A Comedy & a Tragedy

by Travis Hugh Culley

  Gene-John raised his hand.

  “Yes? Eugene.”

  “What is a paragraph?”

  She answered the question without breaking focus. “At least five sentences,” she said. I was tempted to ask her what a sentence was, but I thought it too ridiculous. My literacy was the very last thing I wanted, in any show-and-tell sense, to share with a classroom of strangers. Then the bell rang, signaling the end of first period. We had to collect our stuff.

  In my room, I tried to come up with five basic statements about what I had done this summer. What did she care? It all seemed so ridiculous. I had been kicked out of Norland this summer. I couldn’t write about that. My next-door neighbor Melanie had moved away. It broke my heart. I couldn’t write about that. I thought about other details from the summer: I had gone back to church camp while my brother went to Washington, D.C. It was a painful experience full of awful thoughts. I could never write about that.

  I wrote about summer school. Algebra, Typing, and the punching bag: I had a brutal summer. Everything that the assignment brought up in me broke my pride, and for different reasons. For some time, I could not even touch a sheet of paper with my pen without breaking it in frustration. To complete the assignment, I wrote down what words I could easily spell, scribbling one sentence about going boating in the Florida Keys, and one about coming home. I wrote three sentences about beating the Everlast punching bag.

  Mom said, looking down at my assignment, “How can you write a paragraph if you can’t even write a sentence?” I snapped the page out of her hands and went back to my room. I affirmed my detachment from these things. I would learn when it became necessary, not a moment sooner.

  I turned in my assignment folded in fours and Mrs. Seitlin stopped me. She unfolded my paragraph. “Excuse me,” she said. “How am I supposed to read this?” I could hardly read it myself. My paragraph was a crumpled mass of scratches and parts of words that had been scribbled out and replaced by others.

  “This is unacceptable,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It’s so messy! Look at how the other kids’ papers are! Do you see a difference?”

  “But I wrote it!”

  She glared. “Okay. I’ll let it go this time, but next time, try to make it cleaner.” I returned to my seat, opened my folder, and brushed the incident off.

  As we sat through class, I began to get distracted by the writing being done by Gene-John. While I stared at the walls, and listened to dramas unfold in my mind, he spent the whole hour writing in a blue binder that was stuffed with lined paper. He wore his hat in class, lowered his head over the desk, and scribbled out continual lines of ink without going back.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in a whisper.

  He kept writing. At the end of the hour, he wrote me back on a little piece of paper: Writing.

  What are you writing?

  Letters.

  That day, after the bell, we talked about it:

  “What kinds of letters are they?”

  “I don’t know if I can answer that.”

  “Well, who are the letters for?”

  “I am not sure they’re meant to be read by anyone.”

  This made me curious—not to read what he had written, but to see what writing was for him, what kind of a secret art it had become. I asked him to clarify: “If they are letters, someone ought to read them.”

  He said that he was writing letters, like letters to himself, to develop his letter-writing skills.

  “Well, I don’t get it.”

  He couldn’t explain it.

  After lunch we would meet up in the courtyard to kick around a footbag. Ray and Desi would join in. Gene-John and I faced off against each other, trying for the most kicks and the splashiest tricks. We all maintained some conversation while delicately, or clumsily, kicking the footbag from person to person. If it went all the way around, we celebrated. Everyone who played in took credit for the round. Desi taught us the rules: no hands, and no apologies.

  One day Gene-John turned to me in the courtyard and said, “This is a prison, you see?”

  “They call it a free country, Gene-John.”

  “Look around you. Who can leave? Can you? Where could you go?”

  “Maybe I could jump that fence right there.”

  “And then where would you go?”

  “Anywhere. What are you saying?”

  “I mean, does anyone have a life here, or a future? We’re all prisoners in this system.”

  “Even the security guards?”

  “Especially the security guards.”

  Gene-John’s dad had been a POW in Vietnam. He had a theory that the public school system was only designed to make workers and soldiers, functionaries, security guards.

  “No one here is going to succeed for being original, don’t believe it. School is all about being part of a group, and if you are not part of a group or a gang of some kind, the school won’t even know what to do with you.” Gene-John laughed. He had a cackle that was a little insane.

  “What are you saying?”

  “If they failed us, and kept us here, we wouldn’t really learn anything new, would we? Another year would pass and they wouldn’t have anything new to teach us, would they?”

  “Probably not.”

  “So if we failed, another time, like a third or a fourth round, they’d start running out of places to put us. We would just get older. Think about it, we’d be weirder than anyone!”

  “So, at some point, they’re going to have to pass us? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No matter what we do, or don’t do. As long as we are part of a group, they will move us through the program as a group. Only the really, really unique ones, those who will not fit into any group, will get held back. And it doesn’t matter if you can’t write. It doesn’t matter if you can or can’t read a book! In fact, most people don’t read books.” He laughed. “If you want to be part of a big group, don’t read anything at all.”

  “I don’t,” I acknowledged.

  “Then congratulations, you’re part of a group.”

  Path of Sons

  In first period, while Mrs. Seitlin was talking about our reading assignment, a chapter from the Odyssey, I wrote Gene-John a note in green ink: She doesn’t know anything.

  He wrote back in blue: And what else is new?

  “So who is Telemachus looking for in this chapter?” I looked around. No one dared to raise their hand. She started again. “Telemachus is on a journey; he’s going to travel around the world searching. Can anyone tell me who Telemachus is looking for? Gene-John, how about you?”

  He sat up: “His father?”

  “Yes, his father. Very good, Gene-John.”

  I had to laugh. I was sure he was guessing. He’d probably said the first thing that came to his mind. Mrs. Seitlin continued her lecture, looking back to our corner of the room whenever she needed affirmation. She had confidence that Gene-John had read the material. He returned to his writing, cracking a little smile. I was amazed. I was seeing that writing really served two functions: it protected him from our teacher’s suspicions, and it secured, for her, Mrs. Seitlin, the illusion that Gene-John was actually paying attention. He wasn’t paying attention. He was writing.

  After lunch, walking back to class, Gene-John was right behind me when a fist came out of the crowd and hit him in the ear. A small tough kid named Vinny was brandishing knuckles. But then another kid stepped up and slugged my friend in the stomach. Ray and I stood back as Gene-John bent over and let five boys punch at his back and tear at his clothes. Gene-John covered his head with his arms. One part of the crowd cleared away, and another part piled on. There had been no notice, and no motive for the attack.

  Then, from beneath the pile of his assailants, Gene-John stood up, throwing kids off of him in two directions. He went mad, swinging at anyone he could see. He threw a punch that knocked one kid right into the wall. Someone leapt on his back and wrappe
d his arms around him. Tall Gene-John began swinging about, kicking at the others, carrying one of these thugs on his back. With one hand free, he grabbed the guy riding him. Then he turned and body-slammed him onto the concrete floor. Gene-John was like a monster. He seemed invincible until two security guards tackled him and dragged him up to the principal’s office.

  After that day, Gene-John’s personality changed sharply. He lost all of his shy smiles and humorous asides. In homeroom he’d become cruel with Merle, even with Ray. We’d all sit together in the cafeteria. When Ray brought his tray to the table, Gene-John pulled the chair from beneath him—just to make us laugh. When Ray fell, Gene-John’s cackle echoed off of the walls and tables. We were all a little afraid for our friend. He was no longer the gentle punk rocker he used to be. Whatever he had become, we had no handle on him now.

  Then we started stealing lunches. At first, it was a small habit, like a gag. Gene-John would duck out of line with his lunch tray as I was approaching the lunch lady. I’d provide cover by paying the lunch lady in coins. It was easy. A week later, I began to discover ways of stuffing extra chocolate milks into my unzipped backpack. Every time through the line, the maneuver became simpler, until the table where we sat began to look like a feast of free food, extra sandwiches and shared desserts. We’d pig out, hold absurd conversations, and then we’d head out to the courtyard and kick a footbag.

  Vinny appeared. He ran into the circle, grabbed the leather Hacky Sack we were kicking, and threw it onto the roof of the athletic department. No one moved. Then Vinny ran around the courtyard expecting to be chased.

  Desi pulled out his knit bag, and the rest of us resumed playing.

  Gene-John walked slowly over to Vinny: “That was mine.”

  “So?” Vinny said, coming closer.

  Gene-John was ready to fight, but more inclined to play. He looked down at Vinny and started laughing, pointing. Everyone looked. Ray and Desi laughed, and as others joined them, Vinny brightened. “What is it? So what?” He did not comprehend the attack.

  Those days at T.J. stretched out like aeons as I tried to comprehend how to laugh at my own grief, laugh at the idea of the failure of coming here, laugh at the next obstacle set before me. That was the penultimate lesson that Gene-John taught me. There really was no other way. One rainy Monday, Gene-John and I decided to leave after homeroom and ditch for the rest of the day. We spent a few hours at the Cloverleaf Gameroom, then we took a bus to Haulover Beach. It was desolate, and cold. The rain was warmer than the wind. We found cover in view of the boardwalk and talked about some of the things we weren’t learning in school.

  “Have you ever been afraid of your father?” I asked Gene-John.

  “No. Well, yes but no. I wish he wouldn’t do things the way he does sometimes, so I think he should be feared. But I am not afraid of him. Why?”

  “My dad is at home right now waiting to beat me up.”

  “You mean, now?”

  “Yes, right now.”

  “What for?” Gene-John asked.

  “I don’t know. He does this. I only know he’s waiting.”

  “Is he drunk?”

  “He is, probably.”

  “Don’t go.”

  “Don’t go home?”

  “What can he do?”

  “He can call the police and say I’m missing. He probably would.”

  “So what? You can call the police too. That’s self-defense.”

  “I don’t want that.”

  “Can you defend yourself?” Gene-John asked.

  “No.”

  “Well, good luck, man. Look into the wind,” he said, pointing to the horizon.

  “Face the music?” I answered, tapping my temple. We knew without saying, this was the path of sons.

  Coming home, I found my father stationed in his chair as usual. The television was on but he was barely seeing beyond the frames of his glasses. He asked me if I had cleaned my room.

  “My room is clean, Dad.” It was probably not the best answer.

  “Go clean it again.”

  “Okay, Dad.” I restrained myself. “I’ll go clean my room again.” I turned and walked away from my father nervously. My floor was clean. My desk was organized. I found an old cassette tape, Devo. Holding my breath, I broke the tape over my knee and pulled the reels out. There was a small fan in my room. Soon, I was tying tape to the fan cage. When I turned the fan on, pieces of tape went fluttering about, tickling my face. Looking into it, I heard my laughter echo back to me, cut into pieces.

  I did not hear my father coming. Suddenly the door flew open and Montezuma was standing above me red-faced and arms crossed. I stopped the fan. The little pieces of tape lost their dancing energy and slowly drifted down to the carpet. “I told you to clean your room,” he said, “not mess it up.” I blocked a forceful slap that had been meant for my face, and then I got hit with the other hand. I grabbed his wrist. He threw me back to the ground and stepped closer. “You can’t even get that right.” He twisted my arm and hit me in the face, mouthing the words “Simple instructions.” I tried to kick, and he turned me over, pushing my ear into the carpet. He gave three blows to the back of my head. I tried to block them but my effort was just a display. “I’ll teach you to disobey your father,” he said, wrenching my arm.

  “Stop, Dad!”

  He looked at me, squeezing.

  “Stop, Dad! Stop!” It was my voice. He let go, flipped off the light, and slammed the door. I heard him walking through the house and sitting in his corduroy chair. I started replaying the events. I found that the carpet beneath me was a collection of clues, footprints and scuffs. Only I knew how to read them.

  When Joe came home around seven, I took my shoes off and carefully walked down the hall in my socks. I made no sound. When I came to my brother’s door, I knocked quietly.

  Joe cracked the door. “Dad beat me up again,” I said to him in a breath. My brother knew about other times. “He came into my room and started hitting me.” I turned to show him the red marks on my neck, and Joe shut his door in my face.

  I walked back to my bedroom thinking about how much harder it would be from this day forward, without a supportive father, or a brother. I gazed into the eyes of the zebra in my wallpaper. I wondered if I had a mother.

  The sound of her car coming home woke me; beams of her headlights flashed across the faces of animals. I heard the car door shut and the trunk open. I got up, hurried down the hallway, and met her in the living room.

  Dad was there. Mom saw my eyes. “Travie, what’s wrong?”

  I told her.

  “That’s not how it went,” Dad said from his chair.

  “Yes it is!” I replied, little hero.

  “Travis, come here,” he demanded. “Come here. Now!”

  I stood behind my mother and held her arm. Dad stayed in his chair. Mom tapped my shoulder. “It’s okay, honey. Go to your bedroom, dear.”

  From my bedroom window I could see my parents talking. Dad turned the television down. They spent the hour talking about their relationship. Dad said he was only here for the kids, to give us a “father figure.” If he couldn’t do that, he asked, “what’s the point of playing along?”

  The next day, I told Gene-John all about what happened. He said I should start taking Tae Kwon Do.

  “Then he would really punish me.”

  “Well, what’s the worst thing you can do to him?”

  “Write about him. He hates embarrassment.” Then I pointed at the blue binder under his arm. “I need one of those.”

  “Well sure, make one!”

  In homeroom, while Gene-John wrote in his binder, I began writing in a sort of journal that I had bought from an art supply store. This would be my first writing experiment. The book was thin and simple, but it was bound, and it came with clean ruled pages. I wrote with a four-in-one ballpoint pen that allowed me to change color for every entry. With a little button I could go from blue to green, green to red, and red to bla
ck. I never wrote in cursive.

  While Mrs. Seitlin lectured, I clung to my pen. I wrote about myself, recording the basic details first. I had no familiar words. I wasn’t curious about those I could easily draw from. I was looking for the right words, not merely appropriate words. If I had to invent them or change them to fit my life, I would. If I had to write them again, in red and blue and green, I would. I wrote about my father beating me. I wrote about living in a house without love, never trusting anybody. I described how all the structures around me were fragile, and failing. I changed the color of my ink. I didn’t know when it would take place, or how it would happen, but I knew that I would soon be writing about the dissolution of my family and the separation of my parents. If I did not begin writing, going one step beyond the letter I’d written on Easter, there would be no way of ever going back to that point and adding up all the details. There would be no way to know how I fell so far outside of a good family and a normal life. I penned these ideas in red and green and let them sit. No bodies perfect.

  It may have been my most disobedient moment, writing about my family—even on page one. I should have been taking notes in English. Luckily, while writing, I found I wasn’t being called on. Mrs. Seitlin stopped looking in my direction. In Science and in Home Economics, the same was true. No matter what I was doing, my teachers thought I was following directions as I set my pen to the page in another color.

  Only two days after I began this journal, still on page one, I came home from school and found the back door of Dad’s car open. I closed it. I found the kitchen door open, and I found the kitchen empty. I walked into the dining room and saw a shadow in the hall. Dad, in his moccasins, met me at the door of his bedroom and said: “Don’t just stand there. Make yourself useful.” I put down my backpack and started carrying his things to the car. He told me to get his shaving stuff together and to put it in a paper bag, but I wouldn’t do it. I refused. I wasn’t going to go into his bathroom, and I did not want to touch his shaving cream. “That’s all right,” he said. “Then go into the pantry and fill up a few bags of food.”