Blue Angel Read Free Page A

other.
    â€œI don’t know,” she says. “I guess I think the best thing—the one good thing—is that the end is so weird and unexpected. Isn’t that the point? Anyone could do something like this. You don’t have to be crazy, or have some babe ditch you for a waiter who serves Northern Italian chicken. Here’s this loser on a date with a dorky girl, and he goes home miserable. And there’s this chicken. And he just does it. Guys are always surprising themselves, doing crazy shit even though they don’t think they’re the kind of guys who would do crazy shit like that.”
    â€œExcuse me, Angela,” says Carlos. “Most guys would not poke a chicken—”
    â€œCarlos,” says Angela, darkly, “trust me. I know what most guys would do.”
    From what authority does Angela speak? Is this some kind of sexual boasting? It’s best that Swenson not even try to decipher the code in which his students are transmitting.
    â€œIs something going on here? Something I’m not getting?” He feels them pulling together to screen their world from him. He’s the teacher, they’re the students: a distinction they like to blur, then make again, as needed.
    â€œMoving right along,” he says, “I think Angela’s right. If Danny’s story’s not going to be just a…psychiatric case study of a guy who could go home and…well, we know what he does. The strongest story makes us see how we could be that kid, how the world looks through that kid’s eyes. The reason he does it is not because his girlfriend has eaten chicken, or because her new boyfriend serves—as Angela says—Northern Italian chicken, but because he’s there and the chicken’s there. Circumstance, destiny, chance. We begin to see ourselves in him, the ways in which he’s like us.”
    The students are awake now. He’s pulled this class out of the fire, redeemed this shaky enterprise they’re shoring up together. He’s promised them improvement. He’s shown them how to improve. The angriest, the most resistant think they’ve gotten their money’s worth. And Swenson’s given them something, a useful skill, a gift. Even if they don’t become writers, it’s a way of seeing the world—each fellow human a character to be entered and understood. All of us potential chicken-rapists. Dostoyevskian sinners.
    â€œAll right.” Slowly Swenson comes to. For a second, the edges of things buckle and shimmer lightly. And there, among the funhouse curves, is Claris Williams, glaring.
    What is Claris’s problem? Did she miss the fact that Swenson’s just kicked things up to a whole other level? Oh, right. It was Claris who suggested that the end of the story be tied down, like a rogue balloon, to the beginning. And now Swenson, with Angela’s help, has not merely contradicted Claris but done so with a slashing incision that’s transcended the timid microsurgery of the workshop.
    â€œWell,” Swenson backtracks, “no one can tell the writer what to do. Danny will have to see for himself whatever works for him.” He’s so glad to have gotten through this that he can’t bother much about their failure to agree on one thing that might help Danny’s story. He starts to put his papers away. The students do the same. Above the squeaking of chairs Swenson shouts, “Hey, wait. What’s the schedule? Whose story’s up next week?”
    Angela Argo raises her hand. He would never have guessed. Students tend to get very tactful—hesitant to make enemies—the week before their own work is to be discussed.
    â€œHave you got it with you?” Swenson asks. “We need to copy and distribute—”
    â€œNo.” Angela’s almost whispering. “It’s not exactly finished. Do you think I can come talk to you? During your office hours