The Captive Condition (19 page)

“Only cowards wish to die a dry death,” said the voice, “and now this leviathan is going to swallow you and drag you down into the abyss. Ah, but maybe the sea will reject you, spit you out. The lake might miraculously freeze, and you'll be able to walk across a kingdom of ice to safety. If not, hell might cast you out, decide that the world is a more suitable place for your kind of evil. But I doubt it. Because you've done things, unnatural things, things the universe will not tolerate.”

Another blast of wind snapped the rotting timbers at the prow, and as the boat listed perilously to its side, the men were thrown clear of the deck and into the churning water, littering the lake with long tentacles of terror. The heavy flakes of snow looked like a furious swarm of albino locusts hurtling in a suicide pact toward the hull. They splattered against the wood until one by one their unique patterns dissolved and vanished forever into the void.

Trapped inside the coop, the owl, now unsure of its sovereignty, flapped its wings at the furious gale and in a voice heavily laden with grief said, “We split! We split! I believe you did assist the storm!”

Cleaving their way through the riotous waves, the men struggled to the surface, their jeans and boots and flannel shirts pulling them under, and they fought hard to hang on to the cracked planks scattered across the surface. Strange forms darted below their thrashing legs, a crazed circling school of fabled sea monsters, and the men, choking on the yellow spume and oily spectra, pounded on the water with their fists. By then the boat was almost entirely submerged. Those who could swim fought hard to tread water, but in the frigid lake they found it exhausting work. Only the chicken coop managed to stay afloat, as if the world cared more about the owl than it did the crew. No doubt the goddess would find a way to escape, resourceful as she was, and this filled the men with great hope.

Minutes passed, their legs became heavy and numb, and as they flailed desperately in the tempestuous lake, they looked like helpless babes taken mewling and puking from the incubator of a satanic hatchery. Before they disappeared one by one beneath the murderous waves and their lives were blotted out, they glimpsed a thin band of pink light struggling to brighten the horizon, and among a fantastic squadron of white gulls, they saw the owl circling the heavens for carrion, its song a restless and ancient lamentation.

In an effort to shore up its waning commitment to cultural diversity and social justice, the administration of Normandy College started admitting, on a probationary basis, more of the local high school graduates, and each semester the chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature selected at random one professor to teach a section of remedial composition to help prepare these “at risk” students for college-level work, a state of affairs that put Martin Kingsley, this semester's lucky winner, in the foulest of moods. These days the big word in academic circles was “inclusion,” but many professors, Kingsley among them, believed in
exclusion.
After all, how could someone feel a sense of superiority if he couldn't give his perceived social inferiors the proverbial boot? No matter how dedicated or well intentioned they may have been, the locals would inevitably drag standards down and turn the college into a third-rate intellectual backwater. Higher education had succumbed long ago to the pressures of the marketplace, and its unscrupulous administrators, like carnival barkers standing outside the circus tent of the college, harangued innocent passersby and persuaded them to empty their pockets and step through the tent flap in order to witness an inauthentic and fabricated spectacle. Now it was Kingsley's turn to put on a good show.

On Monday afternoon, behind the closed door of his office, he topped off his coffee mug with
jazar
juice and took a long and sloppy swig. He was drinking far too much of the stuff these days, and he could feel the terrible strains of paranoia and hypocrisy brought on by the powerful juice. When he chose teaching as his vocation, Kingsley wanted badly to believe in an enduring cause, a fixed creed, an ineradicable philosophy, but experience had taught him that everything in the world was more or less fraudulent and everyone was a fraud, including himself. To believe in something—in the institution of higher learning that engaged his services, in his colleagues, in his ignorant and slothful students with their dull chimpanzee eyes—meant to be content with self-delusion, and he had now reached a point in his life where it was difficult for him to believe wholeheartedly in anything at all.

He weaved his way through the halls, and as he stumbled into the classroom, he said in a blustering manner, “Okay, folks, listen up! I'd like to begin today's class by discussing your next writing assignment.”

The students emitted a collective groan and slouched lower in their seats. Kingsley wanted to groan, too, wanted to weep, wanted to run back to his office and drink more of the
jazar.
Their essays infuriated him, the slovenliness of their arguments, the violence of their horrifically twisted and mangled prose, but if he couldn't teach them how to write grammatically correct sentences, he could at least try to inoculate them against the virulent strain of the small-town ethos and the crawling chaos of anti-intellectualism that threatened to destroy their lives. Maybe by preventing them from becoming the next Emily Ryan, he could redeem himself in some small way, he could atone.

Kingsley walked up and down the crowded rows, distributing a handout. For one week each semester he prepared and delivered a series of lectures on the topic of love in all of its multitudinous forms, and today's talk was supposed to focus specifically on Eros, but he couldn't bring himself to discuss such a thing, not directly at least. To his relief the
jazar
had inspired a last-minute solution to the problem.

“Your task,” he said with a hiccup, “is to compose a letter to the editor of the college newspaper, expressing your opinion about the presence of a gentlemen's club in this town. When it first opened its doors, the Normandy Cabaret introduced an element of vice into this otherwise bucolic setting. You've seen the menacing characters that drive into town from all corners of the county, and this may explain the sharp increase in crime in our area. And I probably don't need to tell you how the management exploits dozens of destitute young women desperate to make a dollar.” When he saw his students losing interest, Kingsley rapped his knuckles sharply on the lectern. “So! Do some of you have any thoughts on this matter?”

One of the commuters raised her hand.

Kingsley pointed. “Yes, Lorelei?”

“Um, what does this assignment have to do with composition?”

“It's what we call ‘experiential learning.' Over the centuries many people have recognized how the pen can facilitate social progress more readily than brute force. Today's reading assignment discusses this principle in detail. Did anyone bother to do the reading? No? Well, the essay points out how it is essential for students to actively engage in some form of social protest. By doing so you will feel empowered. More importantly, you will learn the consequences of speaking your mind. Because there are always consequences. Nothing irritates the opposition more than free expression.”

Lorelei raised her hand again. “But what if we don't want to protest the Normandy Cabaret? Aren't we just saying what's on your mind? I mean, has the Normandy Cabaret been on your mind lately?”

His patience wearing thin, Kingsley replied, “It's an immoral establishment. Fully tax abated, too. You'll see. We'll go there one day and picket outside the door and wave signs.”

“How long should this letter be?”

“There is no mandatory length. Simply develop each of your ideas and make your points clear and direct. But the important thing is that you base your argument on sound reasoning and research. The editor is more likely to take you seriously if you do.”

Lorelei frowned. “How much research should we do? What if one of us decided to get a job at the Normandy Cabaret and make some money?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That's called primary research, right? Seriously, what if I worked there? And what if I enjoyed the job and I was making decent cash. What gives you, or anyone else in this classroom, the right to judge what I do for a living?”

Kingsley wiped his feverish forehead with the back of his hand, and in his eyes there was nothing left of the intellectual's solemn manner. “Oh, Lorelei, do cooperate. It's just a simple exercise.”

“A kind of hypothetical situation, right?”

“Yes, very good! Hypothetical.”

“Okay. Sorry, one more question.”

Lorelei gave him an unwholesome grin and chewed her gum loudly, deliberately, making sure it cracked and popped in her mouth, maximizing its full potential to drive her teacher bananas, and Kingsley now understood that he'd been wrong about this young woman that he once believed to be so slow of wit and swift of tongue. She was a talented actress treating him to a stellar performance as a scatterbrained sorority sister.

“Should it be, like, a business letter? Do we have to, like, include all of that junk at the top? A header and all of that? The date and stuff? Oh, and does the dictionary count as research?”

“No, no, no,” Kingsley sputtered. He could feel his face turning dangerously dark red and took a deep breath. “We'll discuss legitimate resources during our next class. Today, I would like to focus on general practices. Step one, writing an introduction…”

There was only one authority—the authority of a student to think for herself—and by bravely expressing an opinion that must have struck her fellow townies as counterintuitive, Lorelei had taken an important first step toward independent, critical thinking. For this Kingsley, a brilliant hater, had tried to belittle her. As I swabbed the floors in the hallway outside the classroom, I listened to the professor's tedious bunk, and from the tone of his voice I could tell he was drunk. Using an old teacher's trick, he stood behind the lectern, opened the textbook to a random page, and blabbered on and on about a topic barely relevant to the discussion at hand, each garbled word weighed down and dragged under by his leaden delivery. Within minutes he managed to lull his students into passivity, their eyes growing heavy with boredom, but Kingsley looked perceptively weakened. Desperate for another quick fix, he soon dismissed his class and returned to his office, where he could apply himself to the bottle and focus on his own selfish pursuits.

I knew all about the
jazar
's effects and decided to have a little fun. With mop and bucket in hand I hurried back to Plant Operations. I intended to commit a small act of academic treason, even though, technically speaking, I was no longer a student since I'd failed to enroll in classes that semester. Smiling in anticipation, I made my way along the corridor and went to the phone on the wall outside the empty lunchroom. My fellow ticks had not come to work today, and the assumption, at least on the part of the Gonk, was that they were either dead or in jail. I lifted the receiver, wondering if my dream had actually been a premonition, and asked the campus operator to connect me with the correct office. After several rings the professor picked up on the other end.

“Kingsley speaking.”

I could practically smell the booze on his breath. Lowering my voice an octave, I gruffly said, “Kingsley, Little Morty here.”

“I'm sorry, who?”

“Cut the shit, pal. You know who I am.”

“No, actually—”

“I'm the lowlife who runs the Normandy Cabaret.”

“Ah, I see. Well, thank you for calling—”

“Do you have any idea how long it takes to put together a business deal?”

“No, I'm afraid I—”

“Years, Kingsley, years. I could have opened my club in any town I damn well pleased. In Camden, Clyde, Elyria, Winesburg. But I convinced the mayor and town trustees to let me open it right here. I'm only giving the people what they asked for—tits and ass and an occasional drink. Is that so terrible?”

“But, sir, that isn't the point.”

“Put a lid on it, chump. I don't think you understand what's at stake here. Men travel great distances to visit our town and spend their money in my club. This small enterprise might start a wave of economic redevelopment and help some of our citizens climb out of poverty. I'm talking
jobs,
Kingsley, real jobs, not a college writing exercise. People can't feed their families by bellyaching about the philosophical shortcomings of capitalism and the sinfulness of seeing a bit of trim now and then. Maybe that's what you need, eh, Professor? A little trimming?”

“Sir, there's no need for vulgarity. As I see it, you have no intention of hiring full-time employees and giving them medical and dental—”

“As
you
see it?”

“I've looked into your business practices and—”

“Oh, right, right, you have more business savvy than I do, or the mayor does. Okay, so it isn't an automobile assembly line or an oil refinery, but the citizens don't have a choice in these matters, do they? A big corporation isn't going to set up shop here. The good old days of heavy industry and manufacturing are over. Sometimes you have to take whatever comes your way—”

“Sir, if I might have a word,” he interrupted, his voice full of indignation. “Yes, perhaps it's generous of you to open your business here, fine, but it would be more generous if the Normandy Cabaret paid a fair and equitable tax rate, thereby contributing to the public school system. Isn't it more important to have an educated populace? Without a proper education, the common people can never flourish in a free and democratic society. Thomas Jefferson believed—”

“Thomas Jefferson! Are you fucking kidding me? That immoral fool, drinking his booze and knocking up his slave women. If he were around today, Jefferson would be a loyal, card-carrying member of the cabaret. We aren't one nation under God; we're one nation united under the guiding force of despicable human nature. Jefferson understood that principle all too well. And he also knew the best way to keep our nasty little urges from turning into big ugly problems was to legalize a couple of harmless vices.”

“I really don't want to get into an argument with you.”

“No argument from me, Kingsley. I already know who's going to win this round.”

“I'm not sure I understand—”

“I don't want any letters sent to that idiotic college rag. Those little shits in your class don't know any better. And you better lay off my girls.”

“Your girls?”

“Don't get cute with me, Kingsley. You know exactly what I mean.”

“No, I'm afraid I don't.”

“Beware, Kingsley. Do not fuck with my ladies, or you'll have to worry about the entire town rising up against you. Trust me on this. We know your terrible secret.”

I heard the sharp squeak of a chair as Kingsley leaned forward and strained to comprehend the meaning of my words. I could picture his bloodshot eyes, and in the sudden stillness of his office I could detect his labored breathing, the wild pounding of his heart, the terrible avalanche of his thoughts.

“Better watch your step, Professor, or you may get an unexpected message from beyond the grave.” I paused for a moment. At some point the student must challenge the master for supremacy. By what other method does one become autonomous and free? One cannot go on being an acolyte forever. Unable now to disguise the small tremor in my own voice, I held the receiver close to my lips and whispered, “Emily Ryan sends her love, Kingsley.”

Then I hung up the phone.

More determined than ever to master any new technique that might help him improve his curious craft, the Gonk that fall audited another evening class at the college, Introduction to Studio Art, and during a lecture on Monday afternoon, as he sat at a desk surrounded by apathetic freshman, he gripped his pencil like grim death and pressed the sharpened tip deep into his sketch pad. No one spoke to him. No one dared. Into the classroom the instructor wheeled a large, bronze figure of a six-armed god dancing with perfect impassivity through a circle of fire, one hand clicking a drum, another holding a small flame, his left foot stomping on the back of a demonic dwarf, his right foot lifted in a dance that seemed acrobatic in its contortions. Hoping to inspire her students and impart some kind of meaning to the sorrows of everyday life, Marianne Kingsley recited a verse in Sanskrit while on the stereo a virtuoso sitarist played a delirious raga. She could speak for hours, and often did, her voice becoming increasingly shrill as the class dragged on.