Blue Angel

by Francine Prose

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” says Swenson. “Grading student papers.” His eyes roll up in an arc of exasperation.

  “I bet you’d rather be writing your own book,” says Adam.

  “You got it,” Swenson says.

  Adam scratches the back of his neck, pushing forward the long gray ponytail gathered in a black scrunchee. “Well, I guess The Man doesn’t pay us for doing what we love. If you think I’d be pulling the crank on a cappuccino machine…”

  “What would you be doing?” asks Swenson. Why would someone run a bookstore if he didn’t love it? Though now he can’t remember Adam ever mentioning a book.

  “What would I be doing?” Adam repeats thoughtfully.

  Wait. Swenson doesn’t want to know. This is way more intimate than he needs to get with Adam Bee.

  “Herb farming,” Adam says.

  “Go for it,” Swenson says. “Guys are making fortunes. And if you get busted we’ll just forget we ever had this conversation.”

  Adam says, “I don’t mean weed. I’d only grow that for personal use. I can’t even smoke anymore, some pre-emphysema thing. No, I mean medicinal. Gingko. Saint John’s wort. Ginseng. The new frontier, man. Anti-AIDS. Anticancer. But my knees are going, I’m your basic old dog what can’t learn new tricks….”

  As Adam hovers over Swenson, waiting for him to taste his coffee, his vulnerable belly grazes Swenson’s ear. Their tableau—one standing, solicitous, the other seated and frostily grateful–makes Swenson feel like a melancholy provincial in Chekhov or Turgenev, attended by the family retainer, Old Gerasim or Mumbles with secret longings of his own, the tiny cottage, the white horse, hopeless and unobtainable. Swenson hates it that Adam can’t grow his herbal hippie joy juice.

  “Do it,” Swenson says. “Hire some kids to do the grunt work.” He could hardly sound more phony or feel more sincere. He stares up into Adam’s rheumy eyes. Adam’s younger than he is!

  “Don’t spill your coffee,” says Adam. “You might have a hard time explaining it to the student who wrote that paper.”

  The student? Swenson stares at the manuscript as if for the first time. And then he has the strangest desire to tell Adam that he’s just read the most interesting first chapter. Something actually good. It occurs to him that his new sympathy for Adam may have some connection to his having read Angela’s work. Isn’t that what he told the class yesterday, that good writing can make you see your fellow humans? It doesn’t make you a better person. It just sort of…opens your pores.

  “The students would understand,” Swenson says. “They’d all be dead without coffee.”

  “Jeez,” says Adam. “Dead? I hope not.”

  Adam stares at him quizzically. Swenson no longer cares. God bless Adam, God bless Bradstreet Books. Swenson’s going home.

  Swenson springs up the belltower stairs in an energized mood quite unlike his normal resentment, ennui, and dread. Teaching is a lot a more fun if he has even one student who might benefit from, or understand, what he’s saying.

  Two nights after he read her manuscript, Swenson called Angela Argo. He’d been wasting far too much time trying to decide when to call, what to say, if he should phone at all. His impulse was the correct one—generous, unselfish. He almost never gets to be sincerely enthusiastic. But the last thing he wanted was to make Angela self-conscious with the sort of praise that might keep her from experimenting and making the necessary mistakes.

  Finally, one night, he’d called from home. He was surprised to hear, on Angela’s machine, Robert Johnson’s honeyed crooning. You better come on in my kitchen because it’s going to be rainin’ outside. Then Angela’s voice, “Leave me a message if you want. Okay. Wait for the…” Beep. He’d forgotten what he planned to say and almost hung up, then babbled semicoherently about how he’d really liked her chapter but unless she desperately wanted to have her work discussed in class, she should just keep on with it, they could talk about it in conference. Beep beep. No tape left to trick him into saying that it would be hellish to hear her classmates tell her how to “improve” her work.

  Only after he’d hung up had he realized what trouble he’d made for himself. Now he’d have to call around to find a student story to discuss, and get it photocopied and distributed. Saintly Ruth Merlo, the department secretary, saw him moping around the office and volunteered, angelically, to take on the extra work.

  So today—unless he’s got it wrong—they’re doing Back Bay Barbie’s story. Oops. Courtney Alcott. When he’d asked Courtney if she was related to Louisa May, she didn’t know whom he meant.

  It’s Courtney’s week to be bound and gagged and forced to watch her darling dismembered before her eyes. As always, Swenson’s overidentified with the student whose story they’re doing. He always tries to give the condemned an encouraging nod or wink. Now, he seeks out Courtney, but before he can find her, his gaze snags on Angela Argo, rooting ferociously in her backpack. How could this twitchy ferret have produced the pages that Swenson has—he checks to make sure—in his briefcase? This girl just doesn’t seem capable of having written those complex sentences, that disturbing scene in the henhouse.

  When the class has settled down, Swenson says, “So I assume that everyone’s had a chance to read Courtney’s story?” For some reason, this is hilarious.

  “Enlighten me,” Swenson says.

  “We never got it,” says Carlos. “Courtney screwed up, man.”

  Courtney covers her face with one hand and with the other plays with her medallion: a silver bulldog snarling at the end of a thick silver chain. “I got the copies.” Her cartoon-mouse voice squeezes out through the lattice of her pearly inch-long nails. “But I put them in my bag and I, like, forgot to hand them out.”

  “I guess Courtney really didn’t want us to do her story,” says the forgiving Nancy.

  “Somebody should’ve given the copies to Claris,” says Makeesha, with inarguable logic. “Those stories be handed out by now.”

  Courtney says, “I’ve got the copies with me. We could read it now. It’s short.”

  “Courtney could read it to us,” suggests Meg. “We could read along with her.”

  What is Swenson supposed to say? Courtney’s not going to read her goddamn story out loud while we sit here and suffer!

  “Courtney?”

  “I could do that.” Courtney always seems to be chewing gum, even when she isn’t.

  So be it. Swenson takes a copy—short, it’s true—and passes along the stack. “Well, thank you, Courtney. For coming to our aid and bringing us something to talk about.”

  Courtney takes a deep breath. “I really like this story. It’s the first thing I ever wrote that I thought was, like, totally good.”

  “I’m sure the rest of us will, too.” Oh, dear Lord, Swenson prays silently. This could really get ugly.

  “It’s called ‘First Kiss—Inner City Blues,’” says Courtney.

  “That’s two titles right there,” says Makeesha.

  Courtney ignores her, and begins:

  “‘The summer heat sat on the hot city street, making it hard for it to breathe, especially Lydia Sanchez. Lydia sat on the filthy, garbage-laden front steps of her brownstone tenement home, watching kids play in the gutter in the water rushing out of a broken fire hydrant. Just yesterday she used to be one of those kids. But she wasn’t now.

  ‘Lydia was miserable. That morning she’d yelled at her mother and hit her baby brother, then she felt even worse. She was used to the crime-ridden, drug-infested city streets of her neighborhood. She didn’t let any of that get to her anymore. But this time was different.’”

  Courtney must have worked hard on the opening section. From there on, the grammar and syntax deteriorate, making it hard to follow, on the simplest plot level, the story of Lydia, who has a “huge thing” for “this good-looking guy” named Juan, who belongs to a “vicious tough inner-city gang” known as the Latin Diablos. Juan wants Lydia to join the “girl-part” of the gang. He c
omes along and kisses her while she’s sitting and brooding among the “crackheads and junkies like human garbage on her front steps. After all, it was Lydia’s first kiss. So it really meant a lot.”

  Lydia’s almost persuaded to go through the “terrifying gang initiation” to become a Latina Diabla. But then her mother tells her that a baby down the block—a “cute precious girl” Lydia used to babysit for—was accidentally killed in a drive-by shooting. Who did it? Guess. The Diablos.

  Relieved to be almost finished, Courtney sails into the grand finale. “‘Right at that moment Lydia knew she could never be part of Juan’s world. She could never love a man who could be part of something like that. She needed the strength to tell Juan she didn’t want to. But would she be able to? Could she? Lydia honestly couldn’t say for sure. At least not for the moment.’”

  That’s it. The end. That’s all she wrote. Most of the students are still reading, giving Swenson a moment to think of something to say, some way to improve this heartbreaking, subliterate piece of shit, heartbreaking because, for all he knows, it represents Courtney’s personal best.

  He refuses to accept that. It’s his job to refuse to accept that. Courtney can do better. Too bad that classroom etiquette prevents him from saying so. God forbid he tell Courtney—or anyone—to bag it and start over, as if no real writer would do that, as if he himself hadn’t pulled the plug on dozens of stories and novels.

  And now they’re all looking at him with the same panic he fears they see on his face. Or maybe they loved the story and are moved too deeply for words. Certainly, he’s been wrong before…. Hewaits a beat, then says, “At least it isn’t about someone having sex with an animal.”

  “Compared to this,” Makeesha says, “that chicken thing was genius. This is just more of that totally racist shit white folks are always laying down. Like every sister and brother on the street is a gang member killing babies and doing dope. What’s that shit she calls the brothers? Human garbage?”

  “Hang on, Makeesha,” Swenson says. “Let’s get back to that in a minute. We usually start off saying what we liked about the story.”

  He’s asking the impossible, but Angela’s hand shoots up. “I like the name, the Latin Diablos. And then the Latina Diablas, it’s like the Ladies Auxiliary or something. They’re pretty good gang names.”

  Some new confidence or authority shines in Angela’s face. Her entire metabolism seems less speedy and frenetic, as if some hand has steadied her and made her stop tapping and squirming. Could she have been so changed by Swenson’s message on her machine?

  Claris says, “Is Diabla a Spanish word? Is the devil ever female?” Swenson often wonders what Claris is doing at Euston.

  “I’ll bet not,” says Meg. “They’d never let us have that much power. Even the devil has got to have a dick.”

  Swenson shakes his head. The students chuckle, sympathetically.

  “Let’s see,” says Carlos. “As you know, guys, I’m half Dominican. And I don’t know about Diabla. Bruja, maybe. That means ‘sorceress.’ I guess that’s a little different.”

  “You could change it to the Latino Brujos,” Angela says, excitedly. “And the Latina Brujas. That would be good, too.”

  Makeesha says, “Have we finished the part about the stuff we like? Because I got some other shit to say.”

  “Have we?” says Swenson. “People? Anyone want to mention something they admired about Courtney’s story?” Courtney’s staring at the wall. “I thought it represented an attempt to deal with some larger social problems. Did anyone pick up on that?”

  No one speaks. No one’s going to speak. His students aren’t idiots.

  Swenson sighs. “All right, Makeesha.”

  Makeesha says, “I think it’s, like asking for it, to pretend you know shit about shit you don’t know about. Yo, like where did you grow up, Courtney? In some mansion in Boston? And you be acting like you know what’s going on inside this sister’s head when she be chilling on the street.”

  And where did Makeesha grow up? Dartmouth, Swenson seems to remember. She slips in and out of homegirl talk for the authority it gives her.

  “Makeesha,” Swenson says, “are you saying you don’t think it’s possible to imagine something unless it’s happened to you?”

  “I’m not saying that,” she answers. “I’m just saying there’s some things you can’t imagine, some stuff you ain’t got no business trying to imagine if you—”

  Angela interrupts her. “That’s not true, Makeesha. You can imagine anything if you do it well enough. I mean, like, Flaubert wasn’t a woman, and you can read Madame Bovary, and it’s amazing how much he knew about women. Kafka wasn’t a cockroach. People write historical novels about the times before they were born—”

  Carlos catches the pass and runs with it. “You don’t have to be a space alien to write science fiction, man.”

  “Angela and Carlos are right,” Swenson says. “If you really work at it, you can get under anyone’s skin. Regardless of its color.” Does he really believe that? He chooses to, for the moment.

  “Yeah,” says Courtney. “That’s what I think, too. Why shouldn’t I be able to write about some homegirl if I want?”

  Hold it, let’s back up a step. Something’s gone terribly wrong if Courtney has mistaken his defense of the imagination for an endorsement of her story. To say nothing of the fact that Courtney has, by speaking, shattered the most sacred covenant of the workshop.

  “All right-eeee….” Swenson draws out the word, pneumatically, letting Courtney down easy. “The question is whether Courtney’s done it. What do the rest of you think?”

  Claris says, “I didn’t believe it. Lydia and her boyfriend seemed a little…generic. They could have been any girl and boy, any city street.”

  Swenson says, “Bravo, Claris. Once more, you’ve nailed the problem. So how can Courtney fix it? How can she make us believe that Lydia and Juan are a particular couple on a specific street, not some abstract composite? Anyhomey.”

  “Anyhomey,” says Makeesha. “That’s the problem right there. These dudes don’t have faces.”

  “So what do we do?” says Swenson.

  “Describe what they look like?” Danny says.

  “Tell us what city it is?” ventures Nancy.

  “That might help,” Swenson agrees.

  “Maybe we should know where they’re coming from,” says Carlos. “Are they Mexican? Puerto Rican? Half Polish and half Dominican? Let me tell you, man, it makes a difference.”

  “Sure,” says Swenson. “Why not? What else?”

  “Give the sister and brother somethin’ to say,” suggests Makeesha. “Give ’em some brains. Some personality.”

  “Now we’re getting there,” says Swenson. “How would you do that, Makeesha?”

  But before Makeesha can answer, Meg suggests, “Maybe by the end of the story she should be a little more…conscious. I mean, of her oppression…as a woman of color?”

  There’s a silence after this. No one wants to touch it.

  “Details,” Angela says at last.

  Bless her, Swenson thinks.

  “Okay? Like what?” says Courtney, with an edge in her voice honed by generations of Alcotts not bred to take instruction from punks like Angela Argo.

  “Garbage-ridden and filthy don’t exactly do that street.” Angela’s rolled up Courtney’s manuscript and is waving it like a brush with which to paint a streetscape of Lydia Sanchez’s block. “What makes it her house, her front steps? Put in…a laundromat. A bodega.”

  “Plantains,” Claris suggests.

  “Plantains nothing,” says Carlos. “A cuchifrito stand. Let’s see some greasy fried pig ears steaming up the window.”

  “Give the gang dude some tattoos,” Danny says.

  “Born to Lose,” Jonelle says sourly.

  “Latins don’t do Born to Lose,” says Carlos. “They do Mama. Mi Vida Loca. Mi Amor. Stuff like that.”

  “So what are you say
ing?” asks Courtney. “That I’m supposed to do…research?”

  “No,” says Angela. “Close your eyes. Concentrate till you see the street and the girl and her boyfriend. Till you’re sort of…dreaming them. Then write down what you see.”

  Okay. Angela wrote that chapter. Why did Swenson doubt it?

  “All right,” Courtney says. “I can do that.”

  No, you can’t, thinks Swenson. Courtney’s heroine will be Natalie Wood in West Side Story. But so what? Courtney’s charged with faith in the power of observation to make something come to life on the page, in the power of language to make something walk and talk. That’s all Swenson can hope to give them, and together they’ve bled it out of Courtney’s turnip of a story. Meanwhile they’ve avoided the dangerous question of whether the sharpest details, the most gorgeous embroidery can cloak the clumsy contrivances of a plot about a girl who decides not to join a gang responsible for the death of a child. They don’t have to mention that. They’ve performed the weekly miracle of healing the terminally ill with minor cosmetic surgery.

  “Wait a minute,” says Jonelle. Swenson waits for Jonelle to say—as she often does—that the story was perfect just the way it was, and they should have left it alone. Nearly every class has a self-appointed guardian of the writer’s tender feelings, an aggressive protector less inspired by kindness than by the need to negate the time and effort they’ve expended.

  Jonelle says, “You didn’t give Courtney a chance to say something at the end. Like if there’s anything else she wants to ask us, or what.”

  Usually, the writer just thanks the class. Still, they need it for closure. “Sorry, Courtney,” says Swenson. “Last words? Last thoughts?”

  “Thanks, guys,” says Courtney. “I think I know where to go from here.”

  It’s like a benediction. Or like the end of Quaker Meeting, the rising and shaking hands, faces warmed by the hour spent by the fire of the Inner Light. Before Swenson knows what he’s doing, he glances at Angela Argo. Messages crackle back and forth, and it’s understood that Angela will stay after so they can discuss her chapter.