Excerpt from the Novel, The Republican Professor

Students were standing in clumps and sitting here and there, a murmur punctuated by sharp giggles and back packs on the floor and it all seemed to stop when the lights went dark.

The lights went back on again after a couple of seconds. Everyone looked back at the door where the light switch was, and there stood the professor.

He had a tote bag with heavy books and a teaching jacket . He said, oops, I thought the lights were off already. This is how bright it gets, here ?

The students began sitting down. They were looking at him as he walked to the front of the classroom.

A student in front glared at the professor. He had his hat backward, and the textbook on his desk, along with a pad of paper.

The professor saw him immediately, glanced all around, and stopped at his desk, looking down at the text book and pad of paper for notes. He was there a moment before proceeding to the front.

Welcome to Constitutional Law, Civil Liberties. I’m your professor, he said. I hope that you have the textbooks, he said, as he hefted the tote bag onto the front table by the classroom computer terminal. There was a document camera, and a screen hanging over much of the white board.

How do you get this screen up if I want to write on the board, he asked.

A girl popped up, her pony tail bouncing. She pointed at the small button in the corner behind the computer.

Ah, thank you, he said.

And she silently blushed, and sat back down.

The professor pushed the button, and the screen whirred up. Then, the professor uncapped a marker, and just as the screen ascended, he began writing . But nothing came out of the marker.

The professor recapped the marker and threw it at the wall. It banked off of the large window and landed in the trash can. Some students clapped, others emitted sounds of surprise.

The professor asked around, why do we recap the markers before throwing them away ? Habit I guess. Some students chuckled. Only one student had no reaction, the student with his hat backward, the one in the front, with the textbooks. Only one other student—the girl who’d helped him with the button—had a note pad and the textbooks.

This is an upper-level, senior level analysis of Civil Liberties, primarily looking at the Bill of Rights, he said. Many of you are probably graduating, or think you’re graduating, I should say, at the end of the term.

The class was dead silent.

Do you have the textbooks ? He asked.

A young woman said, we haven’t gotten the text books because we noticed that professors don’t always seem to think they’re important. So we wait to see before getting them.

The professor nodded, and asked, who has the textbooks right now ?

Two students struggled to hold up one of the textbooks, the screen-lifting-button young lady and the hat turned backwards young man. They thudded their textbooks down at the same time and rose their hands instead.

Two out of maybe , the professor said, looking down at the class roster paper, thirty-two. How many of you are seniors ?

Most of the class raised their hands.

Kids, he said. I call you kids because, well, you’re young still. You’ll need the textbooks. There’s a lot of reading.

Most nodded solemnly, and the professor turned around and began writing with a back-up marker he produced from one of his numerous pockets. Nothing much came out of the marker.

I think I’ve had this marker since the Civil War, he said, and some students guffawed. He threw it at the wall, and it banked off of the door and into the trash can. Every one was awake now.

The professor reached into a different pocket in his pants, and took out a third marker. The moment of truth, he said. Thick lines poured out onto the board as the professor wrote the words Truth, Belief, and Evidence.

And he taught the first class.

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This has been an excerpt from The Republican Professor: A Novel, by Lucas Mather