8. GOD’S IMPALA The invitation to interview for the instructor position at the Metropolitan Writing Institute came two years after I submitted my application, which had moldered in a file drawer until a new dean came on board. Unlike his predecessor (who displayed a marked prejudice toward Iowa and Columbia grads), the new dean — whose name, I kid you not, was Dexter Bronze — took a more intuitive approach. In his email he wrote, “You have an interesting resume. Let’s meet.” A few days later, wearing a dark blue sport coat handed down to me from Gregory (who had put on a few extra pounds and liked dressing his slob of a twin in his clothes), I arrived at the cramped midtown office of the Metropolitan Writing Institute, an enterprise familiar to all New Yorkers from the fluorescent orange

