by Sidney Offit
There was no answer from Homer Fink.
Mr. Muncrief looked very disappointed.
Quietly the first chorus began: “Fink. Fink. Fink.”
We had to bring Homer back—to get him with it.
“Fink. Fink. Fink.”
“Homer, I’m asking a question … I expect a reply. What is the meaning of this?”
Homer’s head jolted forward. His eyes blinked. “The whole virtue of the philosopher-king is dependent upon a personal knowledge of good,” said Homer.
I had a feeling he was still working out Plato. But most of the class found Homer’s answer a riot. Mr. Muncrief allowed several seconds of laughter before raising his hand for silence. “The question was: What is a major use of oratory? Homer, perhaps you could tell us.” Mr. Muncrief was still being Homer’s friend.
Homer began by discussing the rules of rhetoric, but it wasn’t long before he got around to mentioning how important speech-making was to win the hearts and minds of people. Mr. Muncrief interrupted a few times with some questions. At last Homer Fink said we all heard a lot of speech-making before Election Day, because it was one of the ways candidates got themselves elected to office. That was exactly what Mr. Muncrief wanted to hear. He had come to our class to tell us that within the next few weeks the pupils of our school were going to elect a student government. “Two students will be elected to represent each class and one boy or girl will have the honor and challenge of being the president of our student council. How do you like that?”
Alma Melchere started clapping her hands and screwing her face up. She was so excited you would have thought the Supreme Court had declared homework unconstitutional. Trudy Deal sighed and looked as if she were going to cry. Neil Machen asked Brian Spitzer to nominate him.
Mr. Muncrief signaled for quiet and then he went on to tell us about the responsibilities of the citizens in a democracy. He told us to be especially watchful for the good leaders, and he hinted that the oratory contest might be an opportunity to discover a candidate.
Mr. Muncrief reminded us he had a number of other classes to visit and that “time is short.” Again he addressed himself to Mrs. Creel. Her hand remained cupped over her eyes. All we could see was a happy satisfied grin about her lips. Her head bobbed forward and back as if to say, “Yes … I approve.”
“Thank you for letting me intrude,” Mr. Muncrief told the study-hall proctor. “You are perfectly right to proceed with your research, and now if I may I’ll just ask young Fink to see to it that the papers are cleaned up and I’ll be off.”
With that, Mr. Muncrief went to the door. “Homer,” he called across the room, “Let’s see you take charge and get the job done.”
Homer was busily scribbling in his notebook.
“Homer—Homer,” Mr. Muncrief called again. “This is Mr. Muncrief, Homer.” Mr. Muncrief seemed to believe that Homer couldn’t identify his voice and that that was the difficulty with their communication. It took another chorus of “Fink, Fink, Fink,” before Homer finally got the point.
The door had closed behind Mr. Muncrief and Homer moved to the front of the room when Mrs. Creel dropped her hand from her forehead. Her head dropped forward and then opening her eyes wide she slapped her hand on the desk. “Let’s have no more of that!”
It wasn’t easy to know what she meant. The fact was that most of us were sitting quietly with our hands folded on our desks. We hadn’t completely recovered from having Mr. Muncrief in the room.
“I said ‘no more,’” Mrs. Creel went on. “Study hall is a time for attending to our assignments, reading, and thought. Silence is the rule. You there—” Mrs. Creel nodded in the direction of Homer Fink. “Young man—take your seat immediately. I do not recall having given you permission to come to the front of the room.”
Alma Melchere said, “Mr. Muncrief—Mr. Muncrief told Homer to take charge and …”
Mrs. Creel interrupted Alma Melchere. “Perhaps I am mistaken, but I have no impression that you raised your hand to be recognized.”
“No, ma’am,” said Alma and she raised her hand and sat up so stiff she looked like a statue of the Bird Woman who led Lewis and Clark across the Rockies.
“Did I not make myself clear?” Mrs. Creel continued to Homer. “Did I not say to take your seat?”
Homer started back to his place.
“And this will go on report, Mr. Fink. You have not gotten away with this little caper.”
Brian Spitzer raised his hand. It was pretty clear to everybody in the class that Mrs. Creel had slept through Mr. Muncrief’s visit. And now Homer was going to have to stay after school or bring in a note from home because of the teacher’s mistake.
“Yes, Brian,” said Mrs. Creel.
Brian Spitzer stood up and tried to hold back a laugh. In a way it was ridiculous, but Mrs. Creel was old and there had been that accident. I felt sorry for her.
“Mr. Muncrief was in the room,” Brian sputtered. “We all saw him. He told Homer to—”
“That will be enough,” said Mrs. Creel. “You may sit down, young man. The rest of you may return to your studies.”
There was the sound of conversation in the room. “Quiet, please. May I remind you this a study hall?” Mrs. Creel’s voice didn’t sound so confident.
“Mr. Muncrief was here and you slept through,” Neil Machen called from the middle of the room. “You can’t punish Homer Fink for that.”
Neil had spoken out of turn, but the class agreed with him. This was the first time I could remember seeing a teacher so obviously in the wrong, and most of the class was excited by it.
Someone said, “Yes, you were asleep.”
And we heard, “We can prove it.”
“Mr. Muncrief is a witness.”
Mrs. Creel’s head moved from one side of the room to the other. Each comment seemed to be a slap. I could see she really wasn’t as tough as she pretended. I guess when you get to the point where you fall asleep in class, you know it. And Mrs. Creel didn’t need our class to make her feel bad.
I don’t know how it was that Homer Fink managed to make his voice heard above all the others. And I certainly don’t understand what it was about Homer that made us all quiet down to listen to him. But there was Homer standing at his seat, scratching his chin, and trying hard to get to the bottom of something. “In history class this afternoon,” said Homer, “we learned that there is a difference between the meaning of “constitution” in the United States and Great Britain. I’m not so sure I understand that. Do you think you could explain, Dr. Creel?”
The Constitution didn’t have anything to do with our problem, but the mention of it and having Homer Fink bring it up made everybody quiet down.
Mrs. Creel adjusted her glasses. She was study-hall proctor and we were supposed to ask her questions, but I’ve been at P.S. 79 for three years and I never heard any student ask Mrs. Creel anything more serious than, “Could I be excused to get a drink of water?”
“Indeed, Homer, the use of the word ‘constitution’ in its plural sense made one of its rare appearances in English history in those Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164.” Mrs. Creel’s face brightened and I remembered having heard that she was once a history teacher at a girls’ college. The next thing we knew she was up at the blackboard writing words like “Magna Charta,” and making lists to show the difference.
“Although in the United States—because our law is written—an act can be unconstitutional and therefore illegal, in England the usage ‘unconstitutional’ would mean ‘unconventional.’ Let’s try it this way. It is illegal for you not to go to school because that is part of our law. But it is unconventional not to raise your hand in class or to throw paper balls at the wastebasket. It is unconventional because it is usually not done.”
Nobody except Phillip Moore, who wanted to be a lawyer, was excited about that constitutional stuff. But when the bell rang for the end of study hall, Dr. Creel had us all convinced she knew a lot about the Constitution
which was something considering her long silence.
On the way home from school that afternoon I told Homer Fink, “You sure did get Creel off the hook.”
“The Magna Charta did that,” said Homer. “It is as the wise men say—‘knowledge is power.’”
“Knowledge, my elbow. If you hadn’t known that Creel was a history teacher and had all that information on constitutional systems there would have been a revolution.”
Homer shrugged and said, “Did you know when the maximum width of a skull is less than seventy-five per cent of the maximum length, the skull is called ‘dolichocephalic’—or long-headed?”
I said, “No, but Mickey Mantle batted .300 in 1952, his first full season with the New York Yankees.”
“.311,” Homer corrected me. “Mickey Charles Mantle, born October 20, 1931, Spavinaw, Oklahoma.”
“Ah, come off it, Homer,” I said. “You’re trying to skip the subject. But you gave Creel a chance to bail out this morning. And I was wondering why.”
“We dreamers have to stick together,” said Homer Fink. And with that he started backward across the street.
5
I called for Homer the morning of the oratory contest. We have to be in our seats at eight forty-five and it takes fifteen minutes to get from Homer’s house to P.S. 79. I arrived at the Finks’ house on Park Avenue at eight o’clock. Park Avenue in Baltimore is not the same as the Park Avenue in New York. You wouldn’t find the richest people in town living there. Mostly, the houses have been in the same family for a long time. They are three- and four-story brownstones or gray brick. Some have attics. I guess lots of people move from Park Avenue because they get tired of walking all the steps or because, as they say, “the neighborhood is changing.”
Mrs. Fink opened the door. “Good morning, Richard. My, what a lovely day you’ve brought us.”
I said, “Hi, Mrs. Fink. Is Homer up yet?”
“I do believe he is,” said Mrs. Fink.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll run up to his room and get him,” I said.
“What a perfectly splendid idea,” said Homer’s mother. “I am sure Homer will be delighted to see you.”
Homer’s family is different from mine. There is just Homer and his father, who teaches Greek and Latin at the University, and Mrs. Fink, who is usually singing or playing the lute. Everybody is always very busy in the Fink house. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mr. Fink when there wasn’t a book in his lap or stuck in his pocket or open and resting on a table because he’d just put it down so I wouldn’t think I’d interrupted him. Mrs. Fink is usually smiling and she can think of more nice things to say to me than anybody I’ve ever known. Take a thing like opening the door. All I have to do is knock and Mrs. Fink greets me as if I personally were responsible for letting in the outside world. Even when it’s raining she’ll say things like, “A little rain at last. I’m sure the farmers will be grateful to you.” Or, “Rain! How wonderful, Richard. You’ve remembered the azaleas.”
Anyway, I started up the steps to Homer’s room—which was no easy trip. There was a bedspread covering the first four steps and one of Homer’s slippers on the first landing. Argus, the Finks’ dog, was springing at my heels as I moved. I like pets, but it took me a long time to warm up to Argus. Homer tells me Argus is a Maltese and has a great history. “Neither you nor I have an ancestry as distinguished as Argus, Richard. It will do us both well to remember our place.”
Argus has a sharp nose and bushy tail and I guess he knows he can get away with murder with the Finks. But it doesn’t work with me. We used to have a beagle and the one thing I know about pets is that you have to let them know exactly what you expect of them. I took a swat at Argus’s tail. “Don’t you nip at me,” I told him, “ancestry or no ancestry.”
Argus may have had a lineage, but he wasn’t much on courage. He retreated, barking to have the last word.
There was music coming from Homer Fink’s room and the alarm was ringing. As usual, the floor was covered with books and clothes and papers.
Homer was sound asleep with a pillow over his head.
“Hey, are you trying to commit suicide?” I pulled the pillow away from him and slapped it against his face. “It’s ten minutes after eight, Demosthenes—the Spartans are at the city gates.”
“The oratory contest!” exclaimed Homer Fink. He bounded out of bed, picked up the first pair of trousers he saw, and started to pull them over his pajama pants.
“Homer, are you planning to take a nap in school today?”
Homer didn’t get the point. “I must win this contest, Richard,” he said. “The signs are becoming clear.” He searched around the floor and found a shirt. He put it on over the pajama top.
“You’re wearing your pajamas to school, Homer,” I told him.
Homer Fink shrugged. “It’s Friday. We don’t have gym.”
It took me a couple of seconds to figure that out. I decided what Homer meant was that there was no chance of discovery.
“What do the signs add up to?” I asked. “Are you going to start grazing cattle in Droodle Park?”
Homer winced. “If I were mayor of Baltimore I would fine every citizen who says Droodle for Druid Hill.” Homer hopped on top of his bed. His shirt-tail was out and he was barefoot. “But I am not ready to be mayor. I am going to run for president. The gods have called upon me to lead my people.”
Homer had made announcements like that before. Once he had me convinced that all the United Nations needed was a visit from Homer Fink. We were going up to New York and talk things over with the Russians and Americans. The way I remember it, Homer wanted a statue of Zeus in the Security Council or something like that.
Homer jumped from the bed pulling the covers with him. “This is my opportunity. I’ll have a captive audience. I’m going to explicate my philosophy in front of the entire student body. I may be crowned by acclamation.”
I was going to remind Homer about the difference between electing the president of the school and crowning a king, but there was a bulge in the center of his mattress and I wanted to find out what it was.
“All the signs portend a victory.” Homer pulled a blue sock onto his right foot and a brown onto the left. “My triumph in the class contest was the first success I’ve had in competition. The shepherd in the park—my liaison with the school administration. I’ve been called. I have definitely been called, Richard.” Homer bounded across the room and picked a tie from a group that had collected at one end of a hanger. It was blue with a gold palm tree. It must have been three inches wide and I don’t remember ever seeing another tie shaped like it.
“What’s under your mattress?” I asked.
“And you, Richard, will be my Talleyrand—my Boswell—my Tonto.”
“If you’re not going to tell me, I’ll look.”
“You will be my Mark Hanna, my James Farley—my very own Bobby Kennedy.”
I lifted up the mattress and found a new baseball glove. “What’s this doing here, Homer? A baseball glove under the mattress? I don’t get it.”
“I need you, Richard.” Homer forced his feet into his shoes without untying the laces. He thrust his hand toward me. “Give me your pledge.”
“You know you’re ruining a good fielder’s glove.”
“Nonsense. There are seasons and cycles. That is the order of our universe. Of what use is a baseball glove in the fall? It must rest and hibernate to cultivate its pocket.” Homer took the glove and bounced a fist into the pocket. Then he returned it to the mattress. “Next spring—you’ll be proud of me, Richard. I’m going to play John Evers to your Joe Tinkers—short to second, poetry in motion.”
Homer ate two figs, a date, and a banana for breakfast. Mrs. Fink handed him a paper bag with his lunch and kissed him on the forehead. The Professor came from the breakfast table, brushing ashes from his tweed vest, looking over the rimless glasses that seemed about to fall from his nose. He mumbled something in Latin, clasped Homer’s forear
m and wished him well.
We made it up Park Avenue in eight minutes flat.
Homer Fink couldn’t wait to get to school. He didn’t daydream once during the first two classes, and when the students gathered in the auditorium Homer Fink was the only contestant who seemed really happy to be in the oratory contest.
6
Mr. Muncrief had the first two rows of the auditorium reserved for the orators. They stood by their places, trying to look brave. The boys were fastening and unfastening their jacket buttons, hitching up their pants, and looking over their notes. The girls, dressed in their best, checked their make-up.
Only Homer Fink was looking around the auditorium. He was waving to our class and holding up two fingers signaling “O” for onward. When we sang “America,” Homer’s voice could be heard as far back as the tenth row and he pledged allegiance to the flag so loudly, you would have thought an un-American activities committee was taking notes.
After the opening ceremonies, Mr. Muncrief said a “few words” that went on for fifteen minutes and then Miss Sadie P. Everswell, the principal, spoke. Miss Everswell tried to make the contestants “comfortable.”
Each contestant had five minutes for a recitation. No one was supposed to talk longer than that. Mrs. Newthal, the math teacher, was the official timer. The secretary of the senior class, Irma Micklisch, had the job of standing at four minutes and raising her hand when the speaker’s time was up.
Miss Everswell introduced the first speaker.
A boy from 7-5, who must have skipped four times or else he was the smallest kid for his age in the world, came bouncing up to the stage. He started talking when he was two steps from the microphone.
“It looked extremely rocky for the Mudville nine that day,” the seventh-grader began. He wasn’t using the microphone and I could just about make out what he was saying from my seat in the center of the auditorium.
Mr. Muncrief rushed back to center stage, directed the timekeeper to stop the clock and adjusted the microphone. He had to let it all the way down to the base and the seventh-grader had to stand on tiptoes.
