This blog presents a series of short stories, listed below in reverse chronological order.


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I am an Oklahoma academic with an interest in creative writing.

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Saturday, October 1, 2011

59. The Polite Canadian

“And that is why,” the Eastern Indian keynote speaker said adjusting her brilliant pink and turquoise sari, “a new reading of Troilus and Cressida is needed in the light of the recent gender and queer studies movements in Britain, as well as the United States.”
She cleared her throat and tapped her laptop, trying to get the PowerPoint presentation to move forward. Someone in the back sneezed. It sounded German. And someone else laughed, probably a Swede, as they were rather giggly.   
 Sitting in the big hall of the Conference Center, I busied myself doodling a picture of Charlotte Bronte dancing a jig. Troilus and Cressida was one of my least favorites, and this woman’s monosyllabic drone was not helping me stay awake. It was early and I had slept poorly and now was all dressed up, with it hot-hot-hot outside already.
“Just one second please,” the speaker said, whispering something to her technical assistant, as now both fussed with her laptop.
Shakespearians and computers were incongruent, if that was not obvious.  
I yawned and looked around the room. The International Shakespeare Conferences were a hoot. This was my sixth to attend in the last decade. It was nice that this was close to home, as most of the time I had to hoof it to Europe, or worse. I usually skipped the ones in the Far East, as Europe really was my preference, as was Will’s.
There were about a thousand people present, from all over the world. There were serious looking men in suits, hippy Berkeley ladies in flowery dresses, Brit in corduroy and vests, Scots in tartan, African men in colorful pajama-looking clothes, African ladies in dashikis, Muslim ladies in head scarves, and even two Buddhist monks in orange robes. It was all very dramatic and a neat homage for one lone writer who died 400 years ago, and we weren’t even sure he was the one wrote the stuff (I personally think it was Christopher Marlowe). But more than anything, it was impressive.     
I smiled at the two young guys sitting in the row down from me, both apparently in that awkward beginning stage of growing a scholarly beard. You could tell they were European by their shoes. The Europeans had the weirdest shoes. I would guess they were German by their pointed features and apparent drollness. I bent in to listen.
          Sono affamato. Che cosa circa voi?”
Italians! I was wrong!
One of the guys noticed me looking and waved and said, “El-o.”
I smiled and pretended to busy myself with my notes. A second later I snuck another glance at their shoes again: I should have guessed they were Italians as not only were the shoes weird, but also very expensive looking.
“Okay, I think we got it.” The Indian woman said from the stage. “Here we go…” and she launched into her paper, beginning to read it word for word.
I yawned cartoonishly and wondered how I was going to manage this for six more days.   

               That night at a dinner reception as I spoke to group of Japanese about my book, I really wished I still drank as they all held festive cocktails and I just had 7-Up and lime.
              “Oh, yes. Shakespeare’s use of, if I may say, whores, as we say…”
              They all laughed, the men loudly, but the women quietly, looking down shyly.  
              “…was quite prevalent through many of the plays and especially the sonnets, as I’m sure you’re quite aware……” and I continued the lecture, promoting my book.
One of the men spoke to me at length, his English not great, but better than my Japanese. As I listened and tried to decipher his points, I kept thinking of the joke that I had been told over and over at these international conferences: “A person who speaks three languages is trilingual, a person who speaks two languages is bilingual, and a person who speaks one language is…American!” This was inevitably followed by much twittering on the part of the foreigner, as I always just smiled and thought, ‘Yes, but Shakespeare wrote in English, so suck on that.’    
              I answered the man’s questions as best as I could and he bowed and walked off. As they were leaving, one of the women told me she had read my book, “It very good. Funny, but good.”
              “Great! Thank you!” I smiled.
               Left alone, I beamed over the compliment, bestriding the reception like a mighty academician.
Striding back to the bar to get more 7-Up, I looked around the room. I needed to find some publishers and see if anyone would be interested in Whores in Musicals. It would be a stretch here, but they had to realize man could not live on Shakespeare alone, not even here.      
             
              That evening on a shuttle bus back to my hotel, I sat next to a talkative Canadian man with a cane.  He was rotund and elderly with a moon face and twinkling eyes, like a Disney uncle. I sat next to the window, he on the aisle. I was doing a slight sitting pee dance, as the bathrooms at the reception hall scared me.     
              “Have you been to the Caribbean before?” the Canadian asked.
              “Just once with my parents, to the Bahamas in the early 1990’s. It was okay. It just seemed like south Texas. But this really seems like a topical island.”
“Well, that’s because it is a tropical island, son,” the man chuckled.
“I guess you’re right,” I smiled. The Caribbean family vacation had been a God-awful  disaster of a trip: Smith had made Becky and I both cry before we were even out of Oklahoma, and that was just day one of a sixteen day trip.    
“This conference seldom comes to the tropics,” the old man continued. “It’s nice to get out into the sun. So many scholars just stay so cooped-up in the dark. And thank goodness we’re not stuck in some dank hole in Norway or Switzerland, where they take research so, so deadly seriously. I could do without the rain here, though.”
“It does rain about everyday doesn’t it?”
“Like clockwork.” He smiled, checking his watch. “That dinner was nice, but I had no idea what the Frenchman speaker was talking about: Hamlet as metaphor for war? Phah!”
At this point the bus took a sudden left turn and the kindly old Canadian gentleman slid out of his seat and into the floor of the bus. It all happened in a split second, and I tried to grab him but was also concerned with holding myself in.   
As soon as the bus righted its path, I rose to help the old man up, trying not to think about the status of my full bladder, “Here, let me…”
“No, no, I am fine,” the old man said, rolling about the floor of the bus trying to right himself. “It’s just something that happens.”
“But, I can…” I said, trying to decide if I should pull him up or just let him flounder there like a really smart turtle. Two other men behind me had also stood and also had similar disturbed expressions on their faces.      
“No, no, I am fine. Don’t trouble yourself…” the man said, flailing about.
So I sat back down, feeling terrible, as the man got his cane out from underneath him and eventually after a time or two finally pushed himself up. I looked out the window and wondered how the Canadians managed to be such a polite people.
The old man heaved himself back up and plopped down next to me to take a deep breath, wipe the grime off his hands and say, “As I was saying, I don’t think that Frenchman had the right take on Hamlet at all…”
And I looked back over at him and said, “Uh huh…” like nothing had happened at all, but, boy, I had to pee. 

In my room later that night, I talked to Thad. He was out in the yard watering, telling me some story about being at Homeland today.
“Yeah, so I was like, ‘Heydew knowf, you know’” he said, “and then she was, like, “No, I don’t thark po’ …so there, that’s it. Don’t you thank?” 
“Really?” I said, not understanding half of what he said, but holding my tongue as I was sure he was drunk. Drunk! Now due to the fact that he normally  slurred his words like a Slavic sorority girl with a mouthful of marbles, let alone huffing and puffing as he was out in the yard working-totally out of shape, or as he called it ‘loved’- I swear he sounded drunk.
“Well, don’t ya think?” Thad repeated.  
“Are you drinking?” I snapped, the crazy taking over.
“What?” he said, suddenly very clear. “No.”
“Well, I can’t understand a thing you are saying.” Mania was snuggling into me.  
“CAN YOU UNDERSTAND THIS?” he said in perfectly loud English.
“Yes,” I said, scared.
“OKAY, THEN GOODBYE.”
“No, wait,” I said, the panic OCD alarms going off in my head. “Don’t hang up.” I had told him not to pitch a petite prince fit while I was gone, and had even bought him a carton of cigarettes to get a promise of good behavior out of him-like we were doing prison bartering or something. The last thing I wanted was to get in some transatlantic fight with him, where I had no power and then he refused to answer my calls for a few days: I could handle Princess stateside, but not while I was out of my comfort zone, not like this.      
“I should go,” he said, not sounding drunk at all, now just pissed.
“Look,” I snapped, suddenly livid, “We talked about this. I bought you all those cigarettes, and you said you wouldn’t throw a fit.  You said you wouldn’t.” As I said it, I realize that this was a bad tact to take with him, as purchased guilt never worked on Thad or any of the wealthy.    
“I should go,” he said sternly.
We were both silent for a second, even though I was raging, dangling from his every slurry whim, which I hate-hate-hated!
“Okay.” I said sweetly. “I love you and miss you.”
“Uh huh. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye,” he snapped and hung up the phone.  
“Bye…”

After I hung up I realized he wasn’t drunk; I was just paranoid.

I slept fitfully that night, but did decide not to talk to him anymore near bedtime just in case he was drinking, rat bastard.  
  

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