Let's allow the novel to lead us on. These are the first few sections of the first chapter from "University of Doom!" I'm finally posting it because -- well -- why not? I haven't done much work on it since November ended, so let's see if this spurs me along.
Chapter One
I sat in Professor Jon p Brummer’s poetry class, studying my fingernails and waiting for Brummer to show. It was 8:35 a.m., five minutes after the official start of class. People were restless.
The comments:
“You think we should walk out?”
“Nah, give him another 10 minutes.”
“Man, I hate this class.”
A fat man in a police uniform scurried in. His badge said “Johnson.” His expression said “campus cop.” He pounded the lectern in front of the class.
“Your professor is dead,” he said.
-----
Impaled, to be exact. Professor Jon p Brummer was found by a member of the grounds crew, hanging from the horn of the Missouri State College mascot. “Wino the Rhino,” as students like to call him, defends the administration building.
His two-foot brass horn was plunged in Professor Jon p Brummer’s back. The professor’s body was covered in sheets of paper. The paper turned out, on closer examination, to be pages from the series of poetry books the Brummer wrote in the 70s.
The professor didn’t start out as an academic. He was a wannabe Bob Dylan at one point. Didn’t have the voice. So he started writing poetry, which most people at the time thought was horrible. Except for high school girls.
He told the class that he had sold 50 million copies of his books.
“The Romance of Desire” from 1970.
“I Love You Like Paris” from 1971.
“Flames of Passion” from 1973.
His books rolled off the presses as quickly as he could write them. He tired of the professional publishing world after 10 excruciating volumes. Either that or the books stopped selling. In either case, academia called. His money bought him an Ivy League degree and he set up shop here.
He loved his old, awful books. He would read from them every day. He would tell us we should write exactly the same way. Most of us would have preferred an awful death. His death, actually.
He was covered in the love of his life. His own flowery words. The expression on his face was inscrutable.
The expression on Wino’s face? Spirited.
-----
I had run from class to the administration building as soon as I could. Not out of prurient curiosity, you understand, although I had plenty of that. I’m a reporter for the Missouri State College Daily Record.
Correction: I’m a senior reporter.
Senior reporter Ted Lewisholm.
It’s my sixth year here. I’m not interested in becoming an editor or columnist or any of the jobs they fashion for upperclassmen. Most people burn out: reporting for a daily college paper doesn’t leave time for much else.
Pansies.
Not to leave the professor hanging, as it were, but people don’t give a damn about the news at universities. Their kids post grades above D’s, especially at a state school, they don’t give a damn. But the people who run these places get away with a lot.
That’s what I try to cover. No one else here does it as well as I do. Other people win the snazzy journalism prizes, with first-hand accounts of their navel-gazing. I’m out there actually scaring up stories. I don’t just know the administrator’s names.
I know the names of the people the administrators have affairs with.
I finished all the journalism classes they offered two years ago. I’m working on an English degree now so they’ll keep me around. That’s how I got in Brummer’s class.
-----
The scene around the body was crazed, of course. A TV crew. Dozens of students, mostly gawking. Campus cops trying to keep people away from the body.
The cops had erected a perimeter, with what seemed to be sticks torn from trees and duct tape. It was not working well. The tape sagged in parts. One girl tore off a piece to repair a corner of her Algebra textbook.
Professor Jon p Brummer kept hanging. He had always been a big guy — taller than six feet, with a well-fed gut. Now he just sagged. His blood had congealed into sticky red puddles. The pedestal was slick around Wino’s hooves.
The campus cops had no idea what to do. Surprise. Several just started at the body, mouths open, eyes darting from one side to the other. Others investigated by reading the poetry stuck to the professor’s body.
A siren.
Actual cop cars drove up. Actual cops hopped out of them.
“Who’s in charge here?” a tall policeman with a moustache asked.
A gigantic man stepped from behind Wino. Oh Christ. My stomach started to hurt, a reflex action against stupidity. That gigantic man would be “Sergeant” Bud Cohen, chief of campus security and the biggest bastard I’d ever met. On this campus, I’d met a few. Chief Bud had his own category.
“That would be me, Sonny,” he drawled. “Do you have something you want to say to me?”
The tall cop tapped his foot and looked disconcerted.
“Well, um. There seems to be a dead man here. We deal with this kind of thing.”
“Sonny, that’s right nice of you. Why, where would be without you telling us this critical information?”
“Er. We need to do our police things. Thanks for controlling the situation. ”
“You want to take this away, sonny? You want to take this case from me?”