Adventures of Homer Fink

by Sidney Offit

  Mom held Pete up close to Homer to reassure him. “Tell cousin Homer you’re all right.”

  “The brain is such a delicate instrument,” said Homer Fink. “The slightest damage to area seventeen can cause impairment of vision.”

  That’s one of Homer’s troubles. He knows so much, he has more to worry about than other people.

  “Great Zeus—smile upon us,” continued Homer. “Grant the child, Peter, the mercy of Olympus.” Homer was praying. He knew all that Latin and Greek and he really believed the gods were up there watching us, fighting it out to see who had his way on earth.

  “Peter is perfectly all right.” My mother touched Homer’s shoulder to reassure him and then looked to me. “Tell Homer he didn’t hurt Peter. He doesn’t believe me.”

  “Hey, Pete, want a piece of candy?” I showed him a sour-ball that had been stuck in the bottom of my pants pocket. Pete held his breath. He looked me over for a couple of seconds, trying to decide whether to give a full blast or reach for the sourball. Finally, he turned his head away and started kicking and screaming. I guess he figured I was only teasing.

  I gave the sourball to Homer. “Go ahead—you have to bribe the animals,” I told him.

  After rinsing the sourball Homer brought it to Pete who took it like he was doing Homer a big favor. He stopped crying and sucked in his breath and then threw the sourball across the room and shouted, “Omni—Omni—Omni—.” He poked his fingers at Homer and started laughing and crying at the same time.

  “I think he’s trying to say ‘omnia,’” my mother advised Homer Fink. “You seem to have made an impression.”

  That was all the encouragement Homer needed. He started wiggling his ears and reciting in Latin again while Pete screamed, “Omni—Omni—.” It wasn’t exactly perfect Latin, but I know plenty of kids our age who don’t come that close.

  The twins were gurgling and smiling their toothless smiles and ignoring the bottles altogether.

  It could have gone on like that forever, but then Pete wanted to ride on Homer’s back again and my mother decided Pete was grouchy and demanding because it was time for his nap. As she carried him from the room, Pete screamed and pointed at Homer. “Omni—Omni—,” he said and Homer answered, “Omnia. Pax vobiscum.”

  3

  Druid Hill Park in Baltimore has tennis courts and a public swimming pool, a zoo, and lots of places for picnics. There are also a boat lake and an aquarium, football fields and baseball diamonds. But the place Homer Fink likes most is the big hill overlooking Jones Falls. It only takes fifteen minutes to get there from my house and we go there a lot. There’s not much to do up there on the hill but talk and think and look for the shepherd who has a dozen sheep.

  We saw the shepherd that afternoon. He came up the path from the woods carrying a big staff. There was an old dog with him that ambled along with his nose to the ground, sniffing and wagging his tail and barking at the sheep. The sheep looked dirty and gray. They moved slowly as if they were old and tired, and they stayed close together—probably because they were frightened. Homer and I watched them.

  “That man is Pan,” said Homer. I didn’t pay much attention to Homer. I wanted to run after the shepherd and find out where he was going and where he lived and how come he was raising sheep right in the middle of a big city like Baltimore and did the Mayor know he was in Druid Hill Park?

  “Don’t move,” Homer told me. “You’ll scare him and he’ll disappear.”

  That didn’t make much sense. It was strange all right. You don’t see a shepherd in the park every day, but the man was real enough and there was no mistaking the shrill bleat of the sheep.

  I listened to Homer and stayed. He had picked this place. He liked it because the trees and woods cut off all signs of the city. With the exception of the dome of the mansion house, there was was no reminder of the facilities of a public park. We watched as the shepherd led his flock to a small open field. “It is Pan. I know it’s Pan,” Homer insisted. There was a distant look about his eyes as if he were looking out the window during math class.

  “Knock it off,” I told him. “That guy’s no more Pan than I’m Brooks Robinson.”

  I thought that reminding Homer about the third baseman of the Orioles might bring him back to earth. But it didn’t.

  “Pan routed the Persians at Marathon and now he’s here,” Homer said.

  “And Robinson routed the White Sox, Yankees, and Detroit Tigers, but the Orioles still didn’t win the pennant,” I replied.

  Homer was slipping away from me. He seemed to be taking off. “Look, if you’re going to act crazy and stuff like that, I’m going to run right down there and find out who he is whether you like it or not.”

  Homer held a hand out to block me. “I pray thee, do not move.”

  “And don’t start disguising your voice and pretending to be some kind of actor or William Shakespeare.”

  “Please, Richard—for me—for our friendship.”

  Homer didn’t ask for favors often and this seemed to mean a whole lot more to him than to me.

  “O.K.,” I said, “I’ll mind my own business. If you’re going to carry on as if you were walking in your sleep, that’s up to you. But when the men in the white uniforms come to take you away, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I had a scout knife and I scratched a big square in the earth and divided it in half. I guess I would have watched the sheep grazing, too, but Homer was so serious and distant it gave me the creeps. I decided to play territory for Homer and me. I aimed the knife and it stuck in the ground. “I just shot for you,” I announced to Homer. “You’re doing great.”

  I drew the line through my territory and shot again.

  It wasn’t until after the shepherd took off that Homer spoke again. He was happy and excited. “The son of Hermes is in our midst. We’ve seen him. You must promise me, Richard, that you won’t tell anyone.”

  I concentrated on the game. “You’re down to your last three feet. If I were you I’d start shooting for myself and quick.”

  Homer took the knife, stepped into what remained of his territory, and fired. The knife landed smack in the middle of my ground.

  “Pretty good. If you keep that up I’ll start believing that stuff about the gods entering the bodies of men—all that mythology you’re so hot on.”

  “No … no,” said Homer. “That was Pan—in person. Πάν. Didn’t you see his goat’s legs and ears and horns?”

  “You shoot again,” I said. “Get your feet on the earth and concentrate on what you’re doing.”

  Homer placed himself within the boundary of his land. His next shot stuck, leaving me a few inches.

  “You’ve been practicing in your spare time?” I drew the lines for him. There was no chance of getting Homer to do that. He was too excited.

  “Pan was here in Druid Hill Park.” Homer looked toward the sky. “Like Socrates I pray to him—great god Pan—for inward beauty.”

  “Comb your hair and you won’t have to pray so much,” I said. “You’ll never make this last shot.”

  He didn’t.

  It was getting toward twilight and we were on our way home when Homer said, “The gods have sent me a sign and I must read it well, Richard. Do I have your word that you will speak of this to no one?”

  “You think I’m nuts,” I said. “It’s rough enough explaining about the shepherd. I’m not about to try to convince anybody he’s a goat-man.”

  “I knew I could trust you,” said Homer Fink. “Neither God nor man hath a better companion for life’s adventures. When I read the signs—you shall be the first to know.”

  4

  “The signs,” as Homer called them, continued to appear until the morning of the oratory contest. Following the class tryouts Homer didn’t talk about the finals. He was on a Plato kick. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been curious about some doodling on his homework notebook. I saw: συνειδς μαυτ μαθίαν.

  We were si
tting in the library when I asked Homer what that meant.

  “I am conscious of my own ignorance,” said Homer Fink. I suppose that should have given me something to think about, but it didn’t.

  I had finished my homework and was rolling up scrap paper to shoot into the wastebasket.

  Mrs. Creel, the assistant librarian, was the study-hall proctor. She had this way of sitting with a book in front of her and her hands cupped on her forehead. Her eyes were covered so that we couldn’t see if she was sleeping. Mrs. Creel had gray hair and she wore long dresses that came down almost to her ankles. Some of the faculty people called her Dr. Creel. There was a rumor that Mrs. Creel had the highest academic degree in the school. But her family had been killed in an automobile accident a long time ago and she wasn’t interested in teaching or doing anything else but working in the library filing books and supervising the study period. I was sure she was asleep.

  I fired a paper clip into the wastebasket. Mrs. Creel did not react to the metallic ring. And when I shot a ball of paper toward the basket she didn’t raise her head.

  Brian Spitzer signaled from the other side of the room that he was going to try a shot. He missed. Cindy Walsh tried a hook from the fifth seat in the third row and it swished in.

  Soon, most of the class was rolling up paper balls and throwing them at the basket. Phillip Moore and Homer Fink were the only students who didn’t join the game. Phillip was reading a book of American history as if his life depended on it. And Homer was writing notes: “I am convinced there is no hope for cities unless philosophers become rulers or rulers philosophers.”

  I didn’t pay much attention to Homer. By this time my idea of throwing paper balls at the basket was really catching on. From all over the room paper went flying toward Mrs. Creel’s open bucket.

  I just sat quietly watching all those paper balls fly through the air. I didn’t want to feel conceited, but I couldn’t help being proud. I understood how Thomas Alva Edison must have felt when the lights started going on or Alexander Graham Bell when the phones began ringing. The only trouble was that everybody threw at once and the paper balls collided, falling short of the mark. It was Brian Spitzer’s suggestion to divide the room into two teams. The right side could shoot against the left. We arranged a firing order, shooting one at a time.

  The floor was loaded with paper balls. Trudy Deal’s shot landed on the eraser ledge in front of the blackboard and Danny Bachman’s layup was on top of Mrs. Creel’s inkwell.

  It was Homer’s turn. I would have skipped him, but our team was a point behind and we needed every chance.

  I nudged Homer with my elbow and handed him a sheet of loose-leaf paper. “At the basket. Shoot,” I whispered.

  Homer said, “For a chaplet of wild olive.” He popped up from his seat and let the paper ball fly. It hit the blackboard and bounced off just as Mr. Muncrief, the assistant principal, entered. Homer’s paper ball caught him on the right sleeve.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Mr. Muncrief demanded. You could have a riot in the schoolyard or a fire in the boy’s lavatory and Mr. Muncrief’s first words would be, “What is the meaning of this?” We all sat up straight and folded our hands on our desks. But not Homer Fink.

  “The chaplet of olives,” Homer continued, “was the prize awarded to the winners of the Olympic games. The games, traditionally held once every four years, were founded in 776 B.C.”

  “That will be enough.” Mr. Muncrief rubbed his sleeve to remind Homer that he had been struck by the paper ball.

  “Yes, sir.” Homer Fink stood there smiling and looking off into the distance as if he had never heard of an assistant principal before and didn’t have a thought about detention.

  Mr. Muncrief continued across the room, kicking at the paper balls as if they were land mines. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked again.

  “According to Plato’s discourse in the Laws, extremes are bad,” said Homer Fink. “Too much freedom or too much despotism are equally dangerous. What we must have is a mixed constitution.”

  “I would say this is extreme indeed,” said Mr. Muncrief. “And let me assure you I shall get to the bottom of it. I will know the reason why.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” Homer said, “I doubt very much if you will arrive at a dialectic to establish the reason why.”

  Mr. Muncrief thumped his fingers on a desk in the first row. “You may be seated, Fink.”

  Homer said, “Thank you, sir.” Homer was always saying “thank you” and “excuse me.” He was just about the only boy alive who could say “thank you” and really mean it and get somebody hysterically angry at him.

  Mr. Muncrief said, “I’ll have more to say to you later—young man.” There was no doubt in my mind that Homer wouldn’t be going up to the hill that afternoon. I was sure he was in for a long session of staying in after school. “And now, with Dr. Creel’s kind permission—continue with your research Dr.—we’ll make short work of this.” Mr. Muncrief glanced at Mrs. Creel, who was still asleep. Then, he looked across the room, staring into the eyes of each and every one of us. I guess he thought that would give us a guilty conscience and everybody would own up. “Who did it?” he said. “Who threw the paper around the room? Who cares so little for his classroom that he turns it into a pigpen? Who?”

  Homer Fink was back on his feet.

  “Yes, Homer, what is it now?”

  Homer stood with his arms at his side and his chin tilted upward. He looked like a soldier facing a firing squad or, as he would say, a slave on his way to wrestle with the lions at the Coloseum. “I confess,” said Homer Fink.

  Mr. Muncrief let out a long sigh. For a moment he seemed about to let Homer have it, but then Mr. Muncrief started to stare at Homer’s tie which had flapped over his jacket button. The bottom part was much longer than the top. Mr. Muncrief seemed to forget all about the paper balls and the room looking like a pigpen. He started from the front of the class and headed right for Homer. Mr. Muncrief’s eyes never left Homer’s tie.

  In less than a minute Mr. Muncrief had retied Homer Fink’s wool plaid. It was probably the first time since Homer had first put it on that the bottom points touched. That seemed to make Mr. Muncrief feel a lot better.

  “Very well, Homer, thank you for being so honest,” said the assistant principal. “I’m not going to threaten you boys and girls. No, indeed I’m not. I came to make an announcement and I’m going to do exactly that. When I’ve left—and I expect no procrastinating—I will expect each and every one of you who was involved in this destructive play to clean up.”

  Mr. Muncrief was back at the front of the room, thumping his fingers on a desk. “As you all know, this Friday at general assembly we will be having our twenty-fifth annual oratory and declamation contest. I understand that this class has selected two very fine, outstanding young orators.” Mr. Muncrief’s right hand moved to his jacket pocket. He pulled out a white card. “Yes, indeed, class 9-1 will be represented by—Phillip Moore. Phillip will you please stand up and—?” Mr. Muncrief stopped speaking and examined the card. It couldn’t have been more than two seconds, but the class started to snicker. Just the thought of Homer and the oratory contest was enough to shake up Trudy Deal.

  “Well, now—I see you will be joining us, Homer.” Mr. Muncrief tried to sound as if Homer Fink as a contestant in the oratory contest was the most natural thing in the world.

  Brian Spitzer started to laugh.

  “And what is the meaning of this?” Mr. Muncrief demanded of Brian.

  “My speech is a parody,” Homer replied. “That’s why Brian is laughing, Mr. Muncrief. That’s the meaning.”

  “Yes—well—thank you. Homer. And I shall be looking forward to hearing it.”

  Mr. Muncrief was just going to have to learn to stop asking for the meaning of things with Homer Fink in the room.

  “And, boys and girls, if I may have your attention I should like to talk to you for just a moment about the impli
cations of a contest such as this. Let me ask you—what do you think is the purpose of oratory?”

  Phillip Moore had his hand up first. “It’s a way of entertaining and informing.”

  “Very good, indeed,” said Mr. Muncrief. “Anything else?”

  Neil Machen said it was a way to give sermons.

  Alma Melchere raised her hand and pressed out of her seat as if she had to deliver a message from the President of the United States. When Mr. Muncrief called on her she said, “Oratory is making speeches.”

  Then Jerry Trout told us oratory was good on Decoration Day and the Fourth of July to make us patriotic. Bernice Macht said, “When the people on television talk about things and sell toothpaste and cars, et cetera—that’s a kind of oratory.”

  There were still a couple of hands raised when Mr. Muncrief signaled that we had enough class participation. “Let’s try another approach. Now someone mentioned—I believe it was Phillip—that oratory is a way of informing and one young lady suggested that oratory is also a means of selling. Can you think of a kind of oratory that we are all exposed to at one particular season of the year—a kind of speech-making that is very important to all of us?”

  Alma Melchere looked as if she were thinking hard enough to burst, and Neil Machen kept half-raising his hand—trying to let us know he was close to the answer but not quite sure. But no one volunteered.

  “Suppose you try that one, Homer,” said Mr. Muncrief. It was obvious he didn’t have much experience with our class. Homer Fink was staring out the window again. A few strands of long red hair had fallen across his forehead. It seemed to me it was right in his eye but Homer didn’t notice. He was just staring out that window and you would have needed a telescope to locate his thoughts.

  “Homer … Homer Fink—I’m speaking to you,” said the assistant principal. Mr. Muncrief didn’t seem the least bit irritated. I think tying Homer’s tie made him feel as if they were pals. “Homer, this is Mr. Muncrief speaking,” he went on slowly. “I’ve asked a question—”