Can't and Won't: Stories (14 page)

Likely abandoned by previous owners

Confined to bathroom during first week

Would not eat for one week in new home, but played actively in confined space

Skin/coat: Inflamed/irritated around neck

Parasites: flea dirt found

Allowed to run free outdoors after adoption

Keeps owners company in vegetable garden

Nose/Throat: no visible lesions

Eating well, dry food

Hunts small birds, but was not able to retain grip on large blue jay

Broken tooth: upper right canine

Dental disease grade: 2–3 out of 5

Two other cats in house and they all run around in large house

Will not play with other cats

Eyes: no visible lesions

Lungs: within normal limits

Will not play with owners in presence of other cats, but will play with owners in bathroom

Lymph nodes: normal

Heart: within normal limits

Affectionate with owners, purrs and closes eyes when petted

Hangs limp in owners’ arms when picked up

Urogenital system: within normal limits

Urinates inappropriately at home on floor in 2–3 places per day

Getting worse over time, larger puddles of urine

Ears: no visible lesions

Moderate fascial skin restriction over lumbar back, significant over sacrum

Cries when petted just above tail

Sometimes cries before or after urinating

Sometimes cries after nap

Abdomen: no palpable lesions

Nervous system: within normal limits

Weight: 8.75 lbs

Ideal weight: 8.75 lbs

Does not use litter box—defecates on floor in vicinity of litter box

May have fleas

Pain score: 3 out of 10 (over sacrum)

Tolerates exam by vet, nervous but no overt hostility

Pulse: 180

Overall body condition score: 3 out of 5

*   *   *

Update
:

Was urinating in larger quantities on floor when indoors

Chose to go outdoors every day despite adverse weather conditions

Could not be found at midday on very hot spring day

Was found in late afternoon under pine tree, panting and covered with flies

Was brought indoors and laid in cool shower stall

Stopped panting, resumed normal respiration

Died within several hours

Age at time of death: approx. 11 yrs

The Letter to the Foundation

Dear Frank and Members of the Foundation,

I was not able to finish this letter before now even though I began writing to you in my head immediately after your momentous phone call of September 29 all those many years ago. I was aware, in the first few days, of certain instructions you had given me—that I could tell the news to only two people, that I should be friendly to a college reporter, if one should approach me, that I should call you Frank. I did not think of sitting down and writing to you, because you had not specifically instructed me to do that.

I think you did say you were curious about what it was like to receive this grant, but by now I may be confusing something you said with something another person said to me, asking if I would describe for him what it was like. In any case, whether or not you asked me to describe it, I will do that.

I told you right away, Frank, that I wanted to write you a letter of thanks. You told me I really didn’t have to. I said I wanted to, though. You laughed and said, Yes, you are a scholar and a teacher of literature, so you probably have a lot to say.

The trouble is, I am an honest and truthful person and I’m not sure how truthful I can be in writing to the Foundation. I don’t want to tell you things you don’t want to hear, after all. For instance, I don’t think you want to hear that I didn’t intend to work all the time during the period of the grant.

What happened first was that I did not believe I had been given this grant. For a surprisingly long time, I didn’t believe it. I was so used to not receiving this grant. I knew about it. Our department at the college calls it the two-year grant. Other scholars I knew had gotten it. I had wanted it for many years. I had watched others receive it while I did not receive it: I was simply one of the hundreds and hundreds of scholars who ardently want one of these grants in order to be rescued at least temporarily from the life or the work they are subjected to—the heavy course load, the constant exhaustion, the annoying dean of studies or the impossibly detail-oriented acting chairwoman, the committee work, the endless office hours, the flickering fluorescent light in the office, the stains on the classroom carpeting, etc. I was deeply accustomed to being one of those who were passed over by the Foundation, who were rejected, who, in the eyes of the Foundation, should not receive this award and were less worthy than certain others. I therefore did not really believe I was one of those who had been rescued, or I was very slow to begin believing it, with the help of reminders that also seemed unreal after a while: “Good for you!” one of my colleagues would say. “What are your plans now?”

I was like an amnesiac who accepts what she is told about her life but does not remember any of it herself. Since she can’t remember any of it, she can’t deeply believe it, but she must accept it and become accustomed to it because so many people tell her the same facts over and over.

I will try to reconstruct the experience for you, since you asked.

*   *   *

It was just after nine in the morning when the Foundation telephoned.

I was getting ready to go into the city. I stopped what I was doing and talked to you. For a moment, I thought you might be calling for another reason. But at the same time, I was thinking that you wouldn’t telephone me at nine in the morning for anything else—you would have written me a letter. The first person I talked to was a shy, gentle woman with a quiet voice. She gave me the good news and then told me that I should call another person from the Foundation right away, a man who might or might not be in his office.

Meanwhile, even as I was talking to her and hearing the good news, I was worried that I would miss my bus. I could not miss the bus because I had an appointment down in the city to the south of where I lived. I called the other person, the man, and he was in his office, which was a relief. I think this man was probably you, although by now, all these years later, I’m not sure. He began to tease me. He tried to make me think I had misunderstood what the gentle woman had said, and that I was not really going to be getting any grant. He must have known that I would be aware that he was teasing me, and he must have known, too, that I would be surprised that he was teasing me, and even worried about it, though I didn’t know exactly in what way I should be worried. I wondered later if I was the only one you teased when talking about the good news, but since I can’t believe that, I have to believe you make a habit of teasing the people you call—if it was you, of course.

I talked to him, or you, as long as you seemed to want me to talk. It was then that you gave me instructions. You told me to call you Frank. At that moment, I was prepared to do anything you seemed to want me to do, because I was afraid that if I was not careful at that moment, everything would be ruined and the grant would vanish. This was an instinctive reaction, not a rational one. When the conversation was over, I hurried to the bus.

I was glad, of course—I thought about the good news all the way in to the city. For the first time, also, I could observe exactly how my mind adapted to a suddenly new situation: over and over again, I caught myself thinking about something in the usual way and then told myself, No, now things are different. When this had happened enough times, at last my mind began to adapt to the new situation.

Later that day, I was having lunch by myself in a restaurant near the public library. I ordered a half sandwich and a cup of soup, which cost about $7. After the waitress walked away, I continued to think about the menu, because, really, I would have preferred a certain favorite salad for $11. Then I realized: I could have afforded the salad! But immediately afterwards I thought, No! Be careful! If you spend half again as much as you used to spend on each thing that you buy from now on, you will soon run out of money!

I was feeling such relief. I wanted to tell the Foundation about this immense relief. But then I thought that of course it must be obvious to you. You probably hear this from every person you help. Does every person let you know? Or are some people very quiet or very matter-of-fact? Are they very pragmatic, and do they immediately plan how they will put it to use? Are some people not even relieved, though they are happy and excited? Or not even happy and excited? Still, I wanted to tell the Foundation. I wanted to tell you that now everything was going to be all right—I would not have to worry.

I wanted to tell you that during all of my adult life, starting at the age of twenty-one, I had worried about how I would earn enough to live on for the next year, sometimes for the next week. When I was still young, and even when I was older, my parents sometimes sent me small sums of money to help out, but the burden was on me, it was my responsibility, I knew that, and my next year’s income was never secure. Sometimes I was frightened because I had so little money and did not see how I could earn more. The fear would be something I felt physically in the pit of my stomach. It would come upon me suddenly: What was I going to do? Once, I had no money at all except for the $13 that a friend owed me. I did not want to ask her to pay it back, but I did. Most of all, I wanted to tell you that now I would not have to do the work I was doing that was so difficult for me. By that, I meant teaching.

Teaching has always been so difficult. At times, it has been a disaster. I’m not afraid of hard work, and I’m used to it, but this particular kind of work, the kind of teaching I do, has been crushing and almost debilitating. Particularly difficult was the year before I received that telephone call, and also the year in which I received it. In those days, I wanted to cry, I wanted to shout, I wanted to wring my hands and complain, and I did try to complain to some people, though I could never cry or complain as much as I wanted to. Some people listened and tried to be helpful, but they could never listen long enough; the conversation always had to come to an end. I always kept most of my emotion to myself. I was still in the midst of teaching then, when the Foundation called, but with the great difference, after the call, that I thought I wouldn’t be continuing. I had two more months of it, I thought, and then I would be done with it, maybe forever.

*   *   *

I have so often sat on the bus traveling up to the college, on those mornings, wishing something would come down and rescue me, or that there would be a minor accident, one in which no one was hurt, or at least not badly hurt, that would prevent me from teaching the class.

That is how the teaching day begins. I take a public bus from my town to the small city one hour north, where the college is. I do not drive my car, even though I could. I do not want that extra responsibility on a teaching day. I don’t want to have to think about steering the car.

I sit there quietly in the bus looking out the window. The bus rolls me gently from side to side and presses me back into the seat when it accelerates, or drops out from under me briefly when it goes over a bump. I like the way the bus rolls me around. I do not like the song that goes through my head. It always goes through my head for a while before I notice it. It is not a song of celebration. It is a dull and repetitious song that is often in my head, and I don’t know why: it is “The Mexican Hat Dance.”

I also wanted to tell you how I was running out of money when this news came. I had less in my bank account than I had had in years, though some small jobs would be coming in the spring. Now at last I would have enough money, thanks to you, if I didn’t die first.

There would be enough to live on, and there would even be extra money I could spend on things I wanted or needed. I could buy a new pair of glasses, maybe more attractive ones, though that is always difficult. I could have more expensive food for dinner. But as soon as I began to think of what I might buy with the extra money, I was either ashamed or embarrassed—because although new glasses and a better dinner would be nice, they were not really necessary, and exactly how many things should I allow myself to buy that are not really necessary?

Now a strange thing was happening. I sometimes felt removed from my life, as though I were floating above it or maybe a little to the side of it. This sensation of floating must have come from the fact that I thought I would no longer be attached to anything, or to much: I thought I would not be attached to my teaching job, and I thought I would not be attached by those many strings to all the necessary other small and large jobs that would earn me four thousand dollars, or three, or two, to cover three months, or two, or one. I was floating up and looking out over a longer distance, at more of the landscape in a circle around me.

The department gave a little party to congratulate me on the grant. It is not such a large grant, but the department likes to make a fuss over anything that its faculty does. It wants the college administration to know about the faculty’s accomplishments and to think well of the department. But this party made me uncomfortable. The department, and maybe the college, too, now valued me more than they had before, and at the same time I now wanted to leave the college. In fact, I was secretly planning to leave it. I would either cut my ties completely or have as little to do with it as possible.

It turned out that I could not stop teaching. But I did not know that for a while.

*   *   *

I am not always a bad teacher. My difficulty teaching is complex, and I’ve given it a lot of thought: it is probably due to a general lack of organization on my part, to begin with, combined with overpreparation, then stage fright, and, in the classroom itself, poor articulation of ideas and a weak classroom presence. I have trouble looking the students in the eye. I mumble or fail to explain things clearly. I do not like to use the blackboard.