“So, to what new rock bottom do I owe the pleasure?”
“I know you’re going to judge, and you should. But, as you know, I’m trying to print my dissertation. I’m most of the way done, but…”
“Okay.”
“Well, the printer ran out of paper and it’s beeping and beeping and the sound of the machine makes me wild. So, I just need a little more paper to finish but you know I can’t go to the Department of Supplies because I’m not supposed to be using work resources to print my dissertation, obviously. You know Marge in Supplies is a gossip, so she’ll squawk to Old Spots. Then they’ll examine my department’s paper usage, and alarm bells will ring. Someone will come knocking: ‘Just to check a few discrepancies,’ Old Spots will promise. But he’ll be there to stick his snout into the whole department and my existence in it. They’ll use it as an excuse to get me gone. You know I can’t lie for dung. I stutter all over myself and spill the truth. So then”—Mitchell listened to Alfonzo indulge in the worst-case-scenario game—“I’ll be fired for abuse of city resources. I won’t be able to make rent, and Mr. Buzz will evict me. I’ll become a homeless doctor of urban studies. And no one will hire a paper thief to teach impressionable undergrads.”
Mitchell scrunched his brows. At some point, you just have to jump in to interrupt your friend when he’s caught in an angst groove. “Stop. You’re making my headache worse. What can I do to help?”
“Blank sheets. For the printer. I swear I’ll replace them. No one will ever know. This whole thing was a mistake. The machine is beeping, and my dissertation’s due this afternoon. I need to get this done before it all migrates even further south.”
Mitchell riffled through his drawers. “I’ve got it. How much you need? I’ve got about a hundred sheets—that good?”
Alfonzo lay his head on the cool desk. He groaned. “This is useless. I need about a thousand, or eleven hundred. Or, I mean, to be precise, I need twelve. Twelve hundred sheets.” It felt as though he were admitting to a wood pulp addiction, or gambling debt.
“Buddy! Why the hell are you printing it here?”
Alfonzo was hopeless. “I know. You know I know it’s a mess.”
“I don’t have that much. You just said it. They’re sticklers in Supplies.”
Alfonzo butted his forehead into the desk.
“I’m sorry to put you in this position. I’ll wait until the next deadline. It’s not my season. I’ll go unplug the machine.” Alfonzo held his breath. They sat for a while. Mitchell’s red plastic fan whirred on the desk.
“Okay, let’s not get overdramatic.” Mitchell tapped his toes. “I have a few questions. The deadline is today?”
Alfonzo snorted yes.
“You’re going to give this to your thesis adviser?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Writing Pad?”
“Dr. Vinograd.”
“Same same. What would happen to this copy? If your adviser accepted it?”
Alfonzo explained that if the document was accepted he would be asked to make more clean copies that would then be bound and submitted to the library. This copy was just a stepping-stone.
“Is he easygoing? You like him?”
“Yes. I mean—why?”
Mitchell hummed.
“What I’m thinking is that I give you this stack of scrap paper I’ve been saving for another purpose. It has some information on one side that’s not important. If you can use that, I have enough. You can tell Lilypad the situation. Frame it as an environmental act. Then later you can give it back to me. When you don’t need it anymore.”
Alfonzo reflected. He would feel strange explaining this to Dr. Vinograd, but perhaps it would also be good camouflage. More words on the flip side of his words would make the whole document even more daunting. He wanted desperately to be done. After it was accepted he could print the dissertation on fresh paper. He imagined Dr. Vinograd annoyed but ultimately accommodating.
“But why would you need it back?” Alfonzo asked.
“That’s between me and my cod.”
“You doing something fishy?”
Alfonzo calmed. They joked that he could spin it as conceptual.
“Tell the good doctor you’re using recycled paper on purpose, as a comment on bureaucratic waste and the trampling of institutional memory under the hooves of a callow and destructive administration.”
“He’ll love that. I’ll tell him it’s like a smudgy, papery form of the psychoanalytic writing tablet. A palimpsest.”
“I don’t know, but sure.”
“You’re saving my life,” Alfonzo hummed as Mitchell pushed a box of papers to him.
“I have a favor to ask in return.”
Alfonzo worried this would get complicated all over again.
“I want you to change the title of your dissertation. You never took my old suggestions seriously. Call it ‘Made in Llamerica.’ It’s gold. Or maybe, ‘Coming to Llamerica.’” Mitchell chuckled. “Or ‘The Bright Llama.’ Get it?”
“Subtle. But it’s schoolwork, not an album. I have to be serious.”
“My friend Alfonzo is saying no jokes? What’s the world coming to?”
“No jokes, for once.”
* * *
By late afternoon, the ship was righted. Alfonzo had appeased his printer with Mitchell’s imperfect sheets. The Aztek Howtek finished. Alfonzo autopiloted through the rest of the day’s filing. At 4:03 he slipped out of the Hall carrying the stack of papers and caught the train to Hunter, arriving at the department secretary’s desk at 4:49 p.m. The secretary bird clicked her tongue but accepted his submission.
“Congratulations, kid.”
“Woot?” He couldn’t believe he’d made it. His legs were matted with sweat.
“Get yourself a drink.” She closed and locked the door behind him as he exited.
Alfonzo found himself dazed on Park Avenue. He hopped on a train to meet Mitchell at Bamboo Palace.
In celebration they over-ordered. The raccoon waitress kept bringing out dish after dish: lichen dumplings, corn noodles, mineral-fried broccoli, moo shu forbs, and shoots and leaves panda-style. The camelids chewed and chewed. Mitchell humored Alfonzo as he waxed nostalgic about his relationship with Viviana. He didn’t roll his eyes when Alfonzo said that they should have gotten married, that she was the perfect one for him. Mitchell didn’t remind his friend that it was Alfonzo who’d broken up with Vivi. It wasn’t the time.
The waitress brought a plate of orange slices and fortune cookies with the bill. It was the restaurant’s way of telling them to get the hell out. Alfonzo loved the abrupt message of the sweet fruit.
At the bar he made it through one drink before ducking out. Sometimes this business of survival was too exhausting for words.
ENCLOSURE
8.
September light entered Alfonzo’s apartment in narrow bluish beams. They prodded him conscious. He passively resisted in his warm straw bed, but the beams kept at it. The sunlight was in cahoots with his father. He wouldn’t put such an alliance past either of them.