Free Beet by Roger Rosenblatt Page B

well. And he looked a bit like Thomas—shortish and fattish with a thick raddled nose and chirpy eyes that seemed to preemptively beseech everyone for forgiveness. His God’s gift, though, was his voice. If anything, it was even more musical than Thomas’s—so bell-like and equipped with its own echo, listeners would rotate their heads and sway to it in a demi-swoon, as they might sitting on a lawn at a Chopin piano concerto drifting over Tanglewood.
    Because The Great’s speaking fee was $20,000, Bollovate, upon learning of the event, attempted to have it canceled. That is, he got President Huey to try to call it off. But The Great’s reading had been set in stone a year in advance, and his contract called for full payment, even if the college backed out.
    â€œTwenty grand for poetry?” said Bollovate. “And what do we get out of it? I’ll tell you what. Poetry!”
    The students, especially those in English and American Literature, were delighted at the prospect of sitting at The Great’s feet, which were usually covered in woolly bedroom slippers worn even in the snow, as he suffered from gout. And the faculty too wanted to gain as much reflected glory as the poet would radiate. Smythewas the most enthusiastic, which is why, as soon as the date was nailed down, he’d volunteered to give a cocktail party to kick off the evening. When The Great stood on the threshold of Smythe’s house just off campus, he was upright and sober, and at first few people recognized him.
    â€œSir! We welcome your return after a long and eventful journey as Penelope welcomed Odysseus,” said Smythe.
    â€œNot in the same way, I hope.”
    Smythe’s house was a gingerbread job so laden with rounded shingles and frosted shutters that the place looked edible. The walls were decorated with little prints of English churches and photographs of famous authors—all staring lifelessly into the camera like gulag prisoners, with Smythe at their sides, wearing a satin smile. In the parlor, Ada Smythe, who understood very little of the literary life but knew how to throw a party, had set up a full bar including a life-size ice sculpture of the Lacoste crocodile to honor her family. She asked her husband how he liked it. He told her, “Boring.”
    By the time of The Great’s late arrival, most of the faculty were present, standing like flamingos in a swamp, holding glasses and making burbling sounds as student-waiters, among them Max Byrd, presented trays of midget asparagus and new potatoes stuffed with cheddar. Until Professor Porterfield got there—somewhat after The Great, as at the last minute Livi had to be driven to the hospital to extract a bullet from a kid who’d accidentally shot himself with his father’s Glock—Max was the only person in the room who had read all the works of B. F. Templeton, excluding The Great himself.
    On the way to the party the Porterfields were talking about what they’d been talking about, off and on, for a year, and more intently lately, with more pain than progress.
    â€œIt isn’t that I don’t want you to go back into practice. You know that,” said Peace. “But the timing is lousy, Liv. I need you here.”
    â€œIf something turns up in Boston, I’ll be here. It’s only a forty-minute drive. But it’s been four years. I’m going to lose everything I’ve trained for.”
    â€œWhat if it’s New York?”
    Her voice was soft, controlled. “Then it’s New York. Look, darling, this place may not exist in a couple of months. And in any case, there’s no sense in both of us doing the wrong job.”
    â€œI’m not doing the wrong job.”
    â€œOf course you are. These people don’t deserve you.”
    â€œThey’ll come around.”
    â€œWhen pigs fly.”
    Peace wasn’t as confident of his high opinion of his colleagues as he sounded. But