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THE THIRD IN A SERIES OF SEVEN STORIES.

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Corey Channing pulled the big black Dodge into the parking lot at Amarillo Community College after class had already started.  He hated being late, but had stopped to help a woman change a tire on his way in from his aunt and uncle’s place in Canyon, 19 miles away.  “No good deed goes unpunished,” he said to himself.  There wasn’t an empty spot to be found.  He cursed the whole situation, wondered if he’d been smart to come to Amarillo for summer classes and headed to the next parking lot closer to the J. Frank Dobie building that housed the English Department and a collection of books written by Texas authors.

He passed the sign denoting it as a Faculty Parking Lot and assumed that, being the first day of classes, campus police would show mercy if they tore themselves away from their donuts long enough to patrol the parking lots.  He pulled the long black hardtop coupe into a spot next to an even longer yellow Imperial. Channing left the windows down on the Dodge, knowing it would still be like a blast furnace when he got back in it that afternoon.  Grabbing a notebook and his schedule, he popped open the long chrome glove box door and fished around for a pen.  Shutting the door on the driver’s door on the Dodge and glancing at his car and the Imperial next to it, it dawned on him that there might not be a better representation of consecutive generations of Chrysler excess than the two cars in front of him.

The Dart with its Buck Roger’s inspired bulges and angles and shapes that didn’t seem to coordinate, all coming together anyway to form a car like nothing else on the road.  The Imperial was just the opposite.  A uniform brick of steel and glass with the hard edges barely shaved off leaving a rectangular slab of metal designed to offer comfort above all else.  One was all about speed and style and hadn’t aged all that well.  The other was all about being cocooned in luxury designed to numb the occupant from the outside world.  Of course those thoughts only lasted seconds as he trotted towards the Dobie to try to find the class on British Literature Mr. Terry had talked him into taking.

Mrs. Giddings was well into her prepared lecture by the time Channing walked through the door to the class.  She was discussing the British literary movements of Romanticism, Victorianism, Modernism, and Postmodernism, all of which were written on the board in tight, rigid cursive handwriting.  Students were following along on mimeographed handouts.  Channing thought it was all a little too much for the very first day of class.  He’d missed Mrs. Giddings’ short introduction to the class when she explained that they had the same amount of material to cover in two thirds of the time as a regular semester, and students were going to need to be ready to move at a fast pace in order to keep up.

He weighed whether or not to go up to the front of the class and get the handout everyone else already had or just look at the one on the desk of the student next to him and try to write everything down in his notebook.  The teacher had already shot him a look that relayed her displeasure at him being late.  Why make it worse?  Then it dawned on him, why not?  He was late for good reason.  He’d stopped to render aid, the Christian thing to do.  Somewhere between Romanticism and Modernism, he felt and would tell her so if she gave him any shit about it.  This was college, after all, and he was an adult. He got up, went to the front of the class, and took the last handout from the small table next to the podium she was perched at.

The saying goes, “You only have one chance to make a good first impression.”  Inside three minutes Corey Channing had made two bad ones.  If looks could kill.

At the end of the two hour long class, most of the students were surprised at how quickly the time had passed.  They were expecting something much worse.  Although, inasmuch as the teacher was not one normally teaching at Amarillo Community College, there wasn’t any scuttlebut  to fall back on as far as what to expect.  The male portion was thankful that she was easy on the eyes, since they’d be looking at her for two hours everyday.  The female students were pleased that she was firm with her classroom management and didn’t allow anyone to get by with anything, yet was still interesting.  That’s a fine line most teachers find hard to walk.

When it was time for the class to be dismissed Mrs. Giddings gave the assignment for tomorrow’s class.  “I want a thousand word essay on your definition of five of the elements of British literature:  individualism, experimentation, symbolism, absurdity, and formalism, with a unique example of each.  Typed, preferably.  Original thoughts, not what you find at the library.  See if you can impress me.”

She gathered her things into an expensive leather valice, brushed her hair back from her face, and headed out towards the Faculty Parking Lot just outside the Dobie.  Channing was following along closely out of necessity, as he had to get to work at his part time job at the hardware store.  Mrs. Giddings noted the male student who’d been late following at the same pace and assumed that perhaps he was trying to catch up to have a word.

She stopped and turned around at the front fender of the Imperial.  “No need to apologize for your tardiness,” she said.  “Just don’t let it happen again.”

Channing was taken aback that she drove the Imperial, at the thought she deserved an apology. He also noted that outdoors she was even more attractive than she had been in class.  She smelled like a combination of lavender and vanilla and something unidentifiable that he’d never experienced in Shamrock.

“Yes ma’am,” he said.  The thought of explaining why he’d been late crossed his mind, but he kept it to himself.  

As he walked around the front of the Imperial Mrs. Giddings noted that his ass looked pretty good in the Wranglers he was wearing, though she was irritated that he would have the audacity to park in the lot reserved for faculty.  “Have you been teaching here for long?” she asked sarcastically.

“No ma’am,” Channing said.  He pulled up on the ribbed chrome handle of the Dodge and slid into the cabin.  He noted to himself that teachers in big towns like Amarillo were a lot more confrontational than they had been in Shamrock.  The throaty 318 motor rumbled to life as he turned the key, grabbed the stick shift, and eased it into reverse.  He backed out while looking at Mrs. Giddings and then slid the tranny into first gear.  It was only the ticket flapping under the driver’s side wiper that diverted his gaze from the skirt she was wearing.

The teacher saw the ticket at about the same time Channing did and chuckled.  At the same time the full picture of Channing’s car came into view and she chuckled even more.

Channing worked feverishly on his essay from the time he got home from the hardware store to the time he fell asleep after midnight.  The alarm went off next to the essay that lay beside the old Royal portable typewriter.  He showered, got dressed, and grabbed the paper as he ran out the door, running past his aunt at the kitchen table who’d made breakfast for him.  “Can’t be late,” he yelled as he flew out the door.  He was the third student in class, the first to turn his paper in.

That night at her friend’s house, Jenny Giddings took a hot bath, poured a glass of wine and closed the door to the guest room with a stack of essays to read.  Corey Channing’s paper was in the middle of the stack.  She fished it out and read it first.  He defined all the topics she’d asked for in ways that were each technically correct, yet refreshingly original.  And then he supported his answer with examples of each one.

“Individualism can best be symbolized by a young man choosing to drive a 1961 Dodge Dart Pioneer D-500 hardtop coupe styled like nothing else on the road and able to pass the legal limits of speed with ease,” he wrote.  The definition put his old Dodge she’d seen in the parking lot in a whole new light.  

“Experimentation can only come with the willingness to think outside the box and consider possibilities that can lead to new experiences.  One has to be willing to think outside the box in order to not be confined by it.”  Jenny set the glass of wine down on the nightstand next to the bed.

“Symbolism is nothing more than a sign on the Faculty Parking Lot, admonishing others not to attempt to park there, but doing little to actually halt their entrance. If entrance is not really going to be denied, posting a sign of warning is simply symbolism without meaning.”  Jenny loosened her robe, as the room seemed to be getting warmer as she read Channing’s paper.

“Absurdity is best defined by a beautiful woman, barely 30, driving an automobile marketed towards people twice her age.  A new Barracuda would perhaps better define such a woman rather than an Imperial which could never do her justice, despite its added cost, ample size, and indulgent level of comfort.  While size certainly matters, it is counter intuitive in this particular situation.”  The robe came off.

“Formalism,” Channing suggested in the final topic of his essay, “is best explained by the constraints put on one’s self in order to bow to the pressures of society.  The act of needing to present an appearance that belies one’s true intentions and desires.”  The light on the nightstand was switched off and the noises that wafted out of the open window were muffled enough to not be heard by the neighbors on their front porch.

The first time Corey Channing and Virginia Giddings coupled was in the backseat of Channing’s Dodge.  It was in a remote area north of town where the chance of discovery was minimal.  All of the other times were at the True Rest Motel on Route 66 in town.  The very highway that brought Channing to Amarillo from Shamrock.  The same highway that would take Virginia Giddings to places she’d never been before.

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