Dying Inside

They go out of the hospital together, up Amsterdam Avenue to the 115th Street campus gate, and into Van Am Quad. The security man stays close beside him, saying nothing. Shortly Selig finds himself waiting outside the office of the Dean of Columbia College. The security man waits with him, arms folded placidly, wrapped in a cocoon of boredom. Selig begins to feel almost as though he is under some sort of arrest. Why is that? An odd thought. What does he have to fear from the dean? He probes the security man’s dull mind but can find nothing in it but drifting, wispy masses of fog. He wonders who the dean is, these days. He remembers the deans of his own college era well enough: Lawrence Chamberlain, with the bow ties and the warm smile, was Dean of the College, and Dean McKnight, Nicholas McD. McKnight, a fraternity enthusiast (Sigma Chi?) with a formal, distinctly nineteenth-century manner, was Dean of Students. But that was twenty years ago. Chamberlain and McKnight must have had several successors by now, but he knows nothing about them; he has never been one for reading alumni newsletters.

A voice from within says, “Dean Cushing will see him now.”

“Go on in,” the security man says.

Cushing? A fine deanly name. Who is he? Selig limps in, awkward from his injuries, bothered by his sore knee. Facing him behind a glistening uncluttered desk sits a wide-shouldered, smooth-cheeked, youthful-looking man, junior-executive model, wearing a conservative dark suit. Selig’s first thought is of the mutations worked by the passage of time: he had always looked upon deans as lofty symbols of authority, necessarily elderly or at least of middle years, but here is the Dean of the College and he seems to be a man of Selig’s own age. Then he realizes that this dean is not merely an anonymous contemporary of his but actually a classmate, Ted Cushing ’56, a campus figure of some repute back then, class president and football star and A-level scholar, whom Selig had known at least in a passing way. It always surprises Selig to be reminded that he is no longer young, that he has lived into a time when his generation has control of the mechanisms of power. “Ted?” he blurts. “Are you dean now, Ted? Christ, I wouldn’t have guessed that. When—”

“Sit down, Dave,” Cushing says, politely but with no great show of friendliness. “Did you get badly hurt?”

“The hospital says nothing’s broken. I feel half ruined, though.” As he eases into a chair he indicates the bloodstains on his clothing, the bruises on his face. Talking is an effort; his jaws creak at their hinges. “Hey, Ted, it’s been a long time! Must be twenty years since I last saw you. Did you remember my name, or did they identify me from my wallet?”

“We’ve arranged to pay the hospital costs,” Cushing says, not seeming to hear Selig’s words. “If there are any further medical expenses, we’ll take care of those too. You can have that in writing if you’d like.”

“The verbal commitment is fine. And in case you’re worrying that I’ll press charges, or sue the University, well, I wouldn’t do anything like that. Boys will be boys, they let their feelings run away with themselves a little bit, but—”

“We weren’t greatly concerned about your pressing charges, Dave,” Cushing says quietly. “The real question is whether we’re going to press charges against you.”

“Me? For what? For getting mauled by your basketball players? For damaging their expensive hands with my face?” He essays a painful grin. Cushing’s face remains grave. There is a little moment of silence. Selig struggles to interpret Cushing’s joke. Finding no rationale for it, he decides to venture a probe. But he runs into a wall. He is suddenly too timid to push, fearful that he will be unable to break through. “I don’t understand what you mean,” he says finally. “Press charges for what?”

“For these, Dave.” For the first time Selig notices the stack of typewritten pages on the dean’s desk. Cushing nudges them forward. “Do you recognize them? Here: take a look.”

Selig leafs unhappily through them. They are term papers, all of them of his manufacture. Odysseus as a Symbol of Society. The Novels of Kafka. Aeschylus and the Aristotelian Tragedy. Resignation and Acceptance in the Philosophy of Montaigne. Virgil as Dante’s Mentor. Some of them bear marks: A — , B+, A — , A and marginal comments, mainly favorable. Some are untouched except by smudges and smears; these are the ones he had been about to deliver when he was set upon by Lumumba. With immense care he tidies the stack, aligning the edges of the sheets precisely, and pushes them back toward Cushing. “All right,” he says. “You’ve got me.”

“Did you write those?”

“Yes.”

“For a fee?”

“Yes.”

“That’s sad, Dave. That’s awfully sad.”

“I needed to earn a living. They don’t give scholarships to alumni.”