All-American

by John R. Tunis

  Hang it, he always preferred the Academy method; he wished he didn’t but he did. Why was it always necessary to compare everything with the Academy? No matter what happened he invariably seemed to be thinking back to Academy days, not always with regret, either. Trying to stop it did no good. He must try harder, must end this business somehow.

  Then Mr. Robinson placed his own paper before him. Turning it over he saw the mark on the back—B plus. Stacey, across the aisle, leaned across, took it from his desk, looked at the mark, and without saying a word but with an air of disgust which was plainly genuine, dropped it again. In some queer way Ronald felt ashamed of his paper. The teacher came toward them and slapped Stacey’s down. Ronald couldn’t help reading the large handwriting on the outside:

  “This was stolen from the Encyclopedia.”

  There it was. He was shocked. Cheating, outright cheating, shocked him. He gasped. Stacey half-turned in his seat, looked over, glaring.

  “Hey, what’s the idea, you looking at my paper, huh?”

  Ronny was confused, feeling Stacey’s hostility and not for the first time. Painfully he realized the distance that separated him from that chattering roomful of boys and girls. To them he was a stranger; suspected by most, disliked by many. Look, he wanted to say, look, I don’t like the boys at the Academy; they were my friends, they aren’t anymore. I came down here to be one of you, to be friends with you, because I wanted to, of my own free will. But you...

  They were laughing, paying no attention. He was still an outsider, that kid from the Academy, the football star who had beaten them last fall.

  It was the football crowd he should have known, with whom ordinarily he would have been pals. Yet it was the football crowd who had never forgotten Meyer Goldman’s injury. In the front row sat Dave Mancini, one of the tackles, who had merely nodded once and paid no more attention. At the side was Mike Fronzak, the right tackle, who never seemed to see him. At his left was Ned LeRoy who hardly noticed his presence in the room.

  LeRoy wore a badly fitting, greenish sweater with a checked shirt underneath. His short curly hair receded from his high forehead; his square black jaw stuck out prominently. For several days Ronald had wanted to talk to him, but LeRoy never gave him any chance. If they passed in the corridors, LeRoy was always looking the other way. Never since his earliest days at the Academy had Ronald felt so lonely. They didn’t give you the silent treatment here. They just never bothered about you. It was all impersonal. This place could be tough, too.

  While the distribution of papers continued, there was a constant buzz and hum of conversation, a noise which would have meant a wholesale handing out of detentions at the Academy. However, no one seemed to mind and the teacher paid no attention. Once only did Mr. Robinson intervene.

  “Aw, shut up,” remarked Stacey in low-toned conversation with a boy behind.

  Mr. Robinson, standing nearby, heard the remark. “Be polite, Jim. Say, ‘Shut up, please!’” Stacey did not seem in the least bothered by this rebuke and continued his conversation.

  Finally the papers were all distributed and the teacher made some comments on their English. The spelling, he announced, was bad. One thing the High School had in common with the Academy was bad spelling. Apparently every American boy and girl was a bad speller, and there wasn’t much you could do about it. The teacher read some of their worst blunders, making Ronald smile.

  “Now here’s one word almost everybody slipped up on.” He read from a student’s paper in his hand. “‘The North denied the South the right to succeed.’” He chuckled. Ronald decided he liked this man. “I shouldn’t blame the Southerners for being annoyed at this. What did he mean, class? Yes, that’s it. Secede. How do you spell it?” Before Ronald thought, his hand was raised. Stacey turned with a sneer and he tried hastily to yank it down; but the teacher saw him. “Yes... Ronald... that’s right. S-e-c-e-d-e. Some of you had queer ideas about that word and it’s important. Here’s another strange sentence. ‘The farmers of this section were planting their opinions.’” The class roared.

  He went on listing their mistakes, mistakes that Ronald found hard to understand. Simple things, such as the lack of margins at the top and sides of their papers. Sentences not punctuated. Most of these errors seemed elementary to Ronald. He lost interest and began looking around the room, at the huge class of girls and boys, at the words and problems written on the blackboard, at the notices stuck up on a smaller board in the rear of the room, at the Honor Roll of the class posted high above their heads. It contained four names.

  “Marion Sackett

  Rose Lake

  Jeanette Calahan

  Esther Neuman.”

  Girls, all girls. That was the way it was in every room all over the school. The girls seemed to take all the honors everywhere. Why were girls like that? And why did they invariably giggle, why couldn’t they walk and talk together two minutes without giggling? In study periods—in the library—in the corridors—on the stairs between classes—in the cafeteria—giggle—giggle—giggle.

  Yet not all were gigglers, either. There were several, quite noticeable in the room, who never giggled, who were sort of serious. Especially a tallish girl in the front of the room, a girl with blonde hair and red lips. In his first week at Abraham Lincoln Ronald had discovered that all the girls except the homely ones, who apparently didn’t care, put on makeup. This girl usually wore the same costume; a rose-colored sweater and skirt, effective with her hair. She also wore stockings and tan and white shoes. He glanced under the desks around the room, looking over the bare legs, fat legs, short legs, scrawny legs, ugly legs, lovely legs. Ronald suddenly decided he was in favor of stockings.

  Yes, he was in favor of stockings. He looked again at her legs; they were long and slender. His eyes went up to the rose-colored sweater which plainly defined her pretty figure. Just at that moment she turned, caught him staring, and smiled. Yes, smiled distinctly. He glanced behind. No, it was plainly for him, that smile. Because at the desks in the rear heads were bent down over books or else turned toward the windows. His face grew quickly warm. He buried his own head in a book so no one would notice his feeling.

  The bell rang. A boy was reciting but he was not even permitted to finish his sentence. This was hard for Ronald to understand. No matter whether a teacher or a student was speaking, the bell was always the signal for a turmoil of chair-scraping, book-thumping, and general clatter to begin immediately. Nobody ever waited for the speaker to finish. Some things about Abraham Lincoln High he knew he would eventually accept and find normal. This, never.

  He lowered his head once more over a pile of books, his face crimson still. The boys and girls swept past and he hoped they wouldn’t look at him. He envied these boys their ability to talk to girls, to walk with girls, to stand around with girls naturally, never getting hot or red or embarrassed. At the Academy everyone got upset if they suddenly met a girl on Quad; everyone that is except the wolves. The wolves were on the lookout for girls all the time; they’d go downtown for a coke in the afternoon just to date the girls. Athletes weren’t wolves. If you played football you had no time for wolfing.

  There was a faint smell of scent; pleasant, soft. She was standing beside him. Nice eyes, blue, large. Quite tall, and he liked tall girls. He rose. As he did, the pile of books on his desk slipped off and fell to the floor. She laughed and he had to laugh also.

  “I’m Sandra Fuller. You don’t remember me, do you?”

  From the door Stacey was looking back, shouting something over his shoulder, something that fortunately was lost in the noise. He mumbled a few words because he really didn’t remember; except vaguely that her face was a face he had seen before.

  “I met you at the Junior Prom at the Academy last fall. Remember, I was with Eric Rodman.”

  Remember! Why, of course he remembered; he remembered all right; he remembered a vision of white, a girl who had seemed even taller than this but no more attractive; he remembered a wonderful
dancer, and most of all he remembered Eric’s sour grin as he kept cutting in.

  “Sure, sure I remember. I mean I didn’t recognize you, but I remember you now all right.”

  They were moving out the door together, down the corridor, laughing. Really High School wasn’t so bad after all. It was grand to find a friend, especially this friend, someone beside Gordon Brewster. The black-haired boy had attached himself to Ronny and tagged around with him ever since his first days. Ronald felt happy at having someone beside Gordon as a friend.

  Her voice dropped but nevertheless he heard her distinctly. “...in that game... you were wonderful... I never thought... you’d win... definitely I never did....”

  He looked up quickly. She meant it. Yes, she certainly meant it. Did she know his part in the Goldman accident? No evidence of it, nothing in her look which said so. Then from the rear came that same voice, high-pitched, penetrating.

  “Oh... Pretty Boy... oh, Ronny...”

  He turned sharply. Usually he paid no attention; this time he was angry. Let me catch that guy and I’ll kill him. Let me get my hands on him and I’ll beat him up. I surely will. Standing on his toes and looking over the heads of the boys and girls in the rear, he attempted to glance back. Several of them around were laughing, for everyone had heard it, but there was no way of identifying the speaker or guessing whether he was the same one as before.

  Later that day he was upstairs after school in the long corridor on the third floor shutting his locker. Gordon Brewster, whose locker was nearby, came over.

  “Say! Know who’s riding you? I do.”

  “No! Do you really! Who is it... Wait a minute. Hold on now.” Maybe after all it was best not to know. To forget the whole thing. Often at the Academy he had seen this technique practiced, and there was only one way to beat it. Just pretend you never heard and keep on pretending. Give those birds the least satisfaction and they’d never let up. “Nope. No thanks, Gordon. I really don’t care to know.” He slammed his locker shut and started away down the corridor.

  For several days Gordon had either been near his locker or waiting after school at the head of the stairs as he came down to go home.

  “Ok, jess as you say, Ronald.” He panted along beside Ronny who was taking big steps, anxious to get out and away. Down the stairs, along the corridor to the main door. Outside the exit stood Stacey in the sunshine. He looked at them scornfully as they left the building together.

  “Hey! I’m gonna ride along with you as far as West Avenue. Do you mind?” asked Gordon.

  “Who? Me? No.”

  He did mind, though. Why did he mind, he wondered, as he got his bike from the rack; why did he care? For one thing he was tired of the kid who for more than a week had been sticking to him in the cafeteria, after school, between classes. Ronald was not at all certain he enjoyed having Gordon as his only friend at Abraham Lincoln High. No, that wasn’t true. Not his only friend now. Sandra. Sandra Fuller. What a wonderful name. It fitted her, too. So she had seen him at the game in the fall. Then she must have seen the runback of that kick, and the touchdown.

  They rode down Harrison Street together. “I’ll only go as far as West Avenue. I’ll see you tomorrow, Ronald, can I?”

  “Tomorrow?” He was puzzled and also somewhat annoyed. Was this going to be a steady thing? “Why sure. Only what’s the matter? Something wrong at school, Gordon?”

  For a few yards they pedaled along in silence. Then the black-haired boy replied. “It’s Stacey, see. He says he’s gonna beat me up.”

  “Stacey! What’s he got against you? What did you ever do to him?”

  “Nothing. He’s that way, that’s all. Says he doesn’t like me. Says if he catches me he’ll sure beat me up. He will, too. He tried it on Goldman last year but Goldman was too big for him. But he did it to one kid. Here’s West. I’m all set here. G’bye, Ronald. See you tomorrow.”

  He rode off alone down the sloping street, fast, faster, and disappeared around a corner.

  4

  I

  HIS DAD LOOKED OVER at him, took off his glasses and put down the evening newspaper. A bad sign.

  “You mean to say they cheat?”

  The words sounded cruel and wrong. Ronald found an answer difficult.

  “Why, no, not exactly that, Dad. See, at the Academy classes were smaller and the teachers could see everything. Here they can’t.”

  “But wasn’t there an honor system, or some such thing in effect there? How’d that work out?”

  “It worked out ok, I guess. In exams they just trusted you. If a guy cheated, we gave him the silent treatment, that’s all. At Abraham Lincoln the teachers patrol the class during tests, and it’s sort of fun to fool ’em.”

  “Fun!”

  “Aw, Dad, you know, you remember. You used to fool your teachers. It’s a kind of game. Everybody does it. Besides, they snoop around. So the kids all do.”

  “Yes, but you aren’t fooling the teacher. You’re fooling yourselves.”

  Ronald was far from impressed. He had heard this before. “That’s what they keep on saying. They always say that. But just the same...”

  “Look here, Ronald.” His father lit a cigarette. Ronald wished he had gone to his room and turned on the Fred Allen program. This was going to be unpleasant. “Tell me about your work. How about your schoolwork? How’s it coming along?”

  “He’s brought his books home tonight for the first time in a week!” His mother, always at the wrong moment. “He never brings his books home anymore.”

  “Is that right? How’s it happen you don’t study at home, Ronald? You had to work every night at the Academy; it’s a fine thing to get habits like that. I’m afraid you’re neglecting your studies.”

  “Oh, no, Dad. I’m not, not at all. You’re wrong.”

  “But you’ve been out three or four nights a week lately. I’ve noticed it, your mother has noticed it.”

  “Oh, no, Dad. I think you’re mistaken. I’m not neglecting my work at all. Why I got an A on that last English paper, a B plus in the history test, and an A...”

  “Well, Ronald.” His mother became determined. “You don’t mean to say you work the way you worked at the Academy.”

  “Mother! You don’t understand. I don’t hafta.”

  “Have to, Ronald, not hafta. I do hope you won’t use the slovenly English those boys at High School...”

  “Oh, Mother...”

  His father, however, was far more interested in the problem of his work than his grammar. “Look here, how do you mean you don’t have to work, Ronald?”

  “’Cause I don’t, that’s all. ’Cause I know the stuff, most of it. If not, I can always do it in my first study period at school.”

  “Then you mean it’s easier?”

  “I dunno, I guess so. Yes, the work’s easier. At Abraham Lincoln they give you a chapter of history instead of three chapters, or thirty lines of Latin instead of eighty-five like we got everyday at the Academy. See! I can get it all, the lessons I mean, in my study periods.”

  Again his mother had to say something. “But that rainy afternoon last week when I called for you in the car I noticed all the girls took piles of books home with them.”

  “The girls! The girls! Of course the girls take books home. What else have they got to do ’cept paint their fingernails? We fellows have to do sports and things. You didn’t notice any boys taking books home, I bet.”

  “But, Ronald...” His father was interested now. Funny, the sort of things which interested older people. Imagine anyone being interested in lessons. Yet his father was interested in the Tigers, too. “But, Ronald, suppose you weren’t prepared.”

  “I am prepared. Anyhow it’s different at Abraham Lincoln.”

  “How is it different?”

  “Well, at the Academy if you aren’t prepared you get a detention. That means you just don’t go out for baseball practice. You stay in with the teacher all afternoon and work. If you misspell a word you ha
ve to write it down fifty times after school. Here, if you misspell a word, they just tell you it’s wrong, and the kids say, they say, ‘Aw, I can spell it right.’”

  “Don’t they give you detentions at Abraham Lincoln?”

  “No. ’Nother thing, the classes are so big you don’t get called on so often.”

  “I see. You don’t have to be prepared.”

  “But I am prepared, Dad. I know the stuff ok. Point is, most of the fellows don’t half the time; they aren’t so well prepared as we were at the Academy.”

  “Where you had no girls and no movies and nothing to do except get your lessons for the next day.”

  “Gee, Mother...”

  “How many in your classes, did you say, Ronald?”

  “Well, Dad, that depends. In French and algebra they’re smaller. In the others they’re pretty large. Now in English, for instance, there’s about thirty-five or more. See, the teacher has so many kids she doesn’t get around to everyone in her class. Miss Davis, in English, for instance. They say she has about three hundred themes to read and correct before Christmas, so she reads them all and grades them carefully the first time, and then gives you about the same mark the rest of the year.”

  “Ronald! I don’t believe it.”

  “The kids all say so, Mother; that’s what the kids say.”

  The telephone rang. Ronny started quickly but his mother was quicker.

  “Yes? Yes, just a minute.” She half-sighed into the telephone. It was her girl-voice. He could always tell by that tone, a tone implying anything but cordiality. It was a wonder anyone ever called him. Were other boys’ mothers like that? Probably not.

  “Hullo.”

  “’Lo, Ronny.” There was a silence. Then he felt her presence, smelled again the pleasant odor of her clothes and her lipstick. “This is Sandra.”

  As if he needed to be told!

  “Oh. G’d evening.”

  In the background his mother was making furious signs, pointing at the schoolbooks on the table in the hall where he’d dropped them. Her eyebrows were raised and she kept indicating the books. He understood her sign language well enough. Gosh, sometimes mothers were simply terrible.