The Ghost Apple (5 page)

A vote was taken and the motion passed by an easy margin, with only Professor Beckford’s enemies dissenting. Professor Carlyle, who was now busy pouring Gatorade powder into the mouth of a canned energy drink, was the only abstention.

Meanwhile, the president had grown impatient, and she moved that we skip over any remaining committee business, which was, in any case, detailed in a sequence of reports that the faculty had received by e-mail. A second was found, there was no discussion, a vote was taken, and the motion passed.

It was now time for the Athletic Association’s report. Glenn Forrest, assistant to the deputy director of the Athletic Association, rose and was greeted with enthusiastic applause and cheers of “Go Tyrants!” Mr. Forrest thanked everyone for coming, evidently under the impression that he himself had called the meeting, and said that we had an exciting year ahead of us. He expressed his conviction—a conviction he shared with John Bacon, director of the Athletic Association, who sent his greetings and regretted that a prior engagement had prevented him from being here today—that the football team was poised to have a breakout season.

Attempting, as always, to curry favor with the wealthy and autonomous Athletic Association, the faculty reacted to this news with more applause and additional cheers of “Go Tyrants!” But Mr. Forrest was not finished. In fact, he had considerably more to say. He spoke and gestured for perhaps ten minutes, no doubt encouraged by the fervent and continuous cheering of the faculty, although the secretary cannot have been alone in tuning him out and gazing instead at the restful scene out on the quad, where the Ultimate Frisbee game was winding to a close but where there were still plenty of students lounging in the sweet grass or moving about in small, lazy groups.

At last Mr. Forrest paused for a drink of water and apologized: He was losing his voice. Luckily, he had only one item left on his agenda. He would now read a statement suggested by remarks said to have been made by Coach Kingman.

“Dear professors: Thanks for all your hard work!”

Were there any questions? There were not. Mr. Forrest thanked everyone and said that the Athletic Association would be “in touch.” With that, he took his leave.

When he was gone, the president expressed her hope that we had been appropriately enthusiastic in our applause and in our cheers of “Go Tyrants!” She could appreciate that the effort of shamming enthusiasm probably left us feeling the “world exhaustion of a prostitute,” but, as we knew, she had no direct authority over the disposition of Athletic Association funds. Those funds would continue to “trickle down” only as long as the Athletic Association felt that we admired what they did. At least we would no longer have to worry about the football players themselves: As of this fall, they were “academic exempt.”

She then asked if there were any questions or announcements. In fact, she had one of her own. She had received a text message from Dean Brees, which she would read aloud:

“Dining halls must improve offerings. Very important! Greetings all.”

Francis Amundsen, professor of English, observed that this was a very articulate text message, and he wondered why young people could not follow the dean’s example. Professor Brokovitch suggested that maybe it was because they were undernourished.

Once again: Were there any more announcements?

There were not, and on this note the meeting moved into executive session, which is beyond the scope of these minutes. The dispassionate secretary slid his chair back and rose, his wrist aching and his stomach rumbling. There were a few pleasantries to be dispensed with—a good-night here, a see-you-tomorrow there—and then he slipped into the hall and descended the ringing marble steps, wondering where Dean Brees was that evening.

Special Bulletin

Tripoli College Office of Environmental Health and Safety

Environmental Sustainability Initiative

Invasive Species Alert: African Walking Ape (Homo sapiens)

From its original home in central East Africa, this tropical creature has spread to every continent except Antarctica and has caused habitat destruction and the displacement or eradication of native species on an unprecedented scale. It threatens organisms across all ecological niches and has done irreparable environmental harm, destroying soil fertility, draining wetlands, contaminating waterways and groundwater supplies, causing deforestation and desertification, and initiating an irreversible process of climate warming that threatens to shift seasonal patterns even further.

The African Walking Ape is a large-bodied social mammal with a hypertrophic brain and extremely dexterous forepaws, or hands. Adults range from about one hundred to three hundred pounds, although larger and smaller individuals have been observed. Its skin may be anywhere from a sandy cream color to a dark brown, and it is hairless except for a large tuft on the top of the cranium and smaller tufts beneath the arms and between the legs of mature animals. It exhibits marked sexual dimorphism, with males of the species typically larger, more aggressive, and more heavily muscled. Females have proportionally wider hips, narrower shoulders, and two prominent mammary glands on the upper thorax. It is easily distinguished from other apes and monkeys by its distinctive upright posture and enormous cranial capacity.

The Walking Ape is omnivorous and can subsist for long periods on vegetable matter, but it is also a tenacious and irresistible predator. It has decimated fisheries in every ocean and eradicated megafauna in Australia, most of the Americas, and isolated islands across the globe. It also functions as a vector for other invasive species, clearing ground so that imported edible vegetation can flourish in traumatized areas. In addition, it “husbands” a number of animal species, including several birds, a number of other large-bodied mammals, and at least one species of social insect. The deliberate introduction of these species to virgin ecosystems is a further threat to native flora and fauna.

Although the Walking Ape reproduces slowly, it is adaptable, aggressive, and long-lived. It is also unique among other large predators and omnivores in that it forms very large communities, sometimes consisting of several million individuals. It has learned to construct dwellings and body coverings which effectively reproduce the warm conditions of its original tropical home, and this has enabled it to establish a lasting presence in environments as hostile as the high arctic.

Although the Walking Ape lacks claws and other obvious defenses, experience teaches that it should be regarded as extremely dangerous and approached, if at all, with great caution.

From: “Maggie Bell”

To: “Chris Bell”

Date: September 19, 2009, at 12:15 AM

Subject: (no subject)

 

Mister C,

I woke up this morning one minute before the alarm on my phone was supposed to go off, and the alarm tone (bell tower) was already running through my head. It's terrible how the brain spends its time.

Last night I got a little drunk with the dean of students! He's living in a freshman dorm under an assumed name. Nobody seemed particularly bothered by this. He was wearing a tie-dyed shirt under his sport coat and he'd dyed his hair this weird rich creamy Nutella color. I told him all kinds of embarrassing stuff. I kept saying that I was turning over a new leaf. Am I?

Lonely, yeah. Or I don't know. I haven't seen Becca or Francoise more than once or twice all year. I've just been wandering around by myself. But actually I kind of like it. I'm not depressed or anything but I'm more thoughtful. When I saw Becca she yelled at me for not calling her. Like that's supposed to make me want to call her? I'd rather just hang out with the Chloes.

Do you still think you're going to tell Dad at Christmas? I guess I don't have any idea what you should do. I've just been assuming he'll be a jerk about it but who knows, right? Have I told you about my friend Big Ben? I hope someday you'll meet him. He was on the football team and then one day during halftime of some big game he told everyone he was gay and he hated football. He walked right out of the locker room and all the way back to campus in full uniform. Then he had to reapply to Tripoli because football credits don't count toward a bachelor's degree, and now he's a lit major and he smokes cloves. Not bad, right? I've been going to freshman parties with him and it's good because it reminds me of a more innocent time. Do you get nostalgic for freshman year? I know it's only been two years but I really feel like things are different now. Freshmen are so excited about everything!

Ben showed me a video of one of the Tripoli kickers falling down when he tried to kick a field goal. He fell twice in one game. Then the other kicker came in to replace him, but the other guy, I mean the backup, took his helmet off at midfield and started crying. I'll send you the link. That is some troubling shit, man! Like actual unabashed weeping on the football field. But Ben says some of the players are part of a mandatory drug trial and it's fucking them up. They use these poor guys like guinea pigs, I think. And anyway, college football is a pretty grim setup even if Genutrex or whatever isn't sticking needles in them all the time. Think about it: The players are mostly black and they work really hard and a crucial condition of their employment, according to the NCAA, is that they don't get paid! They go up and down a field in all kinds of weather while white men yell at them from the sidelines. And also there's this whole idea that they're so well cared for, the college gives them food and clothes and housing, everybody admires them, yeah yeah yeah. The white coach knows best. Then the players end up with injuries and multiple concussions and maybe they blow their brains out. Go Tyrants!

This is Professor Kabaka talking. I think he's really gotten into my head. I told you about him? My Atlantic history professor. He says things like this: He says, “Slavery is the rule in human history.” He has a loud voice and he's beautiful and he makes these statements that you can't argue with. “Human enterprises naturally tend toward exploitative arrangements.” Governments, businesses, civic organizations—everything tends toward slavery, he says, and in order to prevent slavery from coming back and reestablishing itself, you have to
actively
resist it. He says that good intentions are not enough. You have to actively avoid the sweatshop shoes and the cheap electronics and the plantation bananas. It's kind of an incredible way to think about daily life, you know? The idea that our choices are what make economic systems work one way or another way or not at all. The problem is that it's exhausting and miserable to live this way! You spend all day sweating over these choices and then you think, “I'll just sit down here and take a load off and watch a little college football . . .” And there's Big Ben, or someone like him, struggling up the green field while the overseer screams himself hoarse on the sideline. Do we just accept the impossibility of ever doing anything that doesn't harm at least someone?

Ugh! Sorry. I'm trying to think of something more lighthearted. Do you know the story of how Europeans started eating potatoes? At first no one would touch them because they were said to be Indian food, but then this French or German aristocrat planted a potato patch and fenced it in and put up a Keep Out sign. And
immediately
people started breaking in and stealing the potatoes.

The other day in my abnormal psychology class, I was sitting next to a girl who fell asleep right in the middle of writing her notes, but she kept on going. Her handwriting was still perfectly legible, so it was like, “PTSD: soldiers, accidents, terrorism, watermelon beep beep.”

Oh! And they're selling the college to a snack-food company! We're all going to have the logo tattooed on our asses!

 

Watermelon beep beep,

Maggie

From

English Department Course Listings

Fall 2009

ENGL 150
/ Toward Good and Evil

Herman

An analysis of Professor Beckford’s character. We will focus on clothing, mode of speech, characteristic gestures, tacit assumptions, personal hygiene, mental hygiene, and short-term memory loss. We will discuss the professor’s embattled relationship to good and evil, with particular reference to his three failed marriages, his recent excommunication, the various plots and gambits for which he has been called to account in our nation’s courts of law, and his involvement in weapons technology. We ask: Which of his crimes are excusable on the basis of his extraordinarily advanced age? How did he obtain a heavy-gauge amphibious motor scooter with shotgun rack and mount? Are those his original eyes? We want to be generous. We are willing to accept any number of explanations.

ENGL 187
/ Encountering the Contemporary: Speed, Light, and Color

Carlyle

Students will participate in the excitement of the professor’s rapid mood swings! On good days, we’ll have raffles and fashion shows! The less said about the bad days, the better! The professor once spent two weeks in a dog crate!!! Raise your hand if you want to learn how to steam open an envelope! Let’s slash Professor Amundsen’s tires!!! How much simple syrup can you drink!? A gallon?
Two
gallons??? Assessments will involve rum and drag racing!!!!!