My Last Innocent Year(18)
“Oh! So you know what it’s like! Being married to an artist, all the time and focus needed for creation.” His already loud voice was getting louder. “I understood that going in, but then you have a child and everything changes. The time you once had for each other disappears. The work always comes first. And you know that, sure, but in the meantime, you have this little person and someone has to raise her and take her to the pediatrician and make sure she has boots. Someone has to wake up with her when she has a nightmare and bake cupcakes for her birthday. People say, ‘Oh, that’s what mothers do. Fathers don’t get involved with that.’” His voice was loud, mocking, singsong. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”
I nodded, but what did I know? I’d never thought of myself as a burden to my parents, any more than a houseplant might be, or a goldfish. But then again, Abe would never have imagined a burden that didn’t fall on him. Maybe I was just another part of what he was willing to bear.
Tom was still talking. “‘Tom, can you bring her to your sister’s for the weekend? I have to finish this chapter. Tom, can you take her to the playground? I need time to prepare for my lecture.’” He was practically shouting. I wondered if people could hear him down the hall. “I’m the one who gave it to her, the awards and novels—my career be damned. And now she wants to take it away?” He slammed his hand on the desk, sending a flurry of candy wrappers to the floor. The plants behind him swayed, rustled by the force of his anger. And then, just as quickly as it had started, it was over.
The bells on the clock tower started to ring. It was twelve o’clock. If I didn’t leave soon, I would be late for my next class. Tom picked up his cigarette, now just a column of ash, and took one last drag before grinding it out. “Why don’t we plan to meet in, say, a month? In the meantime, you can continue leaving pages in my mailbox. Oh, and Isabel? Would you let Amos Jackson know about my situation? I think he’s still up north.” Amos was Tom’s other advisee, but I didn’t know him well and couldn’t imagine how I would convey all of this to him.
I stepped into the hallway feeling shaky and unsettled. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a man lash out in this way, nor would it be the last. But it was the first time I felt myself on the receiving end of it, although, of course, I wasn’t. Tom would have had his tantrum—because that’s what it was—whether I’d been there or not. There were a few students milling around in the hall. Holly and Alec were sitting together on the floor, their heads bent over a copy of Vanity Fair. They called my name as I passed. If they’d heard Tom’s outburst, they didn’t seem bothered by it. I slowed down in front of Joanna Maxwell’s office, her name stenciled in gold on the milky glass door. Taped to it was a schedule of her classes from last semester, a black-and-white postcard of Virginia Woolf, a couple of New Yorker cartoons. In the corner under her name, a small index card read “On Leave Winter 1998. Please direct all inquiries to Mary Pat Grimaldi.”
* * *
THE LIBRARY WAS busier the second week of the semester. The reading room was filling up, but still not full. I spotted Whitney barricaded behind a stack of books, dragging a yellow highlighter lazily across the pages of an article. She waved me over, but I pointed to my watch and kept moving.
I stopped in front of the card catalog, pulled open one of the long skinny drawers and flipped through the cards until I found the one I was looking for: Connelly, R. H. 1958–. Over the weekend, I’d read the Time magazine article Andy had told me about. Professor Connelly wasn’t on the cover, but he had been prominently featured in a story about contemporary writers who were “reshaping the landscape of American poetry.” He was one of several poets they profiled, mostly white, good-looking men in their twenties and thirties who had turned their backs on the 1980s ethos of get rich at any cost and chosen to write poetry instead. “And readers,” the article went on, “mostly young women, are responding.” One of the poets was a Princeton grad, former ROTC, photographed riding a tractor on his Montana ranch. Another, with long black hair to his shoulders, was sitting behind the wheel of a ’67 Mustang parked in a graffiti-covered alley. Professor Connelly was photographed standing barefoot in front of a cabin in the woods. He was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans; behind him was a pile of firewood and an axe leaning against a tree stump.
According to the article, R. H. Connelly was born into an Irish Catholic family in New Jersey. His love of literature alienated him from his working-class parents—his father was an airline mechanic, his mother a cafeteria worker (one of his poems, “Lunch Lady,” was about her). He left home early, worked as a construction worker, train conductor, waiter, all the while writing poetry. He eventually published two books; the second, I’m Sorry I Can’t Stay Long, about the death of his father, garnered rave reviews and an important prize. According to the article, he’d received countless love letters, even marriage proposals, from enthusiastic readers. One young woman had driven up to his cabin, where he retreated when he needed peace and inspiration, to profess her love. “She was a sweet girl,” he said, “a poetry lover and an old soul.” But he was a gentleman and wouldn’t say more.
Card in hand, I headed into the stacks, up to the fourth floor where poetry was shelved. At the end of our last class, Professor Connelly had said, “When you write, you have to take people to the closet. Not to the living room or the kitchen, not even to your bedroom. No, you take them straight to the goddamn closet, the place you keep your most secret, unmentionable things.” I thought about that as I sat down on the floor and opened his first book, A World of Green. I did it slowly and carefully, as though I were running my hand through his underwear drawer.