“Maybe you should teach here, Ron.”
“I do, but hardly anybody ever listens.”
12
“I think Arnold knows about us,” Carlinda said later that night.
She’d climbed over the back fence but had to ring the bell because John locked the door.
She was ecstatic over his presentation and told him that she had to make love to him so as not to fall in love.
“What makes you think he knows?” John asked.
“It was the way I was looking at you during the talk. That’s why he asked you that question. And later on, at the cafeteria, he said that we could do whatever I wanted in bed. I forgot it was Wednesday. All I wanted to do was get away so I could see you.”
“And he got suspicious?”
“He came to my room one night last week when Tamala was in Phoenix with her parents. He knew I wasn’t there and when he asked me where I spent the night I just didn’t answer. I don’t want to lie to him.”
“Huh,” John grunted. “Well if he wants me he’ll have to get on line.”
“I should probably stop seeing you.”
“Probably.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Why not? You say you love Arnold.”
“But I need you... right now anyway.”
Carlinda was gone when John woke up. That was 9:47 by the digital clock on the wall shelf next to his bed. He lay there feeling a little hungover but he hadn’t had a drink. The previous day’s talk was the best he could do and it certainly wasn’t enough. The history department would never accept his ideas.
It was time to move on.
There was another camel-colored envelope carelessly tossed on the kitchen table.
Dear Cornelius,
Your talk yesterday was impressive. Quite a few students recorded it and maybe it will go viral. People all over the country will see the crazy history professor who looks for his lessons inside a trash can. Do you think anyone will recognize you? Will this be your red flag?
You know you can’t run forever, hide indefinitely. The question is — how will you stand up to your fate? This is the only question that a man has to answer in the otherwise pointless ditherings of his existence.
John read the letter twice. He was struck by the notion that there might be just one important moment in any human’s life. This concept was somehow reassuring.
“Yes, Ms. Marman?” John said calling on Tamala at the Thursday afternoon seminar.
“Do you actually believe that a president and, let’s say... a carpenter have the same level of importance in history?”
“The Christians certainly do,” John replied. “But really... how can any historic figure stand up under the weight and the scrutiny of centuries? Once this individual becomes a legend what possibility do we have to truly understand him?”
“Or her,” Star Limner corrected.
“Or her,” John agreed. “We’re like crows attracted to shiny objects strewn in the desert. We collect these baubles and stand guard over them. One day we die and the trove is lost, possibly to be found again, totally transformed in the eyes of a new being.”
Seventy-five minutes passed with John answering and not answering students’ questions.
Finally he said, “What you must understand is that the most important history is your own. Right now, here in this pie-shaped classroom, you are building yourselves, tearing down walls and adding halls, digging into the firmament seeking foundation. And at any moment you may pack up and move on.”
After class John went to the back row of seats and turned one of the desk chairs to face the blue-tinted desert. He felt that he had reached a barrier and was about to pass through. It was time to leave the university, to escape the not-love of multiracial Carlinda, and the persona of John Woman. He wondered if the brown envelopes would find him in LA.
“Professor?”
It was Johann Malik.
“Mr. Malik. Office hours are from—”
“Four to six,” the dark-skinned, military-clad student said with a forced smile. “I know. I just came to see if you were okay. I mean, I was waiting for you at the door but you didn’t come out.”
“Yeah,” John said. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“I finally get it,” Johann said.
“What?”
“This deconstructing stuff. You’re takin’ away their claim to history and putting it back in the hands of the people. You’re tellin’ them that Lincoln was no better, no more important than a Chinese ditchdigger. They want to put their face on everything that ever happened but you stick a pin in that. That’s revolutionary shit.”
The young Race Man’s compliments, John realized, were probably true. His attempt at the demolition of the sanctity of historical interpretation would surely disrupt the hierarchy imposed by bankers, so-called scholars and political parties. It wasn’t John’s intention to politicize his teachings but, just as history cannot be known in its totality, neither can any individuals fully define their roles.
“Thank you, Mr. Malik. That means a lot.”
“You wanna go grab a beer?” Johann offered.
“Another time, my friend. Right now I have a few things to think about.”
Malik held out a hand and John shook it. Then the young activist walked away, leaving the phantom professor to plan his escape.
Departing Prometheus Hall, maybe for the last time, John wandered around the desert campus following a path of habit rather than intention. He ended up at the real-time time capsule at the main intersection in Parsonsville. The trash can had been emptied. The streets were crowded with university people and others.
John leaned against a lamppost at the corner, considering his escape. He needed a mode of transportation that could not be traced and the alternative identity papers stored away. What kind of work could he do now that he’d lost his name and education?
Maybe he’d become a gardener.
Gazing without focusing through the window of the upscale coffee shop across the street John wondered how many people around him were living hidden lives. They could be murderers or thieves, terrorists or the homosexual husbands of suburban trophy wives, Christians without faith or racists working for public welfare...
There was a copper-haired woman wearing black, standing at the delivery counter inside the coffee shop. Even though she was turned away she moved her head in a way that caught John’s attention. He dismissed the image and thought about bigamists and so-called illegals, of women who slept with their best friends’ sons and husbands — maybe with their daughters too.
Maybe keeping secrets is our most human quality, John mused.
The woman with the copper hair moved again, this time taking her paper cup to the condiment shelf. She dumped sugar in her coffee from a glass container: one, two, three shakes, then she stirred.
One, two, three.
Secrets abound.
One, two, three.
Shocked to awareness John focused on the woman. He could see only her profile but... it could have been.
Just then the woman started moving quickly toward the back of the coffee shop. John took a step into the street and a loud car horn made him jump. Cars were coming fast from up and down the four-lane artery. He braved the traffic while horns honked and brakes screeched.