Tuesday's Prompt

Today's demo was on creative writing. We were given a button. From that button we devised a character. My button looked like it was a cuff link. I imagined a suit, namely an Armani suit. Who would wear one? Or - who would I know who would wear one? This led me to thinking about a teacher who came from a wealthy family out east and after a few years in business - where he was dissatisfied - he joined the Peace Corps and after that went into teaching and wound up at my high school.

Next we had to create physical and personality traits. This got me to thinking more about my character. And I made him into just about everything I'm not - tall with perfect vision, an impeccable sense of style, an excellent memory, mastery of several languages (from his time in the Peace Corps, of course), a runner's body, and a full head of hair. By the time I had written these ideas down, a dozen more were in my head.

After this we had to create a situation involving our character.

I must admit that I borrowed a little from an exercise from yesterday's demo (in which we had to write about a scenerio in which a teacher had a rip in their pants - to inspire vivid writing. I believe this was taken from a six traits packet).

I kept imagining a character who I would end up loathing and just waiting to see a weakness.

Here is what I came up with --

“Hey, Mr. Reynolds,” Adam said poking his moppy head in my room from the hallway.

“Yeah,” I said from my laptop.

“You’re never gonna guess what is going on across the hall,” he said with a wicked grin.

“What,” I ask too quickly, knowing that something juicy must be happening with Kennedy’s room.

“Mr. Kennedy has a rip in his slacks,” Adam said and the grin sliced wider.

Now what high school kids uses the word slacks? No one. But that was what was so damn maddening about Kennedy, he widened your perspective on the world. He was the kind of teacher who wore slacks. Mr. Loe was the kind of teacher who wore jeans. Mrs. Olson was the kind of teacher who wore skirts. Mrs. Thompson was the kind who wore sweats. Kennedy was the type of teacher who because of his mind, sharpened at Brown, his personality, he always found something in common with anyone, his natural good looks, his perfect 20/20 vision and perfectly clean shaven face - never nicked or cut, or his wealth, inherited from his father’s die of the family, land baron from the east, all these just made people interested in him and that interest somehow made you better person or at least more aware of the world around you.

Finally, there was a chink in his perfect armor. Sweet Maria. This was even better than when Crookston fumbled four times within the redzone last Friday.

“You’re freaking kidding me!”

“No. I’m serious. He took of his sport jacket and hung it up on that fancy coat rack in the corner of his room (see what I mean, what teacher has a hand crafted oak coat hanger in his room. It was probably handed down from his great, great, great, great grandfather who carved from wood left over from the ship they sailed over on or one they bought at Sotheby's from Henry the freaking 8th) and we noticed the tear.”

“Really!”

“Yes. But that isn’t it.”

Oh it’s getting better, I thought, now myself grinning wickedly.

“Let me guess,” I said, “silk Versace boxers color coordinated with his Armani suit.”

“Nope. Commando.”

“What!”

“Yep. Commando.” This is too good to be true. We could lose every football game the rest of the season and I’d be fine with it. Imagine that nothing between him and us except some ridiculously expensive Italian silk

That was when I began digging in my back pack for my razor. “You gotta get a picture for me. Whatever it takes buddy!”

I grab my classroom phone and stab the numbers to dial Mr. Nordine, who shares my envy for Kennedy.

“Hello?”

“Mike. Kurt. Are you sitting down?”

“No. I’m in the middle of class. What do you want?”

“Yeah, well the Declaration of Independence can wait. You’re never going to guess what happened to Kennedy!”

“What?” he said just as eagerly as I had.

“He has a split in his pants”

“So. He’ll probably take out his sewing kit and patch it up during his prep. He told me he had to mend all of his clothes while in the peace corps”

“Yeah. But he isn’t wearing underwear.”

“Hold on. I gotta sit down.”