Tales of the Madman Underground

by John Barnes

Meanwhile Gratz got through repeating everything he’d already said, and arrived back at the same place with even more emphasis. “But! But! But! The all-American-boys-on-a-road-trip version is wrong!”

  I managed not to gasp with surprise.

  Darla was drawing Mister Babbitt on one side of the page. The other side was filled with neat, careful super-tiny handwriting, no doubt a perfect summary of the lecture.

  Since we didn’t riot or anything, when we heard that the idea was wrong, Gratz went on to tell us why it was wrong. He had ahold of the podium with both hands now, and he was a-hoppin’ and a-boppin’, a-reelin’ with the fee lin’ as he finished up his point. “So don’t try to fake your way through class discussion by pretending you got all caught up in the pretty river and how nice it would be to just drift along with a good friend. Even if you do think you’d look cute in overalls and a straw hat, like some breakfast cereal commercial.”

  Lots of people laughed like they were all surprised that a coach watched television. I thought it was about the least surprising thing I could’ve thought of.

  “Everybody got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” we all chorused—except Marti.

  Gratz glared at her.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, real meek and stuff. Not like she was challenging him or anything.

  He nodded at her, acting all kindly. “You’ll get it.” He looked down at his notes. “All right, the second way not to read Huckleberry Finn. This is really sad. Many, uh, black groups have made an issue of the book, and sometimes even tried to get it banned, because there is a very important character in the book called Nigger Jim. And because of that fact we will say the word ‘nigger’ pretty often in this class. And when you talk about Jim and the way he is treated, sometimes you’re going to have to say the word ‘nigger.’

  “So understand me. First of all and most important, we don’t ever call anyone a ‘nigger.’ Not in this class. Not anywhere. When we have to discuss the idea, we always quote the word ‘nigger.’ It is okay to say that Jim is an uh, black person who is mistreated and hated because white people see him as a ‘nigger.’ It is okay to say that thus and so is what those very prejudiced white people meant when they said the word ‘nigger,’ and that they meant it about Jim. It is okay to say that part of how they dominated, controlled, and enslaved uh, black people like Jim was that they classified them as ‘niggers.’ But it is not okay to say that—and I am quoting these sentences, from past students who said them and who were made to feel very sorry they said them—‘Jim is a nigger,’ or that Jim was anybody’s ‘nigger,’ or that ‘Jim is running away because he’s a nigger.’ Is that clearly understood by everyone in the room, or do I need to throw someone out of class right now?”

  We all stayed silent.

  “Now, tragically, some uh, black people are trying to get Huckleberry Finn, of all books, taken off the shelf, because it is a great book by a great American writer in which he launches a brilliant and searching attack on racism. Far ahead of its time. It showed what was evil about slavery and about treating a man, any man, as a ‘nigger.’

  “But to show the evil of racism to anyone, you have to use the words that the racists use. And some groups out there insist that Huckleberry Finn is a racist book, and that a teacher who teaches it must be racist, and even that the students who read this book will automatically become racists, all because”—he whispered dramatically—“it . . . has . . . that . . . word!”

  Looked to me like Gratz had sure found an excuse for saying “nigger” in class.

  Darla had started another sketch of Mister Babbitt. She could really draw.

  “So,” Gratz said, perching on his desk, “quick review. What do we do with the word ‘nigger’ in this class? Quote or call?”

  “Quote,” everyone except Marti said in unison.

  “Marti,” Gratz said, “I’m sorry, I keep forgetting that you haven’t had a class from me before. When I call for a group response like that, I expect everyone to respond, all together.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Next time.” He nodded in a friendly way like he’d scritched her between her fuzzy wittle ears. “Okay, again, in this class, quote the word ‘nigger’ or call a man a nigger?”

  “Quote,” we chorused, including Marti.

  He made a pencil mark on his notes and said, “Far enough for today. Karl Shoemaker, see me after class.”

  They all piled out. I approached Gratz’s desk slowly, looking down at my friendly shoes.

  “Karl.” His voice was softer than I’d ever heard it. “I guess by now you must be aware that teachers are always noticing everything you do, how it looks to them, who you seem to be, who it looks like you’re trying to become. You know that, right?”

  “I guess I do.” I wished to God I could forget.

  Gratz nodded. “Look, Karl, I knew your dad well, and I could always count on him. Did you know he was my AA sponsor?”

  “Uh, yeah, actually, remember, we talked about that last summer.” Sometimes Gratz and I were at the same meeting. He’d kind of thought, I think, that I’d have him as my sponsor, like it was hereditary or something, and I think it hurt his feelings when I chose Dick Larren. Or maybe he felt like I’d picked a faggot over him; I guess a lot of men would be mad about that.

  Anyway, I think I figured out that Dad was Gratz’s AA sponsor even before Dad died. Dad was always doing something for other people—it was just his nature—and while he was still well enough to walk that far, Dad used to hang out at Philbin’s, having coffee with Gratz or chatting with Dick Larren.

  Both of them had cried like little kids at Dad’s funeral.

  Sometimes I thought it explained why Mom didn’t hate Gratz nearly as much as I’d normally expect her to hate a god-bless-America Vietnam-vet hollering jock churchy asshole, which he still was even if Dad had thought he was the bee’s knees.

  He sighed and said, “Yeah, of course you’re right, I can’t believe I forgot that.”

  I almost asked forgot what? until I retraced my thoughts. I wondered if I’d been standing there with my mouth hanging open for a couple of minutes. If I had, was it normal?

  Around us, sophomores flowed into the classroom for Read Like a Man. A smooth-faced blond jockish kid walked up to Gratz and started to tell him something about having to have a week off for a family vacation. Gratz held his hand up at the kid and said, “After class. And don’t walk into the middle of other people’s conversations. Sit down.”

  “But my mom said that—”

  “Sit down.”

  The kid did. It wouldn’t be bad to be Gratz, and have all the students afraid of you. Of course it would be even better to have them afraid of you and not be Gratz.

  “What I was gonna say,” Gratz said, very low and even, “is this. There’s kind of a loophole if you’d like to stay out of therapy this year. If you and a teacher, any teacher, submit a letter that says you are meeting with that teacher, to talk over your problems—and if you do it, regularly—then you can be excused from therapy, unless the school psychologist disagrees. And the school psychologist is so overloaded that unless you’re literally foaming at the mouth, she’ll probably be glad to let you go.

  “So (if you want, it’s really up to you, Karl) I’ll draw up a letter, and you and I can both sign it tomorrow morning. Then you and I would just meet some time that was convenient for both of us, and, you know, talk about things. Just talk, you know, not too different from what me and your Dad used to do.”

  It felt like time stopped. Here it was, the Anti-Ticket. My pass to normality. About to be issued by the biggest asshole I knew.

  “It’s a serious offer,” he said.

  “I know. I was just really thinking hard for a minute.”

  “I kind of think you need a year of just being a regular kid.”

  “I’d love that,” I said. Not just not-getting a ticket—being ticket-proof. Shit-Jesus, how could I be hesitating? “I’ll come a little early t
omorrow to pick up the letter from you.”

  “Great.” Gratz held out his hand across that big, book-strewn desk, and I took it and shook it. Didn’t even count my fingers or wipe it on my pants afterwards.

  I followed Gratz’s glance at the clock; I had two minutes to get to my next class over in the other wing, and his classroom was almost full already. “Okay, tomorrow morning. I’m glad we’re doing this, Karl. Oh—one other thing. Sometimes I get into these beefs with the therapy kids. Like the one you and me had once, you know? Well . . . you seem to be friends with this new girl, Marti—”

  “She’s not looking for trouble,” I said. “She’s really not. She’s a good kid, Coach. Really. She just doesn’t know your system yet.”

  He made a face. “Believe it or not I’m trying not to get off on the wrong foot any more than she and I already have. So talk to her if you can. Please. See you tomorrow morning.”

  I had to scramble to get my trig book from my locker, and my butt touched my chair in Hertz’s class like a quarter heartbeat before the bell.

  I was ticket-proof.

  I had a deal.

  I had promised to be a stooge for Gratz.

  I felt like when he had that letter ready, tomorrow morning, I’d be signing it in my blood, and he’d be just burning his mark on it with this cloven foot. Well, okay, that’s an exaggeration, but I felt like shit, okay?

  “Hey, what did Gratz want from you?” Marti said.

  “Oh, the usual. Naked pictures of everyone and I’m supposed to plant drugs in your purse,” I said. “And I gotta say I saw you at a Communist Party meeting.”

  Bonny laughed. “Don’t do jokes like that on Marti yet, Karl, she’s new. She doesn’t realize that you’re telling the truth.”

  Today Bon looked like my mom wished she looked, all this shimmery stuff in gauzy layers.

  “Yeah, well.” I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  Hertz came in, smelling like mixed essence of ashtray and old lady, and started pounding through the review. She said she was hurrying because she wanted to “get into the new, fun stuff” on Monday. One good thing about her, she didn’t give a shit how we were feeling—she just processed us. Math was fun for her, it was fun for everyone, why would she ask? Load kids into desks, load trig into kids, release kids filled with trig. Like working at the cookie factory and her job was putting on the chocolate sprinkles, she didn’t worry too much about any one cookie.

  Gratz worried about every cookie, and that’s why he broke a lot of them.

  See, the thing was, Gratz was sort of right. Usually, if you picked a fight with one Madman, you picked a fight with all of us. Like when Harris and Tierden picked on Cheryl, we were all there, even Darla, who fucking hated everyone.

  So two years before, Paul and me had been in Read Like a Man with Gratz. That was right after the assholes on the football team had found out that sometimes Paul went up to hustle in Toledo.

  Gratz was trying to get a real stupid football player to admit he could understand a poem. This would happen now and then: Gratz hated the idea that athletes had to be stupid, and he tried to fix it by encouraging them to be smarter and shouting their stupid buddies into submission. Which worked great with Danny, who really was smart, and pretty good with Squid, who would try; all they needed was a little protection from the Back Row Mandatory Moron Enforcement Squad. But when you’re trying to get a big dumb ape to say that he, too, has felt gentle fucking regret just like Emily fucking Dickinson, it fucking doesn’t work. At fucking all.

  So, anyway, Bongo the Ape Boy was supposed to be getting a major revelation from “Because I could not stop for Death,” and Gratz was pushing him real hard, and making Bongo’s stupid jock friends shut up so they couldn’t take the heat off him. So suddenly the guy says, “Oh, so it’s stop like a car stopping for you.”

  “Yes, yes.” Gratz nodded enthusiastically. He was going to save this boy for literature, Jesus, and America.

  “So like she’s like a hooker, she’s got cars stopping for her,” Bongo explained, “so why don’t you ask Paul Knauss about that?”

  And, okay, I got up out of my chair and yelled, and next thing I knew, I was headed down to Emerson’s office. With Paul because of course Paul had caused all the trouble—though actually he’d said nothing because he was just too upset and scared.

  This jingly sound beside me . . . I turned and there was Bonny, all those little charms and beads tinkling away, looking like she was going to audition for a job with Jefferson Airplane.

  “How did you—?”

  “I muttered ‘asshole’ under my breath,” Bonny said.

  “Usually you can get away with that.”

  “I muttered it kind of loud, I think,” she said. “Like people started laughing in the next room.”

  We were twenty minutes on the bench, waiting to see the vice principal, so by the time Mrs. Brean came out and told us to go in and see Emerson, we were goofing and getting silly and having a good old time.

  Emerson sighed, shook his head, told us we were better kids than that and he didn’t want to see anything more like this. Then he gave us a three-day suspension.

  Those are fucking great, because they don’t let you make up work, so it’s like you get to trade down your grade in a couple of classes in exchange for a vacation. And since it happened on Tuesday, it gave us a five-day break. We weren’t even allowed to go to extracurriculars, so on Wednesday and Thursday, Paul just ran through his lines for Tea and Sympathy while he watched me turn over some garden beds and rebuild some cold frames. Then we’d go pick up Bonny from her afternoon job where she was getting some extra hours, and get the younger kids from her house, and we’d all go to Pongo’s and be silly for an hour, and spend the evenings hanging out at New Life, hassling Rev Dave and shooting pool. It was the funnest week of my sophomore year.

  Also, the biggest deal of all, that Thursday night, because Paul had to be at home for something stupid his dad thought up, Bonny and me went to a movie; we smuggled in a big bottle of Rosie O’Grady, and powered by liquid courage, we actually made out. First time I ever got my hand on a boob.

  I told Paul we needed to get thrown out of Gratz’s classes more often. He said that was fine but next time the jocks could hassle me and he’d do the yelling.

  And now I was gonna stooge for Gratz. And Paul wasn’t speaking to me. Maybe I could get a non-Madman nickname: instead of Psycho, they could call me Judas. It was hard to concentrate in class; I just kept feeling shittier.

  Even gym class wasn’t really a relief; I was so distracted that when I tried to serve, the volleyball came down on my head. Coach Stuckey said if I had two more stooges I’d have an act; he said that every time you did something clumsy. I tried not to think about that word stooge too much.

  About all you can say for the rest of the day was, it went by. Paul ate his lunch outside, again, and I barely ate, and sat in the library so I wouldn’t have to goof with Larry because I liked Larry but not when I was bummed, and wondered why I had ever thought Ice Station Zebra was a good book. Eventually it sucked so bad I just gave up and did trig homework.

  In my notebook, I scrawled:

  Notes for review, so far today: • Not two hippies on road trip on raft.

  • Not a racist book, an antiracist book, no matter what anyone uh, black says.

  • Pythagorean theorem: still good.

  • I am a stooge, and I can’t find two other stooges for an act.

  13

  An Afternoon Down the Toilet

  AS I WAS walking home, right where Shoemaker Street crosses Courthouse, there was Browning, carrying his usual late-afternoon doughnut and coffee carefully across the street. “Mister Shoemaker. Today is your lucky day, sir, if you have the time to assist a poor old man . . . and perhaps make twenty dollars yourself?”

  “You have my complete attention, Mister Browning.”

  “See, anyone can talk to young people, you just have to know what phrases to us
e.”

  I followed him back to his shop.

  He’d been busy. “That’s a lot more than re-covering,” I said.

  “Well, Rose herself’s a tiny lady, but she has a bunch of ten-ton Tillies as friends. And it probably never occurred to her that her frame would be broken in three places, and anyway I doubt she could afford the actual rebuild it needs. So I’m doing the rebuild, and putting on a nice tough stain-proof fabric, and telling her I used the tag end of a bolt I got on special, and she’s getting back a better couch than her old husband ever bought, for half what I’d charge for a repair. Got her fooled completely.” He laughed like it was fucking hilarious. “There’s near a week of work in this old piece of junk at the usual pace. Rose thinks I’m doing a simple re-cover, so a-course she’s planning on getting it back on Monday, and if she finds out how much extra work I did she’ll wanna pay me and we’ll have to argue. Truth is, this couch was crap to begin with and ten years of ten-ton Tillies have crapped it up a lot more. But I don’t want her to know her husband bought a lousy cheap couch, because it was an anniversary present, the last one she ever got from him, and he’s been passed on for ten years, and she likes to remember him as the guy who always did everything right.”

  I looked closer. “Mister Browning, uh, you’re building a whole new frame, basically—a lot better one than it had when it came new from the store.”

  “Right, that’s why it’s taking a while.” He shrugged and spread his hands. “I got no other work that I don’t have lots of time for, anyway.”

  “You’re gonna go broke, Mister Browning.”

  “So I might not have money for when I get old?”

  Okay, I laughed too. I like a guy that will do too much for a friend, and try to hide it from them. Makes me feel like I’m just another fool instead of the biggest one in the world.

  “Now,” he said. “About another problem. I know you take French, Karl. So you will pardon my French. That goddam toilet is jammed up again, because that idiot that worked for me ten years ago poured plaster of Paris down it, which hardened in the goddam trap, and so the drain is only about as big as my constipated old asshole. And I want that bastard out of my bathroom. The toilet, I mean. I already got rid of the idiot, praise the Lord. Then I need a new toilet put in, and I know Doug taught you real well, from what I’ve heard from people you did some unofficial plumbing for.