P.N.ZOYTLOW

NOTE The purpose behind publication in blog form is explained at the beginning of SERIES II #12 Additional information is at the beginning of the present text, #13. Your patience and indulgence is appreciated

So please be indulgent.

BEHIND THE SCRIM

   P. N. ZOYTLOW

Ignore all typos etc.

NOTE ON THE PUBLICATION OF THIS WORK

Following  the debacle of A Scrim, the publisher of that work declined to 

place its name on the present sequel. It was agreed that they would publish

this little book and at a good price, but the author was required to sign a 

non-disclosure agreement about the circumstances to this publication.

In addition, the author wishes to state that this is a work of fiction of the 

highest order and that he did not have an ax to grind. 

This book is dedicated to the memory of Edouard Ilman (1939-2008)

Date of publication 2023.   

BEHIND THE SCRIM

Forward

After serving as the editor of P.N. Zoytlow’s A Scrim, I told him I would not agree to be a part of anything else he wrote or created. That is still true, but he invited me to write something at the beginning of Behind the Scrim and gave me carte blanche. The story of how I met and worked with P.N.Z. need not be told here. I encouraged some of his earlier work that is found in his blog to this day. (See pnzoytlow.wordpress.com). You either like it or you don’t. I didn’t want my name attached to any more of his work than it needed to be, and certainly not to the extent that it compromised my own carefully-honed standards.

A Scrim is, in my view, a somewhat twisted story of immigration late in the 19th Century. He wrote it, I edited it, and made such suggestions as I deemed appropriate, often in the hopes of having the whole project go belly up in a morass of scarcely credible details. On the positive side, the novel is brilliant and breaks new ground with each chapter. So naturally, it flopped, and part of the problem was that the American public was tired of immigrants and their allegedly grungy entrance into the Promised Land.

A look at reactions by the persons who received a copy of the first (and only printing) shows that of 30 copies distributed, more than one-third were not read or acknowledged. Another third claimed they had read it only in part before some difficulty set in, and they gave up. A final handful offered some polite commentary. But most confessed confusion or called it joyless or depressing. Zoytlow was caught off guard by the first comment he received, which asked why anyone would bother to write such a book!

Why indeed? P.N.Z. was (almost) ready for this. I tried to believe him when he said he didn’t care what readers thought since the whole project was an experiment to see what it felt like to write and then see what effect responses might have on him. He was prepared for the negative but plainly mystified by those who did not bother to open it nor say they received it. But, as Buddhists will tell you, it only leads to suffering if you cling to expectations. So “Expect Nothing” was his watchword as he checked his email for responses. 

Writing a few words of introduction for a sequel to a book that few read and even fewer understood seems like a fool’s project. But like Zoytlow himself, I admire the attempt to rise above irritants to the ego. Zoytlow enjoys writing; he often laughs as he writes or revises. He told me he did not care if others saw much merit in it. He had a good time. I believe that, once again, in this sequel, Philip N. Zoytlow has shown us the raw brilliance we have come to expect from his pen. And the certainty that he had a good time.

D.G.B.

Chapter One  WHY SOCIOLOGY?

In late August 1990, an item appeared in The Ogler, the Ballast College faculty newsletter:

Ballast College welcomes Dr.Malva Hortensia. Dr. Osa Spengler and Probationary Lecturer Zander N. Pfinster. They are three new faculty joining the Ballast Team as this promising academic year, our 111th, proudly commences.

Dr. Hortensia (Malva) comes to us from the Pumper School in Poltroon, Arkansas, where she distinguished herself as that institution’s founder of the program in Paleobotany. A native of Winkel, Pennsylvania, Dr. Hortensia earned her doctorate in Biology at Capstan University. She comes to us with her 15-year-old son, Alonzo.

Dr. Osa Spengler graduated Milagro Con Leche from the University of Nebraska-Sand Hills. Her dissertation was recently accepted for publication by the Starboard Press with the title “Why Sociology?” She joins our Sociology Department. Dr. Spengler wants to introduce us to her dog, a corgi named Opa.

And finally, Probationary Lecturer Zander N. Pfinster will offer introductory Philosophy and Economics courses. He is a native of Bullgine, South Dakota, and he reports hobbies that include philately and deltiology.

———–

And so it was that Osa began her career at Ballast College on the hilly banks of the Pecatonica in northwestern Illinois. Like most new faculty, Ballast had not been her first choice, but the market in Sociology had dried up in recent years. At the same time, a new urgency to leave Nebraska had emerged: her disastrous breakup with Daniel Haldeman, a political scientist who had sat on her dissertation committee. Haldeman had “plucked” her while she was a graduate student. Osa was 24, and Dan Haldeman was 47 and recently divorced. He spotted her in the bookstore reading the blurbs on recent detective novels. She was tall, almost gangly, and wore her bronze hair in a long ponytail which, on some days, was wrapped in a thin coil atop her head. Large reading glasses with frames the color of her hair completed a look of unintended severity. Jeans and a Cornhusker sweatshirt completed her look. Osa was reading, silently mouthing the words, her dark eyes darting as she read. She did not smile.

Their affair was the talk of the campus and, too often, a model of rank indiscretion. For several months they were everywhere together and blatantly public. Was there a corner of the campus that had not been the scene of their affection? And then it was over (and who knew why?), but not before Haldeman had arranged a position on her dissertation committee. The original idea had been for him to “protect” her from the possible misogynistic sadism of other committee members. Now the whole thing would surely be awkward for Osa Spengler.

On the dissertation defense day, Osa Spengler dressed in her dark suit with a light lavender blouse and white scarf. A black and white “Save the Whales” pin fastened the ends of the scarf, worn on the advice of a friend who thought it sent the right message to the committee: this woman loves creatures both great and small. In a small lecture room in the Library, Osa sat facing her three inquisitors. She knew them all, all men, and smiled carefully at them. For the next sixty-two minutes, Osa Spengler was grilled. The first question came from Dan Haldeman. “Miss Spengler (a deliberate slur, why not Ms.?), your dissertation is titled ‘Why Sociology?’ and I want to begin with that question, so ‘why sociology?'” He sat across the table from her, hands folded and head to one side like a spaniel trying to make sense of things. Osa was reminded of her own corgi and felt a pang of longing to get this over with and simply cuddle with Opa.

A fair opening question? Of course, but coming from Haldeman with a slight sneer attached, Osa Spengler felt herself blush and unable to look at the committee. Her answer was garbled, and her words sounded like so much blather. Shameful. Gradually, the mood lightened, and the other members of the committee predictably plodded through the exam except for Dean Roland Popescu, an aging chemist who asked, in all seriousness, if Ms. Spengler thought that “the discipline which you represent might have something to contribute to our understanding of ahhh….cetaceans whom I believe are seen as having a group experience.” The other committee members considered this facetious and gave off sniffy academic laughter through their noses. But Osa treated this question with unexpected gravitas.  

“Whales, or most cetaceans, if you prefer that term, are indeed creatures not unacquainted with group behavior. We may think, prima facie, that with a nuanced methodology, we may enlist species-specific modalities that allow, ipso facto, us to do just that. Your question is excellent, Dr. Popescu, and I would welcome an invitation to join a team of oceanographers to illuminate the topic.”

Jesus! thought Osa. I was a tad clumsy, but I managed to speak his name, flatter him, and show that rogue questions would not throw me off. It reminded her of her dental hygienist, who, whilst flossing her, related how the local zoo had recruited her to floss the larger herbivores. She had been reluctant to accept the assignment, but once she did, the word got out, and her dentist experienced a massive increase in patients. Everyone wanted to have their teeth cleaned by the brave hygienist. Everyone wanted to know about the hippos. Yes, a woman had to show her grit.

Degree in hand, Doctor of Sociology Osa Spengler accepted the only opening in her field at the time, Ballast College in Illinois. Without seeing the place, she welcomed the offer, the first hired at Ballast using a video interview.

And so it began. Osa was assigned to an office at the end of a second-floor corridor in a former dormitory, Mordant Hall. The window, facing north, was narrow and opened to a view of the back of the yellow-brick Zange Museum. Osa moved the desk so that the afternoon would provide natural light for reading and writing. The walls were flecked with old tape and tack holes where the dorm inhabitants had put up posters to provide familiarity and comfort. There were ugly gaps in the vinyl flooring where bunk beds had once been anchored. The dorm was decommissioned in 1987 after toxic substances were found in the ventilators. The problem had been corrected, of course, but the rumors persisted. No parent would allow their child to live there. Another remnant of the past life of Mordant Hall was the timed lights in the corridors. Osa had to tap a switch that allowed three minutes of transit time to approach her office or leave it. The promise of new offices in the forthcoming Huhn Hall,  scheduled for completion in the 1990-91 academic year,  somewhat offset these inconveniences. 

She met her classes four days a week, and Friday was a day for class preparation. On the weekend, she could attend whatever cultural events appeared on the campus or explore the town of Pecatonica Junction. She had taken a furnished studio apartment a twenty-minute walk to campus. And unless something changed, that would be her life, no more, no less.

In late October, change presented itself. Not the tearful pregnant co-ed who had to make a decision and turned to her now-favorite sociology professor. Not the lacrosse team member who had crippling anxiety before games and exams. She recognized that her youthfulness guaranteed that she could become an informal counselor less than ten years older than most of her students. A mixed blessing. These tales of woe were entertaining and flattering–as if she could fix lives. 

About the change: on a Friday evening, she attended a student theater production about a forest nymph and a Microsoft technical representative. The plot was mediocre, and the actors spoke their lines with loud and exaggerated articulation: even the love scenes were bellowed. Osa’s thoughts drifted, and she tried to remember if she had double-checked to see if she had locked the door to her office. She would have to pass by later.

Turning into the darkened corridor of the second floor of Mordant Hall, the light timer was not working, and she groped toward her office in the dark. Just past the halfway point, she stepped on something that cried out.

“My hand!” 

“What?” 

“My hand! You stepped on it!”

“What?”

By this time, Osa’s eyes had adjusted, and she could see the outline of a form, a body, lying in the corridor. She stepped around it, reached her office, and switched on the light. Then she peered down the hall and saw a person seated with its back against the wall.

“Are you all right? Are you injured?”

“Unlikely. Just umm…indisposed.”

Then Osa smelled the stale beer with a sharp whiskey scent rounding off the haze hanging over the man.

“I think you mean intoxicated.”

“Sure, why not?

“Do you want me to call someone?”

“Probably not.”

“What about Security?”

“Nope.”

Osa was aware of her deliberate choice of Security. She was sure the man would not want that, but it might be a way of prodding him down the corridor and out of Mordant Hall. Mordant Two was an all-female office floor as it had been during its dormitory phase, and men belonged on the first floor. She assumed he was a student who was lost.

” Do you know you’re on Mordant Two?”

“Oh, Jesus!”

“Meaning you are lost?”

“Well, (belch) excuse. So sorry. I have an office on Mordant One. Number Sixteen. Faces the yard. Was working late.” 

“Uh-huh. Let me help you up, OK?” He had not convinced her that he was a faculty member and thus her colleague.

The man said nothing. She helped him stand, and together, they shuffled towards the stairway. He grasped the railing with his free hand and leaned on her arm. When they reached his office, he dug into his pocket for a key and handed it to Osa. She opened the door, turned him around, and aimed him so that he descended back into a chair. His chin drooped, and he was asleep. So much for thanks or an introduction, thought Osa. She closed his door and glanced at the name on the way out. 

Mr. Zander N. Pfinster

Lecturer

Depts. of Econ. and Phil.

And that was how they met or at least crossed paths. Osa had heard the name before but had not associated it with anyone she saw on campus. He was “mystery faculty,” and she had heard that there would always be those whose existence was known but who were never seen. It was usually more a function of spatial and disciplinary distance, and it happened to most faculty at a school with more than several hundred faculty. Of course, she knew something about him: the eccentric fellow who combined teaching with confabulations. Just recently, one of her students related that “Pfinster said he suspected that a radio transmission from Jupiter, or was it Neptune,” had influenced the colors the House of Dior favored for their new lines. Crazy stuff, said the student in an admiring tone, but it always seemed to have a point about how economics or philosophy were different sides of the same coin. And then he urged them to think about that. Brilliant? Who knew?

On a Tuesday afternoon, at 4:45, the end of her posted office hours. Osa Spengler heard a light tap at the door. “Yes?” And a man stood holding a small terra cotta pot with a cactus. He was about her height, a bit flabby about the middle, with an open-collared blue Oxford cloth shirt, khaki pants, an ill-fitting tweedy sports jacket (and without looking), she was almost sure his shoes would be boating loafers. And then she smelled him, an overly sweet aftershave heavy with undertones of bay rum. 

“We’ve met, yes?” said Zander Pfinster. ” I’m Zander Pfinster, but everyone calls me Zander.” He giggled a bit and extended the cactus. “You get full sun on this side of Mordant, so just the plant to do the job.” 

Osa decided to extend the game. “We’ve met? Are you sure you have the right office.? I’m Osa Spengler, and everyone calls me Doctor Spengler.”

He grimaced, and she felt sorry for him. “Oh, yes, Friday night. How are you feeling?” 

He blushed and looked down at the cactus. Osa liked his blushing.

“I wanted to thank you for helping me to my office. I got lost, and I was drunk. Drowning sparrows, that sort of thing.”

“Drowning your sorrows?  That sort of thing?” 

It was not a question, just a matter-of-fact way she had. 

He had intended it as a joke, and now her response unnerved him. This woman was either humorless or offended by his suggestion of dead birds. Or both.

“No, no. no, just feeling sorry for myself, not killing birdies!” He sat in the other chair in her office, where students usually emoted about the meaning of life. She raised her eyebrows. He had not been invited in nor to take a seat, and it would be harder to get rid of him now, assuming she wanted to do that. 

Gradually they found a conversational tone. She told Zander of her journey to choose sociology; he told Osa about the war within: was he an economist or a philosopher? He envied her evident focus; she admired his ease in covering two fields. She began to smile, and he laughed easily, perhaps too quickly. How had he come to Ballast? He laughed again and told how the Dean had invited him to be something like the vanguard of critical thinking and how daunting he found that. “I think I am a fraud.” The man was so forthright! Soon she would hear about his childhood. And so it was.

“My parents abandoned me as an infant and left my grandparents to raise me. My parents wanted to join the Peace Corps, and I got in the way. Off they went somewhere and, as they say, ‘went native’ and never returned. Granny was a mystic, and Grandad was an inventor. Together they build an underground chamber to attract visitors from other dimensions.

“Such as?” 

“You name it.”

“Well, deceased persons, aliens, future beings?”

“Mostly aliens. What do you mean by ‘future beings’?”

“Let’s say a Ballast administrator 200 years from now.”

He made a sour face. “Those count as aliens.” 

Osa laughed.

So it went, their first encounter. Osa never asked what his “sorrows” were, and Zander had forgotten them. But she had done some addition and decided he was likely a loser. He did not have job security at Ballast, had no meaningful doctorate, had been an orphan exposed to maverick grandparents, and could drink himself into a stupor. Now she worried that she had encouraged him. She made an excuse when he suggested they have dinner together that evening, and they parted at the Mordant Hall exit. 

“See you,” he called after her. She half-turned and nodded. 

On Thursday, Osa received two emails. The first was from Zander N. Pfinster, asking if she was perhaps related to Oswald Spengler. She ignored it because she did not care to encourage Zander, and she was bored with explaining that, yes, the famous author of The Decline of the West was a very distant relative. But the second email was disquieting: would she stop in to chat with the college President on Friday morning between 9:45 and 10:00? What could that be? At least the allotment of fifteen minutes to “chat” took the dread out of it. Osa had never been in difficulties with authority figures before except for the business with Dan Haldeman at UN-Sand Hills, and that was nothing. Dan was not an authority; he was a predator.

President Baldur B. Brunkelvic (referred to as “Triple B” or “the Vitch”) by faculty and staff” had been at the helm of Ballast College since the late 1970s and was credited with steering through several crises having to do with enrollments. Keeping numbers high was imperative since students had many choices in the upper Midwest. Keeping Ballast a lively competitor meant a balanced budget, support for the athletic program, and the ability to retain faculty and programs. Osa Spengler had not met Brunkelvic and had never even seen him except at the opening convocation and in the distance on Parents’ Weekend. Triple B had worn his academic attire, cap, gown, hood, and the medallion of an obscure honor society on each occasion.

Brunkelvic’s office manager, a sharp-faced woman, ushered Osa into the office, which was, as expected, lined with shelves of books, trophies, and photographs of noteworthy visitors who had stopped over the years. There was Bob Hope, Margaret Truman, and some forgotten UN Secretary-General. U Thant? The President sat with his hands folded and with a thin smile. He nodded towards a chair directly in front of the mahogany desk. Behind him was a large window that provided a broad view of the campus. He addressed Osa with the usual formulaic small talk about how good to see her, and she was doing well, and wouldn’t it be nice when Huhn Hall was completed and she had a real office? Then there came the clearing of his throat, which shook his wattles. He appeared to be a short, ordinary man without his academic regalia.

”Dr. Spengler, I am turning to you first to help me achieve the clarity I need concerning a situation brought to my attention earlier this week. Our Dean of Students received a phone call from an upset parent who said her daughter and a friend had observed something last Friday evening. Do you know to which I refer?”

Osa shook her head, negative, but her stomach gave a twist just the same.

“To get to the hub, I mean nub, two persons were seen in Mordant Hall in a state of apparent intoxication. Leaning on each other before disappearing into the Mordant One hallway? Can you enlighten me?”

Osa’s hands rose to cover her face, and she slumped in her chair. She took a breath, then dropped her hands and told Brunkelvic everything in the minutest detail in a steady voice. How the lights had failed, and she had stepped on Zander’s hand in the dark, offering to call Security and leading him down the stairs to his office.

“So that individual was intoxicated?”

“I am sure of that. He smelled of whiskey and beer.”

“And you had no other contact with Zander Pfinster, before or after the Mordant ah, unpleasantness?”

Osa explained further–the Tuesday visit, the cactus, the impression she had of Pfinster, and that she had no plans to see him again unless professionally (“for the good of our students.”) The President of Ballast seemed content and thanked her. She appeared to be one of the more believable persons he had encountered, while Zander Pfinster fell somewhat short of that in his estimation.

And that was that. 

Chapter Two  THE FINLAND CONFERENCE

The train, a rusting mix of petroleum tankers, boxcars filled with pale cabbages, and two passenger coaches, inched out of Saleznevo, the checkpoint before the Finnish border. Whatever expectations he had about how one might feel on the border between the deflating Soviet Union and Finland (in the terminology of the time, the Communists and the Free World), he felt more indifferent than pleased with himself. 

He was now 49 years old, mid-life, halfway to the finish line. More than half! He did not accept the current notion of a “crisis” in the middle years. But he was given to an almost obsessive introspection. Why did he think as he did? It was a habit that enriched his life and yet invited irritation, and it had also cost him several friendships and a possible marriage. “Zander has to hype up everything to prove he’s intelligent!” That was what he overheard his fiancé saying near the end. And so he thought about that, too, and filed it under “Ambiguities” with so much else that defied resolution.

Now staring out at the bleak day as the train began to groan forward, Zander N. Pfinster asked himself why he found his present circumstances so banal. It was all too familiar here, so much like the bleak setting of the small university where he would most likely spend more years in limbo. Some new token of his scholarship might open the door to a promotion or a new posting in a more stimulating place. Once his resumé contained the news of one more conference, the one he was traveling towards, well, that might nail it. 

Or perhaps not. There were more details at play than the quality of his scholarship, and these mattered more than some dreary little paper read in a monotone at a remote conference. In Pfinster’s case, the brief encounter brought on by the drunken mistake involving Osa Spengler had upset the delicate balance of shoptalk and rumor at Ballast College. That was another problem that time would have to erase. And it had been nothing, really, so he assured himself. President Baldur Brunkelvic had placed him on “informal probation” and told him to get some counseling, attend a few conferences and set new goals. “Plump up your resumé, boy.” 

Those were his words. 

Ballast College was no different than the vast universe of American education: how to appear relevant to students’ needs without dumbing them down. And in another regard, Ballast shared the erosion of budgetary support needed to honor its various “mission statements,” which were invented by committees, scrutinized, adjusted, and finally reinvented repeatedly over the decades. When Zander was hired, he had an M.A. in Philosophy, a field poorly represented at Ballast. Would he find a home in another discipline? Eager for an income and an academic start, Zander Pfinster agreed to teach an introductory interdisciplinary economics and philosophy course: a dual appointment and a challenging one. “You’ll be plugging a few holes here at Ballast.” said the smiling Divisional Dean, the tallest man at Ballast and with a Doctorate in Accounting, “and you’ll be well-positioned for critical thinking.” Pfinster, much shorter, stared up at this giant and nodded enthusiastically. He had lied on his resumé: his degree was not in Philosophy; it was in Folklore. He had guessed correctly that such a degree would not be salable at Ballast.

.”Well-positioned for critical thinking.” The words felt like a cart filled with  stones, which he now dragged everywhere behind him and, on some days, pushed ahead of him into the classroom where he was to teach “Survey of Econo-Philosophy 1A.” One course, two approaches. Pfinster wanted to desperately engage students, and to this end, he “invented the Monday thinking cap.” Yes, “thinking cap” was an old term, but why not dust it off? Before the first semester ended, Pfinster had become part of the Folklore of Ballast College for his approach to “critical thinking,” which may or may not have been marginally successful.

Each Monday, he invited his classes to share what he called “phenomena” because “we are so often exposed to the new, the interesting, and the thought-provoking.” This invitation was met with a profound silence each Monday. No one had anything to share, or they preferred to keep their phenomena to themselves. So, Pfinster, feigning great reluctance, offered something of his own. His students knew he would; in fact, their silence was a conspiracy to force him into sharing something that they invariably labeled as “weird” or “bizarre” or some other of the labels that their generation used for anything unconventional. And with each week, the anecdotes became stranger. Pfinster had discovered (like others had) like that an instructor could cover his inadequate preparation for philosophy and economics by being entertaining.

And he delivered! Consider this monologue: 

“Aaah-um. Just Saturday, I went to the Farmers’ Market near the fire station on…well, you know where it is…I was looking for radishes and green onions. Nothing more. As I was leaving, there, in a wire cage, was a chicken. One chicken. How was this? Had the others been sold? Or was this the only chicken on the planet, this remnant of the dinosaurs? Or was there only this sole chicken to begin with? How to resolve that question? But before applying our methodology, I noticed that the solitary chicken, a rather large bird, seemed to be staring at me. [pause] Aaah-um, was I curious about the bird, or was it curious about me? I assumed it had the jump on me with that one, for I was late in noticing him. The chicken stared back at me through the crude wire enclosure. I had evidently engaged its curiosity. No credit to me, for it may make any living thing into an attractant when you are the only chicken in an enclosure. Or perhaps it was just stupidity. Can it be assumed that this chicken thinks there are or were other chickens? Limited perception of the present and none of the past, hmmm; future given over to wariness. 

[At this point, most of his students had taken off their thinking caps and were staring as Pfinster continued to crank up the emotion his emotion.]

“And what did the solitary state of this bird say about its absent owner, the one who had created the crude wire mesh enclosure? Poverty? An Easter chick that failed to die in a timely manner, [and here his voice rose] sentimentally fed by some well-meaning children only to live on, oppressing adults with its empty stare and greedy beak? Or was it that familiar form of loneliness which finally becomes empty-headed indifference, the very sort which humankind disapproves of and strives, aaah-um, [pause] SO FUTILY TO AVOID?”

As is well-known and tolerated, a level of eccentricity appears in most higher education, whereas it is uncommon in middle school. A more sophisticated undergraduate might have caught that the Lecturer (for that was his rank), Z.N. Pfinster, was, consciously or not, attempting to bridge the two disciplines, Philosophy and Economics, and present them as a coherent whole. 

Such ruminations (referring to the chicken story) leaked out of the classroom and through the faculty and beyond. The tallest man at Ballast, the Tall Division Dean with the Doctorate in Accounting, spoke to him about “critical thinking but not an overtaxing of the mind” and so on. There had been, he hinted, “a few” phone calls from parents. Would Pfinster strive to make his mark in more conventional ways? 

 Perhaps an observer would have concluded that tourism was the reason for his travel to Finland. Who would know that fearsome shadows hung over Zander Pfinster? His entire occupational insecurity had brought him here. Of the dozens of low-level academic conferences available to him, he had submitted his proposal to the Finland Midsummer Symposium earlier in the year. This modest event annually invited brief papers on themes attracting various disciplines. This year the theme was “New Classic Theory.” His brief presentation would develop the theme of “Liberation Economics: New Classic Theory or Not?” It was a reworking of an earlier, shorter paper, “No New Theories in Liberal Class Economics?” which he had read in Costa Rica two years earlier. In both cases, and whatever he offered to Ballast students, his economics thinking came from his undergraduate notes and an article in Time magazine.

Zander’s private and, as he assumed, brilliant insight was that most college faculty members were bobbing about in a swamp of self-hatred brought on by their conviction that the truth about anything would never be known. They were forced to present themselves theatrically like fraudsters and mountebanks. They were like dancing bears managed by carnival folk.

Since no one at Ballast College knew anything about Finland beyond Helsinki, it had been easy to avoid revealing that the Midsummer Symposium was a modest affair. It was hosted by something called the Lyceum for Superior Studies in the small provincial city of Rovaniemi, far to the north on the Kemijoki River. The papers were presented within a fifteen-minute limit, and the seven minutes assigned to questions and comments meant that three participants shared a session each hour. There were to be four sessions in the entire conference, an opening banquet, and a keynote address. 

And now, stepping off the train in Rovaniemi, he saw that the precautions with his colleagues had been more than adequate: no one would have heard of this place or surmised its lack of academic heft. It was late afternoon. The square in front of the station was deserted except for a taxi, its motor whining unevenly. The shops had evidently closed. He recalled a sepia street scene in an old silent motion picture. Was it Nosferatu?   

“Sir?” It was the taxi driver, an unhappy-looking man in a brown uniform. He drove Pfinster through empty streets to the Hotel Mursu on Pelikaani Katu. It was a short ride but long enough for the driver to inquire about his passenger’s purpose in coming to Rovaniemi. Enough time to tell him that the Midsummer Symposium had been canceled some days earlier. A “scheduling conflict” at the Lyceum, no one knew what. At the Hotel Mursu, he was handed a handwritten note confirming, but not explaining, the cancellation and inviting him to attend a “consolation session” where he might meet other “parties” over drinks. His presentation could be photocopied and distributed there, provided it was “reasonably brief.” Unexpectedly, he imagined Osa Spengler looking down from some dais, and she was frowning.

Since the landscape had changed instantly, he grasped at the need to save his plan. He would hide and claim he had given his paper to great acclaim. His room on the second floor provided all that he wanted of Rovaniemi, a narrow view of the brown Kemijoki River as it oozed along its stone embankment. He watched occasional human figures or small brown birds from his chair facing the window. From his bed, his vision was upwards towards the sky with its single motionless cloud shaped like a narrow-brimmed gray hat. He slept briefly and sparingly, ate brown bread, and drank a bitter pine resin tea from the hotel kitchen. This would be, he thought to himself, an experiment in purposelessness. But even that suggested a purpose. He called the desk and ordered a sleep mask. Then 

Zander checked to see if the bed had a mattress, for it was so hard he imagined it was designed for penitents. Then he pulled a thin blanket up to his chin and worked at shutting down his mind.   

He imagined himself a leaf, a small one. And so, on the following day of his residency on the second floor of the Hotel Mersu, he lived the life of a simple oval leaf with symmetrical veins. Unconcerned about the problem of detachment from a possible larger community of foliage, he directed himself, this thin green thing that he became, to the near-constant light of the solstice sun. An imperceptible release of odorless carbon dioxide followed, and gauzy half-sleep led to the emptiness he seemed to crave.

His experiences were not expressly those of an economist/philosopher who became a leaf. On the second day, the unmistakable urging of thirst warned him of desiccation, and he reluctantly shook off his experimental identity as flora. The light had made the whole thing so pleasant, the unfailing light. He remembered: it was midsummer, and at this latitude, the light persisted, leading fauna and flora into the appealing lethargy of timelessness. At least, that is what he told himself. Pfinster had given himself over to “the lethargy of timelessness.” Who has not at times succumbed to similar notions?

“Am I, I mean, are we near the Arctic Circle?” he asked the man who regularly brought him his piece of dark toast and glass of bitter tea. 

“Yes, it is on the north edge of the town. Half an hour by foot.” 

This conversation, the longest he had had in Finland, shook him out of the torpor he had cultivated so effortlessly. He rose from the bed, showered, and cleaned his teeth methodically with the coarse dentifrice powder purchased in St. Petersburg. Then he flossed with exceptional care. Flossed until the thread was pink. His clothes, washed during his slumber by the Hotel Mursu laundry,  were stiff with starch and smelled of naphtha soap. The walking shoes had been burnished with a thick brown wax. Even his belt had a new look and feel. Everything pointed to a new day. Cheerfully thinking things were likely OK, he whistled a few bars of an old Benny Goodman hit, left the hotel, and turned north.

Rovaniemi offered no new impressions over those which he had formed on the day of his arrival. It was clearly a modest city that encouraged restraint and prudence. Old brown Volvos lined the streets, the drivers somewhere out of view. Pedestrians nodded at him but did not acknowledge his obvious foreignness. Looking out of apartment windows, dogs merely stared and did not bark. Pfinster appreciated the open-ended ambiance, which allowed a man to go to Finland to read a short treatise on economics but instead stroll to the Arctic Circle. And what did it really matter?  John Maynard Keynes had said something about that, but he resisted the effort to recall just what that thought was.  

He stopped before a display window. There was nothing to be seen except spools of thread. It was a shop that sold thread. A thread shop? Could a shop sell only thread? Mostly brown thread, too. Everywhere was brown, but there was also some blue, a reflection in the window and still more strongly in his peripheral vision. He turned his head and looked squarely at a young woman dressed in a full blue skirt, long-sleeved white blouse, and stockings. Her hair reminded him of the mixed ash and birch forests that had bordered the rails on his journey north. She wore a modest crown of yellow ribbon and miniature meadow flowers. A scent, vaguely of juniper and something unfamiliar, came to him. He looked uncertainly into her azure eyes. It seemed rude to stare, to note a skin more sand-toned than snow, the sculpted cheekbones with glowing highlights, and the firm yet generous mouth that suggested character and passion tempered with sadness. Or so Pfinster, who could be deeply romantic, allowed himself to think

The poet in him sensed that he was looking at some triumph of Eurasian evolution. Or, more modestly expressed, the glory of Rovaniemi. Somehow he turned himself entirely from the window of the thread shop and stood in front of  the woman. She smiled. The effect was profound. He felt a shock and a churning of his physical being. He wanted to weep. Dualities, hardly discernible except in the barest of outlines, tore through his mind: joy, grief; the sacred, the profane; fame, ignominy; desire, fear; the hunger for life, the longing for death. Unexpectedly, unfamiliar words formed and left him, almost inaudibly, except to himself and the woman.

     “Widespread they stand, the Northland’s dusky forests,

      Ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams;

      Within them dwells the forest’s mighty god,

      And wood-sprites in the gloom weave magic secrets.”

There is no awareness of how he came to be seated at the scrubbed pine table amid the wooden utensils, the steaming kettle, and the smell of clove, bay leaf, and smoked eels. She reached across the table and placed her hand on his. 

“What did I just say?”

” You know our myths.”

“I do?” and then “Is this your home?”

She answered him in her soft voice accented with its suggestion of schooling  in England. 

“This is my home. I was born here, here in this house. In that room, behind you. It is a special room because the Arctic Circle crosses it. My father told me so. He measured it very carefully with instruments. It is still my room. My father told me that it is a special room and a special thing to sleep on the Arctic Circle. Especially during the time of the solstice. Then he went away to Cyprus with the United Nations. He was a peacekeeping soldier, a good man. He was killed there. There was no war, but someone wanted to make some trouble, an incident. Then my mother could not live in the house so alone. She took me to England. She wanted me to learn to be a nurse. I did. She was a person who sews, you know, a seamstress. This dress she made for me. I was visiting her grave today when I saw you looking at the thread in the window.”

She paused and moved a fingertip deliberately over the back of his hand. He looked at her hand and said nothing. His eyes filled. The kettle breathed its aromatic steam into the room. Somewhere a summer insect tapped against a windowpane. The light had softened. 

“I came back to this house, to Finland. I did not want to be alone in England, and I knew I was too much alone.” Her voice had descended to a whisper. 

He met her eyes and saw early snow falling on a stunted tundra which was at the same time the ocher landscape of his youth, landscapes of yearning and remorse. He felt the power of a place where the sun would not set this night. Drawn by earthen scents, he took her other hand and leaned forward across the table. 

“You,” he said, “and I are so near the Arctic Circle.” 

He wept as he spoke and did not see her reassuring smile. Would he ever want to leave this place? Then she arose, walked into the room on the Arctic Circle, and closed the door. He remained at the table until the sun of the midnight hour was lower still. Then he moved slowly towards the room, her room, and softly opened the door. It was empty. In truth, it was beyond empty.  There was no bed, table, chair, dresser, mirror, rug, curtains, or even wallpaper. And if the room had ever smelled of pine, it was now without any scent at all.

Chapter Three  CONVOCATION

 Until the completion of Huhn Hall, the Odeon-Plethorium was the newest and most admired building on the Ballast Campus. The OP (avoiding the deliberate pretentiousness of the name chosen by President B.B.Brunkelvic himself)) featured an auditorium, a small theater-in-the-round for repertory productions, and a modest gallery space. For the dedication in May of 1981, Brunkelvic invited a native Illinoisian and current President of the United States, the Honorable Ronald Wilson Reagan. The benediction was expected to be offered by the former President of the United States, the Honorable James (Jimmy) Carter. Luciano Pavarotti and Renata Tebaldi would join in singing a medley of American folk songs. Then President B.B. Brunkelvic would give an address titled “Ballast,” followed by an appearance by the Ballast Glee Club singing “The Ballast Fight Song” and other community favorites. None of the luminaries accepted the invitation to appear. The OP, without fanfare, began quietly occupying its place in Ballast history.

The beginning of each Fall Term in September meant the Opening Convocation in the smaller theater on the Thursday after Labor Day. The theater had a horseshoe shape with a focus on the podium. Brunkelvic liked this format: no one could hide, and all faced the front and could see most of the others seated in the horseshoe theater. “We are a family,” the President would say, “just look at you!” No one looked around.

Before the meeting started at 9:00 AM, a 30-minute coffee and cookie time allowed faculty to greet colleagues. Two topics were always present: the summer was too short, and where did they get these awful cookies year after year? 

Osa Spengler, in her second year,  was still too new to know many other faculty members. She went directly into the theater and sat high up on the left. She was clutching a copy of her first book-length publication, which had arrived the day before. Titled Why Sociology? the slim paperback had been contracted to a small press in York, Nebraska, by the big university press in Lincoln.”We do this when we are running behind.” was the explanation. took her seat and used the time before the meeting to inspect the result. She had already noted various fonts from one chapter to the next, which was not a good sign. Osa had avoided the coffee hour because she did not wish to encounter Zander Pfinster.

Since the incident, if widely known, would have placed her in a situation of acute scandal, Osa had kept to herself and hoped that Zander would not return from wherever he had gone, some conference abroad, according to rumor. From what little she knew of him, it seemed reasonable to assume that the man was a loser without a solid disciplinary identity. A man without a terminal degree and straddling two fields, philosophy, and economics, was asking for trouble. Had he been sacked? The truth was otherwise: there was an ominous asterisk following the Pfinster’s name.

No, he had not been terminated. Not at Ballast College! President Brunkelvic liked Pfinster! To him, Finland had not been a boondoggle. A debacle, but not a boondoggle. Brunkelvic encouraged Pfinster to take the summer off, appear on the first contractual day (the Convocation), and perhaps resume teaching. The two had kept in contact. Had Osa bothered to look in the class schedule, she would have known this as well, but as the Convocation began, she began to doubt that he was still on the Ballast Faculty. Such relief! With her first publication resting on her lap, Osa decided that her second year at Ballast was beginning with nothing disturbing on the horizon. She would cross the campus with a straight, confident spine and no longer glance furtively left and right. Not that she feared Pfinster, but he was the one who was linked to her with the accusatory shame of a restraining order.  How many persons knew of it; probably no one.

The meeting began. At the podium, the Director of the Harpp Student Center, Valerie Kapuffnik, slim and white-haired and the oldest woman on the faculty (she also taught Product Marketing) and traditionally given the honor of opening the Convocation. Behind her stood the Junior Glee Club.

“Fellow Hounds!” I have the privilege of being the first to welcome you back to Ballast. Back to Ballast! What a nice mouthfeel those words have! Let’s have a heartfelt singing of our Alma Mater,” She drew out a pitch pipe, gave out a squawk, and began to wave her arms to signal the need for greater volume.

Ballast, Ballast, solid is thy name

Ballast, Ballast, noble is thy aim

Ballast, Ballast, succor the noble youth

Ballast, Ballast, may they know TRUTH!!

“Good job!” said Ms. Kapuffnik. “And now, to open Ballast College’s 107th year of service to our students, our communities, and our Great State of Illinois, I give you, President Baldur B. Belinsky– excuse me, BRUNELVIC!” In the nine years that President Brunkelvic had been in office, the Opening Convo always began with the presidential joke and ended with another singing of the school song. As for messing up the President’s name, it happened every year, and some swore it was deliberate. The President’s joke followed a round of light applause. And so it began:

“I heard a good one that, the other day, got it from one of you, a member of our Ballast family. I didn’t understand it at first, so give it some time. As usual, it is a decent joke you will want to share with your families tonight. Anyway, here’s the joke:

“A Flintlander man, a Russian man, and a fellow from Chicago walk into a bar in Helsinki. That’s a city in Flintland. The bartender looks up, shakes his head, and says (and here the President began to chortle): ‘OK, fellas, what’s the joke?'” 

Then, red-faced, he laughed, loud and open-mouthed, while many who were present offered restrained sounds of the “tee-hee” variety. Most exchanged glances and nodded. Was this the long-awaited proof of his senility? This joke had come to him from Zander Pfinster, and it was the first hint that something was afoot.

That done, the parade of deans, vice presidents, the faculty senate president, and finally, the lugubrious registrar came to the podium to reach into their bag of overworked redundant boilerplate, platitudes, and bromides. There was also twaddle and piffle, most of which was cast out to the audience in a tone of inauthentic optimism—Brunkelvic, seated in a green armchair to the right of the podium, beamed and occasionally clapped. After nearly an hour, he rose to present another regular feature of the Opening Convo: “Stories from Ballast’s History,” which Brunkelvic chose for their presumed inspirational value.

The audience learned that nearly 50 years earlier, in 1933, the Ballast College Industrial Arts Department developed a metallic robot that was strong enough to lift either the front or rear of an automobile to facilitate changing tires at service stations. Other applications were considered: farming (pulling a manure wagon) or military (classified, secret). The prototype was still stored in the heating plant but not open to the public. Nearly 20 years later, Hollywood based the robot GORT on the Ballast model, for which 20th Century Fox gratefully sponsored ten scholarships. The film The Day the Earth Stood Still is shown annually during the fraternity-sponsored “Klaatu Daze” in Spring. Most faculty knew this story already, and several members of the Business School had been lobbying to have the Ballast robot made part of a fund-raising roadside attraction on County Road 14. Finally, it was time to end the proceedings.

“Fellow Hounds, let’s have a word from Coach Edwin Palloucca!”

Hounds? What was this? Osa was still too new to have absorbed much Ballast arcana. The college was once mistakenly called Ballast College for a year due to a printing error. Once discovered, some wit suggested that the school needed a mascot anyway and what was wrong with “Hounds?”

 Palloucca was in the audience, eight rows from the front. He stood, faced the faculty, and rasped the words he said, more or less, each year: “We’re gonna beat ’em!” And so saying, he sat down again.

“Thank you, Coach Palloucca, and I particularly look forward to all the games and especially that Homecoming Game with Pervus College. As an Illinois boy, I always enjoyed our friendly rivalry with anything from Iowa.” 

The Coach stood again and brayed, “and I mean beat ’em! How about the Hound Fight Song Cheer?” Dutifully, though some in the audience looked towards their shoes, the chant began:

“Ballast, Ballast, 

We know the Truth.

Truth Sets You Free! 

Yay, Ballast!”

Brunkelvic roared  Those in the first three rows got a glimpse of his dentition, the usual pattern of dark fillings and overly white crowns. Then he raised his arms for quiet. 

“Now, here comes the huge news today, and you’re hearing it here first: Ballast has entered into an exchange program with some colleges and universities in Fringland! I’m told the ink is just drying on the protocols! Haven’t seen ’em. I’ve asked the architect of those agreements to share a proverb from Fingland that has special meaning as we, the Ballast family, venture out into the world and, might I add, become the first college in Illinois to embrace Finglander colleges! I am talking about our good colleague, Zander Pfinster! Come on up, Zandy! Right up here with me, fella!”

There was a gasp, one of amazement. Zander Pfinster had been sitting front and center, nearly under the podium. Now he stood and climbed onto the stage, shook hands with Brunkelvic, and faced the puzzled audience. Osa sat up in astonishment. She heard the name, but Zander Pfinster was different than he had been months ago. He was slender and no longer walked with a stoop, but most curious: he had long locks of golden blond hair folded neatly over his shoulders like someone who might be playing   Hamlet. He leaned forward towards the microphone and said, in a pleasant tone,   

“Joka vanhoja muistelee, sitä tikulla silmään.” 

Then he extended his arm towards the the President and asked, “our good friend President B.B.Brunkelvic” to share this potent Finnish proverb in English. Brukelvic dramatically cleared his throat, leaned into the microphone, and intoned. 

“A poke in the eye for the one who dwells on the past.”

Was that designed for her? Osa felt ill. She scarcely heard the second whining of the morbid Ballast College anthem, which concluded the Convocation. A deep sense of betrayal made her gorge rise. That weasel, ball-less wonder Brunkelvic and the repellent Pfinster had found each other for some purpose! The relief she had felt leaving the President’s office in Spring, the knowledge that a restraining order was in place to protect her from this besotted fool Pfinster, and how she felt valued by the CEO of this college. Now what? She would stay in the shadows while Prince Zander basked in the approving glow of some far-fetched international connection. Who were they kidding? Ballast would be lucky if it could enter a consortium with some junior college in Little Egypt downstate. She shook her head, clutched the copy of Why Sociology? and watched for the chance to escape. 

Osa Spengler was among the last to leave the auditorium. No point in chancing an encounter with the President and his apparent toady, Zander Pfinster. She sighed. It had only been her second opening Convocation at Ballast or anywhere, and she felt deflated. She rose from her seat and nodded at someone she thought she may have met. Somewhere in the distance in the music practice rooms, a few mellow tones from a french horn reached her. She left the building, clutching her copy of Why Sociology? Foolish to have brought it along. No one had noticed. What is all this? she asked herself. What have I done? She regretted taking the first job that came along, and she could have extended her time at Western for another year. But there was Dan Haldeman to get away from, and more and more persons at UN-Sand Hills were aware of her liaison with him. So here she was, at Ballast. 

Of course, the odd business with Pfinster was just a fluke. How many new faculty stumble over a drunken colleague in the darkened hallway of a retrofitted dorm? But there were other things. There was no one in her department to bond with, or was something wrong with her? Nor had she really seemed to click with students who had rated her a disappointing 3.15 out of a possible 4.00. The Tall Division Dean interpreted the evaluations and assured her that students constantly whined if assigned more than 25 pages of reading per week. The usual comments about needing a new hairstyle, making an effort to smile more, lecturing more slowly, and showing more videos. There was nothing new or alarming here, said the Tall Dean, who told her she might think about being more visible at athletic events.” Be part of the Ballast family,” were his concluding words.

Osa Spengler was not a fan of athletic events. In high school, she had hated the mandatory gym hours with their insane rope climbs, tumbling, and relay races to name a few of the events she found a torment. She liked to skip rope, but skipping rope was not offered. And why did institutions of higher learning actually sponsor the time-consuming athletic teams and the nonsense of playing against other schools? Osa kept her disdain for athletics secret. In class she occasionally attempted to illustrate a point with an example drawn from the world of sports. These usually fell flat and might even be a source of snickering: for example, referring to the quarterback of a baseball team when discussing the subtlety of social power. Her preference would have been to use the game of Scrabble as a reference. That was her game and, together with word puzzles, was what had been done at home.

Opening Convocation and then Department meetings. When Osa reached the offices of the Sociology Department, the meeting was about to begin with the usual discussion of course offerings, room assignments, and hourly schedules. And enrollment numbers. And office hours (in Osa’s case, the hours spent in old Mordant Hall). It was over in 25 minutes, and then it was open for questions or comments.  

Still a new and most recent hire, Osa Spengler had nothing to say unless asked a direct question, though these never came. She fixed a smile on her face and listened to the others. Who are these people, she thought, now that my life is thrown in with theirs?

The Chair was Willibald Seward, M.A., beginning his 32nd year at Ballast. His degree, the only non-doctorate in the department, was in Rural Sociology from Oklahoma Poly. Sensitive about his credentials, he nonetheless had served as head of the department for 14 years. Praised by President Brunkelvic as “a steady hand” and “our beloved,” Seward had decided early on his watchword: “Social change does not come from below, and it does not come from above. It just happens.” His multiple-choice exams always had some form of this as the first question. 

The others, were seated at the table.  Osa had devised descriptions for  each of four others in the department”

Edwina Bates, the Department Queen,  spoke with an affected Brit accent. 

    Phony.

Monty Blair, Department Clown, a mean prankster, off-color joking. 

Voyeur.

Gwendolyn Welles, Department Pessimist, spoke little, frowned much.

Weepy.

Usher Smith, Department Mumbler, perhaps deranged a bit.

Idiot.

Sensing that the meeting was at an end, no one dared to raise a question or make a comment which would prolong the pain. As he did every year,  Seward cleared his throat and began praising the department and recalling how they had backed him during an epic turf battle five years earlier. Osa knew nothing of this, so she was one of the only person even mildly interested in the story. It was about how the Sociology Department had won the right to use “sociopath” in course titles, and the Psychology Chairperson, F.T. Manzano, had to retire “psychopath” in in his department. And then Manzano resigned in deep shame for failing to protect his department and discipline. Hearing Seward savor the retelling of his victory over Psychology and Manzano was a disappointment to Osa. Not only did it seem childish to her, but surely there was something better to talk about, something more appropriate, perhaps something to share. What Osa had in mind, although it made her uncomfortable, was some recognition that she had on the table before her a copy of her book. A decent-sized book with a red cover with a pale question mark. Why Sociology? and then “Osa Spengler, Ph.D.” on that cover in contrasting white. How could anyone miss that, flat on the table? And yet, Osa was conflicted. She wanted the recognition, yet she wanted to remain within her preferred lower profile. There were those, such as Edwina Bates, who privately called Osa “a mouse.” 

“I don’t doubt she’s got the grey matter to teach, but she will never make waves,” she had told Gwendolyn Welles. The two senior women adopted a cordial demeanor towards Osa, one designed to keep her from getting too comfortable. Both were burned out with their teaching, and the only focus left was to direct their scrutiny towards the rest of the faculty and watch the President (presumably) deteriorating. 

Osa Spengler had experienced the Opening Convo and the subsequent Department Meeting at the beginning of the previous year, but it was still all very new and made little sense. She was utterly focused on her classes and assumed nothing was there to learn from the braying of the school anthem.

This year it had been different. All the hoopla and empty comments! Only the appearance of the reinvented Zander Pfinster interested her. What conclusion should be drawn if a clown like that could appear with the chief academic officer prancing up to the stage as a Nordic blond-tressed hero? Why, of course! It meant that she, Osa Spengler, was too good for this mediocre little college! 

What an epiphany for Osa!  She was twenty-seven years old and constantly aware of the shadows cast by men.. Her father always won at Scrabble, and her high school had offered no avenues for recognition unless she could excel at badminton and she could not.  In graduate school, her mentors insinuated that they were tolerating her aspirations. And now her book lay before her on the table, face down. Was the book ashamed of itself? Of course not, but her pleasure at publishing it was corroded by self-doubt. Had “they” (the ever-present patriarchy)  humored her by publishing it? 

With seconds to go before the meeting ended, Osa turned the book over and placed it face up in the center of the table. Her jaw was set, her brow furrowed, and her face reddened with determination. 

“I would like to share my pleasure, ah, my happiness, in this contribution to our discipline. I’ll leave this copy here. I’m pretty proud of it, and I hope you like it.”

It was a short, simple little speech, but Osa was almost out of breath and light-headed when she finished. Somehow enough confidence was left to make eye contact with each of her colleagues. They were surprised, and none had noticed the red book their young colleague had been clutching since the Opening Convo.

Chairperson Seward smiled, and the others nodded, making throaty noises of approval. “Umm-hmmm.” “ooo-ohhh.” “Hnh-hnh-hnh.” They waited for Seward to give something other than a grunt. He delivered:

“Professor Spengler, you are on your way.” he intoned. To which the phlegmatic Usher Smith moaned, “Hear-Hear.” 

And that was that.

Chapter Four    SPECIAL PROJECTS

`”That was a damn fine Opener!” 

Baldur Brunkelvic swept his left arm, taking in half the buildings lining the Veterans’ Rectangle at the heart of the Ballast Campus. His right hand rested on the shoulder of Zander Pfinster, whose blond tresses were now gathered into a ponytail. The two men were returning from the Opening Convocation and heading toward the administration center in old August Hall. 

“And, what’s more, Zandy, from my chair on stage I could look deeply into the audience, and I liked what I saw!”

“A full house!” said Zander with exaggerated enthusiasm, marveling 

at how he had acquired a nickname for the first time.

“No, not so much that. Honestly, I had a good look at how your presentation was going over; let me say I saw a lot of eager faces. The Finn Exchange is now launched, and it’s a winner!”

Zander turned towards the President, grinned as best he could, and tried to forget his own impressions. He had seen a different reaction. How odd that an audience seems to think that a speaker, singer, or even dancer could never see their individual facial expression or body language. Zander had keen peripheral vision. He had spotted Osa Spengler’s open-mouthed astonishment and the dozens who had turned towards a neighbor with an eyebrow raised. On the right sat the head of the Phys Ed department, who leaned forward with her face in her hands. A usually eager-eyed biologist closed his eyes and seemed to remove himself from the meeting. These persons were in the minority, but they were the ones Pfinster noticed. There were skeptics, but more critical was the certainty that the Finland Project was deep in the heart of the President. And Pfinster knew his man. The President lived for affirmation of his ideas, especially the ones that became his passions.

Brunkelvic, now in his 11th year as President of Ballast, desperately wished to demonstrate to other regional colleges that Ballast could also mount a Global Outreach and Exchange approach to market itself. Nearly every smaller school, like Ballast, with under 4,000 students, had something to boast about: France, Poland, Scotland, Denmark, and on and on. But no one had yet colonized Finland. When he returned to Ballast from Europe in August, Pfinster had effortlessly convinced the President that Finland was ripe. 

“I can think of three, maybe, four impressive guys and one younger  woman whocould be here in the Spring Semester and mount courses that would send shock waves through Ballast College and onward from Dubuque to Kenosha and all of Illinois. Well, starting in the north for sure.”

“Ah, this female, is she one of those blond Scandahoovian beauties.?” Zander gave a wan smile and a wink. Brunkelvic liked women; he liked to ogle them, and he had once nearly groped a woman who had read his mind and turned on her heel. 

“Well, fine!!” said Baldur B. Brunkelvic without waiting for an answer since this goddess already existed in his mind. “I want to see this underway ASAP. Maybe in a year, my team and I can set up something like an exchange over there for our people. And see some sights along the way. Maybe fly in by way of Paris.” 

My team, our people. The President had reached his office. He turned and once more clapped Pfinster on the back and disappeared inside. Pfinster had an office in the same building as the Presidential Suite, a parking spot, a key to an executive bathroom, and a secretary shared with the Housing Office. He had a broad view of the Veterans Rectangle (usually shortened to  “Rect”) from his office. The Finnish flag and a large three-dimensional map of Finland hung on the wall opposite the window. The desk chair had a headrest and could rotate and lean back for those moments when the occupant wished to suggest the ease with which a man could manifest both  calm and authority. There was nothing on the desk except a paperweight with some runic characters quickly purchased at the airport gift s in Helsinki. Beneath this object lay an envelope, address side down so that its foreign origin would be obscured.

Pfinster, who had been scanning the Rect as if he were a panoramic camera, now turned towards his desk, sat down in the imposing chair and sank his head into the padded leather back. There, in that envelope, was his future at Ballast College and perhaps even the continuation of Baldur B.Brunkelvic’s presidency. Pfinster’s recent Finnish connection had seduced him into thinking grand thoughts of his own future. And why not? Brunkelvic has already hinted that once the Finland Project was underway, “Zandy” could expect a title change from Director of Special Projects to Academic Vice-President. All in good time, of course.

After the debacle in Roraima with the failed conference and the encounter with a maidenly archetype at the Arctic Circle (which he had come to doubt had ever happened), Pfinster had taken the suggestion to attend the Rump Session. The embarrassed host institution promised a chance to share ideas and make contacts there. Pfinster showed up but found few academics had stayed in Roraima when the more attractive choice of Stockholm was just next door in Sweden. For those who preferred the Rump Session, it was a sorrowful and squalid event of self-pitying academics. Pfinster loathed these clusters of self-important anemic-looking professors with their bad haircuts and those tribal identifiers: leather elbow patches. And, at that moment, he hated himself for being one of them.

But today, ten weeks later, Zander Pfinster was at ease and supremely satisfied with himself. He rose again from the chair, clasped his recently manicured hands behind his back, smoothed his hair,  and looked across the campus. A stray student here and there, but no faculty as all were, like Doctor Spengler, at their departmental meetings. Not Zander! He no longer had a departmental affiliation, so there was no need to attend such fatuous events. He was done trying to cobble Economics and Philosophy into a course that made any sense to anyone. And no more confabulating tales that might have a point to them other than to present him as an engaging eccentric, though that was what students liked about him. “Zander the Clown,” he murmured.

But that was a past life! Here was Z.P. looking over The Rect. He recognized the Harpp Student Life Center, the Veezen Center for Communications Studies, and through the trees beyond Veezen to the left of Zange Museum was The Pond, a reservoir formed by a small tributary of the Pecatonica, Gastric Creek.  Nearly completed but not visible from this perspective was Huhn Hall, to be dedicated during the May Commencement. Pfinster was to be one of the speakers. “You’ve come a long way fast, Z.P.,” he murmured. ” I owe a lot to being under the aegis of that blithering idiot napping down the hall at this very moment.” 

It was a curious comment, and there is a backstory. Pfinster was proud of using “aegis” and knew he could have used a more common synonym. And he was proud of his ability to manipulate the transparent needs of President Brunkelvic. Pfinster wanted respect, and so did Brunkelvic. Brunkelvic wanted to be an achieving President; Pfinster wanted an office and a title that would raise him above the lumpenprofessoriat. And now he had it, mostly.

Zander quit his survey of the Rectangle and returned to his desk. His blonde locks rested on the back of the leatherette headrest, and he closed his eyes and sighed deeply. It was time to address his first crisis as Director of Special Projects, which was monstrous. On his desk lay a face-down envelope with a foreign airmail stamp. Beneath the letter lay a telegram delivered hours before the letter arrived. 

The telegram was, as telegrams tend to be, terse.

Dr. Phil. Zander Pfinster

Ballast College

Illinois/ USA

Regret Prof. T. Kivola in hospital. We are sending a replacement

with attributions. Arrive late February. Details to follow. 

Toivo M.

The “details”which arrived by regular post, explained that Professor Kivola would be undergoing delicate surgery to implant donated tonsils and adenoids and would not be able to speak above a whisper until the following summer, too late to honor any agreement with Ballast College. Further, Professor Kivola was most distressed and suggested sending a junior department member to replace him. That person could arrive a few weeks before St. Urho’s Feast Day (16 March) to formally begin the lecture series on that day. A series of questions followed about housing, travel, honorarium, and what sort of weather Ballast College experienced in late winter. Finally, due to prior commitments, could Professor Pfinster arrange for all of the visitor’s agreed-upon academic obligations (a total of three Finnish humanities lectures) to be completed by 22 March?

Zander read both the telegram and the letter again and then again.

Who the hell had tonsil implants? And who was St. Urho? He tried to connect the correspondence with the Rump Session in Roraima last summer. There, far from sober, he had caught the ear of several others and given in to making splendid proposals about academic exchanges. Come to Ballast! Come in the late winter when the redwings return to build their nests along the graceful Pecatonica! Enjoy penthouse living atop the Library! Had he waved his arms as he spoke? Had he thrown down uncounted shots of icy vodka? Yes, he had.

If only another terse telegram would end this impending horror.

What were his choices? Send this Kivola a note saying that the proposal would have to be terminated this year with hopes for a year or two later. It was too late for that. The President was leaning on him and Zander Pfinster needed action by November. Failure to deliver meant that Zander would be laughed off campus when it became known that a reverse tonsillectomy was at the bottom of it all.

Then an idea: What if the afflicted Finnlander had his tonsil procedure done in the Upper Midwest? After all, it sounded rather ordinary as procedures go. Get a donor match, implant them, and follow up within a few days in the hospital. Of course, the best otorhinolaryngological surgeon in the business would do it. Someone at the Mayo! All of this would bring another publicity coup to Ballast. He would discuss this with the President in the morning or even later today should they cross paths. But now Zander Pfinster needed his nap. He reached for the remote to lower the blinds and leaned back in his chair, feet on the desk, empty save for the troubling mail from Finland. And he was grateful for the soft leather headrest. 

 He relaxed by reviewing his hard times in the classroom. Attached to two departments, he had found the assignment ambiguous and knew it was not popular with students. To earn their smiles and positive evaluations, he resorted to telling them fanciful tales, one or two each class period, and then drew tortured, bogus Philo-Economic connections from them. Things were going along well enough that he rewarded himself by getting very drunk. This led to the unfortunate incident with that woman, the newly-hired sociologist with the heavy-duty name ( Osa Spengler?), and then the fateful encounter with the President, which (inexplicably) went well and sent him off to Finland and the Special Projects Directorship. All is well, etc. if only he could bring it off. 

Zander thumped his feet down on the nearly empty desk.

This is what winners did, didn’t they? He had the correct posture and closed his eyes. Sleep came quickly, but so did a dream which had come to him often since his newfound favor at Ballast. He called it the Dental Dream. In the dream, Zander had gone to a dentist to report a dull ache in a molar somewhere in his lower jaw. The pain was intermittent but, in recent weeks, had begun to pulsate like a traffic light, a yellow one, and that meant “caution,” did it not? The dentist, a giant woman in her fifties with muscular arms and a slight mustache, did the usual poking, probing, tapping, and x-raying. Nothing conclusive. Then she walked to the door and closed it. Zander heard the lock click.

“You’re going to have to help me on this one.” said she. “A new method of diagnosis and resolution, assuming it is a case that yields resolution. Here’s the deal: I insert you into your buccal cavity near what we dentists call the ‘Insertion Point.’ This is also the ‘Extraction Point’ so remember it, otherwise the only remedy is the suction hose. Near there, look for a satchel of tools and, importantly, the lamp to mount on your forehead. Turn on the lamp. If it seems dim, look for a new battery in the satchel. Put on the tool belt. Now wait for my instructions. I’ll use a very low volume of speech so as not to deafen you. Remember, you are now miniaturized and so are your eardrums. 

“How…,” said Zander and then he was transported into his own mouth. He had wanted to ask about any dangers, but the dentist was in a hurry. 

“Left buccal, lower molars, send from the end of the line. Watch for loosened plaque. You must have flossed today. Put on the boots.”

 He passed the bicuspid and looked up at the menacing array in the upper jaw.  From his perspective, the teeth, his teeth, were huge —twice as tall as he was. The molar in question came into view: huge and yellowed. The gumflesh had an unpleasant odor; he trudged on until he heard “Stop!” in the distance. The dentist’s command echoed back from the palate. Saliva was deepening and began to spill into his boots.

“Doctor! Something just fell on me and I almost lost my balance!”

“Food particle. You’re not flossing often enough. Relax. Do you see the stepladder between the two end molars?”

“No.”

“Well, shit! Must be on the other side. Right buccal. Take the shortcut—cross the tongue and look on the other side. And hurry! I have patients waiting.”

The shortcut! Across the tongue! Tricky! Dangerous! A healthy tongue reacted powerfully if it sensed something on it, or the whole business might gag if the crossing were too far back. He scrambled onto the resting tongue using a snared piece of nylon floss near the bicuspid. Saliva was pooling. Soon the tongue would react–or the dentist would insert a suction tube, also a significant danger if…..but she probably knew his location. He stepped onto the tongue. Aside from his growing panic at being swallowed–he pondered how a tongue in his own mouth could simultaneously be stepped on by him.  This conundrum signaled the end of each of these horrid dreams.

An alarm was sounding! Zander opened his eyes and tried to calm his breath. Saved by a bell– his telephone. Zander picked it up and mumbled reflexively, “Thank you, that was close.” The caller paused and then identified herself. 

“Professor Pfinster? My name is Genevieve Ricard, Chemistry.”  

“Yes?”

“I heard your remarks at the meeting a few hours earlier. I have an idea and have already cleared it with my department head, Dr. Verdigris. Perhaps you know him; he’s on the Executive Council with you and…”

“Oh, yes.” Zander did not know the name or the Council. This must be a mistake, but this Ricard woman was already moving on. But what would it matter if he heard her out? Besides, she sounded young and pleasant. Since the brief encounter with the Nordic apparition at the Arctic Circle, he had not had much to do with women, and he had best pay attention. The more this Ricard woman talked, the better he liked her. He learned that she had come to Ballast some years ago and was the newest and youngest hire in the Chem Dept and twenty or thirty years younger than the six others in the department. Not that this was a complaint: they were all “gentlemen” and “lovely.”  

It turned out that a fellow grad school colleague had accepted a job in Finland but was now eager to return to the States. Also a chemist, but a man of 34 yrs who was also a Finnish-American and (here she paused), well, could he be considered the visitor? Or did they already have someone in mind? In that case, could this person be on the list as an alternate?

Zander was not thinking this through, and he knew it. 

“I can’t answer that directly, Professor Richard, but perhaps…”

“It’s Ricard. My father is of French descent. And my mother was Austrian, maybe, or Slovenian. I’m not sure.

“Sorry, Ricard. Can you come here, the Special Projects Office in August Hall, on Monday? Does that work for you?” 

She agreed to meet with him. Zander pulled at his blond locks and considered this a strong possible resolution of the deepening Finnish crisis.  He knew he would probably go for it.  The tipping point had been the suspicion that this Kivola’s tonsil implant at the Mayo, no matter how brilliantly accomplished, would still result in a hoarse, whispered delivery of the good news on Finnish humanities.

Chapter Five  TAR WATER

On an  October afternoon, some six weeks after the Opening Convocation, Osa Spengler sat in the Harpp Student Center with a group of young women. They were members of the Pan-Hellenic Council that coordinated the doings of 5 of the seven sororities at Ballast College. The purpose of the meeting, called by some of the sorority officers, was to convince Osa to serve as their faculty advisor. All student organizations were required to have at least one faculty advisor, and the Pan-Hel had recently lost theirs due to retirement. 

As the women spoke with enthusiasm of the past accomplishments of the Council, Osa feigned interest. To be sure, sororities and fraternities interacted both actually and symbolically. This must be sociologically relevant, perhaps a topic for her second book. More to the point, however, was that her Department Chair, Willibald Seward, in a recent review of her, had mentioned that it was usually in the second year that faculty demonstrated a willingness to become involved in the life of the campus. In other words, make oneself visible as other than a classroom teacher. It was he who had mentioned her to the Pan-Hel women. Osa resented this intrusion, and besides, she had a low opinion of sororities, fraternities, and intercollegiate athletics: all were distractions from the proper business of the academy. Of course, she stood nearly alone in this, and if there were similarly-minded faculty, she had not met them yet, except for Genevieve Ricard.

Genevieve and Osa met accidentally due to a scheduling error that had assigned their classes to the same room. Both instructors stood pondering a solution, with some students in their seats and many others standing along the wall. A voice called out, “Hey, flip a coin!” And they did. Genevieve won the toss and offered to buy Osa lunch afterward. Both women found they had some things in common. Genevieve had been at Ballast for five years and faced a tenure decision. She was the youngest member of her department and found the other members hard to read. They were older and mostly part of the Ballast establishment. Osa’s experiences were similar; she mentioned signing on as the Pan-Hel advisor. Ricard groaned. “I almost ended up there, too, but I worked out something with Special Projects.”

“Special Projects? Like what?” 

“Oh, most of it is so-so, Osa, so-so. Except for the Finland Exchange, the business we heard about at the Opener. That’s turning out to be more of a headache than I thought it would be. Pfinster is something of a dunce, and he has to be prodded along on everything! I’ve had to make all the arrangements for November. It’s a pain.”

Osa felt a tightening in her stomach. 

“You mean Zander Pfinster is your boss? That should help with tenure. Isn’t he Brunkelvic’s golden puppy?”

The disdain in her voice was unmistakable. 

“You know the guy? asked Genevieve.

“I’ve met him, that’s all,” said Osa in an even tone. She was grateful that so few knew of the previous year’s incident when she had trampled this besotted man in her office corridor.

“Well, I’ve met and worked with him, but that should end in November once this Finnish business is over. Pfinster has no other ideas in the hopper involving me, which will be the end of my work with him. Cross fingers that the tenure is a done deal by then.”

When she tried to keep her tone light and indifferent, her frown and the occasional tightness in her jaw said otherwise. She was a few years older than Osa, shorter and full-figured with chestnut hair and a habit of dressing in jeans with a lab coat with “Prof. Ricard” stitched over the right breast pocket. Genevieve Ricard was of French descent, specifically Alsatian. Born in Colmar in 1949, she was now in her early forties. Her father, it was true, was a Frenchman, but her mother’s loyalties had always been with the German side of Alsatian culture. During the war, the couple had been caught up in the conflict over the region’s future: part of the German Reich or a liberated region of France? Genevieve’s mother, Elsa Ilman, was the more outspoken of the two, and after the war, military courts sentenced both to prison. They signed two-year-old Genevieve over to an American orphanage, and she was soon adopted and forgotten.

“Lucky for me, Pfinster seems to be afraid of women. Never hit on me. Sometimes stares at my butt, and that’s it. So I don’t have to worry about setting him straight. Really, the guy is an idiot, and I don’t know what Brunkelvic sees in him. Of course, that’s another idiot.”

Osa found her new friend refreshing. Unlike the crones in her department, she was exciting and realistic. The unspoken feeling among many younger faculty was that Ballast was pretending to be more than it was. Too many burned-out faculty were bored with their field and counting the days until an affordable retirement crept over their financial horizon. But it was rare to have lunch with such an irreverent person as Ricard. Of course, she had not told the whole tale: how she had sold Pfinster on the Finnish-American guy and how he fits the bill perfectly and without a lot of paperwork, linguistic challenge, and no issues such as the replacement of missing tonsils and who knew what else. The last point had been decisive, for Zander Pfinster did not have the courage to pick up the telephone and call the Mayo Clinic to inquire if they were in the business of reattaching tonsils.

After lunch, Osa and Ricard agreed to meet off campus for a TGIF drink, and it would become the first collegial friendship for either. After several weeks, Osa learned of Ev Baleinin,  Gen’s one-time liaison with the  featured speaker for the Finnish Event in early November.

One week later, in his tidy office in August Hall, Zander Pfinster was sketching out the itinerary for the visit. His yellow pad had the first sheet nearly filled with the basic outline of what was to come.

1 November    10:15 Pickup at Rockford Airport. 

Arr at 11:27. From Stockholm via MSP (United)

Met by Prof. Ricard. (Use University late-model car.)

 Lunch in Rockford with the President of the Rockford Ballast Booster Assn. Dinner on campus with Pres. Brunk.   

Lodging at the Sphagnum Inn in Pecatonica Jct.

2 November Sphagnum Breakfast–on own. (charge to room)

AM Tour of Chem Dept with Ricard

Lunch on campus

4:00 First lecture in Zange Museum auditorium. 

Topic?

3.November Day trip to Galena, IL, Mining exhibits.

Lunch with Galena Boosters U.S. Grant?

November 4 Lunch with Sons of Norway in Freeport

Second Lecture— 7:00 PM Topic?

Odeon Plethorium Auditorium

November 5 Meet with interested classes

(as arranged)

OP auditorium

 Evening concert of College Orch.  7:30 PM

Topic: (Sebelius) (Remarks?)

November 6, Third (and final) lecture

Zange Hall   7:00 PM

“Why I like being a Finn!”

November 7 Departure (Ricard to Airport).

Breakfast at Sphagnum (charge to room)

1;47 PM Republic Airlines(?) to FAR via MSP  

That’s a full week alright, thought Zander. Ricard can do the heavy lifting since she knows him. He swung his feet up on the usual corner of the desk, which had changed little since that first golden day he took over the office. Except for one change: the opposite corner now had a stacked In and Out basket. In was for incoming mail, but most of it was ideas about possible “Special Projects” suggestions that came to him. Zander had looked them over briefly, and they terrified him nearly as much as the anticipation of the looming Finland kickoff. Too much work, too many phone calls, boring meetings with the food service staff, and so on. Too many chances to become the defrocked high priest of August Hall.

And yet, there was no dodging his new responsibility, the one that had freed him from the classroom and labeled him as a “Higher Education Administrator.” Among the projects in his Inbox after the Finnish Awareness Events were the dedication of Huhn Hall in December, followed by the Job Fair for Seniors in January, the Illinois Woodwind Workshop in January, and then the Foreign Film Festival in February. March was the lecture by former Socialist Pilchard Rassmussen, “What America Has Come to Mean to Me,” and April was open. And May meant the Promenade and Graduations and Faculty Awards Ceremony. 

Too much work for one person, the thought that had propelled him to ask for a part-time assistant. He had Ricard in mind; a week later, he had asked for her reassignment to one-third administrative work for Special Projects. The reassignment surprised her; she had not been consulted, and Brunkelvic called her, and the Chemistry Department Chair in and laid it on them. The Chair tried to hide his dismay. Ricard was a very effective intro Chem 8a instructor and the only one who could do the senior-level course on Idiosyncratic Polymers. 

“So drop the polymers,” said Brunkelvic with a shrug.

 Ricard took a deep, if covert, breath and let it out slowly. Could this change lock her into tenure? 

She knew the reassignment meant covering the things that Pfinster disliked. And the first effort was at hand, the Finnish Thing as she referred to it. Now, three days before the “Thing” was to start, Ricard and Pfinster sat together in his office, sharing a quiet moment as they looked out at the autumnal glory of the Rectangle and the sun-splashed facade of the Zange Museum opposite.

“Nearly Showtime,” said Pfinster quietly. “Want to go over it again?” 

“I’ve got it nearly where I want it. Not sure yet about the topic he’ll have for us over there at The Zange. Ev told me it would be a crowd-pleaser, so I’m not worried.” 

But inside, she was worried. True, she knew Everard (Ev) Baleinen, her colleague in graduate school chemistry. She had dated him during their last year at Montana, but as his smoking weed became nearly daily, they parted ways. Still, she liked him, and he was a talker about almost anything. True, he had not had much to say about his Finnish heritage in Sebeka, Minnesota, and she had been surprised when he accepted a beginning appointment in Finland three years ago. Now he was homesick, so Ricard had gone to bat for him at Ballast. What could go wrong? she thought and shook her head, but not so much that Pfinster would notice. Good thing since he was already nervous enough.

And so, the day came November 1. Ricard met Ev Baleinin on time at Rockford International Airport. They ignored his jet lag and had a pleasant lunch at Howard Johnson’s on the Interstate before heading west to the College. Her recollection of his ability as a glib talker was confirmed when the President of the Rockford Ballast Boosters, a dentist on his day off, asked Ev his impression of Finnish Dentistry. Ev spoke confidently about implants, orthodontia, and gum diseases and how quickly Finnish crowns could be produced. Later he confessed to Genevieve that he had never been to a dentist in Finland and had not seen one in years. “But you do speak Finnish, Ev?” she asked him and learned that he usually got by with English and the household Finnish he remembered from his childhood. 

To Ricard, Ev seemed to have mellowed a bit. Yes, he was beginning to wonder about the Finnish Thing, but he had been in tough spots before. He planned to sail through the schedule set up for him, collect his honorarium and then visit his parents in Minnesota and stay for Thanksgiving before returning to Finland with his ticket provided by Ballast College Special Projects. According to his mother, Ev was a good boy, but he had a talent for fudging details when he sensed that something advantageous had come along. When he got wind of the Ballast deal and remembered that Ricard worked there, the pieces began to fall in place. The unexpected piece was that Zander Pfinster was also looking for a solution after the tonsil-reattachment issue made Ev Baleinein seem like a blessing. Baleinen still had his tonsils; Pfinster had asked about them.

Dinner with President and Mrs. Brunkelvic had gone very well. Iona Brunkelvic had started things off right after introductions by asking, “What can you tell us about Finland? We have not been there?.” Thus when Baleinin learned that the Brunkelvics were not travelers, he began to describe a country that featured reindeer, a Volvo and Saab factory, hot springs amid snow, fiords, excellent dairy products, including Havarti cheese, and also “the best rye crackers in the world.” And so it went, with Iona Brunkelvic exclaiming, “Oh, my!” and B.B. just beaming like a man who had scored big time.

Zander Pfinster introduced Baleinin to a modest audience at the Zange Auditorium at 4:00 PM on the second day. “Seated behind me on this stage is an excellent young man from Finland, though I believe he is an American in his soul, too…..” The rest was boilerplate filled with the occasional use of “honor,” “anticipation,” and ” how fortunate,” ending with, “now here is our esteemed guest to announce his topic.”

Baleinin, wearing dark glasses and a leather vest with bone buttons, stood and approached the podium. He had a reddish beard, which Ricard did not recall from the day before.

“Hello, my good sailboat lady, and what are we interested in buying today?” said Ev with a generous smile. He spoke the words in Finnish, but it was the only Finnish he offered them. 

“My topic is deceptively simple, and its title is “How the Pine Tree got its Needles.” What followed was a twenty-minute talk on the features of conifers that made them unique, with particular emphasis on the molecular structure of the resin of the Baltic Pine. From there, he devoted the remainder of his talk on mixtures of pine resin and water known collectively as “tar water,” which had been used for centuries but had lately fallen in usage. However, due to his work and others, tar water was again cited as a panacea for maintaining robust health. Baleinin concluded by thanking his audience for attending. 

“We Finns call tar water “terva,” and we like to say, and I ask you to remember it: ‘If sauna, vodka, and terva won’t help, the disease is probably fatal.” If that was a laugh line, it failed. 

The applause was somewhat tentative when he finished after 37 minutes. There were no questions other than one regarding where Americans could find pine tar products for sale. Baleinen had no idea.

For the next Event, the concert featuring Sebelius, Genevieve Ricard prepared some remarks on Finnish mythology that Baleinin could read and, frankly, look authoritative. The orchestra had prepared the composer’s En Saga, and Ev would talk for five minutes beforehand. It went well, though Ev had not prepared for his reading of the remarks, so he stumbled through them before lapsing into a repeat of his comments on tar water.

Finally, Ev gave his lecture on “Why I like being a Finn” in the Zange Auditorium  (capacity 1165)  in anticipation of a large crowd. While the group was not large, it was larger than the others because there was now the rumored hope that Ev would say something both unexpected and bizarre. The talk revolved around his affection for being Finnish because, in his estimation, they were good people, and he wanted to be one of them. He brought up the examples of how Finland saved its Jews and ferried them to neutral Sweden, how the Nobel Prize for Animal Husbandry had been a Finnish idea though not yet realized, and how the Finnish royal house had married one of its ‘most handsome princes’ into the House of Windsor. “All of these things make me very proud to be a Finn! ” 

After Ev Baleinin was gone and the Event was over, the whisperings among faculty and students came to a head. An ad hoc faculty committee was called into being at the request of Professor Sixtus Aragonus, the last member of the once prestigious and now largely liquidated Classics Department. Aragonus asked, “The Finnish Event: money well spent or (pause) money frittered away?” He took the latter view. 

Sixtus Aragonus had been at Ballast for over thirty years. He had come to Ballast as a newly-minted Classicist with an M.A. He was a son of the West and a tall, heavy man with thick silver-white curls beneath his black Greek fisherman’s cap. One of seven brothers, each named for a roman number in reverse birth order, meaning Sixtus was the second-born. Sixtus was an expert in the javelin throw and the discus in the Mountain States Games when he played for his school. His skill in ancient field events made him interested in the Classics. His Master’s Degree (Art History) was a critique of the Discobolus statuary of the Greco-Roman world. In it, he argued that sculptors had it wrong concerning the placement of the thumb. He graduated Summa Cum Laude and was quickly hired by Ballast College in 1961. He joined a lively group of young classical world scholars who dreamed of making Ballast the Athens of the Midwest. Over the years, the number of students who elected a course in classics dropped, and the department’s size shrank to where Sixtus Aragonus was the only one remaining. Sixtus survived and managed to keep enrollments in his intro sections high. Was it his powerful physique, his basso profundo voice, or his use of sculpture photos with an unabashed examination of marble buttocks and genitalia?

Now he stood before the Plenum also known as the SCQB for Senatus Collegium Qua Ballastiensis which in most colleges would be more simply known. But Sixtus has insisted on the name. As President of the Plenum, Aragon’s rose to discuss the recent Finnish Awareness Event.

“Senators! I arise to unequivocably condemn the recent risible, shameful, demanding, flat-footed, incompetent, sub-amateurish malodorous bovine feces which disgraced our college last week. You know that to which I refer!”

And they all did! While no one had seen Aragonus at any Finnish Events, all knew that he was well-informed by a system of spies recruited from among his best and most loyal students, ones drawn by his charisma. The implications of the meeting would be obvious: President B.B. Brunkelvic was on the hot seat, and the entire structure of Special Projects would be under fire. And that meant Zander Pfinster.

 Chapter Six   BALLAST PASTORALE

In the aureate i.e.golden days of autumn, the time between the sunny optimism of the Faculty Convocation in September and the gray debacle of the Finnish Event in November, the Ballast Campus was at its most lovely. Maple and elm leaves littered the walks on the Rectangle, and students and faculty alike seemed touched, however briefly, by something more profound than their day-to-day cares. So beautiful! Such a good world, this!

On Fraternity and Sorority Row, macabre preparations were underway to prepare for Homecoming later in the month. The homecoming game was against Peevus College in Iowa, a traditional foe and one that the Ballast Hounds had defeated in most years. The frats built floats while the sororities constructed stationary scenes on the Rect. The theme was, as always, to defeat Peevus and to offer them every humiliation known to humankind. Scenes of beheading, electrocution, drawing and quartering, impaling,  boiling, evisceration, crushing, poisoning, and so on were shown inflicted on the Peevus team. The irony was that no one from Peevus other than the team was apt to see all this creative mayhem since Peevus students preferred to stay in their own Iowa campus burrows, indifferent to the abuse heaped on them. So what was the point of all this?

And so Osa Spengler and Genevieve Ricard wondered and smiled indulgently, kicking dry leaves before them as they cut across the Rect to Friday lunch at the Harpp Center. They were neither amused nor irritated at what they saw.

“What are we looking at, Osa?” said Ricard. “I’m just a chemist, and I can tell you why paint dries, but all this energy for this crap…..”

Osa shook her head. “Oh, sure, ask a sociologist! Like, I know why it happens each autumn. “

“I’ll accept any half-congealed theory,”

“That’s an odd expression.”

“Sorry, I was explaining coagulation to my intro class this morning.”

“Hmm, and I was explaining terror management theory. Aside from that, unity comes out of a shared enmity.”

“Flip a coin?” laughed Genevieve. It was a reference to the coin-flip that had settled a classroom issue between them. And also inspired their friendship. Osa was about to insist on Ricard applying coagulation to what was happening on the Rect when they both saw Zander Pfinster coming out of the Harpp and toward them.

“Oh, shit,” said Genevieve, “hang on!”

Osa tightened her mouth. She had been able to avoid crossing paths with Pfinster for months. According to Genevieve, not difficult since he was “like a hermit in August Hall.” Pfinster slowed and stopped at the edge of the walk. 

“Hello, ladies!” he said in a jocular tone that rang false to them and him. “What a day, and what a rare mood we are in….” he said and then blushed as he saw the pained toleration on their faces. Very aware that she was his part-time assistant, Ricard felt the need to respond in kind.

“Yes, great day, Mr. Pfinster, “we were just crossing the Rect for lunch. Have you met my friend Dr. Osa Spengler, Sociology?”

“I think so,” said Pfinster looking as if he were trying to recall something very remote, like the date of the Battle of Borodino. Osa nodded but kept silent.

“Nice to see you both. Hey, beat Peevus!!” and he moved on.

“Jesus, what an ass!” said Genevieve Ricard.

“That man has a problem,” answered Osa. ” Did you say he is afraid of women? That must be part of it.”

“He seems to be working up some steam to ask me out. He’s been hinting at going to the Peevus game. But I told him I was not going to the game because…what  did I tell him? Something about having to watch the coagulation experiment. And he says that sounds very interesting and perhaps he could visit my lab sometime. Na- uh, no way!”

Osa smiled at her friend, then seemed to be thinking out loud. “Is he the only reasonably young and straight man available at this college?” Ricard shrugged.

 Also enjoying the Rect from his office in August Hall was B.B. Brunkelvic. The President was feeling good. He took a deep breath and folded his hands behind his head. His optimism had remained since the Convocation, and he had put aside Finland. Now, if the footballers would just trounce the generally beatable Peevus team, that would further convince him that Ballast was blessed with an annus mirabilis. B.B. and his wife were looking forward to watching the game with some close friends from Missouri, wealthy Ballast grads from the Fifties who came for Homecoming each year. The couple had just announced a donation to install paper towel dispensers in the eight restrooms of the nearly completed Huhn Hall on the East side of the Rect. Brunkelvic, grateful for this gesture of support, arranged to have the marching band play the Missouri Waltz at halftime.

The President looked at his new digital wristwatch, which was giving him trouble.  He missed the face of his Bulova with its reliable hands instead of flashing numerals. Yes, at 12:50, and in ten minutes, he would meet with six students who had requested the meeting over “student concerns.”

The thought of students in his office sitting in the chairs set in a semi-circle facing his oak desk was unpleasant. Perhaps beyond unpleasant for the President of Ballast College was uneasy in the presence of students and never more so than when they arrived with a petition for something or other. To Brunkelvic, students were on a spectrum of sub-humans or barbarians at best.They spoke with unfamiliar jargon and slangy language: “It would be cool if you…..town people are pissed if we park….would it be traumatic if…?”and so on. Brunkelvic no longer rolled his eyes, but he had a twitch over his left eyebrow during his rare encounters with them.  

Now Brunkelvic heard them in the outer office, and soon, all too soon, Lois, his secretary, would buzz him and announce their presence. He would stand to greet them and then hide his irritation as they dropped into the visitor chairs without being invited. Lois introduced them as Rick, Josh, Roger, Mort, and the women, Ann and Corinne. Brunkelvic led off with his hopes that the Peevus game on Saturday would be a good one, by which he meant the annihilation of the Iowans. The students did not pick up the thread; instead, they began their pitch.

“Sir, we understand that the new classroom building will be called Huhn Hall. Sir, we don’t know who Huhn is or was. We had the thought, and many students are behind us; we have an alternative name. Why, Sir, couldn’t it be called Blackhawk Hall?”

Brunkelvic managed his half-smile, the one he had perfected after many years of enduring situations, not to his liking. He was annoyed at the overuse of “Sir.” He looked at the spokesperson, Rick, a young man with his ball cap backward and the plastic strap over his forehead. A glance showed that the other men and one of the women had the same hat treatment. Where did that all start? That and the torn jeans. Brunkelvic’s principal and only verbal faculty critic, Sixtus Aragonus, had likened the President to an elitist Walmart manager who privately disdained the mass of his customers as low-class swine, forgetting that his status depended on their mindless consumerism. It was not that B.B. Brunkelvic did not strive to keep the image and the physical plant of Ballast intact. It was that of all the components that made a college a living organism; the student body was the least compelling and, often, the most loathsome to him. When President BBB appeared he seemed alone, walking the thirty feet from his parking space to the door of August Hall and then the elevator upstairs and then past Lois and through the door to his office, a hideout. His public appearances, such as the Opening Convocation, were carefully orchestrated, lacking genuine warmth or convincing spontaneity. 

Brunkelvic suspected this, and as long as he could avoid adverse publicity for Ballast and keep enrollments healthy, wasn’t that enough? Not quite. He

also hoped to keep Sixtus Aragonus from leading a charge to remove him. Fortunately, Sixtus was nearly as reclusive as Brunkelvic, and the President only occasionally heard rumors of Aragonus’ latest utterance demeaning him. And the latest had been something along the lines of the emperor’s new clothes with the implication that Brunkelvic was “intellectually naked” and operating on “the fumes of vanity”  “Fumus Vanitatis!” Aragonis’ use of Latin, or nearly so,  irritated Brunkelvic even further. That phrase was one Aragonus used whenever the topic of Ballast’s leadership arose. As the rest of the administrative team was too insignificant to notice, Aragonus left them alone. That included Zander Pfinster, the “new lapdog,” as Sixtus had referred to him the only time he mentioned him at all. 

“Umm, Professor Aragonus thought it was a good idea, so we know we have his support,” said Rick in a helpful tone. 

“That so?, said Brunkelvic evenly. Damn! Sixtus was behind many things that burrowed into his peace of mind. 

“Let me say this, Rick, that’s your name? I think you students have an idea there, and, let me explain, this will require me to talk it over with the Huhn family. They are the ones pushing for Huhn Hall, and they are paying for a lot of this project. They have funded some of the matching grants that encouraged some of our alums to pitch in. You see where this is going.”

“But President Brunkelvic, Sir, who knows a forgotten professor and who does not know about the heroism of Chief Blackhawk in this part of the state and the whole region.” It was the plaintive voice of Corinne, who seemed near honest tears. “This land was once the Sac and Fox tribal homeland, and we need to remember that.”

Brunkelvic retorted. “We do remember them. We name our counties, towns, and rivers after them. We have high schools, golf courses, and what not all after them! I myself once lived on a Blackhawk Circle as a newlywed. We named our cat Blackhawk, Iona and I did.”

Corinne lowered her eyes and became silent. The meeting was over. Brunkelvic stood up and, in a low voice, said, “I have not said no, so stay tuned.” The students filed out, frustrated. 

A quarter mile west of The Rect and partially obscured by Veezen Hall,

The Pond was a feature of the Pecatonica Rivers since the days when beaver had established themselves there. The creatures were gone, but The Pond was their legacy, kept in its historic configuration by a small concrete dam at the egress point of the river. A narrow walkway crossed the damn and served as the continuation for a gravel path around the Pond itself—a total walking distance between one-quarter and one-third of a mile. Walking around The Pond, hands behind his back, was Sixtus Aragonus. He was taking his daily walk instead of lunch, which he had established as a habit more than a dozen or more years earlier in the interest of carefully dieting and getting fresh air. Sixtus walked alone, nor did he wish companionship except for the mallard ducks to whom he threw day-old pita bread from a second wooden walkway where Gastric Creek entered The Pond. 

Rick ,recently departed from August Hall and Brunkelvic’s office, approached him from a counter-clockwise passage around the Pond. Sixtus knew Rick and liked him. After a few pleasantries, Rick told Sixtus of his meeting with the President. “We learned that he had a cat named Blackhawk on his honeymoon!”

“ Oh, hell. Don’t give up, Rick. Here’s a better idea.  Keep up the pressure to eliminate the Huhn name; we know we can’t defeat the Huhn money. So, just when things are looking ugly, the papers as far off as Chicago will get wind of it, and then there will come, out of nowhere, that Brunkelvic should commission a statue of Blackhawk to stand in front of Huhn Hall. They will be desperate for a compromise, and that statue will do more to memorialize the Chief than another boring building. Not a word to anyone. Plenty of time for that later.”

Rick smiled. His intuition told him that it would work out just as Aragonus predicted. He shook hands with the older man and departed. Aragonus continued his walk. It was a glorious day on the Ballast campus. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black windbreaker and increased his pace. But then he glimpsed a piece of litter and picked it up. It was a candy bar wrapper! Aragonus, unknown to anyone, collected candy bar wrappers. He  ironed them flat at home and placed them in an album. Today’s wrapper was a disappointment, an Oh, Henry! which he already had.

Chapter 7    THE BLACKHAWK RESOLVE

The rage of Sixtus Aragonus had been on full display at the Faculty Plenum, but that was not expected to be the end. As noted, the Classics professor had connections. One of these was to the editors of several regional newspapers, which reached nearly 70% of the area that drew Ballast students. High School counselors, parents, and prospective students read those news items. Most of them had recently focused on the comedic elements of Ev Baleinen’s presentation during the Finnish Awareness.  The Galena paper featured a cartoon showing B.B. Brunkelvic drinking tar water from a cow’s horn flagon.

Aragonus next contacted his friends who were influential in the Ballast Boosters, and through them, the powerful Huhn family in Chicago would be interested, too. Now, mused Sixtus Aragonus was his moment. But what moment was this? 

Academic grudges are unlike political grievances, where pragmatic calculations smooth things over in the party’s interests. In Academia, there is no party, only frequent self-interest at the expense of the community. Once two or more tenured faculty members lock horns, the dispute may take on a permanent life. Since each combatant had already garnered all available prizes regarding promotions, salary, and a comfortable class schedule, most were turf battles fought over small chunks of worn sod. Aragonus had more in mind: he wanted Brunkelvic out of August Hall and buried in some department forever, forgotten as a humiliated minor player in the life of Ballast College.

What had Brunkelvic done? He had, in effect and playfully so, placed a figurative dunce cap on the magnificently curled hair of Sixtus Aragonus. The occasion, some years earlier, was the introduction he gave Sixtus when was introduced to the entire Ballast community at the 1985 Commencement exercise. Sixtus had been chosen to help pass out diplomas on stage because of his magnificent classical look: a big man, fit, and with a head of curls. A kind of Adonis.

Brunkelvic had introduced him to the audience in the stadium as “Master Sixtus Aragonus of our wonderful Classics department. He comes to us from a great university in the West. He is a Master, with a Master’s Degree, and someday he will be a Doctor, a real Ph. D. because that is the goal of most faculty, just as the goal of so many of our students here today was to prove that graduation is achievable. Do you agree, Master Aragonus?”

Aragonus managed to nod and raise a hand in limp greeting to the assemblage. He felt sick, nauseated by his hick of a President who could not have humiliated him more. He clenched his teeth and swore that this was an outrage to be answered. Where did Brunkelvic get the idea that one had to have a doctorate to be a competent instructor? Yes, yes, of course, he could have frittered away the requisite years grinding away at some inconsequential topic, and yes, yes, those who preferred to do so did make the occasional contribution to the field. And yet, would his likely dissertation directly affect the substance of his teaching? The topic he had in mind was tentatively something about the rise in interest in tropical fish during the time of Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasian in the first century CE.. 

“Go for it!” said his academic advisors at Eastern Montana. “No one else is doing interdisciplinary work in Ichthyology and any branch of Classics. At least not yet, so get in there!” But he hadn’t, and he chose to bed down at Ballast with his Masters and endure the doltish Brunkelvic.

Aragonus stooped to pick up a candy bar wrapper, a Whiz Bar, and, after reading it, he folded it carefully. He walked to the nearest trash can and pretended to deposit it. And now Aragonus had a plan, and it was, to his mind, a masterpiece that would end with eliminating Brunkelvic. The components:

1. Push the idea of Blackhawk 

    2.    Involve the Huhn Family Foundation

    3. Get the Panhellenic Council on board

    4.   GORT, on May Day

A day later, walking the Pond’s circumference again, Aragonus waved Rick and Corinne over. He felt his heart beating–this was the start! Trying to remain calm and making eye contact with the students, Sixtus told them that once they had gotten the anticipated negative response from the President, it would be time to raise the temperature over this issue on the normally phlegmatic Ballast campus. 

“What are your social action resources?” he asked Rick and Corinne. “You showed the clout to mount a few noisy demonstrations over food choices at Harpp, and all without property damage. So you have some credibility. There is student newspaper in which the Blackhawk name can show up everywhere. I’ll have a friend in Chicago make BH buttons–have BH on them with a feather or something. Blackhawk becomes a cause celebre here at Ballast. What do you think?” Sixtus tried to calm his breathing, but he was excited now.

“You mean we can do this stuff as soon as Brunky says no to us?”

Sixtus was heartened by the enthusiasm he saw in their faces. This thing was going to work. And three days later, Rick, Corinne and two others revisited the President’s office and heard the expected “no.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m a history buff, and I have always admired Native Americans. But the Huhn Foundation has made it pretty clear they want to honor Simon Huhn. And they have the deep pockets this project needs. The late Professor Emeritus Simon Huhn was a first cousin to the Huhn Foundation Chairperson. I hope that clears it up.”

“This college sits on land that once belonged to the Sac and Fox people.” blurted Corinne her face reddening. Brunkelvic looked towards the campus as if trying to imagine a collection of teepees on the Rect. He shook his head slightly. The meeting was over.

Three days later, in the morning, Brunkelvic drew back the office drapes. He groaned. Fifteen signs were planted on the lawn facing his office, All of them in support of Blackhawk and demanding respect for “our neighbor” by affixing his name to the new building. The newspapers picked up the story. This was exciting stuff for Ballast since the college was, in the opinion of one Rockford television channel, “incapable of generating news.” The protest was changing that. On the fourth day since Brunkelvic vetoed Blackhawk, several Native American civil rights organizations noticed, and the story spread throughout the Plains States. Once the broader student body saw their new notoriety as a college, they began a march around the Rect, then Brunkelvic appeared in effigy hanging from a lamppost. Later it was torched in a scene shown by (and for) ABC News.

On the evening of that day, as Sixtus Aragonus watched the local news at 10:00, he learned that there was talk of a student strike. In an interview, several younger math department members stated that the faculty was “getting interested” and were meeting with students in what they described as a solidarity council. Aragonus thought it might now be time to go to his plan’s second and third steps, the involvement of the alum group, the Ballast Boosters. Though hastily arranged, weekend meetings were scheduled at the Huhn Foundations headquarters on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Sixtus, ponderous presence that he was on the Faculty Plenum would run the conference, including students, faculty, and representatives of the Sac and Fox Nations. And, of course, media. Barbara Walters was standing by and signaled a willingness to interview Cyrus Huhn and BB Brunkelvic, either together or separately, whatever seemed to work best for both. 

Meanwhile, work had stopped on Huhn Hall, and the actual dedication was postponed from December until May, in conjunction with the commencement exercises for May 1991. Brunkelvic planned to announce the resolution to the Blackhawk impasse on the eve of Thanksgiving Day, carefully chosen because most, if not all, students would be off-campus for the holiday. Brunkelvic was confident that the Huhn Foundation would dig in its heels and refuse the name change. And that would be that!

On the Saturday morning before the Thanksgiving holiday, cars began to leave from the Ballast Campus and the Rockford branch of the Boosters. All were bound for Lake Geneva. Aragonus decid not be in attendance at the conference. He had masterfully put the actors into motion and became a mere background organizer. Whatever happened, he did not want to be associated with the outcome. Except for occasional bombastic orations before the Faculty Plenum, as was the case with the fallout from the Finnish Event, Aragonus preferred the style of a puppeteer. He had set students, Brunkelvic, the Boosters, and even the Huhn Foundation into motion, and whatever the outcome, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he could shape history. 

Now, unexpectedly, Sixtus was given a chance to refine his thinking.

Two thoughts were converging. The first was to offer a compromise to the Huhn Hall log jam. Keep the building named as it was intended, thus pleasing the Huhns. Then position a statue in the Rect near the main entrance of Huhn. This intended statue featured Blackhawk with a suitable plaque noting that Ballast was on Blackhawk’s territory, that he defended his people, and was, in that sense, a great patriot.

The second part of the new formulation in the mind of Aragonus was to pass the suggestion of the statue and the compromise solution to B.B. Brunkelvic himself. Why this about-face? Because Aragonus realized that this President represented the devil he knew. Why take a chance on some new snot who would try to impose his stamp on Ballast? No guarantee of what might happen, even perhaps, the final liquidation of the Classics Program. No, better to stay with a “useful idiot” and control him with a favor: making him the author of the Huhn Hall solution. As for the statue, that would have to be worked out and quickly.

Brunkelvic appreciated the gesture and managed to sit on the statue compromise until the afternoon session at Lake Geneva. When he offered it, all parties broke into smiles. So perfect! Huhn Hall and honoring Blackhawk, together as a symbol of the benevolence to the Huhns and of Ballast College, and especially B.B.Brunkelvic whose name, as he envisioned it, would be inscribed with that of Chief Blackhawk on the plaque. The compromise was announced to the public Saturday afternoon by a smiling Brunkelvic. It was curious, as was noted later, that no one asked anything at all about the statue. As it turned out, the devil was indeed in the details.

Blessedly oblivious to the Huhn-Blackhawk issue was Zander Pfinster. After the Finnish Event and Aragonus accusation, Special Projects had become something of a blot upon the college’s reputation. Then the problem began to lose traction, and attention shifted to the Huhn-Blackhawk matter. Genevieve Ricard returned to her Chemistry lab and was told to resume her teaching duties until called upon for some future need in Special Projects. No one blamed her for the Finnish debacle. Ricard expressed her relief to Osa Spengler at their regular Friday Happy Hour, which was now held at the Railsplitter Inn in Rockford. Pecatonica Junction was, after all, a fishbowl, and so were the other communities closer to the campus. 

“I’m plain gobsmacked that I dodged that bullet,” said Ricard while dipping the olives in and out of her martini. “And I don’t think Pfinster realized how bad this thing could have been.” The last I saw him, he zipped over to the Wormy.” [Wormy was the nickname among all except the librarians who worked there for the Wurmknecht library] “Maybe he’s on assignment to find an image of Chief Blackhawk. How much trouble would that get him into?”

“That reminds me,” said Osa, “at the latest Panhellenic Council, the President of Omega Mu Gamma raised the possibility that the Greeks would foot the bill if the statue were within their budget. Then another guy said his uncle had a statue in his garage that might be up for a new home. Then a girl suggested that the art department have a contest to make one. It was refreshing to have all those ideas, and I told them to forward them to President Brunkelvic.”

“I take it you didn’t want to go to Brunky yourself?”

“No, ma’am! Brunky is too weird for me. Did you ever notice how instead of reacting to whatever you say, he just stares at you for a minute which can be very unnerving. And then he has this twitch or tic. Has this happened to you, too?”

Ricard nodded. 

“Have you ever talked one-on-one to Pfinster? No? Well, avoid it. The man has the worst halitosis ever. And I know malodorous chemistry! Honestly, it’s somewhere between the ape house at a zoo and, well…hard to describe. Maybe cadaverine and putrescine.”

“You’re pulling my leg!”  Osa congratulated herself that her encounter with Zander Pfinster was still a secret, but honestly, she had not noticed anything like ape stench coming from him, just beer and whiskey.

Osa gave a little shudder. “I hate halitosis, and I swear half my department has one variety or another. Those meetings to discuss nothing and held in a small room that used to be the rat lab for biology. Every two weeks. Pure hell. I pretend I have a cold and hold a cloth with menthol rub up to my nose.”

“That bad?”

“That bad! And then, the Chair suggested we meet at his home for a “glass of cheer,” as he put it, and then go to the Christmas Concert as a department. I mean, give me a break!”

Ricard was laughing. ” Are you going? Aren’t we all part of the Great Ballast Family? Would it help you to know that Pfinster said to me that perhaps we would bump into each other at the concert? No way!”

Osa smiled. She knew what it was to bump into Zander Pfinster. “Well, anyway, a two-week break follows that ordeal, and that leaves the Spring Semester.” 

They raised their glasses and drained the martinis in a toast.

Chapter Eight   GORT 

January 1991. The Pond was frozen and had been since mid-December skaters had appeared on the ice, most of them looking awkward after a long period off skates. Winter was there and icy winds slashed between the buildings. A few pipes had burst in August Hall and the newer Veezen Center. The contractors over at the nearly finished Huhn Hall had shut off the water rather than risk a plumbing issue in the soon to be occupied building.

In his chilly office in August Hall, President B.B Brunelvic rubbed his hands together before picking up a phone. His call was to his friend in Missouri with whom he and his wife attended the homecoming game each October. The last game, against Peevus College, had been such an embarrassment that neither man wanted to be reminded of it. One of several disappointments of the Fall Semester, but the others were also cringeworthy to Brunkelvic. The Finland Awareness project was awful, and there would be no exploration of academic exchanges with that or any other country for a while. Then came the great flap over the naming of Huhn Hall and the compromise to honor Blackhawk with a statue on the Rectangle.

What had promised to be a brilliant stroke of sensitive leadership, the idea of a statue slipped to him by his otherwise nemesis, Sixtus Aragonus, now was in shambles. In the first wave of enthusiasm, Brunkelvic accepted Omega Mu’s offer to provide an equestrian statue of Blackhawk. Still, after reviewing photos, the President and his wife noted that the statue was made of concrete and was yet another copy of the familiar “End of the Trail” in which a defeated Native American sat slumped over his exhausted horse, no more fight left in him. The concrete had not allowed much detail, so the figure was, as Mrs. Brunkelvic put it, “kinda rough, dontcha think?” 

“Well, maybe we should see it close up and not as a photo,” Brunkelvic said quietly. He was hoping it would work and get him out of a fix, so two days after New Year, they agreed to drive to Galesburg and look at the thing. One glance told them that it was unsuitable. It had been vandalized somewhere, and while the rider was left untouched, the horse was painted over with a medium shade of green with its ears and genitalia sprayed bright orange. The price was reasonable, $1800.00, and the owner offered to have it sandblasted clean. No guarantee on what the total effect would be; sometimes sandblasting creates new problems and so on.

So Brunkelvic was in August Hall, talking on the phone to his friend in Missouri if he had any ideas. And he had. The first was to “retrofit” a Confederate soldier by changing the face and headgear (remove the cap, replace it with a feather) then wrap the whole thing in a copper blanket. 

“No thanks, said Brunkelvic; they already think I’m a fool. Sounds too much like that ugly thing in Galesburg. Well, thanks, call me if you have something. We need it up soon, like February first. The building goes into service for us about then, and dedication later in the year when the weather is good. Find something and get it here in time; I trust your judgment.”

On January twenty-eighth, Brunkelvic’s friend delivered. He had arranged for a pedestal with bronze letters proclaiming “Blackhawk 1776-1851” followed by “Osage Leader” The statue was yet another copy of “The End of the Trail” in aging bronze. Some damage had occurred in the past: the horse’s left hind leg was missing a hoof and part of the tail.  Blackhawk was missing his left hand. Brunkelvic explained this as appropriate and symbolic of the damage done to indigenous cultures. “May we never forget,” intoned Brunkelvic as he pulled down the drapery that hid the statue. That evening a powerful blizzard covered northern Illinois with 14 inches of snow. Blackhawk and his horse were covered with sleet, giving both horse and rider ragged beards.

Brunkelvic tried to avoid walking near the statue or even looking in that

direction. “Denial,” he muttered to himself. He assumed this would all pass just as the Finnish Event seemed to be nearly forgotten because so few had attended the talks on tar water and whatnot. And the demand for a name change for Huhn Hall had attracted some unsavory commentary in the press. Problem solved by utilizing a shoddy statue! And the disaster at Homecoming, when Peevus College from out there in the boonies of Missouri had beaten them 38-6. Several of the floats on the Rect were torched in disgust at the home team’s feeble efforts. Kind of a mixed year but not a champion year in any sense. There was no setting aside the discontent he felt. What to do? What could be done?

Looking at his Spring Semester calendar, Brunkelvic noted that the last day of March was penciled in as Klaatu Daze, the annual showing of the film  “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Other than a showing of the movie with a good deal of hooting by the fraternity that sponsored it, including some inappropriate commentary whenever Patricial Neal appeared on screen, it was a one-day event followed by the usual surreptitious binge drinking in frat houses. The college did not officially endorse Klaatu Daze, but Brunkelvic tolerated it. To oppose it would invite unrest, and there had been enough for the year with the Blackhawk affair.

“Ah…….Gort!” Brunkelvic whispered to his empty office. He would create a more significant event out of a smaller one, a chance to showcase Ballast’s creativity by bringing out the robot prototype as an attraction. Bring in the media, maybe invite someone connected with the film, and perhaps one of the actors could come on campus and testify to Hollywood and academia’s happy marriage. He phoned Zander Pfinsater and set up a meeting.

“And Zandy, find out who the faculty advisor is for the frat community and invite them along. I’ve got an idea to kick around.”

At their Happy Hour meeting in Rockford on Friday afternoon, Osa and Genevieve reviewed the week.

“I was flabbergasted!” said Osa in a weary tone. “I picked up the phone, and it’s your (ha-ha) boss, Zandy, asking me to come to a meeting in Brunky’s office last Tuesday. “What’s it about?” I ask. “I don’t know, is all he says. 4:00 PM” What could I say besides ‘OK’?”

“Stop right there!” Genevieve laughed. “I’m a bit ahead of you. I got called back into duty, full class load or not, and get this; I get to check out how Ballast invented the robot for The Day The Earth Stood Still. And to get the damn things operational, whatever that means. I have yet to see it, but I hear it’s seven feet tall and needs a new mechanism if it’s gonna do more than just stand there looking stupid.”

“That sounds easier than my assignment,” said Osa There was a sardonic tone in her voice and a frown on her face. “But first, let me tell you about the meeting. Brunky seems out to lunch on this whole thing, and he sure did not remember that Zandy and I had that alleged scandal last year. Or maybe he was pretending. I told you about that incident a few weeks ago, didn’t I? I haven’t seen or talked to either man since then. I mean, Brunky has no functioning intuition about people, and he’s a loon.”

“Well, Who arrived first?” asked Genevieve.

“Zandy did, so when I walked into Bunky’s office, there he sat, looking a bit nervous, I will say that. “Hello, Mr. Pfinster,” was all I said. And he nodded. That was it. And as I said, Brunky was on some other planet. Anyway, my ‘assignment’ is to bring the Panhellenics around to understand that what was a bacchanalia for them will now be a respectable event with an academic twist.”

“Good luck with that! Well, you can bitch and moan to me. You know what I think. I think Brunky is heading for another debacle. Have you seen that miserable statue out there in front of Huhn? And by the way, the paper towel dispensers in that building, the ones donated by some hayseeds in Missouri? They don’t work.”

Huhn Hall was slowly filling up with faculty offices on the third and fourth floors, and the lower levels had classrooms. Not all were pleased with the result. The prime offices faced the Rect, but even here, the seniority rule conflicted with the number of square feet per office, the color scheme (avocado and burnt orange), or the noise level from toilets flushing nearby. Also, would toilets be off-limits to students who wandered to the upper floors, each of which had two restrooms? Smoking was prohibited everywhere; the first Ballast building to become completely smoke-free. Sixtus Aragonus, a veteran cigar man, refused the new office and stayed in his brown study in the Zange Museum.

Changes were also evident with the equestrian Blackhawk statue. A replacement copper tail was affixed to Blackhawk’s horse. The missing rear left foot of the horse was replaced by a boar’s foot. The rider’s missing hand became an aluminum stump. The increasingly patchwork look of the statue  invited graffiti, much of it including the seasonal placement of snowballs to mimic horse apples. 

And finally, several weeks earlier, the Governor of Illinois dropped in on a helicopter, a pre-arranged visit he did biannually on most state campuses. It had been pre-arranged, and Brunkelvic was expected to greet the man when he emerged from the machine. But he did not, due to a “scheduling error.” Embarrassment all around, made worse when it so happened that Sixtus Aragonus, who looked so much more presidential than Brunkelvic, was misidentified as he walked across the Rect. Sixtus rose to the occasion and greeted the Governor heartily, and he avoided showing Blackhawk on his horse. Brunkelvic and Aragonus both knew that the visit had increased what the President owed the professor.

Those were the causes for the meeting with Pfinster and Spengler. B.B. Brunkelvic was not having a good year, had his detractors, and suffered from imposter syndrome. 

As he told his patient wife at least once a week, “I feel like I’m faking this whole thing. This is supposed to be higher education, but it feels like middle school. This morning I stopped to use the restroom in the Wurm, and there, written above a roll of toilet paper, someone had written, “Ballast Diplomas, Take One.”

Mrs. B shrugged. She worked as a psychiatric nurse at the state hospital in Rockford and was a good listener, but not part of the Ballast family. She was there when B.B. needed a consort, and she did so with good cheer. Privately, the peculiarities of many of her patients at the hospital seemed almost coherent when she thought about the faculty in general. After attending faculty events, she usually was heard to say something like  “What is this.B.B, a college or a holding tank for folks that can’t make it elsewhere? Jesus F. Christ in the A.M.” That was Mrs. B–and B.B. just sighed. He knew she was referring to him, too, but making six figures hopefully gave him something of a pass with her, but he was not sure. Was he imagining that she seemed more distant lately? 

Middle School or College, Brunkelvic needed a boffo finish for the school year. After explaining his expectations to Osa, he abruptly said the meeting was over. Osa thanked him, but for what she could not imagine, and left the office. Pfinster stayed longer to get a sense of the costs of the event. Osa dreaded having to deal with the Panhellenic Council. Zander hated to be responsible for overseeing the financing of the event. His current personal finances, if known, would have warned Brunkelvic. Managing a budget was not his strength. His checking account at Farmers Exchange Bank was overdrawn, and his credit card had reached its limit. The rent was coming due, and he had recently sold an older stereo system, some baseball cards,  and a Kitchenaid mixer in the want ads.

Meanwhile, Genevieve Ricard was dealing with the custodian of the heating plant, which stood behind Veezen Hall. Four large boilers prepared steam for the pipes that warmed the campus from October until May. Behind boiler number 3, on a shelf, lay the prototype of Gort, the famous robot of the hit movie in which an alien (played by Michael Rennie) lectures the planet on the need for galactic peace and warns Earthlings of the unimaginable destruction to be visited upon them if they did not shape up. Gort, on its massive clumping feet, stood eight feet tall, moved very slowly if motorized, and had a visor that opened and emitted deadly rays if needed. But Gort was in bad shape and couldn’t do much of anything. Ricard decided to skip the walking function and spend her allocation on the visor, which could be operated remotely by fitting it with some electromagnets from a Lionel train set. She sent away for a tape with a soundtrack from the movie once she learned that no one knew how to play the creepy instruments like the theremin used to such good effect in so many space/alien films. By early April, she was ready to arrange for Gort to stand in front of Veezen Hall on the Rect and make ominous sounds while raising and lowering its visor. To Ricard privately,  Gort merely looked stupid.

For Osa, the completion of her assignment was less straightforward. Perhaps that was because she was dealing with a dozen members of the Panhellenic Council and not one dusty robot. The Council met at the Omega Mu house on leafy Willow Street, a block off the campus. The street was lined with fraternity and sorority houses, some well-maintained, others needing paint or masonry work. The Omega Mu Gamma house needed new concrete work for its walk. Sorority dues had not been adequate, and the national office had been reluctant to contribute money because the house was one of the oldest on the street and might reasonably attract some monies from historic preservationists.

But that was not all. Three months earlier, a young woman fell down the stairway to the second floor. She rolled down through the curve on the stairway and halted against an umbrella stand near the front door. The incident happened early in the morning as she attempted to enter the house after several hours of playing drinking games at a neighboring fraternity house. It was a game that imposed penalties, one being either to describe a fantasy sexual act or to drink a bottle of beer. The other players, primarily men, judged whether the description was erotic or disgusting. Most female players, fearing the judgment of the others, chose to chug-chug yet another bottle of beer. And so, the impaired sister returned to the Omega Mu house and climbed the stairs, losing her grip on the railing at the top. The ensuing fall woke no one, and she lay unconscious until discovered by an early riser at 5:00 AM. Someone called an ambulance.  She returned to Ballast two days later, briefly mumbling about a vision, and then became mute, unless she was shown an umbrella. Then she shrieked. 

The vision was that she arose and attempted to reach her room on the second floor. As she climbed the stairs for the second time that night, her feet left faint green patterns on the steps, and voices began to implore her to turn around and go to The Pond on campus. She hesitated and soon felt pulled down the stairs and floated high above the buildings to the Pond with an umbrella in her hand. There, two older women awaited her and dressed her in ceremonial garb. They lowered her into the water. She screamed, but no sound came forth. Then she was again on the stairs and climbing them but without colored footprints. 

The story electrified her sorority sisters, who were deeply impressed and declared the staircase off-limits. From then on, passage to the second floor was via a fire escape on the side of the building. The house took on a hushed, derelict atmosphere. A mood of expectation was palpable.  The young woman whose mystifying experience had started it all no longer spoke at all and so could not offer any insight into her “event” which was assumed to be spiritual, extraterrestrial, or purely evil. After a week she returned home to Peoria. 

When Osa approached the Omega house, she saw a large man with thick white hair, part curly, part haystack, a look favored by rumpled professors. She had seen this man before but not often enough to place him–was he the one who had so eviscerated Brunkelvic over the Finnish Event? She had also seen him through the window of the smoking lounge at the Wurmknecht Library. He had a large cigar in his right hand.

“Who are you?” said Sixtus Aragonus. His tone was meant to be challenging as if she was unexpected and perhaps unqualified.

“Osa Spengler. And who are you?”

He stared at her and then gave her form a sweep from the ankles to the eyebrows with perhaps a noticeable pause at the breast level. Assuming he was not about to identify himself and he may not have heard her,

Osa broke the awkward silence.   

“I’m here as a liaison for the President in connection with an event in April. I’m supposed to meet with Panhellenic members here. This is the Omega Mu Gamma house?

“Yes, yes, oh, I see. We have not met” He extended his large right hand. “Sixtus Aragonus, Classics.”

“Osa Spengler….”

“Oh, yes, “Why Sociology?” Am I right?”

Osa stared at him. “You know my book?”

“Absolutely!” He laughed loudly.

“Well, good to hear, but I must be at a meeting here.”

Aragonus looked at her and became solemn. “I think we should meet to talk about the Greeks here at Ballast. You should know some things; I’ll  ring you up.” He had rolled his eyes while he talked.

Osa entered the house. The place seemed empty, and she called out, “Anybody home?” Soon, two women glided soundlessly through a swinging door out of an adjoining room. They softly spoke their names, and Osa and the women sat on opposite ends of an enormous beige sectional. Osa had prepared a statement which she recited in a near whisper. The house had gotten to her, too.

”I’ll come to the point. As you know, the President and the Special Projects Office have mapped out some changes for the annual Klaatu Fest, which has been the top-rated all-campus event sponsored by the Panhellenic council for some years. This year, President Brunkelvic wants to expand it to showcase Ballast’s role in developing the robot figure, Gort. We have Gort ready to be displayed. We also want to repeat the film’s showing and have some faculty comment on its place in defining a new world order now that the Cold War has ended and we are at the beginning of a time of historical convergence.”

The two younger women stared at Osa and then let their gaze rest elsewhere, one at her manicured hands and the other at the large clock on the wall. 4:45 PM. Neither one spoke. What was it that seemed to cause apparent consternation? Was it “historical convergence,” a concept that might not be familiar to either of them? Then one of them, a chubby girl wearing bib overalls and a pink tee shirt, looked at Osa and spoke in a near-whisper while darting occasional looks at her companion.

“Well. the P.C., you know Pancouncil, is working on some issues which have to do with compliance with the Pan’s Charter and List of Values. We think that we can turn the corner on that soon. Professor Aragonus, maybe you saw him leaving here? He’s our advisor, and he’s such a huge help. We need to work some things, some things, out.”

“I’m sure you’re all busy. My being here only has to do with getting everyone on board.” All Osa had left to explain was that Ballast College would not agree to continue Klaatu Fest as the usual bacchanalia. And that the President wanted this strictly enforced. One of the girls nodded, perhaps too vigorously, and the other sighed and began to wring her hands.

When Osa returned to her office in Huhn a little after 5:00, she scanned the directory to see if either Classics or Aragonus were listed as housed in the new building, but they were not. She took the stairs to the top floor and entered her office. The phone was ringing, and it was Sixtus Aragon.

Chapter Nine  KLAATU

Sixtus was direct.. 

“I know this sounds forward as hell, but we need to talk about the Panhellenic thing. I don’t know how much you know, but there is a bunch you need to know, Dr. Spengler. And Dr.Spengler, have you had your evening meal yet? If not, I suggest we meet at that little Greek place just off campus on Pioneer Street. Do you know it? Any we can do this?”

Osa paused. “Well, I haven’t had my dinner, and I can’t set aside the urgency in your voice. Seven o’clock.”

Sixtus tried not to sound too grateful. “Oh, many thanks; yes, seven is perfect.”

When Osa arrived at The Odyssey, she spotted Sixtus in a distant booth, quite apart from the other guests. The familiar odor of Greek cooking was reassuring. She slid into the booth and noticed a bottle of white wine on the table.

“Do you like retsina? It really isn’t turpentine.” he smiled

“No, I’ll just order myself a glass of the red.” There was, she hoped, no

mistaking that she would not be his guest.

“Get a pint carafe; we’ll be here a spell.” Another smile.

Osa glanced at him and ordered the pint of Rhoditis.

Skipping the usual introductory small talk, Sixtus launched into what was on his mind. To Osa, looking at him, guessed that he was trying to reassure her.

“So, I am the faculty advisor to the frats and sororities, all eleven. I have been for nine years since I volunteered. It has nothing to do with the Classics, and I still am mystified why these groups got hooked up with the Greek alphabet,  but I don’t care either.  I was curious what you were doing on my little piece of turf,”said Aragonus in a mock-serious manner designed to further reassure her. But Osa remained wary.

“Well, I’ve been assigned to be a liaison to the Greeks and their being on board for the Kaatufest,” said Osa who felt she needed to say something. Her wine arrived, and the waiter poured a glass, and she took a sip.

“I assume Brunky pressured you into being a faculty advisor for the Panhel . That would be B.B. Brunkelvic trying to nudge me into deeper oblivion at Ballast. I like those kids; I have a rapport with most of them, and you’ll be the third one he has appointed in the last few years. The trouble is, the Panhel gets along with me and trusts me not to frown on their little intrigues. That’s why you won’t get much out of them in the way of a relationship. See, they are very protective of me, and I am of them.”

“Protective?”

“Yeah, if you have not figured it out, Brukelvic doesn’t give a rat’s ass about students and the frats, especially because they sooner or later generate bad press for Ballast, and as CEO, the buck stops at his desk. That could disturb his naps. I don’t hide my feelings about him, but he’s a fraud, an empty suit, and a dolt. He’d love to get rid of me, but he can’t because of, well, just because.”

“Tenure?” Osa said simply. The waiter came, and they placed their orders. Sixtus, the lamb platter. Osa, spanakopita

”Tenure is not what it once was,” said Sixtus, shaking his head enough to make his white curls move. If they want to get you, they will. Fortunately, he’s not riding very high this year with all those blunders along the way. That mess with Finland. That statue of whomever they think it is. Even that game with Peevus College and the Boosters are royally pissed! So he minds his manners.”

Their food arrived. Osa Spengler was getting an earful, and some things were falling into place, especially after Sixtus volunteered that he had yet to figure out why Brunkelvic would back a hopeless mess like “that Pfinster.” They talked a while longer about other things—Sixtus on books, Osa on music, and ceramics.  He put down his fork and looked around before bringing up the topic that had brought him to dine with Osa.

“Here’s the thing….the frats and sororities are about to go off like a chain of volcanos!” Sixtus closed his eyes as if in disbelief.

“Now that does sound serious!.”

Aragonus provided Osa with a lengthy narrative on the competitive nature of the fraternities and how each wanted to be the dominant Greek organization at Ballast. Traditionally this had been done by demonstrations of wealth, automobiles, other consumerist symbols, whatever worked. The audience was, of course, the other frats and then the sororities who chose their partners carefully and hoped to date men from highly ranked frats. That was the traditional way. But, for reasons perhaps a sociologist would understand—so said Aragonus— the focus had shifted. Lately, it was an effort to stage a stunt that would be imaginative, maybe daring, and certainly create a buzz.

“It started with the Tau Omega Alpha Delts, the Toads, as they’re  known, who returned after the break all wearing black hooded sweatshirts and black jeans one January. They announced that they were about to begin forty days of silence and ritual purging of one sort or another. One of these, of course, was flagellation.”

“Did they do it?” asked Osa, intrigued. 

“They did, and when the weather warmed, they made much of showing their lashes sunbathing on the Rect until Security sent them away. A year later they repeated it, but now they had competition. The Phi Eps

I think it was, staged a 1518 dancing plague when they would begin on Friday noon and dance until all had collapsed of exhaustion, and then two weeks later they did it again, this time on the Rect, until Security sent them home, some on stretchers. One kid lost his ability to void his bladder and had to leave school. Then there were the Crucifiers, the Pole Sitters, the Cauldron Dippers, and so on and on. This childish bravado continued for years until two years ago when one of the Dippers lost consciousness and was half-cooked before they fished him out again.”

“And you were their advisor through this? Why didn’t you stop it?”

“Well, first, I told them to tone it down, but they didn’t understand. Brunkelvic was all over me–keep it out of the papers, and so on. Save Ballast’s good name was what he wanted. And see, we could not just expel them all. More bad PR. So I tracked down the source, and it was in the History Department.”              

“What!!?”

“Yes. Another low moment in academia. The History Dept has been losing students steadily for over a decade, Just like PolySci and Languages. Their solution is to stop the preaching about how you cannot be educated and cannot understand your world, blah-blah, if you haven’t had History. So over the years, the History folks noticed that interest always picks up when the topic is war, martyrdom, persecution, torture, punishment, human sacrifice, and so on. The idea was to skip over the so-called bland periods and get to the action. And they backed it all up with plenty of videos.”

“Did more students …..?”

“No, no increase in majors, just a few more taking those classes with new titles like ‘Evil in the Middle Ages” and “The Weapons of the Age of Discovery.” But perhaps it”s just a coincidence. We do live in nasty times, regardless of who teaches what. Or maybe course titles like those just drew the sickos out of the woodwork.”

Osa smiled. “I was not expecting to hear that.  Now tell me, what are you to do about this and what have I to do with it? And what is going on at the creepy Omega House that I wasted twenty minutes in?

Sixtus signaled the waiter and ordered Ouzo for both of them. “If you don’t like ouzo, I can handle them both.”

Osa laughed. “I am sure you can.” She was beginning to feel comfortable with this white-haired bear. “Ah, you were going to tell me what I have to do with all of this.”

“Well, you might have a choice: let sleeping dogs lie or throw a dog a bone.”

“That makes no sense.” Osa felt a bit of the buzz of wine and Ouzo and wished she had eaten more. Sixtus was talking and talking, but how much of it was worthwhile? She found herself wondering about him. How old? Single? Married? Divorced? Widowed? 

“Oh, sorry. The advice about dogs works well in many contexts, but in this case, I would just continue to play along with whatever boilerplate the students feed you. And feed that back to Brunkelvic. He won’t care anyway. The frats are sitting on a scandal and want to avoid being terminated at Ballast. You can help them by keeping clear and playing dumb. Meanwhile, I will keep them, or try to keep them, from doing their worst. They have in mind a faux burning at a stake using lighter fluid or whatever.”

“Oh! I nearly forgot!” Can you tell me what’s wrong at the Omega Mu Gamma house? They give me the creeps.”  Osa looked at him expectantly, but he was elsewhere in his thoughts and she decided to drop it until a later time. With any luck she would not have to visit those spectral ladies again,

They did separate checks, left the restaurant, and welcomed the fresh air. They agreed to be in contact in a week. Sixtus walked Osa to her street and continued to the campus and his office.

On Friday morning, a few days after Osa and Sixtus had met in the Odyssey, Zander Pfinster sat in a booth at the Pecatonica Pancake Palace. He had suggested a “working breakfast” to get them out of August Hall since Zander had begun to worry that President Brunkelvic bugged his office. In fact, it was not, but Pfinster was experiencing an uptick in his paranoid dread because he sensed he was in trouble since the Finnish mess. Once Ricard arrived, he suggested they move further into the restaurant but could not stop looking towards the door. He ordered a pecan waffle with molasses syrup and coffee, and Ricard asked for multigrain pancakes with orange marmalade. Also buttermilk.

“So, ZP, what’s on your mind? Question about Gort?”

He gave her an oddly tender look and sighed. Twice.

“No, not Gort. I wanted to land a Hollywood person who had some connection with the film, but I am coming up empty. Maybe I’m the wrong person to be cold-calling people. I was hoping you would give it a try. I’d be happy with anyone from a major star down to an editor in the cutting room. I’m afraid, afraid that we’re creating a big flop. That goddam Gort cannot carry the day. We’ll be screening the film all day long, and a person who plays the theremin might be here for a few hours.”

“I can try.” Gen Ricard could have spit her buttermilk in his face. Hadn’t she done enough? Gort in mint condition, a button saying” KLAATU Was Here” or VOTE FOR KLAATU. Arranged a banner with “Barada Nictu” for the dance and ordered four portapotties for the Rect since crowds were expected to come down from as far as La Crosse, Wisconsin.

“Ooh, thankee kindly!” said Zander. “Your friend. Zandy, happy happy!”

Now what? thought Gen. What is that supposed to mean, this baby talk? Pfinster had returned to his waffle and was carving one square off at a time, examining it, and then placing it carefully into his mouth. With each bite, he patted his lips with a napkin. She had never seen anyone eat a waffle in that fashion, and she feared she would never be able to forget it.

“Tell me, Genevieve, what caused you to be named Genevieve? I have long wondered. He smiled sweetly and nodded in a silly way.

“Family name.” Gen snapped in a tone that signaled the topic was exhausted. She suppressed telling him that she was named for a courtesan during Napoleon the Third’s time. In truth, there was no answer. The choice was between “Gwendolyn” or “Gertrude”,” and Genevieve won. She was OK with it unless someone learned her middle name was Moray, as in the eel. She was feeling very bored with the topic.

Pfinster caught her tone, knowing he had annoyed her as he usually did all women. He felt defeated. His head sank until his face was nearly in the remaining waffle. He began to speak in a low tone about his inability to avoid offending women. Of the few he had known, all of them casually, all now avoided him. In one case, in Finland, the woman had disappeared into thin air. Gen Ricard had to lean in to hear his voice so low, and then, unexpectedly, she began to have compassion for this foolish man who was always beneath his pay grade and had merely been oddly lucky to have a job. She finished her buttermilk, reached out to him, put her hand on his arm, and said she had to leave. OK,” said Zander Pfinster hoarsely, “and please forgive me.” He raised his head. Molasses covered the tip of his nose–thick blackstrap molasses, and she saw that he had wept. She blew him a kiss from the door,  and he brightened.

Mid-April and two weeks until the Big Event, part spring festival, college showcase with Klaatu hats for the kids ands a lecture by a film critic from Chicago. The opening ceremony featured B.B. Brunkelvic, President of Ballast College. Barring freakish wet spring weather front, all looked promising. 

“April is the cruelest month,” said Sixtus Aragonus to Osa Spengler when they met again at the Odyssey Restaurant. The occasion was a “progress report” on the fraternity situation, with two weeks left before Klaatufest.  Osa had nothing to report. All the Greek organizations she dropped in on, which was what was expected of her, did not betray bizarre events in the planning stage; most members were working on the annual problem of getting a summer job. The OMG House retained its sepulchral atmosphere.

“So, what’s up, and why do people say this is the cruelest month?”

asked Osa. Sixtus gave her a quick glance. No, she did not understand the reference to April. This was something of a disappointment to him. He had expected more, but, on the other hand, the recent batch of persons with doctorates seemed to know less and less of the classics or literature. 

“Just a line from an old poem. We all have internalized something from our undergrad years.” 

“Ah, kind of like “History is direction—but Nature is extension—ergo, everyone gets eaten by a bear,” said Osa in a quiet voice.

“Exactly!” cried Sixtus, though he did not have a clue where that was from or what it might mean. Pretentious bullcrap! But to appear ignorant:  never! Osa tried to hide her smile. Of course he did not recognize that quote and serves him right—Oswald Spengler had said it! 

“Anyway,” he continued, “I think we can relax. I have the word of the Greeks that they will rally for Ballast and the Klaatu event.” 

They turned to other things. He planned a summer trip to Uruguay to interview a colleague, and she would return to Nebraska and spend time with her family.  Sixtus Aragonus ordered a round of Ouzo. “To success!” he cried loudly enough to startle the couple at the next table. They clunked the little glasses together.

______ _____ _____ _____ 

On the last Saturday in April. Osa and Aragonus met for coffee in the Harpp Student Center. They had agreed to face whatever was happening on the Rect for Klaatufest together. Nearby, ordering their coffee stood Zander and Genevieve. There was a moment of hesitation when the two couples saw each other, but Aragonus waved them over.

“Good morning! Would I be guessing correctly that curiosity and perhaps dread has made early risers of all four of us?”

Zander Pfinster laughed nervously, and Gen smiled. She was holding Zander’s hand, which made Osa smile and wink at her friend. Aragonus caught the wink and reached for Osa’s hand. “Ah, April, you are not so cruel,” said he. Osa blushed but nodded in apparent agreement.

When they reached the Rect, the dominant feature was, of course, Gort.

A small crowd had gathered, and there was laughter which annoyed Gen since all the robotic features were working. But so was another feature.

An outsized papier-maché penis in an erect posture was affixed to Gort’s groin. When Gort’s visor lifted, a buzzer sound was emitted from the penis.

“Oh, my God!” stammered Genevieve Ricard, “there is a buzzer in his schwanz! I mean his privates.” Zander walked up to Gort, snapped off the offending organ, and then found himself the center of attention. He tried to hide it in his coat pocket, but it continued to poke out. Osa delicately took it from him and, removing her jacket, stuffed it in a sleeve. Then the four of them walked quickly to August Hall where, presumably, Zander would dispose of it in his office.

“Rotten little shits!” said Aragonus. He was referring to the frat boys who had betrayed him with this prank. “But I do see myself as complicit. These kids take my Greek Gods in Art course; they always see naked sculptures, which is probably too much for them. Hicks!”

“Unless someone in a sorority…..” began Osa. Gen interrupted with an admiring: “Whoever it was, they have a real appreciation for male anatomy!”

Of course, photos of Gort before and after were everywhere in the news, with TV news using discreet blurring. However, if there was a low point for Ballast, that was it. The rest of Kaatufest was well-attended, and 

no one seemed to note any of the shortcomings. For example, the non-stop showing of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” itself stood still when the projector’s lamp burned out, and there were no replacements on campus.

The “first person” who gave a talk about the film was not a critic from Chicago, or anyone connected with Hollywood. He was the projectionist who had once shown a sneak preview in the Modjeska Theater in Milwaukee. He reported the audience screaming and kids crying. From there, the film went to a first run on State Street in Chicago.  

Button and t-shirt sales were brisk. Someone noticed that Klaatu had been misspelled “Klautu.” The dancing began at 9 PM though there were complaints of a marijuana haze hanging over the dance floor. At 10:00 PM

President B.B.Brunkelvic stood next to the band leader and asked the band to play the Ballast anthem, after which he intoned “klaatu barada nixon!” The crowded dance floor erupted. Mistaking the acclaim, he left the stage with a broad smile. “This has been a damn good year after all, ” said the President of Ballast to himself.

Chapter 10   TTHE BOURBON HOUR

On the Tuesday morning following the Klaatufest, President B.B. Brunkelvic, very much aglow with self-satisfaction, went to the Wurmknecht Library to read the regional newspapers. He was keen to see his success reflected as far north as Monroe, Wisconsin, west to Dubuque, Iowa, south to Normal, Illinois, and east to the greater Chicago area. He began with the Chicago SunTimes and found, on a back page, the article “Major Gaffe Avoided at Ballast Fest” with photos, a report on Gort’s papier mâche penis. No mention of the President. The Monroe paper, the Evening Leader, ran a two-inch column

next two a much longer story on recent success at the local hospital with reverse tonsillectomies. The Dubuque paper did not mention the event, and the Normal Beacon Enquirer made the puzzling observation that Ballast was “back on the map again.” Bunkelvic sighed and hoped his wife did not see anything like this in the Rockford paper, the only one she was interested in since it covered the State Hospital.

He glanced up to see the Very Tall Dean, the Head Librarian, and a third man approaching his table.

“Ah, President Brunkelvic,” said the Very Tall Dean, “we have a visitor

today. Here is Edouard Ilman from the Illinois State Board of Library Facilitation down in Springfield. Mr. Ilman serves the northern tier of Illinois colleges, and (and here the Very Tall Dean paused and opened his eyes wider) he’s a Ballast grad! Class of, what was it?”

“Sixty-five or sixty-six,” said Edouard Ilman quietly. 

“Well! What about that?” Brunkelvic nearly shouted. His astonishment was genuine: he had rarely met any graduates during his Presidency. He clapped Ilman on the shoulder and beamed.

“Come and be my guest at the Harpp for lunch.” His tone was magnanimous.

The Harpp. Inman remembered the place failing to provide the intended congeniality: mediocre food, dull movies, and the clatter of table tennis in the distance. The place smelled loneliness and the regressive bumpkinism of the high schools that had recently disgorged the bulk of Ballast students. Bumpkins was a term Ilman chose to describe his peers at the time. If they had noticed him at all, he would be known as the “museum troll,” for that is where he preferred to be, the darkened galleries of the Zange Museum on the other side of the Rect. 

“I eat the same thing for lunch daily, but you look at the menu board and choose whatever. I’m working on getting in the Guinness Book by eating the same thing: a fried baloney and gherkin sandwich on a white bun, and I have a good chance to get at least an honorable mention.”

Edouard Ilman chose a bowl of chicken noodle soup with extra saltines for himself. When Bunkelvic’s sandwich appeared, he stared at it.

The bun was perfect: round and only slightly browned. Though not large, the bun hid the meat and the gherkin. Both men drank coffee without cream or sugar. 

” I don’t like this sandwich much,” whispered the President, “but I’m used to it, and it is something my wife disapproves of! That adds to the taste if you know what I mean. Try to keep on your sweetie’s good side, if you know what I mean.”

“Interesting,” was Ilman’s response. He was accustomed to the eccentricities that might be uncovered in academia, but this was special. “I know what you mean,” he added, which seemed to please Brunkelvic.

“Do you have the time to stop at my office after this? That’s where dessert is served—my office in August Hall. I want to learn something about your time at Ballast. Who was the President then? I don’t know myself, though I should, I suppose. Honored ancestor, you know.”

” I don’t recall.” Like most of his time at Ballast, it was not memorable. He recalled a girl who had dumped him, smoking in the lavatory in the Zange Museum, and his last encounter with old Professor Huhn. 

Eduard Ilman, B. A . ’65 or ’66, had come to Ballast because he had never heard of it before, and so he was confident that there was little chance that his relatives had either. He had grown up in Waukegan, the grandson of Transdanubian immigrants, and his father had married an Alsation war bride.

It was a dysfunctional family, and more precisely, it had evolved its own functions. They kept to themselves, and anyone who got close to them concluded they were weird. Eduardo recognized this inescapable perception and came to obscure any details of his family. They were not from the preferred immigrant population. Transdanubians! Really! And the family history only got worse over time. His mother may have been a traitor, his uncle was trigger-happy, his father was a pathetic drunk, and another branch would live their lives in the State Hospital in Rockford.

So Edouard was wary. He wanted to fit in, somehow.

As B.B. Brunkelvic led Ilman to August Hall, he stopped to point out the new Huhn Hall, four stores of classrooms, offices, and bathrooms on each floor. 

“Did you know Simon Huhn?” he asked.

“Not personally.”

“How about a course? Did you take a course from him?’

” I did.”

‘Were you here when he died?”

“I was.”

“I see.”

They had reached the Presidential Office. Brunkelvic opened the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and lifted a bottle of Old Grandad bourbon.

“You’ll join me, of course,” and poured out two paper cups of brown liquid that gave off the whiskey’s cozy odor. The conversation continued.

“Tell me what you do, Ilman? Something to do with libraries?”

“I visit the twenty college-level libraries from Galena to Waukegan in the northern counties. The State Board is working out a plan to reduce redundancies in library collections, and they’re also anticipating greater use of electronic exchanges. I’m here to familiarize some faculty with these concepts.”

“Ah!” said Brunkelvic. He seemed to recall reading something that touched on this plan and, taking a sip of his drink, closed his eyes and began to recite.

“As an example, an instructor wishes to order a new book for our collection, and rather than justify that purchase, the consortium manages to utilize a database which would illuminate redundancies, that the book is already extant, thus saving the entire system monies which would obtain elsewhere.”

He opened his eyes and looked both astonished and pleased.  

Ilman was taken aback. Perhaps he had unfairly judged this man as another academic simpleton, some fool, but this notion was quickly dispelled.

“Yes, exactly what it’s all about, at least for now. Well, sir,

thank you for your hospitality, but I promised the Librarian I would meet with a few faculty at 2:00.” He drained his glass and saw that Brunkelvic had been ready to pour another for both of them. 

“Which faculty?”

“Hmm…I recall one was from Chemistry, the other an adjunct in English, Zoytlow, and a woman from Social Work or Sociology. One of those.”

“Ricard is first rate, great little gal. The adjunct, I don’t know, and why would I? Adjuncts are the drones of the college and are usually gone before I get to know them.”

Ilman nodded, but this offhand dismissal of other human beings made him uncomfortable. He already felt sorry for this Zoytlow, a lubricant that made the failing engine of academic work at all. And he felt sorry for Brunkelvic, too. He stood and walked to the door. 

“Stop and see me on your next trip through these parts,” the President said loud enough to be heard in the outer office and the corridor. “And think about your old professor, Simon Huhn. H-U-H-N!!

 EPILOGUE  

The time has come to end this farrago of moments taken from a story of a brave little speck on the map of American higher education, Ballast College. In the last chapter, a visitor to the place reveals to President B.B.Brunkelvic that he has come as an agent of the State of Illinois to discuss a new acquisitions policy. In so doing, he also reveals the names of Genevieve Ricard and a certain Zoytlow, two members of the Ballast faculty although we also learned that the latter is a nearly invisible adjunct. That means low pay and no recognition. Another speck in time and space.

I am Zoytlow, Philip N. Zoylow and I have shamelessly inserted myself into this brief novel, or is it novella.? Yes, I did hire on as an adjunct in the English Department, asssigned to teach the usual mix of composition and literature classes. I lasted there, I think it was four years and who knows how much longer I could have dragged that out. Teaching compostion at a school with abysmal admission standards meant that there were few surprises in the creativity of the students. Also, the tenured heavies in the department are only too happy to have someone invisible laboring in the fetid trenches.  Oh, yes, the students: Most came from rural or small town backgrounds which does not mean they could not write, but they saw writing courses as a painful obligation, something not to be enjoyed. Few were those who were curious about what imaginative copy might flow from their pens! In fact, few were curious about much of anything except the landscape of their chemically altered states or the unexplored cosmos  of their sexuality. Well and good: how could it be otherwise? The tenured members of the department chose the literature to be read by freshman and so I had no choice in that. Well, I could chose between three writers: Melville, Dickens, and G.Elliot, provided the work had over 400 pages. And that is the way it had been for at least two decades, so I was told.

I was there because I needed a job. Depending on my whim, I either presented myself as a biologist, a cultural anthropologist, or an English instructor. As an imposter (watch for more admissions to follow) I found those the easiest departments to “invade” and creation of a suitable resume was not a problem. A few choice, killer phrases on the resumé did it. And always a fierce statement about the willingnss to undertake the opening of minds to the challenge, so necessary to this Great American Democracy, which would ever require the balm of critical thinking! Lest it wallow on the shores of mediocrity! Yes, I said those things. 

In the last year I was at Ballast, and it was during one of those lethally tedious opening faculty convocations–was it in 1989 or 1990?— I hit on the idea that careful observation might yield something along the lines of the present piece, titled, Behind the Scrim. I had previously written a historically-based work titled A Scrim. To refer in the present work in numerous and clever (also clumsy) ways to that work was, and is, a matter of serious self-promotion for which I confess no shame. Shameless is as shameless does, something like that. 

Now back to the present work. While at Ballast (I left as this report ends, around the time of the commencement) and moved to another small college in the South where I passed myself off as a creationist-biologist 

whose talent lay in pretending to honor Charles Darwin while deflating his theories. Shameless.

Ballast is by no means an unusual school. I have worked at others like it and heading south carries no judgment–it was just that after four years of Moby Dick or Great Expectations I was ready for some pseudo science i.e. Biol. 101 in Dixie. I’m working on some poems drawn from that experience, sample title. “The Fig Leaf of Eden was a Mulberry.”

Anyway, Ballast. After the convocation, which had its long moments of inspiration for anyone with a mind to write something of an exposé of the sorrow and the pity and the belly-laughs that academia may provide. The second moment of inspiration came when an even more accomplished imposter give a series of talks on Finland, a fine nation that deserved far better than it got from that yokel.

So how did I get the information to put this thing together? Remember, an adjunct is nearly invisible. He or she may attend department meetings but not allowed to vote nor is their input of value. Nearly invisible. They may wander the campus, eavesdrop, chat up a few folks who never seemed curious about me. Odd, that.  I say, I was too inconsequential to be visible. Well, not always inconsequential. I struck up a friendship (with some mutual benefits) with no less than the President’s office staff They sang to me! By that I mean they knew where the skeletons were hidden and, despite a superficial loyalty to Ballast, they had much to say.

Although I had no loyalty myself, I always wish success to colleges in providing education to their students and the communities they serve. That is why I was so affected by what I saw during the Finland Event.

What was the causal chain that ended with such a pathetic result, one that had me cringing. That, in essence, was the starting point for this slim volume. I did have a good laugh when I learned about the incident in Mordant Hall in which the hapless fool Pfinster was trod upon. Such a small thing, but look where it took Ballast! The President, another dunderhead, sends Pfinster to a harmless conference in Finland and the guy comes back and plays Brunkelvic about some imaginary (so it seemed to me) notion of an exchange with Finland. 

The reason Pfinster was able to sell Bunkelvic on a scheme with no basis in reality was because, in my view, they were both the same type of person and specfically, a male person. Both were in academia as accidents and that is not unusual. (I am one myself.) Both had navigated their way into academic positions though both had modest skills for the job. Neither were scholars and both had a passing ability to run a class. We know what Pfinster’s schtick was, but I did not learn how B.B. Burnkelvic managed to hide his essential buffoon enough to become President. I think his wife knew, and she managed him rather well and she had the smarts not to get enmeshed in college matters. Like many outsiders (and arguably I remain one in important ways, being invisible, etc) she was clear-eyed and after a few years she had seen it all and it ceased to be interesting. 

The newly-minted Ph.D., Osa Spengler also was present at the causal moment, but she was just beginning a career which, I am assuming, would get her to other jobs in other places. She was a person I admired for her poise even when thrown into the ring with clowns. I hoped to get to know her. I knew she had just had her first book published, which I assumed was her dissertation. I never had a chance to strike up a conversation, or rather, I never wanted to since she was never without her Why Sociology? I feared I would be forced talk about it. Eccentricities and even psychoses abound in places like Ballast. And after all, if high schools are holding tanks for adolescents, why not have sanatoria for the professoriat?

It was after commencement in late May. I went to the Olympus, the Greek place in Pecatonica Junction and got very comfortable in a booth grading freshman papers. They had written, in lieu of a final exam, a review of George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. I ordered a glass of the house wine and then planned to switch to coffee so that the wine would not cause excessive grade inflation. I had read about a dozen (out of 32) when I became aware of a couple in the next booth. They had not noticed me and anyway, I am sort of invisible. Above the booths was a decorative feature which resembled large clamshells which had the effect of directing sound downward. A parabolic dish. The restaurant was nearly empty–it was a Tuesday. And the people in the next booth were Osa Spengler and Sixtus Aragonus, that windbag from Classics. I did not know him personally, but he was a campus fixture duly noted by me after the Finnish fiasco inspired me to write up Ballast.

I did not know anything much about their relationship except that they had been seen together a number of times after the Klaatufest. Aragonus was doing the talking and Spengler mainly signaled to him that he was so very interesting and please do go on. She wasn’t so wrong: I am now going to provide a paraphrasing of what was on his grand bloviating mind, this visible professor who actually looked like a professor.

“Another year stuffed away. When you have helped stuff as many as I have, you begin to expect little in the way of change and so I expect next September we will start the whole thing again. And why do we do it?”

Here Osa mumbled something which included words like “generational”and “optimism” and “imperative.” Maybe she strung them together into “the imperative of the generational.” Anyway it sounded like harmless academic boilerplate and it caused Mr. Big to snort.

“Osa, my dear, no one wants to die and they do absolutely everything imaginable to stay alive and, here’s the point, keep the idea of death under control so that it only creeps out from under your pilllow at night when you cannot sleep. Name me one thing that humans do that isn’t about keeping the idea of the Reaper from the door.”

“The Reaper?”

“The Grim Reaper, the one who invites us to the Dance of Death, and so on.” He had raised his voice and showed some impatience, but then must have recalled that no one seemed to have stumbled on this astonishing idea. This was his idea. He continued in a quieter tone with “Name me something that human beings do, anything other than eating , sleeping, or defecating and I will argue that it’s a response to death!”

He was being emphatic again and if he thought he was seducing her with his banter, well, that train had left the station. I mean, ‘defecating’ is not the way to go. I occured to me that he had been drinking all the while so perhaps his own denial of death was at work. How could so persuasive an insightful seminal thinker think he would someday die? Then they were silent (eating?) and the next topic was whether to split a baclava for dessert. Later I wondered how, if this was a seduction, he had not argued that copulation was life-affirming?

Nor did I make an acquaintance of B.B Brunkelvic. As you may have noted in the last chapter, he did not know I existed. I did nod at him once in the corridor of August Hall while on my way to visit his secretary. He did not notice the nod nor the nodder, an oblivious noddee was he. Thinking of him makes me think of what Aragonus was arguing to the Spengler woman: everything that Brunky did was in the service of constructing a persona which would fool others and fool himself. Without this apparatus he was truly dust.

I have a few more observations to make, but before doing so it is possible that some readers wish to know how the story ends. We cannot conclude with the Ballast President shouting “Huhn!” into a hallway after a departing visitor. Well, sorry folks, but nothing happened. Sixtus Aragonus continued a brief and empty dalliance with Osa Spengler but it fizzled. Genevieve dropped Zander Pfinster once the Klaatufest was ended. Brunkelvic and his wife separated and he resigned two years later. I have no details, but I heard he is in the Special Cases Ward of the Rockford State Hospital. These are pretty mediocre stories and I am not the one to tell them. But there is one thing,

Both Genevieve Ricard and Edouard Ilman had a number of interesting parallels in their histories. Genevieve was given up by parents who had been in Alsace, France until about the time Gen was born in the late 1940s. Edouard had an Alsatian mother who abandoned his father in Waukegan, Illinois about the time he was born c. 1939. Readers of my earlier A Scrim

will know where I am going with this. I did not share these suspicions with either Genevieve or Eduardo. But why keep you in suspense: yes, they may have been siblings.

I got to know Eduardo Ilman on his visit to Ballast. We struck up a friendship. We liked each other. He told me of his boredom with working for the State Library people and that his consuming interest was to piece together a history of his family, immigrants from Transdanubia. After a few years he entrusted me to see that his efforts were published. This I did. Since that family had settled in Northern Illinois, he had a number of research breakthroughs and was able to produce a promising archive for me to put together after his untimely death. 

I left Ballast and did freelance writing for a number of travel magazines and I never had a reason to return to that part of Illinois. 

FROM THE EARLY REVIEWS

“Zoytlow has presented us with a reassuring portrait of what makes this nation what it is. It is an anthem to the selflessness of noble educators in our smaller colleges and Illinois is home to at least one of them.” Elgin (IL) Times-Bugler.

“A dismal slog of a book. Cringeworthy. But honest.”  McKeesport PA Union-Stabilizer

Anon. parent writing in Creative Parenting Magazine (May, 2022) “My daughter absolutely did not want to go to college. Then I gave her Behind the Scrim and now she will go, but only to Ballast. This is a problem because we are a very religious family and don’t think that school would be a good fit for her.”

From the Liberty University Marxist Quarterly.  “The final crisis of the bourgeoisie is on full display here. Zoytlow is selling well among South Dakota socialists.”

“ At first I laughed. Then I was struck with the essential point the author was trying to make. I took a deep breath.”   (reviewer in Cat Fancier Weekly)

Camille Weenzer in She Review,  “Ugly. Trash.”

Duane Klingenborg in the Park Rapids (MN) Weekly Shopper, “What this town needs is a Greek restaurant. OOPA!”