Great Escape
Epilogue
Next Time
II (Epilogue) Great Escape
I stepped off the terrifying precipice, and made them watch.Then I let them all squirm mightily in their Chairs. Then I walked away.
~
AUTHOR’S NOTE: These events take place directly after the events of the Prologue, so if it’s been a while since you’ve read that, or if you’ve missed it so far, I recommend you go back and read it over before embarking on this conclusion. When Next Time becomes a book, I would want my readers to flip back to the beginning, having come with me on this epic and harrowing journey, to see now how I ended up here.
Parts of this chapter were previously published on my old blog and on my Substack under articles on The Third Place. One short clip of this Epilogue appeared separately in Zuko’s Musings as a response to the responses I got from
having shared my Prologue on his site, The Recovering Academic. I have continued the name-changing system I’ve been practicing throughout the memoir as a whole, in this last chapter.Thank you for your readership, and I hope you find this conclusion satisfying.
Epilogue
Great Escape
“I got tenure!” Professor Bubbles had gushed, before the faculty meeting procedures began. Her little coterie of fluttering followers arranged themselves in proper obeisance poses on the floor around her, making sure their heads always were on a lower plane than hers. She continued in a self deprecating mode, how oddly anticlimactic it was, that she’d received a nondescript email and that was that. To which the flutterers clucked and cooed. Friend Tenured Jim commiserated, saying it was similar to his own tenure-getting experience. Then it was announced that he’d attained full professorship, himself. They both bowed their heads slightly under the fawning applause, deigning to receive the praise they rightly deserved.
This was a full twenty minutes and several verbal dossiers of personal and professional activities lists before my big announcement. I noticed Bubbles lowered her face to the floor and didn’t make a sound during my speech. I couldn’t see Friend Tenured Jim as he was sitting beside me in the circle, but I did feel him rub my shoulder in a friendly, encouraging (albeit silent) way after I was done, fighting off the tears and the choking up. That room-wide silence was deafening, like how your hearing gets after a close explosion.
The Arts building was under construction and renovation during the time of that meeting, so it gave me a weird liminal feeling. I was leaving somewhere that had been a vital place for me for two decades, now all dismantled and different. It had been, of course, utterly deserted during the lockdowns and pandemic restrictions, but even though campus was ostensibly back open, it still felt eerily empty. There were no students hanging out there after finals week, anyway, and that day as I left that last meeting, I saw no recognizable landmarks that weren’t buried under scaffolding or forever changed to be made more modern. Some of this was in a good way—the classroom where Intro always took place was so old and decrepit, it had a green chalkboard instead of a white dry-erase board, and forget trying to get any computer or device online in that room. So in that case, I was glad to see some changes. But it wasn’t an unalloyed joy I felt, walking through that between-stages hallway, down those oh-so-familiar stairs past the digital department billboard where my face still cycled through with all my colleagues and past university theatrical productions.
Room 271 was that acting studio classroom all theatre programs have—the one that has real fresnels or other theatrical lighting that may or may not actually work, that’s all painted one color (usually black) and that stores a plethora of plywood boxes of various kinds, out of which all sorts of sets are created, with a combination of Tetris skills and imagination. ARTS 271, to any theatre kid at that school, is their second home, or Third Place. And of course the Third Place aspect wasn’t just in the room itself, it also encompassed the stretch of hallway in front of it.
The Theatre department office and the grey affiliate faculty cubicle were just across the hall from ARTS 271, and so that shortish stretch of hallway was a hub of theatrical social activity, at all times that class was in session. It was the place where students would sit on the hall-side benches and eat their snacks and lunches between classes, mostly held in 271 if they weren’t around the corner in 249. It was where the previous Chair, after overhearing a scoffing comment I had uttered behind his back whilst chatting with some devoted stage combat students1, strode toward me down the whole length of the hall, a Tony-award-winning look on his face. Making eye contact with me the way we’re all taught to do in high level acting classes, he took me by the upper arms in a way no real person ever does but so many actors are blocked to do onstage, and said, sotto voce, “You are valued.”
This hallway was such a treasured third place that Friend Tenured Jim took it upon himself to erect a Zoom version of the hall for everyone to appear at when they wanted to, for a few hours each afternoon during lockdown when we weren’t allowed to go anywhere, least of all to campus. Many students did so, as did I and one or two other teachers once in a while. They’d pop up in their little Zoom boxes and chat and snack and chat some more and rehearse and do everything they’d do if they were really there. Which, I guess they were, in a way.
It was a nice way to have a vestige of that Third Place, though of course it wasn’t the same. Tenured Jim was touted as a faculty hero, for giving his students so much of his valuable time. Nobody mentioned the fact that I appeared there every single day, live, even on those days when Jim merely started the Zoom call and left to do more important things, only returning to shut it off when it was time.
I’m fascinated by this concept of the Third Place—I came across it during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, in a fascinating linguistics book called Because Internet.2 In this book, the author referenced types of language used in online chat rooms and discussed those as being something called “virtual third spaces.” From there, I went to the book she was riffing off of, Ray Oldenburg’s OG work on the Third Place concept: The Great Good Place. This book is where I learned about the (albeit rather curmudgeonly delivered) Third Place idea in more detail. Basically, it’s a vital social area, and a central place where arguably, all of society and culture happens.
There’s a First and Second Place, too:
The First place is home. It’s where you relax, where your partner or family is. It’s where you sleep and mostly where you eat. It’s the hearth, and the center of both private and domestic life.
The Second Place is work. Or school, if that’s what you do for work. Work is the place where you go to do all your business, in other words. It’s not a place where you relax or eat or socialize, though the latter two are of course possible there. You don’t live or sleep in the Second Place. It’s where you leave those comforts of the First Place to go to work all day, and afterwards, come back home to the First Place to relax when you’re done.
The Third place…is its own thing. It’s different than places 1 or 2. You don’t sleep there, but you can relax there. It’s a public place, but a place where you can be yourself. You don’t live there, but you do go there frequently, a home away from home. Your Third Place friends are usually much more intimate than those from either other place, and of a more mixed population than those in your First Place. It’s the corner bar, local pub, coffee shop, street corner, cafe, etc.
So if the Third Place ain’t home, and it ain’t work, what is it, exactly? It’s the place you go to unwind, a place where you pop in unannounced and unscheduled, where the conversation and activities therein aren’t planned. It’s where you go to gossip, and laugh.This is why it’s important for the Third place to be easily accessible, on foot ideally. Frequent unscheduled visits are vital to making a Third place, and having to drive there takes away this aspect, usually.
Most essentially, though, a Third Place is centered on good conversation and ease of being. Laughter and gossip and talk of politics fly in a Third Place—so much so, that the coffee houses of the past have been famously feared and attempted to be censored by monarchs and other leaders, afraid of the powerful community in these Third Places and what they could or might do to the powers that be. This focus on good conversation is, according to Oldenburg, the one essential characteristic that sets a real Third Place apart from other bars and gathering places that don’t hold that specialness in the lives of their patrons.
When Gretchen McCulloch discussed the populations of academic hallways in conferences and other classroom buildings being a vibrant row of Third Places, I knew exactly what she was talking about, because of that short stretch of hallway in front of ARTS 271. During any breaks between classes, that few-doors-long stretch of hallway would teem with (mostly) kids eating snacks, sipping coffee, and of course, talking. Conversation is the anchor of any Third Place, and the ARTS 271 hallway illustrated this.
When Tenured Jim took it upon himself to make a virtual version of the hallway, using Zoom, it was even titled ARTS 271 Hallway. An invented Third Place twice removed, the Zoom version of that hallway was an okay substitute for a while, but since it had to be scheduled, it didn’t take on all the characteristics of a Third place, and so it went away as soon as the actual in-person hallway opened back up.
That may have been another reason why the physical hallway felt so eerie to me that day of the faculty meeting—how deserted it was, and how it sat there so quietly, nobody there, only half repainted.
After making it out of ARTS 271, away from the empty hallway, down the stairs and out of the building, I walked across the couple quads to the ancient campus brewery, there in the student union, perched on a patio overlooking the amusement park across the street. I ordered a Roadrunner Red, named after the school’s mascot. I took bets with myself whether anyone would show up, as per my invitation to dish, earlier. And tried to stop shaking. I figured nobody would have the balls.
Then, to my astonishment, a petite non-binary person hopped up those brewery stairs, and sat down next to me. They were there at the meeting and had been working at the costume shop for a long while—they knew very well who I was, though I didn’t know them hardly at all. They ordered a pint, and said, once it arrived, “Okay, tell me. I want to know why you’re really leaving, and why it’s not in a good way.”
Turns out, they were debating whether or not they wanted to teach adjunct for Subway U again, and wanted to hear more about that word I had used: disrespect. They were surprised, because of my longterm status at the department (no, I’m not going to call it “a long tenure,” thank you very much). They’d also taught as a sort of last resort sub situation in the costume shop3 and had been badly treated by the administration. They didn’t want to put themselves in another bad place, and had taken my quitting as a warning. I didn’t know they’d ever adjuncted. We talked.
They had recently undergone a relationship breakup with a gaslighter and financial abuser, too, and I told them about this memoir. So we commiserated on both that and the job. I believe I saved a life, the way Herb Childress’ book saved my sanity.
Oh—the tenured head of tech did pop by briefly as well. He had no time for a beer but he expressed his respect for me, the certainty we’d work together again professionally in the future, and said he was sorry it ended the way it did. He didn’t ask me why it had ended the way it did, or even what that way was that it did end. Did he have an idea why, already, before I’d done so, or did he not care, or? Had he expected this? Did Tenured Jim squeal? Did the department denizens deliberately drive me out? I think Tenured Tech was one of the more surprised ones at the meeting, but then again I’m pretty sure I shocked the Chair senseless too. Not that I’ve heard a peep from him or them or anyone else since. Not even casually, on social media. Not even the secretary, the one who hugged me and told me she was there if I needed anything, anything at all.
The silence continues…
With all the construction and in-between-ness of the building, it actually didn’t feel all that weird, leaving campus after that beer that day. Maybe it’s because I still had finals to grade, and a summer semester to prep for, just the same as almost 20 mid-Mays before this one. Maybe it’s because everything looked unfinished, and so it felt like it was.
I went back a couple weeks later to clean out my belongings from the shared adjunct office. That felt a little more like grieving—like going through stuff left behind by a beloved elder who’s passed on. Except that elder was myself. I ended up throwing out a bunch of old documents and teaching tools, including several stacks of DVDs and a disc player that never did work right. The discs were almost all recordings of a decade and a half of student stage combat and movement finals and other events, like one of my early book signings where my students fought in the audience and one of them almost got ejected from the coffeeshop where it took place.
This time, it was me doing the tossing of memories, not all of them mine. But there was no real good way to watch those videos, and even if I wanted to, why would I ever need to?4 At any rate, I ended that long culling session by consolidating all that time, all that teaching, all that care, into one tote bag. It’s full of papers and old musical instruments for dance classes. The tote is bright red, and has a school alumni logo on the front.
I got home and my partner was on a meeting, his last one of the work day. When he finished, he slammed down his earbuds, ran over to me, hugged me, and demanded, “Tell me a story!” This is the way we ask each other how our day was, dear.
Earlier that morning, as I was on my way out the door, he had rubbed my shoulders and given me the badass businessman pep talk, to give me grit and anger and vinegar-and-pepper and strength. He expressed gladness that I was wearing high heels (“good—you should be very big today”), and reminded me of the power of silence. He sure was right about that, it turns out. Then he told me he’d be ready for me to come home whenever I was, in whatever condition I was.
It’s his literal support making this quitting possible to begin with. This wouldn’t have been an option for me in my previous marriage with my financially abusive husband, or definitely not in my own strapped situation alone. He and I had sat down together after I had an angry outburst about the stipend stupidity. He declared: Leave. You don’t have to let them treat you like that anymore. Walk out on them, your dignity intact. Do it on your own terms, before they do it to you. Do it with all the cleansing righteous anger that you feel right now, with your head held high.
Later, during my long stay at the faculty meeting fallout, he had sent me a flying buttress. This is an image of support that we each send to each other traditionally during times of high performance needs, or duress, or both, when we can’t be physically there for each other.
The flying buttress is rather a marvel of architectural technology—both beautiful and functional, they are a structure, like bridges, that depend on flexibility for stability, movement for stillness, the way a meditator breathes.
A flying buttress functions (with many apologies to those with specialized expertise in these things) kind of like a lightning rod was once thought to, or more like a grounding wire, in that the flying buttress absorbs the force of an expanding wall and channels that force into the ground, keeping the wall upright. It’s a beautiful brace, in other words, and its invention was the main reason why cathedrals in particular (but all buildings technically) were first able to be built so tall back in the day.
The structures themselves are beautiful in mathematically precise shapes, and on bigger and more elaborate buildings, they take on a Spirograph-like fractal formation, crystalline and flexible in their strengthening actions around the thing they’re there to protect from collapse.
Flying buttresses are a tradition, used when I or my partner am tasked with doing a big performance, presentation, keynote, lecture, or other thing that involves getting up in front of people. When this is the case and we can’t be there in person, we send each other flying buttresses as support. It’s our unique couple way of saying Break a Leg, and sending emotional support from afar.
The tradition began from conversations about college friend private joke silliness and an interest in the visuals and supportive concept. But I can’t really explain this ritual’s origins adequately. Which is true for most traditions, if you think about it, especially the magical ones. I mean, there’s only so far you can explain old Coca-Cola ads, stories of St. Nicholas and Krampus, mixed with Druidism and Victorian capitalism before you just give up and go, “You know, Santa Claus.”
They say when you begin a family you continue old traditions but also create new ones. This is the first among us. I doubt it’ll be the last. Protecting each other from collapsing, though. What a lovely tradition.
When I finally got home after such a long ordeal, I told my partner the story of Monday at the Meeting. He marveled at the room’s silence, as I had, and declared rightly that I had done well. That I had terrified them, by doing something they never imagined I would do, that nobody ever had done to them before. I had called them out on their abuse, and more importantly, I stopped them from continuing to do so. I left with my head held high, my dignity intact.
Next morning, on my first day of release, I graded finals, just like normal, entered those final grades into the online portal for such, and looked over the online summer course shell, which would be my last Subway University class ever, after 20 years. Then I emailed a few HR people, not knowing who to contact or what to do next. They responded with some “I’m sorry to hear that”s and then forwarded me to the right place. Which is funny, since they have no idea who I am, while the theatre department couldn’t deliver even that bland platitude. These HR people who’d literally never met me and who don’t know me at all told me I’d be missed. And that they were sorry to see me go.
And then? An email from one of the helpful HR ladies came pinging into my university inbox, at 2:11 in the afternoon. It read:
“Hello Jennifer,
“Thank you for your service to SU Denver. Human Resources has received notice of your resignation effective August 30th, 2022. I would recommend that you work with your department to return any keys/IDs/corporate cards you may have in your possession. Let me know if you have any additional questions, thank you!”
*
When I went back to the office a couple weeks later than that, for the last time: There was nobody there, not even very many people in the whole building, but especially the affiliate office, the main theatre office, and the normally-buzzing Third Place hallway outside 271 were all totally deserted. I gathered my one tote bag full of belongings which was all that was left of my long career there, left my key card in the mailbox of the absent secretary,5 left her an email telling her I’d done so, and when the door closed behind me that last time, I was locked out. Forever.
As of this writing, I haven’t received a single email from anyone in the theatre department, not the Chair, not Tenured Jim, not the secretary, not anyone, telling me anything. No acknowledgment of my leaving, nothing about anything resembling an exit interview. No friendly or otherwise casual reachings-out on any of my personal social media. Nothing. Not a hello. Nor a goodbye. Certainly not a thank you.
Silence. Just like at the meeting itself. But bigger.
Once summer semester ended, I still had to navigate a stray student trying to haggle an A out of a low B in the class, and I entered all the final-final grades just after that. I heard nothing from the Chair about support or not, of my refusing to artificially bump up the haggling student’s grade. A very few emails trickled in after that, including news that Subway was changing the name of affiliate faculty back to adjunct, and a small pay raise implemented across all faculty tiers. These came in just before I became extinct and the system shut me out so I could no longer read my emails.
Oh, along with another automated invite to another stage combat club workshop, taught by Bubbles, of course.
On August 31st I could no longer log in to anything on the online faculty hub. Including email and Canvas course shells. I had received no emails or voice mails from anyone before that date, though I had inquired to the secretary if there was anything more I needed to do. She said she’d get the paperwork done, and that things were very busy as it was the beginning of Fall semester. I asked her to please let me know on my personal gmail when I could expect to be locked out.
Nothing.
“You can't become new when you hold the broken past.”
Herb Childress said that to me in an email, after having heard how the Great Escape had gone. His coaching helped me get this book down on paper, and I’ve found that listening to his sage wisdoms was always a good thing to do. I’d kept all the university stuff up and friended on my social media, just in case I heard from anybody, at all, after my absence. No one seemed to even notice I was gone. So I decided to, once again, listen to Herb.
It was only after seeing some of Bubbles’ joyful sharing about some fight choreography gigs, at companies I’d done this for in the past, and then a whole hagiographizing article on Jim’s appearance on game show Jeopardy!, I realized how much Herb was right. Why was I continuing with these people? It hit me as being similar to when I’d continue to go out to coffee as friends after moving out of Ninjaboy’s place. Why was I doing this to myself? What did I think I still owed them? They couldn’t even give me respect, let alone a living wage, after 20 years. They’re not going to start giving me anything now.
And so I, slowly and methodically, began the process of execution. That small death of the 20-twenties: the Unfriend and the Unfollow.
First to meet my social media axe was Professor Bubbles. Then, the Chair and the production manager. Those two were hard, and I had to take a moment to grieve a professional friendship that had gone way back to my BFA program, in real life. Or had it? I hadn’t heard a peep from either of them; apparently I meant nothing to them after all. Then, I unfollowed the university itself, from all four platforms I had followed them on. Then, the longtime adjunct who’d been shocked at my Big Quit. Then, Tenured Head of Tech, who’d actually taken a moment at the brewery to say a kind word. Finally, Friend Tenured Jim lost the privilege of being called so, and I bumped him off my feed.
Many former students, though, are still robustly populating my friends list, and I’ll not likely take the unfriending blade to them. The students were the reason I stayed all that time, and they always appreciated my gifts of expertise and support. A couple of these from many years ago, having long graduated, popped into my messages soon after my Great Escape, asking if it was true, if I’d left, and why. One or two fellow hard laborers from my even longer-ago time at the English department have also asked, and I haven’t found them or their attitudes worthy of the serial excising I’d been doing. They, too, continued to have respect for me and for what I did, though of course all they could do was commiserate with me on my choice. They can stay.
And now? I move on. I find more and better things to do at more and better places, that will pay me more and better. Places that will respect my personhood and my expertise. I haven’t found that ideal new career yet, but I know I will, if I keep at it. It’ll happen, if I work hard. If not now, then surely soon.
Maybe Next Time.
“Great. Glad I’m ‘valued.’ Now pay me. What I’m worth.”
McCulloch, Gretchen. Because Internet. New York: Riverhead Books, 2019.
Amid many other scandals, including sexual harassment and toxic workplace issues. The rot ran deep there.
There are still a bunch of old videos in a similar vein that still appear on my YouTube channel, so my former students aren’t all completely desolate. But I usually didn’t put exam fights online, for FERPA reasons. So it’s not like there’s nothing left from that time, but.
And in my mailbox? A pad of post-it notes with the school logo on them, and a multicolored highlighter with a mismatched cap on one end, also with the school logo. A fitting reward for my work, showing me exactly how valued I was there.