An Opening

He’s short and I’m tall, so he was forced to crane his neck and view me through the bottom part of his bifocals. He shook with rage, and sweat formed on his forehead while half-moons darkened under his armpits. I had questioned the ethics of a handsome young colleague on whom he had, at the time, an intense crush.

“I am on the Tenure Committee,” he hissed, invoking all that was holy to him. “And I will make sure you never get tenure here.” He spat the words at me, expecting, I presume, groveling submission or at the very least, wide-eyed fear.

He was a Jewish boy from Yonkers, his mother’s joy, and it was her wish that he give her nachas by morphing into Vladimir Horowitz. He practiced daily the piano she provided for him, but no such transformation occurred. When he made it into the PhD music program at Princeton, it was some consolation, but he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Papal music in the sixteenth century. What does that tell you? 

The deal, for middle-class white men who pass as heterosexual and aspire to an academic career, is this. One, assimilate: attempt to look like white anglo-saxon models of academic ease. Date blonde girls with knockers. Wear boat shoes. Major in European Male Studies called History, Literature, Politics, Music. 

Two, by any means possible, earn tenure at the end of your sixth year of teaching so you can remain in one academic institution (except in sabbaticals and Fulbright years) from the time you get your PhD to the day you retire. Don’t get caught doing anything unseemly. Avoid blondes with knockers.

Three, cultivate an arrogant (preferably nasal) lecture style, grade papers on a bell curve, serve time on insufferable committees. Occasionally strut and pontificate in faculty meetings; grind out an academic article each year; go to conferences and drink martinis. Learn wine. Get colleagues to mention you in footnotes to their articles. 

The prize: full professorship, house paid for, vacation timeshare, 2 cars, an appropriate spouse (preferably a brunette with knockers), 2.5 children who attend Ivy League colleges and perform respectably, and in the end, a decent retirement income.

He thought that was the deal I had come for. I said fuck you.