U & Meaniversity
Bruce was one of those troubled gifted kids who’d read whole swaths of every library he came across, hated busywork, tested off the charts and got into college by the skin of his mediocre grades. This is why he applies for the job at Disability Services, taking class notes for people, assisting others whose talents don’t fit easily into the system.
~
“Thing is, his notes are shitty.”
“Nat, language.” Crystal chides and throws the dart in her hand like a glance. "Little pitchers have big ears.“
“That’s for children.” Natasha swirls the dregs in her bottle of beer, her writing forearm encased in a cage inexorably stretching the shattered bones back to their previous length. "Wrong kind of pitcher.“
Crystal stares forlornly at the bartender. "Also, I have no pitcher.”
“Because you’re cheap.” As a non-trad student on the GI bill, Phyllis looks like a CPA and brings the calm soothing energy of actual adulthood. Also, she has a car, which is better provisioned than a Conestoga wagon. "Which is why you did shots out of my trunk instead.“
"I wouldn’t turn down a chaser.”
“I’ll chase you later.” Phyllis slides her glass over in appeasement.
“Why do you need a note taker again?” Crystal was fine arts, her current project blacksmithing a bunch of strange arrows for a traveling exhibit. She didn’t really get traditional pedagogy. "Why can’t you just go to lecture for the quiz questions and then download the recordings after?“
"Because Abnormal Psychology is a 500 level class, not a cattle corral freshman pre-req. Even if I resort to typing, I can’t take notes and keep up with the discussion, live or recorded.”
Phyll turns to Natasha. "So, shitty in the sense of being messy? Or cack-handed? Or lacking in substantive value?“
"All over the place–references to seemingly unrelated subjects, Venn diagrams, whole paragraphs written perpendicular, his outline convention is Byzantine.” Natasha tucks her caged arm close, leaning in to make her point. "His notes from the lecture on the cycle of violence featured the formula for calculating specific heat and several stick figure cartoons.“
~
"I offered to use the tablet instead, but she went off on how typing isn’t processed through memory the same way.” Bruce shrugs. "So I’ve been writing them out like she asked.“
"Well you should know Ms. Romanoff inquired about reassignment last week,” Nicola shakes her head, reassuring, “but she declined to fill out the form. Said she’d make lemonade out of it.”
Bruce wonders if this was before or after the argument that got them kicked out of the grad library, her defending Jungian fairytales about the shadow psyche with a calm gullibility he’s now realizing was designed to piss him off, break him out of his quiet professionalism, get him ranting.
He’s seen her in class discussions, it’s how she engages with challenging material.
~
“I mean, there’s a lot of processing and decision-making that occurs outside of consciousness, really vital stuff with huge ramifications, but calling it a monster of the dark is a childish and less than useful concept–”
Crystal gestures with the fletching end of the dart, "So you were trolling him.“
"Nat prefers to call it playing Devil’s Advocate.” Phyll gently smirks at the implausibly innocent look this gets her. "It elides the fact that what she’s playing with are people.“
"I’m here to grow and stretch as a person.” Natasha squares her shoulders. "He’s more interesting than the notes are bad.“
~
Bruce lets his freak flag fly after that, every cross-referenced concept, every impulsive comment, not just treating her notes as his own, but laying out the balance of what he would be thinking but not putting on paper for himself.
She makes an astute point about locus of control and the professor nods, while Bruce quietly fills in the dialogue balloons between a cheerful hammer and a glum nail and thinks, two can play.