SCENE ONE: TULANE UNIVERSITY, OFFICE OF DR. BEAU ELLIS

(Two posters, one of Psyche in the dark woods lights gleaning all around her. Another of the Devil Scorned at the Gates of Heaven dominate the room. BEAU ELLIS, 39 dressed in chinos slacks and a blue blazer shows pictures of Greece to ONE STUDENT and the DEPARTMENT CHAIR. They are holding class in his office because his enrollments are so low.)

BEAU
The romantic poets, Byron, Shelly, Keats, lighting bonfires on the beach. . . Surrounded by a wolf pack of friends. They came from love. They wanted to give back. Poetry is saying more and more about less and less. It's a slow language. You have to enjoy each word. . .As John Keats wrote, "Great Spirits now are sojourning. To quote his "Ode on a Grecian Urn,"

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone

(The STUDENT applauds vigorously)

BEAU
If you liked my class, tell your friends. We need five students enrolled for it to go, and for us to be assigned a classroom.

(A STUDENT darts to his desk, but the department CHAIR, a brittle woman, comes over and gives BEAU his mail. The STUDENT exits.)

BEAU
How long will this go on? Your sitting in on all my classes?

CHAIR
Long as I the chair feel the students need . . .protection.

BEAU
If you'd like to participate in the--

CHAIR
I'm not being reviewed for reappointment--

BEAU
What do you think I do?

CHAIR
Oversleep. Not prepare. Run off about your great American yet unpublished novel. The underbelly of any course in a private institution is recruitment. Students want to know how to make a living. That's why I urged you to do courses in business writing, technical analysis, remedial composition. If you must teach PO-ET-TRY, you got to talk about job opportunities: working at a nonprofit, a poetry magazine (if one still exists), or in real estate: visiting the haunts of dead poets, leading a ghost tour in the French Quarter.

BEAU
Have you heard anything from the tenure committee?

CHAIR
Here's your schedule of classes.

BEAU
About my rehire . . .

CHAIR
Your student rosters--

BEAU
What's the deadline for notification?

CHAIR
The list of Department meetings.

BEAU
How am I supposed to plan, if I don't know if I'm fired?

CHAIR
You did get a graduate assistant. All faculty got one. Yours is Kitten Leger. New Ph.D. Specializing in your Romantic Poets.

(CHAIR points to the hall where KITTEN bumbles in with raincoat, hat, umbrella, purse, note pads, computer case, backpack. Her son, BUNKY in ripped jeans and a T-shirt that reads 'Don't Share', patrols nearby.)

CHAIR
Kitten graduated summa cum laude, with distinction on her honors thesis Feminism and the Icononic Hyperbolic Male--

CHAIR
She'll sanitize your remarks for the Ole Miss--

BEAU
I'm not sure I'm going--It's a minority conference.

CHAIR
You have a problem with that?

BEAU
I write on week-ends. I lose focus unless I work regularly--

CHAIR.
Did you sign this department evaluation?

BEAU
Yes . . .Don't think I'm not grateful for this RARE tenure appointment. When I first came to TU--lane, I thought I can't feel the sidewalk, I'm walking on air. It was a long time before I felt that as a writer. But I have to plan in spaces . . .release myself from this . . .hermetically sealed tautology all around. When I get motivated I can get the students interested in a multi-level way.

CHAIR
I can't let you have the pulpit forever. You can charm Ole Miss on our behalf. It's hubris to think your first novel is going to be adored by the world.

(CHAIR leaves and BUNKY tries to enter. KITTEN closes the door in his face. HER phone rings. KITTEN rummages for it, dumping her purse, computer and backpack and scrambling for her cell)

KITTEN
(Into the phone)
What do you mean? You can't take Bunky to fencing class. . . You said you'd drive him. . . .That was before. . . .Quint? . . .Quint.

(KITTEN's phone has disconnected. SHE hangs up. Her beeper goes off. BUNKY yells outside the office. )

BUNKY
Ma! Come on! I told you I'm late!

KITTEN
My son. He's going to boarding school in a few days.

BEAU
You"ve been appointed my graduate assistant.

(KITTEN"S watch alarm goes off. Her phone rings. )

KITTEN
Sorry. I'll get these--
(Answers the phone.)
Quint?

(To BEAU)
It's my husband. Should I talk outside?

BEAU
No...turn off all gadgets.
(SHE turns away)
Are you one of the new students who is scared to look at me. . . You shouldn't be. To quote Wordsworth, She was a phantom of delight/When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition--". . .

BUNKY
Mom. I'm waiting!

BEAU
You'll have to grade quizzes.

KITTEN
I've no time.

BEAU
You don't read them. You can tell in five pages what score they should get.

KITTEN
You judge them by their opening?

BEAU
That's what editors do. My feeling is if they can't interest me from the get go, why should the reader suffer?

BUNKY
We're late. Ma!

BEAU
And I'll proof all your term papers gratis.

KITTEN
I don't think so, Dr. Ellis because--

BEAU
Beau.

KITTEN
I've only been assigned to you fifteen hours a week and your chair asked me to use that time to correct your lectures.

(KITTEN removes BEAU'S manuscript.)

We're to begin with your address to the Oxford Conference of the Book--

BUNKY
Mom. I'm waiting!

(KITTEN disregards BUNKY and speaks to BEAU.)

KITTEN
You've got to make some p.c. Corrections . . . If you read this, the women at the conference will walk out. I'll coach you--

BEAU
You're not attending--

KITTEN
My son's off to boarding school that week-end, so (her voice breaks) I could go.
I never thought I'd be accepted at TU-lane, but your chair mentored me and--.

BEAU
Well, this is y'alls decade. American women in popular fiction.

KITTEN
Black women. Asian women. Gay women. White women are passe'.

BEAU
Let's not get confused and say women writers are the best thing ever.

BUNKY (O.S.)
Mom! Come on--.

KITTEN
(calls out)
Hold on, Bunky.

(To BEAU)
You're such a...a...

BEAU
Misogynist? Should I ignore all opinions that came before? . . . "Death will come when thou art dead, Soon too soon--/Sleep will come when thou art fled--" Percy Bysshe Shelley

KITTEN
Look I'm on probation. My background is feminism and history. If I've been assigned to you, you can't be high up. But if you win more esteem, so will I. You must do whatever the department thinks is important that comes along. There are starter marriages and there are starter conferences. You are in denial that teaching is a business.

BEAU
Leave the notes. Go.

KITTEN
Let me help you. I love the old poetry books too. I love to touch them. They're old friends, but--
(Outside, the rain falls in needles. BEAU touches his head, turns to the window.)

KITTEN
What's wrong?

BEAU
I'm allergic to rain.

KITTEN
I think you can have your own voice in your novel and still not insult people.

BEAU
How do I do that with you bitches taking over academia and sending me the dumbest students.

BUNKY (O.S.)
Mom! Mom!