I’m standing in the Latin American Studies department.  Twilight bleeds the place of its bustle and multiple dialects of Spanish.  Most of the lights are turned off, most of the doors are shut.  The remains of a party litter the flat surfaces – appetizer platters with the shrimp all gone, picked-over pizza getting cold, opened bottles of wine.  Maria Ortiz, my funding nemesis, passed her orals today and the department threw a goddamn fiesta to celebrate.  When I passed my orals I didn’t even rate a slap on the ass.  That’s the kind of warm affection I engender in people.  I’d be pissed about it, except the sentiment is mutual.

I grab a bottle of something red and swig directly from it.  Cabernet sauvignon.  A good one, way better than the stuff I can afford.  But I abandon it when I discover a lambrusco that hasn’t even been opened yet.  I stuff the torpedo-shaped bottle into my backpack, next to last week’s undergrad assignments for “Introduction to European History”.  I need to stop carrying them around and start grading them.

Past the lobby and administrative alcove is a hallway that deadends into an office door.  The nameplate is etched without a title or the “emeritus” honorific or even a full name, just a single word – HERCULES.  The door is slightly ajar with shadows inside.  I make a fist and rap on the heavy wood.

“I’m not here,” a rumble answers from within.

“Eugenia says different.”

“For chrissake.”  Not much of an invite, but it’ll have to do.

The office is a wide but shallow space pressed up against a wall of glass, now hidden behind vertical blinds.  The left half of the room is floor-to-ceiling cherry shelves in the floor plan of an E.  The right half is a sitting area with black leather couches and framed pictures of Hercules posing with luminaries, like Barack Obama and various presidents of Mexico.  Spanning the halves of the room is the messy book-stacked desk where Hercules the academic and Hercules the politician collide.

The man in the pictures is seated in an imposing leather captain’s chair.  His dark collar-length hair is circled by a UCLA visor.  He wears a ribbed turtleneck sweater that drapes flatly into his lap.  He looks up from the paperwork he’s reading and scowls, the carved mahogany of his face coming alive.  “Haven’t you left for Thanksgiving yet, Mr. Roberts?”

“Good to see you too, Professor.”  I shrug out of my backpack and drop into one of the wingback chairs facing the desk.  “I came by to – ”

Hercules is already silencing me with a leathery palm.  “Let me guess.  You’re here to ask for a supplemental grant.”

“Tammy-Sue talked to you.”  I expected it, so it’s easy to keep my voice calm.

“She said she explained what a supplemental grant is to you.  So you know that as a graduate student, you’re ineligible.  Now leave me alone.”

“That didn’t stop Cecilia Snyder from getting a supplemental.”

“Cecilia preserved an archive in the Ecuadorian rainforest.  I suggest you apply for a student loan if you want more funding.”  Hercules drums bony knuckles on the desk.  “Unless you’re planning to preserve an archive you never told me about, we have nothing further to discuss.”

“Well, actually…”  I unzip my backpack and fish out a multi-page letter on Budweiser stationery.  The beer’s famous crown logo pirouettes through the murk when I drop the letter on his desk.

“What’s this?”

“Just read it.”

He stares a hole in my face for a while, then finally glances down and begins to read.  Beneath the visor his dark eyes are moving faster.  “You’re going to preserve an archive?”

“M-hmmm.  A corporate archive.”

“For a Budweiser distributor?” he retorts angrily, his brow a Cyclopean line.

“The signatory owns a defunct maquiladora in Tijuana called Korea Textile S.A.  If you read the next page, you’ll see that he’s authorizing me to make a digital archive of all company papers and donate it to – ”

“ – the UCLA Latin American Studies department,” Hercules interjects, flipping ahead.  “What’s this part about adequate resources?”

“Well, the signatory is only prepared to execute this agreement if adequate resources are provided for the undertaking.”

“Like a supplemental grant, I suppose.”  He’s back to staring a hole in my face.

“This would be a research legacy for future generations.  All the inner workings of a maquiladora?  Board minutes, executive memos, HR and payroll data, you name it.  There’s nothing like it in the world.”  I lean forward a little, selling hard.  “Plus it’ll make two great press releases for the Latin American Studies department.  The initial announcement, and the follow-up when it’s available for use.”

“So you get more funding, and I get an archive and some publicity.  What’s in it for this Budweiser distributor?”

“The archive has to be called the Juan Angel Santelana Archive in perpetuity.”

Hercules glances at the letter again.  Chuckling now.  “You sold him naming rights.  His name memorialized on something besides a headstone.”

I find myself relaxing into laughter, all buddy-buddy, one manipulative sonuvabitch to another.

“Did you cook this up after you talked to Tammy-Sue?”

“Nah, it’s been in process longer than that.  I was planning to use this archive for my dissertation research anyway.  But the idea of preserving it, all the digitization, that’s new.”  A lie to whitewash my mercenary instincts.

He rummages around in his desk for a complicated-looking form.  “You’ll need to fill out this application.  And I’ll warn you now.  I expect a stellar proposal, with every expense anticipated.  Return the application to me when you’re ready.”

I’ve never seen a supplemental grant application before.  It’s like something out of the 1950s – triplicate with carbon copies, meant to be completed on a typewriter or just by pressing really hard with a ballpoint.  The applicant fields are pre-filled.  I stare at Hercules’ name, his office address, his contact information.  Realization seeps through me.

“Is something the matter, Mr. Roberts?”

“You’re the one who gets the grant.  I’ll just work for you.”

“I believe the popular expression is, you’ll be my bitch.”  He guffaws at my discomfort.  “Even God couldn’t get a supplemental awarded to a grad student.  So the funding goes to me, and I hire you as an independent contractor.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“No?  Then you might as well take out a student loan.”

“Fuck that,” I say through gritted teeth.  “Best advice I ever got?  Make somebody else pay for grad school.”

“That’s what I like about you – your predictability.” Hercules tilts waaaaaaay back in his captain’s chair, a smug pose.  “From the day I admitted you to this department, I don’t think you’ve managed to surprise me once.  Not even with something like this.  At first, but no.”

I snatch the paperwork and Juan’s letter off his desk.  “Do we have an understanding or what?”

“Make sure your proposal is truly stellar.  For the record, I didn’t do Cecilia any favors.  I won’t do you any favors either.  My only interest is preserving a unique archival resource.  Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Then we have an understanding.”  Hercules points his visor brim at the desktop again.  Our meeting is over.

I retreat from the office with his name on it, pausing to grab another unopened bottle of wine on my through the lobby.  I feel like getting drunk, not celebrating.  The prospect of becoming Hercules’ bitch fazes me.  Right now the balance of power is in my favor.  I can kick him off my dissertation committee.  But if he can fire me from my own supplemental grant…

Outside the chill is timid, barely seeping through my sweatshirt.  Around me the campus is ebbing into pre-Thanksgiving slumber – mostly empty walkways, student commons with only a few students, parking lots with glinting shapes scattered across them.  My inner Iowa farmboy pauses to enjoy the moment.  This is when UCLA feels like a small town, not a campus of 50,000 lost souls.  50,001 counting mine.