A Contemporary American fiction class

The black-haired guy in my Contemporary American fiction class

A Contemporary American fiction class

By W.Neto

There was a black-haired guy in my Contemporary American fiction class. He was that strange kid in your high school that showed too much effort into any activity so that teachers would find a way to include him in basically anything, that way, he always ended up with a medal or something, and whether he deserved one or not was never the point. I think he must have a wall full of those medals in his bedroom, and as I write this, I cannot help but wonder what his bedroom must look like, what his always-a-good-boy-playing-by-the-rules bedroom must look like. I bet his shirts are always well ironed and organized by color. I bet he must wear the same pjs that his mom got him last Christmas. I bet he must look himself in the mirror while shaving and think that he is indeed a good boy.

But this recollection is not about that Contemporary American fiction class or about his bedroom where I have never been so I can't just sit and write about, this is about him and first things first, I remember his papers and how even though they were indeed properly written, grammar wise at least, they didn't have anything to do with what was being taught in that class. He always seemed to me under the impression that it was a creative writing course which it was not. It was a literary theory class and his papers never presented us with nothing remotely resembled to theory, everything he wrote was so off topic that our professor, that hardly did anything during our meetings, but hearing us, called him out a couple of times. I remember one class in which we were talking about Philip Roth's I Married A Communist. He without an ounce of shame stood up and present a fake interview that he had written pretending to be an AWOL soldier from Soviet Union and the American spy who was interrogating him. He even did different voices for each character, however, not a single word about Roth or his novel that is about everything but a cross examination between a soldier and a spy. He kept doing that the whole semester and using the excuse that hadn't studied theory before, that it was his first attempt and he was trying his best to catch up with the rest of us.

There you go. The excuse plus compliment trick. He must've perfected the art of making someone feel bad for calling him out no matter how wrong he might be. He was not an arrogant prick that didn't seem to care about anyone else's opinion, he was saying that he did understand us, however, it was not his fault and one should always, at least for him, support the ones who try. I must give him that: he indeed tried more than other people. Still, he was just there expecting a medal for his mediocre work and truth be told we were all ready to give him one. It was like we were all under his spell at one point or another. He opened his mouth and you stopped caring about everything and just started wondering about his life, his work, his preferences, his everything, he was a perfect character expecting the right gaze in order to jump from a supporting role to literary muse. Don't we all have met someone like him at one moment? Someone whose life seems to be easier than it is for the rest of us and someone that is smart enough to know that and then pretend that he does not know about his privileges and he is just trying as much as everyone else is.

I remember that he used to take his shoes off during class. One day I was having a beer with a friend and I told her about this habit of his and she didn't believe me, but that much is as true as the sun will come up next morning until it eventually dies taking the whole universe with it. So, every single class, he walked in, chose a spot to sit, picked up his notebook from his bag and took his shoes off. However, it was never in a disrespectful way, it was just something that he did. Maybe those shoes were bothering him, or maybe he was just used to do the same at home and he feels at home in every environment, for it gets to a point in which a person with so many medals, even though not necessarily deserving ones, believes that he did earn them and starts acting accordingly. So, he did.