John Woman, page 23
“Go on back to your dorm, Pete,” John said. “You did good.”
“Maybe I’ve done it all wrong,” John said after Pete had gone.
He was talking to, or at least looking at, the discarded bat in the corner next to the empty chair.
His father’s Chapman Lorraine was Jimmy Grimaldi and his Excalibur a heart brave enough to stand unarmed against an unbeatable foe.
John read the same books as Herman, had tried his best to disappear into stories that were both true and indecipherable. But rather than a king in exile he’d become a kind of Tallyrand agitating between the ruling classes, the workers and the revolutionists. Where Herman had been heroic John was just a scarecrow, forgotten in a barren field that had once been flush and fruitful.
Remembering that true self-abnegation was possible only for a man willing to die he replaced the knife and took from the drawer a yellow legal pad and a number two pencil. It took hours to write, erase, write again, reject and finally decide upon the first few words of his second Deck Rec lecture. He didn’t trust himself to deliver an impromptu talk this time. His life had been a long series of spontaneous acts—it was time for a change.
We have come here today not to be lectured to or addressed but rather to look into ourselves and see what it is that makes us possible. After writing these words Professor John Woman sat back in his chair and read them over and over until he was satisfied that this was the right beginning for the rest of his life.
18
JOHN SPENT THE NIGHT at his Prometheus Hall office, writing.
There were so many cross-outs and erasures that at around three in the morning he redrafted the speech. As he rewrote, new ideas formed. What he had written lost its power, so he was compelled to begin again. A few minutes past six he began practicing the speech, making notes and rewording, changing sentence structures and adding asides. By eight he was finished. An hour later he lay down on the hard floor behind his desk and slept. A dream brought him to the secret room in the projectionist’s booth. He became Chapman Lorraine sealed away, nearly forgotten. In that stasis there was no guilty conscience or demonic elation. He simply took Lorraine’s place for a short while, affording his victim some relief.
When John awoke he felt stiff but exonerated. He’d done penance for the murder and accepted that he and his father were not the same. They loved each other but these loves did not encompass a singularity. They were different men: Herman a teacher and Cornelius an unaffiliated samurai. The elder Jones suffered the curse of physical weakness with superior moral strength in a world that sneered at the first and could not believe the second. John was a trickster, a coyote gratefully licking the bloody wounds of his savior.
On the walk over to Deck Rec John noticed flimsy yellow flags flapping in the breezes around the damning broadsides. It wasn’t until he investigated that he remembered the assignment he gave the two hundred or so attendees of the previous day’s class.
One sheet read:
I threw my cat from the roof of my parents’ house when I was five and angry that they wouldn’t let me ride my bike around the block. The cat, Puddin, didn’t die but I knew that I had tried to kill her. I had sex with my mother’s best friend, Dora N., when she was taking me to visit a college. My mother was supposed to take me but she had strep throat and Dora stood in. I cheat whenever I can on tests and schoolwork. I need the grades so that I can get student aid.
I have no excuses but at least I know that I am wrong.
The fourth confession was more cogent:
I did a hit and run when I was drunk one time. The guy didn’t die and he got better, pretty much. I should have turned myself in but I didn’t and now it’s too late to do anything about it.
The sixteenth revelation made John stop and think:
I steal. Whenever I can get away with it I take things that don’t belong to me. It could be a framed picture or change off somebody’s desk, an iPod or a pair of shoes. I once took a very expensive vase from the apartment of a house I’d only been to once. I unlocked the back door when I was there in the daytime and came in that night when the guy that lived there was asleep. He was my boyfriend’s best friend so I knew him pretty well. I was scared I might get caught. After, I went right home and fucked my boyfriend hard.
I keep the things I take in a chest in a secret place and visit them sometimes. I think I’m wrong but I can’t help it. And, anyway, nobody gets hurt that bad.
There were hundreds of sheets tacked, pinned and pasted to the walls and trees, announcement boards and lampposts near the broadsides: many more confessions than there had been people in the class.
John realized that his assignment had started an instant craze among students who were already deeply disturbed by the allegations against their professors.
Very few were out and about on the campus that day. John could hear the whisper of sheets in the breeze calling out to whoever would listen: testaments of young people finally able to admit secrets that were worms in their hearts.
“Professor,” Theron James called when John came through the automatic doors of the student recreation center.
“Dean James,” said the deconstructionist killer.
“Are you ready?” James asked, taking John by the arm.
“Absolutely.”
This was the first time he and the dean had touched except to shake hands. The intimacy was the broad-shouldered academician’s way of explaining the importance of the situation.
“The president will be introducing you,” James said.
“I thought this was Eubanks’s show?”
“It was decided that since she was listed on the broadside her introducing you might taint the way people heard your words,” Theron said guiding John by the elbow. “There are monitors set up throughout the center, in the library and in all the offices. Almost everyone on campus will hear you.”
“And the Platinum Path?” John asked.
Theron stopped, his fingers clenching John’s biceps. The scarred scholar looked his protégé in the eye and said, “Yes … that’s right.”
They continued their walk toward the auditorium.
John noticed that the aisles and halls of the recreation center were crowded with people. Students and faculty, administrators and maintenance staff were standing around talking and watching.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m going to say?” John asked Theron as they approached the closed doors of the auditorium.
“Certainly not.”
“Why?”
“This is your battle to win or lose, Professor Woman. I wouldn’t dare interfere.”
Saying this, the dean knocked on the auditorium door. A burly student looked out, then admitted James and his charge. John recognized the big sophomore, he’d taken D-History 101 in John’s first semester at NUSW.
“Carlyle,” John said, reaching for the name. “Francis Carlyle.”
The glowering student suddenly smiled.
“Glad you’re doing this, Professor,” he said. “People need something to hang on to.”
Down toward the stage, on the right side of the center row, sat the college president and Willie Pepperdine. Luckfeld wore an off-white gabardine suit and Willie a close-fitting midnight blue sports coat and jeans. His yellow shirt was buttoned to the neck but he wore no tie.
When John and Theron approached both men stood.
“Glad you decided to do this, John,” Luckfeld said holding out a welcoming hand.
Willie patted John’s shoulder. “I’m surprised Eubanks had the smarts to deal you in.”
“She didn’t have much choice,” John said.
“We were thinking that you should wait backstage until the room fills,” Luckfeld suggested. “I’ll do the introduction and then you can come out.”
“I don’t think so,” John countered. “I should be up onstage waiting for them and then, when everyone is seated, I’ll just get into it.”
“That sounds right,” Luckfeld agreed after a moment’s meditation, “more immediate.”
“One thing, Colin,” John said to the president.
“What’s that?”
“Any truth to these allegations?”
“No,” he said, with a grin. “Not a one.”
John nodded and moved toward the side-stair that led up to the stage.
This time there was an oak lectern again but no table or Containment Report trunk; no three-screen slide show or slow-moving message from Brother of George.
John took his place behind the lectern and said aloud, “You can let them in,” to the four young men who had taken their places at the doors.
As the audience filed down the aisles John thought about the walk across campus, the yellow confession sheets, Chapman Lorraine (of course), his father and how Detective Colette Margolis would wrestle him to the floor in a secret room the police kept for recreation. He wondered how he had maintained sanity in a life that was almost completely separate from the world in which he lived.
People made their way among the aisles and pews. There were students alongside the faculty and others. A few men and women with telephoto cameras stood at the back of the auditorium and a student camera crew was there to film the talk.
When a shadow moved above his head John saw a microphone boom lowering. It was like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle dropped into place at the end of a rainy afternoon.
The obedient audience went directly to their seats in hushed anticipation.
He looked out upon the thousand and more faces and the hush turned to silence.
“We have come here today not to be lectured to or addressed but rather to look inside ourselves to see what it is that makes us possible,” John said without referring to the speech that was still folded in his breast pocket. “That’s how I was going to start this address, with words that were smart and vague enough to be a balm for the problems that bring us here, words to deflect the recriminations brought to bear on the walls and halls of this institution. If I could get us to look at our own needs and failings then maybe we could forget.
“But in truth we will not disremember anything or absolve anyone. Human beings hold grudges long past their expiration dates. They wage wars in the names of their great-great-grandfathers and over borders long ago redrawn, yelling out battle cries in languages that are not the tongues of the original combatants.
“We are, all of us, ready to hate and fight back. We despise in free form, casting our gaze from one poor victim to the next. Thieves, child molesters, murderers and liars fill social media platforms and newspapers, TV reports, talk radio and rumor. We remember who murdered Julius Caesar and Archduke Franz Ferdinand. We hate people even after they have died and this spite lives on past our own deaths.”
John stopped for a moment to look at his audience.
“We tell ourselves that we are better, that we would stand up against oppression and die for the rights of our fellow citizens. Most of us wouldn’t but even if we did who would profit by it? Our fates were written long ago in our stars, our trilling blood. There’s no escape, no justice, no respite.
“We have seen on shiny, indestructible yellow posters the accusations against members of our community. If you believe what they say, our university is a den of thieves, especially the professorial class. But how could this be true? Even if you forget that every employee of this school is vetted by the institution, the state, and the departments they serve. Even if you forget that the first rule of law in this United States is innocent until proven guilty. Even if you ignore the fact that you have been given no proof of wrongdoing—still it is unbecoming of you and the perpetrators of this assault to question a fellow traveler who, through no fault of his or her own, is following the same mortal and imperfect path as the rest of us.”
The written speech now forgotten, John stopped again to look from side to side. The origin of this talk brought a smile to his lips. He was a killer, a guilty man defending the accused. The contradictions felt right.
“Are the allegations true?” he asked. “Of course not but the issue is not resolved by this answer. The problem is not innocence or guilt but the poison of suspicion. We, the lifeblood of this institution, have been poisoned by faceless, voiceless charges. This is terrible but not a permanent problem because there is a three-pronged cure: cold logic, bright hope and personal truth.
“I slept most of the day on the hard floor behind my desk after a long night of preparing for this address. When I woke up I walked here. The campus was empty because everyone was already here or sitting in front of a screen somewhere. On the way I saw hundreds of confessions penned by students learning humility by revealing their own truths and failings. Rather than leave the indictments to stand alone they put up their own confessions and shortcomings because this juxtaposition is the closest we will ever come to forgiveness.
“We cannot know, understand or, ultimately, judge history. In the same vein we cannot know, understand or judge another human being’s soul. We can never be sure of what went before. Certainly we must strive for truth; but that’s all we can do—strive. And even though these accusations are baseless we do know that we have done things that we’re not proud of, that might be seen as wrong. We recognize guilt because we are all guilty. That’s what the Bible tells us; the Old Testament that is the foundation for many of the warring religions of today.”
John exhaled and didn’t take a breath for a few seconds.
“That said,” he continued, “this event is a good thing. We do not naturally seek truth in ourselves. We don’t want to be faced with our mortality, limited awareness or inferiority, or God’s wrath. We’d much rather inebriate ourselves and condemn, get high on carnal pleasures, hone our fears and guilt into barbs and arrows aimed at our fellows. But every now and then we see our reflections in some glass. At that moment we see that we are the enemy. This is the only truth that abides. Those yellow posters are that glass. These baseless claims echo in our lives.
“Poisoned by suspicion we see ourselves, and if we take the time to work through this convoluted and spiny reaction we might see the hope of building a community of conscience and character.
“We know the charges against us. We know that if the truth came out it would take us along with it. We know about silence. That’s what the broadsides are telling us. And so if we wait a moment before condemning others we might find absolution and breathe easier.”
John took in a great draft of air. He was ready to continue the oration but found that there were no more words to say. For a moment he was confused by this unexpected dead end.
Finally he nodded slightly and made his way down to the first row of seats.
“Thank you, Professor Woman,” Theron James said over the microphone. Somehow he had made it to the stage. “We appreciate your hard work and good words. We will take your talk with us through this difficult time.”
There was some applause and then the hushed rustle of people rising and filing out.
A few people shook his hand muttering words he didn’t understand. He was thinking about the sudden loss of language and the feeling of release that came with it.
“John,” someone said stridently.
Ira Carmody was standing before him, his bearing assertive, even aggressive. John remembered that Ira was a black belt in something. Looking to the left he saw Pepperdine watching closely.
The angry professor’s hand jutted out and John took it. They shook, nodded and then released. Before John could say any more Annette Eubanks rushed forward and took him by both hands.
“That was beautiful,” she said. “And true.”
19
WALKING UP THE STAIRS to his apartment John wondered if Carlinda would be waiting there. When he came in she was sitting at the small kitchen table.
Feeling a wrenching spasm in his chest John said, “Mom?”
At first she just looked at him with equal measures of mirth, wonder and something triumphant. No longer youthful, Lucia Napoli still maintained an aura of beauty. She wore a brown dress with images of violet ribbons writhing upon it. When she stood her breast expanded with an emotion they shared.
She was barefoot: at home in her son’s desert hideout.
Tears flooded her eyes. They came together kissing each other’s faces. Then, gently pushing him away, she said, “I have to get a Kleenex.”
She lifted a green purse from the kitchen table taking out a tissue and lowered into the chair, dabbing her nose and eyes.
“Sit, CC. Sit.”
“Mom?”
“That was the first word you ever said. You were eighteen months and followed me everywhere. If you turned around and couldn’t see me you would holler.”
“You’re really here?” her grown son asked.
“And then one day instead of crying you said, ‘Mom,’ and then a whole lotta baby talk. Your father called it gabbling.”
“I don’t understand,” John said, thinking of his mother and his father together.
“Sit.”
“I saw you in Parsonsville but I knew it wasn’t really you. I wanted it to be so bad but, but … you have the same red hair.”
“Sit, CC.”
Overwhelmed by the impossible appearance of Lucia his mind recoiled toward Herman. He tried to imagine what history would say about his mother’s magical reentry into his life.
History, he wrote later that day, is what is left after all living memory is erased … A living, breathing datum—like my mother for instance—is outside history: an undigested record, a preformed fact …
“Sit,” Lucia said again.
John nodded, moving to the chair opposite her.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you that. I mean I was staying in Phoenix for a while before coming here. I was in town one day.”
“You can’t tell me because of the gangster?”
“Filo and I got married six years ago. He’s really a very wonderful man, CC. He was only in with those terrible men because that was all he knew. But that life is behind him now.” With these words she was finished talking about her secret life. “How are you?”
