In the early 2000s, it became modish in academia to analyze material from popular culture. Apparently, the discipline of religious studies was not immune, as the college I attended offered a course in religion and pop culture. I needed one last humanities elective, and the class fit into my schedule, so I registered for it.
Helming the class was a head-shaven, hatchet-faced guy with a newly minted PhD. He had a posh and waspish manner, along with a preternatural gift for building PowerPoint presentations. In his oft-referenced dissertation, he'd used queer theory to posit Spiderman as a Christ figure. He was openly gay, and the class loved it. Enrollment was rather low, the students all female except for me. The demographic was mostly granola girls and artsy ironists. The only exception was a square-shouldered young woman with a severe prettiness. With her t-shirts bearing the logo of our institution's athletic department and her cross necklace, she looked out of place. She spent most of the lectures wearing a bewildered frown as the instructor unraveled his gospel.
The class turned out to be precisely the kind of effortless elective I was seeking. There were no tests, just a couple small essays and a presentation that built toward a final paper. The presentations started in November and ran throughout the rest of the semester. I was one of the first students to present, delivering a disquisition on the Augustinian notion of grace in Seinfeld. (I focused mostly on Kramer.) As I presented, I noticed I was eliciting a lot of nods among the granolas and the ironists. The square-shouldered girl, however, looked more perplexed than ever. Afterward, as the closely razored instructor gave me some wide-eyed, glowing praise, the sporty girl appeared to be no less than crestfallen. Her square shoulders sagged. It was as if she had abandoned all hope.
A few days later, I was finishing up lunch in the cafeteria and reading the thirteenth book of Confessions when a shadow fell timidly over me. I looked up to see the square-shouldered girl, wearing a look of supplication. Her expression seemed to hitch, as if she was unfamiliar with the feeling.
"You're in my pop culture class, right?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, extending my hand. "I believe so. Demitri."
"I'm Melissa," she said. "I remember your presentation," she said. "It was good."
"Thank you."
She fingered her cross at the join. "May I ask what kind of mark you got on it?"
"I did well," I said. The instructor had emailed me my grade just that morning.
"That's good to hear you did well," she said. "You seem to really get what the class is all about. But as for me, I'm not doing so great."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. I got a C on my midterm paper. Now I've got my presentation coming up and I'm super-worried about it because I really need to do good on it. I want to get into med school but this class could single-handedly screw up my transcript. I just don't get this class. It's not the kind of thing I'm into at all. I do science and kinesiology, not this kind of way-outside-the-box stuff."
"I see," I said.
"But you seem to get it. So I was wondering if you could, like, give me some guidance for my presentation. I mean, whatever help you can give. I'm trying to come up with an idea but I just keep drawing blanks. I'm scheduled for next week and I have absolutely nothing. Blah!"
"Alright," I said. "I'd love to help. Do you have a minute right now?"
"Okay, sure," she said. "If it works for you. I mean, I can give you call if that works better—"
"No, no," I said, "have a seat."
"You're sure?" Melissa said.
"Sure. Okay, so, my first question for you would be, what cartoons did you watch as a child?"
She blinked forcefully. "I don't really remember. It was so long ago."
"C'mon," I said. "There has to have been one."
She shrugged her squarish shoulders and blew a soft raspberry. "I guess I’d say, maybe . . . Animaniacs?"
"Oh!" I said, "that's a great choice. That one has three main characters, no? The Animaniacs are a trio, right?"
"Yeah, there were three of them.”
“Oh, that’s great. Perfect, in fact.” I tipped a nod at the bare cross on her neck. “Now, you're Christian, correct?"
"Correct."
"And you would have done Sunday school?"
"Yes."
"So you know about the Trinity."
"Of course."
"Well, trios and trinities are a great place to start. Why don't you connect up the Animaniacs with the Trinity? What are their names again?"
"The Father, the Son, and—"
"No, no," I said, "I mean the Animaniacs."
"Well, there's Yakko, Wakko, and Dot."
"Yakko's the oldest one, right?”
“I think maybe . . .”
“In that case, you make him the Father. Wakko's younger, so he can be the Son. And Dot can be the Holy Spirit. You can swing her as the activating force in the physical world, connecting it with her femininity. That way, you can draw out a feminist or gender studies angle. The prof will love it."
"But that's all there is to it?" she asked.
“It’ll work great.”
“Okay,” she said, "but like, I mean, what's the point?"
"Well, you're familiar with homoousios, no?"
"It's been a while," she said.
"Well, altogether, the three Animaniacs are a personification of the Warner Brothers logo, are they not? This way you can connect them to being a trio that is actually one entity, the Warner Brothers conglomerate. It works fantastically. You can talk about how the three characters each account for the components of the WB logo. You might even posit that they are the Word—in this case the corporate trademark—made flesh. Then you can build to a larger point about corporate theology in the Judeo-Christian capitalist world. It writes itself."
"Maybe,” she said, reaching into her knapsack and producing a notebook, “I should write some of this down. You said something about corporate theology?"
"Sure," I said. "I'll repeat it all back."
I went over everything again, accentuating the finer points and answering her questions as they came up.
"Okay," Melissa said in summation, setting her notebook neatly on the vast expanse of lap created by the sheer thickness of her thighs. "I think we might have something here. And I can call you if I get stuck . . . ?"
"Of course," I said. "I'd be happy to read your presentation before you do it."
"I appreciate that," the girl said, still looking sort of bewildered, but no longer entirely hopeless. "Thanks for your help."
Melissa called me several times over the ensuing days. Together, we fine-tuned her Animaniacs presentation. When her presentation day came around, the hopelessness had been dispelled entirely, and Melissa looked very poised. Dressed business-like in a pants-suit, she delivered a cogent, well-rehearsed presentation. The instructor appeared to be very engaged, nodding enthusiastically and asking some very sympathetic questions. He seemed pleasantly surprised. When the questions ceased, he nodded affirmatively.
"Excellent work," he said, and then started off the applause with brio.
Melissa smiled and returned to her seat. We made eye contact, and she gave me a thumbs up.
The following Friday, I was seated at my usual spot in the cafeteria when I heard spry, self-assured footsteps pacing toward my table. I looked up to see Melissa in a power-walk, a smile lighting her face.
"Guess what?" she said. "I just got my mark back for my presentation.”
"How'd you do? Good?"
"Great!" she said. Then she told me her mark, which surpassed mine.
"That's fantastic," I said. "Med school looms inevitably."
"Fingers crossed," Melissa said. "So I just came over to thank you for everything." She eyed the bread crumbs in my plate. "I'd ask if I could buy you lunch, but you look like you've already eaten."
"I have," I said. "It's no problem, though. It was a pleasure just to help out."
"What about supper?" Melissa asked.
"Supper?" I asked. "I hadn't thought that far ahead."
"I'll make you supper. I live nearby. We can hang out till then, unless you have class or something."
"No," I said, "I'm done for the day."
I packed up my books and we walked over to Melissa's house. It was right across the street from the campus, one of those spacious old two-story houses where a bunch of girls live together. We passed through the front door and I was mesmerized by all the bounding ponytails as girls went up and down the stairs and floated in and out of the kitchen and living room. Melissa said hello to them all and then directed me to her room, closing the door.
She closed her eyes and kissed me very gently on the mouth. She placed her palm on my collar as she trapped my lower lip between her lips. I kissed back, gripping the sturdy round of her shoulder. She took this as a challenge, kissing me with more zest, and wresting my tongue into submission. If this had been my reward, it would have been more than sufficient.
Melissa sat me down on her bed. She lowered the zipper of my jeans and fetched my member. She waited for me to grow hard in her hand, her gaze intent on my gaining erection. Then she closed her eyes and admitted my glans into her mouth. She went down inch by inch, until she could place kisses on my lower abdomen. She bestowed slow, reverent fellatio on me. I gripped her sturdy shoulders and fought off an ever-verging orgasm.
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"Are you..."
"No," she said. "Don't worry. I’m not. It's kind of hard not to do it when you're an athlete."
I laughed, but it came out sounding more like a moan. Melissa smiled flatly, letting me know that she was waiting. She fingered her bare crotch at the join of her thighs. I staked my fists in the comforter and leaned forward to ease my member into her. We shuddered mutually upon contact, that first sensuous graze of urethra and labia. I socketed my glans inside her. I caressed her muscular thighs and pushed tenderly forth.
"It's okay," she said. "You don't have to be gentle. You can fuck me hard."
So I fucked Melissa hard on her bed. The hardwood headboard beat against the wall. I moaned effeminately as I surged forward with my hips and pulled up mounds of comforter to get the most out of each thrust. Melissa stared at me intensely as she absorbed each downburst, chewing at her lip. She snarled as she peaked, gripping the cross in her fist, then her growl gave way to a faltering moan, too high-pitched to register.
"Now I'm going to come," I muttered.
"Mmmm," Melissa murmured, her orgasm still ebbing. "Hold on."
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I took her cheeks in my palms. Our gazes locked and our mouths fell open, agape. Finally, I stroked a few stringy strands of hair away from her eyes, caressing her noble brow.
We waited for her friends to head out for the night, and then we dressed and made our way into the kitchen and collaborated on supper. The meal was very good—excellent, even—but the true nutriment had already been exchanged. We parted ways sleepily and good-naturedly. Melissa already had my number, and I took the time to take down hers. Her last name had a lot of i's and y's and k's. We agreed there'd be a call in the near future.
But then finals came around, and then Christmas break, and that call never came. The next semester, I didn't see Melissa around any of our old haunts. I did see her once from afar when I was taking a shortcut through the science buildings to avoid the cold. But she was with a tall guy, definitely the student-athlete type. I didn't want to run interference.
After I graduated, I moved away. Studies in pop culture soon fell out of fashion. I never saw or heard from Melissa again.
Not until yesterday. I was back in my college town, passing through my old stomping grounds. The town had grown outward and upward, looking more like a little city. Outsized cineplexes shot up into the sky like cathedrals, their marquees brandishing Marvel movie reboots. In one of the many mini-malls sandwiched between, I saw a family physician's office that had the doctors’ names on the window. One was an M. with a last name that had a lot of i's and y's and k's. Yes, pop culture studies were dead, and, with that, it felt like at least some measure of order had been restored.
Image Credits: Lies Thru a Lens, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons