Just Getting In Step

Just Getting In Step HAROLD K. MOON Outside Blake's office a bugle note sounded, then following a short silence came the patriotic brassiness of the Star Spangled Banner. They played it twice a day, at ten to eight in the morning and at ten to five in the afternoon. Blake listened absendy. Before the last echo had faded, he bent his head once more over a page with a few lines written on it, most of them crossed out. He jotted another line, crossed out half of it, dropped his pen and reached for his coat. "Time to go home, Arch," he said. Arch's office was next to his. "Not for another hour, at least," came his answer. "I can't afford to keep banker's hours. How can you?" "Can't take anymore, is all. If I have to cross out one more line before dinner, I'll lose my appetite." "One more line of what? Got another article in progress?" "Not this time. Another story, I hope." "What do you do with those things ?" "Collect rejection slips, mostly." Arch's grin was probably a little condescending. Here at this conservative college where they both collected their pay checks, Arch had learned to live with a flair. He and his wife operated a Dairy Queen, and it was a matter of stringent personal pride that his classes never suffered because of this tidy "on the side" venture. He worked like a Trappist monk on his class preparation. No nonsense. Blake was sure Arch could never understand his frivolous life. Home at five! Well, he probably couldn't understand trying to live on one lonesome salary, either. Or coming back to the office to write . . . stories! Harold K. Moon teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Brigham Young University. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW29 Maybe Arch wasn't so bad. Fact is, he didn't know him very well. They were hired about the same time. Arch's qualifications as a young Ph.D. had impressed everyone. Great recommendations from some big names, a dissertation that was seven years in the making — and not a single publication. Blake wrote his own dissertation in one hasty year. For him it was one more hurdle toward his "union card." But hasty and all, it had supplied him with material for a few articles. No great shakes, but it had earned him a reputation as an upstart scholar in this provincial atmosphere. Still, the smirk in Arch's question, "another article?" and the condescension Blake thought he sensed in his "What do you do with those things?" stung him a little. What indeed? The question stayed with him all the way home. He was not a heavyweight. In the larger schools, his articles would be a droplet in a wind over the sea. Only here, where the Ph.D. was required but turned out to be excess baggage, and any publication at all was an oddity, did scholarship as meager as his count for anything. He had thought that he would "play the game," and he had achieved just enough success to know that he could do it if he wanted to. But those turgid articles! No, he would never be a real scholar. Lately, every time he settled into a research project, the only thing that came of it was another story; then followed the fearful, almost reluctant attempt to publish it, and another rejection slip or two. Still, he continued to write. He had finally given up on scholarship altogether and spent his writing time exclusively on fiction. All pretense had faded. The Spanish Department had lost its only publishing scholar. And the rejection slipspiled up . . . and up___ When Blake got home, he followed the ritual of reciting the day's news to his wife, Nan. He told her about Willard Parks, the Language Department's grand old man, who had announced his retirement. He had reached the age and status of emeritus. That would leave an opening in the department, which meant a long hassle in a meeting to consider his replacement. Blake detested meetings. That was another dif30JUST GETTING IN STEP ference between him and Arch Nois...