Joe Burke's Last Stand Part 28

Joe flew to Florida and spent the night in Tallaha.s.see. He rented a car, and took the coastal route through Apalachicola and Panama City toward Fort Walton Beach. Apalachicola was a sleepy Caribbean place--palm trees, dirt alleys, low concrete buildings built for hurricanes. He munched fried shrimp and sipped a gla.s.s of beer at a restaurant by the slow moving mouth of the Apalachicola River. A solitary pelican waited on a sunny piling. A hundred writers in one spot. I don't know, he thought. He envied the pelican. Learn as much as you can, he told himself.

The school had rented s.p.a.ce in a community built on a barrier island that separated the Gulf from a wide bay. "You're a day early. Let's see--your unit is ready. We can let you in." The woman behind the registration counter gave him a key and a paper pa.s.s. "Show this at the gate," she said.

"Gate?"

"Across the highway, over there." She pointed through the front windows.

Joe drove across and held the pa.s.s out the car window. A security guard motioned him through, and he followed a blacktop road along the edge of a golf course, pa.s.sing cl.u.s.ters of houses that had been built at the same time from the same ten designs. Expanses of gra.s.s were broken by strips of pine trees and mounds of tended shrubbery. He stopped and checked the map he'd been given. Two older men bounced low drives down a fairway. They followed their b.a.l.l.s silently, dragging golf bags behind them on two wheeled carts with long curved handles.

Joe's "unit" was empty and impersonal. First come, first served, he decided. He hung his s.h.i.+rts in the master bedroom closet, spread the rest of his stuff on the bed, and fled.

He walked past landscaped ponds and drainage ca.n.a.ls to the conference center where they were to eat and attend readings. Joe introduced himself and was told that meals would begin the following morning at 7 a.m. Books written by the faculty were for sale in a room arranged as a temporary store. He picked up copies of writing by each of the other workshop groups.

His preference for housemates was not honored. Walter, a lawyer from California, and Jamie, a newly retired military officer from New Hamps.h.i.+re, arrived the next day. Walter had been expensively educated, but his mother was a singer and he had inherited her talent. After graduation, he toured for years with a rock band before settling down to appellate work and raising a family. He was determined to write a novel, to lead another life. Jamie was a sensitive type who hid behind a thick layer of masculinity. "We call him 'Leather Man,"' one of the women later told Joe derisively. She was good looking. The good looking ones didn't trust Jamie.

Jamie was masculine. He had been shot in Vietnam, had trained for Special Forces dirty missions, and had flown carrier jets. He was good at games, in shape for his forties, dressed for a magazine cover at all times, and endlessly charming. He was also drunk for the entire residency, but he managed to get through it without being thrown out.

Montpelier's administration was no challenge to Jamie after the Pentagon where his final a.s.signment was to impress members of Congress with new weapons and the military "can do" att.i.tude.

"One look at the toys and they would come in their pants. Never lost an appropriation. Ha, ha, ha." His glance drifted out the window to the wetlands behind the house. He told Joe of a tracheotomy in the jungle, a soldier shot and dying in his arms. "He died happy. He thought I was going to save him."

Joe had no wish to compare masculinity with Jamie. Joe lived in the reverse disguise, his strength hidden beneath layers of sensitivity. He spent more time with Walter. Besides, Eugenie, one of the faculty, had fallen for Jamie and was with him as often as she could find him.

The students were divided into two groups, fiction and poetry. Joe was in fiction and glad of it as he came to meet more students. The poets were high strung; they tended to lapse into proud and delicate silences. The fiction writers were gregarious, given to loud laughter.

Round tables in the dining room usually filled with one group or the other.

On their second day, the students were scheduled to meet with faculty members. Joe and Walter traipsed about the development and talked to half a dozen of the most interesting teachers. Joe asked whether they considered themselves artists, and, if so, what they understood that to mean. One rubbed his forehead and said, "It was a good morning." He had at least thought about it. Generally, yes, the faculty members considered themselves artists, but, mumble, mumble. They accepted the status and the authority, but they were confused about the responsibility that art did or did not entail. One of the more widely published professors had read a story the previous night. Joe asked him if he felt that it was good enough to write a story which posed questions but made no attempt to answer them. In this manner, over the course of two days, Joe p.i.s.sed everybody off. As a reward, he was a.s.signed to Roland, the most intimidating faculty member.

Joe had always identified with artists. But art meant painting. In what way were writers artists? He didn't intend to annoy the faculty; he was trying to get his money's worth.

Workshops were carefully ch.o.r.eographed. Each student's writing was scheduled for uninterrupted discussion, led by two faculty members. The writer was not allowed to speak until the discussion was complete.

Everyone else in the group was expected to contribute. Day after day, Joe's group a.n.a.lyzed and explored stories, avoiding judgments about their quality. Did developments in the story make sense in terms of earlier events? Which characters were convincing? What was the story about?

The faculty was good at this, and the new students improved as days went by. Students who had been there a few semesters set a good example. Joe thought hard about what to say in each session. He became more aware of "story" as a form or structure independent of the characters and setting. He still didn't get it; he didn't know what a story was, but he wasn't discouraged. He had learned from designing computer systems that there was always a period of absorbing information before he could see the big picture.

His own story was praised for the occasional good sentence and criticized for its lack of structure. The best part of it was a description that Joe copied from memory, a late evening with Daisy.

"Don't hold back," she had said. He had begun to shake in her arms, deep uncontrollable shaking that took him all the way back to some wordless time when he was a baby. Daisy held him until he was reborn as a man, clean as the sun, beyond fear. No one in the group mentioned this scene, but several of the women looked at him thoughtfully.

One night Joe heard voices in the living room and stumbled out half asleep to see what was happening. Eugenie and Jamie were close together on the couch. He excused himself and went back to bed. Two days later, he came back after a reading, and there was Jamie in the center of the living room, weaving slightly, holding a tennis racquet. "You have to--feel it," he said, flexing his wrist. "Like a friend."

"Oh, I understand," Eugenie said, her face flushed and happy. "Like my cello." Joe slipped by, closed his bedroom door, and put his head between two pillows.

The days blurred together. Jamie was more and more out of it. When it came time to leave, Walter and Eva, a cheerful recovering alcoholic who had been in Joe's workshop, helped sc.r.a.pe Jamie's stuff together. After a tearful farewell from Eugenie, they a.s.sisted Jamie into the rental car.

"Eugenie is facing major heartbreak, the stuff of literature," Eva said.

"Eugenie thinks I'm Joseph Conrad," Jamie explained apologetically, sprawled against the side window. As they pa.s.sed Eglin Air Force Base, two F-16's thundered up, up, and away. "Looka those beauties, pulling 6 g's," he said.

When they parted at the terminal, Eva surprised Joe with a kiss. She had a long-time lover in Vermont. Or didn't she? It was too late for Joe to figure it out. He boarded his plane feeling that, in his single-minded pursuit of fiction, he had missed a good person.

Roland had a.s.signed him a long reading list of contemporary stories and French criticism. "Some of this is a little esoteric. You can handle it," he said. Roland was impressed that Joe had made a living as an independent computer programmer. Joe was to mail in a criticism of each book along with short stories of his own.

There was a lot to sort through. Cleo, who had written about the gay woman, had impressed him. She had short black hair, deep brown eyes that were intelligent and sympathetic, and a clear spirit. She reminded him of Maxie's arrowhead in its Kauri wood box. "Am I missing something here?" Eva had said in Joe's ear one afternoon. "Is she friggin beautiful, or what?"

"Friggin beautiful," Joe said. "Like her writing."

"Jesus," Eva said.

"It works that way sometimes," Joe said. "I've seen it in paintings.

Beautiful people can do beautiful work; they aren't afraid of it; they're used to it." Eva looked at him. She was good-looking herself, although not in Cleo's league.

Joe's head was spinning from two weeks of conversation at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and points in between. It was a relief to be in the plane, seated next to an elderly woman who had no interest in writing.

He had scheduled a stopover in San Francisco, but, when he arrived, he couldn't bring himself to call Brendan. He was too tired to socialize.

He spent a day walking about the city and was able to buy almost all of the books on his reading list. He wouldn't have to wait for any of them to be delivered to Honolulu.

After an uneventful flight and a satisfying view of Diamond Head, Joe climbed the stairs to his apartment, a cloth shopping bag filled with paperbacks in one hand, his Filson bag in the other. "Yo, Batman! New books!"

18

Mo swirled special noodles around in her bowl. "So, did you find out?

What's a story?"

Joe handed her a manila envelope. "Here's one," he said. "A story is about change, is of change. It's obvious, I guess, but I couldn't see it. My instructor, Roland, finally said, 'Look, Joe, for G.o.d's sake--in a story, sooner or later, something has to happen to somebody."' Joe shook his head. "I kept trying to stop time, like a painter. I've got it now; stories model, take place, in time. The meaning is embodied in the movement--like a dance--you can't separate them." He sipped tea.

"The school has been good, but I'm stopping after this semester. Too expensive. Diminis.h.i.+ng returns. I just have to do it now--the writing."

"It has been good for you," Mo said. "I have news."

"Aha," Joe said.

"Rob Wilc.o.x. You remember? On Kauai? He's offered to go into business with me--a gallery and a fine art print shop with enough s.p.a.ce to teach cla.s.ses. He has a building on Queen Street. He'll supply the s.p.a.ce and the money for equipment. I'll take care of the rest."

Joe's cheeks flushed slowly. So that was why she had been so hard to reach.

"Rob and I have known each other a long time. Did I tell you that?"

He tried to remember.

"We've become--closer," she said.

"Lucky fellow."

"I hope you'll come to the grand opening. When I have a date I'll send you an invitation."

"Of course I will. It's a terrific idea. You'll do a great job."