I can’t get it into words, but something is so wrong with all of this. It’s not the dying or even the cancer—it’s the treatment, or the illusion of treatment. Hurtful and terrifying as it is, Meg’s dying ought to be in the same run of phenomena as birth, marriage, and parenting. I don’t know. This hasn’t been right for Meg. It’s not the way she should leave us.
I’m very full of death. A boy drowned in the pool this week— a terrible wild card, nobody’s fault. He seems to have been a borderline epileptic who had gotten negligent with his daily medication and convulsed in the water. A very nice boy, game, very kind, a not-too-bright innocent. The blow to the parents was indescribable, their dignity in the face of it even more so. We put together a quick memorial chapel for them here the morning after. The boys rose to the occasion and to the parents’ need like angels. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, the parents desperately attaching all their parental affection to each boy they got to know. They decided to bury him here and stayed on the campus three days. Going home without him was the hard thing, the real thing.
We have heard nothing from or about Brian, and Meg is now unable to talk about him. I don’t know if she thinks about him. I hope not. I don’t know myself anymore what I expect or what I want from him. I spend hours at a time, at my desk or lying in bed, when I positively, murderously hate him. Perhaps this has always been there, perhaps the real cause of all that’s gone wrong. I don’t want to believe this, and for the most part I really don’t, but it’s a possibility. And if it’s true, if that land of hate is really running my engine, then all this other business, the avuncular reasonableness, the old-shoe headmasterly patter I do, this affection I think I feel for practically all of these boys who have been milling around me for the past thirty-two years—it’s all a veil over something pretty ugly.
I’ve gone over Brian’s growing up a thousand times in the last few years. It’s all there in bold strokes: only son of headmaster, like son of clergyman, finds adult expectations impossible, so end-runs or self-destructs or compulsively fails. Until his teens, though, Brian, wasn’t anything more alarming than a little passive and occasionally stubborn. I always think of Brian’s and Hugh’s respective approaches to performance, whether musical, athletic, or scholastic. Brian would be pleased to master a tune on the piano—would get it note-for-note perfect through solitary practice. Then, when asked to perform, even if only for Meg and me, he would decline. I once begged him to play for company until he wept. Hugh, on the other hand, liked to perform. He was never a show-off, but he always seemed delighted that you would actually like to see or hear something he had been working on. I will never forget one summer evening at Little House when Hugh had haltingly pounded his way through “Bumble Boogie” and we all cheered wildly. Late that night it started to rain, and as I was cranking windows shut in Brian’s room, he startled me by saying, “Dad, you know I can play it really well.” I don’t know what I said, probably something like “I’d love to hear it.” But both of us understood that was not going to happen.
I think I understand pretty well the dynamics of Brian’s relationship to me and Meg. It’s called passive-aggression in the psychoanalytic literature. All adolescents do it to an extent. The idea is for the adolescent to get you by not performing and thus spoiling your expectations. It is very hard to respond to. Real love and support sustain the passivity by reinforcing it; anger fuels it. It’s also hard to be angry at the passive kid because he isn’t (consciously) angry, and he is suffering consequences, too: failure, loss of esteem, lack of mastery, lack of recognition. It’s deadly. Whole lives are organized on the principle. In my view, though, a lot more kids grew out of it before drugs. Kids always like to frustrate parental ambitions (even Hugh, who is perfect, is not an entrepreneur yet), but they also like to please and to acquire skills—social skills, vocational skills, recreational skills, intellectual acumen—and this requires growing up, knitting onto and using the adult order. Drugs block this healthy transition. They have done it to dozens of boys I have known well, and I believe in my bones they’ve done it to Brian. Drugs are made for passive-aggression. In the old world, in which we may be the graying last generation, being high (without chemicals) was the reward of achievement: goal reached, girl won, etc. Now being high (with chemicals) replaces achievement, is the achievement—no behaviors necessary, no mastery, no exchange of favors with the world.
School has always been an adult-adolescent battleground, but the battle was so much more invigorating and honorable before drugs. We can only, usually, guess if a boy is stoned. Druggy boys can get us every time. They can play their heads like chemical juke boxes, while we are drilling for order, for esthetic response, for logical subtleties. Masses of contemporary young never get very subtle. Their language and discrimination are fuzzed, perhaps a little, perhaps a lot, but forever. Medical schools, businesses (as you know) will accept them; the arts expect them. Which does not prove, at least to me, that drugs are harmless. Consider the medicine we get, consider the manufacturing, marketing, and delivery we get; consider the arts. Take Val to the movies, Frank. Take her to Apocalypse Now. Listen to the diction and syntax of talk-show guests—and of the host. I can imagine, without irony, a near future in the West in which the culture can only be endured with drugs.
But the hell with the near future. My present is hardly manageable. My near past is what I would like to understand better. I saw Brian grow up sweet, bright, maddeningly private and tentative. But promising! I saw him waver and grow tense at fifteen, and after that I never saw him entirely clear headed again. Which, in our particular Oedipal combat, is just about perfect, since being a clear-headed member of humanity is possibly my only firm expectation of Brian.
I know damned well I’m right about drugs. Historians millennia hence will perhaps cite me in their treaties on the Pax Americana in decline. But I still lose. Passive-aggression and its chemical props beat me easily. Brian has rendered me sad, frustrated, angry, and helpless, has done worse—or is it better?—to his mother. He has shown us and our WASPish liberality to be ineffective, and the only cost was forfeiting a comprehending, connecting life. Twenty years ago, passive-aggressive or not, Brian would have seen this, seen through it and past it.
Don’t let these ravings frighten you, either of you. It’s good for me to get them out, and it beats lying awake. Thanks so much for all your support. Am living for your arrival at Christmas. It will be gruesome for you, but I love you for it. Best to Hugh.
John
9 December
Mr. Francis Laughlin
Poetry Editor
Commonweal
232 Madison Avenue
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Laughlin,
I am enclosing another poem for your consideration. It is not terribly seasonal, but perhaps it may work into your scheme of things for the new year.
Faithfully,
John O. Greeve
THE NEW SONS
When all the boys were at last bored
With their fathers’ gleaming automobiles,
After they, specters in all their hair,
Smells, grit, and gypsy gear
Had spoiled their mothers’ brilliant kitchens,
Knew too much or too little for learning,
Had fallen to drugs or drifting,
When these, shameful in their own soil,
Had ceased sullenly to matter,
There were new sons.
Such boys. Modest but alive
With questions, interested in no machine
Nor manning any, they spoke like sages,
Venerated the good and left the famous
Open-mouthed before the public;
Disease and its massive medicine gave way,
And there was simple health; houses
Came to fit the features of their families;
Between each city a distance restored
And with it wonder.
11 December
Mr. a
nd Mrs. Asa Lewandowski
1446 Trelawney Avenue
Rumson, New Jersey
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lewandowski,
Although so much was said this past week, I want to say once again how completely and thoroughly the thoughts and love of everybody here are with you. While you were here, the services and the talk made David seem very much among us. Now will be the tough time. I am glad your daughters and their families are there for your support.
I have enclosed the copy you requested of my hastily composed remarks for the memorial chapel. They should have been fuller and stronger, but they do suggest something of the affection in which David was held here.
I also enclose David’s journal for Mr. Hodge’s composition class. David may have told you that the class was required to write at least a page per day on any subject. I think you’ll agree that something of David’s energy and enthusiasm shine forth from this log—it’s David, all right.
I have not forgotten your kind offer of a commencement prize in David’s name nor your intention to contribute money set aside for his tuition here to a scholarship candidate. You honor us very much with both gestures. There is plenty of time to work out the particulars, so please don’t bother about them for the time being.
I will convey your regards to Mrs. Greeve.
With my love and good wishes,
John O. Greeve
12 December
Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Ryder
175 Old Church Road
Dedham, Massachusetts
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Ryder,
By now Carl has told you about his latest trouble here in the biology lab. Frankly, we find ourselves baffled by it. We don’t know whether it is an instance of childish cruelty, or submerged anger, or of something else. Carl himself doesn’t seem to be sure. The startling fact of the matter is that during Morning Break yesterday, Carl made his way into the lab and proceeded to cut off the tails of our six gerbils. Fortunately, I think, he was spotted by Mr. Fiore leaving the lab some time during mid-break, so we have been spared the unease of wondering who among us mutilated the animals.
The incident raises a number of concerns.
(1) Is Carl a danger to other boys and to property here? We are fully aware that many boys pass through a phase of murderous cruelty to animals. Some boys half-sublimate this into “experiments.” Some turn it inward into temporary phobias of mice, spiders, etc. Many let it run its course through hunting, exterminating pond frogs or some other easy prey until the impulse is either dissipated or brought under control. John Steinbeck’s The Red Pony is very instructive in this regard. Something of this destructive impulse is still obviously at work in Carl. What concerns us most is that he is too old for it. I hope the mortification of being caught doing such a thing becomes a first step in his being able to assess his urge objectively and thus bring it under control.
(2) What will it do to Carl’s rather fragile sense of esteem to be known, as I am afraid is already becoming the case, as the boy who cuts tails off gerbils? Such acts, again because they are so unconsciously appealing to emerging adolescents, are not readily forgotten. Cruel/funny labels are often applied, and sometimes they stick long after the event that inspired them is forgotten. Mind you, we do not encourage this, but there is little we can do to prevent it.
(3) Has Carl posed us a disciplinary or a psychological problem? Both, I think, but we are trying to treat it more as the latter. I am convinced by his remorse (copious tears) that he is not proud or pleased about what he did; getting nabbed just may put the lid on that impulse for good.
But we intend to help him seal that lid. Our terms for keeping him on here must be as follows. He should have a psychological evaluation by someone acceptable to you sometime over the Christmas recess. I would like to see a written summary of that evaluation when he returns in January. Beyond that, we would impose no further discipline nor require any kind of therapy, unless that is recommended by his evaluator and you choose to carry on with it. However, should Carl be involved in another incident of cruel behavior to animals or to others here or to himself, we are going to insist that he go through at least one term of schooling away from Wells, during which a regular course of counseling would be required for his readmission. I really do not think that will happen or that such measures will be necessary, but, as I said, their clear statement may help keep that ‘lid’ on until the developmental pressure is eased.
(4) What to do about the gerbils? This is almost too trivial to mention, but the problem is perplexing. The gerbils, now tail-less, appear to be fine and healthy. They serve, however, as a visual reminder of what Carl did to them, and this isn’t good. On the other hand, they have become special pets of some of the third formers who would be hurt and incensed if they were removed—and would hold Carl accountable for any such action. Be that as it may, my own feeling is to buy six new gerbils, at Carl’s expense, I think, and find the others homes in Wells village. This should go best for Carl in the long run. I am afraid there is no way to ease Carl’s embarrassment in the coming two weeks, but after Christmas, given boy time-sense, the event will seem remote history.
Please write or call me if I can be of any further assistance or if I can clarify further the conditions I have set down. I think you will agree that they are not harsh; they are, however, firm.
My good wishes for the holidays,
John O. Greeve
13 December
REMARKS TO THE SCHOOL
I could not bid you on your way this morning without remarking on the exceptional experience I had last night as a member of the opening night audience of Murder in the Cathedral. It was not only the finest production of that work I have ever seen—and I have seen three: one at Harvard University, one in England in Canterbury Cathedral, and one in New York—it is also the finest schoolboy production of anything I believe I have seen. Mr. Burgermeister and players have more than done it again.
I don’t know why I so easily forget, but I do, that a well-made play is like a potentially living thing, and when life is breathed into it by convincing acting and by intelligent interpretation, the experience is always richer and more powerful than one can ever imagine outside the theatre. I have also not yet kicked the bad habit of thinking, before the action begins, that I am about to watch a school play, rather than just a play. I think last night’s performance may have cured me permanently of that. As Plato liked to point out, a perfectly tuned string is tuned regardless of who in particular tunes it; similarly, a play brought to life by bright adolescents is as done as a play can be. The Royal Shakespeare Company itself could not have come closer to Mr. Eliot’s heart, and through that, to the truth, than our Dramatis Personae did last night.
It has not really been a happy time with us here lately, has it? And I must say that I myself, for a variety of personal reasons, have probably been gloomier than anybody else, but that experience last night of getting vividly in touch with ideas and with meaning—well, that was a tonic.
I will be there again tonight, I’ve decided, and hope that all of you who have not seen it yet will join me.
Good morning.
13 December
Mr. William G. Truax
P.O. Box 121
New Haven, Connecticut
Dear Bill,
Thanks for your letter and for the copy of the Durham School plan.
I wish, though, that you had at least commented on the substance of the plan, which I presume you have read and of which, I further presume, you approve. I am afraid receiving it makes me feel a little like a dull student who has been given a brighter lad’s composition to look over for instruction and inspiration.
The Durham plan is certainly streamlined, and the “hard data” awesome, but it projects some awfully worrying things. If this plan comes true, Durham is going to be a way station for clusters of all kinds of boys and girls who will go there to “tool up” in Durham “skills mods” and “research mods” for six weeks and then return, tooled, to th
eir own less streamlined schools. Although the plan doesn’t say so in so many words, Durham, if they actually do this, proposes to cease being a school and to become instead a “resource center” for the nation’s public- and private-school complex. Let me tell you what I think of that. (1) It’s rather condescending to other schools which are also, most of the time, engaged in skill-building and research activities themselves. (2) Durham, big and rich as it is, isn’t big enough to process through more than a negligible fraction of the public/private-school population they are aiming at. (3) The proposed “mods” are too expensive to attract many students beyond the ones who are already clients of private schools or the poshest public-school districts. (4) Durham will no longer be interesting once it recomposes itself; there will not be a community of scholars, nor a community of teachers. At the base of it all, I think, is that Andy Ames has been embarrassed about heading a powerhouse prep school like Durham ever since he took over. He is a man who did not make his reputation in schools but in something much more grand called Educational Theory. He said so many brave new, anti-elitist things from his throne at Columbia in the sixties that he has got to reconcile his contradictions. I’m all for that, but I don’t see why a great (if too big) American school should have to go down the drain for it.
But I am undoubtedly mouthing off for nothing. Perhaps you sent me Durham’s plan just to show me what a proper job looks like. It’s a hell of a plan, I agree. Ames is a giant among planners. If I had the money, I’d lay him on to ghost a plan for Wells, but I’m afraid a kind of hotel-hospital for burnt-out teachers might result. Better yet, we could become a traditional-school lab, in which everything would be more or less as it is, except various administrators-in-training would come through and practice making innovations. I would prefer this because there would still be a role for me. They could bring me in between innovators to restore torpor and aimlessness.
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