COLLEGE DAYS
by John Bruce
Frank never went to his class reunions. His alma mater was on the opposite coast, and loyalty had its limits. On the other hand, he sometimes went to local alumni gatherings – now and then a barnstorming professor would show up in town, and there’d be a reception at a country club.
It was at such a reception one evening that he ran into a fellow alum who seemed to be a near-contemporary. He certainly didn’t recognize his face as one he’d seen on campus, but he must have been close enough in age that they’d had many of the same professors and many of the same experiences. The other guy recognized it, too, and they began to chat as they nursed glasses of white wine.
”Did you have Throckmorton’s Shakespeare class?” The stereotypical undergraduate program requires an inspirational Shakespeare professor after the manner, say, of George Lyman Kittredge at Harvard. In fact, the Shakespeare specialists seem to come in for a high proportion of teaching awards; certainly this was the case at Frank’s alma mater.
”Yes,” Frank said, “I did.” Throckmorton was a Shakespeare prof in that classic mode. He would stand at the podium, gaze out over the heads of the class -- gaze out, in fact, as if there were no wall at the rear of the lecture hall, gaze out as though he were looking to the horizon, and past the horizon, and he would begin to lecture.
The lectures would be full of catharsis and identity and redemption and healing and wholeness and forgiveness and recognition, all very, very inspiring stuff. Undergraduates came out of Throckmorton’s Shakespeare lectures exactly the way an undergraduate should, feeling as if Ellis P. Throckmorton had made them see the world in a new way, catharsis, identity, redemption, healing, wholeness, forgiveness, recognition, the whole lot of it.
”The summer before my senior year,” the guy told Frank, “some friends and I rented a cabin up near Sparta Center. Throckmorton lived right next door. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.”
One of the greatest experiences of his life was he lived next door to a professor? But Frank didn’t say anything. He took a sip of wine. What he did say a moment later was this: “The girlfriend I had in my senior year went to graduate school to study English. We broke up pretty soon after that, but I was really in love with her, and I wanted to woo her back. I thought that if she was a big English department type, I’d try the Throckmorton routine on her, wholeness, forgiveness, reconciliation, that sort of stuff. What I didn’t understand was that she was now working in the factory, where she saw all that stuff being made. It had no more effect on her than it would have on a hooker.”
Once, in fact, Frank ran into Throckmorton in the lobby of the main library. Frank wasn't looking for him, he wasn't hoping Throckmorton would notice him, and it was just as well. Throckmorton’s gaze was the same as his gaze in the lecture hall, looking just a bit upward, past Frank, past the circulation desk, past the little exhibits, just a bit beyond what was in front of him, as if there were no wall in the library lobby, gazing out as though he were looking to the horizon, and past the horizon -- and Frank wondered what he was doing at all in such a mundane place as the library; his gaze was fixed permanently somewhere else.
“So while you lived next door,” Frank asked after a while, “did Throckmorton invite you guys over for wine and cheese?”
”He was going through a divorce then.”
”So you didn’t really see him that much.”
”That’s not true. He was out in his yard a lot.”
Frank took another sip of wine. “One day I was interested in something Throckmorton said, and I decided to go see him. I forget what play we were covering. It didn't really matter. ”’Consider,’ he’d said, as he began his lecture, gazing out past the horizon, ‘the infant solipsist.’
”You could work an infant solipsist into anything if you were good,” Frank said, “and Throckmorton was good; he was very good. And it got my own mental wheels turning. He had only himself to blame for it, but I felt compelled to pay a visit to the great man during his office hours.
“When I knocked at the doorframe, he looked up -- but he didn't just look up, he looked past me, and not just past me, but past everything, as if there were no wall in his office, as though he were looking to the horizon, and past the horizon -- I suddenly realized that was how he looked at everything. I haltingly started to say something about that day's lecture, something about the infant solipsist.
”’Oh yes,’ said Throckmorton. ‘Professor Belwether told me as soon as I'd finished the lecture that I'd be sorry for that phrase.’ (Belwether was team teaching the course with Throckmorton.) And Throckmorton kept gazing a little upward, as though he expected an important comet to arrive at any instant. And here I was instead, the predicted retribution for using the phrase ‘infant solipsist’, an eager undergraduate appearing in his office in hopes that he'd parse it further. No important comet would show up that hour, just a sophomore with inchoate reactions to whatever he'd been reading.”
The other guy thrust his empty wine glass down on a table with a clink, loud enough to make several people turn their heads. “I guess you’re right about one thing,” he said, “but only one. Now that I think of it, every time I saw him in his back yard, he was looking at the sky.” He turned and strode out the door of the country club. Frank noticed his own glass was empty and went to the bar to get some more.
Bruce: One of my recent short stories has been nominated for the 2008 Pushcart Prize. My writing has appeared recently, or will appear, in 13th Warrior Review, Backhand Stories, Cantaraville, The Cynic Online, Dark Sky Magazine, Diddledog, DOGZPLOT, Eskimo Pie, Fiction at Work, Hobson’s Choice Zine, Holy Cuspidor, The Journal of Truth and Consequence, Lyrical Ballads, Pear Noir!, Press 1, The Scruffy Dog Review, Why Vandalism? and Word Riot. I have degrees in English from Dartmouth College and the University of Southern California.
