Thursday, January 29, 2015
One Academic Life
NFZ
The Professor perched at the end of the bar
at Kippy's Kool Kup, observed our antics with
half-lidded, yet twinkling, amusement, and
always paid by check at closing time.
He only spoke when asked a question, the
answer to which could be unraveled during
the rest of the week.
Well, a benign presence, really. Until a
strange evening when one, Laurie, sought
to flirt with him for the absolute hell of it.
Unfortunately, a scattered argument ensued
during which the Professor pushed her right
nipple as if she were a doorbell.
An immediate slap! One of the loudest sounds
ever heard there.
Immediate hysterics from the young lady--which
her friends later classified as one-quarter genuine--
and Kippy jumped in and told the Professor to leave.
Fortunately a semi-famous hockey player known to
Laurie entered upon his exit, and she leapt into his
comforting arms.
A week, and no Professor, so we tried to find out his
phone number. Unlisted. And where he lived.
His Department Chair popped in and asked for direct
intervention. He gave us the address.
A hearing would be held if this temporary recluse
didn't make his next scheduled class.
So, I enlisted Mark, the former Green Beret, and his
brother, former Navy Seal. Thus, heavy lifters,
supervised by weak me.
(Mark's brother might have had a name but we always
referred to him as Mark's Brother--as in “Hey Mark's
Brother, what's the point spread on the Giants-Eagles?”)
Anyway, we sped off to the Professor's efficiency.
No answer, but I knew the lock and took out my Swiss
Army Knife. "Take a few minutes," I informed the
musculars.
They, of course, shouldered the door in.
The Professor sprung up like Hamlet's Father's
Ghost from a daybed indistinguishable from
surrounding papers and books.
"What is the outrage of this meaning?" as a scotch bottle
crashed to the tile floor.
“The outrage?” Mark's Brother snapped, “is that you
stink!”
“Yeah,” added Mark, and a shower will take care of
the meaning.”
So, they hauled him into the bathroom.
Much rushing water and protests as I piled
up things more evenly, so the Board of Health
wouldn't condemn the dump outright.
Mark’s Brother had prepped for the Seals
at the state reform school, and had evidently
learned towel-snapping at naked victims there.
Thus when the water went off, loud snaps and
extraordinary howls.
Long story short, Professor back at his school.
And his stool.
Diehard pricks in the department still wanted
the hearing, but the Chairman rustled up an old
paper on Wordsworth our hero had written, and the
damned incomprehensible thing won an award.
So, Prof secure in both domains presently.
Mark’s Brother exhibits a surprising artistic flair
fashioning a stand-up sign for Prof's station at
the bar. Midst curlicues and obese Cupids diagonally
slashed in red, it reads “NFZ.”
For No-Female Zone.
Labels: academic, art, bar, betting, binge, Cupid, English Dept, female, football, sex, teacher, Wordsworth
