brilliant, too, in getting the goods on a person whose ideas were criminal. I didn’t know yet that her Rhodes Scholar father, a Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton, had put her up to this. I thought she had noted her father’s conviction, often expressed in his columns and on his TV show, and no doubt at home, that a few teachers who secretly hated their country were making young people lose faith in its future and leadership.
I thought that, just on her own, she had resolved to find such a villain and get him fired, proving that she wasn’t so dumb, after all, and that she was really Daddy’s little girl.
Wrong.
“Kimberley,” I said, as an alternative to throwing her out the window, “this is ridiculous.”
Wrong.
“ALL RIGHT,” I said, “we’re going to settle this in a hurry.”
Wrong.
I would stride into the Trustees’ meeting, I thought, shoulders squared, and radiant with righteous indignation, the most popular teacher on campus, and the only faculty member who had medals from the Vietnam War. When it comes right down to it, that is why they fired me, although I don’t believe they themselves realized that that was why they fired me: I had ugly, personal knowledge of the disgrace that was the Vietnam War.
None of the Trustees had been in that war, and neither had Kimberley’s father, and not one of them had allowed a son or a daughter to be sent over there. Across the lake in the prison, of course, and down in the town, there were plenty of somebody’s sons who had been sent over there.
12
I MET JUST 2 people when I crossed the Quadrangle to Samoza Hall. One was Professor Marilyn Shaw, head of the Department of Life Sciences. She was the only other faculty member who had served in Vietnam. She had been a nurse. The other was Norman Everett, an old campus gardener like my grandfather. He had a son who had been paralyzed from the waist down by a mine in Vietnam and was a permanent resident in a Veterans Administration hospital over in Schenectady.
The seniors and their families and the rest of the faculty were having lunch in the Pavilion. Everybody got a lobster which had been boiled alive.
I NEVER CONSIDERED making a pass at Marilyn, although she was reasonably attractive and unattached. I don’t know why that is. There may have been some sort of incest taboo operating, as though we were brother and sister, since we had both been in Vietnam.
She is dead now, buried next to the stable, in the shadow of Musket Mountain when the Sun goes down. She was evidently hit by a stray bullet. Who in his right mind would have taken dead aim at her?
Remembering her now, I wonder if I wasn’t in love with her, even though we avoided talking to each other as much as possible.
MAYBE I SHOULD put her on a very short list indeed: all the women I loved. That would be Marilyn, I think, and Margaret during the first 4 years or so of our marriage, before I came home with the clap. I was also very fond of Harriet Gummer, the war correspondent for The Des Moines Register, who, it turns out, bore me a son after our love affair in Manila. I think I felt what could be called love for Zuzu Johnson, whose husband was crucified. And I had a deep, thoroughly reciprocated, multidimensioned friendship with Muriel Peck, who was a bar-tender at the Black Cat Café the day I was fired, who later became a member of the English Department.
End of list.
Muriel, too, is buried next to the stable, in the shadow of Musket Mountain when the Sun goes down.
Harriet Gummer is also dead, but out in Iowa.
Hey, girls, wait for me, wait for me.
I DON’T EXPECT to break a world’s record with the number of women I made love to, whether I loved them or not. As far as I am concerned, the record set by Georges Simenon, the French mystery writer, can stand for all time. According to his obituary in The New York Times, he copulated with 3 different women a day for years and years.
MARILYN SHAW AND I
I thought that, just on her own, she had resolved to find such a villain and get him fired, proving that she wasn’t so dumb, after all, and that she was really Daddy’s little girl.
Wrong.
“Kimberley,” I said, as an alternative to throwing her out the window, “this is ridiculous.”
Wrong.
“ALL RIGHT,” I said, “we’re going to settle this in a hurry.”
Wrong.
I would stride into the Trustees’ meeting, I thought, shoulders squared, and radiant with righteous indignation, the most popular teacher on campus, and the only faculty member who had medals from the Vietnam War. When it comes right down to it, that is why they fired me, although I don’t believe they themselves realized that that was why they fired me: I had ugly, personal knowledge of the disgrace that was the Vietnam War.
None of the Trustees had been in that war, and neither had Kimberley’s father, and not one of them had allowed a son or a daughter to be sent over there. Across the lake in the prison, of course, and down in the town, there were plenty of somebody’s sons who had been sent over there.
12
I MET JUST 2 people when I crossed the Quadrangle to Samoza Hall. One was Professor Marilyn Shaw, head of the Department of Life Sciences. She was the only other faculty member who had served in Vietnam. She had been a nurse. The other was Norman Everett, an old campus gardener like my grandfather. He had a son who had been paralyzed from the waist down by a mine in Vietnam and was a permanent resident in a Veterans Administration hospital over in Schenectady.
The seniors and their families and the rest of the faculty were having lunch in the Pavilion. Everybody got a lobster which had been boiled alive.
I NEVER CONSIDERED making a pass at Marilyn, although she was reasonably attractive and unattached. I don’t know why that is. There may have been some sort of incest taboo operating, as though we were brother and sister, since we had both been in Vietnam.
She is dead now, buried next to the stable, in the shadow of Musket Mountain when the Sun goes down. She was evidently hit by a stray bullet. Who in his right mind would have taken dead aim at her?
Remembering her now, I wonder if I wasn’t in love with her, even though we avoided talking to each other as much as possible.
MAYBE I SHOULD put her on a very short list indeed: all the women I loved. That would be Marilyn, I think, and Margaret during the first 4 years or so of our marriage, before I came home with the clap. I was also very fond of Harriet Gummer, the war correspondent for The Des Moines Register, who, it turns out, bore me a son after our love affair in Manila. I think I felt what could be called love for Zuzu Johnson, whose husband was crucified. And I had a deep, thoroughly reciprocated, multidimensioned friendship with Muriel Peck, who was a bar-tender at the Black Cat Café the day I was fired, who later became a member of the English Department.
End of list.
Muriel, too, is buried next to the stable, in the shadow of Musket Mountain when the Sun goes down.
Harriet Gummer is also dead, but out in Iowa.
Hey, girls, wait for me, wait for me.
I DON’T EXPECT to break a world’s record with the number of women I made love to, whether I loved them or not. As far as I am concerned, the record set by Georges Simenon, the French mystery writer, can stand for all time. According to his obituary in The New York Times, he copulated with 3 different women a day for years and years.
MARILYN SHAW AND I
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