Fighting in the Shade

by Sterling Watson

  “And what was it, very recently, that caused Principal Sowers to let you know of his displeasure?”

  “It was this book.” Mrs. English reached into the leather folder and withdrew a paperback with a red cover. She held it up for all to see.

  “And what book is that?”

  “It is The Catcher in the Rye. A very fine book. I have here…” she rested her hand on the folder, “also Photostats of sixteen book reviews from major cities around America stating that it is a very fine book, one that all young people should read. Certainly not a book that could hurt anyone.”

  As though he might be talking about a disease or a nasty accident, Blake Rainey said, “I’ve heard of that… Red book.” Again the murmur rippled through the audience, and now anger seethed in it.

  “Have you read the book?”

  Rainey said, “Of course not.”

  “Then, how can you condemn it?”

  “I do not condemn it. As chairman of this board, I act on the recommendation of school administrators who say it is not fit for our classrooms. You brought the book into our classrooms in defiance of their authority, and you have the temerity to bring it here tonight and wave it like a… red flag, as though it proves something. What do you think it proves?”

  Mrs. English sighed, bowed her head, raised it again. “Maybe that Oleander is a little bit behind the times. Maybe that the opinions of critics and writers and teachers from places like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco—”

  “And Miami?” Blake Rainey stared out at the crowd.

  The crowd whispered and muttered. Billy had to admire Rainey’s craft. At Mrs. English’s house, he had heard the talk. Miami, full of Cubans and run by Jews who scorned the oafish cattlemen and orange growers of Oleander, was the faraway Gomorrah of local politics.

  “Yes,” Mrs. English said, “I believe there is a review here from the Miami Herald. It’s quite laudatory—”

  “So it may be, Mrs. English, but that does not mean the book should be studied in your classroom.”

  “Just a minute, please.” When Dr. Davison spoke, Billy saw Moira sink into her seat. She thrust her hand into Derek’s lap, gripping his hand. Dr. Davison’s voice silenced the crowd. She was a newcomer to the town, and women doctors were as rare as flying frogs. She looked tired from a long day at the hospital. She took off her glasses and said, “Uh, Mr. Rainey, if I might—”

  “I was questioning Mrs. English, Mrs.… Doctor Davison. I was giving her a chance to explain herself to us. To explain the basis of her appeal.”

  “Yes, sir, you were, but I don’t want this matter of the literary merit of the book to pass before making a remark or two.”

  “Well, all right then, ma’am. Go ahead.” Rainey looked at his watch, then at the audience. “But, please be mindful of the hour. These literary discussions have a tendency to drag on. I remember that much from my own school days.”

  A few in the audience laughed, mostly men. But Billy could see by their frowns and shaking heads that Rainey had lost some of the women. Rainey settled back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

  Dr. Davison gathered herself and gazed down with what seemed to Billy some tenderness at Mrs. English. “Mrs. English, I want to thank you for coming here tonight to help us understand what is, I am sure we would all agree, a somewhat wrenching event for our community. Nobody likes to see a popular teacher, and one, I might add, that my own daughter has told me is extraordinarily gifted in the classroom, become…” Dr. Davison seemed to lose herself in her own syntax. “Anyway, thank you, and… can you tell us why you thought it would be all right to teach this book despite the fact that it is not, strictly speaking, in the curriculum?”

  Moira’s sobs were a soft punctuation to her mother’s words.

  Mrs. English said, “Well, yes, I have already said I think it is a very good book and that many other enlightened readers think so as well, but there is also the fact that it is about young people and it has demonstrated enormous appeal to young readers. Many of my students, some of them at risk of not reading very well or very much, have read this book with passionate attention. And let me say this: I simply did not think that the clause in my contract requiring me to teach only the approved curriculum was as ironclad as it… now appears to be. I thought that supplementary reading was permissible as long as my students and I covered all of the material in the curriculum.”

  Blake Rainey blew a stream of cigarette smoke and leaned toward Mrs. English. “So you think there are other reasons you were fired, reasons not stated in Mr. Sowers’s letter to you?”

  “Mr. Rainey…” Dr. Davison’s face was flushed.

  “Dr. Davison, let the woman tell us if she thinks she is the victim of some kind of prejudice.” Rainey glanced at the row where Helen Dane and Herb Klein sat.

  Mrs. English said, “I think some of the ideas in the book, and some of the language, do challenge accepted norms here in Oleander. But that is all the more reason to let the book and others like it have a fair hearing in our classrooms. Our classrooms should be places of competing ideas, not just dreary recitations of orthodoxy.”

  “What was that?”

  All heads swung to the minister who had led them in prayer. He was standing in the aisle.

  Blake Rainey said, “Reverend Thomason, you are out of order. Thank you, sir.”

  The Reverend Thomason said, “Mr. Rainey, may I ask this woman what she meant about orthodoxy?”

  “No, sir, with respect, you may not. The board will do the questioning here tonight. If you want to ask questions, you may run for the school board.” Rainey smiled broadly at Thomason and with knowledge, Billy supposed, of more than tonight’s events. He wondered if, years ago, they had played football together, had gone out into the woods together to a place by a lake for a ceremony of brotherhood that had its own orthodoxy.

  Shaking his head, his face flaming red, the Reverend Thomason sat down. Billy looked at Moira, who was holding her head in her hands. He wanted to fly down from his dark perch into the rooms of her thoughts and know her now. Finally know her. Know what made her cry. Shame? Remorse? Some new understanding they had not shared at the lake? He wondered if she was lost, or just lost to him. He wondered if Moira’s calculus was final: We’d only put two bad things together and make something worse.

  Dr. Davison looked at the board, then out at the audience. “Well, I have read The Catcher in the Rye, and I imagine many of you here tonight have also read it…” Half the crowd shouted, “No!” Some booed. The Unitarians nodded grimly. “And I think it is a wonderful book. Yes, there is salty language in it, but nothing you wouldn’t hear on the street corners and probably at many of the dinner tables of this town.” A few women in the audience gasped and touched their breasts. One or two men laughed, and a motorcyclist in the front row said, “Damn right.”

  Blake Rainey glanced at the policeman who stood at parade rest by the two flags. The officer nodded and escorted the biker from the auditorium.

  When order commenced, Blake Rainey said, “But we are adults, Dr. Davison, persons of majority who no longer need the guidance of parents and teachers. In this city, we invest in the school board the right and responsibility to approve a curriculum for our children, and we expect our teachers to respect the authority of a board elected by the parents of Oleander.”

  “I know that, Mr. Rainey, and you know from working with me on this board that I think we do our jobs pretty well, but I also think exceptions should sometimes be made for the creative decisions of exceptional teachers. We cannot expect them to march along robotically under the banner of our approved curriculum.”

  “I do expect that,” Rainey said.

  Board members nodded or muttered, “Here, here.”

  Dr. Davison smiled ruefully at Mrs. English, then raised her eyes to the audience. For a moment, Billy thought she might appeal to them, but she only shook her head and stared at the papers in front of her.

  Rainey turned again to the teacher. �
��Mrs. English, would you tell us please what you thought you were doing that was creative and within your rights when you invited students into your home on Friday nights?”

  Mrs. English blinked back at him as though he were speaking a language she did not understand. Finally, she said, “They were parties, Mr. Rainey. Social gatherings. Nothing more.”

  Billy saw parents in the audience shift uncomfortably in their seats, incline their heads to one another, whispering. What were they thinking? Opium den? House of iniquity?

  Blake Rainey continued, “And what did you offer students at these parties that they could not get by socializing with friends of their own age or in their own homes?”

  “Sir, I don’t know what you are getting at. We talked, enjoyed refreshments, listened to music. That’s all.”

  “You are sure that is all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We have been told that you allowed students to smoke cigarettes at your house. Is that correct?”

  Wearily, Mrs. English shook her head. “Sir, what is that in your hand?”

  Blake Rainey glanced down. “It is a cigarette, ma’am.”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  From the crowd came laughter, but also sighs and whispers.

  Blake Rainey drew in a lungful of smoke and blew it out, then stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray in front of him. “Mrs. English, are you aware that it is unlawful in this state to smoke tobacco until you are twenty-one years of age?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “And are you aware that you could be criminally prosecuted for contributing to the delinquency of minor children by encouraging them to smoke in your home?”

  “Technically, that may be true, but I doubt very much it would ever happen. Even in Oleander.”

  “Be that as it may, Mrs. English, the administration of Carr High School and this board…” he looked at Dr. Davison, who frowned and shook her head again, “with one dissenting vote, hold that you are in violation of the moral turpitude clause in your contract.”

  “Sir, are you saying that I am immoral because a few students smoked cigarettes in my backyard? Students who would smoke those same cigarettes in other places without anyone caring about it at all?”

  “Mrs. English, your moral nature is your own business. Encouraging students to break the laws of the State of Florida is my business.”

  Blake Rainey, Billy noted, had used the word my. One or two members of the board looked uncomfortably at him. With that word, he had said what the town knew: he owned this board.

  Mrs. English hung her head for a moment, then lifted her face to Blake Rainey. “Sir, I have nothing more to say. I have explained my actions. I do not think one book and a few parties should cause me to lose my job. I ask the board to remember all of the good I have done in this community and rethink its decision. Perhaps you would consider meeting again to hear testimony from a few of the many students whose lives I have changed for the better.”

  Moira sobbed loudly and lay her head on Derek’s shoulder. Billy watched the boy stroke her hair and look around angrily at the crowd.

  Blake Rainey said, “Mrs. English, for the same reason this board makes school policy and expects you to abide by it, we would not bother our children with questions about you and your activities. They are children. It is our responsibility to make sure they are taught in the right ways by the right people. In our opinion you are not one of those people.” He turned to the panel on the stage. “Does anyone else have a question for Mrs. English?”

  In a quiet voice, Dr. Davison said, “I want to thank Mrs. English for coming here tonight and to tell her and all of you that I think her explanations of her actions were very helpful in healing a wound in our community. I also want to thank her for all of the wonderful things she has done for our children.”

  Lips thin and faces pale, the two women smiled at each other.

  Blake Rainey said, “Is there any other business?”

  When no one on the stage spoke, he rapped a gavel on the table.

  “These proceedings are closed.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  In the silence that lingered after the percussion of Rainey’s gavel, Billy stood up in the dark balcony and called down to the stage: “No, sir! We’re not finished here.”

  Five hundred heads turned to search for the source of the voice.

  Billy called down, “You! Blake Rainey! Stay where you are!”

  He moved to the balcony railing and leaned out into the light. The rumble of anger and mirth at a boy’s impudence faded to silence as the crowd knew what they saw. Billy lifted the white hood and drew it over his head so that his face was shadowed, then he touched the Celtic cross sewn in red silk on the front of the white robe. The cross covered the row of decorations on the Army Air Force uniform blouse he wore under the robe, and the blouse covered his own hammering heart. The sickening smell of mold and dust made him gag inside the white hood, but he leaned down to the cardboard box, took into his arms as many of the white robes as he could lift, and with a mighty heave, threw them out into the air above the crowd.

  And it seemed to Billy Dyer that they took years to fall, drifting and spiraling like time itself, descending like the ghosts of long ago night riders returning to earth to see what they had done, falling like souls barred from heaven, returning exhausted from their long flight to an unwelcoming earth.

  Women cried out in fright and men in anger. And still a few laughed. As the white robes fell and some landed, people fended them off as though the robes could bite or strangle or smother. Billy called out to the town the words that came to him, only half aware of what he said: “Put one on if it belongs to you! Don’t be shy! Find the one your granddaddy wore and put it on!

  “Mr. Rainey, here comes yours!” He threw another armful of robes, a mighty heave, stronger than the first, and the white silk, reeking of the secrets of years, spiraled on the wind of the paddle fans so that one robe, like a huge white bird with a bleeding red heart, sailed all the way to the stage and landed at Rainey’s feet. Billy called out, “Blake Rainey! Put on that robe. It came from your house!”

  People shouted, “No!” and whispered, “What?” and some called out, “Who is it? Who’s up there?”

  Billy threw the last robes, watched them sail down, and then in the tone he had heard Mrs. English use when she read poetry aloud in class, he recited, “Fire is light. Fire is pain. Burn what is useless. Refine what is good. Burn the enemy. Burn your dead. Burn inside. But never tell. Piss on the ashes. Go to hell. A city of fire stands behind us. We are fire and we are ice.” He was out of breath when he finished, and the hall below him was dead silent. Men sat remembering drunken, smoky nights in the woods, baffled women slowly turned to stare at their suddenly estranged men. Billy repeated, “Burn inside but never tell.” Then he said, “I burnt inside. I almost burnt up, burnt out, and then I told. Why didn’t you burn these robes, Mr. Rainey? Why did you keep them?”

  Billy climbed up onto the balcony railing, balancing as best he could on six inches of varnished oak. Standing there in the fear of falling and in the wild joy of revealing, he ripped and tore at the robe he wore, until the rotten white silk was tatters in his hands and he threw this down too. And now he was revealed, a boy in an Army Air Force dress-uniform blouse with silver captain’s bars on the shoulders, and in the row of decorations above the heart, a Distinguished Flying Cross. For a crazy second he considered jumping. Maybe the fall would kill him, kill somebody else. Or maybe he would fly like he had made the ghosts of the old night riders fly one last time, like his father had flown a last time before being shot down into the life Billy and his mother had never understood. He saw himself sailing down, arms out stiff, a human cross. It could be an ecstasy of joy, better even than the night he had been lifted to the shoulders of his teammates. Townsman of a stiller town. No, he couldn’t jump. There was more, much more, to do.

  On the stage, Blake Rainey roused himself from the torpor of his shock and sh
outed at two policemen, “Get that boy! Get him out of here!”

  Billy, teetering on the railing in his father’s uniform, held up the brown leather satchel, held it high above his head, and it, like his other surprises, silenced the milling, calling, booing crowd, and Rainey too. Billy found the weeping face of Moira and gave a solemn nod to her grief, their fallen union, then he located Herb Klein standing at the foot of the stage beside his boss, Helen Dane. He held up the satchel and swung his eyes from Rainey, who surely recognized it, knew it held his fate, to Klein. He called out, “This is for you, Herb Klein! This is for the Grower!”

  Blake Rainey shouted again, “Get that boy!”

  Two cops ran toward the balcony stairs. Helen Dane cupped her mouth with two frail hands, and shouted, “No! Bring him down here! I want to see what’s in that bag!” And to the policemen, “You officers bring the boy down. I… we all need to hear what he has to say!”

  Before Rainey could speak again, the room erupted in shouts of righteous “Yes!” and jeering, booing “No!”

  And to Billy’s ear, the affirmation won.

  He walked down the stairs, past the cops, one muttering, “Little shit,” and through the aisle toward the stage. Cradling the satchel to the breast of his father’s uniform, he climbed the stage and stood not far from the table where Rainey and the board sat. He looked out at the audience, a river of anger, confusion, and dread, watched them until they fell silent. And Billy considered the moment. In the play he had written in his mind, had rehearsed last night while jimmying open Rainey’s mercantile and sneaking away through the night streets carrying a box of white robes—in the play there were three acts and three symbols. He knew symbols from his teacher, Mrs. English, and now, standing above the hot breath and the muttering wrath of the crowd, he thanked her with a glance and a smile for the things he had understood, dreaming in the back row of her classroom. The robes, the uniform, and the satchel. They were symbols. The locked cabinet back at Rainey’s mercantile, torn open now and empty, was the rotten heart of the town. The heart whose dark, poison blood had flowed to every hearth and home, through every man, woman, and child in Oleander. That heart was broken now. The uniform and satchel. They were his father’s life, the good and bad of it. But even the good was bad, as Mrs. English had told him. His father’s bombs had killed the evil and the innocent alike. Billy’s mission tonight was to make the evil satchel innocent. This was the last act.