“Yes, totally.”
“And you really would like to see the entire system collapse, as you say, under the weight of its own bullshit?”
Jake shrugs. “Well, it wouldn’t bother me if it did.”
My son is both abrupt and polite, an unusual combination. He stares at the headmaster, whose forehead, I now see, glistens with a light glaze of sweat. He turns to me and spreads his hands.
“You can see the position I’m in,” he says. “Can’t you?”
“It seems to me that your position is fine,” I reply. “I’m a little more concerned about Jake’s position.”
Jake uncrosses his legs. “What is my position?”
The headmaster hesitates. “Well, Jacob. Unless you have a change of heart about what you’ve expressed in this essay, I do not see how you can continue attending this school.”
Jake doesn’t exactly sit up straight, but he takes most of the slack out of his slouch. “You’re expelling me?”
“That’s what it would come to, yes.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I say, “hang on a second. Nobody got shot, nobody got stabbed here. A few opinions were expressed, that’s all.”
“This was more than just a few opinions, Mr. Sullivan. This was an indictment of the system that’s worked at this school since 1732.” He holds up Jake’s essay. “With concepts this subversive, he becomes a potential threat to the rest of the student body.”
“Oh, come on, man!” I say. “If anything this essay helps you sell the school’s ideology!”
“I’m afraid we don’t see it that way.”
When a man is cornered, I’ve noticed, he’ll often turn to the collective noun for comfort.
“If there’s a ‘we’ involved in Jake’s fate,” I say, “I’d like to meet the people who compose it.”
The headmaster is about to say something, but Jake speaks first.
“Subversive,” he says, “is the very word they used throughout the McCarthy hearings. Funny we should be studying that in history class just now.”
The headmaster doesn’t much like being compared to Senator Joseph McCarthy, and my son clearly does not think much of the headmaster, who gazes at Jake for a moment before turning back to me.
“I am the final word on these matters,” he says calmly. “The ‘we’ refers to those on the school board, with whom I confer on all key decisions. But the final decision is mine.”
“And the key to everything is an apology from my son?”
“That’s right. A sincere apology.”
“Otherwise, he’s out.”
“I’m afraid so.” He holds his hands up appeasingly. “No rush. Take the weekend and think things through.”
What he means, really, is that we should let Jake’s mother get involved in the matter, and she’ll straighten it out to everyone’s satisfaction. He’s trying to buy time, but my son won’t let him.
Jake gets to his feet. “You can have my apology right now,” he begins. “I’m sorry, truly sorry, that a man in your position can be this frightened and freaked out by words on a page. I’m also sorry you dragged my father into this mess. He never liked this school in the first place, and not just because it’s ridiculously expensive. Am I right, Dad?”
I lick my dry lips. “I’ve had some issues with it.”
I’m sweating from places I never even knew I had. The headmaster’s face looks as if it’s been dusted with flour. He manages to force a slight smile as he says, “Is there anything else, Jacob?”
“Yes, sir. I just hope that somehow you manage to develop a sense of humor. But it’s probably too late. It’s not really the kind of thing you learn. You’re pretty much born with it, or you’re not.”
The headmaster gets to his feet, which leaves me as the only one still sitting. “All right, Jacob,” he says. “Go and clean out your locker.”
There’s the tiniest of grins on Jake’s face, as if he’s on the opposite side of a chessboard and just suckered his opponent into the very move he’d been hoping for. Slowly, oh so slowly, Jake reaches for the knot in his tie, undoes it, pulls it from around his neck, and tosses it on the headmaster’s desk before walking out. A heartbeat later he pokes his head back in, looking only at me. Peter Plymouth no longer exists, as far as Jake is concerned.
“Meet you in front in five, Dad.”
“Okay, Jake.”
The headmaster picks up the tie, rolls it into a coil, and hands it to me, as solemnly as they hand folded flags to the mothers of dead soldiers. “I’m very sorry it had to happen this way, Mr. Sullivan.”
I stick the coiled tie in my pocket. I’m obviously expected to leave the office, but I don’t budge. We still have business to conduct, but Mr. Plymouth doesn’t seem to realize this.
“What about my refund?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The tuition. The school year just started and you’re kicking him out. You owe me my deposit, plus the first installment. I figure it’s about seven grand.”
His eyes widen in what appears to be genuine surprise. “Oh, no, no, no,” he says. “That’s not how it works, I’m afraid.”
“You’re afraid?”
“Mr. Sullivan, read your contract. The money is nonrefundable.”
At last, it’s time for me to get to my feet. I don’t want to be looking up the man’s nostrils at a time like this. “Do you actually think I’d let you kick my son out of this place and keep my money?”
“Mr. Sullivan—”
“Do you have any idea of how much I love money? I love money almost as much as this school does.”
“We do not love money.”
“You don’t exactly hate it, do you?”
“The school takes the loss as well.”
“The hell it does. The school year just started! Some poor slob on the waiting list will be here on Monday morning. When he gets here, give him this.”
I take the coiled tie from my pocket and throw it at his chest. Now we’ve taken it up a notch. Technically, I’ve assaulted him, but even a tight-ass like Peter Plymouth would be too embarrassed to file charges against a man who’s attacked him with a scrap of cotton-blend fabric.
In fact, he doesn’t even flinch. He picks up the tie and puts it in his jacket pocket. “Again,” he says, “I urge you to read your contract.”
Suddenly he’s oddly calm about the whole thing. He’s such a Caucasian that it’s almost laughable. In his head, it’s all over. He figures he’s got the law on his side, and that’s that.
I breathe deeply, force myself to remain calm. It’s time for me to roll out the heavy artillery.
“I’m not going to read the contract,” I say. “But if I don’t get my money back, you’re going to be reading something you won’t like very much.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
God, am I glad I haven’t told this man that I was fired an hour ago!
“It means that my newspaper has been sitting on a story about these ‘rave-up’ parties held at the homes of rich kids from schools like this one. Kids even younger than my son, boozing and drugging it up while their parents are away for the weekend, or running around Europe.”
I pat my inner jacket pocket, where I still have my New York Star notebook. “I’ve got names and addresses. The police have been called more than once, and I’ve got details from a few emergency room reports, the kinds of details you never read about in the headmaster’s monthly newsletter. For instance, did you know that one of the star players from your basketball team nearly flat-lined it at St. Luke’s/Roosevelt after he swallowed Ecstasy a few weeks ago? Best part is, he bought the drugs in this building, from a senior. An honor student, as I recall. But I’ll have to check my notes to be sure.”
I thought the headmaster had already turned as pale as he could, but I was wrong. Now he looks as if he’s just donated a gallon of blood. He tries to lick his lips, and his tongue actually sticks to his lower lip.
“I don’t believe you,” he lies.
“Well, maybe you’ll believe it when you read about it, and that phone on your desk starts ringing off the hook. Funny I should happen to have been the reporter assigned to check out this story, huh? I checked it out, all right, but I pissed on it to my bosses for the sake of my son. But that reason no longer exists. If I don’t get my money back, the story runs in the New York Star. With pictures.”
“Pictures?” The word leaps out of him as if he’s been jabbed with a needle.
I nod solemnly. “These kids today have everything. Cell phones with digital cameras in them! Suddenly everybody’s a photographer. Click, click. You throw ’em a few bucks, and they’re happy to e-mail them over.”
“Pictures of what?”
“Sixteen-year-olds being held upside down while beer from a keg is pumped into their mouths. Kids snorting something that isn’t powdered sugar. Of course, we’ll have to put bars across their eyes, because they’re just kids. But some of them, Mr. Plymouth, are your kids.”
“Was Jacob at these events?”
“Jake, as we both know, is no longer a student at this school. But I don’t mind telling you that he wasn’t there.”
Of course he wasn’t there. Nobody was there. I was making it all up as I went along. It’s funny how imaginative you can get with that kind of money on the line.
Peter Plymouth slams his hand down hard on his desk, and for the first time, it dawns on me that I could be in physical danger. He’s bigger and younger than me, and I know I’m pushing him in ways he’s never been pushed.
He can take a poke at me if he wants, so long as I leave his office with a check. But he won’t take a poke at me. He’s hit his desk in frustration because I’ve beaten him, and he’s not used to losing.
He pulls open one of his desk drawers, takes out a leather-bound book, opens it up, uncaps a fountain pen with a shaky hand and starts writing almost frantically, as if he’s just had a great idea he doesn’t want to forget. It only takes a few seconds, and when he’s through he puffs on the page to dry the ink, then tears it out of the book and holds it out to me.
It’s a check for seven thousand dollars and no cents. It’s actually slightly higher than the total I’ve paid so far for Jake’s senior year. I reach for the check, but he pulls it back, cocks his head, and narrows one eye at me.
“I assume I won’t be reading anything disturbing in the New York Star.”
“Not from me you won’t.”
He hands over the check. “Good-bye, Mr. Sullivan.”
I fold the check and slip it into my wallet. “I’ll be back if it bounces.”
“It won’t bounce.”
“Hand me Jake’s essay, will you? I may have it framed.”
He hands me the loose-leaf pages, which I carefully fold and slip inside my jacket pocket, next to my trusty notebook. I go to the door while Peter Plymouth returns to his chair. I turn to him one last time.
“You did the right thing here,” I say, patting my wallet.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it is. I can see why you’re such a good sailor. The wind shifted, and you set your sails accordingly.”
“Leave now or I’m phoning security.”
I can’t help laughing. “Funny, that’s the second time today I’ve been threatened with security. Never knew I was such a dangerous person.”
His secretary doesn’t even glance at me as I go past her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jake stands outside the building, leaning against the wall as if he’s waiting for a bus he’s in no particular hurry to catch. He’s got all his stuff jammed into a lumpy blue laundry-type sack, which he adeptly shoulders like a merchant seaman. I try to take it from him as we head toward Broadway, but he insists he can carry it. I’m treating him like a little kid, even though he’s bigger than me.
“I’m sorry about all this, Dad.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not the end of the world.”
“Mom won’t like it.”
This may be the understatement of the century. Jake’s mother, Doris Perez (B.A., Wesleyan College; M.A., Yale University; Ph.D, Columbia University), will probably have to be coaxed in off a high ledge when she hears this news.
“Let’s face it,” I say. “Your mother will kill us when she finds out.”
“Think so?”
“Jake. Have you and your mother met? Do you know how she feels about matters pertaining to formal education?”
“I have some idea.”
“Well, then, I suggest we live it up in the little bit of time we have left. A last meal before we’re executed.” I point across the street. “Is that diner any good?”
“It’s all right.”
“Want to get a burger or something?”
“Burger’d be good.”
We cross Broadway, and I wait until we reach the other side before saying, “By the way, I got fired today.” Jake stops walking. “You’re kidding me!”
“No, it’s true. Quite a day, huh?”
“Dad. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t eat out.”
“Don’t worry about it. I just got a seven thousand dollar refund from the school. We can have burgers and fries, if you like. Shit, you can even go nuts and order a milk shake. For once we’re rolling in it, pally.”
It’s a typical Greek diner, with autographed glossy photos of soap opera actors nobody ever heard of grinning down on the brisk afternoon trade. Jake and I take a booth near the window. We order identically medium-rare cheeseburger platters with Cokes. People tend to eat poorly on the days they get bad news, I’ve noticed. I once sat in the kitchen of a woman whose husband had just been killed by a falling air conditioner (DEATH FROM THE SKY, read the front-page headline for my exclusive story), and in the course of a half-hour interview she chewed her way through an economy-sized bag of Cheetos and a box of Mallomars. She had not been happily married, but of course that particular detail never made it into print. (Unwritten tabloid rules: all widows grieve, and all guys who get killed by falling air conditioners were wonderful husbands.)
I watch my son eat. He doesn’t wolf his food the way I do. He takes a bite of his burger and sets it back down on the plate, while I hang on to mine as if I’m afraid somebody might swipe it. He has a neat puddle of ketchup beside his fries, while I’ve Jackson Pollocked the stuff all over my fries. I’m glad to see that one of us has a touch of class.
He chews and swallows. “Why did they fire you?”
“They didn’t. One guy did. The day city editor.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t really matter. We weren’t getting along.”
“How long have you been there?”
I need a moment to think about it. “Twenty-eight years.” A shiver goes through me. “Almost twenty-nine. Would have been twenty-nine next month.”
If I’d been a cop or a fireman, I’d be long retired, with a pension. As it is, I’m an ex-tabloid newspaperman, and I’m screwed. Jake knows it, too.
“God, I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Like I said, don’t worry about it. I’ll get another job.”
“Where?”
“Jake, you let me figure that out. Come on, eat up. We’ve got the whole day to figure things out. The whole weekend, actually, with your mother away.”
I look out the window and see cars pulling up at the school, and kids piling into them. “Kind of early to be getting out of school, isn’t it?”
“Friday dismissal,” Jake says. “We always get out early on Fridays.”
Somehow I never knew that. “Why?”
He shrugs. “So the rich kids’ parents can get a head start on the way to their country homes and beat the traffic, I guess.”
Jake has never had a country home. His mother lives on West Eighty-first Street, and my place is on West Ninety-third. Our joke is that during the hot weather he likes to stay with me, because it’s a little cooler up north.
Suddenly two
kids are standing at our booth, one tall and thin, the other short and chubby. Both carry book bags on their backs, and they’re breathing hard, as if they’d run a long way to get here.
“Jake,” the short one says, “what happened in Plymouth’s office?”
“I’m out,” Jake says flatly.
The two of them look at each other, eyes wide. “Man,” the other boy says, “that sucks.”
“I’ll be all right,” Jake says.
The tall one turns to me. “Are you Jake’s father?”
I nod, but don’t offer my hand. Somehow it doesn’t seem like the right time for a handshake, and this is something these boys understand.
The tall one shakes his head in wonder. “Your son’s essay rocked,” he says. “Did you read it?”
“I sure did.”
“Great shit,” the short one says. “Really, really great shit.” He thinks he’s being bold, saying “shit” to an adult. This is the kind of kid whose idea of rebellion is wearing a baseball cap backward, or going to Colgate University instead of Yale, the way his father and grandfather and great-grandfather did.
Jake is smiling at them, the falsest smile I’ve ever seen him wear, but they don’t know that. “You guys really liked my essay?”
“Oh, dude, it was awesome.”
“Funny how neither of you mentioned that when Edmondson asked for comments.”
Their faces fall. The tall one swallows, and his Adam’s apple looks like a Ping-Pong ball lodged in his throat.
Jake laughs. “I’m just busting your chops,” he says. “It’s no big deal.”
The boys seem relieved. The short one asks, “What are you gonna do, man? I mean, where are you gonna go?”
Jake shrugs. “Ask my father.”
They turn their gaze to me. I take a sip of my Coke. “I have no idea,” I say as cheerfully as I can. “Maybe I’ll put him to work somewhere.”
The boys laugh, then abruptly stop laughing. What at first seemed like a joke suddenly strikes them as a possibility both real and terrifying. You can quit school at age sixteen in New York City, but that’s a concept that’s never dawned on these kids. What with college and then graduate school or law school or med school, plus the “year out” here and there for the Peace Corps, or just to go backpacking across Europe, they could be crowding thirty before they’re ready to go out there and turn a buck. That way, the gap between the start of a career and the maturation of a massive trust fund is only a few years.
Raising Jake Page 3
