“You were never supposed to have read that paper.”
That’s the response you’re settling on? Blame the victim? That’s the response?
“The victim?” she said.
The victim being me. The victim being sentenced to the Cage indefinitely.
“Gurion, you hurt people.”
I hurt people.
“You hurt people, Gurion. You have a history of hurting people. You cause physical harm to people, and you show no remorse. That’s why you’re in the Cage. I will admit that a lot of what I said about you was inaccurate. This owed partly to my not having known you so well at the time I wrote the paper, but—”
University of Chicago dialect, now. Nearly stentorian. And from such a small head. You are one bold lesbian. You are—
“Make fun of me all you want, Gurion, but I’m coming clean here. I will even admit that many of the inaccuracies in the paper weren’t mistakes, per se, as much as they were — how should I say this? In grad-school — well—”
Sometimes you have to go analytically overboard to prove to your teachers that you’re worth their time.
“Yes. That’s about—”
You constructed me in such a way as to allow yourself room to riff. You needed room to riff on all the valuable knowledge you absorbed in your beloved professor’s writings and lectures. That would get you the A. Or the date.
“Yes.”
Did I mention that I think professor Lakey is imaginary? I think she’s your imaginary friend.
Sandy pushed me the tissuebox. I pushed it back. I wasn’t crying. Not even close.
“You were never supposed to have read the paper. I don’t know why Bonnie filed it with your records. I didn’t know she would when I wrote it. She’s—”
It’s your supervisor’s fault.
“Yes.”
The buck stops there.
“Stop it now. Please. If you know half as much as you seem to, you know that despite my mistakes, I care about you, Gurion. I am fond of you. I worry about you. You should not have read that paper. You should never have seen it. I am very worried about you right now.”
You’re nervous.
“That too.”
And I’m in the Cage because I’m remorselessly violent.
“Yes.”
If you had the chance to do it all over again, you’d still have me placed in the Cage indefinitely.
“When you put it like that—”
From the CYA POV—
“It’s not just to cover my ass, Gurion, no. It’s because you hurt people. You cause disruptions and you hurt people. You cannot be in regular classrooms. You are Cage-appropriate.”
No one is Cage-appropriate.
“That’s a separate issue. You hurt people, Gurion. That’s what we’re talking about.”
I hurt people.
“Yes. You commit acts of violence. You endanger other students. You’re someone from whom other students need protection.”
She pushed me the tissuebox. She wanted me to cry. To share a tender moment. She was trying to create one. I was not feeling tender. I pushed the box back.
Funny sentence, I said.
“Excuse me?”
‘You’re someone from whom other students need protection.’
“I don’t see how it’s funny.”
It’s all stress and context. Repeat it three times. ‘You’re someone from whom other students need protection.’ It’ll sound like the opposite of what you meant.
“You’re someone from whom other students need protection. You’re someone from whom other students need protection. You’re someone from whom other students need protection… Okay. I see. More wordgames with prepositions. So what?”
Try to kiss her.
“What?”
You’re too passive.
“What?”
Touch her hair first. If she lets you, lean in. If she leans in too, then kiss her. That’s the right order.
“We’re done talking about this. This isn’t appropriate.”
Don’t say ‘I love her’ in Klingon, I said, then pretend it means ‘Have a good weekend.’
Sandy’s eyes welled. She blew her nose. Through her tissue, she said, “‘With all of my heart.’”
Pardon?
“jIH muSHa’ Daj tlhej Hoch wIj tIq means ‘I love her with all of my heart.’”
In Klingon.
“Yes.”
In a footnote.
“Yes.” She tossed her crumpled tissue.
You proclaim your love in Klingon in a footnote addressed to your supervisor. A footnote you claim — within the footnote — that you will not include in the copy that goes to your professor.
“I did include it.”
You included the footnote in the copy to your professor, hoping she’d get the message. You hoped she’d read the footnote and conclude that you had forgotten to remove it, or that you were ‘unconsciously motivated’ to ‘forget’ to remove it. You hoped that your declaration of love for ‘her’ would come across, in Klingon, and would — because it was buried in a footnote that she wasn’t supposed to see and was thereby a ‘secret’—not only enhance the thrill of her discovery that you love her, but put the ball in her court, yeah? Because you figured: ‘She’ll see the footnote, and she’ll realize that I, Call-Me-Sandy, can’t bring myself to approach her romantically, and so she’ll have to approach me if she’s interested.’
“Yes.”
Does your professor speak Klingon?
“I don’t know.”
You don’t know?
“She used to want to be a linguist. She majored in linguistics. Even if she doesn’t know Klingon, you’d think she’d look it up.”
No. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t think she’d look it up. You wrote that the phrase meant ‘Have a good weekend.’
“You looked it up.”
I didn’t look it up.
“You know Klingon?”
I knew a kid who used to say ‘jIH DIchDaq chargh Canaanite’ all the time.
“‘I will conquer the Cannanite?’”
Yeah. So jIH, I knew, meant ‘I.’ There’s no ‘I’ in ‘Have a good weekend.’
“But how did you know it meant ‘I love her’?”
Context, I said. I guessed. It was either that or ‘I hate you,’ as in ‘I hate you, Bonnie Wilkes, PsyD for making me hand in a copy of this paper.’
“But—”
Touch her hair and lean in. If she leans in, kiss her.
“This is so inappropriate!” Sandy said.
No, I said. This is termination. This is Good Will Huntingstein and Thursdays with Gurion. The saccharine and cinematic moment when the tables turn. The helper getting helped by the one she came to help. I’m done with you now. You aren’t my therapist.
“That’s not up to you.”
If you want me to come on Thursdays still, fine. And you can write whatever you want to write about me for whatever papers you need to turn in, and I won’t even call you out, because I like you. I think you’re a kind person. But I’m not saying anything to you anymore. I’ll sit here writing scripture or reading Philip Roth. And don’t look so down. Just don’t. Just don’t. This could’ve been worse. I could’ve been worse. I hurt people, right? That’s what you said. I could’ve thrown a stapler, but I didn’t, did I? I could’ve been worse but I wasn’t. Remember that.
She pushed me the tissuebox.
It’s not gonna happen, Call-Me, I said.
Sandy said, “Tch.” Then she said it twice more. “Tch,” she said. “Tch.”
I plucked her a tissue.
The argument started five minutes after the beginning-of-lunch tone. Half the Side of Damage had left the Cage to get to-go beef stroganov in the cafeteria. Benji, Jelly, Mookus, Vincie, Leevon, Mangey, and Eliyahu sat with me at the teacher cluster. The other twelve or so brownbaggers and lunchboxers formed a circle on the floor surrounding us. To speak to us from the circle, you had to make your voice louder than conversational. You had to make it public. Ben-Wa Wolf was the first to do it. He said to us, “What do we call that action we did with our chairs?”