One
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mery Truitt crossed the expanse of lawn bordering St. Clements
College with a certain spring to his step. The distant mountain peaks—always
jagged and raw—now seemed radiant in the wash of light from the rising sun. He
had won—and on his own terms. All that nonsense of moving with the herd, of
“going along” in order to advance himself in the
academic chain of being, had proven to be nothing at all. The promotion had
come without surrender of his ideals.
The mid-May sun rose quickly, dissipating the cold air—orange and gold hues streaked across a sky giving way to the softening yellows, and then turned to blue. Truitt spied one of the great rusted hawks circling above, in search of a morning meal. Not a herd animal, but a singular icon of strength and intelligence, the hawk was going it alone—and succeeding, Truitt noted, as the bird dropped into the field and wrenched the life from its fuzzy prey.
Herd mentality led to mediocrity and complacency, a sure road to
slaughter. There was little glory in that. Truitt had won his promotion without
compromise, without surrendering his time or his will to the fly-fishing, rock
hunting, and backcountry mindsets of his peers. With attention to scholarship
and education, on his own, he had moved from the rank of assistant, a mere
instructor, to Associate Professor. He had gained the prestige and entitlements
endowed on that position.
As he approached the limestone block Admin Building, Truitt
recalled his earliest response to the place, Abandon every hope.... With steep bluffs surrounding the small
campus, it resembled something out of Dante’s inferno, a hot place devoid of
soul. Over time, the vision was justified as he had come to see it as a
soulless place, leeching the very spirit from his dreams.
The college town of Hawkes Ferry was smaller than his hometown in
the Brandywine Valley of Delaware—and far more desolate, hugging a two-lane
road that wound up the sagebrush steppe, eventually ending on a bluff above a
narrow river gorge. Everyone wore cowboy boots, jeans and ten-gallon hats in
the shops, in the diner, and even to church. The whole place might have been a
backdrop for a B-rated movie whose denizens rambled along in a haze of
cowboy-think. Every day that he passed in this outland pulled him further and
further from the realization of his goal. Or so he had believed, but now he was
back on track.
Truitt had always been an academic star, from his earliest
recollections. His superior intelligence had been honed in
the town library of Sycamore Falls where his aunt served as librarian,
caretaker and guardian. From a nook tucked behind her desk, he had watched as
she stocked shelves, checked out books, and exchanged niceties with town folk
as well as members of the town council and directors from the state board.
Truitt’s young life had been swaddled in the leather bindings and stitched
pages of Knowledge.
His first scholarship allowed him to attend the elite Priory of
St. Johns where, at the age of six, he found a seat among the sons of the
privileged. It had been a rough go at first. His being the only day student, he
had been relegated to the bottom rung of society, like a bastard
stepson in the family attic. There’s herd mentality
for you.
Yet by the time he was in the third level, he had won the favor of
key fourth and fifth levels, by sharing the fruit of his adept skill at
research. His love of learning, of erudition and books, had served to raise his
status. When he graduated from the Academy, he had secured a prestigious,
four-year scholarship to Columbia University.
Truitt had tied his proverbial wagon to a scholarly star, and it
had rarely failed him.
In the Admin Building, he passed two students who greeted him with
reserve. After collecting his mail, Truitt climbed the stairs to his office on
the second floor, in the Humanities Department. He made short business of the
memos, meeting schedules and administrative proclamations that had been shoved
into his box. He was disappointed to find no mention of staff changes or
promotions, until he reasoned that the news would hardly have had time to make
the press by this morning. The last memo, a reminder of Saturday’s yearend
barbecue, had been addressed to “All Hands.” Truitt frowned at the notion that
there was no distinction between professional faculty and unschooled
administrative staff, and both were collectively on par with farmers and
cowboys. He tossed the memo into his waste bin.
It was true that he had expected much more from this first
position. He had anticipated a rural atmosphere, of course, something a bit
more provincial than the old-world college towns of New England. But he had not
foreseen the stark wilderness of the country he had landed in. The arid,
desolate terrain that surrounded St. Clements yielded little to nurture his
aspirations. Yet considering the promotion, he had in the end carved out a
singular niche of opportunity for himself. Few Columbia fellows had yet to run
the gauntlet from Assistant to Associate Professor in the six short years since
graduation. And Truitt himself had no confidence that he would make the grade
either, or that the College Board of St. Clements would approve his promotion
given his faltering association with its president.
The call from his department chair on the previous evening had
surprised Truitt. Even more astonishing to him was his own response to the
news. He listened to the news with a tacit joy, then
responded to Dr. Mudd with reserved gratitude. Before the phone hit the cradle,
Truitt was already rearranging his plans, for he had been expecting another
result. To that end, he had already set things in motion to make a move the
following year. Yet, he had not been encouraged by the responses from a dozen
applications he had made. Only one position held any possibility at all and,
for Truitt, the small college in West Virginia was hardly his idea of progress.
He had only applied there as a last ditch effort,
enticed only by its proximity to the northeast and home.
The promotion would enhance his appeal when he sought a more
favorable position in the future. He would, of course, stay
the ground now, and gain experience and exposure to a wider body of colleagues.
For the new position came with a grant for professional enrichment such as
membership in the national congress of medievalists and its summer conference.
Truitt set about the morning’s work with elation. Even the
drollest papers from his medieval lit class could not dampen his mood. He
sorted through the themes that he had read and graded over the weekend,
ordering them by grades from top to bottom. Being as conscientious and thorough
as he was, he set about to review every comment and finalize the grade in pen,
considering the work of the individual student in terms of the class as a
group.
The task made for a long morning. Truitt was already anticipating
the hiring of a teaching assistant—another benefit of his new position—who
would be addressing the less savory administrative tasks that went with
teaching undergraduates. With the right person, he could surrender discussion
groups from his core classes of English composition and introductory lit. That
would leave Truitt time to focus on the upper level
courses, on his responsibilities as advisor to a group of English majors, and
to further develop his body of work on the Calabrian monk. In
particular, Truitt wanted Thomas Martin for the job, a noteworthy
student, who had followed Truitt from his freshman comp class to the medieval
lit course.
Martin’s paper sat at the top of the pile, just as the student
stood above the rest of them, with insight and intelligence of a doctoral
candidate. In the batch of fair-to-middling essays, Martin had selected the
most serious and difficult topic, “Divine Intellect and Divine Illumination.”
He had exhibited a mature grasp on key arguments differentiating the work of
Aquinas from Augustine with an exacting interpretation of both source texts.
His argumentation was concise and clear, albeit delivered in the casual style
of students arguing in the commons. Truitt had praised the work in a note on
the front page under the A grade,
which he now confirmed in red ink. He flipped to the back page to assure that
he had been equitable in noting the student’s disparity between subject and
style. It was a gaffe that would be corrected with experience,
but could not override the excellence of his topic.
The class had done tolerably well as a third
year group. The ladies—there were four of them in the class—had
predictably chosen themes regarding chivalry and romance. And the next paper
was one of these, “Noblesse Oblige
and the Medieval Knight” The topic was sentimental, nowhere near matching the
elevated nature of Martin’s theme. The student had a good opinion of her work
and her person, something he hesitated to reward. Still, it had been thoroughly
researched, appropriately annotated, and well written. Truitt could assign Miss
Day nothing less than an A-minus,
considering the leniency he had extended on Martin’s style. In truth, he also
needed to demonstrate fairness to prove that he was not favoring the male
students as he had been recently accused of.
He confirmed the grade in red ink, yet when it came to writing the
usual comment below the grade, he found he could not do it. Conflicted by a
need to be seen as unbiased on the one side and a
higher value for truth, he found he could make no comment at all. He turned the
paper aside, assuring himself that he would fix this in the future by clearly
denoting A-level topics from the others. He was, after all, nothing, if not
fair and just.
It was nearly ten o’clock by the time he was done with the
medieval term papers. He thought of taking a breather, but
was just as anxious to be done with the sophomore essays on Romantic
Literature. Spreading the papers on his desk, he was ordering them from bottom
to top, hoping to save the best for last.
A sharp rap on the door commanded his attention.
Before Truitt was able to utter a word the door opened, and the
janitor’s head popped through.
“Yes?” Truitt asked with little interest as he returned to his
work.
The janitor pushed the door open, standing full form in the
office, armed with a tool. “Sorry to disturb ya’, perfesser... Got the
news, did you…about the system repairs and all?”
Truitt glanced at the discarded mail, unable to recall such a
notice. “Perhaps—just this morning, though.” He continued to work.
“Glad to hear it…” was the response,
but the door didn’t close.
Truitt looked up at the man.
The janitor wasn’t budging. “Need to check the radiator. You’re
first on the list.”
Truitt was first because of his junior position in the department,
he had little doubt about that. Yet, things were about to change. He needed to
take a stand with the staff, and start acting the part of an Associate, by
responding as any of the others would in this situation. “As you can see, I’m
busy at the moment. Come back at two. I have a class
then.” He readdressed the work in front of him, and by the tone of his voice,
dismissed the man’s expectations.
“Oh sure…I see…but I got to be outta
here by noon myself. Taking the missus to town, you see. Doctors and all.”
No, Truitt did not see. “Then start somewhere else…Like the second
floor.”
“Gotta work down from the top, you see. Boiler’s
in the basement. Steam rises…”
“Yes. Yes, but in someone else’s office,” Truitt urged. Did he
have to plan out the man’s schedule to get him to return to this office later?
The janitor shook his head, bouncing the tool gently against his
hand. “No can do. Everyone’s busy right now... students... finals. With
year-end to-dos. Dr. Mudd says start right here. ‘Perfesser
Truitt won’t mind’ he says.”
Truitt sighed impulsively, then restrained any outward show of
irritation. He’d been trumped by the department chair. “Fine.” Recalling his
improved position, Truitt resigned himself to the interruption. Noblesse oblige
and all that.
“Just be quick about it.” Truitt said, trying to concentrate on
his work.
“That’s the spirit, perfesser. Be done
in no time. Just checking a valve or two…”
“Quietly.” Truitt said.
“Sure thing,” the janitor muttered. Attacking the radiator with
aplomb, he tapped and twisted metal upon metal, causing an erratic tattoo that
jolted Truitt’s concentration.
A rattling clank ended in a clunk followed by the human utterance,
“Whoops!”
Truitt was determined not to look up.
Steam hissed, followed by another interjection, “Aw jeez!” Then a noxious odor filled the
room.
Truitt scooped up the papers, shoved them into his bag, and left
through the door with all the dignity he could muster.
“Be done in just a sec, perfesser!” The
janitor called after him.
Truitt was already headed down the stairs and toward the Faculty
House.