"The United Way", a story by Alexis Levitin

                       
                                                                                                      

It was a lovely town, picture perfect. The campus climbed a steep hill and the town nestled below it, with its spired churches and stolid banks. The only intrusion upon middle American propriety was a small Chinese restaurant that had somehow established itself on Main Street.

The college had been founded by well-meaning Baptists early in the 19th century. Their primary focus had been literature and theology. Even today, almost two centuries later, the Dean of Chapel was an important figure on the hill. In fact, it was he who organized the welcoming party for incoming faculty, graciously inviting them to his spacious, yet modest Victorian mansion.

Steinitz was charmed by the campus, by the town, by the rolling hills and the extended woodlands owned by the college. He was also charmed by the reception at the stately home of the Dean of Chapel. Everyone was amiable and it seemed a happy mix of newcomers and old-timers, of men and women, of scholars and artists. There was a handsome French professor who, as a young man, had been a translator at the Nuremberg Trials. There was a mustachioed painter who, Steinitz later concluded, had he been less comfortably ensconced in this sweet midwestern nest, might easily have broken into the limelight on either coast. His large, wild panels were full of a garish energy that could have seduced high rollers in Las Vegas, nouveaux riches film stars in Hollywood. His quiet, firmly confident interiors and still-lifes could have earned him a modest place in the rising Soho art scene. But he seemed content to stay where he was, comforted by his slender, long-haired wife and his accumulating congregation of canvases. There was an out-going philosopher from Montreal, whose claim to fame was a perfect imitation of a Quebecois radio announcer at a hockey game. There was a red-headed fellow philosopher with a predatory look and an eye for the women. There was a large Italian conductor and a small Italian saxophone player. There was a Spanish professor who had fled Castro and who spoke English, after twenty years in the States, as if he were at home in Cuba. All in all, a charming group of people in a blessedly tranquil little place in the Midwest.

Steinitz liked his colleagues in the English Department, and he liked his courses. But best of all, he liked the extensive woodlands that belonged to the college, and it was there that he ran his five miles every afternoon, at least before winter snow and ice settled in. It was during one of those autumn afternoon runs, just before dusk, that something quite extraordinary happened, something most unexpected anywhere, and certainly shocking for a patch of rural, domesticated forest in Ohio. He had already cut through the narrow strip of trees between his house and the open countryside, had crossed the county road, and was heading up the gentle hill towards the deep woods. But before he got there, he had to traverse a wide field of wilted grass. As he entered the field, he noticed that a unicorn was standing in the far corner. It wasn’t enormous, it wasn’t heraldic, and it wasn’t golden. It was just a small, white unicorn, almost inconspicuous, one might say. He was utterly astonished, but, mindful of his training regime, he just kept running. The unicorn watched him until he disappeared in the woods. When he circled back to the field twenty minutes later, the unicorn, of course, was gone. He finished his run, slumped on his front stoop for a few minutes to gather his breath, then went inside and took a shower. Once he was clean and had dried off, he went straight to the phone. He was relieved, in a way, that he was single. He wouldn’t have to discuss what he had seen with a doubtful and ironic spouse. He would call a specialist and see what he had to say. So, he called his only contact in the Biology Department.

“Joe,” he said, “this is Steinitz. Hope I’m not interrupting dinner? It’s OK? Good. Listen, you’re not going to believe this. But tell me, have there been any unicorn sightings around here? No, I’m not pulling your leg, I’m just asking.”

 Then he told Joe what he had seen. Joe at first chuckled and asked if he was pulling a Thurber on him. Steinitz said of course not, he was serious. Joe didn’t know what to say and mumbled something about a possible goat, a possible goat who had lost one of his horns. Steinitz, however, was not placated. He knew what he had seen. When he insisted, Joe suggested he call the Office of Conservation the following morning. Steinitz excused himself for being such a bother, acknowledged that his sighting was strange, protested his sanity, and thanked Joe for his advice. He worked his way through a macaroni and cheese pre-packaged dinner, but he tasted nothing and only saw a unicorn placidly chewing its cud in a yellow autumn field.

The next morning, discovering there was no functioning Office of Conservation, he tried the Department of Natural Resources in Columbus. A pleasant operator took his call and asked to whom he would like to be transferred. He wasn’t sure what to say.

“Is there a biologist on staff,” he inquired.

“Yes, she said, “I will transfer you to Bill Robertson.”

And then a deep voice came over the wire, the kind that conjures forth instant confidence.

“Bill Robertson here,” it said. The biologist could have been a basso in grand opera.

Steinitz, feeling a bit foolish, gave his credentials, to confirm his reliability as a functioning member of the orderly middle-class within the Ohio biome.

“This is going to sound strange, Mr. Robertson,” he began, “but please don’t hang up on me. It’s just a question I have, that’s all. This isn’t a crank call.”

“Don’t worry about it,” came the deeply resonant voice. “I’ve heard it all, ha ha.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that, because this is a pretty strange question.” He hesitated but had to go on. “Tell me, has anyone ever reported a unicorn sighting to your office?”

There was a long pause at the other end, as Robertson thought things over.  He could imagine him sucking on his pipe and stroking his chin.

“Well, Prof. Steinitz,” he finally said, in his sonorous voice, “in truth we have never received such a report. Why would you ask, if you don’t mind,” he added, with a tone half quizzical, half threatening.

Steinitz then told him of the close encounter in the field of wilting grasses beside the college woodland in the peaceful, comforting countryside of domesticated Ohio. Robertson listened, and again there was a long silence.

“I don’t consider this a crank call,” he finally said, “but I don’t know what to tell you Prof. Steinitz. The unicorn, as we both know, is not merely extinct, it never existed.”

After a short pause of his own, Steinitz replied: “Of course, not, Mr. Robertson. I’m not crazy and I’m not drunk. I just felt I had to check with someone who is, so to speak, in charge. An authority, if you know what I mean. I saw what I saw, but I have no explanation. That’s why I called you.”  There was another long silence. Finally, the richly resonant voice of the tolerant biologist of the department of natural resources came back on the line:

“So, Prof. Steinitz, I really don’t know what to tell you. Might you have mistaken a goat for a unicorn in the gathering dusk? You know, maybe it was a goat with just one horn. Could that be it?” he said, a hopeful lilt to his voice.

“I guess so,” said Steinitz. “Thanks for your patience, Mr. Robertson. I’m sorry I bothered you.” “Not at all,” came the deeply reassuring voice once again. “Goodbye, Prof. Steinitz, and don’t hesitate to call if another unicorn shows up. Have a nice day, Prof. Steinitz.” And that was that. A dead-end, but not surprising. In any case, Steinitz was relieved somehow to encounter that gentle touch of irony here in Ohio.

Steinitz was a specialist in Melville. In truth, he was obsessed with Moby Dick. He had submitted a paper to the PMLA entitled: “Transgressive Demagoguery: Ahab in the Age of Democracy.” He wondered if they would accept an essay without the word hermeneutics in its title. He felt pretty good about his thesis, his argument that in order to challenge God, Ahab had built up a multicultural base of supporters drawn from the world, just as America’s democratic strength was founded upon an influx of spirit from all peoples of the world. Ahab had recruited Persian fire worshippers, ordinary Portuguese seamen, a cannibal South Pacific islander with filed fangs, a stalwart New Englander malleable to his will, and even a small African cabin boy, essential somehow to his well-being. He had assembled them and harangued them and made them his own. And armed with that plurality, that diversity, that inclusiveness, he had dared to mount upon the very fervor he had stoked and defy the Lord himself. It was a great pity, Steinitz felt, that students nowadays could not be counted on to finish that great book. They sighed and moaned and complained that with four other courses, they simply didn’t have the time to read it. One popular frat boy, often seen cruising the campus in his BMW convertible, had commented, to the admiration of his classmates: “What a great book, what a great book! ‘Call me Ishmael.’! Like wow, is that the greatest first line ever, or what?” Armed with such enthusiasm, the young fellow had felt no need to read any further.

And yet Steinitz enjoyed his classes. Even if all the students were not quite on board, Melville himself always was. And so, in that gentle rural landscape of rolling hills and shady groves, with mad Ahab flashing back the lightning of a greater power, Steinitz felt he had the best of both worlds. But he could never decide where the unicorn fit in.

After five very pleasant years, the college was forced to let him go. They had been honest from the beginning, explaining that he would have no chance for tenure because recent governmental decrees required that they create a better balance of men and women in the department, or else risk lose significant funding. In fact, at the time of Steinitz’s arrival the department was imbalanced to the extreme: fifteen men and one elderly woman soon to retire. Clearly something was amiss and had to be rectified. And so he taught well, enjoyed his classes, was praised by his chairman, but watched them give tenure to four women in a row, while apologetically keeping him on a non-tenure track line. There was no subterfuge, no deceit, no malice whatsoever. It was a practical matter and at this juncture of academic history it was easy to read the writing on the wall. And so, with some regret but no bitterness, after five happy years, Steinitz took his leave. The department invited a circle of friends and threw him a warm good-bye party. The big Italian conductor gave him an overpowering hug. The little Italian saxophone player rose to the occasion and shouted Shalom! The diminutive and elegant Cubano gave him an ambiguous kiss. The Quebecois sang a rousing song in Joual that no one but he could understand. The elderly translator from the Nuremberg trials, Rosenberg, gave him a warm, but contained smile, and softly seemed to murmur Kol Tuv. The party was fine, but Steinitz didn’t stay to the end.

After he was gone, a few of the others continued to linger over the remains of the hors d’oeuvre, the last of the punch, and what was left of the hard stuff.

“Not a bad guy,” said the conductor, with a bit of deviled egg between his lips. “Though that business about seeing a unicorn was a bit bizarre, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, he was OK,” said the little saxophonist, sipping from his gin and tonic. “A real New Yorker, though, you know what I mean?”

“My guess,” said Tommy Kensington, the department chair, “my guess is that he’ll be happier back East. He was fine in the classroom, but I don’t know if he ever really fitted in here on campus,” and, taking a long pull on his Bourbon on the rocks, concluded “here in Ohio for that matter. There was just something about him, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” said the debonair Dean of Chapel, as he downed what was left of his punch and threw his arm over Tommy’s broad and comfortable shoulder. And, with a sad click of the tongue, he added “No, he never really fit in. I don’t know if you noticed, but he never gave to the United Way.”