How to Write a Novel

by Melanie Sumner

  “That’s municipal,” the woman said at last, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a Kleenex. “First door to your right, past security.” After we were wanded, a process that Max and I handled more smoothly than Diane, we entered a long room filled with tall, old-fashioned windows. On a raised platform, flanked by an American flag and the Georgia state flag, an upholstered leatherette chair had been reserved for the judge. A railing separated him from We-the-People, who sat in molded plastic chairs. Charles and his mother were already seated.

  “Mama, this is my teacher, Ms. Montgomery-Thibodeau,” said Charles as he stood up.

  Miss Octavia stood up too, a head taller than Diane, a hundred pounds heavier. She wore a skirt and blazer with panty hose and pumps, accessorized with a long strand of pearls and matching earrings. Her glossy black hair was straightened into a pageboy; it didn’t move when she bent over to exchange a formal little hug with Diane.

  We had decided on a little black dress for Diane, one that should have transitioned from cocktail to courtroom with flats and a blazer. Unfortunately, Diane didn’t have a real blazer. In the glare of the courtroom light, I could see now that the jean jacket she called conservative, because it wasn’t faded, wasn’t our best choice. It covered the spaghetti straps of the cocktail dress but did nothing to hide the cleavage. Instead of panty hose, she wore black tights, and her flats were actually ballet shoes. The whole outfit screamed “HIPSTER.”

  My ears grew hot as Charles’s mother looked her over, but Miss Octavia smiled, showing the gold tooth in the back of her mouth, and said, “Charles and I really appreciate the help you’ve been giving him on his statement. You have gone above and beyond for my son.”

  “Charles is a fine young man,” said Diane. “He’s one of my best students. This charge is completely unfounded.”

  Miss Octavia smiled warily and took her seat. Sitting by her side, I could see the brown rim of her eyes around her purple contact lenses.

  Charles wore a dark suit and a pale yellow tie, no hat. As we learned when Penn entered the room, hats are not allowed in a court of law. The bailiff gestured angrily for Penn to remove his hat. When he did, I tried not to stare at his shiny bald head—definitely a new look.

  When everyone had taken their seats, the bailiff said, “All rise. The Municipal Court of Chutiksee County, State of Georgia, is now in session, the Honorable Burr Wiglett, presiding.” His Honor, a short white man whose robe trailed on the ground, entered the room and settled into the big chair.

  “The court will now come to order,” Burr Wiglett said in a weary voice, and tapped his gavel. He had serious bags under his eyes. As his voice droned on through a stack of requests for postponements, unlitigated motions, and arraignments, my mind wandered to the last Charles Hutchins essay I had graded for Diane.

  Charles Hutchins

  English 1102

  Descriptive Essay: My Elephant

  So I wrote some comments in the text, but I erased them. After reading this essay, several times, they sounded stupid. It’s an A paper, with as many +++++++ as there are stars in the sky.

  “I saw the elephant” is an old army expression that means, “I saw combat.” Two years ago, at the age of nineteen, when I was called into active duty in the United States Army, I saw my elephant. I never thought I could describe this, but I will try.

  War is loud. This is something I didn’t think about before I found myself in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan—the ricochet of artillery, the thud of mortar rounds, the head-ringing explosion of rockets, all going over the sirens and static call of Big Voice, the loudspeaker on base: “Exercise, exercise, exercise. IED detected outside the wire. Take cover, take cover.”

  Outside the wire, the radio was blaring, “Contact, contact, Blue 4, where are you? Mortars, three KIA, seven WIA. Black on fuel, ammo.” I flipped the safety off my M4 and ran to the zone, zigzagging down a dusty road lined with cornfields. The stalks were tall and bright green.

  Back in Georgia, I had helped my grandmother with her garden. Close to harvesttime, she would send me out in the maze to find the cobs with dry corn silk—mother’s hair, she called it. The corn wasn’t ready until the hair on top was thick and dry, but my Mee-mee always picked a few early ears, with the shiny, silky yellow hair she used to make a tea for her arthritis. When I squeezed those early ears, sometimes a thin, white milk seeped between my fingers, and I thought of her stiff, crooked fingers, the relief of pain.

  The green seemed brighter out here, where everything else was the color of dust—moon dust we called it. It feels like flour, like you are covered in flour. It covered our uniforms and weapons, our bedding, our food; we breathed it.

  He came through the corn, almost on me before I saw his arm raised. Was it an IED or just a rock? I never think, was his arm raised in surrender? You think that, and you die. I fired. There was a sickening moment when all the noise around me seemed to stop. No sound but his grunt. His brains had blown out the back of his head. But that’s not the image that kept going through my mind as I tried to rack out in my bunk that night, or every night afterward. What I saw, and what I can’t forget for some reason—my elephant—was corn silk, the shiny yellow stuff dripping with milk, on the ears that weren’t ready to be picked.

  When Penn touched my shoulder, I jumped. Then I looked at the window, where he inclined his head. Outside, in the parking lot, a group of men wearing orange jumpsuits were filing into a Chutiksee County Prison Work van. I recognized the fuzzy red hair of the guy who had picked me up in his logging truck.

  “Red flag violation will get you stopped every time,” whispered Penn. “Not a good idea to be high then.”

  Diane glanced over at us, then looked away before Penn could meet her eye. I sensed some tension, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where we were in that relationship. Initial attraction—check. First rejection—check. Jealousy revealed—check.

  “Charles Hutchins,” announced the bailiff.

  The judge motioned to a police officer who had been sitting off to the side of the room. At the podium, the two men bent their heads together, conferring in mumbled voices.

  “What the fuck?” whispered Penn.

  Charles’s long fingers picked nervously at the edges of the statement he held on his lap, printed out on crisp white paper. A second cop was summoned to the podium. More mumbling.

  “Guess that’s the witness,” said Penn. “He’s invited to the powwow.” He leaned forward in his seat, fists clenched. “Maybe the rest of us should just leave. This seems to be a private party.” The bailiff gave him the stink eye.

  Miss Octavia sat perfectly still in her seat, her hands folded in her lap. Her lipstick was perfect. You could not tell from looking at her face that her husband was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder or that her son was on trial, so to speak, for a speeding ticket that would most likely result in a week of jail time.

  When Charles was called to the stand, he towered over the two officers who had arrested him. Judge Burr Wiglett had to crane his neck to look up at him from his seat. When the judge put on a pair of reading glasses and bent his head down to read the paper in front of him, a wattle of chicken skin settled around his jaw. Charles tried to hand him his statement, but the judge waved it away.

  With a shaking hand, Charles held on to his statement. He shifted from one foot to the other. When the judge spoke to him, Charles had trouble finding his voice. His Adam’s apple bobbed up in his neck, and his eyes had a wild, hunted look as he searched the room for his mother.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” said the judge. “What’s that in your hand?”

  Up and down went the Adam’s apple. Charles cleared his throat. “I wrote a statement,” he said, holding the paper out, but no one stepped forward to take it from his hand.

  “Does the defendant have counsel?” asked the judge.

  The two officers looked at each other. One of them shrugged. The lawyer had dropped the case because Octavia cou
ldn’t afford his fees.

  “Sir,” said Charles. “Your Honor. I have written a statement in my own defense. If the court would please, if I have permission, I would like to read it.”

  “How long is it?” asked the judge. Charles fumbled with the document. He dropped it, picked it up, and dropped it again. “Ten pages,” he said quietly. “Or eleven?”

  “It’s only five!” whispered Diane.

  “How fast were you going on the evening of February first, in a fifty-five-mile-per-hour zone?” asked the judge.

  Charles swallowed. “Around sixty,” he said.

  “Correction,” said the police officer. “Your Honor, the defendant was clocked at sixty-three miles an hour.” He showed the judge a document, and the judge nodded.

  “Correction sustained.” He looked up at Charles, who was shaking from head to foot, smiling erratically. “Young man,” he said, “I understand that you are a student at Kanuga Christian College.”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Now, KCC is a fine institution. My daughter graduated from there, and several of our friends’ children as well. As you might expect, I am no stranger to the classroom. I hold several degrees from very fine schools. I believe in education. However, I also believe in the brevity of truth. At the time you were clocked by these officers at a speed of sixty-three miles an hour, were you on your way to a hospital?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No one was in the backseat of the car about to have a baby?” A thin ripple of laughter lifted through the room and was immediately hushed.

  “No, sir.”

  “You weren’t fleeing a fire, were you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No tornado chasing you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No lion or tiger or bear, I presume.” The judge shuffled through a folder. “From your records, I don’t have any reason to believe that you were fleeing the scene of a crime.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, all right, then, Mr. Hutchins. Since we have verified that there was no practical reason for you to be driving your vehicle—a BMW, I believe it was?—over the speed limit determined by our lawmakers, I see no reason for the court to listen to a ten-page excuse.”

  “Objection,” said Penn, standing up. Immediately, the bailiff took a step forward, his hand on his gun.

  “Sir,” said the judge. His voice was deep and loud now, his eyes bright with anger. “Have you been sworn in by the court?”

  “No,” said Penn.

  “Then you have no right to speak. Sit down!”

  Penn remained standing. With a flick of his head, the judge indicated to the guard that Penn was no longer welcome in his courtroom. Before he was escorted to the door, Penn put his hat back on. He gave Charles a thumbs-up, and then he was gone.

  The judge shook his head and looked once more at his folder. In a weary voice, he said, “Charles, the court finds you guilty of exceeding the speed limit by almost ten miles per hour. Since you are a student in good standing at Kanuga Christian College, with no previous criminal record, I will recommend that the usual sentence be suspended, that you are only required to serve one week in jail, and that this term be arranged in accordance with your academic schedule, so that you don’t miss any classes. I think spring break would be appropriate.” He tapped his gavel again. “Court dismissed.”

  We found Penn outside, stubbing a cigarette out on the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest. “You are in a position to free this country,” he told Charles, who was crying. Miss Octavia found a tissue in her purse and gave it to him, but she remained standing straight and tall beside him, looking at no one, saying nothing.

  “This speeding charge is an illicit conviction,” Penn said.

  “Penn is right, Charles,” said Diane. “We’re not done here. I think you might keep a journal while you are incarcerated and submit an article to the Kanuga News and Observer.”

  “You can fight this,” said Penn. “Take it to a higher court. That whole circus in there was illegal.”

  Charles blew his nose and tried a joke. “I guess I could call it ‘What I Did Over Spring Break.’ ”

  “I know this is tough,” said Diane, “but I think you need to write about your dad.”

  Miss Octavia frowned, but Diane missed that cue.

  “This is a crossroads for you,” Diane continued earnestly. “It’s unfair, but it’s a chance for you to examine the choices people make while in the grip of injustice—”

  “Excuse me?” interrupted Miss Octavia. “Whose ‘dad’ is this in reference to?”

  “I’m talking about Charles’s father,” said Diane.

  “Then you are talking about my husband,” said Miss Octavia. “And you are talking about a subject of which you know nothing.”

  Nervously, Diane fingered the buttons of her denim jacket. “Charles mentioned his father in a few essays he wrote for me this year.”

  Miss Octavia turned to her son. “What the hell is she talking about?”

  “Let me explain, Mama,” said Charles. “Don’t get mad.”

  “Ain’t nobody mad,” said Miss Octavia.

  “His writing has a lucidity and honesty that eludes most of my students,” said Diane. “Some things he writes are disturbing, and I admire the courage—”

  “Was I talking to you?” said Miss Octavia.

  Diane took a step back. Charles sucked his cheeks in, let out a long breath, and said, “Mama, Ms. Montgomery-Thibodeau just wants us to stop writing what we think people want to hear and write what we need to say.”

  “Charles’s writing has improved dramatically this year,” said Diane. “The students”—her voice faltered as Miss Octavia faced her with her arms crossed over her chest—“they are fascinated with his telling of experience. He’s discovering his story.”

  “His story?” said Miss Octavia. By now, she had eaten her lipstick off, and one wedge of hair had come unsprayed. When she reached out and shook her finger in Diane’s face, the rope of pearls swung across her bosom. “Charles’s life isn’t a story for your class, Ms. Montgomery-Thibodeau. My family isn’t a cause for you to get behind so you can wave your flag and say, ‘I helped those poor black people.’ ”

  “Mama, she didn’t mean it that way,” Charles said, but Miss Octavia wasn’t hearing arguments.

  “Charles is my son!” she shouted. “This story is our story, and it is private!” With that, she turned and stomped away in her high heels, clutching her bag tightly under one arm.

  Charles called Diane the next day, the day of Max’s talent show, to thank her for coming to the trial. I could tell he was trying to apologize for Miss Octavia’s wrath, because Diane kept saying into the phone, “Believe me, I understand how protective mothers can feel about their sons.” She did not mention that she had bawled all the way home from the courthouse and then crawled into bed with a stack of my Seventeen magazines and a jar of peanut butter. She definitely does not have a thick filter.

  On the other hand, maybe she did understand Miss Octavia’s desire to protect her son. Diane had been mollycoddling Max since he woke us up that morning with the bugle call of “I can’t go to the talent show! I’m sick!” She took his temperature, looked in his ears and down his throat, inquired about his poop, and diagnosed him with stage fright. He did the I am a failure routine before and after breakfast and again after school. He tried it again at dinner, but he couldn’t get much bandwidth because Grandma was calling us every few minutes to remind us not to be late.

  Although we were not late, Grandma and Papa had been waiting for thirty minutes when we arrived, so we seemed late. Even though the auditorium was still empty, Grandma had saved our seats by weaving her long orange scarf through the chairs.

  “You didn’t bring Penn,” she said as we untied the scarf. “I thought he was supposed to help.”

  “He might be busy,” said Diane.

  “Busy?” said Grandma, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. “Where
are the dogs?”

  “They’re in the car with the window down,” said Diane.

  “Who’s going to bring the dogs backstage?” asked Papa.

  “Henry! We were just talking about that. Penn is supposed to be here, and he’s late.”

  “Penn?” he said.

  “Yes, Penn,” she said loudly. “Diane’s man-friend. He’s not her boyfriend, I guess. I don’t know. She never tells us anything.”

  Diane ignored her. Pointedly.

  “Well, if he’s not here in ten minutes, it will be too late,” said Grandma.

  “Too late?” cried Max. “You mean I’m going to fail?” He was so nervous he had thrown up in the car, right after the dogs did. “I don’t think I can do this,” he said. “My stomach hurts.”

  “It’s just nerves, honey,” said Diane. “Take a deep breath. Remember what I taught you? Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile.”

  He breathed in, gasping, and then exhaled like he was trying to put a fire out. That’s when I noticed his breath.

  “Oh Lord,” I said. “He’s been eating the dog biscuits.”

  “I have not!” he cried, and clamped his mouth shut. There were crumbs in the corners of his mouth.

  “You should feed him meat,” said Grandma. “I’d eat dog biscuits too, if I had to be a vegetarian.” Then she heaved her pocketbook onto her lap, put her glasses on, and dug around until she found two peppermints good for dog-biscuit breath.

  “I’m walking Max backstage now,” said Diane, taking Max by the hand. You could see the commands she had written on his forearm: “Sit Stay Shake Roll Over,” and a new one they had practiced, “Wobble.” His pockets were stuffed with Pup-Peronis.

  “Penn isn’t coming,” Grandma said, looking at her watch. To distract herself, she asked me about Billy.