DECEMBER

The Faculty Club

TITUS COOLEY ASKED to meet Eph at the Faculty Club. Under normal circumstances, Eph loved spending time there. The conversations were always stimulating, and it was rare not to see at least one or two Nobel winners, hanging out, just like that.

Today, though, he found it difficult to suppress his anxiety, getting there fifteen minutes early. He took a seat near the corner with his back turned to the other professors. The waitstaff offered tea and he happily accepted a cup. He was normally a coffee drinker, but found tea calmed the nerves.

The shortening days reflected his mood. It had been almost a month since the hearing and still he’d heard nothing. What is taking so long? D’Arcy had been supportive, as she always was, but everyone else was keeping a polite distance. Sleep came in fits and starts, if at all. Devon, normally a protective cocoon, now felt distant, as if he were on the outside looking in.

Class attendance had never recovered since the “incident.” He received official notice that a number of students were electing to drop the course. The protesters still got five or six people out in front of the building most days. Concentrating was a challenge. Way back when—a few weeks ago—his students looked at him with respect, even adoration, and he could feed off it, like tapping into a wondrous energy source. It focused the mind. But when every pair of eyes appeared filled with reproach, it was quite the opposite. The negative energy was like an oppressive weight. Sure, he knew many in the class understood exactly what had happened, and they probably sympathized with him, but he was in the press now. The trolls and digital vigilantes were unrelenting. His Rate My Professor score was now an unheard of 1.7. Even a kind interpretation of his circumstances had him woefully out of step with the campus zeitgeist.

His star had fallen.

Staring at a print of nineteenth-century Devon, he tried to think about anything else. The tweedy chuffing of nearby faculty conversations drifted his way.…

“So I had this student who wrote a paper—a paean, really—to Hayek. Can you imagine? Does he think this is Chicago? Who does this kid think he is?”

Eph’s eyelids grew heavy. Someone else droned on.

“I understand it’s a hunger strike, but the man seems to be enjoying the whole thing. Selflessness can’t be an enjoyable act or it ceases to be selfless. From a strictly Kantian perspective it can’t be called a moral act at all!”

Gradually, the faculty prattle became white noise, and Eph, stress and sleeplessness catching up with him, dozed off in his forest-green leather club chair …

“Well, glad to see you’re a man who can still relax!”

Eph bolted upright, discreetly wiping drool from his chin. It was Titus. “Forgive me. I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep lately. I must have nodded off.”

“Out like a light, I’d say. Well, what of it? Half the fossils around here do the same thing every time they pretend to read The New Yorker.” Titus laughed heartily at his own joke while Eph was trying his best to process being awake.

Sitting down in the next chair, Titus lowered his voice. “Listen, my boy. It was touch and go there, but you’re in the clear.”

“What?” That wasn’t what Eph expected to hear.

“I’ve just come from Dean Malik-Adams’s office, so I’ve got it right from the source. I got the distinct impression she wasn’t entirely happy about it, though.”

“About what?”

“About the lack of consequences.”

“But I did nothing wrong, and this trigger policy, or whatever it is, isn’t even in place yet.”

“I know, I know, and that’s fortunate for you, because then they might have had a way to construe this as a violation. You introduced Twain into the class without a content warning.”

“Oh, come on!”

“You’re preaching to the choir, my boy, preaching to the choir. But as it is, you can’t be held responsible for violating a policy that doesn’t yet exist, although, that being said, the good dean wasn’t entirely deterred. She was still pushing to have you placed in some sort of workshop or other on privilege and racism.”

“I’m not a racist, Titus.”

“Of course you’re not, but what’s that got to do with it? Was it Beria who said, ‘Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime’?”

Eph recalled that Beria was Stalin’s secret-police chief.

Titus paused, weighing how much more to say. “There’s more you should know … entre nous, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Other factors that weighed in your favor.” Titus leaned in closer. “President Strauss got involved.”

“Jesus!”

The room suddenly quieted, and the Nobels turned and looked their way. The two men stayed silent until the others went on with their conversations. This wasn’t how Eph imagined coming to the attention of Milton Strauss.

“Now, now, let me finish. While Milton is certainly sympathetic to issues of race—we all are, naturally—he also thought any further publicity around this would not be in the best interests of the school. It seems he came to this conclusion when an unedited version of the incident came to light, an audio recording. You turned out to be absolutely right—someone doctored the video.”

Eph leaned back in his chair. “Thank God. Where did the audio come from?”

“I don’t know, exactly. Whoever it was captured the whole thing and came forward. Strauss and Malik-Adams listened to it in its entirety, and it was pretty clear what happened. Not that it deterred the good dean, mind you. She said she didn’t like your whole attitude. But Milton realized that making this an issue might not play well with the alumni, at least the ones who write checks. God knows, Breitbart or something would write a piece and it would get emailed around God’s green acre and Milton would have had to answer phone calls all day.”

“So that’s it?”

“Where you are directly concerned, yes.”

Eph leaned back, breathing a sigh of relief, but it was half a sigh at best. “I don’t understand. Is there something else I should know?”

“Well, yes. You’ll find out soon enough. As a result of all this, a group of students, many of them in our department, are making demands about the curriculum. They have circulated a petition over the last few days. The incident in your class was the spark, not that any of this falls on you.”

“What sort of demands?”

“They insist that we decolonize the English curriculum. Yes, that was the word they used. Decolonize.”

“I’m sorry, but what does that mean?”

“It means less Chaucer and less Shakespeare and more, shall we say, exotic authors?”

Fred Hallowell would not be pleased, thought Eph. “Sir, if I may ask, will all this affect my position, I mean, with regards to my … prospects?”

Titus reflexively raised his hand toward his mouth, as if to draw on his pipe, before realizing he wasn’t holding one. He reached for his teacup instead and took a sip. “I’ll be frank, because you deserve it. My own view is that this incident was nothing but abject silliness. You’re still my choice, but understand that I’m not the only voice. Our department’s tenure committee must vote, and I don’t know if you know, but the third spot on the committee, the spot opened by David Atkins’s retirement, has been filled by Professor Blue Feather.”

“Blue Feather?” That was the second thing Eph wasn’t expecting today.

“Yes. With everything going on, there’s been pressure on us to present a different face, you see.”

Eph knew exactly what this meant: not white, not male, and in this case not exactly female either.

“Professor Blue Feather is an interesting one. She—er, they—have been trumpeting the works of Kishwar Naheed, a feminist Urdu poet from Pakistan. Can’t say I ever heard of the woman, but they want to bring her in as a poet-in-residence.”

“Excuse me … they?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? There was an email from HR the other day—I thought everyone got it? They were very adamant on the point of personal pronouns where Professor Blue Feather is concerned. Hold on, let me read it to you.” Titus took out his phone, holding it at arm’s length like some foreign object. Eph remembered he might have gotten an email about Blue Feather, but the HR Department had taken to sending out so many emails he tended to ignore them. “Here it is.” Titus began reading:

Professor Sophia Blue Feather, having self-identified as pangender, will correctly be identified by the pronouns “they,” “them,” or “ze” in all matters. Self-identity is a right universal to all, and as such we will respect Professor Blue Feather’s right as well. Furthermore, Professor Blue Feather will be heading up a newly formed committee to be called the Gender Violence Prevention and Support Group, which will focus on matters of gender communication within the Devon community.

“One wonders when this woman has time to teach!” said Titus, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “I’m not sure I totally understand any of this. Why would we use the plural? That’s incorrect English!”

“I could hazard a guess.” Eph had just done the research, after all. “Pangenderists believe they embody all genders within themselves, so I guess you could say there are a bunch of people in there.”

“In where?”

“Inside their heads?”

“Isn’t that what they call multiple personality disorder?”

“I’m afraid you’re asking the wrong person, but I see Professor Potts over there from the Psychology Department, if we want to ask.”

“And give him an opening to talk about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? I think not!” Titus sipped his tea. “You didn’t hear me say that.”

Eph smiled, but Titus suddenly looked tired. “You know, it’s getting harder for old farts like me to keep up. I suppose that must be increasingly obvious. Anyway, Ephraim, back to you. We usually look for a unanimous vote from the committee. Right now, you have mine, and I think Hallowell likes you, but I don’t know that you fit the, uh, profile that Professor Blue Feather has in mind. Honestly, I don’t know that Smallwood does either, although he might be a little closer to the mark.”

“Do votes have to be unanimous?”

“Technically, no. But once our committee makes a recommendation, it gets passed to the University Committee on Tenure. Generally, they’re a rubber stamp, but they may wonder if our house is in order if we pass along a non-unanimous candidate. I don’t think it’s ever been done before. If I may, do you have a good relationship with Professor Blue Feather?”

“I can’t say we know each other that well, but I think we get along.” Eph cringed, thinking about how they first met.

Yes, I’m pangender.

“Well, you might try some old-fashioned sucking up, lad. And consider joining some committees. I think they’re a pox, but the administration likes them. Gives us all the illusion of action.”

Titus paused, as if pondering whether he should say what he was about to say. He leaned ever so slightly toward Eph. “Are you still seeing Milton’s secretary?”

Eph knew what Titus meant, and he shifted in his chair uncomfortably. He couldn’t claim to be innocent in this regard. One of his keenest fantasies was to take D’Arcy back to Ashley. He imagined parading her around town on his arm. It wasn’t the Jim Crow South anymore, but cages would still be rattled.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Professor” was all he could manage to say.