“Does that mean you know something I don’t, and maybe you do too,” I say to Sarah, “which is that I have the job?”
“Gordon was saying if, if, if. No final decision can be made till the vice president and English Department chairman and I get together the day after you leave.”
“Last winter,” the professor says, “for this flambé reminds me so much of it — remember, Sarah, the fireplaces we kept glowing for seventeen days straight? — we had a blizzard so tough, Mort, that it obliterated three people in this town alone. One of them this cuteas-can-be young history and marital team from the East who’d never seen such a snow and thought they had to experience it in the raw with a walk around their little street I don’t mean they went outside in the raw, for theoretically their habiliments on any other day or night, shall I say, would have availed.”
That night I can’t sleep much because of the drinks or spicy food and the beer parties going on in the surrounding rooms and floors. Next day I conduct a directing class and acting seminar, both with the Theater Arts Department staff watching and commenting—“I disagree with Mort’s interpretation of that walk-on.” “I agree.” “I don’t.” “You don’t disagree with Mr. Silk’s interpretation of the walk-on or you agree with Chuck and Faith?” “Excuse me, Professor Bien, but when I said I agree I didn’t mean I agree with Chuck but with Mr. Silk”—and after lunch I’m interviewed by the English Department chairman who tells me he’s been to New York City twice, both times to read papers at an MLA convention and also to see some shows. I ask what the letters MLA stand for and he says “I’ll skip that remark as either being indirectly pointed or too tempting for me to respond to in the cynical rather snotty way I dislike in everyone, including myself.”
“Wait, I don’t want to be misconstrued, especially by you. I suppose the last letter stands for Association, or possibly Academy, but I was sincere when I said I didn’t know.”
“I’ll accept that, sir.”
I’m next interviewed by the college’s vice president who holds open a thick folder with my name on it, and which has letters of recommendation and my correspondence with Sarah sticking out of it, and she says “You haven’t applied for too many college jobs, have you? Though I suspect all serious people in the arts, because of what should we call it? The emotional pressures of their work and the different sort of acquaintanceships they make over the years — have to be somewhat bizarre by nature and innovative in the social ways to just get on with it, as our students say, now isn’t that so?”
“I never thought there was anything that unusual about our behavior or that our pressures or the people we meet differed from any other line of work, except for a little something here or there which every profession has peculiar to its own, but you’re probably right.”
Later Sarah says the Theater Arts and English department faculties would love for me to give an informal reading of my favorite monologues from plays. “We have an excellent library for a college this size, and it is kind of expected of you I’m afraid.”
The reading went so well, she tells me over dinner at the same restaurant of last night, “that the two departments would like to jointly sponsor a reading in the main auditorium tomorrow afternoon for the entire school and nearby communities to enjoy.” A modest admission price is charged at the door and enough money is made, she later says, “to sponsor several free poetry and play readings by lesser-known performers during the year, and even pay them a fee. We’re all very grateful to you, and it certainly didn’t diminish your chances in securing the job.”
“Does that mean I have it?”
“Do you live alone?”
“I have my own apartment.”
“Then I suggest you start thinking about getting a sublessee.”
Sarah can’t find anyone to drive me to the airport. Ike was supposed to but he disappeared into the woods behind their house with his hounds and quiver and bow and enough food for three days, and she, because of ecological reasons that she suddenly decided on after a bad dream last night, no longer drives a car. I phone the young woman who asked for my autograph after the reading last night and who said if there was anything she can do for me short of driving me to New York, please let her know.
“If you only called five minutes earlier,” she says. “But now I’m in bed with a sick friend.”
I take the bus to Fargo, which stops at about a hundred towns along the way, one for a half-hour food and rest break. In Minneapolis I miss the last plane to New York and can’t make any connections till early morning, so I sleep the night in the airport lounge.
A month later I still haven’t heard from Sarah. I write asking what the decision is and two weeks later she writes back “I wanted to delay answering you till another candidate confirmed his appointment to the position of actor-in-residence. After you left we interviewed one other actor and actress and felt that Hans Radish’s ‘performance’ in the classroom was the most promising of the three, and since his acting experience is as impressive as yours, that he should get the job. Please send your receipts and a written record of what each receipt is for so I can start reimbursement proceedings to get your money to you soon as we can.”
I send the receipts and written record along with a note saying “Because you misled me in stating I was to be the one interviewee for the job and that this interview was really just for me to see if I liked the job and all of you, which is the sole reason I thought I could afford to fly out there, I want to be reimbursed in full.”
Following week I get a check from the college bursar for half the expenses I paid out. I write Sarah and the English Department chairman that I’m not going to cash this check till I get another check for the rest on my expenses or at least the equivalent of that money as a reading fee, and I get no response. I write the college vice president and tell her why I think I should get the rest of my expenses or a reading fee and she writes back “An impartial board has carefully considered your complaint and though sympathetic to your financial and professional situation, has decided that the college reimbursed to you all that you deserved.” I then write the senior South Dakota senator and the college president and include copies of my letters to Sarah and the chairman and college vice president and her reply. The senator says “South Dakota has always been known as a fair-minded state and personally, your grievance seems just. But rather than ask for a reading fee, which might also be just if it weren’t a little after the fact, I should write the president of the college asking for the rest of your expenses.” I send the college president a copy of the senator’s letter and he still doesn’t reply. By this time it’s December and I’ve run out of people to borrow money from and I still haven’t found a job. I cash the college’s check with a friend. He calls a week later and says “‘I have to ask you for the money back plus the bank’s three-dollar service charge, as that check bounced because the college went bankrupt.”
THE INTRUDER
I go into our apartment. She’s being raped. They’re both naked. He’s on top of her but not inside. He holds a knife to her neck. I say “All right, get off” She says “Tony — don’t.” He says “just stay where you are, buddy, and your girlie won’t get hurt.”
“I said to get off”
“Tony, don’t do anything. He’ll kill me. He means it.”
“You want your girlfriend killed?”
“No.”
“What’s your name?” he says to her.