Dead Poets Society

by N. H. Kleinbaum

  “Thanks, Neil,” Todd said, still smiling. “I’ll see you.”

  Later that afternoon, Neil carried a battered lampshade through the woods toward the cave.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he puffed as he hurried in. The other pledges of the Dead Poets Society sat on the floor around Charlie, who was sitting cross-legged and silent before them, his eyes closed. In one hand he held an old saxophone.

  “Look at this,” Neil said.

  “What is it?” Meeks asked.

  “Duh-uh, it’s a lampshade, Meeks,” Pitts said.

  Neil took off the lampshade, pulled out the cord and revealed a small painted statue. “It’s the god of the cave,” Neil smiled broadly.

  “Duh-uh, Pitts,” Meeks shot back.

  Neil placed the statue, which had a stake sticking out of its head, in the ground. He placed a candle in the stake and lit it. The candle illuminated a red-and-blue drummer boy, his face worn from exposure, but noble. Todd, who was obviously relieved from his success of the day, playfully put the lampshade on his own head.

  Charlie cleared his throat loudly. The boys turned toward him and settled in. “Gentlemen,” he said. “‘Poetrusic’ by Charles Dalton.”

  Charles blew a stream of random and blaring notes on the saxophone, then suddenly stopped. Trance-like, he began to speak: “‘Laughing, crying, tumbling, mumbling, gotta do more. Gotta be more …’”

  He played a few more notes on the saxophone, then, speaking faster than before, continued, “‘Chaos screaming, chaos dreaming, crying, flying, gotta be more! Gotta be more!’”

  The cave was silent. Then Charlie picked up the instrument and played a simple but breathtaking melody. The skeptical looks on the boys’ faces disappeared as Charlie continued playing, lost in the music, and ending with a long and haunting note.

  The boys sat silent, letting the beautiful sound wash over them. Neil spoke first.

  “Charlie, that was great. Where did you learn to play like that?”

  “My parents made me take clarinet, but I hated it,” Charlie said, coming back down to earth. “The sax is more sonorous,” he said in a mock British accent.

  Suddenly Knox stood up, backed away from the group, and wailed out his torment. “God, I can’t take it anymore! If I don’t have Chris, I’ll kill myself!”

  “Knox, you gotta calm down,” Charlie said.

  “No, I’ve been calm all my life! If I don’t do something, it’s gonna kill me!”

  “Where are you going?” Neil called as Knox headed out of the cave.

  “I’m calling her,” Knox said, running into the woods.

  The society meeting ended abruptly and the boys followed Knox back to the campus. Knox might not die of passivity, but there was a good chance he’d die of embarrassment if he called Chris, and the society pledges felt obliged to stand by their fellow poet.

  “I’ve got to do this,” Knox said as he picked up the dorm phone. The boys surrounded him protectively as he boldly dialed her telephone number.

  “Hello?” Knox heard Chris’s voice on the other end of the phone. He panicked and hung up.

  “She’s gonna hate me! The Danburrys will hate me. My parents will kill me!” He looked around at the others trying to read their faces. No one said a word. “All right, goddamn it, you’re right! ‘Carpe Diem,’ even if it kills me.”

  He picked up the phone and dialed again. “Hello?” He heard her voice.

  “Hello, Chris, this is Knox Overstreet,” he said.

  “Knox … oh yes, Knox. I’m glad you called.”

  “You are?” He covered the phone and told his friends excitedly, “She’s glad I called!”

  “I wanted to call you,” Chris said. “But I didn’t have the number. Chet’s parents are going out of town this weekend, so Chet’s having a party. Would you like to come?”

  “Well, sure!” Knox beamed.

  “Chet’s parents don’t know about it so please keep it quiet. But you can bring someone if you like.”

  “I’ll be there,” Knox said excitedly. “The Danburrys’. Friday night. Thank you, Chris.”

  He hung up the phone, overcome, and let out a loud yelp. “Can you believe it? She was gonna call me! She invited me to a party with her!”

  “At Chet Danburry’s house,” Charlie said flatly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well?” Charlie asked.

  “So?” Knox was getting defensive.

  “So you really think she means you’re going with her?”

  “Well, hell no, Charlie, but that’s not the point. That’s not the point at all!”

  “What is the point?” Charlie pressed.

  “The point is she was thinking about me!”

  “Ah.” Charlie shook his head.

  “I’ve only met her once and already she’s thinking about me.” Knox almost jumped up and down. “Damn it, it’s gonna happen. She’s going to be mine!”

  He raced out of the phone room, his feet barely touching the floor. His friends looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Who knows?” Charlie asked.

  “I just hope he doesn’t get hurt,” Neil said.

  CHAPTER 9

  Neil pedaled rapidly through the town square on his way to Henley Hall for rehearsals. He cruised past the town hall and a row of shops and continued along the quiet Vermont road until he reached the white brick buildings of Henley Hall. He slid his bike through the gate and parked it in the rack in front of the building. As he entered the auditorium, the director called out to him.

  “Hurry up, Neil. We can’t do this scene without our Puck.”

  Neil smiled and dashed to center stage. He grabbed a stick with a jester’s head on the end of it from the prop girl and began:

  “Yet but three? Come one more;

  Two of both kinds makes up four.

  Here she comes, curst and sad.—

  Cupid is a knavish lad,

  Thus to make poor females mad.”

  Puck looked toward the floor where a mad Hermia, played by Ginny Danburry, crawled onto the stage, exhausted and wild-eyed.

  The director, a blond teacher in her forties, stopped Ginny as she started her lines and turned toward Neil. “Good, Neil,” she complimented. “I really get the feeling your Puck knows he’s in charge. Remember that he takes great delight in what he’s doing.”

  Neil nodded and repeated boldly and impishly: “‘Cupid is a knavish lad, thus to make poor females mad!’”

  “Excellent,” the director said with a smile. “Continue, Ginny.”

  Ginny crawled back onto the stage and started her lines:

  “Never so weary, never so in woe,

  Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,

  I can no further crawl, no further go …”

  The director gestured and pointed as the students ran through the scene several times.

  “See you tomorrow,” Neil called when they’d finally finished rehearsals for the day. He walked to the bike rack in the twilight, his eyes flashing and his face flushed from the thrill he got from acting. He rode back through the sleepy Vermont town to Welton Academy, repeating the lines he had practiced for the past two hours.

  Neil approached the Welton gates cautiously, making sure no one was around. He pumped up the hill to the dorm and parked his bike. As he started into the building, he spotted Todd huddled motionless on the stone wall.

  “Todd?” he called, walking over to get a better look. Todd sat shivering in the dark without a coat. “What’s going on?” Neil asked, staring at his roommate. Todd didn’t answer. “Todd, what’s the matter?” Neil said, sitting next to him on the wall. “It’s freezing out here!”

  “It’s my birthday,” Todd said flatly.

  “It is?” Neil said. “Why didn’t you tell me? Happy birthday! You get anything?”

  Except for his chattering teeth, Todd sat silent and still. He pointed to a box. Neil opened it to find the same monogrammed desk set Todd already had in the
room.

  “This is your desk set,” Neil said. “I don’t get it.”

  “They gave me the exact same thing as last year!” Todd cried. “They didn’t even remember!”

  “Oh,” Neil said in a hushed tone.

  “Oh,” Todd mocked.

  “Well, maybe they thought you’d need another one, a new one,” Neil suggested after a long awkward pause. “Maybe they thought …”

  “Maybe they don’t think at all unless it’s about my brother!” Todd said angrily. “His birthday is always a big to-do.” He looked at the desk set and laughed. “The stupid thing is, I didn’t even like the first one!”

  “Look, Todd, you’re obviously underestimating the value of this desk set,” Neil said flippantly, trying to change the mood.

  “What?”

  “I mean,” Neil said and tried to smile. “This is one special gift! Who would want a football or a baseball bat or a car when they could get a desk set as wonderful as this one!”

  “Yeah!” Todd laughed, infected by Neil’s humor. “And just look at this ruler!”

  They laughed as they both looked at the desk set. By now it was pitch dark and cold. Neil shivered.

  “You know what Dad called me when I was growing up? ‘Five ninety-eight.’ That’s what all the chemicals in the human body would be worth if you bottled them raw and sold them. He told me that was all I’d ever be worth unless I worked every day to improve myself. Five ninety-eight.”

  Neil sighed and shook his head in disbelief. No wonder Todd is so screwed up, he thought.

  “When I was little,” Todd continued, “I thought all parents automatically loved their kids. That’s what my teachers told me. That’s what I read in the books they gave me. That’s what I believed. Well, my parents might have loved my brother, but they did not love me.”

  Todd stood, took a deep anguished breath, and walked into the dorm. Neil sat motionless on the freezing stone wall, groping for something to say. “Todd …” he called lamely, as he ran in after his roommate.

  “Hey,” Cameron shouted as the boys started into Mr. Keating’s room the next afternoon. “There’s a note on the board to meet in the courtyard.”

  “I wonder what Mr. Keating is up to today.” Pitts grinned expectantly.

  The boys raced down the hall and out the door into the chilly courtyard. Mr. McAllister peered out from his classroom door, shaking his head in annoyance.

  “People,” Keating said as the boys gathered around him. “A dangerous element of conformity has been seeping into your work. Mister Pitts, Cameron, Overstreet, and Chapman, line up over here please.” He pointed to the four boys to stand near him. “On the count of four, I want you to begin walking together around the courtyard. Nothing to think about. No grade here. One, two, three, go!”

  The boys began walking. They walked down one side of the courtyard, across the back, up the other side, and across the front, completing the square.

  “That’s the way,” Keating said. “Please continue.”

  The boys walked around the courtyard again as the rest of the class and the teacher watched. Soon they began to walk in step, a march-like cadence emanating from the pavement. They continued in a one-two-three-four pattern as Keating began to clap to the rhythm.

  “There it is … Hear it?” he called, clapping louder in time. “One two, one two, one two, one two … We’re all having fun, in Mr. Keating’s class …”

  Sitting in his empty classroom grading papers, McAllister observed the commotion through the window. The four marchers picked up on their cadence. They lifted their legs high and swung their arms back and forth, keeping the rhythm alive. The class joined in clapping out the beat.

  Distracted by the clapping and cheering, Dean Nolan put down his work and peered through the window at the drill-team activity below. Nolan’s eyebrows furrowed as he frowned at Keating clapping and shouting to the English class. What in the world are they doing? he wondered.

  “All right, stop,” Mr. Keating called to the marchers. “You may have noticed how at the beginning Misters Overstreet and Pitts seemed to have a different stride than the others—Pitts with his long lurches, Knox with that light little bounce—but soon all were walking in the same cadence. Our encouragement made it even more marked,” he pointed out.

  “Now, this experiment was not to single out Pitts or Overstreet. What it demonstrates is how difficult it is for any of us to listen to our own voice or maintain our own beliefs in the presence of others. If any of you think you would have marched differently, then ask yourself why you were clapping. Lads, there is a great need in all of us to be accepted, but you must trust what is unique or different about yourself, even if it is odd or unpopular. As Frost said, “‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference.’”

  The bell rang, but the boys remained rooted in their spots, watching Keating and absorbing his message. Then Keating saluted the class and walked off.

  Nolan moved away from his window as the class dispersed. What do I do with this one? he thought. McAllister, chuckling at Keating’s antics, returned to grading his papers.

  The boys walked from the courtyard to their next class. “We’re meeting at the cave after dinner,” Cameron said to Neil.

  “What time?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  “I’ll pass it along,” Neil said as he walked over to Todd.

  Later that night, Todd, Neil, Cameron, Pitts, and Meeks sat around a fire in the cave, warming their hands. A thick fog had moved in, and the trees swayed noisily from the gusty wind.

  “It’s spooky out tonight,” Meeks said with a shiver, moving closer to the fire. “Where’s Knox?”

  “Getting ready for that party,” Pitts chuckled.

  “What about Charlie? He’s the one who insisted on this meeting,” Cameron said.

  The others shrugged. Neil opened the meeting: “‘I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately … to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life …’” Neil stopped short as he listened to a rustle in the woods. They all heard something, and it sure wasn’t the wind. Funny, it sounded like a bunch of girls giggling.

  “I can’t see a thing,” a girl’s voice echoed into the cave.

  “It’s just over here,” the boys heard Charlie say.

  The fire glowed brightly on the faces of the boys surrounding it as Charlie and two older girls came giggling into the cave.

  “Hey, guys,” Charlie said, holding his arm around the shoulder of a pretty blond, “meet Gloria and …” He hesitated and looked at Gloria’s friend, a plain girl, with dark hair and green eyes.

  “Tina,” she said awkwardly, taking a drink from a can of beer.

  “Tina and Gloria,” Charlie said happily, “this is the pledge class of the Dead Poets Society.”

  “It’s such a strange name!” Gloria laughed. “Won’t you tell us what it means?”

  “I told you, it’s a secret,” Charlie said.

  “Isn’t he precious?” Gloria oozed as she hugged Charlie affectionately. The boys looked flabbergasted at these wild, exotic creatures who had entered their cave. They were obviously older, probably around twenty or so, and the boys all wondered the same thing—where had Charlie picked them up?

  “Guys,” Charlie said, pulling Gloria close to him as the other boys’ eyes opened even wider, “I have an announcement. In keeping with the spirit of passionate experimentation of the Dead Poets, I’m giving up the name Charles Dalton. From now on, call me ‘Nuwanda.’”

  The girls giggled; the boys groaned. “You mean I can’t call you Charlie anymore, honey?” Gloria asked, putting her arms around his neck. “What’s ‘Numama’ mean, sugar?”

  “It’s Nuwanda, and I made it up,” Charlie said.

  “I’m cold,” Gloria said as she squeezed closer to Charlie.

  “Let’s get some more twigs for the fire,” Meeks said.

  Charlie shot Meeks a look
as he and the other boys left the cave. Charlie walked to one wall, scraped off some mud and wiped it on his face like an Indian brave. He gave Gloria a sexy stare and followed the boys off into the forest to gather some firewood. Tina and Gloria whispered and giggled.

  As the society pledges were tramping through the woods, Knox Overstreet bicycled off campus to the Danburry residence. He parked his bike in the bushes on the side of the house, took off his overcoat, and stuffed it in his saddlebag. He straightened his tie, leapt up the steps to the front door, and knocked. Loud music blared from the house, but no one answered the door. He knocked again, then turned the knob and walked in.

  Knox found a wild fraternity party in progress. He saw one couple making out on the entrance hall couch. Other couples were on chairs, couches, stairs, or on the floor, oblivious to anyone else around them. Knox stood in the entrance hall, unsure what to do. Just then he spotted Chris, walking out of the kitchen, her hair an uncombed mess.

  “Chris!” he called.

  “Oh, hi,” she said casually. “I’m glad you made it. Did you bring anybody?”

  “No,” Knox said.

  “Ginny Danburry’s here. Look for her,” Chris said as she started to walk away.

  “But, Chris …” Knox shouted over the blasting music.

  “I gotta find Chet,” she called back. “Make yourself at home.”

  Knox’s shoulders slumped as Chris walked briskly away. He climbed over couples sprawled on the floor and dejectedly looked around for Ginny Danburry. Some party, he thought.

  Out near the cave at Welton the boys stumbled in darkness, feeling the ground for twigs and logs.

  “Charlie …” Neil hissed.

  “It’s Nuwanda.”

  “Nuwanda,” Neil said patiently. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, unless you object to having girls here,” Charlie said.

  “Well, of course not,” Pitts said, bumping into Neil. “Sorry. It’s just that … you should have warned us.”

  “I thought I’d be spontaneous,” Charlie whispered. “I mean, that’s the point of this whole thing, isn’t it?”

  “Where’d you find them?” Neil asked.

  “They were walking along the fence past the soccer field. Said they were curious about the school so I invited them to the meeting,” he said matter-of-factly.