Pistol Poets

one Morgan's eyes flickered open, and he realized that his naked ass was touching another naked ass under the covers. Annie. Visiting Professor Jay Morgan sat up in bed slowly, tried to remember how he'd hung himself over. The slim girl in a fetal curl under the covers next to him, Annie Walsh, didn't wake. A whole semester had slipped away on his one-year contract at Eastern Oklahoma University before he'd struck pay dirt. She was nice, young and fit. Eager. Morgan was short and soft around the middle. His black hair, sharpened into a deadly widow's peak, was long, pulled into a tight ponytail. But he had good cheekbones, and his eyes were a haunting blue. Morgan knew how to flash those eyes at young students. Last evening's dark blur streaked with neon. The dance club on University Drive. Annie packed tight in denim and a black tank top, red hair shaved close. First-year master's student, a Sharon Olds wanna-be. Morgan found boxers on the floor, slipped into them. He crept to the kitchen, tile freezing under his bare feet, started a pot of coffee, and watched it drip itself into existence. He filled a mug, drank with his eyes closed. The phone rang. He grabbed it quickly. "Hello." "Morgan? It's Dean Whittaker. We had an eight o'clock appointment." "That's Wednesday." "This is Wednesday." Morgan's wristwatch said 8:37. "I'll be right there." Morgan ran in and out of the shower, threw on black pants and a green Hawaiian shirt with a picture of flowered Elvis playing the ukulele. Brushing his teeth almost made him puke. He grabbed his pea coat, shrugged into it. Oklahoma winter, not so much snow but plenty of ice and cold rain. How had he ended up in this redneck backwater? Oh, yeah. He needed the job. Every year a new campus, the life of a gypsy professor. A flash of skin caught his eye as he passed through the bedroom. The girl. He cleared his throat. "I have to go." Nothing. "There's coffee." More nothing. "Lock up when you leave, okay?" He pulled the door closed behind him, groaned his way down the sidewalk, and climbed into his twelve-year-old Buick. He pointed it toward Eastern Oklahoma University's main campus, muttering inventive curses at Dean Whittaker in which the word cocksucker figured prominently. Morgan stopped at the secretary's desk on the way into the English Department. "We have any aspirin, Tina?" "I have Motrin in my purse." "Okay." He took the bottle from her, spilled five pills into his palm, and swallowed them dry. "There's a girl here to see you," Tina said. Morgan turned, fear kicking around in his gut. He thought Annie had somehow--impossibly--raced there ahead of him, coiled to spring charges of sexual misconduct. It was a different girl, compact, tan, round-faced, and fresh, with black plastic glasses perched on the end of her nose, brown hair wild and shaggy. She bounced out of her chair and offered her hand to Morgan. He took it and shook, squinting at her, hoping to figure out what she was, if he was supposed to know her. "Professor Morgan, I'm Ginny Conrad." "Oh." Who? The voice was silky, familiar. "I'm supposed to do a ride-along." The edges of Ginny's mouth quivered, hinted at a frown. "I'm supposed to follow you around. A day in the life of a poet--for the school paper. Remember?" "Yes, of course I remember." No he didn't. Morgan rubbed his temples with his thumbs. He looked at Ginny again, tried to make himself interested. But she had too much on the hips, too fleshy around the neck and cheeks. "This isn't a good day, Ginny." He didn't have the stomach for questions rightGischler, Victor is the author of 'Pistol Poets' with ISBN 9780385337243 and ISBN 0385337248.