Chapter 6

June 2

The phones in the Native American Center were still hooked up. When I'd said goodbye to Dana a few days earlier I had resolved not to call her, to leave it as a clean break. But the problem with resolving not to do something is that you must continue not to do it each and every moment of each and every day for the rest of your time upon this planet. It's so much easier to resolve to do something, then just do it and be done with it. Faced with this daunting prospect, I gave in and dialed.
 There was a moral issue to be considered here as well, since there are those who might regard placing long-distance calls on someone else's tab a crime of sorts. I believe it's called stealing. But as I am one of those fortunate people who is religious on those occasions when religion suits me--impending death, forgot to study for an exam, that sort of thing--and I saw an ethical opening. I concluded that there was a God, and that he had taken time out from his busy schedule of appearing in visions and conversing with televangelists to provide me with this opportunity to call my girlfriend. And if an omnipotent deity is willing to go to that much trouble for me, then it really would be a sin not to call. 
 Dana and I made the usual conversation that people who were once intimate make after one has escaped. I tried to put the best face on the situation. "Yea, I've got Dave here as assistant caretaker. You met Dave at my party, I think."
 "Sure. He's the one who warned me that you weren't as much of a jerk as I might have heard," said Dana. She was at her parent's home in New York for a few days while she went through One Planet's intensive Spanish-Guyana orientation program at their Manhattan offices. Her flight to South America left on the fifth. This, then, could very well be the last conversation we ever shared. I wasn't certain if my ethics could be stretched far enough to allow calls of an intercontinental nature. And as it happened, Dana wasn't going to be anywhere that was particularly near a phone, so I decided I might as well take the high road and draw the line at domestic telephony pilferage.
 "Keep in mind that Dave doesn't exactly have a firm grip on reality."
 "At least you'll have some company."
 "Yea, great company. He says he intends to spend his time getting stoned and staring at the stars through our telescopes--did I mention that we have the best telescopes of any Native American center on the East Coast?"
 "Being a converted astronomy building will do that. Tony says he's planning on keeping those telescopes, by the way, so don't let Dave break them--I saw what happened to your apartment wall with him in charge."
 "I wouldn't worry about that. Tony told Dave that he'd put an Indian curse on him if he broke anything."
 "And Dave believed that?"
 "Are you kidding?" I asked. "It scared the hell out of him. Anyway, Dave will get bored with the telescopes once he runs out of drugs. And that shouldn't take long. He wouldn't have been able to buy what he's smoking now except for the deposit on all of the cans from our party."
Dana chuckled. Stories about Dave always got a laugh. Not a great roommate, maybe, but a heck of a conversation piece. 
Dana broke a brief silence. "Bob…are you going to be all right?" 
 "Me? You're the one going to Bolivia"
 "Spanish Guyana"
 "Whatever."
 "But what are you going to do?"
 "I'll find a job. Sooner or later, someone's got to give me a job."
 "Of course they will."
 "But Dana, I'll miss you."
 "I'll miss you, too."
 "I'll write."
 "Think you'll be able to find the time?" Dana joked.
The sarcasm stung, but it was better than pity. I didn't bother with a comeback. "Don't get yourself hurt."
 "I'll try not to."
 "I guess I should let you go."
 "I suppose so. I have to be up early tomorrow."
I said goodbye, and hung up the phone. Fuck. It had been a mistake to call. I felt even worse than I had twenty minutes before. It was going to be a very long year. And then what? There was no guarantee that Dana and I would find ourselves in the same city when she returned. Besides, who's to say that a month-old relationship could remain in tact for a year through the mail? And how reliable is postal service in the Guyanian jungle, anyway? On a not un-related subject, why does it hurt worse to lose someone you care about than never to care about anyone at all? Probably related to the fact that populations only rebel against authoritarian regimes after they'd had a small taste of freedom. If you want contentment in life, the most reliable path is to never know what it means to be anything more than content. It's a well know fact that whoever coined the expression "Tis better to have loved and lost…" was full of it. I think it was Tennyson. Or maybe Wordsworth. Just to be safe, they can both go to hell. Actually, they're both long dead, so they're probably already there if they're going.
 Fortunately, I knew what needed to be done. 
 "Dave?" I called. "Let's go get drunk."
Ten minutes later we were at Ernie's. And Dave was having second thoughts. "Gwaf, I can't afford to drink. I could barely afford a quarter ounce of hash."
 "First of all Dave, this is half-price pint night. How can we afford not to drink? And second, it's on me. I'm going to spend my last dollars on something useful, like alcohol, then start fresh tomorrow."
 "Oh...In that case, can I get something to eat, too?"
 Half an hour later, Dave had helped me eat the last of my savings in the form of a plate of Buffalo wings. "So it's come to this," I said. "The only woman I've ever cared about for more than eleven days in a row is heading thousands of miles away, and I'm sleeping in an observatory and blowing my last dollars on my burnout roommate's pot munchies."
 "'The only woman you've ever cared about'? Was it really that serious, or are you just building it up because you feel like being depressed that it's over?" Dave wasn't the sort to complain about the burnout characterization.
 "That's a tough question to answer," I said. "I probably won't know until I have sex with someone else and can gauge how guilty I feel afterwards."
 "Love is a mystery isn't it."
 "Or so Shakespeare would have us believe."
 "No, really," said Dave. "What is it that makes one person look at another and decide 'This is someone I could fall in love with?' It can't just be looks and pheromones, or we'd all fall in love with the same people."
 "Maybe we all do fall in love with the same people. Then those people become movie stars, and sleep with each other, while the rest of us pay $7 to see their movies so we can have someone to think of while we're screwing whoever was still waiting around the bar trying to get picked up at closing time."
 "You think?"
 "It would explain why everyone turns the lights out when they have sex," I said.
 "And why it's considered good manners to close your eyes when you kiss," added Dave. "But no, that can't be it. I mean, take you and Dana. She's attractive enough that she could have found someone much more appealing than you to be with when she's imagining she's with Mel Gibson, or whoever women imagine they're with. So why you? What made Dana so attracted to you where so many women would look at you and wonder what you have against exercise."
 "What's that supposed to mean?"
 "What?"
 "You know, the exercise crack."
 "It's just an example. Don't read anything into it, I could have picked any one of your faults."
 "I mean, I admit I haven't made it to the gym much lately, but it's not like I'm out of shape or anything."
 "Let it go, Gwaf. You're missing the big picture here. With all the hundreds of women you've met, and all the hundreds of men Dana's met, what attracted you two to each other?"
 "How in God's name should I know? That's one of those questions people have been asking since the dawn of time--or at least since the dawn of radio psychiatry. What attracted Dana to me? Why does any woman ever sleep with a man? Maybe I showed her just enough respect. Or maybe I showed her just enough disrespect. Maybe I came around at exactly the right moment, or maybe she mistook something I said for something someone more intelligent might have said. Maybe she's getting back at a former lover, or maybe I remind her of her father--or of her mother, if deep down that's what she's into. How should I know?"
 "Let's turn it around. Maybe she was drawn to you for the same reason you were drawn to her."
 "I doubt it," I said. "I never even saw her glance at my chest."
 "I suppose you're right. Men and women have entirely different criteria."
 "It's a miracle we ever get together at all."
 "Which explains all the lying we have to do to make a relationship work," Dave said.
 "Exactly."
Dave and I both stared at our beers for a moment. "So what do you say," Dave asked finally "when a woman you're seeing asks what you first noticed about her?"
 "Easy: her eyes. Eyes are the only physical characteristics you're allowed to stare at without being considered superficial. Plus it gives her the impression that I haven't just been staring at her breasts."
 "Actually, that's pretty good. I might just use it."
 "What's mine is yours, Dave--just remember to check the eye color before you do; sometimes they try to pop quiz you."
 "They are wily that way. And since you're in such a sharing mood, I think we could use another round." 
 "Sorry, Dave," I said, checking my wallet. "But it looks like that's about it for the drinking until one of us gets a job."
 "One of us?" Dave asked suspiciously.
 "Okay, me."
 "So where are you gonna get a job? It's not like they're are a lot of investment banks here in Bridgeton...Wait--you're not thinking about applying for jobs in New York and leaving me here are you? I'd starve."
 "Dave, I've been applying for jobs in New York for the last nine months, and no one's offered me one yet. I don't think you have much to worry about."
 "So what are you going to do?"
 "I guess I'll check the want ads. There's got to be a job somewhere in this town that will keep me--uh, us--fed until something better comes along."
 "The want ads? Hold it a sec." Dave grabbed a used newspaper off a nearby table. "Here we go…'seeks white male, 20-30, no smokers.' That's perfect for you. No--wait. These are the personals. And actually, I think they're looking for a gay man. Hold on again." Dave ran off again, and came back a few moments later with a more mainstream newspaper. "Here we go. Hey, there are plenty of jobs: Accountant, Carpenter, Computer Technician, Dentist."
 "Dave, I can't do any of those things."
 "Don't say you can't until you try. Hey, this dentist thing pays pretty good. Wait--looks like you need a degree for that one. Do you have a D.D.S.?"
 "Dave…"
 "This computer thing pays even better. $75,000? Jesus. Our problems are solved. Do you have five years of experience servicing networks?"
 "Dave, I don't have experience with teeth or computers or accounting or carpentry. I have no experience at or qualifications for anything. I have a liberal arts education, same as you. I'm not trained to do anything useful."
 "Nothing?"
 "Nothing. Someone's gonna have to give me a job trusting that I can figure it out on the fly."
 "We are going to starve."
 "We're not going to starve," I said. "Give me that paper. There's got to be something in there that doesn't require any particular skills or training."
 "Gwaf, even most of the ads in those gay personals were looking for particular skills or training, and I don't think they were going to pay. We're going to starve."
 "We're not going to starve. I will find work. What choice do we have?"
 "We could move back in with our parents."
 "Go back to Kansas and live in my old room?" I asked. "I have my pride."
 "Pride? Gwaf, all we can afford to eat is Ramen Noodles."
 "Ramen Noodles aren't so bad."
 "For breakfast?"
 "Try 'em cold."
 "Cold? Hell, this morning I ate 'em dry."
 "I'm sure we can have the water turned back on," I said.
 "Jesus. You really don't like Kansas, do you?"
 "Well, no, I don't--but it's not just that. I also don't want to move back into my own room. It would be admitting failure. Four years of education, $100,000 in tuition, and I'd have accomplished nothing. Then there'd be all my friends from high school. The ones who never left town. The ones who always thought I acted like I was better than them because I was going to get out of Kansas. They'd be so damn happy to see me crawling back."
 "I'm sure they don't really think you acted superior."
 "I don't see why they wouldn't. I did act superior. I was getting out. It meant taking on $75,000 in loans, but I'd done it. I'd escaped. Only three other kids in my class went to college, if you don't count the local community college. But now, hell, some of the community college kids have been out of school for two years and are making pretty good money--at least pretty good money by Kansas standards. I am not going to go home to listen to apprentice refrigerator repairmen gloat at my expense." 
 "So what then?"
I glanced down at the want ads spread on the table in front of me. "Administrative Assistant?"

June 2

"Yes?"
 "I'm here about the administrative assistant position," I told the receptionist at New England Medical Forms Processing, Inc. Both receptionist and building appeared ready for retirement. Or perhaps demolition.
 "I see. Fill out this form." She handed me a clipboard.
 "No interview?" I asked.
 "Interview comes after the form."
 "Right after the form, or days after the form?"
 "Just fill out the form."
I took a seat in the waiting area and set to work. The first question, after name and address and the other things one can find at the top of any self-respecting form, read simply "Typing speed".
I went back to the receptionist's window. "Typing speed?" I asked.
 "Yea, typing speed."
 "You mean like 'fast' or 'slow'?"
 "We mean like words per minute."
 "Big word or little words?"
 "Not big words or little words, just words."
 "Seems like you should specify big words or little words," I commented.
 "Listen, kid, it's just words. You know, average, everyday words."
 "Could you give me an example?"
 "An example?"
 "An example of an everyday word."
 "Kid, I'm thinking of two everyday words for you right now. Care to guess what they are?"
 "Okay, okay. It's just that I don't know how many words I can type in a minute. I never counted. Uh--could I borrow your typewriter?"
 "What? Why?"
 "To find out how many words I can type in a minute."
 "All right, Mr..." she took the clipboard from my hand and glanced at the first entry "...Gwafin. Why don't I just take your form right now. No need to worry about the rest of the questions."
 "Is now when I get the interview?"
 "We'll be in contact about the interview."
 "Be in contact soon or be in contact later?"
 "Listen kid, there isn't going to be an interview."
 "You know, I realize this might sound smug, but I have a college degree. Doesn't a college degree at least get me an interview to be a secretary?"
 "Sorry, honey. Typing speed gets you an interview to be a secretary. A college degree gets you the respect of your grandparents."
 "But my grandparents are dead."
 "Then you just wasted four years."
 "I'm beginning to get that impression," I agreed. I stayed to argue with the receptionist a bit more, mostly because I felt like arguing with someone, and the receptionist seemed more than willing to help out in this regard, if only because this was one argument she seemed certain to win. As, of course, she eventually did. 
 "Did you get the job?" Dave asked as soon as I returned.
 "I didn't even get the interview."
 "How'd you manage that?"
 "First there was some confusion over my typing skills. And later she asked if I could even take dictation, and I thought she'd said something else entirely. But it was pretty much already over at that point."
 "Then we're going to starve."
 "Yea, I tried explaining that to the receptionist." 
 "She didn't go for it?"
 "She told me I looked like I could stand to lose a few pounds."
 "There's just no compassion in the world, Gwaf."
 "You got that right. I mean imagine calling me overweight. I'm sculpted."
 "I don't know," Dave said, studying my midsection. "You might be able to live off your fat for a week or two--but look at me. If I don't get something to eat, I'll be dead by sundown. Think I should go talk to that receptionist?"
 "What fat? I'm like a rock."
 "Well Rock, what are we going to do about lunch?" Dave asked.
 "More Ramen noodles?"
 "I ate the last of them for breakfast. Got any money you're not telling me about?"
 "Not a dime. You?"
 "I never had any money before we were unemployed and starving," Dave said. "But you have a credit card don't you?"
 "Oh no, I'm not going to start charging things on my credit card when I can't afford to pay the bill. It would cost me a fortune in interest and penalties plus it would ruin my credit rating."
 "You'd rather starve to death than ruin your credit rating?"
 "Well, I suppose if I were certain I was going to starve to death I might charge a really nice funeral," I said. "I mean what are they going to do, send their debt collectors into the afterlife?"
 "But short of that, you'd sooner die?"
 "Sure. I mean, you only get one credit rating. Plenty of religions say we get more than one life."
 "Okay, so credit cards are out. Know anyplace where we can get food for free?"
I considered the question. It seemed like a reasonably well-motivated person should be able to find free food in our prosperous society. "Let's go for a walk," I finally suggested. "I think I've got an idea."
Dave and I left the Native American Center and walked across campus, stopping to try the doors at each lecture hall along the way. Finally at the Hunt Auditorium I found what I had hoped for--a lecture on the use of phallic imagery in medieval woodcarving. Colleges run lectures during the summer months as excuses for professors to travel to interesting places like the coast of Maine and call it a business trip.
 "We're going to listen to a lecture on the use of phallic imagery in medieval woodcarving?" Dave asked. "I'm not sure that's an adequate substitute for food."
 "You're hungry, aren't you? Then follow me."
At the back of the room, I saw what I'd expected--a table with cheese and crackers. I had worked for the food-services department on campus to earn a few bucks as a Freshman, but found it an unsatisfactory job, as both students and professors are notoriously poor tippers. Still, I had learned what turned out to be an important fact: summer lectures offered snacks.
 "Maybe we should wait," Dave said as we edged our way towards the table. "It looks like they're in the middle of something."
 "If we wait, we'll have to share those cheese and crackers with every professor and grad student in the room," I warned.
 "But...there are dozens of them. There isn't nearly enough to feed us all."
 "And most of them probably aren't starving," I added.
 "Good point. It does look like a pretty well fed crowd. So I guess it's morally justified if we just help ourselves to a few crackers while they have their conference."
 "That was more or less my thinking."
 "Of course, it would be a little impolite to just start eating right here in the back of the room while someone's up there talking," observed Dave.
 "Yea, probably," I agreed, still inching towards the snack table with all the subtlety I could muster on an empty stomach.
 "So maybe everyone would be best off if we just took the whole tray."
 "Right," I said. "I'll get the sodas."
 "On the count of three..."
 So a few penis-obsessed art historians don't get a snack, I thought as I helped myself to another wedge of cheddar back at our Native American Astronomy building. It's not like it's really stealing. Up until a few weeks ago, it had been my tuition paying for the cheese and crackers the college gave out. Actually, since next year's class hadn't yet arrived, it probably was still my tuition footing the bill. The liberation of this particular batch of cheese and crackers simply made up for the fact that I had never gone to any art history conferences when I was a student. Even so, I decided it would be best to take it easy on the snack plate appropriations. Dave's conscious seemed to be bothering him. He'd left the astronomy building without a word once he'd finished his half of the cheese and arguably a little more than his half of the crackers. 
 Dave returned a few minutes later with a punch bowl half full of pretzel rods. "Those cheap bastards--they were only serving pretzel rods at the physics conference. Well, food's food I guess." 
Apparently Dave's conscience was not quite what I thought it was. "Gee, Dave, maybe we shouldn't steal every piece of food the college serves."
 "I left them their sodas. Besides, what else were we going to do for dinner tonight?"
 "Did anyone notice you?"
 "What do you take me for?"

"Dean Kerns, there's been another one!" Smith rushed into Kerns' office.
 "Damn. Which conference this time?"
 "The physics conference. The son of a bitch grabbed a punch bowl full of pretzel rods and made straight for the Native American Astronomy Center in full view of fifty physicists. He left a trail of pretzel rods all the way."
Kerns turned pale with fear. "Does this mean what I think it means?"
 "I'm afraid so. The Native Americans are staging an uprising on campus and repatriating food harvested from land that they believe is rightfully theirs," said Smith. "It's the only possible conclusion," he added for emphasis.
Kerns wasn't sure that pretzel rods were harvested off anyone's land exactly, but he let it pass. "Well, what am I supposed to do about it?"
 "Hummm, that is the question at hand, isn't it. They're clearly hoping that you go and arrest them on their sovereign land--well, in their sovereign astronomy building, anyway. That way, they can sing to anyone who'll listen about the racial insensitivity on the campus and the violation of their property. Oh, the media would have a field day--think of it: an institutionalized power grants Native Americans an autonomous region, then takes it away at the first chance. Consider the historical precedents." 
 "So a raid is out. What does that leave?" asked Kerns.
 "As I see it, there are two options," answered Smith, who consulted the notes he had jotted down for the occasion. "One, we could stage a covert action, wipe them all out, then cover the whole thing up."
 "Wipe them out? You mean kill them?"
 "I'm not recommending it," Smith said. "I'm just mentioning it as an option."
 "You're honestly proposing that I should consider committing murder to prevent the theft of a few pretzel rods?"
 "It's just a few pretzel rods today. Tomorrow it might be a whole deli platter."
 "Let's just forget the murdering for now, Smith. For one thing, I don't want to go to jail."
 "I believe you're overlooking the cover-up part of my plan."
 "I'm not committing murder over snack food," Kerns said, proud of himself for taking a firm stand. "What's the other option?"
 "We let them take the food and hope it doesn't get any worse."
 "Damn it, Smith, I thought you said summers were slow around here."
 "I'm afraid your controversial student center initiative has made it significantly more lively than past summers. In fact, there are still some student groups hanging around campus hoping to see you."
 "What? Still? Why haven't they gone home for vacation?"
 "Apparently they're afraid that all the good buildings will be gone by the fall."
 "No, no, no. No more student centers. No more."
 "Don't tell me," said Smith, "Tell the student groups. I'll start sending them in."
 "What? They're here now? Wait--don't…" But it was too late. Smith had sent the first representative in. "And you are?" Kerns asked the woman who entered his office. 
 "I'm the summer representative for campus women's group," said Debbie.
 "I'm sorry, but you might as well go home. There won't be any more student centers."
 "Then you're not afraid of the outcry next fall when the female students find out they're being discriminated against?"
 "No--I mean yes--wait…could you repeat the question?" Kerns took a moment to gather himself. "What I mean is, couldn't this wait until the fall semester?" 
 "I'm afraid not. The consensus is that the board of regents will have you fired before then, and the next dean might not give out student centers."
 "But I'm not giving out student centers. At least I don't mean to be."
 "Well, not meaning to give out student centers and not giving out student centers are two different things, aren't they? You've given them to other minorities, you can give one to women."
 "Wait--women?," Kerns asked. "But women aren't a minority. You make up over 50% of the population--and more than 50% of the student body."
 "Then we deserve to get a very big building. And incidentally, don't think I didn't notice the way you just used the word 'body'."
 "But why should I give special minority treatment to a group that's a majority?"
 "Let me ask you this," Debbie said. "Why do you give special treatment to the minority groups?"
 "To make up for past inequities…I mean because of prejudice."
 "Come on, if that's why you did it, you would have done it right off the bat, and not waited for them to complain. You really did it to avoid protests."
 "Uh…"
 "And if you gave special treatment to a small group to avoid their small protests, doesn't it make sense that you should give even more special treatment to a larger group to avoid a larger protest?"
Kerns thought about that one. How could he do this? But how could he not? Finally he settled on a response. "Damn, you're good."
Ten minutes later it was settled. The women's group could have the Edelson Dorm. It was a big, new dorm, and Debbie was rightly proud of her negotiating success. She shook Kerns' hand, told him the Jewish students group was next, and the Gay and Lesbian group after that. Seeing no other option, Kerns stuck his head out to say the Jewish group representative should come in. But he didn't see anyone else waiting…And Debbie wasn't leaving his office. "I thought we had settled," Kerns said.
 "Now I'm here representing the Jewish Group," she said. "I was on campus anyway." 
 "Oh, I see. I don't suppose you'd believe that I'm not really giving out student centers."
Debbie didn't even bother to shake her head.
 "It's just that we have to draw the line somewhere. Your group just isn't discriminated against enough."
 "Not discriminated against enough? Five million of us were slaughtered."
 "What? Here on campus?"
It was clear to Debbie that the Dean was losing his mind. As a good liberal, she felt compassion over this. But on the bright side, she was about to land her second building in less than ten minutes.
 The Jewish group got Jackson Hall. It was near the Edelson Dorm, to make life easier for Debbie. 
 "I guess you might as well send in the representative of the gay and lesbian group on your way out" Kerns requested. But Debbie didn't move. 
 "Oh," said Kerns. "Damn."