Chapter 5

May 26

"Dana?" Debbie called, knocking on her roommate's bedroom door a little after eight that morning. "Can I come in?" 
I had spent the night again; Dana wasn't a big fan of my apartment, what with the mushrooms growing out of the carpet and the rest of its distinctive features that some chose to view as negatives. Fortunately, she and Debbie had a dorm with separate bedrooms. Dana's clock radio had awakened us minutes earlier with Stairway to Heaven, a song with seemingly endless capacity to entertain radio deejays. We both had things we needed to do, but we'd lingered in bed, putting up with the bad '70s rock. Graduation was the next day. There were few opportunities left for high-quality lingering.
 "Yea, come on in," Dana said.
 "Sorry to interrupt," said Debbie, although she had been prudent enough to listen for a moment before knocking, to make sure she wasn't really interrupting anything serious. "I wanted to make sure I caught you this morning. The administration is giving out student centers to special interest groups and we have to make sure the Women's Group gets one." 
That was big enough news to get Dana's attention. "We should get one for the Druids, too," Dana said.
 "And maybe the Ultimate Frisbee team," added Debbie. Reinvigorated with this new cause, Dana was up and digging for clean clothes. "I've got to get going before all the best locations are gone." 
 "I'd better get up, too," I said, and slipped out of bed and into the shower before Dana could reach the bathroom. I minded not at all that Debbie was still in the room, and I was wearing nothing but my boxer shorts.
Debbie glanced towards the bathroom door, then back towards Dana. "Well, how is it? Is it good? You haven't said a word about it all this time."
 "It's not bad," Dana allowed.
 "Only not bad? That's not good."
 "Not bad could be good," said Dana. "Not bad is anything better than bad."
 "Maybe," said Debbie. "But if it was good, you wouldn't have said 'not bad,' you'd have said 'good.' In fact, if it was even okay, you'd probably say it was good."
 "Not at all. I'm not one of those people who go around indiscriminately calling everything good when it isn't. People who do that have nowhere left to go when they need to describe something that actually is good."
 "I say it's good all the time when it's only okay."
 "I know," said Dana. "And I can never tell when you really think it's good."
 "Oh, that's easy," said Debbie. "When it's actually good, I say it's great."
 "And when it's great?"
 "When it's great I say it was amazing."
 "And when it's amazing?"
 "I've never had amazing."
 "Never had amazing? That's not good."
 "No, it's not good at all…But is it good?"
 "Is what good?" asked Dana, lost.
 "Is Bob good?"
 "Oh, that. He's amazing."
 "Really? He's amazing?"
 "No, but he's not bad."
 
He'd been up working on the problem most of the night. By daybreak Dean Kerns believed he'd hit on a solution to the student center problem. It would be the first coup of his administration, Kerns thought as he walked up Federal Street towards campus. A real feather in his cap.
 As dean he was entitled to live in one of the more impressive Federal-style homes that gave Federal Street the first half of its name. There wasn't really any good reason for him to live there instead of his own perfectly fine home, which if nothing else had modern air conditioning. But a perk is a perk and Kerns wasn't about to turn one down. So Kerns, his wife Katherine, and their little dog Roger had moved the two blocks to Federal Street just as soon as Jergensen's possessions could be shipped off to a storage locker, on the off chance that some distant relation could be located and convinced to receive Jergensen's collection of old Bucklin yearbooks and yellowing homecoming-game programs. 
 The man had died without a family, a will, or anything close to a close friend. He had served Bucklin for decades, yet the ad hoc committee put in charge of arranging a fitting tribute to him had concluded that no one would care enough to show up to such a fitting tribute should one be in the offing. So they took their allotted budget and spent it on repaving and renaming the former Parking Area H (Restricted to Faculty and Staff Parking Permits) as the Dean Herbert Jergensen Memorial Parking Area H (Restricted to Faculty and Staff Parking Permits). It had been Jergensen's favorite parking area, someone that knew him well had noted, but he had complained often that it could stand a good re-surfacing. 
 The ad hoc fitting tribute committee then disbanded, leaving it to the permanent campus search committee to continue its crusade for a rightful heir to Jergensen's bric-a-brac. Coincidentally, that same permanent search committee had earlier been tabbed to hunt down a suitable wife for Jergensen, the thought being that the man might consent to retire without a fuss if there was anything else in his life worth speaking of. He couldn't just be shoved aside after 38 years of relatively successful fund raising, after all. The committee hadn't succeeded in finding him a mate in five years of trying. But this was just as well, as it turned out, since Jergensen at long last had done the reasonable thing and died.  
 Kerns' coup, as it happened, was no more successful than that search committee's match-making efforts. An hour after his presentation, Kerns sat disconsolate in his office. He had expected his proposal to be a feather in his cap. Not only did Kerns not have a feather in his cap, Smith had warned him not to use that expression again out of fear of offending the Native American group. Offending a group of one would pale next to what Kerns had accomplished before consuming his Danish that morning. Every special interest group on campus now was calling for his resignation. Well, except for three, which instead were calling for his execution. "At least they're divided," Smith had observed. 
 It had seemed like such a good idea last night: Since there was no way the college possibly could afford separate campus centers for each group, Kerns had proposed a single campus center to be shared by all the various special interest groups. They could even have their own individual offices within it, if they liked, but just one building among them. "Isn't the idea behind campus diversity to bring different group together?" Kerns had argued during the meeting.
Smith was not alone in his surprise at his boss' naivete. Back at the Dean's office he'd set Kerns straight: "If everyone really wanted to come together, they'd have just used the student center that we already have. The idea behind campus diversity isn't bringing groups together. It's to avoid being accused of being against diversity."
 "What would happen to us if we were accused of being against diversity?" asked Kerns.
 "Well, first we'd have to cover ourselves by building a heck of a lot of student centers."
 "I'm beginning to see the problem," Kerns admitted. "Why'd you ever recommend I sign off on that first student center anyway?"
 "We had to do something about your flagging popularity with the students."
 "How could my popularity have been flagging? I'd only been on the job a few days when you raised the subject. I hadn't done anything yet."
 "Well it was flagging. We conducted a poll."
 "A poll of who?"
 "Of the student waiting in my office. As I recall, he was there to discuss his idea of building an African-American student center."
 "You based your recommendation on a poll of one student?"
 "If you'd been willing to increase my polling budget, we would have been able to reach more students, but there were only three of us to handle the job."
 "It took three of you to poll one student?"
 "And compile the results," said Smith. "Honestly, I don't think it's a good idea for you to start pinning the blame for your decisions on your staff. Morale could plummet."
Dean Kerns took a deep breath. "I suppose there's no point arguing about the past. Can we have a special alumni fund raising drive to pay for these student centers?" 
 "I'm afraid that's not likely to work very well, Dean."
 "Why not? That how we raised money for the new football stadium, isn't it?"
 "Yes, sir, it is. But we have polled the alumni on this subject in the past--a much larger and better funded survey mind you--and the results indicate that most of the younger alumni only give money because they want us to admit their kids."
 "Even if their kids aren't qualified?"
 "They wouldn't have to donate money if the kids could get in on their own merits," explained Smith.
 "Good point," Kerns conceded. "But that still doesn't explain why they would donate money for the stadium and not for the minority student centers."
"Actually, it does. They're afraid that if the school attracts too many minority students, there won't be enough room for their dullard offspring."
 "I see. So it won't fly with the younger alumni. What do your polls tell you about our older alumni?"
 "That they're racists, sir."
 "What! How could you say such a thing about our own alumni?"
 "On our last survey we asked the question: 'Do you think Bucklin College should strive to admit more minority students?'" 
 "And they answered 'no'?"
 "Actually, most of them answered 'What do you mean 'more'?'"
 "Thomas, this is awful. How could our alumni be so ignorant?"
 "Poor education, sir."
 "Oh. I guess that makes sense."

May 31

It was warm and sunny that graduation day, and the forecast was equally promising for alumni weekend. These were the second and third pieces of good news Kerns had received in weeks. Warm, dry graduates and alumni were happy, giving, graduates and alumni. Kerns' first piece of good news had been that the protesting student groups had agreed, finally, to accept their diplomas from him. Those that had called for his death even had agreed to put the fatwa on hold for the weekend. This last development was particularly welcome to the campus security force, which, in their hearts, knew that any problem that couldn't be solved by shutting down a party or handing out a parking ticket probably lay beyond their abilities. 
 Some of the students had written words of protest on their mortarboards, but Kerns saw this as a minor issue at best. Once he'd declared them graduated, they'd thrown their mortarboards in the air, giving up their words of protest and their status as students in one fell swoop. In a flash, Kerns was rid of the senior class, or as he now saw it, 25% of the opposing force, including a number of the worst ringleaders. If only they'd let him graduate a few underclassmen of his choosing, everything might turn out okay.
 I'd sat through graduation with nothing written on my mortarboard. Quite a number of my fellow students had written "Hire Me" on their headwear, I'd noted, a witty offering, perhaps, the first time it had been offered, but now a tired gesture. It had long been my policy that it was worse to repeat a stale joke than to say nothing at all, a philosophy that never did find a home with the creative staff behind the Police Academy films. "Hire me" was, however, a sentiment I'd shared in spirit, if not in paint above my head. My roommate Dave had skipped the ceremony entirely, I noticed. I wondered why I hadn't myself. My family hadn't bothered to attend, perhaps because I hadn't bothered to invite them. I loved my family, mind you. Truly I did. But with unemployment looming, I hadn't felt much like answering the question "What now?" thirty or forty times. Perhaps it would be accurate to say that I loved my family most of all when I didn't have to speak with them. But I suppose that's how most people love their families. 
 Graduation did mean an introduction to Dana's family. Normally that's not an easy moment, particularly for a young suitor starting out on a promising career in unemployment. But Dana's parents seemed appreciative that their daughter was dating someone who had not tie-died his graduation robe or been forced to weigh the merits of braided hair for the occasion. They took it as a sign she was growing up. By this of course they meant "growing more like them," but, again, that's pretty much what everyone means by the phrase. Better yet, Dana's parents had headed home the very night of graduation, leaving Dana for four more days in Maine, 96 hours that I had put to good use.
 "Gwaf? What are you doing here?" Dave asked when I finally made it back to my apartment, 96 hours and 15 minutes after graduation. I guess Dave thought I'd cleared out. He'd already begun selecting things he liked from among my possessions. "You know we have to be out of this place by tonight."
 "Yea, I know. I just came back to clear out my stuff."
 "Oh," Dave said, wondering if I would notice that some of my stuff already had been cleared out. It wasn't hard to miss. I didn't have that much stuff to begin with. "Where have you been the last few days?"
 "I've been spending a lot of time over at Dana's."
 "Right, how's that going?"
 "Great, except she left for Tanzania today."
 "Spanish Guyana."
 "Whatever. She stayed as long as she could. It was fun while it lasted, and these past few days have had a 'let's enjoy our last hours until that comet strikes the earth' kind of a feel to them, which makes for some quality sex. So I'm not complaining. How about you?" I asked. "What are you still doing here?"
 "I'm not in any big rush to move back in with my parents," Dave said. "Anyway, I thought I'd clean this place up a bit. Our graduation party got a little out of hand, and I could really use our security deposit back--my share of our security deposit, I mean. What do think? How does the place look?"
 "You mean aside from the missing wall?"
 "Fuck you, Gwaf, it's not the entire wall. Besides, I never thought there should be a wall there, anyway. The hole kinda opens the place up."
 "Dave, it's an exterior wall."
Dave reconsidered the problem. "I could cover it over. I could hang a tapestry or something…" Dave's voice tailed off as he assessed the hole more objectively. "I'm not getting that security deposit back, am I?"
 "'fraid not, Dave."
 "Damn it, I really coulda used that money. My parents aren't too happy about my moving back in. I don't think I'll be able to talk them into springing for an allowance."
 "I suppose a job is out of the question."
 "You're one to talk."
 "At least I tried. Did you even have one interview?"
 "Of course not," said Dave. "Why should I waste my time? The way I see it, you're ten times more qualified for employment than I am, and you spent half of this semester interviewing. If you couldn't find a job, what was the point of my even looking?"
 "Yea, well, at least I'm not moving back in with my parents."
 "No? How'd you pull that off?"
 "I'm gonna stay on campus this summer," I said. "Tony Pasqualli's letting me stay at his Native American Center for free as caretaker. He's afraid the administration will change their mind and try to take it back if no one's living in it."
 "His what center?"
 "Native American center. Turns out Tony's an Indian, so he gets a building."
 "Really? I'm half Norwegian. What does that get me?"
 "I'm not sure. I don't know all the rules, just what Dana told me. Apparently there was this big deal a couple of days ago, and Dean Kerns wound up giving minority groups their own student centers."
 "This all happened in a couple of days? How'd they put up the buildings that fast?"
 "The college couldn't afford to put up new buildings even if they'd had the time. They just reassigned the buildings that were already there. Tony's Native American Center used to be the astronomy department's observatory, for example."
 "What's the astronomy department going to do?"
 "I dunno. Just look up and squint a lot, I suppose. Or maybe the college won't have an astronomy department anymore. To be honest, I never even knew we had one in the first place. But then I didn't know Tony was an Indian. And I guess none of this matters much, since you and I have both graduated."
 "Why did this all happen now, I mean at the end of the year like this?"
 "Kerns had to act fast. My understanding is that he tried to put it off 'till next year, but then he thought the special interest groups had taken his car hostage."
 "What's the big deal about a car?"
 "His wife was in it at the time. Anyway, it turns out he had just forgotten where he'd parked it. By the time he realized his mistake, he's already agreed to a bunch of the student centers. From there it was a slippery slope. That's the story going around, anyway."
 "So, Gwaf…" Dave said, as we gazed through our wall at the setting sun. "I don't suppose Tony needs an assistant Native American Center caretaker?"