The Return of Count Electric & Other Stories by William Browning Spencer

Author:William Browning Spencer
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

Snow

Youth is fraught with moral ambiguity. Huge appetites war with high ideals. As one gets older, one’s appetites abate somewhat and the moral absolutes get muddied. But there is a tricky period there when young. You wish to think well of yourself while availing yourself of every pleasure in your path.

I was thinking of this yesterday after a student of mine propositioned me. I am a bald, middle-aged man, thirty pounds overweight. I have sinus trouble and tend to walk about with my mouth open so that when I encounter a mirror I am shocked to see an anxious fish of a human gulping for air. I am not—it goes without saying—propositioned often. I teach economics at a small college. I am not a charismatic teacher. Still, sexual attraction is always a curious and surprising phenomenon. This young woman, blonde and pretty, made it clear that she would not be averse to a sexual encounter.

As tactfully as possible, I told her that I was happily married, and that I was flattered but could not accept her kind offer.

In fact—and this is the sad wisdom of middle-age—I knew it would be too much trouble. My life is a series of routines and small expectations that are consistently met. I did not want to jeopardize that.

It wasn’t a moral decision at all; it was a decision based on convenience and comfort. Suddenly, these thoughts conjured up the pale, intense face of Alfred Davidson and immediately—the camera of my imagination panning to the right—I saw the smiling, lavishly-freckled face of Sadie Thompson. In my imagination, she was standing slightly behind Davidson and was preparing to shoot him with a rubber band.

I met Davidson and Sadie in the winter of 1967. I had graduated from college that year and obtained work with an accounting firm (Kimberly and Colson) with offices in Washington D.C. In October, we won a government contract, found ourselves severely understaffed, and hired a number of college students—about a dozen I think—to come in in the afternoons.

I was aware of Sadie from the day she started work. She was a plump red-headed girl, with blue eyes and freckles who laughed easily and musically and was inclined to touch you when she talked. An air of suppressed sexual excitement enveloped her, and Fred Ohlson told me, the second week after her arrival, that he was in love with her.

Fred also warned me about Alfred Davidson. “Look out for that guy. He’s a pre-mini.”

Pre-mini? I was unaware of the term. Fred explained that Davidson—one of our newly hired college students—planned to attend seminary after graduation in the spring; was a pre-ministerial student or, in the shorthand of his more secular colleagues, a pre-mini.

I had not yet met Davidson, so I could not form my own opinion. Fred added, “He’s out to get me,” which seemed an odd thing to say on several counts. Fred had worked at Kimberly and Colson for two years and was well-liked. Since he was nobody’s boss and did his job competently, it was hard to imagine him inspiring this sort of antagonism.

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