An Arsonist's Guide To Writers' Homes In New England Part 6

"I bet," I said. "Now, I can't remember. How long have you missed it?"

"It must be about six years now," Sandy said.

"That's right," I said. "It must be." And then, "You know, my mother has always been a little foggy on the details of her retirement."

"Retirement. . . ," Sandy said, clearly unnerved by the conversation's turn. Her blotches and liver spots seemed to grow and throb with her unease. "Well, I suppose she was asked to retire, sort of."

"Oh."

"Because of her drinking," she said.

"Right," I said. "Her drinking."

"It's a disease," Sandy said. "Treatment, not punishment, that's my motto."

"That's a very good motto to have," I told her.

After that, we were surrounded by another silence a more rewarding one for me, although I can't speak for Sandy. My mother had been forcibly retired from her job six years ago but hadn't told me, had lied to me about going to work, and not just on a Sat.u.r.day, either. Why? Had she told my father? Where did my mother go every day? And how could I find out?

"Sam?" Sandy said. "h.e.l.lo?" She had clearly been talking to me while I'd been having these thoughts, and I heard her voice from far away, then followed it until I left my world and returned to hers.

"h.e.l.lo," I said. "I'm back."

"Yes, well, I have to go," Sandy said, and then she shook her canvas tote bag full of organic vegetables, as though the vegetables were late for an appointment. "Please give my best to your mother."

I will," I said. "I most definitely will."

11

It was a triumphant walk from the farmers' market to my parents' house that afternoon. I had learned something, something large, but it wasn't the learning something, in itself, that was so satisfying: it was that I would get to go home, tell my mother that I knew the truth about her "work," and then say, Aha! Aha! It was the It was the Aha! Aha! I was so looking forward to, so much so that I momentarily forgot my plan to go back to Camelot, to force myself and my apologies and confessions and further apologies upon Anne Marie and the kids until they took me back. The prospect of saying, I was so looking forward to, so much so that I momentarily forgot my plan to go back to Camelot, to force myself and my apologies and confessions and further apologies upon Anne Marie and the kids until they took me back. The prospect of saying, Aha! Aha! to my mother had that effect on me, like amnesia. I bet I wasn't the only one for whom this was the case. I bet it was also the triumphant to my mother had that effect on me, like amnesia. I bet I wasn't the only one for whom this was the case. I bet it was also the triumphant Aha! Aha! and not the truth itself that had fueled all those famous literary detectives I knew not much about except their names Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Joe and Frank Hardy. I felt like yelling something celebratory on my way home, something like, and not the truth itself that had fueled all those famous literary detectives I knew not much about except their names Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Joe and Frank Hardy. I felt like yelling something celebratory on my way home, something like, Yeah! Yeah! or or f.u.c.k, yeah! f.u.c.k, yeah! just like Marlowe would have yelled, just like the Hardys would have yelled, and maybe Holmes, too, although maybe that's why he kept Watson around: to tell Holmes to simmer down and not get too far ahead of himself. just like Marlowe would have yelled, just like the Hardys would have yelled, and maybe Holmes, too, although maybe that's why he kept Watson around: to tell Holmes to simmer down and not get too far ahead of himself.

Because maybe there is no true Aha! Aha! moment for a detective, or for anybody else, either. There sure wasn't one for me that night. I walked into my parents' house and found them sitting next to each other on the couch, talking to I discovered in a few seconds a cop. He was sitting in a chair with his back to me: he was wearing a gray hooded sweats.h.i.+rt, the hood bunched and folded and looking like the rolls of an elephant's skin. My parents were drinking coffee, not beer, and so I knew that something was up and they were in a bad way. moment for a detective, or for anybody else, either. There sure wasn't one for me that night. I walked into my parents' house and found them sitting next to each other on the couch, talking to I discovered in a few seconds a cop. He was sitting in a chair with his back to me: he was wearing a gray hooded sweats.h.i.+rt, the hood bunched and folded and looking like the rolls of an elephant's skin. My parents were drinking coffee, not beer, and so I knew that something was up and they were in a bad way.

"There ... he ... is," my father said. His hand shook a little as he spoke, coffee dribbling over the cup's lip. The cop stood up and turned around. He looked exactly like the guards I remembered from prison, who were overweight and overwhelmed and, if not for their guns, exactly like the junior varsity high school football coaches they might have been. Except this one was even younger looking than the guards. He was in his midtwenties, tops. His cheeks were bright red, as if he were cold or ashamed, and he was exactly my height, too, and all in all he looked as though he might have been my much younger brother if my parents had decided to have one and then dress him in entirely neutral colors: in addition to his gray sweats.h.i.+rt, he wore khaki pants and tan work boots and a tan barn jacket. "Here I am," I said, echoing my father, my face flaring up almost automatically to match the cop's, as though his shame were a challenge to mine.

"I'm Detective Wilson," he said in a surprisingly high voice for such a big guy. He took my hand and shook it vigorously, making up for not ever having shaken it before. His hands were large and soft, as if made of something once hard that had melted. "I was just asking your folks a few questions."

"About what?"

"There was a fire last night, Sam," my mother said. Her voice was calm, perfectly calm, and her coffee-cup-holding hand was steady, but I could see that her other hand, her right one, was gripping the couch arm tight, as though the couch were a seat on an amus.e.m.e.nt ride. "Someone tried to burn down the Edward Bellamy House."

"OK," I said, trying to act as though I were hearing this for the first time. This was difficult, though, in part because I knew all about it, but also because Detective Wilson wouldn't let go of my hand. He wasn't shaking it anymore, just holding it gently, as though trying to help me through an especially difficult time. Or maybe it was me helping him; he was young enough that this could have been his first case. Maybe that's why he'd given us his t.i.tle detective detective and not his first name, because he couldn't believe he actually had one. A t.i.tle, that is. and not his first name, because he couldn't believe he actually had one. A t.i.tle, that is.

"Edward Bellamy was a writer," the detective said. "He wrote books." He smiled at me broadly, as if this were good news and he was pleased to be the one to spread it.

"Oh," I said flatly, and then, as if just realizing the import of this news, I said, "Oh!" again. My intent was to make this "Oh!" sound panicked, concerned, and maybe even a little indignant, but not at all guilty. But it didn't sound quite right, a little weak and insincere to my ears, and so I was going to let out a third "Oh!" this one with a little more pa.s.sion, a little more oomph. But my mother shot me a look that told me, more or less, to stop saying "Oh!" So I stopped.

"This happened last night," my mother said, repeating herself, talking slowly, helping me through this. "We told the detective that you were here all night, with us, in this house."

"That's true," I said, and it was.

"OK," Detective Wilson said, only now letting go of my hand. I put it in my pocket before he could decide to take it back. He turned to my father. "So why don't you show me that letter."

"Letter," my father said, and nodded. This was clearly something they'd spoken of before I'd arrived: all three seemed at ease with the fact of this letter's existence and with the prospect of Detective Wilson's taking a look at it. It was clearly something they'd already agreed upon. My father got up from the couch and lurched in the direction of his bedroom, and Detective Wilson followed him. From inside the bedroom, I could hear Detective Wilson ask my father, "Do you always keep the letters in this box? In this drawer?" I could hear my father mutter something affirmative. My mother remained on the couch and stared glumly into her coffee cup. "I could use a drink," she said. "A real drink."

"So," I said, again attempting to sound casual and unconcerned, but no doubt failing, as I picked up a napkin off the coffee table and began strangling it out of nervousness, "what letter is this Detective Wilson looking for?"

"You remember that box of letters your father has, from all those people wanting you to burn down those houses?" my mother said, still looking in dismay at her coffee cup. "There's one in there from some man wanting you to burn down the Edward Bellamy House. That's the letter he's looking for."

"So you know about those letters?"

"Oh, yes," she said.

"And Detective Wilson knows about those letters?"

"Oh, yes," my mother said again.

"How does he know about them?" I asked.

"Your father told him."

"He did?" There had been a little too much something in my voice if I'd known exactly what it was, then maybe I'd have been able to keep it out of there in the first place. But whatever it was, my mother heard it. She raised her eyes from her cup, looked at me first with incredulity, then with pity.

"You thought it was just the two of you, didn't you?" she asked. "That the letters were your little secret." Before I could confirm this, my mother shook her head violently, as if to get me out of her head, as if I were one more unwelcome thought she did not want to get lost in.

But then again, I had plenty of new, unwelcome thoughts to get lost in myself. Someone besides me and my father and the letter writers knew about the letters that was news enough. But what would Detective Wilson say when he found out that Mr. Frazier's letter was missing? What would my father say, and my mother? Would I tell them the truth about Mr. Frazier and how he'd taken the letter? What if the truth sounded like a lie to them, as it surely would? What lie could I tell that would sound less like a lie than the truth?

"Well," Detective Wilson said, emerging from my father's bedroom. My father was right behind him: his eyes darted to me, then to my mother, then to me again, and then back to his bedroom, before he closed them, his eyes exhausted from all that exercise. Detective Wilson paused to let my father resume his place by my mother on the couch; he then looked at each of us in turn first wide eyed and then squinty, which I think was supposed to convey suspicion but instead made him look as though he were having contact-lens problems. Detective Wilson seemed to be waiting for one of us to say something, just as I was waiting for him to say, The letter is missing. The letter is missing. Which after some further eye contortions, he finally did. Which after some further eye contortions, he finally did.

My father didn't say anything: he had been in the room, of course, and so already knew that the letter was missing. His eyes were still closed and I wondered if he'd fallen asleep. My mother and I didn't say anything, either. We looked straight forward, at the detective, maybe to avoid looking at each other.

"It certainly is," Detective Wilson said, perhaps responding to something he'd hoped one of us would say. "Do any of you know where the letter is?"

"No," my father said. His eyes were still closed, but he said this word clearly, although with some agony. He opened his eyes and looked toward his bedroom longingly, then made a clogged whistling noise through his nose. He sounded like a congested train pa.s.sing in the night.

"No," my mother said.

"No," I said, and then added, unnecessarily, "I have no idea where it is, either."

After that, none of us Pulsifers said anything else. Detective Wilson tugged at his coat sleeves, then fiddled with his hood; for some reason he kept looking toward the door, as though he were onstage and his director was in the wings, about to feed the detective his cues. "OK, that's all I need for right now," he finally said, visibly drooping in the shoulders. "I'll be in touch." Then, without shaking anyone's hand or even giving anyone his card, he practically sprinted out the door and into the night. My father disappeared into his bedroom to double-check, no doubt, the status of his precious shoe box and its missing letter. But my mind was still on Detective Wilson, who'd come looking for an answer and left behind all these questions. Why hadn't he kept on questioning us until he'd gotten some answers? Was he a b.u.mbler, too? Did anyone know what the h.e.l.l they were doing around here? What sort of detective was was he, anyway? he, anyway?

"What police department was Detective Wilson from?" I asked.

"You know, I don't think he said," my mother told me. I could hear my father in his bedroom moaning loudly and deeply, like a wounded cow. But my mother didn't seem to notice. She was staring at me, her eyes full of questions, those questions...o...b..ting the stationary suns of her pupils. Did you do something, Sam? Did you do something, Sam? she wanted to know. she wanted to know. You just moved home: did you do something bad already? Oh, Sam, what have you done now? How have you disappointed me this time? You just moved home: did you do something bad already? Oh, Sam, what have you done now? How have you disappointed me this time? She had these questions, all right, but she didn't have to ask them. Because my mother, thank G.o.d, was a drunk, and this was another good thing about being a drunk: you always had a question that would trump all other questions. She had these questions, all right, but she didn't have to ask them. Because my mother, thank G.o.d, was a drunk, and this was another good thing about being a drunk: you always had a question that would trump all other questions.

"Who wants a drink?" my mother asked, then got off the couch and walked to the kitchen before finding out who besides her wanted one.

I WAS SO OVERFULL with questions that it wasn't until five in the morning that I woke up and remembered what had earlier seemed like some of the most pressing ones. Why hadn't my mother told me she'd been fired from her job? And what did she do every day when she was supposed to be at work? I could have waited until a decent hour to ask my mother these questions, but who knew, once I woke up, what other questions might need to be asked and answered? Who knew what other mysteries might yet pop up and obscure the old ones?

I got out of bed and made my shuffling, groggy way down to my mother's room, the room my parents' used to share. There is something creepy and illicit about sneaking into your parents' bedroom when you are young, and this is no less true when you're an adult. The door was closed. I stood there for a moment, steeling myself to be stealthy, then carefully turned the k.n.o.b and opened the door. Even in the dark, I could see that the room was as I remembered it. There was a wooden dresser to the right of the door, where my father kept, or used to keep, his clothes; kitty-corner to that was the mirrored walk-in closet where my mother kept her dresses and skirts. Kitty-corner to that that was an end table with a phone and a digital clock and various framed pictures of her and me. And in between the table and me was the bed, my parents' big queen-size bed, which was empty. No one was in it. I ran my hand over the bedspread and then sat on the bed itself to make sure. Not only was n.o.body in it, but n.o.body had been in it, either. The bed was made, the bedspread taut except for where I'd sat on it. There were two pillows at the head of the bed, and no heads had touched them, not that night, maybe not the night before or the night before that or ... was an end table with a phone and a digital clock and various framed pictures of her and me. And in between the table and me was the bed, my parents' big queen-size bed, which was empty. No one was in it. I ran my hand over the bedspread and then sat on the bed itself to make sure. Not only was n.o.body in it, but n.o.body had been in it, either. The bed was made, the bedspread taut except for where I'd sat on it. There were two pillows at the head of the bed, and no heads had touched them, not that night, maybe not the night before or the night before that or ...

So, despite my best efforts, here was another question, and first thing in the morning, too: Where the h.e.l.l was my mother? There were so many questions that I began to wonder if I'd ever find any of the answers, if I even knew what an answer looked like anymore. And then I heard a thud downstairs. It was clearly the thud of the morning paper hitting the front door, and I realized that no matter what it looks like, an answer always sounds like a thud. That was my very thought, standing there in my boxer shorts. I walked downstairs, opened the door, brought in the newspaper, and began flipping through it in that half-zombie way you do in the too-early morning, looking for something that might wake you up.

I found it, right there in the local news section. In the early evening, someone had set fire to the Mark Twain House, in Hartford, Connecticut, forty-five minutes or so down the highway. The article said that the fire was "suspicious," although I knew this to be the case without their having to tell me so.

Part Three

12

If I were to write the bond a.n.a.lysts' memoir, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, my first piece of advice would be this: Practice. For G.o.d's sake, practice.

Whoever had tried to burn down the Edward Bellamy House hadn't practiced, that was obvious, and that was also true of whoever tried to burn down the Mark Twain House. But before I went to the Twain House that morning, and before I go there in memory here, I first had to sneak into my father's room, open his shoe box of letters, and find out who wanted the Mark Twain House torched in the first place. Unlike my mother, my father was home: I could hear him in his room, snoring adenoidally and loudly enough to shake the house's shake s.h.i.+ngles. I opened the door to his room it caught and then creaked a little, as doors in old houses do, but not loudly enough to be heard over the snoring-and then crept in the direction of the end table. There was a streetlight right outside my father's window, illuminating the room until it was slightly on the bright side of pitch black, and I could just make out my father's blanketed shape on the bed. During waking hours, he looked small, diminished, but on that bed, in that filtered light and under the blankets, my father looked oddly huge and mysterious, much more of a man than he actually was. I remember thinking how sad that was, that my father and maybe all of us was more impressive asleep than awake.

In any case, I located the end table in the mostly dark, opened the drawer as quietly as I could, and removed the shoe box from the drawer and then myself from the room. I walked to the kitchen; there was a half pot of coffee from the day before, and so I heated and drank it while I flipped through the letters. They weren't in any particular order Wharton was before Alcott, who was after Melville but finally I found the Twain House letter. I carried the letter with me upstairs and put it in the pocket of the coat I'd wear that day, then showered, shaved, dressed, and generally made myself presentable to the world I wanted to investigate. Then I walked downstairs. About halfway down the stairs, I stopped: there was my father, walking back from the kitchen. He was wearing boxer shorts, and only boxer shorts, and looked oddly virile for the stroked-out sixty-year-old I knew he was: his arms and chest had some definition, and the skin under his arms wasn't loose and didn't sag earthward the way old-man underarm skin can; his stride was more hop than shuffle, and I almost yelled out something like, Hey, looking good Hey, looking good, until I saw what he was carrying. In one hand, of course, was a big can of Knickerbocker. But in the other was the box of letters. My father was looking curiously at the box as he walked, as if the box were a stranger and my father was waiting for it to introduce itself. My father was still looking at the box as he disappeared into his room and shut the door behind him. What was my father thinking in there? Did he wonder who had taken the box out of his room and into the kitchen? Did he suspect it was me who had taken the box? After all, who else was there to suspect? Or did he a.s.sume maybe that he had done it himself while he was drunk the night before the night before had been full of our normal familial drinking and simply didn't remember? This was yet another good thing about drinking, of course: not that drinking made you forget things, but that it made it possible for you to plausibly pretend pretend you'd forgotten things. In any case, there wasn't much use wondering about it: my father was back in his room with his box, and I had the letter, which told me exactly where to go and who wanted me to go there. you'd forgotten things. In any case, there wasn't much use wondering about it: my father was back in his room with his box, and I had the letter, which told me exactly where to go and who wanted me to go there.

THE DAY ITSELF WAS MUCH different from the day I'd visited Mr. Frazier and the Bellamy House. This day, it felt like fall, real fall: the air was sharp in your throat, the wind was cold and looking for a scarf to blow around, and the sky was so blue it looked as if it had been chemically enhanced for maximum blueness. It was the kind of day where you would have smelled leaves burning somewhere if leaf burning hadn't been outlawed. I felt nervous, much more nervous than I'd been while driving to the Edward Bellamy House, maybe because I'd read so much of Twain at my mother's behest he was my mother's favorite, and I'd known this and wanted to please her, and so I had made sure to laugh at the things she'd told me were funny, and to shake my head admiringly at the things she'd told me were wicked. Or maybe I was nervous because the drive was longer than the drive to the Bellamy House and gave me more time to be nervous, and this would be another thing I'd put in my arsonist's guide: for an arsonist just starting out, it's perhaps easier to burn down a nearby home of an obscure writer rather than burn down a more famous writer's house in a more distant city.

Once I got there, though, I saw that no one had really burned anything and that the Mark Twain House was going to be just fine. Again, there was yellow tape around the perimeter of the house; you could see some singe marks up near and around the first-floor windows, but nothing had really been permanently damaged except for some bushes that had caught fire and then been doused and were in a very bad way. The house itself was absurdly thick and tall a normal Victorian house on growth hormones and was surrounded by three other slightly less ma.s.sive houses, and the whole compound reminded me of the houses in my dream of a few nights earlier, my dream featuring the many houses and the naked woman and the burning books, and maybe that's why I found the whole place especially spooky and sad and uninhabitable. Maybe that's what Twain had felt, too: he had built the place, the house of his dreams, and the whole thing was so impressive and dreamlike, finally, that he didn't want to live there. There were no lights on in any of the main house's windows, and the only humans on the property, besides me, were reporters: three or four television reporters in their sharp suits, followed by their cameramen with their high-tech gear, each one dressed in those many-pocketed khaki vests that would have looked good on safari. The reporters and the cameramen made me nervous, too, not because I thought they'd recognize me, but because they seemed so much better prepared, organized, and equipped than I was. But they were paying attention to the house and not to me. Besides, I'd seen what I'd come to see and knew the two things I now thought I knew: someone with access to my father's shoe box had memorized or copied the letters asking me to burn down the Bellamy and Twain houses; and the Mark Twain House had been burned, or not burned, by the same person who also hadn't managed to burn the Edward Bellamy House. It didn't occur to me that different people might fail at burning down different writers' homes in New England in the same way. Always count on a b.u.mbler to think that he is unique in his b.u.mbling, to believe his b.u.mbling is like a fingerprint, specific to him. The truth is that the world is full of b.u.mblers exactly like you, and to think that you're special is just one more thing you've b.u.mbled.

AT LEAST I DIDN'T b.u.mble the letter. I read it several times, and thoroughly, too. It was from an English professor at Heiden College, in Hartford, asking me to burn down the Mark Twain House as a present for his "lady friend," who was also a professor at the college. His name was Wesley Mincher and hers was Lees Ardor. The letter was extremely learned there were whoms and ones everywhere, and lots of complicated punctuation but it was difficult to tell why he wanted to give her this present. And why would she want it? Why not a necklace, a cruise, or a car? Mincher couldn't say, or at least I couldn't understand what he was saying: professorial hemming and hawing is much denser than a layperson's hemming and hawing, and I needed one of those big dictionaries that you can't read without a magnifying gla.s.s to help me get to the center of his meaning. At the end of the letter, though, he finally got to it himself: "In summary, then, I wish for you to burn down the Mark Twain House because Professor Ardor believes Mr. Twain to be something of a [and here you could sense the ashamed pause, lurking between the lines] female pudendum."

I had no idea whether the two professors were still together (the letter had been written eleven years ago) or if she still believed Twain was a female pudendum. I had a good idea what a female pudendum was, though, and I also had a good idea where I could find Professor Mincher: he'd included his office phone number on the letter. I called the number, but Mincher wasn't there, and I didn't leave a message. Instead I called the English Department number (Mincher had written his letter on English Department letterhead, as though his was a query letter and I were a journal). The woman who answered the phone said that Professor Mincher wouldn't be in; but then I asked about Professor Ardor, who, as it turned out, had office hours that very morning.

LEES ARDOR WAS AN a.s.sociate professor of American literature it said so on the plaque on her office door but she didn't like literature, didn't believe believe in it. I found this out after I knocked on her door, she opened it, and I stood there for too many seconds, staring at her hair. It was long, red, and straight: it was the sort of hair that demanded to be brushed religiously, two hundred times a day. Her hair was as s.h.i.+ny as a newly waxed kitchen floor, as mesmerizing as a hypnotist's swinging gold watch, and it was the only physical characteristic of Lees Ardor's that stuck with me. I'm sure she had others -she had a body, for instance, and it was wearing clothes; she had a voice and it was somewhere in the range of normal human voices -but it was her hair I remembered. Lees Ardor's hair stood for the rest of her, the way Ahab's peg leg had stood for him. in it. I found this out after I knocked on her door, she opened it, and I stood there for too many seconds, staring at her hair. It was long, red, and straight: it was the sort of hair that demanded to be brushed religiously, two hundred times a day. Her hair was as s.h.i.+ny as a newly waxed kitchen floor, as mesmerizing as a hypnotist's swinging gold watch, and it was the only physical characteristic of Lees Ardor's that stuck with me. I'm sure she had others -she had a body, for instance, and it was wearing clothes; she had a voice and it was somewhere in the range of normal human voices -but it was her hair I remembered. Lees Ardor's hair stood for the rest of her, the way Ahab's peg leg had stood for him.

Anyway, I must have been staring at her hair for too long, because Lees Ardor put her fingers right under my nose and snapped them twice. The snapping brought me out of my trance. I stuck out my hand and asked, double-checking the accuracy of the door plaque, "Professor Ardor?" Without sticking out her hand to meet mine, she asked back, "And what, exactly, am I supposed to profess?"

This threw me some, I'll admit, and because of that, I forgot to introduce myself and stammered for a moment or so before finally saying, "You profess literature," and then I pointed at the door plaque, where it said so.

"I don't believe believe in literature," she said. "I don't in literature," she said. "I don't like like literature, either." literature, either."

"But you're a literature professor."

"That's correct."

"I don't understand," I said. I knew from experience that it is exactly this response teachers most desire, because it makes them feel necessary. While at Our Lady of the Lake, I had understood so few things that I became something of a teacher's pet.

"It makes perfect sense," she said. "Does it not?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned her back to me, walked around her desk, and sat in her chair, the comfortable rolling sort of desk chair that you can lean back in until you're nearly horizontal. The only other chair in the office was one of those ancient hard-backed wooden chairs that my stern Yankee ancestors probably made to be so uncomfortable that the Puritan sitting in it became miserable enough that he'd go back to work. I sat in it, across the desk from Lees Ardor. The desk between us, and the hierarchy of our chairs, made me feel diminished, like a lower life-form.

"Name a book that I should like," Lees Ardor said. "Name a book that's so great I should like it."

I thought hard about all the books my mother had made me read, about certain books that everyone knew were great, and of course I came up with Huckleberry Finn Huckleberry Finn. It was my mother's favorite book: when, as a boy, I'd asked her why, she always said she saw herself in it, although I never knew whether she saw herself in Huck, or Jim, or Tom, or the Duke, or maybe one of the minor characters. Plus, I was here because Lees Ardor's man, Mincher, wanted the Mark Twain House burned to the ground, and so I thought maybe I'd learn something important about her and the case if I said, "What about Huckleberry Finn? Huckleberry Finn?"

"Huckleberry Finn my a.s.s," Lees Ardor replied. She smiled at me ingratiatingly, as if we had reached a kind of understanding, even though I didn't understand what "Huckleberry Finn my a.s.s" meant, and I don't think Lees Ardor did, either. my a.s.s," Lees Ardor replied. She smiled at me ingratiatingly, as if we had reached a kind of understanding, even though I didn't understand what "Huckleberry Finn my a.s.s" meant, and I don't think Lees Ardor did, either.

I didn't get a chance to ask her to clarify, though. Lees Ardor went into a fury of book and legal pad gathering, then stood up, walked past her desk and me, and said over her shoulder, "We're late for cla.s.s."

Of course, I hadn't introduced myself yet and so she must have thought I was her student, a student whom she didn't recognize and whose name she didn't know, even though the semester must have been more than half over by then. In any case, I got up out of that uncomfortable chair and followed her down the hall. The hall was beautiful, the most beautiful inst.i.tutional hall I'd ever seen, and nothing at all like the halls at Our Lady of the Lake. There were no drop ceilings or water stains in the plaster, and it was all dark wood and marble, with even a few ceiling-tile mosaics here and there. Looking at the ceilings at Heiden College made you want to learn, whereas looking at the ceilings at my alma mater made you not want to look at the ceilings.

The students in Lees Ardor's cla.s.s, though, probably looked much the same as the students at Our Lady of the Lake. The boys wore backward baseball caps, and the girls wore low-slung jeans and cropped s.h.i.+rts that left a strip of white, white skin between the s.h.i.+rt and the pants. Besides me, there were only two other aberrant-looking characters in that cla.s.sroom: a Richard Nixon kook wearing a gray three-piece suit and red paisley tie, and a kook who looked like a female Chairman Mao, with that famous bowl haircut and matching workingman's denim ensemble, plus many facial piercings, including a hoop through her septum by which she could, I supposed, be led around. Those two were sitting in the back row, and I sat between them. They didn't acknowledge me when I asked the girl, and then the boy, "Hey, what cla.s.s is this, anyway?" But still I felt an unspoken kins.h.i.+p with them, the way the untouchables in the back row always do.

Lees Ardor had positioned herself at the front of the cla.s.sroom and was staring at the cla.s.s, her hair flowing behind her as though it were her head's own academic gown. She stared for at least three minutes. At first I thought she was taking a silent form of attendance. But there were only fourteen people in the cla.s.s I counted and it wouldn't have taken her that long to figure out who was there and who wasn't. Besides, she wasn't really looking at us but rather at some spot on the wall at the back of the room, as if trying to bore a hole through it. Finally, still looking at the wall, she said, "Willa Lather is a c.u.n.t."

"Whoa," I said, apparently out loud, since several of the real students turned and looked at me before a.s.suming their previous face-forward positions. They seemed unimpressed, bored even, by Lees Ardor's p.r.o.nouncement, but it threw me, that most forbidden of forbidden words, even though I'd read Wesley Mincher's letter and should have been expecting it or something like it. I turned to the Chairman Mao kook and whispered, "Did she really say" and here I paused, not daring to say that word myself, the most off-limits of all the off-limits terms for the female pudendum "that word? word?"

"Yes," she said. There was a strong, wet sibilance to the word, which made me suspect that she had a tongue ring, in addition to her many other piercings. She would have been in high demand as a model for Face and Metal Face and Metal, a.s.suming there was such a magazine.

"Why?"

"We're reading My antonia My antonia," the Chairman Mao kook said. My face must have looked as baffled as I, its owner, felt, because she clarified: "That's a book. By Willa Cather."

"I know that," I said. My antonia My antonia was another book my mother had made me read, and I remembered it well: the sweeping Nebraska prairie, the waist-high snow, the transplanted Scandinavians and Slavs and their work ethic, the strong women in calico always drinking strong coffee. And then there was was another book my mother had made me read, and I remembered it well: the sweeping Nebraska prairie, the waist-high snow, the transplanted Scandinavians and Slavs and their work ethic, the strong women in calico always drinking strong coffee. And then there was antonia antonia herself, who, as I remembered, was plucky, among her other notable qualities. "But why did she call Willa Cather" and here I summoned all my courage and finally got it out "a c.u.n.t?" herself, who, as I remembered, was plucky, among her other notable qualities. "But why did she call Willa Cather" and here I summoned all my courage and finally got it out "a c.u.n.t?"

The Chairman Mao kook didn't flinch when I said the word. "Professor Ardor thinks all writers are c.u.n.ts."

I turned to the Richard Nixon kook to get his take on the matter, but he wasn't paying any attention to us at all. His eyes were fixed on Lees Ardor; he had this aroused, glazed look on his face and kept smoothing and stroking his tie, and you didn't have to be an English major or a reader to know what that that symbolized. symbolized.

Meanwhile there was a discussion going on in front of us. One of the normal, scantily clad college girls had said about My antonia My antonia, "I liked it."

"What do you mean by like? like?" Lees Ardor asked, in the same tone she'd used when she asked me what she was supposed to profess profess. There followed a long debate about what it meant to like like something. I didn't pay much attention to this at all, not so much because I didn't understand the discussion, but because it flew so far below the radar of my interest. Finally they exhausted that topic, I mean really exhausted the h.e.l.l out of it: even the air in the cla.s.sroom seemed weary. something. I didn't pay much attention to this at all, not so much because I didn't understand the discussion, but because it flew so far below the radar of my interest. Finally they exhausted that topic, I mean really exhausted the h.e.l.l out of it: even the air in the cla.s.sroom seemed weary.

"I'm sorry about your mother," one of the other normal, scantily clad girls said.