The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [54]
One of the students said, “I think about that kind of stuff a lot.”
Buster smiled. If he had any money in his pocket, he would have given it to this guy. “Well, that’s why I write, I guess. These weird thoughts come into my head, and I don’t even really want to think about it, but I can’t let go of it until I take it as far as I can, until I reach some kind of ending, and then I can move on. That’s what writing is like for me.”
“Well,” Lucas Kizza said, visibly relieved that Buster wasn’t totally psychotic, “that’s exactly what we’re trying to do here with this group, to learn how to take an idea and make it into a story. Thank you, Buster, for explaining it in such wonderful terms.”
“That’s okay,” Buster said.
Another student, a girl who was wearing a tank top that said DON’T TREAD ON ME, asked if he was working on something new. Buster felt a quick twinge of embarrassment, having nothing to show for the past few years, but he nodded and said that he was indeed working on something big, but it was slow going. He wasn’t sure if it was any good. He wasn’t sure if he would even finish it. “ . . . The edge . . . a shantytown filled with gold-seekers,” he thought, but then pushed the words away for the time being.
A young man wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses and sporting a thick beard was holding a copy of The Underground and said, “I read some of this, and then I went online and I read some reviews of it and people really seemed to have problems with it.” Buster nodded. He found that he was not very fond of this kid, and the beard obscured his mouth so that it was hard to tell if he was smirking. “Well,” the guy continued, “I wondered how you deal with bad reviews when you spent a long time working on something that you thought was good.” Professor Kizza stepped in to remind the class that The Underground had also received some very favorable reviews and that there were many classics that had initially been met with resistance from the critics. Buster waved him off. “No, that’s fine. It mostly got awful reviews. At the time, it made me sick to my stomach. I wished I were dead. But that went away, after a while. And then I just felt relieved that, even if people had hated it, I made it myself. I don’t know what I’m saying, really, but I guess it’s like having a kid, though I don’t have any kids. It’s yours, you made it, and no matter what happens, you have that pride of ownership. You love it, even if it didn’t amount to much.”
There were a few more questions, which Buster struggled to answer truthfully, then he read a section of The Underground when the main character, the boy, first comes out from the bomb shelter and sees the devastation that surrounds him. It was depressing as hell, and Buster wished he hadn’t read it, but the students seemed to like how bleak it was. Lucas thanked him for coming, the students filed out of the room, and then it was just Lucas and Buster.
“I hope that was okay,” Buster said.
“It was wonderful,” Lucas replied.
“They seem like good kids.”
“Wonderful students.”
Buster noticed that Lucas was holding a stack of papers. “These are some stories they’ve written, Buster,” Lucas then said. “I know it would be a real thrill for them if you might look at them.”
“Oh,” Buster said. “Oh.”
“You don’t have to of course,” Lucas continued. “I just thought you might be interested.”
Buster could not think of anything he’d be less interested in reading, but then he thought of how they had patiently listened to him ramble, talking about some fucking brand of gum like he was Andy Rooney, and he felt