Jack London in Paradise by Paul Malmont

Author:Paul Malmont
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Part 3

“NO MENTOR BUT MYSELF”

—FROM A LETTER BY JACK LONDON

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“I HAD ANOTHER VISION,” Jack said, sneaking observant glances over Professor Homer’s snug university office, a well-appointed koa-wood-paneled cabana set to the far side of the campus. In his few visits he hadn’t yet taken the time to give it a full examination, which meant carefully observing enough about it to be able to describe it accurately, vividly, in as few words as possible should the need ever arise for him to write about a professor’s office. The collection of books and Hawaiian artifacts spoke to years of study spent in this room. To Jack it appeared as if the professor had dropped a taproot deep into the Hawaiian earth soon after his brass nameplate had appeared on the door. The windows of the professor’s office were open and through the louvers Jack could see students gliding across the palm-tree-spotted lawn on their way to morning classes. Twin pangs of anger and regret poked at that tender spot under his heart. Once in his life he had wanted nothing more than to be one of those scholars, had worked harder than any man ought to earn the right, had swept floors at the same high school he’d had to attend to earn a diploma, years older than the middle-class youths in attendance, his ears burning as they laughed at him and his ambition as he set down his books after classes to pick up his broom. But Berkeley was his dream and he knew he could make it come true. Hard work. Long hours. Always tired. Always hungry. Always ashamed of his place. And then he’d been accepted, on one of the happiest days of his life. But it only took a few weeks for disillusionment to set in. The thought made him chuckle.

“Excuse me?” the professor asked.

Jack shook his head to reassure the worried-looking man that the thought that had crossed his mind was of no great consequence. “I was just thinking about what a terrible student I was during my brief university sojourn.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s very hard to teach anything to a young man who knows everything.”

“I’m familiar with the type,” the professor replied with a slight smile. “Why don’t you tell me about your vision. Was it like the one you said you had on the North Shore last month?”

He cleared his throat, which felt full of phlegm, and lit a cigarette. “What happened at Waimea…I told you about that. I was tragically mistaken.”

“Just because your vision there turned out to have a more physical than metaphysical explanation does not negate the fact that you did, in fact, experience a personal mystical revelation.”

“Professor, I mistook the appearance of the island of Kauai being lit from behind by the setting sun for the mythological rock of Gjöll. I deluded myself into thinking I had discovered the rock that held fast the world-devouring wolf. I then nearly killed myself leaping into the ocean in my rapture. Clearly, I was in the grip of a neurotic complex, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I’m not an alienist, Mr.

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