Read Online Salvation Boulevard by Larry Beinhart - Free Book Online Page A

As a result, there’s practically nothing left for them to talk about. Definitely not anything important. The continental style, by contrast, is unconstrained by logic, science, common sense, or even experience. It produces work that seems like nonsense to outsiders. Because it is.’ I’m quoting. That’s Nathaniel’s quick and handy definition.
    â€œYou can see, with people who take themselves seriously—and why shouldn’t they; their livelihood depends on it—he could make them very, very angry.”
    â€œSo, were they angry?”
    â€œOh, yes.”
    â€œWho in particular?”
    â€œYou want me to name names?”
    â€œWell . . . ”
    â€œI don’t name names . . . but if you were to go talk to everybody in the department and ask if they liked Nathaniel, and they all said yes, they loved him, they adored him, they were his best friends, they would all be lying, except for maybe two of them. All right, three. And, if I were you, I would start at the top.”
    â€œThe top?”
    â€œThe chairman. And if he pretends to be nice, that quote I gave you, just toss it into the conversation. Ho, boy.”
    â€œThe one about . . . ” I tried to look at my notes.
    â€œAnalytic philosophy . . . can’t talk about anything. That one.”

    â€œWhat about students? Was he close with or did he have problems with any of his students?”
    â€œClose with. Oh sure. There was a whole gang of them. Talk, talk, talk. Especially if you wanted to get God off your back, Nathaniel was the go-to guy.”
    â€œWhy would anyone want to get God off their back?”
    She heard more edge in my tone than I intended. “Are you a Christian?” she asked.
    â€œWould that bother you? I mean, most of the people in this country are Christians.”
    â€œYou know what I mean. Are you one of those megachurch, born-again Christians? You know, save the fetuses, kill the foreigners.”
    â€œYes, I’m afraid I am.”
    â€œOy, I put my foot in it.”
    â€œLook, I’m a Christian working for a Jewish lawyer who’s working for an Islamic kid to find out who really killed the atheist. It’s America, right?”
    â€œYes, that’s America. That’s America the way it should be. Please God, we should keep it that way.”
    I asked her if she could name some of the other students who were close to Ahmad or Nathaniel or both. She rattled off several of them. I wrote them down. Then I asked if she thought Nate was ever intimate with any of his students.
    â€œOnly grad students,” she said. “Undergraduates, it’s against the rules.” She said it like that was just fine, like it made him an upstanding citizen of the university community.
    â€œAnd his wife didn’t mind?”
    â€œOh, that one,” she snorted.
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œShe was too much of an intellectual and feminist to admit that she ever got jealous. At least, that’s what I think. So instead, she tried to outdo him. Go after his friends and anyone he was close to.”
    â€œMen and women?”

    She shrugged. “I’m not an eyewitness.”
    I looked down at my notes, at the list of students close to Nate. “I heard,” I said to her, “that there was an Emma or Emily, someone with an em sound in their name, who was part of the group or close to Nate? But she’s not on your list.”
    â€œNo,” she said.
    â€œOh.”
    â€œWait. Not em. It’s en.”
    â€œThat’s a name?”
    â€œAn initial, N .”
    â€œWhat’s it stand for?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œIsn’t she registered for his course or something?”
    â€œI think she was auditing the course.”
    â€œShouldn’t there be some kind of record?”
    â€œOf course there should be. And she should have been paying too. But I don’t think she was. I think it was an