“I was trying to break down the door to Randolph Hall.”
“Well, don’t let it happen again.” He was pretending to be angry at me, but he actually was angry, which made his pretending less convincing. I didn’t care. If after fifteen years he hadn’t figured out how to run this thing, it was his tough shit. Banging on a dorm door at two A.M. was nothing compared to crumbling buildings, unpaid tuition bills, housing spats, noise violations, student disappearances, stonewalling from the state, or any of the usual travel disasters, teacher flake-outs, broken computer printers, underage drinking, chest pains, lost wallets, dogs trapped in sweltering cars, food complaints, in-class threatening behavior, broken air-conditioning, bruised egos, leaking ceilings, rattling windows, psycho participants pleading for help. His mood was not my fault.
“Didn’t you see me wave to you at breakfast?”
“No.”
His eyes lit up. They were a luminous green. The top of his face was mottled and shiny, while the lower part was loose and heavy, the color of steak, capillaries dark with iron.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said. “How are you?” His long gray hair looked slept on.
“Great.”
“How’s class?”
“Fantastic. Carol Dugan’s doing a comic on being gang-raped as a child.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“And George Frost’s brother won the Navy Cross in combat in Vietnam, but they gave it to him after he was dead.”
“God.”
“There are a few really disturbing ones.”
He looked crazed. “How can you stand it?”
“Why are you looking at me that way?”
“Did you really not see me wave to you at breakfast?” He was demented.
“Yes, I thought you were saying hello. I didn’t know you needed anything from me.”
“I need something.”
“What?”
He looked over at the wine table. I guess he needed a drink. I still had a gallon of seawater in my head and hopped up and down on one foot and instead it came pouring out my nose. Carl made his own sour face and waved for me to follow. We went up the porch stairs of the main building to his office, on the second floor. His shelves had books on seabird ecology and marine vertebrates, and novels and poetry by past summer faculty. He had a case of books on a table, signed hardback editions of Tom McLaughlin’s West Texas memoir, to be given as gifts to donors. The paintings on Carl’s walls were ones students had left behind. His windows looked out over the lawn, onto the scene below, conference attendees coming this way for dinner. I sat on the couch between piles of books, boxes of art supplies, poster tubes, and stacks of sweatshirts donated by the media mogul. He asked me to sign some of my posters, laid out on a table, for swag. I was flattered. He mentioned Solito and the book prize nomination and said it was good press for the conference. “We asked him to give a slide talk tonight.”
“You bumped Dennis? That poor fucker.” I hated him and started laughing. Carl ignored me and asked if I could introduce Solito. I stopped laughing, because I had no choice. Faculty members were contractually obligated to participate in these things.
Solito had had a similar reaction when Carl approached him. “No thanks, but maybe some other time.” Carl’s eyes blazed when he repeated those words. He told the kid that the conference had paid $1,200 to have his slide talk advertised on the radio.
Carl handed me a copy of Solito’s book. On the inside flap, critics described it as “mesmerizing,” “simple and moving,” “a tale of suffering,” “a story of humor and courage.” I opened to the first page and it all came back to me, and was better than I’d remembered: the drawing of his mom, the smoke from her cigarette curling, catching her eye, reflected and dancing on the surface of a single teardrop. I went to the outer office, to Mary’s empty desk, to work on my intro, looking for reviews and articles. Carl followed and opened the freezer and took out a bottle of vodka, poured a drink, and sat in a chair by Mary’s desk, jingling his ice cubes. “So?” He gave me a leering look. “Having fun this year?” He wanted my dirt. He’d been standing over me when I’d knelt beside her on the softball field. He knew from Burt that I’d been at the clinic, and that it was her dormitory door I’d banged on at two A.M.
“If you want me to do this, go away.”
I found material on Solito. One reviewer used the word “voracious.” They called him versatile, a tinkerer, comedic, a magpie. They referred to the book as a “meticulously documented autobiographical triumph,” “real events in words and pictures,” and “a haunting graphic novel.” One reviewer wondered what Solito’s life would’ve been like if the United States hadn’t destroyed a legitimate Guatemalan government just beginning to enjoy the blessings of democracy, leaving behind death squads, poverty, and decades of civil war. I read the blurbs on the back: “His sensibility is utterly unique, his characters are utterly real.” The book was titled The Crossing: A Picto-Narra-Graphic Allegory. I pulled quotes and listed Solito’s honors, fellowships, and awards.
But as I worked, I worried that audience members who knew me would look on in horror as I groveled in submission to a rising star. I worried that the ones who’d never seen me before would assume I was some sniveling ass licker trying to steal the limelight. I worried that my envy and roiling hostility would muddle my words, or that I’d start cackling madly and drop my introductory notes, grab Solito by the collar, and kick the shit out of him. I worried that any attempt to illuminate his work would reveal my inferiority. But after I printed the introduction out and read it over, I couldn’t help but admire him, and felt protective even, proud to be associated with him, and maybe also a little swollen and greasy.