February 3, 2007--The Passive Voice--Concluded

In Part Five the Collegiate Opportunity Program director, Joe Murphy, asked his assistant director, Lloyd Zazlo, to convene a meeting of his new faculty. At that meeting, held ironically in the very same room where Zazlo had attended his last English Department meeting, the COPs faculty in turn introduced themselves by telling stories from their lives and sharing with each other why they had decided to give up promising careers at places such as Harvard to come all the way out to Queens to teach ex cons and members of gangs such as the Crips and the Bloods. Even Zazlo got into the act and spoke, haltingly, about some of his own very private motivations. The year was proceeding quite well, with Zazlo finding his feet as a budding college administrator, until those newly acquired capacities were put to the test when Joe Murphy sent him on his own to meet with their faculty who were leading the student-faculty strike against the college’s central administration. Feeling ready to put those skills to the test, Zazlo strode proudly toward the dean’s office, which the strikers had seized, ready to negotiate with them their long list of non-negotiable demands.

Thus in the Sixth and final part, Zazlo . . .

Zazlo had never been to Dean Hartley’s office. But even a quick glance around as he slipped through the mahogany outer door revealed that to call it just an office would not begin to describe it—rather it was a sprawling suite of rooms that occupied half of the top floor and included a kitchen, wet bar, small personal library, and a wood-paneled sitting room filled with an arrangement of elegant sofas and chairs on which were sprawled what he assumed were COP students, though that was difficult to verify since few of the lamps were lit and a number of the students, as if out of a Western movie, had their faces obscured with bandanas. Salsa music blared from the dean’s Hi Fi. But Zazlo felt certain that among these students, seated side-by-side on one of the velvet couches, was the difficult-to-mistake, nearly seven-foot tall Arnold Phoenix, wearing his familiar Blood’s neck scarf, and Luis Miguel with a Crip’s blue hankie wrapped around and thereby tagging his left wrist.

The room, Zazlo could not help but notice, was sealed off from the outside world by a panorama of floor-to-ceiling widows that commanded an airborne view of all of Queens, with the lights of Manhattan shimmering in the distance. And then, as he moved past Arnold and Luis, who did not look up at him or interrupt their conversation, he entered the hushed 25 by 25 foot dean’s inner sanctum. It also was book-and wood-lined with a sprawling leather-topped table centered in the room that served as his desk. It sat on a well-worn Persian rug so huge that it nearly carpeted the entire space it in turn was surrounded by tapestry-covered side chairs. On the far wall, in a niche of its won, lit by a single spotlight, was the precious Corot—a glowing pre-Impressionist Provence landscape.

Behind that table, with his feet crossed and resting on the embossed leather was Sam Haskins, cigar in mouth, wearing a boldly-patterned Dashiki; and in one of the side chairs, also pulling on a thick cigar, wearing a pleated Guayabera and cowboy boots, surprising Zazlo, was Harvard’s Roberto Santos.

But not surprising to Zazlo, neither Sam not Roberto (he suspected that that that night, and perhaps thereafter, he wanted to be Roberto, not Robert), neither rose to greet or welcome him as he was propelled into the half-lit room. But they did accept his handshake and offered to exchange High Fives, which Zazlo reciprocated. Sam pointed at the chair on the other side of the table and asked, “Can we get you a drink? They have everything here.” Roberto snickered. Zazlo said he’d like a Scotch; and one of the students, from her remarkable silhouette he thought it could only be Mary Lopez who was sitting in darkness well back from the desk, without being asked, she jumped up to fetch it.

“So what brings you here?” Sam asked with an ironic laugh, “I suspect not just the drinks or the view, though both as you can see are excellent. Can I offer you a cigar? They’re also excellent. How he gets them from Cuba I can’t figure out [‘Me neither,’ Santos said] But here, take one.” He pushed the ivory cigar box across the soft leather.

“Thanks,” Zazlo said, feeling more relaxed than he might have expected, “but I don’t smoke them and I’m here to talk. To see if I can help. To see if I can help get some of your issues resolved and thereby a bigger confrontation might be avoided. Also, to see if I can get the administration to send the cops away. It was outrageous to call them in so prematurely. The situation needs to be calmed down so things can get better here for everyone.” The way things are looking to me, if there can’t be a resolution soon, things could get worse. A lot worse.”

He thought Roberto and Sam nodded and so he pressed on, “Between us, we know the deal. How none of us are welcome. They tolerate us only because they need COPs here to keep the community off their backs. And we’ve been taking advantage of that opportunity.” Sam seemed to bristle at the notion of any advantage accruing to him and tried to say something. But Lloyd kept talking, “No, no, let me continue. Please. You have all the cards here but you need to hear what I have to say.” Zazlo continued to surprise himself, “Then you can do whatever you want. To me or anything else.” Sam and Roberto remained silent, staring back at him. “None of these kids would be here if it weren’t for this program. And for that matter neither would two of you. You Roberto, would still be walking around Harvard Yard puffing on your pipe and you Sam, I don’t know, you’d either be back in the south working for the to Algebra Project or teaching high school in Brooklyn. That’s what you both told me you wanted out of, and that’s why you wanted to be a part of this program. Right? You remember the ‘Is-that-all-there-is?’ Roberto? And Sam, what about all your talk about ‘brothers-and-sisters’ out here in Queens, you know, living a life like yours was back in Mississippi? You said you wanted to come here to bring to them the same chance to change their lives that you had to fight for? Remember that? You told me about that less than a year ago.” They continued to stare at Lloyd as if he was talking about a lifetime ago.

“So what’s going on now? This place, Queens, is still full of Crackers like me: but we, you have your foot in the door here and if you, if we play our cards right next year we’ll have 400 COP students and after that 600 and before anyone graduates maybe a thousand. That sounds like a lot of change to me.”

And with that he stopped, he settled back in his chair, took a long drink of the Scotch Mary had served him, and stared back at them—from Sam to Roberto and then back at Sam.

Sam rose slowly and came out from behind the table. He paced around the room, not saying anything, just nervously twirling the cigar in his hand and flicking ashes, which he ground into the rug with the sole of his construction shoes. He finally came over to Zazlo who remained in the chair, comfortably nestled back into the cushions. “Let me tell you something White Boy,” Sam began with the air full of threat. Lloyd calmly looked back at him, not averting his eyes. “You talk about a thousand when there are how many students here Roberto? Eight, nine thousand? You call that ‘change,’ but I call it tokenism.” He wheeled on his heel and walked over to Mary Lopez. He leaned over to whisper something to her and she got up and left, leaving behind a trial of scent. He returned to where he had stood confronting Zazlo.

In a now softer tone he resumed, “You’re a good guy. I mean it. I called you ‘White Boy,’ but affectionately. Trust me, I know much worse things to call you. But I like you. I even respect you. And for me respect is a big thing. You didn’t have to take this job and you sure as hell didn’t need to hire all us Niggers and Spics.” At that he and Roberto shared a hearty, good-natured laugh. Zazlo joined them by nodding and smiling up at Sam and glancing over to Roberto.

“But, still, we come from very different worlds. I know, I know you feel they are not so different. I heard you tell about how you lost people in the Camps. I know about that and I respect that. I do. But here in America you’re safe. You can blend in. Fix up that honker of yours and change your name to ‘Marlowe’ or something WASPy, and no one would notice. I can slim down my nose and conk my hair all I want and do all sorts of shit to myself, but to the world I’m still a Nigger. Always am, always will be.” He drifted over to the window and gazed out at the big city on the horizon.

After a few minutes, Sam again retuned to stand over Zazlo, who crossed and recrossed his legs. His voice had deepened, “So what are we to do then, you and me?” Lloyd didn’t move or say anything. “We come from different worlds and maybe ultimately want the same things for the bigger world into which we all have been placed.

“Even Santos over there,” he turned to half face him, “Who most of the time is so fucked up with staring at his naval that he doesn’t know who he is. Well the world doesn’t have a problem with how to think about him—most of them know who he is. Even with all his fancy clothes and education and his trust fund they still are not confused about who he is. He’s a Spic. To them it’s that simple.”

He looked back at Zazlo to see how he was taking this. But Lloyd just continued to sit there, looking back up at him. Sam then moved closer to him, leaning and whispering, as if to exclude Santos, while pointing first at Zazlo and then at himself, “So again, I ask you, what are we going to do?”

This time it appeared that Sam wanted to hear from Lloyd, who obliged by asking with a wink, “Do you think I could have one of those cigars? I think it’s gonna be a long night.”

* * *

Actually, that night turned out to last for three long nights and days. But in the end, a deal was struck. Zazlo played a critical role as an intermediary, moving back and forth comfortably between the Black and Latino Student-Faculty Coalition, that continued to occupy the dean’s office, and the Queens College Faculty & Administration Emergency Negotiating Committee, which sat in continuous session, the executive committee of which sleeping overnight on cots that had been set up for them in the library.

After the crisis was resolved, everything and everyone quickly returned to normal. The police were withdrawn—actually Zazlo had been able to accomplish that by midnight the very fist night and had thereby established his credibility; the mountains of litter and debris had been swept up and hauled away, helping to obliterate any trace of the truth of what had taken place; and classes quickly resumed. Students from the traditional part of the college and even some COP students could be seen lolling more-or-less together on the broad lawns. To many, that felt like progress if not Revolution.

Zazlo had been widely and publicly praised for his tireless and successful diplomatic efforts, even in an article that appeared on the front page of the New York Times. True, they had misspelled his name as Zaslo, but still he and especially his father had been delighted to see a version of their family name in print in the nation’s “paper of record.”

And yes, during those three days Benny Anderson had shuttled small groups of students into Dean Hartley’s office to see the splendid Corot, which had remained untouched.

Four things were agreed to—

· The regular academic departments would hire “more” minority faculty members—in truth, for most of them this meant that they might over time be able to find a first one who meet their unbending criteria

· The COP Program would be allowed to “expand” to 1,500 students over the next five years, and at that level it would not be considered “topped-out” so the number could reach higher

· “Good faith efforts” were to be made to “look for and appoint more minority administrators”—again, more in this case was euphemistic: one campus wag said, “Well ‘more’ is more than zero, right?”

· And of course neither Coalition students nor faculty would in any way be “disciplined or otherwise punished”—so long as the dean was reimbursed for the cost of his liquor and cigars (no one of course raised the subject of how he had somehow managed to defeat the embargo on Cuban products)

But before the dean could be compensated for his loses, he retrieved his Corot and hustled off on a long-overdo sabbatical in France, to research and write about the historical parallels between the Revolutions of 1789 and 1848, and the student demonstrations in Paris during the spring of 1968. All with the understanding that he would retire once his time away ended.

Most significant to the COP program students and staff, their founding director, Joe Murphy did not survive even to the end of the academic year—he resigned, citing “health reasons and a desire to spend more time with my family.” Only Zazlo knew that Joe had divorced many years ago and never had any children.

In an angry handwritten farewell letter sent to Zazlo’s home, Murphy accused him of “treachery, perfidy, and reverse racism.” After calling him “scum of the earth and the lowest form of human life,” he ended his note with “And please give my sincerest regards to your two best friends—that scumbag Haskins and cocksucker Santos.” This final kiss-off convinced Zazlo that Joe had written this letter without any assistance.

Dr. Louis Laney, a psychologist and the only tenured black member of any of the College’s academic departments agreed, reluctantly, to serve for up to two months as the interim COPs director. He said “for the sake of the students, about whom I care greatly, though I am already over-engaged with my teaching and private practice, I will take on this additional challenge.” He then added, “But only for up to two months.”

Zazlo had good reason to believe that his administrative career had taken off—what with the mention in the New York Times and his numerous appearances on local TV, he looked forward to many more years of providing leadership on the Queens College campus. He even thought his natural next step up the hierarchy might very well be to succeed Joe Murphy as COP director, once Laney returned to his teaching and clients. So when Dr. Laney called to invite him in for “a chat” and a “conversation about the future,” like the spring air that had returned to waft so optimistically across the campus, he felt so light on his feet and in spirit that he virtually skipped across the quadrangle as he headed toward Louis Laney’s office.

On the way, he passed by the C Building, which still housed his former English Department colleagues. And wouldn’t you know it, just as he was thinking about how fortunate he had been to arrange his escape from them, easing his considerable bulk down the entrance steps was old Mr. Bell, the still-esteemed Rhetoritician. In spite of the unseasonable warmth he was, as he had been the year before, almost to this very day, wrapped in his rumpled tweeds. Zazlo slowed down, thinking he might need help negotiating the steps—Lloyd after all was now well known around the campus for all the many kinds of help he had provided to the college, and to assist this great man was yet one more thing he could offer.

“Ah, Mr. Bell,” Zazlo chirped, like one of the many birds that were engaged in building their new nests high up in the campus trees, “It is so good to see you again, sir. I hope you have been well. Might I maybe help you? Perhaps you might recall me,” as always when in Mr. Bell’s daunting presence he struggled to find the most appropriate level of rhetoric and the properest of syntax, “I’m Lloyd Zazlo and I was . . .”

“Yes, of course I know who you are. Yes of course. The Blake fellow, what. What.”

“Yes, yes that’s me, I mean who I am. Who I am.” He had in an instant taken up Mr. Bell’s habit of repeating everything at least twice.

“And I do know something else about you,” Professor Bell had allowed Zazlo to take his arm and help him down the last of the steps, “Yes, yes, I do. I most certainly do. And thank you, thank you.”

“It’s my honor sir. An honor sir.”

“And what I do know about you is impressive. Yes, indeed, impressive.” Zazlo couldn’t imagine what that might be since Mr. Bell lived such a secluded life. “About this latest situation. About your Coalition. Your Coalition, or whatever it’s called. The role you played in resolving that sticky-wicket. Very sticky. Very. Impressive, yes, yes, impressive.”

Zazlo was nothing short of stunned that Mr. Bell, who it was felt never, truly never exhibited any awareness or cared much about anything that took place in the contemporary world, that he would know anything at all about him, much less about the essential role he had played during the occupation. One would expect that Professor Bell would have been in fact more than merely unaware, he would have been fully oblivious to what was occurring all around him on campus—building occupations, the bark of bull horns, all the police cars, and men in riot gear. The fact that he knew anything about any of this was remarkable. And further, what he had said about Zazlo, all the impressives, that especially, was too simply astonishing to understand, much less comprehend.

So after Zazlo had safely assisted Mr. Bell to a shaded bench near the library, the destination to which he had been directed, even lighter on his feet than earlier, Lloyd danced his way back across the lawn toward Louis Laney’s office in the D Building.

* * *

Where Zazlo was made to stand and wait in a crowded outer chamber by an officious secretary who did not seem to know when or why Dr. Laney might want to see him.

“He is with a client now,” she said, barely acknowledging Zazlo. “May I tell him if you are here for an initial consultation?”

“He called me,” Zazlo shot back, having lost some of his sense of well being as the result of having been mistaken, by her, for a client—and wondered, in addition, if it was appropriate for the doctor to see patients in his office or anywhere on the college campus. On the other hand, he thought, he must have tenure.

Mrs. Hanratty, so her desk plaque read, continued to look back at him with the hint of a sneer. “He said, Dr. Laney asked me to come by for a chat. Yes, that’s how he put it—for a chat.”

“So you then are one of his students.” This was not so much a question as a declaration. And that too annoyed Zazlo.

“No, not that either,” he enunciated icily but quickly decided to try to be more accommodating in order to hold on to his recent open and optimistic mood. “You know, don’t you, that Dr. Laney is serving for two months, or less, as interim director of the COP Program. I’m sorry, you may not know the acronym, a strange one at that, it stands for the Collegiate Opportunity Program.” He tried a smile, but it was clear that too had no effect on her. “I suppose you might say I’m his assistant. His assistant director.” He continued to smile; but though she continued to ignore it and seemingly him, she did lift the phone and dial through to the inner office.

“What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t, I should have. It’s Zazlo, Lloyd Zazlo.”

“Doctor Zazlo?” she asked, covering the receiver with her free hand.

“No, just I suppose mister—that will do.”

She said something into the phone and in a moment Dr. Laney’s door snapped open and standing in it, lit by the sunlight that streamed in from behind was, Zazlo presumed, his director.

“Come in, please come in.” Dr. Laney had stepped toward him and in his two hands took Zazlo’s hand, his left one. Zazlo felt his warmth. “So sorry to keep you waiting. Floyd is it?”

Without waiting for a correction or a returned greeting, Dr. Laney turned and led Zazlo into the room. Lloyd noticed that Dr. Laney, in spite of the unseasonably hot weather, was wearing black leather trousers. He had a quick flash of memory, back to his former wife Lydia’s Orgonomist, Dr. Luven; and wondered if it was a professional coincidence, or requirement, that therapists dressed so identically.

“Sit, sit. Right here next to me. So we can chat. A drink? Do you want a drink? Nothing hard, I mean—water? Soda? I think we may even have some juice.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Lloyd said as he lowered himself into the chair pulled right up next to the one in which Dr. Laney was already casually enveloped. Their knees almost touched. Dr. Laney allowed his loafers to slip off and he curled his bare feet up onto the chair under him. This created a little welcome distance between them.

“So, so, what can you tell me about the last few weeks? So much has happened here on our sleepy campus. So much. And all that you were able to do. I think, didn’t I, even see you on television one evening?”

“Well, Dr. Laney,” Zazlo averted his eyes so as not to appear immodest, “I was, it’s true, on quiet a few times. On all the local channels in fact. My parents told me that he had even seen me down in Florida where they live.” Why was he rattling on so? Feeling so intimated after what he had been through all those days and nights sealed in the dean’s office? So he managed to shut himself up and wait to see what Dr. Laney wanted to chat about.

“Let’s, if we may, not talk right now about that. Maybe another time. That might be interesting. I do not just now have all that much time. I have someone else waiting to see me. A client. If it’s all right with you I would prefer us to talk about the CAP Program.” Zazlo decided not to correct him about the acronym—he was after all only going to be involved with the COP Program for, at most, two months.

“Sure, I’d be delighted to tell you about anything you’d like. I was there from the very beginning and know pretty much everything you might want to learn to help you during the next few weeks, I mean while you’re our interim director. I’m of course here too to assist with the day-to-day. I feel that I have gotten to be pretty good at that.” He liked the fact that he had found an appropriate way to present himself as an accomplished administrator.

This time Dr. Laney stopped him from any more rambling. “Well yes, yes I know all about that. About your background and contributions. And you should know how much I, actually all of us, appreciate that. Respect that. Why just the other day, before he departed, I was talking with Don Hartley, Dean Hartley, about you and he was grateful that you had done such fine intermediary work, diplomatic work I think is the way he phrased it. It was such very taxing and complicated work, especially during such a troubled, contested time. And, of course, you know him, how you protected that valuable painting of his. What was it? A Monet? I know it was a landscape.”

“Actually, a Corot.” Zazlo thought it important to correct him about that.

“Whatever. But as I mentioned, I don’t have much more time so let’s, shall we, get right to the point?”

“Sure, the point.” Lloyd’s expectations were reignited and he leaned forward to get even closer to Dr. Laney. He could smell his musky cologne. He smiled expectantly at him.

“I’m afraid I need to ask for your resignation.”

My . . . ?”

“Yes, that’s right. By no later than noon tomorrow.” Zazlo could not move. His heart was thumping, threatening to burst through his ribcage. “That is so we will be able to pay you though the end of the month.” But it’s already the 20th , Zazlo thought. “If on the other hand this is not agreeable to you, it will occur much more precipitously. And of course we will not be able to pay you beyond that.” What was the “it” and the “that”? Zazlo tried desperately to understand. His brain was so flooded by so much hyper-oxygenated blood that he couldn’t hear or think straight. There was so much pounding in his ears. “In either case, if you accept our offer or not, you must vacate your office by 2:00 p.m. Friday. This Friday. The day after tomorrow.” Zazlo pitched back in his seat, blacking out for a moment.

Dr. Laney noticed this and rang for Mrs. Hanratty, who materialized so quickly that she had been hovering by the door, expecting Zazlo’s reaction. Dr. Laney asked her to bring Zazlo some ice water. “We don’t have any ice,” she said.

“Then just water will be fine, thank you,” Dr. Delaney said, “It will have to do.”

“I’m OK,” Zazlo, who had regained some consciousness, squeaked. “No water. None.”

“Glad you’re feeling better.” Dr. Delaney untucked his feet and looked professionally over toward Zazlo. “Look, I’m a psychotherapist and know how hard this is on you. It would be on anyone. But you’ll land on your feet. You’re talented. And look at all the experience you gained working for the CAP Program.”

“COP—“C,” “O,” “P” Program. Like a cop. Like a policemen.” Zazlo wasn’t able to contain himself.

“Thank you. I should know that, shouldn’t I?” Dr. Laney chuckled at his error. Zazlo thought, Yes, yes you should. “So, any questions?”

Lloyd had begun to recover. How he did not know, now that he would be out of a job by the end of two weeks, if he agreed to accept the offer; expelled from his office in 48 hours; and beyond that he did not have any prospects. How would he ever be able to find a job at a college, any college, so late in the academic year—no one is looking to hire anyone so late in the spring. Everyone was about to take off on their sabbaticals. He supposed he could always ask his Uncle Sunny about working again as a sheet metal worker—he had liked that and made good money—or maybe he would talk with his parents about medical school.

But he did have two questions: “Yes, I do have two. Two questions. Actually three questions.”

“Anything. But as you know I have to run in a minute. Shoot.”

Though Zazlo thought that a tempting metaphor to consider, he stifled that impulse and asked the first of his questions, “So who will be the COP director?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one—Sam Haskins of course.”

“Well, I would . . . but let me ask then, what about the assistant director? My job.”

“For your old job we had a couple of good choices but finally settled on, what’s his name again, Richard Santoro. Yes, him. The Puerto Rican guy. From Yale.”

“The Cicano guy, Roberto Santos, from Harvard.”

“Yeah, right. Him. Good guy. He’ll be fine. Look sorry,” Dr. Laney got up, “As I said I gotta go so . . .”

“I told you I had three questions and . . .”

“Sure. Right. What is it? What is it?” He stood there, tapping his foot impatiently, looking at his watch as if timing Zazlo’s pulse.

“Why me? Murphy I can understand. But why me? Why do I have to go?”

“Oh that. I would have thought you figured that one out. You’re a smart boy.” He looked up from his watch. “You remember those demands? The ones the Coalition and college agreed to? I assume you do since you negotiated them, didn’t you?” He in fact had and couldn’t stop himself from nodding. “Well what about the one then, what did it say, that the college would look to hire more minority administrators?” He paused for a moment to allow Zazlo time, though Laney didn’t have much of it—he had a client waiting—time to recall that third agreed-upon demand. Yes, Lloyd remembered, that’s what it said. “So,” Laney matter-of-factly said, “that’s what we did--we looked for, found, and hired two new minority administrators—Haskins and Santoro. Got to go.”

He waived at Zazlo as he bolted toward the door, and over his shoulder said a final, “Ciao.”

That was it.

And, as will be seen, this ended the time during which Lloyd Zazlo continued to live his life in the passive voice.

The END.