The Professor and Other Writings (38 page)

—I have written
how true
in a microscopic hand and underlined the last two lines.

When the fatal unwinding began I was therefore fuddled enough. The mental chaos would only get worse. Within two or three weeks of our first tryst, my panic level abruptly sky-rocketed: the Professor began hanging out with Molly Hooley. She was taking Molly under her wing, the P. explained, because M. had sought her
advice about a personal problem.
Scads of troubled eighteen-year-olds, the Professor boasted, were wont to solicit her aid in this fashion: compared with other adults, she was “cool,” they seemed to believe—someone who could be trusted. Molly's father, Professor Hooley—Mr. Jolly Friar from the
Canterbury Tales
—was evidently the problem under discussion: he'd been making cruel jokes about Molly's appearance at the family dinner table and had reportedly accused her in front of everyone of
looking like a dyke
. However unfeeling this paternal jest, no doubt there was some truth in it: Molly was wide-bodied and husky—had a sort of strapping, third-baseman's build—and did nothing by way of clothing or makeup to obviate that fact. Nonetheless she was blue and upset: the Professor was
very
concerned. To cheer her
up, the Professor had carried her off a couple of times to play racquetball with her; afterwards they'd gone out for beers and shot the shit. The Professor would roll in on the late side after these charitable ministrations, full of boisterous chatter and lady-jock
aperçus
. It was obvious, she told me with a delighted grin, that Molly had a monster crush on her. But again I shouldn't worry:
that girl still has her baby fat!
She was just a
mixed-up kid
. A
big galoot.
Could you believe it?
She's even a goddamned virgin! I'm helping her.

After two or three of these big-sister forays, the Professor decided that she might have to sleep with Molly after all—just once. You know: be the can-opener. Better that she—a responsible adult—initiate the innocent young person than some ugly white-trash gal Molly might encounter when she joined the Air Force—still her stated goal upon graduation. The Professor was sure she could keep it all
contained
; she knew what she was doing; she'd been involved in
lots
of situations like this one. That Molly was her department colleague's teenage daughter seemed only to make matters more urgent and necessary. And while the logic here may have been faulty, the Professor's unusual frankness was, I dare say, in a perverse way comforting. Looking back on it, I suspect that even at this nutty juncture the Professor
did
wish to continue her affair with me—or at least had convinced herself she did. Such uncharacteristic full disclosure—for she thoughtfully warned me in advance precisely when the defloration of Molly was to take place—was her upside-down, Reynard-the-Fox way of demonstrating her troth.

Yet if the Professor could contain it, I could not—especially when she invited me over to her house shortly after said hymen-busting had been accomplished. I arrived around 10:00 a.m. Molly had left just a little while before; the bed sheets were still rumpled and gritty. Clearly it was going to be my great and groovy honor to have Sick Morning Sex with the Professor—now pink-faced
and smiling sheepishly—in the scurfy unmade bed.
C'mon, honey. That kid has no clue—it was all a big anticlimax. You're It.
I confess I yielded. Afterwards the Professor said she felt reborn. Cleansed. She loved me and respected me so much. We would be together forever. But the squalor of it sank into my soul, adding not a little to the septic murk within.

Boggling to me now, that not once during this first trial of my affection did I fume or shriek or expostulate; nor did I ever disparage the Professor's actions—not even in my journal. So great my demoralization, so pedantic my masochism, it would not have occurred to me to do so. Though floored by her behavior—frankly, I was
beyond
floored—was in fact hurtling forward on the way toward breaking the Pain Sound Barrier—I nevertheless had various rationalizations for remaining in a state of doltish passivity. Above all, I felt, it was my duty as an intelligent person to try to
understand
the Professor and give her the benefit of any doubt. My sweet, distinguished, and charming lover, singer of lovely folksongs, friend of the kindly Alice and Tom, popular teacher and respected colleague,
nice person
—the Professor
must
know what she was doing. Besides, with her and Molly it was only sex, after all, and what did
that
matter? (I was still abiding by the illusion that touching other people's bodies and being touched in return was no big deal—
nothing to get worked up about.
) Yes: I am sure I looked mortified when the Professor reprimanded me over my burgeoning neurasthenia, as she now began to do with some frequency. And yes, I'm equally sure that a certain deep-lodged passive-aggressiveness in my character (such as I had indeed often directed toward my mother) was at times detectable in my not-so-sprightly conversation. And once or twice I couldn't help it: I blurted out that I felt bad when the Professor slept with Molly.
My own failing, of course, but yes, okay—I do feel a tiny bit hurt
…. Such dazed admissions typically prompted indignation in her, followed by self-recrimination on my
part. (
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so so sorry
,
etc. etc.
) To be sure, things felt very odd—but then again, maybe they weren't as bad as they seemed.

Thus I made no big speeches, no operatic gestures. I had been morally flattened—trodden on to the point of two-dimensionality. I was like a piece of old gum on the sidewalk. Hanging up on the Professor, stalking off mid-conversation, refusing to see her again—any of these tried-and-true lovers' gambits would have been impossible for me, as bad as playing truant. Anger (not that I would ever have named it as such) had to be suppressed and reformulated as self-contempt.
I deserved everything I got. The Professor was right, I was acting like a head case over my school stuff. Over this weird thing with Molly. Over the fact I couldn't sleep. I was tiresome; I would have to be better. I was behaving really unpleasantly.
Oh, hell, hell, hell.

My frequent nightmares intimated a somewhat less placid state of affairs. One from around this time—immediately shared with the Professor—was sufficiently grotesque and primal, I see from my journal, to capture her analytic interest. She was even moved to propound an interpretation of it—one that reflected, of course, her own superior wisdom and understanding of my psyche:

In other words, look on the bright side, T-Ball. Gory though it no doubt was, the dream indicated that I was finally starting to confront my infantile neurosis. Maybe someday I would cease burdening people—her especially—with my callow attempts at emotional manipulation. And what a relief
that
would be! One truly had to rejoice. The fact—unflagged by either of us—that I seemed to harbor a wish to see her dead and eviscerated and lying on a bloody tarp meant next to nothing, apparently, analytically speaking. On the contrary: it was merely one of several signs (
even a promising one!
) that I was now beginning to Love Her in a New and Healthy Way.

It couldn't go on and it didn't. A week or so after the Molly business cranked up I had a midterm scheduled in Victorian Fiction—the other class, along with Spenser, for which I had registered that spring. Work-wise, I had managed to stay abreast in it, largely because I'd read all the assigned novels for the course long before, in high school, once if not twice. Cathy and Heathcliff were like old acquaintances—my weird second cousins or something. The midterm format in turn looked to be straightforward: we would be given several essay questions to take home and ponder; the next day in class we were to write a theme on the question of our choice. The topics, when we got them, were predictable if uninspiring: I picked out one on
Vanity Fair.
And as was my mad-bomber habit with previous tests of this nature, I drafted my full essay the night before—a polished disquisition of nine or ten pages—then memorized it. The memorization was an Ayn Rand–like feat of will under the circumstances; somehow I forced myself to do it.

Next day, all systems go. I could have recited my essay with ease.
All that remained was to sit down and disgorge it onto the page. I'd glimpsed the Professor briefly on my way to the exam room—she was smiling and chatting with someone, on her way back from her morning class. Yet the sighting had depressed me. She either hadn't seen me or was pretending not to. I couldn't tell. Was I driving her away with my dreadful babyishness? Terrifying thought.
She looked so beautiful and friendly, smiling like that at that person. I will die if I lose her. I have to grow up. I have to keep a clear head, keep the lid on.
I entered the examination room and sat down. As it happened, the exam was taking place in an airy lecture hall directly across from the Professor's office. Only ten or fifteen feet away: Her Door, with sign-up sheets and various notes about her classes posted thereon. One quivered. Magic space. The place where all ley lines intersected. She didn't seem to be in there, though; at least the light wasn't on. Maybe I would catch a glimpse of her later.
I hope not with that stupid clod Molly.
Ah, here was the T.A.—the blue books were being distributed.
But why don't things feel right with us? She's become so harsh—so critical, as if she doesn't really like me anymore.
A shuffle of papers and clicking ballpoints—then silence in the room as I and some thirty classmates settled down to write.
Who is she, really? I feel so awful but I don't know why
.

Almost as soon as I opened my examination book, the blackness closed in. Something shocking and discreditable, first of all, had happened to my right hand, the one holding the pen. I was trying to start—yes, trying to indite the first of my memorized sentences,
In Thackeray's novel
Vanity Fair
…
But my hand had gone all stiff: palsied and wonky, as if I were having a stroke.
Hey, you jerk, what's up. Time to start, it's the exam
,
come on
,
get going.
My fingers, however, remained frozen. My gorge began rising slowly and heavily, like a cobra uncoiling and lifting itself up, irrationally enough, by its own head. My arms, my neck, began to seize up. I shuddered involuntarily. My recalcitrant digits, terrifyingly, still weren't grip
ping the pen properly. I couldn't write without trembling. I began to pant and perspire a little. Looking down at my blue book made my vision go spotty and bleary. So far, I could see, I had made only jittery spastic marks. The floor tilted oddly and swam up at me from below.

But by now the panic had shot through my arms, chest, viscera, bowels, all the way down to my feet and into my shoes. My shirt was sodden and cold; my whole body shaking. The helmsman had collapsed and the horizon—nauseatingly—was lurching up and down. I had to get out of there. I had to duck. I had to knock a few things over. Kick myself. Hit somebody.
Couldn't breathe.
Huge tears of fright and horror and self-hatred were now sliding out of my eyes, like eels.
This is terrible.
I waved frantically to the T.A.—quietly reading a book now at a desk up front—and rushed from the room. A few students looked up curiously and saw me careening out. The T.A. followed.

Outside the classroom—even as we stood a few feet from the Professor's office—the T.A. (a fellow graduate student, though a couple of years ahead of me) watched in consternation as I dissolved into great, gurgling teary heaves. I sobbed out wild apologies and begged his
forgiveness.
This has never ever happened to me before, I swear—I've been under a lot of stress—I feel ill—it's really bad—I don't know what went wrong—I couldn't…I can't…I'm sorry…
I gulped for air and wrung my hands piteously; I had crumpled my now-soggy blue book into a sort of foul, screwed-up wedge. A thick and disgusting gray thread of mucous emerged from one of my nostrils and dangled there between us, lengthening slowly. (The T.A. and I both struggled in vain to find some Kleenex.) He was kind; looked almost apologetic, as if he himself were to blame.
Of course, of course—how awful—but no harm done
,
really, these things happened to everybody. You mustn't feel bad. Not at all. The professor would understand too—really—everything was going to be okay…Why didn't I take my blue book home and write out my exam essay later when I felt better? I could hand it back in tomorrow
. I mumbled some grief-stricken thanks. While no longer at risk of choking on gobbets of my own phlegm, I continued to weep unceasingly, as if inconsolable. At least my instinct for self-immolation was unimpaired: I rushed downstairs and ran into the street in search of the Professor.