lectured to like this. I am not a malcontent. I am not a rebel. Neither word describes me, and I resent the use of either one of them, even if it’s only by implication that they were meant to apply to me. I have done nothing to deserve this lecture except to find a room in which I can devote myself to my studies without distraction and get the sleep I need to do my work. I have committed no infraction. I have every right to socialize or not to socialize to whatever extent suits me. That is the long and the short of it. I don’t care if the room is hot or cold—that’s my worry. I don’t care if it’s full of flies or not full of flies. That isn’t thepoint! Furthermore, I must call to your attention that your argument against Bertrand Russell was not an argument against his ideas based on reason and appealing to the intellect but an argument against his character appealing to prejudice, i.e., an ad hominem attack, which is logically worthless. Sir, I respectfully ask your permission to stand up and leave now because I am afraid I am going to be sick if I don’t.”
“Of course you may leave. That’s how you cope with all your difficulties, Marcus—you leave. Has that never occurred to you before?” With another of those smiles whose insincerity was withering, he added, “I’m sorry if I wasted your time.”
He got up from behind his desk and so, with his seeming consent, I got up from my chair as well, this time to go. But not without a parting shot to set the record straight. “Leaving is not how I cope with my difficulties. Think back only to my trying to get you to open your mind to Bertrand Russell. I strongly object to your saying that, Dean Caudwell.”
“Well, at least we got over the ‘sir,’ finally … Oh, Marcus,” he said as he was seeing me to the door, “what about sports? It says here you playedfor your freshman baseball team. So at least, I take it, you believe in baseball. What position?”
“Second base.”
“And you’ll be going out for our baseball team?”
“I played freshman ball at a very tiny city college back home. Virtually anybody who went out for the team made it. There were guys on that team, like our catcher and our first baseman, who didn’t even play high school ball. I don’t think I’d be good enough to make the team here. The pitching will be faster than I’m used to, and I don’t think choking up on the bat, the way I did for the freshman team back home, is going to solve my hitting problem at this level of competition. Maybe I could hold my own in the field, but I doubt I’d be worth much at the plate.”
“So what I understand you to be saying is that you’re not going out for baseball because of the competition?”
“ No, sir! ” I exploded. “I’m not going out for the team because I’m realistic about my chances of making the team! And I don’t want to waste the time trying when I have all this studying to do! Sir, I’m going to vomit. I told you I would. It’s not my fault. Here it comes—sorry!”
I vomited then, though luckily not onto the dean or his desk. Head down, I robustly vomited onto the rug. Then, when I tried to avoid the rug, I vomited onto the chair in which I’d been sitting, and, when I spun away from the chair, vomited onto the glass of one of the framed photographs hanging on the dean’s wall, the one of the Winesburg undefeated championship football team of 1924.
I hadn’t the stomach to do battle with the dean of men any more than I had the stomach to do battle with my father or with my roommates. Yet battle I did, despite myself.
T he dean had his secretary accompany me down the corridor to the door of the men’s room, where, once inside and alone, I washed my face and gargled with water that I cupped into my hands from beneath the spigot. I spat the water into the sink until I couldn’t taste a trace of vomit in my mouth or my throat, and then, using paper towels doused with hot water, I rubbed away as best
“Of course you may leave. That’s how you cope with all your difficulties, Marcus—you leave. Has that never occurred to you before?” With another of those smiles whose insincerity was withering, he added, “I’m sorry if I wasted your time.”
He got up from behind his desk and so, with his seeming consent, I got up from my chair as well, this time to go. But not without a parting shot to set the record straight. “Leaving is not how I cope with my difficulties. Think back only to my trying to get you to open your mind to Bertrand Russell. I strongly object to your saying that, Dean Caudwell.”
“Well, at least we got over the ‘sir,’ finally … Oh, Marcus,” he said as he was seeing me to the door, “what about sports? It says here you playedfor your freshman baseball team. So at least, I take it, you believe in baseball. What position?”
“Second base.”
“And you’ll be going out for our baseball team?”
“I played freshman ball at a very tiny city college back home. Virtually anybody who went out for the team made it. There were guys on that team, like our catcher and our first baseman, who didn’t even play high school ball. I don’t think I’d be good enough to make the team here. The pitching will be faster than I’m used to, and I don’t think choking up on the bat, the way I did for the freshman team back home, is going to solve my hitting problem at this level of competition. Maybe I could hold my own in the field, but I doubt I’d be worth much at the plate.”
“So what I understand you to be saying is that you’re not going out for baseball because of the competition?”
“ No, sir! ” I exploded. “I’m not going out for the team because I’m realistic about my chances of making the team! And I don’t want to waste the time trying when I have all this studying to do! Sir, I’m going to vomit. I told you I would. It’s not my fault. Here it comes—sorry!”
I vomited then, though luckily not onto the dean or his desk. Head down, I robustly vomited onto the rug. Then, when I tried to avoid the rug, I vomited onto the chair in which I’d been sitting, and, when I spun away from the chair, vomited onto the glass of one of the framed photographs hanging on the dean’s wall, the one of the Winesburg undefeated championship football team of 1924.
I hadn’t the stomach to do battle with the dean of men any more than I had the stomach to do battle with my father or with my roommates. Yet battle I did, despite myself.
T he dean had his secretary accompany me down the corridor to the door of the men’s room, where, once inside and alone, I washed my face and gargled with water that I cupped into my hands from beneath the spigot. I spat the water into the sink until I couldn’t taste a trace of vomit in my mouth or my throat, and then, using paper towels doused with hot water, I rubbed away as best
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