The smell of my microwaved burrito turns sickeningly sweet. I throw it away and stare into the garbage. My mind scurries through a pile of thoughts — a man being stabbed, Frank e-mailing me, Frank coming to my office hours, what it would feel like to be stabbed in the stomach. I think the word “spleen” and feel like throwing up. I wonder if it would hurt, or would it just feel wrong and... final?
Too agitated to go to bed, I start cleaning the house. Things keep slipping more and more out of my control. If I could just get organized, I’d be able to think clearly. I do the dishes. I try to take out the garbage, but the bag rips when I remove it from the bin, leaving a pile of to-go containers and toilet paper rolls and coffee grounds on the kitchen floor. I can’t find another bag to collect the spilled garbage, so I shovel it into small plastic grocery bags which drip as I carry them to the bin outside. I mop up the drips with my last few paper towels and a handful of bunched-up toilet paper and give up on cleaning. I sit down to grade papers.
I wake up with my neck in knots. I’d drifted off sometime in the early morning with the lights on. Essays are scattered around my chair. A few are graded. I hear songbirds outside and a squirrel chirruping some argument. Through the window, cobwebs of fog are dissipating around the redwood branches. The sun is already up.
I check my phone. It’s 8:48, and I’ve missed my Cabrillo class. I call the division office and tell Ana Ling, the division assistant, that my car broke down on the way to campus. I hate lying to Ana, and her friendly voice over the phone makes me want to cry. For the first time this semester, I wish I were in my class teaching that day’s lesson on proper use of citations.
I take a long shower and make coffee before turning on my computer. In my e-mail is another message from Frank. This one says: Please call when you can earliest convenience. He includes his phone number.
I call. He answers with an out-of-breath, “Hello.”
“Hi, Frank.” I try to sound friendly and casual. “What’s going on?”
A low bass thumps in the background. A dog yaps. “Be quiet,” he calls out to — I assume — the dog, which keeps barking. “It’s just... so, I need some help,” he says. “You know how hard I’m trying to better myself, you know, for my family, and for being an example and everything, and, you know, getting out of the group and getting on with my life. I want to be a citizen, productive — so what I’m saying is, my probation officer, Ms. Johnson, she’s always on my ass — my butt, if you can excuse my language — and I need you to just tell her I haven’t missed any classes because of all of my medical emergencies — she doesn’t buy it even though I have doctors’ notes.”
I stare at the papers on the floor. “So you want me to lie to your probation officer?”
“Well, it’s not really lying because I have been in class when I’m not having a medical emergency. It’s just my stomach, I need to go to the bathroom with that, and I can’t come to school. But she doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m off doing something else. And I have to account for my time with her because of the level of supervisory situation I’m under with the probation office... Are you on campus right now? I can meet you to talk about this furthermore.”
I tell him about my car.
“Oh, yeah, I know, I saw you had that old Honda-Accord, 1992? I figured it wouldn’t last much longer. You need a new car? I can find you one, I know a guy.”
“No, I don’t need a new car. It’s just the steering.”
“Okay, you know, I have a buddy over on your side of the hill in Live Oak. He has a lot of cars he fixes up.” The dog erupts again into a scream of barks. “Baby,” he calls out to someone, “can you get her to shut up? Okay, sorry about that. So, I just need you to tell her the truth, tell her I’ve been a good student. Just don’t tell her I was absent.”
I leave my car with my mechanic in Felton and walk to the White Raven café. I feel dizzy and cold. My neck aches from sleeping in my chair and my fingers tingle. I wrap my sweater tightly around my chest. This is the first time all semester I’ve had time on my hands — time to kill. I laugh, because it really is a funny phrase.
I get a text from Frank: “Please remember what we discussed in this morning. And please keep my paper contents conference.” I assume he means “confidential.”
I pass a group of teenage girls huddling over a phone in front of Redwood Pizza. They’re wearing knotted hemp jewelry. One looks up and smiles. I see how I must look to her, so old, with my long gray hair wisping around my head, my baggy clothes. She has no idea that she’ll be old one day too, if she’s lucky. Like everyone else over fifty, I have been lucky.
I order a bagel and tea at the café. When I return to my table, I have a voice mail from Frank.
“Hi, Professor Janet—” I can hear the dog again in the background. It sounds like a poodle or a Maltese. “I was wondering if you could forward me the e-mail you send to Johnson so I can make sure she tells the truth about it. Sometimes she lies about — Hey, can you shut that dog up?” His voice is sharp and piercing.
I hear a woman mumble something softly, then a painful yelp.
“Yeah, sorry about that, so Johnson sometimes lies about me to her supervisors about what I’m doing, and I don’t want to get in any more trouble.” The barking turns into a whining with a pitiful rhythm to it, like the dog is trying to sound out words.
The White Raven is playing Peruvian pipe music, and the place smells like incense and French roast. The contrast between the world I’m sitting in and the one I just heard through my phone makes both seem unreal.
I take out my laptop and compose an e-mail to Lindsey Johnson:
Dear Ms. Johnson:
Frank Gonzalo is a student in my English 280 (Basic Writing Development) class. He is in good standing. Below are answers to your questions.
Has Mr. Gonzalo missed any classes?
No, Mr. Gonzalo has perfect attendance.
How would you characterize Mr. Gonzalo’s behavior as a student in your class?
Mr. Gonzalo is a good student.
Finally, do you have any concerns about Mr. Gonzalo that you would like to share?
I have no concerns about Mr. Gonzalo.
I send the e-mail, then copy and paste it into a separate message to Frank. I don’t want to risk forwarding it and having him accidentally reply to Lindsey Johnson. I check my sent mail to make sure both went out. Relief. This is not my problem. Frank’s story is not my story. I have my own life to deal with.
I call my mechanic for an update. The repair will cost $360. I’m down this semester to seven classes from my usual eight, and my credit card balance has crept above $4,000, close to my limit. I start calculating the rest of the month. I get paid again in six days, and I should still have a couple of hundred left in credit after I pay for my car. And there’s a little cushion left in checking if I pay my PG&E late.
I eat my bagel and order a salad. For the first time today, I’m famished. Before I leave the café, I get a cookie.
On the way home from my afternoon class, I check the mailbox at the base of our driveway. There’s an overdue notice for my Visa, though I’m sure I paid it online. There is also a white envelope with my address lettered in gold. Inside is a Safeway gift card for $200 and a note that says, “Thank you for you’re help. Sincerely, Frank.”