by Michael Kardos

So in walks my composition teacher on day one wearing Levi’s 501s and a tweed blazer. Blue collared shirt unbuttoned just enough for the orange N-C-E of his PRINCETON t-shirt to peek through. His hair is messy, intentionally so. I’m around guys quite a bit, what with my boyfriend being the president of Phi Delta Mu, and I know what real scruffiness is all about. This isn’t it. He tosses his briefcase on the desk and studies us for a moment, running his fingers through his hair, and I want to pat him on the shoulder and tell him to drop the act. It’s the 90s, not the 60s. This is no peace rally. All the contrived nonchalance in the world isn’t going to change who he is, an adjunct instructor who
needs to wear his credentials on his t-shirt, nor will it change who we are: the unimpressed, the hung-over, products of the public school system, dull and unmotivated as cows, grazing our way toward graduation from Jersey Central College.

He scribbles his name on the chalkboard—Buddy Munson—then asks us to move our chairs into a circle, because at some point someone must have told him that rows are for dictators, while in a circle everybody has an equal voice. This is obviously bullshit. You throw my family in a circle, my mother will still rule the roost. She’ll still make my father feel like shit for losing all that money in Atlantic City, and she’ll continue to remind me at every opportunity that my best and only hope is to marry Richy Rich. That’s what she calls him, though his real name is John. Short for Jonathan Alexander Garwood III. John’s father owns a chain of mattress stores, but he’s an older man, past sixty, and John would have to commit some major felonies not to be running the family business in five years.

In order to become acquainted, Buddy has us play a game where we each have to tell two truths about ourselves and one lie. The class will guess which is the lie. By the end of the game, we’re supposed to have bonded. As if before taking on such colossal matters as Writing the Personal Narrative and Understanding Academic Discourse, it’s vital to know that Sheila, for instance, got knocked up at prom, or rides a Harley.

Michael Kardos teaches creative writing at Mississippi State University. His book of stories, One Last Good Time, is forthcoming in 2011. Prior work has appeared in PRISM international (volumes 42.4 and 45.3) as well as The Southern Review, Crazyhorse, Prairie Schooner, and many other magazines. His website is www.michaelkardos.com.