The undergraduate student approached him as soon as he got off the elevator. “I’m Lyle Karstensen, sir?” he said, and he held out the portfolio he had under his arm. “I’m leaving school? I’m going to work for a year or so and come back? It’s not like I’m flunking out or anything? It’s just so expensive, you know?”
Dr. Cates said, “Is there a problem with your grade?” He pushed the key into the lock of his office.
“No, sir? You gave me an A? See, that was the only A I’ve ever gotten here? Because I really liked your course? So when I was thinking of someone to give these to, I thought of you?” He pressed the portfolio into Dr. Cates’ hands.
“What is this?”
“Well, I don’t know, sir? It looks like a cross between some kind of plans and one of those drawings where you find the hidden pictures? I don’t know what it’s for, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away?”
“What do you want me to do with it?”
“I don’t know, sir? But just have a look before you throw it away?”
Dr. Cates had always thought that his special talent was focusing, and over the years he had learned never to be distracted by other people’s business. Nevertheless, as he opened the portfolio, the elevator bell rang, its doors opened, and there was Daniel. “Dad! What are you doing? I’m cold!” he barked.
Cates caught himself in the act of flinching and smiled patiently. “I’m speaking to a student, Daniel. Please wait for me a minute.”
“It’s always a minute!” said Daniel in exasperation. “A minute isn’t as long as you think it is, Dad!”
Lyle reflected that “please” was not a word that his father had ever used to him. But, of course, exasperation was not a feeling he had ever expressed to his father, either.
Cates made a show of looking at the plans, but really he didn’t see them. He was too aware of Daniel’s darkening mood and, also, too aware of the treat he had promised himself—the sparkling brightness of the day and the prospect of flying down that giant hill, Daniel or no Daniel. He closed the portfolio with his customary dignity, though, and laid it on his desk.
“Thanks?” said Lyle.
“Come ON!” said Daniel. “Here’s the ELEVATOR!”
47
Joe Doaks, Young American
AFTER MARY HAD passed through the line at the cash register, she saw that the only seats available in the commons were at a large table right up front that was already occupied by a white kid, maybe a sophomore or a junior, kind of blondish and largish, the sort of person she had a hard time distinguishing from most of the other white kids on the campus. She hesitated, as much out of habit as anything else. Had she been with her own group, the other black students she ate most of her lunches with, she would have immediately looked elsewhere, but today she was eating lunch with Keri, Sherri, and Diane. If she didn’t sit down, but passed by on a fruitless search for an unoccupied table, Sherri’s exclamations would be loud and embarrassing, attracting everyone’s attention to the sight of her conspicuous self turning around and scuttling back as ordered. Her hesitation lasted only the second it took her to summon her most opaque manner. She set her tray down at the corner farthest from the white kid and pulled out the chair.
Joe looked up from his meditation upon his lunch (two quarter-pound burgers with cheese and an order of fries, plus a large Pepsi) and leaned back in his chair. Without even thinking, without actually feeling unusually hostile, and without losing his ingrained feeling of innocence, Joe said, “Hey, nigger, you can’t sit there.”
In fact, this was the first time since coming to the university that Mary had heard the word “nigger.” None of the black students here used it in the teasing way men used it in her neighborhood at home, and the white students and professors were very very careful, at least around her. So more in surprise than anything else, she said, “What?”
Now Joe looked around, just to see who was watching. Detecting a large and potentially sympathetic audience at the other tables, he leaned expansively even farther back in his chair. “Hey, nigger,” he said.
Really, Mary thought, I could not pick this guy out of a crowd. Average height, average clothing, average coloring, average hairstyle, average looks.
“You can’t—”
Average voice, average build, average blue eyes, average straight teeth.
“—sit there!”
In embarrassment, Mary could not help staring at her tray, her croissant sandwich, her lettuce wedge w/ one-quarter tomato and Russian dressing. That was why she didn’t see the look on Keri’s face, only heard, “Oh, here you are,” and then a heavy thudding clank as the edge of Keri’s tray rammed the base of the white kid’s skull and sent him sprawling into his burgers and fries. “Geez!” he exclaimed. “What the fuck!” He sat up, grease and ketchup glistening on his chin. Mary saw that he was rubbing the back of his head.
Keri looked as she always did, smiling and bland. She said, “Oh. I’m sorry. I must have not been looking where I was going.”
“You practically fucking decapitated me!”
“I am sorry. I’ll sit here.” She sat next to Mary.
“You can’t fucking sit here.”
Now Sherri came up. She said, in her brassy voice, “Why not? Nobody else is. You can’t save the whole table. It’s not fair, and anyway I think it’s against the rules.” She set down her tray, and began taking off plates. She had her usual oddball lunch—two slices of cheese, some baked beans, a box of Rice Krispies, a glass of orange juice, and a large peanut butter cookie, each on its own plate. Pretty soon her lunch, her books, and her outerwear were spread all over the table. Joe Doaks said, “What the fuck?” Sherri gave him a look, then drew her books two or three inches closer to her plates. Diane sat across from Sherri, looking to Mary as though she were poised to hire, to fire, and to acquire large companies. Since the departure of Bob, she had redoubled her commitment to the executive demeanor. She said to Joe, who was sitting to her left, “Pardon me, but you have ketchup on your chin. It isn’t very attractive.”
It was impossible for Mary to gauge whether her roommates had or had not heard the white kid’s remark. On the one hand, he had spoken in a loud voice. On the other, noise in the commons of eating, conversation, and clanking trays and dishes usually drowned out any solos. People at other tables had not really looked up as a group, whether because they had not heard him, or because they didn’t care, or because they were embarrassed. Keri, across from her, was eating peaceably, as if no crisis had been weathered, as if no adrenaline were shooting through her veins, as it was through Mary’s. Mary didn’t seem to be trembling—her hand was steady as it raised her fork to her mouth, but even so, she felt as if she had passed through some kind of electrical field and been transformed—magnetized? polarized? had her ions reversed? Something profound like that but detectable only with specialized instruments. At the same time, the profundity of her response surprised and dismayed her, because she had assumed that she was ready for anything like this. She was from Chicago, for God’s sake. Her high school had seen plenty of racial incidents. She glanced at Keri again, who was beginning, easy as you please, on her canned peaches. When Mary caught her eye, she sighed, and said, “God! I don’t know how I am going to study for my econ exam. I know I’m one of the seven percent that gets flunked.”
Mary said, “When is it?”
“Wednesday.”
Joe said, “Hey! What SHIT is going down here?”
This time, people at surrounding tables did look up. Sherri said, “What’s your PROBlem, man?”
“You’ve got your hairy mitten in my French fries!”
“Well, SORry! I didn’t see them, okay?”
“They’ve got fucking white hairs all over them now!”
“You want a piece of cheese or something?”
“Nah. Fuck this.” Joe Doaks stormed away, leaving his chair on its back and his tray on the table.
“God!” said Sherri. “What WAS his problem
?”
Diane took a sip of her Diet Coke. “No future,” she said. “He obviously knows that someone like him hasn’t got a chance of even approaching his parents’ economic level, education notwithstanding. Too bad, huh?” She smiled.
They had lulled her, all three of them, them and the professors and the other students in Dubuque House. They had drop by drop oozed around her defenses. They hadn’t gotten to be her friends the way other people on the campus were friends, the way kids back home were friends, but they had gotten familiar, and even comfortable to be with. The way they were polite all the time—not just with her, either, but with each other because yelling, confronting, conflict of any kind upset them—had gotten easy and pleasant. They ignored the fact that she was black the way they ignored the fact that Keri was beautiful or Diane was ruthless or Sherri was flunking out, all so they could get along, and now this incident was ready to disappear because they would never be the ones to bring it up and discuss it. What she had to say, what she felt, might wreck the comfort they had achieved—that was the unspoken danger. And after only four months, she had come to enjoy that comfort.
And yet, the white kid had been punished—bruised, admonished, and humiliated by mere girls, and in public.
Maybe she should be the one to bring it up and discuss it? Some of her black friends, if not all of them, would say yes, absolutely, make an issue of it. Many, if not most, of her relatives, would say it was not quite big enough to bother about—hold your ammunition until you really need it. Hassan would tell her to follow her instincts, and act on her feelings, but she didn’t know what those were. Mary looked at her lettuce wedge and quarter tomato. Actually, it didn’t seem fair that she should have to work her way through the ins and outs of all this right when exams were upon her. Here it was, the old friction, the drag that slowed her down, coming up again. She felt her cheeks grow hot, and it seemed to her right then that her place in this world, which had been small enough to begin with, had suddenly grown smaller, had gotten to be just a pinpoint that she could balance on for a while until it disappeared completely.
48
“Lydia”
a short story by Gary Olson
THE ROOM WAS dark, even though it was nearly noon, because Lydia Henderson had the shades drawn. One ray of sunshine [Gary looked out the window of his bedroom] was glinting off the crusty, brilliant snow, passing through the crack between the two curtains, and lighting up Lydia’s hair, which was spread around her on the pillow. All over the campus, brightly clad students were hurrying along the cleared walks to the rooms where their final exams were being held. But Lydia was asleep, deeply asleep, and dreaming of her future.
Strangely, she was married to Lyle Karstensen, a kid she had briefly dated the year before, who had since left school and gone back to Indianapolis, and whom Lydia hadn’t thought of in months. She seemed to have two children, and in the dream, Lydia sensed that they were present in the room, but she couldn’t see them; she could only hear them [Gary inhaled] breathing. In the dream, their names were Larry and Angela. The sleeping Lydia turned from her back to her side. She always slept without any clothes on, so as she turned and stretched, her left hand slid over her flat stomach and her lean hip, and came to rest on her thigh [Gary ran his hand down over his T-shirt and pants to see if this was possible]. The Lydia she was dreaming about did the same thing, and someone, somewhere, some Lydia that was viewing both the dreamer and the dreamed, felt a sense of surprise, because in the dream Lydia had a hugely fat stomach that fell in rolls onto the sheet [This was really good. Just that evening, Gary had been watching something on PBS about people who could make themselves conscious that they were dreaming but not wake up]. Now the Lydia in the dream woke up and saw that it was noon, but the dreaming Lydia did not wake up, though she was aware that it must be noon or even later. The dreaming Lydia said, “You two kids are in here, aren’t you?” and two little voices replied, “Yes, Mommy,” but Lydia couldn’t see them because the room was so dark.
Oh, thought the third, intermediate Lydia [Professor Monahan always said that you shouldn’t let a good idea go to waste], what a nightmare this is, being married to Lyle and being enormously fat, and it being noon, and not being able to see my children, who must be hiding. How did I get into this nightmare?
Lydia the dreamer groaned, and her head tossed on her pillow, tangling her sun-streaked hair.
In the dream, the enormous Lydia heaved herself to her feet. She saw that there was a light on in the bathroom, and she thought that she would certainly like to look in the mirror. “Kids?” she said. “Where are you?”
Tiny voices said, “Right here, Mommy.” That word struck her to the heart, that little “Mommy.” She staggered two or three steps forward.
In Lydia the dreamer’s room, the door opened, and Lydia’s roommate came in from his chemistry exam. He saw that Lydia was still asleep, and heard her say something like “Kids?” and then give out a long, frightened groan. He put down his books.
In the dream, the enormous Lydia stumbled, reached out to regain her footing, but fell anyway. She felt her knees, then her palms, then her hip meet the floor. Then, just as she felt her head slam [that was a good word, Gary thought] into the chest of drawers, the third Lydia exclaimed, “This IS a nightmare! All I have to do is wake up!” And Lydia woke up.
Her roommate was opening the curtains. Light poured in. Her roommate said, “God, you were thrashing around! I thought you were going to study for your history exam this morning.”
Lydia rubbed her eyes. She said, “I fell back asleep. God, I had the weirdest dream. I was so fat. I was married to Lyle. Remember him?”
They looked at each other and laughed. [Gary sat back, staring at the screen. Now what? Earlier in the semester, when that little short girl in his class, Ellen her name was, had put a dream in a story, Professor Monahan said that the dream had to relate to the real life of the story somehow. Gary got up and paced around the room. It was three a.m. by the kitchen clock. He had to have this in by noon. He thought of something and sat down again.] Lydia pulled her tangled hair back from her face, and twisted it together. Then she threw off the covers and stood up. Her roommate looked on in deep appreciation. When she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, he serenaded her with his favorite song: “Lydia oh Lydia, oh have you seen Lydia, Lydia the tattooed lady?” She put her head around the door. She said, “Gary, I do love you.” [Gary blushed and pressed the delete key four times, then instead of “Gary,” he typed in “Rick.” He sat back. The other thing was, he wanted to get something in about the real Lydia’s father, say, about his raving over his new babies’ belly buttons, but that didn’t fit, either. It was amazing how SMALL this story was, considering how LONG he had been working on it. But it was good enough, this late in the semester. And then, even though the class would be over, he might rewrite it over the Christmas vacation.]
Part Four
49
Feliz Navidad
AFTER THE COMMENCEMENT of her passion for Chairman X, Cecelia had given up her plans to return to L.A. for Christmas. She decided to stay in her duplex and, as it were, force it to rise to the Yuletide occasion. She WOULD be warm there, she WOULD feel at home there, she WOULD make the place feel colorful and lively by playing music and buying pillows and inexpensive but bright artworks. It WOULD become a warm, welcoming nest for their sudden moments together. As soon as she had turned in her grades, she went shopping for transformative items. After that, she baked a batch of sugar cookies and some cinnamon bread. That night, she went to bed, late, with the baking aromas still wafting through the rooms. Her effort seemed to have succeeded. With all the lamps on, the duplex looked like a place you (he) might actually want to walk into, a place where you (he) could sit down and have a warm conversation in the living room, or where you (he) could follow your friend (Cecelia) into the kitchen and eat hunks of fragrant sweet bread and laugh.
In the morning, not so. Twenty-eight gray days were still
possible—on the weather report they were always talking gleefully about the kind of record that included the most snowy weekends in a hundred years or the longest period that a Canadian air mass had remained stationary over the city. She picked up the phone and bought tickets for L.A., leaving the next day, full fare, departure time 6 a.m. This decision, made on impulse without regard for Chairman X, seemed eminently sane.
As soon as she bought the tickets she regretted it. Now the vacation stretched before her as an infinite series of opportunities for passionate abandon that she had thoughtlessly foregone. She hunched more tightly over her teacup. She did not expect to see X before her departure—the thrill of the unforeseen was the root thrill of their affair, and the one she had been unable to give up. One of these days—maybe even tomorrow afternoon—he would come knocking and find her gone, the windows dark, the walk unshovelled, the Weekly Shopper yellowing on the porch. Cecelia gave a deep shuddering sigh at the thought.
She made herself look out the window again. The scene was unchanged. It could be any time of day, any day of the winter. She, in fact, could be any one of the three people she saw sliding along the sidewalk, bundled up to the eyeballs in dark, puffy wrappings. She tore herself away from her teacup and began to pack.
When she got off the plane, Cecelia realized that she had never in her life come to L.A. from any place cold. She was not in the habit of finding delight there, but the palm trees outside the airport, which she had hardly ever noticed in the past, now struck her as a positive marvel. Of course there was grime (she thought as they turned east out of the airport) and the air was yellowish with smog, but it wasn’t gray and low and permanent. In fact, the salient characteristic of the Midwest, uniformity, was precisely what L.A. had the least of, had nothing of, to tell the truth. There were shocking spots of color—ragged bougainvillea draping scarlet over a sagging fence, hibiscus big as stop signs at the corners of porches. In her parents’ backyard, she strolled among the lemon, orange, and grapefruit trees, inhaling the sweetness and palming the weighty fruits. Her father’s avocados were black on the glistening jade branches, too numerous for the family to eat.