"And for my sake, and yours especially,
and for the nether gods as well.
You can tell me I'm on my knees,
But you will find that I never surrender
When I know something is wrong."

"Antigone," Translation by R. E. Braun. Lines 901-905. Used without permission.
 
 

BYERS:

October 6, 2001
 

Work is hell. Matt Groenig was not kidding.

I've been on faculty a number of years here, and until recently, I loved working here. Like all universities, it's rife with politics and gossip and petty feuds and empire building, but it was also a place bursting with lively dialogue and novel ideas, which were discussed with little fear of repercussion.

All that has changed. Censorship is the rule now. And when you institute censorship, knowledge is the first casualty.

I have never been so tempted in my life to rest on my grandfather's laurels; that is to say, live off my trust fund.

Something about doing it, though, feels so terribly wrong. It's terrible when you have the Protestant work ethic ground into you as firmly as your mitochondria are part of your cells.

And my father would be utterly disgusted. He may be wealthy beyond what he could possibly need, but the idea of not working every day of his life is abhorrent to him.

I would not, however, feel terribly guilty about taking the next week and a half off. It's twelve days till Juliet's and my wedding, and while Nicole the Wacky Wedding Planner has it well under control, and Juliet is doing the balance of the work, I feel vaguely guilty for being unavailable. Seems that vacations are much harder to get than they used to be around here. In fact, the university has instituted a policy of preferring that faculty and staff take the occasional personal day as opposed to stretches of time. They claim it keeps the operation more efficient.

This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, to use a technical term. People burn out rapidly under this system. And while faculty head count has remained fairly constant-the players have changed, but not the number-the staff ranks have been slashed.

This is professional suicide. Professors don't exist in a vacuum. In order to work in academia, and only have to worry about conveying your subject matter, you need an army of room schedulers, curriculum schedulers, cashiers, counselors, billing clerks, librarians, secretaries, Xerox operators, bookstore employees, payroll clerks, and fast food workers to make it happen. Anyone who has ever taught in a university, and has any sense of reality about it, realizes that there are about 40 people per professor to make it happen for that professor. We never see most of these people, don't know their names, don't even know where their offices are located, but they are totally vital to the business of education. Without them, we would never get a single class taught.

I hate that phrase, the business of education. I think treating education the same as one would a for-profit enterprise can have terrible consequences. I don't take the dearth of liberal arts offerings these days lightly. Perhaps you cannot get a job on Wall Street with a degree in linguistics or classics or literature, but to discount their importance in shaping and maintaining civilization is a dreadful mistake. In my mind, to know how to think, and think critically, to make informed judgments, to understand the meanings in all of the world around us, I think these are of the highest good. And I do believe that they have indirect economic consequences as well.

Education should train you to do something useful. But perhaps that something useful should be the byproduct of education and not necessarily its sole purpose. I eschew the idea that education doesn't have to have practical consequences-it does, whether you believe it does or not.

We are rapidly being reduced to institutes of higher vocational learning. Discourse, dialogue, analysis-all of these are being tossed away as frivolities, useless niceties in a world where profit is the only rule.

Those in power would argue with this. They will be quick to claim that this is the righteous way, the way mandated in Scripture, a claim that I find preposterous at best and sacreligious at worst. I'm not a Biblical scholar, but I have learned enough that I really have a hard time believing that God, if he does in fact exist, is a capitalist. I doubt he's ever read Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations.' (Interesting book, not my point of view, but I consider it required reading for everyone).

Juliet is sympathetic to my exegesis here. She's been in academia herself. I think she'd like to return, but right now, there is a distinct prejudice against women with young children entering the work force-specifically, white, Protestant, upper middle class women. We're perfectly happy to let minorities and the poor do the grunt labor. We encourage this, in fact. But somehow, a well-educated, thoughtful woman like Juliet is supposed to subordinate her intelligence once she decides to reproduce. As if the two were mutually exclusive somehow.

It's a world of very bizarre dichotomies these days. Juliet and I were awake far too long last night, discussing these matters and attending to various details regarding the wedding. Not necessarily in any sort of logical sequence, either.

This is what I love about Juliet, though. The ability to exchange ideas, to talk endlessly about how things should be in our minds, about how they are and how they can be changed and whether they should be changed, to analyze, to think and dream and be idealistic in spite of our cynicism over what we have learned and seen. Her ideas are always well thought out, she argues them well, and she has occasionally even gotten me to change my mind.

I'm so glad she somehow managed to change my mind about my uncertainty regarding her and me.

Thought. So rapidly becoming an unused, and unwanted, commodity in our society.
 

MICHAEL:

Yay, Tuesday. My shortest day of classes-and I always get to see Kelly. Tuesday's a good day this semester.

I head for Chateau Langly as soon as my last tutoring customer bails out, and not a moment too soon. I swear to God, some of these people are too stupid to live, forget about trying to get a college education. It's kind of hard to teach people stuff when their brain cells seem to have died. I keep wondering what they're putting in the water these days.

I get to Chateau Langly and Kelly's not there yet, she's got a lab on Tuesday that sometimes runs real long, it can run up to 6 and I got out at 5.

Get some work done or visit the family?

Hell, Langly's sick. Least I can do is go bust his sorry ass.

Ally's in the kitchen as she usually is, her laptop's on the table, but right now she's cooking something that smells pretty damn awesome.

"Chicken soup. With garlic and scallions and lots of rice." She lifts the lid off the cookpot to let me sniff. Even with my nose plugged up, I can tell there's garlic in that there soup. "Otherwise known as Jewish penicillin."

"Where's your old man?"

"He's moved to the sofa. I think he's awake."

I hear a loud cough from the other room and a whiny voice. Yeah, that's him.

He's on the sofa and Patrick's nearby, they're watching 'Star Wars 1: The Phantom Menace' on Showtime. Patrick loves this flick. Two more years and he'll get to see the next installment.

I was only a year old when the original came out, but I was four when 'The Empire Strikes Back' was released, and I got hooked. I had a bunch of the toys, they were so cool. And I hear they're worth bucks these days. Who knew?

Patrick's got a bunch of the toys from this version, and they're cool, although not as cool as mine were. He's got the action figures and a Naboo fighter and a bunch of other stuff spread all over the floor in front of the sofa, where anyone trying to get near it will definitely either be killed or crippled.

The sofa's filled up with one sorry looking figure, sling on his arm, blanket pulled up over him. He looks like shit.

I should try and cheer him up.

"Hey fuckrag." I call.

He squints at me and coughs. "Oh God. What did I do to deserve this?"

"You were born."

"Fuck you, Junior."

"Fuck you, Junior!" Patrick laughs happily at his own echo of Langly.

"Patrick, shut up, you can't say that!" Langly's scolding him, which is so damn hypocritical of him, but pretty funny, too.

"So you're not dead yet," I comment to him.

"I'm not?" He looks skeptical. "I thought they just forgot to tell me."

"You're just ugly, that's all."

Behind the glasses he narrows his eyes at me. "Listen, you got Melvin's DNA, you got no right to talk about ugly."

"The arm still hurt?"

"Yeah. Oh hell, yeah."

"Want me to step on your toe so then maybe your arm won't seem like it hurts so much?"

He groans. Which is what I wanted. "Junior, anyone ever tell you what a fuckrag you are?"

"You do, all the time."

"What's a fuckrag?" Patrick asks.

"Something that if you say it again, I'm gonna stuff a sock in your mouth."

"Then why you say it?"

Kid does have a point.

"'Cause I'm older than you, that's why."

Langly must really be out of it. He'd come up with something a lot more clever than that normally.

"Hey dude, can I play with your stuff?" I ask Patrick.

"Okay." He doesn't seem quite as wild as usual. He's not smiling a lot, either.

"Hey Patrick buddy. Tell Mommy to get me some Mountain Dew, okay?"

"Don't wanna."

"Too bad. Go ask her."

"I'm busy."

"Patrick." He coughs for about five minutes, then picks up. "Tell Mommy to get me some Mountain Dew, or I'll take your action figures away."

Patrick finally stomps off to the kitchen, pissed off at having his stream of consciousness interrupted.

Miranda makes her grand entrance-Miranda never just walks in, she enters. "Hey Langly. Can you help me with physics later?"

He looks at her skeptically. "You care if the answers are right?"

"Yes, I care if the answers are right!"

He groans in pain. "Get your book."

"I said later."

"I'm not planning to be conscious later."

"Fine." She flounces off in a huff.

Langly turns to me, coughs another hundred times, and then grabs some Kleenex. "Hey Junior, you asked me the other night if I was sorry I wasn't gonna have any more kids?"

"Yeah."

He closes his eyes. "Lemme tell you, I got enough kids already."

I laugh.

Ally appears with Mountain Dew-in a glass, with ice. Oh man. Talk about service.

"Say the magic word," she says, holding it just out of reach for him.

"Huh?"

"The magic word, Langly."

"You're pretty?"

She thinks about that. "That's two words, and it's not the one I was thinking of, but I'll take it." She vanishes back to her own business.

"You look like you could get used to this lying around being waited on thing," I say to him. And he does. Langly could totally get used to being indulged all the time.

Hell, who couldn't?

"Yeah, well, I'm milking it for what it's worth, tomorrow it's back to the crypto mines."

"Yeah, sure, dude. You really look like you're going places."

He moans. "As much as I enjoy having my lovely wife wait on me hand and foot, I don't think my employer's too jazzed about my new lifestyle of sleeping all day."

"Langly, you moron, lemme remind you, I had this shit last winter, and I kept trying to push it, and I did, and I ended up being real sick for a real long time. And it sucked."

"I got drugs."

"And you don't rest, they don't work."

"Where'd you get your medical degree, asshole?"

"Life experience, or as my dad would say, the college of hard knocks. Besides, you got to get past Ally first if you wanna go to work tomorrow-"

"Didn't say I wanted to, said I had to."

"And getting past Ally, that could be tough. She might do something drastic."

"What, like tie me to the bed? Mmm. Could be interesting."

"Or I could send my dad over to yell at you."

He rolls his eyes. "Oh Jesus fuck, anything but that. Please."

"And Byers'll send over that Ecchinacea shit."

"You mean that vile stuff he calls tea? Oh Christ. When I got out of the hospital couple years ago, he sent that stuff over. Tried it once. Thought I was gonna die."

"Yeah, he sent me some, too."

"You try it?"

"Once. Which was enough."

He laughs, coughs, then laughs a little more. "Well, Junior, least we agree on something."

"So like are you gonna stay home till you're better, or do I have to send my dad over?"

He squints at me. "Junior, you really know how to fuck with a guy, don't you?"

Hey, nice to know I have SOME talent.
 

BYERS:

Juliet is clicking away at the keyboard when I arrive. The place is really beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like home, more and more all the time. Smell is particularly prominent when I enter; something smells strongly of garlic and tomatoes, which just about makes me faint with hunger.

She's doing some research for Luanne Russell. Luanne could keep her busy right now 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but she limits herself to about 6 hours a day right now. Much of what she's doing is work that Frohike was originally working on, but has been unable to complete.

"You know, John, someday I think I'd like a real job again," she laughs.

"You're kidding." This after the day I had?

She's lost her mind.

She laughs. "Seriously. There's something about working in your jammies that doesn't feel the same."

"You're not working in your jammies right now."

"No, but I'm working in my jeans, which is still not the same thing, particularly after a day of arranging things."

"Don't you think you ought to take it easy?"

This brings forth a gale of laughter. "What, you think I'm in a delicate condition?"

"Well, actually, yes!"

"John, get real. Women have been doing this for millenia."

"I'm aware of that." But I haven't been doing it for millenia, that's for sure.

"And I've been thinking about it...and I'd like to have this baby at home."

"Well, that's where he or she is going to live, you know."

"No, John, I want to have this baby at home, as in give birth."

She's kidding, right?

"Juliet...do you think this is a good idea?" I feel slightly lightheaded at this suggestion. What will happen if there's a complication? Who would help us? Where would we go? What would we do? Somehow, it just doesn't feel safe.

"Yes, I do."

"What do you do for medical support in a situation like this?"

"We get a midwife. And they're approved on your health plan. Small print, but the proviso checks out."

"You've been hacking again."

She laughs loudly, musically. "John, don't even get me started on that topic...as if it's all right for you to do it, but not me? Do you really doubt my capabilities here?"

"Well, no, I don't."

"Then why do you worry so much when I need to get inside information? You guys, when you do it yourselves, have roughly the same regard for it you do as brushing your teeth, but when a woman wants to get in there-"

"I just get worried, that's all."

"John, you amaze me sometimes. I confess I'm touched by your concern in all this-I really am. I like that you worry about me and about the baby and about everything. That's how you show you care. But sometimes you go a little over the edge in that department." She laughs again. "And it wasn't really a hack, you know. The information is available...they just choose to make it difficult for people."

"But you found it."

"Yes, I did. And I spent some time getting some names and references, checking out educational backgrounds and licensing-"

"So you're talking about someone licensed, at least."

"Of course I'm talking about someone with a lot of training! From what I've read, they do a better job than most obstetricians in terms of normal births."

"What happens if it's not a normal birth?"

"Most of them work with several ob-gyns as back up for emergencies."

"But what happens if you have an emergency that comes up quickly?"

"911. Remember it?"

"Vaguely. I don't know..."

"John, your specialty is looking at health care delivery systems."

"But not in this area."

"Maybe you should check it out. It's interesting, to say the least."

"Do you have any statistics?"

"I do, and they're mighty impressive, but I'll tell you what: you check it out. We go and talk to several of these women and see how we feel with them. We check out their work records. If you're still not comfortable with it, we'll talk. But before you rush to judgment here, you need to exercise some of those research skills that in today's climate are likely to atrophy."

"No kidding on that one."

"Besides, it's research with a tangible purpose. You want a healthy baby, don't you?"

"Pretty much more than anything."

"Oh? Is there something you'd like more?"

"Um...well..."

I can feel myself blushing as she comes and wraps herself around me and drags me off to the bedroom, laughing all the way.
 

"That was great," she murmurs when we're spent.

And it was.

I can't believe how wonderfully horny she is, and how electric she is in response. It's as if pregnancy activated her already rich emotional life and took it to a new level.

And she's gorgeous. She still looks the same, but she assures me that that isn't going to last for long.

"And even though you can't see it, I had to have my wedding dress let out a little," she laughs.

"You're kidding."

"Nope. If I don't quit eating like this, I'm going to have this baby and no one's going to be able to tell, I'll be such a blimp."

"Aren't you supposed to eat well?"

"John, there's a difference between eating a lot and eating well, I don't think I need to point that out. Mostly I've been doing the former, but I'm trying to work towards the latter."

Probably not a bad idea, in view of how tight my clothes are getting.

"Hey, guess what? We got more wedding presents today," she tells me gleefully.

"This is amazing."

We agreed not to open anything until after the wedding. I have this sensation of finding eight toasters somewhere in all this.

I think Juliet is itching to open packages. I just am not a person who anticipates presents in the same way she does. I was never one to spy on my Christmas packages-it just wasn't done. And they tended not to be very exciting, anyway.

I think of Ally and Langly when they got married. Every time a package would arrive, both of them would be ripping at it like some kind of errant hacksaw. Those two have no restraint.

Of course, Juliet and I have no restraint, either, at least not in certain areas.

"You ready to go again?" She winks at me.

She's kidding, isn't she?

Nope.

Can you burn off calories having this much sex?
 

"So what do you do for an encore?" she asks me dreamily when we're done again.

"Sleep. You're killing me."

"You love it."

"Yes, I do."

We stay quiet and calm for a long time. Labored breathing once again becomes slow and comfortable. We've gotten rid of the colds that plagued us for several weeks, thank God. This is more burdensome to Juliet than to me, since she's not able to take anything to combat her symptoms.

"I need to get up and work some more," she murmurs to me.

"I think you need to rest."

"Nah, I've got my second wind."

"Take it easy, Juliet." I pull her in tightly to me, snuggling her close and feeling her warmth flood me.

"Okay, in a minute, then." She concedes to this arrangement.

It's so peaceful here.

Till something shatters our bedroom window with a loud crash.

"Oh my God!" This forces both of us to sit up in a hurry.

"Shit, what was that?" Juliet looks momentarily shaken.

The glass, being thermapane, has bubbled out and formed veins instead of completely shattering, but there is a substantial hole in the center of the destruction.

Oh God no.

I throw on my robe and some shoes so that I don't get glass shards in my feet, instructing Juliet to stay in bed.

And I see it.

A large caliber bullet lies on the floor amidst the pile of glass fragments.

"Shit," I mutter, which is fairly uncharacteristic of me.

"John, what is it?"

No point in lying to her.

I show it to her.

Her face is contorted in anger, but only one syllable escapes her lips.

"Why?"

I have a lot more questions than that.

END OF PART 65