The Arrival

Colm appeared ready for combat. 

His arms, always the color of unblemished marble, were now speckled with tattoos.

He twirled a curved sword above his head.

He was wearing cutoff shorts. I recognized them as the former bottom half of the pinstripe suit he broke out for memorial services. His legs, never an impressive feature, were covered in welts and fresh scratches. The getup was finished off with boots, a sleeveless New York Knicks t-shirt, and heavy eye makeup.

Colm

MORTAL!!!!

Turdling

Hey.

Colm

Welcome! Any problem finding the place?

Turdling

No, the Yankee hat was a good choice, easy to spot.

Colm

What do you think of the joint?

Turdling

It’s pretty much like you describe it.

Colm

Careful coming up the stairs, the moss covers a fair amount of rot.

Turdling

Are you ok?

Colm

Never better.  Except for my fucking legs, the horseflies are killing me this year.

Turdling

You know the College is looking for you.

Colm

It’s easier to ignore them from up here.

Turdling

You might want to check in.

Colm

With who?

Turdling

The Chair.

Colm

I thought we didn’t have one, that they were going to run the department by conclave or diktat or lottery.

Turdling

No, there’s an interim Chair—you have email, right?

Colm

 . . . . . .?

Turdling

Yea, anyway, Lasher’s the guy’s name.

Colm

Who’s he?

Turdling

They dragged him out of retirement to oversee us while they do a search.

Colm

That’s perfect, he’ll go along with anything, especially if I wait until the last minute.  Come on, come up, we’ve got much to discuss.

Turdling

Are these stairs really safe?

Colm

Fuck no, walk along the edge.  And hold tight to the railing.

Turdling

How do you. . .

But he’d vanished into the house.

Turdling’s Summer Report (Part 1)

September.  The young migrate back to our little campus and I return to the tremendous burdens I endure as a contract bound, quasi professor. I accomplished very little this summer; as I sit on the train writing this I’m trying to account for the last four months and there is little to show beyond some desultory attempts at finishing work I’ve dodged for over a year. My creative torpor should have resulted in almost daily posts to this space—after all knocking out stories here allows me to sit back with a delusional sense of accomplishment—but lethargy set in and I couldn’t even be arsed to report on institutional goings on, of which there have been a few:

The Tam was sold. Rumblings were heard last spring that the joint might be snapped up by the college, but the beloved dive was purchased by a consortium of hoodlums who undoubtedly intend to update the place. This is dispiriting news as the city’s roster of throw-a-few-back barrooms is already depressingly thin. I fear that the current group of undergraduates will be the last to enjoy The Tam’s heady mix of lethal, under-priced whisky sours and feculent bathrooms.

The Poet, now officially in power and sensing the department wide displeasure at his appointment, issued his first decree this week. His haiku-like email announced the formation of an unamed committee and overused the word exploring. No-one has a fucking clue what he’s up to.

Radovan Slovavic, easily the most terrifying primate in our department and a living example of why the tenure system should be abolished, published his long threatened book Wither Goest the Scrivener’s Spleen: Surgical Transplant Techniques in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1648-1703.

Mira Barcelona

Instead of sending postcards, Mira and Colm will be savaging one another in real time this summer:

Turdling: But it’s still the two of you, together.
Colm: For a month, it’s not that big a deal.
Turdling: That’s plenty of time to do some significant personal damage. Please tell me you’re living separately.
Colm: Of course not, the college has that castle.
Turdling: It’s not a real castle Colm.
Colm: I’ve seen the pictures.
Turdling: They tore that thing down years ago, they use the pictures to lure kids in for the summer programs.
Colm: What?
Turdling: You didn’t know that?
Colm: No.
Turdling: Jesus Colm. . .
Colm: Everyone calls the place The Castle.
Turdling: The Celtics play at The Garden but there aren’t any fucking tomatoes there. They put up one of those six story hacienda looking things.
Colm: Maybe we’ll be on different floors.

Exile From Wall Street

Like a drunk searching for a dollar that he knows is in one of his pockets, so to the college continues it’s groping, desperate pursuit of funding. Fiscal and institutional responsibility are the Irish twins of higher education, but consider the following:

The hiring of Gwendolyn Saxe-Gothe as associate provost for institutional viability, the latest example of ill spent tuition dollars. While the college is reluctant to hire actual educators for their students, they long ago opened up the cash spigots when it comes to hiring mid to upper level administrative mommydaddy proxies. This is the newly coronated babbitt class, the purveyors of blank speak and endless conclaves, and nothing funds them quite so generously as the borrowed money of the debtor class of 2015.

Meanwhile our new contract has been approved. Those of us who lack tenure were given a little extra cash but the college’s bargaining unit of rat terriers dug in its heels and the corridors ran thick with the blood of vanquished adjuncts who’ve now been denied health care and dignity. The celebratory air on the upper floors of the administration building was nearly visible from the quad, a wafting haze that blocked the sun and reeked of greed. This is indeed a new golden age in higher education, with recruited corporate refugees playing the role of robber barons 2.0.