Hawkins was doing his version of an Iranian studentnwho had missed eight weeks of class, yet wanted ann”A” in the calculus course.n”I know you are vondering why I have not to come tonclass since school start. I am good student. You can tell. ButnI am only support of my wife, my brother, my mother, andnnow my cousins from Iran. I must work all the time.”n”It must be hard. Maybe you ought to drop out. You’venmissed all the quizzes.”n”Oh, I can never do it. I must graduate in three years.nAbsolutely. I have had calculus in high school. It is very easynfor me.”n”I understand. But you’ve never been to class and neverntaken any quiz. You’ve got an ‘F’ as of right now.”n”I was really hoping for an ‘A.'”nHawkins’ Iranian accent was perfect and the people at thenparty howled in laughter. His face could change radicallynand with great rapidity. Orie moment he could be Mussolini,nposturing before his troops, the next a ghetto kid playingnbasketball. He became these people. While he was annundergraduate he had done stand-up comedy in smallnnightclubs. After his own schooling was completed, hentaught mathematics at the University of Houston, and nownPoet and novelist William Mills is currently visiting writernat the University of Missouri, Columbia.nAn ImitationnA Short Storynby William Millsn”It behoveth thee to be a fool for Christ.n— Thomas a Kempisn^iMP^M’f-‘K-r”‘^’nhe was teaching math at the medical school.nHe was envied and admired by the young, upwardlynmobile professionals in his set in Houston. The surgeonsnmade more money, but none of them seemed to have such angood time as Hawkins. Lately, he was envied even morenbecause he had the freedom that followed the breakup of hisnmarriage. No one said this, but the surgeons and lawyers stillnhad to have their affairs on the run, in secret. Hawkins wasnhaving the time of his life right before their very eyes. Or sonthey thought. He still had his five-year-old 450 SL convertible.nHis former wife got the house, but he had moved intonone of those opulent apartment complexes that try tonsimulate Caribbean resort hotels. A great plastic domencovered the pool and Jacuzzis, and the recreational area, thenPleasure Dome, looked like part of the Amazon rain forestnairlifted in.nYet with the jazzy apartment, sports car, and plenty ofnmoney from his job, Hawkins lived with a low-frequencynanxiety just underneath all that he thought and did. He feltnas if his life had no pattern, that it might have beennassembled from different suppliers scattered’atound thencountry by someone who had never seen a, man before.nHe left the party with his latest love, a chesty physicalntherapist who was into cats and computers. She was trying tonwork out the physics of a new routine to help a male patientnstand more upright by lying on his back and doing somennnDECEMBER 1989/23n