"DECEMBER BOYS" PART ELEVEN: "NINETEEN. CLUMSY AND SHY" (1st section)

NINETEEN, CLUMSY AND SHY
(1st section)

     Even before Rhett’s official new summer schedule began, he immediately understood why everyone he spoke with feel so hopelessly in love with Madison in the summer time. It was as if the sharp decline of the student body allowed the campus and the city itself to breathe and to also luxuriously present itself at its most inviting and lustrous. When he wasn’t taking advantage of a few lazy days lounging around Uncle Denny’s house and exploring his vast record collection, Rhett strolled around with a languid stride that he typically did not have the time for during the school year. There was no firing gun to begin the season in a frenzy. It was more like phasing into the next chapter of his life.

     The healthy seasonal glow remained in the atmosphere around him even after his summer school classes began. The Sartre class was perhaps a tad too dry for Rhett’s personal satisfaction but he wasn’t one to usually complain about those sorts of matters (however, on one torturous occasion, after enduring the vomitus arrogance of a particularly fatuous Professor, Rhett would write on an end of semester class survey, “…knowing that this man remains in your employ seriously depletes my image of this University.”). On the contrary, Rhett’s Fundamentals In Ethics course was the game changer that he had secretly been hoping for via three distinct levels. First, was the impassable veneer of his new instructor.           

     The forty-ish Professor Stewart Scarfe, with his medium length just beginning to gray at the temples hair, medium build which remained fit from swimming laps three days a week and the stereotypical casual yet professorial wardrobe of blazer, button down shirt (always ironed) and necktie undone by the collar, blue jeans and sturdy loafers, was certainly a non-threatening sight. What was unnerving was his cold, emotionless stare which seemed to burrow a hole clean through whomever happened to be the recipient of his hard gaze. This combined with his tendency to address students solely by last name and with a formal “Mr.“ or “Ms.” preceding the name would have been intimidating enough. The most insurmountable aspect of Professor Scarfe’s Fundamentals In Ethics course was his formidable mind.

     Stewart Scarfe was simply one of those rare individuals who seemed to exist about five minutes into the future when compared to those who happened to be around him (most specifically, his students). The sharpness of his intellect was evident even when he casually allowed his students to debate each other, moments that sometimes exploded into full blown arguments that he always knew how to instinctively halt before tensions eroded the purposefulness. When he called on a student, in his soft, clipped voice, it felt like a bolt of lightning had miraculously discovered your whereabouts indoors! Many a student had been struck dumb and frozen solid when called upon by Professor Stewart Scarfe as if being zapped by the “whammy” for no one in his class wished to ever sound unintelligible or unknowledgeable publicly as well as in the presence of the professor who demonstrated his knowledge of Philosophy and Deconstructionism intricately and easily. It was as second nature to him as games of Hackey Sack was to his pupils and attempting to reach the bar he set was indeed a struggle, yet typically inspired his students to band together in solidarity. It was as if they were equally trying to save each other from drowning. Even though Professor Scarfe was unquestionably demanding, he was a benevolent leader—to a degree—which does bring us to the second most challenging aspect of his course: the readings.

     To keep pace with Professor Scarfe, one had to stay on top of the voluminous readings, which were dizzying in content and also made the standard shortcuts of casually skimming the material a direct bee-line for one of Scarfe’s trap doors. Unlike some instructors who regurgitate the same content year after year with a level of dispassionate interest over time, Professor Scarfe honestly loved the course he taught and therefore, the content it contained. Every year and summer session, he would completely overhaul his syllabus and in doing so, he prided himself on his self-made reputation of his intellectual and educational diligence. Simply stated, Professor Scarfe knew his material inside and out, as if he shared a few pints with Plato, Kant, Descartes and Socrates at the Union Terrace in the evenings.

     Fully remaining cognizant of the demands of students’ complete course loads during the school year, Professor Scarfe paced and spaced the duration of the class reading assignments as he knew that any sense of overload would be counterproductive to any actual learning. However, in the summer, with fewer students and considerably smaller course loads to bear, he did all he could to ensure that his student’s mental muscles did not weaken just because of the inherent warmth of the season. How it actually tickled him to sometimes witness his students bunkered down in sections of Der Rathskeller surrounded by popcorn, drinks, books, papers, notes and those aforementioned readings and the intensely feverish (and to the untrained eye—panicked) conversations just trying to make heads or tails of all of this head spinning material. “Mission accomplished,” Professor Scarfe would muse to himself as he ducked out of sight before being spotted.

     For Rhett Brazelton, the class was precisely what he had wished for as a real test of his academic prowess as well as determining if his epiphany was more than fleeting. While he did feel that drowning sensation as students of the past and his present experienced, he quietly enjoyed the readings and homework, his third eye proudly regarding those mental boxes filling up and being properly filed. The sense of completion and accomplishment was spirit lifting and the content fit his astral brain like a glove.

     Even so, there was one more and easily the most insurmountable obstacle in Professor Stewart Scarfe’s course, so much so, and for quite some time, it nearly derailed Rhett. And that obstacle was her.

     On the first day of the class, Rhett Brazelton walked halfway up Bascom ill and entered a small classroom inside of the School Of Education building with anxious anticipation. He found twenty chairs with attached arm rest/writing desks all arranged into a semi-circle. Rhett quickly chose a seat to the right of the mid-section, closer to the door. After seating himself and settling in with his notebook, he began to view his new classmates entering the room, making mental notes of the demographics. And then…

     Footsteps.

     Purposeful, metronomic footsteps.

     Whatever anticipatory thoughts Rhett had inside of his brain concerning his class were scattered away like fluttering butterflies at the sound of those footsteps. Raising his head towards the direction of the approaching sound, Rhett’s eyes quickly raced past the arriving students and zoomed in on a pair of rusty, dusty cowboy boots and panned upwards to reveal the sight of her.

     Rhett’s heart stopped beating for a fraction of a second, and then, as if remembering its sole duty, began beating a gain yet at triple speed before settling into a somewhat normal rhythm. Yes, it was her, the girl from that spring day on Bascom Hill. The girl that Rhett eventually relegated to fantasy. But, this time, she entered the classroom and she was clearly not a dream. She was even better than a dream. She was real.

     Autumn brown hair that appeared to have the consistency and sheen of silk. Olive skin that looked like the healthiest suntan yet lasted for the entire year. While her resting face was certainly not what one would describe as “warm,” (in fact, some might view it as “petulant”) Rhett could not take his eyes away from it, especially her large-ish nose that attractively held her very smart glasses in perfect place. Sensing his gaze like a Jedi Master, she flashed her eyes at Rhett’s, commanding him to look away, an order he promptly obeyed by turning his head downwards towards his desk. Still, he took a peek to see that she had taken a seat on the furthest corner of the semi-circle on the opposite side of the room, her footsteps reverberating in his mind long after she sat and settled herself. 

     She was more striking to regard as she sat at rest, Rhett thought to himself. While not one to be so easily swayed at the sight of a pretty girl, as that tended to be Craig’s endless fascination, Rhett was blindsided by the dark luminescence of the girl from Bascom Hill. Fearing that she would become the apple of everyone’s eye (and seriously, how could she not be?), he covertly investigated his classmates’ faces to see if they were as visibly thunderstruck as he was. When he noticed that not a single person was staring in her direction, he allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief.

     Snapping him out of his reverie was the entrance of Professor Stewart Scarfe, who strode into the classroom and towards his podium where he set down a few note cards and finally, to his desk where he laid his coffee and sunglasses. “Good morning,” said the professor as he wrote his name upon the blackboard then turned to face his class while holding the student roster. “Welcome. This summer, just as the title of this course states, we will be exploring the fundamentals in ethics. We have a tremendous amount of material to cover over these next several weeks so time, as much of an illusion it actually happens to be, is indeed of the essence. So…Mr. Brazelton, what exactly are ethics?”

     And so it began. Not even one full minute had elapsed and Professor Scarfe had everyone’s complete attention for fear of being randomly called on to answer a question even before having their notebooks out of their backpacks yet. Rhett was immediately at a loss for words. Being so unprepared (and truthfully, how prepared could one actually have been on the very first day) had transformed Rhett’s brain and all of the contents within it into a bowl full of jelly. Words failed him as did thoughts but he knew that he had to produce something and quickly.

     “Um…ethics…um…ethics…, “ stalled Rhett as words began to formulate from the gelatinous pool of his mind. “Ethics are an individual’s personal belief system of what constitutes ‘right’ and ‘wrong’?”

     “In its broadest definition, you are not terribly far off, Mr. Brazeton,” said Professor Scarfe approvingly yet distantly. “Yet, let’s see if we can get ourselves a little closer. Mr. Ising, how would you build upwards from Mr. Brazelton’s statement?”

     Kevin Ising, 20 year old Sophomore of currently undeclared major, was immobilized. Like Rhett, he never figured that he would be called upon so swiftly but before he even realized he began speaking. “Are ethics basically like…well…uh…like principles to live our lives by?”

     “I am seeing a variation of a theme,” Professor Scarfe expressed without feigning either approval or disapproval. “Ms. Lee?”

     Young Lee, 19 year old Sophomore also of undeclared major yet was internally fluctuating somewhere between English and Journalism, was a hair more prepared to hear her name after witnessing the professor’s alacrity with engaging with his students. Even so, her heart raced upwards into her throat. “Well…” she began shakily. “We all have ethics…”

     “Do we now?” interjected the professor. “How do you know? By any chance, do you happen to know the intricacies of your classmates on an intimate level, Ms. Lee?”

     “Well…no…” answered Young Lee, beginning to wilt in her seat and a quiver in her voice. “I’m just…well…I would assume…”

     “Never assume,” Professor Scarfe began. “Don’t panic either,” he continued with a splash of an encouraging tone. “Just re-think and re-phrase. You cannot assume anything, especially whether all of these individuals possess ethical behavior. They could all be immoral hedonists for all you know, for only they know where they were and what they did last night,” he concluded slyly, which of course, continued to keep the nervous Young Lee off balance and peppered the room with equally nervous laughter.

     “OK…well…we all have the capability of having ethical behavior,” she began again.

     “Some do. Some don’t. But better.”

     “Um…well…if we did all have the capacity for ethical behavior, are the ethics themselves concerned with why we think of things as being good or bad?”

     “Ah…”considered the professor. “Now, we find ourselves more into ethical theory. Or even, theories for that matter, as there are several. Or, to probe further, there are various ethical theories that are of a more descriptive quality as they solely describe people’s actions, be they ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ But, even that depends greatly upon a certain validity within those descriptive ethical theories because we need to understand if those descriptive theories do in fact correctly describe what people do and how we consider and identify those actions as being ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘right,’ or ‘wrong.’”

     By this very early stage in the course, all 20 students, already on edge for fear of being called upon, sat in collective confusion as they eyes blankly blinked like a group of cartoon mice. It was a look Professor Scarfe knew only too well…and secretly enjoyed, for that matter. Suppressing a light chuckle, he continued.

     “When you stop your car at a stoplight, is that action necessarily ‘ethical’?? Is it necessarily ‘good’ or ‘right’?”

     “It is if you don’t want to get in an accident,” offered one particularly brave soul.

     “Yes, an accident would certainly be a consequence of that action but that doesn’t equate itself with being ‘good’ or ‘right.’ Especially if you happened to be a nihilist. What about theft? Is that inherently ‘wrong’? What of something like rape? How could you argue ethically and prove the inherent wrongness of that act?”

     “How couldn’t you?!” announced a sharp voice that sliced through the air. Rhett’s eyes shifted towards the direction of the comment and was most intrigued to find that the girl from Bascom Hill was its owner.

     “Hmmm…” muttered Professor Scarfe. “Ms….your last name please?”

     “Lessing.”

     “Yes, the very impulsive Ms. Lessing,” he began. “Yet, this is precisely the core of what we will all be examining this summer. We will be exploring a variety of subject matter of which all of us have formulated, at least, some opinions—some of which, like what I am gathering from Ms. Lessing’s comment, will be passionate and even specifically individualistic, and perhaps even traumatic. My contract that I offer and extend to each of you is to ensure that all topics will be handled with respect and sensitivity. If any of you are at any time still feeling uncomfortable with the topics discussed, or how I am presenting them, I openly invite you to make an appointment to voice your concerns with me during my office hours.

     “Yes, this class will be challenging and possibly upsetting but ultimately, it should prove to be enlightening, because this is not a course about opinions. This is a course about ethics and what we can prove or disprove based upon philosophical theories as well as the principles of the philosophers themselves. So, Ms. Lessing, going back to your statement, I ask you your own question. How could you prove the inherent wrong-ness of rape?”

     “What kind of a…,” began the identified Ms. Lessing with visible anger rising from her face and voice.

     “Remember, I am not asking for your opinion. I’m asking you to prove your viewpoint ethically,” interjected Professor Scarfe.

     “Well…it’s…,” she began, her palpable fury becoming rapidly flustered. “’Ethically’?! But…this is rape!”

     “Yes.”

     “In this country alone, a woman is…”

     “You are about to quote a statistic. That has nothing to do with ethics. Mathematics are not a part of this course.”

     “It feels as if they are since you want me to prove something through some formula, as if that is going to present a definitive answer, like some Math problem! I mean…really…ethics regarding rape?! Isn’t it obvious?!”

     “Morally, yes and I feel that none of your classmates would argue with you on a moral level. But, again, and as the title of this class states, we are dealing with ethics and the fundamentals of ethics and ethics alone. So far, each one of you has happened to define ethics by in fact defining the nature of morals, for morals strictly adhere to the individual whereas ethics strictly adhere to an external source like the rules of the workplace or codes within various religions or the rules of society itself. We are going to spend this summer exploring issues through ethical theories, principles and philosophers and I would urge all of you to begin to understand that if you are going to try and prove the inherent rightness or wrongness of anything, including rape, a petulant ‘Rape is wrong because it is!’ or ‘Rape is wrong because I say so!’ will not get you out of the starting gate,” said the professor coldly, which made the girl from  Bascom Hill bristle but yet, she remained quiet. “What will, however, get you out of the starting gate is what we are all here this summer to learn.”

     Rhett Brazelton, with his pulse racing due to the intensity of his class’ first few minutes (was that really all of the time that has passed?), internally sighed to himself. Finally taking his eyes away from her, Rhett internally sighed to himself for a second time, mentally turning the name “Ms. Lessing” over and over again. She was definitely real. 

     She had a name.
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