Mr. Professor and Mr. Leo Stump

Mr. Professor and Mr. Leo Stump




Mr. Leo Stump went to see Mr. Professor. Mr. Leo Stump’s Dad, before he died, told Leo that if Leo ever did dream to write as a writer, he should go to see Mr. Professor. Mr. Professor, Leo’s Dad said, although unrecognized, was nevertheless self evidently great in mind and soul. Mr. Professor was Leo’s Dad’s hero, and Leo trusted his Dad’s judgment. So he laid his simple heart and big dream onto Mr. Professor’s fat lap one sunny spring morning.
Mr. Professor was Leo’s Dad’s good friend. An unpublished writer, Mr. Professor had filled many stacks of paper with passionate handwritings. He wrote stories, poems, fables and plays. But he had never taught in any universities. He acquired that title because anyone seeing him, felt the power of his intelligence and knowledge. He seemed to have carried in his high forehead a room full of old books and manuscripts. But his own manuscripts were never accepted by any publishing houses, and he had since then given up publishing them. When suggested to him that he could self-publish, he rejected the idea as vain. Besides, he did not have the money to do it. Now that he was retired and lived on SSI, and had all the time on earth to write, he found that his writing had become almost his only and lonely world. He showed his writings to Leo’s Dad, and they enjoyed many long afternoons in the clouds of smoke and creativity. Leo’s Dad loved professor’s writings and wanted Leo to study with him many many years ago. But Mr. Professor refused. He said to Leo’s Dad that to have too big a dream overburdened the simple minded. And when simple people had bigger dreams than their simple minds cold handle, it spelt nightmare. Mr. Professor’s encouragement of Leo to remain simple and proportionally ambitious kept Leo growing into an uneventful kid, and then an uneventful young man, and then an uneventful middle-aged man. Now Leo did not want to remain simple any more. He had already acquired a kind of sophistication through life and maybe this expanding of experience as well as conscience would qualify him to dream a bigger dream now. “Dreams never die, they come in at night”, his Chinese girl friend warned him, rolling her slanted eyes， “Dreams were the fever of the heart that remained forever young, they were the Viagra for the soul.” Leo went to see Mr. Professor and told him about his belated dream of becoming a writer. Mr. Professor looked at him straight in the eyes:
“Why a writer?”
“I always have sentences flowing in through my head. If I don’t put them down on the paper, my head would explode, and my heart splintered.”
“Then, do put them down on paper.”
“I have tried, but I have problems. I have blocks. My mother’s voices always shout at me. No, no, this is not right. Don’t say this, this is poor English. No, ….I just can’t put any sentence down without hearing her.”
Mr. Professor shook his head and said, “That’s your Dad’s problems too, but the “sorcerer” in his case was his mom, your grandma. She had always wanted him to write and publish his writings. But your Dad was deadly against her wishes. For many years, your Dad could not write, because your Grandma’s voice was always there. He said he could not stop her voice either. It was not encouragement that he hear from her voice, but rebuke, a disappointment. It was her own dream, not his, your Dad hated to have the same dream as your grandma did. And your Dad hated to be challenged, especially by his own mother. He seemed to have developed a kind rebelliousness against her wishes, any wish, as long as it came from her. So she simply became his curse of creativity. He would just block his creativity simply to upset her. And he had no power to stop such foolishness. He said he would like to take his own chance to invoke his own muses, and he never had the luck to fulfill it until your Grandma died. ”
“He did pick up writing though, did he?”
“Yes, then when he married your mom later in life, your mom refused to recognize her mother-in-law’s dictatorship in arts, and secretly set out to destroy your grandma’s mission to turning her husband into an “starving artist”. She said with religious earnestness that he had to bring home the bacon regularly and the mouths in the house be feed not by divine fantasies but by milk, butter and bread. Your Dad did write sporadically, a line or two in his off-days, but he always dropped his line half way because your mom’s voice was telling him that he was not cut out to be a writer. But then, your grandma’s voice seemed louder than your mom’s. And I believe, towards the end of your grandma’s life, your Dad did come to me. He told me that he was so tired of fighting two women at a time. I think your grandma was winning in the end. One of her husbands was a celebrated poet and they made consorted effort to seduce him into writing when he was in his teens. Yet, all in vain. But writing had become part of his battle, to either pursue or not to pursue. He did develop critical faculty towards writings. Now all the troubles seem to have disappeared since the deaths of both women in his life. Thank God. He could eventually write without voices in the head. But he was not very productive, only managed to put down short lines and wrote a fantasy story of a rape. It was a piece about a rape victim seeing white lights. He never wrote long pieces after that. That’s why he wrote poems. He said he carried your mom’s voice and his mom’s voice with him anywhere he went for too long. It was such a struggle just to shut these two women’s voice down.”
“Yes, my mom didn’t like us spending our time bringing no money. She kept the house, fed us and he got to bring back the bacon. By the way what do you think my Dad’s poems? Are they good?”
“His talents were not proportional to his ambition. His head was big but his voice was weak though violent. That’s why he never quit his day time job. You will make a good student now that you Mom and Dad both died, and your grandmother long gone. Who are you reading? Herman Melville?”
“Yes and no, I used to read him, my Dad loved him, he said I could not talk about writing if I had never read Herman Melville. but he is too tough, all the names in his writings sound alien. I ‘m reading Harry Potter now.”
“Well, then go home and read old Herman’s Mardi before you come to me again, that ancient Herman, he is still the best. He is the reason why your Dad and I are fast friends,” Mr. Professor told Leo.
“You know what makes a good writer”? Leo remembered a conversation with his Dad, who had been gaining a lot insights about frustrated creativity. “Spleen, spleen, spleen.” His Dad said with a fervent outburst that was so rare all those years Leo had known him.
“Spleen, that average 6 oz. blubber, that is where the creative fever burning, cooking the emotions as an electric stove. It is in the guts, where the gut feeling storms occur, the red, blue, and white pulp stuff ferment, red blood flow and infections of the mind start. Have you ever seen your own spleen? I did, in my dreams, in my dreams, I saw it, purple and gray. Thick with red desire to rush to the heart. That’s where the creativity’s shrine is, when spleen is at full tide, great waves crush the soul and great writer like old Herman was transformed from a melancholy young dude to a seaman, and his young talents to write, or rather to yell, to shout, to howl, burst forth. It is from his spleen, that first earthquake of creativity shook his guts. He said that himself. Yes, from the spleen, my boy, the Chinese write from their 9 pieces broken intestines and meshed liver, the Greek write from two parts of broken hearts. Do you feel your pains in the spleen? If you do, you should start to get ready to write. It is not in the brain, not in the head, nor in the heart, it is in the spleen. It is in there that ink turns spleen bitter activities into art, into poem, into prose, into saga, into great pyramids of inflammations of guts. A good writer digs the guts out of his characters he has created from the spleen, from his own spleen.” Leo remembered his Dad’s near cannibal delight in his passionate speech one winter evening when a hail broke out in the North Bay, California.



“Your Dad used to write light short pieces that scratch armpits and pull mustache, a teaser kind of writing, a sort of leisure, cream puff writing, good for the old ladies with pink tea cup and pumpkin pies.” One day, after the April 1st Fool’s day, Leo paid another visit to Mr. Professor. Mr. Professor stood himself up before Leo and looked down at Leo with a faraway look.
“He wrote this:

Lying between the hours
I play with hands
Of time
My ideas
In boiling water
Sprout from coffee grounds

No, no, no, no, I told your Dad he was losing his maleness. He is becoming a soft poet. He told me that he was having mad sex with another woman, who was not your mom. And he was not suffering from spleen pains anymore. There was ‘tender sarcasms’ in his writing, His own words, I swear, his own words. Needless to say, some men channel all their virility into writing, they call it the sublimation of sexual energy. I think writing and having sex share some commonality, both being creative, reproductive. Males are not equipped with the birth channels to give birth to an infant. But they have their own artistic womb, the incubation chamber for his spleen quakes, and rhetorical tsunamis. So, they give birth to words, books, thoughts and arts. That’s the closest thing to “giving birth”. That’s what makes a real writer, the wish to want to get pregnant, to carry an idea as a baby for nine months and to see it be delivered to the world. And they most of the time get impregnated by a woman, a female, whom we call muse.” Mr. Professor turned to Leo and asked him if he knew woman. “I mean, truly knowing. Only a heart breaking woman can get your spleen burst, and then your vision will appear”.
“My mom broke my heart many times, but I can’t write it, I am speechless when I am thinking of it.”
“Well, if your mom failed to initiate your into literary creativity, I don’t see who could, and who would.”
“You, my Dad told me to see you if I wish to learn to write.”
“Me, no, my boy, I don’t think I can teach you. You either have found out about writing now, or you would never get it. How old are you?
“I am 45.”
“Gush, you have such smooth hands and pale features. Do you suffer from any pains now?” Mr. Professor sounded almost maternal.
“Look at your hands, they are so slander, fine nails, long and well-preserved. Have you ever dug a ditch, laid a tile, or flip a bloody slap of beef ? A real writer needs to dig, rip, cut, dismember. Like a worm in the intestines, he goes through every inch of the tunnels of darkness, around every corner of twists. You need to be a butcher, see blood and flesh, dripping with emotions and with liveliness, with breath of fire, a big heavy blob of red passion from the spleen, soak yourself in that juice of imagination and emerge, submerge. Rub it on you , rub yourself in that pulp, rub spleen flavor on your characters, you need dynamics, you need to be infectious, blood-boiling, you understand?”
“Yes, sir,”
“You understand? Don’t kid me. How can you understand? You tender turkey. Your life is like a long nap, your brain is too quiet, your vision too tender, growing up in a small town with more chickens than people.”
“So? Jack London used to live here right next to this neighborhood, and Glen Ellen has only 992 people, not much bigger than our town.”
“Jack London, you talk about Jack London? He is a wolf, he lived in a wolf house, he gnaws, howls, fights and kills. He got white fangs and iron heels, and he burnt down his wolf house.”
“Did he? I heard it was an accident.”
“You heard, what do you know about him. He is no small town kid, he is from San Francisco. A sailor on horse back, a wayward seafarer.”
“Yes, Sir. Do I have a chance to break myself in in writing?”
“You can surely hope, and that’s all you can do at present. But be advised, my boy, writing is a very painstaking process. The agonies of writing are enough to put a gun in Hemingway‘s head. Are you insured? My boy?”
“No, I don’t have the money to insure myself, besides, I am still too young to shoot myself.”
“You never know, you never know, be prepared, if you wish to take up writing seriously.” Then they left together to have some coffee in Starbucks.



They took seats by the window which commanded a view of a sun flooded street. “You said you are 45?” Mr. Professor asked without expecting an answer. It was more a question of an after thought, like a casual greeting “How is the weather?” Mr. Leo Stump however, answered with conviction and eagerness, “Yes”.
“45, Nietzsche was 46 when he died a great writer. And you are writing stories on school notebooks? Yes, I know, it makes no difference what papers you write on. But writing is no merry spring outing. Even the greatest writer old Herman Melville ached at completing a book of monumental size: “Who will read me?” In his time, peopled wrote, not type, no typewriters were invented. You are already in the digital age, everyone write with Words. Yet, you don’t, you still write with pen and school notebooks.” After they brought their hot coffee in paper cups to their little table, Mr. Professor resumed their discussion: “Herman did the number, he said that in a book of one thousand pages--twenty-five lines each--each line ten words--every word ten letters. That’s two million five hundred thousand a’s, and i’s and o’s to read!” Mr. Professor took a deep sip and looked at Mr. Leo with sympathy.
“Yes, I know, my Chinese girl friend calls writing building the Great Wall with bricks of word.” Mr. Leo smiled apologetically.
“Sure, sure, watch your I ‘s and your t’s and your grammars and your own marriages.”
“Why about marriages?”
“People become greater writers before or after marriages. It either inspires them to write about happiness, or about tragedies. It is the turning point when they shed tears and have revelations about God, that sort of thing.”
“How many times you are married, sir, if I may ask?”
“Me?” Mr. Professor was a little taken back at Leo’s straight forwardness.
“Three, three, good or bad, enough shit to fill a big pot.”
“I guess so, my Dad cared little about marriage. He lived alone after my Mom died.”
“What about you?”
“Never married, but I have lived with women, if that means something.”
“While, you may expect some Oscar Wilderian wisdom, then. You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.”
“I don’t think so. I can live with them, and I can live without them. It works for me either way.”
“Maybe you will be a late bloomer, a upcoming writer if you really believe in yourself.”
“I just start to lose hair but gain weight. However, I think I am going to grow a beard.”
“Ok, ok, show me something tomorrow, something that you have put down on the paper.”
“Yes, sir. I know my father had always wanted me to write.”
“ He is six feet under, and with a bigger dream than he can ever handle. What has become his dream?” Mr. Professor wiped his mouth over a paper napkin.
“Top soil, I guess.” said Leo.
“Then don’t you mind about him now. Be advised, young middle aged man, Just go home and write if you have nothing else to do and no woman to love.”
They walked out of the coffee shop into the sun lit street.



Leo sat at the table. He cleared the top and laid out a stack of paper. Then he went to the window and drew the curtains. He liked to feel at night when he wished to write. He turned on the lights, and took out his ball pen, he made a pot of coffee and lit a cigarette. He closed his eyes and started to activate his brain power. He was sending signals to invoke his muse and trying to receive his first line that would knock his potential readers over, something like “to be or not to be, that is the question.” Or, “Had I rather be a fool than a wise man.” But all the great lines seem to have been snatched away by higher powers. After a while, he decided that his muse was not on duty and felt compelled to use a cliché, a conventional opening that always convey some sense of immortality and eternity but without a copy right: “Once upon a time.”
One had to put his first foot out, whatever, so as to be able to walk. The first sentence was like a first step. Only after this first step was taken, then the mind started its journey. One should not bind his feet with rules and tips to write. “ Just get over with it, and the story would follow as naturally as the running water.” Leo self helped his efforts.
Once upon a time I was walking my dog Sammy one sunny spring morning in downtown Porkville. I was invited by a stranger to have coffee in the restaurant with him. He came to me, and introduced himself as certain Mr. His name now escaped me. He said he and his friends by the table saw me walking with the dog and it made a very lovely picture on this sunny spring day. They were interested in knowing me and wanted to know if I would grant them the honor of having coffee with them. It was a very cordial and polite invitation. Warm engaging smiles on his face, I could not find any reason to say no and so I said the pleasure was mine. I tied Sammy by the rail and walked in after the new friend. For the convenience of recalling the story, I need a name, and so he got his, Mr. Kent. There were four others, Mr. Marlboro, Winston, Chesterfield and Redding. Mr. Kent seemed to be the host, and he ordered some fresh coffee and a piece of cheesecake for me and he looked at me and said,
“I don’t believe you are married?”
“Charmed.”
“Would you like to be Mrs. Redding?”
“Is that a question or a problem?”
They burst laughing.



Leo put down a full stop, and then his pen. Yes, Mr. Professor was right in warning him that his Dad was trying to put a big dream into his son’s small head. He did not have enough imagination to fantasize what was in that Mr. Kent’s mind to speak the way he did. This was a story his Chinese girl friend told him. It did happen to her and she told him as a joke. He liked the way his Chinese girl friend smart talked to those guys. With laughter still ringing in the air, they chatted away about weather and communism. Then the group dissolved and the story ended. How easy it was to come to the end of the story, to put a full stop to it. Leo remembered what his Dad said about the spleen, the intestines and the crawling into a different person’s chamber of emotions and transforming himself into that character: to speak in that voice, and to behave in that manner. This was the part he had always fantasized, he was directing a life, creating a disaster, or making up a belief, initiate a Gospel of private salvation. This way he felt that he was in control over the life of his characters. He was telling them where they should go and what they should do. As if he was driving a car, he steered the wheel. He carried his characters into a bar, to a hotel, to a jail or to a car crash. Or he could even take them to commit suicide. He enjoyed that part immensely, and that is scrawling, scrabbling, sort of writing.
Yet, in this story, he did not quite know where to take them. They were so flirty yet friendly with his Chinese girl friend, those over well-feds, to borrow a unfit name for them from Nietzsche, those “over”-men. They needed a twist in their bowls. There was too much ego gas in their intestines, and they needed a rip. Leo needed to take revenge on the paper at least, to find judgment on the paper . This has always been done by writers of vengeance. Now he felt his spleen movement. Why his spleen should make a statement about this episode of his girl friend. She was not so much as even kissing him. She thought the episode as trivial and funny, “They are so free speechy”, she commented. She was a good sport when it came to encounters with “small town celebrities,” a category she threw about with disdain. Well, he did not even know whose armpits he was scratching. Leo was very frustrated. Old Herman’s words suddenly loomed large as a ship wreck into his mind: “It is the world of mind, wherein the wanderer may gaze around, with more of wonder than Balboa’s band roving through the golden Aztec glades.” Last night before turning the light off, he did followed Mr. Professor’s instruction and read old Herman in bed.
Somehow he felt better, at least, his mind had wandered, his soul had pained, his fingers had scratched the pen. There were satisfactions in just putting whatever in the mind down on the paper. He felt that action of scrawling on the paper alone had elevated his mind above mediocrity, had defeated his mom’s voice, had lent much comfort to his deceased Dad, and to himself, a good battle even if just to be defeated. Now he could fully identify with the tortured doubts of a would-be writer, his self-chosen rite of initiation.

Of course, the next day, Leo and Mr. Professor met again in Starbucks. They seemed to be closer in a secret delight that Leo had failed to produce a writing, let alone a good one. Mr. Professor was much tender, his eyes addressing the wounds that Leo suffered from a realization that he was not much of a writer. Mr. Professor brought Leo an walnut maple scone to go with his dark French roast and showed a poem Leo’s father wrote to Mr. Professor before he passed away:


Count not the ways
Not the words
Not the days.
My love
To you
For you
Of you
Begins,
Ends.


“I smell a poor spleen here.” Mr. Professor commented, “I do, too, who has he really been in love with though, I have always wandered. ” Mr. Leo Stump nodded.
“literary seduction”. Mr. Professor volunteered his diagnosis. “In the end of his life after his stroke, you Dad felt such impotence to create and he really wished that he had the courage to die. He said dying to him was ‘a private choice, a public duty,’ and he gladly fulfilled both with a diligent heart one day after throwing a party for himself to celebrate his own death. Of course at that time, no one suspected the party was truly a farewell party.” His eulogy, the last piece of his writing appeared in the paper a week later. “A non apologetic busy loafer, I had made a lot of noise before finally dreaming myself into heavenly quietude….. ” Mr. Professor recited the first line, without any emotion in his voice. Mr. Leo Stump had relived this story many times before and he had come to terms with it. Maybe there was some comfort to be had for Mr. Leo Stump of his Dad’s un-materialized dream that a “greater book” had indeed existed in his brain than in the discount tray in Barnes and Noble in bound form, beyond the criticism of Mr. Professor.