Fred Wemyss

Two posts ago I put in the first paragraph of a story I've started. Here's that paragraph and more:

Available Light

He had funny teeth. He was a handsome fellow, but the stern quality of his eyes might have been explained by the worry that his crooked lowerteeth would be seen when he talked. The sternness gave him a look of concentration, however, and this worked in his favor. He was blond, bearded and smoked a pipe.

"Aha," he said as he walked. While sunset, seen from campus, was never spectacular, occasionally a pink streak could be seen between the branches of the trees or above the library. McCaffery's "Aha" was an accompaniment to his realization that it must now be after four-thirty. Ordinarily he stayed in his office between three-forty-five and four-thirty, but the conference with Edwin Wendt had been brief. Afterward, McCaffery went outside, walked past the Art building, into the Student Union, got a pouch of tobacco (rung up by a transplanted Tennesseean whose lilting voice lifted him out of New England) and walked outside again, where he noticed the streak of pink in the darkening sky.

The sky was darkening for Edwin Wendt, he thought. Coincidence would have it that when he'd bought the tobacco, Edwin was just walking away from the counter with a Shasta Cola and a Twinkie. He wasn't sure Edwin had taken note of his presence.

"If I was twenty years younger," said the Tennesseean.

"I'd still be pining for you," said McCaffery. He wondered how anyone could feel anything for Edwin Wendt.

"Well bless your heart," said the Tennessean. She handed him his tobacco.

Mcaffery smiled, put the pouch in the inside pocket of his jacket, nodded his head and left.

As he walked out of the Student Union, he saw Edwin walking toward the dormitories, drinking the Shasta the way a drunk would drain a beer. Ben Lehrman, walking toward McCaffery, nodded at McCaffery the way McCaffery had nodded at the Tennessean, and said, "They've driven you outside?"

"What do you mean?" said McCaffery.

Lehrman, with his right hand, gestured toward a cigarette in his left.

"Oh, my pipe!" McCaffery took the unlit pipe out of his mouth and held it out. "As long as I can still smoke in my office, I'll do it."

Lehrman held his cigarette aloft and said, "Lenore Reston coughs like an asthmatic whenever I pass her desk."

"'No surrender,' I say," said McCaffery. He took the pouch out of his pocket, opened it and placed a big pinch in his pipe. "I'd better practice doing this outside, I guess."

Lehrman took out his lighter.

After inhaling, McCaffery tilted his head in the direction Edwin Wendt had gone. He was no longer in sight. "My student conference left early to indulge himself in Coke and Twinkies."

"It's an apathetic bunch."

"This is not an apathetic kid."

"Speak, McCaffery."

"This was the most fully formed writer I've ever had."

"Who, Wendt?"

"You've got him?"

"Yes, but I only knew you meant him because of the Twinkies."

"You have Wendt?" McCaffery said.

Lehrman seemed to be conjuring a word and said, "Most unprepossessing."

"Maybe he doesn't care about History."

"He doesn't pay attention. But you say he can write?"

"Oh, he's ambitious."

"Him?"

"He."

"Get out of town."

"He told me today that he was proactive enough to test out of Expository in order to qualify for Creative Writing this semester."

"Creative Writing isn't offered to Freshmen?"

"One of the ironies of Cotton Mather College," said McCaffery. "The biggest bullshit course isn't available to those who need it most."

"My bullshit students drop the course after the first quiz."

"Mine stay through grad school," said McCaffery.

Lehrman's cigarette went out. "Damn this sea breeze," he said. He took out his lighter again and relit the cigarette. "You really prefer a pipe to a cancer stick, Bob?"

"It's cancer in a more elegant package," said McCaffery. "It makes me feel like a sea captain."

"Is that why you teach here?"

"It's Judy."

"Where would you rather be?"

"Nova Scotia."

"Judy'd love that."

"Also, they told me this was going to be my baby."

"You've got the enrollment."

"I can shape the Department. We haven't done badly."

Lehrman looked at McCaffery. "They're dumb, aren't they?"

"The students? The Administration?"

"All of them," said Lehrman.

McCaffery looked at his pipe. "It's still lit."

"I think your fellow Wendt has something psychological."

"Didn't you say you thought he was apathetic?"

"Well, in a profound way, which is different. He's got a complete inability to socialize. At the start of class, they're all talking. At the end they're all talking. Wendt just sits and stares."

"That's what writers do."

"You don't notice it?"

"In the Writing class, he battles the attentions of the bohemians."

"Bohemians? On this shit-kicking campus?"

"I've got a lot of girls in Creative Writing. They live to meet a boy who can say 'Apotheosis.'"

"I can't picture him being social in any situation."

"He's perhaps more comfortable in a writing environment."

Lehrman looked at McCaffery kindly. "How much bullshit have you absorbed?"

McCaffery puffed on the pipe. He took it out, put it back in and, holding it in his teeth, said, "He showed up at my office today, sat down cheerfully and when I said, 'Next semester I'd like you to focus on structure,' he said, 'Oh, I'm not taking Creative Writing next year.'"

Lehrman dropped his depleted cigarette under a bush. He took out another and lit it.

"'Nonsense,' I said. "I actually said, 'Nonsense.' That's the most galling thing. He made me speak like Sherlock Holmes."

"Well, with that pipe," said Lehrman.

"I was sure he wanted to write. Not the way one of these beret-wearing depressives wants to write. He was someone who knew he could write and wanted to."

"Well maybe he's just taking a break."

"I said, 'Get down to the Registrar's and sign up for the course before it's too late.' He said he wanted to focus on History."

"History?"

"Yes."

"But he is lost in History."

"I said, 'Is it me?'"

"Oh, no."

"Oh, Yes! He brought me to that, too. I said he might prefer to take Gianinni's course. He said he was not taking Creative Writing again. You the Fitzgerald character who wants 'a well-rounded education?' Well, he used that exact quote. He says he might take Creative Writing again Senior year."

"Do you think he is abandoning writing?"

"Well. Well, I said, 'Are you planning, at least, to write for THE MASTHEAD?' No, he said. 'AMBERGRIS?' Nope."

"Maybe he's afraid of running out of creative juices."

"At nineteen?"

"Okay. Maybe he's dropping out all together."

"No, he says he's focusing on other subjects. He should drop out of the whole school, if he's a real writer."

"What are the rest of them like?"

"Sincere."

"Oh, no."

"You know, when I said he should at least write for THE MASTHEAD, he said, 'A school newspaper is for candy-stripers.' I said, 'Yes.' Then the conversation went Freudian. He said, 'Looking at the newspaper you get a slap in the face.' I said, 'Yes. Yes. It is a slap in the face.' I don't think he knew I meant it personally."

"So, he is banal after all."

"Hmmm."

"It's finally happened."

"What?"

"It's happened."

"What's happened?"

"A student has blamed you for his success."

McCaffery took a silver rectangle from his pocket, slid it open to reveal a recessed circle in the middle, turned his pipe over the circle, tapped it, slid the rectangle closed and put it back in his pocket. "I should write, " he said.