There was clutter everywhere. I hadn’t bothered redecorating, not so much because I wanted to honor my mentor as most believed but because, one, I was lazy and really couldn’t be bothered; two, I didn’t really have a personal style or family photographs to put up and didn’t really care for that “the office is a reflection of the man” nonsense or if I did, then this indeed was the man; and three, I always found clutter to be conducive to individual expression. There is something about sterility and organization that inhibits spontaneity in a student. Clutter seems to welcome free expression from my students-the environment is already muddled and messed, they seem to think, so what further harm could my ridiculous ideas do to it?
But mostly it was because I was lazy and couldn’t be bothered.
We both stood from the big oak table and shook hands. She held mine a second longer than she had to so I disengaged intentionally fast. No, this doesn’t happen all the time. But it does happen. I’m thirty-five now, but when I first started here-the young professor in his twenties-it happened more often. Do you remember that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where one student wrote “LOVE YOU” on her eyelids? Something like that happened to me in my first semester. Except the first word wasn’t “LOVE” and the second word had been switched from “YOU” to “ME.” I don’t flatter myself about it. We professors are in a position of fairly immense power. The men who fall for this or believe that they are somehow worthy of such attention (not to be sexist, but it was almost always men) are usually more insecure and needy than any daddy-issued coed one might happen upon.
As I sat down and waited for the next student to arrive, I glanced at the computer on the right side of the table. The college’s home screen was up. The page was typically collegiate, I guess. On the left, there was a slideshow of college life, students of all races, creeds, religions, and genders having a studiously good time, interacting with one another, with professors, extracurricular activities, you get the idea. The banner on the top featured the school’s logo and most recognizable buildings, including prestigious Johnson Chapel, a large-scale version of the chapel where I had watched Natalie get married.
On the right part of the screen, there was a college newsfeed and now, as Barry Watkins, the next student on the sign-up sheet, entered the room and said, “Yo, Prof, how’s it hanging?” I spotted an obituary in the feed that made me pause.
“Hey, Barry,” I said, eyes still on the screen. “Take a seat.”
He did so, throwing his feet up on the table. He knew that I didn’t care. Barry came every week. We talked about everything and nothing. His visits were more watered-down therapy than anything in the realm of academia, but again that was perfectly okay with me.
I took a closer look at the monitor. What had made me pause was the stamp-size photograph of the deceased. I didn’t recognize him-not at that distance-but he looked young. In a way, that was not unusual for the obituaries. Many times the college, rather than securing a more recent photograph, would scan in the deceased’s yearbook photograph, but here, even at a quick glance, I could see that this was not the case. The hairstyle wasn’t something from, say, the sixties or seventies. The photograph wasn’t in black-and-white either, something the yearbook had been up until 1989.
Still we are a small college, four hundred or so students per class. Death was not uncommon, but maybe because of the size of the school or my close affiliation as both a student and member of the faculty I always felt somewhat personally involved when someone from here died.
“Yo, Teach?”
“One second, Barry.”
I was now infringing on his clock time. I use a portable scoreboard timer, the kind you see in basketball gyms all over this country, with giant red digital numbers. A friend had given it to me as a gift, assuming because of my size that I must have played hoops. I hadn’t, but I loved the clock. Since it was set to automatically count down from nine minutes, I could see now that we were on 8:49.
I clicked on the small photograph. When the larger one came up, I managed to hold back the gasp.
The name of the deceased was Todd Sanderson.
I had blocked Todd’s last name from my memory-the wedding invite had just said “Todd and Natalie’s Nuptials!”-but, man, I knew the face. Gone was the hip stubble. He was clean-shaven here, his hair closer to a buzz cut. I wondered whether that was Natalie’s influence-she had always complained that my stubble irritated her skin-and then I wondered why I would be thinking about something so asinine.
“The clock is ticking, Teach.”
“One second, Barry. And don’t call me Teach.”
Todd’s age was listed as forty-two. That was a little older than I expected. Natalie was thirty-four, just a year younger than me. I had figured that Todd would be closer to our age. According to the obituary, Todd had been an all-league tight end on the football team and a Rhodes Scholar finalist. Impressive. He had graduated summa cum laude from the history department, had founded a charity called Fresh Start, and during his senior year, he had been president of Psi U, my fraternity.
Todd was not only an alumnus of my school but we had both pledged the same fraternity. How had I not known any of that?
There was more, a lot more, but I skipped down to the last line:
Funeral services are Sunday in Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina, near Savannah, Georgia. Mr. Sanderson is survived by his wife and two children.
Two children?
“Professor Fisher?”
There was something funny in Barry’s voice. “Sorry, I was just-”
“No, man, don’t be. You okay though?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“You sure? You look pale, man.” Barry dropped his sneakers to the floor and put his hands on the desk. “Look, I can come back another time.”
“No,” I said.
I turned away from the monitor. It would have to wait. Natalie’s husband had died young. That was sad, yes, tragic even, but it had nothing to do with me. It was not a reason to cancel work or inconvenience my students. It had thrown me for a loop, of course- not only Todd dying but the fact that he had gone to my alma mater. That was a somewhat bizarre coincidence, I guess, but not exactly an earth-shattering revelation.
Maybe Natalie simply liked Lanford men.
“So what’s up?” I asked Barry.
“Do you know Professor Byrner?”
“Sure.”
“He’s a total tool.”
He was, but I wouldn’t say that. “What seems to be the issue?”
I hadn’t seen a cause of death in the obituary. The campus ones often didn’t have one. I would look again later. If it wasn’t in there, maybe I could find a more complete obituary online.
Then again, why would I want to learn more? What difference did it make?
Best to stay away from this.
Either way it would have to wait for office hours to end. I finished up with Barry and kept going. I tried to push thoughts of the obituary aside and focus on my remaining students. I was off my game, but the students were oblivious. Students cannot imagine that professors have real lives in the same way they can’t imagine their parents having sex. On one level, that was fine. On another, I constantly remind them to look past themselves. Part of the human condition is that we all think that we are uniquely complex while everyone else is somewhat simpler to read. That is not true, of course. We all have our own dreams and hopes and wants and lust and heartaches. We all have our own brand of crazy.
My mind drifted. I watched the clock trudge slowly forward as if I were the most bored student in the most boring class. When five o’clock came I headed back to the computer monitor. I brought up Todd Sanderson’s obituary in full.
Nope, no cause of death was given.
Curious. Sometimes there was a hint in the suggested donation area. It will say in lieu of flowers please make a donation to the American Cancer Society or something like that. But nothing was listed. There was also no mention of Todd’s occupation, but again, so what?