by David Sheskin

“Yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”

The two of them are at it again. The one on the left has an attractive face and large breasts. But I am of the opinion that this big boned girl has rolls of fat beneath the tent-like dresses she wears to my class. And then there is her friend. Of the two, she is the one who disturbs me the most. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this bitch with a nose that looks more like a parrot’s beak sits in the back of my Mathematics 131 class chattering with her oversized companion. The fervor of their dialogue suggests to me they are two woodpeckers attacking the bark of a sequoia tree. And always the two of them are smiling, and this is the thing that disturbs me the most.

“Yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak.”

It is hard for me to imagine how they can be so bold. Both of them are barely passing my course and today I am discussing linear equations, a topic I have promised will be dealt with in detail on the next test. But somehow these two don’t care. Or perhaps they do, and the reason they continue to chatter is that they share a common delusion — that certain college professors, specifically one Vernon Yam, don’t give ladies who attend class anything below a C in their course, even if the parties in question happen to be babblers.

“Yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak.”
“Bzzz.”
“Yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak.”

And that is how it is.

I decide that perhaps the next time I will speak to them. In fact, I am even considering something I once observed one of my former teachers attempt while I was in high school. Yes, the more I think about it the surer I am that I will toss a piece of chalk at them.

So after class, instead of returning to my office, I gather up some twenty sticks of chalk and find an empty classroom, and for the next ten minutes I practice my delivery — releasing the projectiles at a moderate velocity toward the right rear quadrant of the room, always aiming it between the two corner seats, so that if I am successful, at the very worst, I will streak the hair of the offender with a white stripe. I concentrate very hard, since I wish to master this skill completely. This is important, since if my delivery is less than perfect it could conceivably result in the loss of an eye, and that would place me in a most precarious position. Besides the not so remote possibility of losing my job (in spite of the fact I have tenure), there could be a substantial lawsuit, and, of course, this would mean that I would become a constant topic of conversation among both my peers and students. Yes, people would talk about me, and I am sure that always they would be smiling. And since the very thought of this makes me nauseous, I intensify my efforts. But after twenty tosses I am less than satisfied with my performance, and, in view of the fact that I have run out of chalk, I rush down to the supply room and requisition a large box containing some more of this snow colored ammunition. Ten minutes later I am back upstairs tossing chalk with a renewed fervor — a fervor that is no less than that which I had observed in two chattering females some thirty minutes earlier in the back of my classroom. But then with about one-quarter of the box gone, a janitor happens to enter the room.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“Ah ….. well ….. you see ….. yeah, well, I’m testing out a theory.”

“Jesus Christ mister, look at the mess back here. The walls, the floor, the seats. The goddamn dust is all over the place.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that, but like I said I was testing a theory. Physics. That’s what I’m working on now. Physics. Laws of physics.”

“Physics shit! Get the hell out of here and don’t let me find you doing this again.”

So, with my head between my legs, I leave. I have no other recourse. It certainly would not have done for me to argue with the man or to have confided in him, or, for that matter, anyone else, the motivation for my bizarre behavior. But since there is still some time left before my next class, and since I still require considerable more practice before I can claim to be a grand master at this skill I am pursuing, I return to the supply room and requisition a tape measure. I then return upstairs where I measure the dimensions of that same room I had been embarrassed in just a few minutes earlier. As I suspect, by the time I arrive the janitor is not to be found, because, undoubtedly, he has decided to delegate to the man on the late shift the task of cleaning up the mess for which I am responsible. So, after I have computed that the peculiar game which I am preparing to play is to take place in a rectangular arena that is twenty feet wide and forty feet deep, I return to my office to get ready for my next class.

<<<>>>

“Pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst.”
“Mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh!”
“Pssst ….. pssst.”
“Mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh.”

In this course it is a couple. The boy is well groomed, and if one were to observe him walking about campus one would never suspect that he is intemperately rude. In fact, according to the school newspaper, this boy is the president of the student government, and in print he is always depicted as being the finest of gentlemen. And then there is his girlfriend. She is a tall and serious young woman whom I have never seen smile, except on those occasions when she is sitting in the back of my class engaged in conversation.

“Psst ….. psst.”
“Mmmh.”
“Psst.”
“Mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh”
“Pssst ….. pssst.” “Mmmh!”

And so it goes.

Somehow I do not have quite as much hostility toward this pair as I have toward the other two. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that in this instance the girl is strikingly attractive. Of course, there is the added consideration that both of these offenders happen to be outstanding students. Yes, even though while I am attempting to derive the fundamental theorem of calculus these two are engaged in the most animated of conversations, I am more than confident that neither of them will have any difficulty reproducing this proof on the next examination. Admittedly, there are times when I wish that this pair was more like the rest of the class. The sad truth is that most of my students are barely passing the course. Indeed, if not for the fact that I generously scale my tests, at least three-quarters of them would fail. Of course, the latter statement is indicative of the difficulty of the materials I am obliged to cover, rather than in any way suggesting anything concerning my competence as an instructor. So in view of all of this, having been blessed with two gifted pupils, the last thing in the world I would want to do is to alienate either one of them. Thus I am reluctant to yell at the two in the back, let alone consider attacking them with a salvo of chalk.

But today things are bad. Very bad. In fact, I believe it is because of these two in the back that I am getting a headache. Since today we will be meeting for two hours, I decide during the class break that I must attempt something I have never done before. Although what I am contemplating makes me feel considerably nervous, I approach the two offenders, who now happen to be standing by the staircase smoking in silence. Sucking in my belly, the sweat pouring down my chest, I now find myself face to face with the culprits.

“Listen, I’d really appreciate it if you two would cool it in the back of the room. I find it extremely hard to teach with the two of you talking all of the time.”

The boy frowns and at the same time gives me what I imagine to be an almost imperceptible nod. His girlfriend does not respond at all. And ten minutes later once the class has resumed.

“Mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh …..mmmh!”
“Pssst ….. pssst. ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst!”
“Mmmh!”
“Pssst!”
“Mmmh ….. mmmh ….. mmmh.”
“Pssst ….. pssst. ….. pssst ….. pssst.”

And that is how it is.

Since I have so much on my mind I decide it would be a good idea to get some exercise before going home. Because of this I walk through the center of town, and have occasion to traverse a strip populated by prostitutes and other sorts of social undesirables. It is inevitable that two women wearing short skirts and luminous wigs suggest to me that they’d be more than willing to show me a good time. I ignore them.

But then I see the Holiday Inn three blocks up, and I remember having stayed there some four years earlier when I first visited the school to be interviewed for my position in the department of mathematics. And I remember that the rooms in this particular Holiday Inn are unusually large, being at least forty feet in depth, and because of this I go into Woolworths and buy forty boxes of chalk and two masks that are left over from Halloween. I then backtrack my way to the doorway in front of which the two prostitutes are now propositioning a seventy-five year old man. Approaching one of the girls I say, “Tell me, what do you charge?”

“That depends baby. If you want a regular session it’s thirty for me and ten for the room. But maybe you’d like a party with the two of us. In that case you’ll have to give my friend and me forty bucks apiece.”

“Yes, I think I’d like that. Is it okay if all of us go to the Holiday Inn?”

“Sorry honey, but we only work at the place across the street.”

“Look, I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Well, if that’s the way you want it, why not? But it’ll cost you.”

And so the three of us head for the Holiday Inn which I enter first, whereupon I tell the man behind the desk I want the largest room on the premises. This man rents me a suite on the sixteenth floor, and after a few minutes I am joined by my lady friends who cannot help but notice that I have lined up a large number of sticks of chalk along the window sill. The taller of the two women looks perplexed.

“Hey man, what are you some kind of weirdo or something?”

“No, not really.”

“Then what’s with the chalk? And while you’re telling me how about taking off your clothes and giving us our money.”

I take a one hundred dollar bill out of my pocket, and after handing it to them I say, “What I want from you ladies doesn’t require that I take my clothes off. For that matter, the two of you don’t have to take your clothes off either. What I’d like is for both of you to sit in the two chairs in the corner of the room and just have a conversation with one another, and while you’re doing that I’m going to toss some chalk at your heads.”

“Hey man, you really are a weirdo!”

“Perhaps what I’m asking is a bit unusual, but I can assure you it’s perfectly safe. Here, why don’t you put these on to protect your faces.”

And as I hand them the Halloween masks, I tell them, “So long as you keep your coats on and wear the masks, there’s no way either of you can get hurt.”

Because I have given each of them an extra twenty-five dollars, they reluctantly agree. And so for the next forty-five minutes I practice this sport which by now I fear is becoming addictive.

“Yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst.”
Whoosh.
Ping.
“Ow!”
Whoosh.
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak!”
“Pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst.”
Whoosh.
Whoosh.
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst ….. pssst.”
Whoosh.
Ping.
“Eeek!”
Whoosh.
Whoosh.

And that is how things are.

After 1600 tosses I compute that I have only been successful 138 times. Yet, in actuality, this success rate of 8.6% is fairly good if one considers the rules of the game. You see, before I began I took it upon myself to draw two vertical lines four and five-eighths inches apart on the wall directly in back of the women, in order to delineate the space between their heads. For a toss to be successful it was required that I place a projectile within the limits of that small space. So in all modesty, in view of the difficulty of my task, I am more than satisfied with this aspect of my performance. What I am not so pleased with is that on better than 437 occasions my chalk went astray only to land on the women’s masks, both of which by now are coated with a chalky white film. But as I sit here computing various other percentages in order to more fully evaluate my performance, I cannot help but notice that my two assistants have taken off their clothes and seemed to be engaged in some mutually gratifying form of sexual behavior. This unexpected and, to say the least, perverse twist in the proceedings no doubt has something to do with the fact that while serving as targets the two ladies did imbibe the better part of a moderately sized bottle containing some alcoholic beverage.

As I peruse their writhing anatomies it is apparent to me that I find the shorter and less verbal of the women the more attractive of the two. Prior to her covering her face with the ghoulish mask that was required to protect here from the liabilities of the afternoon’s activities, I must admit that I experienced an almost immediate libidinal attraction to her. However, in view of my priorities, I was able to suppress the biological storm her presence generated within my body. But now that she has taken off her clothes, I find it even more difficult to concentrate on the business at hand. Although the ladies seem to be enjoying one another immensely, the strained movements of their midsections suggests to me that they would more than welcome a man to consummate their lust. In fact, the taller of the two now looks over toward me and suggests in a somewhat slurred manner, “Why don’t you come over here daddy and finish us off?”

Although I have always done my best to avoid women who drink, I cannot ignore the urgency in my loins, and because of this I remove my trousers and prepare to enter the shorter of the two women from behind. But before I can begin that familiar piston like activity there is a sudden knock on the door, and over and above the moans of these two women I am sandwiched between I hear, “Hey you in there, open up this damn door!”

Feebly, I call out, “What do you want? Who are you?”

“I work for the hotel. I’m a detective. Now open up. If you don’t, I’ll use the godamn passkey!”

<<<>>>

In the police station I am already something of a curiosity. A sergeant by the name of Grover has taken my fingerprints, and he is presently talking with the manager of the hotel, who seems intent on making an example out of me.

“I’m sick and tired of these farts bringing girls into our place. Christ, this is the third time this month some clown got caught having a party with a bunch of hookers. I think it’s about time we showed the public we’re not running a cat house!”

In all honesty, in view of what has happened, I have for the moment all but forgotten the reasons which brought me onto his premises. Under the circumstances it is my impression that, at the very best, a full confession on my part could only result in them committing me to an institution for the criminally insane. But perhaps I am overreacting. After all, there must be more heinous crimes than the one for which I have been apprehended. Yet each time I look over toward the offended party, I cannot help but feel that this man might have viewed things more favorably if, instead, I had committed a murder in his lobby.

But for the moment, the manager has ceased to discuss my sexual proclivities, and now seems to be preoccupied with the condition of the room in which I was seized.

“Why the son of a bitch ruined the goddamn suite. Besides getting that white powder all over the place, he put nicks in the walls. Shit, we’ll have to repaper the whole friggin room.”

The mention of white powder results in Sergeant Grover turning toward me and asking, “Hey Yam, do you push the stuff or do you just use it?”

“What?”

“I asked if you’re a pusher.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Look Yam, they find you in a room with two hookers and there’s white powder all over the place. Now it doesn’t take much to figure the bunch of you was into some sort of dope.”

<<<>>>

It is past midnight and Dr. Albert Samona is sitting next to me on the cot in my cell.

“Well Vernon, for the moment I think we have everything under control. You’ll probably see the judge in the morning and he’ll fine you. It’s after that though you’ve got to worry about. Some of the people at the school won’t be particularly sympathetic after they’ve heard what you’ve done.”

This Dr. Samona is the chairman of the mathematics department. He has always treated me decently. Although the two of us have never previously engaged in conversations of a personal nature, the man more than surprised me when he first came into my cell some four hours earlier. Prior to this Samona had only revealed to me the cerebral side of his personality. The man always seemed to be totally immersed in the long strings of numbers that filled the two blackboards in his office. Inevitably, when we made conversation he would insist on discussing the eccentricities of arithmetic, and, without fail, he would suggest to me that if something more beautiful than numbers existed in the universe he had yet to find it. Not once had I heard the man speak of women, let alone discuss matters relating the coupling of the sexes. Yet on entering my cell, he tried his best to put me at ease by discussing at length his most recent pilgrimage to France, which he previously described as a mission researching the life of Fermat, the man he considered to be the greatest of the mathematicians. Samona conceded that although the trip obliged him to spend more than a few hours in libraries, it also afforded him the opportunity to engage in certain other activities, because of which he had contracted a severe case of the crabs, which to this day plagued him periodically. After this revelation, still sensing my despondency over the circumstances, he confided to me that, on more than one occasion, Sir Allister Berghoff, the great British mathematician, had been arrested for indecent exposure. Yet, in spite of this, he had been permitted to stay on at Oxford. So, as he leaves, Samona tells me that I should take heart, and that he is sure things will work out for the best.

<<<>>>

As therapeutic as Samona has been there are others who are less than sympathetic with my situation. The president of the college for one. It happens that the chief executive of our institution is a Mormon. And a woman. And, without a doubt, a confirmed virgin. This person read of my apprehension in the newspapers, and called me into her office only a few hours after the local magistrate fined me fifty dollars plus the cost of damages to the hotel room.

The woman says to me, “Well young man, what do you have to say for yourself?”

The few times she has spoken to me, she has always addressed me as young man. Since I am thirty-eight years old and a man of considerable professional accomplishment, I find this phrase particularly annoying.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say.”

“You certainly have given our school the worst sort of publicity. But what concerns me more is to have a person of your morals teaching at our college. I’ve always believed that it is one of the primary obligations of any teacher to set an example for the students. In that area Dr. Yam I am afraid you have failed horribly. Unfortunately, since you have not been convicted of a felony, the school bylaws do not permit me to fire you, or, for that matter, even suspend you until you’ve had a hearing before the faculty council. I’ve scheduled one for next week, and it’s my hope that they will recommend your dismissal. But until then you will be permitted to teach your classes — that is, if you have the courage to face them.”

I do not say anything else to the woman. So far as she knows, and this is true of everyone else (including Samona), my only motivation for being in that hotel room was to participate in an orgy. I suppose the reason I do not reveal the truth is that I would prefer for history to record me as having been a pervert rather than a madman. Yet, in spite of everything, I am surprised to find that there are a few among my colleagues who consider my behavior to be nothing more than a healthy form of self-expression. Most of those who share these feelings seem to be younger members of the faculty whose training is in one of the humanities. And there are even some who now view me as a source of sexual wisdom.

Such a person is Fenster. The man is a member of the sociology department, and although I have never considered him to be a close friend, he has for some reason always revealed to me more than a few of his many anxieties. Among other things, he has told me that he will be forty years old during the summer, and that within the past year he has been impotent with at least fifteen different females. Now the day after my arrest, he has forced his way into my office soliciting my aid, and he suggests by his behavior that be believes that I am the only man on the planet who can possibly help him with his problem.

“Vern, if you could only give me some of that powder they said they found in the room.”

“Fenster, it was only chalk.”

“You mean the same stuff we use in class?”

“Yes, that’s all it was.”

“I’ll bet you were using it as an aphrodisiac. Tell me Vern, am I right? Don’t hold out on me!”

The man is so excited that I find it difficult to tell him that he is a fool. So, instead, I just smile and say that I have a class to prepare for. As he stands up to leave he removes a box of chalk from the top of my desk, and as he walks to the door he confides in me that tonight he is seeing one of his lady friends, and now that the two of us have had this little talk he is sure that everything will be all right. It is hard to believe, but I am finally convinced that this man is even more pathetic than I am.

<<<>>>

“Yak ….. yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak!”
“Bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”

It is Wednesday, and although some things change with the passage of time, apparently the behavior of students in Mathematics 131 is not one of them. These, of course, are the students the president is afraid I will corrupt. Today I am describing the solution of simultaneous linear equations, and as usual a number of people in the class are having trouble remaining awake. Of course, if one looks carefully he might still be able to observe a solitary few who seem intent on hanging onto my every word. But for me, at least, such students appear to be an almost extinct species. In any event, the majority of those in the room have far better things to do than to listen to my lecture. Such personages occupy themselves by writing letters, reading comic books, or doing homework for another course. Yet in spite of their bad manners, I have learned to live with most of these students, because except for an occasional outburst they are, for the most part, too involved in other activities to engage in any sort of sustained conversation.

But then there are the two females sitting in the back of the room.

“Yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak …. yak!”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz”
“Yak!.”
“Bzzz!.”

<<<>>>

It is Thursday morning and it was an hour ago that I heard about Fenster. Last night he overdosed on a bag of chalk. Incredible as it may seem, the man actually ground up the twenty sticks he removed from my desk on Wednesday morning, and injected some of it into his veins. He died within fifteen minutes. I am once again told all this by a hysterical graduate student who claims she was with him at the time of his death. Apparently this tall woman with long black hair and bloodshot eyes was the final inspiration for Fenster’s erotic fantasies. But since I am tired and really not in the mood to converse with this girl, who somehow has been given the impression that I am the one who convinced her lover to take the ultimate aphrodisiac, I tell her I am busy, and that if she wishes to discuss things further she should make an appointment through our department secretary to see me sometime next week. But the girl refuses to listen, and resorts to shrieking epithets, until finally ten minutes later she is dragged away by a campus security officer. I cannot help but conclude that her sudden outburst all but guarantees that things will go poorly at my hearing next week. This is because a considerable crowd has gathered about the vicinity of my office, and even the normally reclusive Samona has come out of his cubicle, and the man seems to be looking at me in a most peculiar manner.

<<<>>>

It is not difficult for me to imagine what I must look like. After all, when one has stuffed fifteen boxes of chalk into the pockets of his trousers, he cannot help but appear a bit disheveled. Yet my students seem oblivious to the geometric bulges in my thighs.

In all honesty I have not quite decided what I am going to do. The presence of the chalk in my pockets suggests to me that this comedy of errors will more than likely end in a most undignified manner. And this upsets me. For, in essence, I am a responsible person. Although I have always exhibited certain neurotic tendencies, I have never considered myself to be anything like the buffoon the circumstances suggest that I am. So, as stand before the class writing equations on the board, I cannot help but be ambivalent about that which I am contemplating. Yet the longer I stand here the more it becomes apparent to me that I am destined to detonate the little sticks of dynamite jiggling in my pockets. For today things are particularly bad. As usual, all but a few of my students are engaged in tangential activities not in any way related to the content of the course. And then, of course, there are the two parakeets in the back who today seem to have achieved a new level of boorishness.

“Yak ….. yak ….. yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz”
“Yak.”
“Bzzz ….. bzzz ….. bzzz.”
“Yak ….. yak ….. yak …. yak ….. yak!”

And so the inevitable happens.

I snap.

I begin by removing one large piece of chalk from my pocket, and with my right arm I propel it with incredible velocity toward the back of the room where it disintegrates on the wall above the heads of the offenders. The two girls appear dazed — the expressions on their faces suggesting to me that they believe they are about to become victims of some terrible holocaust. Because their anxiety is so apparent, I decide that I will exploit it. So, I release another piece of chalk, and another, and I keep doing this — always I am sure to aim above their heads, but at the same time I throw the projectiles as hard as I can. After about twenty tosses I am positive that the two ladies in the back of the room are in a state of shock, and at this point I scatter fusillades of chalk in the direction of certain other offenders whose crimes have been only slightly less heinous. By now the whole class is cringing behind their seats, and the smell of fear permeates the room. Finally, I have gotten the attention of everyone — finally, all of the newspapers have been put aside, and all of the books from other courses have been safely tucked away. And all because they are afraid of me. It is as simple as that.

I realize that at the age of thirty-eight, for the first and perhaps last time in my life, I have in front of me a captive audience. It is also apparent to me that, in view of my actions, this will most likely be my last chance to have a forum of any sort. So, I decide that I should make the most of it. In view of this, for the remainder of the period I deliver a lecture entitled Rules for Employing the Calculus in Computing the Probability of Being Maimed by an Errant Piece of Chalk Thrown at You by a Deranged and Degenerate Mathematics Professor Who Is About to Be Banished from Academia.

XXXX

David Sheskin is a writer and artist whose work has been published in numerous magazines including The Dalhousie Review, Puerto del Sol, The Satirist, Shenandoah and The Chicago Review. Among his recent books are Art That Speaks, David Sheskin’s Cabinet of Curiosities and Outrageous Wedding Announcements.