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“Hi, folks. It’s Lindsey calling. Uh—how are you? Uh—how are you, Gary?”
Gary Martin sucked in his lower lip and gently nibbled it, holding his breath and staring at the top line on his computer screen. His fingertips rested on his keyboard.
“Listen—um—uh—as you may’t be aware, I—we’ve been bringin’ up the issue of censorship in—um—the Faculty Senate—not the Senate—at, at the—uh—Computer Users’ meeting. And we have kinda drafted a resolution—or rather I’ve drafted a resolution as—I’ve e-mailed it—copied it to you sssev—a couple of times on—at the school e-mail. I don’t know if you get that. But the basic thing is that—um—you know—I, I, I drafted a resolution whereas the A-CUC, the Academic Computer Users’ Committee, said that we’re opposed to the—uh—filtering of any kind of—content. And—um—you know we have . . . .”
During Lindsey’s third sentence, Gary took a deep breath through his nostrils and stood up. As her shrill, high voice continued to emanate from his answering machine, he slipped into the light wool jacket he had hung across the back of his home-office chair.
“Bull stool, cow stool, sow stool, chicken stool, elephant stool, whale stool,” he whispered, walking out his back door and into his yard.
Fifteen minutes later he re-entered his house and pressed the “play” button on the white plastic answering machine.
2
“Who’s the message from, hon?” asked Donna Martin, glancing down at the blinking red light next to their phone.
“Lindsey Ames. I saved it for you to interpret to me, but please don’t play it till after we’ve made love. Otherwise it might serve as an anti-aphrodesiac. I played it four hours ago, and I am just now finally recovering.”
“Okay—you saved it, for me to listen to?”
“After love and after supper, both. That’s my recommendation. Did it go okay at work today?”
“The usual same ol’ cut-throat stuff. Charlie and Keith kept trying to torpedo each other during the noon meeting and occasionally fired off little shots towards Ralph and me. Ol’ Andrew nodded approvingly whenever they made some point, and that seemed to encourage them. Ralph and I basically kept our mouths shut, though he did a lot of eye-rolling whenever I looked across at him.”
“He wants you, babes,” Gary said.
“I am for Gary,” she said in mock-robot tones, “after he gives me a five-minute foot rub.”
“Foot rub first,” he said.
3
While Gary finished washing their dinner plates and silverware, Donna sat in the livingroom and played Lindsey Ames’s message. From time to time she wrinkled her nose.
“. . . I, I, I drafted a resolution whereas the A-CUC, the Academic Computer Users’ Committee, said that we’re opposed to the—uh—filtering of any kind of—content. And—um—you know we have obligations obviously to provide for security and— nnn—no illegal activities on the Internet, but content—um—should not be filtered. So—um—though—I got an e-mail from Becky—um—MacLeod, the Senate President, that you wanted the proposals—um—forwarded—no—mmm—the motion made putting the proposals on the floor—thing is, we’re going to have a very—probably a long meeting voting on membership—on Friday. And—um—I, I was kinda anxious to get this—um—censorship issue on the floor, as well as—uh—actually pushing for new—uh—reorganization—with Academic Computing—as a separate—entity—or a distinct entity—so—um—we’re not gonna have time to do all of that. All I hope to do is get the motion made and—um—you know—get the motion made that is—um—about censorship and—um—you know—kinda take it from there. Anyway, give me a call at 676-6480. I’ve been talking with Becky MacLeod, and I said—you know—I would talk to you and maybe would take up your proposals next—at the following meeting. Okay, darling. Take care.”
Donna’s hand hovered over the “delete” button of the answering machine.
“Babes?” she called towards the kitchen. “You want me to save this shit?”
“Nah,” said Gary. “I already talked to her for—oh—ten minutes. So, what did you think that was about?”
“Think?” she said, walking into the kitchen so they wouldn’t have to raise their voices. “That ****ing **** is trying to steal your proposal and put it out as her own while you’re on sick leave.”
Gary turned to face his wife and grinned.
“Shocking! You just used the ‘C’ word—one of the words I can’t use, not even as a term of endearment.”
“Sometimes it’s the only word that does the job, fella. ’Sides, I’m a woman. And it’s not about us getting to change our minds. Anyway, what did you and her talk about?”
“Well, first there was a two-minute minuet where she asked how I’m doing and told me she hoped I was feeling better.”
“But not a peep during the previous four months from her!”
“Now, Donna, the Lindsey is doing the best she can with what the Lord gave her. So anyway I gave her a rather gross, detailed description of what the surgery was like and how my bowel movements are and how my physical rehab is going, and then she asked me if I might be thinking about retiring.”
“Probably has some friend in mind to come in an’ replace you—like what she did when Brian Delany and Willard Ford retired and what she tried to do when Wendy Kaufman was denied tenure.”
“Yuh—that crossed my mind, too. I guess we’re reading from the same page. Then she got around to ‘her’ proposal. Part of her wants to be everyone’s friend, I think, in case she tries to run for department head again, so she was angling to get my permission to substitute her own proposal against Internet censorship for the one I e-mailed to Becky and that Becky forwarded to the whole faculty about three months ago—the one that nobody would put on the floor to be discussed or voted on.”
“Along with your seven other proposals—to abolish praying at Witherspoon’s graduation ceremonies and convocations, to rewrite the forms the department heads use to rate faculty members, to have an Honor Code for everybody, not just the students, and—whatever.”
“Yuh—and have faculty members fill out forms to evaluate their department heads and all the other administration right up to—or down to—the Super. And revising the sick-leave policy. Nothing like a little surgery to make a fella cranky and disinhibit the ol’ brain—that and having a little nose-to-nose with the Reaper. His breath did something, maybe, to my backbone.”
“And your whatever bone—unless it’s the salutary result of being away from that stress factory for a few months—and going to rehab for reconditioning three times a week. Uh—thank you. Thank you very much,” she drawled in a deeper voice.
They both grinned at Donna’s Elvis impression.
“So why did Little Lindsey decide to put out her own motion on censorship? What’s up?” Donna continued.
“Besides wanting to add one more line to her annual list of achievements for the betterment of ol’ Witherspoon Military Academy? And keeping her face—and voice—in the minds of the whole faculty? She said there’s been a questionnaire sent around to the faculty by A-CUC, that Computer Users’ Committee she was assigned to after I got sick. And they determined that about two-thirds of the faculty now is in favor of recommending that the Super remove the censoring program. So, it took a few months, but the direction of the wind seemed clear to her, and she decided to capitalize on it if she could—with my blessing. But, before I’d tell her whether that was all right with me, just for fun and to smoke her out about some of my other proposals that she said she’d put on the floor at the following meeting, I acted a little tangential for a minute or so.”
“Like how? How tangential?”
“I said, ‘Gee, Lindsey, that’s great! Imagine the faculty responding so favorably to the idea of standing up for this!’ An’ I was careful not to sound sarcastic at all. Then I digressed like a ninny and told her what else was great—about how my tastes in classical music have shifted from orchestral pieces to bel canto singing since my operation, especially arias sung by basses, contraltos, and mezzos—and that I’d been buying tons of opera CDs while on sick leave. And I mentioned I’d e-mailed a fan letter to Shirley Verrett and had received a gracious note of thanks back from her. O’ course Lindsey, who projects herself as the expert in all things artistic, pretended to know what I was talking about. She had no clue who Shirley Verrett is or what’s so great about her. She barely knows the difference between—oh—the violinist Arthur Grumiaux and the conductor Arthur Fiedler—or composer Leroy Anderson and contralto Marion Anderson—or Johann Bach and Offenbach—or Cheryl Crowe, a Top Twenties singer she’s heard, or at least heard of, and Cheryl Studer, a diva she hasn’t. And so on—and if I’d really felt mean today, babes, I could’ve asked her which soprano she liked better—Cheryl Studer or Sherrill Milnes—and she’d’ve faked it and made a bogus choice!”
“So what is the right answer, hon?”
“It’s a tricky question. Studer is a soprano, but Sherrill Milnes is really a baritone with a unisex-sounding first name. And Lindsey wouldn’t’ve had a clue.”
“I didn’t have a clue either. What’s that make me?”
Gary’s eyes softened. He took Donna by her shoulders and rubbed his nose against her nose. “Somebody who can be honest about having a gap—somebody who lovably can say—.” He paused and kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, and then the side of her neck. “Somebody cute and adorable who can honestly admit—like me, most of the time—‘Gee, I’ve got a gap in my knowledge. Can you help fill it in?’”
Donna nuzzled the front of his shirt. “You mean like how you helped fill in my gap a little while ago—upstairs?”
“Funny. Clever. Two more reasons why I nub you, little cutie. And—what were we talking about? I suddenly have a gap.”
“’Bout you telling her, Lindsey, you sent a fan letter and got an answer back?”
“That’s right. Thanks. And here’s an unexpected payoff. Not to be outdone, ol’ Lindsey, who fancies herself the expert in all things artistic, bragged that she’d pressured somebody ‘who—um, uh—works at the Landmark and who—uh, uh—owes me—uh, uh’ to give her two freebie tickets worth $40 each to observe a Marilyn Horne ‘master class’ they were having there—and how she had then played Lady Bountiful with the other ticket—‘uh, uh—this is—uh, uh—entre nous, of—uh,uh—course.’ And then, after this confidential confession, I switched our conversation to the topic of the honor code!”
“What a bitch. Her, I mean. Not you, Gary.”
“You may well say so, sweetie. I couldn’t possibly comment. Anyway, I told her, ‘Concerning what you said before, Lindsey, about the faculty getting gutsy—it makes me have hope, entr’ ourselves, that my favorite two proposals will get passed when you put them forward—the one about abolishing compulsory prayers at ceremonies and the one about instituting an Honor Code for the faculty and the admin. That last one has been a big issue with me ever since I first proposed it five years ago. Did I ever tell you, Lindsey, that I’ve got written evidence that Graham, our peerless little department head, told me and a student that he was going to sign a waver for the kid to drop my course late—and then he made a phone call telling the Dean to disapprove the waver? How’s that for honor, huh, Lindsey?’ I said.”
“You’re bad, Gary.”
“I know. What I was thinking, of course, was how she had done something even worse herself—written a poison-pen letter against Graham to the Sabbatical Committee and then, when she was questioned about it, pointed the blame towards Wendy Kaufman. And three weeks after Wendy got canned, the stupid ‘C’ felt bad, a little, and confessed it to me—with lots of self-justifying bull stool—and elephant stool. Not that I even hinted today that the Honor Code idea was chiefly put into my head by her own actions. Anyway, she had the brass ovaries to tell me, ‘Well—uh, uh—I wouldn’t be too happy about having to sign any Honor Code. I’ve got my own code of honor—uh, uh—and it’s a pretty strict one, but I—uh, uh—wouldn’t want to be forced to adopt an outside kind of code—of any kind.’ By the way, I’m not able to do proper justice to her elocution. So, anyway, then I let that Honor Code issue drop and moved back onto the compulsory prayer issue.”
Gary paused to put a cup of instant coffee in the microwave oven.
“You want a cup, too, hon?” he asked.
“Not now. Maybe when we have some sorbet later,” Donna said.
“So I asked Lindsey about the prayer proposal, and she said that she had no problem with things the way they are—that she—uh, uh—just stood up and closed her eyes and thought—um, um—about other things while the chaplains delivered their sectarian prayers. ‘No skin off my—uh, uh—nose’ was the colorful phrase she used. So I said, ‘But you don’t have any problem about putting the proposals on the floor for me? I’d do it myself if I weren’t on sick leave, and you can just say it’s a favor for a colleague, not something you’re endorsing, if that would make you happy.’ And she said it would be not a problem for her. Then she pulled the conversation back to the proposal that is now ‘her’ proposal about not censoring the Internet at a four-year college—for faculty, the administration top to bottom, and the students. And not even the library can get into some bookstore sites to order books, because, I guess, the words ‘adult’ or ‘sex’ or ‘nude’ appear there.”
He took his coffee mug out of the microwave and set it on the counter top.
“So then the Lindsey said directly, ‘You don’t mind that I’m putting out my own proposal on this issue? I—um, um, uh, uh—told Becky I’d check with you.’ And I said, knowing she would do whatever she wanted regardless of what I felt or said, ‘It’s the good of the—the students—and the faculty at ol’ Witherspoon ‘Cademy that comes first with me. We need to get moving on removing that freakin’ filter as soon as we can.’ So she took that to be a green light from me for her, and she told me to tell you hi and that we’ll all—uh, uh—have to get together when the—uh, uh—term settles down.”
“Oh, right. I’m so looking forward to that.”
“The weird thing is that she has no clue that anyone can see through her crap. And she may even believe it herself as it comes out of her mouth. She and a few Janus-like other folks who shall remain nameless—like Graham (‘Slick’) Osborne and Arthur (‘Art for Art’s Sake’) Quinsey. And Gordon (‘Watch Your Back’) McEwen and Jack (‘Off’) Thiel, to not name a few.”
4
A week later, Gary Martin accessed a copy of the Senate minutes with his home computer and discovered that an alternate proposal recommending the abolishment of the censoring “filter” had been presented by Gordon McEwen and seconded by Arthur Quinsey. Following a brief discussion, the motion had then passed by a show-of-hands vote of 92 to 28, with 5 abstentions. Lindsey Ames’s name did not appear in the minutes. And there was nothing in the minutes about “voting on membership.”
Five weeks later, Gary accessed a copy of the minutes of the next meeting and learned that the administration had responded to the will of the faculty: the policy about “filtered access” to the Internet would be “reviewed by the Superintendent” at the start of the next academic year. Additionally, Gary noted that none of his other proposals had been put on the floor to be debated and voted on.
