Hurry up please it's time!

            I spent a lot of Wednesday writing about Tuesday. I would have a test that night but there isn’t much one can do to study for an English test. My strategy was just to relax for the day and then go in prepared to have some fun writing the in-class essays. In retrospect though, I should have thought to at least make sure I could connect the names of the authors to the works I would be writing about.

            As I was locking my bike in front of the Fitzgerald building a young, skinny, nervous, kind of dishevelled looking guy with a beard and smoking a cigarette came up to talk to me. It turned out that he was from my class, though I didn’t recognize him. He asked me if I knew for sure that the test would be in our classroom and not in some other building. It’s exams and not tests that are in designated examination spaces. I assured him that our test was in the classroom. He explained that he hadn’t been able to attend all the classes because of his job but he’d be able to come from now on.

            Once class started, Scott handed out the tests first to give us a chance look the questions over for ten minutes and then he handed out the writing books and told us we could begin. We had 70 minutes to write on two topics out of four. Two of the choices were non-fiction, which is less interesting for me to sink my teeth into than created works, so I chose the other two. One of them was the pub scene from T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” and the other was “Paul’s Case” by … I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of that story’s author. It was the very first story we covered and it was from a handout. I probably lost marks for not remembering Willa Cather as the author, but I knew I didn’t remember her name when I made the decision to write on that topic.

            The excerpt from “Paul's Case” was the end of the story where all of the metaphors tumble together into one spectacular death scene. Paul saw that the red carnation that he wore and which I think was the symbolic heart of his superficial life of grandeur and style was fading and he did not want to see himself fade. He ventured out into the weather that he detested, ritualistically buried the carnation in the snow and stepped in front of a train bound for his home in Pennsylvania to allow it to strike him hard in the heart and send his mind back into the great design of things.

            The pub scene in T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” is haunted by the traditional English bartender’s final call, “HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME” that punctuates a conversation between two patrons. The woman, Lil is being chastised for not doing more to improve her womanly appearance and for not wanting to have children. Time is constantly evoked because it is the woman that is always warned to be afraid of decay and of it being too late to have children. The woman is doubly threatened by death in her own body and in being forced to take on the responsibility of bearing life as if not doing so is a type of death in itself. This point is driven home in the final repetitions of “Goodnight ladies” when time has finally run out. This part of The Wasteland reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s song, “Closing Time” which is also about getting old and facing the inevitability of death.

            Time seems to pass quickly when writing in-class essays. It was over at 19:37. As I was getting ready to leave, the young guy with the beard came up and apologized to Scott for having missed so many classes. They were still talking as I headed for the door and called out to Scott, “Thanks! That was fun!” Scott turned and asked me with surprise, “That was fun?” I said, “Yeah!” He declared, “Well, that’s great!”

            When I got home there was plenty of time to go back out to the liquor store and buy myself a beer to have with dinner. I made myself a salami, cheese and pickle sandwich and watched an episode of Mike Hammer that had kind of an interesting scenario. Mike’s girlfriend and her brother had a photography business at a fancy nightclub. She would go from table to table and take pictures of couples and then the photos would be developed before they left. They would get a print and then a smaller version of the portrait would be printed onto a book of matches as a memento. When she was taking a picture of a particular couple though, two men behind them saw that they were included in the shot. One of them came into the darkroom later, slugged the photographer’s brother and took the print, and then he mugged the couple for their copy as they left the club. When Mike Hammer investigated he discovered that the thieves had overlooked the book of matches. He retrieved it from the couple and saw that behind the couple in the photograph were the lower halves of the two men that had been behind them and that one of the men’s hands were on a brass rail that separated two sections of the restaurant. Mike arranged for the rail to be dusted for prints and discovered that one set of prints belonged to a gangster that was supposed to have died in a plane crash three years before.

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