Erasure (13 page)

DOCTOR 1:
This whole venture has always been iffy. I’m nearly ready to cut my losses and get out.

DOCTOR 2:
We have done some good work here.

DOCTOR 1:
What the hell does that mean? We hand out birth control pills and condoms to girls who won’t use them. We treat people who act like we owe it to them. What are we doing? Being role models? These kids laugh at us.

DOCTOR 2:
We didn’t start this to be popular.

DOCTOR 1:
But we are popular. We’re popular the way a drunken uncle is popular because he falls asleep with money falling out of his pockets.

DOCTOR 2:
You’re bitter. You’re sounding like a Republican.

DOCTOR 1:
That’s suppose to fill me with guilt. There’s a new political correctness. I go to parties and I’m afraid to admit what I do for a living. “I practice medicine at a women’s clinic,” I say. “Oh, you perform abortions,” they say and look at me like I’m the villain.

DOCTOR 2:
That’s true.

DOCTOR 1:
You’re damn right. It’s okay to say you’re pro-choice, just as long as you don’t say you’re for abortion. (Pauses) I’m terrified.

DOCTOR 2:
What about our patients?

DOCTOR 1:
They’ll divide up and go to the other clinics.

DOCTOR 2:
What would Lisa say?

DOCTOR 1:
Lisa’s dead.

Money was tight. I went over to the English Department at American University and asked for a job. I gave them my
curriculum vitae:

Thelonious Ellison

Citizenship: USA

Social Security #: 271–66–6961

Address: 1329 Underwood St.
               Washington, DC 20009

University of California, Irvine, M.F.A., Creative Writing, 1980

Harvard University, A.B., English, 1977

Personal Knowledge,
a novel, Tower Press, New York, NY, 1993.

The Persians,
a novel, Lawrence Press, New York, NY, 1991.

The Second Failure,
a novel, Endangered Species Press, Chicago, IL, 1988.

Shedding Skin,
short stories, Lawrence Press, New York, NY, 1984.

Chaldean Oracles,
a novel, Fat Chance Press, Lawrence Press, 1983.

“Euripides Alibi,” short story,
Experimental Fiction,
Santa Cruz, CA, v.5, no.3, 1995.

“The Devolution of Twain’s Memory,” fiction,
Theoretical Ropes,
Spring, University of Texas, 1995.

“House of Smoke,” short story,
Lanyard Review, v.7
no.1, New Orleans, LA, 1994.

“The Last Heat of Misery,” short story,
Alabama Mud,
Fall, Dallas, TX, 1994.

“Climbing Down,” short story,
Frigid Noir Review
#45, Santa Fe, NM, Spring 1993.

“Night Deposits,” short story,
Frigid Noir Review
#44, Santa Fe, NM, Winter 1992.

“Façon de parler,”
short story,
Out of Synch,
University of Colorado, Winter 1992.

“Clem’s Resolution,” short story,
Last Stand Review,
University of Virginia, v.20, no. 2, 1991.

“Another Man’s Wife,” short story,
Esquire,
New York, NY, September 1990.

Professor of English, University of California-Los Angeles, 1994–95.

Associate Professor, UCLA, 1988–94.

Visiting Professor of English and Honors, University of Minnesota, fall 1993.

Faculty, Bennington Writing Workshops, Bennington College, 1992, 93.

Timson Award for Excellence in Literature,
The Persians,
1991.

3 Pushcart Prize
prizes, 1990, 92, 94

National Endowment for the Arts, Fiction Fellowship, 1989.

The D. H. Lawrence Literary Fellowship, University of New Mexico, 1987.

1995-Rutgers University

1993-University of Michigan

-Bennington College

1992-Vassar College

-Pen-American Center, New York, NY

1989-Univerity of Virginia

1988-Rutgers University

Nouveau Roman Society

Modern Language Association

Associated Writing Programs

The chair of the department was a large man with a large head and I could not keep from staring at it. He no doubt perceived my fascination with his cranium, but what he told me was what I expected to hear. “Of course, the most I would be able to do is pull together some kind of visiting thing, but the department’s all gone for the summer.” He looked out his window and scratched that noggin. “We do need a lecturer for a survey of American Lit in the fall.”

“How much does it pay?” I asked.

“About four thousand, thirty-nine hundred and something. Not much.” He continued to stare at my credentials.

“That’s for the whole semester?” I asked.

The big head nodded.

“Thanks.”

Brown trout emerge from spawning gravels in spring and soon establish feeding territories. Young browns prefer quieter water than rainbow trout and tend to grow at a slower rate. Some spend their lives confined to headwater streams, but most of them migrate downstream to better habitat and feeding in rivers and lakes. Some brown trout live to be twenty years old. Browns are canny, the most wary of trout.

Lorraine was in the kitchen, standing over a pot of rice on the stove. She was wearing a yellow apron, perhaps the only one she had, I thought, since I had seen her in nothing but a yellow apron over a dark dress my entire life. When I was a child I imagined she had drawers of yellow aprons, a favorite yellow apron, a yellow apron for weddings and a yellow apron for funerals. I sat at the table.

“How are you feeling today, Lorraine?” I asked.

“Fine, Mr. Monk.” She put the lid on the pot and moved along the counter to chop some celery. “It’s a good thing you’ve done, coming home to care for your mother.”

I didn’t say anything, just watched the motion of the blade through the vegetables.

“I’m sorry if my books offend you, Lorraine.”

She was taken off guard by my directness, but kept chopping, peppers now.

“You know, just because my characters use certains words doesn’t mean anything about me. It’s art.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Have you ever used the word fuck?” I asked.

She stopped cutting, seemed almost ready to laugh. “Yes, I have, Mr. Monk. It’s a word which has its uses.”

“Yes ma’am.” I watched as she stirred the rice again. “Do you have any family in D.C.?” I asked.

“No. I used to have an auntie, but she died a long time ago. This is the only family I’ve ever known.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I don’t miss my family. I never knew them.”

“No, I mean I’m sorry this is the crazy family you landed in.”

“Ya’ll aren’t crazy,” she said. “Ya’ll are different, that’s a fact. But you’re not crazy.”

“Thanks. Hey, Lorraine, where would you go if you couldn’t live here?”

She put the lid on the pot and stared down at it. “I don’t know.”

“Do you have any friends?”

She shook her head, but said, “A couple.”

“Do you have any money saved?” I knew how much Lorraine was paid because I was now making out her checks. It was not bad considering she had free rent and food. “Do you have anything?”

She cleared her throat. “I’ve saved a little bit. I’ve never been much good at saving. Why are you asking?”

“Lorraine, Mother’s getting up there. What’s going to happen when she dies?”

“I’ll stay here and take care of you, Mr. Monk.”

I looked at the old woman, nearly as old as my mother, and hadn’t a clue what to say next. I got up and started to leave, stopped at the door to the dining room, looked back and said, “That will be fine, Lorraine.”

Ernst Kirchner: I’m glad, no proud that those brown shirts are burning my paintings.