That’s not helping stress levels, either, so I try the language games I used as a kid to calm my nerves, to slow me down when I was freaking out, like how the word “fridge” has a “d” but “refrigerator” does not, how “tomb” is pronounced toom and “womb” is pronounced woom, but “bomb” is not pronounced boom, how “rough” and “dough” and “cough” and “through” should rhyme but don’t. I don’t know why oddness and contradiction calm me, but they always have, maybe because of their familiarity, because I see so much of those traits in myself.
Then I stop. My legs suddenly, inexplicably no sturdier than rubber, exhaustion sweeping over me, my pulse ratcheting up again, vibrating in my throat. Only steps away from Harlem Avenue, only moments from crossing the town border, only a matter of feet from leaving Grace Village and crossing into its sister town Grace Park, where I live, a far bigger town.
I manage to duck behind the equipment shed owned by the park district. I plop down on the ground, pull off my hood, remove the head mask I’m wearing, and rest my sweaty head against the brick wall. I fish around in my bag for the knife. It’s a large knife that we used to slice the Thanksgiving turkey when I was a kid. I thought I might need it tonight.
I pull out my green phone and start typing:
I’m sorry, Lauren. I’m sorry for what I did and I’m sorry you didn’t love me. But I’m not sorry for loving you like nobody else could. I’m coming to you now. I hope you’ll accept me and let me love you in a way you wouldn’t in this world.
When I’m done, I put the phone in my lap, next to the knife. I hold out my hand, palm down, and stare at it. It remains utterly still and steady.
I take a breath and nod my head. I can do this. I’m ready.
2
Simon
“You know what your problem is?” Anshu says to me, though I didn’t ask him. If we’re going through a list of my problems, we’ll be here all afternoon. “You don’t look the part,” he says, without waiting for a prompt from me.
“I don’t . . .” I give myself a once-over, my button-down oxford and blue jeans. “What’s wrong with how I look?”
“You dress like one of the students. You’re supposed to be the professor.”
“What do you want, a tweed coat with patches? Should I carry a pipe, too?”
I’m sitting in my office on the third floor of the law school with Professor Anshuman Bindra, who looks the part naturally, with his owlish face and trim beard, hair the consistency of a scrub brush, which manages to not move but look unkempt regardless. Anshu leans back in his chair. “Simon, my friend, you just got quoted in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion. It’s like the Supremes collectively leaned over from Washington to Chicago and whispered to the committee, ‘Make this guy a full professor.’ You should be walking tall today. You should be the new King of the Fourth Amendment. But instead, you show up looking like you’re going to a frat party.”
“It shouldn’t matter how I dress. It’s what I say, what I teach, what I write, that—”
But he’s already making a mouth out of his hand, yada yada yada. “Now Reid, he looks the part. He wears a sport coat and dress pants every day.”
Reid Southern? That guy is to academia what Pauly Shore is to dramatic acting. He has parents with pull, and that’s it.
“He wears a sport coat because his stomach hangs over his belt,” I say. “And he probably can’t fit into jeans.”
Anshu drops his head, pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, and you run marathons, and half your students probably want to bone you, but Reid looks like a law professor. He acts like one. The guy listens to Mozart in his office. You listen to REM and N.W.A. and Panic! at the Disco.”
“Okay, first of all,” I say, leaning forward, “I do not and would not listen to Panic! at the Disco. And now it matters what music I listen to?”
“It’s not one thing. It’s the whole package. The . . . grungy look, the music, the whole attitude. You don’t think appearances matter? I know they shouldn’t, but you know—”
“No, they do, I know.” But I’m not going to change for them. Why should I? There’s no dress code here. I’m twice the teacher Reid Southern is. His students hate him. I’ve read the reviews. And his scholarship is pedantic at best. He’s writing about a different way to understand mutual consent in contract law. I’m writing about the government violating the constitutional rights of its citizens on a daily basis.