by Pat Conroy
In February 1966 Colonel Bosch, the Comptroller, called Colonel Courvoisie and asked him to hunt a cadet for him. Bosch went on to say that $47.50 worth of senior business books were charged to a freshman’s I.D. card. The freshman had left The Citadel in November. When they punched a few holes in the proper places and ran a card through the computer, Bosch and his assistants discovered that all seniors in the business department had bought books except three. “Is there anything you can do to help us, Colonel?” “Yes, Sir, I believe so.”
Boo went to second battalion and asked Allan Wudie, Band Company Honor Representative, to walk around campus with him on some business which might involve the honor court. Wudie complied. Boo had three names on a sheet of paper.
The first name belonged to a cadet who lived on the top gallery of second battalion. Cadet North, a second lieutenant in the corps, popped to attention when Colonel Courvoisie and Wudie walked into his room.
“At ease, Bubba. Could I see the books you’re using in your major field this semester?” “Yes, Sir. Here they are, Sir. Why are you looking, Sir?” “Just checking, Bubba.” Six brand new business books lined the top shelf of his bookcase. Cadet Wudie carefully wrote the name of each book on a piece of paper. Before they left the room, Cadet North asked again, “Have I done anything wrong, Colonel?” “I don’t know, Bubba. I was just told to check some books. Good Morning.”
The next cadet was asleep on his bed in fourth battalion when The Boo walked into the room. His two roommates who were studying leaped from their seats, but Harold Griddle oblivious to the presence of danger lurking in his room, slept on in undisturbed slumber, until The Boo let out a roar for Harold to hit the floor. Blanching and stuttering in surprise, Criddle stood in his underwear at rigid attention. “Where are your senior business books, Bum?” “Well, Ah, Colonel, Sir. Well, I haven’t picked them up this semester yet. You know, I just wanted to save a little money. Thought I’d use my friends’ books just to get by.” “Bubba, do you realize this college requires you to have textbooks so you can extract every morsel of knowledge from your courses to help you in your future life?” “Yes, Sir.” “You pick your books up tomorrow and bring me the receipt for their purchase.” “Yes, Sir.”
Wudie and The Boo then climbed the “O” Company stairwell and found the room of Preston Grant empty of occupants. The Boo yelled down to the O.G. on duty, “Find me Cadet Grant and get him to this room immediately.” So the frantic O.G. placed calls all over the campus, sent his orderlies on scouting missions, searched Bond Hall, the library, the pool room, and finally found him watching T.V. in the Senior Lounge. “The Boo wants you in your room right away,” an orderly said. “What in the hell did I do this time?” Preston intoned, as he broke out of Mark Clark Hall in a sprint and did not slow down until he stood before The Boo breathless and still wondering what crime he had committed. “Mr. Grant, show me your senior business books you bought this semester, immediately.” “Colonel, I just haven’t picked them up yet. You know with graduation and all how important it is to save money and stuff. I’ve got one book, but it belongs to a friend of mine. We’ve got a test in that course tomorrow.” “Bubba, you prove to me in my office that you bought every God-blessed book your department requires, understand?” “Yes, Sir.”
As The Boo and Cadet Wudie walked out of fourth battalion, they were met by Cadet North in the sallyport. He once again asked the Colonel a question. “Could you please tell me why you were checking those books, Sir?” “Because I was told to check them, Bubba.” “Should I call my father, Colonel?” “Do you think you ought to call your father, Bubba?” “Yes, Sir. I know why you’re checking the books.” The cadet was a senior planning to get married in June and making the Air Force a career. Friends of his told The Boo the boy was so intense about saving money that on the long drive to his home in Virginia on Christmas furlough, North drank only a glass of water while the other cadets in his car loaded up on hamburgers and milkshakes. His Air Force career was sold for $47.50.
The appearance of the Clarey twins made them easy to underestimate. Both were squat and dumpy, red-headed and funny as hell. They worked as a team in anything they did on campus, and even though one was basically an extrovert and the other more reflective and an introvert, when they got together they clicked like blinking lights together. You could shut one of them up and the other one automatically started chattering like a sarcastic rodent. They stood beside each other in the same squad, lived in the same room, and ate together on the same mess. Everyone gave the Clarey twins a wide berth, and few people wanted to incur the wrath of either one since that entailed warfare with the other, too. They wisecracked and clowned their way through four years of The Citadel, but they saved their most memorable performance for graduation day.
Graduation is one of those serio-happy days when the Generals dress more ostentatiously than usual, when the Professors look more forbidding and learned than usual, and when the cadets fidget more often than usual. Boring speech would follow boring speech as some unknown orator would deliver the graduation address satiated with phrases about youth being the key to tomorrow’s world and other such profundities. After the speeches, Colonel Hoy would begin calling the names of the graduates. They would walk across the stage, individually, shake hands with General Clark with one hand, and receive their diplomas with the other. Graduation was nice. General Clark liked it. The Board of Visitors liked it. Moms and Dads like it. And the Cadets hated it, for without a doubt it ranked as the most boring event of the year. Thus it was in 1964 the Clarey twins pulled the graduation classic.
When Colonel Hoy called the name of the first twin, instead of walking directly to General Clark to receive his diploma, he headed for the line of visiting dignitaries, generals, and members of the Board of Visitors who sat in a solemn semi-circle around the stage. He shook hands with the first startled general, then proceeded to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with every one on the stage. He did this so quickly that it took several moments for the whole act to catch on. When it finally did, the Corps went wild. General Clark, looking like he just learned the Allies had surrendered to Germany, stood dumbfounded with Clarey number one’s diploma hanging loosely from his hand; then Clarey number two started down the line, repeating the virtuoso performance of Clarey number one, as the Corps whooped and shouted their approval. The first Clarey grabbed his diploma from Clark and pumped his hand furiously up and down. Meanwhile, his brother was breezing through the handshaking exercise. As both of them left the stage, they raised their diplomas above their heads and shook them like war tomahawks at the wildly applauding audience. No graduation is remembered so well.
The Regimental Executive Officer of an intentionally forgotten year came up to The Boo after military science class and asked The Boo for an “A.” “Why do you need it, Bubba? To graduate?” “No, Sir, I want to make gold stars.” “Hey, Bubba.” “Yes, Sir.” “Drop living dead.”
Many future pilots seem eager and gung-ho, but few wanted to fly as badly as Bill Talbert. He was doing extremely well during his eye examination at Charleston Air Force Base, until the doctor made the fairly relevant discovery that Bill was wearing contact lenses.
When Rick Lovefellow took off his shoes and socks and danced like a sugar plum fairy through field and grass reciting Keats and Coleridge to a group of cadets, no one seemed to think it strange or extraordinary because it was Rick Lovefellow doing it and everyone knew Rick Lovefellow was crazy as hell anyway. Boo shouted at crazy old Rick Lovefellow for four years and old Rick just grinned that huge grin which spread all over his face and then seemed to ripple through any crowd he might have assembled around him. Boo once caught him wearing a pair of shoes that looked like they might have been taken from a dead soldier’s feet after the battle of Tippecanoe. Terrible shoes with big gaping holes exposing toes and metatarsals to the world. Of course, Rick had put several Johnson’s bandaids over the holes and painted them black, but still the finished product did not deserve t
o grace Rick’s feet at a Saturday morning inspection when all the earth expected cadets to shine like grounded stars. The Boo found him that day and roared at Rick with his turbojet voice and crucified him without using nails, and humiliated him in front of an entire battalion, and Rick just grinned.
On another occasion Rick slouched his way across the parade ground during summer school, wearing bleached, torn blue jeans which Rick thought gave him a sexy, symbol-of-the-sixties look. Boo’s dress edict of the summer declared that no cadet will wear blue jeans on campus. Boo’s voice boomed across the parade ground and halted Mr. Lovefellow dead on the spot. “Mr. Lovefellow, don’t you realize you are wearing blue jeans on campus?” “So I am, Colonel. So I am.” “What are we going to do about it, Bubba?” “Let’s let it go by this time and play the game some other day, Colonel.” “Give me your pants, Bubba.” “Pardon me, Colonel.” “Give me your pants, Lovefellow. A cadet cannot be seen walking around campus wearing blue jeans.” Rick, a little more serious now, said, “Colonel, Sir, pardon me, but it would be a hell of a lot better than a cadet walking around in his underwear.” “Shed ’em, Bubba.” So several cadets saw Rick Lovefellow racing for first battalion, his bare legs exposed to the harsh Charleston sun and his buttocks covered by a pair of new fruit of the looms, but they just nodded and noted that Rick Lovefellow was still crazy as hell and didn’t think too much more about it.
At the graduation review of 1968, The Boo was shaking hands with the band seniors as he was accustomed to do. Something caught his eye about thirty yards down the line of seniors. Something odd. He walked down the line and found a grinning Rick Lovefellow sporting a huge gold medallion about the size of a volley ball suspended from his neck by a gaudy red ribbon a foot wide. Boo slowly untied the medallion and whispered soft thunder into Lovefellow’s ear, saying, “You Bum, if you want to sit in your room until 0900 hours Saturday morning, you just look like you’re going to pull one more stunt like this.” The Boo turned away from Rick and spotted Colonel and Mrs. Lovefellow standing about twenty feet behind their son. The Boo walked up to Mrs. Lovefellow and growled, “Does this belong to your son, Madame?” She swore she didn’t know the lad.
Basil Rathbone, English actor who won his major fame by playing Sherlock Holmes in the movies, came to The Citadel to deliver Shakespearean readings as a tribute to the 400th anniversary of the Bard. The salute guns awakened him at three in the morning and he thought it strange, the customs and traditions adhered to by these military colleges. Basil was not the only person awakened. A senior private in first battalion woke up and looked out in time to see cadets going in the vents on the north side of second battalion. The next day he told The Boo what he had seen. Colonel Courvoisie went down to second battalion and checked the vents which led under the barracks. On one vent he found a false, wooden bar, painted to match the other bars, which was removable. The Boo entered the vent, saw some footprints and followed them to a band company room. He took the room number, then left the barracks. He called the cadets who occupied the room later that day. “Bums, I found some footprints leading to your room from an outside vent. Now, unless you come up with some other names, you are going to get 3/60 for firing the salute guns at three in the morning.” “But, Colonel, we didn’t do it.” “I know, Bubba, but you know who did.” Several hours later, the two cadets who had interrupted Basil’s sleep, Neck Selzner and Frank Rabon, turned themselves in and asked for mercy.
While checking summer school barracks, Boo walked into an empty room and found two three-foot alligators with their mouths taped shut, wandering around the floor. With a roar that awoke newborn infants in Roper Hospital, The Boo stood from the top gallery and said, “Get these damn alligators out of here before I throw them off the top division.” The message carried all the way to Chris Carraway who was attending class at the time, but who hurried to the barracks to retrieve his ’gators before they became airborne.
Wayne Wolski, a Cadet who never graduated from The Citadel, called Colonel Courvoisie one Wednesday night after he left school and said, “Colonel, I want you to be godfather for my child. I don’t want anyone else, understand me?” “O. K. Bubba, don’t get riled, nothing’s wrong with your kid, even if his father is a Bum.”
THE STORY OF MR. BISON
In 1965 Eddie Teague recruited a boy from Mobile, Alabama, who had the potential to become an outstanding interior lineman for The Citadel’s football team. Because of a nineteen inch neck which seemed to blend imperceptibly into his massive shoulders, he was dubbed “Mr. Bison” by other members of the squad. Some of them had met this neck head-on in a fierce scramble on the practice field. Mr. Bison handled himself well. In the violent world of football, where success was measured by the number of bodies strewn in your path, the boy from Mobile with the stove pipe neck would easily match the best of them. The Corps became accustomed to cheering the quick, sharp tackles made by the Bison in his relentless pursuit of enemy ball carriers. He lettered in his sophomore year. Things looked good and Mr. Bison wrote his mother that he had picked a fine school.
Things had not always been good. His childhood had been a hard one. His father’s connection with the Mafia caused a great deal of dissension between his parents. He spent his early years watching a procession of surly hoods parade through his house. They seemed oblivious to the arguments that inevitably punctuated their visits. The arguments eventually caused a rift which led to separation and divorce. Mr. Bison’s father, freed from family ties, became a drifter and faded out of his son’s life forever. The mother assumed responsibility for raising the family. The hard times came. Poverty entered Mr. Bison’s life. He watched his mother come home from work, fix dinner and fall into bed exhausted. This was a daily ritual. Yet no matter how hard she worked or how exhausted she became, there still was not enough food, nor clothes, nor anything. Some of the kids at school made fun of Mr. Bison’s clothes, but not for long. His quick temper would flash and the growing bison would silence his antagonist or get the hell beat out of him trying. He started hanging around the tough kids at school. They were kids like him who didn’t have enough money. They came from the poor section of town and their bond was the hard affection of alienated children painfully aware of their poverty.
In Junior High School, Mr. Bison discovered football. On the field he learned that some of the hate inside him could be released by driving his shoulder into the gut of an opponent or by racing downfield and splitting a defensive halfback in two with a well-executed body block. And people praised you for it. Teachers didn’t yell at you and the principal didn’t suspend you. Everyone cheered. The harder you hit someone or the more savagely you tackled someone, the louder the applause became. In a world of contradictions, Mr. Bison found the niche that would carry him from high school in Mobile, Alabama, to the more spacious arena of Johnson Hagood Stadium in Charleston, South Carolina.
In the spring of 1964 the O. G. in Number Four Barracks was roused by a cadet who saw something suspicious occurring in the parking lot adjacent to the tennis courts. They alerted the Officer in Charge and the group went out into the dark to investigate. They caught two cadets with a long hose and an empty gas can. The gas can was empty, but the intent of siphoning gas was obvious. They were both charged with honor violations and summoned to appear before the Honor Court. One of the boys was familiar to the O.C. The thick neck and strong body had impressed him the previous football season. He had watched this man tackle a Furman halfback on The Citadel fifteen yard line so hard that the ball was jarred loose and recovered by a Citadel player. He had seen him before, but it was the first time he had spoken to Mr. Bison.
Colonel Courvoisie had spoken often to Mr. Bison. Passing him on campus, The Boo would ask him about the football team or about his grades. Boo had similar conversations with hundreds of cadets each day. Whether giving out demerits for unshined shoes or standing by Bond Hall waiting for cadets late to class, he always talked to the boys who passed him. He forgot most of these conversations as
soon as he had them. It was the cadets who remembered them. Mr. Bison remembered them.
The trial proved to be one of the most controversial in the history of the Honor Court. Could an honor violation be committed by intent alone? Should planning to steal be punished as severely as the act of stealing itself? All of these questions were debated by cadets all over the campus. Even the members of the honor court could feel the pressure mounting as all eyes turned toward the third floor of Mark Clark Hall for the trial which would stand as a test case, a kind of reference point from which later honor courts would embark. Joseph Dickson, a member of the court, later said to his brother that he had never been so torn by a decision as the one rendered that night. The court unanimously decided that Mr. Bison and his companion were guilty of an honor violation. There was no recommendation for leniency. According to the rules, Mr. Bison had to leave The Citadel campus forever in less than twenty-four hours.
Colonel Courvoisie’s most detested job was supervision of those cadets found guilty of honor violations. It was his appointed task to make sure the cadet left as quickly and quietly as possible. He had heard of the court’s decision before Mr. Bison came to see him the next morning. Mr. Bison was shaken and even though he tried to be stoical, Colonel Courvoisie could see the anxiety etched across the boy’s face. The nineteen inch neck seemed little protection against the uncertainty of the future. Colonel Courvoisie spoke first. “There’s not much I can say, Bubba.” “I know, Colonel, there’s not much I can say, either,” he answered. “You know General Clark will write a letter to get you in another school, don’t you?” “Yes, Sir. That’s nice of him.” “Don’t worry, Mr. Bison. Things look bad now, but you’ll come out O.K.” The Boo had listened to other cadets talk about Mr. Bison’s background, the economic deprivation of the early years in Mobile, Alabama, and the derelict father who left home. He had heard about the life the boy led before football had lifted him into The Citadel. He knew some of the circumstances. He understood. “Mr. Bison, can I help you— lend you some money?” the Colonel asked gently. “Colonel, I sure could use thirty dollars.” The Boo wrote a check and gave it to him. Mr. Bison extended his hand. They shook hands. “Good-bye, Colonel, and thanks.” “Good-bye, Mr. Bison. Good luck to you.” When The Boo returned home that evening, Mrs. Courvoisie was in the kitchen cutting up celery and pickles to mix with the gallon of potato salad she was preparing for her family. Her husband walked in the kitchen, opened a beer, and sat brooding by the kitchen table. In the course of discussing the day’s events, The Boo told his wife, who keeps the financial records of the household, to write off thirty dollars for charity. He then related what had passed between him and Mr. Bison. The Boo sympathized with the boy; he had dealt with cadets before who had been crippled by the effects of poverty. These boys were hard and hungry, bargains were made with suckers who did not understand the language of the streets, who could not interpret the world on the other side of the tracks. Mrs. Courvoisie duly recorded the thirty dollar deduction in their budget account. The incident soon passed from memory.