I sat in the coffeeshop with Russell. I scratched on the table with a quarter.
“So how are the grades?”
“They’re okay.”
“Independent study is supposed to be respectable.”
“Yeah.”
I drew the quarter in a semi-circle. Then I started drawing a horn on one side.
“Are your friends going to college?” he asked me.
“No.”
“Talk to them, really, Franz: a college education is important.”
“I’ll let them know.”
“Franz, you know I’m trying to help you.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. I kept looking down. I scratched a second horn. Then I drew a line alongside it. I drew a U on top of the line. With sharp points at either end.
“They can’t teach philosophy in school,” I said.
“That’s one of the main things they teach, actually. So why can’t they teach philosophy?” he asked bemusedly.
I shrugged. “They just can’t. It’s all lies.”
“So what’re you going to do?”
“Live in a truck in the mountains. Write books.”
“That’s not a real plan, Franz.”
“I’ll be Zarathustra.”
“Franz, I’m trying to help you,” he said again.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Are you still writing?”
“Yeah. Everyday.”
“Have you shown your teachers what you’ve been working on?”
“No.”
“Oh—well these are educated people,” he said, “That’s really important. They can critique it correctly.”
“They can’t critique my porn,” I muttered.
Russell smiled, “That’s really important.”
I drew two eyes under the horned semicircle and a smile under them. Devil and pitchfork.
“An education is really important,” Russell said.
“I am getting educated. That’s why I don’t go to school. I read two books a week.”
“That’s a lot of books,” he said, feigning being impressed, like he didn’t believe me.
“It’s all lies,” I said.
“‘All lies’? That isn’t very articulate.”
I kept my head down. I glanced around the shop. There were people talking. I was too injured to run or do anything so I just had to sit here. I could do abs but I wasn’t. I spun the quarter on the table. Tails. I used it to scratch out my Devil and pitchfork.
“All right, I’ll see you later,” I said like usual and left. I walked outside and threw the quarter in the gutter.
