Helen meets with Joseph Harkes
“It has been suggested,” Joseph was saying, “that the male figures in China Men are feminist straw men, meant to primarily represent the false authority of patriarchy, against which Kingston contrasts the genuine thread of discourse and connection that the women create, and in that way maintain, strengthen and affirm the continuity of their culture.”
Helen stared at the empty page of her notebook as she struggled to keep listening. Depressed by the straight blue lines with only white emptiness between them, she looked in Joseph's direction. He wasn't looking at her. His face was tilted upwards, towards the window, talking to the air in classic academic fashion, as if what was being said were so profound it was more for the benefit of the entire universe than any particular person.
Joseph had a habit of using expressions like “one might say”, “it has been suggested”, “some authorities assert”, “implicit in the text” or “another way of looking at that is” that made it hard to figure out what he actually thought about anything. Half the time, the hypothetical statements were spoken with an ironic tone that meant, Helen was sure, that anyone who actually thought that was the biggest idiot in the world, if only you were allowed to say such things at UC Santa Zita. Listening to Joseph, Helen sometimes found herself lost in a maze of hypothetical speakers, feeling as if he expected her to sift through all of his various personas and carefully crafted ironies in order to divine what he really wanted her to know. Which, quite frankly, she just didn’t have time for.
Some of his irony was accompanied by a thin smile so bitter it seemed self-hating. Joseph didn’t seem like the happiest person to Helen. Did he miss Theresa? Wish he were married? Feel guilty over not having been part of his daughter’s life? Helen hoped it was the last. She tried to connect the middle-aged intellectual in front of her with her beer-hazed memories of April from that epic party the previous summer, but failed. Then again, Helen’s father, who was compulsively neat and organized, punctual to the second and liked everything run with military efficiency, wasn’t much like her. Just another one of God's sick jokes.
Helen frequently found it hard to concentrate in meetings with Joseph, knowing so much about his life that he wasn't aware she knew. His child, the fruit of his loins, had engaged in carnal relations with one of her best friends. It was all just too weird. Joseph had slept with Theresa. Tim had slept with April. Such a complicated web of circumstance might be amusing on a yuppie soap opera like Thirtysomething, but it was creepy in real life. Couldn't things just be what they were supposed to be? Why did everything in life always get so tangled up?
“But what we may be ignoring,” Joseph continued, “is the sense in which the novel's theme is not the explicit exegesis of those dualities, but rather our need to assemble these dualities in our own act of reading-and interpretation.”
With no warning, Joseph turned and looked straight at her. Their eyes locked for a moment, and his gaze was as piercing and direct as his words were subtle and roundabout. His pale blue eyes regarded her with skepticism, a ghost of a smile on his lips, as if inviting her to share in his private joke. His thought flashed in his mind, as clear as if he had said them out loud: "Although I enjoy forcing you to listen to me pontificate, what would be even better is if you allowed me to fuck your brains out."
After a second of eye contact, Helen turned her eyes towards the window, hoping to see blue. No such luck as grey-white fog still covered the campus. It was going to be one of those days, when the fog never lifts, or finally starts lifting in the late afternoon, just in time for the sun to go down. Helen heard Joseph clear his throat, a short, sharp grunt.
“But that is neither here nor there,” he said. “In the academic life, unfortunately, we can not only concern ourselves with ideas. There is also, it has to be said, a regrettable amount of the quotidian as well. For me, but also for you.”
Helen nodded, realizing where this was going. She realized how nervous she was about it, that she was perspiring and her lower back ached.
“You said you thought you would be able to return your students' most recent round of papers to them tomorrow?”
“Well,” Helen said, “I really wanted to be able to.”
Joseph gravely nodded, but said nothing. Helen swallowed, and the excuses she had fabricated earlier vanished from her mind. Her mouth dry, she swallowed several times more, and her heart pounded.
“It's just that the past week has been really busy. Some unexpected stuff came up, and... you know,” Helen said, mortified to hear herself making such a pathetic excuse. She might as well tell Joseph the dog ate her homework. She found herself smiling at Joseph-lips parted flirtatiously. He smiled back, an upwards twitching of the corners of his mouth.
“Timely return of the papers is important, Helen. But I know you have many other duties in your life to attend to.”
The slight emphasis Joseph put on the word “duties” made Helen think of sex for some reason, as if he were aware and sympathetic that the reason she hadn’t finished grading the papers was her grueling schedule of frequent and varied copulation. Helen couldn’t figure out if it was her derangement or his that made her read so much into his words.
“There is another set of papers due... tomorrow?”
Helen nodded.
“Indeed,” Joseph said. “Indeed.”
Their eyes met again, and Helen, unable to think of anything else to do, smiled at him. He smiled beneficently back.
“Well, I had better get back to my own version of the quotidian. See you at two o'clock.”
Irritation filled her at all this absurd subtext. Helen stood and slung her backpack around her left shoulder. She muttered a quick “bye” and hurried out of the office. Every time she thought she couldn't sink any lower, she did. She felt unclean, as if she and Joseph had just been intimate. As Helen passed by the ground-floor apartments she kept her head down, as if she were afraid she might be recognized, even though she didn’t know anyone who lived at Krupke College.
Helen stared at the empty page of her notebook as she struggled to keep listening. Depressed by the straight blue lines with only white emptiness between them, she looked in Joseph's direction. He wasn't looking at her. His face was tilted upwards, towards the window, talking to the air in classic academic fashion, as if what was being said were so profound it was more for the benefit of the entire universe than any particular person.
Joseph had a habit of using expressions like “one might say”, “it has been suggested”, “some authorities assert”, “implicit in the text” or “another way of looking at that is” that made it hard to figure out what he actually thought about anything. Half the time, the hypothetical statements were spoken with an ironic tone that meant, Helen was sure, that anyone who actually thought that was the biggest idiot in the world, if only you were allowed to say such things at UC Santa Zita. Listening to Joseph, Helen sometimes found herself lost in a maze of hypothetical speakers, feeling as if he expected her to sift through all of his various personas and carefully crafted ironies in order to divine what he really wanted her to know. Which, quite frankly, she just didn’t have time for.
Some of his irony was accompanied by a thin smile so bitter it seemed self-hating. Joseph didn’t seem like the happiest person to Helen. Did he miss Theresa? Wish he were married? Feel guilty over not having been part of his daughter’s life? Helen hoped it was the last. She tried to connect the middle-aged intellectual in front of her with her beer-hazed memories of April from that epic party the previous summer, but failed. Then again, Helen’s father, who was compulsively neat and organized, punctual to the second and liked everything run with military efficiency, wasn’t much like her. Just another one of God's sick jokes.
Helen frequently found it hard to concentrate in meetings with Joseph, knowing so much about his life that he wasn't aware she knew. His child, the fruit of his loins, had engaged in carnal relations with one of her best friends. It was all just too weird. Joseph had slept with Theresa. Tim had slept with April. Such a complicated web of circumstance might be amusing on a yuppie soap opera like Thirtysomething, but it was creepy in real life. Couldn't things just be what they were supposed to be? Why did everything in life always get so tangled up?
“But what we may be ignoring,” Joseph continued, “is the sense in which the novel's theme is not the explicit exegesis of those dualities, but rather our need to assemble these dualities in our own act of reading-and interpretation.”
With no warning, Joseph turned and looked straight at her. Their eyes locked for a moment, and his gaze was as piercing and direct as his words were subtle and roundabout. His pale blue eyes regarded her with skepticism, a ghost of a smile on his lips, as if inviting her to share in his private joke. His thought flashed in his mind, as clear as if he had said them out loud: "Although I enjoy forcing you to listen to me pontificate, what would be even better is if you allowed me to fuck your brains out."
After a second of eye contact, Helen turned her eyes towards the window, hoping to see blue. No such luck as grey-white fog still covered the campus. It was going to be one of those days, when the fog never lifts, or finally starts lifting in the late afternoon, just in time for the sun to go down. Helen heard Joseph clear his throat, a short, sharp grunt.
“But that is neither here nor there,” he said. “In the academic life, unfortunately, we can not only concern ourselves with ideas. There is also, it has to be said, a regrettable amount of the quotidian as well. For me, but also for you.”
Helen nodded, realizing where this was going. She realized how nervous she was about it, that she was perspiring and her lower back ached.
“You said you thought you would be able to return your students' most recent round of papers to them tomorrow?”
“Well,” Helen said, “I really wanted to be able to.”
Joseph gravely nodded, but said nothing. Helen swallowed, and the excuses she had fabricated earlier vanished from her mind. Her mouth dry, she swallowed several times more, and her heart pounded.
“It's just that the past week has been really busy. Some unexpected stuff came up, and... you know,” Helen said, mortified to hear herself making such a pathetic excuse. She might as well tell Joseph the dog ate her homework. She found herself smiling at Joseph-lips parted flirtatiously. He smiled back, an upwards twitching of the corners of his mouth.
“Timely return of the papers is important, Helen. But I know you have many other duties in your life to attend to.”
The slight emphasis Joseph put on the word “duties” made Helen think of sex for some reason, as if he were aware and sympathetic that the reason she hadn’t finished grading the papers was her grueling schedule of frequent and varied copulation. Helen couldn’t figure out if it was her derangement or his that made her read so much into his words.
“There is another set of papers due... tomorrow?”
Helen nodded.
“Indeed,” Joseph said. “Indeed.”
Their eyes met again, and Helen, unable to think of anything else to do, smiled at him. He smiled beneficently back.
“Well, I had better get back to my own version of the quotidian. See you at two o'clock.”
Irritation filled her at all this absurd subtext. Helen stood and slung her backpack around her left shoulder. She muttered a quick “bye” and hurried out of the office. Every time she thought she couldn't sink any lower, she did. She felt unclean, as if she and Joseph had just been intimate. As Helen passed by the ground-floor apartments she kept her head down, as if she were afraid she might be recognized, even though she didn’t know anyone who lived at Krupke College.
Works
Recent Writing
- 1989 A Novel: Tim and April walk to the liquor store
- Volume III: Helen meets Roxy for coffee at the Fremont College coffee shop
- Volume III: Tim walks back from Contemporary American Fiction
- Volume III: Helen conducts section, can’t prevent Michael from being dissed
- Volume III: Helen conducts section (HSZ version)