Decency, Please

Decency, Please

       by Pee Tom Ping

                if only i could have my way with words

                        i'd castigate the ones who speak with swords

                        and like sir thomas more who thought no more

                        of setting match to faggots piled at least three feet

                        beneath the soles of tynsdale and a hundred more

                        so would i burn with verbal and with cardinal flames

                        the pestilence and plague that comes from that

                        which self-virtuous calls this one a whore

                        that one a heretic and t'other

                        other names of infinite distain

                        regardless of the conventions of narrative closure

                       

"Let's use proper language," Anthony Watterman the Head said in his memo to staff. "Students have complained about swearing by professors. Surely we must set an example of decency." That said, most of the professoriate proceeded as before except that they kept their voices down somewhat, whispering their "fucks" and "shits" and "little assholes" if they were swearers and continuing to speak at high volume if they were not.

       To those faculty members who were not swearers in this particular university English department belonged a certain Sedgewick Penceil who taught the standard two undergraduate courses as well as a graduate level course on Jonathan Swift. Sedge contributed furthermore by heading two committees and serving on two more. He wore serge jackets and casual slacks, cologne, neat socks with diamonds or other designs, and Italian shoes polished and unscuffed, and he spoke with loud certainty in his office (door ajar) so that all would hear him the length of the long corridor. He was gay and made no mention of it though he did not hide it either.

       To those faculty members who were swearers but now kept the swearing quieter belonged Roland Beungerskaet, as lively and vociferous a friendly soul as any bored student might have adored for a prof. He lectured a similar load as Sedge but his graduate area covered Middle Ages' drama. Now, Rol, an American by birth and habit, loved baseball. But since no baseball except for the smaller league variety got played in Winnipeg he had to substitute for the verve in the game, its shouting, popcorn, hotdogs and beer, with other assertivenesses that produced these. He chose bondage games with other men. His favorite player happened to be Sedge. Sedge would yell out in the heat of play. When the ping pong paddle smacked him on the backside he minced no words and without swearing once made it known to his violator that his love for this pain bore no breaching and permitted of no alternatives. He had had it with Rolly, he would clarify in high volume, and would, he'd add, return the compliments with interest the first chance he got.

       Nevertheless, sexual activity, for those who know me, is the most common and the easiest place I tend to visit for narrative material and substance. Less facile and so, preferable, is a stop at the site of thought and feeling, descriptions of which leave the reader lonely, or sad, or rejoicing, or nostalgic, or vitalized, or reverent, or contemplative. Unfortunately, I can think of absolutely nothing about these gentlemen to recommend me to aspire to higher imagination than their coitiferous roarings. So, in deference to my lady readers as well as my mother whom I sincerely desire never to pick up any of these autobiographical Gonzaloic confessions (having myself been indoctrinated most successfully in the ruse that is church and moral uprightness), I will go to the only other place my archeology takes me in search of content appropriate to these two fellows' livings. I will go to etiquette and language. Their physical statures leaves me unemotional. Their appetites for food and drink bridge no river in my thoughts. The quality of their relations with students might as well immediately be forgotten, haughty and self-absorbed as it is. I am left with only one alternative in my re-creation of the lives and times of these two libidinoids and that is, having informed you all briefly of the particulars of their speech and behaviour at din din, to bid them so long and never turn meditation in their direction again.

       Sedgewick spoke with a Slavic accent. He had Polish blood in him if he had a drop of anything else. But he wouldn't admit it.  I asked him once if he had recently visited East Asia and he looked at me with a stupid certainty that was meant to convey that he had not and had no reason ever to do so. At table he tucked his nappie under his collar and loved to look down at the white unstained expanse of it after each second spoonful of "soupe´flammon." He was neat and clean as a new pillowcase. Ro, on the other hand, behaved at meals with the slobbering energy of a gone-to-fat two-year-old in a high chair. He spilled his coffee, he drank the first course (say, beet consume´ bruele´) out of the bowl, he dropped spoons, knives and forks and he never thought of himself as clumsy or infantile or oafish. Dress was another matter. He prided himself in his choice of apparel; from collar to painted thong underwear he dressed in "dainty perfume" style. No other professor had nearly his clear resolution when it came to fashionable taste. So, without further ado or adieu I bid these two worthies goodbye and leave them to their habits.