The Case of the Possibly Poisoned Cake
by David Schweidel
For Philip Levine
We were telling stories of work, a litany of indignities and disasters, acts of revenge, moments of unexpected kindness or connection. I knew immediately the story I wanted to tell, but I didn’t know how to tell it — an embarrassing confession, given that I teach Creative Writing.
The first class I ever taught in Berkeley, on the last night of the term, a student named X (okay, not his real name) brought in a pink cardboard cake box, which he set down on the gray desk at the front of the room and deftly deconstructed to reveal a round, single-layer cake glazed in thick chocolate, gleaming oddly in the unflattering fluorescent light.
“For everyone,’ X said.
He’d also brought paper plates, plastic forks, and a sharp knife with which he sliced thin pieces that he handed out, a few at a time, to every classmate.
The last piece he gave to me, without saving one for himself.
“Enjoy,’ he said.
I looked around the room. Not a single student had taken a bite.
Every one of them, I had the uncanny feeling, suspected the cake was poisoned.
Years before the case of the possibly poisoned cake, I’d had a particularly vivid dream in which I was a student in an art class. Think adult education, rickety easels, buzzing fluorescent lights. Other students had brought in food to share: casserole dishes, store-bought cookies, veggies on a plate. Evidently, it was the last night of the term, and everyone was milling around. A very pale woman came my way with a tray of devilled eggs that looked too perfect. The whites were too white, the yellows too yellow, the paprika — or was it cayenne? — too intensely red. The woman herself had spiky hair and wore black lipstick. The teacher, also a woman, reached for a devilled egg, but then hesitated. Her hand hovered over the tray.
“Don’t eat them,’ I said. “They’re poison.’
I was trying to make a joke, diffuse the tension, cover the awkwardness of the teacher’s uncertain hand adrift in midair, but the pale woman serving the devilled eggs gave me a look of such powerful hatred that it jolted me awake.
The devilled eggs wound up in a short story — “Lucky and Unlucky Mean the Same Thing,’ published, eventually, in the Kansas Quarterly. I started teaching Creative Writing. Think adult education, buzzing fluorescent lights — but no easels.
The first class I taught in Berkeley, on the very first night, a student named X politely raised his hand and asked if I ever got story ideas from dreams. I described the devilled egg dream and the story that came out of it while X nodded with great enthusiasm. He looked like an Iowa farm boy, collared shirt, conservative haircut, missionary gleam in his brilliant blue eyes.
After class, he lingered. He’d just graduated from Berkeley, he told me. He was a poet, but he wanted to write short stories like no one had written before.
I don’t remember exactly how I responded, but I probably said something eloquent and inspiring, like “Go for it!’
The first assignment was to write two openings for the same basic story. I’d discovered earlier in my teaching career that if you asked for one opening, some students would obsess, get paralyzed, and not write a word. But if you asked for two openings, both became provisional, and thus much easier to write. Students always arrived at the second class with at least one.
My usual routine was to have students pair up, read each other’s openings, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, focusing on strengths and ways to improve. The class would be silent while everyone read, then a voice or two would pipe up, and soon the room would buzz with ten excited conversations. I’d wander from pair to pair, listening in, making sure everyone was clicking. X’s partner was a woman in her late 40s who had an administrative job at the university. If she indicated discomfort, I missed the signal.