Free Swimmer by Graham Masterton

But what we learned here in this class with you, Mr Rook, that weren’t just English, that was like how to live our lives and stuff.’
    â€˜For Christ’s sake, Tarquin. I’m only a teacher.’
    â€˜No, Mr Rook. You the beacon. You taught me all kinds of shit I didn’t even want to listen to. Walt Whitman, some stupid white faggot. William Shakespeare, about a thousand years old, from England, who cares? And then you taught me Theodore Spencer and stuff like that and you open up my eyes like I was blind before.’
    Tarquin jabbed his finger in the air and he was so emotional that he was almost crying. ‘I was
blind
before, like Stevie Wonder, only poor as well. So before you go let me quote you this Theodore Spencer poem that you quoted to us.
    â€˜She was a high-class bitch and a dandy
    Prancing man was he and a dandy
    Man he was with that tall lady.
    Â 
    â€˜I should have known that a bitch and a dandy
    Dancing man – and Oh, what a dandy! –
    Would with a prance of a dapper dandy
    Dance into grass: and to grass that lady.
    Â 
    â€˜Bitch as she was – and he was a dandy
    Prancing man – it makes me angry
    That those dance people should stagger and bend.
    I think of that dandy and bitch and am angry
    Â 
    â€˜That over that bitch and over that dandy
    Dancing man – and Oh, what a dandy
    Man he was with tall lady! –
    Only crass grass should dance in the end.’
    â€˜Hey,’ said Jim, very impressed. ‘That must be the first poem you ever learned by heart.’
    â€˜I learned it to show you,’ said Tarquin, defiantly. ‘I always understood that poem, but I never knew why. It clicked with something inside of my head. And that’s what you did for all of us, Mr Rook. You clicked with something inside of our heads. And that’s the biggest compliment that I ever paid to anybody, ever.’
    It was then that Dr Friendly rapped on the classroom door, and opened it. ‘Mr Rook … A word, please.’
    â€˜Sure,’ said Jim. ‘Meanwhile, class, you can read John Ciardi’s “Elegy”, page two hundred and twenty-one in your
Twentieth-Century American Poets
and tell me what you think if it by the time I come back. And I’m looking for some really original ideas. You’ve finished all of your exams now. I want you to think for yourselves … because that’s what you’re going to have to do, now that you’re going out into the big, wide, distressingly expensive world.’
    Outside in the corridor, Dr Friendly immediately put his arm around Jim’s shoulders and propelled him over to the far side of the corridor. ‘James … Jim – I know you prefer it if I call you Jim – we’ve just had some very serious news.’
    â€˜Go on,’ said Jim. He had never seen Dr Friendly like this before. Usually he made a point of making Jim feel that he was only half listening to what he was saying, and he hardly ever missed an opportunity to tell him what a criminal waste of time and public resources he considered it to be, trying to teach literature to the underclass. He was a tall, gangly, overpowering man, with a shock of wiry white hair and bulbous eyes. A respected teacher who had been brought into West Grove Community College last year to produce a far better educational average. But sometimes improving the average meant quietly abandoning the slowest and the neediest, and those who were incapable of passing any exams at all.
    â€˜Jim … it’s Dennis Pease. We had a call from LAPD about twenty minutes ago.’
    â€˜What’s happened? Is he hurt?’
    â€˜I’m afraid it’s worse than that, James. He’s been drowned. He went surfing last night off Will Rogers State Beach, with a bunch of friends. They reported him missing around one a.m. His body was washed up this morning, just after six.’
    â€˜Oh, God. Tell me it’s not