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R E C E N T L Y

What if they threw a revolution and nobody came?
By Ben Fritz
Conservative foundations are pouring money into traditionally liberal campuses in the hopes of converting a new generation of right-wing radicals, but will their millions bear fruit?
(02/19/99)

Internship hell
By Andy Dehnart
Is previous experience really necessary for another summer of photocopying, filing and gofering?
(02/17/99)

The teachers we loved
Writers send valentines to the people who opened their minds
(02/12/99)

The reluctant accuser
By Alexandra Robbins
When faced with quasi-assault from a friend, a young student finds neither college counselors nor handbooks have an answer
(02/10/99)

Camille on Campus
By Camille Paglia
Penned off in gilded ghettos, the scholars of sex miss the complex biological and cultural story of human sexual nature
(02/10/99)

GHOSTS ON CAMPUS | PAGE 1, 2
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After Anna's death, I started thinking about the other invisible people on campus. Are there others, I wondered, who fell between the cracks? Others who lived anonymously in our supposedly supportive academic community? I remembered the girl from last semester who would never come to lecture, then walk in 20 minutes late for each exam, only to leave within half an hour. Seth and I would smile and roll our eyes as we worked on our tests -- we'd give each other a knowing wink that meant, "This will help the curve." But what if it wasn't funny after all? Maybe this girl wanted to be known for something other than being the crazy one who screws up on exams. Maybe she just wanted to be known. Or maybe she didn't care about school and had something more exciting going on her life. No one ever bothered to ask, though, and I've never seen this girl on campus since.

Out in the quadrangle, there are trees and benches filled with people socializing. They are eating, studying, lying in the sun. If I'm there with some friends during the lunch hour, sometimes I'll see a scrawny guy sitting alone, eating a sorry-looking sandwich and staring at the ground. People pass by, but no one says hello. As my friends and I leave, the student will still be sitting there, the hustle and bustle of the world happening all around him, as if he exists in a bubble and can't get out. I wonder if Anna used to sit there too.

Students aren't the only ones who can disappear. There's a whole clan of invisible people, and I've begun to think that maybe they recognize only each other, like the pod people in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Maybe the scrawny student on the bench recognizes the janitor who empties his trash, who recognizes the woman who runs the laboratory supply room, and so on. There might be a whole tribe of people out there who are nameless and faceless only to the rest of us. The corollary, of course, would be that we visible people are in constant danger of being snatched off into their universe, so I try to discount that theory.

I'd like to think, instead, that we can snatch the invisibles over to our side. So on the way back to my car recently, I started a conversation with the campus crossing guard. He's a small man, with a weathered face, a hunched back and piercing blue eyes. He looks old in his yellow rain slicker, and when he smiles at the students and says, "Have a nice day," they walk or bike or rollerblade obliviously by, as if he speaks in high decibels, like a dog whistle, imperceptible to their ears.

"What's your name?" I asked the crossing guard.

He looked at me, astonished. "Are you talking to me?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm Lori. What's your name?"

"Joe," he replied. "Cold weather, huh?"

"Wet and cold," I laughed. "Hey Joe, how long have you been here?"

"Why ya wanna know?" he asked a bit suspiciously.

"Just curious," I said.

"You're the only one," he smiled, then he lifted his stop sign in front of oncoming cars.

"Have a nice day," he told me as we crossed the street, and I said, "You, too, Joe. You have a nice day too."

I talk to Joe whenever I see him, but it worries me that no one else does. Because the thing about invisible people is, sometimes you never know they're invisible until they've actually disappeared.
SALON | Feb. 22, 1999

Lori Gottleib is a pre-med student and freelance writer living in Los Angeles. Her forthcoming book, "Stick Figure: Diary of My Former Self," has been optioned by Martin Scorsese for film.