Dead Poets Society

by N. H. Kleinbaum

  “Good boy. Call us if you need anything.” He turned without further comment and walked off. Neil looked after his father, feeling overwhelmed with frustration and anger. Why did he always let his father get to him like that?

  He opened the door to his room and walked back in. The boys tried to look as if nothing had happened, each waiting for the other to speak. Finally Charlie broke the silence.

  “Why doesn’t he ever let you do what you want?” he asked.

  “And why don’t you just tell him off! It couldn’t get any worse,” Knox added.

  Neil wiped his eyes. “Oh, that’s rich,” he sneered. “Like you tell YOUR parents off, Mr. Future Lawyer and Mr. Future Banker!” The boys studied their shoes as Neil stormed around the room angrily. He ripped the school annual achievement pin from his blazer and hurled it furiously at his desk.

  “Wait a minute,” Knox said, walking toward Neil. “I don’t let my parents walk on me.”

  “Yeah,” Neil laughed. “You just do everything they say! You’ll be in daddy’s law firm as sure as I’m standing here.” He turned to Charlie who was sprawled across Neil’s bed. “And you’ll be approving loans till you croak!”

  “Okay,” Charlie admitted. “So I don’t like it any more than you do. I’m just saying …”

  “Then don’t tell me how to talk to my father when you’re the same way,” Neil snapped. “All right?”

  “All right,” Knox sighed. “Jesus, what are you gonna do?”

  “What I have to do. Chuck the annual. I have no choice.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over it,” Meeks said cheerfully. “It’s just a bunch of people trying to impress Nolan.”

  Neil slammed his suitcase shut and slumped onto his bed. “What do I care about any of it anyhow?” He slammed his hand into his pillow, lay back silently, and stared with glazed eyes at the ceiling.

  The boys sat around glumly, feeling Neil’s disappointment and sadness. “I don’t know about anyone else,” Charlie said, again breaking the silence, “but I could sure use a refresher in Latin. Eight o’clock in my room?”

  “Sure,” Neil said tonelessly.

  “You’re welcome to join us, Todd,” Charlie offered.

  “Yeah,” Knox agreed. “Come along.”

  “Thank you,” Todd said.

  After the boys left, Neil got up and picked up the achievement pin he had thrown. Todd started to unpack again. He took out a framed photo of his mother and father with their arms affectionately around an older boy who appeared to be Todd’s famous brother, Jeffrey. Neil looked at the photo and noticed that Todd was slightly apart from the family group, with them but not really a part of them. Todd then unpacked an engraved leather desk set and laid it out on his desk.

  Neil plopped on his bed and leaned against the headboard. “So, what do you think of my father?” he asked blankly.

  “I’ll take him over mine,” Todd said softly, almost to himself.

  “What?” Neil asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Todd, if you’re gonna make it around here, you’ve got to speak up. The meek might inherit the earth, but they don’t get into Harvard; know what I mean?” Todd nodded, folding a white button-down oxford cloth shirt. Neil held the achievement pin in his hand as he spoke. “The bastard!” he shouted suddenly, jabbing his thumb with the metal point of the pin and drawing blood.

  Todd winced, but Neil just stared at the blood intently. He pulled the pin out and hurled it against the wall.

  CHAPTER 4

  The first day of class dawned bright and clear. The junior-class boys dashed in and out of the bathroom, dressing in record time. “Those seventh graders look like they’re going to make in their pants, they’re so nervous,” Neil laughed as he splashed his face with cold water.

  “I feel the same way,” Todd admitted.

  “Don’t worry, the first day is always rough,” Neil said. “But we’ll get through. Somehow we always do.” The boys finished dressing and raced to the chemistry building. “Shouldn’t have slept so late and missed breakfast,” Neil said. “My stomach’s growling.”

  “Mine too,” Todd said as they slid into the chem lab. Knox, Charlie, Cameron, and Meeks were already in the class along with some other juniors. In the front of the room a balding, bespectacled teacher handed out huge textbooks.

  “In addition to the assignments in the text,” he said sternly, “you will each pick three lab experiments from the project list and report on one every five weeks. The first twenty problems at the end of Chapter One are due tomorrow.”

  Charlie Dalton’s eyes popped as he stared at the text and listened to the teacher. He shot a disbelieving glance at Knox Overstreet, and both boys shook their heads in dismay.

  Todd was the only one among them who didn’t seem fazed by either the book or the things the teacher was saying. The teacher’s voice droned on, but the boys stopped listening somewhere around the words “the first twenty problems.” Finally, the bell rang, and almost everyone from chemistry moved into Mr. McAllister’s classroom.

  McAllister, probably the only Latin teacher in the history of contemporary education with a Scottish brogue, wasted no time in getting into the subject. He handed out the books and launched in. “We’ll begin by declining nouns,” he said. “Agricola, agricolae, agricolae, agricolam, agricola …” McAllister walked around the room, repeating the Latin words as the boys struggled to keep up with him.

  After forty minutes of recitation, McAllister stopped and stood, facing the class. “You will be tested on those nouns tomorrow, gentlemen. You have your work cut out for you.” He turned and faced the blackboard as a collective groan rippled across the room. Before McAllister could begin round two, however, they were saved by the bell.

  “That guy is nuts! I’ll never learn all that by tomorrow,” Charlie moaned.

  “Don’t worry,” Meeks said. “I’ll teach you guys the system. We’ll study together tonight. Come on, we’re late for math.”

  Mathematical charts decorated the walls of Dr. Hager’s classroom, and books were already waiting for them at their desks.

  “Your study of trigonometry requires absolute precision,” Dr. Hager instructed. “Anyone failing to turn in a homework assignment will be penalized one point off his final grade. Let me urge you now not to test me on this point. Who would like to begin by defining cosine?”

  Richard Cameron stood and recited, “A cosine is the sine of the complement of an angle or arc. If we define an angle A, then …”

  Dr. Hager bombarded the class with mathematical questions the entire period. Hands flew into the air, students stood up and sat down like robots, reeling off answers, staunchly taking harsh reprimands for mistakes.

  The bell rang, but not soon enough. “Thank God,” moaned Todd as he piled up his books. “I don’t think I could have taken another minute of that.”

  “You’ll get used to old Hager,” Meeks consoled him. “Once you get the pace of it, you’ll do fine.”

  “I’m already six paces behind,” Todd groaned as the boys walked together to their next class. He didn’t say another word as they dragged themselves into the English room, dropped their books on their desks, and fell into the seats.

  The new English teacher, wearing a shirt and tie but no jacket, sat at the front of the room, staring out the window. The boys settled down and waited, grateful for a moment to relax and shed some of the pressure of the last few hours. Keating continued to stare out the window. The boys started to shuffle uncomfortably.

  Finally Keating stood, picked up a yardstick, and started strolling up and down the aisles. He stopped and stared into the face of one of the boys. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said kindly to the blushing boy.

  He continued to move around the room, looking intently at the boys as he walked. “Uh-huh,” he said aloud, looking at Todd Anderson. “Uh-huh,” he repeated, moving toward Neil Perry.

  “Ha!” He slapped his free hand with the yardstick
and strode forcefully to the front of the room. “Nimble young minds!” Keating shouted, looking around at the class and gesturing with the yardstick.

  He jumped dramatically onto his desk and turned to face the class. “‘O Captain! My Captain!’” he recited energetically, then looked around the room. “Who knows where that’s from? Anybody? No?” He looked piercingly at the silent boys. No one raised a hand. “It was written, my young scholars,” he said patiently, “by a poet named Walt Whitman about Abraham Lincoln. In this class you may refer to me as either Mr. Keating or ‘O Captain! My Captain!’”

  He jumped down from the desk and resumed strolling the aisles, speaking as he moved. “So that I become the source of as few rumors as possible, let me tell you that, yes, I was a student at this institution many moons ago, and no, at that time I did not possess this charismatic personality.

  “However, should you choose to emulate my manner, it can only help your grade. Pick up your textbooks from the back, gentlemen, and let’s retire to the Honor Room.”

  Using the yardstick as a pointer, Keating headed to the door and walked out. The students sat, silent, not sure what to do.

  “We’d better go with him,” Neil said, leading the class to the back of the room. They each picked up a text, gathered their books, and proceeded to the oak-paneled Welton Honor Room, where they had last waited to see Dean Nolan.

  Keating walked around the room as the boys straggled in. He studied the walls, which were lined with class pictures dating back to the 1800s. Trophies of every description filled shelves and glass cases.

  Sensing that everyone was seated, Keating turned toward the class. “Mister”—Keating looked down at his roster—“Pitts,” he said. “An unfortunate name. Stand up, Mister Pitts.” Pitts stood. “Open your text, Pitts, to page 542 and read for us the first stanza of the poem,” Keating instructed.

  Pitts leafed through his book. “‘To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time’?” he asked.

  “That’s the one,” Keating said, as the boys in the class chuckled out loud.

  “Yes, sir,” Pitts said. He cleared his throat.

  “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

  Old time is still a flying:

  And this same flower that smiles today,

  Tomorrow will be dying.”

  He stopped. “‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,’” Keating repeated. “The Latin term for that sentiment is Carpe Diem. Does anyone know what that means?”

  “Carpe Diem,” Meeks, the Latin scholar, said. “Seize the day.”

  “Very good, Mr....?”

  “Meeks.”

  “Seize the day,” Keating repeated. “Why does the poet write these lines?”

  “Because he’s in a hurry?” one student called out as the others snickered.

  “No, No, No! It’s because we’re food for worms, lads!” Keating shouted. “Because we’re only going to experience a limited number of springs, summers, and falls.

  “One day, hard as it is to believe, each and every one of us is going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die!” He paused dramatically. “Stand up,” he urged the students, “and peruse the faces of the boys who attended this school sixty or seventy years ago. Don’t be timid; go look at them.”

  The boys got up and walked to the class pictures lining the honor-room walls. They looked at faces of young men, staring out at them from the past.

  “They’re not that different than any of you, are they? Hope in their eyes, just like yours. They believe themselves destined for wonderful things, just like many of you. Well, where are those smiles now, boys? What of the hope?”

  The boys stared at the photos, their faces sober and reflective. Keating walked swiftly around the room, pointing from photo to photo.

  “Did most of them not wait until it was too late before making their lives into even one iota of what they were capable? In chasing the almighty deity of success, did they not squander their boyhood dreams? Most of those gentlemen are fertilizing daffodils now! However, if you get very close, boys, you can hear them whisper. Go ahead,” he urged, “lean in. Go on. Hear it? Can you?” The boys were quiet, some of them leaned hesitantly toward the photographs. “Carpe Diem,” Keating whispered loudly. “Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.”

  Todd, Neil, Knox, Charlie, Cameron, Meeks, Pitts, and the other boys all stared into the pictures on the walls, lost in thoughts that were rudely interrupted by the bell.

  “Weird,” Pitts said as he gathered up his books.

  “But different,” Neil said thoughtfully.

  “Spooky,” Knox added, shivering slightly, as he headed out of the room.

  “You think he’ll test us on that stuff?” Cameron asked, looking confused.

  “Oh, come on, Cameron,” Charlie laughed, “don’t you get anything?”

  CHAPTER 5

  After lunch the juniors assembled in the gymnasium for the required physical-education class.

  “Okay, gentlemen,” the gym master shouted, “we’re going to make something of those bodies yet. Start running around the gym. Stop after each round and check your pulse. See me if you don’t have a pulse.”

  The boys groaned and began jogging around the huge gym. The master chuckled and walked to the edge, leaning against the wall to observe the runners.

  “Hastings, move it. We’ve got to get some of that gut off of you,” he called to one boy. “Check your pulse.

  “Nice run, Overstreet,” he called out. “Good pacing.” Knox smiled and waved as he passed by the teacher.

  None of them thought they’d make it through the class, but by the end of the period they’d surprised themselves.

  “I’m going to die!” Pitts gasped, standing in the shower after the class. “That guy should head a military school!”

  “Come on, Pitts, it’s good for you,” Cameron laughed.

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Pitts shouted back. “The guy didn’t embarrass you to death.” Pitts turned quickly to face the wall as the gym master strolled through the shower room, monitoring the activity.

  “How about a study group?” Meeks called out from the shower. “Right after dinner.”

  “Great! Good by me,” several of the boys agreed.

  “Pick up the soap, Harrison,” the gym master called out. “You there,” he pointed at another boy, “hurry and dry off!”

  “Sorry Meeks, I can’t make it,” Knox said. “I have to sign out to have dinner at the Danburrys’ house.”

  “Who are the Danburrys?” Pitts asked.

  “Whew! Big alums,” Cameron whistled. “How’d you pull that?”

  Knox shrugged. “They’re friends of my dad. Probably in their nineties or something.”

  “Listen,” Neil laughed. “Anything is better than the mystery meat we get here.”

  “I’ll second that!” Charlie agreed.

  The boys finished getting dressed, tossed their gym clothes in their lockers, and headed out. Todd sat silently on the bench, slowly pulling up his sock.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” Neil laughed, as he sat down next to Todd.

  “Not even worth that much,” Todd said, shaking his head.

  “Want to come to the study group?” Neil asked.

  “Thanks, but … I’d better do history,” Todd smiled.

  “Okay, you can always change your mind,” Neil answered. He gathered up his books and headed out of the gym. Todd watched him leave and then stared into space again. He put on his shoes, picked up his own books, and walked slowly back to the dorm.

  In the distance Todd saw the fiery-red sun sinking behind the green perimeter of trees that enclosed the sprawling campus. “It’s big, but it’s so small here,” he sighed, looking around.

  Inside the dorm, he smiled at several boys in the hall but walked into his room and quickly closed the door. He put his books on the desk, sighed again loudly, and sat down.

  “I can’t believe all the work I have to do,” he said as he flipped thr
ough the stack of books. He opened his history book, took out a notebook, and stared at the first clean sheet of paper. Absently, he scribbled SEIZE THE DAY in big, black letters.

  “Seize the day?” he questioned aloud. “How?” He sighed again, ripped the page out of the notebook, and threw it into the wastebasket. He turned a page in the history book and started to read.

  “Ready, Overstreet?” Dr. Hager asked, as he walked into the Honors Room, where Knox Overstreet was once again studying the pictures of old Welton students.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he answered as he followed Dr. Hager out to the school “woody” station wagon parked in front of the building. The changing colors of the Vermont autumn were muted by the darkness. “It’s beautiful when the colors change, isn’t it, Dr. Hager?” Knox asked enthusiastically.

  “Colors? Oh, yes,” Hager mumbled as he drove the old wagon to the rambling mansion where the distinguished Danburry family lived.

  “Thanks for the ride, Dr. Hager,” Knox smiled. “The Danburrys said they’ll bring me back to campus.”

  “No later than nine, my boy,” the old teacher said solemnly.

  “Yes, sir.” He turned and walked to the door of the large, white, colonial house and rang the bell. A beautiful girl, maybe a bit older than he was and wearing a short tennis skirt, opened the door.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling. Her blue eyes glowed softly.

  Knox hesitated, speechless with astonishment. “Ah … hi,” he finally got out.

  “Are you here to see Chet?” she asked. He stared at her for a moment, unable to keep his eyes from moving up and down her athletic figure, “Chet?” she repeated, laughing. “Are you here to see Chet?”

  “Mrs. Danburry?” Knox stammered as a middle-aged woman stuck her head around the girl.

  “Knox,” Janette Danburry smiled, as the girl moved back toward the huge staircase. “Come in. We’ve been waiting for you!”

  Knox walked in behind Mrs. Danburry, but his eyes followed the girl who raced up the stairs two steps at a time.