Chapter Text
By the fourth time that week, Johnny told himself that he couldn’t do this anymore. He sat with his covers crumpled at his waist, back soaked through his grey workout tank, gone unwashed for two days. It was well past five in the morning and he was still staring into the dark, staring at the dimly lighted folds in the curtains, just beneath the hooks where the tiny slivers of blueness bled through the windows. Soon it would be light. Soon. Johnny squeezed his eyes closed and sighed.
He got into his car.
The sky was still mostly dark, only brief light along the horizon. He reached into the back and pulled on the spare bomber he always kept stashed beneath the folded quilt. Started the ignition. Watched his breath fog over the dash as he slowed at a red light.
He parked on the side of the road. Stepped over the low metal fence, sinking straight into the knee-high snow, clinging cold up his jean-clad shins. Ignored the numbing pain as he trudged past the first row of trees, some of the jagged ends of branches scraping his shoulders as he pushed past, keeping the flashlight on his phone on to see.
When he reached the small pond near the clearing, Johnny stopped and swiped snow off a broken log and sat down.
“You have to stop this,” He said to himself out loud. “It’s not working anymore. It’s not. I don’t know how long you thought this would work, but right now you’re just steeped in this giant pit of fucking nowhere and you can’t…”
He breathed into the skin of his palms, willing himself not to just claw his eyes out.
“You need to get out of this. It’s not working. It’s not right. It’s not right and you know it’s not right, so why are you still…” He slammed his fist into the log, cracking the wood. Splinters rained all over his arm, some fell into his lap. Somehow, none of them cut into his skin. He sighed.
“It’s just another two years. Maybe three. After this, you can do something else. You can get out of here. Go to Asia or Europe or even Australia or something, find something there. There’s gotta be something there. You’ve just been in the same spot for too long. That’s it. That’s what’s wrong.”
The chimes rang as he entered the store, heading straight to the frozen aisle, frowning at the endless rows of frozen vegetables, chicken strips, Jamaican patties and cheap popsicles. He passes by the open cold section, but there’s nothing but dairy and fruit juice and it’s only by the time he’s gone through nearly every damn aisle, that he finds what he’s looking for —crammed in two tiny wire-racked rows next to the travel-sized bottles of hand cream, body lotion and various other cheap toiletries.
Johnny set the two bottles of Jäegermeister and one Scotch down against the cheap plastic cover, replete with the glittering gaudy flaps of all the store's scratch-to-wins underneath. One of these days, he’ll scratch one. Maybe.
“Can I see some ID, gorgeous?” The teenager behind the counter grinned, revealing the gold insets past her canines. Nose ring, heavily smudged kohl liner. Blonde, see-through band t-shirt —Sleeping with Sirens—riding half up her waist, shrunken from the wash. South Asian, almost no accent. “Or are you gonna play hard to get like usual?”
“Not today, Liv,” He said, holding up his credit, waiting until she rolled her eyes and clacked a series of buttons on the card machine and muttered, Go ahead. He tapped it and finished, reaching for the stuff she’d just bagged, then sighing when she grabbed his wrist.
“My parents are out of town,” She tried again, a more desperate look in her eyes now. It was ridiculous. She didn’t have to do this. He twisted at his wrist, she held on. “We just finished fixing up the basement, the new couch we thrifted has a—
“-Liv, I’ve known your mother since sophomore year at Seneca,” He used his other hand to gently, but firmly loosen her fingers from him. Furrowed his brow when she just dug her paint-chipped nails into his other hand. She smelled like cardamom and mint. “What do you think she would say if she saw you doing this right now?”
“Nothing. She’s too tired to care. Working three jobs and hardly ever home,” Liv reached under the counter and pulled out her wallet, unzipping one of the pockets. Johnny quickly looked away. “See, I’m not stupid, yeah? My college gives them out for free —look, this one’s even-
“-I could get you reported for harassment,” He muttered, grabbing the bag before she could say any more, accidentally knocking her wallet onto the floor behind the counter in the process. Cursed as she bent over to pick up all the spilled coins and folded receipts and wordlessly put an extra twenty on the counter before heading towards the exit, the bag straps wound twice around his fist so the bottles wouldn’t clash. She’d forgotten to wrap them in newspaper first.“-don’t know why I let myself put up with this.”
“I’ll be nineteen in two fucking weeks—!” She called after him, the register clacking as she tucked the cash in. “-it’s not like it’s fucking drinking age or some shit. You know, in Italy the age of consent is fourteen. I think I’m well past that—
He let the door swing shut behind him, chimes clanging. Crumpled up the receipt before tossing it in the trash, the still-fresh Sharpie ink on the back staining his fingers. Her seventh attempt at giving him her number.
“That bitch bother you again, teach?”
“She’s not…” Johnny sighed, glancing at him before unlocking his car. Looked even worse than when he’d last seen him, grey-purple gas station uniform hanging off him like clapboard, poorly tucked into his ripped jeans. Dust-smudged Scooby cap. He forgot that the kid worked mornings now. “You know, you really shouldn’t talk about your sister that way. It’s not—
“-Half-sister.”
“What’s the difference? Different blood —suddenly not worthy of your respect?”
“What’s keeping you from fucking her?” Ethan went on, taking a long drag from his silver pen, the blue light blinking rapidly until he blew the smoke out from his nose, coughing faintly. It smelled like berries. “You know, she’s got at least like four other dudes spamming her phone all day. You’re the only one she actually wants for some reason, you creep. What, you only dig white chicks now?”
Johnny opened the door and set his bag against the seat.
“I’m gonna pretend we didn’t have this conversation,” He dug in his pocket and handed him a twenty, then another. Ethan stared at him. Johnny rolled his eyes and handed him one more. Ethan hesitated, but then took the cash, slipping it into his back pocket. He slipped Johnny a small baggie of little pink tablets. “Get yourself some groceries or see a movie or something. Or buy more of that lung cancer, I don’t care. Do whatever the hell you kids do these days. Just don’t get yourselves hurt. Please.”
“You’re the best, teach,” Ethan grinned through the half-open window, giving him a firm salute with two fingers. Johnny watched him head off to the side of the store and disappear into the Jiffy Lube before he pulled off into the road. When had he stopped going to school?
When he nearly got back, Johnny pulled over by a fence. Took out the small bag of pills, bringing them to his nose. Flicked at them twice like a needle. It was more of a routine than anything else. Half the time Ethan just gave him stale Rockets left over from Halloween and the sudden chalky sweetness was always a jarring, but not entirely unwelcome surprise. He liked those as a kid anyways.
He popped two into his mouth and chewed. Snorted. Rockets again. Figures.
“Ten minutes,” He muttered to himself, setting a timer on his phone to go off half an hour later. He shut his eyes, leaning back against the headrest. Pulled down his mirror to block out the sun. It was nearly 7:40 am. “Just let me sleep for another ten goddamn minutes.”
He got off three stops late.
Mark scrambled off the transit, gripping his phone hard and felt the rock hard bottom of his backpack punching his spine with every leap as he ran in the rain, nearly slipping four times before he reached the first traffic island. He breathed hard, head ducked down until he glimpsed the glow of green in the mist and dashed down the painted yellow slants, narrowly missing a Toyota that decided to make that turn only assholes make, honking twice at him as Mark flipped them off, knowing they wouldn’t be able see it in the raging downpour anyway. He nearly crashed into a guy on a bike and muttered sorrysorrysorrysorry so fast he sounded like a tape that got stuck and by the time Mark reached the first patterned mailbox he saw, he randomly decided to stop again and rest. His chest was on fire, he was seeing black spots.
He looked up and saw the tips of the buildings in the distance.
Then he took off running so hard he didn’t have time to admire the massive properties that barricaded the left side of the neighborhood, only growing more massive and ridiculous as Mark neared the campus, then he passed the ugly stacked stone monument that delineated the college namesake, then the squat brown box houses, the sad excuses for first year student housing that his parents barred him against when he’d been a first year himself, then he cleared off the asphalt and onto the grass, water squishing straight into his sneakers and then he reached on the paved island leading into the N building, feeling like his lungs would explode. He banged through the glass doors, soaked to the bone, and ignored the scattered, startled stares from the small sitting lounge and other students casually walking to class.
He sat down on a nearby bench, still catching his breath. Decided he’d be okay with being yelled at, at being —Mark checked his phone —four minutes late and all. It was fine. Fuck it. He’ll take it.
Then Mark found himself at the top of the stairs, still panting from the six punishing flights up, a little lightheaded, the backs of his calves burning. He looked around, mildly frantic. No one along the benches outside the doors. They must already be inside. He gulped, heartbeat quashed in his throat, searching for the right door.
It was dark. Or at least the window was dark behind the glass. Mark tried the handle —locked. Tried it twice. Nothing.
Beside the door, the plastic-encased paper schedule showed all the classes that would take place in the room throughout the week. WRI185: Writing About Everyday Life. Thursday from 9:30 - 11:30 AM. This was the right room. He was on time. Why was nobody in there?
“Right time, wrong place.”
Mark turned around. A tall guy holding a clipboard grinned at him, looking somewhat apologetic.
“Are you here for WRI185?” He smoothed some strands of hair from his eyes, fingers brushing the blue Bic pen slotted over his ear. He's stunning. Mark’s mouth went a little numb.
“Um, yeah.”
“We’re in the other room,” He said, then leaned in as if letting him in on an impossibly delicate secret. Smelled like fresh pine and rain, the dip in his chest faintly visible from his loose woven collar. “-the dungeon room.”
“E-Excuse me?”
“Sorry, it’s a longtime joke,” He tilted his chin in the gesture to follow and they started heading towards the stairs at the other end of the hall. Mark jogged, then brisk-walked close behind, feeling his heartbeat unable to slow even as he calmed down. At first, he thought the guy was just walking too fast, but then he realized it was his legs —aside from being ridiculously long, they were also just insanely nice to look at —lithely muscled against the dark of his sharp, fitted trousers which Mark almost guaranteed were tailored down to the millimeter. Stunning. Completely stunning just like the rest of him. Then Mark’s eyes inevitably crept up and landed on his ass, which he’d hurriedly skipped over to settle onto his equally handsome back —but even the briefest glance confirmed the obvious: his backside was nice too. Nice, nice, nice. Fuck. Already ogling his fellow classmate, or maybe even TA and he wasn't even in class yet.
Nice Legs glanced back. “Did you climb all those steps?”
“Yupp,” Mark nodded, looking down. They hit the stairs, then went through another door. “Didn’t expect it to almost keel me over, though. Fuck, man, I gotta start hitting the gym again. Swear, I’m better than this.”
“Oh, I hear you,” He nodded. “You can take the elevator next time. Look over the blackish cardboard wall by the stairs —it’s hiding a little ways behind there, but it’s there. You can’t miss it. Probably.”
“This place isn’t even that big,” They entered it and the guy tapped on B2, making it glow orange against the scratched glass. Mark glanced at their reflections in the mirrors and immediately felt self-conscious —his hair stuck out weirdly from the rain, the scattered acne on his forehead and nose made that much more apparent under the stark indoor lighting. Felt tempted to pull his hood on, but fought it. “-and I’m still getting lost.”
“Nothing to be ashamed about,” The guy said, tapping at something on his phone. Glanced up at him. “I used to get lost around here all the time.” Chuckled. “Still do, actually. When it gets dark? All those giant trees out there —they just close in on you. Freaky stuff.”
“I just wish all the buildings were like a bit closer, you know,” Mark rambled on. They went down the hall, now bright yellow and warmly familiar as though they were suddenly walking through his high school basement again. It’s so much warmer in here that Mark nearly thought he was dreaming a little, the edges of his head going a little fuzzy. “I mean, it’s not even that cold today, but I remember sometime last year during exams…oh, my God. I felt like my toes were gonna freeze off when I was going down the hill to the T building…”
“You and me both,” The guy glanced back again. “You know, back in the seventies you could get anywhere around here without ever leaving the building. They had an entire underground tunnel system that led into everything. Blessing in the winter. You barely had to wear your coat as soon as you got in. But then it got closed down.”
“Why’d they get closed down?”
“Too unsafe,” he said. “Rumors started going around that people were using the tunnels to traffic stuff and the parties down there were a front for something much worse. Police were called on multiple occasions. They never found anything. But you know, even physically, it began to get worn down.”
He stopped at a seemingly random point in the hall and tilted his head up towards the ceiling.
“See that up there?”
Mark looked up and saw the open vent, the thin painted aluminum flap hanging down, opening straight to pure darkness above. He nodded.
“That might be some of the old cement,” He said, scraping a finger at the bit of clumped grayish stuff sticking to the vent’s edge. “Several years back, our chem department decided to remove some of it for sampling —you know, testing the industrial scanners our students were helping to make. They found sand in it. Apparently it was mixed in while the cement was still wet and it set like that. See, normally, sand is fine. But if you fuck the ratio up and add too much, it starts to resemble mortar. And that's not even the," He glanced at Mark and chuckled, waving it off. "Forgive me, I watch a lot of history documentaries. But I digress." He glanced up the vent again. "Anyways, at one point, people noticed some of the passages were getting narrower. Parts of the walls started breaking down. By the time the nineties came around, all the tunnels were filled up. It’s solid now.”
“So are you like a fourth year or something?” Mark asked when they reached the door. “Or like a TA, ‘cause you look a little older…”
“That’s very sweet,” The guy said, pulling the door open, gesturing for him to go in. “I’m actually the prof.”
Mark sat down in the nearest seat he could find and set his bag on the floor, just letting that sink in.
“Thanks for waiting, guys,” The guy that just said he was the prof smiled. He grabbed a marker and popped the cap off with his teeth. Tossed the cap into the corner of his desk. Everyone immediately looked up. Along the middle of the whiteboard, he scrawled in faintish green, his name: Prof Suh, the date and their class code. WRI185. “Figured I’d make the trek up one last time to check if we had any more poor unfortunate souls who’d lost their way —and alas —here we are: just one more. Well, then.”
He looked around the room, briskly counting heads with the end of his pinky. “Alright. I’m sure you’ve heard this all before. There’s twenty-eight of you and one of me. I’m hoping to get all your names down in the next two weeks —and I was hoping you’d help me out.”
There were definitely a few eye rolls already. Prof Suh went on.
“We’ll go around the room in this direction,” He pointed at the table closest to the door and arced his arm in a roughly clockwise motion. “-like this and finish on the same end, other side. Kinda like a U-shape. That make sense?”
Scattered nodding. Mark nodded too.
“You’re gonna tell me your name, year, major —and then something that’ll help me remember your name,” He took in all the poorly disguised groans, chuckling. “Look, I get it, I know it’s barely nine in the morning and most of you aren’t even fully awake yet —but we gotta get our gears turning.” He made the turning gesture with his finger, grinning. Briefly glancing at Mark. Mark looked away. Everything he did was attractive. “Just say the first thing that comes to mind when you say your name. Doesn’t have to be overly complicated, doesn’t have to be cool. You have all year to get your peers to like you. Now, you over there. Grey hoodie. You’re up first.”
“Uh, okay, I’m Richard?” The guy said, sounding mildly offended. He had messy platinum-dyed hair, one blue contact and a lip ring. “-but nobody calls me that. They call me Ricky. I’m a first year. Civil Engineering. Um, uh,” He turned to the blonde girl next to him and whispered something, they both snickered and she nodded, punching his shoulder lightly with her violet galaxy-nailed fist. “And uh, okay, this is pretty random, but for like remembering my name, um.” He snorted. “I was doing an Insta live recently and one of the comments said Ricky, when I catch you Ricky—
Several students burst out laughing and Ricky ducked his head down, but it was obvious he enjoyed the attention. Prof Suh waved them on.
“Hi, I’m Rina,” The blonde girl said. “I’m a third year. I just switched to Digital Management —I was in User-Based Design last year, but they just cut the course that I needed to go into the stream I wanted, so…”
They went around and it was more or less the same. Mark mostly tuned them out, doodling Spider-Man on the margin of the small, single-page syllabus, copies that had been passed around as soon as introductions started. When Mark looked back up they were more than halfway around the room. He went back to drawing.
“And looks like we just have you,” Prof Suh turned to Mark. “Closing it off —no pressure. None at all.”
“Okay, yeah. Hi everyone, I’m Mark,” He turned to look around so he wouldn’t just be talking to him. Swallowed. “I’m a third, I mean, I’m a second year —sorry, I always get it mixed up ‘cause I did summer school. But uh, yeah. Was there anything else?” Blinked. “Oh, right, um, my major. Law and Crim. That’s it.”
They waited.
“And how do we remember your name, Mark?”
Mark turned to Prof Suh on instinct and glanced to the side, blinking rapidly. “Uh, um, oh right. That. Uh, okay. Sorry, I blanked out for a bit. Um.” He swallowed again. “Okay, this is kinda dumb, please don’t laugh if it’s not funny.” Nobody said anything, he went on. “But like um, back in middle school, my friends made me do a dare and it was so cringey, but it’s the only thing that’s like coming to me right now. I’m sorry.
“It’s um, so,” He blinked, sighing at himself. This was so stupid, fuck. “I’m Mark, uh, you can mark me in your heart.”
Silence. Then somebody clapped disjointedly and a few more scattered claps came around. Some people whispered.
“Uh, is…that okay?”
“Yeah, it’s okay,” Prof Suh snorted softly. He was the only one that laughed. Mark felt his face reach the temperature of roiling lava. Or maybe a microwaved egg in boiling water. “It’s fine. It’s adorable.”
Adorable.
It was locked solid —Mark would be friendless in this class.
After that, they got straight into it. Prof Suh filled the board with what he called the only thing you guys wanna know, I guarantee it which turned out to be the following: Attendance: 5%, Midterm: 25%, Portfolio: 55%, Weekly Exercises: 10%. Several hands went up. He smiled. And suddenly we're all awake, look at that. Then he erased Prof Suh with his finger and told everyone to just call him John. ‘Cause I’m still just a sessional lecturer, anyways. Wait another five years before you call me Professor. Mark didn’t really know what that meant, but figured, fine. John. Easy to remember. Simple. Kinda plain, though. Mark expected something sexier.
“So seeing we have less than forty minutes,” He erased the board and started drawing three separate triangles and two circles. Narrative structure. “I’m gonna condense it into five —because these are most likely gonna be the only ones you ever use. For this class, at least. Not saying the other ones aren’t great.” He turned to them, smiling briefly, already dividing the first triangle into five slots and drawing a X-Y axis of Tension vs. Time to its left. “But they’re either oral tradition based or so abstract that I don’t expect you to use them in this class. You’re not here to rewrite the Odyssey or something. You’re writing six short stories. About your life.
“The three basic structures all follow the same general pattern —we can start from Three Act Structure —break it off in Four Act, break it off even more into Five Act. It all starts the same way. Opening scene. Inciting Incident. What has to happen in order for everything else to happen? Rising action. We see the tension build until we reach the boiling point. Climax. Complete chaos, everything comes to a head. Then things slow down. Falling action. We see things get worse or get better. Some people call it a return. Return to what exactly? I’ll leave you to think about that. Then we hit the end. Catastrophe. Or rebirth.
“Four Act and Five Act is more or less the same —it’s the same peaked shape, just the time is split off in more places so you can better place your scenes,” Mark copied down each structure like his life depended on it, sometimes without even leaving his eyes from the board. Hastily scrawling down the labels he just barely made out from John’s deeply slanted cramped hand, feeling his own hand cramp as he rushed to get it all down before it inevitably got erased. Mark’s seen this all before, but it was different somehow. He had to get it down. He had to remember it.
By the time class was over, most people were packing up and leaving, but Mark joined the few remaining in a half-crooked line in front of the professor’s desk. It's mostly questions about the homework and submission deadlines and little technical things about how the portfolio is different from an exam and the number of drafts they’re expected to make. Only one other student asks about the structures that are still left on the board. When it finally got to Mark, John looked up and smiled while he packed away his laptop and papers.
“If it’s a submission question, I’d just direct you to the syllabus —but I don’t think it is, is it?”
“Uh, no,” He said. “How did you know?”
“You were one of the only people actually copying the stuff down,” He chuckled, setting his bag back onto the chair. He tossed the second board eraser to Mark and they started at opposite sides. Mark ran his arm back and forth, erasing. The past two hours had done nothing. Whenever Mark looked at him, he was still mesmerized. By everything, honestly. His posture, the way he carried himself, the easy reassurance in how he spoke. The way he smiled, warm and somewhat rundown. “Most people were just taking pictures. You know, you can find all of this online, right? It would take less than a second. But I appreciate you following along.”
“I wanted to ask you,” Mark said, wiping off the Midpoint of the second triangle, Four Act Structure. “-about the other structures. Not the oral ones, sorry —since I’m gonna be writing stuff down, anyways.”
“Uh huh,” John glanced at him, scratching off a tough spot on Vonnegut’s arc with his fingernail, nodding. Sprayed the marker with the bottle along the carpet. Rubbing alcohol. “-which ones did you wanna ask about?”
“Well, I heard you say some of them were really abstract,” He said, dropping his eraser accidentally when they knocked hands and bending down to pick it up. Felt his face burn a bit. "I kinda like abstract. I mean, I don’t mind it. The ones you drew were pretty straightforward. What are some other ones?” Blinked, adding quickly. “-oh, I mean, unless it would take too much time to explain, then forget it, it’s fine, it’s, um—
“-No, it’s alright,” He held out his hand and Mark took a second to realize he was asking for the other eraser. John gave them a few bold claps and then set them neatly along the board ledge. He leaned over the desk to flip through the scratched-up notebook by his coffee flask. Some dark strands fell over his forehead. “Okay. I’ll give two to you and then the third one I won’t explain —I want you to figure it out by yourself. They’re all from books I’ve read —I think at least one of them can be found in the library —I highly recommend checking them out, if you’re interested.”
He turned to Mark, motioning for him to get in closer. Mark leaned in, feeling the heat of his shoulder by his cheek, staring down at the slightly rain-bogged handwriting to distract himself. John smelled so good. Now it was pine and something warmer, maybe vanilla. Or maybe lily of the valley. Mark wanted to taste him. He couldn’t really read what was on the page. He nodded anyway.
“The first one I want to point you to is the spiral,” John said. “Now just think about it. When you see a spiral in nature —think those plants you see in high school math textbooks, or those huge shells —or even those spiral staircases looking down from the top of a tower. What’s something they all have in common?”
Mark paused. Stared at his finger.
“It’s not a trick question. Just say whatever comes to mind.”
“Um, okay,” Mark tried. “They all have like…I mean, okay, they all go into the same spinny shape?” He winced immediately. “God, what the fuck, that’s so stupid —spinny shape —I don’t even know why I said that —it’s so obv…”
“No, no, it’s good. You’ve basically got it,” He started tracing an invisible circle across the page over and over with his finger. “Now look at this. You said it’s a spinning shape. Think about something that spins. What is this motion telling you? As it’s happening?”
“That it’s…it just keeps going. Again and again,” Mark looked at him. “Following…the same path.”
“That’s right. Now what makes the spiral shape,” He changed the motion of his finger and started tracing an invisible spiral onto the page, fingertip making ever shrinking circles against it until it reached a single point. Then he started it again. And again and again. It was unbelievably erotic. Mark tried not to think about that finger tracing the same path down his body. Down his chest. Down his stomach. Down his hips, down… “-different from the circle you just saw?”
“The motion gets smaller,” He said, feeling his breath quicken. He was gonna get hard from this, he couldn't believe it. Mark leaned further down so his belt was against the desk's edge so he'd be able to hide it. “The circle isn’t really a circle anymore, um, i-it’s something that’s trying to get closer and closer to the, um, center th-thing?”
“Exactly,” He said. Then he laughed a little. “You’ll have to forgive me, I actually went the opposite way. I think my head’s a bit muddy from lack of sleep. The spiral is supposed to start in the middle and extend outwards. Forever.” He looked at him. “That’s the first structure.”
It was quiet for a while. Mark curled a fist to his mouth, trying to make it look like he was deep in thought. He fought what was threatening to break out of his pants underneath the table. He stared at the page so hard he actually began to be able to decipher some of the writing on it.
“So something in the story repeats over and over again, but not really,” Mark said, feeling lightheaded. “There’s something different each time, slightly different, and that’s how the spiral gets made. Every change affects what happened before. Like ripples in the water.” He looked at him. “The butterfly effect.”
…
He had to drop this class.
He had to drop it.
Mark set the stack of books next to the frosted divider and sighed, sitting down. He brought his fingers to his nose, feeling his chest squeeze when he thought he could still smell traces of it. Merely minutes ago, back against the stall wall, lip tucked between his teeth, biting down so hard his gums went white-hot as he raggedly jerked himself towards the toilet. Sucking in breath through his nose, eyes squeeze closed. It’s the fastest he’s ever come. Mark barely even saw anything as he reached it. The crumpled blue sticky note leaned against the books, the ballpoint scrawl now mostly smudged. Meander, Spiral, Explode. The Unfortunates. Mark had used his other hand to press the bitter paper against his mouth as he came, inhaling the perfume left over from John’s hand as he’d jotted the titles down right before he left for a meeting.
Mark had stared in the mirror earlier, scrubbing foam around his mouth with a harried thumb to get the smears of cheap ink off. Let the tip of his tongue scrape over the skin before he could stop it. Tasted mostly soap. Doused his chin in more water until he couldn’t taste it anymore. He left as soon as someone else walked in, grabbing his jacket before he forgot. He was worried they'd be able to see it just by looking at his face. What he'd done, what he'd probably keep on doing.
It wasn’t that hard to find the books. Mark typed them into the catalogue and followed the serial number ranges on his phone to the right shelves. Third floor, Section K. 480-556. Meander was sticking slightly out and the front was well-wrinkled. Mark picked out a few more from his own at-a-glance judgment. The Art of Fiction. Writing Down the Bones. Something from Margaret Atwood. He frowned when the notice under The Unfortunates on his screen said See front desk. Mark went there and got taken to a dusty little room near the stairs of the second floor. The Archives. A middle-aged woman with thinly chained glasses sifted through a couple boxes and handed him a smaller box —dusty white-red and completely unremarkable. He thanked her.
Inside the box, a cream-toned card sat along a stack of several sets of folded looseleaf pages, bordered by the thin bent red cardboard. Mark picked it up. Note. This novel has twenty-seven sections, temporarily held together by a removable wrapper. Apart from the first and last sections (which are marked as such) the other twenty-five sections are intended to be read in random order. If readers prefer not to accept the random order in which they receive the novel, then they may rearrange the sections into any other random order before reading.
Underneath the card, the first set of looseleaf was marked with FIRST along the top. Mark flipped through the other sets and found the one titled LAST near the back and pulled it out, setting it aside for later. I want you to figure this last one out yourself. What was there to figure out? The note already told him the sections could be read in any order. Mark took out FIRST anyway. Maybe he’d just go through this one and then a couple more. See if it really worked. Could you really write a novel with chapters that could be read in any order? Like it or not, something like this might be worth taking note of. Mark pulled out one of his pocket-sized moleskins and flipped to a clean page. He started reading.
But I know this city. This green ticket hall, the law office half-rounded at its ends. That ironic clerestory, brown-glazed tiles, green below the same… By the time Mark reached the third set of folded pages, he figured it out. He hadn’t even gone through every page of FIRST, just scanned some paragraphs and then flipped through a couple unmarked sets. The pattern became apparent to him. He let out a little laugh. It was certainly one way to do it.
It didn’t matter. You could read them in any order because it didn’t change anything. It began in death and circled around in bars and parks and restaurants. Some sections were incredibly hard to get through because the grammar fell apart and it was clear the author was doing it on purpose to prove some kind of point. Mark sighed and straightened the stacks he’d laid out on the table and dropped them back in the box. He looked out the window. Longish browned ferns scratched silently against the glass. The sky had gotten dimmer, but it was barely noon. Still another three hours before his Crim tutorial.
He scribbled something short into his notebook. Order is optional when details don’t matter. Felt stupid right after he wrote it. You end in the beginning and you can start anywhere. Fuck, not that either. Mark made a face at himself and jotted Death circles everything, everything circles death just to get a kick out of it and knew that still didn’t work. He finally settled on: Memories don’t prioritize each other —you control the structure, the mind only collects. He didn’t want to believe it. It didn’t feel true in his mind, it felt instinctual to remember certain things and there was definitely a subconscious hierarchy in those memories even if Mark never gave it much thought most of the time.
Subconscious memory hierarchy —does it exist? He wrote that down at the bottom of the yellowed page and circled it multiple times, making a mental note that it might be an interesting point to bring up to John after class if he ever remembered to. He took a picture of it on his phone. There was so much he wanted to ask John. Still so much more he wanted to know. Where he found these books, how he knew everything that he knew, how he got to where he was now... Everything. Mark wanted to know everything. Even just today, he felt like he'd learned more, saw more than he had in all of high school, middle school... He couldn't drop it. He just had to put his feelings aside for now.
Mark then parsed through the other books in the pile and jotted down particular lines that stood out to him and when the passage was too long, he took pictures with his phone. Often when he couldn’t think of anything to write, he just did this. Collecting things. Tucking them away for later.
When he’s out of the tutorial, it’s pretty dark out. It took a couple tries to muscle through the door into the bus shelter. Mark sat down on the bench and slipped his backpack off to rest it on his lap. He leaned back against the glass. This wasn’t going to work in the long run. He doesn’t remember a single thing that went on in that room even though he was just in it. He barely recognized the questions scrawled on the board and just kept his eyes down to the opened textbook, highlighting the answers in the correct paragraphs. Took a peek into Meander again, jotting down anything interesting he saw. It was good he sat in the back. He was the first to leave.
“Thanks for coming in today,” The woman led him to the back corner of the classroom next to the rows of red-painted cubbies and the word wall, most of its deep green surface covered in enlarged Comic Sans text and images featuring various sports and activities played at school. Two curved tables were pushed together to form a U-shape, a single chair on the inside of the U and more chairs on the other. One of the seats was empty. “Aaron couldn’t make it —he’s down with the flu. He went skating last week —his parents said maybe he caught it from one of his friends.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Johnny told her, giving the subject teacher in the front of the room a small wave when she saw him. She smiled and nodded, then went back to teaching double letter sounds with a video of caterpillars, butterflies and choco puffs. “I saw the new recording template you sent me. Is there a reason it’s changed again?”
Three first graders sat along the outside of the U and one of them turned, waving at him. Johnny recognized her. Felicity had been here since August, her father enrolled her early. She’s slow, be patient with her. She’s always been slower. It took her several months longer to start speaking compared to her brother. The other two are a bit fuzzier. Michael he’s seen maybe twice —he doesn’t have much trouble reading, he just didn’t like to enunciate. Sierra is fairly new, he can barely make out her smudged name tag stuck to her purple shirt because she sits with her face pressed to her folded arms, trying to sleep. She gets impatient quickly and doesn’t like talking. She touches her eyes a lot.
“We were going through the old boxes and we found the template used by the teacher last year. It’s much more organized. You just fill in a bunch of boxes,” The woman tapped one of the boxes sitting along the top of the cubbies. Her name tag said Tessa. “There’s extras in here if you need any, along with some more stick-on activities and games you can use. Feel free to use anything.”
“I liked the older routine,” Johnny said, taking out the folded papers he’d filled out halfway last weekend. Each sheet covered a 2-day reading cycle. “I could customize it based on the level of the kid and it was simple —it was just three parts. This is more than twelve parts. The reading alone takes almost twenty minutes. I can’t get through everything unless you let me keep them for an hour.”
“That wouldn’t be possible, I’m afraid. Their lessons are already only 90 minutes. They’d miss too much.”
“They’re already behind. I don’t see how it makes much difference,” He sat down and smiled briefly at the kids, pulling out last week’s set of books for them again. Counting Ducks. Michael immediately opens the book and starts flipping through the pages. Felicity looks at Johnny and opens it after he nods. Sierra flips to the first page and mumbles the words with her cheek pressed to the paper. Johnny nudges her shoulder, trying to get her to sit nicely. “How much difference will it even make in the end? They always go on to the next grade anyway. And then they’re in the reading support group again.”
“Small things do make a difference,” Tessa said. “Their parents appreciate any extra time at all that they get to read. You can come back in the summer. Some of the kids come in then too. You’ll get more time because they have fewer classes.”
“I’ll look into that, thanks,” He told her, even though he knew he wouldn’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. It was just that the summer was the only time he really had to go anywhere, drive off and loosen out for a while. He did have the odd summer course here and there, but it was never more than twice a week and he always made sure the coursework was lighter given that students had to learn it at a condensed time frame anyway. Shorter readings. Shorter exams too. Nobody complained. He always offered to assign bonus material if anyone needed it. Nobody did. “That website for focused reading you forwarded last week was really great, by the way. I had no idea all of that was free.”
“I know, right?” Tessa grinned. “Jane’s my girl. I’ve been following her since the eighties. She covers everything.”
By the time Michael had gone through Counting Ducks for the third time, Johnny realized he forgot to do the word cards. Shit. He quickly told everyone to shut their books and told them they’d get a word break. Started doing the cards. Sometimes you could fool the kids into thinking you planned it all along. Most of the time you couldn’t. Felicity went along with it, Sierra rolled her eyes and Michael looked at Johnny like he was the first grader. Technically, he should’ve gotten most of the cards because he said the words first, but then Johnny felt bad for the other two and gave out pity cards to Felicity and Sierra to even things out. Michael kicked him under the table. Johnny took his cards away.
When they’d gotten to writing on their little whiteboards, Johnny felt a low shadow looming over him. He looked up.
“You could’ve told me you'd be here.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to call you,” He told her, already getting up. It’s the first time in four months since she’s said a word to him. He offered her his pen and she pushed his hand away as she maneuvered between him and the cubbies to sit down. Set her bag on the floor. Michael immediately sat straighter in his seat. Sierra frowned at her. Felicity looked at Johnny a bit sadly. “Isn’t it categorized as harassment these days?”
“Go outside, I’ll talk to you later.”
When Lauren finished up around ten minutes later, she closed the door behind her and met him in the hall. Her eyes were a bit red. She wasn’t sleeping again. Flakes of dry skin clung to her nose, she was breaking out pretty badly along the jaw. Her blonde hair looked thinner and she must’ve gathered it into a ponytail to hide that it was probably unwashed. She smelled a bit worrying.
“You didn’t have enough to do and now you’re taking over my job, too?”
“They called me in,” He said, trying to keep his voice low as other staff passed. A faint prickling of rain was coming through the window over the row of plants. “They said you had an appointment. Again. Laur, they’re already worried about you. If you can’t do it, just take a break. For a month or two. Say it’s a family emergency.”
“I can’t do that,” She said, picking at a spot behind her ear. “I already called in sick for three days —that’s the maximum they allow you without a notice from a regional hospital. I almost did that again last week. I slept for fourteen hours on Saturday and forgot to update my slides. They were in all the wrong order. I left out two entire activities.”
“Are you sick?”
The way she looked at him was harrowing.
“I don’t mean it in a rude way,” Johnny said. He sighed, leaning against the wall, arms folded. “I’m asking you if you’re really sick. You can’t just not sleep, Laur —you’ll die. I’ve read about it, I’ve seen it on the news. You need to take care of yourself. You need to put your health first.”
“And you suddenly care about me now,” She laughed, looking away. “That’s how it works, doesn’t it? The second I actually want you to fuck off —you finally care. I hardly saw you at all last year and now we can’t miss each other even for a week. You know what? You want to take over my weekend shifts, go ahead. Can you pay for the groceries too? That would sure as hell be nice.”
“Lauren, I’m not trying t—
“-I know, John. I know what you’re really trying to do,” She said. “You’re trying to repent. You think this is some kind of charity sporting event and that if you help out enough kids it’ll make up for the one thing you screwed up on. It doesn’t make up for it. You’re fucked. You know that.”
“Laur—
“-Don’t come here next time they call you,” She fixed her lipstick in the reflection of her phone, dabbing at the corners with a finger. “Ignore them. Tell them you’re busy. Or sick. If they sack me, they sack me. I can find another placement on my own —I don’t need your help.”
Mark stood outside the door, mildly pacing from side to side. He was on time, right? More than on time, he’d come almost ten minutes early. There was a bench at the other end of the hall, but Mark didn’t feel like sitting. His hand naturally went to the outline of the phone in his pocket, but he hesitated, already feeling the strange, numbing ache that started in his palms and spread out to his fingers whenever he felt nervous. Fuck it. He took his phone out and checked the time. 8:03 AM. His meeting was supposed to start at 8. Mark tried to bite down his semi-frustrated sigh.
The door stood in a slight gap. Not enough to see anything much, bright bluish light from the far window and maybe a strip of plant frond, but Mark could hear the hushed tones flowing in and out behind it. He couldn’t really make out a single solid sentence, just a stray word or so, but not enough to follow anything.
Something shifted in the gap and then a chair scraped the carpet, pants rustling. Footsteps.
“Hi,” John ducked his head through the door, smiling. Mark almost dropped his phone on his foot. “-I’ll just be another few minutes, sorry about that. Appreciate you showing up on time.”
“Um, yeah, sure, no—” The door closed, Mark swallowing down his embarrassment. “-problem.”
He glanced at the bulletin outside, tacked full with colourful, fun-looking brochures encouraging students to sign up. Upcoming writing workshops. Live music events. Poetry slams. Local nature excursions. Mark's eyes went over them without really seeing them. He spent the past several days agonizing over the draft that sat in his backpack right now, the one that he'd have to pull out and show at any minute. He knew it wasn't absolutely terrible, but it wasn't great either. He was at that stage that some guy called The Gap —where you were lucid enough to see where your faults were, but not skilled enough to remedy them all without outside help. It was so embarrassing to be here. It was like being in a constant state of pissing your pants and seeing there was piss on your fucking pants, but needing someone else to take the pants off because—
“Mark?”
He jerked his head up, just as the girl was leaving and she nodded awkwardly, shifting her shoulder slightly so they wouldn’t run into each other as Mark passed her. He reached the doorway just as John peeked his head out again.
“Uh, sorry, can I, uh…?”
“Yeah, of course, come in,” He said, gesturing for him to take a seat. Mark caught a whiff of cologne as he sank into the cushioned chair, something warm yet woodsy. His professor sat across from him, turned from the desk to face him. He was wearing glasses today. Gold-rimmed, elegant round lenses. Smoothed some hair from his eyes. “Sorry, I usually make a point of staying on the clock, but there were a few extra things I wanted to squeeze in there —it happens from time to time. I hope you’ll forgive me for that.”
“It’s fine,” Mark said. “It was just a few minutes.”
He smiled again.
“You have something to show me today?”
“Uh, yeah,” Mark leaned down to dig for the stapled papers slotted in a worn translucent green folder in his bag and handed them to him. John took them from him and set it on his desk and started to read. “-um, sorry, it’s not entirely completed, I’m still a bit iffy on the ending and, uh, there’s a few details here and there that I think need a bit of work, but I…”
“It’s okay,” He nodded, not taking his eyes off the page. “-we can fix that later.”
It’s quiet for a bit. Mark doesn’t really know what else to do other than watch him read his story. The numbing ache in his palms from outside returns and this time it’s so bad that he thinks his left pinky has gone fully numb. He can’t bring himself to get his phone out, it feels too rude and not right for this situation. He doesn’t want it to look like he doesn’t care. He cares. Mark tries to focus on other things around the room, the plant with its leaves hanging down from the cabinet in the corner, the picture frame on the opposite wall, the wrinkled, somewhat worn-off titles along the spines of mismatched books in the nearby shelf. But his eyes always go back to John.
The way he sits, slightly hunched at the desk from his height, crisp pale blue pin-striped sleeves rolled up to the elbows, legs crossed. Black trousers. Those sharp, neat folds running down the middle. One trouser leg ridden slightly higher up to reveal an equally dark sock ankle. The tiny gold chip on his leather shoe, expensive looking. Effortless sophistication. A hand in his hair to keep it from falling into his face as he reads, looking neither engrossed or disinterested, just perplexed. Mark watched his Adam’s apple go up then down when he swallowed. There’s a faint vein, or line of tension that goes across his jaw as he reads, making his face look somewhat more rugged and deadly. It’s so attractive. He’s so attractive, it makes Mark’s mouth dry. He wondered if John knew he was looking at him.
Looking at him, which rather than eased his nerves only made him more restless and scattered, even envious. Right now he had everything. And it was freely given. Mark knows it’s not enough. It’s not enough to look at him, think about him bending Mark over and fucking him open right against that desk, smushing his face against his own words, printed on those crinkling pages. Even that can't distract him. Mark’s still nervous. He suddenly decided he didn’t know how sentences worked. He couldn’t formulate paragraphs. Nothing. Everything, everything he did was wrong. Why had he ever thought he could be a writer? Who gave him permission? No one. No one and for good reason. The only sound in the office is the flat crackling of the page turning every once in a while. Then the professor clicks on his pen and starts making marks on the page and Mark’s so anxious he nearly starts to cry.
After what feels like an eternity later, John turned to him. Mark blinked rapidly, relieved no tears fell down.
“It’s not bad,” He told him. “-there are a few spots here and there that could use a little touching up, but overall, this is a great start for the year.” He smiled at Mark. “You have a good, dare I say, even a strong command of the language and your details are clear and to the point. Your dialogue is also pretty solid —just a few formatting issues in some places. Most importantly though, your story is interesting. It’s very interesting. I’d like to read more.”
“It’s…good?” Mark doesn’t like how relieved he sounds, bordering on desperation. “You really think so?”
“Yeah,” His professor furrowed his brow slightly. “Were you expecting it not to be?”
“I, um…I don’t know, I…”
“Mark,” He turned his chair so he was facing him completely and still slightly hunched so they were eye level, elbows resting against his trousered knees. “I don’t schedule these sessions so that I can humiliate my students. That’s not what I’m here for. I’ve experienced my fair share of that in the past and I would never want to make anyone I teach feel that way. Ever. I’m here to help you.” He glanced at the papers on his desk. “If you’re not confident about a piece of writing, you don’t have to share it with me. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable about it. If you’re worried you have nothing for me to work with for the day, we can work on a previous piece you’ve edited. We can talk about the broader details of your project. These fifteen minutes are your fifteen minutes as much as they are mine. You tell me what you want to work on. I’ll always try to figure something out for you. I promise.”
“Okay,” Mark said. He didn’t know what else to say. “Th-thanks. Seriously.”
“It’s my pleasure,” He handed the papers back to Mark. “Now here’s what I’d like you to work on for next time…”
The rest of the meeting goes surprisingly well. It’s clear that John has done the drill many times and knows how things will generally run. After giving him the strengths, John went into detail about the other end —opportunities, he called them. Never weaknesses. Stories don’t have weaknesses, he said. You might think they do, but I don’t find it helpful to think of it that way. Mark nodded, listening intently. I saw this short clip from George Saunders once, and found what he said to be really helpful.
That you already have all the parts. The story's there. You just have to listen to it better.
He told Mark to think of the story as perfect in and of itself. When it’s in your mind, it’s already perfect —like an immaculate birth that hasn’t been birthed yet. You already have it, all those parts. When something’s not working, it’s due to some kind of interference. You’re a clumsy conveyance device. You just need to work, work, work and work at it and listen to what it’s trying to tell you. You’re an idiot, but you can figure it out.
You’re searching for a model or metaphor that helps you work fearlessly. To find what’s true in art. That’s labor. And then you work, work, work and human stupidity caves in and the artistic vastness caves in and, well. That’s the model, anyways.
“Oh, before you go,” John said as Mark stood up. He left his backpack hanging from one shoulder, waiting. John reached into a thin stack of small black-and-white poster cards and handed one to him. “The department’s been asking us to dole these out to you guys —the amphitheater’s having a limited showing of The Seventh Seal next weekend. Three pm, I think? Ingmar Bergman.”
“Oh, thanks,” Mark took the card and examined it. It looked somewhat terrifying. The man’s tensed face was mostly shrouded in shadow. “I’ll see if I can make it.”
“Hopefully you can. I’ll send out an email to the whole class,” He said. “I think it could give you a lot to think about.”