Authors: Ava Michaels
None
of the guys slumped in their desks throughout the room interested me in the
least. They seemed like cookie cutter males wearing either jeans or khakis.
Apparently it was against some code to have them washed and wrinkle free.
T-shirts are okay but does it have to be a rock band from the 1960’s? Who cares
about The Who anymore? Just at a quick glance in this class alone there was a
dude with the famous Rolling Stones lips on it. Some nerd wearing The Beatles
and of course, no tribute to perhaps the worst era fashion wise would be
complete without Jimi Hendrix. And that was a chick wearing that one. You know
they bought these at
Traxx
or some other equally
weird store.
So, to say the pickings
were slim in this class was an understatement for this underclassman. But I
knew that there was some guy on this campus who would be happy to woo or maybe
enchant, or perhaps just cover me with kisses and bring me into this other
plain that every other Dartmouth girl seemed to have already reached.
I
opened my textbook. Sexual Practices of the Yanomamo tribe. How appropriate.
Maybe Gaines would get along with these people.
My
eyes glazed over throughout Professor Tunde's lesson. Honestly, the only way I
could keep my eyes open and seemingly alert was to focus on him - the confident
way he carried himself, his sturdy but slender frame and dark skin. He was
short but well-built, with broad shoulders and an intense, intelligent face.
His eyes were sharp. An undeniably attractive man of late forties maybe even
early fifties. At times during the lecture, I could feel him looking right at
me, and I felt stirrings that I most definitely didn't want to be feeling
during Cultural Anthropology Class! It could have been him, but it was more a
case of being horny. There’s only so much you can do for yourself.
"...
and the Yanomamo were also known to marry their daughters off as soon as their
menstruation cycles began, which could happen as early as ten or twelve."
He stated this as if he were reciting a grocery list,
Lovely.
Just the thing
I need to be thinking about today - menstrual cycles and forced marriages. They
both were bad to me. Menstrual cycles were worse based on firsthand experience.
I always wondered WHY PERIODS? Why can't Mother Nature just text me and be
like, '
Waddup
girl. You
ain't
pregnant. Have a great week. Talk to you next month.' If only that was the
truth.
There
were the smallest ghosts of sweat stains spreading from under Professor Tunde's
arms through his designer shirt, and I kept thinking about what he might look
like without it. The shirt, that is. The sweat didn’t seem to bother me at
all.
Sweating and teaching us about the
Yanomamo? I’m surprised it was required by the school board. Was last night
really getting to me this much? I couldn't keep on like this.
Eventually
Professor Tunde turned down the lights and put on a film strip – really
scratchy, outdated 1970's anthropological stuff. I was happy to be in the dark
now and to have something taking my mind off my professor and his sweaty
designer shirt.
Lucky
me - the film began with a shot of none other than Professor Tunde - standing
in the in the middle of the Amazon rain forest. He claimed that the footage was
indeed from his time in the Amazon in the 1970's. Holy hell though; he only
looked about ten years younger! Tunde seemed to be like one of those poor
fellows who suffer from Dick Clark Disease. Dick Clark didn’t age until about
three years before his death. I think he was about 106 years old at that time.
Up until then he looked exactly as he did on American Bandstand back when my
parents were teenagers. Needless to say, women do not suffer from this disease.
I
couldn't believe that our teacher had gone out himself into the asshole of
South America to live with those savages. But that's exactly what he did. And,
not unexpectedly, as I watched the film, my mind started to wander.
Did
you know the women of the Yanomamo tribe are prohibited from participating in
almost any of the activities that the males do, except for "
endocannibalism
?"
Do
you know what
endocannibalism
is? I didn't either.
Apparently, it's the practice of eating the deceased of one's own tribe in
order to keep their spirit surviving through the ages.
Did
you know that Roy Hamel, who sits two desks to my right, has this huge boner
almost every class and seems completely unashamed of? Frankly, it was huge. But
totally gross, none-the-less. Not in Professor Tunde’s class, pal. Show some
respect I thought as I gave him a dirty look he didn’t see.
Did
you know that the Yanomamo ingest a hallucinogenic drug called
Yakoana
in order to meet spirits?
Smells
a lot like the 3rd floor of Dunbar Hall on a Saturday night to me.
The
class made the requisite "
ewwwws
" and
"
nastys
" during Professor Tunde's video.
Throughout it, he was leaning back in his chair, feet on the desk, grinning
widely with those gleaming white teeth. He had clearly impressed all of us, and
no one could take their eyes off the screen as a much younger man hacked his
way through the jungle and tore into raw-looking sides of pig alongside the
head-dressed, nearly naked Yanomamo people. Nobody that is, except me.
I
kept glancing up from the sparse notes I was pretending to furiously scribble,
taking furtive glances in Professor Tunde's direction and thinking more than
once that he seemed to be looking back at me ...
Did
you know that the Yanomamo men were notoriously ... virile?
OKAY,
maybe I just made that part up.
………
When
Professor Tunde's film wrapped up, the class spontaneously erupted in applause.
It was not like the conclusion of any lecture I had ever seen, and the
professor clearly relished the warm reception. I closed my notebook quickly,
after realizing that I had been
doodling
some vaguely
tribal-looking figures doing things that one really shouldn't be doodling
during Cultural Anthropology.
"I'm
glad you all enjoyed the film, and as always, I'll be available after class to
answer any further questions you may have," the Professor said, smiling at
everyone, before turning mockingly stern. "And, as always, I expect a
reaction paper with a strict 'Informational Objective' from each of you this
coming Friday on the film."
An
"informational objective" was Professor Tunde's phrase for the titles
of our reaction papers, stating exactly what we had sought to learn from the
book or film. It made our homework assignments unnecessarily difficult. There
were a lot of jokers who groan constantly about how much time they had to spend
on just this class because Tunde’s assignments were so hard. They were also the
dorks whose semester schedule included such thought provoking classes as Global
Studies or Human Sexuality or, my personal favorite, Introduction to Film. What
the hell did they think college was about? It was about losing your virginity
in your spare time, in between classes. Duh!
After
announcing are assignment there was a collective groan, and then, instead of
hustling out like everyone always seemed to do, almost every male
"specimen" in the class seemed to congregate around Professor Tunde's
desk. The professor was the bomb now, apparently. I tried to keep my head down
and just hightail it through that door and back to the apartment, so I could
hopefully get at least half of one homework assignment done that night (though
I wasn't sure how to prioritize between Bio,
Anth
,
and Brit Lit). But, I was hit with a horrible premonition. What if Jess and
Tiffany are at it again? I just might in fact scream. My dreams of a clean exit
however, were quickly shattered.
"Hey, Ms.
Kitridge
!
Not so
fast."
It
was Professor Tunde's voice.
Unmistakable.
I turned
slowly, one foot already out the door. He was gently pushing his way through
the throng of students clamoring for his attention, all of them suddenly filled
with fascination about the Yanomamo tribe now that they knew their professor
had gone down there and lived among them.
"Yes,
Prof-," I stammered before he interrupted me.
"You
know, you can call me Michael, right?"
He
was not a foot away from me and looking down with this gentle smile that
somehow sucked all of the speech functions straight out of my brain. I just
nodded.
"It
seemed like you were taking rather ... copious notes during the film," he
said, looking down at the notebook I was holding tightly under my arm.
"I'd love for you to share your particular insights with me
sometime."
What?
This guy is all ‘up in my grill’ because he thinks I was taking notes? Because
he thinks I was so enthralled with his eloquent lecture I could barely stop
myself from capturing every golden word in my spiral bound journal? The male
ego never ceased to amaze me. And their maturity level was always front and
center, too.
I was all-too conscious
that the guys over by Tunde's desk were snickering and not missing a word of
this conversation and shot them dirty looks as my cheeks flushed. Is this what
hot flashes were like? Either way, I was speechless, and red as a beet.
"Perhaps
I could show you the rough cut of the film sometime, Olivia? That is, if you're
keen ..."
That
was it. I managed to gurgle out a few words about how I really needed to get
back to the apartment, was really "keen" on getting my homework done,
that someone was expecting me blah, blah, blah. How should I know what I said!
I wasn't sure why he would pick on me like this sometimes. I definitely didn't
look anything like Jess or even most of the other girls in this lecture hall.
Maybe it was because he knew I was genuinely interested in this topic and that
I always did my assignments? Had I mentioned to him my work with the
non-profit? Maybe that was it. Either way, I stepped back with Professor Tunde
staring at me and smiling benignly, looking so handsome and demure the whole
way. Then I ran off.
I
immediately started plotting ways of explaining why I would be missing from the
remaining sixteen classes of Cultural Anthropology 101.
-----------Chapter
5-----------
When
I got home, Jess was nowhere to be found.
Thank
goodness, I sighed with relief.
I
was able to sit down beside my computer and drink Red Bull before I started
some research on some of my classes.
It
was a full semester.
British Literature, Anthropology,
Biology and Russian.
In eagerness to start college I was bitten by the
smart bug. That sometimes happens. The smart bug infects the host with a
delusional hormone that makes them think they are suddenly more capable of
doing things they never would have attempted in high school, like learning a
language like Russian. They don’t even have the same alphabet. In addition to
my classes I was also working nearly twenty five hours a week at We Can Do It!
School
was going to be like a boner this semester, long and hard. The continuous
moaning alarm clock in the bed next to me wouldn’t make it any easier.
I
spent a few minutes contemplating what it would take to turn Jess into a
society-fearing hermit: a terrible rash mixed with a public nudity scandal, a
sudden onslaught of hypochondria brought on by WebMD and suspiciously (after
the fact) ripped condoms, or maybe I should just leave lots of sweets and junk
food around the room? Ten additional pounds could do the trick. No, that plan
could backfire on me too easily.
All
of these were far outside my abilities and I couldn’t really do that to Jess. I
really liked her, no matter how much she frustrated me at times. I needed her.
She was like my other half.
Whenever
I said we should study for an upcoming test in
Anthro
,
believe it or not she was in my
Anthroplogy
class,
she just never showed up. She would bring out a bottle of whiskey and try to
tell me some convoluted history of the liquor.
It
was not made by whisking something. It was not made by dropping a severely
drunk man into the docking bay and letting him urinate. Jess even claimed, in
her more lurid moments, that the Celtic sailors had discovered the Fountain of
Youth and used its waters to create the first bottle of Jameson. Jess was only
half Irish, with the other half being Italian, but that girl drank like she was
making up for the years of the Great Potato Famine.
I
decided to stop by the local liquor store, borrow Jess’ fake I.D. and bring
back a bottle of Jameson for the old girl to have when she came back from
class. We didn't look alike, but everyone knows that in a college town, the
local liquor store is willing to sell you anything as long as you have an I.D.
that is the same sex and close to the same race as you. They need the business.
This idea was a good one because everyone is always more open to suggestions
when they are greeted by a bottle of whiskey when they enter a room.