Howard slumped in the back row of the lecture
theatre and waited for the lesson to start.
He was there to be distracted rather than to
learn. The lecture theatre was packed, much
fuller than the other lectures he had attended
so far. He remembered how Jacintha would sit
primly and prettily in her place at the front.
Before the lecturer arrived, most of the other
students engaged one another in lively conversation,
but she would dutifully read her notes, apparently
oblivious to the ambient chatter and his passion.
A gangly looking student in a purple and yellow
tracksuit, baseball cap and Walkman attached
to his hip swaggered into the room as if attempting
a parade of cool.
'Steve!' Howard involuntarily muttered in irritation, as
if that name were a curse. Steve shot Howard a hostile look and gave the middle
finger gesture. Howard avoided looking in Steve's direction again, but his
mind seethed. Poor Jacintha had perished and now he plotted vengeance for
Steve's photograph crime, for shoving her towards the edge.
There was a strange atmosphere on this occasion. No one
spoke to him, and he made no attempt to speak in turn. The students' chatter
was nervous, restrained, yet excited. As the lecturer strode into the room
he heard one of them refer to the lecturer as
Captain Caveman. Uneasy
laughter rumbled. The lecturer was short, balding, wore a brown suit and carried
a cane. But by far his most prominent feature was a beard that would not
have been over the top for
ZZ Top. The beard was the measure of the
man.
'OK, my hearty
illegitimates,' boomed the Captain
in a voice that seemed larger than his beard, 'from hereon in you attention
span-deficient scallywags will disburse your undivided interest. No snogging
at the back!' The lecturer smirked ominously. Jagged teeth tore through his
beard. The class laughed merrily.
He doesn't know, thought Howard.
'Right, where was I?' said the lecturer in a voice that
crashed tsunami-like over the captive audience. 'Ah yes.' He drew a graph
on the board. '
This,' he said, banging his illustration with his cane,
'is the function representing the forces acting between two atoms in a covalent
solid. This curve tells us that the atoms favour a discreet separation.
Use your fecund imaginations to picture this scene: two lovers meet, a man
and a woman. On the other hand it could be two homosexuals, it makes no odds:
well, not for the purposes of our metaphor at any rate. Any homosexuals in
the house?'
The audience seemed not to breath.
'Homosexuals are seldom present at my lectures. I will
be filing an official complaint to the Student Union Lesbian And Gay Society
about their boycott of my lectures.'
The audience laughed with edgy relief.
'Where was I? Ah yes, the two atoms in a solid
are two metaphorical lovers. The lovers see
each other and want to exchange bodily fluids.'
The lecturer seemed to relish the groan that
he invoked from his audience. 'So they move
closer together and exchange their fluids.
This is the equivalent of the two atoms sharing
electrons to form a common bond, say a quantum
pi bond.
'But the lovers can only get
so close because their
bodies cannot overlap and merge. Well, not completely at any rate. It's the
same for two atoms: the Pauli exclusion principle for electronic quantum states
precludes them from overlapping and occupying the same space.
'As it happens, the two atoms move back and forth with respect
to each other at a high frequency. I will leave it up to you lot to draw
a mental analogy for this phenomena in the case of our metaphorical lovers.'
The lecturer turned to the board and scribbled quantum wave
equations upon it.
During his mathematical exposition a female student sneaked
into the lecture theatre. The lecturer eyed the hapless student.
'Oh,
do come in your ladyship,' he said, 'it was
so nice of you to trouble. May I get you a cup of tea?'
The student blushed bright crimson, bowed her head sheepishly
and quietly and scuttled the nearest available seat. The lecturer turned to
the board and described his formulae, flailing his cane as he did so. Howard
perceived beauty in the equations. Physics was so beautiful. The lecturer's
explanations were so lucid. The lecture progressed swiftly.
'...to the fourth coefficient. Then simply-
oi,
you Sir with your finger
jammed up you're nostril, do
extract it
Sir! I did not come here to teach grotty
oiks with their digits jammed up their schnozzle.
Only
chemists play with
snot
all day. We do
real science! We're
not snot inspectors like the
chemists
are we?' There was silence. '
Are we?'
'No!' came a chorused roar from the delighted audience.
'Our prime minister's an ex-chemist and see how she corrodes
your grants! See you next week people, if you can still afford to be here!'
The lecturer marched from the room. The students rose and
filed from the theatre. The student sitting next to Howard stamped his feet
rhythmically and shouted '
Encore!' Howard then saw him press a button
on a tape recorder in his bag and put away a microphone that had been partially
hidden under a folder.
'Been taping the lecture?' asked Howard.
'
Bootlegging it,' said the student. 'I'm cutting
an edit.'
'Why?'
'The edits are a hit at parties. The man's
legendary.
No one gives a bollocking like Caveman. A few of us have applied for a Union
grant to start up a Caveman appreciation soc. The man's a genius.'
'Do you do physics?' said Howard.
'No, business studies. I'm here for the abuse.'
Howard followed the crowd to the lecture theatre across
the corridor for an astronomy lesson. As he entered he noticed Steve was writing
something on the board. In jazzed, zigzag lettering were the words:
Howard
is a virgin. Jacintha was a whore.'
Howard strode towards Steve, who turned and raised his arms
defensively.
'What the fuck?' shouted Howard, 'you fucking twat, you
fucking harassed me and you fucking harassed Jacintha and now you fucking
harass me and you harass Jacintha even after she's dead! You fucking bastard
I should pummel you into the dirt and swat you like a fucking fly! But you're
too much of a turd to hit my threshold for violence, you festering turd!'
Steve sneered and looked at the silent, agape students assembled
in the theatre.
'Cool it man, hey what's up with your attitude? You're totally
out of order man!'
'Shut your face you foul pile of shit! 'I'm going to rip
that smug head from its smug fucking shoulders and kick it about like a pig's
head, like the stinking wretched ball of shit that it is!' Howard felt like
he was losing momentum. His words were sapping his rage.
Steve's asymmetrical mouth smirked. 'Easy man, you got a
real big chip on your shoulder 'bout ya dead bitch? Just because you ain't
never screwed her!'
'How the fuck do
you know that Steve?' Howard regretted
the question. Now Steve was in control.
'I tell ya man, she told me, man. I kept on asking her and
she was like, hey man, it ain't none of your business right? Well, I kept
on asking her and asking her right, and in the end she hit me straight: you
ain't never screwed her! What's the matter with you? Pimp ain't never even
screwed his own ho? Well, you ain't never gonna get the chance now man. Not
'less you dig her bod out the grave! Hey man, you know what I think 'bout
your dead bitch?'
'Shut your face Steve,' said Howard. His teeth clenched.
His muscles tautened to the point he felt he could have ripped his way out
of a straitjacket
Steve spat on the floor. '
That!'
Time dilated. 'Look, there's
blood!' gasped Howard.
He pointed at the spit on the floor. As Steve glanced down, Howard struck
him with a heavy jab to his ear, Steve cried out and fell backwards. Howard
lunged onto him and punched him in the ribs just below his left arm and kneed
him in the hip. Steve pushed him away. Howard fell awkwardly onto his back,
struck out with his feet and viciously stamped the heel of his trainers onto
Steve's stomach. He threw himself at Steve and thrashed frenzied blows at
his head and curled up body. It seemed to him he was a demon in a ghostly
hell, punching and kicking and lashing at this helpless human orb. He felt
people grip his arms and was hauled from his foe by shouting students. Below
him Steve groaned. His head and hands were covered in blood.
He muttered reassurances to his restrainers
in a voice that he hoped was calm enough to
convince them his rage has subsided. Upon
being liberated, he shuffled out of the room.
No one spoke to him. No one followed him.
Bitterly he surmised they all thought he was
guilty, that was usually the case. He dealt
destructively with humanity and humanity taunted
him and eschewed him in turn, acting in unison,
like an insect colony or some vengeful god.
That was the way. The students thought Steve
was right about him! They were
all
right. Submerged in such acidic theory, he
stood in the corridor for a moment as streams
of students turbulently surged and jostled
around him. After a while he let the outward
flow take him.
***
*****
***
He dared not enter Donovan Hall. If anyone recognised him
there would be untold hassle. He walked around the grounds perimeter then
lay down at a secluded spot beneath pine trees that overlooked Jacintha's
block. Her room had been in one of the three-storey wings. He wondered which
of the dark squares within the concrete facade was the window to room two-one-nine-two.
It was located towards the centre that was for sure. Maybe it was the one
with the light yellow curtains drawn. Many hours later nearly all the rooms
had curtains shut against the dark. But the curtains of the room he had stared
at for so long were not, and had not been, illuminated from within.
Nearby, students were scurrying around in unruly hordes
and cliques. The drinking sessions of the Friday evening were raucously underway.
The sights of wanton merriment were depressing to him so he trudged back to
Napoleon Terrace, knowing that his housemates would themselves be out. The
house was empty, as far as he could tell. In his room he picked up a note
he spied lying on his pillow. Large handwriting had been scrawled heavily
into the page.
'Heard about J. Too bad. To cheer you up I will get you
laid. Tonight. I00% cert. P.S. make sure wear clean undies and grab a Jiffy.'
'Fuck, Greg. Fuck it.' Howard screwed up the note and hurled
it at the wall. He picked up
Lord of the Rings. Men were being heroic.
Wizards were being heroic. Elves were being heroic. Dwarves were being heroic.
Hell, the
hobbits were being heroic. Before long he found himself shrugging.
Why not? He would investigate Greg's latest mad scheme. He needed the distraction.
Any distraction!
He rushed down stairs and ran a bath. The water was freezing.
 | | | | |
| From: |
Knoeier | Subject: | 2003-05-08 17:09:26 |
| | | | |
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