Chapter Two
Culhwch
tells Helen about Forced Electives
“…unconscious
patterns of racism have influenced many of your lives.”
That
was the first statement, or fragment of a statement, that Culhwch
actually paid attention to. The two week’s of classes were a
warmed-over version of the following:
Slave
Trade
Slavery
Expansion to the West
The
Civil War
Share-Cropping
Race
in the early 20th Century
The
Civil Rights Era
The
early post-Civil Rights Era
The
mid-post-Civil Rights Era
The
late post-Civil Rights Era
Rodney
King & LA 1992
OJ
& the
Race
in the Election of 1998
Race
Relations since Then.
Culhwch didn’t care about any of that. He cared
now that the class had entered into the thought-and-behavior-altering portion
of the syllabus.
“We
will focus on how to gather the tools to live in a multicultural
society. It can be hard to deal in a stressful time when race is
the focus of a problem. Most of the time it is unconscious, unspoken, and
not dealt with. You will learn how to recognize that race is a core cause
of problems.”
The
instructor had stopped talking, looking at the class staring right back. Culhwch sat in the middle, calculating the square footage
of the chalkboard behind the instructor. She noticed a lot of glazed
expressions. “It’s time for a personal out-reach and
discussion. The teaching assistant will pass out confidential forms for
you to fill out, and the results will be analyzed. Within a few minutes
after submitting the forms, pairs will be formed. Keep the tear-out
numbers from your forms. Your names will not be used, just
numbers.”
The
teaching assistant passed out the forms, and Culhwch
saw the first question:
How
often do you SAY the word “nigger”?
Below
were the standard “Almost always”, “Most of the time”,
and so forth down to—
There
was no “Never” choice. Culhwch
re-read the choices. Almost Always. Most of the time. Much of
the time. Some of the time. Occasionally. Sparingly.
Rarely. There was no Never. He frowned, and raised his hand.
The
teacher took notice. “Yes?”
“There’s
a problem with the test.”
“Oh?
Where?”
“First
question.”
The
teacher looked down at her copy. “Where’s the error? I
don’t see it.”
“They
left off Never.”
“Huh?”
“I
can’t select Never.”
“Oh.
Select Rarely.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because
I have never used the word ‘nigger’ in casual conversation.”
“You
just did.”
“The
question isn’t asking if I’ve mentioned the specific word.
It’s asking if I say it in its context. The implication is that I
used ‘nigger’ to describe someone, or to label someone. The
question’s intent doesn’t include using the ‘nigger’
when talking about the word, or using it as a comparison when discussing
similar words like ‘wetback’ or ‘dike’.”
“Just
use Rarely.”
“Didn’t
you hear me? I don’t say that word.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Why
don’t I believe you?”
“You
think everyone’s racist.”
The
class froze. The instructor stood up. “Excuse me?”
“Maybe
not you personally, but you do use this test, and thus condone it.”
“I’m
trying to bring out the potential in all of us—including you.”
“How
can you bring out potential via a test that doesn’t allow for an accurate
gauge of reality?”
Someone
in the class shouted, “Just answer the damn question!”
The
teacher looked nervous. “Listen, Mr.…” She looked
at the seating roster on her computer. She clicked something and joined
the thousands that butchered Culhwch Esau’s
name. “Mr. Cull-which Esoh.”
“Culhwch Esau.”
“Huh?”
“Keel-hookh Ays-ai. The ‘kh’ is the same as in Sebastian Bach.”
“May
I call you something else? Cullen?”
“No.”
The
instructor found herself challenged by this hard-ass. “No matter. Why won’t
you just select Rarely?”
“Because
the question doesn’t allow—”
A
student raised his voice. “Hey! My first language is Spanish. I
learned English three years ago. I have never said this word
either. I refuse to quote it.”
Another
student spoke up. “Yeah! What if ‘nigger’ is a
word that you learned about just today?”
The
teacher explained, “This word is used in common conversation. Even
someone whose language was something besides English would surely have an
appropriate translation.”
The
Spanish kid responded, “No. That would mean that ‘to
like’ and gustarse
mean the exact same thing. They don’t.”
The
class grew restless. The teacher played her trump card. “None
of you are here because this is an elective.”
The
class shut up. She continued, “All of you were required to take
this course. Your taking this course means that you’re accepting an
opportunity of self-discovery and reform, rather than being expelled with
Racial something being put your transcript. This course carries the same
weight as an elective, and employers think that it’s an elective.
Considers yourselves fortunate. Finish the test.”
Culhwch glared at the teacher, and focused himself on the
test. He answered them all Rarely.
The
teaching assistant picked them up, and feed them into a machine that looked
like a printer. He loaded the sheets into a slot that looked like where
one would place blank sheets of paper. The printer vibrated once the TA
left the sheets on the feeder. One by one, the machine sucked in the
papers, beeped, then discharged the papers into a different slot. It took
more than a few minutes. Culhwch stared at the
machine. It finally beeped several times, and printed off a new sheet of
paper. The TA picked it up, and read out the numbers.
Culhwch looked down at his number, and when it was called,
looked around for someone looking around for someone with Culhwch’s
number. After some trial and error, “Excuse me, are you number
908-275”, and apologies, the pairings had formed. The teacher
announced, “OK, for the rest of the session, about 25 minutes, discuss
with your pair your own feelings of racism.”
Culhwch stopped looking for his matching partner. He
sat in his seat, and then felt a shadow fall upon him. “Are you
086-362?”
He
turned in his seat, and saw a six-foot eight, four hundred pound mass whose
ancestors didn’t cross the
“We
need to talk.”
The
man stood there, waiting for Culhwch to do
something. Culhwch turned and sat facing
towards the man, but backwards in his chair. The man asked impatiently, “Aren’t you going to
stand?”
Culhwch stood up. The man sat in the desk behind Culhwch, chuckling. Culhwch
sat back down. For a while, they didn’t say anything to each
other. The man then asked, “Hey, what you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“No.
Really.”
“Really.
Nothing.”
The
man got out of the desk and crouched right in front of Culhwch’s
face. “Now,
what do you see?”
“Dilated
pupils.”
The
man laughed. “Dilated pupils!” He began to squawk in a
high-pitched voice, “Dilated pupils! Dilated pupils! Dilated pupils!
Dilated pupils! Dilated pupils!”
The
class started to look up at him, faces twisted. He kept squawking until the
teacher yelled. “What’s going on?”
The
man shrugged. Culhwch’s expression
– and his gaze – did not change the whole time. The teacher
walked straight to him. “What did you say to him?”
Culhwch raised his head towards the teacher.
“Dilated pupils.”
“Don’t
start with me! What happened, really!”
“We
met, he sat, he got up, he got in my face, asked what I saw, and I said
‘dilated pupils’.”
He
said it as if he was announcing the wind speed outside. The teacher did
not want to believe him. She spun on her heels and focused on the
man. “Well?”
“I
didn’t do anything wrong.”
She
looked down at her watch. “This session will resume next
week. In the meantime, reflect on how you can become a more sensitive
person. Thanks. Everyone can leave.”
Culhwch grabbed his backpack and joined the exodus from the
classroom. He didn’t see the man, or the teacher, or Helen until
she grabbed his arm. “Hey!”
He stopped and saw
Phil’s girlfriend, wearing a sweatshirt and some thick, cotton
pants. She wore rain boots, and walked in perhaps recently. He
cocked an eyebrow. “Hey.”
“What
was going on in there?”
“Do
you mean the loud noises?”
“I
guess.”
“Well…what
can be said…this guy kept shouting ‘dilated pupils’.”
“Oh,
wow. Why?”
He
shook his head. “I don’t know. He just went on and on
about it.”
“What
kind of class is this?”
“Forced
elective.”
“Forced?”
He
closed his eyes and nodded. She never saw him be so expressive. It was
like his facial muscles suddenly took on new life, with the shutting of his
eyelids and the tipping and lowering of his head. He didn’t look
bored, for the first time in her time that she knew him. She shook her
head.
He
glared. “You disagree.”
“No.
No! I don’t. I…I just don’t know what a forced
elective is.”
“I
guess that in order for you to know it well, I’d have to tell you the
story.”
“What
story?”
“Let’s
find a place to sit, OK?”
“Sounds
good.”
They
left the crowd of students, to the main hall, which had grown sparser as
classes began. Culhwch didn’t like all
the little benches inside the tall, sloped hall. The walls sloped outward
as they rose in height, producing an inverse pyramidal void. It was
supposed to be atrium-like, but the ceiling was tiled, so it merely looked
filled with the light of fluorescence. He led Helen outside, to the south
parking garages. He stepped over the concrete wall, and helped her
over. They walked along the perimeter, until they were in a shady spot, away
from
“I
wanted to tell you in confidence.”
“Is
it something that I should know?”
“It
affects, or affected, both me and Phil.”
“My
Phil.”
He
looked ambivalent. “Phil Tybalt.”
Her
mouth opened. “Ah…uh…is this something illegal?”
“No.
Nobody’s going to jail, paying any fines, or doing community
service.”
“OK.
But you’re in forced elective. How did that happen?”
“Phil
and I were in the same Sociology class. A paper was assigned, asking that
we write about Affirmative Action.”
“The
laws here in
“Just
in general. So, Phil and I worked on it. We reviewed each other
paper’s, and generally cleared up each other’s idea.”
“But
Phil--”
“I
know. He’s very conservative. I knew where he came out on it,
and I agreed that his reasoning was consistent, if based incorrectly.
Whatever. It was his idea, and it was delivered coherently. Some
people would believe it, perhaps, and maybe they do. Again,
whatever. Point is, the instructor found out about our
collaboration. I don’t know how or why, but he accused us of collusion
by writing the same paper.”
“Huh?”
“Dumb,
right? His and mine approaches are nothing alike. We disagree on
the issue, but the instructor accused us anyway.”
“So,
then what?”
“We
went to the Department Head, with our papers. He said that he hadn’t
heard from this instructor about any collusion, and that clearly the two papers
were different. He set a meeting time for after Thanksgiving.”
“Why
wasn’t I told about this?”
“Busy.
Everyone was busy. I had a final project, Phil had his final project, you
yours, and so on. This was fairly minor, a hassle compared to my battles
with architecture. That’s why I didn’t tell you.
Phil? Dunno.”
Helen
shook her head. Culhwch knew she wasn’t
getting it. He continued, “It came down to an appropriateness
issue. That means, what was appropriate for students to write
about. Some committee set up by the
“Were
you…interrogated?”
“No.
Worse. Phil and I didn’t find out about the committee until a week
before school finals. We were called in each to our own respective
departments, and told that we each had ‘personality issues’.”
“Huh?
Issues? How did Phil take it?”
“He
apologized. Said that he wanted to see what would happen if he wrote a
paper that was purposely controversial. He said that he should have known
not to ‘go stirring up ant hills’ and stuff like that.”
“Sounds
like Phil. You?” Helen’s face winced at the thought of
what Culhwch would do.
“I
told them it was my paper, and if they thought I had some sort of disorder,
disease, or faulty trait, let a doctor examine me.”
“Err…”
“That’s
what they said. ‘Err’. They said that it was school
policy to try an internal review first.”
“Sounds
long.”
“Took
one meeting. I was there, with a police officer, a counselor, someone
from human
affairs, someone from diversity affairs, the instructor, the head of Sociology,
the head of Architecture, my Design instructor, a psychiatric student, and a
city council member.”
“What?
Why…city council member?”
“From
someone else’s district, too.”
Helen
held her head. “Cut to the chase. They said…”
“I
need to accept my racial identity.”
“What?”
“Racial
identity.”
“And
that is…?”
“‘Other’.
I asked them what happens when you combine a Welsh person with an
Apache.”
“You
get you.”
“Thanks.
They said that I should be proud of my multiracial identity, of my so-called
Celtic background and Apache ‘soul’.”
“Hmm.”
“I
told them that I was proud of what I accomplished, and nothing else.”
Helen
stopped listening. “Culhwch. It
sucks that you’re in a remedial whatever thing, but…”
“But…?”
“I
think you don’t have much of an identity.”
“Really.”
“Yes.
You work. That’s it. You have some friends, and we do things
together, but you never initiate gatherings, you never call first…why
you’re with us is beyond me…but why don’t you reach out
beyond school and work?”
“If
you don’t know why I’m with you, why did you speak to me?”
Helen
looked away, at the wall to her right.
Culhwch kept talking like she was still looking at
him. “Why were you waiting for me?”
She
didn’t change her gaze. “I’m worried about Phil.”
He
said nothing, and neither did she. After a few minutes, he looked back
from where they had walked. “I need to leave. Is there
anything that you still wanna say?”
She lowered her head, trying
not to look at the ground. Her eyes closed. “No.”
It was a weak, defeated No.
Culhwch walked back to his world.
It
was late, after the talk shows ended, that Phil walked into Culhwch’s
studio. Phil felt like the architecture wing, its classrooms, and its
hallways, were like a different country. The hallway entrance was right
of the Student Division of Religious and Spiritual Affairs entrance, and
partially hidden. Once inside, Phil felt like he had stepped through a
porthole like walking into Narnia.
The
hallway was ten feet tall, twelve feet wide, and filled with articles of both
hard and half-assed work. Drawings, pencil, pen, painted, printed, and
graffiti, were stapled to the walls, and on top of each other.
Teacher’s grades and comments in tight, neat red pencil.
Student’s snappy and jealous comments scrawled with spray paint.
Models were mounted to walls, thrown onto the floor, and glued, stapled,
strung, hung, and magically affixed to the ceiling. Cubes and triangles
and spheres, made of wood. Heaps of metal welded together to represent
rap songs played backwards. Models of school additions, train stations,
and lamps, made of a combination of wood, types of paper that Phil never knew
existed, and plastic. The hallway would start off clean. By the
time Phil passed first year’s door, the floor had three inches of trash.
By second year, the trash up to Phil’s knees. By third year, the
ceiling’s height had dropped from ten feet to eight. The plaster
and glass lamps had formed a new ceiling texture. By fourth year, the
walls were narrowing down to a width of maybe five feet. To get to Culhwch’s fifth year door, Phil had to almost climb
through a rabbit’s hole of Models of Architectural Education Past.
The
first year studio had a sound such that you heard the studio’s existence
before you saw the Student Division of Religious and Spiritual Affairs
entrance. Screaming, music, games, baseball being played with study
models. Second year had different screaming. It came with crying,
calls to parents and loved-ones that so-and-so would be trapped in architecture
Forever, and would still only get a C. Third year had yet another kind of
screaming, too, of confrontation. Half the students were drunk, and the
other half high, though they were getting their models finished faster with
higher quality, too. The confrontation arose, fresh with knowledge of
structure and systems, the students fought for technical dominance. This
didn’t affect their models’ craftsmanship or the amount of time it
took to finish them. The fourth year was quiet. The air tense with extreme
focus. One time, Phil popped his head into see if anyone was actually in
there. He broke the Barrier of Perfection. An Intruder of
Incompetence had accidentally ruined the concentration of dozens of students at
their workstations and tables. He saw angry stares coming back at
him. Fifth year was also quiet, with slight clicking of mice, and knives
cutting materials. By fifth year, Phil thought, they must have calmed
down.
He
entered into a room fifty feet wide and three hundred feet long, with
sixty-foot ceilings. There weren’t many people in the studio, only
ten this semester. The room had the ambiance of being a warehouse, with
exposed trusses, dangling fluorescent fixtures, ventilation tubes, and
wires. The floor was concrete, stained over the years. The concrete
walls had some mild, tasteful graffiti.
Phil
remembered where Culhwch’s table was.
Since the vast room contained so few students, Culhwch
had a whole section to himself. He couldn’t help but admire the
edifices that the students were designing: seventy-thousand square foot
libraries on a city lot fifteen feet wide, towns—whole towns—on the
banks of the Brazos River, and a performing arts complex on a parking lot in
downtown San Antonio. The dreams of large construction elated Phil, who
thought that these students were the most blessed for choosing their majors.
He
stopped when he saw it. It wasn’t a project nor a model, but an
actual damn HOUSE. Shit. How the hell did a HOUSE get into this
room! It was a fucking BUNGALOW like something one would see on the west
side, near
It
was real. Real wood, with real brick. It had the gabled roof facing
outward. A shed dormer window. Tapered wood porch posts. A
tie beam. Knee braces between the tie beam and the collar beam, all above
the fucking porch. It even had little windows flanking the CHIMNEY.
A CHIMNEY! A metal, flexible tube ran from the top of the chimney to a
window opening to the outside.
Phil
knew this had to be a dream. This wasn’t real. He
rang…the doorbell. It came with a doorbell. The chime from
Big Ben played. An old lady with an English accent yelled, “Come innn!”
Phil
turned the door knob, and pushed the door open. Dark. Black.
It was the Void. Phil knew it. He had died. Somewhere in the
architecture hallway, he had cut himself on a piece of metal, bled to death,
and now Phil was entering the afterlife. Via a bungalow. Fuck.
He
closed his eyes, stepped in. The door shut. He opened his eyes.
It was still dark. He almost started to cry, but then he heard
music. It was angelic or Soviet, and…it had a beat? He heard
synthesizers. What kind of death was this? He recognized the
music. It was an actual song. Michael Jackson’s
“Thriller”. Phil’s face went red, if anyone could have
seen it. He screamed, “CULLEN!”
The
music stopped. Game show music played. To his left, the number 1
glowed. In front, the number 2, and to his right, the number 3. An
announcer blared, “Come on down! You’re the next person to
enter Culhwch’s house! As you can see,
you have doors three! Only one will take YOU to the person you’ve
been trying to see!”
The
music stopped. Phil looked at all three doors. The doorknobs lit
up, too. He realized that this was probably an entrance room, and that Culhwch had built doors on three sides. He tried door
number one. Upon passing through, he walked into a chair. This
little room was just wide enough for Phil to climb over the chair. He sat
down. A bright light filled the room, and some people started singing,
“Smile! Darn ya, smile!…”
Phil’s
eyes adjusted to see cartoons and a man wearing bad 1940s clothing, looking
annoyed. The man was in a car and…was this Who Framed Roger Rabbit? His eyes focused to confirm that,
yes, it was. Phil shook his head. When the singing finished, the
projector shut off, and the room became dark again. Phil didn’t
want to think about anything.
Something
clicked. He stood up. A breeze came from in front. He felt
the wind blowing, with his hands, and followed it to the left corner. He
wedged his fingers into a gap, and pulled. The front wall slid to his
right, and revealed another very small room. A neon arrow lit the room,
pointing to a door. The arrow had the neon tubing, inside of it,
indicating the words TRY AGAIN.
He
walked to the door, and opened it. He saw the porch and the studio, and
exited the building. The door behind him came to a close. He turned
around and saw that it was a well-concealed door that looked like it was part
of the exterior wall. Phil accepted the fact that he wasn’t dead,
and that Culhwch had forced him into a game in order
to find him.
He
re-entered the entry room, waited for the game show scenario to come about, and
chose door number two. This door opened to some steps. A
cellar. Culhwch’s house came with a
cellar. Phil tried to not think of the reasoning. He walked down
the steps, and saw that a very long corridor stretched before him. He
began walking, and noticed that it appeared to be a service basement of some
kind. Wires, tubes, pipes, and exposed concrete structural supports were
all that adorned an otherwise badly lit room. Phil kept walking, and
realized that the nausea and the lighting were similar to what he experienced in
parking lots late at night. The sort of sickly yellow-white that made all
the cars turn a shade of white, black or gray.
He
decided that he didn’t like the silence. He began to run, and did
so for a few dozen yards before he came across another door. Phil stopped
caring and just pushed it open. It led up. Walking up, he noticed
that this place was familiar. The concrete walls had a similar
appearance. The steps felt the same. He saw an opening to his
right, from the stair well, and saw a parking garage.
Culhwch’s house was accessible from a parking
garage. Very funny. Phil turned around, and walked back down the
steps. He found that the door was the kind that could only be opened from
the inside. Damn.
Thirty
minutes of wandering passed before Phil found the architecture hallway
again. He stormed through the hallway, into the fifth year studio,
straight to the bungalow, yanked the front door open, and didn’t hesitate
to just go ahead and turn the door knob to door number three.
The
adrenaline rush hadn’t settled down enough yet to realize that this room
was in fact very ordinary. It had a couch, bookcases, books in the
bookcases, a coffee table, an electronics cabinet with all the usual devices,
and some paintings on the wall. The living room was an actual room.
Doors separated it from the other rooms. He walked across the living
room, noticing that it had a carpet. He opened the first door on the
right to find Culhwch working on model that occupied
an entire dining room table. Phil could see a modest kitchen in the
adjacent room, to the left. Phil waited for Culhwch
to say something. Culhwch didn’t even
seem to notice him. Phil coughed, in such a way to modestly bring
attention to himself. Not successful. Phil didn’t want to
speak first, but the weirdness had to end now. “Don’t get
many guests, do you?”
Culhwch paused. He held a very thin piece of basswood
in some tweezers in one hand, his other gently holding another piece of the
model in the place. He looked up, didn’t really make eye contact
with Phil, and replied, “No.”
One
word. One syllable. The sound that was the culmination of
forty-five minutes of looniness was expressed as
“no”. Phil looked down at the model, studied its structure
for a moment, then looked back at him. “Why did you tell
Helen? About what happened last Thanksgiving.”
Culhwch hadn’t moved. “She asked.”
Was
this guy channeling Hannibal Lecter? Phil kept
at it. “Just like that? She just asked?”
“Yes.”
“Why
did you tell her?”
“Because
it wasn’t a secret. Was it?”
Phil
shook his head, and then held his forehead. “No. I suppose
not. But now she’s on my case about it.”
“All
right.”
“Now
she doesn’t trust me.”
“OK.”
“She’s
gone all bitchy on my case, lecturing about how I should tell her about things
that trouble me, because it’s good for the relationship, and all that
stuff.”
“Wow.”
“She
doesn’t realize that I don’t want to bring troubles home from
school!”
“Really.”
“But
wait! She has a plan!”
Culhwch actually appeared slightly interested. Phil
went on. “She thinks that it is necessary, Moral, that the teacher
be exposed, to have his name dragged through the mud.”
“Sounds
exciting.”
“Oh!
And she plans to do this with MY help.”
“All
right.”
“Culhwch…”
“Yes?”
“You’re
a part of this.”
“No.
I’m not Helen’s boyfriend.”
“You
told her! You share the guilt!”
“I
don’t feel guilty about telling her, or about not telling her
either.”
Phil
stepped back. “What?”
“You
heard me.”
Culhwch wasn’t being mean, but Phil couldn’t
stop from getting angry. “You think I feel guilty because I
didn’t tell her!”
“No.”
“So,
what?”
“I
don’t think that you feel guilty.”
“You
just said that.”
“I
was just talking, Phil. Saying something true. I’ve always
done that.”
“You
could use more tact!”
“Tact?
You’re the one yelling at me.”
“Because
I’m fucking pissed!”
“At
me? Or at Helen?”
Phil
wanted to sit down. He felt as if Culhwch had
dumped a bucket of cold water on him, but didn’t realize that he had
bucket of anything in his hands in the first place. “Is there
someplace I can sit?”
“There
are chairs. Look. In the corner.”
Culhwch pointed to a stack of dining chairs that matched
the table. Phil walked to the group, pulled out one, and sat it on the
floor. He relaxed when he sat down. He hadn’t been fully
conscious of all the stress since the Thanksgiving incident. Culhwch resumed working on his model. Phil felt
himself getting sleepy. “Culhwch.
Are you any good at graphic design?”
“Isn’t
that Nell’s major?”
“I’m
here already, and asking you now.”
“What
do you want done?”
“A
newspaper.”
Culhwch stopped, and actually looked interested.
“You’re doing a newspaper?”
Phil nodded.
“Under the order of Helen. I need approval from the department, but
it’s not like the machines are being used by anyone else.”
“What
kind of equipment do you got?”
“I
can show you tomorrow.”
“Great.
What time?”
“How
about I drop by here. Are you here most of the time?”
“Yes.
All day, most days.”
“Good.”