I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip.

by John Donovan

  “Fred might like a coyote for a buddy,” I say.

  “Your mother wouldn’t though,” Father answers.

  “No. I guess not.”

  I put my hand up to the glass in front of the coyote. “Hello,” I say.

  “He’s stuffed, Davy.”

  “Sure, I know.”

  I put my face against the glass.

  “Hello.”

  Father walks away.

  “Hello, coyote,” I say again. “What was your name?”

  The coyote just looks at me.

  “You must have had a name. You could have been a pet. Some Indian kid’s pet. Were you?”

  He doesn’t move, but I won’t take my eyes off him. There’s no one else in the corridor with the stuffed animals now.

  “Coyote,” I say, “do you want to be petted?” Of course he just looks at me.

  “Do you?”

  I think he sees me. Honestly. There is something in his eyes which makes me believe that he understands that I am there and talking to him as a friend. I swear that he understands that I am his friend.

  “Davy!” I hear my father calling me from far away. “I’m coming,” I answer.

  “Come on, Davy!”

  I look again at the coyote.

  “I’ll be your friend. So will Fred. You’ll have two friends in New York City.”

  He stares at me still, but there’s more there than the blank stare he had before. I’m sure of it.

  I put my hand against the glass once again. Animals like to get your smell, and I want the coyote to get mine for when I come back, for I will. I lean over to the glass and kiss it close to his muzzle, and then I see some little kid standing there looking at me. I guess I get red in the face.

  “Coyotes are tame,” I tell the little kid and run after my father.

  Stephanie wants to know what I liked best, and of course I tell her the coyote. She thinks that is funny, and then she goes into some story about wolves and how Romulus and Remus lived off a wolf and that’s how Rome came into being.

  We take a long walk through the park and have an ice-cream soda at the fanciest soda place I was ever in, Rumpelmayer’s, and Stephanie tells about how she used to come in here all the time when she was a kid. So I guess she is rich. She says that next week I should come to have dinner with them in their apartment, and would I like that. I ask her if I can bring Fred. She says sure. We finish the soda, and she gives me a kiss good-bye as Father and I get into a taxicab for the ride to Mother’s.

  Fred jumps all over both Father and me when we get home. Mother says she wants Father to stay for a drink with her, but he can’t, he says, he and Stephanie have a dinner date in an hour, and he’s sorry.

  “That’s all right, David,” Mother says. “Davy and I will be ringing in the New Year. Won’t we, darling?” she asks me.

  “Sure. And Fred.”

  Mother and Father think that is very funny.

  eleven

  The school Mother has picked for me to go to is right next to the Episcopal church that runs it. When she told me about it, I thought I wouldn’t like to go to a church school, especially since I haven’t been to church much, and certainly not to the Episcopal church. Mother says I might as well be an Episcopalian as anything, and if they have religious education, that will be good for my soul.

  The first thing I’m surprised about is that I have to pass a lot of other schools to get to mine. There are plenty of schools right in the neighborhood, but Mother says they are public schools, and my father should have to pay to give me a good private-school education. I can see that Mother must be a lot of fun to work up a family budget with.

  On the first day at the school I see the blazers all the other guys are wearing, and Mother buys three right there on the spot. This is more sport coats than I have ever had at one time, and it doesn’t make any sense to me that all three have to look alike.

  “They’ll be at the cleaners all the time if I know boys,” Mother says.

  “I’m not going to play basketball in them,” I tell her.

  “Oh, but little boys are always so sweaty,” she says, which really makes me mad. I sweat like everyone else, but I’m not a little boy, and people my age don’t sweat any more than adults. The man in the school store agrees with every word Mother says though. He even wonders if three blazers will be enough.

  “Come on!” I say. “Are you crazy?”

  “Davy!” Mother yells. “The gentleman knows whereof he speaks! Apologize.”

  Can you imagine my mother saying “whereof he speaks”? I get a big laugh from that one and tell the man I know he’s not crazy and please pardon me. Mother says I should buy gray flannel pants too and school ties. She is having a ball and tells the man to send the bill to Father.

  It is noon by the time I am all checked in at school. I meet two or three teachers at the headmaster’s office, and they all tell me they’re glad to meet me and hope I will enjoy New York. They’re friendly enough. Mother tells all of them that I am “an exceptional boy,” and they all tell her that that is nice. If you ask me, she’s the exceptional one in the family. She kisses me about ten different times and asks if I like it so far. Sure, I say, since there’s nothing not to like yet. I begin to wonder if Mother has enrolled too, since she won’t leave and go home. It develops she is waiting to speak to the headmaster, a priest, to tell him she was his sister’s college classmate and that they both got an A in French conversation. She does that and says she’ll see me at home later in the afternoon.

  After Mother goes, I get a chance to look around. It’s like a public school, I guess, except that everything looks a lot older. There’s a lot of dark wood with high varnish on it and a lot of pictures of old priests along the walls in the hallway. It’s darker here than any public school I ever saw at home. I meet three or four guys when I go to my first class, which is geography. The teacher says to everyone that the New Year has brought a new pupil and will I stand up to show myself. So I do, and I smile as though I’m friendly, and about everyone smiles back except the kid in the seat in front of me, who doesn’t even turn around to see what I look like.

  There’s no nonsense about getting the class under way though. They have been studying about South America, and Mr. Miller, the teacher, pulls down a lot of maps from a collection of rolled-up ones. There are a whole lot of different things on the maps—one is for elevation, another for population, another for crops and all that stuff.

  A big fat kid in the first row of seats raises his hand. “Yes, Malcolm,” the teacher says.

  “I lived in La Paz, Bolivia.”

  “You did?” says the teacher.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “What was it like?”

  “I dunno. You know,” Malcolm says.

  “Would you point out La Paz on the map, Malcolm?” Malcolm edges himself out of his seat and goes to the rainfall map. He looks at it for a while.

  “I dunno,” he says.

  “Look over here at the geographic-boundary map,” the teacher says. “That’s the more familiar type of map.”

  Malcolm shuffles to the right map, but he starts giggling after one of the boys laughs at him.

  “I dunno,” he says again.

  Mr. Miller points out the city to Malcolm, who says he knew it was there all the time. He gets a big laugh out of that one and sits down.

  “Malcolm was very fortunate to have a chance to live in Bolivia,” the teacher says. Then he continues with a lot of stuff about the best way to study a country is to talk with people who have lived there and not rely on books alone. Boy, I’ll bet a talk with Malcolm about Bolivia would be edifying. Malcolm is looking around and smiling at everyone until the teacher tells him to pay a
ttention. Malcolm stops smiling, and I can see from the look on his face that he’s not happy that the teacher has told him to pay attention. He looks like Fred when I have had to punish him severely, and I feel a little sorry for Malcolm.

  The kid in front of me, the one who didn’t turn around to see what I looked like, turns around now and says—yes says, not whispers—“Quit jerking your leg up and down. I’m about to fall off my seat. Your desk moves my seat.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “Don’t be sorry. Just stop it,” this kid says in a very loud voice.

  Mr. Miller interrupts our friendly dialogue. “What’s the matter, Altschuler?”

  “This new guy is so nervous that he’s shaking his desk. I’m going to be on the floor if he doesn’t quit it, Mr. Miller,” Altschuler says.

  Malcolm laughs. He thinks it’s a big joke. I guess I get twenty-two shades of red, and I try to mutter that I’m sorry.

  “That’s all right, Ross,” the teacher says to me. “Altschuler can pull his chair closer to his desk if you are agitating it.”

  “That isn’t what’s important, Mr. Miller,” Altschuler says. “This kid comes in here in the middle of the year and takes Wilkins’ seat. Maybe Wilkins will come back. What will you do then?”

  I don’t know what they’re talking about, so I decide that the only thing I can do is say nothing. Mr. Miller says that if Wilkins comes back he can have his old desk back. But since I’m here and the seat behind Altschuler is the only one available in the room, that’s where I’m going to sit.

  “Just quit bouncing your leg up and down!” Altschuler yells.

  I tell him again that I’m sorry, and Altschuler picks up a pencil on his desk and throws it down violently. That is the end of that interruption, and Mr. Miller starts talking about tin mining in the Andes. It’s very interesting, the way he presents his story with some slides and a lot of stuff to dramatize how thin the air is up there and how difficult it is to mine there and still keep your health. He makes us close our eyes and imagine we are all in the Andes and have only half as much air available to us as we have in New York.

  He says we can get the same feeling those miners have if we hold back every other breath we would breathe normally, and before long I get the idea and so do the other guys, and we all get a little dizzy, in a nice way though. I can see that it would be difficult to be a laborer if you had only half as much air as you can get in New York.

  The class after geography is English, and we’re supposed to have read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar over Christmas. A lady teaches that class, and she says wouldn’t it be fun to put on Julius Caesar. She says she will do the ladies’ parts if we will do all the other parts. She says we don’t have to do it according to Shakespeare’s text but that we should use the same story line. Everyone thinks that is a good idea. They start talking about what parts they want each other to play. When they select Altschuler to play Brutus, I figure that this teacher may be off on the wrong approach to introducing great plays to kids. Some good-looking kid decides that he is going to be Mark Antony, and no one else speaks up for that part. The funny thing is that no one wants to be Caesar, so they decide I will be Caesar.

  “Oh, good, Mr. Ross,” Miss Stuart says. “You’ll have to read the play tonight. The others are ahead of you.”

  I tell her that I read the play last year, and she says that is marvelous, and she supposes that in Boston people are far ahead of New Yorkers when it comes to reading Shakespeare. I tell her I don’t know, and I don’t. I tell her I have read The Merchant of Venice though, and A Midsummer-Night’s Dream too. She says that that is marvelous, and she hopes I can put up with my backward classmates.

  Altschuler decides that he doesn’t want to play Brutus. He wants to be Caesar. There’s a lot of huff about it, and I say I’ll be glad to be Brutus. Miss Stuart says it should be settled by vote, and it ends up that the only people voting for Altschuler to play Caesar are Altschuler and Malcolm. Altschuler looks at me in an unfriendly way, and I wonder if in two hours I have a New York enemy.

  The rest of the school day goes by OK, and at three thirty it is time to go home. There are five buses waiting outside the school, marked “East Side—Above 72nd,” “East Side—57th-72nd,” “East Side—l4th-57th,” “Greenwich Village,” and “West Side—Above 14th.” I get on the last bus. I see Altschuler sitting there in the rear seat. He is sitting in the middle so that no one can get to either side of him. I figure that he wants the seat to himself. Maybe he will stretch out and go to sleep, I think. There’s no one else on the bus I recognize from my class, so I go to the back of the bus.

  “Hi,” I say.

  Altschuler just looks at me and nods. I sit in one of the seats next to the back one and turn around to Altschuler.

  “If you want to be Caesar, it’s OK with me,” I say.

  “You could have voted for me,” he answers.

  “I didn’t vote. I didn’t think I should.”

  “I voted for me,” he says. “I would be a much better Caesar than you.”

  There’s one thing about this guy; he’s not modest. The second thing is that he says exactly what he’s got on his mind. I never met anyone like Altschuler before.

  “Well,” I say, “it’s just that if you want to change parts with me, that’s OK.”

  Altschuler doesn’t answer me. He is busy spreading himself all over the back seat. The bus is getting crowded now with a lot of little kids. A couple of them come back to Altschuler’s seat, but they take a look at him and go back to select one of the front seats or to stand. The school only goes through the ninth grade, so Altschuler and I are about the oldest people on the bus. I’m the only kid without the school blazer, so I guess this makes me a celebrity. All the little kids look at me about eight times each, and I can hear my name repeated a few times. I try to look as though I don’t hear it.

  “What’s your first name?” I ask Altschuler.

  “Everyone calls me Altschuler. Just like everyone will call you Ross,” he answers.

  “Oh,” I say.

  Altschuler is quiet for a minute and so am I until he says, “It’s Douglas.”

  “Mine’s David,” I say. “Everyone calls me Davy though.”

  “Oh,” Altschuler says. “We call each other by our last names here except for Malcolm. Everyone calls him by his first name. He’s the only one.”

  The bus gets started. The kids in the bus going to the East Side between 57th and 72nd yell at us as we pull away. They shout things together as though they are cheering, like “The West Side ain’t the best side!” and “You’re living your life at the point of a knife.” The little kids in my bus yell right back, “If you live East, you’re a beast.”

  I can see right away that I’m going to hear these chants for a long time, so I say to Altschuler, “Is this the only way to get home?”

  “It’s part of the tuition,” he answers. “I walk a lot. I don’t live far.”

  I ask him where he lives and he tells me, and it’s the street next to mine, so I say something brilliant like “It’s a small world.” Altschuler doesn’t answer that declaration, and I can’t say that I blame him. We get off the bus together at about the fourth stop on the route, and I tell Altschuler that I meant it when I said it was OK with me if he wanted to play Caesar in that dumb play Miss Stuart decided we should put together. He says that he will like playing Brutus. He says that one thing he hates is people who betray friendships and confidences. He will make Brutus appear like a snake in the grass. I tell him that I’d have to read the play again before I could agree that Brutus should be played like a snake in the grass.

  “People who betray friends are snakes,” Altschuler says. “Good-bye,” he says and goes off to his house a block away from mine.

  It has begun to get dark by the time I get home, and I am di
sappointed that it has. I had wanted to take Fred for a long walk today. This is the first day since we got to New York that he has been alone most of the time. When I come in he’s crazy to see me and jumps in the air like he’s a ballerina, he’s so eager to give me a smack and one of his lick jobs. He squirts all over the floor in his excitement. Mother comes to greet me and sees that Fred has beat me to it.

  “Cripes!” she declares. “Is there going to be a flood every time you come through the door?”

  She turns right around and gets some paper towels from the kitchen. I tell her that I’ll take care of it and that it’s nothing. I tell her that I’ll take Fred out right away so that he won’t mess up her floors any more. I tell her that Fred just got excited, that’s all. She says sure, sure, sure, and she stumbles a little bit when she bends to wipe up Fred’s business. There’s not much, just a small puddle no bigger than two or three quarters, but to hear Mother talk about it, Fred has half the Atlantic Ocean in him.

  “He did it to me too,” she says.

  “That’s because he was glad to see you.”

  “That kind of glad I can do without. Go ahead. Take him out.”

  She gives me a kiss, sort of, and I can tell that she has begun very early to have her before-dinner drinks. Fred and I pounce down the stairs and go for our stroll. When he lifts his leg on the fire hydrant across from the house, I tell him that he is a very good dog for holding so much inside him. He keeps his leg up for three minutes, it seems to me, and it never stops coming. I don’t know what Mother got so excited about. He could have left the whole thing up there if he weren’t as good a dog as he is.

  twelve