VALEDICTORY SPEECH
Before Patrick Mulvaney left Mt. Ephraim, he gave us all something to remember.
At first he'd debated not showing up for his high school commencement in June, though he was valedictorian of his graduating class, and the "honor" fell to him (as he was told repeatedly by Mr. Hendrie the school principal, and by his teachers) to deliver the valedictory speech. His grades through high school had been in the high nineties; he'd several times had perfect scores in math, chemistry, biology, his favorite subjects. His S.A.T. score was in the highest percentile and he'd been offered scholarships to a number of excellent universities. Since it, however, he'd been more withdrawn than previously, preferring to spend time alone, at home, in a makeshift laboratory he'd set up in one of the old barns. (The lab was out-of-bounds to Patrick's kid brotherJudd, which didn't mean I'd never poked my nose into it, at times when Patrick wasn't around. Examining beakers containing strange soapy liquids, lemonyacid-smelling chemicals, corked bottles, vials, and jars. Prominent on the workbench was Patrick's mail-order microscope he'd laboriously assembled from a kit. On a wall was a poster of the "periodic calendar" of chemicals-to me, an eighth grader, exotic as a foreign language. I was in dread of high school science, where I'd be expected to learn such things, but, worse yet, I'd be measured against my brilliant older brother.) Patrick never missed a day of school, sitting quietly in his classes, frowning at his teachers who admired rather than liked him, a thin-limbed, lanky boy with a penetrating steely-blue stare. Because his left eye was so weak, he sometimes narrowed it almost to a slit. Pinch's laser-ray.
Of the eighty-nine students of Mt. Ephraim High's 1976 graduating class, all but a handful had always been wary of Patrick Mulvaney; uncomfortable around him as of an adult in disguise in their midst. They admired him, and feared him, and did not much like him; he responded by looking through them, when he could not avoid looking at them. This included even the three or four who'd once counted themselves his friends.
Whatever Patrick's classmates were thinking of Marianne, now mysteriously departed from Mt. Ephraim, and of Patrick who was her brother, Patrick did not know and did not wish to know. Of course, Zachary Lundt was a classmate of Patrick's, who would be graduating with him on June 19, ranked sixty-five in his class. And there were Zachary's buddies, his circle. Patrick seemed not aware of them at all. Even entering the cafeteria, or the boys' locker room, or descending a flight of stairs to overhear-what? Murmured remarks, crude jokes. Muffled laughter. Words intended for Patrick Mulvaney to hear which in flict he might have heard yet somehow did not, was spared, as if the very airborne syllables might be repelled by an act of his superior will.
When, at a May assembly, Mr. Hendrie made the proud announcement that one of their seniors was among the first-prize winners of the annual New York State High School Science Fair, and that senior was Patrick Mulvaney, there was a distinct pause, a collective intake of breath, before the clapping began. Patrick, forced to rise in his seat, flushed deeply in embarrassment, or chagrin. He would be one of those who aggressively seek honors, yet shrink from their public acknowledgment.
And now: the valedictory speech.
Should he, or shouldn't he? Conform, or-?
Give them something to remember-maybe?
Patrick, in true Pinch-style, brooded over it for weeks. What honor was there, for God's sake, in being merely the best of the Mt. Ephraim High class of 1976? Just possibly, as soon as he took the podium and began to speak, certain of his rowdier classmates would immediately register boredom and contempt-did he dare to give them the opportunity to mock him?
Maybe, Patrick fretted, he should refuse to deliver a speech at all. There was no precedent at the high school for such rebellion but-how could he be punished, at this date? What could Hendrie and the others do, since corm-nencement was only a ritual, and actual graduation a matter of state records, diplomas issued from Al-. bany and sent through the mail? And what an absurd ritual it was, adolescents in caps and gowns! "It's a cartoon situation, essentially," Patrick said. "I can only be degraded by participating."
With Pinch, you never knew how serious he was. After all these years, Mom still couldn't gauge. She said, protesting," `Degraded'! Oh, Patrick, how can you say such a thing? We're all so proud of you-it will break my heart if you stay away from your own graduation."
Patrick winked at me. "I could call in sick that morning, Mom, and tell Hendrie I've got rabies."
"Patrick, that isn't frmnny," Mom said, almost pleading. The way she stared at my brother sometimes, now that Mike and Marianne were gone, the way her eyes sort of clung to him, dragged at him- it was weird to see, and made me uncomfortable.
Patrick said, "I'll say I have rabies but I want to come to graduation anyway and give my speech, on the way to the hospital. See what old Hendrie says then." In fact there had been several recent cases of rabies in the Valley, spread to human beings by infected raccoons and house pets. But Patrick's joking meant he was probably going to relent. Mom laughed, and chided him for his "morbid Pinch-humor," leaning over to brush a strand of limp sand-colored hair from his forehead.
She said, "Patrick, you know all of Mt. Ephraim will be eager to hear your valedictory speech."
As late as the night before graduation, Patrick was still brooding over the speech. I asked him how it was corning along and he glared at me and said, "Who wants to know? You?"
Graduation day was a Monday, a warm windy splotched-sunny day. The ceremony was set to begin promptly at 11 A.M. at the school and, to our relief, Patrick did appear downstairs in his cap and gown, and he'd apparently prepared a speech, on a long sheet of yellow scrap paper carelessly folded and stuffed into his trouser pocket. Morn asked what the title was and Patrick just shrugged. He might have been embarrassed, or nervous; the skin beneath his eves had - sallow, shadowy cast, as if he'd been awake much of the night. He gave off a sourish-acrid odor as if his sweat had a chemical component, reacting against the fine-knit dark wool of the absurd anklelength gown that fitted his lanky frame loose as a tent. Patrick insisted upon driving to the school an hour before the rest of us, saying he had last-minute work to do on his speech. "But why can't we ride together? Aren't we a family?" Mom shouted after him, perplexed and annoyed.
Patrick drove off in the Jeep Wrangler and an hour later the rest of the family followed, in Mom's station wagon. We were down to the three Mulvaneys for Patrick's graduation: Morn, Dad, and me.
Mike was with a roofing crew on a work site out the Haggartsville Road. (Mom had asked Dad if Mike could be excused for the day, to come to his brother's graduation-but nobody felt very strongly about him coming, including Mike himself. And Patrick.) No mention was made of Marianne. I'd asked Mom a few days before if she'd been invited and Mom said, "Why of course, Marianne has been invited to her own brother's graduation!" adding vaguely, "-but my cousin Ethel is counting on her to help out around the house and not be gadding all about the countryside, so-probably- we shouldn't expect her."
Are we lepers? W'e, Mulvaneys?-lepers?
Climbing the front steps of Mt. Ephraim High School, entering the foyer, passing by the glass trophy case where "Mule" Mulvaney's photo was still proudly displayed, I saw how eyes shifted upon my parents and shifted away, so fluidly you'd think it was the same motion. As Mom gaily chattered, waved, called out, "Hello! Hcl-lo!"
The crowd seemed to part for us. Fascinating: how people who'd known Corinne and Michael Mulvaney for twenty years seemed now not to see them, or, unable to reasonably not see them, smiled vaguely, with a pretense of enthusiasm, then turned away to greet others, shaking hands and embracing others. Most instructive for a thirteen-year-old who'd be a journalist one day, to observe.
Yes wefeel sorryfor you Ttfuh'aneys but no, no!-don't come talk to us, don't spoil this happy occasion for us, please.
It was a high school graduation like any other, I guess, in the beginning. Except for how we Mulvaneys were being ignored, and maybe I'm actually exaggeratin
g that, since one or two of Patrick's teachers said hello on their way into the auditorium, and may even have exchanged more words than that with Mom while Dad stared on stonily, as if unhearing. There was much milling about in the foyer as, in the auditorium, to hurry us on our way, the Mt. Ephraim Marching Band played jubilantly-was it the school anthem, or the national anthem, or a John Philip Sousa march in quick time? Though there was to be a reception after graduation, seniors in caps and gowns were being photographed now, with one another, with members of their families, with obliging teachers and Mr. Hendrie. Here and there I saw to my chagrin classmates of mine from junior high with their families-we shrank from recognizing one another, here. What a din! It was like a pep rally in the gym, voices and laughter reverberating from floor, ceiling, walls, and the music blaring.
And where was Patrick Mulvaney?-his mother rushed about searching for him, asking whomever she encountered, whether she knew them or not, had they seen her son?-ushers, teachers, fellow parents, Mr. Hendrie himself. "Patnck is valedictorian, you know- he's been working on his speech for days-he's such a perfectionist!" Mom managed to lament and marvel simultaneously. Her eyes shone a radiant, unnerving blue and her skin looked as if she'd been overexposed to sun. She would have been an attractive woman except for something too eager, too hungry and almost haggard in her face, and her lunging, oddly cranelike posture that made others draw back. Mom was never comfortable in high heels, yet at such a time she felt duty-bound to wear theni: old-fashioned round-toed glaring-white pumps that looked whitewashed, with a two-inch heel. Her hair had been so vigorously shampooed that morning it lifted from her head in an astonished fizz, carroty-red mixed with gray like the underside of those layered, dense clouds called cumulonimbus. Her outfit, selected that morning after much anxious deliberation, was a silk polka-dot dress that fitted her loosely, marble-sized red dots on a white background; the bodice was a mass of buttons, the skirt long, swishy. This was a rare "feminine" costume of Corinne Mulvaney's, no doubt purchased at the Second Chance Shop sponsored by the Mt. Ephraim General Hospital Women's Auxiliary. (It was one of Mom's recurring nightmares that the original owner of one of her extravagant secondhand outfits would rec-ognize it on her; yet this possibility, real enough in a community the size of Mt. Ephrairn, seemed never to discourage her from wearing these outfits in town.) Her very audacity quickened her sense of play, her reckless vitality.
By contrast, my father was somber, unsmiling amid the congratulatory crowd; his head slightly lowered, eyes hooded and his shoulders rounded, as if he hoped, through a fury of compression, to draw his very skeleton inward, and make himself smaller. He must have shaved quickly, or carelessly that morning-a still-moist redbeaded scratch of about two inches glinted beneath his jaw. He was wearing a dark blue serge business suit that, too, fitted him loosely, as if its original owner had been a larger man. His shoes were brown leather, not recently shined. His necktie had a bronze sheen. Awkwardly, he and I stood together just inside the front door, ignored by everyone, yet stubborn and immobile as rocks in a stream of sociability that broke and flowed about us. It was strange to me, that my father Michael Mulvaney Sr. who had always been the center of others' attention was now an invisible man. Yet there was a bitter comfort in it! Lepers! lepers! we Mulvaneys-lepers! Dad's mouth was shut tight as if soldered yet I could hear those words, and I heard them in his gravelly baritone. While Mom, under the pretext of searching for Patrick, went boldly up to people with hand extended, neon-happy smile-"Why, Lydia! Hello!" I heard her call out to Mrs. Bethune, who blinked at her startled, "-have you seen my son Patrick?-the valedictorian?"
The Lundts were at the far side of the foyer, entering the auditorium talking and laughing with friends. Mort Lundt, his wife Cynthia, an elder couple who must have been grandparents. If Michael Mulvaney saw, he gave no sign nor did he budge from his position near a glass trophy case.
Seniors were lining up for the procession in a corridor to the right. A Patriot-Ledger photographer was taking flash shots. Congressman Harold Stoud appeared amid happy cries and exclama-. tions. Directions were being given over loudspeakers. Most of the crowd had filed into the auditorium. Rows of seats were rapidly filling. If we didn't hurry, we'd be late! Mom had given up on Patrick when at last she sighted him, already in line, partway down the corridor; she waved to him, blew a kiss, mouthed a message Patrick icily ignored. "Let's go! Oh, why are you two just standing there!" Mom sighed, pulling at Dad and nie who were balky as goats. With no shift of rhythm or tone, the band was playing "Pomp and Circumstance." Ushers held Out programs, urging us and other late ar rivals to hurry inside. The forty-eight-year-old man who was Michael Mulvaney Sr. stared and blinked about himself like a man in a dream. It's possible he did not know precisely where he was, or why; or, knowing, had retreated from full consciousness, even as Mom, breathless and excited, linked an arm through his, and an arm through mine, leading us into the auditorium. We sat in the fourth row from the back. A blinding mist seemed to surround us., protect us. If any of the Lundts were close by, or the parents and relatives of Zachary Lundt's friends who had taken his side, and said such things of Marianne Mulvaney, or any of those fiends of friends whose names, faces, histories Michael Mulvaney had memorized, his enemies! his enemies!-we would be spared seeing. Already the capped and gowned seniors were marching by us down the aisles to the front reserved rows. More flashbulbs popped. Small children pointed at their older brothers and sisters. "There's Patrick!" Mom whispered. She nudged me, as if I were a small child, needful of being reminded of my connection to my brother. Dad was sitting tense, downlooking, the stiff-paper program rolled into a cylinder in his hands.
This conmiencement, Patrick's graduation, would pass like a blur before my eyes, for I seemed to know beforehand that something would happen and could wait only for it to happen, and all that preceded was confusion. There were delays at the start-Mr. Hendrie appeared, in his academic regalia, parting the heavy maroon velvet curtains, and mock frenzied cheers erupted. It was 11:10A.M., and it was 11:20 A.M. Again Mr. Hendrie appeared, greeting the packed assemblage ebulliently, and the band shifted to the national anthem and we rose to our feet and sang, some of us, loudly and happily, though others stood silent, for there are always those others in our noisy happy midst, waiting for whatever it is, to end. Next, a "moment of silence" presided over by a local Unitarian minister. Then the Mt. Ephraim High anthem, words spliced to the vigorous "John Brown's Body," led by the school's choir director. Again, we were all enjoined to sing. Mr. Hendrie returned to the podium and introduced Coach Hansen, a popular Mt. Ephraim presence, who began, amid applause, laughter, and whistles, to read off the names of prizewinners of the senior class in various categories-numerous prizewinners, in numerous categories. The auditoriurn had grown warm, people were fanning themselves with their programs. Ventilators were turned up, rattling and vibrating. I saw that Dad's putty-colored face was slick with sweat. The program had slipped from his fingers to the floor. He was sitting on the aisle, Mom between us, Mom straight and alert staring at the stage, a fixed smile on her face. Can't we he proud? Don't we deserj'e this, this day of pride? He's our son!-our son! I seem to have heard these words through one of the vents of our house earlier that morning. Mom's hushed, sibilant voice, and no voice responding. l)ad must have murmured something, some words, in Mom's ear, before rising shakily to his feet and turning to slip away-suddenly he was gone, up the aisle and through a rear door and gone, his seat empty. (Gone where? To the men's room, and he'd be right back? Outside on the front steps, for a quick cigarette? Out to the car in the parking lot, where just maybe he had a bottle hidden in the trunk?) Morn continued to sit very straight, head uplifted, proud profile, white pearl button earrings, polka-dot silk dress, shining eyes fixed upon the stage in defiance of Mr. Mulvaney's abrupt departure. She was the mother of the valedictorian of the Class of 1976, and nothing could change that fact.
The president of the senior class spoke. A popular teacher of drama spoke. More
awards were announced: outstanding citizemy, outstanding musical ability, outstanding scholastics, outstanding scientific work. Patrick Mulvaney was called to the stage to receive gilt-embossed certificates not once but twice, in immediate succession-much applause ensued, as if the boy had played some sort of trick upon the announcer, pretending to be twins, or, just maybe, twins pretending to be one boy. Mom was clapping frantically, whistling. Yet Dad's seat remained empty. Congressman Harold Stoud appeared and again there was much applause. Mt. Ephraim's most notable public servant, the "voice of common sense in Albany." Here was the commencement speaker-"Facing the Future as Young Ainericans"-reading from a prepared speech and delivered in a florid voice and time stretched and pleated and began to slowly turn upon itself like the M"bius strip Patrick had made of silver-striped wrapping paper, to hang from the ceiling of his room. See, Ranger? Infinity, in my hand. Still Michael Mulvaney Sr. who was Dad did not return to his seat. Congressman Stoud's words grew heavy and gritty and there came to be a thickness to the air in the auditorium, a strange choking dirt-tinctured air issuing from the vents even as the audience applauded the speaker, cheered, whistled, stamped their feet to hurry the garrulous old fart from the podium. And the tall fair-skinned senior boy who was valedictorian as- cended rapidly to the stage and crossed to the podium in his cap and gown, his posture, manner, stride suggesting an upright and very mobile pair oi scissors. And still Dad's seat remained empty.
We Were The Mulvaneys Page 24