Craig Smith - Cold Rain

Roger said he had noticed that too, and shared a sly smile with me. I decided he was still in the denial phase. I shouldn’t have really cared, I suppose, but I was curious. The whole dropout scene had always seemed a by-product of drug usage, but it was possible his alienation had more complex origins.

When we finally got around to the reason for our meeting, I lifted the massive box from the floor and set it on a chair so that it was between us. I found it instructive to see the way Roger’s eyes fixed on the package. Roger had obviously spent years working on this, and I didn’t especially care to disappoint him. In order to do that, I praised Roger’s attention to detail.

I talked about sentence structure, which, in the parts I had read, seemed fairly solid. I talked about imagery, narrative devices, transitions, and the intriguing eroticism that linked the action sequences. Having a doctor’s degree in bullshit, I knew how to deliver these observations with credible enthusiasm. To this point, Roger had been nodding. At the mention of eroticism, though, he asked, ‘Was the sex too graphic?’

I danced around this topic expertly. It was always a matter of context. Clearly, sometimes an author needed a graphic depiction for a certain effect.

Sometimes an encounter was unnecessary. Only a fool would venture into a generalization about something like that. Roger nodded, clearly expecting specifics.

When I offered nothing more, he tried to comprehend what I was saying. ‘Was it too graphic anywhere in my story?’

It was a fair question, and I made a stab at the first sex scene, at least the first I had noticed. It was good, I said, especially ending with the interruption, but did we need the musings of the starship captain after the encounter? ‘Do we really need to know he’s uncertain about his own orientation?’

Roger looked me as if I might be an alien myself, and I knew I had made a mistake. The starship captain had an issue. All characters have an issue. His was hermaphroditic clones, I suppose. Of course, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t dare take off on ambiguity, aliens, clones, or three ways (even if only two bodies are involved). What I wanted was just a little more time with that manuscript so I could bluff my way through this.

As that was impossible, I said it was difficult sometimes distinguishing between issues and challenges. One was a matter of characterization, the other of narrative design. Now I have a great deal to say about these kinds of things, and at that moment I began to spew.

Long summers on the car lot had taught me to read suspicion, however, and Roger Beery had it.

A less experienced liar might have been tempted to make a partial admission of the facts, something like, I didn’t read the entire manuscript or I skimmed some of it. But honesty is a slippery slope, and I was having none of it. I did admit I probably lacked experience as a reader of science fiction. As far as the market was concerned, I said, I was absolutely ignorant, so I really couldn’t help on that point. Roger began to squirm as I said this, and I got the feeling that he wasn’t interested in selling the manuscript. I decided he wanted to know its artistic merit, and I proceeded to talk about writing and art.

No one understood more than I did the loneliness and frustration of such work, I said, the feelings of doubt, the disappointment of rejection, even if it was only the failure to connect with a single reader! I wasn’t making progress. Roger had seen through me. I was lying. I hadn’t read his novel. I was pulling a con, and he was not going to forgive me. I still didn’t back down. I had noticed a misspelled word on 1,243, if he called me a liar, but I didn’t have to get petty.

He drifted, I lectured.

Finally we got completely off the subject of writing.

I asked about his mother, how she was handling the separation with his dad. Roger told me she was doing fine. He couldn’t answer any specific questions, and I managed to rattle off a couple of platitudes about relationships before noticing my watch. The time had gotten away from me, I said. I had to get back to my office.

I still had a class to teach that afternoon.

‘I haven’t even read the assignment yet, I’ve been so busy!’

We shook hands and parted like friends, but I left the meeting with that sick feeling one gets when one’s lies are not properly and politely swallowed. This would get back to his mother. Instead of feeling guilty, I was irritated at myself. I should have told Walt upfront I couldn’t do what he asked. Failing that, I should have given the manuscript a couple of hours and then told Roger that was what I had done, two hours, and this is what I think.

Did I regret my failure to act properly? Well, not really. Like most people, my only regret was getting caught.

Denise waited for me after class that afternoon.

I was not in a particularly good mood, and the sight of Buddy’s girlfriend with that we-need-to-talk look on her pale, lonesome face put me on the defensive.

‘Is this about Buddy?’

Denise shook her head morosely.

I relaxed but only slightly. ‘You don’t like Medea?’

She stared at me as if I had written the thing for Euripides. ‘I hate it! I hate the Greeks!’

‘Let me guess. She killed her own kids.’

‘It’s sick!’

‘You need to speak up in class, Denise. That’s the best place to talk about something you don’t like.

You’d be surprised how many people will back you up if you speak your mind.’

‘What’s the Aeneid about?’

I smiled. ‘We’re just reading a single passage, the love story between Aeneas and Dido. Not even adultery if you can believe it. Exactly your kind of story.

Except… well, she kills herself.’

‘Why?’

‘Why else? Aeneas leaves her.’

‘Men are pigs.’

‘All men or just the ones you sleep with?’

Denise looked like I had slapped her, and I apologized. I said I was out-of-line. I didn’t mean it. Bad day. She smiled, but it wasn’t as forgiving as I would have liked.

Following that abysmal day of quarrels and miscues, I managed to bury myself in my work. I expected Buddy to drop my class. I even thought Denise Conway might.

To my surprise, Buddy returned to class the following week with a good attitude. He was not especially attentive to me, but he did his work. His comments about the writings of others were competent, even insightful.

In fact, he was pretty good at finding both the positive and negative with the occasional plot twist that even left the prof nodding with approval. I had seen this kind of thing before, a student with modest abilities as a writer suddenly emerging as a potentially outstanding teacher of writing.

In my worst fears I was that guy. Under different circumstances I probably would have approached Buddy to let him know I was impressed with his involvement. Even though it was the right thing to do, I just couldn’t manage it. I didn’t like him. I didn’t like the way he treated Walt or for that matter Denise.

And Denise had become important to me in her own right. To my surprise, she took my advice about speaking up in class. She actually began raising her hand on a regular basis. She was blunt, sometimes funny, sometimes the star of the discussion. An issues-kind-of-student, Denise could complain about Dido’s lack of professionalism with a straight face. She had a country to run. Sure, she had feelings, but she had responsibilities too! Didn’t she think about that? ‘I mean the world isn’t all guys! There’s other things important too!’

Othello got no sympathy. What a dumbass! Hamlet needed to get laid. And what was with Ophelia? What was the real message here? Girls are nothing without guys?