I Am Charlotte Simmons (38 page)
Read I Am Charlotte Simmons Online
Authors: Tom Wolfe
His eye strayed to another girl who had that sweat stain ⦠that lubricious line ⦠down the crack in the back of her sweatpants â¦
He grinned sheepishly. “Now I can't even remember what I was saying.”
“You were talking about âstudents like us'? After the Gulf War in 1991?”
Nine-teen niney wuh-un?
Nine-teen niney wuh-un?
“Oh, yeah. Up 'til then, students like us used to just go to graduate school and become college teachers. But after that, a new type of intellectual comes on the scene: the bad-ass. The bad-ass is sort of a rogue intellectual. A bad-ass doesn't want to do anything so boring and low-paid and like ⦠codified ⦠as teaching. The bad-ass types, they're the types who don't want to spend their twenties, they don't want to spend the prime of life as a graduate student cooped up in some cubicle up in the stacks of the library. You're an intellectual, but you want to operate on a higher level. This is a new millennium, and you want to be a member of the millennial aristocracy, which is a meritocracy, but an aristo-meritocracy. You're a mutant. You're an evolutionary advance. You've gone way beyond the ordinary âintellectual' of the twentieth century. You're not just some dealer in ideas who's content to sell the ideas of a Marx or a Freud or a Darwin or a ⦠a ⦠a Chomsky ⦠to the unenlightened.” He didn't seem all that sure about Chomsky. “Those guys weren't transmitters for other people's ideas. Each one of them created a
matrix
, a mother of all ideas. That's what a Millennial Mutant aims for. This is a new millennium, the twenty-first century is, and you're going to create the new matrixes yourself, or
matrices
I guess it is, if you see what I'm saying?”
matrix
, a mother of all ideas. That's what a Millennial Mutant aims for. This is a new millennium, the twenty-first century is, and you're going to create the new matrixes yourself, or
matrices
I guess it is, if you see what I'm saying?”
No, said the blank look the girl gave him.
“All right. You're not going to be a graduate student, which to most people means some kind of geek or creep, and you're not going to teach, which means some poor old guy who ends up with humped-over shouldersâyou know the kind of professor I mean? Who wants to end up as this like ⦠pathetic object of pity? So in college you don't sign up for a conventional major. If you're at Dupont, you do what I did. You go into the Hodges
Fellows Program and you create your own major, along with a faculty adviser. I'm not bragging, because it's not all that hard to do. But I have to tell you, I came up with the perfect title for my Hodges: âThe Intellectual Foundations of Globalization.' âGlobal' is a key concept. It's a big plus if you show an altruistic interest in the Third World. Tanzania is very hot right now. East Timor is not bad. Haiti will do, but you haven't like ⦠you haven't like gone deep enough into the Third World. You know what I mean? It's too easy to get to Haiti. I mean, you can take a plane from Philadelphia and be there in an hour and a half, that sort of thing.”
Fellows Program and you create your own major, along with a faculty adviser. I'm not bragging, because it's not all that hard to do. But I have to tell you, I came up with the perfect title for my Hodges: âThe Intellectual Foundations of Globalization.' âGlobal' is a key concept. It's a big plus if you show an altruistic interest in the Third World. Tanzania is very hot right now. East Timor is not bad. Haiti will do, but you haven't like ⦠you haven't like gone deep enough into the Third World. You know what I mean? It's too easy to get to Haiti. I mean, you can take a plane from Philadelphia and be there in an hour and a half, that sort of thing.”
“What do you mean, âget there'?” said Charlotte.
“You actually go there. You go to Tanzania or some other country that's hot for your junior year abroad. You never pick Florence or Paris or London, least of all London. It has to be the Third World, and you have to show what they call âservice opportunity leadership.' I went to Kenya, but it turns out everybody has this idea Kenya's too civilized. I taught English in a village out in the re-mote, out in the bush about four hours west of Nairobi by pickup truck, and I mean there wasn't a ballpoint pen within a fifty-mile radius, much less a word processor, and I got malaria like everybody else in my village. They gave me the best house they had, this little brick hut with two windows, since I was the teacher come all the way from America, but it didn't have any screensâso I got malaria like everybody elseâand I come back and other Mutants are telling me I made a bad choice. Kenya is too civilized. If I had it to do over, I'd do a project like a documentary photo study of Tanzania, with text, something like that.”
Adam detected a touch of reproof in the look Charlotte was giving him. Sure enough, she then said, “You wentâpeople go all the way to Africa just to look good?”
“No, no, that's not what I'm saying,” said Adam. It was time to back out of this particular dead endâand it had seemed so light and captivating and sophisticated while he was saying it. “Not at all. I mean if you don't have a genuine interest, you don't even think about anything like this. You don't live in a brick hut with no screens and let toxic insects have their run of your hide. But it's like anything else you want to do. There are strategies ⦠and there are
strategies.”
He shook his head several times. “No, no, no, don't get me wrong. But if you're a bad-ass, you have a specific goal. You want to get a Rhodes scholarship. That's the goal, and there are only thirty-two of them awarded in the whole country. If you get one, you go to Oxford and get a D.Phil. degree, and then it's like magic. Every door opens. You can go into
politics like Bill Clinton or Bill Bradley. Remember Bill Bradley? You can be a policy wonk like this guy Murray Gutman, who advises the president on demographics and cultural shifts. He's only twenty-six,
butâ
he's your classic Bad-Ass Rhodie. You can write, like this guy Philip Gourevitch who does all these long pieces for
The New Yorker
on Africa and Asia or this guy Timmond who did the big coffee-table book on African leaders. I mean, Africa's perfect, especially when you think about Cecil Rhodes's idea when he set up the Rhodes scholarships. The idea was to bring bright young American barbarians over to England and make them citizens of the world. He wanted to lift them up to a higher plane and extend the reach of the British Empire with its American cousins in tow. The British Empire is gone, but a Rhodes still lifts you to a higher plane. You're not doomed to being some obscure college teacher. You become a public intellectual. Everybody talks about your ideas.”
strategies.”
He shook his head several times. “No, no, no, don't get me wrong. But if you're a bad-ass, you have a specific goal. You want to get a Rhodes scholarship. That's the goal, and there are only thirty-two of them awarded in the whole country. If you get one, you go to Oxford and get a D.Phil. degree, and then it's like magic. Every door opens. You can go into
politics like Bill Clinton or Bill Bradley. Remember Bill Bradley? You can be a policy wonk like this guy Murray Gutman, who advises the president on demographics and cultural shifts. He's only twenty-six,
butâ
he's your classic Bad-Ass Rhodie. You can write, like this guy Philip Gourevitch who does all these long pieces for
The New Yorker
on Africa and Asia or this guy Timmond who did the big coffee-table book on African leaders. I mean, Africa's perfect, especially when you think about Cecil Rhodes's idea when he set up the Rhodes scholarships. The idea was to bring bright young American barbarians over to England and make them citizens of the world. He wanted to lift them up to a higher plane and extend the reach of the British Empire with its American cousins in tow. The British Empire is gone, but a Rhodes still lifts you to a higher plane. You're not doomed to being some obscure college teacher. You become a public intellectual. Everybody talks about your ideas.”
Charlotte said, “There are only thirty-two Rhodes scholarships?” Adam nodded yes. “Well, golly, that's not very many. What if you're a badâwhat if that's what you're counting on and you don't get one?”
“In that case,” said Adam, “you go after a Fulbright. That's a pretty long way down from a Rhodes, but it's okay. There's also the Marshall Fellowships, but they're the last resort. I mean that's bottom-fishing. During the cold war a bad-ass couldn't've accepted a Fulbright or a Marshall, because they're government programs, and that would've made you look like a tool of imperialism. A Rhodes was okay because there was no British Empire left, and you couldn't be accused of being a tool of something that wasn't there anymore. Today the only empire is the American empire, and it's omnipotent, and so if you don't get a Rhodes you have to make use of it, the new empire. It's okay as long as you're using it for the sake of your own goals and not theirs.”
“Theirs?” said Charlotte. “What do you mean, theirs?”
Oh-oh; let's back out of this alley, too. “I don't mean âtheirs' like âours' and âtheirs' in the ordinary sense.” He realized this wasn't very expert double-talking, but he hurried on, hoping to sweep her along with his momentum. “I just mean there's no conventional role, no existing codified role for a bad-ass. There's no existing slot for the new aristo-meritocrat. âTheirs' in that sense, in that circumscribed sense. You know?” Let's get outta here! “Or that's why some bad-asses go into consulting for like ⦠McKinsey. That's the one they shoot for, McKinsey. I mean, consulting is better than i-banking, because let's say you're starting out as an i-bankerâ”
“What's an i-banker?” said the girl.
“An investment banker,” said Adam. Thank God. At least he'd faked and kept her from digging her heels in for some kind of anti-anti-Americanism number. “If you start out in investment banking, you're going to be putting in hundred-hour weeks. You make a lot of money, but they use you like a slave. Some of these banks have dormitories, so if you're still working at two or three in the morning, you can sleep over and be back at your desk at eight, in time to work another sixteen or eighteen hours straight. If you're a consultant, you don't make quite as much money, but you make plenty, and you travel out of town three or four times a week and you rack up incredible frequent-flier miles.”
The expression on the girl's face as much as said, “You're not making any sense.”
Adam rushed on: “The thing about all those frequent-flier miles is, you can fly all over the world for nothing. Let's say you want to go to this new superresort they've got in New Zealandâawesome golf course, the whole dealâyou can fly there first-class for a vacation, and it doesn't cost you anything.”
“I don't understand,” said Charlotte. “What does that have to do with concepts and ideas and being an intellectual and having influence and everything?”
“Well, nothing directly,” said Adam. “It's just an example of how you use the empire to live like an aristocrat without having to have a family pedigree or any of that stuff.”
“I don't see why you call it the empire,” said Charlotte.
Damn. He'd blundered back onto that terrain again. “It's sort of a ⦠figure of speech,” he said. “I'm not even interested in consulting, myself, although if you're invited for a McKinsey recruiting weekend, that shows you're on the right track.”
“Have they invited you on one?”
“Yeah, and it's coming up in about three and a half weeks.”
“Are you going?”
“Uh ⦠yes. I mean I might as well.”
“Even though you're not interested?”
“WellâI'm curious about it, I guess. And it won't hurt to be seen there. You knowâthe word gets around that you're out there on the right track. Actually, the track starts early, in high school, although I didn't know that when I was at Roxbury Latin. If you're interested in being a scientist, the big thing is being invited to the Research Science Institute at MIT or the Telluride Institute
at Cornell. Princeton has one in the humanities, and it's also a big thing to be invited to the Renaissance Weekend as one of the student attendees. You know about the Renaissance Weekends?”
at Cornell. Princeton has one in the humanities, and it's also a big thing to be invited to the Renaissance Weekend as one of the student attendees. You know about the Renaissance Weekends?”
“No.”
“They have them every year at Christmastime at Hilton Head, in South Carolina. All these politicians and celebrities and scientists and businessmen go there and talk about ideas and issues and things. They have student attendees so they can find out what's on the minds of âthe young' and all that. That anoints you as somebody who's already on the Millennial track, and you're only seventeen or eighteen.”
“But I still don't understand consulting,” said Charlotte. “What do you consult
about
?”
Abay-ut.
about
?”
Abay-ut.
“You get sent to these corporations, and you tell them how to improve their ⦠oh, I don't know, management techniques, I guess. But the important thingâ”
“How could they know how to do that?”â
they-utâ
“if they've just graduated from college?”
they-utâ
“if they've just graduated from college?”
“Well, I suppose they ⦠uh ⦠have some kind ofâto tell you the truth, I don't know. I've wondered the same thing. But I know they do it, and they make a lot of money. The important thing is to be an aristo-meritocrat and live at that higher level I was talking about. If you want to have some influence, then you've got to have the freedom to ram your ideas home.” Adam leaned back against the wall and gave her as warm, and at the same time as confident, a smile as he could. She seemed slightly bewildered, but that only made her open her eyes wider to look more lovely. Her eyes were so blue, blue like ⦠he could see the flower ⦠grew low to the ground, but he didn't know its nameâ
“But the
really
important thing,” he heard himself saying, “is that you come meet the Millennial Mutants. You'll see what Dupont
ought
to be about. Every Monday we get together for dinner.”
really
important thing,” he heard himself saying, “is that you come meet the Millennial Mutants. You'll see what Dupont
ought
to be about. Every Monday we get together for dinner.”
“Where?”
“Different places. I could let you know.”
She just looked at him, although not in a way one could attach any particular emotion to. Finally she said, “Monday nights? I reckon I could do that. Thank you.”
“Great,” said Adam. And it
felt
great. He looked into her eyes with the intention of looking deeply, profoundly ⦠and then pouring his whole self into her through her optic chiasmas.
felt
great. He looked into her eyes with the intention of looking deeply, profoundly ⦠and then pouring his whole self into her through her optic chiasmas.
Butâ
pop
âher eyes were on his sweatpants, at hip level. “How does your hip feel now?”
pop
âher eyes were on his sweatpants, at hip level. “How does your hip feel now?”
His hip? “Oh, it's okay,” said Adam. “I'll be fine.”
“Well, I've got four and a half more miles to go, I guess I'd better ⦔
“Oh sure,” he said, “you go ahead. And hey, thanks!”
By the time he said “thanks,” she was already on her way to the machine. But then she looked back over her shoulder and smiled and gave him a little wave.
Walking home in the dark, through the campus, through the streets of Chester, Adam kept visualizing that smile. Surely it wasn't mere politeness, for there was definitely a certain gleam, a kind of ⦠promise ⦠or maybe the word was confirmation or like â¦
sealing â¦
and the way she tossed her hair when she looked back ⦠sort of like an ⦠unfurling ⦠He began whistling a tune, “You Are So Beautiful,” even though it was a hard tune to whistle.
sealing â¦
and the way she tossed her hair when she looked back ⦠sort of like an ⦠unfurling ⦠He began whistling a tune, “You Are So Beautiful,” even though it was a hard tune to whistle.
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