The Faculty Club

16

When the weekend arrived, I realized I had no friends. Nigel and John had avoided me all week. I couldn’t even think of Daphne without remembering the other night outside her house and cringing. In the first months of school, I hadn’t bothered to spend time with anyone else.

I went to the library. I decided to start from the beginning. I opened my Torts book, and it was suddenly clear that it was an impossible task. We were hundreds of pages deep into every class. Exams were in two weeks. Most people were reviewing now. And I was on page one. Humpty Dumpty ruled over the library; tonight, I didn’t see him in the flesh, but his ghost was here. The specter of failure.

I felt someone watching me. It was one of the librarians, a painfully shy little man who always looked down and never said a word to anyone. He was more ruffled and ignored than half the books. He saw me looking and went back to stamping returns.

After a while I couldn’t take it and went to the Idle for a drink and cheap dinner. A pretty girl sat next to me at the bar. I was lonely. She made me think of the neurosurgeon who spilled her oranges in the yard. “How’s it going?” I asked. She mumbled an uninterested “Fine” and looked back to her friends.

“Let me show you,” said a voice behind me, as two large hands fell on my shoulders. John Anderson walked around to another of the girls. He was a foot taller than her. He gave a magical smile. “How’s it going?” he said amiably. “Good,” she said, “how are you?” “Good.” He grinned. One of the other girls smiled back. “Hey,” she said, “my friend just got her glasses today. Don’t they look sexy?” He laughed and agreed. I threw some money down and started to leave.

“See,” John said. “It’s not what you say. It’s who says it.”

“Fuck you,” I said.

“No, fuck you. I never liked you.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. I shrugged him off and walked away.

I saw him go back into the main bar, where he joined Nigel and Daphne. He put his arm around Daphne. He kissed the top of her head.

Something bad was turning in my brain. I walked the campus. All those images: greatness, Daphne, money-all gone. I hated John. I hated Daphne. I hated the V &D. I passed the red-bricked dormitories with cannon marks from the Revolutionary War. I passed the gothic Centennial Church, the renaissance porticoes of Creighton Hall, the statue of our founder, handsome and proud. I hated this place, but it was beautiful. I hated it because it was beautiful.

I wasn’t tired, and I was sick of feeling sorry for myself, so I went back to the library. I found an empty floor. I opened the Torts book to page one and started reading again. The case was Scott v. Shepherd. The defendant had thrown a lit firecracker into a crowded indoor market. A surprised vendor picked it up and lobbed it away from himself to another part of the market. Another vendor picked it up and lobbed it again. Finally, it struck the plaintiff (you have to love old English) “in the face therewith” and exploded. The question was, who caused the injury: The initial thrower? One of the intervening lobbers? It occurred to me that since I’d come to this place, I hadn’t caused a thing. I’d just been swept along.

The shy little librarian passed by, pushing his cart. He must have been on night owl reshelving duty. He took books from empty carrels and placed them on his cart. He grabbed two books off my desk.

“Um, excuse me,” I called after him. “I still need those.”

He stopped, made a big production of turning around and rolling over to me. He set the books back on my desk and rolled the cart away.

There was a piece of paper sticking out from one of the books. It hadn’t been there before.

I pulled it out and looked at it.

It was an article. The word DRAFT was typed across the top. Someone had written in pencil below: Come on, can’t you make me sound a little more impressive? -HJM.

I was surprised to see a picture of the man I met at the first V &D event, the retired lawyer with the bad red toupee. The one who wanted to talk about my grandfather, then blindsided me by knowing all about me.

The picture showed the same face: friendly, a thick rug of hair slightly off-kilter.

I read the text below the picture and froze. I felt my blood run cold. I looked for the librarian, but he was gone.

I was alone on the floor.

Below the picture, the article began:

Henry James Morton, retired law professor and

chief White House counsel under presidents

Kennedy and Johnson, passed away peacefully

in his sleep on November 20, 2006.

November 20, 2006.

That was in two days.