Day Two of Classes

Day Two of Classes

Quin woke feeling a little like he had when he used to drink. His headache was as bad as any he had had when he actually was an alcoholic. He mechanically went about the procedures of getting himself presentable to the world of community college, all the while pushing the thoughts of the previous night far from his mind. "It was a binge of a different sort," he thought, "a binge of memories and I simply consumed too many too fast."

Day two of classes is really the first true day of classes. The actual content of the class begins to unfold. This was always the day that Quin unpacked his "Character, Setting, Plot," lecture. He delivered this one with much less passion than his day one lecture. He wryly noted that actually the students paid much more attention to this one as they feverishly took notes, because much of it sounded as if it might one day appear on an exam. The students were entirely correct the material would appear on the first test. In fact the test was already written, and had been since Quin first wrote it as a Grad Assistant.

He again immediately retreated to his office after his morning of three lectures. He had no paper work, since the first paper he had assigned was not due until next week. He did not need to prepare a lecture. He glumly thought about the next three weeks. He would lecture on the Great Gatsby, a book he really disliked, but it was heresy to say so. So, he would pretend liked he loved the book. His students would pretend like they had done the assigned reading, just as they would pretend to listen to his lecture. Then on the night before he gave them a test to make sure they had read the book they would read as much of the Cliff Notes as they could and try to make little cheat sheets.

A firm knock on his door interrupted Quin’s spiral into an afternoon of self-absorbed deppression. Quin opened the door to Jack Preston in a running suit. "Professor Holsten, it’s time for our afternoon run."

"Are you insane, man?"

"Come on let’s go. I can tell just by looking at you that you’ve put on a few, and you could use some fresh air. You look about as pale as those other three vampires that haunt this department, come on man I’m going to rescue you before you become one of them."

Quin laughed, it would be nice seeing Jack on a regular basis. "Boy, you’re complimentary this morning."

"One, it’s afternoon, and two I just call ‘em like I see ‘em. Come on we’ll go nice and easy. You are a very fortunate man Professor Holsten, you have access to a highly qualified, well-educated personal trainer at no cost. You are going to be my project. By February I will have you in such good shape that you could go to spring training with the Tigers."

"Man, then you must be able to work miracles." Quin laughed again. In reality he was in pretty lousy shape. He had stayed pretty fit for a couple of years after he stopped playing, but he lost interest in working out when he had begun to work on being an alcoholic and getting a divorce. Now he was probably about forty pounds over weight, and though he no longer indulged, he did have the memento of his belly to remind him of his previous dedication to alcohol.

"It will take much work professor, but I have such confidence in my ability that I believe that with my professional guidance, even a Professor of Literature may be whipped into shape."

"As appealing as it sounds, I’m afraid that I must continue in my work of helping students fall in love with literature."

Jack was undeterred by Quin’s lie; "A little exercise will help you focus professor."

"I don’t have any work out clothes here with me. For that matter, I’m not sure that I own work-out clothes any more."

"Well there you’re in luck professor, it just so happens that I am in possession of the keys to the equipment room of the St. Christopher’s men’s locker room. I’m quite certain that I could find some official St. Christopher’s work-out gear, even for a man of your considerable girth, professor."

Quin laughed again, "I’m not going to be able to say no am I, Coach Preston?"

"No sir, it would be a dereliction of my duty. I’m sworn to rid the world of unfit people."

"Let’s get this over with then."