“No one leaves in Dead Poets Society.”
“No.”
“Or Mr. Chips.”
“They die in the war, though.”
“I guess the advantage of the private school movie is that kids like that aren’t even let in. The weeding is before the opening credits.”
“I’d rather not see it, is all I’m saying. Everyone thinks it’s great when the kids are kicked out—we feel good, sitting in the audience, when the authority cleans house. People cheer. But it depresses me.”
“Because you get the kids.”
“No. Because I do this job because of those kids. To everyone else they’re trash. We don’t even have enough room in a Hollywood fantasy for those kids.”
“That’s what sports movies are for.”
“Mighty Ducks.”
“And you like these movies because no one gets kicked out.”
“No. In Dead Poets Society someone dies, though.”
“That’s sick.”
Wells ignored Horse.
“At the end of the movie... You know the end of Dead Poets Society. Robin Williams is fired, after touching these kids’ lives. He’s leaving, and the principle players show their solidarity with him by defying the headmaster and standing on their desks.”
“Very touching,” Horse snorted.
“Ah! But, only about a third of the kids stand in defiance and support. The rest sit with their heads down. He changes their lives—makes them “extraordinary”—and they just sit slumped over. That last shot is great, with a hulk of dark, bent over kids doomed for mediocrity.”
“That’s about right.”
“If we could run school like that...”
“We wouldn’t be doing our jobs.”
“No.”
Wells looked down at his empty mug, soberly.
“Thus the fantasy world of video,” offered Horse.
“Exactly.”
They sat in silence. Putting his weight on the empty mug, Wells stood..
“So, Mr. Chips?” Horse asked.
“You dismiss them—your students—as being unimportant.”
He seems ready for a fight, Horse thinks. I’ve seen him like this, and the last time I bloodied the snow with his blood. I’ll fight him. But neither were in the mood. The whiskey warmed them, and Horse’s brow begins to sweat even as the room remains a cool sixty-five degrees.
“I don’t dismiss anyone,” Horse said at last. ”You put them in my room. I teach them. I can’t help if people are afraid, but I don’t dismiss anyone.”
“I’m not in the mood for semantics. Are you coming over?”
“Which version?”
“Does it matter?”
“Why the Donat version?”
“Does it matter?”
“No.”
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Absentee List_An Old Horse Mystery Page 21
