Octopus Summer by Malcolm Dorson

Author:Malcolm Dorson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619023987
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2018-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

21

FREEDOM

I DROVE INTO Manhattan that Tuesday with a fire inside of me and a shit-eating grin on my face. I was so pumped that I actually went to this creative writing workshop thing, just to check it out. Who knew? It could not have been that bad. Writing had always been my strong point in school, and it only met for three hours a day. I parked my car in front of an NYU dorm near Union Square. A trophy wife was having a cigarette on the corner while her husband helped her daughter move in for summer classes. I was feeling confident, and her curvy figure, accentuated by her tight khaki shorts and tiny orange T-shirt, begged me to approach her. I jogged across the street pretending that I was in a hurry and asked, “Excuse me, Miss, do you happen to know where the McAllister Writing House is? I’m a professor here for the summer, and I’m already late for my first class.”

“Yeah right, kid,” she said. “I think that maybe in a few years you could be old enough to enroll in a class here.”

“That’s funny,” I said, trying to play it off. “I swear, one day my young looks will be a blessing. Can I bum a cig?”

She looked at me as if I were a meter maid and pulled a smoke out of her pack.

“Sure, kid. Just don’t tell your mother.”

Oh, fuck her. She didn’t buy my act at all. I didn’t care.

I turned around, slid the cigarette behind my ear, and made my way around the corner. I walked down the block, regrouping my confidence and new sense of freedom. Building number 132. There it was. I pushed through the revolving glass doors and noticed how the place looked like a half-ass office building. No resemblance to the structures I’d seen in countless other college brochures. Who would ever want to go to this dump? I took the elevator up to the fourth floor and found my classroom directly across the hall. As I walked in, I realized that I was already late. I spotted a desk in the back of the classroom and began to make my way over as the gypsy-like woman in the front of the classroom asked me, “And you are . . .?”

The whole class looked at me, and I realized how lame the cigarette behind my ear must have looked. I pushed back my hair and grabbed the cigarette in one discreet motion.

“Oh, I’m sorry I’m late. I’m Callum Littlefield. ” I snapped a glare across the room as I heard a tall, goofy loser with metrosexual square glasses chuckle at the sound of my last name. Little—Field. Like little fiddler, as in small penis. I’m short, to top it off. Ohhhhhhhhh . . . I get it, you fucking moron. I was surrounded by geniuses.

“Well, please have a seat, Callum. You have not missed anything yet,” she said in a melodic voice. “You may call me Regina. Or just Gina, if you prefer.

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