Rebecca Schiff - The Bed Moved - Stories

If you continue to have trouble processing your loss, there are support groups on campus. I am sending you a link. Please bring your essay to the next class to avoid further penalties for lateness.

All best,

Professor S

Dear Student B,

You and Student A seem to be getting along well these days. I am pleased when students in my class become friends. At the same time, I would like you to remain respectful while other students are speaking and not carry on side conversations during class discussions. Student A is quite fetching, with her blond hair and her Russian accent, but it is crucial to your participation grade that you stay focused on the class discussion, even if you find the story “obvious” or “moralistic.” To be honest, I have never liked Hawthorne, either. He goes on the syllabus for the symbolism unit and so I feel like I have covered my bases re: 19th Century American literature, but I think I will replace him next year with Melville.

We can reschedule your appointment for Tuesday. If you’re going to miss that meeting as well, please text me instead of emailing me.

Best,

Professor S

Dear Student D,

I’m so sorry to hear about your legal troubles. Please look online to find the appropriate forms for withdrawing from my class.

Professor S

Dear Student E,

You’re right. I should not have yelled at you or slammed my fist down on the SmartBoard control panel. I was frustrated that you and Student M were laughing at Student Q, whose learning difficulties are obvious to all. You are not in high school anymore. But it was wrong of me to respond to immaturity with unmitigated rage. Two wrongs do not make a right, and I would like to model better behavior for you and Student M, who often enter class late holding iced mocha drinks. These drinks leave small puddles on the desks. While the desks are Formica and the marks do not cause permanent damage, the puddles can wet the handouts or the SmartBoard stylus should I rest these items on the desks upon which you have rested the iced mocha drinks.

Have you considered making an appointment with Psych Services? Therapy can be beneficial, even to bullies. Especially to bullies. Power is what you are enjoying, though I’ve noticed a look on your face sometimes that suggests you don’t feel powerful at all. Student M has no idea what she feels. Being a teacher offers the temptation to abuse one’s power, but I find that firmness and kindness are usually effective enough to manage a classroom, even a classroom full of adults who behave as though they’re in the throes of puberty.

You’re currently averaging a B— in the class, but could manage a B if you focus your attentions on the upcoming final and come to the rest of the class meetings on time.

Sincerely,

Professor S

Student A,

I’m sorry you feel that way. Of course I am happy that you and Student B found love this semester. I’d like to think that some of the literature we read deepened the connection you made to each other. Seating you separately was a decision I made because you two could not stop whispering during class. I know you think you are speaking softly, but even whispers can be distracting. You’ve spent the last few classes punishing me for this decision, snickering at my lectures and occasionally suggesting that I “start over.” Please reconsider your behavior. We’re rounding the corner to June. Let’s finish the year on a high note!

Thanks,

Professor S

Dear Dean Z,

The reports you’ve gotten about my conduct are understandably disturbing, but I believe that the “evidence” against me has been misconstrued. I never had intimate contact with Student B. Halfway through the semester, Student A and Student B began dating. Student A was jealous that Student B would sometimes ask me along on their movie dates. I always refused. I have no interest in going to the multiplex to see the latest Caucasian stoner heist with a couple of nineteen-year-olds. I never spend time with my students outside of school grounds, save the occasional shuttle bus ride to or from campus, where we have no choice but to chat. The shuttle bus is invaluable for those of us on the faculty without cars. On the bus, I keep the talk on neutral subjects such as the weather and the requirements of the course.

Yes, Student B had my phone number. He had neglected to email me about canceling a prior meeting, so I decided that texts would be a more efficient way for him to reach me. The texts where I say that he is an adult with the right to make his own decisions were not about a decision to be with me, but rather about his decision to quit school. Student B is very intelligent, but he has not completed any assignments, and seems stifled by the many graduation requirements of our institution. I never encouraged him to drop out. I merely suggested that college might not be the best use of his or his family’s financial resources if he fails the same English course every semester. Student B is a talented musician, but neither his family nor his girlfriend support him in this endeavor. As educators, we’re supposed to value school above all else, but we must remember that a college learning environment is not for everyone. Again, I am sorry that I got involved in a matter that should have remained between the student, his parents, and his academic adviser. Student A forwarded my texts to you either because she misunderstood them (English is not her first language) or because she wanted to cause me harm.

As for the more explicit texts, I find them as shocking as you do. I hope that the spelling errors and the use of sex message slang indicate that they are the work of someone younger. I don’t even know what many of those abbreviations mean.

If you’d like to discuss this matter further, I am available early next week. I take my job as an adjunct professor of English very seriously, and hope that we can clear up any remaining confusion. Coffee?

Sincerely,

Professor S

Dear Student G,

Thank you for the rose. I hope you didn’t pick it on campus.

Best,

Professor S

SHE SLEPT WITH MEN who only wanted to play Settlers of Catan. She slept with law students who had framed copies of the Constitution on their bedroom walls. She slept with sound architects, sound engineers, and the second baseman from her softball league. She hardly ever slept. Sometimes she took a pill, but often she lay awake next to a sleeping man, trying to read the Bill of Rights in the dark, then called a taxi and went home. She liked riding in the back of a taxi at night. It felt private, even with the driver up front. She liked recognizing the streets closer to her building, and she liked the deli where she sometimes went to get money to pay the driver. She’d grab a can of condensed milk, a hairnet. She wasn’t sure what for.

The men never called. They sent her smiley-face permutations and pictures of their cocks, but not one had called her since the year 2004. That man had met her at a flash mob in a department store, then looked her up in the last phone book the phone company ever printed. She had lived in a different building then, had withdrawn cash at a different deli, and needed a landline to communicate with parents who didn’t trust cell phones yet. She and the man dated for five months, but things never got as good as figuring out that he had found her in the phone book.

She slept with men who were sober for no reason. She found this more alarming than if they had once been alcoholics. She slept with recovering alcoholics, suffering workaholics, and a heroin addict who wanted them to have the same spirit animal. The heroin addict was writing a memoir about overcoming heroin addiction. Having a deadline for his memoir had stressed him out so much that he had started using heroin again.