Come Unto These Yellow Sands Read Online Free Page B

in the hallway.
    “Hey, Professor!”
    “Morning, Professor Swift.”
    “Professor Swift? About Tuesday’s assignment…”
    He unlocked the door and let them crowd inside the room, absently responding to greetings and questions.
    The first class of the day was Foundations of Literary Analysis. It was a class Swift enjoyed not least because it spared him teaching Introduction to Creative Writing. As sponsor of the college literary magazine he had all the exposure to newly hatched scribes he could handle. The course emphasized a subject dear to his heart: critical reading and writing. It never failed to dismay him how many kids confused liking something with literary merit. If there was one thing he intended his students to take away at the end of the semester, it was an ability to separate personal likes and dislikes from objective analysis.
    It would probably be easier to teach them to write book reports in iambic pentameter, but he was going to do it or die trying. If there was one life skill everyone on the planet needed, it was the ability to think with critical objectivity.
    As always, once Swift began his lecture, the passion for words and writing swept him away, and he forgot all about Tad and the murder of Mario Corelli, and the fact that Max was going to be very unhappy with him.
    “The discovery that you like William Carlos Williams? That’s great. We’ll keep it in mind for Christmas. But to get an A on a paper in this class, you’re going to have to convince me that you’ve got a good reason for liking William Carlos Williams.”
    He could see the faces of those most fond of their own opinions wrinkling up in protest.
    “I want to see those opinions supported by evidence. I want you to prove to me that you’ve considered elements like theme, setting, characterization—”
    “How can there be characterization in a poem?” objected Denny Jensen.
    Jensen was a smart kid even if he had taken Foundations of Literary Analysis in the hope of avoiding having to write anything himself. Swift remembered what Max had said about Jensen the evening before. He wouldn’t have guessed Jensen was the bright hope of the football team given the fact that he exhibited none of that attitude of entitlement of so many jocks, so he forgave him the dumb question and was off and running, explaining exactly how characterization worked in poetry.
    The next seventy minutes passed quickly—for Swift anyway. Back in his cubbyhole of an office he graded papers, absently listening to the drum of rain against the windows, and calculated how soon he could get out to Orson Island to talk to Tad. Not before his afternoon seminar. Not without bringing attention to himself.
    That worried him—the realization that he was automatically thinking like a criminal. He wasn’t a criminal. It wasn’t even for sure that he was helping a criminal. He just wanted to make sure Tad wasn’t sandbagged. What was wrong with that?
    A little before lunchtime Dottie buzzed him.
    “Bernard Frost,” she announced.
    It took Swift a few strange seconds to place the name. Recognition brought a little jolt with it. Bernie was Swift’s agent. Former agent.
    “You’re kidding.” That was a rhetorical comment. Of course Dottie wasn’t kidding. Dottie had no sense of humor. She didn’t bother to reply, and a split second later the phone rang in Swift’s office.
    Swift picked up. “Bernard.”
    No one called Bernard “Bernie”. No one ever had but Swift who, back when he was a punk kid, thought it funny to irritate Bernard at every opportunity. What did it say about him that he’d set out to antagonize his own agent? His agent and his friend. He remembered once, after he’d been beaten up by a less-than-amused drug dealer, calling Bernard in the middle of the night—and Bernard had unhesitatingly answered that cry for help, driving to the rescue, cashmere coat thrown over his silk pajamas, hair sticking up on end like a cockatoo. Bernard had sat