Adrian Pearson - Cow Country

Back in my apartment I took a warm shower and lay quietly into bed. On the television the local news gave helpful tips on surviving the drought that was paralyzing the region; a sports anchor reported on the crushing loss by the football team the three men had been cheering at the bar; and the weather person followed it all by offering a five-day prognosis for an urban center so far away from Cow Eye Junction as to be irrelevant, even exotic. Wearily I turned the knob off and grabbed my historical novel. Within minutes I was tending toward sleep, and despite my best efforts I could feel the book slipping out of my hands. I had thought I might read another chapter at least — a few more pages to conclude this eventful day — but before I could even finish the next paragraph a thick sleep overcame me and I drifted off with my bed lamp still on, my covers unturned, and the half-read paperback resting like a plate of armor on my chest.

*

My final Sunday before my first day of work passed uneventfully in quiet contemplation in my apartment. I read a fresh chapter of the novel I’d started on the bus. I watched some old variety shows on the television in my room. Ambitiously, I made a list of three personal goals for my first year at Cow Eye Community College: 1) To find the moisture in all things; 2) To love the unloved; 3) To experience both day and night.

In the quiet of my apartment I looked at these goals and was happy at the sound of them. A man can never have too many goals in life, I thought, and three is as good a number as any. And yet something was incomplete. After a few minutes I took up the paper again and wrote a fourth goal for myself during my stay at Cow Eye. And this last goal — not to be overlooked — would surely be the most ambitious of all:

4) To become something entirely .

*

The next morning I made my way to the administration building to meet Dr. Felch, whose office was on the second floor offering a prime view of the fountain with the Appaloosa. I knocked lightly on the door and when there was no response I knocked again, this time louder.

“He’s not in,” a voice said. I whirled around to see a woman about my age with thick hair tied up in a strict bun and wearing a dark blue polyester business suit and skirt. “He’s not in yet. Did you need something? Or did you want to just keep knocking like that?”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s already after eight and I was supposed to meet Mr. Felch at exactly eight o’clock. I’m new here…”

“You’re the new Special Projects Coordinator?”

“That’s right! Nice to meet you….I’m Charlie….”

I extended my hand and the woman took it, crushing the bones in my fingers even more painfully than Dr. Felch had two days earlier at the makeshift bus shelter.

“Nice grip!” I said.

The woman did not smile:

“You don’t look like a Special Projects Coordinator,” she explained. The woman was appraising me curiously, almost suspiciously. “In any case, you can have a seat in that hard plastic chair and wait for President Felch. He should be in any minute now.”

I took a seat and grabbed a magazine. The woman settled behind the paperwork at her desk and although she might have engaged me in some welcoming conversation, she did not apparently consider it a necessity. In the silence the clock on the wall ticked and the sounds of the pelicans could be heard outside the windows. And in the unprecedented juxtaposition of sound — clock and pelican and lawn mowers groaning in the distance — I was left to wonder, among countless other mysteries, what exactly a Special Projects Coordinator is supposed to look like.

Sitting on the cold plastic chair, I studied the mannerisms of this tightly wound woman. The deep v-neck in her blouse. The way her eyelashes fluttered when she squinted to read a letter. Furtively, I stole glances at the supple contours of her shoulders beneath the polyester suit and the way her bangs fell across her face as she arranged her pens and dusted off her typewriter. And then how her soft hands trembled ever so slightly as she paused to lovingly polish the two picture frames of what I assumed must be her young children.

I opened my magazine and began to flip through the articles. One story summarized the current conflict of the day; another sketched out a portrait of a recently disgraced politician; yet another talked about the withdrawal of ground troops from the world’s latest hot spot. Listlessly, I turned the pages and was halfway through an article about the demise of a once-great superpower when Dr. Felch walked into the office’s waiting area.

“Morning, Bessie,” he said and then, “Good morning, Charlie. Sorry I’m late. I see the two of you’ve met?” Dr. Felch motioned to me and I followed him into his office where he offered me a stick of chewing gum that I politely refused. “They say it helps kick the smoking urge,” he explained. “But it sure as hell ain’t helping me !”

Dr. Felch shuffled through some papers on his desk. His office was covered in dark-wood paneling with black leather chairs on either side of his desk. Above him a lacquered cow’s head was bolted to the wall. Behind his chair was a large brass spittoon that gave the room a pungency of expectorated wintergreen chewing tobacco. Maroon-colored drapes fell from ceiling to floor around the window looking out onto the fountain with its Appaloosa. On his desk were various framed pictures of his children and their families: a young couple smiling red-faced in the middle of a snowy ski resort; several tanned bodies standing on a tropical beach; studio shots of smiling mom, dad, and children.

“So how’d you take to Bessie?” he asked.

“That was Bessie?” I said. “She seems fine. Although I don’t think she cares too much for me .”

Dr. Felch laughed.

“Yeah, she’s like that with everyone. Don’t take it personally though. Like I said, she’s a bulldog. But with some time you’ll grow on her.”

“I hope so.”

“Just be patient. And don’t try to get into her blouse. That almost never works out well….”

Dr. Felch handed me a paper that he’d written some notes on.

“These are your primary assignments for the semester,” he said. The list was enumerated and contained two imperatives and a circled tautology:

“That last one’s gonna be a bitch,” he said. “I’m not even sure what verb to put before it. Reconcile? Unite? Pacify? Nowadays it could even be disarm. Anyway, you get the idea. Whatever verb you come up with, just make sure it’s a good one. The future of our college depends on it.”

Dr. Felch paused. Then he said, “Classes don’t start until next Monday but all faculty should be on campus this week. We’ll be having our opening convocation in a few minutes. I’ve told Bessie to give you all the back story you need. Try to remember the names and pay special attention to the personalities and the dynamics. Take note of the automobiles and try to keep straight the various points of origin that have led us all to this segment of time and space. It’ll be a lot of information for you all at once, I know, but do your best. And just ask Bessie any questions that you have. She’ll also give you the key to your office. It’s right down the hall from here, across from the institutional researcher’s, so expect that the four of us will be seeing a lot of each other from now on.”

Dr. Felch said that he would also provide me a copy of the college’s most recent accreditation self-study along with the visiting team’s disappointed response. (“We’ll need to address all their recommendations and rebukes.”) And Bessie would get me a copy of the minutes from last year’s Christmas Committee meetings so I could see where things had fallen apart and how we might start reassembling all the pieces.