A short story about life at a small Midwestern college: The JokeOct 07 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line A short story that pokes fun at the "political correctness" that plagues some college campuses. The joke itself is one I heard in Montana several years ago.
Roger was drunk and looking for a fight. The Broncos had lost and were out of the playoffs, and another football season was wasted. The pitcher he and John had shared was empty as well, adding to his misery. He ordered two shots of tequila. "I think your latest composition sucks," he said to John. "I think there's always the baseball season," replied John. "Relax." Roger hated being so transparent. "To how much I hate life," he said holding up his glass. "Hear hear," said John. They drank their shots and looked at each other, wobbly, squinting, and smiling. Roger tried to ignore the replay of Elway being sacked on the big screen. "Let's go to the party," said John. "Like this?" Yeah! Hey, your chairman said..." "...that I'd have an ice cube's chance in hell of getting tenure if I didn't start shmoozing. I hate shmoozing." "Come on, let's shmooze!" "With a bunch of nerds," said Roger. "And I don't want to hear another goddam word about literature being a social construction, or the sociologists arguing over who's the most Marxist, or how the scientific method is a sexist tool of the patriarchy, or..." ---------- The cold midwestern air felt good as they walked to the party. For the entire semester, Roger had shuffled home late from his office after writing lectures to the monotone buzzing of his overhead lights, only to see his students hanging off of porches, abusing every substance conceivable instead of reading his assignments. He was glad to be sauced. "Academia in Nebraska," he mumbled to no one in particular. Danielle greeted John and Roger with warm hugs. "Everybody's drunk," she said. And then, after a pause, "You'll fit right in." "Roger said my latest composition sucks," slurred John. "He told me yesterday he thought it was beautiful," said Danielle. "And I think it is too. What, did the Broncos lose?" John smiled and Roger just shook his head and looked at his feet sheepishly. It was hard to feel too bad when Danielle was around. "Come on, join the crowd," she said, opening the door wider. After a few obligatory hellos, they settled into a group where a joke was being told. Danielle, an Assistant Professor of Mathematics, had her arms around John's and Roger's shoulders and was swinging her feet in the air. The punch line came, which Danielle, John and Roger missed, but it was evident that the butt of the joke was rural white males, and especially those who drank beer and liked sports. The group threw its collective head back and laughed the knowing kind of laugh that characterizes academics making fun of those who are less sophisticated than they are. The dancing trio chuckled slightly as a separate, smaller collective. Roger thrust the canned Budweiser which had found its way into his free hand forward and said: "As our joke begins, the three missionaries are tied to stakes and the tribal chieftain is holding the flaming torch which might ignite the substantial pile of wood stacked beneath them. He turns to the first missionary and says, 'So, white man from the north, attempting to expand the reign of your religion which is superfluous to our culture, you have two choices: death, or chi chi.' (knowing chuckles all around and a squeeze from Danielle) "'Well,' says the hapless first missionary, 'I do not know what chi chi is, but I do not wish to die. I'll take chi chi.' (open laughter from some and a pat on the shoulder from John) "So the chieftain says, 'Very well, then, chi chi!' and raises his torch-bearing arm, at which time 50 of the burliest and fiercest warriors emerge from the bushes, take down the first missionary, and abuse him horribly in every orifice conceivable.'" (some wrinkled noses and much open laughter; Danielle gives Roger an affectionate hip check and says "yuk!") Roger had them on a roll. Even old Smith from Anthropology was laughing heartily, if a bit wheezingly. Roger kept his beer thrust forward to heighten the tension and prepare them for the continuation of the joke. He was proud of himself for choosing a joke that was both politically correct (anti-Euro-centric) yet obnoxious enough to match his foul mood. The thought of Elway being sacked made a fleeting attempt to enter his mind, be he wouldn't let it. Only one thing was slightly askew: As he was about to discuss the fate of the second missionary, he noticed Ellen Spaeth, a new Assistant Professor of English, glaring at him. It was a glare with which he was familiar, as Ellen Spaeth always seemed to glare at him, but in this moment it appeared particularly venomous. His fire dampened ever so slightly, he continued: "So the chieftain looks the second missionary up and down and says, 'So, second missionary from the north, pawn of western imperialism and insult to our collective cultural consciousness, you have two choices: death, or chi chi.'" (more chuckles, some giggles, listeners straining forward) The second missionary, choosing chi chi, met with the same sorry fate as the first, though Roger upped the ante to 100 fierce warriors and embellished the joke with the creation, by said warriors, of some orifices that had not previously been there. The laughter was intense enough to reassure Roger that things were still going well, precisely as they had been when he first heard David Bromberg tell the joke at one of the best concerts he had ever seen in his life. Hey, maybe John was right! These nerdy professors could be fun. He'd have to get out and shmooze more often. He was about to launch into the fate of the third missionary when Ellen Spaeth burst forward into the center of the circle like some small bespectacled bull breaking out of its pen into a rodeo arena. She said, "I will not tolerate any more of this racist, sexist crap. A joke which mentions, or even implies, rape in any form, is entirely unacceptable to women, and I find your characterization of this chief and the African tribesmen--" "They're South American, I think," bleated Roger. "Whatever--I find that equally reprehensible." John stared at her in amazement. Danielle stared at her in horror. The image of Elway being sacked flooded Roger's mind as he stood, dumbstruck: the blind-side hit, the ball nearly jarred free, helmet and face-guard ground into the turf, knee bent back awkwardly. As he stared into Ellen Spaeth's face, he realized that she reminded him--no, she was the reincarnation--of Denise Bostock, the dorky girl who had sat in front of him in 6th grade math class. He remembered her hand shooting up to tell each time he and Alan were talking in class or playing with Alan's slide-rule. He also remembered that he had slowly learned to torment her, first by keeping his returned tests, which were always A's, face up on his desk, such that she, a B student, could see them; and later, and more cruelly, by emitting, in her direction, and always at crucial points in difficult lectures, what were then called "SBDs," the most horrible of silent farts. Her monologue continued, but he didn't hear a word, his focus shifting from his reminisce to the realization that she was metamorphosizing, before his eyes, into a large and ferocious Stratfordshire Terrier bearing the face of Mr. Peabody's boy, Sherman. How in hell did Elway get up after that hit? Roger blinked and took a long drink of his beer. When he said, "and to the third missionary, the chieftain said..." Ellen Spaeth stormed out of the room, dragging her husband, who looked like a shorter, skinnier version of herself, along behind her. ---------- Long before the academic senate overturned Ellen Spaeth's sexual harassment allegation against Roger; long before Roger and Danielle were married, with John as best man; long before Roger won a national award for research in Physics but was denied tenure in the same year that Ellen Spaeth received hers; and an eternity before the Broncos ever won a Super Bowl, Roger delivered the punch-line: "'Ah, death: A noble choice. But first, chi chi!'" Note: Yup, sports fans, this was written before the Denver Broncos started winning Superbowls.  |
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