Paul Levine - Night vision

"Of course. Well, after our meeting, I belatedly realized where I was the night of June twenty-five."

"Talking on the computer with TV Gal. I've got the printout."

"So you said before. But that was the night I passed out in the library, and not the only time. I never would have remembered, but I have the books stamped on that day. An anthology of British drama plus several studies of erotica, including a most provocative one with selected writings by women authors."

"I'm not following you."

"Sometime that evening, in the college library, I sat down with the books and Jack Daniel's."

"Who is not, I assume, the dean."

Prince patted the pocket of his cardigan and produced a silver flask. "Only a pint, really. As I say, I settled down to do some reading. The chairs are really far too comfortable. I must have nodded off around ten-thirty or so. They lock the place up at eleven, and I was stuck there until six a.m. when the cleaning crew arrived."

"So there'd be witnesses. Whoever let you out."

"Goodness no. I sneaked out, headed home and showered, and made my eight o'clock class, remedial English, if you can imagine. Do you think the Philistines appreciated my efforts?"

In an effortless motion Prince opened the flask, took a swig, and slid it back into his pocket. I unlocked the trunk of the 442, tossed aside a catcher's mask, a tennis racket with popped strings, a snorkel and fins. Finally I uncovered my briefcase. I extracted a computer printout and handed it to the professor.

He squinted to read under the mercury vapor lights of the parking lot. "What's this, 'eight feet tall, green scaly skin…'?"

"That's you, Prince, the night of June twenty-five."

"The hell you say!"

He read aloud. "'What about your asshole? Is it nice and tight?' Surely, you don't think…"

"It's got your handle on it."

"But does it sound like me? With my command of the language, would I grovel in such sordid feculence?"

"I don't know, but you don't mind borrowing a line now and then, do you?"

I pointed at the bottom of the page. He continued reading silently, then shook his head. "You think I stole this…this pelvic-thrusting doggerel about too much love? Really, now."

"Peter Shaffer or Jerry Lee Lewis, what difference does it make?"

He arched his eyebrows so high the gesture would be visible from the balcony. "What difference! You compare the finest of contemporary theater with…with rock and roll!"

"Which do you find more insulting, being accused of murder or of stealing lyrics?"

"The latter, of course. With the world's great literature at my fingertips, I never would have stooped to that monosyllabic drivel. As for the stylites poem, I suppose you know it's by Tennyson."

"So I've been told. That's what links Marsha Diamond's green scaly monster to the Rosedahl murder scene."

Somewhere across the parking lot, a car alarm bleated. It held no interest for the security guards at the gate. Prince reached into his other pocket and pulled out a worn paperback. "A gift for you, my thespianic barrister."

While I riffled through a book of poetry, Prince started professoring. "Tennyson was having a bit of fun with religious fanatics, ridiculing the ancient ascetics who mortified the flesh by living atop pillars. I doubt, however, that the poor soul who communicated with Miss Diamond understands the poet's sarcasm."

A muffled roar came from inside the fronton.

"But you do."

He raised his fine chin and did his best to look offended. "Meaning what?"

I tossed the book into the trunk of my car and looked him dead in the eye. "Meaning you know a lot about Tennyson, and for all I know, you collect rock 'n' roll classics, too."

"Let me see if I follow you. I have a passing acquaintance with the work of an illustrious poet. A killer quotes the same poet. Therefore, I am the killer. Gracious, lad, did you ever take a course in logic?"

"The evidence-"

"The evidence is what you fellows call circumstantial, is it not?"

"I believe it was Henry David Thoreau," I said, trying to lecture the lecturer, "who said that circumstantial evidence can be very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."

Maybe it was the mention of milk that made Prince blanch, or maybe he didn't expect the literary reference from a guy in a faded football jersey, or maybe it was a look of guilt. Whichever, he recovered quickly enough. "Oh, come now! As you simply refuse to hear, I spent the entire night in the library…"

"Where's the proof?"

"I have the books stamped on the twenty-fifth."

"You could have checked them out at noon. You have no proof."

He seemed to straighten and his voice rumbled from deep within. "There is my honor!"

I didn't laugh. I didn't even sneer. He might have been serious. Or he might have been playing some long-forgotten role.

He looked toward the airport, showing me his sagging profile. "Tout est perdu fors l'honneur."

"And when honor is lost, you'll have nothing."

"Precisely."

"According to the computer, Passion Prince talked to TV Gal around eleven p.m. on the night of June twenty-five. Two hours later, TV Gal was dead."

"The computer is wrong."

"You admit being Passion Prince?"

"With all that melancholy sobriquet implies."

"And prior to that night, you chatted with TV Gal?"

"But of course."

"And you admit talking with Flying Bird, Mary Rosedahl, on the night of July two shortly before she-"

"Yes, yes. We've been over all that. You have my flagrant plagiarism from Equus. "

"So why do you deny what the computer says is true?"

He smiled a sad smile. "Come now, Mr. Lassiter. Does a computer know truth from illusion? How can it, when those who feed it are just as blind? What is a computer anyway but the mechanical mind of a man, a man stripped of emotion? Can a computer feel passion? Does it have a soul? Does it know the freedom of the human spirit?"

"You lost me somewhere between illusion and passion."

"My dear boy, welcome to my class. You played football, didn't you, just like Biff? Your darling secretary told me you were a professional gladiator."

"Not very well and not very long."

"Surely you recollect Willy's speech at the end of Act One, the wistful remembrance of Biff's last football game, the celebration of lost youth and promise."

"Vaguely, something about a star never fading away."

"Yes, yes. But what does it mean?"

Give them tenure and two courses a semester, and they wallow in their little world, playing their little games. He looked at me, the demanding teacher, awaiting a response.

"Okay," I said. "Willy was lost in his illusions. His son once played a game, but there was no substance to it. Not when the rest of his life was built on lies."

"Precisely."

"Precisely what?"

"Shall I put it in terms you can understand?"

"If it's not too much trouble."

"In Act Two, Willy's out in the garden at night and Biff tells him he's going to leave home and not come back."

"Yeah."

"Remember Willy's lines?"

It was there somewhere, buried in the attic trunk of memories. "Willie was planting carrots, putting some seeds down."

"Yes, very good. And what did he say about Biff's leaving, about his son's failure as a man?"

I was still rooting around for it. "Something about not taking the rap for him?"

"Right. We each bear responsibility for our own actions, but that's all."

I stared blankly at him. He reached into his pocket for the silver flask and, with the same hand, unscrewed the cap, letting it dangle on a chain. He took a healthy slug, and in an instant the flask was back in the pocket, two ounces lighter. Practice, the coach always said, makes perfect.

Professor Gerald Prince smiled and looked at me through watery eyes. "What I'm telling you, my dear Biff, is quite simple. I was framed."