Photographs of My Father. Paul Spike
says Zeke.
“I hope I get the chance.” I pick up the guitar and take a few token strums on it.
“What do you think would happen if I introduced your father and my father?” I ask Zeke.
He looks up. “Jeez, are you kidding? They’d both get so uptight they’d pop their skulls.”
“I guess so.” His father is a highly successful businessman with a huge company.
“My father told me he wants to be a millionaire in five years. That’s what he said. Can you imagine that?”
“Being a millionaire wouldn’t be so bad,” I say. I am thinking that in five minutes I will have to get up and run to class. “Christ, I feel like cutting the rest of the day.”
“Maybe we should try the Infirmary,” he says.
“I’ve never been in there yet.”
“Good. A point in your favor. I was there in the beginning.”
“What’s it like?”
“Boring. But you can sleep all you want. And the food is a little better. We could tell them…or you could tell them you have the runs. That would get you in for a day. Especially if you work up a little fever.”
“What about you? I don’t feel like going to the Infirmary by myself.”
“I’ll tell them I have pains in my back.”
“Not bad.” I smile.
“Out of sight. They’ll never go for it but it’s definitely worth a try.” He stands up and reaches for his sadly abused gray tweed hanging off the doorknob.
“If they do, a little vacation wouldn’t hurt. I could dig about twenty-four hours of total sleep.”
“Okay. I’ll try first.”
I wish him luck. In a few minutes, I see him through the window trudging out of Smyth Hall in the direction of the Infirmary. A couple of times he rubs his back. Already putting on a show, in case the nurse may be staring out the window with nothing to do this morning. Suddenly Zeke falls down on the concrete path and begins to writhe. Both hands clutch at the small of his back as if there was a small animal biting him. For a minute of pure craziness, Zeke rolls around on the ground alone, acting, but not acting. I can see that the act has taken possession of him and he is lost in a seizure of mad energy. I’m sure the nurse is missing this. Good thing, she would probably send him straight to a psychiatrist. Only I am watching his performance, his fit of Keaton Spirit. They are always talking about the Keaton Spirit. Now here is a boy who really has it.
Far away beyond the row of chestnut trees, big columns of the main classroom building obscure the little Infirmary. Zeke is up and on his feet again, moving toward this target. He mounts the three steps and disappears. I look at my watch. If he is inside for twenty-five minutes, then I will get up and leave his room and go launch my own act. This is tricky, for chapel is almost over. If I wait twenty-five minutes, I will definitely have to go to the Infirmary or else be accused of cutting my English class without an excuse. The Infirmary will write down exactly what time I arrived. So there will be about fifteen minutes of unaccounted time. I will say I was in the bathroom. Nine minutes have now gone by.
The bearlike figure in the rumpled clothes appears on top of the steps of the Infirmary. He walks down, then breaks into a trot back to the dormitory just as the bell rings from the top of the chapel. No luck this morning.
There are two classes after lunch. Zeke has his American history with Turner and I have geometry. Math is my weakest subject and I doze while formulas are run. The bell rings, I yawn and hoist my books.
A strange buzz in the hallways. I leave the building and head toward the library across the quad. History is in a classroom on the second floor. Zeke and I usually pass each other going in opposite directions. On the lawn someone says, “Kennedy was shot.”
“What?”
Several people turn and look at the boy. He keeps walking. Another instance of Keaton Spirit, I think. Every day there is a new rumor, a new secret expression or a new way of giving the finger to the masters behind their backs. “That’s what I heard too in Higgins’ class,” says another.
“The President was shot?” There are about sixty boys crisscrossing on the lawn. At the south end, to my left, the chapel pokes its white needle into the afternoon sky. Looks like an advertisement for prep school, I think. The sky is full of mashed potato clouds and royal blue gravy. The sun blinks in and out of the cumulus. Here comes Zeke making an end run around a line of football players. They laugh at him when he passes. His ragged notebook drips out of one hand and the other is buried in his pocket. He looks sad.
“How was the drill sergeant?” I ask.
“Off the wall. As usual.” We stop for a second.
“You going to gym?”
“No. She gave me a gym excuse at the Infirmary.”
“So at least you got that.”
“We better hurry. The bell is about to ring.” I nod and run. I am thinking about this rumor as I hurry into the classroom. The big blond conference table is full. But Turner is not in his seat. I sit down and get my notebook arranged. There is a good possibility of a surprise quiz today, I think. Everyone is chattering.
“O’Brien came into our room and asked Mr. Hurst if he had heard about it.”
“…Dallas.”
“What a piece of bullshit.”
“Got to be a rumor, Santini. No way.”
Turner steps in the door. “All right, everybody shut up! Are you all talking about this rumor? Does anybody have any facts besides this scuttlebutt?”
Roy Sanders raises his hand and Turner nods. “Sir, Mr. O’Brien came into our class and said it was true.”
“What was true?”
“The President was shot, sir.” This is a Keaton fact. If another master has openly stated something, it cannot be quickly dismissed without an investigation.
“I frankly don’t believe it,” says Turner. “Mr. Wechsler and I were just told the same by a couple of students. If this is a rumor, a perverted mind thought it up. I don’t know about you guys.”
“Sir? Why don’t you send somebody upstairs to turn on the television?” It is Rick Hiller, a star on the lacrosse team which Turner coaches.
“What’s the matter, Rick? You missing your favorite cartoons?”
“I just thought if the President was shot…it would be on the tube. That’s all, sir.” Turner stares at him and mulls this idea over.
“Maybe so. Okay, Rick. Let’s everybody go up and turn on the television in the lecture hall. Bring your notebooks. If this rumor isn’t true, you can all take your quiz upstairs.” He twists the word quiz like a dull knife. Half the class, the half which didn’t do last night’s assignment, moans. “Quiz?”
Upstairs, he switches on the lights in the back of the room. Rick turns on the television.
“Nice idea Rick. You prick!”
“Way to go, Ricky boy.” They blame him for the quiz.
“Why don’t you get Captain Kangaroo, your favorite show, you stupid cunt!”
“Fuck off, you guys,” says Rick. The television begins to hum. Still no light on the mud-colored screen.
“Turner really eats the bird,” a guy on my right whispers.
“Everybody shut up!” shouts Turner from the back. The hum of the electronic gear in the