Passion Play

by W. Edward Blain

  “Boatin’ Shoes,” said Nathan. “I bet I know why you’re here.”

  Thomas nearly lost his dinner. It was too late. The councilmen already knew. He was going to be tried for an honor violation and dismissed before his sixteenth birthday.

  “How’d you find out?” Thomas said.

  “Farnham told me.”

  Mr. Farnham knows too?

  Nathan pulled loose his tie and stepped out of his loafers. His hair was blond and on the short side, just over his ears, and he blinked a little more frequently than usual because of his contact lenses. Everybody kidded him about it, but he just smiled it away. He was always smiling, it seemed, except for now, when he looked at Thomas, read his expression, and told him to sit down.

  “What’s the matter?” said Nathan. “Aren’t you here to talk to me about taking a part in the play?”

  Instant relief.

  “No,” said Thomas. “I’m here to turn myself in.”

  He told Nathan how he had walked in on Staines, what had been said, and how he had panicked.

  Nathan listened without interrupting. Then he blinked his eyes and looked Thomas square in the face and said, “You screwed up.”

  “I know.”

  “You should have talked to Carella right away.”

  “I know.”

  “You shouldn’t have let so much time pass,” said Nathan.

  Thomas knew all of it. “I just wanted to tell you,” he said. “Greg, my roommate, is the one that advised me to come.”

  “Greg’s a good friend,” said Nathan.

  “Yeah,” said Thomas. It was true. “Yeah, he is.”

  Then Nathan said it was a complicated issue, with both the drug rule and the honor system involved. The honor council did not handle drug cases, which went to the disciplinarian and the headmaster.

  “It’s going to be trouble for Staines,” said Nathan.

  “What about for me?”

  “Maybe,” said Nathan. “The good part is that you’ve turned yourself in.”

  Nathan would talk to Mr. Grayson, the disciplinarian, and then to Dr. Lane. “Lane’s leaving campus tomorrow for a few days,” he said, “but the councilmen can go ahead and investigate the honor part at the regular meeting this Sunday night.”

  That was bad news. “You mean I have to wait until Sunday to find out what happens?”

  “You’ll have to testify. It’ll be your word against his, if he decides to deny it. Are you ready to go through with that?”

  Hell no. “Yes,” said Thomas. He squirmed. “But it’s going to be so damn hard to do.”

  Nathan agreed. “You’ll be nervous at first,” he said. “Just tell the truth.”

  Thomas asked him what penalty to expect.

  Nathan could not predict. “But,” he said, “it seems to me that you haven’t violated the honor system as much as you’ve endorsed it.”

  “Do you think I’ll get the boot?”

  Nathan was certain he would not. “Whatever happens, you’ll still be here,” he said. He urged Thomas not to say anything to Staines or anybody else about this conversation with him. He wanted to see if Staines would confess on his own. “If he comes to you and says he’s changed his mind about keeping quiet, then encourage him,” said Nathan. “That would help him.”

  Thomas said he’d already tried that once.

  “You maybe ought to clear things up with Mr. Carella,” said Nathan. “I’ll talk to him, too. We don’t want him to think of you as dishonorable.”

  Thomas said he would talk to Carella after class tomorrow.

  Nathan said that was okay. “Now get out of here, Boatin’ Shoes,” he said. “I got studying to do and so do you.”

  Now that his conscience was clear, Thomas felt a million times better, except that he hated the idea of spending the next four days living next door to Staines in limbo. Four days was such a long time. So much could happen.

  And so much did.

  SCENE 13

  Carol Scott was in a staring contest with Eldridge Lane. It was 10:00 P.M. on Wednesday, December 1, and she had never felt so tired in her life.

  Eldridge Lane blinked first.

  “I will say it one more time,” he said. “It was a false alarm. There was nothing sinister about it.”

  “It was in the gym, though,” she said. “That’s the same place the boy died.”

  “Coincidence.”

  “It will not be coincidence if the New York police find a match between the paper they found on the floor of the theater and the sample register tape I mailed them yesterday,” said Carol Scott.

  Eldridge Lane said he was leaving early in the morning for Philadelphia and wanted this interview over.

  “You had eight students in New York over the Thanksgiving holiday,” said Carol Scott. “Here are their names.” She handed Lane a list. “However, all of them were with their families throughout their visit. I think we can rule them out.”

  “You certainly can,” said Lane. “These are some of the most prominent families in the Southeast.”

  Carol Scott was taping this conversation with a small portable recorder. She had told Lane that it was easier than taking notes. The truth was that she wanted to play it back to Stuart, the sheriff, to show him what an asshole Lane was. She pulled out another slip of paper.

  “You also had three members of the faculty in the city over the break,” she said. “Carella, Farnham, and Warden.”

  “Benjamin Warden is a nationally prominent poet,” said Lane. “He was there for a reading.”

  “He has no alibi for Sunday afternoon,” she said. “He says he went to the theater alone.”

  “He has been here as long as I have, and I trust him completely,” said Lane.

  “And the other two?”

  She noticed that Lane was less positive about Carella and Farnham.

  “They’re fine men,” he said. “Relatively new to the faculty, but first-rate, solid people. Came to us with flawless recommendations. We don’t just hire anybody here, you know.”

  She knew. Montpelier School dominated the community. It was the largest employer in Montpelier County. Back in 1968, for its centennial celebration, The Washington Post had done a feature article.

  “Carella says he was visiting a friend, and that he and his friend walked around the city all weekend, barhopped, that sort of thing. The New York police are checking with the friend. Farnham says he was in the Metropolitan Museum on Sunday. He went on Sunday and paid nothing, so he doesn’t have any ticket as evidence of a visit there.”

  Lane said he hoped she was not browbeating his faculty.

  She explained that she was asking questions about Russell Phillips, was he depressed, how well did they know him. The information about people’s whereabouts at Thanksgiving was emerging from casual conversation. That’s why it had taken her so long to interview everybody.

  “After meeting these people, are you not satisfied that they are reliable?” said Lane.

  “I liked them,” said Carol Scott. “But most people get very charming when they find out they’re being interviewed by a cop.”

  She wished he would take the hint.

  “So where are we?” said Lane.

  “I would like for you to cancel your mixer scheduled for the weekend,” she said.

  “Not this again,” said Lane. “To do so would raise too many questions.”

  “You can do it out of respect for the dead,” said Carol Scott. “You just had a boy die on your campus.”

  “We have acknowledged the death of Russell Phillips. Now we are returning to life as usual. You simply do not understand the dynamics of boarding school life. These boys have forgotten all about Russell Phillips, those few who knew him. Adolescents need something cheerful to look forward to. They don’t need to be reminded of how depressed they’re supposed to be.”

  She had to grant him that. She had a son and a daughter, ages six and four.

  “Then please,” she said, “promise
me that your gymnasium will be secure.”

  “The gym will be locked,” said Lane. “And I will see to it that a faculty chaperone patrols there as well.”

  It was awfully late.

  “All right,” said Carol Scott. “Then everything should be fine.”

  But she hoped, just for the sake of this jerk, that it wouldn’t be.

  SCENE 14

  The next two days passed quickly. On Thursday morning the student grapevine reported that Richard Blackburn had set off the fire alarm in the gym the night before. He had propped the back door open with a little pebble so that it had looked closed, and then he had waited until the building was clear, sneaked in, pulled the alarm, and exited the way he’d come in. On the way out he had kicked the pebble into the grass.

  “I was outside in the dark by myself,” Richard told Thomas at the 10:15 morning recess. “And you know what? I never once felt the least bit depressed.” He said Lane’s rule about being alone after dark was unenforceable and ridiculous.

  The most amazing quality about Richard was that he had no conscience at all.

  Thursday after class Thomas told Mr. Carella what had really transpired in Staines’s room.

  Carella was understanding about it. “I thought you acted guilty that day,” he said. “Good for you. It’s only the truly corrupt who can look clean and innocent all the time.” He promised that he wouldn’t confront Robert Staines about the incident until after the honor council had held its hearing on Sunday night.

  On Friday they had an abbreviated basketball practice because of the game the next day. They could start practicing at 2:00 because classes ended at noon every Friday (but resumed on Saturday morning), and athletic practices were supposed to be done by 3:30. Thomas, however, screwed up his free throws and had to stay after.

  “You’re not following a set routine,” Coach McPhee said. “Sometimes you dribble the ball once, sometimes twice, sometimes not at all. Do the exact same thing every time you step up to that foul line. I don’t care what it is. Make it comfortable for you. But make it the same routine.”

  Thomas shot fifty free throws and made thirty-two of them.

  “You’re going to be making forty-five out of fifty before the season is over,” said Coach McPhee. He took the ball from Thomas and stood at the line. He took two bounces, looked at the basket, bent his knees, shot, followed through. Swish. Ten in a row.

  “That was great,” said Thomas.

  “You’ll do that, too,” said Coach.

  After he got dressed, Thomas went over to Bradley Hall, to the theater.

  He was expecting a bunch of people there, but the only ones present were Mr. Farnham, Landon Hopkins, and Nathan Somerville. The cast had had an early practice, too, and everyone else was gone.

  The seats in Bradley Hall were in six sections. They were divided into thirds longitudinally by two aisles extending from the stage all the way to the back of the auditorium. They were also divided in half horizontally by another aisle that stretched from one side of the room to the other. Thomas stood at the intersection of the two aisles closest to the lobby door and watched Nathan read from the white covered Signet paperback. Landon read along with him. Mr. Farnham watched. All three were on the stage.

  “But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings or unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion,” said Nathan.

  “Si-on,” said Mr. Farnham. “The ‘c’ is silent.”

  “Scion,” said Nathan correctly.

  “It cannot be,” said Landon, reading.

  “It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will,” said Nathan. “Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies!” He stopped and lowered his book.

  “That’s good,” said Mr. Farnham. “Why stop?”

  “He’s here,” said Nathan, and he pointed his book outward toward Thomas.

  “Terrific. Come on up here, Thomas.”

  Mr. Farnham was wearing his usual white shirt and tie, but he had switched from loafers into Adidas running shoes. Nathan had on an Izod under a button-down shirt—the layered look. You weren’t required to wear a tie between the end of class and dinner, and after dinner you could also remove your tie. Nathan gave Thomas a grin as he walked up the side stairs onto the stage. It made Thomas feel better. He had been in this room a million times, but he’d never stood up here on the stage before. The room looked a lot smaller, the seats closer to the stage. He felt a little scared. But he also felt more important.

  “You recognize where we are?” said Mr. Farnham.

  Thomas did not.

  “You mean you haven’t memorized the whole play yet?” said Nathan. He grinned again. Unlike his grandfather, Nathan had a real Southern drawl. Today he was not wearing his contacts, but some round wire-rims, like Richard’s, only bigger.

  “I’m not even sure I’ll get a part,” said Thomas. But he’d spoken words up on the stage, and that was enough to relax him. Mr. Farnham explained that they were reading one of the scenes between Roderigo and Iago, where Iago is reducing love to mere lust.

  “It’s a perfect example of the corruption of reason by passion,” said Mr. Farnham.

  “I remember now,” said Thomas. “We did it in class. It’s that place where Iago talks about our bodies being like gardens.”

  “Yes, yes, exactly,” Mr. Farnham said. He laughed gleefully as he said it. Mr. Farnham was odd. He was so damn moody. Everything was either a total crisis or the greatest event in history.

  Landon handed Thomas the paperback and showed him what page they were on. Mr. Farnham said he didn’t want to do that scene for the audition.

  “Roderigo doesn’t have many lines there,” he said. “Let’s do the opening scene instead.”

  Thomas turned to Act I, Scene 1 and realized that Roderigo had the very first lines of the play. If he got the part, he would be the first person in the whole cast to speak.

  “Just stand there,” said Mr. Farnham. “Turn out a little. I’m going to go out into the seats to listen and to watch.” He hopped down from the stage and moved out to the middle of the house. “Whenever you’re ready. Landon, read Brabantio. Use my book. Plenty of volume, Thomas.”

  “Tush! Never tell me; I take it much unkindly/ That thou, Iago . . .” Thomas began to read the lines. At first it was awkward, but then he started to enjoy it.

  “’Sblood, but you’ll not hear me,” responded Nathan as Iago. “If ever I did dream of such a matter,/ Abhor me.”

  “Thou told me thou didst hold him in thy hate,” said Thomas, and he felt a rush of frustration, doubt, and petulance—but not, he realized at once, as himself. He was becoming Roderigo. He understood these lines. They read up to the part where Brabantio calls for torches.

  “Good,” said Mr. Farnham from the seats. “Now read the last scene for Roderigo. One we haven’t gone over in class. The one where Iago kills him.”

  It was Act V, Scene I.

  Nathan was scary in that scene. It was as though he had decided to reveal some cruelty that he had kept hidden away for as long as Thomas had known him. He had a power about him, an evil determination that built Thomas’s own dread and anguish. When Thomas read his last lines—”O damn’d Iago! O inhuman dog!”—he found a loathing and a recognition and a horror in his voice. It was absolutely exhilarating.

  Mr. Farnham geeked a little by jumping out of his seat and applauding wildly, but it was okay. Thomas and Nathan knew it had clicked. Even Landon was awed.

  “That was really good,” said Landon. He sounded astonished.

  “That was marvelous,” said Mr. Farnham. He climbed the stairs and joined them on the stage.

  It was more than marvelous for Thomas. It was fun.

  “Could I have the part?” he asked. “I’d really like to do it.”

  Mr. Farnham said of course he could have the part. The question was only a matter of when he could rehearse.

  “Tomorrow’s bad,”
said Thomas. “We’ve got a game and a mixer.”

  “What about Sunday?”

  Nathan said Sunday was okay with him.

  “Sunday at 3:00, then,” said Mr. Farnham. “We can rehearse the bits with Iago and Roderigo, and figure something out about the crowd scenes later on. This is going to be a memorable production.”

  He was standing between Nathan and Thomas on the stage. With one hand he gently pinched the back of Nathan’s neck, and with the other he did the same to Thomas’s. Then he patted them both on the back. It was the first display of affection Thomas had ever seen from him.

  SCENE 15

  When Cynthia awakened early Friday evening, her first thought was that she was glad to be home. She had been here now for six hours, and she had slept for five of them. The hospital had been exhausting. All the jokes about being awakened to get a sleeping pill were true. And even though they had tried to keep news of her hospitalization quiet, people had come. Dad had to be there, of course. And Ben; she had really needed to see him. But not people like Chuck Heilman. He was such an oaf. He’d popped in on her early on Thursday evening while she was listening to a concert on PBS. He’d said he was going to see Meryl Streep in a new movie. He had stayed for almost half an hour, reciting his platitudes about persevering and centering and coming to inner peace in order to make outer healing possible.

  On his way out he had asked her why she was in there.

  “They’re not sure,” she had said, and later, after Ben had arrived, she had cried over how selfish Chuck Heilman had been.

  “He was here to kill time before his damned movie,” she had said. “And to find out the latest gossip.”

  “He’s a poltroon,” Ben had said.

  “I was spiteful. I wouldn’t tell him what was wrong.”

  But they knew what was wrong. The doctor had confirmed it on Thursday afternoon, and she had been the one to tell Ben when he came down on Thursday night.