CHAPTER XVI. THE MOTEL

Your hero sets a woman straight.

“Mom’s ward was heaven”—I retained a relic of the sanctuary, my white plastic ID bracelet reluctant of removal—“compared to this hole.” The evening’s only comfort came in a blue glass bottle, and I summarily screwed off the top. Sonja and I had chanced upon a late-night liquor store when wending back from the hospital. “And at least the women were talking to me.”

“Until you started sharing. Your stool sample, what a line!”

“She was a nurse—”

“Who already has her trauma.”

“I wasn’t really that interested. But a polite man has to make conversation.”

“And your hard on? Just good manners!”

“Sonja, you been doing mushrooms? And why were you looking down there anyway? I’m your brother!”

“My brother, much as it pains me to admit, you’re a good-looking man. You could have some success with the women, if only you’d find a clue.”

“Success!” I poured into the paper cups I had borrowed from the bleach of the bathroom. “We have reached the pinnacle here.” Our house-special pizza brought famine relief but no pleasure, cold slices forlorn on the floor. A dormant flat screen hung over the insufficient separation of the bunks. “Though I am expecting some company in bed”—I seized the moment, Sonja’s phone experiencing an unusual stretch of unemployment—“bed lice!” Taking peremptory charge, my younger sibling had booked us a room near the airport, where thick curtains and double-glazed windows barely muffled an intermittent roar. I will forgo further description; cheap motels vary in fabric, but the fit is everywhere the same.

 “A day of rare visual stimulation. First that skirt, now this wallpaper.” I placed the bottle on the table between us. The stimulant had since changed into a pair of jeans, laced up her boots of combat, and her gray-streaked hair hung loose. Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee maintained their posthumous watch.

“The girl was bored yesterday. Shopping isn’t my bag, but I will fight for my right to partay.”

“The exercise of which just happens to mess mightily with your mother?”

“Actually, I was looking to bug my brother. And I drive you to distraction, like the consummate professional I am.”

A more mortal distraction threatened, one inbound fuselage grazing the roof. No longer fighting in the street, Sonja still sticks it to the Man. She also finds perverse virtue in discomfort.

“No wonder this dump is cheap.” Our ears under siege, I had little confidence in communication. “Why don’t we just sleep on the runway, probably be quieter?” The upright man does not lean close.

“You Republicans love your swanky hotels.”

The intended needle made no prick. On Sonja’s account, I once voted for the forces of darkness, which primal insult outrages her to this day. But the spade of traditional temperament need dig no partisan trench. I cannot even confirm the Reagan legend; my scurrilous sister does not apply her academic rigor to personal accusation.

“Hey, give me that thing.” She lunged for the remote. “Let’s watch some porn.”

“You have lost your mind. Sharing a seedy motel room with you is quite enough punishment, thank you very much.”

“Don’t panic, incest has no attraction, I’d need a much more inviting proposition for a brother.” A smirk congratulated her bravado. “Uptight asshole. You take right after her.”

“The maternal unit?”

“Anselm Thomas Merrywood thinks he’s so special. ‘I did it my way!’” She has no voice, and even less shame. Unfortunately, air traffic saw a rare lull. “Sorry, mommy’s boy, I’m not buying.” The cell phone interrupted again, from a knapsack of military suggestion.

“Sonja, let it go, can’t you! How many times today? You don’t talk for five minutes, he’s hitting the single’s bar?”

“Wouldn’t dare. He’s seen me at the rifle range. I never miss.”

“You’re incapable of ignoring the worthless specimen. But your own mother, who you haven’t seen in years, you refuse to talk to.”

“I never refuse anyone. It’s made for a full life. And easy for you. Anselm, my dear boy! She’s always so thrilled to see her son, can’t keep her hands off. One of my earliest memories. You know, I don’t think she ever hugged me.”

“The porcupine is not the cuddliest of creatures.”

“No doubt she paid for your plane ticket?”

“She paid for nothing!”

I always tell the truth. All right, I may have benefited from some parental frequent flying, but what you don’t know . . . “I’m no millionaire, do you have to rub it in?”

“‘An honest business!’ Does she ever ask about my career? You’d think a professor in the family would be a point of pride.”

“If you’d stop blabbing about it.”

“At least someone inherited the brains of the family.”

“How’s Mother supposed to respond, when you go full seminar in the hospital?”

“C’mon, you’d heard her, the president’s favorite philosopher is Jesus.”

“All right, but Derrida? S’il vous plait?!”

“I hear you, though. The woman’s stuck in the hospital, while Pop is getting hammered on the golf course.”

“Mom is no tyrant, but Madame Defarge here would happily send her to the guillotine. The woman has got the message. You disparage her small-town respectability. She’s not going to have any grandchildren.”

“I’m doing the world a favor—they might end up like you. I feel for Chris, some tough shit. But if Mother needs grandkids so bad, her son now has an opening. If he could just find that clue!”

“Yet Mom is so cut up about the divorce. Go figure.”

“I liked Chris too. Strong woman, smart—”

“Once upon a time.”

“You’d jump at another chance.”

“Blind Lemon Jefferson! An academic can rationalize any nonsense. Hold that thought, I need to pee.”

 “Gotta go, hon.” She stashed the phone as her brother fastened his belt. Overpowering disinfectant impelled my premature bathroom exit.

“Tell me this, Sis, what do you see in the guy?” I grasped for higher ground.

“Men have an occasional use.”

“He reads Foucault in French?”

“He’s a great fuck.”

“Not buying. You insist that Mom is trapped in the dark ages. You ridicule her values. You jeer decent, old-fashioned womenfolk, putting up with their husbands’ needs. If that revolution has made any woman happier—”

“Happiness is overrated.”

“Mom’s got it together pretty well, if you ask me.”

“Attention campers, the museum is now open. Check out this fossil. Making no sense, as usual. A few minutes ago our mother was just miserable, no grandkids.”

“La textualité de texte. Comes back to bite your sorry ass.”

“We gals should just spread ’em, grit our teeth, and pray! There is no escape. My own brother. Another dog lapping at the bowl of privilege.”

“I’m not quite seeing the connection.”

“Like you can’t see a dishwasher. I have it on good authority.”

“Christine, good authority? The woman who thinks a vegetable has feelings? And she used to drive a truck, degree in engineering. Whiplash! Fortunately my back can take a twist, whatever she thinks.”

“She thought you were a lovely man, for some ungodly reason.”

“Before Melody meddled. My wife’s choice of friends left something to be desired. At least she had enough sense to consult a doctor.”

“And the results, painful for a woman, but liberating.”

“From the burden of sanity.”

“A man can’t control his wife’s life, the outrage.”

“My bowl of privilege?”

“I should bring the dog to school, as a warning.”

I wagged my tail. We discerning viewers surfed the airwaves. A bystander had discharged a firearm outside the White House, though President Bush was unharmed, to Sonja’s sorrow. We did enjoy a mentally disturbed televangelist, one well-oiled pugilist in a sports bra gouging out the eyes of another, two tubby teamsters in a bass boat, before settling on a panic-stricken meteorologist. I was captive to another picture, a woman locked in sweaty coupling with a succession of unworthy brutes. Jealousy gnaws the entrails? Please, a caring brother just tolerates no waste. Sonya plays the harp herself, a mother’s supposed favoritism, will never let it go. Who’s the real obsessive here?

“Sis, you’re really quite sweet, I won’t tell your students.” The well-adjusted sibling reached for the second bottle. “Mom told me you offered to look after her.”

“Not exactly.”

 “So Chris has a new path. Let it go, Buster, what’s happening outside your head?” We had stayed faithful to the Weather Channel, but the fifth tornado in succession retained little entertainment value, the casualty count stubbornly low. “How’s the store?”

“We’re fighting the good fight.”

“Barnes and Noble is extorting across the street from college, all cheap and cheerful. Unfortunately, I can’t forbid my students—”

“Worst came to the worst, I could always come and live with you.”

“Cordelio would be lost.” Sonja asks after the acclaimed writer. They once embarked on some manner of date, but never discuss the event, let alone the level of achievement. The Last Refuge’s resident mystery professes an exclusive devotion to literature, but his studied indifference to women serves as catnip. I have attempted the same ruse, to the opposite effect. “Let’s change the subject, before I find you both at my door. Anything else new?”

“Not really. At least, I don’t think—”

“Hello! You haven’t got a dame in trouble?”

“Agatha purrs in my presence.”

“If anything happens, I’m blaming you.”

“I got high not so long ago.”

“And the excuse for the debauchery?”

“Bill celebrating his fiftieth, at the beach house.”

“White punks on dope!”

“I was hanging with his daughter.”

“Holy cow, a woman. And you didn’t freak this one out?”

“Give me a break, can’t you? How was I to know your colleague was certifiably insane?”

“How fresh is this meat, pray?”

“I’ll probably never see her again, and that’s just fine.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m not a complete idiot.”

“True, you finally zipped up your fly. C’mon, how old?”

“Old enough to drink, if she took an international flight. And don’t they just deafen!” Jet engine roar again filled the room. An investment guru was about to offer life-changing advice, but the inaudible TV condemned us to ongoing penury.

“Okay bro, I wasn’t thinking too clearly.” The culprit offered an accommodating grin. “Men need to suffer, but I’m staying here as well.” The decibel level had fallen below the threshold of pain, for a fresh indignity to announce itself. The blue motel had little to recommend it. But we were not alone. “I’m listening, you were hanging out with the kids. Why not? I sometimes get high with my students, once the class is through.”

“This wasn’t kids, plural.”

“An underage temptress sneaks you into her bedroom? My brother is human, after all.”

“We went for a stroll on the beach.”

“Big mistake, right there. I favor heading straight back to my place, before they change their mind.”

“Well-behaved women don’t make history?”

“At least I walk the walk. My sisterhood is a little too fond of the talk.”

“Your brotherhood fell asleep.” I unfurled my best shrug.

 The volume of disturbance is no measure. Urban living offers a range of nighttime entertainment, about which forensic ears make their best guess. A sharp bang from the street wakes us to worry: Was it car exhaust, juvenile firecracker, or criminal gun? You hear the woman next door crying: Is she grieving her lost mother or enjoying a late comedy show? A squeak in the wall might mean rodent infestation or plumbing protest, but this rhythm had only one explanation.

Sonja pretended not to notice. “Men and young girls, ¡Ay caramba! Even my sorry brother.”

“He’s been dipping in the shallow end?” I gestured towards her phone.

“Donnie? I’d bite it off!” She paused, “No, not him.” She paused again. “Since we’re all full disclosure . . .” Her extended silence relinquished the stage to an ominous disturbance.

“You gave a male student a good grade! What’s come over you?”

“Remember Bernie, our chair?”

“Red hair, beard? And I could never understand a word he was saying.”

“I’d be lost without him. The dean has it in for me, I wouldn’t sleep with her, you know the story—”

“Whether I believe the story is another question.”

“Bernie has too much clout. Other schools are always trying to poach him away. And not just a big man on campus. A good guy is pretty much a contradiction in terms, but at least he—”

“You’re in love, such a beautiful thing!”

“Some men I’m not attracted to. Bernie can be a little much.”

“A professor takes himself too seriously? No way!”

“He’s just a friend, though I understand what women see in him. Anyway, he’s married, until recently that is. Phyllis, the wife, is a piece of work. Bitch is in local musical theater, and never gives it a break. They have no kids, her posture! She visits the department and treats him like dirt, in front of us. I can only imagine their private life. He adored her, his one major flaw, I guess. Give a guy a good pussy whipping and it’s over, in my experience. Anyway, she wanted out—”

“A woman wanted out? Hold the presses.”

“My aggrieved brother puts marriage on a pedestal, but if ever divorce was a blessing! She hires some hotshot lawyer, takes Bernie to the cleaners. He lost his house, renting an apartment, spends all his time with his cats. A diminished man, sorry little place, so depressing.”

“No question. The poor fellow, cats!” My own living rearrangement was a temporary inconvenience, she had no need to know. “He didn’t seem completely intolerable.” I recalled a man of guarded intelligence and perfunctory conversation. He did bring out the bottle when Sonja showed me round Jameson Hall.

“Oh Brother, it gets worse, it gets worse, it gets worse . . .” The free fall finally found a parachute.

“He’s abusing his pronouns?”

“Fourth of July, union barbeque runs late, my peeps smoking some serious weed.”

“And you’re in solidarity?”

“I’m in a daze. On the way home, I stop by school to pick up some stuff. It’s dark and campus is deserted, security had to let me in. For some reason, it’s vitally important I check my email. My computer’s freaking me out, but I have a key to Bernie’s office, so what the hey? Everything was quiet. If the light was on I’d have seen it, didn’t think to knock. I’m already out of it, I tell you, but there he is, Bernie, no question, sitting in the dark, on the couch—”

“Poorly upholstered, I take it, given your distress.”

“The girl was next to him, as good as naked.”

“Appalling.” I could not hold back. “Simply appalling!” A decent man can only groan. “They didn’t hear you?” She has all the luck.

“Trapped.”

“You witnessed the scholarly bottom, seizing an educational opportunity?”

“This is serious shit, Annie.”

“And next time you saw him?” Our cell walls fell silent. The extramural exertion must have found its reward.

“Sick leave. I’m disappointed, I have to say. If he’d come clean, said something—”

“Maybe she was a hooker?”

“If only. One of our majors, Melissa. And taking his class. Teaching her during the day, banging her at night. Textbook! She dropped my class, thank the Goddess.”

“Sweet Melissa!”

“Cutesy. Seemed like she might be trouble, I guess.”

“Maybe she came onto him?” I have often thought about pursuing an academic career.

“You have been watching porn.”

Our break proved a false promise. The motel was built on the cheap, the sound insulation inadequate to the challenge of human need. Sonja rolled her eyes, and the tornadoes whirled into a blonde reporter clad in fluorescent orange, emoting over the lost pets of a firestorm, before another jet engine smothered her lament.

“I was teaching moral dilemmas, and now I’m knee deep.”

“Horny bastard would lose his job, if you go public?”

“Same deal, a few years back. Kaczynski was in music, but that’s not a good enough excuse. There’d always been rumors, then our distinguished professor was busted, spending the night with a freshman in her dorm, and her roommate spilled the beans. Men are so stupid, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I was in judicial affairs, had to interview him for my sins. I’m not at all dogmatic, whatever you think. But insult my intelligence, you lose. The guilty party gives me no respect, and I show no mercy, at the time. Now he’s disappeared off the face of the earth, lying at the bottom of some cliff maybe. He’d been with us for ages too. Jazzy Kazzy, students loved him.”

“Apparently so.”

“You want groupies, start a band.”

“If you’re looking for advice, I have a good friend you could consult, name of Daniels, Jack.”

“Oh Bernie, why do you have to do this to me! I’m fucked, totally fucked. It’s not the age thing. Some boys in my class are hot, I could do them.” The nearby industry made its own admission. “If she wasn’t his student, I’d be happy for my man, after all he’s been through. I owe my job to him. I rubbed the assholes the wrong way, hard to believe, huh? The committee was deadlocked, he had the deciding vote. He’s always been there for me. How can I rat him out? The department would fall apart. My enemies already sharpening the knives. I’d end up with remedial math.”

Her cell rang again. She finally found the fortitude. “But if I do nothing, what does that say?” My sister teeters on a tragicomic track between personal abandon and political commitment. “Might as well announce to the whole world—my beliefs don’t matter. I’m just playing a game. They do matter, they really matter. It’s who I am.”

“Terrifying. Even Stalin made some money on the side.”

“Fucking weed.”

“Tell me about it!”

“Kaczynski tries to blow me off, calls me madam—I’m a vindictive feminist, hating on men. The music department, not a lot going on upstairs!”

“At least he’ll never make it big. Worst thing that can happen to a musician—”

“Mr. Airborne never had to worry about that!”

“They become totally obnoxious, think they’re channeling the divine.”

“Kaczynski was right about one thing. Who was running the show? I had no need to get mad.”

“Just get even. Never let a good opportunity—”

“Music is the food of love, he had the nerve. I ripped him another one.”

“He had a point?” I weighed the heaven of his achievement against the hell of Sonja in high dudgeon. “Schools are terrified of lawsuits, but no code of conduct can stop boys and girls jumping into the sack, if they have a mind. You’re hardly a model of restraint.”

“I’m not in a position of power over Donnie.”

“Ahem, power of the—”

“No way. You and Chris actually had—”

“I don’t know, but I’ve been told, Eskimo pudenda is mighty cold.”

I do apologize. That was totally unnecessary. You should really blame my sister. She somehow has a way. I would never . . .

 “I have no problem with the penis, in principle. And you know I don’t buy the bullshit. The male gaze, bring it on! But when that item is found in the pants of the powerful—”

“Mommy, help! It’s the patriarchy.”

“I hate men? Little did he know. But they have to earn it, don’t just have the right.”

“White male privilege. Where do I sign?”

“They might pause a second before pulling out precious? Intolerable!” Her unseen competition picking up the pace, Sonja had to wait her time, as if allowing a student to finish a tedious digression. An anonymous moan of abandon took the bow.

“Memo to Professor Prerogative.” She took up the thread, to significant silence. “There’s a honey sitting in the front row, she’s paying you attention, you’re dying to jump her bones. You’ve got it made. I’m no sanctimonious schoolmarm, all I ask is this: Put yourself in her shoes, is that not humanly possible?”

“Can we back up a bit? Inviting students congregate at the front—”

“Sweet brother of mine, listen to the truth, for once. I’m not blowing things out of proportion, I’m not out for revenge. We’re not covering our ass­—”

“Sonja, you’re on fire. You should partake of the bottle before class as well.”

“In vino veritas. I feel her. And I’m here to take a stand.”

“And I’m here to spend time with my beloved sister. Doesn’t what I feel matter as well?”

“You pretend you’re a pathetic old misogynist.”

“The freethinking man is an endangered species. I’m just doing the best I can.”

“You do get it, right?”

“Bernie’s little tramp was trouble, you said.”

“If a girl got something, she needs to use it, damn straight.”

“As the professor should know, Plato had a dialogue—”

“Your boy Plato was a pig.”

“Erotic love of teacher and student, the pig sung the praise.”

“My brother was awake in Intro to Philosophy! That love changes the student for the better. Not just a quick screw in the office.”

“You judicial affairs scolds were only too happy to condemn Socrates to death, back in the day.”

“Had good reason, if you ask me.”

“Just a quickie? Bernie’s inspired the girl. She’s studying really hard, wants to impress him. For the first time in college, she loves coming to school. Then some drug addict barges in.”

“You’re trying to wind me up. And as usual, dismal failure. But even a clueless brother has some use. Getting some shit off my chest. And will you stop staring at them?”