Point and Shoot, Florida (YU)--Early in the fall term, a graduate student/faculty mixer was held, a party, at a faculty member's house, the first of many parties one was expected to attend, and shine at. The parties was where you passed. Or failed.

That first party, Larry and Hazel brought Charly in a backpack.

They were graduates of the Great Books School, St. Johns, in Annapolis. They didn't know any better. People did things like that, at St. Johns.

There was kind of a hushed silence when they walked in, then Larry said, "Oh, boy, whiskey; oh boy food," to relieve the tension, and fell upon the dips and finger foods, the hors d'oeuvres, there was a protocol there he was violating, too.

Heap and Brenda also didn't know the protocol.

Where were you supposed to learn it, if you didn't know it?

How did you keep from being gauche, if you were, well, gauche.

How did you keep from drinking too much, if you were, well, nervous. Apprehensive. Under stress.

Doomed.

Then, as the parties went on, stigmatized, isolated, branded.

Heap and Brenda were drawn to Larry and Hazel.

From the graduate student/faculty mixer on.

Their destinies were linked.

Graduate school was a labor/management issue. Faculty were management.

Is that what Heap wanted to become? Management, in a labor/management issue?

Now, writer/publisher was a labor/management issue, for Heap.

Publishers were management.

Did Heap want to corporatize himself, to have a career as a writer?

Why would he do that? There must be another way.

If there was, he would find it.

If there wasn't, he would live through it.

It wasn't the end of the world.

He'd made it this far.

Why would he suddenly disavow everything he'd stood for and throw in with the enemy?

That would be out of character.

Rather, writing was a test of character.

And endurance.

Did they wear you down?

Heap judged a writer by how long he fought the good fight.