alone?”

“With her boyfriend.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, it most certainly ain’t.”

“So Rusty only had the one truck left?”

“That’s right. And so he bought Merna’s old Jeep. And now he’s got the two.”

“Gee….just goes to show you how behind the times I am…!”

“Yeah, man, you really ought to get out more!”

The four of us drank and at some point the two men went to play darts by the bar next to the bartender and Dr. Felch lit up another cigarette, his sixth. “One for the road….” he said and held up his can in my direction; by now there were seventeen rings in the metal ashtray. I added the eighteenth. Dr. Felch nodded approvingly and then said, “You’ll do fine here, Charlie.” I was holding my can in my hand as if it were the fragile fate of an entire community. “But just do me one favor….”

“Of course,” I said.

“Don’t forget to take us seriously.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Felch?”

“We’ve brought you here for a reason, Charlie. And we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in the beginning — that’s our style. But don’t take us for granted. That’s one thing local people will never forgive you for.”

(Suddenly, I was hearing the words of my wife spoken to me so many times during our marriage. “You’re taking me for granted,” she would say in one set of words or another. But as usual I would just laugh it away: “That’s exactly what my last wife used to say!” And then: “You women are all the same…!”)

Dr. Felch was waiting with his beer, not drinking.

“I hear you, Mr. Felch,” I told him. “Believe me, it’s something I’m trying to get better at. Appreciating people while they are still around to understand my appreciation….”

“Just remember, Charlie, it's easy to love the beautiful things in this world. But if you’re going to make it here at Cow Eye you’re going to need to love the other kind of things. You’re going to have to love the things that are unloved.”

“Unloved?”

“Yes. The subtler things. The things that defy easy admiration.”

“I’ll do my best, sir,” I said. “I’ll do my best to love the things that are unloved.”

And here we drank.

After a few moments of background noise — a bantering cigarette commercial over the television, the sound of a vinyl record skipping in the juke box, then the sound of another can of beer being popped open at the bar — Dr. Felch turned somber. For the first time since I’d met him his voice fell to almost nothing:

“But there’s one thing I just don’t understand. And maybe you can help me figure it out, Charlie….” I leaned in to hear his words over the ambient noise. “….Maybe you can explain how it is that a person can leave the place that’s been their home and never come back? How do you just give up your culture for someone else’s? Charlie, maybe you can help me understand how a person with so much history can just…leave?”

I started to construct an answer but couldn’t finish it. My experience was a different one, I knew, and wouldn’t make much sense to him. And so the best I could do at that moment was to shrug my shoulders. Dr. Felch looked at me for a few moments, then shook his head and swallowed the last of his beer. Then he collected all of the rings from the ashtray and dumped them into his shirt pocket — for his granddaughter’s collection, he explained. In the corner of the bar another roar went up around the television after a touchdown by the “home” team — which I recognized as a four-year college more than a thousand miles away. When I had finished my beer Dr. Felch slapped me on the shoulder.

“Alright, Charlie, it’s about time we got you to campus. Plan on being in my office first thing Monday morning for convocation. There won’t be any students around next week — only faculty and staff — so it’ll be a good chance for you to meet your peers and get acclimated to the personalities. And like I said, Bessie will be helping you get up and running….”

Dr. Felch picked up the tab, and as we left we gave a nod to the three men at the bar and they shouted back from their darts:

“Take care, Charlie!” they said and: “Good luck!”

I thanked them and we headed out into the light of day.

*

Back in the car, Dr. Felch drove the rest of the way amid a mixture of small talk and slightly inebriated silence.

“We’re almost at the campus,” he said when we’d driven for another ten minutes past dried-up trees and old houses with busted-out windows and yet another irrigation canal that had no water flowing through it. “The entrance is over there on the other side of the railroad tracks.” We hopped over the tracks and made our way along the dusty road. Just as it had been since I’d arrived, the scenery around me was dry and desolate, bleak and unapologetic. Dr. Felch took a left onto a small road and then another left and drove straight ahead in the direction of a sign in the distance that said “WELCOME TO COW EYE COMMUNITY COLLEGE” and underneath it, in smaller letters: “Where Minds Meet.” A guard shack was set up in front of the campus and a wooden arm stretched across the road to bar our entrance.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Felch,” the guard said, stepping out of his booth.

“Hey there, Timmy.”

The guard handed Dr. Felch a clipboard with some forms to sign; he signed them without reading and then pointed back at me. “This is Charlie,” he said. “He’s going to be our new Special Projects Coordinator.”

I leaned over to introduce myself.

“Nice to meet you,” I said through the open trapezoid of Dr. Felch’s window.

“Likewise, Charlie!” he said. “Welcome to Cow Eye!”

Dr. Felch had started to light an eighth cigarette with his seventh — or was it a ninth with his eighth? — but then reconsidered. Instead he stubbed it out in the dashboard ashtray.

“I almost forgot. New policy….we’re a non-smoking campus starting this year.” Dr. Felch shook his head and sighed. “Dammit….”

And with that the arm lifted and our truck made its way through the gate and onto the campus of Cow Eye Community College.

* * *

THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE GATE

To say the campus of Cow Eye Community College differed from the town surrounding it and from which it got its name is to note that a daughter is often unrecognizable from the mother whose house she shares and whose surname she can no longer return to — or that an island tends to differ in color and content from the moister things around it. As I stared in wonder at the scene unfolding before me, Dr. Felch drove through the gate separating the college from the dusty world outside — and into an emerald oasis of vast lawns and rich green grass where every blade was brilliant and sprinklers sputtered and hissed. The distinct metaphorical threshold that one crosses when entering a campus of even the most humble institution of higher education — the sudden break in scenery meant to reinforce the divide between the barren world of ignorance on the other side of the gate and the realm of manicured enlightenment on this side — seemed more pronounced here at Cow Eye than at any other college I’d been to. And as Dr. Felch turned onto the main road bisecting the campus, I gawked at this inviting world of fresh grass and green hope and well-trimmed optimism. Tall pine trees rose up from a series of lakes and manmade lagoons where swans paddled and fish splashed and pelicans loafed on the banks. Hedges of rose and lavender grew along the paths to buildings, flowers of every imaginable type and color sprang up in carefully ordained patterns, and it seemed that all of it — every last petunia and tulip and daffodil, every orchid and dandelion — was in full and fragrant bloom. Everything as far as the eye could see was redolent and lush and the sudden emergence of this much verdure and color and freshness out of the cracked heat and glare of my long bus ride to Cow Eye Junction — out of the choking dust of the slow road through town — was so abrupt and unexpected that I literally and audibly gasped at the sight of it. In place of the stagnant heat of the last few hours a cool breeze was now blowing from what seemed like both ends of the campus. Birds were chirping and singing. Ducks quacked. Jasmine bloomed under the late-afternoon sun. Surely there could be no finer portrait of college life where undergraduates in school colors lounge on opened textbooks while laughing gaily at the irrepressibility of their own futures. Even the air of the place seemed cooler and more autumnal — more collegiate — than it had just minutes before. Taking it all in, I felt my lungs filling up with the chill pregnant air that was so much more alive than the heat and exhaust we had just left behind at the gate, as if all the life and fertility that had been sucked out of the town of Cow Eye Junction and the surrounding Diahwa valley basin had been concentrated here in this fertile cradle of learning and productivity and fulfillment.

Dr. Felch’s truck was the only one making its way through the campus on a late Saturday afternoon, and driving slowly we passed the diverse flora that bequeathed all this emerging life to the college. In the central mall, still vacant of students toward the end of the summer break, a huge sycamore tree cast its shade over a quaint eating area. By the administrative building giant poplars mixed with birch trees and date palms to form an eclectic vegetative canopy. A long esplanade lined with alternating saplings of fig and elm led down the main thoroughfare. And in the distance I could see a banyan tree, an old cedar, and a Dahurian larch, all planted within several feet of each other yet none encroaching on the others’ shade and all managing to live side by side in ecosystemic harmony. Pomegranates grew next to peaches. Grapefruit and apricot comingled. Love vines wrapped their way around boughs of billowing cherry in a fond and nurturing embrace. The campus was built around three manmade lagoons and as our truck lumbered toward the faculty housing complex, we passed the three thematic fountains — one in each lagoon — that shot water high into the air out of imposing bronze statuary celebrating the richness of Cow Eye’s history: in the first fountain by the library, an Appaloosa had risen up on its hind legs with water shooting out of its mouth; in the second near the natural sciences building, a cowboy looked up at a lariat with water shooting out of his mouth; and in the third lagoon — the one that fronted the animal science complex and that served as the face of the campus — a huge bull was preparing to mount a heifer, an impressive stream of water gushing out of him as well.

“This is a beautiful campus!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, unfortunately it is…” said Dr. Felch with a world-weary sigh.

At last we reached a two-story brick building covered in faux Ivy: the Francis K. Dimwiddle Center for Faculty and Transitional Housing. Dr. Felch pulled up to a curb and turned off the engine. The sound died away just as suddenly, and in the new quiet the ambient sounds of the birds and the breeze and the pelicans became even more striking.

“Well, this is the faculty housing complex,” he said. “You’re on the second floor.”

Dr. Felch grabbed my suitcases and carried them up the stairs to the apartment door.

“Sorry, but you’ll be staying next to the math faculty. I hope that’s okay…”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I had begun to ask, but Dr. Felch had already unlocked the door and pushed it inward. Without stepping into the apartment he handed me the key and wished me a restful remainder of the weekend.

“See you first thing Monday morning,” he reminded me and shook my hand. Then he clapped me on the shoulder again and said, “You’ll do great, Charlie….the future is yours for the taking.”

I thanked him and he left.

It took several minutes for the sound of Dr. Felch’s engine to trail off into the distance, and not until the sound had disappeared entirely did I begin to unpack my suitcases and arrange my things: the requisite toothbrushes and medications and shaving supplies and notes that had to be prepared for my first day of work on Monday. Happily, I found the historical novel I’d been reading during my long bus ride and placed it on my pillow; the work of fiction still had its bookmark in the exact spot where I’d inserted it before arriving into Cow Eye Junction. When this was done I opened the living room window overlooking the cowboy with a lariat. The water shooting out of his mouth was being scattered by the wind and as it came down in a traveling mist the sun reflected off the water crystals and made shifting rainbows through the spray.

“My future!” I said and grabbing my apartment key I set out for a closer inspection of the three fountains where the rainbows danced.

*

The campus was surprisingly spread out for such a small college with fewer than a thousand enrolled students and walking along the main sidewalk leading from one fountain to the next, I noted the Samuel Dimwiddle Memorial Gymnasium and, adjacent to it, Dimwiddle Field which bordered the Dorothy Dimwiddle Botanical Gardens and Nature Walk on one side and the Dimwiddle Gun and Archery Complex on the other. Building after building bore the Dimwiddle name and it was evident that all these Dimwiddles — whoever they were — nurtured a strong affection for the school and had left it a significant legacy. The sidewalks were deserted and in the silent lull that is so strange yet so familiar before the beginning of a new semester I imagined myself the last straggler in a post-apocalyptic world devoid of living souls. If there is anything more lonely than a solitary bus ride across time and space it can only be the quiet angst of a school that is missing its young people. The joy of living that comes from youthful laughter and spontaneity gives a campus its soul; take it away and you’re left with an eerie void — the empty silence of grass growing and paperwork getting done. With no purpose to fulfill, the creaking swing sets, the vacant classrooms, the bicycle racks with no bicycles — all of it hints at the fleeting nature of life itself: the buoyant young people that have outgrown this most vivid time of their lives and moved on to the dull quietude of mature adulthood. Where earlier I’d felt the excitement of a new beginning while riding through campus in the cab of Dr. Felch’s truck, now I experienced its opposite: the forlorn silence that is left behind when the newness of hope has faded — when all that remains is a school without its purpose, or a town that’s foregone its soul, or a college that is at risk of losing its way, its history, and its accreditation all at the same time.

Against the fading light I sat on a cement bench in front of the largest lagoon, the hard seat soaked with mist blown from the fountain. The bull in the center of the lagoon was just as virile and his heifer just as compliant as when I’d driven by them earlier in the day; but now the sun was low and the mist had turned cold. Sitting there I thought about the tortuous path that had brought me to Cow Eye Junction — the countless random coincidences that must occur to lead a man halfway across his country to a fountain in the chill where rainbows gather and a bull is forever mounting a heifer. One by one I recalled the links in the chain, the random kindnesses of random people along the way that led me to where I was. Faces I had not seen or even thought of in many years — the second-grade teacher with auburn hair and a beautiful smile; the girl from high school who had unwittingly inspired my most restless dreams during those burning years; the kind college counselor; the friendly cashier; the man with the cane; the nurse; the acquaintance from college who had let me escort her from innocence into womanhood; the three passersby who picked me up from the bloody asphalt — now these faces came before me in their clarity: the people who touched my life for a time, only to continue on in the solitary trajectory of their own lives, like arrows being shot past each other. How clear and straightforward it all seemed in retrospect. How perfectly meaningful the many meaningless encounters along the way that nudged me ever so slightly toward my fate as Special Projects Coordinator at Cow Eye Community College. And at that very moment how it all seemed so right — so relentlessly and purposefully organized to bring me to the only place in the world where a fountain like this could embody such hope and promise.

By now it was almost dark and the air was very cold. I had not brought a jacket and my jaw was shivering from the cold and the spray. But before I could turn back there was one more thing I had to do. Pulling an old coin out of my pocket I looked up at the majestic bull and his heifer silhouetted in perpetuity against the dimming sky. In the near-darkness it seemed that the water streaming from this massive bull really would flow through eternal time and space all the way back to its ultimate source. With all my might I threw the coin at the center of the fountain and watched as it sailed away from me forever.

Back in my apartment I took a warm shower and lay quietly into bed. On the television the local news gave helpful tips on surviving the drought that was paralyzing the region; a sports anchor reported on the crushing loss by the football team the three men had been cheering at the bar; and the weather person followed it all by offering a five-day prognosis for an urban center so far away from Cow Eye Junction as to be irrelevant, even exotic. Wearily I turned the knob off and grabbed my historical novel. Within minutes I was tending toward sleep, and despite my best efforts I could feel the book slipping out of my hands. I had thought I might read another chapter at least — a few more pages to conclude this eventful day — but before I could even finish the next paragraph a thick sleep overcame me and I drifted off with my bed lamp still on, my covers unturned, and the half-read paperback resting like a plate of armor on my chest.

*

My final Sunday before my first day of work passed uneventfully in quiet contemplation in my apartment. I read a fresh chapter of the novel I’d started on the bus. I watched some old variety shows on the television in my room. Ambitiously, I made a list of three personal goals for my first year at Cow Eye Community College: 1) To find the moisture in all things; 2) To love the unloved; 3) To experience both day and night.

In the quiet of my apartment I looked at these goals and was happy at the sound of them. A man can never have too many goals in life, I thought, and three is as good a number as any. And yet something was incomplete. After a few minutes I took up the paper again and wrote a fourth goal for myself during my stay at Cow Eye. And this last goal — not to be overlooked — would surely be the most ambitious of all:

4) To become something entirely.

*

The next morning I made my way to the administration building to meet Dr. Felch, whose office was on the second floor offering a prime view of the fountain with the Appaloosa. I knocked lightly on the door and when there was no response I knocked again, this time louder.

“He’s not in,” a voice said. I whirled around to see a woman about my age with thick hair tied up in a strict bun and wearing a dark blue polyester business suit and skirt. “He’s not in yet. Did you need something? Or did you want to just keep knocking like that?”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s already after eight and I was supposed to meet Mr. Felch at exactly eight o’clock. I’m new here…”

“You’re the new Special Projects Coordinator?”

“That’s right! Nice to meet you….I’m Charlie….”

I extended my hand and the woman took it, crushing the bones in my fingers even more painfully than Dr. Felch had two days earlier at the makeshift bus shelter.

“Nice grip!” I said.

The woman did not smile:

“You don’t look like a Special Projects Coordinator,” she explained. The woman was appraising me curiously, almost suspiciously. “In any case, you can have a seat in that hard plastic chair and wait for President Felch. He should be in any minute now.”

I took a seat and grabbed a magazine. The woman settled behind the paperwork at her desk and although she might have engaged me in some welcoming conversation, she did not apparently consider it a necessity. In the silence the clock on the wall ticked and the sounds of the pelicans could be heard outside the windows. And in the unprecedented juxtaposition of sound — clock and pelican and lawn mowers groaning in the distance — I was left to wonder, among countless other mysteries, what exactly a Special Projects Coordinator is supposed to look like.

Sitting on the cold plastic chair, I studied the mannerisms of this tightly wound woman. The deep v-neck in her blouse. The way her eyelashes fluttered when she squinted to read a letter. Furtively, I stole glances at the supple contours of her shoulders beneath the polyester suit and the way her bangs fell across her face as she arranged her pens and dusted off her typewriter. And then how her soft hands trembled ever so slightly as she paused to lovingly polish the two picture frames of what I assumed must be her young children.

I opened my magazine and began to flip through the articles. One story summarized the current conflict of the day; another sketched out a portrait of a recently disgraced politician; yet another talked about the withdrawal of ground troops from the world’s latest hot spot. Listlessly, I turned the pages and was halfway through an article about the demise of a once-great superpower when Dr. Felch walked into the office’s waiting area.

“Morning, Bessie,” he said and then, “Good morning, Charlie. Sorry I’m late. I see the two of you’ve met?” Dr. Felch motioned to me and I followed him into his office where he offered me a stick of chewing gum that I politely refused. “They say it helps kick the smoking urge,” he explained. “But it sure as hell ain’t helping me!”

Dr. Felch shuffled through some papers on his desk. His office was covered in dark-wood paneling with black leather chairs on either side of his desk. Above him a lacquered cow’s head was bolted to the wall. Behind his chair was a large brass spittoon that gave the room a pungency of expectorated wintergreen chewing tobacco. Maroon-colored drapes fell from ceiling to floor around the window looking out onto the fountain with its Appaloosa. On his desk were various framed pictures of his children and their families: a young couple smiling red-faced in the middle of a snowy ski resort; several tanned bodies standing on a tropical beach; studio shots of smiling mom, dad, and children.

“So how’d you take to Bessie?” he asked.

“That was Bessie?” I said. “She seems fine. Although I don’t think she cares too much for me.”

Dr. Felch laughed.

“Yeah, she’s like that with everyone. Don’t take it personally though. Like I said, she’s a bulldog. But with some time you’ll grow on her.”

“I hope so.”

“Just be patient. And don’t try to get into her blouse. That almost never works out well….”

Dr. Felch handed me a paper that he’d written some notes on.

“These are your primary assignments for the semester,” he said. The list was enumerated and contained two imperatives and a circled tautology:

“That last one’s gonna be a bitch,” he said. “I’m not even sure what verb to put before it. Reconcile? Unite? Pacify? Nowadays it could even be disarm. Anyway, you get the idea. Whatever verb you come up with, just make sure it’s a good one. The future of our college depends on it.”

Dr. Felch paused. Then he said, “Classes don’t start until next Monday but all faculty should be on campus this week. We’ll be having our opening convocation in a few minutes. I’ve told Bessie to give you all the back story you need. Try to remember the names and pay special attention to the personalities and the dynamics. Take note of the automobiles and try to keep straight the various points of origin that have led us all to this segment of time and space. It’ll be a lot of information for you all at once, I know, but do your best. And just ask Bessie any questions that you have. She’ll also give you the key to your office. It’s right down the hall from here, across from the institutional researcher’s, so expect that the four of us will be seeing a lot of each other from now on.”

Dr. Felch said that he would also provide me a copy of the college’s most recent accreditation self-study along with the visiting team’s disappointed response. (“We’ll need to address all their recommendations and rebukes.”) And Bessie would get me a copy of the minutes from last year’s Christmas Committee meetings so I could see where things had fallen apart and how we might start reassembling all the pieces.

“Other than that,” he continued, “this week is just a chance to get ready for the upcoming semester. Use the time wisely. Trust me, things may seem slow right now, but once the semester begins everything will start to move at a different pace: it’ll take on a life of its own. For now just make sure you keep your eyes open to the different alignments and affiliations on campus. You’ll be expected to navigate it all soon enough.”

Dr. Felch checked his watch: it was almost eight-thirty.

“Bessie!” he shouted into the other room. Bessie entered and Dr. Felch pointed at me: “Bess, take Charlie here and walk him over to the cafeteria, will you? I need to prepare my notes for convocation.”

The two of us left Dr. Felch’s office and made our way down the stairs and out onto the esplanade.

As I quickly learned, Bessie was not an eager conversationalist. But on the long walk from the administration building to the cafeteria she acted as a faithful guide, dutifully explaining the things we were passing: the campus laundry facility, the college book store, the shooting range for faculty and staff, the stables where the animal science students conduct their special insemination projects. That is where you drop off your dry cleaning on Tuesdays, she would say. And over there is where you might want to buy a razor for that half-hearted collection of stubble on your upper lip.

“You mean my mustache?”

“If that’s what you prefer to call it….”

Bessie had a forceful gait and as we walked I couldn’t help noticing the rustling sounds that her skirt made with each shuffling step. She wore high heels and her legs were panty-hosed — and she was still grappling with a heavy box of papers that she’d insisted on carrying — yet her pace was so brisk that it was all I could do to keep up.

“You walk so fast!” I tried to say, but she just grunted in response.

Soon we had passed the Dimwiddle Observatory and a few minutes later the Simon and Catherine Dimwiddle Concert Hall. When we were approaching the Dimwiddle Center for Animal Husbandry my curiosity finally gave in.

“Who are all these Dimwiddles?” I asked. “Their names are on every building!” Without slowing her pace Bessie explained that the Dimwiddle patriarch had made his fortune in the military industry and left a large stake in his company to Cow Eye Community College. It was said that one out of every seven bullets fired in the world was made at the Dimwiddle Arsenal — and so each time an armed conflict flared up somewhere around the globe, the college received a direct influx of cash from the Dimwiddle Estate.

“We’re very fortunate to have this mixed blessing,” she concluded.

Eventually we reached the cafeteria where the convocation was being held — the Arthur and Mabel Dimwiddle Memorial Cafeteria — and after leaving the box of papers with the secretaries at the entrance, Bessie made her way to a seat in the very back corner of the cafeteria where we would be able to observe the full panorama of faculty and staff as they filed in through the front door, received their materials for convocation, and then took their own seats around the room.

“You’d better get a note pad,” she advised. “There’s going to be a lot of facts and figures.” Expectantly, I took out a yellow legal pad from my briefcase and dabbed a pen against my tongue.

“I’m ready!” I said.

As the first faculty and staff entered the room, smiling and greeting each other after the long summer break, the secretaries at the front desk checked them in and Bessie read off their names, ranks, and distinguishing accolades, not unlike an announcer introducing prize-winning livestock at the county fair:

“Rusty Stokes. Animal science instructor and chain smoker,” she would say and I would scribble furiously in my notebook. “Chair of the College Council and one of the most feared people on campus. Has two trucks including the Jeep he just bought from Merna Lee’s sister. Doesn’t eat vegetables. Doesn’t like communists. Doesn’t believe in viable alternatives to heterosexuality. Adores guns.”

After him came a middle-aged woman in flowing sari with dangling crystal earrings and an elegant red dot on her forehead:

“Marsha Greenbaum. Second-year nursing instructor. Moved here from Delaware last fall after selling her hemp farm. Strict vegetarian. Prefers sitar music. Runs a holistic medicine practice on the newer side of town referred to as the Purlieus. Teaches yoga in her free time. Ardently pursuing nirvana and is about this close to achieving it.” Bessie used her thumb and forefinger to indicate just how close Marsha was. “Unfortunately, she’s also got a bad case of scabies….”

I scribbled it all down.

A minute later a small elderly man entered wearing a gray suit and red bow tie with a fedora. Bessie said:

“That’s Will Smithcoate. The longest-serving faculty member here at the college. Teaches early U.S. history and still reads from the same lecture notes he used when he started thirty years ago. Served as chair of the Christmas Committee last fall — the first and only time in the existence of our college that we didn’t manage to have a party. Used to be a force on campus but these days he’s just biding his time to retirement. Bourbon and tonic are helping him through that process….”

A line was beginning to form outside the cafeteria and the energy in the room was building with the impending start of the convocation, which would launch the college into the new academic year. The secretaries were scurrying to get everyone through the line and into the cafeteria, and it was all I could do to take down the mass of biographical and historical information that Bessie was throwing out at me in rapid singsong. There was the untenured female refugee from Pennsylvania who taught art history and drove a Saab. And the plumpish man with tenure who drove a Ford F-1 and taught gunsmithing. Behind him were Harold and Winona Schlockstein, the college’s only formally recognized couple; to their left was Sam Middleton, medieval poetry expert and card-carrying institutional anarchist; and behind him was Alan Long River, a public speaking teacher and Native American descendent from the original tribe of the area who hadn’t spoken a word to anyone at the college — his students included — for more than twelve years.

“That’s highly ironic,” I said. “How can a person teach public speaking without…”

“…Speaking? Your guess is as good as mine, Charlie!”

One by one, my observant guide introduced me to the many personalities of Cow Eye Community College — not just to what my new colleagues did in their professional capacities but also to what they aspired to be in the shadows of their personal lives. In this way I learned about the forty-six-year-old anthropology professor and mother of six who had once been a cabaret dancer in New Jersey and who still harbored dreams of a career in interpretative dance. And the portly physical education teacher whose acquaintance with his toes was now limited to second-hand rumor and vague childhood remembrances — but who spent his summers entering bare-knuckle boxing tournaments back in his home state of Georgia. And the mesmerizing creative writing instructor with nary a publication to his credit but whose sexual exploits with his female students were the stuff of local legend. (“We might as well write him into New Student Orientation!” Bessie groused.) There was the psychology instructor who sang blues at the Champs d’Elysees on Wednesday nights; and the longtime head of the horticulture department who’d spent his most recent sabbatical traveling throughout the country researching the annals of American puppetry; and the recently promoted associate professor of astronomy who never once cracked a smile during his entire tenure at the college but who, Bessie swore, would drive six hundred miles on alternate weekends to do stand-up comedy in the nightclubs of the nearest city. Indeed, across the campus of Cow Eye Community College talent blossomed in the off-hours like the many bushes of night-blooming jasmine on campus. And so it was in this way and with the help of Bessie’s useful prompts that I came to see how a community college can be a haven of opportunity not only for its students but for its faculty as well: for each of my peers had a vivid talent of some sort — a passion, a burning aspiration, a secret calling lodged very deep within the crevices of a creative soul — that was being supported by the teaching of undergraduates at Cow Eye Community College.

“Speak of the devil…!”

Bessie was now pointing to the front door where the English faculty had arrived as a group and were busily checking in with the secretaries. Among faculty of the college, Bessie explained, the English instructors were by far the most inspired, with each engaged in a particular project of literary and artistic merit: a sci-fi novel set in futuristic Connecticut, a collection of impossibly short stories, a book-length elegy detailing the rise and fall of the cattle industry in Cow Eye Junction. Of the five tenured English faculty at Cow Eye, exactly three were working on first novels; two were active playwrights; four had self-published at least one chapbook of non-rhyming poems; one had a movie script on option; and all five were in continuous and desperate search for a reliable literary agent.

“And who are those people?” I motioned to a dark table in the farthest corner of the room where a gloomy collection of half-lit faces sat staring blankly ahead. Each was wearing a black armband.

“The adjuncts,” she explained. “We’re not allowed to refer to them by name.”

Now more and more of the surging crowd was entering the cafeteria and in short order I was introduced to the school’s recently hired eugenics instructor; its business department chair; the dean of instruction; Carmelita the diversity officer; the full-time grant writer; the head librarian and her staff; Gladys from personnel; the mayor of Cow Eye Junction (who also happened to be our part-time welding instructor); and the Saab-driving, shih tzu-transporting art history professor whose house was not far from the makeshift bus shelter. One by one the surnames came at me like night through a windshield: Jumpston and Drumright and Manders and Poovey and Drisdell and Runkle and Toth. Crotwell and Voyles. Kilgus and Spratlin and Yaxley and Jowers. Quealy and Tutt. Prunty and Pristash. Clardy and Yerkes and Hotmire and Spritch. Breedlove and Tilly. Barnes and Weaver and Redfield and Tuley and Crootch and Slocum and Lineberry and Tibbs and….

At one point Bessie nudged me with her elbow and whispered, “Take special note of this one coming in now….”

An unassuming woman about forty-five years old had entered wearing simple jeans, a simple t-shirt, and wire-framed glasses that were also very simple. With a nondescript countenance and a look of internal calm she seemed to bask in the fact that there was nothing overtly notable about her, which made it all the more puzzling that Bessie had chosen to single this woman out from all the others.

“That’s Gwendolyn Dupuis,” she said. “Talisman of the new people. She’s from Massachusetts originally but has been here for about fifteen years. Loves numbers. Teaches logic. Gwen’s well known around campus for being Rusty’s mortal enemy. If Rusty resides on one side of a fence, you can be sure she’ll be parked on the exact opposite side. If Rusty wants this or that thing to happen in earnest, Gwen will no doubt be advocating just as earnestly for its antidote. Were he to represent our collective past, she would be more emblematic of our disunited present. And if he be Maryland by light of day, she will most certainly be South Carolina in the darkest of nights….” Intrigued, I watched the woman walk into the room, carefully make her way past the American flag hanging on the wall — the thirteen stripes and twenty-three stars running the entire length of the cafeteria — and then take her seat at the table furthest from Rusty Stokes next to Marsha Greenbaum.

By now faculty and staff of every conceivable ilk were pouring into the room, and Bessie’s introductions came even faster. That financial aid counselor over there, she gravely informed me, is from central New Hampshire and drives a Volkswagen. But the biology instructor sitting to her right drives a Dodge Dynasty and hails from Virginia.

“This is really overwhelming,” I said at last. “There’s no way I can remember all these names and faces and automobile makes. Not to mention states of the Union. I mean, all at once like this?”

“Just soak up what you can. You’ll have time to experience it for yourself soon enough….”

Around the cafeteria most faculty were now sitting with their respective departments and here and there I caught snippets of the competing conversations. Nearest to me, the English faculty were bemoaning the fickleness and corruption of the New York publishing industry and the hesitance of literary agents to take on writers from Cow Eye Junction. A table away, Rusty Stokes was presiding over the faculty from the animal science department, who occupied an entire table by themselves and were engaged in a lively discussion of a recent bovine insemination. From one table to the next I saw the nursing department, the automotive teachers, the financial aid counselors, maintenance and security, and the modern languages department. The humanities sat mostly on one side of the room and the sciences on the other. Liberal Arts occupied the tables closest to the front while the Trades took those furthest toward the back. For a college as small as this one, all the academic disciplines appeared to be well-represented, though there was surprisingly little interaction among them.

“And that’s not even the worst of it,” Bessie agreed. “Take a closer look at the tables. A better look ….”

And when I looked even more closely I saw that among the broad divisions there were subdivisions and within these subdivisions there were subdivisions of the subdivisions. For even at the individual tables there were noticeable separations and stratifications and limitless groupings and affiliations. With Bessie’s help I came to see how even among the humanities, things were not as harmonious as they outwardly appeared: that instructors from rural backgrounds sat together, as did those owning four-cylinder imports, those whose parents had been instrumental in repudiating majority rule, and those who if pressed for an answer would more readily identify themselves as spiritual rather than religious. PhDs huddled together quite apart from their less-decorated counterparts. Republicans sat on the left, Federalists on the right. Caucasoids kept largely to themselves leaving the college’s mongaloids to fill in where they could — while off to the side, sitting quietly by himself and occupying three-fifths of a very small chair, was a single tenured negroid. In the bustling cafeteria it all came together to make a strange, chaotic, swirling sort of sense — such as the harmony found in a pointillist electoral map observed from afar. Yet despite the chaos there was something vaguely reassuring about the scene until, amid the pulsating crowd, I noticed a curious absence. Something important was missing. Something vital and essential. An oversight of incalculable proportions: Where were the math instructors?

“Ah yes, our illustrious mathematics department,” Bessie sighed when I pointed out the subtrahend. “Something tells me they’re still in North Carolina….”

“Why North Carolina? What does that mean?”

“Give it time. You’ll start to see in a bit….”

At last the room was almost full. In one corner a small crowd of women had formed a semi-circle around an item of particular interest; shrieks of female delight rang out every so often.

“What’s happening over there?” I asked.

“That’s our new data analyst,” Bessie explained. “Our institutional researcher, I think they’re calling it now. He just moved to Cow Eye to take Merna Lee’s position. And apparently he’s gorgeous.”

Finally, when all of the faculty and staff of the college had taken their seats, Dr. Felch made his way to the lectern at the front of the room. Standing behind the microphone, he raised his hand above his shoulder as if taking a pledge of fealty and there he held it for several moments. Slowly, very slowly, the dull roar began to die down. Dr. Felch tapped the microphone a few times so that the sound reverberated around the cafeteria. “Does this thing work?” he said. And then: “Can you hear me?”

“We hear you!” somebody shouted from the back of the room. And a few people laughed.

Dr. Felch adjusted his reading glasses.

“Ok, then,” he said. “Let us begin….”

*

“First of all,” Dr. Felch said, “let me start by welcoming you all back to Cow Eye. Those of you who left for the summer, I hope you had a great respite and are ready to roll up your sleeves and get back to work. Those of you who stayed, I hope you folks didn’t choke too much on all that dust over the summer.”

A few light laughs went up around the room.

“But before going any further, there’s one important announcement I’ve been asked to make….”

Dr. Felch reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. Holding it at arm’s length he let his glasses fall to the end of his nose as he read:

“…Will the owner of the lime green hybrid-electric vehicle with the highly individuated license plates please remove it from the handicapped stall where it is currently parked…?”

A murmur went up around the room; at the front table an embarrassed lecturer from the economics department stood up and made her way quickly outside.

“Thank you,” said Dr. Felch. And then: “Yet another triumph for the better angels of our nature, wouldn’t you say?”

Throughout the audience there was a sprinkle of laughter as well as some general eye-rolling directed at the economics department in particular and the study of economics as a whole.

“Okay,” Dr. Felch continued. “Now that that’s done, I want to begin my welcoming address to you today with a message of unity. My dear friends and fellow citizens, I want to kick off this new academic year by reiterating the importance of what we all do — what each of you does — here at the college. Every single person at Cow Eye is vital to our organization and to the learning and success of our students. It doesn’t matter whether you are the humble president of the institution as I happen to be. Or the tenured faculty member teaching our students to be more logical like Gwen Dupuis does in her classes. Or whether you contribute to the world by inseminating cows using extracted bull semen — thank you very much, Rusty Stokes! Whatever your role may be — from the dean of student services to our fantastic staff in the financial aid office….to the hardworking folks who cut our lawns so that every blade of grass is the exact length as the one next to it — each of you is vital to our mission and you should be proud of the contribution that you make here at Cow Eye Community College. Please know that your work is valued and that it has an incredible impact on the learning and success of our students.” Here Dr. Felch flipped through his papers. “And as each of you should know by now, it is our mission that drives the workings of our institution. Let’s see a show of hands….how many of you have committed our college’s mission statement to memory?”

Dr. Felch waited for hands to go up, but only a few did. Among the raised hands, the hand of Rusty Stokes was not just the highest but the largest as well; proudly, he was affirming his absolute knowledge and mastery of Cow Eye’s institutional mission statement.

“Well, good for you!” Dr. Felch said. “Now for the rest of us, I want to do an exercise to remind everyone why we’re here. I’m going to read our mission statement and I want each of you to repeat after me. Please stand….”

Chairs scraped on the cafeteria floor as everyone stood up from their tables. Amid the commotion there were some ironic asides and mild laughter and creaking bones, and when enough of it had died down to be heard, Dr. Felch began to recite the mission statement of the college. In a somber voice he read each word ponderously and significantly. And as he did the crowd obediently repeated after him:

“The mission of Cow Eye Community College is….”

(The mission of Cow Eye Community College is!)

“…to provide a nurturing and time-tested education….”

(To provide a nurturing and time-tested education!)

“…grounded in American values and the proliferation of….”

(Grounded in American values and the proliferation of!)

“…the American Way….”

(The American Way!)

“…so that our students may become….”

(So that our students may become!)

“…mindful, God-fearing, tax-paying citizens….”

(Mindful, God-fearing, tax-paying citizens!)

“…of the United States of America.”

(Of the United States of America!)

“Thank you. You may be seated.”

Everybody sat back down at their tables, chairs scraping and sliding in reverse.

“Now as faculty and staff, please think about this mission statement in light of everything you do. This is no abstract declaration of intent without practical relevance — it is a living, breathing, perspiring document. Yes, it may have halitosis at times. But that’s because it is alive. So in your work ask yourself: How does the mission of Cow Eye Community College apply to what I do? In my botany classes how do I ensure that my students pay their taxes? As I teach my culinary students to bake French croissants, how do I make sure that they are baking their French croissants the American Way? Math people — are there any math people here? Not yet? — math people….as you teach your remedial students to convert a fraction to a decimal always ask yourself this: how does it ensure that they will become God-fearing citizens of the United States of America?”

A smattering of applause rose up around the room; aside from this there was little reaction beyond respectful silence. Bessie nudged my arm:

“He’s losing control of the ship,” she whispered. “He’s a great man and I love him dearly. But he’s lost this ship….”

Undeterred, Dr. Felch continued:

“As you know, for some time now we have been on very thin ice with our accreditors. And so this year as part of our accreditation process we will be redoubling our efforts to demonstrate that we truly are committed to the success of our students. This will involve reviewing our mission statement and revising it as necessary, and each of you will be a part of that. So please think seriously about what you like within our current mission statement and what you don’t appreciate and would want to change. How can we make it better? More efficient? More effective? What would make the statement more reflective of who we are as faculty and staff of Cow Eye Community College and of the learning that we want for our students….”

Dr. Felch looked up from his notes.

“Are there any questions about this?”

Rusty Stokes had stood up from his chair and was standing with a meaty thumb tucked under each of his suspender straps. Dr. Felch looked over at him.

“Yes, Rusty?”

“I do have a question.”

“Yes, Rusty?”

“Why?”

“Why what, Rusty?”

“Why should we change our mission statement? We spent a lot of time on the current one and I think it’s perfect enough as it is.”

“That’s a very valid point, Rusty. And I’m glad you raised it. Nobody’s saying we have to change the mission statement. But we do need to review it and update it as needed to reflect current realities. To make it more perfect, if you will. The last time we revised our mission statement was eleven long years ago. And do you know how much has changed since then? Compared to what our college was like eleven years ago?”

“Of course I do. I’ve been here longer than that.”

“Right. And so you’ll remember that eleven years ago we only had six tenured faculty on staff and all of them were from Cow Eye Junction. There was no concert hall or observatory or nature walk. There were no pelicans. Among our faculty members we could not point to a single negroid on campus — and that seemed perfectly fine with us. There was no such thing as the data analyst position — much less an institutional researcher — because Merna was still teaching math to freshmen. (Yes, we called them freshmen back then!) Our student enrollment was a quarter of what it is now and — can you believe it? — predominantly male! Outside the college, the Ranch was thriving and the railroad still ran and steam power seemed like the wave of the future. Things were simpler and more inalienable back then. But it’s a different world now, Rusty, and Cow Eye needs to change with it. And we all need to be a part of that change. Including you….”

“So you’re advocating change for its own sake then? I mean, do you even believe that, Bill? Do you yourself believe what you’re telling us right now?”

“That’s beside the point. As president I speak for the institution. And I’m not advocating change for its own sake…I’m advocating change so we don’t lose our accreditation and get our asses shut down.”

“I see. So what you’re saying is…”

But here Dr. Felch leaned into the microphone:

“Let’s move on, please….”

Watching the gray-haired ex-veterinarian clumsily trying to unify his troops behind the accreditation effort — observing him fumble through his handwritten notes in search of the next agenda item — I felt even more profoundly how crucial my role as Special Projects Coordinator would be for him. During his twenty years in charge Cow Eye had clearly changed beyond recognition, and this was to his credit. But it was also becoming clear — sadly clear — that the world around him was evolving even faster and that it would not remain handwritten for very much longer.

When Rusty had reluctantly retaken his seat, Dr. Felch thanked him for his comments, then continued:

“Now at this time we’d like to introduce our new faculty and staff who have come to us from all corners of the world this semester. As I call out your name please stand up where you’re sitting so we can recognize you….”

Dr. Felch turned over a page in his notes and began reading.

“Our first employee is Nan Stallings. Nan, can you stand please…?”

Across the room from me a woman stood up from her seat.

“Nan comes to us from the wonderful state of Rhode Island where she was a private attorney and award-winning legal scholar and advisor to such prominent legal teams as the plaintiff in West v. Barnes and, more recently, the attorneys for Brown v. Board of Education. She also has extensive experience representing victims of ethnic genocide and has extracted settlements from pharmaceutical companies who have unethically placed faulty products on the market. She comes with enthusiastic references from a junior senator, a federal representative, and a retired Supreme Court justice. She will be teaching political science and we are glad to have her. Welcome, Nan.”

Applause followed and Nan smiled and sat back down in her chair.

“Our next new employee is Luke Quittles. Luke, where are you…?”

Luke stood up and waved.

“Luke will be working in our culinary department. He comes to us from Paris, France, where he was the head chef in a quaint three-star restaurant on the Rue de Passy. Luke is an award-winning cuisinier who specializes in Tex-Mex and has served his unique delicacies to several former and current heads-of-state including the Sultan of Brunei and the Duchess of York. He will be living in faculty housing until he finds a place of his own, so if any of you happen to know of some reasonably priced accommodations near campus please let him know. Thank you, Luke!”

Again everyone applauded and Luke sat back down.

“Next we have Raul Torres. Raul?”

Raul stood up and gave an elegant wave amid shrieks from the women in the audience.

“Raul will be our new data analyst. Or, I should say, institutional researcher. Of course he will have large shoes to fill as our beloved Merna was in the position for more than ten years before leaving abruptly last semester — and we’ll miss her. But please welcome him to his new position with open arms. Raul comes to us from….California!” Here Dr. Felch stepped back from the lectern to give his own personal applause at this joyous fact; then he stepped back up. “A little bit about Raul…. He earned his Master’s degree in Statistical Methods and his PhD in Intercultural Statistics. He is an award-winning statistician and has been nominated for several humanitarian prizes for his contributions to world peace and cultural harmony through the proliferation of recursive algorithms. Raul also wanted you ladies to know that he plays flamenco guitar, sings ballads with a throaty vocal inflexion, and loves long romantic strolls along the timeless canals of Venice, the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, and the sultry banks of our very own Cow Eye River. He hails from Barcelona originally but claims that Cow Eye Junction is just as beautiful — if not more beautiful — than his hometown and is very happy to be here. Let’s all welcome Raul to the college…!”

A loud applause followed and several women even rose to give a standing ovation.

Here Dr. Felch grew serious.

“You know — and this is not in my notes, folks, but I feel that I need to bring it up. We often talk about Merna. I talk about Merna. You talk about Merna. Everyone talks about Merna. We all talk about Merna because, well, she worked here for thirty-five years and we all loved her. And of course you probably remember what happened to her last year. Or if you happen to be new to the college you may have heard what happened to her. There are a lot of things that have been said about her and some of them of course are true. But others are not true at all. And that’s exactly my point. My point, you see, is that whatever it is that you remember, or have heard, just forget it. Let it go. She was an amazing lady and an incredible human being who made a huge contribution to Cow Eye in her time. So when we think of her let’s just please think of her for the great years she had here and not for anything else that you may have heard or remembered, or that may or may not have been said or done. Okay?”

Dr. Felch paused to collect his thoughts.

Seeing this, I leaned over to Bessie:

“What’s all that about?” I whispered. “What happened to Merna?”

But Bessie just waved my question away.

“I’ll tell you later…” she said.

When Dr. Felch had regained his composure he continued:

“Where was I? Oh yes, Stan and Ethel Newtown. Are Stan and Ethel here?”

The husband and wife stood up. They were holding hands in an adorable way and waving to their new peers.

“As you have probably guessed, Stan and Ethel are married and can therefore be rightly considered our college’s second formally recognized couple. Ethel teaches journalism and comes to us from the Midwest where she was an award-winning investigative reporter. Her feature articles have been nominated for many prizes and her recent series exposing the American economic system as the most magnificent pyramid in the history of the world — and the controversial prediction of its impending downfall (the system, obviously, not the world) — earned her many awards…as well as many enemies. We’ve been eager to bring her to Cow Eye and are happy she will be joining us. Standing next to her, meanwhile, is her husband Stan, who is just as impressive though somewhat shorter. He is an award-winning archaeologist who has discovered the remains of several lost civilizations and whose work in East Africa has led to a radical shift in previously held notions of evolution. Stan is an ardent tennis player and conspiracy theorist and believes that under the town of Cow Eye Junction is a lost world of very little people that is waiting to be unearthed. Needless to say, Stan will be teaching archaeology….”

Dr. Felch waited for the Newtowns to sit back down amid the resounding applause from the audience. Then he said:

“….Okay, who’s next? Oh yes, now we have our final new employee for this academic year. He comes to us from an undisclosed location halfway across the country. He just got in two days ago fresh off the bus. Charlie? Charlie, my boy, where are you?”

Hearing my name, I stood up.

Dr. Felch pointed at me and smiled:

“Charlie here will be our new Special Projects Coordinator. He’ll be leading our all-important accreditation process in preparation for the team’s site visit next spring — which seems light years away, I’m sure, but will arrive faster than you think. Charlie does not come with any successful employment history. He has achieved no awards or distinctions and his personal life is also somewhat shambolic as he has been divorced twice while still at a relatively young age….”

A concerned murmur went up around the room.

“…Hey Charlie, how’s the single life treating you…?”

I gave an unenthusiastic thumbs-up.

“…Enjoy it while you can, my friend! Anyway, Charlie has two ex-wives and a history of failed jobs and other half-starts and near-misses around the country. You see, Charlie has always been a lot of different things yet none of them entirely….”

Here I could feel the concerned murmur of the crowd growing even louder around me.

“… But we have a lot of hope for him here. In fact, some of you may remember from his interview that Charlie’s family used to live in Cow Eye Junction. His grandfather plucked a suffragette from certain death in the Cow Eye River. And he likes beef stew with lots and lots of vegetables! Charlie will be the third person in this position in less than two years, but we have every faith that he will overcome the daunting challenge and be a valuable long-term employee of our college. Welcome to Cow Eye, Charlie. And most importantly, welcome back…!”

I waved again and sat down. Instead of applause there was only the confused rumble of half-voices and whispers and fingers being pointed in my general direction.

“So…” Bessie whispered to me amid the rumble, “It sounds like you’re almost as divorced as I am….” And in her voice I sensed the slightest beginnings of an iceberg that was melting.

Dr. Felch checked his notes again and then continued:

“Okay, so those are our new faculty and staff for the upcoming academic year. Let’s have a round of applause for all of them…!”

Everyone applauded earnestly and I was thankful that my introduction to the faculty and staff of Cow Eye Community College was now behind me.

*

After his introductions Dr. Felch moved to the next item in his agenda, which happened to be updates and reminders for the upcoming semester.

“But before we get to our new initiatives on campus I first want to remind everyone of some longstanding policies and procedures that should be old information….” Dr. Felch stopped to take a deep breath, then said:

“…Please remember to turn off all lights when you leave a room for any length of time and to flush the toilet after every use. Don’t park in the handicapped stalls unless you are truly handicapped. Use black ink for all important documents. Don’t throw coins in the fountains. Don’t roller skate on the sidewalks. Try not to walk on the grass as it causes the individual blades to look uneven. Don’t feed the pelicans. If you want to pick any of the colorful flowers on campus, please submit a notarized request to your department chair by the first of the month. Don’t forget that in all spoken and written communication you will now be required to use gender-neutral language instead of the kind that has come down from our forefathers. Semi-colons should be used judiciously; passive tense should be avoided if at all possible. Never meet with a student alone in your office with the door closed, especially if she’s litigious. Never touch a co-worker in a way that makes her fidget from discomfort — but if you absolutely must, please make sure that you have her signed written consent first. When providing feedback to a student be constructive and positive and write neatly. Always be courteous to Timmy who works at the guard shack — after all, it’s not his fault you left your house late even though you have an important exam to give in exactly three minutes. Support your colleagues. Respect your peers. Always honor the diversity of your students. (This goes doubly for those that happen to be negroids.) Try to show empathy to people who may not drive the same car or truck as you do. Go to church on Sunday. Tip your waitress. Believe in America and the sanctity of her institutions — especially marriage. Pay taxes religiously. Love your wife — which is hard enough — but also, and this is key, folks: love your ex-wives. When completing evaluations of campus activities don’t forget to fill out both sides of the form. And most importantly….in everything you do here at the college always base your decision-making on hard, cold, objective data and don’t neglect to document your every action using statistics or other verifiable evidence. Remember, when it comes to our accreditors, any decision made without the benefit of numerical justification is a bad decision….and a thing that has no valid and measurable confirmation of its existence — no matter how beautiful that thing may be to observe or how heavy it might be to lift — is not really a thing at all….”

Dr. Felch paused and shook his head.

“Oh, and one more thing….and I’m surprised I still have to remind you all of this…. Out of respect and courtesy to your fellow employees at Cow Eye Community College, please do not leave any bloated scrotums in the faculty mailboxes to turn into a grisly mess over the weekend….”

Here I stared into the resulting silence. Dr. Felch was turning the pages of his notes and it gave me time to reflect upon my own personal goals, the benchmarks and objectives that would lead me into the upcoming semester and guide me through my first full year at the college: To find the moisture in all things. To love the unloved. To experience both day and night. And of course: To become something entirely.

“Any questions on this?” Dr. Felch asked.

“I have one….” A woman’s voice came from the side of the room. Gwendolyn Dupuis had stood up and was pointing a long finger at Dr. Felch. She did not look pleased. “You mentioned two things that don’t make a lot of sense to me….”

“Yes, Gwen? And what might that be?”

“Of course I agree with the bloated scrotum thing — that simply has to stop. But somewhere along the way you stated that if we want to pick flowers we need a notarized request that has to be submitted at the beginning of the month. Then later you mentioned that if a faculty member desires to cause a female co-worker to fidget he should get written permission first….”

“He or she….”

“Right. He or she should get permission to make that co-worker fidget. So don’t you think it should be a requirement for that request to be notarized as well? I mean, where’s the consistency here? Or do you mean to imply that the picking of flowers is worthy of a higher standard of consent than the unsolicited touching of our female employees?”

“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say, Gwen. That’s not what I’m saying at all. But rather than delve into the details right now, let’s just say that we’ve had a lot of discussion about this in College Council. And we’ll also be organizing an upcoming professional development series for the new academic year, which will include at least one session devoted to the proper and ethical fondling of co-workers. I encourage you all to attend….”

Gwen sat down.

“So on to our next order of business….Some new initiatives on campus….”

As Dr. Felch listed the many changes on campus, I looked around the cafeteria to see that the majority of faculty and staff were listening diligently and dutifully. Like developmental math students on the first day of class. Or like a herd of languorous cattle waiting for the morning hay to be kicked off the truck.

“As you know,” Dr. Felch was now saying, “beginning this semester Cow Eye Community College will be a smoke-free campus. We’ve decided to go all-out with this, which means that there will be absolutely no smoking anywhere on the campus of Cow Eye Community College….”

At this, half the room erupted in wild cheers and clapping while the other half loudly booed and whistled. Dr. Felch waited for the tumult to subside, then continued: “….And as I mentioned a few minutes ago, we are pleased to introduce our new professional development series for the academic year. The first weekly session will be devoted to measuring the immediate outcomes of the lifelong learning that’s happening in your classroom. The next will be a primer on devising inspirational and galvanizing acronyms for the various academic phenomena around you. Other professional development opportunities will include: Content and Context: The Use of Spoken Language for Effective Classroom Communication; and She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not: Do’s and Dont’s of Appropriate Workplace Interactions; and then Putting your Finger Firmly on the Colon: Devising Evocative Titles and Subtitles to Professional Development Sessions.”

“Finally, I want to remind all of our new faculty that there will be a special day of welcoming activities planned for you tomorrow. We will be conducting a team-building event along with some obligatory bonding exercises. And we’ve got a fantastic agenda that includes a long bus ride and a very special surprise that was lovingly envisioned by our hard-working New Faculty Orientation committee led by Professor Smithcoate. The guiding theme for this year is ‘Loving the Culture of Cow Eye.’ So be sure to come with covered shoes….”

“Covered shoes?” I turned to Bessie.

“Yes,” she answered. “And an open mind.”

“But why the bus? Are we going somewhere?”

“You might say that….”

After Dr. Felch’s address, several other campus representatives came up to the lectern to give their own updates on the goings-on around campus. The chair of the aquaculture department briefed the campus on his initiative to establish carp in all three of the college’s fountains; the head of the fiscal office, Dr. Felch’s ex-wife, gave an update on the Dimwiddle endowment with a report on the fortuitous escalation of several ethnic conflicts around the world; the head of the IT department spoke about the college’s attempts to implement its controversial technology plan by infusing electric typewriters and calculators into the work processes of Cow Eye Community College; finally, Carmelita the diversity officer reported on the campus’s ongoing successes in ensuring equity on campus as evidenced by Cow Eye’s six faculty members of mongoloid persuasion, the astronomy professor from Bangladesh, and the recent hiring of a negroid.

At about eleven-thirty Dr. Felch came back up to the lectern to give his final remarks and bring the convocation to a close.

“Before you all leave for your semesters,” he said, “I want to remind you of a very important event. Please get out your notebooks and mark your calendars for December eleventh….”

Everyone looked at each other inquisitively.

“As you know,” he said, “that is the last day of the semester. It’s a Friday. And the reason it will be an important date in your lives is that it’s the day we will be having our annual Christmas party.”

A murmur of whispers went up around the room.

“That’s right, folks, Christmas happens annually. And so on December eleventh of this most glorious year of our Lord — anno domini as the historians say — we most certainly will be having a Christmas party. Please note that this date falls well within your respective duty periods and so you are all encouraged to attend. Which is to say, vehemently encouraged.”

Even more clamor arose.

Dr. Felch looked around the room, taking his time to make unhurried eye contact with each person in the crowd. “I am also declaring that as of today the Christmas Committee is officially disbanded. I have made this executive decision on the grounds that representative democracy has clearly not served us well in this case. From this point forward the planning process will be led by a small coterie of trusted individuals, including myself and our new Special Projects Coordinator, who have the college’s long-term interests in mind….” Dr. Felch again looked out at the crowdwith an almost menacing scowl, and forcing his words through clenched teeth he said simply: “Any questions?”

Gwen Dupuis had seemed to want to raise her hand but sensing the determination in Dr. Felch’s voice, reconsidered.

“No questions?” Dr. Felch declared after the tense pause had provided ample opportunity to speak up. “That’s probably for the best. But if any do happen to pop up, please direct them to me personally. Or to Charlie as Special Projects Coordinator. Otherwise, I’ll expect to see you all on December eleventh at our annual Christmas party. Have a great semester, everyone, and please don’t forget to turn in your evaluations of today’s event to the secretaries on your way out….”

And with that the convocation was over.

*

Except that it wasn’t. Just as Dr. Felch had uttered his final words and had shut off the microphone for the afternoon, the doors of the cafeteria burst open and into the room stumbled a whooping mass of wildly dressed clowns and mermaids and zombies in chains and shackles. There were six of them total, and they were all hoots and shouts and boisterous laughter.

“Are we late?!” one of them shrieked and frantically pedaled a child’s tricycle around the room.

Another had jumped onto a long table and was proceeding to do somersaults from the end of the table where the marketing and outreach specialists were sitting to the end where the student debt counselor awaited; faculty and staff on both sides of the table jumped back to avoid the woman’s flailing legs. Meanwhile, a man in a mermaid costume and a woman dressed as a zombie flapped and slithered their way around the room, respectively. Two others, a younger couple with their shirts off — the man bare-chested, the woman in a silk brassiere — were standing with their hands in each other’s back pockets and locked in a passionate kiss so all-encompassing — so statistically implausible — that it seemed it might defy probability itself.

At this, Bessie, who had always been quick to explain the college’s quirks, simply rolled her eyes and pronounced the tersest of explanations:

“Our math faculty,” she said. “Just back from their conference in North Carolina.”

Dr. Felch, after watching the scene unfold for several minutes, shrugged his shoulders and turned the microphone back on. A loud thump reverberated around the room.

“And a big Cow Eye welcome to you too, math faculty!” he said, and then: “I’m glad you’re enjoying your tenure…!”

At this the audience laughed and Dr. Felch switched off the microphone for good. Now the crowd knew that the convocation really was over. Gratefully they stirred from their seats and made their way back to their offices to prepare for the upcoming semester, each leaving a heartfelt evaluation with the secretaries on the way out.

“Follow me,” Bessie said when the crowd had filed out of the cafeteria and we’d turned in our own evaluations. “We need to get back to the administration building so I can show you where your office is. It’ll be right across from the institutional researcher. Which makes sense because you’re going to have some serious planning to do.”

I looked at Bessie and smiled. Somehow after everything I’d just heard and seen she seemed to offer the clearest reassurance that I’d made the right decision in traveling halfway across my country to take the position of Special Projects Coordinator at Cow Eye Community College. And as she spoke I couldn’t help paying even closer attention to the red of her lipstick and the way she had highlighted her eyes to smooth out the wrinkles of time and failed matrimony. In the fluorescent cafeteria lighting it was hard to imagine that someone like her might ever be unloved.

“Let’s go, Bessie,” I said and held the door open for her. “After you…!”

* * *

LOVE AND THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

“And there it is,” Bessie said when we had made our way back to the administration building and she’d handed me the key to my office. “Enjoy.” I turned the key and opened the door expecting to find a tidy and inviting work space, only to stumble into the catacombs of my predecessor’s cluttered inner sanctum. The woman had not cleaned out her office before leaving and her belongings, all of them, were still there in the exact state she’d left them, as if she had been forced to flee ahead of an impending natural disaster — a historic flood perhaps, or a typhoon of recriminations. Old shoes were scattered around the room. Strewn papers crinkled under my feet. A pair of swimming goggles dangled from a screw that had been nailed into the drywall. Two slices of petrified zucchini rested on a paper plate on the desk. Personal photographs were taped to the walls — at last I could put a black-and-white face to the colorful stories I’d heard — and dangling portentously from the ceiling was an enormous hand-crafted sign with words that had apparently inspired my predecessor in her duties:

LOVE IS LIKE A RIVER

THAT IS NEVER THE SAME

IN TWO PLACES

“It looks like she decided to leave you a small legacy,” Bessie said.

“Legacy’s a good word for it!” I laughed. “Can I get a dust pan and some garbage bags?”

“We’ll have the maintenance people clean it up.”

“No, that’s fine. This won’t take long….”

The room was filled with trinkets and artifacts from the woman’s stopover at the college and as I surveyed the miscellany I was surprised at just how much paper and dust, how many personal mementos, could be accumulated in less than a year’s time. Buttons and hairpins. A bottle of flea medication. Business cards from realtors. A Buffalo nickel. A half-empty box of birth control pills that also happened to be half-full. A shaker of unfulfilled salt. Refrigerator magnets from a far-flung Volkswagen dealership. A cow figurine and laminated bookmark with Cow Eye’s mission statement printed on it — the same oath we’d just recited at the convocation that morning.

“I feel like we should call in that archaeologist guy. What’s his name…Newton?”

“Newtown,” Bessie corrected.

“Right. Maybe if Stan Newtown digs around in here he can find those mythical little people he believes in.”

Bessie brought me some cleaning supplies and trash bags and then went back to her own work, leaving me to wade through the clutter in the office. Among the personal items that had been left behind, many had a clear reason for being in this world and could therefore be discarded with moral certainty: a dirty yoga mat and barbell set, a zodiac chart, a full-colored doggie calendar for the previous year. But there were also those that had no identity of their own: a necklace with a small crystal energy pendant, three tarot cards stapled to each other to form an isosceles triangle, a stainless steel Peace sign the approximate circumference of a very large bullet. On the desk was a desktop pendulum set — five stainless steel orbs at perfect rest — that I couldn’t resist setting into motion; lifting the one at the far end of the pendulum I let it drop back down against the other four: as the orbs struck with a firm clack, the one at the opposite end rose up. Now this repeated in reverse: back and forth, up and down, one orb rising and falling while the others huddled together in expectation of the next collision. In time it would be this rhythmic sound — the clacking of stainless steel on stainless steel — that would become the soundtrack to my life here at Cow Eye. Friction be damned, the sound seemed to want to continue for as long as history itself.

When the desk was finally cleared off I turned to the bookshelves, which were still packed with literature and would need to be denuded. Among the dross was an old atlas with a gilded cover; a photo album called Cute Cats of the World; a softbound copy of the Bhagavad Gita translated into Esperanto; a Quote-of-the-Day calendar still stuck on June 21st (“Love is the journey, not the destination”); and a series of self-help books with titles like How to Write a Winning Resume, The Power of the Tantric Mind, and The Anyman’s Guide to Swimming Without Sinking. Volumes of inspirational literature and spiritual compendia filled the shelves. Women’s romances were everywhere. A middle shelf featured a series of reference works including a rhyming thesaurus, a twenty-volume encyclopedia set missing volume K, and a dictionary of Catholic saints. On the very bottom shelf, its price tag still prominent, stood a single book of literary fiction — a sleek two hundred pages of contemporary insight told in efficient prose — and next to it a six-hundred page hardback called The Anyman’s Guide to Writing the Perfect Novel. The writing guide was well-worn with extensive marginalia and highlighted passages. (On page 61, my predecessor had drawn three exclamation marks next to an underlined apothegm that noted: “Writing is the pursuit of personal liberation — the ultimate act of unrequited love.”)

Judging by the literary tastes of my predecessor — or at least by the books she left behind — it was clear how very little there was, aside from this office itself, that she and I would likely have had the occasion to share. In fact, of the hundreds of books littering the office only one struck me deeply; intrigued by its title, I set aside The Anyman’s Guide to Love and the Community College. The book was glossy and attractively bound with a front cover featuring two associate professors in full regalia locked in a romantic embrace: “Required reading,” one blurb gushed, “for anyone trying to find true love at a regionally accredited community college!” After two divorces in restless turn — one solely my fault, the other only primarily my fault — and with my new position at Cow Eye now secured, this guidebook offered a glimmer of hope. I would devour it before any other. And learn from it. And internalize it. And when I had found the love it promised, I would place it into a cardboard box to be donated to the library so that my fellow unloved colleagues might do the same. Gently, I set the book aside.

By now the cleaning was going well and in no time the three trash bags were bursting with discarded items. I’d left my office door open for ventilation and was so consumed with wiping down the dusty desk that I hadn’t noticed a nondescript figure standing in the doorway. A light knock on my door caused me to look up from the disarray and when I did I saw that it was Gwen Dupuis standing in the doorway.

“Hi there,” she said. “You’re Charlie, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Gwen. I teach logic. And I wouldn’t change my life for any amount of romance or adventure.”

Gwen offered her hand and I took it in a firm handshake, inadvertently crushing the bones of her fingers into each other. She winced in pain and withdrew her hand.

“That hurt me,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Listen, I know you’ve had some difficulties in your personal life. And I’m sorry about your failed marriages. These things happen, I’m sure. But that is no reason to take it out on me.”

Gwen was standing and shaking the pain out of her hand. And again I apologized. But she just shook her head.

“Charlie,” she explained, “I am a woman, not a steer. My heart is real. My soul is eternal. My body is flesh, not bronze.”

“I’m sure they are. Look, I said I was sorry!”

“Well, at least you put vegetables in your beef stew.” Here Gwen gave a hint of a smile. Then she said, “Gosh, Charlie, your office looks positively postdiluvian!”

“The stuff’s not mine.” With a wide sweep of my arm to indicate the room’s disorder I explained that I was cleaning up after my predecessor and that the trash bags and boxes actually held the remnants of her legacy at the college.

“Yeah, poor thing,” Gwen said. “She didn’t have a lot of time to get out before the lawsuit.” And here Gwendolyn Dupuis informed me that the former Special Projects Coordinator had been a really sweet person and had done a great job for the college while she was here and was a real asset to the world in general and to Cow Eye Community College in particular and would be sorely missed. “It’s a shame our college can’t keep good people like her,” she concluded.

I nodded.

“Charlie, if you are even one-tenth the Special Projects Coordinator she was then you will be worthy of occupying this office!”

Gwen was still standing in my doorway.

“Please have a seat, Gwen. You can sit on this chair here. I just cleaned it….”

“I’ll stand, thanks. The world is changing, you see. And we are tired of sitting.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. I did not come to Cow Eye for sitting, Charlie. In fact, I just stopped by to invite you to our pre-semester get-together this Wednesday. There will be light snacks and watery music and we’ll be talking about alternative paths to spirituality and enlightenment. Bring your own arugula if you want.”

“Arugula?”

“Yes, feel free to bring your arugula of choice.”

I thanked her for the invitation but respectfully declined:

“It’s nice of you to think of me. But I’m not much of a socialite. I prefer to be on my own, actually. And I honestly have no idea what an arugula is or where I would even go to look for one.”

“That may be true. But these are valuable lessons to be learned. And besides, some very good people will be there. So think of it as a chance to meet your fellow colleagues — you know, the personalities you’ll be navigating this year.”

And she was right. I’d been so quick to politely decline her offer that I’d forgotten Dr. Felch’s mandate to study the different personalities on campus.

“Well, since you put it that way….”

“Great. It’ll be this Wednesday at five-thirty. In Marsha’s studio at the Purlieus. Do you know the place?”

“Not really. I just got in from the makeshift bus shelter two days ago. I don’t even have a car yet….”

“Then I’ll pick you up. I hear you’re staying at faculty housing next to the math teachers…?”

Gwen and I made the necessary arrangements for Wednesday evening, she turned and left, and I went back to cleaning out the drawers of the desk. A few minutes later I had taken out a fourth trash bag and was stuffing a large pile of newspapers into it when I noticed another figure in the doorway. This time it was the imposing outline of Rusty Stokes standing in the exact place where Gwen Dupuis had stood her ground just a few minutes before.

“Charlie!” he said and held out his hand. “Nice to finally meet you, Charlie! I’m Rusty Stokes!” Cautiously, I shook Rusty’s hand and in response he shook mine vigorously, crushing the bones of my fingers yet again. Without waiting for an invitation, Rusty walked into the room and took a decisive look around, first swiping a finger of dust from a filing cabinet then sniffing the air as if detecting the scent of an unpleasant memory.

“Smells like shih tzu in here!” Rusty’s face was contorted into a pained expression, as if he were remembering some antediluvian civilization — or smelling the rotting carcass of a passenger pigeon. “You may want to try some air freshener, my boy…it works wonders.”

“Thanks for the advice, Mr. Stokes. Every little bit counts.”

“It’s Doctor Stokes, actually. But I like you, Charlie. So please call me Mister Stokes.”

Rusty pushed aside some papers from a chair and sat down onto it heavily:

“That’s an interesting device you have there,” he said, “that pendulum thing….”

“It is,” I said. “It’s called a Newton’s Cradle and I set it in motion about ten minutes ago. And it’s still clacking away. I guess it just goes to show how preeminent the force of kinetic energy is over inertia …”

Rusty grimaced.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. Anyway, I don’t want to keep you from your cleaning, Charlie. I just wanted to stop by to tell you we’re glad to have you here. We’ve all got high hopes for you at Cow Eye. I mean, I’m sure you can’t be any worse than that last thing we hired!”

Rusty shook his head disapprovingly.

“…I mean what a waste of time that was!”

“You didn’t like my predecessor?”

“Didn’t like her? She’s the sole reason our accreditors put us on warning. And why we didn’t have a Christmas party last year. It’s too bad we have to keep hiring people over the phone like that — you know, the award-winning professionals with the sparkling CVs and recommendations from key advisers to the Ottoman empire….”

Again Rusty shook his head.

“In any case, we’re glad you’ve come to be with us, Charlie. Bill’s told me a lot about you. That your family used to live in the area. And how you recognize that the primary ingredient in beef stew is beef. He also related your response to the bloated scrotum question, which, I have to say, was pure genius….”

I thanked him.

Rusty gave a playful wink. Then, humbly, he told me of his many accomplishments in life. Of course he did not like to brag, he added, but he was also the leading authority on the history of the area and I should consider myself invited to visit him at the Cow Eye Museum where he was curator. It would be a good chance for me to explore my family’s roots and he might even be able to find the newspaper article about my grandfather’s famous contribution to universal suffrage. I thanked him again and promised that I would make it out to see him someday.

“In the meantime, Charlie, what are you doing this Wednesday? We’re having a barbecue at the river and we’re hoping you can come.”

“We?”

“Yeah, we. Me and the others. It’ll be nice for you to meet everyone informally before the semester starts. You know, since you’ll be navigating all of us soon enough.” (Again I remembered Dr. Felch’s entreaty. Perhaps meeting both groups — Gwen’s and Rusty’s — would give me a better idea of the nature of their disagreement and how they might be brought together?) “We’re also going to be having a little remembrance for Merna,” Rusty continued. “You probably heard about what happened to her last year. So we’ll be doing something in her memory. It’ll be on Wednesday at five-thirty.”

“Five…thirty?”

“Or thereabouts. And don’t worry about bringing any food. There’ll be plenty of carnage to go around.”

Rusty left and I resumed my cleaning. A few minutes later Bessie stopped by to see if I needed more trash bags.

“The office looks transformed,” she said. “I love the sudden re-emergence of original intent. And that pendulum thing is pretty nifty.”

“It sure is. I think I’ll leave it here uninterrupted just to see how long it can continue its clacking!”

Bessie nodded. Then she said, “So I saw you talking to Gwen and Rusty. Separately of course. How’d that go?”

“I’m invited to two parties on Wednesday after work. And I’m committed to both. But I’m also a little conflicted because they’re at the same time.”

Bessie laughed:

“Of course they are!”

“So what should I do?”

“You should pick one of the parties and go to that one entirely.”

“But that would mean not going to the other one….”

“Obviously.”

“And that would imply an expressed preference, or dare I say, a commitment, on my part. No, that won’t work — not yet anyway. I think I should go to both. I should go to Rusty’s barbecue and Gwen’s watery get-together. But how?”

Bessie thought for a few moments. Then she said:

“Well, I’m planning to go to the barbecue — assuming I can find a sitter. So if you really want to go to both, I could pick you up from Gwen’s get-together on my way to Rusty’s. Just meet me outside on the curb at exactly seven-thirty. That should give you enough time to savor the arugula.”

And with arrangements made for Wednesday, I thanked her and she turned to leave.

“Oh and one more thing…” Bessie said spinning back around to face me. Above the silence in the room only the pendulum could be heard; relentlessly, the orbs clacked against each other in perfect rhythm. “Don’t forget your covered shoes for tomorrow morning. Our liability consultant is being quite insistent about it…”

*

At home after my first day on the job, I reflected on the day’s achievements: I had successfully cleaned up my office and set an inert pendulum into relentless motion; I had begun to acquaint myself with school procedures; I had survived my first convocation. And even though there were still many unresolved questions — The root causes of disunion between Rusty and Gwen? The relative merits of loose constructionism? Bessie’s ambiguous marital status? — this was certainly an encouraging start.

Before going to bed I took out my shaving supplies and for the first time since stumbling across the finish line of graduate school I shaved off my mustache entirely. Newly liberated, I threw the whiskers in the trash and took up the unfinished historical novel I’d been reading since my bus ride to Cow Eye. Then, upon second thought, I set it aside in favor of the non-fiction work I’d just taken from my predecessor’s office. The Anyman’s Guide to Love and the Community College was dusty from its lengthy summer hiatus and when I opened it a silverfish crawled out and scurried across my pillow. In a few minutes I would fall asleep with the book on my chest. But for now I opened the front cover and carefully read the first page of this helpful guide to a love so true and simple that any man can find it. “The human desire for love,” it explained, “is as old as the community college itself….”

*

(…)

In fact, love is even older — tracing its lineage back to the days, long before community colleges, when the heart was still an untamed beast like the many undomesticated cows that once roamed the world. These were the days of wandering and wonder, of vast unconquered lands that encouraged diaspora and discovery. For the history of humankind is the history of man’s quelling of his own desires. Or, rather, of their pursuit. Across continents and through time. With a diligence that knows no parallel among other beasts of burden. More than any force of nature, it is love — of self, of family, of god and country, of great ideas — that has been the constant catalyst in the making of the world as it is. Without love there would be no religion. No art. No philosophy. Without love we would not have saints or martyrs or prophets. And of course, without love we would not have community colleges.

It is said that for a thing to exist it must live side by side with its opposite. Day cannot be day without night. Nor can the flow exist without the ebb. In this way there can be no joy without despair. No enlightenment without ignorance. And no passage of time without the final resolution of death. But before there was a community college there could be none of this — nothing at all but a very dark void. And then came God and the universe that He created which in turn begat time and space, such that over the many billions of years and the many billions of miles, the lineage of learning came down from its timeless ancestors:

From God came the universe and from the universe came time and space. And from all of this came the community college where love itself is nurtured just as the sky nurtures the stars in her embrace. For surely there can be no truer love than the love of learning. The teaching of an idea requires the transfer of knowledge from one mind to the next, just as the birth of a child requires the transfer of seed from one mammal to another. This is why, among institutions of the world, the community college is the cradle of all that love aspires to be, and it is why, among lovers of the world, its faculty are a chosen people. And for this reason, the community college has always been, and will always be, the breeding ground for love. Its eternal source. The place it always returns to and whence it always comes. For to know the world in its entirety is to know, in a very small way, your local community college. And vice versa.

(…)

*

The next morning I stood near the guard shack with my fellow new hires waiting for the bus that would take us to our teambuilding activities. “How’re you doing, Mr. Charlie?” Timmy had asked when he saw me, and I’d answered: “Fine, thanks, and you?” Now under the tall sky the morning air was still cold and the six of us stood in a loose huddle, our hands stuck straight into our pockets, bobbing from one leg to the other to keep warm. Luke Quittles, the culinary instructor, was the most gregarious of the bunch and seemed to be the best at leading the group into small conversation. The Newtowns, Ethel and Stan, were also laughing and joking with the others. Nan Stallings and Raul Torres stood slightly apart, less outgoing but no less involved in the light conversation. As we spoke, a trail of cold lingered in the air after our words.

“So what do you guys think of Cow Eye so far?” Luke asked.

“Stunning campus,” Nan answered. “I just love the fountains.”

“They really are impressive,” Ethel agreed. “Did you see the way they make those rainbows against the light?”

“Not unlike the magic fountain of Montjuic,” said Raul.

“Maybe,” Luke added. “But the cattle-themed statuary is far better here!”

Everyone nodded their agreement.

“Just watch out for those damn pelicans,” Stan Newtown muttered. “They can be vicious!”

The conversation continued along these lines for some time, Nan telling the group about a team of foundry workers she’d once helped to unionize, Stan and Ethel detailing their search for a house close enough to campus that the fountain with the bull and heifer could be easily viewed from their bedroom window. Luke shared an old family recipe for pelican. Raul quickly calculated the calories in a romantic meal for two, to which Nan stated that she had never heard such a charming accent and that she’d always wanted to visit Barcelona. At a slight remove from all of this, I followed the conversation mostly in silence, though every now and then someone would pull me into the mix and I would reply dutifully, the conversation then moving just as dutifully past me and on to other, more interesting things.

Eventually a yellow school bus pulled up and its doors opened. Out stepped Dr. Felch in blue jeans and flannel shirt, a worn leather cowboy hat and work boots. “Good morning, everyone!” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re all wearing covered shoes!”

While the bus idled in the background the group exchanged some friendly banter about the cold and a few jokes about the bus and then after Dr. Felch had collected all of our liability waivers he looked at us and said, “Colleagues. Today you’re going to learn something extremely valuable. It’s called working together as a team. Some people refer to it as teamwork, and it is critical in any institution — whether it be a sports team, an institution of higher education, or a working cattle ranch. Today you’re going to see teamwork in action. Today you’re going to become teamwork in action. Because today you’re going to learn to work together…. Let’s go!”

The six of us followed Dr. Felch into the large bus and made our way to our seats. It was a working school bus, complete with flashing red lights and octagonal stop sign that swung out into oncoming traffic when the door opened. The bus might have seated sixty elementary students comfortably so there was more than enough room for each of us to choose our own bench seat and to lounge comfortably on it — which we did. The Newtowns were in the middle of the bus across the aisle from each other; Raul was sitting halfway between their row and the front; Luke was in the very back and Nan was halfway between them. I too was sitting by myself.

Dr. Felch, standing arms-folded at the head of the aisle next to the driver, watched all of this with some amusement. When everyone had taken up their places throughout the bus and had settled in comfortably for the ride, he uncrossed his arms and stepped forward.

“Well!” he announced. “You all just failed the first test! The first and most important step in teambuilding is to get to know the members of your team. So get up out of your seats and go sit next to somebody you don’t know. Go on…!”

Surprised, we looked around at each other. Luke Quittles was first to move, getting up from his seat and going to sit next to Mrs. Newtown. Her husband followed suit and went to the back of the bus to occupy the spot next to Nan Stallings. That left Raul and me, and so I took the initiative to walk over to his seat and introduce myself.

“Well, Raul,” I said. “It looks like you and I are going to be sitting rather closely together….”

Raul motioned gracefully for me to join him, shifting over as far as he could toward the window. The two of us were now sitting shoulder to shoulder on the narrow seat, which would have accommodated a pair of third graders perfectly but now felt suddenly undersized with two full-grown men in it. As Dr. Felch watched us all take our places, Raul and I peered back at him over the green vinyl upholstery in front of us.

Dr. Felch continued:

“Okay. Now that you’re seated, I’d like to ask each of you to get to know your seat mate. You’ve already learned a bit about each other yesterday at convocation. But now let’s really get to know each other. To break the ice for good, I’d like to ask you all to share several important things about yourself. Be thorough with your answers because a bit later we’re going to reconvene under a skimpy tree and share them with the group as a whole. So here’s your assignment….”

Dr. Felch raised his fist and extended his thumb out to indicate that he was counting and that he would be beginning with the number one.

“….First,” he said, “please tell your partner what your name is. And by this I don’t just mean the simple name you go by. Give us your full name. And tell us its story. How were you given that particular name? Was it your mother’s idea? Or your father’s? How did they choose it? Does it have any cultural or historical meaning? Any symbolism or hidden significance? Be specific here because there really is no better clue to a person’s inner being — to their deepest fears and hopes; to their presumed role in the world, not to mention the expectations that others have for them — than the name they’ve been given and that they use in their interactions with the world….”

Dr. Felch waited for all of us to write down his words. When everyone had looked back up from their notes he unfurled his forefinger along with his already extended thumb to indicate the number two:

“…Second….after you’ve told us about your name, tell us this: If you weren’t at Cow Eye, where would you be and what would you be doing? Would you be a stunt man? A prophet king? A deejay? Would you travel to the Parthenon? Run with the bulls in Pamplona? Visit the Taj Mahal on a weekday? Be creative here — after all, your personal talents are as diverse as your inner aspirations. And the world itself is a very big place….”

Some of the faculty in the bus had already turned back to each other and were beginning to answer the questions, but Dr. Felch interrupted them:

“… Wait! That’s not all! It’s a long bus ride….” And here he extended his third finger, the middle one, along with the other two:

“Next, let’s continue the discussion we started yesterday by telling the world what brought you to Cow Eye Community College — how you came to be seated in this yellow school bus headed back into the heart of a drought for the ages — and how you see yourself contributing to the mission of our college when we get back. You’ve heard our mission statement first-hand. You’ve no doubt committed it to memory and have aligned your personal values accordingly. So now that you are embarking on your new life here at the college, tell us how you intend to contribute to our institutional mission…?”

As Dr. Felch extended his fourth finger, his ring finger, I noticed for the first time that there was a thick wedding ring around it. The ring was both quaint and tight and seemed to suggest that it might never come off — that perhaps for no other reason than this it really might be the final ring he ever wore:

“…Fourth, please share at least one embarrassing personal secret that you would rather nobody ever find out about you….”

“Embarrassing secret?!” we objected.

“Yes. Something so personal and humiliating that you would never want anybody else — especially new colleagues you’re meeting for the first time — to know about you.”

Dr. Felch smiled and quickly extended his final finger, the smallest one, to make the number five:

“…And fifth — and take your time with this one, folks — please share an insight that you’ve learned from personal experience that will help your peers better understand the many ins and outs…”

At that very instant, as if to thwart his utterance, the engine roared up; the driver had put the bus in gear and it was accelerating forward with a loud groan. Dr. Felch tried to shout over the sudden sound but to no avail, and so, as the bus pulled out of the college and onto the dusty road, Dr. Felch grabbed the microphone next to the driver and switched it on.

“Can you hear me? Is this thing on…?”

“We hear you!” Luke shouted. “It’s on!”

“….Well, it looks like we’re on our way. So lastly….please give us an insight that will help your seat mate better understand the ins and outs, the highs and lows, the unique peculiarities and idiosyncrasies, of…love.”

Now the bus was rumbling over the railroad tracks and Dr. Felch, who was still standing in the aisle, had to reach out for the seat in front of him to keep from falling.

“Did you get it all?” he said. “I hope you were taking good notes because this is what you’ll be expected to share with the larger group. So that by the time we reach our destination each of you will have learned all there is to know about your partner, and he — I’m sorry….he or she — will know everything there is to know about you. It’s a thirty-five minute bus ride, so you should have plenty of time for the sharing. Ready? Set. GO…!”

Dr. Felch sat down.

Beyond the window the scenery had changed again. The heat had returned and now we were moving over a desolate landscape with dead grass and white cattle skeletons and buzzards circling overhead. In the aridity of unbridled sun the air was newly barren, as if the waters that were so plentiful on campus had suddenly evaporated and the transplanted verdure had withered to dust as soon as we crossed the wooden barrier separating the college from the world outside. Raul was sitting closest to the window watching it all pass slowly and listlessly by, a lifeless continuum, like a string of numbers running ahead into infinity.

“It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.

“I hadn’t thought to notice,” I answered. “But yes.”

“There’s nothing starker than drought. Or more timeless than the sun.”

“Very nicely put, Raul.”

“It makes me remember the times when I was a child and I would play outside for hours at a time, never concerned about the melodramas or the melanomas of the world. Life was so much simpler then…”

And here Raul launched into a wistful retelling of his life’s story — of how he ended up at Cow Eye Community College — and as he did I listened for answers to the questions that Dr. Felch had assigned us. “When I was born,” he said, “my mother named me Raul….”

*

When Raul was born, he explained, his parents named him Raul. It wasn’t his mother’s first choice but his father had insisted on it as it was the name of his favorite uncle. In truth, Raul confessed, he hadn’t been born within the city of Barcelona itself but in a sleepy fishing village a few miles up the coast. His father had been a fisherman but had been swept away at sea one winter before Raul had even had a chance to know him. Raul’s mother took to supporting her young son as a seamstress and one of Raul’s earliest memories was of the men of the village stopping by his house to leave their pantaloons for his mother. Because she was so young and beautiful the men would come with their hats in hand to request her services. Raul was only three or four at the time but he could still remember the smell of the ollada wafting through the house: the potatoes and legumes and salted pork cooking in the heavy pot in the kitchen. One day he came home from playing with his cousins to find a man he’d never seen before standing over his mother in their kitchen. The man claimed that his father owed a large debt that was unsettled and that he had come to collect. Raul’s mother was sobbing on the floor and begging the stranger for a pardon that he refused to give. A month later Raul and his mother were on a ship headed across the Atlantic for South America where they landed and then made their way northward by bus and foot and mule through Central America and Mexico and into California by way of Tenochtitlan, Tayasal and Cholula — but also Veracruz, Chapultepec, and Buena Vista. His mother’s cousin had moved to Sonora with her husband a few years back and now in desperation she’d asked for her help in arranging the paperwork for her journey. The route was perilous and along the way they’d encountered armed pirates and assiduous missionaries and areas of jungle where malaria was still rampant so that when they finally arrived to the checkpoint at Tijuana and a Customs official waved them across the border into the U.S., it seemed to her that there would be no further destinations in her life. His mother found work cleaning houses and mending clothes in San Diego and Raul was put into the local school system. Astray from his native tongue, Raul suffered initially when his English did not blossom as quickly as his teachers would have liked. But math was a different story: coming to him easily and fluently, it became his true passion. With numbers he could find the solitary reward of calculating a formula correctly, the joy of definitive truths in their blackest and whitest forms. Soon Raul was the best student in his class. Eventually his English caught up to his math — his words even surpassing his numbers — and he was sent to a special magnet school in another part of the city where he studied vigorously, living with cousins during the school week and returning home only on weekends. By now his mother was working three jobs and although older and more brittle with each passing school year, she continued to make every sacrifice for him. In fact it wasn’t California that had been the ultimate destination of her dreams but the Texas she’d seen in movies with its wide open skies and vast expanses of land. She loved the romantic ideal of the cowboys on horses and the cattle roundups and the broad word spoken loud and strong. When she died during his senior year of high school Raul swore that he would visit Texas one day to fulfill her unfulfilled dream and to put her memory to peace.

And here Raul stopped his story.

Outside our bus the long fence of the Cow Eye Ranch was passing by with its meat-loving propaganda recurring every few hundred yards. LIVE CARNIVOROUSLY, one sign would say and then, a ways down the road: BE BULLISH!

“So have you been there?” I asked. “Have you been to Texas?”

Raul looked out the window at the long fence with its fading slogans.

“Not yet,” he said. “It just hasn’t worked out for me. Though I did come close once….”

“Just once?”

“Yes, when I was younger.”

And here Raul began his story of the time in his life when he’d come ever so close to visiting Texas and fulfilling his mother’s dream posthumously.

“I even had the ticket….” he said.

It was while working on his master’s degree, and he was being courted by a small private college outside Dallas. The college was recruiting promising statisticians for its new PhD program in Intercultural Statistics and Raul’s academic and cultural background was compelling. They were even going to pay for him to visit the campus. It was the final year of his master’s program and despite the good fortune of his striking looks, he had yet to fall in love with anything but numbers. In fact, he’d been so focused on his studies that the other things in life — everything from love to hygiene to the affections he might have had for the attentive young women around him — had always been set aside for later, like an irrational number multiplied by itself. This might have lasted forever if not for the twist of random fortune that caused him to tutor an undergraduate who would show him what love could be. The girl was far from brilliant but had all the shimmer that he could ever want. “Why go so far away?” she asked. And so he canceled his trip, withdrew his application, turned down the scholarship in order to stay where he was. From that point on he began to dress with a purpose, learned to play the guitar, spoke with a slightly inflected Catalan accent that suddenly caught the attentions of the opposite sex. And though it would be a life-changing decision for him, he never got over the moral choice he’d made or the opportunity he’d given up. “Love is a strange thing,” he said. “My mother loved me for seventeen years. And I cast her memory aside for a girl I’d only known a few weeks.”

“I’m sure your mother would understand….”

Raul shook his head.

“She probably would have. And that makes it so much worse….”

“What happened with the girl?” I asked.

“We broke up soon after. But not before she showed me what the consequences of love can be.”

Here Raul grew pensive.

“Today we’re being asked to give our notions of love. And I’ve heard a lot of different opinions on the issue. Some say love is a process. Others argue that it’s the result. But if you ask me, love is neither of these things. Because in fact it is not a thing at all, but its consequence. Without that consequence there can be no such thing as love. So to answer your question — or rather, Dr. Felch’s question — love, I would say, is the very consequence of itself.”

“And Texas, Raul? Do you have any plans to go there?”

“Of course. Though nothing specific at the moment.”

“Why not? You seem very committed to it.”

“It’s just so far away….”

“From here?”

“Yes. From Cow Eye Junction.”

“But, Raul, it would be really easy to do. I mean, when you think how far you’ve traveled to get here. Compared to the distance from Barcelona to this parched pasture, the distance from this pasture to Texas is almost nothing at all.”

“I suppose that’s true,” he said. “And I’m sure I’ll get there someday. But until then I’ll just wait patiently. Until then I have no choice but to wait patiently.”

And then an idea occurred to me. Like a sudden storm surge it washed through my mind, and, without thinking, I let it out:

“What about next summer, Raul? We could go! I’ve always wanted to visit a place like Texas myself. And I have some money saved up. We’ll take a road trip, you and me…!”

Raul laughed and offered me his hand. I shook it.

“You’re very kind, my friend. I’ll keep it in mind.”

I blushed at my own enthusiasm. Then I said:

“And your embarrassing secret, Raul? Would you care to share that with me?”

“My secret?” he said. “Yes, I do have a secret. But I would appreciate you not sharing it with the group.”

“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

“I’m not really from Barcelona.”

“You’re not?”

“No, I’m not. And I never crossed the Atlantic. Truthfully, I’ve never been to Venice or Rio, though the rest of my narrative is true. My mother did work three jobs to put me through college. And we did cross the border to get here. And she did die from her third job. And I do still regret never making it to Texas.”

“But if you’re not from Barcelona, then what culture do you come from?”

Raul paused to look out the window as if searching for a far-off memory. Then said:

“Nowadays I belong to a culture of evidence.”

“But why the story? Why the need for mythology?”

“Well, Charlie, you know what they say: in this world there are lies, blatant lies, and autobiography.”

“Not statistics?”

“Those too perhaps.”

I laughed.

“You’re probably right,” I said. “Thanks for sharing. And in any case, don’t worry — your secret is safe with me.”

Now we were passing a scorched field with a beat-up pasture seeder lying abandoned in the distance. The sky was wide open and the heat in the bus was growing with each mile traveled. A few seats behind us Luke and Ethel were talking good-naturedly. And further behind them, on the other side of the aisle, Stan Newton and Nan Stallings looked to be exchanging important insights of their own. At the front of it all, Dr. Felch was sitting at the head of the bus with a lit cigarette — his tenth — and laughing with the driver, an old friend from high school, seemingly satisfied that his ice-breaking activity was succeeding behind him.

“So what about you, Charlie?” Raul asked. “It seems I’ve told you both of my life stories. But what about yours? How did you get your name? And which place in the world would you most like to visit? What would you otherwise be doing if you weren’t a Special Projects Coordinator at our struggling community college? And how did you end up here, in this very hot school bus, passing the fading fences of the Cow Eye Ranch?”

As I dutifully told the story of how I’d come so far, so quickly — from salutatorian of my high school class to down-on-his-luck habitual divorcee and father of nothing — Raul listened to my words intently. “You know,” I said, “if you had told me when I was younger that I’d end up working at a rural community college, I would have thought you were crazy. It would’ve been so far from what I’d ever imagined for myself. As if you’d told me that I would someday be a fisherman in Barcelona….”

“Why is that so surprising? What did you want to be?”

“Well, when I was in elementary school I wanted to be a trash collector. And when I was in middle school I wanted to be a fire fighter. By high school my goals had changed and I wanted to be a poet, though that quickly changed in college when I realized that the money simply wasn’t there and that I should be a philosopher instead. By graduate school I was already leaning toward a career in educational administration. It’s funny how we sort of ratchet down our expectations with the degrees we acquire….”

“So where would you be if you weren’t here? And what would you be doing?”

“I’m not sure. I guess I would be someplace that would allow me to stand slightly apart from a large crowd. A night janitor perhaps. Or an usher at a theater. But instead here I am. After the passing of so much time and space, here I am on this crowded seat with you, Raul. Not that I’m complaining of course….”

“Of course….”

“….Actually, it all seems clear and straightforward and perfectly sensible to me now. In fact just the other day I was remembering some of the people who in small and unpredictable ways — and probably not even realizing it themselves — have played a role in bringing me to where I am. The kindly elementary teacher. The friend from college who let me take her from innocence to womanhood. The three passersby who picked me up from the bloody asphalt….”

“Bloody asphalt?”

“Yes, bloody asphalt.”

“Is that your most embarrassing secret?”

“Not really, though it’s definitely one of my most painful! And as I look back on all of these things I sometimes think to myself, wow, wouldn’t it be great if I could retrace my steps. To go back to that asphalt. And to that classroom. To revisit those people along the way. To just connect with them for a few moments to let them know how they’ve impacted my life. To shake their hands and say, Hey, thank you for picking me up off the asphalt. And for steering me toward educational administration. And for letting me caress the contours of your innocence with my trembling hands. As fleeting as your presence in my life was — as trivial as it seemed at the time — it turned out to be pivotal and everlasting in the end….”

Raul nodded as if he understood. I continued:

“But I know it’s impossible. Because they’re traveling their own paths. Like a million different arrows all being shot at each other….”

Again Raul nodded.

“Crossing each other in flight?”

“Right. And continuing on their solitary way.”

“It’s a daring image.”

“I am one of those arrows, Raul.”

“And so am I,” he said. Then he pulled his arm back into an imaginary bow aimed right at Texas.

“So, Charlie,” he said after letting his arrow fly, “what more can you tell me about yourself…?”

Over the next few minutes Raul asked the questions we’d been assigned and I answered them one by one. When he asked about my reason for coming to Cow Eye, I told him about my dingy apartment and the cup of tepid urine. And when he asked about my proposed contributions to the college, I answered that Dr. Felch had made it very clear what my duties were to be: that I would be leading the accreditation process, helping organize the Christmas party, and doing my best to bring our divided faculty together — and that if I could find a way to do these three things I would be saving the college from the precipice of institutional ruin. Then I told him that on top of my professional assignments I’d also developed my own personal objectives to guide me through the year.

At this Raul perked up.

“You have personal objectives?” he said. “That’s admirable. Can I hear them?”

And so I told him that during the upcoming year I would be striving to find the moisture in all things, and to love the unloved, and to experience both day and night.

“And what about becoming something entirely?”

“Yes of course. That too.”

“Those are certainly noble aims,” he said. “But are they achievable? Can you measure them?”

“Measure?”

“With numbers.”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never thought about it that way.”

“These sound like lofty goals. But what are their outcomes? For example, you say that you want to ‘become something entirely.’ But what does that mean exactly? Can you give me an example that shows a tangible outcome of that particular goal?”

I thought for a second or two over Raul’s question. Then I said:

“Yes I can. Just yesterday I shaved my mustache. Before that I’d always let it grow out in fits and spurts, but it never really acquired the status of an effective mustache. Bessie brought this to my attention yesterday before convocation and you know what — she’s right! So I shaved it off completely. Yesterday I had a mustache but now I no longer do. So the outcome is a one hundred percent reduction in my mustache!”

“I suppose that’s a good start. But remember that your broad goals should have supporting objectives, and each of your supporting objectives should have tangible, measurable outcomes. And all of it should align with your overall reason for living, your purpose in this world, your own personal mission statement, if you will. In essence, people are no different from institutions because, if you get right down to it, Charlie, a human being is nothing more than a community college without the pelicans. In the case of a rural college like ours, the alignment looks something like this….” And here Raul took out a pen and a note pad from his shirt pocket and drew the following chart:

“Now notice that it all comes down from the mission statement. And this means that everything the college does needs to trickle down from that statement. And I do mean everything. The developmental math class. The men cutting the grass. The indoor shooting range. The bull mounting the heifer. All of it!”

And here, again, he took to his diagram and filled it in with specifics from our college to demonstrate how even the simplest things we see on campus are a product of this alignment:

“Or represented differently, it might look like this….”

“Of course you know better than me how this works, Charlie. After all, you’re the one who’ll be leading us through the accreditation process. But what you may not have considered is the value of this system for individuals. Each of us has our mission statement supported by broad goals, which are in turn supported by specific objectives and measurable outcomes. Of course community colleges are on the cutting edge of this. But as human beings we also have these statements buried very deep within us. And we tend to follow them intuitively, if haphazardly. But the problem is we almost never articulate them, which creates confusion and causes mission drift. For example, in your case it might look as follows….”

And here Raul took out a red pen and began writing alongside the original diagram of the College’s mission that he’d already drawn. This took several minutes and while he scribbled I gazed past his profile out the window at the passing scenery. Beyond the glass the sun was glaring and reflecting in heat waves off the black road. Tumbleweeds rested along the side of the highway, waiting for a gust of wind, any wind, to blow them further along. An abandoned shack flashed by and then a lifeless windmill; strangely, not a single car or truck passed us in the opposite direction. Finally, Raul tapped his diagram with his pen. “Okay, here it is, Charlie….” he said. “Here’s a diagram of your purpose in life presented in a format that might help you see more clearly where there’s room for continuous improvement….”

“Or represented differently….”

“Now as you look at these you can see that you’re strong in Goals but weak in Objectives and Outcomes. But most importantly, you really need to do some soul-searching to ask yourself: What is my Mission? Sure you have the goals, Charlie. And the objectives can come from there. But where is the overarching mission statement that gives meaning and unity to it all? What is the ultimate reason you want to find the moisture in things, to love the unloved, and to experience both day and night?”

“You mean, why do I want to become something entirely?”

“Right. Aside from the fact that these things sound nice and look good on paper? Until you find that ultimate mission statement, you’re going to be simply floundering at the goals and objectives levels without ever knowing whether you’re getting any closer to achieving your ultimate mission in life. And that, in turn, will keep you from moving efficiently toward specific measurable outcomes.”

Raul ripped the page from his notebook.

“You can keep this….” He handed me the paper and I took it, folding the page into a small square and tucking it into my shirt pocket.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I really don’t know about all this, Raul. I mean, this seems awfully functional. Don’t you think there’s any room left in life for serendipity? Shouldn’t we as human beings aspire toward imperfection rather than perfection? Inefficiency rather than efficiency? Flawed curricula vitae rather than the ones that are polished beyond recognition? I guess what I’m trying to say, Raul, is that it all seems purposeful and correct, yes….but also sort of false. For example, you say that a human being is nothing more than a community college without the pelicans. But doesn’t this deny us the wonder that comes from being human? Isn’t a community college a contrived place with aligned mission, goals, and objectives where the pelicans and diverse flora have been introduced according to plan….whereas the human soul is the place with the overgrown weeds where the bystander still imagines Dahurian larch and dreams quixotically of pelicans?”

Raul thought a few moments. Then he said, “Perhaps. But you are clearly searching for something. So let me ask you this. You’ve lamented that you are a lot of different things but none of them entirely. So what does that mean exactly? What are you really trying to get at?”

“It’s hard to say, Raul. It’s just. Well, take any two opposites and I’ll be something in the middle. I’m practical among idealistic people but idealistic among pragmatic people. I’m masculine compared to feminine men but feminine compared to muscular ones. To the agnostics I seem religious but to the religious I am merely spiritual. Culturally I straddle. Philosophically I meander. And professionally and personally I lack the commitment to stay focused. I have no drive, no determination, no resolve. And that explains why I bounce from one thing to the next. Like a breeding bull in a pasture full of heifers.”

“And this is bad?”

“Well, it’s fine for the bull — and maybe even for the heifers. But it’s also bad in a way too. I guess, it’s both.”

“There you go again….”

“Exactly! You see, that’s how it is with me. If I’m tall among short people and short among tall people, then what I really am is neither short nor tall. And in this way I’m neither practical nor idealistic. Neither authentic nor false. Neither Federalist nor Republican. To the West I am East, while to the East I am West. And all of this means that I am not really anything at all. I am not anywhere at all. And this is why I have such a longing to become something in its entirety. What I wouldn’t give to be either tall or short! To be logical or intuitive. To be infinitely complex or infinitely simple. To be able to say, without hesitation, that I am this, or I am that. And that I am this or that entirely. Purity, Raul, that’s what I’m seeking for myself! Purity!”

Raul nodded and moved to speak. But I was already consumed with the question at hand. And so I continued:

“For example, let’s take yourself, Raul. There are things that you simply are, right? Things that you are without having to think too much about them. Nobody would argue that you’re not tall, or that you’re not logical, or elegant, or caucasoid, or attractive to members of the opposite sex…”

“I’m not caucasoid!”

“But you are attractive to members of the opposite sex?”

“I’m gorgeous, yes.”

“Right. And these are good things, Raul. They allow you to move forward with purpose. Your life decisions are borne out by data. Your processes are replicable. You’ve been able to align your goals, objectives, and measurable outcomes to support your mission for being on this earth. It all works in perfect harmony, like the ballads you sing. I guess what I’m saying, Raul, is that your life has purpose and efficiency. It is proper and data-driven. If you were aspiring to accreditation, you would no doubt receive glowing commendations from our accreditors along with a full six-year reaffirmation. But I am…well….different….”

Raul had moved to ask another question but we were already turning off the highway onto a dusty dirt road. The bus stopped in front of a large sign welcoming us to the Cow Eye Ranch (“Where Cow’s Meat” the sign said) and sat idling while Dr. Felch stood up and grabbed the microphone. He flicked a switch. The speakers squeaked with feedback.

“Is this thing on?” he said. “Can you hear me?”

“We hear you!” we all yelled.

“Good. If you look out your windows you will see that we are now entering the Cow Eye Ranch. For those of you who are not familiar with the unique history of Cow Eye Junction, you will be interested to know that the Cow Eye Ranch was the original cattle ranch around which the town of Cow Eye Junction grew up. The ranch was created at the beginning of the last century and in its heyday it fed half the country. And by this, of course, we mean the half of the country that eats meat….”

The bus had now started to move forward and was crawling through the gate and into the vast territory of the ranch. On either side of our bus huge corrals and fences sprang up and within some of these there were collections of cattle and in others there were not. As we drove slowly past the orange and black herds, the cattle would lift their heads to regard us with vague bovine indifference, then return to the greater immediacies of the moment.

At last our bus reached an area where a series of corrals and gates were arranged in a complex maze. It was an old part of the ranch that wasn’t used so much any more — Dr. Felch had made arrangements with his ex-wife to use it for the day — and it offered little in the way of accommodations: a single water faucet and a beat-up picnic table under a skimpy and shadeless tree. “Okay,” Dr. Felch said. “We’re here. Please watch your step as you exit the bus. It’s a bit of a drop…” Dr. Felch thanked the driver, his friend from high school, and agreed on the time for lunch. The doors of the bus opened and we filed out.

*

After the long bus ride, our legs had cramped and it felt good to step outside — even though the sky was still cloudless and the sun shone down on us without relent. In the dead air Luke Quittles was sweating profusely. Ethel Newtown was using her copy of the Cow Eye Express, the local classifieds section, to fan herself. Even Raul, who was usually a monument to physical grace and elegance, seemed slightly unnerved by the heat.

“Let’s sit over here….” Dr. Felch said and led us to a picnic table under the skimpy tree whose sparse shade could not even hold back a tenth of the sun. The benches on either side of the table were weathered and splintered and they creaked as we took our turns positioning ourselves on them. “Let’s wait a few more minutes,” said Dr. Felch. “Professor Smithcoate should be here any second now.”

As we waited for Will Smithcoate, chair of the New Faculty Orientation committee, the seven of us traded impressions of the bus ride and of the heat. Nan said that it was so hot she thought she would melt. And Luke joked that the seats of the bus were not meant for two adults but that he and Ethel had done their best under the circumstances and that if implicated in any subsequent paternity test he would do the right thing and pay for the abortion, though he would also forward it on to the college as a reimbursable work expense. Dr. Felch laughed at all this and said, “That’s the price of teambuilding, my friends!” Then he said, “Well, it looks like Will’s going to be later than I thought. Let’s go ahead and get started.”

Sitting on an overturned bucket at the head of the picnic table Dr. Felch repeated that we would each be presenting our partner’s responses to the questions he’d assigned us on the bus. As he spoke, the sun continued to blaze down onto the tops of our heads, the breeze was nowhere to be found, and the six of us fiddled and shifted in the heat.

“So remember the questions you need to answer,” Dr. Felch reminded us. “Your partner’s name; how they ended up at Cow Eye; what their contribution to our college will be; what they would be doing if they weren’t here; their favorite humiliating secret; and, of course, something insightful about love. And to show you how this is done, and to underscore my democratic style of leadership, I will first give you my own answers to the questions….that is to say, I’ll introduce myself….”

Dr. Felch took out a cigarette — his eleventh — and lit it.

“….So, my name is William Arthur Felch, a name chosen by my parents thirteen years before I was born. My parents never explained why they wanted this particular name so much, though my mother once told me that even if I’d been born a girl they would’ve given me the exact same name. Obviously, at Cow Eye I’ve played an important role in the college’s emergence over the years but now I see my immediate goal as leaving the college in good hands to the next person who comes in. I’m hoping it will be someone from Cow Eye but I understand that it probably won’t. If I weren’t here I would be visiting my children and their families in the many places around the country where they now live. My embarrassing personal secret is that I’ve been the subject of several personal lawsuits that, thankfully, have been settled out of court. And as to love….”

Dr. Felch took a long drag of his cigarette, then blew out the smoke.

“….As to love, well, at my age I think I’m more qualified to speak of what love was than what it is. You see, I’ve been married five times and each time the woman I married was thirty years old. A strange coincidence, I know, but it’s also served as a control of sorts amid a host of otherwise complex variables. My first marriage, when I was still in my roaring twenties and she had just turned thirty, was amazing! It was all flesh and hope and raw unadulterated nerves; much of what I know of life came from this amazing older woman. The second marriage, when I was thirty and she was also thirty, was equitable and egalitarian — a true partnership of equals. My third marriage, when I had just turned forty and she was barely thirty, was organic and relaxed and perfectly pragmatic; she and I were in our second and third marriages, respectively, and didn’t even need a ceremony — just a signing of prenuptials. The fourth, when I was fifty and she was thirty, was reinvigorating! Once again I felt the raw nerves of youthful desire and for the first time in many years I found myself using ellipses and exclamation marks rather than mundane commas and full stops! (Unfortunately, this one ended in exclamation marks for all the wrong reasons, and for that reason I would rather not talk about it.) And then there was my fifth marriage, the current one, when I was already pushing sixty and she was only thirty and it was — how should I put this? — a victory over life! All of these marriages were great in their own way. And so I can say that love was all I could have ever hoped it to be: amazing and comforting and egalitarian and reinvigorating and, ultimately, a victory over life. That’s what love was. What it is nowadays I have no idea….”

Dr. Felch flicked the long ash that had accumulated on the tip of his cigarette.

“So anyway that’s a little about me.”

“Thank you for sharing, Dr. Felch.”

“You’re welcome. Now it’s your turn. Who wants to go first…?”

“I’ll go first,” said Luke and he pointed at Ethel Newtown whose pending paternity suit had so unsettled him. “This is Ethel Newtown. Ethel was named after a character in her mother’s favorite television sitcom. She sees her role at the college as using her journalism classes to help students consider and analyze the world critically. If she weren’t here at Cow Eye she imagines she would be living in upstate New York and working as a fashion designer. And her embarrassing personal secret is that….” Luke paused, looking over at Ethel as if seeking her approval to continue. Ethel giggled her consent to proceed. And so he said, “….Ethel’s embarrassing personal secret is that she has never achieved orgasm with Stan.”

“What!” said Stan. “That’s not true! Ethel, tell them it’s not true!”

Ethel giggled again. Stan shook his head.

Luke continued:

“….As to an insight into love, Ethel feels that love is a thing that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”

“Not with Stan, it doesn’t!” said Nan. “With him it just has a beginning and a middle…!”

Everyone laughed.

“Very funny,” said Stan, though he was laughing as well.

“…So Ethel believes that love should have all three of these things because without a beginning, love is not love; it is a fragment. Without a middle, it is not love either, just a byline. And without an end, even if it truly had been love at some point, it will no longer be love of the same kind but something else altogether. Without an end it will be a run-on sentence going on and on into oblivion….”

When Luke had finished introducing Ethel’s notions of love, Dr. Felch thanked him and Ethel took her turn introducing Luke in return.

“As promised, I’ll be introducing Luke Quittles,” said Ethel. “Luke’s given name comes from biblical sources as both of his parents are ecumenical Baptists. Luke the Evangelist was chosen because he, the biblical Luke, was the patron saint of artists, butchers, and unmarried men — and Luke’s parents were hopeful that he, the culinary Luke, would one day be all of these; unfortunately, when it became clear at an early age that Luke had other aspirations they disowned him completely. Luke says that if he weren’t at Cow Eye, he would be working as a celebrity chef somewhere, but that Fate and a well-concealed — and yes, painfully embarrassing — drinking habit have conspired to bring him here to the college during its time of drought and desolation. He’s thankful for the second chance and sees his mission as helping students unlock their hidden potential not only in the kitchen but in every aspect of their existence. He believes that love is like an enchilada, with a simple veneer on the outside but with an infinite variety of intermingling flavors and textures at its core.”

“And a personal secret?” we prompted.

“As if the drinking habit weren’t enough,” said Ethel, “Luke also has a weakness for violent pornography and under-aged hookers.”

“Oh,” said Dr. Felch. “Well that definitely counts. Okay, who’s next?”

“I’ll go,” said Nan, clearing her throat before continuing: “As you all know, my partner is Stanley Isaac Newtown, or, as he himself noted, and not without pride, SIN for short. Stan got his first name because his parents were raised in a different social context and thought it sounded exotic. His middle name was chosen because they assumed the subtle reference to the founder of calculus would be a good thing. Stan says that if he weren’t here at Cow Eye he would be living in Vermont and working as a consultant in survivalist bunker construction; but that as long as he’s here he might as well contribute to the college’s mission by encouraging his students to explore the great diversity of the world’s many cultures so that they may obtain a better appreciation of the virtues of doing things the American way. His embarrassing personal secret is that he once falsified research that was published by several academic journals and, ironically, it is this research that has since become the cornerstone on which his entire career is based. Being that it’s all false he worries that it will one day come to light and that he will be ruined as a scholar and as a man.”

“Thank you, Nan,” said Dr. Felch. “And Stan’s insights on love? Did he reveal any of those?”

“Oh yes, I almost forgot. Stan believes that love is fleeting and deceptive but that it must be pursued at all cost. He maintains that it is not unlike a lost civilization that reveals itself only after many years of unbroken faith in its existence and of course meticulous excavation efforts. He admits that although he has unearthed several lost civilizations in his time, he has never been able to reveal the secrets of true love. That is, he has never actually been in love.”

A gasp went up around the table.

“You mean except for Ethel…?”

“Um, no….including Ethel.” Nan shrugged her shoulders as if to apologize for Stan’s insensitivity.

Here a hush fell over the group. Amid the awkwardness, nobody around the table knew quite what to say. Finally it was Raul who put his arm around Mrs. Newtown and gave her a comforting squeeze.

“Don’t worry, Ethel,” he said. “There is no shortage of conspiracy theorists in this world.”

“Alright!” said Dr. Felch trying to quickly redirect the discussion. “Who’s up next? Nan just finished introducing Stan. So Stan, you heartless bastard, it looks like you’re up….”

At this, Stan checked his handwritten notes and pursed his lips to speak. But before he could begin his introduction, a low rumbling that had been growing in the distance became suddenly very loud and we all looked up to see a light blue Oldsmobile Starfire trailing a line of dust behind it. The car was huge and shiny and very polished and when it had pulled up next to the skimpy tree and come to a dead stop and the engine had been shut off, the door opened and out stepped Will Smithcoate, long-tenured history professor and recently appointed chair of the New Faculty Orientation committee. Will was dressed exactly as he had been at the opening convocation in a dapper gray suit and red bow tie and fedora hat. Only now he also sported a red rose pinned to his lapel and a cigar still in its cellophane which jutted out of his breast pocket.

“I’m very sorry to be late,” he said when he had made his way over to the wooden picnic table. One by one he walked around the table to introduce himself to his new peers, calmly removing his fedora with his left hand and using the other to either shake the hands of the men around the table or to take the women’s fingers and kiss their knuckles with a gracious and gentlemanly bow. As he passed from one person to the next, the strong smell of alcohol on his breath trailed after him like the cloud of dust behind his Oldsmobile. “I tried to get here sooner,” he explained. “But the traffic was just terrible!”

Dr. Felch shook his head at Will’s excuse. “Have a seat, Will. We’re almost finished with our ice-breaker. We’ll be ready for your teambuilding activity in a few minutes.”

“Sure thing,” said Will, brushing off his slacks before climbing over the bench to take his seat next to Raul, who offered his hand to help him into his place.

Meanwhile, Stan Newtown, who had been standing and waiting the entire time, continued to wait while Will took out his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his temple and then, to everyone’s surprise, remove a shiny metal flask from which he took a deep and committed swig. “I don’t go anywhere without my canteen!” said Will and Dr. Felch again shook his head. And only when all the sweat had been wiped away and the cap to Will’s flask had been twisted back into place did Stan begin his introduction of Nan. In a chipper voice he proclaimed: “Well, ladies and gentlemen, my seatmate was Nancy Stallings! But she prefers to be called Nan….”

Listening to Stan, I kept one eye loosely focused on him and the other intently on Will, who had put his “canteen” back into his coat pocket and was now peeling the cellophane from his cigar; the crinkling sound was almost as loud as Stan himself, who by now was saying:

“….And so that’s the long and incredible story of how Nan got her name…!”

People were smiling in obvious delight at Stan’s story. To the side of me, Will had taken his cigar out of its wrapping and was admiring it.

“….Now to answer Dr. Felch’s other questions,” Stan continued, “Nan believes that it is her mission at the college to ensure that every student has an understanding of the legal system that governs our existence. She feels that without that we are no better than the cows being led from one feedlot to the other on a cruel and brutal march to slaughter. If not serving as the political science instructor at Cow Eye, she believes that she would be serving as a political science instructor at a different community college in an equally out-of-the-way setting someplace in Kentucky or Tennessee. Her definition of love corresponds precisely to that found in Merriam-Webster, and when prodded repeatedly for an embarrassing secret — believe me, guys, I tried! — she finally stated that she would not reveal such personal information unless subpoenaed.”

“Fair enough,” said Dr. Felch. “Spoken as a true lawyer. So Charlie and Raul….you’re up. Who wants to go first?”

“Shall I?” I asked.

“By all means,” Raul answered.

And so I began.

“Wow,” I said. “Where to begin? Raul and I just had a great talk on the bus and I feel like I’ve known him since, well, forever. Raul was named for his father’s uncle. He came to Cow Eye by crossing the Atlantic Ocean in winter. He feels that love is not itself, but rather its own consequence, and he has implied that he would give up all of his prestigious awards if only he could travel to Texas for a day. Raul, you know, I think I forgot to ask what your contribution to Cow Eye will be. But judging by our conversation I think it’s safe to say that you will be helpful in aligning our Goals, Objectives, and overarching Mission — and ensuring that it all leads to measurable outcomes. These, of course, are worthy goals for our college — or are they objectives? — and I for one will be calling on you frequently as we make our way through accreditation. Finally, I would like to assure each of you individually — and all of you as a whole — that Raul does not have any embarrassing personal secrets. This is because he is absolutely transparent and accountable — what you see is what you get — and it is perhaps this feature more than any other — more even than his incredible good looks or his way of singing ballads with a throaty Barcelonan accent — that makes him such a favorite of the ladies and the envy of all intact men.”

“Thank you, Charlie,” Dr. Felch said. “I’m glad the two of you will be working together on accreditation. Remember, the fate of our college is now in your hands. But I have faith in you both. So, Raul….can you introduce Charlie, please?”

Raul took out the notebook in which he had been taking notes during our discussion on the bus. Checking it carefully, he said:

“As you all know by now, this handsome young man sitting next to me is Charlie.”

“Handsome?” Nan objected.

“Young?!” said Ethel.

“Well, young and handsome enough,” Raul said. “Charlie received his first name because Charles would have seemed too formal and effeminate and Chuck would have given the impression that he is far more masculine than he actually is. You see, Charlie languishes somewhere in the middle. Professionally, he has stated that his contribution to Cow Eye will be to save us from institutional ruin and that if he weren’t here he would be back in his dingy apartment examining his cup of tepid urine for any traces of moisture. Charlie has many different views on love, many of them contradictory, and he has stated that he aims to love the things in this world that are not otherwise loved. For example, Ohio. He admits that his most embarrassing personal secret — the secret that he would not want any of us to learn under any circumstances — is that he has two competing phobia that he wrestles with on a daily basis: on the one hand, an inexplicable aversion to other human beings that borders on neurosis and, on the other hand, a corresponding fear of being alone. And that he has sought treatment for both though this has inevitably led to a bettering of one condition at the expense of the other.”

Raul stopped. Then he said, “Did I leave anything out, Charlie?”

“No, Raul, you pretty much got it all….”

“So that’s Charlie in a nutshell.”

“Great. Thank you both for sharing,” said Dr. Felch. Turning to the group, he added: “….And thanks to all of you for taking the time to share a little bit about yourselves with your peers. I think we’re done with the first part of our day’s activities. Anything you want to add, Will?”

“Not at the moment. Just that this is one hell of a cigar…!”

Everyone laughed. Then someone noted that since the traffic had caused him to arrive late, maybe Will should also introduce himself to the group:

“What about you, Mr. Smithcoate? We’ve all shared our innermost thoughts and secrets. But what about yours? Can you answer these ice-breaking questions so we can learn about you too?”

Will seemed surprised at the sudden attention being thrown his way but cleared his throat to answer. Then he said:

“Well, what is there to say? My name is about as American as you could ever want it to be. My father was William Smithcoate and my grandfather was Simon Smithcoate and if you trace the name back through the generations you will eventually end up at Jefferson Smithcoate, who brought his family over on the Mayflower. In the Smithcoate family there are signatories to the Declaration of Independence and advisors to the Louisiana Purchase and generals on both sides of the Civil War. Smithcoates have been nation builders and pioneers and Indian killers and prohibitionists. One of my ancestors was instrumental in articulating the manifest destiny of our country and another, his own son, was active in championing the rights of our nation’s indigenous people. A distant relative was a leading abolitionist of his time while another was the most ardent of slave owners. There have been Smithcoates in every state of the Union and on every side of every philosophical debate and political conflict. In short, the history of our county is a history of the Smithcoate family itself.”

Will stopped to light his cigar where he had chopped it a few moments before. The smell was aromatic and sweet and even the non-smokers at the table — and we were now an evolving majority — appreciated the scent. Will took a long drag of the cigar, paused to savor the taste, then blew out the smoke. Then he continued:

“With all this as an inheritance you might assume that history would be a natural field of inquiry for me. However, you would be wrong. In truth I’ve always wanted to be a rhyming poet. Now this is not to say that history does not have its perks. But how can you compare it to the freedom that comes from composing something that will exist forever? Wouldn’t you all agree?”

“We would, Mr. Smithcoate, of course we would. But Mr. Smithcoate, doesn’t history also last forever?”

Will laughed.

“Please call me Will.”

“But Will, don’t you think history also lasts forever?”

“You would think so. Except that there is probably nothing that bends more to the whim of the present than our past. Just think of all the reevaluations that have come to pass over the years. Slaves used to be deemed unworthy of having their own narratives and history. And now they’re no longer slaves but free men with a rich literature of their own. (Hell, I even have a negroid in one of my classes who sits right there in the front row!) And women! Women used to be daughters and sisters and wives and mothers. But now they’re treated as individuals just like you and me. Although, of course, my own wife would have preferred the former to the latter. She was an incredible lady….”

“Was?”

“She passed away two years ago. We were married for thirty-eight years.”

“I’m sorry, Will.”

“Oh don’t be sorry. We had some amazing sex in our time!”

Everyone laughed.

“And it’s not like I won’t be seeing her again. But as I was saying there are things that last forever and things that merely come and go. History comes and goes. Poetry lasts forever. Technology comes and goes. Love lasts forever. Marriage comes and goes….hell, life itself comes and goes. But your wife’s memory, now that lasts forever…”

“And journalism?” Ethel asked. “Does journalism last forever?”

“No, Ethel, it merely comes and goes.”

“And politics?” asked Nan.

“Comes and goes, of course.”

“And archaeology? And data analysis? And special projects coordination?”

“It all comes and goes!” declared Will. “All of it! The only things that are worth a damn in this world are those that are timeless and eternal. The things that can’t be taught but that come down through the generations as acquired wisdom and intuition. In other words, everything we do at the college is temporal. It’s all fleeting and false. It’s a waste of time and resources and institutional….”

“Moving on, Will!” said Dr. Felch.

“….Right. Anyway, I became a history teacher because, well, that was what we did back then. And I still use the same lecture notes I used when I first started thirty years ago. Everyone always tells me, Hey Will, why don’t you do something different! Mix it up a bit? Adapt your lesson plans to your students. Meet them where they’re at. After all, the world has changed in the last thirty years and you should change with it! And my response is, Why the hell should I? Where’s the eternity in that? After all, shouldn’t we aspire to appreciate the things that last forever above the things that come and go? Shouldn’t we aspire to leave at least one lasting legacy uncompromised by current fashion?”

Then Nan said:

“Mr. Smithcoate, tell us about love, please! Give us some insights into the nature of love itself. It is something we’ve all been thinking about over the last few hours but have not yet arrived at a conclusive definition. Can you help us?”

“Well,” said Will, “love is a thing that is best left unspoken. For the more you try to explain it the more elusive it becomes. It is like the black fleck on your retina that scurries away when you try to look at it directly. To see it you must look slightly away from it — for only then can it come into clearer focus. So, too, must love be approached indirectly. And so if you asked me what love is I would say that love is not what it is, but what it would be. Don’t blather of love itself, the true philosopher will say, but tell me what love cannot be but would be if it weren’t what it is. And so, I would tell you that if love were a bird it would be a pelican. If love were an ocean of the world it would be the Atlantic in winter. If love were a state of the Union it would be Indiana or Mississippi….or maybe even Illinois. (But never, ever, ever Alabama!) If love were a tree it would be a banyan. If love were a fish it would be a carp. And if love were an institution of higher learning — if its yearnings and heavenly bliss could be made into a campus of fir and sycamore — it would surely be a regionally accredited community college. For love requires open doors and open hearts. It demands hope and persistence. And of course self-sacrifice. It encourages dexterity in even the most rigid and logical among us as well as an ability to overcome the rugged terrain of life’s unpredictable path. If love were an abstract math concept, it would be transcendental numbers. Or primality. If love were an animal it would be a ruminant. If love were an academic subject it would be philosophy. If love were the relic of a dying literary genre, it would be a rhyming poem. Or a very long novel. If love were a punctuation mark it would be ellipses. If love were a method of transportation. If love were a fountain. If love were a V-8 engine. If love were. If love. If….”

Will’s voice trailed away and here we realized that he had dozed off, his head now resting like a baby’s in the crook of his arm. He was snoring. Seeing this, Raul took the cigar from Will’s fingers and crushed it out on the side of the table. Nan brushed a lock of gray hair from his face and Ethel gently placed his fedora over the brim of his nose to shield his eyes from the sun.

“Well,” said Dr. Felch, “It looks like I’ll be conducting the teambuilding exercise for you after all. This wasn’t how we drew it up, folks. But leadership requires resilience. Follow me….” Each of us stood up from the bench and followed Dr. Felch over to the edge of a corral. Behind us, Will Smithcoate was left to his snoring, his face still buried in the crook of his arm, on the picnic table. “Over here…” Dr. Felch said and led us to the aluminum fence that enclosed the large corral where a single black calf stood forlornly at the far end. The calf was picking at some hay that had been placed for him in a feeding trough in the corner. “And now it’s time,” he said, “for us to learn what teamwork really means…”

And with that he opened the aluminum gate for us to enter. Stepping into the corral, we listened as a weak and woeful sound arose from the small calf on the other side.

*

(…)

The opposite of ‘love’ — now more than ever — is ‘efficiency.’ Efficiency causes the ability to achieve a greater goal by expending the same amount of effort, or to achieve the same goal by investing less effort. Neither of these are worthy goals. Because, in fact, the only things that are worthy are those that cannot be streamlined. Love cannot be streamlined. Nor can the learning of meaningful things be made more efficient; for if it could it would no longer be truly meaningful. Love is that which takes its own time, an eternal and unchanging time. And if a thing has been made to happen more quickly or efficiently, then that thing was not love to begin with. Thankfully, the community college understands this…

(…)

*

When Dr. Felch had closed the gate to the corral he turned to us and said:

“Now I know what you’re thinking. Many of you have worked at other community colleges around the world and you’re thinking to yourself, Oh no, here we go again. Not another teambuilding activity to make our work processes more efficient! Be honest — that’s what you’re thinking, right? And I don’t blame you! Because if you’re like the majority of faculty and staff at your typical community college around the world you’ve no doubt undergone so many teambuilding activities during your tenure that you can’t even name them all. At Cow Eye we’ve tried every one: and this includes the one with the yardstick and the one with the tennis balls and the hula hoops and the one where you and a small team of fellow faculty and staff carry an egg across great distances on a spatula. In fact I bet you’ve done all of these too. And I also bet that at the end of the day, when each of these activities was finished and the paid facilitator had driven off with her check, you returned to your lonely office with no clearer understanding of teamwork than you’d possessed before grabbing the spatula. But why? Well that’s because there’s no practical or cultural relevance to all that nonsense. What does a hula hoop have to do with the specific community you serve? And who cares if you’ve succeeded in carrying an egg across a field? At the end of the day what have you really accomplished? Have you accomplished anything for the betterment of humanity and world civilization? Are you any closer to Loving the Culture of Cow Eye? Of course not! So why then do we spend so much time with these hula hoops and these tennis balls and these spatulas…?”

At the third mention of the word spatula, Raul leaned over to me and whispered, in exasperation, “Charlie, what the hell is he talking about? Do you have any idea?” “No clue, Raul,” I answered. “I guess we’ll find out soon….”

Dr. Felch had taken out another cigarette and was now lighting it. As he spoke, his lips twisted up around it and he squinted his eyes against the smoke:

“….As a person who is prone to metaphor I would like to suggest that we learn to see our world in metaphorical terms. Because the literal things that you are witnessing in front of you right now — this corral, this dirt, the small calf over there in the corner — all of this can be seen as a beautiful and complex metaphor for the community college itself. This corral, you see, is the educational realm that we occupy as an institution of higher learning — it is the vast intellectual space that we inhabit as scholars and shapers of youthful opinion. And surrounding it are these aluminum fences which represent the boundaries of our imagination, the traditional rules of time and space that confine us to thinking in the familiar ways and doing the same things we’ve always done. And so if we can see the world in this new light, if we can only learn to break out of our habit of viewing the phenomena around us in strictly literal terms and instead begin to view the things of the world metaphorically, then all of this….” — here Dr. Felch swept his arm to demonstrate the full breadth of the corral, the dirt, the small calf still slowly chewing his mouthful of hay — “….everything you see here, is not merely what it appears to be, but also something that exists on a higher rhetorical plane. Which in turn enriches our lives and makes it beautiful and interesting and worthy. Hey, Ethel…!”

Hearing her name suddenly jump out of the soliloquy, Ethel snapped to attention.

“Yes, Dr. Felch!”

“Ethel! Do you love metaphor?”

“Not really, Dr. Felch. I’m a journalist.”

“Well, let’s see if we can’t expand your horizons a bit. Answer me this. Metaphorically speaking, if this corral is the educational realm that our college inhabits, and the fences are the limitations of our collective imagination….then what, in your dispassionate journalistic opinion, is the metaphorical significance of this dry dirt that we are standing on?”

“The dirt that we are standing on?” Ethel answered. “Well, the dirt that we are standing on would be the institutional foundation upon which our college rests. In other words, it would be the college’s mission statement that guides all that we do — especially the part about paying taxes.”

“Nicely done, Ethel! Not bad for a journalist. Now let’s ask Luke…”

Hearing his name, Luke too straightened up in response.

“Luke! Tell us please….if the corral is the realm of learning and the fences are limitations and the dirt that we are standing on is the mission statement that supports us in our work, then in this long and complicated — perhaps even convoluted — metaphor, what would you say is the gate that we just entered?”

“You mean this one right here? With the aluminum latch on it?”

“Yes. That one.”

“Well, the gate that we just entered, Dr. Felch, might be the convocation that all of us attended yesterday. Just as you opened this aluminum gate to let us into the corral a few minutes ago, yesterday at convocation you flung open the gate welcoming us into the realm of higher education at Cow Eye Community College. The gate therefore is the threshold that takes us from the barren world of ignorance to the arena of manicured enlightenment.”

“Right you are! That’s exactly what it is, Luke. All of you are doing great — I knew I shouldn’t have been so concerned about hiring you all sight unseen after a single phone interview! Stan!”

“Huh?” said Stan, who had been standing with his hands behind his back and trying not to make eye contact with Dr. Felch. “Who? Me…?”

“Stan! Tell us please….if the dirt is the mission statement and the corral is the realm of learning and the gate is the convocation welcoming new faculty to Cow Eye, then what would you say is the metaphorical meaning of the hot bus ride that we all just stepped off of?”

Stan’s face gave off a sheepish expression.

“The bus ride?”

“Yes, Stan, the bus ride from the misty verdure of our campus to this dry and dusty corral of higher learning?”

“Um, I’m not sure,” he said and then, after a long pause: “I really don’t know, Dr. Felch…”

“Stan! Come on now! Use your god-given facility for higher thinking! What is the bus ride?”

“Is it….the…Cow Eye River?”

“The Cow Eye River?! How could it be the Cow Eye River?”

“Well….I was just thinking that the road and the river are both kind of long. And the river is mostly dry. But the road is dry too because of the drought. They’re both…. I mean…. Aw hell, I don’t know! I’ve never been good at this kind of thing…!”

Dr. Felch shook his head.

“No, Stan. The road is not the Cow Eye River. Anyone else want to take a stab at this?”

Here Ethel Newtown, recently hired journalism instructor, spoke up — whether in support of her husband or in defiance of him — at this point nothing seemed as clear as it once did.

“Could it be,” said Ethel, “that the bus ride symbolizes the shared path that we all must travel in our pursuit of teaching excellence and student success? Each of us came to Cow Eye via a different path. Yet in the end there we all were, sitting in that hot bus, being taken across a drought for the ages to this hot dusty corral. The bus ride, then, would surely represent our shared destiny. And following from this, the bus itself represents the universe. Which means the driver of the bus, your friend from high school, Dr. Felch, is God. The green vinyl seats are the many different religions of the world….or perhaps the many churches in Cow Eye Junction. And this means that the waiver form we signed before being allowed to travel on the bus this morning is our silent assent to the hegemony of a higher power.”

“Exactly, Ethel! And the tree that gave up its life for that waiver?”

“The tree, of course, symbolizes His undying love for us.”

“Excellent! So to summarize. The corral is our college. The dirt is its mission statement. The fences are rules and conventions. The bus is our destiny. My friend from high school is the Almighty. And because each of us was diligent in signing and turning in the written waiver form this morning we can rest assured that, on one level, our college has been indemnified and that, on another level, we have come to accept with quiet acquiescence the fact that it is not for any of us to determine the ultimate fate of our soul. And so, as we approach the matter even more closely, that is, even more metaphorically, the dusty turn-off from the highway to the Ranch becomes…”

“….our application to graduate school!”

“And the sign welcoming us to the place ‘where cow’s meat’….”

“….is the acceptance packet!”

“And the skimpy tree is….”

“….our financial aid office!”

“And Will’s flask of bourbon….”

“….is Temptation!”

“And his cigar is….”

“….a dream unfulfilled!”

“And the story of the Smithcoate family….”

“….is a cautionary tale, told backwards rather than forwards!”

As Dr. Felch vigorously stress-tested our facility for metaphor, we responded eagerly and with a growing hunger for the non-literal. This continued for some time, until just when it seemed that we had established a great rhythm and would be able to move past this hurdle with flying colors, Dr. Felch threw an emasculator into the mechanics of our universe — or more specifically, into mine. Looking squarely at me, he said:

“So, Charlie….”

“Yes, Dr. Felch?”

“So Charlie, now that all of this has been sorted out, tell me this. What about the calf…?”

“The calf?”

“Yes, Charlie….what is this lonely calf doing here…?”

“Well, he’s raising his tail at the moment….”

“I mean metaphorically, Charlie…!”

I looked over at the calf, who was lifting his tail and beginning to do what calves do immediately after they lift their tails.

“I don’t know, Dr. Felch. I hadn’t thought too much about the calf. Can you give me a prompt of some sort?”

“No, Charlie, I cannot. But we will return to this question a bit later, so hold that thought….”

Dr. Felch lit up another cigarette using the butt of his previous one and took a long drag of it. Then clearing his voice, he began in a grave tone:

“Over there in the corner, my friends, is a three-month-old calf that has yet to be weaned. It is a male….”

On cue, we all looked over at the calf, who was staring at us from the hay that he was chewing. The calf was looking at us with slow, sad eyes, the long straws hanging out both sides of his mouth, yet didn’t stop his quiet chewing.

“This calf,” said Dr. Felch, “is what we call intact. Can anyone tell me what it means to be intact? Stan?”

“Oh, how would he know?!” said Ethel. “He’s from Maine! Intact means he still has testicles, Dr. Felch.”

“Good, Ethel. And thank you for such an unhesitating response. You are absolutely correct. An intact calf is one that is still in possession of its testicles. As all of you can well imagine, for a male of any species there are certain very specific benefits to having testicles; these are well-documented so no need to spend a lot of time on that. However, from the standpoint of animal husbandry there are also practical, historical, economic, culinary, and humanitarian reasons to separate a calf from his testicles before he is weaned from his mother. The process is called gelding for equines and cutting for bovines, and it is a rite of passage, so to speak, that almost all male calves must go through. For the majority of calves, you see, castration is a normal and important part of a life lived within the aluminum fences….”

(Upon hearing the word castration I suddenly awoke from my daze. With all this talk of metaphor I had lost sight of the fact that we were standing in a real corral with real dirt and a real calf staring back at us with hay dangling out of the sides of his mouth and a sad helpless look on his face. Slowly, things were starting to take shape in my mind, and as they did I felt a growing uneasiness welling up in my groin.)

“This tool right here is what is referred to in the ranching industry as an emasculator….”

Dr. Felch held up a device that looked like a heavy-duty metal nut cracker only longer and more unsettling and with a sharp crimping edge. Seeing this device, the women in the group moved in tightly for a better look; the men took a collective step backward.

“Since the beginning of time, cattlemen have used castration as a tool for the management of their herds. In ancient times Babylonians introduced the practice using flint knives to manage their domesticated animals. Pigs, sheep, and goats could now be domesticated and made to coexist peacefully in newly formed human settlements. In eastern Europe recent evidence suggests that early caucasoids were using castration to tame the beasts of burden that so diligently pulled their plows and their transports, and that this was taking place as far back as four thousand years….before Christ! (If you thought it was intact bulls that were so diligently tilling these primitive soils in readiness for the seeds of European culture and civilization… you have another think coming!) In all agrarian societies castrated males are more pliable, more reliable, and less likely to run away or challenge their masters or to physically abuse themselves or their peers. They are more inclined to be satisfied with the dull monotony of repetitive tasks and tedious labor and are more likely to know and accept their role in the hierarchy of male bovinity. Without the benefits of castration it is safe to say that the world as we know it would not be the world that we know, but instead would be something unrecognizable. If the oxen had been intact it would not have ploughed our rows so evenly. Temperamental bulls would not have co-existed within the confines of early agrarian settlements. And the pre-historic cattleman would not have eaten as well, proliferated so extensively, or had as much disposable free time to innovate and invent because he would have been spending so much of it chasing after his intact ruminants and making amends for the wounds inflicted. History itself would have developed along a completely different, less progressive and slower trajectory. And this would have set the development of humanity back many millennia. And so this ancient practice became both a cause and a result of human development. Like irrigation and literacy and marriage… castration, my friends, is not just a hallmark, but a catalyst of civilized society….”

Dr. Felch threw his cigarette butt into the dirt of the corral and ground it out.

“…Over the years we’ve somewhat lost sight of that fact. And we’ve started to lose our way. But now as newly hired faculty and staff of Cow Eye Community College, you will be participating in this proud tradition, a tradition that is recumbent in historical, economic, culinary, humanitarian, and, yes, metaphorical significance. Your goal today is to catch that calf and bring him to his destiny. Catch him, subdue him, put him onto his side, and hold him there in the dirt in a safe and secure position. I’ll do the rest….”

Dr. Felch paused to let his words sink in. The silence lasted at least half a minute before anyone could articulate a cogent thought.

Ultimately it was Nan who broke the silence.

“Dr. Felch…? If I may? When you say ‘the rest’…. are you suggesting that our teambuilding exercise today is to castrate that calf? Is that what I’m understanding when I hear you say that we will catch and subdue him and that you will do ‘the rest’?”

“Correct. That is your assignment. Now I know that not all of you will have done something like this before and that you may be uncertain about your castrating abilities. But remember, in the act of castrating, as in the act of teaching, there can be no room for fear. If you are having doubts about your wrangling skills, please remember that the weight of this calf right now is only two hundred fifty pounds; collectively, the six of you in this corral weigh at least five times that. So you have the advantage of brute weight on your side. Not to mention the luxury of time. And human intelligence. And the entire burden of man’s relationship with the world around him. But most importantly — and never forget this, my friends — you have….each other….”

Dr. Felch took another cigarette from his pack, but held it between his fingers without lighting it.

“…Teamwork, my friends, is what will make your time at Cow Eye Community College either an amazing success….or an epic disaster. Working together is what connects the rainbows between fountains. It is the esplanade linking all of the different chambers of the human heart in a cogent and easily accessible network. And so as you work together to accomplish this important and useful goal, I’d like you to keep in mind the deeper metaphorical significance of what you will be doing. For you are not merely castrating a calf, dear colleagues — oh no! — but paying homage to the glory of the learning process itself. So strategize with your peers. Formulate your plan. Communicate. Act boldly. Remember that it is not easy to subdue a male calf, even one that is only three-months old and that weighs barely two hundred fifty pounds. A calf who is still intact will have a strong preference to remain that way, and a single faculty member — especially a novice in such things — will not be able to disabuse him of this preference working alone. As you are about to find out, this will take a coordinated effort. It will require communication and the participation of every last one of you. It will demand….teamwork! So get together as a group and decide how you’re going to get that bitch. I’ll be watching you from outside the gate over there. And when I see that you’ve worked as a team to accomplish your mission, I’ll come over to guide you through the rest….”

Dr. Felch put his emasculator into the back pocket of his jeans and exited the corral, closing the aluminum gate behind him and leaving the six of us to stand in the corral with the suddenly restless calf, who had ceased to eat his hay and was already starting to move slowly but noticeably away from us.

* * *

LOVING THE UNLOVED

“So Bessie, what do you think love is?” I asked.

“Huh?” Bessie answered. “Where did that come from? And why are you asking me? Why now?”

“Just curious,” I said. “The question came up yesterday during our teambuilding exercise. And I was just wondering what your take on the issue was.”

Bessie looked at me sternly.

“First of all, Charlie, that is not a question one poses to a woman over her typewriter. Secondly, if I had a nickel for every man who tried to get in my pants using an overt pick-up line like that I would probably be able to buy a decent place for myself and my two young children instead of the small house at the end of the gravel road where we’re all living now.”

“It’s not a pick-up line, Bessie. I really do want to know. Perhaps you could tell me over lunch today at the cafeteria?”

“Lunch?” she said. “Well okay. But just know that I’ll be paying for myself.”

After my talk with Bessie, the slow Wednesday morning dragged on with the reassuring monotony of office work. Dr. Felch had provided me with a copy of the college’s most recent accreditation self-study and I was slogging through the two-hundred-plus pages as best I could. While reading, I’d left my office door open and from time to time a new colleague would stop by to welcome me to Cow Eye and to crush the bones in my fingers — or to have the bones of her fingers crushed by me. All took the opportunity to introduce themselves genially and to comment on the worth of my predecessor (exactly half thought she was great, the others were glad to see her go) and to ask whether I would be attending this or that party after work. “Are you going to Rusty’s barbecue tonight?” they would ask, or “Are you going to Gwen’s watery get-together?” And to both questions, as was my inclination, I answered emphatically and affirmatively that I would. Standing in my doorway, my new colleagues complimented me on the luster of the recently cleaned room. In reverential tones several even lauded the framed diploma I’d proudly mounted on my wall — my Master’s degree in Educational Administration with an emphasis in struggling community colleges — and all expressed amazement at the vigorous pendulum that was still clacking away on my desk.

“How long has that thing been going back and forth like that?” they’d ask.

“Since Monday afternoon,” I’d answer. “It hasn’t stopped since then. And I’m curious to see how long it can go.”

Later that morning, when the clock struck noon and I closed my office door to go to lunch, the metal orbs were still going strong.

“Can you believe it?” I said to Bessie as we were making our way down the esplanade from the administration building to the cafeteria. “All I did was lift the one orb and let it drop just once. A simple release of potential energy. And it’s been tick-tocking back and forth for almost two days!” Bessie nodded. Without a heavy box to carry, she was walking even faster than she had on the way to convocation two days ago, and the pace of her gait did not make it very easy to keep up a conversation of any kind, let alone one about a person’s faith in eternity.

“Can you believe it?” I said again. “It’s like it’s never going to stop.”

“Of course I believe it,” she said. “What’s not to believe?”

“Well, that the pendulum has been going strong for two days. I mean, that’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s not hard to believe. What’s hard to believe is that someone with your education can’t walk a little faster….”

By the time we reached the cafeteria it was already ten past twelve and the line to the food was several instructors deep. At the head of the throng was Marsha Greenbaum and right behind her was Alan Long River, the Native American speech teacher who had not spoken to anybody for twelve years. Bessie grabbed her tray and napkin and silverware and I followed her lead.

“So, Bessie,” I said. “Now can you tell me what you think love is? Now that you have your silverware in your hand and your tray tucked under your arm, can you tell me what you believe love to be?”

Bessie looked at me reproachfully yet again. But then, as if sensing my sincerity, she appeared to give in. All this talk of love had left me both hungry and with important philosophical reservations. And if I couldn’t satisfy this hunger with her, my guide to the complexities of Cow Eye Community College, well then who could I expect to satiate it with?

“Love?” said Bessie. “You want to know what I think love is? Well, Charlie, you’re asking the wrong person. I have not lived the sort of life that would allow me to tell anyone what love is. But I am impressed with your persistence. So let me tell you something else. Rather than tell you what love is, let me tell you instead what it could have been….”

(At the front of the line, Marsha Greenbaum was standing with a heaping plate of salad. But she was sorting through the individual pieces of lettuce one by one and this had brought the line to a standstill. “We’ll be here all day!” one of the economics instructors was complaining in back of us, and her friend agreed: “She’s just lucky it’s Long River behind her. Anyone else would be giving her hell…!”)

Bessie took her napkin and wrapped it around her silverware. Then she said:

“Charlie, I don’t know how to break this to you. But I’ve been married and divorced three times. Three separate times, Charlie. Now what does it say about a woman who has been divorced that many times? What does this say to any eligible man who might otherwise want to take her into a serious relationship? What do you think it says, Charlie? What does this say to you?”

“To me it says you’re passionate and idealistic but also impetuous. You’re prone to being hurt. And to making mistakes. These are not bad things, Bessie. The habitual divorcees of the world are not the ones to castigate….it’s the promiscuously single we should be suspicious of — the ones who never love their world enough to marry it.”

“That may be how you see it as someone just off the bus from another place. And it is quaint, I suppose, in an urbane sort of way. But now let me tell you what it all means to me as someone who was born and raised in Cow Eye Junction. Do you see that lady behind the counter serving the hamburger steak?”

“The one with the hair net? And the pretty eyes?”

“Yes, her. Well she’s my classmate from high school. I used to pierce her ears after church. And she used to paint my nails. And you see that man carrying out the trash from the cafeteria? The one with the gloves on and greasy apron around his waist? Well, that’s my son’s football coach and an old friend of my family….”

“Really?”

“Yes. And do you know who my first flame was? The first man I ever gave myself to, mind, soul and body? In the back of a Chevy El Camino? Wearing a tight-fitting miniskirt and pink blouse? In the heat of the moment like a fifteen-month-old heifer? Charlie, do you know who my first man was?”

Bessie’s question was an intriguing one and I thought about it for a few moments. But of course there was no way for me to know this.

“No, Bessie, I don’t. Is it even someone I know?”

“Yes, it is. You’ve seen him each time on your way into and out of the college. My first lover, Charlie, was Timmy.”

“At the guard shack?”

“Yes. Timmy at the guard shack. And the three men you met at the bar on your way into campus? The three men watching the football game on television — you know, the ones whose names you didn’t even take the time to learn….now let me tell you who they are….”

(The food line had finally begun to inch forward, only to stop in its tracks after only a half-step; Marsha Greenbaum had moved on from the lettuce but was now picking through the baby carrots, holding each up to the light and then either putting it onto her plate or placing it back into the bowl to examine another.)

“….So those three men at the bar, Charlie? You want to know who they are? Well, one of them is my brother. The second is my dentist. And the third, well, let’s just say that he has a more intimate knowledge of me than either of the other two will ever have.”

“Your tax advisor?”

“My ex-husband. Charlie, after your stop at the Champs d’Elysees, I knew you were on your way to campus before you even showed up for work on the first day. My brother recited me your answer to the bloated scrotum question. My dentist told me that you didn’t seem like much of a football fan and that you didn’t look anything like a Special Projects Coordinator. And Buck, that’s my ex-husband, even called to tell me that not only did you have some rain outside in your suitcases but that Merna’s sister was selling her Ford. Charlie, I just bought that Ford. And that’s what it means to be divorced three times and still live in Cow Eye Junction….”

“Wow, I can’t believe the man at the bar was your ex-husband. What a strange coincidence. Was he your first husband?”

“My second. My first husband was the bus driver. You know, the one who drove you to the teambuilding exercise.”

“I guess this town really is small. And your third husband? I suppose I know him too?”

“My third husband? Sorry, but I really don’t want to talk about that one. And yes, you know him….”

By now my head was spinning from all these unnamed husbands and previous lovers. And so as we stood in line waiting for Marsha Greenbaum to choose her cherry tomatoes, Bessie told me of the many men in Cow Eye Junction that had been her former loves. The clerk in the bookstore. The man who cuts the lawn outside our building. The technology specialist. The bus driver and his cousin. Even the man playing the harmonica out back of the makeshift bus shelter.

“Him too?”

“Him too. And so, Charlie, to answer your question, no I will not tell you what love is. But let me tell you instead what love could have been for me. What it could have been if life had turned out a little differently. You see, if life had turned out a bit differently for me, love could have been the beautiful color of freshly mowed grass or green vinyl. A soft touch on my arm before surgery. Or a soulful harmonica playing in the dark. It could have been football on Saturday afternoons with good friends at the bar; or a shared love for gardening; or weekly trips together to a Christian church of our favorite denomination. Hell, there was a time when it could have even been a romantic joy ride in an old truck missing its safety belt. Charlie, love could have been any of those things if it had all gone a bit differently. Of course I understand that love can’t be all of these things at once, but even now I feel that it could have been any one of them individually. If only life had turned out differently….”

“Marsha!” somebody was shouting behind us. “Dammit, Marsha, let’s get it going!” And at last Marsha put down the green olive she was examining and moved on from the salad section, right past the meats and gravies, straight to the cashier to pay.

“It’s about time…!” Bessie said. “I thought we’d have to talk about love forever…!”

*

After we’d paid for our food and taken our seats, I asked Bessie about the so-called Mentor Lunch that was mandatory for all new faculty the next day. Bessie explained that each new faculty member was assigned an older peer who would help with the adaptation to life at Cow Eye: things like where to pick up the laundry, how to request permission to pick flowers, and how not to receive an unwanted bloated scrotum in your mailbox on a Monday morning. Mentor duty, she explained, was not voluntary but was an expectation for older tenured faculty and the assignments were given out on a rotating basis. You did not pick your mentor and your mentor could not pick you.

“So, do you know who’s been assigned to us?” I asked. “You seem to know everything else that goes on around here.”

Bessie explained that the assignments hadn’t been posted yet.

“But whoever it is, just pray you don’t get him….” Bessie motioned over at a cafeteria table that was empty except for a single faculty member sitting by himself and calmly reading a newspaper. It was Will Smithcoate and as he sat with his paper he was smoking a cigar and drinking from his flask of bourbon, unabashed, in full view of the rest of the cafeteria.

“That’s Will Smithcoate!” I said. “He was with us yesterday for our teambuilding exercise.”

“You mean he showed up?”

“He was a few minutes late. But he came. And he shared his thoughts on love, which we appreciated. He seems like a nice guy, Bessie. Why do you say I should hope he’s not my mentor?”

“Don’t get me wrong — I’ve known Will Smithcoate for many years and I love the guy as a person. But he should not be allowed anywhere near a new faculty member. The man is jaded and cynical. All he does is sit at that table with his newspaper and his bourbon. He barely teaches anymore. And when he does he still uses the same notes he used when he first started thirty years ago.”

“If he’s that bad then why is he the chair of the New Faculty Orientation committee? Isn’t that a strange responsibility to give someone who shouldn’t be let near new faculty?”

“They’re trying to keep him away from the real committees. Last year they gave him the Christmas Committee, remember? That was supposed to be a mere formality, a bullet point for his curriculum vitae, but he ran that into the ground too. This year they figured they’d give him New Faculty Orientation since in theory that’s a committee that should be even harder to screw up.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

Bessie sprinkled some salt onto her hamburger steak.

“So how’d it go anyway?”

“How’d what go?”

“New faculty orientation?”

“You mean our bus ride to enlightenment?”

“Yeah, the teambuilding exercise. That was Will’s brainchild. So I’m curious how it all turned out.”

“It was fine….”

And here I told Bessie about the day I’d spent with my fellow new hires. About the six of us standing in the cold talking about fountains and how her ex-husband picked us up and drove us to the Cow Eye Ranch where we shared embarrassing secrets and then were taken into a corral and asked to castrate a calf. When I got to the part about Dr. Felch putting the emasculator in his back pocket and closing the corral gate behind him, Bessie knifed a slab of butter and spread it on her dinner roll.

“So what did you do?” Bessie asked, dipping the roll in the section of her tray that contained the hamburger gravy, then biting off a piece. “After Dr. Felch took his emasculator with him and left the six of you alone in the corral to castrate the calf, what did you guys do then?”

“Well, what could we do? We got together and started strategizing….”

“In the corral?”

“Yes. We stood in a circle and began to come together as a team. It was really very poignant.”

“Tell me about it, Charlie. Tell me about your teambuilding exercise….”

“Are you sure, Bessie? I mean, we just started our meal. And I wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite with the details….”

“I’m from Cow Eye Junction, Charlie — nothing can spoil my appetite. Take me there…!”

And so I resumed the story where I’d left off.

“Well, okay,” I said, “so Raul got us into a circle to strategize on how best to castrate the little calf, who had already started to back away from us….”

*

“I think he knows,” said Nan looking over at the calf. “I think he knows what we’re planning to do to him.”

“How could he know?” said Stan. “He’s just a calf! Calves don’t know anything!”

“That’s what you think….” said Ethel. “Calves are like any other animal. They can sense and feel what’s going on in a person’s soul. Despite sixteen years of marriage, Stanley, I know that’s still a difficult concept for you to grasp….”

“But even if he does,” said Luke. “What difference does it make whether he knows or not?”

“Well, I’m just saying,” said Nan, “because I’m not sure I want to go through with this. I mean did you see his eyes….how sad they looked? I don’t think I can go through with this, knowing that he knows….”

“He doesn’t know!” said Stan. “He doesn’t know because he’s a cow and cows are animals and animals don’t know a fucking thing about anything in this world. That’s why they’re animals! That’s what separates us from them! That’s why he’s inside these fences and we’re….”

“Well technically, Stan, we’re also inside the fences….”

“Look,” said Raul. “Can we stay focused on the mission here? We’ve been given a specific assignment to accomplish. And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hot and thirsty and my black pressed slacks and carefully polished shoes are all dusty from this corral. I’d like to get this done and move on with my life. So can we do this, please?”

We all nodded our agreement.

“Great. Now I’ve been thinking about this and here’s how we can do it. Let me represent it to you all visually….”

The six of us had been standing in a circle but as Raul kneeled down to the dirt, the rest of us followed his lead. Now we were all kneeling on one knee in a perfect huddle, like a grade-school football team around its quarterback. Raul rolled up the sleeve of his white collared shirt and began to draw with his finger in the dirt of the corral. He did this busily and while he did, the rest of us maintained an expectant silence. In the background, the sounds of pre-castration could be heard: the bleating of the calf and the plaintive moans of the calf’s mother calling out for him from a distant section of the corral. Meanwhile, Dr. Felch was standing outside the aluminum gate with one foot resting on its lowest rail. He had grabbed a bullhorn and as he leaned forward with his elbows against the railing, the bullhorn dangled from his hand over the gate. Raul continued to furiously sketch in the dirt and when he was finished he pointed at what he had drawn:

“Okay,” he said, “this is our corral. I’ve drawn it quickly, but don’t worry, it’s to scale. On this end is the gate and on that end is the trough where the calf is. There are six of us and only one of him. Which means that it shouldn’t be hard to force him into the corner. From there each of us will grab onto him and hold.” And here Raul drew another diagram, this one showing our respective assignments:

“Once we’ve all got him, we’ll tip him over and hold him there so Dr. Felch can do the rest. Just be careful when you grab the legs because he may kick. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” said Stan. “What makes you think he’ll kick?”

“Wouldn’t you?! Anyway, I think this is how we’ll need to do it.”

Raul extended his hand into the middle of our human circle and looked around at each of us. Seeing his prompt I put my hand on top of his, Ethel put her hand on mine, Luke put his on hers, Nan on his, and then Stan.

“Go TEAM!” we shouted and then stood up from our crouch.

At this Dr. Felch’s voice came over the bullhorn from where he was standing:

“Can you hear me?” he asked. “Is this thing on?”

“We hear you!” we yelled. “It’s on!”

“Okay. I just want to remind you that the longer you take, the more nervous your calf is going to get. And the more nervous he is, the more blood he’ll lose when we cut him. This is not foreplay, folks, where the longer the buildup the better the result. Get in there and get going…!”

Dr. Felch switched off the bullhorn.

“Okay,” said Raul. “Are we ready? Charlie, are you ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Luke, are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“Ethel. Ready?”

“As ready as I can be.”

“Nan?”

“I still think he knows….”

“Nan? Are you ready or not?”

“Well, I guess I’m ready. I mean, yes, I’m ready.”

“Great. Stan? Stan, are you ready? Stan…?”

And here we looked over just in time to see Stan’s body collapse onto the ground of the corral with a thud. He was convulsing in the dirt, his eyes turned up into his skull and his mouth foaming.

“Get him some water!” said Raul.

Luke ran out of the gate and filled a bucket with water, but when he came back it was so hot that we couldn’t use it.

Dr. Felch’s bullhorn again switched on.

“Luke!” said Dr. Felch over the bullhorn. “Luke, you have to let the hot water run out of the hose before filling the bucket up!”

Again Luke ran over and back with the bucket and this time the water was cool enough to pour on Stan’s head safely. Ethel had placed his head on her lap and was running her fingers through the wet hair of his scalp. Stan’s eyes fluttered and flickered and then, to everyone’s relief, popped open. Ethel dabbed more water on him.

“Let’s take him under the skimpy tree,” Nan said.

Luke, Raul and I lifted Stan up and carried him over to the tree. Under the sudden weight the picnic table creaked and shuddered, and as it did Will Smithcoate began to stir from his deep sleep, groggy and confused, a string of glistening saliva dangling from his mouth:

“…If love were a fountain…,” he was muttering, “…it would be an Oldsmobile….”

As the five of us stood around, Stan looked up from the table where we’d laid him.

“What just happened?” he said.

“You passed out,” we explained.

“You’re kidding me….”

“No.”

“Really? I passed out?”

“Yes.”

“As in totally motionless?”

“Yes.”

“So did you take advantage of me?”

“No,” we said. “We didn’t.”

“Why not?”

And here we knew that Stan’s wits had returned and that with a little rest and a lot more water and a little more shade he would be the Stan we’d come to love.

At this, Will too seemed to regain his faculties.

“What’d I miss?” he asked. “Did you do it? Did you bring that calf to his destiny? And where’s my cigar? Where’s my damn cigar?!”

“It’s in your pocket, Will.”

“It damn well better be. So is the calf a steer yet?”

“No, Will. We tried but we failed. Nan expressed compassion and doubt and Stan passed out under the hot sun. It seems that we are not up to this particular challenge. At least not right now.”

“Really? So is that decided then? Are you done for the day? Are you giving up on the assignment? Packing it in? Raising the white flag? Or are you going to get back in there and show that calf how the seeds of civilization are sown? Jesus Christ, if the American colonists had that same limp-dick attitude, we’d still be drinking tea with milk and watching snooker on Saturday afternoons. Come on, get back out there…”

“But, Will,” we protested, “Stan is dehydrated and weak. Surely, if there is any excuse not to castrate a calf, it is this? Surely if there is any valid justification to let a scrotum remain intact, it is the severe heat stroke and dehydration that Stan is currently suffering from?”

Will took another swig from his flask. Then he sniffed his cigar.

“Look,” he said, “If you think teambuilding with colleagues is hard, try living with another human being, in the same house, for thirty-eight years. Do you know how many times I wanted to give up? To pack up my emasculator and get the hell out? But I didn’t….I stuck with it another thirty-seven years. Another twenty-nine years. Another seventeen years…. And that’s how I grew as a person and as an educator. If love were a woman, you see, it would be the one you wake up next to every morning for thirty-eight years. And not the beauty from the supermarket who came and went oh-so-long ago and whose distant memory still arouses you even now….”

I stopped.

Bessie was stabbing a final bite of hamburger onto the tip of her fork.

“And so?” she said as she trailed the fork through her gravy. “And so what happened then?”

“Well, then we all realized that Will was right. We realized that, like teaching, love requires an unwavering commitment to the result, not just to the process.”

“And then?”

“And so then we went back into the corral and cornered the calf. It wasn’t easy. As soon as he saw us closing in on him the calf spun around and threw himself into a gap in the fence, his head lodging and his legs kicking, but the six of us grabbed him and pulled him back through the boards and each of us took the part we were supposed to grab and held onto it for dear life. Raul twisted the neck and brought the calf flailing onto his side, right on top of Stan, who made the mistake of grabbing the front legs from the wrong side. The calf was kicking and grunting and his tongue was sticking out from the twisting headlock Raul had put him in, but we held him there on the ground. Seeing this, Dr. Felch jogged over with his emasculator and began giving us instructions. ‘Nan, pull his tail through his legs…. Luke, use his top leg to hold his bottom leg….Ethel, put your knee on his thigh and lean into it a bit….not too much!….Charlie, watch your face, boy, he can kick you from that angle….’ Then he took out his pocket knife and cut off the tip of the calf’s scrotum with a single slice. The calf jerked and struggled but we held him in place and here Dr. Felch forced out the testicles, pressing the white ovals out of their sac as effortlessly as if he were squeezing moist prunes out of a package. ‘Where’s my emasculator?’ he said. ‘Dammit, it must have fell out of my pocket…!’ And so, with no emasculator, he took his simple pocket knife and using the sharp edge of its blade began to shave the sac, grazing the sharp blade back and forth like a woodcarver whittling wood, until the ovals came off in his hands and the sac snapped back into the recess. Then he grabbed a spray can from his pocket and sprayed the cut where the blood was spurting out. ‘Okay’ he said, ‘on three we let him up….just watch the back legs so he doesn’t kick…. ready?…. one…. Two…. THREE!’ On the count of three we all jumped up from the calf and he scrambled up and darted away from us. He was still stumbling to regain his balance and as he trotted off a thin stream of blood trailed after him in the dirt. Dr. Felch took the severed tip of the scrotum, with all the bristly black hairs covered in blood, and placed it in his flannel shirt pocket. Then he took the testicles and put them in a Ziploc bag….”

“And then?” Bessie asked.

“And then all hell broke loose. Bessie, you wouldn’t believe it. We were jumping and screaming and hugging each other! Ethel had jumped into Stan’s arms and he was twirling her around like a figure skater. Raul and I were exchanging high-fives and everyone was shouting and clapping each other on the back. Dr. Felch just stood there watching all this and smiling like a proud father. ‘My friends,’ he said. ‘Now you know the degree of teamwork that is expected of you during your tenure at Cow Eye Community College!’ The bus drove up with our lunches, we hosed the blood off and the sweaty calf hair and as much of the calf shit from our clothes as we could, and sitting on the bench under the skimpy tree, we had an enjoyable lunch….”

“So it all came out well in the end?”

“Yeah. It did. Of course Stan had some bruised ribs. And Luke got kicked in the shin while trying to wrestle the calf. Ethel gashed her chin on the calf’s muzzle and Nan hurt her shoulder and so that’s why you see her wearing a sling today. And all of us were bathed in shit from trying to wrestle and hold the calf on the ground by the trough. But overall it was fine.”

“And you?”

“I was fine too. In fact I’d come out relatively unscathed and was quietly enjoying my lunch with the others when, to my surprise, Dr. Felch looked over at me across his sandwich and said, ‘So, Charlie, are you ready to answer the question now?’ I didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘What question?’ I answered. And everyone looked at me and laughed.”

“He probably meant the unanswered question he’d posed about the metaphorical significance of the calf.”

“Exactly. So here he looks at me and says, ‘If the corral is our college, the dirt is our mission, the fences are the accreditation standards, the bus is our destiny, the driver is Him (or Her), and the waiver form is our submission to a higher presence….if all of this is true, then what, Charlie, is the calf whose testicles are now in this Ziploc bag…?’”

“And he held up the Ziploc?”

“Right. At a slight tilt so the blood pooled in one of its corners.”

“And you said?”

“I didn’t say anything. I didn’t answer at all. I told him I needed more time to think about it. That I’d get back to him.”

“And that was that?”

“For now. I promised to give him a definitive answer by the end of the semester. He said he would hold me to it and that it will be added to the rubric for my first performance evaluation.”

Bessie laughed.

“Well, good luck with that…!” Bessie took a final drink of her iced tea. Then she checked her watch.

“It’s been fun,” she said. “But some of us need to get back to work. I’ll see you tonight, though…”

“Absolutely. Seven-thirty at Marsha’s studio. And thanks again for offering to pick me up. I’m glad I won’t have to choose one of these parties over the other….”

Bessie and I dumped the scraps of food from our trays into the trash cans and headed back toward the administration building to finish out our work day. As we left the cafeteria, I could see the man in the greasy apron, whose name I would never learn, lifting the bag out of the can and tying its corners into a knot.

* * *

A FACULTY DIVIDED

The College’s most recent self-study document was not a fun read. In fact, as I diligently ploughed my way through the two hundred ambling pages — row after row of typewritten text — I was aghast at what I was reading. Amid the college’s statements of its own condition I found factual errors and discrepancies and misrepresentations. There were numerous assertions that did not make logical sense and even more that seemed to be exaggerated or vague or even intentionally ambiguous or false. The mission statement was worded incorrectly. Goals were incorrectly aligned. Some sentences had no conclusion, meandering off into oblivion as if the writer had been interrupted in mid-thought or the editor had chopped off the sentence but forgot to complete it later on. On page 34 it was stated that Cow Eye Community College had a full-time enrollment of 987 students and a faculty count of 161, while a few pages later the two figures were reversed. Charts and tables were haphazardly labeled. Mispellings abounded. Some sections were written in first person, others in third. Information that could have been bulleted was written out in long-paragraph form, while information that should have been spelled out in paragraphs was compacted into terse, ineffective bullets. Amid the chaos there were maps with no legends and legends with no morals and a bizarre passage about recent improvements to the English department that appeared to be written….in verse. One entire chapter seemed to be lifted from a later chapter about an unrelated topic. And another section included what appeared to be an aside — perhaps dictated by accident — that was not meant for actual inclusion in the document: (“This represents everything that is inherently wrong with the world.”) Worst of all, there was virtually no evidence to support even those assertions that may have been given in earnest and that might have actually been true. Wild claims of success were made on almost every page, yet nothing had been presented to support them. On page 173, the writer — or writers — had stated that, “With the introduction of the shooting range and archery complex there has been a huge increase in student satisfaction and faculty retention”; however there were no data in support of this claim, no chart or diagram, no helpful appendix — nothing to suggest that satisfaction or retention had actually increased as a result of the new shooting range and archery complex.

“Well,” I said to Dr. Felch when I’d come into his office after reading the entire bewildering report. “I just finished the self-study.”

“And?”

“It was brutal. I can’t believe you submitted this to your accreditors. No wonder they shot us down.”

“That’s nothing. Wait till you see this….” Dr. Felch pulled out a stapled packet of papers and plopped it on the desk. “Their response….”

I cringed.

“I’m afraid to even look….”

Back in my office, my worst fears were confirmed. In their response to the self-study the accreditors had flagged every single discrepancy and misstatement and flat-out lie that I’d just come across in my own reading. They had noted a “failure of leadership” and “gross misrepresentation of facts” and “mismanagement of resources” and “grave concerns” regarding the future of the college. In the very first paragraph, after highlighting the beauty of the campus and extolling its “fresh rows of lilac and grand sycamore tree” — seemingly the only nice thing they had to say about their visit — the accreditors stated that the aesthetic charm of the campus “belies the ability of the institution to provide a quality education to its students.” What followed was a twenty-page institutional beat-down, an accreditational emasculation the kind of which I had never before experienced. And as I read the scalding comments — the acidic rebukes and recommendations, the caustic insinuations and searing criticism — I could almost smell the putrid scent of burning hair and pale unprotected flesh sizzling under the sun.

“So what do you think, Charlie?” Dr. Felch’s voice was asking. Now he was standing in my doorway, waiting expectantly for my answer. “Do you think there’s any hope for us?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Felch. This is about as bad as it gets…”

“I warned you….”

“You did. But I guess I didn’t realize it was that far gone. Who put this report together anyway?”

“Your predecessor. She was supposed to take all the rough drafts from the individual standard chairs and compile them into a single document. But she waited until the last minute. And by the time it came to me for signature it was too late to do anything.” Dr. Felch took out a third document, this one only six pages. “Here,” he said. “This is our plan to respond to the comments of the accreditors….”

I opened it up and saw a table on the first page listing the accreditors’ findings and the college’s proposed response. This too was not happy reading:

Accreditor Findings

Response of Cow Eye Community College

1

The college is grossly behind in technology (ex: still using manual typewriters). As a result, faculty and staff are hampered in their work operations; even more depressingly, students are not being given the opportunity to develop skills necessary to compete in an increasingly technology-based world.

A Technology Committee has been formed and has developed a plan to introduce technology into the work process of the college. The three-year plan is currently being implemented and has included the purchase of an electric typewriter for our natural sciences division and one for the math department. We are also exploring the feasibility of acquiring one for the humanities division; initial discussions with the division chair have been conducted and despite significant resistance, there is reason to believe that this will be finalized by year 3 of the plan.

2

There is lack of cooperation and poor morale among faculty. Some faculty have mentioned receiving bloated scrota in their mailboxes, a bizarre practice that is shockingly widespread at this college.

Lack of cooperation is admittedly a problem on campus. However, a plan is in place to correct this. The plan includes the following elements: 1) A more robust process for New Faculty orientation incorporating team-building and culture-bridging activities grounded in the unique history of Cow Eye Junction. 2) An institution-wide focus on unity and cultural harmony, including social and other morale-inducing events (ex: Christmas party); 3) An awareness campaign to deter the leaving of bloated scrotums in faculty mailboxes.

3

The mission statement is a) outdated; and b) not understood by faculty and staff.

The current mission statement was developed during a period of relative isolation and unbounded optimism regarding the college’s perceived manifest destiny. However, we recognize the need to reevaluate and update the statement and will be reviewing and revising it beginning next year. In the meantime, more emphasis will be placed on educating faculty and staff on the college’s current mission, including at all-college assemblies and during Fall and Spring convocations.

4

The college has very few ADA-accessible pathways and ramps — and those that it does have it insists on referring to as being “for handicaps.”

CECC’s lack of handicapped facilities is not a reflection of the college’s lack of sympathy for such individuals but rather a consequence of having so few of them on campus. Previously, the perception was, Hey, If we don’t have any handicaps, why do we have to do anything for them? Thankfully, this perception has been corrected and a plan has been developed to introduce more accommodations into the campus, including: handicapped parking stalls, ramps and railings, etc. The use of the term “handicapped” will also be phased out in line with the college’s recently adopted Policy on Inclusive and Non-Hurtful Language. According to the policy, language that shows any sort of bias or tendency to exclude will be replaced with words that are all-inclusive and that promote harmony and goodwill to the extent possible.

5

The college has an autocratic leadership structure. All hiring decisions are made by the college president with no input from faculty or staff.

Hiring procedures have been revised to include a hiring committee recommendation. Hiring committees will consist of six members. The recommendation of the committee will be a key consideration in all hiring decisions.

6

Faculty and Staff of the college (including the Dean of Instruction) did not know the difference between Goals and Objectives. No one could explain what an Outcome is.

A Professional Development plan will be instituted to educate all faculty and staff of the college on the difference between Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes. The Dean of Instruction will be encouraged to attend.

7

Teaching faculty do not assess the effectiveness of their assessment practices.

In addition to current departmental evaluations, the college’s Special Projects Coordinator will be recruited to conduct in-class assessments of the assessment practices of key instructional faculty. The results of these independent non-departmental assessments will provide subjective and objective feedback to instructors so they may better assess the effectiveness of their assessments and make appropriate improvements to their assessment practices as necessary. The Special Projects Coordinator will also conduct an assessment of the effectiveness of the assessments that are used to assess the assessment practices of assessed teaching faculty and this too will be assessed using rigorous assessment tools and best practices in assessment.

After reading this first page carefully, I flipped through the rest of the table in a funk. In all there were thirty-six significant findings that the college had promised to address before the team’s next visit in March and as I read through them, cringing at each, I circled those that impacted me directly: the Christmas party for all faculty and staff that I would be organizing in the name of campus morale; the in-class evaluations that I had apparently been committed to conduct in the hope of increasing key faculty’s ability to assess the effectiveness of their assessments; and the revision of the mission statement that would ensure that our goals were aligned and that we were achieving tangible, measurable outcomes. It was all too much to digest in one sitting, and on my way out of the building that afternoon I dropped by Dr. Felch’s office to say goodbye for the day.

“You’re not going to any parties tonight, Charlie?”

“I wasn’t planning on it, honestly. But then Gwen stopped by. And then Rusty stopped by. So I guess I acquiesced to both. And you?”

“I’ll be at Rusty’s. We’re doing a thing for Merna there and I can’t miss it. Plus, I wasn’t exactly invited to the other one.” Dr. Felch laughed.

“I’ll be there a little later,” I said. “Bessie’s picking me up at seven-thirty.”

“Bessie? Oh! Then I guess we’ll be seeing the two of you about the time you get there…!”

At my apartment, I showered and waited for Gwen Dupuis to arrive. On the other side of the wall, loud thumping music was playing and I could hear the frequent sounds of banging and shrieking and crashing glass, as if plates were being broken. I’d been warned about our math faculty and now I was experiencing it first-hand. The last two nights they’d kept me up till the late hours with the constant sounds of partying and screaming and the guttural shrieks and moaning of what sounded like the sexual caterwauls of fertile felines. Struggling to fall asleep, I’d put my pillow over my head and stuffed my ears with tissue paper. But nothing worked. If this kept up — if the noise lasted into the weekend or, especially, if it dragged into the upcoming semester — I would need to confront them about the inconsideration. The very thought of having to do this made me shudder: I had never been one to enjoy conflict, did not have a successful history with it, and as a rule tried to avoid it whenever possible. But that would be a thought for another time: Gwen’s car had just pulled up and she was already honking her horn as a signal for me to come down.

*

(…)

If love were an easy thing, it would surely be unworthy of the pursuit. For only those things that come from the pains of severe effort are truly worthwhile. Like the difficulties of a woman’s labor that bring children into the world, so too do the pains of one’s love of life bring even more love into the world. And just as the seeds of the celery stalk are the only ones that can cause more celery to be born, so too are the seeds of love the only ones that will bring about the sowing of even more love. Within the great garden of the community college, love is the celery plant that awaits its seeding, the cucumber flourishing on the vine, the fragile arugula plant, still unfurled, waiting in quiet solitude for the spreading water of life.

(…)

*

Gwen Dupuis’s car was a yellow two-seater and I immediately recognized that it must be hers when the small coupe pulled up below my apartment window a little after five. Hearing the horn, I headed downstairs where Gwen leaned over to unlock the door and let me in. The bucket seat was soft and inviting and I was so captivated by the comfort of it all that I didn’t realize at once how light her car door was compared to all the others I’d been closing lately; to my great surprise, the door slammed shut with a violent, bone-jarring crash.

“Charlie,” Gwen said, calmly and immediately. “This automobile you are sitting in is a refined work of human engineering. It is not a corral gate. Please put on your seat belt and be more careful next time….”

The interior of Gwen’s car was immaculate and as she pulled out of the parking lot the scent of evergreen and cinnamon filled my senses. Outside, the birds of the campus were chirping and the pelicans were loafing on the banks of the lagoons as if they had not moved since the last time I saw them. The campus was shutting down for the day and the administrative workers were already beginning to file out of their offices toward their cars. The two of us drove a minute or so in silence and then Gwen looked over at me with a quizzical expression on her face:

“So tell me, Charlie,” she said — we had just turned onto the main thoroughfare bisecting the campus and were now passing a large swimming pool on one side and the Dimwiddle Institute on the other — “How do you like Cow Eye so far?”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am. I mean, what exactly is it that makes our college so fine?”

“Well, I love the campus. And the lagoons are great. Everyone I’ve met has been really helpful and friendly, either stopping by my office to introduce themselves and to share widely divergent impressions of my predecessor’s worth to the world….or taking the time to point me toward the library where the remnants of her eclectic book collection will one day be left for posterity.”

“You haven’t dropped off her books yet?”

“No, but I will. In the meantime, a few colleagues have complimented me on my newly cleaned office. Others have expressed their deepest condolences over my failed marriages. And in three short days I feel like I’ve learned more about the political situation here in Cow Eye Junction than most historians will have the pleasure of learning in a lifetime….”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“And how’s your reading coming? Have you made any headway with the books you set aside to read?”

“Not only have I made progress with those but I’ve started a couple more as well. So far I’ve gotten a few pages into several, and several pages into a few. In all, I’m reading about eight books at the moment….” — here I mentioned The Anyman’s Guide to Love and the Community College, my unfinished historical novel, and the Cute Cats of the World — “….Of course it’s a lot to read, but I hope to get through them all in the near future.”

“So things are going well for you then?”

“Swimmingly! Though I have to admit I’m still trying to make sense of the things I’m seeing. You know, the shifting rainbows and rippled reflections and all the complex personalities with their various alignments and aspirations. It’s still a little overwhelming, honestly.”

“You do look a little tired.”

“That’s because I haven’t been sleeping very much since the math faculty got back from North Carolina….”

“You shouldn’t feel bad about that. I’ve been here for fifteen years and I’m still grappling to understand the things I’m seeing. And as for the math faculty, I suspect you’ll get used to them soon enough.”

“Are they always so boisterous?”

“They’re playful, yes. That goes with the territory. There’s something about the rational mind that makes it cry out for the irrational. The two go together, I firmly believe that.”

“As a logic teacher yourself?”

“Yes. I suppose you could say it’s from personal experience. And personal observation. Obviously, there’s a difference between logic and reason. But logical people require reason. And reasonable people require a great deal of rationality in their lives. And the greater the need for logic and reason and rationality….the greater the need for their opposites. That’s true at any community college. It’s just that our math faculty tend to take it to the extreme…”

As she drove, Gwen told me of the legendary antics of our math department. Of the late-night “Math Bashes” where students and faculty would dress in drag and get stoned and try to solve unprecedented algebraic formulae. And how each year on March fourteenth the entire department would come to campus with wagonloads of dried-up cow chips gathered from the countryside; and how the faculty would distribute them to students in their classes; and how it would be agreed to meet at the sycamore tree a few minutes after three; and how when the large clock on the administration building hit exactly three-fourteen and fifteen seconds, the entire math community would run screaming to the sycamore to engage in an all-out cow pie fight. In tones of admiration Gwen described how the mathematics teachers had come to forcibly occupy an entire section of the faculty housing complex where the humanities instructors once held sway, claiming squatter’s rights and turning the common area into a math mausoleum complete with charts and graphs and a life-size cut-out of Leibniz and Newton sharing a bong. And how these younger teachers were loved by students for their passionate devotion to mathematical inquiry but hated by administration for their reckless indifference to rules and their unwavering devotion to the purity of their principles. And how they were famous for traveling en masse to various professional development conferences where things always seemed to devolve into yet another haze of all-night drinking and mathematics-infused orgies.

“They practice a severe form of math-love,” Gwen concluded.

“That’s all fine and good. But I just wish they’d keep their love-ins to respectable hours. I haven’t slept in two days!”

“Don’t worry. It’ll die down a bit once the semester starts.”

“The math-love?”

“Oh no, that never goes away! I meant the partying.”

“I hope so. I need my sleep. Those accreditation documents are hard enough to read as it is!”

Gwen laughed.

“I’m sure you’ll get some sleep tonight. You might still be adjusting to the time zone change. Plus, I heard you got back from your teambuilding activity late last night. Ethel told me how your bus broke down on the way back to campus and how you had to wait an extra hour along the side of the road. She was saying the activity itself was, um, interesting, if that’s the best word to use…?”

“You could definitely call it that.”

“She said you sowed some seeds of civilization.”

“We sure did.”

“And that you shared embarrassing and even humiliating secrets.”

“We did that too.”

“She said yours was especially illogical because on the one hand you don’t much like being around people, yet on the other you are equally afraid of being alone. She says you’re a lot of different things but none of them entirely.”

“She would be right.”

“And she told me how Felch chain-smoked the entire time. And Smithcoate passed out on a table with a cigar in his mouth, drunk on the past, as usual!”

“Ethel told you all these things? So what else did she have to say?”

“Well, she also said that she and Stan are heading in opposite directions — and not just because of the orgasm thing. She was ready to forgive and forget. But I reminded her that relationships are fleeting and that orgasms are a husband’s duty — and that this is simply non-negotiable. So I guess you could say it was an equally enlightening mentor meeting for us both!”

“Mentor meeting? Have the assignments been posted?”

“Of course. You got Long River.”

“The speech teacher who doesn’t speak? He’s my mentor?!”

“Correct. That should be interesting, shouldn’t it! But, hey, at least you didn’t get Smithcoate…!” Gwen laughed again. Now she was passing the Harriet Bowers Dimwiddle Health and Wellness Center. “So Charlie, I’m curious to hear more about your teambuilding exercise yesterday. How was it? I have no doubts that it was entertaining. But was it truly edifying? I mean, as an educator you of course know the difference between the two, right?”

“I would hope so.”

“So after that teambuilding exercise are the six of you ready to work together as a team?”

“Absolutely.”

“Hand in hand for the success of our students?”

“I would say so.”

“And the betterment of our community?”

“Yes.”

“And the proliferation of the American Way?”

“Pretty much.”

“They’re sick, Charlie.”

“What? Who’s sick?”

“They’re all sick. Felch. Smithcoate. Stokes. I mean, name me another community college in the country — a community college from any historical period or culture of the world — where it would be acceptable to round up impressionable new faculty, herd them onto a school bus, drive them past abandoned buildings and a rotting buffalo carcass, and then force them all….all of them — even the women! — and then force them to….my god, the very thought makes me shudder….and then force them all to…”

“…It’s okay, Gwen, you can say it….”

“….And then force them to talk about love! How demeaning!”

“But Gwen, it wasn’t that bad. In fact, I think we all got what we were supposed to get out of the experience.”

“Metaphorically, you mean? Or literally?”

“A little of each.”

“I doubt that. But either way, love should not be a topic for mixed company.”

“It shouldn’t?”

“No, it shouldn’t. And it’s not something that should be spoken of in a hot school bus or under a skimpy tree. Love should not be a means of manipulation or subjugation. It should not be a vehicle with an ulterior destination. Or an instrument used for one’s own purpose. Love should never be wielded as a carrot or a stick. It should not be painful or laborious. Or difficult. And of course it should not be a means to achieve a greater goal, objective, or outcome. For obvious reasons it should never be seen as something rhetorical or metaphorical or allegorical. In fact, love should not be anything at all, except what it actually is. Whatever that may be….”

Gwen was slowing down to flash her badge to the guard at the shack. Timmy smiled and waved her through:

“Thanks, Ms. Dupuis!” he called out, but Gwen didn’t seem to notice and drove past without acknowledging him.

“You know,” Gwen said as we hopped over the railroad tracks yet again, “this sort of thing — that teambuilding fiasco, for example — begins at the very top. It all comes down from there. I mean, just look at who’s leading our institution….”

“President Felch? He seems like a decent guy….”

“Felch? Are you kidding me? That man should be put to pasture already. After what he’s done to our college! And what he’s doing with our faculty. And especially after what he did to your predecessor last year….” Gwen was clenching her steering wheel tightly and shaking her head. “….After what he did to her, he’s the one who should be gelded…!”

Here my ears perked up again. “Why? What happened with my predecessor? What did Dr. Felch do to her that was so bad?”

“It’s an ugly story….” Gwen had come to a sudden stop to allow an armadillo to cross in front of her. The animal was in no hurry and as it took its time crossing the road, the two of us waited patiently. Unrushed, the armadillo moved from one side of the road toward the other but then, just as it had reached the opposite side, it stopped, turned around, and headed back toward where it had started, just as slowly and just as unrushed.

“I sense some hesitancy there,” Gwen noted. “That kind of indecision will get you killed every time, Mr. Armadillo!”

When the indecisive armadillo reached the very spot from where it had originally set out on its journey, Gwen eased off the brake and the car edged forward, past the armadillo, past the boarded-up skeleton of the town’s only printing press, and headlong into the complicated story of how Dr. Felch had inflicted a great injustice upon my predecessor during her abbreviated tenure as Special Projects Coordinator:

“Ultimately, it’s all Stokes’s fault,” she began. “Because he was the one who thought it would be a great idea to build a swimming pool on campus and that it should be in the exact shape of an American flag….”

Once again the scenery outside had changed from the foliage of our verdant campus to the hot desolation of the surrounding area. The wind had disappeared. The air was dead. The grass was brown and brittle under the fading sun of early evening. By now I had made the voyage in both directions and the shift between the two no longer surprised me in the same way.

“This was about ten years ago,” Gwen continued as we drove past a stand of dried-up mesquite trees, “when our campus was only beginning to reap the benefits of the Dimwiddle contribution. We’d just built the Observatory and the Concert Hall and plans were in place for the Stadium and the Gun Range (which should have been completed earlier but had to be relocated farther away from the library due to noise concerns). This was an especially volatile time in the world and so things were going really well for us….”

(As she spoke, I couldn’t help noticing a certain idiosyncrasy of Gwen’s driving. Her car was an automatic transmission and it seemed that at any given moment she was either stepping heavily on the gas or stepping heavily on the brake; there was no in-between with her — as if the two feet she was using for the pedals were conflicting tendencies buried deep within her heart and that she was wrestling with from moment to moment. As she drove, I felt my stomach lurching either forward or backward with the constant braking or accelerating.)

“…The college was flush with money for glamorous projects back then and at some point Stokes got it into his head that the campus really needed a swimming pool and that it should be in the shape of an American flag and so he proposed it to Felch and they pushed it through permitting — Felch is well-connected with local government and the planners loved the idea of the thirteen stripes and twenty-four stars that would be painted on the bottom of the pool — and within a year or so the Olympic-sized venue was built and dedicated as the Albert Ross Dimwiddle Aquatics Complex. Stokes had gotten what he wanted and Cow Eye now had its pool….”

At this Gwen pressed firmly on the brake, then accelerated out of it even more firmly. In response, my stomach lunged forward and back, respectively. Already slightly carsick, I was doing my best to focus on this new story of emerging water:

“I’m not quite sure where you’re headed with this, Gwen. Isn’t it a good thing to have a pool? I mean, if there’s going to be bloodshed in the world — and there is bound to be, of course — well then you might as well build yourself a pool from it, right? And besides, I’m not seeing how this has anything to do with Dr. Felch being gelded or my unfortunate predecessor whose pendulum is still clacking back in my office….”

“I’m getting to all that.”

Now she was accelerating into her story again and as she did my stomach went with her.

“…Okay, so let’s fast forward ten years to the hiring of our second Special Projects Coordinator. (Remember, the first had left after only a month?) Believe me, Charlie, this woman was no run-of-the-mill Special Projects Coordinator. She came to us with multiple Ivy League educations and previous administrative experience working at the League of Nations and the UN. She’d helped facilitate a peace accord between rival clans in Somalia and had once succeeded in getting a delegation of Israelis to sit side by side with a delegation of Palestinians at an impromptu Easter mass. Her qualifications were impeccable. Her sense of propriety was unimpeachable. She came with recommendations from the General Secretary and his top aide. And she’d won several awards for contributions to educational administration. So you could even say, without compromise, that she was not just an administrator but an award-winning administrator….”

“She sounds great….But how does all this pertain to….”

“…The lawsuit? Right. So anyway, the pool was built from the blood of other countries’ suffering and it was dedicated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and the Dimwiddle family even flew all the way from Missouri to attend the ceremony and to dip their toes in the crystal-clear waters. Things were good for a while. But as you might imagine, the cost of maintaining a pool in a place like Cow Eye Junction is pretty steep. And so over the years a lot of resources have been redirected from our operating budget to pay for that ill-conceived swimming pool. And this means that we’ve had to cut back on some salaries that could have otherwise gone to pay our instructors. All these expenditures on chlorine and pumps and lifeguards and liability insurance and everything else it takes to run a pool for the benefit of 987 students (of which maybe ten ever actually use the pool) and 161 faculty and staff (of which only five even know how to swim)….those are all resources that could have been used for other things. For example, to hire more logic teachers….or to give a raise to a highly deserving Special Projects Coordinator in recognition of her outstanding contributions to our college….”

Gwen was now braking again. No, she was accelerating. My stomach couldn’t figure out which way she was going and so it lurched in both directions at once.

“Are you saying my predecessor made real contributions to the college? Because I’ve heard otherwise.”

“You’ve been talking to the wrong people, Charlie: the wrong half of campus opinion. She was amazing! You have to keep in mind that by the time she got here we’d basically hit rock bottom. The college was already on the verge of losing its accreditation. The mission statement hadn’t been reviewed in years. There were two factions on campus divided along philosophical lines: one screaming for positive change, the other clinging desperately to a tired status quo. The campus was so polarized that some faculty had even begun to receive bloated scrota on Wednesdays. It couldn’t have been any worse, Charlie. Trust me. And that’s when she arrived at the makeshift bus shelter — you know, the same one you arrived at last Saturday….”

“Next to the general store. Where the man with the harmonica was playing.”

“Right. Although that store’s been closed for a while now….”

“What do you mean? I was just there four days ago!”

“Trust me, it’s gone.”

“And the woman reading the newspaper?”

“Gone. Both of them. Especially the newspaper….”

Outside, the front page of a printed newspaper blew across the front of our car. Gwen accelerated past it as she spoke:

“So as I was saying….our college was already in a deep hole and we’d hired this amazing lady and she’d agreed to come to Cow Eye and when she gets into town from halfway across the country Felch drives out to pick her up from the makeshift bus shelter in… that truck…!” Gwen’s face contorted as if she were recalling a severed calf’s scrotum, or a bloody emasculator. “She’s allergic to dust, poor thing, and so she has to drive in with the art history teacher, whose Saab is clean and features a passenger belt, and the next day Felch brings her into his office and says, ‘Look, miss, I know you’re a smart gal….’” — upon pronouncing the words miss and gal, Gwen’s face contorted even more, as if she had been handed a severed calf’s scrotum, or a bloody emasculator — “….’Now I know you’re a smart gal,’ he says, ‘and there’s nothing wrong with that, but you’re also going to be up against a divided campus, and so you need to do this, and you shouldn’t do that, and be careful not to step too heavily with either foot. Make sure you tread lightly so you don’t tread heavily on either of the two factions on campus….’ But here the woman reminded him that she had two Ivy League educations and rich experience in conflict mediation and that Cow Eye was no different from any other place and that women were no longer content to be merely the objects of male fantasy and that if she saw things that needed changing, by god, she was going to change them even if it meant stepping on some toes! Charlie, she could have simply sat around admiring the abiding motion of her pendulum and collecting her paycheck in quiet acquiescence. But she didn’t. She really decided to grab the bull by the horns, so to speak, and to fight for meaningful change at the college. But where best to start? She thought long and hard and after a lot of careful and strategic thinking she decided to start with the Christmas Committee….”

“Why there?”

“Where better? Her rich theoretical experience told her that the whole concept of the party — its very premise — was antiquated and needed to be re-envisioned. So she talked to Will Smithcoate about making some slight improvements to it. Simple yet thoughtful innovations were proposed like changing the name of the gathering from a “Christmas Party” to a “Winter Extravaganza” and adding more vegetables to the menu and moving the stage to the opposite side of the room and prohibiting the consumption of alcoholic beverages at the event. She also suggested that it would be more highly attended if it were held on a weekend, that it should be non-denominational, that the napkins should be fuchsia and mauve instead of red and green, and that the music should be updated from the same old Christmas favorites sung year after year by our own faculty and staff to a more eclectic blend of recorded world music that would better reflect the changing demographics of the surrounding community as well as the ever-increasing diversity of our staff. She suggested an international theme and noted that the large flag on the wall with its thirteen stripes and twenty-five stars could be repositioned to better accommodate equally attractive flags from other countries of the world; there was plenty of room on the wall for other nations, she said, and there was no reason why a wall of that size could not be made more flag-friendly….”

“It sounds like an ambitious proposal….”

“It was. But Smithcoate was against every suggestion. And when she offered her suggestions he demurred. And when she insisted on them he resisted. And when she galvanized a progressive faction of the committee to riot, he incited the reactionary faction to stonewall. Like Cleburne from Arkansas. If she thrust, he parried. If she prohibited, he repealed. In time neither side would meet without their attorneys in the room. And so she finally just gave up. All her good intentions were futile. It was too much for her. And besides, there was the impending accreditation team visit that she still needed to get ready for.….”

“The accreditors were coming?”

“Yes. In fact, they’d already arrived and were waiting at the bus shelter for someone to pick them up.”

“In the sun?”

“Right. With clipboards.”

“But I thought she was arranging all that? Wasn’t she supposed to pick them up?”

“Oh, no! Why would that be the job of a Special Projects Coordinator? Especially one with her education and experience! No, that was a miscommunication between Felch and his counterpart on the visiting team, the one who was lucky enough to get the window seat….”

“It’s funny you mentioned accreditation because I just finished reading our self-study this afternoon. It was awful!”

“But that’s not her fault. She was just compiling the report, not writing it. It was the chairs of the different standards who were assigned to do the actual drafting and should have gotten her the materials months earlier. But they couldn’t do it. Or wouldn’t do it. Some refused to do anything at all. And those who did weren’t conscientious. Stokes, as usual, inflated the number of cows he’d inseminated. The fiscal office couldn’t explain how much it actually cost to run the Olympic-sized pool (which some faculty had already started referring to as the Albatross Aquatics Complex!) The Technology Committee was torn between introducing new electric typewriters and maintaining their loyalty to the manual ones. And then there was Sam Middleton, English instructor and specialist in medieval poetry, who balked at writing his section due to personal, professional, and aesthetic considerations. ‘It’s a perversion of language,’ he told her one day, and months later when he finally did produce something it wasn’t a credible accreditation write-up but a treatise in verse that on one level appeared to celebrate the successes of the English department but, on a deeper (and much darker) level, bemoaned the compromising of academic freedoms and the corruption of poetic language. With no actual prose narrative to include, she had no choice but to use what he’d submitted. The final product wasn’t insightful prose, Charlie, but it wasn’t her fault either. What could she have done differently? She did the best with what she’d been given to work with….”

“No, it definitely wasn’t insightful. But I can see how this might not have been her doing completely….”

“…Meanwhile, all of this was happening while she was trying to overcome so much adversity in her own personal life. Poor thing. The college hadn’t made allowances for her dogs or her allergies or her dilemma as an unmarried middle-aged female desperate to find a challenging and great partner in a rural place where most people tie their first knot by age twenty….”

“Look, Gwen…. I’m still waiting for the crux of this. How does this all relate to Dr. Felch? Why should he be gelded?”

“Because he’s the reason she filed the lawsuit.”

“For what? I still don’t understand? What lawsuit? And I still don’t get what the pool has to do with anything… and why it’s all Rusty Stokes’s fault…!”

“Simple. When this highly deserving woman asked Felch for a raise, he said no. Actually, he said Hell no! And when she asked for a reason he refused to give one. And when she threatened to go above his head he said that there was no head above his — as if he were some kind of godhead — and that even if there were, there would not be enough money. And when she refused to accept those explanations (“You have to show me!” she insisted) he pointed to the cost of the pool, which was draining all the available resources so that there were none left over for anything else — especially a newly hired Special Projects Coordinator who had yet to make any meaningful contribution to the college. Charlie, this probably would have been the end of it. Except that after all that, he did one more thing that was simply inexcusable….”

“This is all happening in his office?”

“Yes.”

“Next to the spittoon?”

“No, the spittoon came later. You see, not only did he refuse her the raise she deserved by suggesting that she perform a sex act, but as he was holding open the door to show her out — and as she was going through the doorway he….he reached down and patted her on the butt. The butt, Charlie! Like a quarterback would do to a lead blocker after a successful goal-line stand. This is a woman with personal references from the Undersecretary of War and Commerce, mind you. And when she’d jerked in response — after all, nobody at the League of Nations had ever played a down of football! — he just laughed and reminded her that the pool was Olympic-sized and suggested that she might want to take a long swim in it. And then he laughed again and closed the door after her.”

“And then?”

“Well and then she hit him with the lawsuit.”

“That quickly?”

“Before the door closed.”

“For what? Harassment? Gender bias? Detrimental reliance?”

“No, but good guesses one and all….”

“What then?”

“She sued him for workplace bullying and occupational stress.”

“Huh?”

“Ironically, it wasn’t the slap on the butt that pushed her over the edge — she’d grown up in a family of brothers. And it wasn’t the low salary. Or the way she’d been lured to the fringes of academia with false promises. Or even the dust that was so insidiously accumulating in her office with each passing day. Actually it wasn’t any of these things that caused her to react so negatively to her time at Cow Eye….”

“What was it then?”

“It was the comment about the pool! She couldn’t swim…!”

“Oh!”

“So in that context the comment was clearly a hostile threat. And so she sued him for creating a stressful working environment that kept her from fulfilling her duties as Special Projects Coordinator. In retrospect, all of it together was too much for her to take. The swimming comment. The accreditation mess. The endless divisions and alignments. The duplicity of the Christmas Committee and its chair. Compared to working at Cow Eye, she once told me, getting the Israelis and Palestinians to attend a joint Easter mass was like convincing an American child to open presents on Christmas morning….”

“And this is somehow Rusty’s fault?”

“Right. If not for that damn pool in the shape of the American flag, we might still have our amazing Special Projects Coordinator here with us today…!”

“I see. This is all very logical. But Gwen, what about you? You’ve alluded to an inherent irrational streak. And I can see you’re very passionate about your role here at the college. That’s all great. But what else can you tell me about yourself? I mean aside from the many things that love should not be. What about your name? And how you came to be here at Cow Eye? And where you might otherwise be if you weren’t so committed to perpetuating logical thinking? Oh and of course….an embarrassing personal secret of your own! Would you care to share any of those things with me in this cozy car that smells of evergreen and cinnamon?”

“Honestly, Charlie, you’re asking a lot. But I like you and so I’ll tell you a few things about myself.”

“Thank you, Gwen.”

“Sure, I’ll tell you a few things. But please know that anything I tell you stays in this car. Like silverfish in a book of rhyming poetry, never to see the light of day. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course, Gwen. I’ll keep it between you and me and these plush bucket seats that you and I have been sitting in for the past half hour as we make our way headlong into a drought for the ages.”

“Good. So where should I begin?” Gwen had taken her foot off the accelerator and was beginning to apply the brake. Then she took her foot off the brake and began to apply the accelerator. Then she again applied the brake. Then the accelerator. “Well,” she said, “I suppose I should probably begin unequivocally, which is to say, with my past….”

Outside our car, the sun had made its way beyond the horizon and the sky had turned a light shade of purple. This was the tail end of yet another vivid sunset; soon it would be dark. Gwen pressed firmly on the brake, then accelerated suddenly, then braked and accelerated yet again — so quickly each time that it seemed she might be doing both at once. And yet the car continued its forward progress toward the Purlieus, where Gwen’s watery get-together was already under way. “Yes,” she was saying, “I suppose I should begin with my earliest childhood memories. You see, I was not always such a rational person. In fact, there was once a time in my life when I actually became something quite the opposite. Of course it seems so long ago. Yet when I look back at it now, it’s still the thing that gives me the most joy to recall, and also the most embarrassment. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s begin in a logical fashion, shall we? At the beginning then…?”

And here she pressed her foot firmly against the accelerator and the car rolled on quietly and inexorably into the retreating sunlight.

*

“…Even when I was little,” Gwen began, “I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. While other children dreamt of being athletes or actresses or entrepreneurs, I knew that for me all roads led to teaching, and that of the many roads that might take me there the truest and straightest was also the most logical of them all. This did not come to me by chance but was nurtured within my inquisitive heart over the course of a precocious childhood. From an early age I’d seen my peers grappling with the magnitude of the world’s great questions and I’d seen how it inevitably led to ennui and angst and self-destruction. One of my friends from college, an aspiring philosopher, overdosed on his twenty-seventh birthday; another was lost to a life of drinking and aimlessness; yet another gave everything up under the weight of so many questions that could never be resolved; years later I discovered that he had become a successful securities broker. But why? Why did such terrible things have to happen to thoughtful people? People with so much promise? Couldn’t they see that all of it — or at least the things that we have some control over — can be categorized and isolated and reduced to definitive processes that would allow even the most complex phenomena of life to be explained in terms of their own inherent consistency, or, oppositely, to be dismissed? For me this was the beauty of logic, the reassurance it provided. Of course my views became more nuanced as I moved from middle school to high school, then from high school into college, and then on to graduate school….”

(At first as Gwen told her story I found myself actively nodding to reassure her that I was following her words. But as she settled into her narrative groove I soon realized that all my nodding, all my listening — perhaps even my very presence in the car — was of little importance to her at that moment. As if in a trance, Gwen was immersed in the telling of her story and as she descended deeper and deeper into it I settled back in the cozy bucket seat to absorb her words. With no need for words of my own — the purest state of bliss — I gave myself to listening intently to her story while gazing through the window at the darkening countryside.)

“…For me life was a road,” she was saying. “In fact life had always presented itself to me as a road and this road was broad and straight and though it was long it led in no uncertain terms from one point to another like the straightest line between two opposites. For me life was a series of finite points, like coordinates on an axis. And if point A was my entry into this world (my parents named me after a cousin who had drowned when she was two); and point B was my accumulated experiences in their sum — my childhood tea parties, my educational exploits and accolades all rolled into one; and if C was my present milieu — the effortlessness of my graduate studies, the rigid certainty of my daily routine; well, then D and E and F were all my future. Along with G, H, I, and every other point along the extended continuum of life. For in this straight line D might be my tenure application, and E would be my promotion to Associate Professor, and F and G would surely be my full professorship and my chairing a department, respectively. And all of this would culminate somewhere at the end of this procession of coordinates with my retirement as a respected academician from a prestigious ivy-walled college. Even then I allowed that there might be slight deviations along the way; and yet I knew with all the conviction in my logical mind that the path would be as straight as I could make it and that it would take me inevitably and efficiently to my destination….”

“…When I finally graduated I took my first teaching job at a commuter college in the heart of the city, an urban college, and on the very first day of class I was approached by a young man with an attractive face and an exotic accent. He looked to be from an Asian country — these were the days when students from such places were very rare and could still be categorized by continent — and in his eyes I could see that the world he was from, whatever country or community or continent it represented, was clearly a world of vast possibilities and boundless horizons with innumerable iterations of emanation and dissolution. There are some nations whose peoples have the eyes of all eternity housed in their sockets and his nation — whatever and wherever it may have been — was certainly one of them. I had just erased the blackboard after an awkward first lecture that had left me searching for my own answers, and as if sensing my inner turbulence and vulnerability he had approached me after class just as I was gathering my things. The autumn sunlight filtered in through a window. A rotating fan blew. The other students were filing out and in my fingers I was still holding the chalk from my lecture. For several moments the boy — the man? — just stood there watching me in silence as if not knowing what to say, instead saying nothing, and just staring at me with those infinite eyes. Then suddenly, and in the clearest of voices, he spoke up: ‘Professor,’ he said, and here I was so startled at the firmness of his voice which sounded like the love cry of desire itself. ‘Professor, I am very interested to learn what you have to teach us about the logic of our universe. For the universe is vast and daunting, and logic itself is a tool like all the others. I will come to every class of yours and sit right there in that front row seat where I sat today. And I will take copious notes. But before I do all that I would first like to address you with a few questions…?’ This young man was not tall and as he spoke he looked up at me with dark black eyes not unlike wet anthracite or the extinguished stars in the sky that are as mysterious as our collective soul and whose light we are now seeing though they themselves have long since died. ‘Tell me this, Professor. If there are two neighbors living on opposite sides of a very thin wall — one neighbor who is boisterous and always chooses conflict over conciliation and another neighbor who is quiet and deferential and who always chooses conciliation over conflict — in such a living arrangement is it possible that these two neighbors living on opposite sides of the thin wall will ever be able to see eye to eye? And if so, may it ever happen that the two neighbors can maintain their respective preferences such that the deferential neighbor will be able to enjoy the benefits of peace and quiet without ever engaging in conflict?’ It was a logical trap and so I said, ‘Your premise is fuzzy. Or not fuzzy enough. For it is well known that sound comes not as an absolute but as a range, and so on a scale of zero to one — with one being perfect sound and zero being perfect silence — it is conceivable that both neighbors will be able to agree upon a noise level that is neither one nor zero. This alone might be said to resolve the question of their respective preferences for noise — which would be sufficiently sufficient if not for the fact that, as you mention, one of the neighbors also prefers conflict to conciliation while the other prefers conciliation to conflict. So as to the strong desire for conflict (of one neighbor) and the equally strong desire to avoid conflict (of the other neighbor), well in this case you could argue that neither side will be able to find fulfillment in the end because the side that seeks out conflict will always impose conflict on the other, which means the one who desires to avoid conflict will never be at peace. But, at the same time, the neighbor who seeks out conflict will never be at peace himself because his soul will be in a constant state of conflict and no soul can be at peace when it is also in conflict. And so the answer to your question is yes. Which is to say, the answer to your question is just as likely no.’”

“…’I see,’ the young man said and then: ‘So let me ask you another. This is a true story that unfolds somewhere within the impossible cycle of time. You see, it is a very dark night — a night in late August perhaps — and a man and a woman are sitting in the front seat of the woman’s recently purchased truck. The sky is clear and the moon is startling. Music plays softly on the AM car radio which is old and therefore very raspy. The rapturous sound of crickets can be heard in the distance. The two in the truck are mutually affectionate and mutually receptive. And yet as the man reaches out for the woman he suddenly comes to the logical realization that in order to reach all the way across the distance between them he must first cross the distance between himself and the gear shift halfway in between….but that before he can cross this distance he must first cross the midpoint between himself and this midpoint and before he crosses that midpoint he must first cross yet another midpoint and so on and so forth ad infinitum….So if this is true, and given that it is impossible to cross an infinite number of thresholds, will this man ever truly be able to reach across the infinite space between them to unfasten the buttons on her blouse?’ At this question I laughed in recognition. It was an old dilemma that had been resolved numerous times over the centuries by the world’s greatest lovers. And so I said, ‘In this case, the moon too must be a woman because she is deceiving them both. You see, he will never be able to reach across that most intimate space. For the space that he must vanquish is not just the distance of the space itself but also the ultimate space of time and feminine eternity. And such things can never be truly vanquished no matter how close the buttons or how enticing the nipples under the blouse.’ At this the young man smiled and then he looked at me once again with those dark black eyes and said, ‘If that is so, then let me pose this final dilemma to you…’”

“The young man’s eyes were as dark as darkness itself and here he said, ‘My dilemma is this. Suppose it were the first day of class for an aspiring college student who disagrees in principle that the buttons of a loose-fitting blouse can never be undone, and suppose this same college student were to ask his logic teacher, who happens to be wearing a pink skirt and white polyester blouse with the top two buttons unfastened ever so provocatively, to have dinner with him in a quaint restaurant around the corner. Given this supposition, dear Professor, what, in your expert opinion, would be her response?’ Obviously, his question was surprising. But I’d made sure to choose my outfit carefully that day — the pink skirt and the white polyester blouse with the top two buttons opened ever so revealingly — and so, to quell his eagerness, I fastened one of the opened buttons and responded that his logic teacher would not reply unequivocally to his invitation but instead would answer by saying this: that she would promise to have dinner with him if, and only if, he could predict the inevitable outcome of his own proposal, that is to say, whether she would have dinner with him that night or whether she would choose to dine by herself back in her lonely studio apartment; and if he could predict the correct outcome then she would in fact have dinner with him; but if his prediction were wrong then she would not. To my response the young man thought for a moment and then said, without much additional need for reflection, ‘Well then I will have to say that she will certainly have dinner with him.’ ‘Is that so?’ I said. ‘And what might be giving you grounds for such certainty?’ And he said, ‘It’s simple. If this man answers that she will have dinner with him, then it will be her rightful choice whether to make his prediction come true by actually having dinner with him and in this case she will be free to make her choice openly, at her own discretion, and without fear of causing a deep conflict with the Professor’s very logical approach to the world. But if, on the other hand, the student answers that she will not — in other words, if I say that she will not go to dinner with him — then not only would I be giving up the privilege of dining with you tonight but, logically speaking, I would be causing your system to come to a devastating impasse. And of course no student in search of his divine mother goddess would ever want to inflict that sort of intellectual violence upon a woman’s system of beliefs. So yes, the teacher will go out to dinner with the young student at about seven o’clock tonight and the two of them will dine in mutual comfort, free of conflict, like the two great conversationalists that we call logic and paradox.’…”

“Of course I was taken aback at his response because, well, he was right! In the true depths of my soul I was not just ready to say yes to his proposal but was singing it out to the accompaniment of lute and lyre and sitar — one of the few moments in my life when the logic of my mind happened to fall into perfect alignment with the logic of my heart. By now the class had long emptied out and the room was very still and perfectly quiet but for the sounds of our breathless intentions. Time no longer flowed. The two of us were alone, as if we had been there together in this state, forever and alone. Within a few passing minutes he had become the most beautiful student I would ever come to know: his shoulders were narrow and conducive; his eyes shone as black as Christmas; and his name, I would soon learn, meant Devourer of the Universe in the language of his ancestors. In the hanging silence of the room it was clear I had succumbed to his proposal and that I would go to dinner with him that night. But I could not simply let things at that; in matters of logic I was, after all, the teacher and he merely the student. In the noble interests of classroom management one must always maintain this ancient hierarchy and never allow it to waver. And so coming to my pedagogical senses I said, ‘You are right, young man! You are very right indeed. To keep things simple and respectful your answer should be yes. And to avoid the paradox you mention, my answer can be either yes or no. Which is to say that it might in fact be no….but that it could just as well be yes. And so it is yes….’ At this the man smiled. For a tantalizing second his smile spread across his face and I paused to let him savor his triumph. Then I continued: ‘But….’ — and here I saw the naked quiver of doubt flash in his eyes, that timeless sliver of hesitation that is the consequence of a woman’s most ancient authority — ‘But,’ I said, ‘there is only one problem with all of this. You see, women never tell the truth. Which means that because I am a woman I too never tell the truth. Which means I always lie. And since I always tell the truth when speaking, the sentence I have just spoken about never telling the truth is true, which means that the sentence I just spoke — as well as the sentence I am now speaking and the sentence that I might have used to accept your invitation, if I did in fact appear to accept your invitation on behalf of the hypothetical logic teacher — is itself also a lie. So when I said she would agree to eat dinner with you tonight it was not true. In fact, she did not say this at all. And so it follows that she would not. And I would not. And I will not. I’m very sorry to be the bearer of bad inference, but tonight is also a moonlit night, it is getting late, and my lonely studio apartment awaits….’ Here I turned to leave. It was cruel, yes, but logic is nothing if not cruel. I had turned quickly away and was already on my way out of the classroom when I heard the boy call after me: ‘Professor…!” And when I turned around I saw that he was smiling. Smiling! ‘Professor, if what you say is true — if your claims to untruth are true, or if, as you say, your claims to truth are untrue — then surely your logic is less than sound. For if you lie when you accept, then your denial is also a lie. And if you tell the truth when you decline, then your acceptance is also the truth! And so, far truer than this — than saying the two will not dine — is to say that the young student with dark eyes will meet his logic teacher at a place not far from here at exactly seven o’clock tonight….”

I shifted in my seat. Although I’d been listening in blissful wordlessness, here I couldn’t help interjecting:

“Sorry, Gwen,” I said. “I was with you for a while. But you sort of lost me there at the end. What actually happened? Did the two of them go out to the restaurant or not?”

“…Of course we did!”

“You did?”

“….Of course. Like I said this was the time in my life when logic failed me the most. Or I failed it. That night he met me outside the classroom and we walked to an Asian restaurant around the corner where we talked about the logic of illogic and the core of reason that is inherent in unreasonable things. ‘If the sentence I am now speaking is true,’ he would say, ‘then you are falling in love with me.’ And I would respond with, ‘Have you regained your sense of reality?” Over vegetables and rice we discussed the remotest beginnings of the universe and how, transcending eternal time, it has come down to us as fire and water and words and prayer. ‘If the universe is infinite,’ I would say, ‘then it must also be timeless and unknowable and beyond our ability to call it infinite.’ ‘But if it is finite,’ he would counter, ‘then there must be a place where it ends and something else begins. And isn’t that “something” also the universe?’ And so, that night over dinner we came to an agreement that the universe is neither finite nor infinite but only as infinite as our ability to feel love for the infinite. Infinite love for god. Timeless love for the universe. Infinite and timeless love for all the regionally accredited community colleges that have come to us through the eras like radiating circles of energy….”

“So things were good?”

“…Things were great. Every Tuesday and Thursday I would come to my afternoon lecture to see him sitting in his seat at the front of the room. And as I spoke to the class I saw only him. And when I listened to the world I heard only him, his voice spurring me to greater and greater levels of insight. I don’t know about you, Charlie, but perhaps once in a lifetime there comes a person who galvanizes your ideas. Who stimulates your thoughts and spurs you to unbelievable creative accomplishments and frontiers. If you’ve ever had a person like this in your life then you can consider yourself blessed. And I consider myself blessed that this young man came into my life and became my lover….”

At this I awoke from my quiet gazing. The countryside was now almost black outside our window and the smell of evergreen and cinnamon had faded, as if chasing the sun beyond the horizon.

“Wait, Gwen. Did you just say that the two of you became lovers? As in actual romantic lovers? As opposed to the philosophical platonically intellectual community college kind?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh my! And is that an okay thing? I mean, given that you and he were on opposite ends of the learning curve. Ethically is it acceptable for a professor and her student to have a relationship like that?”

“Who cares? I mean, I didn’t. Which is to say that, technically, no it probably wasn’t acceptable. And accreditationally it wasn’t defensible. And of course rationally it made very little sense. After all, here I was a newly hired faculty member with a clear track to tenure slinking away during breaks between lectures to have a secret affair with a student who was ten years my junior. In what educational institution would this have made sense? No, this would not have been a rational course of action at any institution of higher education — much less a community college! Looking back, it’s clear that the two of us were from opposing worlds, different eras, competing social strata. Our life trajectories were incompatible: mine efficiently linear, his gracefully sinusoidal. Aside from a preemptory traffic sign, where else in the world would this have made any sense at all? But it made sense within the logical system of my own heart. And so I gave myself to it entirely.”

“What do you mean, entirely?”

“Charlie, in the truest sense of that word. Entirely! That’s how I gave myself to him. Over the next three and a half months the two of us engaged in a meeting of the mind and body, a union of spirit and soul so vehement and all-encompassing that it could have easily been the subject of rhyming poetry. Like a sudden monsoon he slaked my thirst. And like a love vine I wrapped myself around him as if he were my only source of nourishment. At first I was able to reconcile the two competing logics: the logic of my heart with the logic of my mind. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I told myself, were reserved for the logical mind; Tuesdays and Thursdays would be for the logical heart. In this way, I believed, the time continuum of the community college would serve as my own buffer of self-control. But gradually the heart began to take over the entire work week and then, like water spreading over dry ground, it began to seep into the days of the weekend as well. Charlie, I was hopeless. My teaching suffered. My relationships with my colleagues floundered. Despite my professional carelessness and my failure to adequately teach them such things, my students soon came to make the correct inferential deductions. If in the beginning we concealed our affections, in time my lover and I came to celebrate them in public. And to relish them in private. More than once I found myself canceling a Monday or Wednesday class to spend an extra morning in the passionate clutches of immortality. Once I asked a colleague to cover my Friday class three weeks in a row, and another time I sent my students home early under the guise of a take-home quiz. Charlie, this sacred man with the dark eyes was all I could think about. He was all that I could feel. Together we were travelers on a thrilling voyage to a world that was bright and new and beautiful. And it was pure and good and timeless. And then it all came to a screeching end. Our journey. My world. Not that my world actually came to an end — it never does, does it? at least not until it actually does — but the world I’d known and grown to love over the last three and a half months — this new bright world — was about to come to its logical resolution….”

*

“….It was a Tuesday and he hadn’t shown up at class. He’d been my most faithful student and my faithful lover and he’d lived up to every promise. Not just his commitments to me as his mother-goddess but also in his role as student-muse. Each Tuesday and Thursday he came to class where he sat in the front row and took prodigious notes. He was the rock in my gaseous universe. The pivot on an out-of-control axis. But now he was gone. Anxiously I waited for him after class but he did not show. And when I phoned him he did not answer. And when, after he didn’t come to my Thursday class, I went to his apartment, I learned that he was gone for good: his roommate informed me that he had moved out but couldn’t say where to. A week came and went in utter depression. I couldn’t even find the strength to get out of bed. I wouldn’t eat. I called the school to tell them I had pneumonia and couldn’t teach my classes any time soon. They wished me well and reminded me to save my doctor’s note; as soon as I hung up the phone I slept for another two days. Through nights of perilous dreaming and days of longing and remembrance the season came and went. The semester came and went. And still there was no relief. In time I came to give up on my job at the college. I stayed in my apartment. I did not venture outside. This continued for several weeks and who knows how or when it would have ended. Then one day I received a letter from him. It was a lengthy letter but I could recite it to you by heart right now if I wanted, even twenty years later. ‘Dear Professor,’ he wrote. ‘I am sorry that I had to go away. Such are the exigencies of life. Please know that I am now a better person for the logical universe that you have shared with me. This is knowable and forever. But since I began studying at your community college I have also come to realize that some time is not as eternal as we would like it to be and that some life does itself tend to come to an inglorious end. And now is the time that I must choose to move on to my new future….’ Charlie, I’ve read those lines a thousand times. And every time I see them, I see them differently. Standing with the letter in my hand it occurred to me that everything was finished. That there would be no more dinners. That the sum of our discussions could now be archived in the great library of Time to be accessed only via the data retrieval tool called memory. And that our future would stay forever in the red-shifting realm of imagination like a siren whose pitch changes and then disappears as it recedes into the distance. And then I stopped. Wait a minute! What was this? On the envelope he had written his return address. His address! It was a small town in Michigan. And it had the full street address. He put the address on the envelope, Charlie! With a new sense of purpose I jumped out of bed and for the first time in a month I combed my hair and for the first time in a week I brushed my teeth and for the first time in three days I put on fresh clothes and left my apartment….”

“….An interesting turn of events…!”

“Just wait! So I pulled on my clothes and went to the bus station where I bought the first available ticket to Michigan and when I arrived I caught a taxi at the bus station and rode it to the address on the envelope; and when my taxi pulled up I paid the driver in full and told him he could leave and I made my way up the driveway toward the front door of the house. It was early winter by then and I hadn’t been thinking about that enough when I’d boarded the bus and now as I stood in the open air I couldn’t stop shivering on the steps of the house while trying to wrap my arms around myself to hold in my heat. I rang the doorbell and it echoed throughout the house: a dog barked. No one responded. By now the cold was grinding into my bones and my lips were chattering. I rang the doorbell again. Again the dog barked, a small dog. But again no answer. Now what would I do? If nobody answered, where would I go? It hadn’t even occurred to me that I might ever have to come back from Michigan empty-hearted. And yet there I was standing in impossibly cold weather on a door step that had no connection to me other than a letter sent from a boy I’d met in one of my classes, a letter from a young man I’d known less than four months. Where would I go if nobody answered? What would I do? Charlie, this is where the heights of my irrationality — or was it the limitations of my rationality?! — had taken me: to the empty doorstep of a cold Michigan afternoon. With winter in my bones. A dog barking at me through the door. A single postmarked letter separating me from utter and complete desolation. At that moment I’d truly reached the lowest point of my life. And then the door opened….”

Gwen had ceased to use the brake a long time ago and now as her story built from utter love to utter cold she was pressing firmly on the accelerator, the small car screaming as it moved faster and faster through the growing night. For the first time since she’d picked me up I began to worry that her story might lead us into something calamitous. Another suicide. Or a ruthless break-up. Or even into one of the waterless canals along the highway we were traveling. Somewhere between the icy door step and the hot drought of the night around us, there was something very eternal about the distance we were traveling.

“…The door opened, Charlie, and out stepped a dark-skinned man in a bath robe. ‘Yes?’ he asked in thickly accented English. And when I told him who I was and who I was looking for and when I showed him the letter, my hand shaking from the cold, he brought me inside the house, which was warm and moist and smelled of exotic foods and strange spices. The man at the door was my lover’s father and he called out to his wife in their language and she made tea for the three of us. And while we ate biscuits and drank the tea at their kitchen table my lover’s parents explained that their son was not at home any more, that he had not lived with them since going away to community college earlier that year. And that he called from time to time but had not called recently; he’d probably used the return address of his childhood home out of habit. Or maybe out of a sense of propriety. But he hadn’t told them of his plans or where he would be and they weren’t sure when he would be back. I thanked them and apologized for the inconvenience. They gave me some warm clothes to wear and some money for the bus ride back to the college and from there I returned across country to my lonely studio apartment and my job teaching logic to promising undergraduates. I taught there for another four years before taking the job at Cow Eye. Of course there are a few missing pieces to the story. Like the disciplinary procedure I had to overcome to get my job back and how I fought the termination action and won on a technicality but only after being made to relive the entire humiliating episode in written form. Within six months I was able to pay back the couple for their kindness. And ever since this embarrassing adventure in passion and irrationality I have been the most intentionally nondescript, consistently rational, and stoically logical logic teacher that you would ever want to hire. Charlie, since that day, I have not left a single button on my blouse unfastened.”

“Wow, Gwen. So did you ever see this boy again?”

“No, I did not. And I never will. Even if I meet him again, it won’t really be him. That person is gone forever. He died when I got that letter. And I will never stop being human because of it….”

By now Gwen was pulling off the main road and entering a turnoff. As she took the turn, my stomach swerved and turned with it.

“I’m sorry, Gwen,” I said. “I didn’t realize you were a sexually sentient being prone to human vulnerabilities. I guess now I know.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s an ancient history. One that I do tell from time to time. But not one that you should ever think about taking beyond the confines of these cozy bucket seats and these faint smells of evergreen and cinnamon.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Good,” said Gwen. “And besides, we’re here.”

Looking up, I saw a large neon sign that said “WELCOME TO THE PURLIEUS OF COW EYE” — and below it in letters that were much smaller yet equally neon: “Where Ideas Meet!”

“So this is it?”

“Yes it is. The brighter side of town, as we like to call it….”

“We?”

“Yes, we.”

*

And Gwen was right. This new part of town really was brighter. Over time the glamorous section of Cow Eye Junction known as the Purlieus had arisen astride a single narrow street lined with scenic wooden store fronts and charming hand-carved signs proclaiming “Carla’s Massage” and “The Purlieus of Heaven Healing Salts.” By now the sun was down and the night scene was already vibrant with bars and restaurants and theaters. Health food stores offered organic vegetables in crates propped outside, and shops sold handmade candles and incense and small packets of “magic salts” with Vedic prescriptions for longevity. Handwritten sandwich boards touted nostalgia tours through the abandoned meat-processing plants and slaughter houses, while women in seductive saris lured passersby into 45-minute tantric “discovery” sessions. Gwen explained that the local government looked the other way on the goings-on at the Purlieus. The town was fast becoming a hotbed of activity for weekend visitors from other places, who mixed with a diverse collection of healers, hippies, prophets, and pimps — the “weirdos” that Dr. Felch had referred to during my first ride into town, and the “we” that Gwen sometimes referenced in her own descriptions of the region’s demographics. Tarot readers sold their fortunes in smoke-filled salons. Backroom abortions flourished. Bungee-jumping and ski jet rides were hawked alongside snorkeling trips and guided inner-tube expeditions down the Cow Eye River. One salon offered a freak show. Another promised spiritual enlightenment. Store after store peddled instant healing and secret elixirs to sickly expatriates while in the numerous opium dens white men with dreadlocks reclined on pillows smoking the latest blends of hashish. The street, while narrow, seemed to run into infinity itself, much longer even than the fence of the Cow Eye Ranch and as interminable as man’s longing for vice and adventure, his desire for simple remedies, his insatiable appetite for glamour and innovation and efficiency.

Gwen drove slowly along the street until she reached a sign that read “Marsha’s Kundalini Yoga Studio” and there she decelerated one last stomach-rending time and took the first open parking spot next to a silver Saab.

“This is Marsha’s studio,” she explained. “And that’s our art history teacher’s Saab. We’re a little late, but it’s okay….”

Still queasy from the stop-and-go ride, I exited the car and stumbled awkwardly on firm ground as I tried to regain my equilibrium. From there I followed Gwen to the entrance of the studio where she was already opening the front door. Through the door of the studio I could already feel the drifting aroma of marijuana and incense floating above the laughter of anonymous voices. Gwen motioned for me to follow her. Then, as if remembering something from her distant past, she turned around and aimed her key chain at her unlocked car. As she pressed the button I saw the car’s headlights flash and its horn sound in response.

“I used to leave my car door unlocked,” she explained with a wistful smile. “But that was a long time ago. And I am much wiser now.”

*

(…)

Like any other muscle, the heart itself requires subtle and frequent tearing to become stronger. Only by this gradual tearing and rebuilding can it become bigger and stronger and more ready to suffer the vicissitudes of life’s cruelties. For community college instructors, in particular, this rule is an important one. Like no other realm, the instructor must deal with the many instruments of heartbreak: the unapproved grant proposal, the fruitless committee meeting, the underappreciated tenure application, the negative student feedback and constant threat of academic grievance. These are all things that can lead to heartbreak. And so it is good to train the heart for such unavoidable trauma.

There are several things that an instructor can do to prepare the heart for trauma. Morning sessions spent with a newspaper can do wonders for increasing the heart’s capacity for heartbreak. Afternoon walks through a quiet park are equally effective. And of course evening strolls, alone and unwanted, amid the bustling nightlife of your typical college town can reaffirm in slow and less-traumatic ways the accumulating realities of life. Seeing so many joyous couples in naïve embrace can help you recall the pangs of your own youthful exuberances when romance was still a birthright and love was something to be harvested simply and without effort like arugula on a planter’s bed. And then of course there are the late evening activities that can train the heart and inure it to disillusionment: the platitudes of television, the sloppy comfort of romantic novels, the songs that sing of true love amid the unabashed comfort of rhyming couplets and three-part harmony. All of these things will enable the heart to become more pliant, more reliable, and more open to the trials of finding love at a regionally accredited community college.

Like any other muscle, though, the heart does not suffer severe trauma well. For such trauma may impair the ability of the heart to function as it was intended. Unlike many other muscles of the body, the tearing of the heart can be so traumatic that it can be permitted to happen only once. Like the eating of a delicious yet poisonous mushroom. Or like the professional suicide that happens when the emotions are allowed to intervene into the process of colleague-to-colleague romance. And so it is unfortunate that once this irreparable tearing has occurred, the heart will be ruined absolutely and, like a committee that has lost its chair, will be unable to serve its true master ever again.

(…)

* * *

THE MOISTURE IN ALL THINGS

As Gwen and I entered the dark studio, a small wind chime on the door announced our arrival. The chime was delicate and airy and seemed to suggest the sound of a soul passing wistfully from one spiritual state to another: from Michigan to Florida, perhaps, or from Iowa to Wisconsin. The studio was dimly lit — candles had been placed around the room — and out of the neon bustle of the street outside I felt the luxurious descent into a sweet and shadowy world of burning incense and melting wax. Exotic music played lightly in the background. The air was warm and dry and through the haze of smoke I could see the candles around the room arranged in the shape of a lotus blossom. On the walls colorful drawings had been hung showing oriental couples engaged in tasteful coitus. On the floor, bamboo mats were set up in a perfect ring so that the many representatives of Cow Eye Community College, each of them sitting cross-legged and serene, could form an eternal circle of life.

“Namaste!” Marsha called out at the sound of the door chime.

And Gwen responded: “Namaste, Marsha!”

The studio was a single room with a wooden floor — a former dance studio? — and thick saffron curtains that had been drawn tight to hold back the world at large: the bright light of afternoon sun or the curious gaze of an uninitiated passerby. The circle of bamboo mats was bedecked with teaching faculty and at various points in the circle, seated on their mats, I could make out those who had chosen to be at this particular get-together in lieu of the other one taking place at the river: Nan Stallings in her sling and Luke Quittles caressing a cup of wine next to the college’s grant writer; and the ubiquitous art history instructor whose Saab was parked outside; and the economics professor whose article justifying the poll tax had recently been accepted for peer review; and of course the Schlocksteins, Harold and Winona, the college’s first formally recognized couple, dressed in matching Roman togas. In the far corner was the chemistry instructor in a black silk scarf and next to him the college’s Esperanto teacher wearing her hair down and a badge proclaiming “Mi amas Esperanton!” Seated throughout the circle were four out of five of the English faculty (only Sam Middleton was conspicuously absent) along with the embarrassed lecturer who’d parked in the handicapped stall during convocation and the mesmerizing creative writing instructor whose habit it was to thoroughly enjoy the sexual favors of his female students. It was an eclectic bunch, to say the least, and in the small room now growing ever warmer from the incense and the fellowship and the smoke emanating from the marijuana that was being generously passed around, it was clear that so much intellectual and spiritual diversity had rarely if ever come together in such a small segment of time and space.

“Hey, Charlie!” a familiar voice called out. It was Ethel Newtown, who had been finger-picking some vegetables from the food table but now rushed over to greet me with an emphatic hug. “Glad you could make it, Charlie! Nan and I were just talking about you. We didn’t think you’d come. But look…here you are!”

“Yeah, Gwen was nice enough to drive me. And I figured this would be a good way to get to know my peers a little more intimately. You know, the ones I’ll be working with to save our college from the precipice of institutional ruin.”

“By revising the outdated mission statement?”

“Right.”

“And resurrecting the Christmas party?”

“Correct. I’m hoping this watery get-together will be helpful in that regard. Although I’m not sure why everyone keeps referring to it as ‘watery.’ After our long drive through ineffable drought, I don’t see any water here…”

“Be patient, Charlie! It’s on the way!”

Ethel laughed heartily and knocked back her cup of wine, and as she did I noticed the gash on her chin from yesterday’s collision with the calf.

“How’s your battle wound?” I asked. “It looks a lot better than it did yesterday.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just three stitches. A very small price to pay for sowing the seeds of civilized society. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I would. Absolutely, I would.” I laughed. “But Ethel, where’s Stan? I assumed he would be here. But I don’t see him….”

“No, you wouldn’t. That’s because Stanley chose to be elsewhere. Which is fine with me. He’s an adult, and as an adult he is perfectly entitled to make his own decisions knowing full well what the consequences may be. He is capable of making that choice. And so are we.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. I learned that today from Gwen at our first mentor meeting.”

Here Ethel asked which mentor I’d been assigned and when I told her I’d gotten Alan Long River, the speech teacher who doesn’t speak, she laughed and told me that it could have been much worse: poor Nan got Will Smithcoate and he’d already stood her up.

“They were supposed to meet in the cafeteria at his usual table. But when she got there he wasn’t around. She waited for an hour but he never showed up.”

“That’s too bad. He seems like a nice guy. And what about you? How’s your mentoring with Gwen working out? Are the two of you a good fit?”

“It’s going great! Today she took me to lunch and we discussed the logic of the universe and the science of cosmic principles. Then we talked about how to format my tenure dossier and the best way to convince impressionable undergraduates that journalism is as timeless as anything else in this world — if not more so. Gwen also made a convincing argument that marriage as a vehicle for subjugation is not unlike the plow that burdens the diligent bovine. I guess I always knew this, just never thought about it in such precarious terms. Needless to say, I feel a lot more prepared for my first semester at Cow Eye. And for the rigors of my journey toward personal liberation and that ultimate emancipation that awaits us in the distance like a beacon on the horizon.”

“Death?”

“Tenure!”

“Good luck on both accounts.”

“Thanks. And you, Charlie? How’s your own personal liberation coming along? Are you any closer to becoming something entirely? Or to finding the moisture in things?”

“Not really. To be honest, I’m not actually seeing a lot of moisture in anything at the moment. But I suppose the night is still young….”

“It certainly is!”

Across the room, Nan gave a friendly wave from where she was sitting. Excitedly, she untwisted herself from her cross-legged stance and walked over to where Ethel and I were standing, and with her one arm in a sling managed to give me a warm hug with the other arm.

“Nice to see you here, Charlie!”

“Thanks, Nan. How’s the arm?”

“It’s been better. My shoulder still hurts. But at least I can bend my wrist now. And you? Any progress on extending Dr. Felch’s metaphor?”

“You mean the calf?”

“Yes. You know, the castrated calf’s role within the corral of institutional learning. Any epiphanies on that front?”

“Not yet. But it’s still early. The semester hasn’t even started. I have until December. And the night is still young….”

“It is indeed!”

The two laughed.

“You know,” said Nan, “Ethel and I were just arguing about whether you would even show up tonight. Ethel insisted you wouldn’t. I also insisted that you wouldn’t, so it looks like we both lost the argument!”

“Yeah,” said Ethel, “Nan and I agreed that sometimes it seems like you consider yourself above it all. As if you can’t be bothered by collegial interactions with your peers. As if the world inhabited by other human beings were a distraction, something distasteful to be scorned and avoided. And so we thought you might be more likely to choose the quiet solitude of your own apartment over tonight’s sensual get-together.”

“Me? Above it all? For one, there’s not much quiet in my apartment with the math faculty next door. And as to being above the things around me, I might as well still be lying back there on the bloody asphalt because, metaphorically speaking, I never really got up from it. And given that I may never get up from that asphalt, I’m obviously in no position to consider myself above anything!”

“Does that mean you’re here to stay then?”

“At Cow Eye?”

“No, at tonight’s get-together?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t stay too long because I need to leave at seven-thirty.”

“Why so early? I thought you wanted to get to know us more intimately?”

“That would be lovely, but there’s another place I need to be.”

“You mean you’re aspiring to go to two different places tonight?”

“To the extent possible.”

“Instead of going to only one?”

“Right.”

“And instead of enjoying a single place entirely and to its fullest?”

“Well, yes.”

“But you’ll miss the best part!”

“Yeah,” Ethel added. “If only our institutional researcher were here…!”

The two giggled like schoolgirls.

Seeing this, Marsha Greenbaum, now surprisingly resplendent in a loosely fitting sarong, came up to offer us some food. The white sarong was diaphanous and very revealing and, as she moved across the room with a single graceful fluidity, the fabric brushed lightly against her body in ways that left little to the imagination. “Help yourselves!” she said and led us over to the table where the finger foods had been placed: fish, wine, parched grain, and a bowl of M&Ms.

“It looks great!” said Nan.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “That green stuff looks intriguing. What is it?”

“That, Charlie, is arugula. I chose the individual leaflets myself.”

Ethel made a small plate of arugula for me, and Nan sprinkled some M&Ms on top along with some parched grain. Marsha handed me a cup.

“Have some wine…” she said. “You do drink wine, don’t you?”

I held up the cup affirmatively:

“You could say that…!”

Eventually, Nan and Ethel left to take their seats and Marsha moved on to greet others in the room. As I stood with my wine and my plate heaped with M&M’s and arugula, I couldn’t help noticing my colleagues’ casual attire: by now each of them was wearing loose-fitting clothes; some were even wrapped in the same light sarong that Marsha was wearing. Even Gwen, after the long drive from verdure to desiccation, had changed into a pair of shorts and a loose t-shirt and looked utterly reposed as she sat on a bamboo mat talking to the economics professor whose sarong was tied around his waist. (The professor was shirtless, well past middle-age, and flabby with an impossibly hairy back and chest that he displayed unapologetically.) Within a few minutes, Marsha had completed her circuit around the room and when she was back standing next to me she said:

“So Charlie, will this be your first tantric experience?”

“My what?”

“Tantra, Charlie. Will this be your first brush with the ancient neo-Tantric rituals that have become so popular this side of the makeshift bus shelter? We’re all surprised you decided to come. We thought you’d be above it. But we’re glad to have you! There’s nothing better than a great sadhana to raise your consciousness before the grind of a long semester. And as someone who’s been divorced not just once but twice, you’re no doubt ready to experience a life-affirming chakra-puja?”

“To be honest, Marsha, I have no clue what you’re talking about. Heck, I didn’t even know what arugula is. I’m just here to meet my peers. So I can get to know them on a more intimate level, you know, to navigate the personalities that I’ll be dealing with as I try to find the moisture in all things.”

“In that case, Charlie, you’re going to want to change clothes before we start. Those corduroys you’re wearing are very restrictive and aren’t going to allow your energy to flow where it needs to go. Come with me….”

Marsha led me into a small changing room and handed me a sheet of light floral fabric. “Here,” she said. “This one looks about the right color for you …” The sarong was very orange with hues ranging from Bengali tiger to sun rising in the Orient. “Orange is the color of the second chakra.”

“I’m sure it is,” I said.

“And the second chakra is the one you need to work on most,” she explained.

“Is that so?” Unconvinced, I stared at the dangling sarong which was still very orange. “Marsha, is this really necessary? I’m not accustomed to such revealing clothing. And orange has never been my color of choice. Now beige on the other hand…!”

“Look, Charlie, it’s clear you’re very uptight. You are an educational administrator. And that can’t be helped. But tonight you’re going to need to relax if you want to become one with the timeless universe….and with your new colleagues….”

“But….”

“…You’ll need to relax if you want to absorb yourself into the mystic teachings of the tantra.”

“But I’m not sure I do.”

“You don’t?”

“I’m not saying I don’t. I’m just saying that I’m not sure that I do.”

Marsha smiled and placed the flat of her hand on my heart.

“My goodness, Charlie, your heart is racing!”

“It is?”

“My god, yes! Wildly and uncontrollably! And that’s not going to help you!” From here Marsha slid her hand down my chest to my abdomen, where her fingers settled just below my navel. “You’re all in knots! Your energy can’t flow. Look, don’t worry about tonight — everything will be fine. Tantra isn’t what everyone thinks it is. All that stuff about heightened sexual ecstasy and explosive orgasms….well, of course that’s true. But that’s only a very small part of what tantra really is. That’s only a part of what we’ll be experiencing tonight….”

Here Marsha took my right hand and placed it on her own breast. With both hands she held it securely in place so that I could not move it. Then she looked into my eyes:

“What do you feel, Charlie?”

I looked at my hand on the flat of her breast.

“With my hand?”

“Yes, Charlie. What are you feeling now? Anything?”

“Well, your breast. But aside from that, not much.”

“Your hand is on my breast, true. But it is also on my heart. Can you feel it?”

“No, I can’t.”

“You don’t feel my heart quivering?”

“No.”

“Its ancient trembling?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“No. Sorry.”

“My heart is quivering, Charlie. But you can’t feel it because you are not yet ready to see the night that comes from day. And because I’ve trained my body to control its own shuddering. My flesh, you see, is like stone. My heart is calm. My soul is at peace. I’ve allowed myself to become soothed by the rhythms of the world, like the gentle passing of water over rocks, which is also very soothing. I am in a perpetual state of near-bliss. In fact, if not for the scabies, I would already be experiencing the cosmic orgasm that comes from ultimate oneness with the universe.”

Marsha released my hand. Then, for a second time, she placed her own hand on my heart.

“Now your heart on the other hand….Yours, Charlie, is rampant. Clearly it has suffered severe trauma. And below the scar tissue, the gnarled residue of heartbreak and disappointment, your wounded heart is crying out for release. It is in anguish at its own suffering and now more than anything it needs its own form of soothing.”

“It does?”

“Yes. It needs feminine soothing. And we will soothe it, Charlie. Tonight it will be soothed. Now please get changed…!”

Marsha left and I stripped to my boxers, then covered myself in the impossibly orange sarong, wrapping it around my waist and improvising an awkward knot at my hip, all the while wondering to myself how I had managed to fall so far, so quickly: from promising salutatorian of my high school class, to up-and-coming educational administrator, to tantric divorcee standing alone in a dark changing room amid an extremely orange sarong. Hanging my clothes on the hanger, I made my way back into the room where I poured myself another cup of wine. The wine was strong and good — was it even wine? — and when it was gone I poured another cup and downed it just as quickly. And when I had done the same with my third and fourth cups, I poured yet another and took a new look around the room at the peers that were surrounding me. By now these vibrant souls no longer appeared to me by their respective department affiliations but rather as the warm colors of the auras surrounding them. In the dark candlelit room Nan Stallings had become a most radiant pink and Ethel Newtown was effervescent yellow and the Esperanto teacher was lime and the English faculty — all four of them — were the slightly burnt hue of dried autumn leaves. Harold and Winona were cyan and olivine, respectively, and Luke was mauve and Gwen was fuchsia and the creative writing instructor was undulating hues of amber and violet and sienna. And as the wine flowed through my body toward my awaiting bladder and as the colors and the sounds of the room swirled around me like the persistent strains of sitar music, and as it all came like bold light into the enveloping warmth of my mind, I found myself easing comfortably into a state of graceful acceptance. In fascination I gazed at the moving art on the walls — the oriental men and women coupling and enjoying each other’s bodies amid servant girls and elephants and flasks of wine being poured — each of them an act of creation and procreation; and as the wine I had been drinking came to flow like unfettered water down through my urinary tract I thought about this very new distance I had traveled: from the heat of hot asphalt to the cold moisture of wine. All these years I must have known that it would end up someplace like this: before a table of arugula in a studio filled with copulating ancients and semi-nude community college faculty.

“Charlie!”

An insistent voice had jarred me from my reverie. It was Marsha and she was calling out to me from her place on the mats:

“Charlie, we’re starting! Come sit by me! You can bring your wine…!”

Dutifully, I took a final long drink from my cup, then filled it back up again and found my seat on the mats between Marsha in her light sarong and Gwen in her shorts and t-shirt. Both smiled at me when I squeezed into the small space between them and as I looked back and forth at them — first to one side then the other — Marsha even stroked my knee encouragingly. “You look great in orange!” she whispered. Once again she placed her hand on my bare heart. But this time it was calm. Marsha smiled. “That’s much better!” she said. “You’re heart’s settling down. That wine was good to you. Now you’re relaxed and ready to begin!”

By now all the faculty and staff in the room were dressed in loose-fitting clothes — togas or sarongs or shorts or baggy sweat suits — and when everyone was seated on their mats, and when they had succeeded in crossing their stiff legs over each other so the soles of their feet pointed upwards, and when the watery music had been turned down in the background, Marsha picked up a candle and held it in front of her face. As she spoke, the candlelight shone up under her chin, casting sinister shadows across her face and darkening the red dot on her forehead.

“My friends,” she said. “Dear colleagues, brothers and sisters and fellow lovers of the universe. We are about to enter the place of our deepest origin where all matter and energy originates. It is the emanation phase in the cosmic cycle which in the ancient tantric tradition is referred to as srsti, and which in the modern tradition of the community college is referred to as…a new semester. As always, this is a time of great hope and rebirth and emerging consciousness as we leave behind the darkness of previous dissolutions and enter into the very early morning of new spirits and dreams….”

To my right, Gwen was tapping me on the shoulder and when I looked over at her she was offering me a stub of marijuana.

“Do you smoke this stuff, Charlie?” she whispered and held it out for me to take.

I accepted it:

“You could say that….”

As I took in the hit, I felt the warmth pass through my lungs and my mind began to exhale. Appreciatively, I passed the smoking stub back to her and watched it make its way back around the circle: from economics professor to creative writing instructor to Esperanto aficionado — or rather, from subdued pink to sedate lime and all the way through mauve and fuchsia via the burnt autumn brown of fallen leaves. By now my mind was losing its logical focus and my bladder was full of wine and as I struggled to reconcile these two realities it occurred to me that I should have made a trip to the bathroom before taking my place in the circle, but that this was now water under the bridge. And that I had left my watch in the pocket of my pants in the changing room. And that earlier today during our conversation at the cafeteria I should have told Bessie what I really feel about love — what I truly believe it is, and how I find it so inconceivable that someone like her could ever be unloved. But it was too late now: all of this would have to wait; Marsha had already moved on in her narration:

“….And as we enter this new phase in the cosmic cycle it is important that we remember the tantric principles that unite us with the universe. These are the principles of love and openness and spiritual insightfulness and sexual inquisitiveness. These are not masculine principles. Only in the feminine ideal of tantra can the desires of the heart be reconciled. Only in tantra can we move beyond the internal struggle that results from suppressing our deepest desires. For the conflict between what we have and what we desire to have takes place in each of us, and if we do not give it expression it will undermine our quest for greater levels of awareness and a deeper spiritual understanding. No, for this very reason inner desire must be satiated! It must be celebrated and fulfilled so that the tension and conflict of our souls is released. Only through this can we find the enlightenment and deeper peace that we seek…!”

Around the circle, my fellow faculty were listening and nodding. Those with notepads and pencils were taking notes. Others had folded their hands in their laps and were sitting with their eyes closed to more fully absorb the words. Marsha continued:

“….Now it is no secret that the universe works in cycles. The cycle of seasons, for example, and of the diurnal divisions of time. It can be seen in the eternal wheel of life that takes us from death to birth to life to death and then back around to birth. And it exists in the creative phases of emanation, incarnation, and dissolution. Just as the dissolution of night takes us into the emanation and incarnation of earliest morning, so too does the dissolution of morning take us into the emanation of brightest day, its incarnation, and then, ultimately, its dissolution. Thus, the countless cycles of the universe are everlasting and infinite, like spiraling circles radiating outward from a central point in time and space. And this central point, in all its vastness and timelessness….is you!”

Hauntingly, the candle under Marsha’s chin flickered and sputtered as she spoke.

“….Now each of you comes to this circle with your own kundalini energy. It is the pulsating serpent coiled within your genital region just waiting to be directed through the different chakras of your body. As we begin to awaken these energies we will come to learn what these different chakras are, how they work, and how we can stimulate each of them to heightened levels of arousal in order to achieve the most earth-shattering, the most explosive, the most impossibly toe-curling and scream-inducing, academic semester we’ve ever experienced….”

Here Marsha paused to scratch her thigh. Urgently and insistently, she dug into the skin as if it were a fire that could only be put out by scratching. When this was done, she cupped the candle she had been holding in her hands and placed it onto the floor in front of her.

“….Sorry about that. Now before we begin, please keep in mind that to the tantric practitioner conflict is neither a bad thing nor a good thing. Among other philosophies of the world there may be much disagreement regarding the role of internal strife in our lives. Some glorify conflict; others demonize it. To the tantric mind, however, conflict is an inevitable thing, the rubbing of two sticks which brings fire. Or the friction between stone and windblown sand that shapes the hard earth around us. Conflict is as timeless as anything else. Yet inner conflict is also the antithesis of oneness. For the great secret of the universe comes not from the divisions that are inherent in conflict, but from the unity that comes from their reconciliation. And so tantra teaches us to transcend the opposites that reinforce conflict, whether they be male and female, emanation and dissolution, desire and attainment, climax and resolution, contingent and tenured, or even the stomach-churning tension between left-footed braking and right-footed acceleration. Under the guidance of an enlightened spiritual guru, all of the competing life forces will come together in a single moment of orgasmic clarity when the entire universe focuses upon a unified point of life-energy and bursts forward like the great explosion of semen, the resounding shudder of clitoral ecstasy, that only true union with god and the eternal universe can bring….”

At this, a hand went up. It was the economics professor.

“Marsha,” he was saying. “Some of us in this circle have been students of tantra for many years and have been through this cycle of knowing and unknowing many times before. We have experienced the flow of energy through the channels of our consciousness and the explosive orgasms and ecstatic enlightenment that result. But I’m sure there are at least a few new faculty here tonight who probably don’t even know what chakras are. Maybe you could explain a bit before we move on?”

“Well, Max, I was getting to that. But since you brought it up….”

Marsha reached behind her and pulled up a poster board with a colorful representation of the human body and with different-colored circles drawn in. In the candlelight, it was hard to make out the numbers, and so as she spoke each of us leaned forward to better see the poster:

“These are the major chakras of the body,” Marsha explained. “Chakras are the centers of consciousness. These are often numbered from bottom to top and correspond to the different parts of the body, the different colors of a shifting rainbow, and the different celestial bodies that govern them. You will also be interested to know that in terms of accreditation they do in fact correspond to the various life forces within the community college. So in tantric terms the fourth chakra, commonly referred to as the Heart chakra, is green and governs our feelings of love and compassion. Above it is the fifth chakra, the Throat chakra, which is blue and is associated with communication. And below it is the third chakra, the Solar Plexus chakra that is yellow and is associated with will power. These chakras are historic and their functions well-documented; in the evolving tantra of the community college, meanwhile, these three energy centers correspond to the educational areas of Counseling, Informational Technology, and Executive Administration, respectively….”

(At the mention of the word administration I remembered my arrangement with Bessie. What time was it anyway? In the smoke of the room the minutes had blended together like water in the endless river of time. And like any other river it was bound to flow slowly and faithfully along its tortuous riverbed. But without a watch, how would I know when it was right to leave this circle? Could I trust my intuition to guide me? It was still early now; but it would not always be so. Without my watch, all I could do at this point was prostrate myself before the forces of the universe and hope for their mercy and guidance. And maybe in this way I would be able to find the soothing of my heart that had so far eluded me. And if all worked according to the divine will of the universe, might I not be able to do this in time to step out onto the bustling street at exactly seven-thirty to meet Bessie?)

I turned back to listen to Marsha, who was now pointing her finger at the chart:

“This,” she was saying, “is the sixth chakra, where intuition resides; it is also called the ‘third eye’ and is associated with our Institutional Research Office. And here we have the first chakra, which is also called the Root chakra; it is housed in the very base of the spine and provides grounding and stability and is associated primarily with Facilities and Maintenance ….”

Now Marsha took her finger and placed it in the middle of the second circle, the soft part of the abdomen below the navel where I’d felt the soft touch of her hand a few minutes before.

“And this,” she said,” is the second chakra. It is the chakra where the seeds of all sexual pleasure and procreation originate. It is governed by the moon, that most feminine of all celestial bodies. And its color is orange, like a female tiger on the prowl or like a low-hanging harvest moon. The second chakra, my brothers and sisters, is the wellspring of our deepest desires, the source of all creation, the womb of knowledge and enlightenment and spiritual connectedness. This of course is the vaginal orifice of the learning process, the place where the idea is born and desire for knowledge originates and where the seed of all formal learning is planted. Of course it is connected with classroom instruction where student and teacher unite like sperm with egg in the eternal union of knowledge-insemination.”

Marsha had started to move on to her next idea but seeing that the marijuana had made its way around the circle and was now being offered to her by Harold Schlockstein, she stopped to accept the offering. Taking the hit, she passed it on to me and I took my own hit and passed it on to Gwen, who again passed it on, and in this way it continued to make its journey around the unbroken circle of life until, once again, it came to Marsha, then to me — I took yet another drag — and then on to Gwen and all the way around the circle yet again. Marsha continued:

“…Where was I? Oh yes, about sperm and egg. And so in terms of the community college it looks like this….”

Here Marsha paused to adjust the front of her sarong, which had come dangerously close to slipping below her nipples. Then she flipped over the chart to reveal the following diagram printed on the back:

“So each of these lower six chakras,” she explained, “serves to drive the energy upward from the lower regions up through the sternum and through the heart up past the throat and the third eye and eventually arriving at the seventh chakra at the top of the crown, which is attainment of spiritual connectedness with the world, ultimate enlightenment, oneness with god, and a full six-year unconditional re-affirmation of our accreditation by the authorized accrediting body. Of course obtaining this goal is not easy. But it is this very path to final enlightenment that is the ultimate purpose for each of us as human beings aspiring to higher insights and for all of us as a community college aspiring to regional accreditation.”

Marsha stopped.

“Are there any questions so far?”

“I have one, Marsha….”

Luke Quittles was raising his hand. He and Ethel were sharing a mat and seemed to be sitting closer to each other than most others in the circle.

“My question is about cosmic orgasm.”

“Yes, Luke. And what specifically?”

“Well, Ethel and I were just having a side discussion and we were wondering, you know, whether cosmic orgasms are as good as the earthly kind. We’ve heard a lot about them, and she and I were just sort of wondering how likely it is that we’ll be able to experience one of those tonight….”

“Honestly, Luke, it is not likely. First of all, the cosmic orgasm is not like the intense physical orgasm that you and Ethel might feel as man and woman. Nor is it akin to the muted orgasm that she and Stan might feel as husband and wife. In fact, what we refer to as cosmic orgasm is not an orgasm at all, but rather a deep spiritual oneness with the world. It is the falling away of all earthly sensations, the transcendence of time, the shedding of your own awareness of self — in other words those very things that cause unhappiness and anguish for our souls. Such moments take an eternity to achieve. So no, Luke, you will not likely feel this tonight. But we can at least begin that process by exploring the physical orgasm that is the first, if lowest, step toward a closer relationship with god.”

“I’m fine with that,” said Luke.

“Me too,” said Ethel.

Around the circle the faculty and staff nodded to affirm their general consensus with this sentiment.

Having answered Luke’s question, Marsha continued:

“No further questions?” she said. “Well then now that we’ve introduced you to the key precepts of tantric philosophy, we’re ready to start stimulating our different chakras to release the kundalini from its sleeping state within our genitals. To get this process started let’s partner up….”

Marsha looked around the circle and moving clockwise from where she was sitting she proceeded to pair us up in male-female dichotomies, two at a time: Harold with Winnie; Luke with Ethel; Nan from political science with the mesmerizing creative writing instructor; the hirsute economics professor with the embarrassed lecturer; the chemistry instructor with the college’s grant writer; developmental English with Esperanto; intermediate composition with art history; advanced composition with introductory eugenics; and British literature with logic. And when she had worked her way around the circle in this manner and when she had finished pairing Gwen with the shirtless Shakespeare aficionado sitting next to her, and when it was clear that I was the last one left in the circle and that I would not have a partner, Marsha looked at me and said, “Well, Charlie, it looks like you’re the odd man out. No orgasms for you tonight! Just kidding….you can be my partner. Here, come sit across from me….”

Marsha motioned to the place in front of her where I should sit and I took my place there. The other couples followed suit — sitting across from each other in the circle, one facing inward and the other facing outward — and as I looked around at the pairs I saw the new and impressive color combinations that were resulting: mauve mixed with violet; fuchsia blended with pink; different shades of green merged; the autumn brown of dried leaves blended seamlessly into the dull gray of eternal winter. More immediately, Marsha’s Vedic white had come together with my own Bengali orange to from a striking combination of recessive albino orange, or bleached harvest moon. Marsha continued:

“In the tantric tradition there are three ways to control energy: breath, posture, and sound. The first of these requires breathing, which stirs the energy and gets it ready to ascend to the higher chakras. Of course each of you already knows how to breathe; if not, you would not have made it through the rigorous hiring process at Cow Eye Community College. Like most mammals on the track to tenure, you know how to breathe. But do you know how to breathe spiritually? Breathing, you see, stimulates the third chakra, but only if it is breathing that is spiritually purposeful….”

And here Marsha demonstrated what spiritually purposeful breathing looks like, inhaling deeply and slowly and then exhaling it back out.

“Now as we inhale we should picture the entirety of our life experience poised just below our nostril. Every incident from our life. Every lost love. Every broken promise. Every American state we’ve visited. Every hangnail. Every joy and disappointment and heartache and fear. Every bad grade we’ve received, or given. Every good grade. All the women we’ve touched, even if only for an instant. All the men we’ve pleasured. The quivers we’ve felt. The colds we’ve caught. The guilt and pain and ecstasy. The asphalt. All of these should be right there in front of you. Picture them all. So that as we inhale we absorb all these experiences in through the left nostril passing it through our lungs and into the very depths of our soul. That’s how profound our breathing should be. So that each breath becomes an affirmation of the entirety of our existence. For each breath contains the entire universe in a single moment. And this breath we hold in our soul for a count of three, and then we release it, expelling it through our right nostril. And with this we are consummating the act of dissolution in preparation for the upcoming emanation that will come with the new breath. And this continues and will continue forever. But remember, it is inhale through the left nostril, exhale through the right. The unbroken cycle of divine breath. Like this….”

Marsha took a series of impossibly deep breaths, in and out, just as she had instructed. One more time. Then again. And then once again. Then she looked up:

“Now you try….”

Carefully we took our turns breathing in and out. Slowly. And purposefully. While one partner would breathe out, the other sitting directly across would breathe in. And then this would take place in reverse, such that each partner’s exhalation became the other’s inhalation, and vice versa. It was not easy. With each breath I struggled to imagine the experiences in my life that had brought me to this tantric circle: the kind teacher with auburn hair; the man with the cane; the friend from college whose virginity will always be mine; the taste of the bloody asphalt; the smell of burnt wax. And as I breathed it all in through my left nostril I pictured my strange future just as vividly below me. The cowboy with the lariat. And the math faculty in drag. The calf’s testicles in the Ziploc bag. And the supple nape of Bessie’s neck with her hair tumbling forth. Now my breaths ceased to be short and irregular but instead became long and flowing like cirrus clouds over a dry pasture. Yet no matter how I tried, my breaths were not nearly as infinite as the universe. Nor was my soul as spiritual as it might be.

Marsha watched all of this calmly.

“You’re doing fine,” she would encourage us, and then suddenly: “Luke! You’ve got it backward. It’s inhale with the left nostril and exhale with the right…!”

“Oh, dammit!” Luke would answer.

For several minutes we exchanged breaths with our partners, and when this was done and when it had been done to her satisfaction, Marsha ushered us along:

“Okay,” she said. “Now that we’ve opened up the passageways for the flow of energy, we can proceed to the stretching….”

Over the next several minutes, Marsha led us through a series of stretches and poses that called to mind the amazing bronze statuary of our college’s fountains: the pregnant crane; the dragon in flight; the corpse with a cause; the receptive heifer. And when we had performed these to her satisfaction she led us through a series of vocal exercises — mantras and chants and sacred syllables recited as incantations — that made the room vibrate with primordial sound. And when all of this was done she took another turn with the marijuana that had been passed to her yet again, then handed it to me (I did the same) and smiled:

“Very good!” she said. “Now we are ready to call up the kundalini from where it lies as a coiled serpent. Now to get the kundalini flowing let’s all seek out the place where it resides. This can be found in the upper place on the inner part of the thigh. We do it like this….” And here Marsha placed her hand on my inner thigh tracing lightly over my skin with her finger nail. Involuntarily, a slight tingling welled up within me.

Marsha did this for a few seconds. And then she announced, loudly:

“What I’m doing is using my feminine energies to awaken Charlie’s male serpent. That tingling that Charlie is now feeling is the very beginnings of the kundalini energy welling up from within his second chakra. This is the life force that courses through each of us and inspires us to new heights of awareness and consciousness. Do you feel the tingling, Charlie?”

I nodded.

“Do you feel the serpent rising up from within you?”

“Pretty much.”

“Is it rising?”

“Yes, Marsha.”

“Great. This is the most primordial of energies. It has been sleeping over the long summer hiatus and needs to be awakened before we can begin our new semester. Now let’s all find that spot….”

Around the circle, the pairs reached out to awaken each other’s kundalini. Marsha rested her hand on my inner thigh. And in return I put my right hand on the inside of her left thigh and did the same.

“No, not quite like that,” Marsha whispered and directed my hand even further. “Like this…” And she placed my hand squarely on her sacred triangle. I tried to withdraw my hand. But she held it there.

“Charlie, relax,” she said. “Don’t be intimidated by the literalness of this all. This is not you as a man touching me as a woman. This is your sacral male energy coming together with my sacral female energy and through this union the two of us becoming part of the larger energy of the universe. This is about me achieving cosmic orgasm and you achieving physical orgasm and our college, despite its scabies, achieving a full six-year reaffirmation of our institutional accreditation….”

“Six years?” I asked. “Are you sure that’s even possible at this point?”

“I’m positive.”

“With no mid-term visit?”

“Yes!”

“Well, okay then.” And I slid my other hand even further up her sarong to the inner part of her thigh where the moisture was already beginning to gather.

*

When Marsha was satisfied with the energy that had been awakened by the different couples in the room, she said:

“Great. Now each of you should be feeling the stirrings of the kundalini. We will stir it further in a few moments. But for now please remember that we are here to achieve spiritual bliss, not physical satiety. The physical ecstasy is just the bottom rung in the great staircase that will take us to the higher levels of understanding and awareness. Just as childhood is a necessary milestone toward adulthood, and death is a milestone toward birth, so too is the physical orgasm the first and most accessible milestone toward spiritual enlightenment. And like the lowest step in the spiraling staircase to eternity, it is the least difficult one to conquer. Yet it is only that: the lowest step. And while this lowest step will always be nothing more than what it is — the first and lowest — it is also true that you cannot climb higher without first transcending it. And so sexual ecstasy is like that first step: by itself it brings you not much higher than anything else; but without it you can never achieve the greater heights that are our ultimate destination….”

As Marsha spoke I felt the kundalini welling up like a bonfire in my loins and mixing with the water that was churning as eddies in my bladder. The kundalini was rising through my chakras and the wine was settling into the depths of my soul. And somewhere in the middle the marijuana was trying to mediate the two. Sure there was some kundalini going on — there could be no doubt about that. But sitting there with my bladder full and my imagination clouded and my skin tingling from the light tracing of Marsha’s fingers, I could only wonder which of these powerful life forces was greatest. Was it the maintenance of my cosmic lawn? Or was it the will power of our executive administration? Surely it wasn’t the Institutional Research Office? What could this all mean? And how, without a watch, would I ever come to find out what time it was?

“Marsha?” I said through the haze of my thoughts. “Hey, Marsha…?”

“Yes, Charlie?”

“Marsha, your hands are very experienced. And they are no doubt attuned to the energies of the universe. It is not something that I am indifferent to, as I’m sure you are quite aware. Kundalini is an amazing thing and I have learned to value it during this watery get-together. Thank you, Marsha, for teaching me these things. And please let Gwen know that I’m grateful to her as well for stopping by my office to invite me. And for bringing me here in her yellow two-seater. Please let her know that I am not above all this. But Marsha, there is also something very important that I need to ask you….”

“Yes, Charlie?”

“Marsha, there is a question that only you can answer.”

“Yes, Charlie, what is it?”

“Marsha, can you tell me what time it is?”

“Time, Charlie?”

“Yes, Marsha. Can you tell me what the time is now? Because it seems that it is getting very late and I really need to know….”

“There is no time, Charlie. There is only eternity.”

“Yes, I understand that. But can you tell me the time anyway? I sort of need to know before it’s too late. I don’t want to miss my ride.”

“There is no time. There is neither future nor past. There is only the eternity of the universe and the immediacy of the present physical moment. The moment that you and I are sharing. Please know, Charlie, that your search for moisture is a noble one and will not be in vain. Your hand is warm and inviting and it is approaching the wellspring of my creation. Compared to the cosmic ecstasy of our impending union, what else could you possibly need? Which is to say, what need could you possibly have for something as temporal as time?”

“But Marsha, time is all around us. And if we’re not careful it passes us by. Like a fast-flowing river. And so we need to pay it heed. That is to say, I need to pay it heed. Which is to say, Marsha, can you tell me what time it is? Please? Can you please tell me whether I need to leave this circle now even though it is too early for an orgasm of any sort and though I have not yet been fully prepared for the glories of the upcoming semester. Marsha, please, what time is it?”

Marsha took her hand from my thigh.

“If that is your true attitude toward time, Charlie — if you value the temporal more than the absolute, if you are more inclined to pay homage to the things that come and go above those that stay and stay forever — then it is probably best that you leave the circle now. Because time and eternity are opposites. Like love and efficiency. Or like paradox and itself. Once you enter the realm of one you can never go back to the other. Once you see eternity, Charlie, there can be no return. So you should probably leave now, before you are compelled to cross that eternal threshold entirely….”

Gratefully, I removed my hand from her upper thigh.

“Thank you, Marsha,” I said.

“Namaste,” she said.

And with my hand once again my own, I stood up from the perfect circle of life and made my way toward the door onto the bustling street. As I exited the dark studio, the delicate chime on the door sounded lightly behind me, announcing my premature departure, and back in the temporal world of bright lights and cold air I felt a great burden placed back onto my shoulders, as if my soul had passed heavily from one spiritual state to another: from Minnesota to Oregon perhaps, or from sienna to olivine.

*

Outside, the brightness of the neon stunned my eyes. The bustle along the main street of the Purlieus was loud and raucous and as I stumbled onto the creaking boardwalk I felt myself swept into a crowd making its procession in a joyous surging mass. Gaily we moved down the street further and further from the door I’d just come out of and as we passed the swelling crowds and the neon store fronts I felt myself caught up in an ecstasy I hadn’t known before. Past smoky parlors and half-dressed salesgirls and sign after sign offering forbidden fruits organically grown I stumbled and stuttered against the oncoming crowd — losing sight of the people who had ushered me along — until I came to the very end of the universe: an empty alley with an empty bench where no other person was sitting and in that empty spot — the emptiest place in the world — I sat down. Sprawled on the bench, I watched the throngs walking past me in spurts of exuberant revelry. It was very cold now and in the night air I felt suddenly underdressed — the warmth of the studio turning as it had to the cold of the open night air. And yet in the seclusion of my alley and in the solitary silence of my bench the crowds paid me no mind. The world had slowed down to a crawl. And in that moment it seemed that time had in fact come to its end. The colors of the world all blurred into one. The wafting aromas of hashish and chocolate and cinnamon and evergreen joined in perfect union. And sitting there, I felt a deep weariness coming over me. The throng had became one. The conflicting cacophony became a single solitary sound. Minutes melted into a single microcosm of silence. Light disappeared and sounds faded.

Blissfully, I closed my eyes.

*

(…)

The relationship between love and sex is as important at your local community college as it is anywhere else. And just as it is anywhere else, it is as ageless as the relationship between conflict and conciliation. Or sleep and wakefulness. Or knowledge-giving and knowledge-seeking. For it is rare that any of these opposites can exist in their purest forms together. When one is strong the other must surely be weak. And when the other takes ascendance it is inevitably at the expense of the first. And yet there is also a fine balance that can be achieved when neither is in ascendance. When pure love has become practical love and unfettered sex has become fettered sex, and it is under these conditions of perfect balance that these two can meet in the transcendent equilibrium of time and space. To the vast majority of tenured community college faculty, the competing loyalties to love and sex are incompatible — like those that the fireman harbors for both fire and water. But this does not need to be so. Sex and love are not opposites to be chosen at the expense of the other but rather opposite apexes of a swinging pendulum that are achieved in measured turn, emphatically at first, then gradually less so over time, until the great pendulum of desire comes to rest at the exact middle point between the two. This moment of perfect rest is called many things in many different cultures: in Hinduism it is samdhi; in politics it is compromise; to the drunk who has been bounced from a bar it is unconsciousness; to atheists it is death; and to the teaching faculty of your local community college it is the dreaded yet inevitable descent into the ranks of educational administration.

Balancing opposing realities is the key to living a full life and to enjoying a rewarding academic career. For the place where neither can exist is also the place where both can exist in perpetuity. Like the bureaucracy that exists to preserve itself and that achieves longevity through mediocrity, so too can the state of achieving neither love nor sex exist until the end of time. For it is the pursuit of these things individually and to their logical and irrational conclusions that gives life to life and brings everything ultimately to the swinging apex that, for a brief instant, rises above the inevitability waiting below.

(…)

*

When I opened my eyes Bessie was standing in front of me.

“Charlie!” she was saying. “What are you doing here? I thought we were supposed to meet at Marsha’s? And what the hell are you wearing…?!”

“Hi Bessie,” I said. “I just had a little bit to drink and some marijuana. And time just sort of, you know, stopped. It just sort of fell away against the imposing background of eternity.”

Bessie spat on the ground to the side of her.

“Yeah, well, that’s all fine and good. But for your information your pendulum is protruding through that light sarong of yours. And it’s exactly eight twenty-two… and fifteen seconds, if you care to know. Which means I’ve been waiting on the curb for almost an hour. So get up off that damn bench and let’s get going.”

I stood up and followed Bessie back toward Marsha’s studio, past the same storefronts and the same bustling crowds I’d just walked past. The same joyous faces. The same seductive salesgirls. Bessie’s pace was brisk and as I followed her back over the boardwalk we weaved in and out of the oncoming crowd until she finally stopped. The noise of the street was all around. The neon was bright. We were standing in front of Marsha’s studio.

“Charlie, I’ll wait here while you go in and get your clothes. I can’t take you to the barbecue dressed like that….”

But here I protested.

“Bessie,” I said. “If I go back in there I may never return. You see, they’re all in the midst of entering a higher level of consciousness. But I left early. I was the only one who didn’t trust the universe entirely. I can’t go back in after that ….I just can’t!”

“Oh, alright!” she said and opened the door of the studio. By now my bones were raw with cold. The night was dark and deliberate. A few minutes later Bessie came back outside and handed me a pile of clothes. “I’m assuming these are yours?”

“How’d you know?”

“They’re beige. Wait here. I’ll go get my truck.”

“Bessie….”

“Yes.”

“Before you leave to get your truck can you tell me one thing?”

“What?”

“How was it in there? You know in the circle of life that I chose to leave prematurely?”

Bessie shook her head:

“You don’t want to know….”

Bessie walked off and I stood waiting there in the cold night. And in the cold of the night I felt my senses slowly returning. Outlines became more distinct. The colors around me separated. People’s faces came into focus. A few minutes later Bessie pulled up in an old Ford truck, the one she’d bought from Merna’s sister after being informed of the sale by her ex-husband Buck.

“Climb in, Charlie,” she said. I sat on the front seat and closed the heavy door behind me. The cab was warm and smelled of ash and old car heater. Bessie popped the clutch and the truck lurched into motion. We drove a few blocks in silence and when we’d come to the town’s only stoplight she looked over at me, very serious.

“Look, Charlie, just so you know — and I want to be very clear on this: I am not having sex with you tonight. So if that’s what you’re thinking, well now you know where that stands….”

There was nothing I could think to say to this; and so I said nothing. Bessie continued:

“I mean, I can see that you’re definitely up for it and all….”

“What?”

“Charlie, you’re clearly up for it.”

“Up for what?”

“For sex.”

“It’s that obvious?”

“Yes it is. I’m a woman, Charlie. And I’m from Cow Eye. We know these things.”

Embarrassed, I stammered to rectify myself:

“It’s not that. It’s just that, well, I don’t smoke marijuana very often, and the wine was very strong — was it even wine? — and I’m just doing my best to understand the things that are happening around me. And inside me. You know, to see the darkness and the day. At the moment I just want to get to know my peers in new and interesting ways. Sex is the furthest thing from my mind. Trust me, Bessie. I mean, that’s why I chose to work at a community college…!”

The light changed. Bessie nodded and put the truck into gear.

By now the road was dark and there wasn’t much to see beyond her windows. The backlit charm of the Purlieus gave way to sobering darkness and only when we were approaching the campsite along the river where Rusty’s party was in full swing did another streetlamp appear. Pulling into a parking lot, Bessie pointed over at the campgrounds, which were dimly lit. “Everyone’s down by the river….” she said. “You can change on the other side of Rusty’s truck over there….”

I thanked her and in the darkness next to the old truck changed out of the sarong into my beige corduroys.

“Are you ready?” she asked when I’d returned with the folded orange fabric in hand.

“Yes.”

“How’s your head? Is it clear?”

“I believe so. I really do need to get more sleep though….”

“Then let’s head over. They’re probably wondering what happened to us.”

*

“Charlie!” Rusty called out when he saw me, and then: “Hey, Bess! Glad the two of you could come! Are you an item yet? Here, have a beer…!”

Rusty had reached down into a cooler of ice, but stopped to look up at Bessie.

“He drinks beer, doesn’t he?” he asked her.

“You could say that….” she answered.

Bessie and I took our beers from Rusty and sat down on one of the logs arranged in a circle around the camp area. A fire had been built in the middle, and in the glow of its periphery I could make out the silhouettes of the faculty and staff who had made a point to be at this get-together instead of the other one now reaching its cosmic climax in Marsha’s studio: Dr. Felch and Rusty and Stan Newtown (minus Ethel) and Timmy from the guard shack and the business communications professor and the entire staff from the maintenance department and the head of the fiscal office and the team of administrative secretaries and each of the tenured animal science instructors and, off to the side playing horseshoes in a barely illuminated stretch of river sand, two of the three men from the bar.

“Hey, isn’t that…?”

“…My brother,” said Bessie. “Yes it is. And my ex-husband. The ones you met at the Champs d'Elysees on your way into town and whose names you still haven’t bothered to learn. They happen to be very good friends of Merna’s and so Rusty invited them tonight.”

“It’s funny how everything’s so connected here. How everyone’s so connected!”

“Yeah, well my brother’s a mechanic and he works for Merna’s ex-husband who is on the planning commission and is currently married to Dr. Felch’s second wife who’s a higher-up at the Ranch and was able to secure the dusty corral for your recent teambuilding exercise. Meanwhile, Buck is a hunting buddy of Rusty’s and the two of them fish on a part of the river that’s owned by the family of Timmy who works at the guard shack and deflowered me when I was fifteen. Timmy is Merna’s nephew and he’s having an affair with one of the administrative secretaries — the one over there sitting next to Raul with her hand on his thigh — and Timmy’s latest wife is my classmate who works at the cafeteria — you know, the one with the pretty eyes.”

“Serving the hamburger steak in a hair net?”

“No. In a hair net serving hamburger steak. Anyway, you get the idea. She was supposed to be here tonight but my sitter got sick and so she volunteered to watch my kids for me.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of information, Bessie. Especially the part about your kids….”

“Relax, Charlie, you won’t have to worry about this any time soon. My point is that it’s all very predictable. And the fact that both men from the bar are here — my brother and my ex-husband — well, that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to you anymore.”

“No, it doesn’t. And I guess it shouldn’t. But it is surprising that there’s only two of them. You know, at the bar there were three men. But here there are two. Didn’t they invite your dentist to come?”

“Oh, he knew Merna very well and surely would have been invited. He was a sweet man.”

“Was?”

“He passed away recently.”

“What? When did that happen?”

“He passed away in his sleep some time ago.”

“Some time ago? How can that be? I mean, I just…. we just… you and I were just talking about him at lunch today …!”

“Things come and go, Charlie.”

“Yes but….”

“Time passes.”

“I know but…”

“It’s finite.”

“Sure but…?”

“And such things have always been beyond our power to comprehend.”

“But!”

“Drink, Charlie.”

And I did.

And as I drank I took a closer look at the barbecue that was already in full swing. Sitting around the campfire, my peers were laughing and joking and nursing their beers over plates of beef and hamburgers from the grill and hot dogs that had been roasted on sticks over the open flames. Dr. Felch was tending a grill not far from the circle, and the smell of sizzling steak made my mouth moist after so much arugula and parched grain — after so much marijuana. In the cold night air, small children without jackets were running and laughing and chasing after each other unattended while a group of older boys had climbed the dark trees along the river and were throwing sticks out into the water. “That’s Rusty’s daughter,” Bessie explained pointing to an overly made-up teenager sitting in a corner of the circle with her boyfriend. “The one who wrecked his truck.” I nodded. “And that,” she said, “is the boy who knocked her up. Try to stay off that subject, though, because Rusty’s still coming to terms with it. And it’s definitely a sore point for him.”

On the other side of the fire a guitar was playing and a throaty singing voice could be heard above the general din: through the flickering light of the fire and the still-looming haze of my own mind I could see that it was Raul strumming his nylon-stringed guitar surrounded by a semicircle of enraptured clerical staff.

I shook my head in admiration:

“Just look at Raul!” I said to Bessie. “The man is amazing. Charming. Elegant. Logical. Everything in perfect alignment: physically, intellectually, accreditationally. His presence is commanding. His diction is good. His voice is superb. Even his leadership skills are exceptional. He was the one who managed to get us through the teambuilding exercise yesterday. If not for him we’d probably still be back in that corral debating the finer points of bovine sentience and formulating our plan to separate the little calf from his testicles.”

“That may be a selling point for most women. But he’s not my type.”

“Really? I would think he would be any woman’s type.”

“Not mine. There’s a certain kind of man that appeals to most women. And Raul falls into that category, no doubt. Smart. Handsome. Self-assured. Always with the right words to say. Unfailingly aware of a situation. I’m sure he’s the type that’s never left a sexual partner unpleasured. Most women would look high and low to find a man like that. But not me. Not anymore. Nowadays I have no patience for perfection. I long for a different kind of lover.”

I looked at Bessie quizzically.

“Honestly, I prefer the ones like you, Charlie….”

“Me?”

“Yes, the imperfect ones. The ones with sizable teeth and awkward mannerisms. The man who stutters and stumbles and forgets to be careful in his appearance — or, even better, who doesn’t even know enough about appearance to remember that he should care. The one whose pant legs are too short and whose sleeves are too long and whose fingers are double-jointed. You can keep the man with refined tastes and washboard stomach. Give me the potbellied oaf with the compromised past and crazy dreams. Give me the buck-tooth. The hunchback. The premature ejaculator. Give me the man with the misspelled resume. The laggard with the incoherent value system and conflicting moral compass. You can have the highly paid department chair all to yourself. I’ll take the underling who risks the public obloquy of underemployment to pursue his truer passions.” Bessie took a long gulp from her can, then aspirated loudly. “You know, Charlie, it’s funny how a woman’s tastes change over time. When I was younger I would have been crazy for a man like Raul. His purity would have melted me. His earnestness would have sent me reeling. But now I just want somebody less…aligned. Someone imprecise and flawed. An infinitely human being. A person with deep personal frailties. In other words, Charlie, someone more like you….”

“That’s sweet of you to say, Bessie. I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. But I am still not having sex with you tonight.”

We drank and Dr. Felch came over with a plate of steak from the grill that he had been tending. The pieces were sliced and juicy, expertly grilled, and we picked the slices with our fingers. Dr. Felch smiled approvingly:

“So how are the two of you getting along? No plans for sex, I hope?”

“Nothing tangible,” I said. “At least not tonight.”

“That’s good,” said Dr. Felch. “Remember, Charlie, that’s not going to work out well for you in the end…!”

Bessie punched Dr. Felch’s knee.

He laughed and sat down on the log next to her.

“Mind if I sit down?” he asked after sitting.

“By all means.”

Dr. Felch lit a cigarette and threw the match behind him.

“So how’s the new truck, Bess? I hear you bought the Ford from Merna’s sister?”

Bessie shrugged:

“It’s okay. Except the carburetor’s clogged and the muffler’s rusted out.”

“Sounds like your last marriage!”

Bessie laughed and punched Dr. Felch again, this time in the shoulder.

“No, my last marriage was definitely not okay…!”

Here the conversation inevitably slipped into institutional talk: Dr. Felch mentioning some reports that Bessie would need to type before the semester began; Bessie reminding Dr. Felch about some important upcoming meetings that he shouldn’t forget to attend. The two went back and forth like this until, after a lull, Dr. Felch turned to me:

“So, Charlie, how’s Cow Eye been treating you? No regrets about taking the job?”

“Not yet, Mr. Felch. Of course I’ve only been working three days. And I’ve only been in Cow Eye Junction since Saturday. It seems like an eternity has passed since I arrived at the makeshift bus shelter. So much has seemed to change in that time. But I’m still excited to be here and can’t wait for the semester to begin in earnest. I feel like I’m finally starting to get a handle on the different personalities. It hasn’t been easy. But Bessie has been very helpful.”

“I told you she would be. And I’m glad you’re doing well. It’s just too bad the two of you couldn’t have been here a bit earlier. You missed a beautiful remembrance. You would’ve loved it. All of Merna’s friends were here and we took turns sharing our favorite stories of our time with her. About her youthful escapades. And her midlife accomplishments. Even Raul spoke eloquently about what it meant to be following in her footsteps. When we talked about what happened last year, about her unexpected demise, there wasn’t a dry eye around the campfire. And it was all very touching when we scattered her ashes in the river. Too bad you missed it.”

“That’s completely my fault,” I said. “And I feel terrible about it. I drank too much wine at the watery get-together — was it even wine?! — and accepted too much marijuana and I didn’t realize until it was too late that I’d left my watch in my pants….”

“Your pants?”

“Yes. They were restricting my kundalini so I had to take them off. And of course I couldn’t go back into the studio to get them so Bessie had to fetch them for me. She’s the one who found me on the bench at the very edge of the universe. But I wasn’t passed out. I was just sleeping. You see, I’ve been really tired since the math faculty got back from their sojourn in North Carolina.”

“I was afraid that might become a problem….”

“But it’s okay. Bessie found me on the bench and I changed back into my beige corduroys. I missed out on a resounding orgasm, I’m sure. But at least I’m here.”

“It sounds like you’ve had an eventful night, Charlie. You’re among friends now though. So just relax and enjoy the beautiful open air. And the crackling fire over there. And of course that amazing silver moon shining down on us like a mother’s love for her children…. Here, have another piece of steak…!”

The meat was tender and lightly salted and still steaming from its time on the grill. I took a few more pieces and thanked him.

“And make sure you try one of these….”

Dr. Felch pointed at a small piece of charred meat on his plate. I took the morsel and put it into my mouth.

“This is great,” I said. “So moist and succulent. Not like any other cut of meat I’ve ever tried before. What is it?”

“Those,” said Dr. Felch, “are the seeds of civilized society.”

“The what?”

“From yesterday. Why do you think I brought the Ziploc bag to the corral?”

Bessie chuckled.

“Welcome to Cow Eye!” she said, taking a piece for herself.

“Where civilizations meet!” Dr. Felch added.

The two laughed and Dr. Felch lit up another cigarette — his fifteenth. Bessie went to get another beer and when she came back Rusty Stokes was trailing behind her.

“Hey there!” Rusty said. “Looks like you’ve got your own little party going on over here. Mind if I join you?”

And without waiting for an answer he sat down next to me on the log.

By now the fire had died down a bit and the cold air seemed even colder. While the four of us sat together on the log — Rusty, me, Bessie, Dr. Felch — a stream of colleagues would pass by on their way to the open grill, or on their way back from it; and in this way I had a chance to meet the bulk of the animal science faculty and a good portion of the maintenance staff. A trio of administrative secretaries stopped by to congratulate me on my hiring and to express condolences over my failed marriages. One wished me luck resurrecting the Christmas party. Another complimented me on my lack of facial hair. (“You look a lot more like a Special Projects Coordinator now!”) And a third gave me some suggestions on the metaphorical significance of the calf. (“The calf,” she claimed, “represents the quest for a deeper knowledge held captive within the confines of the corral.” To which I said: “If so, then what are the succulent morsels I just consumed? What then is the seed that was prematurely severed?” “Those,” she convincingly concluded, “are the individual nuggets of wisdom that make up our larger body of knowledge!”) At some point Raul walked over with his guitar in hand and I complimented him on his singing. And when Stan approached I congratulated him on his newfound independence from Ethel.

“If only she could see me now!” he preened.

(“And if only you could see her!” I thought.)

In time the party seemed to coalesce around Rusty and Dr. Felch, and as we talked through our beers and drank through our sliced steak, the conversation settled into a comfortable groove. On the log next to ours Raul and Stan were recalling the previous day’s triumph over the calf. And from the ends of our log Rusty and Dr. Felch were reminiscing about their high school trips to the river, while Bessie and I listened intently in the middle. Once approaching sobriety from the long ride in Bessie’s truck, now I felt the beer coursing through me in the same way the wine had a few hours ago. I’d still not found a bathroom since leaving my apartment; yet the dark woods seemed hopelessly removed from the campground, and no sooner would I start out for their dark cover than a colleague would hand me another beer. “Hey, where you off to, Charlie? Here have another…!” And I would sit back down. And as I drank the beer and ate the beef I found myself absorbing it all together: the food and the alcohol and the warmth of the fire and the conversation swirling around me. Slowly my bladder filled with each beer consumed and my stomach filled with each slice of steak and my heart filled with the warmth of the fire and of the gentle and soothing conversation enveloping me. On the log, Bessie had shifted over to make room for Dr. Felch and was now sitting so close to me that the entire length of her thigh pressed up against mine. From time to time she would lean to one side or the other and with each shift of her weight I could feel the press of her soft shoulder into mine — or its withdrawal. And this too kept me warm.

“So, Rusty,” somebody finally said after the discussion had moved from sports to weather, then from cars to trucks, and then from foreign politics to the most pressing current affairs of Cow Eye Junction: “So Rusty, what do you think about that new Communist we hired last year for the philosophy department?”

“I don’t like him,” Rusty said.

“Really? How about the homosexual that teaches art?”

“I don’t like him either.”

“And the gun-control advocate in business?”

“Her either.”

“And the recently promoted astronomy professor from Bangladesh?”

“Not funny.”

“And the married lecturer with the hyphenated surname?”

“Nope.”

“And the vegetarian? And the Hindu? And the negroid who just got tenure? What about the animal-rights activist? The environmentalist? The temperance leader? And how about the proponent of government subsidies? The anti-war protester? The Whig? The economics lecturer with the fuel-efficient car?”

“I don’t like none of them!”

“That’s too bad. And what are your feelings about the new sign ordinance the county council wants to pass? You know, the one that requires all signs to be backlit?”

“I’m opposed to it.”

“And the opening of our borders to refugees? And the imposition of tariffs on tobacco and whiskey. And the separation of prayer from school? And the delinking of our currency from the gold standard?”

“Opposed.”

“And the banning of all smoking in public places?”

“Not in favor.”

“And the new electric typewriters for the science department?”

“Opposed.”

“And the emphasis on the use of data for institutional planning?”

“Viscerally opposed.”

“You seem to oppose a lot of things, Rusty. So what exactly do you favor? Anything?”

“I favor what already is. If something exists then by God there’s got to be a reason for it! So just leave it alone. Let it be and stop meddling with it. There’s enough damn change in the world without aspiring to create more of it where it don’t belong.”

“But Rusty,” Stan objected. “If we take your approach to its somewhat logical conclusion then wouldn’t that mean the end of all innovation? Wouldn’t that imply that we should just accept things as they are? Rather than strive for progress?”

“Damn right!”

“But surely you can’t be serious! As a scientist you can’t really mean that! Just think of all the inadequacies that would remain unaddressed. I mean if we all just sat around accepting the status quo — if everyone believed like you — then we would never challenge our nation’s great injustices. We never would have overturned Prohibition. Or protested the Stamp Act. Or abolished human slavery!”

“If everyone believed like me,” Rusty said, “we wouldn’t have had slavery in the first place! Or stamp collectors….” Rusty held up his beer can. “…And God knows we wouldn’t have needed Prohibition…!”

Dr. Felch laughed.

“I can certainly vouch for him on that!”

“And yet,” said Raul, “you are renowned throughout the region for artificially inseminating cows. This is not a natural process. It is a human contrivance. Is this not an inconsistency in your world view? A fatal contradiction? Is this not a paradox of sorts?”

“Nope. It is not a paradox. At least no more of a paradox than any other paradoxical thing in our world.”

“But it is! And the proof is all around us. As a matter of fact, it’s in your left hand at this very moment! Because if you get right down to it, Mr. Stokes, isn’t beer itself a human construct? Without the very human yearning for innovation, wouldn’t we all be reduced to drinking water right now?”

“Without innovation,” Rusty explained, “we would all be free men drinking water. That’s true. But given that we have become such slaves to innovation, we might as well make the most of our servitude by drinking beer!”

Everyone laughed. Stan laughed too. Then he asked:

“So how many cows have you inseminated anyway?”

“What?”

“How many cows have you inseminated, Mr. Stokes?”

“None personally. That’s genetically impossible.”

“Yes, but artificially how many have you inseminated?”

“Too many to name.”

“And did you find it difficult at first?”

“It was messy, yes.”

“But I assume it got easier with time?”

“Of course. Like anything else in this world.”

“I imagine it takes a steady hand to inseminate a cow?”

“Yes, it does.”

“And a steely resolve.”

“That too.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, and a shoulder-length glove.”

“You’ve lived a good life, Mr. Stokes.”

“I’ve been very fortunate.”

We all nodded. Then someone said:

“Since you’ve touched upon the topic of insemination, is there anything that you would like to inject into our ongoing discussion of love?”

“Your what?”

“You know, our discussion of love. Can you tell us what you think it is? This subject also requires a firm hand, and it’s been a special point of contention for us recently. So we’re trying to get some fresh perspectives on this very old topic. We’re trying to heighten our awareness of the issue before the semester starts. So what can you say, Mr. Stokes?”

Rusty gave a guffaw.

“I don’t know nothing about that,” he said. “My field of expertise is narrow. Empiricism doesn’t have much use for a thing like love.”

“But Rusty, we’re eager to learn from someone with so much experience!”

“Experience!”

“Yes, Dr. Stokes. After all, you’ve got a wife and three daughters and a grandchild on the way. So we’re hopeful that you can be the one to shed some light on this topic. Because the night isn’t as young as it once was. The moon is bold but evanescent. And our time to achieve some sort of deeper understanding seems to be running out.”

“Yeah, well, I honestly can’t tell you what love is. And I can’t tell you what it isn’t. But I can sure as hell tell you what it ain’t…!”

“Please do….”

Rusty took a swig of beer from his can. Then he said:

“You see, lots of people have misconceptions about love. They think it’s some kind of romantic dinner for two at the Asian restaurant around the corner. Or a one-way bus ride to Michigan in winter. But actually love ain’t anything of the sort. It ain’t got nothing to do with ball gowns and candlelit dinners and romantic strolls down the beach. It ain’t roses and Valentine’s Day cards. It ain’t candy hearts and sloppy-tongued kisses on a warm rainy night. It ain’t unrequited blowjobs or a mouthful of moisture or an eleven-minute mistake to last the rest of your life. It ain’t a starry night in mid-August down by the river. And it sure as hell ain’t two horny fifteen-year-olds in the front seat of my Chevy last June!”

“We’re sorry to hear about your truck, Rusty.”

“It ain’t the truck I’m pissed about. It’s the principle.”

“She’s a beautiful girl, Rusty. I’m sure the baby will be a stunner.”

Rusty finished off his beer and threw the can into the fire.

“With genes like mine it damn well better be!”

Bessie was nudging me in the ribs and when I looked over I could see that she was motioning for me to pull up on this line of discussion. And so I did. And as always it was Raul who gracefully rescued the moment:

“This is such a fantastic spot,” said Raul pointing over at the river. “The darkness is striking. The smells are primordial. The sounds of the dark woods are so exotic. And I just love how the moonlight reflects off the water ever so gently. It’s all very scenic. And calls to mind the Llobregat in early spring.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Rusty said. “This is my family’s spot. We come here every summer.”

“It’s lovely,” I added. “Is there a bathroom nearby?”

Rusty laughed.

“Sure. Which corner of the night would you prefer?”

Everybody else laughed.

“This is Cow Eye Junction, Charlie. Just make yourself at home.”

“When in Cow Eye, do as the Cowesians!”

Again everyone laughed. I laughed too but did not budge from the log.

“This place really does bring back so many memories,” said Bessie. “I haven’t been down to this stretch of the river for ages. My father used to go fishing not far from here. He had a special place around the bend where he always caught his limit. Even when no one else was catching he always caught. He called it his Sanctuary. It was his secret spot.”

“Your father was a helluva fisherman!” said Rusty. “I went with him a couple times. He could catch anything. The man was legendary! One of the best anglers I’ve ever known.”

“That’s what everyone tells me. I was small but I can remember him bringing his catch home and mom and me staying up late cleaning it. I used to hate that! He’d ice it in coolers and take it around to the neighbors the next day.”

“In his old Dodge!”

“Right. Missing its windshield.”

“With the tailgate down and the American flag jutting out of the front grill.”

“All fifteen stars waving proudly!” Bessie laughed. (With each remembrance her thigh seemed to press even more snugly against mine; as she talked, her body moved with her words and I felt the warmth of her hip — did she notice? — and the soft press of her shoulder.) “Sometimes he’d take me on his rounds to the neighbors. At each house we’d stop to visit with the person we were giving the fish to. Usually on the porch. Sometimes in their kitchen. It always felt like time standing still because they’d spend so long catching up on everything that happened since the last time they met. All the latest hunting stories. And each of the fish they’d caught. And the different people they knew. They always made sure to remember anyone who’d moved on or passed away since the last time. Oh, and their trucks. God, if I had to listen to any more talk about trucks! They’d go on for hours. And the whole time I’d just stand there taking it all in, child-bored, wishing we could move on to the next house so we could get back home, not realizing then that later in life I’d long for these very moments that I was now wishing away. The adults would talk and talk. I’d listen. And then before we left, the hosts would give us something to take back. A cut of beef. A comb of honey. Some leather for my dad’s saddles. It was like going shopping every time we went out to deliver his fish…!”

“It used to be like that in Cow Eye. But we’ve lost it somewhere along the way. Another casualty of progress.”

“That’s so true. In my family it died with him. I haven’t been fishing since.”

“You’re not the only one. Fishing is what we did in those days. But your dad wouldn’t recognize the river now. It’s not the same river he knew. And the fishing itself ain’t what it used to be. In your dad’s days it was a different world. Back then the river ran different. The waters were cleaner. The flow was faster. The fish actually jumped out of the water. Those were the days when the railroad still ran and progress was still thought to be progressive and it still seemed like hydroelectric power would be the wave of the future. But now it’s all different. And this poor river has really been abused over the years….”

“By progress?” Raul asked.

“Hell yeah,” said Rusty. “This river has become everyone’s bitch. The local whore. The retarded girl in the backroom. They’ve dredged her and redirected her. They pinched off her flow. Then they added chemicals upstream. Then algae to control the chemicals. Now they’re looking for something — anything! — to manage the algae they brought in. They’ve pumped crude oil into her and expectorated their waste. And they’ve made huge messes from the boats that were dispatched to clean up the smaller messes. In my years along the river I’ve found tires in the shallows. Old televisions. Floating buffalo carcasses. Vacuum cleaner belts. One time I was fishing trout and I pulled in an entire vacuum cleaner. There’s not a family in Cow Eye that hasn’t come across washed up syringes and heroin needles and opium pipes. These are just a few of the things they’ve done to our river.”

“They?”

“Yes, they.”

“And who is that?”

“They are people with ideas. New people with new ideas. Foreign people with foreign ideas — some from right around the corner; others from as far away as California. No offense to the three of you….” Here Rusty swept his arm to indicate me and Raul and Stan. “But all these people from other places with their notions of perpetual motion — all these healers, hippies, prophets, and engineers — they come to Cow Eye with their plans and their ideas. And while they’re here they do their deeds and they have their parties and their orgies and then just throw their used rubbers in our river. It doesn’t even occur to them that it’s all washing down to the rest of us. Or that it’s our kids that’s gotta swim in it.”

“Sorry, Rusty,” we said.

“No need for apologies just yet. You’re still new to Cow Eye — and maybe your ideas will be the ones that work….”

“We hope so!”

“…But I doubt it.”

Stan and Raul and I looked at each other contritely.

Rusty continued:

“But the worst thing they ever did was build that dam. Once the dam got built and they flooded the old Indian village the river wasn’t ever the same.”

“Dam?” Raul asked.

“Indian village?” Stan asked.

Rusty shook his head.

“The dam’s a well-known part of our history. But the flooding of the village, that’s one of Cow Eye’s dirty little secrets. I have a few article clippings at the museum about it. And I’ve got some before-and-after pictures. The village didn’t have to get submerged like that. But that’s what happens when you chase progress. When you strive for continuous improvement. When you worship efficiency. The river ran like it did for a thousand years. And it was good. But it wasn’t good enough for them. It had to be better. More productive. To flow faster. And to travel to places where it wasn’t meant to go. Places it otherwise wouldn’t have gone.”

“Kind of like how the three of us ended up here? How our respective travels led us to Cow Eye — a place we wouldn’t have otherwise gone!”

“Exactly. You see, a river is reactionary: it resists progress; it prefers the status quo. But human beings are slaves to innovation. For Americans, especially, it’s a cruel master. And so the people with ideas came in and bent the river over a barrel. They slapped it on the ass and made it relent. They blocked it off and diverted it, and if that meant flooding the old Indian village, well, then so be it.”

Here Bessie shifted on the log and the side of her body brushed lightly against mine. Her thigh was soft and warm. Looking down I could see that she was wearing a mini-skirt that rose above her knees. Her white blouse was loose. Her full breasts grazed my upper arm when she turned toward me to get a better look at the words being spoken.

“The Indian village,” Rusty went on,” was really nothing more than a settlement of old huts and a smokehouse and some fields where the people grew crops next to the river. The place was right on the river so the water could flow into their fields and replenish their wells. In the whole Diahwa Valley Basin there was probably no other piece of land as productive as this.”

“It makes sense,” said Stan. “They were the first ones here. So they had the first choice.”

“I suppose so,” said Rusty.

“They knew what they were doing when they chose that place!”

“That’s definitely true.”

Dr. Felch nodded:

“You all might be interested to know that one of our faculty members used to live in that village. Alan Long River used to live there with his family when he was small. He was even named for the river.”

“Long River?” Stan asked. “You mean the speech teacher who doesn’t speak?”

“That’s right,” said Dr. Felch. “Charlie’s mentor.”

“Yeah,” said Rusty. “Long River was born in the village and lived there until the resettlement. Back when he was still talkative he told me the whole sad story about how the government showed up at the village one day to kick his people out.”

“This was more than forty years ago….” Dr. Felch added.

“Forty-two, to be exact. A sheriff gathered them in the center of the village and said, ‘You all have to leave because in one year the ground under your feet will be covered in water.’ Long River’s people shook their heads and said, ‘It’s impossible. The river has never come to this place before. So why would it gather here now?’ And the sheriff pointed to the tallest tree in the village — an American pine — and said, ‘Do you see that tree right there? In less than a year there’s gonna be enough water where we’re standing to cover the highest branches of that tree!’ But the people still couldn’t believe it. ‘That’s not possible,’ they said. ‘Water can’t gather so suddenly! We will be here as long as the grass grows and the water runs.’ And they refused to leave. A month later the government came in with bulldozers and sheriffs and eminent domain and removed them. Long River was just learning to speak when all this was taking place. But he remembers it vividly and told me about it years later.”

“My uncle was one of the sheriffs,” said Dr. Felch. “For him it was one of the hardest things he ever had to do.”

“But he did it?”

“He did it.”

“What a tragedy!” Stan said. “And a senseless one. I mean, an entire settlement wiped away! Under water! Where’d they all go? Where did the people go after they submerged the village?”

“They scattered. Some moved into town. Others left for the city. Long River’s family stayed, but they were the exception.”

“All of this for a dam? That’s so wrong. Why didn’t anyone stop this?”

“It wasn’t a priority back then. And it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“But now it’s a tragedy!”

Rusty shook his head.

“No, it’s not a tragedy. At least not anymore. It was a tragedy then. But now it’s merely history. Take any contemporary tragedy, add forty-two years to it, and what do you get? You get…history.”

“History?!” a loud voice rang out from behind us. All together we turned around to see that Will Smithcoate was walking up with a lawn chair tucked under his armpit. “Did I hear you call my name?!”

Everyone laughed.

“Come on over, Will.” Dr. Felch motioned for him to have a seat next to our logs. “I see you came prepared…!”

“As always! And I would have been here much earlier if I hadn’t got stuck behind a death march….”

Dr. Felch groaned.

Will plopped the folding aluminum chair next to our log and collapsed himself into it. He was holding his “canteen” in one hand and an unlit cigar jutted from his breast pocket.

“Why’re you sneaking up on us like that?” Rusty said.

“I had a little matter to take care of over there in the woods.”

“We don’t need the details, professor.”

“Yeah,” said Bessie. “You can keep that to yourself!”

“Sure thing. You know, before she died my wife used to tell me, William, if someone gave me a dime every time you took a leak…I still wouldn’t feel any better about it. My wife always had a wicked sense of humor like that!”

We laughed.

“So what’ve I been missing? What’s all this talk about history?” Will had slumped into the chair and was brushing a piece of dust from his suit and straightening his bow tie. “And how can I be of assistance to my dear colleagues?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Will. We were just telling our new faculty here about the dam and how the Indian village got flooded. Rusty was just saying that the whole traumatic episode has passed into history.”

“Exactly,” said Rusty. “And now it’s just accepted as an inevitable relic of progress and evolution. Like the extinction of the passenger pigeon. Or the emergence and disappearance of this or that civilization of the world, along with its language, its culture, and the institutions it holds dear.”

“Of course the dam was a bad idea,” Will said. “Most things are. But it’s also not without precedent. Water makes a man do strange things, you know.”

We all nodded somberly.

“Which is why it’s one of the three W’s that cause men to lose their minds….”

Will paused for dramatic effect:

“The other two of course are women and words.”

Will pulled his cigar from his coat pocket and twirled it in his fingers.

“And the main difference between these things is that women come and go, while words live forever. As for water….that’s something we haven’t quite figured out one way or the other….”

We nodded.

“….Now the thing about history,” Will continued, “is that it has quite a bit to do with women though even more to do with words. However, if you examine the matter carefully you’ll see that history is more like water. It flows where it wants. It moves at its own pace and in its own time. We can observe it and remember it. We can try to quantify and explain it. And sometimes we can even be so lucky as to predict its eventual course. But it’s only a fleeting achievement. You can’t contain water any more than you can control history. Ninety-nine percent of all water in the world is undrinkable. But what we call history is the one percent that remains. It’s the tiny bit that we can digest. The rest just rises back into the clouds like a puddle off hot asphalt.”

“Asphalt?

“Yes, asphalt.”

Raul shook his head:

“For a history teacher, Mr. Smithcoate, you sure have a cynical view of history!”

“Yeah, well, it’s like my wife used to say. She’d say the cobbler’s kids go barefoot. The farmer’s family goes hungry. And the historian’s wife goes heirless. No sons. No daughters. No lasting legacy of any kind. Of course it wasn’t our choice. We had some amazing sex in our time — believe me, my wife could frigger like a doxy! — but that was one thing she never forgave me for…!”

Shaking off the digression into Will’s fruitless views on history, Rusty continued:

“Anyway, the original people from the village seem to be having the last laugh. Long River told me that when they were leaving their village the old people got together and put a blight on the area. ‘You’ve done this thing to us because of water. Well then let water be your fate.’ They pronounced this just before the bulldozers came in. And then they left. It was the last thing they ever spoke in their native tongue. And it was the last thing they ever said as a people.”

“Then what happened?”

“The rest is history. The dam opened the next year. The village got submerged. And the water hasn’t been the same since. The dam was supposed to supply the whole area — from Cow Eye Junction all along the breadth of the Diahwa Valley Basin. But the rain stopped coming and now it barely feeds the town. The canals ran dry. Hell, the upper part of the river’s got even less water now than it had before the dam was there. And the lower part has none at all. When I was little there were fishing stands all along this river. You could jump off the rock they call Big Rock and not worry about breaking your neck. Now the water’s so low you’d be nuts to try that. Plus you might hit an old truck half-buried in the muck!”

“Or the roof of an abandoned house,” said Dr. Felch.

“Or a discarded steam engine,” said Bessie.

“Or the sunken remains of an eighteenth-century slave ship,” said Will.

“Will?”

“Not literally, of course…”

(Here Will lit up his cigar and leaned back in his aluminum chair. Having injected himself into the conversation, he now seemed perfectly content to let it flow around him.)

“But why was the dam so necessary?” Raul asked. “It seems like a lot of trouble for everyone.”

“It was,” Rusty said. “But the region needed cheaper energy to run the Ranch. And they needed more power for the new settlements cropping up on the Purlieus. You know, to accommodate the future influx of hippies, healers, prophets and prostitutes. These were the times when steam power was in steep decline and hydroelectricity seemed like the wave of the future. And of course the area needed more water. Where do you think the college gets all its verdure from? And the water for its lawns? The fountains? The bull mounting the heifer? Where do you think the campus gets all that virility?”

We nodded our complicity.

“I hate to say it….but where would our idyllic campus be without that dam?”

It was a rhetorical question, of course, and so Rusty did not wait for an answer; instead he reached into his cooler and pulled out another Falstaff.

“Stan? Care for another?”

“I’m good for now, thanks.”

“Raul?”

“I don’t touch the stuff.”

“Oh, I almost forgot you’re from California. You, Charlie?”

“Sure. I’ll have another.”

And Rusty handed me another beer.

*

By now the playful sounds coming from the river had died down and in their place the snapping of the fire had grown louder. A few of the early attendees had left. Most of the secretaries had gone home. Gone were the majority of maintenance staff and the animal science faculty. Rusty’s daughter and her boyfriend had left together in the boy’s truck. And almost all of the children — the ones playing by the river and chasing each other unattended — were gone as well. The few of us still here — Will and Raul and Rusty and Stan and Dr. Felch — had settled around the warm fire, each of us lost in the impending darkness of this cloudless night. In the glow of the firelight Bessie and I still sat close together on the log; from time to time she would allow her hand to settle on my thigh for a moment — an accident? — and each time she did I felt the kundalini beginning to well up from within me.

“So does anyone know why Long River doesn’t speak?” Stan asked when the latest round of beers had been passed around. “It seems strange that a person would just stop speaking like that. Especially a professional speech teacher.”

Rusty and Dr. Felch traded glances.

“It’s a long story,” Rusty said.

“It sure is,” Dr. Felch agreed.

I laughed:

“They usually are around here…!”

“And a sad one,” said Dr. Felch.

“Very sad,” said Rusty.

“They always are,” said Bessie, squeezing my knee lightly.

“So what actually happened?” Stan persisted.

Both men seemed reluctant to tell the story. But when they saw that the grill had grown cold and the steak had been well eaten and that Raul’s guitar had been set aside for the time being, and when they realized that a story of this sort might count as a meaningful professional development experience for those of us new to Cow Eye Community College and its struggles to maintain its accreditation, they began to tell what they knew. Over the next half-hour we learned the sad story of how Alan Long River, my faculty mentor, became a speech teacher who doesn’t speak.

*

“In the beginning,” Dr. Felch began, “Long River was the best hire we ever made here at Cow Eye. After high school he’d gone to a college up north where he graduated with all the degrees needed for the position. In one fell swoop we were able to hire a qualified faculty member with ties to the area, a Native American no less, who knew our local students on a deeper level and could connect with them in profound ways. Plus there was something uplifting about a local boy coming up from tribal roots to get a higher education and then using that education to teach our students — others like him — how to express their ideas in beautifully unambiguous English. Long River himself was a poised speaker. He spoke rarely but when he did, you listened. His words were well-chosen and incisive and he made you actually want to hear him speak. And isn’t that what you want from a speech instructor? From any instructor? Hell, isn’t that what you want from any educated human being! And so we hired him and within a few months he had already started to make an impact on the college. He revamped all the speech courses and made them more relevant for his students. He brought in new methodologies and fresh perspectives. He updated the textbooks and introduced a host of innovative ideas into his pedagogy….”

At the mention of the word innovative we all looked over at Rusty. But he just shrugged his shoulders and took a drink from his beer. Dr. Felch continued:

“…. Despite the ambitious innovations, Long River was humble and worked well with his co-workers and within five years had achieved his tenure. It seemed that the sky was the limit for him. He was popular among his students. Respected among his peers. He was the perfect example of how a person from Cow Eye Junction could come back to Cow Eye and succeed. He could have been successful anywhere yet he chose to come back and achieve his success here. All in all, Professor Long River was just about the best employee we could have imagined….”

“This sounds ominous,” I said.

“…Right. And so it was about this time that he met one of the old people from his childhood village, the old site along the river that had been submerged many years before. The woman was living in a care home in the area and she was about to die. He’d heard from a friend that the woman’s family had moved away after the resettlement but she’d refused to leave Cow Eye with them. They’d reluctantly left her behind with other family members, who had died off one by one until she was by herself, and now that she was dying he visited her in the hospital while her family made the trip across country. He did this because for his people it was a great dishonor to let another person suffer in solitude. By then the woman was not well and by the time he got to the hospital she was in a delirium, sweating and shaking and speaking mysterious words. Long River recognized these words as the language he had heard in the village as a child and though he could no longer understand the words, they touched him in a deep way. How many others like her were out there somewhere in the world? Forgotten in a nursing home? Rotting on back porches? Scattered around the country like droplets across a spillway? The woman never knew that Long River was in the room with her — she passed away that night — and for him it was a gut-wrenching experience. Not just for the death of the old woman, who he’d never even known, but also because in her passing he sensed the final drifting away of his people and their language. In the hospital room he vowed to do something remarkable: to find the old people of his village and to collect their wisdom into a single volume of folk teachings. And so over the next few years he devoted himself to this cause and it became his life’s purpose….”

Dr. Felch stopped to take a smoke of his cigarette. Rusty used the break in the telling to pick up the narrative where Dr. Felch had left off:

“As Bill was saying, Long River really took this thing seriously. During this time he’d always come down to the museum where I was volunteering and he’d read the old newspapers looking for the names of the families that used to live in the old village where the dam now was. He was hellfire persistent and through the historical records and by interviewing local residents he found eight old-timers from the village who were still in the area. These were the elders who’d spoken the native language as children and might still be able to speak it now — the last ones who might still be able to pass it down. Each of these elders was very old by then and when he traveled to visit them he came to see how formidable his challenge really was. Of the eight elders he’d tracked down, one refused to talk to him at all: stubborn and still bitter, she preferred to take the language with her to the grave rather than to entrust it to him now. Another who was more willing died a few weeks before Long River could meet with him. That left six, and of these six, one was already suffering from irreversible memory loss and couldn’t remember the names of her own children — much less the words of a language she hadn’t spoken since her childhood. This meant only five of the original elders were left, and these five — four women and a man — were the only native speakers remaining, the tobacco-thin margin between the life of a language and its demise. There was no time to waste. And so Long River stepped up his efforts. Immediately he appealed for an early sabbatical, received it, and headed out into the field to conduct research with the five elders who carried the withering seeds of his people’s language….”

Rusty stopped to take a drink of beer. Dr. Felch continued:

“….To what Rusty just said I should add that there was some consternation around the campus when Long River received his sabbatical early. One thing about tenured faculty is that they live in a shifting world of relative worth. And this can make them petty and myopic. Long River’s early sabbatical wasn’t standard practice and some feathers were definitely ruffled. Why had I let him go a year early when others had always waited the full term? Was this fair? Was this equitable? Wasn’t this proof that I was showing favoritism? Well maybe! But, dammit, in my mind he’d proven the urgency. There was no guarantee that these old people would even be around a year from now. And this year could be used to document as much as he could before it was too late. And so I made the tough call, the sabbatical went through, and Long River took the year off to be with the five elders….”

Dr. Felch crushed out his cigarette and then continued:

“To say the year was life-changing for him would be an understatement. Long River spent all his waking hours with the elders, driving from one side of the Diahwa Valley Basin to the other, and from them he came to learn the silent words of the language his people used to speak. Day in and day out he meticulously documented their speech patterns, their ancient vernacular, the old words for the winds and the rains of the place — places that no longer were, winds that no longer blew, rains that no longer came — words that came from the earth of the place and that could not be in any other language; faithfully, he recorded the word play, the subtleties of humor, the double entendres and allusions and self-referential descriptions. In time he had catalogued the language to the extent that it could be passed on in written form, if only in that form alone. And though it was a triumph of sorts, there was also something bittersweet about the experience: during that year, two more of the elders — the ones he had spent so much time with — passed away, taking with them so many words and phrases and unique ways of seeing the world. Time was moving too fast. Now there were only three left. They were sick. They would soon be gone. And that’s when he had an epiphany….”

Dr. Felch stopped. Rusty spoke up for him:

“The epiphany was….”

“Hold on, Rusty!” said Dr. Felch. “Let me finish this part…!”

“Sorry, Bill….”

Dr. Felch continued:

“The epiphany,” he explained, “was that a language cannot continue to be a language if it is not spoken by young people. All his efforts over the last year had been to simply document the existence of the old language. To put it down so that it could be seen and studied and respected by future generations. And with this now accomplished it had gained a certain weight and could be placed into a museum to be admired alongside the other primitive artifacts of human evolution: the bone tools and arrowheads and shards of clay pottery — the steps in the evolutionary hierarchy that were only necessary in that they served to lead us to the apogee of modern tools and advanced weaponry and non-breakable dishes and American Standard English. But without native speakers — without the voices of children — the language would be lost. It was not enough to document the existence of the language for posterity: it had to be perpetuated. And so it occurred to Long River that his mission was not just to preserve the language in written form but to create a population of native speakers. But for that to happen the language needed to be taught. Only through its teaching could the language be resurrected and preserved and, in so doing, perpetuated as a living language. The language needed to be taught to young people…!”

Dr. Felch paused.

“Okay, Rusty. Now you…”

And Rusty said:

“This was during the time when I’d just come to be chair of the College Council. I was new and green back then and one day Long River approached me about teaching the old language at the college. This was not long after the Dimwiddle contribution and there was new and enthusiastic money to spend. Our languages back then were the standard ones — the languages you might find in an airport or at an economic conference — and yet the Dimwiddle family, as eccentric as they are, wanted to make a different kind of impact: they wanted to support a different kind of language. ‘It’s perfect!’ said Long River. And I agreed. We met in my office and I outlined the steps he’d have to follow — there were many steps, and even then there could be no guarantee that he would succeed. I honestly didn’t think he’d be able to do it, but he followed all the steps to draft a proposal for the council to consider. In his vision the college could reach out to the community by establishing a place on campus where the language would be taught. This might eventually lead to a formal program of study — a certificate, perhaps, or maybe even a degree. And in this way our college would be supporting the language and the preservation of the indigenous culture. It was a beautiful idea and one that most of us supported. But…”

“But?!” we all said.

Dr. Felch continued:

“But,” he said, “the world is not always as simple as our plans for it. Sometimes our beautiful ideas are too beautiful. As always, there are certain procedures and requirements and formalities that a proposal has to go through. And so Long River began the arduous process of pushing his proposal through. A feasibility study was required and he paid for it out of his own pocket. Countless forms needed to be filled out in triplicate. The Dimwiddles needed to be consulted. And along the way there were doubts and skeptics and questions. How many students would the program have? How much would it cost per student? Why should we support this language instead of a more functional one? Representatives from other departments wanted to know what the impact would be on their own classes. The fiscal department questioned whether the program’s enrollment could be increased by a fixed percentage every year. And of course the institutional research office demanded that he estimate the exact number of students who would actually be taking the classes, their demographic make-up, and the likelihood that with this new knowledge they would be able to become god-fearing, tax-paying citizens of the United States of America. One by one, he provided every answer that was posed to him. I mean he really busted his butt. From morning to night he sat in his office detailing the plan. He was almost there! He just needed to get his proposal approved by the College Council! It was right there for the taking. The language was so close to being spoken that he could even taste the words on his lips….”

Rusty paused to savor this taste, then continued:

“….And then came the day for the college to consider his proposal. I remember it was late in the semester and the council was tired. We’d just gone over some rough issues — the budget for the new swimming pool was one — and when Long River began his presentation, it just, I don’t know, it’s just hard to say what happened. Even now I don’t know where it went wrong. Because it started off so promisingly: ‘Dear colleagues,’ Long River began. ‘I’m coming to you today because you are being given the opportunity to do the right thing. As human beings there are very few times in our lives when we are given the chance to do a thing like this. And you now have that opportunity.’ Of course everybody snapped out of their stupor. The intrigue in the room was palpable. Remember, Long River was a speech teacher. So he was well-versed in the rhetorical approaches and strategies to use. He used them all! And as he talked we all hung on his every word. ‘For more than a thousand years my people lived on the very lands that you see. They hunted buffalo. They fished in the waters that are now called the Cow Eye River. They lived off the land and coexisted peacefully with the world around them. This campus is built on the bones of my ancestors. Over the years many bad things happened to my people. They were displaced and dismembered. Our traditions were taken away. Our language was taken away. And gradually we lost it. There is nothing that any of us can do to restore this language to what it was. But there is something that can be done so that it can have its own place in this world once again. So that it can occupy that very small place under the sun where all languages used to find warmth not so long ago.’ And here in a rhetorical flourish he pulled out a tape recorder and hit play. In the room an old voice began speaking: it was a woman’s voice and she was very old, the voice crackling with age, and soon we understood that these were the words of the old language. The woman spoke effortlessly. Breathlessly. The recording played for a few minutes and then Long River hit stop. The voice died away. ‘What you just heard was a legend of our people told by a woman who used to live in the village where I was born. The village is no more. The woman herself passed away last month. The legend she’s telling is an old legend that was handed down through her family from one generation to the next. I’d never heard this story until I met this woman. It is a legend about a river that runs out of water, a legend that if I had not been able to record it last year might have been lost to the world forever. This is how fragile our language is right now. How tenuous is our place in this world. The legend, like all legends, is instructive. And like all world views it deserves to exist for the unique insights it imparts. The river that runs out of water is a story that we should all know. And so in recognition of the great burden of our shared history, I will translate it for you into the language that you speak.’ And here Long River told the legend that his people once told about the river that ran out of water….”

*

In the old days before there even was a man on this earth there was a river that ran from the top of the heavens all the way to the bottom of the sea. This was a wide river and in this river were all the elements of the world that would eventually come together to make our world what it is. There was mud in this river and there was sand. There was air and wind and sun. There was fire and fragrance. There were fish and stones and grasses. And of course there was water in the river — so much water that all the water of the world came from this very river and made its way through the many smaller rivers and streams of the world to the different places of the world. The river came from the heaven to the sea and in this river was everything that had ever been. And everything that would ever be. All the stars came from this river. And all the plants and animals came from this river. And it was from this river that the very first man came to be born from warm mud. From the seed of silence came the body of man and this man grew into a strong man who gave birth to other strong men until, through time, the earth was populated with this new ambitious animal that would come to be called man.

This strange species possessed many qualities that made him well-suited to living in the world with all the other plants and animals. For this man was slower than the fastest animals. And weaker than the strongest. He could not fly. He could not swim. He could not burrow. He could not climb. He was too large to be inconspicuous yet too small to be imposing. He was quick to tire and quicker to fall sick. This species was weak and frail and utterly unremarkable. It was this that made him a good citizen of the world and a faithful descendent of the river.

But there was also one thing that this new animal had that was not good for the river. And it was that the man was always very thirsty. Thirst was in everything this man did. It was his essence. More than hunger. More than desire. Thirst for moisture was what made him human. And it was the quenching of his thirst that allowed him to spread out across the earth and to find others like him. For when he drank he became strong and courageous and this gave him the strength to conquer new lands and to settle new territories and to make the many innovations that kept him from succumbing to the stronger and faster animals of the earth.

The day when the man began to drink from the river was the day that the river itself began to die. For he could not stop. From the earliest of morning he drank and he did not stop until the latest of night when, full from his drinking, he finally went to sleep. The next morning when the sun had risen the man would come to drink from the river once again. Now the river was very long and it held much water. And through it all, the river gave what it could so the man could prosper. Cold, clean, clear water that the man took without hesitation. And without compunction. And without appreciation.

And if it could have spoken the river would have told the man: Man, do not drink all of the water that is in me. For it must be for all animals and it must last forever. Do not take into yourself my water now flowing as if it will always be here to flow for you forever. Take what you need only. And let the rest be for the others. For there are consequences to everything you do. And there are consequences to your thirst. And to your drinking. And to the water that used to flow through you but is now dammed at that point where your greatest weakness protrudes.

But the river could not talk. And the man would not have listened. And so the man drank and drank. As he drank he became bigger. And as he became bigger he also became heavier and slower — so slow and heavy that he could barely move. And yet he continued to drink with even more thirst. With the thirst of a thousand generations. As if the water in the river were an endless stream of moisture stretching back from the very beginnings of time and flowing to the edge of the limitless universe.

And then one day the man went to the river only to find that there was no water there. He had taken it all. The man by now was larger than the largest lake, as big as the ocean itself. For in his bladder he carried with him the water of all things. And without water to return to the heavens as evaporation there could not be water to return to the earth as rain. And without the eternal cycle of water there could be no more life and no more animals and no more anything over the earth.

The river had run out of water. And in time the river that had run out of water became the final resting place of the man who did not know the limits of his thirst. Or the consequences of his drinking. Unremarkably, the thirsty man lay down in the empty river bed and assumed the shape of the narrow place where he lay.

And as he lay in the bed he opened his ears for the very first time. And in his stupor he heard the sounds of the birds crying out for water, and the animals around him choking on the dust. For the first time he heard the words that the river had tried to impart. And as he lay there he began to cry. For the death of the river was also the death of the man. From the place where his greatest weakness protrudes the man began to release the water over the land and through the straits of the channels, and the water flowed in great streams from the place where he lay into the many lakes and streams and tributaries that make up the world’s waters. And though these waters eventually came to nourish the fish, they were never the same again. For now they contained the jaundiced essence of death. And this death was universal. For the death of one man means the death of all men. Just as the death of one river means the death of all rivers. Just as the death of one idea means the inevitable death of every idea that is and will ever be.

*

“After he’d told his story Long River looked up at the council members and said: ‘That is the story that my people used to tell of the river that ran out of water.’”

Rusty stopped.

“I remember the expressions on everyone’s faces when Long River finished. Each was looking at him as if his were the final tongue speaking a language of the dead. But Long River did not waste any time. From there he went into the specifics of his proposal: Cow Eye would hire the remaining native speakers to team-teach the old language on campus. Classes would be held in the evenings to attract older students. Enrollment would be small at first but would increase by ten percent each year. As a direct result of our classes the number of native speakers would increase over time from only four that day to more than twenty within a few years….to hundreds of young people speaking the language within a generation. The proposal would support the college’s mission by furthering the American Way — because what could be more ‘American’ than a language that was spoken here before any other? What could be more ‘time-tested’ than a culture that’s been practiced since the earliest beginnings of time? Long River’s presentation was skillfully crafted to appeal to logos and ethos and credos. And of course to pathos. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘what the river is telling us. The death of one is the death of all. Please do not let my language die. Do not let it die alone and unattended.’ When the formal presentation was finished — he ended exactly at the thirty-minute mark, just as he was allotted — I asked for a motion to approve the proposal, then for a second to the motion, and then called for discussion. Immediately, faculty began to speak up in favor of his proposal. Several praised him for such a moving presentation. A few spoke about their own ancestors and the many languages they’d lost along their tortuous journey to Cow Eye. Others lauded his conscientiousness. It looked like it was a done deal. The votes were locked up. I was just about to call for the question when I noticed a single hand go up. It was already late in the day and this was our last agenda item, so I’d hoped to move things along. But Robert’s Rules are sacred. And so I looked over at the person raising the offending hand and I looked her directly in the eyes and politely asked her: ‘Yes, Merna?’ I said….”

“Merna!” we all exclaimed and looked around at each other. “The one whose ashes we scattered tonight?”

“Yes. She was our long-time math teacher at that point. Later she would take on the data analyst position. But when this was happening she was just a simple math teacher. She’d lived in Cow Eye all her life and was as local as they come. But she was also very logical. And she prided herself on being a numbers person. On her consistency. On objectivity. ‘This sounds really good,’ she said. ‘But I just have one question. Would you be able to provide us with some evidence to prove what you’ve just said? Perhaps some objective data? Or mathematical justification? Or some statistical analyses? Some arithmetic calculations? Some cold hard numbers? Some unequivocal rationale. Some data-based reasoning? Some numerical computations. Some graphs? Some charts? A Venn diagram, perhaps? Believe me, Alan, I love your story of the river. And I feel for your people. I once considered going into the humanities myself. But when everything’s said and done the numbers have to add up. Otherwise, it’s all going to be futile. You see, it’s numbers that will determine the ultimate fate of our world in the end and, in the short term, whether your proposal really holds water….’”

“The rest of the room was in shock. ‘Merna,’ said Long River. ‘I can get you whatever numbers you need. But please pass this motion. The numbers can come later.’ But Merna held her ground. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The numbers have to come first. Justice without data — no matter how just it may seem, no matter how weighty it might appear to be — is not really justice at all.’ A murmur went up around the room and after some discussion the motion was withdrawn. It was the last council meeting of the year but Long River was given time to resubmit his proposal at the next meeting in September. I closed the meeting with his proposal still up in the air. I don’t think any of us thought that his plan wouldn’t be approved eventually. I don’t think even Merna thought it wouldn’t be passed. I really believe she just wanted to make sure all the numbers were in place. That all the I’s were dotted and the T’s crossed before moving forward with approval. But, unfortunately, that’s not how things turned out.”

“What happened?”

“What happened next,” said Rusty, “was that over the summer a group of newer faculty got wind that the college might be looking to create a language program and that Long River’s proposal had been tabled, and they put together an alternate proposal for consideration by the council. The Dimwiddles could only fund one language program, not two. And so that next fall the council heard the other proposal, which was highly professional with colored charts and figures and statistics, and several of the newer council members fell in love with that proposal instead. The charts were more vivid. The numbers added up. Here was a language of the future rather than a concession to the past. When the time came for the vote it was clear that Long River’s proposal was no longer the one that would be supported. And sure enough: that’s what happened.”

“What happened?”

“The council voted down his proposal in favor of the other one. The newer faculty had won, and two years later the college, with the support of the Dimwiddle endowment, launched its new Esperanto program to much international acclaim. The three elders Long River was working with have since passed on. Long River’s book came out a few years later but there was nobody to read it. The language has since been put on the list of those headed for near-term extinction. It was devastating for Long River and he never forgave us. After the council meeting I pulled him aside. I’d been one of the few — the reticent minority — who’d stuck with him and supported his proposal. ‘Look, Alan,’ I said. ‘We can do this another time. We’ll come back next year. It’s not over….’ But he wouldn’t even look at me. And he refused to answer. ‘We’ll get better numbers,’ I promised. ‘More numbers! We’ll get so much data that the correctness of the decision will be incontrovertible! We’ll get colorful charts. It’ll all add up. We’ll….’ But there was no response. He just walked away. He hasn’t talked to me since. In fact, as of that day at the council meeting Long River hasn’t said a word to anyone at the college. Even his students.”

“Does he talk to anyone outside the college?”

“Not that we know of. Though it’s possible. We think it’s his way of making a statement: since his language has been silenced forever, he refuses to use ours.”

“Forever?”

“We don’t know. It looks that way.”

“Things sort of make sense now,” we said.

“And what about Merna? Didn’t she regret what happened? Didn’t she feel bad about derailing the proposal?”

“Maybe. I never talked to her about it. But the next year she took the data analyst position, so she must not have felt too bad about it. She held that position until last spring when she had to give it up. But then that’s another story altogether….”

By now it was very late and the campfire had died down completely. And in the near darkness, amid the smell of extinguished fire, they told this other story about the sad thing that happened to Merna Lee before she was taken by her kids to the city.

*

After the long story of Long River, the speech teacher who doesn’t speak — and after they’d recounted the tale of Merna’s rise and fall — the discussion grew somber. Rusty and Dr. Felch spoke about their friends from high school who’d moved on or passed away. Stan told of a civilization that had been wiped out by floods and famine. Raul sang a ballad of two lovers separated forever by the exigencies of time and space.

“Look,” said Rusty. “You all are depressing me. This is a remembrance, not a funeral! I’m tired of dwelling on the whims of water. Let’s talk about things we can control.”

And so they talked about their trucks. And their committees. And the proposals they had prepared. Or rejected. And the simmering quarterback controversy at the local high school.

And through it all, Bessie’s thigh never left its resting place against mine.

“I’ll be right back….” I finally said when the conversation had moved on. Decisively, I started to get up.

“Don’t be silly!” Rusty said and pulled me back down. Then with a fatherly pat on the shoulder he handed me another beer.

“But I…!”

“Drink, Charlie!”

And so I settled back down on the log.

In time the conversation moved on. Dr. Felch and Rusty were now laughing about certain peers at the college who’d exhibited unexpected talents. The creative writing teacher who could lick the back of his ear. The horticulture professor with the surprising talent for ventriloquism. The tenured automotive instructor who had once rescued a non-tenured humanitarian from a burning, smoke-filled meeting room.

“Have you ever seen Gladys dance the Charleston?”

“Of course! And have you heard Belinda do her impersonation of a feckless scalawag being tarred and feathered?”

“Many times! It’s almost as convincing as the one Dexter does of a fifteen-month-old heifer getting penetrated for the first time…!”

With each new beer I came to appreciate the impressiveness of this new world that I had entered. The faculty with all their hidden talents and ambitions. The campus with its groves of magnolia and sycamore. The Diahwa Valley Basin itself with its stark drought and disappearing tribes and myriad water pent up unjustly and in the most hopelessly artificial way. There is nothing more natural than the flow of water from a higher place to a lower one, I was learning, and keeping this from happening — keeping so much moisture from being released — requires a huge amount of effort, a factor of human destiny that after so many beers was becoming increasingly clear to me at this late hour. And so I stood up again.

“Bessie!” I said. “I really need to head to the woods for a bit. Please wait for me right there on that log that we’ve been sitting on. It has been a pleasure to share such a small space with you tonight, to sit so tightly next to you. I feel like I know you a lot better than a few hours ago. I’ve enjoyed the firm press of your thigh against mine and the casual brushes of your body from time to time. My kundalini is rising, rest assured. So please wait for me and I’ll be right back. I promise. I just need to reside in near darkness for a few minutes….”

I turned toward the woods.

“Charlie!” a voice called out. I ignored the voice but it was insistent: “Charlie!”

When I turned around I saw Stan Newtown heading toward me.

“Charlie!” he said. “Can I have a word with you?”

“Sure, Stan. But could it wait a minute. I was heading over there toward the dark woods….”

“Charlie, it’s important.”

“But….”

“Look, Charlie, I’m telling you this because I know I can trust you. I’m confiding in you because I know that you do not belong to either group entirely. You have no allegiances. No friends. No preconceptions. You do not fit in with anyone at all and so I know you can be trusted….”

“That’s fine. But if you could just wait a few minutes….”

“It’s Ethel, Charlie.”

“Ethel?”

“Yes, I’m worried about her. She’s not the same woman I married, Charlie. She’s not the same woman I used to approach orgasm with. She’s not even the same person who ventured with me to Cow Eye just a few weeks ago. She’s — how do I put this? — different. Ever since we castrated that calf she hasn’t been the same.”

“That was only yesterday.”

“Right. And things haven’t been the same since.”

“People change, Stan. Things change. They come and go. And no one knows this better than….well, than that calf….”

“Yes, but she’s not just different. She’s so different it’s like I can’t even recognize her anymore. Charlie, tell me the truth. Is there something I should know?”

“About Ethel?”

“Yes. Is there something you’re seeing that I’m not? Something you think I should be aware of?”

At this I thought about the thin bamboo mat where Ethel and Luke had pondered the relative merits of cosmic orgasm. Surely they’d stopped somewhere along the way? Surely they’d remembered that there are many steps to enlightenment and that the lowest one is nothing more than precisely that: the lowest?

“Of course not, Stan.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Ethel is the same woman you married. The same woman you ventured to Cow Eye Junction with. She still has dreams of working as a fashion designer. She still feels that the ending of love is just as important as its beginning. She is still very married. She is as journalistic as she’s ever been. So enough with the conspiracy theories, okay!”

“You’re probably right.”

“Of course I’m right. Life is short. So enjoy what you can from it. Did you try some of these sumptuous nuggets that Dr. Felch was offering? They’re terrific. And while you’re at it, here, have another beer…!”

And with that I led him over to Rusty’s cooler where I pulled out another Falstaff on his behalf.

“Thanks, Charlie,” he said.

“No problem. Now let me get back to the woods…!”

But just as I turned to leave, another voice called out:

“Charlie, my boy!”

It was Rusty.

“Charlie!”

“Yes, Mr. Stokes.”

“Thanks for coming tonight.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it…”

“Charlie, I heard you spent some time talking to Gwen Dupuis earlier tonight. And I’m sure she had a lot to say. She is welcome to her opinions of course. But so are we.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. Now let me tell you the true story of the incredible swimming pool we built…!”

And he did. In meticulous detail, he told me the opposite story of stripes and stars: Gwen’s chronicle of braking and acceleration, only in reverse. And when he was done I thanked him for the information and said, “Mr. Stokes, thank you for sharing all of that with me. It definitely adds to my understanding of the different issues on campus, and I am better for it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I was heading toward the woods over there….”

“No problem, Charlie. It’s been a pleasure talking to you tonight. I’m glad you could make it to our get-together. And I hope you enjoy your time in the woods. Monday is fast approaching and it’s going to be a very long semester. So just let me know if you need any help along the way.”

“I’ll do that, Mr. Stokes. I definitely will do that….”

I turned to leave and had taken two steps toward the darkness when I bumped right into a figure that must not have seen me on its own return to the campfire.

“Charlie?” a voice said.

“Raul?”

“Charlie, what are you doing over here on the edge of darkness?”

“Probably the same thing you’re doing, Raul! Or rather what you just did…!”

“Oh, I doubt that. I was just calculating the likelihood that two people from opposite sides of the world — Barcelona, say, and the unnamed locale you came from — can expect to meet each other in a place like Cow Eye at some point during their respective lifetimes. You know, the likelihood of two arrows actually striking each other at their very tips. The odds are really phenomenal, Charlie!”

“I’m sure they are.”

“Here, let me show you how unlikely this is to happen. See, I’ve drawn an approximation here on this napkin….”

And here Raul took out a napkin that was dabbed in barbecue sauce. Under the stain was the following diagram:

“Get it, Charlie? There’s almost no likelihood. And yet it happens on a daily basis. It’s one of the great paradoxes of life. Virtually everything that happens in a person’s life is mathematically implausible. Or rather, everything that happens is virtually impossible…! The probability is less than the probability for the most miraculous miracle. And yet that’s not surprising because the chances of any single thing happening are infinitesimal. Life itself is a miracle: from its beginning to its end! And that’s how the two of us could meet on that narrow school bus seat despite the impossible odds against it!”

Raul handed me the napkin.

“Here. You can have this….”

I folded the napkin and put it in my pocket.

“Raul, you are amazing. I don’t care what Bessie says. We’ll have to get together after the semester starts — you know, when we’re sober — to talk more about this. And let’s make sure we go to Texas next summer, okay?”

“Of course!”

“Promise?”

“Sure.”

“Great.”

“But I’m sorry to have interrupted you, Charlie….where were you off to again?”

“I’m not sure. It seems I was headed over there towards the woods. So I’m fairly certain that’s where I was going. But to be honest, Raul, I can’t really remember why I was going there. Or what for. Perhaps it was to see if there was something to be seen on the other side of those trees right there. Or maybe it was to search for some broken arrow heads that may have been left by the displaced people who used to live here. Or then again, maybe I was just trying at last to do something — anything! — entirely. In any case, I don’t see much need for going to those woods anymore. Not without a clear sense of purpose. Not without an overriding mission. And especially when I can look back in the opposite direction past the smoldering coals of our campfire and see such a beautiful woman waiting for me next to the river. Bessie’s really something, isn’t she? And you’re right, Raul. The odds of me meeting someone like that must be truly astounding. The likelihood of two unloved people coming together in the middle of a night like tonight…in the middle of a drought for the ages….in a place like Cow Eye Junction. The odds that two people can come together to find love under a moon like this? Geez, Raul, that’s something that must be absolutely beyond the realm of mathematical calculation. Just thinking about it has made me appreciate what I left behind. So let me head back to what I’ve given up. Let me return to that dark place by the river so that the two of us — she and I — can put an end to this lonely endeavor of being unloved…so that she and I can overcome that once and for all….”

And with that I headed back to the campground to look for Bessie.

*

“So Bessie,” I said when I’d found her next to the river. The party had long broken up into individual conversations and she and I had taken seats by ourselves along the sand of the river bank. The children were gone. The river was flowing softly. In front of us the moon was shining over the moving water. “Bessie, I really am sorry I made you late for Merna’s remembrance. I feel terrible about that.”

“It’s okay.”

“And I’m sorry I put you on the spot yesterday by asking you to tell me your thoughts about love — you know, about what it might have been for you. I’m sorry I asked you that over your manual typewriter. But I truly was interested.”

“I could tell.”

“And I still am interested.”

“I can tell.”

“You can?”

“Yes, Charlie, I am a woman. And as a woman I can see very clearly that your curiosity is aroused. And that it’s been aroused since our first meeting in the office. These are the things that a woman knows. These are the lessons that Cow Eye teaches us.”

“Might it be mutual?”

“It might.”

“So does this mean you want to hear my own thoughts on the matter?”

“You mean what you think love is?”

“Yes. Or rather what it isn’t?”

“I’m not so sure. On the one hand, I’m as interested as I can be under the circumstances.”

“Circumstances?”

“Yes, the circumstances facing us tonight. And those are that you have a Master’s in Educational Administration while I’ve never ventured beyond high school. Your career track is paved with tenure while mine is gravelly and clerical. You come from a world of boundless lakes and oceans while I come from the landlocked desiccation of Cow Eye Junction. And of course it doesn’t help that I have two young children — boys! — and you have nothing of the sort. You see, Charlie, people like you have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember and they’ve always come and gone. All of them. Is there a chance that you’ll be different from the rest? Perhaps. But it’s very small. In fact, I’m pretty sure that you are going to do exactly the same. You’ll leave like all the others. And so this does not bode well for us on the one hand…”

“And on the other hand?”

“Well, on the other hand…”

Here Bessie paused.

“Open this can for me, will you…?”

I snapped the pull top off and handed the can back to her. In the background I could hear Raul singing a song in Spanish and the audible fawning of a single enthusiastic secretary. The light from the campfire had dwindled. Crickets were chirping in the distance.

Bessie took a long drink from her can.

“That moon is a bit startling tonight, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.”

“And the stars are bright.”

“They are.”

“The sky is very clear and I am getting cold, Charlie. You see, I’ve forgotten my sweater. My blouse is too light for the weather and the cold night air is making me shiver. Can you see me shiver, Charlie?”

“Yes, Bessie, I can.”

“Can you see the tightening of my skin from the cold air? The way my pores are tingling.”

“A bit, yes.”

“Do you know what that means, Charlie?”

“I think so.”

“What does it mean, Charlie?”

“It means you need to cover up. Wait a second and I’ll be right back….”

When I had returned from Bessie’s truck I unfolded the orange sarong and draped it over her shoulders.

“Here,” I said. “That should help. Sorry for the color. And for the chivalry….”

Bessie and I sat drinking in silence and when she had finished this latest can of beer, and when she had crushed it under her heel and kicked it a few feet in front of us, she returned to her train of thought:

“On the other hand, Charlie, what am I supposed to do? I mean, a person doesn’t stop being a woman just because she has two children, right?”

“I wouldn’t know…”

“Should she stop being a woman just because she’s been a woman so many times before?”

“I can’t imagine….”

“Well, she doesn’t, Charlie. And she shouldn’t. Trust me on this one. And so to answer your question….yes. That is to say, I’m interested in your thoughts on love but only inasmuch as you might still be interested in discovering mine.”

“I am no less interested,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Even now?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good to hear,” she said. “Then so am I.”

Bessie held out her hand and I took it. It was dainty and very light and the skin was cold. Bessie was still shivering under the sarong.

“It’s late,” she said.

“And very cold,” I said.

“Let’s go,” she suggested.

“If you insist,” I said.

And with her cold hand still in mine, the two of us made our way through the deserted campgrounds, past the extinguished campfire, back toward the gravelly lot where her truck was the last one still parked under the flickering streetlamp.

*

(…)

The great lovers of the world are distinguished from all the rest in that they have the ability to see eroticism in everything they do. The dinner conversation. The casual encounter. Subtle glances exchanged. The inadvertent brush of thigh against thigh on a crowded seat. Each of these is not merely a routine expression of existence but rather an act of longing in itself — the first step toward the beautiful act of lovemaking. The great lover recognizes that life itself is the foreplay that brings us closer to the ultimate orgasm of eternity. And so the daily exuberances of life acquire their sensual weight only when we acknowledge them for what they are. And with this mastered the greater lesson can be learned: that of finding the erotic essence in the most mundane of all acts. The fortuitous touch of a salesgirl handing back change to your open palm. The purchase of raw meat from the butcher at the grocery store. The exchange of glass bottles with the milkman. A furtive glance at revealed skin that is noticed by the revealer. These moments are sometimes rewarded with sex but to the great lover they are the reward itself. And so the laughter of a close friend is no less a function of foreplay than the pre-coupling of two desirous bodies. For just as love is the water of life, so too is life the water of love. The unspoken thought. The articulated word. The imagined utterance. The crossword puzzle. How to live so that these familiar trifles may acquire the burning element of eroticism that is inherent in all things? Discover that secret and you too will join the ranks of the great lovers!

Among community college instructors this is doubly so. For within the realm of higher learning eroticism is, and has always been, in all things. This is true of the committee meeting where voices drip with sensuality. And it is just as true of the well-attended accreditation briefing. And the focus group to discuss educational policy. It lies in the wayward fantasies for a supervisor across the desk — her words of supervision as sterile and cold as your thoughts for her are hot and specific. And of course it is the act of teaching itself. Can anything compare to the excitement of the first day of your first class, the first touch of a lover, the first glimpse of a new partner’s nakedness? It is no secret that eroticism prefers firsts. Yet should the experienced professor tremble any less at life’s excitements than does the novice experiencing them for the first time? Is there anything more erotic than the unbounded promise of youthful immortality and untouched flesh? Yes! And it is the bounded promise of mature flesh and remembered youth! Those who learn these lessons become the great lovers of the world; they are the world’s great faculty and the greatest experiencers of life. All of which is poignant and pregnant and a lesson that is not easily learned. Because the saddest mistake we can make is considering our life to be nothing more than the sex act itself, rather than the trembling anticipation that gives the act of loving its greater meaning.

(…)

*

Back in her truck, Bessie started up the engine and turned the heater as high as it would go. The air came out in a cold blast at first, then grew hotter, and as we drove along the empty highway, the inside of the windshield fogged up. Outside, the night was black and endless just beyond the headlights of the truck. Like the deepest depths of water. Or a view of the endless universe.

“I need to make a stop,” she said. “It’ll just take a minute.”

Bessie turned off the main road and took a left and then a right and then pulled off onto a gravel road leading to a dirt road that in turn led to a driveway where an old truck was propped up on blocks. Two children’s bicycles lay overturned on the dirt.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

Through the windshield I watched Bessie open the screen door of the house, quietly, and then enter. A dim light flickered on in one of the rooms and a silhouette passed by from one end to the other.

Sitting in dead silence, I felt my bladder swooshing and gurgling. Clearly there was something elemental I’d neglected to remember since arriving at Marsha’s studio at the Purlieus. And now it was too late. That particular river, like so many others, had passed me by. And if there was one thing I was learning — from my time at Cow Eye, from my many rides between desiccation and verdure and back again — it is that water goes where it wants to go; no matter the dam you build, no matter the levee you devise, it will flow at its own pace and in its own time until it reaches its destination. Just hold on a bit more, I told myself. It is very late and this long night is almost over.

Inside the house the light flicked off, and a few moments later Bessie came back outside and climbed up into the truck.

“Everything’s good,” she said, closing the truck’s door gently. “They’re sleeping.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said.

Bessie reversed out of the driveway and pulled back onto the dirt road. She drove a few hundred yards along dirt, then turned onto the gravel road leading back to the highway. But then, before we had reached the quiet of smooth asphalt, she turned off into a clearing and stopped, dust drifting in front of the head lights. Leaving the engine to idle, she looked over at me.

“Charlie,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I am receptive, Charlie.”

“You are?”

“Yes.”

“So am I.”

“Good. But I cannot have sex with you tonight. I hope you understand.”

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Bessie turned off the engine, then twisted the ignition back on to allow the radio to play. Fumbling with the tuner, she dialed in a station. There was a rasp and then a voice and then more rasp. On the AM radio station a country song was now playing softly. Outside the window the sky was clear and the moon was startling. Over the stillness of the night the rapturous sound of crickets could be heard in the distance. Bessie turned in the seat to face me. Through the windshield, the moonlight fell across her white blouse in rippling shadows, making it seem — if only in the haze of my mind — that the whole scene had been painted in stark black and white. Pure black. Pure white. Nothing but the unadulterated contrast of pure light and its absence.

“It is a beautiful moon,” I said.

“And the sky is clear,” said Bessie.

“The crickets are chirping,” I said.

“Rapturously,” she said.

“Shall I unfasten the buttons on your blouse?”

“If you don’t mind….”

“They are awfully far away.”

“It is not an impossible distance.”

“It isn’t. And yet it may be.”

“Charlie?”

“You see, a few hours ago I would have agreed with you, Bessie. Even a few minutes ago. But a lot has changed since then. A lot of beer has happened. And a lot of wine. Too much marijuana. And all of this adds up to ineffable change. Life, you see, is not the only thing that is tenuous….”

Bessie twisted closer to me:

“Do what you can….”

“I am trying my best under the circumstances. Believe me, I am trying. But the circumstances are truly daunting. The sleeves on my collared shirt are too long. And this stick shift that is halfway between us seems far closer to you than it is to me. But I’m trying, Bessie. I really am….”

“You’re almost there, Charlie. Don’t give up.”

“But Bessie, I’m… I’m afraid I can’t do it. The distance is just too great. And too fraught with meaning. Too redolent with metaphor. If your blouse is the frontier separating the world that is knowable from the world that is unknowable, and if the buttons are our futile attempts to leave a legacy of some sort, then surely this space between us — this unbridgeable gap between your nipples and my trembling hands — surely this is the moisture that teems within life itself. Surely there can be no finer metaphor for life’s love of the unknowable?”

“My moisture is not metaphorical.”

“I can sense that.”

“It is redolent. And life-affirming.”

“But it cannot help me now. For this distance is too eternal. The metaphor too heavy. I’m sorry, Bessie. I really am….”

In defeat I pulled back my hand and slumped back in my seat. Dejectedly I hung my head. Even the moon in all her feminine glory could not help me now.

“I’m sorry, Bessie,” I said. “I truly am. But this distance is just too great.”

*

But here Bessie spoke firmly:

“No, Charlie. That is not how this night will end. If the tips of my nipples were unknowable then it would be impossible for them to be known. In that case, the distance between your curiosity and their unknowability — the distance between my nipples and that slight bulge in your corduroys — would be as unconquerable as the space separating time from timelessness. Or conflict from conciliation. It would be as great as the distance between one edge of the universe to the other. And yes, it would be unassailable. But that has clearly not been the case with me. And that is clearly not the case now. And so it is done like this….”

With expert fingers Bessie undid the upper button of her blouse. From my vantage point across the truck’s seat I watched the button pop free, a triangle of pale skin appearing where the white of blouse had been. Enraptured, I watched as her fingers moved down to the next button, and then the next, the triangle of flesh growing with each freed button until the two flanks of her light white blouse hung down freely in front of her exposed bosom like two separate curtains newly opened to reveal the light of morning. Amid the daze of my darkness it was clear that I was now witnessing the very emanation of day.

“If the moon is a woman,” she said, reaching behind with both hands for the clasp of her bra, “then surely she controls the tides of your deepest desires.”

Unfastening the clasp, she pulled the bra out through her sleeve and placed it on the seat between us.

“And if these tides are water, then surely there can be no finer expression of desire than the river that connects the moisture from above to the moisture down below….”

By now the blouse had become bra and the bra had become skin. And as she leaned over the stick shift I felt the warmth of her cheek on my corduroys, her fingers tracing along my thigh until they had reached my second chakra, and in the startling moonlight I felt my mind succumbing to the rhythms of this night. The kundalini flowing upward like a serpent rising from his sleep. Like the tingling of a thousand waves of wine bubbling up. The warmth of candlelight. The smells of evergreen and incense. The creeping of a Bengali tiger over the snow of a Michigan winter. In my mind the colors and sounds and smells whirled together like a dust devil gathering itself before a rain. And as the kundalini rose through the chakras of my body I felt my heart screaming out for its release, the cosmic trembling of my oneness with the universe. The oncoming rush of infinite water. The relentless approach of a new semester. The ecstasy of a flooding tide. If ever there was a reason to rejoice then surely it was happening at this very instant. Surely this was the moment when my heart would find its soothing and the logic of my logical mind would finally come together with the moisture of my human body to become something — anything! — entirely.

“No,” I said over the waves welling up within me, and to the sounds coming up from below, “Love is not a thing to be feared. And it is not a thing to be approached tremulously. For no matter how unlikely it may seem, it can never be as unlikely as a thing that is absolutely impossible. And so love is not the tremulous approach of midnight. Or a Christmas party in March. Or a pendulum that never stops. It is not a rural college unable to achieve continuous improvement due to the realities of mathematical probability. It is not a river that ceases to run. Or waters that cannot find their home. It is not a dam where tiny rivulets trickle off the top like a thousand little….”

“Charlie!”

Bessie’s voice was startling amid the silent elation of my reverie. And so I continued:

“….where rivulets trickle like a thousand….”

“Charlie! Are you pissing in my mouth?!”

This too startled me.

“What?” I said.

“You heard me. Are you pissing in my mouth?!”

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“Charlie, you son of a bitch! You just pissed in my mouth!”

“I find that hard to believe, Bessie, I really do.”

“Jesus…!”

Bessie opened her heavy door and spat onto the ground outside. Now she was spitting and wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist.

“Bessie,” I said. “I understand your concern. But this does not sound like me at all. In fact, this would be totally out of character. I am an educational administrator, as you know. And so I’m sure there’s been some misunderstanding….”

Bessie slammed the door shut.

“I can’t believe you just pissed in my damn mouth! That’s a first…!”

“Bessie, I hear your insecurities here, and I accept them. But I find it highly unlikely that such a thing could have just occurred. Water, you see, always seeks its own level. And here on this front seat it is clearly not the case that your mouth is lower than my corduroys. So I would beg to differ with your interpretation of events….”

On the AM car radio one song had died out and another had begun. In the dim light Bessie was now dressing on the other side of the seat, fastening the buttons one by one — the promise of coming day now emanating inward like daybreak in reverse. Then she wiped her mouth a final time with the corner of her blouse and started up her truck.

“Anyway, you get the idea,” she said.

At the faculty housing complex Bessie parked her car in front of my building but did not open the door and did not turn off the engine. She did not dim down her lights. Across the distance between us we stared at the other’s silence. Finally it was I who spoke up:

“Thank you, Bessie,” I said — and I said this because in my stupor there was not much else that I could think to say. “Thank you for this night. And for taking me from one edge of the universe to the other. Even though I was unable to cross the threshold of either entirely, it was a journey well worth the wait. I couldn’t have visited them both without you….”

Bessie nodded and without saying another word drove off into the night. And with that this night of infinite discovery had come to its logical conclusion.

* * *

THE PROMISE OF DAWN

Except that it actually hadn’t. Back inside my apartment the sounds from the opposite side of the wall were still coming in pitiless waves of thumping music and breaking dishes and the screams of mathematical ecstasy. My head already aching from the night’s consumption, I listened for the sounds to die away. And when they did not I turned on the light in my room, made myself a pot of coffee on the stove, and drank it over my kitchen table. Still unable to sleep through the noise, and with nothing else to do, I took up my unfinished book from the table and continued reading at the exact place where I’d left off: to the rhythm of the thumping and to the shrieks coming through the wall, I read even deeper into The Anyman’s Guide to Love and the Community College. And when the two hours had passed I put on a new pair of corduroys, a stiff collared shirt, and a brown leather belt and headed off to work. Wearily, I made my way past the three lagoons to my building where the men cutting the grass out front smiled at my arrival; past Bessie, who greeted me at her desk dryly and professionally as if this day were just any other emanation; and into my awaiting office where the swinging pendulum of my predecessor was still in perfect motion between the alternate apexes of passion and perpetuity.

* * *