Pedro Ponce/Fiction

Code Periwinkle

by Pedro Ponce

[Editor’s Note: The May 2010 disappearance of Ernesto D. Elbianco, an adjunct instructor of Life Competencies at Medina College, continues to baffle authorities and concerned colleagues. Among the possessions recovered from Elbianco’s apartment by investigators was The Art of Fiction, or The Death of the Author, a textbook in manuscript purportedly intended for use in college-level creative writing classes. The project, begun in earnest, eventually devolved into a diary of sorts, alternating entries of a more personal nature with bizarre fulminations alleging a conspiracy between the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and an interdisciplinary consortium of administrators and faculty comprising PHUCO—Professionals in the Humanities Collective. Elbianco is known to have been taking Euxorin for anxiety and depression; the paranoia and extreme moods reported by those encountering Elbianco in the days before his disappearance is consistent with symptoms of Euxorin withdrawal. The family of Ernesto Elbianco has granted permission to disseminate The Art of Fiction, hopeful that doing so will revive the stalled investigation. I’m grateful for their allowing access to the Elbianco papers, and for their cooperation in authenticating the following edited excerpt. — PP]

Where Do Ideas Come From?

The story is told of an emerging sculptor who, lacking inspiration, learns of a sale at her local hardware store. Hoping to salvage her unproductive day, she decides to stock up on necessities for her work space. But she has already frittered away the morning and most of the afternoon dabbing at her sketchpad, napping, or staring into the depths of her perplexity. By the time she arrives, the only sale items remaining are shelf brackets and a box of rusting casters.

The first lesson to emerge from this anecdote is certainly the danger of napping. It is doubtless the nap that refreshes the artist in question sufficiently to inspire her redoubled efforts. Had she extended her nap with alcohol or sleeping pills, the comfort of oblivion might have made her more amenable to the ineluctable void that consumes all human endeavors, artistic or otherwise.

The second lesson of course is illustrated in the artist’s pluck as she purchases the brackets and casters and returns to her studio. She sets to work with sheet metal cutters, pliers, steel wool, and lubricant spray. The constraint of her materials requires not only the exercise of her existing faculties, but the discovery of unprecedented new ones. She emerges from her trials with the most innovative work of her career. She sells every piece in her latest group, affording the financial independence to pursue her art indefinitely.

And so, as shown in the foregoing tale, people will really buy anything. And lubricant spray really has 1,001 uses.

Write What You Know

Tonight we gather to dedicate the Wyatt Reading Room, honoring emeritus professor Henry Wyatt. Wyatt retired in 1999, but his scholarly output has only accelerated in his later years with the advent of services like YouPublish and Author Author. For his latest doorstop, Wyatt has apparently gone with the $700 Classic Minimalism package: A pine green card stock cover with white tissue-thin pages. A line extends from Wyatt’s desk — pierced with an explanatory gold-plated placard — to the buffet table. I nod thoughtfully over the gilt letters of the volume’s spine until the nearest conversational circle closes in on itself. Then I set it aside and shovel more cold cuts and cheese onto my plate.

Speech! Speech! That can only be Nathaniel Dreyfus, already buzzed on Blue Heron Port and possession of the room’s youngest spouse, Dora, nee Bloom, tennis team captain during Dreyfus’ brief tenure as team liaison. It was Dreyfus who started Medina’s Faculty-Athletics Liaison program, which he proposed in an impassioned speech on the floor of the Faculty Assembly several years ago. The speech was later reprinted in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Dreyfus’ visionary plea for integrating physical well-being more proactively into the liberal arts coincided with Dora Bloom’s enrollment in Dreyfus’ English Literature to 1800 survey. Bloom, an accomplished student-athlete, would often arrive to her afternoon class already dressed for practice in order to expedite her arrival on court. Dreyfus would never tire of remarking how fate — or Fortuna, as it’s known to medievalists — intervened to make a match of him and DD, a term of endearment modified to Double D depending on his audience.

The Department Assessor seems to appear from nowhere with a steaming mug that reads STATISTICIANS DO IT BY THE NUMBERS. Nice to see you out and about, she says, especially during a Code Lavender.

A what? I ask.

She waves a hand dismissively. Guess you haven’t checked your mailbox today.

Her remark suggests that I have my own mailbox, but mine is actually shared with four other adjuncts, the Dixon Hall Ride Board, and notes to maintenance and janitorial staff. I had in fact seen a thick memo from Central Assessment printed with my name, but I had tossed it into the nearest recycling bin as soon as I saw the telltale owl and beaver letterhead (“PRUDENTIA VIA DILIGENTIA”).

Completely slipped my mind, I say.

The memo is self-explanatory, which the Assessor demonstrates by way of explanation. The digital drop boxes for all Life Competencies courses are linked to a central monitoring program. The data collected by this program includes how many assignments are given each semester, when they are due, and when grades and comments are returned to each student. Using reasonable efficiency templates, the program establishes zones of turnaround that correspond with degrees of Learning Reinforcement (LR). The quickest turnaround for grading, the next calendar day, has been shown to promote Maximum Learning Reinforcement for the skills practiced in a given assignment. After this threshold, the program assigns a color code to the dwindling efficacy of delayed assessment. The interval between the next calendar day and the next class meeting is designated Code Goldenrod (Exemplary LR); between the next class meeting and the Saturday ending that calendar week is designated Code Umber (Acceptable LR); and so on. The color code ensures that instructors reading the correspondingly backlit warning e-mails are subjected to minimal eye strain.

Currently, we are at Code Lavender (Minimal LR) for assignments administered the previous week. You’ve been steadily improving, says the Assessor wistfully. It would be a shame to spoil it all with a Periwinkle [Poor LR] or a Lime [Unacceptable LR]. She takes another sip from her mug and leaves with a concerned nod.

Many Muses, One Art

If I cut behind campus instead of taking Main Street, I can be home in a matter of minutes with a good two-and-a-half hours of grading before the next assessment alert. This is the plan until I hear my name called from one of the darkened porches on Galloway. I turn reluctantly in the direction of the voice, tracing its source to a glowing orange dot hovering over a white banister. I recognize my office mate Liam. He breathes blue smoke in my direction and waves me over.

I watch him lean forward, releasing the slim butt to the shadows. In the light from her long toke is Dora Bloom.

You look like you could use this, she says.

I accept without hesitation.

What’d you think of the ceremony? I ask.

Dora shakes her head as she tweezes the joint between her thumb and forefinger. That was on campus. Now I’m off campus. I don’t have to think anything. She stifles a yawn as she pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her hands. She’s changed her clothes and wears her hair down, looking more like the undergraduate she was three years ago.

I was just about to tell Dora about my recent windfall, Liam says.

The turd money? Dora fixes me with an indignant glare that quickly turns to giggling.

Last spring, Liam was just another underpaid adjunct struggling to pay his bills. On top of teaching two sections of Numeracy for Living and one section of Digital Research/Digital Discovery, he was also offered the chance to host the reception following the Prentice Reading, which invites an esteemed poet to campus every year. A logistical oversight had led the Alumni House to be reserved for another group. The apartment Liam shared with his cat was the site of the Old Library, which used to be where Medina held its literary gatherings; with a fortunate run of renters, it had not fallen into disrepair to the same extent as other campus buildings converted to housing.

Liam was given a pittance for refreshments and a detachment of janitorial staff, who scrubbed, steamed, and unpacked long stored memorabilia for display. He exhausted his refreshment allowance and most of his grocery funds for the month with imported sesame crackers, exotic cheeses, crudités, and two bottles of the guest writer’s favorite scotch. After passing inspection by the Dean of Academic Affairs, the Director of the Physical Plant, and the head of Alumni Development, there was nothing to do but await the arrival of Pulitzer Prize winner and current Tri-State Poet Laureate, Arthur Beech.

Beech was at his most charming during his visit, which is to say that he only brought two students to tears during his guest workshop and limited his sexual overtures to juniors and seniors. He was sober enough during his reading to school his audience on their collective ignorance of great Literature, worthy of capitalization by virtue of its humanity and universal relevance, which could only be found among certain poets of his generation. Those still awake applauded their abuse and took their time perusing thoughtfully at the bookseller’s table, ultimately deciding that a free library copy was just as edifying.

Liam looked forward to having at least one bottle of scotch left over to help him through the rationing it would take to get him to his next paycheck. But somehow, in the course of the subsequent reception, Beech and a handful of sycophants left him with only two fingers, plus a dollop of Livarot. While his host contemplated the shambles of his larder, the guest of honor requested directions to the water closet. Liam pointed the way, wordlessly.

The party adjourned to the bar of Beech’s hotel. Liam turned down the invitation half-heartedly extended by Medina’s tenured resident poet and was looking forward to a few hours of sleep before rising at six to prepare for his morning class. He made his way down the hall and nearly collided with a bolt of gray fur shooting from the opposite direction. Rudy, he admonished feebly. Liam followed a trail of litter into the bathroom, where Rudy’s litter box shared cramped space with the sink, toilet, and stand-up shower. He had just begun to brush his teeth when he noticed something in the periphery of his vision.

The turd measured 11 inches long, with a diameter of one and 7/8 inches at its thickest point. Rudy, a six-year-old Russian blue, measures 14 inches (excluding tail) and weighs just under 10 pounds. An avid omnivore—the primary reason he had been sequestered during the reception—he was on a prophylactic diet to ensure no health problems now that he had reached middle age. But not even feline agility would allow an organism to defecate nearly the full length of its body. In short, someone else had to be full of shit. Liam remembered the visiting poet’s rumpled blazer as he stumbled to relieve himself towards the end of the night.

Rudy consented to a brief examination—revealing nothing out of the ordinary—as Liam trolled online for a site he had discovered several months ago. Completist.com is essentially no different from any other trade and auction website, but it specializes in artifacts of fairly recent and often dubious provenance: “FOR THE COLLECTOR WITH EVERYTHING BUT.” He considered posting to the Celebrity pages, but it was doubtful anyone looking for Trey Seacourt’s yogurt spoon or Mia Clark’s used panties would know or care about the unexpurgated work of a prominent American poet. He settled on a page devoted to “Literary Curiosities.”

Within minutes of his upload, a potential buyer was corresponding with him via Completist Chat. IS THE SPECIMEN WHOLE? asked PapaLives1962. Liam pondered whether his exhaustion had gotten the better of him as he typed that it was. IS THE SPECIMEN PRESERVED? Liam wasn’t sure how to respond. He settled, finally, on KEPT WHERE I FOUND IT. KEEP SEALED IN COOL DRY PLACE, responded PapaLives. LOOK FOR AUTHENTICATION PACKET BY EXPRESS POST.

The following evening, Liam received an expedited package containing three cotton swabs, a zippered plastic sleeve, and an expedited return envelope addressed to a post office box in Nestling Grove, Montana. The sender provided careful instructions for collecting samples from three different spots along the specimen’s surface.

Thirty-six hours later, Liam received a message from the buyer, offering $10,000, plus shipping and insurance. Liam got him up to $15,000 after sending pictures. He deposited the check just in time for Commencement, which he skipped for a weekend bender in New Orleans.

Liam hoists a beer from the cooler under his chair.

Any of it left?

Liam nods at my question, drinking from an ornate brown bottle. I’ve got to count my pennies. Not all us part-timers have the same perks. He looks briefly at Dora before giving me a conspiratorial wink.

I should go, Dora says. I hear the slap of her flip-flops against the cold porch.

Already? Liam asks. We just got this party started.

Fuck you, Dora says. She takes the porch steps two at a time and heads east toward the neighborhood known as Faculty Manor.

I better head out, too, I say.

Nice, whispers Liam. I bet she’s really hot when she’s pissed.

I give him a look before calling Dora from the darkened steps.

She stops and is about to say something, but I interrupt. I can walk with you if you’d like.

It’s only two blocks. Anyway, aren’t you in the other direction?

Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I head towards Main. By the time I pass Liam’s house again, the porch is empty.

I’m at the corner of Main and Kyloe when I hear the chimes of the campus chapel. More hours toll the longer I wait at the intersection. Nine. Ten. Eleven. I check the clock on the side of Niagara Savings.

Code Periwinkle.

About the author:

Pedro Ponce is the author of Homeland: A Panorama in 50 States (Seven Kitchens Press), the story collection Alien Autopsy (Cow Heavy Books), and Superstitions of Apartment Life (Burnside Review Press). His recent fiction can be viewed at the Sonora Review blog (http://sonorareview.com/2011/05/25/short-short-fiction-by-pedro-ponce/) and PANK Magazine (http://www.pankmagazine.com/the-church-of-best-guesses/).