Daddy Business

Chapter 9: Castling College

Chapter 9: Castling College

Doonmyer Hall looked more like a cathedral than an institution. Two steel spirals on its apex reached into the heavens, topped with silver and glinting lightning rods. I thought it the most beautiful hall on campus, a reproduction of St. Patrick’s in Manhattan. I mostly taught on the second floor with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the campus and surrounding city. Thomas Doonmyer built the brick structure in 1956, and it withstood two fires in the library (students smoking m*******a), and a minor earthquake in 1984, two days before Ronald Regan’s inaugural address. The hall ended up being my home away from home where I taught a variety of classes to young and old minds.

Approximately two thousand students attended the college. Costs per semester ranged from ten thousand to fifteen thousand dollars. The institute believed in providing students with a well-rounded education at a minimal cost, which I respected. Although I could have been making double the salary at a different college, Castling had a reputation for being liberal and changing the world for the better. Most colleges were greedy with students’ cash and overcharged, but Castling omitted themselves from that grouping, taking pride in their ethics and minimal fees, but also providing their students with exceptional educations.

Now that I had tenure at the school, my schedule at Castling kept me busy six days a week. I taught two classes of Romanticism on Mondays, one class in the morning and one in the evening. Tuesdays, I explained Theories of Modern Fiction and American Literature (I and II). Two classes of Edmund White’s Life in Literature comprised my Wednesday afternoons. I usually worked all day Thursday: European Literature 110 and 210, Media in Literature, Children’s Literature, and Medieval Reading. I had a light schedule on Fridays. One class of Criticism with an attendance of thirty-three students bored me at five o’clock in the evening. And on Saturday, I enjoyed teaching my favorite class, Modern Fiction, which discussed Anne Tyler’s The Beginner’s Goodbye, Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, Sue Miller’s The Arsonist, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, and Lisa Lutz’s The Passenger.

* * * *

Karen Starlington tried to stop me in the hallway as I hustled to room 219 to teach, but I kept walking. She stood a little over five feet, wore too much perfume, collected thirty extra pounds around her middle, and had too many teeth in her mouth. When she spoke, she sounded more like a mouse instead of a human.

“Paul.” She tugged on one of my arms as we walked side by side. “A group of professors is getting together for a cocktail party at Finn Tucker’s place. You should come.”

Finn Tucker just happened to be the biggest ass on the planet: arrogant, insipid, obnoxious, and rude. I didn’t have time for him, surprised that other professors on our English team did.

I told Karen as politely as I could, “I can’t make it.”

“But everyone’s hoping you’ll come.”

“I have a date,” I lied, thinking of Dugan Brae and using him as a bogus excuse not to go to the event.

Stunned because she wanted to be my date on numerous occasions (rumors at Castling often surfaced that she had liked me more than a friend), she stopped in the hallway.

The only thing that exited from her mouth was, “Okay,” which sounded deflated and lifeless.

Boom! Instant let down.

I kept moving, picking up my pace in the hallway, and lied over my right shoulder in her direction, “Next time I’ll join you all. Sorry.”