Chimpanzee (10 page)

Attendance has grown. They sit clustered, in a stadium rectangle—up the rows, into the air. They have grouped themselves against
the others in Sentinel Park. Like a class. Those from the first day are sitting in roughly the same places, as if identified there.

Just like real students.

I can tell they are in the same places because Zoe is in the same place. She is wearing a sundress today, a blue one, and her dreads are bound against the top of her head.

They—someone—brought me something to write on. There at the bottom of the amphitheater, where the answers lie, where we always speak the truth from below, is an easel. It is duct-taped in places, but there is a large pad of bound newsprint upon it.

There are at least twenty of them now.

Up here, on the sidewalk. People stare.

“So, why do I say that ethos is the most important?” I say.

Some of them are taking notes. A few smoke cigarettes. Most just stare, underwhelmed. I am the weakest of this afternoon's street performers.

“Because,” one of them says, “we have to believe what you're saying?”

“I can make you believe using logical data,” I say, “or I can manipulate you into doing so with pathos.”

“I don't know then.”

“I said everything begins by making the audience pay attention.”

The policeman, up on the street level, where the sidewalk chessboards and hotdog vendors are, is paying attention. He watches us without moving.

“Will logic make you pay attention?” I say.

No.

“Will pathos?”

No. They think they know how to play the academically loaded question game.

“Of course it will,” I say. “I can certainly make you pay attention if I can manipulate your emotions. Who earns more handouts? An able-bodied transient, or one without legs, injured in the war?”

“Then what?” Zoe says.

“It's because,” I say, “ethos is the only one of the three that belongs to
you
. Pathos and logos reside with the speaker. Ethos is your idea of why, how, or to what extent I should be believed.”

One of them turns around and looks at the cop. Intuitive. I've seen him with Zoe, before and after class. David? Something.

“What did I say, before, about speaking?” I say.

“We're only ever talking to ourselves,” David says, returning his attention to the class. The cop has wandered off.

“So if ethos belongs to you,” I say, “how do I manipulate it?”

I motion for a cigarette from one on the first row. He gives it hurriedly.

They are quiet. Cars move, people chat on the sidewalks above, or in the empty space around our classroom.

Finally: “You don't?” Zoe says.

“Which is why it's the most important—the most dangerous. I want what's yours, but you cannot give it to me, so I will do everything I can to make it an advantage, not a weakness.”

“Including deception?”

“Of course. Now, hand in your introductory essays.”

“You didn't bring your essay?”

“I did it,” Zoe says. “It's just not here.”

Of course.
Can I run back to my dorm room? My computer froze. No, I don't have a copy.

“Come see,” she says.

Recruitment is a discipline unto itself. Governments, revolutions, and religions know this. It is an application of rhetoric—how to align someone's disposition with an ideal, an action, which is usually anathema to personal fulfillment. How do you convince a suicide bomber? How do you sell laundry detergent? How do you sell university enrollment?

You don't. Nothing can be described, nothing portrayed or sold, in any fashion that induces action. You sell, instead, a world
without your product. You sell longing and regret, which are cheap. You sell hindsight, insurance—which is nothing but a life without.

Which is why, then—when they made us recruiters, when they forced faculty to turn away from their articles, and conferences, and evening dinners—it didn't work. Enrollment is everything. The university needed more money. More students. More promises. And what is life without education? Never mind repossession, loss of self, being less than all you can be, writ large and terrifying. Universities employ salespeople whose job it is to sell un-education, to recruit. But they could only do so much. So the administration made us do it, too. Applied rhetoric. Education in action. Correcting perception.

The first of many small losses of self.

But the initiative came late in the term—handed down in departmental meetings I didn't attend. Because I already knew. I was already giving out “A”s because why the hell not? The sciences were exempt—they were forced to secure more grants. To fund a better fertilizer, a new math, or cheaper bombs.

I dialed the phone number printed on my register. Someone, somewhere. Adjusted my earpiece.

“May I speak to [name]?” I said.

“It's pronounced [name].”

“My apologies. I've argued for IPA transcriptions.”

“What?”

“May I speak to [name]? This is Dr. Cade from Central University.”

“Oh! Yes. Hold on.”

Muted scrambling. The university. Yes, to you!

“Hello.”

“Hello, [name]. This is Dr. Cade from Central University. I'd like to talk to you about our languages and cultural studies program.”

“Okay.”

“This conversation may be recorded for training purposes. Is that all right, [name]?”

“Sure.”

“Have you chosen a university yet?”

“No.”

“Don't.”

“What?”

“Don't. Particularly not this one.”

“What?”

“Do you know anything about HVAC repair or installation?”

“What is that?”

“What about locksmithing?”

“Like, picking locks?”

“Both of these professions earn more money than I do. Enjoy greater job security. Do you have a new car, [name]?”

“No.”

“Do you want one? Nice clothes? An apartment with granite counter-tops?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Do you know what an aircraft marshaller is, [name]? It's the person who use neon wands to wave planes in and out of terminal gates.”

“Ok.”

“They're very important, [name]. An essential service, like plumbing. It's a good trade, but I can teach you the secrets of consciousness, being, and the existential nature of language, here at Central University. Would you like me to teach you these things, [name]?”

“I guess so.”

“Fuck you, [name]. Have a nice day.”

I follow Zoe out of the park. A few students stop me, here and there, on the stairs. Shaking hands, saying thanks.
Can I make up the first assignment?

Up top, at street-level, I follow Zoe. It's awkward: my artificial student-essays and notes clutched against my chest, walking single-file—at least David took the newsprint and promised to bring it back, so I wouldn't have to carry it out of the park. There isn't enough room on the sidewalk to walk abreast. Transients and children and people in distribution lines take up most of the
pavement. Zoe seems to know every tenth person.

Sireen sends me a text message. Finished? How'd it go?

“Still back there?” Zoe says.

Someone must have handed Zoe a cup of coffee. A cup of something. She holds it at a right angle to her chest, looking at her shoulder, which, in this context, stands in for me. Turning to look at me fully would mean colliding with something in front of her. This is how we source gaze. Only, she owns hers. Young, female, liberated. I am male, and I know enough gender theory that I have been trained to be ashamed of mine.

In this instance, she is substituting me for the tiny hairs—soft blonde—standing on her polished scapula. Bright white in the sun. Easier and safer to see than me.

“Yes. Still here.”

Coming home? Sireen texts.

“Good,” Zoe says. “It's not far.”

Soon, I text. Chatting with some of the students.

“Good,” I say.

Love you.

Zoe walks us across the street, between pedi-cabs and smart cars. The architecture casts parallelograms, trapezoid shadows—its faces and finials and loft-apartments. We watch police on foot patrol. There is screaming somewhere in the arts district.

“So how did you come up with this idea?” Zoe says.

We walk abreast now.

“The assignment?”

“The class.”

“I didn't invent class, Zoe.”

She adjusts a free-hanging dread as we make a turn. We're off-street now, between and behind buildings. Fire escapes throw new shadows.

“People are talking about you,” she says.

“What do they say?”

“The new Socrates. A teacher for the people.”

She laughs.