THE MLA STYLE SHEET

By Charles Deemer

 

 

I have a habit of never knowing exactly where I am, or why. More than once I have started off for classes only to find myself entering a market, wondering what had happened to my shopping list. I’ve failed to appear for too many office hours, appointments, and faculty meetings to attribute my absence to mere forgetfulness. After a particularly heavy night of drinking I especially find myself wondering what had happened only the hour before; I may leave the men's room, go to my office, sit at my desk and worry whether I had remembered to flush the toilet.

Still I try to go with the drift. When Professor Hodgeworth hosted a tea for graduate students planning to attend the Modern Language Association’s regional meeting In Los Angeles, I went because attendance seemed proper for a student in his thesis-writing year. And I planned to go to the MIA convention because next year I needed a job. By the time Professor Hodgeworth held the tea, I already had over two hundred job applications in the mail, which was about average. For example, John Starr had let it be known that he had four hundred and thirteen applications out. I suppose there is some sort of coefficient of determination one applies to compensate for the uneven demand for teachers in the various fields of literature; with a habit of writing home only twice a year, twenty applications would have set a record for my own determination. But I tend to go with the drift and have never heard of a Ph.D. candidate sending out less than two hundred. 

Professor Hodgeworth is the Blake man to the department, and I point this out because I suspect that Blake himself (this actually is not my area of specialization) would have incited a riot if he had attended the tea. Hodgeworth is an aristocrat by temperament, and his tastes reflect it. His home, a five-bedroom mansion in the hills overlooking campus, is stuffed with the chandeliers, stairways, fireplaces, furniture, artifacts, trinkets and other ostentatious displays of a rococo palace. The professor himself is a short fat man whom I've never seen in anything but a gray suit. At the last faculty meeting he suggested, in his high birdlike chirp, that instead of debating whether language requirements for the Ph.D. should be reduced to one, we should be discussing whether to increase them to three, Latin becoming obligatory. The tea was proper and rigorous, a gathering dedicated to nodding at Hodgeworth's recommendations concerning correct convention behavior (be serious always and don't stick out). The whole affair was a drag, saved only by the portrait of Blake over the urinal in the bathroom: the poet's eyes ware fierce and burning. 

John Starr offered me a ride to Los Angeles and I accepted. I looked more forward to the trip down than to the meeting itself, for L.A. is a two-day drive from Eugene and the time on the road promised to offer welcome relief and distraction from working on my thesis. I was writing on Whittier's anti-slavery poems, a neglected but quite dull topic: a topic, in other words, which lent itself perfectly to Ph.D. scrutiny. My major interest actually was contemporary American literature (contemporary American anything, as a matter of fact) but my advisor had talked me out of going into so competitive a field since my record was besmirched with B’s. I settled for Whittler, who at least was American; and with blacks rioting in the cities, who could tell, a publisher might take an interest in my dissertation. If the truth be known, I was a graduate student in English by some kind of blind default: I have a student's disposition (maybe I just don’t have a working man’s) and like to read literature. This may be no reason but it was mine. 

If I go with the drift, John Starr appeared to have the grammar of his life in perfect order. Like myself, John was in his late twenties and at the end of a long haul for the doctorate. He gave his own lectures for Introduction to Literature (I taught discussion sections only) and from time to time was even assigned a more advanced course, such as Survey. John was a medievalist, although I never did quite understand what he was writing his thesis on. He already had published in several small journals but his greatest success was that he had had an article accepted by PMLA ("the Big P"), the article scheduled for publication in four years. Meanwhile John worked long and hard on his thesis. Whatever it was about, it engrossed him, for he always looked wan and tired.

John is not a great talker and the drive to L.A, began in silence. At Roseburg we hit rain and John seemed to be so nervous, hunched forward so that his nose was only inches from the windshield, that I asked him if he wanted me to drive. He shook his head. I decided to mind my own business -- but when a few miles later we approached two girls who were hitchhiking, I said, "Hey, let’s pick them up." 

By this time we were passing the girls. I saw that one of them was giving us the finger.

"Pull over!" 

John slowed down. 

"You mean you want to pick them up?" 

“It’s raining. They’re probably students going to Medford or something." 

John pulled to the shoulder and stopped. Moving back from the windshield, he stretched and rubbed his neck and shoulders. 

"Back up," I said, 

"In this weather?" 

"I'll do it, for Christ's sake.”

But John put the car in reverse and, leaning far over the seat, began creeping back along the shoulder of the freeway as the girls, who had seen us stop, ran toward us, When they were close I told John to stop; by the way he was driving, I was afraid he’d hit them.  I opened the back door, and the girl who had given us the finger was the first one in, saying, "I didn’t think you meant to stop." 

I said something about the weather, the girls smiled, got comfortable and shook themselves dry, and John pulled back onto the freeway. They were beauties, sisters in form and style: in their late teens, both were thin and small-breasted, long-haired, without makeup except around the eyes, and were wearing bellbottoms and boots and fringed leather Jackets. I began the introductions. The one who had given us the finger, who was the blonder of the two, was named Elizabeth; her friend was Jocelyn, and she spoke with an English accent. 

"Where did you start out from?" I asked. 

Jocelyn said, "Vancouver." Her accent told me Canada, not Washington.

"We're going to Mexico," Elizabeth quickly added. I thought they were ill prepared for it: they carried only bedrolls and a single guitar. But they were young and carefree, I presumed, and thought of their trip as a great adventure. I envied them.

"How far are you going?" Jocelyn asked. Her accent was charming, perfectly charming. 

"To Los Angeles. John and I are future professors of America. Going to a big convention." I turned to John for support but, hunched again near the windshield, he appeared to be oblivious to the conversation. 

"To Los Angeles, really?" said Elizabeth. "How groovy!" 

John stirred, the first sign that he was listening. I asked if they were students. 

"At Simon Fraser," they said together.

Jocelyn said, "It really got to be dreary." 

They eagerly went on, taking turns to tell us about the irrelevancy of a University education, the boredom of staying in one place for long, the absolute pomposity of boys who expected them to get married. "Immature" was a word I was delighted to hear in reference to their male classmates, for it was apparent that if we were driving to L.A. together then some arrangement would have to be made for spending the night. I didn’t know what this arrangement would be but I enjoyed thinking about the possibilities: maybe they preferred older types. John, on the other hand, was aloof from such thoughts, or seemed to be. He was married, of course; but I really didn’t understand why that should restrict the possibilities ahead. It was a matter of making arrangements for a single night, not of choosing a career. 

When the girls stopped talking, and they talked for over an hour, I suggested lunch. Find a market and buy bread, cheese and wine for a picnic. 

John said, "In this weather?" 

"We can have the picnic in the car."

The girls approved and I told John, "My treat. We can stop in Medford. Easy access, easy return." 

Because I didn't press the matter, I was relieved when he actually took the turnoff. He pulled into a Standard station, which stood adjacent to a small market.

"One of you want to come with me?" I asked the girls, offering the possibility of choosing couples. 

Jocelyn said, "Let's all go."

John muttered something about checking the oil, and the girls and I went into the market. 

He was checking the air pressure in the tires when we returned. The girls had picked out the cheese and a long loaf of unsliced sour dough, and I had taken three bottles of Almaden Mountain Burgundy from the shelves, elated enough to spend more than I could afford. At the register Jocelyn asked me if I expected us to drink all three bottles with lunch, and I said lightly, "Why make plans?" Elizabeth's smile told me that she thought my insouciance was "groovy," which was no small step toward choosing couples.

We ate in the car at a rest stop outside of Medford. With characteristic blindness I had purchased bottles with corks but had forgotten to get a corkscrew. John took one of the bottles, dug at the cork with a screwdriver, then pushed what was left of it down the neck and into the wine. We lost a little liquid, but not much, and I demanded that John’s reward be the first swig. He declined and even seemed surprised at the offer, as though opening the bottle had been a challenge in itself and not the means to an end. 

The girls and I passed the bottle, and when it was empty I took the screwdriver to open another.

"We’d better get going," John said. 

"I know. As long as you’re not drinking, no harm in us having another." 

“I rather suspect the law reads otherwise." 

"If a cop pulls you over, I can hide the bottle. Anyway, I’m sure it’s okay. You haven’t had a drop." 

John reluctantly gave in. At least it soon stopped raining, so he could drive without putting his nose near the windshield. I turned to the back seat and shared the second, and then the third, bottle with the girls. We talked incessantly, and I even told a few Army stories, which delighted them. They ware lithe and beautiful and I wanted to tell them so; I settled for making them laugh. 

Into California the three of us had to use the facilities, and I returned to the car with two more bottles of wine, Gallo this time. "Oh my word." Jocelyn said. The girls burst into giggles, I began laughing, too, and John stared ahead through the windshield. 

 

Before leaving Eugene, John and I had planned to drive as far as we could the first day, myself taking the wheel at sunset since he had a night driving restriction on his license. John reminded me of the restriction toward evening, and the girls and I all volunteered to drive. But I was more than willing to stop for the day and get on with possibilities. Although I loved Jocelyn’s accent, I had decided that Elizabeth was more my type: I liked the fact that she had given us the finger. I didn’t know how to get John interested in Jocelyn but it was getting time to try. Then, standing at the adjacent urinal in the men's room of a cafe, he told me, “You'd better get rid of them after dinner.” 

"You can’t be serious." 

"Quite." 

"Look, I can understand how you might feel about it but why not just let things happen? We can get adjoining rooms at a motel." 

"I’m not interested." 

"Bullshit." I flushed the toilet and moved to the sink to wash my hands. 

"I said I’m not interested." 

"I am. I’m not asking anything of you. They expect to go to L.A. with us, they have to sleep somewhere. I'll get two rooms. I'll pay for them both. I’ll do all the signing in.”

John flushed the toilet and I gave him room at the sink. 

"The least we can do," I said, "is be gentlemanly and offer to get them a room." 

"Gentlemen?" 

"Well, if they're being abandoned, you're the one who has to tell them. But I still don’t see the problem. Maybe we turn then off." I left him washing his hands and joined the girls. 

John ordered more coffee, stalling for time. Then he went to the men’s room again and in his absence I said, looking down at the coffee grounds in my cup, "What do you think of getting a motel?" 

Jocelyn said, "Actually we’re traveling on limited funds." 

"I’ll get you a room,” I said. “My treat, so you can get a good rest. We’ll drive you as far as L.A. tomorrow." 

"That would be groovy," said Elizabeth. 

There was, by good fortune, a motel visible from the cafe window and when John returned, I told him we had decided to get rooms there. Without waiting for his reaction, I took the check to the register, where I broke my last twenty. 

Nervously I signed us in as Mr. and Mrs. This, Mr. Mrs. That. The clerk was an old woman who kept glancing outside at the others. The girls were still sitting in the back seat. 

Adjoining rooms with a double bed in each: eighteen dollars, which I barely made. The old woman offered to show me the rooms before I paid for them, then to lead me to them, but I assured her they would be fine and that I could find them. Outside I jingled the keys and gestured for John to follow me with the car. 

Showing the rooms, I told the girls to take their pick. The rooms had separate entrances as well as a door between them; they were exactly alike. I led the girls back and forth as they tried to make up their mind. 

"Take this one," I finally suggested. Elizabeth, who was carrying the guitar, put it down on the floor. “When are you going to play for us?" 

"We both play," she said.

Soon Elizabeth and Jocelyn were singing folksongs in that high, dreamy voice that most female folksingers have. I sat on the floor between them but John preferred the chair at the desk. He remained aloof, a disposition I now begrudged him. 

After a sad ballad about being jilted by a soldier, Elizabeth said without preface, "Do you guys smoke grass?" John got up, went into the bathroom and locked the door with an audible click. 

"Doesn’t everyone?” I had exactly twice. "Do you have some?" 

Elizabeth smiled sadly. "I was hoping you did." 

"Best I can offer you is a drink. I noticed a bar up the way." 

“Well, I want something." She looked at Jocelyn, who was looking at her; they seemed to be trying to reach into each other's mind. 

"Yes, I could stand a drink myself," I said. 

"Why don't you two go?" Jocelyn suggested. She got up, and from the floor her legs looked longer than they were.

“You want to go?" I asked Elizabeth. 

"Okay." 

I helped her up. "Let me take a leak first." 

Each room had a toilet but I knocked for John to let me in. I hit him for a loan of ten dollars, which he passed over saying, "Is this to pay her?" 

"Good luck to you, too." 

In the bar Elizabeth and I sipped burgundy wine and occasionally danced to the jukebox. She had been asked for identification and had produced it. Once I had carried a forged I.D. myself. Tonight she was legal enough to drink and dance, and as we returned to the motel I was high enough to kiss her.

The lights were on in both rooms. We had left John and Jocelyn in the girls’ room, so I suggested we go to mine. 

My hunch proved right, for the room was empty. Seeing that the door between rooms was open, I went to it and peeked in to find John and Jocelyn playing cards. I told them goodnight, closed the door and locked it. Elizabeth and I were quickly in bed, though when I awoke at dawn 1 could recall few details of what had happened. But we were still in bed, and then embracing, and then making quiet love; and later, with that blind surprise of which I am capable, I was telling myself I would go to Mexico with her.

 

Whatever had happened in the other room had happened wrong. After breakfast I made sure I got into the back seat with Elizabeth, and Jocelyn, left to sit next to John, stayed close to the door on her own side. Neither she nor John were interested in conversing, not even with us. Jocelyn’s distance eventually affected Elizabeth: after our first morning stop, I returned to the car to find the girls in their seat together. 

At least I could save us from silence, and I often turned to say something to Elizabeth, who replied genuinely, I thought. I sensed that she shared the awkwardness of the moment without letting it distort our own new intimacy. I wanted her again, and the farther we rode on, the more I considered jumping ship, as it were, to continue across the border with them. I could picture a sleepy Mexican village in which we’d live together off the land, nurtured by a primitive love and sweet folksong and maybe by a little poetry, too, if I ever got around to writing any. The vision vanished instantly when, in the middle of the day, John pulled over and announced, "I’m going to drop you off here." 

Jocelyn may have been relieved but Elizabeth and I looked at each other helplessly, or so I hoped. But even she was quick to climb out of the car. I would have given anything for a moment alone with her. I got out to let her know by some vague gesture that it wasn’t my idea to drop them off, it was my idea to go to Mexico with them. 

Jocelyn said, very pleasantly, "Thanks for the ride." 

I went to Elizabeth. "Look me up when you come back through Eugene, I’m in the phone book. Here, I’ll write down my address." 

“I can look it up," Elizabeth said. 

I found something grotesque in her smile. I returned to the car and was afraid to look back as John drove off, for fear that Elizabeth was giving us, giving me, the finger. 

As soon as we were away John said, "Don’t ever mention what happened to anyone. You have to promise me that." 

"What happened?”

"I’ve never been unfaithful to Ruth before." 

"Christ, John, you mean you went to bed with her?" 

"Yes." 

"But you kicked them out of the goddamn car!" 

"It wasn’t proper. I’m married, I wasn’t myself. She took advantage of the situation." 

The grammar book was thrown out the window. John stopped and bought two six-packs of beer, and we continued south with beer bottles cradled in our crotches. 

"I really wanted to go to Mexico with them," I admitted. “Leave the goddamn ivy-covered prison and find me a Walden down there. Draw circles in the sand all day. Stay drunk and smoke dope and screw Elizabeth every morning and to goddamn hell with Whittier’s clanging fetters. The way I’ve been feeling lately, I might as well be a banker. No shit. At least I’d get a decent wage. You know what I really should do? Take a job on a mountain top as a firewatch. Become a goddamn poet or something. I've thought of doing that, no shit. Should have gone to Mexico with them anyway." 

John said, "You never promised to keep what happened between us." 

"I promise, I promise." 

We drove on, beers cradled in our crotches, and at Bakersfield John bought another six-pack, enough to get us over the mountains and into Southern California. I was driving by this time. John snored, and I drank his share of the beer as well as my own, drinking all the way to Pasadena, where I finally admitted that I was having difficulty staying in my own lane. I pulled into a motel. Sober, I probably would have driven to Mexico, I probably would have gone back to look for Elizabeth. 

 

"Get up!" 

Everything became clear very quickly: John was straightening his tie, I was in bed with a hangover.

"It’s eight o'clock," John growled.

Hurrying out of bed I asked, “What time's the orientation meeting?" 

"At ten. We missed breakfast. It has to be another hour into Los Angeles." 

“You have the map to the hotel?" 

"Of course. Get dressed." He was at the mirror, combing his hair. “Why the hell didn’t you drive on in last night? What happened?" 

“I was so blind I couldn't see the road, that's what happened." I unpacked my gray suit.

John stepped back from the mirror, ready. “Do you have an electric razor?" 

“No." 

“Use mine, it’s quicker." 

"I won't shave." 

"You have to shave. Just hurry, it’s five after." 

We were on our way in fifteen minutes. I had the MLA’s map to the hotel in my hand and directed John to the Pasadena Freeway, then into Los Angeles and to the Ambassador Hotel. Traffic was a nightmare and John drove hunched forward near the windshield. 

At the hotel two attendants in identical uniforms opened our doors for us. John  asked for the time. Nine-thirty. 

"Let’s got coffee," I suggested. 

We walked across the red carpet leading to the entrance. Inside we passed a shoeshine stand and, looking down to check the condition of my shoes, I discovered that John and I were precisely in step, left foot, right foot, like two proud generals leading the parade.

 

/end