Dead Poets Society

by N. H. Kleinbaum

  The small space was empty and lonely looking. The boys stood around uncomfortably, shifting on their feet. “Nuwanda,” Pitts whispered. “We shouldn’t be in here!”

  Charlie ignored him and got up to look around the room. A small blue suitcase stood on the floor by the door. A few books, some pretty tattered looking, lay on the bed. Charlie walked to the desk and picked up a framed picture of a beautiful girl who looked to be in her twenties. “Whoa, look at her!” he whistled. Lying next to the picture was a half-written letter. Charlie picked up the paper and read: “‘My darling Jessica: It’s so lonely at times without you … bla bla bla. All I can do to put myself at ease is study your beautiful picture or close my eyes and imagine your radiant smile—but my poor imagination is a dim substitute for you. Oh, how I miss you and wish—’”

  Charlie kept reading as the other boys heard the door creak open. They backed away from Charlie, who suddenly stopped reading when he saw Keating standing in the doorway.

  “Hello! Mr. Keating! Good to see you!” Charlie cried.

  Keating walked over to him and calmly took the letter, folded it, and put it in his pocket. “A woman is a cathedral, boys. Worship one at every chance you get,” Keating said. He walked to his bureau, opened a drawer and put the letter in. “Anything else you’d care to rifle through, Mr. Dalton?” he asked, looking at Charlie.

  “I’m sorry,’ Charlie apologized. “I, we …” Charlie looked around for help. Neil stepped forward.

  “O Captain! My Captain, we came here so I could talk to you about something,” he explained.

  “Okay,” Keating said, looking at the group. “All of you?”

  “Actually, I’d like to talk to you alone,” Neil said, looking back at the boys. Charlie and the others looked relieved to leave.

  “I gotta go study,” Pitts said. “Yeah,” the rest of the boys added. “See you, Mr. Keating.”

  They all hurried out and closed the door behind them. “Drop by any time,” Keating said as they left.

  “Thank you, sir,” they called back through the closed door.

  Pitts punched Charlie in the shoulder. “Damn it, Nuwanda, you idiot!” he said.

  “I couldn’t stop myself,” Charlie shrugged.

  Keating couldn’t help smiling to himself. Neil paced back and forth, looking around. “Gosh,” he said. “They don’t give you much room around here, do they?”

  “Maybe they don’t want worldly things distracting me from my teaching.” Mr. Keating smiled wryly.

  “Why do you do it?” Neil asked. “I mean, with all this seize-the-day business, I’d have thought you’d be out seeing the world or something.”

  “Ah, but I am seeing the world, Neil. The new world. Besides, a place like this needs at least one teacher like me.” He smiled at his own joke. “Did you come here to talk about my teaching?”

  Neil took a deep breath. “My father is making me quit the play at Henley Hall. When I think about Carpe Diem and all that, I feel like I’m in prison! Acting is everything to me, Mr. Keating. It’s what I want to do! Of course, I can see my father’s point. We’re not a rich family like Charlie’s. But he’s planned the rest of my life for me, and he’s never even asked me what I want!”

  “Have you told your father what you just told me? About your passion for acting?” Mr. Keating asked.

  “Are you kidding? He’d kill me!”

  “Then you’re playing a part for him, too, aren’t you,” Keating observed softly. The teacher watched as Neil paced anxiously. “Neil, I know this seems impossible, but you have to talk to your father and let him know who you really are,” Keating said.

  “But, I know what he’ll say. He’ll say that acting is just a whim and that it’s frivolous and that I should forget about it. He’ll tell me how they’re counting on me and to put it out of my mind, ‘for my own good.’”

  “Well,” Keating said, sitting on his bed. “If it’s more than a whim, prove it to him. Show him with your passion and commitment that it’s what you really want to do. If that doesn’t work, at least by then you’ll be eighteen and able to do what you want.”

  “Eighteen! What about the play? The performance is tomorrow night!”

  “Talk to him, Neil,” Keating urged.

  “Isn’t there an easier way?” Neil begged.

  “Not if you’re going to stay true to yourself.”

  Neil and Keating sat silent for a long time. “Thanks, Mr. Keating,” Neil finally said. “I have to decide what to do.”

  While Neil spoke with Mr. Keating, Charlie, Knox, Pitts, Todd, and Cameron headed out to the cave. Snow was falling, and a soft white blanket seemed to protect the earth from the cold wind that howled through the valley.

  The boys scattered around the candle-lit cave, each busy doing his own thing. No one called the meeting to order. Charlie blew sad, melodious notes on his saxophone. Knox sat in one corner, mumbling to himself, as he worked furiously on a love poem to Chris. Todd sat alone writing something too. Cameron studied. Pitts stood at the wall, scratching a quotation from a book into the stone.

  Cameron looked at his watch. “Ten minutes to curfew,” he reminded them. No one moved.

  “What are you writing?” Knox asked Todd.

  “I don’t know. A poem,” Todd said.

  “For class?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re asking for demerits, guys, if we don’t beat it out of here. The snow’s coming down hard,” Cameron said. Charlie ignored Cameron and kept playing the sax. Todd kept writing. Cameron looked around and shrugged. “I’m leaving,” he said and walked alone out of the cave.

  Knox read his love poem to Chris to himself, then slapped it on the side of his leg. “Damn it! If I could just get Chris to read this poem,” he groaned.

  “Why don’t you read it to her,” Pitts suggested. “It worked for Nuwanda.”

  “She won’t even speak to me, Pitts!” Knox cried. “I called her, and she wouldn’t even come to the phone.”

  “Nuwanda recited poetry to Gloria and she jumped all over him … right, Nuwanda?”

  Charlie stopped playing his sax. He thought a moment. “Absolutely,” he agreed and started blowing notes again.

  Off in the distance, the curfew bell rang. Charlie finished his melody, put his sax in its case, and moved out of the cave. Todd, Cameron, and Pitts picked up their papers and followed him out into the night. Knox stood in the cave alone, looking at his poem. Then, shoving it back in his book, he blew out the candle and ran out through the woods with desperate determination.

  “If it worked for him, it will work for me,” he said to himself as he plotted a scheme to get his words to Chris.

  The next morning the ground was thickly covered with snow. Knox left the dorm early, bundled against the freezing weather and icy winds. He cleaned the snow off his bike, carried it to a plowed path, and sped away, down the hills of Welton Academy over to Ridgeway High.

  He left his bike outside the school and ran frantically into the crowded hallway. Boys and girls bustled about, hanging coats in lockers, getting books, talking and joking around with each other.

  Knox hurried down one corridor and stopped to talk to a student. Then he turned and double-timed it up a flight of stairs to the second floor.

  “Chris!” Knox spotted her standing in front of her locker, talking with some girlfriends. She quickly gathered her things and turned as Knox ran up to her.

  “Knox! What are you doing here?” She pulled him away from her girlfriends into a corner.

  “I came to apologize for the other night. I brought you these, and a poem I wrote.”

  He held out a bouquet of wilted, frostbitten flowers and the poem. Chris looked at them but did not take them. “If Chet sees you, he’ll kill you, don’t you know that?” she cried.

  “I don’t care,” he said, shaking his head. “I love you, Chris. You deserve better than Chet and I’m it. Please accept these.”

  “Knox, you’re cra
zy,” Chris said as the bell rang and students ran to their classes.

  “Please. I acted like a jerk and I know it. Please?” he begged.

  Chris looked at the flowers as though she was considering accepting them. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “And stop bugging me!” She walked into a classroom and closed the door.

  The hallway was clear. Knox stood holding the drooping bouquet and his poem. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled open the door and walked into Chris’s classroom.

  The students were settling into their seats. Knox pushed past the teacher who was leaning over a desk, helping a student with his homework.

  “Knox!” Chris cried. “I don’t believe this!”

  “All I’m asking you to do is listen,” he said, as he unfolded his poem and began to read. The teacher and the class turned and stared at Knox in amazement.

  “The heavens made a girl named Chris,

  With hair and skin of gold

  To touch her would be paradise

  To kiss her—glory untold.”

  Chris turned red and covered her face with her hands. Her friends sat barely restraining giggles and looking at each other in amazement. Knox continued reading:

  “They made a goddess and called her

  Chris, How? I’ll never know.

  But though my soul is far behind,

  My love can only grow.”

  Knox read on as though he and Chris were the only ones in the room.

  “I see a sweetness in her smile,

  Bright light shines from her eyes

  But life is complete—contentment is mine,

  Just knowing that she’s alive.”

  Knox lowered the paper and looked at Chris, who, utterly embarrassed, peeked out at him through her fingers. Knox put the poem and the flowers on her desk.

  “I love you, Chris,” he said. Then he turned and walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER 12

  Knox flew out of Ridgeway High and raced back to Welton as fast as he could, riding against the blinding snow and over the icy roads. Back on campus, his friends were just finishing their class with Mr. Keating. They were huddled around Keating’s desk, laughing, when the bell rang.

  “That’s it, gentlemen,” Keating said, snapping his book shut. Several of the boys groaned, wishing they didn’t have to move on to Mr. McAllister’s Latin class.

  “Neil, could I see you a moment?” the teacher called, as the boys gathered their books and headed out the door.

  Neil and Keating waited until the others had left. “What did your father say? Did you talk to him?” Keating asked.

  “Yeah,” Neil lied.

  “Really?” Keating said excitedly. “You told your father what you told me? You let him see your passion for acting?”

  “Yeah.” Neil felt the lie grow bigger. “He didn’t like it one bit, but at least he’s letting me stay in the play. Of course, he won’t be able to come. He’ll be in Chicago on business. But I think he’s gonna let me stay with acting. As long as I keep my grades up.”

  Neil avoided Mr. Keating’s eyes. He was so embarrassed by the lie that he didn’t even hear what the teacher said to him. He grabbed his books and said he had to run, while Keating stood looking after him, puzzled.

  When Knox finally reached campus he ditched his bike near the kitchen at the rear of the main classroom building and raced inside, cold but triumphant. He stopped for a moment to enjoy the warmth and smell of the huge cooking area, and helped himself to a sweet roll that had just come out of the oven. He ran into the corridor just as classes were changing and immediately spotted the gang.

  “How’d it go?” Charlie asked. “Did you read it to her?”

  “Yep!” Knox grinned, swallowing the last of the sweet roll.

  “All right!” Pitts slapped him on the back in congratulations. “What did she say?”

  “I don’t know,” Knox replied.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Charlie was puzzled.

  The boys surrounded Knox before he could escape and ushered him into a classroom, closing the door behind them. “Okay, Knox,” Charlie ordered, “start from the beginning.”

  That night, the boys milled around the dorm lobby waiting to go to Henley Hall with Mr. Keating for the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Knox slumped on a chair by himself, still bewildered by his encounter with Chris, exhilarated and confused at the same time.

  “Where’s Nuwanda?” Meeks asked. “If we don’t hurry we’re going to miss Neil’s entrance!”

  “He said something about getting red before he left,” Pitts said, shaking his head.

  “What does that mean?” Cameron asked.

  “You know Charlie,” Pitts laughed, just as Nuwanda scampered down the stairs.

  “What’s this getting red?” Meeks asked. Charlie checked around. He opened his shirt and revealed a red lightning bolt painted on his chest.

  “What’s it for?” Todd wanted to know.

  “It’s an Indian warrior symbol for virility. Makes me feel potent. Like I can drive girls crazy.”

  “But what if they see it, Nuwanda?” Pitts asked.

  Charlie winked. “So much the better!”

  “You are crazy!” Cameron said as the group headed out of the lobby. As they neared the door, they passed Chris, who was just walking in.

  Knox nearly fainted. “Chris!” Knox’s heart began to beat wildly.

  “Knox, why are you doing this to me?” Chris cried.

  Knox looked around. “You can’t be here!” he said, pushing her into a corner.

  Mr. Keating came down the hall, ready to go, and joined the group of boys at the door. “Come on, fellows,” he said with a smile, and they left.

  “I’ll be right there,” Knox called after them, and he ushered Chris out of the building into the snowy night.

  “If they catch you here, we’ll both be in big trouble,” Knox said, his teeth chattering from the cold.

  “Oh, but it’s fine for you to come barging into my school and make a complete fool out of me?” she shouted.

  “Sshh, be quiet. Listen. I didn’t mean to make a fool of you,” he apologized.

  “Well, you did! Chet found out, and he’s nuts. It took everything I could do to keep him from coming here and killing you. You have to stop this stuff, Knox!”

  “But I love you.”

  “You say that over and over, but you don’t even know me!”

  In the distance, Keating and the boys, waiting in the school station wagon, honked for Knox. “Go ahead, I’ll walk,” he yelled, and the car pulled away. “Of course I know you!” Knox said, turning back to Chris. “From the first time I saw you I knew you had a wonderful soul.”

  “Just like that?” she asked.

  “Of course just like that. That’s how you always know when it’s right.”

  “And if it so happens that you’re wrong? If it just so happens that I couldn’t care less about you?”

  “Then you wouldn’t be here warning me about Chet,” Knox pointed out.

  Chris thought this over. “Look,” she said, “I’ve got to go. I’m gonna be late for the play.”

  “Are you going with Chet?”

  “With Chet, to a play? Are you kidding?”

  “Then let’s go together,” Knox suggested.

  “Knox, you are so infuriating.”

  “Just give me one chance. If you don’t like me after tonight, I’ll stay away forever.”

  “Uh-huh,” Chris said with a cynical smile.

  “I promise. Dead Poets Honor. Come with me tonight. Then, if you don’t want to see me again, I swear I’ll bow out.”

  Chris hesitated. “God, if Chet found out he’d …”

  “Chet won’t know anything,” Knox promised. “We’ll sit in the back and sneak away as soon as it’s over.”

  “Knox, if you promise that this will be the end of it …”

  “Dead Poets Honor,” he said, raising his hand.

  “
What is that?”

  “My word.” He crossed his heart with his fingers and looked sincerely at Chris. She sighed as he led her reluctantly off toward Henley Hall.

  Knox and Chris entered the high-school auditorium long after Mr. Keating and the other students had taken seats in front. They sat in the back and when his friends spotted him with Chris they shot him gestures of encouragement.

  On stage, the performance had begun. Sporting a crown of flowers, Neil made his grand entrance as Puck, and the Dead Poets Society cheered him loudly. Neil scanned the audience with a momentary look of fear. Todd crossed his fingers.

  “‘How now, spirit! Whither wander you?’” Neil began as Puck.

  “‘Over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough brier …’” an actor playing a fairy responded. Mr. Keating glanced at the boys in the audience and gave a thumbs up signal for Neil.

  “‘Thou speak’st aright;/I am that merry wanderer of the night. /I jest to Oberon, and make him smile, / When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, / Neighing in likeness of a filly foal …’”

  Neil’s friends watched him intently as he delivered his lines with skill and ease, enjoying every moment, getting laughs in all the right places. Todd sat mouthing the lines with him as if this might help Neil get through it. But Neil needed no help.

  “He’s good! He’s really good!!” Charlie whispered excitedly to his friends.

  The play continued with the characters of Lysander and Hermia. Ginny Danburry played Hermia, dressed in an eye-catching costume of leaves and twigs.

  “‘One turf shall serve as pillow for us both; / One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.’”

  “‘Nay, good Lysander, for my sake, my dear,/Lie further off yet; do not lie so near,’” Ginny replied as Hermia.

  Charlie flipped through the program looking for the name of the girl playing Hermia. “Ginny Danburry! She’s beautiful!” he sighed as his eyes returned to her leaves and twigs.

  “‘But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy /Lie further off, in human modesty; / Such separation as may well be said / Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid, / So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend. /Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!’” Ginny recited.