Cool, Calm & Contentious - Merrill Markoe [44]
After several changes of plane, I boarded a tiny aircraft, the only one that landed right in Lafayette itself. I sat next to a salesman who spent the entire flight detailing to our one and only stewardess his thoughts about good and bad ways to die. Happily this leg of the journey was pretty short. About a half hour later, I was greeted at the gate of a very small airport by a ruddy guy who looked as if he ran the refreshment stand at a motocross track. He was dressed in an ensemble that was many shades of shamrock green: bright green slacks, a slightly different green polo shirt, a lighter green sport coat, and somehow a fourth variation on green in a baseball cap. Not that he needed anything additional to tie the outfit together, but each piece was also emblazoned with a logo endorsing a different kind of beer. Turned out he was a rep from the deodorant company that had hired me, so although he looked like he might be sweaty from a morning of racing speedboats, in fact he smelled lemony fresh.
As I followed him to a stretch limo the length of a city block, I decided to climb into the front with him, the better to wrest control of the steering wheel should his morning of sun and suds cause any sudden veering into oncoming traffic.
“Yesterday we had a dude from MTV,” he said as we drove out of the terminal parking lot and onto a highway that offered a panoramic view of the many miles of mangrove swamps. “Pretty big turnout. I forget her name. But she was good. She talked about how she dropped out of college after one week because she couldn’t find parking. Very inspirational.”
“What other events are scheduled for today?” I asked.
“There’s a makeover booth. And I heard there’s a big astrology tent,” he said. “I might stop by later.”
While my mind tried to comprehend how this college career fair had incorporated an astrology tent into its prospectus, twenty minutes of silent driving followed. Could it be that astrology was somehow considered a reasonable career path in Lafayette? Was there also going to be a booth for aromatherapy? Would there be a psychic?
But before we headed to the campus, first we stopped by my hotel so I could check in and freshen up a little. My driver/host had allowed an hour for this. Unfortunately most of that time was eaten up at the front desk after I learned there was no record of a reservation in my name. Not until I agreed to put the charges on my personal credit card did everything begin to get back on track.
This left the drive over to the campus as the only time I would have to review my notes. Yes, I had been told by the people who’d hired me that all I needed to do was simply take questions from the audience, but I was planning to end with that. First, I would open with the list of things I wanted young writers to know. I would talk to them about the need for telling the truth. I would offer hard-nosed words of solace that they could lean on in tough times … words to keep a budding writer from being easily discouraged. I planned to quote Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., on authenticity (“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be”). I wanted to reference Mark Twain’s remarks about editing and rewriting (“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but of what is left out of it”).
When the car finally lurched to a stop, I looked up to see the stunned faces of the students by the campus center, staring slack-jawed as the biggest limo in the world tried to park in their student union parking lot. I watched their expressions