Chapter 29

“I imagine a child who has swallowed up his parents too soon, who frightens himself on that account, ‘all by himself,’ and, to save himself, rejects and throws up everything that is given to him—all gifts, all objects.” —Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror

Gavin had never hated a flower before this one.  Fucking lilac or whatever it was, poking up through the dirt of a New Buffalo flower bed, right by the gate at the south entrance to campus.  Surrounded by unopened green buds, but this one was precocious, sporting a cluster of blue-purple blossoms so perfect you kind of wanted to eat them.  They probably smelled great, too, but there was no way Gavin was going to smell them.  Fine, fuck it, he was going to smell them.  He put his knee to the cement path, felt the damp ground through his jeans, lowered his nose.  Yeah, it smelled fucking awesome, sweet and soapy like your grandmother would smell if you lived in England.

He stood up, gave it one last look, so cheery and springy rising up from the bare winter ground, symbolizing hope and new life and probably love. He felt like kicking it.

Fucking Rona Gomez was ruining everything.  

He had seen her in class last week, on Wednesday, fresh off his Kansas trip.  Flew in Tuesday night, and the message from Lee was already on his voicemail when he got off the plane.  The committee has conferred to discuss your candidacy.  We would like to offer you the position of Associate Professor, starting in September.

Which was sort of a relief, to know for sure that he had a job.  A job where cows were an academic discipline, where barbed wire was a cultural activity.  Sort of a relief and sort of the scariest thing ever.

He had gone to class all messed up, totally off his game. He could barely manage to talk about Time Slide, which was usually the thing he was best at talking about.  The tragic downfall of Thomas McGrew III and IV.  The abject inherent in silence, the degeneration of the self. Who fucking cares.  Terrifying things were happening.  Somewhere in windowless offices with unpleasant lighting, his fate was being decided. Who could care about two make-believe guys on a make-believe slide, rambling on about their fear of death or the unknown or whatever. All he could think about was dusty fields and classrooms that wobbled when you closed the door. 

Don’t think about Kansas. Be present.

He looked at his students, thought about the empty seat where DeJuan should be sitting.  And of course, worse than that.

Rona Gomez.

Her hair was in a high ponytail, showing a long pale expanse of neck from her hairline to the collar of her t-shirt.  Zoom.  He  was kissing it, biting it, licking her collarbone, sucking on her nipple.  Fuck.  Stop it.  Her nipple, brown and hard, the bottom curve of her breast swelling over her ribcage.   

Stop looking. 

God, it was like he has no freaking control of himself.  Five years perfecting the art of inconspicuous boob-watching, and here he was losing his shit over a neck.

It didn’t matter; she was too busy being a model student to notice. Flipping through the book, taking notes, drawing trees, participating in discussions.  He’d even seen her smile once, working in a small group with that Asian guy who was so obviously into her, it was embarrassing.  Why would she smile for that guy?  What the fuck was she so happy about, anyway?

He looked at the neck again, searched it for marks someone else might have left in the less than two weeks since he’d been with her.  A blotchy spot, probably just a bruise or something. Whatever, you don’t own her.  If she wanted to go around letting any random asshole give her hickies—and of course not just that but probably fuck her, definitely fuck her or at least stick his fingers in her and whatever—that was her business.

Stop it!!!

She was out the door the second the bell rang. He had hoped she would stay after class, talk to him.  It didn’t have to be about hanging out or whatever had happened between them.  Just, you know, catching up for a minute, saying hi would be nice.  Even if she didn’t want to sleep with him again, didn’t want a relationship or anything, she didn’t have to act like he was invisible.

Maybe she’s just laying low.  Being discreet.  She’d probably call him over the weekend, ask him to hang out so she could hear about how his trip went, tell him how class went with the sub while he was away.  After all, she was the one with his phone number—he didn’t have hers—so it was kind of on her to be, you know, friendly and communicative.

Now it was Monday, the call had never come, and class was starting in ten minutes.  Today, he wasn’t going to leave it up to chance.  He was going to grab her after class, make sure they talked.  Nothing too big a deal, just for a minute, just some brief normal human contact so he wouldn’t lose his mind. 

As he walked through the middle of campus, past at least five more nauseatingly beautiful fucking flowers, including a yellow one that looked like it should be on a greeting card or something, he planned what he would say.

Hey, can we talk?

No, nothing’s wrong, just wanted to see how everything is going.  How is it going?

My week? Nothing special. Just the job interview in Kansas.  Yeah, they want to hire me.

Fuck.

There had to be some way to do this without sounding like a total fucking creep.

He opened the door, looked at the clock—three minutes late.  It was the first truly nice day of the year, spring for real now, mating season.  The Ashleys were all in tiny shorts, like tiny, like their butts were going to have red marks from the plastic seats. The Brandons were all in white tank tops with beer logos. Really the whole room was just a lot of skin and restlessness and B.O. Students were sitting backwards and sideways on chairs, squirming, staring out the dusty window at the little square of blue. Kayla had her shiny bare legs draped over Braden’s lap.  This must be one of their on days.  Even the Asian girls were in miniskirts, slumped over, doodling flowers and hearts in their notebooks.

This would be the worst kind of day to pull Rona aside, with all this weird horny energy everywhere.  Whatever semi-creepy thing he said to her, it was going to sound about ten times more creepy with all these hormones floating around everywhere.  But he was going to make himself do it—he looked around the room for her—be a grownup and initiate a polite conversation, no matter how—um, awkward, he was going to—hey, wait. Where was she, anyway?

Fuck.

He sat down at his desk, thunk, dropped his heavy book bag hard onto the floor.

“Work in groups,” he said.

They didn’t even look at him, just kept chatting, giggling.

“I said, work in groups.”

He stared at them and they stared back.  A sea of confused and grumpy faces, entrusted to his care, waiting for his guidance. He had zero idea what they were supposed to be doing.

Maybe he was losing his mind.

“What do you want us to work on?” Rona's Asian guy asked. 

“Discuss the ending of Time Slide,” Gavin said.

“What about it?”

God, couldn’t this guy do one thing for himself? Just talk about it.

“You know,” Gavin said.  “How it made you feel.”  Okay, what else?  “Whether it was a good ending or a bad ending.  And, oh, the abject.”

Whispers, nervous laughter. Kayla pulled on one of Braden’s blond curls, straightened it and let it spring back to his head.  He rolled his eyes and pushed her legs off his lap.

“Ten minutes,” Gavin said.  “Each group will tell the class what they discussed.  You’ll be graded out of twenty points.”

That always got their attention. They moved their chairs around, got in the same groups as always. Except the Asian guy worked with the other Asian kids, since Rona wasn’t in class. And Braden and Kayla didn’t work in the same group, which meant they had gotten in a fight sometime in the last five minutes.

“Fucking depressing,” one of the nerd guys was saying.  The other nerds in his group nodded.

Gavin propped his chin in his hand and watched them thumbing through their books.  His body felt really heavy.  Maybe not heavier than usual, but more like he had lost the strength to hold himself upright. He kind of wanted to slouch the way the students did, to put his feet up on the desk next to him, to lie down on the floor.  To go straight home and get under the covers and sleep for like a year.

“Okay, time.”  He forced himself to sit up straight, like a normal teacher.  “Kayla, what did your group talk about?”

“Me?”

She scrunched up her face, rolled her eyes up in her head, thought. From the neck down, she looked healthy as ripe fruit, her thighs soft and tan on her chair, her boobs pushed up on a platter.  But her face was kind of grotesque, a mask, if you thought about it, pale and dark-circled and painted thick with tan powder.

“I guess.”  She pressed her knuckles to her cheek and chewed on her pinky.  “Mostly how sad the ending was.”

“It is sad,” Gavin agreed. That was weird, agreeing; he could tell from Kayla’s narrowed eyes. “I mean, what’s sad about it?” 

She sighed, slouched a little lower in her seat.  Gavin tried not to look down her shirt.  Actually he really didn’t want to.  He closed his eyes. He could hear his phone buzzing in his bag.  Santa Clarita.  He hoped.  Five weeks now, and still no word from them.

“Well, I guess it kind of made it seem like life has no meaning.  Like you could have one person or one thing that makes your life worth living, and then when it’s gone.  It’s like, what’s the point.”  She sighed, bit her finger again.  “It sort of made me understand why people commit suicide.”

“Wow,” Gavin said.  And then, because he couldn’t imagine any good direction for things to go from here, he told the class to go home early. Before I fucking shoot myself. 

“Sorry, I’m not feeling too well,” is what he said.

He stared at his bag as they left, waiting for the room to be empty. This probably wasn’t a good time to check his phone or listen to a message from Santa Clarita.  If it was bad news, if he didn’t get the job, he probably wouldn’t even be able to drag his ass back home.  He’d just have to stay in this room until the next class started, crawl out into the hall, spend the night half-sleeping in the stairwell.

He considered just picking the bag up and leaving without even looking at the phone.  He could go home, get into bed, and then check the message.  That way he’d already be in the right place for his subsequent nervous breakdown.

Good idea.  Go home.  He stood, went to his bag, and then, somehow, the phone was in his hand.

No call from Santa Clarita.  The buzzing had been a text message.  It was from a number that wasn’t programmed into his phone.

Need to drop your class, sorry.

Fuck.  What?

He sat back down, put the phone on the desk, stared at the message for a minute. Maybe it wasn’t Rona.  Some other student?  No, of course it was her.  He had never given his cell number to another student, never ever.

Sorry to hear that, he texted back.  Reason?

He waited for a few minutes, looking out the window.  The dust made a pattern kind of like a crow.  Maybe a crow in the rain.  On a wire fence.  Long rainy drips.  Barbed wire.

No message yet.

He picked up his bag,  put the phone in his pocket. Turned off the light, walked through the dim hallway and out into the bright afternoon sun.

He was almost to the edge of campus when his pants began to vibrate.  He sat down on a bench, looked at the screen.

Want to come to a party on Sat? Talk then.

He was sitting across from that same lilac, or whatever it was.   It had been less than an hour, but some of the barren plants were starting to show slivers of purple that hadn’t been there this morning, peeking out of their green buds.  They were sending out a sleepy perfume that he could smell even without leaning down. 

Ok, he texted back.

His phone vibrated immediately.

Cool. Sinder is coming too. 

Uh huh.  Sinder was coming.

Cool, he texted.

He stood up, put the phone in his pocket, lifted the bag onto his shoulder.  He walked to the edge of the flower bed, raised his foot extra high, and brought it down on top of the perfect lilac. He smashed his shoe into the ground like he was putting out a cigarette.

When he pulled his shoe away, the flower was flat, a little oozy, squashed like road kill.

“Fuck,” he said.  What the hell is wrong with you?

He leaned down, picked up the ruined flower.  Its roots loosened easily from the dirt, like they knew there was no point holding on.  The plant draped across both his hands like a doll corpse, fragrant and limp.

He wanted to take it home and do something with it.  Bury it, maybe. Some kind of redemption for murdering it, some sort of rite.  But of course that was silly.  And anyway, there was no way he could carry it around.  People would see him with it, the mark of guilt draped on his body. That would be way too much shame for him to handle right now.

He lay it over the concrete bench, almost left it there.  But it looked so lonely, he picked it up again and dropped it gently into the bed with the other plants.  At least it would be among its kind this way.  And when it disintegrated into the dirt, it would help its friends grow. 

<Chapter 28

Chapter 30>