It’s Fall Semester, the leaves are turning, and Emily and Derek’s classes are in full swing. Without actually touching, the two are closer than ever. They hang out. They share new authors. They discuss and compare profs. They definitely have the same politics, but in this there is no choice. It would be suicide for any MFA candidate, anywhere, to support a Republican. No one’s that dumb.
We sat with our coffee outside You Don’t Say. They have these small, quaint, wrought iron tables, with two or three people sitting at each. Everyone was arguing politics. Arguing isn’t the right word. Agreeing, that’s the right word. Specifically, they agreed we need better conditions for working folk.
The mid-afternoon crowd thinned and Derek went with them, leaving me alone with Emily. Derek trusts me. Like trusting a well-meaning, somewhat dense uncle.
“You know,” I said to Emily. “If we could only get the Trump regime to…”
“Oh, put a cork in it,” she said.
“What?”
“Just drop it. Who cares about Trump?”
Um, everyone?
“They don’t care. None of it affects them.”
You don’t think they are being honest? I asked.
“They think they’re being honest. They think they support working people. I know better.”
Emily, in the absence of her peers, let me have it. None of her fellow students, none of the faculty, none of the visiting authors, none of the New York publishing types who show up (for a fee) and conduct seminars cares one bit for working people. Working people lead messy lives. They don’t go to college. No one has one as a friend.
I told her I did.
“You would.”
“Worst of all,” she continues. “They actively hate working people. It was truck drivers and Walmart shoppers who elected Trump. D’ya think anyone will ever forget that?” She is unhappy. With her flashing black eyes, this is when she is most beautiful.
And, she said, she was on to me. I didn’t really care about Trump, or Newsom, or any other politician.
She had me there. I don’t.
She looked through the doors of You Don’t Say, at the scuffed counter salvaged from an old diner, at the mismatched tables and old sofas, all so proletarian. But really she was thinking, and stared at nothing. “You’re not all bad,” she finally said. “Politics make artists predictable. You’re a lot of things, but not predictable.”
Why thank you, Emily. There is no finer compliment, in my opinion. I asked if she wanted to go for a walk. She narrowed her eyes and gave me a rather sharp look. Those pretty dark eyes. Then said she had an appointment, and marched off.
She does indeed know me. My writing might be unpredictable. But to Emily, everything else is an open book.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com