Everything in Between (12 page)

* * *

Chip slumped in his seat. The desks in the lecture hall had been designed for people much shorter, much thinner and much more right-handed than he. Wedging his big frame into the gap between the palette-shaped desktop and the back of the seat took work. His right knee pressed against the underside of the desk, and he had to consciously keep his left leg from flopping onto his neighbor, a slim Asian girl who couldn’t have been more than eleven.

Common sense told Chip that the girl was at least eighteen, but eighteen sure looked a lot younger than he thought it would. The campus crawled with children, and Chip had never felt more like an old man.

There was at least one grown woman on campus, and, staring at her, Chip marveled anew at how she could appear sexy and scholarly in equal measure. Zae wore opaque black hose and black high heels that gave her perfect legs incredible length. Her calf-length, black and white houndstooth pencil skirt hugged her hips, a thin black belt accentuating her trim waist. A loose white blouse, the first two pearly buttons undone, was fetching without being provocative. With her long black hair swept up in a classic schoolmarm bun and the heavy black frames of her glasses blunting the full beauty of her eyes, Zae might have thought that she eliminated all evidence of her smoldering sensuality.

Her outfit had the opposite effect on Chip. He knew what lay under her prim clothing, and her effort to camouflage it only inflamed him. The sight of her called up an old Van Halen song, “Hot for Teacher,” and Chip was suddenly grateful that the uncomfortable desk hid the pup tent forming in the front of his trousers.

He could have sworn that Zae looked right at him, but she cleared her throat and began speaking as if she hadn’t.

“I am Professor Azalea Richardson,” she began in her rich, honeyed voice. “You may call me Prof. Richardson.”

Chip chuckled along with a few other classmates.

“Please take a syllabus and pass the rest to your neighbor,” she directed, handing a sheaf of green paper to the first student in the first row. “You’ll find a composition book on your desk, courtesy of Missouri University. You are to maintain your homework assignments in that book and turn them in to me prior to the beginning of each class. I won’t have you doing your Comp II homework while I’m lecturing.”

The syllabi traveled through the room. Chip studied his, blanching at the amount of work Zae expected of her students.

“You’ll find that I’ve planned a heavy workload,” Zae announced. “That’s because you people have signed up to complete a full semester worth of study in a mere six weeks. In this class, you will learn the principles of English composition as a continuation of Comp I. If you haven’t taken Comp I, get out of my class.” She sent a long glance at Chip. “Our study will focus on writing essays in various modes of exposition. One research paper is required to complete this course. I wanted two, but my colleagues voted me down.”

Zae sat on the front of her desk, crossing one leg prettily over the other. “I will stress the components of scholarship in this class. Thinking, research, communicating, editing and revision. You will write papers that demonstrate your understanding of analytical thinking, debate, developing a thesis and supporting that thesis, all of which will be measured by your ability to use proper word choice, tone, euphony, grammar and style. Without believable documentation from a mortician or a doctor, I will not accept late assignments under any circumstances. I will deduct one letter grade from your final GPA for every two absences. We have a lot of material to cover in one-third the time of a traditional term, so every absence hurts you and makes more work for me. I have enough work, so I will take it personally if you make more of it for me.

“Your grades are comprised of several parts: essays, a portfolio, homework and class participation. The weight distribution is broken down on your syllabus, so I won’t go into it now. You are also expected to comply with the Kate Turabian style when you write your essays. That, too, is explained in the syllabus. You’ll find my contact information, including an e-mail address to which you may send assignments if you have to miss class.” Zae laced her fingers together over her knee. “But none of you will be missing class, so you won’t need that e-mail address, will you?”

“Told you she was a hardass,” someone whispered behind Chip.

“I expect you to purchase a good dictionary, Strunk and White’s
Elements of Style
if you don’t already have it, and a USB drive to store your work. All three are available at the MU bookstore, and, again, that information is on your syllabus. What you won’t find on your syllabus are
scheduled
quizzes, because I don’t give them.”

A few students cheered, but their happiness was short-lived. “I don’t give scheduled quizzes.” Zae grinned. “I give them whenever I feel like it, and there’s one waiting in the back of your composition book.”

She went to the chalkboard. “You’ve got fifteen minutes to finish it, starting now.”

Chip smelled the panic in the air, and several hands went up. Zae called on one of them.

“Prof. Richardson, I only got into this class yesterday,” the young lady protested. “I haven’t had time to read the material covered by the quiz.”

“How is that my problem?” Zae glared over the tops of her frames. “Tick-tock.”

A low chorus of grumbles traveled through the lecture hall, accompanied by the sound of unzipping backpacks and pens being clicked into action. An occasional sigh or mumbled expletive broke up the silence of the next fifteen minutes, which ended when Zae said, “Time. Stop your work and pass your quizzes to the end of the aisle.”

She pointed at the student in the first desk of the back row. “You, in the yellow sweatshirt. Please collect the quizzes and put them on my desk.”

While her appointed helper gathered the papers, Zae addressed the room. “Our classes are close to three hours, which means we’re expected to pack a full week of a regular semester’s class discussion and work into one day. So let’s get started.”

A hand went up, and Zae called on that student. “Yes?”

“I don’t think it was fair to give a quiz on the first day when some of us didn’t have a chance to complete the summer reading.”

Chip wished he was close enough to the kid who’d spoken to give him a supportive pat on the shoulder. He was going to need it.

Zae sat on the front edge of her desk, her legs crossed, her hands clasped over her knee. When she spoke, her voice echoed off the rafters. “What have I done in the course of our relationship to give you the impression that I give a damn about what you think is fair?”

“It…I-it’s just that there are extenuating circumstances you should consider, Professor Richardson,” the student replied. “I only got in this class two days ago, and I didn’t—”

“Who else was assigned to this class two days ago?” Zae interrupted.

Several hands went up, including Chip’s.

“May I assume that you’re the students who took the College Level Placement exam in Composition, and you scored high enough to skip Comp I?” Zae cut in.

They all nodded, including Chip.

“How many of you managed to get your required reading done in time?”

Of those students, all but the one who challenged Zae raised a hand.

“I don’t accept excuses for tardiness, absences or late assignments unless you’ve made prior arrangements with me,” Zae said. “Come to this class prepared to work, or don’t come at all. Please take out your books and turn to the first page.” Zae picked up her teacher’s copy of
Narka
and her attendance list. She scanned the computer printout of her student roster for a moment. “Braeden Hayes. Please read paragraphs three and four. Nice and loud, so the folks in the nosebleed seats can hear you.”

The young man in front of Chip cleared his throat, and, in a clear voice, he read the requested passage:

“The night is eerie. The moon has a dull shine, the wind a frighteningly cold chill, and clouds engulfed the cities skies threatening to burst into roaring thunder and shocking lightning at any given moment. It’s the kind of night where you would find shady men gathering outside shady strip-clubs participating in shady deals; and slutty women on street corners trying to sell their bodies so they can go and shoot up with the earnings. The kind of night where policemen put their feet up and enjoy the ‘peace’ for they wouldn’t want to get involved with the dealings of the south-side; they know this is a night for the underworld bosses, the criminal syndicates and the generally sadistic part of this town’s population. My name is Cyrus, and this is the night I lost everything I didn’t have.

I’m a 26-year-old guitarist in a failing band. I have no job, no girlfriend and pretty much no future. The band plays shows at local clubs to crowds of 3 or 4 people. We suck, and we know it; the others have lives and only keep the band alive for my sake. I play a shitty secondhand Fender Telecaster, and I practice with it 14 hours a day in my mother’s basement. Her one-bedroom house isn’t glamorous at all, but it is out of the way so I can play as loud as I like. When I am not practicing or playing shitty clubs, I am sleeping on my mother’s sofa; after 6 years you kinda get used to the loose springs digging into your back. This is my life…it’s nothing special, in fact it’s not even good; my life sucks, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to lose it.”

“What do we know about the narrator at this point?” Zae asked.

There was a long pause in which no one volunteered to answer.

“This was the first question on your quiz. Surely at least one of you can offer some insight.”

Chip lifted his hand from his desk.

“Mr. Kish,” Zae snapped. “Yes?”

“We know that he’s young,” Chip offered. “And that we can trust him.”

“Interesting,” Zae replied. “What makes you think we can trust him?”

“The way he talks about his life,” Chip said. “He doesn’t sugar-coat it. He tells it the way he sees it, and it seems pretty bleak. If he were lying, he’d probably make himself and the things around him sound better than they are.”

“Anyone else?” Zae asked the class.

A few hands went up, and she called on a young woman sitting in the back.

“We know that he’s telling the story in retrospect,” she said. “We know that his name is Cyrus and that he’s telling us something that already happened to him in the past.”

“Very good,” Zae remarked. “Now the writing of the piece,” she said, settling more comfortably on her desk. “What would you call it?”

“First-person exposition,” someone offered.

“That’s right,” Zae said. “When you’re telling a story, what are the advantages to writing in the first person?”

“It’s a more intimate account, when a writer tells a story from their own point of view,” someone said.

“But it can be unreliable,” another student said. “We have to take whatever the writer says with no corroboration from a second or third point of view.”

“
Narka
was written by an English author,” Zae said. “Can anyone tell me what the title means, or give me its relevance to the story?”

The discussion grew more spirited, which energized Zae’s lecture. By 9:30, the halfway point of the class, Zae was reluctant to dismiss her students for a break for fear of losing the momentum of the discussion.

“Three hours is too long to go without a break, so I propose that we take a half-hour now to get a snack or visit the restroom,” Zae said. Her gaze went to the student who’d complained of her unfairness. “Or hightail it to the university bookstore to get the materials you need for the second half of class. I’ll see you all back here in thirty minutes.”

Eager for the break, most of the students left their backpacks and notebooks at their desks and scurried from the lecture hall. The student in front of Chip lingered, turning to face him.

“I know you,” he said.

“Then tell me who you are,” Chip said with an amiable smile. “ ‘Cause I don’t know you.”

“Braeden Hayes,” the kid said, his belly peeking from under his dingy blue Mighty Mouse T-shirt. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’ve seen you around.”

Chip offered a hand, which Braden halfheartedly shook.

“You were at that woman warrior thing Prof. Richardson made us go to last year in Comp I,” Braeden said.

“A whole lotta people were at that lecture,” Chip told him. He began working his way to the end of the aisle, Braedan keeping step with him.

“I’ve seen you in other places with her, too.”

Braedan’s accusatory tone gave Chip pause. “What are you trying to say, kid?” Chip coolly inquired.

“Are you a friend of Prof. Richardson’s?” Braeden persisted.

“Is that any of your business?” Chip exited his row and stood in the aisle. He was only one step higher than Braden, but he had at least seven additional inches on the kid. Braeden stared up at him from beneath bushy brown hair. A riot of angry acne dotted his forehead and chin, standing in sharp relief against his wan complexion. Chip’s experienced eye quickly arrived at the conclusion that Braeden was a very insecure kid. He reminded Chip of the young soldiers who join the military eager to shoot at anything threatening, mindless of whether it was friend or foe.