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downtown parking lot. He pretended not to know me, and that was the end of it. Until now.
    ‘What does Roger want?’ I asked.
    Walt took a sip of coffee and looked away. ‘I don’t know, David. We don’t talk.’
    I thought about complaining. I had kids come to me all the time who wanted me to read something. Some of them were in my classes, just not my creative writing classes. Some of the kids, the ones I didn’t know, would circle me in the halls like wolves edging closer to the campfire until they worked up their courage. The poetry, I could always shuffle off to one of our resident poets.
    Fiction was not so easy, but I usually steered the younger writers to my introductory course in creative writing.
    On those few occasions when I had been persuaded for one reason or another to read something outside of the classroom I always regretted it. The issue of quality aside, no one wants to hear criticism. People who have not submitted themselves to the rigors of peer criticism, the kind that occurs in a writing workshop, are especially sensitive to it. I did not want to read Roger Beery’s novel because I knew he wouldn’t be any different. He wanted me to love his story, and nothing else would do, but refusing Walt at this point in his life was difficult. The kid was a genius. How bad could it be?
    ‘Anytime,’ I said. ‘Just drop it off. I’ll take a look at it and give Roger an honest opinion.’
    Walt looked relieved. ‘I hate to do this to you, David.’
    But he was doing it, and that said it all.
    A bit uneasy at having passed his family problems into my court, Walt reverted to form. He started talking about Randy Winston, whom he had seen ‘slinking’
    around the TA offices checking out ‘the new talent.’
    This of course meant that Walt had been slinking there as well, but I let that point pass. ‘New talent?’ I asked.
    Walt cupped his hands in front of his chest. ‘ Talent !’
    I shook my head. ‘I don’t know you.’
    Walt laughed. ‘You can’t say tits anymore, David, so we call it talent!’
    ‘I suppose bodacious ta-tas is still frowned upon by the powers that be?’ Walt had picked up this unfortunate expression a few years ago. For a season it was all he talked about. It was my understanding he had been investigated for using the word in the classroom, but I could be wrong about that. The investigation I’m recalling might have been the joke about the perfect girl. Between rumours and the actual investigations launched against him no one could keep track of Walt Beery’s troubles, and I had long ago quit asking for the particulars.
    I recall, as I look back on that afternoon, that after I spoke I happened to look around. It was something I usually did before I started talking to Walt, but I was out of practice. One table away, Norma Olson, Jane Trimble, and Marlene Moss were sitting in rigid silence.
    The mention of bodacious ta-tas will do that, I’m told.
    Walt answered me without noticing them or caring that they were there: ‘That’s real talent, David. You want real talent you have to see Johnna Masterson.
    Johnna’s got more talent than I’ve got hands!’ Walt held up both hands for me to consider the propor-tions.
    ‘She’s in my creative writing class,’ I answered sullenly, hoping he would see that he was being monitored.
    ‘Winston dated her last year. Well, I guess it’s more like he cornered her at a party. All natural is the report.’
    I glanced at the women again. They maintained a petrified silence.
    ‘Winston made a pass at Molly at the party,’ I said, hoping to divert Walt from any further discussion of talent by the handful.
    ‘Randy’s a son of a bitch.’
    ‘Of course, so did you and Buddy Elder, and probably half a dozen other men I don’t even know about.’
    Walt’s grin flickered. ‘We’re all sons of bitches, David.’

Chapter 4
    AS WE HEADED BACK to our respective offices, Walt started laughing. I looked around to make sure no one was