Fiction Friday: Gideon Nelson goes to school.

Sundown in zion

CHAPTER NINE

Nelson rose early on Monday. Rain had moved in during the night and had turned into a light dusting of snow by morning. He completed his run before daylight and by ten he was motoring west on Interstate 630, headed for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Traffic was moving well in his direction although commuter traffic had stopped moving into the downtown area due to a traffic accident. He glanced at an open notebook and slowed as he neared the exit for Fair Park Boulevard.

Soon he was traveling south through a pleasant neighborhood of small houses and old-growth vegetation. The size and unique character of the homes hearkened to an era of varied taste but common aspirations. Most of the homes demonstrated care and love but some had taken on that look of indifference and neglect unique to long-rented properties. Nelson slowed to the stated speed limit as an anxious student crowded him in the belief he could cause Nelson to drive faster. He ignored the youth and enjoyed his drive.

He glanced at the notepad again before turning right then left, then right again into a parking deck on the edge of the campus. Easing upward, he entered the first available space and exited his truck, carrying the notepad with him. He glanced at a crude map he had drawn on the facing page, descended the stairs and entered the campus proper.

It was late morning by now and students scurried between the student union, library, and multi-story classroom buildings. Most talked or texted on cell phones. Had Nelson been dressed in a white robe with a halo shimmering above his head, he would have attracted little attention.

His map led him to a pleasant building of six stories. He took an elevator to the fifth floor, exited, and took a long hallway to a door entering a group of offices. Before he reached the entrance, Tina Barrow walked from an office behind a clearly agitated student. When the student turned to talk Tina interrupted her with, “I’m totally unconcerned what your excuse is and how badly you need to graduate this semester. So scoot.” The student glared at Nelson as she walked by and out of his vision.

Tina said, “Hello sailor. Can’t say I’m stalking you now since you drove all the way out here to see me.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Nelson said. “Am I early?”

“Right on time,” Tina said, “that’s ten minutes before our appointed moment.” She smiled. “Did you have a nice Saturday after our breakfast?” She was ushering him into her office as she spoke.

“I read all afternoon,” he said. “Guess you could say I had an attack of inertia.”

“Inertia is good for the digestion,” Tina said, motioning him toward a chair. “That’s why so many of the students here are overweight.”

Her office had its own door but was hardly more than a cubicle. Bookshelves lined with scholarly appearing volumes covered the entire wall behind her. A large laptop computer sat opened on her desk. She checked the screen and then closed it. “Sorry you had to see my bad side.”

“I guess students all have good excuses, right?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I never listen to them.” She retrieved her purse from a desk drawer. “You ready to go see Dr. Bartholomew?”

Nelson cocked his head to one side in thought, then returned his attention to Tina. “Ready,” he said.

They left her building and started across the campus. Tina turned to him. “You didn’t go to the pub Saturday night.”

“No,” Nelson said. “as I said, I read. But you must have.”

 “Just for one beer.” She turned to him and smiled. “I wanted to see if I might catch you hitting on some sleazy woman.”

This time Nelson smiled. “So you are stalking me.”

“Can’t say yet,” she said. “Here we go.” She pointed to a gray, stark building dominating the center of the campus. The exterior of the building was exposed concrete, unfinished with the marks of plywood forms still visible. It would have looked more appropriate on a prison, rather than a college, campus. “Please pardon our greatest architectural shame,” she said. “Too ugly to stand, but too remarkable in its grandeur to tear down.” She led him into an elevator. “I’m sure it was designed to make a statement. I’m just not sure what the statement was.”

“At least you are person who has opinions,” Nelson said.

“Yes,” she said. “And be mindful of the fact that I may be forming one of you.”

Before he could respond, they reached their floor. The elevator door opened and she let Nelson up a ramp to the north side building and along an exterior walk. Reaching a door, she looked through its glass panel and tapped loudly. A student peered from an open door and Tina motioned for him to let them in. He hastened to them and obeyed.

They entered and proceeded along the corridor until they reached an office marked “Jackson Bartholomew,” PhD. Tina knocked. They heard a shuffling from inside and the door was opened by a tall African-American man wearing fitted white shirt, tie, dark trousers and off-white shoes. “Tina,” he said.

“Jackson, this is the prospective student I told you about.” She half-turned to Nelson. “Meet Gideon Nelson, naval hero.”

The man laughed and extended his hand. “Jackson Bartholomew,” he said. They shook. “Come in,” and he motioned the two of them into his office.

“Not me,” Tina said. ”I have errands. But,” she said, looking at Nelson, “I expect you to meet me in front of the Cooper Fountain at noon, sharp.”

“Noon sharp, aye,” Nelson said, making a mock salute.

“Good to see you Jackson,” she said. “Have anyone who needs an elective, you know where to send them.”

Bartholomew laughed, “The last one I sent wound up in ‘the hood’ taking a survey of housing occupancies.”

“He lived through it,” she said. “Remember what Nietzsche said.”

“I am sure the child feels all the stronger for it,” Bartholomew said. “Now begone with you ere you frighten this prospect away.”

“Somehow I don’t think he frightens easily,” she said. “But give it your best shot.” With that, she was gone.

Bartholomew moved behind his desk and motioned for Nelson to sit opposite him. “Tina tells me you are interested in attending our university.”

“Very much so.”

“Surely not English as a major.”

“Afraid so.”

Bartholomew took a deep breath. “So they are still being born, although not every minute as in the late Mr. Barnum’s time.”

“I suppose so,” Nelson said.

“Have you attended college before?”

“Some,” Nelson said. “I took some basic courses in English and literature at night at San Diego State while I was stationed at Coronado Island for a couple of years.”

“So why? Why English?”

Nelson shrugged. “I like to read,” he said. “Besides, I have nothing better to do.”

“Ah,” Bartholomew said. “You have passed the first test of entry.”

Nelson laughed. “Is there a second test?”

“Favorite author?”

“Probably Charles Dickens. I’m working my through his entire body of work.”

“Oh dear,” Bartholomew said, “I’m afraid you just passed the second test. Poetry?”

Nelson frowned. “I’m afraid I have a deaf ear mostly, except for a few poets like Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot, and … oh yes, Tennyson.”

Bartholomew nodded. “We can work with you on that. Congratulations, you have passed and gained provisional entry. Tina says you were a sailor of some sort—real ‘hush-hush’ type—according to her, so you are probably what I call a ‘romantic realist.’” He laughed.

Nelson said. “Why do you say that?”

“I heard of a fellow over in Armistead, a friend of my uncle, who was in the Navy. That’s how I describe him. He tends to dream, but keeps to realistic ones.”

Nelson leaned forward. “Wait,” he said. “You have an uncle in Armistead?”

“Uncle Millard,” Jackson Bartholomew said. “the family weirdo.”

“I know him,” Nelson said. “I spent some time in Armistead a year or so ago.”

This time it was Bartholomew who leaned forward. “Wait just a second,” he said. He looked Nelson over slowly. “You’re not that strange sailor from out of nowhere that unraveled the little murder thing for the locals, are you? Elvis Barker’s buddy?”

“I’m a friend of Elvis Barker’s,” Nelson said. “And I know your Uncle Millard. How is he?”

“Never better,” Bartholomew said. “He and the Judge are on a cruise now. The Caribbean will never be the same. In fact, I search the papers daily for a report of some major scandal.”

“He is still working for the Judge?”

“Oh no,” he said. “He’s a substitute teacher and the Judge’s adopted son, more or less. Claims he is writing a book, but I haven’t seen it.”

“Well gunnels awash,” Nelson said, almost to himself as he looked out the window.”

“What?”

Nelson snapped his head back to face Bartholomew. “Oh,” he said. “It’s a navy saying. I forgot where I was for a second.”

Bartholomew laughed. “So do you hear anything from Armistead County these days?”

“Matter of fact, I do. You know Elvis’ son Martin, I suppose?”

“The genius? I do.”

“Seems he has had a personal tragedy. A friend of his was murdered, a girl he refuses to call his girlfriend.”

“Abbey Stubblefield,” Bartholomew said.

“You know about her?’

Bartholomew looked toward the door and lowered his voice. “The entire African-American community of Arkansas knows about her. I actually met her once a year or so ago when Martin brought her to Armistead. A beautiful young woman. She would have broken more than one heart had she lived.”

Nelson nodded and said, “What do you know about the town of Connorville?”

“I know you don’t want to have anything to do with those folks.”

“That’s what I hear,” Nelson said. “I don’t suppose you’ve spent a lot of time there.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No,” Nelson said. “I’ve heard it has become, what do you call it … a sundown city?”

Bartholomew laughed. “Whatchew mean ‘has become?’”

“You mean it’s been that way?”

“Used to a joke of a place,” Bartholomew said. “At tops it was 1,500 population or so. That’s before folks realized that the schools were all white.”

“And then?”

“Whoosh,” Bartholomew said, making a gesture suggesting an eruption. “Know what my granddaddy told me once?”

“No, what?”

“His brother Fred had a mule he wanted to sell. ‘Old Slick’ was his name. A white man from Connorville came and bought him. Tied him behind a wagon and took him to Connorville.”

“And”

“Old Slick was back at Uncle Fred’s place before dark.”

“Really?”

“They always said that even colored mules wouldn’t stay in that town after the sun went down.” He laughed. Nelson joined him.

Then Bartholomew became serious. “More recently though,” he said. “They showed their asses big time.”

“How was that?”

“Remember when President Obama made the nationally televised address to the all the public schools in the country? The one that was piped into the classrooms?”

“I seem to remember that.”

“Guess what school system was the only one in the state, maybe the country for all I know, that refused to allow it shown?”

“I’m guessing Connorville’s.”

“You’re pretty sharp,” Bartholomew said. “I think you will do fine as a student.”

“Do you know anything else?” Nelson said.

“About Connorville? Or literature?”

“About Abbey Stubblefield and how she got killed.”

“Everything you have probably heard is bullshit,” Bartholomew said. “What do you want to know?”