“Adult Education:” a flash fiction story

From last month, written from prompts. Not sure how I feel about it. (Forgot to post it yesterday. Sorry!)

Edward taught history at Marist College. He moved from Kingston to Poughkeepsie when he found a two-bedroom house with a deck available—perfect for hosting those suppers with the donors the department head insisted on giving at fund-raising time. He could stab his ears with forks whenever she droned about her summers in Westhampton and her winters in Vermont. The bag was due to retire, though, and if he wanted her job…

After unpacking his laptop and installing his WiFi, he slumped on the floor against the wall and lit a cigarette. His cell rang.

“Hi Professor. You moved in yet?”

“Hello, Rick. Yes, I’m taking a break from unpacking now.”

Rick was a former student of Edward’s. His paper on Franklin Roosevelt’s record towards Mexican-Americans during the New Deal thirties revealed aspects of which not even Edward was aware. They chatted while he surfed the Internet.

Since he was closer now to Dobbs Ferry, Rick invited him to his place for a Fourth of July barbecue next month. His girlfriend Tori would be there, no doubt. Ugh.

What did he see in her? Edward proved last year she hadn’t read Kierkegaard like she claimed. Her knowledge of the Elizabethan era in general and the English Reformation in particular left much to be desired. And she called Rousseau’s art childish.

And as for her taste in cinema…

“I hate to get in the middle,” said Rick, “but I think you should let this go.”

“She’s wrong. I don’t see how anyone can think otherwise.” As Edward talked, he downloaded another LOLcat meme and added it to the folder on his hard drive. That made forty-six. No one he knew had discovered his collection so far. Hopefully no one would.

“Professor—”

“I’m sorry, but anyone who’s seen it can only interpret Last Year at Marienbad as taking place in the man’s mind, not the woman’s. The characters are dead souls in limbo, and he refuses to acknowledge he killed the woman he loved. Tori’s being obtuse.”

“I swear it’s like a skipping CD whenever you call her that. Over and over and over.”

“For someone who claims to love foreign movies as much as she does, we should agree more often than we do. I think she must watch bootleg knock-off versions from  Turkey.”

“Omigod, no one cares about this but the two of you! Give it up already.”

“I never have this problem with Costello.” Edward’s TA Costello was his third in two years. This one might stick.

“That’s because he’s a brown-nose who only puts up with you so he can move on to an Ivy-League school.”

“And he’ll make a fine teacher one day, thanks to me. If I had Tori to help me prep my curricula, I’d be in a junior college in Buttcheek, Ohio or somewhere.”

Rick paused.

“You’re a pig.” He hung up.

Hm. Probably should’ve kept that to himself.

***

Two weeks later, Edward looked down at the cars on the Taconic State Parkway from the basket of his hot-air balloon. It was a sunny, late-June morning. The wind felt like it was about to change direction, but he hadn’t blown off-course yet. 

He inherited the balloon, a purple, yellow and white teardrop, from Granddad. When Edward was a teenager in Harrisburg, he’d taken him for rides. After Granddad’s death Edward did nothing with it until Corgan told him about a hot-air balloon festival that took place in the Hudson Valley every year.

Edward renewed his pilot’s certificate two years ago, but waited until the worst of the pandemic subsided before taking “Chrissy” (named for Grandma) up again, back in April. Corgan, the wuss, was content to watch balloons, not ride in them. He and his wife became Edward’s ground crew, which spared him from listening to Corgan gripe about Marist’s women’s soccer team.

Edward took off from Tymor Park in Lagrangeville, over twenty miles east of Poughkeepsie. One more flight before the festival in September couldn’t hurt.

He looked through his binoculars. Corgan’s Audi continued north on the parkway, crossing a stream.

Edward ran his hand through what was left of his hair. Rick had so many questions about balloons during that April flight: what type of propane gas did Edward use? How did he gauge wind direction? What was a thermal and how did it affect navigation? Learning balloon operation must’ve been like driving a car for the first time for him.

Probably so he could take Tori up for a flight by himself one day.

Edward sighed. He and Sarah never had children. For years after the divorce he was grateful for that, but meeting Rick, getting to know him, made Edward realize there were ways to pass on his knowledge other than through the classroom that were equally fulfilling. Perhaps when Rick learned everything Edward knew about balloons, he could leave Chrissy to him in the future.

But Judas Priest, not if he was still with Tori by then.

Wait. During freshman orientation Edward met a girl. They had a conversation in the dining hall about Dutch artwork during the Renaissance that must’ve lasted an hour. Her appreciation of Brueghel the Elder and Van Eyck made him want to take the next plane to Holland then and there!

Annie. That was her name.

He had to find out more about this girl so he could introduce her to Rick. Oh, and he should apologize to the boy as soon as possible, perhaps during his barbecue on the Fourth.

Edward checked his altimeter app. Eighteen hundred feet. He pulled the parachute valve. Time to set Chrissy down.