Tony couldn’t keep track of the professor’s logic, but he knew it was a trap of some kind, an effort to make him look like a pampered rich kid who didn’t care about the rights of others. He could feel words forming in his mouth that he knew he shouldn’t speak.
“I don’t think fraternities and sororities are the problem. I think the problem is people who—”
“Who what?” the professor said. His face was effeminate and narrow and stippled with gin roses, his teeth small and sharp inside a neatly trimmed gray-and-brown beard that reminded Tony of mouse fur.
“People who are professional victims,” Tony said. Then he thought of a joke he had heard at the fraternity, one whose implication he didn’t actually share. But the professor had tried to tar him. All right, let’s see how far the professor wanted to run with it. “Like the NAACP—the National Association of Always Complaining People. I mean, should people feel guilty because they work hard and make a lot of money?”
The lecture hall became absolutely quiet. The black students in the room put their pens down and either looked into space or twisted in their seats to get a better view of Tony Lujan.
“You raise an interesting point,” the professor said. “Maybe the vote of one group in our society should count more than another group. But which group fights the wars? Rich people or poor people? It seems that blue-collar young men and women go to war in greater numbers than rich ones. So using your own logic, shouldn’t their vote count for more than yours or mine?”
Tony’s head was pounding, his forehead breaking with sweat. This was about something else. The professor had been Tony’s freshman adviser and had relatives in New Iberia. Did the professor know about Yvonne Darbonne? Was this about Yvonne? Was he calling Tony an elitist hypocrite? Tony felt the room spinning around him. “I didn’t mean to offend anyone, sir. I apologize for my remark.”
Then he realized his apology was actually sincere, and for just a moment he felt good about himself. Out of the corner of his eye he saw several black students pick up their pens again.
“I appreciate your candor, Tony. This is a political science class. If you have a thorn in your head, this is the place to pull it out.” The professor looked at the clock on the back wall. “See you all on Wednesday.”
Candor? What was candor.
After the lecture hall had emptied, Tony still sat in his desk, his eyes fastened on the professor, who was putting his notes and books in a briefcase. The professor glanced up and smoothed his beard. “Something you want to ask me?” he said.
“What did you mean by that, Dr. Edwards?”
“By what?”
“This being the place to pull a thorn out. Were you saying something about me? Just tell the truth.”
“Supposedly that’s why I get paid.”
“Sir?”
“I get paid to tell the truth.” The professor gave it up. “I was saying that the idea of class superiority has one basic function—it allows people to justify their exploitation of their fellow human beings. The exploitation happens on many levels, Tony, the most common of which is financial or sexual. It’s taught in fraternities, it’s taught in churches. People screw down and marry up.”
Tony got up from his seat and approached the lectern, his stomach churning, a sound like an electrical short buzzing in his head. “Are you accusing me of sexually using a girl from a poor family?”
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with her death,” he said. “We had something special. It just didn’t last. It just went to hell, all at once. I don’t even know why.”
“I’m afraid I don’t—”
“You were talking about Yvonne. You were doing it in front of the whole class.”
The professor stared at him. “You have a few minutes, Tony? Why don’t you and I go for a cup of coffee?”
Tony looked at the confusion in the professor’s face and realized the terrible mistake he had made. “I’m sorry, I misunderstood. I’m not feeling too good, Dr. Edwards. I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“You’re a fine boy. One day you’ll discover who you are and none of this will matter.” The professor seemed to smile with a level of compassion Tony did not think him capable of. But was it compassion, or perhaps something else? “Come talk to me when you have a chance. We’ll have a drink in my backyard. I can make a grand martini.”
But Tony was already walking rapidly up the aisle toward the exit, his footsteps echoing in the empty room, his face red with shame.
THE FRATERNITY HOUSE had been created out of a large white three-story Victorian home, one whose gables and cornices were visible through the crepe myrtle and azaleas and live oaks like the hard edges of a medieval fortress. The pledges mowed the lawn, raked the leaves, and trimmed the hedges, and kids whose families couldn’t afford the fraternity’s costs worked off their room and board by cooking and serving meals and cleaning the house.
Tony shared a room on the third floor with Slim Bruxal, one with a small balcony that provided a magnificent view of the trees and rooftops in the neighborhood. The room was the most desirable in the house, and when Slim requested it, none of his fraternity brothers objected, although others had more seniority than Slim and wanted it.
Tony’s insides were like water when he returned to the house from his poli-sci class. He tried to tell Slim about what had happened, how he had made a fool out of himself, how Dr. Edwards had looked at him as though he were an object of pity.
While Tony sat on the side of his unmade bed and went through every detail of his public embarrassment in class, Slim stood bare-chested at a full-length mirror, combing his hair, examining his facial skin for imperfections, checking to see if the barber had etched his sideburns sufficiently. “I got news for you. Dr. Edwards is an alcoholic fudge-packer. He pushes that pinko douche rinse whenever he gets the chance. Be proud you stood up to him.”