Quak, Quak or No Great Sheiks
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
QUAK UNIVERSITY OFFERS YOU
$12,000 US PLUS TRANSPORTATION PLUS
FURNISHED RESIDENCE PLUS MEDICAL CARE
ADVISE IMMEDIATELY
Herbert Ballard crumpled the telegram in a spasm of exultation. A job. A job. Money. Money. For, having taken on the First Amendment literally, he had exercised his constitutional liberties--siding with the black students against the faculty, denouncing the Cambodian Incursion from the library steps, and even picketing the Board of Trustees meeting to help gain some additional scholarship money. He had forgotten that, while he could freely express himself, there was no constitutional guarantee of a job. Thus, he had been peristaltically non-retained from Chicago Urban University.
So he had scurried and hunted during the Spring of 1970, only to find the literary academic marketplace had become an abandoned Les Halles, its stalls encrusted with grime, layered with dust. The cushy jobs and federal benefits of the mid-sixties had vanished into the maw of Vietnam, and the Ph.D.ed droplets of the academic bubble were now stranded and abandoned--too qualified for junior colleges, too protected and unskilled to weld or unscore cylinder walls. The yoke was all over the eggheads, and the Archie Bunkers could now have their laugh over the manicured effetes breadlining it.
The bulls**t market was dead.
Interview after interview petered out, leaving Dr. Ballard--he had just received his Ph.D. in time for it to "over qualify" him into unemployment and thus concomitantly diminished chances for food and sex. And indeed, his continual rejections by harassed Departmental Chairmen had cut into Herbert’s libidinal energies as well, feeling a casual listlessness towards the undulating a**es barely covered by co-ed micro-mini skirts, by the prow-proud busts--bursts he would have more accurately termed them--that preceded the sassy blacks who strode the linoleumed corridors of Chicago Urban University--that crumbling House of Usher in black belt Chicago. Actually, the school, which P.R.ed itself as a "dynamic multi-racial institution committed to confronting the problems of urban education," was a trembling "WASP" bastion staffed by dodderers eager to retire before the ebony deluge. For Herbert had discovered what urbanologists knew all along--Chicago was the Birmingham of the North, with whole blocks of whites evacuating in a few months before the pressure of urban blacks striving to escape the core ghettos, or their incarceration into monstrous hulks of public housing whose corridors and elevators were the newest urban battlefields pitting addict, mugger, and rapist against the already battered poor.
As he vainly sought a job, Herbert watched poverty edge towards him in the slow drip of days, which would end June 30th--leaving July 1st as his initial no income day.
Yet Herbert knew one could not afford to be poor in America, which lacked such essentials as universal health care for the non-monied and self-employed. Besides, there were still bills to be paid: $500 to his lawyer for supervising the final torpedoing of his wrecked marriage; a few time payments at 18% per year on his revolving credit card at Sears--so called because the interest rate makes one’s head spin--and even an overdue dentist’s bill.
What does one do when there is no money? No steady source of accumulating income? The telegram delayed his discovering the answer to that question.
But Quak? This telegram was the result of an ad in the Sunday Times which he had hopelessly responded to, expecting another curt and mimeographed "No" to add to the collection which might paper his bathroom wall, replacing the traditional Confederate money usually reserved for that purpose. A hasty trip to an ethnocentrically named Middle East Atlas showed Quak to be a small island perched above the littoral of the Arabian Gulf and fortuitously sitting on about one-fifth of the world’s known oil reserves. Since its native population was only about a half-million, this provided a secure if smelly economic base for Quak, creating--as Herbert read in the Atlas..."a tiny state that is Royalist, Capitalist, and Socialist." However, to Herbert’s consternation, his further reading revealed the State of Quak to be implacably Moslem--for Herbert knew by now it was Allah or nothing--and one of the few states where alcohol was banned by law.
Alcohol? They did not apparently mean that explosive substance which lights lanterns or is used to tingle the skin in massage parlors. No. They must mean beer--Budweiser, Lowenbrau, Amstel, Pabst, Miller, Stroh's--and wine--Mosel, Liebfraumilch, Amontillado, Claret, vins rouges et blancs--and whiskey, in its varied brandings and curved bottlings--Johnny Walker, Seagram’s VO, Chivas Regal, Hennessey Four-Star, Calvert.
Just because Mohamet was down on booze, he had wrecked it for everyone else. Still, it would be a profitable, even chic, place to teach. No income tax, and a free house.
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About the Book
Having been denied tenure for taking the side of black students at Chicago Urban University--a college undergoing transition from half-white to all-black--hapless Professor Herbert Ballard finds himself with only one job offer for the following year.
The offer comes from the oil-drenched, gold-rich Arabian state of Quak. Unable to refuse, Herbert accepts knowing full well that the consumption of alcohol is forbidden and that the penalties for adultery--should he be so lucky--include surgical (or swordical) removing of the offending member.
Since Herbert Ballard was in the process of joining the ‘70’s sexual revolution--then called wife-swapping if one were fortunate enough to be married--the recently divorced Herbert now faces a bleak carnal future, unrelieved by even the soothing ministrations of a Manhattan or gin and tonic.
Upon arriving in Quak, Herbert finds the sand-blasted domain to be just as repressive as his worst fears: celibacy and sobriety reign until school vacations allow him to explore more liberal parts of the Arab world in search of a sensual and libacious solace.
About the Author
Randy Graham, the pseudononymous author of Academic Affairs, grew up in suburban New Jersey. He holds graduate degrees in English, library science, and law.
Self-proclaimed as one of the leading sexual theorists on the East Coast, he currently lives in Florida where he audits classes at a local university and researches carnal phenomena.