The Accidental Native (14 page)

I refused to let them visit me. I argued that they should allow professors the maximum opportunity to do their best; if it was a scheduled visit, the professor had no, or minimal, excuses for bad performance. But that fell on deaf ears. I would have turned to a union if we had one. The so-called Association of Professors had been trying to change this policy for decades. But said association had zero power. According to the Puerto Rican Superior Court, professors were considered part of management and therefore had no standing as workers to form a union. The association, therefore, collected dues, threw fabulous parties and managed to secure benefits for their members only when the Congreso de Obreros Universitarios, the union for non-faculty workers, went on strike and won a major benefit that had to be given to everyone.

I informed the Committee I would not let them in my classroom. I would close the doors for the entire review period. But, then, that was madness, assisted suicide with Roque pulling the lever. I asked if they could at least tell us, not just me, but the others undergoing this cruel process, the weeks of the visit. “We always do that,” they answered, smugly. They were also gracious enough to provide the newbies like me with the form they used, as if it were a crib sheet. I looked at all those boxes, waiting for check marks, and felt like I was being squeezed into them. Did I have to teach to the form? I asked, trying to be ironic, but the remark did not elicit a smile.

A few days later, I found another one of Marisol's gifts on my desk. A German, Galileo thermometer, or a thermoscope. As soon as Micco saw it, he looked at me and we both laughed. For those who have never seen this contraption: it is long, about fourteen inches, over five inches in circumference, with a flat, round base and a tip that resembles the end of a condom. It's a thermometer that works on the principles of weight and density. But the blatantly phallic quality of it made us laugh, but also made me wonder out loud to Micco if Marisol understood that or if it were some unconscious thing at work. This one came with the cryptic message: “Saw this and thought of you.”

These gifts were starting to creep me out. I did not like these little subconscious, erotic presents appearing in my office. I returned all of them with a note telling Marisol that I appreciated her gesture but there was no need. I accepted her apologies, gave her, again, mine for being an asshole, and told her for us to move on. I also told the department secretary, Nitza, to not let her into my office nor to take her gifts there, which she did not appreciate. Nitza was a big romantic and thought giving such gifts was a grand thing and, consequently, returning them was the height of rudeness. She told me that Puerto Ricans didn't do that type of thing.

“Don't sweat it,” I told her, “most people don't think I'm Puerto Rican, anyway.”

Marisol did not respond well to my returning the gifts. My “rebuff” of these gifts, she told me, was “heartless and insensitive.” Giving gifts, she said, was her way of moving on. Marisol returned to the brain-freezing stares and monosyllabic conversations.

Weeks later, on a humid, rainy day, the committee marched into my classroom. I was prepared but nervous. The students, I think, were more nervous than I. At first, they clammed up worse than usual as the three somber faces stared at us from the back of the classroom, trying to look inconspicuous.

“We try to be quiet and blend,” said Carmela López, when I first protested against this type of intrusion. Now, her tired spinster face stood out like a gargoyle stuck to the white drywall, along with her two partners, Iglesias, who came the closest to blending, given his teen-like stature and demeanor, and Foley, whom I had seen only at departmental meetings. Apparently, doing performance reviews was a task that he relished or took seriously enough to show up. His penetrating blue eyes unsettled me the most.

The students' willingness to help me overwhelmed me. Even those who had rarely spoken in class raised hands and tried to answer a question, read a passage or contribute something to the discussion. These were simple exercises, basic English, but that day my students in that class seemed heroic in their efforts. I thought the class went extremely well, and two of the committee members agreed. Carmela López did not. She gave me low scores
for not following up on questions, organization, even “lack of respect” for students, citing my joking with a student that anyone in the classroom that day, including the student who laughed, understood to be teasing. Then Roque executed his “Chair's Visit” and rated my performance “unsatisfactory,” writing extensively on each item.

“Clearly a hatchet job,” Micco told me.

With the committee going 2-1 in my favor, and Roque's evaluation so adamantly against, an outside committee made of professors from other departments had to evaluate me. I was vindicated by the students' evaluations, all of them excellent, despite a handful of complaints about hard grading. Student opinion only matters as far as how it can be used. If it is glowing, like mine, it would matter if Roque shared it and wanted me to stay. But since he wanted to rid the department of me, the students' evaluation of my teaching was chalked up to their naiveté, or that they identified with my youth or had underdeveloped critical thinking.

I awaited this third visit, which would make or break me. This had happened too fast, and I had no plans. What to do if my contract were not renewed? It never occurred to me that I could be dismissed after one year. I didn't want to live off Julia, and what would she think about my losing this teaching job? She would be angry for not confiding in her. She was trying hard to win my trust, and my secrecy on this would raise doubts.

Then, the students went on strike. A political strategy inherited from the sixties, the student strike was now considered passé in the States. In Puerto Rico they had become so commonplace that everyone anticipated a few days off during the school year for them. Some faculty scheduled trips, personal events or medical appointments during these breaks. A strike's length depended on the issue. Tuition hikes would take months to resolve. Our students paid the lowest tuition anywhere in the United States, something like $50 a credit, half of what others paid at the privates on the island.

You had to give credit to the students for their organizational abilities and enthusiasm, though. They turned these strikes into festive parties. Soon you had dozens of young men and women in
front of the college playing congas, timbales, güiros, maracas and other assorted Latin percussion to the established repertoire of protest golden oldies. There had been rumors about this strike—there are always lingering whispers. The students were upset about a new college attendance policy that threatened the “beca,” the local name for the Pell Grant, the federal funding that almost every student in Puerto Rico received. If they were not attending all their classes, the “beca” would also be eliminated. A substantial amount of students had grown accustomed to using the “beca” for anything but college. In my short time in the college, I had witnessed a steady acquisition of “beca” shoes, “beca” parties and even “beca” cars. This infuriated me when I saw a well-dressed student, having received the “beca,” still without the classroom text.

The students wanted the absence policy to remain the same, which would give them time to receive their “beca” and spend it as they saw fit. Student leaders met, decided and wham: ¡Huelga!

I was teaching one of my classes, when I heard the chanting coming down the hall. The syncopated rhythms of the percussion, the clapping of hands, felt like a Christmas parranda entourage coming our way. But it wasn't Christmas, so we knew it was the strikers. Students in the class gathered their materials and stuffed them into backpacks, waiting for my signal to leave. The marchers arrived at my door, parked themselves outside, stopped the music and started chanting. One of the leaders charged into the classroom and gave a little speech to the rest of the students, declaring an official huelga, and then proceeded to disable the chalkboard by smearing it with cooking oil. The students looked at me. The student leader was agitated that they were still seated.

“The college is closed,” she yelled.

I signaled with my head to go and they proceeded out of the classroom. Some students joined the conga line shaking down the hall. Others, I presume, would go to the beach. The more diligent would use the time to catch up or study for a big exam.

I found their cause self-serving. But I didn't care. Like the others, more than other colleagues, I welcomed the time off to think about my situation. At the guest house, I uncapped a beer and sat
by the porch to look out toward the mountains. The sunlight was bright and enticing.

I have a new car begging for mileage, I thought. I rushed into the bedroom and tossed some clothes into a carry-on. Midway through the packing, I picked up my cell and dialed Marisol. After the gift incident, we had been having a series of long telephone conversations, and by now I had her on speed dial. Just as fast, I cancelled the call. It scared me to think she was only a quick dial away, that I could call her to invite her on a trip without first considering the possible consequences. No one would know us beyond the college campus, I thought, not thinking about the more serious situation: we would be alone, relaxing somewhere, catching rays half-naked in a tropical setting. Just thinking about it aroused me.

We both agreed to a friendship. We kept our distance, ran through our schedules, and when we bumped into each other in the hallway, it was a quick hello and goodbye. I was finding it harder to do, especially when she looked especially stunning. Later in the evening, during the marathon phone conversations, we would spill our feelings like it was therapy.

When we arranged an outing in San Juan, we always hoped someone from the college would not spot us. That was not impossible. A good amount of professors, including Marisol, lived in La Losa, the nickname given to the capital, which literally translates to “tile,” the fancy, ceramic kind, of course. Micco always mused how in Spanish it can also mean gravestone.

Most of these professors hated teaching in Baná, which they considered similar to a soldier being sent to a remote outpost, or doing missionary work in the interior of some God-forsaken third world country. They complained about the long drive, and had their chairs devise special schedules so they only had to come in two days a week. They looked down their noses at the institution, the students and the town, kept their eyes and ears open for resignations or open positions at the central campus, the alleged crown jewel of the system situated in Río Piedras, just outside San Juan.

Hanging out in San Juan always meant a risk of bumping into one of these snooty professors, something we both didn't want.
Roque would get on my case for this, too, if he found out. We made sure that we selected a secluded club or greasy spoon that these people would never think of patronizing. Even then, we kept our eyes open. All this so we could dance together, laugh a little—just have fun.

Roque had me wondering if I was cut out to be a university professor. Maybe, he was right, I thought. “If you want to write,” he told me, “then do and don't teach,” paraphrasing Bernard Shaw. Did I want to work in this type of hostile environment? He would always be on my ass, and the tenure process runs seven years. Seven years of hell, I thought. He had me running scared. Right then, in early November, with the campus shut down by strikers, I just wanted to pick up and leave to somewhere quiet. We were on a tropical island with renowned beaches I had yet to visit. But suddenly I wanted to go with Marisol, to sit on the sand with her and see her run into the water in a bikini. See her smile in the radiance of Caribbean sunlight.

Dialed, cancelled, dialed, cancelled. I wanted to spend this time with her but was afraid to be alone with her. The idea of making love to her again made my heart race, but frightened me. I visualized us together by transparent, turquoise water, spread out on a colorful beach blanket, listening to soft tunes, while our bodies absorbed and exuded heat.

I dialed again, almost losing my breath when she answered.

“Hey, you up for a road trip?”

My mother told me the coquís sing like crazy when it's going to rain. “They're asking for rain,” she said, giving a look which meant “stop whining and go to bed.” But I kept hearing them, kept thinking I saw their little bright eyes staring at me through the darkness. Their persistent chirping, rhythmic and soothing for others, to me seemed like an alarm clock's loud ticking and made me uneasy. After kissing me, my mother rearranged the mosquito net to make sure there were no openings. That summer throughout the island, dengue had struck and caused fatalities. The grown-ups talked about it in that hushed, serious voice they use to talk about bad things. It was the really bad dengue, the one that causes bleeding all over your body.

Tossing and turning, putting the pillow over my head to drown out the chorus of coquís, I kept going over our trip to Puerto Rico. It was supposed to be a big deal, my first trip to the island, and special for my parents, since it was their first visit together as a married couple. Right from the start it didn't go well. Before we boarded the plane, my mom had told my dad that she would not set foot in his family's house. Although sad and upset, Papi understood, so he gave in to Mami's wishes.

The plan was for my father to take me to meet his family. My grandparents hadn't seen me in years, and some relatives had only seen me in photos, a situation generating gasps when discussed by my father's family members. Later, my mother would take me to meet her grandmother, my great-grandmother and other relatives in Lares. Meanwhile, she would stay at the suite in the hotel partly
owned by Papi's family. She was going to read Vargas Llosa's latest novel and get some sun. My father said nothing. On our way to Guaynabo, he spoke only as he pointed out the sights like a tour guide: El Morro, “one of the Spaniards' great engineering feats,” the Normandy Hotel “shaped like a ship,” Muñoz Marín Park, Oso Blanco “where they put the bad guys.”