“What’re you telling me? You wanna send your kid to college? Ah, Duke, you wanna give her what you never had. Give her a start in life. That’s beautyfull!  But, Duke, how long is it we known each other? And how long we been workin the rackets? So now you tell me you wanna give in to a deal that’s fixed just because you never been to college.”

“Hey, don’t I know your daughter? Since she was in diapers, no? I baptized her, didn’t I, her godfather? Angela’s like my own. I tell you, my friend, that’s the last place you should send her.”

“What do I mean fixed? You kidding? First off, you’re out a couple a hundred Gs. And that’ll be to pay so she learns to hate your ass. Listen to what I’m saying. They don’t study anymore. They have groups who teach hating. And guess who they learn to hate? Old white guys.”

“No, no, it don’t make no difference if you’re her old man. They got their own little cosa nostra, you know, their own thing. Or maybe it’s more like South Africa. Remember when we was movin Krugerands down there? Remember the ghetto? Sowheto. That’s how the university is rigged. Talk about rackets! You got the honchos of the university who nab all the dough for their operation. They spread a little of it around to their hotshot professors for cover, yeah, plus those profs get bitchy once in a while. And have they got a union, madonna! They got tenure.”

“What does it mean, tenure? Are you serious? It means you can’t be fired. Imagine, Duke, it’s like us if we couldn’t be arrested. Hey, what shit could we pull then? I mean, how sweet is that? Those hotshot profs get real well on university cash because they got to make it look good. You know, put on a good front so the university outfit can snake in more bucks. But the folks who do the actual teaching… Well, that’s what makes it Sowheto.”

“Remember in Johannesburg where the blacks were sneakin over the border to work in the gold mines? That’s what makes the university a Sowheto. They got the part timers with real degrees, but they got to sneak into a union scene like scabs, and they’re teaching the same jobs as union guys. But, hey, you know how it is with the union guys, right? They’re gonna keep that shop closed long as they can. So they got these Sowheto-type apart timers— you know, like apartheid— doing all the heavy lifting and everybody lookin down on ‘em at the same time. Just like with the blacks.”

“No, they ain’t all blacks. I was just using the Afrikaners as an example. And it’s about the same as in Africa— over half of ‘em doing the heavy lifting, you know, how they do the same grunt work and they’re still apartimers with degrees and everything. Only the guys don’t call ‘em apartimers. They got a name. Get this, adjunct professors. They call ‘em adjunct professors to shine ‘em on with a fancy handle, but they still don’t get shit. Not even respect. They keep ‘em apart the way they did in Cape Town with curfews, rules, and no bennies. They get no real part of the operation. Not even offices. Apartimers gotta keep office hours with no office.  Cars are their offices, like a bunch of homeless. That’s how Sowheto it is.”

Educate! Agitate! Organize!

“What’s that got to do with Angie? You kidding? Those adjunct apartimers, they’re the ones bitching all the time. That’s the attitude they lay on the kids. They wanna bring down the whole country just because they’re getting screwed. In some way, you know, I can’t blame ‘em. But what they’re doing is a good way to tear the country apart. Gettin to those kids who don’t know shit. You think Angie’s smart enough to see through all of those ranking stooges?”

“Hey, come on, I know she’s smart! But they’re so full a shit. And the others— the kids, I mean— they’ll work on her too. And then they throw her into a coed dorm. Girls and boys just outa high school rooming next to each other. What could go wrong there, eh, Duke? So after the punks and the lesbian dorm moms work on her, she’ll come home with one of those pussy hats on her head and mouth fulla names for you. And you’re gonna fork out two hundred large for that!”

“Career! Whaddya mean, career? What kind a career is she gonna get that isn’t full over and out of date? Probably wind up being an apartimer too. Maybe she could go work for you, Duke. It’d be a lot cleaner.”

Joe Cozzo