Rory Sheehan went down hard. Accusation–suspension–forced resignation, all within a matter of weeks. The art collage had been torn, as Rory Sheehan, their 52-year-old British provocateur, was an institution. While the accusations, as Admin. put it, were “inconclusive” the student walk-out had created an irreversible momentum.
After, some students had put up signs. They said: Bye-Bye Rory Sheehan. They said: Good Riddance Mr. S. For weeks, in the elevators, in the cafeteria, the glory persisted. But soon after his succinct eradication, it had been as if Rory Sheehan never existed. The stain of him removed.
But not for Francis. She and Rory were both hired the same pre-millenial year, Francis to teach sculpture and Rory, painting. For Francis his absence was acute. Now, his ghost was everywhere: his paint encrusted smock still hanging from its designated nail, the ironic names he had affixed to the ailing copy machines (Presto and Chop Chop), his “friendly” push broom with the mannequin hand screwed into the top of the pole so to use it was to shake it. No, for Francis, Rory Sheehan was still exceedingly present. She teared up as she clasped his Salvatore Dali mug and thought herself pathetic–yet another expression of amateur performance art, here in this…this cathedral of performance art. At their shitty lunch table behind the sculpture studios, she stared at his empty chair like a sad clown. It was here they–the old guard would talk trash with their mouths full. Even after Rory had been dean-ed, ten years ago, he always came back to his brethren. And that’s what they were, not colleagues but brethren–survivors of their circus known as NECA, the New England College of Art.
And what a circus it was. In what they now called the after times, post-covid, NECA had survived (barely) any number of controversies: sexual and racial harassment claims, an RA strike, a nearly hostile takeover of the student coffee bar, a demand for exotic therapy animals (notably a pet pig) to attend classes. And these were only a few. Walks outs were so commonplace that Fran’s partner Ruth, who taught Art History, gave a lecture called Civil Disobedience and Dada. The later, Ruth had explained, often rejected logic in favor of chaos and that conflating the two could diminish very real social issues in need of reform. Ruth, who was black, had been called on (by Rory) to offer up this lecture after the unfortunate Black History Month flash mob in the cafeteria whereby a group of majority white students dressed as prison inmates and performed an awkwardly choreographed version of Beyonce’s Freedom. The performance was deemed more regrettable than overtly racist, though the props (oversized chains and rosary beads crafted out of flexible tubing and papier-mâché) were well received. A mere ten students had attended Ruth’s lecture and only one stayed until the end.
Ruth took it in stride though. Generally speaking, she was more forgiving of the student rebellions than Francis. Ruth believed that the post-covid students were not unlike like the Dadaists–or the Punk Rockers or Guerrilla Girls of their own generation. They had mountains of rage in need of expelling. Sure, some of that anger might be misdirected, but hadn’t they done the same thing?
“No,” Francis reasoned, unwrapping her egg salad sandwich. “No, Ruth, we did not do the same thing.” She stared at her call-claimed Dali mug, her tragic souvenir. There were only five of them today at lunch. “What happened to the presumption of innocence, reasonable doubt and all the rest?”
Ruth shook her head and gently rested her hand on Fran’s arm. “You’re just missing Rory. We are ALL missing Rory.”
Ruth could be this way with Fran, slightly condescending but generally correct. Fran took a bite of her sandwich but stopped chewing. “I never thought being old would make me so…”
“Invisible?” Ruth tried, cheerfully adding, “remember though, the 50’s are the new 30’s!”
“Shut up Ruth,” joked Annabelle. “You want to be all chipper,” she pointed to the door with her fork, “then you can just take it outside.”
The group chuckled, half-heartedly. Ruth was often slammed for her optimism but today, without Rory, nothing was funny.
“No, not invisible.” Francis wrapped up her sandwich and mushed it into cellophane ball. “More like…detested.” Without aiming, she shot her ball at the trash bin but it landed with a splat on the studio floor. This was one of her cheap lunchtime tricks, her cellophane lay-ups and bank shots for which Rory awarded her heroic titles: Big Nasty, Junkyard Dog. “Invisible I could handle. The feminists, at least, prepared me for that.” Inspired by nothing, exasperated by everything, (in particular the thought of getting up to retrieve her sandwich ball) Francis slumped over and dropped her head into her hands.
The gang sat paralyzed, looking to each other for clues. Fran was never this despondent. Dark, yes, but also buoyant, their sardonic Chatty Cathy. And now, their eyes went to her quivering shoulders. Could it be? Francis who loathed the tears-on-demand crowd. Emotional terrorists she called them. Their Fran crying? Ruth scooched her chair closer and leaned into the head of her partner. “Fran?” The others made motions to leave, sensing possibly, a personal matter at hand, but Ruth put up her hand to stop them. Then the hold on index finger. “Ut oh,” Ruth shook her head, apparently forewarning the others. “This about your petition, I’m guessing?”
Annabelle from Admin. gasped. Faculty petitions, in recent years were like death rattles. Admin. had enough grievances to deal with from their paying customers. Complaints by those they were paying, in particular complaints about the complainers? Please, it was like asking a fireman for a light in the middle of a fire. Annabelle pressed, “the students got wind of some petition you wrote up? Is that what’s going on here?”
Francis nodded, head still in her hands. Thankfully Ruth and Annabelle said nothing more. After 30 plus years together, Ruth knew better. No, “I told you so,” even though Ruth had warned her that starting a petition on Rory’s behalf was ill advised. By the time Francis had summoned ten measly signatures, Rory had already resigned. And, as Ruth had feared, word got out to the students.
This morning, in the elevator, one of Fran’s favorite students (though such things were no longer permitted,) had turned to Fran just as the doors closed. The student looked her up and down, “and I thought you were some kind of feminist.” Rory’s disgrace had started with an adjunct and a report to H.R. While the report was technically confidential, rumors abounded on social media. Others came forward, first on Twitter then straight into H.R.
Francis stood horrified, struck, as the elevator doors opened and released the student into the hallway. “I am some kind of feminist!” was all she could muster as the doors closed again. “I’m just not sure anymore,” Francis screamed into the empty elevator, “what kind that is!”
What kind of feminist would miss Rory Sheehan? The question for Francis was more like who, in their right mind, man or woman could NOT love him. He was the kind of man that made a woman feel adored. A self-proclaimed aesthete, he was, after all, in the business of beauty. Rory had come to Boston via the Royal Academy in London where he had made his name as a representational painter which was quite a postmodern accomplishment. Figures, for the most part, works that won Rory acclaim in his youth, ultimately maturing into his own signature style of portraiture. In person, as in his paintings, Rory made people feel deeply seen. A showman at heart, yet also extremely humble and irreverent. He drove a beat up 89 Volvo which he referred to as his Volvo de Gala, a nod to Dali’s famous Cadillac de Gala. He was neither gay or straight which gave him a certain credibility when he weighed in on your new haircut, dress, or sculpture. His scrappy good looks and ambiguous sexuality (occasionally he wore eye liner), coupled with his British accent awarded him a glam vibe, yet he remained un-decodable. Unmarried to boot, not to mention, undeclared politically. Rory had made a career out of staying ahead of the curve. Until he didn’t.
And most days, he made lunch fun. His opinions (on everything), his catastrophizing, his quest for the ultimate polyester suit or VFW hall or…the list went on. He often began sentences with: Don’t judge me. The irony, for Fran, cut deep. He was a man who just couldn’t help himself.
Today was a Monday. Rory’s resignation had been leaked over the weekend (via text by Rory himself.) The text was to Fran. It said only this: Don’t judge me, I resigned. He had gone black since the accusations–no social media, no texting. He wouldn’t even answer his door.
Francis got up, wiped her nose with her sleeve, and marched over to the to the trash barrel. Like an angry toddler, she picked up her sandwich ball, pummeled it in, and sat back down. She knew her fellow survivors, only wanted to help. Though what, pray tell, could be said about said petition. And Rory’s wasn’t the only empty chair at the table. Others had jumped ship. So much so (three core faculty in the last year alone) that they had deemed their backwater lunch table the S.S. Minnow–a Gilligan’s Island reference they explained with remedial flare to those under 50. Fran thought she might want to throw up. Not that she had to throw up, it just seemed the most appropriate response. She didn’t want to talk about what kind of feminist she was either. Rory would have been able to make her feel better–he might have told her that she was the Chrissie Hynde of feminist sculpture–that she was bulletproof, timeless. He had a repertoire of cheers for her, switching them up according to her level of crisis. He’d been calling her Mz. Hynde for years, not only because Francis resembled her (though Rory had always told Francis that she was far, far hotter) but because of her Iron Maidens sculpture series. He said they looked the way the Pretenders sounded. The sculptures were life-size female sarcophagi which were gloriously embellished on the outside with leather, brass, and gems. Yet open them up, and the guts revealed various methods of torture: long cruel prongs and the like, all facing in, poised to skewer. But skewer what? Like Rory’s portraits, this series had put her on the map and launched her career. In retrospect they felt ridiculous. Didactic. What HAD she been trying to say? That women bleed? Good lord, she shuddered to think of it now.
In class, none of Fran’s Sculpture II students would look her in the eye. It had been a struggle, particularly in the after times, to maintain positive ratings on her student evaluations. Now, with word of her petition, Fran was a sitting duck. Why bother at all. “I’m not a monster!!” Fran had responded when one evaluation reported her for misnaming a student. “My brain’s just starting to fester is all!” With so much talk about acknowledging differences–where, Fran wanted to know, was her accommodation. No passes for the old and batty.
Fran could not pin point when exactly, in the before times, that the paradigm started to really tip, but tip it had. For all of geologic time, from chimp to homo erectus, from Dickens to Twain, the kids were working for the rest of us. Now, clearly, we were working for them with no end to our shortcomings. Rory had come to term the worst of the students as Les Enfants Terribles. Of course, most of the students were reasonable and kind, but the Enfants had seized the day and with absolute power came absolute corruption. Now, Fran and her brethren lived in fear. The school, according to Annabelle from Admin., was only one lawsuit away from total collapse. She was their comrade on the inside, their deepthroat with the skinny on everything worth knowing. It was Annabelle, for example, who confirmed that the new NECA president was interviewing for positions elsewhere. At 42, Annabelle was a full decade younger than Fran and Ruth, yet fiercely protective of them. The three were a motley, inseparable, crew–neighbors as well as colleagues.
“Ms. Francis.” A student interrupted Fran’s lecture on Meret Oppenheim. Francis put up her finger in the way that she did all too often these days–as in hold on, because I am obviously in the middle of a lecture. The student held up her hand and kept it up. On the screen was a photo of Oppenheim’s famous “Fur Teacup.” In 1936, the sculpture had become something of a one hit wonder for Oppenheim, triggering years of depression and analysis by Carl Jung. Yes the Carl Jung! But no one seemed care about Carl either. The student was now waiving her hand, “Ms. Francis….” Francis, again with the finger as if holding in a dyke. Could she just get through this one part at least–Oppenheim had one of those great tormented artist stories that Francis loved to recount and she was just getting to the part whereby she would describe the concept of convulsive beauty. A very sexy topic, but apparently, not sexy enough.
The student stood, phone in hand. “There is a thing happening outside.”
Fran stepped away from her smartboard, her beloved Fur Teacup. “What kind of thing?”
“Something important,” the student was reading from her phone, “that is related to the school that is essential to the wellbeing of our cultural institution.”
“You mean NECA? Is that the cultural institution you’re referring to?” Francis was not rolling her eyes but rather looking directly into the florescent light above her head in an attempt to not roll her eyes. The idea that NECA would be seen as a beacon? Anyone, these days, looking to NECA for some kind of enlightenment–shield your eyes, thought Francis.
The class stood up and began to file out the door. Francis, still not rolling her eyes, stepped aside. She did not slam but closed her laptop slowly. Goodbye Fur Teacup, she thought as the smartboard went to blue. Should she follow? Surely, she should. Yet she wanted nothing less. Another performance piece most likely–could a person not walk from one point to another on this campus without becoming part of some…happening. Ruth had responded unfavorably to a group of students just last week. They were dressed in black, holding large stacks of placards at their chests. Every few words one placard was dropped to reveal the next “Your choice…. walk by… meanwhile our planet gasps…” Francis walked by even though one of the students filmed her callousness. More fodder for her own H.R. file. “What” she turned back to the filmer as she walked away, “It’s not fair—you’ve each got…like 50 placards!”
Ruth’s head appeared in Fran’s doorway. “We should go.” Ruth had her phone in her hand. “Our absence will be noted.”
“I hear sirens,” said Francis. She shushed Ruth. “You hear ‘em? Part of the performance?” Now her interest was piqued. Besides, with Ruth at her side, she could still feel a little badass. About a half hour ago, she occasionally told her students, it was illegal to be a lesbian. Now they were archaic. Francis was almost flattered when, two years ago, Admin. had forced them to sign a “Consensual Relationship Agreement.”
In front of the school a sizeable crowd had gathered. NECA’s core building, a ten-story high-rise was set back from the street corner creating a miniature plaza in front of the main entrance. It was November, late afternoon, with the cool day fading into an early dusk. An ambulance had just turned its siren off and the entire scene was bathed in the colorful strobes of a nearby police car. The crowd had their phones pointing up to the large industrial letters of NECA. The onlookers weren’t only art students, but all kinds of people: commuters from the nearby T-stop, tourists leaving the nearby art museum, construction workers finishing work from the building going up across the street. Suspended from the giant “A” of the NECA sign, an “A” that was at least five-feet tall, was a large cloth bag. It dangled from a rope about 30 feet above the cement ground. The bag was pink, translucent, and elastic so it resembled an embryonic sack. The sack swung from side to side as the figure inside it struggled to emerge. It bulged here, then there–a jaw dropping spectacle.
Edna Haynes, the new NECA president (there had been 3 in the past five years) was negotiating with two baffled policemen. She seemed to be appealing in behalf of the embryo.
“She knows something.” Ruth whispered to Francis.
“I think it’s….” speculated Annabelle, “because they were due this morning–”
“–Who!” demanded Francis. “Who was due this morning!”
The elbows and knees of the figure were beginning to break through the bag. When the sack was finally torn, a rush of gelatinous liquid leaked onto the cement. The policemen looked on in horror. A construction worker put up his hand, declaring he had seen enough before walking towards the train. Below the sac, three accomplices emerged from the crowd. They wore surgical masks, white suits, and mirrored sunglasses. Dutifully, they set down small orange cones where the liquid had fallen. Like secret service officers, one was mumbling into their lapel while the other two scanned the crowd.
The large fetus, after much aerial dog paddling, shed the cumbrous bag which landed with a plop below. Sitting upon a large knot in the rope, the writhing figure, appeared neither male or female, a flawless androgyny where neither sex gave way to the other. They were covered from head to toe in a slimy taupe leotard–the color, Francis supposed, of all the worlds people should their melatonin be blended into a perfect cocktail. A small oval existed in the leotard for their face; their mouth was taped closed with a black letter Z. Even with this hint of exposed skin, no particular race was discernable. Francis was reminded of a line in Family Guy about Bruno Mars: He’s not even black, he’s like some beautiful mixed-up tomorrow person.
Grotesque as it was, the performance caught Francis in the throat. Sure, it was audacious, a bit on-the-nose, but it was whacking her upside the head regardless. Could NECA’s free fall from grace have willed this creature into existence? Francis couldn’t say. Art could be lunatic this way.
Ruth, also gob smacked, turned to Francis, “Rory would have loved this.”
Standing behind Ruth, Francis wrapped her arms around her partner’s middle, even though their agreement specified that the named parties refrain from public displays of affection. She felt a rush of goosebumps beholding the art fetus as it grappled with the rope/umbilical cord in an alarming, yet captivating aerial ballet.
The policemen seemed to have reached a consensus with President Hynes. One turned to the other, shrugged and said, “I’m not even gonna ask.”
“Don’t even,” said the other cop.
“It’s gotta be…them!” Annabelle declared. “Cuz this is no student; I’ll tell you that much.”
“This is way too good to be a student.” Ruth agreed.
“Gotta be who Annabelle?” Francis pressed. “What is it that you know?”
Suddenly the figure arched then plunged, headfirst, stopping abruptly only a few feet from the cement below. The knot was no longer between their legs but wrapped around their ankles. The crowd gulped. Below, the three accomplices wove their arms together, creating a human bridge for the figure to drop into.
The students appeared thoroughly engaged–yet it was hard for Francis to tell as their faces were mostly obscured by their phones. Were they enjoying themselves? A wall of cell screens rocked from side to side–a collective dog wagging its tail. This phenomenon, this weird space between eyes, phone, and actual experience, Rory used to call it the Icky Valley. Ruth was right, he would have loved this, Icky Valley and all.
The figure, still suspended, unwound itself and dropped into the arms of the accomplices.
“Who are you?” A student screamed as the figure struggled to stand like a newborn calf. Their eyes looked sad. Mime sad, as if they wanted to speak but were not permitted. The accomplice’s white suits were now smeared in red slime. The newborn hobbled over to Edna Haynes and presented her with a business card. Edna, clearly amused, read the front of the card out loud. “Hello!” she then she turned it over and read the back: “Your Visiting Artist has been delivered.” This was enough to warrant student applause (palm to phone wrist).
With this, the Visiting Artist was swaddled in a white sheet and whisked off by the soiled accomplices into the toweled back seat of a limousine which had pulled up on que.
“Yep,” Annabelle confirmed. “That’s Z. all right. All I know is this: they have no actual name–just the letter Z. No race. No gender. And no actual CV to speak of–just a killer Instagram. Edna Hynes hired them only last week. A Hail Mary pass if you ask me.”
“Dali would have been proud,” said Ruth.
“Jesus, talk about convulsive beauty,” Fran added, covertly dabbing her eyes. She turned to her left because this was where Rory, over the years, had always stationed himself. But he, of course, was gone, so Francis and buried her face in Ruth’s shoulder. Then Annabelle stepped in, hugging them both, completing their trio. They occasionally referred to each other as sisters, in the second wave feminism sense of the word. The three had come up together, clawed their way through any number of minefields: careers, marriages, children, divorces, even a few cancers. After everything the Woman’s Movement fought for, there was one thing that Francis refused to do and that was to see herself as an irrelevant old bag. What kind of feminist? Thought Francis, there in the arms of her brethren. This kind.
Later, at home, Ruth could hear Francis still whimpering in the bathtub. Enough already. Ruth’s signature generosity? It had been bleeding out of her all day. In the living room, she tried to review tomorrow’s lecture on The Appropriationists, but could not wrap her head around it–the arrogance of the whole thing–it seized her. All commentary, no plot. Had post modernism finally beaten itself to death? The art fetus, she supposed, had landed not a minute too soon. How did Warhol or Oldenburg matter anymore with Rory gone and Francis, there in the bathroom, circling the drain.
What Ruth had suspected but did not wholeheartedly know until this very moment, was that Francis had been sleeping with Rory Sheehan for years. Her display only confirmed it. Ruth closed her laptop and walked into the kitchen. The gig is up, she thought, reaching for the bottle opener. If not on post modernism, then certainly on her marriage.
Ruth entered the bathroom with two glasses and a chilled bottle of wine.
Francis sat up, embarrassed by her own grief. “What’s going on?” Her puffy eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Cuz we don’t drink on school nights. Ruth?” She rubbed her temples, refocused, “Ruth?”
“Here it is Fran: I know all about your thing.” Slowly, she poured the wine. One for each. “Your thing with Rory.” Ruth, handed a glass to Francis.
Francis snapped her head up, took the glass. “Ruth…I never wanted to–”
Ruth put up her hand, “stop,” she said. “Let me finish.” Ruth took a big long sip out of her glass, swallowed and waited. Finally, “it’s OK though, because, here’s the other thing–”
“–Ruth, it’s true, I’ve been sleeping with Rory–“
“–Stop!” said Ruth, eyes squinted shut, waving her hand.
“On and off for years.” Francis continued, “but it didn’t mean–”
“–Stop!” Ruth’s eyes were wide open now, insistent. “Christ Fran…please! Let me just say this.” She took another long sip and waited. Then a deep breath, “me too.”
Francis was confused; she bowed her head. With two wet fingers, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “You too what?”
“Me too as in…” Ruth’s eyes were fixed on the radiator, “ME FUCKING TOO!” She wasn’t yelling, but she wasn’t NOT yelling either.
“Look at me Ruth! Me too as in you’ve been sleeping with Rory too?” Francis was astonished. Robotically, she yanked the stopper out of the drain.
“Yep,” Ruth admitted over the gurgling racket of water. Feminism was not so precious after all; this much she had figured out. Like anything worthwhile, it was a big, fat, Shakespearean mess. She lifted her glass and gently chimed her rim into the glass of her beloved wife. “On and off for years.”