A Mangled Affair - Part II
I was disappointed to learn that I’d need a science credit to earn my degree at Boston University, but the lady in the registrar’s office assured me that I’d be in for a big surprise if I enrolled in a specific Geology class. I had no idea what she meant until a week later, when I met my professor.
THIS IS PART 2 of a SIX-PART STORY
I can’t pretend that I didn’t have something bordering on arrogance when it came to having to take a geology course just to get the goddamn credit. I was older (not quite thirty), a single mom, and I didn’t have time for that sort of BS. But I had no choice. If I wanted to graduate, I’d have to learn about plate tectonics, rocks, earth.
The class was held at night. The first time I went it was cold out, so I threw an old white fur coat I had inherited from my mother over my shoulders and sauntered into the lecture hall, taking a seat in the back. I didn’t look at the lecturer straight off, but I heard his voice -- warm, gruff, humorous -- and realized the whole class was laughing at something he’d said. When I finally settled myself and looked up, I saw a slim, handsome, middle-aged man in jeans and tan work boots pacing back and forth at the front of the hall. He had unruly blond hair, one cowlicky piece standing up like a flame at the crown of his head. His pants were rolled unevenly: I caught a glimpse of red sock that for some reason made me want to swoon. He looked more like someone who worked on a ranch in Montana than a college professor.
The lecture hall was crowded -- this guy was popular! -- and I decided to move to the front at the break so I could hear better. I found a seat in the front row and opened the book I was reading, Middlemarch by George Eliot. The lecturer was standing right next to my desk. He had written a mathematical equation on the board, and nervously I asked just how much math would be required for this course.
He looked at me (his eyes seemed to look right through me) and laughed. “What you see there,” he gestured toward the board, “is all the math you’re gonna get.” Then he pointed at my book. “But if you can get through a novel like that, you can get through anything.”
The remark seemed to set up a private little understanding between us.
I was older, closer to his age than most of the other students, and had already been through quite a lot in my life. From the look of his face, slightly battered, creases and worry lines marching across his cheeks, I could see he’d been through a lot, too. When I looked up his name in the catalogue, something I’d neglected to do earlier, I learned it was Dabney Withers Caldwell, which made a little bell go off way at the back of my head. It took a while for me to figure it out, but eventually I realized that Dabney Withers, my red-socked professor, was the son of famed southern writer, Erskine Caldwell. And with that piece of information, my fascination with the man soared.
Image: Jeremy Bishop