Charlie's Advice

Mr. Stamp is the reason
I'm married to my husband

We were both in his Creative Writing class
That's where we met

My husband was sort of the shy type
But he used to write
The most beautiful stories

I wasn't much of a writer

I only took the class
To listen to other people's work

I did much better in Mr. Stamps
Computer Maintenance class

My husband--boyfriend at the time

Well, we were dating for awhile
When I...

It was stupid

We were being careful
But I guess the...

You know...

It broke

And, I got pregnant

We were only a month away from graduation anyway
And I was a wreck

My parents were really strict
And I knew they'd freak out
If they heard that I'd gotten pregnant
Not just by some guy
But by a writer
Who didn't even know how to change a tire

He wanted to get married
He proposed with this ring
He used his savings to buy

That should give you some idea of how practical he was

His parents weren't even around
He was being raised by his grandmother
Because his mom and dad were methheads
Who lived in this toolshed
On the side of the road
A few towns over

I didn't know what to do
But I wanted to talk to someone
So badly

I wanted to talk to Mr. Stamp
But I couldn't
So...

I wrote it all down
And I handed it in to him
As my final assignment

The next day after class
He called me up to his desk
And showed me my grade

'B-?  Was it that bad?'

'No,' he said, 'But the assignment was to write fiction.'

I just started crying
And talking
And then crying some more
And my head started to hurt
And I was drooling
And it was awful

Mr. Stamp handed me a Kleenex
And went to get me a soda from the machine in the cafeteria
And told me everything was going to be okay

Then he asked me what I wanted to do

What did I want to do?

I think that was the first time
An adult had ever asked me that

'I want to marry him,' I said, 'I know we're kids, and he has, like, no ability to make money at all, and we're going to have a baby, and it's crazy, and I'm stupid, and he's stupid, and I love him, and that's not enough, and we'll be on our own, but...I want to marry him, Mr. Stamp.  I really do.'

I was so wrapped up
In what I was saying
I didn't even see him
Slide the card across his desk at me

His credit card

'A little advice,' he said, 'You can be smart your whole life.  You only get to be stupid once.'

It's funny

Whenever I tell people Mr. Stamp's advice
They like to tell me what could have happened

My husband and I could have been terrible parents
The baby could have grown up in squalor
I could have ended up divorced and bitter
With a kid who hated me

I always wondered why someone who was such a good teacher
Would give their student such bad advice

And his credit card
To follow through on the bad advice

And another part of me wondered
How he knew that we'd be okay
That one day we'd have a nice house
And two more kids
And a business

How did he know?

When my husband and I went back for our ten year reunion
I asked him that

I asked him why he gave me
The advice that he did

He held up two fingers

'One,' he said, 'You could dismantle a computer and put it back together again three times faster than I could.  I wasn't worried about the financial future of somebody who could do that.  And two--'

And this was when he looked across the room
At my husband
Struggling to pour punch into his cup
Without spilling it on himself

'That boy,' Mr. Stamp said, 'Wrote twenty-five stories in one semester--and they were all about you.  That's why I told you to go for it.  Because really, I didn't think it was that much of a risk.'

I gave Mr. Stamp a kiss on the cheek
And told him
That when my husband's first book was published
That fall
He was going to be on the dedication page

'Don't worry about that,' he said, 'But, I would like to know--do you still have my credit card?'

That's my story
About Mr. Stamp