Stealing Indians

by John Smelcer

  By late afternoon, the boys thought that maybe they had found the man they were looking for. It was the choir teacher, a tall, thin, young man with stringy, light-brown hair. His name was Mr. Wilkinson. He had a reputation for flirting with the girls. Indeed, most of his students were girls. Every day he rode to school on his red and chrome motorcycle, wearing a black leather jacket and no helmet. Elijah spoke with one of the girls who was in the choir and also in Elijah’s English class. She and another girl said that Mr. Wilkinson had developed a limp, which he did not have the day before. When Elijah shared this information with his two friends, they became pretty sure they had their man, but they wanted to be certain.

  Noah watched Wilkinson leave his office for supper. Even faculty who lived off campus were required to eat lunch and supper at the school. Breakfast was optional. Faculty ate in their own dining hall adjacent to the cafeteria. After the tall, thin man had walked through a patch of soft ground, Noah studied the prints. Then he retraced Lucy’s trail from the previous night. The man’s shoe prints matched those following Lucy’s exactly, including the deep gouge in the sole of the right shoe.

  At supper, Noah shared with Simon and Elijah what he had found. The other two boys had also learned more about Wilkinson. Some of the girls had told them how he made unwelcome remarks about their clothes or their hair or the way they walked—even touching them in ways teachers should not touch students. Some girls admitted that he would take them into his office on some pretense of discussing grades or performance and kiss them. As the boys later learned, many of the girls went to choir feeling sick to their stomach, praying they weren’t pretty enough to catch his attention. With suspicion now certainty, the boys worked out their plan.

  The next evening, while all the students were still at supper, the three boys left and gathered in the faculty parking lot with a bundle of rope, block-and-tackle pulleys, a can of black paint, and a paint brush, all gathered from the automotive shop building, where the older boys were taught the rudiments of auto mechanics. The teacher, Mr. Weil, was from New Jersey. He was a stocky second-generation Irish-American, with balding red hair and a scruffy, red beard. He stayed as grimy as the engines he worked on, and he had a penchant to recite poetry at a moment’s notice. But the boys who took his class liked him, not necessarily because he was a good teacher but because he taught one of the two things that most interested teenage boys, the other being girls. Almost every day after school, some of the boys would meet in the shop to help Mr. Weil work on cars, usually belonging to members of the faculty or staff. It was all under the table, of course. But, Mr. Weil always gave each boy who helped him a little money, which the boys, in return, used to buy cigarettes. Most of the older students at Wellington smoked, secretly, behind buildings, trees, hedges, bleachers, in the woods, or openly in Mr. Weil’s shop class, a square pack rolled up in each boy’s white T-shirt sleeve.

  Noah’s roommate was one of those boys and had told Noah how to get into the shop after hours.

  When Noah, Simon, and Elijah were certain that no one was watching, they quickly pushed the choir teacher’s motorcycle close to the base of the single, massive oak tree in the cemetery. Simon climbed up the tree and set up the block and tackle. He pulled one end of the rope through the two blocks of four pulleys, feeding it through until one end reached the ground and securely fastened the upper block to a stout limb. Elijah and Noah tied the rope around the motorcycle’s frame, and pulling hard with all their combined weight, hoisted the heavy bike, inch by inch, high into the naked branches of the old tree. While his two friends held the rope taut by wrapping it around the base of the tree, Simon tied off the motorcycle with a short piece of rope, so that it would be more difficult to bring it down. Then he untied the upper block, replaced both in the sack, and dropped the longer rope, which fell to the ground in a loose pile.

  Back in the cafeteria, they told all the students at one table what they had done. From there, the news spread fast, as if poured out from the many pitchers of water and milk, spilling throughout the room, finding the path of least resistance, like a river, to every Indian ear. When the choir teacher left the faculty dining hall that evening, all the students quietly filed out of the cafeteria, keeping a goodly distance behind the man who never once turned around. Their long shadows crept ahead of them, keeping close watch on the lone figure leading the curious mass to the parking lot. Wondering at the commotion, the kitchen staff left their posts, followed by all the teachers watching the procession outside the faculty dining-hall windows. As they marched across campus toward the parking lot, other staff members saw the line and joined the curious parade.

  As the choir teacher passed through the cemetery on the cobbled walk, something caught his eye, a flashing high up in a tree. He stepped off the path onto the lawn, meandered around headstones until he stood at the base of the tree. He looked up and saw his motorcycle suspended high up in the great tree, the late evening rays of the setting sun reflecting off the chrome like a warning signal. Even from the ground he could see the word “pervert” painted on both sides of the fuel tank.

  Shortly after, every boy and girl, every kitchen worker, grounds keeper, custodian, teacher, and administrator stood in a wide arch around the base of the gray tree, their faces turned upward in disbelief, staring at the red and chrome motorcycle, slowly spinning like a lie.

  Chapter Six

  SIMON COULDN’T FIGURE IT OUT. He stared at the paper lying on his desk, at the big capitalized letter D handwritten in red ink at the top left corner. He had worked on the paper for a week—really worked on it, even asking a couple of his friends to read it and to give their advice. He had revised it three times, checking spelling, inserting facts, altering phrasing. Everyone who read it, even though some offered corrections or suggestions, thought it was an A paper.

  Everyone but Mr. Hand.

  He was the new English teacher. He hated his job teaching freshman English at Wellington. He had been hired in a pinch when another teacher suddenly quit. He hated that he was surrounded by “minority” children, Indians, weaker students, he felt, than he deserved. He had taken the job at Wellington as an interim measure, until he could get a real job teaching real students at a real school.

  “Indians.” He sneered whenever he said the word, just like when he said “Nigro.”

  “The only thang worse than an Indian,” he once told the class, “is a Nigro. God made y’all different from white folks. That’s why y’all are here, because yo’ brains aren’t made the same as white folks. Y’all seem to have great difficulty understandin’ things the way we do.”

  Mr. Hand was from the Deep South, so deep he believed Moses parted the Mississippi, his family used to the privilege of authority and respect.

  When the short and balding teacher was looking away, Noah, delighted with his grade, held up his paper so that Simon could see his result, which was a B+. Simon had read Noah’s essay. It wasn’t better than his. It had lots of misspellings, and it never once quoted any facts from the textbook. It was full of fragments and even a page short of the requirement. By all accounts, Simon’s paper was better, and yet it received a much lower grade.

  Mr. Hand walked around the room, quietly returning essays, scowling frequently as he dropped papers on desks in front of frightened students. Simon motioned to several students sitting nearby.

  “Whadya’ get?” he whispered, leaning over.

  One student got a B; another a C-. One had a D.

  Simon turned around to face Willa Spotted Elk, a pretty half-breed with blue eyes and light brown, almost ivory skin, which contrasted sharply against her long, shiny auburn hair. Her features were less Indian looking than most of the other girls in the class. Willa showed Simon her grade when the teacher wasn’t looking.

  It was an A.

  “Can I look at it?” Simon asked, interested to see how much better her paper was than his own.

 
Willa nodded and Simon hurriedly lifted it from her desk top. He read the first page quickly, skimming mostly. The paper was terrible. It was much worse than Noah’s. And yet, there perched the smiling red letter A at the top left corner, while a brooding D squatted on his own first page. He couldn’t figure it out.

  Mr. Hand finished passing out the marked essays.

  “Next week we shall be reading Shakespeare. Now, I rather doubt that a group of Indians will be able to grasp the complexity of such a great playwright, but we shall read him anyhow. It’s expected. We’ll begin with Hamlet. You might actually enjoy it. It’s kind of a ghost story, if you will.”

  The bell rang while he was handing out cheaply printed copies of the play.

  “Make sure you read through Act III by Monday,” he yelled above the din of chairs sliding out from beneath desks.

  Simon read Hamlet, the whole play, over the weekend. It was hard for him at first. The unfamiliar and archaic words and the strange phrasings confused him. But he quickly learned to read beyond the difficult language, letting the events of the story unfold. It didn’t matter that the play was hundreds of years old. His own version of the story began to take shape in his mind. Instead of Elsinore, Wellington was the setting of Simon’s version, and he filled it with dozens of Indian characters. In his mind, Lucy was Ophelia. Mr. Hand convincingly played the evil, brother-murdering King Claudius. Noah was Laertes and Elijah was Horatio, Hamlet’s best friend. Naturally, Simon was Hamlet. He became absorbed in the play, reading certain parts over and over. He even skipped lunch on Saturday because he was so engrossed in the story.

  Come Monday, he was eager to share his thoughts with the class.

  “Now then,” Mr. Hand began. “Who can tell me where the ghost first appears?”

  Simon threw his right hand into the air, as high as he could reach without pushing his shoulder out of joint. Apparently, Mr. Hand didn’t notice him, and Simon could see that no one else seemed to know the answer.

  “Well then,” the teacher went on, seeming not to see Simon’s flagpole of an arm, “let me put the matter differently. Who is the ghost? That is, who was the ghost when he was alive?”

  This time Simon raised his hand so high that he lifted himself slightly out of his chair and wiggled his fingers, trying to draw the teacher’s attention. Nothing. Mr. Hand seemed to find Simon invisible. Every time Mr. Hand asked a question about the play, Simon was the only student to raise his hand. It was clear that no one else had read the play or, at least, no one felt confident enough to pose answers to Mr. Hand’s questions.

  “Look here. Indians are supposed to know all about ghosts. I read about your idiotic Ghost Dance. Tell me, why do you think the ghost appeared before Hamlet and the guards?”

  “Why doesn’t Prince Hamlet seek revenge right away?”

  “What seems to be bothering Ophelia?”

  “Anyone? Anyone?” he’d ask each time after raising a question, looking around the classroom, through Simon as if he too were a ghost.

  Simon sat erect in his uncomfortable chair, holding his hand up so long that he had to prop it up with his other arm after a while. But the teacher never called on him. After a while, Simon stopped raising his hand.

  The impatient teacher was growing angry.

  “It’s obvious that none of y’all have read any of this play. I should have known that a group of Indians couldn’t handle Shakespeare. Just like Nigroes.”

  He slapped his text of the play on his desk and turned to the chalkboard, angrily writing out the week’s assignment.

  “I want a three-page essay on Hamlet by Friday, proving to me that you’ve read the play! Write on any subject you want; just be sure you prove to me you’ve read the whole play.”

  Simon worked on his essay every night. He quoted lines. He wrote about how he thought Hamlet and other characters felt about things, commenting on the psychology of characters without even knowing what psychology is. He wrote about how he himself sometimes felt worry and distress and uncertainty, just like Hamlet, like Ophelia. He even included a paragraph on why he felt the ghost of Hamlet’s father felt betrayal and suffering. All in all, Simon had never written anything like it before, and he was proud of it. He wound up writing what he considered his very best essay, five-and-a-half pages.

  On the following Monday, Mr. Hand shuffled about the classroom returning essays.

  “Try harder next time, Lone Fight,” the teacher remarked snidely, as he deposited Simon’s paper face down on the desk.

  Simon had been sure that he would be looking at the first A he had ever earned in English. Surely this time, he thought, surely this time. Mr. Hand’s surly comment struck like a dart at the balloon of Simon’s confidence; nevertheless, Simon remained hopeful because Mr. Hand always sounded surly and impatient. He turned the paper over, slowly, hoping for the longed-for A. Even a B+ would be welcome, though a little disappointing. He had worked so hard and learned so much about Shakespeare, about drama, about how a story of another person’s problems can ignite understanding of your own. More importantly, he had learned that he had an exciting gift for thinking about and writing about literature, something that only days earlier had never occurred to him about himself.

  In that instant, while turning over the face-down paper, Simon relished the irony of the moment. Here was one of the most disliked teachers at Wellington, a self-absorbed, disgruntled, impatient, and surly little man who, as luck would have it, had turned Simon on to a wonderful side of himself that would catapult him to the very front of academic excellence. How strange that an enemy can provide such a blessing. Simon suddenly knew that even if his grade weren’t an A, even if a B+ or B, he could still feel proud and build on his new pride.

  As Simon flattened the turned-over paper, he saw with a breaking heart the same old squatting D, glaring up at him from the top left corner. No comments, no marks of any sort, accompanied the barren letter grade to indicate why the paper had failed so miserably, what there was about it that was wrong, misplaced, or deficient. There were no comments to suggest why this, his most splendid piece of school work, deserved a grade no better than his worst work, no better than his first essay.

  Simon turned to look at Willa’s essay. It was all marked up in red ink, like it was bleeding to death. And yet, miraculously, there was an A- scribbled at the top. After class, he asked Noah what he received. Noah’s grade was a B, only slightly less than his previous B+, which was not at all comforting. When Noah had looked over Simon’s paper and praised it, even offering some slight revisions, he had commented to Simon that his own paper was a disaster, something he had thrown together just to answer an assignment. He had told Simon that he neither liked nor understood anything about the play or about the character of Hamlet.

  By his own reckoning, Noah expected a very low grade.

  Simon eventually asked nearly all the students in the class about their grades, writing down the various names and scores on a piece of paper to help him figure out the puzzle. At first he couldn’t make sense of the grades. They seemed random, unrelated to the quality of the work he associated with each student. Several bad papers and poor students got good grades, and several well-written papers by authors he knew were smart students got bad grades. There was no rhyme or reason to it. But then Simon began to picture each author in his mind. He imagined pretty Willa Spotted Elk with her A and George Joseph with his F.

  What was different about them? Simon wondered, chewing on the pink, rubber eraser of his yellow number two pencil. Both were perfectly average students, neither smart nor dull witted.

  Maybe girls get good grades and boys get bad grades, he puzzled.

  On the other hand, he thought, studying the piece of paper with all the names and corresponding grades written on it, Noah and some other boys got good marks, and some of the girls got failing grades.

  Simon thought about the dilemma all day
long. That night, as he puzzled and drifted toward sleep, he thought about Hamlet, how Shakespeare used dream-like moments to answer questions. He thought about the play-within-a-play and about the ghost coming toward him on the castle’s high ramparts and imagined the sound a ghost would make when talking. At some point Simon was dreaming as much as thinking, and he could see and hear the ghostly, semi-transparent king, in and out of focus, always vague and fleeting, like fog, always ghastly and colorless. And then the phantom spoke, whispering the terrible secret from his thin, white lips. The vaporous king spoke directly, not to Hamlet but to Simon.

  “Your skin,” said the melancholic, silvery ghost.

  Simon awoke. In fact he sat up in his bed. Your skin. He understood. More accurately, the color of skin was the degree of Indianness. He turned on the table lamp and retrieved his piece of paper on which he had copied grades and names. Students who were half-breeds or even of lesser Indian blood, Indian but white, received better marks and more praise and attention from Mr. Hand. Noah was a half-breed. Willa one quarter. In fact, every student who earned a high grade was a half-breed. Every student who was a full-blood, Simon included, received a low grade. Simon and George Joseph had the most Indian-looking features in the class. Both had darker skin than anyone else. Even their noses and lips were more Indian looking.

  Mr. Hand had a grading system after all. He didn’t, as Simon first thought, assign grades randomly, without rhyme or reason. His system was based on appearances. The less Indian-looking the student, the better the grade.