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Chapter 6

In their final semester, as part of the college’s ongoing struggle to raise its academic credentials, graduating students were required to take supplementary general arts courses. Flam, after vacillating over its complete lack of practical value to his profession and personal research, enrolled in a poetry appreciation course, succumbing to the phantom feelings that still throbbed in the amputated love of literature that had sustained him in his adolescence.

The course was taught by a wrinkled old relic of a woman named Ms. Dichter, who quickly surprised her students by springing to life during lectures with an energy, passion, and wit that was as unexpected as a polka party in a morgue. Ms. Dichter turned out to be a bona fide published poet of minor note. Her outrageous past spanned six decades and an equal number of continents, and included a Parisian studio, a lunatic asylum in Montevideo, a gilded Manhattan penthouse, a log cabin in Finland shared with twin brothers, and a sailboat, The Ancient Mariner, she had skippered solo throughout Micronesia. How these dots had connected to bring her to the backwater of Prentice College was a mystery she never expounded on, other than once to exclaim exuberantly, “Ah! Can you not smell the poetry in the air here?”

Ms. Dichter’s class was attended by a mixture of students from various vocational programs, including would-be audio engineers, cosmeticians, mould makers, interior designers, and bookkeepers. To Flam’s delight, the only other Funeral Services student in the poetry class was Lucy Giles. Having shared virtually every class over the past three semesters, the pair was reasonably well acquainted, but Flam also had helped Lucy with her schoolwork on a number of occasions. Once, after unfolding the mystery of spreadsheets in their business computing class, Lucy had rewarded him with a touch of thanks on his knee. Despite its obvious casualness, the physical contact had sent instant tremors through Flam’s flesh, and had lodged in his memory.

Late at night, as he spread his legs under the sheets and reached for himself, Flam’s unfulfilled sexual fantasies regularly featured Lucy as a headliner. Now, despite his shyness, he was able to grow progressively friendlier with the real-world Lucy, as they naturally banded together in the poetry class against the unfamiliar students from other programs.

Lucy had harboured no previous interest in poetry, and confessed to taking the course because she saw it as an easy credit, requiring minimal work. Nonetheless, she quickly fell under Ms. Dichter’s spell. The poetess-professor’s accounts of her uninhibited escapades, made all the more remarkable by the repressive era in which they had occurred, captivated Lucy, and made her that much more receptive to the gospel of poetry appreciation Ms. Dichter passionately preached. It was as if, for the first time in her life, Lucy had found something alive and soul-inspiring. When Flam proved to be, by far, the most gifted student in the class, and the only one who truly fathomed the verse Ms. Dichter proffered her students, Lucy began to look at Flam in a whole new light.

Impatient with his introverted nature, she dragged Flam out of his shell of shyness. Soon the pair was spending the entire school days together, sitting beside each other in all their regular Funeral Services classes as well. They also shared their spare periods in the library or cafeteria studying, or once Flam had opened up, just talking. Flam, despite retaining a preponderance of literary knowledge from his boyhood days in the bookstore, now pre-empted his private reading about death, and began refreshing and expanding his knowledge of poetry, just to be able to sagely satisfy Lucy’s insatiable curiosity.

During the months of this new camaraderie, Lucy never once hinted she wanted their friendship to evolve into anything more intimate. Still, the thought was constantly on Flam’s mind. It wasn’t just that she was a spectacularly attractive woman who turned heads wherever she went—her regular closeness, the lingering melody of her laugh when he amused her, the sweet familiar scent of her combined perfumes and lotions, and the casual, friendly touches she regularly bestowed upon him all combined to create an unbearable and unfamiliar longing within Flam. He battled with himself, petrified by a fear of ridicule and rejection if it turned out he had misconstrued Lucy’s warmth and attention. His books were full of such comedies—and tragedies—of errors. Yet, try as he might, he was unable to deny her clear admiration of him, especially her overt adoration of his intellect.

Finally, one Friday, as they sat together in a corner of the cafeteria, Flam summoned up the courage to ask her out.

“Hey, Luce, there’s a poetry reading at The Gilded Lily tonight,” he tossed out nonchalantly. “I thought maybe we should check it out.” Lucy did not reply, so swallowing hard, Flam tried to act casual. “It would, you know, like be totally educational. I mean, I think it was Ms. Dichter who mentioned it.”

Flam waited for what seemed an eternity for Lucy’s response, trying to interpret her thoughts as she stared quizzically at him, her blue-green eyes locking him in a luminescent beam.

Finally she gave a nervous little laugh and jumped up from her chair to give him a quick hug. Basking in the afterglow of that electric contact, and shifting his legs to conceal his reaction to the intoxicating press of her body, it took Flam a few seconds to realize she was turning him down.

“Oh, I’d love to,” Lucy exclaimed, “but I can’t. But you should totally go, Flam, really . . . it’ll be perfect for you. Omigod, you’ll have so much fun. You’ll have to, like, tell me everything.” She immediately guided the subject back to their schoolwork, recounting her ecstasy over the latest literary epiphany Ms. Dichter had bestowed upon the class.

Flam sat mutely as the old familiar feelings of dejection welled up and washed over him. He tried vainly to muster the courage to challenge Lucy’s motives for turning him down, or to garner an answer to the question that now overwhelmed him—whether her rejection was absolute, or only pertained to that one night. A few minutes later, Lucy glanced at her watch, quickly jumped up, swept her books into her knapsack, and excused herself with a half-smile.

“Don’t forget, Flam,” she called over her shoulder as she strode away, “I want a full report on Monday about the reading. I just know you’ll have the best time ever.”

Flam had never actually attended a formal poetry reading before, and did not have the least desire to go alone to this one. He mulled over excuses he might fabricate for missing the event, but felt honour-bound by his deep feelings for Lucy. He simply could not lie to her, and wanted more than anything to please her, so he convinced himself that, by going, he might be paving the way for future outings they might yet share.

That night he entered the small, dilapidated lounge where the poets would be performing. He found an out-of-the-way seat, and sat waiting for the presentations to begin—a pale, silent figure, slumped alone at the back, staring blankly down at his feet, fantasizing the whole time about what it would have been like with Lucy beside him to share the moment.

The audience barely filled a third of the seats, and congregated mostly around the front, where a crudely constructed plywood riser formed the stage, with only an uneven wooden stool and an ancient 1950s-era microphone on top. The house lights eventually went down, and a succession of poets took their turn at the microphone.

Flam had not known what to expect, and was utterly disappointed by the quality of the works being presented. Good Lord, even I can do better than that, he thought, for the poems he heard struck him as amateurish, mediocre ramblings, lacking structure, craftsmanship in their language, and any discernible profundity. He found it hard to believe anyone who had the least knowledge of or appreciation for poetry would enjoy the drivel these dilettantes were hissing or barking from the stage.

Yet the audience appeared to be enthralled. As Flam studied the interplay between the listeners and the recitalists, he began to realize the greatest enthusiasm came from a cadre of women in the front seats, who appeared totally mesmerized by the poets, hanging on their every syllable. When the performances had concluded, Flam observed that several of the poets reappeared to intermingle with the circle of waiting admirers, who swallowed up the bards in a crush of adoration. A collective chorus of chatter and laughter swirled around the room, like the wind at play with autumn leaves.

As Flam stood, transfixed by the scene, one beret-clad woman standing at the fringe of the assembly noticed the lone, motionless figure hovering in the shadows and studying them. She returned her interest to the milling group, but her head kept swivelling back in Flam’s direction. Finally, she detached herself from the others and walked over, evoking a rush of panic in Flam when he realized his anonymity had been pierced, and the stranger was approaching him.

The woman was carefully made up, with just the right amounts of blush, lipstick, and eye shadow to accent her best features and make it impossible to guess her age. Her hair was dark, and cut short in a bold style that poured straight out from beneath the beret before crashing to an end just below the cheekbones.

“Excuse me,” the woman began, but with an eye-to-eye confidence that belied any sense of apology, “aren’t you Mark Young?” Flam was momentarily dumbstruck before he could half-stammer a weak, “No . . . no, I’m not.” The woman’s demanding stare made it obvious to Flam this wouldn’t be enough, so he reluctantly added, “My name is Flam Grub.” She blinked a few times, and smiled sardonically before turning and walking back to her clique. Flam quickly effected his escape. Just as he was exiting, a burst of laughter erupted from behind him, and he blushed, convinced he’d heard his accursed name at the epicentre of the group’s guffaws.

Despite the pain caused by the laughter, not to mention the poor quality of the poetry, the evening hadn’t been a completely negative experience. Flam had left the recital with an idea—to write a poem and dedicate it to Lucy.

Deciding what style to adopt proved extraordinarily difficult. Should it be a classical love sonnet à la Shakespeare or perhaps Browning, he wondered, or would that be too old-fashioned, too corny? Or should I go for something a little more abstract, something a little more hip? And what should I say? Should I tell her outright how I really feel? Should I be subtle? Should I be mysterious? Should I be funny?

Flam spent the entire weekend composing his opus, agonizing over every line, and polishing every word. Shortly before midnight on Sunday, Flam had finally finished. He was exhausted but elated, and pronounced himself satisfied with the five stanzas he’d managed to wrestle from his muse. They lay there, neatly printed out, ready to be unveiled—a deadly dart aimed straight for the heart. By now, he had the verses embossed in his memory, and he drifted off to sleep, reciting the poem again and again to the enthusiastic sighs of a dream-world Lucy.