Beneath the Boardwalk (Alex Turner) COMPLETE

6 {raw passion}

There was a dark violet bruise blossoming on Turner's chin, and a pencil balancing on his ear. He sauntered in and sighed as he pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it, elbows resting in front of him onto the back of the seat. He said nothing for a minute.

"What's the bruise from," one of the boys in the back calls out.

Turner squinted his eyes, curling his upper lip. "That's on a need-to-know basis."

The guy mutters something about him being a 'fucking riddle,' to his friend beside him but Turner doesn't hear, or chooses to ignore it.

"Today we're... going to delve into fiction," Turner announced. "Plot twists. Vocabulary, dialogue, conflict, romance.... the like."

His gaze lingers on people. It doesn't disappear, it leaves a stain on you--making you feel dirty even if you hadn't even reciprocated the stare. Turner watched everybody like that, but it seemed he stared at me the longest.

I got out a piece of paper to start writing, and tried to keep my head ducked down while he spoke. "The first idea needed to be established in a story would be the setting. While this does not necessarily mean the place, it could be a state of mind. You as well need to come up with a plot beforehand--a plot twist as well. Stories never work without a plot twist." He stood up slowly and started to walk around the room.

"A key concept is the dialogue... if everyday language is boring vocabulary, things tend to drone on and we lose interest," he said, putting emphasis on the 't'. "Nothing should be predictable because that's not realistic; only should you use predictability if your unpredictability becomes predictable itself."

It would be way easier to take notes if he spoke in regular English, instead of twisting words. I should've just brought a tape recorder to listen to what he's saying later.

He starts to go on in depth about plot, conflicts, themes, symbolism. I could barely keep my hand up while writing down notes. Soon I just got lost trying to understand what he said and put down the pen, listening to what he said. 

"... the last thing we're going to talk about today... is the use of romance." Turner looked at me but doesn't take his eyes off me. My stomach flipped and I didn't know whether to look away or not. "It's the most used cliché of every story. There's always... something interfering between the two. Something deeper."

I looked away from him to break eye contact but I didn't dare look back up to see if he was still looking.

"Writers tend to use romance as a way to draw in the reader... but I believe that's all a foreign concept, love. True romance can't be achieved these days. So you have to make it the most enticing as you can until you find a way to destroy it. Maybe bring it back, maybe crush it. It's about realism and if you don't add the raw," he slips on his words, "raw passion, the raw details, it becomes more about the dream and less about the story."

That was definitely not speaking for a script, I feared it was a bit of experience. I took a deep breath and put my hand up, then put it back down, realizing I didn't need to. "I think you're sidetracking. I don't think you're supposed to add your own opinion in the curriculum."

Turner didn't move. "The world's an opinion, Greene. Even your precious curriculum was built on somebody's opinion of its content."

"I'm just saying, not everybody might take romance as you do. Just because you may not have experienced the feeling of true love doesn't mean it's not out there. Seeing isn't believing."

Turner took a deep breath, running a hand through his locks. The suit framed him nicely. He didn't take his eyes off me. "That's the kind of thing I wanted to hear on your essay."

I felt a bit of chill until he quickly changed the subject. "I want you all to rent out Shakespeare from the library, and finish the book by next week."

I heard a few groans in the back of the auditorium. "Oh, quit your moping," Turner rolled his eyes. He walked over to his desk, and I hadn't noticed before, but he tipped some whiskey into a glass and sipped it slowly. The class was quiet.

He checked the time on his watch and then almost dropped the glass. "Crap," he mumbled, grabbing some of his stuff and almost running out the door before turning back to the class. "Class dismissed fifteen early today. I've got to run." He opened his mouth as if to say something, but quickly exits the building.

My head hurt. I crumpled up the notes I had, deciding all of it was shit, and decided to be ambitious. If adding plot twists into a story is what I needed to make my own life exciting, so be it.

I take the same exit Turner did and watched out the window until he wouldn't be able to see me. Then I stepped out into the cold night to follow him to wherever he's going. 

I can't stand not knowing if the rumours are true or not.