Present Perfect

Jeremy Prentiss is a fool. A successful fool, and one that the 30 or so fawning fudgeheads in his six-week fiction writing class think is a genius, but a fool nonetheless. Right now, I'm listening to him tell us that we should forget everything we ever learned about writing short stories. "Does that include punctuation?" the smartass sitting behind me asks. Jeremy laughs politely, not sure whether the guy is kidding.
Then Jeremy gets this real serious look and tells us, "Always write in the present tense."
I practically drop my pen, surprised not at this stale revelation, but that someone who the establishment touts as so avant-garde is just like the rest of the literary lamebrains. For the past 20 years, the trend has been to write "in the moment." What a load of crap, I think, then realize that I actually said it.
Jeremy's response is surprisingly calm. The rest of the students look at me as if I've just denounced the geocentric view of the solar system to a tribunal from the Inquisition. "Why do you say that?" he asks me.
I overcome my embarrassment by replying that the onus of defending a controversial position is his, not mine. So he proceeds.
Setting your fiction in the present captures a sense of immediacy, he explains. Your reader feels like he or she is right there, and can't escape. You want that immediacy, you want to trap your reader, so that he or she feels the tension, is an active participant.
A dim-witted girl in the back of the room raises her hand. "Is that like chasing your reader up a tree and throwing rocks at him?"
Jeremy shakes his head. "No, that refers to the protagonist in a screenplay," to which the smartass sitting behind me responds, "Should we forget that, too?" Again, Jeremy laughs, but is visibly flustered this time.
He ends the first class by giving us an assignment. Write the first draft of a short story, 2,000 words or fewer. Any topic.
"And remember," he adds as we're gathering our pens and notebooks.
"keep it in . . ."
"The present tense," everyone in the class except the smartass and I respond.

That night, I feel inspired by a Muse with a wicked sense of humor. I sit at the dining table in my efficiency bachelor pad, and setting my open notebook in front of me, I write. I don't stop until an hour later. Reading my assignment, I grin. He won't like this. But I sure do. The next morning, Saturday, I type up and print out my story. My title? "Squeeze the Day."
In class next Friday, Jeremy and his flunkies seem surprised when I am the first to raise my hand to read my assignment. Smartass looks at me like I sold out. But I haven't. Not by a damn sight.
For added effect, I stand, defiantly clutching my freshly-wrought tale in both hands, wrinkling the edges of the pages a little as I do so. Finishing, I scan the classroom, taking in the slack-jawed expressions of my fellow students. I've done more than preach heresy. I've smacked Torquemada in the face.
Jeremy looks like a blanched melon. He can't find the words at first, but finally asks, "How does that qualify as a short story?"
With a smug stare I reply, "How doesn't it? And it's written in the present tense. Just because you don't approve . . ."
Jeremy holds up his hand, like a crossing guard fending off traffic. "This has nothing to do with approve or disapprove. Your piece lacks the essential conflict necessary for fiction."
I disagree, explaining that there is plenty of conflict between the two main characters. And that in turn fosters a rebellion against one of them who is, in effect, an idol with feet of clay. At this last remark, I sarcastically apologize for the cliché. I can almost feel the approving grin of Smartass burning into the back of my head.
A young woman in the front row twists around to address me. I'm sitting in the third row, two seats from the right.
"What was that term that you used around the second page? 'Sycophantic slugs?'"
I am happy to clarify for her. "That's right."
She scowls. "And who did you have in mind?"
I can't stop the grin that spreads across my face like an expanding puddle of oil. "Who did you have in mind?" Smartass laughs, earning him a prickly glare from the woman.
Several other questions bubble to the surface, most with inherent accusations of personal attacks and disrespect for authority. I field them with finesse, and arrogance.
"You named the teacher in your story Jasper Plenty," a big guy with an army jacket remarks.
I smile. "Any similarity to persons living or dead . . ."
Jeremy pounces. "This is not a short story. This is a thinly-disguised memoir masquerading as such."
I want to reply, "You're a thinly-disguised hack masquerading as a great author," but don't. He would likely counter with a list of short stories and books that he's published, as well as the number of classes and workshops he's led.
But after we go back and forth for a few minutes, him aided by occasional sympathetic swipes at me from his servile admirers, I triumphantly announce, "I don't care what you say, Prentiss. I just did it your way once, to prove that I could. But you haven't won. I'll never write the way that you advise."
Jeremy lights up. "Won't you?"
My hand closes on my pen, almost hard enough to snap the writing implement. Frigid horror gels from my scalp to my soles, and is as quickly replaced with seething anger. Again my thoughts escape into words.
"Son of a . . ."