Straight Man

herself is all womanly excess, and not above conveying to young women like Solange that their hips may be too narrow for childbearing, their breasts too flat to satisfy infant or lover, their lips too dry to inspire passion, their eyes too cold to welcome.
    Of course such things cannot be said to students like Leo and Solange (or, for that matter, to Gracie). And since the only things thatmight be helpful are the things that cannot be said, I am without a strategy for the present circumstance. I should tell Solange she’s out of order. Clearly, that’s what everyone expects me to do. They all know my view that tough, rigorous criticism is predicated on good, not ill, will. And so they are confused by my reluctance to take Solange to task in this instance. Is it because her personal assault took place before the official beginning of class? Or am I suggesting that in this instance the attack is justified, that Leo has brought it on himself over the last several months, aggressively exhausting our charity by assaulting us with one bloody pussy story after another?
    The truth of why I do nothing is that imaginatively I’m still back in my mother’s basement, still feeling the lingering effects of whatever it was that washed over me there. For some reason the tips of my fingers are tingling, and I can’t shake the feeling that I should have examined the contents of all the cardboard boxes stacked up against the wall, that one of them contained something of importance to me, something I’ve forgotten. I flex the palm of my hand where I grabbed the hot water pipe. The skin there has that smooth, shiny, burned look, like it might split open. If I am right that Leo is red to his very core, what color is William Henry Devereaux, Jr., at his center? I wonder.
    So, instead of earning my pay with this group of expectant students, I exercise the prerogative of all bad teachers by conveying that I’m disappointed in the lot of them, that they have proven unworthy of my guidance, that they will now have to earn their way back into my good graces. I tell the class that I don’t intend to say a word until somebody locates an issue worth discussing. Something specific and objective, not general and subjective. Sorting out these terms, I rationalize, will give everyone time to simmer down. I take off my watch and set it on the table beside me, watch its hands move, study my chastened students. Solange, having had her say, takes out a Penguin
Macbeth
and pretends to read it. Leo has become catatonic except for throwing the occasional murderous glance in my direction. I know what he’s thinking. I have allowed this bitch to unman him. Whatever.
    When, by my watch, there are only two minutes left in class, I rouse myself from my lethargy and summon the muse of melodrama by allowing my forehead to clunk heavily down on the metal seminar table that happens at this moment to be the only thing we all have incommon. When I raise it again, everyone is looking at me, wide-eyed, fearful. Even Solange, who’s dropped
Macbeth
like a bloody knife.
    “I know
you
, Tiffany,” I say.
    Everyone groans. I’m returning them to the beginning, to a character exercise from their intro class. It’s called “I know you, Al. You’re (not) the kind of man who—” The exercise is designed to test the writer’s understanding of his characters by challenging him to complete the sentence in an interesting and revealing way. I know you, Al. You’re the kind of man who still opens doors for women. I know you, Susie. You’re not the kind of girl who forgets an insult. In advanced workshops, “I know you, Al” has become shorthand for suggesting the story’s characters are not sharply defined.
    “Are the victims in this story characters?”
    A general shaking of heads, Leo alone abstaining.
    “What do we know of the murderer beyond what was done to him?”
    “Nothing.” Grudging grumbles. This is old, insulting stuff.
    “There,” I say. “If someone had been astute enough to observe that this story has no characters an hour ago, we could have all gone home.”
    “Tiffany is very real to me,” Leo insists. He looks like he would like to slaughter us all. “Very real.”
    “The only thing real to you”—Solange puts
Macbeth
in her bag—“is her bloody snatch. Grow up.”
    Since this should not be the last word, I say, “Class dismissed,” just as the bell rings.
    Everyone files out. Except Leo, who wants to escort me to my office.