Dartange, Renaissance Poet

Seattle's Green Tortoise Hostel had an abundantly stocked lending library in the common room, so, finding the least dilapidated Naugahyde chair, I grabbed some On the Road-type knockoffs, some coffee, and settled in for some inexpensive, solitary reading. That's when I met Ann. She was in town interviewing for a job with Seattle's EPA, was bright, young, and ostensibly single, as I was, ostensibly. For whatever reason known only between my therapist, midnight confessions and me, I told her that I was an English Professor at a small, Midwestern private school, and, get this: I taught Renaissance Lit. If a better spontaneous bullshitter be known, give them my number. We'll duel.

Having failed or been unwilling to befriend my three fellow roommates, two of whom hailed from Britain, and spent their entire stay shopping at American Eagle, and the other with a lonely affinity towards Seattle's bondage culture, I ventured out further towards Puget Sound, the black collar of my raincoat drawn tightly around my dripping cheeks. I had spent ten dollars calling Sarah from the hostel's grotty payphone, having more or less unintentionally left my cell behind when I was packing. Funds were tightening, and I had satisfied my touristic urges over the previous three days. The Space Needle's zooming, glass-bottomed elevator freaked me out.

Then, there was Ann, walking past the bar. I rushed out and corralled her, and invited her in for a plate of fries, thrilled when she obliged, thrilled to not appear the trapped, fidgety loaner that I was. We talked about Pink Floyd, and both laughed to hear that 1977s Animals was our mutual favorite. She was a bright one, Ann, drawing social parallels between Britain's class system and mordant zoological rock and roll. She had a winning smile and wanted to save the planet, was from Washington DC, and didn't mention a boyfriend. I liked her straight away. She was going to the Ghostland Observatory concert, and invited me along.

I had never heard of Ghostland, but her enthusiasms were compelling. Lasers, she said, and a singer who stalked the stage as though possessed, owning the crowd with his every, slightly effeminate mannerism. It sounded vaguely Floyd-laser show planetarium kind of thing, and my brain, lubricated with french fry grease, happily supported the idea. We caught a cab down to an abandoned warehouse by the Sound, babbling about the Pixies.

The warehouse was gorgeous; exposed beams, spacious, high ceilings, and jammed with young, doe-eyed girls in Rilo Kiley outfits, pupils dilated on whatever was being passed around. On stage, a DJ was spinning something soothing and ambient. Ann and I walked to the bar.
'So, what do you teach, professor?' she asked.
My brain fought through another advancing barley invasion to support bullshit's thinning infantry.
'Well, I teach poetry, mainly.'
Oops, that one shouldn't have slipped out. I can mention G. Chaucer, and more specifically the Miller's tale, until the panties drop, but poetry? Come on, man! Get your shit together! I might just as well have said I was into cold fusion.
'There's this poet named Dartange (name made up on the spot, possibly in vague reference to one of the Three Musketeers ilk) that's really great. Mostly deals with love, the caste system, you know...' I trailed off, hoping to change the subject to trance music, the weather, fashion, for the love-of-all-things-holy, anything.
She entered, to my horror, his name in her phone. Damn technological advances. Ten years earlier, and she would have had to have searched for a pen and paper. I feared she was going to look it up on the spot, and I would be exposed as the fraud I most certainly was. Bring back the Smith Corona! Bring back the tablet and chisel!
Technophobic rantings aside, she just entered it onto her notepad for future reference, and our conversation resumed to my bogus academic credentials.
'I'll bet you get a lot of your young, female students hitting on you,' she stated.
I flushed, thinking about the kind of office hours I would have.
'Well, yes, heh, I said.' Happens all the time. I could sense she was buying it. I was okay with that.

See, most people just talk about themselves, which gives me lots of coy, seductive ammunition to use when I then ask the most thoughtful of questions and give the most considerate responses. It's almost too easy sometimes. Ann wasn't making this easy. She didn't want to talk about herself, she wanted to discuss how I had arranged my syllabus. You can't always count on self-absorption.

Ghostland came on with a flourish, and we crowded to the stage. True to her description, they brought a great level of energy, pomp, and their music wasn't as contrived or cheesy as I though it would be. At times, their electronics were infused with a prog rock sound, with 80s metal vocals. On paper, that sounds pretty dreadful, but they managed. The lead singer had two waist-length braids that made him look Native American, and bounced and crouched behind mirrored, aviator asshole aviator sunglasses. Their set was energetic and spiked with green and pink lasers that shot throughout the warm, industrially themed environment. The keyboardist was dressed in a cape, an Amazing Mumford, silver thing that helped dispel some of the lead singer's pomposity. An hour and a half later, perspiring and satisfied, we exited the venue into one of the heaviest rains I've ever seen, where we waited another half hour to catch a cab.

Back at the hostel, we kissed, and she politely declined when I asked if I could sleep with her in her room. Fair enough. The cheap, foam mattresses were barely big enough for an infant. The next day I packed, ate as much free food from the cafeteria kitchen and caught the flight home, where I went immediately to retrieve my cell phone. A few calls from work, my parents, Sarah, and a single text message from Ann: Who the fuck is Dartange? If only she'd enroll in my class, she would find out.