He knew he should edit, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Each chapter leaned on another, and all bore weight. Was he supposed to choose between chapter 3, “Cloud and Astral Llamas,” and chapter 7, “On Forced Labor in the Guano Mines”? Or should he cut chapter 19 on camelid solidarity with Guatemalan donkey guerrillas to make room for chapter 30, “Wool Work and Woolworth: Alpacas’ Five and Dime”? Obviously, the chapter on how camelids became “mammals” in the eyes of the establishment was as necessary as, if not more so than, “Alpaca Red, Alpaca Blue: Labor Activism and Law Enforcement.” And then of course there were the sentimental chapters, like the autobiographical one on music and subculture. For “From Jaguarondi Cumbia to Los Crudos: Popular Music as a Window into the Shifting Politics of Three Generations,” he’d done a deep study of his grandparents’ and his parents’ record collections and contrasted them with his own aesthetic leanings. He couldn’t take a scalpel to this tribute to his grandmother and mother.

More, Alfonzo couldn’t admit to his will to fail. He had better and more comfortable coping mechanisms to fall back on. He preferred critiquing the institution itself to critiquing his own work. Academia was just another predatory con game, was it not? And he was just another mark. A brick down somewhere toward the bottom of the great pyramid.

Outsiders dismiss scholars as bloodless obscurants. Those inside the walls know, though, that every scholar fights for or against something. Teeth are bared. Some fight to correct an old, oppressive, official narrative, while others quarrel to protect their scrap of field. Academia is a dangerous landscape in which all inhabitants are forever preparing themselves to be seen and chosen. Everyone draws a boundary, they pee around the edges of their turf. But what is enclosed within the disciplinary hedges? Who are the foxes? Who are the hounds? Who trims the topiary? Who owns this land? Is nothing common?

Alfonzo knew he had lost his way. Whichever path he took, he became immediately disoriented. The dissertation had become his Everest—or, to use a more appropriate South American reference, his Aconcagua. Yes, that faraway mountain was the perfect analogy for his sea level struggle. Alfonzo felt like he was dying from lack of oxygen. He was simultaneously too high and too low.

The Aztek Howtek printer clicked as it rolled out page 237 of Alfonzo’s dissertation. He trotted around the office, filing the day’s files while listening to the comforting mechanical spit of the printer.

Barring mishap, the dissertation would be ready before lunch. He planned to slip out at four and rush to Hunter. American Studies closed at five, and today was the deadline for dissertation submission. He was hoping for the real possibility that his adviser would not read all the way through and his abrupt ending would go unnoticed.

The printer continued whirring out pages. Alfonzo wandered deeper into the files.