January 13, 2007--Saturday Story: "The Passive Voice"--Part Three

In Part Two, bathed in sunlight, Lloyd Zazlo found himself slumped in a chair in the last row of seats at his new college’s English Department’s final meeting of the academic year. It began with a series of eulogies for colleagues who were no longer “with” them—to quote the esteemed chairman, Hiram Greef. Remembrances for three who had moved on to, how to put this, their Final Sabbaticals—the department’s Chaucerian, Wordsworthian, and Medievalist. From this high mortality rate among scholars Lloyd wondered if perhaps he had gotten himself into a very dangerous situation.

So in Part Three, let us see if . . .

While musing about the life and times of the departed Lichtenstein, and his own place in the scheme of things, Zazlo was called back to the present by Chairman Greef’s rapid shift in tone, and the report of his gavel as he struck the podium to summon his colleagues back to the profane from the sacred--the former the more dominant side of a chairman’s bifurcated life at the college. “As is the case each year,” he began in his departmental voice, “it is now time to deal with proposed new courses. But before we proceed--Zazlo,” he snapped his fingers toward the rear of the room, “yes, sitting there way in the back,” Lloyd sprang to anxious attention in his chair nearly rendering himself sterile in the process by slamming his loins into the stiffly attached laminated writing tablet. “Though I know it is hot in here, would you please close the window? There is that racket outside on the steps of the library. It is impossible for me to hear myself think.”

Zazlo had been unaware of that racket, he had been so absorbed in thoughts about mortality, but did as he was told, glancing out at what appeared to be a large demonstration. People seemed to be singing something, which he heard drifting in even through the now closed window—

We shall all be free, we shall all be free,
We shall all be free some day.

Dr. Greef said, “Much better. Thank you. Also better, I am pleased to report, that unlike last year, when we had four new courses to deal with, which took nearly an hour to discuss, this year there is only one. And it appears quite uncontroversial—you have the text, a copy was placed on your seat.” There was the sound of rustled movement as some discovered that they had been sitting on it. “Professor Nichols is proposing an elective in Milton. One which he refreshingly suggests will give equal weight to major works other than Paradise Lost. Nothing very upsetting about that I told him, and so I think we will be able to vote quickly on it and then adjourn to our sherry reception. And after that it will be off to our sabbaticals—at least those of you who managed to convince me to approve them.”

He winked exaggeratedly at Margaret Blank, the department’s only tenured female member who was eager to be off to Amherst where she was planning to spend a year engaged in Dickenson studies. One day when they both found themselves at the card catalogue she had told Lazlo of her particular interest in the Belle of Amherst’s punctuation patterns, claiming that through the years her editors had largely eliminated most of the hyphens she employed. Professor Blank’s thesis was that this was to excessively feminize Emily Dickenson—that hyphens to her exclusively male editors represented too much “masculine-like thrusting.” That was Dr, Blank’s phrase and word.

And Dr. Greef directed a second but equivalent theatrical wink (his own specialty was Jacobean theater) toward the department’s only Lit-Crit specialist, Marcel Boyer, who was equally eager to be off to, in his case, Paris where for his leave-with-pay he had arranged to study with the already-legendary Jean-Francois Lyotard whose Postmodernist theorizing was beginning to lure American scholars away from their almost total dependence on the tools of the “outmoded,” Boyer’s word, New Criticism.

Boyer, who like Zazlo was born in Brooklyn, had taken his junior colleague aside one winter afternoon to rail against the limitations of that New Criticism, established, he asserted, by the regressive “ultra-bourgeois,” his phrase, “so-called” Fugitive Poets—Ransom, Tate, Brooks, and, “ugh” (his “ugh”), Robert Penn Warren—he had literally spat out all three of his names. These “crypto-Fascists” theories still held sway, he said, over almost all Lit programs, “including ours right here in working-class Queens,” with their “elitist ideas” about Art, “with a capital A,” ideas which hold that Art is an “autonomous, self-contained universe of discourse,” when in truth (though Boyer didn’t believe in “truth”), as Lyotard affirmed, the “grand narrative” has, “thank God” (needless to say Boyer saw “truth” and “god” in the same disbelieving way), finally “collapsed.” Renaissance modernism and notions of historical and scientific progress are thankfully over, “fini, kaput” (clearly in Germany as well as in France). Objectivity is an “illusion”; everything therefore is subjective. “Subjectif. You understand, no?” Lloyd noted that Marcel was already making good progress with his French.

And though he knew that Zazlo was as yet untutored in these Postmodern matters, he also knew Lloyd had been to Paris as recently as last summer; and so he asked if he knew about the four-star Hôtel Pont Royal where he would be staying. “Sur la Rive Gauche, bien sûr.” Lloyd said that he knew it because he had walked by it frequently to get from the Metro to the Eugenie, where he had stayed, a very nice two-star hotel in the same 7ème arrondissement.

Zazlo was brought back from the memories of these rare and fleeting encounters with his colleagues by Professor Nichols’ monotone reading of the text of his new Milton course—his strategy through the year had been to say little, keep his head down, shut windows when directed to, and thereby perhaps slip though unnoticed, unscathed, and unanimously recommended for tenure.

Dr. Nichols raced along through the course description. Sherry awaited:

. . . Through a study of the major poetry and prose of John Milton, focusing on Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes the course considers Milton in terms of the literary and historical forces that affected his work and continue to affect his reputation. . . .

Professor Greef, even before Nichols reached the end, again using his gavel, said, “All those in favor indicate so by saying aye. All those opposed . . .”

“I rise for a point of clarification, Mr. Chairman. A point of clarification.” It was ancient and doddering Professor John Graham Bell, the department’s esteemed Rhetoritician octogenarian, who in his age and bulk and tweeds was unable to hoist himself from his seat, as Robert’s Rules required of someone raising such a point. But considering that he was the only Rhetoritician left on any English Department faculty in all of Greater New York—Columbia’s had retired or passed on nearly a decade ago—and in spite of the fact that his course in the Rhetorical Analysis of Cultural Artifacts invariably failed to attract any enrollments whatsoever, various rules were waved for the Great Man and he was thus still allowed to collect his salary. Thus, it was not much of an exception to waive for him even Robert’s Rules.

“Yes, Mr. Bell,” Greef said—referring to a colleague as a Mister, as at Oxbridge, rather than either Doctor or Professor was considered to be the ultimate sign of academic respect. Especially in America. “You have a point of clarification?”

Zalzo thought he heard--

We shall live in peace, we shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace some day.

“I indeed do.” His voice quivered from both his years and the extent of his concern. “It is about that piece of description of Professor Nichols’.” He emphasized the “professor” by pronouncing it as if it was made up of four, not three syllables.”

“Not a problem, I hope.” Dr. Greef was thinking anxiously about the sherry and cheese.

“Well, yes, I have two or three.”

All members of the department strained forward in their confining seats, careful not to do any anatomical damage, to enable them to hear more clearly the potentially delicious details of this unusual challenge—for certain Harvey Nichols had not adequately done his political homework to have anyone, especially Mr. Bell, raise any questions, much less points of clarification. But what he might have offered in return for Bell’s support was not easy to fathom—Mr. Graham Bell never had any new course to propose; the ones he offered never ran; and so in many ways he was on a version of permanent sabbatical—so there was nothing political that Professor Nichols could be held before him as bait.

“And the problems are?”

“I will ignore the giving equal weight matter. Is that the metaphor he employed?” he asked of no one in particular, placing extra weight on the “he.”

“That, in fact was me. Not Professor Nichols.” Everyone appeared shocked that their chairman had so quickly accepted responsibility. He was a legend for assigning it to others.

“Well, that was unfortunate. Both the idea and its expression. I would have thought that someone trained at, where was it again, the University of Michigan, not that bad place at all,” it was where Nichols had taken his doctorate, “anyone trained there would have thought more about this. But I will let that pass.”

Zazlo felt a collective sigh of disappointment—no one much liked old Harvey: he came from a wealthy Boston family and with his trust fund was able to live in a nine-room apartment high up on West End Avenue, in the midst of the Partisan Review crowd, while the rest of them, including those with tenure, had to make do with one- or two-bedroom places in, at best, the West Village, with not even enough space for their books.

“I’m not at all sure about giving much weight to the Agonistes,” Mr. Bell continued—weight was emerging as a theme, “but as I previously indicated, I will let that pass.” Too bad, everyone continued to feel. Considerable juice was being drained from the fun the confrontation promised. “But what is certainly not acceptable in an English department, and here I stress the English, is a course description that is more doggerel than anything resembling even American English. And here I stress the American.” At that there was muttering and some muted chuckling.

While Zazlo heard—

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe . . .

“I say,” it was Nichols, now roused and himself sounding very Oxbridge. The Agonistes we can debate, but doggerel indeed!” Turning to Dr. Greer, he said, “I propose we call the question, or I may be forced to raise a point of personal privilege.”

“I am not sure we have a motion before us.” This from Professor Baliban who had slept through the eulogies but was now palpably excited by the discourse.

“I so move.” This from Dr. Alexander Fassle, the department’s expert on 18th century prose.

“Move what?” snapped Associate Professor Zito, who taught the department’s only popular courses—the year-long Shakespeare sequence.

“Nichols’ course description, of course. I move that." Things were becoming heated. Even reopening the window would provide no relief. "Is there a second?” This from Assistant Professor Dawson Hawkins, the department’s diffident specialist in Anglo-Irish literature, whose diffidence it was anticipated would cost him his chance to be gaining tenure next year. He had made the fatal error of displaying this aspect of his personality before rather than after being awarded the certainty of lifetime employment. Diffidence after, of course, would present no problems. In fact, in later years it might contribute as much to his chances to be promoted as his publications.

But to his motion, nonetheless, there were an immediate three seconds. The chairman did not move to correct that slight parliamentary breech—only one was required.

Calmly in the face of this brewing academic storm, intensifying less from schaudenfreudian impulses than by the thought of the wine that would be warming and cheese that would be curdling, in spite of this Mr. Bell still pressed on, “I do believe I still have the floor—for my points of clarification. Do I not Professor Greef?”

“Yes, you do,” the chair ruled. “Please continue.”

“Well, I object.” This again from Professor Nichols.

“Overruled. Please continue Mr. Bell. I hope you will be brief,” he urged, showing the beginnings of annoyance

“I will indeed. All I need to do is draw to your attention one especially offensive clause, and then I will be seated.” Everyone noted that he indeed already was and that there was little likelihood that he was capable of doing otherwise.”

“Proceed.”

Zazlo heard—

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome some day.

“I can barely make myself speak it; but if you insist, it is--the course considers Milton in terms of the literary and historical forces that affected his work.” He paused to allow the effect to gather; and when he sensed it had, he delivered what he assumed would be the death blow—“I do not recall ever hearing about a course doing any considering.” And with that he sat. Actually, sat back, nearly toppling the fragile chair.

And then without any pause, the chairman intoned, “All those in favor?” There was a unanimous mumbling of aye. Mr. Bell did not offer a nay. “In that case I will entertain a motion to adjourn until the fall, when hopefully we have no one further to remember or recall.”

To that there was a hearty chorus of “Here-here’s.”

Then turning to Mr. Bell, Dr. Greef said, Professor Bell, can I help you to the sherry?”
* * *

Alone in the room, Zazlo lingered in his seat and looked out the window toward the demonstrators. He noticed a sign that indicated they were gathered to remember the anniversary of the deaths of three Civil Rights workers Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman, a Queens College student, all of whom had been murdered June 21, 1964 in Meridian, Mississippi. In Neshoba County.

* * *

Dear Professor Greef, Ph.D.: [Lloyd Zazlo wrote while balanced on a bar stool in the Shamrock Bar in Flushing where he had gone after the faculty meeting, bypassing the sherry and cheese reception] You know, sir, how much I appreciated your offering me the non-tenure-track instructorship after I resigned my assistant professorship at Brooklyn College. And I hope you know how much I have enjoyed the academic year among you and your colleagues. They have welcomed me [here he was exaggerating] and mentored me [here he was simply lying] and I have benefited greatly from both [back to exaggerating]. I have even been inspired by them to return to research and scholarship—my first love [he tried using here one of Emily Dickenson’s thrusting hyphens, feeling it might cover the fact that this last statement was beyond lying, particularly the “first love” part].

But I have begun to doubt my own commitment to a life of teaching and scholarship [perhaps, he thought, it might be better to reverse this to “scholarship and teaching,” which might capture better the department’s culture and values—a sensitivity to that subjectivity might also offer the right Postmodern]. Might this then suggest [Mr. Bell would likely have problems with this syntax if Chairman Greef were to share this with him—not much likelihood of that after the Milton debacle; but Zazlo felt its Latinateness was sort of Oxbridge] that I should reconsider my decision to come to Queens and my life plans [he knew the entire department membership would hate this human-potential kind of rhetorical solipsism; but didn’t cross it out, not yet at least—this was a first draft written on a cocktail napkin and he wanted to include at least in this version how he really felt—to be subjective, like a Postmodern, if you will, even if it sounded soppy]. I may regret this in the morning [he thought maybe this should begin a new and final paragraph but was interrupted by the bartender who asked if he would like another double Scotch—he nodded that he did—and after it was placed in front of him he did in fact indent to indicate he was coming to the end—to the action statement], though I may regret this tomorrow and I have no clear prospects or plans for the next stage in my life [even he hated that one], I have come to conclude that . . .

“Well Zazlo, funny to find you here among us Micks.” Someone embraced him from behind in a bear hug so robust that it almost toppled him onto the sawdust piled on the floor around the bar. “Relax, relax, it’s just me, your old pal Joe Murphy.”

Joe was a university rarity—for twenty years he had been a beat cop and detective in Queens, and he had been a precinct captain for Bobby Kennedy when he ran for the Senate from New York. Joe did so well at that, including he loved to tell, arranging for late-night “dates” for the candidate and some of the hard-working staffers, that after Kennedy was elected, as part of Joe’s “payoff,” he unashamedly called it that, in spite of the fact that he had barely managed to sneak through high school, and a GED degree was his sole credential, he was given a patronage job at the college—to run a special degree program for what at the time were called “returning women,” women who had not gone to college in lock-step but rather later in life “returned” (even though they had never left) to work on their degrees. Joe had taken to this program like the good cop he had been; and he was especially pleased to be able to recruit to this second-chance opportunity many of the same women he had previously recruited for other forms of service.

“Just the guy I’ve been wantin’ to see. And here you are right in my old neighborhood local. What the hell you doin’ here and what’s that stuff you’re drinking? Looks like a Jew drink to me.” He bellowed loud enough for all the regulars, clearly his pals, to hear; and they roared back at him. “Can I buy you a real drink, a beer? Harp if you insist on bein’ a sissy or a Guinness, which is good for you, if you’ve got anything hidden away in them pants.” More laughter. “Jimmy, give my friend here a pint. I think he can handle it. If he can’t, we’ll pack him off back to Brooklyn and drop him off at his rabbi’s or wherever.”

Joe ignored the considerable chatter his presence and joshing had evoked, though Lloyd was a bit concerned about all the Jewish references—Joe was all right, he knew him to be good natured, even in his veiled anti-Semitism, but he wasn’t so sure about the other guys. Joe, sensing this, slid his stool over to him as if to serve as a sort of shield. And since the Scotches were also doing a good job, Lloyd felt protected and calmed down.

Joe Murphy stretched his beefy arm around behind Lloyd and said, “Like I told you, I was meanin’ to get in touch with you.” He leaned so near to Zazlo that he could feel hot breath in his ear. Everyone in the bar hushed up, attempting to listen in on what Joe was saying to this unlikely stranger. So Joe squeezed even closer, signaling what he had to say was important, and for Lloyd only.

“You know this program I’m running? The one for women that I tried to get you to teach in but you said you couldn’t work into your schedule? Well, the dean wants me to expand it. To take in a whole bunch of Colored folks. From South Jamacia. There aren’t any at the college. Well, maybe a handful, but the administration is feelin’ some heat from community leaders who are sayin’ that Queens College is a’ racist institution.’ Who am I to say yes or no. That’s neither here or there. But what I know is that for whatever reason they want more of them on campus. But not in the regular programs of course. The scumbag faculty, a lot of fags if you want my opinion--and I know what I’m talking about from my NYPD days—they don’t want to touch them with a ten-foot pole, or with anything else, assuming they have anything else to touch them with.” He jabbed Lloyd in the ribs at that crack, again almost knocking him off the stool. Zazlo kept sucking on his Guinness, getting used to the taste, as Joe continued.

“So if this expansion happens, and I know for sure it will, Bobby even got ‘em some government money to help pay for it. I told you about what I used to do for him, right? Yeah, yeah, I remember I did. What a pisser he is. In any case, I need you to work for me. To be my assistant director. We’re gonna run courses of our own, you know, since these students will be needin’ special attention, at least that’s what them racist bastards think. But who am I to turn down the free money to hire our own faculty. That’s what I want you to do—figure out what courses to teach and hire the faculty to do it. Anyone you want. They don’t even need to have Ph-whatevers. But make sure there are no fags. We already have enough of those around.”

This he said loud enough for all to hear; and one of the burliest of the patrons, thinking Joe was referring to him, needed to be restrained from taking a swing at him. “Calm down, Sean,” Joe said, I was talking about them fruit teachers at the college, not any of you real-men-among-boys types.” With that assurance, accompanied by a roar of lecherous laughter, Sean told Jimmy to send Joe Murphy and his “faggot pal” another round.

“We’ll, Joe,” Lloyd finally broke into Joe’s pitch, “I just finished my first year here and am hoping to get onto the tenure track, maybe even by next fall,” Joe had used the napkin on which Lloyd had been drafting his next-stage letter to mop the sweat that gushed unrelentingly from his totally bald head. It was as if that had not only served to dry off Joe but had also obliterated Lloyd’s first draft thoughts about his bold plans for self-actualization. “And to be honest with you I’m not sure this would be a good thing for me.” Had the Scotch plus the Guinness already removed the starch from his resolve? “I mean, it’s very generous of you to be offering this to me. I’m really flattered that you would think of me for this,” Joe shrugged that off, “but I don’t see how this would work out in the long term. I mean, if I left the department . . .”

At its mention images of Greef and Boyer and Blank and Fussle and Hawkins and Nichols and Baliban and the formidable Bell flashed kaleidoscopically before him and he, in momentary dread, saw himself one day, if he managed somehow to be successful here among them, he saw himself either leading the remembrances of those who had left them or being one of the rememberees, struck down before his time while rattling around on sabbatical chasing after William Blake’s mad visions in his garden in Felpham.

And so he sucked it up and asked Joe, “So it would be what exactly that I would be doing?” He knew this syntactical monstrosity, if he had been there to hear it, would have caused the leonine Mr. Bell or Professor Bell to have a coronary occlusion. But in spite of that he pushed on, “Make up courses? Hire faculty? Exactly what kind of faculty?”

Joe said, “I already told you who not to hire. But if I was you I would hire a whole crew of Coloreds and Spics.” Zazlo cringed and Joe, noticing that, to reassure him said, in a whisper, being sure no one else heard him, “You know how I talk, right? But you also know what I’m about and what I really stand for.” He gestured dismissively toward the other guys in the bar, “I was born and raised here, right. This is my Borough. Queens. All races have gotten along pretty good here, at least until all those agitators showed up to make trouble. Outside ones. Really from the outside. Don’t forget, I know this whole city and where everyone comes from. And I don’t mean where they live; I mean where they come from, if you get my drift. What they’re really about. And I’m not just talking about from their Rap Sheets. I know who’s for real, and I know the bull shiters.”

He twisted Lloyd’s stool around so that they were face-to-face. “If we could pull this off, if you could hire the right teachers, we could really make a difference here. I mean a big one. Big. Right here in Archie Bunker Land. So what do you say pal? Do we have a deal?”

With all the Scotch and Guinness in him, and with some of the starch restored to his spine, Lloyd reached out his right hand to his pal Joe Murphy, took Joe’s in his, and said, “Deal!”

They shook on it. And in a voice all could hear, with a flamboyant gesture, Lloyd sang out to Jimmy the bartender, “Pints all around. This time on me.” With that the whole room burst into applause. And as Jimmy slid the pints along the bar, Zazlo worried that he didn’t have enough cash to pay for them.

* * *

When he got home Lloyd redrafted that letter to Chairman Greef, leaving out all the Maslowian life-stage bullshit. He simply said—Thanks for the chance to serve among you this past year blah blah; an administrative opportunity has presented itself to me [fuck the syntax issue], and I plan to accept the offer; it will be right here at Queens College blah blah; in a program called the Adult Collegiate Program and since we in that way will remain colleagues I hope we will blah, blah, and blah.

He chose, of course, not to announce that he would be searching to hire a bunch of Coloreds and Spics to teach in the ACP. None of whom would be fags. That would become evident before too long.

To be continued . . .