Page 58 - WTP Vol. XII #2

In Retrospect
There’s a movie called Viva Maria with Brigitte Bor- dot and she’s wearing boots that come up to her knee, laced boots. They’re kind of shabby and beaten up, covered with the dust of Mexico or some other South of the border country. Those are the boots that I tried to buy. Certainly, the ones I bought reminded me of her feet covered in dust, striving for a cause.
It’s what Maris noticed first about me, my boots. She was new to town, new to the faculty, and with her new, such as it was, income, she wanted to buy things. She asked me where my boots came from. Of course,
I didn’t remember, but somehow she found another pair that were enough like them and I thought of her and her duplication and I wondered if she looked to me in other ways as someone she’d like to follow. I didn’t feel like someone should follow me. What I was doing may not have been possible; 1980-something and we were starting a union of adjuncts at the U. and somehow with a lot of speeches and help from actual labor unions, the Teamsters, for instance, that everyone was afraid of, we got almost 500 signa- tures and we thought surely we’ll have a union, sure- ly we’ll get protected with job security and benefits, and this was something everyone knew they wanted after a man died without health insurance. AIDS was spreading and he thought he had cat scratch fever, that’s what he told himself and other people, but at a certain point we all knew what it was. None of us had benefits beside the benefit of making a subsis- tence living, but after we had all those signatures and we took them to the President, the board of the university voted us down. What happened wasn’t that we got full-time jobs, it was that some of us did, the ones who were organizing, but we didn’t want that, we wanted it for everybody or nobody and we organizers quit while the rest of the adjuncts were fired. But before this, there was Maris and what hap- pened.
To Begin
We wore the same boots. She got them after me. They looked like the ones Brigitte Bardot wore, covered with the dust of Mexico or some other place where Bardot is fighting for the Revolution, her feet kicking up dust.
Maybe it was 1985, when I had been teaching at the 51
University for five years. It was a cold winter and people had just started wearing boots. It became a style. I laced mine up and they were like my baby shoes that came up over my ankle and kept the bot- toms of my legs straight. They were what Maris no- ticed first about me, my boots. She was new to town, new adjunct on the faculty, and with her new, such as it was, income, she wanted to buy things. She asked me where my boots came from. Of course, I didn’t remember, but somehow she found another pair that were enough like them. She asked where I went swimming and joined the club. She shopped where
I told her. She would have used the same dentist if I thought mine was any good.
I met her at the U. when she was talking half an hour at a stretch with a man down the hall from me. He was a farmer and a poet, like Hesiod, and soon to be
a father. He was very good looking. I used to spend time in his office too. Maybe he was just talkative. Maybe she was. I know she was. Maris was shorter than me and darker, a small woman. She wore her hair short. It was shiny and straight. And she wore little black wire granny glasses that were old and held together some place I remember noticing with tape or a wound-up rubber band. They were her trade- mark. She made friends with the friends I had. She seemed always to want something from them, a letter of recommendation or something else tangible that I had never thought to ask for.
She drove a big old car, two shades of green, I think, I never remember the makes of cars, only that it gener- ated little puffs of black smoke. Its passenger door
Letter of Recommendation
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