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Student Body, Sample 1
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From Chapter 1
“I was wondering about my grade on this last paper.” The kid held the work curled with a subtly infuriating casualness in a lanky hand at the end of a long, sinewy, tattooed forearm. He neither looked at the essay himself nor exactly offered it to Rick, thus putting the onus on Rick to make the next move. The first page was covered with Rick’s scrawled comments, with questions and suggestions, with circled errors. It made Rick feel like he himself had spent more time on it than the student had, and that was never good.
“Sure,” said Rick, refusing to reach for the stapled sheets, “what about it?”
“Well, this is the worst grade I’ve ever gotten!” the other blurted.
“That comment,” opined Rick mildly, “usually means that one has been insufficiently challenged in previous classes.” He gave a brief, cool smile.
“But it’s just these commas and stuff,” Kyle said doggedly. “I mean, the point of the paper is clear, isn’t it? If you can understand what I’m saying, it seems like that should be enough.”
“What you say in the essay is a decent start,” Rick shrugged, “but commas do matter—and spelling, and fragments and run-ons.”
“That’s what you say,” protested the skinny boy accusingly, “but I took plenty of English courses back in high school—advanced placement and everything. I never had a problem with any of those teachers.”
Rick pursed his lips. “Sloppiness of form will detract from what otherwise would have been okay work,” he said quietly, “simple as that.” Seeing the other unmoved, he added with some exasperation, “Hell, in our field a knowledge of the fundamentals like punctuation and syntax is as necessary as a knowledge of physics and chemistry to an engineer. Those are the rules that govern the words we build things with.”
“But I want to be a writer. That’s what an editor is for!”
Rick smiled grimly. “Uh-uh,” he grunted. “Have you ever been published?”
“Sure,” asserted the student, looking defiant. “Plenty of times.” Something in his tone almost implied, And that’s more than you’ve done, right?
Rick shook his head slowly, smile never wavering. “I don’t mean high school,” he said purposefully. “I mean real publication—stories, poems, maybe a book? Anything nationally distributed?” The tightening of the other’s jaw muscles only spurred him to press on. “Even a regional publication, like one of the community college journals?”
“No,” Kyle said grudgingly.
“All right, then,” Rick growled with a crooked, grim sort of glee. He had never done anything but praise students’ burgeoning literary ambitions before, but suddenly this kid was just too much. How insulting it was to devote yourself to the study of literature, to spend years in college—all of his adult life, he reminded himself sometimes, and almost a third of his entire existence on this Earth so far—trying to gain a grasp of the canon, to research and write and polish and polish and polish to get some articles of criticism published in scholarly journals alongside those of tenured professors...and then have to listen to the self-righteous opinions of some twit who apparently had never read more than a dozen books in his whole life! Rick couldn’t help himself. His pulse thudded at his temples, and the heat from his face had fogged the inner corners of his glasses.
“Take it from someone who has been published enough to know,” Rick said vengefully. “An editor doesn’t want to dink around and waste his time fixing obvious mistakes. He wants to rubber-stamp good work and,” Rick added with a jerk of his head at the paper in question, “shitcan anything with that many problems.”
Kyle’s face was red, angry. He wanted to give a smart-ass comeback, clearly, but nothing would work. “Well,” he attempted lamely, “can I at least do a rewrite on this?”
“No,” Rick said with a quiet yet fierce determination. “There’s a time and place for drafts and revision, but it’s long past. The final product needs to be the final product, period.” The blood in his cheeks began to cool. He wouldn’t back down on the principle, but he was slightly mollified by the way the other had stopped pushing so damned much. Maybe the kid would learn, and maybe not—in a way it didn’t really matter—but at least he would shut up for awhile and quit shoving his ignorance in Rick’s face.
“Look, you’re a poet,” Rick tried. “Have you read any Omar Khayyám? Eleventh-century Persian.”
The kid shook his head warily, his eyes narrowed.
“The Rubáiyát is mainly about being a pretentious drunk,” Rick admitted, “but it does have its moments.” He removed his glasses and polished the fogged lenses on the white cotton of his shirtfront, his eyes suddenly myopic and defenseless. “I’m sure you’ve heard that line about a loaf of bread, a flask of wine, thou beside me in the wilderness and whatnot?”
“Yeah, that sounds kinda familiar...” the other admitted.
“Okay, well, he said something that could be apropos of writing, too.” Rick licked his lips, and remembered. He spoke it gravely:
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
He resettled his spectacles on his nose and eyed the other. “You see?”
“Hmph.” Kyle frowned doubtfully. “I guess so...”
“Think about it,” Rick advised softly. “He’s right, you know.” He shrugged with his eyebrows and looked for a moment across the hall and through the doorway of another empty classroom, through a second-floor window that faced out across the busy street and over the sidewalk cafes and the roofs of the coffee shops, up into soft blue oxy-tainted nitrogen haze that stretched on and on and on to the very edge of space, from whence the rustling photons which had burbled up from the heart of the life-giving sun eight minutes earlier slid refracting down the sky, falling faintly and faintly falling, to bathe so many little human spaces in their warming glow. His apartment back in Spartan Village, where the infant twins and the curly-headed toddler soon would drowse at their noon naps— His office over in Morrill Hall, with its comfortable academic clutter, its camaraderie, its wise-ass postings on the bulletin board— His own classroom, buzzing with the excitement of intellectual give-and-take moments before but now empty and depressing in the fading afterglow— And, perhaps, on the other side of town, another once-familiar room of drawn blinds, of soft lips and softer whispers, of the cloying hint of perfume heartbreakingly poignant behind sculpted ears, upon an ivory throat, as tender shoulders rustled beneath opening silk...
Absently Rick tucked his ring tight with his left thumb and adjusted it slightly with his little finger. “He’s right about writing,” Rick added in quiet tones, “and right about life, too, I guess. One chance, and that’s it.”
Kyle pursed his lips. “So...”
“So for you,” Rick said evenly, bringing his gaze back, “that means brush up on mechanics and stop bitching about it. If you want to be a writer, hit the handbook and clean out the simple mistakes so you can really kick ass.”
The lanky blond artiste started to open his mouth again— And goddammit, that was Rick’s cue. He was not going to hear another word. Not. One. Word. The tiny muscles around his eyes hardened.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” declared Rick peremptorily. He nodded once, firmly, with the comfortable kind of assurance it took a young teaching assistant years in front of classes of skeptical almost-peers to find. He had heard, he had weighed, he had explained—and now with a polite, paternalistic arrogance bred of belief in the ancient, almost feudal meritocracy of academe, he had closed the discussion completely. And that, Rick knew, was precisely as it should be.
“I was wondering about my grade on this last paper.” The kid held the work curled with a subtly infuriating casualness in a lanky hand at the end of a long, sinewy, tattooed forearm. He neither looked at the essay himself nor exactly offered it to Rick, thus putting the onus on Rick to make the next move. The first page was covered with Rick’s scrawled comments, with questions and suggestions, with circled errors. It made Rick feel like he himself had spent more time on it than the student had, and that was never good.
“Sure,” said Rick, refusing to reach for the stapled sheets, “what about it?”
“Well, this is the worst grade I’ve ever gotten!” the other blurted.
“That comment,” opined Rick mildly, “usually means that one has been insufficiently challenged in previous classes.” He gave a brief, cool smile.
“But it’s just these commas and stuff,” Kyle said doggedly. “I mean, the point of the paper is clear, isn’t it? If you can understand what I’m saying, it seems like that should be enough.”
“What you say in the essay is a decent start,” Rick shrugged, “but commas do matter—and spelling, and fragments and run-ons.”
“That’s what you say,” protested the skinny boy accusingly, “but I took plenty of English courses back in high school—advanced placement and everything. I never had a problem with any of those teachers.”
Rick pursed his lips. “Sloppiness of form will detract from what otherwise would have been okay work,” he said quietly, “simple as that.” Seeing the other unmoved, he added with some exasperation, “Hell, in our field a knowledge of the fundamentals like punctuation and syntax is as necessary as a knowledge of physics and chemistry to an engineer. Those are the rules that govern the words we build things with.”
“But I want to be a writer. That’s what an editor is for!”
Rick smiled grimly. “Uh-uh,” he grunted. “Have you ever been published?”
“Sure,” asserted the student, looking defiant. “Plenty of times.” Something in his tone almost implied, And that’s more than you’ve done, right?
Rick shook his head slowly, smile never wavering. “I don’t mean high school,” he said purposefully. “I mean real publication—stories, poems, maybe a book? Anything nationally distributed?” The tightening of the other’s jaw muscles only spurred him to press on. “Even a regional publication, like one of the community college journals?”
“No,” Kyle said grudgingly.
“All right, then,” Rick growled with a crooked, grim sort of glee. He had never done anything but praise students’ burgeoning literary ambitions before, but suddenly this kid was just too much. How insulting it was to devote yourself to the study of literature, to spend years in college—all of his adult life, he reminded himself sometimes, and almost a third of his entire existence on this Earth so far—trying to gain a grasp of the canon, to research and write and polish and polish and polish to get some articles of criticism published in scholarly journals alongside those of tenured professors...and then have to listen to the self-righteous opinions of some twit who apparently had never read more than a dozen books in his whole life! Rick couldn’t help himself. His pulse thudded at his temples, and the heat from his face had fogged the inner corners of his glasses.
“Take it from someone who has been published enough to know,” Rick said vengefully. “An editor doesn’t want to dink around and waste his time fixing obvious mistakes. He wants to rubber-stamp good work and,” Rick added with a jerk of his head at the paper in question, “shitcan anything with that many problems.”
Kyle’s face was red, angry. He wanted to give a smart-ass comeback, clearly, but nothing would work. “Well,” he attempted lamely, “can I at least do a rewrite on this?”
“No,” Rick said with a quiet yet fierce determination. “There’s a time and place for drafts and revision, but it’s long past. The final product needs to be the final product, period.” The blood in his cheeks began to cool. He wouldn’t back down on the principle, but he was slightly mollified by the way the other had stopped pushing so damned much. Maybe the kid would learn, and maybe not—in a way it didn’t really matter—but at least he would shut up for awhile and quit shoving his ignorance in Rick’s face.
“Look, you’re a poet,” Rick tried. “Have you read any Omar Khayyám? Eleventh-century Persian.”
The kid shook his head warily, his eyes narrowed.
“The Rubáiyát is mainly about being a pretentious drunk,” Rick admitted, “but it does have its moments.” He removed his glasses and polished the fogged lenses on the white cotton of his shirtfront, his eyes suddenly myopic and defenseless. “I’m sure you’ve heard that line about a loaf of bread, a flask of wine, thou beside me in the wilderness and whatnot?”
“Yeah, that sounds kinda familiar...” the other admitted.
“Okay, well, he said something that could be apropos of writing, too.” Rick licked his lips, and remembered. He spoke it gravely:
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
He resettled his spectacles on his nose and eyed the other. “You see?”
“Hmph.” Kyle frowned doubtfully. “I guess so...”
“Think about it,” Rick advised softly. “He’s right, you know.” He shrugged with his eyebrows and looked for a moment across the hall and through the doorway of another empty classroom, through a second-floor window that faced out across the busy street and over the sidewalk cafes and the roofs of the coffee shops, up into soft blue oxy-tainted nitrogen haze that stretched on and on and on to the very edge of space, from whence the rustling photons which had burbled up from the heart of the life-giving sun eight minutes earlier slid refracting down the sky, falling faintly and faintly falling, to bathe so many little human spaces in their warming glow. His apartment back in Spartan Village, where the infant twins and the curly-headed toddler soon would drowse at their noon naps— His office over in Morrill Hall, with its comfortable academic clutter, its camaraderie, its wise-ass postings on the bulletin board— His own classroom, buzzing with the excitement of intellectual give-and-take moments before but now empty and depressing in the fading afterglow— And, perhaps, on the other side of town, another once-familiar room of drawn blinds, of soft lips and softer whispers, of the cloying hint of perfume heartbreakingly poignant behind sculpted ears, upon an ivory throat, as tender shoulders rustled beneath opening silk...
Absently Rick tucked his ring tight with his left thumb and adjusted it slightly with his little finger. “He’s right about writing,” Rick added in quiet tones, “and right about life, too, I guess. One chance, and that’s it.”
Kyle pursed his lips. “So...”
“So for you,” Rick said evenly, bringing his gaze back, “that means brush up on mechanics and stop bitching about it. If you want to be a writer, hit the handbook and clean out the simple mistakes so you can really kick ass.”
The lanky blond artiste started to open his mouth again— And goddammit, that was Rick’s cue. He was not going to hear another word. Not. One. Word. The tiny muscles around his eyes hardened.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” declared Rick peremptorily. He nodded once, firmly, with the comfortable kind of assurance it took a young teaching assistant years in front of classes of skeptical almost-peers to find. He had heard, he had weighed, he had explained—and now with a polite, paternalistic arrogance bred of belief in the ancient, almost feudal meritocracy of academe, he had closed the discussion completely. And that, Rick knew, was precisely as it should be.
