Nicknames are easier to remember than names. I give many of my students nicknames. Some students are flattered, taking this habit for a kind of affection. Royal Highness, Sailor, Cabaret. These students straighten eagerly when called upon. Others squirm or roll their eyes when I call on them: Puck, Benjy, Fagan. I do this to assume control in my classroom. Since I can’t hover over them and speak from behind a podium, I must wriggle into their heads some other way. If a student insists on being addressed a certain way—it’s happened once or twice—I seldom call on her again.
Yesterday we were discussing the theme of paralysis in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I was expounding on how the immobility of Mrs. Chatterley’s husband symbolizes not only the rigidity of the English class structure but also his wife’s lack of sexual satisfaction when, as I raised my book to recite a particular passage, a tremor rocked through my upper body, and I dropped my book. I looked at my hand, and chuckled. Another tremor shunted through. A spasm worked its odd tickle through my arm and out my hand. My students sat up straight. Are you okay? one of them said. Yes. One moment. I moved my chair forward and reached down to pick up the book. As I reached, a third tremor spiked down my shoulder, and I knocked an elbow against the metal rail of my chair. I groaned and sat back up, holding my elbow. Do you want some help? another student said as she began to get up. Sit back down. I’ll get it. My face was hot. Blood flooded up into my head. I exhaled and leaned back down. I grunted and pried a finger under the back cover and gripped it with two fingers. I snapped it up and settled back into my chair. I exhaled again. Now, I said, holding the novel with both hands, let’s talk about paralysis.
My tremors are worsening. They’re more intense and more frequent. Medication isn’t relaxing them. I can hardly write on the blackboard anymore. I tried writing comments on a student’s paper and the pen skipped off the page. I can imagine the response I’ll receive when I go to Glasgow. My colleagues in the field of disability studies will see me in a far worse state than in New York. My god, they’ll say. What’s happened to him? He’s gotten so much worse. Hasn’t anyone said anything to him?
Let them say that. In the classroom yesterday, under the anxious scrutiny of my students, I felt my spirit, my soul, my inner mantis, whatever it is, hardening, crouching, coiling, as though preparing to leap. I saw something in my students that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. I felt empowered. So I’ll continue in this vein, crouching deep, hissing and spitting, giggling gloriously.