Take Me with You

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DAY NINETEEN

Bam. Bam. Bam.

Jesse was startled awake by rapping on his car window, unaware until that moment he had dozed off. He remembered reclining the Jeep Laredo's driver's seat as far back as it would go, desperate to grab a few moments of sleep in the faculty parking lot, the iced coffee in his cupholder weakening as ice melted and temperatures rose, caffeine no longer having its desired effect. The car had been an ill fit, both for his personality and his lanky frame, but he found it of comfort lately. He had shared the vehicle with Norman, a compromise purchase a few years back when many cars were stuck in the ports and there was a shortage of chips.

"Chips?" Jesse asked at the time, first imagining potato before landing on CHiPs, the show about the California Highway Patrol starring Erik Estrada and Chris Pine's dad. Norman said semiconductor, modern cars had thousands of them, before instructing him not to be daft. Norman always knew stuff like that. When Jesse glanced over, he could see his husband in the passenger seat as clearly as if he were actually there. If only he were; there were many things Jesse needed explained.

Nights were traumatic. He'd lie awake, afraid to close his eyes, waiting for the inevitable blinding announcement that some unknown thing had come back, this time for him. He'd weigh the pros and cons of calling the police, or obsess over some meaningless detail, Norman's reading glasses on the bathroom counter, for instance-surely he would be missing them-and despite his anger over being abandoned he would try to imagine a way to reunite him with them. On the rare occasions Jesse felt more upbeat, when he went to bed with a full stomach (of alcohol, yes, but also a decent meal), insomnia gripped him, his heart racing with the idea that Norman might return with the same fanfare with which he had left. He was both upset and elated by this idea and wanted to be awake to give him a stern dressing-down, so he'd lie awake watching reels on his phone. (His favorites came from a woman who worked at Dairy Queen who filmed herself making every ice cream treat the restaurant had to offer, both on the menu and off.) Of course, the idea of Norman returning was Jesse's logical brain trying to make sense of something very illogical. It was just as likely if not more that Norman was gone for good, dead, vaporized, held hostage, or so far away he could never return in a human lifetime. But he tried not to focus on that.

Which is to say, more and more Jesse had only been able to sleep in public, surrounded by the safety of others, or in the light of midday, where it would be harder for anything to startle him. That meant naps on the couch with the shades fully open, or in a wooden cubicle inside the small Joshua Tree library, or during an indulgent trip to the movie theater in Palm Springs, where he'd plunk down twelve dollars for a matinee simply for the privilege of sleeping through it. Or in the Jeep before class when traffic on the 62 was mercifully light and his hour commute was made in forty-five minutes.

"You really can sleep anywhere," Norman's phantom image said from the passenger seat, with only a hint of jealousy.

Not anywhere. Not anymore.

Jesse had been unconscious for five minutes or twenty-time had no meaning anymore-when the rap on his window jolted him awake. He jumped, startling Luisa Flores, the English Department head, who had hired him. She had an armload of books and supplies but still managed to move her hand in a circular motion, the universal sign for rolling down a window for anyone Generation X or older. Her gray curls bounced with each swing of her arm until Jesse obliged and lowered his window to save her from dropping her thermos.

She blew her curls to one side. "It's usually students I catch sleeping before class, not teachers. I hope we're not boring you already, Mr. del Ruth."

"Transcendental Meditation," Jesse lied. It was a popular practice here in the desert, one he knew would not make her bat an eye.

Jesse had agreed to teach only one class this semester, a trial of sorts before accepting a full-time position. Two years back he'd taken a sabbatical from his steady gig at UC Irvine to finish his new novel, as he was out of both excuses and time and his publisher was threatening to ask for repayment of money that he had long ago spent on a house, for which he now carried the mortgage alone. The novel had still not materialized, so back to teaching it was. Given his current circumstances, he was grateful for the light schedule, even if it wasn't enough money to sustain him long-term. In the wake of Norman's disappearing act, it wasn't the grading of papers and the planning of lectures or the usual banality and drudgery he couldn't imagine working through, but rather showing his face in a classroom, plastering on the costume of normalcy. The idea that his one course was humor writing had, well, tickled his funny bone. Until life changed suddenly before the semester began and the only humor he recognized was the absurd.

"First-day jitters?" Luisa asked.

Jesse faked a laugh, wondering if anything would ever be truly funny again. "A little back-to-school ritual. It helps me get in the zone." He said zone with a Cockney accent for some humiliating reason, following it up with a pump of his fist, also undignified.

"The funny-bone zone," Luisa said, and Jesse forced a weak smile. He reached for his iced coffee and leather messenger bag, rolled up his window, and slowly exited his Jeep. He closed the door with an awkward thrust of his hip.

"How was the rest of your summer?" Luisa asked, balancing her enormous Stanley on a stack of binders while reaching in her bag for keys. They had not seen each other since his interview, as he had skipped the faculty orientation.

"Oh, the usual," Jesse replied. "Barbecues. Reading in the shade. Husband was abducted by aliens."

Luisa, whom Jesse guessed to be flirting with retirement, furrowed her brow, lowering her curls again over her eyes. "Abducted?"

"You're right. 'Abducted' may be too strong a word." Jesse paused for comedic effect. "He may have gone willingly."

Luisa stared blankly for a beat, and then two, before bursting into such a fit of laughter that her Stanley, its color an unappetizing salmon, rolled off her stack of binders, Jesse catching it just before it hit the curb. "Contradiction!" she declared, placing a finger alongside her nose.

He froze as she reclaimed her water bottle. "What?"

Luisa looked at him confused as she rebalanced her armload. "Contradiction."

"What the fuck are you talking about," he muttered. As of late, he was quick to anger. Then, remembering she was his boss and he needed this job, he grinned like he'd been kidding. But Luisa cut him off by laughing again just as riotously. And then she stopped just as abruptly.

"Are you okay, Jesse?" She tilted her head with concern.

"I'm sorry, I- What?"

Luisa rebalanced her stack of books so that she could touch his arm with a free hand. "For a second there it looked like you might cry."

Jesse dug deep and immediately regained his composure. "Comedy, tragedy. Two sides. Same coin."

"That's right!" she said triumphantly, then gave his arm a little squeeze before letting go. "I'm so glad you showed up ready to be funny on day one! Husband abducted by aliens." As she continued on to her car, she glanced back over her shoulder and hollered, "If you see them again, send them my way. I would happily give them mine!" Jesse watched as she laughed herself all the way to her car.


I can’t teach anyone to be funny,” Jesse warned as he walked into the classroom to find six eager students gathered near the front of a room so comically large for a class of this size he wondered if Luisa hadn’t arranged it as an inaugural joke. The room had three enormous blackboards as well as two more that had been wheeled in on easels; if his current fear wasn’t his inability to save important things, he could write his new novel entirely in chalk. Instead, he wrote only his name, Jesse del Ruth, for some reason underlining the d and the R. His voice echoed (he didn’t think he was imagining it) and fell silent with no response. “If you’re dull now, you’ll still be dull at the end of the semester. I want to be up front about that so that you don’t ding me on your evaluations.”

"That's not what COD says." A young blond woman fished in a teal backpack for something urgent as Jesse set his bag down on the desk at the front of the room. As she leaned forward, he admired her lowlights, but she wore far too many friendship bracelets. No one should have that many friends.

"God?" Jesse misheard, appalled. He reached in his breast pocket for his glasses. Although he had to admit as of late, god had a pretty good sense of humor.

"COD," Backpack replied. "College of the Desert." She found what she was looking for and presented it to him. It was the course catalog, which he presumed overpromised on what any reasonable person could deliver in the way of humor instruction. She held it out for him to read, but he swatted it away with disinterest.

"Cod is a fish."

"It's a fish and an abbreviation."

"An abbreviation, yes. For cash on delivery or cause of death, depending on if you work in sales, or, you know-the morgue."

"We're college students, Mr. Doctor." A handsome kid with enormous headphones spoke loudly, making it clear he was also listening to music. He looked not unlike Jesse's old college roommate, who was Black and Japanese, and Jesse made a mental note to ask his new student his heritage, as there might be some cultural humor to mine. As it was, the kid made a show of stuffing his long legs under his small desk, which made several of his classmates laugh. In fact, he probably rivaled Jesse in height even if the kid was much leaner.

"Call of Duty, then," Jesse said, matching his volume and gesturing for him to lose the cans. This seemed to satisfy Headphones, who gave two enthusiastic thumbs up before sliding his headphones back until they were resting around his neck, revealing two black gauges where earrings might be. "Hold up. Did you call me Mr. Doctor?"

"You underlined the d and the R in your name."

Jesse turned around and looked at the way he had written del Ruth on the blackboard. He had underlined those letters.

"I thought it was because you were overcompensating. You know, for not having a PhD." If Headphones weren't already Headphones in Jesse's mind, he would have absolutely been Freud.

"I could have a PhD."

"Do you have a PhD?" Headphones asked skeptically.

"Go fish." Jesse bowed his head and chuckled, still annoyed at COD. "FYI, I have an MFA from UCLA, and I hope that will be A-OK and we can be BFFs. Otherwise, TTFN."

Headphones sat up in his chair like this new professor might just have something worthwhile to say after all; he was wearing a sleeveless Def Leppard shirt, which was either ironic or belonged to his parents, who were most likely Jesse's exact age. Jesse took inventory of his students; only one could be considered nontraditional, old enough to actually wear an eighties band tee. He was graying in his beard and carried a briefcase, looking not unlike one of the accountants they drag onstage at the Oscars.

Jesse slipped his glasses on and took a second look at his eager students, then at their names on the roster. He was never good with remembering names, so they became Backpack, Headphones, Non-Trad, Snickers, Mountain Dew, and Unicorn. Doling out nicknames was a first-day-of-class tradition, and he always picked one Unicorn, who was recognizable right up front. The student who was not only there to learn but had the talent to go all the way. Only once was he ever wrong. This year's Unicorn had a mane of blue hair coupled with a Don't fuck with me expression that dared anyone to joke about it, and no one, at least in this classroom, did; she sat apart from the group, leaving at least one empty desk on all sides. She (or they, kids today were fluid with pronouns) wore a Once Upon a Mattress T-shirt, and while it was from the more recent Broadway revival, the original production had been a launching pad for Carol Burnett. Not bad for a comedic pedigree.

"You all have the same books on your desk," Jesse observed. "Are you in some sort of cult?" Unicorn was the only one whose desk was clear.

"It was the suggested reading, Mr. Doctor," Non-Trad explained, and his copy looked well-thumbed. Non-trads were rule followers, always.

"Okay, you can just call me Jesse." The familiarity of nicknames, he felt, should be a one-way street. "All of you, I mean. Not just Non-Trad."

Jesse wet his thumb and tried to erase the underlining of his name on the chalkboard, then swiped a book from the desk closest to him, nearly knocking Snickers's (you guessed it) chocolate bar onto the floor. Snickers, the varsity jock in this Breakfast Club, grabbed it just in time; upon closer inspection, it may have been a protein bar. The book was How to Be Funny in Eight Steps by a man named-Jesse squinted and looked twice-Peter Killjoy. "Suggested reading," he scowled. "Suggested by whom?"

"Ms. Flores," Mountain Dew replied before opening a two-liter bottle of what looked like radioactive waste, which hissed when she unscrewed the cap. She poured herself a tall glass in a cup from Pizza Hut. Her hair had a similar yellow-green tint, as if PepsiCo had opened their factory to misbehaved children Willy Wonka-style and she had ingested too much of the swill (You're turning violet, Violet!), although it was much more likely she was a swimmer who'd spent too many hours in a chlorinated pool. When she caught Jesse staring incredulously, she inched the plastic soda bottle toward him. "I'm sorry, did you want some?"

"Do I want Mountain Dew in the morning?" Jesse asked incredulously.

She shrugged, unfazed. "It's ten o'clock somewhere."

"No, thank you," he declined politely, smiling. Mountain Dew might actually be funny. "I had too much Fanta at breakfast."