Your TA, Matty, is utterly useless. He shows up to discussion five minutes late and struggles to connect his laptop to the projector. He's a grad student but ogles the freshman boys in plain sight when they lean over to pick up their bags. Worst of all, he fails half of the section on the midterm paper.
"He's a poor excuse for a man," someone comments tearfully.
A sixty-five. It could be worse, you think, but it could be better. Matty is the type to ask for a hard copy despite the convenient option of online submission; he returned yours after hastily covering it in red scribbles. There is yet to be a single piece of verbal feedback.
Another student asks, "Do you think my participation grade could salvage this?"
"He left to the bathroom for twenty minutes last week, so who's to say you have one?" you reply.
The class, weeks past the drop deadline, collectively agrees to let their GPA take a hit. Nobody wants to negotiate grades with the TA, the stubborn bastard-god knows they'd tried. Except three unanswered emails later, you get fed up and decide make a visit to Matty's office.
It's in an abysmal corner of the department building. End of a long and winding hallway, outdated structure, overhead fixtures could use new lightbulbs. The sign on his door reads, OFFICE HOURS TODAY.
You open the door without knocking. On the carpeted floor, Matty sits cross-legged playing Jenga with some kid from your own section. Beside them lies an open bag of chips.
"Sorry, I must have interrupted something important," you say.
The Jenga tower crashes to the floor. One of the wooden pieces skitter past your foot.
"No! No, god damn it!" Matty screams. "Oh, hey. Could you get that piece for me?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever. And this is office hours for one-oh-eight..."
"Office-yeah. Yes, office hours, George here came to go over his paper-" The other kid waves a hand, big enough to rival a bear paw. "-but he insisted on showing me how to solder with a zinc-based alloy first. George, where's the paper you wanted to look at?"
George says, "I don't think I have it."
"Tough. Shoot me an email and we can look at it over Zoom."
"You don't even answer emails," you say.
"The syllabus states a waiting period of forty-eight hours not counting the weekends, on which I don't check my inbox."
"It's been two weeks."
"Are you sure it sent?"
"I sent five follow-up emails!"
"You should probably contact IT about it."
"It's most definitely a problem on your end."
He scratches at his arm. He wears the same graphic shirt from yesterday's section, a perfect row of kittens in space. "Look, what's this all about?"
"My paper."
"I'm not sure if it's possible to dispute my grading criteria."
If he has criteria, it's hardly discernible. The complete absence of notes, save for a flurry of question marks and circles, convinces you that he didn't read it at all. You find it hard to speak from the tangle of loathsome thoughts forming above all reason.
"Okay. Whatever. I'll just take it up with the professor."
"Good luck with that!"
You hate to prove his taunting right, but the professor has a similar excuse, deflecting the problem back to Matty where you know very well that it will keep bouncing back and forth between the two until the term ends, like a miserable game of tennis.
To take matters into your own hands, you search Matty's name in the student database then plug his address into a GPS. The way that you think about it, an academic environment limits negotiations to a dry and distanced formality; however, you and Matty have reached a peak where violence is not off the table.
His unit is dismal. The door is unlocked and dead quiet, so you let yourself into a cramped box of popcorn ceilings and broken blinds. It's too dark to see anything except for the fluorescent blue glow of a flatscreen TV sat on the carpet, left on the National Geographic channel at a low volume.
You turn on the single overhead light. He must have been hidden in the shadows when it was dark-Matty rolls over on the couch, half-unconscious and hair matted to his cheek.
"Shit," you say reflexively.
"What the fuck?" Matty mumbles. He's squinting, smacking his lips, and when he moves again, empty beer bottles clink together behind the cushions. You take a step back.
"Wrong place."
"Weren't you just at office hours?"
"Coincidence."
Matty shakes his head and brushes chip crumbs off his pants. He tries to get on his feet, but he can't keep himself upright. Grabbing blindly for a support, he makes a subhuman gurgling noise.
"What's with you?"
Matty coughs. He reeks of beer. "Get me some water."
"I was just leaving-"
"I'm going to be sick."
"Christ." You produce a plastic water bottle from your bag and sit next to him. The leather is tacky, like half-dried sweat. A gag rises in your throat, but you hold it down in fear that Matty will take the same cue.
He opens his mouth weakly. You cringe as the water dribbles down his shaky chin and wets his shirt, and out of frustration you grab his jaw to steady it. It feels like you're bottle feeding a baby.
Finally, he swallows the last drop with a gasp.
You ask, "Don't you have work to do?"
"I do, it's there." He motions to the coffee table. Papers, scattered in stacks across the surface, covered in sloppy red strokes and the occasional damp stain sticking the sheets together.
Suddenly, he retches. "Get up," you say, "to the sink."
Matty slumps back into you while you struggle to keep a hold on his waist. He's unusually slippery, like a dolphin, and worse, he weighs the both of you down as you drag him to the kitchen.
At this point, you expect another burst of anger, but all you can summon is exhaustion and pity to some degree. "So you grade papers drunk."
"Not always." His breath blows uncomfortably hot on your neck.
"And don't check them sober."
"No."
"That doesn't reflect favorably upon you."
"Is this just about what you want?" He hiccups terribly. You wish you had never even touched him. In your mind, you're filing a hundred different reports to the graduate department. "'Cause that's not how I work."
You frown. Somehow, this conversation feels like it's wandered into a different territory. You don't realize you've nearly let go of his sides. He stands fine on his own.
"I'll see you in class," you say and leave without looking back.
