I always knew I'd have to write this, but I never thought I'd have to write it so soon.
I thought I'd be an old man, or at least a much older man, writing about my professor, my mentor, my friend, Kelly. I thought I'd be all bald and be-gutted, laughing and smoking cigarettes with his newest batch of the hipster English majors that always seemed to be nipping at his heels and holding his court. I thought I'd hold a queer fascination to them because I'd have lapsed into that mid-life malaise that catches up with all of us sooner or later (but that he managed to dodge for, Jesus, his entire life), but I'd have the unique perspective of knowing him Way Back When. I thought they'd love to hear me regale them with stories about him (and in the process, like always, make me seem cooler by association) because I was his first. His first tenure-track-job writing student. His first writing major. His first advisee. His first mentee. His first protégé. His first student-turned-friend. He had many students like these (and you know who you are), but I imagined this batch outside the funeral home to hold me in some sort of unearned awe, because I'd be old and square and anachronistic and maybe more than a little pathetic by then. I may be falsecool now, and I may not fit in most places I go, and I'm definitely sad by every measure of the word, but I'm also one other thing, and it's a thing nobody can't never take away from me, no matter where life, love or longing ever takes me on this fucking Alabama state fair of a world we live in.
I.
Am.
First.
I'd tell them: we were miles upon miles apart in upbringing, we were opposite sides of the aisle on a lot of shit, but we were kindred spirits, Kelly and me. Life threw us together in that madcap way that only makes sense if you were in his closet of an office his first year at Mount, also my first year at Mount, shaking hands on the decision to fuck it, let's build a writing major in this Lit-obsessed English department and see how shit shakes out. He was 28, I was 19, and as the sun shone through his tiny little window, the light coming over his shoulder and making a shiny patch on t-shirt, I had no idea that we'd be so meaningfully intertwined for the rest of our lives.
I'd say: we fought tooth and nail to make the writing major important in a capital-I way, that every class that he designed and I enrolled mattered not just to us, but to students years down the road who loved to read but yearned to write. To write their lives and situate themselves and at the same time to grow and to learn and to reflect and to better. To improve.
I'd talk about: the first writing center, the one that didn't exist a year prior, was in the third floor of the old library. It was a closet—two tables, six chairs, one computer. We walked around campus and hung up fliers in high traffic areas, hoping to scare up business so we wouldn't lose our funding. It was so hot in the summer and so cold in the winter that October and April were the only manageable months. Neither of us knew how to work Excel, but nonetheless we managed to develop a record-keeping system that halfway made sense. He made that writing center out of whole cloth through sheer force of his will, and if you think you know inspiration, my brother, you only read about it in picture books.
I'd ask: does he still show too many movies in his classes? Pulp Fiction, Saturday Night Fever, Hoop Dreams, Fire Walk With Me, Roger and Me? Canonical, now. His laugh—and you knew this if you ever heard it—made everybody laugh. Kelly was the king of every room I ever saw him walk into, and be it backwards-talking midgets, rabbit-killing factory workers, disco-dancing Scientologists, existential hitmen or any point in between, he found the humor (and the academic poignancy) in the art our culture produces and was somehow able to give those of us listening and adding to his guffaw the intellectual radar to appreciate those things too. He also got the week off from planning class, which is tits.
I'd bum one of their Parliaments and giggle: when Kelly's dad died on the first day of fall semester, when I was a senior, he left for Texas with me in charge of his classes and his WC. I taught 2 sections of freshman comp, one section of Race, Culture and American Society, and one business writing class for a week, and I was terrified, but the knowledge that someone believed in me—a backward-ass country boy, socially awkward, nervous-in-front-of-groups kinda cat—made fucking up not even an option because I never wanted to let him down. I ran the Center a little more smoothly, mostly because I knew all the tutors and because I knew how to run it because he let me in on every nook and every cranny of the writing center bidness, me standing over his shoulder and him typing and talking faster than anyone I'd ever seen before or since. And because I was First, everybody listened to me. Or maybe it was just because he believed in everyone who ever worked for him and they didn't want to disappoint him. Either way, when he came back—a stunning essay about his dad called "Another Sucker on the Vine," still the best-written and -titled work I've ever read, in hand—shit hadn't gone to any sort of hell in any sort of a basket on my watch, and that'll've had to have done.
Before some of them started to walk backwards toward the home and pay their final respects, I'd wonder: didja ever go to a conference with Kelly? He was a master at finding juuuust the right song on the radio, he was a master at buying beer as sarcastically as possible at gas stations, he was a master at finding the right sessions to attend, and he was a master at getting the best work possible out of his undergraduates so that every conference they ever attended is small potatoes because all they have to do is imagine Kelly, sitting in the back of the room and nodding and rolling his eyes and cracking that little smile of his, with them for every presentation, panel, and workshop they ever give hence.
And for those who still lingered, I'd say: when I graduated, right after the ceremony, my dad leapt from his seat in the auditorium and chased Kelly down outside, he in his mine rescue golf shirt and K in his maroon cap and black gown, and said some version of "You've been like a father to my son in ways that I just can't, and I surely appreciate all you've done for him," to which he said, "Your son is a great writer and an even better person, and I'll miss him now that he's moving on." These two gargantuans in my life met one more time, at my wedding, but them two semi-made-up-but-accurate-in-the-ways-that-matter sentences tell you all you need to know and most of what you don't.
The rest of our relationship exists on emails and blogs and texts and phone calls save one lovely evening at Tavern On The Green and frankly, I'd rather dole it out in bite-size awkward-for-you conversational tidbits ad infinitum. We keep the dead alive with our mouths, and I have every intention of keeping Kelly alive and with us for as long as people will put up with me telling them that his favorite beer is Miller High Life and his hair is always interesting and his right ear's pierced twice and his secret crush is Joan Didion and his handwriting is large and loopy and his lattes are always fatty and his choice in cars is borderline-OCD and his favorite person in the world is Kate McMahon and his golf swing is sudden and abrupt and he gave himself the nickname K-Lo and he's not as creative at cursing as you might think and he speaks more fondly of bong water than he should and his brother's an exhausting fuckup and his letters to me are still on my fridge and he loves Atari Teenage Riot and his opinions on Howard Stern are way engaging and he uses the term "little brother band" in a way only he and I know and his fantasy football team is playing mine in August and this is such a rough rough rough draft that I have no idea how to revise on my own if you know what I mean and his nickname for his daughter is Doodle which is awesome when you think about it and that that motherfucker stomped him some terra firma, and we're all better for it.
I've only known for 45 hours, and it's already felt like an eternity.
Till then, old sport.
I thought I'd be an old man, or at least a much older man, writing about my professor, my mentor, my friend, Kelly. I thought I'd be all bald and be-gutted, laughing and smoking cigarettes with his newest batch of the hipster English majors that always seemed to be nipping at his heels and holding his court. I thought I'd hold a queer fascination to them because I'd have lapsed into that mid-life malaise that catches up with all of us sooner or later (but that he managed to dodge for, Jesus, his entire life), but I'd have the unique perspective of knowing him Way Back When. I thought they'd love to hear me regale them with stories about him (and in the process, like always, make me seem cooler by association) because I was his first. His first tenure-track-job writing student. His first writing major. His first advisee. His first mentee. His first protégé. His first student-turned-friend. He had many students like these (and you know who you are), but I imagined this batch outside the funeral home to hold me in some sort of unearned awe, because I'd be old and square and anachronistic and maybe more than a little pathetic by then. I may be falsecool now, and I may not fit in most places I go, and I'm definitely sad by every measure of the word, but I'm also one other thing, and it's a thing nobody can't never take away from me, no matter where life, love or longing ever takes me on this fucking Alabama state fair of a world we live in.
I.
Am.
First.
I'd tell them: we were miles upon miles apart in upbringing, we were opposite sides of the aisle on a lot of shit, but we were kindred spirits, Kelly and me. Life threw us together in that madcap way that only makes sense if you were in his closet of an office his first year at Mount, also my first year at Mount, shaking hands on the decision to fuck it, let's build a writing major in this Lit-obsessed English department and see how shit shakes out. He was 28, I was 19, and as the sun shone through his tiny little window, the light coming over his shoulder and making a shiny patch on t-shirt, I had no idea that we'd be so meaningfully intertwined for the rest of our lives.
I'd say: we fought tooth and nail to make the writing major important in a capital-I way, that every class that he designed and I enrolled mattered not just to us, but to students years down the road who loved to read but yearned to write. To write their lives and situate themselves and at the same time to grow and to learn and to reflect and to better. To improve.
I'd talk about: the first writing center, the one that didn't exist a year prior, was in the third floor of the old library. It was a closet—two tables, six chairs, one computer. We walked around campus and hung up fliers in high traffic areas, hoping to scare up business so we wouldn't lose our funding. It was so hot in the summer and so cold in the winter that October and April were the only manageable months. Neither of us knew how to work Excel, but nonetheless we managed to develop a record-keeping system that halfway made sense. He made that writing center out of whole cloth through sheer force of his will, and if you think you know inspiration, my brother, you only read about it in picture books.
I'd ask: does he still show too many movies in his classes? Pulp Fiction, Saturday Night Fever, Hoop Dreams, Fire Walk With Me, Roger and Me? Canonical, now. His laugh—and you knew this if you ever heard it—made everybody laugh. Kelly was the king of every room I ever saw him walk into, and be it backwards-talking midgets, rabbit-killing factory workers, disco-dancing Scientologists, existential hitmen or any point in between, he found the humor (and the academic poignancy) in the art our culture produces and was somehow able to give those of us listening and adding to his guffaw the intellectual radar to appreciate those things too. He also got the week off from planning class, which is tits.
I'd bum one of their Parliaments and giggle: when Kelly's dad died on the first day of fall semester, when I was a senior, he left for Texas with me in charge of his classes and his WC. I taught 2 sections of freshman comp, one section of Race, Culture and American Society, and one business writing class for a week, and I was terrified, but the knowledge that someone believed in me—a backward-ass country boy, socially awkward, nervous-in-front-of-groups kinda cat—made fucking up not even an option because I never wanted to let him down. I ran the Center a little more smoothly, mostly because I knew all the tutors and because I knew how to run it because he let me in on every nook and every cranny of the writing center bidness, me standing over his shoulder and him typing and talking faster than anyone I'd ever seen before or since. And because I was First, everybody listened to me. Or maybe it was just because he believed in everyone who ever worked for him and they didn't want to disappoint him. Either way, when he came back—a stunning essay about his dad called "Another Sucker on the Vine," still the best-written and -titled work I've ever read, in hand—shit hadn't gone to any sort of hell in any sort of a basket on my watch, and that'll've had to have done.
Before some of them started to walk backwards toward the home and pay their final respects, I'd wonder: didja ever go to a conference with Kelly? He was a master at finding juuuust the right song on the radio, he was a master at buying beer as sarcastically as possible at gas stations, he was a master at finding the right sessions to attend, and he was a master at getting the best work possible out of his undergraduates so that every conference they ever attended is small potatoes because all they have to do is imagine Kelly, sitting in the back of the room and nodding and rolling his eyes and cracking that little smile of his, with them for every presentation, panel, and workshop they ever give hence.
And for those who still lingered, I'd say: when I graduated, right after the ceremony, my dad leapt from his seat in the auditorium and chased Kelly down outside, he in his mine rescue golf shirt and K in his maroon cap and black gown, and said some version of "You've been like a father to my son in ways that I just can't, and I surely appreciate all you've done for him," to which he said, "Your son is a great writer and an even better person, and I'll miss him now that he's moving on." These two gargantuans in my life met one more time, at my wedding, but them two semi-made-up-but-accurate-in-the-ways-that-matter sentences tell you all you need to know and most of what you don't.
The rest of our relationship exists on emails and blogs and texts and phone calls save one lovely evening at Tavern On The Green and frankly, I'd rather dole it out in bite-size awkward-for-you conversational tidbits ad infinitum. We keep the dead alive with our mouths, and I have every intention of keeping Kelly alive and with us for as long as people will put up with me telling them that his favorite beer is Miller High Life and his hair is always interesting and his right ear's pierced twice and his secret crush is Joan Didion and his handwriting is large and loopy and his lattes are always fatty and his choice in cars is borderline-OCD and his favorite person in the world is Kate McMahon and his golf swing is sudden and abrupt and he gave himself the nickname K-Lo and he's not as creative at cursing as you might think and he speaks more fondly of bong water than he should and his brother's an exhausting fuckup and his letters to me are still on my fridge and he loves Atari Teenage Riot and his opinions on Howard Stern are way engaging and he uses the term "little brother band" in a way only he and I know and his fantasy football team is playing mine in August and this is such a rough rough rough draft that I have no idea how to revise on my own if you know what I mean and his nickname for his daughter is Doodle which is awesome when you think about it and that that motherfucker stomped him some terra firma, and we're all better for it.
I've only known for 45 hours, and it's already felt like an eternity.
Till then, old sport.
7 Comments:
Hi Steve,
This is Andrew. You don't know me, though I've secretly and almost obsessively read your blog for probably over a year now, which I found through Kelly's, and on and on. Though I've never commented before, I suppose I fall under the category of the newest batch of Parliament Smoking Hipster Writing Majors nipping at his heels, who worked at the WC (that the two of you founded) for three years, who he introduced to Joan Didion and Gerald Early and Hunter Thompson (among others), who took HELL taught by Kelly and Kate McMahon (you can imagine how that was), who has followed him avidly through blog and email for two years after he left, who can still see that little smile of his as he explained how the pathetic post-breakup essay I wrote for him needed to be more than "a well-off college kid intellectually masturbating at 4 A.M. (which, though it sounds like an insult, helped the piece and my subsequent writing tremendously), and who still types &c. instead of etc. because that was how Kelly did it, and the list goes on and on and on. This might be the best, most accurate description of him anyone could ever write, and like you and everyone else who knew him, I will miss him terribly. I still don't know what else to say beyond that, other than that this is a better portrait than any picture could provide.
Damn Steve. He would love this. This is spectacular.
My man, this is top shelf. Seriously. I don't know a lot, but I do know that if anyone doubted you did your old boy proud, they certainly know it now.
Paul echoes my sentiments exactly. If there's one thing we know, it's that you are going to keep his legacy alive. If we all could be that lucky...
fan-frickingtastic writing, S. just fantastic. i only knew him from FF, but it is quite clear that the world is a better place for having had Kelly around, however short...I lost my poetry mentor almost 2 yrs ago and i'm still not "over" it.
Steve,
I'm sure this wasn't easy to write, and I not only applaud its brilliance but also the effort and strength it took to do it. "We keep the dead alive with our mouths..." is beautiful, and reminds me a bit of what I always assumed was Kelly's favorite Joan Didion quote: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
The only true reply I can offer here is a small anecdote from one night during the fall of our senior year. I slaved away on my John Bienz SCE in the WC while Kelly sat at the desk working (since I'd tailored my schedule--as did you and Brett--so that we all worked during the hours that he worked whenever possible).
I told Kelly that, while I really did (and still do) like Olin-Hitt as my advisor, by God if I could go back and start over again I'd have been a writing major, if only because I felt like I could have gotten the best out of myself by working with Kelly.
What you've written here (and also over on Deuce) is the reason why.
I just saw in Mount's magazine that Kelly passed away almost a year ago and I'm sitting at my computer in northern Illinois practically sick to my stomach. It took a little more searching than I'm used to, but I found this blog and I thank you so much for writing it. I can't even imagine how hard it must have been to write it, but you did one hell of a job and I'm now sitting here recalling practically everything I can remember about Kelly. Thanks for sharing such a beautiful essay with everyone. Hell of a job. Wish I could have known him a quarter as well as you did. He will be missed.
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