American Lit
Jennifer Greidus
“So,” I say, slapping the book against my palm, “is this toilet reading or bedtime reading?”
Daniel, a brazen, well-liked high school senior, has pursued his English teacher, Mr. Stewart, since the year began. When the two begin an affair, Daniel’s misplaced desire for attention and love finds him the victim of a violent narcissist whose startling insistence on obedience and allegiance escalates by the day. As Daniel struggles to free himself from the harrowing, emotionally and physically abusive relationship, his only solace is Jesse, a laid-back, sexually questioning drug dealer, who captures Daniel’s hesitant heart after a series of passionate encounters. Mr. Stewart uses his position of power—as well as blackmail—to drive the two boys apart, and Daniel’s choices will determine the fate of all three of their lives.
Jennifer Greidus’ short prose and poetry have appeared in Pithead Chapel, Eclectica, Two Hawks Quarterly, and more. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona. This is her first novel
American Lit excerpt
While Ollie and I get stoned in his car every morning before school, I use my phone to take online career quizzes. I think in reverse, responding as I believe Mr. Stewart would. My mission is to find the amalgam of answers that triggers the “teacher” verdict. Only then will I know everything to say and do around him.
My favorite quiz—and the most thorough—was created by an Ivy League school to assist its undergrads. I log into that one about once a day. Among others, my hypothetical responses produced these career options: CPA, correctional officer, lawyer, architect, and copy editor. What a prospective correctional officer would be doing attending that school is beyond me. In any case, I have yet to see “twelfth-grade AP English teacher” pop up as the answer.
Always grumpy before the first bell of the day, Ollie broods and smokes between bites of a fast-food breakfast burrito. If I bother him with a question or to tell him he’s dropped some hot sauce on his car’s cheap upholstery, all I get are grunts or lazy hand signals; so, lately, I’ve been focusing on these quizzes.
You read the instructions before beginning any assembly. Yes.
You avoid arguing, even when you know you are right. No.
You always let someone know if she has a crumb on her face. Yes.
You are usually patient when someone is late to an appointment with you. No.
You don’t mind getting your hands dirty. No idea.
That last one gets me every time. It might be the one that fucks up the algorithm.
During each class, if only for ten or our allotted forty-two minutes, Mr. Stewart, the thirty-something academic genius who corrects me with a verbal whip whenever I say which instead of that, lectures from a post directly in front of my desk.
The twenty square inches of zipper and fabric and subtle bumps and lumps inside his pants leave me overheated and dimwitted. If he’s speaking, I don’t know it. My interest lies only in his stretched fly, an ass of granite, and a minimalist leather belt that ties it all together.
Never has a single crease spoiled the light starch of his fitted dress shirts. His monthly haircut ensures every deep-brown strand is in place. Premature crow’s feet appear when he squints or graces me with one of his infrequent smiles. From afar, I’d look twice. From this close, I can’t look away.
“Dan.” Ollie tosses a wad of paper at my cheek. “Knock it off. You’re sucking your pen like a dick.”
Mr. Stewart’s head jerks in our direction. “Daniel. Oliver. I can only imagine you’re interrupting me because you have a question. Otherwise—”
“Hey, Mr. Stewart, I have a question.”
Ollie and I both look to the right at Jesse, who yawns, his hand half-raised with an index finger pointed at our teacher. He wears the same jeans, hoodies, and T-shirts, sometimes three days in a row. He’s consistently stoned, and he always has a fucking question.
“Says here,” Jesse announces, “Mr. Hart Crane got drunk and fell off a boat.” He taps his thumb against the back pages of the poetry anthology we’ve been reading.
Mr. Stewart stares him down. “What’s your question, Jesse?”
“Well, yeah,” he continues, slowly flipping one of his shoes onto its side with the big toe of a socked foot, “the bios are more interesting than the poems. Can we read those first?”
“We can,” Mr. Stewart says, “but we will not.”
Mr. Stewart believes grammar should be everyone’s thing. When I think about him, I think, me and him, him and I, he and I, fuck it, forget it. He enjoys saying, “I do not understand why, on the verge of adulthood, none of you knows how to put together a sentence.” There’s more to him than his obsession with grammar. We’ve spent a couple months in brief, after-class conversations concerning my future and books. We talk about tennis. Despite playing hungover, disliking the drills, and hating the parts where I need to run, I’m good at it.
Most days, he asks me, “Daniel, how did you fare at tennis practice yesterday?” And I always blather, “Good. Pretty good. Really good.” It’s tough gawking at a stashed but still conspicuous penis for almost an hour and then trying to keep pace in conversation with its owner after the bell.
All I want to do this year is have sex with him. It is my single goal. With a speck of effort, I’ll conquer tennis at my club and on my school team, keep one sober eye on my handpicked senior schedule, and slide into one of the two schools of my choice in autumn. Having Mr. Stewart will be the sweetener. Audacity has been my stratagem for months—I’ve even flustered him a few times—but aside from some sideways glances and closed-lipped smiles, the flirting is meager, as difficult as trying to budge a piano with my pinkie.
