Scene from the Road: Higher Education

So I stopped by the local junior college yesterday on business, and got a look at the crowd that was there registering for classes.

Scene #1:

Daddy has brought Junior to sign up for college. Daddy, you can tell right off, is a Big Man. Physically and financially. A player in the business world, and somewhere near the top of the pile too. His khaki slacks are neatly pressed, as is the expensive orange polo shirt over a long-sleeved NASCAR tee: the message is crisply casual, just-one-of-the-boys-ha-ha. His smooth, pink, porcine face, framed by graying hair sleekly cut and a pair of streamlined eyeglasses, seems permanently creased into a smirking I-can-sell-you-something smile. His voice carries over the dull roar of the crowd as if he long ago swallowed a public-address system.

Perhaps he owns a car dealership, or a local factory. He is used to being heard, attentively. He calls out to acquaintances he sees in the crowd, he addresses the college staff in a joking, familiar style, as if they are old employees of his. He is glad to be here, he is always glad to be wherever he is, and he knows that everyone else in the room is glad he is here. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s a wonderful world, always, every day, and he’s the man who makes it run that way.

The one thing he cannot make run, however, is Junior. Junior sits slumped in a chair at the registration table, staring blankly at his class schedule, unable to quite comprehend it all. Junior has black, greasy hair like an oil spill slowly dripping over the sallow skin of his pointed face and jutting ears. Junior is letting his beard grow out, but he has only about twenty hairs on his face, and about that many pimples. Junior has just barely graduated from high school but despite his lanky frame, he looks like a 14-year-old, in a black, wrinkled tee embossed with skulls, rotten sneakers, baggy jeans drooped around his thin legs. Junior cannot decide anything. Junior is not the man his father is. And never will be.

Perhaps that is why Daddy is being extra-jovial today, the sunshine man himself, not letting anyone see the deep, deep disappointment that gnaws at his liver. No, Junior will succeed, he must succeed, even if Daddy has to walk him to class every day and carry his books, by God he will make something of this boy. He must get an education no matter what it takes. Junior never looks at his father, no matter how loud the booming voice echoes over his shoulder. He just stares and stares at the bewildering forms and lists and schedules in front of him, mouth agape, his eyes black pools of not-knowing.

Finally, a kind counselor makes a few suggestions. Junior grunts. Uhhh. A few more suggestions. Uhn-uh. “Well, Intro to Philosophy is still open, you want to sign up for that?” A pause. Junior is trying to think, but the gears won’t turn. “I don’t know what that is.” Daddy the Protector leaps to cover the embarrassing admission. “Oh that’s an easy course, son. That’s where you read all those books of mythology and stuff.”

Daddy lays a fatherly grip on his son’s shoulder. Junior does not look up. He is not encouraged. He stares silently at the papers on the table, boring holes through them with his black, sunken eyes. He cannot see anything. His feet twitch up and down, up and down, up and down. But he cannot run.


Scene #2

Another table. Two elderly women are sitting side by side, talking to an advisor. One is short and squat, wearing a red sweat suit. The other is tall and thin, in a blue sweat suit. They have driven a long ways into town for this, and at last they have gotten to the head of the line. Both have white hair and many wrinkles, but the tall one seems much older, and much quieter. Her four-legged, two-wheeled walker stands behind her chair. It is she who is registering for a class.

They do not look like sisters. They do not explain their relationship. They have been listening to the advisor as she explains fees and semester hours, and all of that. The red-suited one is asking the advisor, “Does she have to take freshman English first? She has a bachelor’s degree in home economics.” Out of a folder, she pulls a yellowing piece of paper. The advisor smiles and answers, all right, I think we can exempt her from the freshman English requirement. “Well, she wants to take an advanced writing course, what other English courses do you offer?” The advisor reads off the list of what is available.

“Oh yes, Creative Writing, you would like to take that one, wouldn’t you?”

The blue-suited one smiles a little, starts to speak, hesitates. A thought tumbles forward, slips through her grasp. They are all so slippery now. She looks down at her lap, perhaps it fell there. No. She tries again. Her eyes peer out from under the overhanging folds of her lids, like a couple of timid sparrows hidden in a tree. She is ancient. She knows much, she has seen many things, but the light is so dim now, she cannot find them in the corners of her mind, cannot lay hands on them all, they skitter away in the darkness like cats. But she wants to try. She is still here. Somewhere in the dusk, a little spring still bubbles.

Once upon a time there was a young, hopeful girl in there. She loved books, and going to school. Perhaps she is still there, a dryad soul in the gnarled body. She tries again. It seems to take all her strength, but finally she catches hold of some words and pushes them out. They seem to come from far, far away, from another time, another world.

“I write Poems and Letters to the Editor.” The words come out wobbly and askew, but there, she said it. She is a Writer.

A shy, proud smile illuminates her face for an instant, and then melts back into a wrinkle. A moment of sunlight on a dark, cloudy day. A dream that will not die, even now as the shadows of night are gathering around her.

The red-suited one has been waiting silently for this triumph, secretly willing her to speak all this time. She pats her companion’s hand, nods proudly, and turns to smile broadly at the advisor. “Yes, she writes things, she loves to write. But would it be all right if I came and sat with her in class? On account of her health, you know. Or would we have to pay extra for that?”

A pause. The advisor clears her throat, smiles at them. “Oh yes, I think we can accommodate you that way. No extra charge.”


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