Ordinary World (4 page)

            I avoided the kitchen almost as much as I avoided the bedroom.

One Saturday morning at Shaws, I loitered up and down the aisles, eventually getting to the cookie aisle and stopping at each brand. Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos. Nabisco Vienna Fingers. Sunshine Hydrox. Mrs. Field’s Chunky Chocolate Chips. Newman’s Own Organic Fig Newtons. 

I hadn’t bought packaged cookies in ages.

I looked at the Keebler section. Just stopped and stared at and contemplated them, in a Zen-like trance. Then I grabbed a box of Grasshoppers from the shelf and dumped them in the cart (“cheap-thrills Girl Scout Thin Mints,” Sam used to call them; he was a cookie monster and never gained an ounce, the rat-bastard). Quicker now, with a stride in my step, I wheeled the cart to the dairy section, yanked a quart of milk from the shelf without stopping, and headed for checkout.

When I got home and entered the house, Shaws plastic bag in tow, I headed straight for the den, plopped on the couch, handled the remote, and channel-surfed until I settled on a marathon of
Project Runway
episodes on Bravo. Without using dishware, I consumed half the tray of Grasshoppers in less than sixty seconds, chased by half the bottle of milk.

In a state of numbness, I lay back on the couch and watched TV for five hours straight while two stacks of essays that I’d collected at the beginning of the week remained on my desk in my home office, still unread.

Before I went to bed, I finished the rest of the cookies and milk, and the next day I did a full food shopping, including two more boxes of cookies and a half gallon of milk that I devoured within four days.

Five

April

           
“C’
MON IN, KID,” JEFF SAID WHILE EATING A CLUB sandwich. He called everyone, regardless of their age, “kid.”

I’ve never seen anyone happy to be in the position of department chair, and Jeff was no exception. Prior to his appointment, Jeff used to be seen joking in the hallways of the third floor, his loud and boisterous laugh heard from the second floor. Since becoming chair, however, the only time one would find Jeff laughing was at a seldom-attended dinner party, drink in hand. The laugh increased in volume by the third drink.

            “Hey, Jeff.”

            He held an open snack-size bag of chips out to me. I waved my hand and shook my head. My insides were already churning; I knew this meeting was not going to be good.

            “How you doing?” he asked.

Tired of everyone asking me that, I wanted to answer.

“Okay,” I said.

“You sure?”

“This is about last week’s class, isn’t it. The kid put in a complaint.”

“Andi, you called a student ‘fucknuts’ because he didn’t turn in an assignment.”

“No, I called him ‘fucknuts’ because the excuse he gave for not turning it in was stupid.”

“You can’t do that. You can’t call your students names.”

“I knew a professor at Brooklyn U who told a student to her face that she was dumb as dirt. Now that’s plain mean.”

“You were out of line. Besides, it’s not like you to treat students in such a way. In fact, you’re always the one arguing that we don’t respect students enough. And that’s not all. I hear you’ve been misplacing their papers and handing them back late, changing the syllabus without warning, coming into class late and letting them out early, not keeping office hours...”

I shifted in my seat. “I admit I’m a bit more scatterbrained than usual.”

“I haven’t even gotten to the faculty complaints about your committee work.”

“Oh please. Like any of them should throw stones. Jan Turner is a potted plant, the key word being ‘pot’.”

Normally this would make him laugh. But he didn’t even crack a grin. Apparently I wasn’t going to be able to quip my way out of this.

“I think you’re overwhelmed and your return was premature.”

“Oh, not you too, Jeff.”

“Don’t you think that if I’m one in a long line of people telling you this then you ought to listen?”

“First of all,” I argued, “there is no line. No one’s telling me anything. And don’t you think I would know better than they would even if they did? It’s my life, you know.”

“Are you getting any professional help? Your insurance covers it.”

“Are you allowed to ask me that?”

Jeff put down his sandwich, took a sip of Coke, and then got up and closed the door.

“Look,” he started, back at his desk, “if I wasn’t chair, I’d have asked you out to lunch and offered you a shoulder to lean on. But students are complaining and that’s not good, especially so soon after you were granted tenure. You know the drill; I have to address the issue. They have legitimate complaints.”

I stared at the beads of condensation quietly sliding down the side of the Coke can, trying to predict where the droplets would land.

“Are you listening to me?” Jeff asked.

“Yeah, I hear you,” I looked up at him for a second, then turned my attention back to the can. I heard him huff.

“You’re so wicked talented, Andi. You’re one of the best in this field. It won’t be long before you’re as well-known and as frequently cited as Elbow or Shaunessey. Do you know how many students try to get into your class? I get tons of requests at the beginning of semesters from students wanting to get in. There’s a waiting list. Your class is Studio 54, minus all the sex and cocaine.”

His humor failed to elicit any reaction or response from me. For some reason, I thought he was lying to me. I felt wistful for the days when my work was a piece of cake, someplace fun to be and something fun to do, even on the arduous days.

“I don’t know how I’d react if it were my wife…” he started.

I looked at him with daggers. “
Don’t.
Don’t you dare go there. Don’t tell me I’m comin’ apart at the seams because my husband died. I know perfectly well what happened. Every freakin’ day of my life. So stop right there. And you don’t know anything. You just don’t know and you’ve no right to tell me how to teach my class or what to say to my students. I’m a professional, just like you said.”

“You won’t be a professional for long if you keep this shit up. People don’t forget around here. You’re one of the bright lights here. One of the shining stars. I don’t want you to lose that, and I don’t want the department or the university to lose you.”

“Too late,” I said, feeling tears coming to my eyes. I paused for a beat. “You have no idea how powerless you really are to hold on to anything.” I touched the droplets on the can with my finger, tracing them, pulling them in the direction I wanted them to go, ignoring the two tears that slid down my face.

“Will you think about what I’ve said? Please? Forget as department chair. As a friend? I really am worried about you.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll think about it. I know you’re just doing your job.”

“Thanks, kid. And listen, you can talk to me anytime. My door’s always open.”

“Sure thing, Jeff. Seeya.”

I exited his office and exhaled, glad to be out of there, trembling down the hall and back to my office. As the day went on, I thought about what he said.
I’ll do better,
I told myself.
You know you love what you do. Just get that back, and everything will be okay. Everything will get better if you get back on track.

That night I went home and caught up on reading student papers and emails. It felt good to finish something.

***

Less than a week later, as I staggered into class on time, juggling a textbook and file folder while trying to keep my briefcase from slipping off my shoulder, I heard two students talking while surrounding classmates listened and chimed in with enthusiasm. Without saying good morning, I dropped the stuff down on the desk and listened in.

“…Man, I was so wasted, I’m surprised I even got up this morning.”

“Dude, I don’t even know how I got home.”

The words hit me like lighter fluid and ignited a rage in me.

“Boy, you really are a moron,” I started.

A couple of students laughed. The two boys looked at me, shocked.

“Excuse me?” one of them asked.

“You heard me. You think that’s something to brag about? Do you know how completely stupid you are?” I panned across the room. “And the rest of you are just as stupid because you were cheering him on just a minute ago.”

The room deadened.

“What—tell me,
what
in God’s name is so cool about getting so completely tanked that you can’t even remember how you got home? What is so cool about getting so wasted that you actually kill brain cells and rot part of your body away? I don’t get it. I mean, I
really
don’t get it.”

The class sat motionless and silent, their faces awash with apathy, while I continued my rant.

“Do you have any idea how unattractive that is? Do you have any idea how
fucking stupid
you are—not only to do it, but to actually
brag
about it? My
God
, can’t you have a good time without having to obliterate your senses? You’d be better off sucking on the exhaust pipe of a bus, for chrissake. Why—I mean,
why
can’t you just watch a game or see a movie without having to be complete morons and drinking yourselves into oblivion? Are you all that insecure? Do you hate yourselves that much?”

“We’re in college,” one of the two boys said. “This is what we do. It’s just part of growing up.”

“Oh God, you really are that stupid if you think you can argue that bullshit logic with me. Haven’t you learned anything in this class? Would you like to take a field trip to the Rhode Island correctional facility where one of your peers is doing time for vehicular manslaughter for offing my husband on a Monday night?
Ve-hic-u-lar man-slaught-er.
Kid was so fucking drunk he couldn’t even say the words ‘vehicular manslaughter’. I guarantee you that kid’s not bragging.”

Never had I sworn in front of my students. At least not to that degree.

“I thought he went to UMass Amherst,” a student said to the person sitting next to him.

“Or how would you like to do a visual analysis of pictures taken at the scene of the accident? He had
shards of glass
stuck in his body. My husband.”

Some of the students winced, while most of them remained expressionless.

“Do you know what speed my husband was doing? Ten, fifteen miles tops. He was pulling out of a store. You know what Satan’s Little Frat Boy was doing?
Sixty
. They estimated he was doing
sixty miles
in a twenty-five mile zone. Maybe seventy or seventy-five. Wanna know what my husband was buying? Sparkling cider. We were celebrating our wedding anniversary. We don’t need alcohol to make ourselves interesting to each other. We’re not plastic, feckless crackbabies hooked on Ritalin and porn.”

Hayley, the girl whose sister had Sam for a teacher, stood up and walked out.

“I’m sorry, Professor, but that’s just wrong,” she said in tears as she passed me. I watched her go, and suddenly felt as if I were outside my body, watching and wanting to stop myself, but unable to. I wanted to apologize to her, to all of them, but I couldn’t. They killed Sam.

The rest of the class followed, gathering their things and walking out.

“That’s right,” I said. “Go. Maybe there’s a bar that’s still open.”

The boy whom I called a moron muttered, “That’s fucked up,” as he passed me. The other boy looked at me and said, “I don’t care what happened to you. I’m going to get you fired.”

“Go ahead and try.”