was that I had ceased to possess truth, a priori or posteriori , because of you, because you were gone, and you were the truth. I need to have you in my life to be whole, to be anything.
May I see you again?
I e-mailed Izzy: I think someone was following us last night and then pasted the web address. Below that I signed off simply, Hapworth .
A reply was waiting for me when I got back from class.
Peter, that is the most amazing thing anybody has ever written me. You are sweet. I had a splendid time last night. Canât wait to see you again. Izzy.
3
Around the conference table in Shelley Schultzâs office sat next seme sterâs new adjunctsâand me. There was Bearded Sweater Dude, a pudgy Wicker Park hipster who exuded a sickening air of conscientiousness not made any easier to endure by his environmentally responsible metallic coffee tumbler and serious-looking spiral notebook. To his left was Senegalese Woman, a mid-forties first-grade teacher sort, with a fabric-covered journal and a vacant but present look on her face. In between her fingers, she had a Bic pen. Its white plastic shell seemed even brighter against her dark skin. She nodded a lot, even when nobody was speaking. To Senegalese Womanâs left sat Short Haired. Though her blue eyes and Mandy Moore haircut connoted a much younger person, her tiny, lusterless features betrayed signs that her twenties took place in an analog era. Orange Corduroy Pants had a high forehead and lipstick spilling over the boundaries of her mouth. She was the sort of person Iâd have expected to find working at a holistic acupressure clinic. It wasnât beyond the realm of possibility that sheâd come to UIC from such a position. Next to her stood Schultz, the coordinator, in an age-inappropriate miniskirt and department-issue turtleneck.
I always hated having to see Schultz, let alone attend her superfluous, disorganized meetings. I wasnât sure why sheâd even invited me to this one, since Iâd been adjuncting for almost ten years. I would have blown it off, like I usually did, but I showed up today to find out what Schultz had assigned me for the coming semester. No matter how much I disliked her, to have a livelihood, even a meager one, depended on my receiving at least two sections a term. I was annoyed, but resigned to suffer through. If at the end of it I could get what I wanted, Iâd have no need to interact with her, corporeally, for a few months at least. Her e-mails and mailbox memos were an unrelenting scourge.
Bearded Sweater Dude spoke in jazzy cadences. âI, like, start them out, you know, like, free associating, just to kinda get them in the groove of brainstorming.â What the hell was he talking about?
Orange Pants, for a full two minutes, rambled an anecdote about a former student of hers. The student had been having trouble writing a resume and come to a number of her office-hours sessions seeking guidance on the topic. By the end of the term, âtheyâ emerged victorious. Schultz, visibly pleased and not at all fettered by the pronoun-antecedent disagreement, unveiled her plan for us to teach this spring a full three-week unit on âpractical writing,â with lectures on resume fonts, paper stocks, and personal website designs. âI have some handouts on using Microsoft Mail Merge macros, for students that want to maximize the reach of their cover letters,â Orange Pants told us. Senegalese Woman made a note of this and drew several emphatic asterisks beside it.
âMr. Hapworth, youâve been quiet,â Schultz said. âDo you have anything to add?â She put a hand to her mouth. âEverybody, I forgot to introduce Peter Hapworth. Mr. Hapworth is, dollars to donuts, one of our longest-surviving adjuncts. Three or four years now, right? Peter has a creative writing background, so, as you can imagine, he always has unique and creative approaches to teaching