ELEVEN

On Institutional Parasitism

Strictly for my own amusement I began to compose a novel I called Hoebecker’s Diary.

One of the winos had come by the pew one evening with a well-dressed drinking companion who told me he lived by going from hospital to hospital, masquerading as a doctor. I knew from my years of working at the state lunatic asylum that such a career was entirely feasible, and this occupation—I called it “institutional parasitism”—was to be one of the themes of my work of fiction.

My antecedents were Ellison’s Invisible Man and Richard Wright’s very similar short story “The Man Who Lived Underground.” I suppose The Phantom of the Opera would be one too, but I didn’t think of it at the time. At any rate, I thought a person might discover a niche in a large institution and survive there for a long time without coming to the notice of those who had legitimate places there.

I had seen malingerers at the asylum who very blatantly put the resources of the institution to their own purposes, and so did many of my coworkers—this was government work, after all. Hoebecker would sleep in unused wards. He would eat by ordering meals for inmates that did not exist and by pilfering food from the inmates’ kitchen. He would do his laundry in the facilities provided for the inmates, and he would get new clothes when he needed them from stocks provided for inmates.

None of Hoebecker’s misappropriations was anything out of the ordinary. Each was something I had seen attendants at the state asylum do; ordering extra meal trays to save the expense of lunch was especially common. Hoebecker would differ only in degree. He would obtain everything he needed from the asylum. Before the end he would not even bother to cash his paychecks. He would be a parasite.

Hoebecker, like the attendants he was modeled on and the malingerers, would begin with an official and legitimate role at the institution. Yet as I wrote I became more interested in the idea of an utter impostor—someone with no official connection to the institution—who might from the excess resources of the institution provide himself with all the necessities of life and even a few of the luxuries.

As the novel developed in my mind I wished I could have another interview with the impostor who had first planted the seed of the idea. Alas, he never returned.

I often sat up late at the pew, lost in the novel, and in the weeks I was absorbed with it I met Don.

I met Don through Alex, who had been my penultimate roommate in the little shack on Avenue B. Alex bore a grudge against me from that time, and he had walked by the pew with Don several times before he deigned to introduce us. In spite of the company he kept, I somehow formed the impression that Don was Burmese and a professor at the university, albeit an eccentric one.

Don was a squat, middle-aged, brown-skinned man. He seemed not entirely at home in English, but I could not detect a foreign accent—or perhaps he had a slight one I could not identify. He was very quiet when other people were present, seeming to devote all his concentration to observing the others. Between the two of us he was usually very talkative with occasional long lapses that I took for periods of profound thought.

I supposed Don was an academic of the field of social work and that Alex, whose situation was better than mine because he had attached himself to the social welfare system by virtue of being on probation for several offenses, was the subject of some practical experiment. Other times I suspected Don was a social anthropologist and I was his key native informant. Mistaken as my impressions proved to be, Don contributed to them by speaking of “cases” and “case histories.” Alex certainly was Don’s main case.

When Don had me to himself he would tell me in the manner of a shaggy-dog story all the minutiae of Alex’s latest escapade. Escapade is too good a word. Don’s stories simply recounted events as if approaching but never reaching a point: Alex borrowed five dollars from someone but did not repay the lender when he was able to do so; Alex said one evening he was going to look for a job the next day and he circled a number of help-wanted ads in the newspaper, but the following day he slept until noon and threw out the newspaper; someone came to the apartment and offered Alex a job, but he got drunk and overslept; Alex made some stuff of egg yolk and sage that he sold as hashish.

Don seemed to expect me to comment on stories of this kind, but I could never think of anything except to ask, “What did you expect?”

Most of Don’s stories had less point than these. Perhaps he thought that having once allowed Alex to room with me I had some enduring interest in him and I would be pleased to hear of any news, however mundane, pertaining to him. Once he began, Don seldom spent less than an hour telling me of Alex. But after some weeks, Don did begin to talk to me a little of his other subject.

Don’s other subject was his poetry.

I belabored my incapacity as a critic with the blessed result that I was only twice confronted with the wretched stuff. Perhaps Don’s poetry was no worse than average; I am no judge. At any rate, had Don wanted criticism he could have got it from his little poetry group, a superficially civilized kind of literary snake pit. Since Don still spoke warmly of the group without expecting any member, I gathered none of them had taken him seriously enough to critique his poetry.

Don wanted his poetry to be published and he had heard I knew something of the writing business. In particular he wanted to know how much he should expect to pay to have his work published. I am always surprised at the number of people who believe that writers ought to pay publishers.

I explained publishing to Don as clearly as I could. He seemed never to understand what I was telling him. In many meetings with him I re-covered the same ground; I stressed that a promising work in a popular form might expect a vicissitudinous career, but the odds against poetry were very long indeed.

Don brought me a small ad he had torn from a magazine. The ad announced a poetry contest. The first three winners were to receive small cash prizes and the honorable-mention winners were to have their poems published in a beautifully bound book. Don proposed to enter the contest.

I pointed out the line in the ad that said winners might be required to purchase a copy of the book in order to have their poems published in it. Don saw this as no objection. He certainly would want to buy the book if his poem was printed in it.

I told him he would win an honorable mention. Unless it contained language likely to shock the other subscribers, any poem entered in the contest would win an honorable mention. I said the society that placed the ad, contrary to what its name suggested, was not a philanthropic enterprise, but was a printing business that would print anything for money. Don sent for the brochure nonetheless.

The volumes depicted in the brochure did look impressive. They had leatherlike covers and gilt-edged pages. So far as I could tell from the brochure, the signatures were saddle-sewn. The endpapers were marbled. I marveled at this at first, but as Don got deeper into the scheme I understood it better. The books were not cheap; they were nearly forty dollars apiece. And they were fully subscribed before they went to press. Little wonder the printer could make both handsome books and handsome profits. The beauty of the books was the genius of it.

Anyone might think of this scam and might make some money at it by producing shoddy books as cheaply as possible. Many customers would be dissatisfied; some would ask for their money back or even complain to the postal authorities. Then, too, there would be the problem of turning up new suckers to keep the scheme afloat.

But if the books were beautiful, the printer could expect a brisk return custom. I thrill to see my words in print and all the more when the publication is well produced. I know the feeling and I can guess how much some people desire it. I know the desire to be published is but a spark and the desire to be published again is a flame.

The printer of the poetry books knew what I know. When the printer delivers a beautiful volume—fulfilling his only concrete promise to the poet—the poet will not want his money back. No investigation will turn up evidence of mail fraud. Far from being disappointed, the poet will surely want to enter the next contest. One such volume on a shelf cries out for companions.

What is more, suckers like Don tend to swim in schools. When one shows off his prize book, his envious rivals—including some who should know better—will not be able to rest until they have matched the achievement.

In attempting to dissuade Don from entering the contest, I took another tack. I asked him if he ever saw one of these books in a bookstore. He admitted he had not. But, he said, the contents of these volumes were too sublime for the grubby channels of commerce.

Aha, I said, then, you see, no one except the authors ever buys these books. No. He thought the great libraries subscribed.

I asked him if he had tried to find one of these books in the University of Texas library. That was a mistake on my part. The university’s collections are nearly as indiscriminate as they are extensive.

Fortunately Don had not found any of this line of books in the library, but he found some that he thought similar. The printer took a name that might very well be like that of some nineteenth-century literary society and perhaps Don had found that society’s annals.

In spite of my advice, Don sent off three poems, the limit, to the contest. In due course he received notice that two of the poems had won honorable mention. To see them both printed he had to purchase two copies of the anthology. That one of the poems was rejected answered any embryonic doubt I might have cultivated in his mind. It proved the publisher would not publish just anything.

Don sent a money order for the price of two books before he consulted me again.

Had I still believed Don to be a university professor I would have been less concerned. If he could afford his vanity, who was I to object to it? The books arrived. They were beautiful. Almost anyone who saw the books would have thought Don was a very accomplished poet.

But I had begun to suspect that Don was not a professor.

He rebuffed all my inquiries about his situation. Nonetheless, I gathered that the amount he sent the publisher was in his estimation a very substantial sum. Worse, he was counting on royalties.

Perhaps the printer inserted a clause in the publishing contract that suggested to him this possibility. Publishing contracts tend to devote many paragraphs to divvying up the proceeds of rights that are merely hypothetical. However he came by the idea, Don thought it very likely that this book—too sublime for the grubby channels of commerce—would be in such demand beyond its subscribers that his hundredth part of the royalties would provide him a considerable income. Don thought the price of the books was an investment.

When I understood this, my first impulse was to stone him to death on the spot. But with the thought that Don was unlikely at his age to reproduce, I restrained myself. The printer had a live one and he knew it.

He offered Don the chance of buying a certificate to celebrate his honorable mention in the poetry contest. Don sprang for that. Although it cost almost as much as one of the books, the certificate when it arrived proved not to be of the same quality as the books. It was the most ordinary sort of thing, like the certificates given out in grade school according to categories carefully manipulated to ensure that each child gets at least one.

I could see that Don was disappointed in the certificate. But he did not exercise his option of returning it for a refund. I believe he was afraid of alienating his publisher. Seeing he had hardly tried Don’s credulity, the printer flooded him with solicitations.

Don had sent his best work to the contest. After it had been rejected, he began to perceive serious flaws in the poem the publisher had returned. Despite my protests, he was determined to enlist my aid in resurrecting the work. I developed headaches and suddenly remembered previous engagements. Still I was subjected to the thing in its vile entirety twice. Don was threatening to read me more revisions of the poem when relief arrived from an unexpected quarter.

Don received a note from the printer. The poem had not been rejected for lack of merit, so the note said, but only because its theme seemed not to fit that volume. The printer was compiling a special new anthology, not related to any contest, but composed of very special poems by an elite selection of the very best poets who had entered previous contests. Naturally enough, the printer thought of Don and recalled his beautiful poem, which had not seemed quite right for the contest volume.

The new anthology, while quite as elegant as the contest volumes, was to have a distinctive appearance so that anyone could see that it was an honor above and beyond that of the contest series. But the truly remarkable thing was that if Don acted promptly his poem might appear in the new anthology and his investment would be no greater than that required for an ordinary contest volume.

Don spoke no more of the flaws he had supposed he perceived in the rejected poem. Evidently after he showed his contest volume to his little poetry group, several of the other members entered the printer’s subsequent contests. Naturally the other members won honorable mentions, but their books had yet to go to press. Publication in the special anthology would keep Don a step ahead of them.

According to Don, there were also in the group a few cynics, like me, who raised the same objections to this form of publication in less gentle terms than I had employed. They were, Don assured me, just jealous because they could get published, if at all, only in cheap-looking little chapbooks. In any event, the new anthology would answer them because it could not be mistaken for the contest volumes they had criticized.

Don admitted he would have to sacrifice to afford the new book, but he was determined to do so. By that time I sympathized with the printer. I had come to think the printer would treat Don’s money with more respect than Don showed it. I could no more condemn the printer than I could condemn the lioness for her method of getting lunch.

In the meanwhile I had learned more about Don, all of it from his own lips, but in sum I think it was more than he meant for me to know.

He never was a professor and had never been involved in any recognized academic work. From time to time he held various menial jobs, some of them at the university. Whether he discovered accidentally that he had the image of an absentminded professor or whether it was an image he had deliberately created, I do not know. But I was not alone in having had a mistaken first impression of him. The university police, librarians, lab assistants, students, genuine professors—all took Don for an academic.

He made the most of it. He had the run of the university. He avoided the most secure areas, where everyone is challenged routinely, but he had no use for such places anyway.

Don had keys. The university has an elaborate hierarchy of passkeys with master keys, grand-master keys, and keys of many intermediate and lesser degrees. The loss of a grandmaster key is a catastrophe, for if it cannot be brought to account, many thousands of locks must be changed. Don’s keys were reckoned to be of too low an order to justify the expense of changing the affected locks. Still, the wholes of several buildings and parts of many others were at his command. Perhaps if he had taken great advantage of the situation, the locks would have been changed. But he did not and they were not.

He lived at the university for a long time.

He could do his laundry in any of the dormitories. He could pilfer the coffee funds for change in any of a number of offices. Most of the departments had refrigerators and these would always contain forgotten lunches and the remains of various party trays brought for one little office party or another. No one would miss any of these things. Almost all of the conference rooms and coffee rooms were within range of Don’s keys when they were locked at all. He never had to take too much from any one place.

He showered at the gym. This was remarkable because the university had greatly increased security there in the years since I had been a student. Then the gym had been more or less a public facility. Hippies and Austin businessmen alike had used the gym as if it were an extension of a public park. But security had been tightened to the point that recently graduated varsity athletes were sometimes detected, apprehended, and arrested for using the gym without the proper credentials. Don was never challenged.

Graduate students contend sharply for carrels, but many want them only as a matter of status. Don’s keys commanded all of the carrels. When he found one that was unused he kept his few things there.

At night he could sleep on a sofa in any office that was convenient. If he wanted to sleep in the daytime, he slept on a sofa in the student union. Students often napped in the union and homeless people had done the same until their numbers gave rise to complaints. Security officers had since been on the alert to roust the homeless from the union, but apparently Don could create his professorial impression even as he slept. In any event, he was not bothered when he slept there.

Offices contain equipment and supplies. Either Don supposed that stealing the equipment for resale would raise suspicions or the idea of doing so never occurred to him; I would guess the latter. As for taking the equipment for his own use, why should he do so? Where would he take it? Once he became a poet, he used the typewriters and copiers and the various related supplies. But there was no point in removing anything; one office was as much home to him as any other. Most of this I guessed bit by bit. Don would say he had been working late the night before and had slept in a certain office, allowing me to infer that had he been less tired he would have gone home. He would say he had become overcome with fatigue and had taken a nap in the union. He would say he had typed a poem on a typewriter he had found in this office or that, implying he had been in such a frenzy of inspiration that he feared his poem would evaporate by the time he reached his own machine. And so on through the rest of it: he happened to find it convenient to do his laundry at a particular dormitory; he happened to tap a coffee fund for a few quarters, as if it were the one in his office and he had contributed to it; he happened to shower at the gym, as if it were only a matter of convenience.

After many interviews I began to understand. Sometimes he slept in one office; sometimes he slept in another. But always he slept in some office. Sometimes he typed at one unattended typewriter; sometimes at another. He had no typewriter of his own. He happened to shower at the gym because it happened to be the only place he ever did shower.

Don had become in fact an institutional parasite of the kind I was then trying to create in fiction, but I came to realize this only in retrospect. At the time, he seemed an interruption, often an annoying one. And of course for a long time much of what I have just related concerning his relation to the university was only my surmise.

Don finally confirmed my surmises, filled in a few of the details, and told me much I had not guessed in a single conversation. He had come to believe he belonged to an arcane community of scholars. The members of this esoteric brotherhood comprised the true University, as opposed to the apparent university, which was composed of various sophists, charlatans, bureaucrats, and hacks. Unfortunately these latter were vested with temporal authority at the university and the true scholars were reduced to skulking about as Don did. This unsatisfactory arrangement existed at all the great universities: at Harvard and Yale, of course, but also at Oxford, Heidelberg, the Sorbonne, and so on. The situation would be reversed sooner or later, but until then the brotherhood of true scholars contented itself with nourishing the flickering flame of true learning.

Apparently Don was the only member of his fraternity who was assigned to the University of Texas; his was a lonely outpost indeed.

At last Don ran afoul of an actual professor who was even crazier than he. The actual professor, although tenured, was so terrified of the spies he supposed his academic rivals would employ that he resorted to taking attendance in a lecture class of five hundred souls. He took attendance so carefully that he detected Don’s unauthorized presence—Don often attended classes and other university activities in spite of his enmity for the sophists in charge. The actual professor summoned the university police to apprehend Don. When the police arrived, Don surely would have emerged unscathed if he had assumed an apologetic attitude. Attending classes without the permission of the instructor is an infraction of the university’s rules, but permission is commonly taken for granted. The rule is almost never enforced in large lecture classes unless there is a serious disruption. If they had even heard of the rule the professor was invoking, the police would have thought him peculiar for raising the issue and their sympathies would have been with Don had he agreed to leave quietly.

But Don finally had encountered all of the sophists and charlatans that he could withstand. Loudly, so that the surrounding students could learn the truth, he began to explain about the brotherhood, the true University and the false, the natural rights of true scholars and the abuses they suffer from the hacks and sophists, and a great deal more. Once he began to vent these views, Don could hardly shut up, and thus that evening I learned what I have just recounted.

After this incident the university police were on the lookout for Don, but they seldom managed to interfere with him. They had not discovered his passkey and had not understood, evidently, the extent of his use of university facilities. Nonetheless Don began to lose interest in the university and spent less and less time there.

For a while he slept in a car that was parked in the university area. The car was inoperable, but Don did have title to it. The city police made him stop sleeping in the car and he was irate that they could thus limit his enjoyment of his property. After that the car was stripped and left on blocks. Don believed the police were less than diligent in investigating this crime. He suspected the sophists and charlatans at the university had corrupted the civil authorities to the end of discouraging him as much as possible. The city removed what was left of the car and this confirmed his suspicions.

The car was taken away just as Don managed to find the money to send to the printer for the special new anthology. As the poem for that volume had proved perfect after all, he no longer wanted my services as a critic. I saw less and less of him.

I saw him about the neighborhood at dawn and late at night. When he did stop to talk to me, he talked mostly, as he had before, of things Alex had done. I gathered he often slept at Alex’s.

Eventually I learned that after Don had been put out of his car, he had begun camping in various shacks and outbuildings on the alleys in the university area. Many old houses in this area have been rehabilitated and are rented to students. But as often as not a storage shed or garage on the property is allowed to ruin. The students seldom attempt to make any use of these unsightly and unsound structures. So Don had been undisturbed for a long time and had begun to think he had a right to his lodgings.

When he was at last discovered he raised such a fuss that property owners and the police were put on notice and he was turned out of several shacks in succession. By this time, although I had known Don to take a drink in the past, he was now very obviously and thoroughly drunk whenever I saw him, and after a while I saw him no more.