The Blood-Soaked Semester

 

Herb looked into his tea. “‘White Fang’!” he shouted.

Joshua looked up from the L.A. Times. ”You’re gonna have to keep it down, Dad.”

“We’re outside, for chrissakes!” He flailed his arms like a scarecrow in the wind. “Who the hell is gonna mind if I talk a little loud? It’s a Starbucks, goddamnit, they think they’re selling culture and I’m trying to talk some damn culture here so don’t tell me I’m too loud. Jesus, I used to change your shitty diapers and now listen to you, telling your father, your father,  to shut up in public in front of a Starbucks. A goddamn Starbucks.”

Joshua stirred the milk into his Caffe Latte, licked the sweet foam off the slim wooden stirrer, and considered the old man through hooded lids.

A bus roared by belching fumes. “So, what about ‘White Fang’?” Joshua asked, coughing.

“It’s a good book.”

Joshua yawned. “I know, Dad. I’ve read it only, like, five or six times. As I recall, my doctoral thesis — not that it’s ever done me a damn lick of good — references Jack London and ‘White Fang’ around seven or eight –”

“Do you know why I think it’s a good book?”

“Because you’re a Social Darwinist at heart.”

“No!” he snapped. “And don’t be a smart-ass. You know why I kept that on my curriculum for twenty years? Do you have any idea why ‘White Fang’ was a must-read for every punk passing through my English class?”

Joshua sighed as a woman strolled by with a pink poodle on a leash. “No. Why, Dad? Pray tell, father dear, why on earth, what planets aligned, that would possess you to put ‘White Fang’ on your long-dead curriculum? Please. We’re waiting.”

Herb grinned. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Actually, no, I don’t.”

Herb doubled up a fist and shook it aggressively, speaking through clenched teeth. “Because there’s nothin’ like a dog fight! London wrote great dog fight scenes. There was one semester where I had the students compare and contrast the dog fights in ‘White Fang’ with the bloody cockfight scenes in ‘Day of the Locust’. That was a damn blood-soaked semester, I’ll tell you.”

“Dad?” Joshua pleaded.

“What?” Herb scowled.

“Do be a doll and finish your tea.”

Herb looked into his tea. “Fucking pansie,” he muttered.

“I heard that,” Joshua chirped, his eyes scanning the newspaper again.

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