1 Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Why is writing important to you, Professor Whitley?”

The question was posed by one of my students sitting at the back of the room. Robert Gallagher had never raised his hand to ask a single question during the semester before today.

He was one of those stragglers who arrived fifteen minutes late to class every Tuesday and Thursday, plugged in his earbuds and crashed in the corner of the room, slumped in his chair as if he had sauntered into a different classroom just to observe.

Today, he wore his college football jersey and a knitted brown cap, his bottom lip and left eyebrow pierced with small metal rings. He was built tough for sports, his physique muscular and resilient, which reminded me of my former self twenty years ago.

Standing behind the podium in front of the classroom at Brockton State College where I taught creative writing part time, I contemplated my answer to his question. I looked around the room at the dozen faces staring back at me—all my Thursday morning students in att ance at the same time—a feat in itself—and stood stick-straight, forming my short answer in the back of my mind.

I gripped the sides of the podium, the s of my fingers turning white with pain. “That’s a good question, Robert,” I said, noticing the fuzzy image of my father’s weathered face materializing at the edge of my wooly vision. I had gone to bed late last night after leaving my dad at Brockton Hospital a few minutes after midnight.

I turned to the blazing morning sun spilling into the classroom from the set of windows to my right. Blinking back the dizzying whiteness of the day, I looked to where Mr. Gallagher sat hunched over in his chair, his formidable brown eyes searching me and waiting for a response.

“Writing is important to me for two reasons,” I said. “It’s therapeutic, and I need to do it.”

The room grew silent, as if it was the first smart thing I had said to them that early part of the autumn semester, literally poetic in its brief response.

“Therapeutic how?” Robert asked, pulling himself into a straighter position and removing his annoying earbuds.

I walked around the podium to the front of the room and perched myself on the edge of the long table where I stacked my students’ portfolios from last week’s writing assignments, and stared out at a sea of inquiring faces. I’d hazard a guess that the class was more interested in discussing my writing life than that of Joyce Carol Oates and Ray Bradbury, two of my favorite scholarly and literary muses.

I clamped my damp palms together and hooked glances with everyone in eyeshot. “Writing is therapy for me. I write mostly for myself and enjoy how the words flow as I’m writing shorthand.”

“I thought you wrote comics,” Robert shot out behind a smartass grin.

“You’re right, I do. But I also write in a journal, especially at night after the day is through and it’s just me and the words.”

“What’s the second reason?” a girl named Laura with glasses and pink-dyed pigtails asked in the second row.

I looked at her, stupefied, forgetting that I had mentioned a two-part answer. I cleared my throat and reached for my half empty thermos of lukewarm coffee I brought from home. Swallowing down the marble-size lump in my throat, sensing anxiety building in the back of my mind, and thinking about my father, I closed my eyes. When I opened them a few beats later, I turned to nineteen-year-old Laura Willman and grinned. “For most of you, writing is a major lifeline. Like air, food, and shelter.”

I had captured everybody’s attention, even Robert’s, whom I was certain was half-lost listening to me, and drowned out in a hallucinatory state of that wretched noise he called music, the earbuds jammed back in both of his ears. Maybe I’d introduce him to real music one of these days, I thought, recalling my time spent with Dad last night, both of us listening to his classical and jazz favorites, restoring our father-son bond.

Robert might also appreciate a new introduction to different kinds of music to expand his musical influences. I continued. “When I’m not writing, I’m miserable. Writing is much like eating and breathing. If I’m not doing those things, to put it mildly, I’m not living.”

“Do you feel dead, then?” somebody asked.

The air in the room was stifling warm. It was difficult to think clearly or take a deep breath, like the walls were closing in on me. My mind was racing, and my anxieties were escalating to dangerous new levels. I stood and ambled back behind the podium, where I felt mostly safe, but also kept a professional air of someone who should be in charge. My legs felt weak, soft like noodles, and I thought I was going to fall over if I didn’t hang on for the remaining ten minutes of class. I answered the short, curious girl named Clarissa with a firm nod. “It’s difficult to explain, but yes, I feel like I’m not living unless I’m challenging myself to my fullest potential.”

My father, Henry, said a week ago when I was sitting next to him in his hospital bed doodling a new idea for a comic strip in my sketchpad, “The easy road is paved with disappointments. Take the long, difficult road and work hard.”

Before the of our class, after which I would not see these inquisitive faces until we reconvened next Tuesday, I glanced up at Clarissa’s densely drawn mascara eyes. Raccoon eyes. “In other words, if I’m not writing, or working towards an goal, I’m abusing my talent.”

I thought about my last comment, waiting for Clarissa to respond.