πολλαχοῦ σκοποῦντες ἡμᾶς εἰς ἅπανθ᾽ εὑρήσετε τοὺς τρόπους καὶ τὴν δίαιταν σφηξὶν ἐμφερεστάτους.
Four Years Earlier
Winthrop Alonzo Vandecanter III died alone, three weeks before his ninety-second birthday, in an old billiard room on the first floor that had been converted, less temporarily than some had hoped, into a one-man hospice. He had been in reasonably good spirits the previous evening, considering his condition, when his nurse came in to bring him what dinner he was still capable of eating. Now he had breathed his last, probably around two o’clock in the wee small hours of a cold April morning, to the relief of nobody more than himself. He had long considered that the eyes of the world—or at least of the house of Vandecanter—would soon be upon the old Gothic Revival landmark upon a hill overlooking the Hudson.
Arrangements had long since been made for him to be laid to rest in the family plot, though enlisting the services of an Episcopalian priest, as had been the mos maiorum since Alonzo Vandecanter had crossed from the Amstel to the Thames in 1873. The old Dutch church’s lone titular parishioner, a crabby old grouch of seventy-eight, had inherited a traditional distaste for the Vandecanters dating to his great-great-grandfather’s speedy and procedurally questionable hanging for the murder of Isaac van de Kanter during the Anti-Rent War. The body of the old Patroon had never been found, though his ghost was said to haunt Eikenbos and its tenants’ descendants on windy autumn evenings.
A minor ecclesiastical kerfluffle now erupted sixteen decades later when it transpired that the minister of the building had been dead ten years. Consent for last rites was finally obtained after the remaining congregant—who drew benefices totalling nearly $200,000 a year from the parish endowment as vestryman, groundskeeper, bookkeeper, parish historian and director of charitable causes—was reminded that, while nobody was particularly hell-bent on torpedoing the retirement of a pillar of the West Palm Beach Rotary Club, a letter to what remained of the church hierarchy was not out of the question.
Thus it was, two months after the funeral, that the old man’s namesake received a phone call from his executors.
“Winthrop Katzbube speaking.”
“Good morning, Winthrop. This is Eliot Quaffle from Quaffle and Mortmain. Do you have a minute?”
Ah, yes. Bunny’s lawyer.
“I…may have a minute.”
Katzbube closed his laptop, sitting at the center of an ill-organized pile of ILL’ed Xeroxes, and walked out to the stairwell—not, of course, that there was anybody around in a college library at 9 AM on a Friday morning in June, save for the industrious author of Land in the Longue Durée.
“It’ll have to be quick. I’m working on my dissertation.”
“Oh, how’s that going?”
“It’s…”
He weighed whether or not to lie. Oh, right, it’s an attorney, confidentiality—no, he’s just the executor, he’ll tell Aunt Bun and she’ll tell Mom and Dad and Dad will badger me about finishing the damn thing.
“I’m really just polishing up the bibliography.”
“Oh, fantastic! Yes, I heard about it from your mother at dinner after the funeral. It won an award, didn’t it?”
“That was my undergrad thesis. The PhD dissertation is an expansion of it.”
“That’s really wonderful. You know, I was a history major before law school. Really an important and noble pursuit, you know, keep up the good work.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m actually sort of calling with regards to that…I’ve just sent you an email with a PDF of the will, but I’m calling just to make sure you get the message. Your grandfather, I think, valued education pretty highly.”
“He did. Though I never really inherited his knowledge of art.”
“I’m sure he’d be proud of you, all the same. Anyways—you’ll want to read the whole will, of course, you’re an adult now and you should have a good idea of who got what in case your—do your parents ever talk about money with you?”
Do my parents talk about money? Do my parents ever talk about money?! Do Cranmer and Nancy Katzbube ever talk about money?!
“Eliot, to be honest with you, my parents discuss finances with me about as often as they discuss their sex life. I don’t even know how much either of them makes. It’s simply not done.”
“Ah, well, it’s probably about time to start talking about it. Money, I mean, not sex. Your grandfather…let me read it to you, just so I can confirm you understand it—
To my grandson, Winthrop Vandecanter Katzbube, I leave the proceeds of Trust 6 held at the Bank of New York, to pay out exactly $60,000 yearly, adjusted yearly for inflation and dispensed on a monthly basis, until the completion of his ongoing studies. Upon the completion of his studies, the proceeds of Trust 6 will be held for the education of his children, if he has any, and devolve to his complete control when he turns sixty years of age.
Katzbube blinked.
“Winthrop, are you there?”
“Yes…yes, I’m here. That’s…”
“I think,” Eliot said, chuckling, “your grandfather expected to die a bit earlier than ninety-one. You might not see much of it if you’re about to complete your dissertation, but…are you seeing anyone right now?”
“I…no, unfortunately.” Well, there’s Melanie, but that’s a bit complicated.
“Well, the kids’ education will be spoken for when you have them. There’s about two and a half million in that trust.”
“I…”
“I’ve got to go, unfortunately. You’re not the only person named in the will I need to call. But, look, why don’t you drive or catch the train up to Beantown sometime next week so we can get the details sorted out? I’ll need your bank account information and you’ll probably want to start thinking about finding someone to help with taxes. We’ve got a couple of associates who do this thing all the time.”
“I…yes…thank you, Eliot. I’ve…”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Normal reaction. Ring me up when you’re a bit less in shock. And have a great weekend!”
The line cut. Katzbube exited the stairwell and walked back to his desk in a daze.
He could be found an hour later at the Globalist House of Waffles in a celebratory mood, feasting on butterscotch-chip teff pancakes with camel bacon and a kefir latte. Free…free! Free, to the tune of sixty grand a year, indefinitely, so long as he never defended.
Or—
Surely he could just start another PhD?
The plain intent of the will was that he would be doing one PhD—or, when it was written, probably that he would finish undergrad and go on to a PhD, perhaps with a master’s first—subsidized by the proceeds of the trust. Upon the final defense, the stipend would be rolled up and not become available again until he had children.
But who could afford to have children without an extra $60K a year? At the very least it would make it much easier to rent a bigger apartment for them. And after that he’d probably want to homeschool them. Who could possibly argue against—
He probably could not un-sequester the trust if he started another PhD—no, surely not—upon the conclusion of his ongoing studies. But he could start another PhD before wrapping up this one. He was, of course, assuredly one of the best economic history PhD students at Brown despite his youth. The honors-thesis version of Land in the Longue Durée had won the Scheidel Award for Depressing Conclusions and the Smil Medal for Quantitative Analysis (restricted to that undergraduate who has produced the best data-driven humanities thesis over 400 pages; it had been won once before this century). It was now at well over 700 pages with no end in sight, which Katzbube’s father might well no longer care much about if he wasn’t going to be subsidizing the rent.
He had barely passed comps a year ago, as—rather than relying on secondary sources, which he considered the mark of an amateur—Katzbube had thrown himself in fontes for chapter two, on long-term trends in Mesopotamian land distribution. Finals were scheduled the same week as comps. On three hours of sleep and twenty milligrams of Adderall he had mixed up which tests were when and written the answer to question one of his econometrics comprehensive in Akkadian. By the time he realized the snafu it was too late to do anything but soldier on through. Eventually the economic history chair brought a nice bottle of Graham’s twenty-year tawny round to the Near Eastern Studies department and begged them to save his fiefdom’s rising star, pointing out that at least the thing was already transliterated, and told Katzbube with a look of profound seriousness that he was on thin ice indeed.
He could probably start a PhD in Akkadiology, so long as it wasn’t at the same institution. Didn’t UWinnemac have a department? He would simply—no, he’d have to move back to Zenith and go long-distance with Melanie. Or would he? He could of course—
He could skip most of the first year of classes at Winnemac—they recorded all this stuff these days anyways—show up to the final, and spend the rest of the time writing Land in the Longue Durée and looking at tablets in archives. Of course. Economic historians and Akkadiologists don’t go to the same conferences. The Akkadiologists publish the texts and one of half a dozen economic historians on the face of the planet reads them in English or German ten years later. If you were at two separate universities nobody would be any the wiser, except for the mercifully taciturn legal person of Trust Account 6.
“I’m proofreading the apparatus for a Teubner I’m doing. What’s up?”
“I was wondering,” said Katzbube, piloting his ancient Ford Focus aimlessly in the vague direction of Scituate, “if you’d write me a letter of rec for a PhD program.”
Static hummed over the phone line.
“Didn’t you already start one in economic history?”
“It’s complicated. I’m looking to start one in Akkadiology. Possibly at Winnemac, possibly at Zürich or UCL.”
“I didn’t know you could read Akkadian.”
“I had to pick some up to read sources for the dissertation.”
“You’re…you’re not planning on submitting one dissertation to two programs, are you?”
“No, of course not. Look, just—I’ll be happy to send a good bottle of sherry and a gift card for Brill. Possibly enough to buy half a monograph, even. Just between you and me.”
Dr. Rise mulled the idea over.
“You’ll need someone who can speak to your Akkadian skills.”
“I’ve got that covered.”
“I’m not surprised given your Greek performance in undergrad. Are you quitting your current program?”
“Not exactly. I’ve—I won a grant from the Vandecanter Foundation. They encourage interdisciplinary work and program overlap. It shows you’re a collaborative thinker.”
Smooth, he thought.
“The Vandecanter Foundation.”
“Yes, I think they’re relatively new.”
“Well, anything to win the red queen’s race for tenure, I suppose. Sure, I’ll write you a letter. When do you need it by?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Probably the end of this year to start a year from this September. The European application schedules are much less of a pain.”
“The proof for the Teubner is due at the end of July. I’ll try and get it to you before the new school year starts.”
“It’s appreciated,” Katzbube replied. “What’s on tap this semester?”
“They’ve got me on The Teaching of Latin with one of the ed-school profs, God help me.”
“My condolences.”
Linda Blick poured herself another cup of coffee and sighed. Four more students to give stern talkings-to today in hopes of meeting guidance targets and God knows how many emails from colleagues. For the fifteenth time that morning she clicked on an email from the President’s office.
Dear Faculty and Staff:
As you may have read in the news, the Department of Education has recently handed down new guidance for federally-funded colleges and universities on ensuring campuses remain healthy places for students to learn, grow and socialize. To remain in compliance, we have created a Four-Year Age Gap Action Plan.
While wide age gaps are not necessarily indicative of an abusive or unhealthy relationship (AoUR), AoURs are often accompanied by large age gaps between partners of any gender. An anonymous survey filled out by University students indicated that the average situationship on campus has an age gap of 2.3 years, while the average one-night stand has an age gap of 2.6. Even more problematically, among students with OnlyFans profiles, the average paid subscriber is a whopping 5.7 years older.
While students are legal adults and—except for graduate students—are generally free to express their own romantic identities, these figures are truly worrying and may jeopardize our ability to stay in compliance with Title IX guidance. If they do not improve, we may lose federal funding. We are therefore implementing our Four-Year Age Gap Action Plan to help faculty and staff recognize potential AoURs and talk to students. If you were not able to attend the presentation on August 23rd, please see the attached Powerpoint.
Our goal is to halve the age gaps of relationships on campus within the next four years to help put a stop to AoURs. While there is no truly healthy age gap in student relationships, we are all able to encourage students to date responsibly by participating in respectful conversations. For example, if you are subscribed to a student’s OnlyFans, you may wish to send them an anonymous note suggesting they check the average age of their subscribers and think about creating content better geared towards their peers. If you have questions, please feel free to email Lisa Sternberg, Provost for Healthy Relationships. We are all responsible for making the university community a safe and welcoming place to learn.
Best,
—President Fliss
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
The door opened to reveal a rather sheepish-looking woman in a dogtooth peacoat.
“Ah. You must be Melanie.”
“Yes.”
“I’m Linda Blick, Vice Provost for Healthy Relationships. Do take a seat. Before anything else, I’d like to reiterate that you’re not in trouble.”
“Oh. What did you want to meet me for, then?”
Linda paused, attempting to remember the script she’d learned in the training with Lisa.
“Do you know someone named Winthrop Katzbube?”
“Winty? Yes, he’s my boyfriend, of course I know him.”
“You’re aware that he’s only twenty-one?”
“Y…yessss…”
“And you’re twenty-five.”
“So? I started college late, I’m still an undergrad. He’s old enough to drink, it’s not like I’m buying him booze or anything.”
“Right, yes. Of course, I’m sure you wouldn’t do that. The reason I wanted to talk to you is that…”
Melanie shuffled uncomfortably in her chair.
“The university administration is concerned that many students’ relationships have a higher-than-average age gap.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Now, of course, there’s not necessarily anything wrong with relationships across an age gap, but we’re very concerned about making sure that all our students are safe, and relationships with age gaps are…it’s more common for unsafe relationships to have a wide age gap than not. That’s all. It’s a small part of the university’s Combatting Unsafety Initiative—”
“You’re asking me to break up with him?!”
“Well. No. No, of course not. Just, ah. It’s worth being…it’s worth practicing mindfulness with this sort of thing. The university is hoping to reach a point where most relationships have a below-average age gap. You’re a star student on campus, Melanie. You can set an example others look up to.”
“I…I see.”
“I’m sorry if this conversation has made you uncomfortable.”
“It has.”
“I’m afraid that in your current situation you’re not eligible to join our campus team of Age Gap Ambassadors.”
She handed Melanie a bright, cheery pamphlet titled Age Gap Ambassadors: Bringing Safety to Campus.
“It’s a great opportunity to make a difference on campus and get paid to have constructive conversations,” said Linda.
“I don’t think I’d be interested in it anyways.”
“Well,” said Linda, “please feel free to let me know if you have any friends who might be good fits. And don’t be afraid to stop by! It’s my job to help students make good choices.”
“I think I’m well-qualified to make them on my own, thank you very much.”
A look of disappointment flashed momentarily across Linda’s face.
“Of course. Well, I have another appointment in a few, so…”
“Yes,” said Melanie, rising from her seat. “And I’ve got a paper to write. I’ll let you know if I think of anyone.”
She closed the door behind her. Linda Blick looked at the clock, took another sip of coffee, and awaited yet more constructive conversations with students at risk of perpetrating Unsafety.
“And there’s the man of the evening! Good evening, Winthrop.”
Katzbube, ever aware of his capacity for self-beclownment, said nothing to the slickly-attired undergraduate sitting across the room. He took a seat at the foot of the long table in Room 312 at the Center for Graduate Student Success. It briefly occurred to him that he might not have been summoned to Room 312 if he had taken more advantage of the 24/7 petting zoo, weekly massage sessions, or Institute for Social Change. He had been here once before after using the stock of posterboard and markers found at the Institute for Social Change to protest a planned installation of hot tubs in student housing. That meeting, it was agreed by all involved, had been a remarkable success, and Katzbube agreed to never again use the Institute for Social Change to the detriment of students with psoriasis.
He felt somewhat less confident about the outcome of this meeting.
“I’m Melvin McDibble, a trained and certified University Age Gap Ambassador. How are you doing this evening?”
“I’m…I’m doing great.”
“Just fantastic,” said Melvin, with a smile that suggested considerable potential as a dealer of pre-owned Subarus. “I’m really glad to hear it.” Katzbube felt a sudden urge to join a monastic order.
“I’ve got a dissertation to write…”
“Of course, of course. Yes, I completely understand. I just thought it’d be great to get to know each other and have a…constructive conversation!”
“A constructive conversation about…”
“About your future, Winthrop. Winty? You go by Winty, right?”
“Mostly with close friends,” said Katzbube.
“Of course, of course. Well. Winthrop, Winthrop, Winthrop. As you know—are you familiar with the Combatting Unsafety Initiative?”
“I believe I’ve heard of it.”
“Yes. It’s one of the University’s most important jobs. Really its most important job, in fact.”
“Surely you mean danger. Combatting Danger.”
“Oh no, no, no. No, truly dangerous things are thankfully very rare these days. Danger, Winthrop, is about bad actors acting against you. We trust our university community, Winthrop. We do our very utmost to keep bad actors off campus and we’ve gotten very good at not admitting them. No, danger is about bad actors acting against you—” he pointed to Katzbube—”but unsafety is about the unsafe choices you make yourself.”
Katzbube elected to meditate silently on this new and subtle distinction.
“Now—just between you and me—I’m a bit concerned that your relationship with Melanie might be…I’m not saying it is…but I’m saying it could be unsafe.”
“I…please elaborate.”
“Well, you’re a PhD student and she’s an undergrad. There’s a possible power imbalance there.”
“I’m a very young PhD student.”
“What I’m saying,” said Melvin, “is that—Winthrop, you’re surely aware of the dismal employment prospects for PhD students. Particularly in the humanities.”
“Nobody is making the university admit them.”
“Winthrop, Winthrop, Winthrop,” Melvin repeated. “Why—Winty! This is a positive-sum opportunity here. A whole world awaits out there. A whole world with—with far better prospects for a brilliant young thinker like yourself. Think of finance, your—what’s your dissertation on, again?”
“It’s called Land in the Longue Durée, on land distribution and long-term trends in—.”
“That’s it! That’s just it. Think just how successful you could be as a realtor, Winthrop.”
“A realtor.” His head spun, concocting febrile visions of open-house sessions somewhere in South Florida. Winthrop V. Katzbube—over three decades of outstanding performance selling proctologists on the virtues of LEED-certified mood lighting and shag carpeting.
“Yes. I’m hoping to make this meeting a real success for everyone involved, Winthrop—for you, for the university. You can make the university safer and launch yourself into a world of success. Everyone’s hiring.”
When you’re in a trap, bite.
“We’ve been dating for a year and a half and this hasn’t come up. Why, if I may ask, are you bringing this up now?”
“Ah! Yes, yes. A really good question. Are you familiar with the university’s new Four-Year Age Gap Action Plan?”
Katzbube paused and ruminated. Bite…or play dead.
“Oh yes! Yes, I’m so glad you brought that up. That’s been—that’s really been a guiding principle for me.”
“A guiding principle.”
“Yes. I read about the University aiming for an average age gap of four years. That’s why I’m dating someone four years older than me. I’m interrogating hegemonies by being a younger male partner in a straight relationship.”
He watched Melvin slowly, if surely, process this explanation. Within a few seconds it became clear this explanation, while not necessarily believed, was unlikely to be interrogated further.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” said Melvin.
“Oh dear.”
“But it’s good to know we’ll have to update some of our training materials so they’re less confusing. We—”
“Overjoyed to know I can be helpful,” said Katzbube, standing up and pushing in his chair.
“But—”
“Yes, this has been a constructive conversation. You have my email, I think, if you want me to take a look at any training materials to provide suggestions.”
“Winty, we’re not—”
“Sorry, you don’t actually have any disciplinary power, do you?”
“I…”
“Do you?”
Melvin blinked.
“Not unless there’s evidence of abuse.”
“Is there?”
“I was hoping to ask—”
“Cheers.”
Katzbube gave a wave of leave, shut the door to Room 312 behind him, and awaited a joyful evening of combing through grain-price time series.